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

[timebethine]

"What are you looking for?" Laertes comes around the rack, leaning over to examine the samples. He recognizes a few that he knows aren't poisonous--yarrow and wild geranium--so he reaches down to pick up a few and study them more closely.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu opens to his mouth to explain, then pauses. That had... gone pretty badly with Janet. Maybe he needs to approach this more cautiously. "We spoke, in the kitchen," he says, "of... the kindness of those here, in regard to the expression of affection, regardless of its target," he says. "I gather your world was less kind?" He doesn't know much about Shakespeare, but he's not shocked to discover his plays are homophobic. That's, just, like, the times.

[timebethine]

"Indeed," says Laertes, letting his tone be mild. There are fears deeper than disappointing his father lurking there. He traces his fingertips down the skin-soft petal of a pansy. "Some are at peace with such sins, an they not be done openly. But in most lands I know, it's death to be a sodomite."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu nods—that pretty much lines up with what he expected. "My world is not quite so brutal about it," he says. "At least—not in a state-sanctioned way, not anymore. People have a tendency to take that brutality out interpersonally, instead." He messes with some bits of stem, rolling them between his fingers. "And—there are. Expectations. Of acting in line with nature, which of course means heterosexuality. Of conformity, and saving face for your family. Many people just never say anything, regardless of what they feel, to avoid drawing attention and shame, and to do their duty to continue the family line."

[timebethine]

Laertes drags a wrought-iron chair over to the table and sits down heavily. "Had I not come here, you would be describing me perfectly. Why do you revolve on such grim matters?"

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu hesitates. How to put this? "I am...attempting something that, should someone be familiar with the situation we have both experienced,¹ might sound foolish." He pauses. "I suppose it is kind of alchemy, actually, alchemy of the self. I'm attempting to... transform my nature. The nature of my attractions."<sup>2

1</sup> He means they're both from homophobic worlds, not that he's personally experienced homophobia, although he definitely has and Laertes would be forgiven for assuming such.
² Shen Qingqiu has been so obviously straight up until this point that it never occurs to him he has to specify which way.

[timebethine]

"Did you not say men were not to your taste?" Laertes says quizzically--then the first part of what Shen Qingqiu said lands, and he rests his chin on his hand. "My friend," he says gently, "you need not keep with the color and fashion of this land. What's in your heart need not be changed simply to suit your company."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu shakes his head. Laertes, like Sagramore, is missing the point. "It's not this place that makes me want to change," he says, and then flushes. "And I don't think what's in my heart needs to change, so much as. Be. Amplified? I—" he shakes his head again. Now he's getting confused. He keeps—mirroring how people talk, here, a habit borne over from Proud Immortal Demon Way. "I want to erase the thing that makes me unable to choose what I would choose if such things were a choice," he lands on, eventually.

[timebethine]

Laertes looks up to meet Shen Qingqiu's eyes. "What thing is that? If not your heart, or the law and custom of your world--what thing keeps you from choosing?"

[peaklordshen]

"I—" Is a guy from Shakespeare really asking him what physically makes someone straight right now? Like, chemicals?? Biology??? How is he supposed to know???? He's not a scientist!! "Um," he tries. "Humors?"

[timebethine]

Laertes sits back, considering. "A want of courage or sluggish blood might forbid you act upon your choice," he allows, "but not, I think, forbid the choice itself."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu frowns, a little, at that. Even if he chose to be gay, in his heart or whatever, it wouldn't count until he did something about it. "What's the difference? If you can't act on it, how has the choice been made at all?"

[timebethine]

"This tends abstractly," says Laertes. "Let me say it plain: men delight not you, but you wish that you delighted in them. Have I the right of it?"

[peaklordshen]

"Men delight me," Shen Qingqiu corrects, flustered. "Of course men delight me, men are delightful. I only think--it isn't in the way it should be. If I am to--" he stops, too embarrassed.

[timebethine]

"To what?" Suddenly, Shen Qingqiu's impassioned monologue about a disciple with a tortured past resurfaces in his memory, and he grins sharply. "My friend, has Luo Binghe turned your head?"

[peaklordshen]

What a ridiculous question. "Luo Binghe turns everyone's heads."

[timebethine]

"He's not turned mine--handsome though he is, he's not to my taste," says Laertes.

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu stares at him. "Well--that's--I would insult your taste, but I would be insulting Sagramore in the process."

[timebethine]

"Hast thou been telling thyself, he is a flame that would burn any tinder; it means nothing, that he makes thee burn?"

[peaklordshen]

That's exactly what he's been telling himself, because it's true, thank you very much. He refuses to look Laertes in the face. "I don't know why we're even talking about him," he says, weakly. "I didn't bring him up. I could be talking about anyone."

[timebethine]

"As thou wilt," says Laertes peaceably. "If thy heart is set on Sagramore, I wish thee every joy of him. He'd induct thee as gently as thou couldst wish."

[peaklordshen]

Shen Qingqiu, if possible, goes even redder. Obviously he's not interested in Sagramore,¹ any more than anyone with eyes, but--god, how direct!! His curiosity is piqued despite himself. "You don't get jealous?" he asks.

¹ Is it, in fact, obvious?

[timebethine]

"I could no more be jealous of sharing him than of sharing the sunlight," Laertes says, smiling. "He illuminates all that he touches with warmth and radiance; he shakes off the veiling mists of melancholy, and lets me see the world as it is and might be. He hath a generous heart, and I love him for it."

[peaklordshen]

Some of Shen Qingqiu's annoyance toward Laertes fades. It's hard to feel so defensive in the face of such honest and beautifully-expressed feeling for someone he cares about. Plus—he does get it. Even if he does find the BL pollen and he does sleep with Binghe, and even if that meant anything outside of that night, which is a lot of ifs, he could never imagine demanding all of Binghe's time and attention. For one thing, his poor body would break right in half! Binghe is a Stallion Protagonist!

"Binghe has many wives," he mutters, conceding—something. He's not looking too closely at what. "Though none here, as of yet. I would not deny them the pleasure of him, either." He tries to layer that would with all his aforementioned ifs, suddenly too tired to lay them all out plainly.

[timebethine]

Still smiling, Laertes rises from his chair. "I hope this love potion is a sovereign remedy for all that ails thee," he says. "And for what it's worth--I hope he answers thy love in kind."