Chapter Text
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Shen Jiu was incredibly fascinated with the architecture of the Northern Desert Palace. As a personal guest of Luo Binghe, Mobei Jun had given him free reign of the palace and he was making liberal use of it, practically straining his neck as he wondered from room to room, staring up at the sweeping ice arches and long swirling stalactites that formed most of the ceilings.
He was currently in the empty throne room, head craned back, lips parted slightly in awe as he took in the thin sheets of multicolored ice that formed a living stained-ice picture over the majority of the hall. Streams of sunlight were still slanting down through them, dappling the court in shades of color.
"A-Jiu enjoys beautiful things." Came the familiar sing-song lilt of his demon lord's voice and Shen Jiu didn't bother to look in his direction.
"Nature is the only beauty that doesn't fade in this world." He replied, fan flicking up to hide his face.
"Oh?" BingHe prompted from across the room, obviously trying to bait him into continuing.
He felt generous. "Nature endures, despite what we do to it. Given time, it takes what we have broken and covers it with beauty again. If man could learn that trick, then maybe we could attain true beauty. " He turned his head to shoot a dismissive glance at the original protagonist of Proud Immortal Demon's Way. "Will Mobei Jun approve of you sitting on his throne?"
Luo BingHe raised a hand, equally dismissive, swinging one boot up to prop on the wide arm of the Northern Kingdom's icy throne as he lounged across it. "He's preoccupied with Consort Shang. I doubt he'll notice."
"Ah." Shen Jiu resisted rolling his eyes and simply turned his eyes back to the ceiling above them. "I see."
"A-Jiu..." It sounded like a half wine, half purr from BingHe's mouth, and Shen Jiu sighed.
"What?" He closed the fan with a snap.
"Don't you envy them?" BingHe asked, and Shen Jiu understood he wasn't talking about the lord of the Northern Desert and his consort.
"At the moment I imagine they're learning to cope with the fact they're all inventions from Shang QingHua's mind." He replied shortly. "I already made my peace with that and don't care to do it again."
BjngHe flicked an imaginary fleck of dirt off his silver robes - he was wearing silver, remarkably, today. Not black. "Don't you wish we could have what they have?" He repeated.
Shen Jiu tapped the ivory fan to the palm of his hand and kept his gaze affixed to the ceiling. "You told me you already knew I wasn't their Shen QingQiu. Why would you expect to have what they have?"
BingHe made a sound, a melding of discontent and acknowledgement, and sighed. "Come here." He commanded, his boot coming to rest back on the floor as he sat up in the throne.
Shen Jiu turned his eyes on the demon lord slowly, not really resisting but certainly not going to answer to that tone. He raised one eyebrow.
A year ago when he got dragged back into this world, he probably would have tried to murder Luo BingHe for daring to speak to him like he was some sort of vassal to be commanded around at the demon's whim. Now, he could hear the child-like whine in the undertone of BingHe' voice, the part of BingHe that most resembled this world's counterpart.
Now he found the commands less like commands and more like mildly irksome wishes that he could and would disregard at his own leisure. He was free to do as he wished. Admittedly, that often included stretching the demon lord's thin patience to the limit for the sheer amount of pleasure he got watching BingHe growl under his breath.
It was also incredibly attractive, watching the demon lord scowl and swallow down his own ego to lower himself to Shen Jiu's level.
"If your lordship pleases." BingHe made an exasperated mocking bow toward him, not even bothering to rise from the ice throne. His tone was annoyed.
Shen Jiu was feeling very generous. It was his first trip off the peaks since he and BingHe had slaughtered the slaver's caravan. He opened the ivory fan as he crossed the room, silver tassel jangling softly as he moved, and glanced idly up at the demon lord seated on the throne above him from the foot of the dais. "My Lord." He replied, with an equal amount of annoyance in this voice.
BingHe stared him down for a long moment and at last rose lazily, rolling his shoulders, "I have something for you."
"Oh, a gift for your Shizun. What a thoughtful disciple I have." Shen Jiu let the fan flutter to cover his smirk.
