Chapter Text
Jian Yi and Zhan Zheng Xi sat in the back of a He family car and tried their damndest to avoid looking at one another. They were under strict orders, the two of them and the driver, to ensure no fucking took place in the backseat. “If they start,” He Cheng had stated, “you have permission to crash the car.” Every thirty seconds the driver peeked at them in the rearview mirror, his expression equal parts anxious and apologetic. Every thirty seconds Jian Yi looked back and telepathically swore at him with all the vehemence he could muster.
They were stuck in traffic. Drunk off their asses on the evening of their wedding, and they were spending this time in the musty heat of a car sealed up for their own safety, cars on either side of them for the last half an hour. If only the driver wasn’t a rookie try-hard with a stick of honest practice shoved up his ass. If only Zhan Zheng Xi would stop looking out the goddamned piece of shit window and try to scheme with him for once.
“I’m hot!” Jian Yi announced. He had done this twice before already. The air was on its coldest setting, the fans on full blast, but they were only equipped in the front of the car, meaning if he wanted fresh, cool air he had to scrounge for what flowed over the middle console, which meant he had to get closer to Zhan Zheng Xi, which would mean he could smell Zhan Zheng Xi, and perhaps even feel his heat, and probably Zhan Zheng Xi would even look at him, and then, really, Jian Yi would have no choice but to attack…someone. “Air!” Jian Yi begged, “I need air!”
“Everything is turned up as high as I can turn it up, sir.”
“It’s death then.”
“No one is dying,” Zhan Zheng Xi murmured, chin settled in the palm of his hand.
“Not true, Xixi,” Jian Yi said, glad to have heard his husband’s voice for the first time since they’d entered the vehicle, even if it was for the sake of contradicting him. “Don’t tell anyone but-” forgetting himself, he leaned over so he was closer to the ear Zhan Zheng Xi had turned toward him. Here he was met with a fresh stream of sweet, cool, Zhan Zheng Xi scented air. Dewy grass and freesia. Well-worn clothing and salt. If the burst of cool air improved his mood, the effect was canceled out by a sudden surge of adrenaline. He wanted to punch the seat in front of him. He wanted to strip. “I’m going to give Baby Driver five more minutes,” he whispered, “before I get out of this car and slaughter anyone currently between us and a bed.”
“Mn,” was what Zhan Zheng Xi had to say to that, followed by, “inappropriate.” Jian Yi didn’t even get to watch the tip of his ear redden, given he’d been flushed since they started drinking five hours ago.
His eyes danced to the left and yet again met those of the driver, who looked even more nervous now. It wasn’t a cute look on him. He wasn’t a cute man quite frankly. He was too tall for the vehicle, slouched over the wheel a bit, and occasionally he’d shift in his seat, the kind of back and forth wiggle that’s typical of those who have knee pain they can’t find relief for. The movement would reveal the line of sweat just under the neckline of his suit jacket. All of these things might have made the driver seem young if it wasn’t for the haircut, a short and uniform trim indicating he might have served recently, and the wrinkles around his mouth. This was someone who was used to feeling unhappy, who had witnessed enough in his life to recognize how frail and fleeting joy could be. If he was nervous it wasn’t a product of inexperience, but rather a product of working for the He family. They had placed fear into this man’s heart at some point and, now, into his backseat. It would be interesting, Jian Yi thought, to see what kind of response sat beneath this man’s nerves.
“Driver!” he barked, scooching and bending so his elbows rested on the middle seat with his butt wedged up against the door. “I’m going to kill people! What will you do about this?”
The driver’s brows knit themselves together as his mouth flattened; the face of serious consideration. Jian Yi let him think and started reaching for Zhan Zheng Xi’s leg.
“I would have to inform He Zǒng immediately,” the driver eventually settled on. Jian Yi closed his eyes and nodded slowly, matching the seriousness of the man. So he was a rat. Jian Yi supposed that was part of the job description. He was just glad to see that the man’s fear did not compromise his honesty.
“Very good driver,” he said, his hand now migrating up Zhan Zheng Xi’s leg, settling into the crease of his hip, four of his fingers groping his inner thigh. The muscle here was soft. What he wanted was not there. Jian Yi kept his eyes trained on the driver, expression as bored as he could make it, and listened hard to his husband. If he was uncomfortable he would have already pried off Jian Yi’s hand. As it was, Jian Yi only heard his husband’s breathing, which was only a little heavier than it usually was. Again, this could be attributed to the drinking. He needed more. “I’ll kill you first then.”
“Lao Jian, you know this isn’t my fault. Please be gracious.” The request was earnest, but Jian Yi could tell he was approaching a shift in the man. Was starting to think that unease would eventually give way to old anger if he kept pushing.
