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

[weird_cop]

"Thank you," says Kevin now. "For this and for..."

He glances quickly at Xie and back to Brutus.

"I wasn't sure if you could hear me, but I had to try. And you did, didn't you? I couldn't have done the ritual without you."

Thank you for saving him.

He comes just shy of saying it out loud - it's almost embarrassing how grateful he is that he was able to do what he did. Special, Xie had said. Blessed, Lisa had said. Maybe they're both true, but all Kevin knows is that it feels like he did something extraordinary, gained something extraordinary. And he's not sure if he deserved it. But he does know that he's pathetically grateful that it worked.

Brutus places a hand on his shoulder.

"You did the work, Kevin. I just gave you a bit of a boost."

[xie_er]

The way Kevin glances at him helps him understand, revises his interpretation slightly - clearly, Brutes stepped aside from the very beginning, whether he knew or not that this is how it would turn out.

He realises, mostly, that he should be grateful as well, that this is the source of the power that allowed Kevin to rescue him.

He agrees with Brutus, Kevin did the work, but he's still thankful that the god made it possible.

[weird_cop]

Kevin places his own hand over that of the god on his shoulder, and nods, acknowledging that.

"And now I'm back," he says.

Brutus nods. "And already back on your path, I think. Welcome back, Kevin. As our friend Mr Flamstead would say: we were all very worried about you, weren't sure you were going to make it."

Kevin removes the hand form his shoulder, but doesn't quite let go. It's Brutus who removes his hand, kisses Kevin on the cheek and turns to offer a hand to Xie.

"Look after him, Scorpion King. I'll know if you don't."

[xie_er]

Xie smirks slightly and nods.

"Oh, I will." He says. It's mostly promise, but perhaps a little bit of innuendo too.

He's nothing but serious when he takes the offered hand, though, his eyes conveying what he can't quite say out loud;

Thank you for looking after him until he could get to me

[weird_cop]

Brutus laughs at the innuendo, and after shaking Xie's hand he stands aside to let them at the car.

Kevin opens the passenger door for Xie, nods to Brutus as he moves around to the driver's seat, and then leans over and kisses Xie, long and tenderly.

By the time they stop, he can feel the link has returned, the familiar sense of power available to him, the feeling of being whole again.

Outside it's started to rain.

[xie_er]

Xie gives him a nod and gets into the car, and when Kevin leans over to kiss him he leans into it, wrapping his arms around Kevin's neck to hold him as close as he can manage.

When they finally break apart, he's a little breathless - just as much from relief at feeling the link settle back into place as it was from the kiss itself.

"Well. He's interesting" He comments - it's stupid, but he needed to say something, needed to reach out across the link and feel that Kevin was there.

[weird_cop]

Kevin grins a little sheepishly.

"That's one way of putting it. Thank you for not stabbing him when he kissed me."

He puts his hand on Xie's thigh briefly before pulling out.

"I've never taken anyone else into the Outer Boroughs before. That was a first."

[xie_er]

"I was tempted." Xie admits with a faintly amused smirk.

He's not an idiot, though, that's the main thing that stopped him.

"Think it's another one of those things where we count as one person?" he asks, settling his own hand on Kevin's thigh as he drives.

[weird_cop]

"Definitely," Kevin agrees. "Probably helped that he called us, rather then me having to go and knock on the door. But I think that's what it was."

He heads our towards the safe house, thinking of all of the day's general progress.

"And that's what a day's work looks like for me."

[xie_er]

"When you're not kidnapping Familiars or fighting off assassins, anyway." Xie adds, slightly teasing.

It's nice, though, to see that it's not all chaos and danger, that Xie doesn't need to worry about him all the time.

(Just some of it)

"More of the same tomorrow?"

[weird_cop]

"I wish," Kevin replies.

"I've got to go through the info from that CHIS, see if Lisa can use any of it. Then you and me have to brainstorm what we're going to do about our homeless familiar problem. Before it becomes a problem."

On the way home, he pulls up outside a large pharmacy. "Just need to get some stuff. Need anything?"

[xie_er]

Xie wrinkles his nose slightly - he can see why it's an important part of the job, but it sounds like a very boring part of the job too.

