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Liu Qingge is, for want of a better word, fucked. He presses his teeth together and runs his tongue over the back of his canines, trying to keep his breathing steady. His face is impassive, aside from the tension in his jaw, as he watches Luo Binghe kiss Shen Qingqiu fondly on the cheek.
He leaves. Luo Binghe walks away.
“Have fun playing with Liu-Shishu,” he says, a mocking twinkle in his eyes. Liu Qingge’s shoulders stiffen.
They don’t play when Luo Binghe isn’t around. One of the first rules established. Not that it matters anymore. Not when Liu Qingge has gone and broken the biggest rule of them all. An unspoken one, but still.
It’s a low blow from Luo Binghe to say that, but he must be giddy with his victory. Liu Qingge confessed what Luo Binghe has known this whole time. He won. The only thing that surprises Liu Qingge about any of this is that, afterwards, Luo Binghe is happy enough to leave him alone with Shen Qingqiu.
A new form of torture, perhaps.
And now Luo Binghe will be gone for the rest of the day. Never before has Liu Qingge resented that fact. He likes Luo Binghe well enough these days, but he usually anticipates his rare time alone with Shen Qingqiu more eagerly than this. He’s never quite so…apprehensive.
Liu Qingge has never dealt well with embarrassment.
And Shen Qingqiu doesn’t help with that in the slightest.
He’s stiff, too. His fingers are tapping against the table, nails digging into the wood and carving little grooves there. Clearly just as uncomfortable as Liu Qingge.
Well, they don’t have to talk about it. They can just pretend none of it happened. Liu Qingge did not get himself in over his head. He didn’t say anything he intended to keep secret. Nothing has changed. If he tells himself that enough, maybe he can believe it.
If Liu Qingge is lucky, and if he can pretend hard enough, perhaps things will continue as they are. Luo Binghe will continue to taunt him about his not-so-secret feelings while Shen Qingqiu takes him apart. He’d like to sleep in their cloud-like bed, but he’d understand if that was no longer allowed. As long as he got to stay…in some capacity.
He can put his feelings aside. They can play with him all they want. Nothing more has to be said, his confession can be forgotten.
He could take that. He could live with it.
What he couldn’t live with, now that he’s experienced Shen Qingqiu’s searing touch, is being forced back out. Because Shen-Shixong is kind, he will still treat Liu Qingge as a friend. He might not mention the boundary crossed between them, but it will be clear enough anyway. And Liu Qingge will always be poisoned by the knowledge of what he had, and what he ruined.
He’d rather sleep at the foot of their bed like a dog than be tossed aside.
He can handle a few blows to his pride, so long as nobody else sees them. Luo Binghe would probably like that well enough.
He will not think about what he could have had.
He will not think about Shen Qingqiu’s tight, closed-lipped smile and what it means. His hands have stilled, settled into his lap. No longer beating out his awkwardness on the unfortunate table. Even with all he knows he cannot have, Liu Qingge cannot help but fall into that smile.
“Would you like to see some cool swords?”
Shen Qingqiu’s words rush out quickly, like he is uncomfortable in the silence, but the faint redness on his cheeks suggests something…else. Liu Qingge can’t imagine what. It isn’t Shen Qingqiu who should be embarrassed, after all. He hasn’t done anything wrong.
But Shen Qingqiu doesn’t want him to leave, he realises. And he has been promising to show Liu Qingge Luo Binghe’s armoury for weeks. It’s just that usually they get sidetracked. Time alone between them is rare and usually spent…chatting. Liu Qingge is not a talkative person, but with Shen Qingqiu he finds that he wants to tell him everything. And Shen Qingqiu seems to enjoy poking fun at him for his lack of storytelling flair when he recounts his hunts to him.
And Luo Binghe hadn’t told him to leave either. He’d seemed…normal. Maybe he’s overthinking this entirely. Did they not hear him, perhaps? Is that too much to hope for?
No, that can’t be the case. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t commonly blush like that unless he’s feeling awkward.
