Work Text:
He cannot grudge Xiao Xingchen his very rare sick leave, but Lan Zhan can be petty about said leave happening on the week when they have to meet their new forensic pathologist. Unexpectedly, it is a man Xiao Xingchen already knows and deemed him “a marvellous boy” right to Lan Zhan’s face. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t really joke, Lan Zhan knows and fiercely appreciates at times, which means two things: Lan Zhan is going to suffer from that man for whatever reason, and that Xiao Xingchen will absolutely make them interact more than they need to because of that.
Lan Zhan smokes two cigarettes before he enters the building, unfriendly in advance. The scent of nicotine is the lesser evil compared to what the inside of the morgue and its previous owner’s meals smelled anyway, and it calms him down enough not to be an irreversibly unpalatable bitch to someone he doesn’t know yet. Wei Ying might truly be wonderful, whatever it entails in the field of forensics, but Lan Zhan has already braced himself for the worst. For a marvellous boy.
The inside of the office is so empty and smells so clean Lan Zhan staggers. No crystals or incense, no scent of food, no constant coughing. Of course, the new pathologist can surpass the previous one in ways Lan Zhan can’t imagine right now, but the beginning, so far, is promising. The only thing that he notices is quiet music coming from the depths of the office. And then there are rapid steps, a head poking out from behind a wall, and a, “Ah, you’re my Lan Zhan!”
For one endlessly generous second, Lan Zhan swears to forgive Xiao Xingchen any misdeed or sick leave or crime he might ever commit, because he is the one who brought Wei Ying to the team. And if this man, whose full figure Lan Zhan takes in in less than half a breath, is going to work with them –
“Yes,” Lan Zhan says, dumb with the force of the affirmation. If this Wei Ying wants him to be his, Lan Zhan might make an effort.
“I’m Wei Ying, and you are very pretty,” Wei Ying says, walking up to him. Unceremoniously, he grabs Lan Zhan by the jaw – his hands are warm, in clean black gloves; Lan Zhan hates how his throat bobs at this – and clicks his tongue. “Such a jaw. What do we like to suck? Tomatoes? Peaches? Cock? Everything aforementioned?”
The sticky inspiration Wei Ying’s address granted flies out of the window at once. Lan Zhan slaps his hand away, even if the sound of it hurts him somewhere in the solar plexus. “Do they hire judging by this kind of experience now?”
“Oof,” Wei Ying smiles, wry. “They always have, don’t you know?”
Behind him steps out his assistant, a kid Lan Zhan had pitied for years before he quit because of the last pathologist. The boy waves excitedly at Lan Zhan and does pointed thumbs up in Wei Ying’s direction. Lan Zhan turns away.
Wei Ying steps closer and pinches the fringe of his sleeve; Lan Zhan yanks his arm out of the grip. Wei Ying huffs a laugh and takes him by the hand, then, which is exactly what ge does whenever he jokes too lowly and knows he overstepped. Lan Zhan’s frustration doubles, and he does his best not to break Wei Ying’s work tool.
“A-yi, if you will. Now, Lan Zhan, I’m sorry. I accept all kinds of punishments except monetary. On top of that, I figured the last guy didn’t print the report for you, so that has to be rectified.”
Marvellous boy, Lan Zhan’s mind supplies, as his gaze drops back to Wei Ying’s hands. He has had worse first dates than this introduction. Wei Ying, after all, is not wrong. “All reports are emailed.”
A-yi hands the thing over Wei Ying’s shoulder right into Lan Zhan’s face.
“Did you put perfume on it?” Lan Zhan asks, because it does indeed smell of it, faintly.
“No,” Wei Ying smiles, “just rubbed it all over my body.”
The papers get knocked down onto the floor and Lan Zhan has every intention to step on them. Wei Ying’s fingers soothingly scratch the inside of his palm.
“Can I get your number in case there’s an emergency?”
“No.”
“Well, then,” Wei Ying practically warbles. Lan Zhan can smell his bitter cologne and feels it stick to the top of his mouth, not entirely unwelcome. “Will scream until everyone knows how much I need you.”
Lan Zhan leaves the morgue with two of Wei Ying’s phone numbers, personal and for work only, a mouth full of spit and hands so damp his palm slides off the door handle.
/
The edges of his annoyance curl like overheated metal after Lan Zhan sees him at work. Wei Ying is unapologetically loud, proficient, and he knows what his appearance does to people. Xiao Xingchen, seeing Lan Zhan’s humiliating attempts to look at anything but Wei Ying’s scalpel tattoo on his lower back that becomes visible when Wei Ying crouches too much, or his hands, bestows the task of going to the morgue on him alone from day one. Wei Ying is his very distant relative by blood and, as Xiao Xingchen reminds him every other week, Lan Zhan is yet to meet Wei Ying’s mother.
Wei Ying isn’t new to crime but he is new to the specifics of their city and how much more work there is to do. A bigger city doesn’t mean sufficient funding, so Wei Ying is still their only pathologist. Lan Zhan is used to slow reports that take days to submit simply because of the amount of workload, and separately because their past pathologist felt no urge to speed up under any circumstances.
Lan Zhan double checks with him when Wei Ying calls and says to come pick up the first report. Five hours ago, Wei Ying was at the site.
“Yes,” Wei Ying says again, obviously smiling. Lan Zhan can hear it. “I’ll do it quicker next time if you pick this one in person.”
