Work Text:
“Run.” Mu Qing shoves him away. “I thought I told you to run.”
He’s on his hands and knees. The shove is weak and one-handed. The grass is starting to stain with blood, and his zhanmadao lies on the ground, its hilt shining red as the blade reflects the blinding afternoon sun.
Run.
As if Feng Xin would run without him.
“Why do you insist on being so fucking stubborn?” Feng Xin huffs, slapping Mu Qing’s hand away.
“Because otherwise, we’re both —” The cough that wracks Mu Qing’s chest rattles Feng Xin’s bones. It coats Mu Qing’s lips a startling shade of crimson.
Yet, being the ever-pain-in-the-ass, he still manages to raise his arms to push Feng Xin away again.
Feng Xin knows how the sentence was going to end; if he didn’t leave now, they could both end up dead. But what does Mu Qing take him for? A coward?
He thought they were past this.
He’s also going to kill Quan Yizhen for getting them into this mess. Outside their territories and against a creature that fed on spiritual power, they might as well be walking to their deaths.
“I’m not leaving you,” Feng Xin snaps. “Stop wasting time and being so goddamn difficult. You’re a shit martyr, and frankly, it doesn’t suit you.”
Another cough shakes Mu Qing’s chest before he can reply. A pained whine follows the horrid sound as he falls forward, fingers curling to resemble claws as they dig into the earth.
Feng Xin barely has a second to register what he’s seeing. On the backs of Mu Qing’s hands, black lines start to creep out from underneath his vambraces. The marks sear themselves into his skin, leaving a dusted trail of embers as they burn through the spiritual power that usually kept them hidden.
Feng Xin can’t remember a time when Mu Qing hadn’t kept his soulmate marks hidden. The man had a cursed shackle on, and he still refused to let them show. The fact they’re starting now proves how much power he’s lost.
“Mu Qing,” he starts, and it’s the second time in eight hundred years that he’s said the name with genuine fear.
Feng Xin’s throat is dry . His chest feels bound by a rope that scratches and digs into his rib cage.
“Did… Mu Qing fall?”
The words are scorched into his memory, like his nerves will never forget the way the lava’s heat had singed his skin.
The thoughts cut off. There’s a whisper in the air, like the final exhale passing through parted lips. It makes the hair on the back of Feng Xin’s neck stand on end. It’s the same sound he’d heard when he’d walked into the clearing to find Mu Qing fallen on his knees, sabre loosely held at his side as the creature fed on his spiritual power.
“Fuck. Mu Qing, work with me,” Feng Xin snaps, pushing out the mental image. “I’m not leaving, so you can either help me, or kill us both.”
Panic eats away at the frustration. He’s even further away from his own territory, and he knows he doesn’t have enough strength left to fight the creature again.
As much as he loathes to admit it, they’ll need Crimson Rain to deal with this.
But Feng Xin is willing to lose his pride only as long as Mu Qing survives this.
Mu Qing coughs again, and blood splatters the ground. He whimpers when he sees it coat his hands.
Thin black marks encroach from his hairline to form designs around his temples. Feng Xin knows he doesn’t have the right to look at them. Not like this, not when they’re showing up involuntarily because Mu Qing is bleeding his strength and life out into the dirt.
“You’re so stupid,” Mu Qing says, but his eyes betray the visceral plea as he reaches out.
His hands are slick with blood when Feng Xin grabs them. He slings Mu Qing’s arms over his shoulders and maneuvers him onto his back.
Feng Xin’s plan is to get Mu Qing back to a temple in the southwest. It would be the most effective place in the mortal realm to replenish his spiritual power and heal his wounds. But on the rare occasion they’ve had to do this, Mu Qing had held on, supported what he could of his weight, even if he was hissing and spitting about being given a piggyback ride.
This time, he says nothing. His grip is loose, and his body is hardly more than dead weight as it slumps against Feng Xin’s back. Time isn’t on their side.
“Feng Xin.”
His name is softly whispered into the crook of his neck.
He makes a split second decision. He prays it’s going to be the right one.
“You’re going to be fine. We’re almost there,” Feng Xin interrupts, refusing to hear what Mu Qing was going to say.
Mu Qing hums, but it’s more placating than an actual agreement. “Look…whatever happens… don’t look at my marks. Please.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?! You’re worried about that right now? How the fuck is that your pri—” He doesn’t get to finish the sentence because Mu Qing’s grip completely loosens, his body slides to the side.
Feng Xin had been holding Mu Qing’s legs, supporting his weight.
It means his grip is wrong.
It means Mu Qing falls, and Feng Xin can’t catch him.
