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It begins in the winter.

There has always been a heavy chill in his lands, seeping into his very marrow until he ventures indoors, away from the biting cold – but there, the sight of Mu Qing silhouetted against the snow, silver hair whipping in the wind and framing his regal features, makes his heart beat in double-time and sends warmth from his chest to the tips of his numb fingers.

He ventures closer, hiding his fond smile behind where he’s pulled up his collar to retain some warmth, and stops a respectful distance away to admire Mu Qing’s cutting figure.

“Nice of you to visit me,” Feng Xin calls out, breath in visible clouds due to the cold, “What brings you here, General Xuan Zhen?”

Mu Qing visibly startles, turning around with a dusting of pink on his cheeks, and Feng Xin bites back the urge to tease him until the flush becomes a furious red, because this gentle peace is something he has longed for ever since they met.

“I don’t think I need your permission to go anywhere.” Mu Qing bites back, but despite his sharp words his entire face softens, lips curving into something like a smile. “General Nan Yang, is this how you treat a guest? Bring me inside, it’s fucking freezing out here.”

“As you wish, General,” Feng Xin can’t resist teasing him a bit, turning around and smiling at him over his shoulder. “If you’ll follow me?”

He doesn’t get to see the beautiful blush bloom over high cheekbones, but the sound – a quiet huff of laughter, like the gentle beginnings of spring, of birdsong but twice as sweet – Feng Xin wants to steal that sound for himself, wants to hoard every last smile from those lips for his own.

The home is small, a far cry from his towering golden palace, but Feng Xin adores its cozy interior and lived-in feel. He’s lived here for ages in the mortal realm, when his every waking moment was spent searching for the Crown Prince.

Mu Qing gives it a once-over, a smirk rising to his – devastatingly handsome – face, “It’s not the size that matters, right?” and laughs at the ruddy flush that suffuses down Feng Xin’s neck, sweeping into the home as if he belongs there among the gaudy furniture and trinkets that have accumulated over the years, and the breath catches in his throat.

Something blooms in his chest.

“It’s fucking cold,” Feng Xin mumbles dazedly, tearing his eyes away from the captivating smile to kneel in front of the fireplace and breathe life into the softly glowing embers, “It’s never been this cold before.”

Mu Qing inches closer, splaying his fingers out to the dancing flames. “That’s what you get. The Southwest is still warm this time of year, and it never gets as much snow as you do. Come over some time and I’ll show you how pathetic your weather is.”

“Is that an invitation?” He smiles, replying jokingly while his heart thumps in his chest, staccato in its beats and irregular even to his own ears. “Because if it’s warmer than here, I’d stay in the Southwest for the rest of this god-awful winter.”

The tips of Mu Qing’s ears flush a lovely scarlet, and he turns away with a sharp “Do what you will,” and that’s not a no.

He laughs softly, wandering into the kitchen and reaching into the recesses of his cabinets to retrieve the best tea-set he owns. The rhythm of his heart goes tap-tap-tap, the pulse rushing through his ears, loud and – and he hopes Mu Qing can’t hear it, the fluttery beating of his traitorous heart.

The water boils all too quickly, and Feng Xin pours two cups of scalding tea, taking a moment to simply wrap his fingers around the base of the ceramic and bask in the heat, and then shakes himself out of it – he brings both cups to the fireplace, gently setting one in Mu Qing’s hands and curling his entire body around his own, soaking up every last bit of warmth.

“You really hate the cold, don’t you?” Mu Qing takes a sip of tea, not offering any feedback on the flavor, which after centuries of knowing him means that Feng Xin has made it to his satisfaction. “Who would have known, the great Nan Yang falling victim not to battle, but to the elements.”

Feng Xin shoots him a half-hearted glare. “If you lived here, with the horrible snows each winter, then you would hate it too.” 

“You don’t have to live here, your palace has good weather year-round,” Mu Qing points out, rather obviously, “So why torture yourself like this?”

“It’s not necessarily torture.” He takes a sip of tea, yanking his tongue back when it burns, the water still scalding, and Mu Qing snickers at his misfortune. “The palace is too empty,” he says, and surprises even himself with how true it is. “And the hallways are too wide, the ceilings too high, and it's freezing. At least here I can keep a fire going.”

“Then just live somewhere else.” Mu Qing blows on the surface of his cup before beginning to drink again. “It really is quite simple, isn’t it?”

The slender arch of Mu Qing’s neck ripples with each swallow, and Feng Xin wants –

"I like freezing my balls off every morning,” Feng Xin deadpans, sticking his hands so close to the fire that he can almost feel the flames on his skin. “No, I like living here. Even if the lakes freeze months early, there’s still something beautiful about the stillness.”

“Maybe you could … think about moving, at least for the winter. Look around to – to the west, maybe. Or. Um. The Southwest.”

“That would be nice,” Feng Xin muses. “Who would I ask, though? I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Mu Qing fixes him with a look, a slight furrow in his brow telling him that he is simply not getting something – but when is this his fault? Mu Qing speaks in riddles, never quite saying what he means but expecting Feng Xin to understand his half-articulated thoughts, and Mu Qing may be sharp on the battlefield but his skill with words is sorely lacking.

He raises the cup to his lips, the warm liquid heating him from the inside-out, and sets it down on the table with a clink.

“Was there a reason why you stopped by?” Feng Xin settles back, melting into the warm air around the fireplace. “I can’t imagine you coming to this hellscape willingly, even I wouldn’t come here if I didn’t have to. This weather is ridiculous.”

Mu Qing hesitates, two seconds where he pauses and looks at him, face twisting into a pinched expression that Feng Xin has seen – seen when Mu Qing comes face to face with something he doesn’t quite want to confront just yet – and then casts his gaze away with a clipped “No, no reason.”

“You mean to tell me that you saw the snow and decided to come anyway? Just for some tea?” The thought warms his heart, Mu Qing staring into the night sky and thinking of him. “Nobody would brave this god-awful cold just to talk.”

“Do I,” and Mu Qing swallows, fingers shaking minutely around his cup, “Do I need a reason, to come visit you?”

Do I need a reason, to come visit you?

Gods.

Feng Xin claps a hand over his mouth, hiding the shock and violent blush spreading over his features – how dare he, how dare Mu Qing undo him with but eight words from his lips – how dare he steal his breath away, how dare he – the room is suddenly too small, the words washing over him and turning the room as warm as a summer’s day.

“Hm.” His words are muffled behind his hand, Mu Qing just as red. “I’m – I’m – did you just say –”

“And what about it?” Mu Qing fixes him with an angry glare, blush spread over his face in a hopelessly attractive color, “Got a – got a problem?”

“No, no problem.” Feng Xin can’t help the smile that rises to his face, “No problem at all, Mu Qing.”

“Anyway, I should be going now,” Mu Qing snaps, having hit his emotional quota for the year, likely for the rest of the century. “I – I promised Dianxia that I would – I would do something for him,” he says, clearly an excuse he made up right then.

Feng Xin scrambles forwards, pushing him back into his seat with a frantic “No, no, stay a while!” He panics slightly, unwilling to let Mu Qing leave just yet. “You came all this way, it – it would be a shame if you were to go without – um – without any food, or – uh –”

Something is rising in his throat.

He coughs, feeling a foreign object in his mouth, the texture soft and papery, and spits it out into his hand to see –

A flower petal?

“Are you getting sick?” Mu Qing looks at him with concern, quickly hiding it with a dismissive scoff. “You should stay inside. It really is getting cold, and – who would take care of you if you got sick? Take better care of yourself.”

“It’s nothing,” Feng Xin says automatically, curling his fingers around the strange petal. ‘I just – it’s nothing. Please, stay a while.”

⋆-⋆-⋆

“That’s strange,” Ling Wen says, unhelpfully.

After a few moments of silence, Feng Xin blinks. “Is that it?”

“What would you like me to say?” She shuffles her scrolls around, brush moving so fast across the page that it’s almost a blur. “I don’t know what you have, and I have never heard of this … affliction. As long as it doesn’t kill you, I see no reason why you should be worried.”

“That’s the thing.” He spits out another petal, still pale and fragrant despite coming from his literal fucking lungs, “Is this fatal?”

“It’s just flower petals,” she says absent-mindedly, already flipping to the next scroll. “How bad could it be?”

⋆-⋆-⋆

It starts with a small cough. 

Nothing too bad. Maybe he is getting sick, but that’s rather unlikely, given that a martial god’s body is said to be – well, perfect. 

(He hasn’t gotten sick since he was last mortal.)

It rapidly progresses into a dry, hacking rasp – Feng Xin is weaker now, having to take breaks on his patrols to rest and breathe, something he’s never had to do before in his fucking life. He catches his breath, leaning against the pillar of his palace, tilting his head back and sucking in greedy mouthfuls of air.

And – how can he forget the fucking flowers?

Every time he sees Mu Qing’s sharp features, every time he hears his laugh, every time he stands by Mu Qing’s side, petals come up from his stupid lungs and –

This may be a problem, he muses.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Pei Ming, in true, nosy God of Love fashion, finds out first.

They spar, blades sheathed and arrows blunted, in order to minimize the damages, but their exchanged blows are still devastating with the power behind each of them. Pei Ming’s next hit catches him right in the ribs, and Feng Xin wheezes as the air is punched out of his lungs, beginning to gag as it dislodges the carefully placed flowers in his throat.

He retches, doubling over, and petals cascade from his lips – he vaguely hears a “What the fuck,” Pei Ming catching him in steady arms, brusquely slamming a hand in between his shoulderblades to help him as he spits up pale flowers.

Feng Xin tears his way out of his grip, suddenly embarrassed, swiping at the spit on his chin with one hand and flipping him off with the other.

“Were those flowers?”

“It’s none of your business,” Feng Xin grinds the petals into little bits under his heel, folding his arms in front of his chest. “Are we done here?”

