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It was a beautiful summer morning on Mount Taicang. It was early enough that the air was still cool as it drifted in through the open window, mixed with the scent of flowers, finding a god and a ghost holding each other close on the bed.
Outside, the birds were singing their cheerful songs, but inside all that could be heard was a soft whimper and the rustling of the sheets as Xie Lian pushed further into Hua Cheng's embrace.
A sigh. Xie Lian had wanted to work in the garden with Hua Cheng. The melons were ready to be harvested. There was work to be done on the cottage as well; parts of the roof needed to be replaced. And there was a chair that needed fixing too. It had gotten damaged while they were… well, it didn't matter what they had been doing. Xie Lian didn't expect he'd be able to leave their bed that day.
All of the hurts of his past had long since healed and a lot of them were forgotten on any normal day, to make room for memories of a pleasant day at Puqi Shrine with Hua Cheng or the meal they’d had together the week before. But on a day like this, the wounds and tears and fractures that were no longer there all demanded attention. It was as if, a few days a year, his body suddenly remembered, even if Xie Lian’s mind could not and would not remember it all. And his body protested, and lamented, and whined, pain demanding to be felt.
Moments before, he’d been woken by a stabbing pain in his hip – a sharp and unwanted reminder of a rainy night, centuries ago, when he’d tumbled off a cliff and shattered it. He’d had to drag himself to shelter, the pouring rain beating down on his broken body.
These intense flashes of pain, with tendrils of agony spreading through his whole being until it felt like he couldn’t breathe, were always brief. These ghosts of his past suffering didn’t linger long – they grumbled and griped, tearing their claws into Xie Lian from the inside, affecting even his mind, before leaving him gasping for air.
It was the burning ache in his muscles, joints and tendons that was constant. Maybe it was because on days like this, while his body was already remembering, it also remembered his age; remembered that it had housed him and carried him for so long, through so many hardships. But it was also possible that there was no reason for this pain at all. If anyone was familiar with senseless pain, it was Xie Lian.
It was all senseless, in the end. There was no rhyme or reason to when these days would occur. Xie Lian had slept so well. He hadn’t had any nightmares in… he couldn’t even remember when he’d last had one. It wasn’t a special day; it wasn’t an anniversary of anything. It was just pain.
As the discomfort in Xie Lian’s hip faded to the background, blending in with the ever-present ache, he shifted again, carefully twisting his lower body and putting his leg up over both of Hua Cheng’s. He didn’t mean to wake his husband, but this position alleviated some of the strain, and while just being close to Hua Cheng wasn’t like a magic spell that fixed everything, to Xie Lian, being in pain while close to him would always be infinitely better than being in pain without him there. He’d had enough of that over the centuries.
Xie Lian lay there, focusing on his breathing and the grounding coolness of his husband's skin, and felt the moment when Hua Cheng woke up. The first clue that something wasn’t quite right was the way all of his beloved’s muscles seemed to tense up before he forced his hand to move, to brush his fingers through Xie Lian’s hair the way he always did upon waking up.
“Gege,” he murmured, his voice full of the awe that came with holding his god and his reason for existing in his arms, like every morning and every night and so many moments in between. But his voice was strained, and when Xie Lian looked up, his brow was pinched and he was gazing at him through his lashes, his eye barely open.
“You’re in pain?” Hua Cheng asked softly, feeling the sweat at the back of Xie Lian’s neck. Of course he could tell – his sweet ghost never needed more than the twitch of an eyebrow or a fluctuation in Xie Lian’s heart rate to know when something was amiss. But Xie Lian was getting rather good at reading him, in return.
“En. You too?”
“Gege need not worry about this one.”
Xie Lian was going to ignore that. “Is it your head?”
“... En.”
Xie Lian lifted a hand, paying no mind to the way his muscles protested and the tingling in his wrist as he held it up, close to Hua Cheng’s remaining eye – a wordless question.
“Please,” his husband whispered, closing his eye as Xie Lian cupped his face and lightly rubbed his fingertips over his temple. Xie Lian knew just how bad these headaches got. Unbearable agony would spread from the place where Hua Cheng’s right eye used to be through his whole head, until he could hardly keep his eye open or speak.
With his eye still closed, Hua Cheng found Xie Lian’s chin, using his forefinger to tilt his face up towards him before capturing his mouth with his own. When Xie Lian felt the trickle of spiritual energy turn into a steady flow that was meant to soothe and heal, he was tempted to melt into it. It wouldn’t help; not against this particular ailment. No amount of spiritual power could force this pain to vanish. But it was so nice. The soft warmth of the spiritual energy mixed with Hua Cheng’s cool breath was intoxicating, and part of Xie Lian wanted to surrender to the sweetness, but–
“No,” he whispered against Hua Cheng’s lips, before moving in to continue kissing him and giving back as much spiritual energy as he had received.