It’s unfortunate because if it was any other time, for any other reason, Feng Xin would have laughed.
o.O.o
There’s a loud bang on the shrine’s door. It rattles the hinges and disturbs the birds that were perched on the windowsill.
Xie Lian looks up from the prayer scroll he’d been reading.
“How intrusive,” Hua Cheng says, from where he’s washing dishes. “Do you want me to get that, Gege?”
“No, I’ve got it,” Xie Lian says, climbing out from his seat and walking to the door.
He’s unsure what he’s expecting as he reaches for the handle. Most worshippers and visitors don’t arrive with a crash. He doesn’t sense a killing intent, nor does he sense a strong amount of spiritual power, plus San Lang seems fairly unbothered from his spot at the sink.
He opens the door.
“Diànxià.” It’s quiet, barely above a whisper, but it ricochets like a cry.
It takes Xie Lian a moment to register what he’s seeing.
“ Feng Xin?”
His friend looks like he’s about to collapse. Long strands of hair fall around his face, the lion-faced armour that usually sits on his shoulders is gone. His golden eyes are fierce and wild, the pupils nothing but pinpricks. The thin black lines of his soulmate marks curl up from the neckline of his robes, over his throat, and along his hairline, creating a dizzying and delicate design of roses, hydrangeas and lavender.
Growing up, Feng Xin had never cared about the marks — never made an effort to hide them or flaunt them. He wore them with the same matter-of-fact honesty as if it were a part of him in the same way his hair was dark brown. In the beginning, his duty outranked any desire for love.
While Xie Lian is confident his view hasn’t changed, it was common practice for gods to hide the marks. Most of them have outlived their soulmates, and they liked to keep the marks hidden from their believers to enforce that degree of separation between them. The last thing they wanted was worshippers thinking they matched their gods.
So, the fact they’re on display and that Xie Lian doesn’t sense a large amount of spiritual power are the first signs that something is terribly wrong.
The next thing that Xie Lian takes in is the body draped over Feng Xin’s shoulders. A curtain of long black hair obscures the person’s face, but Xie Lian still recognizes the black and red robes, although the signature shoulder armour is also missing, probably removed to make carrying him easier.
Xie Lian doesn’t ask. Instead, he opens the door wider to let them in.
o.O.o
Don’t look at my marks. Please.
Please.
Please.
Since when does Mu Qing ever say ‘ please’ ?
Feng Xin scrubs his hands in the river behind the shrine.
His robes are stiff with blood. It’s in his hair, under his nails.
Seconds. That’s all it took for Hua Cheng to destroy the creature. Feng Xin had walked with him down the path, one of his spiritual arrows in his hand like a piece of bait.
As predicted, the creature burst out from the trees on all fours; ravenous, blind, and vicious. Its teeth chattered, jaw snapping, as it crawled on limbs that appeared to be made of nothing but stretched bone.
It charged at Feng Xin, sensing life, blood and spiritual power. He’d been half expecting Hua Cheng to let it take a piece of him, just for fun, but the impact never came. Instead, Hua Cheng stood in front of him, holding the creature by its face as it struggled and screamed. Its skull turned to ash when Hua Cheng crushed it.
Seconds.
That was it. And it had nearly taken Mu Qing’s life.
He flicks his hands to shake off the water before rising to his feet.
When he walks into the shrine, he makes it in time to see Xie Lian leaving the room where he had deposited Mu Qing’s body earlier.
“I lent him more spiritual power to get him through and regenerate,” Xie Lian says.
The sigh of relief Feng Xin lets out is an understatement. He feels a bit like throwing up.
“That’s…great,” he says. “Can I see him?”
He asks the question, but he doesn’t wait for an answer. He steps forward, reaching for the door.
Xie Lian steps in front of him. He scratches the tip of his nose and awkwardly laughs. “Um… he’s not ready for visitors.”
Feng Xin frowns. “Visitors?” he parrots dumbly. Is that what he’s considered?
“En, I lent him spiritual power, but he’s still unconscious, and, well, you know Mu Qing. He’s very… particular about appearances.”
Feng Xin blinks. “I watched him face plant in the dirt earlier. I don’t think you can get much worse.” He goes to step around Xie Lian, but Xie Lian moves in his way again.
“Feng Xin,” he starts, gingerly touching his neck. “He hasn’t… hid the marks yet.”
Feng Xin’s brows shoot up. “So?”
Xie Lian looks like he would rather be anywhere else. “So… I think he wants them to stay hidden.”
Feng Xin’s jaw drops.
