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The first time it happens, they don’t see him.
And it’s a little unfair of them, really, to get so handsy and involved in a place so open, where anyone – including their most loyal of attendants – can see them.
Yin Yu finds himself staring for a brief moment, noting the way Hua Cheng’s hands slide down the curve of Xie Lian’s waist as he presses him down against a garden divan, lowering his husband back into the seat cushion beneath them. Partially obscured by blooming red flowers and thorny branches, he sees the flutter of white robes being spread open by eager hands; sees the way his charge’s gaze warms in fondness and desire as he gazes at the prince beneath him, before ducking his head behind the cover of leaves and stems.
The Waning Moon Officer, for all his stoic professionalism, struggles more than he’d care to admit to drag his gaze away.
Yin Yu had nearly succeeded in banishing the memory of that night to the recesses of his mind when he sees them again, although this time his presence has been requested: in his steady hands, he carries a golden tray laden with treats and wine, and a number of other things requested by Hua Chengzhu. The hot spring steam wraps around him in the cool ever-night of Ghost City, the red moon above them lighting his way down to the waterside; he’s thankful for his mask as the amorous couple come into view.
Xie Lian is settled in Hua Cheng’s lap, completely bare as far as Yin Yu could tell; his arms were draped languidly over his Ghost King’s toned shoulders. His Highness’ face is obscured from view by Hua Cheng’s head at this angle, and he cannot see what kind of expression he might be wearing or how much of his body was on show – such a view was reserved for his husband, after all. But he can’t help but notice when his charge does deign to cast a glance at him as he sets the tray down beside them.
“Hua Chengzhu, your requested items.” Yin Yu addresses him with a low bow.
“Many thanks,” Hua Cheng offers in response, his gaze lingering on his Waning Moon Officer’s form for a long moment or two, seemingly in deep thought. But soon enough, his hand is waving dismissively. “That will be all.”
Yin Yu tries not to think about that lingering gaze as he lies awake that night.
Some weeks later, Yin Yu rouses from sleep to unfamiliar noise.
He sits upright at once, hand flying to the small dagger fixed at his waist, and listens.
At first, in his heightened state of alarm, he thinks what he hears are muffled voices. But a few long moments makes it obvious that it’s something a little different - there’s a repetitive noise, like furniture creaking and shifting against a wooden floor; the sound of skin meeting skin and a cacophony of moans fall into rhythm with it and, wearily, Yin Yu understands.
“Ah, ah, San Lang! It’s already too much…”
“Mmm, I think you can take it, Gege…”
Sighing in both relief and exasperation, he lets himself fall back flat on his bed. Dagger forgotten, he brings a palm up to cover his slowly flushing face. He really doesn’t think he asks for much from his boss, other than a place to live and a purpose to fulfil – that is their agreement. But would it be so audacious to ask if Hua Cheng could choose one of the hundreds of other rooms in Paradise Manor, other than the room right next to his own, to fulfil his marital obligations? To let Yin Yu’s few hours of daily rest be peaceful?
Yin Yu feels increasingly hotter under the collar as moans, groans, whimpers and whines fill the quiet night air; he really can’t help the way his body reacts to it, either, try as he might to block and banish the indulgent noises from his ears and mind. It’s not his fault that he begins to picture himself in both of their bodies – to have His Highness moaning his name, to have Hua Chengzhu fucking into him from behind, forcing him to arch his back with a firm hold on his hair as he takes him.
“San Lang-gege,” He hears, the rest of the sentence Xie Lian had aimed to speak cut off abruptly as those thrusts grew harsher, and the bed beneath them creaked and groaned like it was ready to break.
It’s inevitable, and really only fair that Yin Yu finds himself with one hand in his pants and the other over his mouth, seeking relief from the anguish his charges had caused him.
It happens again not even a week later, an hour past midday as Yin Yu works diligently through the week’s paperwork with his office door ajar. They arrive quietly and he’s too focussed on the task at hand to pay passing footsteps much mind; no other doors are shut either, so he assumes they’ve continued on down the hallway until he hears the thud of boots being shed onto hardwood floors across the way.
“San Lang… what if someone hears us?” The voice plays at being shy and coy, but the mischief is hard to disguise. Yin Yu can imagine the cheeky smile and flushed cheeks Xie Lian must possess in moments like these.
“I don’t care,” Hua Cheng says, cool and collected and arrogant as ever. “Let them hear.”