Jian Yi hummed. “No?” he started. He was tugging at Zhan Zheng Xi’s nearest belt loop now, momentarily tucking a finger under the waistband of his dress pants, just barely, feeling the warmth there. “Then whose fault is it? Are you not in control of the vehicle?”
“I don’t control the other vehicles.”
Hard to counter that logic. Time to appeal to emotions instead. “You know Xixi and I got married today.” The driver wilted and slouched further over the wheel. Looking apologetic, he nodded.
“I do know, yes. Congratulations again.”
“And we left our own post-ceremonial celebration because I wasn’t feeling well. We drank too much.” At this he scooched so his head settled atop Zhan Zheng Xi’s left thigh. “I might get sick if we stay in here too long.”
Lies. Jian Yi’s honesty was compromised at all times. They’d been sent home because they were too drunk and too handsy to be seen in public much longer without it being a crime in some way. Cheng throwing them in a car with a driver was the equivalent of placing two hawks in a box with a field mouse. It was a miracle Zhan Zheng Xi was behaving as well as he was. Jian Yi would have to reward him.
He groaned and flopped onto his other side, this way his nose was buried in the same crease of Zhan Zheng Xi’s hip that his hand had made its way into earlier. Zhan Zheng Xi smelled different this close, like something oven-baked and alcohol ridden. Below him Zhan Zheng Xi’s leg muscles tensed. His back straightened. A hand settled firmly on Jian Yi’s waist.
“Don’t,” Zhan Zheng Xi said. His breathing had picked up. Not just drunk, Jian Yi confirmed to himself. He groaned again, increasingly horny and increasingly mad about it. “It’s too hot!” he exclaimed into Zhan Zheng Xi’s leg. He brought his arms up around Zhan Zheng Xi’s middle and squeezed hard. “I want out!”
“It wouldn’t be safe for you to sleep anywhere but your home this evening. Your marriage was too public. There’s a security team stationed there already.”
Bullshit. They were trained fighters, employed or otherwise.
“Two more minutes, Mister Driver,” Jian Yi announced. “Then I am exiting the vehicle.”
“I would advise against that, Lao Jian.” The driver’s voice shook but that emotion wasn’t all fear. He was unwilling to defy Cheng’s orders and hated that Jian Yi was threatening to be the reason he incidentally did so. That wobble in his voice was the signature frequency of adrenaline. Jian Yi had him.
“Advise this,” Jian Yi murmured. Because he was drunk and he could.
“Stupid,” Zhan Zheng Xi breathed, though Jian Yi was not sure who or what he was referring to exactly. Probably him. Probably his decision to fuck with the driver for no good reason.
Seeing as his current position made it convenient he took the opportunity to reach down the back of Zhan Zheng Xi’s pants with both hands and palm the globes of his ass.
The action itself was nothing new, but the setting made it feel novel; made it feel risky, like the first time he’d asked Zhan Zheng Xi if he could top. Jian Yi could feel the rabbit-fast pace of his own heartbeat, the heavy breaths just barely reaching his profile, could smell the last tequila shot on Zheng Xi’s breath. The hand at his waist started to knead irregularly, thoughtlessly, tickling him in an odd way.
Despite every urge commanding him otherwise, he paused to give his inebriated husband a chance to respond in some other way. The random kneading continued, each breath remained heavy, the only change really was in the bend of Zhan Zheng Xi’s waist. He was bending forwards, Jian Yi realized, albeit very slowly, and that…that was uncharacteristic for Zhan Zheng Xi, to ask so carefully. To want so brazenly. That was hot. So he let his hand wander a bit, tracing his husband’s cleft with slow fingers. Then in a harsh movement he shifted forwards, forcing his head further into the crease of Zhan Zheng Xi’s thigh and his hands further down the back of his pants. With another squeeze he spread his husband, running a finger across his hole, exposing him as a means of showing him exactly what he wanted, of what they could be doing if they weren’t in this god forsaken vehicle. Though it was a very small movement, Jian Yi felt Zhan Zheng Xi rock forwards, away from his hand and towards his head, then settle back into his grip. He continued to breathe hard. Jian Yi felt him fully-body tense again, once, with what could have been a shiver. Jian Yi wondered what his husband was imagining. He hoped he’d find out.
He paused yet again, overly aware of their company, listening and waiting for any signs of dissent, but heard only the sound of Zhan Zheng Xi licking his own lips, swallowing, breathing some more. He moved his head further up, so his breath would hit centrally on his husband’s groin. He pushed his nose into the hardening mound there, exhaled hard into the fabric. Above him, Zhan Zheng Xi did something like cough through his nose and then curled more fully in on himself, over Jian Yi’s head
“Everything okay?”
Jian Yi was removing his hand from his husband’s pants as subtly as possible and preparing to respond in confirmation when the gruff voice of Zhan Zheng Xi surprised him.
“Time,” Zhan Zheng Xi said.
