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It’s been years, decades maybe, since the last time he’s allowed himself to just drift away and dream. The feeling is strange; it’s as if you’re living somebody else’s life yet on your own, as if your own decisions have nothing to do with you… And yet Hua Cheng opens his eyes, and he feels like his own life is not entirely his either. Chasing the hazy feelings he isn’t used to away, Hua Cheng starts to ponder, looking at the still silent Xie Lian… How is it even possible that he wakes up next to this beautiful face, how does he just lie there, sharing a bed, a blanket, breathing the same air… He’s not worthy.
Of Course Hua Cheng doesn’t really need to sleep, but it is fun to pretend like he does; it's not like it's entirely bad for him either. Among the perks - he gets to hold Xie Lian really close, and, well, he’s not one to admit it openly, but his favorite part is actually being cuddled by the unconscious Xie Lian during the night. Gege’s strong arms come around him as he's having the most pleasant dreams, pulling him closer to his body with all his might. And admittedly, it’s quite the might.
Hua Cheng crawls closer, foreheads huddling together. Although they’ve let the straw mattress go, albeit the half-hearted protests of “it’s still perfectly useable” from Dianxia’s side, the newly set up bed is similar in size to the late one. It was Hua Cheng’s personal idea, he didn’t want to take up more space than necessary in the shrine, of course. Nothing to do with how close he wanted his husband at night, like, at all.
Hua Cheng mentally “Kyaa”-s, still trying to get used to thinking of gege as his husband.
God-
Husband.
A God that is a husband.
He's definitely done something right in his life (or perhaps death) to deserve this.
By then, he’s learned Xie Lian’s sleeping schedule by heart, and by the time sun rises he's already wide awake, awaiting his personal sunshine through his ever-changing dreaming expressions. He basks in them, enjoying the little brow twitches and in-sleep munches. No one is allowed to see gege like this, he’s the only person, it’s his sole privilege… A stretch and a yawn and Hua Cheng knows he’s about to be welcomed with a smile brighter than the sun.
As Hua Cheng sees that Xie Lian begins to move, he immediately closes his eyes, pretending to be asleep. Everything just so he could pout and act like a child with a “five more minutes!” when gege tries to wake him up.
“San Lang” Hua Cheng feels a hand coming down on his head, gently caressing him into consciousness, “good morning San Lang!” and he can practically feel the soft smile his name is uttered with.
Hua Cheng is still not used to it and his heart skips a beat.
Or at least it feels like it does.
They slowly get out of bed albeit determined protests from the demon king’s side. They’ll have time to fool around later, Xie Lian promises, for now they better begin breakfast preparations and start their tightly scheduled day of shopping, training in the woods and perhaps some long ignored chores. Ignoring their evening chores has become a far more frequent scenario as of lately.
Hua Cheng has every intention to hold him to his promise.
Xie Lian prepares breakfast as Hua Cheng waters the flowers, whistling leisurely. He looks up from the planter, and sees his new four pawed friend coming to greet him, jumping on the windowsill. He quickly looks in Xie Lian’s direction, making sure he’s well invested in his artistic freedom, before sneaking a piece of edible-enough fish outside. In the short time he’s been living here in Puqi shrine, the neighbor’s cat, Fluffy, frequented them quite often and he grew fond of the soft purrs that came with the chin scratches, the smart-ass attitude, and how unafraid she was of him. He wouldn’t like for her to perish by the hand of chief Dianxia, he’d rather have her preserve her alive state for as long as she could and when she could no longer… Well, he still has a couple of tricks up his sleeve to make her their forever cat.
Hua Cheng drifts in his plans for cat co-parenting in the future, when his train of thought is abruptly cut by an enthusiastic “San Lang, breakfast!” call from the kitchen.
He enters the kitchen with a smile. Hua Cheng loves being so dead that Xie Lian’s food can’t kill him, because that boy does not lack enthusiasm in the kitchen! Hua Cheng observes the delicacies presented in front of him. Now, try and imagine a color that you haven’t seen yet. Tough, isn’t it? Well, not if Dianxia is cooking for you! Hua Cheng could’ve sworn that the dish was plain white rice when he last saw its state.
This new Gege’s specialty dish is apparently called “Heavenly Dreamcatcher” and Hua Chang can only imagine how he comes up with those dish-names, since the only thing this thing would catch up in the heavens is the attention of the law keepers.