“Are you cursed?” Pei Ming’s voice goes professional, all joking disappearing from his tone. “Did a demon do this to you? Who cursed you? Did you touch something you shouldn’t have? When did this start? Are you okay?”

“It’s nothing.” He coughs again. “It – I don’t know what this is, but it’ll pass. Hopefully.”

Pei Ming stares at the flowers, and something horrible flashes over his face.

“Oh,” Pei Ming chokes, grabbing him by the wrist and flooding his veins with spiritual magic, searching for the root of the flowers in his chest. “Tell me when this started – was there anything odd about – about when you first started –”

“What’s wrong with you all of a sudden?” Feng Xin jerks backwards, “What are you doing?”

“Were you with Mu Qing when you first started coughing these up?”

Feng Xin tilts his head, confused, because yes, that’s exactly how it started, in the warmth of his home with Mu Qing not quite smiling at him but not quite frowning either. “How did you know?”

“Fuck,” Pei Ming spits, and the vehemence behind those words have Feng Xin scrambling back instinctively, “Oh, fuck – Feng Xin, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t – I didn’t think these would affect you of all people, I’m so sorry –”

“Are you okay?” Feng Xin, alarmed, watches Pei Ming rakes his hands through his perfectly styled hair, pulling it out of his headpiece. “What’s wrong? Am I going to die?”

(And that’s how they sit, weapons forgotten, cross-legged on the dust of the training field.)

“This wasn’t supposed to be painful,” Pei Ming laments. “It was supposed to be a declaration of love, and it was supposed to be – to be – I made this after Shui-shixiong got asked out by a simple mortal, and I, jealous as I was, wanted to show that my love would forever be greater than hers, so I – I confessed to him.”

Feng Xin winces. “How did that go?”

A wistful smile. “He rejected me.”

“Sorry,” Feng Xin murmurs, patting him on the back.

“It’s in the past.” Pei Ming waves his hand dismissively. “I didn’t listen, obviously, and I tried again, this time armed with ivory flowers, plucked from the highest peak in all of the North.” He laughs then, short and a bit sad. “He rejected me again.”

Who would have thought the God of Love would have had such trouble?

“Two rejections were just too much for my pride,” Pei Ming looks out over the horizon, something like longing on his face. “I cursed the love that caused me such – such pain. Flowers, for the bouquet he slapped to the ground, growing in the chest, where my heart was breaking – and I truly didn’t mean for it to become a disease, it just. Happened.”

Feng Xin massages his throat, wondering how the fuck that works. How? How??

“Ling Wen said that she had never heard of it,” Feng Xin starts, but Pei Ming’s face shutters at the words, almost as if curtains have been drawn over those normally easy-going features, and Feng Xin quickly shuts his mouth.

“I never told her,” Pei Ming says shortly, making it clear that that conversation is over.

(This is upsetting and all, but Feng Xin doesn’t want to keep spitting out flowers for the foreseeable future just because his stupid heart decided that Mu Qing would never like him back. It’s true, but – there are hundreds, thousands of people that have probably liked other people, so why does he get the flowers?)

“Well?” Feng Xin clears his throat, swallowing around another flower. “How do I get rid of these?”

Discomfort is plain on Pei Ming’s face. “Here’s the thing …”

Feng Xin is so fucking fucked.

Mu Qing, when Feng Xin carried him out of the lava on his back, stuttered on the word friends. Upon threat of certain death, he couldn’t say the words without turning redder than the magma surrounding them – “So,” Feng Xin whispers, the horror of his situation settling in, “So how the fuck is he supposed to say that he loves me?

I am going to die,” Feng Xin says blandly, massaging at the tightness in his chest as if that will do anything. 

“I could take the flowers out as a second option,” Pei Ming pats him on the back comfortingly. “I can always just rip the roots out of your lungs, take them out – but,” he adds hastily, watching Feng Xin perk up, “There can be some … side effects.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve only ever done this once, so of course I might damage your lungs – and, since these flowers feed on your feelings and your spiritual energy, there are two possible major side effects. I know for certain that you will lose your feelings, but you might also lose part of your core.” Pei Ming winces, giving him a wary look. 

Lose his feelings?

“I don’t want to have to do it, but I – I could,” Pei Ming continues, but Feng Xin is only thinking of – losing his feelings?

How can he live, how can he stand by Mu Qing’s side with the knowledge that he got rid of –

Because maybe knowing that Mu Qing doesn’t love him back hurts, but he treasures every moment they have together. He tries to imagine, back in his mortal home, sitting by Mu Qing’s side and huddled around the fireplace without the burning warmth in his chest – tries to imagine fighting by his side without the feeling of fierce longing –

“No,” Feng Xin says, and shocks even himself with how unwavering he sounds. 

Pei Ming looks as if he expected that. “You’re going to tell him that you love him, then.”

And to tell Mu Qing – I love you.

Feng Xin could. He could waltz into Xuan Zhen’s Palace, grab Mu Qing by the hand and pull, could whisper those three words into his ear and let the world crumble around them as he waits for the answer that holds his heart in its hand –

But it would be fake. 

To tell Mu Qing I love you, just to save his own life?

“Also no,” Feng Xin exhales slowly, letting his eyes flutter shut. “I didn’t think I’d die so soon.”

The wind begins to pick up, then, Pei Ming staring at him with absolute horror. “Feng Xin,” Pei Ming breathes, voice trembling with something like alarm, “Are you – are you fucking serious?”

Feng Xin takes a deep breath, the last painless breath he’ll take for a long while.

⋆-⋆-⋆

“Feng Xin, please,” Pei Ming almost trips over himself in his haste to follow him, “You can’t be serious, you have to tell him, you can’t die!”

“I don’t need your opinion on the matter,” and Feng Xin clasps a hand over his mouth as he begins to cough, flowers bunching up behind his hand, a couple of stray petals fluttering to the floor. His throat aches, a steady hurt that hasn’t gone away in what feels like forever. “Don’t try to push your way into things that don’t concern you.”

“Don’t be so fucking difficult,” Pei Ming hisses, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling, sending Feng Xin stumbling forwards, “And – and this is my fault, of course it fucking concerns me!”

Feng Xin shakes, shoulders trembling with the effort to suppress his heaves – he spits the flowers into his palm, tucking them into his robes for later disposal. “And I’m telling you,” he says, slightly shakily, “That it doesn’t.”

“If you’re not going to tell him, then I’ll – I’ll do it!” Pei Ming’s voice takes on a note of desperation. “I could do it! I could, and if you won’t let me do that then I’ll take the flowers out myself –”

“Let go of my hand,” Feng Xin growls.

Pei Ming wavers, fingers flexing where they trap Feng Xin’s wrist. “I can’t let you die.”

“It’s not your fucking problem!”

And Pei Ming grabs him by the collar, yanking him upwards, faces so close that surely he can smell the sweet flowers on his breath – “You’re going to take my help – if you have any fucking respect for me as your elder martial brother, you’re going to –”

“If you want to help me, then get rid of this fucking disease!”

“I can’t! It’s already been born into existence, I can’t make it go away, no matter how hard I try –”

“Then you can’t help,” Feng Xin spits, shoving Pei Ming away with one trembling hand. “Stop begging, you look pathetic.”

Pei Ming shakes him back and forth, something like fury on his face, a thin mask over the crushing fear he can see in his golden eyes. “Let me take responsibility!”

“What responsibility is there to fucking take?” He almost laughs, because when has Pei Ming ever taken responsibility? “Just forget about it! I don’t care anymore! It doesn’t concern you, so just –”

“How could you possibly think that –”

“Let go of me –”

Blinding pain – he stumbles backwards, hand coming up to his red-hot forehead.

“Did you just headbutt me?” Feng Xin presses down gently, his fingertips cold against the bridge of his nose. “... are you serious?”

Pei Ming brings him up to eye-level, the look on his face screaming and I’ll do it again. “You’re not thinking clearly,” he says, surprisingly calmly given how he was just shouting a moment ago. “Calm down, and then try again.”

He takes a shuddering breath, still standing on the tips of his toes as Pei Ming tightens his grip on his collar. “I don’t need your pity,” Feng Xin whispers, swallowing around another wave of flowers. “This is my decision, so honor that, at least.”

And Pei Ming looks as if he’s been hit, his breath stuttering with grief.

He slowly lowers his head. 

“If that’s what you really want,” Pei Ming murmurs, and his hands fall away.

⋆-⋆-⋆

The stars still come up in the night, sprawling across that expanse of midnight in all of their glory – pinpricks of light, the diamonds of the sky, and yet they pale in comparison to the galaxies Feng Xin can see in Mu Qing’s eyes.

(He loves him.)

Feng Xin is a fool, but a fool in love, and selfish to the core. Sometimes, as he lies awake at night, he thinks about twinkling laughter, thinks about carding his fingers through silver hair – when he feels particularly bold, he thinks about holding Mu Qing in his arms, or feeling safe within Mu Qing’s embrace. When he leans out of the balcony, half-drunk on whatever wines he's found in his palace, sometimes he thinks about Mu Qing falling in love with him, pressing feather-light kisses to his lips –

But it doesn’t matter. He’ll never get to do any of those things.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Spring comes and goes, and Feng Xin is still in love.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Summer arrives.

“Mu Qing,” he says in greeting, instead of I love you.

“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing responds, a carefully neutral expression on his face, “Come with me.”

(And Feng Xin would follow this god anywhere, to the pits of Hell, to the barren wastelands of forgotten cities – Feng Xin would follow Mu Qing to wherever he would want to go, if only to stay by his side for just a little longer.)

“Where are we going?” he asks, falling into step behind him, “Is there something you need from me?”

They appear in the mortal realm, standing at the border of the Southwest and Southeast, and Mu Qing points at something in the distance.

He squints – is that?

