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A third anniversary is a milestone Shen Qingqiu never expected to deal with. In his first life, he'd contented himself with being alone. In his second, he had pinned all his hopes on staying alive. To be married—to be married for three years—to be married to Luo Binghe for three years…!
He has no expectations or experience to measure the feeling against, but he had not expected this:
On the morning of his third anniversary with Binghe, there is blood in the congee. Not much , but there is blood. He can't help but recognize the copper tang, and the odd sensation of tiny blood parasites aiding him in swallowing like a golfer might 'help show a woman how to swing' when she was doing perfectly well on her own.
"Binghe," he scolds over the breakfast table, frowning at his beloved husband in reproach.
"Is it not to Shizun's liking?" Binghe asks, and the genuine surprise and concern in his expression chases away all of Shen Qingqiu's ire in a heartbeat.
Sticky, clingy, awkward little sheep. Perhaps he doesn't know how to feel about a third anniversary either. What context could he have for such a thing, after all, given his upbringing? He's hardly the original goods, already on to his fifth, sixth, and seventh wife, far too busy to even notice such milestones passing below his feet.
If he needs this, who is Shen Qingqiu to scold him? After all, what's a few more on top of all the heavenly demon's blood he's ingested? Perhaps Binghe just wants to be certain of his blood's presence in him now that Tianlang-jun has resurrected Zhuzhi-lang.
"Ah, nothing, nothing," Shen Qingqiu sighs, lifting his cup of tea to surreptitiously wash away the metallic flavor.
Since that day in Jinlan city—and the many awkward experiences that followed—he cannot even eat red meats less than thoroughly seared lest the taste of blood awaken those awkward memories. But he hardly wants to trouble Binghe with such a thing.
"If it isn't to Shizun's liking, this disciple can cook it again," Luo Binghe offers, his eyes bright with worry, and slightly shiny from the ever-threatening heartbreak.
Shen Qingqiu reaches over and taps his ridiculous husband on top of the head with his fan before lifting his congee and continuing his breakfast.
There must not have been much of a dose, because after that single bite Shen Qingqiu doesn't notice any further blood parasites joining the little breeding population swirling through his body and fixing any bruises before he can so much as regret slamming his shin into a low table or elbowing the bedpost while they…Well. Did. Things.
Whatever a third anniversary should look like, Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe's looks like this:
They walk through the deep woods surrounding the latest house Luo Binghe has built for them, hidden even from Shang Qinghua's prying eyes. For once Shen Qingqiu would not mind holding hands, but for once Luo Binghe keeps his hands to himself. Perhaps the maintenance of Shen Qingqiu's face is meant to be his anniversary gift.
They stop by a riverside and speak of nothing important. Shen Qingqiu flays the novel he has been engrossed in of late alive, and Luo Binghe listens with the satisfaction of a predator tasting blood. Even in the sunshine, his eyes look like fields of stars, and Shen Qingqiu has to draw himself away from them or risk getting lost in their vast depths, never to return to the unbelievably contrived harem dramas of Sleeping Willow Flower's latest travesty.
When inevitably he loses the battle and leans in, Luo Binghe meets him halfway, a long, slow kiss. There's far less biting than usual, and Shen Qingqiu gladly accepts the gift he has been offered.
After, he plays the guqin for his husband while Luo Binghe starts work on their dinner, accompanying his husband's graceful movements with gentle chords that tell the story of his beauty to the world at large.
As Binghe has gifted him his face, so Shen Qingqiu gifts him his attention. After all, it is the only thing Luo Binghe truly wants, and he is so often forced to share.
Binghe is careful when he divides up the dinner, turning each dumpling back and forth before choosing it for his own plate or Shen Qingqiu's. When the tang of blood brushes Shen Qingqiu's palate, he pretends it didn't and continues with his meal without disturbance this time.
Whatever his husband wants and needs, Shen Qingqiu will give him of course. And after all, Binghe is the one who cooked. Of course he can add whatever he likes to the dumplings.
That night, however, Luo Binghe lays on the other side of Shen Qingqiu from their usual, so that he is tucked up beside his right. It's as warm and comfortable as ever, so he hardly minds the change of pace. But no matter how many thinly veiled suggestions he makes, Luo Binghe never takes the opening to unwrap his favorite gift of them all. Shen Qingqiu himself is, of course, not about to shred the face his husband so graciously gifted him by attempting to initiate himself, but as the night wears on and nothing happens…
"Binghe," he starts, brows knit as he gazes up at the ceiling of their latest bamboo house.
"May this unworthy husband just hold you tonight, Shizun?" Binghe asks, the words soft as goose down against Shen Qingqiu's hair, melting him straight to his core.