“What?” the driver tried, the word nearly lost as Zhan Zheng Xi unlocked his door and threw it open. He grabbed Jian Yi by the hair and maneuvered his gaze so it met his.
“Out,” he said. Jian Yi did not have to be told a third time. He waited until Zhan Zheng Xi had stepped out of the vehicle before he scrambled onto all fours and followed out the same door.
“Tell Cheng we were nice!” he called to the driver, who was staring at him with eyes as frustrated as they were pleading, though he couldn’t seem to manage to ask them to stay. Jian Yi smiled at him, all teeth. “It’s not your failure. He’ll know that,” he promised, and slammed the door. When he turned around Zhan Zheng Xi was well and truly on the move, maneuvering between the furthest line of honking cars and hopping onto the overpass’s sidewalk. His ears were still perceptibly red even from a distance.
“Hold on!” he yelled, “Xixi, wait!” His husband did no such thing. Rather, he started to rapidly scale the short fence meant to prevent people from doing the exact thing his husband seemed set on doing. “What the hell,” Jian Yi murmured to himself, equal parts confused and thrilled by the turn of events.
He reached the sidewalk at the same moment Zhan Zheng Xi reached the ground on the other side of the fence. It would take only a single step for him to enter open air, to descend onto the road and cars below. “What are we doing here exactly, dear?” Jian Yi inquired. He was, quite honestly, feeling impatient. He was not in the mood to be separated any longer, by fence or car or circumstance. Zhan Zheng Xi turned to look at him though, face flushed and eyes wide, and that flicker of irritation was doused. Zhan Zheng Xi was smiling, the same smile he’d boasted since they were children, that enormously small thing. He shrugged off his suit jacket and let it fall, one of his hands loosely clenched in the gaps of the fence all the while. He brought his face close to that fence now, and Jian Yi mirrored his action without hesitation. The air around Zhan Zheng Xi spoke volumes: he was about to start something. Jian Yi felt his world zero down to the man in front of him.
“Ready?” Zhan Zheng Xi said quietly, the word only decipherable by lip reading. Jian Yi stared for a moment, trying to get a read on Zhan Zheng Xi’s level of intoxication as well as his own, before he grinned and nodded. They would be fine. Their chases didn’t last long, typically. The roads behind and below them seemed to get very quiet.
“What does winner get?” he asked.
“What they want.”
Mm. Those were high stakes right now, and Zhan Zheng Xi knew it, if his quickly moving eyes meant anything. He was trying to read Jian Yi’s silence, apprehensive and revved. The car ride must have made him restless too, Jian Yi reminded himself. If they fucked right now the act would be quick and rough. Not bad, but not what Jian Yi- not what either of them wanted on their wedding night. They needed to work out their impatience in a different way. They needed to move.
“Okay,” he lilted. “Run.”
As if spring loaded, Zhan Zheng Xi fell backwards, off the overpass, and Jian Yi finally took notice of the grappling hook secured at the top of the fence, its line going taught now as Zhan Zheng Xi swung, assumedly, underneath and onto the lower road. Jian Yi had not brought a grappling hook, had no idea where Zhan Zheng Xi had even been hiding the thing, but he did have legs and a primed set of lungs.
He took off for the set of stairs to his left. It was a small overpass in the middle of the city, Zhan Zheng Xi could have easily taken this path himself, but there were times, Jian Yi knew, that one needed to fall freely for a moment.
At the bottom of the staircase, which Jian Yi essentially threw himself down, he only took a moment to regard the lack of grappling hook left behind. Zhang Zheng Xi had taken it with him, because he was a cheater, clearly, and Jian Yi pursued with this in mind, aware the man could be above him at some point during the hunt.
He wasn’t. Three blocks later, quickly approaching more populated city streets and starting to feel the physical effects of being off duty for so long, Jian Yi caught a flash of fast-moving light brown hair in an alley to his left. Immediately he turned. Zhan Zheng Xi had the stamina of a demonic desert camel, but he’d never been as quick as Jian Yi. He gained on the man within seconds, the alley full of nothing but the sound of their hammering feet and heaving breaths. Jian Yi felt he was close- could see the glimmer of the grappling hook shoved in the back of Zhan Zheng Xi’s pants. It was a matter of seconds now, a matter of his stretching out an arm and reaching-
They burst out the end of the alley onto a very busy street, light strewn between the buildings on either side, stalls lining its entirety. Fried food, cigarettes, and sweat assaulted his sinuses. Zhan Zheng Xi, in typical Zhan Zheng Xi fashion, paid other people no mind, bumping and shoving past without apologizing. That was a man fully immersed in the chase- in being chased. Jian Yi saw that single mindedness and let it fuel him, felt himself grow twice as invested in their game. He continued to race after Zhan Zheng Xi, maneuvering the crowd with as much grace as he could, dancing around and between people, spitting out thoughtless mutters of ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ and trying his damndest to keep an eye on that spiky head of light brown hair.
