Work Text:
“Oh,” says Shen Qingqiu, eyes widening. “It’s never done that before.”
Liu Qingge instinctually channels a blast of qi into the vines pinning his arms to his sides. Nothing happens.
“Um,” says Shen Qingqiu. They stare at each other for a moment, the awkwardness of the situation intensified by the fact that Liu Qingge has to look pretty far down in order to make eye contact, considering that he is currently several cun off the ground. “I’m - very sorry about this, Shidi. Lantern Gourds are supposed to just be ordinary vegetables, I have no idea why it’s misbehaving - though it is fascinating that it’s doing this, I wonder if - no, no, but the most important thing is to get Liu-shidi down from there. Let me. Um. Hmm. Would you mind holding very still for a few moments while I get my research notes?”
Liu Qingge, who is pretty sure he has little choice in the matter, makes a noise of assent. It’s somewhat muffled, given that the vines are trying their best to bully their way into his mouth.
Shen Qingqiu returns with a stack of papers and notebooks in one arm and a pile of scrolls in the other. There’s a little smudge of ink on his right cheek. Liu Qingge would look away from it, but he can’t, on account of the vines holding his head in place.
“Could it be their diet? I’ve been feeding them regular blood meal, but if it was tainted somehow - don’t know where An Ding gets the stuff -“ Shen Qingqiu mutters to himself, scrawling notes with increasingly messy strokes. A second smudge of ink joins the first. It’s like he’s forgotten Liu Qingge is there, or relegated him in his head to the same “scientific curiosity” status as the plant.
Liu Qingge is carefully not thinking about how that makes him feel.
“Ah,” Shen Qingqiu says a few small eternities later, lifting his head triumphantly. Liu Qingge spits out another tendril of vine trying to crawl down his throat and tries to will away the traitorous heat under his skin. “It may be the qi-rich environment. In that case, spiritual blades wouldn’t do anything - I’m sure I have some ordinary garden shears around here. Shame to cut it, though…”
Liu Qingge almost tells him not to. The words nearly spill out of him before he takes a deep breath, contains them, and shoves them back down again. He could stay, wrapped securely in the vines’ embrace, succumb to the gentle pressure along his sides and the curious probing on his skin, and let Shen Qingqiu make notes and sketches and look at him like he wants to take a cross-section of Bai Zhan Peak Lord next.
“Shen Qingqiu. Cut me down,” he says instead. The words don’t come out as angry as he intends them to, but Shen Qingqiu seems to read them that way all the same, fluttering his hands apologetically as he digs around in the nearby shed.
“It’s funny, there are far more dangerous plants here, but it seems this one has taken a liking to you!” Shen Qingqiu lets out a nervous laugh. A jar of fertilizer clinks as he hastily shoves it aside. “Honestly, I’m sorry about this, Shidi, when I asked if you wanted to see how the garden was coming along I didn’t intend -“
“It’s all right,” Liu Qingge says. The last syllable becomes a garbled mess as a tendril pokes between his lips and starts feeling around the roof of his mouth.
Shen Qingqiu’s hand, encased in a rough cotton gardening glove, reaches up and tugs it out again. “Stop that,” he scolds the plant, as if it’s a misbehaving kitten.
Liu Qingge can’t suppress a shiver when Shen Qingqiu cups the back of his neck with one hand, separating the vine from his skin as he carefully snips it with the shears held upside down. The dull edge rests against the back of his scalp. He tries not to lean into the cool metal.
“Sorry, was that too cold?” Shen Qingqiu pets at his hair, rubbing up and down at the base of his scalp and dislodging a few strands of his ponytail. It’s the hand that hadn’t been holding the shears; ungloved, warm skin.
“Fine,” Liu Qingge manages to say, which is a lot better than “please don’t stop,” so he’ll take it.
(Shen Qingqiu tries to rearrange his hair before letting go, which is an entirely new torture; insists on checking the length of the loose strands to make sure he didn’t accidentally cut any, too, which is, arguably, worse.)
Next he snips the vines pinning Liu Qingge’s arms to his sides. From the front, so Liu Qingge can feel his soft breath brushing over the hollow of his neck, as if he didn’t feel lightheaded enough already. There’s still one large section wrapped in a spiral around his torso, which Shen Qingqiu leaves for the moment as he works to free his legs.
The vines have tried to dig into his trousers and are holding on stubbornly around mid-thigh, and Shen Qingqiu, instead of cutting them, decides he can coax them down. With the handle of the shears, he presses against Liu Qingge’s inner thigh, brushing up against the vine and talking softly to it. Finally, with encouragement from the fingertips of his other hand, the vine twines itself around the handle.
“That’s it, there you go,” Shen Qingqiu murmurs, leaning closer to Liu Qingge as he passes the shears back and forth around his legs and unwinds the vine. Liu Qingge tenses every muscle in his body until it’s over, desperate not to show an embarrassing reaction.
“Drop him,” Shen Qingqiu tells the last remaining vine, giving it a whack with his fan and brandishing the shears menacingly. The vine, incredibly, obeys, letting Liu Qingge go with an abrupt flutter of leaves that almost seems sulky. He drops to the ground like a sack of stones, barely able to catch himself and land on his feet, and immediately stumbles to one knee.
“Liu-shidi, are you all right? Come inside, let me make you some tea -“
Liu Qingge bats his hands away, gathering himself enough to stand, and grits out “I have to go” before making a somewhat dignified exit on Cheng Luan.
What he does in the privacy of his room after that is no one’s concern but his own.