Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts because Lan Zhan finds the rope in his bed.

Wei Ying wouldn’t say they’re friends exactly, but they’re in the same major track and share a lot of classes, and he seems like a good guy, if a little stilted. Wei Ying is supposed to be on his way to one of these very classes, but Wen Qing came by unexpectedly, and an hour really ought to have been enough time, but when Wei Ying comes up and looks at his watch, he’s already missed the bus that would take him to the part of campus it’s at. Subspace really messes with your time sense.

Anyway, that bus only comes once an hour and there’s no way for Wei Ying to get to class without missing at least half of it, so he texts Lan Zhan.

something came up, not going to make it to class. can you get the hw for me?

Of course, comes the prompt response. I hope everything is all right.

Wei Ying pushes away the twinge of guilt over the implication that there was some sort of emergency going on rather than surprise sex.

ty!! I’ll be in my room if u wanna drop by just lmk

I will be there after class.

So Lan Zhan turns up a couple hours later, and Wei Ying has had the windows and door open for long enough he’s like 90% sure the sex smell has dissipated. Lan Zhan opens his over-full backpack and digs through it, looking for the homework.

“Grab a seat if you want,” offers Wei Ying, because the backpack looks heavy, so Lan Zhan perches on the bed. A flicker of expression crosses his face, and he stands up again to push the covers back.

Wei Ying is 98% sure all Lan Zhan was trying to do was move the lumpy thing he was sitting on out of the way, but what he actually does is uncover the black cloth rope hidden beneath the bunched-up covers, because Wei Ying has never made his bed once since he started college and totally forgot it was under there.

“Ah, shit,” says Wei Ying, covering his face, because he may be an outrageous flirt and a shameless one by Lan Zhan’s reckoning, but even he draws the line at letting random classmates who were doing him a favor find his bondage gear.

Lan Zhan picks up a loop of the rope and makes a very alarming face.

“Wei Ying,” he says in a dangerous voice, “tell me this is not what I think it is.”

“Ah?” says Wei Ying, who is not good at the kind of improv that involves coming up with an explanation for having a rope in your bed that isn’t the truth. “Ahahaha, it’s just a rope, Lan Zhan, it’s nothing.”

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan stands up and comes very close. He looks like he wants to grab Wei Ying by the shoulders and shake him, but has too many manners to do it.

This seems like a mildly extreme reaction for finding someone’s sex toys, even if it’s a little more risqué than a dildo. Wei Ying knew Lan Zhan was uptight, but he’d always thought he was cooler than to police other people’s sex lives.

“What’s your problem?” he asks defensively, folding his arms. Lan Zhan looks away, as though he’s just realized how he’s acting.

“I am expressing myself badly,” he says in a low voice, and Wei Ying isn’t entirely sure whether that’s directed at him or just an observation. “Wei Ying. I’m aware we are not close. But it still matters to me that you’re all right.” Does he think someone’s hurting Wei Ying? “If you tried something, and I knew but said nothing…”

Several things come together very abruptly as Wei Ying remembers that Lan Zhan was at the assembly last year for mental health awareness, during which Wei Ying gave a very impassioned speech about how much damage the university’s policies were doing to actually mentally ill students. (It’s worth noting that Wei Ying was not one of the invited speakers.) And during said assembly, he had definitely mentioned his own less than stellar mental health situation back in frosh year and what had happened because of that and all the shit with Mo Xuanyu.

“It’s a sex thing, Lan Zhan!” he blurts out. Lan Zhan’s eyes snap to meet his, shock on his face. “I’m not suicidal. I promise. Well, it’s not necessarily a sex thing, Wen Qing is ace so it’s only a sex thing about half the time, depending on what you count as a sex thing—”

“Wei Ying.”

“—but it’s definitely always a kink thing. I’m not planning on hanging myself.”

Wei Ying finally manages to shut up. Lan Zhan’s face is crimson.

“…I see,” he manages finally.

“We can totally pretend we never had this conversation,” Wei Ying assures him. “Give me the homework and then you’ll have no evidence this day ever happened and can pretend it was a very weird dream. Well, except the texts.”

“I’m not sure that is possible,” says Lan Zhan, still bright red. He does pull the homework out of his backpack, though, and finally hands it over.

“Fair enough. If I accidentally found out you liked being tied up, I’m not sure I could make myself forget about it either. But that would never happen.”

He just stops himself from tacking anything else onto that thought, but then Lan Zhan renders his effort pointless by saying, “Why not?”

“If you wouldn’t rather be the one doing the tying, I’ll eat that rope.”

Lan Zhan, who had maybe been starting to find his equilibrium again, glares at him so hard Wei Ying is surprised he doesn’t spontaneously combust.

“Kidding, kidding!” He isn’t. “You know me, Lan Zhan, shameless!”

Wei Ying and Lan Zhan manage to mostly pretend the conversation never happened for several weeks. They’re cordial to each other in class, and they mostly don’t talk otherwise.

Summer break happens. Wen Qing breaks up with him. It was only ever a friends-with-kink-benefits situation, but Wei Ying still pouts at her.

“How come?”

