words about words

writing blog of @hideyseek

[hidey-writes]

e ⸱ zhou shen/omc ⸱ shower masturbation, sexual fantasy ⸱ 4k

Zhou Shen edits the memory. He puts the low, close backstage rumble of Leo’s voice together with the hot, firm press of his hand against Zhou Shen’s hip. The way he’d felt held in place. Makes Leo say, instead, I just want you to be comfortable, and, Shenshen, how’re you feeling? Shenshen, do you like—

can a pwp also be considered a character study? i sure think so!!! my first foray into rpf and of course it is for this guy. a perfect guy to use to play with themes of reality and fantasy, self-control and indulgence, and what is seen in public versus in private. catch me cramming all of my thoughts and feelings about zhou shen's relationships with celebrity, normalcy, romance, and responsibility into a single oneshot where mostly he takes one very emotionally complicated shower!

read Imagined Like This | 如此虚构 on ao3

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

"What is all this," Zheng Bei breathes, even though Gu Yiran is sure he already knows. But it makes it easier to explain, to have a question to answer. To have a point to latch onto.

"I told you I helped my dad with the case, back then," Gu Yiran starts. "I told you there was an article." Not that Gu Yiran knows where it is anymore, in all this mess. Not that Gu Yiran knows where anything is anymore. There was a photograph, he thinks faintly — he thought he'd left it on the wall. But there's nothing on the wall but blank space, a single slip of paper with Qin Yi's name written and crossed out in anger.

Zheng Bei bends down to look at something on the ground, picks it up, turns it around. Takes a step forward and collects a few more sheets of paper. Stacks them. Gu Yiran says, "I brought this all with me."

He says the rest of it.

There's something in his hand, hard paper. Zheng Bei reaches out, tilts it into the light; it's the photograph. Dad with his eyes squinted shut from laughing, the awkward hunch of his shoulders. There's nothing special to take a photograph of, he'd been saying when the shutter snapped. He's holding his chopsticks. There's a bowl of rice still half-eaten on the table in front of him, the corner of a plate of vegetables in frame beside it. Water spinach, Gu Yiran remembers.

another version of another part of this scene ! i've been writing this scene for [consults journal entries] a month. not even 4k! and ive probably put about 20 hours into the drafting alone, nevermind the thinking around it!!! well. i'm feeling okay about this bit at least — it gets at the grief a little more, gives the reader a little more about gu yiran's dad in a way i like :) but we'll have to see how it fits into the whole.

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

When Gu Yiran comes back into the main room, it’s quiet. Too quiet. It takes him a moment to see — Zheng Bei is sitting on the couch, shoes off, eyes closed. Slumped slightly over to his right in sleep. Something clutched in his hand. His chest moves. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, the slightest burr of a snore. Gu Yiran steps over to him. Zheng Bei is still holding the crumpled photograph of Gu Yiran’s father, tucked up against his chest. The shape of his father’s half-smile held in Zheng Bei’s capable hands. A half-smile that Gu Yiran will never see again. And yet, Gu Yiran thinks, for the first time, lets himself believe, that maybe — together, they might find him. Might find where his body has been kept, all these years. Something stirs and then settles in Gu Yiran’s chest, gentle and warm and certain. Gu Yiran reaches out, unhesitatingly and brushes his hand against Zheng Bei’s forehead. The lightest of touches, as he sweeps his fingertips against Zheng Bei’s ear, even though his bangs don’t reach that far, and then pulls it away again. Dinner can wait. Gu Yiran turns to go fetch the light blanket from the bedroom to put over Zheng Bei.

an old version of a scene near the end of the distance fic! whew. i think i'm approaching the end at last, so i'm finally able to pull out sweeter stuff to post on here haha.

