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“When Liu-shidi visits,” Shen Qingqiu says, idly toying with a strand of Luo Binghe’s hair, “you two will need something to keep you busy, so you don’t end up killing each other.”
“Shizun, this disciple would never dream of –”
“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu chides. A manicured fingertip taps the center of Luo Binghe’s demon mark. “You know perfectly well that I was not being literal. And you know not to call me that when we’re like this, so don’t give me that look!”
…No matter how cute the pout and big, watery eyes are, Shen Qingqiu is not going to give in!! He refuses to be distracted!!
“What did you have in mind, husband?” Luo Binghe turns his head slightly from where it rests against Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder, a stray curl brushing past his nose.
“A competition. Since this will be Shidi’s first extended stay in the demon realm, perhaps the two of you could do a little hunting together?”
“Mm.” Luo Binghe’s hum vibrates through Shen Qingqiu’s whole body where they’re pressed chest to chest, giving him a pleasant shiver. “Or…” His eyes start to get that look in them, the protagonist halo shining through as he puzzles out some brilliant strategy. “A friendly little exchange. We take turns going out to hunt, and at the end of the day, each of us has to give up what we won that day to the other.”
“But what will you win if you’re lazing around at home with me, ah?”
“Hmm, this husband can think of many things, with a slightly looser definition of the word.” Hot breath fans out across his neck, and Shen Qingqiu shivers again, wrapping his arms more tightly around his sticky husband. “Gifts, perhaps. And other things. If Shizu– if husband made tea for this one, that could also be a gift, and this one would then be obligated to make tea for Liu… shishu.”
His little Binghe is scheming something. Have they finally reached the point where the stallion protagonist starts to think of building his harem after all? A pretty man like Liu Qingge would be a fine addition, since his Bing-mei seems to have no interest in women whatsoever.
“Hm.” Shen Qingqiu idly strokes a hand up and down Luo Binghe’s soft thigh, wrapped tightly around his waist. “Binghe will have to be the only one to initiate… affectionate touches during the day, then.”
Luo Binghe whines a little at this, but doesn’t seem all that upset at the thought of losing his precious headpats and the little thoughtless gestures Shen Qingqiu has grown accustomed to. He’s definitely up to something.
“And that way, if Shishu tries anything untoward with Shizun, he will have to do the same with this disciple,” Luo Binghe says, sounding all too pleased at this. There it is, Shen Qingqiu thinks, you just want an excuse to get cozy with him – wait, is he implying that known straight man Liu Qingge would actually try anything on Shen Qingqiu of all people?
Before he can interrogate this too closely, though, Luo Binghe does something frankly sinful with his hips and tightens so sweetly where Shen Qingqiu’s cock is held snugly within him, and Shen Qingqiu loses his train of thought entirely.
“Husband,” Luo Binghe whines, squeezing around his cock once more. “Husband, won’t you attend to this poor wife of yours? Has this one not been good, Shizun, husband, please –”
After that, there isn’t much more conversation.
Shen Qingqiu thinks about it, though, as they’re lying sated and content in each other’s arms. Imagines Liu Qingge as his husband’s second wife, the emperor’s consort. Dreams of it, in flashes that he sincerely hopes, upon waking, that Luo Binghe didn’t catch. Liu Qingge in a gray and white version of Sha Hualing’s gauzy, barely-there outfit, just scraps of fabric artfully draped over his lithe body and a veil over the lower half of his face, lounging at the foot of Luo Binghe’s ornate throne while the demon emperor idly tugs at his ponytail. Shen Qingqiu, disembodied, watches as his head tilts to the side, exposing the tanned curve of his long neck, encircled with gem-encrusted chains.
The image stays in his head for the rest of the day.
~*~
Liu Qingge regretted agreeing to this visit the moment the answer came out of his mouth. A month’s “vacation” in the demon realm, escorted by the demon emperor himself, might seem ideal for an enthusiastic monster hunter, but when you consider the rest of the circumstances… Liu Qingge winces, thinking of all the open affection he’ll be forced to witness. Shen Qingqiu’s happiness is all that matters to him, and despite all odds, he has seemed happier than ever before in the few years he’s been married to his beast of a disciple.
That doesn’t mean the ache in his chest when he sees them together has ever abated, though.
Not for the first time, he mentally kicks himself for agreeing so readily, but how was he supposed to react when Shen Qingqiu had given him that blindingly beautiful smile, a rare thing to witness without the cover of a fan? When he’d covered Liu Qingge’s hand with his own for a moment in his excitement and Liu Qingge had felt the warmth throughout his whole body?
Sighing, Liu Qingge takes a deep breath and allows himself to be escorted through the gates by an odd, toad-like little demon. With any luck, he’ll be able to spend all day hunting and barely have to see the happy couple at all.
“This shizhi would hate for you to be bored while you’re here, Liu-shishu,” Luo Binghe says when he is brought before the throne, beaming at him in a manner that would seem friendly and sweet were he not fully aware of the nature of the man before him. He has never once been this polite to Liu Qingge. Perhaps Shen Qingqiu has simply trained him, but somehow, Liu Qingge very much doubts that’s the case. The demon is up to something. “We were thinking perhaps a little game of sorts? An exchange of winnings and gifts?”
Bristling immediately, Liu Qingge draws himself up ramrod straight. “I have no wish to play your games, demon,” he spits. Shen Qingqiu makes some kind of small noise behind his fan, perhaps a laugh or a sound of dismay, and Liu Qingge tries to ignore the way the tips of his ears heat up.
“Actually, Shidi, it was this shixiong’s idea.” Shen Qingqiu uncrosses his legs and sits a little straighter on his throne, which is far more ornate than Luo Binghe’s. The solemn dignity is marred a little by the pile of cushions spilling out from underneath his robes and the bag of melon seeds resting on the arm.
Liu Qingge’s chest aches faintly. This is fairly normal when he’s around Shen Qingqiu, so he ignores it.
“Will you at least listen?” Shen Qingqiu asks, and, as he always does when Shen Qingqiu asks something of him, Liu Qingge crumples like wet paper.
The rules seem simple, too simple for whatever deeper scheme they are obviously trying to hide. He and Luo Binghe will take turns going out to hunt; as the guest, it will be his right to go first. At sundown each day when they return, they will exchange whatever spoils they won or gifts they were given that day. Liu Qingge quibbles a little about nocturnal monsters (if he wants to hunt any, Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu will accompany him) and monsters that will take more than a half-day to journey to or kill (Luo Binghe assures him that there are plenty of pickings close to the palace as well as easily accessible portals to other locations, and that the game won’t last the whole month).
Honestly, Liu Qingge had planned on giving the majority of his kills to Shen Qingqiu anyway, as he always seems to do, so this is barely a game at all. The way Shen Qingqiu’s face lights up at the prospect of a new monster to study is its own reward. When he says as much, though, a slow smirk breaks across Luo Binghe’s face, and a cold feeling travels down Liu Qingge’s spine. (Luo Binghe’s face, even twisted in a half-feral smirk, remains placidly beautiful, a fact which never fails to infuriate Liu Qingge.)
“Ah, but gifts and winnings from the one here at the palace must be exchanged, too,” the demon says. The barest suggestion of a fang peeks out through his lopsided little smile.
“Like what,” Liu Qingge replies flatly. “Examples.” What would he possibly win, other than stolen little sweet expressions and words from Shen Qingqiu that only serve to make the emptiness in him grow larger?
Producing an orange from his sleeve, Luo Binghe tosses it in the air a few times, lazily indulgent. “Well, take this for example, Shishu,” he says, and there’s the mocking twist to his respectful address. “If you were to take one of these from the gardens to eat as you travel, you would also have to save one for me.”
“Acceptable,” Liu Qingge says.
“But if Shizun were to give this orange to me…” He tosses the orange, carelessly, and Shen Qingqiu catches it in one hand. He’s used some trick of qi, or perhaps those long, sharp nails, and the peel falls away easily as Shen Qingqiu turns his wrist.
“Binghe…” Shen Qingqiu closes his fan, setting it on his lap, and with a long-suffering sigh plucks a single slice and holds it out.
Luo Binghe…
Luo Binghe bends his head, almost a bow of supplication, and closes his mouth around Shen Qingqiu’s slender fingers, sucking the orange slice between plush lips. Juice spills between them, a droplet running down Luo Binghe’s chin, stickiness left behind on Shen Qingqiu’s hand.
Liu Qingge swallows hard.
Luo Binghe swallows, too, throat bobbing, and sticks out his tongue to lick the juice from his face. Liu Qingge is oddly struck by the movement; he’s not sure why, but he’d almost expected a forked tongue, or something long and monstrous, but it’s pink and human, almost sweet in contrast to his reddened lips.
“Luo Binghe, are you a dog,” Shen Qingqiu scolds, without the slightest bit of heat. There’s a pretty flush blooming on his face.
In lieu of an answer, Luo Binghe bends his head again to thoroughly clean Shen Qingqiu’s hand of any lingering stickiness. His cheeks hollow around his prize, and a satisfied little moan escapes him as his eyelids flutter. He looks at Liu Qingge the whole time, won’t stop looking at him, as if daring him to believe he ever could have had this.
“I accept the rules,” Liu Qingge says, before barking at the nearest demon servant to show him to the guest quarters and turning on his heel to leave.
He doesn’t think about it. Spends a lovely half-day not thinking about it, in fact, letting the adrenaline and the pain and the exertion drive all lingering thoughts out of his head. He returns to the palace as the sun is just beginning to set with two qiankun pouches stuffed full. This game can’t possibly go on for very long if he’s killed everything in the area. And anyway, he’s determined to bring in the most bounty. This odd power play or whatever it is has no clear winner, and he needs a proper competition, needs the rush of watching that demon lose to him.
Luo Binghe greets him with a slow, liquid smile at the door. Shen Qingqiu flutters his hands excitedly over his spoils, tugging at Luo Binghe’s sleeve as he expounds upon the properties of Red-Eyed Manta Hawk feathers.
“My turn, Shishu,” Luo Binghe tells him. He expects either nothing, or some little trinket calculated to degrade him, throw him off balance. He tenses, preparing for anything.
And then Luo Binghe embraces him.
He’s unreasonably warm. It’s as if Liu Qingge is being held by a brazier. A light, teasing fragrance wafts from his curls, spilling mostly loose over his back today.
He’s oddly… gentle.
Luo Binghe shifts, pressing Liu Qingge closer to his chest. It’s… soft. He hadn’t expected anything about Luo Binghe to be soft. A hand smooths over his back, careful to avoid long nails catching in the fabric of his robes.
Liu Qingge remains stiff, frozen, allowing himself to be moved as Luo Binghe mouths something to himself and then brushes a soft, barely-there kiss to the top of his head before finally releasing him.
“That’s all for today,” Luo Binghe informs him. “Shizun neglected his poor little wife –”
“Luo Binghe. This master was perfectly dignified and appropriate today, it’s Binghe who was – ahem –”
They bicker fondly as if Liu Qingge isn’t even there, while his brain catches up with the rest of him and he actually thinks through what’s just happened.
Had Luo Binghe… held him the same way that Shen Qingqiu had held Luo Binghe?
Liu Qingge feels a stab of jealousy, laced through with some other, unnameable feeling. That warm embrace… how would it have felt, to be held like that by Shen Qingqiu? To be – safe, and loved, and wrapped up in his light floral scent and to have his lips touch Liu Qingge’s hair –
“Shidi, are you all right?” Shen Qingqiu is looking at him with what he wishes were tender concern. “Binghe, I told you this game was too much for him, it’s –”
“It’s fine,” Liu Qingge says, forcing his voice to leave a throat that’s suddenly gone dry. He just hadn’t thought –
Hadn’t realized that physical affection –
He should have realized, from that shameless display yesterday. Against his will, his mind conjures flashes of other things Shen Qingqiu might “give” Luo Binghe when they’re alone together. Shen Qingqiu’s lips, thin and perfectly shaped, reddened and wet with spit, wrapped around –
And if he – then Luo Binghe would have to –
A traitorous jolt of heat runs through him at the thought of Luo Binghe’s plush lips, the veiled threat of his fangs, that pink tongue, his eyes wet with tears as he looks up at –
Liu Qingge retreats hastily to his guest quarters without another word.
