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Liu Qingge is ashamed to say he should have been paying better attention.
Perhaps that he hasn’t been doing so is just another skill of Shang Qinghua’s; he’s so demanding of attention all the time, flailing and crying and taking up space, that he crosses the line into easily ignorable. It works on almost everyone, but it shouldn’t have worked on Liu Qingge - he should have been paying better attention.
Something had changed after Shang Qinghua returned to the sect. The An Ding Peak Lord has always been twitchy, and Liu Qingge has always assumed it’s some overactive flight response borne from cowardice, though having Shang Qinghua’s duplicity dragged into the light has made him reexamine that.
But then Shang Qinghua left for the Northern Palace, and since he’s come back, the changes have been more… Severe.
He’s thrown himself into work, barely making eye contact with anyone over his papers and mutterings. If he’s not in his office, he’s about on his peak, skipping between storehouses and archives. And if he’s not on his peak, then he’s in the North doing Heaven knows what and how much of it. The one time Liu Qingge manages to catch him between tasks, Shang Qinghua has gone so pale that he ends up barking at him to stay in place whilst he cooks him a meal.
Shang Qinghua’s eyes go wide and watery when Liu Qingge pushes the noodles towards him, and he mumbles a ‘thank you’ before eating at a strangely sedate pace.
It’s worrying. Liu Qingge is worried. He’d been hoping that bringing Shang Qinghua back pardoned would have demonstrated the support of his sect. Liu Qingge particularly had been imagining a more… Personal type of support (his hands still ache with the phantom weight of Shang Qinghua’s waist moulded under them). But returning to Cang Qiong seems to have had the opposite effect, and Liu Qingge feels maddeningly itchy with frustration.
Things start getting illustrative after the Tri-Realm Alliance meeting.
All twelve peak lords are in attendance for this conference of the three realms. They happen twice a year, and twice a year Liu Qingge sits at his allocated seat and doesn’t listen to a single thing happening around him. It’s mostly just an opportunity for Luo Binghe to foist his job onto other people in the name of ‘delegating’, and also to gloat. The less eye contact Liu Qingge makes with him, the less opportunity Luo Binghe gets to do that.
Raised voices finally snap Liu Qingge out of his distraction, and he looks over to see Shang Qinghua stammering more words than his mouth can fit at once whilst trying to arrange the sea of papers over his desk into something coherent.
“Is this what the demon realm has to work with? Humans that can’t even remember to bring a signed treaty with them to a meeting?” One of the demon officials sneers. Two large horns curl wickedly out from his temples. They’d look good on Liu Qingge’s wall.
“No matter,” Luo Binghe says airily, flicking his claws in a way that’s probably meant to look casually threatening but really just makes him look like a twit. “Mobei-jun trusts Shang-shishu’s work, so I will do the same. If that’s all then.”
And then he sweeps off his ridiculous throne and out of the room, likely off to cry somewhere his husband can see. He must be in a good mood if he’s pardoning Shang Qinghua; he’s the only person Luo Binghe antagonises more than Liu Qingge because of his closeness with Shen Qingqiu. It’s the most official adjournment of today’s meeting that they’re going to get, and Liu Qingge is out of his seat the second the demon officials start growling amongst themselves.
Yue Qingyuan is faster than him, gliding over to Shang Qinghua’s cluttered desk with a horrible shade of disappointment staining his face.
“I was led to believe that Shang-shidi had brought the necessary paperwork with him. Were you unable to complete your tasks on time?” he asks mildly. It still makes Shang Qinghua flinch.
“I did!” Shang Qinghua insists, even as he fails to produce the parchment he’s looking for what must be the fifth time. “I- It was right on my desk so- I mean, between the paperwork for the other peaks and the quarterly budget report, I was so sure-”
“Perhaps this is a good opportunity to review what work you can delegate to your disciples,” Yue Qingyuan interrupts with a wan smile. “So we can avoid further… Situations at future meetings.”
He doesn’t have to say out loud that Shang Qinghua has embarrassed the sect. The An Ding Peak Lord ducks his head like he can avoid the criticism by taking up less space.
“Thanking zhangmen-shixiong for his wisdom,” he mumbles, thumbing at the mess of papers as though that might help the missing document magically appear.
“I have faith that Shang-shidi will be more prepared next time,” Yue Qingyuan replies. His tone is gracious, but there’s no missing the way Shang Qinghua’s fingers tremble around his sheets when the sect leader moves past him.
The conference hall empties quickly after that; the realms may be united, but etiquette has yet to align. Liu Qingge hangs behind, because he doesn’t want to risk having to make small talk. He only realises that he’s not alone when a sigh echoes through the high ceilings of the hall.