It becomes a routine. No matter how little time he has, disregarding the fact that Wei Ying takes unexpected mercy on him two months in and tells him to stop coming, he was only joking, Lan Zhan pushes the doors to the morgue with a small twist of his gut. Part of it is endless gratitude for lifting a huge weight off their shoulders when it comes to the medical part of the investigation, and the other reason is purely carnal. Lan Zhan comes to watch Wei Ying print out the papers, hug them to his chest and wrinkle, and hand them over.
“Have you always wanted to be a pathologist?” Lan Zhan asks once, watching Wei Ying give his assistant a dissected brain to send to a specialist. It’s from a body that is not Lan Zhan’s case. Lan Zhan’s is long done with, but it’s sweltering outside, and Wei Ying’s office has outstanding air conditioning.
“The only other option was a mortician. I excel at oil painting but I’m really bad at makeup.”
“How is it possible.”
“I don’t know, detective. How is it possible that I haven’t bent you over my extremely cold and sterile table yet? Life is full of mysteries.” The assistant boy, Jingyi, bites both his lips lest he start laughing, Lan Zhan can see.
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says in a way he has quickly learned makes Wei Ying cock his head expectantly. Wei Ying has developed his own reflexes when it comes to him. “You have a new cologne today.”
Wei Ying turns on his heels, resin squeaking on the tile, and opens one of the fridge doors with a huge smile.
/
It is not Lan Zhan’s responsibility to call for Wei Ying when they get a new case, but he is the one Wei Ying calls first when there is one. He doesn’t care that Lan Zhan has not seen the body yet, Wei Ying just needs to talk.
Lan Zhan drinks coffee out of necessity. No kind of tea or quick exercise or cold water can get him going when he has to function on three hours of sleep some days. He doesn’t like the way it hurts his stomach and the aftertaste, but it is the only thing that allows him to put one foot in front of the other and do his job.
Wei Ying perceives the occasional paper cups as his trophies and plucks them out of Lan Zhan’s death grip with no difficulty whatsoever, then takes a sip and scrunches his nose.
“Detective, you have a decent salary, and yet you drink garbage coffee.”
“You hate coffee,” Xiao Xingchen argues.
“I do!”
Lan Zhan buys the darkest roasts to discourage him from leaving his saliva on the cup and gives up after he learns that Wei Ying has severe headaches from coffee. He doesn’t know why Wei Ying is so bent on self-harm through Lan Zhan’s drinks and presumes that coffee is only one of the tools, but he starts buying mild milk teas and hot chocolates separately for him. For that, Wei Ying crouches harder and more often.
They don’t have to see each other every day because not every day there is a body in Xiao Xingchen’s district. What Lan Zhan hears from other people who have to work with Wei Ying is mostly bewilderment and, “He is going to burn out soon, poor kid.”
Lan Zhan has a callus on his middle finger from writing so much, and he hasn’t reached his level of burnout despite a number of things and years. Somehow, he knows Wei Ying is either quite far from it or, rather, isn’t the one to get it in the first place.
The more time they spend together, the less Wei Ying’s harassment feels troublesome, and Lan Zhan starts treating it as a part of their relationship. He gets to know Wei Ying’s every mood the same way Wei Ying learns to respect Lan Zhan’s silence on some days. Wei Ying gets sick, “Not from any of them”, as he says while carving out a heart, two rolled up paper towels stuck up his nose. Sometimes, he is so busy he has three sets of glasses on his head and five pairs of gloves sticking out of every pocket. Once, he was in such a distemper Lan Zhan had to stop himself from laying a hand between Wei Ying’s shoulder blades and tucking him into his arms. Wei Ying said five words to him that day, including hello and be safe he always ends their meetings with. Lan Zhan left that afternoon and couldn’t concentrate on anything that wasn’t Wei Ying’s quiet.
At the end of the covered period, Wei Ying has to come to Lan Zhan’s office to sign some papers. They meet outside because Wei Ying comes over after Lan Zhan has done double overtime, which means early morning, when there is no one else in the building but cleaning ladies who chased Lan Zhan out with mops staring at them out of the windows.
Wei Ying arrives on a bike because of course has one.
“Need a ride?” he says, sprightly. He had his own overtime and has classes in forty minutes.
“I came here by car,” Lan Zhan says, looking at the biker’s gloves. Fingerless things Lan Zhan finds utterly useless because they don’t keep one’s hands warm, the very purpose of gloves, but incomprehensibly provocative on Wei Ying.
Wei Ying flings his too-long leg over the seat and climbs out. “I’m not talking about vehicles.”
It continues like that. Somewhere along the way, Lan Zhan finds he does not mind it in the slightest.
/
Wei Ying is never rude to his clients. He is curiously patient, gentle, and he talks to all of them. It doesn’t matter if the victim is young or old, if it’s a homicide in the first place or not. He says the body isn’t to blame for what its owner did, which some people in the team disagree with, but Wei Ying doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion unless they can prove him otherwise, and even then he stands his ground.
“I’m not a vulture,” he argues after the news that somewhere, the body of a serial killer was mutilated after the man was killed.
“What if he took someone you loved?”
“There would be no body to bury and family to inform.”
Lan Zhan looked at him then, the hands that cradle people’s body parts and insides with sometimes unmerited care, and knew Wei Ying wasn’t exaggerating.
People who aren’t outright hostile towards Wei Ying and his mannerism, who can see past his tight jeans and smile and the way he can be an insensitive asshole when ruffled, think he is the best thing that has happened to their department in a long while. A lot of them pity Lan Zhan nonetheless, watching Wei Ying yank him towards himself or the body or away to have a little talk, which involves Wei Ying telling him off for smoking.