“I have a crush on your brother,” Wen Qing says bluntly, “which makes this fucking weird.”

He can’t argue with that.

Which brings him here. It’s been a month and a half since Wei Ying got to sub for anybody, a month and a half since he got to hit the reset button on his brain, and his mental health is suffering for it. Maybe it’s a bad thing that he needs to reset it at all, but that seems like a pretty philosophical question when he’s currently sitting on the floor of his dorm room, naked but for his underwear, trying to talk himself into putting on the rest of his clothes. (Any clothes. At this point he’d be satisfied with the energy to put on more pajamas. Class is a pipe dream at this point.)

It’s depression, he knows that. The itch under his skin that means it’s been too long since he’s gone down has been present for weeks, but that doesn’t murder his executive function. Still, he’s positive that subbing will make his brain work again, the same way he was positive the first time he asked someone to hold him down in bed that it would fit him back into his skin.

A knock sounds on his door.

“One minute!” says Wei Ying, and hauls himself off the floor to wrap himself in a bathrobe. It’s like lifting weights, despite the adrenaline of someone’s waiting on me that makes it possible at all. He opens the door, and there’s Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying blinks at him.

“I brought your homework,” says Lan Zhan. “You missed class.”

“Ah, yeah. Thanks,” says Wei Ying, and takes the folder.

“You did not text me,” says Lan Zhan. “Are you all right?”

Wei Ying almost laughs. His phone is on the other side of the room, and it was therefore impossible to text Lan Zhan. He picks it up now, and finds that Lan Zhan means he didn’t text him back—there is a neat, polite, Do you need me to bring you the music theory homework?

“Fine, fine,” he says, answering the earlier question. “Didn’t feel like going.”

“Hm,” says Lan Zhan, like he doesn’t believe him, which, fair. His hair isn’t brushed and he hasn’t bathed in a couple of days.

“My girlfriend broke up with me, and now there’s no one to tie me up and have their wicked way with me, so I’m just wasting away, Lan Zhan!” This is mostly true, but Wei Ying’s only saying it to embarrass Lan Zhan into dropping it.

“Hm,” says Lan Zhan again, and does not drop it. Instead, he steps into the room. Wei Ying stares at him.

“What, are you offering? You want to put me down, Lan Zhan?” He drapes himself back on the bed as suggestively as he can.

“Is that what you need?”

…Clearly, gay chicken is not the correct tactic.

“Unfortunately for you, Lan Zhan, I’m straight,” he says, and ignores the part of his brain screaming at him to take whatever the fuck he’s given.

“You said it wasn’t always a sex thing,” says Lan Zhan.

“Uh. No, it’s not."

"Then let me help you."

"Ahahaha, Lan Zhan, you're hilarious." Lan Zhan makes a face like he's going to explain he's not joking, which Wei Ying already knew because if Lan Zhan told jokes they would not be cruel, so he switches tactics again. "You're sweet, but really, I'm fine."

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan comes closer still, and Wei Ying's willpower breaks. He really does feel like shit.

"All right! All right, you win. Pin me down by the hair and tell me to behave myself, Lan Zhan."

“Be quiet,” says Lan Zhan, “and kneel.”

Wei Ying does not stand up to kneel. He slither-slides off the bed in an absolutely embarrassing fashion, ending up in a heap on the floor. Lan Zhan perches on the edge of the bed and reaches down to gather a handful of Wei Ying’s hair, fuck yeah, and tug until Wei Ying’s back is as straight as he can make it, trying to let up on the pressure on his scalp and stay kneeling at the same time, and he feels a grin break out over his face as he goes down hard.

It’s a humming in his skin, a centering in his body as the world falls away, leaving only the floor beneath his knees and the hand in his hair.

Ecstasy rises in his chest, and he floats.

Time stops having meaning.

Eventually, the hand releases, and Wei Ying sinks back down to sit on his own heels. He doesn’t open his eyes, but scoots closer to pillow his head on Lan Zhan’s knee.

“Pet me, Ln Zhn,” he murmurs, and the hand obediently returns to card through his hair. Slowly, Wei Ying expands out to fill his entire body again. Take the aftercare you need, says phantom Wen Qing in his head, so, when he can, just to be safe, he climbs up to sit next to Lan Zhan on the bed and drapes himself over his lap. The heaviness is gone from his limbs and his head feels clear, and he grins at Lan Zhan, who has caught him and is not-quite cradling him to his chest. “You’re a natural, Lan Zhan!”

“You are. Affectionate. Like this,” says Lan Zhan, frowning slightly.

“Part of the gig,” says Wei Ying airily. “You put someone down, you gotta take care of them after. Or I’d do it myself!”

“You can do it yourself?”

“Sure, but I risk drop doing that, and drop fucking sucks, Lan Zhan. I’m a masochist, but I’m not that much of a masochist.” He winks, and is gratified to see Lan Zhan blush slightly.

“How often do you need this?” asks Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying feels the smile slide off his face in shock. The blush deepens.

“Uh. About once a month before I start getting antsy. Why?”

“If you are still single next month, let me know. I will help you.”

