Chapter Text
"Oh, good, you're awake!"
Wei Ying says it the moment Lan Zhan opens his eyes. He's sitting up on his bed, directly next to Lan Zhan's in the small hotel room, his eyes bright and expectant. He's still in his rumpled sleeping clothes, his long hair tangled around his shoulders.
"It's five am." Lan Zhan doesn't have to look at the clock to check. Waking at five am is a habit from childhood that he's found impossible to break, no matter how late he may have been awake the previous night. Sometimes he can make himself go back to sleep but, regardless, he is awake on the dot of five every day. "Why are you awake?"
Wei Ying just shoots him a sunny grin. "Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf," he says. "Maybe I've become a morning person. People evolve, Lan Zhan."
Lan Zhan pushes himself to sitting. His eyes feel gritty, raw, the way they do when he hasn't had enough sleep. They hadn't arrived to the province until nearly midnight the night before, and had had to search out this hotel, waking the proprietor by ringing the bell outside until he had shuffled out, half-awake as he'd blearily, but politely, checked them in, letting them know they had managed to get the last available room. "Hm," he says, studying Wei Ying. "Have you slept?"
"Let me tell you, the answer to that question is, in fact, not very much, but that is very far from the point." Wei Ying's cadence is fast and giddy, and he pushes himself to his knees on the bed, balancing amidst the messy covers. His sleep shorts are...very short, riding up his thighs. Lan Zhan closes his eyes, briefly considering lying back down and trying to get more sleep.
"No, uh-uh, too late, my friend, my partner, my pal." Wei Ying's energy when he has been awake all night is a force to be reckoned with. He has often told Lan Zhan that he thinks that he may have cultivated the ability to survive without sleep, that he's actually sharper when he hasn't been sleeping well, that it is an ability, to be able to operate like this. "You're awake and I need to tell you about the plan I came up with last night while you were resting your delicate human form."
"Ah." Lan Zhan rallies himself, pushing back the covers and getting out of bed. He needs a shower. And a strong black tea, as large as he can get. He may be able to handle things then.
"No, listen, you gotta hear this." Wei Ying is bounding out of bed, his foot getting tangled in the covers, which only hampers him slightly as he trails Lan Zhan to the bathroom. "So that guy disappeared, right? Out of nowhere, no clues, no one saw anything, no one knows anything."
"Yes," says Lan Zhan, reaching in to flip on the shower, turning it to hot. "I am aware of the case to which we have been assigned."
"Yeah you are," Wei Ying says promptly, sitting down on the closed toilet seat and drawing his feet up underneath himself. "Of course you are. You pay attention to things. You probably read all the case notes before we even got here."
"Yes." Lan Zhan gives Wei Ying a pointed look, waiting patiently, not looking at the expanse of thigh that Wei Ying seems to have no knowledge he is revealing, or at least no concern about.
"...right," Wei Ying says after a beat. "Right, you don't like shower meetings." He gets to his feet, sidling slowly out the bathroom door.
"No one likes shower meetings," Lan Zhan points out, closing the door with Wei Ying on the other side.
"I like shower meetings," Wei Ying calls through the door. "I do some of my very best thinking in the shower."
"I do know that about you," Lan Zhan murmurs to himself. He watches himself in the mirror as he strips off his sleeping clothes, folding them neatly and stacking them on the counter. He looks tired, he thinks—his eyes have shadows under them and he feels as though he could fall asleep right here.
"Anyway," Wei Ying calls out to him. His voice comes from lower down, like he's settled himself on the floor outside the bathroom door. "I read the case file, too."
Probably what he was doing last night, in lieu of sleeping. Lan Zhan steps into the shower. The water is nicely hot, and he nudges it up even hotter, ducking his head under the spray. It helps. He feels the muscles in his shoulders loosen, and he turns around slowly, letting the spray fall against his back.
He has been partners with Wei Ying for nearly three years now. They work well together. He likes Wei Ying, though it had taken him quite some time to admit that to himself, longer still to admit it to Wei Ying.
Now, however, whatever it is between them works. Wei Ying's brain is unlike anything Lan Zhan has ever experienced. He makes the leaps between ideas as a matter of course, coming up with highly implausible solutions to things that, somehow, quite often are correct. They'd quarreled a lot at first… Well, they still quarrel a lot. But unlike at the start of their unusual partnership, when Wei Ying's enthusiasm, and his constant talking, as well as his apparent inability to maintain any sort of personal space, would chafe against Lan Zhan to a degree that he thought would eventually drive him insane—
Unlike then, they are now settled into what Lan Zhan is still quite often surprised to find is an extraordinarily effective approach to solving cases: Wei Ying comes up with ideas that will surely put them in the way of bodily harm, Lan Zhan figures out an execution thereof that will temper the dangers, and they both throw themselves into the pursuit of solutions with their whole hearts.