“Gege…” Hua Cheng said softly.
A sudden stab of pain in Xie Lian’s lower leg, where it had once been broken. Xianle. The war. “Stop,” he said to Hua Cheng, his voice much harsher than he had meant it to be. “San Lang, I don’t want you to give me so much spiritual energy when you are also hurting. You can’t fix this, and my pain doesn’t matter more than your pain.”
Hua Cheng’s eye was closed, and he swallowed before wincing at the loud rattling sound that emerged from next to the bed. “E’Ming, stop that.”
Though he did his best to make it sound like a command, his voice was soft and pain warped his tone into something like a plea.
Xie Lian sighed in sympathy. It must be bad, if his husband was even unable to curse at his poor scimitar.
“E’Ming, come here,” he said gently, watching as the scimitar floated over the bed and patting the space behind him to indicate that it should settle down there. With its red eye spinning madly, it lay down, vibrating and growing slightly bigger when Xie Lian reached behind himself to stroke its length, pain shooting up and down his arm at the odd angle.
When E'Ming had calmed down, Xie Lian took Hua Cheng’s face between his hands and stroked his thumbs over his cheeks.
“San Lang, can you look at me?”
Hua Cheng opened his eye slowly, letting out a soft groan. It was getting lighter in their bedroom, sunlight streaming in through the window as a pair of butterflies fluttered across the windowsill.
“Forgive me for snapping at you, San Lang.”
Hearing this seemed to hurt Hua Cheng even more than the light did, for he opened his eye a little wider. “There is nothing to forgive, Your Highness. You’re hurting.”
Yes. The pain in his leg had been intolerable. But there had once been another time when Xie Lian was in pain, a time when he had been unforgivably cruel to his ghost. He would not go near that version of himself over a little hurt. “It’s no excuse,” he whispered.
“Gege is trying to take care of me. No more spiritual energy, I promise.” Hua Cheng emphasized his promise with a soft kiss to Xie Lian’s forehead – just a kiss, and nothing more. “Where did it hurt?”
“My leg,” Xie Lian murmured. He shifted slightly. “This one.”
Hua Cheng put his fingers to his own lips and then blew a kiss down to Xie Lian’s leg, making him hide his face against his neck, smiling widely despite the tears in his eyes.
They had a ritual on days like this, when Xie Lian’s body seemed to be processing all that had happened to it over the centuries. Xie Lian would tell Hua Cheng where it hurt, and Hua Cheng would press a reverent kiss to the spot. This kiss was acknowledgement of what had happened there. It was worship of his god’s body. It was soothing the remembered pain – because even if spiritual energy wouldn’t help, it was nice to be kissed.
Now, Hua Cheng wasn’t able to move, but he blew a kiss, and as Xie Lian smiled against the cool skin of his neck he imagined that he could feel it.
When he looked up, he saw that Hua Cheng was turning his face away from the window as much as he could while keeping his eye on Xie Lian. Smiling sadly, Xie Lian cupped his cheek again and rubbed his thumb back and forth under his empty eye socket.
“Does San Lang need some help?”
Knowing what he meant, Hua Cheng nodded slowly, inhaling sharply when even this small movement was too much.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Ruoye was already peeking up over the edge of the bed, and Xie Lian beckoned it over. “You know what to do. Not too tight, we’re not playing today.”
As Ruoye happily wrapped itself around Hua Cheng’s head, covering his eyes, his husband let out a single huff of laughter. “Maybe we can play later. There’s always hope.”
Xie Lian rolled his eyes. “Even in this situation, San Lang is still full of mischievous thoughts. How is it? Is it okay?”
“It still hurts, but this is better,” Hua Cheng said earnestly. “Thank you, gege. And Ruoye.” Rouye’s loose end trembled happily, and Xie Lian petted it for a moment in appreciation.
Keeping his lower body in the same position for too long was starting to put a strain on his sore hips and knees, so Xie Lian tried to rearrange his limbs, chasing some semblance of comfort. Just then, there was another stab of pain, in his heart this time, as if there was still a splinter of peachwood buried deep inside even though he knew this was impossible.
Xie Lian forced back a noise of pain out of habit, and the corners of Hua Cheng’s mouth moved down. “Gege, now that my eye is blinded, don’t try to hide when it hurts. Don’t try to bear it alone – please tell me.”
