Work Text:
Flowers were always Xie Lian’s thing, even before he ascended.
As the Crown Prince, it was expected. Flowers in the palace rooms and carriages so the air would smell nice. Flowers in the streets so they would look nice. Flowers embroidered on his robes and gilded into his hairpieces, flowers painted on scrolls and silk fans and screens so that even in winter he’d never have to face the barren ground.
Flowers were his thing. Feng Xin accepted it, even if a part of him knew it was ridiculous to say that every wildflower and every garden was somehow the prince’s to claim. It just made sense—and maybe that was why he was so full of indignation at the sight in front of him on that particular day.
Even as Xie Lian’s bodyguard, he wasn’t allowed within the precinct of Taicang’s cultivators, so his evenings were spent lingering outside the gate as he waited for a glimpse of white robes up the path. Xie Lian and Mu Qing were always the last two to leave, training until they were forcibly sent home; even then, Feng Xin had to put up with them still rehearsing the latest moves as they walked back to the palace.
The sun was barely over the horizon, leaving the moon to hang in a violet sky above a street strewn with petals from the flowering trees. Xie Lian was laughing, his voice a little too loud the way it always was when he was excited. Beside him, Mu Qing wasn’t even smiling, allergic as ever to fun.
Feng Xin scowled as he leaned against the gatepost with his arms crossed, watching as Mu Qing raised a hand to shake a few loose petals out of his hair. The black rippled like silk, contrasting the paleness of his skin and robes…
Hmph. Xie Lian always said he was drawn to Mu Qing’s talent, but the older and taller they got and the broader Mu Qing’s shoulders grew with his training, the more Feng Xin wondered if it was something else that Xie Lian saw in him. The thought brought a familiar tightness into his throat, and he reluctantly pulled his gaze away as his companions approached.
“You’re out later and later each night,” he accused, swirling his tongue around the inside of his mouth. There was a bitter taste in there, like weeds. Must have been something wrong with the tea he drank earlier.
“That’s because there’s more and more to practice,” Xie Lian explained, twirling his sword between his fingers with a flourish that looked more flashy than practical. “Don’t be so moody. I thought you liked having the day to yourself.”
Only until he ran out of things to do; he was never good at entertaining himself. Still scowling, Feng Xin stole another glance towards Mu Qing, but he quickly tore his gaze away when he found that flintlike obsidian peering back at him.
“Hm.” Mu Qing’s voice was soft enough that Feng Xin almost thought he imagined it.
Xie Lian was better at reading his bizarre mannerisms than Feng Xin, though. “Is something the matter, Mu Qing?”
Mu Qing chewed on his lower lip before answering. When he did, his words weren’t directed at Xie Lian, though he seemed to be straining to keep a polite tone around him nonetheless. “You’re disgusted by the sight of me now?”
“What?!” That brought Feng Xin’s head snapping around towards him again, pulse quickening at the unexpected address. Mu Qing couldn’t be further from the truth with that statement, but he doubted the truth would make Mu Qing act any more normal. “I’m not even looking at you, much less thinking about you, and there you go making accusations. Just keep your mouth shut next time.”
“I was only asking for clarification.” Mu Qing blinked, then shook his head, clearly having found the clarification he was looking for.
Another petal tumbled from his ponytail at the motion. Feng Xin’s fingers dug into the palms of his hands as he watched it spiral to the paved street.
“I’m going to give you two choices,” Xie Lian interrupted. “You can trade idioms all the way home, or you can tell me what we should eat tonight.”
Neither option sounded appealing; Feng Xin hadn’t had an appetite all day, and whatever trace of it might’ve surfaced by now had been stamped out by Mu Qing’s sourness. He swallowed down a cough to try and diffuse the tightness in his chest, and muttered “idioms.”
At the same time, Mu Qing was asking “isn’t it better left to the kitchen staff to decide?” and the glare that passed between them could’ve lit even the stone and plaster walls around them on fire.
