The last thing Wei Ying expected to happen to him, was pinned to the floor of the shipwreck he’d been hired to evaluate by a man with gold eyes.
His hand, thick with…callouses, didn’t cut off airflow, but the implication was there. His other hand was large enough to pin both of Wei Ying’s hands to the floor.
Which was doing things for him.
Bad time to learn he had kink.
This is not the time to get aroused.
Wei Ying cleared his throat, and prayed his face wasn’t red.
“Um, hi. Did…I disturb you?”
What a thing to ask!
In Wei Ying’s field of environmental science he learned there were only a handful of people that willingly walked into ten-year-old oil tankers washed up during hurricanes.
The first group, his group, were the people hired to figure out what threat it posed to the environment.
The second group, dumb teenagers.
And the third group, people looking for a ghost story, or the curious.
This man, with his sharp angled features, beautiful golden eyes, and large hands, belonged to neither of those categories.
“I mean, yes. Clearly I did because people don’t tend to react violently when they’re expecting people to come wandering around the corner. And you’re not living here, you’re too pretty for that. Not that that’s a judgment on the houseless, anyone can be-”
“Quiet.”
Wei Ying snapped his mouth shut, frowning. The man’s voice trembled. He noticed both of his hands were shaking, his breaths were ragged and short.
“Oh shit, do you…need help?”
The man glared at him harder, his hand on Wei Ying’s throat twitched like he couldn’t decide to squeeze or release.
Wei Ying shut down the part of his brain that wanted him to squeeze just a bit harder.
“Close your eyes,”
Wei Ying obeyed, closing his eyes and going limp, trying to poise as little threat as possible. The hands fell away from him, as the weight moved off.
“Get out.” The voice came back, shaking and pained.
Wei Ying sat up, turning his head to the direction the voice came from, keeping his eyes firmly closed.
“You’re hurt.”
A snort, what sounded like a snake across the metal plates,
“You cannot help me.”
Wei Ying frowned, “You don’t know that. What’s wrong?”
“I cannot tell you. You cannot help me.”
Wei Ying took a breath, slowly breathing out. “I can’t just leave you here. Please…let me do something. Call someone you can-wait, no that won’t work Yuan-er broke my phone last week. Mianmian has a phone I can borrow.”
A long beat of silence followed that. Either the man had gone, or he was staring at Wei Ying, trying to figure out how he tied his shoes in the morning with a brain that moved that fast.
(He didn’t! He had velcro laces and boots so he didn’t have to worry about if he tied them or not)
“I…was going to see my brother. I do not have his number. There…is no one else.”
No one that beautiful should sound that heartbroken. Wei Ying wanted to hold his hand, to comfort him in some meaningful way.
“Then let me help…please.”
The tension this time was different, he knew the man was waffling, willing to give in, he could taste his anxiety and reluctance in the confined room.
“You…may open your eyes.”
It took a moment for them to adjust to the sunlight streaming through the broken plates of the tanker, scattered across the tossed cabin. Glinting off silver and white scales smeared with blood from a long fin impaled by three rebar.
“Shit.” Wei Ying scuttled over to the tail, he pressed down gently around the wounds, issuing an apology when a hiss of pain and a hand grabbed his elbow. “Fuck, fuck, this…this is bad. Ho-how long have you been like this?”
“Thirteen days.”
The man’s brow twitched forward, his mouth wasn’t unhappy, more…curious, his eyes darting between Wei Ying and his tail.
Right.
He probably should have had more of a reaction to a mermaid in the shipwreck (great name for a band) but as stated by friends and the few people that loosely considered him family, he was bad at faking being human.
An explanation would have to wait. The man was dehydrated, and had lost a considerable amount of blood, The tanker was upside down, so the high tide would have brought in water and fish, but still he needed fresh water, his first aid kit, and the atargatian from his jeep.
Turning he saw his gray and white bag on the floor, grabbing it he pulled out his lunch, and a bottle of human medication Wen Qing cleared for him to use.
He passed both over to the man, along with a sweater he kept because fuck these northern estimations and recoveries, they were always cold.
“I have to go back to my car and get some things. I have some atargatian that will help heal your wounds, but I’m going to have to get them out of you first. Are they welded to the floor? Do you know?”
The man blinked, a creamy cardigan with ink stains around the cuffs draped about bis shoulders, and his hands full of Wei Ying’s startlingly red lunch looked…adorable.
Wei Ying barely restrained himself from cooing aloud.
“No. I sought refuge from the storm in here, the waves drove them in when the ship washed on land.”
Wei Ying nodded, “Good, good, that’s very good. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
He pulled his gloves back on so he could pull himself out of the wreck faster without worrying about cuts and scrapes and legged it up the beach to the parking lot.
With flirting and a lot of fluttering eyes he got Mianmian to text Wen Ning to pick Yuan-er up from pre-school, only promising to tell her the entire store later, She was a Koi Jin, she would understand.
He was out of breath when he got back, the mermaid had put the cardigan on and was staring at the food with the kind of determination a man before the gallows does.
