prismatica | anonymous text post

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Question: If someone tells you to do whatever's necessary in order to ensure you don't crystalise from chroma deprivation, what does that mean to you?

[ help him prove his point that people's first assumption isn't "have sexual relations!" or help disprove his point... ]

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[ His fan is in hand, made apparent when he flicks it up and it comes on screen, under his chin but not disguising his lower face. ]

A discussion on mortality. I'll be over shortly.

[ A pause; ]

With biscuits.

[ Because he'd already picked up some earlier that were delightful little affairs, and if he's going to face down Luo Binghe's continual push to die or die, dammit, he wants something savoury to chase it down with.

And while Binghe isn't all that fond of sweets, these aren't sweet, so he figures they're a decent addition to tea. So there. Praise him. Now he's trying to feed Binghe, which is so backward that it might be an indication of just how heavy things tend to weigh on his thoughts.

That said, aside from being on long enough for any response from Binghe, Shen Qingqiu will flick this off and make his way over, as one does when one says they're damn well doing it. ]

[ For someone who has conquered portions of an entire realm and his own Peak, only to juggle the red tape of endless politicking and paperwork in the aftermath, Binghe isn't enough of a mental slouch to miss the hints he's given: mortality and the message's timing. Clearly this is about his response to the network, which makes sense considering if Shen Qingqiu had noticed his username he'd instantly know who was behind it. ]

All right. [ Quiet and slightly resigned, aware he's in trouble. ] I'll be here.

[ He really should have been more careful airing any mentions of his demise in a public place, risking the chance it may rip into old wounds. It's a reminder to be more clever with his own anonymity in the future if he's going to discuss anything that hints back to less than happier times.

But what's done is done. All he can do is brace for what's to come and straighten up his place for the arrival of a guest who is always welcome but merely unexpected, and to some degree armed with a topic he's unprepared to reopen. Yet his door is kept unlocked; left cracked open and resting on the latch so Shen Qingqiu knows without asking that he won't be met with resistance on this much. ]

Edited 2019-10-13 06:15 (UTC)

[ For his part, he's been glad to leave the politics to Yue Qingyuan; he'd be equally pleased to leave politics to Binghe, because at heart, Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to deal with the mess of all that, and yet in the effort to do just that, had set himself into imprisonment and the awkward series of events that had ended with his life being voluntarily ended... while trying to preserve it, along with Binghe's life.

Which, admittedly, might be a burr under everything; not just memories of Binghe dying in his arms, but how again and again, what is preventable is becoming not.

It's a problem, in his eyes, and it's hard to find the words to voice it, because what bothers him so much in hearing these things? In the conjectures that follow? He almost has the shape of it when he arrives at Binghe's door, sees it cracked open and glances down at his Manatee shaped tin of biscuits, and wonders what arrays might be there without bother to check for any of them in the first place.

He calls out before he slips inside. ]

Binghe?

[ Not because he doubts the presence he should find inside the apartment that simply is unlike his own, from the construction of it, but because saying nothing doesn't sit right. Just as his own muddled thoughts means he clutches that tin with a creature on it that Binghe's likely never seen, and he finds his disciple from where he stands by the door with the boots he needs to pull off not to feel like an uncouth creature, and holds them out, staring at this beloved fool and scraping the words together. ]

I have questions for you.

[ Not, this one. Not, this Shizun. Not, this Shen Qingqiu. I. ]

Let me take those.

[ He intends to free Shen Qingiuq from the burden of both his footwear and those offered biscuits. The latter of which he doesn't need to inquire about to know they reside inside the false tin belly of a rotund little monster that makes his brows twitch in the slightest confusion. It's gone in a flash as he writes the little illustrated beast off as an alien thing, all flippered limbs with grey skin and looking like a pieced together creation from a child's wild imagination. It's filed away with the thought that Shizun must feel fond about this world's strange little animals, and he'll have to spend another day puzzling out why.

For now the tin finds itself settled on the kitchen island before he's back, going down on one knee to help Shen Qingqiu out of his boots like he's done since he was merely a teen. He expects a bracing hand on his shoulder, murmuring the suggestion of as much as each one comes off slow. Binghe gives the same consideration for his master's balance as he's always done. Though less concern for personal space with the way Binghe's hands manage to glide down his master's calf, the notch of an ankle and pads of feet as the barrier of white leather comes away. ]

Mm? [ Head bowed as he works, Binghe gives a hum of assent at the sound of his name. ] This one is willing to listen to anything Shizun has on his mind.

[ In another mood, at another moment, the slight shift in Binghe's expression over the tin design would have been enough to amuse Shen Qingqiu, because one would have to admit that manatees aren't particularly inspiring on first glance. Perhaps not even on tenth. He finds them cuddling in the same way he finds a capybara cuddly, where he never intends to cuddle either. They're just... circumstantially cute.