-
It was that night that the first petal fell from Feng Xin’s mouth, something pale and small and bruised. It must have blown into his mouth when they were walking home; no wonder he’d been coughing. He brushed it out of the palm of his hand with a flick of his finger, forgetting about it for the time being.
-
The nice thing about being Nan Feng, as Feng Xin discovered, was that the clone didn’t share his affliction, and that made it easier to hide.
Still, when Nan Feng left Xie Lian’s side under the pretense of reporting to his General, Feng Xin finally gave in to the cough that had been building in his chest. The new palace was adding to his sense of unease; nothing was quite where he remembered it. Furniture and artwork pitched in unfamiliar places around the edges of his vision as he gripped the edge of a writing desk, doubled over as the familiar petals spilled out from his mouth.
On the good days, it was the delicate blossoms from the cherry trees, which tore on his tongue when he spat them out. On the bad days, though, it was lilies, or it was winding ivy. The wider petals caught in his throat, and the vines seemed to tug on his lungs, as if their goal was to pull them up and out of his ribcage entirely.
Today was a bad day.
Feng Xin spat out a lingering leaf, swearing under his breath before he coughed one more time for good measure. “... fuck.”
No one was around to hear it, luckily, or to see the mess on top of the desk. Someone was going to have to clean it, though; if he found an empty vase, he could probably pretend that he’d upended it with a clumsy gesture. He brought the back of his hand up to his mouth and wiped across his lip, then glanced down; no blood. That helped.
What didn’t help was the way his chest felt no looser than it did before. Coughing never helped. After all these years, he knew that.
He was running out of remedies to soothe it, though.
At first, it was easy. His position in the Upper Court gave him access to Ling Wen’s libraries, not that he liked having to look for anything in there; it gave him access to charms, weapons, amulets, potions, incantations, herbs. Without them, he doubted he would have survived this long—but none of them were infinite.
The flowers were still growing.
Not just growing, Feng Xin silently corrected himself. They were killing him. No point lying to himself about it.
At least he’d lived long enough to see Xie Lian again. It wasn’t much, but it was one wish granted, and Feng Xin only had two wishes. The other… well, now he had his confirmation that it was less likely to happen than seeing Xie Lian again. He wouldn’t die fulfilled, but he would die correct, which counted for something in this stupid incessant game with Mu Qing.
Speaking of which.
—I’m in your palace. Mu Qing’s voice forced its way into their private communication array. Feng Xin still hadn’t gotten around to changing the password. No one came to greet me. Is this what passes for courtesy in the Palace of Nan Yang?
—Shut the fuck up, Feng Xin shot back, hastily brushing his hand over the scattered petals to gather them into a pile. He’d hide them under a book for now, in case Mu Qing found him in here. Where are you?
—I can’t tell what this room is. Who designed this place? It’s neither tasteful nor logical.
—You’re neither tasteful nor logical.
—Oh, very funny. You should be a god of comedy.
On the far side of the room, the door groaned as someone wrenched it open. Mu Qing’s delicate face made him easy to underestimate, but he’d never lacked for strength even when they were younger; he swung his saber like it weighed nothing, and swung his fists with the full knowledge that things would break when he did so. Bones. Buildings. Hearts.
Feng Xin’s spine stiffened as he stood up, and his lungs squeezed painfully under the weight of seeing Mu Qing in his palace. Here to see him, yes, but why cling to any hope that Mu Qing yearned similarly? He was proud of the way his celibacy elevated him away from lowly mortal desires, and he would never give up his chance of feeling superior for something as trite as love.
Unless, of course—
“Just like old times, wasn’t it? The dog finally reunited with its master.” A gleam sparkled in Mu Qing’s dark eyes as he drew to a halt in front of Feng Xin.
“Then what does that make you?” Feng Xin folded his arms in front of his chest, an extra layer of protection in front of his armored chestplate. “You were there too, as I recall.”
“I don’t know what you mean. That was my deputy, Fu Yao.”
Feng Xin glared. They’d made the plan together, though only after arguing about it extensively first. Honestly, it wasn’t even a bad plan, and of course he was grateful now that he knew the flowers wouldn’t follow him as long as he appeared as Nan Feng, but it was still a lie that they’d have to uphold.