The entire sky is filled with flower petals, drifting down from a perfectly blue sky – they blanket the Southeast, and when Feng Xin carefully takes a step into the path, the flowers come up to his mid-calf – flowers, flowers, so many fucking flowers.

“I thought that they would stop, now that spring is past,” Mu Qing plucks one of the petals right out of the air. “But they only seem to have multiplied. They only fall from your side.”

His breath comes faster and faster – how, what, why – “Flowers, huh?” Feng Xin murmurs, steadying his voice as to not bely the panic thrumming beneath his skin. “I wonder why. Maybe there’s a demon, or something, that controls the – the spring, or something? Have you seen one around, lately?”

It’s a flimsy excuse, but Mu Qing nods.

“That’s what I was about to ask you. I thought you would know about what happens in your region,” and Mu Qing is just teasing him, a playful smirk dancing on his lips –

A petal lands in Mu Qing’s hair, delicate pink against a pure, gorgeous silver, and Feng Xin wants to brush it off, wants to get close and press a kiss to that cheek – because Mu Qing, surrounded by lazily falling petals, framed against the backdrop of a clear, perfect sky is beautiful, so, fucking – impossibly beautiful, and Feng Xin knows with utmost certainty that he is in love with him.

He coughs, spitting flowers into his palm, preparing to shove them into his sleeve as he’s always done before, when it suddenly hurts.

The petals in his hand are tinged with red.

Oh, no.

“I’ll look through the records,” Feng Xin replies automatically, his brain shutting down from the appearance of a bloody petal in his fingers, because he had thought he had more time, he only got the fucking disease a couple of months ago, there’s no fucking way it’s progressed this fast. “Yeah, if there is a demon, I’ll – yeah. I’ll go look for it.”

A petal lands on his shoulder, and his breath catches, buzzing with the appearance of flowers, flowers – and he turns to leave, chest uncomfortably tight.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Pei Ming rubs the bloody petal between his fingers.

“It’s only been four months,” Pei Ming says dumbly. “It’s only been one season, how –”

“That’s what I want to know!” His hands won’t stop shaking, and he grabs at his arms to stop himself from trembling. “I don’t – why is it – there are flowers, in the Southeast, too, is this normal? I went down, and there were flowers everywhere –”

“You’re the protector of the Southeast,” Pei Ming continues to stare at the petal, turning it over and over. “Your spiritual energy is linked to the land, and that explains the flowers there, but it doesn’t explain how your condition is worsening so quickly. I thought you had decades left, Feng Xin, and now this.”

Feng Xin sinks to his knees, breath coming in shallow pants. 

“The flowers feed off of your feelings, so – maybe –” Pei Ming looks at him, pleading in his gaze, “Take away the subject of your affections, and maybe you’d live longer. Stay away from Mu Qing, and –”

He doesn’t have to think about it, immediately snapping a sharp “No!”

“You’re going to die!” Pei Ming shouts, shaking him by the shoulders. “Are you blind? Can you not see the blood? Feng Xin, you are going to fucking die if you stay with him, you know this –”

“I know!” Feng Xin yanks himself away, breathing hard. “I thought I had more time, but I can’t stay away –”

“You could come stay with me,” Pei Ming’s eyes are wild with fear. “I could take out the flowers, and you’d be able to go right back to being by his side, or you could just tell him, you forget that I’m the God of Love – I can feel your love for each other, you love each other so much so just fucking tell him!”

“You don’t understand,” Feng Xin scrambles backwards, back pressing against the wall. “You don’t understand, you don’t understand –”

Pei Ming trembles by his side, holding him steady. “Please, just –” 

⋆-⋆-⋆

He doesn’t get better.

“Feng Xin!” and lights are dancing in his eyes, thorns tearing up the tender skin of his throat and staining his tongue with iron – he falls to his knees, scrabbling at his throat because he can’t fucking breathe, choking on the cloying scent of flowers, flowers, he’s so fucking sick of flowers.

“Breathe, Feng Xin, breathe,” Pei Ming chants, eyes wide with horror – and kind of redundantly, since Feng Xin is clearly fucking trying, “You have to fucking breathe –”

Feng Xin makes a noise of strangled annoyance and panic, gagging on blooms of crimson and spitting out tatters of bitten petals, pain from the raw scratches on the roof of his mouth and his throat hot and overwhelming – he hacks up a mess of beautiful flowers and still can’t breathe – still can’t breathe.

“Shit,” Pei Ming lunges forwards and forces fingers past Feng Xin’s throat – Feng Xin feels somewhat like a disobedient dog who has eaten something they shouldn’t have – and pulls, hands coming free with bloody blooms between his fingers, “You need to breathe, you need to breathe – breathe, okay?”

“I’m fucking trying!”

He sucks in a heaving inhale, breath rattling dangerously in his chest, and chokes on the exhale, coughing up a clump of fucking flowers, of fucking blooms hitting the bottom of the basin with a nasty squelch – it breaks apart, blood and flower residue making an ungodly scene, his love a tangle of iron and flowerets.

“Let me take out the roots.” Pei Ming begs, fisting his hands in the crimson stains in Feng Xin’s robes. “Let me, Feng Xin, let me take the roots out, or you’ll die – you’ll die if you keep them in –”

“I want to love,” Feng Xin whispers in response, the words pulling at the fresh cuts in his throat. “I want to love him, and that is my choice.”

“But – but to love, at the cost of your own life?” Pei Ming, not always the noblest but always the kindest, swipes at his eyes, wetness beading up at the corners. “Feng Xin, I can’t let you do this, not if it means that you’ll die.”

Feng Xin reaches out, shaky hands cupping a bloom, and smiles helplessly, knowing that each one – each and every single one is his love, the physical manifestation of his undying love for a god who won't fucking love him back, and yet, and yet they are so beautiful.

“I love him.” and Feng Xin begins to weep, clutching the handfuls upon handfuls of flowers in his lap. “I love him, I love him, I love him, and – and he loves me,” he knows, in the deepest recesses of his mind, that Mu Qing loves him – as a friend, as a sworn brother, or something but it isn’t enough for him because nothing can ever be enough, when it comes to Mu Qing. “He loves me, but not the way I love him, and there it is. He loves me – but he doesn’t love me.

And aren’t these enough?” He half-laughs, half-cries, scraping again through the mountain of petals, “At least these, in their bravery, have the courage to say that I love him – they show the words I will not say, cannot say – cannot say!”

“Just ask him,” Pei Ming’s voice cracks with despair, “He loves you, you say it yourself, so ask him, please just ask him, Feng Xin, please.”

Feng Xin laughs until his throat is too torn up to laugh anymore, at which he begins to silently sob into his blood-stained hands.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Mu Qing stands at his door.

“You’re sick,” Mu Qing snaps, and Feng Xin’s vision goes red with the rage that rises in his chest – it must have been Pei Ming who told him, nobody else knows about his illness –

“Excuse me for one moment,” Feng Xin says blankly, turning on his heel and going to find Pei Ming.

The emotion swirls into a raging hurricane in his chest, because how dare he, how dare he –

He kicks down the door to Pei Ming’s palace, slamming his foot down on the ancient wood and crushing it into little pieces, his vision narrowing in on Pei Ming’s expression of stone, and how fucking dare he.

“Pei Ming,” he growls, so angry that his voice dips an octave down, rumbling with all the fury of a martial god, “Pei Ming, how fucking dare you.”

Pei Ming looks back at him with fire of his own. “Feng Xin.”

He stumbles forwards, petals beginning to flutter to the floor but he doesn’t pay them any mind. “How dare you,” he repeats, taking another step, hands extending as if to wrap around Pei Ming’s traitorous neck, “How dare you.”

“I dare,” Pei Ming says quietly, tilting his chin upwards, and –

Feng Xin grabs him by the collar and yanks him forwards, heart burning with nothing but rage – “Who gave you the right?!” and the cuts on the inside of his throat reopen, blood beginning to drip from his lips every time he speaks, staining the front of both his and Pei Ming’s robes. “Who gave you the fucking right?!”

“I’m a selfish man.” 

Pei Ming stares back at him with a quiet fury of his own, reaching forwards to swipe at the blood on Feng Xin’s face, “I’m selfish. I’m not one of the Three Tumors for nothing, I’ve got a rotten personality, I’ve heard it all – but I won’t let you die, no matter what it fucking takes! If you hate me for this, then fine, as long as you fucking live!”

“How could you?!”

“How could I not?" and Pei Ming’s voice cracks on the last word, “To watch a friend die, because he won’t say anything – tell me, Feng Xin, would you stand by and watch?”

There’s a desperate panic in his voice. Is Feng Xin’s condition really that bad?

The fight drains out of him, replaced by a strange helplessness.

Feng Xin drops Pei Ming to the floor, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes – “How dare you,” he whispers, his voice trembling. “I didn’t want him to know, how could you – how could you tell him?”

“And I don’t want you to die,” Pei Ming isn’t crying, but his voice trembles with emotion. “It’s not fair to him, either. He had a right to know.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I only told him that you were sick,” Pei Ming looks up at him, a desolate sadness in his eyes. “I didn’t tell him what you had, but please, reconsider, just tell him that you love –”

“Shut up,” Feng Xin whispers. “You’ve done enough. Stay out of this.”

“I won’t!”

“General Pei, stay out of this, you don’t understand –”

Pei Ming screams, then. “I understand!”

“How can you understand?!” and Feng Xin thinks of of countless lovers, a new maiden falling in love with General Pei each week, “You can’t understand, God of Love, who doesn’t love you –”

“I fucking had it!”

Pei Ming begins to sob, pulling at the hem of Feng Xin’s robes. “You know I had it – did you think Shi Wudu would have loved me?!” Tears roll down his face, staining the floor with his grief. “You think the Water Tyrant would have loved me back? No, Feng Xin, I ripped the flowers out of my own lungs, and he didn’t fucking care!”

