Duet in Sunlit Silence
Title: Duet in Sunlit Silence
Rating: pg
Pairing: Tao//Fan Bingbing
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: Tao always gets stage fright but in front of Fan he no longer has to pretend.
A/N: continuation of the FanTao-sy au, part one here: The Color of Home. This is for bluedreaming, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Catbear, your friendship means a lot <3
"So," he says, and brushes fingertips along the cracking leather. The sofa leather is cool against his skin and her palm is soft as it comes to rest over his knuckles. "This is your place..."
"This is my place." Her head snaps up and back down in a tight nod. The eyeliner rimming her lids is smudged and the veins in her neck pull taut, pulse smearing out through her pale skin. Her eyes spark with warm excitement though, and a soft smile flutters along the wings of her lips.
"It's a nice place." Tao looks over the space of the room again and concludes his survey with a gentle nod. It is quite nice. The front room looks like a spread from an interior design magazine, colorful geometric paintings accenting the walls in contrast to the dark leather furniture. A few other whimsical pieces catch his eye around the room: a heavy porcelain vase as tall as his waist sprouting with peacock plumes, and a dented copper kettle hanging on a hook near the kitchen.
"You like it then?" She leans in until he can see the cracking skin of her lips beneath the thick red layered on.
"It's comfortable." Tao pats the leather cushion next to the one he's sitting on. Fan makes a tsking sound out the side of her mouth.
"I mean it!" he insists because he does, and it's not just the sofa he's referring to. The yellow light filtering across the backs of his hands, across her fingers spread over his hand, is a translucent promise of good things ahead.
Tao feels warm all the way through as she pulls him to his feet and draws him into the kitchen. The slippers Fan gave him at the door, trading cheap gingham covered house shoes for his oxfords, are a bit too short for his feet. His toes peek out the front end, shy and pink, and he wishes he'd remembered to wear socks.
Fan cooked red bean soup for him and it turned out the right kind of lumpy, dry and wet on his tongue at the same time when he bites into the softened beans and they smear across his teeth. Fan dips her nose into her mug when for a sip and looks up through a forest of dark lashes.
Tao can feel the notes rising in his throat and getting tangled in the grooves of his tongue when he gazes back into her eyes. His heart is drowning in a new sort of gravity but fluttering at the edge of the window like a moth waiting to be let out into the sky. It’s too much all at once and he--
"Why don't we sit in there? More comfortable." She gestures to her overstuffed sofa with her mug still in hand. She doesn't pull him anywhere this time but Tao gets sucked along in the sweep of her wide legged silk pants flapping against her calves.
She doesn’t touch him, but their shoulders brush when they exit the kitchen, moving in step. They lean away, surprised, but Fan smiles with a tilt of her head and Tao's center of gravity is melting and reforming all over again, the stubborn iron of his core dissolving in the refracted light in her eyes.
“So this is where you live. Hmm.” His hum lilts up with a hint of interest but he doesn’t move to explore uninvited, doesn’t pry open her cabinets and run his fingers over ledges to feel her sloughed off skin cells in the dust.
He feels like he's in a museum, one that doesn't change in galleries and exhibits but rather in dust motes drifting through the light beams and the sighs of the one who lives here.
Fan sighs and leans over her knees, her hair singing forward in a curtain of whispers when it comes untucked from behind her ears. "I don't know why I'm nervous," she says, and her eyes when she turns her head to look at him are curious. "But you aren't nervous, are you?"
"What?" Tao splutters on his next sip, glad he can blame his reaction on the pain from the thick heat coating his tongue. He drank too deep, forgetting all about steam while he watches the trails of thought spiral up from Fan's gaze.
"International superstardom, innate charm, the kind of beauty that makes you look twice and wrinkle your nose and then look again--you have it all." She dusts the tip of his nose with the pad of a finger. A carmine nail grazes the curve of his cheek and Tao's lashes meld when his eyes chase the red flash on the horizon of his peripheral vision. "I've seen the shameless smirk you wear in your photo shoots." She looks him straight in the eye but she's not teasing, just asking.