“The fuck?!” he finally says, holding out his hands. “Why is everyone so obsessed with Mu Qing’s marks all of a sudden? Who gives a shit? We all have them — I have fucking roses and hydrangeas all over my body. What are Mu Qing’s going to be that it’s such a big secret?! His soulmate is the one who’s going to be covered in thorns because he’s such a thorn in the side —”
The sound of someone slapping the table cuts off his rant.
Hua Cheng examines his nails from his place at the kitchen table. “The way you say that without a hint of irony — ”
“— San Lang,” Xie Lian interjects.
Hua Cheng sighs as he rests his chin on his hand. “Sorry, Gege,” he says, with a pout. “It’s just that I’m going to waste away. I had to use so much spiritual power to destroy that trash earlier. Maybe I need to borrow some from you too.”
Xie Lian chuckles. “I’m sure that’s not the case,” he says, but he walks over anyway.
The door is left unattended. Feng Xin could walk through — he desperately wants to. He trusts Xie Lian, but he wants to see and touch because he needs to wipe out the image of Mu Qing lying lifeless on the ground.
Hua Cheng eyes him from the table as he folds Xie Lian into his arms. His dark eye glimmers, as if he’s daring Feng Xin to take the gift of opportunity he’s offered and open the door.
But a gift from a demon always comes with a price.
Don’t look at my marks. Please.
“ Fucking prick,” Feng Xin mutters under his breath, but he’s not sure if he’s talking about Hua Cheng or Mu Qing. He turns away from Hua Cheng’s mocking expression and starts to walk out the way he came.
“I’m going to finish rinsing off in the river. If he wakes up, come get me?”
Xie Lian nods from his place in Hua Cheng’s arms. “Of course.”
o.O.o
The stars look different from the mortal realm. They seem smaller, less attainable. It makes something twinge in Feng Xin’s chest.
Vaguely, he remembers lying under them with Jian Lan on the rooftop and she would point out the different constellations on warm summer nights. He can’t remember many of them anymore. His memory is too faded, the information long buried, and he’d only been listening to the sound of her voice.
Things had been so different then, yet the stars remain the same.
He holds up his hand and looks at the marks that paint the back of it. Hundreds of years, and like the stars, these marks haven’t changed.
He was thirteen when the first rose appeared on the inside of his wrist, its thorns and vines starting to creep up his forearm. Then more flowers formed as time stretched on, until, like most gods, his marks crawled along almost every inch of his body as a reminder of the love he traded for immortality.
But what was a soulmate? The chances of finding them were slim, many never did, and yet they were still happy.
Who was fate to dictate who you could or couldn’t be with?
He sighs. He’s not sure why he’s thinking about it. Just because Mu Qing made it a personal mission to be ashamed didn’t mean Feng Xin had to dredge up long discarded thoughts.
He sits up and eyes his outer robe, piled in a heap next to him. He’d given up trying to scrub the blood stains out of it and just looking at the fabric makes him want to hurl it into the river.
He’s contemplating doing just that when there’s a soft rustle in the grass next to him.
He turns and freezes.
Mu Qing sits beside him as if he’s always been there, as if he didn’t almost leave him.
“I’m not going to say, ‘thank you,’” he says, without sparing Feng Xin a glance. “I don’t thank fools.”
Feng Xin can’t process the words. He’s too busy fighting the urge to reach out. He wants to touch, to make sure this isn’t a dream or a hallucination or, worse, a ghost.
But Mu Qing sports a defiant and proud tilt to his jaw as his dark hair cascades down his back and hangs over his shoulder. His skin is pale in the moonlight, his expression cool and poised. He looks untouchable.
Feng Xin doesn’t have it in him to retort.
All he sees when he blinks is Mu Qing disappearing over the edge of the lava pit, all he feels is how Mu Qing’s blood made his hands slippery as he cut the armour from his shoulders.
He doesn’t mean to, doesn’t know when he moved, but the next thing he knows he’s brushing Mu Qing’s hair over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” Mu Qing snaps, grabbing Feng Xin’s wrist, stilling his hand.
Feng Xin blinks. It’s a good question. What is he doing?
“Making sure you’re not a ghost,” he settles on.
Mu Qing wrinkles his nose. “Are you dumb? Would it even matter? It’s not like we don’t know ghosts,” he says, but he doesn’t release Feng Xin’s wrist. Instead, he digs his fingertips in harder. His knuckles are white, and Feng Xin is starting to lose circulation in his hand.
He doesn’t pull away.
He also doesn’t say anything. His heart is hammering in his chest and it’s the only thing he registers.
It would, he thinks in response to Mu Qing’s question, if it meant you were going to disappear .
It would, if this was supposed to be goodbye.