When he finally ventures out into the palace the next day, it’s practically deserted. The demon servants seem to have retreated out of sight, and the only living soul around is Shen Qingqiu, dressed down in only four layers of cool silk and yawning over a breakfast of snow-white congee and fresh fruit. At the sight of him, Liu Qingge almost turns right back around, but by that point Shen Qingqiu is already beckoning him over and setting a place for him at the table. It’s small, intimate, not an imposing banquet hall but something more suited to a little cottage.
“Are you giving this to me?” Liu Qingge asks, gesturing at the dishes set out before him.
Shen Qingqiu looks briefly confused, then laughs, the little half-snort he does when he’s not watching his image. Liu Qingge’s chest twists painfully, as it always does. “No, Shidi, this doesn’t count towards the game. It would be a little odd, since Binghe cooked all of this.”
Liu Qingge’s chopsticks freeze halfway to his face. He inspects the rice for any sign of poison or tampering, turning his chopsticks left and right, until a hand catches his wrist and stills him.
“I watched him make it, I can promise there’s nothing unexpected in there,” Shen Qingqiu says. His hand lingers on Liu Qingge’s wrist, which feels suddenly naked without his bracers. He’s not fully dressed for battle today, choosing somewhat simpler robes instead in anticipation of boring palace tours and leisurely strolls through the gardens, all of which he will thoroughly enjoy with Shen Qingqiu at his side. The warmth lingers as Shen Qingqiu’s hand draws back, his fingertips trailing briefly over a bit of exposed skin at Liu Qingge’s pulse point.
He has to fight not to run back to his guest room and retrieve his bracers.
The food is, regrettably, the best he’s ever tasted. Even the fruit, some of which he can’t identify but which Shen Qingqiu assures him has no ill effects, is heavenly. A bat-eared little demon comes in to clear the empty dishes, and Shen Qingqiu pats it on the head with a fond smile and politely thanks it.
As Liu Qingge had thought, Shen Qingqiu wants to show him around first. It’s fine, he’s handling it, being alone with Shen Qingqiu. The thoughtless little touches, the hand on his shoulder steering him around a corner and the one brushing his waist, the way his eyes shine when he describes a particularly interesting feature of the palace. The way he keeps grabbing Liu Qingge’s hand as he drags him into one room after the next, showing him collections of monster pelts and a little apothecary and a huge library where half the books seem actively dangerous. He seems so happy here.
It’s after the third time that Shen Qingqiu has forgotten to drop his hand, idly swinging their joined hands between them as he chatters on about the gardens they’ll visit after lunch, that he finally says something. “Shen Qingqiu –”
“Mm?” Shen Qingqiu squeezes his hand, as if Liu Qingge is the one who has the right to hold it.
“You –” The words die in his throat, the phrasing tangling up as he tries to get them out.
“Mhm?” Soft, teasing. His eyes are endlessly gentle. Liu Qingge’s stomach lurches. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.
“You aren’t bound by the rules,” Liu Qingge gets out in a rush. “The – stupid game, you – it’s just Luo Binghe. So you don’t have to feel like you should act any differently with me.”
“Differently?” He tilts his head as if he really doesn’t notice.
“Being so –” Liu Qingge gestures, helplessly, to their joined hands. “You can just give me a book or something, to give to him.”
“Oh, that’s right, I do need to give you something, don’t I?” Shen Qingqiu drops his hand, finally, reaching for his fan. “And I suppose my husband won’t count it if I lose my fan somewhere in this maze and you find it for me.” He sighs, affecting a put-upon air. “I’ll just have to do the same as yesterday, then.”
Liu Qingge almost chokes on his own tongue as Shen Qingqiu embraces him, one hand ruffling his hair as if he’s an unruly child, despite the fact that he’s slightly taller. He doesn’t linger for as long as Luo Binghe had yesterday, but the very idea of it happening at all is enough to nearly steal Liu Qingge’s breath away. Where Luo Binghe is all deceptively soft curves over solid muscle, Shen Qingqiu is a little bony, lean and lithe in a way that makes Liu Qingge clench his fists in his own robes to avoid reaching out. He’s pleasantly warm rather than a living furnace; his hands are a little cold where the back of one idly brushes past Liu Qingge’s cheek. His scent envelops Liu Qingge, makes him want to do something truly stupid like turn his head just slightly where that pale, slender neck rests by his shoulder and mar it with purple bruises.
He takes a step back instead.
“I’m not. Your husband,” is what Liu Qingge manages to get out, finally, after a poorly disguised coughing fit to force the air back into his lungs. “You don’t have to –”
For some reason, this is what seems to break Shen Qingqiu’s composure, abruptly changing his mood like a summer storm, from teasing and affectionate (as sect siblings should be?) to flustered and failing to disguise it well. He hides fully behind his fan, flushing an alluring pink – no, not alluring, this man is someone else’s husband, that’s the whole point –
“I have to go,” Liu Qingge says, nonsensically, as Shen Qingqiu turns his head away and coughs lightly, and before he can be caught, he’s vaulted over a manicured hedge and broken off at a run.
He almost expects to be killed for the stiff, brief hug he gives to Luo Binghe (who has brought in exactly one more monster than he had the day before; Liu Qingge argues that his haul had more difficult kills and should still be counted as a win, and that the positioning of their assigned days had been calculated to let Luo Binghe win every time). Instead, Luo Binghe just laughs, sounding almost delighted, as Liu Qingge pulls back and leaves the room. He hears the soft sound of a kiss, then the telltale smack of Shen Qingqiu’s fan.
~*~
“Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu chides once more. He’s long since lost count of the times he’s had to scold the unruly boy since Liu Qingge’s departure this morning. “Are you ready to let go of your little game so easily?”
Luo Binghe tilts his head, affecting confusion. “This disciple –” At Shen Qingqiu’s warning look, he hastily corrects himself. “This husband had not planned on it. Your Binghe intends to follow the rules we set for at least a few days more.”
Is his sticky husband really so desperate for a few pats on the head that he’d lower himself to pass them on to his shishu at nightfall? Binghe, you’ll send him into another qi deviation that way!! It’s one thing for Shen Qingqiu to give his shidi a couple of idle pats for a job well done – something he finds himself doing almost automatically from long years of practice – but the image of a docile, meek Liu Qingge bending his head for his martial nephew –
It is a little appealing, in an odd way. The blotchy blush that spreads across Liu Qingge’s face when he’s caught between embarrassment and rage, oddly endearing in its imperfection. The way his eyes widen and his mouth parts –
Shen Qingqiu pats his husband on the head, and, as an afterthought, pecks him on the cheek. It’s unthinking, a practiced movement, but he finds he isn’t all too upset about the idea of Luo Binghe giving this to Liu Qingge, too.
Liu Qingge returns a little subdued. He’d chased his quarry for most of the day, only managing to bring it down in the late afternoon, and thus his only contribution is a single (if very large, and stinking, and dripping acidic blood onto Shen Qingqiu’s nice flagstones) monster corpse.
“This too,” he says, producing an oddly shaped fruit from his sleeve and dropping it unceremoniously next to the monster. “I thought they were edible, but then they tried to bite me, so I killed one. I think.”
Shen Qingqiu swoops down to grab the monster-fruit before it can get corroded by the acid, turning it side to side as he wracks his brain for what this could be. His fingers itch to sketch it, but that can wait until the little show he’s been waiting for all day is over.
Liu Qingge’s whole body is tensed, as if he’s anticipating a slap in the face. He looks battle-ready, like he’s just waiting for Luo Binghe to try something so he can get a hand around his throat.
Luo Binghe makes a great show of looking put-upon as he slowly reaches upward. Liu Qingge’s eyes follow his hand, pupils dilating slightly like a cat watching a toy and eyes crossing a bit as Luo Binghe’s hand hovers above his head.
The reaction is better than Shen Qingqiu could even have imagined. Liu Qingge flinches, drawing his shoulders up to his ears, at the first touch of Luo Binghe’s hand, then looks at him incredulously as he continues to rhythmically pat the top of Liu Qingge’s head. Halfway through, Shen Qingqiu notices that Luo Binghe is counting his headpats aloud, and doesn’t know whether to burst out laughing or sink through the floor in shame.
Luo Binghe finally stills his hand, letting it rest on Liu Qingge’s head with just enough pressure to displace a few strands of his tight ponytail. Has he forgotten about the one little accident of a kiss?
“Shizun gave this one something else, too.” Oh, he hasn’t forgotten. Oh, he’s whispering it in Liu Qingge’s ear – good job getting explicit consent, Binghe!
“A kiss where,” Liu Qingge practically shouts, ducking out of Luo Binghe’s loose hold and dodging backward, looking for all the world as if he’s still in the middle of a fight.
“Where would you like it to be, Liu… shishu?”
“Binghe, don’t tease,” Shen Qingqiu says automatically.
“Wherever gets this over with faster,” Liu Qingge barks out. Shen Qingqiu isn’t sure if his face can physically get any redder.
Luo Binghe smiles, slow – that’s his wife-seducing smile!! Good luck resisting that, Liu Qingge – he’s already gotten one straight man with that smile, who’s to say he won’t be able to turn another?!
“Like this, then,” he says, and brings Liu Qingge’s hand up to his lips, looking him in the eyes and letting his mouth linger for just a moment too long. Ohhh, a one-two punch!! Shen Qingqiu is practically melting just watching it happen!! Something pings in the back of his mind, a little hey, shouldn’t you have more of a problem with this? He brutally pushes it down and goes back to enjoying the way steam is practically coming out of Liu Qingge’s ears as he stomps away once more.
“This is becoming somewhat of a pattern,” he tells Luo Binghe, watching his shidi’s retreating back. “Do you think we’ll make it to dinner one of these nights, or will he dine alone in his guest quarters for his entire stay?”
“That depends. Will Shizun be able to restrain himself for his entire stay?”
“Restrain – I’m not the one who needs to restrain himself!” And stop doing that thing where your voice gets all low and rumbling and makes me feel a little faint!!
“Mm.” Those dark, starlit eyes have a hint of mischief in them. “Then Shizun won’t mind if this husband takes his time cooking dinner. There’s a lovely wine that will pair so nicely with the leftover Manta Hawk meat.”
“Of course not!” Why would he mind, he’s not even all that hungry!
Luo Binghe abruptly pulls him in by the waist, pressing them together chest to chest before capturing his lips in a slow, toe-curling kiss. Shen Qingqiu almost finds himself missing the early days of their relationship when Binghe only knew how to bite, because this is distractingly hot and coming close to making him forget all about dinner.
“Then my husband will be all right with waiting for dessert,” Luo Binghe says when he finally pulls away. What kind of line is that, Binghe!! What cheesy romance novels have you been reading!!! Why is he still so horny about it!!!!
Shen Qingqiu devotes the next day to painting in the gardens. Liu Qingge has told him repeatedly that he doesn’t have to disrupt his usual routine on his account; from years of experience with the man, he knows that his favorite shidi is seemingly perfectly content to spend a day sitting silently and doing next to nothing.
He sets up his easel by a weeping cherry tree (a plant in the real world that is quite literal, here; crystalline tears of sap trail slowly down its trunk), and devotes himself to carefully rendering the elegant sway of the branches. Liu Qingge sits on the ground at his feet, one elbow propped up on a decorative stone, basking in sunlight like a cat. His occasional nods and affirmative noises are the only indication he hasn’t fallen asleep.
As he paints, Shen Qingqiu simply can’t resist reaching down to pat his shidi’s head. It’s right there and so tempting, his dark hair warmed by the sun… One pat turns into two turns into five, and he finds himself losing count of the amount of times he’s unthinkingly reached down with his left hand as he paints with his right. Oh well, it will be hilarious to watch Liu Qingge nearly explode as he has to pat Luo Binghe’s head over and over.
He finishes the first copy quickly, even while idly chatting to Liu Qingge, so he starts another. It’s easier the second time, his right hand tracing familiar curves as the left toys with something soft and silky. He only realizes he’s been playing with Liu Qingge’s hair, even going as far as to take down his ponytail for easier access, when he tugs a little too hard and a quiet noise escapes the man at his feet.
