My Prayer is You

by Fereael

Summary:

Days pass as Hua Cheng combs the kingdom night and day and all the while he hears his highness’s voice in his ears, so much more frequent now than it's ever been before, but that's not what worries Hua Cheng the most, no that honor goes to the new change in it. Before, even if he did not like to hear it, he at least recognized the bidder self mocking note in Xie Lian’s voice. Now though… Now his god's words have taken on a dreamy muzzy quality Hua Cheng has never heard from him before, as though Xie Lian’s mind is slipping a little with pain or fever or some other ailment, as though he believes that Wu Ming is really there.

“Wu Ming… Where are you? I can't see you…”

“Wu Ming, what do you think of all this? Of me?”

“You regret choosing to worship me now, don’t you, Wu Ming?”

“Wu Ming… Wu Ming I'm sorry. I know it's been so long. There's so much I haven't told you. Five whole years… I don't think I told you anything about Qianqiu. He's got a good heart, you know. I've always been proud of him. I hope I didn't break him like I do everyone else. … Like I broke you.”

OR From inside the coffin Xie Lian talks to Wu Ming and his words become prayers which Hua Cheng can hear.

Notes:

This fic now has a pod fic!! You can find it HERE!!

The first time that Wu Ming hears the voice he thinks that he's lost his mind. It's the only thing that makes sense. He's hiding in the cave of 10,000 gods, body still pathetically weak, pain still pulsing through him from the place where his eye newly isn't, his entire being still vibrating with anger at those heavenly fools. Did they honestly believe he would lower himself to join them in a place where his own god is no longer welcome? Did they honestly think that he would see the way they abandon the mortals who worship them and just fall into line?

His thoughts come quick and desperate and still tinged with pain and that must be when the madness strikes him. What else could it be but madness?

“Wu Ming, I saw the most beautiful patch of white flowers today. They reminded me of you.”

The words are a shock of course, any words would be in this place that is supposed to be only his, but it is the voice that catches him by the throat and squeezes until even Wu Ming’s dead lungs are gasping for air. That voice… He would know it anywhere.

“Your Highness!?”

There's no answer, of course not, of course his highness isn't able to hear him, he isn't here after all. It's just a hallucination. That's it. Just a moment of weakness in Wu Ming’s desperate longing mind. Still even though he knows that's all it is Wu Ming can't help the way his thoughts linger on every detail of word and tone. He must be feeling indulgent indeed to imagine that his God would look at a patch of flowers and think of him and as for the tone… It's both new and old, kind in a way that his highness was often kind before the world showed him its cruelty, but wistful in a way that he's never heard his highness sound, not once at any of their meetings, and even if he knows it was only a hallucination and not the real thing, still Wu Ming wonders what could possibly make him sound so sad.

The second time Wu Ming hears the voice he's standing deep in the darkness of the kiln, chisel in one hand, hammer in the other, sword ready and waiting for the moment he needs to drop his tools and put his hands to other bloodier work, and then…

“The stars are lovely tonight, Wu Ming. I think you would like them.”

Wu Ming stiffens, glancing wildly around himself. He can't help it, even if he knows this isn't real, even if he knows it's only his mind playing tricks, still his heart aches to answer, to tell his God whatever it is that will drive that wistful note from his voice, to sit and listen for hours as his highness describes the stars. Yet there are no stars here, only the darkness of the kiln.

The third time Hua Cheng hears the voice he starts and the momentary shock of it is enough to allow the pathetic worthless so-called god he's fighting, the 26th to be precise, to actually graze the side of his arm.

The God laughs, his lips curving upward in an expression that says clearly that he always knew that he would prove superior in the end.

“Starting to get tired ghost? You should have expected it! Against a martial god like me you never had a prayer!”

As Hua Cheng shatters the fool’s rib cage he thinks about the voice and the way it comes to him sometimes. Before he was able to explain what he was hearing with the instability of his mind but now… No, his head is clear of everything except fury and the lust for blood and there's no way that he is hallucinating now but what else could it be? Irritatingly it's the fool's words that actually give him the clue. ‘…Never had a prayer.’

A prayer.

The concept is so bizarre so upside down and backwards of everything the world is supposed to be that for a moment Hua Cheng’s instinct is to reject the thought out right. His god, praying to him? The very concept is wrong beyond words and yet…

He is a god.

He might have refused to be one of those heavenly fools, jumped back down with no more delay than it took him to find an edge to throw himself off of, but still… A god is a god. Godhood isn't bestowed by those heavenly fools who he rejects but by the universe itself and it isn't the sort of thing the universe takes back.

