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“You have freckles,” Feng Xin says quietly, his fingertips lightly tracing from one of Mu Qing’s shoulders to the other. “I didn’t know that.”
Mu Qing hums in response. He’s lazy, lost, and gently weighted in a feeling of contentment with his eyes closed and the sun warming his skin.
He feels Feng Xin lean in and gently brush aside his hair. The strands are still damp and cool as they glide across his back and over his neck to pool beside his head.
“How come I never knew that?” Feng Xin continues, but it sounds like he’s talking to himself more than to Mu Qing.
In all honesty, there’s a lot of reasons that Mu Qing could spit out.
Because you never bothered to look before, is one of them.
But he’s still drowsy, and the soft trickling of the creek they had just been swimming in lulls him into something that might be considered submission.
So instead, he just hums again.
“If you can see them, it means I’m burnt,” he mumbles, voice muffled by the way his cheek is pressed into the folded up fabric of his robes that he’s using as a pillow.
He’ll regret it tomorrow, or probably in half an hour when the itching and heat start to sink in, but he doesn’t have it in him to do anything about it this instant. His spiritual power is too low right now anyway, and he doesn’t feel like asking Feng Xin for more.
Too much work. Besides, his lover should just be able to read his mind.
Feng Xin’s fingers have started tenderly dancing across Mu Qing’s back, little taps here and there, with spaces in between and then in clusters.
It’s distracting, maybe even a bit annoying, as it makes him feel like he has to pay attention to where the next tap is going to be. It’s more rousing on his conscience than what he wants it to be.
“What are you doing?” he finally asks. “I’m not an experiment for you to poke. Can’t you see I’m trying to nap?”
The tapping doesn’t pause. Instead, as if trying to drown out Mu Qing’s complaint, Feng Xin starts muttering louder.
“Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—”
“What the hell?” Mu Qing snaps. “Are you actually trying to count them?”
“…Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…” The taps continue. They’ve moved a bit lower now, over his shoulder blades, across the bone.
Mu Qing groans. “You’re so annoying. There's literally no point in doing this.”
Yet, ironically, he doesn’t tell him to stop. Instead, he just lets Feng Xin keep on tapping, touching, because maybe there’s some part of Mu Qing that can’t get enough. He’s greedy, and maybe selfish now in the way he wants Feng Xin’s attention. Centuries of self control, denial and self loathing had made it easy. It was easy to pull away first when no one wanted to get close to you.
But now it’s hard to say stop. He never wants to.
“Forty-one, forty-two…”
The dumbass is still counting.
Mu Qing would be lying if he said he doesn’t love being the centre of his attention.
“You could at least shut up and let me rest,” he grumbles, rolling his eyes and then closing them.
Feng Xin finally pauses.
Mu Qing cracks an eye open. He didn’t tell Feng Xin to stop , he just told him to shut up. Those were obviously two different things.
The air feels tight, and even though he’s not looking at him, Mu Qing knows that Feng Xin is glaring at him. He can feel it in the goosebumps rising along his back. Mu Qing’s sure he’s about to get a sniping comment, he can practically feel it bubbling under the surface of Feng Xin’s fingertips.
The water continues to trickle, the leaves continue to sway in the soft summer breeze.
Nothing comes. The silence is exceedingly foreign.
The kiss on his spine catches him off guard. It’s way too soft, way too gentle.
If anything Mu Qing was expecting a bite.
“Forty-three…” Another kiss. “Forty-four…”
Feng Xin’s hand splays across Mu Qing’s back, the warmth of it rivals with the sun. It makes his skin tingle from where the tenderness of the burn is settling in. Mu Qing still doesn’t tell him to move.
“Forty-five…” Feng Xin murmurs against his skin. This freckle is beside his spine, but Mu Qing is almost positive he doesn’t have one there. Not that he’s going to argue since it’s not like he can actually see it, but he’s just fairly certain…
“Forty-six.” It’s an open mouthed kiss this time. Feng Xin’s tongue presses against him, as his thumb digs into the muscle under Mu Qing’s scapula.
