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Yu Shengyan isn’t quite sure how he ended up in this situation: he’s an extremely handsome man, a demonic cultivator, and one of the stronger martial artists of his generation. His shizun is the number one martial artist in the jianghu, unrivaled by anyone else ranked by Liuli Palace. Yu Shengyan was accepted as Yan Wushi’s disciple well before he was ten years old, after running away from his parents: he’s accustomed to the life of a demonic cultivator, to taking what he wants and going where he pleases, unfettered and unbothered by things like morality or the opinions of others.
And here he is, in Chang’an, helping his shizun’s—well, something—helping Daoist Master Shen’s shidi with paperwork for Xuandu Temple, because Gu Hengbo asked Yuan Ying to step in for a few weeks so she could go visit Liuli Palace on a pretense so thin Yu Shengyan is surprised it didn’t blow away in the wind the moment Gu Hengbo opened her mouth.
Ordinarily, Yu Shengyan would have laughed at, even openly mocked, someone who was so blatantly pawning off her responsibilities onto her shixiong to go spend time with a crush. But doing so would make Gu Hengbo unhappy, and more importantly, it would make Yuan Ying and Shen Qiao unhappy. The last of these would make his shizun unhappy, and there were very few things in this world that Yu Shengyan was not willing to do, if it meant he could avoid drawing Yan Wushi’s ire.
So today he’s sitting on the arm of Yuan Ying’s chair, balancing easily on the thin wooden strut with his legs crossed in midair and pretending not to pay attention to anything except the book he brought with him. In actuality, he’s keeping a close ear on the petitioners who have come to beg intercession from Xuandu Temple. Shizun is always saying Bian Yanmei is better at this kind of thing, and he should learn more. Spending time here is clearly an expedient way to learn more on his own, without risking Bian Yanmei standing him in a library for three days to no ultimate end, like he did with that damn bamboo grove while Shizun was in seclusion.
(Shizun had laughed out loud, hearty and full-throated, when Yu Shengyan mentioned the bamboo grove. He’d even praised Bian Yanmei for it while Daoist Master Shen just looked slightly confused at his side.)
The book Yu Shengyan brought with him is a particularly lurid cutsleeve novel, and it is absolutely, unquestionably inappropriate reading for a Daoist temple. He’s sure some of the petitioners have recognized it, but that’s hardly his problem: they can’t exactly admit to recognizing it without showing their familiarity with the binding preferred by this particular publisher of spring books. Yuan Ying, for his part, clearly has no idea: he’d be flushed red as a boiled crab if he knew.
”Wait,” Yu Shengyan says, late in the afternoon, putting his book down. “Repeat that.”
Yuan Ying blinks, and looks at him, then at the man before him, who has paused with his mouth hanging open like a particularly stupid carp.
”Yu-shizhi,” Yuan Ying asks. “Is something wrong?”
Yu Shengyan pins the merchant with a steady glare and says again. “Repeat that.”
”Please, Lao Wu,” Yuan Ying adds, because he has appallingly polite manners, sometimes even more so than Daoist Master Shen.
The merchant stammers for a moment, worse than Yuan Ying at his most nervous, and then repeats his story of a caravan gone missing, and his inability to deliver the goods for which he had already received payment.
Yuan Ying will probably offer to forgive his debts, and sign a new contract for the same materials: he’s already done so once this morning for a scribe whose workshop had a fire.
The fire, however, actually happened. It took out a full block of Chang'an's mercantile district, and the air had been terrible for days. But Yu Shengyan can’t think of any caravans that have even been late in the last month: trade has been flourishing, and with the new Emperor protecting the roads between Chang’an and the new capital he's building in Daxing City, banditry in the North has decreased dramatically.
“Was this the caravan led by Shen Ping, by any chance?” Yu Shengyan asks, taking a shot in the dark.
The merchant stammers again.
“So it was,” Yu Shengyan says. “Yuan-shishu, that caravan arrived safely four days ago to great fanfare. They even rented one of the better pleasure houses for a full night to celebrate their profits. If Lao Wu doesn’t have your building materials, it’s not because the caravan was attacked.”
Yuan Ying looks between the two of them, clearly conflicted, unwilling to offend anyone, even the man lying to his face about thirty silver tael’s worth of cedar roof beams.