The two of them simply haven’t had the time to discuss what to do with him. Perhaps they are concerned that if they let him leave, he will hide himself in seclusion and things will remain unclear between them. A reasonable assumption. But Liu Qingge is a selfish man, and he will take every second of Shen Qingqiu’s company that he is allowed.
Even if it means he will be cast aside later. Perhaps he’ll beg. He isn’t sure. He’s never been in a situation like this before, never felt so deeply for someone that the prospect of losing them could unspool him entirely. He doesn’t want to leave.
So, he nods. He dresses quickly and follows Shen Qingqiu to the armoury, keeping his pace only a half a step behind. Close enough that Shen Qingqiu will hopefully not notice the difference, but far enough away that he cannot easily see Liu Qingge’s face in his periphery.
The armoury is a safe choice. Swords and stuff. Liu Qingge can deal with swords and stuff. When they arrive – and Shen Qingqiu fiddles with the strange locking mechanism on the door – he realises that it is more of a museum. He cannot stop his eyes from widening when they step inside.
One thing that Luo Binghe and Liu Qingge share, other than a love for Shen Qingqiu, is an admiration for swordcraft.
Each weapon, whether hung on the wall or encased in glass, is polished to perfection. There are weapons of all kinds. From heavy longswords to short daggers, swooping scythes and vicious maces. Every kind of weapon one could imagine is displayed here in this room. Hundreds.
But what calls him the most is the small placards beside each display, written in Shen Qingqiu’s elegant hand explaining the name, origins, and special ability of each weapon.
“Um,” Shen Qingqiu says awkwardly, fiddling with the hem of his sleeves. He must have left his fan behind in his haste to distract Liu Qingge. “I helped organise Binghe’s collection a few years ago, and I’ve been keeping on top of it since then.”
Liu Qingge nods. The tidiness has Luo Binghe written all over it, but the careful research and elegant displays are all Shen Qingqiu.
Shen Qingqiu gives an uncomfortable chuckle and wrings his hands together. Liu Qingge wants to hold them still and assure him that everything will be fine. He doesn’t need to feel awkward around Liu Qingge. He won’t hold a grudge at being thrown away, if that is his decision. He’ll survive. He knows that Shen-Shixiong didn’t agree to Liu Qingge’s…feelings. It’s just sex. It was meant to be just sex. He’s married. Some men might take multiple spouses, but nothing that has transpired would suggest that Shen Qingqiu is one of them.
“This one is new,” Shen Qingqiu says.
He trots over to a wide podium that has a broken sword laid out on it. The pieces are all lined up a few inches apart in an approximation of how they would appear together. It seems to be engraved, all along its blade, in a strange cursive language Liu Qingge cannot read.
He’s intrigued by it. Truly, he has never seen a blade quite like this before. A cultivator’s sword doesn’t usually shatter like that, in diamond-shaped pieces.
“Is it demonic?” he asks.
“Hm? Oh, no. Actually, it detects demons.”
Liu Qingge raises an eyebrow, prompting Shen Qingiqu to continue. An unusual feature for a sword, to be sure.
“Well, it detects demonic qi. Anything that doesn’t have the power to disguise itself. It wouldn’t work on, say, Binghe or Mobei-Jun. It glows blue.” Surprisingly, Shen Qingqiu rolls his eyes. “Talk about mixing your metaphors,” he adds under his breath.
Confused by the reaction, Liu Qingge prods more deeply.
“It has a name?”
Shen Qingqiu groans – an even more confusing response to a relatively inane question. “Wasp Tail,” he says. “It’s not even – such a stupid…” He trails off and shakes his head, forcefully biting his lip.
Despite himself, Liu Qingge feels the corner of his lip creep upwards, just minutely. He rather enjoys Shen Qingqiu’s strange rants. He seldom understands them, but he likes that impassioned look that settles over his face, the enthusiasm (and the derision) that is rarely seen by others. It makes him feel special. He doesn’t know many others, aside from himself and Luo Binghe (and, much to his chagrin, Shang Qinghua), to have seen him that way.
