open post: pollen science

[peaklordshen]

After his conversation with Sagramore, Shen Qingqiu had taken a long, hot shower, mainly for the novelty of it, and then gotten dressed again in his robes—although he wore fewer layers than were truly proper for a peak lord, and he'd forgone his guan in favor of just braiding his hair in a thick coil against his neck. He leaves the two looser loops at the front—he still can't find his fan, and it felt wrong to not have any frame to his face at all. He's not thinking about why he feels loath to fully don his Shen Qingqiu persona. He's not thinking about much, about the last few days. Instead, he's thinking about pollen.

He's in the greenhouse, carefully laying out a sample cut from every plant in the place, as well as every plant he can imagine producing pollen of any kind from the grounds. Grasses, flowers, buds, leaves, even a few species of harmless-looking mushroom. He's using a pair of tweezers he found to gentle separate them so he can examine the internal structures. Some he recognizes as entirely harmless - Earth flora; others are stranger, more alien. Some even look similar to plants from Proud Immortal Demon Way, though thankfully none are obviously aphrodisiac in nature. Shen Qingqiu is wearing his gloves and mask again anyway—he doesn't want to breathe in the wrong pollen; normal sex pollen would just increase his normal desires and make him hyper-straight, totally defeating the purpose.

He has his notebook open to a fresh page, and is making meticulous lists.

Comments

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu waves off his thanks and sets about helping him, murmuring suggestions and using a discarded leaf imbued with spiritual energy to trim the flowers to different lengths so the heads don't crowd.¹ He tries not to take over entirely, though--this is Galahad's arrangement, not his.

¹ He's not going to notice this about himself, but he's quite good at this. He's got a good aesthetic sense and is a perfectionist about the details.

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad is, honestly, very used to letting someone else tell him what to do, and he tends to take whatever suggestions Shen Qingqiu makes. It feels different from listening to God, and not just because Shen Qingqiu is not God. Shen Qingqiu wants to help him make something good because he cares about this because Galahad cares about it.

It's also just pleasant to work on something with the company of another person he likes. He doesn't say much, but he responds if Shen Qingqiu addresses him, and he appreciates Shen Qingqiu's occasional touches, the moments when their hands brush or their shoulders bump. It feels like being around Percival, but without the agony of desire. It's nice. It makes him want to think of other things they could do together, and he finds himself actually thinking about the future as something he might at some point anticipate instead of dread.

Eventually it seems there's little more to do with the arrangement; the flowers are gathered in a fanned-out spray, and wired together carefully with floral wire. He can tell that Shen Qingqiu's help has made something better than he could do on his own.

[peaklordshen]

"There," says Shen Qingqiu, stepping back. "Are you happy with that?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"It's beautiful." He looks up at Shen Qingqiu. "I've never made anything before."

[peaklordshen]

"You've never made anything?" Shen Qingqiu asks, surprised. "Not even as a child?"

He's not sure Claudius deserves the first thing made by Galahad's hands. That feels big.

[onthewillowsthere]

"I had chores, and prayer. I was busy," he says, but he's beginning to have an idea of how this sounds to anyone else.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu presses his lips together into a thin line, just for a moment, before he's back to smiling. "Well," he says. "Would you like to make another? Just for fun, this time."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes," quickly. "We should choose the flowers together this time."

[peaklordshen]

"Alright," says Shen Qingqiu. He should really go back to his BL pollen hunt, but--he can take the time. "Let's see. If it's just for fun, how about--" he flips through the book. "Wood sorrel?"

[onthewillowsthere]

Galahad nods, and, taking his turn at the book, "Acacia."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu nods, and writes it down in his notebook. "Hawthorne."

[onthewillowsthere]

With a flare of delight, "I was going to say hawthorne--" before he flushes and glances down.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu laughs, charmed by Galahad's bashfulness. "Then we'll put twice as much," he says. "Pick again."

