barkonthetree

Inuyasha, this is Shen Qingqiu. [ His voice likley makes it obvious but introductions and greetings are important! ] You wanted to know more about who I saw die?

[The very second the connection opens:]

What?

[Who the fuck is making this thing screech not once but multiple times in a row? What a horrible song! Pay attention to meeee, pay attention to meeee!!

—oh.]

Eh? You again?

[It's somewhat strange, being arrested out of the blue for a chat. Inuyasha had assumed he could just drop in on the guy sometime when he stopped feeling sorry for himself.]

Oh. Uh...okay.

[He goes silent.

....

......

Well???]

[ Wow he's so quiet all of a sudden???

For a moment then, he's also silent, wondering if Inuyasha is going to say... anything else.

Then he doesn't, and Shen Qingqiu raises an eyebrows before speaking himself. ]

... Do you have time to come by where I'm staying today?

[ STILL NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION OVER A PHONE he's stubborn about this one ]

Huh? If that's all you meant to say why did you choose to talk?

[As opposed to text, which is more efficient and whose alarms don't screech like a furious bird.]

I'll find you then.

[It's a yes?

There's a whooshing sound. Yes, it's yes. Prepare thyself.]

[Shen Qingui is probably going to need a second welcome mat for his window sill. Some twenty minutes after his last missive, there is a sudden whump. The sun is blotted out.

There's a half demon stuck to the outside of your building, feet perched on the precious edge that bridges the window to the outside world. His claws bore holes into the siding for purchase, a one handed grip that lets him reach to irately knock on the glass. He glowers at the shadowed interior.

Let him in or he'll bust his way through.]

[ The window is already unlocked, but not open, as he's not inviting in whatever flies by... just, apparently, brothers with a tendency to enter the scene in the same way. Shen Qingqiu moves through the shadows inside to stand by the window, reaching out to swing it inward, inviting Inuyasha in with the same gesture. ]

I begin to wonder if doors are simply not inviting enough for demons on your world.

[ Seriously, what is with the freaking windows as an entrance and exit?! Should he be thankful no one's crashing through outer walls?!

He gives Inuyasha a curious look, because something else occurs: ]

You tracked this location down... by... scent?

[ He sure knows Inuyasha has not made him swallow any of his blood, so there's no way in hell that he has demon blood GPS working! None! So suppositioning between those ears, certain behavioural tics, and his elder brother, this is his closest guess.

Likewise, he can scent that Sesshomaru was here for a period of time in days prior, and older than that, the scent of blood that's been washed out but not entirely gone. There are other people's scents, too, but harder to pick out by now, past those Inuyasha probably already knows. ]

[He drops in with scarcely a sound and assumes his customary stance at once. Back straight, arms folded, nose held high and insouciant.]

What? Should I take a door, then the stairs, then two more doors to get here? What a waste of time.

[Mortals might be bound to the earth, but if they had the option they'd just cut to the chase too. Besides, these buildings went too high and he loathes the levitating boxes that move up and down in their middles. It doesn't feel natural, and being boxed in like that makes you vulnerable. A perfect place to lay a trap.]

How else would I...

[Because no one is feeding anyone blood around here??? that's gross your demons are gross

No matter — his attention is jolted elsewhere. Inuyasha trails off not in uncertainty, but with a sharp look forward, nostrils flared and pupils thin as paper nicks. Shen Qingqui becomes invisible to him. He stalks forward, sniffing audibly. There is old blood. Hard to tell whose now, the dead friend or the man himself. The nature is obfuscated by a fouler stench.

He stops dead still where mere days ago, an elegant man in white had sat for a cup of oolong tea. He looks over his shoulder to his host. His scowl has thinned, annoyance honed to taut suspicion.]

...You keep some shitty fucking company, you know.

Sesshomaru is your half brother, isn't he?

[ He doesn't pretend not to know who Inuyasha's talking about, because he sees no point in not making it clear what he knows. ]

He was concerned for my person... though his advice was terrible.

