Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Biologically Determined Dom/sub Roles, BDSM, Bad BDSM etiquette, Sadism, Masochism, Past Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Self-Harm, BDSM as a Form of Self-Harm, Minor Character Death(s), Arson, Shades of Black Widow Wei Wuxian, Extremely Dubious Consent, Rape/Non-Con Elements, Normalized Homosexuality and Bisexuality, Normalized Polyamory, Nonsexual BDSM, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Pining Wei Wuxian, Jealous Wei Wuxian, Touch-Starved Wei Wuxian, Professional Dominant Wei Wuxian, Sex Worker Wei Wuxian, Gentle Dom Lan Wangji, Mean Dom Lan Wangji, Oblivious Lan Wangji, Past Wen Chao/Wei Wuxian, Minor Jin Guangyao/Wei Wuxian, Mentioned Wei Wuxian/Others, Emotional Infidelity, Angst with a Happy Ending, Endgame Wangxian, Mo Xuanyu Also Gets a Happy Ending, the tags are scary but i promise there's some lightheartedness too, wangxian love one another so much, wei wuxian is healed by the power of nonsexual bdsm and friendship, and then gets bdsm'd quite sexually and happily by the love of his life, Additional Warnings In Author's Note
“I’m glad Wangji convinced you to stay with us,” Mo Xuanyu says, as he begins putting away Wei Wuxian’s clothes, organizing them by color, cut, and style. He wants to close his eyes to it. He wishes Lan Zhan was here to help.
But Lan Zhan had begged off, stating he’d take care of retrieving Wei Wuxian’s toiletries, but he hasn’t come back yet. Wei Wuxian is at loose ends, still feeling out of sorts from what happened with Nie Mingjue. Even Lan Zhan’s steadying presence hadn’t alleviated it. In the end, Wei Wuxian had needed Lan Zhan for so long, too long, kneeling for him until his knees were red and raw.
Mo Xuanyu doesn’t seem to care that Wei Wuxian’s monopolized Lan Zhan’s time. If he does, he’s pretending quite well. As hangers clatter and slide across the bar in the closet, Mo Xuanyu looks over his shoulder. “Did you want a tour of the playroom now that you’re…?”
There was a time in his life when he would have killed for a chance to pry in that way. To know everything there is to know about Lan Zhan’s desires, the tools he likes best, the way he likes to move and bend and break the body of his partner, the things that get him off the best, it would be a gift from the Heavens. He would have exploited the opportunity relentlessly, shamelessly. He wouldn’t have cared about how much of an imposition it might have been, how cruel it truly would be to pry those secrets from Lan Zhan.
“No,” Wei Wuxian replies. “That won’t be necessary.”
Mo Xuanyu nods, goes back to work. He’s silent until he finishes. Seeing all that color, the different shapes, neat and tidy, it’s exhausting, overwhelming.
“I was disappointed when you chose the residence furthest from ours,” Mo Xuanyu says as he turns around, dusting his hands together. Job well done. “I was hoping you’d want to stay with us while you were here.” He smiles, perhaps to show there are no hard feelings. “It’s nice having people in the house.”
“You don’t like having Lan Zhan to yourself?”
“I… I do.” The smile drops from Mo Xuanyu’s lips. “He’s been an excellent partner to me. Of course I do.”
Wei Wuxian is worn down still from obeying Lan Zhan’s gentle, simple orders. Trying to decipher Mo Xuanyu’s meaning is beyond what he’s interested in pursuing at the moment. He mostly fusses with the duvet, tucks the bag with his personal things under the bed, doesn’t really help with the process of settling himself in. He feels useless as Mo Xuanyu surveys the room, the diligent, perfect partner. If Lan Zhan had been there, could Wei Wuxian have been coaxed to this degree of refinement? Could he and Lan Zhan have forged a good relationship out of the smelted dregs of Wei Wuxian’s life?
Though he likes Mo Xuanyu, all he can see is his replacement lording over a room that’s been given to Wei Wuxian out of largesse.
“I can tell Wangji you’re resting,” Mo Xuanyu says.
“Thank you.” Wei Wuxian swallows thickly. “I feel a little tired.”
“Wangji will want to check on you.” Mo Xuanyu hesitates near the door, watching Wei Wuxian’s reaction. “He’s… unnerved, I think.”