[hidey-writes]

snippet sunday

“They killed him,” Gu Yiran says, hollow. “I didn’t even have a body to bury.” He lifts his eyes, pins his gaze on Zheng Bei’s stricken face. “I came here to bring him home.” “And what if you don’t find him?”  “Then I’ll just keep looking,” Gu Yiran says harshly. “If I don’t have the resources of the investigation then I’ll make do without them.” His eyes find Zheng Bei’s. “Don’t— I’m not going to ask you to put your job on the line. One of us doing it is enough.” “You were never planning to go back to teaching in Huazhou. You really aren’t planing to leave.” “I’ll reimburse you for the plane ticket myself,” Gu Yiran says, looking past Zheng Bei at the photograph of his dad. “You don’t even need to pretend to drive me to the airport.” Silence. Gu Yiran keeps going. “You recommend Director Gao whatever you want to do about me. If I’m lucky enough to stay then I’ll move here, there’s no need to keep imposing on you anymore. You’ve been polite enough as it is.”

i stg i've been writing versions of this scene for a MONTH hello??? anyway here is yet another (i think this is 4??) section that doesn't quiiiite fit what i'm going for. i think zheng bei would react to this the same way he does in canon (let me help), so gu yiran won't have the chance to say all this, but i did really like it! so here it is :)

[hidey-writes]

snippet saturday

He sees Kunlun the moment he comes into view. A lone figure in the rain, one hand stuck in his pocket,  head ducked under an umbrella. Shen Wei sees him and knows him at once. It’s a kind of reassurance: he couldn’t have seen Kunlun before in passing, in this tiny gridded city they’d both been living in. If he’d seen him, he’d have known him from any distance. He’s braced for it and the recognition still chokes him with its intensity. A countless time and distance between them, and yet here they are. On the same street. Drawing ever closer together.  And then Kunlun shuffles past a puddle in a quick motion that feels utterly foreign to Shen Wei, and his heart turns over. This isn’t Kunlun — it isn’t his Kunlun. Just a young man who looks impossibly like him, who Shen Wei had convinced himself was him.  Shen Wei’s stomach churns. He looks away.  The awning light shifts as someone steps into it. Shen Wei looks up at Kunlun folding away an umbrella and swallows and says, “My apologies, I didn’t think this through. I’ll pay you for the night now, but it’s best if you don’t come in with me.”

messing around with an alternate second meeting of my own fic ahahaha -- i had the thought that maybe shen wei books a date with zhao yunlan and then second guesses himself at the last minute, and then couldn't put it down. i'm not sure this is how it'll actually play out in the fic, but just wanted to jot it down in brief as a placeholder!

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

“Is this,” Zheng Bei asks from behind him, “someone’s apartment?”  Gu Yiran opens his mouth, and stops.  Gu Yiran had never practiced this, had never intended this at all. All this time, things had felt like a clear path to the goal, or to the next step closer to the goal. All this time, the choices had been easy. But now — hand in his pocket, halfway across the parlor toward the lock on the second bedroom door, Gu Yiran feels uncertain.  “Gu’er?” Gu Yiran clears his throat. “It’s mine.” He makes himself look toward Zheng Bei. “I’ve been — renting it, I mean. For some time.”  Zheng Bei’s face hardly twitches, even though he must have heard Gu Yiran’s words. He must be counting it back, trying to discern when this had happened — was there some weekend when Gu Yiran’s plans had sounded less believable than the other times? Some evening when he expected Gu Yiran at dinner and was disappointed? And all this time, Gu Yiran still staying with him, working with him, sleeping in his bed in the other room without even a wall between them.  But if he is thinking through it all, the process doesn’t show on his face. There’s just a few slow blinks, the slight bob of his throat. “I see,” Zheng Bei says, and moves his hands from behind his back to clasp instead in front of him without saying anything else.  “It’s only been a few months,” Gu Yiran finds himself saying, like he’s trying to explain himself before he actually explains himself. Like he can lay things out for Zheng Bei to soften things before he actually says anything meaningful. “The landlady wanted to introduce me to a nice girl,” he swallows. “I said no.”  The faintest tick of Zheng Bei’s jaw. The barest flicker of his vision. His shoulders are held so tight. Gu Yiran can see the beds of his fingernails gone flushed from hard his hands are clenched together. “And what did you want to show me, in this apartment?”

still messing around with this apartment scene... eventually surely i'll hit on what i'm looking for, if only through sheer process of elimination lol. here's yet another version that i'm not keeping. in this, zheng bei's reaction isn't specific enough, and gu yiran's dialogue doesn't feel like it carries any of the complicated emotional state i want him to be starting this scene in. you know how they say writers sometimes write stuff just so they know it, but the audience doesn't need to know it? yeah, that.

