Chapter Text
Xiao Xingchen met his future boyfriend in an alley by a dumpster, semi-conscious and covered in blood.
He’d smelled him before he’d seen him - otherwise he probably never would’ve known he was there. His sight was already pretty bad, corrective lenses or no, but not so bad that he couldn’t make out the body wedged in the corner created by the back of a dumpster and a wall.
“Holy shit,” A-Qing had said, grabbing onto his elbow and yanking. “No you don’t, don’t even think-”
He’d tugged his way gently free of her and walked over, relieved to hear breathing even if it was quiet and raspy. “Hello?” he’d said, reaching out to find the arm, which twitched. “Can you hear me?”
“Hnnh,” was all he got back. Xiao Xingchen pulled out his phone and told it to call emergency services.
When he turned back, the person’s eyes were open.
“Hey there, stranger,” he said, words slurring together. “Would you think it was weird if I told you this felt familiar?”
“What?” said Xiao Xingchen, but the man’s eyes had already rolled up in his head and he was out.
Xiao Xingchen tried to look through his pockets - carefully, not moving him - for some kind of ID. Maybe there’d be an emergency contact, or at least a name, someone who’d want to know this guy was in trouble.
There was a lot of blood. It was getting all over his pants and his sleeves and he wasn’t even sure where it was coming from, just that there was a lot of it and it seemed like he should be doing something about that, but he didn’t have the first idea what.
“Oh my god,” A-Qing said. “What are you doing? Xingchen, stop groping the dead guy, you have no idea where he’s been, he could have rabies or something-”
“He doesn’t have rabies, A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, “and he’s not dead. I’m just trying to find out who he is.”
“Whatever,” a-Qing said. “Does it matter? Come on, let’s get out of here, I don’t want to be here when the cops show up.”
Xiao Xingchen just shook his head and decided to tune her out for the moment. A-Qing was protective of him; sometimes over-protective. He didn’t always need to indulge it.
There was a crumpled piece of paper in one of his coat pockets, but it was too soaked with blood to tell what it’d said, probably even for someone who could see better than he could. It might’ve been a receipt. But no wallet, no ID card, nothing else to give any indication about who this man was. Unless he had back pockets; Xiao Xingchen wasn’t sure it’d be a good idea to move him enough to check.
“Nothing,” he murmured.
“So he’s an anonymous bloody stranger literally in a dumpster,” A-Qing said. “Great.”
“Not in,” Xiao Xingchen said. He pressed his lips together and said, “go ahead and go home. I’m going to wait here. I’ll let you know when I get back.”
“Why? What’re you - oh, fuck no,” A-Qing said. “You’re not going to do a ride-along with this guy to the hospital, are you? Are you crazy? People don’t just get like that for no reason. He’s some kind of trouble and you’re just going to get caught in it.”
Xiao Xingchen shook his head. “He shouldn’t wake up alone.”
A-Qing looked like she wanted to punch him. She dropped her head back and stared up at the sky like she’d find some kind of answers there.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay, fine, but I’m staying.”
Xiao Xingchen gave her a brief smile. “Thank you, A-Qing,” he said, and then turned back toward the injured man.
He felt very strange. Almost like he was dissociating, but not quite. A similar feeling of being - removed. It was probably...he’d never been at a crime scene before. Never seen this much blood.
Never wondered, trying to figure out where he should put his hands - whether he should put his hands anywhere at all - if he was going to watch someone die.
Would you think it was weird if I told you this felt familiar?
He had the strangest sense that if he tried to walk away, something would stop him. Something wouldn’t let him go.
The feeling settling with a peculiar certainty that he was supposed to be here.
At least I want to know he’ll live, Xiao Xingchen thought. At least I want to know his name.
That’s all.
EMTs came not long after and removed the still unconscious man from the ground and onto a table, and then from the table into an ambulance, and then the ambulance was driving away and Xiao Xingchen was left staring at a patch of blood on the pavement. He’d tried to ask questions and largely been ignored.
“There,” A-Qing said. “That’s done, professionals’ve got him, let’s go home.”
Xiao Xingchen looked down at his hands and his pants and his sleeves, all bloodstained, and felt like he was going to be sick.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll go home. To change. And then I’m going out again.”
“Xingchen-”
“I told you he shouldn’t wake up alone,” Xiao Xingchen said. “And I...I want to know that he’s going to be okay.” A-Qing rolled her eyes, but she didn’t try to argue the point further.