BjngHe stepped down the dais stairs slowly, almost threateningly, his form tall and imposing with the throne rising behind him.
Shen Jiu had stopped fearing him some time ago. He honestly wasn't sure quite when. Perhaps when he had seen that childlike wonder when Shen Jiu let him do his hair the first morning after their last talk on the peaks. The almost overeager fumble with the brush and steady determination to brush Shen Jiu's hair until it shone.
Shen Jiu didn't trust him. But he didn't fear him either. Maybe at some point over the last year they had both realized they were not what the other thought they were.
BingHe stopped, shoulder to shoulder with Shen Jiu and didn't look at the cultivator. "If Shizun would follow This Disciple." The smirk on his lips was eerily similar to Shen Jiu's own. He refused to acknowledge the demon lord and BingHe didn't insist, merely walking away. Shen Jiu let his eyes trail after him for a moment before he turned. BingHe didn't look back as he crossed the throne room, broad shoulders confident and relaxed. He seemed to act on the faith Shen Jiu would follow him.
He rolled his green eyes and started after the demon.
BingHe waited for him in the hall outside and didn't comment when Shen Jiu appeared. He merely slowed his long strides so they could walk side by side through the Northern Palace. BingHe led Shen Jiu to his own quarters, opening the doors and offering to let the cultivator enter first. Shen Jiu declined, and BingHe seemed amused, as though he had expected the reaction.
BingHe's quarters were simple, obviously intended for visiting officials not demonic royalty, but then again BingHe didn't have many personal items and he tended to travel light when he worked alongside Binghe and Mobei Jun, so Shen Jiu hadn't expected much.
A hand was waved toward the table near the window with an impatient, "Sit." Before BingHe moved into the back of the room. Shen Jiu felt very generous, and gracefully lowered himself to the seat there, staring out the window at the icy courtyard below. He watched the demon foot soldiers drilling there for a moment, reflecting how much had changed in the last year.
He should have felt uneasy at best, surrounded by so many demons and the heavy, nearly choking demonic aura that hung over the Northern Palace. But BingHe's aura was here too, in this room. It wasn't warm or particularly welcoming, and there was a decidedly deadly undercurrent to it. Yet for all that, he somehow felt more at ease around BingHe than all the cultivators at the peaks.
He had started mulling over the ball of feeling in his chest one by one, very slowly. He didn't enjoy introspection, but he could acknowledge that he felt safe around BingHe. Safer then he'd felt around almost any one else in his life. Maybe because as horrifying as it was to been seen fully for all his dark secrets and hidden pains by the demon who had surely murdered him in another world; maybe it was also a relief to be known for who he was. To be accepted.
Something long was set down before him on the table and he turned his gaze on it lazily, and then dropped his fan in his haste to seize it and cradle it in his arms. "Where did you get this??" He demanded, not quite able to tamp down the rush of excitement to his face. It echoed in his voice.
"The monsters we hunted had a horde and that was included." BingHe shrugged, nonchalant as he slid into the seat across from Shen Jiu. "I thought A-Jiu might find it to his liking."
Shen Jiu ran his fingers across the stung cords and listened to the sounds pulled from the engraved pipa, his lips pulling up subconsciously. "You had it tuned."
"Mn." BingHe agreed quietly, his chin propped in his palm, hiding his own small smile in his fingers. "Is A-Jiu pleased?"
Shen Jiu tried unsuccessfully to school his lips into a straight line but they kept twitching upwards. "I haven't played it yet, demon." He muttered, turning his face away to hide from BingHe's prying eyes. He ran his fingers over the strings again and hummed, closing his eyes to let the music flow through his fingers.
The pipa was light, beautifully inlaid with ivory and gold swirls, the wood stained a light sand color. The strings felt soft under his fingers, almost warm. It was as though the pipa delighted in being played again and he lost himself in the sound, letting his fingers move as they would, simply letting his heart play the strings.
"A-Jiu likes his gift." BingHe's voice rose over the music after they had sat with only the music between them for a long while.
