semi-open post: portraiture

[peaklordshen]

After shifting his way through oil pastels, watercolors, house paint, colored pencils, and an endless variety of paint markers, Shen Yuan has finally managed to get the Mansion to produce a decent set of oil paints, and—wonder of wonders—an easel. He's set up in a spacious, well-lit hall, probably for dancing or salons or whatever, where he's arranged a bunch of furniture in various configurations—wooden screens that he's draped cloth¹ over for backdrops; armchairs stolen from the lounge, wooden stools and high-backed dining chairs from the kitchens; even a lovely chaise lounge in a deep purple that he wistfully thinks he won't actually use, because it would definitely be for Aleksander, and he doubts he'll be doing that entry in his protagonists of the Mansion series after all. He has one of the stools pulled up next to the easel to hold his paints, and is wearing a wide-necked sweater over a black turtleneck and some loose, worn jeans that already have a few flecks of paint on them from when he was doing his color tests.² He's pulled his hair back in a practical bun, and he's currently laying down a layer of gesso on his canvas.

¹ Look, he has to do something with all of those robes he accidentally conjured in his last post.
² After days of feeling very lost and confused about how he's not required to LARP anymore, he's pretty much decided that it actually means he can just change who he's LARPing as at will, and the main way to do this is through fashion. Today he is An Artist.

[Primarily for those Shen Yuan has offered to paint, but anyone else is also welcome to come bother him while he works.]

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan pauses one pace away from being able to see the span of the canvas. "Might I look?" she asks. "Or are you -" like Edmund, her mind supplies. "One of those artists who prefers his work to remain a secret until it's complete?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan shrugs. "You can look," he says. "So long as you understand it's a work in progress, and temper your criticisms." This is mostly a joke, and delivered like one.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan puts an arm behind him to rub little circles into his back. "Like I said, I'm no doctor, but by my time, alcoholism is--it's a known issue," he says, quietly. "Not only withdrawal, but the compulsion to drink, too. Neither makes you weak, nor are you alone in it." He thinks about Claudius, another man he's barely seen without a drink in his hand, or Wei Wuxian, with his endless bottles of Emperor's Smile. "I suspect you're not even alone in it here, though I don't know for sure."

[sagramore]

"Jesu. There's no -- even so, there's no cure?" He is miserably sick of cures, none of which has ever done anything for his seizures, but right now he thinks he'd be willing to try anything that would ease that longing for a drink.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I shall try to refrain," Susan says, coming to stand next to Shen Yuan and taking the canvas in in full.

She pauses. Her shoulders tense, for a moment; the portrait is of the boy who reminds her of Peter, of Lucy. Shen Yuan has painted him in a tree wearing a truly garish frock. It is... strange. She does not know how she feels about it. She wonders if Shen Yuan would like it or dislike it if she described the work as 'confrontational.'

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan shakes his head. "Just time," he says, very aware that this is the same advice he could have given if this conversation had remained focused on Sagramore's heartbreak alone. "You—wean yourself off the drink, slowly, so the withdrawal won't kill you, and then you can stop entirely. Eventually, apparently, the desire to drink goes too."

[peaklordshen]

Despite how much he definitely does not care about what anyone thinks of these paintings because he's just doing them for fun or whatever, Shen Yuan watches her face for reaction a little bit anxiously. He cares about her opinion; a side effect, he guesses, from the weirdly test-like atmosphere of their first conversation. "He chose the dress," he clarifies. "I told him—and my other friends who have sat for me—to wear what makes them feel beautiful."

[sagramore]

Sagramore shoots him a little smile. "That sounds miserable. I suppose I'd have to start by quantifying how much I do drink."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan ducks his head, smiling a little. "Yeah," he says. "It—you know." He makes a face. "He told me he'd already met an alternate version of me months before we both ended up here, I told him I pushed an alternate version of him into the Endless Abyss. Standard first date stuff."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan nods. "I, um. I hear it helps to have an accountability buddy. Someone who knows what you're going through, who you can talk to about it. Even just to let them know how much you've had in a week, or whatever. Not so they judge, or even tell you to drink less, but just so you're aware, and not, like, alone in it." This is an offer, but he doesn't want to be presumptuous about it, in case there's something else Sagramore would rather do this with.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan is still a little kiss-drunk; it's the only explanation she has for the way she blurts, "He reminds me of -" before she gets hold of her mouth and clears her throat instead of finishing the thought. She shakes her head once, fast. "You have a skill," she says, instead.

