Work Text:
“General Xuan Zhen is glowing these days,” sigh the gaggles of gossiping fucks that infest the heavens, around every corner that Feng Xin turns. “Pregnancy truly agrees with him.”
The topic is inescapable. Everyone has the same opinion everywhere Feng Xin goes: the Martial God of the Southwest is an innocent ravished maiden who was unjustly seduced, ravished and left impregnated and abandoned and bereft by the wicked General Ju Yang.
Ridiculous.
Feng Xin was just as thoroughly seduced and ravished! In the same incident!
By Mu Qing!
If anyone’s at fault it’s the Palace of Ling Wen, the mission briefing said nothing about sex pollen!
“I hope Nan Yang is planning to take responsibility and support Xuan Zhen adequately through this very difficult time. Aiya, poor Xuan Zhen. And to have to rebuild his cultivation while growing a child...”
What difficult time? What happened to ‘glowing’ and ‘pregnancy agrees with him’?! It’s enough to make Feng Xin ill. Again. He’s been very unwell. It’s the stress of the situation.
Maybe he should talk to someone about that.
~
“Congratulations,” says Pei Ming, with a horrible smile on his horrible face, “I think it’s going to be a boy.”
“No,” says Feng Xin, desperately.
“Xuan Zhen’s is a boy too, I think,” Pei Ming continues, as though Feng Xin hadn’t spoken. HIs horrible hand pat-pats gently over Feng Xin’s perfectly flat, absolutely not pregnant belly. “They’ll practically be twins! So sweet--”
“Ming Guang,” Feng Xin snarls, “I’m sick, not pregnant. If you can’t help--”
Pei Ming stares down at Feng Xin’s belly with pity in his eyes. “Good luck, brat,” he says. “Your A-Die’s a bit stupid.” And to Feng Xin, “I’m going to get Xuan Zhen.”
“Don’t get Xuan Zhen--”
~
“Congratulations,” says Mu Qing, with an elegantly horrible smile on his elegantly horrible face, “It’s definitely going to be a another boy. I can feel it.”
“No,” says Feng Xin, twice as desperately. “It’s not. I can’t be pregnant, I’m a man--”
“And I’m not?” Mu Qing demands. The glint in his eyes normally heralds Zhanmadao showing up and getting shoved up somewhere rather impolite, and Feng Xin is feeling far too queasy - from the shock of this ridiculousness, not from pregnancy - to properly fight. “Where were all your protests when--”
“But I’m the god of-- of--” Masculinity. Sexual satisfaction. Very large cocks.
Feng Xin cannot look Mu Qing in the eye and say a single of word any of this.
Unfortunately for Feng Xin, Mu Qing does not share his scruples. “You’re a fertility god, Ju Yang,” he says, horribly. “Well done. Now we’re both pregnant.”
“How’s it going to get out?” Feng Xin asks, trying to sound self-righteously-outraged. His voice is instead a squeakily plaintive wobble. Which is even more ridiculous than anything else that has happened, even this so-called pregnancy. Mu Qing has spent the weeks since the ...incident... terrorizing the heavens without a single hair out of place. Feng Xin shouldn’t want to curl up somewhere soft and warm. He doesn’t need to be comforted and cared for.
And he’s not pregnant.
“Don’t call our baby an ‘it’,” Mu Qing snarls.
Tears flood Feng Xin’s eyes like he’s a bullied maiden. It’s so awful of Mu Qing to yell at Feng Xin while he’s in such a delicate condition. Not that Feng Xin’s in any sort of condition! He’s just in shock. From his not-pregnancy.
And Mu Qing is right. Feng Xin just insulted their unborn child. He called his little boy an ‘it’, he’s going to be a horrible father--
“Feng Xin,” Mu Qing says, wide-eyed. “Are you crying?”
“Oh, fuck,” Feng Xin gasps, “I’m pregnant,” and suddenly he’s cradled against Mu Qing’s chest, securely held by Mu Qing’s ridiculous strong Zhanmadao-wielding arms, exactly like a ravished maiden.
“Aiya, A-Xin,” Mu Qing croons, and Feng Xin maybe swoons a little, “it’s going to be ok. I’ll take responsibility. And the baby is going to come out the normal way, your body is already getting ready. Have you... checked behind your little Ju Yang in the past weeks?”
