Chapter Text
It was Friday night, the clinic was dark, lights turned off, and the rain beat against the window in a monotonous rhythm characteristic of the monsoon season. The air was suffocating, warm and heavy, and Jiang Xiaoshuai wiped his forehead with the back of his uniform’s sleeve, the white of his doctor’s blouse cutting out the shadows of the room, bright where the soft hue of the desk lamp shone. He could hear the shower running, Wu Suowei’s distracted singing reaching him between two gusts of wind, and he let that background noise soothe his worries as his fingers flicked through yet another piece of mail.
He bit his lower lip as his eyes roamed through the paper, the words “Payment Due” written in bold letters. His right foot tapped the floor repetitively as his mind went through complicated maths, trying to figure out how he would make it through the month after settling this bill. He sighed. Damn it. He had been out of med school and practising as an established doctor for a few years already, yet his debt seemed never-ending, the interest rates constantly rising, the bills becoming more and more expensive, and the pressure on his shoulders increasingly crushing. Maybe I could open the clinic longer. Start earlier and close later. Cold showers too, and cup noodles for a while. But even then, it would barely be enough.
He leaned back in his seat, his head falling back and his eyes gazing out in the darkness of the room. He could ignore it, ignore the warning and keep his money until he figured something out, but he still remembered the consequences from that one time he attempted, recalled the bulky men dressed in black, the hand around his throat, the–
Tap tap tap!
Xiaoshuai jumped out of his seat, his heartbeat exploding at the unexpected noise, the paper falling out of his hand as he startled. He raised his wrist to look at the time, and the arrows indicated almost midnight. Who would…?
His eyes widened, his gaze falling on the bill once again, nagging at him from its place on the pristine floors. His hands shook at the mere thought of it. It couldn’t be, right? He had just gotten the reminder. They couldn’t come ask for the money now. But what if it was? These people didn’t care. But if he didn't have the money yet, he couldn’t pay them back…
Tap tap tap!
The tapping on the door became more insistent, the noise echoing through the building, and Xiaoshuai’s heartbeat sped up, his hands sweating at the mere possibility of who was out there. He got up slowly, his feet unsure and unsteady as he stepped out of his room into the reception, the green lights from the emergency exit guiding his path through the daunting darkness. The blinds in front of the door were down, hiding him from whoever was on the other side, and he stared at the door, the panic rising within him.
Tap… tap…
His eyebrow twitched. The tapping was softer this time around, almost lost in the defeating sound of the pouring rain.
The rain. Loan sharks wouldn’t be out in this weather. They prefer the comfort of their palaces built from the tears of their debtors.
His medical training suddenly kicked in, and he rushed to the door, unlocking it and opening it hurriedly. A gush of stuffy wind welcomed him at once and, there, amid the heavy downpour and the shadows of the late evening, a lone figure stood up, drenched, folded upon themselves, a bloody hand clutching their side.
“Hope… you’re still open, doc,” the man muttered, and he lifted his face just enough for Xiaoshuai to catch a glimpse of a handsome face before a gurgling cough made the man almost kneel over.
“Oh god,” Xiaoshuai breathed out unconsciously before he ran to his side, catching the man as he swayed, the relentless rain immediately drenching him. Despite leaning over himself, he could tell the stranger was tall, impossibly so, and Xiaoshuai wondered for a second how tall exactly one could be to make him feel so small despite his own standing.
“Hang on, I’ve got you. Come on, one step at a time.”
He cursed Wu Suowei for always taking incredibly long in the bathroom, getting distracted from his nighttime routine by singing and dancing and doing god knows what. As Xiaoshuai dragged an almost unconscious man through the reception and guided him to the nearest hospital bed, he almost had half a mind to scream at him to come help out.
“Got stabbed, doc,” the man muttered, and Xiaoshuai could only nod in confirmation as he saw the blood pooling on the man’s stomach, his white shirt, now completely wet and see-through, obscenely drenched in the red, sticky substance. “Looks bad, uh?”
He looked up and met warm brown eyes, half-lidded, and he made sure to morph his expression into something undecipherable and neutral.
“You’re going to be okay,” he assured as he got to work, putting on gloves. “No one has ever died on my watch, and I don’t plan on today being my first time.”
The man chuckled, then got a coughing fit, hissing as his stomach contracted, and more blood gushed out of the stab wound.
