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Two weeks Mu Qing has worked for His Highness. Two weeks and already Feng Xin can’t find him when he’s supposed to be around to wait on Xie Lian, who needs his bedsheets changed and can’t find his freshly laundered robes to settle into for the evening.
It’s another tick in the box of why Feng Xin can’t stand Mu Qing.
Feng Xin doesn’t like the way his eyes grow cold and his voice tightens with barely suppressed anger when he perceives a slight that isn’t there. He doesn’t like the way his calm explanations come with a haughty air and an unsaid You fucking idiot. He doesn’t like that His Highness vouched for him to enter the temple, because what does Xie Lian even see in the guy? So what he recites training incantations while he works. He probably did it on purpose within Xie Lian’s earshot.
Feng Xin huffs, leaving Mu Qing’s empty bedchamber and checking the kitchens and the small dining hall where Xie Lian’s various attendants, who came with him to Mount Taicang and live in the Palace of the Crown Prince with them, eat. He casts glances down the hallways, into the baths, and even the latrine. No Mu Qing. No Mu Qing anywhere.
The last place Feng Xin saw him was an outdoor lesson for disciples age fifteen to twenty—hundreds of white-robed cultivators moving through martial arts forms and circulating their developing spiritual energy. The lesson broke early because of the rain; Mu Qing, who was wearing the uniform of the Royal Holy Temple for the first time but acting like he belonged in it, stayed behind to ask the state preceptors a question, promising to return to the palace shortly. Many eyes followed him.
He hasn’t come back to the palace yet apparently, even though it’s been over a full incense time since they parted.
When Feng Xin heads outside, it’s drizzling. The sky is steel-grey, and the wudianding roofs are slick with rainwater that trickles off the edges like a sheer curtain. Feng Xin steps through the cascade of sporadic drops plopping off the double eaves of the Palace of the Crown Prince. They splatter his forehead and scalp and slither underneath his tied-up hair. More rain patters him as he strolls down the pebble pathways, away from Crown Prince Summit toward Divine Might Summit. Thunder grumbles, and wind ruffles the skirts of his robes. It’s early spring wind. Cold.
As it turns out, Feng Xin doesn’t have to look far for Mu Qing. When he cuts through a grove of cherry trees, voices assail his ears. He slows to a stop, picking words out of the distant conversation.
“Does it bother you that I was admitted on merit and not family connections?”
“I didn’t get here because of my family!”
“Only one of us suggested that, and it wasn’t me.”
It’s Mu Qing and someone else—Mu Qing and many someone elses, Feng Xin sees when he gets closer. A group: Mu Qing and four boys, two of whom have grabbed Mu Qing by his wrists. He could easily knock them down to free himself, but it doesn’t seem like he’s willing to do it.
Why?
The boy from before yells, “You think you’re better than all of us!”
Before Mu Qing can respond, the disciple cracks him in the face with a closed fist. He does it again when Mu Qing lifts his head with blood pouring over his lips and down his chin. Feng Xin unfreezes, hurrying forward. Mu Qing is slung down into the mud, then kicked in the ribs.
“Hey!” Feng Xin shouts as the disciple’s foot rears back again. All eyes shoot toward him. “Break it up!”
They must recognize him and remember who he works for because the group disbands in a flash. They abandon Mu Qing in the mud. Feng Xin jogs over.
Rain sluices down Mu Qing’s face, and blood snakes from his nose to his neck to wet the collars of his white training robes. For a beat, all Feng Xin can focus on is that blood, stark against Mu Qing’s pale skin. It doesn’t detract from his beauty—maybe enhances it. If Mu Qing hadn’t had a tray of tea in his hands the first time they met, Feng Xin would have assumed he was a handsome young lord sent to the temple by his wealthy family. He’s eye-catching—dark hair, fair skin, pale lips, big doe eyes like black jade, delicate brows, and a slim nose. Feng Xin’s still growing, so he imagines Mu Qing is, too: he’s petite, half a head shorter than Feng Xin with a waist so slender Feng Xin could circle it with one hand. Nearly. He looks breakable, but Feng Xin knows he’s anything but. He’s the sapling that bends under monsoon winds only to snap back like a whip.