"Ridiculous man," Shen Qingqiu breathes in reply, pressing closer and closing his eyes, touched deeply by the request. "Of course you may."
After all, despite Shen Qingqiu's complaining about timelines they usually spend their evenings in a more active embrace. It's not so bad to do things differently on their anniversary. Perhaps rather than every three days, Luo Binghe has decided to spare him every third year.
The thought makes him bite back a chuckle and hold his ridiculous protagonist tighter.
The next day, Binghe kisses him three times, but never touches. Shen Qingqiu pretends not to notice. Pretends it doesn't make his stomach unsettled and his skin uncomfortable around his body.
He pretends he doesn't taste the blood in his meals.
The next day, Luo Binghe strips the bed the moment Shen QIngqiu is awake, and insists on doing the laundry. Shen Qingqiu watches him work, and feels anxiety crawling through his body like the vines of the holy mausoleum.
It's been four days since they did more than sleep in their cozy little bed, and it is wrong the way the mottled sky color over Maigu ridge had been wrong. It is a fault in the structure of the world. Binghe always wants. It's part of him that Shen Qingqiu knows very well. He always wants, so why doesn't he now?
That night, there's a bright red stain on Luo Binghe's robes when he sets dinner down, but when Shen Qingqiu reaches forward with a worried sound, Luo Binghe shies away from him.
"Ah, sorry Shizun, I didn't clean this well enough after that last conversation with the Western Salamander tribe."
"Ah," Shen Qingqiu says in understanding, even as his mind whirrs.
Binghe had just done the laundry earlier that afternoon, and though he often pays more attention to Shen Qingqiu's robes than his own, he's never missed such a glaring stain.
Something is wrong, and Shen Qingqiu has absolutely no idea how to begin asking his perfect protagonist husband why he's hiding it from him. He agonizes over it, quietly, in the back of his mind—wonders when the right time to ask would be—watches the bloodstain vanish into the laundry without being remarked upon.
He goes to sleep without making love. Again.
And then the choice to ask what's wrong is taken from him.
"He just collapsed," Shang Qinghua is blabbering, still holding onto Shen Qingqiu's sleeve, though now being dragged instead of dragging him away from the library. "He's lucky my king was there to handle the hall—every demon in the whole palace basically went for the throat! I mean, who could blame them?! The demon emperor just collapsing at their feet like that, who wouldn't ? I mean, clearly my king wouldn't! Mobei's never broken an oath!"
"Stop talking!" Shen Qingqiu barks, slamming open the door to his room in the palace.
Inside, Mobei Jun stands beside the bed, stern face cold and empty. Shen Qingqiu doesn't spare him more than a nod, and even then his eyes are already turned away, to the figure in bed.
Luo Binghe has something of an obsession with keeping their spaces tidy. He bullies Shen Qingqiu into removing his outer robes before so much as sitting on the bed. He tends to scrub himself raw rather than letting a trace of dust or dirt from his battles infect their bed chamber. Seeing him in bed, boots on, outer robe crumpled carelessly about him, hair ornaments still on, attached no doubt stabbing their soft pillows and his tender scalp…
He is beautiful. He can't not be beautiful. Seeing him like this breaks Shen Qignqiu's stubborn heart into pieces.
"What's wrong with him?" he demands, hurrying to his husband's side and lifting one claw-tipped hand into both of his own, pouring qi into the point of contact. Hot red blood coats his fingertips at once, Luo Binghe's palm coated in red.
"Though none touched him, he began to reek of blood the moment he fell," Mobei Jun reports, voice even and calm, as if it was nothing to him. "This one awaited the empress to undertake further investigation."
"Blood," Shen Qingqiu hisses, finding no blockages or changes in Luo Binghe's spiritual pathways. He turns the hand he's holding over, and stares down at the mark he finds there.
A sword has slashed open Luo Binghe's palm. It can be nothing else. The clean edges of the injury spread gently beneath his touch, fresh blood welling dark from inside him.
"What the fuck," Shang Qinghua breathes, far too close. He's leaning over the bed, staring at the open wound with a look of sick fascination.
A clawed hand grips the back of his robes and drags him further from Luo Binghe before Shen Qingqiu can beat him to a pulp for daring to come so close while Binghe is hurt. He still throws his fan at his idiot friend, not even watching to see it bonk off his head. He's busy fishing for Binghe's other hand. Blood there too, yes, but more than that on the bed. More than could be explained by either hand, smearing red across their bedsheets.
"Fetch a blood replenishment tonic!" he barks before Shang Qinghua's outraged squawk can develop into loud complaints or whining.
