protagonisthalo | [open post

[open post - dream big]

Luo Binghe does not need to sleep every night, and at home he is too busy to do so. But there is less to do here, and he grows bored in the nighttime when there is no chance of seeing any of the few people he likes. And Nina must not have any nightmares on his watch.

He curls up on his bed now, enduring the ache he always feels to be in it alone. Sleeping alone is one of the things he most despises. The only saving grace is that his powers let him make himself sleep instantly. In his youth, he often ended up fighting his thoughts for hours in place of sleep, even when physically exhausted. He wishes Shen Yuan were here, or if not, perhaps Sagramore—not to do anything that would disrespect Shen Yuan, but just to warm Luo Binghe's bed with his presence. But he would prefer almost anyone in the mansion over no one.

He ignores this customary melancholy and forces himself to sleep. He will first check on Nina, to guide her mind towards its best dreams without intruding, as he promised. After that, all dream paths are open to him.

[If you'd like a Luo Binghe dream visitation, please comment with how and where your character is sleeping, and perhaps what might be on their mind. If Luo Binghe does not know the character well, the dream will be more generic. However, he can read thoughts and memories, so feel free to DM the typist if there's anything you'd like Binghe to pick up on. Sweet dreams!]

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Oh, great, Luo Binghe's only idea about what he looks like was when he was an annoying, prepubescent teen. It's the injustice of that, as much as his reassurances and the warm comforting presence of his body, that lets Shen Yuan relax enough to let the Shen Qingqiu of him melt away.

They end up in Shen Yuan's bedroom, just as it existed before he died: the books and games in their bookshelves, the posters on the walls--one or two, okay, several of Binghe himself. The window, with the rainy street beyond, high-rises and bus stations and endless streams of people, going about their daily lives. And when he steps back from Binghe it is as Shen Yuan, third son of the Shen family of the Shanghai elite, dressed in t-shirt and jeans, his face and form cobbled together from his own memories, looking uncertainly up to meet Luo Binghe's gaze through his awkward, unfashionable glasses.

Everything around them will have to wait; Luo Binghe is entirely focused on Shen Yuan. The person in his arms is skinnier than he's used to—without the trained build of a cultivator—and a little shorter, his hair shorn in the way many at the Mansion wear it. He wears elegant glass lenses framing his eyes, like Sagramore sometimes does—perhaps that is a fashion affectation shared by many worlds, like the haircut.¹ If this weren't a dream, Luo Binghe is sure his heart would be pounding fiercely. As is he is filled with a wild, fervent energy, too much to be contained in his dream body—it spills out around them as a hazy pink light.

"This is what you looked like?" he breathes. "You're—very handsome." That is inadequate. If Shen Yuan's feelings about himself are distorting the memory, he is a more confident man than Luo Binghe knew. Luo Binghe can imagine how Shen Yuan's personality fits this face—the way he must frown when he's being fastidious, or the way a smile might come over it without thinking when he looks at Luo Binghe. It is so charming, so endearing, so adorable—Luo Binghe cannot even think what to do. He has been more at ease in their relationship lately, but seeing Shen Yuan like this has him abruptly nervous. As though Shen Yuan is a stranger he's desperate to impress. "I like you so much," he says in a rush. "Shen Yuan—"

¹Bad vision simply doesn't exist in Proud Immortal Demon Way.

Shen Yuan goes red. If he didn't know better, he'd think this was entirely a dream of his own creation--that Binghe, the real Binghe, wasn't here at all, and this was some kind of ancient subconscious wish-fulfillment where his super hot and cool boyfriend reassures him he'd been handsome as a weird nerd, too.

But--the sudden shyness in Binghe's face disarms him entirely. The Binghe of his imagination would never be nervous about it; he'd be endlessly suave and charming, completely confident in his ability to sweep Shen Yuan off his new/old feet. "Binghe," he says, laughing, and reaching up--a little more up than usual--to cup his jaw. "Why are you shy, all of a sudden? It's just me."

Yes, it's him—it really is him, and not Shen Qingqiu at all. Even though this is a dream, it is the most real moment of their acquaintance. Luo Binghe sympathized with Shen Yuan before—a spirit tethered to a body it resents—but now he can see the shape of the tragedy that befell him. This pretty youth, with his long fingers and sharp elbows, is Shen Yuan. The loss of him is gutting.

"I'm just pleased to make your acquaintance." He covers Shen Yuan's hand with his own, then brings it to his mouth and kisses the palm. This done, he finally tears his gaze from Shen Yuan's face and glances around their surroundings.