Shen Qingqiu snorts one final time, muttering something about a “complete lack of creativity and integrity” under his breath. There must be some history to the blade he hasn’t seen fit to share with Liu Qingge. Ancient artisans often copied one another’s work, so he can only assume it is not one of a kind and that is what has Shen Qingqiu griping.
Seems pretty unique to Liu Qingge, though.
“It is marvellous,” Liu Qingge says. And Shen Qingqiu smiles.
“It is pretty cool, I guess,” he admits. “But not nearly the coolest thing Binghe’s collected.”
Liu Qingge nods and follows as Shen Qingqiu excitedly bounds away. He’s not exactly sure what cool means, but it’s a word Shen Qingiqu uses frequently. He’s deduced that it is a positive thing, and long accepted that he will never quite understand. But Liu Qingge has become accustomed to the stranger parts of Shen Qingqiu’s vocabulary.
They draw to a stop before the opposite wall. Hung up on it, strung by several fat metal chains, is a mace twice the size of a grown man. The spikes on its head are twisted like corkscrews, vicious and sharp.
He cannot imagine the kind of creature to have wielded this. Was it someone that Luo Binghe defeated, or is it simply a relic? Some weapons are built for ornamentation rather than use, but this looks far too inelegant and brutish for that.
“This is demonic,” Shen Qingqiu says with an excited grin.
Liu Qingge inches closer, examining the weapon from all angles. He wants to free it from its chains and see if he can lift it. How immensely powerful he’d feel taking this into battle! It’s more brute force than skill, and not a cultivator’s weapon at all. Liu Qingge could do far more damage with Cheng Luan than he could with this monstrosity. But it would be…cool…he thinks.
“The spikes are constructed like that to drain qi. They cause complex wounds, a mix of bludgeoning, piercing, and tearing. Makes it difficult to heal quickly.”
Liu Qingge has never backed down from a battle in his life, but he finds himself feeling glad that he didn’t face the mace’s previous owner. He might have been able to take them – he’s quick enough and skilled enough to dodge something lumbering like this – but he’s not confident he’d have made it out entirely unscathed.
Beside him, Shen Qingqiu shrugs. “Overkill, in my opinion.”
Liu Qingge barks a short laugh in agreement. Shen Qingqiu’s head whips round and his eyes are shining, bright and excited. Liu Qingge feels the familiar rush he gets when Shen Qingqiu talks about his research. Strange animals, mysterious artefacts, dangerous swords. He could listen to him talk for hours.
“What about that one?” he asks, pointing to a three-pronged hand dagger in a shallow casing. Shen Qingqiu begins his next spiel excitedly, and Liu Qingge listens fondly.
He follows eagerly as Shen Qingqiu gives him the full tour of the armoury. Most often, Shen Qingqiu’s speech is uninterrupted as he leaps from weapon to weapon. Sometimes he even lets Liu Qingge hold them, but only the ones that are least volatile and easily accessible. Liu Qingge knows the rules here. He knows just which questions to ask to keep Shen Qingqiu talking and how to direct him back onto subject when he gets distracted.
He swings the swords he’s allowed to and basks in the praise he receives in turn. Beautiful form, Shidi! Shen Qingqiu cheers. He is free with his compliments, but Liu Qingge relishes in them all the same. He wants them forever and he forgets, for a little while, that he is balancing on tenterhooks.
When the tour is over, they eat lunch in a lush garden surrounded by plants that, realistically, shouldn’t grow in the demon realm. Shen Qingqiu doesn’t complain verbally, but he does shake his head and scoff under his breath occasionally. Liu Qingge can’t blame him. He’s been spoiled by Luo Binghe’s cooking, too, and everything else pales in comparison.
Being called away so quickly, Luo Binghe hadn’t had time to prepare anything for them like he usually does when he has to work. Liu Qingge scolds himself for such a selfish thought. What would his shizun think if he saw Liu Qingge now, catered to by a demon emperor? The demon chefs are not bad at all, and Bai Zhan Peak raised him away from luxury. He shouldn’t bemoan the lack of a personal chef, of all things.