“You don’t have to eat it.” Wei Ying turned over a metal box, using it as a makeshift table where he unloaded the three bottles of atargatian, handing one over, he got out the rest of the supplies.
“I..do not think that I can.” His voice was quiet, he peered at Wei Ying through his lashes, “I do not wish to be rude.”
“Dude. You’ve been pinned by rebar for thirteen days, and you let me go after just a few seconds of incredibly kinky restraint. You’ve been the perfect gentleman given the circumstances.”
He kneeled beside the rebar closest to him, this one was going to be the easiest to get out.
“I should really have asked Wen Qing to come out, but I forgot before I left if you would have been comfortable with someone else. She’s a Wen Taimen in case you were worried I’d call a human to help you out. What should I call you anyway?”
Wei Ying pressed a thick gauze pad to the top of the wound, grabbed the rebar.
“Wangji.” He said staring at Wei Ying,
“On three.” Wei Ying offered his elbow “You can hold on to if it you need too.”
He slid one hand around his elbow, fingers shaking slightly.
“Okay,” Fresh blood seeped out of the wound, “One, two-” He pulled up and out, covering the wound with the gauze before fumbling for the first bottle of atargatian, he popped the glass cork, dumping the dark blue brew into the wound.
He made quick work of the other two pieces of rebar before wrapping the bottom half of the tail with enough gauze to make Wen Qing have a coronary when she finds out how much was missing from his kit.
Wangji was breathing hard, his skin was pale and sweaty, his fingers were digging into Wei Wuxian’s arm so hard he knew he was going to have bruises the next day.
“Okay.” Wei Ying moved to his side, holding up his hands, after he pulled the gloves off, “Do you want me to touch you?”
Wangji nodded once, a tight, controlled action.
Wei Ying took one of Wangji’s hands, placing it on his own chest, over his heart where Wangji could feel his heart through the thin t-shirt.
“Breath with me. In and out with me. Good, good, that’s very good. Slowly.” He took deep breaths, letting them out slowly.
“You did good. Such a good job. I know it hurts right now. I’m sorry. You’re doing gre-”
Wangji buried his head in Wei Ying’s chest, his arms wrapped tightly around Wei Ying’s waist, hands gripping his shirt so hard he might have felt a few stitches pop.
Wei Ying settled down beside him. Stroking his hair and back, rubbing his arms. He hummed softly, like he did when Yuan-er had bad dreams, something soothing from Wen-popo to help soothe him.
Cold water slapped him in the face.
Sputtering Wei Ying jerk up, blinking at the rapidly encroaching water and the dusty sunset.
He scrambled backwards, looking around. The mermaid was gone, along with the empty atargatian bottles, his lunch, and sweater.
No surprise really, he hadn’t expected for an injured mermaid to stick around. Being injured was bad enough, having to rely on someone who may or may not have been human, especially given their track record was worse. Wei Ying could have brought Wangji to his family, washed his tail, and adorned him with pearls while kneeling and it wouldn't have mattered. Acts of service did not trust make.
Gathering his things, he gave the slowly encroaching ocean one more look before making his way out of the ship.
He thought that was the end of it.
He really did.
He helped someone out that needed it and went on with his life. Told Wen Qing of the events before she discovered the missing gauze and atargatian before she could, and got replacements a week later and a lecture about falling asleep with a stranger.
Which, he deserved.
Until today.
“Have you…done anything recently?” Mianmian had asked an hour ago, perching against his desk.
Wei Ying looked up from his oil tanker report draft,
“Not…that I’m aware of. Why?”
“Lan Xichan called, he wants to see you at the corporate office in Gusu.”
Wei Ying stared at her for a minute longer before looking at the clock on his computer, “It’s nearly midday, Gusu is a three-hour train ride, or two hours by bus, I gotta get Yuan-er in forty minutes and-”
“You’re not cooking tonight.” Mianmian stole one of his mints from the bowl, “I am. I don’t want to die. Lan Xichen’s sending a car for you.”
“It wasn’t that spicy, Yuan-er?”
Mianmian shrugged, “I’ll grab him, Good luck, put on a tie.”
She pushed off his desk, returning to her own.
Wei Ying flipped her off before digging out the only tie he had.
The car ride was only an hour, but it felt like an eternity. He’d met Lan Xichen when Cloud Recesses Disaster Recovery had been brought in for an oil spill off the coast of Seattle, in which Wei Ying was both an anti-capitalist protester and volunteer. He was pretty sure Lan Xichen forgave him for nearly setting him on fire. In his defense he hadn’t known he’d been there at the time. Companies didn’t like talking to Volunteers, and Volunteers had decided on in situ burning to prevent the build up of oil near a turtle nesting ground.
He hadn’t lit anything on fire recently, so it couldn’t have been for that.
The Corporate offices were high in the mountains that forced corporations that ruined the environment to climb up the stairs, while employees got the trolley ride up the back.
He was greeted upon arrival, and taken straight to Lan Xichen’s office.
“Lan Xichen I-”
He was met with bright gold eyes staring at him from the otherside of the room.
This one went places. Were those good places?