Almost immediately, he turns back, delight sparking in his eyes. "You brought me to your bedchamber? Forward indeed."

Shen Yuan's heart had gone liquid in his chest at the kiss to his palm; it isn't really his palm, of course, the same way this isn't really his bedchamber. But there's something even sweeter about Luo Binghe kissing the memory of his palm, like it's something to be treasured. He's suddenly wildly grateful that Luo Binghe asked this of him, that he has this chance for someone else to see him, this him, that always going forward there will be someone in the Mansion who knows this face, and it won't just be slowly slipping from his fallible human mind, overwritten in everyone who knows and loves him with—fucking Shen Qingqiu. He swallows, hard, while Binghe is looking around, and successfully wills himself not to cry—easier here than in real life where he has tearducts and shit that respond directly to his brain.

"It's, um, it's just where I spent most of my time," he manages, but it's not the playfully scandalized tone he was aiming for, the tone Binghe probably expects of him. He attempts a smile when Binghe meets his eyes.

Edited 2023-12-04 19:03 (UTC)

Luo Binghe had been trying not to overwhelm him—he knows Shen Yuan is easily embarrassed, especially around emotions—but he can feel Shen Yuan wavering through the dreamscape even before he hears his choked voice. At the sound of it, Luo Binghe's heart fully breaks. He throws his arms around Shen Yuan again and squeezes, leaning down to press kisses all over his cheeks, full of tenderness and longing for this person who no longer fully exists.

"I'm so glad you showed me," he says, between kisses—"so glad, I'm so happy I get to see you—" He gets his hand into Shen Yuan's hair and holds him there too, shuddering. It is like holding sand, or water—Shen Yuan cannot stay like this, already gone even while he's right here. Luo Binghe can hardly stand it. "It looks more like you. It looks like you. I love how you look now, I've told you how beautiful you are, but I wish... What happened? To this body?"

Edited 2023-12-04 20:11 (UTC)

Shen Yuan tries to cling back, but the dream is escaping him, a little; his real body—no; his current body reacting to his emotional state and stirring without his permission. He breathes Binghe in, trying to calm down. "I—I don't know," he admits. "I—they buried it, I guess. I, um. I died here. It was stupid, random—I was sick for a long time, but that isn't even what killed me, it was—" how do you explain food poisoning to someone who would hear the phrase and definitely think the poisoning in question was intentional? "—bad food. I mean, my immune system was shit, so that probably didn't help, but—" He's rambling. He should stop rambling, but he doesn't want to think about where this body is, what cemetery; what the funeral had been like, who'd come, who'd—who'd found it in the first place, slumped over his keyboard like a fucking PSA for getting too mad online—

Luo Binghe must have done something to allow his subconscious control over some of the dream directly, because when he opens his eyes, looking sideways from where his cheek is pressed to Binghe' chest, he can see it; the back of his own head where he'd fallen face-down on his desk, his computer casting a weird blue glow over his skin. And then, summoned by his racing mind, a knock at the door; his sister's voice, muffled, like she's speaking underwater, "Ge—are you ever getting up—"

He squeezes his eyes closed and buries his face in Binghe's chest. "Somewhere else," he says, thickly, his hands grasping and ungrasping at Binghe's incorporeal clothes. "Please, take me somewhere else, I can't—"

Luo Binghe reacts without thinking, taking Shen Yuan back to the shaded forest where he left him as a child—the first place he can think of without too many bad memories. The setting changed, he tucks Shen Yuan closer against his chest, shaken and horrified. He didn't—when he asked, he only meant how Shen Yuan came to leave his body, not—

"I didn't know you died," he whispers. He knew Shen Yuan had another life, but Shen Yuan only spoke of finding himself in a new world, waking up in Shen Qingqiu's body. Luo Binghe hadn't even been sure he was fully human, and not born as a spirit.

The thought of anything happening to Shen Yuan fills him with urgent panic, as though he can stop it—as though he needs to stop it. But it's done, and if it hadn't happened, they wouldn't be here now. That thought sends a fresh wave of horror through him, and makes him cling even more closely. It would have been so easy for them to miss each other, much easier than it was to meet. They were born in different worlds, and Shen Yuan died young and unceremoniously. It's already some rare miracle that his soul wound up at Qing Jing Peak, and it wasn't even the right one. Shen Yuan could have just been a dead youth in a strange world, and Luo Binghe a lonely Emperor, never knowing how much he'd missed.

