Chapter Text
Wei Wuxian had sworn to live a life with no regrets. But tonight, there’s a very real chance he will break that vow.
Back pitifully hunched, he shuffles over to the table where he left his phone. He flips open his contacts and is about to call Yanli when he stops himself. His wonderful jiejie doesn’t deserve to be called after midnight and put through this. Even though she would probably be supportive and kind and never tell another soul about it, the unspoken pain of confirming how much of a fuckup he was to the one person who always believed in him would be unbearable.
Jiang Cheng was a nonstarter. Even ignoring the weird strain on their relationship since he disappeared for years without contacting anyone, Jiang Cheng would never allow Wei Wuxian a scrap of dignity if he heard about this.
He’s about to scroll all the way down to Wen Qing, who would be mature about it and whose opinion of him couldn’t get any lower, when his eyes catch on a string of sparkles and eyes emojis.
Nie Huaisang. Self-reported gay who cannot drive. Wei Wuxian recalls the night he discovered just how false that claim was, and the deal Huaisang had offered him. One ride: complete discretion and no questions, in exchange for absolute secrecy about Huaisang’s very real drivers license and car. He’d been hoping to cash it in for a getaway driver on a grand heist, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
﴿ ◈ ﴾
Nie Huaisang ignores the first call from Wei Wuxian. Because who the hell calls people these days?
He ignores the second call as well. From anyone else, a second call without a voice mail would be a sign of emergency, but from Wei Wuxian it’s just his usual brand of obnoxious.
He almost considers answering the third call. Almost.
However, he can’t ignore the text he gets next. “Answer your damn phone. It’s time to drive the piper.” Ah. That piques his interest. He idly wonders which high-class establishment Wei Wuxian finally settled on robbing.
For his own amusement, Nie Huaisang lets his ringtone play for a few drawn-out seconds before finally answering. His delicate ears are immediately assaulted by an explosive hissing stage whisper.
“Fucking finally! I need you to take me to the hospital.”
﴿ ◈ ﴾
As Wei Wuxian awkwardly sits in the passenger seat of Nie Huaisang’s car, he reflects on how his life culminated in this moment. Well over a decade of being oblivious to his own feelings followed by a few years of tragic but fervent unrequited pining were the obvious driving factors. Taking the job as a Vet Secretary without realizing it was for the veterinarian that Lan Zhan trusted with his bunnies’ healthcare was another. There was the way Lan Zhan nervously bit his lip waiting for Tank’s diagnosis to come back. The actual smile, small and fleeting though it was, that he gave Wei Wuxian upon being informed that everything would be okay. The lingering brushes of strong fingers along his own as pens and papers were handed back and forth. And most importantly, Wei Wuxian’s decision to reflect on this very professional interaction with Lan Zhan once he’d gotten home, which led to reflecting on aforementioned unrequited pining.
Before Wei Wuxian knew it he was sliding a hand up and down his steadily hardening cock. And then he was desperately shoving slick fingers into his own asshole. And then… well… he learned three things in rapid succession:
1: If he ever resorts to getting fucked by strangers on grindr who have a passing resemblance to Lan Wangji, girth will not be an issue.
2: The connection between two lengths of lotus root is not nearly as solid as it looks.
3: He would not be making a full batch of Pork Rib and Lotus Root Soup in the near future like he’d been hoping.
He’s jarred out of his thoughts quite literally by the car hitting a pothole, which is absolutely the last thing he needed to happen at this moment, forcing a miserable sound halfway between a wince and a groan out of his lips.
“Aah, sorry Wei-xiong!” Huaisang cries out, slowing the car and sounding fully panicked, “Are you sure we shouldn’t get an ambulance instead?”
“Nah, it’s fine,” Wuxian grunts out, “Just… be careful.”
“Okay…” Huaisang spares him a worried glance, but doesn’t ask anything else. Wei Wuxian is surprised by the lack of questions from his childhood friend, and while pondering that herculean act of restraint from the known gossip-monger he doesn’t notice that the hospital Huaisang’s taking him to isn’t the nearest one to his apartment. But the drive is relatively short, and soon enough Wei Wuxian is being checked in to Urgent Care with, all things considered, minimal eyebrow-raising from Huaisang.
﴿ ◈ ﴾
Lan Wangji skims over the nurse’s notes for his next patient, his eyes and mind stalling out on “Foreign object in Rectum: Lotus Root”. And Wen Qing wonders why he avoids the graveyard shift like the plague. Best case scenario, they’re a horny idiot. Worst case scenario, they’re an assault victim. His cold professional beside manner would make the former bearable, but leave him ill-equipped for the delicate emotional turmoil of the latter.
