Archive of Our Own ^beta

(The first time Wen Kexing saw Zhou Xu, the man was coughing up a lung in the lobby of the upscale high-rise Wen Kexing called home. It was an ugly, wet sort of cough, and it drew Wen Kexing’s attention even though he was in somewhat of a hurry to get to an appointment with Luo Fumeng. But when the man raised his head and straightened to... well, not his full height, his posture was atrocious, but he wasn’t hunched over any longer; that was when Wen Kexing knew immediately, without a single shadow of a doubt: he was the most beautiful man he had ever laid eyes on. He scowled at Wen Kexing from behind the security desk, his unfriendly demeanor the total opposite of the pleasantly bland doorman that was usually there, and Wen Kexing couldn’t have stopped himself from changing direction to go meet this man if he had tried. Luo Fumeng could wait, his underground empire could wait, knowing everything there was to know about this unfriendly yet stunning beauty was the only thing that mattered.)

➳ ➳ ➳

i - when i met you, my virtues uncounted

“Good evening, A-Xu~!” Wen Kexing pitched his voice up and aimed for a sing-song lilt as he strolled into the lobby. Certainly not the typical way one slinks home at half three in the morning, but Wen Kexing has never been a typical man.

From behind the desk, the target of his musical greeting scowls at him, but does not otherwise acknowledge his presence.

Wen Kexing finds this delightful.

With a laugh that’s almost genuine, he comes to lean against the doorman’s counter, resting his chin in his palm. “It’s customary to greet the residents of the building when they return home, A-Xu. One might even say it’s a key component of your job. You wouldn’t want me to report you to property management, would you?”

The doorman rolls his eyes. “Go ahead.”

“Always calling my bluff,” Wen Kexing smiles serenely. “You know me so well, A-Xu.”

In the three weeks since this beautiful grouch of a man showed up in Wen Kexing’s life, he has been stationed at the doorman’s desk six nights a week, from six at night until six in the morning. Fortunately, Wen Kexing is a largely crepuscular creature, and these hours align perfectly with his comings and goings. He would have rearranged his entire schedule for more of the delightfully unfriendly doorman’s company, but he is grateful that hadn’t been necessary.

Zhou Xu stares him down silently, and Wen Kexing takes the time to admire his eyes. The man might be rude, unfriendly, and have one nasty respiratory infection that never seems to go away, but his eyes are absolutely beautiful. Wen Kexing could (and has, much to A-Xiang’s horror) rhapsodize about A-Xu’s eyes for at least a couple of quatrains... possibly even a sonnet, if he could figure out the right rhyme for pellucid.

As always, it’s Zhou Xu who breaks their (charged, in Wen Kexing’s estimation) eye contact.

“This came for you.”

He produces a courier envelope from below the desk, but Wen Kexing pays it no mind. “You could come for me too, A-Xu. Over and over.”

The beautiful eyes he had been admiring so ardently roll back, and Wen Kexing finds himself smacked in the chest with the cardboard envelope. He still doesn’t look at it, opting instead to raise a lascivious eyebrow.

“I can promise I am a very selfless lover. I will give you ecstasy over and over again before even considering my own.”

“Sounds exhausting,” His A-Xu is as deadpan as ever, even returning his quip with such attractive alacrity.

“Exercise is good for you,” Wen Kexing volleys back, unable to keep the note of delight from his tone. “I am a very busy man, but I always find time for a workout.”

“Yes, so busy with your packed schedule of coming and going at all hours of the night and, I can only presume, sleeping all day.”

“Come up to my apartment after your shift and find out.”

“No thanks, I’m not interested in the generationally wealthy.”

“I can assure you, I have worked hard for everything to my name,” Wen Kexing says it lightly, but the comment landed somewhere too close to his pride, his anger. Zhou Xu will never know every sacrifice Wen Kexing has made, every way he has turned himself into the thing he never wanted to be.

His A-Xu is the picture of skepticism. “Doing what?”

Wen Kexing cannot tell him—he can barely even look at it himself—but for a fraction of a heartbeat he wants to. He wants to expose his ugliest parts to Zhou Xu with a sinner’s smile and watch horror dawn on his beautiful features. It would only make him more captivating.

Instead, he only leans the slightest bit closer. “Obviously I am a poet, dear A-Xu.”

Whether from incredulity or amusement, it makes Zhou Xu snort. “Obviously, Lao Wen.”

Wen Kexing makes a note to compose a couplet, at minimum, for the next time they meet.

💥💥💥

ii - i was housed by your warmth, thus transformed

“May I be like the stars, and you like the moon. Shining and brightening each other night after night.”

