Oh, oh, oh it's magic (Xie and Kevin)

[xie_er]

Zhao Jing used to be a nobody, born into influence and wealth but always in the shadow of those around him. In magical circles he was even worse, a barely-remembered witch that didn't have enough power for any familiar to even consider looking twice at him.

Somehow, though, after many years (and a few suspicious deaths), he's managed to climb his way to the CEO of Five Lakes, his power - of both kinds - growing exponentially.

The previous CEO was surrounded by some unfortunate rumorus before his death, so Zhao Jing has been focused on repairing the reputation of he company and solidifying his support, mundane and magical, which means it is far too delicate a moment for Xie to be in the spotlight, even if he was promised he'd be allowed to stop hiding when the position was in Zhao Jing's hands.

He just has to wait a little longer, that's all, and it's not like it's difficult to only appear in his animal form whenever Zhao Jing is in public, just uncomfortable, and the last thing they need is for somebody to recognise Xie for any of the things he's done to help his witch get where he is today, when his position is still so precarious...

He tells himself all the excuses he's heard from Yifu, repeats them in his head like a mantra as he sits through all the meetings and negotiations, a little black cat and Zhao Jing's feet, watching the men and women he's speaking to for anything Yifu can use. He hangs around when Zhao Jing steps out the room, listens to what they say behind his back - that's his job with normal people, to be a pair of ears they don't realise are there. Even paranoid types who scan for bugs would miss him, which he finds funny, privately, because he is a bug of a sort.

Not that he's allowed to take his original animal form - a scorpion would be out of place if anybody caught sight of him, and Yifu doesn't like the idea of him hiding in pockets or anything like that. He says it's dangerous, that something could happen to him, but Xie privately thinks he just finds the form creepy. Even around other magical people, the cat is preferred - his job with them is to be a reminder that Zhao Jing has a familiar, and a relatively powerful one at that.

It's hard for familiars to change the form they can take, but he did it, for Yifu.

He tells people the cat is called Scorpion, and that somebody else named him - which is technically true, Xie does mean scorpion, and his parents named him - and that he's vaguely embarrassed to have such a fiercely named cat.

(He doesn't tell magical people anything at all, they know Xie isn't a pet so they're less likely to ask, at most they will wonder why his familiar always stays in animal form. Zhao Jing just tells them he's shy. He isn't, he doesn't care about people seeing him, but it's easier to do the things Yifu wants him to do when nobody knows what he looks like)

Xie hadn't always known he was powerful - when Yifu had taken him in he'd been told he wasn't much, but that maybe he could be useful. Later, when some witch had made an offhand comment about it, the story had become that Yifu recognised his power and took him in before anybody else could steal him away, that he just wanted to protect Xie from the people who would use him for his power. Xie was already so far gone by that point that he accepted it, that he told himself he was lucky he had Yifu to protect him, to guide him.

It's funny how easy it is to lie to yourself.

When the meetings are over for the day he finally shifts back to human form, spending a few minutes stretching out the kinks that come from forcing himself into a form that isn't quite his, especially with how much he's had to do it over the last few weeks, and then going in search of something to eat. He could probably just head back to his own apartment since he doesn't think Yifu needs anything else from him, not today, but the outsiders have all left and everybody in Yifu's manor at least knows Xie, even if they don't know that Xie and Scorpion are one and the same, so it's safe to be around them.

He likes to spend as much time here as he can get away with, likes to remind Yifu he can be useful in other ways... and maybe he likes to keep an eye on this new apprentice Yifu has taken on. He doesn't understand why he needs anybody else when he has Xie, but the last time he'd questioned somebody new in the house Yifu hadn't spoken to him for a week, so he doesn't voice that thought out loud - he just watches the guy suspiciously every chance he gets, and wonders how easy he would be to get rid of.

He's halfway to the kitchen when something makes him stop. A tug of power, the vague echo of chanting, there's a ritual happening and something about it is drawing him close. He frowns, confused, and follows the pull...

