"Honestly? I think that's more than fair." Shen Yuan sighs and leaves the kettle alone to do his thing, coming over to sit next to Nie Huaisang. "The whole thing was just fucked up from beginning to end," he says frankly. "That's no way to each anyone anything, for starters. If I'd caught any of the elders treating a disciple like that while I was still peak lord, I'd have thrown them off the damn mountain."
Seriously! Not even the teachers at Bai Zhan were that bad at their jobs! Shen Yuan takes a moment to imagine how Liu Qingge would handle it if he discovered a Bai Zhan disciple's personal things had been destroyed as punishment and can only conclude that blood would have been shed. Not that any Bai Zhan disciple would have had such a large collection of objets d'art in the first place, but...surely even they would have agreed with Shen Qingqiu (the second one) on the principle of the thing.
"The fact that he was your brother on top of that..." Shen Yuan takes his head, lips tightly pressed together. He feels so strongly about how wrong it all was that it's a struggle to get the words out without shouting. "Family shouldn't treat each other so poorly," he finally says flatly.
Huaisang hums his assent, although he doesn't quite care about the... proper ways to teach disciples things. Frankly, he's never considered himself a disciple; he is simply the second Nie son, and everyone should have left him the fuck alone if they were going to be so disappointed in his lack of enthusiasm for killing monsters with sabers. Honestly.
But still. There's a point there, surely. Teachers shouldn't teach so poorly; brothers shouldn't call their brothers good-for-nothings. He's not denying either of those things, certainly. It feels strange, to hear Shen Yuan so soundly sum up the issue, "Family shouldn't treat each other so poorly," like it's simple, like someone who has never lived a day in their family can make that call. Objective truth and the way it chafes against all of Huaisang's insides war briefly in his chest, although he merely frowns sitting there with Shen Yuan.
He finds he isn't angry, to hear Shen Yuan criticize Mingjue's treatment of him. Perhaps he would feel differently if it were some other thing about his brother's character, or if he hadn't just had his nerves rubbed raw by the flash of memory— but even back then, Huaisang had resented da-ge's fits of "discipline."
Where does that leave him, then, he wonders. Sat here in someone else's house, wondering if he should be more upset. If it would be allowed, by the ancestors and the heavens and whoever else, if he were more upset. He doesn't know.
"I suppose," he says, eventually. "He was my only brother. He kept me alive, you know, protected me. But, ah... I don't know. He was never going to accept me the way I am."
Ah yes, his outsider status. It's certainly weighing heavily on Shen Yuan's mind, making him question whether he has a right to even comment on this kind of thing at all. But still. The idea of just leaving it there, leaving Huaisang alone to wrestle with how his own brother treated him, is much worse. Shen Yuan would rather get yelled at for overstepping than that.
So instead he says, sympathetically, "It's no bad thing that he looked after you. But...it also seems to me," he says carefully, picking over his words like trying to walk through a field of sharp stones, "That that's the bare minimum of what he was supposed to do, as an elder brother. That he would and should have done those things for anyone who happened to share a father with him. But in terms of being a good brother of Huaisang specifically..." He shakes his head. "It seems like he fell pretty far short."
He opens his mouth to respond and closes it again, at a loss. Instinctively he wants to say, Well, no one has ever been a very good brother to me specifically, but that's petulant at best, and he has no real interest in reviewing all the ways people have disappointed him over the years. Da-ge is, in fact, bad enough on his own.
So he's quiet, and a bit sulky, even physically; just kind drooping lower and lower on this sofa in his misery.
"Our father died," he says, eventually. "I don't think anyone ever taught da-ge how to handle a whole sect before that happened." And so it was only logical that he, the spoiled second son, could be comfortably set aside while Mingjue attempted to wrangle the rest of his life. But that sounds like another excuse, so, "I don't really have the energy to wonder why he was the way he was anymore, Shen-ge. I'm exhausted, I don't want to- to carry him around all the time."
"You shouldn't have to," Shen Yuan says quietly. "I'm not sure -- I don't --" He sighs in exasperation, rubbing his own face. "I don't know anything about this," he finally confesses. "If my brothers were here they'd probably tell you I've never let go of anything in my entire life." That's a self-deprecating joke; Huaisang is welcome to take part or to ignore it as he likes.
"But it seems to me that Huaisang has carried this burden long enough. If he's tired from it, he should...he should be allowed to put it down."
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deercountry2022-11-23 11:23 am
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Seriously! Not even the teachers at Bai Zhan were that bad at their jobs! Shen Yuan takes a moment to imagine how Liu Qingge would handle it if he discovered a Bai Zhan disciple's personal things had been destroyed as punishment and can only conclude that blood would have been shed. Not that any Bai Zhan disciple would have had such a large collection of objets d'art in the first place, but...surely even they would have agreed with Shen Qingqiu (the second one) on the principle of the thing.
"The fact that he was your brother on top of that..." Shen Yuan takes his head, lips tightly pressed together. He feels so strongly about how wrong it all was that it's a struggle to get the words out without shouting. "Family shouldn't treat each other so poorly," he finally says flatly.
no subject
But still. There's a point there, surely. Teachers shouldn't teach so poorly; brothers shouldn't call their brothers good-for-nothings. He's not denying either of those things, certainly. It feels strange, to hear Shen Yuan so soundly sum up the issue, "Family shouldn't treat each other so poorly," like it's simple, like someone who has never lived a day in their family can make that call. Objective truth and the way it chafes against all of Huaisang's insides war briefly in his chest, although he merely frowns sitting there with Shen Yuan.
He finds he isn't angry, to hear Shen Yuan criticize Mingjue's treatment of him. Perhaps he would feel differently if it were some other thing about his brother's character, or if he hadn't just had his nerves rubbed raw by the flash of memory— but even back then, Huaisang had resented da-ge's fits of "discipline."
Where does that leave him, then, he wonders. Sat here in someone else's house, wondering if he should be more upset. If it would be allowed, by the ancestors and the heavens and whoever else, if he were more upset. He doesn't know.
"I suppose," he says, eventually. "He was my only brother. He kept me alive, you know, protected me. But, ah... I don't know. He was never going to accept me the way I am."
no subject
So instead he says, sympathetically, "It's no bad thing that he looked after you. But...it also seems to me," he says carefully, picking over his words like trying to walk through a field of sharp stones, "That that's the bare minimum of what he was supposed to do, as an elder brother. That he would and should have done those things for anyone who happened to share a father with him. But in terms of being a good brother of Huaisang specifically..." He shakes his head. "It seems like he fell pretty far short."
no subject
He opens his mouth to respond and closes it again, at a loss. Instinctively he wants to say, Well, no one has ever been a very good brother to me specifically, but that's petulant at best, and he has no real interest in reviewing all the ways people have disappointed him over the years. Da-ge is, in fact, bad enough on his own.
So he's quiet, and a bit sulky, even physically; just kind drooping lower and lower on this sofa in his misery.
"Our father died," he says, eventually. "I don't think anyone ever taught da-ge how to handle a whole sect before that happened." And so it was only logical that he, the spoiled second son, could be comfortably set aside while Mingjue attempted to wrangle the rest of his life. But that sounds like another excuse, so, "I don't really have the energy to wonder why he was the way he was anymore, Shen-ge. I'm exhausted, I don't want to- to carry him around all the time."
no subject
"But it seems to me that Huaisang has carried this burden long enough. If he's tired from it, he should...he should be allowed to put it down."