Wei Ying compliments Lan Zhan’s skill and three pairs of jeans Lan Zhan owns, knows about everyone’s kids and doesn’t get pissy when people treat him as if he’s their free medical advisor. In a frighteningly short stretch of time, Wei Ying becomes indispensable and beloved.
While he jokes the most when they have middle-of-the-night calls, Wei Ying has no intention to lighten everyone’s mood at all when they find teenagers or when the case is going to be long and complicated, when children are involved.
They find a kid, once, hiding under a pile of clothes in the closet in the other room from the body, and only because Wei Ying finds her after he quickly identifies the substance under the victim’s nails as play dough. He spends an hour with the girl wiping her hands and face from blood, scaring everyone else away with his unexpectedly terrifying glare. The social services representative looks grimly at him and animals Wei Ying blew from his gloves for the girl, who doesn’t talk as she is carried away by Wei Ying to the car and clutches his neckline until her little fist turns white.
He smokes after that; Lan Zhan offers.
“She’s going to be fine if there’s someone to take care of her. If,” he presses, wincing at the strength of the cigarettes. His smile at Lan Zhan is crooked, somewhat understanding. “Have you met many kids on site in your career?”
“Enough,” Lan Zhan says. Xiao Xingchen has seen more and was brave enough to take one as his daughter. Lan Zhan doesn’t know if doing his job makes him want kids more or not want them at all lest – any of the horrible things he cannot protect them from, even if he tries every second of his life.
Wei Ying leans back against the car and lays a hand on Lan Zhan’s thigh, squeezes it.
“Quit this shit, sweetheart. If I ever have to do your autopsy, I don’t want my hands covered in tar.”
“Do you have any alternatives?”
“Lollipops?”
“Diabetes instead of lungs?”
“Pick your poison,” Wei Ying smiles, scratching his leg. Lan Zhan thinks of those fingers in his mouth more often than he thinks of what he is going to have for dinner.
“I have.”
Inexplicably, Wei Ying laughs.
/
Night shifts have become busier when Wei Ying took up the position of their examiner, as in he keeps Lan Zhan distracted from the work Lan Zhan can do without a crowd of people in the building or ripping his phone. After five months of working side by side with him, Lan Zhan hasn’t found an efficient way to ignore him, because if Lan Zhan stops answering messages and calls, Wei Ying comes to the main office and delivers unbearably spicy street food that not only keeps Lan Zhan awake but also multiplies his daily sufferings.
The number of visits depends solely on Lan Zhan. Wei Ying comes over faultlessly, obviously preferring his feet on Lan Zhan’s desk as he dines and talks about the colour of intestines he had to dig through today or how many students vomited in class. With time, Lan Zhan has become more careful about the colour under Wei Ying’s eyes and how hard he grips his box of noodles, how Wei Ying never flings his legs up if it rains. Lan Zhan always picks up and answers his texts when the weather is obnoxious, when Wei Ying’s messages aren’t too insolent, meaning he is tired and wants more of Lan Zhan’s attention. Not for the first time, Lan Zhan wonders if Wei Ying has no one else to beg for it.
They talk less of work, now. Wei Ying knows about Lan Zhan’s brother and hobbies Lan Zhan has kept up since his voice started cracking, uncle’s blood pressure Wei Ying always has tips for and mama’s swollen knees. In turn, Lan Zhan knows about rheumatism that is bothering Wei Ying’s father and his mother’s glasses prescription. Lan Zhan knows Wei Ying’s prescription and has bought separate glasses for him that he keeps in his top drawer just in case.
Sometimes, the talk goes far beyond that.
do you want some not safe for work pictures?
Lan Zhan involuntary shifts in his chair. He is more than sure Wei Ying isn’t going to send him naked pictures of himself, or even semi-naked, because Wei Ying is dreadfully wrong about Lan Zhan’s criteria of too much. Lan Zhan, if he is lucky, will get a picture of Wei Ying’s hand and not an unsocked foot.
Yes.
Wei Ying sends him pictures of a pillow and a duvet back to back, either from his own apartment or the office, Lan Zhan isn’t sure. Wei Ying’s legs are in jeans, so it should be the office, or maybe the photo is old. The bedding looks washed out and therefore unbearably soft. It is, as Wei Ying said correctly, unsafe for Lan Zhan’s gritty eyes.
do you have those in your office to play with?
Woefully diminished versions
that’s why your mood is so bad all the time
Wei Ying
yes, my love
Do you want a not safe for work picture?
Wei Ying reads the message immediately but doesn’t respond for over a minute. Lan Zhan doesn’t even consider the idea of him overstepping and enjoys the hard flip of his stomach. It’s not like Lan Zhan doesn’t fuck or has no time for it, but when he can choose between an evening where he doesn’t need to see anyone and an evening of often mediocre hook-ups, the choice is always the same. Besides, Lan Zhan’s teasing has only been physical thus far, confined to a bed. He is getting hard. He can show the hint of it to Wei Ying.
yes.
Lan Zhan feels stupid and giddy with his own bait, tries to make his right hand look effortless in its casualness, how it rests on his thigh. Thinks about Wei Ying’s red fingertips in the leather gloves and moves his hand closer to the knee than crotch. Distinctly away from the knee.
oh fuck you
Lan Zhan sleeps well.