Liu Qingge turns in time to see Shang Qinghua’s forehead kiss the desk. His shoulders rise and fall with another, longer sigh as he drags the last of the papers towards him from his face down position. It might be funny if it didn’t look quite so pathetic, and Liu Qingge frowns. A snappish prompt is poised on his tongue when his shixiong straightens up and climbs to his feet, hugging the stack of documents to his chest, and Liu Qingge pauses.
Shang Qinghua’s bottom lip wobbles, and the War God braces himself for a meltdown. Liu Qingge doesn’t understand what happens next; Shang Qinghua closes his eyes, lifting his chin high with a deep inhale. The tremble in his narrow shoulders visibly buckles down, tense but still. And then Shang Qinghua pastes on an aggressively neutral expression and follows Yue Qingyuan out of the hall.
It takes Liu Qingge a moment to move; he’s trying to process the gap between the threat of tears and the subsequent absence. Not once in his life has he seen his shixiong hold back from crying. The lingering image of it grinds uncomfortably against the image he has of Shang Qinghua in his mind. The roll of Shang Qinghua’s shoulders, the slow drag of breath and the tilt of his chin; these are practised actions, and Liu Qingge has to think about how many times Shang Qinghua might have done this before.
He should have been paying attention.
Shang Qinghua presents the missing documents the following morning with a bright smile and ink-stained fingertips. Yue Qingyuan thanks him for managing to draft a new copy so quickly; he’s too distracted with the fresh treaty to notice the dark shadows bruising the skin beneath Shang Qinghua’s eyes. He’s not paying attention either, it seems.
≿ ━━━━༺❀༻━━━━ ≾
Cang Qiong is pleasant this time of year, and the winter finally gives way to spring, and the sun finally feels as warm as it looks. Which means that ribbon wrap day is approaching.
They do this every year to celebrate the anniversary of Cang Qiong Sect being founded: The peak lords couple up and write each other’s names on a ribbon, symbolising the joining of parties and support of each other’s pursuits, before walking in their pairs to the peach tree at the very top of Qiong Ding peak. There, they will tie their ribbons to a branch for another prosperous and harmonious year together.
It’s been a tradition since before Liu Qingge became a peak lord. He’d always found the practice rather pointless, even if somewhat charming.
“Obviously it’s bad luck for a peak lord to write their own name,” Yue Qingyuan reminds them, keeping his smile light. “Since Shen-shidi is away with his… With Luo Binghe, we shall need to adapt accordingly.”
Liu Qingge is about to volunteer himself to drop out before Yue Qingyuan beats him to it.
“Shang-shidi.” Shang Qinghua bolts upright at the sound of his name, his hands fluttering in the disrupted papers across his desk. “You have other responsibilities that are more urgent, would you be so kind?”
“Oh, uh- I was… Me?” Shang Qinghua looks a little lost, but he usually does when Yue Qingyuan addresses him directly. As far as Liu Qingge knows, they don’t speak outside of meetings.
“If you please,” Yue Qingyuan says, though he’s hardly leaving his shidi a choice.
Shang Qinghua’s jaw works for a second, like he can’t quite find the shape of words, before he scrapes a smile across his mouth. “Oh, sure. No problem, zhangmen-shixiong! I can- I… You’re right I could use the time…”
“Thanking shidi for his understanding,” Yue Qingyuan says with a benevolent dip of his head.
They move smoothly onto the next topic, all talk of the ribbon ceremony seemingly put to bed. They could be talking about a divine beast for all Liu Qingge is listening; he’s watching Shang Qinghua out of the corner of his eye, seeing how he shoves his fist under the desk for a long moment before bringing it out again, fingertips suspiciously darkened with ink.
Shang Qinghua ducks his head to continue taking notes, and doesn’t resurface until the end of the meeting. He’s out the door before anyone else, which isn’t uncommon, but it’s without his usual muttering, which is. When he passes Liu Qingge, his bottom lip is pinched so hard between his teeth it’s gone white.
The ceremony passes as it does every year - Liu Qingge gets paired up with Mu Qingfang, so most of the walk up to the peach tree is him weathering subtle digs about neglecting his many injuries and a few words about preventative measures. Liu Qingge ignores most of the comments, not out of principle, but out of the fact that they largely boil down to “fight less hard”, which he’s not going to do.
With the ribbons tied, they make their way back down to the Qiong Ding leisure house. Everyone knows it’s an excuse to drink wine and shit talk trade agreements; Liu Qingge can only stand half a shichen of the pageantry before his sword hand starts getting itchy, so he escapes to the meeting hall for a moment of peace and the more tolerable company of silence. A fan lies abandoned on Shen Qingqiu’s desk, so delicate that the handle nearly blends in with the woodgrain. Liu Qingge moves towards it; he should probably return it to Shen Qingqiu’s leisure house for when he returns from his… Honeymoon.
