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Only three other crew members were on the ship except for him and Feng Xin—the others had died, and if they weren't careful, soon their headcount would be down to only four.
A high chance of failure you would think, if you'd ever been in the same room as them, but that wouldn’t stop Mu Qing; it couldn't. The hastily created compatibility charts didn't lie, and it was possible—to save Feng Xin's life, Mu Qing would—maybe not do anything, but he'd do this and it would have to do, this farce of a mind-bond. It was close enough to a regular communications array that surely it wouldn’t be too bad, wouldn't take too quick to adjust to and break anyways, once Feng Xin woke up.
Feng Xin laid vertically in a medbay tube, eyes closed, held in a healing stasis. His hands were wan and scarred where they were crossed over his chest; the white the medical officers made him wear made Feng Xin look washed out and pale, like he was already a corpse—like Feng Xin was about to die at any moment, though not if Mu Qing had anything to say about it, and his slightly open mouth reminded Mu Qing of a particularly dumb goldfish, unbecoming of a high official of the Heavenly Alliance.
Mu Qing placed a hand to the glass panes like some mockery of comfort. His expression to the medics around him was cool, unflappable, but in reality he was anything but. "Your mouth is open," he said, unreadable to them. "Idiot, you look unseemly."
Then, quieter: "I don't want this either."
The ship thrummed. Stars sung. Somewhere out there, Xie Lian was scavenging scrap metal with no idea that his former bodyguard was in critical condition, and that to save him, Mu Qing would have to bind his mind and life with him forever. With every moment Feng Xin's breathing became more strangled: he had to hurry before the time window closed, or that creature came back, or his injuries worsened—
Mu Qing breathed in and exhaled.
He had been staring out the observation bay's window for the last two hours when Mu Qing felt the tell-tale stirring of Feng Xin waking up. A sleepy slurring of thoughts formulated; Mu Qing did the psychic equivalent of hastily looking away. Not long after that, a sudden stiffening as an awareness of someone else existing where it didn't belong sprouted. Then Feng Xin realised it: someone was in his head, but that someone wasn't there in a communication array-like sense (a distant facsimile of what they'd just done), but instead in a—
Feng Xin withdrew and put up his mental walls.
Total silence in their bond for the next half an hour. Diagnostics from the doctors maybe, but it wasn’t long before Mu Qing could hear raised voices from the other room. He examined the stars, too foreign for him to recognise constellations, but he made a game of creating new ones; a lighthouse; a shield; an apple tree—
Tap tap. Tap tap. Feng Xin knocked at the edges of his mind, asking to open a door that had long since been closed to others for his entire life, though he'd hoped for it to be closed forever. Slithered in when given permission, and Mu Qing gritted his teeth when the presence of the invading consciousness slid alongside his; Feng Xin sat tightly there, awkward, and Mu Qing sat tightly there right back and wished this wasn't as comfortable as it was, like his mind was made to be coiled up with another's.
It felt familiar though it shouldn't, this companionability, and that was dangerous—for all he knew, this could be part of the creature's plan. Although the crisis was over, the stunt they pulled with this wouldn't be so easy to break.
Why, Feng Xin said.
I had to, was all Mu Qing could say back, hatefully honest. It was to save you. You should have seen yourself, he wanted to sneer, but something stopped his scathing barbs. Unwillingly, he broadcasted Feng Xin half-dead all over the bond—flashes of Feng Xin’s fish-like translucent skin, bruises, and how—
You sick fuck.
Silence. Retreating from the array, Feng Xin was only a speck in the corners of Mu Qing's mind, and yet there was no escaping him, no matter how hard he tried: he couldn’t stop thinking of him, this bond, how it might change things. The story of Mu Qing’s life.
It was nothing Mu Qing hadn’t expected. His lips curled, and he traced the constellations again; arrows, knife, bow, lighthouse, shield, apple tree, and closed his eyes.
Before they headed back, they killed the creature that murdered their junior officials, a Wrath-level ghost that liked to eat its weight in stray ships, comets and debris. Their pain was shared now; Mu Qing discovered that pain hit differently when you didn't expect it, when you couldn’t see it coming from somewhere, when it wasn’t yours.
Determined to kill the creature, it was hard to fault Feng Xin’s aim even now while his arms were injured. Mu Qing distracted it with his sabre, and Feng Xin landed the killing blow, hitting it through its eye.
