You'd think, Zhao Yunlan muses, that with the narrowly averted end of the world, and Shen Wei known as a Black-Cloaked Envoy, and the intermixing of Dixingren and Haixing people, the university folk might see Shen Wei just a bit differently. But no, social upheavals or not, the only thing the University really cares about? That their Professor Shen would be available for the fundraiser evening.
"I don't know why they are so insistent," Shen Wei says when they are getting ready, plaintively and earnestly confused. "I'm not really that good with people."
Zhao Yunlan performs a heroic feat of prudence and doesn't tell him that the admins at the university aren't blind and all too well aware of the effect Shen Wei's cheekbones and the habit of looking up through his eyelashes has on people writing checks. He's fond of the magic himself, and, from his position of smug superiority - mine mine all mine! - loves seeing it at work. Shen Wei, who tends to wear his body like a practical but not especially loved suit, is unlikely to understand him.
So now Zhao Yunlan enjoys an evening of doing nothing more strenuous than trailing in Shen Wei's wake, filching canapes from passing trays, and trying not to ogle Shen Wei's exquisite ass too obviously. Here nobody cares about his job or his reputation or his role in saving the world; he is the esteemed Professor Shen's arm candy, and it suits him just fine.
Some of the younger University people frown at him, either thinking that Shen Wei married down or envying him for snagging the hottest University prize. Or both. Either is fine with Zhao Yunlan, since he, in all honesty, enjoys feeling envied in all hours of the day, and he's not above gesturing with his hands so the golden ring there flashes just so. Here's his happily ever after; sue him.
He settles in a nice corner strategically close to the buffet when Shen Wei finally stops gladhanding people and settles in a more scientific conversation with a bunch of geneticists. It's a pity Da Qing isn't there, because the braised abalone is absolutely amazing; Zhao Yunlan resolves to employ all his undercover skills and filch a bit before they go home.
He spends some time people-watching, slipping into the stakeout kind of awareness, alert and drowsy at once. But no matter how often he sweeps the auditorium, his eyes keep returning to Shen Wei.
Shen Wei has attracted an audience by now, and, engaged in whatever argument he's making, seems to have forgotten his usual reserve. He's gesticulating widely, his face animated and lovely with excitement, and if his listeners look at him with more adoration than a lecture on genetics might merit, well - Zhao Yunlan can understand that. Understand, and find his own deep satisfaction in inhabiting the world where Shen Wei can have his science and his teaching not as a ruse, but as true joy.
As if summoned by his thoughts, one of Shen Wei's students - Jiajia, the one who seems to have acquired the mantle of Shen Wei's second-in-command and sometimes keeper after Li Qian moved on to other studies - sidles over and joins him in Shen Wei watching.
"Professor Shen seems to be very happy, doesn't he?"
Zhao Yunlan smiles at her. He keeps an eye on the student forums of the Dragon City University, half for surveillance and half for sheer entertainment volume, and he knows Jiajia is one of the chief supporters of their marriage in the endless ship wars raging on the server.
"Want to make a bet on how many donations there will be by the end of the evening? The one who's closer to the right sum wins?"
She grins at him. "If Professor Shen is not careful, he's never going to get back to teaching ever again. It will be fundraisers every day of the week."
"So, no work, free canapes, plenty of admirers, a view of Shen Wei in a suit? What a horrible..."
The banter stops without Zhao Yunlan noticing; he sees Shen Wei pause mid-word, raise his hand up to his temple, and then forcibly smile and continue. It's hard to say under the bright lights of the venue, but Zhao Yunlan is pretty sure Shen Wei has grown paler between one second and next.
He turns to Jiajia, who's silent and watching him with dark, worried eyes.
"Listen," he says, bringing forth the thanks for your help, concerned citizen voice that the police academy beat into him back in the day, "I need to get him out of here, he's unwell. Like, in the next fifteen minutes. Can you do something so he won't get any annoying calls from the University bigwigs tomorrow about cutting it early?"
