Work Text:
“I can feel you staring at me,” Mu Qing says, the handle of his rabbit-hair brush pressed to his chin as he debates the next sentence of the mission report he’s drafting on a bamboo slip scroll for Ling Wen. He glances up from it at the open door, where Feng Xin is leaning with a smile on his face.
“You’re almost docile when you’re concentrating.”
“I’m not a stray fucking cat.”
“You’re right. You’re too prissy for a stray cat,” Feng Xin says, and finally enters the room. He strides across the rug and plops down at the low table next to Mu Qing. “You forgot about our dinner date. I figured you got lost in your report.”
Mu Qing flushes. Dinner date. This, them: it’s new—brand new, in fact. It’s been two weeks to the day since Feng Xin awkwardly shoved a handful of plum blossoms at him in the middle of the street and angrily muttered, I like you, or whatever. Punch me if you want, but fair warning, I’m punching right back. Mu Qing was too stunned to do anything but accept the pulverized, sad flowers, blushing to the roots of his hair because he never expected anything to come of his stupid crush, born from two years of genuine friendship following the moment Feng Xin saved him from plummeting into a lake of lava.
They’ve barely held hands. They certainly haven’t done more. Mu Qing has never been a tactile or verbally affectionate person and doesn’t know if he possesses the capability to be, but because it’ll be a cold day in Hell before he gives up his cultivation and the thought of having sex alone makes him sick to his stomach, he’s been frosty to avoid sending signals that he wants that sort of relationship, the sort Xie Lian and Hua Cheng have, for example. Feng Xin is Ju Yang, and a father. It’s obvious Mu Qing isn’t going to meet his expectations. In the near future, Feng Xin will realize Mu Qing is a bad idea he got stuck in his head and needed to work out, and then he’ll leave. When he does, Mu Qing hopes he takes these feelings with him. He never wanted to fall in love in the first place, and certainly not with Feng Xin. They’re incompatible by design.
This whole enterprise is doomed to failure. But selfishly, Mu Qing can’t bring himself to say that, eating up scraps of affection.
“It’s too late for dinner now,” he says, and finalizes his scroll. He pushes it away to dry, then calls for one of his junior officials by communication array to come collect his brush and inkstone to clean them. When the official is gone, Mu Qing turns to Feng Xin. “Why did you come see me if I’m just going to send you right back to your palace so that I can go to bed?”
“Maybe I wanted to look at you.”
“You looked plenty from the doorway.”
“For someone who claims not to be a cat, you sure do act like I’m rubbing your fur the wrong way all the time.”
“You’re the one who likes me,” Mu Qing says, both as a dismissal and because he wants to hear Feng Xin confirm it, which must be obvious, judging from the amused smile he gets. Feng Xin reaches over and tucks a strand of his silver hair behind his ear.
“Yeah, I do. But you always did say I was stupid.”
A thumb traces Mu Qing’s cheekbone as warm eyes fall to his lips. He already see how this will unfold: their first kiss—something chaste quickly turned into a tongue sliding along his, into hands in his hair and fingers tugging at his belt and Feng Xin bullying them into bed. And Mu Qing doesn’t want that. Emphatically, he doesn’t want that, so he turns away from Feng Xin and stands, tucking his hands in his sleeves. This night isn’t going to end with him throwing up all over them both the second Feng Xin crawls on top of him.
“Well. You’ve seen me, and I’m ready for bed. One of my deputies can show you out. I’m guessing since you had time to worry about dinner, you haven’t finished your own paperwork.”
“Why do I need to write a report on our mission when you’ve already done one? And it’s not like I was doing nothing. I arranged the detainment of the sorceress in my own palace, didn’t I? His Highness is the one who got off easy. Hua Cheng— He has just enough patience to let His Highness go on missions with us, but he’d burn down the heavenly capital if we insisted his husband do paperwork.” He sounds perturbed. He looks it, too, his brow furrowed, all signs of his easy smile gone. With a sigh, he stands. “Goodnight? I guess?”