Feng Xin was never good at lying.
Mu Qing smirked at his own joke, but then his gaze slid past Feng Xin, alighting on the writing desk and the stack of books and scrolls as if he’d find incriminating evidence there. And unfortunately for Feng Xin, his efforts to clean up hadn’t been thorough enough.
“What’s this?” Mu Qing reached out, pale fingers stretching from under his sleeve as they reached for the edge of a white lily flower. “... don’t tell me this was supposed to be for him. ”
A stabbing feeling lanced through Feng Xin’s chest as he spoke. “It’s nothing. Just… decorations for the new palace.”
Not an illness. Mu Qing couldn’t know about that. He’d latch onto that weakness like a cat on wounded prey. Or worse, he’d find out what was causing them, the same way Feng Xin had pieced it together hundreds of years ago when the symptoms grew too painful to ignore.
For a love unreturned, a thousand choking blossoms. Each stem an unspoken confession, each petal a tenfold reminder that it wasn’t reciprocated.
“You’re a bad liar,” Mu Qing accused. If Feng Xin didn’t know him better, he would have said that there was a sharpness underlying his words, worse than just the insult on the surface.
“Why are you here?” Feng Xin deflected, shifting his weight to block the rest of the desk before Mu Qing could uncover the rest of the flowers.
“To strategize, mostly,” Mu Qing answered. He seemed to have gotten the message, retreating a few steps away with his hands tucked behind his back. “If we’re going to keep up with this ruse, then we should make sure our stories are consistent, or he’s going to get suspicious. You’re under no obligation to join me, if you’d prefer to face him like this…”
Feng Xin’s stomach churned.
No. He shouldn’t face Xie Lian. Not only for the reasons that Mu Qing referred to, but also for the same reason he really wanted Mu Qing to leave his palace right now.
The disease was his problem. Not Mu Qing’s, not Xie Lian’s. He’d do whatever he needed to do to keep it concealed from them, even if it meant he could only see them in the form of his deputy clone from now on.
Sometimes, dishonesty really was better.
-
It was only after the ordeal in Banyue Pass and after Xie Lian’s messy mission into the Ghost City that Feng Xin found the time to look for solutions.
His first thought was that he could go to Ling Wen. Searching through her library collections, pretending that the information he found was irrelevant to his casework, served him well enough in the past, but she had a better knowledge of where to find certain information. She had some kind of system, and if he explained what he was looking for, she could point him to the right section of shelving.
But if he did that, how long before someone else found out? It wasn’t that Ling Wen was a loose-lipped gossip, but she might think it was a matter of practicality to mention it to the doctors amongst the civil gods—or worse, to Jun Wu.
Feng Xin considered that he could go directly to Jun Wu, and immediately dismissed the idea. The Martial Emperor was relying on him to safeguard the south. At best, admitting that the life was slowly being choked out of him would be destabilizing. And at worst…
What happened to gods who couldn’t defend their territory? Nothing good.
That decided it, though. He’d already taken what he could from Heaven. If he was going to find something to temporarily stop the pain, to slow the advance of the weeds through his chest and throat, then he’d need to look in one of two places. The mortal realm had its share of treasures and its share of knowledge, though it would take considerable time and effort to narrow down what he was looking for.
There was another place he could try. A place where he could almost certainly find a remedy, though it would doubtless come with a strange side effect, or carry a price that he wasn’t willing to pay. A place that would demand more lies from him if he had any hope of making his way there. Feng Xin had never had a reason to venture into the Ghost City, but he’d heard the stories and seen the aftermath of others’ visits.
Alone in his palace, he allowed himself a sigh. One more lie, one more secret… eight hundred years, and now he was willing to bear it just for a little more time.
A little more time to repair what he’d broken with Xie Lian, and then he could feel less guilty about leaving him when the flowers finally won.
It wouldn’t do much to help Mu Qing, but there was no helping that.
