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
- brief discussions of hypothetical suicidal ideation
- brief discussions of abuse
- brief mentions of non-specific murder-suicides
Xi’an Gaoxin Hospital, Seven Years Ago
Wei Wuxian hurts everywhere when he awakens, and the beep of medical equipment fills his ears, the first thing he registers as he’s ripped from the blessed calm of unconsciousness. His stomach rebels even before he opens his eyes, body feeling wrong and sick and unsteady. His throat clicks as he works around the dryness in his throat. The shuffle of feet in the doorway force him to rouse fully.
“How are you feeling?” a woman says, her voice young and sweet as she steps forward. She’s wearing a nurse’s uniform and is carrying a pitcher of water.
“Fine,” he lies. The last thing he remembers is the smell of smoke and stumbling onto the porch as heat threatened to engulf him. “I’m—” A cough pushes itself out of his mouth, irritating his lungs and making his chest ache. “I’m fine.”
The nurse eyes him suspiciously as she picks up a glass sitting on the stand next to the bed. “You nearly died in a fire and your bloodwork came back with traces of alcohol, drugs, and high stress level markers for submissives of your age. Shards of glass were found embedded in your hip, and we have no documentation as to your identity in our systems. You’re showing signs of malnutrition and miscellanous injuries of unknown provinence.” She glances his way, and suddenly, he feels she’s less than kind and too observant. “You’re far from fine.”
She helps him drink a few sips of water before setting the pitcher and glass down and dons a pair of gloves. “We’ll need your information first thing.”
He gives his name, his date of birth. He explains that he doesn’t have his household registry, that he’s been living under contract in a residence that is not his own.
“I see.” She pauses briefly before hitting him with the verbal equivalent of a bat. “The police have been waiting outside. The doctor has already given them permission to speak with you once we’ve given you an examination. Are you feeling well enough for visitors?”
Of course the police are here. Why wouldn’t they be? A fire like that would require investigation, would it not?
Wei Wuxian’s heart thrums, but he nods and tries to smile and behaves himself for the nurse while she checks his vitals. The doctor comes in. He doesn’t hear much of what he’s told and doesn’t remember how he answers the questions that are posed to him, most of which center around the bloodwork. He feels in his heart that what Wen Qing gave him couldn’t have been an illegal substance.
Even if it was, he won’t implicate her or Wen Ning.
“I haven’t taken any drugs,” Wei Wuxian says when the doctor has gone. “Not—not drug drugs. Not that I know of.”
The nurse nods as though she was expecting to hear this from him.
“I mean…” Again, his throat feels parched, searing. “I must have been given something in a drink. I don’t know what it was, but it made me tired. I almost passed out. It made me so sleepy. And then…” He’s spent so many years acting that it isn’t so difficult to pull out a performance for this woman. Poor, abused submissive in too deep with powerful men. As he looks at his hands, tears well in his eyes. He lets them cling to his eyelashes instead of brushing them away, doesn’t let himself feel mortified by this display. This isn’t him, not really. “…I almost died.”
It works, for a given value of works. The nurse’s expression softens anyway. “There are some sleep aids that flag false positives,” she says, keeping a neutral tone of voice. “I’ll make sure the doctor is aware.”
“And the police?”
She says nothing about the police. Instead, she offers him a smile that she must think is comforting. After patting his hand once, she says, “Is there anyone we can call for you?”
He imagines letting his siblings see him like this, imagines letting them call Lan Zhan. Who else would he want to see? “No.”
After she’s gone, he waits silently, willing his mind to come up with an answer that will satisfy the police without implicating himself. Though it takes over an hour for anything to happen, he still doesn’t have an answer when there’s a knock on the door and a middle-aged man poking his head in, exhausted and rumpled, an air of disinterest clinging like mist around him. He’s dressed in a wrinkled button-down shirt. His teeth and nails are nicotine stained. As soon as he speaks, Wei Wuxian knows he’s not a Dominant and relaxes his vigilance. “Mr. Wei? I’m Detective Li with the Xi’an Police Department. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few questions about what happened up on that mountain?”
Wei Wuxian doesn’t dare assume the man is as lazy or disinterested as he appears.
“Of course, Detective. Anything you need to know.” Wei Wuxian hunches his shoulders, looks up at him through lowered lashes.
Detective Li asks all the questions he ought to ask. Who Wei Wuxian is, what his relationship to Wen Ruohan, his children, and Zhao Zhuliu were, what exactly happened, how did a fire start in that house, why is it you got away when the others didn’t. Wei Wuxian answers them all, spinning a sordid tale that’s almost factual. “They made me drink,” he says. “I don’t know what was in it, but I can’t hold my alcohol well anyway. I wasn’t allowed to have it very often. But it felt different. They liked to… it was better when I was asleep. I think they intended to…” Wei Wuxian’s throat closes up as he allows Detective Li to fill in the blanks for himself. It’s not the truth, but it feels like the truth, could have been the truth. “…but they all drank too much, too. By the time I was aware again, the couch was—it was on fire. I dragged myself across the floor and got out, I guess. I’m lucky.”
