Chapter Text
Eventually, the kisses slow down, become tender rather than desperate and slowly, Shen Qingqiu lowers Mu Yuan back down so his feet touch the floor. (He doesn’t really remember being picked up, just remembers wrapping his legs around Shen Qingqiu’s waist like a vise.
Shen Qingqiu buries his face in Mu Yuan’s neck, pressing his lips to the skin there and sucking. Mu Yuan’s entire upper body breaks out in goosebumps and he feels his nipples tighten.
!!!
SINCE WHEN COULD THEY DO THAT?!
Shen Qingqiu hums against his skin, and Mu Yuan shivers, tipping his head back and exposing the line of his neck more. Mu Yuan clutches the other man and when Shen Qingqiu bites his neck, a wrecked sound escapes Mu Yuan’s throat. Shen Qingqiu kisses over the bite and then licks it for good measure.
He pulls back just enough to stare into Mu Yuan’s eyes. “I would love to do nothing more than this for days,” he says. “But I need to retrieve Yingying and get her settled.”
Oh, Mu Yuan realizes with relief. It’s not some distant and cruel peak lord adopting Yingying.
It’s A-Jiu.
Fuck, Mu Yuan feels like an idiot. Again. “I should have known,” he murmurs, and lays a hand against Shen Qingqiu’s cheek. “Baba asked me if it was you, Shen Jiu adopting her, if that would ease my concern.”
Shen Qingqiu nods gravely. “And does it?”
“I feel much better about it,” Mu Yuan admits honestly.
After a moment, Shen Qingqiu says, “I have prepared a room for her. Would you like to see?”
He definitely does! So Shen Qingqiu takes his hand and leads him to the back of the bamboo house to what is a small bedroom. Somehow, in less than a day, he’s acquired all the trappings required for a little girl. The bed with soft buckwheat hull pillows. The wardrobe filled with ridiculously small clothes for a young girl. The shelf with age appropriate books.
“How did you manage this so quickly, A-Jiu?” Mu Yuan asks, and Shen Qingqiu gets a shifty expression. “A-Jiu?”
Relenting, Shen Qingqiu admits, “I may have bullied Shang Qinghua into being very helpful.”
“Shang Shibo? I’ve never met him,” Mu Yuan muses.
Shen Qingqiu snorts. “Yes, well, we need to introduce you immediately, lest you think he is the head disciple.”
Mu Yuan prods Shen Qingqiu in the stomach with a finger for that remark. “Oh,” he says, realizing something, “By any chance is the sect leader someone that does fake smiles and kicked puppy looks? Because if so, I met him this morning.”
Looking pained, Shen Qingqiu says, “Let me guess. He didn’t introduce himself properly.”
“No, and he knew my name.” Mu Yuan scowls.
“Damn Qi-ge,” Shen Qingqiu mutters. He returns his attention to Mu Yuan with an intensely focused look. “A-Yuan. Would you like to come with me to pick up Yingying?”
Mu Yuan smiles, bright and wide. “I would love to.”
***
It feels different this time, when Mu Yuan steps onto Xiu Ya and wraps his arms around Shen Qingqiu’s waist. His hair is back up in the Peak Lord crown, and his outer robes are also back in place. His armor is on, but Shen Qingqiu has no defenses whatsoever against Mu Yuan.
Shen Qingqiu is very aware of Mu Yuan’s body pressing against his back, the hand over his heart, and he can’t help laying one of his own over Mu Yuan’s and squeezing.
Finally, FINALLY, Mu Yuan has all the information, knows all (well, most) of his secrets and is still here.
They land at the Healing Pavilion and Shen Qingqiu sends his sword into storage. This time when they walk through the corridors, Mu Qingfang actually stops them when they pass by.
“Everything all right, Yuan-er?” Mu Qingfang’s eyes drop unerringly to Mu Yuan’s neck. He glares at Shen Qingqiu who merely looks back, feeling smug.
“Yes, Baba. Shen Qingqiu told me everything.” Mu Yuan tells him, resisting the urge to rub his neck. He’s guessing there is a pretty evident bruise there.
“As Mu Shidi requested,” Shen Qingqiu says, tone a bit chilly. He reaches down and takes Mu Yuan’s hand, threading their fingers together. It’s a ridiculous display to make in public, let alone in front of Mu Yuan’s father, but Shen Qingqiu just can’t deny himself this.
Mu Yuan smiles blindingly up at him, and Shen Qingqiu thinks that Mu Qingfang might be in danger of deviating if they don’t move this along. “A-Yuan,” Mu Shidi’s face darkens. “Let’s go see Yingying and get her settled on my peak.”
For once, it’s Mu Shidi turning and walking away with his sleeves flapping.
“A-Jiu,” Mu Yuan chides, as they walk through the halls.
“Just had to get it out of my system,” Shen Qingqiu defends himself.
“Hmm, sure, that’s believable.”
In Yingying’s room, they find her in bed, playing with one of Mu Yuan’s Shimeis. The Qian Cao peak disciple is making little bubbles of qi dance over her bed and the girl is a giggling mess trying to catch them.
