Work Text:
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
Cleansing the makeup free from Mu Qing’s skin proves to be far too mindless. Anxiety and frustration gnaw in his chest and he busies his hands near-frantically, rearranging the products on the bathroom counter. He rearranges the order of bottles and tins four times, restlessly seeking something to do with his hands that’s not checking the chat for an answer again and again. He elbows his hairbrush into the toilet and almost resigns himself to leave it there before fishing it out with a grimace and tossing it in the trash. It was his favorite one.
His phone chimes, and he nearly drops that in the toilet too.
still interested? the message reads.
Worrying his lip between his teeth, Mu Qing types out a response with finesse.
Maybe. He pauses, waits for Feng Xin to begin to type, and then types another message faster than Feng Xin can hit send. Depends on what you’re looking for.
The dots bounce, and Mu Qing washes and dries his face with a towel. He keeps a wayward eye on his phone. Feng Xin types slow. All that muscle doesn’t do shit for his ability to type faster than a toddler. Shit, Mu Qing knows infants who can type faster than Feng Xin. He still has time to brush his teeth and toss his shirt into the laundry bin before his phone calls for his attention.
you.
It’s only one word. Mu Qing’s cheeks heat down to his bare chest. How did it take so long to write one word? With a roll of his eyes and a scoff to hide the flush of his skin to his audience of none, he types out the message that paints his white lie red.
Prove it.
A half-hour later, Feng Xin sends a video back.
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
⭑♦ Six Weeks Prior ♦⭑
“He should know better,” Mu Qing speaks into the webcam as he glances at the rush of text in the chat. “But I guess a decade of schooling can’t save the truly stupid.”
He smoothes a line of red eyeliner beneath his eye with the pad of his finger, straightens the lace of his bodice with a roll of his shoulders. It’s his favorite of his newest designs; immaculate, dynamic, and sleek with a traditional contour and a fit that curves to the body’s shape more elegant than water flowing through a carafe. Refined and not too revealing.
“If he wants to destroy his career, that’s on him,” he adds. “It’s none of my business if Pei Xiu wants to partner with a company that’s known for its inhumane practices.”
Messages come and go in silent chirps of vibration from his phone on the duvet.
Mu Qing answers them, those who call him their friend and those who want to use him for their own fame. They’re all the same in the end. In the beginning, he had used others in the same way.
When the stream goes silent, so does his flat. Mu Qing cooks in the solitude of his kitchen, eats with only the company of his phone, and curls into the plush covers of his bed, alone. Scrolling mindlessly, the clock ticks a rhythm that his hand seems to follow. A message pings from Pei Ming.
He almost doesn’t open it, squinting at the time of 3:37 AM and tapping the notification. He wishes he hadn’t opened it at all. It’s just a link, no context, and Mu Qing was stupid enough to open it, apparently.
A fucking dating app. Maybe a hookup app. Mu Qing doesn’t look close enough to find out and he isn’t going to. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, he plugs his phone into the charger and turns his back to it, eventually drifting to sleep at the ripe hour of five in the morning.
As the week hurries along at a pace begging to leave Mu Qing’s exhausted ass in the dust, the dating app becomes a running theme of the ads on all of his devices. He clears his caches, restarts, uninstalls and reinstalls apps and browsers, but the ads remain, like a plague sent from Pei Ming’s incorrigible appetite and dubious tastes. Karma, perhaps, for Mu Qing shit-talking Pei Xiu during his livestream.
On Thursday, he sees Pei Ming in person modeling for one of Mu Qing’s most recent designs. Mu Qing runs measuring tape along the slim waist and broad shoulders when the cut doesn’t fit as intended.
“Have you tried it?”
Mu Qing considers jabbing the metal end of the measuring tape between his fingers to use as a makeshift brass knuckle, but he values his reputation more than Pei Ming values the construction of his charming face.
“No,” Mu Qing seethes as quietly as possible. “Fuck off.”
Pei Ming chuckles in a way that assures that he most definitely does not plan to follow Mu Qing’s instruction. With luck that borders on a miracle, Mu Qing grits his teeth through the rest of the set without being charged with aggravated assault. He slams the door far too loudly on his way out then slams his apartment door just as hard on his way in.
