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]

"You thought I was an asshole," Kevin points out reasonably. "Because I'm such a good UC."

[xie_er]

He thought he was an asshole because he was jealous, but he doesn't want to mention that, would rather stay in this happy, affectionate place.

"Yes, you're very good at being a dick." He agrees, amused "but what I'm trying to say is that the real you is very easy to love."

[weird_cop]

Kevin kisses him again, happy to accept that compliment.

"Thank you," he replies, and passes up the opportunity to joke about kidnapping.

"You are too, you know." He has a feeling Xie doesn't know this.

[xie_er]

Xie scoffs slightly, disbelieving. He can't be that easy, he's demanding and bitchy and kind of fucked up, and a criminal to boot.

Besides, he thinks, if he's so easy to love, why is Kevin the first person who's done it?

"Easy or not, I'm just glad you do."

[weird_cop]

Kevin just hums in agreement and hold Xie until they fall asleep.

In the morning he wakes relatively early, and wakes Xie up gently for some hand stuff- mostly an assertion that what they do is fine and Kevin loves it and there's no more he needs.

In the ops room Lisa agrees to look through the gathered information, and Tony and Kevin have a long talk about the implications of homeless familiars and how they can help Spot, which mostly asks the main question: how do you go about finding and vetting witches?

And at lunchtime Kevin goes to the local health centre and picks up a bunch of men's sexual health leaflets, as you do.

So a relatively normal day, which ends with:

"Hey, you guys want to come over this weekend? Weather should be nice and we've got a good garden at the moment."

[xie_er]

Xie is more than happy to be woken up that way, and it does dismiss any of his lingering uncertainties about the night before.

His day mostly consists of drifting between watching Lisa work, and eventually being drawn into asking interested questions, and joining in with Tony and Kevin's conversation - mostly to input his knowledge of Familiars and, once, hesitantly offering a vague recollection of being told once, when he was very young, that his parents would help him find a suitable witch when he came of age, and that maybe there was some magical equivalent to a matchmaker out there who could do such a thing. Whether that was the case here in the UK, or even the case at all, he couldn't confirm, though.

(The leaflets he will think about later. He is grateful, but embarrassed that it's necessary.)

He nods along with the invite, a little surprised by how pleased he is with it. It's not just the chance to show off the work he's done on the garden, it's also the idea of hosting together, as a couple.

(It's maybe, the tiniest bit, because he does actually like these people)

[weird_cop]

"Look at you all couply," Lisa says with obvious approval. Tony has already nodded to say he's up for it.

"Spouses?" Quill asks. "I mean I'll be along anyway, but Sarah will understand if the whole profession is persona non grata."

"She's a journalist," Kevin tells Xie. "Not on one of the papers that ran with the story."

He doesn't want to influence the answer but he's secretly hoping to see Sarah and Jessica.

[xie_er]

Lisa's comment actually draws the tiniest hint of pink to his cheeks, but he valiantly tries to ignore it.

(It's the acknowledgement more than the approval, though that's nice too, he's just still basking in being comfortably public about their relationship)

He's confused, for a moment, until Kevin explains, and then he feels another glow of warmth (without a blush at this point) just for being asked.

"She's welcome." He replies easily - it's not quite that he doesn't want to tar them all with the same brush, more that he's willing to make an exception.

[weird_cop]

"Both the Quill women please, Jimmy," Kevin adds. "If they're available. I'll invite Rebecca and Peter as well."

"I'll let you know if she decides to bring a salad," says Quill, knowing she will.

"We've got the cans," Tony adds.

That's decided then; that and the fact that Kevin and Tony and Xie will try and get in contact with Kexing and Zishu and pick their brains about familiars.

"I'm going to plan some information gathering work as well," Kevin adds when they get home. "It's stupid that we don't know more about this stuff."

[xie_er]

"It is" Xie agrees, slightly teasing "I can help actually write down the things I know. I might be able to contact some other Familiars too, though I'm not sure how willing they'd be to talk"

He hadn't suggested them for helping Spot because most of them were criminals who couldn't be trusted to have the kid's interests at heart, but they might be good sources of information - if they could be convinced to share that information with the police.

[weird_cop]

Kevin shoots him an amused glance for the teasing. But he takes it on the chin.

"'Cause I'm police," he fills in. "So... okay. What if I wasn't police? Who could I be that they'd talk to?"

He's a UC. They could work on a character for him.

[xie_er]

"They'd be willing to talk to someone like them, as long as you had a reasonable excuse for asking questions..." Xie replies thoughtfully. It couldn't be someone too innocent or they'd just knock him back, but somebody like the person who was Zhao's apprentice... maybe if he was asking on behalf of somebody powerful....

[weird_cop]

Kevin considers this as he works around the cramped kitchen, weighing up possibilities.