“Mu Qing loves you,” Pei Ming’s voice, dripping with misery, echoes in his ears. “He loves you, why can’t you see that? Why can’t you just tell him? He loves you so much and you –”

“But if he doesn’t?” Feng Xin turns to the door, taking deep, measured breaths. “If he doesn’t love me, and I die – and I leave him with my death on his hands? If I live, and he forces himself to be with me? What if he doesn't –"

(He thinks of staying by Xie Lian’s side, until Xie Lian chased him out. If he forces Mu Qing to stay, who’s to say that Mu Qing won't also –?)

“You’re so fucking stupid!” Pei Ming howls, slamming his fists into the floor, “He loves you! He fucking loves you! If you die, and he knows he could have saved you but you didn’t fucking tell him –”

Feng Xin turns, heading to the door with a feeling of emptiness in his chest.

Pei Ming follows him, grabbing at his wrist one last time and begging, “You have one month left to live,” he pleads. “You could have a year, you could have a decade, you could live forever – you just need to cut Mu Qing from your life, or let me take the flowers out, or just tell him – ”

“That’s not going to happen,” Feng Xin takes a shuddering breath, closing his eyes. “Swear to me, General. Swear you won’t tell Mu Qing about – about what I have.”

Because General Pei, for all of his lovers and strange set of morals, would never break an oath – and Pei Ming looks as if he might refuse, eyes gleaming with the dangerous light of rebellion, but then he seems to think better of it.

“I won’t tell him what you have,” Pei Ming says dully.

Is it that easy?

Feng Xin kicks the remains of the door to the side.

⋆-⋆-⋆

“You’re sick,” Mu Qing says, fixing him with a glare.

“I am,” Feng Xin agrees, too tired to fight any more.

“And – and you’re not even going to try and fight it,” Mu Qing’s voice trembles with fear, just slightly. “You don’t care.”

Feng Xin smiles, soft and sad.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Mu Qing returns the next morning, still soaking wet and carrying pearls from the deepest caverns in the sea, his spiritual energy depleted as if he’s just fought a Calamity.

“Eat it,” Mu Qing insists, placing the pearls, still salty from their time in the sea, on Feng Xin’s tongue. “Swallow, and maybe –”

The morning after that, he brings soup made from the richest crops of the harvest, Yushi Huang’s elegant handwriting on a note with it, wishing him well.

Again, Mu Qing forces him to eat, spoon-feeding the rich broth into his mouth.

And the morning after that, Mu Qing arrives with a simple healing salve, face pinched with desperation, lathering it all over Feng Xin’s throat with renewed conviction, hissing “You have to get better, Feng Xin, you have to –”

If this were any other disease, Feng Xin would no doubt be back on his feet, stronger than he’s ever been before, but since it’s god-made Feng Xin just continues to worsen.

“You shouldn’t go to all this trouble,” Feng Xin whispers, but Mu Qing refuses to listen, trying again and again. His room smells of herbs, of strange, scented oils, but anything is better than the cloying smell of flowers. “Mu Qing, it’s –”

Mu Qing doesn’t look at him, instead furiously grinding dried leaves into a powder, the sound of the stone on stone uncomfortably scraping against his ears.

“You really shouldn’t,” Feng Xin tries again, and this time Mu Qing turns to glare at him, eyes strangely wet.

The air is still, the two of them staring at each other.

A sharp retort. “Don’t tell me what to do.” 

Mu Qing digs the pestle into his bowl, a sharp crack echoing throughout the room from the force, and Feng Xin pretends not to see how Mu Qing wipes his eyes on his sleeves. 

⋆-⋆-⋆

(“Xuan Zhen,” Pei Ming says, alight with a reckless determination, “Have you heard of the Blood-Stained Garden of the North?”

“I don’t have time for your stupid games,” Mu Qing hisses, arms full of the different medicinal ointments he’s tried that didn’t fucking work, “Get out of my fucking way.”)

⋆-⋆-⋆

“Here,” Mu Qing spits brusquely, dumping a jar on his lap. “Eat that.”

Feng Xin doesn’t protest – he’d do anything, he realizes, to keep Mu Qing at his side just a bit longer, to hoard Mu Qing’s attention for his own – and carefully lifts the lid, coming face-to-face with a bundle of – petals.

His first instinct is to gag.

“I picked them from the highest springs of the North,” Mu Qing says, watching his face intently, “Someone told me that – that – they might help, so – just eat them. Please.”

He might cry from the irony.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, bringing one ivory petal to his lips, suppressing the involuntary feeling of disgust from the texture on his tongue. 

Feng Xin brings a hand over his mouth, forcing himself to swallow, and feels inexplicably numb. 

“It was very kind of you,” he says softly, because they won’t help him at all but at least Mu Qing is trying. “It was really – really very. Kind. Thank you.”

Mu Qing looks – looks angry, a helpless anger that mixes with a strange frustration on his features, and he slams both fists on the bed and cries – “What’s wrong with you?”

I’m in love with you.

“You’ve given up!” and Mu Qing looks close to tears, his eyes misty with grief, “You’ve fucking given up, and – you have to get better, Feng Xin, why are you – what happened to the Feng Xin I know? You never give up, so – so what’s wrong with you? Please just tell me!”

I’m in love with you.

“Don’t be angry,” Feng Xin puts a hand over Mu Qing’s trembling fingers. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not!”

Mu Qing glares at him, that determined fire in his eyes, that fire that he’s fallen in love with – “Tell me what the cure is, and I will get it for you. I don’t – I don’t care how difficult it is, just please, fucking tell me and I’ll get it, please just – tell me.”

“There is no cure,” Feng Xin lies. 

“You’re lying,” Mu Qing snaps, and damn. Either Mu Qing can still read him like an open book, or Feng Xin is just an incredibly bad liar.

“The cure isn’t something that – it’s not quite – it’s complicated,” he closes his eyes, turning his head away, breathing deeply through his nose. “Don’t worry yourself.”

He can feel Mu Qing’s warm presence still by his side, and wonders if he should just die now, because how could anything get better than this? Sitting with Mu Qing, in the comfort of his own palace – could any death be more fitting, more beautiful? 

“No,” Mu Qing’s voice is firm with his conviction. “I won’t accept that.”

⋆-⋆-⋆

(“Xuan Zhen,” Pei Ming says again, a bit more urgently this time, “Have you heard of the Blood-Stained Garden of the North?”

“General,” because Mu Qing is struggling, everything crumbling around him, the only person who he’s ever loved wasting away and he can’t do anything – “I don’t care, I don’t care about your garden, he’s dying –”)

⋆-⋆-⋆

Every time Mu Qing enters the room, Feng Xin covers the basin with a cloth, making sure that he can’t see the petals.

This works against him.

“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing’s voice drifts around the corner, and Feng Xin panics – he shoves handfuls of flowers into the basin, the sudden movement disturbing the cuts in the back of his throat, and he begins to gag –

The flowers are hidden, but the blood isn’t. 

He retches, blood spilling hot and heavy to the blankets in front of him, and tries desperately to cover his mouth but despite his best efforts crimson seeps through his fingers anyway, staining the covers and –

Something clatters to the floor.

Feng Xin looks up, both hands still tightly clasped around his mouth, and Mu Qing stares at him, a bowl of soup upturned at his feet, eyes slowly widening with absolute horror – Feng Xin waves him off, but his hand is covered with blood and maybe that’s not the best way to relieve somebody’s concern.

“Don’t come any closer,” he croaks, “You’ll get blood on your – your robes,” and then he can’t speak, more and more blood dripping from his fingers as he struggles to keep his palms over his mouth.

Before he can even blink, Mu Qing is by his side, using a towel to wipe up the blood – Mu Qing doesn’t speak, just cleans him up with a strange urgency in his movements, face ashen with fear, and pulls the covers away to be cleaned.

“You don’t have to,” Feng Xin pushes himself upwards, trembling with the energy it takes just to sit up. “I can –”

Mu Qing slaps his hands away.

“But – I can do it, you really don’t have to.” Feng Xin thinks of Mu Qing, fingers worn from scrubbing the fabric in freezing water, and swings his feet over the edge of the bed. “I –”

“Shut up.”

Feng Xin’s mouth snaps shut.

Without another word, Mu Qing grabs the rest of the bloodied blankets, sweeping out of the room, fingers shaking minutely.

He returns later, covering him with an unfamiliar quilt, well-worn with time and fraying at the edges – Feng Xin thinks, slightly deliriously, that this might be from Mu Qing’s time in the mortal realm. His mother was a seamstress, so –

Feng Xin tries to give it back.

“I’ll bleed on it,” he protests, inching away from the beautiful fabric. “I don’t want to ruin it –”

“Feng Xin.”

“But –” He breaks off into coughing, doubling over the basin and spitting blood into it. “I’m serious,” Feng Xin pushes it back, “I can’t use this, you should keep it, it’s clearly precious to you – you saw what just happened, right? I’m going to bleed on it, and –”

“I don’t care.” Mu Qing carefully drapes the quilt over him with an air of finality. 

He shakes his head, insistent on giving it back to Mu Qing, “I can’t take this, it’s precious to you –”

Mu Qing fixes him with a glare, and – “You’re precious to me too.”

His stupid heart quickens.

Precious, as in –?

“Alright,” Feng Xin whispers, and he knows deep down that the reason he relents so quickly is because Mu Qing just admitted that he might be someone – precious – to him, and he tucks the simple words beside his heart. “Alright.”

⋆-⋆-⋆

“My mother died in a room like this one.”

Feng Xin’s not sure if he’s dreaming. The room is dark, the only light being the soft silver settling at the foot of his bed, everything quiet and still as if the very world has stopped spinning.

“I returned, and I was almost too late.”

The room is silent, save for Feng Xin’s labored breathing.

“She wasn’t angry.” Something wet lands on the back of his hand. “She wasn’t angry, she just – she just smiled at me, and welcomed me home. She wasn’t angry, she should have been angry because I left her, but she just – she welcomed me home, and then she – she –”

Is he dreaming?