“Uh,” says Wei Ying again. Lan Zhan’s face falls almost imperceptibly.

“Unless you did not enjoy that.”

“No, no! I said you were a natural, and I meant it!” Wei Ying sits up to look at him better. He’s still in Lan Zhan’s lap, but whatever. “I just. You don’t have to do that, you know. It isn’t usually like this.”

“I want to,” says Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying finds himself agreeing.

Thirty days later exactly, Lan Zhan texts him Would you like me to put you down? and Wei Ying chokes on air.

Okay, he texts back, because who is he to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He expects it to be awkward, this time, but Lan Zhan has apparently embraced his new role and is choosing to brazen his way through it instead of stopping to get embarrassed. Even though Wei Ying throws him a curveball by not being easy for it this time.

“Kneel,” he commands, and Wei Ying just smirks at him.

“Or what?”

“Or I will make you.”

“Guess you better make me, sweetheart.” Sweetheart is kind of weird considering this is Lan Zhan, who Wei Ying doesn’t want to sleep with, and not Wen Qing, but he has a script for this and he isn’t changing it now.

Lan Zhan stares at him for a moment, as if trying to make sure Wei Ying is in fact goading him and not backing out, then takes one of his hands. Wei Ying lets him, and immediately regrets it (except he doesn’t, not at all) when Lan Zhan twists his arm into a lock, pointing Wei Ying’s fingers down toward the inside of his elbow, and forces him to drop to the ground to let up the pressure on his wrist.

“Ow!” he says, surprised. Lan Zhan gives him that look again, appearing to decide he isn’t actually hurt, and he should really have the safeword conversation if he’s going to brat this much, but whatever.

Lan Zhan pulls the ribbon out of his own hair one-handed and ties Wei Ying’s wrists together behind his back before he knows what’s happening.

Wei Ying wriggles around a little as Lan Zhan tries to grab him, but eventually Lan Zhan gets a hand into his hair and tugs him off balance. Then he presses Wei Ying face down into the carpet, plants a knee in his back, and pulls his joined wrists up. Wei Ying shoves back against the hold, wriggling to no avail. He’s absolutely trapped, and the knowledge of it plus the tug in his shoulders and the weight on his back pushes him over and down.

He still lowkey fights the hold, the feeling of being unable to get free keeping him under, but he’s not really paying attention anymore, he’s lost inside himself and the thrumming of his body and the oxytocin in his brain.

Somehow, Wei Ying talks Lan Zhan into going to the Halloween party just off campus with Wei Ying and everyone else he knows.

(It’s like he’s guaranteed someone will throw him a birthday party every year. It’s the best thing ever.)

“Lan Zhan!” he says when he spots him. “You actually came!”

“Mm,” says Lan Zhan.

“Just for little ol’ me?” He bats his eyes at Lan Zhan.

“My roommate is hosting,” explains Lan Zhan, tone dripping with annoyance at the unknown roommate.

“Wait, but you don’t live here?”

“No. It is his brother’s house. His brother is away.”

“Oooh. Okay.”

Wen Ning comes up to wish Wei Ying a happy birthday, and then I Gotta Feelin’ starts playing and Wei Ying absolutely has to dance to it, and so he and Lan Zhan drift separately for maybe an hour, until Wei Ying spots some dude leaning into Lan Zhan’s space to say something in his ear. Lan Zhan looks annoyed, so Wei Ying beelines over to save him.

“C’mon, just try it, what’s the problem,” whines the guy.

“It’s refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup,” says Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying realizes for the first time that the new guy has a handful of fun size Milky Ways.

“Can I have one?” he says instead of whatever don’t-harass-my-friend speech he was gearing up to make.

“Mm, and who might you be?” asks the guy, giving him a once-over.

“Wei Ying. Lan Zhan’s friend.” He gives a winning smile. “You?”

“Nie Huaisang. Lan Zhan’s roommate.” Ah, so this is the mysterious roommate. Wei Ying turns the smile up a notch.

“I hear I have you to thank for the party!”

Huaisang inclines his head graciously. He still doesn’t seem to have decided whether Wei Ying gets any candy, but Lan Zhan takes it out of his hands, quite literally. He scoops up three of the candies Huaisang is still offering him and passes them to Wei Ying, who grins for real, delighted.

“Lan Zhan! You really are the best.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” says Huaisang, eyebrows shooting up. He gives Lan Zhan some kind of meaningful look.

Wei Ying doesn’t know what to make of it, so he just says, “It’s my birthday! You didn’t have to get me a present, Lan Zhan.” He winks to sell the tease and unwraps a Milky Way.

“Is it? Well, I suppose good boys can have candy on their birthday,” says Huaisang, and Wei Ying almost chokes on it.

“The fuck have you told him?” he manages past the mouthful of chocolate and caramel. Lan Zhan is bright red and glaring—not daggers, but possibly cannons—at Huaisang, who smirks.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, he’s never mentioned you at all,” says Huaisang, and swans away before Wei Ying can react.

Wei Ying rounds on Lan Zhan.