"Right, sure, yes!" Shang Qinghua stutters, trying to bolt out the door while Mobei Jun's claws are still tangled in the back of his rich Northern-blue robe.
"It will be done," Mobei Jun confirms, dragging Shang Qinghua through a shadowed tear in reality with a shriek.
In the following silence, Shen Qingqiu realizes how hard he's breathing—how ragged and fierce his breaths are coming. His teeth bared, his hands shaking, his panting heaving in and out of him with desperation. He should calm down. He should face this rationally. He should start thinking through all the miracle cures he hasn't spent on random NPCs in his years at Binghe's side ruling the empire.
He tears open Binghe's robes instead, and stares down at what he feared—what he knew —he would find there.
There is a blooding red gash just over his heart, where there should be a scar.
Shen Qingqiu stares down at it, only barely aware of the sound that's dragged itself out of his throat. He reaches forward with his shaking hands—his awful, villainous hands—and touches the whole skin on either side of the wound, pressing down as if he could staunch the bleeding so many years late. As if he could undo what he'd done—wipe it away from Binghe's flesh like selecting and deleting words in a ridiculous novel.
The chest under his hands rises and falls with his breaths. The blood under his fingers twitches, then congeals. He watches it try to hold together—watches it struggle to close the wound. Watches it fail.
He's never really seen the blood parasites at work before. That must be what they are, though. It makes sense, that poured free like this they would have some sort of form. At first they look like a little snake or slug, but they come together into something more like an insect, its legs dragging and its head nudging at Binghe over and over. His heart clenches watching them fail to heal their master.
"Binghe, what happened?" he whispers, cupping his hands to catch the struggling blood parasites.
The blood pools in his hands, half-solid. It twists as if uncomfortable, then cuddles down into his palms. A tendril lifts, heavy on the end like a tiny head, turning towards him.
"It's alright," Shen Qingqiu soothes the little parasite collective. "It's alright. You're going to be okay."
The little bloody head tilts up towards him, and Shen Qingqiu tilts down in return, pressing his forehead against the little parasites. They return the touch, nuzzling gently, then start to melt into blood again, dripping through his fingers.
"Oh, no, wait," Shen Qingqiu murmurs, watching the poor things start to fall apart. He casts about for something to help them with—something to hold them—then quickly opens his mouth for the creatures. After all, if they can't stay inside Binghe he has a little breeding population of his own they can join until their master is well once more!
The parasite collective suddenly coagulates again, quivering with delight and bobbing its head up and down rapidly before all but leaping down his throat. It's a singularly unpleasant and unusual sensation, softened only by some… Entirely unrelated training Shen Qingqiu has done recently involving his body's ingrained reflexes.
It feels strangely good, to feel a piece of Binghe settle warm and safe inside him. He tries not to notice the other rivulets of blood changing course against gravity to pool against his hands, tugging gently at his fingers and robes, begging entry as well.
"Oh for goodness sake…" he whispers to no one, going back to trying to put pressure on the bleeding wound over Binghe's heart.
It's only a moment later that he realizes he could have just fed the parasites back to Luo Binghe, and they might have done more good there. He clears his throat, wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth, and starts diligently helping feed them back to him when too many bleed free.
[Artwork by Falcities—click here for more!]
The blood replenishing tonic brings Binghe back to awareness. He comes to just as Shen Qingqiu is soothing another clump of blood parasites, cradled in his palm and trembling like so much piteous jello. They've been clustering to him ever since that first one, leaving tiny bloodstains as they climb over his robes. They're helplessly cute, as sweet and needy as his husband, so he's been letting them do as they want until they start to fall apart.
"Husband," Luo Binghe rasps, and Shen Qingqiu drops the poor parasite cluster back onto his chest in his eagerness to grab Binghe's face in both hands.
"You collapsed," he explains quickly. "In front of a hoard of demons. You're lucky to be alive , Binghe, if Mobei Jun hadn't been there—
Binghe blinks blearily up at him. His eyes are so dark and so confused. They trail down to Shen Qingqiu's mouth, where no doubt there are still blood smears from the stubborn parasites that keep trying to crawl inside him rather than being good and letting him give them back to Binghe. Naughty things.
"You won't stop bleeding," Shen Qingqiu tells him.
"Mm." Binghe says in reply, and his brow furrows in concentration. Parasites leap to action, hooking through his skin, dragging it closed like stitches or staples. The wounds don't heal, but the blood flow settles. Shen Qingqiu remembers bloody congee and missing his husband's touch for days on end.
"How long have they been open?" Shen Qingqiu asks, but it isn't really a question. More a demand. More a fear.