He doesn’t look at the name on the chart until he steps into the room.
Wei Ying.
His head snaps up, and his gaze is greeted by startled warm grey eyes and a strangled yelp from the man he’s been hopelessly in love with for nearly two decades.
“L-Lan Zhan! What a surprise… hahaha… fancy meeting you here…” Wei Wuxian chokes out.
“Mn.”
“So uh…” Wuxian’s gaze flits about the room, actively avoiding Wangji’s, “I’m guessing you… saw why I’m here?”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan nods solemnly, “I understand that cases like this can be quite embarrassing for the patient. Normally I would offer to have someone else treat you, but unfortunately I’m the only qualified individual currently available. However, I can assure you that this entire procedure will be kept in the highest confidence.”
“Oh… that’s uh… good to hear.” His nervousness sets off alarm bells in Lan Wangji’s head. Wei Wuxian’s face is unbelievably thick. With such extreme circumstances, this degree of anxious behavior would be normal for most people, it’s concerning coming from him.
“I would like to confirm some things before we get started. Was the insertion voluntary, or involuntary?” Lan Wangji manages to ask the most pressing question without letting his voice waver and betray the icy fear clutching his heart.
“Voluntary.”
“Wei Ying…”
“I was training to be a doctor once too, remember? I know how important it is to be honest with this stuff. It was Voluntary, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian insists.
“How long ago was the object inserted?”
“A bit over an hour ago?”
“Mn.” Lan Wangji nods in approval, “Sexual or Non-Sexual?”
The nervousness quickly floods back into Wuxian’s body language, fidgeting and twitching and looking around, “Ahh… sexual. So uh… don’t worry… I used plenty of lube… hahaha…”
“Why?” Lan Zhan asks before he can stop himself. That knowledge isn’t medically necessary; he’s just shocked that Wei Wuxian would resort to pleasuring himself with a piece of produce when there must be thousands of people in the city who would enthusiastically give him whatever he could desire if only he asked.
The nervous fidgeting increases. If Wei Wuxian had feathers, he would fly away from all the rapid fluttering movements. “Haha… you know? Sometimes… fingers uh… aren’t enough? Hahahahaha…” he’s definitely hiding something. And Lan Zhan hates it, but there’s nothing he can do about that. His primary focus right now needs to be Wei Wuxian’s physical wellbeing, which means the extraction of the lotus root.
﴿ ◈ ﴾
Trauma tends to warp and block memories. And getting a vegetable stuck up your ass while masturbating to your hopeless crush only for said hopeless crush to be the doctor responsible for extracting said vegetable from your ass has to be right up there in terms of traumatic experiences. It’s honestly a miracle Wei Wuxian remembers anything after Lan Zhan walked in that door.
He remembers answering some questions and definitely not acting suspicious about why there was a Lotus Root up his ass. Or at least not letting slip that it had anything to do with the man who was asking him questions.
He remembers vehemently refusing conscious sedation, not trusting what might spill out of his drug-loosened lips.
He remembers a table and straps holding him in a position he hadn’t fantasized about before but probably would in the future, mourning the fact that the first time Lan Zhan touched his bare butt was nothing like any of the countless fantasies he’d had over the years, curved silver forceps that he would hopefully never fantasize about, and biting his tongue to hold back any and all sex-fantasy-based jokes.
He remembers the compassion and worry in Lan Wangji’s usually icy eyes throughout the process. That look alone would be dangerous enough to send him to the hospital all over again if he were to dwell on it too long.
Wei Wuxian’s mind fully comes back to him when Lan Zhan informs him that he will need to stay at the hospital for 24 hours of observation.
“What? That’s bullshit! The thing’s gone and I’m fine now.”
Lan Wangji shoots him a silencing glare, “There is a low risk of complications, but if something does happen it must be caught and treated immediately. It could become life-threatening otherwise.”
Wei Wuxian juts out his lower lip and whines, “But Lan Zhan, I can’t let anyone know I was here! If I make jiejie worry Jiang Cheng will break my legs and then I’ll be in here all over again!”
“Jiang Wanyin will not break your legs.”
“He could!”
“He won’t.” Wei Wuxian continues to pout, so Lan Wangji adds, “If you want a second opinion I can get you one, though I assure you any doctor would enforce an observation period after what you just went through.”
