Work Text:
If anyone were to ask Feng Xin’s honest opinion about Mu Qing, he would say Mu Qing was difficult.
Not that it was a secret, really. Anyone who had witnessed them arguing even once knew that Mu Qing had a blade for a tongue and poison running through his veins instead of blood.
Mu Qing was acerbic, twisted, and unpredictable at the most inopportune moments. Those were facts.
However, it wasn’t them that made the man difficult; not to Feng Xin, at least.
First of all, Mu Qing was beautiful. Not just easy on the eye, not even very handsome—the man was goddamn breathtaking. It took Feng Xin some time and considerable amount of effort to admit that to himself, but he wasn’t as obstinate as Mu Qing claimed he was not to acknowledge the obvious in the end. Mu Qing was beautiful, and at some point that beauty started doing something funny to Feng Xin, especially in the morning.
Second, Mu Qing was important to him. Admittedly, it took around eight centuries and then some for Feng Xin to acknowledge that; it wasn’t something he could just do without batting an eyelid.
But in the end there came a day when it became perfectly clear to him that having Mu Qing in his sights and in his thoughts was almost as natural as breathing. Eight hundred years were a long time, after all. Even being terribly at odds all the while wasn’t something one could simply brush off.
Due to that, some part of him wasn’t too surprised when it had turned out that the sentiment was mutual.
It wasn’t like that one overheard line on the Heaven Crossing Bridge all over again—far from it. It happened on the outskirts of some minor heavenly banquet, himself being a little tipsy and Mu Qing being painfully sober. There was a pleasantly cool garden breathing in the night, and there were the sounds of revelry in the distance, and then there was Mu Qing, determined and tense as a drawn bowstring.
He wasn’t asked for friendship. He wasn’t asked for anything, really. Mu Qing simply closed the distance between them, and then Mu Qing looked him dead in the eye, and then Mu Qing kissed the corner of his mouth, all without saying a word.
It lodged itself in his chest like one of his own arrows, the understanding of what it meant.
Which inevitably took him to the third—Mu Qing was a virgin in every sense of the word. It would be surprising if Mu Qing somehow wasn’t, and at first there was even a certain thrill to it.
It was Feng Xin who was the first to hold Mu Qing’s hand and brush his thumb over the skin of the other’s inner wrist, earning himself minutely shudders. It was Feng Xin who was the first to learn that Mu Qing secretly preferred slow, unhurried kisses, for all that those happened way less often than the hasty, brutal ones that were mostly teeth. It was Feng Xin, Feng Xin, Feng Xin who got to take Mu Qing to bed and witness the man flush all over.
By the time they reached that last stage, one had to be completely blind not to see just how much Feng Xin wanted him. And not just that—he wanted to make it good for Mu Qing too, wanted to make it worth abandoning the cultivation path the man had been pursuing his whole life at the very least.
Which was where they ran into a problem that showed just how spectacularly difficult Mu Qing could be.
The first time they tried to give it a go resulted in Mu Qing spacing out right in the middle of Feng Xin’s attempt to warm him up. It was like trying to make love to a marble statue, which was how Feng Xin screeched to a halt the moment he realized what was happening.
He wrote it off to the novelty of the experience—for all that Mu Qing rarely missed an opportunity to call him insensitive, he could imagine how it could’ve been too much all at once. Mu Qing mostly lived inside his own head, so Feng Xin could understand the man’s urge to retreat to the safety of it in the thick of something as shocking as his very first attempt at sex.
Later, he tried to talk with Mu Qing about it and find out what the man would prefer in bed. It didn’t go very well—with the eight centuries worth of quarrelling under both their belts it was nigh impossible not to take the beaten track.
He argued that he wanted Mu Qing’s pleasure just as much as his own—more than his own, actually, but knowing Mu Qing as well as he did he knew better than to say it aloud. In turn, Mu Qing acidly pointed out that he wasn’t some maiden in need of coaxing or pampering, and from there it rapidly went downhill.