“And the wound on your hip?”
Wei Wuxian racks his brain, trying to remember where the bottle had broken. Was it in the kitchen or the living room? Does it matter? “I don’t—I don’t remember,” he says, giving his words a frantic tinge to them. “I didn’t feel it happen. I didn’t even know…” He touches his hand to the thick bandage covering it. He tries to find tears to shed and discovers he has none.
Detective Li takes a few notes, nods along to the scratching sound of his blunt stub of a pencil on the bent and beaten notepad he pulls from his back pocket. “You didn’t try to save them?”
Wei Wuxian laughs bitterly, laughs until he chokes and coughs and his voice is rasping. “Look at me. I could barely save myself.”
He shoves his notepad into his coat and studies Wei Wuxian’s face. “Some people in your position might not see that as a problem.”
The implication behind Detective Li’s words bury themselves to the hilt in Wei Wuxian’s heart. Out of the wound springs a bloody font of anger. He fought to escape. How dare this man imply Wei Wuxian wanted to die in some horrific murder-suicide situation? “I’m not sure I understand your meaning,” he lies again, forcing a tremble into his tone. “Could you explain it to me?”
The question doesn’t work as well on Detective Li as it might have on a Dominant, but he answers anyway. “Nurse let me know you’re a contracted submissive. I talked to the guys in contract registration. It’s tight as an iron vice.”
Wei Wuxian stares. His breath strangles itself in his throat as he waits for Detective Li to explain further.
“My first thought was that you were trying to escape an abusive situation,” the detective says, “and things got out of hand. Understandable, right? I’ve heard Wen Ruohan isn’t a good man.”
Wei Wuxian lowers his gaze. “I knew what I was contracted for,” he lies for a third time.
“Good kid from a good family just trying to help, right? You look the type.” Detective Li accepts this with a nod. “Then I thought maybe you wanted to die and figured taking them out with you wouldn’t be so bad. Submissives who’ve been backed into a corner have done worse to the Dominants in their lives.” His fingers twitch as though he wants to light a cigarette. “But I can see it in your eyes. You really did want to survive what happened up there. So maybe it was an accident. Nobody in their right mind would trust something like that working, would they?”
Who knew such a dour looking man could be funny? Wei Wuxian might have laughed if he thought it wouldn’t hurt. “I don’t want to die, Detective.”
Detective Li’s gaze sharpens. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“Wen Ruohan was in the process of selling your contract to another party. Enough of the transfer paperwork has been done to consider it a legally completed transaction under these unusual circumstances. Most of the submissives contracted into the Wen family were offloaded in the same way. Before you ask, I checked into it. There’s nothing the state can do in this circumstance.”
Wen Ruohan was going to sell him off? Even after Wei Wuxian had ingratiated himself with him? After everything he’d done to Wei Wuxian and still he was not favored, couldn’t be made free of this fucking contract?
“Why?” he asks, voice deadened. He can’t make himself fake it anymore.
“What?”
“Why did he sell my contract?”
Detective Li shrugs. “I don’t know.”
He tells himself it’s a good thing they’re dead, because there’s nothing now he can do to protect his family.
Despite feeling his façade slipping, he keeps himself from confessing the truth. In his heart, he doesn’t know how he’ll survive the completion of his contract, but he also doesn’t know how he would survive state imprisonment. He might not. Who wouldn’t want to
“Who bought it?”
“Private sale,” Detective Li replies. “At this time, I’m not authorized to know. They’ll be alerted when you’re ready to be moved. That’s when you’ll know.”
“What about—” He cuts himself off. The more questions he asks Detective Li, the worse it will be for him. “Alright, Detective. Thank you for letting me know.”
“If I have any more questions for you, I’ll be in touch.” He glances around the room one last time. Distracted, he adds, “I hope you feel better soon.”
Though Detective Li’s words hang over his head, making him expect to be hounded by the need for statements and proof that he didn’t do it and suspicious attempts to entrap him into a confession in lieu of a more comprehensive answer than accidental fire, nothing happens. Detective Li doesn’t return with more questions. No other police officers come to trouble him, not even about the drugs found in his system. Even if the nurses or doctor explained it was a false positive—something they surely couldn’t prove anyway, even if Wei Wuxian knows the truth—surely they’d hassle him about that much, right?
