Work Text:
There had been another fight.
Because of course there had been.
Because how could you expect Liu Qingge, Shen Qingqiu, and Yue Qingyuan to go out on a mission together without the first two being at each other’s throats constantly and the last desperately trying— and failing— to keep the peace?
Just as always, the spat had ended with Shen Qingqiu furious at both of them, storming off on his own into the trees to go scouting.
“More like going to sulk,” Liu Qingge had grumbled, before he returned to his own tent to do just that, closing the flaps and shutting out any more of Yue Qingyuan’s attempts to smooth things over.
Yue Qingyuan could only sigh as he sat down next to their campfire to wait for Shen Qingqiu to return. Really, these two couldn’t get along no matter how hard he tried to work things out between them. Maybe it would be better if they simply weren’t sent on missions together anymore. Shen Qingqiu always ended up twice as miserable as usual, and if that were the only thing that happened, it would be considered a good day.
He waited there for awhile, until it was already near midnight.
When Shen Qingqiu still hadn’t returned by the time the moon was high in the sky, though, Yue Qingyuan began to grow a little worried.
Shen Qingqiu hadn’t been in a very good mental state when he’d left, and his cultivation had always been shaky. What if he’d gone out there and ended up falling into qi deviation? Yue Qingyuan hadn’t felt any sudden, chaotic burst of spiritual qi, but he also couldn’t didn’t know how far away Shen Qingqiu had gone. Not to mention, they were out here to hunt for demons— it should have just been a small clean-up mission, but there was no telling what else might be out in the forest.
Yue Qingyuan felt anxious now. He tried to tell himself that Shen Qingqiu would be alright, that he was overreacting, but he was unable to settle his thoughts. Eventually, he stood up and walked over to Liu Qingge’s tent, stopping just outside.
“I’m going to search for Qingqiu-shidi,” he announced. He didn’t expect an answer, and got none.
Liu Qingge was more than capable of handling himself, so Yue Qingyuan left without another word, following the path that Shen Qingqiu had stormed off along several shichen earlier.
The midnight forest was quiet, almost eerily so. Moonlight filtered through the branches above, dappling the ground and obscuring the trail that Yue Qingyuan was trying to follow.
The further he got from the camp, the more uneasy he felt. There was a light mist in the air, near the ground. It had a bit of an odd scent and made Yue Qingyuan feel somewhat lightheaded. He frowned, paused, then took out a cloth and tied it over his nose and mouth before continuing onward.
Now, he felt even more uneasy.
Though he knew not what kind of effect this strange mist might have, if Shen Qingqiu had come this way, he might have been subjected to it as well— and if his emotions were running high, he might not have taken precautions.
In the corners of his mind, Yue Qingyuan thought he could hear whispered voices, faint and indistinct. He turned to look one way, then another, but saw nothing there. Even when he swept the area with his consciousness, he couldn’t detect anyone or anything too far out of the ordinary…
Hallucinogenic, he thought with growing alarm, and looked down toward the path at his feet. The trail of footprints that he’d been following seemed to stumble a bit, then veered off sharply into the undergrowth.
Yue Qingyuan followed them, marking the path of snapped twigs and broken branches until at last he came to the end of the trail.
In a moonlit clearing, Shen Qingqiu was on his knees, his clothes disheveled and his hair loosened from its guan. In his hands was Xiu Ya, poised above his own chest as though he were preparing to pierce himself through.
“Shidi!” A jolt of panic rushed through Yue Qingyuan, and he flew across the remaining distance between them, heedlessly grasping Xiu Ya’s blade in his hands and diverting its path so it plunged into the ground instead, only cutting into the fabric of Shen Qingqiu’s robes.
Shen Qingqiu barely seemed to react to this, his head drooping down and strands of hair falling in front of his face as his shoulders shook, his breath heavy and trembling. Afraid that he would try again, Yue Qingyuan maintained his grip on Xiu Ya, even as blood ran from the newly-formed cuts in his palms as he tried to quell his own panic.
At last, Shen Qingqiu’s lips parted. “Why… why would you…”
“Hush now, Qingqiu-shidi— let go of your sword, why don’t you?” Yue Qingyuan said, trying to speak softly, carefully.
“Why would you stop me?” Shen Qingqiu murmured bitterly. “No one would have known… I’d have just gone out in the woods and killed myself during a qi deviation. That’s what everyone’s expecting anyway. Why wouldn’t you just let it happen? You’d be free of me then, I wouldn’t be a burden on you or a stain on your illustrious reputation.”
Venom dripped from every word he spoke, stinging Yue Qingyuan far more than the cut of Xiu Ya’s blade. Each one felt like a poisoned arrow piercing his flesh. Shen Qingqiu had said a great many hurtful things before, rarely did he open his mouth around Yue Qingyuan without flinging a barb his way— but this was different. The hatred within that voice wasn’t directed at Yue Qingyuan this time… it was directed toward himself.
“Shidi… why would you say something like that?” Yue Qingyuan asked after a moment.
Shen Qingqiu looked up at last— and his irises, which should have been dark as a raven’s wing, had turned a sickly, faintly-glowing green as he stared up at his once-friend. His lips were slightly parted, and the corners of his mouth slightly curled into a smile that wasn’t a smile at all— the mirth upon those sharp, angular features was that of despair. He looked utterly exhausted, haunted, and half-crazed.
“You’d forgotten about me… you left me behind to go chase your ambitions— I can’t blame you for that,” he scoffed, “especially since it was me. Someone with an unpleasant personality, someone whose potential had already been depleted… Of course you’d want to leave me behind. Of course I wouldn’t fit in your new, glorious future.”