After that, they didn’t talk for two weeks, and it took another month after a tentative peacemaking for Mu Qing to return to Feng Xin’s bed just to sleep in it.
Difficult might’ve been an understatement, as far as Feng Xin was concerned.
The second time happened right after a joint mission at the border of their domains, of all places.
What they faced was no Heavenly Trial, but the fight was drawn out and taxing even for the martial gods of their caliber. When it was finally over, they decided to take respite at the nearby Temple of Xuan Zhen before reporting back to the Heavenly Capital.
The idea of bending Mu Qing over in his own temple wasn’t something that got Feng Xin hot and bothered; he had little taste for such things. But the echo of the battle was still rumbling in his body, amplified by some visceral need for proof that they’d really made out of it alive. And Mu Qing seemed just as ruffled as he himself felt, so after some deliberation he decided to take his chances.
At first, it was going pretty well.
Mu Qing met him halfway and opened up for him instantly. It took them no time at all to scatter each other’s armor and clothes across the temple floor—every tie and sash and clasp were too familiar to take them long.
“How do you want it?” Feng Xin breathed out between the kisses he was trailing along the column of Mu Qing’s neck. Mu Qing shuddered. “Tell me where you want me, Mu Qing. Tell me your pleasure.”
“I—” the man gasped as Feng Xin’s hands slipped down the curve of his back to rest on his waist. Another shudder worked through his body. “I want—”
“Yes?”
Instead of speaking his mind, Mu Qing raised his hands and clamped them on Feng Xin’s shoulders. It only took Feng Xin a split moment to register the pressure applied to them and understand what it meant.
“Want me to go down?” he asked nonetheless because he loved the sound of it, loved the way pink blossomed on Mu Qing’s cheeks at such free-spokenness. “Want me to take you in my—”
“Yes.”
His vision swam.
Contrary to the idea from before, this was delicious; the prospect of dropping to his knees inside Mu Qing’s temple and worshiping the man in the way his followers wouldn’t even dare to dream of. Hell, a moment ago Feng Xin himself wouldn’t have dreamed of it. Yet there he was, about to blow the most stunning god in existence because said god wanted him to.
“I’ll make it good for you, promise,” he purred against Mu Qing’s jawline and gave it a quick nuzzle before he yielded to the weight of Mu Qing’s hands pressing down on his shoulders.
The marble under his knees was pleasantly cool while Mu Qing was sweetly, maddeningly hot. The man tasted of salt, their long battle soaking his skin, and it probably should’ve been unpleasant but it wasn’t.
It didn’t take too long for Mu Qing’s fingers to find their way into Feng Xin’s hair. It wasn’t guidance, not really; more like the proof of Mu Qing’s presence in the moment with him.
It felt incredible.
He did nothing to restrain a muffled moan that made to escape his throat the moment Mu Qing’s grip on his hair tightened. And for that moan he was instantly rewarded with the smallest roll of Mu Qing’s hips; something that could be easily translated into Mu Qing canting them right into Feng Xin's mouth.
In truth, Feng Xin couldn’t say he had a lot of experience in this sort of lovemaking. But he knew what he liked done to himself, and he was willing to take the risk and assume that Mu Qing and he weren’t so different after all.
Judging by Mu Qing’s reaction, reserved as it was, it seemed that his assumptions were correct. That was good. That was hot and wonderful and everything he’d ever wanted.
Until it suddenly wasn’t.
Immersed in his task, he didn’t notice the signs at first. So what if Mu Qing wasn’t pulling his hair anymore? The man knew how to be gentle, sometimes. The fact that Mu Qing’s hips had stopped rocking? Maybe he just wanted Feng Xin to do all the work. Feng Xin was very much on board with that, anyway.
But then it dawned on him that Mu Qing was actually lax on his tongue, and there was only one explanation he could think of.
He pulled away and regarded Mu Qing in silence.
