From Earth to Heaven, From Heaven to Earth (TGCF HuLian)

Chapter 8 A Local Habitation

--Now—

When Wu Ming ascended Xie Lian felt...

He has no words to describe what he felt. Glad? Relieved? Proud? Shocked that a ghost could ascend, jubilant that heaven had /finally/ recognized Wu Ming as the one meant to ascend...

...Or something else

Something shameful and selfish and empty that wanted to cling onto Wu Ming and never never let him go.

But he should have known better shouldn't he? He wasn't trying to find Wu Ming in order to ease his own loneliness. He was doing it in order to make immense. He holds no claim over Wu Ming. Wu Ming's heart already belongs to another and it is Xie Lian's job to reunite him with that other and no more. As a god Wu Ming would have no need of Xie Lian for that, would have no need of Xie Lian at all, and that's how it should be.

Xie Lian only ever brings him pain.

It's with these thoughts and others like them in his mind that Xie Lian stepped out of the cave. He planned to use the little bucket one of the travelers left with him to gather some snow to melt for water. Then he would tidy up the cave and see what he could find to build an altar.

As the place of Wu Ming's ascension what better place for his first shrine?

What Xie Lian had not expected was the black shape streaking down from above, what he had not expected was to recognize in that figure one he thought was now beyond his reach forever.

What he had not expected was that Wu Ming would return to him yet again.

Now Xie Lian stairs at Wu Ming in utter bewilderment, his body still shaking with the shock of his emotions and his eyes still filling with silent tears and he doesn't know what to think.

"You jumped!?"

Wu Ming nods, a little color rising into his pale cheeks. He looks baffled and stunned and a bit sheepish, and he's here, he's really here.

"But why?" Xie Lian's voice shakes a little on the question and he's honestly not sure if it's from tears or simple shock.

"Because you weren't there." Wu Ming says it so earnestly that it steals all the breath from Xie Lian's body and before he can recover the ability to speak the ghost continues. "Why would I want to stay in a place that rejects my god?"

"Wu Ming..." The name leaves his mouth in half a gasp and half a laugh and he can't believe what he's hearing. "You reject godhood just for that? Just for me?"

"I would do anything for your highness." Wu Ming stairs Xie Lian in the eye, grave certainty and dedication ringing in his voice and those words crash over Xie Lian like a wave, like the tide pulling him under. He could drown in those words and never once try to find the surface.

"Wu Ming you..." Xie Lian lets out something that's half a laugh and half a sob and then, unable to find the words for what he's feeling, he throws himself at the ghost again, pulling him close once more, holding him as tightly as he can and burying his head in the ghost's shoulder. It's partly because in that moment he has the sudden desperate need to hold him ...and partly to hide his blush.

...Though in the split second before he hides his face against Wu Ming's robes, he thinks he glimpses color in the ghost's cheeks too.

"Your highness..." The ghost's voice sounds weakly puzzled and he stands there stiffly for a moment before slowly tightening his arms around Xie Lian again as though not sure if he's allowed to touch the god so familiarly.

Again there's silence between them as Xie Lian gathers himself, and then, with his face buried against the crook of Wu Ming's neck he asks, "Why do you still have so much faith?"