Chapter Text
A slight brush of sensation is all he’s aware of at first.
A mere whisper of consciousness, anchored in that faint touch on his—
Not on his hip. He’s aware of no body, nothing other than that soft caress.
Not on his lips. He has no mouth.
Not on his throat. He has no throat.
But somewhere.
And then the sensation is gone, the cold darkness returning.
He has no awareness of time passing, but knows it has when he next feels the faint ghosting touch.
Touching where his lips had once been. Tracing down where his chest had once been, setting down where he once had a groin.
A vague idea this has been going on for a long while, that the distant touch had come to him many times when he couldn’t feel it.
He feels himself fading again. He tries to latch on to the rubbing between his legs, the warmth on his face—
Not his face. The place his face had once been—
The idea quivers faintly in his mind like a marshlight in mist.
His face. Whose face?
He tries to follow that thought, grasp it, but it slips through his fingers like grasping at a cloud.
Awareness fades.
Darkness returns.
More mist, more time, and then there’s something gliding over his skin—has he skin?, a warm touch in the ice-cold darkness.
Heat spreads from the touch, pressure between his legs, and he can half-trace the contours of a body—
His body.
A distant murmur:
“Come back to me, daozhang…”
Daozhang? Is that his name? Is he…
Something hot and wet between his legs, and then the pressure stops. A sudden feeling of emptiness, but there’s a glow welling deep inside him—
The voice fades.
But the voice is stronger the next time, a day later, an eternity later. Winding around him, caressing his skin, brushing his lips.
“I know you can hear me, daozhang…”
Something between his legs, thrusting into him. Something else wrapping around him, warm and gentle.
A shudder of pleasure, the first sensation other than the voice’s ghostly touch.
A laugh, coming to him across a vast black ocean. “Did you like that? I know you liked that…”
The voice fades.
He claws desperately after it, terrified of being left alone in the icy darkness, but it spirals away into nothingness.
The sensations are stronger when they next return. He can feel two hands on him, caressing him. Something wet all around him, something soft gliding over his limbs. The scrape of teeth on his throat, the flutter of eyelashes against his cheek.
“The water is warm, but you’re so cold…” A biting at his ear, a licking sensation along his throat. “It’s been so long, Xiao Xingchen…”
Xiao Xingchen.
The name stirs something deep inside him.
Xiao Xingchen.
Xiao Xingchen…
The arms around him tighten, and the voice gasps.
“You moved—I felt it—”
Something soft and dry being rubbed over his skin, then he’s on his back. A pressure between his legs, a fullness, and something smooth and firm is moving in and out of him while something slippery and pliant probes his mouth and something else glides along his legs.
“I know you’re in there—I know you can feel this—”
Xiao Xingchen sinks into the sensations. Friction, warmth, a shuddering pleasure spreading over his hips, his thighs, his middle—
“That’s enough, there,” the voice whispers. “Can’t risk you losing yang…”
The touch disappears from his groin but intensifies elsewhere, the voice touching every inch of him, caressing his arms, his legs, his chest and throat and face.
A whimpering sound, and the glow in his chest brightens.
“Feel better, daozhang?” A soft stroking sensation over his collarbones. “I promise you I’ll let you come when you’re back with me, but we can’t risk it yet…”
The glow does not fade this time, or the sensations. Faint and distant, but present. He feels himself being lifted, being set down. A scraping sound.
Then nothingness again, but not the same nothingness as before. There’s nothing to feel, but he can still think.
But not remember. Nothing outside the voice’s caresses comes to him, and the familiarity of his name.
Xiao Xingchen.
He repeats it over and over during the next—days? Weeks? Months?
Xiao Xingchen.
He clings to it, desperate to avoid drifting back into the frigid emptiness he’s come from.
Xiao Xingchen.
Xiao Xingchen…
He’s half mad with lack of stimulation when he next hears the scraping sound, feels himself lifted up, set down on something hard.
Something smoothing his hair, something pressing against his lips.
