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Not breathing.
The sand sticks and rubs underneath him, grains working through the rough weave of fabric to his skin.
Not breathing.
He’s not alone of course, he’s only back here on the beach at all because–
Not breathing.
San Lang isn’t breathing.
Xie Lian has to do something. What can he do? He’s been around for eight hundred years, he has to know how to do something
Xie Lian doesn’t like to spend time by the water. Not only is bad luck and open water a particularly terrible combination, it brings up bad memories. It brings up a bay, and a dark storm, and the most final loneliness.
Xie Lian knows people can be saved from drowning. Knows stories about the kiss of life. He’s not seen it done.
Surely whatever he can do is better than doing nothing.
The resolve leaves him to actually carry out the decision. A much more daunting prospect. It’s not the first time their lips have touched. This will be fine. It’s not the first time air will have passed between them. If Hua Cheng could do it, so can Xie Lian.
He just has to… do it.
Xie Lian doesn’t even know if Hua Cheng would want such a thing, much less from him. It’s not like he can ask permission either.
Forgiveness it is.
“I’m sorry San Lang.” Xie Lian claps his hands together and bows hurriedly. Hua Cheng doesn’t even twitch at his preemptive apology. He really does have to do this.
Xie Lian closes his eyes and leans in. He runs out of breath much too quickly. Hua Cheng’s mouth is slack under his. More air and another kiss, pressing harder to keep the breath between them. Again. The mouth under his twitches.
When did he close his eyes?
Xie Lian tries to pull back.
Lips stay pressed to his and he gasps against them.
What he has done rushes in, the physicality, the touch, the taste. Hua Cheng’s eye is wide and even in the sunlight there’s no flash of amber, no room for it around the gaping pupil. For a long moment, Hua Cheng is all that exists, all that needs to. He gasps. His mouth widens, no longer locked to Hua Cheng’s. Air crosses his lips, the slightest exhalation from his ghost. Xie Lian feels it in his mouth, cross his tongue, enter his lungs.
“Gege–” Hua Cheng says, breathless.
Xie Lian can feel the movement of Hua Cheng’s lips against his, two simple syllables too much. He finally pulls away, pulls back, lets space exist between them. Even so, Hua Cheng follows, only stopping propped on a hand by Xie Lian’s knee, looking up into his face.
“You’re awake.” He thinks his words are blank. He certainly feels blank. He wants to panic, wants to laugh, wants to bluster, wants to move on without thinking about what this means. He doesn’t know which frightens him more, what Hua Cheng wants or what he does. Eight hundred years of experience does no good when being with Hua Cheng makes the world feel new, joyful, again. Xie Lian cannot fall back to mere contentment.
Hua Cheng looks up at him, open and wanting and waiting for his decision, his action, his words.
For all that this is new, new feelings, new wants, he doesn’t have new words to go with it. He doesn’t have new confidence to match.
“I’m sorry San Lang, I shouldn’t— you weren’t breathing and— without asking I—” The words bubble out, he can’t help it, it’s not quite what he means, it’s not what he wants to say.
Tongue swipes across lips.
He falls silent at the sight. His lips were just right there. How would that feel against his own mouth?
Xie Lian has to swallow, suddenly thirsty.
Hua Cheng blinks, gaze flicking to track his throat and back. The ghost bursts into speech suddenly. “Don’t worry, gege is always welcome to do anything with this one!”
Xie Lian freezes, eyes wide, trying to process the intensity, the depth, the heat those words stir within him. His eyes lock onto Hua Cheng’s lips. He knows what those feel like. What is temptation, what is release? Xie Lian was taught to let desires go, not to be consumed by feeling, pleasure or pain. Xie Lian was taught to let excess drip away and leave his heart unstirred. Xie Lian was taught to resist the temptations of the flesh…
Xie Lian was taught to expect to be tempted by women. He is caught off guard not by Hua Cheng, but by himself.
Never before has he wanted to keep watching after noting the fact of attraction. Now, though, he can hardly tear himself away from Hua Cheng’s face, the mismatched curve of each eyebrow, the precise shade of lips, where tension is held and slack released.
To be fair, he was always equally tempted by women and men. It was just never this much. Xie Lian wonders how he gone this long, come this far, without being enlightened to how difficult this part of his cultivation could be.
Xie Lian stands, and for a moment the movement brings his face close to Hua Cheng’s once more. He tries to begin reciting a sutra only to lose his place in the second line. Hands wring the air. Inside his shoes, his toes flex and curl, shifting as the sand beneath him.
