Chapter Text
Liu Qingge isn't worried until the cave-in. Yes, he had noticed the distinctive pattern of fungus on the cave walls, and yes, he's already had to kick some curious tendrils away from his ankles a few times. But this particular fungus isn't dangerous unless it catches you. And it's so slow-moving that 'not getting caught' is a matter of simply moving at a normal walking pace.
Nothing to worry about.
Nothing, that is, until the narrow passage Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu are squeezing through collapses with Liu Qingge half inside.
He isn't hurt, but his lower body is firmly stuck. He tries to free himself by brute force, but the only result is a few pebbles sliding free.
"Shidi, stay still!" Shen Qingqiu admonishes, worried. "You could destabilize the rockslide and get crushed! Where would I be if you were crushed to death??"
Liu Qingge scowls at him. "What do you suggest I do?"
"Just hold on!" Shen Qingqiu encourages. He climbs around, pressing on the various stones that have fallen around Liu Qingge, pinning his hips and waist tightly. It seems like most of the stones are resting on one large slab, which is half supported by the wall and half by the stones around Liu Qingge.
"If we could just dig out around you a bit, I bet you could wriggle free," Shen Qingqiu says contemplatively.
"Yes, I know," Liu Qingge snaps.
On the other side of the collapsed wall, a tendril from that fucking mushroom curls around his foot. He kicks it away.
By the time Shen Qingqiu has removed one (1) single rock from the pile, it's already come back.
"Hurry up," Liu Qingge says.
"Shidi, this is delicate work. It's no good to rush." Shen Qingqiu worries another rock free of the pile. The tendril crawls up Liu Qingge's calf.
Maybe it won't find what it's looking for. Liu Qingge is packed in tight, after all, so tight that he can barely move. The vines are opportunistic but not violent - if they can't find a bodily cavity, they aren't going to /make/ one. It's probably fine.
It's not fine.
As Shen Qingqiu slowly, meticulously removes rocks from around Liu Qingge, the tendril spirals its way up Liu Qingge's leg and into his pants, where it is quickly joined by another. He gasps as the cool, wet tip of one finds his entrance.
"Did I hurt you?" Shen Qingqiu asks, hands flying away from the fallen rocks as if burnt.
"No," Liu Qingge says through gritted teeth. "Keep going."
Shen Qingqiu looks dubious and picks back up slower and more cautiously than ever.
"Quickly," Liu Qingge urges.
Maybe if Liu Qingge clenches his inner muscles as hard as he can, it will keep the tendril out. He tries. It doesn't do much.
So. This is humiliating and unpleasant. But it's not dangerous yet – the danger only comes if the fungus tries to implant its spores inside you.
Liu Qingge had only heard of that happening to someone once - one of his fellow Bai Zhan disciples years ago. The disciple had hidden his condition and ended up needing to have surgery to remove the spores, and was laid up in recovery for weeks.
The tendrils currently feeling around inside Liu Qingge don't feel like the thick spore-bearing ones, so he's probably safe so far. If Liu Qingge can avoid being put out of commission that long, he'll be happy. Maybe he'll even be able to get out of this without Shen Qingqiu ever finding out!
Then the tendrils withdraw, which gives Liu Qingge a bad feeling. Everything he's ever heard about this mushrooms says it only wants one thing, so why is it....oh. Oh no.
Something large, wet, and heavy slides up Liu Qingge's leg, following the same path the small tendrils had taken.
Liu Qingge clamps his lips shut, but he's still not able to completely muffle the grunt he lets out as the blunt tip of the larger tendril penetrates him. It feels thick going in, rudely coring him out. It's nothing he can't handle, of course, but he still - feels it. Vividly.
Shen Qingqiu sends several furtive concerned glances Liu Qingge's way as he bustles around digging him out. Liu Qingge keeps his eyes down and his lips sealed, clenching his fists as the thing roots around inside him, getting good and comfortable.
He'll have to tell Shen Qingqiu eventually, of course, unless the thing miraculously doesn't lay its eggs in him. But he'd prefer not to give Shen Qingqiu that particular piece of knowledge while the event itself is...actively ongoing.
On the other side of the rockslide, the thing starts to pump rhythmically inside Liu Qingge, making his loins heat and throb. It's a mechanical reaction, he tells himself. The wetness and heat from his body doesn't mean he's enjoying it. This is a purely physiological response to friction in a sensitive place.
"Shidi-"
Liu Qingge growls at him. "Shut. Up."
Even if Shen Qingqiu has put together what's happening, Liu Qingge needs him to refrain from talking about it. It's bad enough that the wet squelching sounds of the thing fucking in and out of his cunt are filling up the cave, unmistakably lewd. If Shen Qingqiu can't do Liu Qingge the courtesy of being conveniently oblivious until they're out of this, Liu Qingge is going to-
He has to bite back another groan as the thing pulses and pumps something into him. Suddenly the wet noises are ten times louder and ten times wetter. Warm, viscous liquid overflows Liu Qingge's cunt and rolls down his legs. it prickles and tingles where it touches, even inside. especially inside. Liu Qingge curses.
