Chapter Text
“San Lang,” Xie Lian mumbled, breaking apart from their languid kiss. In the candle-lit dimness, all he could see was the curtain of Hua Cheng’s long hair falling from above and framing both of their faces, and he reached out a hand to wind a strand of the hair around his finger. It was deceptively soft, and smelled of shampoo from their joint shower earlier. Hua Cheng’s rough hands were trailing his waist, half-ticklish, half-sensual, and he could hear Hua Cheng’s low whimpers against his earlobe, and as Xie Lian’s own breathing grew shallow, he felt ready to say ask for what he’d been wanting for some months now. “San Lang,” Xie Lian said again, hoping his voice stayed low and didn’t betray how nervous he felt. “Do you–– Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph!”
Thankfully, Hua Cheng’s instincts were quick enough to draw the blanket over their naked bodies as something crashed into their bedroom door with such enormous force that it broke through the lock. The door burst out of his frame and squeaked at the hinges as some strange, violent creature tumbled in, accompanied by a series of bloodcurdling screeches. Finally, the creature rolled to a stop right at the foot of Hua Cheng and Xie Lian’s bed, and unfurled its various spindly limbs to reveal––
“Qi Rong?” Xie Lian said, exasperated. So many questions crowded into his mind when he was faced with the latest commotion caused by his cousin that he didn’t even know how or where to begin –– Where have you been for the past three days? Haven’t you heard of knocking? Why are you covered in––?
But to his relief, Hua Cheng took the lead once again and bought Xie Lian some time to organise his thoughts. “What in the world is that,” Hua Cheng growled, and the confident authority in his tone was not helping with the situation between Xie Lian’s legs at all.
Hold on, though –– what was that in Qi Rong’s arms? It seemed to be squirming of its own accord, as though it were… some kind of animal, like a puppy. Was this the thing that had been screeching just now?
Instead of replying to Hua Cheng’s perfectly reasonable question, Qi Rong only smiled a toothy grin and unwrapped the bundle, which turned out to be his favorite green hoodie folded up in order to protect the… the child in the middle of it all. It was a little boy of perhaps five or six years old, and he was currently –– somehow, despite all the noise –– fast asleep, sucking one of his thumbs in contentment. He had long, fluttering eyelashes and an adorable lick of messy brown hair. Just looking at his peaceful face made Xie Lian’s heart skip a beat. He wanted to rush over and kiss the child on his shiny little forehead and make him a bucket hat to wear, and almost let out an “Awwww!” before he caught himself and realised that none of this made sense –– where had Qi Rong gotten this child from? Had he… stolen it?
Finally, Qi Rong spoke, though not at all in the reverential and hushed voice that Xie Lian had been about to take. Instead, he screamed –– and yes, it turned out that the screeching earlier had come from none other than Qi Rong himself –– “Look what I got!” Then began to cackle while he swung the still sleeping child in the air like a stuffed toy.
Hua Cheng scrambled out of the bed –– when had he had the time to put on his clothes? How long had Xie Lian been sitting there in a daze? –– and snatched the child away. Qi Rong’s face scrunched up with such shock that Xie Lian worried he’d begin to cry, but then the two cousins met eyes and Xie Lian tried to use his eyebrows to say, Let’s take this one step at a time. Calm down, cuz! which seemed to actually work. Qi Rong clamped his mouth shut and instead looked back at Hua Cheng, who had leant the child’s forehead against his shoulder and was now lightly tapping its back. Xie Lian couldn’t see Hua Cheng’s face from this angle, but he knew that Hua Cheng was likely furious, and his stomach churned when he realised that this might really be the last straw –– that this latest episode, kidnapping a child, was too far and that tomorrow morning the commune members would vote, once and for all, to expel Qi Rong, to kick him out and let him fend for himself and likely get picked up by the police and thrown into the prison industrial complex, never to be seen again.
