Chapter Text
Bai Yutong hates the hospital. He’s been here too many times waiting to hear that his teammates are alright, but this is so much worse. But then of course it is; Zhan Yao is so much more.
He always has been. Bai Yutong doesn’t think he ever told him that, that he had a crush on him when they were younger. About the way that Zhan Yao’s smarts amazed him even when they were in school. That when they were teens and Zhan Yao sniffled in his arms when his dad had been a dick, that Bai Yutong had wanted to kiss him and make everything better.
A stupid thing, he knows, but the same wish pulls at him now. To kiss Zhan Yao. To make everything better. Like he’s Sleeping Beauty and Bai Yutong his Prince Charming.
The ridiculousness of the thought is enough for Bai Yutong to pull himself together, scoffing at himself. He scrubs at his face, wiping away the tears, and he hears footsteps approach.
Wang Shao comes forward and offers a weak twitch of a smile in greeting.
“Did you get him?” Bai Yutong asks, blunt and to the point. He doesn’t want to linger over Zhan Yao’s health, because he doesn’t know what’s happening. He hates that he doesn’t know, the uncertainty sour and heavy in his gut.
Wang Shao shakes his head and Bai Yutong curses.
“Ma Han and Zhao Fu chased him to the road, but there was a Range Rover waiting for him.”
Bai Yutong squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to think, though everything in him screams how is he supposed to think when Ah-Yao might be dying?
“The perp’s not working alone.”
“No. Jiang Ling is trying to see if she can find anything. He got caught by a few cameras, so we have some partial face shots.”
“License plate?”
“Fake.”
“Of course.”
Bai Yutong sits back in the plastic seat and stares at the ceiling. This case started with a guy killing an accountant, seemingly for no reason. But the accountant worked for some big wigs, which got it on SCI’s radar. The accountant’s laptop was stolen, but there were some handwritten notes that suggested he was worried about the accounts of some of the people he was working for. When SCI reached out to them, most of them were happy to talk and share at least some information, but one hit them with a brick wall.
“Any luck with getting Lavandiere Consulting to talk?”
Wang Shao frowns. “We’ve been told we need a warrant to so much as contact them.”
Bai Yutong’s eyebrows raise. “That’s bullshit.”
“Yeah. Bao Sir said he’d take care of it – either get them to talk or get the warrant if they insist.”
“It’s suspicious as hell. However we get that information, your main priority is finding out what’s going on there.”
Wang Shao nods. “We also got the video from— from today’s scene.”
Cold creeps over Bai Yutong’s skin, making his hair stand on end. For a moment he’d managed to distract himself. “Report.”
“Since we don’t have any images from the accountant case, we can’t confirm that it’s the same person. But he was at the accountancy office when we arrived, looking for something. He hid behind those boxes when he heard us coming, then when Dr. Zhan got too close to where he was hiding—”
Bai Yutong is glad when Wang Shao stops himself. “Then he ran, and was picked up by the Range Rover,” he finishes.
Wang Shao nods.
Bai Yutong rubs at eyes that are dry from crying and tries to formulate a plan for his team, since there’s no way he himself is leaving the hospital until Zhan Yao wakes.
“I want Jiang Ling to try IDing the perp from those partial face shots. You and Zhao Fu comb the scene and try to figure out what this guy was looking for. I want Ma Han and Bai Chi investigating the car angle. See if they can find the owner or at least trace where it came from, see if they can pick up a trail.”
“Yes Sir,” Wang Shao says with a salute. He turns to leave, then turns back to Bai Yutong. “And Bai Sir – let us know when you hear more about Dr. Zhan.”
When he’s gone, Bai Yutong gets himself a disgusting vending machine coffee before taking up his post once again.
It’s been three hours since Zhan Yao went into surgery and there’s been no news. It’s so frustrating. Bai Yutong hates feeling helpless like this. Hates having nothing to do but wait.
He sends an email to the team confirming what he just told Wang Shao, then emails Bao Sir as well to ask him to email him with any updates. He’s trying to conjure up some other distracting work for himself when he hears footsteps approaching.
Fear clenches his chest at what he might be about to hear, but when he looks up it isn’t the doctor.
It’s his sister and her twin bodyguards.
“Jie?”
She smiles sadly as she sinks onto the seat beside him, taking his hand in hers.
“How are you doing?”
“Fine.” She keeps looking at him with those big, soft eyes, and he has to look away.
“You’ve not heard anything yet?” He shakes his head. “Then we’ll wait together.”
Another thirty minutes pass, with little to do but worry, before the doctor finally arrives. Bai Yutong has met her before, and she nods at him in greeting.
“Officer Bai. The surgeon has just finished up in the operating room. The bullet grazed Dr Zhan’s lung, nicked two ribs, and tore through muscle. The damage to the lung was the most urgent issue, and there was some internal bleeding, but the surgeon stabilised him.”
Bai Qingtang squeezes his hand and Bai Yutong lets out a shaking breath. It’s bad, but it could be worse. Much worse.
“He’s going to be okay?”
The doctor nods, and Bai Yutong wants to hug her. “He’s still under anaesthesia, and we’ll keep him in overnight then assess him in the morning. But we’re hoping he will be well enough to leave in the next day or two.”
“Thank you,” he says, with feeling. “Can I see him?”
It’s the same room that Zhan Yao was in the last time he’d been hurt, and aimless anger flares in Bai Yutong at that — that he is badly hurt often enough that he has a regular room in the hospital.
But it is private at least, and as comfortable as hospitals get, with a view over the bay. Zhan Yao deserves that much at least.