There are only two ways to part a god from their divinity, by killing them, impossible since Hua Cheng is already dead, or by destroying all of the temples and all their believers, and considering how every single one of these heavenly fools has been projecting their battles into the dream realms of their believers, he won't be running out of followers anytime soon.

And so, Hua Cheng is a god, and gods hear prayers.

Logically it all makes sense.

Logically none of it makes sense.

Because if it's not a hallucination then that really is His Highness talking to him, speaking to him half in prayer half in conversation, and how can that be real? As Wu Ming he was only at his highness’s side for a mere three days. How can his highness truly be speaking to him, so familiarly, so intimately, so longingly as though… As though he wishes that Hua Cheng was really beside him.

It takes another few decades for Hua Cheng to really believe in what is happening but the more prayers he hears from his believers the more he can't deny that he truly is hearing his highness. They aren’t true prayers, not really. He wouldn't be able to handle it if they were, but they're close enough to count, close enough to allow him to hear as his god tells him about a patch of flowers he found, or an interesting tree, or the color on the wing of a beautiful bird.

His highness is lonely, Hua Cheng realizes that quickly, lonely, hungry, tired. Xie Lian doesn't share much about his life when he talks to Wu Ming but the exhaustion in his voice speaks for itself as does the number of times he tells him about a kind farmer who allowed him to sleep in his barn or a generous old woman who shared her food with him, the implication being that food and shelter are things rare enough to be spoken of.

Desperate and aching Hua Cheng returns prayer for prayer every day and in every way he can think of but after a full year in which nothing His Highness says in any way indicates that he's ever gotten a reply the ghost King is forced to admit that nothing he can do will get past that damned cursed shackle. The thought alone is enough to make him want to charge right up to heaven and smash Jun Wu into the floor of the palace of divine might as many times as it takes for the key to getting rid of it to fall out.

Of course he doesn't, much as it irritates him to admit, a war with the heavens won't help his highness. Instead Hua Cheng dedicates himself to listening, thinking about every single one of Xie Lian’s words, every bit of description or explanation that might give him some chance, any chance, of finding a location. Unfortunately they’re vague, too vague, and all he can do is listen in agony to his God's loneliness until the day that the prayers stop.

At first Hua Cheng panics. It's been too long since he's heard is God's voice. What if something has happened. What if… But no Xie Lian can’t be killed. Sickeningly Hua Cheng remembers that he knows that better than anyone. No, Xie Lian isn't dead, and if he isn't dead and perhaps the silence is a good thing. If Xie Lian only spoke to Wu Ming out of loneliness maybe he's no longer alone and perhaps that means that he isn't hungry or homeless anymore either. It feels like a desperate hope because of how badly Hua Cheng wants it to be true and yet, as the days without prayers stretch into months and then years, the ghost King becomes more and more sure that it must be true.

“Wu Ming, what would you think if you could see me now?” Hua Cheng freezes in the middle of Paradise Manor, the shock of the voice’s return after five long years of absence only outweighed by the shock of the change in that voice. Gone is the soft wistful melancholy, gone too is any of the warmth that lived in it. His highness sounds brittle, no, His Highness sounds broken. Aching and pained and weak to, as though from hunger or blood loss or some other problem of the body that goes past pain in the mind. “Would you pity me? Or would you think I got what I deserved?”

A weak pained laugh follows the words and Hua Cheng actually sways on the spot, momentarily overcome by the shock of his God's pain. He has to find him. He has to. Where is he!? What's happened!? Where has he been for the last five years!? What's happened to him during that time!? What could make him sound so broken, so…

“You'd probably think I was a fool, that I should have learned my lesson centuries ago. I just hope it was enough. Maybe this time I actually protected the people of Xianle…”

Xianle, the name goes through Hua Cheng like a shock, and then the dice are in his hand and he's moving because he finally has a location, finally.

It's been centuries since Hua Cheng the set foot in Xianle, in Yong’an, but he views the capital city with little nostalgia, only with desperate anger. Where is His Highness? Is he somewhere still in Yong’an? Or has he left by now? How far could he have gone. Desperately Hua Cheng sends out every butterfly he has to scour the entire nation while he himself searches on foot, but no matter how far he searches he finds nothing.

Days pass as Hua Cheng combs the kingdom night and day and all the while he hears his highness’s voice in his ears, so much more frequent now than it's ever been before, but that's not what worries Hua Cheng the most, no that honor goes to the new change in it. Before, even if he did not like to hear it, he at least recognized the bidder self mocking note in Xie Lian’s voice. Now though… Now his god's words have taken on a dreamy muzzy quality Hua Cheng has never heard from him before, as though Xie Lian’s mind is slipping a little with pain or fever or some other ailment, as though he believes that Wu Ming is really there.

