title: reckless
fandom: Guardian
words: ~5k
rating: Mature
pairings: Da Qing & Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
contents: AU: soulmarks; tattoos; plays loosely with the canon timeline; spoilers through episode 6-ish.

Summary: Zhao Yunlan finds something unexpected in Shen Wei’s apartment.


Note: This is the sequel to headlong, and won’t make a lot of sense without it. Also, a million thanks to china_shop for giving me a little extra time this round. THANK YOU!!!



The lock on Shen Wei’s door is ridiculously easy to pick, even while wearing gloves. It’s as easy as picking the lock on Yunlan’s own door when he’s forgotten his keys again -- because Shen Wei has the same shitty lock. Because his apartment is right across the hall.

His door, and Shen Wei’s door, separated by nothing more than six feet of open space.

It’s infuriating, how close Shen Wei was able to get without Yunlan noticing. It’s a testament to something that they haven’t run into each other before. Whether that’s mismatched schedules or Shen Wei’s careful planning, Yunlan can’t be sure.

But he’s even more certain that Shen Wei’s new address is the opposite of a coincidence.

Once the door has closed between them and any prying eyes in the hallway, Da Qing leans into Yunlan’s shoulder, tugging his own gloves on. “How do you want to do this, Boss?”

“Photos first.” Looking around, the main areas of Shen Wei’s apartment are practically a continuation of his office at the university, richly textured but predictable. Yunlan immediately writes off the idea that they’ll find anything unexpected there. “Start in the kitchen.”

Da Qing snickers at him. “While you invite yourself into his bedroom?” But he pulls out his phone to start taking reference photos, so Yunlan figures it’s safe to leave him unattended and, yes, search the bedroom.

Whatever the cat said before, it isn’t about pawing Shen Wei’s undergarments. Most people lower their guard in the bedroom; they surround themselves with items that remind them of comfort, of emotional attachment, of safety. Da Qing isn’t nearly as adept at reading Haixingren space as Yunlan is.

Usually. Sadly, on first look Shen Wei appears to be an exception to the rule. The walls are entirely bare of decoration, the few items of furniture utterly plain and functional -- they might even have come with the apartment. There are several books stacked on a bedside table, but no keepsakes, no knick-knacks, nothing visibly personal. Even the jewelry box on the bookshelf is unadorned. If this is Shen Wei’s idea of home and comfort, he has a hard life, indeed.

Still, Yunlan’s a professional, and looks can be deceiving. So he turns to his right and moves through the room methodically, examining the furniture for hidden compartments and checking the drawers and closet. Other than Shen Wei’s penchant for black undershirts and matching boxer-briefs -- fodder for Yunlan’s fervid imaginings, but little else -- he learns nothing of any real interest until he reaches the bedside table.

The books on the night stand are scholarly journals, with notes in the margins it would likely take a PhD to decipher. Yunlan crouches down in front of it to look through the first drawer -- more of the same, along with the note-taking supplies. The professor doesn’t leave his work at the desk.

He also doesn’t keep a single trashy novel to bore himself to sleep, or brighten Yunlan’s day.

For someone so determined to be provocative, his bedroom is disappointingly bare. Yunlan spares a moment to hope that Da Qing is finding something more exciting in the other room, and opens the second drawer.

And blinks, stifling a laugh. Because the lower drawer contains what is unmistakably sex supplies. A wide selection of toys, in a vast array of shapes and colors and textures, along with gloves, assorted cloths, and several unlabeled bottles that are probably different kinds of lube.

It’s impressive. Yunlan is impressed. He is not at all intimidated by this evidence of the professor’s sexual adventurousness, even though he’s pretty sure there’s more than one cock cage in that drawer. Cock bondage has never been an interest of his before, though now that he’s thinking about it, all of the professor’s sleeve garters and collar pins should’ve been a sign, and Yunlan can feel that his porn search history is about to become significantly more focused--

Yunlan shakes off that train of thought with an effort. He’s supposed to be a professional; if he can’t finish searching Shen Wei’s damned bedroom without getting hard, Da Qing will never let him live it down. On the scale of cat-based mockery, he’d rather be caught sniffing Shen Wei’s dirty laundry.