“She was coughing up blood, just like you are.”

Cool fingers brush the hair from his face, pressing gently against his fevered forehead.

“Please,” trembling hands hold his own. “Please, I can’t lose you too.”

⋆-⋆-⋆

He can’t breathe.

It happens so suddenly – one moment, he’s sitting in his bed, reading one of his reports, and the next, he’s hunched over the basin by his bedside, vomiting blood and flowers and a mixture of both – he hadn’t even felt it coming, everything fine until –

Oh.

He knows that he’s going to die. 

The knowledge settles deep into his bones, and he’s too tired to fight it.

But –

Feng Xin can’t die without thanking Mu Qing first, for trying his absolute best to save him – he knows, Mu Qing had battled Black Water Sinking Ships to get him those pearls, had went down to the mortal realm to ask Yushi Huang for her crops, had made that salve himself, the skin of his palms rubbed raw from where he ground herbs against the mortar.

He gets up, wrapping his outer robes around him, fingers trembling from where they slip from the clasps.

It takes a monumental amount of effort to take even a single step, but he manages. Feng Xin has never been one to give up, even when the ground wobbles beneath his unsteady legs, even when his vision dances with black spots – one step after another, he tells himself, just one more step.

Nobody has seen him in weeks. He strides through the Heavenly Court, and the stares and whispers don’t faze him. 

(He’s going to be dead before the gossip spreads further.)

Mu Qing stands near the fountain, clearly lost in thought – he looks so beautiful, and Feng Xin takes a moment to admire the elegant slope of his neck, the way his face is pinched in concentration, the sunlight turning his hair a breathtaking silver –

“Mu Qing,” he calls, smiling gently.

And his heart twists at how Mu Qing turns, lighting up with pure excitement when he sees Feng Xin standing there.

“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing says, voice lifting with an unsteady hope.

“I wanted to thank you,” and he hates the way Mu Qing’s face drops, as if he’s realized that Feng Xin isn’t better after all. “You’ve done so much for me, and I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“You sound as if – you sound as if you’re going to die,” Mu Qing whispers. “Tell me you aren’t.”

Feng Xin can’t lie. “Thank you.”

“Tell me you aren’t going to die,” Mu Qing repeats, eyes going wild with something close to fear. “Tell me right now. Say it.”

“Thank you, Mu Qing.”

And he turns, to return back to the palace, and Mu Qing grabs him by the wrist, tugging him back –

“Tell me you aren’t going to die!” Mu Qing cries out, supporting them both on trembling legs, “Please, Feng Xin, tell me –”

“I won’t lie to you,” Feng Xin whispers, wrapping shaking arms around Mu Qing’s shoulders, “You deserve better than that. I hope we – I hope we meet again in another life, and I lo – I’m – I’m going to miss you.”

He tries to leave again, his chest uncomfortably tight with the flowers bunching up behind his throat, but Mu Qing drags him back.

“Please, there’s a cure,” Mu Qing is babbling, desperate for him to stay, “You lied to me, you said there wasn’t a cure but there is, you have to tell me, I don’t care if it’s impossible because I’ll do it –”

With mounting horror, he realizes that he can’t hold back the flowers anymore.

He shoves Mu Qing away, just in time for the flowers to come cascading from his lips, blood dripping hot and heavy from his chin, and oh, he thinks faintly, because he didn’t want to have to die in front of Mu Qing.

The flowers in his chest are suffocating, pressing up against his skin, winding around his ribs, clogging his throat – he gags, gripping the edge of the fountain and doubling over, crimson petals replacing the pale white of the lotuses – his chest won’t take in air, his breaths coming too quick to be of any use, and he tugs at his robes to alleviate some of the pressure to no avail.

He looks up.

Mu Qing stares at him, understanding dawning on his face.

“Oh,” Mu Qing whispers. “花吐病.”

And Feng Xin braces himself for the disgust, only to wheeze as the breath is knocked out of him when Mu Qing bowls him over, grabbing him by the shoulders and beginning to shake him –

“Who the fuck is it?” There are furious tears streaming down Mu Qing’s face, “Tell me who the miserable son of a fucking bitch is, how could they not love you?! How could they not – how could they not love you, you’re so kind and beautiful and so fucking strong how could they not love you –”

Feng Xin, stunned, can’t speak.

How could they not love you?

“Mu Qing,” he breathes.

“Tell me who they are!” and Mu Qing is almost incoherent with his tears, using his own sleeves to swipe frantically at the blood on his chin, “Feng Xin, tell me who they fucking are and I’ll – and I’ll find them – they have to love you, nobody in this stupid fucking world wouldn’t love you –”

Feng Xin coughs, more blood dribbling from the corner of his lips, but he pushes himself upwards, grabbing Mu Qing’s hands in his own –

“Mu Qing,” the embarrassment he should feel from the words is nowhere to be found, since if Mu Qing doesn’t actually love him he might as well die right here. “When you say nobody wouldn’t love me, are you – do you –”

And he can’t speak, slumping forwards as he heaves, bloodied petals hitting the floor with a disgusting sound.

“Tell me!” Mu Qing’s arms around him are comforting, so warm. “Tell me who it is, please –”

You’re so fucking dumb, Feng Xin thinks. Who in the world could I have fallen in love with, when you’re right here?

“You,” Feng Xin whispers, smiling helplessly at Mu Qing’s tear-stained face, “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

The world falls still, under the weight of those words.

And then Mu Qing screams, burying his face into his shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably – kind of a harsh reaction, Feng Xin thinks dumbly. He had expected disgust, he had expected a sharp get away from me, but he hadn’t expected crying. Is the idea of being in love with him that repulsive? His heart drops.

“Hey,” Feng Xin says, kind of alarmed, “Hey, it’s okay –”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mu Qing wails, his words cracking with immeasurable grief, “Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”

Feng Xin opens his mouth to respond, but chokes on the sudden petals, coughing up blood –

“I love you!”

Feng Xin can’t support himself anymore, his knees buckling – he falls, slamming both palms on the floor and heaving, flowers spilling from his lips in whole blooms, their color quickly fading to a dull red as they fall into the puddle of blood at his feet. Everything feels numb, his fingers twitching uncontrollably, his pulse thundering in his ears –

– and Mu Qing hugs him so tightly, continuing to sob, “I love you, I love you, I love you so much so don’t fucking die – I love you so fucking much, I love you –”

Feng Xin’s arms give out, and he curls up around the unbearable pain in his chest, gasping for air. His vision is going blurry, and vaguely he registers Mu Qing slamming his fist into his stomach, trying to get him to stop choking but it doesn’t work. He tries to speak, but the noise that comes from his throat is unrecognizable as a voice.

“I love you, please –”

He doubles over, flowers tearing themselves from his throat, chest straining with the effort it takes to get them out – his coughs are different, more like he’s trying to hack up his lungs, the force of each one shaking his entire body, and he turns away from Mu Qing, dizzy with the need to breathe.

“Please, please, I love you, Feng Xin –”

Things go a bit blurry for a while, the noise around him going fuzzy and indistinct. He keeps his eyes open, trying to take measured breaths, his body shutting down to conserve what little stores of spiritual energy and air he has left.

“Please, I love you so fucking much –”

He gags on the taste of iron, all too-familiar to him these days, and the blooms refuse to stop, a torrent of blood-stained beauty.

Thank you, he wants to say, but when he opens his mouth a fresh wave of blood cascades from his lips. The noise he makes instead is disgusting even to him, a choked rasp tearing out from his throat, as if his tongue has been cut off. 

It hurts.  

He tries to speak, but – but he doubles over in stinging pain as the thorns catch on tender flesh, a bloom getting caught in his airways and he struggles to breathe yet again.

And then –

Something in his chest shifts.

Mu Qing is desperately funneling spiritual energy into his back, trying to soothe the pain with pure gold, and Feng Xin feels as if – as if something in his chest is cracking, and –

– the pain increases ten-fold.

“Fuck,” he spits a petal onto the floor, “Fuck – fuck, fuck fuck –” a keening noise splits the air, and it takes a moment before he recognizes as his own voice, fragile and quivering with the excruciating torment. “Fuck,” he sobs, hiccuping and gagging on the next bud catching in his throat.

He clutches Mu Qing’s hand for dear life, other hand slapping around his mouth as blood drips down his chin, torrid and slippery against his palm. “I can’t – I can’t –”

Agony, pure agony.

“Make it stop, make it stop –” he gasps for air, tears streaking down his face as he begins to choke, “Please, make it stop, I can’t I can’t I can’t –”

As he continues, the flowers become older and older, dark petals pouring out of his mouth – he cries, and Mu Qing wraps comforting arms around his shoulders, blessedly cool fingers massaging his fevered neck. “Feng Xin,” Mu Qing presses a shaky kiss to his temple, uncaring of how blood drips onto his dark robes, “I love you.”

The last of the blooms spill from his mouth, but no relief comes; something, something is in his throat but he can’t get it out – he fists bloody hands into Mu Qing’s robes, sobbing desperately – 

“It hurts,” it feels as though he’s swallowed a red-hot iron, and he turns his face towards Mu Qing and begs, “Please, please, I can’t –”

Mu Qing places a shaking hand on his throat, qi pulsing into his meridians, and – and – relief.

The pain washes away, black spots dancing in the corners of his eyes, and he coughs one last time, the thing in his throat dislodging. As if in a dream, he watches a small, innocuous thing hit the floor with a soft clink.. 

It’s a seed.

It’s a seed, barely the size of his fingernail, that has been causing him unimaginable suffering for the last couple of months. It’s a seed, a mottled hazel color, with a sprout sticking out of the side – the killing bloom, as Pei Ming called it once. It’s a seed.

“A seed,” Feng Xin croaks.

Huh.