He's not in the mindset for it right now, so while he stands in place, he watches Bnghe set the tin down in the kitchen and return, having not moved to take off his own boots without so much as really considering he hadn't done so. It startles him, that lack of self initiative, when he's needed to be self-reliant in most ways here, as he had been in years before Binghe's world. What makes it so easy to fall back into the kind of dynamics they'd had when Binghe had still been relatively innocent, the white sheep baaing as he trotted along after Shen Qingqiu?

Why is it something in him aches to have Binghe kneeling on one knee now, Shen Qingqiu starting to reach out, but not bracing himself like he might have. He stares down at Binghe, over the top of a hand that doesn't fully reach, as Binghe's familiar and unfamiliar hands in their own ways trace over calves and ankles and the soles of his feet.

He can balance on his own, and so he does; he finally reaches out to touch Binghe when his second foot is freed of its white encasing. His hand doesn't brace against a shoulder, instead settling on the crown of Binghe's head, then stroking down over the side of his head, brushing over his ear... then taking hold of his earlobe, a pointed sort of pinch with no other motion behind it. No yanking, no pulling, nothing but that pressure as a point of focus, and released as soon as he begins speaking. Instead, a finger traces the shell of his ear, and then his hand falls at last to rest on Binghe's shoulder, staring down at the dark crown of his hair.

Is he really willing to listen? Is Shen Qingqiu willing to speak? ]

How am I supposed to love a man who insists on dying instead of coping with the world we're in? Who claims the impermanence of death means it's without consequence? As if that's not a decision he makes and forces all those around him to live with too?

[ There's a point to this, he knows. A valid concern that only he's to blame for bringing to light. Even if Luo Binghe cannot easily budge from his principles any more than the very mountain peak they hail from had ever budged despite the strongest arguments of wind and rain beating down such demands.

He hears it like a distant echo, far-flung and lost among the rush of something so much more pressing than even a discussion of life and death.

Because he freezes the instant not when Shen Qingqiu touches him. Contact between them no longer can even be conceived to evoke such a startled response when Binghe would rather press into it, in whatever inches of skin that he can provide to expand the touches Shen Qingqiu gives.

No, he still wholly at just one word, from his head to the heart. It flutters at first like a bird taking flight, just before shuttering into a skipped beat which hits hard enough to feel beneath all of his ribs and up into the throat that tightens with just a word.

He finds Shen Qingqiu's hand after everything is said and done, even though his ear still prickles with the sensation of that gentle pinch. But that's not what's on his mind. The notion of anything else but what Shen Qingqiu admits to right now is a million miles away. Even as Binghe cradles his master's palm against his mouth, turning into the hollow of it's middle to press words around a kiss as his forehead settles somewhere against Shen Qingqiu's center. ]

Does Shizun realize what he's confessing to right now?

[ He doesn't, not until Binghe asks. He's so careful with his words, but the ones he'd found to describe what lies so uneasily across his shoulders is an explanation for the itching of his heart, and the implication is not one he regrets. Even as something in the realisation of what he's said, what he's admitting, hits home for him much as it seems to have hit home for Binghe.

It's a complicated emotion, too many conflicting ones that add up to an overall truth: he does love Luo Binghe, in a multitude of ways that had been as tied up in fear as they'd been tied up in the pride he felt for him, the concern he leveled on him, the ways he'd always wanted to protect him. Even when Binghe was perhaps the one person in their world who'd never needed it.

He needs it here. And this new aspect of love—there's another kind that's been slowly creeping up on him, and it isn't an easy one, either, because it brings along questions and fears of another kind, the personal kind. Not life and death, but words and emotions and he fucks both those up, and they don't seem to hear each other so often, and what the fuck, he's not qualified for any of this! He's not, and he knows it.

Binghe rests his forehead against his abdomen, and he hums, a vibration through his chest. ]

Does Binghe realise what else that confession says?

[ He doesn't. He really doesn't feel he does. His fingers curl, stroking against Binghe's face, settling there. ]

Did you ever check your comm for messages left after you died?

[ He asks this in such a quiet voice, a murmur as he gazes down at that head of silken black hair resting against him, still kneeling on one knee. Did Binghe ever see? Ever realise? Because Shen Qingqiu had considered it, had plotted at times that never came to fruition to steal his disciple's device to erase the evidence of his wild mourning, that grief.

But he does not believe Binghe understands. Yes, Binghe knows his own grief, but Binghe does not seem to know what it is to really survive. What it is to carry on. And while he also knows that Shen Yuan was a man who died in another life before he was brought into Shen Qingqiu, memories and experiences and a personality overlaid on a fever ridden Shizun who had been buried deep in his subconscious... it wasn't a grief Shen Yuan had ever let himself experience. In a way, the first one he had was Binghe's dying, and each time, every fucking time Binghe so easily says, I would prefer to die, part of him is screaming, No.