“Wu Ming… Where are you? I can't see you…”

“Wu Ming, what do you think of all this? Of me?”

“You regret choosing to worship me now, don’t you, Wu Ming?”

“Wu Ming… Wu Ming I'm sorry. I know it's been so long. There's so much I haven't told you. Five whole years… I don't think I told you anything about Qianqiu. He's got a good heart, you know. I've always been proud of him. I hope I didn't break him like I do everyone else. … Like I broke you.”

Hua Cheng, who is in the middle of Yong’an’s royal capital stiffens at those words, then, pushing past the pain they send scalding through him and the denials that rise unbidden to his lips, he spins and grabs the nearest passerby.

“Who is Qianqio!?” He demands. He doesn't actually expect an answer but this is the first time he's had anything as concrete as a name to go off of and he's not going to waste it, no he's going to grab every person he can in all of Yong’an, track down every single boy or man called Qianqiu in the entire kingdom, and shake every one of them for answers until he finds the one he's looking for.

At least that's how he expects it to go. What he doesn't expect is for the eyes of the man he grabbed to bulge, not just in shock but in anger. “You dare speak His Highness's name so casually?”

“His highness!?” Hua Cheng’s eyes narrow as he realizes what the man must mean. “Your king is…” It takes only an instant for the country’s surname to return to him. “ Lang Qianqiu!?”

“Of course he is! How dare you act like it could be otherwise!?”

The man tries to punch Hua Cheng in the jaw. Hua Cheng throws him into the nearest wall and storms off up the street toward the palace. There is no chance this is a coincidence. The ‘Qianqiu’ Hua Cheng needs to break for answers, must be Yong’an’s king.

The ghost king has only gone a few steps when that voice comes again but now there's a cracked edge to it as though perhaps Xie Lian is laughing at himself, as though perhaps Xie Lian is crying.

“No I didn't tell you about Qianqiu, how like me. I've always been so bad at telling you things, even back then I was so bad at telling you anything that mattered.”

“I never told you that I was grateful to you for staying by me.”

“I never told you that I really did like having you there I only struggled to show it because I was so scared that you would leave me too.”

“I never told you how beautiful the flower was.”

“I never told you that I love you.”

This time Hua Cheng doesn't just start, he full on stumbles, crashing into the wall of a nearby shop, his head spinning in his heart pounding. It doesn't matter that he's dead. It doesn't matter that his heart hasn't beat for centuries. Right now it’s pounding. It's pounding because…

‘I never told you that I love you.’

That's… That's not possible… There's no way he just heard… He's accepted, slowly, over the years that His Highness does remember him fondly, that he's been kept in his highness's thoughts, dear enough or recent enough to be worth speaking to when his highness has had no one else, but this…

This is…

‘I love you.’

Distantly Hua Cheng can hear some passerby asking if he's all right, someone else demanding to know what's going on. He blocks them all out as irrelevant, nothing could be more irrelevant, not when the very fabric of the world is shifting beneath Hua Cheng’s boots, not when His Highness actually said… Actually said…

‘I never told you that I love you.’

Hua Cheng has spent two and a half centuries trying to turn himself into someone who will one day be worthy of his god's love, so to have that given now, so freely, and not even to the person he is now, but to the pathetic useless ghost soldier he was back then… That's…

A hitching breath catches in Hua Cheng’s ear followed by words, soft and shaky. “I’m sorry, Wu Ming, I’m so sorry. You always deserved better than me…”

The words snap Hua Cheng out of his shock and suddenly he's moving again, shoving heedlessly past the crowd of worried onlookers and storming up the streets to the palace, rage and pain in confusion all coalescing inside of him into a single thought. Later. He can think about His Highness's words later. Right now his god is in pain, his god is suffering, and nothing will ever matter more than that.

When Hua Cheng reaches the palace steps guards try to stop him. When he slams them into the nearby palace wall still more guards come, swords and spears drawn and ready. Hua Cheng breaks through them all with a fury made only more intense by the voice he can hear only faintly now, like a whispering in his ear. He doesn't care how much he hurts them, how many come, he is a Ghost King and they are merely humans and they should know better than to stand in his way.

“You! What are you doing!?” Hua Cheng has made it through the gates and onto the top of the front steps of the palace proper when the youth appears before him, 17 or 18, brown haired and bright-eyed, a circlet on his head and a broadsword in his hand.

“Lang Qianqiu?”

The youth’s eyes narrow, his hands tightening on the hilt of his sword.

“Who are you!? Why have you been assaulting my guards!?”

