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The aftermath of being stabbed is familiar to Xie Lian. Not unpainful, exactly, but it’s a pain he knows well. Like an old friend. He smiles a little at the thought. He sort of wishes they had left the blade in, but it isn’t too bad; it was sharp enough to be a clean wound, and they didn’t gut him, he’s not holding his organs in. He thinks they might have hit a lung, it feels a bit like he’s being stabbed again every time he tries to breathe and he keeps coughing, but that’s alright, too; it comes with a warm sort of clarity. The combination of blood loss and lack of oxygen is almost pleasant: he’s lightheaded, but leaning against a tree it doesn’t matter much. He slips down the bark a little. His head lolls, suddenly far too heavy for his neck to hold up, like it’s been stuffed with rocks. Ruoye is moving; trying to help with something, he thinks, but it’s hard to tell what exactly it’s doing. The world is fuzzy around the edges, his vision blurring and dancing with spots, and Xie Lian closes his eyes. It takes longer for him to fully pass out than he’d like, with adrenaline coursing uselessly through his system, but eventually the blood loss is enough that he—
—Xie Lian wakes up. He’s breathing fast but steadily, without wheezing or coughing. He’s—on the ground, and there’s a tree nearby, but that doesn’t mean anything; he always sleeps on the ground and there is no shortage of trees in the world. He already knows what it will show, but he undoes his robes anyway, takes off his top. His hands are shaking, he notes; he stills them, deliberately.
His skin beneath the robes is unbroken, unscarred. His ribcage rises and falls and there is no sign, no sign at all, of where he remembers a dagger being slid into it.
It might have been a dream. He’s had enough experience with stabbing for his mind to conjure it in a dream; he knows that much with certainty. It could have been an illusion, a malicious ghost, Xie Lian’s own mind playing tricks on him.
It also might not have been. Just because there is no scar does not mean he was not stabbed. He touches Ruoye self-consciously where it hides his cursed shackle.
It doesn’t matter, really. The bandits, if they were real, must be long-gone by now, and Xie Lian does not make a habit of tracking down every group of bandits he comes across. If they are not—he knows better than to trouble people over something that might not be real.
He puts his robes back on, layer by layer.
Xie Lian hasn’t drawn a sword for a long time. Years, certainly; decades, maybe; at some point, they blur together, so it’s hard to say if it’s been centuries. It’s been long enough.
Still, he has calluses on his sword hand. Calluses might not be remarkable, now that he works to eat, except that his other hand doesn’t have any. His body doesn’t care how hard he works or how long he goes without picking up a sword; he will never be an old laborer, tanned from the sun, deep wrinkles written into his skin, callused and scarred in places that aren’t from martial arts. Even statues break and wear, but Xie Lian’s body will always be frozen in time: the flawless body of a teenage prince.
After the shackle breaks—after Hua Cheng comes back—after a delighted night in bed, and then another, and another—
Hua Cheng’s arms are wrapped around Xie Lian, the pads of his fingers tracing meaningless designs onto his back, his eye half-lidded, until suddenly it is open and Hua Cheng is still.
Xie Lian waits a moment to see if Hua Cheng will say what has happened, but he doesn’t. Xie Lian will have to ask. “What is it, San Lang?”
“Dianxia,” Hua Cheng says, voice low and woeful. He traces a single line gently across Xie Lian’s back. “This one hurt you.”
Xie Lian tries to think of what Hua Cheng might mean, what he should say to reassure, but he can’t quite figure it out. Eventually, he shakes his head. “No,” he says, voice open and honest. “You have never hurt me.”
From the wounded noise Hua Cheng makes, it’s the wrong thing to say. Xie Lian doesn’t know what else he should have said. “...I cut you,” Hua Cheng eventually says, still tracing the same line. “My fingernails—I didn’t realize.”
“I didn’t either,” Xie Lian says lightly, and Hua Cheng makes another pained sound. Really, he seems much more hurt by this than Xie Lian, but Xie Lian has enough awareness not to say that. “I didn’t—mind. It felt good. I like it when—” Xie Lian’s cheeks go hot, but this is important enough to be said. “I like it when you hurt me, San Lang. I would like it if you hurt me much more than a scratch.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Hua Cheng says. He buries his face into Xie Lian’s neck, like a child seeking comfort.