No. ]

[ To and fro, Luo Binghe's head gingerly turns side to side against the crux of a body he tucks himself against, more than slightly at a loss. He may be brilliant, but such a statement only maintains it's validity when excluding his personal feelings from important matters. Strategies played out on battlefields and in social circles are easy. All the scheming in the world is child's play so long as it never delves into the personal.

Once Shen Qingqiu is involved his level-headed clarity, the poise by which Binghe has doled out orders executed without so much as a twinge of feeling, dissipates like the fragments of a dream. All of it intangible no matter how he may try to summon such control.

The emotional upheaval Shen Qingqiu lends to Binghe's life with just a flex of his finger is an unimaginable force. And it leaves him rooted upon his knees with just a word; powerful enough to leave even the purpose of this visit practically forfeit.

Much to Shen Qingqiu's inevitable displeasure, which he'll surely deserve and accept in turn, Binghe cannot care about anything but hearing those worlds. Not in this moment. Not when he still kneels here, heart drumming at a deafening pace within his ears, disbelieving that feelings he'd harbored for more than a decade's time find themselves returned without a struggle or even an ounce of reluctance. ]

Shizun, this disciple...

[ No. He doesn't want to frame a conversation about the feelings held between them in terms of master and disciple. However much it may be true, their relationship as it stands is one built between adults; two people who have always needed to be seen by the other as an equal. Binghe is no child, no more naive of the world or his own wants than any other man on this world or the one they've come from. The same can be said for the man he leans into as his lifeline in a moment that shakes him to his core when the words he's longed to hear no longer exist only in dreams. ]

Later. [ A whisper that sounds more like the confession than Shen Qingqiu's own. ] Not right now.

[ Hands hold his master's body closer than before, with a stillness settling over him in all extremities. It echos of a mood turning towards the severe for reasons other than a network message. Binghe holds himself like the penitent man he's never been, still aside from the way he noses against a place not far from the source of a cultivator's power, pressing words like kisses along Shen Qingqiu's middle. ]

Tell me again? This one wants to hear those words by themselves.

Edited 2019-10-18 04:47 (UTC)

[ Being asked like this... now he really, really doesn't want to say it! No! Too fucking embarrassing! And it's not like it's a simple or easy or even clear thing in his heart, itchy as it is. Luo Binghe all but nuzzles into his stomach and he's reminded, abruptly, of the weight of Binghe throwing himself into his arms when he was fifteen and learning how to properly wield a sword.

Why is he reminded so strongly of that in this moment? The two were completely unrelated! (Or were they? On his end, they certainly were.)

Binghe's derailed where Shen Qingqiu isn't, but he's helpless in the face of his, resting his hand on top of Binghe's silky-smooth hair, stroking fingers over his head before he realises he's started the motion. ]

So sticky, at your age?

[ And those are helpless words, helplessly fond and helplessly resigned, because his anger gutters and banks into glowing embers in the face of a man who clings close, and adult, yes, but in that one moment childlike in a simple way:

Asking for confirmation. Asking for reassurance. Is there any age where one reaches when saying such things doesn't remind them of what it was like to be small? ]

About the man who insists on dying?

[ ... No, he has not forgotten what fucks him over each and every fucking time Luo Binghe makes it seem like it doesn't matter, like it's nothing. Because it isn't nothing. Because coming "back" doesn't make it less traumatic. Because life is not that fucking cheap, even if you plan into desperation to hold on to the spark of life that burns within your chest.

And Binghe, time and again, is saying it is.

How can he make this great lummox listen to what he's saying in whole, not just in the part he can't think about without losing what little nerve he has, and the remainder of the face he hasn't truly had for a while? ]

Or how I can love you?

[ It's really how? How did he find himself at this point? The regard, the caring, all that's been there for years. But he can't say he's unaffected by Binghe's death or his resulting deathwishes; he can't say he's unaffected by kisses and touches and fuck. Fuck!

It's been a kicking, clawing, fighting slide into realising he's not as straight as he thought he was, but how the fuck did he bend Binghe? How the fuck did loving him in these first ways turn into...

... whatever the hell this is? ]

I don't have the face to say such things more than once. Stand up, stand up, it's hurting my neck to stare down at you on your knees.

[ The gold underneath them is gone a universe ago, but it's still there, gilded and flickering, in his eyes. ]

It's isn't that I'm determined to die, but to keep the promises I made a long time ago.

