Work Text:
In the home stretch of tonight’s sex marathon, Shizun glared over his shoulder as best as he could manage while getting plowed into their bed and warned Luo Binghe, “Don’t you dare finish on my chest.” Luo Binghe--fluent in Shizun-ese--dutifully pulled out, flipped his husband over, and finished on his chest. He almost didn’t make it in time. Whenever Shizun made his preferences so clear, it was all Luo Binghe could do to contain himself long enough to oblige. Shizun came a moment later, clinging to Luo Binghe as desperate and breathless as a drowning man. “Binghe,” he gasped, and Luo Binghe kissed everywhere on his face except his lips so Shizun could continue to weakly scold him.
When Shizun finally let go, grumbling about his disciple’s incorrigible stickiness, Luo Binghe peeled away reluctantly to get a washcloth. The claw marks raking down his back stung pleasingly as he moved. With Shizun as exhausted as he was right now, Luo Binghe figured he’d be able to keep the marks until morning before his shizun pretended to notice them for the first time and squawked at Luo Binghe to heal himself.
It had been a good day. Shizun had slept in more that usual this morning, giving Luo Binghe time to prepare an elaborate breakfast. Shizun protested that the spread was excessive, and furthermore that he was not an invalid who needed breakfast brought to him in bed, then ate the whole thing as he reclined against Luo Binghe’s chest, only barely covered by their sheets. After that, Shen Qingqiu expressed concern that the protection wards near the back of the peak might be failing, so they took a meandering walk along Qing Jing’s most scenic path to confirm that the wards were still as intact as they’d been two days ago, the last time Shizun had mentioned them. Shizun’s hand had bumped against Luo Binghe’s four times before he took pity on his poor master and entwined their fingers together. Shen Qingqiu had tsked at him then tightened his grip.
A monster of terrible destruction was tormenting the nearby countryside and threatening the lives of hundreds, which meant Liu Qingge had missed his lunch with Shizun in favor of the hunt. (And the man wondered why Luo Binghe had been the one to win Shen Qingqiu’s heart. It came down to priorities.) When the Bai Zhan disciple arrived to tell Shizun why Liu Qingge was not coming, Luo Binghe had worried that Shizun would want to see the monster himself, but Shizun had just said, “I have every confidence Liu-shidi has the situation in hand. Now, what is Binghe cooking?”
The two of them ate a light lunch, after which Shizun read a novel that had him muttering darkly the whole time while Luo Binghe put away the summer linens. Autumn was here, and the Bamboo House had to be redecorated accordingly. Green decor gave way to yellow, orange, and red to match the changing landscape. Luo Binghe had been nervous the first time he had made such a dramatic change to their living space, no matter how often Shizun called the house theirs. Shizun was happy to scold Luo Binghe about this whenever Luo Binghe needed it. Today as Luo Binghe hesitated as he stood in the center of the main room, Shizun had said without looking up, “Put out whatever knicknacks you like so long as you know you are the only one who will be dusting them.”
Luo Binghe knew that, and had never had any delusions otherwise, and was not sure Shizun knew what dusting was. He also knew what Shizun looked like when he laid naked on red sheets. He still appreciated the reminders. Shizun had gotten good at reminding him. They had barely made it through dinner before Shizun announced that he was changing into his sleep clothes. He said this as he walked to their bedroom, already untying his robes, looking back at Luo Binghe over his shoulder as the robe just barely started to slip.
Which was how they had found themselves here, the dinner dishes still out on the table, Shizun fucked to languid exhaustion on what had been fresh sheets a few hours ago, and Luo Binghe returning to the bedroom with a damp cloth and a sliced pear. Depending on how pliant Shizun was, Luo Binghe would either hand-feed him the slices, after which Luo Binghe would pout about the stickiness on his fingers until Shizun rolled his eyes and licked Luo Binghe’s fingers clean, or Shizun would insist on feeding himself, after which Luo Binghe would pout about how Shizun couldn’t go to sleep with sticky fingers, at which point Shizun would roll his eyes and let Luo Binghe lick Shizun’s fingers clean. Luo Binghe couldn’t decide which option he preferred. Whatever happened, Luo Binghe had expected to wake Shizun up for it, but Shizun turned out to be disconcertingly alert. He was propped up on his elbows with tip of his finger was in his mouth. At the sight of Luo Binghe, his eyes narrowed.