Glancing down to see if Liu Qingge is all right was a mistake. His head is tilted up – somewhat by necessity, from the grip Shen Qingqiu has on his hair – and his hair has fallen to the side, exposing the line of his neck. It’s different than he’d imagined it – no, not imagined, his brain had conjured it without his input. There are little moles dotted along the skin, one disappearing under his collars, looser than they usually are and almost coming open where they meet at his collarbone. Despite himself, he can’t avoid remembering the dream, the way Liu Qingge had been so soft and pliant under his husband’s hands.
He drops his hand and takes a step back, almost simultaneously with Liu Qingge’s twist out of his grip. They avoid each other’s eyes.
“The ground can’t be comfortable, Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu says with false cheer. “There’s a bench right across the path, why not sit for a while?” If the atmosphere hadn’t become so weirdly charged, Shen Qingqiu might have said more. Honestly, if it had been before the first time Binghe kissed him, he might have said something about how much Liu Qingge’s beauty will add to the composition of his painting. But now that such things might be taken another way, he has to think carefully about what he says about other men, even straight ones! (Not that Liu-shidi will be straight much longer if Binghe has anything to do with it…)
Having him sit across the path both helps and does not help. It helps, in that Shen Qingqiu is no longer tempted to stare at the cute little beauty marks on his very straight martial brother’s neck. It does not help, in that Liu Qingge with his hair down (as he has not bothered to put it back up) is incredibly distracting. He finds himself having annoyingly poetic thoughts about how it flows like water or spills like ink over his broad shoulders, or how silky it had felt under his hands, which still smell faintly of rose oil. The breeze keeps stirring it in interesting ways, loose strands brushing past his lips or floating aimlessly for a moment.
The second copy of the painting is much more of a struggle than the first. He manages, with difficulty, to make them nearly identical – a skill he’s carefully honed over time in this world without phone cameras or scanners – but one of them just feels a little different.
“Here,” he says, handing the earlier copy, already dry, to Liu Qingge. “May Shixiong join you for a while?”
“Fine,” Liu Qingge mutters, shifting to make room on the bench. He handles the painting so carefully, tucking it into his robes near his heart, but something about his face looks… wistful?
Now that Luo Binghe is almost home and he has nothing to distract himself, Shen Qingqiu finds that he rather misses his husband. He’s grown so used to having a clingy, warm presence at his side that he finds himself leaning closer to Liu Qingge as if drawn to his body heat. Liu Qingge doesn’t seem to mind, though, or at least he isn’t leaping up from the bench and demanding to fight, which is probably tacit assent from him.
He takes out a book – a bestiary from the palace’s vast library that had been gathering dust since long before Tianlang-jun had occupied this place. Luo Binghe has had the whole palace thoroughly remodeled, expanding the library by nearly double, but Shen Qingqiu still likes to dig through piles of old books and scrolls. There’s so much lore, okay!! It’s like those open world games where you get a useless prize if you read every book and look at every note!
He finds himself reading the most interesting parts aloud, as he often does when relaxing with Luo Binghe, and stops abruptly mid-sentence to apologize.
“Don’t,” Liu Qingge says, and then clarifies, ears reddening, “apologize. I don’t mind.”
“Oh! Of course, you’d find this entertaining too. Is there a particular class of beast you’d like me to look for?”
Liu Qingge makes a dismissive noise. “Whatever you’d like,” he says. Of course, he would also be interested in almost all of them!
They’re shoulder to shoulder by the time Luo Binghe gets home, Shen Qingqiu pointing out a particularly hilarious illustration that’s gotten nearly every part completely wrong. Luo Binghe gets that calculating look on his face again, but it quickly vanishes when Shen Qingqiu jumps up to greet him.
He’s brought two baskets full of wildflowers and herbs and mushrooms today. Ah, foraging instead of hunting! Shen Qingqiu gets an image of his husband in a little cottagecore dress and a kerchief on his head, holding up an apron by the corners to pick mushrooms, and has to shake his head violently to get rid of it. He’s really… too cute sometimes!
Liu Qingge presents the painting first, barely even looking at it, and then taps Luo Binghe on the head rapidly so many times that Luo Binghe is laughing breathlessly by the end. He can practically see little puppy ears flattening to his husband’s head as he’s patted violently.
“I was painting, and he was right there,” Shen Qingqiu says, laughing a little himself. Luo Binghe takes his hand and pulls him in, bending his head, and Shen Qingqiu gives him a headpat of his own, rolling his eyes.
He almost forgets about the copy of the painting, but he snatches it up as they’re about to go inside for dinner (all together, finally) and presents it to Liu Qingge.
“What’s this,” Liu Qingge asks flatly, staring at it as if it might bite him.
“I made two copies, Shidi, didn’t you notice? This one is yours!”
The stunned expression on his face is well worth it, as is the tiny, barely-there smile.
The next night, Liu Qingge comes back absolutely coated in some kind of thick, viscous black substance. It turns out to be blood; whatever he’d fought (there are at least three options from the terse description Shen Qingqiu has been given) had not gone down easily. Shen Qingqiu very tactfully suggests an excursion to the private hotsprings located in a hard-to-find spot at the back of the palace, but for some reason, Liu Qingge protests this vehemently, saying he'll just wash in the basin in his room.
"You had better be thorough, Shishu, because I am not kissing you while that stuff is all over you," Luo Binghe says, crossing his arms. Shen Qingqiu, after several years of marriage, can admit to himself that he sort of likes when Luo Binghe does this because of what it does to. Ahem. Certain assets. Which he often insists on keeping uncovered while he's here.
"Can't you kiss my sword hilt or something?" Liu Qingge grouches. "How many kisses do you have to give me, anyway?"
Shen Qingqiu almost breaks his fan trying to flip it open quickly enough to hide his laughter. This man is really too innocent!!! Has he ever even kissed someone on the lips before? Binghe will have to take things at a glacial pace at this rate, if Shen Qingqiu is right about what he wants from this.
“Do you think this one’s lips so disgusting that you will only allow them to dirty your… sword?” Luo Binghe is pouting, just a little, in the way that emphasizes how lovely and plush his lips are.
“It depends on how many kisses there are! I don’t want you slobbering all over my face like a dog! Someone like you probably only knows how to bite!”
This seems to hit Luo Binghe where it hurts, because he bristles instantly, taking a step forward to move firmly into Liu Qingge’s space. “I think you’ll find I keep my husband very satisfied,” he says, voice dropping into that lower register he uses when he’s threatening people and/or saying absolutely filthy things in private. Shen Qingqiu isn’t sure which one this is meant to be.
“You had better,” Liu Qingge spits out. It’s very sweet of you to be concerned about your shixiong’s happiness, Shidi, but Luo Binghe definitely means that in the non-innocent sense!
“You’re welcome to try for yourself if you have any doubts.” Is that flirting? Is he flirting right now?! His words say “flirting” but his tone says “veiled threat” – Binghe, ah, you have to pick one!!
Liu Qingge sputters for a moment, apparently blue-screening completely, before surging forward and pushing Luo Binghe with a hand in the center of his chest. Luo Binghe, despite being both prepared for the attack and easily able to withstand it, falls dramatically to the dirt. There is a handprint of unidentifiable black goo right in the middle of his cleavage.
Shen Qingqiu lets them fight it out for a little while, watching with growing horror as his husband’s lovely curls are mercilessly grabbed and slathered with monster blood, until he can’t take it anymore and goes to pull Liu Qingge off him. Some unfortunate coincidence of timing, though, means that someone’s leg kicks out and someone’s elbow thrusts upward as he leans over their tangle of limbs, and he goes sprawling across both of them.
“We are all,” he says, with finality, “going to the hot springs. Now.”
Shen Qingqiu has some regrets.
He has neglected to account for the fact that his body has become accustomed to having sex at least every three days, first of all. It has now been five since they’ve done anything penetrative; Luo Binghe’s attempted after-dinner seduction the other night had been a partial failure, due to Shen Qingqiu drinking a little too much of the wine and being too sleepy to do anything beyond messy handjobs before he’d passed right out. Last night had been similarly tame; all that sun had made him lazy, and he’d just laid back and let Luo Binghe suck him off.
He has also neglected to account for the fact that hot springs generally require nudity on the part of all participants. He can’t help it, he has a Pavlovian response to seeing his husband naked that gets him in the mood immediately!!!
As if his husband’s muscular chest being right there isn’t enough, there’s also the matter of Liu Qingge, who is. Well. He is certainly a fine specimen of masculine beauty, isn’t he! And there are all manner of interesting moles and freckles dotting his chest, and why do his nipples look like that? Also, why is he staring at another man’s nipples??
“Do you think he has any on his ass?” Luo Binghe says in his ear. When had he come so close? Shen Qingqiu sinks a little deeper into the water, hoping desperately that the steam is hiding any… unfortunate reactions his body may be having.
“What?” he says, distracted.
“Beauty marks. How low do you think they go?”
“Binghe, he’ll hear you!”
“Let him,” Luo Binghe whispers, his wet hair trailing across Shen Qingqiu’s shoulder and provoking a shiver. He raises his voice a little to call, “Shishu?”
“Hm?” Liu Qingge looks softer, outlined by the steam. His skin is pleasantly flushed all over, and droplets of something that might be water or sweat trace their way past his collarbone. He really does have a lot of moles.
“Could you pass us that bottle there?”
“Fine,” Liu Qingge says, tossing his hair over his shoulder and leaning out of the water to reach the bottle Luo Binghe had indicated. His waist sways as he bends, and – oh, he does have at least one, right below the divot of his spine and a little to the left. He should really tie up his hair once he’s gotten all of the muck out of it; it’s just trailing everywhere, pooling in the water…
“See?” Luo Binghe says in his ear.
None of this is helping, Binghe!!! Now he knows what Liu Qingge’s ass looks like! That’s not something he’s ever going to be able to forget!
…It is, from a purely objective point of view, a gorgeous ass. Especially a little reddened from the heat of the water, it’s almost alluring, like a ripe peach…
Shen Qingqiu sinks even lower until the water comes up to his chin and tries desperately to think unsexy thoughts. It’s just with all his muscles relaxed like this, and the water warming him almost from the inside out, and sweat glistening on Liu Qingge’s objectively very attractive body –
He looks at his husband instead, hastily, and that’s even worse. The sunset makes him almost glow, and he’s so close, close enough to reach his hand under the water and –
Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe finish scrubbing away the last of the tar-like blood, finally, and “because it’s getting late” and “they should get it over with,” they agree to condense the multiple kisses from the day into one long kiss and just do it right here and now. Shen Qingqiu is treated to the sight of the two most beautiful people in the world, bare chested and wet and surrounded by seductive curls of steam, leaning in and –
Well, kind of just smashing their mouths together awkwardly, actually. For all Liu Qingge’s bravado earlier about Luo Binghe being a bad kisser, he himself is clearly inexperienced and approaching the whole thing as if it’s a challenge he’s determined to win. They don’t touch anywhere other than their mouths. Liu Qingge comes away with a bloody lip and Luo Binghe a bloody nose.
Shen Qingqiu, distressingly, is still horrendously turned on by the entire thing.
He stays in the water until he feels like he’ll shrivel up completely. Luo Binghe leaves first, saying he has to start dinner (Shen Qingqiu suddenly remembers how hungry he is), and then it’s just him and Liu Qingge, who is still very naked.
Surely now that Binghe is gone, his body will calm down, right?
Except that it absolutely doesn’t. Liu Qingge carelessly gets out of the water to dry off, and Shen Qingqiu can’t tear his eyes away. Water sluices down his body, leaving all kinds of fascinating trails down his back and thighs. He wrings out his hair after wrapping his waist in a towel, shaking his head like a dog, and Shen Qingqiu is mesmerized by the way his chest bounces. He stretches, and Shen Qingqiu suddenly gets an image of licking the drops of water from those taut abs. There’s a trail of dark hair below his bellybutton and for some reason Shen Qingqiu can’t stop looking at it. Something is deeply wrong with him.
Liu Qingge, frustratingly, insists on waiting for him rather than leaving him to cool off in peace. He’s a little lightheaded by the time he finally gets out, going a bit crosseyed when he tries to pick up a towel and failing to cinch it around his waist three times in a row. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse if Liu Qingge is looking at him.
He slides on his pants under the towel, wiggling awkwardly to avoid exposing himself now that he’s a little more lucid, and bends to pick up the rest of his robes. When he tries to stand back up, though, the combination of the heat, the steam, and the head rush from standing too quickly makes him sway backward.
