Chapter Text
“Hua Cheng.”
Hua Cheng blinks. “How did you get my address?”
Mu Qing’s sister— Mu Fei, the eldest of his sisters, if Hua Cheng recognizes her correctly enough— lets herself slip into the apartment, neatly keeping the large shopping bag on her arm from bumping into Hua Cheng or the door frame. She smiles, almost kindly as if she didn’t somehow find information that she hadn’t been privy to by any outlet that Hua Cheng was aware of. “You can’t possibly think you can marry my brother without me knowing something about you.”
“You know my name,” Hua Cheng points out, shutting the door quietly. He leads her to the living room. “My age. We technically grew up together.”
Mu Fei waves a dismissive hand. “Dated information. You know how it is,” she says as she sits her bag on the floor and settles down on the couch. She crosses one leg over the other, hands clasped atop her knee. Hua Cheng is suddenly reminded of television organized crime leaders. He sits across from Mu Fei anyways. Mu Fei grins. “After some amount of time, things need updating.”
And that…well, Hua Cheng can’t say he wouldn’t do the same. Refresh, recycle, remember as blackmail. Information had enough uses to make it worth keeping track of.
Mu Fei grows somber fairly quickly though, eyes not quite on Hua Cheng. “The house looks nice. I like what you and Ge did.” She pauses for a moment. When she speaks again, her voice is almost fragile. Bittersweet. “It’s different, helping you and Ge plan the changes and actually seeing it.”
But she smiles when she looks at Hua Cheng again. “Ge needed it to be. Needs it.”
Hua Cheng stays quiet, just listening. The conversation’s in territory he isn’t really sure he can handle. Mu Qing’s grief is different, something that Hua Cheng can console with a touch, a hug, rather than words. But he’s never been ill-spoken, lilting, clever words were always part of his charm.
“Change…going forward. It can feel like leaving things behind. Things that’d be lost. If you hold on enough though, no matter how out of reach something seems, it’s in your heart. There is no place else that is more unchangeable…I see her in Mu Qing, and in all of you. In all that I remember about her, in all that all of you loved about her.”
“I said that to my brother.” There’s a sheen of tears glazing Mu Fei’s eyes as she stares up at him, voice whisper soft. “I guess I needed someone to say it to me.”
Hua Cheng nods, letting them sit in the quiet. Minutes pass, he goes into the kitchen and makes tea the way Mu Qing seems to think is customary for all visitations, and sets the full cups on the table alongside a halfway full teapot. Mu Fei finishes half her cup before speaking again.
“Other than being well-spoken, what else should be updated about you?” Mu Fei asks wryly. Her fingernails clink dully against the ceramic.
“I have custody of my little brother now,” he offers in some semblance of reassurance. Acceptance. “I thought I lost him. ”
Mu Fei nods. “Whom my brother is very fond of.”
Oh. Oh no. Hua Cheng can feel the conversation already heading to a direction he knows he’ll dislike.
Mu Fei continues, and Hua Cheng swears her teeth glint dangerously, impossibly white in the shabby yellow light of his aged fan, smile getting sharp. “I’m sure you share that fondness. The only thing I presume is that you’re rather… fond of my brother as well.”
Mu Qing told him that Mu Fei knows the truth. The truth of their arrangement, at least. When Hua Cheng meets her eyes, he can swear it: she knows the truth about him and exactly how he’s been feeling towards Mu Qing. Mu Fein drums her fingers on the bag she’d brought with her. There’s something about her smile, the slant of her gaze under her lashes that makes him think all too much of Mu Qing right before he’d splashed paint across Hua Cheng’s face.
“You are fond of my brother, aren’t you, Hua Cheng?”
——————
The cemetery is quiet like it always is. Empty, like it usually is. His mother’s grave is as neat as it could ever be.