[ He offers something of a half smile when he says so bluntly. He figures with Inuyasha, speaking bluntly (if not crassly) is a better course of action, and while he closes the window again, he leaves it unlocked as before. Then heads unhurriedly toward his kitchen. ]

I've never been one to particularly advocate hate. [ Only when trying to convince his disciple he had to leave, and even then, he'd been unhappy about it, scrambling for the right combinations of words to get Binghe to choose his own way. He'd failed, in the end. In more than one way based on things Binghe has said to him before he died. ] Tea?

And a full pain in my ass, yeah.

[More like a pain in his organs, which seldom kept their sanctity in the presence of his lordship. Inuyasha watches the man closely as he answers. Is it more or less suspicious that Shen Qingqui remains unflappable? It's as if he invites daiyoukai to his home on any old whim.]

Concerned? Keh! [He could spit. He makes the exclamation with the force of one.] Don't delude yourself. That bastard only has two shits to give, one for his hair and one for his ego. You probably had something he needed to know, that's all.

[He's admonished for his bile (and it's met with a snort and a toss of his hair, haughty and refusing to meet eyes any longer) before Shen Qingqui moves to play at hospitality. Tea would be nice.]

I don't care. Do whatever you want.

[Foul fraternal odors aside, Inuyasha did still want the full story. He drops into a seat on the floor, all limbs crossed now and his scowl still searing holes in the window.

...Come to think of it, how did the guy know they were brothers right away? Were they talking about him behind his fucking back?]

[ He listens to Inuyasha vent and state his point of view, which from what he knows, makes sense... given Sesshomaru's statements and claims toward his intentions and behaviours toward Inuyasha.

Tea, however, is easy, and he opts for a green tea given present company, something light brewed and decently flavoured.

The kettle's been sitting hot, and he turns it back on, the water boiling to temperature within seconds. Did he go for an electric kettle?

Yes! He did! He caved and bought one of them because he saw it on sale! Don't judge him for embracing modern conveniences where they neatly dovetail with his non-modern lifestyle!

He speaks while he measures out tea into the pot, pouring in water after. ]

I did, as you say, have something he needed to know. That I hadn't sought my own death in some series of events when he did not notice.

[ He moves two cups onto the tray he'll bring everything over on, movements familiar, route, comforting. ]

I don't believe that caring comes easily to him. Yet you're not here to hear about your brother.

[ When he sets the teapot with its brewing tea on the tray, he flicks his sleeve so that it winds around his arm, keeping them close as he lifts the tray and walks quietly back to the table. He sets it down with little more than a soft tak of wood settling on wood. ]

During the course of the fight on the rooftop of the Obscuria building, a person very important to me received significant injuries. He'd been neglecting the necessity of moonlacing by choice, and had no chroma left in order to heal.

[ It's such a simplified version, but it's the direct truth, and it's what has been twisting Shen Qingqiu up for weeks. He sat as he spoke, giving the tea a further few minutes to steep. His eyes lift, regarding Inuyasha where he is on the floor. ]

He died in my arms. Crystalising shortly after his heart stopped beating.

[ He remembers everything about how that'd sounded, how it'd smelled, how it'd tasted, but he doesn't need to mention those things, and so with a thin veneer of his own calmness over the anger that rises again remembering, easier than the grief and the loss and the guilt that had been overwhelming at the time, he simply turns his attention to the teapot and lifts it, pouring out two cups of tea.

He's left propriety and order for even this small pleasantry behind. Easier than the awkwardness of navigating whose sense of propriety they were meant to be following, and he rather suspects on a pure "years alive" sense, Inuyasha is probably older than he is... so he can pat his own back and say of course he'd be the one pouring tea. ]

You're damn right I don't.

[Which is partly a lie. If Sesshomaru was here to inquire about the well-being of this man, then what was their relationship? It was possible he was curious for the same reasons Inuyasha was.