“Behind,” says Feng Xin blankly, “my what?”
~
“It’s so sweet to see them together,” sigh the gaggles of gossiping fucks, every single time Feng Xin is led through the heavens on Mu Qing’s arm like a ravished maiden being paraded by a conquering warlord. “General Xuan Zhen is being such a responsible father.”
It is outrageous.
It feels too wonderful for Feng Xin to work up the energy to be outwardly outraged. Especially when Mu Qing slips an arm around Feng Xin’s waist to stroke his aching hips. Or when Mu Qing shamelessly places his hands over the growing swell of Feng Xin’s belly and whispers sweet nothings. Or when--
It’s like Feng Xin is suddenly the only ravished maiden in the eyes of the heavens.
Mu Qing is pregnant too! He’s showing more than Feng Xin! He’s swollen up like a dumpling swaddled in silks, not that Feng Xin is stupid enough to ever say that out loud...
“Do you want to give birth in your palace or mine?” Mu Qing asks, right in the middle of the very crowded Avenue of Divine Might. The crowd goes breathlessly and excitedly silent, and all thoughts flee Feng Xin’s head.
“Eh?” Feng Xin replies, intelligently.
“We conceived at the same time,” Mu Qing explains with uncharacteristic patience. He squeezes Feng Xin’s hand, and smiles tenderly at him, and now Feng Xin has even less thoughts in his head. “Magic being what it is, we’ll likely birth at the same time too, and I, personally, don’t want to miss your little Nan Feng’s birth just because I’m busy birthing Fu Yao. So we should be together.”
“Oh,” Feng Xin says. He hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Aiya, don’t stress yourself out about it.” Mu Qing kisses the tip of Feng Xin’s nose, and what stress? What could possibly matter more than being held by the father of Feng Xin’s baby? “I’ll take care of you, my xingan. Do you want to go see the chamber I’ve prepared? You can decide after that.”
~
The chamber in the Palace of Xuan Zhen is everything Feng Xin never knew he wanted, and Feng Xin is crying again.
~
Fu Yao is extremely eager to meet the world.
Nan Feng is...
“Mu Qing,” Feng Xin whimpers, curled in the middle of their luxuriously oversized shared birthing bed and wracked by contractions, “Mu Qing, I think Nan Feng’s still asleep.”
“He’s fine,” Mu Qing wheezes. He pats distractedly at Feng Xin’s shoulder, and Feng Xin tries to pat him reassuringly in turn. “I can feel his qi. Don’t rush him-- ah, fuck--”
“Mu Qing!”
Mu Qing gasps, bent double on his knees, and Feng Xin finds the strength to scramble upright to support the father (in two ways) of his children as Mu Qing pushes and pants and snarls--
And then, with a sudden surging rush, they both meet Fu Yao.
Fu Yao bellows.
“Aiya, he has your lungs.” Mu Qing’s face is paler than jade as he cradles Fu Yao to his chest and stares, enchanted. Fu Yao is scrunched up and angrily red and screaming his tiny head off, and also the most beautiful little creature Feng Xin has ever seen in all three realms.
“He has your temper,” Feng Xin gasps, doubled over with another contraction.
Mu Qing laughs, bright and exhausted and incandescently joyous. “Lie down, xingan,” he says, and fusses until Feng Xin obeys. “Here. See your didi, baobei?” He presses the grumpily whining Fu Yao to the swell of Feng Xin’s belly. “Tell him to hurry up and come out to meet you.”
Fu Yao waves his tiny fists and grouses, impossibly loud, and the sleepy stubborn baby inside Feng Xin wakes up.
~
Many Hundreds of Years of Chaotic Coparenting Later
“A-Die,” Fu Yao hisses, “you cheated on Baba?”
“This was a long time before your birth, A-Yao,” Mu Qing explains, as Feng Xin flaps his lips as soundlessly and helplessly as a stranded fish. “Actually, he might have cheated on Lady Jian Lan with--”
“Oh no, we were never properly together,” says Jian Lan.
Fu Yao shrugs. “I guess it’s all right, then,” he says, and reaches out, and very seriously shakes Cuocuo’s tiny hand. “Hello, Ge. Nice to finally meet you.”
“A-Die,” Nan Feng adds, “you deadbeat.”