“You cannot tell me he pegged our thing with two minutes of interaction and no context clues at all, no one’s kink-dar is that good,” he hisses.

Lan Zhan won’t look at him, face still red, glaring a hole into the opposite wall now Huaisang’s disappeared.

Sucks to be him. Wei Ying is a pro at being annoying and has, as previously established, very little shame.

“Have you been holding out on me, Lan Zhan?” he asks, raising his voice to normal talking-at-a-party level. “Do you bring people home and tie them up in bed? Has he walked in on it? Did I awaken something in you?”

Lan Zhan grabs him by the wrist and drags him down a hallway into a bathroom, shutting the door. Wei Ying perches on the sink because he can and looks at Lan Zhan expectantly.

“I asked him a question,” Lan Zhan says finally, and Wei Ying raises both eyebrows.

“And that was…?”

Lan Zhan’s fists are balled up at his sides. “How tying someone up might not be a sex thing,” he grits out.

Ah. Okay. So he does have context clues, but mostly it’s just that Huaisang knows Lan Zhan pretty well, and has eyes.

And is into the scene. Like, there’s no way he’s not. The stunt with the candy? Good boy? Wei Ying would lay money (not much money, but like twenty dollars) that Huaisang’s lowkey a lifestyle dom.

But. Focusing on the fact that Lan Zhan had been struck by that conversation enough to go home and ask about it.

“Did you want it to be a sex thing, Lan Zhan?” he teases, grinning. “Have you been wanting to pick up a girl and tie her hands and fuck her?”

“Wei Ying.”

“What? Worried someone will hear? It’s okay, Lan Zhan, no one will care that you’re actually a kinky son of a bitch and not just absurdly worried about your depressed sub of a classmate.” He’s talking loud enough that someone outside the door would probably be able to hear him, but he’s having too much fun to shut up.

“Be quiet,” hisses Lan Zhan, and sticks two fingers in Wei Ying’s mouth without warning. Wei Ying sucks instinctively, and is abruptly half hard. What. When he actually manages to get a real girlfriend, he has got to try that out.

Lan Zhan looks as though he didn’t quite mean to do that, or maybe as though it feels better than he expected. At any rate, his eyes are wide, his mouth parted, and Wei Ying doesn’t break eye contact as he sucks. The sense of being owned settles over him, not subspace, but the promise of it.

Someone bangs on the bathroom door, and they both jump. Lan Zhan takes his fingers back and Wei Ying stands up and they get out of there, separating in the crowd.

Wei Ying cannot focus. There is one thought on his brain, or maybe two, and they’re Lan Zhan’s fingers in his mouth and how goddamn horny he is.

He snags a drink and makes his way to a balcony (a balcony? how fucking rich are the Nie family?), where he can tuck himself mostly out of sight of the rest of the party and pretend to be nursing it. He presses a hand against his stubborn boner.

Lan Zhan’s fingers. Lan Zhan’s fingers in his mouth.

This is not helping him get rid of his boner.

“Wei Ying.”

He pulls his hand away reluctantly and turns to look at Lan Zhan.

“Do you mind, Lan Zhan?” He can feel the flush in his cheeks and his breathing isn’t all that steady either.

Lan Zhan reaches out toward his face, almost hesitantly by comparison with earlier. Wei Ying legitimately does not know what’s happening right up until Lan Zhan’s fingers poke at his lips until they open.

“You’re aroused by this,” Lan Zhan murmurs, and backs Wei Ying into the wall, inserting a knee between Wei Ying’s even as he slides his fingers into his mouth. Wei Ying can’t answer, can’t even think, but he doesn’t think Lan Zhan expects him to. He sucks on the fingers, making eye contact, and Lan Zhan escalates by pushing his knee forward and interlocking their legs to the extent that Wei Ying’s dick presses against Lan Zhan’s thigh. Wei Ying is only a hot-blooded male, and it feels good, even through his boxers and jeans. Almost unintentionally, he presses into it, rubbing off, again and again, and Lan Zhan doesn’t move. Wei Ying lets himself fall into the twin sensation of the fingers against his tongue and the thigh against his dick, each ratcheting the intensity of the other higher and higher in a sexual feedback loop until he crests and comes in his pants in under a minute, harder and longer than he has in a while.

What the fuck.

This time, Wei Ying is the one to text.

you wanna dom me?

He goes back and forth for like five minutes on whether to add anything to that, maybe an emoji, but eventually just sends it as is. He isn’t really letting himself think about what he’s expecting, which makes it hard to put in writing.

I will be there in 10 minutes, says Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying can’t help but grin.

Wei Ying’s door doesn’t automatically lock, but that doesn’t mean he’s expecting it when Lan Zhan just walks straight in without knocking. Wei Ying stands up, and Lan Zhan strides over, grabs him by the shoulders, pushes him into the wall, and kisses the hell out of him. Wei Ying throbs with want.

Lan Zhan finds his wrists without breaking the kiss, which is extremely sexy of him, and pins them both against the wall above Wei Ying’s head with one hand, which is even sexier. He gropes a handful of Wei Ying’s ass with the other hand, causing him to let out a truly embarrassing breathy squeak. Lan Zhan makes a noise that might be a groan and shoves his leg between Wei Ying’s again.

