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On evenings when they don’t reside within the walls of Luo Binghe’s demon palace or the Bamboo House, Shen Qingqiu prefers some sort of bed, at least. This isn’t always doable, but Luo Binghe nonetheless makes an effort. Even when a tent is their best option, he’ll pile flowers in a spot until it’s made a bit of a cushion. It doesn’t lessen the aches in Shen Qingqiu’s back at all, and he doesn’t thank his husband. But there’s something to be said for the thought counting. Every time Luo Binghe comes back armed with flowers for him to rest his head on, there's an unending fondness in Shen Qingqiu’s chest that he must curb. Usually he fails.
Tonight, they’ve procured a bamboo mat to rest on within their tent. A careful middle ground between luxury and sleeping on frigid, hard mounds of dirt. Middle ground is the theme of marriage, it seems.
Honestly, after years of too much excitement and crying and physical exertion, Shen Qingqiu finds the mundanity a welcome change of pace.
As usual, Luo Binghe is asleep first, and he’s not too far off from his disposition while awake. Despite an unshakable physical bulk, he tends to flimsily toss and turn, squirming in his sleep. Shen Qingqiu can only hold him off for so long before he’s clamoring toward him, chest to back, ankles hooking on ankles, drooling in his hair. But thankfully, Luo Binghe hasn’t chosen violence tonight. He’s left a reasonable distance between himself and Shen Qingqiu, and he doesn’t even hog the blanket pulled painstakingly over both of them.
While very pleased to be alone on his rightful side of their bed, Shen Qingqiu does feel a little cold.
He’s neglected to lay down just yet, burning the midnight oil to finish the novel he’s reading. With the turn of the last page, he wonders why protagonists are never shown going to bed unless it’s for illicit reasons, or because they’re about to have a Plot Relevant Nightmare. Maybe it’s because it’s not interesting to readers. Shen Qingqiu can empathize—it’s not like anything momentous happens in the time it takes him to put his nightclothes on or shut his eyes.
He casts aside his book, but before he moves to put out the lantern that illuminates their tent, movement catches his eye.
The logic of narrative storytelling, fresh on Shen Qingqiu’s mind, suggests that the movement should’ve been an enemy in the shadows, a bomb going off, something else to shake up the currently low stakes. He’s lived in a stallion (turned gay) novel long enough to expect such mishaps anytime they’ve descended into a period of mundanity. But no, there’s no monster or sword or blood parasites stirring up trouble in his periphery. It’s only Luo Binghe’s foot, peeking out from underneath the blanket. His legs are too long for it, clearly, so a little bit of wiggling causes his foot to pop out from the end. His foot looks oddly exposed, the rest of him huddled under the blanket for warmth.
It’s all so boring. Shen Qingqiu feels his face get so hot, so quickly, as he looks at Luo Binghe, still and soundless, the ball of his foot, the curve of his Achilles tendon against the plain bamboo mat and cotton fabric. Looking at Luo Binghe’s foot, he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
He might get cold, Shen Qingqiu thinks, and then he’ll be useless in the morning, won’t he? He should’ve taken more care to tuck himself in before just conking out like that! Shen Qingqiu moves up onto his knees, and still Luo Binghe doesn’t rise. It’s his own fault for sprawling out so irresponsibly.
Thoughtlessly, Shen Qingqiu reaches forward to pull the blanket down over the tips of Luo Binghe’s toes. His hand hovers over his foot, though, and he stops himself. It’d be such a commotion to right the blanket now. And what if Shen Qingqiu lost his half of the blanket in the process? It really wasn’t worth the trouble.
“You’re always causing trouble for me, aren’t you?” Shen Qingqiu stops his hand’s hovering, and he lets his palm fall to Luo Binghe’s foot.
If Luo Binghe feels the self-conscious touch like an abrasion on his skin, he doesn’t rise. His face tilts forward, as he burrows further into the blanket like a child, but nothing else. Shen Qingqiu feels increasingly self-conscious. It’s unbelievably silly, when Luo Binghe has touched every inch of his own body without any degree of shame at all (and when he, too, lost all his shame somewhere in that pleasure).