The two of them together light a fire in the pit of Yin Yu’s stomach, and as the couple in the room across from him get into it, the warmth of arousal spreads throughout his body. He debates how to deal with this for some time – closing his door or leaving his room would alert them to the fact that he was aware of what they were doing, but staying here with the door ajar opened him up to a world of shame if they noticed it when they left. So, he remains frozen in his chair, cock hardening beneath his robes and his mind spinning.
He decides to stay. Decides to try to push through this, somehow – if he could pretend that he had been diligently doing his paperwork, he might reasonably be able to say he hadn’t noticed them, if questioned. He realises very quickly that that wasn’t going to be easy, though, as the chorus of pleasured sounds and sweet nothings grows louder with every passing second.
It’s torture, he thinks; each sound they make is much clearer than it had been a few nights ago, as open doors are not nearly as efficient at blocking sound. Frankly, it’s obscene, and the ever-composed and stoic Waning Moon Officer can’t handle it. Once again, and with even greater remorse, his hand slips beneath several layers of fabric, splayed down against his abdomen until it has descended far enough to grasp at his aching dick. His movements are gentle at first, but grow rapidly faster along with his mounting frustration; his bottom lip is bitten between his teeth as he buries his face in his free hand, trying desperately not to make a sound.
( In the room across the hallway, Hua Cheng laughs softly against the neck of his beloved husband; his tongue draws a loving stripe over a mark he had bitten into the skin there not long ago.
“Gege,” He speaks, although not aloud – the array is best for things he doesn’t yet want to be heard. “Would you like to see what he’s doing?”
Hua Cheng’s hips don’t cease their rise and fall, despite their secret conversation, and it leaves even Xie Lian’s inner voice sounding breathless. “Hah… yes, San Lang, show me…”
The Ghost King need only close his eyes and rest his forehead against his God’s to share the scene captured by a single, fluttering butterfly perched on Yin Yu’s door. )
The Waning Moon Officer’s head lulls, neck resting over the back of his chair as his hair, still loose from bathing this morning, splays and spreads and tumbles down the carved wooden backrest. The butterfly perched on his windowsill gently flutters it’s wings as it relays the scene back to the intertwined lovers across the way: Yin Yu gasps louder than expected as a less-than-gentle jerk of his fist coincides with a pleasured groan from Hua Cheng, and the two of them smile through their own pleasure at the sight.
( “To think he’d be so bold,” Hua Cheng muses, grinning from ear to ear; a hand cupping his husband’s cheek as he takes him in to the hilt. Xie Lian groans beneath him, fully enveloped in his Ghost King’s tight heat and momentarily lost to the sensation. “Do you like it, Gege – watching him whilst I’m so full of you?”
“I do,” Xie Lian still whispers, even inside their array, clearly concerned their cover will be blown if he were any louder. Both of them take a moment, still shifting against one another as they watch their loyal subordinate unravel, so close and yet so far from their touch. He speaks no further as, as if spurred on by the unknowing subject of their desires, he too comes undone and Hua Cheng follows not long after.
All three of them stew in the moment at once, but apart, and Xie Lian feels a little sorrowful that he can’t dote on their Waning Moon Officer the same way they’ll care for each other. He dips a hand down to his husband’s abdomen, swiping his slender digits through the Ghost King’s release, and bringing those fingers to his own lips as he ponders aloud. “We really must be more up front with him next time, San Lang.”
The invitation comes the next morning, in the form of a beautifully written note on his bedside table, signed off by none other than the Crown Prince of Xianle himself.
“Yin Yu,
Please do join us in our suite after dinner this evening. It has been some time since we’ve caught up with one another, and we’d love to have your company.
Hope to see you there,
Xie Lian.”
Yin Yu thinks he might be hallucinating at first, and rubs his eyes and face to check the note again. Sure enough though, the words on the page are very much unchanged, and they set his mind racing.
Is it excitement? Guilt? Nerves? Dread? He wonders briefly if they know – had they heard him, had they seen him? Sitting stock-still in his bed, he spends what would usually be his morning rest time mentally preparing himself for the consequences. For being killed, or worse, fired by an enraged and protective Hua Chengzhu, or a possessive Crown Prince.
There’s a hopeful part of him too, though – he doubts Hua Cheng would waste time on theatrics when he could be rid of him outright. Maybe it was just going to be a nice little chat, a chance for his boss to go over his plans for the near future and for Xie Lian to tell him all about the most recent happening in the realm above.