“What—what are you doing?” Mu Qing asked then, his voice too steady for Feng Xin’s liking. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me,” Feng Xin said, frowning. “As far as I can see, you’ve lost interest.”
“I haven’t!”
“Oh come on. I’ve got pretty much the same thing in my pants. I know how it works. Or doesn’t work. Just tell me where I went wrong and be done with it.”
“Nowhere! You didn’t go wrong anywhere!” Mu Qing snapped, his voice gaining volume. And some part of Feng Xin was stunned because that was as close to praise as it could ever get with Mu Qing. The rest of him, though? The rest of him wasn’t convinced at all.
“Now you’re just being difficult,” he said with a huff, the absurdity of their situation not lost on him in the slightest. Arguing with Mu Qing while kneeling before him wasn’t something Feng Xin would’ve imagined happening, ever. Moreso while his lips were swollen and slick with spit, and both of them were stark naked. And yet there they were.
“I’m not being difficult! It’s just that—” Mu Qing snapped again, and then bit his lip as if to prevent himself from saying more.
Feng Xin’s attention focused on that immediately. “It’s just what? Talk to me, Mu Qing.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Come on, Mu Qing, please.”
“I said it’s nothing!”
There was no winning this, Feng Xin thought, not while Mu Qing was in one of his infamous moods. And in the past Feng Xin would have simply stormed out of the temple, naked as he was, and left Mu Qing to simmer alone if the man so desired.
But that was in the past. In the present, Mu Qing was beautiful and dear to him and free from his vows because of him. Surely that counted as something.
So Feng Xin rose to his feet, and Feng Xin pulled the man close, and Feng Xin bumped their foreheads together, gently.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But at least tell me what I can do for you,” he said then, quiet and borderline helpless. “Anything, Mu Qing. Just tell me, okay?”
There was a long pause during which Mu Qing held himself painstakingly still. Feng Xin waited. And waited some more. And then…
“You can let me do the same to you.”
Of all the things he’d expected to hear, that wasn’t one of them. Mu Qing rarely offered anything; then again, he knew the man too well to let his shock show.
“You sure you want this?” he asked after a beat of silence. And maybe the sentiment was mutual indeed because Mu Qing didn’t wrench himself from the circle of his arms, nor did he try to incinerate Feng Xin with a look.
“I am sure.”
Silently they switched places; Feng Xin’s back was pressed against the pillar that retained some of Mu Qing’s warmth, and Mu Qing was kneeling before him.
“Surely you didn’t get your title for nothing,” the man muttered as though talking to himself.
Feng Xin felt the flush creep up his neck, and his blood stir farther south.
“Mu Qing.”
“Am I wrong, though? I’ll probably choke on it.”
Mu Qing was acerbic, twisted, and unpredictable at the most inopportune moments. And Feng Xin was probably twisted too, because he found all of the above blindingly, scorchingly hot.
Contrary to his own assessment, the man didn’t choke. His lack of experience was even more apparent than Feng Xin’s, but he emulated what Feng Xin had done earlier almost perfectly. And that? That was like nothing Feng Xin had experienced in his whole life.
He was hot and cold all over. He was trembling. He didn’t know what to do with his hands—although Mu Qing had never told him otherwise, he was pretty sure the man wasn’t into hair-pulling at all.
It was then that Mu Qing withdrew, and Feng Xin heard the man say in a low voice that nearly threw him over the edge:
“Feng Xin, talk.”
He had no idea what to make of it, and in truth he couldn’t care less. Mu Qing wanted him to talk? He could talk alright.
He barely registered what was spilling from his lips. Curses, words of awe and admiration, more curses. Mu Qing hummed around him at each of them as though to encourage him to keep going. And even if that wasn’t the man’s intention, it was working nonetheless.
The tight spring of pleasure inside him threatened to uncoil any moment now; before it really could, though, something happened.