“Oh really? I guess I dropped from premed before we went over the standard procedure for removing a lotus root from someone’s ass.” It’s a Wei Wuxian specialty defense mechanism: self-deprecating jokes with sarcastic barbs that hurt those around him. And judging by the length of time it takes Lan Wangji to respond, a highly effective one at that.
“Mn,” Wangji looks away from Wuxian by writing on a clipboard, “Blunt force trauma to the rectum and lower abdomen. Risk of perforations, infections, sepsis, and peritonitis. 24 hours of observation required to ensure safe recovery. I will inform Huaisang.” He turns on his heel to leave.
“Ah wait! Lan Zhan! Don’t tell him anything please!” Wuxian cries desperately.
“I will merely inform him that your treatment is complete, but you are required to stay for observation. Rest, Wei Ying. I will check on you again before my shift ends.” With that he really does leave.
Wei Wuxian curls into a tiny ball on the hospital bed and proceeds to sink into a deep existential mortification. Anxiety crashes through his mind like a herd of evil cats, consuming his thoughts and shredding any chance at sleeping like so many throw pillows. The screams of the evil anxiety cats ring in his head.
‘Everyone will know what happened!’
‘You’re such an idiot, you deserve it.’
‘Yanli’s gonna cry!! And it’s your fault!’
‘Jiang Cheng will never let go of this. He’ll tease you about it forever.’
‘I bet Huaisang’s already subtweeting it.’
‘That was the only time Lan Zhan will ever touch your ass.’
‘Lan Zhan will never look at you the same. He won’t even want to be your friend after this.’
‘You fucking idiot.’
‘You should just disappear again.’
‘You can’t disappear again.’
‘Everyone will know! Everyone will know! Everyone will know!’
‘Lan Zhan knows. Lan Zhan knows. Lan Zhan knows.’
The sky through the window turning dark orange with pre-dawn light brings both the relief of knowing time is passing normally and he isn’t trapped in purgatory with his own thoughts forever and the dread of knowing time is passing normally and this wasn’t all just a bad dream. With that realization, he finally starts to drift to sleep.
﴿ ◈ ﴾
Nie Huaisang is staring at the blank twitter text field on his phone and heavily considering posting something about being stuck in the hospital at three in the morning when a flat voice beside him greets, “Nie Huaisang.”
He looks up to see Lan Wangji, whose blank face holds ghosts of severity and exhaustion.
“Lan-xiong~! I didn’t expect to see you here!” a half-truth. Specifically, Huaisang hadn’t expected to see Wangji here until the morning shift started.
“Mn. Wei Ying’s treatment has been successfully completed, though he will be required to stay for 24 hours under observation to ensure no complications arise.”
“Oh yes, his treatment! How did that all go?”
“Legally and by request of the patient, I am not allowed to disclose details.”
“Aw~ you’re still no fun as always,” Huaisang chides.
“Mn. What do you know about the situation that brought him here?”
Huaisang scrutinizes Lan Wangji, noticing a crease along his brow and an unnecessarily tight grip on his clipboard. If he had to guess, Wangji is worried about what happened to cause the love of his life to come to the hospital and frustrated by said love of his life’s refusal to answer questions.
“Not much. He just asked me to take him to the hospital a couple hours ago. Wouldn’t even say why!”
“He didn’t say anything at all?”
“Not really… Oh, but he was walking weird! Though I suppose you’d know why that is better than me.”
“Where did you pick him up?”
“His apartment.”
The tense lines along on Lan Wangji’s face and posture are softening as Huaisang answers questions, slowly easing his nerves enough to get to the core of Wangji’s worries. He takes a deep breath before the next question. So it’s probably a big one.
“Did you get any sense that what happened to him was inflicted by an assailant?”
Ah.
And now the concern and frustration makes total sense.
“I don’t think so. I mean… doing something stupid and hurting himself is very on-brand for Wei-xiong, y’know?” Huaisang pauses to thoughtfully tap his chin, “And his apartment seemed… like it had been only hit by one tornado? So there probably wasn’t a fight or anything in there. Ah... he did mutter some stuff about it being his own dumb fault… and the tone was ‘I tried to heat a can of sad ravioli in the microwave’, not ‘I pissed somebody off and got my comeuppance’… so I don’t think anyone else was involved.”
“Mn,” Lan Wangji seems satisfied with the reassurances.
“So can you really not tell me anything else?” Huaisang wheedles.
“Wei Ying requested I not to tell you anything.”