Luckily, he’s caught easily against a firm chest. His dizzied brain almost thinks Binghe has come back until he registers that he can’t feel a scar, and also that the – well, the nipple touching his back feels different – is this what inverted nipples are? He’s pretty sure that’s what he’s feeling.
He considers, briefly, plunging back into the water.
“Thank you, Shidi,” he manages to say through the buzzing overtaking his brain, and then it’s his turn to flee.
He drinks far too much wine at dinner, but not quite enough to send him into that dazed, sleepy state he’d been in a couple of days before. He’s trying to forget his embarrassment, but the alcohol only brings him straight back to that fuzzy state where he feels warm all over and desperate for touch. When Liu Qingge takes his leave to go to bed – he always sleeps ridiculously early and gets up before first light, which Shen Qingqiu thinks is patently insane – he can’t wait anymore. He drags Luo Binghe bodily by the collars until they’re securely inside their bedroom, not even stopping to double check the silencing talismans before he’s pressing Luo Binghe against the wall and kissing him frantically.
“This husband has clearly been neglecting his wife,” Luo Binghe says in between kisses, hands already working at the haphazardly done up ties of Shen Qingqiu’s robes. Oh, so he’s the wife tonight, ah? Well, he can work with that.
“Mh. Take responsibility,” he says, pushing Luo Binghe down to the bed with his hand in the center of his chest, the same spot where Liu Qingge had pushed him earlier. Something about that sends a thrill through his limbs.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe breathes, sounding awed. “Are you sure?”
In answer, Shen Qingqiu impatiently pulls Luo Binghe’s robes apart at his chest, fingers scrabbling in the fabric, and reaches for the oil he keeps in one of his sleeves.
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe says again, as if he hung the moon and stars. So sue him, he’s feeling a little sentimental tonight.
He reaches back with one hand to open himself up; with the other, he coaxes Luo Binghe to sit up enough that his chest is easily accessible and pounces on it as soon as it’s within range. He’s been desperately turned on for what feels like hours, and it’s the sweetest relief to get his mouth on those soft, round pecs as his husband’s hands card through his hair. He latches his mouth onto one perky nipple as his hand pinches and twists at the other, his movements at his entrance starting to stutter as he focuses wholeheartedly on his task.
“Let me,” Luo Binghe says, soft, and uses a carefully controlled burst of qi to trim the nails on his right hand while he reaches for the jar of oil. Too far gone to protest, Shen Qingqiu makes a noise that could be assent or annoyance or satisfaction.
Sensing his urgency, Luo Binghe doesn’t waste time teasing him. The wine and the time spent in the hot spring have left him already loose and relaxed, so it’s quick work for his husband’s longer, thicker fingers to stretch him out just enough.
When he’s sure he can take it, he smacks Luo Binghe’s hand away and shoves his pants aside enough to free that ridiculous thing between his legs. The poor thing is nearly as desperate as he is, from the way it’s flushed an angry red and swollen so much it looks almost painful.
It’s a lot to take, as it always is. Their sex life had gotten much better and… more active… since Luo Binghe had convinced him to try switching, and these days Shen Qingqiu tops a little more often than he bottoms, just for the sake of his poor old waist. He hasn’t taken all of Luo Binghe in almost a week, but that hard, hot thing has practically carved its shape inside him by now, and his body remembers it as he sinks down luxuriously slowly.
“Stay still,” he tells Luo Binghe when his hips jerk upward slightly. Luo Binghe immediately goes so still it barely even feels like he’s breathing. “Good boy.”
He almost wants to torture his sweet little masochist for a little longer, but he’s too impatient. He lifts himself up on shaking legs and slams down, letting out a low groan at the way he feels practically pierced through, before starting a rhythm in earnest.
As he often does, the little brat disregards his orders before even a few minutes have passed. His hands come up to Shen Qingqiu’s hips, helping him move, but not before one traces over the shape distending his abdomen. He always gets a little possessive of it – it’s not like it’s going to run away from you, Binghe!
“I wonder what would happen if Liu-shishu walked in right now,” Luo Binghe says. He’s a little breathless, but he manages to make the words sound conversational.
Oh, not this game again. Luo Binghe, he’s discovered, is a bit of an exhibitionist; now that he thinks back on it, almost every time they’ve done this, it’s been Liu Qingge he’s asked to imagine. (Once it had been Yue Qingyuan, and luckily they hadn’t gotten very far beyond a little making out and grinding, because Shen Qingqiu had lost the mood immediately and they’d had to stop.)
“What if the silencing talismans aren’t secured properly?” Luo Binghe muses.
They definitely are, Binghe! The servants check those periodically and they looked the same when we walked in! Shen Qingqiu tries to say as much, but all that comes out of his mouth is a sound that seems to belong to someone else.
“He could hear Shizun making so much noise and think he was being hurt, couldn’t he? What if he breaks the door down and bursts in right now?”
Shen Qingqiu would think he were actually concerned about this possibility if he hadn’t played this game before. It’s all part of the fiction, which is starting to take on a new meaning now that Luo Binghe is trying to start up his harem. And, more importantly – “What noise?!”
As if trying to prove his point, Luo Binghe thrusts his hips upward, hard, and hits a spot so deep inside Shen Qingqiu that he sees stars. A noise not unlike a whine may or may not escape his lips. He feels heat rising in his cheeks.
When they’ve done this before, it’s been – well, Luo Binghe has coaxed him, once, to try papapa on the Bai Zhan training grounds, but other than that all the fantasies have been within the safety of their bedroom. Even that one time, there hadn’t been much of a chance of actually being caught. And it wouldn’t even be “caught” this time, since they’re very much in their own – marital bed – and Liu Qingge’s guest quarters are directly across the hall –
And Liu Qingge, although he hasn’t done so yet, is just the type of person to come barging into their bedroom in the middle of the night to ask where they keep their spare sword oil or something –
Luo Binghe bites down on his collarbone, and he may or may not whimper.
“What would he think, Shizun?” Luo Binghe says in his ear, tongue flicking out to trace the shape of it. “Seeing his beautiful, elegant, untouchable shixiong so debauched, bouncing on my cock like this, chasing his own pleasure so wantonly?”
“He wouldn’t – ah – he wouldn’t, fuck, t-think of me as beautiful –” And never mind him when it’s Luo Binghe he should be looking at! He wouldn’t even be able to see his face at that angle, not to mention the heavenly pillar, which is currently so deep inside Shen Qingqiu’s body he’s sure it’s going to become a permanent part of him.
“Oh?” Luo Binghe hits his sweet spot mercilessly over and over until he can barely think enough to form words. “I think you’re wrong –”
“He would qi deviate on the spot from sh- ahhhn - from sh-shame, he – hah – he would be s-so disgusted he’d just –” A particularly well-aimed thrust chases the words out of his mind and makes him practically wail in pleasure.
“I think you’re wrong, Shizun – ah, Shizun, s-so good –”
“Stop,” says Shen Qingqiu, “talking –”
“– I think Liu Qingge would be so turned on he wouldn’t know what to do with himself,” Luo Binghe says, his big, warm hands leaving bruises on Shen Qingqiu’s waist from the force of his grip. “I think – fuck – I think he’d make a mess of himself in seconds, just from seeing you like this. Look at him, don’t you think he must be so pent up he could go off at practically anything?”
Despite himself, Shen Qingqiu remembers the succubi’s cave, the way Liu Qingge had been so adorably flustered and barely seemed to know what to do with himself.
He feels himself twitch.
“Imagine how pretty he would look like that, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says, panting. “With his face all shocked and bullied and twisted up in arousal, biting his lip until it bleeds –”
Shen Qingqiu can’t hold on anymore. He throws his head back and comes untouched all over Luo Binghe’s abs, a little spattering on his reddened, bitten chest. Luo Binghe practically growls and speeds up, using his body to finish himself off as Shen Qingqiu lets himself be fucked into overstimulation.
He expects the Liu Qingge-related dirty talk to stop as soon as they’ve both gotten off, but Luo Binghe still seems to be thinking about it as he tenderly administers Shen Qingqiu’s second bath of the night.
“I bet he doesn’t even touch himself,” Luo Binghe says, dismissive and almost certainly accurate, as he runs a washcloth over his front.
And then, “He would look so pretty under you” as they’re getting ready for bed, which makes Shen Qingqiu completely lose track of the braid he’s putting in his hair for sleep. Under him? Is Binghe trying to make him feel included?
At least he’s learned one thing from this little interlude: Luo Binghe definitely thinks his shishu is attractive.
~*~
Shen Qingqiu is acting strange this morning.
Liu Qingge is a little concerned, at first, that his near-fainting last night had been a sign of some larger problem. Without-A-Cure coming back, despite being mysteriously cured by… some aspect of being married to Luo Binghe that Shen Qingqiu refuses to elaborate on? Poison?
He couldn’t be pregnant, could he…?
“Is there something on my face, Shidi?”
Liu Qingge jumps, tearing his eyes away from the point just beyond Shen Qingqiu’s ear that they’d been fixed on. “Just thinking,” he says. “Sorry.”
He’s been wincing quite a lot and shifting uncomfortably in his seat at breakfast. That on top of the odd episode last night… The way he keeps rubbing at his waist and complaining about his old bones…
If he is carrying a child, can Luo Binghe be trusted to take care of it?
Shen Qingqiu’s loose house robes shift as he leans in to grab a fig from the basket of fruit in the middle of the table, and Liu Qingge’s eyes fixate on the purpling bruise on his collarbone.
Is that beast hurting him? Is he in pain?
“If he is mistreating you,” he starts, not knowing how he wants to finish the sentence.
Shen Qingqiu just stares at him for a second and then laughs, burying his face in his hands. “I assure you, he is not, Shidi.”
But the bruises, and the discomfort –
Does Shen Qingqiu enjoy them?
Now that he’s started thinking about it, he can’t seem to stop. Not only what Shen Qingqiu might enjoy, but what it would feel like to be powerless under the bulk of Luo Binghe, those strong hands around his throat –
And then it dawns on Liu Qingge that last night, while he’d slept mere chi away, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe must have been –
Well, they are married, after all, and he supposes it’s fairly standard for married couples to be. Sexually active. Except that he’s seen both of them basically naked just yesterday and now his mind can’t seem to stop helpfully providing visual aids for just what that might look like. Would Luo Binghe pin him down and use his body mercilessly? Or would Shen Qingqiu take control, making the demon fall apart under those elegant hands and reducing him to a crying mess?
Why are both of those so appealing?
To distract himself, he picks up a book at random and flips through it. With the way his day’s going, he almost expects it to be a yellow book, but it’s some dull treatise on… third century philosophies of the lower realm? It is, however, very useful to hide his expression as he tries to get his face under control. He’s starting to understand the appeal of the fan.
“I didn’t take you for a philosopher, Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu says, and oh, that’s his hand tilting the book away from Liu Qingge’s face, back to his habitual teasing.
“I’m not. Is this the sort of thing you like?”
Shen Qingqiu makes an adorably pinched face and shakes his head. “Absolutely not. I’ve been organizing the library, so there are just piles of books everywhere. There might be something more fun in here, though, you’re welcome to look.”
Liu Qingge picks up the next on the pile, a somewhat dry but more interesting-looking tome on demon realm history, and flips through it, absently licking his fingers as he turns the pages. “They don’t teach any of this in the human realm,” he comments.
He turns to show the heading of a section on Northern Desert inheritance practices, thinking it might be of interest, but for some reason, Shen Qingqiu suddenly seems unable to look at him.
“Will you read it to me, Shidi?” Shen Qingqiu bustles around the room, seemingly looking for a project and still completely refusing to make eye contact. Perhaps he’d suddenly remembered last night, when the heat of the water had overtaken him and Liu Qingge had improperly stepped in to catch him, and now no longer wishes to allow his touch. Logically, Liu Qingge knows he probably would not have fallen, but the fear of Shen Qingqiu in any kind of danger is so deeply ingrained in him from years of practice that his body had moved on its own. He wonders if Shen Qingqiu had told his husband, had apologized for allowing such improper conduct.
Belatedly, his brain catches up to his ears. “Why?” he blurts out.
“Your voice is nice,” Shen Qingqiu says immediately, and then makes a noise that’s something like a cough and starts digging through a basket of yarn tossed haphazardly on the floor.
