Zhao Yunlan first saw the Black-Cloaked Envoy at the end of the SID’s first major case under his leadership.
They’d finally tracked down the dixingren causing the mess—magnetic powers, seemed to have a grudge against a construction company for reasons Zhao Yunlan thought were well-justified, even if his actions were dangerous—and cornered him in the hole soon to become a building’s foundation. The only light was what they carried with them, and Zhao Yunlan sighed as he looked down into the shadowy mess of the open foundation.
“Stay up here,” he said, and checked the gun in its holster. His dad swore by it, but he’d seen too many of the problems it caused. “I’m going to try talking first.”
Daqing looked skeptically at him, but then shrugged and said, “Good luck, boss.” Around them, the other members of the SID—holdovers from his dad, mostly, either outright or by proxy—arrayed themselves around the open sides, ready and waiting to act. Hopefully it wouldn’t become necessary.
Zhao Yunlan rolled his eyes at Daqing, then hopped into the pit. “Don’t make me need to hurt you,” he called, in the general direction of where the dixingren had to be.
As Zhao Yunlan’s feet touched the ground, he caught sight of a metal flash from the shadows.
With a curse, he threw himself sideways. There wasn’t much cover, but he’d take what he could get if it meant not being impaled outright for daring to think that they could talk things out.
He came out of the tumble in a crouch, eyes fixed on where he’d last seen the metal, and realised it had turned to follow him. Zhao Yunlan swore again, louder this time, and reached for his father’s gun. He didn’t want to use it, but he might not have another choice.
Before Zhao Yunlan’s fingers closed on the grip, a cold burst of black energy washed over him, followed by a crisp wingbeat.
Zhao Yunlan fell backwards, propelled by the wind, and saw—
First, the wings. Dusk-blue and dipped in ink, striated with silver shafts. Beautiful, Zhao Yunlan thought, dazed. Bigger than any bird he knew, and not patterned like any either.
Second, the robe. Night-black, billowing almost like another set of wings itself. Symbol and badge of office all at once.
Third, as the wings folded back and faded into that cloak, the way the dixingren the SID had spent so much effort finding fell to his knees.
Zhao Yunlan pushed himself upright and sauntered over to the Black-Cloaked Envoy. “Thanks for the help,” he said, clapping the Envoy on the shoulder.
The Envoy’s wings—smaller now, neatly sized to fit against the Envoy’s back—flickered out and brushed him away. “I was almost late,” he said. His voice was smooth and quiet, not nearly as imposing as his appearance suggested. “My apologies, Lord Guardian.”
“We’re all fine, and you’re here now, and you can take care of him.” Zhao Yunlan nodded towards the dixingren, hands stuffed in his pockets to avoid the temptation of reaching out to touch those wings again. They’d been soft, even as they’d pushed him away. “I’m happy to finally meet you, Hei-lao-ge, though I wish the circumstances had been better.”
The Envoy turned his head, finally looking at Zhao Yunlan. His eyes were a warm black in the cold matte shadow of his mask, and they swept over Zhao Yunlan. It wasn’t impersonal, the way Zhao Yunlan had heard the Envoy usually was; it felt like the Envoy was considering, and when he finally murmured, “There will be other circumstances to come,” it was quiet enough that Zhao Yunlan didn’t think the words were meant for any other ears.
Zhao Yunlan kept his eyes on the Envoy, a smile growing on his face. “You’ve got business,” he said, tilting his head towards the dixingren. “But you’re always welcome in the SID. I’d love to chat. Over tea, maybe, or a meal.”
There was a flicker of something that might have been a smile, or a trick of the light, as the Envoy turned away. “I have my duties to attend to,” the Envoy said. “Fare well, Zhao Yunlan. I shall see you again.”
Another wave of power, the same colors as his wings, enveloped both the Envoy and the dixingren that had been causing all the problems. Zhao Yunlan pursed his lips and reached, habitually, for a cigarette. His fingers closed around one of the lollipops he kept in his pocket now instead, and he sighed as he unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth instead.
“Interesting fellow,” he said to Daqing, still looking at the place the Envoy had been. “I like him.”
