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Xie Lian really thought it was his husband’s fault they kept ending up doing strange things like this. And he could admit he knew they were strange.
It was just that Hua Cheng had a habit of saying things as jokes that Xie Lian genuinely found a bit intriguing and then Hua Cheng would undoubtedly notice and tease and wheedle until what was supposed to be an absurd little nothing became a thing.
He wasn’t embarrassed exactly, because what he did in his home with his husband was no one’s business besides him and his husband and clearly Hua Cheng was on board. But still, he couldn’t help but feel a little strange for his curiosity every time something like this happened, even when he knew Hua Cheng didn’t mind one bit. Despite never yet being shamed or denied, Xie Lian supposed that when it came to asking for things, he still needed practice feeling completely comfortable with new demands.
And Hua Cheng knew Xie Lian enjoyed his shapeshifting. There had been hours spent watching Hua Cheng shift forms and clothes like a personal fashion show and Xie Lian had openly enjoyed the feast of beauty his husband made. They had had peaceful nights with Xie Lian directing Hua Cheng on shifting through individual features where Xie Lian had appreciated the level of control his husband had developed to tweak such minor details one by one in such a myriad of ways.
So perhaps it was, in a way, inevitable that they’d end up in bed with Hua Cheng lying in a mortal skin as Xie Lian drew a knife down his stomach with careful precision to take in just how detailed Hua Cheng could make his internal structures too.
Hua Cheng didn’t flinch from the knife, his gaze relaxed and a bit proud as Xie Lian tilted his head in thought. “What’s on gege’s mind?”
“I suppose I knew there was muscle in the way, I just didn’t realize how deep it was.”
Hua Cheng chuckled. “Gege barely broke skin.”
“I want to be careful,” Xie Lian insisted, cutting down the line again, hand steady as the layer of muscle gave way to show a peek of intestines.
“Did you have to look at corpses to do this, or does it naturally occur when making a skin?”
”Both. I always have organs, even in my true form, but I learned how to remove and make them work certain ways at will by studying corpses.”
Xie Lian smiled as he hooked his fingers in to pull back the layer of muscle and skin, cutting a larger window to see the inside. “San Lang is such an overachiever.”
For a moment he just looked, fascinated by the slight movement of the intestines his husband had created to mimic those of a living person. Without thinking too much, he found himself reaching out to trail a finger along the veined surface of the intestines.
“They’re soft,” he murmured, a bit nonsensically. He supposed he’d been expecting it to more closely resemble the firmness of animal intestines he’d cooked with in the past. The meaty chewiness obvious from the very touch. Perhaps if he felt them in a still living beast it would be more similar to the wet, pliable organ churning with false-life under his touch, he didn’t know.
“It doesn’t hurt, you don’t have to be so careful,” Hua Cheng assured him softly, gaze heavy as a quilt on Xie Lian’s shoulders.
Glancing up briefly, Xie Lian looked back down at the window he’d made and stretched his palm flat over the exposed organs, feeling every twitch with a meditative appreciation.
“My San Lang really is a perfectionist.”
“Your highness deserves the best.”
Xie Lian couldn’t help but snort. “Did you think I’d ever be asking you for this kind of demonstration?”
“No. That doesn’t mean I can get sloppy.”
Xie Lian couldn’t help himself but to lean up to kiss his husband, hand still splayed tenderly over the writhing organ. And Hua Cheng eased him into turning the kiss into a slow and melting thing, hitching a little breath against his lips when Xie Lian’s fingers instinctively curled into him at the feeling.
“Does it hurt?” He murmured against his husband’s mouth, though he was fairly sure of the answer.
Hua Cheng shook his head, their noses bumping with the motion. “Just surprised me. Your highness doesn’t have to be so gentle.”
He didn’t, but he would. No matter how many times his husband repeated such things.
Xie Lian let himself melt back into another kiss as he let his hand follow the folds of Hua Cheng’s intestines to slip wrist deep inside him, palm resting against bone. It was so warm and full of the rhythm of false-life that a lesser ghost could never have recreated. Despite the limited space, the way seemed to be slicked by whatever the body coated them with and Hua Cheng’s intestines happily welcomed him inside, as though his abdomen had always been made to lovingly warm his god’s hands.
“Does it feel strange?” Xie Lian murmured during a lull in their kiss.
“Being so close to your highness could never be strange.”
Biting back a smile, Xie Lian pulled away from their kiss to observe once again, a bit awed by the sight of his hand so safely tucked inside his beloved ghost.