Eventually he bumped into someone too hard though- a rotund woman with a basket full of pamphlets of some kind. They scattered and while he was not so kind as to stop completely to help her pick them up, he did pause to apologize more thoroughly. It couldn’t have taken more than a second, maybe two, but by the time he returned his attention to the crowd, taking several steps to change his perspective, Zhan Zheng Xi was nowhere to be seen.
He refused to lose so easily. He picked up the pace again, moving as quickly as he could through the crowd now, which seemed to be growing as the night grew later. He was wondering if he’d fucked up worse than he thought he had, that he might not find Zhan Zheng Xi again before the night was over, when there was, at least a full block ahead of him, a series of shouts. Thoughtlessly he ran for the sound, and here discovered Zhan Zheng Xi, his upper arm held in the iron grip of an old man. He was breathing hard, his hair a mess and his face scrunched in a way that spoke to him feeling either awkward or guilty. It could have been both. Jian Yi noticed his pants were ripped on one of the knees.
“You’re not supposed to run,” the old man breathed in with a rough, painful kind of sound, “in crowds like this, boy.”
“I’m sorry I was trying-” Zhan Zheng Xi seemed to sense him supernaturally, his gaze flicking to Jian Yi’s quickly. Reflexes on point, he yanked his arm out of the old man’s grasp, who flinched back with a gravelly cry of indignation. He was plowing into the back of the first person to his rear, shoving them out of the way to continue running, when Jian Yi realized he was quite sick, actually, of everyone touching his husband except him.
“Thief!” Jian Yi started shrieking. “Thief! He’s robbed an old man! Stop him!”
Several people looked in the direction Jian Yi was pointing. As the only person barrelling through the crowd like he was on fire, Zhan Zheng Xi stood out easily, and quite quickly a path cleared between Jian Yi’s outstretched finger and the man. Of course he noticed this and turned, staring at him for the length of a single breath before he started forward. Jian Yi let him approach, feeling smart and smug until he saw the look in Zhan Zheng Xi’s eyes had not grown any tamer since he’d last seen him at the overpass.
In a last ditch effort he raised his arms to cover his face, though it proved ineffective in stymieing any of the impact. The foot on his chest meant he was kicked, and kicked hard.
He flew backwards in the vicinity of the old man, already groaning by the time he was hitting the ground. Unfair. Unfair cheating cheater, that’s what Zhan Zheng Xi was. He’d married an evil sportsman who was terrible at playing games.
There was no time for that though. Still moaning and whining, because he’d draw this shit out for the rest of the week if he could, he sat up and looked around. He caught the eye of one wide eyed youngster who, when he didn’t look away for several seconds, pointed at a nearby alley. This location was thinner than the last, and did not seem to have an outlet. He grinned thin-lipped at the kid and stood.
The alley was dark, compared to the brightness of the street itself. Zhan Zheng Xi was visible but only barely, crouched as he was in the windowsill of one of the apartments connected to the fire escape. Jian Yi watched him for a time, listened to him regain control of his breathing until he was audibly indetectable. Zhan Zheng Xi shifted into a more maintainable stance, sharp eyes trained on the entrance to the alley. All he was missing was the gun. He would, to Jian Yi at least, look like a killer to the day he died.
Jian Yi needed to fuck him.
Ever his weakness, Jian Yi was able to drop on Zhan Zheng Xi’s back from above. Both of them fell onto the fire escape with a violent thud. Zhan Zheng Xi seemed to have the air knocked out of him, wheezing oddly from the ground but kicking at Jian Yi despite his pain. Jian Yi grunted and stood, rubbing at his knee where it had hit the fire escape first.
Distracted by the surface injury, he nevertheless pulled the grappling hook out and fired it into his own hand, unspooling the rope and crouching beside Zhan Zheng Xi, who was recovering far too fast for this to be an altogether easy task.
“‘M gonna tie your hands now,” he said, reaching for Zhan Zheng Xi’s hands to do just that. The man was breathing hard through his nose, pushing the occasional breath out from his mouth. All of it sounded very uncomfortable. He managed a single loop around his left wrist before Zhan Zheng Xi started to shove at him.
He sighed and got on top of him. He continued to loop around his husband’s wrist, first one and then the other, until he achieved a satisfactory single column tie. “There,” he said, “it looks pretty.”
It didn’t. The rope was old and frayed and he’d done a rush job, not to mention that he was left awkwardly holding the grappling hook itself. He handed that to Zhan Zheng Xi too. His husband was starting to breathe normally again though he was glaring at him in a way that was, for Zhan Zheng Xi at least, quite gentle, like he couldn’t decide if he should be upset, confused, or some secret, third thing.
Jian Yi leaned down and gave him a sweet peck on the lips.
“Caught you,” he said, “let’s go now.”