Feng Xin hates how upside down his heart feels around Mu Qing. He’s awful—snide and conniving. But Feng Xin is old enough at fifteen to know that the more he hates a person, the more similar they are to him: Mu Qing’s dedication to his mother isn’t different from Feng Xin’s for Xie Lian, his skill so early into his martial career is an echo of Feng Xin’s talent, and the anger that brews behind his eyes is a clear match for the irritation Feng Xin isn’t afraid to let fly loose. He picks fights, too, but he fights like a snake hidden in the grass. Feng Xin picks at that thought like a scab, trying to draw blood.
“What did you do?” Feng Xin asks.
Those dark, cautious eyes ignite. “What did I do?” He’s breathing through his mouth—blood on his pink tongue, between his teeth.
“Why did you piss them off like that?”
Mu Qing tempers his scowl before it can take root, coughs, and spits a mouthful of blood into the mud he’s sprawled in. He brings his sleeve up to wipe his gushing nose, but before he makes contact, he looks at the white fabric, his muddy hand, and abandons the task. He pushes himself to his feet. His white boots squelch in the mud.
“Thanks for your help,” Mu Qing says, words threaded with faint sarcasm; if Feng Xin weren’t listening for it, it would’ve been hidden by how softly Mu Qing speaks.
Mu Qing coughs wetly again, blood likely draining down the back of his throat. That disciple got him in the nose good. He’ll be lucky not to wake up with two black eyes tomorrow, and maybe it’s because Feng Xin feels bad that he was slow to break up the fight that he stops Mu Qing before he can walk off.
Mu Qing startles when Feng Xin cups the back of his head with one hand and uses his other to press his sleeve beneath Mu Qing’s bleeding nose. He walks Mu Qing backward until his spine hits a tree trunk. “What—” Mu Qing hisses, as ruffled as a cornered cat. “I-I don’t— I-I can—”
He stutters?
That’s kind of…
Cute. The thought smacks Feng Xin over the head.
A blush tears across Mu Qing’s fair cheekbones. Under the canopy of the tree, large, sporadic drops of plop down on them. Feng Xin absorbs every flinch of Mu Qing’s body when one strikes him in the face, the way his eyelashes twitch—the way the drop slithers down his skin. Mu Qing’s breath is warm and damp through Feng Xin’s sleeve. He’s so small. Small and delicate—as sharp as a blade of grass.
“I have to clean your robe, too,” Mu Qing says gently. “Yours or mine—it’s all the same.”
“I’ll toss it out. Save you the trouble. Hold still,” he says, and swipes a drier, unbloodied patch of his sleeve over Mu Qing’s top lip. His skin is cherry-red, stained. He looks kiss-bitten, not that Feng Xin has ever kissed anyone and knows what it looks like—but he imagines it’s something like this. Has Mu Qing ever kissed anyone?
“What happened?” he asks. “Why were those guys so ticked off?”
“His Highness got me admitted to the temple.”
“So?”
“He’s the only one happy about it.”
Feng Xin huffs. “So report those assholes.”
“To who? The state preceptors?”
“To His Highness.”
“And ruin the camaraderie here? The others still haven’t forgiven him for the golden foil incident.” He looks away, something complicated overtaking his face. “I can’t do that.”
“So what? You’re just going to let them beat the shit out of you whenever you want? Fight back a little at least.”
“I’d be dismissed from the mountain,” he says. “You’ve heard my background, haven’t you?” Son of a thief. Hard not to overhear at some point. He frowns at the distance. “I’m my mom’s only source of income.”
“She can’t work?”
“Her eyes aren’t any good anymore.”
“Oh. That sucks,” Feng Xin says, then winces. It does suck, but it isn’t the right thing to say. “Let’s go back.”
He tugs Mu Qing through the grove of cherry trees toward the Palace of the Crown Prince, but Mu Qing plants his feet as soon as they pass under the eave and approach the doorway.
“What?” Feng Xin asks.
“I don’t want to get mud on the floors,” he says. He looks at his mud-caked boots. Feng Xin’s aren’t as bad, but they still aren’t in great condition. Without thinking much about it, Feng Xin strips off his shoes and hands them to Mu Qing, who looks confused until Feng Xin catches him off guard by sweeping him up into a bridal carry.
“W-What are you doing?”
“You said you don’t want the floors to get dirty,” he replies, and heads inside, socked feet padding across the floor. He could dump Mu Qing off in the servants’ bathing chamber and let him fend for himself, but it hardly seems like a favor to drop Mu Qing off in a bathing room with a couple tubs in it because he’d have to leave to heat buckets of water for a bath and to find medical supplies.