“You’re still so cold,” says the voice. It’s almost familiar now, tugging at a thread of memory. “I’ll fix that, soon enough…”
Another brush of warmth over his lips. A pause, and then something slipping inside him, filling him, touching something between his legs. The sensation is almost overwhelming after having felt nothing for so long, and he would cry had he been able to do anything but lie there silently.
The pressure mounts, building, and then there’s the familiar warmth, the glow, and he feels a shudder of heat run along his legs, his arms, his chest.
“I have a surprise for you today, daozhang…I know it will work, I know it will…”
Something slides over his face, as if material is being removed from his eyes.
“I’ll be right back,” the voice whispers, something pressing lightly against his forehead, and he lies there in an agony of anticipation, desperate for the return of the friction, of the soft touch, the voice; anything.
A faint cry somewhere in the distance. He’s so attuned to his surroundings, so desperate for any kind of stimulus, that he thinks he can hear the sound of something snapping, squirting, gushing, dripping.
Footsteps, and then he feels a hand splayed out over his chest.
“Now, hold still, daozhang…”
A pricking in his eyes—not eyes—eye sockets, he instinctively knows. The sharp sensation starts and stops, as if someone is dipping a needle in and out of his face, piercing his flesh.
“Almost done now, daozhang. Almost finished…”
The needle switches to the other eye, in and out, in and out. He focuses on the pain, savoring it, and is hollowed by a sense of loss when the final thread is pulled tight.
“Beautiful,” breathes the voice. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you like this…” Then, hesitating: “…but you’re still mine, even like this, right? …You won’t leave me, now that you can see? …I won’t let you…”
Solid warmth curled up against him, sliding around him, pulling him close. Not as visceral as the pain, not as intense, but it’s better than the empty darkness.
“I won’t let that happen,” repeats the voice. “You’re mine, now; I know you won’t leave me again…”
Nothing for what might be days. He’s half-mad again with emptiness when he hears the familiar scraping sound.
Something strokes the skin beneath his eyes, circling them, touching his closed lids.
“Beautiful…”
More soft caresses, more gentle pressure filling him with heat, more soft murmurings:
“I’m still Chengmei, just as you’re still the daozhang…”
The name sends a spark of recognition tingling through him.
Chengmei.
Why does that name sound so wrong?
Something to think about until Chengmei returns. It gnaws at him as the voice leaves him and still, silent darkness closes in around him.
Chengmei. Chengmei…
A flash of a sword. A voice raised in anger—not Chengmei’s voice.
…His voice?
“What about the others? Why did you wipe out Baixue Temple? Why did you blind Zichen? Xue Yang, you are abhorrent…”
Xue Yang…
The name gnaws at him, eating away at the thick layer of grime coating his mind, exposing the soft core of memory buried deep inside.
Xue Yang.
He senses he should care, but all he can think about is that it’s been too long since Xue Yang has touched him—too long since he’s felt anything—
“I’ll be gone for another few weeks,” is the next thing the voice—Xue Yang’s voice—says to him. A whisper of warmth over his lips, a finger trailing over his cheek, a hand between his legs. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, and you’ll be free of this coffin…”
Coffin.
Xiao Xingchen is dead.
That’s the next memory to return.
Xiao Xingchen is dead. Which means that Xue Yang has been—
A rush of nausea as he realizes what all the friction has meant, what the warm heat was. The caresses, the pleasure.
“You’re still so cold…”
Xue Yang is inside him. He wants to thrash about, shriek, beat at the inside of his prison with his fists, but he can’t move. Can’t scream, can’t escape, can’t do anything but lie there, cold and silent.
He holds Xue Yang’s face in his mind’s eye as he lies there, increasingly desperate for sensation despite it all. Pain or pleasure, he doesn’t care which. Just something.
Anything.
His thoughts grow sharper as the sensations intensify.
The slaughterhouse at the Chang Manor—
There’s more to it that he can’t remember. He can’t remember much of the day he died, just the sound of Shuanghua entering Xue Yang’s stomach, Xue Yang’s crazed laughter, the hot blood spurting over his robes as he rapidly bled out on the hard stone ground.
