open post: in a carefully staged pavilion

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu is luxuriating in having his cultivation restored. He's also steeling himself for his next conversation with Luo Binghe, trying to engineer everything about it so he doesn't fucking die. The combination means he is being... maybe a little bit extra.

The Mansion's closets have a strange way of giving him the clothing he's used to; apparently both as Shen Qingqiu and—before that. He ignores the array of jeans and Naruto t-shirts and selects a set of fine silk robes in greens of deepening hue, so that the crossed layers at his throat imitate the sequential layers of a bamboo shoot: from forest green passing through spring green and jade to near-white as they reach his skin. He also takes great care with his hair and his guan—he can't look like a slob in front of the Emperor.

There are several beautiful Chinese-style pavilions on the Mansion grounds¹, and he chooses one in the shadow of a blossoming cherry tree. The sun is high, painting dappled shadows across the floor of the pavilion as the blossoms sway in the breeze. He fetches a small writing table and sets it up on one side of the pavilion. Under it he tucks the congee, rescued from the rice cooker, which is...well, it can charitably be said to smell like it might be edible. As long as Binghe doesn't think he's being intentionally poisoned, maybe it'll be okay?

He takes great care with the invitation. He considers writing it with the very expensive pen Crowley had conjured for him, but it feels wrong, not to grind his own ink for it; disrespectful, somehow. Thankfully he keeps an extra brush and ink stone in the qiankun pouch in his sleeve. He crumples up several drafts before he's happy with his calligraphy,² and decorates the edges of the page with bamboo leaves and elegant black lotuses.

If he were really doing this properly, he'd have taken the time to boil some cherry blossom petals, distill their steam into perfume, and then add it to the ink—but he'd felt like he was risking his life just going back into the kitchens for the congee. It's the most likely place for Luo Binghe to be, after all, since there's no throne room or audience hall here, and the whole point of the invitation in the first place is for them to meet on Shen Qingqiu's respectful and very much non-confrontational terms.

He folds the invitation and marks it with Luo Binghe's name and a small talisman that both seeks his former disciple and makes sure he's the only one who can open it. With a wave of his hand he sends it wafting away on the breeze, and then settles back. To wait. He has a small stack of parchment at his elbow, so when Luo Binghe arrives—or if anyone else should happen upon him—he can pretend he had something occupying him rather than just sitting here, paralyzed with anticipation.

¹ As established by Temeraire.
² This is definitely just him being obsessive and a perfectionist. As Peak Lord of the scholar's peak at Cang Qiong, Shen Qingqiu's calligraphy is impeccable. He's won contests.

Comments

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu stares at him. There's—it can't be that easy. Hadn't Binghe been listening? Did he not know what it meant, when Shen Qingqiu had said I acted in accordance with Shen Qingqiu's actions? He briefly considers telling him—looking him in the eye and saying, I still pushed you. You looked at me with a whole constellation of broken trust in your eyes and I-

But—but Bingge is looking at him now, older, even more handsome. There's no yawning Abyss behind him, just beautiful swaying branches sending cherry petals floating down around them, but his face is eerily similar, as if Shen Qingqiu telling him he doesn't want to spend time with him would be as great a blow, as enormous a betrayal. And—he remembers Sir Sagramore's suggestion, that perhaps he and Bingge could be friends. It feels somehow much less impossible than it had only an hour or so ago.

He smiles, reassuring. "Of course not," he says. "I only thought you would want nothing more to do with me. If you—" want to be around me feels way too bold, so he just skips saying it, "—maybe we could just, like. Hang out? Sometime?"

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe breathes again. As he thought—it was more of that maidenly coquetry that makes this Shen Qingqiu so enticing. He doesn't quite understand the phrase—what are they hanging out?—but context makes it clear.

"We could," he agrees. He would like to continue talking now, but he doesn't want to push the matter. Luo Binghe can be patient—with difficulty—but it feels dangerous to allow someone to wander freely who can make him feel like this. Especially since Luo Binghe has placed no claim on him. He is so enchanting, perfect and sweet as a ripe apricot. Anyone here could attempt to take what should be Luo Binghe's. He doesn't trust a one of them—well, except Nina.

"If I may ask—I loathe thinking of you as 'Shen Qingqiu.' Is there another name I might use?"

[peaklordshen]

No, Shen Qingqiu almost blurts, an instinctive and panicked denial. Of course he has another name—he'd just thought of himself as his other name, for the first time in five years. But the idea of Luo Binghe calling him by it makes him feel—crazy, unmoored and captive at once, like he would be raising the ghost Nina had kindly pointed out he is inside the cage of the only body he has, calling on Shen Qingqiu to be two irreconcilable things at once. He hides further behind his fan. "I'm afraid no other name suits me," he demurs.

