Title: adjustment phase
Fandom: Guardian
Rating: G
Length: 361 words
Notes: Zhang Shi & Zhao Yunlan. Much thanks to trobadora for beta.
Summary: The second night, Zhang Shi can tell the looming prospect of home is uncomfortable for his new host.



The second night, Zhang Shi can tell the looming prospect of home is uncomfortable for his new host. It is for Zhang Shi, too: being a dirty secret again, a burden. It’s too often like this at the start, sometimes stays this way for years or decades. In the adjustment phase, especially, it makes him want to shower.

Still, there’s a family waiting, and Zhang Shi does try not to ruin his hosts’ lives.

“This paperwork is urgent,” Zhao Xinci mutters under his breath. He’s been scrawling right-handed through forms and reports for hours now, scowling at the page.

The body is hypertensive, shoulders tight, tongue burnt from gulping too-hot coffee. Teeth ache because Zhao Xinci clenches his jaw while he works, and if Zhang Shi’s any judge, they’re on their way to a stomach ulcer. He could remedy some of these complaints, prevent others from recurring or worsening, but then Zhao Xinci would feel even less himself, and which is more important right now? So Zhang Shi endures and observes that, despite all this, Zhao Xinci’s clothes are casual and unstructured.

From nowhere, a boom overhead, like—but, no, this is peacetime, and then rain abruptly clatters against the precinct window, drowning out their heartbeat. A flash, and the electric lights flicker. Zhao Xinci looks up from his report, his pulse rising to meet the fury of the elements outside. It’s not fear—so they have this much in common. Three, four, five—BOOM! It only takes a subtle suggestion. Zhao Xinci reaches for his coat, jogs downstairs and out into the downpour.

Another deep boom bounces off the concrete walls.

Zhang Shi is ten thousand years old with dark energy at his fingertips, but the elements are greater, engulfing the world in an endless cycle, far beyond his control. He can’t help it: foolish and exultant, he turns their face up to meet the rain. Zhao Xinci doesn’t object. Fat drops sting their skin, rivulets stream down inside the collar of their inadequate coat, and here, in the tumult of the storm, something eases. They feel cleansed. Is that Zhang Shi’s own response, or Zhao Xinci’s? He can’t tell.


END