Mo Xuanyu is quite gentle in delivering this warning. It takes Wei Wuxian more seconds than he cares to admit to realize it even is a warning. You will let him, Mo Xuanyu doesn’t have to say.
Wei Wuxian, as much as it might surprise anyone who knows him, doesn’t disagree. By letting his weaknesses be seen, he’s opened himself up to this. Because he failed to keep control of himself, he owes Lan Zhan and, by extension, Mo Xuanyu. “Lan Zhan is free to act as he will with me,” he says, keeping his tone carefully neutral. “I’ll do what I can to assuage his concerns.”
Mo Xuanyu’s well-shaped eyebrow jerks upright in disbelief before settling again into a sweeter openness. “I know. Get some rest, okay? I’m sorry about what happened with Nie Mingjue, too. I didn’t realize…”
“It’s fine.” As soon as he says it, he grimaces. Downplaying things won’t work anymore. He pivots to something more honest, flexing muscles he hasn’t used in years. It feels good, a little. He used to speak the truth so brazenly. “It’s no one’s fault anyway.”
“Still. I won’t say anything to Mingjue. I don’t know what happened obviously, but I know what people like the Wen family were like. Whatever the police did or didn’t find, they deserved what happened to them. I think Mingjue would agree, if pressed.” Mo Xuanyu bites his lower lip. “He won’t need to be pressed. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not his business.”
“Thank you, Mo Xuanyu.”
Wei Wuxian thinks they’ve said enough to one another until Mo Xuanyu reaches the door, intending to slide it closed, leaving Wei Wuxian to himself. Before, he would have wanted that. Now, he thinks maybe he doesn’t and maybe that he wants to explain himself better. If nothing else, he’d like to assuage Mo Xuanyu’s concerns, too.
“Mo Xuanyu?”
“Yes?”
“Whatever else you believe about me, hurting Lan Zhan has never been my intention.”
*
Wei Wuxian has flopped, undignified, onto the bed and thrown his arm across his eyes when Lan Zhan pokes his head in. Lifting his arm to peek at his quiet intruder, he’s caught off guard by how wary Lan Zhan looks, like he might not be welcome.
Wei Wuxian hasn’t done a good job of it, making him feel welcome.
“Xuanyu said you were resting. I’m sorry I woke you,” Lan Zhan says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
Pushing himself upright, Wei Wuxian shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. He normally gets it trimmed once a week, one of the submissives in the club doing the honors for him. The fact that it’s even slightly longer than he’s used to feels strange. “I wasn’t asleep.” The duvet is soft and silky beneath his palms as he shifts over. “Sit down already.”
“Would you like tea?”
“You’d make a good submissive, Lan Zhan.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I’m okay for right now,” Wei Wuxian says. To further entice Lan Zhan away from the door, he pats the bed. No point standing on ceremony any longer. “I really am sorry, you know.”
“You needn’t apologize for this,” Lan Zhan says placidly, “though I’m pleased I can help you more effectively now.” The bed dips as he sits on the edge of it, as far from Wei Wuxian as he can get. “Since you’re awake, we should discuss boundaries.”
Wei Wuxian snorts. Effective, right. That’s what matters here. Being efficient in getting Wei Wuxian’s head on straight. “Already?”
“I don’t want to push you beyond what you’re comfortable with. The sooner we discuss this, the better, don’t you think?”
“It’s about ten years too late for that,” Wei Wuxian says, shooting for a jokey tone. Even to his own ears, it falls flat. He bites his tongue until iron spills across his taste buds.
Lan Zhan is unmoved. “Precisely the reason I don’t want to push you.”
“Lan Zhan.” Petulant and cajoling, he plucks at the duvet. He should have feigned sleep. It would be better than this. “I’m sure you’re perfectly well aware of what submissives want. It’s not difficult.”
“I know what one submissive wants,” Lan Zhan replies. Though Wei Wuxian knows Lan Zhan’s only relaying the truth, that he isn’t being intentionally mean, his assertion lands like a blow regardless. They don’t know one another, he and Lan Zhan, not really. Wei Wuxian had an infatuation once, and Lan Zhan hated him, or seemed to. Even that is suspect now. Surely if he hated Wei Wuxian back then, he wouldn’t go through this much trouble. “About you now, I don’t know anything except that you enjoy reading for me, and even that had to be pried from you. I have a good idea about what you wanted when you were fifteen. But when I look at you now… I would prefer to know with certainty from your own mouth. I won’t play games with you, not like this.”