He walked the rest of the way back home, stripped out of his clothes, and stepped into the shower in a daze. There was that feeling again, like he was watching himself do this, watching the red-tinged water stream off his body and swirl down the drain and thinking that’s someone else’s. That’s a person’s blood all over your hands. Soaked into the cracks in your skin and under your nails.
He almost slipped lunging out to make it to the toilet before throwing up.
Xiao Xingchen hoped the sound of the shower was enough that A-Qing didn’t hear.
They had to catch a bus to the nearest hospital (“you don’t even know they brought him here”). Once there, Xiao Xingchen found his way to the emergency room (“what’re you going to say, anyway, ‘excuse me, has a bleeding man with no identification showed up? I want to see him’”) and walked up to the desk, trying to look self-assured. A-Qing trailed after him.
“Excuse me,” he said. The receptionist looked up.
“Yes?”
“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “He would’ve been admitted - a couple hours ago.”
“Name?” she asked, fingers poised above the keyboard, and Xiao Xingchen hesitated.
“Oh,” he said. “Um. I don’t actually...know.”
“You don’t know your friend’s name?”
“He’s not my friend,” Xiao Xingchen said automatically, and then wished he’d lied, only he was always so bad at lying, people always seemed to be able to tell. “I was...there. I called 911. I just wanted to...make sure he was okay.”
“Are you expecting a list of all the men who’ve come in in the past couple hours?” the receptionist asked. “Are you sure he’s here?”
“He’s Asian,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Maybe - early twenties? He had longish hair, sort of. I think. And he was...bleeding. I don’t know why, I couldn’t tell-”
The receptionist sighed, but said after a brief pause, “I’ll see if I can find any information to give you.”
Xiao Xingchen retreated, taking a couple steps back and pressing his arm to his middle. He felt restless, jumpy.
“Sir?” the receptionist said, and he hurried over again. “I found someone who might be yours. John Doe, Asian, early twenties. Admitted with multiple traumatic injuries.”
There was a lump in Xiao Xingchen’s throat and he swallowed hard. “That sounds right,” he said. “Is he...okay?”
The receptionist gave him a hard looking over. “You don’t know him?” she said.
“No,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I don’t, I just...found him. I don’t know anything about what happened, I only wanted to…” He was starting to feel a little stupid. What had he been expecting? That he would be at the man’s bedside when he woke and he’d look at Xiao Xingchen and say...what? What did he want out of this, anyway?
A-Qing stuck her elbow in his side and said, “so is he alive or not? I think we deserve to know since Xingchen found him in the first place and made sure he didn’t just die there.”
The receptionist switched her slightly disapproving stare to A-Qing. “He’s alive,” she said. “Medical details are confidential.”
“If you don’t know who he is,” Xiao Xingchen said, emboldened, “and nobody else is here, could I see him? It seems like it would be - hard, to go through something like that and be alone.”
The receptionist stared at him for a few more moments before she said, “he’s still in surgery. If you want to wait another couple of hours…”
“I can wait,” Xiao Xingchen said quickly, because he could see A-Qing opening her mouth. She shot him a glare that he ignored. “Where should I sit?”
The receptionist looked at him for a moment longer, then sighed. “Let me get you a visitor pass,” she said. “The waiting room is over there. Can I have your name, please?”
“Xingchen Xiao,” he said.
“And Qing Li,” A-Qing said. He glanced at her and she said, “I’m not letting you go alone, stupid. I still think he could be some kind of ax murderer.”
Xiao Xingchen sighed, but decided to just let it go, same as he didn’t say anything about the abysmal misspelling of his name on his visitor’s pass.
“You’re really going to wait here for hours,” A-Qing said when they sat down, though at least she was keeping her voice down in courtesy to the other people sitting in the same room. “To talk to a guy you don’t know, because you, what, feel bad for him?”
“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said.
A-Qing let out an explosive sigh and stared up at the ceiling. “I shouldn’t be surprised,” she said. “But this is a lot even for you.”
Xiao Xingchen glanced at her sideways, then reached out and patted her on the head. “There, there,” he said. “You endure so much.”
She scowled at him, swatting his hand away. “Shut up,” she said. “You’re the worst.”
He smiled at her, though it felt a little wan.
“So we’ll wait until he wakes up,” A-Qing said after a few minutes, “say hi, nice to meet you, you’re welcome for saving your life, and then we go home. Right?”
“Yeah,” Xiao Xingchen said. “That’s the plan.”