"It just got away from me for a moment, shizun," Luo Binghe says. "The remedy is already being searched for, this one merely—"
"How long have they been open?" Shen Qingiu repeats. He sets his bloodstained hands back in his lap, pretending it isn't comforting to feel the half-sentient blood smeared over his palms squeezing and twining between his fingers, as possessive and adoring as all of Binghe is.
His husband turns his gaze away. He seeks out the door the pile of his bloodied clothes on the floor, the stack of healing talismans and the empty jar of blood replenishing tonic at the bedside. He clears his throat.
"A while," He says. "This disciple apologizes, Shizun. I thought I had it under control."
"Under control," Shen Qignqiu repeats. "Your scars re-opened and you thought you had it under control. Binghe…"
"Don't be mad!" Luo Binghe blurts, sitting up all at once in a flurry of curls, bedclothes, and bloodmites. "Don't be angry, Shizun, I only—it was our anniversary, this Binghe didn't want to—"
"To tell this master that the wounds I made you suffer were hurting." Shen Qingqiu completes when Binghe stalls out.
"It's just a curse or something," Luo Binghe insists. "Sha Hualing is supposed to be tracking down this flower that—"
"Does it hurt?" Shen Qingqiu demands.
"What?"
"Does it hurt?" he lifts Binghe's hands off the bed as he asks it, turning them over so he can see the bloody marks on his palms, where he'd gripped Xiu Ya in desperation. There are matching cuts on the insides of his knuckles. He'd never noticed the scars there. It had been too easy to lose them in the folds of strong hands touching and holding him.
"...No," Binghe lies. "It's only inconvenient, Shizun."
"I stabbed you," Shen Qingqiu says, which isn't what he meant to say at all. He meant to scold his husband for keeping something like this from him—for endangering his life before his demon court, and keeping secrets from the husband he's supposed to adore. But that's not what comes out of his mouth. What he says—what he's been thinking over and over—"I stabbed you. You were just a child, you'd done nothing wrong but fight when I told you to flee, and I stabbed you."
"I'd been demonically cultivating for years," Luo Binghe corrects. "I scared you. I kept scaring you. I owe you more than some pain, for what you went through on my behalf, Shizun."
"Owe me," Shen Qingqiu murmurs, then shakes his head slowly, once then twice. "That's not… That's not true. That can't be why."
"Shizun—"
"Isn't it me?" Shen Qingqiu blazes forward, his heart pounding too hard to be calmed, his mind too troubled to settle, his tongue too tired of being held back to still. "Didn't you keep them to remind me what I owe you? What I've done?"
"What you've—Shizun, no! No, that's not why, I…"
"You kept them," Shen Qingqiu says, his eyes on his hands, watching the webbing of blood squeezes him in a touch that could be needy or greedy—tender or desperate. It was hard to tell, sometimes. It was hard to tell.
"You gave them to me," Luo Binghe answers, with a bewildered note to his voice.
"They're stab wounds, not a hairpin!" Shen Qingqiu snaps, rising and storming away from his husband in a flurry of silks. He'd never changed, after being dragged from the library by Shang Qinghua. His outer robes are rumpled, and his work with the blood parasites has left him covered in stains. They'll probably be worth throwing away or burning, rather than trying to recover.
But Binghe will probably try to scrub them anyway. He might even succeed, his stubborn hands stalwart against the bloodstains. Shen Qingqiu freezes across the room, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around himself. It would look ridiculous in this body. An immortal master, comforting himself like a child facing a thunderstorm.
"I was trying to fix it before you noticed," Binghe says behind him after a long, drawn moment. "I didn't want to upset you."
Shen Qingqiu says: "Am I your husband or not?"
He means the question to come out, for lack of a better word, bitchy. For his complaining to coax cajoling responses from Binghe as always, so that he can be bullied affectionately back into complacency. He wants things to go back to normal.
That's not how he says it.
"Am I your husband or not?" he says, and he says it like he's prying vines from under his skin, leaving bloody holes in his flesh behind.
But he's not the one with holes in his flesh.
Luo Binghe is silent, and Shen Yuan can't stand the silence a moment longer. He turns to face him, and finds him very still and very calm. He'd expected a snivelling, quivering mess—that sweet little act that Luo Binghe puts on when he wants to be forgiven right away—when he wants Shen Qingqiu to comfort and cosset him until whatever started the argument is gone.
The Luo Binghe on the bed is pale, bloody, and very, very calm. His dark eyes are downcast, half-hidden behind his long lashes. His lips are paler than usual rather than bitten pink and paired with his teary eyes to land a devastating blow through which no thought can properly filter through Shen Qingqiu's mind.