Mu Qing’s wonderful, wonderful mouth was gone, but then it crashed against Feng Xin’s and suddenly they were flush against each other—heat to heat, hardness to hardness—and Mu Qing’s hand was clasped around both of them.
Gloriously, the spring uncoiled.
Shuddering through it Feng Xin nearly missed a choked moan not his own; a low, guttural sound. It only took Mu Qing a couple of heartbeats to tense from head to toe, and then his body arched into Feng Xin’s in the most unambiguous manner ever.
Huh.
“Are we going to talk about this?” Feng Xin asked after they both had descended from their high and cleaned up—the feat that had been achieved by means of Feng Xin’s sash and Feng Xin’s tongue.
Mu Qing picked up his inner robe from the floor and fixed him with a look.
He’s gonna say no, Feng Xin thought as he held the other’s gaze. He never wants to talk.
“Eventually,” Mu Qing said instead. Then, in a voice slightly less cool than usual, “Now get dressed, I’m dying for a proper bath.”
They didn’t talk after they’d returned to the Heavenly Capital and Mu Qing had had his long awaited bath. They didn’t talk the next morning, nor the night after that.
Days dragged by, full of responsibilities on both their ends—and silence on the matter of what had happened at the temple.
It was like the very beginning of their romantic relationship, Feng Xin couldn’t help but notice. Mu Qing didn’t go anywhere from Feng Xin’s bed, but other than that there wasn’t much happening.
No careful touches. No kisses, not even the chaste kind like that one in the garden that started it all. Nothing.
Feng Xin would lie if he said he didn’t mourn the loss. The vision that had been Mu Qing’s pleasure haunted him, late at night and in the predawn hours alike.
The dust of pink on Mu Qing’s high cheekbones, his body arched like a bent bow, that stifled moan… It was enough to drive a saint insane, and for all his divinity Feng Xin was just a man.
Still, he waited. It felt wrong to try and initiate anything before he could solve the riddle that Mu Qing carried inside his body like a precious pearl.
Whenever Feng Xin got a spare moment, he revisited the events at the temple in hopes of understanding what had happened there.
It wasn’t forced, he was pretty sure about that. He wasn’t the type to take whatever he wanted regardless of the other’s wishes; Mu Qing wasn’t the type to give anything unless he wanted to.
Was it the lack of control that ruined it for Mu Qing? That was a possibility, given how it had ended, but in his heart of hearts Feng Xin had his doubts. That handful of times when Mu Qing had really been in the mood, Feng Xin had glimpsed the side of him that favored acquiescing over demanding. And while they’d gone no further than some enthusiastic making out that handful of times, intimacy was intimacy no matter how you looked at it.
Of course, there was a matter of something Mu Qing had wanted to say when Feng Xin had accused him of being difficult. But knowing Mu Qing, it could be literally anything, so there was no use in pursuing that line of thought without any input from the man himself.
Which Mu Qing wasn’t inclined to provide, apparently.
He couldn’t say Mu Qing was distancing from him, not really. The man didn’t shy away from talking about day’s work, or joining him on a mission whenever the situation called for it. He slept in Feng Xin’s bed, drank Feng Xin’s tea, and wore Feng Xin’s homely clothes after the bath. For all that Feng Xin could tell, Mu Qing wasn’t going anywhere.
And yet.
It took another month of that chaste—and mildly frustrating—cohabitation for things to get off dead center.
One night they retired to bed rather early. The day wasn’t very long, but they didn’t feel like going anywhere or having one of their sparring matches. So, to bed they went.
Moonlight was spilling into the room through the unshuttered windows—Feng Xin liked it when he could wake up to the warmth of sun on his face.
He’d made himself comfortable and was waiting for sleep to overtake him when Mu Qing stirred on his side of the bed.
“Feng Xin.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I can give you what you want.”
He felt his heart sink. This man and his timing, honestly.
“Mu Qing, listen—”
“Don’t try and tell me this is enough. I know it’s not, and I don’t want your pity.”