Huaisang groans, “Ugh! Fine… You said 24 hours?”
Lan Wangji nods.
“Bleeehhhhh… Fine!! That bastard’s so lucky it’s Friday… Was Friday. Whatever, I haven’t slept yet and midnight is dumb. Anyways~! Tell Wei-xiong I’ll pick him up tomorrow night, and I’m borrowing his phone and car to make a convincing alibi.”
“Mn.”
Nie Huaisang stands up, stretches, and quickly fires off a tweet before pocketing his phone as he stalks back to the car.
If you’re reading this SEND HELP! I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED BY @YillingPatriarch!!!
Time for an impromptu road trip.
﴿ ◈ ﴾
Unsurprisingly, when Wei Wuxian slips into dreaming, it’s an anxiety-fueled nightmare. He’s struggling to survive adrift in a stormy ocean of soup, holding onto a piece of floating pork rib like it’s a raft. And at the same time, he feels that he is a piece of pork rib himself. Chunks of lotus root swim around like evil evil dolphins, trying to take a bite out of his delicious pork rib body. The stormy purple clouds above him split to reveal Jiang Cheng, but he’s dressed up like an ancient lightning god.
“How dare you make Yanli cry!” Lightning-Cheng shouts. Wei Wuxian immediately knows that all the broth of the soup ocean was made from his sister’s tears.
He can’t even shout an apology. He knows it’s his fault. It’s always his fault. Lightning-Cheng strikes his legs with a whip of purple electricity, and he feels the pork-rib-bones underneath break.
He can’t swim anymore, shattered legs unable to kick through the broth. Lightning-Cheng laughs cruelly as lotus dolphins close in on him, and he lets out a terrified scream.
Suddenly, a pale blue cloud swoops down from the skies and scoops him up. The cloud is soft and cool, a relief from the boiling heat of the ocean of soup. It carries him up and up and up, out of Lightning-Cheng’s reach and to a majestic mountain above the clouds.
He is deposited in an idyllic tiny meadow framed by forest on one side and steep grey cliffs on the other. A small waterfall spills down the cliff and into deep pool that flows into a stream, which winds off into the forest. However, all the water is instead pale misty clouds.
A veritable army of snow white bunnies wearing silvery headbands is dwelling in the beautiful meadow. Some of the bunnies snuffle at his legs, and the pain stops. He stretches out and lies down, enrobed in cold soft comfort.
It feels like home.
He senses a person-sized presence taking up a graceful kneeling seat next to him. The presence speaks in a deep voice that also feels like home, “Wei Ying.”
Wei Wuxian’s eyes flutter open to be met with two dazzling pale eyes, like pools of sweet honey. The spellbinding eyes are set in a pale blue rabbit’s face, which is attached to a humanoid body wearing exquisitely elegant white robes embroidered with clouds.
“Wei Ying,” The bunny speaks again, clipped and worried, and Wuxian recognizes that voice as Lan Wangji’s.
“Oh Lan Zhan~” Wei Wuxian grins and reaches up to poke at the silver decoration on Lan Bun-ji’s headband. “Don’t worry like that! I’m safe now that you’re here.”
“Mn,” the bunny’s grunt sounds dubious as he gently takes hold of Wei Wuxian’s hand, pressing it to the headband. The dream logic tells Wei Wuxian that this is incredibly significant, but he’s not sure why.
“Listen Lan Zhan. If you keep fussing over me like this you’ll give me the wrong idea.” Wuxian can feel a mask forming over his face. A grinning copy of his own face. Behind the mask, his expression crumples, and he murmurs mournfully, “Hope can hurt, y’know?” The inside of the mask swallows his words so Bun-ji won’t hear. Won’t know. He can never know. Wei Wuxian would rather cut his hands to ribbons holding that hope close to his chest than let it free to destroy the tenuous friendship they’ve managed to build.
Lan Bun-ji reaches toward Wei Wuxian’s face, to the lip of the mask. Terrified, Wuxian grabs at the humanoid bunny’s hand to desperately wrestle it away. All of his emotions are written plainly on his face right now. His foolish pining for Wangji painted across his forehead, his heart’s desperation on his cheeks, his wretched loneliness on his lips and chin. If he takes off the mask now, everything will be ruined. As Wuxian wrestles with the surprisingly strong arm, the bunny man slowly fades away, starting with the feet, going up the torso and then down the arm. The last parts to disappear are his fingers curled around the edge of his mask, threatening to flip it, and his unreadable mesmerizing eyes.