They have the highest solve rate in their unit. It pains Lan Zhan's uncle no end that, despite the truly outrageous number of write-ups they both have in their files, the rate of demonic activity in their sector has plummeted by a high enough percentage that he can no longer threaten to fire Wei Ying. (He'd never fire Lan Zhan, but the stony disappointment he radiates at family dinners is punishment enough.)
Lan Zhan tilts his head, hearing Wei Ying's surprisingly melodic whistle over the sound of the water. Wei Ying doesn't notice he's doing it, most of the time, the whistling a distracted background noise to his constant, fascinating, oftentimes frustratingly incomprehensible problem-solving techniques. He pictures Wei Ying curled up against the bathroom door, impatiently waiting for Lan Zhan. He's likely sitting cross-legged, hunched over, appalling for his back. He chews on his thumbnail when he's deep in thought, and Lan Zhan has, himself, gotten distracted watching how he can actually see the way Wei Ying is thinking, the thoughts racing through his brain, reflected in the flickering of his eyes, the crease in his forehead as he ponders. It's fascinating to watch.
Lan Zhan finds a great deal about Wei Ying to be fascinating.
He pushes his face under the spray of the shower, bracing his shoulders, and flipping the water over to cold. He doesn't yelp under the spray, but he does feel the chill of it down to his core.
When he's done, he wraps his towel around his waist, tucks his sleeping clothes under his arm, and opens the door, stepping over Wei Ying where he's sitting against the door jamb, the file of case notes in his hands.
"The guy who disappeared," Wei Ying says, as though no time has passed. "Was he the first one? Or was he just the first one who got us sent to look for him?"
Lan Zhan pauses over his suitcase, pulling out his clothes for the day. "He's the first one," he says.
"Yeah, but, how do you know that?" Wei Ying pushes himself to his feet, slapping the file against his thigh. "I think that whoever's been doing whatever has been happening here has pretty much managed to keep it quiet. I think there's a pattern and we just have to find it."
"Why?" Lan Zhan asks. He glances out the window of the hotel room. The sun is shining but the wind is rushing through the trees, sending them dancing. He pulls a dark sweater out of his bag, adds it to his pile of clothes for the day. "Did you find something in the case notes that indicates that?"
"I think so." Wei Ying says it slowly, dropping to sit on the side of Lan Zhan's bed. "Not exactly, but maybe. It's tickling at the back of my brain. I think we gotta get out there. Take a look around. There's something, and I just can't quite put my finger on it. We've got to investigate."
"Well," Lan Zhan says, "as we are investigators..." He looks at Wei Ying, who is still perched on the side of his bed, staring at Lan Zhan and chewing on his lip, clearly lost in thought. Lan Zhan pointedly moves his hand to where his towel is tucked in against his waist, starting to tug at it.
"Right!" Wei Ying seems to come back to himself with a start, hopping off the bed and making for the bathroom. "I'm not even going to shower. We should get out there. Just let me brush my teeth and throw some clothes on, and I'll be ready. We'll get out there and we will figure this case out, get it sorted, and get back to civilization in no time." He's still talking as the bathroom door bangs shut behind him.
Lan Zhan dresses, swiftly and carefully. Dark sweater, dark pants, white shirt underneath. He ties his hair back on a low bun at the nape of his neck—this is a relatively small town and they will already stand out as strangers. The long hair—traditional for the cultivation field—will just serve to call more attention to themselves, but there is little to be done about it.
The door to the bathroom is flung open and Wei Ying comes out, still tugging his t-shirt over his head. His jeans are clinging to his hips, the slope of his stomach drawing the eye. "Ready!" he announces, emerging from the collar of his shirt. His face is still damp from where he'd apparently washed it, his smile brilliant. He pads his way to the mirror, standing next to Lan Zhan. "You ready? Of course you're ready. Look at you, you're all put together." He's watching Lan Zhan in the mirror as he combs out his hair.
Lan Zhan focuses on packing his bag, making sure he has all the supplies for their day. "Small town," he says.
