Work Text:
“Gege, I finished!” Hua Cheng announced, setting his brush to the side.
Xie Lian looked up from where he’d been fiddling with some new junk he’d collected. “Let’s see.”
Wandering over, he took in the absolutely atrocious lines. Barely legible. Utterly evil. Enough to curse any who looked upon it.
“Wow, San Lang is really improving!”
“Really?” Hua Cheng looked over his own work, clearly doubtful.
“En! San Lang’s lines are much cleaner now.”
Hua Cheng tilted his head, looking at the work again as if he could divine what Xie Lian saw in it. Seeming to give up, Hua Cheng leaned in close to his husband. “Then will gege give his San Lang his reward now?”
“Of course, come here,” Xie Lian pulled his husband’s hands up between them.
It didn’t happen every time, but it was certainly most times at this point that they did their little routine after calligraphy. What had started as joking whining about how sore his hand was after doing practice sheets had morphed into a very good excuse for Xie Lian to spoil his husband and play with those hands he loved so dearly.
Taking his right hand first, Xie Lian found his forehead resting against his husband’s as he began the massage. Hua Cheng had beautiful, slender fingers. Much longer than Xie Lian’s own.
He had never realized how lovely hands could be until he met his husband. They were powerful hands. Yet there was a certain delicateness to them.
It wasn’t that Xie Lian’s hands were ugly. They were simply hands. Nothing special. Maybe someone more skilled in palmistry could have told him all the ways his hands pointed towards his destiny. Maybe they could’ve told him if he and Hua Cheng were fated or what hardships they still had to endure. Currently though, all Xie Lian cared about was helping his husband through the great hardship of calligraphy practice.
Starting as his knuckle, Xie Lian rubbed circles down down down, smiling as he passed each bony notch on his way until he could tug at the painted fingertips. There was something satisfying about going from the smoothness of his pale skin to the slide of his blackened nails. Visually and tactilely, Hua Cheng was incredible.
He’d thought perhaps Hua Cheng just put up with the odd way he tugged and toyed with his husband’s hands at first, but apparently this was a real massage technique and really helped release tension. Which was good because Xie Lian really had the habit of doing it anyways. Most of the affection they shared was a thoughtless, impulsive thing that happened like a natural inevitability of the universe. The sun would rise in the east. The moon would wax and wane. And Xie Lian and Hua Cheng would find a way to touch.
There was something meditative about this touch though. Something almost like a centralized way to cuddle. He liked the way they could entwine fingers and share in Xie Lian’s body heat. Loved everything about touching Hua Cheng really.
“Does gege enjoy my writing calluses?” Hua Cheng broke him from his thoughts as Xie Lian rubbed a bit longer at those spots.
“I like your Sabre calluses too,” Xie Lian smiled, tracing the area of his grip as if to prove his point and earning an unnecessary little sigh of happiness from his husband.
Pulling his hand closer, Xie Lian kissed each fingertip. That technique wasn’t an official massage move, but it made his husband smile and his own heart flutter, so he thought that was more important.
Meeting his husband’s eyes, Xie Lian tried to convey his love with every kiss. Did his husband know? Did he know that Xie Lian cherished these hands more than any other? He had too. Xie Lian really couldn’t bear it if he didn’t.
But Xie Lian thought he did. He thought he could see the understanding in the peace of Hua Cheng’s expression. In the way his smile seemed to soften more and more with every gentle press of lips.
“Is gege done with massages and moving on to kisses?” Hua Cheng teased, puckering his lips.
Shaking his head, Xie Lian didn’t care to hide his smile as he dropped his eyes back down to his work. Cupping under his husband’s hand, Xie Lian massaged up the back in long, firm strokes of his thumb, delighting in the way Hua Cheng’s body warmed at his touches.
Pausing, Xie Lian kissed the back of the hand too, smiling at the way his husband’s fingers twitched against his palm as if surprised. Which he really shouldn’t have been. Hadn’t he been the one to just ask for more kisses? Xie Lian never one to refuse his husband much.
Turning his hand over, Xie Lian continued his work, gently massaging down across his palm. Gentle circles, gentle circles. It needed the right amount of pressure. Sure Hua Cheng could take more of his strength, but that didn’t make it correct or comfortable. And he knew just as much as he adored the closeness of these touches, Hua Cheng did too. If Xie Lian had decided to start biting his husband in a show of affection, Hua Cheng would probably still like it though, so it really wasn’t a very hard bar to pass.
Xie Lian made his own bars on such things. A never ending goal to love his husband so well that he believed himself worthy of such treatment. It was not the sort of thing that happened overnight, but at the very least he knew he’d created a space where his husband knew he could ask for things he wanted. Even if he always seemed a little surprised that Xie Lian actually wanted to massage his hands or grant him kisses.
Glancing up to check that his husband was enjoying himself, he felt heat blossom in his chest at the adoring gaze set on him.
“Does it feel good?”
“So good I could ascend,” Hua Cheng teased, voice soft and full of love.
“That’s no good, I need San Lang to stay here with me so I can finish his other hand.”
“Oh so as long as gege gets to finish his massage I can ascend afterwards?”
“Only if San Lang promises to come back for dinner.”
Hua Cheng laughed, leaning in to steal a kiss. “Gege knows nothing in any of the three realms could make this one miss dinner.”
“What will San Lang ascend as?” Xie Lian asked, feeling playful as he switched hands. “A god of calligraphy perhaps?”
“Maybe. If I do it will be all thanks to gege’s tutoring. Everyone will remember the Crown Prince of Xianle’s best calligraphy student.”
Xie Lian paused in his massage, looking up at his husband with sudden seriousness. “San Lang… if you ever did ascend for such a thing please don’t tell anyone I taught you.”
Hua Cheng burst out laughing, which made it very difficult for him to pull off his false pout. “Gege how mean! Didn’t you say you loved this San Lang’s work? That he’s getting better?”
“En. But… just a bit more practice maybe.”
Snickering, Hua Cheng nuzzled foreheads, only slightly disrupting Xie Lian’s focus. He couldn’t find it in him to mind though. The massages really were just a thinly veiled excuse to play with his husband’s hands.
“This one will make sure to practice more before he ascends for his calligraphy,” Hua Cheng promised.
“Mn. Very good then,” Xie Lian pulled his hand close to kiss it just as he had with the last. “All better.”
He moved his hands to intertwine with his husband’s instead of dropping them, not quite ready for the contact to end yet.
It seemed Hua Cheng wasn’t either, squeezing his hands in return and tugging them up so he could have his own turn kissing Xie Lian’s hands.
“Are gege’s hands sore?”
“From giving you a massage?” Xie Lian raised an eyebrow, unable to help his grin.
“En. It seems very difficult on your highness.”
Xie Lian really loved his husband so much. “If San Lang kisses them more, I think they’ll get better.”
And luckily Hua Cheng had a lot more kisses to give.