He almost pushes the drawer closed, ready to put the whole thing behind him. But he didn’t actually search the drawer, and after a brief battle with his better nature, he decides that he really can’t skip it. He can just run a hand around the edges the same way he did with every other drawer in the room; he doesn’t even have to look, just make sure there’s nothing hidden --

There’s something. Under the cloths, tucked into the back corner of the drawer where it wouldn’t be visible. A box? About the width of his palm, a couple of inches high, lid on the top.

Yunlan curses under his breath. It’s probably another sex toy, one Shen Wei simply keeps in its box. Considering what the professor is willing to keep unboxed and visible in that drawer, Yunlan isn’t sure his poor imagination is ready for this. But he takes it out anyway, careful not to dislodge anything else in the drawer.

It is a box. Generic blue paper, the kind that comes from any mall store or curio shop. Nestled inside is a bracelet -- a twisted metal cuff holding three opalescent stones, with no maker’s mark when Yunlan turns it over to check. It’s nothing like the modern, stylish pieces the professor tends to wear; it looks like an antique, something a person might inherit.

If it were locked in a safe, instead of tucked in with the sex toys.

It’s the first out-of-place item Yunlan has found, so he takes a couple of photos in case he needs to identify it later and turns it back and forth in the light.

The metal is cool under his hands even through his gloves, the stones catching the light with a golden shimmer. He has a vague thought about making sure the pictures catch the size of the bracelet, and slides it onto his wrist, fingers brushing across the stones as they glitter.

Yunlan slumps against the side of the bed as a wave of dizziness washes over him, closing his eyes at the sudden disorientation--

The water is blissfully warm, and Yunlan slides into it with a grateful sigh. The day had been a long one here in the mountains, dirty and tiring, and he hadn’t been able to resist the sight of this hot spring. Steam rises off the surface of the water, mingling with the mist between the dense trees that surround this little oasis. Yunlan’s robes are piled neatly on a nearby rock, along with the wood he was gathering for the fire they’d need tonight.

mountains?

Yunlan wades farther in, the water getting deeper as he goes until his hair is floating in a cloud around him. He shouldn’t linger; he knows he should head back to camp soon. But this area is safe enough, and the heat is a welcome change from the chilly mountain streams he’d usually make do with. He finds himself treading water, loathe to leave so quickly.

wait

“Ah, Shen Wei, there you are!” a voice calls, followed by the rustling of underbrush along the trail.

Yunlan spins like an eel in the water to watch his traveling companion pick his way closer over the rocks. The man is wearing thick robes and furs straight out of a historical painting, long hair falling like silk across his shoulders. Yunlan’s heart thunders at the sight of him, a blush climbing his cheekbones too bright to be blamed on the hot spring.

He’s fiercely aware of his bare skin in the clear water, barely hidden by the steam rising from the water’s surface.

The man’s dark eyes find his unerringly in the low light, grinning. “How’s the water?”

Yunlan can’t speak, caught in dueling impulses. He wants to answer that flirtatious smile with one of his own, maybe lure that brash man into the water with him. At the same time, he’s drowning in a shyness that matches the flush across his cheeks, tongue-tied and uncertain.

“Hm?” The man prompts, crouching down on one of the rocks to dip a hand in. “Ooh. Yeah, that’s nice. You’ve got the right idea. It’d feel good to wash the trail dust off.”

His hand goes to the clasp of the furs and tosses them aside before he sits down cross-legged to take his boots off. He stops suddenly, looking up again. “Unless you mind?”

Yunlan still doesn’t trust his voice. He shakes his head, and the man’s smile gets broader. Sharper.

The man takes off his clothes, layer by layer, jacket and robe and undershirt, and Yunlan can’t help staring. It’s not a slow strip tease, but the man doesn’t turn around or look away for longer than it takes to untie the lacings. He’s smaller than he looked in those furs, all lean whipcord muscle and smooth skin, and Yunlan aches with how much he wants to touch.

He finally rips his gaze away when the man is down to his under-robe, that damned shyness rippling through him again. He hears a chuckle, then a soft splash, followed by a moan so shameless, it makes his skin heat further.