"Yeah." Wei Ying studies himself critically in the mirror. "We're going to stand out, huh?" He glances at Lan Zhan's low bun, then shakes his head, combing his hair into his usual half-ponytail. It comes out neat, the ponytail finishing in a smooth curl, nearly at the middle of his back. "Nothing for it," he declares. "Come on, let's go solve a mystery!"
Lan Zhan takes his time putting his boots on, making sure they're tied securely. They're thick, ankle-high, and steel-toed. They throw off the cuffs of his pants a bit, but he knows from experience that it's better to be prepared for a chase, or a fight, than to be overly concerned about sartorial needs. He tucks the room key into his pocket, watching as Wei Ying shoves his feet into his sneakers.
"Don't look at me like that," Wei Ying says, from where he's crouched. At least he's tying them securely. "I've told you a million times, the standard issue boots do nothing for me." He pushes himself to his feet, opening the hotel room door with a flourish and gesturing for Lan Zhan to go through. "I have to be quick on my feet. Gotta move, gotta be able to jump. The boots just hold me back."
"I said nothing," Lan Zhan points out, turning to watch Wei Ying tug the door shut behind them.
"I could feel your judgment." Wei Ying taps one finger against his nose, casting Lan Zhan a long look. "It's very powerful, Lan Zhan. You could market it."
They start with breakfast. Wei Ying needs caffeine, and Lan Zhan is aware that he, himself, is a disaster if he doesn't have something to eat to start his day. They seek out a small shop, tucked away on a side street and looking promising, the savory scent pouring out as they make their way in, enticing. Lan Zhan's stomach rumbles and Wei Ying grins at him. "We'll feed you," he says, like a promise. "Get you all ready for your day."
He leans up against the counter, giving a sunny smile to the woman behind the counter. She gives him a stern look, but Lan Zhan can see her mouth turning up as though it's against her will.
"Please, two of the largest oolong teas you can give us," Wei Ying says, fluttering his eyes at her. "We are only two travelers and we are lucky to have found this place."
For all that she's old enough to be Wei Ying's mother, she blushes at his outrageous flirting. Clucking her tongue at him, she says, "And food? You are too skinny. Both of you," she adds, looking over Wei Ying's shoulder and shaking her head at Lan Zhan.
"We are starving." Wei Ying pouts at her outrageously. "What is the best food here, auntie?"
"Ji dan bing," she says, studying him. "It will fill you up."
Wei Ying brightens, propping his chin on his hands. "You're an angel," he says. "Two, please."
"Two each," she says, turning and yelling back at the kitchen.
Wei Ying beams at her, then twists around to look at Lan Zhan. "Excellent spot," he says. "A strong start to the day. I have a good feeling about this. I think we're going to be in and out, wrap this up quick."
"You'll jinx us," Lan Zhan points out, reaching to take one of the teas the woman has placed on the counter.
"Come on, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying takes his own tea from the woman, giving her a smile that makes her roll her eyes, shooing him away with a smile. "You? Me? A mystery to be solved? When we're caffeinated, and well fed, and raring to go?" He drapes an arm over Lan Zhan's shoulders, resting his head on his shoulder for just a moment. "Nothing can stop us."
Lan Zhan can smell Wei Ying's hair, the cherry shampoo he uses. He doesn't shrug him off—he'd learned long ago that that does nothing to dissuade Wei Ying from his inclination towards casual intimacy. Instead, he ignores him, bowing his head at the woman as he reaches to take the pancakes from her, each of them rolled up neatly in their wrapper. She makes eye contact with him, clucking her tongue and shaking her head. "Both of you, eat up," she orders. "Too skinny by far."
"Yes, auntie," Lan Zhan says in agreement, and holds out a pancake towards Wei Ying's face.
Wei Ying immediately extracts himself from around Lan Zhan and grabs it, taking a big bite and moaning ecstatically. "Amazing," he says, swallowing the mouthful. "Perfection. Glorious. Ideal."
"Get out," the woman behind the counter says amiably, waving at them.
"We'll be back!" Wei Ying calls to her, as Lan Zhan steers him out the door. "So long as we don't solve the case today," he adds as an aside to Lan Zhan. "Which we definitely will."
"Jinxing it," Lan Zhan murmurs again, taking a small bite of his own pancake. Wei Ying was correct in his assessment—it really is delicious.
"Me?" Wei Ying says around a mouthful of pancake. "Never."
Lan Zhan gives him a side-eye, but lets it pass. "We should start over in the warehouse section," he says.
"Absolutely." Wei Ying stuffs the last of the second pancake into his mouth, nodding vigorously as he chews. "Schwere ee deefapeer."
