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]

It's the obvious question, but it still takes Shen Qingqiu by surprise. "What? I—no," he says. "I mean—"

Is that even possible? He really hadn't thought about what their relationship might look like long-term, being more focused on not dying in the short term. He'd settle for Binghe tolerating his presence enough for him to be able to be around and observe him in his element, smiting his enemies and seducing his wives¹, or whatever, but—they are so many things to each other that friends is kind of impossible to imagine. "It's—complicated. He... I don't really think he has a lot of friends."

¹ Not that he wants to watch the actual seduction, of course, but like, the lead-up. You know. He's thinking—again—about Binghe kissing Claudius.

[sagramore]

"I suspect you're right," Sagramore says mildly. "But that rather makes me feel he needs the ones he has."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu nods. In PIDW, it would be a ridiculous thing to say—what need does Luo Binghe have of friends, when he has subjugated entire realms to his rule, and spends his days in endless sexual bliss with every beauty ever born? But if Luo Binghe's machinations with Claudius have proved anything, it's that Luo Binghe is adrift, here, without those comforts. "I think—I would have liked to be his friend. If things were different." If he'd transmigrated into someone else, some minor disciple on Qing Jing, or one of the other peaks, and not the man destined to cause Luo Binghe the most pain he would ever experience.

[sagramore]

"Can they not be?" a little gentler.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu smiles, a little sadly. "I am trying to convince him they already are," he says. "But even if I succeed, I doubt you'll see us braiding each others' hair any time soon."

[sagramore]

"I think-- if you want my opinion, and certainly you can tell me to go to hell-- but I do think he's the sort of person who has a hard time asking for the things he really wants. It's easy to posture and be disliked. Actually trusting someone to care for you is generally more difficult."

[peaklordshen]

It rankles, to hear Luo Binghe described as having a hard time¹ with anything at all. But. "He is unused to asking for what he wants," he allows. "Instead of demanding it, and simply being obeyed."

¹ Except in the euphemism way, in which case Shen Qingqiu is very used to people describing Luo Binghe as having a hard time. Well, one person. At enormous length.^2
2 The hardness in question is also of enormous length, hahahahaha.

[sagramore]

"Yes. That was the impression I got."

[peaklordshen]

Something occurs to Shen Qingqiu, something he could do—a small thing, alongside the congee; maybe if he builds up enough small things they might even matter. "You're a knight," he says. "Used to serving, like, lords, and stuff."

[sagramore]

He laughs. "Well. Something like that. What are you thinking?"

[peaklordshen]

"Maybe you could, like, make it clear to him you're available? For—tasks, and such." Having at least one person he could order around might make Bingge feel better. "Not—I'm not asking you to swear yourself to him, obviously, I'm sure you have pre-existing oaths from your own world." Though probably none to anyone as cool and sexy and powerful as Binghe. Is King Arthur even hot?? "But it's a kind of support he's used to, and doesn't have, here."

[sagramore]

Sagramore laughs again, but he's still in an extremely good mood from the flying, he feels he owes Shen Qingqiu something in exchange for that joyous, and he doesn't really care if Luo Binghe gives him some orders that he doubts will be all that consequential. "For your sake, I'd be happy to." He does put a little emphasis on your, as if Shen Qingqiu needs to be reminded that he is Sagramore's friend.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu smiles at him, touched. Sir Sagramore really is a fine figure of knighthood, and a fine figure in general, eyes still alight with joy and curls all askew. Shen Qingqiu reaches out to tug at one of them, playful. "I appreciate it, good sir."

[sagramore]

"You may appreciate me whenever you like," he says, with the flirtatiousness of someone who is about eighty percent sure it's not going to be picked up on.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu laughs. Chivalry itself, embodied. "I'll take you up on that."<sup>1

1</sup> He won't - at least not in the flirtatious way. Not that he's uninterested, somewhere deep under it all, but he is, as Sagramore has surmised, thoroughly distracted.

[sagramore]

That's what he thought. "All right. I'll find you later when you're not busy waiting."