Yunlan keeps his eyes on the surface of the water, anticipation thrumming through him with the sound of his companion swimming closer.

He hasn’t felt this bashful since high school, so desperate for the other person to make the first move. That isn’t him, not anymore, but he has to admit that it feels good to wait, to be the one pushed instead of the one pushing, to be pursued --

To feel a hand cupping his chin, raising his face to meet amused brown eyes. The two of them are swimming close enough together that Yunlan can feel the current from their movements, the brief brush of cooler skin against his shin.

“I wondered what it would take to get you naked with me, xiao-Wei.”

Yunlan licks suddenly dry lips, unable to hold that gaze.

His eyes fall to the sweep of dark hair swirling the water, the way it curls over the arch of the man’s neck and down to his collar bones. Yunlan reaches out, slowly, to tug it away, to bare all that warm skin, and the man sighs, shifting closer.

Just under the surface of the water, Yunlan catches a flicker of black and white on the man’s chest -- a tattoo of a red-crowned crane flying alone, and his hand drops toward it --

He feels a distant swoop of panic, of wrongness, even as his fingers find that heated skin, that heartbeat. Something in him pushes back, scrabbling away --

His eyes blink open to Shen Wei’s bedroom, bracelet shoved off his wrist and rolling across the carpeted floor. He’s panting like he’d just run a race, his heart pounding. The room is quiet. Empty, except for him. No trees, no water, no --

Yunlan takes a deep breath, struggling through a sense of dislocation so strong, it’s hard to orient himself. It had to be a dream -- here he is on Shen Wei’s floor, dressed and dry and nowhere near the mountains. But the whole thing felt so real, he can still taste the sharp mineral tang of the water, feel the ghost of a man’s palm on his face.

And that’s really fucking disorienting, because that man was him. Him with long hair and clothes like an old fantasy movie, but clearly him -- his face, his mannerisms, his fucking grin.

His soulmark.

But none of his other tattoos. All that bare skin, and it makes Yunlan’s palms sweat with how wrong it was. Him but not him.

Yunlan had wanted him. It was like a dream; he knew he wanted that man the same way he knew they were in the mountains. The different impulses, the way he couldn’t say what he wanted to say. Like he was someone else.

It felt real. It wasn’t real. But he’s still half-hard, his body confused by… whatever the fuck just happened.

Yunlan reaches out automatically to pick up the bracelet, wanting to put things back and be done with this -- and freezes, gloved fingers outstretched. The bracelet. Nothing had happened until he put it on; he remembers the way the stones glittered.

The vision had ended when he took it off.

He scoops it up with the box lid instead of touching it. It looks innocuous enough, a piece of jewelry with stones he can’t identify.

Yunlan puts it back in the drawer, thoughts flying in a million directions.

Ignoring… ignoring the details, that vision was just a version of bumping into a buddy in the baths. A time-honored porn cliché, featured in millions of videos. A kind of interactive porn. A VR fantasy.

Which explains why it’s in the sex drawer.

Yunlan chokes on a laugh, unsteady and sharp. If he lets it out, he knows he’s not going to stop, and he doesn’t want to have to explain his sudden mental breakdown to Da Qing.

It’s also Dixing technology -- Yunlan would bet on that -- which explains why it’s hidden. Nothing explains why Shen Wei has it.

There is a black market for Dixing goods. It’s small, and mostly harmless, and Yunlan’s unofficial policy is to ignore it as long as no one gets hurt. The SID’s official policy is a little different, but the Treaty doesn’t actually outlaw technology. Just people.

Like any black market, though, you have to know someone. Professor Shen doesn’t look like the kind of person who’d know how to find Dixing sex toys.

Then again, Shen Wei keeps pointing out that he’s not what he looks like.

Yunlan has no idea if devices like that are rare or common as dirt; he never had a reason to talk to Dixingren about their sex life. Ignoring everything else, it was -- it was kind of hot, really, he could see why they’d be popular.

He knows he should stop ignoring the contents of the dream. The back of his head is shouting that very loudly at him, over and over again, but he can’t. Not yet. All that empty skin didn’t belong to him, that wasn’t his body, and he won’t think about the soulmark. Not if he wants to make it home without freaking out.

