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]

This job has so far gone - not great, to be honest, but what else is new there? One of the most distrubing things is actually how well it has gone, how easy Sefton's found it. It's the longest operation he's been UCO on for a long time, and he worries if he should be worried about how easily he's dived into the world.

Costain has been out for weeks - one of those chance misfortunes when a minor mistake happened to coincide with someone looking the wrong way at the wrong time, and suddenly he had to pull out completely. Kevin had been lucky - and Tony had been nearly heroic in the sacrifice - that his own cover wasn't blown. He'd kept his head down, neither avoiding nor blowing up the fall-out, and then he actually found his in, and the job continued on.

("It's your job now, Kev," Costain had finally said when they could make contact again. "You say when to call it.")

So now he was First UC - he was the only UC - on a dangerous mission to bring down one of the most powerful OCGs around. But he knows he's also the only UC in the entire force with the skills required to do so, so he didn't call it even when there was a voice inside him telling him to get out now!.

His team were relying on him. And he knew he might be getting in too deep, but he keeps telling himself he just needs to go a little bit deeper. Especially when he realised how much Zhao was relying on the power his familiar was giving him - when he realised he just needed to break the tie with that cat and he could shift everything.

The opportunity finally arrives on a day that Zhao has decided to fill with meetings with other magical OCGs - other covens as they call themselves, that he wants to keep Kevin away from.

Sometimes he does bring his apprentice along to negotiations - not as an apprentice, but as the menacing soldier that Kevin's getting better at pretending to be. But when the meetings are with other witches, Zhao liked to be on his own with his familiar, keeping his apprentice out of view; to keep the illusion that all the power in this particular organisation came from Zhao himself.

So with an entire day distracted, Zhao's trusted apprentice has had the run of the workshop to himself, and after a long day making the appropriate preparations, Kevin retired to his own quarter.

The ritual is intense. Painful and dangerous in ways that Kevin has been trying to hold back from. But magic requires sacrifice, and he's alwayys known the only way t face a witch is to embrace the power for himself. So he goes all in - blood and sweat and other bodily fluids - until his mind is spent and his body spent, and even the chanting is painful in his mouth and throat.

...until he can feel the pull, and he realises it's working.

[xie_er]

Xie doesn't notice the ache at first, he's already stiff from spending so long as a cat that he doesn't even realise anything else is happening, but as his steps carry him towards the guest rooms it starts to intensify and becomes harder to ignore, to brush off. This isn't the dull throb of overworked muscles, it's something sharper, more twisting, like something is being torn out of him. His steps falter, panic flashing through him at the possibilities - is someone trying to hurt him? To kill him? To steal his power?

(He knows that's possible. He's seen Yifu do it. All he felt at the time was a grim satisfaction that he wasn't being replaced by another familiar, Yifu just wanted to steal their power. Yifu would never do that to him, though, he's too useful, Yifu cares too much... right?)

He stumbles, pressing a hand against the wall to keep himself upright as he clenches his teeth against the pain, but the pull is still there and that's more difficult to resist now too. Not that he wants to resist; he can tell it's pulling him to the source of the ritual and if this is somebody trying to hurt him or steal his power, he wants to be where they are. Wants to kill them before they can finish.

He reaches the door, the rooms that are the source, and a wave of vindicated anger courses through him - the apprentice. He was bitter, before, that the man was allowed to stay here in Yifu's manor when Xie was kept in his own apartments, elsewhere, but he told himself it was because Kevin was a temporary guest, and Xie likes having his own space anyway. Now he's glad that it means he's close enough to be caught doing... whatever this is.

He's glad of the excuse to kill him.

Not that he can do much of anything when he shoves the door open and barges into the room, because at that moment the agony reaches a crescendo and he stumbles again, this time dropping to his knees with the force of it. A flick of his hand and a blade drops into his palm but a spasm of pain makes his fingers twitch and it tumbles uselessly from his grasp before he can throw it.

Then suddenly it's over. The pain is gone, leaving barely a lingering echo deep in his muscles that might just be the same tiredness from before. Xie frowns, taking stock - his power is still there, he can feel it, and he's definitely still alive, and the comforting tug of the familiar bond is... is...

He looks up slowly, searching out Kevin's face with rage and fear warring for dominance in his mind.

"What did you do?"

[weird_cop]

Kevin is on his hands and knees by this time, his head pressed to the ground in a attiude that may appear like genuflexion but is actually just from the sheer effort involved in lifting his head.