And it makes sense, he muses. The root of his problem was the abundance of flowers in his lungs – and they couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere given the steady decline of his condition – so it must have started with a seed. The seed rolls to Mu Qing’s feet, hitting the robes pooled at his side and slowing to a complete stop.

(Mu Qing takes it in his fingers and squeezes, until it cracks apart it into dozens of tiny pieces.)

He isn’t dead.

“Mu Qing,” he whispers, surprised at how he’s still breathing. “Mu Qing, you –”

“Don’t speak,” Mu Qing hisses wetly, cradling his head in his hands, “You’re so stupid, and – and when you’re all better I’m going to kill you f-for all of this, I hate – I love you, I love you so much, Feng Xin, how d-dare you doubt that I love you –”

Feng Xin struggles to sit up, Mu Qing unclipping the waterskin from his belt and offering it to him – he tries to take a sip, but he tastes flowers and instinctively chokes, the water dribbling down his chin a murky wine-color from mixing with the blood in his mouth.

“You need to drink,” Mu Qing wipes the tears from his face, “Your throat must be sore, you have to drink something.”

“I can’t,” he shakes his head, coughing weakly – his throat begins to burn anew. “I really can’t.”

Mu Qing gently maneuvers him into his lap, tilting his chin upwards with one hand, fitting the opening of the pouch to his mouth with the other – “Drink,” Mu Qing repeats, a steady stream of water threatening to push past his lips. “You have to drink something, Feng Xin, you have to.”

He turns his face to the side, “I can’t,” Feng Xin whispers again, struggling to breathe as shallowly as he can to keep himself from disturbing the raw cuts in his throat.

Vaguely he hears a tch, Mu Qing hugging him a little closer to his shoulder and taking a sip from the pouch himself.

A shadow falls over his face and lips slot against his own, a hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, the other massaging his neck gently – Mu Qing’s eyes still hold the remnants of fear, but they’ve softened a bit, pleading with him to just fucking drink it.  

(This is his first kiss with Mu Qing, and he probably tastes like iron and the sickeningly sweet flavor all flowers have, what kind of first kiss is this –?)

His lips part on instinct and, seizing the opportunity, Mu Qing clutches him a little tighter, fingers scraping against his scalp and carding through his hair.

The water is cool against his throat and he swallows, wincing at the burn from the movement, but the momentary relief the water brings prompts him to continue drinking, tiny sips each time. Mu Qing breaks their kiss once he runs out – Feng Xin whines at the loss – but quickly returns with more, kissing him soft and sweet.

(And maybe this isn’t what he’s dreamed of, first kisses steeped in blood, but it’s his nonetheless.)

He realizes, after the ache in his chest begins to fade, that Mu Qing is also giving him spiritual energy, gold suffusing into his meridians and soothing the damage the flowers have caused. He inhales sharply, melting into the kiss, staring dazedly up at Mu Qing’s eyes, and oh, how he’s missed that shade of midnight.

Mu Qing pulls away again and Feng Xin lets his eyes flutter shut, his eyelids suddenly incredibly heavy – his breath evens out, the pain in his throat simmering down to a dull ache, and he whispers a muted “Thank you,” his voice somewhat stronger than before.

“We’ll see if you’ll be thanking me when I beat your fucking ass into the ground,” Mu Qing snaps, voice still quiet but sharp with something that’s just a shade away from fear, “How dare you not tell me, how dare you doubt that I –”

“Mu Qing,” he murmurs, eyes heavy with exhaustion. “Please.”

The hands on his back tighten. “I love you,” Mu Qing whispers, “I love you, so don’t you fucking forget that. I love you.”

And he falls asleep, his head resting in the hollow of Mu Qing’s neck, breathing slow and steady and clear.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Mu Qing had thought that the flowers were pretty, at first.

They floated down from the Southeast, sweeping across the border and fluttering into his lands, with no regard for where they landed. A pretty pink, mixed with petals of deep red here and there, and he remembers wondering where he’s seen that color before.

(As he kneels over Feng Xin’s convulsing form, he thinks – oh, that’s the color they were.)

And nothing had seemed wrong, then. Maybe, just maybe it had been a bit strange for Feng Xin to leave so quickly, hand covering his mouth as if he were nauseous, or something, but he hadn't thought anything of it.

He remembers thinking, quietly to himself, that Feng Xin looked gorgeous, standing amongst the flowers with a slight look of bewilderment on his face, the sunlight framing him in all of his glory – gorgeous, he had thought. Gorgeous, with petals drifting into his hair, petals a beautiful contrast against his tanned skin –

(Flowers have never looked so wrong, caught between Feng Xin’s bloody fingers.)

Then –

“Feng Xin is sick,” Pei Ming had said, eyes serious and flinty.

“You’re lying,” but he had gone to his palace anyway, just to check, in time to see Feng Xin cough into his palm, slumped against the palace walls and heaving for breath.

The worry had snuck into his chest, wrapping around his shoulders and rooting him in place, because a martial god’s body is perfect. A martial god, a martial god as powerful as Feng Xin should never truly get sick – he might have joked about it, back when Feng Xin had first started coughing, all the way back in the winter, but that’s all that it was, a joke.

“You’re sick,” he had snapped, unable to keep the accusatory note out of his voice, and Feng Xin –

“I am,” Feng Xin had replied, and that had given him pause.

The soft sound of defeat, of acceptance in that voice – who, Mu Qing had thought, who is this?

Because surely, this couldn’t be Feng Xin. The weary expression, the bags beneath those eyes and the strange look on his face, that couldn’t be Feng Xin. Feng Xin never gives up, never even pretends to stay down, so who is this?

So Mu Qing heads to the sea.

He remembers hearing once, that the pearls from the deepest depths of the seas have been soaked with the purest moonlight, and can heal even the worst of deadly poisons. The water is cold, the waves buffeting him back and forth as he tries to focus, but he plunges deep into the caverns and struggles to find even one.

(A martial god can go an incredibly long time without taking a breath.)

His chest burns, lungs screaming for air, but he continues to search, and finally – he rakes his fingers around the seabed, they catch on something.

Breaking the surface, he stares, and a pearl, black as midnight, winks back at him.

One is better than nothing.

And as he tries to return, He Xuan emerges from the waves with a “I didn’t expect you to be a thief, Xuan Zhen,” and Mu Qing – what can he do, but fight?

Black Water Sinking Ships takes pity on him, giving him another pearl.

(If this were any other time, Mu Qing would have refused, the disgusting feeling of humiliation rising to his throat but he swallows his pride just this once, if only for Feng Xin’s sake, accepting the pearl and returning straight to Feng Xin’s side.)

That doesn’t work.

“Esteemed Rain Master,” he all but begs, “What would you do, if someone you care deeply for won’t get better no matter how hard you try –”

He resorts to making his own salve, praying that this one will be the one to fucking heal Feng Xin’s stupid cough, and Feng Xin just watches him, eyes filled with a strange sadness.

“Have you heard of the Blood-Stained Garden of the North?”

There’s something in those eyes, Pei Ming pleading with him, but Feng Xin is fucking dying, Mu Qing has no time for Pei Ming’s strange ramblings. 

Vaguely, he can remember a legend, of a story tied to the infamous garden at the peak of the North – something of love, something that made him feel sick to his stomach when he had first heard it – but Feng Xin begins to choke beside him, and all thoughts of Pei Ming are washed away.

(He still visits the North anyway, touching down on the garden and plucking the petals from the trees. Some are ivory, and some are crimson. When he touches the crimson petals, they feel strangely – sticky, so he doesn’t take those.)

Feng Xin coughs up blood, and all Mu Qing can see is his mother sitting at the foot of the bed, smiling fondly at him – shall I take him with me? she whispers, and Mu Qing can’t fucking move.

“No,” he begs under his breath, “Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t –”

Crimson spills to the blanket, Feng Xin holding out an arm and saying “Don’t get closer, you’ll get blood on your robes,” and Mu Qing wants to strangle him for even thinking that Mu Qing would be so vain as to save his own robes, while Feng Xin’s blood drips down from his chin. The air is a biting cold, when did it get so cold, and Mu Qing yanks the blankets away and sets out to find a new one, to cover Feng Xin’s trembling form.

The only one he finds is his mother’s.

(The blanket goes over Feng Xin’s shoulders, his mother’s handiwork covering Feng Xin’s frail fingers, and Mu Qing has never been as bold as this, to say –

“You’re precious to me too.”

There are a lot of things he wants to say, and not enough time to say them all.)

And in the present – Mu Qing knows full well what fear feels like.

It feels like watching Feng Xin gag, eyes wide with pain, blood dripping from his lips – it feels like watching Feng Xin writhe in his arms, petals falling to the floor, unassuming in their beauty but still stained with crimson – it feels like Feng Xin smiling at him, crimson dripping down his chin, and saying “I’ve fallen in love with you,” expression soft as if he doesn’t believe that Mu Qing could love him back.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Feng Xin says.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” Feng Xin says, and his smile is the same one Mu Qing has grown up with, impossibly kind and still able to steal his breath away. “I’ve fallen in love with you,” and Feng Xin looks as if he’s accepting his death.

And Mu Qing cries, because he doesn’t know if it’s too late, whispering half-formed prayers to the god in his arms, of please don’t die, please, please, I love you –

Feng Xin’s eyes, an earnest gold, the most brilliant gold in all of the Heavens, a gold that could rival even the sun – they stay open, dazzling in their beauty, looking up at him with that infinite love, and Mu Qing knows – he can’t – he won’t – let this god die.

He places his hands, trembling as they are, on Feng Xin’s back.

“I’ve fallen in love with you, too,” he thinks, spiritual energy winding around his fingers, seeping into Feng Xin’s broken ribcage, “Don’t you dare die until I can say it back. Don’t you dare die until I can give you the world, don’t you dare die, don’t you dare die –”

He thinks that he’s made it worse when Feng Xin begins to writhe anew, fresh blood spilling to the floor.

