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The old ceiling fan in what had once been the living room of Gu Yiran's family home drones, barely making a difference to the hot, humid air. Summer lingers late in Huazhou.
Gu Yiran looks over at the shelf where the photographs of his parents had once been placed. Where he'd placed fruit and lit incense in their memories. It's packed down now, his father finally laid to rest beside his mother, reunited at last. His duty as a son completed in this aspect.
It had been a long, hard journey to bring his father home. It has been one that has left scars and nightmares that will be slow to fade and will in some form or another last a lifetime.
Yet for all that, Gu Yiran has found that he regrets none of them, or at least not in the sense that most might think. No, the only regrets he has are tied up in moments where he hadn't been stronger or faster, and the ones where he hadn't made a connection fast enough.
Not that he's the only one with such troubles and regrets.
Asleep on the sofa, an arm across his face to shield his eyes from the evening sun streaming through the apartment window is Zheng Bei.
Although officially back at work, Zheng Bei is still on light duties for a little longer. One of the reasons he'd been allowed to take leave and travel with Gu Yiran back to Huazhou. His fight with Jiang Xiaohai had almost cost him his life, and while he was almost fully recovered physically, the grief of how everything had played out weighed heavy on him.
There were still nights where sleep didn't come easily, followed by days where by afternoon he was exhausted. Last night had been such a night. At least today there was no pressing need to do anything. So when Zheng Bei had fallen asleep on the sofa after they had returned from getting lunch, Gu Yiran had let him sleep.
He doesn't know the exact content of those dreams that startle Zheng Bei awake in the small hours. He doesn't know, but he suspects that it all relates back to Jiang Xiaohai. Zheng Bei's Lele.
Not that Gu Yiran had shared his own either.
Would sharing such things with each other help? or would it make things worse? They both are private people in their own way. Gu Yiran through isolation and Zheng Bei by wanting to protect those around him.
The air in the apartment suddenly feels stifling, the heat, humidity and weight of the past pressing down on him.
Gu Yiran loosens the neck of his polo shirt, but it does nothing to help.
He needs to get out.
It's not a new feeling. No, he'd taken up running after his father had been taken. Maybe there had been a sense that if only he'd been faster in getting outside, faster in chasing after the car, then maybe years of heartache could have been avoided.
It had become something calming in time. His mind clearing as he focused on nothing but breathing and the movement of the pavement beneath his feet. He pushed himself every time, and there had definitely been satisfaction in how he'd easily outpaced Zheng Bei when he'd turned up in Huazhou looking for him.
On the sofa Zheng Bei stirs, but doesn't wake.
Quick and quiet as he can, Gu Yiran changes into his running shorts. It doesn't take long to find his old running shoes. His newer, better pair are in Halan, still waiting by the door to the rooms he shares with Zheng Bei.
Unlike the shoes, his cassette player came with him, something to listen to on the flight between Halan and Huazhou. While CDs were becoming more popular, portable players were still expensive and the CDs bounced too easily while running. So like many, Gu Yiran didn't see the point of changing from cassette just yet.
He looks towards Zheng Bei again, then hastily writes a note 'Running, back soon' to leave on the table. Letting him wake to an empty apartment, and no idea where he's gone isn't something that he wants to do to him. Not that he thinks Zheng Bei will worry, and he might well be back before he wakes, but he doesn't want to take the risk.
Music on, the familiar streets move past under his feet. All he needs to do is clear his head. Then he can go back, and he and Zheng Bei can prepare to return to Halan.
Halan.
Just a few months ago he'd hated the idea of leaving Huazhou, but it had been necessary. Finding out what had happened to his father had taken precedence over his own discomfort. He'd treated the move as something temporary.
Yet over time it had changed.
The people there, both in the police station and in Zheng Bei's friends and family had become part of his life. The almost solitary life he'd made for himself in Huazhou after his father's kidnapping and death suddenly feels too lonely to return to.
All the same, he knows he could, now that Xiao Ma Ge had been taken down he could choose to come back here. To return to Huazhou and the safety of teaching. He could teach any number of people to become what he'd been to the Halan Narcotics team. He could live in his own apartment, have a good job, be able to progress academically, and have regular hours.
Safety.
Gu Yiran slows slightly a twinge in his side, a phantom ache from the times in Halan where he'd been hurt.
Yet what safety was there really?
They'd taken down Xiao Ma Ge, taken Snow Angel off the streets. Yet it wasn't the end of it. There would be another and another and another. The power vacuum left behind by him would be filled and if they were lucky it would be by someone with less skill, peddling something more familiar and easier to stop. If they were not another faceless threat, another synthetic drug would rise up, threatening lives and tearing families apart.
The streets pass in a blur, residential streets changing first to shops and market stalls and then industrial as he approaches the river.
Although the sun is starting to sink towards the horizon, the heat of the day hasn't started to drop. While the humidity, if possible, seems to have climbed higher still, the air damp and muggy along the waterside.
Gu Yiran pushes himself on, trying to seek the calm that he usually finds in running. His breath comes shorter and shorter, heart beating hard against his ribs, the drumming of it in his ears muffling the singing of Jacky Cheung through the headphones.
You're out of practice, he tells himself, trying to maintain what should have been an easy pace for him. Running everyday had fallen by the wayside in the face of all that had happened in Halan while taking down Xiao Ma Ge. Certainly no regular schedule that allowed for his daily 6am run. Nor have all the times that he's woken in a hospital bed rather than his own. Too many injuries in too short a space of time have taken their toll.
A wave of dizziness strikes and Gu Yiran slows. The setting sun shimmers off the water beside him, catching his eyes. He blinks, only half aware that he’s stumbled.
