Archive of Our Own ^beta

1. rime

the early autumn morning finds xue yang smoking in the dead-end alley behind burial mounds, blowing clouds of cotton-candy flavored smoke from his vape, and daydreaming about all the violence he’ll inflict on wei wuxian when he finally deigns to show up.

the air is crisp, and smells like cold, in a way he knows well. there are thin rivulets of rain water that have found home in the gouges of the asphalt, where it splits in blackened holes like some great desert cat has used the street to sharpen ruthless claws.

xue yang’s mouth tastes like cotton candy, and his blackened teeth ache behind the pristine white clip-on veneers he uses for photoshoots. somehow, the dentist is always last on his list of priorities after each paycheck, slotted somewhere behind rent, and bills, and groceries, and the expensive upkeep of his façade – much like the veneers, it is all too pricey by far, and ultimately, what he needs to be able to stay afloat. hair, nails, skin treatments are all essential when he is in the business of selling his beauty, and the rotten ugly things beneath the thin cellophane wrapping of his looks are not of interest to anyone with the kind of money he needs to survive.

doing this campaign is taking a lot out of him, and wei wuxian damn well knows this – he’d cancelled on his sugar daddies for the past two weeks, to keep his skin clear of marks, he’d been drinking shitty diet smoothies for the past few days, so he could be cinched down to the seventeen inches he is known for in the fetish modeling community. campaigns like this were always brutal and exhausting on his body and on his psyche, as he worked to get himself in the right headspace that the campaign called for, and the least wei wuxian could do was respect his time and energy, but nooo.

his teeth are chattering ever so slightly, and he warms himself up with another puff from his vape, and huddles in wen ning’s black leather jacket. the other models are still inside, chattering among themselves, and getting ready, but xue yang has never been one for socializing and things like camaraderie and companionship. he shows up, gets ready, poses his ass off, collects his paycheck, and fucks off. maybe it wouldn’t hurt him to be more personable, but he saves that shit for his clients. he doesn’t need to be nice to anyone when he looks like that.

he’d looked through the moodboards he’d been sent. wei wuxian was looking for dark, and dramatic, and mysterious vibes from the models, which is what people usually booked xue yang for. he’s slender and small, his thin waist and an oval, fine-boned face always a draw for the camera. he has “expressive eyes” whatever that means, and he’s good at falling into role.

the last photoshoot he’d done for wei wuxian’s fall-winter campaign, he’d stepped into a dominant role, with an equestrian vibe. riding boots, a crop, heavy rings on the fingers of his untarnished hand, and a riding glove on the other, tilting up mo xuanyu’s heavily made-up face to the camera, and directing the viewer to the beautiful collar on his neck, part of an exclusive collaboration from wei wuxian’s brand with some sort of jewelry maker.

that had been a fun day of shooting – particularly because he hadn’t needed to starve himself before it, and the leather leggings and billowing silk shirt had covered the worst of his bruising from a week straight of client appointments. he’d been in a much better mood then, he recognizes, but also, wei wuxian had been on time then.

the 150mm heels are already killing his ankles, and his skin may well be tinged blue, since all he’s wearing is the beautiful, but flimsy lingerie he’ll be posing in. wei wuxian may be many things, but he’s a fantastic designer, and xue yang is keeping the pieces after the shoot.

the stockings are thinner than spiderweb, snaking over his legs, and clipped to the intricate garter belt with lovely silver clips which gleam tantalizingly. he’s cinched in a spectacular mesh corset, though nowhere near to how small his waist can be. a-qing is on stand-by to do that for him later, with the showstopper piece for the collection. contrary to popular belief, xue yang knows his own limits, and doing the whole day with his diaphragm pushed up into his throat or whatever, is not really the vibe.

he taps his heel on the truly wrecked asphalt of the back street, and wonders why, with all his husband’s money, can’t wei wuxian spring for a nicer headquarters of his lingerie brand.

the peeling paint of the house, and the darkened windows, the cracked windowsills, and the gargoyles, overgrown with moss and blackened by years of untend all lend themselves to sculpting a striking image of urban brutalism, which is, all things considered, the backdrop du jour for any indie brand. that being said, in almost all other regards, wei wuxian is determined to break the mold, so they really could do with a nicer central building.

they could also do with a brand ceo who shows up to his own photoshoots on time.

the cold is making tears gather at the corners of his eyes, which he carefully stops before they can ruin a-qing’s work on his make-up. he’s got a starbucks napkin tucked in the cup of his bralette specifically for that purpose, gently using the sharp edge of his nail to press it directly into his waterline, to catch the tears before they can escape. the exaggerated smokey eye and sharp overdrawn eyeliner make his face look like it’s all eyes. his mouth is painted in a delicate nudey pink. he looks like everyone’s dream goth girlfriend, which is how he likes it.

the whole subby, fragile porcelain doll aesthetic really sells these days, and wei wuxian’s sudden disappearance from in front of the cameras had left a market niche that xue yang was quick to take advantage of. the one positive side of lan wangji’s borderline insane possessiveness, if there ever was one. him and mo xuanyu both fill that niche, technically, but he’s better at it for sure – more seasoned, as it were. wei wuxian had thrown them together in shoots, in some kind of hope that xue yang would be inclined to mentor the other boy. he’s disgusted with himself over the fact that it had worked.

truthfully, he could get back inside and warm up, but he finds the idea of being near any of the other models right now to be… unwise. he’s already pissed off, he’s starving, and he might well say things that he shouldn’t, and that would result in hurt feelings, and chances are wei wuxian would show up at precisely the right moment to see him in a yelling match with wen ning, and pull his contract, and he’d never find modeling work that’s no straight  porn ever again. the fetish modeling scene isn’t that big for him to get to be an asshole without repercussions. of course, he hadn’t known that when he’d stolen jin guangyao’s sugar daddy from him.

how was he to know that wen ruohan would drop jin guangyao like a hot potato just because xue yang was better at not using his safeword?

not that the dimpled whore was doing too badly for himself now. he’d broken the mold from doing fetish and gone into respectable modeling at daddy jin’s high fashion glossy publication. something gilded peony something. apparently his stint on an exclusive contract with  the unclean realm had ended in a truly terrifying screaming match with editor-in-chief nie mingjue. the little asshole hadn’t departed the scene before making sure no one would want to work with xue yang though.

it had taken ages to rebuild his reputation as a dependable and professional model, and in the mean time he’d had to rely entirely on sugar dating, and severely lower his standard. and to his greatest humiliation, he’d also had to turn to wei wuxian’s good will. he’d ended up living in his shitty studio, and sharing the bare mattress on the floor with him, until wei wuxian got to live every whore’s dream, getting swept up by a disgustingly wealthy patron, and almost overnight getting wifed down, and leaving their old life of camming and scrapping the bottom of the barrel for a paying gig behind him.

honestly, xue yang maybe resented him just a little for that. it made sense, of course, that wei wuxian would get to live his fairytale with the second son of a literal billionaire. he was charming, and fun and – well – kind. he was the kind of person good things just should happen to. xue yang was everything that could stand in opposition to that. he was mean, and bitter, and abrasive. he was an asshole, he didn’t watch his mouth, and he selfishly took, and took, and took from everyone around him. how someone as warm and loving as wei wuxian could put up with him was beyond him. he’d half expected the other man to forget all about him before the ink on his marriage license had even dried out.

instead, he’d been asked to sign an exclusive contract for wei wuxian’s new lingerie brand, and feature as the centerpiece of each and every single campaign. then wei wuxian had called his old friend nie huaisang, the creative director of the unclean realm, and gotten him to feature xue yang in a ten page spread.

apparently, knowing that jin guangyao had fucked him over was enough to put him at the top of the nie brothers’ list when it comes to modeling work.

fuck you, dimples, xue yang thought, every time he swiped his credit card without heart palpitations now, fuck you, and your high horse.

he throws his head back and looks up at the grey sky. he’d been at burial mounds bright and early, way before the sun was even up, to start getting ready. a-qing had started with his hair, pulling and tugging, and doing whatever it is she did, that ended up with the masses of dark brown hair pulled into an intricate up-do, with only a few delicately curled tresses framing his face. it made his neck look endless, milk-white and perfectly inviting for someone’s mouth to latch on, or for a hand to encircle, to snap a collar on. who wouldn’t want to buy the pretty things that go with the owner of that neck? who wouldn’t want to buy him? then she’d scraped the dried purifying clay mask off his face, and gotten to work on his make-up, criticizing everything, from his old skin-picking scars, to his too-dry lips, to his apparently not-moisturized-enough lashes, while he couldn’t curse her out, because moving even a muscle would risk all her work going to waste. he put up with it, because it was the same shit she said every time, and at this point, the ribbing was familiar, and not as grating as it had been. that’s how she showed her care, and every time she did his hair and make-up for a shoot, he ended up leaving with a back of skincare freebies, from face masks, to scar serums, to deliciously flavored vegan lip scrubs.

she’d been just about done with the finishing touches, when the other models had started arriving. for his big campaigns, wei wuxian liked to keep a tight circle. aside from xue yang, who tended to be the star of the campaigns because of his magnetic camera presence, there was also mo xuanyu, who made for the most alluring eye-candy when dolled up in pretty frilly nightgowns, and light colours paired with heavyweight leather accessories. wen ning had worked with wei wuxian the longest, and his generous modeling contract was taking care of his living expenses that his trust fund didn’t cover, as he fought tooth and nail to get through his pre-med degree. it had been the same for one of their only two female models, wen qing, before she got an internship that ate too much of her time, and burial mounds got a bit too high-profile for her to be comfortable stripping down to skin and lace under her real name.

xue yang had never found out what exactly the wen siblings had done to piss uncle ruohan off enough to cut them off from every single resource he could. and he had tried to find out, both from them, and from the man himself to absolutely no avail. in any case, considering the kind of shit he put up with from his inept sons, it had to have been big.

wen ning modeled most of the more masculine pieces. he had the physique for it, and he looked good with his broad shoulders, and chiseled body, but his dominant presence on camera was just for show. he was a skittish, shy, vanilla little thing as soon as the shutters stopped echoing, quick to cover himself in a fluffy robe and disappear. much like mo xuanyu, he’d been drawn to the job by his desperate crush on wei wuxian.

everyone had had that phase, including xue yang. okay, not everyone, because their now only female model, mianmian, was happily married and trying for a baby with her husband. they’d have to either find a new female model, or start putting mo xuanyu in full drag, when she went into maternity. or, more likely, wei wuxian would venture into sexy maternity wear, and expand into the mommy kink and milf-fucker market.

xue yang shuddered. the cold was biting at his bare legs. the skin at the tops of his thighs, which wasn’t covered by the stockings was beginning to numb. he couldn’t feel his feet in the shoes, which was good, though the pain would surely make itself known as soon as he stepped inside and got his blood circulation going.

he took another puff of his vape.

the stump of his missing finger was aching. he hadn’t put on his prosthetic glove today. usually they carried campaign by campaign on how they went about disguising his defect, and it depended on the photographer’s creative vision. it would either be a glove, strategic positioning of his hand with relation to the camera, or just straight up photoshopping a finger on his hand. he kept one of those photos framed in his apartment. it had been a damn good picture of him, his waist cinched to seventeen inches in a sheer corset made of mesh nude panels, with only the boning panels a brilliant crimson red, his legs endless in bedazzled thigh high loubotins in the 150mm neight, and a size too small for him, because the store didn’t even carry the 150’s to begin with, so they’d had to get whatever they could from warehouse.

his throat had been bitten raw the night before, and instead of covering it up, wei wuxian had insisted on accentuating it with a heavy necklace with red and black stones. his hair had been pulled back from his face in a high ponytail, held with a beautiful, intricate ornament with stones in matching red. he was looking straight at the camera, hands on his tiny waist, splayed perfectly, with five fingers on each side, symmetrical, whole.

when he’d seen the finished, retouched image in the catalogue for the first time, alone in his new much-less-shitty-than-before flat, he’d cried, running his trembling fingers over the picture of what he would have looked like if he had never been damaged over and over again, and then grasping his ruined hand to finger the stump, remind himself it was still there, and he was still broken.

he’d asked for the image files from that shoot, and gotten the photo blown up and framed, and he didn’t care that it was probably bad for him. he wanted to look at it every day, and see himself whole and untouched.

he kept telling himself that if someone took a picture of him that he liked better, he’d replace it in the frame, but so far it hadn’t really happened.

what also hadn’t really happened just yet, was wei wuxian arriving. and the issue with him not being there was that the photographer also was not there, because the photographer would arrive with wei wuxian. so they were just all on standby, waiting for his highness to grace them with his presence, and even though technically he had nothing better to do with his time for now, xue yang had confirmed an appointment with a rather impatient wen ruohan.

he usually understood the constraints of xue yang’s modelling job, but two weeks without his favorite punching bag betrayed a frustration in his texts that wasn’t normally there, which also probably meant that wen chao or wen xu or both had chosen those two weeks to be particular disappointments. which of course meant that xue yang would get to comfort them over daddy’s bad attitude in the coming days too.

he was about to take another puff from the vape when he heard a car pulling in, and chanced a look at the end of the alley. lo-and-behold, wei wuxian’s chiron pulled to a stop, and from the passenger side emerged the man himself, in his usual uniform of thigh high boots and leather leggings, combined with one of his husband’s illegally soft cashmere sweaters, looking deliciously oversized on his slender frame. his hair, in its usual high ponytail, and still reaching well below his shapely behind looked as pullable as ever.

xue yang was man enough to admit he missed riding that train, but not enough to risk getting dismembered by lan wangji, and having the pieces scattered across various dumpsters in the city. he’d managed to avoid that fate as a teenager sucking random men off in alleyways for enough money to get dinner from a macdonalds and use the laundromat on his four shirts, and he wasn’t about to suffer it now that he was finally on the up and up.

wei wuxian went around the car, his lips curved in his usual cheery smile, and had the audacity to wave at xue yang, his obnoxiously large wedding ring flashing in the shy early morning sunlight. xue yang flipped him off, and stalked back inside, slamming the back entrance to the building hard behind him.