Mu Qing’s hair feels like silk as Feng Xin twists it around his finger, each individual strand distinct and real.
Not a ghost then.
He’s not sure what his expression looks like, but it has Mu Qing narrowing his brows and slapping his hand away.
“The hell has gotten into you?” he asks, turning his attention straight ahead.
“You almost died — ”
“And?”
“— and I wasn’t allowed to see you.”
Mu Qing stiffens. “So?”
“So, do you know how hard that was?”
Silence. That’s the answer Feng Xin gets. It somehow spurs him on.
“Why won’t you let me see your marks?” he asks.
Mu Qing clicks his tongue. “It’s none of your business.”
Feng Xin frowns. “Isn’t it, though?”
What used to be individual puzzle pieces strewn across the table are starting to fit together, the picture revealing itself.
The way you say that without a hint of irony—
One well-timed comment and eight centuries of misconceptions unravel at the seams.
It makes sense if Feng Xin lets himself think about it; the reason why Feng Xin can’t imagine his life without Mu Qing, the way they always come back together no matter how many times they push each other away.
But why spend over eight hundred years making sure that Feng Xin wouldn’t ever find out?
I very much wanted to be your f-f-friend.
Feng Xin had always thought Mu Qing to be narcissistic, but Mu Qing had also earned a cursed shackle and had risked his life trying to save someone who he was convinced hated him. Truly, he was an enigma.
“It’s not,” Mu Qing reiterates, before he sighs and his shoulders fall. It’s the first time he shows a hint of how exhausted he must be. “I’m tired, and I really don’t feel like arguing with you, Feng Xin.”
Mu Qing moves to get up but Feng Xin grabs his wrist. He is not letting him run away.
One, because where is Mu Qing going to go? Back to eating Xie Lian’s cooking? That’ll actually kill him. And two, if he doesn’t say this now, he’s not sure he ever will.
“You have sunflowers, don’t you?” he says.
A beat passes. Mu Qing’s lips part. He blinks.
Feng Xin turns Mu Qing’s wrist over, and his robe slides down, revealing his forearm.
“Probably right here.” Feng Xin taps the spot where his own first rose appeared. “And then you probably have violets all along here?” He touches the back of Mu Qing’s hand.
Mu Qing’s brows narrow, his lips pull back into a snarl as he wrenches his hand back.
“You’re so stupid and don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps, and his tone is vicious. It sinks its teeth in and tears. It hurts, but Feng Xin knows the bite is from a cornered animal trying to defend itself and survive.
“I looked,” Feng Xin lies.
“You wouldn’t,” Mu Qing says with confidence like he knows Feng Xin through and through.
“You were dying ,” Feng Xin defends. “It was an accident.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Feng Xin sighs in exasperation. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You also have gladioli under your left ribs.” It’s the same place Feng Xin has a stalk of lavender.
Mu Qing swallows, his eyes widen. Feng Xin has always gotten a kick out of rendering Mu Qing speechless. It’s usually very satisfying and doesn’t happen nearly enough, but this time is different. Mu Qing isn’t looking at him in angry silence. Instead, his gaze burns into Feng Xin’s. His grey eyes are frigid like ice that hasn’t thawed off a mountain lake.
“I… I’m tired,” Mu Qing reiterates. This time it’s barely above a whisper. He moves to get up again, but Feng Xin is expecting it.
“Mu Qing,” he says softly and it’s the softest he’s ever said the name before. “Stay.”
It’s one word, and he means it with every fiber of his being, but he’s still trying to sort out what it means. Does he mean ‘stay here’? Stay in his life? Stay by his side?
Maybe he should have thought this through better, done this when they weren’t so raw. This doesn’t feel like a win, at best it’s a numb relief.
But he wouldn’t take it back. Maybe that makes him selfish.
He reaches out again, and threads his fingers between Mu Qing’s.
Eight hundred years at each other’s throats, at each other’s sides. They could’ve performed the ritual in the Xianle days to stop the marks from spreading. Things could have been so different… maybe.
Mu Qing stares at their hands, his expression almost impossible to read beyond the widening of his eyes. “Aren’t you disappointed?” he finally says.
Feng Xin laughs, though it’s closer to a bone tired huff. “That’s a real fucked up thing to ask,” he says.
Mu Qing rolls his eyes. “As if we aren’t fucked up. You realize fate made a joke out of us. And you didn’t answer the question.”
Feng Xin grins. “No, I’m not.” He squeezes Mu Qing’s hand. “We’ll figure it out.”
Not tonight, or tomorrow. It might take them another century at the rate they go, but they have time.