-
The problem with the remedies he took—no matter what form, whether they were amulets or charms or tinctures or spells or herbs—was that the flowers never vanished entirely. He imagined it was like winter, when the leaves and blossoms withered and fell away, but the plants lay dormant in the earth with the roots planted deep beneath the permafrost. Sometimes, a few withered blossoms would still force their way up, though the tightness in his chest would remain.
Spring always followed winter.
Outside, spring came with pink blossoms and pale green buds, and while Feng Xin swallowed down his own suffering, Xie Lian was suffering his own pains. The disappointment was written in his face every time Feng Xin went to see him in his shelter in the remains of Taicang, which would have hurt more if he didn’t know exactly what it felt like to yearn for something that wasn’t coming. At least he found some petty compensation in the fact that when he went together with Mu Qing, there was no difference in Xie Lian’s reaction.
Not that it seemed to deter Mu Qing, who was livelier than ever now that the animosity from all those years ago had cleared up between them.
“You could be using this time to learn a new skill,” Mu Qing suggested, leaning against the doorframe of Xie Lian’s cottage while Xie Lian made another pass around the floor with his brush broom. “Sewing, for instance. Then I won’t have to keep repairing your things for you.”
As if he didn’t enjoy it, secretly; Feng Xin rolled his eyes from his vantage point in the corner of the room.
“It’s alright,” Xie Lian replied, in that thin and hollow tone he used these days. “I wouldn’t do as good of a job as you, for one thing, and for the other… you’d have to think of a new excuse to visit.”
Mu Qing hesitated, as if unsure of whether he should preen over the compliment or scowl over being read so easily. Either way, though, the easy familiarity must have felt good—
Something in Feng Xin’s chest seized, and he realized too late what it was.
He raised a hand to cover his mouth, attempting to swallow down the cough, but it was too late. He didn’t even have time to push past Mu Qing and out to the abandoned paths of Taicang’s hill before the petals were erupting from his throat.
Small petals today. Cherry blossoms to match Taicang. Feng Xin choked again, lips forced open by the outpouring of petals streaming through his fingers.
Around him, Xie Lian and Mu Qing had both gone quiet. When he opened his eyes and blinked away the involuntary tears, they both stared with wide, dark eyes, and Feng Xin followed their gazes to the spray of pink trailing from his hand to the cottage floor.
“I…”
Would they believe that a gust of wind had made him swallow them on his way in? Or that he’d eaten them out of curiosity? They might laugh, but that would be easier to bear than having to admit the truth.
“What is this, Feng Xin?” A hint of sharpness entered Xie Lian’s voice.
“Nothing.” Feng Xin brushed away a petal that stuck to the corner of his lip, and his heart stammered uncomfortably. “I have a treatment for it. Don’t worry about it.”
It must have been the wrong thing to say, because Xie Lian set his broom aside and moved to block Feng Xin’s escape route. His hands brushed over Feng Xin’s shoulders, smoothing out the front of his robe. “Is it some kind of curse? An illness?”
Both, from what Feng Xin had gathered over the years. He tried to take a step back, away from Xie Lian’s fretting hands, and threw a glance towards Mu Qing just in time to see him roll his eyes.
Right. Of course he’d be jealous of the attention from Xie Lian.
Feng Xin batted Xie Lian’s hands away, ducking to the side to evade him. “It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s just flowers. If you’ll excuse me…”
His shoulder hit Mu Qing’s on his way out, and he couldn’t be certain that Mu Qing hadn’t moved on purpose to try and block him. Even from that touch, however, he felt a spreading warmth stretching towards his lungs, opening his airways just enough that he didn’t have to strain to make an array to return to the Upper Court.
The array took him back to his palace, and he made it a few steps into the entrance hall before collapsing to his knees.
Damn it. They weren’t supposed to know.
He was going to let it kill him before either of them found out. Or better yet, it would flare up at an inopportune moment during some fight, and while he coughed and choked, some ghost would finish the job. No one would be any wiser, and if the flowers bloomed from his divine corpse, then at least someone might find some enjoyment from it in the end.