He cooks his food alone, eats alone, and scrolls through his phone alone, anger simmering beneath the surface of his skin. Friday comes and goes in a blur of his fingertips pricked by sewing needles and desperately needed fabric shipments delayed until next week. As twilight colors the sky above, Mu Qing runs on the treadmill at the gym fast enough to earn concerned glances from the staff kiosk.
It helps, minutely. As he wipes the sweat from his face with a towel, his attention catches on a flash of bronzed skin and a laugh far too loud for public spaces. Sculpted shoulders and muscled back curving into a slim waist with sweatpants riding too low on his hips, thick hair tied tight into a topknot, the man helps a stranger up from the mat with a foul-mouthed swear and a good-natured smile.
Mu Qing watches from the other side of the gym; the stretch of toned muscle, a drip of sweat that trails between his shoulder blades to absorb into the elastic of his waistband, the flex of his hands as he reties his hair. He tilts his head back for a sip from his water bottle, and when he looks back, the man has put on the ugliest sleeveless muscle hoodie Mu Qing has ever seen.
Absolutely hideous. The colors are so obnoxiously bright Mu Qing could see them from space; the cut is nonsensical and obtuse while very clearly designed purely to show off the very shoulders and back Mu Qing spent the last several minutes appraising from a distance. All of the residual anger Mu Qing just worked off resurfaces directly into his dick.
For just a moment, their eyes meet, and Mu Qing rolls his eyes so aggressively it teleports him into the showers. He is not shameless enough to touch his dick at the gym, even if the privacy curtains cover him from prying eyes. He scrubs shampoo into his hair with gusto and barely dries his hair before slipping out of the gym into the bristling summer heat rolling off of the pavement.
In a cruel knife of fate, Mu Qing only escapes this man for a couple of days. Curled up with his laptop and a cup of tea cooling on the nightstand, he sees the man’s face in the list of live channels and clicks in without a second thought, rolling the name around on his tongue, Feng Xin. A fitness self-defense trainer.
“Partner with Mu Qing?” Feng Xin hums. Mu Qing drops his phone at the mention of his name, watching his laptop screen with rapt attention. “...I wouldn’t. It’s too bad his personality is so—” Feng Xin does a frustrated hand gesture, his eyebrows sharply furrowed. Mu Qing can practically hear the swear words begging to leave his mouth. “...Mu Qing is truly beautiful.”
A sharp inhale.
A question pops up in the chat, Mu Qing or his designs?
Mu Qing watches Feng Xin’s expression as he reads the question, and with a casual shrug of his shoulders, he answers, “I don’t see a difference.”
And if Mu Qing puts that snippet on loop, pathetically replaying the smallest slip of praise from Feng Xin, the timbre of his hum in the camera, Mu Qing’s hand furiously pumping his cock until he cries, broken and spoiled across the bedsheets—
No one has to know.
Least of all, Feng Xin.
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
As the days pass, Mu Qing’s self-control dwindles. Days become weeks, and Mu Qing spends his little free time hovering in Feng Xin’s livestreams, spotting him from across the gym, and teetering on the edge of blocking Pei Ming from all avenues of social contact completely. Shanghai fashion show sits just around the corner, stranding Mu Qing in the dark hours of the studio, making adjustment after adjustment to piece after piece. He sustains himself on a diet of the most caffeinated tea he can find accompanied by painfully overpriced pastries from the bakery next door to the studio.
Mu Qing spends his hours working in the studio or at home hand-sewing pieces and watching Feng Xin’s livestreams. They often serve as more of a distraction than background noise, and the frequency at which Mu Qing pricks his fingers with the needle imagining Feng Xin’s musculature in his designs is more than he would ever care to admit. Mu Qing doesn’t truly need the lessons Feng Xin teaches; self-defense and fitness aren’t aspects he needs assistance in, but he watches them all the same, admiring Feng Xin’s strength and form.
That’s his excuse, anyway.