[ Mouth open to work itself around the shape of an answer, he instead closes it again with a firmer push into some unseen inch of skin covered by cultivator robes. A first kiss of many more, centered at first where he guesses a navel may be, until they branch out towards a hip that he can feel under teeth that touch down.

Shen Qingqiu asks him to stand while his mind would rather make use of holding Binghe here, heeled and obedient on his knees. But if staying like this takes the form of rebellion in his master's eyes, he'll concede to a change that will eventually take him onto both feet with the guidance of hands and lips taking him higher.

A thumb strokes over the jut of a hip he's bitten, no matter if it befalls clothed skin more for the show of his mouth there than any pressure teeth apply. And it's there Binghe keeps hold of him, all while open-mouthed kisses take a journey up the length of Shen Qingqiu's form. ]

Things I swore never to do. [ Even something simple as a kiss. ] Oaths made before I knew what they were.

[ Sometimes it's too easy to forget he isn't a child anymore, who can simply fall into open arms without arousing feelings within a master who still shows he struggles with what they mean. Easier still when Shen Qingqiu remains so unchanged over the years, a reflection of the protector he'd once been; the living breathing sanctuary for Binghe to rest his weary head. ]

Is Shizun here to ask that I break those promises?

[ There's a third option they've been overlooking until now, which could accommodate Binghe's personal distaste for physical affection with strangers and Shen Qingqiu's determined effort to ensure Binghe's levels stay afloat. Constant contact of the smallest measures gathered throughout the course of a day or merely at the start and end of it could supplement all the lack of it elsewhere. And he doesn't care how Shen Qingqiu might dole it out, quick like hard swallows of bitter medicine, or arms around him felt until first light. He'll take anything, if it's his touch and his alone. A thought now possible, if Shen Qingqiu wants it. If a need for touch comes alongside the feelings he knows too well. ]

I wish he was offering to help me keep them instead.

Edited 2019-10-19 02:53 (UTC)

[ What? What? What the fuck? The tips of his ears burn and he knows it, even if nowhere else shows a response to the fact he has Binghe hissing and nipping at his robes, far too clear in intent when he's fucking standing there and watching him doing all this! Feeling all this! Even if he's not feeling much, he still feels a little!

What kind of natural born seducer is he anyway?!

He won't let the sweet words or forward actions deter him from his own point; he made no fucking oaths, promises, what the fuck evers Binghe made with and for himself. It makes sense, specifically in that Binghe makes up his mind and then is committed to his ideas, not one prone toward paltry things like indecision or hesitation. The fact Shen Qingqiu is someone he's made oaths to himself about is...

Beyond comprehension. Truly. Still, it's real, and he doesn't hate it. Had confessed a moment before to love, and he knows while he isn't saying it again, not a direct statement, he truly cannot right now, he'd meant it.

He holds still under the onslaught of open mouthed kisses his clothing suffers, trying pointedly not to pair those movements and places with where they'd fall on bare flesh. It doesn't matter. (It kind of matters.) Not when he takes both hands and cradles Binghe's face, thumbs stroking over his beautiful cheekbones, that face which takes so much after his mother, until one truly looks into the constellations of his eyes. If there's any obvious mark of his father, it's there. He loves that, too, the most masculine feature of his impossibly gorgeous face. ]

Those are not promises you made to me.

[ Only to Binghe. Only to himself, and his own mind. ]

I have never said I would not help, you ridiculous fool of a disciple. [ Said with fondness and affection in his voice, but dead seriousness in his eyes and the lines of his face. ] You choose not to listen if the words being said aren't the ones you want to hear, but listen now. I cannot be the only way you generate chroma. There are too many ways that can go wrong, and while you can bear with dying again, I cannot.

[ His touch is achingly gentle then, a long, slow stroke of the pads of his thumbs down Binghe's cheeks toward his jaw. ]

I cannot survive mourning you again.

If Shizun wishes for vows that I've yet to give, then let me make them now?

[ Every word engraves itself within his heart like a brand, scorched there for the eternity of a lifetime Binghe has to await him as the years go by. All of commits itself to memory, down to the details of how Shen Qingqiu's perfect mouth works itself around each sound in a way that catches his gaze and hold it captive; a willing prisoner to the sight.

It's no small wonder why Binghe envies where those words begin. Born at the end of Shen Qingqiu's tongue, each syllable rolls like a hot summer's rain sliding down the length of thin bamboo leaves. ]

I love you.

[ Words pressed into the cup of hands he kisses, touch gentle even as he cradles that hand to graze lips along end of gathered fingertips. ]

Always and only you, from the moment this Shizun touched my life.