Mu Qing kneels in front of it, careful to not let his knees or clothes sit in the snow. The air’s a brittle cold, and in Mu Qing’s chest, it encases his lungs in ice, freezing his breath into crystals he couldn’t exhale. He busies his hands instead. Incense sticks, candles, joss paper— Mu Qing arranged them neatly, lighting them and letting the match burn to ash down to his fingers before brushing it away. “Mama…”
It shouldn’t feel different. Mu Qing’s long visited his mother’s grave to whisper an explanation, a plea. If his mother was listening, this… arrangement wasn’t coming as a surprise. Her acceptance, her refusal, he has begged for some indication of an answer.
“Don’t marry just for love,” his mother used to warn. “Marry for safety.”
Safety…it meant more to them than anything. Health, finance, stability…safety meant it all.
Safety meant peace.
Hua Cheng keeps his distance as asked, but Mu Qing still keeps his voice low and his head bowed. “Mama, he’s not like Baba. We’re not how we used to be.”
‘His vices don’t hurt me, ’ he wants to say.
Mu Qing knows it wouldn’t mean much. His father…his father wasn’t ever anywhere near perfect, but he hadn’t always been a careless man. There were times he was reasonable, agreeable. But he always wanted an easy way out— the burden of a wife and kids, adulthood in general, had been more than he could handle for long. Gambling had been his vice. It had been Mu Qing’s family’s lack of safety. They’d gone to school with hungry stomachs, in clothes that didn’t fit or were too thin, and slept without heat in the frozen winters.
When his creditors’ patience ran out…Mu Qing’s skin never lost the scars. And Mu Qing could never forgive his father.
It was a good thing, Mu Qing thought, that he and Hua Cheng were only temporary. A time where patience wouldn’t matter because they wouldn’t even need it to, the distance between them too great to say they needed more space. It should be good. His mother should approve. Mu Qing asked anyway. Asked when he agreed to Hua Cheng’s deal. He asks again today.
But if his mother was listening, if she had an answer, there wasn’t a way for Mu Qing to hear her.
He tips his head down. He can’t cry, he can’t cry. It’s his wedding day, he can’t —
“Mu Qing…” Hua Cheng speaks softly, his steps slow as he comes closer. “I’m here, is that okay?”
Mu Qing can just manage a nod. A light touch skims down his spine, and then Hua Cheng crouches down to set a small bouquet of white chrysanthemums and lilies in front of the gravestone.
“Aiyi, I’m marrying your son today,” Hua Cheng says. “You tried for us to be friends, but we hadn’t taken your advice then. But I’m taking it now.”
Mu Qing’s breath catches, and his hand finds Hua Cheng’s, their fingers entwining on Hua Cheng’s thigh.
Hua Cheng holds his hand tightly. “Even if this marriage doesn’t last, I promise you I will care for Mu Qing. I will treat him well. In sickness, in health…”
Mu Qing can feel a shift in the air, a movement beside him. When he looks up, his head finally rising to look at Hua Cheng, the other man is already looking at him, gaze unwavering.
“I won’t make the mistakes my parents did,” Hua Cheng swears.
Mu Qing’s stared into these eyes, that one baby blue and the warm amber of the other, hundreds of times. He’s seen them in fights years ago, welling with malice. But those years have long passed and all Mu Qing knows when he thinks of Hua Cheng’s eyes, when he sees them now, is reassurance.
Safety.
His breath hitches for the second time. He’s had his sign, almost from the start.
——————
“It’s Christmas morning, I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Mu Qing grumbles from beside Hua Cheng, eyes dancing between the courthouse and Hua Cheng before finally settling on where E-Ming is playing with the winter flowers still pushing vibrantly through a layer of snow in front of the courthouse.
Hua Cheng glances at him, surprised. The pensiveness from earlier is gone, Mu Qing’s mood having changed since they left the cemetery, something just a little lighter in the steps he took to where they would do the ceremony. But Mu Qing’s outward appearances weren’t so effective on Hua Cheng anymore; he knows well enough that Mu Qing’s grief wasn’t so easily swayed. Knows now that in conversations with Mu Qing, it wasn’t a matter of him wanting to change the topic. It was a matter of him wanting to leave it behind, where he couldn’t reach or worry or hurt about it. And this time, when it’s hard enough for Mu Qing to stand there for their wedding, Hua Cheng wants to let him escape.