Hua Cheng scrambles up after him, graceless only in comparison to the usual effortless composure. His hands, wringing hard enough to crack his knuckles are not what Hua Cheng takes. Fingers close gently around his wrists, loose and easy to slip, but also sure and firm... and comforting. Hua Cheng bends forward, deep enough to look up into his lowered face.
Xie Lian is about to bluster, to apologize, to pretend nothing just happened.
Hua Cheng beats him to speech.
“Calm down your highness.” The tone is steady, the return of Hua Cheng’s cool confidence a comfort.
He wants to press away the concerned tilt of those eyebrows.
“It’s fine. If gege wants a kiss, then…”
He snaps his eyes up. Hua Cheng knew what he was looking at. He was caught. Hua Cheng saw him staring at those perfect, pink, salty lips. He only realizes his gaze has dropped again when Hua Cheng’s lips part softly, revealing a little black gap he could fill with his–
Xie Lian runs.
This is far past what even the entirety of the dao de jing would help him with.
He doesn’t think about it again for hours.
Xie Lian only returns to the subject after he falls back into his own body, connection to Shi Qingxuan permanently shuttered.
Hua Cheng’s first reaction was to yield to him. It was only concern for Xie Lian himself that spurred the man to take his qi back.
He lets his breath slow, lets Hua Cheng’s careful lack of weight settle in. He misses it somehow, even not having had it in the first place. Xie Lian is almost unmoored from himself in the wake of the soul transfer and the weight and contact would be so grounding.
He wants to cover his face but can’t. Not with how close Hua Cheng’s face is. He closes his eyes and takes a moment to center himself. Hua Cheng doesn’t move from above him.
Hua Cheng is waiting there patiently, concern evident, when he opens his eyes.
One more breath to brace himself and Xie Lian speaks. “I’m sorry, I overstepped. San Lang wouldn’t interfere in Black Water’s business.”
“Your highness, the only thing I regret is–” Intense gaze unsettled, flicking back and forth across his face, Hua Cheng’s words seem to run out.
He wants to sigh, wants the motion to carry him into Hua Cheng’s arms, forget all of this for a moment.
Xie Lian doesn’t sigh. He closes his eyes. He needs to be sure of himself to say what he needs to say, what cannot yet be fit to words. “It’s alright. You acted as you should. There was so much happening and it was all very confusing.”
He reopens his eyes to see… a frown on Hua Cheng’s face. Concerned tilt of eyebrows turned steeper. Mouth tight. “You did tell me to stay out of it.” He doesn’t know how to continue, how to reconcile what he knows and what he feels. He doesn’t have the time, the space, the heart to do it with Hua Cheng so close and so caring. Hua Cheng isn’t even in the wrong. And, neither is Black Water really, not in the right but… More than anything, he regrets that Shi Qingxuan was caught in the middle.
He sees it, the little instinctive inhale before speech and cannot let Hua Cheng comfort him. Not about this. Not right now. Shi Qingxuan is, not was, please not was, his friend. He failed them.
Anything to redirect.
“May I return San Lang’s qi?”
Hua Cheng’s shoulders sink a little. Relaxation or surrender, Xie Lian isn’t quite sure. The frown eases at least. “I’ve said it before. Gege should do whatever he wants. Anything. But if gege is asking, the answer is yes.”
Hua Cheng’s eye flicks briefly down. Xie Lian doesn’t let the heat rising in his face stop him. It takes a second of awkward squirming, but his hands are on ghostly cold cheeks and he barely has to move before Hua Cheng follows. Their lips meet and he doesn’t feel any chill at all.
It takes a moment, to remember his reason for this. It takes a moment to think again, return from blissful sensation without thought. It takes a moment before he lets Hua Cheng’s qi flow back through his lips, so slow and sweet his teeth ache.
This cannot be comfortable for Hua Cheng, for his San Lang. His hands slide down, cheeks to neck to shoulders, and pull. Gracefully, gently, his ghost lays against him.
He can finally feel his breath, with the weight on his chest.
He presses up into the –he won’t lie to himself, this isn’t just a qi transfer– into the kiss. Hua Cheng shifts, slanting and bringing their mouths even closer, a testing gap opened that he could– He takes Hua Cheng’s lower lip between his.
Xie Lian doesn’t know how to take this further, whether he really wants to. Hua Cheng would stop advancing if he so much as hesitated to follow. So when the ghost tries to shift again, to take Xie Lian’s lower lip the way he took Hua Cheng’s, Xie Lian instead shifts back, closer to how they started. Somewhere inside him, deeper than his chest, deeper than his stomach, a tension releases, relaxes in the way Hua Cheng’s weight settles on him. It’s a lack of expectation he thinks, a contrary lack of pressure.