“What have you done with him!?” Hua Cheng’s own anger is a growl fit to terrify the heavens and his hand tightens around E’Ming’s hilt.

“Done with who!?” Lang Qianqiu demands, his body tensing instinctively as though somewhere deep inside him some animal instinct has recognized Hua Cheng for the apex predator that he is.

The ghost king is about to answer but then he hesitates. His Highness would never have revealed his identity here, Hua Cheng knows him far too well to believe that could ever have been an option. Obviously he was here under an assumed name and so to expose him for his real self might undermine whatever Xie Lian was trying to achieve here.

“Well?” Lang Qianqiu demands. “If you have something to say, say it because I won't tolerate you treating my guards this way or invading the royal palace!”

The brat’s arrogance irritates him and that irritation mingles with the distress blazing hot and frantic inside him and with the memory of all the suffering this boy king’s ungrateful ancestor caused Xie Lian.

“Stop me then, if you're so sure that you can.” Hua Cheng throws the taunt at the royal brat, and of course he takes the bait, lunging for the ghost king with all the confidence of someone who has never been thoroughly defeated in his life.

Hua Cheng blocks him easily and he could end it right there, could tilt E’ming to send the cursed blade singing down the length of the boy king's sword until it finds his arm and shears the limb from his body, but he doesn't. Instead he indulges Lang Qianqiu in an exchange of blows, using the time to think about how exactly he's going to describe his highness in a way which will make him unmistakable even if he's been concealing his face as well as his name. Within a few blows however Hua Cheng finds himself giving the brat his full attention. It's not that he is at any risk of losing to Lang Qianqiu, no matter how skilled the king is, Hua Cheng is a supreme ghost king and Lang Qianqiu is only a mortal, no it's the style that catches Hua Cheng’s attention, the familiar graceful way he handles his sword, the light way he moves his feet as though the battle were a dance. For an instant the image of another body moving like that flashes behind Hua Cheng’s eyes, a body seen from high above, dressed in ceremonial robes and standing before an adoring crowd.

“Where is the man who taught you to fight!?”

Lang Qianqiu stiffens and his eyes flash with anger. “So you're working with him!? that monster!?”

Hua Cheng’s eye narrows and this time when their blades connect E’Ming shatters the other sword into pieces, the force of the blow sending Lang Qianqiu flying backward to crash against the nearest pillar.

“Your Highness!”

Another youth comes rushing toward them, dressed in plain clothes as he is he must be an attendant, yet unlike Lang Qianqiu’s other guards this attendance is actually brave enough to run right up to his collapsed king, the panic unmistakable in his wide eyes.

“No don't! Stay back!” Lang Qianqiu struggles to rise but before he can Hua Cheng grabs the attendant by his throat and lifts him into the air. The youth struggles madly, his feet kicking and his fingers clawing at the ghost King's hands but Hua Cheng barely notices, just turns his head to gaze coldly down at Lang Qianqiu.

“If you don't want me to crush his throat, tell me where your teacher is.”

“I buried him!” Lang Qianqiu spitz the words and the attendant lets out a horrible choked sound as Hua Cheng’s fingers contract around his throat. Something in that pained noise seems to bring Lang Qianqiu back to himself because his eyes widen and his face pales all at once and he holds up a desperate placating hand. “Wait! Don't hurt him!”

Hua Cheng grits his teeth. It's taking every fiber of control in him /not/ to crush the attendant’s throat and Lang Qianqiu’s as well. Through gritted teeth he snarls, “then tell me what you've done and where I can find him!”

“He’s… He's in a mound, down the eastern road, under the dead trees on the old battlefield! It won't do you any good though! He's already dead! I sealed the coffin myself! Not even a vengeful ghost is getting out of there!”

Hua Cheng’s single eye burns with fury and for a moment he lets the evil aura of his power rise up all around him, drowning Lang Qianqiu in a choking miasma of essence of evil.

“Maybe not, but a vengeful ghost is about to get in.”

Lang Qianqiu’s eyes widen in horror, and yes, fear. Hua Cheng allows himself to revel in it for a single precious moment and then he tosses the gasping attendant at Lang Qianqiu and turns away in a shower of butterflies. He wants to break the brat, of course he does, for saying something like that… For doing something like that… Hua Cheng has a single momentary impression of flames leaping bright in a ruined temple and the sounds of dying screams. If what the brat says is true then Lang Qianqiu deserves no better than they did, but as much as he might desire the feel of Lang Qianqiu’s blood on his fingers, the echo of his highness's voice stays the ghost King’s hand.

