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Mu-shidi never got less maddening.
Liu Qingge would be the first to admit he is unskilled at predicting the behavior of others. However, this is the first he can recall being so wrong about himself.
He didn't expect Shidi to break off their understanding, but once Mu-shidi did, he fully believed, after the hurt faded, there would be a kind of relief. He and Mu-shidi would spend some time collecting themselves, and then pick up their friendship just where it had been. Mu-shidi was clearly no longer interested in Liu Qingge; Liu Qingge's hunger for Mu-shidi should leave him be now without the constant provocation of Shidi's attention.
Because that's what he was: provocative. Shidi was always respectful, but he couldn't hide everything, and Liu Qingge had spent just as much time learning every line and twitch of Shidi's face as Shidi had spent memorizing his healing body. Every beguiling turn of his mind makes itself apparent to those who know how to look. Liu Qingge looked. He couldn't help but see the frank lust in his gaze, the way Shidi took the smallest bit of his lip between his teeth when he forgot his control--a failsafe. He couldn't keep himself from feeling lines of fire every time their skin met; even a bland, professional healing turned into an exquisite trial of Liu Qingge's self control: a secret thrill at his intended's touch.
But they ended it. There is no more anticipation to be had, so why does he still burn?
It is easy to blame Mu-shidi. To Liu Qingge's dismay, Shidi ceases any efforts he had made to contain his distracting nature. Of late, Liu Qingge has had the titillating, if regrettable (maddening), experience of what his shidi is like when he's trying to turn a man's thoughts to the bedroom. Tonight is not the first night Liu Qingge has had to leave a healing in a hurry to reach some measure of relief, and he has no doubts Mu-shidi intended something to that effect.
When he arrived with his petal-festering bite wound, it took so little time for his instincts to jump from 'save the arm' to 'despoil him' that he suspected the plant had aphrodisiac venom. But, if he's honest with himself, Liu Qingge can't place all of the blame at Mu-shidi's feet, or the (non-venomous) plant monster; his blood was pounding in his ears the second he heard Shidi's innocuous "One moment." His body was already wound-tight, ready to spring upon Mu-shidi at the least indication its attention would be welcome. Regardless of how Liu Qingge would feel about such an act.
And then Mu-shidi appeared, making no attempt to hide signs of an interrupted tryst. Liu Qingge's base mind roared. His fists clenched half-moon wounds into his own palms, and he probably said something stupid, but Shidi could hardly expect anything else. Mu Qingfang was wearing a single, hastily thrown-on, outer robe and nothing else, lips bitten red, hair unbound and tousled by his abandoned lover's hand. There was a smudge of white on his cheek where he must have tried to wipe something else of the other man's away.
There's not enough cold water on all twelve peaks to help him now.
Liu Qingge sat through his healing. He maintained control: enjoyed the intimacies of their friendship while the restraint which kept him from licking that smudge from his Shidi's cheek frayed dangerously. It was clearly not from Mu Qingfang. Liu Qingge did not care; he wanted to lick Mu-shidi clean. He wanted to remove all traces of the other man from Mu Qingfang's golden skin with his mouth, with his hair, with any surface of his form Shidi would allow to touch him. He wanted Shidi to take his pleasure in his body, claim him from the inside out, while Liu Qingge left marks of his own on any of Mu Qingfang he could reach. He had no right.
Shidi said no, and has someone who suits him better, now. Liu Qingge has no claim, whatever his appetites may insist. He shouldn't even be thinking about him like that, especially not anymore.
But, even in flight he can still smell the sweat of him, still feel his touch as if it branded his soul. Just once more. He'll dwell on his hunger for Mu-shidi tonight and banish it entirely in the morning.
There's a dense forest clustered around a meltwater-fed river about halfway between his home and Mu-shidi's. Liu Qingge has had to shelter there before.
He lands, and does not avail himself of the clean, cold water, choosing instead to brace his head on his arms against a tree. Liu Qingge releases his cock from the choking confines of his clothes. It's already straining, hot to the touch. He grips it, indulging in a slow pull up the shaft, as he allows the thoughts he had denied himself to come.
Mu-shidi, the first time Liu Qingge had seen him flushed from the heat of another's body, lying next to him in bed. He was sleeping soundly, every line showing limp exhaustion, tangled partway out of his clothes from the infirmary the night before, as if he had fought them in his sleep. There was a damp patch on the front of his pants. Liu Qingge was glad. He was glad his friend had found some gratification, something good, of their harrowing night. In his aphrodisiac haze he had thought he heard Shidi call his name, thought he felt his hips stutter and grind against him, but he couldn't be sure.
Even now, the thought of Mu-shidi claiming him like that makes his skin prickle, his cock throb and twitch.
He should have said something.
Maybe if Liu Qingge had said something, so early in their lives, things would be different. Maybe he should have told Mu-shidi what he had imagined while he was pumping himself dry in his arms. How desperate he was for Shidi to love him in that moment, for Shidi to push into him and make a home of his body. He wanted to see his eyes while he did it. He wanted Qingfang to kiss his neck and tell him he was beautiful, right then, at his most helpless. Only Mu-shidi. There has never been anyone else.
He strips his cock with more intent; he should try and come quickly. No matter how apparently deserted his surroundings, he is still in a public space.
If he had said something that night, maybe they would have changed their cultivation paths. If anyone was born to dual cultivate to immortality, it was Mu-shidi. The way he blooms at the slightest touch, the cleverness of his hands, even his laugh was seductive. Maddening.
Liu Qingge's cock twitches and begins to leak. He spreads the moisture from his tip over himself, imagines leaving some on Mu Qingfang's cheek. How it would get there; a playful nuzzle? Maybe Shidi would tease Liu Qingge’s nectar out with the seam of plush lips, only to turn his head and push his weeping cock aside, to his cheek, rather than permit him entry.
His hand speeds along his shaft, his balls tighten.
However it happened, Liu Qingge knows Shidi would be watching him the whole time, eyes locked with his, even on his knees. He should have looked. Even then he had to recognize the bottomless desire in those eyes; he would have seen his Didi is a creature built for love in all its forms, and he would have known better than to deprive him. The way Liu Qingge came to know the sword, as natural to him as breathing, Mu-shidi came to know the body. It does not take much imagination to see how that talent might lend itself to working with a cultivation partner.
His didi has loved him so well. Liu Qingge wants to give him everything, wants Didi to tear him apart and love even the messy core of him.
He comes with a long groan, feeling Didi's hands upon his wrist. His legs are shaking. He watches glimmers of his seed catch starlight, then vanish into the dim. Even now, he knows Mu Qingfang would still claim him, would still call him his.
He wants that so much.
He has no right.
Disgusted with the tatters he has made of his own self-control, Liu Qingge rinses his hands in the frigid river and flies home. He feels sick with regret and how right he was: he would have never cultivated to this level if he had allowed himself even to hold Mu-Shidi the way a lover should.
He's beginning to wonder if that would have been so bad.