He kind of wants to find Shen Wei, throw him against a wall, and demand answers to all of it. Or kiss him until he can’t talk at all. Yunlan is too worked up and confused right now to know what he’d do if he let it out.

He just needs some time to think.

Yunlan staggers away to search the rest of the room on autopilot. The jewelry box on the dresser has the cuff links and collar pins he expected. There’s nothing else revealing in the whole room. That’s funny, now, how bland and bare the rest of the room is. If there’s anything else hidden from sight, Yunlan doesn’t find it.

He makes sure he has control of his face and breathing before returning to the living room. Da Qing has circled his own way around, and is methodically searching Shen Wei’s desk.

“You were in there a while. Needed some private time?” Da Qing snickers at his own cleverness, not even looking up.

That’s --- that’s way too soon, and Yunlan’s mind careens away from the thought even while his mouth starts moving. “Sure, I admit it, I was overwhelmed by the smell of his laundry detergent,” he says, tone far too flat for a joke.

That makes Da Qing pause, eyes narrowing. “O-kay then. His aftershave’s in the bathroom, if you want it. Just close the door behind you.”

“I think I can restrain myself.” Yunlan knows he’s acting strangely. But he’s been strange all day; Da Qing can deal. “Find anything?”

The cat tilts his head at the bookshelves in offer, and Yunlan moves to search them, grateful for something to do.

“He’s a perfect man, and far too good for you.” Da Qing’s voice is determinedly cheerful. “His fridge is full of leftovers, but none of them have gone bad. They taste delicious. Why can’t you feed me like that?”

“You ate his food?” That, at least, comes out appropriately scandalized, and Yunlan can see the cat relax.

“Just tasted it.” Da Qing turns to make an exaggerated ecstatic face in Yunlan’s general direction. “So good! If you don’t want him, I’m going to court him for his cooking alone.”

“Just because it’s in his fridge, doesn’t mean he cooked it.”

“Do I care? Even if it’s takeout, it’s better than yours.” Da Qing stops rifling through a stack of papers on Shen Wei’s desk. “Hey, what’s this?”

Yunlan crowds behind him to look down at a file folder in a very familiar shade of brown, the Haixing Directorate seal on the front. Da Qing glances up at him, then back down, flipping the folder open. Yunlan’s photo stares up at them. His official employee photo, from his official employee file.

Yunlan freezes, a kind of distant, tired offense rolling through him. He really hadn’t thought they’d find anything in such an obvious place, much less something like this. It was just sitting on the desk, for fuck’s sake, where anyone could find it. Shen Wei hadn’t even bothered to take the pages out of the folder. He has a million notebooks; he could’ve disguised them if he wanted to.

“How’d he get this?”

“Let’s find out.” Yunlan photographs the seal imprinted on the file and texts it to Lin Jing. It looks real; if it is, Lin Jing can track down the number embedded in it and find out who requested it.

They were supposed to find this. Yunlan knows that as surely as he knows this was a trap. Shen Wei left this for them to find. Yunlan just doesn’t know what it means.

“Still want to court him?” he asks Da Qing. He knows the anger is leaking into his voice, and he knows it’s wrong again. He ought to find this reassuring; it’s a lead they can follow, after all, instead of all of his hunches and Shen Wei’s vague hints.

But it doesn’t fit with any of his theories about Shen Wei, and it doesn’t fit with what he saw in the other room. It’s jarring, in a day too full of things that don’t make sense.

Da Qing eyes him warily. “You have a file on him.”

“Because he’s a suspect.”

“If you say so.”

The cat is still watching him closely, and Yunlan knows that’s his cue to tell Da Qing about the bracelet and his suspicions that it’s Dixing technology. At the very least, Shen Wei knows where to buy black market goods. Combined with his knowledge of Dixingren, Yunlan would bet that the professor is knee-deep in something wildly illegal.

Add in having Yunlan’s file… The intersection of bureaucracy and black markets is usually organized crime. Smuggling, bribery -- it’s all conjecture at the moment, but every instinct he has is screaming that this is bigger than it looks.

Which makes it even stranger that Shen Wei decided to so blatantly attract Yunlan’s attention. Professor Shen is a pretty man, but he could so easily have been boring enough to ignore. He knew Yunlan was head of the SID; he still made himself the opposite of boring.

