Work Text:
Hua Cheng watches as the delivery boys carry the block of marble into his workshop.
It’s smooth. Cool to the touch. His hands itch for his tools, but the sun is setting, and he won’t work by candlelight.
He locks the workshop door as he leaves. The evening light kisses the marble gold.
A hand emerges from the marble first, stretching east to the rising sun. Hua Cheng brushes dust away from the grooves in its knuckles, hands gloved so he doesn’t dare mar the stone. Even the chips of marble falling away seem like snowflakes. He’s entranced.
He starts from the hand down, setting the arm free. There’s a slight bend at the wrist, a curve at the elbow, the hand held to the side as if reaching for something. Hua Cheng focuses on the creases in the crook of the statue’s elbow and the curve of gentle musculature caused by the positioning.
Its fingers curve inward slightly, grasping. He finds his eyes drifting towards that hand. It looks empty like this. At sunrise, it collects a palmful of rosy light but now, with the sun high overhead, it holds nothing but empty shadows.
As if possessed, Hua Cheng reaches up to touch it. He ghosts his fingers over the pulse point, feeling nothing but marble. Of course not.
The leather of his gloves slides easily over the cool stone. He allows his fingers to rest in the curve of the statue’s palm, thumb smoothing absently over its wrist.
But he is Hua Cheng, and this is a statue, and he takes his hand away (brushes away an invisible imperfection) and resumes his work.
He spends two more days on the arm alone. It emerges from the marble slowly, from still water, like he’s freeing the person trapped inside. The hand remains empty, reaching for nothing and no one.
Hua Cheng finds himself growing frustrated that he requires two hands to work.
It is early one morning when Hua Cheng realizes that the figure must be veiled.
He was not intending on it. But to bear witness to the figure’s face, uncovered– it feels wrong, somehow, and so he will obscure his creation even from himself. Especially from himself. All the better the veil is carved. This way, he cannot give into temptation and lift the hem above the figure’s face. The look in its eyes will always remain a mystery.
And so he sets to work. The arm connects to the shoulder, then. The figure is turned, slightly; he makes sure the shape and bend of the shoulder accommodates for that. He checks the quality of his work with his fingers– gloved, of course– feeling the divots in the arm where the muscles move. A dip, ever so slight, at the joint of the shoulder; so small and shallow it fits but a single finger. A curve of skin at the swell of a muscle. The hard lines of a shoulderblade working down the figure’s back.
The veil drapes down low over the shoulders; even so, the figure’s hair hangs free. It has long hair, a cascade down the dip in its spine– how Hua Cheng knows this, he is not sure. He hasn’t reached that part of the carving yet. For now, he focuses on what is immediately at hand; the face (or lack thereof) and the veil covering it.
The figure’s shoulder slopes upwards, gentle. Its face is tilted ever so slightly upwards, Hua Cheng has decided. It’s looking at something. He smooths out the jut of its collarbone and lets his fingers linger where they are not welcome a little too long.
Stepping away at night is frustrating. Being called away from his work is frustrating. When he’s busy with a project like this, Hua Cheng wants nothing more than to lose himself in his work– but candlelight burns low, and the night is dark, and as much as he hates stepping away he would hate himself for an imperfection even more. So he drapes the marble with a cover and pinches the lamp-flame out and locks the workshop door as he leaves.
The feeling of marble folds is soothing to him. From beneath the marble, he can see the faintest outline of eyes, observing.
He turns the statue slightly so it can watch the sunrise.
Hua Cheng checks for imperfections as he always does; with gloved hands. He sets his tools down and carefully brushes away leftover marble dust with a damp cloth. His whole workstation is silent save for the sound of his own breath as he passes the cloth over the statue’s lips.
Its eyes are fixed on him, empty. Hua Cheng does his best to avoid the statue's gaze.
One day, when it is storming and too dark to work, he spends the day observing. Its chest is beginning to emerge from the marble, slender and draped with strands of long hair that escapes from the veil. When he's carving, his hands itch to curl that hair around his finger. But no matter how soft it may look-- no matter how good his carving-- it is marble, and it will not move. The best he can do is be gentle setting each individual strand free, indulging himself (if only briefly) in the sin of imagining how they might feel.
He works down from the shoulders. The second arm is pulled slowly out of the marble. Hua Cheng has a mind to carve a sword of marble for it. Almost not of his own volition, the figure’s hand is clasped to its chest, curled inward, holding the hilt of a beginning of a sword.
All right, then, he thinks. Who am I to refuse it?
And so the statue will have a sword.
The figure’s torso is emerging from the marble now. Hua Cheng slows his work to study what he has done so far. A head, tilted towards the rising sun; a hand empty and outstretched. The beginnings of a sword.
Hua Cheng leans forwards. His gloved hand rests in the cup of the statue’s palm— a fruitless endeavor, he knows. The marble will not part and allow their fingers to weave together. It’s a statue. It’s a marble statue.