“Goodnight,” Mu Qing says, and maintains the distance between them. Feng Xin huffs again, and without a word, he leaves.
Disappointed, Mu Qing heads deeper into his personal chambers until he reaches his bedroom, then strips out of three layers of robes and changes into a set for bed. Not long after he climbs into bed, Feng Xin’s voice comes through his communication array.
Mu Qing. It sounds enough like a question that Mu Qing lifts his head off his ceramic pillow and sits up.
What? A gulf of silence answers him. Feng Xin, I’m trying to sleep. What the fuck is so important you’re bothering me after you just left?
Nothing, just… Do you want to go on a date tomorrow?
That takes him aback. Why?
What do you mean, why?
I mean, why? he says, defensive. Things would be simple if he got straight to the point and told Feng Xin they’re never going to have sex, not in a hundred lifetimes, but the second he does, Feng Xin is going to realize this relationship isn’t one he wants to be in and it’ll all be gone, him and his pulverized flowers and soft smiles and warm eyes, his ‘Yeah, I do’s.
Never mind. Forget it.
Why did you ask?
I said never mind. Goodnight, Feng Xin says, and the conversation ends. It leaves Mu Qing angry.
After he lies back down, he stares at the ceiling of his canopy bed, eyes chasing shadows. In the back of his head, disciples of the Royal Holy Temple chant, wind whispers through prayer ribbons, and the state preceptor lectures the Dao De Jing and the precepts of their sect. This is who he is. This is what he’s always been, and always will be, and Feng Xin…is going to regret him.
Mu Qing wonders if Xie Lian had any of these problems navigating his relationship with Hua Cheng, then finishes the thought there and closes his eyes.
________
Mu Qing can tell before he opens his eyes that something is wrong: he’s naked, and he did not go to sleep naked.
Immediately on edge, he peels his eyes open to the ceiling of a canopy bed. It’s not his canopy bed, nor is there the blushing dawn of Heaven pouring through his windows and painting the world gold. It’s dark in here—not pitch black, but murky grey.
Something moves beside him, and he turns his head to find, of all people, Hua Cheng, who is staring at him adoringly, his head propped up on his hand. His hair tumbles down his bare chest because he—
Is also naked.
Mu Qing can’t speak, horrified at whatever fucking nightmare he’s currently having. He considers braining himself against the side of the bed and seeing if that wakes him up.
“Good morning, gege,” Hua Cheng says, right before he leans in and kisses Mu Qing, whose brain whites out completely. What the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening? What the fuck— Their lips part with a delicate smack, and Mu Qing doesn’t think: he just punches Hua Cheng square in the face and flees.
By some stroke of luck, the door he dives through leads into a bathing chamber and not, say, a front hall full of spectators. It’s normal to be naked in here, not that he wants to be naked, but he’s alone, and— Fuck. He slams the door closed, bites his thumb open, and draws a few characters on the door to seal it shut, because the second Hua Cheng figures out who he really is, he’s going to lop his head off with Eming.
Or maybe Mu Qing is safe because Hua Cheng would never harm one single, precious hair on his gege’s head, no matter who’s inhabiting his body.
To conceal his modesty and burn off the phantom of Hua Cheng’s touch, Mu Qing hurries to slide into a steaming bathing pool surrounded by privacy screens, then brings his fingers up to his temple: Xie Lian, wake the fuck up right now, or I swear—
“Gege, are you okay?” Hua Cheng asks tentatively from the other side of the door. “Gege—”
Mu Qing’s heart drops. He’s not scared. He’s— He doesn’t know what he is.
It’s, to Mu Qing’s surprise, Feng Xin who butts into his communication array to ask: Mu Qing, why the fuck am I you right now?!