Yet...there were many strange things about Sesshomaru he didn't understand. Some of his behaviours before he arrived here were already contradictory. Once he'd arrived unexpectedly to stop his rampage as a full demon, and told the rest the secret to quelling his blood. There was that little girl Kohaku had kidnapped, chasing after his feet with no reprimand from the demon lord.

Here, there was his curiously peaceable entrance. His oddly phrased questions. His batting back and forth between motives, and how he'd spoken to Matthias about the idea of Inuyasha being killed. Not just by him, but some other force.

But Shen Qingqui returns with his tea and he dashes the musings away. If the two of them are allied then he can't trust that anything he says or does won't find a way to Sesshomaru's ears. He doesn't believe this man would intend him harm. He's been wrong before, but his impression is that of a rather easy-going sort over a schemer. Shen Qingqui seems to take many things in stride, so maybe the company of daiyoukai wouldn't phase him.

He takes a sniff of the teapot when the man's back is turned all the same. The coast is clear there, and touching it burns him only in the sense of heat. No holy seals concealed beneath.]

Neglecting it?

[It's not a shock. He can understand very easily how one would shun the touch of others. It's only with the greatest reluctance that he's found himself bending to the moon's will. There are things he's done that shame him deeply, and he's not certain if forgiveness is something he can give to himself, much less expect from Kagome. Worse yet, Matthias was in the same position. His fabled Nina waited for him just as Kagome did.

Neither one wanted the other, their hearts were locked away with someone else. Yet they kept skirting the other's edges, blurring dangerous lines. If Matthias had left him alone in the alley that night, would Inuyasha have died from the chroma drain by morning?

It was a cruel trick, this system. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.]

...You mean even holding him wasn't enough to help? [The damage done must have been great. Barbarus was a terrible opponent to face. Shen Qingqui pours the tea and pulls no faces save for the serene. The peaceful. The content.

Then why does it feel like the snap of a reed could plunge the air into chaos?]

Who was he? This dead man. [He shifts some in his seat and takes the cup in ginger claws.] How did he come back to life?

[ It's painful, being locked a world away from the one you love. Shen Qingqiu knows nothing about it, not romantically, but in the times he remembers his family that he left too soon, there are other loves, other pains... just not ones that matter so much here. For the best, in his case. He's as hopeless a romantic as they come, and one who would never know to admit it.

As for cruel systems, those he knew intimately well. One was the very framework of his world, and his second life, as well as the guard of what would be his afterlife, he supposed. The system on this world feels practically kind in comparison.

As long as one ignores how death doesn't have a hold for them, where it does for the prismals. That's unsettling in a whole different way.

His calm breaks after that question about what didn't help, pain still too raw flashing across his features before he schools himself into neutrality. His voice is tight, quiet, when he speaks. ]

No. It wasn't. Not even kissing...

[ Don't mistake him for a pervert! He's not! But he'd been desperate, and kissing had helped with healing at the fucking tournament, and with Glow, and he'd hoped—had wanted so badly for it to fix what was broken—and it hadn't. It hadn't done anything except allow a stubborn asshole to cling on to life just a little more, and blind as he was, pull his mentor closer and kiss him back with the same desperation. He hates that he still doesn't believe in that moment it was because Luo Binghe wanted to live. (He's also ignoring the kissing back. Details.)

He takes a sip of too hot tea, because the burn is preferable to the memory of the taste and smell of blood in his mouth. He wakes up from nightmares where that taste still lingers on his tongue, which is a whole new disaster to live with. ]

My disciple. [ He stares down into his cup, feeling the burn on his tongue that means he's not going to taste any of this. He lifts his gaze, studying Inuyasha for a moment. He almost says, my half human, half demon disciple, but this isn't the moment for it. He collects that pain underlying his voice, draws it in deeper. Still there in his eyes, but both the anger from earlier and the grief that hasn't found resolution is buried again, deep in his chest. ]

As for how, I can only suppose... I don't know how sensitive you may be to the energies of the world around you. Does chroma have a scent to you? A feeling? [ He shakes his head. ] From what I sense, the chroma we shed is absorbed by the world around us... anything living, and apparently, that which isn't living in the most easily understood sense. If he acted like the world here acts, then his crystal and body collected enough chroma to repair itself, and when he had enough to live... the crystal encasing him cracked to pieces.