[ There's a clear and vital distinction made. Because Luo Binghe's world shifted the moment Shen Yuan stepped into it. When a child deprived of his family was given one anew, in all the roles his Shizun played from that moment on. No matter where his master's life began, what time or place he came from, the man in front of him remains the single person in this and any other world Binghe harbors such feelings for. ]

Not just as long as my heart still beats. Until there's nothing left of me but dust.

[ There's a magntism that Shen Qingqiu holds over him which Binghe cannot deny, bowing to it's sway over his body through a lean in and forward. It takes him close enough to lie his forehead square with his master's, that slight difference in height coaxing his face to tilt until noses shyly brush. A ghost of his lips pass by with every breath along the seam of Shen Qingqiu's own; taking them slow and soft when they do settle with a further tilt of his head. Lips he meets in between further promises made, indulged as he should in the intermission of these thoughts. ]

You can't bear to miss me. But I cannot live without you- And don't want to.

[ One more thing he's sure to get reprimanded for. But if he's swearing himself to something, none of it can be left out, even the promises Shen Qingqiu doesn't want to hear. ]

So this one will do whatever Shizun asks of me to keep him from knowing this pain again.

Edited 2019-10-25 23:59 (UTC)

Then live, Binghe. Even when it hurts.

[ These are words first murmured, then stated, at a brush of lips against lips. He's not unaffected, has never been unaffected by Luo Binghe, and never will be. Emotions are what they are, and they're a confusing, fucked up mess most the time for him these days, but this is what comes to his tongue for the words he must say, staring unblinkingly into Luo Binghe's beautiful, almost-but-not-quite womanly face.

Funny little juxtapositions, really. Nothing of Binghe in any way reminds him of a woman, in the end, and never will. Just a twist of genetics, and one he's unaware of how strongly the pull will send the twisted, dark mind of the Palace Head frolicking forward to where it should never have been allowed to fester twice.

His hands are strong and calm, mildly restraining, as he studies that face. ]

Like I did.

[ In pain wracked weeks, where he mourned and held that pain close, and knew he could never be the one who fails to let go.

He's let go of a whole life before, though no, it had not been by choice. That's the truth of it all.

Even being here?

That isn't by choice. There is no guarantee, and he cannot, will not, stand for Luo Binghe turning them into suicidal lovers because he chooses not to face loss ever again, little as Shen Qingqiu will never consider himself one truly worthy. (The more worthy would have fought harder against the System, would have found ways to protect him; the truly worthy would never love him as other than a son.) ]

Even when you were gone.

[ The weight of palms and moonlacing interweave into a medley of sensation that speak only of the small kindling warmth that could sum up what they have. Constant as the constellations above in all the years affection may have taken different shapes but never faded with the season's change, nor burst into an uncontrolled flame.

And as much as he asks for things, often without the words but certainly the hopeful expectation, such as all the times his hands had crossed the divide between them as though willing themselves to seek out contact from a man who'd reacted only in fear, he doesn't take.

Shen Qingqiu's stilling touch doesn't shove but yield and keep him, urging Binghe to stay his present course right where two feet hold him and not venture elsewhere. It's something said without the follow up of words, but loud enough to him in a language of Shen Qingqiu's own body that he's taught himself.

A tilt of his head would be too much of a disruption, so he merely hums in assent. Luo Binghe stays where he's bidden to; moored between two hands like a ship held near enough to the coastline to see but kept from beaching itself upon the shore. ]

This one has already done so twice before.

[ Not a rebuttal, but evidence to prove he's capable of survival. Even if his heart grows cold and all that's left to warm him are memories of a man he needs to feel more alive than the corpse he'd clutched close. ]

And I will again, if I have to.

[ There's something ineffably sad in the way Shen Qingqiu smiles then, in the slow, solemn shake of his head, only the once. He doesn't move otherwise, doesn't even furrow his brow as something in his eyes breaks noiselessly, when he refutes not to be obstinate, but because in what he's seen... ]

No, Binghe. You survived, yes, but you did not live. This one does not ask for what's easy to give, because this one realised far too late this one never taught you how to live.

[ Here is where his hands move, smoothing hair around either side of a precious face, brushed back over shoulders, as if it needs coaxing when of course it does not. A tendril even ignores the coaxing, falling back forward, and it catches his eye without prompting a blink. ]

This one has failed in the most important of ways as a teacher, time and again. If there were enough heart in an apology to give it the weight I wish I could for the past, I would give it. But there is not. There is only to desire to do better, if you allow, in the present we share, and what future we'll walk side by side.

[ For no telling if paths diverge, or when that might happen, so he doesn't make promises he can't keep. He's done that enough. There have to be limits, for both their sakes. ]

[ He's already being stretched to the farthest reaches of his limits, promising to step miles beyond comfort zones to engage in things, even if some think it laughable to stress so over a kiss, that innately feel like little betrayals against someone who, without ever asking for such a thing, has fallen into ownership of all Binghe's kisses from here until whatever end there is. If he wants them, or if he doesn't. They're his and always have been, whenever he may desire them.