And yet, it goes on so long that he’s released from the hospital and immediately dropped into the custody of one Madam Yang, club owner, who takes one look at him on the broad stretch of concrete outside the hospital and says, “I think you’ll do just fine,” which makes Wei Wuxian think that nobody with authority really gives a fuck about this situation, that they’d just as soon sweep it under the rug than bother to investigate properly.
*
A knock rouses Wei Wuxian from the doze he’s fallen into, the day having caught up to him as he rested in his room, reading a book on his phone that he’d first seen on Jiang Cheng’s. Sluggish, he opens the door, surprised and pleased to see Lan Zhan standing there, a tray in his hand. “This seems a little familiar,” Wei Wuxian says happily as he steps back and lets Lan Zhan in. As Lan Zhan passes, he leans in and sniffs. A familiar scent carries itself on the steam curling toward the ceiling from within the porcelain cup. “Who have you been talking to?”
“Your sister,” Lan Zhan says, unrepentant. “She said this was your favorite tea.”
“Uh huh,” Wei Wuxian replies, delighted. “There wasn’t any in the house last time I checked.”
“There is now.”
“Why’s that?”
Lan Zhan glances at him as he places the tea service on Wei Wuxian’s desk. He double checks everything and then carries the cup over, holding it carefully as he waits for Wei Wuxian to take it. “I bought it. The rest is in the kitchen in case you want another pot. I checked the caffeine content. It should be fine.”
Wei Wuxian can’t bite back a grin as he takes the offering. “Lan Zhan is determined to spoil me, hmm?”
“No,” Lan Zhan replies. “This is what I should do.”
Despite a valiant attempt from Wei Wuxian to shove his excitement down, Wei Wuxian’s stomach flutters at seeing Lan Zhan again so soon, at having this between them again. Even distracting himself with the tea, perfectly brewed, a little sweet, a little spicy, he can’t stop the giddiness spreading within him. “What he should do is let me make tea for him,” Wei Wuxian says. “Alas, this poor submissive can only take what Lan Zhan gives to him, is that right?”
Lan Zhan levels a flat expression at him that only succeeds in making Wei Wuxian laugh.
“Are you going to stand there judging me or can I expect you to sit anytime soon?” He gestures at the chair by the desk and then at the bed. They could even put cushions on the floor if they wanted to. “There’s plenty of real estate.”
“I’ve interrupted your rest. I just…”
“Oh, shush. You’ve interrupted me falling asleep like an old man. There’s plenty of time for rest. Sit, sit. Before I have to make you.” To demonstrate, he lowers himself onto the bed with a flourishand then pats the edge of it. “We’re not at Cloud Recesses. We don’t have to go to bed at nine, you know.”
“I am aware,” Lan Zhan agrees. Though he’s awkward about it, he does wind up sitting next to Wei Wuxian, which is more than he expects. To be honest, he rather thought Lan Zhan might sit in the chair, body held stiffly, like they haven’t spent all day playing with one another. “You didn’t have to go to bed at nine even then.”
“The rules begged to differ.”
“The rules said nine was curfew. Guests weren’t required to go to sleep that early. I never served punishment to anyone still awake.”
No, he only ever served punishment to Wei Wuxian, who snuck out. “What else was there to do except sleep? Recite horny philosophical texts until the early hours of the morning? Be reasonable, gege.”
Lan Zhan’s ears go pink, and he can’t meet Wei Wuxian’s gaze. Wei Wuxian can easily imagine what Lan Zhan is picturing them doing together in the late hours of the night. Naughty man.
“Alright, so what should we do now?” Wei Wuxian asks, clearing all thoughts of Lan Zhan thinking about him as a teen. “Discourse about horny ancient philosophical texts? Tell me, Lan Zhan, do you believe the greatest strength of any submissive is in their power to bend? Maybe—”
“Drink your tea, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says, brusque, a low pulse of Dominance threaded through the order, just enough to make Wei Wuxian shiver, pleasure catching him by the throat and tugging, tugging hard, tugging too hard. He could be pulled under if he’s not careful, swept up in the beauty of what Lan Zhan could do to him. It frightens him a little, like going up to the edge of a cliff and looking over, and drags himself back.
Mentally batting the order aside, he stifles a gasp and swallows the contents of his cup, one hand fisting on his thigh. “Lan Zhan, don’t tease,” he says, made unsteady by the sudden reminder of the pieces of their relationship he hasn’t experienced in weeks. “The tea is good.”
Lan Zhan pours more for him, says, “I apologize. I didn’t mean—”
This is definitely something he wants, but he wants it to be purposeful, deliberate. He wants to enjoy this time between them before he lets himself fall into what they can be with one another.