‘I don't think I told you anything about Qianqiu. He's got a good heart, you know. I've always been proud of him.’ For whatever reason his highness seems to be fond of the brat and if that's the case then his death might cause Xie Lian grief, so Hua Cheng will restrain himself.

For now.

It doesn't take Hua Cheng long to find the battlefield. How could it? Some deep instinctive ghostly part of him will always know where to find it, the place where his mortal life ebbed away as his blood sank irrevocably into the soil. There's a certain ironic rightness to finding his God here, again, just where he met him last time too, but Hua Cheng doesn't dwell on it. How could he? Somewhere down there in the dark Xie Lian is suffering and nothing else will ever matter more.

With His Highness is whispered prayers echoing in his ears Hua Cheng searches desperately until he finds a mound fresher than the ones beside it. The dirt flies outward from around him with the force of his fury and there, sunk in darkness is a coffin. Hua Cheng’s first instinct is to reach for it and wrench it open but then he hesitates. If Xie Lian is in there, confused and injured, the last thing he wants to do is frighten him by presenting him with a demon. Better a familiar face, one his god has been calling for, one his god has met before on this battle field, one his god claims to…

It takes only an instant for him to shift, shoulders becoming narrower, body becoming thin in a way that speaks of a malnourished childhood. The mask is cool even against his ghost cool skin and it's strange how familiar it still feels even after so many centuries, but again Hua Cheng doesn't dwell on it. The second the shift in his form is complete he lunges for the coffin, shattering its lead lined ghost warded lid into nothingness with the sheer force of his anger, and there, inside…

Xie Lian’s robes are dark but not dark enough to hide the blood soaked deep into them. His face is masked but the mask covers only his eyes not the space around his mouth which too is stained in blood. He's thin, his skin oddly shriveled from lack of water, his hair a tangled mess beneath him. And then there's the spike… Long and thin and horrible protruding out from Xie Lian’s chest. The source of all that blood. It's only been a week since he was plunged into this darkness and yet between blood loss and dehydration how many times must he have died already? How much must he have suffered? Hua Cheng finds himself torn in half. Part of him, the stricken aching part of him, wants to throw himself it is god's feet and beg forgiveness for being so fucking useless and it's taken him so long to find Xie Lian. The other part, the other part is screaming for him to turn, stormed back to Yong’an’s capital, grab Lang Qianqiu, drag him back here, slice him into pieces then bury him alive just to give him a taste of how it feels.

“Who’s…There…” Xie Lian’s voice comes out cracked and so quiet that the ghost King can barely hear him.

“Your Highness…” Hua Cheng’s own voice is raw with emotion as he bends and lifts Xie Lian’s too thin frame into his arms.

“Wu Ming…” Xie Lian lets out a soft breath, his eyes fluttering closed. “You came for me…”

Hua Cheng’s arms tighten convulsively around his god and he knows he's clinging and he can't help it, because Xie Lian is hurting, because Xie Lian is /here/, because Xie Lian is /real/, and because clinging to Xie Lian is the only thing that can stop Hua Cheng from ripping Lang Qiangiu into bits. Emotion burns within him, pain and fury and love all tangling together until it feels like it could destroy the very world itself, and he would destroy the world, and heaven and the hells, all of it, if that's what it takes to protect the man now draped unconscious in his arms.

“Your Highness, I will always come for you.”

 

***

Xie Lian wakes to softness beneath his back and that's wrong. How can there be softness beneath his back? There's nothing soft in the coffin. Is he still dreaming? Is he so far gone that he's imagining hard unforgiving wood as softness? Well if he is then he's not going to complain. For a little while, there's no way to tell exactly how long, Xie Lian just lies there with his eyes closed, savoring the remnants of his dreams. They were nice dreams for a change, distant and distorted but somehow with the power to bring calm and order back to a mind that had been starting to slip into agony and madness. They flicker back through his memory now, a hand bringing a cup of tea to his lips, gentle fingers moving a comb through his hair, a cloth soaked in warm water moving gently across the skin of his face and hands. The agonizing pain of the spike being pulled from his chest followed by the incongruous brush of small wings and smaller feet across his skin as though he was being walked over by dozens of butterflies. It's a silly thought and it makes no sense but then dreams rarely do, after all if dreams made sense then they wouldn't all have featured the youth in black robes and a mask who bend over him and carried him and spoke softly to him in a voice filled with affection Xie Lian has never deserved.

Wu Ming…

He's never been able to let go of the ghost, of his last believer whose very spirit was destroyed thanks to Xie Lian’s foolishness and cruelty. If he’s going to be trapped in the dark and the pain and the endless cycle of deaths for however many years or decades or centuries it takes the coffin to break down enough for him to escape than dreaming about a soft bed and Wu Ming’s warm voice is by far the most pleasant way he can spend it even if it will make waking to the reality of the ghost’s death hurt all that much more.