/
Serial killers are not as frequent finds as cinematography paints them to be. In Lan Zhan’s experience, the majority of psychopaths opt for other ways of satisfaction first: domestic abuse, underground clubs, animal and medical cruelty, crime, of course, and all kinds of sexual deviations and performances.
When they all see the first body, Xiao Xingchen audibly swears, Wei Ying gasps, “Shit, that’s so beautiful,” and some start retching. Lan Zhan, from some twisted mercy in his heart, hopes the man had been dead before he was – treated. It wasn’t done here, there isn’t much blood or tissue on the site. He cannot fathom how much time it will take Wei Ying to find the cause of death if the cuts weren’t it.
“Beautiful?” someone spits out. “How can this be beautiful?”
“The beauty is in the eyes of the beholder,” Wei Ying says, touching the head. “Practically took a page out of my thesis. With some alterations, but.”
“What do you mean,” Xiao Xingchen says.
“I mean it quite literally.”
This isn’t a regular murder by any means, and it’s reported as such. And then, because everybody understands this is just the beginning, they wait.
The crowd that gathers around the site is of course painfully big, but everyone is looking for the one person who understandably came back to look at the reaction. Lan Zhan skims through the rows of people and thinks, we cannot manage this on our own.
They start looking for witnesses, relatives, enemies, vehicles, anyone and everyone, other bodies mutilated similarly, recently and not, in case this is a follower of some kind. Wei Ying unearths his thesis and Lan Zhan, alongside eleven other people, reads it back to back twice before pinning some pages to the board for references. Wei Ying is correct because his main focus was on techniques and choices of weapons rather than behaviouristic features of murder. To Lan Zhan’s eye, one homicide he worked on in particular – revenge for adultery, the caption says – looks very similar. Granted, their maniac went much further than that.
Jingyi sleeps at his desk and doesn’t stir when Lan Zhan drapes a blanket over him that Wei Ying silently gestures at with his elbow. Wei Ying himself is barely holding on but smiles all the same at the takeout Lan Zhan brought for the three of them.
They stand over the decomposing body and don’t talk for a while, both too tired to and, Lan Zhan is not too arrogant to admit it, disturbed by the sight. But Wei Ying looks at the man more than just contemplatively.
“What is it,” Lan Zhan says.
“He looks like me, don’t you think?”
Lan Zhan’s eyebrows shoot up. “No.”
“He does. Maybe more like Xingchen-ge, even, when he was fifteen years younger.”
It is three in the morning. In five hours, a crew of higher officials will arrive and start to shake them up and down for progress instead of actually helping. Lan Zhan might be wrong about it because it concerns a potential serial killer, but that will have to be proved, of course. For now, Wei Ying will have to wait for results on drugs, tissue analysis, all sorts of tests that take time.
“There was a student in my class,” Wei Ying begins, and Lan Zhan doesn’t like his tone already. “Xue Yang. Was obsessed with me in a way that ordinary boners couldn’t help with. That’s what he said. I do like attention, but that was… hm.”
Lan Zhan curls his fingers into a loose fist on his back. “Did he stalk you?”
“Not that I noticed, but probably. He was expelled for attacking another student. Call me paranoid, but – ”
“You recognise this as something not out of your thesis?” Lan Zhan asks. If Wei Ying is right –
Wei Ying shrugs. “The cuts look different from his ordinary pattern that I remember surprisingly well, you know? It’s like he became an ambidexter or is just fucking with me.”
“Or both.”
“Or both,” Wei Ying sighs. He sways a little from exhaustion and doesn’t say utter filth when Lan Zhan catches him and guides him to sit down. Of all things Lan Zhan has felt throughout the day, fear is the latest but by far the most sickening.
“You will get protection.”
“I don’t need guards,” Wei Ying protests, not yet angry but already upset. “I can protect myself. Have you seen my kit? I can scoop one’s eyes out with my bare hands.”
“I believe he tried,” Lan Zhan says, nodding at the body. “You found signs of struggle.”
Wei Ying doesn’t reply. He takes the takeout box and almost spills the contents from ripping it open too hard; spills anyway because Lan Zhan calls Xiao Xingchen then and there and tells him about Wei Ying’s student.
“You’re overreacting,” Wei Ying bristles, talking louder than Xiao Xingchen’s exact same reasoning. “It’s one body. One. You won’t get any guards for me on the grounds that you’re sure I’m the target while we literally have a dead man in front of our eyes. Lan Zhan, you know that.”
“He will be suspended from this case,” Xiao Xingchen adds, because he has to, “if he really is the target. A-Zhan, we need to wait. I’m sorry.”
Lan Zhan disengages. Behind him, Wei Ying slurps cold noodles and stretches his leg out to rub Lan Zhan’s calf for comfort.
Lan Zhan doesn’t know Xue Yang. He looks over his shoulder, at Wei Ying’s oily grin, and knows every unforgivable thing he will do if he has to.
The second body is found with a letter that has the better part of the team stop their work and look at Wei Ying with clear horror as he reads it aloud.
“Tie me to the bed and feed you my liver?” Wei Ying frowns. “How does he know I like to be tied up?”
“Wei – ”
“Secondly, if he’s so observant, doesn’t he know you don’t like offal?”