Still, it’s not easy to turn his focus away— Hua Cheng fixated on things with a grip that wouldn’t be relinquished in death— but there’s enough distraction around him to try to fixate on something else for a moment.
‘I will care for Mu Qing. I will treat him well. In sickness, in health…I won’t make the mistakes my parents did.’ Hua Cheng keeps the vow close, unwilling to let it slip away from his thoughts until it’s a promise he knows by heart rather than mind. But he changes it from the one he made in front of Mu Qing, adding just one more line: ‘ I won’t hurt Mu Qing or let him be hurt like Mu xiansheng did.’
In the quiet between them, near-silent pockets of empty spaces that stretched out to the deserted courtyard around them, Hua Cheng watches Mu Qing take a picture of the flowers. Then a couple of E-Ming with the flowers. And then, unsurprisingly, he starts clicking pictures of the courthouse.
In the forced lightheartedness, Hua Cheng follows. He’s careful every step of the way.
“I’m still not sure I believe you’re Mu Qing,” Hua Cheng drawls, coiling a finger around the now shorter strands of Mu Qing’s hair. Hua Cheng pouts slightly. While his hair was short per military standards, Mu Qing had also gotten an undercut, chopping the top strands and combing it to the side so it fell in layered waves down to somewhere near his chin.
Mu Qing snorts, raising an eyebrow. “I think I’m being scammed and you’re fussing about me wanting to look nice on my wedding day?”
“I’m not fussing,” Hua Cheng insists. “And you’re getting my money and benefits. Besides,” his wrist was still tender beneath the long sleeve of his suit, the reddened skin wrapped carefully in plastic wrap to protect his new tattoo from infection. “ You’re not the one with a permanent body modification.”
“ What body modification?” Mu Qing startles, reaching out. He pats at Hua Cheng’s arms, tilts his chin from side to side, inspecting Hua Cheng.
“Don’t panic, xīngān , ” Hua Cheng relishes Mu Qing’s blush as he slowly pulls up the sleeve of his suit jacket, showing off the delicate tattoo of Mu Qing’s name on his wrist. The characters are bordered by a vine of scorpion grass on either side as if forming a permanent bracelet across the skin.
Mu Qing grabs Hua Cheng’s hand, bringing it closer to his eyes. “You cannot be serious.” Hua Cheng only smirks, arching a brow, and Mu Qing’s eyes only grow wider, shock in the little drop of his jaw. “When I suggested it, I didn’t think you’d— god, actually it is very much like you to just get a fricking tattoo with someone’s name.”
“Not just someone’s,” Hua Cheng murmurs, and he’s careful to emphasize, “my xīngān’s.”
Mu Qing turns away quickly, his neck and ears prickling red. E-Ming finally stands up from the garden bed, his dirtied hands wrapped around a small bunch of flowers.
Dropping Hua Cheng’s arm, Mu Qing crouches down, angling his phone camera up. “Smile A-Ming!”
“Do you really need that many pictures?” Hua Cheng snorts, looking over Mu Qing’s shoulder when the man stands back up. His hands come up to settle delicately on Mu Qing’s hips. “Someone like you who can remember such unimportant things, you need pictures to help you remember our wedding? ”
It’s rhetorical, really, more a ridiculous joke than anything. The scenery in front of them is very them in a way that Hua Cheng can’t explain, and it’s very much like Mu Qing to take photos of, well, anything he found pretty. The courthouse where they were marrying was a part of the city hall, a Renaissance style building with tall columns and an intricately decorated dome. Behind them, there were a dozen trees lining either side of the pathway leading to the front stairs where they were standing, interspersed with old fashioned lamp posts.