"Don't you know by now you should never trust what you see in magazines?" Tao sips again, just dipping his tongue into the cooled surface of the sweet soup, and Fan’s hand falls back to her lap.
"Do you ever get stage fright?"
"Always." Tao giggles because he's feeling it right now, the heavy air that invades his lungs just before the rush kicks in. He feels it every time he steps in front of another pair of eye, but the adrenaline that kicks in with his first deep breath will tide him through any pain, wash through all the anxiety layered in sediments of memory.
"I haven't met a performer who doesn't." She shrugs, a quick jerk of her shoulders that sets her hair swinging like a pendulum past her knees. "Let's not put on a show in here, not when it's just..."
"Just us?" Tao strums his fingers through the strands of her hair and hums aloud the notes he feels vibrate into the cup of his palm.
"Mm." Her nod is the soft spill of wine into the tulip bloom of a crystal glass, hair slipping past her shoulders and brushing the floor.
Tao catches it up in his hand and lays it over her shoulder. "Shows get boring after awhile."
"Do you ever get tired of your own songs? The ones you have to sing over and over, the ones you must hear when you wander the shopping streets or go to a cafe."
"I wear headphones when I go out."
"Mm, me too. And I listen to the same songs until they stick to me." Fan wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, dusky red bean smearing off with a streak of darker red gloss.
"You like my songs," Tao says, and this time he isn't too shy for an honest smile.
"Oh...yeah." Her nod is a shallow bob, the tightness of her movements raveling into a soft stream of sighs.
"I watch all your interviews on TV." He nudges her mug with his own and she looks up at the soft clink echoing out into the room.
"Why? Those are so boring!"
Tao blinks in surprise at the sudden laugh that erupts from her shoulders. Fan tips her head back and leans into the sofa, face pulsing with amusement. Her eyelids reopen like a morning glory bloom in the sunshine.
"We've never been on the same variety shows, have we? Not at the same filming." She says it like an afterthought but Tao's nod is sure.
"We haven’t. Not yet."
"Yet?"
"We're bound to at some point, if we both keep promoting." It only makes sense to him that they should cross paths running circles in the same industry, but then Tao's only been on the promotion cycle for barely a year. "Right?"
"Hm, maybe I should sing again and then we'll end up on something together." She looks away, and Tao wants to explain how much he admires her voice, the mellow wisps of fragrant blue smoke that cloud his head space when he closes his eyes to listen. He doesn't have the words to explain it though, and he's not sure she'd believe him. Not yet, at least.
"Do you sing duets?"
"Haven't." Fan's hair slips into her eyes when she shrugs but she shakes it back and wets her lips with a curious blink.
"Me neither." Tao drains his glass and Fan pulls it from his grasp.
"No, sit. I'll be right back."
He watches her pad off towards the kitchen, just far enough to set the mugs on the dividing counter and snatch a pack of mints from the empty fruit bowl. Tao reaches for her hand when she returns. He threads his fingers through hers and helping her settle into a perch on the arm of the sofa.
"Duets, huh. You wanna practice?" She pops a mint from the foil and places it on his palm. The small weight on his tongue feels like a seed when he sucks it into his mouth, hard and round and waiting to crack open and let out its goodness.
"Maybe after lunch?"
Fan laughs even louder at his shameless request for food. She rubs a palm behind his ear, ruffling his hair. "Deal. But you have to pick the song."
"How do you feel about opera?"
"Do you want the short version of my feelings or the three hour one?"
"Both," Tao smirks as he pushes up into her palm, humming at the warmth of her touch. "I like the sound of your voice." And the sparkle in your eyes "You remind me of secrets whispered in the dark, but only the good kind."
"Childhood sleepovers," she muses, "crumbs of chocolate cake."
"Chocolate milk," Tao corrects her, "because I like milk more than cake."
"I'll have to remember that!" Her laughter kisses his skin with a soft puff of breath as the mint bursts against his tongue in cool pricks of minty gleam. "Come on, there's milk in the fridge, and we can cook noodles while I tell you the long version.”
“Ok.” Tao presses his smile into the curve of her wrist. They rise together this time, hand in hand and the floorboards cool underfoot.
“Let me tell you all about Mei Lanfang…!"