Get out of my body, Mu Qing replies before he realizes how inappropriate it sounds. He flushes, tears pricking his eyes that he’s fighting with all his willpower. He’s not going to cry just because he feels violated. Find Xie Lian. I can only assume he’s you.
And you’re him?
I don’t want to talk about it, he says, and breathes heavily. It’s not even his body. Why is he getting so worked up about Hua Cheng kissing him? It wasn’t like— He’s fine. He’s overreacting. He swallows against nausea and presses wet palms to his wet eyes.
The gentle knocking at the door stops after a while, Xie Lian probably reaching out by array to explain everything to Hua Cheng before he arrives, and the silence gives Mu Qing time to take stock of Xie Lian’s body in a way he doesn’t want to. There are bite marks on his inner thighs and along his chest, and it’s not Mu Qing’s skin, but he’s still sick to his stomach. All he can imagine is Hua Cheng’s teeth—Feng Xin’s teeth on his body. He doesn’t want that. He’s a virgin. He wants to be.
He hasn’t been this panicked since he realized he had a crush on Feng Xin, no idea how to reconcile it with his reputation and his cultivation and his pride and his boundaries, and now none of it even matters because his first kiss belongs to Hua Cheng and he’s in a body that knows sex, that is riddled with evidence of it, and he feels…
His nose burns as he pretends he’s not crying. He feels filthy.
Are you here yet? he asks Xie Lian as he slips into the water up to his mouth and tries to ignore the sting of the bites on his skin.
Yes, Xie Lian says gently. Will you let me inside?
Only you.
Only me, he promises.
________
Logically, Mu Qing knows it’s Xie Lian who’s dressing his own body into a simple pair of coarse cultivator robes that itch, but right now, Xie Lian looks like Feng Xin, and he sounds like Feng Xin, and his hands are Feng Xin’s—on Mu Qing’s body. No, Xie Lian’s body. He takes a deep breath, fighting the urge to throw up.
“You were Guoshi’s best disciple,” he mutters as Xie Lian ties his belt, because he doesn’t know what else to say.
“There’s more to life than cultivation,” Xie Lian replies easily.
“Not for me.”
“That’s okay, too. Having…ah… Having sex bothered me at first. I always imagined other people seeing me…haha, like that,” he says, eyes avoiding Mu Qing’s. “I didn’t know if I actually wanted sex. Desire was…mired in a lot of shame, because of the path we followed and the things we were taught. But I wanted to explore what I thought I felt. And it turns out, it was just the precepts of our sect that were tangled up in my head. If I hadn’t wanted more, though, San Lang wouldn’t love me any less. Whatever you want, anyone who would judge you is someone who doesn’t matter. There’s nothing wrong with not liking sex.”
“Right,” he says. Then, to change the subject, because he’s uncomfortable talking about sex with Xie Lian, especially because those words are coming out of Feng Xin’s mouth and he’d never say those things as much as Mu Qing wants to hear them: “I didn’t realize you were this short. Feng Xin looks stupid from this angle. I can’t believe you don’t laugh at him all the time.”
Xie Lian smiles. Feng Xin smiles. It’s—confusing.
“Stop grinning like that. It looks wrong on his face.”
Xie Lian scowls theatrically, then smiles again, laughing as he leads them out of the bathing chamber.
________
At a low table in one of the hundred rooms of Paradise Manor, Mu Qing pushes around a simple breakfast prepared by the ghosts employed in the kitchens, joined by Feng Xin and Xie Lian, each of them in the wrong bodies. Hua Cheng stands leaned up against the wall beside the table and won’t look anywhere near Mu Qing.
“Are we in agreement this has to do with our mission yesterday?” Mu Qing asks, then gets caught up staring at Feng Xin—at himself. He’s playing with his hands, Mu Qing’s hands, dragging his fingers over one another like he’s trying to memorize their shapes. “Stop—fucking feeling me up with my own body,” he says, stomach still upside down. “If I find out you did anything weird to me, I’m going to kill you.”