Feng Xin curses, tears streaming down his face, and Mu Qing wants so desperately to take his pain away, but he can’t, he can only sit by his side as Feng Xin sobs, petals littering the ground around them.

(It’s sickening, the sight of those delicate petals, dripping with crimson.)

And Feng Xin continues to cry, petals getting progressively darker as he convulses, “Make it stop,” he begs, and Mu Qing feels as if his heart is tearing at the seams, he can’t watch this –

Mu Qing fits his fingers around Feng Xin’s neck, drawing the last of the petals out, and Feng Xin makes a strangled choking sound, before coughing one last time.

A seed lands on the floor.

It rolls, coming to a stop at the hem of Mu Qing’s robes.

The rage that boils in his gut is a kind of fury that he’s never felt before, white-hot and overwhelming – that seed, that fucking seed caused Feng Xin an eternity of suffering, and Mu Qing wants to return that pain a thousand-fold, even if it might be useless to shatter a seed that feels nothing.

He picks it up and squeezes it in his palm, harder and harder until his fingers threaten to snap under the strain –

(He would have broken his fingers to grind the seed into dust, if Feng Xin didn’t need him so desperately, right then.)

“Mu Qing,” Feng Xin croaks, and Mu Qing hates how painful it sounds.

Mu Qing doesn’t quite remember what he says, just keeps his eyes on Feng Xin’s face, memorizing those features until he can see them on the backs of his eyelids – “How dare you doubt that I love you,” he hears himself sob, Feng Xin staring up at him with something like shock in his expression –

(He’ll shower Feng Xin with his love, kiss him until he can’t remember anything else, hold him until the world falls around them – if that’s what it takes, for the disbelief to leave his face.)

Feng Xin coughs again, and Mu Qing fumbles with his waterskin, bringing it to his lips. Feng Xin barely takes a sip before spitting it out, bloodied water dripping down his chin.

“You need to drink,” he whispers, because he can’t bear to hear Feng Xin’s voice, raspy and taut with pain, “You have to drink something.”

“I can’t,” Feng Xin sobs, and the sound of his voice hurts. “I really can’t.”

He cradles Feng Xin’s head in his fingers, tilting his chin upwards and taking great care to press gentle touches to Feng Xin’s neck. He’s worryingly warm, and Mu Qing tries again, “Drink – you have to drink something, Feng Xin, you have to –”

And again, the water is pushed to the side, Feng Xin looking as he might be sick. “I can’t,” Feng Xin whispers.

Mu Qing doesn’t know what to do.

He pulls Feng Xin a little closer, mind running through all of his options, of how he can get him to drink – he takes a sip of water himself, leaning down and gently pressing his lips to Feng Xin’s –

(Mu Qing has never fantasized about a first kiss.

… that’s a lie.

He’s never thought about the time and place, but he’s always known – it has to be Feng Xin, and it is – but to think his first kiss would be like this, Feng Xin limp against his side, surrounded by bloodied petals, lips tasting of iron –)

In his lap, Feng Xin makes a choked, punched-out noise, lips parting, and Mu Qing needs Feng Xin to drink something so he presses his advantage, not letting up until he feels Feng Xin reluctantly swallow. Feng Xin hisses, flinching from the pain, but then chases his lips, eager for more.

Mu Qing carefully resumes funneling spiritual energy into Feng Xin’s chest, wincing when he feels the deep gouges the flowers have left in his core. 

How could he have been so stupid?

The symptoms were so obvious – blood, labored breathing, the way he had tried to hide it – Feng Xin had slammed the lid over the basin every time Mu Qing had tried to empty it, it must have been filled with flowers and Mu Qing almost didn’t fucking figure it out.

He’d seen the blood, and for a moment he had seen his mother sitting there, and his mind had gone blank with fear. Two of the most important people in his life, and Mu Qing just couldn’t –

Feng Xin’s eyes flutter closed, but his pulse thrums against Mu Qing’s fingers, not quite steady but definitely there.

“Thank you,” he hears.

He knows exactly what’s happened, now. For all of Mu Qing’s reputation of hiding his feelings, Feng Xin did a decent job of it, too.

And it’s because of Feng Xin’s – Feng Xin’s idea of love, of being pure and untainted by any other motives, and this – disease. Feng Xin had seen the flowers, and must have thought that to ask Mu Qing to love him back would be too much, completely ignoring the fact that Mu Qing had been in love with him for centuries, and –

He’s angry.

“We’ll see if you’ll be thanking me when I beat your fucking ass into the ground,” and Mu Qing is angry, because Feng Xin could have died, could have – “How dare you not tell me, how dare you doubt that I –”

“Mu Qing, please,” Feng Xin mumbles, and the plaintive note in that voice forces Mu Qing to falter.

“I love you,” it’s not the first time he’s said it, and it certainly won’t be the last. “I love you, so don’t fucking forget that.” 

Feng Xin’s breaths even out, and his forehead gently knocks against Mu Qing’s collar – he’s asleep, face softening, the creases disappearing from his features, and Mu Qing sits there until his legs are numb, just gazing at Feng Xin’s peaceful expression.

(He’s stupid. He’s so stupid, and there’s no explanation for why his eyes begin to burn when looking at that stupid face, no explanation for why he swipes at the blood on Feng Xin’s chin, no explanation for why Mu Qing presses a kiss to his temple. There’s certainly no explanation for why Mu Qing begins to cry, his shoulders shaking with silent tears, cradling Feng Xin’s body in his trembling hands –

Feng Xin is alive.

Why is he crying, when Feng Xin still breathes?)

His heart leaps with sudden joy, and he presses kiss after kiss to Feng Xin’s forehead, “You’re alive,” he murmurs, “You’re alive, you’re alive –”

It’s a struggle to get to his feet, his legs wobbling from disuse and Feng Xin’s sturdy frame unwieldy to hold, but he manages, carrying Feng Xin like he would a bride. The gods part for him, staring unabashedly at the blood he leaves behind and the unconscious Feng Xin in his arms, and Mu Qing –

“Where is he?!” Pei Ming crashes through the crowd, eyes wild with panic. “He wasn’t there, where –”

Pei Ming looks at him.

“The flowers,” Pei Ming stumbles a couple of steps, eyes frantically roving over the petals littering the floor, “Did he – wait, Xuan Zhen, don’t tell me –”

Come to think of it, Pei Ming had been the one to tell him that Feng Xin was sick. 

“Is he …” Pei Ming looks horrified, at the blood smeared across Mu Qing’s face, the sticky petals at the hem of his robes, “Is he alive?”

“You knew,” Mu Qing feels as though he’s floating outside his body, seeing the situation play out from above, a quiet fury beginning to boil in his chest. “You knew he was dying.”

Pei Ming lurches forwards, putting a hand on Feng Xin’s chest. “There aren’t any flowers left,” he whispers, almost in wonder, “You told him that you –?”

His blood sings with fury.

“You knew.”

“I knew,” Pei Ming agrees, pressing his hands to Feng Xin’s forehead, spiritual energy healing the wounds that Mu Qing didn’t see in his blind panic. “But he asked me not to tell you.”

“But – he was going to die,” Mu Qing whispers, tightening his grip on Feng Xin’s limp form, “He was going to die, how could you not tell me?”

Pei Ming swallows. “I did,” Pei Ming murmurs, meeting his gaze, “He didn’t want me to say anything, but I – I told you that he was sick, didn’t I? And I thought you would figure it out, because the petals – you remember, the petals from the North? And the bloody cough?”

The pieces were there, how could he not –

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Pei Ming says quietly, taking a step back. “He just. He didn’t think – well.” He takes another step back, bowing his head slightly. “I’ll leave him to you, then, Xuan Zhen.”

“Let me punch you,” Mu Qing mumbles. “This is all your fault, you know, your stupid disease, so let me punch you, after.”

And Pei Ming just chuckles, a relieved sound. “Of course.”

Mu Qing bites his lip, tears threatening to fall from the strange kindness Pei Ming has shown him. “Thank you,” he whispers, just once, and then leaves them all behind, heading straight for Feng Xin’s palace, before thinking better of it – he’s done with that place, where flower petals are scattered around the steps.

“Treat him well,” Pei Ming calls after him. “He would have died to spare your feelings, that devotion is rare to come by.”

(He remembers now, the legend of the disease – Pei Ming pulled the flowers from his own lungs, plunging a hand straight into his chest and throwing the mangled remains of petals at Shi Wudu’s feet, and the Water Master had simply turned away. The seeds had fallen to the dirt, blooming into the most beautiful garden in the entirety of the lands, and he’s sure that Pei Ming had cried, heavy rain drenching the North for eight days and eight nights –

It’s no wonder why Pei Ming cares so much, unwilling to see the same tragedy play out, and Mu Qing softens, just slightly.)

“I will,” Mu Qing says, and it’s a quiet promise.

⋆-⋆-⋆

Mu Qing stays as long as he can, and makes the rest of his trips as short as he can. He returns to Feng Xin’s bedside once his patrols end, shoving past junior officials and gods alike, until nobody dares stand in the road leading to Xuan Zhen’s palace lest they get blown away.

It’s frustrating, how long he has to wait, but Feng Xin is so fucking dumb and the damage was almost too much to reverse.

So he waits patiently – so, so patiently – he reads stories at his bedside, fills out his paperwork on the nightstand, and stares at Feng Xin’s sleeping face when he finishes. The sunlight falls over the pillow, setting his hair alight with fire, almost glowing in the light, and Mu Qing can’t stop himself from melting. This, to wake up to this – is it possible to ascend again?

From what he’s heard, the petals are slowly beginning to disappear from the Southeast.

… not that he would know, because he’s spent the last week by Feng Xin’s side.

(But good. Mu Qing has had enough flowers to last a lifetime.)