She's visibly startled, but her nod is serious and immediate, and he could hug her.
"Wait by the entrance, I'll think of something and bring Professor Shen over."
If she was one of his employees, Zhao Yunlan would've given her a raise on the spot. As it is, he slinks toward the entrance and waits for Jiajia to approach Shen Wei and skilfully extract him from the conversation.
He tries not to look worried. The attack is nothing new; they've dealt with those episodes before, and they can deal with them again. Compared to the price of losing Shen Wei to his horrendously martyrish plan of saving the world from his brother instead... Zhao Yunlan can keep his head and take Shen Wei home and take care of him without freaking out.
Besides, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Shen Wei really hates to see him visibly upset about his condition. He is, much as it irks Zhao Yunlan, still ashamed of what he sees as his weakness - or imposition, an even grosser choice of words - and the more chill Zhao Yunlan acn manage to project, the better.
Chill. Okay. He can do that. Jiajia is approaching him, Shen Wei in tow, and the way he's very carefully not moving his neck or head tells Zhao Yunlan that things are already pretty bad.
"I'll take care of everything," Jiajia says, with an anxious look at Shen Wei. "Please take him home safely, Chief Zhao."
"Kid, you're a treasure," Zhao Yunlan says, earnestly, and takes Shen Wei's cold, unresisting hand. "Let's go, baby."
Shen Wei opens his mouth, obviously to disagree, and Zhao Yunlan blithely rolls over his words. "No arguing, don't waste your student's good work. Come on, Shen Wei, you can be in a nice dark room in half an hour if we hustle."
Shen Wei deflates visibly, and reluctantly nods.
"It's fine, baby," Zhao Yunlan says, as lightly as he can. "Just let me deal with it."
He steers Shen Wei down to their car. When Shen Wei lets him help with the seat belt Zhao Yunlan knows Shen Wei has given up all pretense of being fine.
The first time it happened, five months ago, the sheer speed of Shen Wei's decline made him frantic with panic. He still has nightmares about Shen Wei going from hale and healthy to pale and pinched and listless and weak in less than an hour. In his dreams the descent continues, leaving Shen Wei gasping for breath, clinging to Zhao Yunlan's with freezing fingers. In his dreams, there's a point of no return.
But in reality, he knows the episode will pass, just like all the other ones passed. And meanwhile, it's up to him to take care of Shen Wei.
He drives them home, trying to strike the right balance between fast and smooth; at the apartment, he has to practically haul Shen Wei, who's walking somnambulistically with his eyes half-closed, up the stairs. This is fine. Everything is fine.
Shen Wei makes a small sound of protest at being steered through the living room with his shoes still on, and Zhao Yunlan shushes him. "I'll clean up later, no worries." He guides Shen Wei to their bed.
(The words still give him a little thrill; he suspects they will keep on giving him this thrill when they'll be, please and thank you, pushing fifty or sixty years together. He never had a 'their' bed before in his entire life.)
Usually undressing Shen Wei (who either does it by himself with military accuracy when they're not in a hurry, or (mis)uses his powers to disappear all their clothes altogether when they are), is a rare treat reserved for especially frisky evenings. Right now it's an exercise in logistics and careful maneuvering. If the episode proceeds in its usual manner, soon Shen Wei will find it too painful to be moved or jostled, and so Zhao Yunlan has to be as quick and as gentle as he knows how.
It's not hard, not really. Sometimes he feels like Shen Wei opened all those closed doors inside of him, aired out all those unused dusty rooms filled with carefulness, tenderness, attention. With fear, too, sometimes - like now, when Shen Wei is rapidly going down too fast to even protest the indignity.
He gets Shen Wei down to his underwear and tucks him into bed, grateful that the linens were changed only yesterday, smooths the blanket over him, and roots through their closet for a couple of throws to pile up on top.
"Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei says, listlessly, barely moving his lips. "You know it'll pass."
