Work Text:
Shen Qingqiu is sleeping in his peaceful Bamboo House, on his serene Qing Jing Peak, all as it should be - when a noisy, violent brute comes crashing through his door to disturb everything as usual.
“Shixiong!” Liu Qingge roars in the dead of the night into his dark and sleeping home. “Shixiong!”
Shen Qingqiu is out of his bed and has Xiu Ya unsheathed in less than a second, awoken as if by a lightning bolt. Liu Qingge comes stomping to his bedroom and shoves the door open - thoughtlessly bruteforces open the sealing talisman Shen Qingqiu puts there every night by habit - and stumbles inside, looking wildly for Shen Qingqiu before his eyes land on him.
“You’re alive--” he starts, but is interrupted by Shen Qingqiu’s attempt to cut his head off. With maddening ease, he deflects Shen Qingqiu’s strike reflexively, and has the unmitigated gall to give him a puzzled frown. “What are you doing?”
“Brute,” Shen Qingqiu gasps, shoving all of his fear behind a roaring fury, “get out of my home!”
For years now, Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu have exchanged blows many times. Liu Qingge has even occasionally come to visit Qing Jing Peak, with the sole purpose of picking a fight with Shen Qingqiu over some perceived insult or misdoing. But this is the first time he has ever done so at night, and seen fit to break into his home and attack him in his sleep. It is the sort of dirty trick that Shen Qingqiu himself might be accused of a hundred times before he would ever expect it of the Bai Zhan Peak Lord.
“Oh,” Liu Qingge says, with an inexplicable air of dawning understanding. “This is before the qi deviation.”
“Out!” He waves Xiu Ya threateningly, refusing to be cowed in his own home, even as he feels painfully aware of his state of undress - his bare feet and his loose hair, his lack of crown or any of the finery he wears as armor. He has never allowed Liu Qingge to see him in such a state - or anyone else for years, besides perhaps the women of the Warm Red Pavilion. Some distant part of him notes that Liu Qingge isn’t particularly dressed either, as if he’d woken in the middle of the night and rushed to Qing Jing Peak in a hurry. “I don’t care what you’re babbling about - leave this instant or else I will kill you.”
Insultingly, Liu Qingge does not look even slightly frightened by this threat. Always looking down on him, never taking him seriously--!
“Nevermind,” Liu Qingge says, shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll become yourself again eventually. For now - Shixiong, you have to be careful around that disciple of yours. He’s no good; you absolutely can’t trust him.”
“What are you going on about? Have you lost your mind? I told you to leave!” This said, he makes good on his threat and lunges for Liu Qingge with his sword.
Liu Qingge parries him at once, and one of their usual fights ensue, with Shen Qingqiu driving him out of his bedroom and Liu Qingge deftly dodging and weaving his attacks. Slowly, however, something odd and out of place about the fight niggles at him, until he finally realizes what it is. It’s easier. Liu Qingge is-- he’s going easy on him, only parrying, blocking, and dodging, and never seriously attacking back. It’s making it far easier for Shen Qingqiu to keep up with him and hold his own, driving him out of his house.
Over the years Liu Qingge has offended, insulted, and beaten him - but never once has he gone so far as to condescend him with any sort of pity. The sudden appearance of it now, as well as in these outrageous circumstances, is enough to drive him wild with fury.
“Arrogant, rude bastard!” he cries, and gathers all of his spiritual energy for a vicious palm blast. Liu Qingge goes flying through his front door, shattering it to skid onto the ground outside. In the distance, he can hear distant confused and worried murmurs as people are awakened by the commotion, lanterns and light talismans lighting up somewhere else. “If you ever step foot on Qing Jing Peak again I’ll stab you through the heart!”
Liu Qingge rolls back up onto his feet in a practiced, fluid motion. Besides a few splinters of wood caught in his hair and some scuffs and tears in his clothes, he is maddeningly unharmed and unbothered. Simply and matter of factly, he says, “You wouldn’t be able to. I’m the stronger fighter between us.”
There is something about Liu Qingge that so uniquely drives all sense from Shen Qingqiu’s mind as nearly no one else can.
“Die!” he screams, and throws a sword glare at him.
In the end, Yue Qingyuan himself has to descend from the lofty heights of his Qiong Ding Peak in the middle of the night to drag them apart from each other, looking baffled and helpless as Qing Jing disciples all cause a ruckus around them over the outrageous sight of two Peak Lords brawling in their sleep robes. Most frustratingly of all, Liu Qingge never once deigns to seriously harm Shen Qingqiu, even as he tries to claw his eyes out with his bare hands.
“It’s okay,” Liu Qingge tells him in the confusion. “I’ll look out for you.”
Shen Qingqiu spits in his face, and the crowd gasps and cheers.