But when she sees the two men, Yinginyg forgets all about the bubbles. She claps her hands together with joy and shrieks with happiness. Shen Qingqiu winces internally. He’ll…have to work on that lest he go prematurely deaf.
“Ying-er,” Shen Qingqiu greets with a small smile. “Baba is here to take you home.” Father, he thinks. He’s someone’s Father now.
“Baba, yes! Yingying wants to go home! What’s a home like?”
Beside him, Mu Yuan inhales sharply. He crouches down next to her and runs a hand over her hair. “Home is where the safe people are,” Mu Yuan says. “Home is where the people that love you, are. Home is where- if you’re feeling bad, just being there makes you feel better.”
Oh, Shen Qingqiu thinks. No wonder the bamboo house to this point--has always felt like…just a house. “I brought clothes for her,” Shen Qingqiu says and Yingying lights up.
Mu Yuan smiles at the girl. “Is it okay if your Baba helps you get dressed? Or did you want someone else to help you?”
Shen Qingqiu frowns but remains silent. That-yes. He should have realized he might need to tread softly. Except Yingying looks right at him and says, “Baba help.”
So Mu Yuan and the Qian Cao peak disciple step out and Shen Qingqiu begins the process of trying to wrangle a little girl into robes. It’s much harder than he thought. There’s lots of giggling, and eventually the head and arms are where they should be.
Ying-er looks amazed to have such fine clothes, and keeps wiggling her toes in the soft socks he’d put on for her.
“We’re ready,” Shen Qingqiu calls, and Mu Yuan comes back in.
“Oh,” the younger man says. “Look at you, so grown up in your new robes.”
“Baba helped me get dressed,” Yingying says. She leans forward and shriek whispers, “I like having a Baba!”
Mu Yuan closes his eyes for a moment before answering. “Yes, they’re pretty great.” To Shen Qingqiu he says, “Do you need help getting her home?”
Shen Qingqiu thinks for a moment and then says, “No, I think we’ll be fine.” There’s so much he wants to say but this is neither the time nor the place. Yingying lifts her arms up, and Shen Qingqiu leans down and scoops her up into his arms. “Later,” he tells Mu Yuan, meeting his eyes. “This evening if it suits, I would like for you to visit. We can…talk more.”
Mu Yuan’s cheeks go a bit pink and he looks flustered. When he starts fiddling with the green tassel at his belt, Shen Qingqiu abruptly recalls hoisting Mu Yuan off his feet and wrapping his arms tightly around him. Eventually, Mu Yuan says, “Yes, um. I. It’s, yeah.”
Unable to resist teasing, Shen Qingqiu says smoothly, “What that a yes, A-Yuan?”
That gets him a glare. “You know it was,” Mu Yuan says sullenly. Then he smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Mu Yuan brushes a thumb over Yingying’s cheek. “Be good for Baba,” he says. “Take good care of him.”
“I will, gege!”
***
Nine months later
Being a father is hard, Shen Qingqiu realizes. He didn’t think it would be easy but he will admit he was a little unprepared for the way it takes over his life. The first few weeks with Yingying are complete and utter CHAOS.
Once she’s back on her feet little Yingying doesn’t stop moving. She skips around the house knocking things over, getting into Shen Qingqiu’s things and on one memorable catastrophe, escaped the house and hid in the bamboo forest for a few hours.
All who thought Shen Qingqiu was paranoid before would be shocked at the lengths he will go to keep his daughter safe. It becomes crystal clear that this girl is a magnet for trouble in all the strangest and unusual ways.
He erects arrays inside the house to inform him if she leaves it. He sews location arrays into her under robes. He gathers every single person on the peak and informs them icily that if his daughter so much as gets a skinned knee on their watch, heads will roll.
The only thing keeping him sane at this point is Mu Yuan. Shen Qingqiu’s efforts at courting the other man have ground to a halt since he turned his life upside down like this. A-Yuan doesn’t seem to mind too much, thankfully.
He visits in the evenings a few nights a week, and they talk about everything and anything. Painting, cultivation, medicine, funny (sad) stories from Mu Yuan’s clinic adventures, and the rampant gossip sweeping the peaks in the year since Shen Qingqiu adopted a little girl AND confirmed the rumors that he was in fact, courting a disciple.
They haven’t done more than exchange heated kisses for fear of Yingying interrupting them. Mu Yuan sheepishly confesses to Shen Qingqiu that he accidentally complained in front of his father about it, and Mu Qingfang gave him a lecture for nearly an hour!
Shen Qingqiu doesn’t mention it, but Mu Qingfang actually sent him a pretty helpful letter which included the suggestion to create a support system to help him care for the baby. As it turns out, Mu Shidi has recently brought some more strays back to the sect and one of them has experience with childcare. Mu Shidi offers to introduce them and Shen Qingqiu gratefully accepted.
Slowly, the qiankun pouch full of courting gifts begins emptying as they make their way into Mu Yuan’s possession.
First the old medical text. Then the herbology book. Mu Yuan is delighted with these and makes sure to tell Shen Qingqiu that.
He hadn’t realized, but making someone else happy feels…really good. It seems like a miracle that just his presence alone can make TWO entire people happy, but it seems to be so.