Xiao Xingchen waited. A-Qing fell asleep on his shoulder, probably out of boredom, and snored. When someone finally came out and said his friend was awake and he could see him, Xiao Xingchen tapped her arm to wake her up.
“Why don’t you wait here?” he suggested, when she scowled groggily in his direction. “I don’t think I’ll be very long.” She frowned at him like she wanted to object, and Xiao Xingchen said, “he’s not going to attack me from his hospital bed, A-Qing. It’ll be fine.”
They told Xiao Xingchen that he was on strong painkillers and wouldn’t necessarily be very coherent, and that he needed rest and he shouldn’t stay for long. Xiao Xingchen nodded along and smiled and said thank you, a strange urgency pushing him forward.
The door was open, but Xiao Xingchen knocked anyway.
“Yeah, what,” said a groggy, annoyed sounding voice, and Xiao Xingchen’s stomach did a strange flip.
“It’s - the guy who found you,” Xiao Xingchen said, and immediately felt very stupid. “I wanted to…can I come in?”
“Sure,” said the voice after a brief pause. “I guess.”
Xiao Xingchen went in. He looked better, in that he wasn’t covered in blood anymore. He still looked pale and sort of dazed.
“Um,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Hi.” He hovered awkwardly. The man looked at him, his expression going a little weird.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I remember you. You’re still here?”
Xiao Xingchen felt his face starting to get warm. “I wanted to make sure you were...okay.”
Something closed off in his expression. “Yep,” he said. “Good as new. Less a couple pints of blood, but I’m getting those back.”
He was oddly jittery. Anxious, and he didn’t know why. “That’s good,” he said. And belatedly remembered, “I’m Xiao Xingchen.”
He just stared at Xiao Xingchen for a couple seconds before he said, “Xue Yang.”
The strange jittery feeling intensified; at the same time he thought he felt something click into place. What happened, he wanted to ask. How’d you get there, but that was going too far and he knew it.
“You didn’t have any ID on you,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Or...anything else. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” Xue Yang said. “Figures.” What does that mean, Xiao Xingchen wanted to ask, but again it felt inappropriate.
“Is there someone I should call for you?” he said carefully. “I can let them know where you are…”
Xue Yang just stared at him for a moment and then laughed. “Shit,” he said. “You’re...you’re really something, aren’t you.” Xiao Xingchen felt his face get even warmer. Xue Yang showed his teeth in an expression that wasn’t really a smile. “That’s sweet. But I’m good.”
Xiao Xingchen opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Shouldn’t someone…” he trailed off awkwardly, then said, “are you sure?”
It didn’t feel right.
“Look,” Xue Yang said, “you’re sexy, Xingchen, but I’m not looking to be someone’s charity case. So, thanks but no thanks.”
“That’s not what it is,” Xiao Xingchen said, and then blurted out, “what did you mean? When you said it felt familiar?”
There was that shuttering again. Closing off. “No idea,” he said. “Don’t even remember saying that.”
It was such an obvious lie and Xiao Xingchen didn’t understand why he was telling it, didn’t understand why he was still here at all. Don’t you feel something? he wanted to say, but even thinking it he felt like even more of an idiot than he already did.
His shoulders dropped and he looked away. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I…guess I’d better let you rest.” Xiao Xingchen paused, and then said in a rush, “can I give you my number? This isn’t a come on,” he added quickly. “Just..in case you need anything?”
After a long pause Xue Yang said, “sure. Don’t have a phone to put it in anymore, though, so no guarantees I’ll remember.”
Xiao Xingchen found a receipt in one of his pockets and a pen in his bag. He scribbled down his number and held it out, realized that Xue Yang didn’t have any pockets to put it in, and set it down on the table next to the bed instead.
“Thank you,” he said after an awkward moment of silence.
“Isn’t that my line,” Xue Yang said, but Xiao Xingchen noticed he didn’t say it. He took a step back, opened his mouth to say see you around, closed it.
“Feel better,” he said, and walked quickly away. His stomach felt full of worms and he could feel a prickling on the back of his neck that felt like a warning.
He still didn’t want to leave.
Xiao Xingchen let A-Qing drag him home and tried to put the whole thing out of his head.
The last thing he expected was a call forty-eight hours later from an unknown number. He answered distractedly while he was digging for sources, and if he’d been holding his phone he probably would’ve dropped it.
“Hey,” said a voice that struck him as immediately familiar even before it went on, “it’s Xue Yang. The dumpster rescue. Want to sponsor my ride home?”
