Chapter Text
There is a green paper screen, a bamboo grove befitting the serene and soothing frame of the bamboo house, ideal to calm mind and body. However, the silence now looming in the placid cool room is pregnant with fever and fear.
An occasional whimper can be heard from behind the screen, so restrained and subtle that it could be easily missed.
Shen Qingqiu is dreaming. Or maybe he is remembering. He is asleep, or maybe awake. He isn’t sure himself. He just lies hidden from the world behind this paper screen, that has proved time and again to be so poor a protection, and tries to fend off the burning rage that consumes his insides like a scorching parasite.
His soul burns. His mark burns. His eye burn. The bile clogged inside him makes his throat burn, too. His entrance… He’s made sure no one ever hurt him that way, never again… but gods immortal, it burns too. There’s no escaping those memories, and his body remembers all too well.
So Shen Qingqiu cries in silence and hides in the modicum safety of his inner sanctum, the only place in the whole world he can let go when the pain becomes too overwhelming. Especially now that the Red Lotus Pavilion isn’t a safe option anymore… Still in the drowsy half-daze, Shen Qingqiu seethes at the thought, but his anger is soon washed away by another wave of fear. Liu Qingge’s enraged face blurs into Qiu Jianluo’s. Their voices become one. Soothing red morphs into hateful golden and Shen Jiu is a boy again, curling into himself, so afraid, so afraid.
The door slides open. Liu Qingge steps in, feeling conflicted; there is confusion in his eyes, and still traces of aggravation against Peak Lord Shen, but also a growing sense of guilt and pity. The elder of Qing Jing Peak hasn't been seen in a week, claiming illness, but Liu Qingge suspects this malady has a lot to do with what he saw in that red room.
Now he enters a green room, unsure of how to proceed but determined to solve this issue that sprang from the Red Lotus fiasco.
There should have been a disciple at the door to stop him. There should have been someone guarding the bamboo house, but seeing Whatshisface bully Luo Binghe is so much more entertaining than standing guard all afternoon. Shizun wouldn’t be mad, sure, if they were idle just for a while.
Therefore, Liu Qingge enters unannounced, unexpected, and with the growing feeling that he will be unwanted as well. He slides the door closed. It’s not a slam, this time, but it might have been judging by the terrified whimper it elicits from the man in the room.
Shen Jiu hides. Even though he knows that it’s useless, that the shadow behind the screen will find him anyways, he just curls even tighter around himself. Still asleep or already awoken, three paper screens in red, yellow and green mesh in his mind in an endless whirlwind of fear, until it all suddenly comes to a halt when the screen parts once again and a hand reaches out towards him.
“Don’t touch me!” Shen Qingqiu screeches, in almost childish fright.
Liu Qingge freezes, but immediately pushes forward until he’s putting a grounding hand on his shixiong’s shoulder.
“I said…!” the elder tries to protest further, but something is stuck in his throat, fighting to escape him just like the tears that now cloud his sight.
“You have a fever,” says Liu Qingge in a flat voice. His big hand on that bony shoulder is enough to keep Shen Qingqiu from crawling backwards, even thought in return it seems to make him even more scared of him. So, after a moment of consideration, he takes his hand off him and sits back at a respectful distance.
This seems to help, Shen Qingqiu turns his back to him and takes deeper breaths, finally fully waking from his nightmare. He is dishevelled, robes askew, in a way that makes Liu Qingge feel the need to clench his fist lest he forgets himself and stares too much.
After patiently waiting for a bit, giving him time to recover, Liu Qingge shifts.
“Leave” says Shen Qingqiu, as if sensing his movement, before the young war god can even open his lips. “I can hear you think, you dense brute, the rusty wheels of your tiny brain are too noisy for my house.”
Grumpy and acerbic as always, grumbles Liu Qingge in his mind. But at least that’s a step away from the paralyzing fear from before.
Shen Qingqiu still keeps his back at him, but also looks at him through the corner of his eye. “Are my words too complicated for you? Leave me be. There is nothing I have to tell you.”
“I want to know…” begins the younger, motioning at him with an impatient hand… But the gesture sets the other into high alert again.
“I said, leave me be!”
At this, Shen Qingqiu turns towards him in rage and shame, and once again Liu Qingge sees the fear and trepidation in those usually cold eyes.
Liu Qingge crosses his arms stubbornly.
“What happened to you?” asks he.
“I want you out of my house,” says the other, just as headstrong.
The younger man fills his chest with an air of smug satisfaction.
“You can’t bodily throw me out,” he says, and Shen Qingqiu seethes.
“Then I’ll just ignore you!”