Daqing sounded like he choked. “Heipaoshi-daren is—”
“Very respectable, yes, I know.” Zhao Yunlan waved a hand at Daqing’s face. “Important, powerful, distant. I like him.”
Zhao Yunlan didn’t catch exactly what Daqing muttered under his breath, but flipping him off seemed like a safe reaction regardless.
The argument over if he’d been justified in that—and who’d need to fill out the necessary paperwork for the case’s end—lasted all the way back to the office.
Zhao Yunlan couldn’t stop thinking about the Envoy and his wings.
The Envoy didn’t show up for every case, and his wings weren’t even visible all the time when he was. But when they were there, Zhao Yunlan found them irresistible, even more than the Envoy generally was, and kept making up excuses to try and touch them.
(The cases where the Envoy showed up and protected him with his wings featured heavily in Zhao Yunlan’s dreams. He didn’t tell anyone about those.)
Mostly, when the Envoy was around and it wasn’t actively dangerous, Zhao Yunlan kept asking the Envoy if he molted in hopes of getting a feather as a keepsake. Chu Shuzhi looked like he was going to murder him every time he asked; Daqing and Zhu Hong winced like they expected him to get punished for it; and Lin Jing whispered to him (in the lab, when nobody else was around) that he’d help if he could but he didn’t want to die.
And yet, no matter how many times he asked, the Envoy didn’t visit any consequences upon him for asking such personal questions. He just looked at Zhao Yunlan, and shook his head, and usually his wings disappeared at that point if they’d even been out.
Sometimes, Zhao Yunlan swore he saw something shift under Shen Wei’s lovingly-tailored vests.
The first time, he hadn’t thought much of it. Lingering black energy from the shadowy dixingren who had hunted Li Qian and tossed Shen Wei off the roof. An injury he was hiding, maybe, from the same thing. He filed it away in the back of his head, more interested in trying to get Shen Wei’s number (and being disappointed that Shen Wei was a professor in a highly regarded university and didn’t have a cell phone) than in working out the details.
Still, it meant he started looking. Not just because he liked the way Shen Wei’s shoulders moved, implying more muscles than his soft-spoken demureness would otherwise suggest. Not even because Shen Wei started being involved in entirely too many things around the uncanny. No, he paid attention because something about that shifting felt familiar.
It didn’t click until the Envoy saved him from the youchu, arriving in a blast of energy and a wingclap, and Zhao Yunlan found his attention drifting to the Envoy’s wings again. They’d caught the blood splatter, kept it from reaching Zhao Yunlan, and now they were folding back towards the Envoy.
The shiver of the Envoy’s robes as his wings withdrew caught at Zhao Yunlan’s brain, and a dozen puzzle pieces he hadn’t realised he’d found clicked into place.
He smiled at the Envoy, and thanked him for the rescue, and thought, Fuck.
No wonder he’d been so easily distracted by Shen Wei’s back. No wonder he’d thought they’d met before. No wonder working with him felt so natural.
(No wonder he could fall off a building and stand back up without even a scratch.)
Zhao Yunlan tucked the realisation away in the back of his head. He couldn’t afford to get distracted until after they’d found Wang Zheng and the Mountain-River Awl.
Shen Wei is the Envoy, he thought, as Zhu Jiu laughed and disappeared before any strike could land on him.
The Envoy is Shen Wei, he thought, as he trudged back to the village and found Zhu Hong asleep on the table.
Shen Wei appeared, ostensibly having been there the whole time, and Zhao Yunlan looked up to meet his eyes behind their protective panes of glass. Why is he doing this? he wondered. And, then, Is he ever going to tell me on his own?
Shen Wei got himself drunk, entirely because Zhao Yunlan was otherwise going to be at the table all night—or until he fell over himself—and Zhao Yunlan’s first thought was, The Envoy can get drunk?
His second was, This is a good way out, and he cheerfully said his farewells to the village elders and eased Shen Wei off the table. He was limp, and heavy because of that, but Zhao Yunlan still waved away offers of help. He didn’t know what he was planning on doing—taking care of Shen Wei, yes, of course—but Zhao Yunlan was pretty sure that having other people around would make it more complicated.