Gu Hengbo is so much better at this than Yuan Ying is, Yu Shengyan thinks. She would almost have been a good demonic cultivator, someone in the mold of Sect Leader Yuan or Sect Leader Bai. She’s absolutely willing to let people underestimate her as long as it gives her an advantage.
“As I see it,” Yu Shengyan says, kicking one foot idly as he perches on the edge of Yuan Ying’s chair arm. “You have two choices, Merchant Wu. You can provide the construction materials you contracted to bring, or you can repay the deposit plus twenty percent for attempted fraud.”
The merchant’s eyes bug out in protest.
“No?” Yu Shengyan asks. “Did you not read the full contract, Merchant Wu? The penalties for attempting to cheat Xuandu Temple are quite detailed, I assure you.”
Bian Yanmei himself worked on those clauses with Gu Hengbo, and if Yu Shengyan knows his shixiong, they’re watertight as can be imagined.
Yuan Ying frowns, shakes his head in a gesture that might be distress, but might also be a tacit signal for Yu Shengyan to shut the fuck up. Curious to see which it is, and what Yuan Ying will do if he’s left to deal with this on his own, Yu Shengyan shuts up.
“Lao Wu,” Yuan Ying says, and stands up from his chair, pushing Yu Shengyan out of his way with a casual gesture so he can bend over and take a closer look at the contract. He pauses a moment, reading, then stands back up to look the merchant in the eye. “I fear there may have been a … misunderstanding between your honored self and the caravans. Perhaps if you go talk to them, you will discover that our temple’s materials have been delivered after all?”
He pauses and raises a sleeve over his mouth, coughing so slightly it might not be audible to a non-cultivator. Yu Shengyan can all but see him circulating his qi to counteract his body’s tightness, the tension that so often makes his stutter worse. The merchant tenses up at the wait. Yuan Ying's robes, plain as they are, show his impressive physique to excellent advantage. The merchant seems to have realized, in the space of that brief pause, that Yuan Ying, in addition to being a mild-mannered and slightly incompetent temple administrator, is also one of the last three surviving disciples of Qi Fengge. He pales visibly.
“I’m sure such a mistake in communication could be easily corrected," Yuan Ying continues, and his smile is gentle, but Yu Shengyan is sure the merchant sees the threat of teeth behind it. "Why don’t you return in three days when you have sorted things out.”
His tone is more stern than Yu Shengyan has ever heard before. Between that and the casual manhandling he just experienced, Yu Shengyan keeps a calm expression on his face only with effort, feeling it tingle from his head to his toes.
This is ridiculous, he tells himself, even as his thighs clench together in incipient arousal. You’ve barely more than kissed him, and a simple shove has this much of an effect on you?
If he were wise, Yu Shengyan would find an excuse to leave Chang’an. He would fall into bed with any number of handsome men or beautiful women. If he were wise, he would forget all about his martial step-uncle’s sweet smile and unending, unwavering politeness in the face of Yu Shengyan’s most outrageous provocations, and his gradually increasing bravery at the prospect of physical intimacy.
Of course, Yu Shengyan thinks, with something halfway between despair and delight, very few people have ever accused any demonic cultivators of being wise, much less anyone associated with my shizun.
The merchant nods like a broken puppet and backs out of the room, leaving them alone. When the door clicks shut behind him, Yuan Ying collapses back down into his chair.
”Yuan-er,” Yu Shengyan whines, draping himself over Yuan Ying’s lap in a controlled slither. “Isn’t that enough for one day?”
Yuan Ying flushes to his hairline.
“Shengyan,” he says, more than a little flustered. “Please get up. Not here.”
Yu Shengyan makes a show of sulking, but decides not to protest his good intentions, because that’s not a no. It’s only “not here,” and he can work with that. So he steals a kiss, and then pops to his feet before Yuan Ying can start to make the smoothly polite face that means he’s running to the end of his patience.
“Surely that’s enough for today,” Yu Shengyan demands. “More than enough. Come on, Shizun has taken Daoist Master Shen to an inn famous for its music tonight.”
Yuan Ying’s ears pink slightly at the implications, as he always does, but he doesn’t protest, and even walks beside Yu Shengyan back to the Junior Preceptor’s manor, stopping at a food stall to pick up dinner on the way, since the cook will have been given the night off in Yan Wushi’s absence.