For a moment, his control slips. He allows his body, tired from work, to sag against the cool stone. His head rests in the curve of the statue’s shoulder.
Then he realizes.
He pulls away like the marble has branded him. It’s warm where he had been leaning— skin-warm. Almost alive. Hua Cheng feels sick.
He leaves his workshop early, even though he has not used all of that day’s sunlight.
It's much too easy to give in. He hates himself for it. He is not welcome in the statue's arms, and yet he feels drawn to them anyway.
He forces himself to focus. He foregos rest in favor of his work. The rest of the sword is freed from the marble. He spends far too long on the folds in the statue’s robe.
Hua Cheng isn’t sure when he stopped thinking of the statue as an it and began thinking of him as male. It just… happened, he supposes, and he’s beginning to loathe himself for getting so attached to something that isn’t real.
It’s winter, and the statue is cold. Hua Cheng gets into the habit of draping a blanket around its shoulders before he leaves.
The man in the statue is not real. But Hua Cheng is, and he has never felt so lonely.
He keeps a red shawl around the statue’s shoulders while he works. When he stands to survey his progress, he always notices how empty the statue’s hands look. He itches to touch– to feel– but he keeps his gloves on and gets into the habit of leaving flowers, white like marble, in the statue’s hands instead.
Winter passes. Hua Cheng works on, alone.
He’s torn awake one night to the sound of crashing.
It’s coming from the workshop, loud enough he can hear it from his room. His feet are in motion before he can even think, the shadows ghastly and leering from the light of the claw-scrape moon in the sky.
A cloud drifts overhead as he reaches for the doorknob. His hands shake and the key scrapes in the lock.
The cloud drifts away, and the statue’s corpse lies broken on the ground.
Hua Cheng flies forwards to– what? The damage has been done. A chunk of the statue’s face, the veil cracked into pieces, stares blankly up at the stars.
He cradles it in his hands. His finger slips on the edge of the stone– he doesn’t notice the pain, but when he goes to stroke the statue’s cheek it leaves a kiss of blood there.
Cold, heavy numbness claws its way upward from somewhere deep inside his chest. It spreads outwards like the petals of a flower until he can’t even feel the weight of the marble in his hands. Blood from his cut pools on the statue’s and drips down, slowly, leaving a smear of red like a tear stain.
He wakes up.
In a horrifying sense of deja vu, the moon is but a claw in the sky. Hua Cheng’s feet fly over the stones to his workshop, his hands shake and scrape the key in the lock–
The statue stands there, whole. A flower wilts in his free hand. All the air leaves Hua Cheng’s lungs in a rush and he drops to his knees.
He was foolish. Foolish to think he could chase something so pure. Foolish to think he, of all people, had the right to set this man free from the stone.
The statue watches him silently. A cool night breeze blows the flower free from its fingers and it falls, lifeless, to the floor.
Hua Cheng has an agenda now. He will finish the statue, because if he hates the thought of tainting its purity he hates the thought of someone else working the stone even more. He will finish the statue, and he will move it somewhere where it can see the sun, and he will distance itself from it so he cannot be tempted to touch it again. The pedestal it sits on looks precarious now. Everything seems a danger. He could break it at any moment.
But first, he must fetch another flower.
Spring comes and, with it, color. Hua Cheng fills his workshop with it so the statue will not feel so alone. He keeps a single flower in its hand, yes, but gets in the habit of bringing in baskets of flowers from the hillside, keeping the door open to let in the fresh air. Out of the corner of his eye, he can almost see the statue’s hair floating in the breeze.
He works like a man possessed. His hands ache from gripping his tools for so long. His joints protest when he picks up the chisel. But he works on until his eyes blur with exhaustion and he threatens to let himself fall into the statue’s arms.
But he doesn't. He pulls himself away– sleeps on the workshop floor, if he must– but he will not allow himself to feel.
It’s raining when he finally declares his project finished. It feels wrong– to finish on a gloomy day with the sun covered in clouds– but he has overstayed his welcome in the figure’s space for too long.
He takes a good, long look at the completed statue.
He's gorgeous. Pale marble is illuminated by candlelight, baptizing the statue in a soft rosy glow. A sword gleams, held fast to his chest-- carefully, Hua Cheng removes the wilting white rose from the statue's hand and replaces it with a fresh one he'd brought with him.
It's not easy. Stepping away, that is-- Hua Cheng's fingers linger on the stem of the rose, longing for the person beneath the stone to be real.
He's lonely. He's never felt quite so-- so alone, a hollow ache palpable in his chest. He's poured hours of his life into this statue. Stayed by its side every day, knew each muscle of its body better than his own. And now he's just... finished.
It's done. It's over with. The statue will be sold and displayed somewhere, as all statues are-- but his hand will remain empty. Would anyone else care for this man the way Hua Cheng had? Would they know that the man in marble was lonely, too?