As for E-Ming and his unfair levels of adorableness, Hua Cheng didn’t even want to know how many albums’ worth of photos Mu Qing had already taken.
“Memories are meant to be shared,” Mu Qing shrugs, and he leans back a bit in Hua Cheng’s hold, changing his camera so it was facing them and clicking another picture. “Besides,” he tilts his head to meet Hua Cheng’s eyes, voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Maybe I want to keep this forever.”
And then Mu Qing slips away. “It’s almost time to go inside.”
Hua Cheng watches as Mu Qing slips off his winter jacket and brushes his hands down his bronze-gold overcoat, straightening it as if to rid it of wrinkles that weren’t there.
Feng Xin had chosen the outfit well, that Hua Cheng can admit, even as disgruntled as he was that Feng Xin waited for that morning to bring Mu Qing’s suit. Red had always complimented Mu Qing well, but paired with the soft bronze-gold cover up and matching choker necklace inlaid with red gems, he looked like fairytale beauty. Hua Cheng only mourned the loss of Mu Qing’s hair.
“Sao sao!” The little boy runs over to them, his hands and clothes messy with dirt, and Mu Qing goes stiff just for a moment before he suddenly tsks, crouching down to try and brush the dirt from the winter clothing and red-gold Tang suit they’d dressed E-Ming in. The little boy holds out his hands, revealing a bundle of colorful wildflowers. They’re pretty for weeds, Hua Cheng thinks, and he reaches out to touch the flowers. E-Ming quickly pulls his hands back.
“Not for Gege,” he protests. “It’s for sao sao!”
Mu Qing goes rigid, his hands freezing in their task, and Hua Cheng laughs, head tipping back with it as E-Ming tries and fails at pushing the flowers into Mu Qing’s hair. “I was hoping that’s not what you said,” he grumbles.
“‘Sao?” Hua Cheng repeats, just to watch Mu Qing tense even more. “Doesn’t that mean ‘to sweep’?” He smiles, a little sharply, and fixes the flowers into Mu Qing’s hair properly, covering the parts that were thinner that Mu Qing had tried for the entire ride there to fix so it wasn’t noticeable. “I didn’t know you told E-Ming that you’d been a maid.”
“ Housekeeper ,” Mu Qing grit his teeth, face pinking. “And shut up, you know what he means.”
Hua Cheng only smirks wider. “ Oh, you mean ‘sao sao’ as in for your ‘older brother’s wife ’ . Makes sense.”
Mu Qing flushes an even deeper red, catching Hua Cheng’s hand and pulling it away from his hair before turning back to E-Ming. “You can just call me ‘Qing-gege’.”
E-Ming deflates, shaking his head as he wraps his arms around Mu Qing’s leg and hugging it, pleading eyes staring up. “Not sao sao?”
Mu Qing doesn’t even falter, unbudging. “Not sao sao,” he confirms. But he strokes E-Ming’s hair back gently.
“What about A-Qing?” A soft voice asks from behind them. It’s almost nervous.
———
“I hope you don’t mind me putting two gifts in one. It’s all I can afford,” Xie Lian laughs awkwardly when Hua Cheng and Mu Qing turn to him. The box is cheap between his hands, and he grips it too tightly just to stop his hands from trembling. But it only makes the material crinkle. “I haven’t seen you in awhile, Mu Qing…” he remembers the look of rejection, the sheen across Mu Qing’s eyes.
It took Xie Lian only moments to realize it, to process that Mu Qing never said sorry to him before that day at the restaurant— there was no conflict between them otherwise where Mu Qing had needed to.
But Mu Qing had tried to reach out again. Xie Lian just didn’t answer. “I suppose that’s my own fault,” he murmurs quietly.
It wasn’t easy to stay away. The past weeks, months , Xie Lian only found himself crumbling. Where they’d once talked almost daily had filled those portions of Xie Lian’s days with disquiet, loneliness, but Xie Lian couldn’t bear to speak to Mu Qing either. Even the thought of it formed a knot in his throat.