Xie Lian couldn’t let that happen. He needed to straighten things out right here, right now. With shaking hands, he rummaged beneath the covers until he found his pyjamas and slipped them on as quickly as he could, then hurried over to Qi Rong, who was still sitting cross-legged on the floor.
From the time Xie Lian had been spending with his weird, weird murder-suspect cousin, Xie Lian had learned early on that Qi Rong did not like being touched. So Xie Lian sat as close as he could to Qi Rong without letting their knees brush each other, and made sure to mirror Qi Rong’s cross-legged position in order to provide some sense of comfort.
“Cuz,” Xie Lian said softly, hyperaware of Hua Cheng looming behind them with the thankfully unconscious child, probably giving Qi Rong the evil eye. “How about we start from the end of the story, and go all the way backwards until we hit the beginning? Is that alright?”
Qi Rong pouted, but nodded.
Xie Lian smiled even as a fresh wave of exhaustion rocked through his body. He would get all the important things out of the way tonight, and sort out the rest of things tomorrow –– inbetween, he’d also have to get Hua Cheng on his side. If he could convince his boyfriend to let Qi Rong stay, then dealing with the rest of the commune members would be far easier. “Great,” Xie Lian said, steadying himself. “Do you know what the boy’s name is?” That should be a simple enough question to start them out.
“Guzi,” Qi Rong said.
Valley? That was cute. But clearly some kind of nickname –– and no surname, Xie Lian noted.
“And do you know where his parents might be?” Xie Lian asked patiently.
But Qi Rong looked down into his lap and curled his hands into his fists, and said nothing.
Okay, so that wasn’t the right direction to take. Xie Lian asked a different question: “How did you and Guzi meet?”
Qi Rong mumbled something unintelligible.
“Sorry, cuz, what was that?”
“I said, I met him at McDonald’s,” Qi Rong said.
Hua Cheng scoffed. “Oh my God, you really did kidnap––“
“San Lang,” Xie Lian snapped, then groaned to himself. He hadn’t meant to come off as so harsh, but this really was not the right time for Hua Cheng to interject with something snarky. It was especially inappropriate to automatically accuse Qi Rong of having committed a crime –– not only would it put Qi Rong on the defensive, but they also fundamentally needed to give him the benefit of the doubt. Just because Qi Rong was… the way he was… didn’t mean that everything he did was bad! How were they all meant to relate to him properly if everyone regarded him with so much suspicion all the time?
But Xie Lian couldn’t say all this to Hua Cheng now, not in front of Qi Rong himself, so he just sighed and hoped that Hua Cheng had gotten the message. Xie Lian would make it up to him later.
Xie Lian took a deep breath. “Sorry about that, cuz. San Lang didn’t mean it. Now, can you tell me a bit about what was happening at McDonald’s? Did Guzi tell you his name himself?”
Qi Rong rolled his eyes, as though he were already sick of this conversation, but answered Xie Lian’s question anyway –– for this, Xie Lian was glad, as only some months ago his cousin would long have cut the conversation short. He grumbled, “Guzi was alone at McDonald’s. The other kids were playing in the ball pit but he was on the side by himself. Then he saw me and said I was his dad.” He seemed to want to say more, but then changed his mind and shrugged again as he shot a defiant look past Xie Lian’s shoulder. “I’ll only accept Horrible Hua Cheng’s apology if it comes from his own mouth.”
Xie Lian turned to follow Qi Rong’s gaze and saw that Hua Cheng was scowling. “San Lang,” Xie Lian said. “Could you…?”
“Ugh,” Hua Cheng replied. “Sorry,” he spat at Qi Rong. It wasn’t a genuine apology at all, but at least he was saying it. Xie Lian told himself to count that as a win, too –– it was rather late at night, after all, and everyone was tired.
They really needed to wrap this up so that they were all in a state to talk about it properly in the morning.
“Okay,” Xie Lian said. “Is that acceptable for you, cuz?”
“Whatever,” Qi Rong muttered.