Lan Zhan gives him another look.
Wei Ying swallows and wipes his face with the napkin he extracts from his pocket. "It's where he disappeared," he says, clearly this time.
"No talking while eating," Lan Zhan says, ignoring how Wei Ying mouths the words along with him.
"A good rule," Wei Ying declares. "A solid rule. So many good points to it. Cleaner that way. Less of a choking hazard." He slants Lan Zhan a look of his own. "You did it, though," he points out. "You started it, even."
Lan Zhan does not deign to acknowledge that, finishing his first pancake and contemplating his second.
"You did," Wei Yingn says insistently.
Lan Zhan raises one eyebrow the slightest amount, and takes a bite of the second pancake.
"Now you're just doing it on purpose," Wei Ying says, pouting, scuffing his shoes as he walks. "You can't keep up the silent treatment, Lan Zhan. We have a case to solve."
Lan Zhan takes another bite.
"You really are infuriating sometimes," Wei Ying says with a grin. "Do you know that? I think you do know that. It's one of the things I like best about you. Which is really terrible. What have you done to me, Lan Zhan?"
Lan Zhan is silent, waiting until Wei Ying turns around, walking backwards, eyes locked on Lan Zhan. Then Lan Zhan finishes the second pancake in two neat bites and wipes his hands on a handkerchief he extracts from his pocket. "It's where he was last seen," he says. "Not where he disappeared."
"Those are the same thing!" Wei Ying protests, throwing his hands up. "That's the exact same thing."
"It is not," Lan Zhan says, reasonably. "It's actually—"
"Fuck, shit, fuck, augh."
Lan Zhan spins around, off of Wei Ying's wide, terrified eyes, scanning the street behind him. There's nothing, he can't see anything that looks like a threat, and he wonders for a split second if it's something only Wei Ying can sense, maybe it takes resentful energy to perceive. He's got his qiankun bag in his hand, reaching inside for his sword, when he feels Wei Ying clinging to his shoulders, at the same time as he spots a woman walking a dog, less than a block away.
Ah. He turns, taking Wei Ying's shoulders in his hands, turning him around and steering him swiftly down the sidewalk away from the dog.
"Careful," Wei Ying says, his voice frantic, twisting his head back to peer over Lan Zhan's shoulder as he takes stumbling steps forward. "It's close to us, you've got to—"
"Down here." Lan Zhan gets him around the corner quickly, guides him to a closed storefront, both of them stepping into the broad entranceway. He turns, half blocking Wei Ying with his body, and watches as the woman and the dog—medium sized, a nondescript brown color, tail wagging back and forth as it turns its head to gaze up at its owner, cross the street at the corner. "They're gone," he says quietly, over his shoulder to Wei Ying.
Wei Ying's breath is still coming fast, a series of smothered gasps. He's leaning against the wall of the entranceway, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"They're gone," Lan Zhan says again, moving to stand in front of Wei Ying. He takes his shoulders in his hands and Wei Ying's eyes flicker open, his gaze locked on Lan Zhan.
"Right," he says, his voice coming out shaky. "Right, that's—" He shakes his head, laughing hollowly. "Fuck, I'm such a—" He shakes his head again, reaching up to brush Lan Zhan's hands off of his shoulders. "Sorry."
Lan Zhan moves to stand next to Wei Ying, leaning back against the wall. "You have nothing to be sorry about."
Wei Ying laughs again, tilting his head back against the wall. "It's so stupid. Fuck."
"It isn't." Lan Zhan moves so his shoulder is pressed slightly against Wei Ying's.
"It very much is," Wei Ying shoots back before the words are fully out of Lan Zhan's mouth. "I hate it."
Lan Zhan shrugs, listening as Wei Ying's breath slowly starts to come back to normal. "We all have something," he says.
"Yeah, but are they all as stupid as my thing?" Wei Ying says bitterly. He pushes himself off the wall, pressing his hands against his face for a second before letting them drop. "Okay. Fuck. Warehouse district, right? Which way?" He hovers in the doorway, his gaze darting over towards where the woman and the dog have long since disappeared.
"To the right," Lan Zhan says, glad to be able to honestly say that it's away from where the dog had gone.
"Great," Wei Ying says shortly. "Let's go then."
They stride the few blocks over in silence. It never takes Wei Ying very long to shake off the embarrassment he has over his traumatic response when things like this happen. Lan Zhan doesn't know the history, not in any detail, only that the deep, uncontrollable fear of dogs—any dog, any size, any breed—that Wei Ying harbors is based on something that happened in his childhood, and overruns any strength of will that Wei Ying seems to so strongly believe should be able to overcome it.