The word makes something pinch Liu Qingge’s heart, but the sensation is duller than it used to be. It’s been getting more faint ever since he’d kissed Shang Qinghua in that alley, his shixiong squirming and rosy-cheeked as he’d panted into Liu Qingge’s mouth. They haven’t talked about it yet. Liu Qingge knows they probably should, but it’s hard to find time when he’s either away on a mission or Shang Qinghua is holed up in the North. The ribbon ceremony would have been the perfect time, in hindsight; Liu Qingge thinks about writing Shang Qinghua’s name on a ribbon, carrying it up the mountain with the man by his side.
Why had he not asked to be paired up with Shang Qinghua?
As Liu Qingge approaches the fan, something pale gleams in the corner of his eye. It’s coming from beneath Shang Qinghua desk, and a heavy, sour feeling settles in Liu Qingge’s stomach as he realises it’s a ribbon. Pastel blue and silk; Cang Qiong colours. The shine of the fabric is marred when Liu Qingge pulls it out, pinched between two fingers. Ink smudges across the width of it in broad, flat stains.
The ink is blurred beyond comprehension, save for one character: “ 清 ”
Liu Qingge cradles the ribbon in his palm, feeling frustration twisting slowly tighter behind his sternum. Shang Qinghua had written someone’s name on a ribbon. Shang Qinghua had expected, or at least hoped, to go to the ceremony beside one of his martial siblings.
Liu Qingge should have been paying attention. He should have written Shang Qinghua’s name on a ribbon and held it up for everyone to see before Yue Qingyuan had even opened his mouth.
He pockets the ribbon along with the decision not to return to the festivities; he’ll go to An Ding Peak and find Shang Qinghua, and even if he doesn’t have another ribbon to write on, Liu Qingge can include him in something else. Sparring, maybe. Or… Conversation seems to be more Shang Qinghua’s speed. And food. Food is probably safer; Shang Qinghua can carry a conversation on his own, but that’s not going to make him feel wanted. They can share a meal - Liu Qingge knows how to cook. He’ll bring snacks.
Unsheathing Cheng Luan, Liu Qingge steps on the blade and flies in the direction of An Ding before he can change his mind. The ribbon stays safely inside his pocket.
≿ ━━━━༺❀༻━━━━ ≾
Shang Qinghua doesn’t say anything about it.
He complains endlessly about his workload, being unappreciated, his rotten luck, and many more colourful displeasures that make Liu Qingge wonder if he’s ever happy about anything. But he doesn’t once bring up being forced out of the anniversary ceremony. Liu Qingge might think that graceful if it weren’t so extremely annoying, because Liu Qingge does have something to say about it but he doesn’t know how to bring it up. And it’s becoming painfully apparent that if he waits for Shang Qinghua to do it then he’ll be waiting forever.
His thread of patience finally snaps, astoundingly, when he’s having tea with Shen Qingqiu. The invitations aren’t uncommon, but they’re infrequent enough for Liu Qingge to know that they’re secondary to whatever new excursion Luo Binghe has dragged Shen Qingqiu along to.
Liu Qingge is listening to his shixiong talk about their most recent outing, pursuing the migration paths of Greater Cloud Swimming Kestrels. The way Shen Qingqiu’s eyes glitter happily as he explains the subtle differences between the male and female species' flight style has always made Liu Qingge’s heart feel a little too big for his chest. Nowadays, it feels like little more than the ache of an old injury. It probably always will. Liu Qingge broke his arm before he’d started cultivating, and that still makes his elbow twinge when it rains. He’s used to it. He’ll grow used to this, too.
As he lifts his tea cup, Liu Qingge’s eye catches on a piece of parchment poking out the stack beside the table, familiar, scrawled ink dashing up the edges.
“That’s Shang Qinghua’s handwriting,” he says, quite fantastically interrupting Shen Qingqiu’s sentence. It’s a good thing Luo Binghe isn’t here, or he’d start a battle for the rudeness alone.
“Hm?” Shen Qingqiu blinks, following the line of sight. “Oh, yes. Well spotted, Liu-shidi.”
“It’s an invite to his peak.”
“Indeed, he sends them sometimes.”
“Are you going? I can escort you if need be.”
“Oh?” Shen Qingqiu blinks again, slower, before lifting his fan. Liu Qingge has learned it’s a tactic to buy time for a response. “Since I’ve been away, this shixiong has neglected to respond to Shang-shidi’s invitation.”
“It’s dated last month,” Liu Qingge points out, thinking about how Shen Qingqiu has been absent from his peak for less than three weeks. He had time to write a reply.
“So it is,” Shen Qingqiu says mildly, but his green eyes survey Liu Qingge from behind his fan.