"Shhh..." He replied, sounding more playful than he had intended.
BingHe laughed softly, almost kind, and replied, "This is a happier song than before."
"Mn." Shen Jiu couldn't correct him, because it was.
"I like this song." BingHe was smiling at him. Shen Jiu snorted, but he didn't stop playing.
"May this disciple try?"
Shen Jiu cracked one eye to look at the demon from under his thick lashes, a smirk on his lips. "You haven't trained in the pipa."
BingHe was smirking back at him, meeting his eyes and jutting his chin cockily. How difficult could it be, he jered.
Shen Jiu snorted and quieted the sound of his song with a finger laid across the strings, then handed the pipa over the table to BingHe and sat back with a cat-like smirk to critique his disciple’s imminent failure.
BingHe adjusted himself and settled the pipa in his lap, letting his fingers ghost over the strings before he started to imitate Shen Jiu's song of a moment ago.
Shen Jiu was not easily impressed by anything. He'd seen too many arrogant men puff themselves up just to fall flat for that. But BingHe was impressive. He fumbled more than once, his fingers struggling to find the correct frets, but overall the song was the same. Less fluid perhaps, but recognizable. It was probably that stupid protagonist halo Shen QingQiu and Shang QingHua were always prattling about, and Shen Jiu knew he should be annoyed. Annoyed that BingHe was just naturally good at everything and got all that he wished.
But he couldn't find it in his heart to be annoyed at the moment, just fluttering his fan to hide his face as he watched the demon lord playing the pipa clearly meant for a skilled musician, his long dark hair sweeping back from his overly focused face, the silver of his robes glinting in the fading sunlight streaming through the windows.
BingHe seemed frustrated though, his brow knotting as he played and he finally stopped, wetting his lips. "How does A-Jiu make it sound so natural?" He finally asked, frowning at his own fingers as he took them from the pipa. "It's like your fingers are at home on the strings."
"They are." Shen Jiu replied easily, reaching to take back the pipa and settling it in his lap, "Music was my only solitude for a long time."
BingHe watched him stroke the strings again gently and let out a slow breath, "Would Shen Jiu answer This Disciple something?"
Shen Jiu knew his habits of speaking now. He only used ‘This Disciple’ when he was being coy or trying to be endearing. Or like this, about to ask something more personal then they had broached before. "It depends on the disciple's question." He replied, not looking at BingHe.
"Why did you hate me so much? Was I not a good disciple?"
Shen Jiu let a tiny broken laugh escape his lips, dying away into a sigh. He'd been anticipating this question eventually. His fingers crossed the strings again, debating if he wanted to answer truthfully. "I didn't fully hate you. Not as you would call hate. Not in the time I had with you before Shen QingQiu took my place in this world." He finally sighed, watching an icejay dart in the sky outside the window. "You were the easiest to pick on. You reminded me of me. Small, weak. Too old to start cultivation, yet there you were desperately trying. And you were good at it. Clearly. If I'd let you advance like you could've, you'd have been teaching me at sixteen."
He sighed, bowing his head over the pipa. "Ming Fan was dumb. Easy to manipulate. Safe. You asked questions to things I didn't know the answer to. You advanced despite everything I did to push you back. You asked so many questions about me, about who I was and how I became who I am...
"You scared me. I worked so hard to hide my past from everyone, to hide who I was under layers of silk and manners and proper speech and yet... yet one pointed question from you was enough to tear all the layers I built aside and expose the blood on my hands. I felt like you saw me, and I didn't want to be seen.
"I despised you. I wanted to humiliate you so you would learn your place, because if you became stronger than me, if you knew who I was and what I had done, I thought... I knew you'd kill me. So I..."
He bit the inside of his lip, not looking at anything as his fingers stilled on the strings. "I don't know that I would have changed if Shen QingQiu hadn't taken my place. Maybe the Binghe of this world would have ended up a mirror of you. Maybe I'll still die at your hand. Maybe it was fear driving me to do those things I did to you. Maybe it became a habit, and there was no reason after a while. Maybe I would have hated you at the end. I don't know. I never got the chance to know.