Helplessly, Liu Qingge flips back to the beginning of the history book and starts to read aloud. He’s a little reminded of Mingyan’s childhood, when she’d demanded he read aloud to her at every opportunity and complained every time he got the voices “wrong” (which had been practically every time a character spoke). By the time he looks up, Shen Qingqiu has taken up his knitting and is ruthlessly focused on it, working some kind of complex lace pattern as if he’s engaged in battle.
He loses track of time, somehow not becoming restless despite staying still for so long. At one point a servant brings food; he can easily tell which dishes are Luo Binghe’s leftovers and which were prepared by the kitchens, which is… certainly something.
After washing up, he’s roped into holding Shen Qingqiu’s yarn for him as he unwinds a skein into a little ball. He’s so caught by the rhythmic movements of those long, pale fingers, the way carefully manicured nails disappear under the wool over and over again and resurface, the twist of his wrist, that he forgets what to do with his own hands.
“It’s not going to wind itself any faster if you glare it into submission, Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu tells him, and then something happens to the internal structure of the skein and it flops everywhere, tangling around his wrists. Shen Qingqiu untangles him carefully, bringing the tail of the yarn over and under his arm until he’s freed and the ball of wool is large enough to be held with both hands.
Barely a shichen is left in their time together when Shen Qingqiu seemingly remembers the game. “Ah, I’ve neglected you, Shidi,” he says, finally setting his knitting aside. “Not even a single gift today, unless you count winning the battle against that skein of yarn.”
At the mention of their game, Liu Qingge can’t help but recall the night before. His teeth ache faintly at the memory. It had been, objectively, terrible, but the knowledge that Shen Qingqiu had witnessed the whole thing…
Shen Qingqiu appears to steel himself, drawing himself up and taking a deep breath, and then stands, coming to bend over Liu Qingge’s seat. His long hair sways with the movement, sliding along his robes with a soft whisper of silk. Liu Qingge’s mind goes completely blank. His face is so close.
“Let me give you a helping hand.” His voice is low, the tone almost seductive. Liu Qingge can’t move a muscle as his face gets closer and closer – is he actually going to –
Not sure whether to pull away or lean into the movement, Liu Qingge’s head jerks reflexively and he knocks foreheads with Shen Qingqiu, hard.
“Ah, sorry, let me try again –” Shen Qingqiu tilts his head farther and leans down once more, but he loses his balance and tips forward, this time knocking their noses together and landing practically on his lap.
“Fucking – come on,” Liu Qingge hears him mutter under his breath, and it’s so sweet, how hard he’s trying, how his brow is furrowed in concentration on his task, and Liu Qingge feels like he can’t breathe.
Shen Qingqiu’s hand comes to his cheek, pushing lightly to tilt his head; Liu Qingge allows himself to be moved, feeling like his body is not his own. When soft lips finally meet his, it’s hesitant, close-mouthed, but Liu Qingge can only withstand it for a moment or two before he has to pull away and gasp for breath.
It isn’t real.
For whatever reason, Shen Qingqiu is using him as, as a proxy for his own husband, knowing that Liu Qingge will have to kiss him now. It’s not meant for him. It can’t be.
But oh, he wants it to be so badly.
When he kisses Luo Binghe that night, eyes screwed up as he anticipates the slap that will surely come after, it’s… better than the first time. Still stiff, unpracticed, but no one comes away bloodied, and the slap doesn’t come. Neither does the fight. Luo Binghe just… smiles, and says “Shizun, I hope you get more gifts like that one,” which – what the fuck is he supposed to do with that?
~*~
Luo Binghe is ecstatic. Shizun has not only accepted the true reason behind this little game of his, but taken the initiative to kiss Liu Qingge himself! His shy, thin-faced Shizun, taking what he wants.
Still a little carried away from the thrill, he tugs Shen Qingqiu by the wrist into a side room and pulls him in for a kiss, long and slow and searing. His wandering hands are smacked away a few times, but never very hard, so he knows Shen Qingqiu doesn’t mind going further.
Laughing a little as he struggles with the clasp of his belt, he leaves a trail of kisses from Shen Qingqiu’s ear down to the base of his throat and delights in the little noises it wins him and the scratch of blunt nails down his back. When he takes both of them in hand, the slide is easy, slick and wet already, and he knows that Shen Qingqiu has been just as affected.
“Shizun,” he says, rocking his hips into his hand. “Shizun, do you like your present?”
“What – ah, what present? The one I gave him?”
Ah, so he still doesn’t understand. “He’ll be so perfect for you, once I’ve trained him on all the ways you like to be pleasured. Don’t you want to see him on his knees for you? Or –”
“For me?” Shen Qingqiu squirms in his arms, almost trying to get away, but he doesn’t use much force – he must already be too lost in pleasure to want to stop. He can be so sweet sometimes.
“Mhm,” Luo Binghe says, kissing him softly. “Isn’t he a perfect anniversary present? This disciple has seen how much Shizun likes Liu-shishu –”
“How much I – Binghe, I thought you were trying to add him to your harem! I was trying to – oh, right there – I was – I t-thought, fuck – ”
“Did you like kissing him?”
“That is not the point –” Shen Qingqiu throws his head back, hitting the wall with a dull thump. “The point, the point is, stop distracting me, if Liu-shidi is interested in anyone it’s you! Did you like kissing him?”
“That’s not the,” Luo Binghe starts to say, and then pauses. “Hm.”
The conversation stops for a moment as Luo Binghe’s hand speeds up and they both frantically chase their end.
After, when they’re panting in each other’s arms, Luo Binghe thinks about it. His original intention had been to get Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu together. They’ve been dancing around each other for years now, and now that Xin Mo’s influence has stabilized and he’s more confident that no matter what, he’ll never be abandoned again, the idea of Shizun seeing someone else alongside him has gotten less and less distressing and more… appealing. He knows Shen Qingqiu so well, knows all of his little tells and how he looks when he’s trying to hide his attraction to someone, and more and more over the past couple of years he’s noticed those looks directed at Liu Qingge.
He’d thought that maybe Shen Qingqiu would have realized by now, though. It’s so patently obvious to practically anyone that Liu Qingge is desperately in love with Shen Qingqiu. It had angered him, at first, but as the years have gone on, the anger mellowed to pity and then to something else he couldn’t identify at first.
“Liu-shidi,” says Shen Qingqiu, voice still a little wrecked, “is straight.” At Luo Binghe’s confused look, he clarifies, “He doesn’t like men! Binghe would be anyone’s exception, of course –”
Luo Binghe laughs so hard that tears come to his eyes.
“He definitely likes men,” he says when he’s sufficiently recovered. “Does Shizun truly not notice the way he looks at you? Or the way I used to be so protective of you around him?”
“I thought you were just being jealous of any other man I speak to,” Shen Qingqiu says helplessly. “And speaking of that, what is all this about wanting to see me with another man all of a sudden! Is it a voyeurism thing again?”
“Shizun has so much love in his heart, it seems a shame to restrict it to one person if there’s someone else who is willing.”
“Binghe is the one who – that is, if either of us were going to get another partner, it would obviously be Binghe –”
“We could both have him,” Luo Binghe suggests, trying to hide his excitement at the idea so that Shen Qingqiu doesn’t shy away immediately.
Shen Qingqiu turns his head away, but the way his face reddens and his eyes darken is a sure sign that he’s very much thinking about it, so Luo Binghe presses on. “He could use his mouth on you while I’m inside you, would you like that? That pretty face looking up at you…”
“Luo,” says Shen Qingqiu, “Binghe,” and his husband hides his burning face in his robes. So that’s a yes, then.
~*~
Liu Qingge spends the next day the same way as he’s spent all the others when he’s been allowed to go out to hunt (although logically, he knows he could call off the game at any time; he simply… is too curious not to see it through). He finds the biggest possible monster and fights it until he’s so tired he can barely move, then drags it and himself back to the palace.
(And if, as he fights, in the rare times when he’s able to fall back on practiced movements and let his mind wander, he recalls the feeling of cool, dry lips pressed to his –)
( – and if he finds himself imagining what would have happened if there had been more time –)
It’s fine. He’s fine.
The atmosphere is different today. The energy is charged, in some way he doesn’t fully understand, and Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu keep giving each other these looks.
“So, Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu says, nearly his entire face hidden behind his fan. “We… may have gotten a bit carried away this morning.”
Luo Binghe jumps in to say, “I’ll only give you what you can take.”
As if there’s anything he won’t be able to take! He says as much, but the way they look at each other makes him think that he’s been a little hasty. Surely even if they’d… done something this morning, that wouldn’t leave their bedroom… would it? There’s no way they would make that part of the game. The kisses have just been a way to fluster him, for some strange reason he can’t fathom yet. They don’t mean anything by them.
He clings to this, desperately, as Luo Binghe steps slowly into his space, giving him ample time to choose to walk away. He isn’t backing down, though. He refuses.
“Hmm, let me see if I can remember,” Luo Binghe says, voice a low rumble. “I think he gave me… this, first.”
A warm weight settles on the top of his head and pats, once, twice. It isn’t so bad.
“And then… this.” Luo Binghe leans in and kisses him, once, on the tip of his nose. The sensation is ticklish, but he doesn’t feel any fear or apprehension.
“And then… hmm. If you need to stop, Shishu, tap three times, all right?”
“I won’t need to stop,” he says. How bad could a few more kisses be?
“Mm. It’s there if you need it.” Why does his tone sound so… tender? Careful? Why is he being so… sweet?
The kiss starts slowly. It’s the kind of kiss, he thinks, that a couple who have been married for years might give each other, perfectly replicated for him, a mocking reminder of what he can never have.
Except that when Luo Binghe draws back, eyes half-lidded, he says, “Shishu, this disciple is afraid he can’t resist a little bit of improvisation,” and then his thumb brushes the top of Liu Qingge’s cheekbone, just below his eye where he knows his beauty mark rests. He hears a quiet gasp from Shen Qingqiu. Luo Binghe looks to him, a question in his eyes, and Liu Qingge just barely catches the nod out of the corner of his eye before Luo Binghe’s lips follow the path of his thumb.
What is happening??
“Shizun, please forgive this unruly disciple,” he says to Shen Qingqiu over his shoulder, as he… what the fuck is he doing? Why is he picking up strands of Liu Qingge’s hair and kissing them? “Did you want to be the first to do this?”
Why would he – what –
“Binghe can be first.” Shen Qingqiu’s fan flutters. Liu Qingge can barely see him, consumed as his vision is by the demon directly in front of him.
First, implying that he… also wants to?
“Shishu was too pretty, this one couldn’t resist.” He can feel Luo Binghe’s pout resting against his cheek as he lingers there for a moment before trailing lazy kisses down his jawline. It feels like a seduction. Can it be anything else?
“Mn,” Shen Qingqiu agrees – agrees? “Be good to him, Binghe, stop teasing him like that.”
“Yes, Shizun.” Liu Qingge barely gets a moment to collect himself before he’s being kissed again, more insistently this time. A hand winds into his hair, and short nails scratch lightly at his scalp – when had he trimmed those?
The kiss quickly grows messy, desperate. Liu Qingge tries to take back control the only way he knows how, increasing the pressure and changing the angle until he feels the sharp points of fangs brush his lip. He gets a little nip for his trouble, making a thrill run through him, and he just has time to think that clearly something is wrong with him when a tongue starts to probe at the seam of his lips. His hands clutch into the fabric of Luo Binghe’s robes for dear life as the demon takes and takes and takes, leaving him breathless and dizzy in a way that’s more than just physical. Any apprehension he'd felt has faded into a thrumming anticipation under his skin.
“If I remember correctly, Shizun gave me this, too,” Luo Binghe says after he finally pulls away, running his hands down Liu Qingge’s sides to lightly squeeze his waist before he latches his mouth onto Liu Qingge’s neck and sucks, hard. There’s a line of saliva connecting their mouths that hangs for a moment and finally breaks as Luo Binghe ducks his head.
Shen Qingqiu’s breathing has gotten louder.
With Luo Binghe in this position, it’s possible to see over his head; he verifies that Shen Qingqiu has, indeed, been watching them. As they make eye contact, Luo Binghe does something to a particularly sensitive spot near his collarbone that has him squirming in the demon’s firm grip, and a little noise escapes him as he watches a blush rise on the little of Shen Qingqiu’s face that’s still visible.