Of course, he can’t stay cooped up in his room running through every possibility for the entire day, so he must eventually force himself to his feet and dress himself in a manner suitable for the outside world. Time drags slowly, each of his daily duties are concluded in record time, and there seems not to be any further tasks to tend to today. This is both a curse and a blessing – to be busy means that he can more easily pass this anxious, harrowing wait. To be idle means that he has more time to spend bathing, braiding his hair to one side of his pale face, and tucking blemishes away beneath some lightweight concealing lotion.
The early afternoon consisted of hours of fussing and fretting, attempting to fend off his nerves by keeping his hands busy. He re-embroiders the sleeves of one robe and mends the hem of another, dusts his room twice and reorganises his bookshelf. It’s only when this merciless day draws out long into the evening that he dons his mask, fixes his braid again, and steps out into the long hallway leading down to the Kings’ bedchambers.
“Come on in!”
Xie Lian calls out sweetly the moment Yin Yu knocks on the heavy wooden door, and as he reaches for the handle, he can’t help but notice a single silver butterfly fluttering its wings at him, nestled comfortably in amongst the intricate carvings. So they had seen him coming…
He hesitates to wonder briefly: Have they used these butterflies to keep an eye on me before?
Alas, the thought is cast aside for now. It would be rude to keep the two of them waiting, after all, and he can barely contain his anxiety – better to get whatever this is over with now, so that he won’t suffer any longer. He opens the large, heavy door and steps inside.
As his eyes adjust to the gentle glow of candles and lanterns, he takes the room in: Several incense burners are lit, positioned by each open window so that the scented smoke rides the gentle winds into the centre of the room; steaming cups of tea sit on a table there, and the sheer red drapes adorning each window flutter gently with the breeze, as do the robes worn by each of the three men standing within it.
Yin Yu realises very quickly that, compared to his hosts, he is certainly overdressed. His eyes fall first upon Xie Lian, donned in a gorgeous white inner robe delicately embroidered with silver butterflies and cherry blossom branches. It nips in just so at the waist and hangs haphazardly from the man’s shoulders, dangerously close to falling from them entirely, and it takes all of Yin Yu’s fortitude to draw his eyes back up to that gently-smiling face.
“We’re so happy you’re here,” Xie Lian breaks the silence once again, nodding to an extravagant and comfortable-looking chair positioned just to the side of the tea table, both of which are within close reach of the enormous bed the Crown Prince was currently perched on. “Will you take a seat? There’s some tea here for you – a calming herbal blend I picked up when I travelled recently.”
“Of course, Your Highness,” Yin Yu inclines his head, feet coming unstuck from the floor as the door finally swings back into place behind him. He can only hope his nerves don’t show in the way he carries himself, or in his voice, despite the way his face warms beneath cool, white porcelain. “Thank you both – for inviting me, that is.”
The second of his hosts can be seen more clearly as Yin Yu moves into the centre of the room to sit, no longer obscured by the deep red drape curtains that match the material of his clothes almost perfectly. Hua Cheng’s eye falls upon him as he, too, steps forward – though his expression seems calm, there is a certain hunger in his gaze that keeps Yin Yu pinned to his seat.
“Your tea,” Hua Cheng breaks the momentary silence, with a nod to the steaming cups on the table. “His Highness prepared it specially for you. Don’t let it get cold.”
“Ah, right, the tea,” Yin Yu says, face growing all the warmer under their watchful eyes. Xie Lian smiles at him, soft and sweet with a glint of mischief in his warm brown eyes. It’s only after Yin Yu raises the cup to his lips that he realises why he’s so amused – if he doesn’t want to scorn His Highness, he’s going to have to take off the mask.
There’s another pause as his brain short-circuits and his free hand, half-raised, falters. He wills the skin concealed by porcelain to cool, even if only a little, but his mild panic seems to have the opposite effect – and how is he going to explain the shameful state of himself to the two of them when the mask comes off? He desperately wants to do something, but he can’t. Mercifully, someone else makes the decision for him.
Yin Yu feels cool fingers and sharp nails grazing lightly up the column of his throat until they reach his chin, where they linger briefly, before hooking beneath the white mask and lifting it from his face. The movement is surprisingly gentle, and only serves to fluster him further; the cool air caressing his cheeks is soothing, but he dreads to think how much of a mess he looks right now.