In a dream, Luo Binghe's body doesn't respond to his emotions as it would in waking life. But there is something huge and painful swelling within him, and he lets it bring tears to his eyes. Shen Yuan was a person. A whole person, body and soul integrated, and now he is lost, and only Luo Binghe knows him.

Shen Yuan stumbles back from Luo Binghe, slipping from his arms much more easily than he might if they were really physically entangled. He doesn't know what he looks like, right now, whether he's his dead self or his fictional living one, and either feels—impossible to embody, impossible that being touched, here, could mean being touched in truth. He barely sees where they've ended up, too flooded with relief not to be where they'd been, and then that thought, and what Binghe's said, fills him with guilt and self-loathing, rushing in to fill the emptiness the relief left behind. He sits down, abruptly, on the ground.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have—you called me a spirit and I thought you knew—I didn't think about how it would feel, to—to be there. I—I want you to be able to see my world, I want to show it to you, but—" he shakes his head. "I'm sorry," he says again, uselessly. "You were—you were so excited, and I ruined it."

Luo Binghe wants to reassure him, but he's not sure if anything he says could get through to Shen Yuan right now. This is more about his feelings than Luo Binghe's, anyway—Shen Yuan didn't ruin anything for Luo Binghe, but he is upset, and searching for reasons he's allowed to be. There's no need for Shen Yuan to apologize to him, but Luo Binghe understands him well enough now to know his nature—that it's easier for him to comfort others than accept comfort himself. Especially with something like this, which he is unpracticed in facing.

Shen Yuan's dream appearance wavers between bodies, his face like himself one moment, longer and sharper like Shen Qingqiu's the next—a touch of Qing Jing Peak green on his shirt, fading into a drawing of that animal he likes—his dream presence confused and unstable.

Luo Binghe makes a decision. "Wait for me a moment," he says. "Just a moment—I'm sorry—I promise I'm not leaving you alone." He forces himself awake.

He slips out of his bed immediately, ignoring the groggy disorientation that comes after a deep sleep. He pads through the halls barefoot, wearing only his black silk shirt and trousers, following the call of his blood to a room he's not even been to yet. He lets himself in and crawls into bed next to Shen Yuan's sleeping form, reaching out to gently squeeze his shoulder. "Shen Yuan?"

Edited 2023-12-04 22:23 (UTC)

At first, when Luo Binghe fades from Shen Yuan's dream, the sense of immediate and total loneliness is miserable. But Binghe won't leave him here; not if he's promised not to. He clings to that, enough to raise his head and catch sight of the place he's brought him while he waits for him to come back. It means he resists, too, when someone tries to wake his sleeping self; he wants to stay here, where Binghe left him—what will he do if he comes back and Shen Yuan isn't here? He can't disappoint him again, not after he'd just thrown such a fucking fit over nothing—he's the dead one, it's not like he's in mourning for his family. They're all fine, and alive, and probably moving on—

It's only when Luo Binghe says his name that he realizes he didn't mean he'd be back in the dream, and he comes away with a gasp. He reaches for Binghe instinctually, pulling him down and against him, selfish and grasping for the touch he couldn't feel when Binghe held him in the dream. "Binghe."

Luo Binghe holds him as tight as he can, burying his face in Shen Yuan's hair. He breathes in his smell, grounds himself in the frantic rush of Shen Yuan's blood through his veins, the warmth of his living body—not the right one, but healthy and strong. Tears rise to his eyes again, hot and caustic. "I'm here," he whispers. "I love you." It's not enough to make up for what happened to Shen Yuan, but it's all Luo Binghe can offer.

Shen Yuan holds Binghe, and lets himself be held, for a long, long time. He doesn't cry, just—breathes, at first shaky and terrible, finally slower and more controlled. The horrible, conjured-up, underwater voice of his sister finally fades into nothingness against the backdrop of the house around them, the other residents moving about the halls, murmuring to each other, the wind rustling in the forest outside. He's aware of so much, as Shen Qingqiu, aware of movement and energies his original human self could never feel, and he focuses on that awareness as much as possible, the reality of this reality, and—most present, most real—Binghe, big and warm against him.

Finally he shifts back, a little, and runs his hands up Binghe's chest to his throat, his jaw. "You brought me back to where you made me a Bulbasaur."