All the same these are promised in oaths to perform if his life is in peril. A feat that has taken promoting thricely, though charmed as such a third tally is said to be, it seems to be the last of these urgings. ]

Shizun- [ Abruptly, because even he can only endure so much. ] You can ask for the impossible, but there are promises not even I can make.

[ Living without Shen Qingqiu, unthinkable a thing as it might be, is something he can endure. Binghe knows this only because it's been achieved at times when he's lost Shen Qingqiu like water through a sieve. Even against his own heart's wishes and the pull towards joining this man in oblivion. But to thrive without him, to live in all the ways a person enjoys life, seems to dispell any loss of a man that would be gone. ]

If you leave, I'll live. But only because I'll wait for you. ...Forever, in case you come back.

[ His own dam breaks, buckling when Shen Qingqiu's hands slide away for long enough to break whatever spell they'd held over him, rendering him to an impossible stillness that is so unlike the animation he suffers whenever his shizun is within sight. He surges forward to wrap arms around Shen Qingqiu's waist, as though doing his utmost to prove to fate that bonds exist here, tangible in the clutch of arms that gather a man who has never felt or seemed small in order to tuck him close. ]

But don't ask me to act like a part of me wouldn't die if I was without you.

[ They've barely begun to find one another in ways that bore no reminders of fear and footsteps falling in rapid succession as Shen Qingqiu runs from a man who gives chase simply out of desperate fear of losing him. Small confessions a tiny first step towards feelings that are realized, only to follow up with forewarnings of an end. ]

I'll allow anything you wish to teach but this. All I ask is that you stay with me, as long as you can.

[ His hand finds Binghe's head, settling at the back of it, a stroke of fingers that goes still as he closes his eyes. There are things he can do, and things he cannot. Promises he's too wise to make, because of experience, because of a streak of cynicism that crops up on occasion, and because of a softer heart under it all that doesn't want to set them up for hurts he doesn't have to. ]

This one does not plan on going anywhere. And where I am, you will always have a home.

[ That, he can promise. Here at least. Back home it's beyond him as far as he's aware, and if he knew the ways the future would twist still before them, he might hesitate before finding a way to frame the same sentiment. Because it's a truth he wished he'd stood by when Binghe had been seventeen and his dark eyes hadn't known the depths of the Endless Abyss, when betrayal hadn't cut his heart deep enough it didn't know how to scar over stronger, and that didn't break him along the way into a man who hadn't learned how to grow, only to defend and deflect and charm.

But here?

Here there is no System, no judgment in his head that threatens his death for a lack of compliance. Here he can offer what he didn't have in his power on a world he'd been reborn to and died while walking on. ]

You have a home, Luo Binghe. For all of you.

[ Demon and human. ]

I know. [ A thought which only solidifies in the here and now: ] Because you have always been my home.

[ A person just as much as he is a place. A perception he's held onto within the recesses of his heart to hold him steady and guide him back whenever he's gone astray. A soul who encompasses all the comfort and warmth of family, not found so much as finally hard-won.

Except, he remembers why they're here. Standing in the entryway to his apartment, Shen Qingqiu barefooted and heart bared as he welcomes Binghe into a home he'd never realized he'd always need. Craved. As a drowning man does air.

Because he's being given the greatest gift, a grounding permanence in an impermanent world, on the tail end of a conversation that highlights something terrible he's done.

And with that the scales fall away from his eyes.

Words come together with all the infinite care set up in avoiding the touch of something sharp-edged. Conscious of the subject he now hands over into Shen Qingqiu's possession with a fear that it could bite at him still.

Shen Qingqiu's heart may not be forged of the same glass which Luo Binghe holds within his own chest, but who could deny any being fragile to a topic such as this? ]

...And yet, I've caused you so much pain.

[ Dearly and deeply. In ways that apologies can't sweep away days and weeks and months of wrongs. Of continually reopening a wound that otherwise may have scarred over with time. Something he left not purposefully, never with the initial intent that night to set about this chain of events. But it happened, through his actions alone, and decisions Shen Qingqiu has henceforth tried to prevent Binghe from cycling through again.

And he'd been a fool. Bullheaded in his set belief that this was taking the moral high ground. That he would never resort to using another soul as he'd once done to funnel off Xinmo's surging power under the light of a full moon. Binghe had hated himself for that, unwilling to ever let Shen Qingqiu know, or allow himself to treat people as something disposable for his use.

But he'd been blind to the impact, all this time unseeing despite witnessing it with his own two eyes, that his actions did damage to the one person he'd never wish to hurt. ]

I'm left sickened with what you must have heard in my words. When taunts and threats were never my intention and nothing I ever want you to feel...

