Chapter Text
Liu Qingge knows.
Knows himself, knows how others perceive him, knows his every habit and tell — knows that he willfully ignored a lot of them for a long time.
He knows he's, at times, as much of a brute as people accuse him of being — but he isn't stupid.
For as stubborn and prideful as he may be, one does not become a war god just by swinging a sword around willy-nilly — One does not achieve such a title on pure unadulterated strength and adrenaline alone.
War was a complicated thing, as it was simple. War was a fight, between yourself and your enemies; it was the clashing of swords, the dance of attacks, the roar of blood in your ears with the pounding of your heart.
But War was also the push and pull of offensive and defensive moves. The silence of focus and concentration; cataloguing, memorising, predicting your enemies movements. Knowing when and how to use the terrain around you to your advantage — to know when and where to strike.
Liu Qingge was a righteous cultivator, he had his honour and he was hard-pressed to break it.
But War didn't care about honour, didn't care for rules or regulations — for foul play or dirty tricks. In War, what is and isn't valid isn't dictated by careful curating — it was dictated by what you and your opponent were willing to do to win.
The resident War god of Cang Qiong mountain counted himself as lucky — as he has yet to truly turn on his morals and honour, as there had yet been a situation where the need arises.
But it might happen one day, he knows that — it was one of the first things his Shizun had ever taught them. For as much as they were honourable warriors of their peak — that came second to being the shield and sword of their sect.
Battling was only fair, when under careful agreement — War rarely had that.
As a disciple, but especially as the Bai Zhan Peak Lord, he knew that a day may come where he has to let go of his honour. Let go of his righteous standing in favour of keeping his sect safe; of keeping its people alive.
That day had yet to come, and thus Liu Qingge wouldn't think about it till it did.
Though, to the Bai Zhan War God, that day felt like it was already upon him — that it's been upon him for years at this point.
For he was in love with a married man.
For his eyes also wandered to the beast of a husband his martial brother had.
Shame was not a strong enough word to describe what he felt.
He had discovered that he was in love with his shixiong in the same moment he had lost him.
Had realised the slight warmth and thrills he tried to ignore meant more, just as he watched him give his life for the unfilial disciple he had.
The agony in his chest was unlike anything else he had. It wasn't the first time he had seen someone die; Martial siblings or fellow cultivators.
But it was the first time he had ever watched someone he loved leave him behind — still breathing while they were not.
His memory is both a blur of various weeks compressed into each other, with the sharp clarity that he remembers his emotions with.
He spent five years fighting that beast.
Fight for the lifeless body the disciple clung to — to the man he refused to give the honour of a proper burial.
Every day he came at dawn, rage and grief his only companions — every time he left bloodied and bruised. Near death many times, new scars to remember each time by.
He sometimes wondered who he hated more.
The unfilial beast of a disciple his shixiong had; or that forsaken sword that insulted him more than any words the demon threw at him.
Insulted him not with barbed words, jabs or taunts.
But by the way it branded his skin.
The way each slice it took imbued some part of its horrendous self into him long enough that the scar would never leave.
Mocked him in a way that not even exhaustion could numb him too.
(His scars burn)
It didn't matter; it wouldn't matter.
They vented their grief onto each other; each strike a silenced word, each swing a painful yell, each cut a small distraction for the lost they felt and every new piece of rubble evidence to their despair.
They used each other, as what else could they do when mourning wasn't enough to deal with the swirling in their very cores.
For they were both insistent and stubborn.
Liu Qingge fought a demon that clearly outmatched him.
Luo Binghe intended to defy death itself, begging for his Shizun to return.
Liu Qingge knew he never would.
But then he did.
He did, and Liu Qingge never felt such a mixture of emotions; confusion, relief, awe and maybe something else.
Though that was all left in the dust when Shen Qingqiu chose that beast.
All that was left was a stabbing pain in Liu Qingge's heart — as he experienced loss for a second time.
Though this time, how do you mourn something that was never there?
How do you mourn a man who's alive, when you couldn't mourn when he was dead?
How do you mourn something that was never yours?
Liu Qingge didn't know.
(He sometimes wakes up cold, damp and with his heart racing.
With the sickening image of that demon looming over Shen Qingqiu fading, yet not at the same time.
It's hard to sleep)
He didn't know what to do.
For that very reason, he decided to do the only logical thing.
To stomp on it, hide it — burn it till all he felt was a heaviness in his lungs. Physically numb himself with battles and hunts, till he had no reason to feel each painful pulse.
To beat his own heart into submission, till he was finally able to come to a self compromise.
Shen Qingqiu was a married man, even if his husband was a beast.
Liu Qingge saw the way Luo Binghe looked at him; saw the stark difference between the devotion that softened his features, to the anguish that had twisted them into a feral thing.
Liu Qingge also saw the way his shixiong looked back at the demon; the devotion, the softness, the way he hid a smile behind his fan yet didn't hide the slightest crinkle of his eyes.
He saw the way they looked at each other.
He saw the way they yearned whenever they had to be more than a few cuns away from each other.
Saw how they gravitate towards one another.
How they sought out each other's touch.
Liu Qingge was bull-headed and plainly horrible with reading a lot of the unnecessary subtleties of the extensive pleasantries cultivators had.
But he wasn't unaware.
Shen Qingqiu was happy, no matter how strange and unconventional his husband was; he was happy.
Liu Qingge could never imagine taking that away from him.
(His hand cramps some days,
Body aching, tense,
Wrist stiff and pulsing,
The scars seemingly shifting on his skin some days)
Liu Qingge eventually found a solution: to withhold his feelings, to hide them for the truly shameful longing they were — to still be in Shen Qingqiu's life.
He'd rather suffer the long nights of longing, than to lose this man all over again.
Being his friend, and only a friend, was enough for him. He'd be a good martial brother, a confidant, and stick by his Shixiong.
It was enough.
(He'd eventually convince himself if it wasn't)