⋆-⋆-⋆

Feng Xin wakes up fifteen days after he first fell unconscious.

Mu Qing brings him a bowl of soup, setting it on the bedside table, and underneath the covers, Feng Xin shifts.

“Hey,” Mu Qing says, heart beginning to rise to his throat, “Feng Xin, are you – are you awake?”

A quiet groan.

“Mu Qing,” and Feng Xin’s eyes flutter open, blinking slowly against the setting sun’s amber glow, “Mu Qing, where ..?”

He looks so beautiful, his eyes still that brilliant gold despite everything that’s happened, bangs sweeping gently across his forehead, his parted lips so full and tempting – it would take a greater god, to sit and ask Feng Xin how he’s feeling instead of kissing him like a starved man – (and Mu Qing has never claimed to be great.)

So naturally he lunges forwards, fitting their lips together, hands fisting in Feng Xin’s collar and pulling.

“Mu Qi – mmph!” Feng Xin flails a little, hands automatically coming up to hold onto Mu Qing’s shoulders, eyes wide with shock. 

The sunlight slips through the window, and Mu Qing isn’t one to wax poetry about anything but it wreathes Feng Xin in a hazy glow of warmth, as if the natural aura of a god isn’t enough to show the radiance of Feng Xin’s otherworldly beauty – the stars themselves must be jealous, of the constellations in Feng Xin’s eyes, of the constellations of barely-there freckles dusting over his cheekbones that will return in the summer when Feng Xin darkens under the heat of the sun –

– and the muted gentleness in that touch, the light weight on Mu Qing’s shoulders as if Feng Xin is afraid to touch him. What warm hands, Mu Qing thinks, what tender warmth there is in this hold, Feng Xin’s infinite kindness apparent in the way he cups Mu Qing’s back –

(How could he think that Mu Qing wouldn’t have fallen in love with him?)

Feng Xin pulls away, flushed and panting just slightly, and asks, “Mu Qing?”

Ah, right.

“I love you,” Mu Qing says seriously. 

And maybe, if this were any other time, Mu Qing would be embarrassed by the words. If they were anywhere else, anytime other than this, Mu Qing would be a furious red and stumbling over himself to get the words out, but – Mu Qing has spent the last two weeks staring at Feng Xin’s unconscious face.

He’s practiced the words, the half-formed thoughts that have always been at the back of his mind and molded them into sentences, whispered them over and over to himself for this very moment.

But first – “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

(Because he needs to know, needs to hear it from Feng Xin’s own lips, needs to hear for himself if Feng Xin really is that fucking stupid.)

And Feng Xin always surprises him, with his blunt fucking stupidity. Feng Xin says – “I didn’t want to force you to love me back.”

For a moment, he feels nothing.

The next, he can’t contain the anger in his chest, raging fury and fear mixing together to make a tangled mess of emotions in his ribcage, pulsing in time with his heartbeat that suddenly thunders in his ears – 

“Don’t fucking doubt me,” Mu Qing hisses, praying that the tears at the corners of his eyes won’t fall. “Don’t you dare fucking doubt me, Feng Xin, I have loved you with the entirety of my heart, and then some – I have loved you, I have loved you for years, for decades, for fucking centuries, and for you to throw that all away –”

Feng Xin, propped up by the headboard, looks as if he’s been struck.

“I love you,” Mu Qing repeats, and he buries his face into Feng Xin’s shoulder. “I’ve loved you for so long that I don’t know what not loving you feels like.”

“Oh,” and Feng Xin’s breath stutters, his face open with shock in a way that Mu Qing hasn’t seen before. “You have?”

What a stupid question.

“I would love you for the rest of my life, if you would have me,” Mu Qing wipes at his eyes, voice quiet. “I would never leave your side again, if you wanted it. Anything you ask of me, I would give, because I’ve been in love with you for so long it feels like forever.”

Feng Xin visibly swallows.

“So you do,” he says dumbly, as if unsure of what to say back. “Well – I – I –”

Mu Qing continues to talk, unable to stop – “Last winter, I wanted you to live with me, because it’s so – so cold in the Southeast, and I wanted you to come to my place, where it’s warmer but you didn’t – you didn’t understand and – you d-don’t know how it felt, to see you coughing up b-blood –”

To his horror, he’s beginning to cry.

“And my mother died like that, too,” Mu Qing tries to speak normally, but his voice keeps breaking on the words. “I lost her, but I could have lost you too – and that blanket was c-covering her when she died, and I was so worried y-you would have followed –”

“Mu Qing, you –”

“I love you,” Mu Qing hiccups, pressing his fingers to Feng Xin’s jaw and letting the tears fall to the bed. “I love you, I love you, I love you, and I’ll say it until you fucking get it, that I love you.”

A silence.

To be bold, he thinks, is much easier now that he knows just how fragile a god can be. Feng Xin has survived countless battles, has survived wars and the falls of kingdoms, and yet he almost died from something so simple as a flowering seed. Fragile, and Mu Qing has never thought of fragile to describe Feng Xin, but for a moment, just a single moment, when Feng Xin was breaking into pieces, falling apart in his arms – I want to protect him, he had thought, and stunned even himself with how much he meant it.

Which is ridiculous. Feng Xin can take care of himself, but Mu Qing still wants, sometimes, to hold Feng Xin close until he can feel the steady pulse of his heartbeat against his tips of his fingers. Wants, sometimes, to make sure that Feng Xin is alive, head resting against his shoulder, even if it seems a bit strange.

“Mu Qing,” and Feng Xin’s voice hitches, shaking hands pressing against his own. “Mu Qing, I’m sorry, I just didn’t – I didn’t want you to have to stay if you didn’t want to.”

“Why do you always think the worst of me?” Mu Qing tightens his grip on Feng Xin’s jaw, staring into eyes of honey, “I stay because I want to, I stay because I’ve fallen in love with you and your stupid face – I stay because I love you, all of you.”

Feng Xin inhales sharply, eyes beginning to water, and Mu Qing leans forwards to kiss those tears away.

“Mu Qing,” Feng Xin whispers, “You love me.”

“I do,” because he does.

“You love me,” Feng Xin says again, and there’s a shaky smile rising to his lips. “That’s – that’s embarrassing for you.”

Mu Qing can’t hold back the laughter, and the swell of absolute joy that rises to his throat surprises him with its intensity, his heart unbearably full – “Feng Xin,” he half-laughs, half-sobs, “I love you,” and Feng Xin is smiling too, beautiful, beautiful, “I’m in love with you, Feng Xin.”

“You’re here,” Feng Xin’s beam lights up the entire room, and the sun pales in comparison to that smile, Feng Xin almost blinding to look at directly. 

“I’m here,” Mu Qing agrees, his voice going impossibly soft, “And I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“You’ll stay with me?”

The idea of leaving, of leaving Feng Xin alone is fucking ridiculous, and yet Feng Xin still says this like a question, as if Feng Xin truly believes that Mu Qing could abandon him one day.

“Forever and always,” and he means those words more than he’s ever meant anything else, and it feels a bit intoxicating, the rush of I would follow you to the ends of this world, if it meant staying by your side.  

Feng Xin clutches at Mu Qing’s hands, still smiling helplessly. “You’re going to stay.” His voice quivers, as if this is something he’s never had before. “You’re really going to stay,” he says again, and his grip tightens, hesitating just slightly before asking, “Mu Qing, it’s not just because of the flowers, right –?”

And the audacity.

Mu Qing has poured out his heart to this god, and he still doubts – he still doubts Mu Qing’s devotion.

Maybe his devotion isn’t so obvious, compared to Feng Xin’s overwhelming loyalty, but it’s still there. Mu Qing has stayed by this god’s side for the last eight centuries, fighting by his right – always his right, Feng Xin’s right side always unprotected without him to fill the gap – no matter the odds against them, and Mu Qing would stay for eight centuries more, if Feng Xin would just let him.

(It feels a bit strange, to be the one reaching out for once. Mu Qing wonders when he stopped trying. Probably when he had left, the first time, rice thrown in his face – he had vowed to himself, never again, never let them close again, so the hurt won’t be quite as painful the second time around, and yet.)

There are so many things he could say to that. He could scream, how do you still doubt me, he could cry, I thought you knew, I thought you knew I would never leave –

In the end, he simply intertwines their fingers, holding their joined hands up to the dying rays of sunset, hoping the gesture will say what he means. Even then, he has to say something, and he gives Feng Xin’s hand a quick squeeze.

“I love you,” Mu Qing says quietly. “I will not leave.”

The doubt washing away from Feng Xin’s face is a sight to behold, the last of the dark clouds vanishing from those handsome features, replaced by nothing but pure joy.

(Beautiful.)

Feng Xin laughs, loud and bright, a sound Mu Qing has missed for the last couple of seasons, those golden eyes crinkling up at the corners, and suddenly, so suddenly, he’s struck with the urge to steal the sound for himself. He presses a kiss to each of Feng Xin’s fingertips, silently marveling at – all of this. Is it possible, to be this happy?

“You belong by my side,” Mu Qing murmurs, in between delicate kisses, “You, Feng Xin, and nobody else.”

“Your one and only,” Feng Xin doesn’t seem to be able to stop smiling. “I’m in love with you too, you know.”

That smile might be infectious, Mu Qing thinks, a smile of his own beginning to rise to his lips. “So you are,” he can’t keep the note of fondness out of his voice. 

He never wants to leave.

He doesn’t have to leave, he realizes. 

All those seasons ago, sitting in the warmth of Feng Xin’s fireplace, amber eyes slowly blinking at him, a voice like smoke asking, “Was there a reason you stopped by?” and only now does he have the bravery to finally ask what he’s wanted to ask, all the way from back then –

“Come live with me in the Southwest, where the winters aren’t quite so cold.”

Feng Xin looks startled, tilting his head as he obviously begins to remember, the last winter they shared – 

– and he smiles.

“Alright.”