In his blood-stained robes, atop their bed, for the first time Shen Qingqiu can remember, the demon emperor sits. Not playing at being a sweet disciple, or crying enormous crocodile tears, or carried away by wild intensity. He is sitting, calm and quiet, and he is thinking.
He is so, so beautiful.
Luo Binghe lifts eyes that aren't sparkling with sorrow, but instead glinting with determination and says: "You are my husband."
"Then let me help," Shen Qingqiu insists, gliding a step closer, drawn close and immediately addicted to this strange, serious glimpse of Luo Binghe's true self.
"You've been eating the parasites," Luo Binghe notes, still watching him closely. "You're brimming with them, Shizun. Is it no longer disgusting to you?"
Shen Qingqiu clears his throat, glancing aside. He can, indeed, feel a subtle little tingle in his fingers that feels like the mites are saying hello from within him.
"I never thought they were disgusting," he objects. "I knew what they could do, and didn't appreciate being forced."
Luo Binghe agrees with a slow nod. "You weren't forced this time, though." He points out.
"...They looked lonely." Shen Qingqiu mutters, scowling at having to admit to such a thing.
Luo Binghe's dark eyes widen, then slowly soften, melting into soft, teary indulgence again, as if the stone-cold emperor of demons had not briefly sat in his place. He lets out a long, slow sigh and lowers his head.
"I can't fix it," He says, splaying his hands before him. Blood drips lazily from between his knuckles from what's pooling in his palms.
In two steps, Shen Qingqiu is at his side, cradling Binghe's hands in both his own, despite the fact that his own are smaller and more delicate in every way. He'd like it to be romantic, maybe, or at least dramatic or beautiful. Instead it just feels… Sad. Looking down at those bleeding hands, he can't think of the thousands of times Luo Binghe's blood was used for plot point or porn point over and over again.
All he can think of is a young man on a cliff's edge, forced over the side by his frightened, panicking, cruel master.
"I'll fix it," Shen Qingqiu promises, squeezing Binghe's warm, broad hands, careful not to pinch the injuries as he does so.
Luo Binghe swallows hard, and a single tear streaks out of the corner of his dark eye. It doesn't look like his usual—shameless and needy. It's true in a way that Shen Qingqiu can't articulate.
"Okay," Luo Binghe whispers, slowly dragging his beautiful eyes up to meet Shen Qingqiu's expectant gaze. "Then… Shizun."
He swallows again, and his breath hitches. His fingers twitch, but he doesn't flinch or look away.
"Shizun," he repeats, "please help me."
"Husband can leave it to me," Shen Qingqiu returns, bending to press a firm kiss to Luo Binghe's forehead before straightening again, squeezing Binghe's hands once more. "Now. Rest a while longer. I'll leave Mobei Jun and Shang Qinghua here to guard you. My first thought, of course, is the relics in the holy mausoleum but I think you have most of the good ones here at the palace now. There is, however, a spider maiden with the fragrance of the moon—whatever that means—in the North who can seal any wound with her silk. In the meantime I'll request more blood replenishing options from Mu-shidi—he won't deny me. As for pain relief, this master has some skill in creating such things and will ensure Binghe doesn't—Binghe?"
Binghe is shaking on the bed, a grin on his pale lips, showing sharp teeth. His eyes are crescents of happiness, but wet at the same time with what looks like pure emotion. He turns his hands and wraps his fingers over Shen Qingqiu's long fingers. Bewildered, Shen Qingqiu clasps their hands together in return. He still can't tell whether Binghe is on the verge of laughter, tears, or madness.
"You really want them gone," Luo Binghe says. "You really wish you'd never done me harm, even after all I've done."
"If I could change anything, it would be that." Shen Qingqiu agrees at once, confused and hurt by the question. "Why would I ever want Binghe to hurt?"
"Shizun," Luo Binghe sighs, pressing forward until his tortured/delighted/agonized expression is hidden in his master's robes. "Shizun, shizun, shizun…"
"I'm here," threading his hands into Binghe's hair when he's released doesn't bring him any closer to understanding what's going on.
What does is seeing the closing scars on his palms when Luo Binghe lifts his hands to show them, his face still hidden but his smile pressed so tight against Shen Qingqiu's chest that he can feel it."
"GOT IT!" Shang Qinghua bellows, bursting into the room. "He got poisoned with a HEARTBREAKER'S WILLOW, it reopens scars until the one who inflicted them is either dead or expresses true reg—OW, OW, OW, BRO, FANS HURT! AIYAH, IF YOU ALREADY FIXED IT THEN JUST TELL ME SO! I'M LEAVING, I'M LEAVING!"