“his highness has arrived,” he announced with a sneer.

mianmian had arrived and gotten ready while he’d been waiting outside, which just came to show how fucking long it had been. in slightly better news, the catering team had also arrived and set up a table with filter coffee and light snacks. you really couldn’t do much more than light snacks if you were modeling corsetry, which most of them were doing. except for wen ning, the lucky bastard.

he shrugged off the other man’s the leather jacket, which dwarfed his small shoulders, and tossed it on the back of his makeup chair. wen ning could well retrieve it from there later.

xue yang made a beeline for the coffee, and dumped half the sugar packets in his cup, stirring it with single minded purpose. a-qing had brought him starbucks to get him through the make-up and hair process, but that had been hours ago and the combined caffeine and sugar rush had already worn off.

now that the photographer was here, a-qing had abandoned him to his fate. As the only person with enough expertise in these things, and really, the only assistant on set, she had to scurry off and help with the set up of cameras and lights and backdrop in the room that they used for a studio for most of the brand’s campaigns.

“plan on letting the rest of us have some of that?” mianmian asked, coming up behind him. xue yang rolled his eyes.

“it’ll go straight to your hips, i’m doing you a favor,” he said with little bite.

mianmian rolled her eyes at him. “see if i save you a sandwich for later,” she said, and gently nudged him out of the way with her hip. he did move, in his defense, because he wasn’t really that much of an asshole. they’d all gotten up at the asscrack of dawn to do their jobs.

“ew,” he said, disdain dripping from his voice, “you eat?”

“not sure this can be classed as food,” she said lightly, and demonstratively picked up a donut and bit into it.

“aiya, is this how you talk about the refreshments your boss has so thoughtfully provided?” wei wuxian was approaching them, silver eyes brighter than the early morning sun, and his ponytail swinging prettily behind him. in the warmth of the building, he’d shrugged off the sweater, and was left in a lacy wine red camisole that showed off his soft shoulders, and long, graceful jade-pale arms.

even though he didn’t have to cater to the image of a breakable little waif, he still maintained his body to the same standard, as though he was actively modelling, partially because it was, after all, his tiny waist, and fragile-looking wrists that had gotten him his husband’s attentions to begin with. that, and his naturally seductive personality, of course. maybe he had bitten more than he could chew though, since instead of wrapping a sugar daddy around his little finger, he’d ended up with his long beautiful hair wrapped around the fist of a man who was determined to see him barefoot and pregnant. barefoot and a parent, at the very least. if the adoption papers for the baby he and lan wangji were hoping for came through.

what was it with everyone around him settling down and starting to pop out babies all of a sudden, and where could he start up the process of purchasing some marital bliss for himself?

he didn’t plan on doing this forever. his beauty wouldn’t hold, and already the demographic that wanted to buy him was changing. pretty soon, he’d go from calling out for daddy, to being the one getting called daddy. not that he planned on going into his thirties and still bending over for a paycheck. then again, in his youth, he’d never planned on making it into his thirties anyway, so even this long-term planning of his was an improvement. he’d never thought he’d see the other side of twenty, but here he was now, and it wasn’t all bad.

except today. today was bad, and he was determined not to be the only one having a hard time of it, and wei wuxian had already wronged him with his blatant disrespect for other people’s time and commitments.

“did you just now manage to break out of being chained to the marital bed to make it here?” he bit out. he could picture it – wei wuxian greeting lan wangji with an early morning blowjob, and then getting a second breakfast in bed, and the two of them languishing in each other’s company, while xue yang had to haul ass at four, and beat the pavement, because he didn’t take the subway anymore after -

mianmian wisely chose that moment to retreat, because she knew well that you never wanted to get caught up in a cat fight between wei wuxian and xue yang.

“a-yang… so cruel, so early in the morning,” wei wuxian moaned dramatically.  

“it might be early in the morning for you, but it’s practically mid-day for the rest of us,” xue yang snapped. “i know you don’t respect yourself, so i don’t expect you to respect us, but do at least try to respect our time, will you? or did you forget so quickly what those photoshoots mean for those of us who have other work?”

some of the light in wei wuxian’s eyes dimmed at that, and his cheerful expression shuttered, his soft kissable mouth pulling from the playful pout it was shaped in, to a much more real displeased frown.

“well – right. okay then, let me see how the setting up is going,” he said, visibly deflating, and walked away without another word.

“you didn’t have to be so cruel,” a quiet cultured voice came from behind him, and xue yang startled so badly he nearly scalded himself with coffee. normally, his spatial awareness was much better than this. he didn’t realize how much wei wuxian’s lateness had bothered him, that he’d let someone stand behind him without realizing.

he whirled around. the man was tall – taller than xue yang was even in the heels, so he had to look up to full take him in. he was dressed well in cream chinos and pale cable-knit sweater, the collar of a dress shirt peeking from under it. his cuffs were fastened with shiny cufflinks that xue yang could well-judge were real gemstones.

“excuse the ever loving fuck out of me,” xue yang said, his eyes drinking in the man’s truly otherworldly beautiful face. he looked delicate in the same underfed way that wei wuxian had looked delicate before lan wangji started feeding him properly, and he had a pretty mouth which beckoned to be kissed, or punched, as the occasion required. his eyes were hidden behind the white frames of thick sunglasses. who even wears sunglasses indoors, like an asshole anymore? xue yang had already made a snap judgment on the dude. “do you normally just butt in into other people’s private conversations?” he asked.

the man seemed taken aback.

“my apologies. i just loathe to hear wei wuxian blamed for something that is ostensibly my fault with such ugly language,” the man said and sounded absolutely, heart-wrenchingly, genuinely sorry, and that just made xue yang want to punch him in his beautiful mouth even more.

if xue yang were to roll his eyes any harder, he’d see the back of his own skull, so he refrained.

“and who the fuck might you be?” he demanded. he did not like strangers, even beautiful strangers, and that added another black mark against wei wuxian for today, because if he was going to be dragging strangers in he might as well have the courtesy of introducing them.

“ah, i should have introduced myself. my name is xiao xingchen,” the man said, and sounded very apologetic, the kind of apologetic that was reserved for people who’d never been hit for forgetting their manners, only looked at with disappointment. like lan wangji. his voice wasn’t all bad, but xue yang was not about to cut him any slack. he needed a target for his annoyance that wasn’t signing his paycheck, and he’d just found it. xiao xingchen offered his hand out for a handshake. he was wearing a fucking signet ring. right okay, even if xue yang had been inclined to politesse, which he literally never was, that had sealed xiao xingchen’s fate. xue yang was going to chew him up and spit him out.

but. his hand was still extended. and xue yang was holding his coffee in his good hand. he had to do a fair bit of maneouvering to switch hands, not scald himself, and take a handshake, deliberately scratching the man’s palm with his long sharp nails.

he did not offer his own name in return. instead, he doubled down. “that’s lovely for you, xiao xingchen, but it doesn’t really tell me what the hell you’re doing at my photoshoot.”

“i was under the impression i was at wei wuxian’s photoshoot,” the man says mildly. he seems completely unbothered by xue yang’s rudeness when it’s turned on himself. it seemed to slide of his perfect shoulders like rainwater. xue yang does not like that. he liked leaving marks, and then pressing on them until something breaks, and so far it seems, the only thing that’s really hit the spot is, in fact, talking shit about wei wuxian.

“does his husband know he’s hanging out with other attractive rich men when he’s supposed to be working, or is this something we should be keeping on the down low for now?”

it’s dangerous waters he’s threading in. lan wangji’s possessiveness is not to be trifled with. he had a tracker in wei wuxian’s car, and a phone clone app that let him know about every single message and transaction on his husband’s phone. he decided wei wuxian’s wardrobe for the day, the locations of his lunch dates with friends, how long he went out and who he met with – and xue yang hadn’t been the only one to try to talk to wei wuxian about it. lan wangji’s possessive nature was apparently the price he was ready to pay to live the good life once again, after whatever scandal in his past had caused him to be booted from the high society he so clearly missed and adored. xue yang had never quite managed to get the details of his tragic backstory, but he had gathered – from things wen ning, who apparently knew all of it, had let slip – that it had something to do with an adoptive family and a contested inheritance. wei wuxian had found his way back with lan wangji, and it seemed for the chance to lounge on yachts in the riviera and winter in the alps, he was willing to give up certain aspects of his freedom. mianmian, and wen qing had both broached the subject multiple times to no avail.

the implication that wei wuxian would fool around with another man… well, xue yang had seen how men like lan wangji could get about someone else touching their stuff. especially when they considered someone young and pretty to be part of their stuff that was being touched.

xiao xingchen blistered at the implication.

jackpot, xue yang thought to himself.

 “you said wei wuxian does not respect himself, but it would seem you are the one who does not respect him. i can only hope you’re not one of the models for the shoot, because so far, you’ve proven yourself remarkably ugly,” xiao xingchen says, all the warmth suddenly zapped from his voice. he sounds downright frosty in that moment, colder than even the temperature outside.  

xue yang’s mouth opens, and then closes. he works his jaw. no one had ever gone after his looks before, because his beauty is a simple matter of fact. perhaps that’s why it cuts so deep and gets the rise out of him that xiao xingchen is probably aiming for.  

“am i one of the – are you blind? i am the lead for the campaign,” he gestures at himself and his gorgeous – well – everything.

“i am blind,” says xiao xingchen easily enough, and gestures to his sunglasses. right. well. no one could ever accuse xue yang of having even a little bit of tact. and just because he’s been caught unawares, doesn’t mean he’s about to give up even an inch. he won’t back down just because the other guy is blind – look at him, championing equality left right and center.

“you wouldn’t be saying any of this shit if you could see me,” he says haughtily. his good looks are the reason he can afford to have an attitude even with men like wen ruohan. the one weapon in his arsenal that he could always rely on had been his beauty. people tripped over themselves to be sweet to him even when he treated them like shit, once puberty had done its magic on him. all the skipped meals in his youth had given him the kind of body everyone wanted to have – either for themselves, or to own, and worship. even his deformity could be overlooked with the full force of the rest of the package, and the idea that this man – this pretentious, posh-looking, signet-ring-ass-wearing-ass motherfucker could just waltz in, and accuse him of being ugly and disrespectful, and question his place in the campaign – his place as a model altogether – which he had fought tooth and nail for – had starved himself, and availed himself of a steady income for half a month for – grated in a way nothing else had ever grated before. no one had ever so blatantly questioned his place in a room, because even at the lowest point in his career, after he’d just started fucking wen ruohan, and that dimpled whore jin guangyao had enacted his revenge, it hadn’t occurred to anyone to question the blatant fact of his objective beauty and desirability.

“maybe it’s a good thing that i can’t see you then,” says xiao xingchen softly. “if it would make me overlook your personality.”

then, before xue yang can respond, he walks off in the direction of the set-up for the photoshoot, and xue yang is left to steam with the now-tepid coffee working up the last dredges of his warmth up his ruined hand.

we’ll see who’s ugly, he thinks to himself. well. one of us will.

he’s not sure what he’ll do to xiao xingchen yet, but he’s sure he’ll think of something. he’s always been one for quick and sudden violence, not elaborate fuckery like jin guangyao, but he’s sure he can ruin pretty boy’s life if he puts his mind to it. he’s fucked up people for less. he’s had to fuck up people for less.

and maybe he doesn’t really have to ruin xiao xingchen, necessarily, for being objectively correct – he had been an asshole to wei wuxian – but he wants to. and xue yang is well past the time in his life where he’d deny himself the things he wants.

maybe he will sic lan wangji on him like he’d alluded to. okay, maybe he won’t, because there’s no telling what lan wangji would do to wei wuxian in a jealous rage, so he tables that particular thought for now. but the anger that had been slowly smouldering at the bottom of his ribcage since he was a child and chang cian –

well. that anger would never really leave him, and xiao xingchen’s careless words had stoked the flames now, to something that had come alive in the charcoal and ashes of his heart.

he tosses the coffee back, and strides to the shooting area, casting an imperious look over where a-qing had set up the background and props. they’re going simple for this one – a luxurious boudoir in lovely pastels, which mo xuanyu’s little heart must be melting for, where the alluring dark colors of the collection will stand out against and draw the eye to the dissonance. it’s not a bad idea, really. there are a few pieces that match the colors of the background here too, but well.

wei wuxian did not find florals for sprint groundbreaking, and so, he tended to venture for black and reds in his warm-weather collections, and then go for rich textures and abundant creams and whites in winter.

currently, the man himself is busy fussing with the tops of mianmian’s stockings, to make sure they’re settled where they need on her thighs, revealing her delicate floral tattoos. she’d been on an exclusive contract with golden whatever before, and they’d had absolute control over everything, from her hair color, to whether or not she was allowed ink on her body. wei wuxian’s contract had been slightly more flexible than that, but not a lot. he had, after all, insisted that xue yang not have any bruises on him for the shoot today.

it’s not like a-qing couldn’t cover them with makeup, or like they couldn’t easily get removed later with some clever software magic– it would be much easier than adding a missing finger back for sure.

but. he’s here, and he’s going to do his job, and he’ll do it well, and remind everyone why he’s allowed to have an attitude like he does. he also maybe feels a little bad about snapping at wei wuxian earlier. it’s not like they don’t all know he’s not the most reliable or punctual person in the world, and if xiao xingchen isn’t lying, being late isn’t even entirely his fault.

he clears his throat. his tongue feels heavy and uncomfortable in his mouth.

“where do you want me boss?”

wei wuxian startles. xue yang wonders if everything is okay at home – or of things are okay with xiao xingchen, even. if he’s a friend, and something had gone wrong to make him be late, it was bound to throw wei wuxian off – he did tend to worry about his friends, after all.  

“oh, right um – i thought you’d talk it over with xiao xingchen earlier – weren’t you chatting by the coffee? he was meant to talk to you about that, and about what you wanted done with your hand.”