“Luo Binghe,” Shizun said in a carefully composed tone, “why does that taste like caramel?”
Luo Binghe could not process these words. Or rather, he processed them too well, and the obvious conclusion had brought his brain to a stuttering halt. Shizun, alone in their bedroom, for no reason but his own pleasure, had run a finger through Luo Binghe’s spend to taste it. Maybe that had been the reason Shizun had begged him to come on his chest instead of inside him, which was almost always Shizun’s preference. Tonight, Luo Binghe had simply assumed that Shizun had been in a mood to be marked up. After all, he’d warned Luo Binghe several times to not even think about giving him any hickies tonight, a request Luo Binghe had gleefully obliged while Shizun gasped and scolded, until Shizun’s pale chest was as spotted as a cheetah’s.
Shizun nodded curtly at Luo Binghe’s crotch, which was getting too nostalgic for events that had happened fifteen minutes earlier. “Put that away. Answer the question.”
“Why does what taste like caramel?”
Shizun, who was only capable of saying things like cock and cum when Luo Binghe had gotten him thoroughly drunk on both, narrowed his eyes. “Binghe knows to what this master refers,” he said in a tone not associated with foreplay. He snatched the washcloth out of Luo Binghe's hand and quickly cleaned off his chest.
Luo Binghe sat on the edge of the bed and held out a slice of pear. Shizun took it between his teeth and continued to stare pointedly. There was a very sincere answer he could give, but it would require Shizun to experience both emotional and sexual vulnerability. Shizun was just as capable of enduring those as he was capable of topping, by which Luo Binghe meant that in both cases, you had to warm him up for about three days in advance and even then it took tears to get him over the finish line. That left a teasing reply. As Luo Binghe started to clean between Shizun’s legs, he took a mischievous delight in considering his various options. His husband’s face was eggshell thin. Luo Binghe would be lying if he said it wasn’t exquisite to watch Shizun squirm. “This disciple thought the flavor would nicely compliment dessert.”
“Binghe!” Shizun’s face matched the seasonal sheets.
Lou Binghe kept his face as innocent as he could. “Your Binghe planned dinner carefully this evening, but Shizun was so eager. This disciple never had the chance to bring out the cakes he’d prepared--”
“Eager! I was getting ready for bed!” protested the man who had made sure Luo Binghe was watching before starting to slowly undress at the dinner table. “You’re the one who pounced.”
“How could this disciple resist?” Luo Binghe managed to land a kiss on Shizun’s nose before he twisted away, hands coming up to cover as much of his blushing face as he could.
“You--ridiculous boy!” Shizun muttered. “...How did you even manage to…flavor…that?”
Not easily. Luo Binghe had gotten the idea after Shizun remarked in his oblique way upon a slight change in the taste of Luo Binghe’s semen after they ate pineapple for the first time. Luo Binghe had not known that food could affect the taste of his seed. Shizun, however, had been bizarrely certain and completely correct. What Shizun did and did not know about sex was…unpredictable. They’d had plenty of time to repeat the experiment, due to the fact that the glowing amulet that transported to a mysterious tropical island had broken after one use. The island was mysterious, at least, to Luo Binghe and Shizun. The mystery experienced by the usual inhabitants was how and why two strange men had just dropped out of the sky mid-coitus. (The amulet, it turned out, was powered by dual cultivation. Shizun had remarked bitterly that he “should have known.”)
Fresh out of the Abyss, Luo Binghe had conquered the Demon Realm in a little less than one year. He knew that was fast. He’d been very motivated. Since then, Luo Binghe had always been curious how long such a feat would take Shizun. Shizun would have done it faster than Luo Binghe, no question; the only debate was if the gap between their times would have been slight or significant. Whenever Luo Binghe got to see his shizun truly dedicate himself to a problem, his estimate of the gap widened. After the amulet adventure, Luo Binghe was certain that Shizun could found any empire he wanted in less than six months. After all, in just four days on the island, Shizun solved every almost major problem that plagued it: the corrupt mayoral race; the missing golden chicken; the ghost in that one mansion; that demon in the other one; the local school’s failing fundraiser to build a new roof; three unsolved murder cases (one of which happened two thousand years ago and explained the secret of how this place came to be and therefore the secret of how to escape); a dance competition; and a complex series of barters for highly specific objects that even Luo Binghe could not parse how Shizun knew it would lead to a monumental yet easily missed legendary weapon.