Zhao Yunlan kneels by the bed, plays with a strand of Shen Wei's silky hair. "I know, I know. We're old hands at this by now, aren't we?"
He drops a kiss, feather-light, into Shen Wei's hair, and tears himself away with loss rolling around in him like an awkward clay ball. There are curtains to be pulled closed, lights to be dimmed, pillows to be adjusted just so.
"Soup, right? It's okay if you fall asleep, I'll wake you up."
The edges of Shen Wei's lips curve up just a bit. "Try to... not burn down the kitchen."
"Har, har," Zhao Yunlan says, and flips him off for better measure, secure in the knowledge that Shen Wei is not going to open his eyes right now unless the house starts burning down around them. "Sleep."
It really would be easier to order something in, the way Zhao Yunlan had survived for most of his adult life before Shen Wei, but - he's not superstitious, okay. Or overly fussy. He is perfectly fine with serving Shen Wei with three different kinds of takeout ramen on the evenings when Shen Wei has to stay out late and enjoying the warring feelings of fondness and affront on Shen Wei's face. He has cultivated his image of a bad boy long enough to automatically pooh-pooh all the auntie-lIke ideas about the healing abilities of homemade food.
But - he knows that Shen Wei will shiver and sweat through the night and come back to his usual superhuman self, no harm no foul, regardless of what Zhao Yunlan will feed to him - but still. He has to do something.
At least, due to it being Shen Wei's domain, their kitchen is equipped with more cooking implements and ingredients than your average restaurant. He unearths a chicken from the fridge and attacks it with one of Shen Wei's prized knives, trying to get it into manageable pieces.
The knife slips. Zhao Yunlan swears and sucks on his wounded thumb, unable to help a guilty glance back at the bedroom door. Ever since Shen Wei healed his eyesight, at a price that his damnably secretive boyfriend refused to admit for the longest time, he knows every time Zhao Yunlan gets as much as a splinter, and it usually gets him a dose of magic healing (nice) and a lecture (slightly less nice). But the room stays silent.
The chicken finally yields. Zhao Yunlan wrestles with pot and water - he really should've put it on the stove beforehand, he thinks, but, well - given that he only cooks when Shen Wei is down, he'd rather just... not. He hunts for carrots and yam and goji berries and red dates and dried longan, trying to be quiet with the cupboards.
When the pot begins to boil, he dumps the chicken in, hissing when the hot drops splash on his hands. Is there a sound from the bedroom...?
No, he imagined it. Now just a few minutes for the chicken before it'll need to be taken out after the first boil, and...
Just as it's time to take out the chicken, his phone chimes with a work message. Damn, damn, damn; he wraps his hand in a towel and dumps the pot into the sink, grabbing for the phone with his left hand. If that's Lin Jing sending him some idiotic horror meme, as he's fond of doing, he can just say goodbye to his bonus for the next year.
He reads the message and swears. A body! A Dixingren-caused murder case, then, and nowadays those are rarer, but each one is a political clusterfuck in the making. And he needs to be on the scene right now, or it will get out of hand fast, but -
Shen Wei would understand. Shen Wei would tell him to go if he was awake. Shen Wei would point out, with that horrible and unbreakable logic of his, that there's nothing really dangerous in the episode, and that he'll recover with or without Zhao Yunlan's help. Shen Wei, after all, tried to ride the second attack of his illness out by himself, lying to Zhao Yunlan about an urgent research trip.
Zhao Yunlan loves him more than he ever loved anybody else in his entire life, but sometimes he can't believe the sheer unplumbed depths of Shen Wei's idiocy.
He stares at the bits of chicken floating in the hissing pot for a while, but his mind is already made up. He dials a number on his phone, tucks it between his ear and shoulder, and starts on peeling the carrots. Shen Wei always makes it look like a single elegant motion, and Zhao Yunlan always thinks it should be easy to emulate, but the carrots defy him, the skin coming off in ugly little lopsided strips. Gah.