“he’s the photographer?” xue yang’s throat went dry. the guy he’d just talked mad shit to… would be shooting him. and if you’re a model, the one rule is to not piss off the guy whose sole responsibility is how you end up looking in the final product. then his brain caught up with him.

“wait, the blind dude? you’re ware he’s  - you know – blind?” he waves a hand in front of his face for emphasise.

wei wuxian’s put upon sigh is only a little exaggerated, and his eyes flashed with something that really should be a warning sign that xue yang’s mouthing off had just about used up his allowance of good will for the day.

“keenly aware of that yes. considering the fact that he is ridiculously famous for being a blind photographer and last year won the baixue photography award. you do not want to know how much i paid him, or how many favors i had to use up with huaisang to even get him here. he’s booked up through to the end of the year.”

“you’re kidding,” xue yang says, feeling slightly dizzy. of course it’s just his luck he’d gone and fucked it with an award-winning photographer. this time it’s not even jin guangyao’s fault, just his own shitty temper.

“so i take it you didn’t actually talk with him about work?” wei wuxian sounds incredulous. he holds a hand up in the universal “wait,” sign, as he moves around mianmian to study his work. “don’t tell me you picked another fight,” he says and looks up at xue yang.

his guilty face must be a dead giveaway.

“you know i’m just sat here, pissing myself with joy that you turned up to follow the terms of your contract and do your job,” wei wuxian is a mean bitch when he wants to be, and right now xue yang definitely deserves it, “but could you continue doing me the massive favor of following the terms of your employment, and go ask the photographer for his artistic take on how to make your frankly noxious attitude this morning translate into something moderately useful on film?”

his mouth is full of needles he’s using to pin mianmian’s silk floor-length dressing gown and drape it the way it will best show off her curves when he says that, which is the only reason why the words come out so sharp, xue yang is sure.

“well?” wei wuxian isn’t even looking at him, his elegant undamaged hands still flitting over her body like she’s just a mannequin for his creations – which they all are, in a way,  “why are you still standing here? weren’t you bitching me out for taking my sweet time earlier? go.”

xue yang does go. xiao xingchen is talking with a-qing, and his pretty mouth is curved in a genuine smile that looks all kinds of sweet, as she talks him through the space and the set up, and how to best position the models for the group shot. she’s got a good eye, all things considered.

aside from hair and make-up, she usually ends up assisting the photographers in one way or another. in a couple of years, she might even be the voice directing everything from behind the camera, if she keeps up the good work, and doesn’t piss wei wuxian off too much. though, who’s xue yang to say anything about pissing wei wuxian off right now.

he’s aware that the longer wei wuxian spends in the warmth of a beautiful penthouse apartment, being pampered by a husband who would kill for him, planning his picture-perfect life down to exactly which smushy, chubby baby they’ll adopt and when, the less patience he has for xue yang’s shitty attitude, because well… wei wuxian had gotten better, hadn’t he?

his life was finally approaching some semblance to the shape he’d always wanted it to have, his brand was thriving, his marriage was prospering, and he’d done his best to pull his friends up with him – including xue yang, so why couldn’t xue yang just shut up, bite his tongue, and be grateful?

xue yang knows he could have this life if he wanted to too. wen ruohan hadn’t been shy about his interest in making their arrangement into something more permanent, something more exclusive, but xue yang, for all he plays at it, is not an object to be kept.

wei wuxian may be happy to spend the rest of his life as another man’s beautiful possession, living the kept wife dream, but xue yang wants more. that’s the problem with him, isn’t it? he’d always wanted more, but he should have learned his lesson when chang cian had –

“can i help you?” xiao xingchen’s voice still has that polite warm note, which means he hasn’t realized the person standing beside him is the guy who’d been an inexcusable asshole to him earlier.

“actually,” xue yang says, and the words burn through his mouth.

actually, i want you to know i’m not ugly. is what he wants to say. i want you to know i wasn’t always ugly. i was very beautiful once, and you should have seen me then, if you could have. i had all ten of the fingers on my hands, and my teeth were white and straight, and i didn’t have scars on my face that a-qing now has to hide with make-up, and my hair wasn’t falling out, and i wasn’t such an asshole, i was actually so good, you should have seen how good i could really, honestly be. i want you to know i was better, and i was good, and i was honestly so, so much more beautiful than i am now, and if you’d known me then, you would never have called me ugly, and some of us don’t get to wear a signet ring, and we don’t get to dress in white, without risking the mud and tarnish, and we don’t get to just be beautiful for no reason, and –

“i’m the lead model,” is what he says instead, “like i told you earlier. and there’s something we need to talk about.”

usually, he doesn’t have to actually verbalize it. the photographers will look at him and see where the glaringly obvious issue is, and make a humming noise as they think about incorporating his newfound ugliness into their pretty vision. the massive gap that he creates must be filled with something, after all.

“yes, you’re right,” says the photographer mildly. does he not get tired of being ever-so-mild? “i should apologize. i understand you and the other models were waiting for a long time, and you had the right to be angry about being kept. it was unprofessional of me to be so late, when i knew people were depending on me. wei wuxian was kind enough to pick me up, and i just didn’t want you to blame him for something that wasn’t his fault.”

that… is not what xue yang was expecting. usually, fashion industry types, even the nice ones – even the ones like wei wuxian – are catty bitches, and so he’d expected to be faced with more derision, and more nastiness. in the face of an earnest apology, and that sweet, sweet, mouth curved into a delicate hopeful smile, all his barbs are hopeless. he can’t say anything without looking like even more of an asshole, and these days he knows he’s testing wei wuxian’s boundless patience, so he does what an adult would do in this situation. he says:

“i’m sorry too. i came off as an asshole. but that’s not what i wanted to talk about.”

“oh? what did you want to talk about then?” xiao xingchen asks, unfailingly patient and polite.

xue yang opens his mouth. the words are right there. “i’m missing a finger.” all he has to do it say them. it shouldn’t be so hard to just say them. and he can’t.

he tries, he really does, but the truth is, he’s never had to verbalize it like that before, because usually, one way or another, people just find out for themselves, so he never has to tell them, they see what he’s missing. they see the ways in which he’s ugly, and they know  - the way he’s sure xiao xingchen will know – that what happened was inevitably and irrevocably his own fault, and the price for his stupidity, and –

but he can’t say it. he can’t make himself say it, can’t make his mouth shape the words.

instead, he reaches out and grasps xiao xingchen’s hand – the one with the signet ring – in his own ruined one, and guides his beautiful slender fingers – so unlike xue yang’s scarred twisted ones – to feel the ridges of the damage there.

“wei wuxian said i have to ask you what you plan on doing about that,” it sounds hollow even to his own ears.

there, he thinks, now you know you were right. i am ugly, just not like you thought. here’s the proof of it. i am ugly, so judge me.

xiao xingchen, to his credit, does not pull his hand away, though he could have. he doesn’t even flinch, which xue yang appreciates. he just says softly, “oh,” as he continues to run impossibly soft fingers over the scars and thumbs the stump of xue yang’s pinky gently.

xiao xingchen has the hands of a man who’s never had to hold anything but a camera.

“well, what do you normally do about it?” he asks, with that same gentleness from before, his voice no more, or less soft.

xue yang shrugs vaguely, and then realizing he doesn’t have the luxury of being seen, says “i leave it up to the photographer. i pose it away from the camera, i mask it with props, or a prosthetic glove. one time they just photoshopped it in place. i don’t really care.”

as long as no one has to see it, he adds mentally. he doesn’t care, as long as no one else has to know all the ways in which he is broken, and irreparable.

nie huaisang had wanted him to pose with his hand on show for his spread in the unclean realm. something about reclaiming disability or whatever. it would have made a real statement, he’d said. or some such bullshit, the kind only someone with all their body beautiful, and soft and intact could say. xue yang had threatened to walk out on the shoot. neither nie huaisang, nor wei wuxian had ever brought it up again.

there was no part of what happened that xue yang wanted to reclaim, except for his actual missing finger, which had probably rotted and decayed into nothingness in the mud on the street, with the rest of the  garbage that no one needed. maybe some stray dog had been grateful for the free meal. maybe the cops had found the delicate bits of his metacarpals, and were still looking for the remnants of a dismembered child they’d never truly find. no one had found xue yang. no one had come back for him, and even know, with each passing day, wei wuxian was turning away from those remnants too.

xue yang could understand that. it wasn’t wei wuxian’s job to babysit the dregs of someone else’s tragedy when his own damage had been ever so neatly and prettily cleaned away by the hands of a loving new family.

he knows when his contract is up, there will be no renewal. by then, wei wuxian will have his baby, and his new life will have no space in it for the last reminder of his ugly past. which is why it’s so important now, to not piss off too many people in the industry, and to not sever ties with any of his particularly generous clients.

so he swallows the bile in his throat. xiao xingchen had apologized to him, and xue yang can take that, and pretend it means shit to him, and try to make nice, because xiao xingchen is clean-cut, and award-winning, and he can destroy xue yang’s life if he feels like it. xue yang has never had the luxury of holding a grudge, or at the very least, he’s never had the luxury of doing something about it.

“hm,” says xiao xingchen. he finally pulls his hand away to cup his sharp chin, his fine brow knitting into a thoughtful frown.

“we’ve got quite a lot of flowers as props, haven’t we? to contrast with the color scheme of the collection… how would you feel about having flowers growing out of your hands?”

it’s not a wholly bad idea.

“i leave myself in your capable and undamaged hands,” xue yang says humbly, mostly because he doesn’t actually want to think about the visuals of his bad side more than he necessarily has to.

xiao xingchen nods thoughtfully, and then has to go and adjust his camera while a-qing gathers the remaining models, and starts posing them per xiao xingchen’s instructions.

the group photographs are first, and xue yang had missed posing for the camera like this. he knows all his angles, and though he’s not sure exactly how xiao xingchen knows where to put who, and how to direct them, he has a pretty good feeling of his own body, and he can imagine how the final product will turn out. maybe xiao xingchen deserves all those awards after all, because every time he opens his mouth to give them directions, it’s something xue yang would have naturally thought of doing on his own.

xiao xingchen has them all on the bed in a beautiful tangle of limbs, then standing, leaning against each other, splayed against the bed’s posters, and as the shoot progresses, removing some pieces of what they’re wearing. mianmian discards the silk robe, and wen ning takes off the long silk pajama trousers he’s wearing, showing off his finely muscled legs in a pair of beautiful crimson silk stockings. the burial mounds signature red and black colors feature heavily throughout, and stand out against the creamy backdrop of the boudoir.

then, xiao xingchen starts gently directing people to leave the set, as they work towards the individual shoots.

they have to change into new sets, and a-qing has to retouch the hair and make-up so they can pose alone with all the attention drawn to specific pieces they’re wearing, and each model getting a chance to shine. though of course, none of them can compare with xue yang.

he has to be left for last, because the less time he spends cinched to extremes, the better – for both his temper, and his health, really.

wei wuxian is standing behind xiao xingchen, offering his own input occasionally but mostly just looking extremely pleased with himself, and with everyone’s performance, as his vision is brought to life, his creations animated as they are presented on these warm, radiant, living bodies. he has worked hard for this, to bring beautiful delicate things from his hands. even in xue yang’s humble opinion, as a mere consumer, with each next collection wei wuxian seems to be outdoing himself more and more with pieces that balance between lovely and hardcore. xue yang already knows exactly what he’ll be wearing for his clients, and what he’ll be enjoying on his skin in his own private time, on the days he just wants to feel pretty without effort for a chance.

mo xuanyu looks very delicate and blushy in a gauzy top and sheer harem pants that show the intricate black lace of the panties he’s got on underneath.

what xue yang knows from seeing his cam work, and his porn, is that underneath, his pretty cock is also pierced with a lovely rose-gold prenum ladder along his length. too sad that that’s not the view peeking through the harem pants, but then again, that’s not this kind of photoshoot. he takes to direction well, because he’s got experience with directors who are much more demanding than xiao xingchen’s mild-voiced suggestions.

though the view is promising, xue yang doesn’t waste too much time watching him leaning among the overstuffed pillows, and wrapping his seafoam-pale arms around the dark wood of the bedposts before he goes to the dressing area.

a-qing is there to unlace him and help him out of the bra. she lets him lean on her shoulders to get out of the shoes and panties. he goes to use the bathroom, because having boning pressing on his bladder will not be a good time – he’s not getting paid to piss his panties for xiao xingchen just yet.

when he comes out of the bathroom, she’s laid out the new pieces for him to wear, before she brings out the showstopper. the look of the corset is painful in and of itself, and xue yang sucks in an anticipatory breath. he’s always liked a bit of pain, and he’s always liked looking pretty, and corsetry seamlessly combines both. wei wuxian has outdone himself with this one. it’s beautiful, and on someone with breasts, it would do amazing things, but on him, it would stop right below his pierced nipples. the sheer black mesh is decorated with an intricate lacework of appliques which shine in the uneven neon light of the indoor lamps light with tiny crystals at the centre of each hand-sewn blossom, and he knows the boning will dig into his skin deliciously once a-qing really gets going on the laces.

he gets himself in the panties. the sheer black lace is overlaid with the same floral appliques as the corset, but in deep reds and purples, the only speck of color on him. a-quing helps him toe into the stockings and clips them in place with the matching garter belt, then gets him to toe into his heels again. he holds his breath and braces himself against the wall when she puts the corset on him, and closes the clasps at his front one by one. he closes his eyes, feeling a little heady when she starts tugging on the laces to cinch him tightly in. the weight of the fabric is reassuring. the tightness in his chest feels like home. he feels tension jumping along his arms as he relearns to breathe using only the tops of his lungs the way wei wuxian taught him, when he was still teaching him everything else, his breath coming out in short little gasps until finally, she tells him it’s done. he has to keep leaning on the wall with one hand as he opens his eyes, and turns around to face the mirror. his body is molded into a perfect hourglass, his waist so, so tiny and breakable. 

he looks like a doll. he looks like something delicate and precious, he looks like someone should be trying really fucking hard not to break him. he runs his hands down his sides, and does a slow little turn to enjoy his body looking perfect for once.

 he walks in careful measured steps back to the set.