Edited 2019-07-28 04:54 (UTC)

[The mask is beginning to fracture. Inuyasha feels a squeeze in his chest. Would the man cry? He has no idea how to console a sobbing man. Not a woman or child either. He's a piss poor participant for regular conversation, heaven help him when it comes to giving comfort.

Moreover, he can feel echoes of the despair ring within his own mind. He knows that sort of helplessness. Shen Qingqui carries on but he can hear his throat cinching around his words like it plans to snip them in two. And no wonder: it's a disciple.]

Someone from home? [It must be. No one has been here long enough to study much of anything, not to a degree that would illicit tears from their teacher. The man holds it together now, but he imagines on the day it was impossible to refrain. Kissing wasn't enough, medicine wouldn't have fixed anything. Too little too late, and something that could have been prevented too.

Pride could kill you here. He wonders what will happen if Sesshomaru takes another hit like he had in the match with Barbarus. Does he have someone he trusts? Anyone willing to keep him alive? Inuyasha isn't sure he could stomach much more of the job himself, but if there was no one...

He remains quiet. Thoughtful, even. He takes a sip of his tea and burns his tongue at the tip.]

It doesn't. [He sets the cup down and bites at the burn, hand over mouth. It helps to cancel the sting.] It's the same as you, I guess. You just feel when you have it or you don't.

[But this question leads into the crux of the matter. Inuyasha's ears prick forward. It made some sense, he thinks, yet begets more questions than he has mind to conjure.]

And he was the same as he was before? Is he flesh and blood, or something else? [Inuyasha removes the hand and leans in, eyes narrowed and tone conspiratorial.] I've seen souls summoned back from the dead in bodies of clay. Or those resurrected from grave soil. You can smell that they aren't living right away, but to mortal senses they might look the part.

[ He's cried once that he barely knows of for Luo Binghe, as Luo Binghe lay blind and dying. He emotions that spiderweb through his chest are there, the pain and sadness and yes, the anger too, but his eyes stay dry. Sorrow can reflect in their pitch coloured depths easily enough without the telltale watering of tears yet shed.

Someone from home? That answer is simple. ]

Yes.

[ The only person from home, and while it was not an easy thought (in fact, it was downright frightening when he first realised, and for the two weeks up to when Luo Binghe killed himself), and it's even less easy now, for different reasons.

(Points for hilarity, Inuyasha—Shen Qingqiu has offered to be there for Sesshomaru, and presumes this means they'll pretend not to be holding hands over tea sometime. He will learn how accurate this presumption is at some point or another, he supposes.) ]

Flesh and blood. I've... read the theories on similar things, but it remains his body, and there's no sign I can find that he...

[ He pauses, brow furrowing. There had been one note of concern, but a small one, and one he's not entirely sure of. He needs to check, he supposes, but that's a difficult ask in and of itself. ]

There was something strange around his heart. Not anything large, but it was... as if something like the crystal found a place there. Small, but present. I couldn't detect any change to his circulation in either blood or spiritual energy, and his heart beats strong, but that was new.

[ New means also concerning, and moreover, on a world of such inherent magic, on a world where people resurrect back into their same bodies, living and breathing as if they'd never ceased to do so... it means something.

Fuck, but what is that something meant to be? ]

[This is a solemn image but thankfully quite chaste. Please never announce you're moonlacing with Sesshomaru unless you want to herniate him.