It's late enough that he's worried his call won't come through, but finally, there's an irritated, familiar voice on the other side. "Zhao Yunlan?"
Here it goes, Zhao Yunlan thinks. "Dad? I really need a favor."
The ensuing silence is so appalled he has time to quickly summarize the case. "It's not that my people can't handle it, but you know how the politics are right now, there has to be a senior officer present, and..."
Zhao Xinci sputters in outrage. "Absolutely not. You're not even up for doing your job anymore? Have something more pressing right now maybe? A new TV show you want to watch?"
Good old dad, always with this touching faith in him. But Zhao Yunlan does have a secret weapon, and he's not afraid of using it.
He sets the carrots on the board and starts hacking them into uneven chunks.
"Dad," he says. "Shen Wei's sick again. You know how he is - he will tell me to go, but..."
Silence again, long enough that Zhao Yunlan has time to put a new pot of water on the stove without spilling anything.
Zhao Yunlan doesn't add, "and I don't want to ditch him for my job as you did with mom," and doesn't even think it too loudly. A lot of things have changed. A year ago he would've cut his arm off rather than asking for his father's help. But he knows that Zhao Xinci likes Shen Wei, in his own gruff and unpleasant way, and he knows, even, that part of this liking is that Zhao Xinci considers Shen Wei to be good for him.
He takes a proper hold of his phone, stretches his sore shoulder, lets his father wrestle against his basic instinct to be an asshole. Wonders, absently, if that new reserve of patience in him is what the whole getting married and settling down (and saving the world, and almost dying together with your beloved, and showing the fates his middle finger instead) thing had brought.
Finally, Dad says "You'll owe me," in a deeply affronted voice, and Zhao Yunlan grins and thanks him and waits for him to drop the phone.
"Tell the Professor to get better soon," Zhao Xinci adds, and Zhao Yunlan says, with pure and pleasing sincerity, "I will."
The water begins to boil. He dumps the chicken and all the bits and pieces of vegetables he's amassed into the pot, texts Jin Ling with the news he's sure the team will be ecstatic about, and waits for the soup to finish cooking. Not bad, for an evening's work.
"Baby," Zhao Yunlan calls quietly. He knows his apartment well enough to navigate it in the dark without falling down, even with a bowl of hot chicken soup in his hands. He sets it down and reaches out unerringly for the small night light that appeared in their house after the first episode. "Xiao Wei, can you wake up for me?"
In the weak light of the lamp Shen Wei's face is pale to the point of translucency, shadows pooling in the deep hollows under his eyes. He's unmoving, but his eyes are flickering minnow-fast under his eyelids, and the line of his mouth is tense.
"Xiao Wei," Zhao Yunlan calls him again, and restrains the urge to touch him. He knows a nightmare when he sees one; and while he would easily risk a black eye if Shen Wei comes up swinging, he'd rather not make Shen Wei feel more guilty and embarrassed than he already does. "C'mon baby. Food's here. Just a bit to get into you, and you can go back to sleep. Look at me please?"
Shen Wei stirs. He opens his eyes with a clear effort, and finds Zhao Yunlan with his gaze - and it will never stop to amaze and humble Zhao Yunlan, that pure joy he can plainly see on Shen Wei's face. For him, Zhao Yunlan. For the mere ridiculous fact of his rather mundane existence.
The sandpaper roughness of Shen Wei's voice makes him wince. "Ah Lan?"
"Welcome back. Can you sit up, or should I help?"
Shen Wei twitches his shoulders experimentally and his face scrunches up in pain. "By myself would be better, I think."
He inches up into a half-reclined position, the arms normally strong enough to throw cars around if required now trembling with the effort, and Zhao Yunlan thrust his own hands behind his back so he wont be tempted to reach out and help. He needs to be patient. He can afford to be patient. There will be space for touch, later.
He sits down on the edge of the bed instead, leaving a careful inch of distance between them, and picks up a bowl.