Chengmei he remembers more of.
Chengmei’s voice, teasing him. Chengmei’s hand, steadying him. Chengmei’s oversweetened congee, his stories, his little animal-shaped vegetables.
No. Xue Yang’s voice, teasing him. Xue Yang’s hand, steadying him. Xue Yang’s oversweetened congee, his stories, his little animal-shaped vegetables.
His emotions are dulled, but he still wants to vomit at the thought.
And yet he welcomes Xue Yang’s touch, welcomes the friction, the warmth, the renewed glow, even as his skin crawls with revulsion.
“Easy, now,” says Xue Yang. “Soon, soon, I'll be back soon and it will all be over—”
A few more thrusts and he’s pumping into Xiao Xingchen, filling him with—
Qi, he realizes. Life essence. Yang.
Semen alone isn’t enough, certainly not with two men. Xue Yang must have figured something else out—
A begrudging respect. He had known Chengmei was intelligent, but to do something like this—
How much demonic cultivation was involved in this?
Does it matter? The thought slips in after the sensations have stopped, the smothering nothing returning. You were dead, and now you’re back, however it was done…
But I don’t want to be back.
A lie. With no external distractions, he can’t lie to himself.
Help people. That’s the only way he can start to make up for what he’s done. Save people…
Which he can’t do while trapped inside this coffin—
A sudden flash of claustrophobia crushes him.
He has to get out—he has to get out—
Where is Chengmei—Xue Yang? How long has it been?
If Xue Yang—Chengmei were to die, he’d be trapped here forever—
He doesn’t have to breathe, but feels like the darkness is choking him anyway, filling his lungs and smothering him from the inside as the coffin walls close in. Every nerve in his body screams, shrieks again at him to pound on the coffin lid until his fists are raw and bloody, but he can’t move.
Can’t move can’t move can’t move—
Can’t feel. Can barely even think, after a while, his mind afloat on an inky river of numbness—it’s all around him, filling his mouth—overwhelming, numbness, devastating nothingness; nothing nothing nothing—
A faint sensation of something wriggling behind his eyes, a distant writhing.
A buzzing sound.
Desperately he clings to the writhing sensation, the buzzing.
And then they’re gone too.
Nothing nothing nothing—
Colored lights explode like fireworks behind his eyelids, the swimming sparks joining hands, forming circles, whirling and dancing in frenzied patterns. He struggles to think through the spinning colors, tries to force his mind into coherent order, but all around him is numbing darkness, save for the dancing lights.
They coalesce into a blazing sun. He watches it rise, flaming red and orange, with the sound of singing all around him, voices he knows can’t possibly be real.
He gives in to the vision, taking pleasure in watching the sun rise higher and higher, impossibly high, a fiery ball in an ink-black sky. Come back around, rise again, faster and faster, spinning around the earth—
The sun goes out.
The singing grows louder.
He can pick out words now—
“Xue Yang Xue Yang Xue Yang—”
“Chengmei,” he wants to say, correct the swelling chorus, but he lies still, silent, senseless.
It doesn’t matter.
“I’m still Chengmei, just as you’re still the daozhang…”
Yes. It doesn’t matter.
Chengmei.
Of course it matters—
Red eyes, burning in the darkness. Coming closer, closer—
They pass through him. A tingle runs through him as they disappear, reappearing behind him. He can see in all directions at once, and they surround him, dozens of fiery red eyes, coming for him, sending painful shocks through his formless body.
Not real. Not real—
But it feels real.
He welcomes the pain.
Not real—
Nothing is real, just the warm friction he craves, just the soft touch, just the voice. Nothing else is certain, nothing else can be trusted. Not memory, not thought, just sensation.
He’s mad with the nothingness, with the terror of those red eyes, when Xue Yang returns. Starving, his body melts into his touch even as his mind spurns it.