“A-Ying – ”
Lan Zhan grabs him by the back of the shirt and hauls away from the body. Lan Zhan is so sick with fear it makes his eyes water and fingers fisted in Wei Ying’s t-shirt lock painfully. He wants to shout and, for the first time in his life, run away. In his sixteen years of service, Lan Zhan has never faced a serial killer. Bad people who knew what they were doing, good people who had no other choice, people mad with love, hungry for money or revenge, scared, anything – he has seen all of it. So many nights were spent shaking in the office toilet and throwing up from the adrenaline, from the way some people got into his system. And this is nothing like that. This is pure hunting.
Wei Ying is clattering, “Ow, ow, so rough and for what? I’m literally doing your job detecting,” as Lan Zhan wrenches him up and says, outstandingly even, “Guards. You are stood down from this case.”
Wei Ying whines. Not his full potential, but it makes Lan Zhan’s jaw click. He shakes Wei Ying once, hard enough to tighten the shirt in a way that hurts exactly because it is so tight and Wei Ying to stop looking like any of this is something to be joked about. Wei Ying isn’t naïve, but his attitude is extremely ill-timed.
He smiles, covering Lan Zhan’s hands with both his. “Do you know that redheads need more anesthesia but less painkillers? Also, human fingerprints are very similar to a koala’s. I think it’s a useful fact for your consideration.”
“Will you listen to me now,” Lan Zhan demands through set teeth.
Wei Ying’s eyes soften so much it hurts to look at him. “Yes, Lan Zhan. I will.”
/
They want to be caught, Lan Zhan has heard more than once from his teachers. Why are they hiding, then, students would ask, and the answer was always the same: chasing.
Wei Ying is relocated and has three people near him at all times, men Xiao Xingchen chose personally. Lan Zhan’s can’t be with him because he is neck-deep in tracing someone who doesn’t have any friends or family, has no record of using cards for over twenty-four months. They find no relatives at all because he is an orphan once found near the garbage bin and no one at the indicated place of residence, as expected. Only a long-forgotten one-room apartment full of candy wraps, manuals, and mementos from the bodies they haven’t found yet – his practice bodies.
They find Xue Yang’s barrack after the third body and a message painted all over the wall that says Did I do well? There’s an address carved into the flesh of the victim – the same place where one of the bodies Wei Ying worked with in his student days was found.
The night before the raid, Lan Zhan substitutes one officer on duty. He can see the light in Wei Ying’s windows and the constant messages Wei Ying bombards him with, but Lan Zhan doesn’t reply. He watches the lights so off eventually and nods off despite the loud radio that keeps the second officer awake.
In the morning, Wei Ying hops out of the van that brought the foreigners and pats his vest. Lan Zhan drops his own.
“Who brought him here?” he barks. Officers scatter away from them.
“Hi, gorgeous,” Wei Ying beams. “I’m bait.”
All at once, Lan Zhan is so angry it makes him dizzy. The decision on Wei Ying’s participation couldn’t have been made this morning – it was planned. And everyone, except Lan Zhan, knew about it. “You aren’t going anywhere. You will stay in my car and not come out of it until I tell you.”
Wei Ying’s eyes grow big. “Lan Zhan, it’s highly unprofessional to get hard at wor-”
“If you make one more step towards the building, I will shoot you immobile.”
“Such a sweetheart,” Wei Ying coos, far less fearless than he wants to appear. “I’m going to remember it for our wedding speeches.”
The head of the entire group, the officer that sets Lan Zhan’s teeth on edge simply because he is Xiao Xingchen’s ex-husband, orders, “Let him go. He is going to be protected.” To Wei Ying, he says, “You are going with my team.” To Lan Zhan, more clipped, “Be ready in two minutes.”
“No.”
“I want to go with him,” Wei Ying pipes up.
“I said – ”
“You can fire me and put me in jail after we are done,” Lan Zhan says. “He is going with me.”
“Lan Zhan, jail won’t do for you. You can’t sit together with those criminals, you’ll intimidate them to death. Spare poor souls.”
“Shut up and stand behind me,” Lan Zhan commands. Wei Ying scrambles to do as he is told, for once, and Lan Zhan feels him press hard against his back. “We are done here.”
“A-Zhan,” Xiao Xingchen calls, a warning.
Song Lan doesn’t pay attention to any of it; he waves a hand at someone, and right away, Wei Ying yelps indignantly from being pulled away to the side. Lan Zhan doesn’t get a change to knock down the nearest officer because he is brought to the ground with a punch to the underside of his knee. Across from him, Xiao Xingchen is paper-white and drastically unhelpful as he takes a step to help and Lan Zhan waves him off. Wei Ying curses everyone’s parents as he walks.
“Let’s go,” Song Lan says.
In the days that will follow, Lan Zhan will think of everything that went wrong: they haven’t checked the building thoroughly, if at all, were too quick and careless, wanted to catch the maniac and close the case, show off, inform the higher officials about catching a serial killer. There wasn’t enough people to back them up, they should have had at least two snipers. No one expected the traps because no one accounted for them. Lan Zhan didn’t shoot Wei Ying immobile.
Xue Yang is not a madman. He is careful, smart, and he knows what he wants, and he got it with an audience. In the end, Lan Zhan doesn’t even have him at gunpoint because Xue Yang has two knives under Wei Ying’s untied vest. Wei Ying is conscious but his head lolls onto Xue Yang’s slightly; he must have been drugged or hit on the head.
Wei Ying glances down and instantly scrunches up his face. “Fuck, this one’s going to be a bitch to stitch up.”
Lan Zhan bites his tongue until it bleeds and his palms cramp around the gun. Here, with Wei Ying held hostage in front of him, hands hastily tied up with a dirty tube that looks like the one Xue Yang used to transfuse his victims' blood, Lan Zhan isn’t scared because he knows: either he and Wei Ying walk out of this place together or neither does.