“Ah –” He bites down hard on his own lip, letting his head loll to the side and drop down onto Luo Binghe’s shoulder for support as he becomes increasingly unable to hold himself up. He doesn’t know why everything about this has him feeling so weak, but he feels simultaneously like he wants to sink through the floor in shame and like he’ll die if he doesn’t get some friction on his cock in the next few moments. There’s an answering hardness starting to make itself known under Luo Binghe’s robes, of a size that would seem improbable if Liu Qingge hadn’t caught a fraction of a glance at the hot springs.
“Lovely,” he thinks he hears, and there’s a hand cupping his ass and purpling bruises on his neck and Luo Binghe is kissing him again, hot and filthy.
“This is as far as we went, Shishu, but this one would be happy to help you take care of that little problem.” Luo Binghe’s voice is buzzing through his whole body, making something in his chest tingle, and Shen Qingqiu’s eyes are still on him, and he’s so turned on he feels like he’s going to die.
He taps Luo Binghe on the shoulder three times.
“All right,” Luo Binghe says, backing off immediately. He sways a little without the support of another body, sitting down on a nearby stool with a thump.
“What do you need, Shidi?” Shen Qingqiu’s voice is so endlessly kind. Is it pity he’s hearing or something else?
“Could you,” he manages to get out, “leave me?”
“As long as you’re sure,” Shen Qingqiu says, putting out a tentative hand to smooth a loose strand of his hair. Liu Qingge tries not to lean into the touch, but pathetically, he can’t help but chase it. “You’re really sure you want us to leave?”
With difficulty, Liu Qingge nods.
“Then I’ll see you in the morning,” says the man he loves, before leaning down to softly kiss the strand of hair still in his hand.
Liu Qingge stays sitting there for a long time.
Luo Binghe is gone by the time he wakes up in the morning, much later than he’s accustomed to. He’d stayed up too late, practicing sword forms in the courtyard until he couldn’t go on anymore, desperate for something to burn off his excess energy and keep the thoughts from his mind.
He’s not sure if things will be different between him and Shen Qingqiu this morning. He had certainly seemed… interested in some kind of involvement, last night, but with the two of them alone together it probably isn’t the same. Liu Qingge is still completely baffled by the idea of Luo Binghe being genuinely interested in him for some reason, and the thought of Shen Qingqiu wanting to even watch that turns his brain to mush.
The door to his guest quarters opens before he can open it himself, revealing Shen Qingqiu, backlit by the sun. “Oh, Shidi, you’re awake!” He sounds almost disappointed. “I had hoped to bring you breakfast in bed.”
Wordlessly, Liu Qingge sits back down on the side of the bed, accepting what he’s been offered. Shen Qingqiu hands him the tray he’s carrying with a soft laugh and sits beside him as he eats, stealing bits of food even though he’s clearly had his own breakfast already. It’s comfortable, almost domestic. Liu Qingge doesn’t know what to do with himself.
“What would you like to do today, Liu-shidi?” The question feels so loaded now that… other things… might possibly be on the table, but he certainly wouldn’t be able to bring himself to ask – for –
“I could read to you again,” is what comes out of his mouth, and he breathes a small sigh of relief that he’s managed to say something relatively normal.
Shen Qingqiu’s face is too bright to look at for very long. How does Luo Binghe manage it? “That would be lovely,” he says. “Lovely,” in another voice and a very different tone, rings through his head, a tingling warmth spreading through him at the memory.
Shen Qingqiu leads him by the hand to a small, sun-warmed courtyard, in an out-of-the-way part of the palace and enclosed on all sides. He makes a point of saying that they won’t be disturbed here. Honestly, Liu Qingge has seen a total of maybe five different servants during his time here and isn’t sure there are any more, so he doesn’t doubt it. This place certainly doesn’t match the idea in his head of a demon emperor’s palace; so much of it has clearly been remodeled to suit Shen Qingqiu’s specific needs, and even the parts that haven’t are eccentric, perhaps the work of Tianlang-jun. It’s more like a vacation cottage than the seat of a vast empire. He’s not even sure if Luo Binghe even bothers to rule most of the time or if he just leaves most things up to Mobei-jun and Sha Hualing.
Liu Qingge settles himself in the grass under a tree, taking out the history book that’s been in his qiankun sleeve since the other day. He expects Shen Qingqiu to find a place of his own, perhaps on the stone bench nearby or against another tree a short distance away. Shen Qingqiu, however, has other ideas, and promptly flops down with his head in Liu Qingge’s lap like a sleepy cat.
“Shidi is so comfortable,” he mumbles, nuzzling into Liu Qingge’s stomach. Hesitantly, Liu Qingge brushes a hand through his hair and is rewarded with a pleased little noise.
He tries his best to read a few lines, his hand leaving Shen Qingqiu’s hair to turn the page. When it returns, Shen Qingqiu reaches back to take it in his own, tangling them together briefly before loosening his grip to play with Liu Qingge’s fingers instead.
It definitely feels like a flirtation. Liu Qingge tries his best to concentrate on the bloody history of the Sha clan, but there’s a thumb running up and down his index finger as his wrist is turned this way and that, as if he’s being inspected. When he finally comes to the end of the section, he reflexively pulls his hand out of the loose grip and licks his finger to turn the page before returning his hand to Shen Qingqiu’s ministrations. He really shouldn’t allow this to continue; he can feel himself stirring under his robes, to a point where Shen Qingqiu will soon be able to feel it if he can’t already, but having all of Shen Qingqiu’s attention on him is going straight to his head like strong wine.
And then Shen Qingqiu takes the tip of his index finger into his mouth and sucks, swirling his tongue lightly around the pad, and Liu Qingge’s mind goes completely blank.
The book falls from his hand as Shen Qingqiu flicks out his tongue again and again, as if tasting him. Is he – trying to – is this an indirect kiss? Oh, this is bad, there’s no way he’s not going to notice how very interested a certain part of Liu Qingge has become in the proceedings.
Shen Qingqiu makes an unsatisfied little noise in the back of his throat, still holding onto Liu Qingge’s hand as he sits up. Before Liu Qingge can blink, he’s being crowded back against the tree and Shen Qingqiu’s mouth is on his.
“The real thing is better,” Shen Qingqiu says, decisively, and kisses him again. He settles himself so he’s kneeling above Liu Qingge’s lap, and there’s no way he hasn’t noticed, and Liu Qingge lets himself be kissed and tries not to panic and then Shen Qingqiu rocks his hips downward.
A little “oh” escapes him. He melts into Shen Qingqiu’s embrace, feeling himself let go of the tension he’s been holding, and loses himself to pure sensation. The angle is awkward and it’s hard to get much friction, but it’s Shen Qingqiu he’s kissing, Shen Qingqiu who’s licking into his mouth like he’s trying to explore every inch of it, Shen Qingqiu who’s grinding down into his lap in slow, unhurried rolls of his hips. Shen Qingqiu who kisses him and kisses him and keeps kissing him, letting the sweetest noises fall into the space between them.
Liu Qingge presses up against the warm body in his lap, hitting a spot that makes him see stars, and then he feels warmth spill inside his robes as he twitches and jerks through an entirely unexpected orgasm.
“Sorry,” he gasps, trying to pull away so he can – he doesn’t know, throw himself into the nearest body of water – but he’s trapped between the weight of Shen Qingqiu and the rough bark of the tree behind him, one of Shen Qingqiu’s hands braced by his head.
“Cute,” he thinks he hears Shen Qingqiu say, and then he’s being kissed again. “S’alright, Shidi, just relax, I’ll take care of you.”
Shen Qingqiu keeps kissing him, uncaring of the wetness pooling between them or the urgency of his own need. At some point he ends up on his back on the grass, Shen Qingqiu braced above him, everything feeling a little floaty and far away as he’s slowly taken apart. His lips are starting to feel almost bruised, but he can’t remotely bring himself to care.
Shen Qingqiu pulls away, dragging a wounded noise from Liu Qingge’s throat, but it’s only to take off his outer robes and lay them on the grass. His loose inner robes hang open, exposing a triangle of pale skin already littered with fading red marks and bruises.
“Here, like this.” Shen Qingqiu guides him to lie on his side, slides his definitely-ruined pants all the way off, then produces oil from somewhere and slicks up his hands. Liu Qingge tenses, anticipating something he’s not quite sure he’s ready for, but Shen Qingqiu strokes the inside of his thigh instead. The oil is warm from his hand. Liu Qingge had no idea he was so sensitive there, but the touch makes a shudder run through him.
“All right?” a low voice says in his ear. He nods, carefully, throat bobbing as he swallows hard around a moan that threatens to escape him.
When Shen Qingqiu lines himself up behind him, his arms wrap around Liu Qingge’s waist like he belongs there. Liu Qingge’s body has already decided he’s ready for more, despite the way little shocks of overstimulation still run through him at every touch, and when he catches sight of Shen Qingqiu’s flushed tip protruding from between his thighs, it’s all he can do to hold off another too-premature orgasm.
Shen Qingqiu is all too gentle with him, the slow drag of his cock just below his taint driving Liu Qingge half out of his mind. His robes are pushed aside at the shoulder as Shen Qingqiu tenderly sucks a line of red marks down his neck and anywhere else he can reach. He pushes back desperately into every touch, reciprocating the only way he knows how by trying to make the warm cavern of his thighs as tight as he can manage.
Shen Qingqiu finally comes with a little sigh, pressing a kiss to the nape of Liu Qingge’s neck as he chases his release. Everything is so, so wet, and the slide is impossibly easy when Shen Qingqiu’s hand wraps around him and strokes him to completion.
At some point, Liu Qingge had taken his other hand, squeezing it so tightly the knuckles have turned white. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t let go.
They spend the rest of the afternoon lying tangled together, after cleaning up and relocating to a more comfortable daybed indoors. They both sleep, at some point, Shen Qingqiu grown lax in the sun like a cat while Liu Qingge has thoroughly exhausted himself.
It’s how Luo Binghe finds them when he returns.
“He was so good for me today,” he hears Shen Qingqiu saying over his head. Sleep still has him in his clutches, but something in him thrills at the idea of being good for Shen Qingqiu. Perhaps he should be apprehensive about trying to give Luo Binghe – well, trying to give him two orgasms – but he’s still too lost in that sweet half-asleep state to give it much thought.
“Do you think you’re up for it tonight, Shidi?” Shen Qingqiu is asking him the next time his brain decides to come back from the clouds.
Up for – sex with Luo Binghe? Is that what he’s –
“We can call off the game if you want, neither of us would mind.”
That gets him the rest of the way to wakefulness. “I won’t lose,” he says, nonsensically. “I mean. I can do it.”
There’s a hand petting his hair, but both of Shen Qingqiu’s hands are visible. Is Luo Binghe –
“Shizun will be here to help,” a low voice says in his ear.
For all they’re getting him riled up right away, they insist on getting him to eat something first. While he’s been knocked out, Luo Binghe has prepared a veritable feast. They both seem to have already eaten, but the food is still exactly the right temperature, sending up curls of steam. Had it been cooked separately for him, or simply kept warm? The gesture is sweet regardless.
Is this how he’d won Shen Qingqiu over? It’s no surprise it worked, he reflects, biting into a perfectly round mantou and nearly moaning at the balance of flavors in the filling.
He’s too focused on the food to notice at first, but more and more, he starts to hear soft, wet sounds from the corner of the room where Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu are sitting. He turns his head, curious, and nearly chokes on his mouthful: Luo Binghe is straddling Shen Qingqiu’s lap, grinding a very obvious erection against his stomach as they kiss. Is this what he’d meant by Shen Qingqiu… helping?
He quickly shovels the rest of the food into his mouth, trying his best to ignore the quiet moans and soft giggles across the room, but it’s impossible to ignore what they’re doing to him. When he finally steels himself and joins them, standing stiffly behind them, it’s with an uncomfortable hardness between his legs and an odd anticipation in the pit of his stomach.
“Decided to join us, shishu?” Luo Binghe smirks at him, turning halfway and licking his lips as he gives Liu Qingge an obvious once-over. “You’ll barely have to do any work, don’t worry.”
He’s already taken himself out of his robes, and he’s even bigger than Liu Qingge had thought. It should scare him. It should disgust him. He should, at least, not particularly care about Luo Binghe’s size.