Yunlan takes a breath, and then another, and the moment slips through his fingers like sand. He tells himself he’s just too uncertain at this point, that his theories are too vague to argue with the cat right now.

Da Qing tenses suddenly, head turning toward the door to Shen Wei’s apartment. Yunlan hears it a moment later -- footsteps, and the jingle of keys.

Shen Wei shouldn’t be back yet, damn it.

Adrenaline surges through him. There’s only the one door, and Shen Wei is about to come through it. They’re trapped.

Da Qing puts the file back into the stack of papers, straightening them quickly, while Yunlan glances around. They’ve been careful; nothing else is out of place. Except for them, of course.

He grabs Da Qing’s hand and tugs, but the cat’s already moving toward the balcony doors. The filmy curtains won’t hide much, but it’s better than shoving their way into a closet. If they stay still, Shen Wei might not notice them.

They barely make it outside before the front door opens. They duck under a patio table and freeze as they hear footsteps come closer. Yunlan doesn’t dare peek through the curtains to see what’s happening.

Heart pounding, Yunlan tries to remember the professor’s class schedule. There are days he has a long break between classes, but Yunlan can’t remember which ones.

If they’re lucky, Shen Wei is just here for a brief visit. Maybe to drop something off; maybe he forgot something. If not… it could be hours before he heads back to campus.

They’re not lucky. Shen Wei is still in the apartment twenty minutes later, sitting at his desk, not five feet away from the balcony door. Yunlan peered through the curtains long enough to see him there, sleeves rolled up and head bent over a stack of student papers.

The adrenaline came and went during the wait, and Yunlan is starting to shiver out here in the wind. He wishes he’d brought a coat.

Da Qing is slowly getting restless, growing twitchy in amongst the patio furniture and potted plants. He’d be lashing his tail if he had it, right now.

Yunlan’s not much better. This day! It’s already been too much in too short a time period. His head feels like it’s about to explode. He’s definitely not going to be able to keep himself and the cat calm for… however long it’s going to take for Shen Wei to leave.

But he really doesn’t want to get caught out here.

Yunlan taps a message silently into his phone, and shows it to the cat. Go home.

Da Qing shakes his head vehemently, and starts to gesture. Yunlan catches his elbow before he can knock into one of the chairs, and glares pointedly.

Da Qing clutches his hand into his chest, but shakes his head again.

Yunlan erases the first message and types again, shoving the phone in Da Qing’s face. If I’m not home in an hour, knock on his door and drag him out of here.

Another head-shake, and Yunlan takes the phone back for a new message. Do I have to threaten your bonus?

Da Qing’s lip curls back in a snarl.

Yunlan hates pulling the boss card, especially after the day they’ve had, but it’s part of the deal. They can’t work together if Da Qing won’t follow orders. At least some of the time.

Da Qing turns his back deliberately, the move complete and eloquent in its outrage even before he starts his transformation. He gathers his paws together and jumps up on the table, tail twitching in disdain as he twines around the potted plants there, looking for all the world like he’s considering knocking one over for spite.

But he doesn’t, leaping instead for the balcony rail and then across to the next balcony and the tree branch that’ll get him down from the building.

Yunlan holds back a sigh. The apartment’s going to be a mess when he gets back. More so than usual, at any rate; Da Qing likes to drag stuff around when he’s nervous. If Yunlan doesn’t get back on his own, he’ll probably find something ripped to shreds, too.

‘Accidentally.’

Yunlan tries to settle himself more comfortably under the table, but the balcony concrete is cold and hard. It’s a terrible hiding place, though he can’t imagine a closet would’ve been better.

He glances over his shoulder through the curtains. Shen Wei is still at his desk. Yunlan can’t see his face, just the line of his shoulder, but it’s enough. He’s seen Shen Wei at the desk at the university often enough; he can fill in the rest. The way his finger curls over the edge of the papers in front of him. The tiny wrinkle between his brows when he concentrates.

Yunlan remembers the heat of the blush across his cheekbones in the dream, when Shen Wei looked at him. He’s seen no hint of that kind of shyness, not in real life. It doesn’t match the Shen Wei he knows at all.