“it’s going to be just you and me,” says xiao xingchen apologetically, when he hears him come in. “the others will be grabbing a snack and wrapping up.”

1. so wei wuxian is still mad, and can’t be bothered to stick around for his turn, not even to see him bring his work to life. oh, whatever. just as well. xue yang doesn’t need wei wuxian when he’s like this. when he’s as close to looking perfect as he’ll ever get.

“come here,” xiao xingchen says, and xue yang obeys. “i have an idea of how we’re going to pose you, but i need to get an idea of –“

his voice taper off when he rests a hand on xue yang’s waist. he lets out a noise, and xue yang can’t help the slightly manic smile that twists his mouth.

no one else can do what i can, he thinks. no one else has the patience, the fortitude. even wei wuxian stopped tight-lacing once he no longer had to, even though lan wangji had practically only fallen for him because of his tiny waist. that’s why mo xuanyu will never replace him, even if that’s what wei wuxian is grooming him to eventually do. they simply can’t compare, and they never will. xue yang is a one of a kind collectible.

“may i?” xiao xingchen whispers in awe, even though he’s already touching him.

“sure,” xue yang says, only a little haughtily, “go ahead.”

if you can’t feast your eyes, well – he thinks. he’s not cruel. normally, he charges for the touching but xiao xingchen had apologized, so he deserves a treat.

he slides his other hand on xue yang’s other side. from this close, xue yang lets himself be mesmerized by those beautiful long fingers again, the fine delicate bones, the milky unbroken skin. xiao xingchen really has pretty hands, and when they wrap around his waist, the tips of his fingers touch at xue yang’s back, as do his thumbs at the front, encircling him perfectly.

xue yang lets himself stand in suspended animation, lets himself believe that this delicate little touch is the only thing centering him, lets himself lean into the knowledge that in this moment, he is the ever-so-thin axis on which xiao xingchen’s darkened, light-less world is spinning, and the thought makes him giddy.

“how - ” xiao xingchen starts to ask, but seems unsure how to continue. how are you small? how do you let yourself suffer so much? how thin are you right now? how much do you let yourself eat?

“seventeen inches,” says xue yang proudly. “but starve me for a week, and i can do sixteen and a half.”

“you should not – “ xiao xingchen is still mesmerized, still petting his sides, and applying gentle pressure he doesn’t even seem to be aware of, touching like he thinks xue yang will break. he shakes his head to clear it from the spell he’s under, and xue yang can’t help feeling pleased. “you should not starve,” says xiao xingchen finally, and pulls his hands away with obvious reluctance, the ghost warmth of his wide palms lingering where it had penetrated the fabric, spreading through the boning, setting xue yang ablaze with a kind of fire that has nothing to do with anger, and everything to do with want.

he wants someone to always touch him like he is a thing made for the breaking, and he wants to rest in the knowledge that he is safe in that touch.  

“you should feed me then,” xue yang challenges. “take me to dinner.”

he’s playing a dangerous game. he’d been insulting this man just a few hours earlier. but wei wuxian is about to drop his contract, and wen ruohan will soon get bored with their games. xue yang knows how these things go. xue yang is not a stupid child anymore, and he is not truly beautiful anymore, and he has learned. if you want a treat, you have to earn it.

the pretty photographer wants a doll with a tiny waist.

“tonight?” asks xiao xingchen still dazed. he sounds so laughably eager.

when you tell me i’m beautiful, xue yang thinks. when you say you never thought i was ugly, not even for a minute.

“how about when you’re done with the photographs?” xue yang says instead. “i’d like to see the raws. and the post-production work.”

i’d like to see what you make of me.

“sure,” says xiao xingchen. someone should get him water, he sounds like he’s choking on air. “sure,” he repeats, “let’s do that.”

then, with his hand precariously low on xue yang’s back, he directs him towards the bed, and nudges him down.

“lay on your back,” he says softly, “get comfortable. or um – does it –“

“yes,” says xue yang, breathless at their proximity. “it hurts. it will leave marks too, after. would you like to feel them?”

the photographer frowns again, ever so prettily, but doesn’t say anything, his thin delicate mouth pressing into a lovely line on his pale porcelain face. maybe xue yang is pushing too much. he can’t help himself. how does someone so obnoxiously proper land a job shooting fetish lingerie?

xiao xingchen goes back to retrieve his camera from the stand. he takes a few test shots while xue yang shuffles on the bed to get himself comfortable.

“may i get close?” he asks.

not before i see a checkbook. xue yang thinks, but  says, “get as close as you’d like.”

xiao xingchen joins him on the bed, the springy mattress dipping under his weight. he weighs more than xue yang. he weighs like someone who’s been eating three meals a day his whole life, and hasn’t even had to put out for them.

“arms above your head,” he murmurs, as though he feels like he must speak quietly at such distance, lest the loudness of his voice disturb the delicate spaces between them.

how will you know if i disobey you, xue yang thinks, but finds that he does not want to disobey him.

“make me look pretty, xiao xingchen,” he says softly, as he moves to do as he’s told. xiao xingchen reaches with one hand to guide his arm in the position he wants, feeling around the space of the bed. the shutter clicks.

“i know you’re already pretty,” xiao xingchen says.

he guides xue yang’s other arm, and then grasps both his wrists in one hand. “there,” he says, and his voice is velvet soft, barely a command.

“arch your back,” he orders, and xue yang does. it hurts against the rigidity of the corset, but it hurts good.

“are your eyes closed? you should close them. you should see like i see. feel like i feel. i don’t want you to think about the camera. i want you to trust me.”

had he done this with mo xuanyu too? had he loomed over him with his camera, and directed with such a gentle voice? xue yang doesn’t want to think that. he wants to think that he’s special. that it’s just for him, because xiao xingchen can respect his beauty and his artistry, and put him at a level above the others.

he is a blind photographer, and i am a disfigured model, xue yang thinks. no one else can do what we do.

xue yang doesn’t like to think of himself as special. that word had always been ugly for him, and sat ugly in men’s mouths when they called him that. sat ugly in chang cian’s mouth when –

you’re a special boy, xiao yang.

xiao xingchen smooths a hand over his side.

“don’t startle,” he warns, and xue yang feels the bed dip again. feels a weight settle on top of him, and realizes xiao xingchen is straddling his thighs.

“you’re not like any model i’ve shot before,” xiao xingchen says.

he reaches to trace a hand over xue yang’s jaw in a barely there touch, and then feels down to his throat, and his collarbone.

he’d had piercings there that he’d had to take out and bear the healing of when he signed the burial mounds contract. a-qing had done some magic to disappear the scars.

“you’re not like any photographer i’ve been shot by,” xue yang says, breathless. he’s not sure if it’s because his lungs are pressed to capacity, or because there’s a beautiful man on top of him touching him with absolutely no intention of fucking him.

would you be so calm if you could see me? xue yang thinks. if you could do more than just touch to feel the shape of my body?

xiao xingchen’s fingers travel to his hairline, and the touch is almost tentative in that moment. he finds the place where his hair is held up by a few carefully placed long pins, and he pulls them out. xue yang’s dark hair tumbles out in beautiful supple waves and splays all over the bed cover, framing his face.

there is silence between them, punctuated by xue yang’s fluttering breath, and the camera shutter. he feels keenly the loss of warmth when xiao xingchen moves away from him, and continues clicking as he puts greater and greater distance between them, finally the steps of his expensive shoes making a soft noise on the floor. the camera clicks one final time, and then the silence is complete.

xue yang remains splayed on the bed, his hands where xiao xingchen had pressed them down, nothing in his ears but the sound of his own breath and the rush of his blood, his pulse hammering away, a wild trapped thing that he itches to grasp and quiet in the most permanent way he knows how.

“i’m done,” says xiao xingchen, “thank you.”

xue yang feels himself unable to move. it takes him a while to finally open his eyes and roll his shoulders. it takes him a while to slide off the bed carefully. he takes the heels off, and walks to his dressing station. he can hear the sound of xiao xingchen putting his equipment away. wen ning has left and taken his coat, and mo xuanyu is back in his ripped jeans and oversized hoodie, taking bobby pins out of his long messy hair.

xue yang always feels a mixture of relief and pleasure when he removes a corset that tight, hissing quietly as he loosens the ribbon and undoes the clasps. the first breath he takes in with his full chest is almost painful. he pulls his skinny jeans over the lingerie. he doesn’t have time to clean up before his dinner date, thanks to wei wuxian’s careless tardiness, which is fine, because wen ruohan is like most old men who want a freaky goth bitch to fuck em right.

he does a few turns in the mirror, studying the damage. his back is a mess of marks, which will doubtless get worse by morning. he can already imagine wen ruohan’s nails biting into his abused skin. he does not like to be kept waiting. xue yang makes an executive decision to leave his make up on. he’s been blowing the man off for a while, so he might as well look like he’s deliberately made an effort for him. he throws the lacy bralette from early in the day on under his silk burgundy button-down, and leaves enough of the mother-of-pearl buttons undone that the lace peeks out. with the shirt tucked in his jeans, he looks …well. he looks expensive, and that’s the goal, right?

his own boots have a much more sensible heel than his fetish shoes, but that doesn’t mean he plans to walk in them. he calls himself an uber while he brushes his hair back from his face, and puts it in a half-ponytail, leaving a few tresses out to frame his face in his signature look.

he hopes room-service is part of the deal per usual, because he’s starving.

mo xuanyu wishes him a quiet goodbye, and practically dissipates, as quiet and innofensive as a ghost, and xue yang uses the empty dressing room to steal a few spritzes of mianmian’s nice, cloyingly sweet perfume, rubbing them on his wrists, neck and at his collarbone.

he chances a look back to the main room, where wei wuxian has reappeared and is talking to xiao xingchen. he decides not to say goodbye to either of them, and instead makes his way outside, where his uber has just pulled to the curb.

the next morning finds him luxuriating in the bath in wen ruohan’s penthouse suite, while waiting for the room service to arrive. he is aching all over, and it’s not just from the older man’s belt and hands the night before. spending the whole day in the heels and laced within an inch of his life is saying its piece now. he could barely move when wen ruohan’s alarm went off in the morning, but he’d worked through the aches to make sure he gave daddy the kind of send off to work that would guarantee a renewal of their arrangement. then he’d promptly buried his face in the pillows, and let himself doze for a few more hours. he had use of the room until noon, and he fully planned on taking advantage of it.

he’d drawn himself a bath, and filled it with lavender salts, and bubbles, and he planned on laying there until either his muscles loosened, or the water god tepid – whichever came first.

he planned on washing his hair in the tropical shower cabin, and then stuffing his face with butter croissants, and chocolate tartalettes, and grabbing all the fruit from the mostly decorative bowl at the center of the table, just because he could.

a nerve in his left leg was jumping listlessly, his calves throbbing with the strain from yesterday, and his lower back is giving him the kind of trouble he knows means he’ll be limping for at least a few more days. this is all fine, this is all good. he knows what he signed up for. wen ruohan plays hard, works him over harder, and then pays for the use accordingly.

that’s why xue yang had targeted him to begin with. he’d known someone like jin guangyao couldn’t possibly stratch all his itches. for all he played at being hardcore, jin guangyao was not a masochist like xue yang, and the allure of his dimples couldn’t make up for how many more hard limits he set than xue yang.

in the entire length of their arrangement, xue yang had yet to use his safeword after all. and that wasn’t just because he was pretty sure he’d be ignored even if he tried.

no one can do what i can. your pretty pet with the cute smile certainly can’t, he’d promised, and he’d been keeping pretty true to his word so far.

when he hears the noise of the hotel staff coming in to put the breakfast spread down, he forces himself into motion, bending in half to massage the stiffness out of his legs. his poor, poor ankles, and the things he does to himself for beauty.

he works his calves over hard, with no mercy. if it hurts, it hurts, but that doesn’t mean he gets to stop. it had never meant he got to stop. he kneads at the balls of his feet too, and promises himself he’ll only wear flats for the next few days. really, and truly, honest!

he only drags himself out of the water when he hears the door to the suite close. better that no one see him like this. just because the hotel staff know wen ruohan is bringing in a whore doesn’t mean they have to be confronted with the proof of their shareholder’s indiscretion, after all.

xue yang does his best to avoid his reflection in the full-length mirrors. without the make up, his skin-picking scars are more obvious, tinged a delicate lilac, and there’s also the scratch on his cheek from a street fight he’d definitely won, defending his corner. his eyes don’t look as big without the make up, and they’re dull without the stuff a-qing puts in them to make them brighter. in an inverse of the exaggerated smokey eye, the shadows beneath them are dark and deep. his mouth is pale, and his bloodless lips are in fact horribly dry, and bitten raw after last night. the bruises from the corset are barely there anymore, covered with the lashes from daddy’s belt on his back, his ass, his thighs. there’s marks on his throat and on his shoulders too, greedy teeth sinking into what little flesh he had covering his bones, as if to take the last of it from him.

he looks like he’s been rode hard and put away wet. he wonders what xiao xingchen would say if he knew. he wonders why he cares about what xiao xingchen would say anyhow.

he checks his phone while enjoying the coffee, mixed with a generous amount of sweet cream, and trying to pick from all the pastries.

wen ruohan’s transfer has gone through, to the usual amount plus a hefty bonus for looking especially pretty.

wei wuxian has also paid him, but their text chain is depressingly barren, as it has been, the past few months. xue yang tries to not feel to hurt by it. it’s not wei wuxian’s fault that his life is going well, while xue yang is still stuck doing the same shit he did when he was sixteen for only slightly more money.

the thing that does catch his eye though is a message from a number he doesn’t recognize. it’s a voice note, and he plays it curiously.

xiao xingchen’s warm pleasant voice comes through his shitty, busted phones speaker.