After lingering on his ankle, Shen Qingqiu grips Luo Binghe’s foot. Surely, then, his hand moves by some misfired impulse, for he starts to massage his foot with great care.
Luo Binghe goes, “Hngh,” but otherwise, he stays asleep.
Shen Qingqiu fights the urge to tremble. He feels where Luo Binghe’s skin bunches, where there are ridges, where his big toe is remarkably bigger than the others. He’s got jutting little bones, and there’s creases on the back of his ankle. Shen Qingqiu has never thought about all this before, but of course, Luo Binghe would have him opening his mind to new ways of feeling, of living. Speaking of, the skin on the top of Luo Binghe’s foot… it’s weirdly soft, isn’t it? It makes sense, though, trapped in his shoes all day.
A surprise from Luo Binghe that should’ve been expected: that his feet would be huge, yet as delicate as his huge maidenly heart!
Shen Qingqiu isn’t sure he’s rubbing his foot properly, so he tries to put his back into it and knead harder, despite how clumsy his fingers are. It’s not like he’s done this before. If there’s a technique or method to it, if Luo Binghe has knots or aches to work out, then Shen Qingqiu shouldn’t be trusted as an expert.
But he still rubs Luo Binghe’s foot as it sticks out from underneath the blanket.
He starts to understand why scenes like this are never depicted in stallion novels. They’re a certain flavor of intimate, bordering on humiliating. Shen Qingqiu can’t imagine being perceived by a reader in this way—he can barely handle it as it is, with no one around to see him, and only Luo Binghe’s shuddering breath as a soundtrack to the moment.
When Shen Qingqiu catches himself smiling, probably looking fond and dumbstruck to the reader in his mind, he knows it’s time to stop. He pulls away, straightening the blanket out atop his legs before laying down next to Luo Binghe. For the second time, he almost puts out the lantern. Then their whole makeshift bed rustles.
Luo Binghe’s mass of curls moves with his head, twisting until he can glance over his shoulder at Shen Qingqiu. He slow-blinks like a cat, eyes bleary but alert.
“That was you?” Luo Binghe asks.
“What was me?”
“Were you rubbing my foot while I slept, Shizun? Or was it something I dreamed?”
Pulling the blanket up and over his mouth, no longer worried about stealing, Shen Qingqiu frowns in response. “Don’t tell me you were pretending to be asleep and hoping I’d do something indecent in the meantime,” he chastises. “Very deceitful, Binghe.”
“I wasn’t tricking you, I was asleep,” Luo Binghe rolls from one side to the other, putting to work those big, forlorn eyes of his. “That’s why I couldn’t be sure if I was dreaming again.”
“If it was one of your dreams, surely you would’ve steered it in a more salacious direction.”
In response, Luo Binghe only invades his personal space even more. He latches onto the shoulder of Shen Qingqiu’s thin sleep robe, throwing himself into the space that had gone unoccupied between them. Luo Binghe loves to move closer and closer, always and overwhelming. Shen Qingqiu welcomes it in the quietest way, presenting his back to Luo Binghe so he can hold him closer.
He doesn’t get pulled into Luo Binghe’s embrace, though. His robe falls open at the shoulder, or it gets tugged down, more accurately. Shen Qingqiu feels his chest erupt in a flush, but he still rolls his eyes.
“You’ll exact revenge on me, won’t you? And you’re not even waiting until I fall asleep,” he says, shifting backwards into Luo Binghe’s reach.
His robe now down to his waist, Shen Qingqiu’s back is all bare skin and exposed to Luo Binghe, eclipsed in their tent by the lack of daylight. His robe doesn’t fall further down his body. He feels fingertips, then the prick of nails. Luo Binghe drags them down Shen Qingqiu’s back, gentle and almost ticklish. It’s a miracle he doesn’t draw blood—and somehow he doesn’t, at least not to the surface. Shen Qingqiu feels blood rush within him, so intense he’d think it was Binghe’s blood parasites again, wreaking havoc on his nerves.