Comments

[xie_er]

I want you. I want you brushing my hair and cooking me dinner. I want to watch Queer Eye and play chess and snipe at each other with insults we don't mean. I want to hate sitting through a stupid football match but doing it anyway because it makes you happy. I want you to be happy. I want you to be happy with me

It hits him with a force that's almost solid. He doesn't even know if he means it romantically or not, he doesn't think that even matters, but the thought comes to him unbidden and with it comes an ache that is honestly familiar, but that he's previously only associated with his need for the tiniest scrap of genuine affection from Yifu, for his attention and praise and approval.

Maybe that's what the bond does. Makes him imprint like some fucking duckling. Except it doesn't, and he knows it doesn't, he knows enough about bonds and Familiars and how it all works to know that this is just him. Maybe it's because of losing his parents and being alone for so many years, maybe it's because he spent a little too long without a bond and he really did go a bit mad, but all he really wants is to connect with someone, to belong with someone.

He should probably just be glad that at least he wants something slightly healthier, now, even if he once again wants something he can't have.

Because Kevin pushed back about the cat part, but he didn't deny that he didn't want Xie.

It's a long, long moment before he finally answers, before he can trust himself to not let the truth come spilling out the moment he opens his mouth.

"I want to be bonded to someone who actually wants me. Not because I'm powerful, not because it's the right thing to do and they're stuck with it, but because they actually want a bond with me." He says tiredly. It is closer to the truth than he'd like, but he knows Kevin isn't going to stop pushing if he tries to sidestep it entirely

[weird_cop]

Kevin lets go of a breath slowly.

It's really not an unreasonable thing to want, and he hates himself for not being able to provide it, not because he doesn't want Xie...

...that was a thought he wasn't expecting, and he immediately stamps on it, but not before realising that he does, in fact want to want Xie. Wants to be able to provide those things. Wants this whatever this is, to be real.

"Okay," he says. "So maybe... maybe we should put a pin in breaking the bond for now, because if you do that, you'll never find the right person."

[xie_er]

He's never going to find the right person anyway. Where the fuck is he going to find someone like that? Prison? But of course Kevin says let's not break the bond, of course he does.

Xie almost wants to laugh. Wants to say I told you so.

Instead he takes a breath and smiles. It's the same soft, accommodating smile he used to give Yifu when he was at his most irritatingly patronising. He inclines his head and pours every inch of syrupy, agreeable geniality he is capable of into his tone.

"Your wish is my command, master."

[weird_cop]

Kevin reacts like he's been hit in the face. He reels back under the force of the word and for an instant he freezes in shock.

His hand screams in protest as he forms a fist and for a moment he's not sure if he can control himself, if he can stop himself launching across the kitchen at Xie.

But he does. He has that much control.

He turns and leaves the kitchen, heading down into the basement.

[xie_er]

Even before he sees it, Xie knows the effect that's going to have on him. Between outright statements and hints here and there, it's clear where Kevin's discomfort with the bond lies, and even seeing the much healthier example of Kexing and Zishu doesn't seem to have soothed much of that discomfort.

When the words are out, though, he genuinely isn't sure exactly how it's going to play out. Is he going to get angry? Yell? Hit him? Is he going to be hurt? Wounded as sure as if Xie had picked up a knife?

It seems for a moment as though the answer is both. He sees the shock, sees the way his hand clenches, tenses for an attack... and then he just leaves. And Xie watches him go.

Maybe Tony was right. Maybe Kevin is the frog.

But Xie's the fucking idiot drowning himself because he can't keep from lashing out.

He stays exactly where he is for a long, long moment. Then he leaves as well, going upstairs - mostly because his room is the only space that feels like his own, but it doesn't hurt that it's the furthest possible distance he can put between him and Kevin while they're both still stuck here.

[weird_cop]

Kevin's gym equipment has been hauled over from the cottage, but not really unpacked since arriving at the new safe house. With his hand in the state it's been in he's not felt like it much and has contented himself with the odd bodyweight circuit just to fight all the cooking he's been doing.