“Wu Ming…” Xie Lian whispers the name that isn't a name at all longingly into the darkness.

“I'm here.”

Even as cool fingers closed reassuringly around his own Xie Lian’s eyes snap open, his whole body tensing and then his breath catches in shock because this /isn't/ the coffin.

Xie Lian is lying on a bed. The light in the room is dim enough not to hurt his eyes which haven't seen light in days but still bright enough for him to make out the elegant red drapes which curtain the bed and the general idea of the richness of the room beyond. It looks like something out of a palace, yet he hardly has time to dwell on that because a moment later his eyes are caught and held by the figure sitting beside the bed.

His robes and hair are black, his skin ghostly pale, and his face… His face is covered by a mask.

Xie Lian jerks upright then sways, the movement too fast for his weakened body. Quickly the ghost’s hands are there, supporting him, and Xie Lian… Xie Lian can feel them, actually feel them, their pressure against his arm and back, a slight coolness of them even through his robes, so real, so real.

But that's not… That's not… Not possible. None of this is possible. He was buried alive, dead, both, drowning in darkness, in blood, in death, dying over and over, and he knew it was how it was going to be, knew that he was lost to the drowning darkness, the price he paid for the spilling of his family’s final blood, the ending of his father's line. He knew… And now…

“…Wu Ming?” Xie Lian’s voice cracks on the syllables and its shock he realizes, rather than the dryness of his throat, because his throat isn't dry, his body isn't aching for water, he's thirsty yes but it's an ordinary thirst, not the sort which ate away at him until it was pulling him into the darkness of another unforgiving death. Could it have been real? All of those little dreams? Those flickerings he took for hallucinations? The tea at his lips, the warm cloth against his face…

“Don't be alarmed, Your Highness. You're safe now.”

Safe? Safe how? How can any of this be real?? “Wu Ming…” Xie Lian whispers it this time, his voice still shaking, but this time the emotion is deeper than shock, deep enough to shift something at the very core of him, and even if he can feel the ghost’s hands against him he still reaches for him anyway, still needs to confirm with his own hands this is real, but this impossible miracle is truly happening.

Xie Lian reaches out until his shaking fingertips rest against Wu Ming’s mask and his breath hitches when he feels cool wood meet his touch. The mask is real. The moment is real. Wu Ming is…

“I thought you were dead.” Xie Lian whispers and he knows it's foolish as soon as he says it because Wu Ming /is/ dead, has always been dead for as long as Xie Lian has known him.

“I came back, your highness. I will always come back to you.”

Xie Lian’s breath catches at those words and he feel sudden tears stinging the corners of his eyes. Maybe it's everything he's been through recently making him so much more emotional, or maybe it's just the words, the assurance that someone will always come back for him, so many years of history and heartache tell him that he will always be alone.

As Wu Ming’s hands, which were supporting him, begin to draw back, Xie Lian reaches out and, before he can think better of it, grabs the ghost’s wrist. The ghost stills instantly beneath his touch and Xie Lian’s eyes widen as he realizes what he's done.

“I'm sorry.” His grip loosens and he expects Wu Ming to instantly pull away but instead he leans forward and when he lifts his hand from Xie Lian’s it’s so that he can bring it to the god’s face and wipe the tears from his eyes with a gentle thumb.

“Your highness has nothing to apologize for.”

Xie Lian’s breath stutters, his heart feels as though it's frozen in his chest, his whole body a statue under the gentleness of Wu Ming’s touch. To be touched so gently, with so much care… It's something he is no longer used to, something he can no longer even imagine, for it to be Wu Ming…

“How did you find me?” Xie Lian whispers the question and it's what he wants to know and it isn’t what he wants to know because what he really wants to ask is ‘why did you find me?’ ‘Why would you want to find me?’

“I heard you.” There's something sheepish in the way Wu Ming admits it, as though it's something he feels awkward about, and Xie Lian can't understand that anymore than he can understand the answer itself.

“Heard me?”

“You've been talking to me. It would have been impolite of me not to listen.” That response has a certain teasing note to it and it startles Xie Lian because the Wu Ming he remembers was more diffident, more taciturn, his words plain and direct and certainly too filled with finality to consider teasing. The changes surprising and yet he likes it. It feels like somewhere in the intervening years Wu Ming has grown more into himself, or maybe it was always there just drowned by the darkness of the days they shared.