[onthewillowsthere]

"The garden sage, then," reassured.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu is glad Galahad has taken to this so well, and pleased at his occasional, daybreak smiles, even if they don't quite last, but he can't quite forget the blank devastation on his face when he'd first arrived to the greenhouse, or the desperate longing showing through in his first flower choices. "Swallow-wort," he suggests, gently, eyes on Galahad's face.

[onthewillowsthere]

The playfulness evaporates as he drops his own gaze to the page, and his expression turns empty again, almost as if his face is incapable of rendering whatever emotion he feels and settles for nothing at all as a compromise. It's perhaps easy to see how this could have failed to win him friends, when his depth of feeling presents as stone-faced indifference.

He nods quietly.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu takes his hand, giving it a squeeze. "Ox-eye," he says, "and black poplar, I think. Will you help me find them?"

[onthewillowsthere]

It's easier to talk this way, in this language of flowers, than to try and state his turmoil of feelings outright, and he's grateful to Shen Qingqiu for providing the translation. He nods.

[peaklordshen]

"Alright," says Shen Qingqiu. "I think a lot of these are sort of, herb-y... let's start with the sage." He leads Galahad around the gardens, puttering through flowerbeds and piling Galahad's arms high with his finds.

He laughs, at one point, seeing him bedecked with little white and yellow blossoms like stars. "They suit you," he says. "Maybe these we should weave into a crown of willows for your golden head."

[onthewillowsthere]

It makes him think of the crown of stars from his dream, and his breath catches softly. He remembers himself as Damien, then, with the crown of rosemary and columbine, with the oleander in his hair, and Claudius touching him to take it (he wonders whether Claudius still has the oleander). "...Perhaps. Willow is for mourning."

[peaklordshen]

"Some willow," says Shen Qingqiu, consulting the book. "Other willow can be for bravery, and humanity." He can't make that choice for Galahad, though—which willow, no willow at all, crown or no crown. It's only the second thing he ever made! It should be his!

He returns to their leaf-and-petal strewn workbench, and gestures for Galahad to arrange as he sees fit.

[onthewillowsthere]

It's like the billiards -- he has no innate talent for this, and with Shen Qingqiu not perfecting his work it's a lot more challenging, but it turns out that feels good. The flowers they've chosen are so delicate. He has to work hard not to crush them as he threads them together. It takes him a moment to work up the ability to ask, "Will you teach me how you do it?"

[peaklordshen]

There is no end to Galahad's sweetness - a better disciple Shen Qingqiu could never ask for (save one). "Of course," he says. "You may need to trim the leaves other than those just right by the flower's head. Choose where along the crown you want the flower to sit, and then thread the stem through the willows. That way you barely need touch the flower itself, so it will stay fresh longer." He lets a little bit of qi pass from his hands into the plants so that they will be preserved an unnaturally long time anyway, but Galahad doesn't need to know that.

[onthewillowsthere]

As he sets himself to his task, he thinks of how little he knows about Shen Qingqiu, other than that he has been unfailingly kind without regard to which self Galahad has been. He's been more than kind -- he's been tender, willing to gather Laurel in his arms and wish Galahad joy. Galahad knows a great deal about Percival, because Percival is always talking: he knows that he grew up in the woods with his sister Dindrane, that he can track any sort of animal, that he saw a knight in the forest once and thought he was an angel.

After a space of quiet, he glances up. "Tell me about you." As he often does, he utters it as an imperative.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu gives him a laughing little bow at the order. He... kind of hates this question, though. What's he supposed to do? Recite Shen Qingqiu's scum villain backstory, threadbare as it was? Talk about Shen Yuan's wasted potential of a life?? List out things he likes, like he's filling out an online dating profile??? "I am hardly interesting enough to keep you occupied," he demurs. "I—teach." Used to teach. "I read. I enjoy painting, and playing games of strategy with my martial brothers and sisters." Used to enjoy. Now he mainly rots, in his house on Qing Jing, all his joys subsumed by and then vanished along with Luo Binghe. Just like they have been here. His face, for the first time in hours, possibly for the first time that Galahad has seen, goes noticeably gloomy.