Bai Yutong goes into the room, his sister and her bodyguards following. They are library-quiet, something that doesn’t come naturally to the siblings. It’s not like noise will wake Zhan Yao from his drug-induced sleep, but still they tiptoe around him. To Bai Yutong, it feels like they have been incredibly lucky — he thought it was much worse, there was so much blood — that he doesn’t want to attract the attention of gods he doesn’t believe in lest they realise their mistake and take Zhan Yao from him.
Such are the thoughts of a man whose beloved has been at the brink of death too many times.
Bai Yutong goes over to the bed, where Zhan Yao looks like he is sleeping peacefully. He touches his cheek and feels absurd relief at the warmth of it, at the rise and fall of his chest. Beneath his hospital pyjamas he can see a peek of bandages.
“Fuck,” he croaks, and is glad there is a chair by Zhan Yao’s bedside because he collapses onto it, knees made weak by relief.
“He’s alright,” Qingtang says, relief in her own voice, and comes to stand behind Yutong, squeezing his shoulders. “He’s alright.”
They stare at Zhan Yao for long moments, warm with gratitude that he’s alive, then Bai Qingtang waves over one of her bodyguards who hands her a backpack that she offers to Yutong.
“What’s this?”
“Now that you know xiao Zhan is alright, you should go and get changed. I brought some clothes over from home.”
Bai Yutong opens his mouth as though he’s about to argue, but when he glances down at himself, he sees his shirt and pants stained dark crimson. It makes him feel ill to see so much of Zhan Yao’s blood, and he nods, grabbing the backpack.
“Stay with him, I’ll be two minutes.”
He finds a single person bathroom and as soon as the door closes behind him, Yutong leans against it then sinks to the floor, putting his head in his shaking hands.
He’s okay.
There was so much blood. He’d really thought—
He’s okay, Bai Yutong tells himself, more firmly. He won’t let himself spend a second more thinking anything else.
He stays where he is, on the cold bathroom floor, until his breathing evens out and he stops shaking.
He’s okay, he tells himself a third time and forces himself to his feet. He strips out of the clothes and sees that Zhao Yao’s blood has seeped through and dried on his skin as well. He has another wobbly moment but forces himself to wet some paper towels and clean himself up, as clinically and methodically as he can, not letting himself think about anything.
He changes into the clothes Bai Qingtang brought him and then looks down at the stained mess of the others. They’re a dead loss, so Yutong balls them up along with the huge wad of bloody paper towels and leaves the bathroom to find a medical waste disposal unit to throw them into.
Between his tiny breakdown and getting cleaned up, he’s gone for considerably longer than two minutes, but Zhao Yao is just as he was, doing his sleeping beauty impression. Qingtang is sitting in the chair, holding his hand. They’re not so close these days, but all three of them were friends as kids, before she was sent away. There are tears shining in her eyes which she wipes away hastily when she sees him approach.
“You approve of my choice?” She asks, nodding at his new outfit. Bai Yutong glances down at himself – white jeans, shirt, sneakers – and nods. They’re all things she’s bought him. Designer, of course, tailored perfectly to him, comfortable but still sharp.
“You always do have the best taste.”
“I don’t know,” she says, cocking her head and him and looking pointedly at Zhan Yao before giving him a sly grin. “Yours is alright too. When were you going to tell me about the two of you?”
His mouth drops open. “I – we—”
“Not that you’ve ever been subtle, but still. I’m your sister, Yutong. Don’t I deserve an official announcement?” Her voice is faux-stern, but she’s smiling still.
“We’re not getting married, jie. Does it need an official announcement?”
She stands and walks over to him just so that she can jab him in the stomach. “Yes! There’s a subtle difference between being wistful and being official – between you two, anyway.”
“You and Gongsun would know all about—” He stops himself before she follows through on the look in her eyes and decks him. “Anyway, it’s new. Officially. After the last case finished up, it was so stressful and we were both so exhausted, we were crashed on the sofa leaning on each other and it just… came out.”
“You told him about how you’ve been mooning over him since you were eight years old?”
“I told him I liked him.”
She rolls her eyes – like she is any better with Gongsun. “I suppose I can’t expect any better from you. Either of you. You’re such boys.”
Yutong looks over at the bodyguards, hoping for some backup from the other boys in the room, but they both stand stock straight, looking forward and refusing to meet his eyes. Of course they would never go against their boss.
“Anyway,” Bai Yutong continues. “It’s only been about a month. We’re still finding our feet.”
Which is a lie. The shift into coupledom was smooth, easy. It was right. Things have barely changed in terms of their day to day lives – apart from the kisses and the sex, obviously – which mostly goes to show how they’ve pretty much been together since the day Bai Yutong moved into his cat’s place. It just took them a while to notice.
When Qingtang smiles at him with her eyes shining once more, he has to look away again. They’re not the closest of siblings, but they still love each other fiercely.
“I’m glad for you, Yutong,” she says softly. “Let’s have dinner when he’s feeling better.”
She grabs her coat from the back of the chair, then hands him a hotel key card.
“What’s this?”
“I know it’s pointless because you’re not going to leave his side, but if you do want to sleep in a bed, a room at the Four Seasons is booked for you.”
He won’t use it, but he takes the keycard anyway, and gives her a hug so quick that he could pretend it was an accident if she balked. She doesn’t; she squeezes his hand instead.
“Call if you need me.”
Sinking onto the uncomfortable chair, Bai Yutong takes Zhan Yao’s hand and lets the warmth of it settle the worries in his heart.