Chapter Text
The morning of the fourth day, Liu Qingge woke up to the sight of Shen Qingqiu’s body curled protectively around him on the bed, his eyes soft and sleepy and affectionate and fingers delicately brushing over the ghostly, floating parts of him as if trying to tell where his tangible and intangible self started and stopped.
He understood immediately that the fairy desperately wanted to pet him properly, but was honoring his word that he wouldn’t without permission.
Liu Qingge no longer saw any reason to deny him.
Working on regaining control over his body had reduced his cloud-beast’s aggressive instincts enough that he thought it unlikely he’d accidentally savage Shen Qingqiu. And… truly, he desperately wanted to be touched.
“En,” he murmured without bothering to move. “Touch if you like.”
There was a flinch of surprise and then a somewhat flustered and confused expression. “Shidi?”
“I’ll say if it is becoming too much,” Liu Qingge clarified.
Looking rather like he’d been caught sneaking treats without permission, only to suddenly be granted it, Shen Qingqiu sheepishly lowered his hand and buried it in his mane, seemingly fascinated by the way it acted like clouds and fur and soft downy feathers all at once; half tangible and half intangible and occasionally shedding bits of fluff that seemed to melt away the further away from his body they got.
After indulging his tactile senses for awhile, Shen Qinqqiu’s curiosity seemed to take over. The fairy’s fingers went to all the nice or itchy spots on Liu Qingge’s head and face and underneath his chin, made careful exploratory strokes to his ears, and eventually, when Liu Qingge was nearly liquid with his melted bones and nearly falling asleep again, he moved down to touch his legs.
Once he’d made it that far, Shen Qingqiu began commenting to himself over how the feathery tufts at his elbows and ankles (were those the correct words? Liu Qingge defeated monsters, he didn’t study them) were like his mane, though he kept comparing them to cool, ghostly flames rather than clouds. Perhaps this description was actually more accurate, but the cloud image was stuck in Liu Qingge’s mind.
The fairy’s voice washed over him like sunlight, warming him. The longer he commented on the different textures, colors, and patterns that made his cloud-beast form, picked over which part came from which creature, and speculated on whether Liu Qingge would be able to further transform into the individual creatures, the deeper the warmth seemed to sink into him. The touches just hastened the effect.
By this point Liu Qingge was pliant and relaxed enough to not care he was purring. It was the most content he’d ever felt in his life and as far as he was concerned it could go on forever.
It was that seductive quality of being a cloud-beast again.
There wasn’t much that could be more tempting to him than the idea of Shen Qingqiu lavishing him with attention, affection, and gentle touches like these. Even though he knew it was a path that could trap him merely at this level of ghostly cultivation — perhaps for as long as Shen Qingqiu lived — he let himself imagine for a moment being able to trick the entire mountain into accepting him as Shen Qingqiu’s spirit beast pet.
Then Shen Qingqiu gave in to his own temptations and took Liu Qingge’s paw gently between two fingers, pressing a little into the pad with his fingertips and grinning stupidly as Liu Qingge’s claws reflexively extended, toes flexing to dig their sharp little points into his skin.
Liu Qingge cracked open an eye and gave Shen Qingqiu a warning glare.
The suddenly annoying fairy gave him the most ridiculously happy smile he’d ever seen and, with a mischievous glitter in his eyes and wickedness to the curve of his lips, tickled his paw by wriggling his caught finger.
A frisson of energy overwhelmed his senses, jerking Liu Qingge out of his relaxed state and into a nearly wild one as he instinctively lashed out, curling his body and bringing his fangs to bite at Shen Qingqiu’s wrist — though he thankfully stopped himself before he broke the skin. He froze. All four sets of claws had also wrapped themselves around the peak lord’s arm, poised to eviscerate the offender.
He growled long and low, annoyed and a little frightened with how close he’d once again come to hurting the fairy. Only his decades spent enforcing self-control, and the more recent practice he’d had in regaining his more human mind, kept Liu Qingge from rending the fairy’s sleeves to tatters and bloodying him.