Mu Qing took the time to note that Feng Xin was looking better, back to his warm tanned skin and clear eyes. It contrasted nicely with the ghost's blood on his face.
The way back to the Heavenly Alliance was a short one. All of it he spended ignoring the bond, only acknowledging it so as to suppress it. According to scripture, lessening physical contact should weaken the mind-meld.
All for the better, to not have to talk to Feng Xin, and he should rejoice—for most of their lives, they were stuck with each other, he should savour it while Mu Qing could. For some reason it was bittersweet.
The emotions from the bond were dull, forced down from both sides. He wondered what Feng Xin thought about all this, other than the reflexive horror of sharing one’s mind with someone else that Mu Qing had felt when Feng Xin had first woken up. Feng Xin hadn’t even needed to hear it was Mu Qing he was stuck with to hate this, and it definitely didn’t help when he did so.
Probably Feng Xin wondered how best to remove it.
The few days that the trips took, he suppressed the bond and it left him with headaches; he couldn’t wait to break this thing off, bury it where it would never be talked about again except in the many, many fights where Feng Xin would be determined to use it as a point in his favour, as if this wasn't constructed to save him. Feng Xin could feel the headaches too, and Mu Qing didn’t bother to push down the sweet taste of satisfaction that gave him.
The second time they spoke using this newfound method, Feng Xin said, This isn't a marriage.
As if that wasn't incredibly obvious. He sneered, tracing the tip of his cup from where he’d been drinking tea. Funnily enough, I didn’t think it was.
I'm serious. I get why you had to do this, but if you think—
He rolled his eyes. You're the one overthinking this, just get away from me. We don't want to talk too much here, remember? Their medical officers had warned them it might strengthen or reinforce the bond.
Then we're agreed?
Yes, yes. No one will ever know about this matter, or get the wrong idea about it—certainly I don't want people to think I'm tied down to a brainless oaf.
Good.
Except the doctors, Mu Qing added.
Fuck. Right, and them. Do you think—?
Just because your lips might be loose doesn't mean others will gossip—have some respect for doctor confidentiality, Mu Qing said. This whole thing will be over and done with anyways, so how will people know to gossip in the time before it's fixed? He'd kill them himself if this turned out to be untrue.
Loose lips? Feng Xin sputtered. Then, lower, as if not intending for him to hear, Heavenly Alliance save us.
We're the Heavenly Alliance, he reminded Feng Xin. We'd just be the ones saving ourselves. Now get out, I was enjoying some peace and quiet before your loud thoughts barged in.
Without even bothering to give a goodbye, Feng Xin left in a huff.
Truly the worst part of this whole affair was the sudden availability; not even hiding in his private rooms could theoretically help him, his mind now open to be talked to whenever, a walk-in commodity. Mu Qing should be glad Feng Xin was avoiding him—he'd be insufferable otherwise, but even he had to admit that the shielding was getting harder, and when both people shared pain of the mind and body, headaches because of the suppression increased twofold.
Not too long after that, their spaceship reached the Heavenly Alliance's headquarters outer field and asked for permission to go through. Landing once given the go ahead, the spaceship rumbled as it glided into the much larger ship's docking bay. They didn't waste time: as soon as the immediate concerns were over, such as sorting out the paperwork and affairs of the junior officials who died fighting alongside them, they headed towards the medical officers. Reporting back to Mission Control's Ling Wen what happened could wait, but this couldn’t.
Annoyingly, Mu Qing and Feng Xin ran into a problem.
Headquarters, of course, was a bit of a misnomer. This was only one of the many bases that the Heavenly Alliance had over the galaxy, and this one wasn’t even a major one—it sat on the outskirts of a trading planet, meant to be more of a drop-off and refuel for passing spaceships more than anything. However, it held an overwhelming majority of aliens from the nearby planets, whose cultural beliefs regarding psi-bonding were… inconvenient.
"WHAT," Feng Xin said.
They were sitting in one of the medical bay’s offices to ensure discreetness. No matter where Mu Qing rested his gaze, he saw no shortage of medical textbooks, baubles and uplifting posters of smiling carapace aliens. One such poster was of an alien that looked like a beetle with shimmering blue scales, that included overlaid bold, white text that proclaimed: "Don't Cry, Laugh."