Something twists in the War God’s gut, cold and caustic. According to Shen Qingqiu, this isn’t the first invite to arrive, and Liu Qingge has a feeling that those may have gone unanswered too. Shang Qinghua doesn’t have a lot of friends; if he’d reached out only to be ignored-
“Excuse me,” Liu Qingge says, abruptly getting to his feet.
Shen Qingqiu nearly chokes on his tea, eyes going wide. After all, it’s exactly never that Liu Qingge cuts their time short, either being subtly prompted by his host or forced out by Luo Binghe.
“Shidi, is something the matter?”
“I have an urgent issue to attend to,” Liu Qingge tells him, bowing deeply. It’s not even a lie. “Thanking Shen-shixiong for the tea.”
He doesn’t wait to see whatever expression Shen Qingqiu is making before he’s out the door and hopping onto his sword. The underside of Liu Qingge’s skin feels itchy the way it does before a fight, and he’s not really sure where to direct that energy. He never has to think about it because there’s always a clear target, but the only one he’s headed for right now is An Ding Peak where this adrenaline will be useless.
Shang Qinghua is sitting at his desk beneath three towers of parchment when Liu Qingge arrives. He jumps as the War God kicks the door open, toppling two of them but managing to at least save the inkstone from falling off the table.
“A-ah?! Liu-shidi, what-”
“You don’t have to pretend everything’s okay,” Liu Qingge snaps at him. He bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood when Shang Qinghua flinches, and has to remind himself that he’s not here for a fight.
“I- You uuuh- What?” Shang Qinghua settles on, his eyes growing wide with confusion. He doesn’t seem to realise that the inkstone he’s saved is dripping onto his pale robes.
Liu Qingge marches forward and snatches it out of his hand, dropping it unceremoniously on the table. Shang Qinghua jumps again, but Liu Qingge snags his wrist before he can recoil any further. Using a folded square cloth from inside his robes, Liu Qingge dabs at the ink staining Shang Qinghua’s fingertips, idly cataloguing how slender they look against his own. The calluses are in a different place to his own, won from a brush rather than a sword.
“If you’re sad, just say so,” Liu Qingge tries again. The words feel like they fall short, but he’s not sure how to get them to stretch the distance between them. He dabs more furiously at the drying ink.
“What do- I- I’m not sad, Liu-shidi,” Shang Qinghua says, and winces when Liu Qingge glares at him. “I’m not! Tired, maybe! Also, rather hungry. I should probably call a disciple to bring lunch. Or dinner? Actually what time is it?”
“Not now. ”
“You’re right, you’re right, probably too late for lunch. Dinner, then. I’m almost done with this report.”
“No,” Liu Qingge growls. Frustration bites at him, and it’s only when Shang Qinghua squeaks does he realise he’s squashing the poor man’s fingers so hard the blood has left them. Liu Qingge takes a long breath and loosens his hold. “When you feel sad, say something. If you want to cry, then cry.”
“Eh? This shixiong cries all the time! About everything! I could cry right now, I’m so hungry,” Shang Qinghua chuckles awkwardly, doing a paltry job of trying to retrieve his hand.
“You can’t even remember to feed yourself? Why not have the disciples bring in meals at certain times if you forget.”
“Yes, yes, this shixiong should cry less and eat more, like a proper adult.”
Liu Qingge’s jaw aches from how hard he’s gritting his teeth. “Are you deliberately misinterpreting me?”
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to interpret from you breaking into my office and telling me I should cry.”
“Shang Qinghua.”
Shang Qinghua sighs, finally sliding his hand away from Liu Qingge’s slackened grip and folding it beneath the table. The action is so cripplingly familiar, it makes Liu Qingge’s chest burn where the discarded ribbon lies hidden within his robes.
“Was there anything else this shixiong can help you with?” Shang asks with a faint smile that doesn’t quite meet his eyes. For a second, he looks truly, horribly tired.
“Yes,” Liu Qingge decides. He nods at the scattered papers beside the desk. “Are those forms from Bai Zhan?”
“Uh-” Shang Qinghua follows his line of sight. “Actually, it’s those ones.”
He points at the largest of the three stacks, the one still on his desk. Liu Qingge scowls at it before scooping up the whole thing with one arm.
“I’ll do them.”
“You- What? But I-”
“I’ll do them,” Liu Qingge says more firmly, and doesn’t wait for Shang Qinghua to argue before marching away.
“Liu-shidi.” Shang Qinghua’s voice stops him at the door, and Liu Qingge turns around to see his shixiong giving him a small, albeit confused smile. “Thank you.”
He doesn’t say what for, and Liu Qingge doesn’t ask. He just answers with a firm nod and a best effort at closing the broken door. A disciple will be by to fix it soon; they tend to hover whenever the Bai Zhan War God is on their peak.