Or worse.
Shen Qingqiu had the audacity to laugh about it, which earned him an hour of being ignored, even after the fairy made sincere apologies.
Liu Qingge did his best dignified stalk away to hide under the bed and think. (Not sulk, as Shen Qingqiu teased him that he was doing.) Something was nagging at him that he was on the verge of understanding something very important.
Once he realized he couldn’t coax Liu Qingge out of his sulk, Shen Qingqiu noticed that it was nearly time for breakfast with Luo Binghe, apologized yet again, and left the room to await his disciple. Liu Qingge only paid attention insomuch as registering that the fairy didn’t seem stressed over it yet and it would be fine to focus inward. He placed his head on his paws and flicked his tail restlessly as he stared blindly at the wall and thought.
In that hour he was left alone, Liu Qingge was able to reflect on his desires and come to the conclusion that he was probably more than a little touch-starved.
This was something his sister had once explained to him when he’d expressed bafflement over a scene in a novel she’d encouraged him to read. In it, two men previously committed to platonic (specifically heterosexual) brotherhood fell upon each other like starving animals the first time they touched — realizing that they wanted each other in the same moment, and acting on it without hesitation to consummate a sexual (and then romantic) relationship after weighing it for a mere fragment of time.
The relationship itself did not bother Liu Qingge, especially as it soon developed into a dynamic that was one of the most comfortable of the books his sister had suggested he read, but he found the suddenness of the transition from brotherhood to lovers more than a little alarming.
Mingyan explained that of course it was mostly a trope of fiction, but also spoke to the greater, very real, concept called “touch-starvation”.
She had then proceeded to drop a lot of broad hints about people, men in particular, who spent nearly their entire lifetimes knowing touch only as connected to violence. She posited that this lack of affectionate touch in their lives was how corruption or isolation had room to grow. Those affected by this were people who would be especially vulnerable to those with bad intentions who used nice touches to seduce and deceive. Other people might become so much more comfortable with violent touches, because that was what they knew, that it was the only way they understood how to express their feelings to those they should love. And still others might become afraid of being touched at all because they only associated it with being hurt.
There was a lot more, including that touch doesn’t have to be romantic to be valuable (and, in fact, if touch is only sexual then similar things could go awry), but at that point Liu Qingge had got his sister’s implications and decided to change the subject rather than examine and reflect on her warnings, so the topic was forgotten. (Especially because he’d tried to change the topic by innocently asking why there was so much symbolic focus put on a particular flower in the bedroom scenes of not just that particular novel, but many others in her collection. That turned into a lecture that he wished he could have entirely wiped from his mind because now any time he saw the accursed flower, he blushed.)
There were sometimes drawbacks to overindulging a loved one’s interests and encouraging open communication.
He brooded over it (being touch-starved, not flowers) the rest of the day, only rousing from it after Luo Binghe left the house. He made a point to reassure Shen Qingqiu that he wasn’t mad or upset with him, but rather that he was thinking and was still working on sorting through his thoughts.
Liu Qingge allowed more pets under promises from Shen Qingqiu not to tease him. When he returned to his musing curled up in Shen Qingqiu’s lap while the fairy read, he was barely aware that his purring was rather broken-sounding, starting and stopping in a flux that harmonized with how dark or soft his thoughts became.
In the late afternoon hours he’d come to the conclusion that the several months of being a ghost and barely having any physical sensations had left him vulnerable to being easily overstimulated once he’d regained a physical body to feel with. And his tender feelings for Shen Qingqiu made those touches all the more intense.
Perhaps because his small beast form made Shen Qingqiu more likely to touch him and his animal instincts had converted his overwhelmed responses to reflexive violence, it had just forced him to see it sooner than he would have if he’d gained a physical human form instead.