There's other worrisome news. Inuyasha grows quite stern. A change in the body...that was to be expected. But quite often that lead to something else.]

You should be careful, you know. Most of the time when people come back from the dead, they don't come back the same. Even if their body is fine. Something is lost, or their nature has shifted. [He could tell you stories, but the last thing he wants to do is bring up Kikyo to strangers. He doesn't like talking about her with even his closest companions. Compared to them, most of Lunatia is made of strangers.

Still, there are relevant points to make, so he'll sift the bones loose of the dirt and give him just a spot of anecdotal advice.]

If they died in a rage, that rage might be all they feel when awakened again. Their memories might be gone, or altered. [Kohaku now existed as an empty-headed vessel for Naraku's bidding.] They might have their wills bound to whoever or whatever woke them. So you have to be careful.

Has he been acting strangely since waking?

[ No mentions needed! Does he look like a man who moonlaces and tells?! Fuck no! That's private (casual) business!

His expression grows all the more serious, because he both listens to Inuyasha and has his own worries on exactly these lines. Yet it's all complicated, so much more complicated by the fraught history between them, with how Shen Qingqiu had been so angry and worried and harried, dragging Luo Binghe here to clean him up, to erase the visual signs of what had happened.

Neither one of them knows how to linger comfortably in each other's space. There's too much there, and he can't read Luo Binghe's actions, his intentions, the way he wishes he could. He supposes the same might be said for Luo Binghe.

Regardless, Inuyasha speaks with such specificity, speaks without twitches or the hesitation borne out of consideration instead of experience. What is it he's had to see? What has he lived with, witnessed, in his life, that such things as he's mentioned before this were true, that what he says now has that same feeling attached? ]

I cannot say. Aside from when he first woke, we haven't been in each other's company.

[ An odd contrast, when he freely admits that Luo Binghe is important to him, but he can no more (or will no more) run Luo Binghe down than he can keep Luo Binghe away, if here is where Luo Binghe decided to be. ]

What you say are concerns I share, but to know what it means, of any ripples extending from the heart... if he doesn't recognise them, I don't know that I will. He's lived five years I know nothing of, or closer to eight, and the young man he once was is a slightly older young man I don't know half as well as I once did.

[ His hands tighten around his cup, cradling it, supporting it so absolutely that he feels the heat from the tea seeping through the ceramic and into his hands. ]

I wish I had a definite answer. For all our sakes.

So there's no way to be sure, then. [The sun blazes outside. Mid-summer heat radiates in from the glass panes, but Inuyasha frowns at the blue skies as if they were swaddled in storm clouds. His jaw is locked tight.] There's nothing to do but wait and see.

[He doesn't know the man that's passed. But if it turned into a question of his life or Shen Qingqui's, he must defend the living. It's an ugly thought, but no different than his dilemma with Sango. If Kohaku can't be saved, he will not let family kill family. He'll take that hideous duty from her if he has to beat her down first.

It would be the same here. He hopes it won't come to such a thing.]

Be wary. He might be more susceptible to obeying whatever force brought him back. His will may not stay his own. If he changes, find me straight away.

[He takes another gulp of tea. Mannerless cretin that he is, he finishes it in one go and wipes his mouth with his sleeve.]

Did he smarten up about his Chroma?

Edited 2019-08-05 20:42 (UTC)

[ Such a personal weight there. He studies Inuyasha, and it's eventually why he asks: ]

Who was it that etched this onto your heart?

[ Not because he expects an answer, because it's too blunt of him really, but this has all been too blunt to him in ways he's still coping with. Because these are so many things that are worries and fears he has, but even if Binghe hadn't died, even if, he isn't stable in the way that Shen Qingqiu might have wished for him to be. For Binghe's sake.

There are harms etched deep on his disciple's heart, and Shen Qingqiu is one of the many who carved their marks here. His lessons were, perhaps, some of the most hurtful. Those heartbreak points from years ago may have been exactly what they sounded like, to a seventeen year old abandoned by the shizun he'd looked up to for years.

