Chapter Text
When the thugs drag Wang Zhi out into the courtyard, Sui Zhou assumes that’s who they're here for. Sui Zhou hasn't been involved in anything that could lead to gangs of armed men breaking into his house, and to his knowledge, the most exciting cases Tang Fan has been investigating recently are the disappearance of a tailor's favorite hen and a neighborly dispute about plum trees. Somebody, Sui Zhou assumes, must have followed him and Wang Zhi when they made their way here, Wang Zhi's thick covering of mud from his fall into the potter's pit an insufficient disguise from the spies of whatever enemy was waiting for his chance.
Wang Zhi has finished his bath and shed his coating of mud, but his hair is still wet and falling in loose tangles around his shoulders and down his back. He's barefoot, wearing only white underpants and an underrobe that does not fit him (Sui Zhou's?) and hangs open about his chest. His face is completely blank, locked into slightly sullen impassivity that – to Sui Zhou – looks like he is plotting the slow, painful death of everyone in the courtyard.
Sui Zhou thinks, with the cold, detached focus of combat, that he will be able to use the distraction of Wang Zhi's death to free himself from the grip of the men holding him on his knees. These people are no more than thugs; the way they have positioned themselves around the yard is far from ideal, and their leader is the only one with a military posture. Most of them are armed with knives only. Of course, Sui Zhou is not armed at all right now – but one of the men behind him has a sword, and is holding it at Sui Zhou's throat, conveniently within reach. And once he has a sword... once he is free and has a sword, he will kill them all.
And he knows, with a tangled rush of steel-cold emotion that rises into his throat to choke him like blood, that he will never forgive Wang Zhi for being careless enough to get himself killed like this: by a band of common thugs, barefoot and with his hair undone, in Sui Zhou's house, in front of Sui Zhou.
But then the thug manhandling Wang Zhi laughs, pulling him up short in the middle of the courtyard and turning him to face the gang's leader. His hand is clenched around the back of Wang Zhi's neck as though he's holding an unruly puppy. He even shakes him a little. "Look what I found in Baihu Sui's bedroom. It's a boy!"
Wang Zhi offers no resistance, obligingly moving where he is pushed. His expression is closed tighter than the gates of the inner palace. Sui Zhou is the one who blinks, because – it's a boy?
A dizzying wave of relief washes over him a split second later. Whoever these people are, they have no idea who Wang Zhi is. They are here for Sui Zhou. They are still a danger to them both, of course, and if Tang Fan comes home now, the situation will get even worse. And yet, he is relieved, because now, there is a chance that Sui Zhou will not have to watch Wang Zhi die this day.
The thugs break into jeers and lewd suggestions, jumping straight to the most obvious and, at the same time, most utterly wrong explanation for Wang Zhi's presence. It's fortunate Wang Zhi was able to get partially dressed; even these men would probably have thought a bit further if they'd realized the "boy" they'd found was a eunuch. Even as it is, Sui Zhou cannot help but feel that they are inexcusable fools for looking at Wang Zhi, of all people, and seeing a harmless bed warmer.
Yes, Wang Zhi is half-naked, his hair is indecent, and Sui Zhou's borrowed robe is now threatening to slide from one of his shoulders. But it isn't the dragon-embroidered robes of office that make him a man to be reckoned with, and the calculating sharpness of his gaze is exactly the same as ever. An opponent who assessed Sui Zhou with that kind of steely, assured patience... that was an opponent he would take very seriously, regardless of their state of dress or how young and attractive they might be.
"Who'd have thought." The thugs' leader is a large, athletic man with a nose flattened by many fights, chest broad as a barrel and banded with muscle. His clothing is a cut above his men's in quality, but just as bare of seals or insignia. His sword is of middling quality, and not military issue. A mercenary, a gang leader, or someone's private enforcer? "Our strict and haughty baihu is neglecting his duties to run home and fuck pretty boys in the middle of the day. Not such a paragon of virtue after all, are we?"
Whoever he is, he now steps forward and looks Wang Zhi up and down, leering demonstratively. Behind him, Wang Zhi lifts his gaze to Sui Zhou and raises his brows the slightest fraction.
So he doesn't know who sent these men, either. Not surprising, really, considering it's becoming more and more obvious they hold some kind of grudge against Sui Zhou, even if he's never seen them before. "What do you want?" Sui Zhou asks again, only to be summarily ignored, just as before. The blade at his neck presses closer, nicking his skin, and the men holding him on his knees twist his arms a little bit higher on his back.
"A little old, maybe," the leader chuckles, and reaches out to grip the second most dangerous man in the empire by the chin and lift up his face. Sui Zhou jerks a little at the insane audacity of it, and has to stifle a gasp as he wrenches his arms. "He does have a lovely mouth, though. What's your name, pretty boy?"
Wang Zhi narrows his eyes at the man, cold and deadly as winter in the steppe. "What's yours?"
And in that moment, to his horror, Sui Zhou realizes that the idiot thug is right about something, after all. Wang Zhi does have a lovely mouth – the type of mouth seen on every idealized portrait of fabled beauties, sweet and full and rosebud-shaped.
This was not something he needed to know about the Commander of the Western Depot. Sui Zhou is a great believer in the strategic restriction of knowledge, and this... this is dangerous knowledge that he did not need.
Head Thug chuckles again. He turns a bit more to the side, giving Sui Zhou a grin full of malice as he slowly and deliberately rubs his thumb over Wang Zhi's lower lip. Wang Zhi does not react; does not move at all, frozen into waiting stillness. "You like them spirited, huh?"