With no medical staff around and no time to call them in, Xiaoshuai knew he was going to have to deal with this with minimal support.
“Wu Suowei!” He screeched, not even bothering to look up from where he was preparing an IV, carefully taking the man’s long, elegant hand in his and installing the needle. “I need you here, now!”
There was some shuffling noise in the background and the distinctive noise of something hitting a wall, followed by Suowei cursing, before his friend popped his head through the door, his hair still wet from the shower and his skin glistening. “What’s up, Xiao… oh my god.”
“I need you to grab anaesthetic and suture thread from the backroom. Now,” he ordered as he finished setting up the IV. Suowei, despite having no medical training, knew the basics of the job, something that came with living with a doctor, and stared at the bloody man on the bed for a short while longer before he sprang into action, coming back immediately with the requested material.
“Thanks,” Xiaoshuai replied, preparing everything he needed to patch the man up. He could feel the stranger’s eyes following him around, heavy-lidded yet persistent in their observation, and he let himself cross his gaze for two seconds before he brought his attention back to the task at hand.
“Bossy and pretty, you’re completely my type,” the man mumbled, his voice now low and husky, a hint of a smirk grazing his lips despite the pain that was definitely coursing through his body. “Wanna examine my body in a different setting, doc?”
Xiaoshuai rolled his eyes as he started cleaning out the wound. “Shut up and stay alive.”
The stranger chuckled. “Anything for you.”
And he promptly passed out.
────────
Xiaoshuai yawned discreetly as he put away a client’s file, his hand reaching for his double-shot coffee and bringing it to his lips to take a nice, long sip. The clinic was packed this morning, as it always tended to be when he had barely slept, like some twisted trick of the universe, but he didn’t complain, the reminder of his debts was still fresh in his mind. More patients meant more income.
“Suowei, can you take payment from this patient, please?”
His friend immediately nodded, rushing over the counter to take care of the woman’s bill. He had gone to sleep earlier than him, Xiaoshuei finishing patching the stranger on his own, yet dark circles still surrounded his eyes. Xiaoshuai felt a wave of affection and gratitude towards him – Suowei helped out around the clinic whenever he could, and his help was always greatly appreciated.
“I’m going to check on yesterday’s patient,” he informed him, and Suowei looked up distractedly from behind the counter and nodded, then proceeded with the client’s payment, smiling at the old woman who had come for a vaccine.
Xiaoshuai was met with warm brown eyes immediately as he entered the room, and the unexpected sigh startled him.
“You’re awake. How are you feeling?” He asked as he neared the bed, checking vitals and nodding his head to himself as everything looked alright.
“Peachy,” the man replied, his voice hoarse around the edges, a hint of a grin on his lips. “All thanks to you, doctor… Jiang Xiaoshuai.”
He had gotten his name from the tag on his blouse, he gathered, but something in the way he said it made shivers run down his spine. He gulped and cleared his throat.
“I’m going to change your dressing now,” he announced before reaching out for the covers, lowering them until he could see the man’s torso.
“If you want to see me naked, all you have to do is ask, you know,” the man teased, and Xiaoshuai ignored it, unimpressed and accustomed to patients who wanted to get in his pants. Something about the setting and the uniform made them ‘all hot and bothered’ apparently, as someone had once thought necessary to share.
“Not interested, thank you,” he replied monotonously, his hands gently peeling off the bandage despite being briefly tempted to do it harshly, though his eyes drifted to the stranger’s face for a second. He looked different from yesterday, though he supposed that was a given. His hair was now dry and messy in a way that only handsome men could pull off, his eyes bright and smart, his mouth tugging at the corner as if internally laughing at something particularly funny. He was tall, he had already gathered that from yesterday, but he looked broad too in the small medical bed, his shoulders taking up most of the space. His abdomen was smooth and well-defined, strong but in an aristocratic, subtle manner, the muscles just only barely defined.
Handsome, yes. Definitely his type too. But so smug.
A phone ringing startled him out of his thoughts, and he brought his attention back to the wound, examining it carefully as he uttered, “Your phone’s been ringing for a while now”. He cleaned and disinfected the stab wound again, pleased to see it already looked better than yesterday, and couldn’t help but add, “Your girlfriend is probably worried.”
He felt the stranger’s gaze on him without even having to look up, then heard him chuckling as he raised an arm across the bed to reach his phone on the nightstand, mindful not to disturb Xiaoshuai in his task.