Shen Wei’s flush, at Shen Wei’s fantasy version of him.

It’s not the time or place to think about it, but now that he is, Yunlan can’t stop. All that blank skin --

It makes sense that Shen Wei wouldn’t know about his tattoos. They’re not common, and he makes sure his clothes cover them. His skin should’ve been blank in that dream, bare and empty.

But it wasn’t. It was only a flash, but he knows what he saw. White wings outspread, pinions ruffled in a heavy wind, the flash of red. That wasn’t any crane. It was exactly the one on Yunlan’s chest, the one he’s seen a thousand times in the mirror.

A crane means loyalty, or so the Yashou say. A crane over the heart is fidelity. In flight, he’s willing to work hard for what he wants. The storm winds, a tendency to point himself straight into trouble.

Soulmarks are about the person they belong to. There might not be anyone else in the world with the same one; finding a match is rare enough for fairy tales. There’s certainly no way to know what someone’s mark is, unless they show you.

Yashouren go through the soulmark ceremony as kids; Dixingren probably do, too, but Yunlan hasn’t been willing to ask lao-Chu that kind of personal question. But he doubts if there are a hundred Haixingren who’ve been through it -- it’s an alien custom, not a human one. If Yunlan hadn’t befriended Da Qing, he wouldn’t’ve known it existed.

There is absolutely no reason to expect Yunlan to have one, absolutely no way to tell it apart from his other tattoos -- yet there it was.

It’s the most confusing part of an utterly confounding day.

Yunlan wonders what would happen if he burst into the apartment and demanded answers. If he, once, managed to surprise Shen Wei, would he get the truth? Or just another string of lies?

He isn’t sure how long he’s been staring when he hears the scrape of Shen Wei’s desk chair, and sees him stand up. Yunlan ducks back from the curtain, listening hard. He’s hoping for the front door -- Da Qing making an appearance, or Shen Wei just deciding to leave, he doesn’t care which.

He gets neither. Footsteps, some soft noise that might be a door -- and then water. He presses closer to the door, trying to place the sound. The shower?

Yunlan’s breath catches. If Shen Wei is in the shower, he can sneak out. He won’t get caught, or have to be rescued. All he has to do is walk back through the apartment while Shen Wei is actually there. Simple, right?

The idea is nerve-wracking, but it’s the best chance he has. So he slides the balcony door slowly open, as quietly as possible. He freezes for a moment, but nothing else changes -- no sudden outcry, and the shower doesn’t shut off. The bathroom door stays closed.

Yunlan slips inside and pulls the door closed behind him. Still nothing.

He slinks across the room as quickly as he can, the water noise louder as he gets closer to the bathroom door. He has to pass it to reach the exit, but it’s just a few steps away.

Steam seeps out from around the door, and Yunlan is hit with a dizzying sense of déjà vu. It doesn’t smell the same, he tells himself; this is just water, and doesn’t have the hot-stone scent of the dream. But the sense-memory sweeps through him, the heat of the water on his skin against the coolness of the misty air --

Yunlan’s steps falter.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, but he inches closer to the bathroom door like he’s pulled by a rope. The wood is warm under his palms, and when he presses his ear against it, he can hear nothing but splashing and the faint hum of the bathroom fan.

He has the overwhelming urge to walk in. It’s dumb and wrong and he wouldn’t -- springing a scene on someone is rude enough in a relationship where everyone’s on the same page and not… the kind of confusing mess he has with Shen Wei.

But he can’t help wondering. Would it be the same as the dream? Shen Wei’s surprise turning to desire; Yunlan can still feel it flickering through his veins like an invitation. Shen Wei had wanted him, or someone like him, enough to welcome him into that bath in the woods. If he asks Shen Wei how the water is, would Shen Wei play along?

Yunlan takes a slow breath, then another. This is real life, not a fantasy, and in real life Yunlan broke into this apartment because he doesn’t trust Shen Wei. In real life, they barely know each other, and there are consequences to stupid decisions. However much Yunlan might want the fantasy, all that affection and desire and certainty -- he doesn’t want to have it, then have to regret it.

It still takes him a long time to push away from that door and leave.