Sui Zhou does like them spirited. What he does not like is the speculative glint in the thug's eye. The situation is now well on its way to becoming the kind of horror worthy of joining the slaughter and devastation in his nightmares. Wang Zhi will not break, he knows that. Not for something like this; not for anything this man could possibly do. But Sui Zhou –
"He has nothing to do with this." There is too much venom in his voice, but there's nothing he can do to stop it. "Lock him up in the house, and we can talk."
It's a strategic error – he knows it as soon as the words leave his mouth. The look of disgust Wang Zhi levels at him is subtle, but scorching, and Sui Zhou wants to swallow everything back down when it's already far too late, and the thug is watching him with a cruel, knowing smirk.
"But then how would I get you to behave, huh? And besides, your little whore is so nice to look at." He turns back to Wang Zhi, thumbing his lip again, more slowly. "I want to keep him around. In fact, you know what? I want to watch this pretty mouth suck someone. Who it will be... well. That's up to you, Baihu Sui."
He doesn't know what to do.
His heart skips into a panicked rush, and he fights for breath as his blood turns to shards of ice. This is going terribly wrong, and he doesn't know how to stop it, how to protect – Wang Zhi should not have to endure this. Nobody should. He's bright and sharp and cunning, but he can be hurt just as easily as anyone, and Sui Zhou – it's his job to protect him, he wants to, it's up to him, but he doesn't know how –
Desperation claws at his guts, tearing him open, spilling him out onto black and rotten ground. Bloodied bodies and abandoned swords and the reek of the battlefield rise all around. Nausea climbs his throat as he struggles to breathe without gagging on the stench of death. And Wang Zhi – he's – Sui Zhou can't protect him. He can't protect anyone. Not when it truly counts. He is -
Wang Zhi makes an odd, quiet sound and drops straight to the ground, right out of the thug's grip. Sui Zhou's head is swimming so badly he can hardly focus, the air thin and cold in his lungs and the wrenching pain in his arms almost too distant to notice. What...? Something is happening, he needs to – Wang Zhi. He has to protect -
Something is happening. Wang Zhi is crawling across the courtyard on his hands and knees, the open robe dragging across the dirt. His gaze is locked on Sui Zhou with fierce focus, and something is wrong with his expression. Sui Zhou can't really focus right now, but if he didn't know better, he'd almost think that he looks worried.
By the time Wang Zhi is in front of him, Sui Zhou can breathe again, and the darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision is receding. Nobody has tried to stop Wang Zhi, and when Sui Zhou tears his eyes away from him for a second, he finds the thugs' leader openly ogling his ass.
Nobody tries to stop Wang Zhi even when he reaches Sui Zhou and curls into him, pressing his face into Sui Zhou's neck. His damp hair is cool against Sui Zhou's cheek, his breath hot on his throat. Sui Zhou's heart skips another beat, but this time the reason his breath comes shorter is just confusion, and maybe the fact that he's never been this close to Wang Zhi, or to anyone he wasn't sleeping with.
Without thinking at all, Sui Zhou tries to put an arm around Wang Zhi, but of course the thugs behind him don't let him. Wang Zhi puts his arms around him, instead, draped lightly over the thugs' hold.
The sword at Sui Zhou's throat is gone. He doesn't remember when it was taken away. He also doesn't know what his part in this is meant to be, so he does nothing, and holds himself ready.
"Looks like our little whore has a preference," the thugs' leader drawls. "Alright then, let's start there. I'm not a bad guy, you know."
If he says anything more, Sui Zhou misses it, because Wang Zhi is shivering a little. It's the cold; winter has yet to give way to spring, and it's nowhere near warm enough to be outside in underwear. Wang Zhi's exposed nipples are drawn to tiny, pink points, and Sui Zhou stares at them for too long and knows it; can only hope Wang Zhi doesn't care. It fits into the show he's putting on, anyway.
He smells like Tang Fan's bath salts, and the herbs Sui Zhou packs between his robes to keep away insects, and something more subtle and more alluring. And that is when, with the worst timing in the world, Sui Zhou realizes that the low thrum of heat awakening in his belly is not the result of the situation and an attractive young man practically rubbing himself against him. It doesn't even have that much to do with Wang Zhi's lovely mouth and handsome face, or his moon-pale, sleekly muscled body. It's that it's Wang Zhi, and that Sui Zhou knows he has a plan, and that the cool, narrow-eyed look he gave the thugs' leader earlier was akin to a death sentence, and that nobody in this courtyard is as dangerous as he. Nobody in this city, perhaps. Nobody in this whole damn country.
Sui Zhou has always admired competence.
Wang Zhi draws back a little so he can climb into Sui Zhou's lap, facing him and straddling his legs. He catches Sui Zhou's eyes and flicks his gaze down, imperious – an order. And Sui Zhou realizes that there is a hardness pressing against the outside of his leg that should definitely not be there.
A knife. There is a knife strapped to Wang Zhi's inner thigh.
His head clears immediately. A moment later, when Wang Zhi does something that makes the thug behind him bellow and release Sui Zhou's sword arm, Sui Zhou is ready. The knife slides into his hand eagerly, as though they'd practiced this, and the second thug falls back with a gurgling cry, blood spurting from beneath the hand he has pressed to his throat.
The memory of warmth and soft skin lingers on Sui Zhou's fingertips long after he has abandoned the knife for a sword – even when the courtyard has fallen silent again in the aftermath of the clashing weapons and hoarse cries of battle.