Xie Lian is so busy considering the change in tone that it takes a few moments for him to really consider the words but when he does color climbs into his cheeks. Wu Ming could hear him?? All his foolish ramblings all of this time? All of his little bits of nonsense? Wu Ming could really… But wait “…How?”

“I know your highness didn't mean them that way but I think the universe may have considered them to be prayers.” That sheepish note is back in Wu Ming’s voice again. Xie Lian just stares at the ghost for a moment as the words sink in and then his cracked lips curve into a smile.

“You ascended.”

Whatever reaction he expected it's not the shrug and the soft snort of derision that he gets in reply. “Temporarily.”

Now Xie Lian frowns, eyes searching Wu Ming for any trace of a cursed chuckle. “Were you banished?” But no that doesn't make any sense, how could Wu Ming hear him if he was banished?

“I jumped.”

“You what!?” Xie Lian jolts in surprise. Dizziness crashes over him and again Wu Ming’s hands are there to steady him. Xie Lian’s heart pounds at the touch, the idea that there really is someone here to catch him, the idea of that someone being Wu Ming…

“Why would I want to stay in heaven with that trash when the only god worth knowing isn’t welcome there?

For a moment all Xie Lian can do is stare, eyes wide and lips parting in shock. This is a dream. This must be a dream. He’s still in the dark, and the coffin. There's no way this is real. There's no way…

“…You gave up heaven for me?” Xie Lian whispers the words, not believing them even as he speaks them.

“I never wanted heaven.” Wu Ming makes the correction gently and yet there's an intensity to his words as though they are implying something else, something about what he /does/ want…

But that's… That’s just in Xie Lian’s head, just his foolish fantasies which he has allowed to grow and take root over the centuries fed by his loneliness and by his belief that Wu Ming was gone, unable to be hurt by Xie Lian’s affections.

…But Wu Ming wasn’t gone and he'd been able to hear all of it, all of Xie Lian’s foolish little meanderings, all of his lonely rambling, and all of…

The blood rushes to Xie Lian’s cheeks and he hangs his head, unable to look at the ghost any longer.

“I'm sorry.” What must Wu Ming have thought of him saying something like that? How shocked and uncomfortable must he have been when he heard it? “You don't have to be so kind to me.”

“What does your highness have to apologize for?”

“For what I said.. I…” Xie Lian opens and closes his hands in his lap, unable to bear the idea of repeating his foolish words. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

The ghost is quiet for a long moment and Xie Lian half expects him to rise and leave the room, even that is better than he deserves especially from Wu Ming, but he doesn't, and when he finally speaks his voice is hoarse and quiet in a way that the god has never heard it before.

“Nothing that you said made me uncomfortable.”

Xie Lian’s head snaps up at that, his heart pounding. His instinct is to search for answers in the ghost’s face but of course his mask is as forthcoming as ever. All Xie Lian has to go on are his words and the sound of his voice and they sound like… They make it sound like…

But no he's being foolish again. Wu Ming would never think of him that way, not after how terribly Xie Lian treated him. The ghost is being kind to him, that's all.

“You don't have to pretend just to spare my feelings.”

“Your Highness, I promise you, no one is more sincere than me.” Again that hoarse quality to his voice, again that strange note almost as though the ghost is trying not to hope.

“But you have a beloved?” Xie Lian’s words come out quizzical, confused question rather than accusation.

Until that moment the ghost had not been breathing and yet still Xie Lian hears the breath catch in Wu Ming’s throat.

“Your highness…” A pause as though he is gathering himself and then, in a voice made rough by yearning. “It's only ever been you.”

Now it’s Xie Lian’s turn for his breath to catch. His heart stutters in his chest. He can't have heard that. There's no way. This must be a dream, some fantasy conjured by his mind to protect it from the fact that he still down in the airless endless dark, because there's no way that…

“Me?”

Wu Ming nods slightly, his whole body radiating tension from every line as though waiting for a blow to fall. At first Xie Lian just stares at him blankly, his own baffled incredulity rising up to drown every other thought but slowly it begins to dawn on him. ‘He's waiting to be rejected. Even now he thinks I'm going to reject him.’

That thought is so ridiculous, so preposterous, so utterly impossible that Xie Lian doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry.

“Wu Ming, I..” Xie Lian begins, then stops, unable to find the words to express exactly what he's feeling. He's been through so many shocks in such a short time, waking safe in a soft bed, Wu Ming being alive, and now… He raises a hand again, fingertips brushing over the ghost’s mask until they find the ribbon holding it in place. “May I?”

Wu Ming stiffens at the question but after a moment he nods and when Xie Lian pulls at the cord the mask falls to reveal a face utterly striking, mismatched eyes, one black one red, following his every motion with a look which mingles fear and hope.