He would have been more likely to resist his responses to being touched, leaving him in a restless state of constant yearning and trying to repress it as ‘inappropriate’. Assuming Shen Qingqiu would have ventured to touch him at all, which didn’t seem especially likely. His interactions with his disciples notwithstanding, the fairy did not needlessly touch anyone. So there was every chance Liu Qingge would have had the yearning to be touched without understanding it or having any reason to register how out of balance it made him. So he would have had a heart demon slowly, stealthily lurking within him, growing unnoticed until it was too late.
Liu Qingge understood that not only would he risk qi deviation, but he would also not likely make it very far in his ghost cultivation training until he came to terms with fears he hadn’t even realized he had. Namely, he feared that if he was able to take human form, he might become intangible again. Or, if he stayed tangible, Shen Qingqiu might no longer find it appropriate to touch him, which was close enough to the other concern as to be nearly the same.
He didn’t want to lose this if he could possibly keep it.
Being able to master transforming from one form to the other could be a work-around…
If he kept his human-ghost form secret, he could indulge in all the petting while growing stronger overall without risking the gift of open affection coming to a halt in response to the change. But that would just create a new fear of discovery and new problems stemming from keeping things from Shen Qingqiu. He would have to accept that Shen Qingqiu’s boundaries might not include even platonic touches directed towards him — even in cloud-beast form — once he could change at will.
And romance might never have been on the table at all, under any circumstances.
No — what would be better would be to do as he’d always done with his fears: confront them directly. He would need to be open with what he hoped for with Shen Qingqiu and accept whatever his answer to that was.
Even if… it lead to his company being rejected entirely.
The thought stopped him entirely and he stiffened as his breath stopped. He distantly heard Shen Qingqiu murmur his name in question, but he was too deep in his own mind to pay it heed.
What would the results of that be? What would happen if Shen Qingqiu wanted nothing to do with him?
Would whatever connected Liu Qingge to the fairy break? Would he no longer be bound and become free to roam wherever he wished? Or without a tether to Shen Qinqqiu, would he finally fade away as he’d been expected to do in the original prophecy? Perhaps before that happened he could figure out how to bind himself elsewhere, choosing to protect Mingyan or his peak. He should at least try that, so he could remain earthbound and do what he could to continue protecting the fairy from afar.
Though with how much his heart tore and bled at the idea of being separated, Liu Qingge didn’t think he’d last much longer in this world than Shen Qingqiu. If he were rejected too soundly, he wasn’t sure there would be enough of him left to cling to this world at all.
Liu Qingge was still resolved, however.
If he had another qi deviation because of heart demons connected to his fears, he didn’t want the fairy to suffer from it the way the original Shen Qingqiu had. Best to lay them to rest early, one way or another, before he became any stronger than he was now.
He stuck like a burr to Shen Qingqiu for the rest of the afternoon, less brooding now than he was simply sad. He was not up for testing his ability to pretend to be a spirit beast in front of Luo Binghe and said so when Shen Qingqiu asked, so he went to his room in the time they began to expect his young disciple to arrive for dinner. Instead he meditated, trying to calm himself and prepare for them to talk when they were alone again.
Liu Qingge had a reprieve, of sorts, by way of Shen Qingqiu feeling unwell after Luo Binghe’s visit. He judged it would be unfair to have the conversation when the fairy might not be up for it, so he said nothing.
Instead of directly addressing his fears and relaying the results of his day’s introspection, Liu Qingge repeated that he wasn’t mad about the morning’s teasing, and explained that he’d only been scared because of the violent impulse when he’d been overstimulated. He renewed his invitation to pet if Shen Qingqiu liked and he was rewarded with not just the pets he enjoyed, but succeeded in his true goal of cheering Shen Qingqiu up a little, as his mood seemed to have dipped along with whatever had made him feel unwell.
For the first night since they’d arrived at his house, Shen Qingqiu didn’t stay up late reading novels.
They prepared for bed early and then cuddled together, the fairy’s clever fingers toying with Liu Qingge’s mane of tangible-intangible fluff; his eyes closed more often than open, and discussed the former peak lord’s diary and what she had mentioned about the ghost king she’d defeated. It gave them ideas for techniques that Liu Qingge might try himself.