Luo Binghe imagined many things Shen Yuan might say, when he's ready to talk. There are certainly many things he wants to say to Shen Yuan. Even with Shen Yuan breathing in his arms, there is a new fragility to him that has Luo Binghe's heart knocking against his too-tight ribs—a new awareness that Shen Yuan is nothing but a soul clinging to the wrong body. It's still ringing in his head how close they came to never meeting. That reality is so likely, so easy to imagine, that it seems to crowd against this one, as if it might overtake them. The weight of its probability seems likely to snap the tiny improbable thread of fate that has bound them together. And Luo Binghe knows now more than ever that different realities can merge or branch, winking in and out of existence. He wants to do nothing but lie here with his arms wrapped around Shen Yuan, using his blood awareness to feel Shen Yuan's pulse, until he can believe that Shen Yuan will stay with him. Surely fate cannot have gone to so much trouble joining them if it only plans to tear them apart again—and yet, he is afraid.

And he wants to tell Shen Yuan how sick it makes him to think of him dying. How much Luo Binghe wishes he could have met Shen Yuan before that, just an otherworldly youth in his own body, without the specter of Shen Qingqiu between them at all. How much he wishes Shen Yuan was not torn from his home and his family, even if he was ill and unhappy there. (And yet there is a treacherous, selfish part of Luo Binghe that knows that if Shen Yuan's death was necessary for them to meet, then he cannot wish it erased, no matter the cost. He buries it under layers and layers of shame.)

He wants to say these things, but he imagines Shen Yuan will not want to talk any more about his death. He'll likely try to downplay what happened, or unnecessarily apologize to Luo Binghe again—show concern for him, so he doesn't have to be cared for himself.

That is what he's expecting, so what Shen Yuan actually says catches him entirely off-guard. It takes him a moment even to parse its meaning. "That's the animal you like?"

Shen Yuan huffs, not quite a laugh but maybe something on a path towards one. "It's not a real animal," he explains, quietly, hands still mapping out Luo Binghe's face, his shoulders in the dark. "It's from a game I liked. A game I like. So you making me a real one, one I could interact with, it--meant a lot to me." His thumb slips over Luo Binghe's cheek, catching salt and a little remaining dampness. He gnaws on his lips. "Binghe. Thank you."

Luo Binghe shivers under his touch. There is so much more he wants to know, now that he's been allowed to learn a little about Shen Yuan's world—Shen Yuan's fighting animals aren't real??—but Shen Yuan has been so hesitant to share with him. Even after Luo Binghe guessed he wasn't Shen Qingqiu, so early on, it took until just before their date for Shen Yuan to admit he was from another world at all. Now he has some idea of why. There is pain associated with Shen Yuan's past, and no one can understand that better than Luo Binghe.

He gives Shen Yuan a little smile and activates his blood, sending a friendly tingle along the path Shen Yuan traced on him with his hands: up his chest and throat, and then racing away and dispersing across his shoulder blades. "Anything you need."

Shen Yuan pulls him closer. He tries to tangle their legs together, but realizes Binghe is lying on top of his sheets, rather than under them, and sits up to rearrange them, grumbling, moving Binghe's limbs and the sheets with the same demanding hands. He tugs the covers up over Binghe's side so he's snug and comfortable, then flops back again to curl into Binghe's chest.

"I want to take you back," he insists, eyes closed tight. "Not—not right now. Obviously." This last is derisive, an implied, since I'm such a mess. "But–eventually, I really want to show you, I—" his voice gets thick, again, without his permission. "I wish I could introduce you to my family."

Edited 2023-12-05 15:29 (UTC)

The wording of it hits Luo Binghe hard. Not I want to show you my family, so Luo Binghe might learn more about Shen Yuan, but I wish I could introduce you. Like if they were in the same world, Shen Yuan would really take Luo Binghe to meet his parents. The families of Luo Binghe's wives are usually thrilled with the match—or they are rebels and traitors that Luo Binghe grinds mercilessly under his boot heel. But that is different from someone simply introducing Luo Binghe to their family because they like Luo Binghe, and want him to be included. Luo Binghe's breath is tight in his chest; he tries his hardest not to think about what he admitted to Claudius, that he seeks love because he yearns for someone to find some good in him. He can't think it. It can't be so easy.