The next moment he's sprawled on the ground, winded and sore.
Head pounding, nausea coming in rolling waves, Gu Yiran stays down, trying to breath through it and take stock of what has just happened. Nothing definite comes to mind, but he knows he’s not thinking clearly.
It takes more effort than it should to get back to his feet and Gu Yiran barely manages to limp over to a rusting pile of pipes stacked on the abandoned riverside quay before he has to sit down.
His hand and knees are scratched, but it's nothing serious. Nothing more than a child would get after a tumble in the playground. All the same his head pounds unmercifully, the hot, sticky air making cooling down almost impossible.
How is he going to get back to the apartment? It makes him wish for a phone like they'd had for working the case. Yet what could he do with that? Call Zheng Bei and tell him he'd tripped over like a fool? That he was dizzy with the heat because he’d not drunk enough water.
"Gu-er!"
He looks up. There is only one person who calls him that, the only one here who has that northern accent to the way he speaks.
Zheng Bei is looking at him with equal parts confusion and concern. "What happened?"
"I tripped.” Gu Yiran forces himself to stand, sheer embarrassment winning for a moment over how awful he feels. “Why are you…” He trails off, dizziness increasing again. “How did you find…”
He doesn’t manage to finish before there is the sensation of falling again, but this time he doesn’t hit the ground. Zheng Bei’s arms are round him in an instant, pulling him against him, keeping him from falling.
It should be embarrassing to be held like this, to need to be, just from overheating and falling while running. Possibly it’s the heat exhaustion speaking, but Gu Yiran leans into him, finding nothing but relief.
The only discomfort, apart from his own current condition, is that Zheng Bei takes too much on those broad shoulders of his. It’s not something Gu Yiran wants to add to it. He never has. He’s tried to tell him that he doesn’t need a big brother. Right now though he hasn’t got a choice.
“Home or hospital?” Zheng Bei says, doubtful he should be giving him a choice.
Resting his head against Zheng Bei’s shoulder, Gu Yiran considers his options, before replying, “Home. Just need to drink. Rest.”
There’s a pause and then Zheng Bei's arm settles about his waist, letting him lean into him for support. “Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
They make their way back to the apartment. It's slow, the dizzying headache still pounding behind Gu Yiran's eyes, but finally they make it.
Slumping down on the sofa, Gu Yiran wonders if he could just sleep it off. He’s tired and everything hurts. He’s not sure any more that he remembers what it’s like not to be tired.
"Drink." Zheng Bei presses a cup of water into his hand, then looks around. "You have a first aid kit?"
"Bathroom." He feels dazed. He doesn’t remember the cup being filled, but he drinks, thirst suddenly letting itself be known.
A second cup is given and is drunk, while Zheng Bei cleans the shallows grazes and the stinging antiseptic applied.
The headache and dizziness fade slowly as Gu Yiran drinks and cools down, a tired woozy feeling taking its place as his exhausted body demands rest.
While Zheng Bei tidies things away, Gu Yiran leans back on the sofa and closes his eyes.
He’s running again. The streets about him are both Huazhou and Halan, they blur together. He’s chasing something or being chased. Shadowy figures lay sprawled in doorways, gaudy neon signs lighting up the discarded needles around them.
A car. He’s chasing it. He’s always following. He never reaches it. Fingertip distance away. He reaches for it, hands closing on empty air, again and again.
His hands close on fabric, wet with rain, wet with blood. The ragged white coat falls open and bones scatter on the ground.
With a cry Gu Yiran sits bolt upright, breathing ragged as if he really has just been running for his life.
It’s not a new nightmare, just a variation on a theme as they all are, but it’s the first since he’d been able to lay his father to rest. The bones in the dream feel all too real. Too many years had passed from when his father had been taken, murdered, for it to be a body that was returned to him for burial.
He shivers despite the warm night, eyes stinging in the dimly lit room. He keeps them closed, knowing that he is only delaying the inevitable.
The sofa creaks softly as Zheng Bei sits down beside him and then without any hesitation wraps his arms around him, holding him tight.
When Zheng Bei had given him the news that his father's remains had been found he'd held him close like this, his arms around him while he’d shook from relief and shock, too numb for tears.
It’s a numbness that hadn’t really lifted. The tears that hadn’t fallen then, the ones he’d not felt able to share at the funeral where the world could see, start to fall now.
Zheng Bei doesn’t ask why now or tell him to stop, he just places a hand on the back on Gu Yiran’s neck, thumb stroking gently, until the tears subside.
There’s tiredness there and something knowing too as Zheng Bei looks at him. He is no stranger to nightmares himself. Yet what there is more than either of those is the look of solid certainty that if they keep going they will be alright.
Still keeping an arm about him, Zheng Bei wipes away the tears, fingers careful against Gu Yiran’s face,
“Bei-ge,” Gu Yiran begins, the air feeling charged between them.
This feeling between them, as unacted upon as it has been until now, isn’t something that either of them have been oblivious to. No, it was that in all those other moments other concerns and duties came first.
Tonight those are not present. Yes, they are caught between the past and present, that past for both of them weighing heavy in their minds and hearts. Yet they have the present moment, and a future too. One that they can make together if they are careful.
Perhaps tonight isn’t the best time, but both of them know too well that there are no perfect times, and it’s all the missed chances that will come back to haunt you.
Zheng Bei leans in and presses his lips against his.
Outside rain starts to fall, pattering against the window, the strength of it increasing as the wind rises. A distant, low roll of thunder sounds. A late summer storm to clear the air.
Tomorrow they will return to Halan and whatever life will bring. But whatever it is they will be able to face it together.