Work Text:
Mu Qing wakes at three in the morning.
This is not unusual.
He has never been a sound sleeper. He wakes at noises, at shifts in the air, at the vague sense that something is wrong.
Tonight, something is wrong.
Not dangerous. Not urgent.
Just… present.
He turns his head.
Feng Xin is awake.
He is lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, watching Mu Qing the way he always does.
Mu Qing sighs.
“You are staring,” he says.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Feng Xin smiles. “Because you are here.”
Mu Qing blinks.
“That does not answer the question.”
“It does for me.”
Mu Qing exhales through his nose.
He does not tell Feng Xin to stop.
He never does.
Instead, he reaches out.
Feng Xin takes his hand immediately.
Mu Qing pulls him closer.
Their foreheads touch.
“Idiot,” Mu Qing whispers.
Feng Xin smiles. “Your idiot.”
“My idiot,” Mu Qing agrees.
They lie like that for a while.
The room is quiet.
The night is still.
Outside, Heaven continues its endless cycle of prayers and incense and mortal pleas for mercy.
Inside, there is just this.
Two gods.
One bed.
A lifetime of small worships.
Mu Qing thinks about the first time Feng Xin knelt.
He thinks about the first time he knelt back.
He thinks about all the times in between—the defenses, the confessions, the quiet moments where devotion was shown not through grand gestures but through tea and blankets and presence.
He thinks about how, years ago, he would have called this ridiculous.
Now, he calls it home.
“Feng Xin,” he says quietly.
“Mm?”
“Thank you.”
Feng Xin goes very still.
Then he tightens his grip on Mu Qing’s hand.
“Always,” he says.
Mu Qing closes his eyes.
He does not say more.
He does not need to.
Feng Xin understands.
He always has.