When Shen Qingqiu eventually started to drift off into sleep, his pets slowing until his hand came to rest on the back of his neck for a bit until it dropped away, Liu Qingge curled up next to Shen Qingqiu’s head on the pillow, nuzzling into his hair and purring until he finally sank into his dreams.
He continued his attempts to soothe the fairy long into the night, brooding and purring, until he eventually fell asleep as well.
***
Day five had them caught out.
Shen Qingqiu was still asleep and Liu Qingge had stayed up too late to be particularly alert, so the naturally (and unnaturally) stealthy Luo Binghe had no problems entering the house without disturbing either of them, even when he peeked into the room to check on his shizun.
It was only the combination of his cloud-beast instincts and his decades of martial training that allowed him to escape the boy’s attempt to capture him. He went in moment from in the deepest of sleep to leaping off the pillow beside Shen Qingqiu, twisting in the air to avoid Luo Binghe’s grab, and landing with a hiss and arched back on the bed, facing his would-be captor.
This might have lead to a rather nasty battle between the two if Shen Qingqiu hadn’t likewise come awake all at once and put himself between Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe, grasping his disciple’s wrist in a firm, but not punishing hold.
“Binghe…” the fairy said, with gentle censure in his voice and probably Disappointed Dad eyes if the flinch from the boy was any indication.
“S-shizun…!” Luo Binghe protested. “There’s—”
“En. The spirit beast, I know. He’s invited,” Shen Qingqiu said placidly, not releasing his student yet.
“Spirit beast? Shizun! I don’t think—”
“I’m thinking of calling him ‘Pidan’, what do you think?” the fairy interrupted with a smile and an almost playful tilt of his head as he regarded his disciple with a steady, unflinching gaze.
Luo Binghe choked slightly, looking almost comically confused. He just stared at his shizun as he apparently tried to process the ridiculous name being given to a creature he must have been certain was dangerous.
For his part, Liu Qingge hissed at the name and considered biting Shen Qingqiu intentionally for once.
“Mmn! En, I’ll take that opinion under advisement, Pidan, but I’m already rather attached to the name! I don’t know if I could possibly be compelled to call you anything else!” the fairy said, his voice almost sing-song as he teased Liu Qingge.
When his disciple just blinked at him, the fairy finally pulled his gaze away from Luo Binghe to look down at Liu Qingge, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth and making his green eyes sparkle.
Provoked, Liu Qingge pounced on Shen Qingqiu’s arm and bit him just at the elbow where the soft and vulnerable skin was, revealed by the way the sleeve of his thin sleep robe had ridden up during the night. Liu Qingge was careful not to actually break the skin, but he gave the greatest growl he could manage as he felt his feathers and fur puff up around him.
It was loud enough that Luo Binghe looked incredibly concerned at the deep sound coming out of such a small creature and flinched. He made a slight movement, which caused his shizun to tighten his grip, forcing the young man to subside again.
“As you can see, the name suits him so well I suppose it must stick,” Shen Qingqiu continued with a soft laugh, as if neither incident had occurred.
Even though his lips had gone from a slight smirk to an impish curve, making him look even more playful, his eyes held a firm resolution in them as he looked from one to the other.
Liu Qingge sighed, releasing the fairy as he submitted to the inevitable indignity of being called ‘Pidan’. Luo Binghe likewise gave in, knowing that in spite of all of the tricks and techniques he knew, his master would not be reasoned with on this no matter how he tried to cajole or convince him. Even rocks and stones might nod to him, but there were limits to every skill and the fairy was uniquely positioned to resist his persuasive talent.
The defeated pair exchanged wary sidelong looks while Shen Qingqiu gave them each pats on the head and slid out of bed. Without a backwards glance at the other two, the fairy went to gather the clothes he wanted to wear for the day, humming to himself under his breath.