“xue yang, this is xiao xingchen. wei wuxian passed your contact information on to me. i was wondering if you would be able to meet sometime towards the end of this week. i should have the raw photographs ready by then, and would be happy to discuss any ideas about retouching you might have, so i can pass them on to my partner.”

xue yang lets himself smile just a little bit, and plays the message again, if only for the pleasure of hearing xiao xingchen’s lovely cultured voice.

he saves the number, and lets the good mood carry him to breakfast.

he waits until he’s in his own apartment, curled up under four duvets in a pair of uncomplicated cotton briefs, and fuzzy knee socks to finally reply.

“i’m free from engagements this friday. shall i pencil you in for lunch? say yes, and it’s a date!”

he doesn’t listen the message back, mostly because he can’t stand the sound of his own voice in recordings. it’s why he watches all his own porn on mute. he hits send, and turns his phone off, snuggling into his bed. he goes to sleep and the last thing he looks at is the framed picture on the wall of himself, whole.

can you make me look good enough to replace this fantasy? he wonders. it’s the last think on his mind before he finally falls into a deep sleep.

1. black ice

the misconception about blindness most people have is that he lives in darkness. that is what zichen had thought – that one day, xingchen had blinked his open, and there had been nothing but endless swathes of black to greet him on the other side of the thin fragile skin of his lids. that’s not quite how it is at all.

for starters, it had not been a quick thing, his vision. blindness is not a magic trick, it had not played him straight, pulling colors out of a hat, sawing his life in half, there and gone again – now you see, and now you don’t. instead, the loss had creeped slow and cancerous along the edges of his awareness, like frost eating away at dry asphalt, merging with the horizon, steering him into a tailspin of doctors’ appointments, medication, surgery, and blood.

zichen does not understand blindness the way xiao xingchen does, and because he did not understand, much like his vision, he too had slowly become muddled, at first a man, and then a silhouette, and finally – a vague outline imprinted into the damaged polaroid of xiao xingchen’s memory of things in vivid technicolor.

the second thing, of course, is that xiao xingchen still has light.

he can make out the difference between light and day, and the warm glow of the ring lights and projectors on a set casts the rest of the room into an incorporeal two-dimensional laminal existence, so that the only spot all his senses are trained on is the single diameter of illumination, where he can, through the lens of his camera, just about make out the cold pulse of led casting the air, once again, into something tangible.

then the shutter clicks, and for a moment, behind the thick glass, the light disappears. and then he clicks again.

and again. and again. until he’s had his fill of the lights. until he is satisfied.

xiao xingchen is rarely satisfied. he had been exacting and demanding in his work before – he had been taught to strive above all else for perfection in his work, to suss out beauty, unusual and staggering, and tease out of his subject things they themselves didn’t know they had in them. and for a while – yes – it had been almost too easy to do. beautiful things lent themselves easily to being rendered more perfect. even ugly things allowed themselves to be reshaped through his gaze.

zichen had resented that too.

“you take success for granted,” he sometimes said.

zichen had regretted saying that, after.

it’s not that xiao xingchen took success for granted, it’s that success didn’t really mean much to him in the first place. he wanted to make beautiful things, and he wanted to show beautiful things to everyone, he wanted to enrich to give, he wanted to open his arms wide to the whole world and say “see? see what is around you? do you see?”

idealistic, perhaps. naïve, certainly. and now he would never see any of his beautiful things again.

but xiao xingchen still had light.

except right now, as he stood in the dark room surrounded by silence, warmth, and the scent of chemicals. it used to be him and zichen like this, side by side, their hard work making itself evident in the slow emergence of lines and color. now it was just him, and the ghost of the memory of the projector, and the dip of xue yang’s slender waist beneath his fingertips, the absence of it almost like a phantom wound.

xue yang was a beautiful thing, who knew he was a beautiful thing. entirely self-aware in offering himself to be pinned to the display case, wings unclipped and fluttering, but an eagerness convulsing through his body and oozing out through the puncture holes of the needle, a desperation to be preserved – to last – to outlast – that choked the air out of him even before he could suffocate when the glass case slid down, locked home, and he was sanitized, pristine, to be presented to a collector.

and there were collectors for a thing like him, xiao xingchen knew. well – only knew after, from wei wuxian’s apologetic voice mail. wei wuxian, a collector’s item himself, was now safely locked in his own glittering display case. he didn’t need to worry about the messiness of the world outside, secure in the controlled temperature and regular meals provided by a jealous keeper and master. no one had ever thought wei wuxian would take a collar, zichen said – he paid more attention to gossip, he knew more people – but lan wangji had taught him to heel.

no one had ever taught xue yang how to be anything other than pretty, and angry, and hungry.

still xiao xingchen is nothing if not courteous. he does not think of himself as an unkind person, or a particularly nasty one, and though xue yang allegedly had a bite even worse than his bark, it was not xiao xingchen’s role to put him in his place. there were, again, per wei wuxian and the rumor mill, men who dedicated time and effort to doing just that, and paid him handsomely for it.

he had visited xue yang’s site after the shoot, as he settled on his sofa with a glass of wine and his tablet, and Tchaikovsky playing quietly on the record player that he’d been told reliably was the same delicate cream shade of most of his décor.

was he playing a dangerous game drinking red wine on a white sofa? perhaps. was he playing a dangerous game, letting his tablet guide him to the section of the site that detailed what xue yang was willing to do and for how much?

i can be the perfect victim for the right price. just name your crime.

definitely.

he’d gone to bed that night, still imagining xue yang’s body beneath him, pliable and soft, easy to maneouver. if only all his models were this willing to be positioned, if only they gave in to direction. if only he could

you wouldn’t be saying any of this shit if you could see me, says the xue yang in his memory of the day.

xiao xingchen doesn’t need to see him. xiao xingchen is going to make him. rebuild him.

he doesn’t think about any of the other photos. he doesn’t worry about pretty fragile mo xuanyu, or the self-possessed steadfast mianmian, or even wen ning, shy, but dependable once he got going. their pictures will be good – he will barely need to play with them, won’t really need to retouch anything major. but xue yang…

i’m missing a finger.

xiao xingchen wonders what can be done about that. he wonders if he can fix it. he wonders if he can fix xue yang, if xue yang needs fixing.

he falls asleep, with his hands framing, almost despite himself, the delicate circle of xue yang’s waist. he dreams of the vague outline of bones holding up fragile skin, the feel of warmth on his palms, the absence of another body beside him aching like a physical warmth.

when he wakes up, his mind is made up.

he records the message over and over again. he doesn’t want to sound too eager, but he is, isn’t he? and xue yang could tell – even then, xue yang could tell, leaning back on the pillows, his hair silky soft, and xiao xingchen breathing so close to his skin, so, so pathetically obvious.

xiao xingchen had always been greedy, and he’d always taken things for granted. this is what zichen said, this is what his teacher had said too. xiao xingchen did not know when to leave well-enough alone.

“if you had cared better for your health when you were young,” his teacher had signed on the phone all those years ago when he’d called, shaking in zichen’s sweater outside the doctor’s office. his eyes had trailed the map of his blindness as it panned out before him, outlining years of a path that one day would lead to a single source of consolation for him: light.

if you had wanted less, is what she doesn’t say. if you had been slower, if you had never left, if you didn’t need the world so badly.

xiao xingchen covets. it is not enough for beautiful things to exist around him – he wants to share them, yes, but he wants them to pass through his fingers first, and xue yang… well. for xue yang, in those moments where he felt the dip of his slender hips, the supple give of the skin around his fine-boned wrists. in those moments, xiao xingchen yearned.

so he picks up the phone, and he calls wei wuxian.

“you can’t be done that quickly,” wei wuxian says, and his voice is warm and mirthful.

“i’m not,” says xiao xingchen. he is smiling despite himself. there is the strange magic of wei wuxian, to be able to tease a smile, a laugh, good humor out of anyone at all, at any time. to be able to get what he wants, when he wants.

i didn’t know, xiao xingchen says, if i had known i would have found you.

my mother was just a classmate you briefly knew before she dropped out and eloped. you had no responsibility towards me, wei wuxian had said.

i would have found you anyway.

“do you have xue yang’s number?” xiao xingchen asks without preamble. a more artful man might have lead up to it with more small talk, asked about wei wuxian’s evening, about his plans for the day. but there is no art to xiao xingchen and there never has been. he wants too much, and too hungrily, and it is his downfall, as much as it is a blessing for those around him.

i don’t know what you want from me anymore, zichen had said, and i hate myself for it, because you always say it so plainly.

now xiao xingchen says what he wants plainly, and he waits with bated breath.

“oh boy,” wei wuxian says on the other end of the line. “most people who feel like splurging on something with teeth just buy a tiger.”

“it’s not… like that,” says xiao xingchen.

“sure,” says wei wuxian, like it makes no difference to him. “it’s not like you can’t afford him anyway.”

“it’s not like that,” xiao xingchen repeats. “it’s just – “

his waist was 17 inches, and he talked about starving himself down to less.

he is missing a finger, and his hand is rough and scarred.

he let xiao xingchen touch him, and he wanted it to hurt.

xiao xingchen knows all about things that hurt.

he suspects xue yang knows better. he wonders if xue yang might teach him.

“i’ll send you his contact so you can save it,” wei wuxian says, “but it’s probably best that i warn you now… if you think you were too late to come for me… you’re definitely too late for him. you can’t save everyone, xiao xingchen.”

he disconnects the call.

that’s fine, xiao xingchen wants to say, he doesn’t want to save people, he just wants –

he wants.

so he records the message over and over again, until he gets it just right.

he listen back to his voice, hopes he doesn’t sound as pathetic as he feels, and the little hummingbird his heart has turned into beats its wings against the cage of his chest as he sends the message away.

his phone helpfully notifies him that it has been read and received.

it’s not until much later in the evening that xue yang responds, his voice rough (with sleep?, xiao xingchen wonders). he names a time, a place, a meal xiao xingchen should pay for. he asks what xiao xingchen wants him to wear.

it’s not like that, xiao xingchen wants to say. it’s not like that.

but he can afford xue yang. he can afford it, and he wants it to be, and it’s been so, so achingly long, and he wants to feel the dip of xue yang’s waist again beneath his fingertips, he wants to listen to the way his breath catches in his throat, he wants, he wants so, so badly.

he tells xue yang to wear whatever he pleases, because he can’t see. he also doesn’t plan to touch, but he doesn’t say that, because maybe he will be allowed to touch which is different.

he wants to feel the marks from the laces on xue yang’s back, like he offered in the studio. he should have said yes, right now, show me. like you showed me your hand. let me touch, let me see, let me feel, let me –

he tries to steel himself. tries to not be greedy. this is what zichen couldn’t stand about him. he wants too much, he takes things for granted, he’s obsessed with pretty objects.

xue yang is not an object.

• sleet

xue yang is not an object except when he is, except when he wants to.

he is not an object except for right now, with jin guangshan doing lines off his flat stomach, while xue yang checks his phone for any more messages from xiao xingchen.

jin guangshan requires almost very little in the way of effort. xue yang has to look pretty, act vapid, and pretend like he has no idea that their mutual acquaintance with dimples even exists, and if he bends over pretty enough, and calls out for daddy sweet enough, he gets a decent payday, and the occasional orgasm. unlike wen ruohan, jin guangshan has yet to make him black out, so he loses points for that. he also loses points for a lack of refinement, but then again, he takes xue yang into his house, in the master bedroom that he is supposed to share with his wife, so aiming for anything even close to the sort might be a bit too hopeful.

xue yang is honestly just waiting for him to get his fix, so he can be on his way, hopefully before the missus comes home. putting up with the angry wife is not part of the service he offers, not even for jin money.

besides, he has other things to think about, such as the sound of xiao xingchen’s sweet voice as it comes through his speaker, talking about the coffee they’ll have, and the pictures, and the shoots he’s been doing, and how fun it was to shoot xue yang. yes, fun indeed.

he still sees the way the other man’s heartbreakingly gorgeous face had stilled, color rising surreptitiously in his pale cheeks the moment those lovely undamaged fingers touched him. there, in that moment, he had known exactly what xiao xingchen wanted from him, which was no different than what anyone else wanted from him.

he still thinks about the weight of xiao xingchen’s lean body on top of him, his supple thighs straddling xue yang, his hand around his wrists, not tight, not forceful, just steady.

steady is the opposite of what he feels when he thinks about it.

he wants to see the pictures. he wants to see what xiao xingchen thinks he looks like. am i pretty for you? he wants to ask. for the first time, he genuinely wants the answer to be yes. for the first time, he wants to be pretty, and good and nice, but only in the diameter defined by xiao xingchen’s camera lens. only on paper, in gloss finish, high resolution, and only in the space between seconds, when the shutter clicks.

he doesn’t even let jin guangshan bask in the afterglow of his orgasm. as soon as the older man’s done, xue yang is ready to shove him off and be out the door, so he can go home and shower. he doesn’t want to meet the photographer where other men’s handprints on him are visible. it’s just good etiquette for a whore.

he thinks of xiao xingchen’s white clothes, his signet ring, his white skin. he wants to be clean for him.

despite his best effort, he hadn’t managed to entice the other man into ordering him around even just a little bit, and all his teasing was completely sidelined, in favor of xiao xingchen’s earnestness. it was almost a little charming. it was a lot frustrating.

let me play, xue yang wants to whine, it’s fun with you, won’t you let me play?

but he doesn’t have that much time to be a brat, when he needs to focus on getting ready. he tosses his keys on the table and heads straight for the bathroom for a scalding shower. he brushes his hair out under the spray of the water and lathers it in conditioner. he luxuriates in the warmth. at least he doesn’t have to worry about paying his water anymore. at least he doesn’t have to worry about buying the cheap stuff anymore.

he braids it and then pulls the braid away from his face with a pin that has the shape of a sword. it was in a goody bag with a brand he’d done a collaboration with. it was the kind of edgy ostentatious thing he liked.

