#SVSSFics

[ellayuki]

05062022 - Scumbag System/SVSS

~

“So, tell me one thing, Cucumber-bro?”

Shen Qingqiu looks to the Heavens, hopes whatever Airplane-bro is about to spout isn’t utter nonsense like he has the feeling it will be, like it is most of the time with this squirrely man. "What?" He takes a sip of his warm tea, wishes he could be out strolling with his husband instead of sitting here on this bright, spring morning.

Shang Qinghua finishes munching on a bite of a dumpling before continuing his line of thought. "You've never told Luo Binghe about…" He hesitates, and it makes Shen Qingqiu start paying attention. Airplane-bro is rarely hesitant with him. "About who you really are? About the System?"

Shen Qingqiu takes a sip of his tea, and then another. It’s… not a touchy subject for him, not really. He has thought about it, once or twice, throughout the years, especially since he and Binghe have made their bows. And- “No,” he huffs, because obviously. “Of course I haven’t. How do you even begin to explain something like that to someone without sounding fucking insane?”

The thing is, he wishes he could. Wishes he could say the words, could show Binghe the way he sees the world around them. (Once, he even wished he could hear his old name on his husband’s tongue, but that had been mere fanciful thinking. He's not that man anymore, hasn't been in so, so long.) More than anything, Shen Qingqiu wishes he could stop keeping things from Luo Binghe.

He smiles, rueful, behind the cup of tea raised anew to his lips. "Have you?" He asks, though he knows the answer already. "Does Mobei-Jun know who you are, behind that meek facade? Does he know you're the reason he exists? The reason everything in this world exists? That it all came from that head of yours?"

Airplane-bro snorts. "Obviously not." But Shen Qingqiu can hear the same type of longing he feels at the centre of himself in Shang Qingue’s voice. Like recognising like, and all that, he supposes. “My King would probably understand it even less than your Binghe.”

Which, Shen Qingqiu thinks, is probably true. At least his Binghe could look at the turn in his master’s behaviour towards him. Mobei-Jun only knows the Airplane-Bro version of Shang Qinghua. There’s no shift, no change for him. It would be a different thing to accept.  

Shen Qingqiu finishes his tea. Pours himself and Shang Qinghua some more. 

And stops thinking of either of them ever telling their significant others the truth about themselves. 

[ellayuki]

01022022 - Scumbag System / SVSS

~

"Shizun?" Luo Binghe starts timidly and it makes Shen Qingqiu lift his eyes from his book. "What does Shizun like about this lowly husband?" That particular tone of voice isn't rare, exactly, but it doesn't always bode well for Shen Qingqiu's poor backside.

And it's somewhat out of left field, too, especially on such an uneventful evening in such an uneventful month. Shen Qingqiu lowers his gaze back to the text in front of him, feigning indifference. (The start of a smile is difficult to smother, but he does try.) "What's this, all of a sudden? It sounds like someone is fishing for compliments."

Luo Binghe shakes his head. "I was just wondering, is all." And he looks so much like a kicked pup, that Shen Qingqiu can't help tapping him lightly on the head with his fan.

"You've grown so big, but you're still such a child, aren't you?"

[ellayuki]

20.12.20

Scumbag System / SVSS / Shen Qingqiu POV / BingQiu

~

"Why are you crying? What has this master done for you to cry so bitterly?"

Luo Binghe hiccups, turns pouty lips and big, wet eyes on him, and Shen Qingqiu can't help rushing to his side. "What is it? Tell me."

He runs careful fingers over Binghe's cheeks, wiping the tears away even as more keep falling, before taking his face between his palms and placing a featherlight kiss to the crimson demon mark on his forehead. 

Binghe hiccups again, shuddering under Shen Qingqiu's gentle touch. "Shizun," he mumbles, hands coming up to grasp at Shen Qingqiu's robes. "Shizun, Shizun, Shizun…" 

The bamboo hut around them is quiet, their breaths and Luo Binghe's sniffles and mumbles the only sounds that can be heard, and it feels like they're in a bubble, like they're the only ones in the world. It settles something in Shen Qingqiu's chest, the wild thing that had reared its head at his husband's distress, and he's able to think a little bit clearer now.

"I was only gone for a little while," he murmurs into Binghe's hair. "Tell this husband what happened?" 

Luo Binghe nuzzles his face even closer into his robes and when he speaks, Shen Qingqiu almost misses it, it's so quiet. "I had a nightmare. Shizun was… Shizun was like before. Cold. And this disciple did horrible things to Shizun in retaliation." He clings tighter. "Shizun died by my hand. I kept trying to make myself stop but I couldn't. I couldn't, Shizun."

Shen Qingqiu's heart beats like a wardrum in his chest, because that sounds like… Oh, how that sounds like. But it was just a dream. It was just… 

That timeline didn't happen, nothing of that horrid storyline happened. They're both alive, and they're here and they're together, and they are so much better than those versions of them ever were. "It's alright, Binghe," he soothes, because it really is. "It was just a dream. I am here. I am alive. I am alright. We are alright, my husband. So, no more tears."

He presses another kiss to Binghe's hair, and then another, and another, until the tears and the hiccups and sighs dwindle and stop.

[ellayuki]

28012021

Scumbag System / SVSS, Shen Qingqiu & Shang Qinghua

~

"Have you ever thought," Shang Qinghua asks almost too casually to seem genuinely wandering. "About what would have happened, had you decided not to push him down the cliff?"