Xie Lian becomes aware he hasn’t had any spare qi to transfer for several breaths. It’s alright though. Only the two of them know. No one who knows would object.
Their lips part and Xie Lian lets his head rest fully on the ground. Hua Cheng rests above him, keeps their chests pressed together. Their mouths no longer touch, but he still feels it. Unnecessary, unsteady breaths puff against him, his heart should beat the same rhythm. Black hair falls around them in silken strands, thick enough to keep his thoughts at bay. Lips curl into a smile, and gentle as the expression is, it cuts straight to his heart. He wonders how that shape would feel pressed into him.
“Gege is welcome to kiss me any time he likes.”
He ducks forward, hiding under his ghost’s jaw where he cannot be seen. Where he cannot see. Xie Lian can’t bear to see that temptation while those words echo in his ears. Not that… Not that he doesn’t want to kiss Hua Cheng, but it’s still more than he knows what to do with, this desire that rises within him. He can only feel the shape of the knowledge, what he wants this to be, without putting it to words. Two people, closer than bodies allow. An absence of need, for all is already there. Enough. It could be enough.
He lets his hands, still on Hua Cheng’s shoulders, travel farther, circle completely together, become an embrace.
This is enough.
He doesn’t want to talk about the past, recent or distant. He doesn’t want to be alone either. “Would you stay?”
A cheek is turned against his head, soft nuzzle bringing Hua Cheng’s words close. “Of course. You need only ask.”
The gentle pressure continues, and Xie Lian rather suspects at least one kiss is placed in his hair, though he isn’t quite sure. The thought warms him regardless. He is certain he does not dare do the same to Hua Cheng’s neck so close before him.
The cold of the dirt starts to seep through his clothes, faster with twice the weight pressing him into damp earth.
Xie Lian doesn’t want to make the first move, doesn’t want to lose this grounding, this weight, this wordless comfort. Though, Hua Cheng seems equally unwilling to disturb him, breath evened and stopped after their earlier ardor. It makes the moment feel stopped, his own breaths unstuck from the hum of the world around them. Leaves in wind, little lives played chirping in the dark, the stars in their tracks singing silent on.
The thought that finally moves him is of anticipated guilt in Hua Cheng’s eye if he begins to shiver here. Once was more than enough. Xie Lian may have slept in colder, but this ghost, this wonderful man, would never want him to. He tries to retract his arms and finds them settled into the slightest stiffness. The exertion of the day cooled to an unfamiliar pose. He doesn’t have the chance to think of stretching, or pulling Hua Cheng momentarily closer. Hua Cheng rises smooth as anything. Xie Lian takes the offered hand up.
In the shrine, Qi Rong barely gets a syllable out before Hua Cheng seals him into a doll form for the night. Laying down to sleep, here and together, is familiar now. Routines not needing to be spoken. Soft whispers exchanged anyways.
The usual distance between them should be familiar, comfortable. Tonight it throbs like a loosened tooth. He asks, with eyes and hands, to be closer. He is answered with softness. His fingers wind into Hua Cheng’s tunic, and soon, arms close around him.
After that, sleep comes quick.
The morning light comes cold and dim. The chill light complements the cool embrace still tight around him. His ghost’s eye is shut, relaxed, contrast to the eye patch looking uncomfortable overnight. He doesn’t know if Hua Cheng is asleep or just resting.
He thinks about kissing just for the want of it, no excuse, no pretense. Hua Cheng said kisses are always welcome, coming from him. He thinks about leaning forward over the empty space between them. The way the distance disappeared between them with sand under his knees. He thinks about Hua Cheng’s lips against his, slack on the beach. He thinks about the change, as Hua Cheng woke and followed him, mouth to mouth.
That same mouth is here now, just as lax as the last time began. It should be familiar by now. The echo so clear in his head he has to check he hasn’t leaned in, leaned up, taken the free offering. Would Hua Cheng still taste like the sea?
His breath hitches and Hua Cheng’s eye opens, focusing on him. The pupil narrows in the light, before opening to take him in.
Xie Lian swallows and sits up. Not right now. He scrubs his tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to push away the phantom flavor.
Not now.
Removing the temptation, he sits, taking his face far away from Hua Cheng’s.
He needs to know what happened. He contacts Ling Wen in the communication array.
As it turns out, no one knows what happened to Shi Qingxuan.
