deercountry | it's hard to be charming and smart and disarming

Entry tags:

it's hard to be charming and smart and disarming | november catch-all

Who: Jin Guangyao + select closed prompts + additional starters to come
What: After a near-miss with qi deviation, Jin Guangyao makes an effort to just, you know. Take it easy. This is easier said than done, because this is Trench, not a spa resort. (Also his blood is glowing through his skin occasionally, which is not ideal, and he is learning all about zealots.)
When: Throughout the first half of November.
Where: His home in the Willful Machine + The Sanctuary in Crenshaw + other locations as specified.
Notes: If you're keen on threading something, hit me up on plurk @ ragweed and we can figure something out.

Content Warnings: None currently but will update as needed.

I. Convalescence at Home (Open to existing CR)
[ooc: set during the week and a half of November.]

Jin Guangyao does not manage idleness well. Which is a shame, because idleness is what he has in abundance for the first two weeks of November.

He spends his time on mandatory bedrest for the first few days as his golden core gradually repairs the damage he inflicted upon it during his and Nie Huaisang's brush with death, able to do little more than occasionally sit up in bed and eat whatever food his friends are able to prepare after scrounging around in his cupboards. (More often than not, they simply order something for delivery, which saves everyone a lot of trouble.) But once he survives the most precarious stage of his recovery, it is good for him to get out of bed, to stretch his legs and move about his home. 'Light physical activity,' is what a doctor might prescribe, and so that is what he does, predominately in the form of some light housework, guqin practice in the courtyard, and meditative tai chi.

By the time this two-week period of homebound convalescence is up, he is chomping at the metaphorical bit to leave the house and do something useful. But he can't, and he's pretty cheesed about it.

II. The Sanctuary (Closed to Palamedes)
[ooc: set towards the end of the second week of November, after he is no longer homebound ~~and a bit pissy about it~~.]

His first destination upon finally being granted a bit more freedom of movement is the Sanctuary in Crenshaw.

It is impossible not to be drawn towards the tall sakura tree at the centre of the courtyard, and so Jin Guangyao does not even try. The energy that suffuses the place is indisputably positive and balanced, and he can already feel the effects of it soothing the ragged edges of his meridians, which still feel like recovering burn wounds, if burn wounds happened to your qi. (Just little cultivation problems.)

He is hardly the only person hoping to derive some spiritual relief from the tree today, but there is space near one of the roots for him to comfortably fold himself into a lotus position, and to meditate. So that is precisely what he does.

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Lan Xichen's smile is concealed behind a sleeve as Jin Guangyao lights up literally. Hey, he's the one who called him his pure white moonlight; Xichen is escalating the steps of their little dance.

(How many of those do they have anyway?)

"It suits Lianfang-zun well," he remarks offhandedly, eyes gleaming with a warm mirth despite his chilly blood. "Though may be troublesome if trying to remain inconspicuous."

(They are likely running out of steps, which means at some point soon they will have to actually acknowledge the thing between them that they are dancing around. That they have always danced around.)

It's one thing to nurse a wild hope to oneself in private and to seek it out it as a source of comfort when struggling to endure life in Jinlintai, and quite another to see the possibility of it suddenly no longer an unattainable thing, like walking on the mountains of the moon, but a fork in the path diverging ahead. A real path, with dips and pitfalls beneath his feet that he could choose to take, if he wanted to, and make this thing real.

He wants it so desperately that he's already started to lift his hand, to reach out and touch Lan Xichen's wrist again, but then stops himself. He swallows, and lowers it back to the table. There are so many reasons why this is such a wretched idea. Da-ge's death, protecting Huaisang from that knowledge, everything that Lan Xichen has endured, and Jin Guangyao is only beginning to understand the shape of it. He could simply allude, as he often has, in careful metaphors and asides, to any of those things.

What comes out of his mouth instead is a very quiet, "I'm still married, Er-ge."

It's a farce of an excuse, a cowardly sham--just like his marriage to Qin Su. But even that tragic mistake being what it is, he can't bring himself to dishonour her more than he already has.

There is a protest on the tip of his tongue. Your sister is dead, Jin Guangyao.

He swallows it.

It hasn't happened for him yet. Qin Su is still alive, still oblivious to ...everything.

He'll not break Jin Guangyao's heart.

"I know. My apologies for overstepping - I did not have any expectations beyond--"

Beyond our usual banter. It stings that for a moment there was that warm, bright familiarity, where they could speak without acknowledging the thing between them, because it was never something either of them could dare to reach for.

(But it was there. It is there. He suspects it always will be.)

"...I did not have any expectations. I know well what can and cannot be."