Xie Lian’s personal bathing chamber is a deep pool heated at all times with talismans, so Feng Xin heads there, toeing open the door and disappearing inside with Mu Qing. He kicks the door closed. Ahead, the bath is hidden behind a shield of privacy screens. Feng Xin has been in here plenty of times—is even been permitted to bathe here if Mu Qing is the only attendant on duty because Mu Qing doesn’t gossip, though Feng Xin is beginning to suspect that may be simply because he doesn’t have any friends here to gossip with.
Feng Xin sets Mu Qing down.
“Get undressed.”
“What?” Mu Qing gasps with a deep blush. He freezes next to the deep pool, clutching Feng Xin’s dirty boots to his white robes like a lifeline. “This is— This is the royal bath—”
“His Highness won’t care and no one will argue with His Highness, if anyone even figures out you were in here. What does it matter? No one’s around. It’s just us here,” he says, and tacks on: “Us guys. No big deal. Stop making it into one. Get in the water. I’ll go grab some medicine and stuff.”
Without waiting for an answer, he heads off to the on-site physician Xie Lian employs. During the day, they use the doctors the mountain provides, but Xie Lian prefers to have someone on staff for smaller issues within the palace, especially for odd hours or matters of urgency. When Feng Xin knocks on the man’s door and explains that one of the servant’s—ah—walked into a door?—he’s sent back to the bath with a pill for pain and some sort of salve for bruises. His intention is to toss them at Mu Qing and wait by the door for him to finish cleaning off mud and blood, but he gets tripped up when he steps past the privacy curtains and finds Mu Qing in the center of the pool.
He’s naked.
His hair is as dark as ink now that it’s wet. It pours down his lightly muscled back. From behind, he’s indistinguishable from a woman, which, oddly enough, entices Feng Xin. When Mu Qing turns, his doe eyes are big and dark like jewels, his skin misted with steam, flushed.
Feng Xin’s brain isn’t consulted before he steps into the bath fully clothed and wades over to Mu Qing, who gapes at his display; Feng Xin carries the little container of salve and the round pill in his hands, passing the pill to Mu Qing first. He slides it past his still-parted lips and dry swallows it. His throat bobs. “Um—this, too,” Feng Xin says after he manages to tear his eyes away. He removes the cap off the container and dips his thumb into the oily cream, then passes the container to Mu Qing to hold.
Gently, Feng Xin cups Mu Qing’s ribs on one side and smooths salve over the other, where a dark, nasty bruise is spreading. It’s hard to the touch. Mu Qing says nothing, only breathes, his ribs expanding in Feng Xin’s hands. Feng Xin has never touched another person like this—has never had the opportunity or inclination.
“Okay?” he asks, then realizes he probably should have done this after Mu Qing’s bath. He’ll have to reapply it when they get out, he supposes. Whatever. Maybe he should wait until Mu Qing is clean before smearing it over his nose. “Come on.”
He guides Mu Qing to the edge of the tub, where they place the container of salve. There’s a ladle and some soap set off to the side on a lap table, waiting for Xie Lian, who isn’t here. It’s probably because Feng Xin is thinking of him and the general procedure of how these baths go that he takes up the soap and circles Mu Qing to wash his damp hair for him; no one bathes themselves in here.
“You—” Mu Qing’s shoulders draw up. “You aren’t my servant.”
“Just shut up,” Feng Xin says. To cover over his embarrassment, he says, “Can you even lift your arms without pain? Be quiet before I change my mind. Fuck.”
Obedient, Mu Qing doesn’t move or protest as Feng Xin scrubs his hair or washes it clean with the wooden ladle. A thin layer of suds waterfalls down his inky hair into the bath. It’s so warm in here. Mu Qing is so warm. Heat wafts off his skin.
Feng Xin runs his fingers through Mu Qing’s hair to make sure it’s thoroughly rinsed, silky strands gliding through his callused hands. He turns Mu Qing around. The air between them is thick with steam and—something else.
Dark eyes stare up at him.
Damp eyelashes.
Little hairs stuck to Mu Qing’s red cheeks.
The tiny part of his pale pink lips.
Feng Xin’s wet robes weigh a thousand pounds, and his heart flips. What…? Mu Qing—
“The salve?” Mu Qing asks in that delicate voice of his, like the whisper of wind through maple leaves. He picks it up and presses it to Feng Xin’s chest instead of opening it himself. Feng Xin swallows.