By the time they edge up to the series of sprawling warehouses on the outskirts of the town, Wei Ying's shoulders have loosened, and he's whistling a bit to himself as they peer around the corner. "I don't know why we're being so careful," he says quietly, glancing at Lan Zhan before stepping forward. "It's not like this is an alien abduction site and they're going to snatch us, too. Whoever they are. If there's even anybody."
Lan Zhan follows as Wei Ying paces closer to the warehouse. "We only know that this was the last place he was seen," he points out quietly. "But the initial search showed unusual energy traces that they were unable to identify."
"Which is where I come in." Wei Ying reaches the warehouse, where there is a gated entryway, hatched over with a protection spell to keep people out. "You want an expert on weird energy, you call Wei Ying." He crooks his mouth in a grin as he reaches out and disarms the spell—which was quite complex, Lan Zhan can see that from here, how it was woven with dexterity, layer upon layer of talisman—with a sharp, swift movement, dissolving it in an instant. "Should we check it out?" he says over his shoulder, then disappears into the warehouse.
Lan Zhan follows, close on his heels.
The warehouse is dim, and cavernous, and distinctly colder than the mild weather outside. The chill is something Lan Zhan feels in his lungs, an ache that makes him want to tuck his arms around himself. He keeps them loose, though, ready to reach for his qiankun bag at a moment's notice.
"Over here." Wei Ying's voice echoes, getting lost in the faraway ceiling looming high above them. He's moved swiftly, and silently, making his way to a spot on the other side of the warehouse floor. Lan Zhan moves forward just as quickly, a formless anxiety making him want to stay close to Wei Ying, closer than proper procedure dictates—they should be establishing a perimeter, they should be scoping the warehouse out fully before further investigation.
"Here," Wei Ying says again, quietly, as Lan Zhan reaches his side. Despite the low tone, his words still echo uncomfortably in the silent warehouse. "Do you see it?"
"No." Lan Zhan takes his sword out, even though he sees nothing, just a cracked cement floor, crusted over with dust and debris. There's no threat here, no immediate danger, but his heart rate is up, and he moves in a careful circle, his back to Wei Ying, ready for anything, for whatever it is that has, somehow, drawn them here, to where the danger lies. He's so sure of it, and they should go, they should get out. They should never have come here without back-up, should possibly never have come here at all.
"Weird energy, all right." Wei Ying's tone is absent, as he crouches down, studying the spot on the ground where nothing is, nothing at all. "They weren't wrong about that. It's not exactly resentful, though." He leans closer, like he's smelling it, his forehead creased with thought. "It shouldn't be a big deal to get it to dissipate." He frowns, tugging a sheaf of talisman paper out of his pocket. "But it's like..." He shakes his head, still studying the ground in front of him. "It doesn't even want to be here. You can't feel that?" He looks up at Lan Zhan. "Hey," he says, pushing himself to his feet. "What's up?"
Lan Zhan, his sword held at the ready up by his shoulder, doesn't look at Wei Ying. "Something," he says shortly.
"Yeah, I'm getting that." Wei Ying does a scan of the warehouse, then looks back at Lan Zhan. "What do we do?"
Lan Zhan thinks through and discards a handful of plans in the space of an instant. "Take care of that," he says, nodding down at the spot on the ground where there is nothing, absolutely nothing, just nondescript cement and dust. "And then we get out."
"You got it." Wei Ying drops to one knee, biting at his finger until he draws blood. His chosen method, though there are other ways that have been developed, cleaner ways, less traumatic ways. ("They like the trauma," he's explained cheerfully to Lan Zhan, time and again. "And the fresh blood.") Lan Zhan can see his hands moving from the corner of his eye, as he turns again in a circle around Wei Ying, eyeing the perimeter, where there is—again—nothing. No movement. No threat.
Wei Ying flings the talisman at the nondescript spot, rising to his feet as he does so. The dissipation of energy is always the strangest feeling, like the air pressure in the room going up, an uneasy, unsettled feeling. Lan Zhan has the taste of metal on his tongue, and his hands are slick with sweat where they clutch at his sword.
"C'mon," Wei Ying says, brushing by Lan Zhan and nudging him towards the door. "You said it: now we get out."
The day has not changed outside—and why would it? They've been gone for a handful of minutes. No reason for the sky to have changed, for the sunlight to have shifted, for the morning to have bled into afternoon.
