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In another world, in another life, Xie Lian would be driven spare trying to secure a gift for his wonderful, handsome, exceedingly rich and accomplished husband.
In this life, things are a bit different. Not much, but some. Just enough that rather than go digging in an old grave for something to repurpose, he goes digging through some old scraps and unearths something decidedly different than cursed silver.
Huh, Xie Lian thinks, looking at what he’s found. Yes. This will work.
And so on the anniversary of Hua Cheng’s birth, oh so long ago, as they cloister themselves in their bedroom, feeding each other sweets and little delicacies, Xie Lian bites his lip and steels his soul. “I have something for you.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything, gege. Your presence is all I need.”
Xie Lian shakes his head. “San Lang, that’s not how it works,” he chides him. “Or are you saying you don’t plan to give me anything on my birthday?”
“I would never deprive gege of that,” Hua Cheng says seriously. Xie Lian smiles at him, letting his heart flutter at his husband’s earnest excess.
“Then let me give you this now.”
Obligingly, Hua Cheng nods, smiling wryly.
Though even now it feels silly to give Hua Cheng something so small when he already has treasures aplenty, Xie Lian still brings himself to dig into his sleeve and pull out the small pouch he stashed away earlier. It’s nothing special- just an old leather pouch he made years ago for storing the very thing it still holds. It kept that item safe for a long time, but now it would be up to Hua Cheng whether it would continue its duty or finally retire.
Shyly, but with bravery, Xie Lian extends the pouch to Hua Cheng. The ghost king examines it with a smirk and a raised eyebrow before taking it into his own grasp.
"I hope you like it."
Hua Cheng laughs as he opens up the pouch. “I’m sure I will love whatever gege picked for m-”
He stops, staring into the pouch. The moment stretches just long enough that Xie Lian starts to wonder if something’s wrong- did he forget to put it in there? No, he definitely did. Then what-?
Haltingly, Hua Cheng tips one hand over and upends the pouch into his waiting palm.
A clear crystal ring tumbles out. Hua Cheng stares at it, and stares, and stares. His face goes unreadable, emptier than Xie Lian has ever seen it, and the god's nerves begin to boil over.
“I know it’s not much,” he says nervously. “But it’s nice enough, isn’t it? I found it a long time ago. Centuries ago, actually. Somehow, despite everything, I never lost it. Eventually I came to think of it as a sort of good luck charm, haha. I was trying to think of what to get you for your birthday and I thought- well, it’s served me well all this time. But I thought you could use it better than me. You’ve already given me all the good fortune I’ll ever need. N-not that this has any special powers! Really, it’s junk, I just always-”
Hua Cheng, who had dragged his eye up to look at Xie Lian somewhere in the middle of his rambling, starts to laugh.
It’s a slow, quiet thing. It starts as a rumble, but quickly grows into something uncontrollable. By the time Xie Lian notices, his shoulders are shaking, and he’s practically burst out in wild, hysterical laughter.
Bewildered, uncertain whether he should be hurt or not, Xie Lian questions, “San Lang, why are you laughing? I- San Lang, why are you crying?!”
For indeed, amidst his laughter, he’s also begun to cry: heavy tears fall freely from both eyes. To Xie Lian, who has only ever seen Hua Cheng cry once, eight hundred years ago, it’s deeply alarming, deeply frightening, deeply terrifying. But no matter how he pleads, Hua Cheng doesn’t answer him. He instead shakes his head and wraps Xie Lian up in a one-armed hug, squeezing tight. The hand holding that little crystal ring is clutched securely between their bodies.
Xie Lian stares blankly into the fine fabric covering Hua Cheng’s chest before reaching his arms up to reciprocate the embrace. Yet before he has the chance, Hua Cheng has already pulled away again, swooping down to deposit instead a searing, deep, wet kiss.
“Your Highness,” he says, and Xie Lian can’t tell if he’s still laughing or crying. He sounds at once both giddy and overwrought. His tears become Xie Lian’s, falling onto his cheeks like rain from the heavens. He kisses Xie Lian again, and again, and again, each time interrupting himself to say “Your Highness,” like a prayer or a lament against his lips.
“San Lang,” Xie Lian helplessly echoes back, concerned beyond words but swept up in his husband’s frenetic tempo. “San Lang, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
Hua Cheng laughs into his mouth. “Your Highness, nothing’s wrong. Absolutely nothing is wrong.”
Xie Lian forces himself to pull away. He reaches up to cup Hua Cheng’s face- his teary, wild, crazily-smiling face. “Then why are you crying?” he asks softly, as though asking may bring Hua Cheng again to tears.