“Thank you for being so understanding,” Xie Lian said. He suppressed all the other questions he wanted to ask and instead said, “Let’s open up one of the spare rooms for little Guzi so that he can get a good night’s sleep. Do you want to come help me with the bedsheets?”
Qi Rong didn’t say anything, but he did let Xie Lian help him up from the ground. Xie Lian didn’t know about his cousin, but his knees had somehow fallen asleep in that short amount of time and his legs were wobbly with fatigue. He flexed his ankles a little while he looked back and forth between Qi Rong and Hua Cheng, nodding at them with what he hoped was an optimistic face.
“We can use the sheets I just finished sewing the other day!” Xie Lian said once they’d padded quietly down the corridor and unlocked the door to one of the empty bedrooms in the commune’s main house.
He knew that he was babbling, but he wanted to make sure that no one was feeling on edge anymore, so as they quickly set up the bed for Guzi –– who really was a champ for managing not to wake up after all this –– Xie Lian talked, mostly to himself, about the process he’d gone through to make this particular set of linens and how relaxed he felt now that he’d taken on the official job of commune seamstress and tailor.
By the time he finished a story about an embroidery design he’d been trying out on an old T-shirt that had been so ugly he’d needed to pull all the threads out, everything was ready, Guzi was tucked in, and Hua Cheng looked visibly relaxed. Qi Rong’s stomach suddenly rumbled, so Xie Lian turned to him and said, “Do you want me to make you some porridge, cuz?”
Qi Rong turned pale at that, for some reason, and stammered, “N-no thanks. I’ll be fine.” He quickly scurried back into his own bedroom, which he hadn’t been occupying for the past few nights on account of having disappeared with the commune truck. He didn’t even slam the door –– actually shut it very gently and quietly –– so he must’ve been really spooked by something. Xie Lian wondered what that was.
“Sorry about all that,” Xie Lian whispered as he and Hua Cheng slipped out of Guzi’s room too.
“Gege has no need to apologise,” Hua Cheng replied, swinging an arm around Xie Lian’s shoulder to lead him back to their bed at the end of the hall. Xie Lian wasn’t fooled, though –– he could feel how tense Hua Cheng was, how worried. Although he knew that Hua Cheng knew how important Qi Rong was, and had become, to Xie Lian in recent months, Xie Lian was still worried that this incident might be too much for the commune to handle.
So when they gingerly leant their destroyed door against the doorframe, blew out the candles, and slipped back into bed, Xie Lian pressed his cold toes against Hua Cheng’s shins endearingly and said, “San Lang is so kind. San Lang is the best.” Then leant closer and stuck his tongue into Hua Cheng’s mouth and his hand down Hua Cheng’s trousers.
At first, Hua Cheng melted into the kiss, but then he pulled away with a smirk and said, “What are you doing?”
“Uh…”
“Are you trying to seduce me so that I’ll be nice to your cousin tomorrow?”
Xie Lian winced. “… No?” he replied weakly, even as his face flushed with embarrassment. To be very fair, Xie Lian had been wanting to take things to the next level, before Qi Rong had burst into their room so unceremoniously. Technically, he was just… continuing.
Hua Cheng flicked his forehead and suppressed a laugh. “Silly gege. I’ll always be on your side. You don’t have to use your wiles on me.”
Xie Lian buried his face in Hua Cheng’s chest so that no one had to see him in his moment of shame, and managed to come out with a muffled, “Unnghghgh.”
Hua Cheng finally did laugh, and then pulled Xie Lian even closer to him. It was so warm and comforting that Xie Lian couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as he felt all of his exhaustion catch up to him again. God, he really was so tired.
“Guzi is a really cute kid,” Hua Cheng whispered into Xie Lian’s hair, which Xie Lian barely heard as he felt himself drifting off to sleep. “It would be cool if we could keep him.”
“Mm,” Xie Lian said. “Funny.”
His San Lang was so funny. He’d missed that, in the years they’d been apart. He was glad they were together again. His San Lang told the funniest jokes. This one was funny because it could never, ever happen.
Right?