Instead, his tongue darts out to wet his lips, and two sets of eyes zero in on the movement.
“Is that what you want, shishu?” Luo Binghe asks. “To get your mouth on it? It’s a challenge, but you love a challenge, don’t you?”
Liu Qingge can only glare wordlessly, irritated at how easily Luo Binghe has been able to read him.
“It’s not so bad,” Shen Qingqiu tells him. “Just don’t try to take too much at once and you’ll be fine.”
Two sets of hands guide him to kneel. He quickly finds that he can’t remotely take all of it, but Shen Qingqiu helpfully steps in, fisting his hand loosely around the rest and matching his rhythm to Liu Qingge’s until Luo Binghe is moaning with every stroke. Bitterness spills in his mouth and trickles past his lips, gone slack around his mouthful. He keeps his eyes closed, not daring to look up, so it’s a surprise when a hand traces the shape of that impossibly huge cock where it distends his cheek. Another hand joins it, then slender fingers stretch his mouth impossibly wider.
He’s so dazed that he barely notices when hands – Shen Qingqiu’s? – gently guide his mouth to pull off Luo Binghe’s cock. He’s pulled back to standing, and Shen Qingqiu takes his hand in his own, uses their joined hands to stroke Luo Binghe the rest of the way to completion.
It doesn’t, the part of Liu Qingge’s mind that can still think notes faintly, seem to get any smaller.
“Now the way we did it before,” Shen Qingqiu says softly, helping him out of his clothes until he’s standing nearly bare before them. He feels like he should be self-conscious about that, but all he can bring himself to care about right now is pleasing them.
He allows himself to be moved once more, leaning against the wall so he can slot himself between Luo Binghe’s thighs. He ruts shallowly into the warmth he finds there – it’s incredible, those generous thighs swallowing him up, impossibly soft around him. Is this how it had felt for Shen Qingqiu?
He’s too far gone to concentrate on anything except chasing that feeling, letting his head drop to Luo Binghe’s shoulder as his large, warm hand strokes the top of his head. Shen Qingqiu drops to his knees in front of them, taking Luo Binghe’s tip into his mouth and doing something that makes his thighs tense and sends shocks vibrating through both of them. Liu Qingge thrusts forward with more force, leaving red marks on the backs of Luo Binghe’s thighs and ass, trying to chase that mouth. Shen Qingqiu seems to want to chase him, too, turning his attention to the underside of Luo Binghe’s cock until he reaches the juncture of his thighs. He tucks his hair behind his ear as he lets Liu Qingge’s weeping tip thrust into his waiting mouth, and Liu Qingge is done for.
When he comes back to himself, Shen Qingqiu is flushed and impossibly beautiful in front of him, rivulets of white running down his reddened cheeks and a glassy sheen to his eyes. His lips are bruised and scraped raw at the corners, the corners of his eyes red and wet with tears. The sight makes his cock give a last valiant twitch and release another small spurt of cum into the space between Luo Binghe’s thighs. The sight seems to do as much for Luo Binghe as it does for him, because he sags backwards into Liu Qingge’s embrace as Shen Qingqiu swallows him down once more and comes down his throat. There’s so much of it, spilling out of the sides of Shen Qingqiu’s mouth, and he wants to taste it; gets to, when Shen Qingqiu pulls him in for a messy kiss.
(“Are we still playing the game?” he asks that night, preparing to return to his own, cold bed.
“There are still some things I want to try,” Luo Binghe says, a mischievous look in those dark eyes. “It would be a shame to stop so soon.”)
~*~
Shen Qingqiu hadn’t been entirely sure about this idea at first. Opening up their relationship, even the idea that Liu Qingge might be interested in him – but he hadn’t been able to help himself as soon as Liu Qingge had gotten so hopelessly turned on just from his fingers being played with a little bit. He’s so terribly sweet, this shidi of his. Falling back on an old excuse, he’d decided that it was his duty to “help out” as the one who had caused the problem in the first place, and then he’d gotten… carried away.
There’s something strangely appealing about Liu Qingge’s inexperience, the way he’s so constantly shocked at his own pleasure. His pretty lips had looked even prettier taking Luo Binghe. He’s never understood why his husband always insists on staring when he’s being given a blowjob, but holy fuck he does now. (He refuses to think about what he must look like in that position, still not entirely sure it’s an attractive picture, but Liu Qingge certainly had been.)
As he’d thought might happen, his terrible husband is hornier than ever all day, trying his level best to coax Shen Qingqiu into absolutely railing him on every surface in the palace. He compromises, for poor Liu-shidi’s sanity, and lets Luo Binghe rail him instead, against a pillar in the throne room and then on the throne itself. That demonic stamina makes itself known, and the bastard uses his blood to stop Shen Qingqiu from coming, too, so he’s pent-up and desperate by the time Luo Binghe kneels at his feet and begs for his – well –
His husband does look very pretty on his knees, clumps of white caught in his long, dark lashes, and even prettier when he strokes himself to completion, arching his back in an attractive curve as if to show off his assets. As if Shen Qingqiu doesn’t know what the heavenly pillar looks like by now!
Luo Binghe is all too happy to pass this on to Liu Qingge when he gets back, still sweaty and bloodied and panting from adrenaline. He’s barely past the threshold before both of them pounce on him almost as one being, Luo Binghe licking the sweat from his collarbone as Shen Qingqiu kisses him hungrily. Liu Qingge looks beautiful on his knees, too, so beautiful that Shen Qingqiu can’t help getting a little worked up himself at the lewd noises of his husband stroking himself above that pretty face. Liu Qingge looks like something out of the porn that Shen Qingqiu barely ever watched in his past life, or something out of a wet dream; face reddened and eyes screwed up tight in embarrassment and pleasure, his flushed, dripping erection poking out where Luo Binghe has helpfully tugged his waistband aside.
“That beauty mark on his cheek,” Luo Binghe says, panting, “good target practice, don’t you think?” As if Liu Qingge isn’t even there, as if he’s just a toy for them to use. Shen Qingqiu wants to scold him for it, but it seems to get Liu Qingge even hotter, squirming on his knees and letting his mouth fall open as if in anticipation.
Luo Binghe captures Shen Qingqiu’s mouth in a kiss as he comes first, his knees going weak with the force of it. Luo Binghe isn’t far behind, adding to the mess of white on Liu Qingge’s face, which he obediently tries to clean up with his tongue.
Liu Qingge is so obedient, in fact, that he doesn’t even move to touch himself, despite how much discomfort he must be feeling right now. He tilts his head to the side, sending droplets running downward to trace a path through the smudge of dirt on his cheek, waiting for an order.
“Technically,” says Luo Binghe, “that’s all I have to give him today.”
“Oh, but look at him,” Shen Qingqiu protests. “Here, Shidi, stand up for me?”
Liu Qingge does, swaying a little.
“Let’s get those dirty clothes off, all right? There, there we go.”
Liu Qingge’s eyes are still hazy. “You know you can tap three times if you need to stop, right, Shidi?” he asks, and gets a slow nod in return. He really is… enjoying this immensely, isn’t he?
Luo Binghe supports his weight as Shen Qingqiu presses kisses to his stomach and thighs, tasting sweat mingled with precum. He doesn’t expect Liu Qingge to last long, somewhat surprised when he doesn’t immediately come, but as he takes him deeper he feels his lips hit a firm hand and knows instantly what’s going on.
“Gonna make this so good for you, Liu-shishu,” Luo Binghe is saying, and then there’s the telltale sound of a bottle of oil uncapping. “It might feel a little strange at first, all right?”
There’s a disgruntled little noise from Liu Qingge, and then a gasp as Luo Binghe’s finger teases at his entrance. Shen Qingqiu holds him in his mouth for a while, going slack around him as he adjusts to the stretch; without having to be asked, he replaces Luo Binghe’s tight grip with his own, keeping Liu Qingge’s cock hard and ready for both of them.
He can tell when Luo Binghe’s found that sweet spot inside of Liu Qingge, because he groans, low in his throat, and fucks his hips forward a little into Shen Qingqiu’s waiting mouth. He stills immediately, babbling apologies, but Shen Qingqiu sinks down as far as he can go as if in answer, flattening his tongue, trying to wordlessly convey what he wants.
Luo Binghe’s fingers lazily play with him as he keeps up a constant stream of absolutely filthy commentary on the relative tightness of his hole and how well he’s doing. If the helpless noises being fucked relentlessly out of him are any indication, Liu Qingge is enjoying himself. Shen Qingqiu lets him fuck into his throat, rocking back and forth unevenly as he’s caught between two sources of overwhelming pleasure. He only lets his firm grip loosen when Liu Qingge is sobbing with need and begging incoherently, taking him all the way to the base as Luo Binghe thrusts his fingers deep inside.
“You liked that,” Luo Binghe tells Liu Qingge as they bathe in the hot springs. It’s not a question. “Having something inside you especially, didn’t you? Your hole was so greedy for me, and the way you were rocking back into my hand like that – you’re just desperate to be filled, aren’t you?”
“Shut up,” Liu Qingge says, splashing a generous handful of water on his face.
“Would you like his cock inside you tomorrow?”
Liu Qingge freezes completely, an unidentified mix of emotions flashing across his face. Shen Qingqiu wants to strangle his husband and not in the fun way, but also – is that something he’d like, to top Liu Qingge? What would it be like…?
Liu Qingge’s face flushes red, then white. Finally, he mutters something under his breath.
“He would, Shizun,” Luo Binghe says triumphantly. “I think he’s ready for you now. He’s been so good, hasn’t he?”
“Very good,” Shen Qingqiu says automatically.
Liu Qingge moans.
“Oh, fuck,” Shen Qingqiu breathes.
“He likes to be praised,” Luo Binghe says unnecessarily. “Don’t you, shishu?”
“Shut up, ” Liu Qingge says, uselessly. His cock has already started to fill out once more.
He comes apart for a second time that night on Luo Binghe’s tongue as Shen Qingqiu happily buries his face in his chest and kisses him through the aftershocks. He has to be carried back to his room, too exhausted and fucked-out to hold himself up anymore, and sleepily begs Shen Qingqiu to stay.
Helplessly, he looks up at his husband. Should he? Should Luo Binghe?
“Will you –”
“It’s all right, you stay tonight,” Luo Binghe whispers, eyeing the too-small bed critically. “There will be time for that.”
~*~
Liu Qingge wakes up feeling oddly sated, like he’s won a particularly difficult fight, but the only soreness he feels is a mild ache in his abs and thighs – barely anything, to an experienced cultivator. There’s a warm weight on his shoulder and another flung over his waist, and his legs are tangled up with something that he can’t quite place at first. A pillow?
“G’morning, Shidi,” says a sleepy voice next to his ear. “How are you feeling?”
Liu Qingge had been feeling pretty great, in that sleepy, content way, but at the sound of Shen Qingqiu’s voice it all comes crashing back with a vengeance. Oh. Yesterday, he –
It comes back to him in flashes, some of the memories oddly dulled as if viewed through a layer of mist. He’d been perfectly sober, but something about what he’d done yesterday had sent him into a blissed-out, floaty state where nothing seemed to matter except how good he’d felt.
He’d begged Shen Qingqiu to stay.
Shen Qingqiu, still half-asleep but seeming to be perfectly in possession of all his faculties, is happily curled up in his arms, legs tangled with his. His head drops from Liu Qingge’s shoulder and he nuzzles into Liu Qingge’s chest instead with a little noise. Is this what Luo Binghe wakes up to every morning?
Will he ever get to have this again?
There’s a soft laugh, a huff of breath. “I really did a number on you last night.”
He looks down; his chest is a patchwork of bites and bruises. He prods one experimentally and finds that the ache is pleasant, a reminder of how he’d won them.
“If you were serious, last night –”
Liu Qingge wracks his brain to remember what he could be referring to and, with a jolt that travels through his entire body, recalls saying, practically inaudibly but apparently still perfectly within demonic hearing range, that he would very much like to have Shen Qingqiu’s cock inside him, possibly forever.
Shen Qingqiu is still talking, and he’s missed half of it. “ – and you can pay me back in kind, Qingge, all right? Binghe already leaves so many marks, what’s a few more –”
Qingge.
“Can I kiss you,” Liu Qingge blurts out.