“Can you really do that? you always like to have the last word in everything.”
“You-!” Shen Qingqiu bursts in a fit of irritation. But then his eyes dart towards the paper screen, and the man in front of him, and suddenly that seems so far removed from the oppressive feel from the golden room that he wants to sigh in relief.
Liu Qingge is infuriating and brutish, but in an annoyingly noble way that is a far cry from Qiu Jianluo. Doesn’t mean he wants him here, though. Shen Qingqiu finds he can relax just a smidge, regain his usual composure and endure the irritating presence of the oaf who refuses to leave for some reason.
The silent treatment has no effect whatsoever in said oaf. Still willing to get to the bottom of the story, Liu tackles the most sensitive issue with the delicacy of a rhino.
“So… I saw your shoulder. Is that a slave brand?”
Shen Qingqiu’s heckles rise and his body locks again, immediately going in defence mode. Bad enough that the stupid darling of the fucking heavens had seen him in such a vulnerable state, he could still play this out as a minor qi deviation or some such thing… But he has seen the most shameful, disgusting secret his body has to hide! Shen Qingqiu feels his eyes sting again, and his face twists into a mask of stubborn fury to keep tears from making the situation even worse.
“Good. Good!” he snaps, a bitter laugh forcing its way out of his tight throat. Liu Qingge just furrows his brows. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go out and tell everyone, why waste time? Go so you all can have a good laugh!”
Liu Qingge physically recoils at that. “You can’t expect me to mock you for that!?” he exclaims.
Shen Qingqiu isn’t listening, the whirlwind of memories and dread thundering too loudly in his mind. Yes, they will laugh, laugh at him for being weak, for being a liar, for being a disgusting slave. The veneer of nobility he so painstakingly crafted throughout the years will dissolve like dust leaving him bare to their judgemental eyes. And of course, there will be one laughter roaring louder than any other…
Why is Liu Qingge still here, when it’s obvious he’s the one who’d most want to see him down in the mud?
Liu Qingge has not touched him this time, not after seeing how badly he reacted before, but he tries his hardest to make him snap out of his current panic attack by staring intently, projecting all his unwavering strength towards the trembling man.
Then, speaking slowly and firmly, he tries his best to ground him through his voice alone.
“Shen Qingqiu. I need to know. You were enslaved, weren’t you?”
“Go away…”
“You were abused. How old were you?”
“Leave! Go!”
That scream and his tears, flowing freely now, are as much of a give-away as they can be. The look of murderous rage in Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, as if expecting mockery or worse, some sort of blackmail or abuse, tell Liu Qingge much more than what the other would be willing to admit about what his shixiong has learned to expect from life, and how it shaped his personality.
Liu Qingge has never learned gentleness (if anything, that is his sister’s forte, not his), but his voice is soft when he says something that, in a way, surprises even himself.
“Shen Qingqiu. Shixiong. Tell me what happened to you. I want to help you.”
“There is nothing to be said.”
“There certainly is. You were enslaved. When did that happen?”
“I know nothing of the sort,” says Shen Qingqiu clinging to his pride, but even he knows such a transparent lie is useless when Liu Qingge has already seen his shameful mark.
“I won’t hurt you. I will keep these secret, if you want. Please…” he makes his voice sound as earnest as possible, moved by a feeling of genuine concern. “Please. I want to help you, I do.”
Shen Qingqiu remains stubbornly silent, as if he could simply will away the intruder by means of ignoring him. So, seeing how he still isn’t getting through to him, Liu Qingge resorts to one last desperate attempt.
Too quick for the other to avoid him, Liu Qingge drags Shen Qingqiu into a tight embrace.
The undignified squeak of protest is immediately overridden by the hatch of something small, ugly and sad in Shen Qingqiu’s heart. A desperate need for human contact, a longing for love that had been hidden for so many years under an icy layer of disdain and self-hatred, buried under a desperate pursuit for self-preservation.
It floods his whole being to the point of agony, drowning in a misery he had not known had festered so deep in his soul.
And incredibly so, the one embracing him, soothing him, gently stroking his back… Is non other that Liu Qingge.
“You don’t have to cry alone anymore. You don’t have to hide somewhere you think no one will see you. I’m here… I… I want to be here for you.”
The last shreds of reservation in Shen Qingqiu’s mind melt like spring streams, and he clutches to that man he so thoroughly detested, and whom he knew (or rather, he thought) shared the sentiment.
“Tell me what happened, Jiu-xiong…”
And Shen Jiu does. He talks about a yellow paper screen, and his broken words drift in the bamboo house like leaves the wind.