"You good?" Wei Ying is looking at Lan Zhan steadily. "What happened in there?"
Lan Zhan takes a breath. "Nothing." He stashes his sword away in his qiankun bag, shakes out his hands.
"Yeah, but." Wei Ying moves closer. "That was weird, right?"
"Yes." Lan Zhan's brain is still whirling from the formless anxiety the warehouse had been imbued with. "I think—" He shakes his head. "What was that energy?"
"Something super weird," Wei Ying says cheerfully, rocking back on his heels. "I didn't recognize it. We need to do some research. Come on, Lan Zhan, you love some research. Let's head back to town, yeah? You think a town this small has a library? It has to, don't you think?" Wei Ying strides towards the corner of the warehouse, back the way they'd come. "We do some research, we get some tea, we figure things out. It's what we do." He flashes Lan Zhan a smile, hooking his hand on the warehouse wall and swinging himself around the corner.
There's a screech of brakes, an unholy sound of flesh meeting metal, and Wei Ying comes flying back into vision, his body flung forward by the impact of the car that has hit him. He tumbles along the cement, comes to a stop, his body crumpled, his legs bent in ways they should not be. The car that has hit him stops, a woman clambering out, her face looking horrified. "I didn't see him," she says. "I didn't see him. I didn't see him. There's never anyone here! I was just practicing. I didn't see him."
Lan Zhan can barely hear her over the thunderous echo of the impact resonating in his ears. He's on his knees beside Wei Ying, doesn't remember moving. He can't breathe. He can barely see. Wei Ying's eyes are open, a blank stare up to the cloudless sky. The blood pouring from his head is so, so red, glinting in the sun. He doesn't move, not when Lan Zhan's hand grabs his shoulder, not when Lan Zhan calls his name, not when Lan Zhan reaches for a pulse that isn't there.
"I didn't see him," the woman says again, crumpling to the ground beside Lan Zhan. "No one was supposed to be here."
Lan Zhan stares at Wei Ying's blank eyes and something crumbles in his chest.
***
"Oh, good, you're awake!"
Lan Zhan opens his eyes. Wei Ying is sitting up on his bed, directly next to Lan Zhan's in the small hotel room, his eyes bright and expectant. He's still in his rumpled sleeping clothes, his long hair tangled around his shoulders.
Lan Zhan is out of his own bed in an instant, dragging Wei Ying up to standing, clutching at his shoulders, staring at his bright, curious eyes. "Wei Ying," he says, or tries to, because his name gets caught in his throat.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying responds, staring at him. "You're awake and, uh, a little weird, but listen, I need to tell you about the plan I came up with last night while you were resting your delicate human form."
Lan Zhan's head hurts. His fingers ache where they're digging into Wei Ying's shoulders—where Wei Ying is here, alive, in front of him, none the worse for wear. He blinks, and blinks again, trying to shake away the image of Wei Ying's blank stare, the blood pouring from his head, the echo of the woman saying, over and over again, No one was supposed to be here.
"No, you have to hear this." Wei Ying doesn't seem bothered by the intensity of Lan Zhan's stare, the grip he has on him. "So that guy disappeared, right? Out of nowhere, no clues, no one saw anything, no one knows anything. Okay, listen, you've got to let me go, just a little, okay? I can't explain things if you won't let me move around."
Lan Zhan eases his hold on Wei Ying, taking a step back. He contemplates crawling back into bed, pulling the covers up over his head. His brain feels as though it's rattling around inside his skull. His heart is beating too hard, too fast. He can't stop looking at Wei Ying: whole, real, in front of him. Alive.
Had it been a dream? It must have been a dream. A vivid, upsetting dream. What on earth had he eaten before bed last night? He needs a shower. A cold one, perhaps, to snap himself out of the memory of the dream. His eyes feel gritty, raw, the way they do when he hasn't had enough sleep.
"The guy who disappeared," Wei Ying says, trailing him to the bathroom. "Was he the first one? Or was he just the first one who got us sent to look for him?"
Lan Zhan reaches in to flip on the shower, turning it to hot, thinking about it for a moment, then flipping it back to cold. "He's the first one," he says, looking at himself in the mirror, then over his shoulder at where Wei Ying is perched on the closed toilet seat, legs pulled up underneath himself, watching Lan Zhan expectantly in the mirror. He has, again, the moment of Wei Ying's face—bright, alert, as familiar to Lan Zhan as his own—being overlaid with the bloodied, vacant, damaged one from his dream.
It had to have been a dream.