the braid keeps his hair out of his face, but also makes it wavy, and the nice soft waves add a youthful look to his face, that with wide eyes and plumped lips gets him bank in tips on his videos. he hasn’t filmed anything new in a while, so he might fuck about tomorrow, and make something quick and cute. he has been feeling some type of way all week.

maybe he’ll break out the padded cuffs. maybe he needs to get the pretty photographer, and his pretty steady hands out of his head.

he stands naked in front of his wardrobe, considering his options. he’s not dressing up for a client, but he’s not dressing down for a friend either. this is business, but xiao xingchen isn’t an adult industry casting director, or a hipster self-professed indie brand ceo who wants to work with him because it makes her company look edgy.

he settles on ripped skinny jeans that he should have probably tossed out when he was sixteen, which might also have been when he stole them from a goodwill clearance bin. he’s not wearing anything under. there’s no room, really.

he throws on an oversized merch hoody that might have been from a gig he might have gone to with a client, if he could be fucked to remember. (the point is, of course, he’d been fucked-  and also fucked up – and did not remember). it’s an indie alt band, so it might also just be his.

he’s still getting used to having a closet bug enough for all his crap, so he doesn’t have to throw things away, and so the amount of clothes he owns has just grown, and grown and grown. he’d have to go through it some day – which he keeps telling himself will be some day soon, but in all honestly, that is entirely future xue yang’s problem.

present xue yang’s problem is if the sheer button up is too much or not enough. he wonders if he should cinch, and then let xiao xingchen touch his waist again. he’s not sure if that’s a good idea. with xiao xingchen a lot of things had proven to be remarkably bad ideas, and he dreads that he might put his foot in his mouth again, or make even more of a terrible first impression than he already has. best not to risk it. yet.

he wonders if xiao xingchen’s hands only felt so soft and worshipful in his memory. already the touch is fading away like a memory from a dream, as though xiao xingchen himself is a phantom spun out of the kind of light xue yang can only envisage in a dream.

pretty, undamaged things do not belong in his ugly filthy hands. he’ll just tarnish them, so he should keep his grubby paws off, he shouldn’t reach for what isn’t his, even if thievery is how he survived before he learned that there are other ways. before chang cian taught him.

he doesn’t want to think about chang cian, he wants to think about xiao xingchen, and his apologetic half-smile, and the way his pretty face looks tilted in concentration as he fiddles with the settings of his camera.  

best also, he wants to not be late. hadn’t punctuality and respect for others’ time been the thing that got him in trouble to begin with?

well. it was his smart mouth that got him in trouble, but that was usually the case. of course, his mouth is what also tended to get him out of trouble. but his mouth, like the rest of him, is a thing for sale, and he’s not sure xiao xingchen is buying. he’s not sure he could afford to be bought by xiao xingchen.

xiao xingchen is the most beautiful thing in the world, xue yang thinks, a little dazed, as he comes out of the uber, and nearly trips on the sidewalk. it’s still the time of the year where the sky is grey, and the air is crisp, but there’s the faintest bit of sun peeking through the shroud of steel-colored clouds like a blushing virgin, and the light seems apricot-fine in the afternoon.

xiao xingchen is sitting at a table, his white cane leaning precariously on the table, and he’s leaning against the rough wood, his cheek resting against one elegant graceful hand, his face angled towards the street. in the tinted lenses of his sunglasses the world appears on a precarious tilt, everything reimagined out of proportion. the black glass swallows what little color there is whole, out of place on someone so defined by light in everything else, with the pale creams of his clothes seemingly shining, reflecting what little there is to reflect in matters of light. he looks so pristine, so wonderfully put together, as though he himself is a beautiful photograph someone dropped in the wrong layer, against a backdrop that shouldn’t suit it, but it does. maybe it’s the particular magic of people like xiao xingchen, who are untainted, to make everything else around them rise to their level. xue yang wants to rise to his level.

or drag him down. whichever happens first.

when he finally tears his eyes away from xiao xingchen’s heartrbreakingly lovely face long enough to watch his step, and head towards him, it almost feels like heartbreak, and it shouldn’t.

xue yang had seen beautiful men before. hell, he’d lived with wei wuxian for years, and the other man’s devastating beauty had very little effect on him anymore. he had been in proximity to meng yao and his dangerous dimples, and nie huaisang and his pretty soft mouth. he worked with mo xuanyu, who looked like a pretty little picture. and yet, none of them had ever quite given him paise like xiao xingchen’s beauty had.

perhaps it had to do with how little xiao xingchen was actually trying. certainly, his clothes were nice, chosen with care, dripping in money, but there was very little artifice in his beauty, there was no pretense. wei wuxian bounced his ponytail and swayed his hips, and meng yao smiled dimplingly when he thought it would get him his way, and nie huaisang laughed coquettishly behind his fans, and xuanyu painted his face with his pretty colors, and it all had a point, an intent. there was no intent in xiao xingchen, as if he considered his physical form to be merely an inconsequential extension of his being, with the way he moved, the way he spoke.

xue yang thought about the weight of the other man on top of him, his delicate hands trailing over his body, directing, moving, shifting, changing. beneath his fingers xue yang had turned to water, or silk, or some other shimmery, slippery pretty thing one could mould, and move, and play with.

he wanted more. or less. or something.

he wants a coffee, he wants xiao xingchen to not think that he is just some two bit delinquent whore riding the coat-tails of his whore-friend’s advantageous marriage, because he isn’t. he’s more. could be more. if xiao xingchen lets him.

he clears his throat when he approaches the table. “hey,” he says, “did you wait long?”

xiao xingchen startles, and it’s as if someone breathed life into a statue, as he comes to motion, his mouth curving instinctively as a smile, his posture loosening as he reaches for xue yang then almost seems to think better of it and stops himself.

“not at all,” he says, and his voice is so warm, so pleasant to listen to. “you’re on time. it’s me who was early.”

xue yang can’t help his own smile in return as he pulls a chair out and takes a seat. “punctuality is the politeness of kings,” he says. it’s a thing meng yao had said once. more than once, actually. he said it just to seem pretentious and annoying. we can all look fancy quotes up on goodreads, asshole.

“so it is,” says xiao xingchen easily. “i know how much respecting others’ time means to you,” he adds and inclines his head gracefully. there’s no malice in his words. xue yang doesn’t know how to explain to him that it was specifically a wei wuxian being late issue. if xiao xingchen had decided to be late, like a dog, xue yang would have waited for him till the first snow came, and maybe even after that.

pathetic. he really is pathetic.

he signals the waitress just to give himself something to do, and avoid embarrassing himself. also, the coffee. he raises his bad hand. he’s wearing the glove today, his imperfection hidden neatly by stuffing that mimics a real finger. if no one looks too close, they won’t even realize there’s anything wrong with his hands, except maybe a weird tick. no one is looking at his hands anyway – he has plenty going on to distract them.

he makes a point of asking for a lot of sugar, because the two measly sugar packets that usually come with a drink just don’t cut it for him. xiao xingchen orders green tea for himself, and honey and lemon on the side. a bland, perfectly inoffensive choice. somehow, he makes it look charming.

“i’m glad you agreed to meet with me,” he says, “i really enjoyed working with you.”

xue yang scoffs despite himself. that’s not a thing people say to him or about him often or at all. he’s abrasive, he’s got an attitude, he’s still clawing out of the mess meng yao made of his reputation.

still, it feels nice to hear it, and he knows he should say something bad.

don’t make it weird, he thinks. then again, making it weird is his special talent.

“i liked working with you too,” he admits. “you’re really good.”

“don’t say that until you’ve seen the photos,” says xiao xingchen, ducking his head. there’s the faintest smattering of a blush rising to the tops of his apple-pale cheeks, and he glows, pleased, with the praise. xue yang wants to compliment him more, just to see how he reacts, but he grits his teeth. can’t risk coming off too strong – that’s the name of the game. xiao xingchen is not a client, or anything like that, but …

but. xue yang knows a lot about men, and making them feel the way he wants them to feel. and if he wants xiao xingchen to feel some type of way about him, well – who can stop him, really? except for the shitty voice in the back of his head, and wei wuxian who isn’t texting him back, no one.

“i’m sure they’ve come out good,” xue yang says. “i’m very visually appealing.”

xiao xingchen lets out a breath of a laugh, and then seems to catch himself.

“i’m certain it’s true,” he says.

are we about to kiss right now? xue yang wants to ask.

he imagines if they were in a movie this would be where xiao xingchen asks to touch his face, to see him, to experience the shape of his nose, the slopes of his cheekbones, the curl of his eyelashes, and the plump softness of his lips. xue yang imagines he’d let him, would hold his breath, and stay perfectly still, and allow the gentle exploration, brace himself for the slice, for the stab, the slap, the kick, but make himself willing, eager, good.

everything’s always a fight with you, xue yang, wei wuxian had sighed once, in the last few weeks before he officially moved out to be lan wangji’s perfect little stepford fantasy.

“can i see?” is what he says, instead of anything embarrassing.

xiao xingchen nods, and even that simple motion looks somehow lovely on him, elegant and regal. he reaches for the laptop bag propped at the side of his chair, while xue yang stares idly around. the waitress is coming back with their drinks, and she brings them to the table, setting down the little white teapot for xiao xingchen’s drink, and the porcelain tray with his lemon slices and honey packets. then she sets down xue yang’s coffee, an americano in a mug that’s roughly the size of his head.

“sugar?” xue yang asks, arching an eyebrow at her. she makes a vague, unhappy noise, rolls her eyes.

“i’ll be right back,” she says, and practically stomps off in her cheap plastic heels.

xue yang matches her energy by rolling his own eyes. customer service is hell, but when he’s a customer, all his empathy goes out the window. and he has very little empathy to begin with.

what he does have is so much impatience to see the pictures. xiao xingchen has produced a brown envelope from his bag, and holding it uncertainly in his hand. with his other hand, he reaches out to carefully feel the table top, and sets it down in the space between their drinks.

“i don’t want to ruin them before you’ve had a chance to see,” he says softly, “please let me know what you think.”

“oh, don’t worry. i will.” xue yang says, and makes no effort to disguise his greedy grabby hands. it’s not like the other an can see him being uncouth anyway.

he practically tears into the envelope and pulls out the glossy pages, his eyes huge as he takes them in. he flips quickly through the group shots. yes, they all look great, the lighting is good, the garments look stunning, and accentuate the parts of their bodies they’re meant to accentuate. that’s not important. what’s important are the individual shots, the showstopper, the –

his breath catches when he comes to the first picture in the series.

“these haven’t been edited or anything,” says xiao xingchen, sounding almost apologetic, but xue yang ignores him, because he’s too busy scrutinizing. it’s what he does every time the raw images come in to him. he usually has to be a lot more persistent to get his hands on them, since most photographers don’t really care to accommodate a bratty mouthy model, regardless of how pretty or bookable he is, but he wants to see. he wants to see what flaws are there that will be erased, what has been deemed in need of fixing, and what he can do about it.

the way xiao xingchen has captured him is… stunning.

the pictures look intimate, candid. they look sensual, and sexy, but in a classy way, not like the stuff he sells online, not like the way he gets shot for porn. he looks like he’s ready to be devoured. his waist is tiny, and his legs are long, his ankles slender and delicate, his wrists thin, bony, ripe for the breaking.

fragility had always been mo xuanyu’s selling point, with his obvious youth, his big doe eyes, but in those photos xue yang looks like he’s been spun out of glass. like a figurine from a naughty jewelry box.

“oh,” he says, softly. he flips through the full body shots, and he is pleased by what he sees. he can also pick out the parts he knows will be retouched. some shine on his forehead and his chin, adding some more gloss and texture to his hair to make it look more alive. maybe enhancing his eyes a little, and lightening his complexion.

no one can accuse him of not being self-critical, but something about these pictures makes it hard to be self-deprecating because he can’t stop looking at himself, and the lines of his body as defined by the blinding projector lights overhead, that the viewer can’t see. he is cast almost as a shadow against the backdrop. then he flips the page over, to the candids, where his hair is splayed around him, his eyes are closed, displaying a-qing’s makeup skills, his lips parted, because he’s wished to badly that xiao xingchen would touch him there.

the shot from above ends just a little above his hips, and from the angle, makes his hourglass look insane. from the angle, his hands are clearly visible. his arms, long, seafoam white, reaching back into the bed, into nothingness, grasping, his fingers, damaged, scarred, and ugly on display, stark against the slick oil spill of his hair.

he feels something violently lurch in his stomach.

xiao xingchen had warned him they’re untouched. they’re unedited. his hands are –

xiao xingchen will fix that. will fix him. it won’t look as bad in the final version, it really, really won’t. he closes his eyes. he breathes deeply, moved on to the next picture. his throat is bare for the taking – the collar, the bite, the hand  - whatever comes first, or last.

he tries to get his breathing under control, and carefully avoids looking up above where his forehead ends. he tries to focus on other things. you could stack coins in his clavicle. there’s an inviting, pleasant roundness to his shoulders, as if just begging someone to drape a coat or an arm around them. his protruding hips, his skinny waist, his –

his missing little finger.

xiao xingchen is sitting quietly, patiently, stirring the honey into his tea, his face angled away from xue yang, as if to give him privacy. xue yang appreciates it for the kindness that it is. even though xiao xingchen can’t see him, he isn’t sure he wants to feel like he’s being stared at right now, where he’s not sure if he will break any minute now, on the raw understanding of his own painful lack.

he squeezes his hand. all his fingers bend, curling into a fist. all of them, except his pinky, which remains extended out, imperfect, obvious in its stiffness, just a dead thing the way xue yang has been a dead thing since he was old enough to remember.

“thank you,” he says finally, because the silence has stretched too long, past politeness, past awkwardness even.

he puts the pictures together in a haphazard pile and shoves them back in the envelope. he wants them as far away from himself as he can physically get them.

“you don’t like them,” says xiao xingchen softly. he sounds – god. he sounds so fucking sad, so apologetic, like it’s his fault, like he did the things that were done to xue yang, like he has somehow failed him.

xue yang wants to fix the devastation that is quietly emanating from him but to do that he will first have to figure out a way to fix his own devastation, and he’s been trying to do that for years to absolutely no avail whatsoever. he is not good at comfort. he cannot even comfort himself, most days.