Two days into the stack of forms, Liu Qingge’s back aches almost as much as his eyeballs. The words keep moving around the page, even when he frames them with his fingers the way his Liu-meimei taught him. Three days in and he has to beat up a few disciples to feel his blood moving again. At the end of the fourth day his fingers are cramping and there’s a twinge in his temples that won’t go away no matter how furiously he rubs at it, but the paperwork is done. He grabs his sword and immediately takes off down his peak.
“What on earth has gotten Liu-shidi so excited to come charging in here?” Wei Qingwei asks, his voice pitching up an entire octave as Liu Qingge kicks his office doors open.
“For you.” Liu Qingge’s announcement is punctuated by a slap as he drops a fat stack of parchment on Wei Wingwei’s desk.
The Wan Jian peak lord blinks at it. “Didn’t I send those to An Ding to be completed?”
Liu Qingge sneers, his lip peeling back to flash his teeth. “Is an esteemed Peak Lord incapable of doing his own paperwork? I didn’t realise a brush was mightier than your swords.”
The colour Wei Qingwei’s face goes could rival the fires of his forges. “I don’t recall Bai Zhan ever being so quick to complete their own clerical work, Liu-shidi. Perhaps you shouldn’t judge others for-”
“This shidi completed his earlier,” Liu Qingge interrupts him. The niggling ache in his spine is worth it for the way Wei Qingwei splutters and nearly knocks over the stack of forms. “You do it.”
Without a backwards glance, Liu Qingge storms out of the office, on to the next peak.
≿ ━━━━༺❀༻━━━━ ≾
Shang Qinghua continues to work and twitch and mutter strange things to himself, but the dark circles below his eyes fade somewhat. Liu Qingge even catches him humming a strange tune when he drops off the forms he’d pressured Mu Qingfang into doing. It shouldn’t make him feel so satisfied, but the way Shang Qinghua’s eyes twinkle and relief unspools the taut line of his shoulders ignites an emotion similar to when Liu Qingge takes down a tricky beast.
Which is why Shang Qinghua’s absence is the first thing he notices at the next Peak Lord meeting.
“Is something wrong, Liu-shidi?” asks Shen Qingqiu airily. He’s finally back from his third (fourth?) honeymoon, skin flushed with health and a new fan to waft his sun-streaked hair with.
Liu Qingge has been glaring a hole into Shang Qinghua’s unoccupied desk, and his eye sockets ache a bit when he has to tear his gaze away to reply.
“We’re continuing the meeting with shixiong absent?”
“Shixiong?” Shen Qingqiu follows the line of sight to where Shang Qinghua usually sits. His fan isn’t tall enough to hide the way his eyebrows lift in a handsome arch. Liu Qingge tries not to flush at his slip of tongue. “Oh, you mean Shang… Qinghua. Yes, he’s been called to the North to help negotiate some trade agreements. Mu-shidi is taking notes, though, if Liu-shidi is worried.”
Liu Qingge isn’t worried in the least, since it’s not like he listens at these meetings anyway. But He does feel himself bristling at the mention of the Northern Kingdom.
No matter how young they were when they first met, Shang Qinghua was already a disciple of Cang Qiong when he came under Mobei-jun’s service. As far as Liu Qingge is concerned, his first responsibility should be to his sect. It’s only just now occurring to him, as he recalls his shixiong’s distant eyes and vague smile whenever he talks about the North, that Shang Qinghua might think differently.
“How much help does one Mobei-jun need?” Liu Qingge scoffs, a little more bitterly than he’d meant to sound. “Can he really not run his kingdom without Shang Qinghua by his side? And demons claim they don’t need help from cultivators.”
Shen Qingqiu gives him a complicated look; Liu Qingge is more than aware he’s insulting at least half of Shen Qingqiu’s husband, but that doesn’t matter much. He’d insult all of Luo Binghe, out loud, vehemently, but he’s more occupied with thoughts of Shang Qinghua at the moment.
“This shixiong wasn’t aware you were so protective of Shang-shidi’s time,” Shen Qingqiu muses. There’s something off in his voice, like a wrong note in a chord, but Liu Qingge doesn’t know what it means. All he knows is that it makes him feel caught out for something he’s not even really doing.
“It’s of no interest to me,” he grunts, hoping his blunt tone will cover the lie. “But Shang Qinghua is a Peak Lord of Cang Qiong. His fealty should lie here.”
“Yes, well,” Shen Qingqiu says, a non-answer. He’s quiet for a long moment, lazily swaying his fan back and forth before he speaks again. “The heart has a way of dividing such oaths.”
The words feel like a punch to the gut.
Liu Qingge grits his teeth so hard that his jaw pops, and then jumps to his feet.