Jin Guangyao watches with pained eyes the warmth that had suffused Lan Xichen's face fade and dim, and it breaks something in him to see him hurting, and to know he is the one responsible for that pain. They are hamstrung by their circumstances, and yet--

"Er-ge," he starts again, hesitates, and then grants himself permission, just this once, to reach across the table and rest his hand against Lan Xichen's. It takes tremendous effort to lift his gaze up from where his fingers touch Lan Xichen's hand to meet his eyes, but he does it. Because he's the one who ripped open this wound, and he at least owes his dearest friend this much, and to say it while looking into his eyes.

He purses his lips, then tries again. "Er-ge, if... If things had been different--for you, or for me--if my situation in Jinlintai had not been--" There he has to stop himself and close his eyes, "--what it was." He takes another breath, and if there's a sad, pained little smile at the corners of his mouth, if there's just a touch of unsteadiness in his voice, he can be forgiven that, can't he?

"I mean to say," he murmurs, "that nothing would have given this lowly Meng Yao greater happiness than for you to have expectations of him."

He squeezes Lan Xichen's hand, eyes pained. "Please don't mistake this one's refusal for indifference. Please." It could not be further from the truth.

His throat and jaw are tight, but his eyes are dry. Lan Xichen has long mourned the possibility of them ever being able to change the nature of their relationship. Jin Guangyao isn't saying anything he hasn't told himself a thousand times.

(Except that there once may have been a possibility and Lan Xichen wants to scream before throwing that on the pile of regrets, but he can't. He can't.)

He pushes it down, that awful hope that manages to drag itself out of some part of him every once in a while, and he wonders why, even after all this time, he still doesn't know any better.

"I have never thought you indifferent," he protests, a thin crack splitting his voice. He doesn't shake Jin Guangyao's hand on his arm off, but he doesn't dare reach for it in turn, because if he does he won't be able to let go.

Please, some part of him begs. I already had to let go once.

"And A-Yao has never been lowly in this one's eyes. He has always thought of him in the highest possible regard."

He manages a tight, thin smile, because the ache of putting this to words, putting it to rest is like putting down some pained and starving creature; some cruel and terrible mercy, but the only one available to them.

"As I said, I know what can and cannot be. This has always been enough."

His eyes fall to the hand on his arm, where he can feel the warmth of Jin Guangyao through his silks. He wishes he was warm too.

"Perhaps in another life, things will be simpler for us."

It hurts, to say and to hear these words spoken aloud, but there's a sweetness to the pain of them, too. Because even beneath the aching knowledge that Jin Guangyao is dousing hope's little flame in his heart, there is something like relief in having the truth of what they feel for each other spoken aloud. (Even though, even now, they still speak around it delicately. But that isn't unusual, and they both know the word that describes how they feel, and yet cannot say.)

Maybe a little of it shows in his eyes, a flicker of faint joy behind his eyelashes, before it cracks like spun glass. He looks down at Lan Xichen's hand under his and gently strokes his thumb over his knuckles, a cruel indulgence, stealing tenderness from him like this, but he's always been this kind of person, hasn't he.

"In another life," he promises quietly, "this Jin Guangyao will find a way." But of course he can make promises like that now; they both know there is no way he can ever be held to his word, not even in Trench.

He doesn't want to let go of Lan Xichen's hand because he knows that when he does, he will never be able to indulge in a gentle touch like this again without bringing them back to this moment of heartache. The years of plausible deniability around this, and all the allowances those years had granted them, have come to an end. There's a bit of a tremble in his fingers, and his lower lip, as he forces himself to let go.

"I'm sorry, Xichen."

He shakes his head.

"You don't need to--"

Lan Xichen's words die in his throat as Jin Guangyao brushes his thumb over his knuckles, an echo of something before, a last fond farewell trying to say what no words couldn't, the blood still hot and slick on his hands even after...

He looks up and it's Jin Guangyao looking at him in his familiar shades of gold, stained red from his missing hand, from the wound his belly, from the blood streaming out the corner of his mouth, his expression agony as a grey hand reaches to close its fingers around his throat, and his own arm is let go so he can be pushed out of harm's way --

Xichen is staring at Jin Guangyao, but not seeing him (not seeing the reality, at any rate), his face white as a sheet, eyes stricken, and breathing panicked. He makes a move as if to grab Jin Guangyao's arm, to pull him back to safety and --

He blinks, gradually coming back to himself. He is not in Guanyin Temple, this is not Jin Guangyao's death, so why does it feel like the world is ending...?

Oh. Right.

His fingers close around empty air and he quickly pulls his hand back to his side. He has no business reaching for Jin Guangyao. Not now, not ever.