"...right," Wei Ying says after a beat. "Right, you don't like shower meetings." He gets to his feet, sidling slowly out the bathroom door.
"No one likes shower meetings," Lan Zhan points out, it feeling rote, like a game they're playing, this back-and-forth familiar. Overly so.
"I like shower meetings," Wei Ying calls as he shuts the door behind himself. "I do some of my very best thinking in the shower."
"I do know that about you." This, too, feels like a call-and-response game, a dance they've done before. He feels so strange this morning. It's the dream. He can't shake the dream.
***
"Caffeine first," Wei Ying declares as they make their way down the street. He'd not deigned to shower, just rinsed his face, though he'd combed his hair up into a neat half-ponytail. The edges of his hair are still damp from where he'd splashed his face. "And some food for you, so you're not a human nightmare."
Lan Zhan can't argue that point. He always needs food in the morning, first thing.
"I think that whoever's been doing whatever has been happening has pretty much managed to keep it quiet," Wei Ying says cheerfully. "I think there's a pattern and we just have to find it."
"Did you find something in the case notes that indicates that?" Lan Zhan's head aches. Perhaps he needs caffeine, as well. Something that will wake him up, that will stop this feeling of everything being so familiar.
"I think so." Wei Ying says it slowly. "Not exactly, but maybe. It's tickling at the back of my brain. I think we gotta get out there. Take a look around. There's something, and I just can't quite put my finger on it. We've got to investigate."
"Well," Lan Zhan says, even as the words feel like a quotation, like someone else has written them for him and it's up to him to parrot them. "As we are investigators..."
"Oooh, here, this looks promising." Wei Ying tugs Lan Zhan to a stop by a small shop. He's not wrong: the savory scent pouring out of the shop door is, indeed, enticing. Wei Ying opens the door with a flourish, holding it for Lan Zhan and gesturing him through grandly.
Wei Ying flirts outrageously with the woman behind the counter. She's old enough to be his mother. Lan Zhan finds himself staring at her familiar face, finds himself searching for some flicker of recognition in her eyes.
She makes them take two servings of ji dan bing each, clucking over how skinny both of them are.
Wei Ying beams at her, then twists around to look at Lan Zhan. "Excellent spot," he says. "A strong start to the day. I have a good feeling about this. I think we're going to be in and out, wrap this up quick."
"You'll jinx us," Lan Zhan says, and feels his heart drop into his stomach, freezing as he's reaching to take the tea the woman behind the counter is pointing to. He can't move, can't draw a breath, hears, viscerally, the sound of metal meeting flesh, sees the roll of Wei YIng's body across the pavement.
He thinks he may be sick.
"You okay?" The woman is staring at him, then over his shoulder at Wei Ying. "Is your friend okay?" she demands.
"He's good, he's fine." Wei Ying claps a hand on Lan Zhan's shoulder, and Lan Zhan is able to take a painful breath, the air burning in his throat. He swallows, tasting metal, and that, too, is so familiar that he feels, again, as though he may be ill. "Let's get some food into you, some tea, you'll be golden. Thank you, auntie!" He gives the woman a bright grin, sunny enough that it feels as though it lights up the shop.
"You want to sit for a second?" Wei Ying asks as he tugs Lan Zhan out of the shop. "Yeah, let's sit, I think it's a good idea. It was a late night for you. You're never good when you stay up past your bedtime." Wei Ying's tone is easy, but he's keeping his eyes fastened on Lan Zhan as he chatters. "Come here, I have a good spot for us."
They pull up under a tree, Lan Zhan allowing Wei Ying to guide him to lean against it. Maybe Wei Ying is right. He'd slept poorly, and not enough, and the overly-vivid dream had left him thrown.
"Here, tea." Wei Ying presses the cup into Lan Zhan's hand. "And food. You want food? I want food. These smell amazing. They're going to cure every problem we've ever had, I'm sure of it." He leans comfortably next to Lan Zhan, waiting until Lan Zhan has taken a sip of tea before handing him one of the pancakes. The scent of it makes Lan Zhan's stomach growl, and Wei Ying grins, shoving his own pancake into his mouth. "Told you," he says through his mouthful.
"No talking," Lan Zhan murmurs, "while eating." He ignores the way that, too, feels familiar—of course it does, he's chastised Wei Ying with it often enough.
They eat swiftly, and Lan Zhan watches the clouds as they skitter across the sky, and counts Wei Ying's breaths beside him.
"Warehouse district," Wei Ying declares, pushing off of the tree and dusting his hands off. "It's where he disappeared."