“Sorry, San Lang. It – it’s my heart.”
Once more, Hua Cheng lifted his fingertips to his lips and kissed them, and then he unseeingly moved his hand over Xie Lian’s chest before sliding it between the folds of his sleeping robes and lightly pressing down on the spot right over his heart.
“Thank you,” Xie Lian whispered. When the agony had turned back into a dull ache, he steeled himself and slowly started to pull away. “I’m just getting some water,” he told Hua Cheng gently, as he sat up and turned around, reaching for the cup of water on the low table next to the bed.
It hurt. It hurt, and Xie Lian had become spoiled. He felt it all, but stubbornly kept moving until they had both had a few mouthfuls of water. By the time the empty cup was back on the table, it was all he could do to crumple on Hua Cheng’s chest, out of breath.
Hua Cheng simply petted his hair. “Does gege want to eat? There should be some mantou from yesterday still on the table.”
“Ah, it would be better to eat something, but I don’t know if I can stomach anything right now. Let’s wait a little while and then try to eat a few bites. We can take it slow, it’s not like we need to go out today.”
As if on cue, Ling Wen suddenly spoke into his private communication array.
Your Highness, your presence is required at the Heavenly Capital for an urgent meeting.
Xie Lian groaned, and Hua Cheng growled, not even needing his sight to guess what had just happened, his fingers already searching for his temple. “Don’t worry, gege, I’ll handle this.”
But Xie Lian caught his hand and lightly kissed the pads of his fingers.
“It’s alright, San Lang. Let me.”
He raised his own fingers to his temple. “Good morning, Ling Wen. Is the Heavenly Capital on fire?”
On fire? Not as far as I know, Your Highness.
“Oh, that’s a relief. Is it an earthquake, then? Is the Capital under attack, or about to fall from the sky?”
Your Highness, the Heavenly Capital is perfectly alright.
“I’m very happy to hear it. I am not in good shape, and my husband needs me today, so unless the Capital is on fire, I’m afraid I will not be attending the meeting.” He thought for a moment. “Even if it was on fire, San Lang would still be more important.”
Even as he spoke, the pain in his chest became overwhelming, as if it had collapsed, but other than the slightest trembling exhale he gave no indication of it, keeping his tone polite with an underlying edge of steel while Hua Cheng wrapped his arms around his waist.
Of course, Your Highness. I understand. Feel better soon. Both of you.
“Thank you, Ling Wen.”
As soon as Xie Lian dropped his hand, he let out a low moan. “Ow.”
“Where does it hurt?” Hua Cheng whispered.
“My chest.” Banyue. The trampling.
And again, Hua Cheng transferred little kisses to where it hurt with his fingers, and though Xie Lian still felt breathless, this time it was with love for him.
They lay there on the bed, holding each other, Hua Cheng keeping as still as possible and Xie Lian shifting every now and then as the constant ache in his limbs demanded. Whenever he cried out, he softly told his husband where it hurt, and he received his sweet treatment, his hands and fingers moving over his body, searching for the right place and finding it with practiced ease.
It was as if Xie Lian was lost in the ocean, but Hua Cheng kept him afloat. Every time a fresh wave of pain washed over him, he refused to let go and let him sink to the depths, instead drawing him safely back to the present with sweet touches.
Before long, they started kissing. It was slow and tender; not a fight over who would give the other the most spiritual energy, but rather a sweet and equal back and forth of energy, the kiss in itself a balm, as they revelled in the closeness and the other’s acceptance of their broken pieces.
“I miss gege’s face,” Hua Cheng whispered into the space between their lips, and Xie Lian smiled softly, taking his hand and slowly lifting it to his cheek.
“It’s right here, San Lang.”
And Hua Cheng moved his fingertips over Xie Lian’s face, like he was lovingly working on the finer details of one of his statues; like he was worshiping every little part of Xie Lian’s face through touch, loving the skin and flesh and bone he felt under his fingers with his entire self.
As for Xie Lian, he was busy trying to keep himself from giggling. It tickled!
His giggle got stuck in his throat as it felt like something cut right through it, and he coughed, making the pain worse.
“My throat,” he rasped. The next moment, Hua Cheng was already laying the pads of his fingers against the centre of his throat. He moved them first to the left, and then to the right. He knew exactly how deep the cut had been. Where it had stopped. Of course he did.
It took a long time before either of them felt ready to eat. When they did, Ruoye was the one who moved to get the mantou, reluctantly removing itself from around Hua Cheng’s head to bring them over.