He takes it from Mu Qing’s slender fingers and pops the lid off—dips his thumb inside—sets the container aside. With one hand, he cups Mu Qing’s cheek. With the other, he smears the salve over the slightly swollen, darkening skin of Mu Qing’s nose. Mu Qing’s eyes never leave his face, and Feng Xin’s heart pounds. He wants to…
He cradles Mu Qing’s face and presses both thumbs into the side of his nose just hard enough to make Mu Qing hiss—revels in the way Mu Qing’s eyes clench shut in pain. He drags his thumbs down, over Mu Qing’s soft lips—parts them—
leans in—
and devours him.
“Mmm,” Mu Qing whines into the kiss, surprised and needy. He pushes up into the touch. For a while, the only sound is the slide of their mouths together. Their kisses drag into one. They don’t part—just crash together like two waves.
Feng Xin licks the seam of Mu Qing’s lips—licks into the hot cavern of his mouth. Mu Qing continues to whimper and groan as they kiss. So responsive. Under the water, his hands find the waist of Feng Xin’s robes, squeezing tight.
A flinch wracks him when Feng Xin shifts, nose digging into the side of Mu Qing’s. Still, Feng Xin doesn’t let up, and Mu Qing doesn’t ask him to. Rather, he throws his arms around Feng Xin’s neck, pulling him close so that he can’t escape. In response, Feng Xin wraps his arms around Mu Qing’s middle and hauls their bodies together. They fuse, kissing like argument, like a fistfight, kissing until blood leaks from Mu Qing’s nose again, over their lips, their tongues. Only when Mu Qing starts gasping for breath through his mouth does Feng Xin back off, reality seeping back in. The bath. The steam. Mu Qing’s wet skin. The people milling around outside this room, oblivious to what’s taking place inside.
What would they think if they saw Feng Xin in the crown prince’s bath with a servant boy, their lips flushed from kissing? Feng Xin’s never… He’s never thought of another person like this before. Women terrify him. Men have never crossed his mind. He hates Mu Qing. How is this even supposed to work? Him with a servant? Him with a boy? Him with someone actively cultivating a path of purity and abstinence? He’s broken so many rules tonight—for Mu Qing?
What is he thinking?
He lets go of Mu Qing and backs up, splashing a handful of water over his face to clean off the blood there. After, he climbs out of the bath and makes no moves to strip or dry himself, just leaves and tracks water through the palace some attendant will have to mop up as he heads to his bedchamber to retrieve a dry set of robes—and a spare set for Mu Qing because he’s not an asshole.
When he exits the room in dry clothes—another bundle of clothes in his hands—he runs directly into Xie Lian.
Why is Xie Lian— Oh, shit. He was supposed to be fetching Mu Qing for him. He completely forgot.
“I couldn’t find Mu Qing,” Feng Xin says stiffly.
Xie Lian’s eyes glide to the extra clothes in Feng Xin’s hands, and a smile curls the edges of his lips. “I’m sure Mu Qing will turn up.”
“Yeah,” he says, spins around, and grabs the handle to his bedroom door, intending to disappear.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” Feng Xin says, whirling around, startled.
“Those robes.”
“Right. Right. Um—I’m just taking them to Mu Qing’s room. They need…mended,” he lies.
“Mu Qing is rather good at mending.”
“Yes. So. I’m gonna go. Do that. Now.”
Xie Lian laughs. “Alright, then. I’ll see you after you drop them off.” He floats away, back toward his personal chambers.
Feeling a bit wrong-footed, Feng Xin returns to the royal bathing chamber, where Mu Qing is awkwardly standing next to the edge of the pool with his muddy robes in hand, looking like he’s about to be whipped to death. His worried eyes snap to Feng Xin, then to the clothes in his hand. At the sight, his body sags with relief. Feng Xin doesn’t like it—how vulnerable Mu Qing looks, how twisted up he feels—doesn’t want to think about their kiss or the future they very obviously don’t have together or what’s changed between them, for him—any of it.
Conflicted, he tosses the bundle of robes at Mu Qing.
“Get dressed,” he says, and ducks behind a privacy screen. He stands there with his arms crossed until Mu Qing pads out to join him, juggling his dirty robes and both pairs of their boots. It doesn’t seem like he plans on sharing the burden. Irritated, Feng Xin yanks his boots away and slides them onto his sockless feet.
Mu Qing says nothing.