He searches the figure's face for an answer, but whatever expression it may have given him is obscured by the silky veil.
His days are filled with much nothing. He wakes up feeling lost, adrift like a restless soul, burned out like a flame. What now? He should be making preparations to sell, he knows, but whenever he entertains the idea for more than a moment he feels sick. There's an ache in his hands to hold and to be held in return, but he keeps the workshop door adamantly closed.
Summer passes in a haze of steaming rain and angry sun. His tools collect dust on the workshop shelf-- he has no will to carve-- but cleaning the statue is something he cannot forego. It's ritualistic, almost; calming in its repetition, familiar in the way the cloth passes over the curves in the figure's muscles, the folds in its clothes.
It gleams, a sunlit beacon amidst the shroud of dust that gathers on the workshop floor.
The empty feeling in his chest becomes an old friend.
At the beginning of fall, he cracks. Everything-- whatever everything is-- collapses on his shoulders and he can barely bring himself to leave his bed. When he does manage to drag himself to the workshop-- for the first time in days-- the statue is painted with a thin layer of dust. Hua Cheng crumples to the floor by its feet and weeps.
He gets sick-- from the fall chill or from his own neglect, he's not sure. His own longing haunts him with visions of the marble man. A cool hand on his forehead. A familiar presence at the foot of his bed, not waiting but simply staying, content in their shared silence.
It's all a dream. A feverish dream. The marble man is not real, and Hua Cheng is alone as he always is. When he finally drags himself out of bed to eat, the table is set for two.
He chalks it up to his own confusion and puts the second set of dishes away.
A week passes in a daze. He wakes up before dawn one day with a feeling of clarity he hasn't felt in a long time-- his mind is clear, the air in his lungs feels fresh. He turns his head to the side and catches a glimpse of a single white rose lain carefully on his bedside table.
He doesn't remember picking that. He doesn't remember a lot of the last week.
He gets up. His feet are unsteady, but he gathers the rose in one hand and makes his way to the workshop. There's a chill in the air, much too cold for insect life, but a swarm of white moths flutters free of the grass when he opens his door.
The workshop is clean.
Hua Cheng stands in the entryway, stunned silent. The workshop-- it had been dusty before he was sick, and he doesn't remember much but he knows he couldn't have done this. There are no signs of an intruder. The lock isn't broken. Nothing's out of place. The statue holds its silent vigil over his tools.
...right. The statue. If the statue is okay, then nothing else matters. Nothing appears to be missing-- some divine act of goodwill, Hua Cheng thinks, amused at his own joke, and makes his way inside.
It's all too familiar, standing in front of the statue. He thinks of the week spent in bed, the week where he could have sworn he felt a second presence with him, and the ache in his chest throbs like a heartbeat. He knows then what he has felt for a long time-- he cannot sell the staute. Not this one.
He'll have to start on a new one soon, then.
He tucks the flower into the statue's hand. It must have been empty for so long-- lonely, like he was. He hesitates to draw his hand away. It feels good to hold something-- someone-- even if they're not real.
Then, slowly, the statue's fingers twitch and curl into his own.
Hua Cheng stares, struck dumb. He's not-- this has to be a dream, the way the statue is moving, the way he carefully threads their fingers together with the rose held in limbo between. He has to be imagining the rustle of white fabric, the metallic gleam of a sword, the rise and fall of a chest that should not move.
"You've recovered," The man says, and while Hua Cheng is still frozen-- is he the statue now?-- he lifts his veil and kisses him.
The man's lips are warm. That's what really shocks Hua Cheng out of his stupor-- this is marble, this is unfeeling stone, and it is warm. Skin-warm, alive, real. He responds with a desperation that scares him, the way he pulls the man in, off his pedestal and into his arms. He buries his face in the crook of the neck he knows all too well and feels a fluttering pulse against his brow.
He doesn't realize he's crying until the man brushes his hair out of his face and kisses a tear away. Those hands-- he felt them before, he thought he was dreaming but they're real-- thread through his hair gently, comfortingly, like he's something to be cherished. Something precious.
Hua Cheng sobs openly into the man's arms.
It's not a dream. It's not a feverish hallucination. He's not imagining.
Xie Lian is real. Alive-- human, or at least Hua Cheng thinks. He had no idea he could relearn so much about something he thought he knew so well, but Xie Lian continues to surprise him.
They relearn the meaning of skin and warmth together.
It's spring again when Hua Cheng finally feels well enough to carve. This time, when the delivery boys bring the marble block into his workshop, Xie Lian is there, haloed by a sunbeam with a white flower in his hair. He makes excellent company while Hua Cheng works, but the new sculpture is far from being started. Hua Cheng's hands find their way into his lovers hair rather than his toolbox.
But it's alright. Spring has just begun, after all. This time, when the flowers bloom and creatures dance in pairs, Hua Cheng forgets what it's like to be lonely.