Shen Qingqiu lets this go on for a while before he realizes that Luo Binghe doesn’t plan to take it further, that he just means to scratch his back. Even as that leaves Shen Qingqiu unfamiliar, suddenly shy at being touched, he becomes pliable in Luo Binghe's hands.
Letting Luo Binghe pull down his robe and take him from behind strikes him as less shameful than this. Less shameful than the way Shen QIngqiu’s spine arches, at the beck and call of jagged nails and warm palms, a whimper that he can’t hold back.
“Aw, Shizun, does that feel good?”
He grunts, some approximation of a yes, unable to articulate the full word.
“But won’t you admit that it is like you?” Luo Binghe says. “To wait until you’re certain I won’t remember it, and then touch this disciple so tenderly.”
Wrapped up in the delicate clawing that's happening all over his shoulder blades, Shen Qingqiu has to recall their conversation.
“And you picked a spot so odd, too, like my foot. You never want me to know that you lo—”
Shen Qingqiu kicks back against Luo Binghe’s shin. He yelps at the sound but doesn’t otherwise move, like he hardly feels it. Shen Qingqiu couldn’t squirm away if he wanted to.
He tips his head back when Luo Binghe itches a spot he could never reach on his own. Luo Binghe nuzzles his nose into his hair. Though theirs is not an adversarial relationship by nature, Shen Qingqiu feels like he’s being utterly disarmed.
“But then—you're like this,” Luo Binghe says. “Can Shizun blame me for being doubtful?”
Shen Qingqiu rolls his eyes. He wants to call Luo Binghe’s fears silly—he married him, after all, why the insecurities running rampant over a foot rub? Shouldn’t it be the opposite effect? But he can’t bring himself to say any of those words out loud. His face gets uncomfortably hot.
“I blame this disciple for many things, with this matter being the smallest of them.”
Like a cat withdrawing from water, Luo Binghe pulls back. The scratching on his back, oddly pleasant, ceases to bring Shen Qingqiu that lazy comfort. Luo Binghe is not small by any means; for the wide berth he’s left between them, he must be scrunched up to his smallest size or sprawling off the other side of the sleeping mat.
Though Shen Qingqiu doesn’t turn over to look at him, Luo Binghe’s rustling sparks a vivid mental picture. A lion rendered cowardly in bed with the harshest sort of lamb. Amused and uncomfortable, yet overtaken by affection, Shen Qingqiu sighs and rolls over.
“Did I wound this disciple’s feelings?”
“No,” Luo Binghe whines, avoiding his eyes.
“Very convincing. Come here, alright?”
Shen Qingqiu wriggles and scoots further down their bed, and he pulls the blanket back up over his shoulders. It nicely covers the lower half of his face—a similar safety to the way his fan veils his expression, which burns red as he tugs the blanket off of Luo Binghe. The accompanying struggle nearly sends Shen Qingqiu tumbling to the ground.
Luo Binghe freezes, laid bare except for his sleep robe and his rapidly reddening face. “Shizun?”
He grabs Luo Binghe’s ankle and hauls his muscled leg up, bending it until he can hold his foot comfortably. He starts to rub with abandon. Luo Binghe stares at his hands first, then he eventually looks at Shen Qingqiu in disbelief. Excruciating though it may be, Shen Qingqiu forces himself to at least look at Luo Binghe a few times in the process.
“Why are you…?”
“Is it an inconvenience?”
“No, Shizun, I really—but I never thought you’d—”
Isn’t that what you wanted from me? Shen Qingqiu thinks, desperately trying to maintain coolness even as heat seeps out from his pores. He shouldn’t have stolen the whole blanket, but now he’s too warm, and meanwhile he has to contend with Luo Binghe, awake, and watching him so intently. “To think that a little beast like you would shy away from my touch!”
“Shizun,” Luo Binghe’s voice quickly loses its anxious edge as he descends into easement, head lolling against the mat. “It’s just very forward of you—this disciple can hardly take it…”
And having cried out like that, Luo Binghe shields his face with one hand, grasping at the front of Shen Qingqiu’s robe with the other.