“they’re beautiful,” he says. he feels parched. he reaches for his coffee, then stills his hand. there’s no sugar. what’s the point of the coffee with no sugar? he taps his foot restlessly, scuffing the nose of his black sneaker into the asphalt. he isn’t sure what to do with his hands. he pushed the photos away, but he is still left with his hands. isn’t that the problem, always? xue yang is always left with his hands, even when the other things go away, and his hands are ugly, and broken, and unfixable, like he is.

“but,” says xiao xingchen gently, “you don’t like them.”

“that’s… that’s not it,” xue yang says, just as the waitress finally returns with a sugar bowl and one of those tiny little spoons that really have no business being given for people to scoop sugar with. what’s he going to do with all three grains that fit on it anyway?

she hangs around like she’s waiting for him to thank her for doing her fucking job, and then rolls her eyes and stomps off again.

“that’s not it,” he repeats, as he starts pouring sugar into his drink at last.

it’s not you. it’s me.

“the pictures are lovely. everyone looks fantastic. i’m sure wei wuxian will appreciate your hard work.”

could he sound anymore like meng yao in the deepest throes of damage control?

xiao xingchen has stiffened, and his nod is mechanical, cold, like he had been when they’d just met, and xue yang had been all barbs and insults.

“thank you,” he says, like he’s not sure what to do with his voice, and his mouth and his tongue. xue yang has ideas for all of them.

“i like them,” xue yang says helplessly. he doesn’t know how to make this better, without peeling out the ugly layers of everything that’s wrong with him. “i like them, it’s just- “

it’s just a bad man did bad things to me when i was a child, and i don’t have a pinky finger anymore, and the bad man made me ugly and bad, and now i can’t stand myself unless i’m pretty, but every time i see my hands i know people can see what he did to me, people can tell, and when people can tell, when people see the bad things they –

“like you said, they’re unedited,” he settles on, finally. see, he can be nice. he can be conciliatory. he can mend things, sometimes, or at least try to. “i don’t –“ he struggles for his next words, wants to choose them with care the way xiao xingchen had chosen his positions with care. “i don’t like seeing my hands like this. that’s all.”

xiao xingchen nods his understanding, and something in him seems to uncoil.

“it will be different when i retouch them,” xiao xingchen says, and his voice is much kinder than before, warm again, and alive with the same breathless softness as earlier. like linens freshly off the clothing line in the streets of his childhood city, and xue yang wants to be wrapped up and roll in the cleanness of it.

“i’ll add more shadows, and i’ll filter them through your hair. it won’t be obvious at all.”

xue yang nods, because that’s true. it will be different. xiao xingchen is a professional, he knows what he’s doing. he’s won awards. no self-respecting, award-winning professional will let his work be ruined by something like what xue yang has to ruin things with.

finally, he takes his first sip of coffee. it has gone tepid, but the flavor is there, the sugar melting on his tongue.

“yeah,” he says. “yeah.” he shakes his head, trying to dispel the wasps that live in the hollow places of his brain where a happy childhood should have been, where they’ve all made their nests. “i know, i just- “

“when i lost my sight,” xiao xingchen says quietly, “i wore a bandage around my eyes for the longest time, because i thought everyone who saw my eyes would be able to tell that they’re broken. that i’m broken. i didn’t want a cane, i didn’t want a guide dog, i didn’t want – i didn’t want the things that were wrong with me to be wrong with me, and i didn’t want people to be able to tell.”

he pauses meaningfully, takes a sip of his tea. xue yang studies the elegant pale column of his neck, the way his adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. he traces with hungry eyes a single drop of tea at the corner of his pale lips, and watches the pretty pink tongue dart out to capture it.

“people are a lot more self-involved than you think,” xiao xingchen continues. “very few, if at all, actually care or notice the things we think are broken about us. the things we think everyone can see. you didn’t even realize i was blind when we first spoke. even when i have my cane, people trip all over me all the time. that’s the nature of people, i think – you give them too much credit.”

xue yang shakes his head.

“but there are people who notice,” he says quietly. there are people who see that something has been done to you, and take it as an invitation to continue in the trodden tracks of those who came before them. so wen ruohan. so jin guangshan. so all the other men that kept him and wei wuxian fed and clothed before that. all shaping their claws after the marks chang cian left.

“yes,” xiao xingchen agrees mildly. “there are.”

they lapse into another silence, but this one is not as uncomfortable, not as awkward. it just stretches between them, like a clothing line, waiting for the fresh linen of xiao xingchen’s voice to adorn it once more.

xue yang is content to sip at his coffee and study the reflections of the street in xiao xingchen’s glasses, watching as the traffic unfurls, red lights, green lights, warning yellow, fast cars, and shitbox cars, and people hurrying to the places they think they have to be.

“may i ask something indelicate?” xiao xingchen intones. his tea cup is empty. xue yang wonders if it would be presumptuous to top it up for him.

“shoot,” he says. people ask indelicate things all the time. few ever bother to get his permission.

“does it hurt?”

xue yang closes his eyes, breathes deeply. it’s not a surprising question. people want to know. even wen ruohan had asked once.

“it did,” xue yang says quietly. it had hurt so much. “it still hurts,” he adds, “but not like you’d think it does. there is no – “

there is no phantom pain. he’s been without his finger longer than he’s been with it, so it’s not like his body remembers how to miss it anymore, in the visceral bone-deep way in which his mind misses it.

“the joint hurts,” he says finally, “when it’s cold. or when it’s wet. sometimes my whole hand locks up. but on the daily, sometimes… sometimes i can forget it’s there. or not there, as it is.”

absences should be easier to forget  - after all, how can you be constantly aware of something that you don’t have anymore? but xue yang is aware. xue yang keeps track of every single thing missing from him, and he started with the little bones that are gone from him, and he just never stopped, because people didn’t stop taking things from him after that.

chang cian had not stopped either.

“i still see light,” xiao xingchen offers quietly in return. “sometimes, i take pictures with the flash on in the dark, just because i can.”

xue yang closes his eyes. when he opens them again, everything around him will be the same.

when he returns home, he feels the kind of bone deep exhaustion that means even if he’d had ten more coffees he wouldn’t have been able to stay awake. he discards his clothes, peeling the jeans off his legs like a snake shimmying out of priceless summer skin. he crawls under the thick duvet, and curls in on himself. the blinds are drawn, and the room is half-dark. that also means it’s half-light. if xiao xingchen were here, would he be able to tell?

when he closes his eyes, he dreams. in his dream there is a tall slender man in white traditional robes walking down a dark street at night. the lamps overhead flicker. the man in white walks alone, and though it’s dark and the streets are unforgiving, there is nothing to fear. the man has a camera. he holds it in his hands loosely, like he’s not afraid someone will try to take it from him. he should be afraid. there is always someone waiting to take your shiny things away. but the man just keeps walking at a steady leisurely place. his face is obscured by a white linen bandage, but he has a beautiful mouth. the man sees a child cowering behind a dumpster. the man is blind, but he knows the child is there, because he can see light. there is still light in the child. the child is eating garbage. the man raises his camera. the child thinks this is not how i’m supposed to get shot, but it will do. the flash blinds the child. now the child can no longer see a hand missing a finger. now the blind man and the blind child can walk in the city together, under flickering lights.

1. hail

the good thing about not being meng yao is that meng yao is in nie huaisang’s shitlist, which means xue yang is getting booked on all the gigs that dimples would have been a first choice for. it’s really diversifying his resume, because all of huaisang’s pretentious artsy friends have realized that if they want to remain in his good books and keep his benign patronage over their various endeavors, they should start favoring the people huaisang himself favors, and then not favoring the people that are out of favor with him.

that’s why the moling su gallery went out of business… people just weren’t willing to take a risk exhibiting anything at all there that would have, in huaisang’s delicate insinuation, be much better suited to the lan art empire.

xue yang prays never to piss nie huaisang so badly.

therefore, he shows up to the shoot, as always, caffeinated, ready, and on time.

he sits in an uncomfortable high chair, perfectly still while the chatty artist color-matches him to the correct foundation, and mutters to herself something about making him look dewey.

xue yang prefers looking matte, because it suits him better, he thinks. porcelain white matte skin makes his eyes look huge on his face, and his lashes appear that much darker. but he’s not being paid to talk or offer up his opinions. huaisang’s rather generous contract is for him to look pretty, and that’ sone thing xue yang excels at.

his fingers twitch towards his phone but he resists the urge to check it. there’s time yet.

some hours to go.

today the burial mounds campaign drops, and he wants a taste of the finished image. patience has never been his strong suit. he tries to think about other things, like xiao xingchen’s wonderful voice, and the way his laugh comes out in their voice messages, breathlessly delighted every time xue yang makes a particularly crude joke, as though it’s the funniest thing he’s heard.

xue yang likes making him laugh. xue yang likes him in general. they’d been too busy to meet in person again since the coffee. xue yang had been called in for some tasteless but well-paying shorts, and the welts on his back had just barely healed enough for him to look lovely and pristine for huaisang’s newest project.

he’d also added jin guangshan’s business partner yao something to his rotation of more permanent clients, and had finally gotten around to upgrading his phone and laptop, and then had had to go through his entire archive to make sure things transferred properly. he’d barely had time to miss wei wuxian, let alone xiao xingchen.

and he did miss wei wuxian. he’d tried to be subtle in asking huaisang about it, but the way the other man’s pleasant expression shuttered before his fan had even snapped open to hide it told him everything he needed to know.

xue yang was someone from wei wuxian’s unpleasant past, and so, like the other people from wei wuxian’s unpleasant past, he would be swept away with the rest of the trash. nie huaisang didn’t have to put it in such bold terms, for xue yang to understand.

i didn’t abandon him, xue yang had wanted to say petulantly. when things were bad, when everything was shit, and everyone walked away, i was right there, i held his hair back when he puked his guts out, i made sure the guys who took him home were legit, i kept him from drinking himself to death, it was all me, me, me.

but that hadn’t particularly mattered in the end. wei wuxian had repaid his debt with access to his contacts, with a leg up in the modeling industry, with a shoot from an award winning photographer. now it was time for him to pretend like he hadn’t spent several years sharing a bare mattress on the floor of a roach-infested studio with a two-bit whore. now it was time for him to turn his back to the world, facing inwards, to the warm arms of his loving husband, and maybe, if xue yang pulled himself out of this, if he stopped the porn films, if he quit the camwork, if he cut off the sugar daddies, and picked just one, and became a trophy for another wen ruohan, or jin guangshan, maybe then wei wuxian would consider him someone he could talk to again.

xue yang had known their friendship to be transactional. he just wasn’t sure how many of wei wuxian’s other friends were aware.

by nie huaisang’s gaze – steady, unruffled, steel wrapped in fluffy faux fur, he certainly was, and he felt the exact same way.

“wei-xiong is well,” nie huaisang had said. “they have just been approved by the adoption agency.”

“ah,” xue yang had said. “let the stepford nightmare begin.”

then he’d had to go get his makeup done.

he wanted to check his phone, but he didn’t want to keep the artist from being able to do her job. he willed himself into stillness. the campaign wouldn’t drop for a few more hours anyway. he could wait. he could.

he’d never really had a Christmas worth celebrating in his life, but he’s pretty sure the expression “feeling like a kid on Christmas morning” describes the way he feels on campaign drop days, when he gets to see the finished result, gets to see himself, shiny, looking good and new and wonderful.

he’s almost glad he has work to do today, otherwise he might simply go insane pacing around his flat, crawling out of his skin with impatience. he’s trying hard to hold himself still but he is close to vibrating out of the tender confines of his skin with excitement.

the thing he’s doing for huaisang today is more avant-garde, a vaguely artsy set of limited edition prints that will go up on the unclean realm’s site as exclusives, featuring some of the most popular models and artists from the magazine in the past few years.

he’s pretty sure there will be paint getting pored over him at some point, which is fine – he’s always been willing to get dirty, and it could be fun to do that for sure.

He’s wearing rather unforgiving heels again, and a latex catsuit that makes him look as though he’s bathed in an oil spill. The hair stylist had done something to his hair, leaving it looking wet and glossy, trailing down his back. He knows he looks damn good, and he is eager to get out there and show what he can do with just his body, as always. He’s always willing to show off a little.

His waist is cinched prettily, but not as extremely as he would normally do, since huaisang hadn’t been sure how many hours the whole thing would take. That’s probably a good thing, and though the tightness isn’t as extreme as it could be, there is still a familiar stability in the boning holding him straight and perfect, his breath coming out measured, shallow and carefully controlled.

He slides off the chair when the artist is done with him, to wander around the set. He knows some of the other models- by look at the very least, but there’s no one he’s particularly close with, and he’s not really here to make friends anyway.

It gives him a certain sense of satisfaction to know that even though all the burial mounds models have at some point also featured on the pages of the unclean realm, he’s the only who’s been called back for huaisang’s thing.

He isn’t flattered, because it’s not flattery. He knows he’s better than the others, he knows what he can do, and what they can’t do, and he knows very well what he looks like.

Well. He’d like to know what he looks like.

He refreshes his feed on his phone get again, but there’s no thing new from burial mounds. Predictably, of course, because the drop isn’t due for a while, but the familiar nervous excitement of a major project release still grips his stomach.

Will the pictures be pretty? Will the retouch look nice? Seamless? Will it blend well into the original?

He swipes through the burial mounds stories, and then shamelessly through wei wuxian’s account as well, but there’s nothing except a few teaser images that are definitely not xiao xingchen’s work. They lack the refinement xue yang has come to associate with the other man, and seem much more like generic PR.

XUE yang had gotten to know xiao xingchen’s style of the past few weeks. He’d looked the man up, after all, studied his list of awards, gone through his professional site, read up several pieces on him from various magazines back when he’d first emerged on the scene as a blind photographer.