Xue Yang is smaller than Wei Ying and hides almost completely behind him. Lan Zhan cannot kill one without hurting the other.
“Hi, detective Lan. You’re prettier this close up. I hope we’ll have enough time to spend alone, I want to see if you are as durable as you look like. I think you are. So much opportunity for game.”
All hairs on Lan Zhan’s body stand up when Xue Yang plants a wet kiss on Wei Ying’s nape. Wei Ying squirms in disgust.
“Ah, little one, he didn’t like what you just did. Neither did I, if I’m honest. I’m afraid I’m already taken.”
“You know what he isn’t going to like?” Xue Yang smiles brightly. “The sound of your bones crunching as I saw through them and he watches me do it. Which bone in your body is your favourite, Wei-laoshi? You never answered that question.”
Wei Ying jerks forward with a shout. In less than a blink of an eyes, both knives get under his skin, Xue Yang barks out a laugh and twists them simultaneously, and Lan Zhan pulls the trigger three times.
Wei Ying manages to fall on his side with a sickening pop in his body and a broken cry. Lan Zhan fails catch him, and no one left alive or uninjured is of any help other than yelling for it and checking if Xue Yang really is dead. In moments, there is so much blood. It soaks Lan Zhan's clothes, rushes out of Wei Ying's convulsing body and mouth as he tries to say something, bursts into terrified tears because his wrists are bound and he can't touch Lan Zhan's blood-slippery hand.
Inside the ambulance, Wei Ying stops breathing. Lan Zhan doesn’t hear his own scream.
/
“If that fucker didn’t kill me, this food will finish me off,” Wei Ying grumbles, squinting. “Lan Zhan, if that’s not an issue for a man of your calibre, pass me my glasses, please.”
He is pale all the time, and his hands shake too much to shave – the information Wei Ying did not disclose but Lan Zhan guessed anyway, watching Wei Ying hold the photos from the scenes of other cases. Wei Ying keeps his arms down to make the shaking look less apparent, but his exhaustion is more stubborn than him. Wei Ying’s stubble is patchy and it makes him grumpier. Everything that makes Wei Ying sad on a hospital bed should be eradicated, but Lan Zhan can’t bring himself to offer his help with the shaving because his hands are still shaking as well. Wei Ying doesn’t want to bother his nurses or parents.
Lan Zhan takes the glasses off the bedside table and puts them on Wei Ying, brushes his fingertips over Wei Ying’s temples. Wei Ying is too preoccupied to pay attention to that.
So far, he has agreed with everything the woman who substitutes him stated in her report. From what Lan Zhan has heard, she’s good, professional, knows she’s here for a month or three, depending on how long Wei Ying will fight for returning back to the office, but she isn’t slacking. Lan Zhan doesn’t care either way.
“I have to go,” he says. Visiting hours end in half an hour, Wei Ying has to go through all his evening procedures and pills, and he hates doing it when anyone can see him, even nurses.
“Guess I’ll have to take them off myself,” Wei Ying sighs, reaches to pat Lan Zhan’s hand and then hold it loosely, aiming for a tease. As if Lan Zhan doesn’t want to bawl from relief. “When are you back to work?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Be careful for me. If there’s a serial killer after your head as well – ”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan interrupts. “No.”
Wei Ying has started to process what happened to him and Lan Zhan can’t spend every second of it by his side. He can see Wei Ying braving up before he leaves and bunching the bedding, joking inopportunely. All Lan Zhan wants to do is scoop Wei Ying into his arms and run away into the furthest corner to kiss all his wounds better and hear him cry all night, but he knows he isn’t allowed. He let Wei Ying down. What Lan Zhan can do is pay visits to the hospital and put prescription glasses on Wei Ying’s stale bedhead.
Outside the ward, he half bows to the nurse who tells him everything Wei Ying will never do, such as his bad days and really bad days, nightmares that wake him up. Lan Zhan begged her to do it because there was no other way to spy on Wei Ying without Wei Ying noticing and revelling in it. Lan Zhan, against all odds, has some semblance of dignity left.
“Don’t let him have anything spicy. I will bring food every day,” Lan Zhan says, and the nurse laughs.
“Don’t you worry, we know how to deal with patients like him.”
“No,” Lan Zhan says, bowing deeper. Wei Ying bullied the entire department and everyone’s bosses to let him work from the bed. Food is nothing. “You don’t.”
Little catches Lan Zhan’s attention apart from daily visits. Wei Ying isn’t allowed a phone in his ward, which makes him whiny and outright distressed, so they started writing letters to each other. Strictly non-work. Lan Zhan writes about the number of socks he loses every washday and Wei Ying keeps the body count of dead patients on his floor. Wei Ying draws and doodles for him, too, so Lan Zhan brings him an expensive kit of colourful pencils that makes Wei Ying blush and call him terrible names.
One evening, Lan Zhan has to leave work too late to spend more than five minutes in the ward, but five minutes is five minutes. They both need these meetings – Lan Zhan gets breathless just thinking about it – for the very same reason. But tonight, Wei Ying is already asleep when he comes over.