He breaks the kiss, but it’s only so he can attach his mouth to Wei Ying’s neck instead and bite. Wei Ying lets out another embarrassing noise, something like a groan that turns into a wail, and feels himself start to slip under at the sweetness of the pain. He ruts gently against Lan Zhan’s thigh, and damn, if Wei Ying weren’t half under already, he’d be close. As it is, he’s deep enough in his head that the simmering arousal is a second thought.

Lan Zhan lets go of his neck to tug him to the bed and start undressing him, shoving him flat into the mattress to bite at his nipples and letting his shirt fall to the floor. Wei Ying moans.

“You’re really good at this.”

Lan Zhan ignores him and ties Wei Ying’s wrists to the headboard, which is frankly genius, except that he’s using his hair ribbon again.

“You know I have a rope, right,” Wei Ying pants. “It’s how this whole thing got started.”

Lan Zhan glares at him for reasons unknown and ties him tighter. He pulls off Wei Ying’s pants and underwear in one go and, oh, fuck, they’re going to have sex.

He feels a little as though he ought to have seen this coming. What with the kissing and all.

He can work with this.

Lan Zhan fumbles in his pants pocket, and next thing Wei Ying knows there’s slick fingers poking at his asshole. It’s overwhelming in the best way when they slide in, one and then the other, and scissor.

“Fuck me, Lan Zhan,” he pants, and Lan Zhan pulls out his dick, guides it to Wei Ying’s entrance, and pushes.

He isn’t quite relaxed enough for it, and sharp pain spikes at the ring of muscle, but it’s good, it’s so good.

“Oh, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, oh, it’s too much,” gasps Wei Ying, and Lan Zhan stops. Wei Ying curses himself in his head for forgetting.

“You can keep going,” he promises. “I’m just talking.”

Still, Lan Zhan hesitates. “You want me to ignore you when you complain?”

He sounds kind of intrigued by the idea, if Wei Ying has learned to read his voice at all, which is admittedly debatable.

“You can even ignore me saying stop if you want. Or no. I’ll give you a color to communicate how I’m really doing, regardless of whatever shit’s coming out of my mouth. Green for all good, keep going. Yellow for slow down. Red for stop.”

Lan Zhan makes an understanding noise. “You will tell me which color it is?”

“Yeah. And you can ask, if you wanna hear it. You can use them too, if you need to stop for anything.”

“Mm. Color right now?”

“Green, very much green.”

Lan Zhan pushes the rest of the way in and it hurts and it’s wonderful.

He fucks Wei Ying until he’s deep under, and Wei Ying complains and begs and eventually devolves into wordless moaning and Lan Zhan just fucks him through it, not stopping, just occasionally murmuring, “Color?” and giving a little hmm when Wei Ying collects the brainpower to answer Green.

When they’re done, he pulls Wei Ying into his arms and holds him together as he comes up.

“Lan Zhan, I went down so hard subspace had a color,” wheezes Wei Ying when he can talk again. Coming was practically an afterthought comparatively.

“Mm?”

“This really dark royal blue. I dunno how to explain it.”

“No need,” says Lan Zhan, and pets his hair. Wei Ying snuggles into his shoulder. The comedown’s hitting him now, and he’s shaking, just a little.

“Are you all right?”

“Water?” rasps Wei Ying. Thankfully, Lan Zhan doesn’t need to let go in order to reach over and grab Wei Ying’s water bottle from where his backpack is propped against the bed. Wei Ying knows he’ll drop like a stone if Lan Zhan leaves him, even for a few seconds. Instead, he drinks half the bottle and tugs the blanket over them both.

“Better?”

“Yeah. Need food, too, at some point,” he says, in the interest of honesty, “but I need you not to let go of me more.”

“Mm. Is there food in your refrigerator?”

“Orange juice. And there’s a box of crackers in the shelf above it,” Wei Ying answers warily, clinging tighter in case Lan Zhan has decided he knows better. But Lan Zhan just swaddles him in the blanket, picks him up bridal style, and carries him over to the fridge. Wei Ying wheezes with laughter as Lan Zhan settles on the floor, placing Wei Ying in his lap and holding him tightly with one arm as he retrieves the orange juice and crackers with the other. He hands Wei Ying the orange juice, but hand feeds him the crackers, and Wei Ying’s heart clenches in his chest.

By complete coincidence, Wen Qing finds him in the dining hall two days later and asks how he’s doing, because she’s a good dom (even though she isn’t his anymore) and a better friend.

“I’m great!” Wei Ying enthuses.

She gives him a skeptical look.

“No, really. I dragged one of my friends into the lifestyle—” Lan Zhan counts as a friend now, doesn’t he? He could make an argument for ‘just classmates’ back when it was just d/s, but now… “—and he’s a natural dom, like wow, and not that it wasn’t great with you, but like, he makes gay sex good.”

Wen Qing had been giving him that little smile that says he’s adorable for thinking her self-esteem relies on him, but that last part makes it drop right off her face.

“Say that again,” she demands.