Xie Lian gently covered his husband’s eyes with a hand, so that there was no risk of his vision suddenly being flooded with light, and gave him a quick peck on the lips.
When Ruoye had put the plate with mantou down, he turned to it. “Rouye, can you get me San Lang’s – thank you! You’re so smart and helpful.”
Quicker than lightning, Ruoye had retrieved Hua Cheng’s eyepatch. As Xie Lian slowly slipped it over his left eye instead of his right, E’Ming vibrated with jealousy, and Xie Lian reached behind himself to pet it. “You’re also a good boy, E’Ming.”
“So embarrassing,” Hua Cheng muttered sullenly, making the scimitar rattle in dismay until Ruoye coiled itself around it in a sort of hug.
Xie Lian sat up to pick up a mantou and tear it in half. The movement was hard on his poor body and a wave of nausea washed over him.
“Gege shouldn’t move so much,” Hua Cheng said, his voice barely above a whisper. Xie Lian’s heart ached – in sympathy this time. The pain in his beloved’s head sometimes got so bad that it would steal his sweet voice away.
“It hurts whether I move or lie still,” he said gently, holding half of the mantou to Hua Cheng’s lips. Sure, the action of sitting up had been painful, but he was fine now. He probably shouldn’t try a martial arts routine or anything like that, but he could at least help his husband eat!
“Hmmm,” Hua Cheng hummed, sounding unconvinced, but with Xie Lian feeding him, he obediently ate his half of the bun with small bites. Xie Lian finished his half as well, but just as he was about to lay down–
“Ah.”
“Gege?”
Hua Cheng’s hand reached out blindly, and Xie Lian grabbed hold of it like it was a lifeline.
“It’s my stomach,” he breathed, eyes closed. Food poisoning. Starvation. Refusing to look directly at the memories trying to push their way into his mind, he focused instead on the temperature of Hua Cheng’s hand and the calluses on his palms and his fingers, so familiar to him by now. He played with the red string on his finger, rubbing his own against it.
He heard Hua Cheng lift his other hand to his mouth and felt him part his sleeping robes to brush his fingertips over his stomach. Xie Lian smiled.
When he could move again, he lay down half on top of Hua Cheng, his right leg draped over his hips, as his husband played with his hair, his face turned towards him even though he could not see him.
Xie Lian reached up and cupped the right side of his face, sliding his fingers into the hair at his temple, keeping his thumb still just below the scarred empty eye socket.
“Can – can I touch you here, San Lang?”
Hua Cheng had gone rigid, and he trembled slightly. “Your Highness should not touch something so filthy.”
Xie Lian sighed softly. “No part of San Lang could ever be filthy,” he said patiently but firmly. “Especially not this part. And that’s not what I asked, San Lang. Will it hurt more if I touch you? Will it help?
He waited while Hua Cheng struggled with himself, knowing how hard this was. The part of his appearance that he had hated the most for so long was exposed, while he could not see and was kept immobile by pain. It was to be expected that he felt vulnerable, like an exposed nerve.
“I don’t know,” he breathed after a few moments. “I – I’ve never tried touching it while I'm like this.”
Xie Lian slowly stroked his thumb back and forth. “Would you like me to try?”
This silence was longer, but Xie Lian didn’t mind. He was content to lie there and look at the one he loved, the ache in his own limbs fading to the background.
“Yes,” Hua Cheng whispered, like an admission of guilt that was torn out of him. Xie Lian kissed him, soft and sweet and soothing, as he slowly moved his index finger over the ridge of the empty socket, circling it. Around and around and around.
“Does it hurt? More, I mean.”
“No,” Hua Cheng said softly, and Xie Lian felt the tension draining out of his body. “No, it feels good, gege.”
“Good. Tell me if it gets too much, okay?” Xie Lian slowly moved his first two fingers over the bumpy and uneven scars around the socket – nail marks, long healed but never faded. He followed these scars, and slowly, oh so gently moved his fingers under the drooping and scarred eyelid, into the hollow underneath.
Hua Cheng gasped, his hands flying up to Xie Lian’s waist and squeezing. “Gege.”
Xie Lian paused, his fingers still inside the cavity. “Does it hurt? Should I stop?”
“.... N–no. Don’t stop, gege, please.”
Pressing a kiss to Hua Cheng’s cheek, Xie Lian slowly moved his fingers, brushing against the still eyelid as he felt it all. The tearing. The agony. The slow, lonely healing without any help or medical equipment. The hollow emptiness. The missing.