He has so much of everything he has in the ritual that when he registers the footsteps - the heavy, human footsteps coming down the corridor it feels like there's literally nothing he can do. He couldn't stop if he tried, not without severely hurting himself and possibly the cat in the process, so he carries on, shoving the growing fear right down into himself, and forcing it into power itself. Whoever it is - he can't fight them like this, he can't even wield his own power, so he has to hope that he can take Zhao's source of power down with him.

In the corner of his vision he sees the feet enter, recognises Xie's house socks somehow, and in a split second, Kevin knows he's dead, knows that this man in particular has just been waiting for a reason to stab Kevin in the chest. And for a second he's resigned to it.

Then Xie falls to his knees, the blade Kevin was expected in his flesh is clattering to the ground, and for another moment Kevin panics because he has no idea what's going on.

Struggling, he pushes himself up to his knees, feeling weak and tired and like he'd throw up if his stomach hadn't been well and truly emptied in the past hour, and he finally looks at Xie properly, sees the confusion in his face, and realises that the sensation in his chest is a pull that means the ritual actually worked.

Which means...

The realisation hits him, and he sighs at his own idiocy.

"Scorpion," he says finally. "Xie."

Ross even said it in the first few weeks of the investigation.

[xie_er]

Ridiculously, stupidly, the first thing that comes to his mind is Yifu is going to be angry somebody knows, even though it's taking his sluggish brain a few seconds to connect the dots with how or why Kevin has suddenly realised that Scorpion the cat and Xie the man are one and the same.

He gropes for the blade, seizing it from the floor and- and what? He can't attack, it's like his feet are frozen to the floor. Or knees, more accurately, because he's still on them. He can't make a move to hurt Kevin and he knows it, knows why even if he doesn't want to believe it. He'd have to rip the connection apart first, and he knows that's possible but he doesn't know how. Even if he did, from what he's heard about it the agony of a familiar transfer is child's play compared to the pain of trying to break away from a witch without the ritual.

"No..." he whispers softly as the reality of the situation slowly becomes inescapable "No. Why? What the fuck?" The whisper almost becomes a shout - almost, because he doesn't want to draw anybody's attention, doesn't want to bring people from anywhere else in the house to investigate, to risk Yifu... except there's no way Yifu doesn't know. He swears again, a string of expletives in Mandarin before switching back to English.

"He's going to kill you." He's going to kill both of them, probably.

[weird_cop]

"Yeah," Kevin says faintly, the word almost drowned in a sigh as he carefully pulls himself up to his feet, and then offers a hand down to help Xie himself up.

"Probably. He'll try to kill both of us when he finds us. So we have to go. Now."

He's unsteady on his feet still, but he can feel the power already, a little boost of vitality where the physical effort of the ritual has taken everything else from him. Hre doesn't want to use it, but the alternative is curling up on the floor instead.

[xie_er]

Go? Go? Xie feels like he might hyperventilate, like his entire world is crashing down around his ears, he doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to move...

But Kevin is right, he's given voice to the thought that Xie didn't dare speak, and Xie is nothing if not a survivor.

He pushes himself up, ignores the offered hand and gives the witch a look that radiates hatred.

"Grab whatever you need and follow me."

He knows how they can get out of here without being seen. Maybe if they move fast enough they can go back to his apartment first, he can actually get some things. It's risky, but if they go quickly and don't stay long then maybe... maybe...

[weird_cop]

Yeah yeah, Xie, you're not the first person to give Kevin Sefton that look.

He picks up his backpack and slings on the hoodie that he's got waiting on his bed.

He was expecting to run, has an escape plan in place, but that was reliant on being able to stuff a placid cat into his backpack with the few artefacts he can't leave. Now, the plan has to change, but he's ready to run.

And trust his life to the one person who has wanted him dead since the first day.

[xie_er]

As soon as Kevin has his bag, Xie slips out into the corridor, leading him towards the library, where nobody is likely to be at this time of day and where there is an honest-to-god secret passage that leads to the underground garage. Xie uses it a lot, he's never shown it to anybody else before, and he has to stamp down on the guilt of sharing one of Yifu's secrets - his life is at stake, he can worry about the betrayal later.

They don't run into anybody on the way, though as they slip into the passage behind the bookcase, he can hear the faint sounds of shouting in another part of the house. It sounds more panicked than anything, so he guesses that somebody has found Yifu and that he's in no state to follow them, yet.

