Work Text:
Xie Lian saw Wuming.
He vomited.
Overcome by the force of his regret and sorrow at the remembrance of Wuming’s death, by the phantom pain at the remembrance of Wuming’s birth, he could do nothing but heave onto the carpeted floors of Paradise Manor. It was like his body was trying to purge the guilt, purge the memories, do whatever it could to get the poison out of him.
Immediatly he was in Hua Cheng’s arms—wearing his true face and not Wuming’s anymore—and being drawn away from the mess he had made. The taste of bile burned his lips, burned his throat, burned his lungs, burned his heart. He was burning, drenched in cold sweat, and he just couldn’t stop shaking.
“Dianxia!”
In a blink they were in the Thousand Light’s Temple, a collapsed heap on the altar. Cool hands framed his face, brushing hair out of his mouth and eyes as Xie Lian gasped. His chest was fragmenting and breaking apart—were his ribs shattering too?—he was drowning, his chest heaving. Dimly, he was aware that he was hyperventilating but any attempt to stop proved futile as his mind conjured fresh painful images. “Dianxia, it’s okay, just breathe. Dianxia, I’m right here, I’m right here.”
Hua Cheng’s words, spoken slowly and calmly, swept through his mind, cutting clear to his thoughts. Everything felt so far away, draped in darkness, but at Hua Cheng’s soothing touch and quiet murmurs Xie Lian could focus on his robes. Crimson red, silver jewelry, alive, and real, and solid, and there. Here. “That’s right, gege, everything is okay, I promise, it’s going to be okay.”
In the end, it was the pain and distraught in Hua Cheng’s voice that brought Xie Lian back to himself. Even in the depths of his panic, he could not let Hua Cheng, his San Lang, feel hurt at his expense—it was like being doused by a bucket of cold water.
“San Lang— I’m sorry— I’m so sorry!” Xie Lian blurted, hearing how raw his own voice sounded but not caring. Hua Cheng only drew him further into his arms in response. The press of robes, the scent of wood and maple leaves surrounded Xie Lian like a second embrace.
It was the anniversary of Jun Wu’s imprisonment and everything Jun Wu had done to him hung over his head like a shadow, like an executioners blade threatening to drag him under. Xie Lian was good at pretending; it had been hundreds of years, he was good at locking everything away in him so deep he would never think of it again. He could create his own mountain and seal to store all the memories away under. Yet, he still found himself thinking about everything he had endured at Jun Wu’s hands and how things could have been different. Without Jun Wu’s influence Wuming—Hua Cheng—would never have been torn apart by the Human Face Disease souls, would never have had to rip out his own eye or jump down after ascending.
So Xie Lian asked to see Wuming.
That day, searching for the Reverend of Empty Words with Shi Qingxuan, He Xuan, and Hua Cheng, Xie Lian had said that his second ascension was his greatest regret. It was an easy answer, one already loaded up on his tongue from centuries of mourning possibilities.
His second ascension had been on the backs and blood of the innocent, how could he not regret it? He had nearly killed all of Yong’an, he had almost caused Wuming to disperse trying to stop him. His crimes were innumerable.
So he had asked to see Wuming.
He knew he could just apologize to Hua Cheng, that they were the same person, but he needed to see, for real, that he hadn’t caused Wumings final death, hadn’t caused him to disperse. It was the only thing that could ease the guilt that had plagued him for eight hundred years.
But seeing him with that pale white smiling mask, black clothing, skinny frame, was like reliving the agony of being pierced with one hundred swords all over again. It was reliving the paralyzing numbness that had seeped into his heart when no one would pull the sword out of him or offer any help at all as he lay on the road. It was reliving the bone-chilling fear of seeing the cloud of black angry faces and knowing he caused it, he was going to be the deaths of so many people. That he could not turn back. It was reliving that single instant of understanding, like his heart was cleaved in two and his soul torn, that Wuming was dying, that Wuming was smiling behind the mask, that Wuming was his last believer. And it was too much, too much to relive all at once, too much to remember and feel.
It surged up within him and Xie Lian vomited.