Lan Zhan watches the slow rise of his chest and the scattered papers all over his lap, how one hand is fisted in the blanket right over the wounds. There are fresh clothes on him and his hair has been washed. Lan Zhan stands by the bed for no more than a handful of seconds before going to his knees and brushing his lips over the hand and wrist with an almost black bruise from a catheter. He presumes Wei Ying’s parents have visited and wrangled him to let them help him. Lan Zhan wants to curl at Wei Ying feet, at his side, tuck him into the deepest part of him and sleep for many days. Instead, he counts the dropping number of tubes connected to Wei Ying’s body and walks away.
“It hurts today,” the other nurse says, taking the food. “He didn’t tell anyone but when I redressed his wounds, one opened up and he made a lot of sounds. Gave him a good dose. Should sleep through the night.”
“Thank you,” Lan Zhan says.
She smiles, small. “You should sleep, too. He asked me to tell you that.”
Lan Zhan nods.
He will be better once he stops dreaming of Wei Ying dying in his arms.
/
Lan Zhan stares at the vague come over on his phone and ponders the possibilities. There aren’t many. One, if he is being honest with himself and considering the fact it’s the first day of work for Wei Ying in two months. His wounds have healed well and but look too pink for Lan Zhan’s liking. Wei Ying sends him daily reports and photos, and it’s the closest Lan Zhan has gotten to licking his phone.
It is too late even for the enthusiastic lab assistants, so Lan Zhan meets no one on his way to Wei Ying’s office. The door is swung open, but there is no music.
Wei Ying is typing. He looks up from the computer and doesn’t say hi, doesn’t smile, only says, “Open the black cupboard.”
Said cupboard stores Wei Ying’s spare clothes and two helmets. Lan Zhan looks questioningly at the one he’s never seen.
“It’s yours,” Wei Ying says, then gets up and shuts the computer down with a pin on his crock, a crime of its own. His gait is lazy, his eyes are very tired. At least four weeks of uninterrupted vacation – not recovery – could benefit him immensely, but Wei Ying said he couldn’t sleep when he wasn’t working, so he is back. Thin, ghastly pleased with Lan Zhan arriving not twenty minutes after the message was sent. “You’re coming home with me. If you say anything about strenuous activity, I won’t let you come. If you try to be gentle, I won’t let you come. If you – ”
“I will not come,” Lan Zhan finishes for him, tongue unwieldy in his mouth. The bottom of his stomach swoops madly despite the fact that this was the only reason Wei Ying could call for him today. So much has not yet been said between them, and perhaps should stay like that. I believe I like you, and I have wanted this from the first time I saw you and you knew this. Or, Wei Ying, this is going to be a strenuous activity – “I understand.”
“Good boy. Now, put this on and your cute mittens, it’s chilly for my Lan Zhan out there.”
They will fuck bare – something Lan Zhan helplessly dwells on because he knows Wei Ying will demand it. Lan Zhan thinks of a position that wouldn’t strain Wei Ying’s upper body at all the entire ride and laughs at himself for not getting hard about it right against Wei Ying’s back. Wei Ying’s stomach jumps at the sound.
“What the hell did you think about to make you laugh,” Wei Ying asks at the red light, baffled. Lan Zhan finds it so unfair that he cannot lay his head on Wei Ying’s shoulder this instant and suck on his pulse point. “Lan Zhan, tell me. Lan Zhan. I know you can hear me. I’m gonna die of curiosity, you bastard. Lan Zhan!”
Wei Ying starts to heave before they reach his flat. Lan Zhan pulls off and stops any further attempts at kissing because Wei Ying coughs from the lack of air, whines Noooo because Lan Zhan holds him in place with a hand on his nape. Lan Zhan’s heart stutters at the affronted curses Wei Ying spews while they get to his floor, how he flushes harder the more Lan Zhan looks at him and doesn’t let him move much save for the trifling ass slaps.
“I told you – ”
“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan begs. The elevator doors open and Wei Ying squawks indignantly from being picked up. He isn’t terribly heavy, but this can be dealt with eventually. “Patience.”
“To hell with that thing. I want to kiss you until my mouth goes numb, and you won’t let me do it,” Wei Ying grumbles, opening the door with the coordination of a sot. “I’m being abused in your own two arms, Lan Zhan, you’re doing a terrible job servicing the people.”
Sometimes, Wei Ying’s chatter indicates severe anxiousness. It happened when his father was close to a heart attack and Wei Ying wouldn’t stop talking. Lan Zhan is not a bad detective but he is yet to learn Wei Ying until no corner of him is too dark for Lan Zhan to look at and hide in.
“I can do this,” he says, and kisses Wei Ying’s temple. Of all things, it makes Wei Ying shudder, and he burrows his face in Lan Zhan’s shoulder with the door half open for a second.
Wei Ying lifts his head after a handful kisses all over the top of his head, bats his lashes. He is breathing better, but whatever he imagined he would do to Lan Zhan and vice versa is no match to how weak Lan Zhan is in the knees from just this. Standing on the threshold of Wei Ying’s flat and knowing that this is just the beginning. “Do your best, ge.”
Lan Zhan grinds his teeth until his gums start to hurt as he fingers Wei Ying, who whines and bucks and throws one leg over Lan Zhan’s forearm and then shoulder, who bruises Lan Zhan’s tailbone with his other heel and scrapes Lan Zhan’s arms raw, who pushes him off with a low mmmmmm exhaled into the collarbone. Everything about him is fluid, toe-curling, invading Lan Zhan’s dreams and making home there. Never in his life has Lan Zhan thought someone would tear him apart with such ease and put him back together with a single smile and a latex-smelling hand.