“Girlfriend? Oh no, not my style. Women don’t really do it for me, if you know what I mean. They’re pretty, yes, but nothing really beats a pretty boy, right?”
Xiaoshuai looked up to meet his eyes, his ears burning despite himself, unused to such unabashed flirting. The man tilted his head, looking proud as a peacock, and it was hard to believe he was lying there with a slashed stomach. He sighed and broke eye contact, pulling away for a moment to grab a new gauze from the tray. The man picked up the phone call in the meantime.
“What do you want, Chi Cheng?”
Xiaoshuai felt a shiver run down his spine at the sheer change in the man’s voice. Gone was the teasing, playful tone – his voice was all cold and imposing now, and it left little room for interpretation and argumentation. It was a voice that made you want to kneel.
“What do I want? What the fuck, Chengyu, you’ve been no contact since yesterday’s deal.”
The man on the other end of the call sounded mad, his voice loud and clear despite not being on speaker, and Xiaoshuai made his best attempt at looking like he was not listening at all.
“Yeah, ran into some trouble,” the man – no, Chengyu – muttered in response, and he didn’t seem as smug about it as he had been all this time. Deal? Trouble? And a stab wound? Oh, these men sounded like bad news. “I’m all right. Getting patched up by a very competent doctor.”
Ah, the cockiness was back, and Xiaoshuai ignored his burning ears in favour of finishing up the new bandage.
The caller seemed to have calmed down at the information, considering his voice lowered and Xiaoshuai couldn’t hear him anymore.
“Hmm, sure. I’m at…” Chengyu interrupted himself to address him directly. “Where am I, exactly?”.
“My clinic. 181s clinic.”
Chengyu winked at him in what he supposed was his way of thanking him, repeating the address to the other person who promptly ended the call. Chengyu tutted at his phone, his face moulded into a fake disapproving scold. “This man, I swear. No manners.”
He finished dressing his wound and cleared his throat. “You’re good to go. Please avoid strenuous physical activity in the following weeks and change your dressings regularly. I’m also prescribing you an antibiotic cream; make sure to apply it regularly if you want to heal properly.”
Changyu looked properly devastated at the news. “You mean no sex for a few weeks?”
Xiaoshuai could feel his left eyelid twitch. He took a deep breath. “Unless you want to rip your stitches open and bleed all over your partner, no.”
“Hm, kinky. Though not really my style.” His smile was wolfish, his gaze unrelenting on Xiaoshuai’s form. Flirty asshole. He had no reason to look this handsome and be so shameless. “Will you patch me up again if it happens, doc?”
“If you pay me,” he grumbled, and immediately realised it made him sound more like a prostitute than a doctor. Xiaoshuai continued his sentence before the stranger had the time to come to the same conclusion. “Please keep it in your pants for a while so you can heal correctly. Doctor’s orders.”
“Bossy. That’s hot.”
Xiaoshuai sighed and gave up, turning to leave the room when a flustered Suowei came rushing. “There’s someone here for…”
He barely had the chance to finish his sentence when a man came in, and the temperature in the room seemed to have chilled at once. He, too, was tall and handsome, but while Chengyu was all playful teasing and warm eyes, the incomer was dark and cold, dressed in an immaculate black suit, his expression pinched and his gaze murderous.
Xiaoshuai’s doctor instincts kicked in, and he stepped in, standing between the man that screamed stranger danger and Chengyu, who, while being absolutely insufferable, remained his patient, and, therefore, his responsibility.
“And you are?”
The man raised an eyebrow at him, and his eyes flickered behind him to the man in the bed. “A colleague.” Even his voice sounded menacing, a lazy growl that made it clear he was used to having what he wanted.
Xiaoshuai assessed him for a second, reinforcing his idea that these men were definitely bad news, before he turned to Chengyu, who seemed amused at the situation.
“Hmm, he’s with me. I appreciate the instinct to protect me, though. As I said, hot,” he teased, and Xiaoshuai ignored him in favour of stepping away from the path leading up to him.
“Then he’s all yours. Please stop by the reception on your way out so Wu Suowei can proceed with your payment.”
The stranger nodded, his eyes resting for one second too long on Suowei, who was awkwardly standing in the corner, before he reached inside his bag to take out a change of clothes for his.. colleague? friend? whatever Chengyu was to him.
