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Leaving the market one morning, a woman toting two heaving baskets full of freshly cut flowers stops Luo Binghe with a wave.
He’s returning to the bamboo house with his own bounty of ginger and green beans, and he has no intention of leaving Shizun to go hungry. He was still in bed when Binghe stole away, grumbling and pliant, and he’s equally greedy for another dose of him soaked in warm light.
Before he has a chance to rebuff the vendor, she presents him with a slim bundle of long-stemmed lilies, garishly pink, and so fresh and glossy they could be shaped from porcelain.
He doesn’t reach out to take them, but he does consider her with a new curiosity. Maybe Shizun would like some flowers. Pink matches his cool tones best when it’s spreading down his neck or blooming in his lips, but perhaps something yellow would brighten the bamboo house.
He scans her goods, his eyes falling on a smaller basket at her hip, brimming with a more intriguing prize.
Shizun is worthy of beautiful things, but why add something fleeting to his life when he could offer him something that flourishes?
--
“Garlic?” Shizun asks.
“Flower bulbs,” Binghe explains, emptying two dozen onto the table from his sleeve. “Lilies for Shizun’s garden.”
“Ah,” he picks one up and turns it on his palm with a frown. “I have a garden?”
“There’s room for beds in the courtyard. Up against the wall where Shizun can see them while he rests.”
The wall at Luo Binghe’s back when they sit out there together. No assortment of flowers could ever compare to his opposing view of Shizun, but they may at least tip the scales somewhat.
“Binghe’s put some thought into this.” He’s yet to smile as he usually does when Binghe endeavours to spoil him, placing his bulb next to the others and briefly wiping his hand on his thigh.
Perhaps enthusiasm will convince him. “This disciple took pains to enquire as to the best conditions for planting and tending. If Shizun wishes, I can transcribe them after I’ve seen to breakfast.”
“I take it it’s more complicated than prodding them in a hole and waiting, then?”
“Just a little,” Binghe insists, trying to tamp the nerves at his lukewarm reaction. “Nothing Shizun can’t master.”
He smiles at last, the indulgent kind that’s hard to fake, where his eyes fall shut and air leaves his nose. “If you think it’s within this master's expertise.”
Tension uncoils high in Binghe’s chest, and he steps forward and grasps Shizun’s hand in both of his. “Few things aren’t.”
His Shizun is modest and his smile doesn’t grow, but he does roll his eyes and clear his throat in a way that Binghe associates with him attempting to mask satisfaction.
He’s bad at it, but he doesn’t need to know that.
Besides, Binghe is more than willing to compensate. He leans in and stamps a hard kiss on the angle of his cheek, lingering just long enough for Shizun’s hand to reach up and brush briefly at his jaw as expected, dazzling laughter bubbling up.
--
Binghe is no stranger to gift giving.
Not excessively, he thinks. Shizun is too fine to swamp with meaningless trinkets for the sake of Binghe’s gratification. But his hair is held up by jade pins, and his belts are adorned with silver clasps, hung with a carefully curated series of painted fans.
The gift of seeing to Shizun’s needs is Binghe’s. The privilege of smoothing the bumps in his life before he reaches them, and the satisfaction that Shizun need never doubt that he will be cared for with enthusiasm.
Once, Binghe had given Shizun a pale gold inner robe, tailored perfectly to his form. On the one occasion he’d worn it, it had flowed off his shoulders and skimmed the bones of his hips, so close to transparent that Binghe had been able to spot the bold shadow of his flaccid little cock and the thatch of hair surrounding it.
He’d greatly regretted the following destruction of several of its seams, but not the sight of Shizun writhing on his back in a pool of exquisite fabric, or the easy forgiveness Binghe had been prepared to beg for.
--
Shizun gives to Binghe every day.
His trust. A place in his bed. His affection. The kind that doesn’t come easily, that he saves and spends solely on Binghe.
The assurance that he isn’t alone.
He hungers for every scrap Shizun offers him and every moment he endures him.
It isn’t uncommon when staying at Qing Jing peak for Binghe to leave in the morning for the Underground Palace and return the very same night, but when Sha Hualing calls him away to assist with persistent skirmishes on adjacent lands, he finds himself bound to duties in the demon realm for three days running.
The palace is cold and empty with nothing but the dreamscape to bridge them. Too alike to a lifeless body, too long without the flick of Shizun’s fan or the sound of a page turning across the room. And too long is fickle. Whether days or the time it takes for Binghe to fetch water for the bath, it’s impossible to predict when the little hollow in his chest will open up, terrified of the prospect of forgetting how it ever felt to be full.
He returns to Qing Jing peak on the afternoon of the fourth day, and senses Shizun's presence the moment he arrives. His breath leaves his lungs with the rattling of wind through bamboo, and all anxiety drains as he rounds a final corner to find Shizun kneeling in the front courtyard of the bamboo house.
He glances behind at the sound of Binghe’s approach and stands with a barely audible groan. There’s soil clinging to his knees and his nose is touched pink by the sun.
“Shizun.”
“There you are.” He steps forward to meet Binghe halfway, and Binghe’s arms open to fill with everything he needs.
With his view no longer dominated by the quenching sight of him, Binghe hooks his chin over Shizun’s shoulder and surveys the work he walked in on. Shizun has cleared a narrow patch of ground beneath a window, dark and damp, with only a few bulbs still left unburied.
A happy hum rumbles up Binghe’s chest. “Shizun’s garden is beautiful.”
“It’s a patch of dirt.”
It is! Tilled and watered by Shizun’s hands. “Shizun planted them!”
“Yes, well. There’s a limit to how much peace and quiet a man can endure before he has to find ways to entertain himself.”
Shizun feels wrong without him, too.
Shizun needs like he does, too.
Binghe isn’t alone in finding comfort in proximity and peace in routine. One more thing shared, a constant gift freely given and eagerly accepted. Binghe rubs his cheek at his temple, eyes closing as Shizun’s fingers slide into the hair at the base of his neck.
“How does my balance improve with you hanging off my hip, hm?” If Shizun expects an answer, Binghe has nothing to offer. Only more of his weight as he leans into him, the cleansing warmth of moisture prickling at his eyes. “Come on. Inside. There’s water heating, and you’re covered in travel.”
Luo Binghe grips the hip in question, and inhales deeply at his neck, tinged with earth. “Shizun smells good. It would be a shame for him to bathe.”
“Maybe so, but Binghe smells like an animal. It’s already lingering all over me.”
It’s hard to take his complaint seriously when he sounds so fond. Luo Binghe’s palm follows the planes of Shizun's body down, and curves around to purposefully settle where he’s softest.
He whispers, “Good.”
Shizun’s hand tightens in his hair. “Inside.”
--
It’s a late Summer morning when Shizun steps into the kitchen in nothing but his inner robe, slippers flapping on his feet. His hair flows loose down his back, puffy skin lingering in circles beneath his eyes. Familiarity does nothing to soften the impact.
Luo Binghe’s so distracted by the vision that it takes a moment for him to notice the freshly cut flower he holds by its long straight stem. Three slim green buds remain tightly closed, but further down the stem a single bloom has opened, deep burgundy petals swooning outwards.
It’s the first of Shizun’s lily’s, carefully tended and peered at every day with charming impatience.
Pride is a foolish response, but less so than trying to temper the way his body reacts to Shizun. It swells in him, morphing into something too complex to name as Shizun presses the stem into his hand with a sleepy smile.
“For Binghe.”