While his master’s back was turned, Luo Binghe gave Liu Qingge a threatening glare that could have set the bed on fire, his eyes saying, ‘I know quite well what you are and it is not a spirit beast.’ Meanwhile, Liu Qingge’s eyes said, ‘If you refer to me as Pidan we will become mortal enemies.’
They pretended to ignore each other after their messages were exchanged, though each knew the other was just waiting for one wrong move to be made.
Granted, Liu Qingge at least had no intentions of harming Shen Qingqiu’s beloved disciple (and his own favorite shizhi, if you didn’t include his sister) and Luo Binghe was probably just intending to restrain the questionably-safe beast until such time as his master signed off on destroying or confining the interloper. Things could have been worse.
Liu Qingge flapped his way down to the floor (it wasn’t flight yet, but he was sure in time he would master it) and exited the room in a dignified stalk so the fairy could get dressed in private. Luo Binghe followed shortly after, not leaving the room until he’d made a point of assisting his shizun by making the bed for him.
Once Shen Qingqiu was dressed, the three reconvened at the table in the living area, each rival taking a seat on opposite sides of Shen Qingqiu and pressing as close to him as they dared. Shen Qingqiu pretended to be oblivious to their competition for his attention, though his air of faint amusement was almost as infuriating to Liu Qingge as his sticky disciple was.
At least because he was allowed to be this close, when Luo Binghe removed his master’s bandages, Liu Qingge could tell that the stain from Without-A-Cure was gone. However, without Mu Qingfang to sign off on it, the Qing Jing master and disciple agreed it was best to continue using the poultice until the doctor declared it safe to stop. And as they were still pretending Shen Qingqiu was missing, ending that part of their daily routine would have to wait a little longer.
Since it would have been more difficult for him to carry multiple cooked dishes from one peak to another without a spirit sword’s assistance or access to a Qiankun pouch, Luo Binghe had been cooking his master’s meals in the wooden house’s small kitchen instead, bringing a basket with ingredients whenever he needed to add to the house’s food storage. Now that he’d tended to Shen Qingqiu’s bandages, there was no excuse not to leave the room to go make breakfast.
Though forced to spend time in the kitchen, Luo Binghe made up for it by checking on his master far more frequently than he normally would have. Every few minutes their peace was interrupted by Luo Binghe asking Shen Qingqiu questions about what he wanted to eat, how he wanted it prepared, how he was feeling, and telling him stories about the peak and the investigation in a quite transparent attempt to make sure the Not-a-Spirit-Beast wasn’t devouring his shizun while his back was turned.
After awhile of this Liu Qingge felt unusually provoking, so he draped himself over Shen Qingqiu’s lap and basked in the pets he received from the indulgent fairy, staring Luo Binghe down with smug, smug eyes any time he poked his fluffy head out of the kitchen.
He paid for it later by Luo Binghe insisting that Shen Qingqiu not feed him ‘human food’ since it might make him sick and insisted that he should wait for the Beastmaster to return to the mountain first to consult him on the matter since he was sure only the Beastmaster would know what this unusual spirit beast was and how to properly tend to his needs.
“But don’t worry, Shizun. Spirit beasts are fine to live off of ambient natural qi, after all. He won’t be hungry.”
Shen Qingqiu laughed at them both with his eyes, but solemnly agreed that until they knew for sure what sort of beast ‘Pidan’ was it might be best to be careful about his diet.
As a result, no treats were filched from his plate and sneakily fed to him by hand. Which was just as well as the boy was watching him vigilantly anyway and would have interfered if Shen Qingqiu had tried.
In fact, Luo Binghe refused to leave the house at all until well after dinner. They spent most of the day with Liu Qingge lounging in the fairy’s lap as he read and Luo Binghe slow-cooking dinner as he tidied the house.
He would have stayed overnight if Shen Qingqiu had allowed it, but with the both of his unruly ‘pets’ being unusually sticky all day, and evening bringing with it another bout of him feeling unwell, Liu Qingge assumed that Shen Qingqiu needed space more than he needed to reassure Luo Binghe that he wouldn’t be gobbled up in the night without his disciple’s protection and had put his foot down. Not long after dinner, the fairy gently sent the boy home to his own bed.