Rating: pg
Pairing: Tao//Fan Bingbing
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, written just for fun.
Summary: Tao always gets stage fright but in front of Fan he no longer has to pretend.
A/N: continuation of the FanTao-sy au, part one here: The Color of Home. This is for bluedreaming, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Catbear, your friendship means a lot <3
"So," he says, and brushes fingertips along the cracking leather. The sofa leather is cool against his skin and her palm is soft as it comes to rest over his knuckles. "This is your place..."
"This is my place." Her head snaps up and back down in a tight nod. The eyeliner rimming her lids is smudged and the veins in her neck pull taut, pulse smearing out through her pale skin. Her eyes spark with warm excitement though, and a soft smile flutters along the wings of her lips.
"It's a nice place." Tao looks over the space of the room again and concludes his survey with a gentle nod. It is quite nice. The front room looks like a spread from an interior design magazine, colorful geometric paintings accenting the walls in contrast to the dark leather furniture. A few other whimsical pieces catch his eye around the room: a heavy porcelain vase as tall as his waist sprouting with peacock plumes, and a dented copper kettle hanging on a hook near the kitchen.
"You like it then?" She leans in until he can see the cracking skin of her lips beneath the thick red layered on.
"It's comfortable." Tao pats the leather cushion next to the one he's sitting on. Fan makes a tsking sound out the side of her mouth.
"I mean it!" he insists because he does, and it's not just the sofa he's referring to. The yellow light filtering across the backs of his hands, across her fingers spread over his hand, is a translucent promise of good things ahead.
Tao feels warm all the way through as she pulls him to his feet and draws him into the kitchen. The slippers Fan gave him at the door, trading cheap gingham covered house shoes for his oxfords, are a bit too short for his feet. His toes peek out the front end, shy and pink, and he wishes he'd remembered to wear socks.
Fan cooked red bean soup for him and it turned out the right kind of lumpy, dry and wet on his tongue at the same time when he bites into the softened beans and they smear across his teeth. Fan dips her nose into her mug when for a sip and looks up through a forest of dark lashes.
Tao can feel the notes rising in his throat and getting tangled in the grooves of his tongue when he gazes back into her eyes. His heart is drowning in a new sort of gravity but fluttering at the edge of the window like a moth waiting to be let out into the sky. It’s too much all at once and he--
"Why don't we sit in there? More comfortable." She gestures to her overstuffed sofa with her mug still in hand. She doesn't pull him anywhere this time but Tao gets sucked along in the sweep of her wide legged silk pants flapping against her calves.
She doesn’t touch him, but their shoulders brush when they exit the kitchen, moving in step. They lean away, surprised, but Fan smiles with a tilt of her head and Tao's center of gravity is melting and reforming all over again, the stubborn iron of his core dissolving in the refracted light in her eyes.
“So this is where you live. Hmm.” His hum lilts up with a hint of interest but he doesn’t move to explore uninvited, doesn’t pry open her cabinets and run his fingers over ledges to feel her sloughed off skin cells in the dust.
He feels like he's in a museum, one that doesn't change in galleries and exhibits but rather in dust motes drifting through the light beams and the sighs of the one who lives here.
Fan sighs and leans over her knees, her hair singing forward in a curtain of whispers when it comes untucked from behind her ears. "I don't know why I'm nervous," she says, and her eyes when she turns her head to look at him are curious. "But you aren't nervous, are you?"
"What?" Tao splutters on his next sip, glad he can blame his reaction on the pain from the thick heat coating his tongue. He drank too deep, forgetting all about steam while he watches the trails of thought spiral up from Fan's gaze.
"International superstardom, innate charm, the kind of beauty that makes you look twice and wrinkle your nose and then look again--you have it all." She dusts the tip of his nose with the pad of a finger. A carmine nail grazes the curve of his cheek and Tao's lashes meld when his eyes chase the red flash on the horizon of his peripheral vision. "I've seen the shameless smirk you wear in your photo shoots." She looks him straight in the eye but she's not teasing, just asking.
"Don't you know by now you should never trust what you see in magazines?" Tao sips again, just dipping his tongue into the cooled surface of the sweet soup, and Fan’s hand falls back to her lap.