Zhao Yunlan did not, precisely, regret that decision as he lifted Shen Wei into his arms. There were easier ways of carrying him, but this one gave him an excuse to indulge his curiosity (about the wings, he told himself, not about the way Shen Wei’s head rested on his shoulder, or the warmth of his body) that carrying Shen Wei on his back would not. Shen Wei was reserved, and Zhao Yunlan had felt the way he had let down his guard to accept Zhao Yunlan leaning on him in the car.
Still, Zhao Yunlan wished he had planned ahead a little better for opening the door leading inside. He managed to keep from jostling Shen Wei too much, at least, and only bumped his own elbow. He could live with that.
Laying Shen Wei on the bed was easy, once they were up the stairs. Zhao Yunlan sighed, and murmured, “You’re a problem,” mock-scoldingly as he got Shen Wei arranged and carefully set his glasses on the bedside table. Experimentally, he covered the top half of Shen Wei’s face with one hand, because a guess based on wings alone was a poor guess, and—
He’d spent a lot of time looking at the Envoy’s mouth, and rather less looking at Shen Wei’s (so far), but now that Shen Wei was staying still it was easy to see the resemblance. The perfect mirror of the Envoy’s caution and seriousness, normally hidden in Shen Wei’s amiability, still came out in the tiniest of frowns now that he was asleep.
“Ah, Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan breathed, and gently touched the downturned corner of his lips. “What am I going to do with you?”
He laid his jacket—loaned to Shen Wei and now stained with youchu blood in another clear hint, one that left Zhao Yunlan wondering if Shen Wei wanted him to know—over Shen Wei in lieu of a blanket, and hoped that would spur Shen Wei to answer that question himself.
It didn’t.
Despite all the chances Zhao Yunlan gave him to explain in simpler circumstances, Shen Wei only spread his wings when a threat forced him to.
Zhao Yunlan wished that threat hadn’t been his own capture, but even holding his own against Zhu Jiu’s orders and pretending to strangle himself didn’t quell his delight. Shen Wei’s wings matched his suit, for the single moment they spread before the Envoy’s robes shrouded him in shadows once more.
“What are you to each other?” Zhu Jiu asked, when the Envoy offered to take Zhao Yunlan’s place, and Zhao Yunlan thought, More than I’d expected, and less than we could be.
Then there wasn’t any more time to wonder, or worry, before Zhu Jiu stole him away.
(Zhao Yunlan had to focus on maintaining his ruse. The rest could wait until everyone was safe.)
It took another day—after Zhao Yunlan shot Zhu Jiu, after they cleaned up the SID, after the case had been formally filed away—for Zhao Yunlan to corner Shen Wei into a conversation.
“I’m tired,” Shen Wei said, staring down at the tea-cup held gently in his hands. And, then, “We’ve always been friends.”
Friends don’t lie, Zhao Yunlan thought, but: Friends also don’t push too hard.
So he smiled, and asked for something Shen Wei could bear to give, and promised himself he would wait for Shen Wei to adjust before he asked for what he truly wanted.
(To touch Shen Wei’s wings, to bury his hands in the feathers and pull Shen Wei close enough to kiss, to see how well the dreams he didn’t dare discuss matched up with the truth—
Zhao Yunlan had desired the Envoy and Shen Wei for different reasons, and it was a delight to know he could have both if he was patient, if he waited for Shen Wei to let him in.)
And yet, even without asking, Zhao Yunlan left Shen Wei’s apartment carrying a single striated feather as long as his arm. Colored like dusk and midnight, like the energy that swirled around the Envoy’s hands and curled around Shen Wei’s fingers now that he wasn’t hiding anything. The color of promise and protection, to Zhao Yunlan.
Shen Wei had smiled, as he’d handed over the feather, and said, “I don’t molt, but my feathers occasionally get damaged and fall out, to be replaced by new ones.”
Zhao Yunlan had pressed its softness to his lips, grinned, and forgotten to tease Hei-lao-ge.
In that moment, it hadn’t seemed to matter.
“You knelt in the rain for me,” Zhao Yunlan said, crowding Shen Wei back against the kitchen counter.
