aroberuka. Like someone I used to know - The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

Title: Like someone I used to know
Fandom: The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System
Challenge/Prompt: Bad Things Happen Bingo – impaled palm
AO3 Link: here

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The wound was garish, almost grotesque, muscle and bone scraping against each other under Shen Jiu’s less than gentle handling. The man scowled like the blood and gore were personal affronts to his sense of decorum.

“Most people would use their sword to block,” he commented tartly. “But I suppose that’s too common for Shixiong.”

“There was no time...” Yue Qingyuan started to argue, then stopped to clench his teeth as Shen Jiu dug deeper into the wound, rooting out what were hopefully the last bits of dirt.

The attack had been as swift as it had been unexpected, a blade in the dark as their small delegation was wrapping up what was meant to be a simple business trip on behalf of the Sect. If it had been anyone other than Song Qingsong with them, perhaps Yue Qingyuan would have had the luxury of second thoughts, but the Papermaking Peak’s Head Disciple was a crafty but gentle soul, more versed in trading deals than trading blows, and Yue Qingyuan had reacted on instinct. Xuan Su had remained sheathed; the assailant's blade had gone through his hand like paper, tearing through muscle and sinew and snapping the bone in the process. In the ensuing chaos, the man had vanished into the crowd – something to worry about in the days to come.

“Yes, better to get yourself maimed,” Shen Jiu drawled. “We wouldn’t want anyone to think the great Yue Qingyuan was anything less than flawless.”

With his mangled hand and blood-splattered robes, Yue Qingyuan felt very far from flawless, but elected not to point out the obvious contradiction. Truth be told, what he felt was, mostly, a little bit faint. It had been a long time since anyone had managed to get past his defenses, longer still since he’d received such a serious wound. It would pass soon enough; with or without Xuan Su, his cultivation was sturdy enough that it wouldn’t even scar unless he was negligent enough to let it. The knowledge did not ease the pain any.

Neither did Shen Jiu, cleaning the wound with such intent fury, bristling with a fierce kind of rage that rarely surfaced anymore. He’d been like this before, whenever Yue Qi had gotten hurt: not careless, but rough, not cruel but ruthless, any sign of care buried deeply under a brutality people would not have thought him capable of, as if he thought being too gentle would only encourage further recklessness. Yue Qingyuan could have told him he needn’t bother anymore: the recklessness had been bled out of him years ago, and so empty as he was he would drink Shen Jiu’s cruelties like he would have his kindnesses – but any word could have been the one to set Shen Jiu off, so instead he just sat in silence, bearing patiently while Shen Jiu vented an anger he could not name on a wound he had not caused.

“There,” Shen Jiu said, giving the bandages a final tug – Yue Qingyuan tentatively flexed his hand and did not wince at the pain that lanced up his arm. “Now there's nothing to keep Shixiong from pointless heroics – since you're so fond of those.”

The words were familiar, a distant echo of childhood arguments. Yue Qingyuan almost replied out of ingrained habit, keenly aware that this was the most words Shen Jiu had deigned to say to him since they'd met again, keenly aware of something rising – a chance, maybe, to break out of old patterns before the old patterns broke them.

But the sneer that twisted Shen Jiu's lips was wholly unfamiliar to Yue Qi, a pointed reminder of the years they’d spent apart. It troubled him, this stranger’s face on a visage he had once known better than his own, had depended on being able to read quickly and accurately. Not for the first time, he wondered what Shen Jiu saw on Yue Qingyuan’s own face that he could not recognize. They were, the both of them, a very sorry pair, irrevocably estranged from the boys they had been.

A light knocking on the door broke the moment. Lips pinched so tight they had gone bloodless, Shen Jiu stood up and strode out of the room, ignoring Song Qingsong's puzzled but cheerful greeting. Yue Qi watched him leave, suddenly, unconscionably tired. Then he put on a practiced smile as Song Qingsong walked in and let his shidi ply him with a numbing charm for the pain, regretting, ever so slightly, Xiao Jiu's rougher ministrations.

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