Shen Wei tries to reach out for it, but his hands shake too badly. His face is full of such ashamed frustration Zhao Yunlan's cringes in sympathy.
"Let me, Xiao Wei," he says, trying to keep his voice right. "It's okay."
"I'm sorry," Shen Wei whispers. "This is..."
"This is my chance to take care of you for once, okay? You can't think it's a burden to me."
Judging by Shen Wei's mutinous air, that's exactly what he thinks, but Zhao Yunlan doesn't press the point. They will have years and years to get him to agree, he thinks.
He digs around with his free hand and finds a wad of napkins in the bedside drawer, left over from the previous time. He hands one to Shen Wei, quietly, and lets him fumble with spreading it over his t-shirt by himself.
"I am not even going to do funny voices, that's how benevolent I am," he says, and for a moment acutely misses the fool cat, who would've made this whole situation much more ridiculous and much easier for Shen Wei to swallow by the sheer fact of his presence. "Now open up."
Shen Wei subsides and obediently opens his mouth, letting Zhao Yunlan guide a spoon in. Zhao Yunlan is not a great judge of soup quality, but he doesn't think he did too badly. It smells right, rich and savory, bringing back vague memories of childhood colds and his mother's quiet hands. And the first spoonful goes down without any problems and brings a bit of color to Shen Wei's pale cheeks.
"It's good," Shen Wei says, quietly.
"Only the best for you," Zhao Yunlan says, only half-joking. "Now shut up and eat."
It's easy to be slow and patient. He wishes he could do for Shen Wei what Shen Wei does for him without hesitating, spoon-feed his literal life force into Shen Wei's pained mouth; but this will have to do.
Halfway through the bowl, Shen Wei starts visibly flagging. "It's okay," Zhao Yunlan says, forestalling the apology he can see forming on Shen Wei's lips, and sets the bowl down. "I'll heat it up later. Lie down."
He waits for Shen Wei to laboriously settle, tugs the blanket up to his chin. Then shucks himself out of his clothes and into pajamas with brisk efficiency, and climbs into bed next Shen Wei, careful not to jostle him.
"That okay?"
He risks a feather-light touch to Shen Wei's hair, and Shen Wei exhales quietly and without pain.
"Yes."
"Excellent. I'm going to ramble for a while, OK? Shush me if you're ready to sleep."
He knows, from the experience he would've preferred not to have, that Shen Wei won't. This is the phase of the evening when the pain really settles in, and starts muddling Shen Wei's thoughts, and he'd rather stave it off for as long as possible.
"I wonder how much money you charmed all those donors out of before we had to leave," he says lightly. "I had a bet with Jiajia going, I hope she wouldn't cheat!"
He keeps his hand in Shen Wei's hair light, petting with tiny, skimming motions, and rambles on - SID gossip, Lin Jing's latest disastrous flirting attempts, Zhu Hong calling them to bitch about Yashou clan politics and numbering the amount of dumb heads she had to knock together this week, Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng amusing the entire office by trying to keep their entirely unsubtle romance a secret for whatever reason.
"I'm sure the whole gang is going to come over here tomorrow, see how you're doing. Sorry about that."
"You're... their boss," Shen Wei huffs quietly, a sigh of actual amusement that lifts Zhao Yunlan's heart. "You could stop them."
Zhao Yunlan makes a disdainful pfffft noise. "I get no respect nowadays, no respect at all. Even little Guo doesn't fear me, that's how far I've fallen."
"You seem to be blaming me?"
The sight of Shen Wei's gentle smile, caught sideways, does weird things to Zhao Yunlan's heart. "Who else could I blame? You've turned me into a complete sap."
Shen Wei opens his mouth to answer, but his face freezes in a rictus of fresh pain instead; he throws his head back and clenches his teeth, and Zhao Yunlan swears under his breath.
"Let me..." - he tries to calculate if that shift came over sooner than the previous time. He can deal with Shen Wei's recurring illness as a price for Shen Wei's life, for an opportunity for them to live to their old age together, but if the sickness begins to to escalate, he will find whoever is in charge of that entire stupid universe and kick their head in.