[hidey-writes]

snippet saturday

“Zheng Bei,” he says. “Here.”  And even as Zheng Bei is crossing the room in silence, even as his hands are coming out of his pockets to clap Gu Yiran on the shoulder, he’s saying, “It’s fine, Xiao Gu. Whatever you have to show me, I’m glad you felt like you could. It’s really—” And Gu Yiran has the gut-wrench experience of watching the words die in Zheng Bei’s mouth when he comes up to the room and sees everything in it. Zheng Bei’s hand falls from Gu Yiran’s shoulder to the doorjamb. The sound he makes might as well be a gasp.  Gu Yiran steps back into the living room. He can’t bear watching Zheng Bei look at it all.   Zheng Bei keeps staring straight ahead. “What — what is all this?” There’s a strange, nervous tone to his voice.

messing around trying various options for the next scene in the distance fic! this is ... not quite it, but eventually thru process of deduction i'm sure i'll land on what i'm going for!

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

It’s cold in the apartment, and stifling with Zheng Bei standing there next to him, all hovering concern and otherwise unreadable.  He feels or perhaps imagines Zheng Bei’s gaze heavy on the back of his neck all the way across the sitting room. He doesn’t dare look back to see whether Zheng Bei has followed him, or if Zheng Bei is still standing there, two paces in past the front door, peering curiously around at the room as if there’s something of Gu Yiran to discover from looking at it all: the old sofa, the low table. The sink with a washcloth hanging from the rim, its leaking faucet.  “It’s a nice apartment,” Zheng Bei says, in that voice that means he’s trying. Gu Yiran imagines the way he’s standing, square and tall, hands in his pockets, weight split evenly across both feet. That slight concerned furrow to his brow, waiting to let the situation play out until he can make sense of it enough to act. Gu Yiran can’t bear to turn around to look at it. The keys to the second bedroom are heavier in his hand than they were in his pocket. The rush of fear in his head is so loud it drowns out of the sound of the padlock coming undone in his hands.  The door swings open under his hand, and Gu Yiran remembers all at once that he’d already been back here.  It’s exactly as bad as Gu Yiran had forgotten it would be.

from the distance fic scene that is destroying my sanity atm hahahaha, some scenes i just have no idea what the goal is and it's like feeling my way through the dark trying versions until something sticks. i keep feeling like i'm stalling out on writing unfortunately. idk what it means !!!!!! but all i can do is hold the idea of consistency in my head i guess ! and keep writing as regularly as i can i think !!!

[hidey-writes]

snippet saturday

Kunlun’s hand drifts up and forward, and Shen Wei’s gaze follows it. It takes a moment too long for Shen Wei to think to echo the motion, to meet Kunlun’s hand palm to palm. “Hei Erguo,” Kunlun says. “A pleasure to meet you.”

His grasp is firm, warm, enveloping. 

“I— my name is Shen Wei,” Shen Wei says, breathy, eyes on their joined hands. He can’t help himself, the quick glance at Kunlun’s face as he says it. His heart caught in his throat for an instant. 

“Shen Wei,” Kunlun repeats. There’s no trace of recognition beyond that of someone putting a face to a name he’d seen written before. But for all that the rest of him seems just different than the version of him Shen Wei knows, this — the way he says Shen Wei's name, half-grave and half-cherished — this is exactly as Shen Wei remembers. 

Shen Wei’s heart turns over. “That's right,” he whispers.

--

ohhhhh let's get into the romance !!!! hehe :))) not much else to say abt this except i've been watching romance dramas again and !!!! i'm not immune !!!!!!! to various tropes and dynamics !!!!! i love shen wei when he's a little lovestruck and stupid !!!!!