Zhou Xu’s expression does not waver. “Even I know that one, Lao Wen.”

“Ah, A-Xu, the classics are such for a reason.”

“You aren’t affording the rent in this monstrosity of a building by quoting other people’s work,” Zhou Xu points out. “You insist you’re a poet, and yet I have not heard an original word from you.”

“Perhaps I have a patron,” Wen Kexing grins, the fantasy of it so absurd that it’s almost titillating. “Someone of wealth and taste whose only interest is furthering my craft.”

Zhou Xu snorts, but there’s enough of a hint of a smile hidden in it for Wen Kexing’s heart to sing. “Yes, famously, all artist and patron relationships were purely for the love of art.”

While that may be true, Zhou Xu has the most beautiful shoulders in the drab doorman’s uniform and even with the ever present scruff and complete lack of personal grooming there’s something unmistakably striking about his features... but Wen Kexing has seen more beautiful men than most. The thing that keeps him coming back, the thing that takes root in his ribcage and feels an awful lot like delight, is the sharpness of the man’s wit. He always has a response, he never capitulates to Wen Kexing’s attempts to conversationally overpower him. Zhou Xu is completely and utterly unimpressed by everything Wen Kexing presents to the world and Wen Kexing has never been more charmed.

He’s used to being obeyed, to being feared, even to being respected. He’s crawled out from the ashes of being underestimated and ignored and maligned... He’s both killed without hesitation and had everything taken from him in one fell swoop.

But one thing Wen Kexing has never had before is meritless disdain, such inconsequential irritation. He’s been a spider in the cracks and a tiger on the prowl. Being merely a fly for Zhou Xu to swat away at the doldrums of his workday is a novelty Wen Kexing never would have expected.

“Don’t worry your gorgeous head, A-Xu,” Wen Kexing promises with a grin. “I can pay my rent; there’s no risk of my eviction keeping me from our nightly encounters.”

“I guess dreams don’t come true.”

He can see Gu Xiang’s insufferable boyfriend has pulled the car up already, and if Wen Kexing leaves him waiting for too long he’s likely to come in to try and fetch him. That boy’s mere presence would ruin the delightfully romantic atmosphere, so Wen Kexing heads for the door before he can.

“Finally admitting you dream of me, A-Xu.” He calls over his shoulder, happiness lacing his tone. “I hope you feel no obligation to keep it chaste. My body is yours to do with as you please, regardless of consciousness.”

He desperately wants to look back and see if the sound that came from A-Xu was laughter or shock, and it takes monumental effort on his part to simply slip into the back seat of the car.

Always leave him guessing.

🩸🩸🩸

iii - by your grounded and giving and darkening scorn

“A-Xu!”

When Wen Kexing opens his apartment door, Zhou Xu is frowning. There’s nothing particularly new about it, but something about the furrow of his brow is... different, this time. Wen Kexing would be delighted to see his favourite doorman upstairs at his personal unit, were it not for the three would-be assassins laying dead in his living room, his overflowing shoe rack all that obscures the slowly creeping pool of blood from Zhou Xu’s sight.

“Lao Wen.”

“What brings you up to the 29th floor?” He sounds casual, but Wen Kexing is starkly aware of what a red flag the fact he hasn’t taken the opportunity to immediately whisk Zhou Xu into his apartment proper must be.

Zhou Xu’s frown deepens. “Is everything okay up here?”

Had one of those scorpion idiots been so careless as to alert the doorman to their presence? Honestly, what kind of operation is that Xie Wang even running these days? He must be so blind with grief over Wen Kexing killing that yifu of his that he’s throwing every hired killer he can find at him, regardless of their resume. It would be funny, were Wen Kexing not so preoccupied with keeping A-Xu out of his apartment and away from the evidence.

“Now that you’re here, things have certainly taken a turn for the better… Or should I say, wetter?” Wen Kexing doesn’t normally push this thing between them into the directly smarmy, but the way he leans in his doorway and leers openly at A-Xu will hopefully be enough to piss him off back to the elevator. An unfortunate loss of ground, but he’s confident he can make it up. He knows Zhou Xu enjoys their interactions—he wouldn’t keep hassling him if he didn’t.

The expected scowl never comes. Instead Zhou Xu narrows his eyes and looks past Wen Kexing, into the apartment. The precise opposite of what Wen Kexing wants to happen at this moment.