Yu Shengyan supposes, as he pushes open the gate to the Junior Preceptor’s Manor, that they could have gone to an inn to have a proper meal, but he doesn’t suggest it. He’s not inclined to spend the evening letting Yuan Ying get wrapped up in his head about the rest of the night when they could go straight home, dismiss the servants, and see where their time together leads them this time. Yu Shengyan doesn’t think of himself as a patient person, but it turns out there are some things he’s willing to wait for: his shizun to come out of seclusion, for one; Yuan Ying’s willingness to sleep with him, for another.
Yuan Ying pauses when they reach the division in the hall that splits the guest area from the areas intended for family—or as Yu Shengyan and Bian Yanmei have taken to calling them, the Daoist courtyards and the demonic courtyards.
”Have a drink with me?” He asks, and Yuan Ying, clearly grateful to be given an excuse to do what he wants to do, nods.
Yu Shengyan doesn’t understand this about Yuan Ying—or about Daoist Master Shen, for that matter. If you want something, you take it, or you try to take it. If you fail, you get stronger and try again. What point is there to self denial?
Yu Shengyan pointedly doesn’t think too hard about the fact that there’s something—someone—he wants at his side right now, and he’s being more patient about his desired partner’s skittishness than he’s ever been before in his life. If he does, he might have to admit that at least a little bit of his hesitation to reach out and grab, and damn the consequences, is a desire not to hurt Yuan Ying, rather than fear of his shizun’s wrath for defiling his step-shibo.
Yu Shengyan pulls out some wine from his personal stash, and skips cups. Either Yuan Ying is in an adventurous mood tonight, and he’ll share the bottle, or Yu Shengyan will find out before he gets his hopes up for more.
They’re about to finish the bottle—Yuan Ying hadn’t looked like it would even occur to him to protest the lack of cups—when Yuan Ying leans over and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
”Shengyan,” he says, voice throaty. “Let’s go in.”
Yu Shengyan blinks, shocked. Then he drains the last of the wine and puts the bottle down to be dealt with later.
“Whatever you want,” he says.
It comes out raw, too honest. He’s almost embarrassed on his own behalf, but Yuan Ying just smiles.
“Come on,” Yuan Ying says.
And he practically pulls Yu Shengyan into his rooms, behind the screens that separate off his bedroom, and kisses him again, harder than he had out in the courtyard.
Yu Shengyan kisses back, placing a cautious hand on Yuan Ying's cheek to tilt his head slightly into the kiss, not touching him otherwise. They've done this much before, but Yuan Ying bolted like a frightened rabbit when Yu Shengyan tried to grab his ass the very first time. He froze in place in shock and disentangled himself politely, frigidly, when Yu Shengyan tried to unfasten his robes a month and a half ago. Since then Yu Shengyan has let Yuan Ying set the pace, glacial as it is. He only touches where Yuan Ying guides his hands, only kisses as hard as Yuan Ying starts kissing him.
The slow pace is torture. His hands and his toys have gotten more use than they have in years, but there's something almost sweet about the anticipation, as well. He's prepared to keep waiting longer than this, if that's what Yuan Ying wants, what he needs.
So it's a shock when, after a few minutes of heated kisses, Yuan Ying steps back and starts unfastening the belts of his robes with steady hands.
Yu Shengyan gapes, frozen in place, and Yuan Ying pauses, hands stilling on his outer robes.
“D-do you not—“ Yuan Ying starts to ask, and Yu Shengyan surges forward to kiss him before he can finish that sentence.
“I want,” he says, against Yuan Ying’s slightly chapped lips. “Of course I want you.”
Yuan Ying looks down, blushing slightly, and Yu Shengyan can’t help but to reach out to tip his chin back up to see him, has to lean in and kiss him again, harder and fiercer than he’s dared before.
“Shengyan,” Yuan Ying protests, pulling back slightly. “I can’t — I need to —“ his hands flutter around his robes, as if he’s not sure anymore how they come off.
“Let me,” Yu Shengyan says, and proceeds to strip him layer by layer, cautious, not quite believing this is real, until only his pants remain.
“You too,” Yuan Ying says, and it might almost be a demand, except for the slight shake in his voice.