Xiaoshuai diverted his eyes when he carefully got up from the bed, his naked torso exposed, and promptly grabbed Suowei to drag him out of the room. To give his patient privacy to dress up, of course.
“Who are these men?” Suowei whispered-shouted to him as they settled at the reception desk, Xiaoshuai feeling the exhaustion from his short night hitting him all over again. He poured himself some cold water and drank it all in one go.
“I don’t know, Suowei,” he replied sincerely, leaning back against the desk to rest his tired body.
His friend hummed, pouting his lips in a way that made him look innocently cute. “They’re pretty hot,” he mumbled.
Xiaoshuai squinted, then swapped his arm. “Don’t you dare, Wu Suowei. They sound like bad news. And we don’t need any more of that here.”
Suowei’s gaze flickered behind him, and his eyebrows raised alarmingly, his lips pinching. Curious, Xiaoshuai turned around to see the two strangers standing there, and he bit his lip, not knowing whether they had heard him or not. How embarrassing. The lack of sleep was really catching up to him, if he hadn’t even heard them approach.
He met Chengyu’s gaze briefly, the man now wearing a deep red shirt that looked annoyingly good on him, and Xiaoshuai pushed himself away from the desk, making a show of picking up patient files.
“I’m going to check on the other patients. Please take care of the payment, Suowei.”
His friend nodded, cheeks flushed, and Xiaoshuai dashed, running to an adjacent room they used for storage. There, he put his hands flush against the desk and leaned over, sighing. His peace was short-lived, though.
“Doctor Jiang.”
The familiar voice startled him, and he whipped around, suddenly feeling defensive. “What are you doing here? This is for employees only.”
Chengyu stood in the doorway, that damned red shirt stretched nicely over his broad shoulders, the colour a twisted reminder of his fate just a few hours earlier. He looked good, too good for someone who had just gotten stabbed. He looked like someone who was used to this lifestyle.
Bad news, definitely.
“I just wanted to thank you for saving my life,” he explained, stepping closer, his voice smooth and honeyed. His eyes were weirdly intense, and Xiaoshuai felt naked beneath that gaze.
“It’s my job,” he dismissed, turning his back to him and busying himself by preparing yet another coffee.
A hum echoed behind him, ever closer, and he could feel the heat of the man’s body behind his own, his hands shaking just the slightest as he put a pod into the coffee machine. There was something unnerving about the stranger, his aura strangely magnetic, and Xiaoshuai was uncomfortable standing in this room alone with him, creeping closer, his intentions oh so clear.
He was anxious as he felt Chengyu’s breath hitting the nape of his neck, his body crowding over him, and he tensed, ready to lash out, prepared to strike if the man even dared think he could touch him without his consent, but the touch never came. Instead, an elegant hand crossed his field of vision and, in it, a carefully curated business card. It marked Guo Chengyu, followed by the name of a company and a phone number.
“I always repay my debts. If you ever need a favour, call me.”
Xiaoshuai was a doctor. His job was saving people, and at no moment did he ever believe he was entitled to favours in return. He should tell him this. Tell the clearly powerful stranger to settle his payment and forget about him. But curiosity pooled in his stomach, warm and dangerous.
“What kind of favour?”
He had turned around lightly, his coffee forgotten next to the coffee machine, the rich aroma burning his nose as he met Chengyu’s gaze from so close he could have counted the freckles on his face.
The man chuckled, that smirk ever present on his plush lips. “Any kind.”
He meant it. Xiaoshuai knew he meant it. He had expensive clothes, dangerous-looking ‘colleagues’, the confidence of a man who had enough power to silence unwanted critics, and stab wounds on his body, fresh and new. He had seen them; had touched them.
Xiaoshuai gulped, and Chengyu’s eyes drifted lower, to his neck, to his collarbones, exposed by his blouse and odd-fitted shirt. The air was heavy around them, and, for a second, the world seemed to have stopped turning, time suspended in the air.
Then he snapped out of it, grabbed his coffee and stepped away from the stranger, clearing his throat and avoiding his gaze. “I am a doctor. I just did my job. Please pay your bill and leave.”
Chengyu nodded, seemingly undisturbed by his reaction. He flicked his business card between his slender fingers before carefully setting it down on the table, tapping his index twice on it.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Jiang Xiaoshuai. See you next time.”
And when he left, Xiaoshuai felt the weight of the universe weighing down on his shoulders once again.