He has to stamp down the guilt then, too.

The passage is dark with the door closed behind them, but Xie's steps are certain as he leads them.

They're almost at the garage when he realises getting out is going to be easier if the gate guards don't realise they're together. He stops, turns back to Kevin.

"This is going to work better if I change form. Get a car, take the main gate, give the guard whatever explanation you like if he questions you."

They'll have to ditch the car before long, but at least they'll be away from the house. With any luck Kevin will just be waved on, the guards not yet notified that anything is amiss.

"Crouch down and put your hand on the ground." He adds before he shifts.

If Kevin does as he's asked, the next thing he'll feel is not the soft pad of gentle paws climbing his arm to his backpack, or even the grip of needle-sharp claws, but instead the tickle of eight legs, the faint brush of a curved tail against his hand as a scorpion climbs up his sleeve. Over the fabric, blessedly.

[weird_cop]

It's all Kevin can do not to yelp out loud and retract his hand. But you don't get very far in this work without developing the ability not to do that. He freezes for a second, stamps down on his shock, and then mutters again:

"Scorpion."

Good god, their information was appalling.

But he reaches up, pulls his hood down his shoulder so his new passenger can hide in there, and then slinks out to the garage.

He knows where the keys to a few of the vehicles are, and picks the Ford Puma - one he's driven a few times and has taken out on his own on errands more than once.

He nods curtly at the guards on the gate, not even bothering to give them an excuse, drawing on his scowl and his reputation as both a trusted apprentice and a loyal soldier, before heading down the road.

Only when they're out does he pull the hoodie off and throw it into the passenger seat, with the shudder of revulsion he's been keeping in since a scorpion climbed over his hand.

[xie_er]

Xie doesn't actually say anything through the new bond they've formed, doesn't quite want to use it, but nevertheless Kevin will probably feel the flicker of smug amusement as the creature settles into his hood.

He almost holds his breath as they pass through the gate, allowing himself to be as tense as he likes with nobody able to see him - better that he keeps still, anyway, in case someone looks too closely and sees movement in Kevin's hood.

If he was able to make a noise in that form he'd yelp at the sudden whirl of movement, finding himself trapped in a bundle of fabric and unable to figure out which way is up let alone which way is out. The disorientation passes after a moment and he listens - he could just ask, but he doesn't, instead waiting until he's sure the coast is clear and they're moving again, freeing himself from the tangled hoodie by the simple expedient of shifting.

"We can go to my place. Ditch the car there." He says, once he's human again, sitting on the hoodie instead of in it.

[weird_cop]

It's such a weird sensation, that feeling of smugness that isn't his, like having his own paranoia reflected back at him - but then, knowing that this really is real, not just something he's projected, is bizarrely reassuring as he thinks about it.

He nods when Xie suggests his own apartment - Kevin knows where it is, and can get most of the way there before he'll need directions.

"There's a phone in the pocket," he says, when he can free a hand from the wheel to getures at the hoodie Xie is sitting on. "Give it to me."

He's not quite shifted out of aggressive soldier, favourite apprentice mode, but though his words are clipped, his tone is gentler. He doesn't quite think of himself as giving orders. Because he hasn't quite processed exactly what he's done.

[xie_er]

Xie is used to instructions that don't come with a veneer of politeness, but he doesn't accept them from anyone but Yifu. Wouldn't, if they weren't currently on the run, he'd push against the impulse to obey his witch just to be contrary.

It's not impossible for a familiar to disobey, the bond isn't some kind of geas, it just takes a little stubbornness, a little force of will. Xie has plenty of both.

Right now, though, he understands that they're in a precarious situation, that they have to make a plan - he hopes to hell that Kevin already has one - so while he grumbles a peevish "Would it kill you to say please?" He still fishes out the phone and passes it over.

He has questions, he has so many questions, but right now he's only thinking about how quickly he can grab things, what his most important valuables are and the quickest route around his apartment to get them. He can't risk them still being there when Yifu is ready to come after them.

So instead of asking he just stares sullenly out the window, giving the directions in terse, clipped sentences when they're needed.

It's not until they're two blocks away that he realises he doesn't even have his keys. He's going to have to break into his own apartment. He bites down the urge to laugh at how stupid this day has become.

[weird_cop]

"Please," Kevin says, sheepishly.