"You do not need to say such things to me," he breathes, heart still racing. "I am the one who owes the apology."

Edited 2022-11-07 21:18 (UTC)

He had expected pain to follow this moment and had braced himself for it, but what Jin Guangyao does not expect is the look of stricken, horrified anguish on his face. It is an expression that goes beyond heartbreak, to a place that Jin Guangyao has only been one other time, watching from the end of a long corridor as Huaisang cried out at the sight of their da-ge collapsing under the agonizing pain of his qi deviation. The sight of it had cut him to the quick then; on Lan Xichen, it might have wounded him less if he'd taken Hensheng and thrust its blade through his own heart.

He's read the most recent network posts regarding the state of the Tower, he knows what he is most afraid to see himself (though blessedly, the hallucinations seem to have spared him so far).

"Er-ge," he starts, his fear for Lan Xichen overwhelming his heartache almost immediately, "whatever you've seen, it isn't real."

(It would be nice if that was true.)

It was real though. Perhaps not in that moment, but...

It was real and he hated himself for it.

Lan Xichen hasn't checked the network recently, he isn't quite sure what just happened (though he's experienced something similar with regards to the razing of the Cloud Recesses, it was never so vivid).

He's still staring at his clenched hand, devoid of blood, then looks to Jin Guangyao to ensure that yes, yes this is reality. He's alive.

"I'm sorry, I saw you--"

He can't finish. I saw your death.

But there is something else now, and his gaze moves past Jin Guangyao's shoulder to the door where he spots a girl peering into the courtyard. Without hesitation, he gets to his feet and pulls a talisman from his robe, flinging it in her direction, but she's already gone. Run off, vanished, her faint laughter fading on the breeze. He stands stock still, staring intently at where she stood only a moment ago.

"...Did you see her...?" he asks, almost a whisper.

Lan Xichen doesn't have to finish the sentence. Jin Guangyao can finish it for him just by watching his face.

There is one brief, acute moment where he looks like he is about to break his own rule, where he is about to reach out again, because how can he not when Lan Xichen is looking at him with such pain in his eyes--but in an instant it is over, because Lan Xichen has flung a talisman past his shoulder, and Jin Guangyao's mind switches gears in an instant. He is on his feet and, wise decision or not, pure instinct has him summoning Hensheng into his free hand, where the blade hums with spiritual energy, ready to respond to his commands.

If only he was better prepared to give them. The exertion immediately makes him list a bit to one side, and he has to catch himself against the trunk of the maple tree, but he fends off any efforts to dissuade him by Lan Xichen with a look, because if they are in danger, then he truly has no choice.

"Where?" he asks Lan Xichen, searching the doorway to the parlour, for that is the only door that remains open. Then he hears it, a distant giggle that does indeed come from beyond those doors, and his eyes widen a fraction. He slips a hand into his sleeve to pull out a talisman of his own (though, he hopes, he won't have cause to use it).

He won't patronize Jin Guangyao and tell him to go hide rather than defend himself in his own home, but his friend is still recovering from a qi deviation.

Normally, they would fight side by side or back to back, but right now, Lan Xichen plants himself firmly between Jin Guangyao and where he had seen the strange girl. He knows his friends talismans - nobody that wasn't thoroughly welcome would have a time getting through that door, and yet that child had slipped in so casually...

Of course it was no ordinary child, but it remained to be seen just what it was and what it intended.

He inclines his head toward outside the walls surrounding the courtyard; he can still hear her faint giggles circling the perimeter. Perhaps she could breach the door but go no further.

Jin Guangyao had been thorough.

"Stay close," he says, approaching the open gate.

He doesn't even need to ask. Jin Guangyao falls into step beside him and approaches the gate.

It should not even be open, which is a strange and alarming enough mystery, but he shelves that concern for now. Once they have ascertained that there is no imminent danger, he will ask for Lan Xichen's help in shoring up the talismans and laying down some additional arrays on the property, because there is no one better at such things than the esteemed Zewu-jun. But that must come later.

When they reach the open gate, Jin Guangyao reaches out a hand to let his fingertips hover near the wood of it, but senses nothing unusual, no surge of resentful or evil energy; he carefully pushes it a bit further ajar, and there comes that distant, childlike laughter again. He startles, catching a glimpse of a braid darting down the thoroughfare, but before he can move to follow her, he hears something else instead, and it chills his blood--

"--Meng Yao!"