Married. Married.
“Lian-ge…” Mu Qing starts.
And then he falls quiet. Xie Lian watches San Lang step a little closer, his hand coming to rest somewhere on the small of Mu Qing’s back. It takes a moment, Mu Qing leans slightly into the touch, bracing himself, and Xie Lian feels his heart clench, bitter for another moment. But Mu Qing tries again, and he has to let it go. Has to listen so he doesn’t let Mu Qing go again.
“I wanted to explain. I should’ve . It wasn’t right to assume how you’d feel and I’m sorry that, in doing so, I hurt you.”
Xie Lian glances down, pressing his lips together for a moment. Then he shrugs, smiling lightly, a watery twist of his lips that he hopes seems genuine. “I should’ve listened.” He steps closer. “It was long ago, Mu Qing, there’s nothing for me to forgive...”
Mu Qing makes a complicated face but Xie Lian doesn’t give him a chance to protest, opening the box and showing what was inside to Mu Qing. In it, there is a single cuff wrap earring. From it, gold chains of different lengths dropped down to small pendants that, together, became an assortment of red and clear gems inlaid among a flower petal design that would curl around the lobe of the ear. There were two gold wire butterflies placed on the metal that would wrap around the helix of the ear. It’s similar enough somewhat to the one Yin Yu showed him that He Xuan had gotten San Lang and to San Lang’s style to fit the occasion, to fit their relationship…
To remind Xie Lian that Mu Qing wouldn’t, couldn’t, ever be his.
“If it’s okay. If you’d like,” Xie Lian murmurs, taking the earring out, holding it up in offer.
Mu Qing licks his lips lightly, eyes furtive, but he bends his knees just enough for Xie Lian to reach. He can’t help it, when he touches Mu Qing’s hair, he knows he can’t hide his endearment. Xie Lian swallows a bit roughly, stroking the strands away from Mu Qing’s ear, and when he lets his hands fall, his fingers find the tips of Mu Qing’s own, tangling together.
“I’ll see you when you’re done,” Xie Lian promises.
Mu Qing grips Xie Lian’s hand just a little tighter. “See you.”
—————
They could’ve had people with them, more than just Yin Yu and Mu Fei, but between the headache of the pseudo reception that Hua Cheng knew the others were planning and the headache of Mu Qing griping, fussing, and stressing over who to invite was too much to deal with, more so knowing the damn stress would send Mu Qing’s health into more chaos. Mu Qing knows that and still as they walk up the stairs to the balcony where the courtroom is, Mu Qing mutters,
“Maybe we should’ve let some of the others join us.”
“They’ll see us later,” Hua Cheng sighs. He gestures to the officator in front of them. “Pei Ming will probably give them a scene by scene replay.”
“Oh, I am,” Pei Ming says, looking up from a book in his hands.
He leans against the desk behind him, legs crossed at the ankles. He’s barely even dressed for a wedding technically, his suit jacket not hiding the ugly sweater and wretched tie underneath it. There’s Santas and snowmen with hearts spotted across it, ribbons and reindeer, and Hua Cheng is almost ready to choke the man with the striped socks peeking out from where his pants pulled up.
“Yin Yu already has the camera set up. We’re going to send this to them live and recorded.”
“What?!” Mu Qing chokes. “Everyone’s watching right now?”
Pei Ming leans over to peer at the screen of the computer at the corner of the desk. He murmurs a bit, lips moving silently. “Yeah, we’re all here. Looks like Xie Lian managed to get in on his phone! Way to go, Dianxia.”
Mu Qing gapes. “This will take two minutes.”
“And they should value it with their lives ,” Hua Cheng says, and he’s careful to appear as serious as possible. “There is no two minutes more important.”
“You’re ridiculous—”
“Ah, one thing, guys,” Pei Ming interrupts. “Are we doing any personalized vows or would you like the boring, pre-written version?”