Yue Qingyuan’s eyes went wide, and his lips pressed into a tight, firm line as he wrenched Xiu Ya from Shen Qingqiu’s grasp, tossing it away. Shen Qingqiu’s arms went limp at his sides, and as Yue Qingyuan grasped hold of his shoulders, leaving bloodied marks where he placed his hands, he saw those green eyes darting this way and that, his expression twitching as he flinched away from one side to the next.
“Whatever it is you’re seeing now… whoever is telling you those things, they’re all lies, Shidi,” Yue Qingyuan pleaded with him, “In this forest, there is a strange mist— inhaling it makes your mind play tricks on you.”
Shen Qingqiu scoffed. “Tricks? It’s just the truth— you didn’t care enough to come back, you were glad to be rid of me.”
“That’s not true!” Yue Qingyuan gripped him a bit more tightly.
Those sickly eyes slammed shut, and Shen Qingqiu seemed to flinch away as though he were expecting a blow— but only half-heartedly. He didn’t even bother to raise a hand to shield himself…
He was far too used to it.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” Yue Qingyuan stammered out, relaxing his grip and taking a shaky breath. His heart was racing. It hurt, what Shen Qingqiu was saying. It hurt a lot— it made him feel like his body was being broken to pieces, like his mind was being ripped to shreds. “I’m sorry I scared you…”
“Shut up!” Shen Qingqiu lashed out again, teeth bared, eyes flashing. “Stop trying to be nice to me! Stop pretending you care! Stop treating me like a person, I know you don’t really feel that way! I know none of you do—”
Yue Qingyuan couldn’t listen to this anymore. He pulled Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders in and wrapped his arms around the smaller frame, holding him close, tightly up against his chest.
Shen Qingqiu struggled at first, but Yue Qingyuan didn’t let go, just continued to hold him firmly yet gently. Eventually, the struggle ceased, and Shen Qingqiu went limp against him.
“It’s because I’m not… not really… I don’t know how to be a person, Qi-ge… I’ve been wrong, rotten from the moment I was born, something with no real value, something that never deserved any care…” he sniffled into Yue Qingyuan’s shoulder. “You were foolish when you were young, but after you went away, you realized it too, didn’t you?”
“What…” Yue Qingyuan whispered, but he didn’t know what else to say. So he simply held Shen Qingqiu even more tightly.
Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders shook, and his breath hitched.
And then he began to sob.
Yue Qingyuan had heard him cry many times before— at least, he had heard him crying for show. Shen Jiu wasn’t someone that cried easily, no matter how cold or hungry he was, or how badly he’d been beaten. He was the sort to stubbornly keep his mouth closed even as tears shimmered in his eyes, to convert his pain into anger and lash out instead of actually feeling it for what it was.
He’d never seen Xiao-Jiu cry like this before.
It was infectious— hardly a moment had passed before there were tears streaming down Yue Qingyuan’s cheeks as well.
“Please… I know you don’t like listening to me,” he murmured between sniffles. “And I’m not sure how much you can hear and understand right now. But I never saw you that way at all. I’ve always seen you as a person— as the one who I treasure most. After we were separated, not a single day went by where I didn’t think of you. The day that I finally saw you again, when I realized you were still alive— it was the happiest day of my life. Shidi… if you were to die, then there would be no reason for me to keep on living either. So please, don’t say things like that. Don’t think of yourself that way. I want you by my side… I want to be worthy of you. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive today.”
Shen Qingqiu’s quiet sobs continued for awhile after that. Yue Qingyuan simply knelt there on the forest floor, holding him close. Once he fell silent at last, resting against Yue Qingyuan in a deep slumber, Yue Qingyuan retrieved his sword and carefully lifted his exhausted shidi into his arms, pillowing Shen Qingqiu’s head against his shoulder as he carried him back through the trees.
Liu Qingge was already awake and outside of his tent, and looked a little alarmed when he saw Shen Qingqiu lying unconscious in Yue Qingyuan’s arms, blood staining his clothes.
Not knowing whether the strange mist would have any other side effects, or whether Liu Qingge might also have been contaminated, Yue Qingyuan elected to return to Cang Qiong Mountain now to have them properly examined. Yue Qingyuan himself hadn’t been unscathed, after all— but he was more than able to keep at bay the faint whispers in the back of his mind and the flickers out of the corner of his eye. He was already used to such things, after all.
Back on Qian Cao Peak, Shen Qingqiu was set to rest in a soft bed with blankets draped over his body, fitful in his slumber.
A certain herb flourished in the depths of that forest— and when the mist rose up during the night, it carried that herb’s spores along with it. Shen Qingqiu, who had gone out into the forest at the height of the spores’ release, had suffered the full effect of it. The mist would cause hallucinations that became more and more clear over time, manifesting from one’s own fear, regret, and pain— and along with that, a compulsion to speak one’s own true thoughts and feelings.
Yue Qingyuan wondered if that was why he, too, had said all he did.
Would it even make a difference?
There was no way to know— all he could do now was sit beside Shen Qingqiu as he tossed and turned feverishly, waiting for the medicines to work and the green light to fade from his eyes. If nothing else, though, he now knew one thing— Shen Qingqiu hated himself far more than he hated Yue Qingyuan.
He reached out to take Shen Qingqiu’s hand once they’d been left alone, and lifted it to place a kiss delicately upon his shidi’s bruised knuckles.
“I won’t leave you again, Xiao-Jiu,” he murmured softly, so as not to wake him. “I’ll find some way to prove to you how much I treasure you… even if you cannot treasure yourself.”