One evening, Mu Yuan surprises Shen Qingqiu with a gift of his own! He produces a small box and hands it over to Shen Qingqiu with pink cheeks and bright eyes. “I. This is. I would like you to have this, A-Jiu.”
Shen Qingqiu opens the box carefully and finds a dark green tassel with a small jade cat. He smiles, and Mu Yuan inhales sharply.
“It’s Qian Cao green,” Mu Yuan says, hurriedly. “I hope you don’t mind the cat it’s just--”
His words get lost in the kiss that Shen Qingqiu steals.
One day, nearly a full year after the anniversary of Shen Qingqiu injuring his shoulder on a night hunt and meeting a mouthy healer, he takes Yingying on a walk, just the two of them.
“Ying-er, how would you feel about having another father besides me?” Shen Qingqiu asks her seriously.
She stops and peers up at him. “Mu-gege?” She asks hopefully, and he nods.
“I have to ask him,” Shen Qingqiu says. “And he might say no, and we would have to accept that.”
“He won’t,” Yinginyg says, with all the confidence of a young child.
“We must be prepared for any answer,” he tells her again, and she sighs like Shen Qingqiu is being very unreasonable.
“Can we go ask him now? Maybe then he can come live with us!” Yingying bounces on her feet and tugs Shen Qingqiu’s robes for emphasis.
Scooping her up, Shen Qingqiu says, “Do you think it will be fun for Mu-gege to live with us?”
“Yes, Baba,” Yingying says, meeting his eyes. “But his tea is so bad! Mu-gege can live with us, but it’s your job to fix tea. Yingying is too young.”
Laughing a little, Shen Qingqiu promises.
They fly to Qian Cao peak.
He finds Mu Qingfang in his office in the back hallway of the Healing Pavilion.
“Mu Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu says from the doorway, and Mu Qingfang looks up.
Mu Qingfang’s eyes brighten when he spies Yingying. “Hello, Ying-er! You get bigger everytime I see you.”
“MU SHUSHU!” She shrieks, and attempts to fling herself out of Shen Qingqiu’s arms.
Mu Qingfang catches her easily, and boops her nose. “Silly girl. You nearly gave your father a deviation just then. If you want down, you must ask.”
“Yes, Mu Shushu,” she beams. And then- “Do you have a treat for Yingying?”
Shen Qingqiu sighs and looks at the ceiling.
Grinning, Mu Shidi produces a milk candy wrapped in waxed paper. “Naturally, I do.”
“I am going to ask A-Yuan to marry me,” Shen Qingqiu tells Mu Shidi.
He’s not expecting Mu Qingfang to laugh in his face. Shen Qingqiu scowls, but Mu Qingfang holds up a hand.
“Shixiong, forgiveness, it just reminded me of a conversation I once had with my son. Something about, ‘What kind of idiot would marry Shen Qingqiu?’ and my response was, ‘an oblivious one.’”
That doesn’t make it any better, Mu Shidi, Shen Qingqiu silently fumes.
“I have no reason not to give you my blessing,” Mu Qingfang says seriously. “It is clear that you make my son happy.” The physician smiles coldly. “And Yuan-er better keep being happy, Shixiong.”
“Are you threatening me, Mu Shidi?” Shen Qingqiu asks incredulously.
“Not at all,” Mu Qingfang says mildly, meeting his eyes. “I’m promising you.”
After a few more minutes of verbal sparring, Mu Qingfang finally bends and tells Shen Qingqiu that Mu Yuan is likely at their home, probably working in the garden behind the house.
Shen Qingqiu does find Mu Yuan in the garden behind the house, kneeling on the ground and pulling weeds, muttering curses at the plants.
“I thought you were supposed to be nice to them,” Shen Qingqiu says, and Mu Yuan jumps.
“MU GEGE!” Ying-er shouts with glee. She squirms and then says, “DOWN, Baba!”
AS soon as her feet touch the ground she flings herself into Mu Yuan, and Shen Qingqiu has a sinking feeling of what’s about to happen.
“Yingying,” he says warningly.
“WILL YOU MARRY BABA PLEASE, MU GEGE!” Yingying yells, and Mu Yuan’s eyes go wide.
Covering his eyes with his hand, Shen Qingqiu thinks, FUCK. Quickly, before A-Yuan gets lost in his head, Shen Qingqiu says, “A-Yuan, I want to wake up with you in the morning, and spend all of the little moments of our lives together. Will you please marry me?”
It’s not the smooth proposal Shen Qingqiu was hoping for. But Mu Yuan smiles, kisses Ying-er’s cheek and rises smoothly to his feet.
From his sleeve, Shen Qingqiu removes the mutton fat jade hairpin he’d purchased so long ago. “If you would have me, I would like you to wear this.”
Mu Yuan reaches out and takes the hairpin. He turns it over in his hands, and the corners of his lips curve up. His eyes meet Shen Qingqiu’s, then Mu Yuan reaches up and shoves the jade hairpin into his hair. His little smile turns into a grin. “Yeah,” he says. “Let’s get married.”
AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER AND NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENED TO THEM