He's heard that Luo Binghe trains his chefs personally, so that they can approximate his fine cooking for Shen Qingqiu when he is away for longer stretches. Shen Qingqiu lays down his chopsticks, his plate not quite clean. Clearly, they still have some work to do.
“What would Shidi like to do next?” Shen Qingqiu asks.
A thousand images flash through Liu Qingge’s mind, not all of them appropriate. He shakes them away, visions of Shen Qingqiu’s mouth on his neck or his hand intertwined with Liu Qingge’s forced out of his head. Those are not thoughts he can entertain.
He thinks of all the things they usually do together, without Luo Binghe. Talk, mainly. Go for walks. Spar, occasionally, which is invigorating but Luo Binghe gets mad at him if he doesn’t let Shen-Shixiong win, and Shen-Shixiong gets mad if Liu Qingge goes easy on him. It always ends in a round of bickering between them, and Liu Qingge caught awkwardly in the middle.
But one thing stands out as his favourite of all.
“Would you play for me?” he asks. He feels his face flush with embarrassment at asking the question, but Shen Qingqiu gives him a precious, shy smile in return, and nods.
So, they go to the library. Liu Qingge feels warm and sated, falling comfortably at last into the promise that, whatever comes next, he will still have this day. A day spent basking in Shen Qingqiu’s presence. That, he will never lose.
He sits on a plush, upholstered sofa while Shen Qingqiu lights a fire in the hearth and sets up his guqin. It’s really too luxurious. Too soft, just like the bed. He can’t help but fidget.
He stills, however, when Shen Qingqiu starts playing.
It’s a soft, gentle tune at first. Something he’s heard him play a hundred times before, sometimes through the open window of the bamboo house while Liu Qingge waits outside, not wanting to disturb him before the end of the song.
Liu Qingge watches his fingers. They’re so long, and he knows that while they are calloused from guqin strings, they are still soft. He watches Shen Qingqiu’s hands as if they are magical things, coaxing music from nowhere. Liu Qingge has no talent for it himself, his shizun having never seen fit to teach any of the four arts to his disciples. Even Liu Qingge’s calligraphy is lacking.
But Shen Qingqiu has no lack. His face is serene as he plays, save for a small crease in his brow when he concentrates on one note or another. The music does something to Liu Qingge. He never understood, when he was younger. Music was a frivolity. Something for scholars, not warriors.
Maybe that is true, but Liu Qingge is enraptured, nonetheless. Hardly aware of his body, he sinks lower into the too-soft cushions and rests his elbow on the arm of the sofa, resting his chin in his hand. His eyes begin to droop.
Even when Shen Qingqiu plays a jauntier tune – something Liu Qingge has never heard before, but that has Shen Qingqiu’s head bopping adorably in time with it – he feels his lids pulled down. It’s like a spell. A cocoon.
The unusual songs continue. Strange tunes he knows aren’t ones Shen Qingqiu would have learnt from Qing Jing Peak. Did he learn them on his travels, perhaps? Or are they original compositions?
Liu Qingge opens his mouth to ask when the song draws to a close, but what escapes him instead is a yawn. He hums to himself as Shen Qingqiu begins his next song. He allows his eyes to finally drift shut. He doesn’t need to sleep. A night’s fitful rest, like he got last night, unable to let himself sink into the soft clouds of Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu’s bed with his mind riddled with thoughts of his own stupid mouth, is plenty to keep him active. He isn’t someone who naps. But he’s so warm.
He slips lower into his cushions, lulled by Shen Qingqiu’s music. It feels like it’s cradling him, a nonverbal promise that nothing has changed. Liu Qingge doesn’t know about that. Shen Qingqiu is kind, but he too has limits. Liu Qingge won’t begrudge him those. Even if he isn’t permitted to offer himself up for Shen Qingqiu’s pleasure anymore, he will take the kindness greedily.