Wei Ying shrugs. “We kinda fell into sexual d/s by accident and I don’t even care that he’s a dude, it’s that good.”

“…Wei Ying.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean this in the nicest way possible. But do you have any actual reason to believe you’re not attracted to men?”

It’s his turn for the smile to fall off his face.

“Uh. I mean. Of course I’m straight, Qing-jie. I would have noticed if I wasn’t.”

“Lots of people don’t notice until later. Tell me about how you ‘accidentally’ started doing sexual d/s.”

He summarizes the party events for her, and does not at all like her expression afterward.

“So. He did something that turned you on. And you had sex about it.”

He tries to dispute that interpretation, and can’t. He could argue that dry humping isn’t necessarily sex, but he thinks she would accuse him of splitting hairs, and he has to admit that if the other guy made you come, it’s pretty close to sex. He settles for frowning at her. “Isn’t that just kink, though? He did something dommy I liked, and the kink wires are all right next door to the sexy wires in my head. I can enjoy sex with him without being into men. I mean, you do it.”

“That’s right. I know all about having sex with men I’m not sexually attracted to. And I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that it doesn’t matter how perfect a sub you were being, I would never hook up with you in the middle of a party without even talking about it first and seriously considering whether I wanted to scratch the itch with you.” She shakes her head. “I’m phrasing that wrong. I wouldn’t do any one of those things, let alone all of them.”

Wei Ying opens his mouth and shuts it again. Absent any words, he pouts at her. Wen Qing reaches across the table and pets his hair fondly.

“You have to figure this out for yourself. Just think about it, okay? Do you just want to have sex, even kinky sex? Or do you want it with him?”

Wei Ying walks into a doorframe, a lamppost, and a fire hydrant, all of which have been there his entire three point five years on campus, on his way back to his room.

Since he clearly isn’t going to be able to concentrate on anything else, he locks his door, climbs onto his bed, and sticks his hand down his pants without fanfare.

Okay. For this to be useful, he has to either jerk off thinking about the same stuff Lan Zhan did, but with someone else hot, or thinking about stuff with Lan Zhan, but super vanilla.

Well, no one is as hot as Lan Zhan is, so door number 2 it is.

Unbidden, his brain reminds him of Lan Zhan shoving him against the wall. Unhelpful. How about kissing? There was kissing right about then. Wei Ying replays the memory of the kiss and tries to filter out the bits where Lan Zhan had pinned his hands. What else? There was the nipple biting, that was nice, and the memory gets him the rest of the way hard. He unzips his pants and takes his dick all the way out. And then of course there was the finger fucking and subsequent actual fucking.

He strokes faster, replaying the feeling of Lan Zhan’s hands on his hips, the stretch of the cock in his ass, the white-hot pleasure of every hit to his prostate. It’s a good memory, and he rewinds it and plays it more slowly, contemplating sticking a finger into himself. He discards the idea; he’s close enough already. He fishes a tissue out of the box by the bed and comes into it with a grunt.

When he catches his breath, he tries to determine if he’s answered his question.

Problem is, how is he supposed to be sure he’s separated the thoughts of sex with Lan Zhan from Lan Zhan holding him down and railing him?

Maybe a fantasy that didn’t actually happen?

Curious, he imagines getting on his knees, undoing Lan Zhan’s pants, and putting his dick in his mouth.

His mouth waters. If he could get aroused again, that would probably do it.

Hm. Inconclusive.

They’ve apparently given up on their once-a-month thing, because last time Wei Ying texted him after only a week, and this time Lan Zhan waits only three days before following Wei Ying home from class. Wei Ying says nothing, just in case Lan Zhan’s about to shake himself, apologize for zoning out, and disappear again, but he doesn’t, just follows Wei Ying all the way into his room. They stare at each other for a moment, and then, slowly, Lan Zhan reaches out and pulls Wei Ying into a kiss.

It’s sweet at first, slightly hesitant, and then Wei Ying presses into it and it goes hot and molten, lighting up all his nerve endings and making his whole body feel vaguely electrocuted. He wraps his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck and kisses him hard and desperate and finds himself thinking, I need him in my ass as soon as possible.

“Lan Zhan,” gasps Wei Ying, breaking the kiss. “I think I might not be straight.” Lan Zhan stares at him, clearly dumbfounded. The expression morphs into a look that says are you really this much of an idiot, and Wei Ying buries his suddenly very hot face in Lan Zhan’s neck. “Leave me alone,” he moans. “This is a revelation, have some compassion for your poor Wei Ying.” He catches himself before saying your poor boyfriend and decides not to interrogate that line of thought tonight.

Lan Zhan says nothing, but presses kisses to his face until Wei Ying is laughing and has to kiss him back.

The sex isn’t particularly vanilla, but Wei Ying isn’t worried about it anymore.

Wei Ying is proud of himself for having successfully had the safeword conversation and basically stumbled his way into the aftercare conversation, so he isn’t too worried about the fact that they still haven’t had the limits conversation.

Really, he should have expected this.

