Work Text:
Xie Lian pulled his boyfriend closer as he was leaned back into the bed, melting under Hua Cheng’s greedy kisses. They were a newer couple but old friends and Xie Lian was happy to lose himself like this. To embrace this love. To melt into the hand drifting down his side and under his shirt.
Oh shit.
“Mn— San Lang,” Xie Lian pulled away, feeling a bit bad when Hua Cheng pulled back like a dog caught doing something naughty.
“I didn’t mean to make gege uncomfortable, we don’t have to do more than this, I just thought—“
“No it—“ Xie Lian leaned in to steal a kiss, trying to assure him it was okay. “It’s just… I should probably show you.” He sighed.
Sitting up properly, he stripped off his shirt and waited, nerves turning to amusement when he realized instead of noticing what he was trying to show him Hua Cheng seemed to just be admiring his chest as if Xie Lian had given him a particularly exciting present.
Unable to stop his laugh, Xie Lian pointed to the tattoo, lump in his throat coming undone as he realized there really was no reason to be embarrassed about it in front of Hua Cheng. He might not have even commented on it if Xie Lian hadn’t it brought up.
But he recognized it. Xie Lian knew he recognized it. It had been something like a calling card from his ex-stalker, some shitty rendition of it showing up before chaos happened. On post-it notes and stickers and drawn in his books. Hua Cheng hadn’t been close with him at the time but the news had a bit of fun with imagery as the dust was still settling. It turned a horrible reality into something of a spooky story for those who weren’t involved.
“Did you want it?” Hua Cheng asked quietly, not touching or staring at the mistake. Only looking into his eyes now. Only caring for whatever Xie Lian had to confess.
“At the time. I thought I was so cool taking the meaning on myself, like I was proclaiming disaster followed where I go and I worked alone. Ah, it's so embarrassing now.” Xie Lian ran a hand through his hair, regret for his past self a sour taste in his mouth.
Hua Cheng took off his own shirt. Were they starting again? He hadn’t ruined the mood?
But Hua Cheng didn’t kiss him, just showed Xie Lian the shitty, self-done tattoo of Xie Lian’s name he’d done that year Xie Lian first saved him. Hua Cheng’s writing was barely legible on a good day, so tattooing it on his own arm with bad supplies left it absolutely incomprehensible. But Xie Lian knew what it meant still. It was, perhaps, the sort of thing they were supposed to find embarrassing but instead Xie Lian just found it sweet as he reached out to glide a finger along the long healed skin.
“Gege knows I’ve gotten a tattoo for him once.”
“En,” Xie Lian smiled, not sure where this was going.
“Would gege be less embarrassed if this one matched?”
“What?”
“I could get one like gege’s. So you wouldn’t be alone.”
“God no, San Lang doesn’t have to do something like that.”
But Hua Cheng was already getting up.
Surely he didn’t still have the tattoo gun he’d used as a kid, right? Or— had he even had a tattoo gun as a kid? More likely some sort of self made set up. He wasn’t about to recreate it, was he? Xie Lian followed anyways.
“San Lang?”
“It’s too late, gege.” Hua Cheng said solemnly as he uncapped a completely normal pen.
Xie Lian snorted. “It is not too late, give me that.”
Hua Cheng danced away, a silly game of chase that lasted all of five seconds of doodling and squirming out of the way before Hua Cheng recapped the pen triumphantly.
It was crooked. And—
“Yours is only smiling,” Xie Lian pointed out, unable to help his own smile. Usually when he thought about his tattoo, the best he could get was neutral. It was a sick reminder of a terrible time. The only reason he hadn’t gotten a cover up was the queasy feeling that it would never really erase what was under there, just bury it. Bury things didn’t make them go away. And Xie Lian already buried so much.
He knew what it was like to constantly know at the edges of your mind what lay beyond if you only opened them back up. Days, years even, could go by with them staying well hidden until rain came and uncovered it and then Xie Lian was left with the shameful task of trying to hide it all again.
Better to wear the tattoo plainly, it wasn’t like anyone else but him could see it just above his hip. So he desensitized to it slowly. And I’m bad days, well. On bad days he just kept his shirt on and tried not to let himself linger on the terrible taste in his mouth that reminder brought.
But Hua Cheng’s didn’t make him feel terrible or even neutral. It just reminded him how very much he loved this man.
“Of course it’s smiling. Because as long as I’m by gege’s side I’ll be happy,” Hua Cheng claimed, though Xie Lian knew very well he’d just been doing it too quickly to get the style right. No matter how good an artist Hua Cheng was, there were limits to skill when you were drawing on yourself upside down, in motion, as fast as possible.
“I hate it, never get it tattooed,” he kissed him, endlessly fond.
“I’ll have to draw it on every day as a testament to my love for gege,” Hua Cheng declared dramatically. Always so prone to theatrics.
“San Lang,” he grinned, standing in their living room, both of them with their shirts off and stupid childish tattoos on display and so so in love. “It’s embarrassing.”
“No one will see it.”
“I’ll see it.”
“Oh? Is gege planning to get me shirtless more often?” Hua Cheng fake gasped.
Xie Lian really loved him more than he could ever describe. “That was the plan. Unless San Lang has any objections?”
“Only conditions.”
“Oh?”
“Gege has to be shirtless too.”
Smiling this much really made it hard to kiss. “Deal.”
***
“Do you like it?” The tattoo artist asked as Xie Lian took in the new ink in the mirror.
“En, it’s exactly like San Lang’s drawing, thank you.”
The artist nodded, getting Xie Lian wrapped up and sent home.
It wasn’t a cover up, because Xie Lian couldn’t cover up what had happened. He couldn’t ignore what had been done to him and what he’d let himself do in return.
But he wasn’t alone anymore. So he thought it was time for an addition.
The bare line work of the laughing crying mask now overlapped with the ridiculous smiling mask Hua Cheng wouldn’t stop drawing on himself or on Xie Lian. And around those two reminders were the more detailed flowers in his boyfriend’s style.
It was still embarrassing. It was still an unbelievably immature thing for him to have gotten. And he really wasn’t that person anymore— had never been suited to being that person in the first place. But he knew, with that ridiculous smiling mask next to him, he’d never worry about becoming that person again either.
Nudging off his shoes at the door to his apartment, he smiled to see the other pair already there.
“San Lang?”
“In the bedroom! How did the appointment go?” He called out.
The first time Xie Lian had gotten a tattoo he had been bitter and angry and hadn’t had anyone to tell. He’d been so shitty with aftercare it was a miracle he hadn’t gotten it infected.
This time he was lifting his shirt and unwrapping his tattoo to show off before he was even halfway there. “I really like it!”
Hua Cheng looked up from his tablet to look at him, his eye taking on that soft, fond quality Xie Lian loved so much. “I do too.”
And that was really all that mattered.