“Feng Xin’s been very respectful of your body,” Xie Lian says, which looks true enough: Feng Xin has brushed his hair and styled it in a crown, and he’s wearing Mu Qing’s favorite sets of robes, the black brocade ones with silver lotuses and vermillion inner layers. No one would guess, looking at him, that anything was off.
“Believe it or not, I do a good enough impression of you not to raise any alarms,” Feng Xin says, and rolls his eyes to prove his point, “and I’m not a creep. Your fucking chastity is intact. Besides, what could I possibly have gotten up to between waking up and coming here?”
Xie Lian aspirates his tea and looks between Mu Qing and Hua Cheng like he’s finally added together that Mu Qing being naked and bitten when he found him means he woke up naked and bitten next to his husband.
“Gege…” Hua Cheng says pathetically.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, San Lang.”
Mu Qing glares. “I beg to fucking differ.”
“As soon as I tear you out of His Highness’ body,” Hua Cheng warns, and killing intent drowns the room as his hand finds Eming’s grip, “I’m going to kill you, you contemptuous fucking—” And then his mouth pinches shut, and his hand falters on his scimitar.
“What? Can’t threaten me when I’m wearing his face?” Mu Qing taunts.
“I’d rip your tongue out of your mouth if it didn’t belong to His Highness.”
“What’s the big deal?” Feng Xin asks. “I know you hate Mu Qing, but he hasn’t done anything to you. Well, not lately.”
Xie Lian places a hand on Feng Xin’s forearm, placating. “San Lang’s just upset he kissed someone who wasn’t me.”
The room is silent as death.
And then Feng Xin cackles up at the ceiling. It’s so strange for Mu Qing to see himself fall apart to boisterous laughter, and mortifying when Feng Xin crows, “You kissed Mu Qing! HAHAHAHA!” He falls over to lay on the floor and clutch his stomach, then laughs harder. “I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS!”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mu Qing spits.
“Ah, Feng Xin… I shouldn’t have said that. Please forget it.”
“You despise Mu Qing! This is hilarious! This is the greatest day of my fucking life! I’m never letting you live this down!”
Hua Cheng’s hand is back on Eming. “You fail to realize if I kill you now, I rid myself of two pests.”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “And then I stay in Xie Lian’s body, and Feng Xin is your husband. Do you really want to kiss that face for the next eight hundred years?”
“Hey,” Feng Xin says, offended.
“What did you two get gege into yesterday?”
“It was just a ghost, San Lang. A Wrath causing trouble near the southern border. A sorceress who set up a roadside inn to curse unsuspecting travelers. She’s imprisoned in Heaven until we find a mountain to seal her under. I suppose we should talk to her.”
“You think?” Mu Qing smarts off.
“You’ll respect His Highness, you trash, or—” Hua Cheng says, but Xie Lian rises from the table to settle a hand over the top of his on Eming. It’s bizarre to see Feng Xin’s body comforting Crimson Rain Sought Flower, and equally as bizarre to watch Hua Cheng’s face soften, then grow conflicted. His eye flits to where he’s being touched, a furrow forming along his brow.
“Can’t stand his face now?” Mu Qing asks.
“I’d love gege if he were a worm.”
“That’s very sweet, San Lang, but I promise not to turn into a worm.”
“Gege’s inhabiting one right now.”
To Xie Lian’s credit, he does try very hard to look like he’s not laughing. Feng Xin scowls at everyone in the room. “Why am I being ganged up on? What the fuck did I do?”
With a huff, Hua Cheng draws a pair of dice out of thin air. “I’ll deal with the ghost you dumbasses let curse my husband and live.”
“You aren’t allowed in the heavenly cap—” Mu Qing complains, but the dice have already been tossed in the air and clattered together in Hua Cheng’s palm, and just like that, he’s gone. “Why do I bother?”