A game would be fun. If it was a game, he could pretend. That would be easy.
A game won’t fly.
“I want…” Even the word feels foreign in his mouth. “Anything short of full nudity or sexual contact. Even if I react.” He will definitely react. A flush warms his cheeks as he thinks about how much he’s likely to react. Even now, he’s feeling the lightest stirrings of arousal, imagining Lan Zhan giving him what he wants. “That would be okay.”
“What about other kinds of physical contact?”
Wen Chao never touched him with kind intent, nor outside of the sex they had. He can’t even interpose the shape of his relationship with Wen Chao over his experience of Lan Zhan’s touch. “That would be okay, too.”
“There’s literature to the effect that physical proximity is beneficial in situations where sufferers experience prolonged lack of opportunity to behave according to their nature. If I were to order you to rest with me here,” Lan Zhan says deliberately, so carefully, “that would be alright, or too far?”
Wei Wuxian’s insides squirm at the thought of sharing a bed with Lan Zhan. It feels so intimate, too much like something he wants. At the same time, he can’t snipe Mo Xuanyu’s partner, not even platonically. “Mo Xuanyu…”
“Xuanyu is currently occupied.”
“Still?”
“Nie Mingjue stays for several days usually,” Lan Zhan says, like this is a normal occurrence for them. Wei Wuxian can’t imagine it. “Even if Xuanyu wasn’t busy, this is important, also.”
“Right. So you want to, what, cuddle?”
“Yes.”
“Because ‘the literature’ says it will help?” If he didn’t know Lan Zhan as well as he does, he’d think this was some kind of come on. “Anyone would think you’re making this up to spoon.”
Lan Zhan fusses with his phone for a few seconds before handing it over. On the screen, there’s a document. “‘Therapeutic Effects of Touch on the Treatment of Presentational Disorders’?” Annoyed, embarrassed, not quite pissed off, but close, he tosses the phone back. “Presentational disorders? Lan Zhan, what the fuck?”
“I’m not making it up to spoon with you.”
*
The only thing Lan Zhan removes is the jacket he’d been wearing, which he places carefully on the back of the chair crammed into the corner of the room. Again, he approaches the bed. This time, he comes around the side Wei Wuxian’s sitting on, says, “Lie down.”
An order.
Wei Wuxian’s body begins to comply well before his mind registers a complaint. Lan Zhan slips in beside him and gives another order. His brain has too much to occupy itself with for it to worry about the fact that only two layers separate Wei Wuxian from being in bed naked with Lan Zhan. Three, if you count Wei Wuxian’s. “Arrange yourself in whatever way will be most comfortable for you.”
At first, Wei Wuxian puts himself on his back next to Lan Zhan, their arms barely brushing, but the wording of Lan Zhan’s order itches in the back of his mind, aggravating to him. Slowly, he curves toward Lan Zhan, tucks himself against Lan Zhan’s side. Lan Zhan’s body is so warm and comfortable, especially when he slides his arm beneath Wei Wuxian’s neck. This is better, though Wei Wuxian knows he should be mortified or ashamed.
There are things here that Wei Wuxian would like him to do—play with the hair at the nape of his neck, brush his fingertips over his shoulder, press a kiss to the crown of his head—that he doesn’t do. Still, this feels nice.
“I don’t have a presentational disorder,” Wei Wuxian insists.
“I didn’t mean to imply you do,” Lan Zhan says, “but I could find nothing about the long-term effects of being made to…” From this close, Wei Wuxian hears the click of Lan Zhan’s throat as he swallows. “…do what you did.”
Still vaguely annoyed, Wei Wuxian settles, but remains vigilant. It would be too easy to fall into an expectation that’s destined to cause one or both of them pain. Maybe he should think of this as treatment for a presentational disorder, pretend that’s the whole of his issue. At leas that would put distance between him and the fact that he’s snuggling with the man he loves.
“Is there anything else I can do to make things more comfortable for you? Or avoid doing for the same reason?” Lan Zhan asks after some time has passed.
There are a lot of things Wei Wuxian would like to avoid, but none of them would be fair to ask for. “I don’t want to disrupt your life more than I already have, Lan Zhan.”