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

The rain is coming down quiet in the streetlight halo across the street. Beyond that, even standing outside, nearly in the drizzle, Shen Wei can barely make out the patter of water, the look of it glistening on the roadway, in shallow puddles on the sidewalk. Not enough light, he thinks, to really see it.

He’s a dark silhouette against the warm and boisterous yellow of the front windows. But still — he should be recognizable. 

Under the restaurant awning, Shen checks his watch. Eight past eight. 

Kunlun appears in front of him between the looking-down and the glancing-back-up. The quiet plish of boots against the concrete steps that Shen Wei only realizes in hindsight. A tall man in a long dark jacket. Bright eyes and a faint, careful smile. 

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Kunlun says. He’s folding an umbrella back into itself, a compact black-and-green thing.

“That’s alright,” Shen Wei murmurs. He can’t look at him. “It’s — the rain, I assume.”

He looks instead, at Kunlun’s hands — quick and deft, securing the velcro around the umbrella even though it’s still wet, hooking the strap around one wrist, shaking rain from his fingertips.

--

yet another section that leads into their first meeting as boyfriend-for-hire and client???? imagine that!!!! i'm not sure i'm entirely happy w this section, but it's ok! all of this is wip for a reason! also it's been raining near me, hence the mood of this thing !!!! [zhou shen voice] 从不喜欢下雨天 ! ! ! ! !

[hidey-writes]

snippet saturday

By the time the night wraps up, Kunlun is red-faced, starting to stumble. Where another man might go languid, Kunlun instead has gone strangely tight, something twisted up in him, something strangely insistent to the way he looks at Shen Wei from under those dark eyelashes. “I told you I can hold my drink okay,” he’s saying, “I told you.”

Shen Wei brings a hand up to wrap around Kunlun’s other shoulder, so that Kunlun can lean more heavily against Shen Wei’s side as they navigate the steps out of the restaurant. It’s surprisingly cold tonight, but the temperature seems to do nothing for Kunlun’s sobriety.

Kunlun’s eyelids flicker. He trips down the final step into Shen Wei. For a moment they’re cheek-to-cheek, Kunlun’s skin soft and warm against Shen Wei’s before Shen Wei manages to right himself, to put a centimeter more distance between them.

—

still on my bf service fic bandwagon hehe — still playing with when i want shen wei to call zhao yunlan "kunlun" vs anything else, and mostly going by feel for now. i don't quite remember the context anymore but i had a crazy intimate hug with a near-stranger sometime in the last month, and the physicality of this was written based on that

[hidey-writes]

omg thank u for this lovely item !!! 🥰🥰🥰

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

Shen Wei’s hand is still resting lightly on his shoulder, a wisp of feeling. Zhao Yunlan twitches his shoulder beneath it, feels the subtle tense-and-release of Shen Wei’s fingers. He draws in a breath, and doesn’t know what to say. 

Shen Wei regards him. His expression hasn’t changed, but there’s the faintest sense of smirking satisfaction to him. He says, gravely, “There. Now the implication will be the truth.” His voice has gone shockingly low. 

As if that kind of small untruth mattered in the shadow of the larger untruth of whatever was between them. Zhao Yunlan manages to gather his faculties enough to rasp, “Marking up the escort is extra.” 

Shen Wei does smile, then, a corner of his mouth curling up. “Even when I didn’t start it, hm? I suppose I did make it — somewhat worse.”

Zhao Yunlan claps a hand to his throat. The skin is hot under his palm. He doesn’t remember how big the mark was in his mirror. Without a mirror, he can’t tell how much darker it is now. How much more intense Shen Wei had made it. 

His whole face is on fire. 

“Fair enough.” Shen Wei’s tongue darts out to wet his lips. He digs his wallet out of a back pocket and holds it up. “Take it out of whatever cash is in there, or add it to my tab next time if there isn’t enough. My credit card bill is ridiculous enough already this month.”

Zhao Yunlan doesn’t doubt it. Shen Wei has booked him no less than once a week this month, sometimes twice. Always for at least two hours. At this point, Zhao Yunlan can’t help but feel that someone as hot and competent as Shen Wei might be better served finding an actual boyfriend to lavish his devotion and time on. One he doesn’t have to pay.