“Leech,” hissed A-Qing. Xiao Xingchen winced, hoping that hadn’t been audible.
“How,” he said, rather stupidly.
“Since I don’t have a phone and I don’t have any money, you’d actually have to come to the hospital. I don’t need a babysitter. I just need to get out of here.”
A-Qing made a slashing motion across her neck. “No,” she said loudly. “Xingchen you are not going to-” Xiao Xingchen pressed his lips together and turned his back.
“I can come,” he said, “but I want to see you home.”
“Wow,” Xue Yang said after a brief pause. “Are you stalking me? Did my black eye make me look that sexy?”
Xiao Xingchen could feel his face turning pink and cleared his throat. “No!” he said. “No, that’s not - if you’d rather I didn’t, I understand, I know it’s strange, I just…”
There was no way of saying I’ve been worried about you that didn’t sound weird.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
That got him a moment of silence and then a strange, uneven sort of laugh. “It’s fine. Sure, if you want.”
Xiao Xingchen brightened. “All right,” he said. “When would you like me to…”
“The sooner the better,” Xue Yang interrupted. “I fucking hate hospitals.”
“Give me an hour,” Xiao Xingchen said, waited for agreement, and hung up.
“Are you kidding me?” A-Qing said, her voice rising precipitously. “This guy’s obviously just using you for your money, and he could be some kind of freaky serial killer or something who’s just trying to get you to his house, how the fuck did he end up in that alleyway anyway, huh? Don’t you think he’s probably in something nasty?”
“I want to help,” Xiao Xingchen said stubbornly.
“You already did help. Now you’re just being weird.”
“A-Qing-”
“Xingchen,” she said, mimicking his tone. “I'm telling you, I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Give him money if you have to but don’t go, I don’t know, getting attached?”
“I’m not adopting a stray cat,” Xiao Xingchen protested.
“I’m not so sure,” A-Qing said darkly. “You’re taking him home, aren’t you?”
Xiao Xingchen pressed his lips together. “Not to my home. It’s not like that. I don’t need your permission. And I’m not stupid.”
“Jury’s out,” A-Qing muttered. “Ugh. Just...text me every ten minutes or something so I know you’re not locked in a basement. And don’t feed him or you’ll never get rid of him.”
“A-Qing,” Xiao Xingchen said, even if he sort of wanted to laugh.
“Every ten minutes,” she said again. “Or I’m calling the cops.”
“No, you aren’t,” Xiao Xingchen said.
“Fine,” A-Qing said. “Or I’ll come and get you myself, is that better?”
“No.”
“Then you’d better keep in touch.”
Xiao Xingchen found Xue Yang outside, shivering, in clothes that clearly didn’t fit him. His hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail that made the bruises on his face more obvious. The cast on his left arm was a lurid blue. Immediately he wished he’d brought a jacket, and could almost see A-Qing’s scowl and narrowed eyes.
He paused, steadied himself, and walked over. Xue Yang turned toward him as he approached and for a moment Xiao Xingchen thought he was going to attack him but less than a second later the impression was gone.
“Why didn’t you wait inside?” was the first thing that came out of Xiao Xingchen’s mouth.
“I told you,” Xue Yang said. “I hate hospitals. I’d end up stabbing someone in the neck with a pen.”
Xiao Xingchen blinked once and then said, “that probably would’ve been bad.”
Xue Yang’s laugh sounded a little surprised. He still didn’t look good in a way that made Xiao Xingchen wonder if he should be leaving. Saying so probably wouldn’t go over well.
He just called a car, putting in the address Xue Yang gave him, and they stood there, waiting. Xiao Xingchen kept glancing sideways at Xue Yang. This close he could see him a little better, and clearer now that he wasn’t bloody. Full lips, dark eyes. For all the sharpness of his smile there was something soft about his face.
“You’re not blind,” Xue Yang said. It wasn’t a question, and Xiao Xingchen tensed. Xue Yang gestured at his phone. “Voice activation, but you track motion.”
“No,” Xiao Xingchen said after a brief pause. “I’m not blind.”
He didn’t offer anything else, though he could feel Xue Yang studying him. He felt a little off balance. That Xue Yang had noticed anything. That he’d been noticed.
“Is your roommate going to be there?” Xiao Xingchen asked, and wanted to flinch at how unsubtle it was.
Xue Yang glanced at him sideways. “Checking if I’m single?”
