I just want warm comfort fits with lots of cuddles to balance the emotional devastation I’m sure to experience in the later episodes. 😭
Hi anon!! I hope this fulfills your request ^^ (things are starting to ramp up in the drama huh)
On the surface, their dynamic goes like this: Haiyan is the one running headfirst into situations while Haixia stands behind him, taking stock of the situation, watching his back, waiting to catch him if he falls. Haiyan is the one who refuses to memorise codes, pushing the book towards Haixia with a cocksure expression, one full of dependance and reliance, secure in his belief that Haixia would never be more than five feet away from him.
(Haixia once believed that too.)
The press laud his ability to analyse, to keep his calm under fire, to keep Zhang Haiyan in check. They call him reliable, the perfect picture of what an inspector who upholds justice should be, a foil to Zhang “Sea Plague” Haiyan’s chaotic manner of handling cases and disputes.
But what they don’t understand is as much as Haiyan is as much of his tether as Haixia is to him. Perhaps even more.
(Where would he be, without Haiyan slamming his door open in the mornings, dragging him out of bed for noodles at Uncle Fu’s street stall, without Haiyan declaring with a smirk and a self-assured nod that he would get the information out of the enemy, trading barbs with Shifu after they get caught and punished?
What a dull, colourless life would that be.)
Haixia scoffs, amused by his own sentimentality. It isn’t like him to be so affected by a stray comment or two—how many insults have they endured over the years, working at the Supervisory Office—he should know better.
Still, he pulls a slumbering Haiyan closer against him, burying his head into his hair to breathe him in.
“It’s nothing,” Haixia hums, reveling in the warmth of Haiyan’s body, his steady heartbeat underneath his palm. “Go to sleep.”
It’s handy, his keen sense of smell and ability to differentiate them. To see without sight, to pick out where their enemies are situated and what might lie behind trapdoors and inside chests. On an average day, however, it can get overwhelming, the melting pot of aromas a market can be; full of fresh produce from the mountains and the seas and hawkers selling roasted chestnuts, pancakes, and the such.
Out of the dizzing array of scents though, there is always one that he can pick out with pinpoint accuracy.
One that separates itself from the rest, smelling of gunpowder and smoke and reckless choices, the smell of the sea clinging relentlessly on his skin, his hair, an underlying stench of blood under their nails that they've long since given up on scrubbing away—they've scrubbed themselves raw and pink and then resigned themselves to carrying death with them.
(Most of all, though, Haiyan smells like home. Like the morning sunlight splayed across their sheets on lazy mornings, waking to the familiar scent of magnolia that Shifu lines their corridor with, bright and comforting and warm.)
Haiyan had taken to smoking, to drinking to mask the scent of death on his hands in Balai—which worked for him, but not for Haixia, who could still pick out the different odors that he carried back—ink and sea spray and sweat, he was fine with. But overpowering those would be the pungent odor of cigarette smoke, smelling of gambling parlors and pleasure houses that they busted.
It frustrated Haixia to no end, trying to sniff out Haiyan’s scent underneath the layers of smoke.
“What are you, a dog?” Haiyan elbows him—attempts to, at least—twisting around in his hold to face him.
Haixia lifts a brow, drumming his fingers against the chair.
“I know you have a good nose, so why are you sniffing like that?”
“Why do you think?” Haixia retorts, flicking his forehead. He should stuff Haiyan into the bath, that should work. “You smoke too much.”
Some days, he misses their old home.
Their safe haven in Xiacheng, which allowed for slow days and less petty disputes to dissolve, where Haixia could slowly wake to Haiyan’s legs tangled with his, breathing in comfort and sea salt, to their Shifu rousing them with a (literal) pot and pan and a hand on her hip, grumbling about picking the laziest disciples to train.
Some days, Haixia would bury his head into the back of Haiyan’s neck and wonder how he’d ever thought he could live in Guangchuan without him.
(He remembers the exact moment, the horror that had filled him when Haiyan announced that he was going to Balongzhou, the surety that had come in the next, that if Haiyan was going to Balai, so was he.)
Balai was decent—it wasn’t as dangerous as he’d thought—the locals were welcoming, their colleagues easy to work with, but it wasn’t Xiacheng, where he could find Shifu down the hallway or up on the roof, there wasn’t the garden wall that he and Haiyan scaled as teenagers to escape the wrath of their Shifu, or Uncle Fu’s noodles across the street.
(How long would it be before they were able to return? How much would Xiacheng have changed without them? Haixia tries not to dwell on the topic too much.)
"Xiazai," Hailou says, forehead pressed against his, their breaths mingling in the space between them.
"Hm?" Haixia cracks open an eye, straining to make out Haiyan's expression in the dark, placing a hand on his cheek.
A pause, he sees the conflict in his eyes, thoughts flickering across his face—Haiyan didn't often say what he truly felt, taking for granted that Haixia could guess at his thoughts, but in the rare occasions that he did—
"It's nice that you're here."
Those words, whispered in the dark of the night, tapering off towards the end as Haiyan turns his head away in embarrassment causes a smile to spread across Haixia's face, fondness blooming in his chest as he closes the remaining distance between them, wishing he could stuff the other man into his heart, meld him into his own body, but he contents himself with holding Haiyan in his arms, matching his breaths.
Wherever Haiyan went, he would follow.
still accepting requests!