He cuddles up to Shen Yuan instead, pressing his cheek to the top of his head. When he was pursuing Shen Yuan, he was terrified by how much he was poised to lose. His entire world outside this place—he was prepared to trade it all for Shen Yuan, gamble everything on this last attempt to be happy. But Shen Yuan has lost far more. His body, his family, his life. And he was still willing to leave his new home, his new friends, even the disciple he betrayed, to be with Luo Binghe. Shen Yuan is just as vulnerable—no, more. Luo Binghe must make sure he, Luo Binghe, is worth it.

"I want that." His voice is shaking. "Another time. If you want to sleep more, we don't have to... I can just make it dreamless, if you want."

Shen Yuan shakes his head, but it's not about the dreamlessness—that would be good—or about sleeping more. His limbs are heavy, and he'd really rather die than do anything that means getting out of bed and thus out of Binghe's embrace. But—he can't introduce Binghe, even another time; because the people he would be introducing him to aren't here, and neither his brain nor Binghe's brain can conjure them up properly. Any kind of introduction he could make would also be a coming out, and he'd never know what they really would have said to that. He'll never find out. He'll always have this thing, this big, important thing about himself, that they'll never know.

He thinks of Magnus' Queer After Death t-shirt idea, and wants to laugh, but it comes out a choked little sigh. It doesn't seem fair, all of sudden, that he went through so much self-discovery after death; his self-knowledge should have stopped when everyone's knowledge of him stopped. How could there possibly be something so important to him that his mother won't know? What kind of fucked up injustice, that she'll visit his grave and mourn him wrong—mourn the life he could have had, the wife and children, not even knowing the things that really would—really do bring him joy, and fulfillment, and love?

Binghe's shirt is soft against his face. He tries to subtly wipe his eyes on it.

All Luo Binghe can do is hold him and stroke his back, aching and aching. "I," he says hesitantly. "I don't—I don't know how it feels. I didn't have a family I was close to, so I can't imagine losing that." He remembers how secure the child Shen Yuan was, when Luo Binghe skimmed through his mind, so many of his memories centered around his parents and siblings. So many people who loved him.

"But... You know that I lost my mother. I—I know that it's hard. There isn't anything to make it easier." He exhales a shuddery breath. "You just have to keep going—you have to be determined to keep going, like it's unthinkable that any amount of pain could stop you. And over time—it doesn't get any easier. But you realize that it cannot be unbearable, no matter how much it feels like it is, because you've already been bearing it so long. It must be something you can live with, because you still draw breath." He bites his lip. "And—I know it is a paltry consolation. But I'm here, and I can be as much family to you as I know how."

Shen Yuan pulls back enough that he can look up into Binghe's face, even in the dimness. "It's not paltry," he says, fiercely. "Don't say that about yourself. It's—incredible. You—" He wants to tell Binghe that he's the reason he can feel any of this at all, that somehow, being with him, being known by him, has unlocked a door inside Shen Yuan's heart and head, and that beyond the door is a selfish and yawning grief, and that none of this is Binghe's fault, but he doesn't know how to lock the door again. He wants to thank him, again, tell him how grateful he is for asking what he asked, today, even if Shen Yuan had ruined it. He wants to thank Binghe for everything, for the care he always takes with him, for always making Shen Yuan feel treasured but not weak, precious but not fragile.

But—but Binghe was talking about his mom, comparing their losses, as if Shen Yuan has any kind of leg to stand on, there. He shakes his head. "Your mother died, under horrible circumstances you couldn't control. My family, they're alive, they're fine. I'm—I'm being a fucking child."

"No," Luo Binghe says, just as fervently. "I did not say that so you would comfort me. You lost them. And they love you—I saw it in your dreamscape, when you were a child—and that is immeasurably precious." And Shen Yuan lost himself, that bright young man who died so unfairly—but Luo Binghe does not want to make things worse by reminding Shen Yuan of something he's still struggling to acknowledge.

"But—" Shen Yuan protests, "but—" It's so pointless, this grief. What's he supposed to do with it?

"My love," Luo Binghe says, a bit desperate. "I am unskilled at dealing with pain. To endure it is the only advice I have. If it were me—" He would bury it until he lashed out at whoever was closest to him, or find someone to share his bed so he could stop thinking. "All I can say is that amassing one hundred and seven more boyfriends would not help as much as you might think."

Shen Yuan bursts out laughing. He shakes with it, knocking his head against Luo Binghe's collarbone, hands clutching at his ribs, then flops over onto his back so he can giggle at the ceiling until it plays itself out with a hysterical little hiccup. "Just as well," he says, finally, out of breath. "I'd have a hard time finding that many boys who want to date me, anyway."

[open post - dream big]

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