“Beautiful.” The words leave Xie Lian’s mouth before he can call him back and he's rewarded when he sees those eyes widen, shock and wonder shining in their depths.

“Your highness…”

Slowly, careful this time of his body's limitations, Xie Lian leans forward until his forehead rests against Wu Ming’s.

“You are, really, and you're here and… And it all feels like a dream. I must be dreaming. Even if you're somehow still out there there's no way that you could come for me, could have found me, could l-love me. I've been talking to you for so long, missing you for so long, dreaming about you for so long, dreaming about things I would've said, everything I would've told you, but this must be a dream too. After how awful I was to you and everything you saw me do there's no way you'd ever return my feelings. There's just…”

Xie Lian’s voice trails away into hiccuping sobs. When he had he started crying?

For a moment Wu Ming just stares, pupils wide with shock, and then there's a hand cupping the back of his head, drawing him gently closer and he feels as much as hears the words Wu Ming whispers onto his lips.

“Your Highness, let me show you how real this is..”

And Xie Lian has no chance to respond because then there are lips pressed to his own and Xie Lian is lost in a world of new sensation, submerged in them, drowning in them, and he finds to his shock that he has no wish to surface. The ghost’s lips are cool against his own and yet there touch sends heat coursing through his entire body, every nerve of him suddenly alight with new sensations and with the shocked understanding that this is so much more than his mind could ever conjure that this…

“… This is real.” Xie Lian gasps the words as they finally break apart. His heart is pounding and his breath is coming in quick gasps in his face is on fire.

“It's real.” Wu Ming confirms. There is humor in his voice and yet in his eyes Xie Lian sees his own shock and yearning mirrored back at him.

“Wu Ming I…” Xie Lian begins and catches himself. “no, I can't keep calling you that. Is there something else? There has to be.”

The corners of the ghost’s lips curve in a hopeful smile. “I was the third son of my family so you could call me San Lang.”

“San Lang.” Xie Lian repeats the name softly, his tongue curving around the syllables and then he only has a moment to take in the way Wu Ming’s, San Lang’s, eyes widen before he’s kissing Xie Lian again, and Xie Lian… Somehow impossibly finds himself melting beneath that kiss, all the fear and pain and self-loathing of the past several days draining out of him at the feeling of the embrace of someone who knows who he is and yet still wants him, someone who has seen him at his worst and yet still cares for him, someone who… Someone who Xie Lian loves, and who, somehow, miraculously, loves him.

This time when they part Xie Lian feels tears on his cheeks and San Lang doesn't pull away or tell him not to cry, he just holds the god close, lets him bury his head in the ghost’s black robed shoulder, and sob out all of the fear and the pain and loneliness until, at last, he hangs, limply exhausted in San Lang’s arms. Vaguely he knows that he should sit up and pull himself together but all of the emotions and all of the crying seem to be too much for his weakened body and he finds that he lacks the energy to do anything but stay where he is and fight to keep his eyes from closing.

San Lang seems to have a truly incredible sense for Xie Lian’s body for only a few moments later the ghosts hands moved comfortingly across his back and shoulders, raising him and pushing him gently down onto the bed.

“You should rest now, your highness. You're still recovering.”

As those hands withdraw Xie Lian finds that he does still have some energy left after all because he reaches out and grabs one of San Lang’s wrists.

“Wait-“

The ghost stills instantly at his touch.

“Is something wrong?”

“Will you still be here in the morning?” There's a slightly desperate slightly uncertain note to Xie Lian’s voice which he’s too tired to properly conceal and at those words San Lang’s expression softens.

“I won’t leave your side for a moment.” He twists his hand in Xie Lian’s until their two hands are clasped together and the god feels himself relaxing at that touch, at that reassurance that when he wakes he won’t be alone in the darkness, but here and safe with Wu Ming, his San Lang, beside him.

As his eyes flutter shut he asks, “San Lang, when I wake, will you tell me about yourself? I want to know about who you were when you were alive and about who you’ve become since we've been apart?

Xie Lian feels San Lang’s hand lightly squeeze his own and even with his eyes shut he can hear the smile in the ghost’s voice as he says,

“Beloved, once you’ve recovered, I'll tell you anything you want to know.”

Notes:

And after that Xie Lian got a good night sleep followed by food and clean clothes and cuddles and he even talked Hua Cheng out of murdering LQQ and everything was good!

This was written for the TGCF Gotcha for Gaza event. Original prompt: Hualian: XL remembering/in coffin, HC helping him thru it (emotionally or however) hurt/comfort

andddd well you can see it kind of ran away with me lolll.

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