The sap has strong aphrodisiac properties, and with so much of it, Liu Qingge has to act fast to circulate his qi and cleanse the drug from his meridians before it takes full effect. The tingling abates to a barely-noticeable level as soon as Liu Qingge succeeds, to his relief.
He barely has a moment to breathe, though, because the thing within him pulses and tenses and finally ejects one of its dreaded spores into his body.
He shifts his hips minutely, mindful of the tight space. Mostly the spore doesn't feel like anything inside him. He has the dim whisper of the idea that it's there, but the tendril's tensing and releasing as it strained to pump its load into him had honestly led him to expect worse.
By the fifth egg, Liu Qingge is swiftly reevaluating his early assessment.
One egg was nothing. Three, noticeable. Four felt a little full.
Five...Liu Qingge pants and bites his lip as the thing tenses up to add yet another to its clutch. He can endure it.
"Just a little longer, Shidi," Shen Qingqiu says, his voice lowered in concern as he moves rocks. Not for the first time, Liu Qingge wishes their positions were reversed. Surely out of the two of them, Liu Qingge is best suited to moving heavy things and Shen Qingqiu is better suited to enduring the advances of the local fungi. He would probably try to take notes on it.
Yet another egg pops into Liu Qingge, jostling into all the others for space. Liu Qingge moans.
He feels full, but in a confusing, amorphous way. The eggs move as he clenches, always stretching him but never the same shape. The tip of the spore-bearing tendril is just inside the entrance to his channel now, having slid back a little each time it pumped in another egg. Liu Qingge hopes the next one will push it out entirely. He hopes, for his own dignity if nothing else, that there isn't much more of this.
The incriminating noises, quieter for a while after the thing settled down into laying its clutch, get louder again as Shen Qingqiu finally gets to the last rocks separating the two sections of cave.
Liu Qingge can hear the soft, slick sounds of the thing pumping another spore through the stretched ring of his entrance; the pause and then wet plop as it strains and then releases inside. The thwack as the thick tendril finally falls out of Liu Qingge, landing in a puddle of its own fluids.
Liu Qingge is still uncomfortably, viscerally full, but he breathes a sigh of relief. Now all that's left is....well. The cure.
The silence as Shen Qingqiu loosens the last few rocks pinning Liu Qingge in is almost more awkward than the noises were before. Finally, there's room enough for Liu Qingge to squirm out, which he does without looking back. They cover up the hole behind them and travel through the rest of the cave quickly, on the lookout for other outgrowths of the fungus.
Walking is...interesting. Given how full he feels, Liu Qingge had expected a challenge, thought he might humiliate himself by leaking as he moved, but everything has stayed surprisingly...contained. Concerningly contained, really. Real fear begins to pool in the pit of Liu Qingge's stomach. The danger from these spores lay not in their insertion, unpleasant as it was, but in not removing them before they implanted themselves in the walls of whatever crevice they were laid in. If implantation happened, it took a delicate and risky surgery to extract them. Whereas before they implanted, all it took was a thorough application of, if the medical texts were to be believed.....human semen.
No, it didn't make much sense. Liu Qingge had long since resigned himself to the fact that many things didn't.
He'd known he'd need to act quickly in order to pursue the first option, but he'd hoped they'd at least have the chance to get out of the caves first.
“Shixiong," Liu Qingge says, stopping in his tracks. His cunt throbs as the inertia causes the egg-like spores to bump and jostle within him.
Shen Qingqiu nearly walks into him. "Mn?"
“I need you to fuck me.”
“Come again? I could have sworn you just said-”
“You need to fuck me.”
Shen Qingqiu feels Liu Qingge's pulse. “Shidi, are you okay?”
Liu Qingge sighs heavily. This. This, right here, is what he's been dreading. “No, I am not okay.” He steels himself. Best to just spell it out. “A cave fungus just stuffed my cunt with eggs and we don't have much time. If you don't get it together and fuck me, I'm going to have to have invasive surgery-”
“Hang on,” Shen Qingqiu says, voice high and thin. A flush creeps up his cheeks. “Hhh. Your. What now?”
The vein in Liu Qingge's forehead twitches. “I have a cunt? Is that going to be a problem?”
Shen Qingqiu's face does something interesting. His cheeks are redder than ever but his expression is one of forced casualness. “Nooooo nononono no no problem at all!” he insists. “I am so cool with you having whatever parts you have. So cool.”
Somehow, that isn't the most reassuring statement ever. Liu Qingge narrows his eyes.