Yu Shengyan strips faster than he ever has in his life, down to his pants as well. Yuan Ying makes a disappointed noise, and Yu Shengyan strips to bare skin from head to toe, pulls aside his guan and tosses it onto the pile of robes without a second thought.
Yuan Ying just watches, arms crossed over his broad chest, and Yu Shengyan wonders, for the first time, if Yuan Ying has ever seen another man like him before, another man like the two of them. They both started cultivating early enough that certain changes could be suppressed, but when Yan Wushi went into his ten year seclusion, Yu Shengyan hadn’t had anyone to find him the necessary texts for the next steps. From the breadth of his shoulders, it looks like Yuan Ying didn't have that problem.
“Well?” Yuan Ying asks, breaking his train of thought.
“Well what?” Yu Shengyan asks, a little snappish.
“Is that—I mean—“ Yuan Ying looks aside, blushing.
Yu Shengyan is tempted to make him finish the sentence, but he’d rather not waste this opportunity on bullying. He’s not strong enough to overpower Yuan Ying and keep him in place while he calms down, so none of his shizun’s somewhat dubious tactics in wooing Daoist Master Shen are likely to work for him.
“Come here,” he says, instead, and steps over to his bed, pulling back the top layers of covers and sitting down on the edge.
Yuan Ying moves to sit next to him, and Yu Shengyan tsks, guiding him to sit straddling his lap. If they had cocks, they’d be rubbing together, with how closely they’re pressed to each other. Instead it’s just the heat of skin against skin between their chests, and the rasp of Yuan Ying’s homespun pants against Yu Shengyan’s thighs. Yu Shengyan makes a mental note to arrange for Yuan Ying's laundry to be mysteriously ruined, if this is what his pants feel like. He deserves better.
Then Yuan Ying leans down for a kiss, tentative but unprompted, and Yu Shengyan's thoughts scatter as he shudders with want. He rests his hands on Yuan Ying’s waist and squeezes, hears Yuan Ying moan against his mouth.
”Like that?” He asks, and does it again.
“Mm,” Yuan Ying replies, and chases his mouth, clearly unwilling to stop kissing.
They stay like that for what feels like no time at all, and also like an eternity. By the time Yuan Ying pulls back, Yu Shengyan is on fire with longing, can feel the warm wetness between his legs. If he doesn’t get to come tonight, he’s going to cry, and he won't even be embarrassed about it.
Then Yuan Ying pulls back, leans away from him. Yu Shengyan knows he shouldn't, but he can’t help it: he holds onto Yuan Ying's hips, just for a moment, before he forces himself to let go.
“I’m just—“ Yuan Ying says, blushing all the way down to his collarbones. “J-just—let me—“
He stands up, and shucks off his pants and underwear, and Yu Shengyan can see the wet shine on the insides of the garments catch the light as they fall. The knowledge that Yuan Ying is not unaffected hits him like a palm-strike to the sternum, knocking the air out of him all at once.
Yuan Ying hovers for a moment, then sits down next to him. Yu Shengyan pulls him into a kiss, rolls them over so they’re both lying on the bed next to each other, runs a hand down Yuan Ying’s flank, teasing and testing at the same time.
They’ve never made it to this point before: Yuan Ying is ascetic by training, if not by temperament, and getting him to realize that he’s allowed to want this, that he’s allowed to have it, has been an uphill battle every step of the way.
Good thing shizun doesn’t take on quitters, Yu Shengyan thinks, because this has already been worth the wait.
“Come here, Yuan-er,” he says. “Tell me what you want.”
Like he expected, this makes Yuan Ying flush again.
“I don’t know,” Yuan Ying says, but he’s defiant, not afraid, not hesitant. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Yu Shengyan grins, and then leans over Yuan Ying with a grin.
“Gladly,” he purrs, and bends down to press soft, open-mouthed kisses to Yuan Ying’s lips, his jawline, the line of his neck.
“First I want to kiss every inch of you,” he whispers against his skin. “Pay extra attention to the places that make you squirm, the ones that get you hot, that make you moan. Maybe bite a little, if it turns out you like that.”
Yuan Ying gasps, then brings a hand to his mouth to silence himself.
