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chibimuiwritesstuff · 5 years ago

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MMA Fighters HuaLian - Meeting

Right. I’m just going to post this. The backstory to the Hualian MMA AU idea I thought up of how they initially met. This is not edited btw, so apologies for any errors.

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They meet in a match.

Xie Lian has met many people in matches before, he is one of the best MMA fighters out there after all, so usually he doesn’t remember most of his opponents—but he remembers this one. He remembers him because he is tall (not an issue), lanky (he’s experienced enough to know skinniness doesn’t mean lack of strength), has an eyepatch covering his right eye (a handicap?) and is absolutely, ridiculously, unfairly, gorgeous.

The referee counts to three, the whistle blows, and Xie Lian tenses and is surprised when the other man barely moves a muscle. Just looks at him, expression unreadable. There’s an intensity to his gaze, but it’s not the usual look of a fellow fighter preparing to attack, it’s… it’s something else. It unsettles Xie Lian for a moment, makes his heart beat just a bit faster, but, well, if his opponent will not make the first move then that’s their mistake.

A rookie perhaps?

He launches forward and feels his heart sing when the man not only catches his blow, but dodges to the side in a way that looks effortless, but Xie Lian knows speaks of unbridled skill. Not a rookie then.

Not a rookie at all in fact.

The match is one of the toughest Xie Lian has had in ages. The other man is incredibly defensive and catches Xie Lian’s punches, kicks and feints blow for blow, although rarely making an effort to strike out himself. It’s mildly frustrating, somewhat confusing, and incredibly invigorating. It’s fun. It’s a joy Xie Lian hasn’t truly felt in a fight in ages. He dances around and is somewhat glad for the mask he wears so no one can see the ridiculously large smile he can feel stretching across his face. This is why he loves martial arts. This is why he loves fighting. So that he can dance with people like the man in front of him.

He’s almost sad when he finally manages to pin the other man on the ground for a count of three, and the referee blows the whistle again.

‘Winner, give it up for The Crown Prince!’

The referee holds his hand up, but Xie Lian can’t take his eyes off his opponent, who by this point is already sitting up and also looking back at Xie Lian as well. He looks unphased, unruffled. He does not look like a man who has just lost a fight. In fact, the small smile on his face somehow makes it seem like he was the winner of this match somehow.

His is registered under the fighter name ‘Crimson Rain Sought Flowers’. The people in the mixed martial arts underground call him Hua Cheng.

Xie Lian remembers him and looks forward to the day he might be able to fight him again.

It takes another year before Xie Lian is able to meet Hua Cheng again—and it’s not for lack of trying. After their one match he had tried to seek him out, find out more information about this mysterious opponent who had stepped into the ring and fought with Xie Lian like he had just decided to do it on a whim, but there was nothing. There had been no previous fight records, and no fights he had signed up for afterwards. It was truly as if he had just appeared to fight Xie Lian and then left.

Mu Qing had commented dryly that maybe he had scared the other man off, as he did to so many other earnest newcomers, but Xie Lian didn’t see how that was possible. Hua Cheng had not been a rookie fighter, and Feng Xin had agreed on this as well. But, whatever the reason—Hua Cheng had never reappeared until now.

Once again Hua Cheng stands before him looking deceptively relaxed. If Xie Lian were anyone else he might have felt insulted. After all, he had won their last fight—Hua Cheng should look at least somewhat wary. But he doesn’t. Instead something about his expression makes Xie Lian feel like he’s just as excited for this match as Xie Lian is himself. Xie Lian smiles under his mark, forgetting for a moment that Hua Cheng can’t see his face. It’s nice, to face an opponent who not only isn’t intimidated by him, but appears just as excited and actually has the skill to back up their own air of confidence.

Xie Lian’s heart skips a beat as he catches Hua Cheng’s single eye and can’t help but shiver in anticipation of the match to come.

The whistle blows, and this time Xie Lian waits. He wants to see what Hua Cheng will do, but Hua Cheng does nothing. In fact, the both of them stand still for so long, the audience begins boo-ing and Xie Lian’s mounting excitement begins to curl into confusion, and then into frustration.

Hua Cheng merely raises an eyebrow, “What is gege waiting for?” he drawls, smirking.

“I could ask you the same question.” Xie Lian replies.

Hua Cheng nods his head, as if he’s considering Xie Lian’s words very seriously, “Hm… that’s true.” And then he launches himself forward.

Xie Lian had been prepared, this is what he had wanted after all, but it shows just how skilled Hua Cheng is that for a second Xie Lian can’t track his movements at all and he is hit with a spike of surprise. It is only through muscle memory, born from hours and hours of training, that allows Xie Lian to effectively dodge Hua Cheng’s fist, following immediately with a counterattack of his own, which Hua Cheng also effortlessly dodges in return.

