protagonisthalo | [closed post] drastic measures

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[closed post] drastic measures

Luo Binghe has been forced to remember how much harder everything was before he met Shen Yuan. Even with his lover by his side, being Luo Binghe was hard to bear. Any small hurt tends to stick and last within him, a hundred lacerations a day that refuse to heal. But Shen Yuan had a knack for making his anger and pain smaller and softer, burning away the mist with the sunlight of his smile. It was easier to let pain recede when his focus was on Shen Yuan's easy affection.

Now the world is once again a forest of thorns, impossible not to hurt himself against. Even if there is a possibility of having Shen Yuan back, it is not certain, and he is not here now. Luo Binghe has strayed so far, in his time here, from who he once thought himself to be. But it was easy when it was for the sake of Shen Yuan's happiness. Without him, and without any of the certainties Luo Binghe once formed himself around, there's nothing left in him but his tempestuous feelings.

He has been looking for Lan Wangji since learning he could speak to spirits, but Lan Wangji has not made himself easy to find. Least of all for Luo Binghe. In any other circumstance, he would be happy to let the man avoid him forever, their mutually animosity the only point on which they agree. But if Nina cannot find Shen Yuan, perhaps another cultivator can.

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"I can guess at its meaning."

"Like I said, I'll tell him you're done with hurting people unless they attack," Magnus says. "But, and this is me, like, guessing. Um, making an educated guess, but still. A guess. He might wonder if you'll interpret something as an attack that isn't meant as one. And it will take him time to get to a point where he might, like, accept that you mean it when you say that you don't mean further harm."

Luo Binghe hasn't hurt him this entire time; he thought releasing Claudius from the parasites was a clear enough statement of his intent to maintain peace between them. But fine. He is used to not being trusted. And for that matter, back home in his Empire, there are few people who would be wise to trust him.

He contemplates this, nudging a little more qi into the plant body through their linked fingers. The body does not look as a living human body would—it does not breathe, there is no pulse to quicken its blood, at least not yet—but it is unmistakably alive, radiant with spiritual energy.

"I've been reading about the Sun and Moon Dew Mushroom," he says finally. "In the library. It is a pure spiritual plant, and it cannot tolerate demonic qi. My powers are entirely incompatible with it. If Claudius wishes to study it, it's possible he could use it to... mitigate the threat he believes I pose." If Shen Yuan is watching, he would understand how difficult it is for Luo Binghe to cede control, to willingly give up information that could allow someone to overpower him. But physical harm is no longer the thing he fears most in this place, despite the evidence of a real threat laid out before him. Isolation would kill him slower and more painfully.

"I don't want to be lectured by him," he adds. "Or threatened, or scolded—told how evil and unreasonable I am—or quipped at or insulted or disrespected. Magnus"—a pleading note creeps into his voice—"my beloved is dead. I just want to be left in peace."

Magnus scoots a little closer to Luo Binghe -- still not touching, but enough that he can feel the warmth of Luo Binghe's body, and Luo Binghe can feel the warmth of his. "So, like, mutually ignoring each other?" he says. "And, like, obviously I'll be here the whole time he is. Or they both are. So I can, like, intervene if I have to." He thinks for a minute. "You could come up with a signal for me, maybe if you want me to, like, break the tension somehow, or redirect attention, or something. You both could."

In Shen Yuan's absence, Luo Binghe is more desperate for scraps of affection than ever. He is grateful for Magnus' proximity, and for his efforts. He remembers telling Shen Yuan his love language was acts of service, and then endures a crushing wave of sorrow remembering that Shen Yuan identified his own as physical touch. Why was he, of everyone in this mansion, chosen—by fate, or the Mansion's spirits, or Aornis—for this long, bleak separation? Some people might enjoy a period of contemplative solitude. Not Shen Yuan.

"I can ignore him. For a signal..." He taps his forehead with a claw, and makes his forehead sigil blink in and out several times.

Then he sighs, his gaze falling inevitably back to the plant. "It must be difficult for you. To mediate between us. It was difficult for Shen Yuan as well, to stand with me against his friends. I wish I were not so inconvenient to befriend. I am naturally difficult to love, I think, and all my life I've worked to make it more difficult out of stubbornness and spite. My wives at least had my wealth and status for compensation."

Magnus glances over at him. "I don't think anyone is naturally difficult to love," he says, and then asks, "Is that, like, something you want to change?"

"If not naturally," Luo Binghe says slowly, "then it suggests that I haven't tried hard enough. And—I understand that you have no knowledge of my past. It must seem simple, that if I wish to be better liked, I should behave in a way that makes others more inclined to like me. I'm not a fool. But you do not know how hard I once tried to be lovable, nor how poorly I was treated all my life regardless, until I gained enough power to stop it. I have never found it easy to earn love, but fear is a close substitute."

Magnus leans back and then lies down, stretching out on his back, arms folded under his head, staring up at the wood slats of the pavilion above them. "Is it?" he asks. "Like, is it... do you want to be treated well, or just not mistreated?"