He probably doesn't get to pick and choose the interesting bits, though.

He glances out the window and frowns slightly, looking over at Kevin. He'd know if he was sick or something, right...?

"Not that I can think of. Want me to come with you?"

[weird_cop]

"Not if you don't want to," Kevin replies, leaning over again to give him a kiss. "Won't be long. You want to come?"

Xie has already been recognised once today, it depends what he wants.

[xie_er]

If it was just a case of going out in public, he'd rather not, but the curiosity gets the better of him and he nods.

"I'll come." he agrees. Besides, it would be boring just sitting waiting in the car with nothing better to do.

Now that the wards are down more often, he wonders if he should broach the subject of getting a phone - the only person he'd really call or text was Du Pusa, since there's no point texting someone you can talk to in your head, but it would probably be useful for other things too.

[weird_cop]

Kevin grabs a basket and walks the aisles fairly quickly, grabbing toothpaste and shaving cream...

"I thought maybe we should call Zishu about the familiar thing," he says, as he turns into the sexual health and wellbeing aisle, pausing by the lubes.

[xie_er]

Xie wonders if he's just being stupid when Kevin starts with standard toiletries, if he was worrying about nothing. He still thinks it when he stops by the lube, to be fair, but it's overtaken by a different kind of concern.

"He might have some contacts, or be able to make a suggestion" Xie agrees - it's a little reluctant, since he doesn't necessarily like or trust either Zishu or his husband, but they did help Kevin when he needed it so he can't deny they have their uses.

[weird_cop]

"We both lack information they may have," he points out. "And they're the only leads I have."

He gets the reluctance, he thinks. But it's his best source.

"Do you have any preferences here?"

He hovers for a second, checking the prices on some brands, casual and confident. It's not like buying this stuff is new to him.

[xie_er]

"I know." He concedes. He doesn't have to be happy about it, but Kevin is right - and it's not his finer feelings that are important, not when there's a kid potentially at risk.

He looks over the display with a shrug.

"I don't mind, if there's any you prefer?"

He's not actually as familiar with this kind of thing as he ought to be - he had some at his apartment, in the box under his bed, but he didn't have any particular preferences, it all did roughly the same thing, right?

[weird_cop]

Kevin eyes that indifferent shrug out of the corner of his eye, face twitching in something like concern. Is Xie holding something back? If he is, Kevin isn't going to have the conversation in the middle of the pharmacy, even if it's in their heads.

He grabs a couple of options in the end, aware that they probably need to try a few out, figure out what feels best for both of them. And condoms, to round out the shop.

It's not until they're back in the car that he asks:

"Hey, you okay?"

It's possible he imagined it, but it's worth checking.

[xie_er]

They haven't needed lube and condoms for anything they've been doing so far, and sure it might be some adventurous new plan that Kevin has come up with, but there really is only one obvious use for them and it's not one that Xie is particularly thrilled about.

By the time they're back in the car, though, he's buried those feelings and he glances over at Kevin with a smile when he asks.

"I'm fine." He reassures "I was just thinking about the kid."

[weird_cop]

Kevin hums out loud in agreement. He's worried, too. And it must have been tough for Xie to encounter his own past.

"I'm sorry we couldn't do more," he offers.

[xie_er]

"We'll find a way to help," Xie says, reassuring himself as well as Kevin "you're good at that."

Kevin's saved the whole of London, saved him, he'll figure out how to save this kid from whatever trouble he's in.

[weird_cop]

"Thank you for the confidence."

Kevin slips a hand over, squeezes Xie's thigh.

"And for being with me while I figure it all out."

[xie_er]

"I'm glad I can be" It's not just because this is infinitely preferable to being locked away in prison, but because he wants to be at Kevin's side, wants to be there to help and support him.

He would, he thinks, do anything to make him happy. Even something he doesn't really want to do.

It's no different to watching football, right?

[weird_cop]

Kevin smiles warmly at him, hoping to reassure him that they will work it out, save that kid from whoever it is after him, help him find someone to bond with.

He slips into small talk for a bit before they get home, and he can get out the steaks he's been thinking about at least part of the day.