He sighed. Mu Qing was perceptive—way more perceptive than anyone Feng Xin had ever known—but he tended to use that gift in the most inopportune manner.
On the other hand, Feng Xin didn’t land where he was thanks to unconditional compliance.
“You’re right, it’s not enough,” he said then, turning to face Mu Qing. “But if you really believe it will make me give up on you, then you’re a complete idiot who wasn’t paying attention this whole time.”
The man let out a long-suffering groan.
“You could have anyone in the world. Literally anyone, Feng Xin, and you—”
“I don’t want just anyone. I want you.”
Even in the dimness of the room he could see Mu Qing cheeks flush. Then, in a voice cold and measured and aiming to hurt:
“You wanted her, too. Look where it got you.”
Out of all people in Feng Xin’s life, Mu Qing knew him best, and his aim was true.
But.
“It has nothing to do with her. I don’t want to fight, Mu Qing, and I won’t. Not over this.”
Instead of answering, Mu Qing flung the covers off himself and sat upright, clearly ready to bolt. But Feng Xin knew him well and Feng Xin was faster.
“I had a pretty clear idea of what I was getting myself into,” he said then, holding Mu Qing by his upper arms. Tight. “And you are insufferable, you are the most difficult person ever, but if you think—”
“That’s the problem, Feng Xin! I think!” the man cried, raw and desperate. Then, suddenly quiet, “I’m not sure I can’t not anymore.”
And just like that the shell unlocked, offering Feng Xin a glimpse of the pearl inside.
Before him, Mu Qing had been a virgin. For eight hundred years the man had been honoring his vows and denying himself anything and everything that clashed with them.
But Mu Qing wasn’t made of stone. Mu Qing could run hot, Mu Qing could be gentle, and Mu Qing could kiss like the world was ending.
The sheer amount of willpower it must have taken to repress all that. Day after day. For eight hundred years.
As to how that feat had been achieved, Feng Xin thought he understood now.
“You asked me to talk, back at the temple,” he said then, quiet and careful. “Did it help to distract you?”
Silence. Rise and fall of the lean, muscled chest, time and again. Then, unsteady:
“Y-yes.”
Feng Xin let his hands travel up Mu Qing’s tense shoulders, up his neck, until they landed on the man’s cheeks. He cradled Mu Qing’s face with all the care he was capable of, and then tilted his head so that their gazes locked.
“Then we’ve got our solution,” he said, running his thumbs over the softness of Mu Qing’s skin. “Until you get sick and tired of my voice, that is.”
To that, a noise escaped Mu Qing’s throat. It might be a sob.
“It’s been eight hundred years, Feng Xin. Eight goddamn centuries,” the man said then. “Do you see me sick and tired?”
“No,” he said, feeling the corners of his mouth curl up despite his better judgment. “But we’ll see what you have to say in a month or so.”
“And you call me insufferable.”
That got Feng Xin laughing, both in relief and because Mu Qing could be funny when he wanted to. It didn’t last though, because suddenly Mu Qing leaned in and caught both the sound and Feng Xin’s breath between his lips.
Feather-light. Gentle. With no teeth or tongue involved, and all the more exhilarating for it.
That didn’t last, too, but Mu Qing stayed in bed, and Mu Qing pressed his back against Feng Xin’s chest, and Mu Qing sighed when Feng Xin slung his arm across his middle.
And in the morning Mu Qing was still there, warm and pliant from sleep, and when Feng Xin tentatively brushed his fingertips over the man’s belly, Mu Qing sighed again and rocked his hips just so.
Later, Feng Xin talked himself hoarse, but he would gladly pay hundred times the price for witnessing Mu Qing come undone with his name on his lips.
Certainly, they would need to see where they stood in a month or three, but for now? For now it was enough. It wasn’t perfect because neither of them was and was never going to be, but it was good; very, very good.
Just right, Feng Xin would even dare say.