"It's where he was last seen," Lan Zhan points out, taking another sip of tea before pushing off the tree himself. "Not where he disappeared."
"Those are the same thing!" Wei Ying protests, throwing his hands up. "That's the exact same thing."
"It is not," Lan Zhan says, reasonably. "It's actually—"
"Fuck, shit, fuck, augh."
Lan Zhan grabs Wei Ying's shoulders, spinning him around and steering him down the sidewalk away from the woman walking the dog.
"Careful," Wei Ying says, his voice frantic, twisting his head back to peer over Lan Zhan's shoulder as he takes stumbling steps forward. "It's close to us, you have to—"
"Here," Lan Zhan says. There's an empty storefront, and he pushes Wei Ying up against the door. "They'll pass by. They're not coming this way."
"You don't know that, you can't know that, they were right—" Wei Ying is trying to peer over Lan Zhan's shoulder, where he's blocking Wei Ying in with his body.
"They'll keep going." Lan Zhan keeps his voice steady. "They're not coming down this street."
"You can't—" Wei Ying pushes forward, and Lan Zhan allows him to see around the edge of the storefront, where the woman and her dog—his tail high, and wagging, looking neither left nor right, but moving forward as though he's on a mission—are just now disappearing onto the next block. "Okay," he says, his voice coming out shaky. "Right, that's—" He shakes his head, laughing hollowly. "Fuck, I'm such a—" He shakes his head again, reaching up to brush Lan Zhan's hands off of his shoulders. "Sorry."
Lan Zhan's heart is hammering like he's the one with the trauma response. "You have nothing to be sorry about." It echoes in his mouth, in his throat. These words have been written for him before.
Wei Ying laughs again, tilting his head back against the wall. "It's so stupid. Fuck."
"It isn't." Lan Zhan moves so his shoulder is pressed slightly against Wei Ying's. He'll always do this. He'll always be here for Wei Ying.
"It very much is," Wei Ying shoots back before the words are fully out of Lan Zhan's mouth. "I hate it."
Lan Zhan listens as Wei Ying's breath slowly starts to come back to normal, counting each breath, watching his chest rise and fall. "We all have something," he says, and these words are too familiar, as well.
"Yeah, but are they all as stupid as my thing?" Wei Ying says bitterly. He pushes himself off the wall, pressing his hands against his face for a second before letting them drop. "Okay. Fuck. Warehouse district, right? Which way?" He hovers in the doorway, his gaze darting over towards where the woman and the dog have long since disappeared.
"No," Lan Zhan says, sudden and alarmed.
Wei Ying looks at him, startled out of his self-conscious shame. "It's where he disappeared," he says, then corrects himself, "Where he was last seen. You said so yourself. We should start there."
"No." Lan Zhan intends for it to come out firmly, but his voice shakes, and Wei Ying is looking at him oddly. He's fucking this up. He doesn't know what he's doing, he just knows that images from the dream last night are hitting him over and over again, and that everything that has happened since he woke up this morning is overly familiar. He doesn't know what's going on. He doesn't believe in dream interpretation, can't take it as a warning, but— "We're going to approach this in a different way."
"I—okay." Wei Ying looks at him, and reaches to rest his hands on Lan Zhan's shoulders, a mirror of the way Lan Zhan had held onto him when he was panicking. "Sure. I trust you." He flashes Lan Zhan a brilliant smile. "Where to?"
"This way." Lan Zhan gestures down the street, the opposite route from the warehouse. "The initial search showed unusual energy traces that they were unable to identify."
"Which is where I come in." Wei Ying says. "You want an expert on weird energy, you call Wei Ying."
Lan Zhan stumbles over his own feet. This can't keep happening. What is happening?
"Come on, Lan Zhan, keep up!" Wei Ying looks over his shoulder at him as he steps onto the street. "You want to look for weird energy? I got you. Let's just—" He trips, lurching forward, and disappears from view with a sharp, cut-off yell.
Lan Zhan doesn't remember moving, doesn't make a decision to do so. He's just there, between one moment and the next, staring down into the open manhole cover, at the crumpled, silent, unmoving form of Wei Ying. His neck is at an awful angle and his eyes are open, a blank stare up, no life behind them.
He doesn't move, not when Lan Zhan calls his name, his voice breaking horribly. Not when Lan Zhan falls to his knees, his fingers clutching at the edge of the hole, staring down at what once was Wei Ying. The world tilts around him. This is familiar. How can this be familiar?