A/N: This fic originated because of this tumblr prompt from knatalie:

"okay but please please tell me someone sat down and wrote after-mulan fic where some days li shang wakes up and rolls over and murmurs mulan's name and reaches out for her only to hear "call me ping today" whispered back

and how everyone else not in the know thinks he has a wife and a secret army boyfriend and that he's hiding one from the other

and someone tries to tell mulan and she just collapses laughing because they're close but totally wrong

and li shang all the time just deals with it because he loves ping and he loves mulan and he doesn't care what name he's using or what gender he's kissing as long as he can sneak one kiss a day

the dragon kind of creeps him out sometimes but it's all cool

it's all cool"

Conversation 1: The Lovers of Shang

"Doesn't it bother you?"

Mulan looked up from her steaming cup of tea, into the curious brown eyes of Wang Fen, the young wife of one of Shang's childhood friends the latest in a stream of local nobility that had visited since she had been forced to take leave to recover from a broken collarbone sustained in training.

Shang had been livid, but since it truly had been an accident, Ping had managed to talk him out of gutting the fresh recruit who had inflicted the injury. Besides, as much as the injury was unpleasant, it did mean that Mulan had a chance to spend time with her mother-in-law, Li Chun, a formidable woman who had decided that saving Shang's life and having the recommendation of the Emperor was more than enough to counteract the fact that Mulan's feminine graces were few and far between.

"Besides," Chun had sighed, "Shang is as stubborn as his father was, and if he's set his eyes on you, then he would probably insist on leaving me without grandchildren rather than letting me find him another wife."

(Unspoken was the fact that the first time Mulan had felt Shang's eyes on her, watching with a different interest than he showed when looking at his other comrades, he had been looking at Ping. It might have bothered her, if Shang had not later proven that he loved Mulan just as well. But such things were not proper to share with one's mother-in-law, and if Mulan suspected that Chun was mostly just relieved that Shang had shown interest in any woman, well, then she didn't feel the need to enlighten her as to just how complicated the whole thing was. Shang loved Mulan and Ping, and Mulan and Ping loved Shang. That was the only important part.)

"Doesn't what bother me?" Mulan responded to Fen, confused.

"That your husband is gone so often, spending time with his soldiers?" Fen replied, lightly fanning herself.

Mulan's brow creased. "You do know who I am, right?"

"Of course!" Fen smiled, brightly and falsely. "You're Fa Mulan, the woman who saved the Emperor!"

"Fa-Li Mulan now," Mulan corrected, wondering what version of the tale that Fen had heard. Apparently a woman saving the Emperor made a good enough story that almost everyone she came across had heard at least two versions of the tale, though the only thing that they seemed to agree on was that she had come to be present at the right place, at the right time. If it wasn't so convenient to be underestimated, it might have bothered her that some people dismissed the idea that she had really fought in the Emperor's army as a man out of hand.

"Of course, of course, how silly of me. But even though you have his family name, and are living in his childhood home with his mother, don't you worry that you don't really have him?" Fen asked her in a deceptively light tone. "Especially when he's spending all that time with his men," she emphasised.

Mulan had a sudden suspicion that she knew where this was going. Wang Bo, she recalled, had known Shang since he was a boy. Mulan wondered just what exactly of his childhood memories Bo had shared with his wife for her to be looking at Mulan like that.

(She would definitely be relating this conversation to Shang later, if only to see how red she could make him blush.)

Mulan considered playing coy, and pretending that she didn't know what Fen was insinuating, but in the end decided on a more straightforward response.

She shrugged. "My husband loves me," Mulan stated flatly. "And only me."

Fen shook her head condescendingly, clicking her tongue. "You're so naïve Mulan. Men will say whatever they want to get whatever they want, which is why ladies like us need to look out for one another." She bit her lip, pretending to consider her next words, before continuing, "I'm not sure I should even tell you what I know, because I should hate to break that blissful ignorance of yours."

Mulan put her teacup down, and folded her arms, unimpressed. "Go on then," she said, forcing herself to keep her tone even. "Tell me whatever it is that you think I don't know." So that I can tell you to get the hell out of my house, to never darken my door again, you gossiping witch, Mulan finished silently in her head.

Fen leaned forward conspiratorially, and murmured. "I have heard tell that your husband Li Shang, that he has taken a lover!"