It was indeed smiling, but to Mu Qing, it looked more like a smirk.
"We're terribly sorry," the sweating doctor apologised, "but because of religious reasons, we cannot perform this treatment and break the bond with your—" their eyes nervously flicked to Mu Qing's darkening face "—partner, though we wish you all the best in your newly matrimonial bliss."
"We already explained the situation to you!" There was no better word for it; that was a begging tone right there—despite the situation, Mu Qing savoured it. "There is no matrimonial bliss."
"Just my personal belief, sir, no offence." They shook slightly, but they really did seem set on this. "I can't do it."
"This is the THIRD doctor we've been to," Feng Xin despaired. "Surely not every doctor in this damn place has an excuse not to help us. This is ridiculous!"
"I will give you a piece of advice," the doctor said. "You say that you've been suppressing the bond?" They both nodded. "You shouldn't."
Feng Xin exploded. "WHAT ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO."
"Suppressing the bond like you two have, you both have suffered awful migraines, yes? They'll only worsen if you continue, and the bond will only get stronger anyways. It's best if you just, well," they opened their arms a little, "embrace it."
"FUCK. FUCKING HELL DAMN IT THIS IS SO STUPID."
"The migraines will only increase until you do so. Opening it at least some of the time might help a bit, but otherwise…"
"We're stuck with it," Mu Qing finished darkly.
They smiled, trembling, though the expression quickly disappeared at the sight of the fierce looks Feng Xin and Mu Qing both gave them. "That's right. Unless you find a suitable doctor."
Useless.
"Tell me why we couldn't have used our doctors again, Mu Qing?" Feng Xin groused. They already know all about our condition, Feng Xin's face said.
"They're injured." Mu Qing crossed his arms. "They need to recover before they can perform an operation on us to fix this mess, otherwise this would already be mostly over. If we wait for them to get better we'd have to wait for months, and there's no way I'm waiting that long—besides, they're qualified to treat physical battle injuries, not matters of the mind."
"This wouldn't have happened if you never created the bond in the first place," Feng Xin complained.
"To save your life, if I'm not mistaken," Mu Qing retorted sharply, ever defensive of any perceived slight. "However you try to pin it on me, you're the one who got so injured in the first place for it to be deemed necessary."
"YOU—!"
They were kicked out.
Two weeks later, the pain became too much to bear, and to top it all off their superiors found out.
That day, Mu Qing woke with a sharp migraine, one that spiked whenever he so much as looked at a bright light or even, Heavenly Emperor forbid, moved his head around. It pressed into the space between his eyes and wrapped around the sides of his head, like his brain was being squeezed. When he opened his mouth, it was dry and disgusting, and he suppressed a wheeze; Mu Qing felt nauseous, spacey.
His head was cavernous, echoing—reverberating with the bond that was even more obvious than usual. Mu Qing groaned, shoved the side of his face back into the pillow, but it was no use trying to get back to sleep.
He looked at the time.
Mu Qing cursed.
Never before had he ever been late, not in his entire life. He had exacting standards, both of others and himself, and he scarcely failed to meet them knowing that if he doesn't it will only inspire more ridicule from Mu Qing's compatriots. Being late was a stupid sign that something was wrong, it was basically begging for someone to poke their noses around where it didn’t belong.
Looking at his communication device, Mu Qing had an influx of notifications by Ling Wen from Mission Control, no doubt wondering why Mu Qing never turned up to their meeting. Shit.
Belatedly, a thought occurred to him and he stilled. No way. Surely both of them didn't, what would be the odds, that such a thing would—
Mu Qing expanded his awareness, noticing he didn't have to reach as hard or far as before. Then he hissed and recoiled, hand to his forehead as a burst of even more pain tided over him. But not before Mu Qing got his answer, and it wasn’t the answer he wanted or liked.
The first stage was denial.
Feng Xin, Mu Qing shouted, all the while imagining himself shaking the annoying man to wake up.
Ow, said Feng Xin blearily. My head. What the hell, Mu Qing.
You idiot! Wake up! Did you go to the meeting or not?
The meeting? Feng Xin said. The meeting… oh shit! I forgot to go to the fucking—
Oh no.
