An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Da Qing and Shen Wei have a conversation about Zhao Yunlan, and a past memory is revisited. [2700 words]
Notes: I expected this to just be a short 100 word ficlet that I would throw up here on tumblr, but I got too carried away, so looks like I’m putting this one on AO3. Basically, I have headcanons about what happened to Zhao Yunlan after his mom died and he became estranged with his dad.
case closed - shen wei/zhao yunlan, ~500 words, crack.
A pair of Dixingian power suppressing handcuffs is missing from the SID headquarters, and Lin Jing is horrified.
ride - shen wei/zhao yunlan, ~2000 words.
After the web novelist case, Zhao Yunlan knocks on Shen Wei's door and asks him out to breakfast.
(AKA the one where Zhao Yunlan somehow gets Shen Wei to ride on his motorcycle with him, and Shen Wei curses his stupid sexy biker boyfriend and he’s just ~swooning~ and pining and it’s hilarious)
Zhao Yunlan first catches sight of the necklace hanging from Shen Wei’s neck after those two thugs had tried to rob Shen Wei in the alleyway. It had just been a glimmer of brilliant orange-yellow - Shen Wei’s hand curled around it - and then furtively tucked away under the collar of his dress shirt.
He doesn’t think much of it, not at first.
It’s just a part of Shen Wei’s wardrobe, like his watch or his rimless spectacles. Zhao Yunlan will catch a glimpse of the black cord when Shen Wei turns his neck or shrugs his shoulders a certain way. But the pendant is never visible, always hidden.
When Zhao Yunlan carries the drunk, unconscious Shen Wei, he’s surprisingly heavy - he seems to have actual muscle in that proper professor frame of his. As he eases Shen Wei’s body down on the small bed, Zhao Yunlan notices - all that shifting has exposed the pendant necklace at his throat.
It’s a fiery amber orb. It fits against Zhao Yunlan’s palm when he touches it. It’s warm from the heat of Shen Wei’s body - which is strange, whenever he’s made contact with Shen Wei before, he’s noticed that his body temperature is usually relatively cool - but he knows, that’s the alcohol. Shen Wei’s face is still flushed a dusty red.
Gently, Zhao Yunlan slips the pendant back under Shen Wei’s shirt. Then he reaches for his jacket - and that’s when the revelation hits, and it feels like his world has been upturned.
--
Once Zhao Yunlan confronts Shen Wei about his identity, they ease into something like routine - comfortably fitting into each other’s lives as if they’ve always been there. In Zhao Yunlan’s apartment, they eat meals together, talk together, sit together, sleep together--
It starts like this: Zhao Yunlan asks Shen Wei for ‘repayment.’ Shen Wei takes Zhao Yunlan’s joking suggestion at face value, beginning the process of tidying up by arranging pillows on the bed. Zhao Yunlan walks over to him, pins him down on the bedsheets, and says, “You know that isn’t what I meant.” And Shen Wei blinks and smiles, and it’s blinding, wide and real and radiating fondness, and he tangles his hand in Zhao Yunlan’s hair and kisses him fiercely.
Zhao Yunlan hadn’t expected him to kiss like this. It is a biting, desperate kiss, Shen Wei underneath him, but grasping, reaching up, until Shen Wei has flipped Zhao Yunlan over and he’s sinking his teeth into Zhao Yunlan’s neck. Zhao Yunlan is whimpering - “babe - baby,” he thinks he’s saying incoherently, “please, Shen Wei,” - his hips jerking and shifting against Shen Wei’s surprisingly unmovable waist, which is just pressed against him, keeping him down.
“You have always been an unfair tease, Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei says, and he closes his eyes, opens them, and tells Zhao Yunlan in a calm, steady voice to take off his clothes and turn over for him.
Zhao Yunlan obeys.
--
As the days go by, Zhao Yunlan observes that Shen Wei never takes the pendant necklace off.
Shen Wei doesn’t take it off when he’s in the shower - it’s there on his neck and dripping droplets of water when he emerges, swathed a towel. It’s there when he’s cooking in the kitchen, catching the dim lights overhead and sparkling. As far as Zhao Yunlan can tell, it’s still hanging there when he’s garbed as the Black-Cloaked Envoy, buried under layers of black. And the necklace is there when they’re in bed, bobbing against the white of Shen Wei’s throat when he’s fucking Zhao Yunlan, or just dangling there as they curl against each other and sleep.
And he realizes that Shen Wei always touches the thing. Just little pats throughout the day, as if it’s a reassuring balm. He’ll be grading papers or something, and then almost half-absentmindedly folds his hand against his chest.
--
“What does it mean?” Zhao Yunlan asks him, as they’re lying in bed together.
Shen Wei is sitting up and reading, a book open in his lap. Zhao Yunlan is watching him, his hand loosely curled in Shen Wei’s.
“What does what mean?” Shen Wei asks.
“Your necklace,” Zhao Yunlan says. “You don’t strike me the type to wear jewelry, but it seems important. Is it - connected to your Dixingian power? Or is it an artifact like the Hallows?”
Shen Wei doesn’t say anything. His gaze darts toward the pendant, then up at Zhao Yunlan, and he looks...embarrassed...uncertain? Zhao Yunlan fights back the urge to sigh - Shen Wei and his secrets - but he gives Shen Wei an encouraging smile and continues to lightly speculate.
“Is there meteorite or asteroid dust in it? Pieces of the stars?” Zhao Yunlan kisses his palm and touches Shen Wei’s chest, as if he wants to make a wish upon the pendant. Shen Wei watches him, eyes slightly widened.
“Perhaps the next closest thing,” Shen Wei says, a soft murmur.
--
When Zhao Yunlan finds the lollipop wrapper inside, he laughs and laughs and it hurts.
--
Shen Wei doesn’t know why he picks up the scrap that Kunlun had left behind. He traces the spiral pattern with his fingertips, and holds it in his palm.
When he sees Kunlun set the clinking bells around Da Qing’s neck - claiming ownership - Shen Wei cannot breathe for a single moment. He thinks, I want Kunlun’s fingers brushing against my neck. I want him to mark me as his.
When he wakes up from his long sleep, he finds the scrap tucked into the folds of his cloak. It’s somehow still preserved - perhaps an unconscious instinct on his part. He musters the ability to create and shape, summoning the power of a Dixingian who had worked with rocks and metal, and he fashions an orb pendant sealed around it.
He wants to tell Zhao Yunlan that it’s more precious than any of the stars in the sky.