Nothing at all.
Isn’t he thinking anything about what just happened? Isn’t he mad Feng Xin is going to track mud through the palace? Feng Xin wants to hit him, just so he’ll react to something, so he’ll be honest about whatever the hell must be rattling around his head.
Silently, they stroll to Mu Qing’s bedchamber. At the door, Feng Xin looks at Mu Qing. His eyes are guarded, but there’s the same shine in them there was in the bath when he handed over the salve. Feng Xin doesn’t know how to deal with it. This is a bad idea. They’re a bad idea. No. Forget idea. Idea implies they’re something to each other, or could be. They aren’t a they, and this was a mistake.
“I told His Highness I couldn’t find you. So, take the night off, I guess.” But before Mu Qing can finish the thank you halfway across his tongue, Feng Xin makes sure he ruins everything by adding: “Don’t start any more fights.”
“…Start,” Mu Qing echoes. That shrine in his eyes disappears. His mouth flattens. “Right. Understood.”
Without another word, he steps into his room and closes his bedroom door in Feng Xin’s face.
For a moment, Feng Xin stands there, unsure what to do. Then he knocks on Mu Qing’s door, feeling like a jerk. Pressing his forehead to the wood, he says, “Forget about tonight, okay? I was stupid. I didn’t mean… I wasn’t thinking about… We… There’s no…”
I didn’t mean to start something and chicken out.
I wasn’t thinking about your cultivation or our backgrounds.
We can’t make this work.
There’s no hope for us.
“Good night.”
________
800 years later:
“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to throw you in the spring and drown you!” Feng Xin yells at Mu Qing, who he’s carrying on his back, Mu Qing’s bootless feet covered in ugly red burns and missing skin from where the two of them had to cut away the shoes melted to him.
His curse shackle might be gone, but Heaven has fallen, everyone’s spiritual energy is a mess, and Feng Xin and Mu Qing are outside their territories on top of that. Feng Xin had enough spiritual power to heal his wounds, but it’s trickling back slower than normal, so he has none to spare for Mu Qing for the time being. They could have asked someone else for help, but Mu Qing is too proud to ask anyone for anything and His Highness is too distracted to notice Mu Qing is still hurt. Hua Cheng has been gone for less than a day.
They’ve set up a makeshift camp on Mount Taicang; Mu Qing and Feng Xin, through necessity, have opted to share a tent and shove all of their junior officials into another one. Now that everyone is asleep and no one can follow them, they’ve set off for the hidden hot spring on this mountain in the hopes it’s survived the last eight hundred years. And it turns out—it has.
Feng Xin sends his small palm torch out to circle the spring like a ring of ghost fires. Steam wafts off the waters.
Mu Qing yanks on Feng Xin’s hair like reins on a horse.
“I swear, I will fucking drown you,” Feng Xin says. “I don’t care if we are f-f-friends.”
Mu Qing yanks on his hair again, harder this time. “Put me down.”
“Prick.”
”Asshole.”
”Priss.”
At the edge of the bath, he sets Mu Qing gently on his feet, and facing away from each other, they both undress, Mu Qing more slowly, his hands raw and blistered. The spring water will aggravate his wounds, but neither of them want to bathe in a stream. The night is cool. The water would be freezing.
When they’re both naked, Feng Xin offers a hand to Mu Qing and helps him take ginger steps into the spring and sit down on a rocky ledge under the water, carved nearly a thousand years ago by members of the Royal Holy Temple. It’s been so long since the two of them were on this mountain—literal lifetimes. They were kids then. Baby-faced and short. Ignorant and optimistic. Silly and stupid and everything in between. The stars aren’t even the same as they used to be.
They aren’t the same.
Or maybe they are.
Feng Xin looks at Mu Qing.
He has changed. His doe eyes are slender and fit his face now. His features are sharp instead of soft. His height is on par with Feng Xin’s. His body has thickened; he’s still svelte with a petite waist, but his arms are swollen with muscle and his chest and stomach are well-sculpted. Objectively, he’s beautiful, something he’s unashamed to flaunt. As soon as he got a taste of power, his demure mask dropped. But it was a mask. The seeds of Mu Qing haven’t disappeared. They’ve just flowered.
“It’s weird to be bathing together after so long,” Feng Xin says to distract himself. “Since Xianle fell and we were in hiding.” He huffs a small laugh. “Remember the first time we bathed together? We could have gotten in so much trouble for sneaking into the royal bath.”