"Do you ever get stage fright?"
"Always." Tao giggles because he's feeling it right now, the heavy air that invades his lungs just before the rush kicks in. He feels it every time he steps in front of another pair of eye, but the adrenaline that kicks in with his first deep breath will tide him through any pain, wash through all the anxiety layered in sediments of memory.
"I haven't met a performer who doesn't." She shrugs, a quick jerk of her shoulders that sets her hair swinging like a pendulum past her knees. "Let's not put on a show in here, not when it's just..."
"Just us?" Tao strums his fingers through the strands of her hair and hums aloud the notes he feels vibrate into the cup of his palm.
"Mm." Her nod is the soft spill of wine into the tulip bloom of a crystal glass, hair slipping past her shoulders and brushing the floor.
Tao catches it up in his hand and lays it over her shoulder. "Shows get boring after awhile."
"Do you ever get tired of your own songs? The ones you have to sing over and over, the ones you must hear when you wander the shopping streets or go to a cafe."
"I wear headphones when I go out."
"Mm, me too. And I listen to the same songs until they stick to me." Fan wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, dusky red bean smearing off with a streak of darker red gloss.
"You like my songs," Tao says, and this time he isn't too shy for an honest smile.
"Oh...yeah." Her nod is a shallow bob, the tightness of her movements raveling into a soft stream of sighs.
"I watch all your interviews on TV." He nudges her mug with his own and she looks up at the soft clink echoing out into the room.
"Why? Those are so boring!"
Tao blinks in surprise at the sudden laugh that erupts from her shoulders. Fan tips her head back and leans into the sofa, face pulsing with amusement. Her eyelids reopen like a morning glory bloom in the sunshine.
"We've never been on the same variety shows, have we? Not at the same filming." She says it like an afterthought but Tao's nod is sure.
"We haven’t. Not yet."
"Yet?"
"We're bound to at some point, if we both keep promoting." It only makes sense to him that they should cross paths running circles in the same industry, but then Tao's only been on the promotion cycle for barely a year. "Right?"
"Hm, maybe I should sing again and then we'll end up on something together." She looks away, and Tao wants to explain how much he admires her voice, the mellow wisps of fragrant blue smoke that cloud his head space when he closes his eyes to listen. He doesn't have the words to explain it though, and he's not sure she'd believe him. Not yet, at least.
"Do you sing duets?"
"Haven't." Fan's hair slips into her eyes when she shrugs but she shakes it back and wets her lips with a curious blink.
"Me neither." Tao drains his glass and Fan pulls it from his grasp.
"No, sit. I'll be right back."
He watches her pad off towards the kitchen, just far enough to set the mugs on the dividing counter and snatch a pack of mints from the empty fruit bowl. Tao reaches for her hand when she returns. He threads his fingers through hers and helping her settle into a perch on the arm of the sofa.
"Duets, huh. You wanna practice?" She pops a mint from the foil and places it on his palm. The small weight on his tongue feels like a seed when he sucks it into his mouth, hard and round and waiting to crack open and let out its goodness.
"Maybe after lunch?"
Fan laughs even louder at his shameless request for food. She rubs a palm behind his ear, ruffling his hair. "Deal. But you have to pick the song."
"How do you feel about opera?"
"Do you want the short version of my feelings or the three hour one?"
"Both," Tao smirks as he pushes up into her palm, humming at the warmth of her touch. "I like the sound of your voice." And the sparkle in your eyes "You remind me of secrets whispered in the dark, but only the good kind."
"Childhood sleepovers," she muses, "crumbs of chocolate cake."
"Chocolate milk," Tao corrects her, "because I like milk more than cake."
"I'll have to remember that!" Her laughter kisses his skin with a soft puff of breath as the mint bursts against his tongue in cool pricks of minty gleam. "Come on, there's milk in the fridge, and we can cook noodles while I tell you the long version.”
“Ok.” Tao presses his smile into the curve of her wrist. They rise together this time, hand in hand and the floorboards cool underfoot.
“Let me tell you all about Mei Lanfang…!"