He hardly notices when the music gently tingles to a stop, not until a blanket is being tucked around his shoulders. He doesn’t need it; it’s warm enough already with the fire blazing. But he does not protest. A sleepy, contented noise is the only sound he can make in response. He lets Shen Qingqiu pull off his shoes and tuck him in, drifting somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. Malleable and limp, like a child’s doll.
Shen Qingqiu hovers above him, a shadowy echo that Liu Qingge feels pulsing against his skin. Like it’s magnetic. Liu Qingge mumbles something. He doesn’t know what. He can barely string two coherent thoughts together. He’s never so relaxed as when Shen Qingqiu plays for him. On Bai Zhan Peak he sleeps only when necessary, never for the pleasure of it. But sleeping in his barracks, alone, is much different. It isn’t cold but…it is. In a different way.
Everything is cold when Shen Qingqiu isn’t there.
Liu Qingge thinks about moving his fingers, grabbing Shen Qingqiu by the hand and keeping him close. He doesn’t want to sleep alone. He imagines himself doing it, and for a moment thinks he has, but it is only a dream-like vision. A glimpse of what he might do, were he awake enough.
He thinks, too, that he is half-dreaming when he feels Shen Qingqiu’s fingers – the very ones he has watched play the guqin countless times, the same ones that have been inside of him – tuck a lock of Liu Qingge’s hair behind his ear. And then. Closer, a heavy shadow above him. A light, warm pressure on his forehead.
Liu Qingge’s heart hammers so loudly he’s certain Shen Qingqiu must be able to hear it. To feel it, where his lips rest, just for a moment, on Liu Qingge’s skin.
It lasts only a second, and then Shen Qingqiu’s shadow is gone. Liu Qingge wants to protest, to drag him back and ask him to explain. To beg for more. Another kiss, to keep him sated. To keep him greedy. But before he can flutter his eyes open, Shen Qingqiu’s kiss sends a warm flutter through his entire body, and he falls asleep.
Liu Qingge wakes as gently as he fell asleep, in small moments he can’t quite make out. The river’s edge between his dreams and his reality is flooded, mixing everything together in a large pool of lazy water. He blinks his eyes open slowly but feels no urge to move.
He leisurely casts his eyes around, with long, slow blinks. The fire is dying, just a flickering ember. And Shen Qingqiu is curled up in the armchair near him, legs pulled onto the seat and his head pressed back into the headrest. He has a furred blanket on his knees, a matching pair with the one draped over Liu Qingge.
For a moment, Liu Qingge closes his eyes again, feeling warm and content. His cheeks are burning hot. All of him is, really. It’s far too warm under such a thick hide. He sluggishly pulls himself into a seated position, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders.
Out of the window, he sees that hours have passed. How many of those he spent sleeping and how many he spent watching Shen Qingqiu play, he cannot be sure. Time passed around him in a blur, locked into some spell of Shen Qingqiu’s. One he probably doesn’t even know he can cast.
Call him a voyeur, but Liu Qingge watches some more. He watches the rise and fall of Shen Qingqiu’s chest. He watches the way his simple hair ribbon tugs its way loose, trapped between his head and the back of the chair. He watches his hands, twined loosely in the furs around him. His cheeks are pink, too, from the heat.
If only Liu Qingge could paint, he could keep this image forever.
He wants to kiss that heated skin, press his face against warm cheeks and breathe in the scent that is Shen Qingqiu. Will he forget it, if he is sent away? Will he forget what it smells like, what it tastes like, when Shen Qingqiu comes in his mouth? Will he remember the way Shen Qingqiu strokes his hair, but forget how it feels? How could he live like that?
He wants to touch. But touching, he realises, is not enough. Not if the touch is all he gets. Shen Qingqiu always touches him with care, with fondness, with…love? He isn’t foolish enough to hope. If Shen Qingqiu loves him, it is more likely to be the affection of friendship and, maybe, the thrill of the things they do together than anything more.