“Of course I remember,” Mu Qing says. His gaze drifts away. “You made me break the rules, kissed me, blamed me for my own bullying, and then told me to forget it all.”
“I didn’t do that.”
“Who has the better memory?”
“Your memory is bullshit.”
Mu Qing smacks the water and sends it flying into Feng Xin’s face. As soon as he wipes it away, Mu Qing does it again, and again, and again—
“Hey! Would you fucking stop!? Okay, yeah I said that! But I was confused! You were my first kiss. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.” Mu Qing stops splashing him, and he swipes his eyes free of water. When he looks at Mu Qing, he can’t tell what he’s thinking. His eyes are closed off. “I never— I’d never liked anyone before. I freaked out. I mean, we didn’t even like each other. In what world would we have ever worked out?”
“You were an asshole.”
“I was an asshole. Happy?”
“A little bit,” Mu Qing says softly. His face glows in the firelight.
“It’s not like you would have wanted to be with me back then anyway. You just started cultivating.” Feng Xin rubs his nape. “I figured you’d tell me it was a mistake, but you didn’t say anything at all.”
“You cared about my cultivation?”
“You didn’t?”
“I did.”
“Then what does it matter?”
“I didn’t think you— I didn’t know you considered a relationship with me.”
“Yeah. I thought about it.”
Mu Qing is quiet. He stares into the dark trees. Eventually, he asks, “Have you thought about it since?”
“Sometimes. You?”
“Sometimes.”
Tentatively, Feng Xin brushes a damp strand of Mu Qing’s hair behind his ear. His fingers trail down the column of Mu Qing’s neck, and when Mu Qing makes no moves to stop him, his heart thumps; it’s so loud in his ears he wonders if Mu Qing can hear it.
Sometimes. Mu Qing has thought about him over the centuries, the same way he’s thought about him.
He can’t deny he’s imagined going back to that day in the royal bath and making a different decision. Can’t deny he hasn’t thought, on lonely nights, of walking over to the Palace of Xuan Zhen and crawling into bed with Mu Qing, just to sleep in someone’s arms, someone who understands him and Xianle and the weight of failing everyone you love. He’s wondered what life would be like if he’d ever given himself the chance to fall in love with Mu Qing.
“Let me wash your hair,” he says.
“No. You’ll fuck it up.”
“Who else is gonna wash it? You? With your hands? Stop being a prick. I wanna do something nice for you. You don’t have to act like—”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re afraid of people being nice to you.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Bullshit,” Feng Xin says. He reaches over the edge of the spring for the qiankun pouch discarded in his clothes—pulls out soap and a wooden comb. “Just turn around and shut the fuck up.”
In silence, Feng Xin washes Mu Qing’s hair like he did so many thousands of moons ago. It’s just as soft, even if the singed ends have been trimmed off by Mu Qing with his saber. It barely hits his shoulder blades now. They’re exposed, and Feng Xin can’t stop himself from ghosting his fingers between them, down the curve of Mu Qing’s spine, all the way to his tailbone.
Mu Qing’s breathing picks up.
“Why did you pull me away from the lava?” Mu Qing asks, voice thick.
“Probably the same reason you pulled me out of the fire in the capital.”
He kisses Mu Qing’s shoulder, his neck, and despite the heat of the water, Mu Qing shivers. He continues to shake as Feng Xin grabs him by the waist and glides the planes of his hands up Mu Qing’s stomach and over his chest. “Feng Xin,” he whispers.
“I was really fucking worried when you were clinging to your saber,” Feng Xin admits. “I didn’t know how to get to you.”
“You thought I was a traitor.”
“Doesn’t mean I liked watching you about to die.”
“You always think I’m a traitor,” Mu Qing breathes out.
“You can’t read my mind.”
“Not much to read.”
“Don’t be a prick.”
“Show me, then.”
“Show you what?”
“What you think. About me. If I’m wrong, show me,” Mu Qing says.
Without warning, he leans back into Feng Xin, into the hard line of his cock, then gasps. It brings Feng Xin’s attention to his dick, which he didn’t realize was stiff—to the curve of Mu Qing’s ass, which he’s never touched. It’s a perfect handful, and he can’t help but imagine bending Mu Qing over and getting a better look at him here—what he must look like with his legs spread. He imagines lining up his dick, and fuck—burying himself inside, all the way to the hilt. Mu Qing’s eyes would fly wide. His lips would part. His stunning body would swallow every inch of Feng Xin’s dick.