One evening in the studio, hunched over a particularly complex hand-embossed piece in suede, Mu Qing jabs the needle through the fabric and directly into his thumb with a sharp swear. Blood pools at the pad of his finger, and he pops it into his mouth to avoid staining the fabric. He looks up to meet eyes with...fucking Pei Ming. Again. For the fourth time today.
“You’ve been doing that a lot lately,” Pei Ming notes conversationally, sliding one of Mu Qing’s bodices across the table and pointing to a fractured jade clasp. Mu Qing scowls. “Distracted by someone?”
Mu Qing slips his finger from his mouth and watches it cautiously to see if it’s still bleeding, refusing to meet eyes with Pei Ming a second time. “My distractions are none of your business.”
“I can help yo—”
Mu Qing throws a spool of thread at Pei Ming’s face.
The studio falls quiet at Pei Ming’s exit, leaving Mu Qing with the solace of his machines and mediocre sketches. Without the metro running at such a late hour, he walks home as the light of dawn tints the horizon before collapsing into bed fully clothed. His alarm chimes too soon, and Mu Qing stares into the blank expanse of the ceiling with only four hours of sleep. He squints exhaustedly at the shapes molding in the textures of ceiling tile, rolling his eyes when they form abstract bodice designs he’ll never find the time to make. Some of them are pretty good ideas, though.
Feng Xin has a scheduled livestream in— Mu Qing checks the clock, calculating the hours carefully —six hours. Mu Qing has his own scheduled livestream with sneak peeks of his upcoming designs in nine hours. It’s not enough time to complete any of the designs left at the studio, but it is enough time to sleep. Mu Qing curls into the blankets, burrows his face into the plush of the comforter, and tries not to think.
He dreams of taut muscle stripped bare of gaudy fabrics, raw beneath his fingertips. Sweat-slick skin sticks to his own, ragged pants and gasps for breath at his chest, lips and tongue trailing from his nipples to his jaw, kissing, nipping, massaging full of heat. His fingers tangle in the whisps of hair at the back of Feng Xin’s nape, tugging at a well-aimed thrust, and a groan builds through Feng Xin’s chest, a punctuated swear slipping into Mu Qing’s lips.
Even Mu Qing’s dreamscape, as hazy and rose-colored as it tints, is vivid with detail. At every lick of his lips, Mu Qing tastes the lipstick, feels it smear between them, hones in on the shallow run of eyeliner when tears track down to his jaw. Once awake, Mu Qing rubs away the phantom sensations on his cheeks and scrubs away invisible eyeliner under the spray of the shower.
Watching Feng Xin livestream in the exact gym where Mu Qing witnessed him last week tossing a man onto the ground with practiced ease does not help. In fact, it only serves to make it worse. An hour after Feng Xin’s stream, Mu Qing’s mind still floats off into its own world of what might Feng Xin look like in his designs? In clothing that fits to his form, hugs the curves of muscle, and emphasizes its strengths?
More than once, he misses a question from his viewers. Popping into the chat only to leave a solemn emoji clearly laughing at his expense is, of course, Pei Ming. Tabloids may have labeled him a god of love, an admirable figure of charm, and a known heartbreaker, but Mu Qing finds him to be more of a plague than anything else.
Mu Qing resolves to throw something much heavier and sharper than a spool of thread the next time they meet, like an entire mannequin or one of those antique heavy sewing machines. That might be heavy enough.
Yet, when Pei Ming drops the very same link into Mu Qing’s inbox that he did all those weeks ago, this time with an addendum, a note that reads, found Feng Xin, Mu Qing clicks the link.
Glaring at the bar as it installs does not make him feel better. It does not fix his broken hubris or soothe the humiliating flush of his skin. At least finding Feng Xin on the app is easy. Mu Qing scoffs at the low cut of his sweatpants and the same hideous sleeveless hoodie Mu Qing had the unfortunate fate of witnessing in person. The awful lighting somehow succeeds in making it look worse, which Mu Qing didn’t think was possible.