Binghe, I’m your hus—you needn’t act scandalized by something meant this chastely!
He has half a mind to get up and vacate their tent, overwhelmed by the shame of Luo Binghe’s ecstatic reaction. For once, he’s not sprung a hard-on. Rather, his pleasure at having his foot rubbed is somehow wholesome and uncomplicated. His eyes fall shut as Shen Qingqiu gets a particularly stubborn knot worked out—maybe it really feels that good, or maybe he knows that Shen Qingqiu needs a moment of privacy. Cautiously, Shen Qingqiu takes the excuse to look, to take in the childish joy to Luo Binghe’s face.
When those dark eyes crack open, though, Shen Qingqiu doesn’t hide from them again. The impulse to huddle beneath the blanket grips him. However, he doesn’t let himself get weak-willed. He loses all his face in the process of looking at Luo Binghe’s. It’d feel less vulnerable if this was sex, he realizes.
“That’s enough of that, then.” Shen Qingqiu lets go of Luo Binghe’s foot, shooing him to straighten out his legs again. He’s feeling exhausted, alright? “I hope that satiated you.”
In lieu of a response, Luo Binghe reaches forward to palm the side of Shen Qingqiu's throat. Luo Binghe kisses him, absent of his usual biting and nipping—for once he does as he's been taught, his mouth careful and obedient. It's Shen Qingqiu who has to slip him a little tongue, only because he's taking pity on him, certainly not to elicit a needy moan from him.
“It did, it really did," Luo Binghe says, between kisses on his chin, his cheeks, the corner of his mouth, "I’m glad this disciple could marry Shizun, and—be taken care of by him.”
“Well, good.” Shen Qingqiu quickly shifts to face outward. The butterflies in his stomach are incessant and unwelcome in their twisting. He tosses some blanket back onto Luo Binghe, then he pulls his robe back over his shoulder. As much as he’d like to have his back touched again, he already feels on the brink of collapse from so much tenderness. Even the self-inflicted kind.
“Shizun…”
That customary whine is accompanied by—for God’s sake, it’s his robe being toyed with and tugged on again. “What?”
“May this disciple—may he please… rub Shizun’s feet, too?”
Shen Qingqiu swats at Luo Binghe without restraint, and he longs to fan his overheating face. “What sort of dirty thing are you getting at, Binghe?”
“I wasn’t this time!”
“And another thing, don’t you prefer this master’s socks stay on?”
“Not if we’re not—” Luo Binghe trips over his words, but Shen Qingqiu knows it’s an act, due to how deftly his oversized, protagonist-like palms grab his waist under the blanket. “I don’t have any other plans! It just felt nice. I want to make Shizun feel nice in return.”
A slipping sensation down his calf. Shen Qingqiu realizes it’s his socks coming off. Now he’s the one who sounds scandalized. “Okay, but after seeing them covered for so many years, don’t run and hide at the sight of them.”
“It’s not like that. This disciple would never.”
“Do what you want, then,” Shen Qingqiu says, but there’s no bite to the words. For Luo Binghe really does just rub his feet, and the only place it leads is somewhere mundane, a little quiet and even a little soothing.
As it were, maybe Shen Qingqiu was a bit fearful of this outcome. Not specifically this, but something to this effect: to touch and be touched in a way that doesn’t set them on fire, only brings them some errant warmth. Confusing and uncharted, but worth it for the little pleased murmurs that Luo Binghe lets out as he gives Shen Qingqiu a proper foot massage, which causes Shen Qingqiu to hide under the covers all over again.
Before he knows it, Luo Binghe’s steady hands have him crashing toward a sound sleep. It’s a treatment so relaxing that it leaves his eyelids drooping, and he briefly hopes that he could make it as pleasant for Luo Binghe the next time—look, he's already planning for a next time, and he wonders what's gotten into him.
In the last moment, just before he’s officially lights out, he feels Luo Binghe pull the blanket down from his face again. Too tired to fight back, Shen Qingqiu lets him look.