“Ah!” Mu Qing yelps when Feng Xin bites him.
“You want me so bad,” Feng Xin says.
“Stop fucking talking.”
“If you don’t stop me, I’m going to fuck you.” Mu Qing moans over those words, and Feng Xin tries so desperately to be the voice of reason here. “Your cultivation.”
“Just give me all of your spiritual power afterward.”
“You can have half,” he says, and presses Mu Qing down over the side of the spring before placing two hands on his hips. He rubs the length of his dick against Mu Qing’s hole. “Deal?”
“Nine-tenths.”
“You’re pretty confident I want you enough to sacrifice my spiritual power.”
“You do want me,” Mu Qing says, and when he looks over his shoulder, his gaze is dark and heated. He grinds back into Feng Xin. “You want me so much it makes you look stupid.”
Fuck yes it does. “Seven-tenths.”
“Fuck!” Mu Qing gasps when Feng Xin presses his thighs together and slides his dick in between them. The head of his cock drags along Mu Qing’s balls. “Deal! Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
His breathing stutters, and he moans loud, so loud in the silence of the forest when Feng Xin reaches around to grab his dick. He makes Mu Qing squirm, pumps him steadily as he thrusts between his thighs. Everything about it is perfect. The pressure. The glide. The feel of Mu Qing’s arousal, in his hand, evident and unmistakable. Did he touch himself before he entered the temple? Or is this the first time he’s ever been hard, been stroked?
“I want you inside me,” Mu Qing says.
Fuck. “Next time.” Even though his thoughts are overrun with images of plowing his entire length into Mu Qing right now. He’d be so tight. He’d take it all, the competitive prick that he is. “I’d have to stretch you for a while to fit.”
A small, bitten-off moan escapes Mu Qing’s mouth.
“You like that, don’t you? You’re obsessed with my dick.” Water splashes as he fucks Mu Qing’s thighs, fucks him forward into his hand. Mu Qing whimpers a steady ah-ah-ah! He digs his nails into the stone surrounding the spring. They scratch into the rock. “I bet I could make you come without touching you. Just my cock inside you.”
“Feng Xin!” Mu Qing weeps.
“Come on. Give it to me. Let me have it.”
“Ah!” Mu Qing screams. “Shit!” His forehead meets stone, and he sobs through his release, his whole body shaking. Feng Xin lets go of his dick to take his hips up in both hands, lean over his back, and go to town on his quivering thighs. Mu Qing whines, but Feng Xin doesn’t let up, the head of his cock sliding along Mu Qing’s balls. He made Mu Qing come. Eight hundred years of abstinence shattered by his hand.
Orgasm slams into him, and he grinds into Mu Qing, pulling his hips back to keep him right where Feng Xin needs him. “Fuck, you’re perfect,” he gasps into Mu Qing’s nape, his dick pulsing.
He thrusts and thrusts and thrusts until the aftershocks of his climax fade. In the stillness and the quiet afterward, they both pant, slumped over the side of the hot spring in a heap. They’re damp with sweat and steam.
“Are you okay?” Feng Xin asks when he slips free of Mu Qing’s thighs. He kisses his shoulder blade, then—before he gets bitched at—shoves the agreed upon seven-tenths of his spiritual power into their contact. The palm torches lining the spring dim.
“Your dick isn’t as powerful as you think it is,” Mu Qing says.
“Powerful enough to break your cultivation.”
Mu Qing’s brain must be fried because he doesn’t respond, just turns around slowly and wraps his arms around Feng Xin’s neck. He hikes one of his legs over Feng Xin’s hip until Feng Xin figures out he wants to be carried, so he hauls Mu Qing up his body.
“Are you going to freak out like last time?” Mu Qing asks.
Feng Xin shakes his head. “How about you? You gonna freak out?”
“Probably.”
“Of course you are. You can’t even say the word ‘friends’ without having a meltdown.”
“Pretty sure we’re more than friends after what we’ve done.”
“How would you know what friends do? You don’t have any.”
Mu Qing conks their foreheads together, hard. “Shut up and kiss me before I change my mind about all of this.”
“No turning back now,” Feng Xin says against his mouth, and it’s true. There’s no turning back the clock. They can’t undo any part of the last eight centuries, but they don’t need to.
It took forever, but they got here.
They’re here.