There is almost no text in the profile. Other than pictures and general information like his height and location, Feng Xin’s profile is startlingly bare. A small declaration of dms open catches Mu Qing’s eye. He scrolls through the pictures, tactless thirst traps with low-hanging athletic pants that show the curve of his hips and more shirtless pictures than clothed ones. Mu Qing decides that with Feng Xin’s clear lack of fashion sense that is probably for the best.
He taps to message, stares at the empty inbox, and thinks better of it. Swiftly, he logs out, creates a new profile, and taps back into Feng Xin’s inbox under the new name of Fu Yao.
Worrying his lip between his teeth, he types out his first message and hits send.
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
Feng Xin is aggravatingly stupid and far too straightforward. The first week that “Fu Yao” coddles up to him in his inbox, Feng Xin flirts with all the grace and poetry of an upside-down tortoise coated in massage oil. No matter how Mu Qing tries to set him upright again, somehow, he always seems to end up back on his back, sliding haphazardly around the bathtub.
The first time Feng Xin messages back, Mu Qing nearly uninstalls the app, staring at the glaring letters of ur ass is so round like if he glares at it hard enough, it will undo the message completely. A minute later, as if Feng Xin reconsidered his opening statement, he clarifies, it looks really good on u.
As if that was the issue.
Still, Mu Qing comes back again and again. The sincerity has its charm, he supposes. They develop a pattern; Mu Qing sends him an artistically exquisite and precise photo of the curve of his chest, the slope of his slender legs, and pale skin draped in thin sheets, and Feng Xin sends back floundering attempts at flattery. It’s weirdly satisfying.
Feng Xin is unartistic in his pictures, the lighting bland and angles uninteresting, but Mu Qing keens into the bedsheets, eyes glued to the glaring bright glow of his screen, fist pumping until he has nothing left to give. Mu Qing sends photos, cautious not to include any particular identifying features, knowing the risk, and for each one he sends, Feng Xin sends five back. Mu Qing is acutely aware that Feng Xin is making up for quality with quantity here.
The fact that Fu Yao’s profile doesn’t have a single picture of his face doesn’t seem to dissuade Feng Xin in the slightest. He never asks for more than Fu Yao is willing to give, either.
Mu Qing hates how much he adores it.
In the second week, Feng Xin starts calling Fu Yao by pet names. Baobei, A-Yao, even kitten. Mu Qing gathers them up in his arms and holds them close, even if they’re not his real name. And cheesy. Incredibly, horrifically cheesy.
Every slip of A-Yao makes him crave ever harder for it to be A-Qing or Qing-er, or even Qingqing. Qingqing-er.
Anything.
Mu Qing clings to the scraps of affection given to someone who doesn’t even exist; someone Mu Qing had created to stand in his place, someone more... palatable.
It is then, as his favorite hairbrush lies wet with toilet water in the bathroom trash bin and Mu Qing stands shirtless in the lingering shower steam, that Mu Qing realizes he is well and truly fucked. Because at Mu Qing’s beckoning, a plea disguised as a callous challenge that Mu Qing clearly did not properly consider the ramifications of, Feng Xin sends a video, the camera shaky and lighting piss-poor, but the content clear.
And he’s loud.
Startlingly loud, the deep groan piercing through the speakers of Mu Qing’s phone, ricocheting off the tile walls of the bathroom and ringing in his ears. It is so much more than Mu Qing asked for, his hands shaking and his breath shallow, and his face and ears battling for who can flush the reddest. He stops the video only seconds after it’s begun, struggling to regain his composure when another message pings from Feng Xin.
U don’t have to send a video back, he says, ever-supportive of Fu Yao’s excuse of shyness. But I want you. I hope that’s good enough proof for u.
Unwilling to be outdone, no matter how flustered and how many times he has to take the video with hands trembling from adrenaline, Mu Qing sends a video back.
Still careful not to show too much, he keeps his face away from the view of the camera. Mu Qing bucks into his loose fist, the call of Feng Xin’s recording so vivid in his mind, gasping in desperate breaths loud in the echo of his bathroom.
It takes all of Mu Qing’s self-control not to call his name as he spills into his hand, just in case Feng Xin would recognize his voice. He bites his lip so sharply he breaks the skin, the shape of his teeth pressing cruel grooves in the flesh.