Shen Wei went, looking more confused than anything else, until Zhao Yunlan’s hands touched his chest. Then he stopped, and Zhao Yunlan couldn’t move him anymore. “Zhao Yunlan,” he said, and wrapped his hands around Zhao Yunlan’s wrists. “What are you doing?”
“I am tired of waiting.” Zhao Yunlan met Shen Wei’s eyes. No glasses between them; not here, not when Shen Wei had been cooking for him and fit into his space with the ease of habit. “You always arrive to protect me. You knelt in the rain to heal me. I have spent years looking at you and wondering what your lips feel like, Hei-lao-ge.”
Shen Wei’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “You never asked.”
Zhao Yunlan let out a huff of exasperated laughter and stepped in closer, until their chests were touching and their faces were bare centimeters apart. “Xiao-Wei,” he murmured, because even if he hadn’t seen Shen Wei’s face he’d felt the intake of breath when he’d used that name. “I want to kiss you, xiao-Wei. May I?”
In response, Shen Wei closed the final distance between them.
Shen Wei kissed him like they’d done this before, like he knew where Zhao Yunlan was going to move before Zhao Yunlan himself did. Soft, unhurried even as Zhao Yunlan tried to angle for more, and more than he’d ever dreamed of.
Zhao Yunlan groaned as Shen Wei pulled back, leaning forward and trusting that Shen Wei would hold him up. He always had. “Are you saying we could’ve been doing this all along, if I’d asked?”
Shen Wei’s laughter was nearly silent, but Zhao Yunlan felt it shivering between their bodies anyway. “I did not want to force you into anything you did not desire.”
“I thought I was being polite!” Zhao Yunlan shook his head and shoved at Shen Wei. It didn’t have any effect, of course; moving the Envoy took more force than his half-hearted frustration. “If I’d led with ‘Professor Shen, I want to take you to my bed’, would you have come?”
“Yes.” Shen Wei’s arms wrapped around him, lifted him before Zhao Yunlan could even think to protest. “I would have.”
Zhao Yunlan draped himself over Shen Wei as dramatically as he could, cursing both the Envoy’s distance and Shen Wei’s air of propriety and watching Shen Wei hold back his laughter. “You’re just as shameless as I am, aren’t you?” he finally said, as Shen Wei sat on his bed, Zhao Yunlan still in his arms.
Shen Wei looked at him silently, eyes bright and face shining with a smile, and then wings slowly unfurled from his back. There was no sound, this time, nor any wind; just the unveiling of the night sky that framed Shen Wei. They curved forward and wrapped around Zhao Yunlan, blocking his sight of anything but Shen Wei, and Zhao Yunlan’s breath caught in his throat.
“Cheating,” he managed, and reached out to touch them.
The feathers were just as soft as he remembered, the silver shafts reflecting light and twinkling like the stars they’d always reminded him of. Zhao Yunlan drew the barbs through his fingers, feeling the way they bent and snapped back into place, just as perfect as they ever were, a rippling shadow of deepest blue and ink.
Shen Wei shivered as Zhao Yunlan stroked his wings, making a truly indecent noise. Zhao Yunlan tore his eyes away from the mesmerising shimmer of his wings, looking towards Shen Wei’s face with delight. His eyes were dark, his skin flushed, and Zhao Yunlan grinned and shifted so he was kneeling over Shen Wei’s lap and could reach for where Shen Wei’s wings emerged, the flesh and bones, and bury his fingers in the soft true-black coverts there.
It was everything he’d ever dreamed of, when Shen Wei’s mouth opened and he groaned and pulled Zhao Yunlan in for a much deeper kiss.
One of Shen Wei’s powers had to be knowing exactly how to kiss him, Zhao Yunlan thought dizzily. A weirdly specific power for a dixingren to have, but he wasn’t the biologist—or the dixingren—what did he know?
Shen Wei took him apart, meticulous in this as everything else he did, and Zhao Yunlan couldn’t find it in himself to mind the wait.
They’d gotten here, to Shen Wei touching him with utmost confidence and love, to those vast blue wings mantled around them both, and Zhao Yunlan needed nothing more.