A horrible, familiar voice, full of rage and simmering violence, but when Jin Guangyao whips around to face it, face grey as ash from his fear, there is no one there. Just a few strangers on the street hurrying on their way home, who give both cultivators a wide berth (weird shit always seems to happen to the Sleepers). Jin Guangyao's wide eyes search the corners of the streets, but no, he isn't here, he can't be real--

"Er-ge, did you hear--?" His voice cracks. He can't finish asking the question.

He shakes his head.

"Only her laughter. Did you--"

Lan Xichen turns his head to look at Jin Guangyao from over his shoulder, and his jaw clicks shut. Only once has he seen him look so utterly petrified and that was when he found the fierce corpse of Nie Mingjue break in to the temple grounds.

He's facing Jin Guangyao fully now, both his hands on his shoulders to steady him, their earlier conversation forgotten in the presence of his obvious distress.

"A-Yao," he says gently. "He isn't here. Whatever you heard, whatever you saw is an illusion."

"Meng Yao!"

He hears it again, but this time it is more than just Nie Mingjue's voice. This time, Jin Guangyao hears the drag and scrape of steel, of a sabre's deadly edge ringing out against a scabbard as Lan Xichen blocks a strike intended for him. He jolts bodily and sucks in a sharp breath at the sound, as though transported back in time to that horrible moment in Wen Ruohan's court, and he blurts out a rushed, "Zewu-jun..!" as his fingers seize tightly in Lan Xichen's sleeves.

It isn't real. He knows it isn't real. But it could be. If the powers that brought them all to this place could reunite him with Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang, then it is hardly beyond the realm of possibility that one day, he could turn a corner and see Chifeng-zun waiting for him, Baxia in hand.

"He's going to kill me." He drags his eyes back up to Lan Xichen's face, his own stare hard, certain, his jaw tight. "If he finds his way here, er-ge, he's going to kill me." Over and over again.

Jin Guangyao is panicking which... isn't good. They need to keep their heads on straight (ha!) if they hope to get through this, and they're already being affected. Whatever is doing this is going right for the jugular and when he sees the terror etched deep into the lines of Jin Guangyao's face he feels...

...angry.

His grip on his shoulders tightens, his jaw set.

"A-Yao," he says, gentle but determined as the ceaseless current of a river. "I will not let that happen. I--"

Grey fingers come into view, reaching from Jin Guangyao's throat, and Lan Xichen yanks him away in a leap backwards onto the wall around the courtyard, his arms around him in a protective embrace as he searches for any sign of Nie Mingjue's fierce corpse.

Another illusion.

"We cannot trust our eyes or our ears," he explains. "And we need to calm down. Whatever is doing this is using our fears to unsettle us."

~~this is Trench just trying to make them touch each other a lot, isn't it~~

"...Whatever is doing this is using our fears to unsettle us."

"It's working," he blurts out almost spitefully, like a cornered animal lashing out in a desperate bid to protect itself. At least his frightened fury isn't directed at Lan Xichen in this moment; he is still tightly clutching to his friend's sleeve, and whatever embarrassment or awkwardness he might feel about their proximity after their earlier conversation has been shelved until the danger has passed.

(None of that changes his certainty about one thing, however: if Nie Mingjue were to appear in Trench, Jin Guangyao would once again have to kill him before his sworn brother could kill him first. Perhaps if he's sent back into the sea, his resentful energy could be dispelled once and for all, and perhaps he would re-enter the wheel of reincarnation in their world and never come back--)

Ṭ̴̝̇͐͠h̸̦́̊̏́ë̴̥́̒̂ ̵̨̘̗̹̑T̸̨̠̬̜̍ō̶̺̒̿ͅw̷̯̫͕̫͆̓e̷͚͕̯͋̿͋r̶̳̈́̉̈.

The thought reaches his ears like a disjointed whisper, and Jin Guangyao looks sharply to the side to try and identify the source of it, but all he sees is Lan Xichen, still surveying the road for threats. "Did you hear--"

T̵͉̠͍̳̎̈́͠ĥ̷̪͎̪̀̓e̴̟̊ ̴͉̐T̶̤̎̈́̌̽ơ̵͇̆̈͛w̵̛̱͚͗̑̇ͅè̶̗͕̫̄r̷̼̫̍̊͘͠ ̶̪̫̿͘í̸̭̲̹́́͊s̵͕̒̇͋̀ ̸͙̘̟̰̀̚ẅ̸͖̲́̆̾e̸̙͓͂͑͊̿a̸̞͑̄̄k̷̜̳̈́͊̌̄e̶̼̼̺̹͑ṅ̴̗̳̊̕i̵̠͊͒͆̂ǹ̴͕̩ġ̴̭̹͇̬ ̷̦̗̊a̴̧̗̱͓͂̒̇͛n̵̲̝̾̽̐̊d̵̥̖̮͛̐̊ ̴̥͌̐̈́̃s̶̡̯̯̈́̔̚͠o̷͈̓́̀̚ö̷̢͙̫̺̽͝n̶̡̼̽̓͆̄ ̶̱̊̍͘͝s̷͖̀̌ḣ̵̦̳̝͓̓a̷̞̣̘͍͆̉̇͒l̶͎̠͒̈́l̴̟̐̑̓ ̷̝͘͝f̷̛͇͇a̶̻͑̔̿̕ḷ̶̛͇͂̅͗l̸̢̗̹̓͐̀.̴̫̗̉̎͜͜

...oh.