Luo Binghe is inclined to bristle at the question—again, what has he been trying to do—but Magnus' casual posture makes it seem more like he is idly philosophizing than criticizing Luo Binghe. "Everyone wants to be treated well. But not everyone gets to be."

"What have I told you about where I come from?" Magnus can't remember; their conversations usually take a distracting turn. Like when Jack tried to fuck Xin Mo right in front of them, for example.

"You are seeking to delay the apocalypse as long as possible. Your world contains giants, jotunns, of all shape and aspect. You know many gods, and children of gods."

"Yeah. And, like, fate is a really big deal," Magnus says, with an eyeroll. "Prophecy, or whatever. It's, like, totally stupid. Everyone knows exactly how they're going to die and who they're going to betray and how they're going to be killed or whatever."

"Mm. I only know of one reliable oracle in my world, but she only predicts marriages."

"That makes sense for an erotica world, I guess," says Magnus, thoughtfully. "My point is, like... Fate is stupid. We shouldn't be constrained by it. Like, even back home, people are trying to make things speed up or slow down within what's predicted, and people still try and, like, shake up what they're destined to do or whatever. And even in a place like that, no one is... unlovable. No one is stuck forever in one way of being. It's just the, like, endpoints or whatever. So you especially have, like, wiggle room."

It's not enough to convince Luo Binghe to disbelieve the evidence of his lifelong experiences, but it is enough to convince him that Magnus truly means to be his friend. In the absence of Shen Yuan, every little gesture of care is momentous. He lets himself savor the ache of it for a moment before turning to Magnus, amused despite the tenor of the conversation. "It's not an erotica world. My own experiences aren't typical there."

"Oh." Magnus blinks. "Sorry, I thought Shen Yuan said it was an erotica world."

Luo Binghe smiles, despite a rush of bitter tenderness. "I think that is what he chose to focus on." The book Shen Yuan read about Luo Binghe was certainly erotica, but that doesn't mean everyone in his world was having as much sex as Luo Binghe. But he indulges himself with the memory of how flustered Shen Yuan was, admitting to reading so much pornography about Luo Binghe and various women—and Luo Binghe knows it wasn't the women he was interested in.

It's surprisingly easy to talk to Magnus about what's on his mind, perhaps only because he has been so sad, and Shen Yuan is unavailable. It's too much to bury inside, and he has now had a good deal of practice opening up to people he hasn't had sex with. There was a time when he would have only been so candid in the arms of someone who had already proven their care with their body.

"My point is," he says, smile fading, "that this world is entirely different from mine. I've never known circumstances where kindness and trust are ultimately rewarded, rather than punished. And by the time I learned the ways of this place, I had already cast myself out of its embrace. It makes one wonder... was I brought here as a joke? To show me what I could have had, if I hadn't had such a difficult life? To mock me with my inability to adapt? To show how corrupted I am, how monstrous I've become, how unsuited to the very life I once dreamed of as a child? Or was it meant to be a kindness? A sincere opportunity for happiness, that I, with my blackened and twisted heart, could not help but to ruin before a month had passed?" After all, the mansion spirits had brought him Shen Yuan, but then taken him away—murderer or no, there is no doubt that the house could have stopped Shen Yuan's death. Was it a punishment? A toy taken away from a young child until he learned to behave? Luo Binghe shudders; he does not like the idea of being under the thumb of some didactic authority.

"Um," says Magnus, thoughtfully. "Option C?" He twists his head to look over at Luo Binghe. "You really should talk to Lancelot, dude. But, like, I think maybe... I don't know. People have, like, circumstances or whatever. Fate or, like, shitty upbringings or metric craploads of violence or dead family or a history of, like, so many crimes, or whatever. But you don't have to get it right the first time here, right? That would be so stupid. If this is an opportunity to, like, overcome something big from home -- whatever circumstances made things suck -- it would be so stupid if you got one shot at it. And, like, you've been happy since your first month here, right? And you'll be happy again? Maybe you can use this time to really get set up for the future?"

Luo Binghe has all of the above: fate, a shitty upbringing, violence, dead family, and a history of so many crimes. He mulls over this for some time before saying quietly, "It would be easier with him here."

He isn't disagreeing with Magnus; he's come to much the same conclusion himself. It doesn't mean that he can't do it, or that it's not worth doing. But it feels important to acknowledge the devastating absence at his side, and what it means for him.

"Of course it would," says Magnus, just as quietly. "I mean, I bet he's here right now. Just chilling. Watching us talk." This, he knows, won't be particularly helpful, but it does bear pointing-out.

"Have you spoken with him?"

"Once, through Hanguang-jun."

"Did he mention anything about me?"

"He said that his, um, murderer came after him because you were a big threat to her and it was easier to get to him, or something along those lines?" He might be misremembering. He was pretty upset for that whole conversation. "Because you kept, like, fighting to defend this place," Magnus says. "See? You're already, like, doing the work. It's just that someone who can steal memories made sure no one knows about it."

Luo Binghe lowers his gaze to the dirt, his eyes burning. "That's a very kind thing to say."

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