[ How do you undo a wrong you've written? When it's there, staring you in the face as though carved irrevocably into stone and the consequences laid out in a permanence no apology will amend.

All he can do is learn from this, to take the experience and grow from it.

As for apologies- They're a drop in the bucket, unable to quench a drought of trust and security laid out between them. However, it is incomprehensible to deny Shen Qingqiu even that much when what this man is owed exists in an ocean's endless depths. ]

Shen Yuan-

[ Not Shizun, because for a brief moment he needs to take the responsibilities of an adult. Forgive me feels like a demand for things he's not earned nor deserves in the way he's behaved. And all the flowery, however beautifully spoken tirades on all his wrongs and learned lessons, just make this about Binghe.

This isn't about Binghe, but the man he's left carrying the worst fears for all these months alone. ]

I'm sorry.

[ Binghe would perform the proper bow, but Shen Qingqiu has asked him already to stay standing. A request he takes to heart because he's listening now, wholly and with both ears open, to the minute of this man's wishes. So only his chin dips, eyes shut as Shen Qingqiu's had been, composure maintained in such a way that doesn't embarrass a man he wants to look at him with pride. The gesture is small, but profound. ]

Edited (binghe really needs to clarify his intentions otherwise nothing is really resolved) 2019-11-27 06:18 (UTC)

[ The number of times he has heard an apology from someone he cares about for something he can't fail to forgive them for, because grudges aren't part of his nature, not long ones. Not until the people he's holding grudges for have been hurt in ways he has no forgiveness for. The Original Goods is someone he suspected he felt like that for, in the earlier years, but that's a confused issue now: not for the abuse, which he can never condone, but for the whole of the person behind it.

Luo Binghe is important to him, and always will be. He's frightening, but not in the ways that Shen Qingqiu had been scared of months before. No, his fears now are far more justified through actions taken, not in some written work he'd read but in the world they both inhabit.

The people he loves, the ones he cares about, they're the ones he worries over. The ones he moves to defend, even when they don't need it.

And while Luo Binghe dips his chin, saying a dead man's name, Shen Qingqiu pauses, then shifts, wrapping his arms around Binghe in a hug that holds without confining, and simply says: ]

Do better.

[ Because that, too, is a kind of forgiveness, but the kind which asks to move forward, not to linger in memories. Isn't that part of the problem for both of them? Holding on to thoughts and times which have passed? ]

Shen Yuan is a name that belongs to a man who died years ago. I don't object to you calling me Shen Qingqiu, but Shen Yuan is someone from another time. Remembering his life doesn't change that the one I've been living is this one.

[ Or the one he's died in is this one; and it doesn't matter, really, which name he uses, because he is Shen Qingqiu. Which is an odd thought, because it's not one he largely questions, and it's not as if Shen Qingqiu has ever disappeared. Just been given a slew of memories, a lifetime, all at once.

Which is what they have here. A lifetime, given all at once. ]

No more death, Binghe. Just live.

[ Silently he assents to the persuasion to try harder in his effort to live and meld himself to this world's demands. But above all, to hear Shen Qingqiu when he speaks. To listen not just with ears while his mind or heart lie entangled with other things, but wholeheartedly such that he absorbs it all with the gravity deserved. Because like a block of solid gold, what Shen Qingqiu says, and all the things he doesn't say aloud but speaks without words, carries a weight deserving of the heights of his attention. ]

I'm sorry that I never got to meet him.

[ The same man, but made different in living another life set in a world not their own. Binghe will always crave to understand the whole of the one person who left the greatest impact on him; from his past and present to a future that may change or mold Shen Qingqiu as it often does.]

Shen Qingqiu. [ A familiar name made new again as he tests the waters with its use. ] Qingqiu

[ It rings out like the hum of plucked guquin strings, a slide of rainwater down ceramic eaves, set amongst the sway of bamboo groves that stretch up towards a sky full of stars. Spoken with quiet contemplation as Shen Qingqiu envelops Binghe within the all protective halo of his embrace. ]

What do you wish for me call you?

[ Because Luo Binghe is so much more than one of Shen Qingqiu's little sheep trotting along after him, nipping adoringly at the heels of a shepherd they blindly follow with calls of "Shizun, Shizun!" Nor is he just a Lord of his own peak, a man who has come into his own to such a degree that there is no more sitting on the cusp of adulthood as he had all those years. They're equals in status, closer in age than he'd ever believed, and men with their own adult hopes and dreams with not a wisp of the power imbalance that had offset the equilibrium between them for years. ]

I'm listening.