“Don’t apologize gege, please, you did nothing wrong.” Hua Cheng still sounded wretched, but he was obviously trying harder to seem like there really was nothing wrong and Xie Lian felt like he was shattering. He tried to pull back, get a hold of himself, but Hua Cheng’s arms were around him, holding him secure and tight and refusing to let him run away. A cocoon of warmth and softness and love. “San Lang,” Xie Lian swallowed thickly, bitter taste coating his tongue, “I should clean up the mess I made. I’m sorry, I overreacted but I’m fine now.”
“Dianxia, Yin Yu will take care of it.” Xie Lian would have laughed but he knew it would just make Hua Cheng more upset. “Don’t worry about that. I just want to know what’s wrong. Let me help you.”
And then Xie Lian was sobbing, sobbing without reservation into Hua Cheng’s robes, held so tightly in Hua Cheng’s embrace that when he broke apart the pieces of him were kept together. “I’m so so sorry San Lang, Wuming, San Lang, I’m so sorry.” He repeated over and over.
For a long time Hua Cheng didn’t speak, simply let Xie Lian cry and be comforted. It was an experience that Xie Lian had gone a long time without. Without realizing he had forgotten what it was like to be cherished without expectation, to be comforted without dismissal. For once, he really was allowed to not be okay.
When he calmed, and the tears no longer fell, and his anguish no longer felt thick enough to chock on, he drew in a deep breath. “I was terrible to you,” explaining all of what he felt was impossible, to speak about it all again was a skill he had lost a long time ago, so this was the best he could do. “I was rude, selfish, cruel, I crushed your flower.” He could feel Hua Cheng shaking his head but Xie Lian quickly continued, “I yelled at you, you almost dispersed and I was yelling at you.”
“I would do it all again, in a second, even if I had dispersed forever. I would give you one million flowers, no matter how many you threw away. I would ask, pray, that I could take the consequences you were too kind to give to the world, if that would spare you pain. Yelling means nothing to me, a flower means nothing to me, you do. Only you do.” Hua Cheng still refused to let Xie Lian pull away. Instead, he began to rub his back softly, the way Xie Lian had for him, the same way Xie Lian’s mother used to do for Xie Lian. His eyes burned again and he felt himself melting into Hua Cheng’s embrace despite himself.
“You tried to stop me from going to the,” Xie Lian faltered thinking of it, even now, “to the temple. I know you went through so much because of me. You did nothing but try to protect me and what did I do?— I let you suffer” He spoke calmly, or did his best to, but he knew it poorly concealed everything he felt. What he wanted to do was go back in time and yell at himself for being so foolish, so naive, so trusting, so weak. That was the truth of it. He was weak. If he was strong he would never have taken his anger out on the innocent people of Yong’an, he never would have been in a position where he had to be protected, where Hua Cheng had to sacrifice so much, in the first place.
But that was the thing. Xie Lian was never there for his believers. Not even his most devout. While those Yong’an citizens that fell from the wall might have been fake they had still prayed to him and he had still failed to get there in time. Honghong’er had been bullied, abused, mistreated, been called cursed and slept in Xie Lian’s temples, but had Xie Lian spared him a glance? The little soldier had thrown his weak, mortal, human body in front of him to take wounds that affected Xie Lian less than a paper cut, but had Xie Lian remembered him? Wuming had desperately worshipped him, trying to remind him of who he was, but had Xie Lian noticed at all? Hong Hong’er, the Little Soldier, Wuming, San Lang, Hua Cheng, died for him over and over and Xie Lian never stopped it. Couldn’t convince Hong Hong’er he wasn’t a monster, couldn’t keep the little soldier from a gruesome death in a lost war, couldn’t stop Wuming from absorbing the thousands of angry souls, couldn’t heal Hua Cheng, his San Lang, when he broke apart after giving all his spiritual energy to him to break the cursed shackles.
Xie Lian was unraveling but when Hua Cheng spoke his tone was incredibly gentle, calm, and sure, so much more steady than it had been moments ago, as though he had suddenly gained some sort of clarity. “Gege, you never had to protect me. Every one of your believers always took more and more from you when you had nothing left to give. They demanded the third, no the hundredth, cup from you as if it wasn’t a blessing to be graced with even one. All I’ve wanted is to never be another one. If it means dispersing then so be it, I never want to take from you Your Highness, only give.”