“You haven’t,” Xie Lian says again.
“You would say that,” Hua Cheng says, “if I had stabbed you.” The vibrations of his throat and breath tickle on Xie Lian’s bare neck and make Xie Lian’s toes curl. His body is strange: he cannot feel the scratch on his back, but he can feel this as sharp as if Hua Cheng had stabbed him.
“Ah, perhaps,” Xie Lian acquiesces, and Hua Cheng sighs.
“Let me heal you?” Hua Cheng asks. Almost begs, but not quite, his voice trying so hard not to presume. It would make him feel better, Xie Lian knows, to heal it. To heal more, even, to kiss until Xie Lian’s body was no longer sore, until there were no red marks from Hua Cheng’s mouth. It would be easy to give this to him; it would be enjoyable, to have his lips on Xie Lian’s, spiritual energy flowing bright and hot between them. And yet—
“No,” Xie Lian says, his mouth moving before he can think better of it.
Hua Cheng looks up at Xie Lian’s face, turning his head without lifting it. “Gege has been hurt so much,” he says. “He does not need to hurt more. Let me help.”
“San Lang,” Xie Lian says. “Look at me.” He pushes them apart a little bit, so that Hua Cheng can see all of him. Without the shackle, his hands and face have begun to tan from the sun, his hair bleaching from black to brown. There are smile lines forming at the sides of his mouth. (Perhaps that one wasn’t the shackle; he never used to smile as much as he does now.) His skin is still unblemished, unscarred, the only marks on his body from Hua Cheng. “Where have I been hurt?”
“On your back,” Hua Cheng says, and Xie Lian shakes his head.
“No,” Xie Lian says. “Not tonight. You said I’ve been hurt so much, and you meant in the past. Where?”
Hua Cheng’s face is miserable, helpless. “Everywhere,” he says, eventually. Xie Lian nods, this time.
“Yes,” Xie Lian agrees. “Everywhere. But, San Lang, you cannot tell me where, because it was healed.” Hua Cheng glares fiercely at Xie Lian’s neck, where the cursed shackle once sat, but says nothing; Xie Lian continues. “It was healed, and now even I could not tell you where I was hurt, how I was hurt, if I was hurt.”
“You were hurt,” Hua Cheng says, voice full of a certainty Xie Lian does not have.
“Ah, sometimes,” Xie Lian agrees. “But I don’t remember all of it, and in 800 years of bad luck—can you say I never had a bad dream, or encountered an illusion?” Hua Cheng says nothing. Xie Lian takes Hua Cheng’s hands in his. Hua Cheng’s hands are smooth, soft, with only enough texture to maintain a careful realism; Xie Lian’s—both of them, now—are rough with calluses. “I want to have proof that this wasn’t a pleasant fantasy. I don’t want to be healed back to how I was before you touched me. I want whatever marks you’re willing to give me.”
“Oh,” Hua Cheng says, face filling with some sort of emotion that Xie Lian isn’t sure how to name, the corners of his lips tilting up. He brings Xie Lian’s hands up to his mouth, kisses each knuckle gently, reverently. And then, carefully, hesitantly, he moves up to Xie Lian’s shoulder and—bites down, hard, harder than he had before, watching Xie Lian’s face while he does, ready to stop at any hint of hurt. Xie Lian just smiles at him, tries to make the smile say everything he feels: yes, please, I want this. I want you.
As soon as Xie Lian’s skin breaks, Hua Cheng breaks away. Xie Lian doesn’t mind. He wouldn’t have minded if Hua Cheng had kept going, either, but—they have eternity to figure these things out. They don’t need to rush. A single bead of blood wells on Xie Lian’s shoulder, and Xie Lian watches it, entranced.
“Was that—okay?” Hua Cheng asks, voice poorly concealing nervousness, and Xie Lian’s gaze snaps back to him.
“It was perfect,” Xie Lian says, pulling Hua Cheng into a kiss—not for spiritual power, this time, not for anything other than the simple joy of kissing.
After the kiss ends, Hua Cheng watches him for a moment and then gives a wet half-laugh. He struggles for words, a rare occurrence for him, but Xie Lian can wait. “Dianxia, you really are—this one is—this one is honored.”
“The honor is all mine,” Xie Lian says, and pulls Hua Cheng close again.