[summerdude]

"Oh, sure," Magnus says, easily, taking this all in. "Dude, I think your life might be even weirder than mine?"

[sagramore]

"Thou'rt offering?"

[peaklordshen]

"Yeah," says Shen Yuan. "If--if that's welcome."

[sagramore]

"I-- yes. It would be. I'd appreciate it very much." He squeezes Shen Yuan's hand. "Thou'rt a true bro, know thou."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan privately thinks that anyone who knows Sagramore, like, at all would be happy to do the same, but he likes it when Sagramore calls him bro in such a heartfelt way, so he doesn't protest. He squeezes his hand back. "I meant it about coming to me when you're dealing with withdrawal, too. I don't know if the herb I have will help with all of it, but it eases pain and should help with the part where you can't stop thinking."

[sagramore]

"That would be a mercy, certainly." He's quiet again. To be honest, this isn't the revelation he'd expected -- he'd thought he might talk a little about Asmodean, and then be embarrassed by his own wallowing and move things back to Shen Yuan. Now he's left wondering what else about himself he might have borne like a curse that someone could lifted from him (not that he expects to get over the guilt of half a century of blaming himself for drinking all the time as quickly as all that, but it does give him something to grasp onto that he hadn't had before). That line of thinking is dangerous too -- the part of him that's quick to blame himself immediately turns to well, if you'd just asked someone earlier, you wouldn't be in so much trouble now, would you? so it's still your fault, just differently than you'd thought it was -- but he wrestles that back.

The point is that Shen Yuan isn't disgusted by him, hasn't grown bored with him. Shen Yuan wants to help him as much as he's wanted to help Shen Yuan. Sagramore has only done to him what he was doing to Laertes, holding him at arm's length rather than let himself be seen.

"Thou hast my thanks," he says finally, leaning over to refill his cup at last. "I'm sorry I told thee none of this. I was ashamed."

[peaklordshen]

"Possible," says Shen Yuan. "I've never met any giants, though, or gods." Unless you count Airplane, which he doesn't, because he's mad at him.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Yuan sits back, a bit surprised. "Thank you," he says. He wants to press on that little slip, but everyone's a little raw from the all the truth-telling, and he doesn't want to piss off this new acquaintance. He notes the book under her arm. "What are you reading?"

[peaklordshen]

"No need," says Shen Yuan, immediately. "For the apology or the shame. But I get it—the first and hardest step is admitting you have a problem." He winces at how trite this is, but at least Sagramore probably doesn't know it's trite. He means it, anyway, and hopefully that part comes through. "Especially if you thought it was your own fault, bro. I can't imagine carrying that around all the time."

[sagramore]

"I think," he says carefully, because this still feels self-pitying to admit, "I carry more than a few things I should try to put down."

[peaklordshen]

Oh, shit, he is here! Okay, Shen Yuan, he thinks to himself. You've got this. Just be normal. Be completely normal with the very hot brooding antihero who wanted to kiss you during a truth spell. At least Aleksander almost definitely doesn't want to kiss him anymore, even if it had ever been more than a passing whim, given his rejection and how unbelievably awkward their fight with the zombies had been.

He smiles back, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. "Good," he says, and then corrects himself, "well—I want to burn everything I've painted to the ground and start again in an entirely new medium, but from what I remember that's a pretty normal part of the artistic process."

[peaklordshen]

If Sagramore were a different person, or maybe just in a different mood, Shen Yuan would roll his eyes at him and say gee, you think?? But he's clearly coming to this for the first time, and in this mood would read that as critical when all Shen Yuan means is oh my god yes please put them down!!!! you are so tired!!!!! let yourself rest!!!!!

So he just runs his thumb over Sagramore's knuckles. "Yeah," he says, "I think so too."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

It takes her a moment to disengage; she keeps looking at this boy's garish dress and haunting smile and remembering Lucy. Eventually, though, she turns and faces Shen Yuan, instead of the canvas.

"More Freud," she says, somewhat amused at her own predictability, and shows Shen Yuan the book. "This one about the tension between our primitive instincts and societal constraints."

[sagramore]

Sagramore lets out his breath, long and slow, and turns to rest his head on Shen Yuan's shoulder. "Thou'rt wise and thou givest wise counsel, my heart."