But now, he drags the briefing table out to the side and pulls out the Century Bob training dummy into the middle, capitulating to his injury only in that he pulls a pair of gloves on first.

He knows this is a bad plan, bit he also knows that if he doesn't do something he's going to explode, so he lays into the stupid dummy, giving it everything he's got.

It hurts - it hurts and he's probably adding days if not a week to his recovery time, but even as his hand screams out to him he can't help pushing further.

What's the point in holding back, he thinks. He can always fucking heal it afterwards.

Anyway? He can at least work his other hand just as hard.

[xie_er]

Xie shoves his dresser in front of his door in lieu of a lock, ignoring the way it makes his shoulder twinge, and goes to the bed. The same spiteful, petty part of him that just took control of his stupid mouth wants to start the ritual now, to hell with it, but he still needs the nails and they have to be iron - he can't just break apart some furniture and take the nails from that, though the temptation is there.

Instead he just sits there and fumes, tries to hold on to his anger because as soon as it goes only the guilt and hurt will be left.

Here in the room, though, he's surrounded by little reminders - the repaired lamp, the guitar, the expensive moisturiser that appeared two days after Xie grumbled about his skin drying out, even the broken pendant still sitting on his bedside table, untouched since he left it there.

Kevin has done so much to make his life here more bearable, to make him comfortable, to help him - and all Xie can do is be angry because he can't give him the one thing Xie actually wants from him. The one thing he didn't even realise he wanted.

It's like he's lost his ability to be satisfied, to tell himself he's grateful for what he has. Maybe that's Kevin's fault too. For building him up, for making him want more.

He lies back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling, feeling exhausted and restless all at once, but most of all feeling like he's shattered something. Like he had something good and he couldn't just be happy with the way it was, he had to push, had to want more.

Maybe he's the one who's just the same as Yifu.

[weird_cop]

When Kevin can't go any further, he keeps going. Because as soon as he stops he hears that voice again, that word, and he remembers how much Xie hates him, how much of a lie this has always been.

They can't be friends, they can't be partners, because Kevin is a police officer and Xie is a murderer, and because Xie hates him, so much he's wiling to put himself through all that just to be free of Kevin, but he wants to do it in the most painful way possible and...

...and Kevin, the idiot, thought he could save him, like he was a fucking project.

Kevin lays into the training dummy until the pain in both hands is screaming, until his vision goes red and then black and he gets angrier and angrier because the damn thing won't hit back. He pounds on it, vaguely aware in the back of his mind he's turned even this into a sacrifice and he's inviting yet more of the local power into him.

He continues until something physically snaps in the dummy and it stops even taking his hits, listing weakly to the side. Kevin collapses against it, drenched in sweat and barely able to see, let alone move.

[xie_er]

Xie tries to meditate. Closes his eyes and empties his mind and tries, really fucking tries to relax into it.

But there's something boiling. Something fierce and sharp and so, so angry just at the edge of his consciousness. At first he thinks he's just failing, can't clear his mind because of his own emotions. Then he realises it isn't his anger.

That has him sitting bolt upright in horror because no. No no no no no no no... he can't..

He knows about empathy. Knows that it's possible when a bond is strong and good and right, he'd researched it extensively because he wanted to try and work out why he never had it with Yifu, what he was doing wrong - before he knew or even dared to think that his bond with Yifu was a rotten, broken thing that would never result in that kind of synchronicity.

This isn't supposed to be happening. It isn't fair. Why now? Why him?

He can blame the strength of the emotions, but he knows that's bullshit, because Yifu had plenty of strong emotions and he never sensed any of them like this.

He moves without thinking, shoving himself off the bed and grabbing the dresser to move it back. He had to go down there, he had to... had to what? Put himself in place of whatever Kevin was taking his anger out on? Because it's him who's caused this. He was the one who took the sharpest knife he had and twisted it in Kevin's cut without a second thought.