Left behind, Xie Lian scratches his cheek and laughs awkwardly. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to go out to the garden. Staring at myself is…”
“Fucking weird,” Feng Xin says at the same time Mu Qing mutters, “Creepy as hell.”
“I was going to say unsettling. Mu Qing, Feng Xin really has rubbed off on your language,” he says, chiding. “Please don’t destroy anything while I’m gone.”
“No promises,” Feng Xin says.
And then they’re alone.
________
As soon as they’re by themselves, Feng Xin grows serious. He rounds the low table to sit next to Mu Qing and takes up one of his hands.
“You’re practically green,” he says as he rubs a circle into Mu Qing’s palm. Xie Lian’s palm. Whatever. This day can go to Hell. “I know you’re allergic to feelings”—which is such an auspicious start to whatever bullshit is about to come out of his mouth in Mu Qing’s voice—is Mu Qing’s voice really that delicate?—“but you look like you’re having a really bad day.”
“What was your first clue?” he snaps, but a hand comes up to cup his cheek, backs off, then returns.
“Fuck, this is so weird. I know you’re not His Highness. Just…bear with me here, okay? And try. We’re… Is boyfriends the right word? Partners? Whatever. It doesn’t fucking matter. We’re together, and I know you well enough by now to notice when something’s on your mind.”
“Why would I tell you? So you can laugh at me again? This is the best day of your life, right?”
“I was laughing at Hua Cheng. Not you.” The hand on his cheek strokes his skin gently. “Look, I know you’re still mad at me from last night.”
That confuses him. “Why do you think I’m mad at you from last night?”
“You kicked me out. And then you didn’t want to reschedule our date. I haven’t been in a relationship in eight centuries, Mu Qing. I’m trying really hard not to screw this up, but I don’t know what I’m doing.”
It’s strange, to find out from this angle that his face can be so soft, so expressive. There’s remorse in his dark eyes. Maybe it’s because he feels like he’s talking to himself that he’s honest.
“I woke up naked.”
“What?” Feng Xin says. “Did Hua Cheng—”
“No. Whatever you’re thinking, no. He just…” Mu Qing sighs and hopes Xie Lian forgives him, but he tugs his robe collars to the side to show off one of the bites sitting low on his neck, underneath the chain of a necklace Mu Qing has been ignoring. One more trinket of Hua Cheng’s devilish affection.
“He—”
“They were already there. And I’m not judging His Highness, before you get all up in arms with me about insulting him,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “I just— I woke up like that, and I feel…”
“Yeah, I get it,” Feng Xin says softly, but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand what it’s like, because he enjoys sex and this isn’t a big deal to him. “Try not to get caught up in your head about it.”
“Says the sex god.”
“Mu Qing.”
“You don’t understand. You don’t get it, and don’t pretend like you do. We’re not the same. I’m not— I have my cultivation, but even without it, I’ll never be interested, okay?” he yells, because today is awful and it might as well also be the day Feng Xin comes to terms with the fact Mu Qing will never be enough for him. “I don’t want to have sex with you. I never will. And I don’t mean in a hundred years, you’ll wear me down. This is disgusting to me. Is that what you want to hear? I hate this.”
In the silence that follows, Mu Qing waits for the sword hanging over his head to fall, for realization and disappointment to bleed across his own features, for Feng Xin to use his own mouth to end everything between them, but that isn’t what happens. Instead, Feng Xin sighs, looks to the jade-inlaid ceiling like he needs strength, then meets Mu Qing’s eyes. He cradles Mu Qing’s face to swipe away the tears he didn’t realize were there.
“I’m going to embarrass myself, so you better appreciate it. And if you give me crap at all, if I hear one stupid song about what I tell you or any gossip about it in the communication arrays, we’re done.” He settles both hands on his thighs. “So, let’s get something straight. How many times do you think I’ve had sex, exactly?”
“Why the fuck would I want to know how many people you’ve rolled around with in bed—”
“Because it’s once.”