Wei Wuxian waves him off. “It’s fine, Lan Zhan. Just—”
“I understand.” Only their knees brush, but even that touch is electric now. More than anything, Wei Wuxian wants to lean into it, but equally, there’s nothing he wants to do less than push past his own endurance too quickly. He’s spent so much of his life subsumed; he doesn’t want it to be like that with Lan Zhan, too. “Wei Ying…”
“Yeah?” Wei Wuxian asks weakly. He looks away, fusses with the cup, anything to avoid looking at Lan Zhan too closely. They’ve never been good at this, have they, these sorts of conversations?
“I just want to say I’m glad,” Lan Zhan says finally, “that you have let me be here with you despite everything, no matter what you might or might not want from me now or in the future.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “You have seemed happy here, moreso than I’ve ever seen you.” He pauses again, and breathes in and out a few times, lightly audible as he stares at his hands. He is quiet when he speaks again, almost as though he’s speaking to himself. “Being able to be with you like this, I’m… glad.”
Wei Wuxian softens. Lan Zhan is usually so erudite, quiet, choosing the most effective words, not inclined to repeating himself. It’s that if nothing else that tells Wei Wuxian he’s out of his depth and trying anyway. “I’m glad, too,” he says, because though he has many words at his disposal, none of them feel right for what he is feeling. Better to cast them aside entirely. Let actions speak instead. “Would you, ah, want to stay here with me tonight? Bed’s a little crowded, but I think we can make due.”
Lan Zhan’s mouth parts slightly, just enough to sigh in response: “Yes.”
*
After Lan Zhan has readied for bed, he returns to Wei Wuxian’s room and again sits on the bed, body tensed, hands clenched on his knees. If Wei Wuxian didn’t feel as nervous as Lan Zhan looked, he might have teased Lan Zhan about it. “Do you have a side you prefer or…?” he asks instead, awkward, thinking about the fact that Mo Xuanyu wouldn’t have to ask such a question at all, that even something as simple as this is desperately new to them. “Um…”
Thinking about it, he realizes he’s never really shared a bed with someone either, not like this anyway. If Lan Zhan were to ask him the same question, he’d be unable to answer.
“I’m sure I’ll just sprawl wherever I end up,” Wei Wuxian says, though he doesn’t believe that’s true. More often than not, he wakes curled inward, his neck and back twisted and aching. “Come on, you’re my guest. You should pick.”
“Alright,” Lan Zhan agrees, as though he understands Wei Wuxian’s discomfort and won’t judge him for it. “I prefer the right side.”
Suddenly, Wei Wuxian feels a very strong preference for the left. He flops onto his back, scoots over, and flips onto his side. Lan Zhan is slower to slide beneath the covers and he remains on his back. Though they’ve been in bed together before, it never felt like this. Wei Wuxian shifts closer and brazenly presses his palm to Lan Zhan’s abdomen. Even through the layer of Lan Zhan’s t-shirt, Wei Wuxian soaks up the warmth and strength emanating from Lan Zhan’s body.
Lan Zhan’s breath hitches, but before Wei Wuxian can pull away, he laces their hands together and holds Wei Wuxian’s in place. Even when he falls asleep, Lan Zhan doesn’t let go of him.
Wei Wuxian can’t claim to sleep well, but he’s at ease as he watches Lan Zhan fall into the gentlest repose he’s ever seen, eager and happy to watch over him. He didn’t get to do so the last time, too insensate to appreciate the opportunity when it presented itself and too heartbroken by what he thought he couldn’t have. There are so many things he thinks he would fear if he slept beside another Dominant, but with Lan Zhan, it’s different. Lan Zhan knows what it truly means to be in control, and that includes controlling himself most of all. There’s nothing to fear here.
He envies Mo Xuanyu for all the times he gave Lan Zhan the chance to feel secure in that control, to use it to control that which is outside of himself. Except for these natural tendencies that humans harbor to give and take control, the world is vanishingly short on opportunities in which one might seize and surrender it safely. When the moment is finally right, Wei Wuxian will be lucky to share in that kind of intimacy.
When sleep begins to pull at his eyelids, he finally lets himself succumb to the need for rest, but not before lifting himself on his elbows to look down at Lan Zhan one last time, and not before pressing an embarrassingly gentle kiss to Lan Zhan’s cheek. Butterflies flutter within his rib cage at his own daring, clamoring for Wei Wuxian to take more. “Good night, Lan Zhan,” he says, though Lan Zhan isn’t awake to hear him.
As he falls asleep, he imagines a day when he might kiss Lan Zhan through the long hours of the night, might do more with him, might once again cuddle against him, soaking up even more of his body heat and offering comfort in return as well. They’ll do all of it one day and more. Wei Wuxian promises Lan Zhan that much.
Though Wei Wuxian wakes later than Lan Zhan favors, Lan Zhan is still there in the morning, his hand still clasped tight around Wei Wuxian’s.