[ Said in the quiet as nothing but the rain outside hits glass panes, drowning out any sound beyond their voices. His palm hovers a gentle touch over the back of Shen Qingqiu's head, cradling it in a reciprocal hold as the one given to him. It's not entirely symmetrical, but the unspoken welcome and encouragement to hold on before time forces them to let go, is clear. ]

Edited 2019-12-19 09:46 (UTC)

[ He can't help it: hearing Qingqiu puts him in mind of how odd it always was from Yue Qingyuan, how there's no one other than people here who insist on using his given name instead of his full name. Luo Binghe saying it is not... easy, or comfortable, just as any one of his disciples saying his given name alone would be jarring.

Still, he keeps a soft tone when he pats Binghe's head, stroking once down over his hair: ]

Shen Qingqiu.

[ His full name will do, thank you! Thank you very much! Stop making him break into gooseflesh and a cold sweat on accident! ]

This disciple hears?

Shen Qingqiu, this one will engrave it on his heart.

[ He corrects himself, hushed with the weight of understanding and the barest tip of a chin not meant to disturb the touch he wouldn't shake off for all the world.

The overfamiliarity itself passes by as if a cold breeze; forgotten with the touch of a hand Binghe knows through years of study left to slide itself down over dark hair to ease away the tension. ]

I do hear you. [ A promise in as much as it is confirmation. ] Now and always.

[ One more lesson learned in a waltz of trying to better understand someone Luo Binghe ought to know by now, yet has just begun to comprehend beyond all their misunderstandings. In this strange new world and in the seemingly endless waltz that takes him closer or farther from such aspirations in steps that move more sideways than straight. But those too may inevitably, hopefully, still move him forward.

The smaller shape of a scholar's hand is sought out once he feels it go still against dark locks; reaching to draw it into his hold for a brief squeeze before slowly setting it free. One small bridge has been built, of many more he can only hope. ]

You mentioned bringing something home. [ A welcome diversion from the earlier solemnity. ] Biscuits, was it?

Are those all for me, or do I have to share?

[ Truly, he's more at ease, and it's hard to say if there's any one singular source. Shen Qingqiu isn't at ease with anyone using only his given name familiarly; he barely tolerates it when it happens, and who knows. It may be one of those things that changes with time, but years of habit have their way with him for now.

And the warmth, here, is comfortable, not encroaching on anything approaching his sense of how the world should structure. At least not too much.

That squeeze of his hand and freeing sets him into motion, stepping sideways--further in--and inclining his head to Luo Binghe. ]

You may decide to do with them as you like. Share or not, they're yours.

[ What, do you want to snack on them all? Sure, he made certain they weren't sugar filled, more suitable for Luo Binghe's palate than most would be. He lifts a hand, a not unkind dismissal, then moves to take a seat in the most dignified place he can find.

Sometimes, that's just what you do, okay!? ]

And here I was only teasing. [ A quiet laugh escapes him, full of joyful surprise. ] If it's always this productive then maybe I should try more often.

[ Despite all his own bustling about piping ovens, over confections sweetened to the tastes of another's palette, Shen Qingqiu's is the first offering of the same. Worth the recognition given in a smile that remains even as Binghe watches the one responsible for it pad barefooted into his home.

His search for a comfortable perch elsewhere, like a cat hunting patches of sunbeams to stretch under, shouldn't be in vain. Comfortable accommodations exist within the sprawl of a plush couch and it's paired coffee table. Fashioned at the appropriate height to serve as a low dining area, it's bordered by several plush cushions that provide for a more traditional seating option if that's preferred. ]

Now that you've agreed I'll have to figure out creative ways to work through this new windfall of mine.

[ Gratitude burrows a warmth in deep within his chest over more than gifted morsels. The gesture itself is just as worthwhile as the thought behind it all. Left unsaid is the fact the tin will stay where it resides upon his countertop; vaulted within Luo Binghe's home like a dragon's precious gold. He'd rather crack open troves filled with priceless stones and coin alike to dispense them out to the masses. It'd be easier to part with those than a treasure imbued with all the warmth and care spent in Shen Qingqiu's nimble fingers working them into being. ]

Do you feel like trying a few with me and seeing how well they go with tea?

[ Modern advances cut the preparations for brewing down to minutes where past routine, involving lit fires and time to boil water, would have left it to drag on. So it's not too long after Shen Qingqiu has settled himself that Luo Binghe is there with a tray in hand; cups and teapot ready for use alongside the addition of several biscuits upon a small dish. He serves Shen Qingqiu first, without question. The delicate cup all but engulfed within a steady hand; steered in its destination onward toward Shen Qingqiu's own for him to take or decline at will. ]

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https://youtu.be/C69rT2LsJ6E

what a calming melody to that song

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https://youtu.be/LgW0BSuy5kw