NEW FIC for sv fic exchange ‘21!! this was for aledono over on ao3, and my prompts were liujiu+soulmates.

Liu Qingge couldn’t take his eyes off the newest Qing Jing Peak disciple. He was beautiful, of course: pale-skinned and slender and graceful. But that wasn’t why.

There was a red string tied around his left pinky.

Liu Qingge stared at it.

The other boy noticed, for all that Liu Qingge was much further down the line than he was. His dark eyes narrowed to slits, and he tucked his hand behind his sleeve.

Liu Qingge looked away, eyes falling to the red string tied around his own finger. He sent a pulse of energy into it, and the dangling thread appeared in a brief flash of crimson.

One of Liu Qingge’s shidis made a shocked sound, but Liu Qingge ignored him. It wasn’t like it was taboo to make the string visible; some couples kept theirs visible at all times.

The string trailed along the ground towards the new boy, the vibrant red vanishing into nothingness without the other boy’s willingness to make his end of the thread visible.

Huh, Liu Qingge thought, letting the red on his end slip away into nothingness as well. The thread vanished from sight, but the knot around his finger remained, visible only to him—

And to his soulmate.

[continue reading on ao3]

Liquor and Cigarettes

Fandom: Breaking Bad

TW: Passing out due to hunger, possible disordered eating habits, mention of drug and alcohol abuse, mention of m*rder

*Takes place early season 4: Spoilers for everything up to that point.

Jesse Pinkman didn’t take care of himself very well.

It wasn’t much of a secret, even before his and Mr. White’s partnership had gotten far bigger than the two of them could ever imagine, Jesse wasn’t the type to make weekly runs to the grocery store. Not even monthly runs, for that matter. At any given time, the most he had in his fridge was a couple beers and a package of hot pockets. Anything quick, anything that didn’t involve any actual cooking.

Not too long ago he’d tried to make an effort. But that was before things changed.

Before too many people had died.

Now, it was rare if Jesse found the time to eat more than one meal a day.

Between running the lab, working with Badger and Skinny Pete on their side hustle, and spending his nights willing himself to sleep instead of staying awake and thinking, Jesse reserved any spare seconds he got for a quick rinse in the shower or a quiet moment outside with a cigarette.

And today, he was bearing the consequences of his bad habits.

He woke up feeling like shit. He’d drank a bit too much last night, and woke up an hour later than he should have with a bitch of a headache. And if Gus didn’t have his ass for showing up late, Mr. White sure would. He was out the door in seconds, and as he walked into the Laundry, he swore he could feel every eye in the place on him. As if every single person was one of the cameras Gus kept in the lab, just staring, judging, thinking.

“Where the hell have you been?” Jesse rolled his eyes at Mr. White’s greeting as he shut the door to the lab, the older man staring up at him in his safety gear. He was in the middle of a cook, and just like the camera, his eyes followed Jesse as he stomped down the metal staircase.

“Sorry, I slept in, jeez. Don’t get your panties in a twist about it.” He tried to brush off as he headed for the lockers to get his own safety gear. Mr. White tailed him, matching his pace and taking his ventilator mask off just so he could clearly chew Jesse out.

“Don’t get my- Jesse, you do realize you can’t just sleep in and stroll in late like you did in my class, do you? Because there are no warnings or write-ups in our situation, instead Gus is going to-“

“Slit my throat and have you shove me in a barrel? Yah, got that loud and clear.” He slammed the locker door shut and set his goggles atop his head. “Look, I know you’re like, tweakin-out-kinda-paranoid about Gus or whatever, but if you’re so worried about it, then how ‘bout we just get to the fuckin’ cook, huh?” He snapped, shoving his arms into the yellow suit and zipping it up.

“Yes, I just need to know that this won’t happen again. There’s a reason you’re here and not Gale, I need you to make sure Gus knows why.”

Jesse felt sick to his stomach. Forgetting about Gale was what he’d spent his drinks on last night, and Mr. White had just undone all that hard work.

“…Sure.”

Walter took that as an acceptable answer, and as soon as Jesse was suited up, they got to work.

Mr. White was just about to finish the batch he’d started earlier this morning, and he proposed that they cook two more today to stay on-schedule. Jesse groaned internally, he’d only been here for a few minutes but he already wanted to lie down. He didn’t know why he was so tired, he’d passed out early enough that he’d gotten enough sleep. At least, he thought he did. This felt like more than being tired, though. His head was still pounding behind his eyes, and he found himself out of breath whenever he had to run between stations or lift something heavy. Mr. White spared him a glance every now and again when he paused to take a breather, but other than that, they worked in silent synchronicity.

The real problems only arose later in the day.

They’d just finished their second batch, and Mr. White was prepping for the next one while Jesse broke up the glass. He’d done it a hundred times before, it was the easiest part of any cook, but for some reason each time he cracked down on the tray and heard the crystal shatter and splinter, it seemed to go right to his head, pain shooting through with every crack that was made. It got to the point where the pounding was non-stop, and Jesse had to pause, set down his tool, and put his head in his hands.

