Chapter Text
Hot blood hits the polished wooden floors of the palace, leaving behind traces of warmth on Liu Qingge’s lips. Coughing, he clutches a hand to his chest, sinking to his knees against the massive doorpost that guards the opening to the abandoned halls. His legs lasted him the unsteady climb up the mountain, but now they can’t even hold him kneeling; he falls to his side, more blood leaking from his mouth and smearing across the dust of the floor.
Cheng Luan begins to fade from existence at his side.
Liu Qingge screws his eyes shut and grits his teeth, willing the fading embers of his qi to circulate. He pushes past the mind numbing pain throbbing through what feels like his whole body, barely registering the weakening trembles of his extremities, barely resisting the pull of unconsciousness. He forces his fingers to grip, tight, against the gash across his chest, ripping a wet gasp from his throat as the hot flare of pain brings him a jolt of clarity.
His eyes go wide from the sensation, half tinged in red and stained with creeping dark at the edges. But instead of the dark shadows of the carved mountain face, he sees instead a flash of vibrant crimson, stark against a fair brow, only slightly disturbed by the deep furrow beneath it. He thinks he hears a voice, but he can barely make it out through the roaring in his ears. The world jostles; the searing pain of movement shocks him further into awareness. Above him, long hair dangles, fine jewelry twining around an elegant neck and dipping into loose open robes; the deep v exposes a chest that’s heaving under a spatter of blood. The voice continues to speak, but it’s still hard to make out; Liu Qingge struggles to lift his eyes, brow barely able to furrow in indignation at his impotence- if he could just see the person’s face, he would be able to-
“-shu,” the voice says, so close it’s like it’s being breathed into his ear. He suddenly can’t see anything but a curtain of dark hair. “I can save you. Will you let me?” The smell of blood is replaced by the scent wafting off the man’s hair and skin; warm and close, dark and comforting. The pain wracks through Liu Qingge’s body, even as he begins to shiver- there’s a hand on his chest, pushing warm qi into his body, but it’s not enough. He can feel it.
He might die here.
“Stay awake, keep your eyes open,” the voice says, and if Liu Qingge wasn’t quite as occupied with breathing – in, out, in, then out – he could have sworn that that voice carried a hint of- worry. Panic.
Don’t tell me what to do , Liu Qingge wants to say, but all that comes out is a broken cough, a poor attempt at a breath. Frustrated, Liu Qingge forces a glare out, willing his eyes to focus. A face swims into clarity above him- lips parted in dismay, red demon mark glowing, eyes framed by thick lashes glistening with moisture like stars. Those eyes are red as well, at the corners and all the way through the irises; the color reactivates some dormant self-protective instinct in Liu Qingge, and he tries to pull himself together, only for the wave of nausea and pain to send his eyes fluttering back closed on a gasp.
“I won’t let you die,” the voice above him bites out, breath hissing from him as if he’s the one on the verge of death. “Shishu - shishu, stay awake.”
Shishu, shishu -- it’s Luo Binghe. Imagine, that demon acknowledging his debt to the sect like this; only while Liu Qingge is on his deathbed. When he dies, Luo Binghe won’t have lost any face.
“I’m going to save you,” Luo Binghe says darkly, pulling Liu Qingge up to cradle his head in his arms. It sends a lightning flash of white pain down Liu Qingge’s spine; he’s in too much agony to offer any objection when Luo Binghe forces his head back, tipping his face up towards his own. “Tell me that you’ll let me, or I’ll do it anyway,” he says, palm hot on Liu Qingge’s cold face.
Liu Qingge can barely think through the pain, through his fading consciousness, but he knows what Luo Binghe intends; he’s threatened Liu Qingge with feeding him his blood before, with the control it would give him over his body. Luo Binghe has injured him badly enough that the blood has seemed like the only option -- and yet, he’d refused, and healed from all those life-threatening injuries on his own.
This time, he won’t be able to. Even the sustained flow of qi from Luo Binghe’s hand is no longer staying the way his vision grays out.
“Take my blood,” Luo Binghe says softly, fingers gently trailing through Liu Qingge’s hair as Liu Qingge hears his own breath gurgle with blood. “Who did this to you? I’ll kill them myself, you know, if you die. Whose hand would you die at, beside my own?”
The sense of the room is fading from Liu Qingge’s awareness; Luo Binghe’s hand has moved closer to his mouth.
“Tell me yes,” Luo Binghe murmurs, voice deathly soft.
With the last energy in his body, Liu Qingge just manages to part his lips.
There’s a pressure against his mouth, and then warm blood slides along his tongue and down his throat, smooth like a fine wine, hardly giving Liu Qingge any trouble swallowing. Almost as if it flowed into him purposefully, with a mind of its own. For a while – seconds, eternity – it’s somewhat calming, to take small gulps as the throbbing beat of his heart finally slows, finally quiets some. For a while, Liu Qingge doesn’t feel pain – doesn’t feel anything, really, and for a moment, Liu Qingge almost sighs in relief.
And then something flares in his body, like lightning bursting through his veins, lancing all through his chest down to his fingers. Liu Qingge’s body seizes, but he’s pushed down, held down, as his heart suddenly jackrabbits in his ribs and bright hot pain forces him to breathe – once, in a staggering gasp, then a second time, a proper breath, a second of clarity where he sees Luo Binghe’s serious, piercing gaze.
“This will hurt,” Luo Binghe says, moving his hand, wrist still dripping with blood, onto Liu Qingge’s forehead. Not a second later, Liu Qingge jerks in his hold as that searing sharp pain like a thousand needles races through his body, burning a path across the gaping wounds on his torso.
Luo Binghe holds him down, keeping Liu Qingge’s head pressed against Luo Binghe’s thigh and one arm across his chest as Liu Qingge thrashes in his hold. His heart batters hard and fast under his ribs until it feels like it will burst, and Liu Qingge feels, with stunning clarity, his body being forced to heal – dragging broken parts back to alignment, forcing lost muscle and torn skin into growth, stitching itself back together with ruthless precision. He’s lost too much blood for it to be easy, but the warm flow of Luo Binghe’s qi into him buoys him through the pain, keeping him tethered when he feels like it’s too much to survive.
Liu Qingge’s breath is returned to him almost immediately, his one punctured lung finally holding onto the rush of air he sucks in. The feeling in his extremities flares back, prickling and heavy against the crushing pain burning through his broken ribs and torn flesh that are made to heal, heal, heal.
It seems like it goes on for hours; endless, inescapable, like this is all he’ll ever know from this point on: ripping, tearing pain, burning its way through him. Luo Binghe’s forceful hands on him keep him still, hold him down no matter how he thrashes, until there’s nothing he can do but lie there panting and brought under Luo Binghe’s control, like a wounded wild animal that can no longer fight against the hands restraining it.
After what feels like eons, the pain finally diminishes somewhat- from unbearable agony to simple screaming discomfort. The relief is so profound that he can no longer endure it. Every inhale brings a shock of relief to his system; every exhale brings him closer to darkness.
Finally, he succumbs to the escape of unconsciousness.
His last thought, as his head goes limp against a warm, firm chest, is that whether or not he was intended to die before, death will have a hard time getting to him in Luo Binghe’s arms.