“You have not disrupted my life.”
Whatever. Wei Wuxian is too tired to argue with Lan Zhan about whether his presence might or might not be disruptive. “What about you, then? What should I do or avoid doing?”
“I would not restrict you in any way.”
Wei Wuxian pushes himself upright, stares down at Lan Zhan, searches his face. Lan Zhan stares back, composed, so sure of himself. “Lan Zhan!”
But Lan Zhan is unmoved. “Anything you want to do or have done to you that will help you, I don’t want to have to force it from you. I want you to tell me. Will that suffice?”
Wei Wuxian says nothing.
“Lie down, Wei Ying.”
Biting his tongue, Wei Wuxian lies back down. He considers Lan Zhan’s request seriously and thinks maybe Lan Zhan has been right to distrust him. There’s no situation he can shape in his mind where he tells Lan Zhan anything without having it pried from him. It’s not fair to Lan Zhan to pin it all on him, but Wei Wuxian…
Wei Wuxian tenses, muscles stiff. He starts to roll away and stops himself at the last moment, bound by his own wishes and Lan Zhan’s order both. His heart lodges in his throat, blood pulsing in his ears, drowning out the sound of anything else.
“Wei Ying?” Lan Zhan says, sounding far away.
Breathing deeply, Wei Wuxian says, “What if I can’t?”
“Then you can’t.” Lan Zhan is quiet for a time. “How much do you trust me?”
Wei Wuxian barks out a laugh, turns his face into Lan Zhan’s arm, warm through the layer of soft, expensive cotton. “I climbed into bed with you,” he says. “How much more trust do you want?”
“If you can trust me to take care of you,” Lan Zhan says, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s jab, “I would put myself in charge of your daily activities. You would sit when I tell you to, relax when I tell you to, eat when I tell you to, sleep when I order it. Routine things you would be doing anyway, nothing further. You wouldn’t be free to decide anything for yourself. Perhaps after a short time, it would be easier for you to tell me how I can help in other ways.”
Wei Wuxian’s chest tightens, heart clamoring against his rib cage for him to agree. “Yes,” he whispers, feeling that same heady sensation from before. His body tingles at the thought of being ordered around in such a way. “Alright, yes.”
“When you fight me, I’ll be required to punish you.”
“I won’t fight.”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan replies, sounding disbelieving. “All you used to do was fight with me.”
I don’t know if I can fight.
“You will fight me again,” Lan Zhan says, certain where Wei Wuxian can’t be. He might as well say he believes Wei Wuxian can be fixed for how improbable it sounds. Sighing, he curls his arm briefly around Wei Wuxian’s shoulder in a gentle squeeze. “And I’ll look forward to it. Rest, Wei Ying.”
Another order.
Wei Wuxian rests. He sleeps like the dead. Lan Zhan doesn’t move the entire time he naps. When he wakes, he hates having to acknowledge that Lan Zhan’s ‘literature’ might have been right. He feels looser than he remembers being in a long time, muscles lax, releasing their perpetual ache into the void.
He doesn’t feel weird this time, falling asleep at someone’s command.
*
Once Wei Wuxian is fully awake, Lan Zhan orders him onto his knees and circles around him, studious. A nervous thrill twinges within him as he bears Lan Zhan’s scrutiny. He almost asks if this something else Lan Zhan read about. Then again, this isn’t so very different from how it used to be when Wei Wuxian served punishment in Cloud Recesses.
Lan Zhan rakes his fingers through Wei Wuxian’s hair, tugs experimentally at the strands, not even hard enough to tilt Wei Wuxian’s head. It sends a delicious jolt of pleasure through Wei Wuxian anyway. “I preferred your hair when it was longer,” he says. “You will not cut it while you’re here.”
Wei Wuxian nods, enjoying the uncomfortable pinch as the motion further pulls the strands of his hair. Lan Zhan’s hold is relentless. The slippery echo of his desire wriggles within him, fully occupying his body. It attenuates itself too quickly to the iced over core of him, makes itself a home right under his skin. If Lan Zhan really plans to go through with this, Wei Wuxian will have to get used to that feeling. He’s sure it won’t go away any time soon.
“We will begin tonight,” Lan Zhan says. “I would like you to rest a little longer, Wei Ying. I’ll be expecting you to read to me again this evening.”