At the responding message of Fuck, A-Yao, satisfaction burrows dangerously deep into Mu Qing’s heart.
Yet gradually, unease settles into Mu Qing’s bones as the weeks become months, as videos and videos pass between them. Feng Xin’s name slips between his lips more than once, barely more than a whisper just loud enough for the recording to pick up, and Mu Qing sends them anyway. The messages between them grow more frequent, more affectionate, soothing an ache deep within Mu Qing that he could never have tended to himself.
His mind begins to accept Fu Yao as a name of his own, toes curling into the duvet with the phone pressed against his ear, Feng Xin’s voice calling for his alias again and again, each time more strained and keening than the last.
Feng Xin sends a message late into the night, asking with a clear nervousness even through text if they could meet, and Mu Qing’s chest tightens. He closes the app, opens it again, closes it. Opens it. Looks at the message from Feng Xin.
And in lieu of an answer, Mu Qing silently goes into the settings and changes his name from Fu Yao to Mu Qing.
It only takes a few minutes for Feng Xin to notice.
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
Mu Qing knew it would end poorly, but expecting it doesn’t make it hurt any less. The message Feng Xin drops into his inbox yells disappointment and hurt, scathing in its cruelty, and sharper than Mu Qing’s tongue could ever be if only for the sincerity of every swear. Feng Xin’s emotions bleed raw into every word of the message, every anger-imbued expletives in full capitalization, and finally, the ending resignation that Feng Xin should have known.
As though this behavior should be expected from Mu Qing.
And...shouldn’t it?
Of all of the messages, that’s the only line that truly sticks out, truly buries a dagger into Mu Qing’s chest. He can wave off the angry swearing, the full-capitalization accusations at his character, most of which are untrue. But this? That Feng Xin never expected any better from Mu Qing than what he’s done—
He can’t even argue it.
Mu Qing drowns in his self-contempt, bouts of desperate rationalization pleading his case that he only wanted what he couldn’t have, that Feng Xin would never have given him a chance if he had presented himself in its truth, that Feng Xin was just as flawed for his preconceived judgment as Mu Qing was for hiding behind a fake profile.
It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t diminish the rift between them, doesn’t stop Feng Xin from blocking him on every outlet and every corner of social media before Mu Qing can even send a response.
And it’s better that way, Mu Qing thinks, as it should be.
They were never going to be anything from the start, and now they never will be.
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
As the weeks pass, Feng Xin waits for the other shoe to drop, for Mu Qing to drop screenshots publically, to mock him and do something with this, with all that Feng Xin gave him to work with—but it never happens.
Just as swiftly as Fu Yao had come into his life, Mu Qing left.
He continues his routines, follows his messily constructed schedules and appointments, hollow of the connection he made with someone who was never who he wanted them to be.
🙤⊱ ━━⋅~⭑♦⦕༻✧༺⦖♦⭑~——⊰🙦
Mu Qing only notices Feng Xin has removed the blocks in the middle of a livestream. He is announcing his upcoming set of works in the Shanghai fashion show when Feng Xin’s name and face enter the chat. He didn’t even have the sense to use a side account; his professional account with his business attached is there for all to see.
Mu Qing stares silently at the name, waiting to see if Feng Xin will type first. He doesn’t.
“Oh, Feng Xin joined in,” Mu Qing notes conversationally, if not for the drawling tone of condescension. “Decided I’m not too horrible to grace with your presence, Feng Xin?”
The dots bounce as Feng Xin types, and Mu Qing’s stream goes quiet as he waits for a reply. Thousands of viewers crowd the chat, the stream of text near incomprehensible, but Mu Qing only looks for one specific name.
But without a word, the dots cease, and Feng Xin leaves the chat.
Silence hurts more than any words Feng Xin could have said. Mu Qing rolls his shoulders and brushes it off as smoothly as he can, finishing the demonstration of his work with professional detachment. Questions flood the chat about his relationship with Feng Xin, how they know one another, what happened between them, but Mu Qing ignores them just as he ignores the curl of sickening distress coiling in his gut.