"You said you saw me back when you were your Shen QingQiu's disciple. I didn't want to be seen. I'm still not sure I want to be seen." He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat, listening for any shift of fabric or change in the demonic aura around him that would hint BingHe was about to strike him. The demonic aura had closed around them, darkened with BingHe's mood, but it wasn't stifling. He could still breathe.
He drew another breath. "I suppose most people would say what I did to you was wrong. I... still don't know. I felt justified in that moment, doing whatever I had to to protect myself... just as I felt justified in taking the lives of the Qui family or slitting a slaver's throat to let his blood run to the ground. But... I don't have to face them every day for the rest of my life, and they did unspeakable things to me first which justified their ends.
"You were just a child. I know that, I do know that a child can't be held responsible, and I was the one responsible for you. I should haven't raised my hand to you or struck you or left you behind in training. I shouldn't have shut you out and tried to take away your light because really... I was repeating the lessons that were taught to me as a child. Maybe if I'd been a bit ... less afraid of being seen, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
BingHe exhaled softly across from him and he couldn't bring himself to look. "I cannot say I'm sorry because I..I do not know that I am?" He heard his own strangled laughter, "I'm sure you wrung an apology from his cracked lips before you strangled your Shen QingQiu. But I can't offer you that. I can't lie.... but I do ... I wish... I wish I had not been afraid of being seen by you. I wish I had responded better. I wish I hadn't acted in fear. I wish I'd never struck you or beat you or berated you in front of all my disciples. You're a truly remarkable cultivator - and ruler, I suppose? And I wish I'd not been so afraid to keep your light smothered. I wish I hadn't turned you into me. I wish I could have been the one to make you into him. This world's Binghe. I wish I had put you on a pedestal and let your light shine and maybe, if I was very lucky, maybe you would have let me share that light."
His fingers twitched on the strings as he let a soft, bitter laugh escape. "I know that's not what you wanted to hear. I'm sorry I can't give you what you want."
"Shen Jiu."
He jerked as strong fingers closed over his own on the pipa strings, and looked up reflexively to find BingHe's face very close to his own as the demon knelt before him. His sigil was burning brightly between them, casting a red light in the fading dusk.
It was almost intimate.
BingHe's eyes flickered. "I hate you. And I love you. And I am at war with both sides of myself because I know I should not feel these things for the same person. Every logical thought in me is screaming that I cannot feel both for one man. It is insane." BingHe's fingers tightened on his as the demon leaned closer, his breath hot in Shen Jiu's cheeks. "I have hated you until the end of one life, and it was not enough. I was left empty and wanting and alone."
Shen Jiu struggled to draw a breath between them as BingHe pushed closer still.
"So this time I intend to love you until the end of our lives; even if you will not return these feelings, I will never let you go. I will ever let you be alone or wanting or hurt or scorned again. I will make sure that you know you are treasured and wanted for all your scars and hidden secrets. I will make sure that you know I want you, no matter how much blood stains your hands or if you walk through a battlefield covered in corpses littered there by your own hands. I will still love you.
"All the things that you have done to me in the past - I have already taken revenge for those, and it left me wanting. This time I will let them go. They have already been paid for. All that you owe me is a smile and to let me walk by your side for the rest of our lives. I do not care if you do not love me in return. But I will love you, unfaded, untarnished, until both our bones have turned to ash. Until there is no ache left to fill, until both our memories have become too intertwined in the story of the world that they cannot possibly be separated from one another.
"That is what I want. That is what you will give me, and I will teach you that you do not have to fear being seen by someone who loves you."
BingHe leaned closer still, until his nose brushed against Shen Jiu's own and his heart nearly stopped in his chest. The dark warmth in BingHe's eyes was stealing all the heat from the room, filling it into his body instead. He felt like he was flying as he drowned under the sole focus of Luo BingHe's attention.
BignHe's lips quirked into a dark smile and Shen Jiu felt something spike in the pit of his belly as the demon's lips pressed to his temple.
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~ The end~