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“I brought your cane, A-Yuan,” Luo Binghe says, clenching the well polished, exquisitely carved piece of bamboo in his hands. He’d wanted to have one made with a much finer material, but he’d barely won the argument to replace the first plastic monstrosity. He is well versed in the art of picking his battles.
Bamboo is acceptable enough for Shen Yuan’s station as a well doted on spouse. The organic material ensures it will degrade over time. Luo Binghe has plans for what the next one will be. He’d prefer something with good qi flow like jade, but something made of tempered silver could be conducted and cultivated through like a spiritual sword. Who knows, it would be almost the same shape as one, so if Shen Yuan’s core is formed enough by that point, he might be able to fly.
“Oh,” Shen Yuan says, a smile blooming across his face as he looks up to meet Luo Binghe’s eyes. From his position sitting down, the strain has to be uncomfortable for the joints of his neck. Today is not a good day for Shen Yuan’s constitution. Luo Binghe can tell by the way he’s bundled in a thick blanket, despite the warm spring air and temperate shade of the palace's back porch. “Thank you, Binghe.”
“Anything for A-Yuan,” He says. He wants to call him Shizun. He’s spent nearly a decade of combined time combing the realms until he found the version of the man his inferior alternate self had. It wasn’t easy and the title feels like recompense after all the trouble. But Shen Yuan is prickly about the strangest things.
He hands the cane over.
More reluctantly than he should.
And watches as Shen Yuan tries to leverage himself forward. Despite the numerous chairs—with arm rests—he always insists on sitting on the floor. Shen Yuan says it feels good to let his feet dangle.
“Let me,” Luo Binghe says, only to have his hands batted away the moment he goes to scoop under Shen Yuan’s arms.
“I’ve got this,” He hisses. Sometimes, he sounds so much like Shen Qingqiu it makes Luo Binghe freeze. Shen Yuan never means to. He doesn’t have that capacity for cruelty. But his mobility frustrates him almost as much as it does Binghe sometimes, and he can’t help it. “I should have put my knee braces on.”
“Allow me to carry you.”
Shen Yuan’s condition is something he’s lived with his whole life. Binghe is unused to problems he can not solve—through dual cultivation, his wealth, his blood—and as such is eternally more annoyed by Shen Yuan’s limitations than he is. Because in a way that Shen Yuan insists shouldn’t, they feel like a failure on Luo Binghe’s part.
Evidence that he’s not good enough.
It’s what they fight about the most. Because Shen Yuan always says this is just a part of him, that it has nothing to do with Luo Binghe, and that he has no business making any of it about himself. He used to navigating the world—not this one yet—as he is.
Luo Binghe hates that he can do nothing. He hates that Shen Yuan does not see where he is helpless in this situation. Despite the fact that he always does his best to hide the ugly parts of himself, he can never hide the selfishness that makes Shen Yuan’s weakness his personal problem.
It’s a testament to Shen Yuan’s love that he overlooks his own displeasure at the fact.
Shen Yuan still reminds him, constantly, that this is his body. That while they bowed to each other and swore to share their burdens, these struggles are entirely his own.
“Absolutely not.” Shen Yuan manages to make it to his feet under his own power and only moderately out of breath. He still takes the arm Luo Binghe offers him, because stairs are innately evil and his knees will lock and buckle if he tries to bear his weight with downward pressure.
The progression downward is slow. Shen Yuan leads with his cane on his left side. He wobbles and counters his balance against Luo Binghe’s strength with his right hand.
“I can feel your blood mites,” Shen Yuan says, on the break he takes between the steps. He doesn’t always take them, but on bad days, and especially without the wraps he places on his joints he gives himself a few moments to settle. Luo Binghe doesn’t mind, he’d spend eternity waiting. “Stop worrying.”
“I’m merely assessing,” Luo Binghe lies.
His blood is good for any number of things. He’s found it amazing as easing back the inflammation that makes its home in the pockets of cartilage around Shen Yuan’s joints, but he can do nothing to cure the problem in its entirety.
There’s still time before dinner, he’ll make his way to a market and get some mackerel. He always adds ginger to their tea, but turmeric would be a good addition to.
Luo Binghe knows better than to offer to lift him down the two steps to the ground. It had taken a lot of teary eyed insistence to be allowed to bear Shen Yuan’s weight, instead of being forced to watch the other man scoot down them on his butt. He will not lose the privilege. It’s not so bad, biting his tongue.
Especially not when Shen Yuan continues to hold his hand. Despite the amount of wives he’s had, Luo Binghe doesn’t think he’s ever managed this level of intimacy with another. He can’t explain the feeling of Shen Yuan’s vulnerability. Of the trust he gives so freely.
He can keep the offers to himself. Can hold out on outright begging for the privilege to carry Shen Yuan like the princess he is.
These walks they take are precious. Shen Yuan’s gate’s a bit awkward, a combination of his joints weakness and the limp he can never get rid of. His cane means they go slow. That he takes his time to balance it for leverage. That they linger with each other.
Luo Binghe respects the autonomy Shen Yuan maintains. He wishes he could convey that he doesn’t seek to limit it. He doesn't have the words, though. Not while the darker, dangerous, demon parts of him howl to lock his A-Yuan away and wrap him in luxury. Luo Binghe would never take his independence away from him.
There are no railings here. Not yet. And while Luo Binghe has been steadily sneakily adding balances all over the palace, he’s been saving this garden for last. He is selfish and reluctant to lose the small act of devotion he’s allowed.