He sinks down to his knees, presses his head against the dresser and just stays there, lost and alone and useless. He couldn't even call one of the others to come and look after him. He couldn't do anything.

[weird_cop]

Kevin is finally done, finally sinks to the floor and stays like that for a few minutes, suddenly aware of how cold the basement is - except for the hot throbbing in his hands. At first he blames it on the sweat and the exhaustion, but then he realises it's because he's lacking what he always used to have after a big blow out sacrificial ritual. He misses the blanket around his shoulders and Joe telling him to stop that, to come upstairs and stop for a second.

He makes another fist. It's not fair, he can't be missing that now.

Eventually he hauls himself up, shoves the dummy back where it had been, tries to rearrange the furniture back, and creeps upstairs for a shower.

As long as Xie stays in his room, he thinks, he shouldn't have to explain what he's been doing.

[xie_er]

Xie doesn't need him to explain because he can make an educated guess, could practically feel the pain in his own hands as he sat there, and despite everything some part of him still wants to shove aside the dresser and go out there to yell at him for being so fucking stupid and messing up his healing again.

But what right does he have to do that? They're not even friends... and yet they've somehow bonded strongly enough that Xie is getting fucking empathy.

It's not fucking fair.

He waits until Kevin's in the shower, finally gets up and moves the dresser. He slips downstairs to get some things and then disappears back into his room, closing the door behind him.

When Kevin emerges from the shower, he'll find the first aid kit sitting outside the door, along with the box of painkillers and a glass of water.

Xie doesn't know if Kevin will take it as an apology or a scolding, doesn't even know how he means it, but he doesn't care as long as he actually uses it.

[weird_cop]

When Kevin sees the first aid kit waiting for him, like some fucking offering, he's not sure how to take it, either. He does know that the reminder that there is someone else in the house, someone who for all his fucked up attachment issues and viciousness, in his own messed up way seems to care about Kevin's welfare - that's a little too much to take and he almost breaks down right there.

He scoops up both and heads into his room, almost thanking Xie through the link before shutting it down, not trusting himself to say anything.

He retreats into his bedroom, with the water and the painkillers, and sits, feeling guilty as he carefully dresses his hand and sits for another round of meditation.

Mostly because he was told to.

[xie_er]

Xie grabs his guitar, puts his headphones on and tries to just lose himself in music instead. Plays until his shoulder is aching and his fingers are sore from the strings.

It doesn't help.

He tries, and fails, to meditate again, considers dealing with the fact his stomach is rumbling because he hasn't eaten at all today, then decides it serves him right for fucking everything up and he can go to bed hungry.

So he does.

[weird_cop]

Kevin eventually comes out of his emotional turmoil, with the help of a focused round of healing his hand, and ventures down into the kitchen. He stares into the fridge for a moment, and then throws some things together and makes the quickest, simplest ramen he can.

He leaves a bowl outside Xie's room in the exact same way then retreats back into his room.

[xie_er]

Xie is aware of Kevin's presence when he stops outside the door, of course he is, and for a moment he wonders if he's going to knock, or come in, if maybe...

But then he moves away and Xie calls himself an idiot. He does cross to the door, though, when he hears Kevin's door shut, and opens it a crack to peer through.

He has half a mind to just leave the ramen there, doesn't even really know what to make of it, but after some internal debate he grabs the bowl and retreats back inside to eat.

It's quick, it's simple, it's basic... but it's still really fucking good. He tells himself it's just because he's hungry.

It feels like they've gone backwards. Like things are back to the way they were when they first got here - only worse, because at least before it was only Xie sulking in his room, now it's both of them. He's an idiot, but he doesn't know how to fix things like this.

[weird_cop]

Kevin finally lies back in his bed, and stares at the ceiling, and tries to figure things out. Tries to figure out what the fuck is going on and how he can fix it.

Xie needs and deserves someone who wants him, that's fair. He should have someone who chose him, who wants him for him, rather than using him for his power or to keep his power from someone else. And Kevin... Kevin will always be the cop who tricked him and stole him without thinking.