Mu Qing finishes the stream with tendrils of his regret climbing from his stomach into his throat. He barely wipes away the makeup, slips from the tasteful cut of a corset to more comfortable French terry pajamas before swapping into a side account to message Feng Xin in private.
He doesn’t say who it is. Feng Xin should know.
What were you going to say?
Silence. Mu Qing busies himself tidying up from his livestream, folding and hanging up designs with practiced ease. He orders in food and eats it, watching his phone for a ping of notification. Finally, Feng Xin answers.
This is exactly what I expected from you, Mu Qing.
And just as before, Feng Xin blocks before Mu Qing can answer.
Of all the patterns that have been built between them, that one is easily his least favorite.
Mu Qing never brings their relationship to light. He never speaks of Feng Xin in public spaces, and after weeks of silence between them, the block lifts. He doesn’t reach out, doesn’t do anything more than scroll through Feng Xin’s accounts time and again, witnessing Feng Xin live and post as though nothing had ever happened between them.
But it can’t stay that way forever, Mu Qing learns, as he spots Feng Xin at the Shanghai fashion show, donned in the same dubious fashion he seems so fond of, muscled arms crossed as he sits in the front row. He sticks out amongst the crowd, both because of his fashion and the deep set of his eyebrows as he watches models come and go. Their eyes meet as Mu Qing displays the best of his designs on the walk, turning on his heel with an extra aggressive flair to disappear out of the audience’s sight.
Feng Xin is obviously not here for the fashion.
During intermission, Mu Qing corners him in the entrance of a hallway.
“Feng Xin,” he seethes, grasping him by that hideous hoodie. “What—”
“Is there a problem?”
Mu Qing freezes, releasing his grip on Feng Xin’s hoodie stiffly. He smiles unconvincingly at the security personnel. “Not at all.”
Feng Xin scoffs, and Mu Qing barely refrains from stepping on his foot with the sharp point of his high heels. But it would feel too familiar, like they’ve done this before and known one another for more than just a few months. As soon as the security guard turns away, Mu Qing drags Feng Xin to his dressing room, slamming the door behind them.
“Why are you here?” Mu Qing demands the second the door clicks shut. “What are you planning?”
“Planning?” Feng Xin’s voice raises with each word he speaks. “I’m not you, Mu Qing! I don’t plan things and pull the fucked up shit you do!”
He crowds into Mu Qing’s space, and even with the heels giving Mu Qing leverage in height, he’s suddenly very aware of how much more broad Feng Xin is. He opens his mouth to speak, only to be cut off before he gets the chance.
“What are you playing at?!”
Mu Qing laughs sardonically, lacking any form of mirth.
“What’s so funny? Was all of it just a fucking game to you?”
“You’re wrong—”
“What the fuck?! Is it wrong to care about you? You can’t care about anything but yourself. Can you, Mu Qing!?”
A moment of shock flitters across Mu Qing’s features before he schools it back into a sneer, grasping Feng Xin’s collar to slam him back against the door.
“What do you know about me anyway, Feng Xin?”
“FUCKIN’ NOTHING, AND WHO’S FAULT IS THAT!”
“It’s mine!”
Feng Xin blinks, his eyes wide and jaw slack. It’s fine. Mu Qing hadn’t expected he would say that either. His voice drops to a whisper, and his grip on Feng Xin’s collar loosens. He leans in too close, catching the way Feng Xin’s tongue darts out to wet his lips.
“It’s mine,” he repeats, “but you already decided you hate me before we even met. What choice did I have? I would do it again —don’t look at me like that, Feng Xin— I would do it again if I—We—if it meant I could—”
“Spit it out, Mu Qing.”
“Shut up! I would do it again if it meant—if it meant I could try again!”
Feng Xin closes what little gap had been between them, hooking his thumbs into the straps of Mu Qing’s clothing to drag him in. Mu Qing more than meets him halfway, pinning Feng Xin to the door in a rush of heat. He kisses exactly as Mu Qing had imagined, rough yet soft, aggressive yet adoring, asking permission with a tentative glide of tongue on Mu Qing’s bottom lip while his fingers bruise into Mu Qing’s hips.