They continue like this for a few bouts, and it’s similar enough to their last match that it causes Xie Lian to pause. Despite Hua Cheng opening with the first strike, they’ve somehow fallen into a pattern where Xie Lian is on the offensive and Hua Cheng only defends and it’s… it’s frustrating. Xie Lian has never really cared about the actual competition itself, he simply joined matches for the sake of being able to fight others who were just as crazy about fighting as him, and so now he just feels incredibly put-out that it seems like Hua Cheng isn’t taking things seriously.

He stills, pulls out of his last punch and as expected, Hua Cheng jerks his arm back at the last second as well instead of taking the obvious opening to his advantage. Once again, they’re just two opponents, standing in the cage, staring at each other but neither of them moving. Neither of them have even taken a stance—standing almost casually, albeit somewhat alert. The crowd has also noticed the pattern of the fight, and some bystanders have begun jeering at Hua Cheng specifically.

“Come on! Put up a proper fight or just get out!”

“Don’t waste His Highness’ time!”

Both of them stand and listen to the calls of the crowd and while Xie Lian usually doesn’t like to encourage this sort of heckling, he can’t help but cock his head to the side and ask, “Well, are you going to take this seriously?” because what other conclusion is there to draw from this bout? It’s obvious that Hua Cheng doesn’t want to beat Xie Lian at all, doesn’t even really want to fight him at all. It doesn’t make sense and it makes Xie Lian wonder why he’s even here.

Hua Cheng simply smirks at him, but his posture doesn’t change. “What makes you think I’m not taking this seriously, dianxia?”

“You’re not even trying to go on the offensive. Any other person would have felt insulted by now.” Xie Lian replies.

“Well, it’s good that you’re not any other person then isn’t it?”

His voice is low and velvety smooth and it makes Xie Lian feel warm for reasons besides physical exertion. “Perhaps, but I also refuse to continue a match with someone who clearly doesn’t want to engage.”

He turns to the referee who also looks like he’s one second away from giving both of them warnings and it’s this that finally seems to pull a genuine reaction out of Hua Cheng.

“Wait--!”

Xie Lian turns and cock his head to the side again in question, since Hua Cheng can’t see his face.

“You’ve got me gege, this newcomer didn’t mean to offend. I was simply excited at being able to spar with you again and wanted to do anything to extend the time as much as possible.”

Xie Lian lets out a huff of air, feeling somewhat affronted.

“And what makes you think going on the offensive would have made the time shorter? Either you think too highly of yourself, or you are severely underestimating me.”

Hua Cheng shakes his head vehemently, “No, I can assure you I would never!”

Xie Lian signals to the ref to stand down and that he will handle things before turning back to face Hua Cheng properly once more, “Then, are you going to fight me properly?”

Hua Cheng nods.

They both return to the center of the cage and take up positions, eyeing each other warily. Since no time outs were taken, there will be no whistle to signal a new start—it is simply up to one of them to make a move.

The fight that follows leaves everyone breathless.

It is Hua Cheng that makes the first move, and when he does it is clear that he had been holding back. His attacks are quick, aggressive, and absolutely wild, but what is perhaps even more wild is how composed Xie Lian managed to remain in comparison. The only sign that he may have been struggling lay in the fact that despite the sharpness of his own moves, equally quick and unforgiving, he still had not won.

Attack are blocked, grabs and holds are escaped from and used to lead into secondary attacks, throws that would have had most fighters winded on the ground ended with miraculous recoveries with both parties somehow still on their feet. Even when the fight had devolved into wrestling, as Xie Lian struggled to pin Hua Cheng down for three counts, it was hard to see who was at an advantage—but eventually, a winner was decided.

The crowd roared with enthusiasm, a whistle was blown and as for the fighters themselves…

Xie Lian flinches when the referee grabs his wrist, having nearly forgotten where he is and what he has been doing. He had been too immersed in the fight. Too immersed in Hua Cheng. He hears nothing but the blood that is still roaring in his ears, continues to feel nothing but the soft panting of Hua Cheng’s breath on his skin as they had rolled on the ground, and sees nothing but Hua Cheng’s eyes as the other man continued to stare at him from his position on the ground—gaze dark and dangerous.

Then he blinks and he is back in the cage, his arm being held up, the crowd cheering. Hua Cheng stands and dusts himself off, calm and cool as ever, although even with the noise Xie Lian could still hear the ragged panting of his breath—matching his own laboured breathing.