“Pre-written,” Mu Qing says just as Hua Cheng answers, “Personalized.”
“Both then,” Pei Ming nods before Mu Qing or Hua Cheng could protest, acting as if both would make sense. “Sweet. Let’s start.”
He doesn’t wait, slipping into an opening and recitation of prayers that feel so formal and proper, Hua Cheng can only stare at Pei Ming’s outfit with growing absurdity. To the point he almost doesn’t register then Pei Ming tells him to say his vows and put his ring on Mu Qing’s finger.
“We didn’t get rin—” Mu Qing’s voice falters when E-Ming slips a box from his thick winter jacket pocket and hands it to Hua Cheng.
“You didn’t get me a ring?”
The younger man smirks, all too amused at the way Mu Qing stares at it like it might attack him, voice choking in disbelief.
““Of course I got you a ring,” Mu Qing says, aghast, and he pulls a jewelry box from his sleeve. “I just thought…you’ve got that tattoo!”
“How the hell…” Hua Cheng doesn’t even answer Mu Qing’s exclaim, too busy trying to figure out where the box was hidden away.
Mu Qing ignores him though as if it were completely commonplace that he managed to keep a box in his sleeve without it falling out or being ridiculously obvious.
“And I thought he was walking around with a toy !” Mu Qing almost sounds vexed.
Hua Cheng slips the customized bracelet out from the box and kneels down. It’s a bit expensive, fancy in a simplistic type of elegance, plated in white gold and with wings of sapphires. He expects Mu Qing to refuse. He hopes Mu Qing doesn’t.
“What are you doing?” Mu Qing sputters. “What is this?”
“Me being territorial,” Hua Cheng says. “Whether you’re to be mine in marriage for today or for years later, whether you tire of me or never at all, you’ll always be mine whom I cherish. I will care for you from near and from any distance. Even in death, even after.”
It’s all for show, he tells himself. And that’s all a lie.
But it’s not.
He’s not sure of the last time it was.
Hua Cheng clasps the bracelet around Mu Qing’s wrist, the sapphire crystal and white gold butterflies along the chain tinkling gently as they settle on his skin.
(Hua Cheng tries not to think about how Mu Qing is so thin now that he has to clip the clasp to the link closest to the design. He has to try even harder not to think about how the strength that once was in Mu Qing’s hands— Hua Cheng knew from experience, thanks, he had enough injuries in the past to testify to it— wasn't there anymore.)
But Mu Qing doesn’t pay any mind to it, and shakes his wrist slightly, a ghost of a smile crossing his lips when the charms jingle.
“Come up, then,” Mu Qing murmurs, letting his hand fall down to let Hua Cheng slip their hands together, only opening his own box once Hua Cheng is once again standing in front of him.
The top comes away, revealing a silver chain with a jade ring pendant. Along the ring, a dragon made of silver coils around one side, wrapping around the band of the ring. On the other, a carp lays along the top of the ring, as if swimming and merging into the dragon.
“ This ,” Mu Qing says, holding the chain up for Hua Cheng to see, displaying it at a distance along Hua Cheng’s neck. “is for your protection so you don’t get blown the hell up.”
Hua Cheng tips his head slightly down. “Will my husband put it on me?”
Mu Qing blushes, but he reaches around Hua Cheng’s neck.
“Even in death, even after, I will care for you,” Mu Qing murmurs, and he hooks the chain in place, watching the pendant come to rest by Hua Cheng’s heart. Mu Qing rests his hand right there, hand warm against Hua Cheng’s chest. His other hand, Mu Qing takes it to mirror his own so Hua Cheng can feel the beat of Mu Qing’s heart beneath his palm. “Distance doesn’t matter; this is where you are.”
They’re close, heads tipped towards each other. Hua Cheng moves his hand up slowly, brushing his thumb along Mu Qing’s jaw.
And he presses their lips together.