Everyone in the community would know about Zhao - would be able to connect Xie, if he showed up with these questions, with the familiar. Xie's sentencing was in the public domain; that the poor victim had been let off relatively lightly, but his role in police work was a secret.

The only living person who had enough clues to put together Kevin's identity was Lady Fireknives, and and she was inside. And she had been actually arrested by Costain.

"Zhao's apprentice. The one who ran off with his Familiar and his adopted son. The son avoided jail time, but the apprentice hasn't been seen since."

[xie_er]

Xie hadn't really thought about how little in the papers had been about Kevin, and since most of the people they'd run into since were dead, arrested or (mostly) on their side, perhaps news hadn't actually spread that far. It is a little unclear exactly what people know, so he hadn't considered that the cover might actually still be entirely intact.

"That could work, actually. It would make sense why you're asking, and they'd probably trust you... at least with information. You'd probably have to buy it, though."

Figuring out something to give them was much easier than getting them to talk in the first place, though.

[weird_cop]

It is worth a try, and Kevin can adapt if needed.

" Will they take money, or are they as coy about that as the Old London lot?"

Some places will accept coin these days, and he'd definitely rather that than have to barter with blood and tears.

Luckily, the kind of magic he's talking about here isn't quite that averse to money, as Zhao's nearly successful operation had shown.

[xie_er]

Xie considers this for a moment, mentally running through the options. There's not a lot, Familiars aren't very common after all, but Yifu knew a handful that were knowledgeable about a lot of Familiar lore.

He realises with a sudden shock why, and that one of the very people he's thinking about likely gave him information about the ritual he'd been planning.

"I can think of a couple," He says, faintly, slightly forced, trying to focus on the conversation at hand "people who'd have enough knowledge to be useful and who are likely to take cash for it."

[weird_cop]

It's the forced nature of the sentence that makes Kevin turn away from his cooking to look over at Xie, weighing up his desire for information with the potential responsibility to check in on his boyfriend.

He decides to be vague enough to give Xie the option of either -although he suspects that Xie will focus on the information, rather than actually engage with his feelings.

"Yeah?"

[xie_er]

Xie doesn't intend to talk about his feelings, but he can tell from that look that Kevin picked up on something, so after a moment's pause he concedes to, at least, give him an indication what is suddenly on his mind. He's just not going to talk about how that makes him feel.

"Mm," He nods "there's at least two pairs i can think of that Yifu probably used as sources of information. It would be easy enough to tell them you learned about them from him."

It's not like he can tell them anything different.

[weird_cop]

"Sources of information," Kevin repeats.

It takes him a second to connect that with Xie's face, and nods, an attempt to communicate that he won't ask for anything more.

"Yeah, I know how I'd have learned that."

The same way he put together what Zhao was planning. Now he'll have names to connect to that.

"And having nicked his Familiar, I'll want to connect with the same sources."

Part of him wants to reach out to Xie, but he won't thank him for it now.

[xie_er]

"Exactly." Xie agrees. He's grateful Kevin isn't pushing for more, he really doesn't want to talk about it, he just wants to process it in his own time.

Though, since his court-mandated therapy starts soon, maybe he won't get the choice.

"I think that will work quite well. We'll need to make some enquiries to get an up to date contact for them, but I have someone I trust who could make them on your behalf, or I can point you in the right direction to make them."

[weird_cop]

Kevin takes a moment to consider what his character would do.

"The apprentice was the kind to get his hands dirty," he decides, "and I don't want to get too many contacts involved too early."

He doesn't want Xie to risk himself or the people he trusts, if Kevin can do it.

[xie_er]

Xie nods, understanding. He can think of some contacts Kevin would have known who'll be able to put him in touch, people who are unlikely to know too much of the truth and therefore won't be a risk to his cover.

"That makes sense. He agrees, following it up with the people he thinks Kevin should reach out to, and the names to ask about. He's happy to write it down for later, bit figures Kevin should know who he's thinking about.

[weird_cop]

Kevin nods, already making plans about how he'll approach it, what he'll say.

"If the cover is intact I'll have to find what they think I'll have been up to. We went missing together but only one of us has been in the papers. What they're expecting will inform how I go forward."

It's weird. He went into this knowing Xie was going to be his partner, but now he has to go undercover in a way that cannot be separated from Xie, and he's nervous. He'd much rather do this completely on his own.

[xie_er]

Xie nods thoughtfully.

"I can see if I can find out what people have been saying? Whether people know I'm the Familiar or if they still think of us as two different things, and if people know we're still together."

That should help, at least, he thinks. And let them know if he should be going into this in human or animal form - or at all.

He doesn't really like the idea of not being involved at all, of Kevin going in on his own.

[weird_cop]

"Thanks."

Kevin dishes out the food, bringing the plates through to the table and pausing to kiss Xie on the head.

"If you can't find out immediately, let me handle it. It is my job, getting information without giving anything away."