Xie Lian can’t help but chuckle softly, propping himself up with his arms as he leans back on the bed to watch. Hua Cheng sets the mask down on the table next to them, before taking the small cup from a flabbergasted Yin Yu’s hand, and bringing the warm ceramic vessel to his lips. Wordlessly, and perhaps against his own better judgement, his lips part and the taste of chamomile and herbs wash over his tongue. The flow of liquid is steady at first as he sits there, body limp and compliant, but it seems his King is growing impatient – the bottom of the cup is turned upwards, and he soon finds himself struggling to gulp those last few mouthfuls down. When he manages to re-focus his vision, lips wet and open as he gasps for breath, he sees that a foxy grin has cracked the once-cool expression on Hua Cheng’s face.
“Adorable.”
A few seconds feel like eternity as he tries to steady his breathing, mouth still agape even now, when the cup has been returned to the table. Hua Cheng takes a cup of his own in hand and passes another to his husband with the utmost care. They both look to Yin Yu as they sip, waiting for him to do or say something, and he is nothing if not a people pleaser.
“…This one wonders why he might’ve been invited today,” He manages to stutter out, the fingers of each hand wrapping around the wooden arms of his chair, and grasping onto them in much the same way that he’s clinging onto his composure. “Forgive my boldness, but this… doesn’t appear to be anything like the setting for our usual conversations.”
They both look rather pleased with themselves, albeit Xie Lian still seems hesitant to enter into his personal space in the same way that Hua Cheng has. It is him, though, that answers first.
“You’re not wrong. This… isn’t going to be one of our usual chats,” It sounds like a confession, like he’s owning up to a scandalous secret, and Yin Yu waits with bated breath as Xie Lian thinks over his words. “San Lang and I have been wanting to ask you something for a little while now...”
Oh, gods. Was he actually going to be fired, or stationed somewhere else? His heart lurches in his chest, and his face does fall a touch – at this, the Ghost King chuckles.
“Relax, Officer, nothing bad is going to happen to you. Gege, maybe it’s better if we show him something instead? That leaves no room for misunderstandings.”
“Good idea.”
Yin Yu glances between them, bewildered, and increasingly red in the face the closer Hua Cheng draws. The other man’s hands come to rest over his own on the chair, locking him in place as their foreheads touched, and a familiar scene is transferred and played before them all.
His eyes go wide as he sees himself, lounging back in his office chair, cock in hand as he listens to the lewd chorus next door. The recording may only be minutes long, but it feels like these sordid images of himself will go on for all eternity; Hua Cheng, of course, does not cut the scene short when he recognises what’s going on, and only draws away when then man below him pleads for it.
“Hua Chengzhu – mercy! Please…” He almost whines, his pride and composure reduced to nothing before them. The man still looming above him looks somehow hungrier than before, and Xie Lian looks at him with an endeared amusement. “I – I apologise, for my behaviour. It won’t happen again, I –”
“Enough of that. We’ve not brought you here for apologies,” Hua Cheng says simply, altering his grip on the chair so that he can drag it until it’s pushed right up to the edge of the bed, where Xie Lian now sits cross-legged before him. “If you’d like to… we’ve brought you here to watch.”
Yin Yu blinks once, twice and then three times. The evening had already given him whiplash several times over, and he’s momentarily uncertain that he heard that right. Swallowing hard, and shifting his gaze to their Crown Prince, he finally asks: “…watch?”
“I want to be clear that you don’t have to, if you’re uncomfortable,” Xie Lian says, sincere despite the mischievous smile he wears just for the two of them. “But since we got such a lovely view of you last time, we thought it was only fair we gave you the same in return.
You can go at any point, if you want to, now or later – this isn’t a punishment, and you needn’t endure it if you don’t want to. But, if you do want to stay…”
“I do,” He doesn’t know how much harder he can blush, how much more desperate he can sound, but gods know that whatever damage this does to his pride is worth being here right now. “I want to stay. Please, Your Highness; Hua Chengzhu…”
At that, his charges exchange a knowing smile.
It’s not long before Hua Cheng is kneeling behind Xie Lian on the mattress, the pace his hips set unrushed, but firm. He holds his husband steady over the edge of the bed, his body bent forward and his hands braced on each of the chair’s armrests. Each thrust rolls through Xie Lian’s body in a wave of pleasure, and has him moaning lewdly into Yin Yu’s ear. They’re not touching beyond the brush of Xie Lian’s hair against the exposed skin of his shoulder, but that alone is enough to send pleasant shivers down his body.