Shen Qingqiu tries not to grit his teeth too hard. "Obviously. Instant death."

Shang Qinghua looks suitably chastened. "Ah."

"Yes. Ah."

[ellayuki]

24022021

Scumbag System/SVSS, MoShang

~

"Where are you going?" Shang Qinghua hears, and a shiver zings up his spine.

He doesn't look up. "I have things to do on An Ding Peak. I've already told you this."

He gets something like a sigh in answer. "When will you return?"

He smiles. "As soon as possible."

[ellayuki]

07.11.20

Scumbag System / SVSS / Shen Qingqiu POV / (pre) BingQiu

~

a different path (that future of yours is not set in stone)

 ~

In the end, for all that that he has started valuing his life more than he ever used to before, for all that all his instincts are screaming for him to just do it, Shen Qingqiu, Shen Yuan cannot bring himself to actually take that last step. 

He cannot make himself push Luo Binghe into the Endless Abyss. 

In that last possible moment, looking up just as the lights from the System’s interface screen go from white to violent red (more violent even than the raging inferno around them), Shen Qingqiu looks at that face full of confused heartbreak, and he pulls XiuYa back. Drops it to the ground and makes no move to shove his disciple over the edge.

“I can’t,” he chokes out just as the System’s blearing alerts sound off, a constant string of <<Warning! Warning Warning!>>  that makes his head spin. “I’m sorry, Binghe.”

The Interface is trying to tell him something, probably to alert him of his impending doom, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. He knows how this is going to end. He doesn’t have even close to enough B-points to save himself, not when the System had given such a ludicrous number when he’d first asked about this storyline. 

Shen Qingqiu is about to die and he knows it. So be it, he thinks. Maybe things will be better this way. Looking at Binghe’s face, at the mix of emotions there, the way his lips form the word ‘Shizun’ over and over again, and the way his hands seem to tremble, he doesn’t feel regret.

All at once, his knees go weak, and his heart, already pounding in his chest, starts stuttering. Ah, he thinks, struggling to breathe. This is probably it. 

Shen Qingqiu lets himself fall, doesn’t make a struggle out of it. 

Somehow, it’s not that much of a surprise when Binghe rushes forward to catch him, but the world is already starting to darken around the edges, so Shen Qingqiu doesn’t waste time wondering why this boy still cares, even through (partially aborted, true, but still there) betrayal. 

“Shizun, Shizun!” Binghe’s voice sounds fearful, desperate. “What’s wrong, Shizun? What can this disciple do? Is it the poison? Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu has a sudden, insane impulse to just say it, just tell the boy that he’s dying because he didn’t cast him into the Abyss. But how can you tell someone, “I was supposed to push you down and break your heart, and push you towards who you’re meant to be, even if it meant you’d kill me for it eventually.”? How can you say, “I tried to make this less painful but ah, that was obviously a failure.”? 

He takes in a ragged breath, swallows past a dry, aching throat, and lifts his hand to gently pat at Binghe’s head one last time. He thinks, I wish I could have seen you grow. Thinks, I wish things could have gone a different path. Says, “I hope, perhaps, one day, you’ll be able to forgive this master and then forget me.” 

And then everything finally goes dark, and the last thing his consciousness clings to before it disappears into the pitch black, is a heartbroken sob and a whispered “Shizun…”.

[ellayuki]

01.11.20

Scumbag System / SVSS / Luo Binghe POV / BingQiu

~

There are peculiar sensations he can't quite place, like his fingertips are running, dancing lightly against skin (but the skin isn't his own), and like soft hair is trailing against the side of his throat and against his shoulder (but, again, it's not his own). They cause something like a fever to envelop him, and Luo Binghe finds it difficult to even breathe through it.

There's a faint whisper on an invisible breeze, his name in a voice that he knows and yet, does not. 

He licks his dry lips, and the taste on them… Oh, ah, what is that taste, it's so… 

The heat in his veins grows, turns scorching, and there's a weird, but not unpleasant, sort of tingle that grows along with it.

"-nghe," he hears and it sounds like a sigh, and like a scolding, and like a plea, all in one, and oh, he wants to hear it more, more, more. "Binghe."

"Shiz-"

With a gasp and a shudder, Luo Binghe wakes up, and for a long moment, just stares at the ceiling of the wood shed, disoriented, his heart a drumbeat in his ears.

He keeps trembling, gasping, even minutes later. He's still not used to these dreams, still can't bear meeting Shizun's gaze after them.

It's embarrassing and shameful, and Luo Binghe wants to throw himself off the Peak for the sheer audacity.

He closes his eyes again. Swallows down the knot in his throat. 

Then, he sits up, takes a lotus position, and forces himself to meditate and push his shame away.

[ellayuki]

23062021

Scumbag System / SVSS, BingQiu

(Fire, Achievement, Survival)

~

It’s his disciple the one to walk through the fires of hell, the one to go through trials and tribulations and heartbreak and despair for years, so why does it always seem to add to Shen Qingqiu’s list of achievements, he wonders.

It’s not like I’m actually helping him survive the Endless Abyss in any way, so why am I getting points for it? I broke his trust, how is this worthy of getting B-points? he rages at the System in the solitude of the bamboo hut. Unsurprisingly, he gets no answer.

“He’ll be alright,” he tells himself, only half-convincingly.