The only thing left to do was wait for the upcoming volcanic eruption that threatened to destroy the whole island. Shizun would redirect that destructive energy into powering their teleport home. Until that happened, Shizun and Luo Binghe vacationed by the beach. Shizun, in that way of his, referred to this time as a particularly hacky filler arc. Luo Binghe referred to this time as one of the happiest of his life. The normal worries of everyday life had a hard time finding you when you were stranded on a cursed island in an infinite ocean in a pocket dimension in a gem. They passed the time so lazily that they hardly noticed it was passing at all. They slept in and stayed up late, went to bonfire dances, enjoyed dramatic recitals of local legends, swam naked with the jellysharks and otter rays, fucked on the beach, and took up surfing. Shizun recovered every missing artifact from a local museum. Luo Binghe got into bug collecting. Somehow they both became the leader of a local thieves guild. And during that vacation and the pineapple and Shizun’s quiet approval of the new taste, Luo Binghe realized that there was an entire flavor potential he’d been neglecting.
Semen-wise, the only flavor he’d successfully developed so far was caramel. “Developed” was the key word there--it wasn’t enough to know what meals he could cook to make him taste sweeter. If something was worth doing, it was worth doing on command whenever Shizun pleased, so he needed the end result to be both delicious and reproducible. Coming up with a blueprint his body could parse had been the hardest part. After many false starts and abandoned schemes, the breakthrough finally came when Luo Binghe cross-bred a Dopplerganger’s Rose with a volatile strain of demonic sugar cane. The end result was a sugar that transformed into whatever organic matter it touched. It killed the organic matter in the process so it could seamlessly take the place of the original, but that was only an issue if you were stupid enough to mess around in the Demon Emperor’s personal kitchen. Luo Binghe no longer had any staff that stupid.
While the resulting candied Dopplegangers had only lasted a few days before they got caught in a rain storm, their creation had been great proof of concept. Luo Binghe moved on to the next step: caramelizing the sugar while he jerked off into the pot. He had to try this a quite a few times to find the exact middle point of transformation where the resulting substance was both caramel and semen, but once he did, he simply ingested the final result and let his blood mites get to work processing the blend.
After a few dozen additional orgasms and taste tests proved he could produce flavor at will, Luo Binghe started tweaking the details. No self-respecting chef would stop at the first palatable result. What would be the point of coming caramel if it tasted worse than what he could easily make in the kitchen? And at the same time, what was the point of simply reproducing something he could easily achieve via more traditional cooking methods? After sampling several batches that cheated towards pure caramel, Luo Binghe found them unexpectedly disappointing. He wanted the most pleasing texture and taste without losing the core identity of the original source. It wasn’t just enough that Shizun enjoy eating Luo Binghe’s cum: Shizun had to know that he enjoyed eating Luo Binghe’s cum.
Luo Binghe explained all this to Shizun. Shizun did not make it easy to do so. Prying Shizun’s hands off his mouth once again, Luo Binghe managed to get out, “This disciple has almost figured out chocolate,” before Shizun managed to muzzle him again. Luo Binghe kissed the palm pressing his mouth shut. When he started licking, Shizun withdrew enough for Luo Binghe to say, “Shizun has often remarked upon this disciple’s remarkable heritage. It was simple enough to take advantage of it.”
Shizun scoffed incredulously. “‘Simple enough.’ This master shudders to think what his disciple would consider complicated.”
Chocolate was proving complicated, but Luo Binghe took some mercy on his husband and kept that to himself. He took Shizun’s hands captive and pressed kisses along them. Shizun endured it well enough until Luo Binghe came to the finger that Shizun had been sucking on when Luo Binghe had returned to the room. Luo Binghe swallowed it into his mouth and hummed. Shizun snatched his hand back and whacked Luo Binghe lightly on the chest.
“This disciple merely wished to taste test his creation. He never wishes to serve Shizun anything unpalatable.”
“It was already palatable,” Shizun grumbled. “I mean--this master is not saying--the original taste is--if this is because Binghe is concerned--if he is doing this for his master’s taste, that’s…that’s not necessary.”