“A-Xu, as much as I have dreamt of having you in my home, I’m between decorators at the moment.” Wen Kexing shifts his posture forward, filling more of the doorframe with his torso and blocking Zhou Xu’s view. It’s artless and not even remotely subtle, but the thought of needlessly exposing the grisly reality of his life to such a beauty makes something tighten in Wen Kexing’s chest.

He doesn’t want to be the Ghost Valley Master, feared by everyone with knowledge of things that go bump in the dark. He doesn’t want to be a boy who had everything taken from him only to turn around and rip everything away from those responsible. He has been crowned in violence and ruthlessness and adorned in blood, with the eyes of a maniac and the smile of a swindler.

But not here, not with this man.

With Zhou Xu he is merely an annoying flirt with more money than sense. A gentleman of leisure who prefers to come and go at night, conveniently overlapping with the schedule of the night doorman. Perhaps Wen Kexing is a bright spot in Zhou Xu’s otherwise mundane shift. He doesn’t think he’s ever been someone’s bright spot before, what a novelty that would be...

And yet Wen Kexing knows with certainty, if Zhou Xu gets into his apartment and sees the bodies of the assassins he has so summarily dispatched, he will become a monster in his eyes.

Zhou Xu looks at him, and for the first time Wen Kexing gets the impression he’s trying to look past the mask.

The joke’s on A-Xu, he thinks bitterly, Wen Kexing’s mask has never been more firmly in place.

After an interminable moment, Zhou Xu rocks back on his heels. “All right, Lao Wen. As long as everything is fine.”

“Everything except the thread count of my sheets. Once I replace them with something high enough, I promise to lay you down upon them.”

Wen Kexing doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see someone scowl.

🗡️🗡️🗡️

iv - remember me, love, when i'm reborn

It’s nearing five in the morning, three days later, when Wen Kexing makes it home to his building. The adrenaline of the fight has worn off, and while he had once again dispatched Xie Wang’s assassins, the little scorpion brat had at least sent mostly competent ones this time. He’d avoided getting shot and the stabbing hadn’t been very deep, but he knows his ribs are cracked, at minimum.

Pausing just before the lobby entrance comes into view, he takes a moment to draw in a steadying breath. He just needs to get to the elevator without giving away his injuries. Once he’s safely away from A-Xu he can call A-Xiang until it wakes her up and get her to come over and help him wrap his ribs. She’s not a particularly good nursemaid, but she’s the only person he trusts to know of the weakness this injury gives him.

Straightening his posture, Wen Kexing takes one more breath and then strides into the lobby like there’s nothing wrong.

Zhou Xu is, as expected, at the desk. His eyes snap up as soon as Wen Kexing opens the door, and there’s an odd tone to the way he says “Lao Wen,” in greeting. Were he any other man, Wen Kexing would swear it was relief.

“Hello my darling A-Xu,” We Kexing tries to sound as normal as he can, even as every movement sends pain stabbing through his torso. “While gazing upon your visage is the highlight of my day, I am afraid I cannot dally this morning.” He heads towards the elevator. “I promise you will be a feature of my daydreams until we are reunited once more.” Inside, he presses the button for the 29th floor, but just as the doors are about to close, someone jams their foot between them, and they start opening once more.

Wen Kexing barely has time to wonder how Zhou Xu made it across the lobby that quickly—he’s never seen the man move with any kind of urgency—before he’s being crowded against the mirrored wall of the elevator.

“Wha—”

Zhou Xu is directly in his personal space, and for a moment, Wen Kexing is sure he’s about to finally be assassinated. Maybe Xie Wang had been playing the long game, maybe Zhou Xu had been one of his hired men all along… Wen Kexing doesn’t even think he’d mind being assassinated, if A-Xu were the one doing it. But instead of a knife to his stomach, A-Xu only presses a hand against his side, forcing Wen Kexing to let out a pained hiss.

“You’re an idiot.” Zhou Xu says, stepping back slightly but keeping his hand against Wen Kexing’s side. “Your ribs are broken; what are you going to do about that all alone in your poorly decorated apartment?”

It’s shocking to hear A-Xu speak so plainly of the injury Wen Kexing had been trying to hide. He knows, with certainty, that he would’ve fooled most people. But there’s a truth that Wen Kexing has been trying to ignore since he first saw his new doorman, those months ago... A-Xu is not most people.

When Qianqiao had looked into him, she’d been convinced that Zhou Xu was a fake identity. A very well crafted one, but fake, nonetheless. None of the signatures of Five Lakes, or the Scorpions... and unrelated to Gentle Wind Sword Sect, though Cao Weining’s former home was in shambles after Wen Kexing had gutted their leadership of those who wished harm upon his sister.