His chest seized up again, and Feng Xin doubled over, feeling the rougher edges of the lily petals this time. The force of this cough made his head throb, and he let himself sink forward onto the palace floor, spots dancing in front of his vision.
Lying like that, it was easy to miss the shimmer in the air as another’s array opened into the palace precinct. Technically, other gods shouldn’t have been able to let themselves in so directly—most had the decorum not to try, though, so Feng Xin had no idea whether or not his protective wards worked.
The sound of footsteps sent a curl of anger to the pit of his stomach, not least because he didn’t need to look up to recognize that cadence.
“Get up,” Mu Qing instructed. The words weren’t gentle, but they weren’t his usual yelling, so he might as well have whispered them.
Feng Xin’s hands curled against the stone beneath him, but he lifted his head, slowly dragging himself to a sitting position. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
“And you shouldn’t be lying to your friends.” Mu Qing’s eyes flashed. “Did you think you could hide it forever?”
“I was going to try,” Feng Xin admitted. “It took you this long to notice, didn’t it?”
A bit of sunlight forced its way into the hall through the traceries on the windows; where the beams hit Mu Qing’s dark hair, it glowed with a soft brown hue, not at all like the usual cold black. Mu Qing’s softer side always revealed itself quietly; it was there beneath his cruel marks and dismissive attitude, but it wasn’t always obvious.
“No,” Mu Qing answered after a moment. “You’ve been hiding it ever since he ascended again. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
Feng Xin couldn’t help it—he laughed. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know they’re for him,” Mu Qing added, a flush starting to show across his cheekbones.
What a horrible, ironic thing to say. Mu Qing was the one yearning for scraps of Xie Lian’s attention, and now he had the audacity to pin Feng Xin’s illness on Xie Lian too.
“You don’t know anything,” Feng Xin repeated as he pushed himself to his feet. “It doesn’t matter who they’re for, and I don’t want your help with it anyway, so get out.”
Mu Qing hesitated. “Feng Xin…”
Feng Xin’s chest was tightening again. The flowers tended to get worse when Mu Qing was nearby, and worse yet when emotions ran high. “Get out. I’m not asking again.”
-
It wasn’t only that Feng Xin’s friends hadn’t figured it out over the years, although they knew now thanks to his inability to control it in front of them. Perhaps more importantly, his followers never figured it out either, and he intended to keep it that way—he figured their prayers were one of the few things that had prevented him from choking to death in his sleep hundreds of years ago.
So the prayers continued. If anything, with Jun Wu and Shi Wudu and Shi Qingxuan out of the picture, the workload had increased recently, even with Xie Lian helping pick up some of the slack they left behind.
Mu Qing accompanying Feng Xin on his missions wasn’t unusual, so Feng Xin didn’t bother protesting this time. Their territory overlapped, after all, something that they’d stopped using as an excuse after it became clear that the only way they’d ever have help was when they gave it to each other.
Feng Xin had also offered Xie Lian the chance to come with them.
“It’ll be good for you to get out,” he’d said, watching Xie Lian’s gaze flicker immediately towards the door.
“It’s alright,” Xie Lian answered, his voice distant in an indication that his mind was focused elsewhere. “I’ll wait here, in case…”
In case his ghost lover came back. Feng Xin would’ve punched Hua Cheng in the jaw if he chose to come back during the one time that Xie Lian actually left Taicang, but the offer didn’t sway Xie Lian.
Mu Qing had just narrowed his eyes, as if he was thinking that it was good for Feng Xin to get out, too. Two sick dogs under his care. It was a miracle that he wasn’t gloating over it more.
Normally, Feng Xin would’ve found a trip into the mountains a welcome respite from Heaven’s stupid bureaucracy and bickering, never mind that they’d come to kill some devouring beast with too many legs and not enough eyes that waited in the shadow of a cave mouth. Aiming through the curling mist was easy; he could judge by sound as well as sight.
With Mu Qing’s saber slashing through rancid meat and bone, there was no shortage of cries to help him point his bow the right way.