Liu Qingge has ruined himself. He is a greedy, selfish man. He will always want more. He craves it, like he would drown without it. Like to have Shen Qingqiu is to have the ability to breathe. He has loved Shen Qingqiu for so long, he’s forgotten what anything else feels like. How could he stand it, to be cold again?
He doesn’t wish to know.
But, he reminds himself, Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu cannot have talked much before he joined them for breakfast this morning. When Luo Binghe returns, he should politely excuse himself. Allow them to decide his fate in private. There is no use mulling it over. He’d only be torturing himself.
He will accept the verdict, of course he will. But he will mourn the touches he’s always craved, the touches that are so much yet not quite enough.
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes flutter open and stare right at him, piercing even through sleepy, hooded lids. Liu Qingge is greeted with a smile and a stretch. Shen Qingqiu lifts his arms above his head and arches his back. It exposes the long line of his throat, the collar of his robes tugged down to reveal his clavicle.
“Nice nap?” Shen Qingqiu asks.
“Pleasant,” he replies. Because it was. He’s not sure he’s ever slept so well in his life, not even with Shen Qingqiu’s body next to his. Somehow the weight of Shen Qingiqu’s lips on his forehead – did that really happen, or did he imagine it, too? – were more comforting in that moment than sleeping in his bed.
Shen Qingqiu smiles again as he shakes his head, loosening the ribbon that is barely hanging in place. He tugs it from his hair, and it cascades around him. Where it falls against his neck, Liu Qingge longs to be. Secret like a hidden kiss, touching the long line of his throat.
“Binghe should be back soon,” Shen Qingqiu says. “We should bathe.”
Liu Qingge’s breath catches in his throat. We. His mind is too active, his imagination leaping at the chance to imagine Shen Qingqiu, naked, steamed by hot water. He has not seen Shen Qingqiu’s body, and perhaps now he never will. He doesn’t resent the blindfold Luo Binghe insists he wears – it helps him keep his fantasies from being too vivid. It has kept him sane through all of this.
But he wants Shen Qingqiu to ask him to join him. The demon realm has hot springs. He doesn’t have to see, he tells himself. It would be enough to just…know. Or maybe too much. Liu Qingge might just combust on the spot if he knew his naked body shared the same water as Shen Qingqiu’s, no matter how far apart they stood.
It’s a line they haven’t crossed. Liu Qingge always bathes alone, when he’s here. He doesn’t step into the private washroom in their wing of the palace, like it is a place he is barred from. Like the wooden privacy screens would overpower him if he tried.
Shen Qingqiu must see…something on his face, because he chuckles. “You can use the springs, if you like,” he says easily. “But don’t go skulking off anywhere. Come back to our rooms once you’re done.”
Our.
We. Our.
Liu Qingge knows he means Luo Binghe’s and mine, rather than all three of ours, but the ambiguity infects him anyway. It could be theirs, in his dreams. In his fantasies. Those dreams in which he is the second spouse, invited into every private corner. Given a role in the household, perhaps, as second wives are. He would be a bodyguard – a step down from Peak Lord, perhaps, but he would sink lower willingly. He would teach their children how to fight (that indefinite their, where all his dreams lie). He would play politics with the demon houses and help Luo Binghe prevent insurrections. He would get fucked in the small hours of the morning and wake with Shen Qingqiu’s seed spilling from him.
He hasn’t even – things haven’t even gone that far yet. All has been carefully controlled. Games that taunt him just as much as they bring him pleasure, tempting him with a promise of what he could have. And what he never will. It is not up to him anymore. Perhaps it never was.
But he is at their mercy. He is not above pleading. He can leave his feelings behind, or pretend to, if that’s what they need. It is better, he thinks, to be owned, if only physically, than to be alone again. Whatever they desire, he will give. If they want his body, it is already theirs.
If he’s lucky…
No, he doesn’t let himself complete that thought.
He wants to be lucky. He wants to give them his heart, useless as it is. He wants to find a home here, sheltered and warm. A chest to lay his head on, a hand that holds his tightly and never lets go.
A soft bed. Like clouds.