Shen Wei twitches his wallet with a faintly insistent air, arm outstretched. “Xiao Zhao.”

--

an alternate version of the post-necking scene from the last few posts! for context, zhao yunlan got a hickey from a different client / someone else, and then showed up to a meeting with shen wei with it on full display. (hehe.) this was a fun exercise in testing out different versions re: how much i want to emphasize the transactional nature of their relationship at this point in time, and how big i want the emotional shift for zhao yunlan to be. still not sure! mostly the result of this is: auuuugh i like them both!

[hidey-writes]

snippet saturday

Shen Wei takes a step forward, eyes fixed on Zhao Yunlan’s throat. “Xiao Zhao,” he murmurs. The flash of his teeth, the wet pink of his tongue. “Is there anything not in the contract that is off-limits to a client while you’re working?”

There’s absolutely no way Professor Shen is about to do what Zhao Yunlan wants him to do.

“You read the contract yourself,” Zhao Yunlan says. “What’s written down is what the rules are.” He swallows, a purposeful bob of his throat in the streetlight. “If I wanted something to be off-limits, it would be in there.”

--

goodbye conventions, i am simply not a guy who can do anything useful in 6-7 sentences anymore these days. [middle schooler voice: six sevennnnn] hahaha. ok that's enough. hope u enjoyed reading!

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

The bruise is vivid on Zhao Yunlan’s throat the next morning. He frowns at it in the mirror, spits toothpaste foam into the sink without looking, and presses a fingertip against the hickey. It darkens. 

None of his two turtlenecks are clean. When neither of them appear in the pile of clean-enough clothes on his bedroom floor, Zhao Yunlan upends his entire laundry basket into a second pile on the floor to make sure he didn’t misplace them.

One smells like the coffee he’d spilled on it a week ago. The other one is still sporting a stain from last night on the collar. 

He looks at his phone. There’s an unread message from Da Qing that he ignores. 

Shen Wei had requested his arrival at 7pm. There’s still plenty of time to do a load of laundry, even if he has to wait an hour for the building’s single dryer to free up. 

Zhao Yunlan considers for a moment, and then pulls a crew-neck long sleeve out of his closet. It’s off-white, waffle print. The collar ends low enough that the dip between his collarbones peeks out. 

If Professor Shen doesn’t want the freebies Zhao Yunlan offers, well. Might as well make a point of showing the man what he’s missing.

--

like. maybe i'm having tooo much fun with this fic ahahahhahaha. psychological warfare between these two guys is my favorite hahahahaha

[hidey-writes]

seven sentence saturday

“You will not deal with clients yourself,” Da Qing sniffs. "Have you met yourself? You have no standards.”

Zhao Yunlan watches him roll his eyes, shifting onto his back and into cat form in a single smooth motion.

Da Qing paws idly at a whisker and wrinkles his nose, gaze pointedly elsewhere. “Twice a week, starting half an hour after sunset. I’ll take your business calls, baby cat.”

—

i think at this point the zhao yunlan & da qing dynamic here is maybe entirely unfounded in canon and is instead totally my headcanoning haha but im just very — charmed by da qing's catisms!!!! his hot and cold mannerisms!!! its so cutie to me!!!

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

There’s a line of tension in Kunlun’s face. Shen Wei watches his hand drift to his stomach and then twitch away to slide into his pocket.

“Ku— Erguo,” Shen Wei says quietly, “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Kunlun’s mouth flattens. “Time’s up,” he says, dismissive. “You don’t need to keep treating me like your boyfriend anymore.” Like he’s only just remembering that he needs to soften his words, he adds, “You wouldn’t want me to charge you overtime, would you?”

There’s no tease in his voice, just the stripped tension of someone — in pain.

Shen Wei catches Kunlun’s wrist as he reaches past to close Shen Wei’s apartment door for him. “Charge me whatever you want,” he says plainly. “You can’t walk home in this condition.”

—

going insaaaaaane recreating canon moments in this fic but just a little bit different than how they happened in canon!!! something so fun and delicious to me about being able to tweak all the subtle little threads and see what happens as a result!