Shen Qingqiu looks at him like he’s said something ridiculous. “Anytime you like, I thought we’d established th –”
They hadn’t, but Liu Qingge doesn’t care in the least. He rolls on top of Shen Qingqiu and kisses him like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to, even though it’s starting to seem more and more like none of them will be the last time.
After a morning of slow, lazy kisses not intended to lead anywhere, they finally make it to the kitchen for cold leftovers and more kisses against the counter. In his enthusiasm, Shen Qingqiu knocks over a dish of flour left over from Luo Binghe making jiaozi earlier, and it devolves into a play-fight that leaves them both covered in flour. Liu Qingge doesn’t feel the itch to fight, to move, but he is starting to feel another itch somewhere deeper, one he’s not sure he wants to think about yet. It finally becomes too much to bear when Shen Qingqiu slides a teasing hand into his robes to grope at his chest, sometime in the late afternoon, and in answer he shrugs out of them entirely. Shen Qingqiu’s eyes darken, understanding his meaning, and there’s a flash of excitement on his face.
Maybe it’s just the allure of something new, but he’s so careful with Liu Qingge, so tender. He comes on those long, pale fingers, watching them disappear into his hole over and over until he can’t take it anymore. When they come to a stop inside him, leaving him deliciously filled but unsatisfied, he squirms backward, uncaring of the shocks of overstimulation that run through him.
“Just like Binghe,” Shen Qingqiu says fondly. “Both of you, incurable M’s. How did I manage to land myself two of them?”
Liu Qingge has no idea what that means, but he gets what he wants: Shen Qingqiu starts to move once more, this time avoiding his prostate and focusing on stretching him open. He adds a third finger, then a fourth, briefly, until Liu Qingge grabs his wrist.
“Ready,” he says breathlessly. “It’s all right, please –”
Nothing could have prepared him for what it feels like when Shen Qingqiu really, truly intends to fuck him. He slicks himself generously with oil, a little dribbling onto Liu Qingge’s thighs and staining the sheets in his haste, and takes himself in hand, guiding himself to where Liu Qingge is practically desperate to be filled once more. The fat head of his cock catches on Liu Qingge’s rim, drawing teasing circles and loosening him up still more, until in one push he feels it slip inside.
His breath leaves him on a sob, fingers clutching the sheets as he adjusts to the size and shape. He’s wanted this so much, for so long, and never once thought it could be real, that it could feel like this. He wants his body to memorize the shape of Shen Qingqiu, to stay loose and open for him always, ready to be used for his pleasure at any time.
Shen Qingqiu takes it slowly, and it’s the most delicious torture as he slides in until he’s fully sheathed inside Liu Qingge’s waiting body. Liu Qingge sobs again as he pulls almost all the way out and thrusts back in, overwhelmed in the best way.
After a few more slow thrusts, Shen Qingqiu guides him to sit up partway with his back against the headboard. He wants, Liu Qingge realizes, to be marked. He’s making it easier for Liu Qingge to reach his chest. Given a task, he focuses on sucking inexpertly at any strip of skin revealed to him, letting his own marks join Luo Binghe’s fading ones. He wonders what it will feel like to take Luo Binghe, what his own body feels like around Shen Qingqiu. Thinks about taking that massive cock, some other time, perhaps not so far away; how much deeper it would get, the challenge of it.
He doesn’t realize he’s said part of this aloud until Shen Qingqiu groans, low in his throat, and pushes him down to the bed with a hand on his chest to fuck into him hard and fast.
“This is the way he likes it, sometimes,” he says, breathless and glistening with sweat. Every time Liu Qingge thinks he cannot get more beautiful, he discovers a new side of his shixiong that sends him hurtling deeper into this feeling he can’t come back from. “When, ah, when he does it like this with me, he gets so deep I feel him in my throat. H-he, he tells me he can feel it the same when I’m on top but I think – nngh! – I think he’s lying – Qingge, god, you’re so tight –”
“Is that bad,” Liu Qingge says helplessly, trying to relax. He feels like all the tension is being fucked out of him slowly but surely.
“So cute,” Shen Qingqiu says under his breath. “I assure you it’s not, f-feels so good, like you were made for this –”
He can’t last, after that, helpless under the rush of emotion and pleasure as he comes so hard he sees white. Shen Qingqiu stills within him, clearly holding himself back if the aborted little movements of his hips are any indication.
“Keep going,” Liu Qingge manages to say. His voice doesn’t sound like his own. “As hard as you want, whatever you want, I’m yours, I’m yours –”
He realizes, as he comes dry for a second time with Shen Qingqiu’s come fucked deep inside him, that he’d meant it in the plural.
He must have fallen asleep at some point. He wakes (does he wake?) to Luo Binghe joining them; or, no, Shen Qingqiu is nowhere to be seen. He realizes, with mounting dread, that Shen Qingqiu had fucked him in his marital bed, since that’s definitely where he is right now. Will that anger Luo Binghe? What are the rules of their arrangement?
“You know, Shishu,” says Luo Binghe contemplatively, “I think we’ve been playing a little too fast and loose with the rules of this game. Shouldn’t we be more accurately replicating what each of us is given?”
Liu Qingge stares at him. “What?”
He blinks, and the bed has gotten impossibly larger. Is he hallucinating?
“We’re dreaming,” Luo Binghe tells him. A wave of his hand conjures an image: himself and Shen Qingqiu, next to them on the now ridiculously-sized bed. As Liu Qingge watches, Shen Qingqiu uncaps a bottle of oil and sets it on the nightstand, slicking up two fingers. Had his own face really been so… open? His desire written so plainly?
“Now, as he did to you,” Luo Binghe tells him. There’s a bottle of oil in Liu Qingge’s hand, now, and Luo Binghe is lounging on the bed next to the dream-Liu Qingge, that massive cock jutting proudly between his thighs. He lifts his hips up, and a pillow appears underneath them, exposing his perfect pink hole. Is everything about this man perfect?
Hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, Liu Qingge rocks his fingers in and out of that waiting entrance, trying to replicate Shen Qingqiu’s movements. He finds himself looking at the dream copies for guidance, crooking his finger at the same angle as dream-Shen Qingqiu. It’s a little different inside Luo Binghe, but he knows when he’s found that spot that had felt so good on himself; Luo Binghe gives a long, satisfied moan and tells him so, completely unabashed.
He strokes and massages that spot, letting Luo Binghe’s responsiveness guide him until he’s spilling between them with a soft cry. Obeying the rule he’s been given, he waits one moment, two, and then starts the movement of his fingers again.
Luo Binghe whimpers with overstimulation, tears coming to his eyes, and Liu Qingge can’t resist the urge to bully him. Where Shen Qingqiu had been endlessly gentle, only giving him what he could take, he hits that spot mercilessly with every thrust, adding a third finger and then a fourth in quick succession until Luo Binghe is panting and squirming under him.
“Qingge, ah, Qingge,” Luo Binghe says, half moan, half admonishment. “You’re not following directions, are you? Will we have to punish you for this later?”
He wants to protest at this, but the idea of being punished makes his own cock dribble a generous amount of precum, for reasons he doesn’t want to interrogate right now.
“You’re ready, aren’t you?” he snaps, pulling his fingers out unceremoniously.
“Yes,” Luo Binghe says, drawing it out and making it sound as lewd as possible.
He practically tosses the last of the oil over himself and lines himself up, rolling his eyes a little at Luo Binghe’s inviting little wriggle. As Shen Qingqiu had done, as the dream-Shen Qingqiu is doing at his side, he circles the head of his cock around Luo Binghe’s entrance a few times, letting it catch and drag on his rim. Obediently, he pushes in just as the Shen Qingqiu beside him does, letting just the head of his cock slip inside.
“I can take it,” Luo Binghe says defiantly, in complete contrast to his earlier order to do it exactly as Shen Qingqiu had. “Fuck me, just fuck me, please, I can take it –”
Liu Qingge can’t resist thrusting forward into that tight heat, relishing the way those walls clench and tremble around him. He fucks Luo Binghe harder and harder, the force of his thrusts moving him up the bed, and Luo Binghe meets him where he is, rocking back into him as his hole flutters deliciously.
Luo Binghe’s thighs start to tremble, and guided by some alien impulse, Liu Qingge picks one up and rests it on his shoulders. The new angle has Luo Binghe babbling incoherently, the terrifyingly powerful demon lord reduced to a whimpering mess begging to be fucked faster, harder, deeper, coming completely to pieces on his cock. The rush it gives him is like nothing else.
“So tight,” he echoes the illusory Shen Qingqiu. “Like you were made for this.”
A choked-off sob escapes Luo Binghe, and he suddenly flips their positions, pinning Liu Qingge to the bed with a hand around his throat as he rises up on his knees above him.
“Yes,” he says, “like this,” and rides him until he’s helpless not to come deep inside. Luo Binghe comes, too, all over his stomach and chest and a little on his face, and immediately flips him over and pins him to the bed on his stomach, letting his come dirty the illusory sheets.
“My turn,” and then that impossibly huge cock is carving its way deep inside him where he’s still fucked wet and loose from earlier. He can hear his own cries and Shen Qingqiu’s echoing next to him where their memory-selves are still lost in each other.
Liu Qingge’s hands scrabble for purchase on the sheets as he’s dragged up the bed by punishing thrust after punishing thrust. Shen Qingqiu had been right; it feels like it’s so deep inside him that it’ll become a permanent part of him, like he can feel it in his throat, and he never wants it to stop. In the real world, he’d probably need more time to adjust, but like this he can just let himself feel, let his body be pinned down and used and filled the way he’s already starting to crave.
“Ours,” Luo Binghe says, leaving a stinging bite on the nape of his neck. “Made for us, weren’t you?”
“Y-yes,” Liu Qingge manages to get out, tears and drool staining the sheets beneath him. “Is this – do you really want, ah, i-is this still just part of the game – fuck, Binghe, Binghe –!”
Abruptly, he loses the sensation of being filled, and it’s enough to make him let out a frustrated sob that echoes in a suddenly very real room. He’s lying in bed, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe on either side of him. He hasn’t been touched in the real world, but he’s so hard it aches.
“If you think we would give this up that easily, you’re wrong,” Luo Binghe’s voice says in his ear, low and dangerous and sultry.
“Of course we want you, Qingge.” Shen Qingqiu’s voice comes from his other side, fuzzy with sleep.
“As long as you’ll have us,” Luo Binghe adds.
“As long as you want,” Liu Qingge says, almost a sob, and when both their hands, clasped together, trace over his aching cock, it’s the sweetest relief.
He falls asleep once more as soon as he comes, held securely in two sets of arms.
Sunlight filters slowly into the room, tracing patterns across Liu Qingge's face and coaxing him out of a deep, restful sleep. He's in an unfamiliar bed, surrounded by warm bodies and comforting scents.
Someone presses a soft kiss to his shoulder. He finds he doesn't need to worry about who it is: there are only two options, and both make the same warmth well up in him. He presses closer to the one he's resting half on top of: Luo Binghe, whose curls brush along his jawline. Without opening his eyes, he kisses what's in front of him.
"Good morning," Luo Binghe says, a laugh in his voice.
"Mngh," Liu Qingge tells him succinctly, opening one eye to squint at him before craning his neck upwards slightly to nip at his earlobe.
"I thought Shishu was a morning person," Luo Binghe teases, one hand slipping downwards to give his ass a proprietary squeeze.
"Normally, yes," he says hoarsely. "Your fault."
"Mm, I could get used to this, though," says Shen Qingqiu from behind him. Slender arms squeeze at his waist, tangling with Luo Binghe's.
"You should," Liu Qingge says. "I want you to. Both of you." If it's still on the table, he does not say.
"Good," says Luo Binghe, the hint of a dangerous smile growing on his face. "Then you won't mind if I don't let either of you out of bed for a while."
In an impressively smooth motion, he slips out from underneath Liu Qingge and positions himself over Shen Qingqiu, pinning him to the mattress as he thoroughly kisses his husband. Tentatively, Liu Qingge tangles a hand in his curls, tugging lightly, and presses his mouth to Shen Qingqiu's neck. The twin moans it earns him are gratifying.
"I bet I can make him come faster than you," Luo Binghe says as he pulls away, tossing Liu Qingge a teasing glance over his shoulder. "In fact, why don't we make a little game out of it?"