Wei Wuxian wakes to a profound sense of loss, fleeting scattered memories of his dream, and a folded up note in his curled up hand.
Wuxian unfolds the note and is greeted by handwriting so perfect he’d suspect it was a font if he didn’t know Lan Wangji’s penmanship. Truly, the shining exception to the rule that doctors have sloppy handwriting.
Wei Ying,
You were still sleeping when my shift ended. Call in a nurse when you awaken to receive instructions. Pay attention; they will cover how to order room service.
Huaisang will pick you up once the observation period ends. He is borrowing your phone and car to make a “convincing alibi”. Based on what he’s posted to twitter already, the story involves a sudden kidnapping/road trip of unknown destination.
Instead of a name, the note is signed off with a doodle of a bunny that’s so cute it should be illegal.
Wei Wuxian begrudgingly calls for a nurse and listens to their instructions. Call a nurse immediately if you feel faint, nauseous, etc. Use this phone and this number and this menu to order food. You need to go on two walks under nurse observation before you can get up on your own. The works.
The rest of the hospital stay is miserable. Being without his phone is both a blessing and a curse, the hospital staff refuses to season the food properly (read: make the food inedibly spicy), TV keeps him entertained for hardly a few hours, and Lan Wangji doesn’t return again. Apparently he’d been on a double-shift last night to cover for the scheduled doctor having a family emergency. Which makes sense, since the graveyard shift is antithetical to the Lan Sleep Schedule™.
It’s a relief to both Wei Wuxian and the hospital staff he’d been menacing when Nie Huaisang finally checks him out of the hospital.
Huaisang hands over the phone and car keys, “Now take me home~ I’m exhausted. You can drive right? Please tell me you can drive, I don’t wanna do it again for months.”
“Yeah, I can drive dude.”
“Yaaay! I’ll catch you up on what happened on the ride to da-ge’s.”
And so he does. Apparently, late last night Wei Wuxian was struck by a need to visit some haunted art gallery and figured Huaisang, known lover of art, would be the perfect companion. The shenanigans play out almost like a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode, and Wei Wuxian is all for it. Maybe he should look into becoming a professional ghost hunter? Communing with the dead does sound like his jam.
“By the way, you owe me one for the alibi. That was not included in the original offer,” Huaisang notes as he wraps up the tale and they pull into the Nie family garage.
“What? You were willing to be a getaway driver, but you didn’t even need to do anything illegal for this! How’s that fair?”
“Come on Wei-xiong, this took up over a day of my life! And you don’t need to pay me back much... just tell me why you wound up in the hospital.”
Wei Wuxian freezes at the reminder of what actually happened 24 hours ago. “Hahaha, no way Huaisang! That’s a secret!” He decides to try joking it off.
“Well, Wangji was very worried about that secret,” Huaisang grumbles.
“Hah, well… Lan Zhan worries about everything, y’know? He’s just a big ol’ worrywart.”
Huaisang sighs, “Fine. If you wanna tell me later I’m all ears, but I’m too tired for this right now.”
With that, he plops out of the car and drags himself inside.
Once Wuxian gets to his own apartment, he flops on his bed and scrolls through his twitter, checking out the details of Huaisang’s alibi. It’s truly a marvel of modern storytelling. Geotagged photos of scenery, road trip breakfast at Denny’s and an almost unsettling emulation of his tweeting style. Truly, the whole nine yards. And best of all, believable enough that nobody will ever doubt that he was anywhere else. He can understand why Huaisang would want compensation for it.
He fires off a tweet, adding his musings about becoming a professional ghost hunter. Gotta keep the fiction going so it feels true. And honestly, seeing Huaisang’s version of him posting about ghosts, he feels even more enamored with the idea.
As he starts to wind down to sleep, Wei Wuxian does consider telling Huaisang. He has proven himself capable of keeping secrets. But even so… no. Not gonna happen. It’s bad enough that Wangji knows what happened. Nobody in his life can ever know why.
But… with the anonymity of the internet, maybe strangers online can help! It’s a wonderful idea, and his 3AM mind sees nothing wrong with seeking said help right now. He pulls up his old Yahoo Answers account, which he would use to troll the sillier questions as a child or ask ridiculous queries from when his shenanigans got out of hand, and types up the situation. Some details are changed for further anonymity, lotus root becomes daikon, years of pining become months, etcetera, but the basic problem is written up and posted, and hastily forgotten about as he fades into unconsciousness.