The moan pours out unbidden.
Feng Xin doesn’t even hide his laugh. “Forty-seven…forty-eight… forty-nine…” he doesn’t stop his stupid counting but Mu Qing can feel his grin. It’s infuriating.
He wants to wipe the smug look he knows all too well off the asshole’s face, but he feels himself turning pliant under Feng Xin’s wet kisses as he continues to trail down over each vertebrae while his thumb continues to massage the knot in Mu Qing’s back.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” Mu Qing groans.
“Obviously,” Feng Xin replies. He nips at the dimple in Mu Qing’s lower back, earning himself a gasp. “All you do is complain otherwise. Blah blah this, blah blah that. Maybe you should just —” he ghosts his hand down from Mu Qing’s shoulder until his finger hooks into the waistband of Mu Qing’s undergarment and slides it down — “relax for once.”
He bites Mu Qing’s ass.
“ Eh !” Mu Qing shouts, the sudden jolt propels him forward. He really wishes that he wasn’t lying on his stomach, because he would have liked to have automatically thrown his fist and punched this freak square in the jaw. “What is your problem?!” He glares over his shoulder.
Divorce . He’s going to divorce him. He’s not sure how considering they aren’t married (because they’d already be divorced), but he’s pretty sure that if he took off the ring on his left ring finger and shoved it down Feng Xin’s throat the message would still get across.
Feng Xin doesn’t even look concerned. His eyes are the colour of honey in the golden hour. They’re warm and liquid when he laughs. He’s like an immature child — one who just bit Mu Qing’s ass — who now can’t stop cackling to himself.
“You’re so infuriating,” Mu Qing mutters, rising up onto his knees and pressing his body into Feng Xin’s to knock him off balance and effectively roll them. “Are you happy?” he demands, straddling his thighs. “I’m awake now.”
His soon to be ex-lover hasn’t stopped chuckling. Mu Qing clamps his hand over Feng Xin’s mouth, digging his fingertips into the sides of his jaw.
The thing is that Feng Xin doesn’t have a perfect smile. The corner of his right incisor slightly overlaps his front tooth, and the grin itself is a bit lopsided and pulls up higher on the left as if his heart tries to make it bigger then it already is.
It drives Mu Qing wild.
He always needs everything to be perfect. Mu Qing’s temples are immaculate, his statues handsome. His robes are the finest materials, and his armour always shines.
He should hate this grin. It should bother him.
When Feng Xin sits up, Mu Qing doesn’t remove his hand. If anything he digs his fingertips in a little deeper into his cheeks.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he says.
Feng Xin rolls his eyes — funny how Mu Qing catches him doing it more often now. He says something against Mu Qing’s palm, but it’s muffled.
“I’m not moving my hand,” Mu Qing replies. “Apparently you need a muzzle.”
Feng Xin says something else, his dark brows narrowing.
Mu Qing is pretty sure it’s something along the lines of, “Stop being petty.”
Naturally, he does not.
Feng Xin sighs, and grumbles something — this time Mu Qing can’t catch it, and now his brows are narrowing. “What did you say?” Mu Qing asks.
“Nothing,” Feng Xin replies. He seems to have resigned himself to having Mu Qing’s hand over his mouth, as he doesn’t try to remove it. Instead he leans forward, more into Mu Qing’s space, one arm snaking around Mu Qing’s waist before resting on the small of his back.
His other hand comes up. When he touches Mu Qing’s collarbone, he touches it like Mu Qing is going to break. It’s stupid because they used to have no problem punching each other, or throwing their weapons at one another, so he is very much aware that Mu Qing is not fragile. He knows that, but sometimes he touches him like he is anyways.
Feng Xin’sfingertips continue to skate upwards. When it grazes over the tender skin of Mu Qing’s burnt shoulders, it makes him tense. It doesn’t hurt — Mu Qing’s had much worse, but there’s something human in the sensation, like he’s allowed to feel it.