Luo Binghe smiled. He knew Shizun disliked the taste of semen. Pre-come, Shizun had little issue with that, but during the rare times Luo Binghe had lost control and finished in Shizun’s mouth, Shizun wrinkled his nose the way he’d done when he’d still needed to drink his bitter medicinal tea. On those nights, he was especially eager for the post-fuck snacks. Luo Binghe had gotten much better about where he came, but still sometimes Shizun refused to pull off when warned, and Luo Binghe never had the strength to make him. Nothing made him come harder than finishing in Shizun’s mouth (which was probably part of the problem). Unfortunately, Shizun had figured that out. Luo Binghe tried to tell Shizun that he should not force himself to do something he did not enjoy; Shizun always replied with the verbal equivalent of jumping out of the window and running. The only thing Shizun enjoyed less than talking about than the sex he liked was the sex he didn’t.
It still seemed impossible how hard Shizun worked to make Luo Binghe happy. Luo Binghe could do nothing less than make that work as pleasing as possible. “I don’t want anything I serve Shizun to be merely palatable,” he said.
Shizun smacked him in the chest again. Afterwards, he didn’t move his hands away. “Ridiculous boy,” Shizun chided, scooting closer to scold his disciple more effectively. “Binghe should devote that brilliant mind of his towards things that matter.”
“What could matter more than Shizun’s pleasure?” Luo Binghe replied.
(Far away from the perpetual honeymoon that was the Bamboo House, in the small but functional offices from which the world was ran, Shang Qinghua sneezed viciously three times in a row. The force knocked over one of the dozen precarious piles of papers surrounding him on all sides, resulting in an avalanche that took out Shang Qinghua’s best assistant--who, to be fair was a pixie slightly smaller than his hand. Shang Qinghua eventually fished her out from under a progress report from the Imperial Council on Cannibalism, a think tank dedicated to the question of how demons could maintain their cultural practices without, you know, eating so many humans. Which, yes, did still count as cannibalism, no matter how much some demons protested that they were an entirely different species from humans. Firstly, they themselves had called the act of human meat “cannibalism” until they got wind that the new empire and its pathetic human relations were getting squeamish, and secondly, if the species were that different, they wouldn’t be able to so easily create fertile offspring. If a demon ate a human or a human ate a demon, it counted as cannibalism. Biologists could quibble with the details, but this was what Shang Qinghua had decreed after the first year of the council’s work kept getting bogged down defining every cannibalistic edge case they could think up.The council’s most recent proposal had been a public education campaign on the inferior quality of human meat, but it was also developing legislation that clarified under what circumstances you could still partake of that inferior meat if it was important to you, like for religious ceremonies or if a guy was really annoying.
This was only one of the thousand trickledown effects of Emperor Luo Binghe’s unprecedented reign. Demons and humans were interacting like never before, and Shang Qinghua was steering this new cultural exchange like it was a cruise liner sailing through an obstacle course. He slept an average of three hours a night, had a mental breakdown once a week, fucked his husband every other day, and had possibly never been happier.
Shang Qinghua had once asked Luo Binghe--you know, the emperor--his opinion on the matter. Luo Binghe had told him to ask Shizun. Shen Qingqiu had told Shang Qinghua that his world-building was bad. Then Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu got distracted from the conversation and peeled off for a midday bone sesh. When Luo Binghe later returned, he still had no thoughts on the cultural value of cannibalism, but he did have more plants he needed so he could make flavored jizz. Shang Qinghua didn’t ask them policy questions anymore.)
Shizun’s hands skimmed up Luo Binghe’s chest before pressing him down until he was flat on his back. “This master’s unruly disciple always does exactly what he pleases,” Shizun said softly. His hair slipped off his shoulder and tickled the side of Luo Binghe’s face. When Shizun reached to brush the strands away, Luo Binghe nuzzled into his hand. Shizun’s thumb found its way to Luo Binghe’s lips. Luo Binghe greeted it with teeth as he held Shizun’s unusually steady gaze.
“This disciple hopes to perfect roasted chestnuts flavor before winter.”
Shizun closed his eyes. He appeared to be praying for strength. He said at last, “Binghe said there was cake?”
There was. And, Luo Binghe was happy to report and Shizun was happy to never ever acknowledge aloud, it did in fact pair wonderfully with caramel.