Work Text:
Liu Qingge had gotten into this awful, awful habit of calling him baby and their sweet A-Yuan had picked up on it. Anything that warranted his affection was dubbed baby. His favorite blanket was baby, the weird plush sword Liu Qingge had commissioned was baby, and sometimes even Shen Jiu himself was baby. He had tried his best to break him out of the habit, but Shen Jiu was convinced his husband was bribing their child to keep doing it.
“Papa baby! Can we go to the park?”
Shen Jiu took a calming breath and reminded himself that A-Yuan deserved two fathers, even if Liu Qingge did not deserve to be alive.
“Of course, my sapling. Let the sun be a little more forgiving and then we can have a picnic.”
A-Yuan smiled at him brightly, looking exactly like Liu Qingge and came to give him a hug.
“Papa is the best baby.”
“Thank you, lovely. Would you like to color while papa reads?”
A-Yuan nodded and slowly climbed up the chair to join Shen Jiu at the dining table. His colors and paper were always nearby, especially since he liked doing activities in silence with his parents. Shen Jiu knew he was incredibly lucky to have a quiet child, and hoped that A-Yuan’s rebellious stage would only set in much later in life. At least as a teenager, he wouldn’t have to stop his son from eating glue.
**
"Ah," said A-Yuan with all the sage understanding of a five-year-old. "Daddy is shy."
Shen Jiu snickered and slapped a hand over Liu Qingge's protesting mouth.
"Absolutely. Poor daddy is quite shy."
It had ended up backfiring on him, of course. To help break Liu Qingge out of his shyness, A-Yuan had insisted on constant kisses and casual touches. He even demonstrated. A-Yuan clambered onto Shen Jiu's lap and placed a sloppy kiss on his cheek.
"Now daddy try." Liu Qingge followed through, with a lot less saliva and a lot more amusement than Shen Jiu was willing to bear.
"Thank you, A-Yuan. Daddy will remember to kiss papa every day now."
A-Yuan had nodded and then immediately asked for a snack. Fickle things, children were. But not fickle enough to forget the promises extracted from their parents. Their son kept an eye on them after that, pouting at Liu Qingge every time he failed to give Shen Jiu a kiss.
A-Yuan’s pout had been classified as a weapon of mass destruction, bowling over anyone that it was directed at. Only Shen Jiu was immune to it, mostly because he had taught the boy his own tricks. Liu Qingge and Yue Qingyuan were frequent victims to The Pout and no matter how hard Shen Jiu tried, they simply gave in.
(Not that Liu Qingge needed any prompting to plant one on Shen Jiu. Even before they got married, it had always been Shen Jiu’s hesitance that kept him from engaging in gross displays of physical affection. Now that their son was here, Shen Jiu had to resign himself to being called baby and being mauled in his own house. The horror.)
**
When they went to the park, A-Yuan was seated on Liu Qingge’s shoulders, carefully hugging his head. It took them five minutes to tie his hair up in a bun that wouldn’t poke A-Yuan, or get entangled in his hoodie and they let A-Yuan pick a nice butterfly hair tie for it.
They always got a few curious looks, what with Liu Qingge’s muscles and tattoos contrasting with whatever cute thing A-Yuan had stuck on his body. Shen Jiu looked like he was going to an entirely different event, dressed in soft sweaters and fitting slacks.
Liu Qingge set A-Yuan down and crouched in front of him.
“Remember the rules, A-Yuan?”
“No running away somewhere you can’t see me, no eating sand and if a strange person tries to touch me, scream as loud as I can.”
“Good boy.”
Shen Jiu rolled his eyes, but the rules were mostly for his benefit. He would get antsy leaving A-Yuan anywhere for long periods of time, even if it was in a park with only other children. His child was full of curiosity but no common sense, much like his husband. A-Yuan would undoubtedly come back to them either in tears or covered in mud, clutching at his newest insect friend.
“No more bugs!” Shen Jiu called out, as their son raced towards the swings.
“Let him have some fun.”