“Thank you for the meal, Gege!” Hua Chang sing-songs with a smile as he digs in, thanking the heavens he is able to cancel his sense of smell at will.
“Ahh San-Lang, slow down!” Xie Lian reaches for Hua Cheng’s sleeve, deeply dipped in his creation.
“Ahh don’t worry about this gege,” Hua Cheng dismisses him with a smile “it adds character!”
“No, San Lang,” Xie Lian firmly protests “you should take this off.”
“Oh if that’s what gege wants he should’ve just said so!” Hua Chang winks as he slowly begins to disrobe, not passing on the opportunity to give his husband suggestive looks.
“I DID NOT MEAN IT LIKE THAT SAN LANG!” Xie Lian hurriedly covers his bright-red flush in the palms of both hands, and it’s just so adorable, so cute, Hua Cheng almost feels bad for teasing him so much.
“Come on, gege,” he throws his defiled robes in a pile in the corner, picking up some white-fresh ones that clearly do not belong to him, “We better leave soon if we want to get to the market.”
“Gege, here you go!” Hua Cheng hands Xie Lian a way less suspicious-looking skewer, but not before taking an unnecessarily large bite off of it.
“San Lang, good!” Xie Lian chuckles as he tucks the recently acquired potatoes away, taking a bite of the already incomplete dish “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Did you find everything alright?” the little shopkeeper lady doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by the shameless flirting in front of her “You need anything else? Bread, eggs, hand in marriage?”
Xie Lian almost spits the food he is chewing, to the heartly laugh of the shopkeeper “I’ve got a daughter your age, you know?”
I highly doubt that Xie Lian thinks, but keeps on smiling, nonetheless.
“Hey, don’t pester the esteemed gege,” the old lady from the neighboring stand chimes in protest “it’s well known this one already got his special someone, isn’t it true son?”
“Y-Yeah,” Xie Lian blushes under Hua Cheng’s look, accompanied by an ear-to-ear smile “I do.”
“Then what about your honored companion,” the lady screens Hua Cheng with her judging look from head to toe “seems quite the fine lad as well!”
“Don’t embarrass yourself!” the old lady elbows the younger one. Waving the two gentlemen goodbye she whispers, knowingly “those two lived around the shrine before your family came around, both have wives, both beauties beyond the grasp of the heavens,” she continues in a mysterious tone "too divine to go out in public" as the silhouettes of the two shrine dwellers grow distant, far from the common folks’ eye, hand in hand.
The couple arrives at the shrine; Returning home feels nice. The familiar smell of straw, the not so long ago burnt incense, the unfinished cat food he’s left all forgotten on the porch… Oh, that’s right, he should get rid of the evidence before gege gets a chance to be disappointed for missing Fluffy. Or having a go on Fluffy’s life, depends how you look at that.
“San Lang,” Xie Lian presents him his dirty robes from this morning. It seems like the stain has malignant qualities and it spread meanwhile “I feel like laundry-day is in order”
Hua Cheng holds the robes while Xie Lian applies the detergent. He can’t help but chuckle as gege insists on doing their laundry separately, remembering that one time they did not and the “best quality of the best manufacture in ghost city” dyed Xie Lian’s robes bright pink.
Xie Lian insisted on keeping those though “You can never know when cross-dressing is in order in this line of job” was his excuse as he coughed into his fist, prominent flush coloring his cheeks. Hua Cheng decided to simply accept it, even if simply for a chance to ogle his gege wrapped in a brand new colour.
Hua Cheng holds his robes up as Xie Lian rubs them with growing force, at some point he starts worrying that he’s going to make a hole.
“Gege, easy there, if it’s not coming off I can simply get a new set.”
“N-No way,” Xie Lian’s grip on the cloth tightens and his rubbing intensifies “this is perfectly reusable, removable,” he huffs and looks redder in the face as he goes “stupid stain.” He angrily throws the robes in the basin, accidentally splashing one ghost king.
Hua Cheng looks down at his now almost-but-not-quite transparent robes, puffing his chest, amused, “Ahh really, the lengths gege would go to take a peak…”
“Ahhh San Lang, I’m so sorry! I didn’t- I would never-!” Xie Lian panics, covering his eyes to the hearty laugh of his husband.
Xie Lian removes the hands covering his eyes and visibly pouts “San Lang got me again…”
“Can’t help myself,” Hua Cheng gets up and extends his hand for gege to grab a hold on “your reactions are just so much fun” he helps the giggling Xie Lian up and pulls him closer “let’s take a break.”