Yin Yu was in a state of near-undress – Hua Cheng had instructed him to open up his robes, and had insisted on pushing them down himself, so that they would fall from his shoulders and gather in the crooks of his elbows. His trousers, too, had been pulled down to his knees, baring so much skin that the two lovers had not seen before. “You’re gorgeous.” Xie Lian had remarked, followed swiftly by “Good enough to eat…” in Hua Cheng’s smirking voice.
If he had any choice in the matter, he’d have a hand fisted round his cock right now, relieving himself of his arousal. But the two above him had made the decision to bind his arms behind the back of the chair – wanting to focus fully on the view before him. Cruel, and yet he’s all the more wound up for it, gasping with each pretty sound Xie Lian makes just millimetres from his ear.
“Yin Yu,” Xie Lian’s breath tickles over his skin as he speaks, breathless and wrecked. “You look so good like this. Tied up, and needy…”
“Your Highness, you…”
“Is this how you’ve been imagining us, Yin Yu?” Hua Cheng interrupts, voice unwavering even as he drives into Xie Lian over and over again. “How many times did you watch and listen in on us… and how many different scenarios did you play out in that dirty little mind of yours – anything quite like this?”
“I’m… not nearly creative enough to imagine something like this.” Yin Yu whispers, tense and tingling and wrung-tight with pent-up desire. They hardly touched him, and yet this was better than anything his brain could have come up with. “This really is… amazing…”
Hua Cheng chuckles, though it’s cut short when he feels Xie Lian tightening around him, teetering yet closer to the edge. The Ghost King leans all the way forward, reaching out to brace a hand on the back of the chair behind Yin Yu’s head. Maintaining a fine balance this way, other hand also moves, wrapping around his husband’s leaking cock. From here, he gets a great view of the Waning Moon Officer’s pretty, flushed face, and the equally pretty and flushed dick where it lay neglected against his stomach.
“Come for me, Gege,” He coos into Xie Lian’s ear, eyes fixed on Yin Yu’s own. “Won’t you make a mess out of our little guest here, for me?”
Xie Lian and Yin Yu both moan.
“Yes, San Lang,” Is Xie Lian’s response, slowly unravelling before them both. “Please – please come inside. Please make a mess out of me, too. I want to feel y— ah!”
And there it was: The Crown prince finally lets go, his head lulling back against his husband’s shoulder with a loud cry. His body goes taut, and hot ropes of his seed are shot over Yin Yu’s lower body. The warmth of it, coming in wave after wave, sends a wide-eyed and unsuspecting Yin Yu over the edge, too; he comes virtually untouched, shaking apart and crying out unintelligibly.
Hua Cheng curses and, following their lead, fulfils his Gege’s request with one final, hard thrust.
At some point, he’d been washed off, and bundled up into bed with the both of them. He wasn’t usually so quick to sleep, but the emotional exhaustion the day had presented him with had coaxed his eyes to close in their bed. They’d joined him, one on either side, and it was to their morning chatter that he began to stir awake again. A warm palm soothed up and down his side as Xie Lian leaned over his shoulder, talking to the man whose cool skin pressed up against his back. Had the memories of the night before not come back to Yin Yu so quickly, he might have thought he was hallucinating.
“Is he awake?” Hua Cheng asks from behind him, as long claw-like nails raked through Xie Lian’s hair.
“Mhmm. He’s stirring - don’t pounce on him right away, San Lang.”
Pounce on him? Yin Yu’s eyes peel open, thankful that Ghost City’s evernight meant that there was no sunlight to blind him in his bleariness. “Chengzhu, Your Highness…”
“Hello, Yin Yu,” Xie Lian’s face is right above his when he glances up, looking radiant and lovely in the flickering candlelight. The Ghost King’s hand and arm dip in and out of view as he plays with his beloved husband’s hair. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” Comes the honest reply – it’s certainly possible, in fact, that he hasn’t slept this well since before he’d ascended to the heavens. Having always led what many would consider an ascetic life, to discover that these kinds of indulgences could have such a positive effect on his wellbeing was… interesting. Still, he has not forgotten his place. “Would you like this one to resume his duties?”
“If I had wanted that, I would have long since removed you from our bedchambers,” Hua Cheng chimes back in, reaching out to Yin Yu’s sleep-mussed braid so that he may undo it, and run his fingers through it. “I would prefer that you tended to some… new duties in here, before you scurry off.”
“I-I see,” Bewilderment returns to him, then, as Xie Lian swoops down to place a kiss on the jut of his cheekbone. “May I… ask what those duties are?”
“Us.” Xie Lian said simply, that playful glint back in his eye.