“I am not having any more earthworms in my house, Liu Qingge. There is already one in my bed.”
Liu Qingge looked confused for five whole seconds before giving Shen Jiu an indignant push.
“I hate you,” he grumbled. “Should have listened to Shang Qinghua when he was screaming at me before we got married.”
Shen Jiu just laughed and handed him a bottle of juice.
“To drown your sorrows in.”
**
A-Yuan came back to them relatively clean and holding two flowers that he carefully tucked behind each of their ears.
“Now you’re extra pretty!”
Shen Jiu snatched him up for a fierce hug that Liu Qingge joined in after a moment of hesitance. How had two of the most argumentative people in the world managed to raise such a sweet child? A-Yuan had always felt like a blessing they didn’t deserve, but as each day passed, they could only love him more.
“Come on,” said Liu Qingge, breaking out of the hug. “We should head back before it gets dark.”
They packed up and this time, A-Yuan settled in Shen Jiu’s arms for the trip back, talking about the new friend he had made.
“His name is Binghe and his hair is so fluffy! Like Xiao-gege’s new puppy!”
Gongyi Xiao was a teenager that lived below their apartment and came over for calligraphy lessons with Shen Jiu. He had also recently bought a chow-chow.
“I don’t think it’s nice to compare your new friend to a dog, baobao. No matter how fluffy his hair is.”
A-Yuan pouted but didn’t let that deter his monologue.
“Binghe’s mommy is also very pretty. She said we should all meet some time so that Binghe and I can play together.”
Shen Jiu exchanged a look with his husband as their son went on and on about this Binghe that he had just met. Unlike his parents, Shen Yuan made friends with everyone and everything.
He was the reason that they got discounts at the local market. All the aunties wanted to make sure A-Yuan was eating his vegetables, and Liu Qingge stayed fit to help them lift heavy boxes. Shen Jiu had gotten far more than the small family he wanted when Liu Qingge came into his life, and he was very grateful for it.
A few years earlier.
When it came to deciding whose name the baby would take on, it wasn’t even a discussion.
“I still have my whole family,” said Liu Qingge, firmly. “There is Mingyan, my cousin Zhenghao and lots of others.”
“Zhenghao is sixteen.”
Liu Qingge waved him off.
“Point is, he’ll procreate at some point in his life. Or he won’t, whatever. I want his name to be Shen Yuan. I’ve decided the first name, he gets your last name.”
And Shen Jiu could only glare at him through tears, wanting to spout out words of gratitude, of love. But he had never learned how to show affection without violence, so he simply thwacked Liu Qingge on the chest and buried his face in it. Thankfully, his husband understood and held him close until the tears were gone.
“Will you cry when Shen Yuan comes home?”
“Shut up, Liu Qingge.”
**
The day A-Yuan came home, he was a tiny, chubby thing that latched onto Shen Jiu’s finger and refused to let go.
“Don’t you want to meet your other father, little one?”
Liu Qingge was hovering behind him, too scared to touch but desperately wanting to hold the baby. Shen Jiu gently pressed A-Yuan into his arms and smiled at the way his big brute of a husband cradle the baby perfectly.
A-Yuan looked up at him with his big brown eyes and gave him a gummy smile before immediately beginning to gnaw at Liu Qingge’s pecs.
“I think he’s hungry.”
**
In their room, Shen Jiu had three photo frames put up on a wall. One of their wedding, one with their friends, and one where A-Yuan had crawled inside Liu Qingge’s t-shirt to nap. Those three photos were the first thing he saw in the morning after his husband and reminded him that despite everything that had happened, he had a chance at happiness.
He smiled softly at the photos and tried to roll out of bed, only to be stopped by a steel band around his waist.
“Five more minutes,” muttered Liu Qingge.
Shen Jiu relaxed into the embrace and let his husband sleepily snuffle into his neck. A-Yuan would be getting up soon and would crawl into their bed if he didn’t see anyone in the kitchen.
He could spare five minutes.