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Nan Feng’s cheeks are red and his eyes black like tinted glass. Prayers to no god in particular spill from his lips, his voice a thin, enamoured string. His hair is spread like a halo around his face. He’s gripping his partner’s thighs like a rope.
General Xuan Zhen is riding him in earnest, his own face a similar shade of red spreading to his chest. Dark purple bruises on his thighs and his neck. He’s chasing both his pleasure and utter exhaustion for both.
His eyes are fixed on Nan Feng’s, but he’s seeing – wants to see – a different man. Taller, with broader shoulders, calloused hands, and gentle hazel eyes. How miserable and infuriating that he’s not there.
“Nan Feng”.
“Yes, General?”.
“Open your mouth and show me your tongue”.
Nan Feng obeys promptly. General Xuan Zhen spits.
Mu Qing hates Feng Xin. It’s a visceral thing, a pure feeling born out of instinct.
He hates how Feng Xin talks to him, with disdain and unwarranted mistrust, but not only.
Mu Qing hates how Feng Xin is so demure with Dianxia, how understanding and open he is with his deputies. He hates when he finds himself thinking, daydreaming, about Feng Xin’s hands on his skin, and about burying his own fingers in Feng Xin’s hair. He hates the poems and the prayers about Feng Xin’s masculinity, and the mere idea that someone, anyone, might have seen it, touched it, felt it.
Gods don’t need to sleep, and don’t need to dream. But Mu Qing would like nothing more than sleep for a thousand year and, upon waking up, harbouring nothing but indifference towards his rival. That would be more dignified, more respectable, than the Dedalus his mind guides him to sometimes.
Mu Qing truly is a miserable god.
In Nan Feng there’s a beauty, a charm comparable with Feng Xin’s. Handsome as he is, he acts as if he’s unaware of it. He’s straightforward and honest, in a way that might bring him trouble if he doesn’t learn how to use it wisely. His eyes are bright, and speak for him when he keeps his mouth shut.
Mu Qing doesn’t know how he managed to share an inn with Nan Feng during a mission in the mortal realm. The two martial gods of the south are supposed to investigate a series of cattle disappearances in some villages on the border between east and west. Feng Xin had left Nan Feng with Mu Qing, to guide him in the most isolated areas of the southeastern counterpart. As if General Nan Yang himself was too good to show Mu Qing around or help him if needed.
“General, do you want to drink?”, the boy asks, already offering him a jar of herbal wine.
“Water”. Mu Qing has discarded his former cultivation path in the last two centuries, finding it a ballast, a reminder of a worse time – something that has given him strength but ultimately kept him in a line of irrational fear. That being said, Mu Qing tried alcohol and discovered he didn’t like it as much as he had anticipated (aside from wanting to keep his wits to himself).
Nan Feng shrugs and obeys, reaching for the jar of water instead.
The water is fresh down Mu Qing’s throat. During the evening, discussing the itinerary of their search, Nan Feng’s eyes become even brighter. His voice smiles when he talks with the General.
They have a bedroom for the two of them. The innkeeper eyes Nan Feng as if he’s a kept boy – understandable, since Mu Qing is the one paying for both.
Once in the room, Mu Qing pins Nan Feng on the door and kisses him as if he wants to hurt him, to eat him up. He doesn’t know what else to do.
Nan Feng looks at him with the most devotion he’s ever seen.
Mu Qing is a gracious host, so he always cleans both himself and Nan Feng up when the deputy is summoned to the General’s quarters, before sending him back home.
Sometimes he lets Nan Feng take him, other times it’s the contrary. Nevertheless, during the act, he always treats him like he’d want to treat Feng Xin, and after that he treats him like a xianggong. There’s nothing honourable about what he does, and Mu Qing tries not to think about how nauseous that makes him feel.
Nan Feng always leaves when prompted to do so. Tonight, Mu Qing said and did nothing.
He’s laying down on the sheets, wearing his sleep robe. Nan Feng sits by him cross-legged, in the middle of the bed.
Mu Qing is staring at a point behind Nan Feng’s head. The brazier and the curtains paint interesting looking shadows on the walls. He’s positive Nan Feng is looking at him, and shudders at the thought of his eyes being so fascinated.
He feels Nan Feng’s hand, his long and warm fingers, on his ankle.
“Can I?”
“You already started”.
The boy strokes his calf, marvelling in the soft feel of his sparse hair against his palm. Mu Qing’s skin is soft and fragrant even after tumbling in the sheets. He leans forward to drop a kiss to Mu Qing’s knee.
The other kicks him lightly on a shin, snorting.
Mu Qing has never been shortsighted or stupid. That being said, he doesn’t know what to do with Nan Feng.
Nan Feng does as Mu Qing asks, with a very different enthusiasm than the one he has in battle, or while sparring. There’s a reckless abandon in Nan Feng that makes him feel boundlessly desired, a pleasant bonfire sparked in the middle of his belly.
When Mu Qing thinks about Nan Feng, he has no thoughts. He’s a praiseworthy young man with a bright future ahead of himself, the same anodyne feeling he might harbour for any child; a lukewarm lamp whose temperature doesn’t match.
Ah, how queasy it makes him feel, to hold Nan Feng against his chest pretending his face, his eyes, the lips kissing along his torso are a different man’s.
He can’t wait for Nan Feng to grow tired of him, to move on with another person who can hold for him the same bright affection – and yet, he longs for the ecstasy to last forever.