Some of them had mentioned a Song Zichen as his partner (business? Romantic? Unclear.) xue yang had looked him up too.

“Zichen and I had different priorities after a certain point,” Ciao xingchen had said when xue yang asked him outright if there was a tall dark and brooding boyfriend he needed to be wary of.

The way he says Zichen sounds like a knife wound, unhealed, the way it sounded when wei wuxian used to sometimes mention jiang cheng. XUE yang promised himself to fuck Zichen up if he ever saw him, for the way the very syllables of his name made xiao xingchen’s tongue drip blood.

Perhaps thinking about him is what summons xiao xingchen to his side. he has appeared at the edge of the set in his BEAUTIFUL creams and whites.

XUE yang makes a bee line for him, putting an unneeded sway into his hips, and relishing the way his heels sound on the floor of the industrial building huaisang has chosen for his set, echoing in the vast empty space.

“I didn’t know you were working this shoot,” he says without preamble.

Xiao xingchen is talking to one of the assistants but he turns around immediately, and the warm that spreads through his face could probably melt ice to steam instantaneously.

“xue yang!” Says xiao xingchen and his voice is so full of joy, he truly sounds as though there’s no one else in the world he would rather run into.

“It was a rather last minute arrangement. Something came up for the photographer huaisang had booked. I was happy to assist.”

Of course you were, xue yang thinks. That’s just how xiao xingchen is, really. Helpful to the bone.

That’s how xue yang wishes he could be, but he’s several bones short for that.

“I’m pleased you’re here,” says xiao xingchen. “I mean it when I said I enjoyed working with you. I’m happy to have a chance to do it again.”

The sentiment warns something deep in xue yang’s chest. It pleases him to be found pleasing.

“I’m also excited for the campaign drop today?” xiao xingchen carries on. “I sent wei wuxian and his team some options. I’m not sure which images he decided to go with in the end, so you will have to tell me what you think. And of course, if you’re happy with the final product.”

xue yang can tell, by the trembling of xiao xingchen’s fingers with barely suppressed energy, the pronounced curve of his smile cutting into his cheeks, that their excitement is perhaps matched. That they both might feel equally apprehensive, equally eager to see what there is to see.

The only time xue yang is happy to perceived is under the light of the projectors.

he doesn’t have too much time to worry about his phone or the campaign drop or anything else after that, because when they get going, they get going. nie huaisang, for all his mild, unassuming politesse is a cruel and unforgiving task master, who knows exactly what he wants, and how he wants it to happen, and he is not above making people cry to achieve his artistic vision.

he and xiao xingchen are involved in lengthy discussions behind the camera, and seemingly after each click of the shutter, huaisang is there demanding to see, before he can approve moving on to the next shot.

there’s a few group poses, but the individual shots are where the real fun lies.

xue yang lets xiao xingchen direct him at will. just like before, xiao xingchen reaches out to touch him, to feel the contours of his body.

“oh,” he says softly, when he feels the texture of the latex, smooth and slick. he palms xue yang’s waist greedily, pressing the entirety of his hand, feeling the boning of the corset through the catsuit.

“it’s not as small this time,” he murmurs, and it’s true. his hands don’t really connect the way they did before. he sounds almost… disappointed. xue yang can’t help the smile the slices across his face, because even someone as good as xiao xingchen is just a man at the end, and he wants what men always end up wanting from him.

“this one will leave marks too,” xue yang promises. “and you can come touch them when i’m done.”

the sharp intake of breath from xiao xingchen is a special reward he intends to treasure.

“we’ll dunk you in a glitter bath,” huaisang says, appearing from nowhere, specifically just to shatter the moment.

xue yang doesn’t even have the heart to be too unhappy with him, because being dunked into a glitter bath is actually the kind of thing he doesn’t get to do often, but he’s pretty sure he’d like to do it anyway.

it is actually a bath – probably an antique nie huaisang sourced from somewhere, claw-footed pale blue porcelain, and it’s full of swirling iridescent white water. xue yang wonders if this is what it would feel like to swim in the essence of xiao xingchen’s soul. there’s a vat of industrial glitter next to it, because nie huaisang doesn’t care about the environment nearly as much as he pretends to.

“not bio-degradable, a-sang?” xue yang asks lightly, because he can, and because he needs to be a bitch sometimes.

“you’ll look just as pretty in the photos if i drown you first,” nie huaisang says cheerfully, which is true, and xue yang absolutely believes him to be capable of cold-blooded murder, so he chooses to bite back his smart retort. in many ways, teasing nie huaisang seems like a more self-destructive hobby than pissing off wei wuxian.

“please don’t,” says xiao xingchen, “rigor mortis will change his skin’s undertones in the lighting.”

“oh,” says nie huaisang. “of course. my bad.”

he steps away, so one of the assistants, who are all there to do the heavy lifting huaisang’s soft hands are too fragile and delicate to do, can step in, and dump the glitter into the water.

“do i need to keep my shoes on?” he asks.

huaisang shakes his head. “we’re giving the feet people what they want,” he says seriously, and xue yang is just glad he had time for a pedicure this week.

he toes out of his shoes, leaving them neatly at the corner of the tub. if huaisang wants them gone, someone will move them, though they better not move them too far. they had been a particularly indulgent gift from wen ruohan, when he’d accidentally (or so he claimed), dislocated xue yang’s shoulder, and then simply carried on fucking him to completion, and had only then taken him to the emergency room.

he lifts one leg, and steps into the water. it’s not freezing but it’s not warm either.

he steps fully in. the water splashes.

“don’t worry,” huaisang has, “i have blankets and clothes for you to change into.”

xue yang nods, gritting his teeth so they don’t chatter too loudly, and then forces himself to sit down in the water. he can already imagine how the black of his clothes will look against the glistening white and silver of the bathwater, the texture of the catsuit, with the texture of the glitter. huaisang really is quite good at what he does.

xiao xingchen approaches, and reaches out. his hand finds xue yang’s wrist.

“are you cold?” he asks quietly.

“yes,” xue yang says frankly, “so you better take pretty pictures of me very quickly, so i can get out.”

xiao xingchen trills out a soft delicate laugh. “all my pictures of you are pretty,” he says, and then arranges xue yang how he wants him, and moves back.

he gives very little direction. all xue yang has to do is lay in the water, pretend he’s floating, pretend he’s drowning, and that’s not hard to do when xiao xingchen is so close again, taking pictures of him again.

for the final shot, he submerges completely, and then comes out, and they can only click it once, because the water will make his mascara and lipstick run, will make him look wrecked. shipwrecked, like a mermaid, but also sex-wrecked, stained with white glitter, with silver in his hair, with his mouth a smeared line of red, and his eyes huge, dripping black tears down his pale cheeks.

huaisang is a visionary, and an artist.

he’s also an ass, because he doesn’t help xue yang come out of the tub, though he does, almost immediately, bundle him in a blanket, and direct him to one of the set-up areas so he can get dry, clean off his face and change.

and check his phone, because it’s getting to be around the time when the first images should be dropping. the group ones, at least.

xue yang is the showstopper, so he will probably appear last, a promise, a treat, everything you could ever want.

he keeps the blanket wrapped tight around himself as he digs through for his phone. huaisang has had his stuff moved with the quiet terrifying efficiency he sometimes displays. there’s also a pile of assorted brand name athleisure for him to change into, which he assumes he’ll get to keep.

none of that is important. he’s so excited and cold that his hands are shaking, and his not sure which is causing it. maybe it’s a bit of both. he gets his passcode wrong twice before he gets his phone open and immediately scrolls to the burial mounds Instagram.

the campaign has gone live, the pictures are up.

xue yang holds his breath, which the corset makes easy anyway.

the group shots are predictably lovely. tasteful, on the right side of sexy. everyone’s best angle is showing, the light hits right. it’s all good, it doesn’t really stand out. he scrolls past them, to the next post, which is where the individual pictures start. his eyes take on the grid as a whole, at first.

each picture features one person, with the date and time of the drop in bold lettering.

mo xuanyu is the picture of fragile innocence, staring with his big sad eyes right into the camera, begging you to buy the pretty flimsy things he’s selling you, a pretty and flimsy thing himself. mianmian looks fierce and ready to cut a man, which is how she looks in general. wen ning manages to combine wholesome boy-next-door appeal with dark unbridled sexuality, that had often made xue yang wonder if he should try to get the other man properly riled up and angry, just to see if they can fuck about it.

and then finally, finally, it’s his turn. he closes his eyes. he lets out a deep exhale, and then breathes in again.

here we go, he thinks. xiao xingchen wouldn’t let me down, he thinks.

1. verglas

xiao xingchen is just finishing up with one of the models when he hears the noise. there isn’t a single person in the vicinity who did not hear the noise.

huaisang has chosen an empty industrial warehouse for his backdrop, so everything in their carries. and someone had just screamed, and xiao xingchen drops his camera, and grabs his cane, trying to intuit where the noise had come from. he feels a hand on his arm, and recognizes the weight of huaisang’s floral perfume, as the other man gently leads him.

the noise hasn’t stopped. someone is screaming, at least it sounds like screaming. or howling. it’s a noise of such profound rage and pain that xiao xingchen fears the worst – someone has had an accident, someone has fallen and been seriously injured someone has –

“xue yang,” says huaisang, and something horrific cracks in xiao xingchen’s chest at the thought that it’s xue yang making those inhuman, incomprehensible noises.

“you,” xue yang snarls, and his voice comes out so ugly and distorted. “you!” he bellows again. then, leaving no doubt who it’s directed at, he adds, voice dripping enough venom to wipe out a small town, “xiao xingchen!”

and then he erupts in what xiao xingchen realizes now is hysterical crying.

nie huaisang pats xiao xingchen’s arm. “stay here,” he says quietly, and moves away.

xiao xingchen can hear him approaching xue yang, talking to him quietly, making vague soothing noises. xue yang stops making the awful sounds, but his voice sounds wrecked all the same, and he’s slurring his words so badly xiao xingchen can’t really make out what is being said.

he can just hear pictures, and my hand.

huaisang returns to his side, takes him by the arm, and leads him out.

people have gathered at the entrance, and huaisang disperses them with what xiao xingchen assumes is merely a look.

“the pictures for wei wuxian’s campaign went up,” huaisang says quietly.

xiao xingchen struggles to imagine how that could have caused such a reaction, feels as though he can’t breathe at the thought that something he did could have made xue yang –

“the picture of him that went up… the showstopper… it’s the raw version,” huaisang continues. “the one that shows his hand.”

xiao xingchen feels as if the ground beneath him has turned to ice and he is slipping away.

“what?” he manages out.

his ears are still ringing from xue yang’s screams of rage. he must have misheard.

“i sent wei wuxian the raws, but there were multiple retouched for him to choose from,” he says, “how did it – “

“oh,” says huaisang, and his voice is light, full of air, “it wasn’t a mistake. the date and branding were all edited on.”

“so xue yang thinks that i – “

“i told him you didn’t know,” says huaisang. there is something in his voice, hard enough to shatter bone. “you didn’t, did you?”

xiao xingchen feels like he too, might scream. of course not, he wants to say. why would you ask me that, he wants to say. i wouldn’t do that to him, he wants to say.

he just managed to shake his head.

that seems good enough for huaisang.

“let’s finish up here,” he says, “xue yang needs to be alone.”

1. floe

they take several more hours to finish, and huaisang directs the assistants in putting things away and packing equipment, so xiao xingchen can go check on xue yang, who is still in his dressing area, but now, no longer making noise.

the first thing xiao xingchen hears is the chattering of teeth, when he approaches.

“xue yang,” he says softly, his voice practically a whisper.

“i can’t get my glove on.” says xue yang.

it’s the first thing he says. he sounds hoarse, his voice raw. “i – my hands are shaking. my hands are shaking, i want my glove on, and i can’t,” he makes helpless, frustrated sound.

“i can’t do the clasp,” he says, and he sounds small. he sounds small, like he must have been when it happened. he sounds small like xiao xingchen never wants him to feel.

“may i help?” xiao xingchen asks, and lowers himself to his knees. he has to fight the urge to kowtow and beg forgiveness.

xue yang rustles, as though he has just shrugged. “sure.” he sounds empty.

xiao xingchen moves closer, and reaches for him. he takes hold of the supple leather of xue yang’s glove, and with his other hand clasps his fingers around xue yang’s bad hand, feeling once again the texture of the scarred flesh, and the stump of his littlest finger.

“i didn’t know,” xiao xingchen says, as he starts easing the glove onto xue yang’s fingers slowly. he can feel the texture of chipped polish on his nails. “i didn’t know that he would post those.”

he fits the stuffed prosthetic to the stump, makes sure it feels even, well-aligned, and runs his fingers over the clasps so he can start tightening them.

“i figured,” says xue yang, sounding thoroughly miserable, and then, after xiao xingchen withdraws his hands, enough for xue yang to wiggle his fingers, he adds a barely there “thank you.”

“don’t thank me,” says xiao xingchen, “i –“

but he isn’t sure how to continue. he isn’t sure there’s anything he can even say. they sit on the cold concrete floor in silence.

“i’m cold,” says xue yang, after a very long time. “i want to go home, i want to have a hot shower, and i want to sleep.”

“okay,” says xiao xingchen. that’s what he wants too. he wants to go home, he wants to have a hot shower, he wants to call wei wuxian, and leave him a strongly worded voicemail, and he wants – he wants-

you take things for granted.

“i can’t move,” says xue yang. “i couldn’t stop shaking. now i can’t move.”

“okay,” says xiao xingchen, even though it’s not. “will you let me help you?”

xue yang’s breathing still bears the rhythm of sobs.

“please,” he says, and his voice breaks. “please help me.”

so xiao xingchen does.

he helps xue yang up, feeling the meagre weight of him against his side, the slightness of his frame even in the baggy clothes he’s changed into.

“do you have all your things?” he asks.

xue yang nods against his shoulder. xiao xingchen keeps a firm hold on him, as they walk outside, back into the staggering daylight.