Wait. Realisation dawned. Don't tell me you didn't either.
I didn't, Mu Qing replied grimly.
An appalled silence settled over them like a blanket.
We're doomed.
Mu Qing scrambled from his bed, running to the bathroom to get dressed. Once there he splashed water onto his face and undressed, then pulled on his normal fancy garb; not too fancy, he was going to be late either way—when he looked at the mirror Mu Qing was practically plain compared to how he usually dressed himself, but it couldn't be helped. You better be getting ready too, said Mu Qing.
I'm not actually an idiot, snapped Feng Xin, and he could feel a wave of annoyance from him. Shit shit shit.
What?
There's someone here, Feng Xin bemoaned.
Mu Qing hissed, Act normal! A pause. Who is it?
Pei Ming.
Mu Qing groaned: could there be anyone worse? From the solemn feeling he received from Feng Xin, the other man couldn't agree more.
Don't close the link yet—
I can’t focus with you here, Feng Xin interrupted. He closed the link and Mu Qing cursed. That fool, it would have been easier to corroborate things if they were still connected!
(Talking in the mind-bond, his head didn't actually feel better. In fact Mu Qing felt worse—speaking surface-level thoughts as they were, they weren’t sharing their feelings (except for the very few that broke out anyways). Although humans were social creatures, most weren’t made to share their private headspaces with another; mostly, it was an alien thing. They were using it as more of a normal communications array, but it was so much more intense than simply talking telepathically. It wasn't uncommon on Xianle, but mind-bonds were originally regulated to soldiers that could handle it, people who wouldn’t buckle underneath the stress of sharing one’s own being intimately with someone else. These people tended to be the cream of the crop—famed to be like two minds as one. Since Yong An invaded and Xianle was destroyed, they had to deal with the fact that many of the Heavenly Alliance viewed it differently.
In this, Feng Xin and Mu Qing were united. They had no desire to have themselves be associated with one another in the eyes of others.)
Mu Qing went out of the bathroom, picking up his zhanmadao where he left it sitting on the table. He froze when he heard a knock on his door. Sneaking over to a side window that had convenient vision on who could be standing at his front doorstep, Mu Qing moved the curtains aside.
A moment of silence.
I've found someone worse at my door, said Mu Qing grimly, although of course there was no answer.
There were another few knocks, prim and militaristic. He knew those knocks all too well, and a shiver crawled up his spine. Mu Qing walked up to the door trying to feel like he wasn't walking to his own death. When he swung the door open, Ling Wen stood there, her unsmiling face illuminated in the sharp lights of the corridor. That was when Mu Qing just about passed out for a second or two.
They tried to hide it. They really did.
(All it took was about ten minutes for the full-frontal force that was Pei Ming and Ling Wen, two of the Tumors, to find out what was happening.)
They looked supremely unimpressed; Pei Ming, however, seemed a bit too gleeful, smirking at their expense. "From here on out," Ling Wen said, fingers curled around the cup that she had taken from Mu Qing’s cupboard, "You are on probation. This is not optional, it is necessary—you need the time off to adjust to mind-bonds. It's been affecting your work ethic. The fact that you were hiding this instead of trying to fix it, what were you two thinking?"
Feng Xin stared in disbelief, and Mu Qing agreed with him—a forced probation. What for?
"We were trying to fix it," Feng Xin protested.
“Really?” Ling Wen raised an eyebrow. They bristled at the incredulous tone in her voice. “How long has this been happening again? What, you didn’t think telling High Command that you two were inflicted with abnormal circumstances could possibly help?”
“...” said Feng Xin and Mu Qing.
“If you had sought help from our Heavenly Alliance medical officers, you would likely have been halfway through the mind-bond weakening process already,” Pei Ming said, grinning.
At this, they couldn't help but feel a little wronged. "We did. They refused us."'
"Did you keep trying though?"
"....."
“Think of it like this.” Ling Wen’s smile was like a shark. “It’ll be like a vacation for you two. You can figure out what’s going on between you two together with no work to worry about.”
“.................”
“Since your work ethic has been suffering so much and all,” she added angelically.
With this, they were united once more, no need to have a mind-bond. They absolutely, absolutely hated this.
"Have you heard? Two of the top-most generals from the cultivation department of the Heavenly Alliance have gotten hitched!"