The night Mt. Tonglu opens, Xie Lian doesn’t know what is happening. No. That’s not right. He knows exactly what is happening. Overwhelming desire takes Hua Cheng far past what his ghost would dare, however much the want is mutual. He knows there is no coherency behind the super heated rush of power. The kisses seem to help though, or maybe it’s the qi he manages to siphon off.
He could take the qi another way, he knows. The contact though, the closeness, seems to soothe as much as it stokes and… he wants to.
He wants to kiss Hua Cheng.
Much preferable if Hua Cheng could choose it too, but–
”Gege should do whatever he wants.”
A bitten lip.
A gasp.
A suck.
A squeeze.
A moan.
He lets the guilt slide away, hides it in sensation.
In the aftermath, Hua Cheng asleep on the floor, E-Ming still trembling in his hands, Xie Lian knows he will admit everything to his ghost. He just wishes he could find the words to do it with. Each phrase he tries slips out of his mind with a remembered touch, taste, caress.
The words still aren’t there when Hua Cheng wakes, and Xie Lian panics. He sees the confusion rising, furrowing brow, breath taken for speech. Before a single question can be asked, he blurts it out.
“We… fought.”
He flinches.
It isn’t even a convincing lie.
Hua Cheng is no less dubious of his delivery than Xie Lian himself. The man wilts, slightly, Xie Lian is sure he isn’t supposed to see it.
“I hurt dianxia?” Hua Cheng’s voice is tight, constrained with the same grief he has heard before.
“No, no!” Xie Lian nearly jumps to kneel beside where Hua Cheng is sitting up from the floor. Hands waving as if to dismiss even the idea of harm. He has to find the right words, cannot let Hua Cheng, delightful, funny, courteous, Hua Cheng believe such a thing.
His ghost doesn’t quite startle, at his proximity, but the surprise is apparent.
Xie Lian sits back, sinks onto his heels. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have, it just seemed like it helped!" It’s not like Hua Cheng was likely to mind given what he had said before, about kisses from gege. “And San Lang did stop when I asked.” Xie Lian is just– it was a lot and while Hua Cheng seemed to like it, to want it, in that state, he feels guilty over enjoying it too, when Hua Cheng couldn’t choose otherwise. “And before, you said– San Lang was in so much pain and taking your qi helped, but that's no excuse for– for– what I–"
For all his thoughts and words are jumbled, Hua Cheng seems to catch on. It’s both a good and bad thing, that dawning delight. Good, that Hua Cheng isn’t hurt. Bad, nothing could keep Hua Cheng from teasing him about this. Well, maybe not bad but embarrassing.
“Gege, there’s nothing to worry about. Didn’t I already tell you? You are always more than welcome to kiss me. The only thing gege should be sorry for is that I don't remember gege kissing me so boldly."
He was right. He was absolutely right about the embarrassment. Xie Lian should have known. He doesn’t want to be embarrassed though, shouldn’t need to be when Hua Cheng so obviously wants and enjoys the things that embarrass him, when he wants them too.
Xie Lian is sure he is nearly as red as the coral bead hanging in Hua Cheng’s hair.
He cannot look away as the ghost straightens all his clothes and fidgets, only twice, with the hem of his tunic. When Hua Cheng finally looks up, he manages two words. They don’t even squeak on the way out.
"May I?"
"What?" The question isn’t startled exactly, but he seems to have lost the thread, unsure of what Xie Lian means or unsure he understood correctly, Xie Lian doesn’t know.
Xie Lian does know his courage for this is running out rapidly, he certainly cannot muster up any more or clearer words than he already used. Even repeating the same words comes out with a stutter. “May– May I?”
Hua Cheng softens, doesn't tease, doesn’t clarify. "Gege may do whatever he likes."
It’s a balancing act between going slow enough to blush or to savor the moment when he takes Hua Cheng’s face in his hands. Both happen, regardless of his intent. He might not be alone in the blush if his ghost were alive. Xie Lian moves in, pulled in equal parts by widened eye and stunned open mouth. If not for the previous night, Xie Lian might not know how to kiss open lips, might freeze, change the topic, deflect. Hua Cheng would let him, he knows that much. He carefully leans in and takes Hua Cheng’s lower lip between his.
He almost hates the way his eyes fall shut, afraid to miss the way Hua Cheng melts into him. Hands come to support his elbows. Xie Lian no longer strains upward. Lips close, perfect complement to his own.
Xie Lian tries to pull back.
Lips stay pressed to his and he gasps against them.
Hua Cheng parts long enough to smile and say “Gege should do as much of what he likes as he wants.”
What Xie Lian wants keeps Hua Cheng from saying anything more for a long while.
His kisses are extremely welcome after all.