The lack of movement made Mr. White turn and look.

“Jesse? Is something wrong with the product?”

Jesse didn’t respond.

“Jesse, is something wrong?” Mr. White repeated, setting down his own work to walk over. Hearing his name and the footsteps coming closer was enough to make Jesse lift his head, but that was as far as he got before his eyes rolled back in his head and he swayed backwards, collapsing in a heap on the floor. He’d taken the tray down with him too, the product shattering and scattering across the floor around Jesse.

Walter looked at the camera before rushing to check on Jesse.

“Jesse! Christ, wake up!” He tried immediately, his mind flooding with ideas of what could have caused this. Was he using again? Was Jesse exposed to a chemical leak in the lab? He contemplated that option for a moment before opting to pull off Jesse’s mask and hood to make sure he was still breathing.

He was, but as soon as his face was uncovered, Walter finally noticed something just as worrying.

He hadn’t seen it when he’d walked in, but Jesse was pale. White as a sheet pale, which contrasted horribly with the dark bags under his eyes. He looked like a corpse, and when Walter checked his pulse to assure himself that wasn’t the case, he was surprised to find that Jesse was cold and clammy. Either he was using again, or there was something else very, very wrong with him.

Walter got up and looked around frantically for a moment before grabbing Jesse under his arms and dragging him over to one of the lab’s chairs. As he hoisted the kid into the seat, something else became very apparent.

Jesse was light.

That fact stuck in Walter’s mind as he rushed to fill a water bottle, keeping his partner in his line of sight as he did. Jesse had always been scrawny, but to that extent? It just didn’t sit right with him.

Setting the water bottle down on the worktable, Walt weighed his options before grabbing Jesse’s shoulders and trying to shake him awake. Jesse groaned in response, and that earned him another firm shake. “Jesse, get up! You need to tell me what’s wrong.” He implored, giving him one final shake. Jesse’s eyes fluttered open, and with a strained noise he feebly tried to push Walter’s hands off of him, but his muscles felt so heavy that he could hardly lift his arms.

“…Dude, what the hell are you doin’…”

“What the hell am I doing? You passed out! So do you mind explaining to me why that happened? Did you overdose, are you sick, what was that?” He rambled, sounding more frantic than worried as Jesse tried to get his bearings and focus on what Mr. White was saying. He only caught a few words, but he was able to respond.

“Overdose? I’m… clean Mr. White, only thing I’ve been doin’ is liquor and cigarettes.” It took all his brainpower to form that sentence, and as he started to fully regain consciousness, his headache came back full-swing, and he pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. Jesus, he wished he had stayed out.

“Right, then what did you eat last?”

“…Liquor and cigarettes…”

“Jesus, Jesse, that’s not food. I mean when did you last eat a real meal?”

Jesse was silent for a moment, thinking hard about the answer to that question. His stomach didn’t have to think at all however, because before any silence could stretch between the two men, his stomach growled emptily, painfully. Jesse only grunted and wrapped his arms around his middle, far too tired and in pain to be any kind of embarrassed for something as dumb as forgetting to eat.

“I don’t remember.”

“That’s not good, Jesse. You’re a millionaire, for God’s sake, why aren’t you eating?” Mr. White asked as he handed the water bottle to Jesse, who stared at it for a moment before taking a few slow, careful sips.

“I dunno dude, I just- everything’s harder now, y’know?” He began, trying to organize his thoughts. “There’s so much I have to do… And it doesn’t fuckin’ feel right doin’ any of it” The cold water hit his stomach and made it churn and ache uncomfortably, but now he wasn’t sure if it was because he was starving or because of, everything else again.

“I, can’t say I know the feeling, Jesse. But regardless of any of that, you still need to eat.”

“I know, Jesus, stop using your weird dad tone.” Jesse took another gulp of water, the liquid going down as hard as if he’d taken a shot. “I don’t just mean working has gotten harder. I mean that with Gus breathing down my fucking neck and, what I did to Gale, I’ve been worrying more about that than any other bullshit, I guess.” He explained. He didn’t want to admit how he felt about Gale, it was a ‘him or me’ situation, after all. He’d be dead if Gale wasn’t.

At least, that’s what Walter had told him.

“…I see. This work gets to you, I know. Gale was a good man, I know that better than anyone.” Mr. White attempted to console, placing an uneasy hand on Jesse’s shoulder. Jesse tensed up. “But you lose people, and you move on. That’s just how things work, Jesse.”

The younger man only nodded. His head was full of all the things he could say to that, he could say that it ‘wasn’t that easy,’ or ‘you’ve never lost anyone.’

But he didn’t.

“Right. Now, after we’re done cooking I’ll treat you to lunch. We still need to finish this batch and make up for the product we just lost. You feel well enough to cook?” He asked, already back in the working mood as if Jesse hadn’t just passed out.

“Yeah, just give me a minute.”