It was funny; one thing they’d never needed to argue about was battle. Mu Qing might’ve disagreed on tactics, but he wouldn’t argue with the most effective way to time their attacks. A distracting arrow, a follow-up slash. Expose a weakness to another arrow, cut again in the weak point.
Fighting with Mu Qing was as easy as breathing. Ironic, considering—
The beast fell into the dust of the cave floor with one final guttural cry ripping from its throat. Mu Qing swerved to avoid its flopping, lifeless leg, giving a sharp flick of his saber to clear the blood and viscera from the metal. His chest was heaving slightly from the exertion of the fight, but barely a hair was out of place, and it was like all the splatters of blood flying around the cavern had missed his immaculate form.
Perfect, as usual.
Feng Xin opened his mouth, still undecided about whether it would be a congratulation or a criticism, but instead he found himself with a familiar itch in the back of his throat. Closing his mouth didn’t help; the first cough was already ripping through his chest. In his mouth, paper petals and wax leaves and the dry powder of pollen, always a sure sign that the blossoms were multiplying.
They fell in a clump, entangled with the dampness of spit, and…
This time with blood. There was barely enough light to recognize the dark droplets for what they were, but the faintest taste of iron on his tongue filled in what his eyes missed.
Feng Xin’s head spun. Not now… not in front of Mu Qing again. Suffering in secret was just about bearable, but in front of the last person who was ever supposed to know about it—he’d rather be pierced by a dozen of his own arrows.
Maybe one through the lungs would let the flowers spill out another way. He could give the bow to Mu Qing right now and ask, if it weren’t for his inability to speak around a mouthful of petals.
He coughed again, only to find Mu Qing’s hand grasping his shoulder to steady him. His hands, on the few occasions that Feng Xin could recall touching them, always seemed to have an inherent coolness, but today they seemed to bring a soothing warmth through the layers of his armor. A balm. A candle in the gloom.
“How long?” he demanded.
The corners of Feng Xin’s eyes stung with saltwater. “How long—do I have left? Or—since it started?”
Mu Qing rolled his eyes, a gesture so ingrained that it had ceased to mean mockery alone. “I don’t care. Just talk to me.” After a pause— “It’s supposed to help.”
So he’d been researching it too. Great. Feng Xin forced in a breath, noting the flutter of blossoms waiting to come up rippling in response like they were outside under a spring breeze.
“Since—before he ascended.” Because he knew the misunderstanding was coming, he didn’t hesitate to clarify. “The first time.”
Mu Qing’s lip curled. A snarl. “I knew it. So they are for him, aren’t they?”
So confident, and so wrong. The stubbornness was attractive sometimes, like when he stood up to the pompous assholes that Feng Xin also loathed. More often than that, it made him want to twist his fingers into the collar of his robes and slam him against the nearest wall.
“No.” It was the only word he could manage before the next cough wracked his body. Tossing his bow to the ground next to their feet, Feng Xin brought up a hand to cover his mouth, letting the petals crumble into his palm.
Mu Qing’s expression darkened. “Don’t lie to me. Who else is there?”
You.
You.
You.
You.
“You—” A residual cough sent an extra petal tumbling from Feng Xin’s mouth. “—don’t need to know. It won’t change anything.”
“Feng Xin.” Mu Qing’s voice was increasing in volume, in urgency. “If it isn’t him, then… then tell me. Tell me who it is.”
“No,” Feng Xin repeated. Around the flowers, his hand curled into a fist, crushing hard enough to send up a fragrance between them. “Just leave me alone. I’ll deal with it. Alone. ”
Mu Qing’s saber went clattering to the ground next to the bow, his other hand clamping down hard enough on Feng Xin’s shoulder to make him jump. “Just tell me who it is!”
Feng Xin didn’t hold back this time, letting his fist slam into Mu Qing’s chest. A few petals forced their way between his fingers, and he pushed harder, letting them fall beneath their boots as he pushed Mu Qing back a step.