It doesn’t. Hua Cheng tips forward until their foreheads meet, rubbing Xie Lian’s shoulder soothingly with one hand.
The other hand, still pressed between their bodies, he slowly unfurls. The crystal ring still sits in his palm, glistening faintly in the dim light.
“Your Highness,” Hua Cheng whispers. “You don’t know what you’ve given me.”
Xie Lian blinks. “What? I thought it was just a ring. What is it?”
Hua Cheng smiles so wide Xie Lian nearly fears he’ll split his lips. Giddy joy spills from every line in his face, making this octocentenary ghost king look a child again, untouched by the weight of the world.
“My ashes,” he whispers.
Xie Lian stares.
He blinks.
He jolts.
“Your-?!” he cries, far too loud for what little space they share. “San Lang, are you- are you serious? Your ashes?!”
Hua Cheng nods, and now Xie Lian understands the mad grin on his face. “My ashes. Gege, gege, Your Highness, my god, these are my ashes.”
Xie Lian kisses him. He reaches up on his tip-toes and seals his husband’s mouth shut. Between them, one hand rises to join Hua Cheng’s, cupping his broad hand and the precious cargo it carries with all the delicacy of a groom carrying his bride’s hand, all the desperation of a soldier holding onto his dying breath.
“San Lang,” he gasps when they part. “San Lang, I’ve had that ring for centuries. I found it before I went to Banyue! How-?”
Hua Cheng laughs. “All this time, I was so afraid of having to leave you,” he rasps. “And all along, you kept me safe. Gege, I... You really have given me the greatest gift I could ever ask for. Thank you. Thank you.”
“I-I wish I’d known. I could have returned it sooner, I...”
Hua Cheng kisses him again. Xie Lian gives up on words and lets them fall into each other instead, happy to focus on nothing more than the feel of Hua Cheng’s body and lips against his for a while.
Eventually, they wind up on the bed. The both of them are at once electrified and exhausted, strung out by the immense revelation they’ve received, invigorated by the abrupt loss of this great fear that’s weighed them down for so long.
Hua Cheng’s ashes are... safe. After all this time, they’ve finally returned to their owner.
Or so Xie Lian thinks. But after some time dozing together, trading kisses and sweet nothings, Hua Cheng rouses.
“Your Highness?” he starts. Xie Lian hums sleepily. “I must apologize.”
That pulls Xie Lian from his doze. “For what?”
“I cannot accept what you’ve given me.”
For a moment, Xie Lian blinks, once more, at Hua Cheng’s collarbone. What? And then, “what?” He pushes himself up onto his hands, looking down at Hua Cheng with confusion. “San Lang, these are your ashes,” he says, like the man doesn't already know, pointing with his chin at the ring that now sits on top of Hua Cheng’s chest.
Hua Cheng nods. “They are. And that’s why I hope you can forgive me.” He reaches into his sleeve and pulls out a long, finely-linked silver necklace. Delicate yet plain, it hangs unadorned from Hua Cheng’s fingers. “But in this world, among ghosts, there is a custom,” he says softly, as he unlinks the necklace. With careful fingers, he threads one end through the hole of his ring, lifting it by both ends, letting it dangle. Xie Lian watches this all, a disbelieving thought staying his tongue and hand alike. “Are you familiar with it, gege?”
He can’t be. Dumbly, Xie Lian shakes his head.
Hua Cheng doesn’t call him on it. He just continues, slowly lifting himself up into a seated position. “There is a tradition concerning a ghost’s ashes.” He gathers Xie Lian’s hair with one hand, pulling it over one shoulder. “When a ghost has found their chosen one, they may gift that person their ashes,” he whispers, as he slides both ends of the newly-weighted necklace along Xie Lian’s neck. “Many don’t. It scares them. But to me, whatever that person may do with my ashes, protect them or destroy them, so long as it’s them, I would have no regrets.”
The click of the necklace locking back together behind Xie Lian’s neck is louder as a volcano erupting. The weight of it, as Hua Cheng pulls his hands away, is greater than a heavenly pagoda.
Tears bead in his eyes. With one trembling hand, Xie Lian reaches up to grasp the crystal ring that now hangs against his chest.
“San Lang... Are you sure?”
Hua Cheng cups his face and stares him in the eye. Tender love radiates from him, so soft and gentle it would kill a weaker man. “I can think of no safer place.”
With a sob, Xie Lian throws himself at this wonderful, perfect man.
Hua Cheng catches him, of course. He always has. He always will.