Xiao Xingchen’s face got hot and he pressed his lips together. “That’s not - I wasn’t–”
Xue Yang laughed. “You’re cute when you’re flustered,” he said. Xiao Xingchen was spared having to answer by the ping of his phone telling him the car was here.
The seat in front of Xiao Xingchen was far enough back that he had to fold up his knees, but he didn’t say anything. Xue Yang glanced at him, down briefly, and looked like he was going to laugh, but he didn’t say anything either. His fingers drummed against his leg.
“Was there a girl with you?” he asked. Xiao Xingchen, who had been trying to decide what question to ask when he had too many and none of them seemed appropriate, startled a little.
“A - oh, right. That’s Li Qing. She’s a friend.”
“Huh,” Xue Yang said. He frowned, but quickly shook it off and fell quiet. For some reason Xiao Xingchen was surprised.
“So,” Xiao Xingchen said after another several moments of silence, and then stopped with no idea how to follow it. “You’re...going to be okay?”
Xue Yang laughed. “I’m alive, aren’t I?” he said with a grin. “This isn’t that bad, anyway. I’ve had worse.” Xiao Xingchen stared at him, moderately horrified.
“That doesn’t seem like a good thing,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. Xue Yang’s eyes slid toward him sideways.
“Probably not,” he said. “But you know what they say. Only the good die young, and all that.”
Xiao Xingchen briefly imagined if he’d come by ten minutes later, or fifteen, or not at all. There’d been a lot of blood, it’d seemed like to him. Xue Yang still looked terrible. His heart skipped strangely and he looked down at his knees.
You should be more careful, he wanted to say, but of course that wasn’t the kind of thing a stranger could just say. It was just that–
Would you think it was weird if I told you this felt familiar?
It did, though. Like the feeling when he was searching for a word and he knew there was one but couldn’t quite find it.
“Have we met before?” he asked abruptly.
“Don’t think so,” Xue Yang said after a brief pause. “I’m pretty sure I’d remember you.”
Xiao Xingchen looked down and cleared his throat. “I just feel like...I don’t know. I’ve seen your face before, or something.”
Xue Yang turned a little toward him, smiling. “You trying to tell me you saw me in your dreams?”
Xiao Xingchen’s face was burning again. He should’ve just shut up from the beginning. Well, lesson learned. He’d stop talking and not make any more of a fool of himself, at least.
He turned to look out the window of the car and startled a little. He hadn’t paid much attention to the address Xue Yang had given him, and probably wouldn’t have recognized it if he had. He looked at Xue Yang, beaten and bruised in borrowed clothes, a tattoo visible on his left hand between thumb and forefinger that he couldn’t make out, and then at the new and expensive looking apartment buildings.
“You live here?” Xiao Xingchen blurted out, and immediately felt his face get hot because how much of an asshole could he sound like, but Xue Yang laughed.
“Fuck no,” he said. “My boss lives here.” Xiao Xingchen frowned, confused, and Xue Yang said, “I’m crashing on his couch.”
“You’re...crashing on your boss’s couch,” Xiao Xingchen said.
“He’ll bitch about it but he won’t kick me out,” Xue Yang said. “Probably, anyway. He owes me. So...yeah.”
Xiao Xingchen opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. Trying to figure out how to ask but you do have somewhere to go after that, right? without it sounding weird. He couldn’t come up with anything.
“This’s good,” Xue Yang said to the driver, and Xiao Xingchen said, “wait.”
Xue Yang turned in his direction and Xiao Xingchen finally just said, “do you have someplace you’re going to go when...when you have to leave here?”
Xue Yang just looked at him for a little while and then said, “fuck, Xingchen, usually I’d be happy for you to take me home and fuck me up but I think I’d just get blood on you and you don’t seem like the type to be into that.”
Before Xiao Xingchen could figure out a response Xue Yang was out of the car and walking - limping - away. Xiao Xingchen stared after him, mouth hanging a little open.
“Are you getting out or what,” said the driver, and Xiao Xingchen shook himself.
“No,” he said. “No, I...I need to go home.”
There was a strange hollow feeling in his stomach, but as he trudged up the stairs to his apartment Xiao Xingchen told himself that was the last of it. A-Qing would be relieved, at least.
What did you think would happen, said a scathing voice at the back of his mind. Did you think you’d end up best friends with the guy you found bleeding in the street?
Obviously that wasn’t how it worked. He’d gotten caught up in the excitement. In a few weeks this’d all be just a weird memory and a good story and he’d never see Xue Yang again.