“…What?”
“One time. I’ve had sex one time.”
Mu Qing stares. He has to be misunderstanding something. “What do you mean? You’re not on a cultivation path that requires…”
“I’m not interested. I never have been interested. I only tried it the once because I thought… Well, that’s what people do when they’re in love. That’s especially what they do at a brothel. But it ruined a lot for me. It made me feel things I never wanted to feel again. I loved Jian Lan. I don’t regret our son. But if I could go back, I wish I could tell myself I didn’t need to prove anything.”
“I…”
“Mu Qing, is this what you’ve been so worried about? Is this why you keep kicking me out and getting weird every time I’m in your space? You should have just said something. I’d kiss you right now if you weren’t His Highness.”
“I…might let you if you weren’t me.” He’s still reeling.
“And here I thought you’d leap at the chance to makeout with yourself— Hey! You punch me, you’re breaking your own nose.”
But Mu Qing doesn’t hit him: he leans forward and hugs him, because Feng Xin wouldn’t make this up. He gets a hug back, one arm around his back and the other in his hair. “I’m enough?” he whispers, and Feng Xin nods.
“Of course you are. I would’ve told you this weeks ago if I knew this is what you were scared of,” he mumbles. “But I was worried. His Highness broke his cultivation. If you wanted to… I didn’t want to disappoint you—”
The world spins, and Mu Qing is suddenly holding Xie Lian. He blinks a few times, and then with haste, he releases Xie Lian. For good measure, he scoots back, putting an arm’s-length between them and then more.
“Hua Cheng took care of the Wrath,” he says, uncomfortable. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to disappear before he murders me next.”
Xie Lian scratches his cheek with an awkward smile. “He does take his devotion to me rather seriously.”
“Mm-hm.”
“You, ah… You and Feng Xin seem…close.”
A blush blazes across his cheekbones. “Can we just forget today happened?”
“Of course. I’m just… I’m really happy for you, Mu Qing. Are you happy?”
Mu Qing’s blush only doubles. He stares at the floor. “Yeah.”
________
Feng Xin and Mu Qing meet up in front of Paradise Manor and cross the walkway over the will-o’-the-wisp-lit lake toward the chaos of Ghost City, but they only make it halfway down the creaking wood path before they run into Hua Cheng, who draws Eming without hesitation. He levels it at Mu Qing.
“We’re never going to talk about this,” he says.
Mu Qing meets the raging inferno burning bright in Hua Cheng’s left eye without fear. “Talk about what,” he says primly, head held high.
Eming lowers.
________
Leaving the ascension gate and striding down the Grand Avenue of Divine Might at Feng Xin’s side, Mu Qing is pensive as his knuckles brush Feng Xin’s with their every step.
“Are you still worked up about today?” Feng Xin asks. “It’s over. Let’s just go home and forget about it. Well, not all of it. But you know what I mean.”
“How would you feel if Crimson Rain Sought Flower was your first kiss?” he asks, then continues irritated: “Your only kiss. Put yourself in my—”
Before he knows what’s happening, Feng Xin cups his jaw and kisses him. For the second time in one day, he’s being kissed, but this time, he flushes and his heart races at the contact. Feng Xin—Feng Xin is kissing him, after years of him daydreaming during paperwork and spars and visits to Mount Taicang about exactly what it might feel like and how it might happen. He shuts his eyes, a simple peck turning into a hand at his nape pulling him into a deep kiss, and then another. Their lips part softly.
“Not your only kiss,” Feng Xin says, voice rough. Without another word, he turns on his heel and strolls down the Grand Avenue of Divine Might. Three Upper Court officials, including Pei Ming, stare at Mu Qing.
“Ho ho,” Pei Ming says with a grin, garnering laughs from the others.
Mu Qing sees red as he blushes from head to toe. “F-F-Feng Xin, I’m going to fucking kill you!”