A lil gift for my friend @anachronismstellar, get well soon!!!
"Bloody SQH and LBH return from a mission, everyone is shocked or disgusted, but their husbands hold them tenderly regardless."
“Shizun- ” Ming Fan burst into the bamboo shed, half-bent as he tried to catch his breath. He tried to compensate for his broken voice with vague gestures to the outside and a series of disconnected syllables.
Shen Qingqiu stared at him. It wasn't this disciple he was exactly waiting for that afternoon. Binghe had left on a mission already an eternal week ago with Shang Qinghua to pacify some insignificant territories on the border.
Binghe had insisted that it was a trivial matter that wasn't worth his time, and for once he agreed. He hadn't been hit by a wife plot for a while now, and a trip to a border town seemed like the perfect opportunity to fall into the clutches of one. Besides, Airplane had nearly bored him to death with explanations of tax tariffs and bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo.
He closed his book and rose, fan in hand, to face Ming Fan in the doorway. Up close he looked paler than usual, and rather sweaty for someone with his level of cultivation.
What could be so important that Ming Fan would run out to the peak, and look as if he had seen a ghost?
“Bai Zhan's disciples came down to make an invasion again?”
“No-
“Did your shimei get into a fight again?”
“Lu-
“Is there a demon delegation outside aski-”
“Luo Binghe and shishu came back!!!” Ming Fan interrupted him. He managed to catch his breath and bowed down. “They're in Qiong Ding's courtyard, but-
Shen Qingqiu blinked, perplex.
“Why didn't you start there???”. Why hadn't Binghe come home straightaway?
Ming Fan looked conflicted, refusing to look him in the eye as he stuttered an attempt at an explanation. He ran his hands over his face, to brush aside the hair that had stuck to his face thanks to the cold sweat.
Then, Shen Qingqiu noticed.
Ming Fan had not come from a mission, no accident had been reported to him, and he said that Bai Zhan's disciples had not made a recent raid. The red hand-shaped stain on the shoulder of his robe, of a size he knew very well, could only mean one thing.
Shen Qingqiu waited no longer. He unsheathed Xiu Ya and flew out in a rush.
He pushed aside the flood of disciples crowded in the courtyard, none in Qian Cao's robes, Shen Qingqiu noted with relief. If the xianxia paramedic equivalents were not on the scene, things couldn't be that bad.
(Nor, curiously, was there any trace of Mobei-jun at the entrance. He had been waiting since the night before.
“Junshang will come here directly. I came to wait for Qinghua” Mobei-jun explained as if it were the most natural thing in the world).
“A monster-
“…what Shishu spit out? It was a whole finger!”
“I don't know who looked more demonic, Shishu or Junshang…”
Gossip boiled around him. The disciples quivering with fear, their faces pale or green with disgust.
After a couple of sly elbowing and not so sly use of spiritual energy, he reached the front of the crowd.
Luo Binghe and Shang Qinghua stood in the middle of the courtyard. To say they were unrecognizable was an understatement. Their pristine robes were drenched in dark blood. Shang Qinghua's hair, always pulled back in a handy bun, stuck to his face and back in a tangle of blood and chunks that looked suspiciously like chopped-up guts. He was gesticulating in the air, pointing the plucked finger at his side and saying something to Luo Binghe in grunts that showed off his red-tinted teeth.
Luo Binghe's claws were still out, the black edge dripping crimson. The sigil on his forehead glowed, highlighting the blood dripping down his face and the fury in his scarlet eyes. The fluffy curls had disappeared under the weight of the dampness, turning his silhouette angular and menacing. He had left a trail of blood behind him, a halo marked with the death of his enemies.
They were the very embodiment of violence and carnage.
Well, that explained the disciples' remarks.
Shen Qingqiu glanced sideways at Mobei-jun, who had stepped out of the shadows and now stood beside him. He unfolded his fan and they both approached their husbands.
At the sight of them, within seconds, their faces changed. The only thing distinguishable amidst the dark red sea were their bright watery eyes, which soon changed from a creek to a waterfall. Now the only thing visible on their faces were the lines caused by the huge tears running down their cheeks, wiping away the blood, and the wobbly pouting on their lips.
(Like father, like son, whispered a voice in SHEN QINGQIU's mind. He proceeded to put that thought into a box and set it on fire.)
Shang Qinghua let out a pitiful howl, and ran straight to bury his face in Mobei-jun's pecs, which were barely muffling his sobs.
Shen Qingqiu narrowed his eyes. That leeching rat.
“My King… I missed you,” Shang Qinghua said, in the most pitiful voice a throat could produce. Shen Qingqiu got shivers from the cringe.
Mobei-jun picked Shang Qinghua up off the ground, cradling him unbothered by the blood and questionable bits of flesh that were surely sticking to his robe.
“This King missed Qinghua too,” he said with a soft smile before opening a portal and disappearing from the courtyard. Shen Qingqiu didn't miss the smug smirk that Airplane threw at the crowd.
“Shizun…” Luo Binghe called out to him, a plaintive tone matching his large, lamb-like teary eyes.
“This lowly one has missed you so much... but didn't want to appear before Shizun in such a pitiful condition” Luo Binghe apologized, hesitating between clutching Shen Qingqiu's sleeve as he always did, seeing his soaked hands.
“Nonsense. Let's go home so you can wipe off the dirt” he would later ask Shang Qinghua how exactly it was that they ended up like this.
Shen Qingqiu grabbed Binghe's arm anyway, and pulled it back to accommodate him on his sword. If it weren't for all the disciples present, he would wipe his husband's face, but that would have to wait until they were alone at home.
The tears had stopped, giving way to a big smile that made his heart tremble. He brushed past the looks of concern and distress from the disciples, and took off for the bamboo hut with his husband pressed firmly against his back.
It was going to be a long night.