That sounded supremely unlikely to Mulan, considering that even if she didn't trust Shang (and she did), she usually spent the vast majority of each day with him. Shang was many things, (brave, loyal, kind, admiring of a quality intellect,) but capable of the level of discretion that would be required to hide a lover from her was not one of them.

"Really," Mulan replied flatly.

"Oh yes." Fen nodded gleefully. "I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news," (Mulan only barely refrained from scoffing at this obvious lie,) "but I just really thought you needed to know."

"Is that so," Mulan unfolded her arms, picked up her now lukewarm tea, and drained it. "And who exactly is this lover?"

"Why, that's the most scandalous part," Fen said, shaking her head sadly. "I hear that it's one of the men under his command!"

Mulan couldn't help herself. She snorted.

"It's true!" Fen insisted, misunderstanding the source of Mulan's scathing amusement. "I heard it direct from… well, it doesn't matter who my sources are, but believe me, they're dependable!"

"Uh huh," Mulan replied. "And what is the name of this man that my husband is supposedly fucking behind my back?" (If Mulan's mother had been around to hear such language from her daughter, she probably would have whacked her one with her fan, but there were times that Mulan felt that the vulgarity she had picked up in the army was just satisfying to use, and this was one of them.)

Then Fen told her, and Mulan practically fell over laughing, and couldn't stop, even when Fen left her house muttering loudly about how Mulan was some kind of madwoman.

A week later, Shang came home on leave, and was quick to pull Mulan into his arms, careful of her injury.

"I missed you," he murmured into her hair. "Please recover quickly, I need my best tactician back."

"Oh, is that all you miss about me?" Mulan teased, snuggling against his chest.

Shang huffed out a laugh. "No. Of course not."

Mulan leaned back so that he could see her smile, and then stood on tip-toe to kiss him.

Later that evening, they sat together on the balcony, shoulder to shoulder, listening to the crickets.

"So," Mulan said, breaking the silence, "one of our neighbours felt the need to pass on what she felt was a concerning rumour. As a friend, of course."

"Of course," Shang echoed, his expression immediately wary. "Who was it, what did she say, and what did you do to her?"

Mulan snickered. "I didn't do anything, although no doubt she's spreading the tale of Mad Mulan to every ear that pauses long enough to listen." She looked Shang in the eye. "Her name is Wang Fen. Apparently she married your good childhood friend Wang Bo."

Shang groaned, digging the heel of his hand into his forehead, before turning to eye Mulan with no small level of trepidation. "Whatever she told you is ancient history. It was just a bit of childish fooling around."

Well wasn't that interesting. Nothing that Mulan hadn't guessed, but it did explain a few things.

Mulan shrugged. "Actually, the rumour is about more recent events. Apparently I should be worried."

Shang frowned. "Worried about what?"

Mulan waited until he was sipping his tea, and then told him, "Worried about you taking a lover named Ping."

Shang spat his tea out in a spray.

Mulan lost it.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Shang stared at his madly cackling wife, and then ruefully grinned.

"So what did you tell her?" he wondered.

"Honestly?" Mulan wiped her eyes. "I was laughing too hard to respond. Apparently Bo saw you 'looking at Ping with love in your eyes' and said as much to his wife."

Shang rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his dark eyes glinting with humour. "Well, I hate to say it, but the rumour is entirely true. I do love Ping."

Mulan grinned. "And I have it on good authority that Ping loves Shang."

"Good," Shang replied, "because between him and my wife, Mulan, I have all the lovers I could ever want."

"I'll tell her you said so," replied Ping, eyes sparkling, before using his good arm to yank his General down for a kiss, knocking the teacups off the balcony.

Shang groaned, leaning his forehead against Ping's. "My mother is going to kill us."

Ping smirked. "That set was a gift from the Wang Family."

Shang snorted. "Well in that case…" he contemplated the matching teapot. "If we're already in trouble…"

(Li Chun was irritated with the both of them, but said that their transgression could be forgiven if a new, nicer one was purchased from a potter in the capital. Neither Shang nor Mulan missed how the first time it was used, it was at a gathering that included the Wang Family, who all got to hear about "the wonderful taste that Shang has in both ceramics and partners". When Fen's eyes bugged out, Mulan had to hide her face behind her fan, pretending embarrassment at the praise to cover her laughter.)