They’ve had sex a handful of times now, and Lan Zhan gets braver about trying things every time, and Wei Ying has always loved it, and Wei Ying is demonstrably into CNC, so how is Lan Zhan supposed to guess that he can’t handle a tiny bit of humiliation kink? And how is he supposed to know that he should ask, when Wei Ying has never really explained that this is a subculture with best practices and established etiquette and something he can google if he wants, and not just Wei Ying’s own personal care and keeping manual?

Anyway.

It happens like this:

They’re in Lan Zhan’s room for once, because Huaisang is sleeping over at somebody else’s, and Wei Ying is sitting in Lan Zhan’s lap, begging to be fucked. He’s prepped and ready to go, but Lan Zhan is teasing him, running his fingers up and down Wei Ying’s sides just hard enough not to tickle.

“Slut,” murmurs Lan Zhan in his ear. “You think you deserve my cock?”

Wei Ying freezes.

He needs to safeword, he knows he needs to safeword, but he’s not sure he remembers how to open his mouth.

Thank fuck Lan Zhan notices anyway.

“Wei Ying? Color?” he says, and, when he gets no answer within a few seconds, “Red. Wei Ying, are you all right?”

Dumb question, thinks Wei Ying hysterically. If he’s fucked up enough Lan Zhan can read it off his body language clear enough to safeword for him, then obviously he’s not all right.

In any other situation, he would laugh it off, deny that anything’s wrong, no matter how obvious of a lie it is, he barely knows how to do anything else, but like this, dropping, he can’t make himself do it. There isn’t enough of him left to lie with.

He realizes belatedly that he’s trembling.

“May I hold you?” asks Lan Zhan, and Wei Ying nods. Lan Zhan reaches over, snags his bathrobe from where it’s slung over his desk chair, and manhandles him into it before pulling Wei Ying into his lap and hugging him tightly.

They sit like that for who knows how long. When Wei Ying comes back to his body a little, he realizes that Lan Zhan’s breathing isn’t all that even either.

“Shit, we’re both dropping, huh?” he whispers into Lan Zhan’s chest. Lan Zhan holds him tighter and bursts into quiet tears, as though now he knows Wei Ying doesn’t need him to have it together quite so badly and he can’t do it a second longer.

He needs a phone, but he’s not willing to let go of Lan Zhan to fish his out of his pants pocket, jumbled in a heap on the floor. Handily, Lan Zhan’s is plugged in to charge just a few inches away, so he pries one forefinger up from the grip it has on his shoulder and uses the print to unlock the phone. He opens text messages and finds Nie Huaisang near the top.

tf do you do for domdrop again

Who are you and why do you have lan zhan’s phone

It makes him huff out a laugh, much as the whole situation isn’t funny at all.

Wei Ying
Mine isn’t in reach

Ah, says Huaisang. Tell him he’s not a bad person for liking what he does/that you don’t hate him for whatever happened/it wasn’t his fault/etc etc
Domdrop’s about feeling like you failed or hurt your sub usually
Then sugar, water, blankets etc just like for subdrop
And let him take care of you so he feels like he’s doing something right

It’s coming back to Wei Ying now. He does know all this, he’s just dropping too hard himself to put his thoughts in the right order.

Ty

Np
Let me know if you need help but somehow I don’t think lan zhan would want me there

Somehow, Wei Ying doesn’t either.

He pushes aside the cold thing in the center of his chest that hasn’t gone away and tugs a little at Lan Zhan’s grip. Lan Zhan whips his arms away so fast it makes Wei Ying want to start crying, too.

“Hey, no, it’s okay, we’re okay,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Lan Zhan’s temple. “I just need my backpack.” He leans off the bed to haul it closer and pull his water bottle and a Snickers bar out of it.

Worthless and weak, says the drop in the back of his head. Looking for comfort? You shouldn’t even need it. What kind of sub can’t handle that? That’s basic shit.

He ignores it with some difficulty. Honestly, the main reason he’s able to climb back into Lan Zhan’s arms and tug the covers over both of them is that Lan Zhan needs him, too.

He takes a long drink from the water bottle and hands it to Lan Zhan. While Lan Zhan drinks, he unwraps the Snickers and eats half of it, passing over the other half in exchange for the water back. Lan Zhan doesn’t refuse the candy, but he does give it a dirty look, which under the circumstances is both endearing and a relief. He’s mostly not crying anymore, which is good.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Wei Ying murmurs into the quiet. A hand closes around his elbow and clings. “I’m okay. We’re going to be fine. It’s just drop, and it’s a bitch, but it does pass. I’m not mad at you.”

“I hurt you,” says Lan Zhan quietly, speaking for what feels like the first time in an hour.

“Well, yeah,” Wei Ying admits, not nearly together enough to phrase it better. Lan Zhan flinches, and Wei Ying pokes him. “But it wasn’t your fault. You had no idea that was going to happen, because you’re new to this and I never told you. That’s on me, and I’m sorry, Lan Zhan. I’ll do better next time.”

“Next time?”

“Next time.”

That seems to make Lan Zhan relax a little.

“Meanwhile,” Wei Ying admits, fighting the crack in his voice and hiding his face in Lan Zhan’s chest, “I think I need you to tell me I deserve things.”