“How come you haven’t healed it yet?” Feng Xin asks, words still muffled.
Mu Qing isn’t going to dignify that with an answer. He stubbornly tilts his jaw. Feng Xin can figure it out. Hua Cheng was clearly capable of figuring it out for Xie Lian, so Feng Xin could do it for him. Although in Feng Xin’s defence, he did lack a bit of the stalker tendencies that Hua Cheng had. Maybe that was the trade off.
“Are you serious?” Feng Xin asks after a moment, clearly piecing together what Mu Qing wasn’t saying. “Why don’t you ever say something?!”
Mu Qing already threw away eight hundred years worth of cultivation for this man. Feng Xin could at least piece together when he needs spiritual power without him constantly having to give up his pride and ask.
After all, they were enemies for those eight hundred years, and even though they obviously aren’t anymore, it’s a hard habit to break.
Mu Qing tilts his head, daring Feng Xin to say something else. He’s sort of expecting him to, that’s how they are — or how they were. One word, one look away from splitting each other apart.
Mu Qing is used to it, they both are, but he’s not used to the way they come back together every time now. He’s not entirely used to how the fights lack bite, how the words don’t truly sting anymore.
He’s not used to it, but he doesn’t want to ever go back.
Feng Xin is the one who leans in first. Mu Qing is the one who moves his hand, but it’s definitely Feng Xin who closes the gap.
Mu Qing is just leaning into it out of instinct. He’s pressing their mouths together, feeling Feng Xin’s pulse racing through the vein on his neck where Mu Qing’s thumb is gently pressing in.
The kiss makes him melt, it turns his bones pliant.
The transfer of spiritual power always has warmth to it. It feels a bit like lying on the southern beach and letting the sea wash over him, only it runs deeper. It soaks into his blood and settles into his marrow.
Neither of them are fools — both of them know full well that they don’t need to transfer power this way, that it makes no difference whether it’s done with a simple palm touch or with a kiss; but it feels so much better like this.
Maybe Mu Qing has turned into a bit of a hedonist.
Mu Qing presses in closer. He keeps his hand on Feng Xin’s throat, loving the way Feng Xin’s pulse thrums under his touch, and how his Adam’s apple vibrates when he groans.
Their lips part, the kiss deepens. Feng Xin grabs the hair at the base of Mu Qing’s neck, as if he’s anchoring him.Mu Qing presses tightly against him, as if he can somehow mold their bodies together — as if getting closer means he can steal more of the heat radiating off of Feng Xin’s body, and swallow more of the power coursing through him.
He’s greedy, he already knows that. He used to have power on his own, but he doesn’t anymore and he wants and wants and wants.
He wants everything now, though.
He moans when Feng Xin pulls his hair. It’s not enough to separate them, but it’s enough to send a dull ache through his scalp, and to make a hiss escape through his teeth.
He bites Feng Xin’s bottom lip, and the man jolts under him. But then Mu Qing is sucking it between his teeth to run his tongue over the abused flesh as if he can heal it. Maybe he even could, if he was being generous, but Feng Xin bit his ass earlier, so payback is a bitch.
Besides, he is sure he can still feel the spot because Feng Xin’s other hand seems to be gripping it. He’ll heal that in a minute though.
By the time they pull apart, the sunburn on Mu Qing's back is gone and with it, so are the freckles.
“Feel better?” Feng Xin asks. His bun is messy from swimming, the strands falling more around his face than usual, and the gold hair ribbon hangs limply down his back. His lips are now red, his cheeks slightly flushed.
Mu Qing smirks. He presses his thumb into the underside of Feng Xin’s jaw, making him tilt his head. He lightly kisses the newly exposed area just under his ear.
“No,” he mutters, when he feels Feng Xin stiffen. “Take me home, though? I’m sure I’ll feel better then.”