Work Text:
Luo Binghe runs and runs and runs, the hall going on for much longer than he remembers. His time is running out, the sound of dripping echoing in his ears, the smell of iron suffocating his nose. The world has to know he's in a rush, it knows he's chasing for something he has a grasp on. Something he has deemed important after all the other attempts to hold onto something, just for it to slip between his fingers.
It knows.
He keeps running against it just as he's always done. The world has already beaten him bloody, left him broken and bruised. Tore into him until there was nothing left but a hollow man who starved no matter how much he took and took and took.
No matter how much bloodshed splattered his robes, the black hiding his deed.
No matter how many lands he conquered, expanding his own territory.
No matter how many women he bed, married, then slowly moved on from.
He was born hungry, always starving, yet never quite satisfied after he consumed everything.
Except for this one thing.
The hall finally reaches its end, opening into a wide room--the Water Prison.
"What-"
Brows furrowed in confusion among his rising anxiety, Luo Binghe steps to the mechanic used to drop the acidic waterfall curtain. The motions are so natural, as if he is here for-
The curtain drops.
Shen Jiu is there, as he always was, as he always should be. It's the wrong* Shen Jiu however. Instead of a man who Luo Binghe has only known as cold, unforgiving, and horrible, the body that hangs from chains attached to its limbs is younger. One that has smiled at Luo Binghe, happy to call out to him. Happy to see him whenever, never once angered by the mere sight of him.
This Shen Jiu is not cold like the one he knows. He still bites in words and action, but not strictly out of malice. He claws and digs at what he wants, what he intends to keep, but he also whines like a spoiled child, his face expressive.
"...Luo-ge.. hurt."
Something shifts. The iron gets stronger, the dripping louder. There's pools of blood under the hanging body now, its limbs freshly torn, thrown to the floor.
"H.. hurts! Stop it! Luo-ge!"
── ⋅ ⋅ ──── ⋅ ⋅ ──
Jolting awake, Luo Binghe instantly reaches out, searching for the blood mites that nest within the young Shen Jiu. Finding that everything is fine, he sighs, balling his hands into his blanket.