“Good fight.” Xie Lian hears himself say, truly meaning it as he shakes the other man’s hand. It is warm, strong, and Xie Lian can still feel the traces of where those hands had left marks on his body. He represses the urge to shiver.

“It was truly an honor to be able to fight you again, dianxia.” Hua Cheng replies, smirking once again. Were it anyone else, Xie Lian would have been sure they were mocking him, but there was something in Hua Cheng’s voice that sounded more like reverence. Xie Lian drops the other man’s hand and laughs awkwardly, scratching the back of his head.

“I think the honor should be mine, you really didn’t make things easy for me.”

Hua Cheng doesn’t reply, and afterwards they are ushered out of the cage to make room for the next match. When Xie Lian turns his head after toweling off his sweat, Hua Cheng is already gone.

Feng Xin and Mu Qing both tell him to forget about Hua Cheng. They are, and have always been, Xie Lian’s best friends, so usually Xie Lian does try his best to listen to their advice—they care for him after all. But he cannot forget about Hua Cheng. During training he imagines the other man in front of him, he walks down the street and pictures fights with him in his mind, he goes from competition to competition seeking him, tries and fails to search him up on social media, but just like last time, it is like he has disappeared.

“You’re thinking about him again aren’t you,” Feng Xin grumbles as he sits down, practically throwing his tray of food onto the table of the university cafeteria.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Xie Lian replies promptly as he takes a bite of his own lunch.

Mu Qing takes the seat beside Feng Xin, placing his tray down more gently and completely ignores Xie Lian to turn to the other man at his side, “He was thinking about him again, wasn’t he?”

“I wasn’t!”

Feng Xin has the audacity to grunt and nod as he slurps up his noodles at an alarming pace.

“Hey! I said I wasn’t!”

Mu Qing lets out a sigh that Xie Lian thinks is supremely unfair, given the fact that his friends are the ones being rude to him. Then, Mu Qing grabs something from his bag—a piece of paper it looks like, and places it on the table. “We’re only doing this because we know you won’t stop mooning about him otherwise.”

“I’m not—mooning? I’m not mooning!” Xie Lian splutters, but he grabs the paper anyway, with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm and then stops short.

It is an address and apparently it is for a place called Ghost City. He’s heard of Ghost City. Xie Lian frowns. Before he can ask the question though, Mu Qing already gives him the answer.

“He’s there. We told you to give up on him, but we knew you wouldn’t so we thought it’d be better to just see for yourself what type of person Hua Cheng really is.”

Ghost City was an underground cage match arena—everyone who was anyone in the MMA world knew about it. It was for the fighters who desperately wanted to prove themselves beyond the world of sanctioned, formal, competitions. For the fighters who truly wanted to test their skill in a match where they had to put everything on the line. The only rule in Ghost City was the one: there were no rules. Although Xie Lian loved fighting, this was a place he had no interest in. He had never been interested in hurting and dominating others, he simply just wanted to test his skill and to experience the skills of others.

If Hua Cheng was there though…

“Please, just remember to be careful alright Xie Lian?”

Xie Lian nodded, gripping the paper more tightly than was probably necessary. He looked up at his friends, at Feng Xin who continued to studiously eat his noodles as if they had somehow offended him just by existing, and at Mu Qing who was looking somewhere off to Xie Lian’s left looking disgruntled, and smiled. “You two really are the best.”

Neither of them bothered to give him a reply, but the address was enough.

#tgcf #heavens official blessing #hualian #MMA AU

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chibimuiwritesstuff · 5 years ago

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Ex-MMA Fighter Xie Lian AU

A super random AU I thought up in the shower (because that’s where all our best thoughts come from). Essentially borne from my amusement at how Xie Lian, in his youth, was super obsessed with really good fighters (a tidbit that I feel goes woefully unmentioned in fandom and even by the author later in the novel). Posting because I need to get the idea out of my head and possibly actually start writing it.

(Also I don’t actually know anything about the MMA world, especially competitively - I just dabbled in Judo/Karate in my late teens, but that’s about it).

So basically. Imagine, XL is a super sweet but clumsy department head at Heavenly Officials Ltd. (I have no idea what kind of company this actually is, ideas are welcome), whom his staff all adore but also kind of worry for cuz omg is he super air headed and clutzy and fucking hopeless. Just the other week he managed to spill coffee all over his laptop--his third one of the year and it’s only March! But he is literally so nice, and despite his clumsiness is actually super competent at his job and his department always gets stellar results (what department are they? I have no clue, I know nothing about the corporate world).