“Could’ve had this eight months ago, but no,” Wei Ying says, pink in patches, sneaking one hand down to stroke Lan Zhan. Nothing about his touch is remotely unsure. “One Zhanzhan decided to be a prude about it. I knew you’d be like this. Ha, I knew it.”
“Shut up,” Lan Zhan says, mellow, spreading Wei Ying’s legs wide instead of letting him fold himself in half. Wei Ying shows off his pretty cock with a twist of his hips. “Be good, now.”
Lan Zhan has been hard for so long pushing in doesn’t provide any relief. He knows Wei Ying will not hold it against him if he doesn’t last; Lan Zhan will not hold it against himself either. He goes slow because he tries very hard, because he wants to. Wei Ying throws his head back and breathes through the mouth, just as overwhelmed, and laughs so loudly when Lan Zhan bottoms out.
Mine, Lan Zhan thinks, simply kissing him for as long as his own patience lets him. You are mine and it makes you so very happy.
Neither lasts long enough to brag about it to each other’s face. Lan Zhan bites his shoulder as he comes, eyes screwed shut, then ducks to kiss Wei Ying’s mouth and sticky stomach, the insides of his trembling thighs. Wei Ying tastes mostly of sweat and definitely medicine. He refuses to take sedatives, and Lan Zhan hazards a guess it is purely so that they could do this at least once before Lan Zhan coaxes the pills into him with his tongue.
Wei Ying makes grabby hands at him, smiling. Not cheeky – Lan Zhan could almost call it shy if he didn’t know Wei Ying has not a speck of shame in his body. It’s small, content, coy. Like he trusts himself to ask Lan Zhan to take care of him. “Carry me to the bathroom?”
The shower is comfortable enough for Lan Zhan to come down on his knees and eat him out until Wei Ying begins to scratch the tile. He is so soft here, still closing up, gives so easily. Because Wei Ying temporarily has to sit down often, Lan Zhan doesn’t bite him to bruises, only nips on the ass a couple of times. Bites a little harder when Wei Ying pushes himself right into his face.
Wei Ying is nowhere near that frantic level of neediness he was at when they got off the bike; Lan Zhan is slightly better. That’s why Lan Zhan is on top of him, riding him with the speed that would disappoint anyone looking for a good lay. Wei Ying reaches to stroke his face and Lan Zhan grabs his wrist, hard, to finally suck on his fingers, four at once. Wei Ying fucks up viciously into him for that. It pulls his scars.
“Once my stomach’s no longer a sieve, you’re not getting off my cock,” he grits out. Who will not be getting off whose cock is highly debatable, but currently, it is not the point. “I will fuck you everywhere. And I’ll buy you a new chair for your office, because I need your spine in good condition in fifty years.”
Lan Zhan stops moving right away and holds him there, heavy. Wei Ying can probably feel how rapidly his heart beats but says nothing about it. Instead, he unsuccessfully tries to squirm.
“Move, will you? I’m not that young anymore. If you keep me waiting for twenty seconds longer, it’ll drop.”
He grumbles as Lan Zhan kisses him slowly, promises all sorts of misfortunes for Lan Zhan’s disobedience with a tongue half out his mouth. Wei Ying is looking at anything but him while Lan Zhan kisses his hands and slides off of him entirely, pulling Wei Ying on top of himself. Inside, Lan Zhan throbs dully, unfulfilled want heedless of anything else. “Tell me,” he asks.
Bit by bit, Wei Ying relaxes, softens between them. His fingers become dry on Lan Zhan’s shoulder, he starts to fidget the longer Lan Zhan strokes his back, then sighs and rubs his face into Lan Zhan’s chest. “I don’t want to do your autopsy.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It’s not what I mean, dummy. You know that.”
“Dummy? What happened to beloved?”
Wei Ying pinches his side. “Ugh, see? Now you’re screwed. It won’t get up unless you try really hard.”
Lan Zhan huffs. Wei Ying’s bedroom isn’t unkept, precisely, but he can tell Wei Ying doesn’t have any strong desire to spend a lot of time in here and on it. Thin dust is dancing above the bedside lamp as Lan Zhan breathes out. Wei Ying’s eyes are really sensitive in the evenings, he rarely switches on the main lights at home, he said once. There are so many things Lan Zhan knows about him, all learned against his will but treasured like adder stones he found at the beach as a child.
“I wasn’t quick enough.”
“Shut up. If you blame yourself for not shooting him soon enough, I’ll have to blame my stupid ass for wanting to be there in the first place. I did want it. It was my fault. He was after my head and I needed to see why.”
“Saw enough?”
Wei Ying gestures generously at his wounds. “You’ll find me solely in the confines of my crypt from now on, thank you very much.”
Lan Zhan rolls them over and starts to kiss down the length of Wei Ying’s body. He likes that Wei Ying lets him do it without any shyness, or, for that matter, any commentary at all, doesn’t cover himself. They are too old for it to start with, but apart from that, it is right. Wei Ying, comfortable with him and around him, hopefully asking for things that will make Lan Zhan rolls his eyes and kiss him stupid.
“Quit smoking,” Wei Ying says abruptly, ghosting his fingers over Lan Zhan’s lips. “I’ve found two alternatives.”
“I’m not quitting my job,” Lan Zhan says, because it matters. Wei Ying knows this very well.
“I know. But just be very-very-very-very-veeeery careful for me, okay? Please?”
“I will,” Lan Zhan smiles. Fuck, Wei Ying croaks. “I am yet to learn how sturdy your tables are.”