“Oh,” Yue Qingyuan utters, looking up from his scroll. “Liu-shidi, did you have something to raise?”
“Urgent matter.” Liu Qingge says the first thing that comes to mind. It’s not like he has anything to contribute to this meeting anyway. “Begging zhangmen-shiziong’s pardon.”
It doesn’t matter if anyone calls after him; Liu Qingge’s is long practised in tuning these voices out.
≿ ━━━━༺❀༻━━━━ ≾
The An Ding leisure house is empty when Liu Qingge arrives. He knew it would be, but he’d been riding on adrenaline and something adjacent to fury when he’d set off here, and hadn’t thought about much beyond that. Now, Liu Qingge sits on the bed trying to meditate and failing horribly, no matter how long he holds the lotus pose.
Shen Qingqiu’s words twist like a screw around each inhale. The heart divides, the heart divides, the heart divides.
Shang Qinghua had cried that Mobei-jun would kill him if he’d tried to escape his service. Not once had it occurred to Liu Qingge that there might be more to it; he’d known Shang Qinghua as a survivalist and an opportunist first, and then a hard working and quietly brilliant mind second. And between both of those, he’d spared a thread of thought of Shang Qinghua’s heart. If it would match the shape of his own. It’s jarring to think Liu Qingge has only pinched a string of what turned out to be a tapestry.
He tugs the ribbon out of his pocket, letting the soft scrub of fabric beneath his thumb train his jumbled thoughts towards something more base. After a moment, he ties it around his ponytail, the repetitive action lending some form of order. It works for about a minute. Two if he’s really pretending.
Liu Qingge is stewing so deeply, it’s nothing short of a shock when Shang Qinghua slides through the door to his bedroom. His shoulders are draped in the colours of the Northern Kingdom, dark blue trimmed with pale fur and embroidered with elegant swirls of silver along the hem. It’s beautiful and expensive, and Liu Qingge knows at once that it’s a claim on the cultivator. The notion sweeps his gut with a horrible wave of possessiveness.
In the time it takes to crush the feeling, Shang Qinghua slides the door shut and stays there. He doesn’t even appear to have noticed Liu Qingge sitting casually on the edge of his bed. Another time, Liu Qingge would be appalled at the fact that Shang Qinghua hasn’t swept the room with his spiritual energy before closing his eyes. But he’s too distracted by the melancholic bow of Shang Qinghua’s head, and Liu Qingge watches with mounting dismay as the An Ding Peak Lord leans forward until his brow bangs against the door frame.
There’s a drawn, chafing moment where Shang Qinghua does nothing but stand there, outlined in defeat. Just as Liu Qingge opens his mouth to speak, Shang Qinghua lifts his head an inch and drops it back against the wood with a hard thunk . He does it a second time, then a third, picking up the pace until he reaches an alarming count of ten before going still. A ragged sob bursts from his mouth; the sound opens a pit in Liu Qingge’s stomach.
He thought he knew what his shixiong’s cries sounded like; Shang Qinghua has always been loud, even in the way he tries to take up as little space as possible, stammering and waving his hands about. But now Liu Qingge is seeing beneath the mask of drama and wailing, he learns that the real tears are silent. Shang Qinghua drags in a shuddering breath in three parts, the inhale splintering with hiccups.
It’s a horrible sight; Shang Qinghua curled as tightly into himself as he can go, even within his office where he thinks nobody can see him. His shoulders shake with the effort of holding himself together. When a muted little whimper breaks away from his lips, Liu Qingge stands from the bed.
Shang Qinghua flinches like he’s been whipped, straightening up fast enough it looks painful and scrubbing his face with his sleeve. He whirls around to spy Liu Qingge, already pulling a smile onto his face that looks like it hurts even more than the upright rod of his spine.
“O-oh! Liu-shidi!” Shang Qinghua’s voice cracks on his name, wincing, and that’s the thing that makes Liu Qingge start forward. Shang Qinghua’s face goes from startled to panicked as Liu Qingge marches towards him, making the tear tracks down his cheeks glisten in the half light. “I didn’t know you were um- Didn’t see you there, shidi, I just… I was going to-”
He cuts off with an uttered squeak as Liu Qingge wraps both arms around his shoulders and gathers him bodily against his chest. The tension in Shang Qinghua’s body could break diamond.
“Shidi…” he starts uncertainly, voice wobbling even through the tightness of his throat. “What are you-”
“If you want to cry,” Liu Qingge says firmly, directly into Shang Qinghua’s ear. “Then cry.”
Shang Qinghua’s hands flutter against his back, unsure of landing. “Aha, I- don’t-”
“It’s okay.” He’s speaking to Shang Qinghua, but it helps Liu Qingge to hear it himself-- It’s okay. He’ll make it okay. “I’m here.”