It might have been a bit strange to think, but he couldn’t help the feeling that it was like this part of Hua Cheng had been made specifically to fit him. He supposed in a way it had been made for him, but he knew logically that Hua Cheng hadn’t really imagined being groped in such a way when he set upon his quest to perfect such things.
Slipping out his hand, Xie Lian moved his fingers to dip in a bit higher, cupping the stomach and feeling the gentle squirm of the large intestine against the back of his hand. The stomach was more still, but no less warm against his touch.
“Thank you for putting up with my cooking,” he told the organ, smiling as it earned him a laugh from Hua Cheng that made it twitch.
“It’s blessed to hold your food, gege,” he insisted playfully.
“Hm,” Xie Lian didn’t look up, considering his impulse shyly before leaning in to kiss Hua Cheng’s actual stomach chastely, licking his lips to clean off the abdominal slick that had stained them as he pulled back to meet Hua Cheng’s adoring expression.
Blushing, Xie Lian looked back down, hand just barely squeezing Hua Cheng’s stomach. It gave in easily to the gentle touch, accommodating in the way Hua Cheng always was.
Pulling back his hand again, he reached back for the knife, carving gently up and peeling muscle from bone to expose Hua Cheng’s ribcage with a delicate touch.
He traced down the breast bone, the solid feel of it much different from the wet warmth of the organs he’d been playing with before. Still, it wasn’t unwelcoming in its own way, and he found himself tracing out each rib that came off of it to the edge of the opened cavity.
“If San Lang were a body part, I think he’d be a ribcage,” Xie Lian told him.
“Oh?”
“Reliable and protective,” he explained, his finger grazing Hua Cheng’s liver as he traced the bottom of his ribs.
“Your highness would be the heart then. The very life that I live to protect.”
Smiling, Xie Lian couldn’t help but lean in to kiss Hua Cheng’s exposed bones at that.
His lips pressed featherlight touches to each individual rib as both hands sunk into the welcoming curves of Hua Cheng’s intestines this time. His fingers brushed his husband’s spine with a lover’s caress, keeping him centered through each peck of gratitude until he finished and drew back, letting his hands slip out with the motion.
With two hands having been inside Hua Cheng’s guts, it was as though they had become more tangled than when it had just been one. The intestines seemed to try to follow him outside of their own body, clinging like Hua Cheng’s butterflies often did to the last bits of contact with their god. Xie Lian was careful though and made sure they stayed neatly inside. He had no doubt his husband would let him take every organ out, but he thought they may seem too abstract to him that way. Tucked within Hua Cheng, every part of him looked fully his, and was more lovable for it. If Xie Lian were to start piling his lap with loose organs though, even he would feel a bit odd about touching and praising them.
It was perhaps an arbitrary thing to feel was weird with how far they’d gone, but he never had pretended that his desires always made sense.
Looking up at his husband again, Xie Lian felt his brain stall at the pure devotion in his gaze, and it was as though the ashes tucked against his chest grew warmer with how deeply he felt their presence in that moment.
Every corner of this man, no matter how hidden or vulnerable, truly belonged to him. Hua Cheng worshipped without restraint and every time Xie Lian was faced with the undeniable truth of that it left him breathless with desire unlike any other he could name.
It was not so simple as lust or so detached as pride. It was a heady, intoxicating thing that left him feeling equal parts vulnerable and divinely unstoppable.
So Xie Lian groped softly yet greedily at Hua Cheng’s intestines, indulging in the way his husband’s body worshipped every brush with him as he blessed every spot he had opened with kisses until his face was damp and his hand had wound up reaching under the ribcage and over the hitching diaphragm to caress Hua Cheng’s false beating heart— the one he knew his husband liked to time to Xie Lian’s own pulse— holding it with the severity of an awed child holding a newborn chick, enraptured by its fragile beauty.
And Hua Cheng, his devoted believer, his loving husband, his San Lang, who had laid patiently and allowed himself to be docile so that Xie Lian could explore at his own pace, seemed unable to help himself anymore in the face of Xie Lian’s clear overwhelm, reaching up to embrace him and tug him into a reverent kiss that was messy with pure emotion.
His arm must have been digging into Hua Cheng’s guts at the angle, but he didn’t want to move and he knew it wouldn’t truly hurt his husband, just remind him of Xie Lian’s presence within and around him. It was a good reminder for them both.
“San Lang really is amazing,” Xie Lian whispered into the kiss, unable to raise his voice any louder than that under the intoxication of his husband’s worship. “Every bit of you is perfect.”
And though his husband did not respond with words, Xie Lian could see the reply in his gaze in the seconds before his eyes slid shut again into their kiss.
For you. Every bit of me was made perfect for you, your highness.