Zhou Xu was just a man who had needed to disappear—that didn’t automatically make him a threat to Wen Kexing.

He’d almost convinced himself as much, but the way A-Xu is scowling at him now while still holding pressure to his ribs with a rough kind of gentleness tells Wen Kexing so many things. His A-Xu is no stranger to violence, he is no accidental wanderer into Wen Kexing’s world of power and death and corruption. He knows what Wen Kexing is, even if he doesn’t know the details, and it does not phase him.

It makes Wen Kexing breathless, as much as the pain itself, and he feels consciousness slipping away as his body recognizes safety in Zhou Xu’s touch.

“Why A-Xu,” he near-slurs—the pretense is gone from his tone, he sounds exhausted and in pain, but he hopes the doorman can tell he is grateful. “It seems you’ll be the one taking me to bed, after all.”

And then everything goes dark.

☠️☠️☠️

v - as a shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn

Wen Kexing must be dreaming.

Sure, the painkillers have started to wear off and there is a persistent throbbing in his ribs, not to mention the painful pounding in his head or the scratchy soreness of his throat. He can feel deep bruising on both of his knees and his stomach hurts with an acute hunger he hasn’t felt in years. . .But, despite all of that, he has opened his eyes to the most beautiful sight.

Curled in a chair that’s been dragged to his bedside from the living room, fast asleep with his mouth hanging open, is the most beautiful man Wen Kexing has ever encountered.

A-Xu has removed the jacket of his doorman’s uniform, leaving him in a plain grey t-shirt, loose enough at the collar to hint at his clavicle. He’s skinny, as Wen Kexing knew, but there is a definition to the swell of muscle on his chest that he never expected. Even snoring unattractively, he is beautiful.

There’s a puzzle somewhere in his muddled, recovering brain. A-Xu had been too unsurprised, too eerily calm about what, in retrospect, was a seriously injured man stumbling into his building. Wen Kexing can feel that his ribs have been wrapped more snugly than his dear sister could have managed with him unconscious, not that she even knew about what had happened... No, he knows the wallop of A-Xiang’s supposedly gentle care, and he knows this is something else.

A-Xu had gotten him upstairs, gotten into his apartment, cleaned up and cared for an unconscious Wen Kexing, and gotten him into bed...

There’s a prickle at the back of his neck, a frisson of worry—everything he knows about A-Xu boils down to: he isn’t who he says he is. It has always been Wen Kexing’s experience that a beautiful liar is bad news. He would know; he is one.

But while he isn’t above using his wiles to get close to someone, to use them for his own, often nefarious, purposes, A-Xu had done none of that... He’d arrived at the building a bad-tempered enigma. If growing close to Wen Kexing had been his intention from the start, he had done everything wrong. Wen Kexing likes beautiful men, and A-Xu had done everything in his power to obfuscate his beauty. Wen Kexing enjoys a back and forth, a mutual chase... and A-Xu had refused to engage in any of it.

Even Wen Kexing himself doesn’t know why he had only grown more fascinated with every scornful barb.

If A-Xu had been a plant, a honeypot designed for him, it should not have worked...

And yet...

Wen Kexing pulls himself into a sitting position, groaning softly as he jostles his bandaged ribs. It’s enough to wake his nursemaid, and A-Xu startles into consciousness with a coughing fit. Once he’s collected himself, he leans forward with a scowl. “You should be laying down.”

“A-Xu, you do care.”

“Do you have any idea how much paperwork ‘resident bleeds out in lobby’ would have generated for me?”

Wen Kexing starts to laugh, but becomes immediately aware of what a terrible idea that is when his torso screams in pain.

“Stop moving, Lao Wen.” A-Xu’s tone is gruff, but there’s a surety touched with tenderness in the way he touches Wen Kexing and confidently eases him back against the pillows. “Bleeding out in your own apartment doesn’t inconvenience me anywhere near as much.” He studies Wen Kexing’s face for a moment before his scowl deepens. “I haven’t even given you the good painkillers yet; stop looking at me like a stoned moron.”

“You care about me, you took care of me.” It makes him feel warm all over, though it is possible that’s the pain talking. Xie Wang’s idiots had gotten him badly this time, and he knows he had only narrowly made it out on top—and yet Wen Kexing thinks he might scrap everything he’s been putting in place and stay right in the eye of the storm if it meant the chance that A-Xu would put him back together again.

He knows, with a certainly he’s previously reserved only for vengeance, that he would do anything for this man, whoever he is.