Feng Xin’s hands smooth back over Mu Qing’s hips, knead the flesh of his ass in powerful grasps before sliding to hook beneath his thighs, lifting Mu Qing with startling ease.
He deposits Mu Qing on the counter unceremoniously, pushing Mu Qing’s legs apart to settle between them. His hands can’t seem to linger for long, marking searing paths as they wander along Mu Qing’s skin, slipping around and beneath expensive fabrics to grope his waist, dragging blunt fingernails along his ribcage in a way that makes Mu Qing squirm.
Bottles and pucks of products cascade to the carpet, rolling across the floor and under furniture. Mu Qing’s nose scrunches at the disorder, but Feng Xin smothers the discontentment with a sharp nip to his lips and a roll of his hips. Mu Qing manages to catch a wayward bottle of argan oil before it rolls off of the vanity countertop, pulling away from Feng Xin’s lips for a desperate gasp of breath.
“How long do we have?”
“What?” Fog clouds Mu Qing’s thinking.
“Until you have to go back out. How long do we have?”
Mu Qing pushes the bottle into Feng Xin’s hands. “I’m done. Until the awards ceremony at the end.”
“Good.” Feng Xin squints at the bottle’s label before dumping an ungodly amount into his hand and sniffing the oil. “It smells like you.”
“I smell like the oils I use; who would have imagined,” Mu Qing mutters. He wiggles to try to shuffle out of clothes, watching the furrowed confusion dawn in real-time as Feng Xin belatedly recognizes he covered his hands in oil before undressing Mu Qing. Or himself. “Useless.”
“Hey—”
Mu Qing interrupts his protests with a deep kiss, sliding away elegant fabric with a sigh of relief. He eyes the sleeveless hoodie with contempt, dragging it off Feng Xin and throwing it to the floor. “I’m burning that later.”
“What the fuck?! No, that’s my favorite one!”
Mu Qing’s expression twists in disgust. He doesn’t want to unpack what it means for himself that he finds Feng Xin attractive despite his dubious tastes.
“Forget it. Just—” He pulls Feng Xin’s cock free, giving it a lazy tug with his fist. “You’re too far away.”
Burying his face into Feng Xin’s chest only does so much to hide the flustered pink of his cheeks. Feng Xin hesitates, just one frozen moment stiff with Mu Qing’s face hidden from view before stepping away completely.
“Flip over.”
Mu Qing indignantly obliges until he finds himself face to face with his reflection in the vanity mirror. He opens his mouth to protest but only manages a gasping keen as Feng Xin envelops his back in heat, arms wrapping around Mu Qing’s waist and chest. A calloused hand trails up Mu Qing’s neck to tilt his jaw to the side, and he finds Feng Xin’s lips there.
“Is this close enough?”
Breathlessly, Mu Qing replies with stubborn petulance, “No.”
His eyes dart from the slivers of Feng Xin’s face to his own in the mirror, watching the color of his skin flush from pink to red. Feng Xin mumbles something Mu Qing doesn’t catch, distracted by the slow circling of Feng Xin’s hips against his ass, the wet slide of his cock against his perineum, under his balls, between his thighs. Argan oil smears into Mu Qing’s skin, the scent warm and soothing, the slide smooth and rhythmic.
It’s almost hypnotizing, Mu Qing’s hips rolling back in waves with Feng Xin’s, how his mouth follows Feng Xin’s lips, how Feng Xin’s hands wander and caress his skin in the same push and pull of movement. It’s so distracting, Mu Qing almost misses it when Feng Xin repositions, the head of his cock nudging at Mu Qing’s entrance tentatively.
Almost.
But it’s way too fucking big to miss, and no matter how slow and gently Feng Xin edges in, Mu Qing struggles to breathe, tears cresting at the corners of his eyes as he tries to focus on relaxing.