Xie Lian flinched.
“When I told you I wanted to be the bridge you took apart after crossing, the bones you climbed on, I wasn’t lying. And I wasn’t lying when I said I knew you’d never do that. Your Highness you never hurt me, I never suffered, felt no pain, because every moment—nearly dispersing, ripping out my eye, forging E’ming, ascending and jumping down again—all I had to do was think of you and I remembered why I was doing it all. When I fell from the wall you caught me, you saved me, every second I lived past the point has only been for you.’’
On an altar in a temple to a God worshiped by only one two souls met, even though only one breathed, only one’s heart beat with life.
Finally, Xie Lian managed, “but why?” That was the one thing he never understood. He might have been the Crown Prince of Xianle—beloved by all until he failed—he might have been the Flower Crowned Martial God, but perfect would always fail to describe him. He was terribly, horribly, flawed. And Hua Cheng knew it. And Hua Cheng loved him. Why did Hua Cheng love him?
“Because I know how cruel people are, Your Highness, I lived it. No one had ever shown me kindness like you did when I was a child. And then I thought you were unblemished perfection, untouched by the stain of cruelty like everyone else—”
“But I’m not—”
“—And then I saw you at your worst and I thought that wasn’t true anymore but I didn’t love you any less. I saw you try to be kind over and over again until you couldn’t and then I still saw you choose to stay true to yourself. How many would choose to save the people who ruined their life, took their parents, friends, country, sanity, over a hat? I realized I was wrong, Your Highness, to think you are not actually perfect. You are— despite everything you have done and almost did and did not do. Nothing you do could make that any less true.”
The answering silence stretched long. It was a soft silence that wrapped him up like another San Lang. Hua Cheng kissed the top of his head and Xie Lian’s eyes burned again but this time only a single tear fell. It contained centuries of terrible emotions and washed them all away. He was certain he could never see himself the way Hua Cheng saw him, but he knew that Hua Cheng believed what he said to be true.
It was as though he had heard every one of his fears reflected back to him and then destroyed, leaving no room for disbelief or confusion or misunderstanding. It was like every wound he had received since the fall of Xianle had begun was finally given permission to heal, finally stitched up by gentle hands. They had not healed yet, of course, and would likely scar rather than fade away completely— they might sting when he moved too fast or stretched too much.
But maybe, just maybe, he could learn to forget them, to let some close and others stay, learn to let go of the pain and live with what remained.
Maybe he could finally say how he was and mean it; not because of comparison but because it was objectively true no matter what he had gone through.
If that was true then he would haisve no reason to feel guilty anymore.
Then he would be allowed to be okay.
“Gege, do you want to see Wuming again?” Hua Cheng asked tentatively when Xie Lian let out a breath.
Slowly, he pulled back, looking his San Lang in the eye. And nodded. “I do.”
Where there had been Hua Cheng, Crimson Rain Sought Flower the Supreme Ghost King and Nightmare of the Heavens there was now Wuming, the nameless ghost, and his white mask.
Xie Lian smiled and, he had a feeling, that behind the mask, Wuming was smiling too.
Maybe he was allowed to be happy.
No, not maybe.
He was.
He was certain of it.
And when he forgot, cause it was inevitable he would in the years, decades, centuries to come, he knew that Hua Cheng would remind him of it.
“San Lang, I love you.” He whispered.
“I love you too, Dianxia.”
Hearing that from Wumings mouth, voice younger and softer than he was used to hearing from Hua Cheng, had Xie Lian chuckling softly. He loved his husband, truly and completely, but he still wiggled out of Hua Cheng’s hug. “San Lang, you look so young.”
Hua Cheng pushed the mask up revealing a face much like his San Lang form and scowled playfully at him, pouting. “Dianxia! This body is seventeen, I’m not that young.”
“You’re right San Lang.”
Hua Cheng stared at him and as Xie Lian failed to hold back his laughter he scowled again and flipped his smiling mask back on. “There.”
“No, San Lang, I’m just teasing,” Xie Lian doubled over laughing in full force.
“I’m glad you’re happy, Dianxia.” Hua Cheng reached out and laced their fingers together, intertwining their hands, the red string between them.