They both head to sit on the porch, the poor stained robes of Hua Cheng left to simmer, forgotten.
“Mhm, San Lang…” Xie Lian hums, leaning against Hua Cheng’s shoulder.
“Mm?” he absentmindedly answers in the haze brought on by the summer breeze and the setting sun in the distance.
“Isn’t it too quiet?”
Hua Cheng briefly recalls the livelier times when kids, undeads and cousins would pester them in this yard “Gege,” he sighed “I think this is perfect,” but right after, he sees an opening and he takes it “but we could do with a couple of little ones, don’t you think so?”
“Oh,” Xie Lian gulps, but this time he sees right through Hua Cheng’s shenanigans. He smiles, his eyes slit up into half crescents and he continues, uninterrupted “yes we could. I wouldn’t mind a little girl who looks like you, San Lang.”
“Or a little guy who resembles gege?” Hua Cheng suggested.
“Mhm yes, right,” Xie Lian indulges further “bet he’d be a great help with the scrap collecting! We could teach him cultivation, cooking, some fighting skills…” Xie Lian continues as Hua Cheng’s gaze becomes far less focused and more… Euphoric? “And when the time is right I bet he’d bring over a tall, handsome ghost for us to meet.”
Hua Cheng almost chokes on the air he does not need to inhale. Yeah, he should cancel the idea of children if there’s an off chance of them having the same terrible taste in men as gege's.
“Yeah, um, but I mean” Hua Cheng stutters for words as Xie Lian eyes him, grinning from ear to ear at his panic “okay how about Fluffy?”
“It’s not our cat, San Lang” Xie Lian reprimands.
“It’s not our cat yet.” Hua Cheng smiles an enticing smile, “it might become, at some point, how about we start with that?” he gets up “Oh look it’s time for dinner!”
“No, I think it’s still a bit early maybe?”
“No, no. I am starving!”
“Ahhh I’m beat!” Hua Cheng stretches across the table, after helping Xie Lian with the dishes and tidying up the little shrine. Dinner’s been… Interesting. For God knows which time Hua Cheng is thankful for his lack of taste buds, or the ability to die.
“Should get you to bed then,” Xie Lian snickers at the boyish behavior of the 800 years old ghost “it’s getting late, and it’s been quite the day” Hua Cheng grumbles and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Xie Lian “Hey, don’t be like that, we’ve got to wake up early tomorrow, today didn’t go quite as planned.”
“Okay,” Hua Cheng smiles at him “carry me, gege!”
“San Lang, you’re a grown man!” Xie Lian laughs, but Hua Cheng sees how weak his protest is and takes advantage.
“You said we could fool around later, please?” He gives him such a puppy-eyed look, Xie Lian caves in with a sign and a smile.
“Well then, you asked for it!” and he easily lifts Hua Cheng up to the sound of his hearty laugh.
The two strong arms support him as if he were the lightest of feathers as Xie Lian carries him bridal style to their bed.
Xie Lian stumbles a little but keeps Hua Cheng firm and safe in his arms until they arrive to bed. It’s not very much like the strongest martial God that he is, but Hua Cheng is not going to tease gege about his clumsiness with him. He knows he’s a little nervous. Every new intimate situation has been a little awkward and overwhelming for both, but it’s okay, slowly, they are getting there.
Xie Lian gently lowers him onto their bed and proceeds to take his rightful place next to him. Hua Cheng can hear him breathing heavily, and he knows it’s not because of all the carrying around.
“Um, gege, shouldn’t we get dressed for bed first?”
Xie Lian springs right up “Right, right!!” He laughs nervously as he gets undressed.
Hua Cheng gets rid of the needless clothes and waits for gege to disrobe, following him with his eyes, definitely not making it easy for him until he finally joins him under the blanket.
“Good night, San Lang” Hua Cheng feels his hand tightly squeezed.
“Mhmm, sweet dreams, gege” he gives him a little peck on the nose before turning away to face the wall, concerned that he might not control himself otherwise. He closes his eyes, and feels Xie Lian’s soft body getting closer, wrapping him in his strong arms. And it’s gentle, and grounding and so warm Hua Cheng practically melts.
He’s happy. He’s so glad to be loved like this, he feels Xie Lian’s body tugging on him, getting closer and he’s in heaven. It’s a good thing that they have eternity ahead, Hua Cheng doesn’t think that a second less would’ve been enough.