Shang Qinghua makes a noise, something that might have started as a laugh and got warped through the sadness spilling out of him. His hands finally settle on Liu Qingge’s back, winding into his robes hard enough that the seams creak. The next breath out of him is a sob, ragged and painful.
It’s like a bottle has been uncorked; the cries that burst from Shang Qinghua’s mouth make his entire body heave, threatening to dislodge him from the hug. Liu Qingge adjusts his hold to tuck Shang Qinghua’s face into the crook of his neck and holds on tight. He used to do this for Liu-meimei when they were very young and she was still scared of thunder; being wrapped up so thoroughly is its own source of safety, something primal and familiar.
Shang Qinghua tries to say something, and it comes out cracked and warping, no longer a word. One of Liu Qingge’s hands wanders up to stroke his hair soothingly, and he settles at the touch, shoulders trembling. When he’s calmed a little, Liu Qingge gently pulls back, intent to steer them towards the bed..
The sound Shang Qinghua makes at the movement is awful, so Liu Qingge just picks him up and doesn’t think too hard about the way Shang Qinghua buries his face into his shoulder. He sits them gingerly on the bed and runs his palm up and down Shang Qinghua’s spine.
The smaller man eventually resurfaces, just barely. He turns his head to blink watery eyes up at Liu Qingge; from this close, their foreheads brush together.
“S-sorry,” Shang Qinghua says. His voice is all cut up and hoarse.
When he goes to untangle himself, Liu Qingge grabs one of his hands. He’s not sure what to do, really. But the thought of Shang Qinghua pulling away, forcing a laugh, apologising for taking up air makes something hot and acrid pump in his blood.
“Hush,” he says. It comes out stronger than he intended, but Shang Qinghua just slumps against him once more, like he’s used to it.
He probably is, and that makes the feeling in Liu Qingge’s veins thrum harder. One thumb rubs soothing circles across the back of Shang Qinghua’s hand until his breathing has even out, punctured by the occasional hiccup. When he’s breathing normally, Liu Qingge stands, turning towards the water jug.
“No!” The word leaps out of Shang Qinghua, cutting the silence like glass. He’s gripping Liu Qingge’s hand so hard his knuckles threaten to break skin. “Please, don’t- Don’t go- I-- I can…”
“I’m getting a cloth so you can clean your face,” Liu Qingge tells him. Shang Qinghua isn’t quite meeting his gaze. His grip doesn’t loosen either. “I’m coming back.”
“Oh…” Shang Qinghua inhales slowly, fingers loosening their chokehold. “Okay.”
He still looks bereft as Liu Qingge wipes his face with a damp cloth, not even flinching when the salt scrubs the sensitive skin beneath his eyes.
“What happened?” Liu Qingge asks, half dreading the answer.
Shang Qinghua just shakes his head. His face squeezes, like it’s forgotten what muscles he needs to smile. “Not important, shidi.”
“If it’s not important then why are you crying like this?”
“Like this? I told you, this shixiong cries all the time.”
“Yes,” Liu Qingge agrees. “But not like this.”
The attempted smile drops off Shang Qinghua’s face. He looks better without the strain to his cheeks, but still bereft.
“Can we not talk about it?” Shang Qinghua mumbles. The fingers around Liu Qingge’s hand twitch, clenching and unclenching, like he’s afraid to hold on too tight. Even without the shadows hanging below his eyes, Shang Qinghua looks horribly tired.
“Fine,” Liu Qingge concedes. Really, he wouldn’t know what to do with the information anyway; if it was Mobei-jun’s fault, he could issue a challenge and fight the ice demon until he was satisfactorily bloodied. But Liu Qingge can’t use his fists to fix matters of the heart.
He rolls to his feet, untangling their fingers and then pointedly pausing to look Shang Qinghua in the eye. “I’m coming back,” he informs, turning to deposit the damp cloth on the side table.
“That’s my ribbon!”
Liu Qingge stops to see Shang Qinghua flushing a rosy pink, even in the dim light. His own cheeks burn a little at the accusation; Liu Qingge had forgotten he’d put his hair up with the ink-stained ribbon earlier.
“Uh, I mean-” Shang Qinghua shifts like he can’t get comfortable in his own skin. “It’s just a ribbon, shidi can keep it if he wants.”
Liu Qingge pulls the ribbon from his head without a second thought. His hair cascades around his shoulders, a few strands tickling his face, and Shang Qinghua’s eyes widen.
“It’s your ribbon,” he says, moving halfway to return it and then stopping.
Shang Qinghua wrote someone’s name on this ribbon. With the bracketing characters too smudged to makeout, Liu Qingge had been pretending it was his. If Shang Qinghua’s heart is divided as Shen Qingqiu claims, then he at least had this one piece of it for himself. Returning it suddenly feels much harder, selfish as it is.