It is like someone has cut the line of tension running through Jin Guangyao's shoulders as the clarifying thought settles into place in his mind, and distantly, he becomes aware of one last shout from their da-ge's spectre, before it fades away into nothingness. He stares at the street below them, blinking his eyes as though trying to dispel some persistent afterimage from his vision. Then he looks to Lan Xichen again and obeys a compulsion that he only partly understands: "Er-ge," he starts, tries to catch his gaze, and repeats the words that he had heard in his own mind, "the Tower is weakening and soon shall fall."

Xichen's mind is fluttering like strings of lanterns, ribbons dancing in the periphery of his vision as the memory closes in around him. Guanyin looms above him, their face so like and unlike Jin Guangyao's...

Meng Shi, writ in gold, ever merciful, watching over her son's last moments as he was dragged to disgrace, dismemberment, and death. Xichen tastes the copper taste of blood and betrayal and grief and the churning turmoil of things he does not know how to reconcile.

There are Lan Sect elders on either side of him, a coffin before him and reality is setting in.

Jin Guangyao is dead. Jin Guangyao betrayed his trust. Jin Guangyao committed horrible atrocities.

It should be easy to hate him, to never forgive, and simply harden his heart as would be expected. Do not associate with evil men, and all. (Does even a single evil deed constitute an evil man? If not, when does one cross the point of no return?)

It should be simple; black is not white.

...And yet, the world without his friend seems so much worse than even these revelations, and now he will be sealed for a hundred years and it is only because of Lan Xichen's ignorance that three people he loved are now lost to him.

He can never condone his father's choices, but now he can, at last, understand them.

Tears fall from his cheeks, his gaze focused on something that is not there, fingers dug into Jin Guangyao's shoulders, frost condensing around them as an array for sealing something begins to form in his outstretched hand.

The Tower is weakening and soon shall fall.

He's not sure if it's Jin Guangyao's voice or the words themselves that cut through the vision, the memory receding as the familiar 9and oddly comforting) scenery of Trench floods his senses.

The array dissipates, and Xichen stares down at Jin Guangyao in confusion.

"...What...?"

Jin Guangyao is staring back up at Lan Xichen with bits of frost still clinging to his hair and the ends of his eyelashes, though it sublimates directly into the air around them as the effects of the clarifying thought take root. Abruptly, they are just two men standing right up in each other's space atop the wall around the siheyuan's inner courtyard. There are a couple of bystanders hanging out on the opposite side of the street looking up at them with obvious nosy interest.

Their onlookers might as well not exist. Jin Guangyao doesn't look away from Lan Xichen and covers one of the hands on his shoulder with his own. "Let's--strengthen the wards and arrays around the siheyuan," he suggests, since his silver tongue is failing him in every other respect.

Xichen slowly releases Jin Guangyao's shoulders with a muttered apology, trying not to think about how this may be the last time he will likely ever touch the other man.

(Because now they cannot even have that, not without the faint acknowledgement of this thing between them, too big and bloodstained and painful to touch now.)

"Yes," he says, because something like normalcy needs to intrude on this. Busywork and such, to keep away the dark things slinking through the night.

(But even the talismans didn't work and he tries not to think about it, because right now he'll take anything to take the edge off right now, even if it's a placebo.)

His hand hovers in the air where it had been resting against Lan Xichen's, before he recalls why this withdrawal has no right to sting as much as it does. Then he curls his fingers in on themselves and swallows, looking away.

Jin Guangyao doesn't say anything else as he risks expending a modest amount of spiritual energy to help himself glide back down to the pavement outside the gate. He does have to steady himself against the wall as he lands, but that minor discomfort is nothing compared to the knowledge that he has shattered something precious and irreplaceable. He sheathes Hensheng once again and disappears back into the courtyard, trusting Lan Xichen to close the gate when he comes back inside.

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it's hard to be charming and smart and disarming | november catch-all

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cw: ptsd flashback, severed hand mention

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