Liu Qingge was quite prepared to give Shen Qingqiu space so the peak lord could decompress from his day, but Shen Qingqiu scooped him up — after asking permission — and carried him off to the bedroom with him.
So for the second night in a row, they spent the night talking softly together and cuddling.
It was wonderful, though Liu Qingge wondered if he shouldn’t have at least asked if Shen Qingqiu were up for the talk this time. But from the strange fluctuations in Shen Qingqiu’s qi an hour into cuddle time, he decided it was best that he hadn’t. The fairy was obviously quite miserable without adding to his burdens by discussing his unsolicited feelings for him.
Instead he now worried over whether he might be living up to Luo Binghe’s concerns and was the one responsible for making Shen Qingqiu ill.
***
It was day six when the investigation that Luo Binghe and Mingyan were conducting together finally bore fruit.
Or, perhaps it was better to say that it bore results.
Luo Binghe had come early for his morning visit, delivering a basket of prepared food from the Qing Jing kitchens and waking them so that he could render medical assistance, changing the bandages as he explained the interruption of the usual routine.
After only a single glare at Liu Qingge, he’d left quickly in order to go and act as support for Mingyan who was investigating one of their suspects. The person they were watching had made some sort of move the previous day that had concerned Mingyan and she had sought out Luo Binghe’s help as he’d left the house the previous night. Since he didn’t want to leave Mingyan alone for long, Luo Binghe didn’t linger in spite of “Pidan’s” ongoing threat.
Shen Qingqiu had begun feeling unwell not long after his disciple had left, so he didn’t bother changing out of his sleeping robes, though he did move to sit in the main room instead of laying in bed. The fairy did his best to hide how he was feeling, but after putting off breakfast for as long as he could, he only managed to eat a few pieces of fruit before he gave up and admitted to not feeling up to it. He likely would have eaten better if it were Luo Binghe’s home-cooked meal, but probably not by much judging from the pallor of his skin.
Now that the illness was no longer happening only at night, Liu Qingge suggested they bring Mu Qingfang in on their secrets — including his being a ghost. Liu Qingge explained his fears that his ghostly presence was somehow responsible for Shen Qingqiu’s symptoms. Didn’t ghosts drain a living person’s yang energy?
“I don’t think you’re making me sick, Shidi,” Shen Qingqiu protested with a huff and a roll of his eyes, turning back to the newly arranged bookshelf as he looked at the row of unread books and tried to decide which to spend the afternoon with. “I would have been displaying signs of being sick earlier if that were the case.”
“But I didn’t have a physical form earlier,” Liu Qingge began.
But before the discussion could progress, the fairy was afflicted with a qi blockage so sudden and so severe that Liu Qingge didn’t even have time to warn him in advance before the shimmer in his skin went out. Shen Qingqiu staggered to the couch under the force of his disorientation when his qi was cut off all at once, collapsing half-on it as he panted and shivered.
Liu Qingge hurriedly scrambled up onto the couch and curled around the fairy’s shoulders to offer Shen Qingqiu comfort by nuzzling at his ear and purring, guilt nearly eating him alive. He was so wrapped up in this he didn’t sense anyone approaching the house until it was too late.
A mad-eyed young man in torn and bloody robes kicked open the door and gave the stunned peak lords — well, gave Shen Qingqiu — a twisted smile as the door swung to the side and shattered against the wall, the pieces of it scattering at his feet.
“There you are, Shen-Shibo. It looks like I arrived just in time,” he said with a calmness to his slow, sickly sweet voice that was in unnerving contrast to his wild appearance. He reached for a medicine bag at his hip and only then did Liu Qingge recognize the robes and the young man’s haggard face.
He was one of Mu Qingfang’s senior disciples — one of those that had assisted the doctor with Shen Qingqiu’s treatments, and the one that had been seen hanging around Qing Jing Peak.
“My, my… do you know how many appointments you’ve missed?”