“What makes you think you have the right to ask me that? To act like you care? Just because you patched things up with His Highness doesn’t mean I can just forget that you resented me for all those years—”
“ I resented you? ” Mu Qing challenged. His hand moved, fingers locking around Feng Xin’s wrist in an attempt to drag his hand away. “How rich coming from you, when it took you that long to forgive. But maybe you’re right—after all, it was so obvious that you loved him and not me—”
If the flowers weren’t choking the life out of Feng Xin’s lungs, he might have managed a laugh at the irony. Mu Qing talking about love, as if…
“You fucking idiot.” Feng Xin shoved again, and met with resistance like steel. “That’s exactly what I mean. Pretending that you want to help and then mocking me. I told you it wasn’t him. So I guess you’ve fucking figured it out, because you’re fucking right that there’s no one else left except for the three of us, and I sure as fuck don’t love myself enough to make this damn fucking disease—”
All at once, Mu Qing’s will gave way, and both of them stumbled a few steps towards the corpse of the beast before they caught their balance. Mu Qing’s eyes had gone wide, and his nostrils flared as he fought to find words, as if he’d also found something in his throat to choke on.
“You… you mean to say…” His voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper. “That all the time that I hated you for loving him…”
Hated you.
He might as well have run the saber through Feng Xin’s chest, just to be done with it.
“It was never him,” Feng Xin confirmed, wondering how his knees still had the strength to support his body. He could be left here with the beast. General Nan Yang’s last stand…
“I’m going to kill you,” Mu Qing muttered. “I’m really going to do it this time.”
“It’s been eight hundred years,” Feng Xin sighed. He half expected a cough to follow; normally the flowers would have been flooding his mouth by now. Still, admitting it seemed to have taken some of the weight away. He let his hand drop, fingers opening so the crumpled flowers could be free. “At least have the mercy to be quick.”
Mu Qing stared; Feng Xin saw the resolve settle into his eyes, and braced himself for a punch.
What he didn’t expect was for Mu Qing’s hand to move behind his neck and pull him in close as he locked their lips together in an open-mouthed kiss.
For a long moment, Feng Xin forgot how to breathe—forgot how to think of anything except for Mu Qing, the feel of his lips and his hands, the faint ghost of his breath against his cheek. Time and the outside world could have ceased to be real, and he wouldn’t have noticed, wouldn’t have cared. So many thousands of nights spent imagining this, and the real thing wasn’t like any of his fantasies, but better, so much better to be pressed so close as to feel his heartbeat and the unconscious, needy gasp that came with his effort to deepen the kiss.
So many nights feeling the flowers in his chest blooming, winding their way up the column of his throat, only to feel the opposite now—the withering. The petals drying up, crumbling into dust, the dried stalks curling in on themselves. When Feng Xin broke the kiss to gasp for air, it reached something deeper than he had felt since his mortal days.
“Mu Qing…”
Was that it? Were they gone? Just from one kiss…
From one kiss, or from the confession. Maybe they’d still come back. A future briefly played out in Feng Xin’s head where he’d admit he needed help, that the only thing that had ever relieved the agony was this show of affection.
“I’m still going to kill you.” Mu Qing’s next kiss strayed to the corner of Feng Xin’s mouth. “You’d rather die than say you love me? If that’s how it is—”
Feng Xin gave in to the temptation to add a graze of teeth to his responding kiss, pleased at the reaction he got. “You weren’t exactly sharing your feelings, were you? For all I know, you’re just giving me what you think I want…”
Mu Qing’s eyes glittered as he drew back to hold Feng Xin’s gaze. “And why would I do that if I didn’t l…” A wince; Feng Xin clearly wasn’t the only one who struggled to get words out, flowers or no flowers. “...love… you?”
To prolong Feng Xin’s suffering, maybe; Mu Qing always did have a cruel streak in him, right alongside the kind one. Sometimes it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, which had come to the forefront to steer his choices.
“We should get out of here,” Feng Xin suggested, voice quiet.
In front of the corpse of some nameless monster, and in front of the blood and spit of castaway flower petals…
When he looked down, it was to find that the pink cherry blossoms and white lilies and green ivy had also curled up and turned brown, though the blood remained glossy on top of the grit and stone.