It’s something beyond trust and beyond loyalty. Almost hysterically, he thinks it might be love, an absurd notion Wen Kexing had long since given up on. There is no room for the weakness of love in his life, no room for a soulmate who seems to instinctively understand Wen Kexing on a level he has to wish to examine himself.

No, he cannot allow this to continue. He’s set to implode Ghost Valley, and himself with it, now that his revenge is nearly complete... Wen Kexing will not allow a beautiful distraction to change his course on this. He cannot.

Perhaps he will meet his A-Xu in the next life, and they can be simple wanderers together. But here and now, there is too much blood on Wen Kexing’s hands, too much destruction in his wake. He will make a safe landing for A-Xiang and her witless boy, but everything else goes up in flames.

It is the only way.

✘ ☠️ ✘

+i - ah, but i’m flying like a bird to you now

“The explosion occurred in the early hours of morning, at a warehouse owned by a shell corporation called Ghost Valley, LLC. Local authorities report over twenty dead, all with ties to local crime syndicates. The Prince’s Organized Crime Task Force has released a statement that they believe leadership for many local criminal organizations to have been present at the time of the blast. This event will send shockwaves through the criminal underground, with lasting repercussions."

The news broadcast switches topics, but the steady beep of medical equipment is all Wen Kexing can hear as he struggles towards consciousness.

“No,” he croaks. “No.” He’s not supposed to wake up, he’s not supposed to be alive. He was supposed to go up in flames with the rest of the bottom feeding scum, it was supposed to be over—

“Shifu, I think he’s waking up!” He doesn’t recognize this voice, and when Wen Kexing battles his eyes open he finds a strange teenage boy staring at him with wide eyes. It’s dim in the room, not the fluorescent lights he had expected, and as his eyes dart around it becomes apparent that this is not a hospital room. He appears to be in someone’s home, hooked up to medical equipment. “Ye-qianbei! Shifu!”

There’s a small commotion from another room, another voice Wen Kexing does not recognize. He cannot decide if it’s despair that has his entire body feeling too heavy to move or if he’s paralyzed, in pain, injured beyond all repair.

“No,” he moans again, panic tightening at his throat. “No, no, no—”

“Lao Wen!” Firm hands on his shoulders anchor Wen Kexing into his body and the face that swims into view is familiar and devastating and beautiful. Perhaps he has died after all, perhaps this is his heavenly reward, this devastatingly handsome angel whose face is pinched with a frown. “Lao Wen, you need to calm down.” A-Xu darts a glance at the medical equipment. “Ye-qianbei, should we give him something?”

“Only if you want to turn him into a vegetable,” Another unfamiliar voice barks from somewhere past A-Xu. “Let the idiot panic himself into cardiac arrest, it would save me a lot of trouble.”

A-Xu’s face hardens, but he meets Wen Kexing’s eyes. “Lao Wen, it’s me, it’s A-Xu. Calm down. You’re fine, just look at me, focus on me.” He lets go of one of Wen Kexing’s shoulders and takes his hand, clasping their palms together firmly. Instinctually, Wen Kexing matches his rate of breathing. In and out, in and out. Gradually, he can feel the panic washing away like the tide going out; still present, but less urgent than before.

“A-Xu,” he manages to croak, too weak to bother masking the longing he knows is there. “Where. . .”

“You’re safe,” A-Xu promises. “No one knows you survived, they all think you’re dead. You don’t have to be the Ghost Valley Master anymore, Lao Wen.”

There’s something warm in Wen Kexing’s chest, something rooted and spreading and an awful lot like the love he swore he couldn’t feel. It doesn’t make sense—the number of people who know about the Ghost Valley Master is small, and his doorman was not among them...

A-Xu must see the question in his eyes. He sighs, a vaguely irritated look on his features. “I’ve always known, Lao Wen. I was there to watch you. It’s not important.”

“Who...” Wen Kexing doesn’t know the end of that question. Who are you? Who sent you? Who do you think you are to dare to save me?

“Who I was died in the same blast you did. I’m no one now, the same as you.” A-Xu leans forward, pressing his forehead to Wen Kexing’s. “You deserve the chance to disappear into the world, Lao Wen. You’ve done what you set out to do.”

He doesn’t understand, not really. He only knows that A-Xu, whoever he is, has given him the chance to start over. To be someone else, not shrouded in vengeance or violence upon a throne of corpses. He doesn’t know who the big-eyed child is, or the rude old man standing on the other side of the bed. He doesn’t know who his A-Xu was, or what lies ahead...

But there’s something kindred there, a shared need to disappear. Wherever this path leads, away from everything he leaves behind, Wen Kexing will not have to walk it alone.

Not anymore.