And meanwhile, there's nothing he can do but watch Shen Wei endure. Haixing painkillers never worked on Shen Wei anyway, Dixing doesn't seem to be big on painkillers on principle, and the whole thing is more mystical or mythical or whatever in nature anyway - but at least at this stage, his touch won't make things worse.
He tugs Shen Wei into a sitting position, wiggles his way behind Shen Wei's back, and helps Shen Wei recline against his chest. It's like holding a living statue, Shen Wei's body all muscles tightly corded and rigid, but Zhao Yunlan held him through worse. He hangs on.
"It's okay," he whispers into Shen Wei's ear, uselessly, not knowing if Shen Wei hears him or not. "It's okay, love, it's okay, you don't need to bear it, you can make noise, I have you, I'm here - I'm here - I'm here..."
The night wears on, unbearably slow, and Zhao Yunlan holds his entire world in his arms, and whispers until his voice gives out - through the shakes and spasms and agony, through the heartrending confusion of the small hours of the night, when Shen Wei calls out for his brother and for Zhao Yunlan in the same lost and despairing voice, and doesn't know where he is or who he is.
Zhao Yunlan's back is killing him and his arms go numb and then ache, and none of it matters, because he holds Shen Wei through all of it, and when the first light rises outside their tightly shut curtains, Shen Wei finally goes soft and pliant in his arms. Zhao Yunlan curls around him, shamelessly wipes his wet face on Shen Wei's shoulder, and tugs them both down to sleep.
He wakes up hours later, feeling fuzzily awful like he's having the world's worst hangover - completely unfair, he barely drinks these days - and opens his eyes to Shen Wei lying face-to-face with him, watching him intently. His face is a complicated study of gentleness and intent sorrow. Zhao Yunlan reaches out and kisses him, his morning breath be damned, just to chase this expression away.
"None of that," he warns several breathless moments later. "We're celebrating you feeling better, not brooding. And we're not getting up either."
Shen Wei raises an elegantly ironic eyebrow at Zhao Yunlan's hand, wrapped possessively over Shen Wei's side, and says, "I tried, but you wouldn't let me."
Zhao Yunlan silently congratulates his sleeping self for having good instincts. "You're allowed a bathroom trip, and that's it. No trying to overcompensate for being sick. I'll order us some food, and we're going to watch that bullshit soap opera you like."
"Your job? My job?"
"Dad's covering for me," Zhao Yunlan says, and winces guiltily at the thought of many panicked and irate messages from his poor team are undoubtedly accumulating in his phone's memory. "And Jiajia is covering for you. All is well. Stop stressing me out."
Shen Wei lowers his eyes. "I'm not trying to be ungrateful. But it must be so - I do apologize - "
"Xiao Wei," Zhao Yunlan says, much lighter than he feels, "I swear to all things unholy, you apologize one more time and I'm going to sic the damn cat on all your best shoes. You're alive. We're both alive. I get to make you soup and hold you and know that you will get better, again and again."
He rakes his hand through his hair, his anger finally bleeding through, and Shen Wei makes a little sad strained sound at that that goes straight to Zhao Yunlan's heart.
"Don't you dare," Zhao Yunlan says. "Don't - I'm so sorry it hurts, I'm so sorry you have to go through it sometimes, I would give my right arm to stop it from happening to you, I would take it from you if I could. But you're alive and I refuse to let you think it just - fucking inconveniences me - damn you, Xiao Wei - "
Shen Wei reaches out and takes his face between his palms, shutting him up. "I understand," he says. "I don't - I wouldn't trade it either, Zhao Yunlan."
"And I," he adds, gathering air as if his own words scare him, "I'm glad you are with me when I'm like this. It's easier, when you're here."
"Damn right," Zhao Yunlan says, punchy with relief, and pulls Shen Wei as close to him as the physics will allow. "And I'll always be here."