Feng Xin tries. He does. Mu Qing knows he’s trying to be considerate, listening to every cue from Mu Qing, freezing at every hitch of breath, waiting for him to relax, and thrusting in small, slow bursts until he’s fully seated. He pants into Mu Qing’s mouth, his muscles straining against Mu Qing’s back.
“Fuck, look,” Feng Xin swears and nudges Mu Qing to face forward, to look into the mirror at his own breathless and flustered face, the smeared lipstick and messy eyeliner. It’s a mess. He’s a mess. Mu Qing closes his eyes and shudders. He becomes hyper-aware of how his sweat-soaked hair sticks to bare arms and curtains onto the polished wood, and the flushed heat of his skin burns hotter.
Seemingly satisfied, Feng Xin draws his hips back, sliding his shaft free, and pistons in with frightening accuracy directly into Mu Qing’s prostate.
Mu Qing scrambles for purchase on the smooth countertop of the vanity, clinging desperately to the muscled forearm that wraps around his chest, pawing at the hand at his jaw until he can slip the fingers in his mouth. Feng Xin groans breathlessly and — Mu Qing has a passing thought that it was far too loud, there’s no way no one heard— he presses the pads of his fingers on Mu Qing’s tongue, petting the muscle. Mu Qing offers a choked whimper and relaxes his jaw.
“Fuck, Mu Qing.” Feng Xin bites shallowly into his shoulder. “Fucking shit.”
Mu Qing opens his eyes just long enough to see the disheveled hair, the sweat-slick skin shining in the bright lights of the vanity, and meets Feng Xin’s gaze. His eyes scrunch shut, unable to watch. His brows pinch and furrow as Feng Xin huffs a laugh at his shoulder, and Mu Qing bites down on his fingers in a pathetic retaliation.
Pleasured heat coils in Mu Qing’s gut, his cock leaking onto the carpet, his legs trembling to keep steady at every slap of Feng Xin’s hips against his. The fingers in his mouth slip free, and he coughs lightly, swallowing the saliva pooled under his tongue in vain. Feng Xin’s hands slide away from his body, lace his fingers with Mu Qing’s on the cool wood of the vanity, and with a breathy call of Qing-er , Mu Qing breaks.
Mu Qing paints the floor below his legs with a wordless cry, oversensitive at every sharp and unsteady thrust of Feng Xin’s cock. Too eager, too close, too sensitive, Feng Xin’s body clings to his back, his knuckles white as he grips Mu Qing’s hands.
Mindlessly, Mu Qing pants his name, “Feng Xin, Feng Xin, A-Xin.”
And Feng Xin curses sharply in his ear, biting his shoulder to stifle a moan as he comes.
They don’t speak for a while. Mu Qing’s legs go numb, and wordlessly, Feng Xin flips him onto his back as easily as he would a doll, burrowing his face into Mu Qing’s hair. Mu Qing should have expected Feng Xin would be a cuddler. He tries to relax on the uncomfortably hard vanity, resting his head against the mirror. At least he doesn’t have to look at himself anymore.
Mu Qing doesn’t mind it. Not really. Even if Feng Xin is too warm, too sweaty, too heavy, and his softening dick is uncomfortable where it rests, unwilling to pull out and away. He wraps his arms around Feng Xin’s broad shoulders and accepts it for what it is.
The room is quiet but for their breathing and the occasional shuffle feet on soiled carpet, until it isn’t, and Feng Xin has to ruin it.
“Hey,” Feng Xin says conversationally as if his dick isn’t buried to the hilt in Mu Qing’s ass. “What’s your favorite color?”
Mu Qing rolls his eyes and stares at the steel grey speckled ceiling tiles. When he doesn’t answer, Feng Xin draws back to peer at him, opening his mouth to repeat the question.
“Shut up.” Mu Qing covers his mouth with his palm, averting his gaze from Feng Xin’s unbridled look. “Steel grey.” He peels his hand away from Feng Xin’s mouth. Sweaty. “What’s yours?”
“Orange.”
“Gross.”
“What the fuck is wrong with orange?”
“Nothing. Everything. You. Don’t think about it too hard.”
“Me?”
Mu Qing pauses, buries his face in the crook of Feng Xin’s neck.
“You.”