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe is disappointed, but he can accept it. Who knows what name a rogue spirit may call itself? But he is already getting mixed up in his head calling this person Shen Qingqiu, when this person has done nothing to wrong him—although it sounds like he may have caused some hurt to the other Luo Binghe, under Shen Qingqiu's sinister direction.

But there is another name he might use, one he already used with this exact man in the other world. At the time, he didn't understand why the other Binghe would use this name with someone he was intimate with, but maybe it was for this reason—drawing a distinction between this entity and Shen Qingqiu. It may not be an appropriate title, but Luo Binghe doesn't mind using it. In fact, it gives him an almost illicit thrill to imagine saying it with the affection he feels.

He lowers his eyes, then looks up at not-Shen Qingqiu through his lashes, keeping his tone light and teasing. "Shizun?"

[peaklordshen]

A chill goes down Shen Qingqiu's spine. That's—why, he wails, silently, when they'd just established he's not Bingge's Shizun at all?? And why say it like that, up through his long, beautiful eyelashes, so the light catches in the deep brown of his eyes and makes him even more alluring than he already is?? What kind of—of student/teacher roleplay—

"Binghe," he chides, so scandalized it's more gasp than word.

[protagonisthalo]

He is so cute. It's a revelation, as though Luo Binghe is seeing the sun break through the clouds for the first time—hard to look at directly, and yet lifechanging in the way it lights up all the world around him. "Shizun," he says again, delighted, and then laughs at himself. This man is not, and his never been, his shizun, but Luo Binghe will call him so as long as he will react like that. He associates the word more with Meng Mo than with Shen Qingqiu, anyway—let him dust it off and gift it to a fresher face. "It suits you."

[peaklordshen]

"It does not," Shen Qingqiu insists, but he looks away from Binghe's face as he says it. They're going to be friends, apparently, and Binghe has to call him something. He'll just have to—steel himself against it. It's better than blood parasites, he tells himself. Get used to it.

"I need to," he tries, and shuffles his papers. "I should," but even if Bingge is better-disposed toward him now, he can't exactly just dismiss himself from the Emperor's presence. He just also can't just sit here, while Binghe looks at him like that. He needs time! Space! A little room to breathe!!

He likes making friends; he'd gotten along well with the other Peak Lords, once they'd gotten used to him being less severe than they expected, and in his first life he'd had a number of friends—both the other bored rich kids of his parents' friends and fellow enthusiasts he'd met at conventions. The idea of making friends with Bingge is totally surreal, especially without his usual standard friendship activities, like watching anime together or whatever, but the Mansion has fridges, and other devices—he guesses it's not impossible he could get one of the sitting rooms to cough up a Gamecube or something. He bets Bingge would kill at Smash.

[protagonisthalo]

"So eager to leave me?" Luo Binghe says in a low voice that he uses often with his wives. He is teasing still, but there is true anxiety behind the question that he struggles to hide. He has not yet learned to master himself around someone who affects him so deeply. And perhaps he knows, or hopes, that if he fails to fully master himself—if he lets show that he wants Shen Qingqiu's company badly—then Shen Qingqiu might respond with tenderness. No one has ever treated Luo Binghe as so fragile, and it's—insulting, surely—but he can't help but try to draw it out. Shen Qingqiu does not like to answer his questions, but he is sensitive to Luo Binghe's moods. Perhaps Luo Binghe asked the question because he truly wanted to hear the answer.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu's stops thinking about Super Smash Brothers immediately, leaning forward to cup Binghe's cheek. This completely shameless man.¹ "Of course not," he says. "If Binghe wishes me here, I will be here."

¹ Sorry, who's tenderly stroking who's face, here, Shen Qingqiu?

[protagonisthalo]

Luo Binghe leans into the touch, giving Shen Qingqiu his prettiest smile. It is the answer he wanted—but Shen Qingqiu was attempting to leave only a moment ago. Now that Luo Binghe is satisfied that he would stay if asked, he can allow it.

But it's difficult to let him simply walk away. He is not yet Luo Binghe's, and they have not determined when they might see each other again. Luo Binghe wants more of a guarantee than "sometime." He wishes for a token he could give Shen Qingqiu, the way he switched sword tassels with Liu Mingyan when they were young. Knowing she had his tassel by her side kept him confident that he was still in her thoughts throughout the long years in the Abyss. He has nothing on him now that might serve such a purpose.

Luo Binghe withdraws one of the books from the library from his storage ring. "Take this," he says. "The books here tell of many strange worlds. I would like to hear your thoughts." And he would like Shen Qingqiu to come back to him.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu blinks, accepting the book. Bingge wants to be in a book club with him? And with--he stares at the book in his hands. Blood at Dusk? Is this--trashy vampire romance??

He lets out a noise that's almost a laugh, and raises his fan to cover it. "I look forward to hearing Binghe's thoughts as well," he says. "I'm sure we'll have much to discuss." Like why this of all books called to you!! What's with this taste in fiction??