Air rushes out of Lan Zhan’s lungs in an audible whoosh.

“Wei Ying,” he says. “You deserve everything.”

The side of Wei Ying’s mouth quirks up in fond amusement even as the affirmation shaves away a little of the cold thing in his chest. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Everything,” Lan Zhan insists. “You deserve to be happy and loved. You deserve good grades and time with your family and spicy food. You deserve sex in whatever way you want it. You deserve to go down when you want and—and not drop.” His voice wavers.

“Ah, you were doing so well, and then you started blaming yourself again,” sighs Wei Ying, sitting up to look at him. “You also deserve to have sex, and d/s, together or separately, without dropping. Right?”

Lan Zhan narrows his eyes at him, and then nods slowly, as if suspecting a trap.

“So we’ll do this the right way, and talk about it, and next time around will be better for both of us, hmm?”

Lan Zhan nods with more confidence.

Wei Ying ends up introducing him to Wen Qing, who takes him under her wing, both in the dom sense and (as Wei Ying finds out later) in the Wei Ying’s Bullshit sense. Lan Zhan comes back from Wen Qing’s with a very long list of kinks for them to go through, which has Wei Ying’s face on fire through at least half of it, but by the time they’re done, they are very well negotiated.

There’s still something they haven’t really talked about, though.

Wei Ying keeps coming back to “you deserve everything.” What did Lan Zhan even mean? He knows he’s been more than a little oblivious through this whole venture, but that really sounds like Lan Zhan has...maybe, possibly, caught feelings.

Wei Ying doesn’t even know where he would have found feelings. They’ve only been hooking up for a couple months, and they barely interacted before that, beyond the occasional partner exercise or group project. But the way Lan Zhan looks at him, the tenderness with which he touches him during aftercare, the sweetness of the kisses he gives Wei Ying even outside of scenes...that’s what it all points to.

Wei Ying thinks he’s hit his threshold for ridiculousness by sleeping with the man before knowing he was attracted to him, and he’d rather not continue the trend by also dating him without noticing.

“Lan Zhan,” he asks one night, “do you want to go on a date with me?”

The smile he gets in return is so soft and surprised he loses the ability to talk for a couple seconds.

So when they work up the courage to do a scene again, they’re actually officially together, and it’s possible that it...changes some things.

Wei Ying is tied to the bed, with the actual rope this time to allow Lan Zhan to attach each arm to a separate bedpost (although Lan Zhan has still taken out his hair ribbon and tied it around one of Wei Ying’s wrists, and Wei Ying is starting to suspect this may be A Thing), and he’s completely forgotten he’s supposed to be a brat, according to what they had planned tonight. Luckily, either Lan Zhan has too, or he’s just rolling with it admirably, because somehow they’ve ended up in a pure praise kink scene. 

“Beautiful,” Lan Zhan murmurs, stroking tender, careful fingers all over Wei Ying’s skin--arms, legs, cheekbones. He brushes Wei Ying’s hair off his face and cups his cheek. “Always.”

“Always?” gasps Wei Ying, who has his eyes closed in order not to die from the look on Lan Zhan’s face.

“Mm. Kind. Righteous. Passionate. It makes you shine like the sun.”

Wei Ying has to open his eyes at that.

“Lan Zhan. Let me hold you? Please?”

With a couple quick motions, Lan Zhan releases his arms and gathers him into a hug. Wei Ying pulls him into a kiss and then just clings. “How?” he whispers. “We haven’t even been doing this that long.”

“I have cared for you for longer.” Lan Zhan presses a kiss to his forehead.  His smile is small, but very real.

“When?”

“Since the assembly in sophomore year.”

Wei Ying blinks at him, startled.

“The one I took over? Why?”

“You were talking about the university’s threats and the damage they did and what actually helped you.”

“Mm-hm?”

“Wei Ying. You saved yourself by saving Mo Xuanyu.”

Wei Ying has to shut his eyes again. “It wasn’t like that. Heroic or anything.” Mo Xuanyu had found him, after, and called the ambulance. Wei Ying had resented him for the rescue at first, before he’d actually met the skinny, frightened boy who’d ruined his plans. “I couldn’t just try again after I realized his family was abusive. No one else was going to help him.”

“And it was enough for you to find purpose again.”

“Among other stuff! I know I talked about the other stuff.”

“Mm. It made room in your life to talk to your brother, and that made you consider medication. I remember.”

“So…?”

Lan Zhan strokes his cheek with a thumb. “You were in a terrible place, and you still stopped to help someone else. That was when I knew what kind of person you are. Everything you’ve said and done since has only cemented my certainty that my regard for you is deserved.”

Wei Ying makes a startled, indignant noise that definitely comes out as a squeak.

“You are not going to change my mind,” Lan Zhan tells him fondly, smiling. “Better to just accept it.”

Wei Ying laughs wetly. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.” He buries his face in Lan Zhan’s neck so he doesn’t have to look at him when he adds, “Thank you.”

The tightening of Lan Zhan’s arms around Wei Ying is the best thing in the world.