"Did you miss me, daozhang?” he hears, and every nerve in his cold body cries out at the sound, bursts into flames at the fingertips trailing along his hip. “I missed you…”
Heat between his legs. A gasp from above him. A spurt of warmth, gold light blossoming in his chest. Something brushing his eyes.
“Rotted clean away,” he hears. “Need to tweak the preservation talismans…”
A wrenching, tugging sensation. Something sliding through the flesh of his eye sockets. Pain, wonderful pain—and then it’s gone.
“…don’t know how maggots got in here, that shouldn’t have happened, my fault, my fault…”
Something warm and wet in his eyes, cleaning them.
“Guess the eyes have to be dead to work,” the voice—Xue Yang's voice—chuckles. “Easily solved. Don’t need him anymore, not when we’re this close…”
Silence. Xue Yang is no longer touching him, the pain gone. Xiao Xingchen desperately wants to turn over on his side, drag himself onto all fours, crawl to Xue Yang, beg him to put his hands on him again—his mouth on him—anything—
A soothing hand on his cheek. Xiao Xingchen wants to sob at the touch, turn his face into Xue Yang’s palm, press his lips to his flesh, take a finger into his mouth, have him warm his tongue, bring his mouth to life, enable him to speak, speak so he can beg him to—to—
“Should have done this the first time,” Xue Yang whispers. A brief warmth on his lips, a distant laugh. “They are your eyes, after all…”
A pricking in his eye sockets. Pain, pain—
“Much better,” says Xue Yang, and then there’s nothingness again.
Just darkness.
Darkness and those shining red eyes. Gliding around him, through him—
He focuses on the painful shocks.
Eventually the eyes merge, turn gold, spread out into a gold mist full of trees.
The mist clears, revealing a mountain glen.
Towering pines, brilliant green moss, tall spirit-gathering grass sparkling with gold light. Soft green moss carpeting the bank of a small stream, tiny white mushrooms growing on the fallen logs, trees with trailing branches and deep roots.
He dwells there for what feels like years, his consciousness seeping into the soil beneath his rotting body. A mindless mountain spirit, nestled in the bosom of the moss and reeds, covered in falling leaves. Nourishing soil beneath his limbs, being drawn up into the roots, the grasses, the mushrooms, feeding the birds and insects.
Fading into the mountain.
No thoughts. Nothing but the humming, thrumming warmth of the earth beneath him, the gentle breeze on his face. The dampness of the soil, the sweet scent of grass and bark and decay...
The moss covering the curve of his hip moves.
The mountain stream is speaking.
“Try,” the stream is saying. “Please try, daozhang, you have to try…”
The voice fades.
He sinks deeper into the soil, filled with a bone-deep sense of peace—
Something clutching at what used to be his arms, but he feels no pleasure from the longed-for touch. He desires nothing more than the soft embrace of the earth, the caress of the breeze—
“No! I know you’re in there, I know—”
A frantic thrusting between his—
Legs. Between his legs—
The forest fades, darkness returning.
“Xiao Xingchen, you have to try—”
A warm burst deep inside him. A burning sensation in his chest.
Xiao Xingchen.
The burning grows hotter, glowing gold.
Fades.
Xiao Xingchen.
A slashing sensation on his arm.
Heat.
Fading.
Xiao Xingchen.
Nothing…
Xiao Xingchen claws desperately at the pain and heat as they spiral away, a surge of panic ripping through his numb haze.
The forest is gone. He can’t go back to the red eyes—can’t go back to the darkness, the nothingness—
“I miss you so much, daozhang—”
A roar of flames. The gold light erupts, searing his rib cage, scorching his body, turning him to ash—
Xiao Xingchen opens his eyes.
Inhales a ragged breath, filling his empty lungs with cool night air.
Xue Yang gasps.
“Xue Yang." Xingchen’s voice is rough, throat dry. He reaches up with a trembling white hand, closes it around Xue Yang’s wrist, absorbs his warmth. “I've missed you too…”
ETA: Beautiful art from @xuanyus-palette! Lovely. I just love the ribs and neck wound and ribs and heart and hair and the golden glow and emotion...thank you!!!