And then he thinks of Xie's hair in his hands, thinks of snarking over football, that cat on the back of his chair because he thought Kevin wanted it, and he just thinks about how much he wants to want him, how much he'll miss him when he does leave.

He sleeps poorly, fitfully, and is already up when the others arrive, shutting their questioning looks up swiftly with a look of his own.

"Just let's get on with the brief."

[xie_er]

It's not uncommon for Xie to not emerge to say hello to them when they arrive, but there's usually at least some sign of his presence - a breakfast plate by the sink, sounds of movement, the indication that Kevin is talking through the link, something.

Today there's nothing, all is quiet and Xie's door remains closed.

[weird_cop]

The tension is palpable, and it takes a great deal of effort for everyone not to comment on it, especially near the end when Tony hauls out the broken dummy from the corner, looking pointedly at Kevin.

Quill sighs.

"Alright," he says, "Kev, we're off to the pub tonight, the five of us. Plus spouses, babysitters dependent. Get a shower and smarten yourself up a bit."

It's blatantly obvious what it is, but Kevin is so pathetically grateful he doesn't complain.

"Is that a good idea, guv?"

"I don't think it's a bad one, do you?"

Kevin nods to him as they go, and returns to the kitchen for lunch, and to get ready.

[xie_er]

That's when Xie finally emerges - once he's absolutely sure the rest of them have gone. He goes back and forth on it, while they're still there, whether he wants the buffer of other people. In the end, though, he knows that they're Kevin's friends, and they will take his side - they should take his side - and he's not really in the mood for an argument.

Partly because it's hard to argue when you know you're wrong.

He comes downstairs, hovers in the doorway to the kitchen, tries to brush aside the litany of cruel jibes he can imagine Yifu saying and focus on Kevin.

Only now that he's here, actually looking at him, he doesn't know what to say. He really just came to ask about lunch, but 'I know we're sort of fighting and also I said something terrible to you but are you still going to cook me food' just doesn't sound good.

[weird_cop]

"What do you want for lunch?" Kevin asks, simple and normal, as if nothing had happened between them and everything is normal.

Except he asks it without turning to look at Xie when he comes in.

[xie_er]

"Whatever you're making." Xie answers, just as casual, still not moving from the doorway.

He wonders if that's the wrong answer, if it would have been better if he'd made a decision, if... he's back to second guessing his every move, trying to figure out what's going on in Kevin's head. He barely even remembers when he stopped doing it, when so much of their day-to-day just became easy, natural.

But that's all gone now.

[weird_cop]

"Beans on toast it is," Kevin says, putting the bread in the toaster and reaching for a can.

He pauses with the can in his good hand, glaring at it for a second, before turning and tossing it in Xie's direction.

[xie_er]

Xie isn't really a fan of beans on toast, but he'll eat it, and he's not going to complain, not right now.

When the can is tossed at him, he just reaches up almost lazily and snatches it out of the air, finally moving forward to he can get a can opener from the drawer.

Once open, he sets it down and slides it across to Kevin and retreats slightly - not quite all the way to the door, but definitely putting space between them.

[weird_cop]

Kevin catches the tin as it slides across the table, picks it up and gets on with his cooking, adding chili and spices to the tomato sauce to counteract the sweetness as it heats. He pours it over both plates of bread and brings out a bag of pre-grated cheddar from the fridge and sets it on the table, along with pre-ground black pepper.

Than he sits, still not saying anything.

[xie_er]

Xie watches him work, thinking of course he's going to add things to simple beans on toast and make it better. That's what makes it tolerable when he doesn't even really like it. He really shouldn't find all of Kevin's good traits annoying, but right now they're just making it harder to commit to hating him and making this easier on them both.

...There's a logic in there somewhere.

He wants to just take his plate and go, but it seems rude - it's different if Kevin brings him up something, but watching him cook and then just leaving feels wrong, even if it means having to eat in awkward, tense silence.

So he takes a seat and pulls the plate towards him, adds some cheese and pepper and starts eating.