It's kinder to be jolted out of those thoughts by the way Inuyasha consumes tea like one drinks shots of alcohol, then wipes his mouth like a toddler. No, that's unfair. He's just wiping his mouth like the concept of doing so with something he wasn't presently wearing didn't even occur to him. Don't do that, Inuaysha Bro! Please! Unless you wash that regularly?!

And he's asking a question that: ]

I don't know, but I won't allow the same mistake in judgment to affect him twice if I can help it.

[ Yet he's just as aware that if is the keyword there. He's not going to turn around and leash Luo Binghe, even if he thought an idea like that wasn't spectacularly stupid. But he doesn't know that he can trust Luo Binghe not to try and find his end again, and he still does not know why he did it in the first place. ]

[His frown only deepens.]

Tch! Who said anything about me? I've just seen these things happen. It's not uncommon when there's asshole youkai about.

[Especially when they're imbued with the power of the sacred jewel. That's a story he has no interest in relaying now. Though this friend of Shen Qingqui's friend has been through something quite similar the parallels don't line up that neatly. The jewel and all its fragments are back home, and hold no bearing on his life here.

Whatever effect his manners have on the older man, he doesn't care. The sleeve remains unattended. It will dry in the sun, and the same magic that keeps the robes healing itself will swallow all traces of the tea soon enough.]

Do that. [He puts a hand to his knee and begins to rise.] If he doesn't listen to you I'll beat sense into him.

[A serious offer, tragically. Were you expecting reasonable solutions?

Inuyasha's returning to the window, examining the sky for a quick moment. It might rain later, from the looks of things. Damn.]

What's his name? I'll keep watch for him.

[ He's not sure beating anything into Luo Binghe has improved... anything, but he appreciates what Inuyasha means, if not his choice in execution.

Just as he has no way to have a greater understanding of the experiences that lead Inuyasha to issue the warnings he's issued, but he still believes it's personal: something Inuyasha has seen, had to deal with, to feel this strongly about it.

Regardless, as he approaches the window, Shen Qingqiu answers the question. ]

Luo Binghe. [ No bothering with titles, when he's not even sure which ones would be most appropriate. ] It would have been his blood you scented in here, if you scented anything remaining. And... thank you, Inuyasha. For the kindness of that offer.

[ Keeping watch for him. Not so much for beating Binghe up for being an idiot about moonlacing, though yes, he's somewhat tempted by that too, if only he thought that would change anything. ]

[Funny, usually people did what he said after he kicked them in the pants. We'll just have to see about this "Luo Binghe"...

Inuyasha nods.]

Got it. [The scent was faint and overshadowed by the stench of his brother, but not to be overlooked. Blood was the most powerful scent to track. If he needed to, he's confident he could find this man at once.]

Don't thank me. It's what's gotta get done.

[And he hasn't even done anything worth thanking for. Words were just words until actions followed suit. He puts a foot to the sill and leaps free. Sesshomaru flies, but Inuyasha bounds between buildings with ease.]

[ ~~So basically, they're like the earliest version of Superman vs later iterations of Superman....................... very clever, Rumiko Takahashi~~

He closes the window after watching Inuyasha's departure, wondering just where these two brothers will end up... and also what possible meetings Luo Binghe might have with either one of them. It's hard to say, and without talking with him where both of them consent to hear what the other says... difficult to even say what he'll think.

Still, it is what it is, and he'll be here for whatever fallout comes from either situation in the future. ]

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voice; in the days following the anon post

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"not even kissing" maybe you should have aimed lower

now waiting for the event where "spontaneous fellatio" is the how you save a life

YOU JOKE NOW......

LOOK............. if it comes true I'll be the first to start laughing

I'll be weeping blood probably...also on mobile so a short one 4 u

alsjfd hands you a handkerchief for this future.... and you are strong on mobile!!!

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