What none of his staff/coworkers know is that their ridiculously clumsy boss used to be a champion mixed martial arts fighter in his university days. Or that he would even be interested in something as brutal as MMA cage matches since XL is a known pacifist who will go out of his way to catch bugs and place them safely outside when he has the time. But then one of the IT guys - in the process of fixing his laptop and restoring his hard drive finds a folder filled with videos and pictures of MMA cage matches all featuring the same fighter... you guessed it, Hua Cheng (I know MMA is not wrestling, but let’s pretend stage names are a thing in the competitive MMA world as well so HC is his fighter name in the arena)! The gossip spreads like wildfire, but everyone just thinks XL is just a fan of this ridiculously attractive fighter and don’t really think beyond that (although they do think it’s kind of adorable that XL seems to be such a huge fanboy of this gorgeous, gorgeous man).

And the thing is - the staff have heard vague snippets from XL himself about his husband, “San Lang” who they have yet to meet because apparently he is often busy in the evenings and is therefore unable to attend corporate events. But they don’t make the connection that the adorable San Lang who cooks and pampers their boss could be the incredibly brutal and violent HC (his staff all decided to review some videos just to see who has captured their bosses interest and most of them are erm... quite surprised).

Then of course, someone does find out that SL and HC are the same person and this is when shit really hits the fan because the thing is - the staff generally knew that XL and his partner could be quite *ahem* adventurous and coupled with XL’s inherent clumsiness they had gotten used to seeing random marks and bruises on their boss that they probably shouldn’t be witness too, but whom he always insists are ‘nothing’. But when they learn that his partner is a potentially super violent MMA fighter his staff get awfully protective and worried because... could their boss be in an abusive relationship that they aren’t aware of???? This opinion is not helped by the fact that when they try to discretely ask FX and MQ about HC they ofc give some pretty bad impressions (because both of them can’t stand HC--but the feelings are pretty mutual).

So of course, they must staff an intervention! And a perfect opportunity comes up--as part of some charity event their company is partnering with the local MMA organization to hold a friendly exhibition charity match and surprise-surprise, they’re bringing in their big gun, HC and he’s apparently going to fight some old veteran whose fighter name is “His Royal Highness”. (google reveals a fighter who constantly wore a mask to hide his identity). This is their chance to meet the bosses partner and maybe subtle-y threaten him enough to let him know that their boss is cared for and they will protect him at all costs if necessary.

(side note: Feng Xin and Mu Qing don’t bother to correct anyone because a) they generally stay out of gossip surrounding XL because b) they respect Xie Lian’s privacy c) they hate talking about HC in any capacity and d) they have an on-going bet to see when ppl will learn their ‘adorable clumsy boss’ could theoretically take out an entire swat team without batting an eyelash if he really wanted to--he was nearly recruited to be a special ops agent, but anyway)

So. The day of the charity match arrives and XL is... nowhere to be found??? Perhaps he’s somewhere else, VIP seating with the CEO (Jun Wu) or something since HC is his partner after all. Anyway, they watch the fight and it’s... Wow. But also a bit different? HC doesn’t seem as wild or brutal as he seems from online videos, although there is still this energy that everyone can feel in the fight that they can’t really place. But wow is it a fight and in the end HC surprisingly loses????

Ref blows the whistle and the staff all clamber down hoping to get in a word with HC when they all stop short because “His Royal Highness” suddenly rips his mask off and flies into HC’s arm and... and is that THEIR BOSS???

Minds are blown. Jaws are dropped. The two of them are practically three seconds away from full-on making out on the cage floor before FX/MQ yell at them to “stop being fucking gross, you’re in public damn it” and then XL snaps out of it and remembers, oh right, his entire staff team from work is here and they all just scream at him and he’s just like ???? because... well...

He hadn’t been trying to keep this a secret at all?

But now that the cat is out of the bag he is super happy to introduce HC to everyone, and then hopefully drag his partner off to the nearest secluded space because half the reason XL retired was a) he was done uni and was offered a nice position by Jun Wu (CEO of HO Ltd) - who was also an ex-fighter and trained under the same master as XL so they know each other pretty well - so he had less time and b) he felt he had found his match with HC and so the thrill of fighting others wasn’t as big anymore and c) ...after getting together cage matches were just another form of foreplay and it made things rather... ah... difficult to say the least. So XL bowed out without any issue. HC stayed in the profession because he knows XL likes watching him fight :)

Also just because XL doesn’t compete anymore doesn’t mean they don’t still spar on the regular in private. There is just something about the atmosphere of competitive cage matches that just got their blood flowing more than just sparring on the side for fun (although that would often lead to sex afterwards too, but at least in that case there wasn’t an audience).

So. There you have it.

#heavens official blessing #tgcf #hualian #MMA AU

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