E’Ming vibrated against his side.
“I know, sweet boy. I know.”
He rubbed against the edge of the socket, his touch a little more present this time, using a little more pressure, and Hua Cheng moaned softly, but it was relief rather than pain that drew the sound from him. With this encouragement, Xie Lian started to carefully massage this part of his beloved that was entirely new to him.
He slowly spread his fingers, moving one towards his husband’s nose and one towards his ear, before sliding them both back to the middle. He pulled his fingers out to rub around the outside of the socket, and slipped them back in to stroke the inside. Hua Cheng shuddered when his fingernail scratched lightly against the bone near the base of his nose.
“A little higher, gege. Mm, right there.”
Suddenly, Xie Lian’s own head felt like it would split open, and he whimpered.
Hua Cheng rubbed his hands up and down over his sides. “Where does it hurt?”
“My head,” Xie Lian answered softly. A cracked skull. Which time? It didn’t matter now. With Xie Lian’s fingers still inside him, Hua Cheng put a hand at the back of his neck and pulled him in, finding his forehead and pressing a long, slow kiss to it.
Once the pain had gone down, Xie Lian went back to his massage – to his act of worship. He caressed the place where Hua Cheng’s red eye used to be, honouring the sacrifice he had made to save that group of mortals. His husband would say that he had only done it in a fit of madness, or because of Xie Lian, claiming that he was the only good part of him, but Xie Lian knew better. Hua Cheng had chosen to walk this path. It had been his choice, and his alone.
While moving his fingers to the other side of the socket, he kissed the limp eyelid – an acknowledgement of all the times that his sweet ghost had gone through days like this alone, and a promise that it would never be like that again.
Tears started to spill from under the eyepatch covering Hua Cheng’s left eye, and Xie Lian brushed his thumb over the scars at the corner of the eye socket, where moisture was absent.
“Thank you for letting me touch you, San Lang,” Xie Lian murmured. It was not lost on him how much courage it took. There was a time when Hua Cheng would not show him this part of himself, and now Xie Lian was even allowed to touch the inside.
“My beloved is so brave,” he whispered, removing his fingers and pressing little butterfly kisses all around the empty eye socket, his heart wide open to both the love and the violence it had taken to tear out the eye.
His Hong'er. His soldier. His Wu Ming.
“Gege,” Hua Cheng sobbed, and Xie Lian gently removed the eyepatch and pushed into his husband’s embrace, as Hua Cheng buried his face in his shoulder, his overwhelmed tears soaking his sleeping robes.
Outside, the day moved on, morning bleeding into afternoon. One of the birds that Xie Lian had befriended recently landed on their windowsill to check up on them, but soon decided that they were just fine, seeing them thus wrapped up in each other’s arms.
When Hua Cheng’s sobs had subsided into sniffles, Xie Lian pulled back slightly to brush his bangs out of his face, giving him a loving smile. “How is San Lang feeling?”
“A little better. How is gege?”
“A little better. But I don’t think I can get up today.”
Hua Cheng pulled him closer. “Then we’ll stay in bed.” He frowned, and Xie Lian could tell that his frustration was moving inwards.
“I wish I could take better care of you. I’m so–” He caught the look Xie Lian was giving him and ducked his head. “I feel so useless."
Xie Lian hummed and played with the red coral pearl in Hua Cheng’s hair. “There’s no need to always be useful, my love. You have value regardless of what tasks you are able to perform. You’re here with me and that’s more than enough. We’ll take care of each other today.”
Hua Cheng did not argue, but simply petted his hair, seeming to think about what he’d said. Xie Lian stayed in the same position until his body really couldn’t take it anymore, and then his husband helped him roll onto his back, by now able to move enough to adjust his own position and lie half on top of him. Xie Lian looked up at him, allowing himself to be swept up in the affection he saw in his eye, forgetting all about pain and suffering and only remembering the joy of being close.
He glanced at the empty eye socket.
“I did not expect to be touched like that,” Hua Cheng said, his tone reverent. Then, it turned teasing. “But it took the edge off and made this one’s thoughts wander. I pray Your Highness will touch me there again when we’re both feeling better.”
Xie Lian blushed, squirming underneath Hua Cheng. Just why was he like this! … He had a feeling that it was his own fault.
“San Lang! Ah, just kiss me.”
“As gege wishes.”
Not every day could be perfect, but there was no better way to spend a day like this than in the arms of the one he loved. The melons could wait. The roof could wait. They had all the time in the world, after all. All that mattered at that moment was Hua Cheng’s smile against his lips, the very first of that day.