“I want to hear you, Yuan-er,” Yu Shengyan says. “Why don’t you put your hands over your head, hm? Let me see you be good for me.”
He thinks for a moment that he’s gone too far, but then Yuan Ying complies, wrapping his hands around the uprights of the bed frame and looking up at him with big brown eyes. Yu Shengyan swears under his breath.
“Wh-what else,” Yuan Ying asks, his gaze never leaving Yu Shengyan’s face..
Smiling, Yu Shengyan leans down and nips at Yuan Ying’s collarbone, because he can, then soothes it with a kiss.
“Touch you all over,” he says. “Spread your legs and settle in to bite bruises into your thighs, not touch you until you’re dripping and begging for it, lick into your cunt until you come, maybe push you over the edge again as fast as I can.”
His voice is getting raspier and raspier the more he talks about this. He can't believe this is happening: was he concussed at some point this evening? Is he having the world's sexiest qi deviation?
“O-okay,” Yuan Ying all but moans, and Yu Shengyan almost passes out as he feels Yuan Ying spreading his legs beneath him, the nonverbal invitation perfectly clear.
He licks his lips, grins, and gets to work.
Some time later, Yuan Ying groans, long and low, and Yu Shengyan sucks on his clit again before slipping a finger against the seam of him. He hums an inquisitive noise, and Yuan Ying cries out, arching his back. Even from the outside edges, Yu Shengyan can feel his cunt clenching around nothing. He slips one finger in, quick and smooth, and Yuan Ying moans something that might be a word, or might not.
“Speak up,” Yu Shengyan says, and bites the inside of one pale thigh before curling his finger up just so, crooking it to find the place that will make Yuan Ying shudder.
“M-more,” Yuan Ying gasps, nearly sobbing. “Please, more.”
Yu Shengyan gives him a second finger, then a third, and when Yuan Ying comes for the third time, he arches off the bed so hard he nearly throws Yu Shengyan off of him.
“Shit,” Yu Shengyan says, fervent, still knuckle-deep in Yuan Ying’s body and already rubbing at his own clit with his free hand, wishing he were more ambidextrous, wanting Yuan Ying’s hands on him, not wanting to scare him off or break whatever spell was laid on them tonight. “Shit, you’re so hot like this.”
Yuan Ying laughs in disbelief, but he doesn’t sound like he’s offended. Yu Shengyan can’t focus on anything at the moment except his own spiraling pleasure, his own need.
He stays like that, kneeling between Yuan Ying's legs, stroking himself faster and faster, unable to spread his legs quite far enough between Yuan Ying's broad thighs, unwilling to move.
Yuan Ying's eyes slipped closed at some point, but he opens them again and pins Yu Shengyan with his gaze. He looks from Yu Shengyan's chest down to his hand working between his legs, and his expression grows heated, as if he likes what he sees.
"Yuan-er has had his, and now he's only going to watch?" Yu Shengyan pants, keeping his tone as light as he can manage, clearly teasing.
He wouldn't mind, honestly. He pauses for long enough to pull his fingers away from Yuan Ying's body, and then uses that hand, slick as it is, to stroke his clit, long circling gestures that are what he likes best.
"Like what you see?" he asks, breathless. "What else do you want, hm?"
And then he’s being pulled up by the shoulder, the grip too strong, too rough for comfort. He moans, long and low, and Yuan Ying is kissing him urgently, gripping at his shoulder, his side, his hands strong and callused and so, so warm.
“Tell me,” Yuan Ying says against his lips. “Shengyan. Tell me what you want.”
So Yu Shengyan does.
With the amount of sleep they miss that night, it’s a miracle either of them looks even halfway presentable by the time his shizun reappears the next morning.
From the looks on their faces—and the marks on Daoist Master Shen's neck—it’s quite clear that music wasn’t the only thing his shizun enjoyed last night: Yu Shengyan has a moment to hope his own behavior wasn’t quite so obvious before Yan Wushi looks between the two of them and nods once, decisively.
“About damn time,” he says. Then he walks away, completely ignoring Daoist Master Shen’s questions about what, exactly, he meant.
Beside him, Yu Shengyan sees Yuan Ying put his bright-red face in his hands.
”It could be worse,” Yu Shengyan whispers to him. “He could be giving us advice.”
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