“Shang-shixiong wrote it for the Sect anniversary, didn’t he?”
“What?” There’s no way Shang Qinghua’s eyes can get wider; he compensates by turning away. “Aha, ha. Nothing like that, shidi. I didn’t attend this year.”
“You were excluded,” Liu Qingge says frankly, and Shang Qinghua’s lip wobbles. “You should not have been. You are a Peak Lord.”
“It’s fine! It’s fine! Nobody really wanted me there anyway.”
“Don’t talk rubbish!” Liu Qingge snaps, because there’s not a single word of what Shang Qinghua just said that’s true. There’s so much of him that isn’t true, and Liu Qingge is gnashing his teeth trying to dig below it to the real man underneath.
He thrusts the ribbon out, keeping his fist clenched in case Shang Qinghua tries to take that and hide it too.
“You wrote a name.”
Liu Qingge needn’t have worried. With the smudged ribbon presented to him, Shang Qinghua looks like there’s nothing he’d like less than to touch it. His face is doing something unsynchronised, like he can’t decide what emotion to let out.
“I- Well, yes! Of course!” Shang Qinghua eventually coughs out. “All the Peak Lords did! It’s part of the ceremony, ah? If-”
Suddenly, Liu Qingge can see it coming - the breakneck pace of lies and excuses and coverups that flow out of Shang Qinghua like water.
“Whose?”
“It simply doesn’t matter,” Shang Qinghua says. His tone is so flippant that it’s almost convincing. But Liu Qingge has seen him roll his shoulders and straighten his back; this is undoubtedly practised, too.
“Shen Qingqiu?”
Shang Qinghua scoffs. “What for?”
It’s an effort not to tear the ribbon from the force Liu Qingge grips it with. He strides over to the desk, grabbing the first ink stick that he finds and not even bothering to grind it. The ceremony is still charming and pointless, but Shang Qinghua had wanted to go with someone enough to preemptively write their name on a ribbon when Liu Qingge knows for a fact that nobody wrote his. Liu Qingge should have. Liu Qingge would have, if he’d been paying attention.
“There,” Liu Qingge snaps, holding the ribbon back out to Shang Qinghua when he’s done. The characters are subpar, roughly drawn and bold, but they’re legible.
Shang Qinghua pinches the silk from his grasp gingerly, as if it might catch fire. He blinks at the characters, eyes moon-wide. “My name?”
“You can’t sleep in your cloak,” Liu Qingge grunts, and begins tugging it roughly over Shang Qinghua’s head. It tactically hides his burning face. And if he gets to strip Shang Qinghua of the Northern claim, that’s just an added benefit.
“Wha- Sleep?!”
“Behave,” Liu Qingge orders as he dodges a flailing limb.
Shang Qinghua squawks a lot as he’s yanked into a pair of sleeping robes, but he doesn’t fight back. His hand stays tight around the newly inked ribbon, and Liu Qingge has to tear his eyes away from it in order to peel off his own robes.
“Move over,” he says, and gives Shang Qinghua a hard nudge with his foot when he’s met with a vacant blink.
“Liu-shidi has his own bed!” comes the protest, even as Shang Qinghua scrambles backwards to make room.
He’s just as noisy in his sleep, squirming around until the sheets are a stiff knot around their legs. He’s no longer crying, though, and the whining is a decent enough demonstration of energy. When the wriggling reaches its peak, Liu Qingge rolls over and pins Shang Qinghua’s arms against his chest.
“Wh- Shidi!” Shang Qinghua squeaks. It sounds fractiously loud in the darkness of the room. “You don’t really intend to sleep like this?”
“Stop moving,” Liu Qingge bites out, and rearranges them so Shang Qinghua’s back is pressed to his chest.
He’s starkly aware of the way his body curves around the line of his shixiong’s.
Over Shang Qinghua’s shoulder, he can still see the ribbon tucked into his fingers, characters smudged from all his movement but still clear as day. After a long moment, Shang Qinghua loops the ribbon around his wrist. He takes extra care not to smear the ink any further, and it makes Liu Qingge’s blood heat along every inch they touch.
“Thanks, shidi,” Shang Qinghua mumbles. His voice is thick with sleep and something weaker.
“Go to sleep,” Liu Qingge sighs.
His lips skim the nape of Shang Qinghua’s neck, warm and soft, and it feels instinctual more than anything to flatten his mouth against the skin. It doesn’t escape him how Shang Qinghua trembles, or how he tucks himself deeper into the cradle of Liu Qingge’s hold. The warmth of shared body heat draws slumber around them that much quicker.
When Liu Qingge wakes, the room is freezing cold.