It's a very Kevin Sefton thing to say, not something he's ever said while in Zhao's house to anyone other than Zhao himself - and even then very rarely. It's half apologetic, smaller than the character he's been playing,but it feels good, somehow, to find a part of himself that he's been pressing down for so long.

It's a burner phone, one with none of his biometrics stored, and once he's unlocked it with a PIN he dials the last number on it.

He doesn't have it on speaker, but the female voice on eht other end is still audible without him having to hold it to his face.

"Artemisia Pizza, can I take your order?"

"We're go on Operation Coffeetable," Kevin says without ceremony.

There's a slight pause and the voice suddenly sounds a lot less bored, but clipped, business-like.

"Confirmed. Operation Coffeetable is go."

There's a pause when no one hangs up and then Kevin says:

"Hey, you."

"Kev, are you alright?"

"I'm good, babe. I'll call you from the safe house."

"We missed you."

"Me too."

He hangs up and puts the phone in his own trouser pocket, concentrating on his driving for a while.

Finally he asks: "What do you need from your place?"

[xie_er]

The please gets a little side eye because honestly he wasn't expecting it, it's a glimpse of a person Xie didn't even know was there and now he wonders just how long this has been planned, did he arrive knowing he wanted to steal Xie?

Well, clearly not, but did he arrive knowing he wanted to steal Zhao Jing's familiar?

The conversation, too, draws his attention, information and inferences queueing up in his head to be sorted through and figured out. More questions for his ever-growing list.

"Just some personal things. Documents, money, stuff." He shrugs "It won't take me long."

His own phone rings, then, making him flinch. The only person it rings for is Yifu. He takes it out of his pocket, stares at it until it rings out, until he gets a notification that he has a voicemail.

"I'll leave this, too. When we leave the car." He says quietly, dragging his eyes away from the phone to see they're nearly at his building "Park anywhere, I'll be back in five."

[weird_cop]

"Sorry," another word Kevin hasn't said in months, "but no. I'll come with you if you don't mind."

The last bit is entirely false politeness - Kevin cannot let his new charge out of his sight and he knows it. So he pulls up on a double yellow - where the car will be flagged and if they're very lucky maybe clamped or towed before Zhao finds it - and grabs his backpack from the passenger footwell before unlocking the doors.

"But get what you need."

[xie_er]

He does mind, but he just scowls about it rather than objecting. It's probably better they stay close anyway, in case anybody does come before they get out of here.

He gives one last look at his phone, toys with listening to the voicemail before deciding he's only going to torture himself if he does, and drops it onto the driver seat as Kevin gets out. Maybe if he leaves it in view somebody will break in, steal it and take Yifu on a wild goose chase for a while. Maybe.

He leads Kevin to the elevator, up to the top floor - the penthouse suite. Digs a lock pick from one of his braids and unlocks the door. He doesn't say anything about it, the set of his shoulders almost daring Kevin to pass comment.

It doesn't take him long once they're inside, grabbing a backpack and moving from room to room, shoving stuff in it. The place is big, beautifully decorated but vaguely impersonal, like a show home, a place he doesn't spend a lot of time in. The bedroom looks more lived in, the bed unmade and clothes piled on the dresser, waiting to be put away. He grabs some, tshirts and underwear, just the basics, shoves them in the bag alongside his documents. It's all practicalities, very little sentiment.

[weird_cop]

Kevin doesn't dare to comment. He follows Xie from room to room silently, standing in the doorway of each and watching him collect his things. While waiting he opens his own backpack, and fishes out one of the protein bars he's been stashing, finally feeling recovered enough to put something in his stomach.

"Don't overburden yourself," he remarks when they get to the clothes. "We can pick up new things."

But he doesn't stop Xie from taking anything that he wants to. Anything to make this easier.

[xie_er]

"No sense wasting money." Xie says primly, which is admittedly somewhat counter to what Kevin probably expects - Xie's entire wardrobe is designer, and it's clear everything in his apartment is expensive as hell too. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking he's a privileged, spoiled brat.

He is, sort of. But he wasn't always.

As promised it only takes a few minutes before he has a full backpack slung over his shoulder and he looks expectantly at Kevin.

"You mentioned a safe house. Do you have a plan for getting there or do we need one?" He asks, already heading to the door - whatever they're doing, they shouldn't linger here for long.

[weird_cop]

"I did," Kevin says mildly, falling in beside him, "but it didn't start from here. I can still get us there but you're probably not going to like it."

He pockets the wrapper from his bar and gets his phone out instead. Xie probably doesn't like any of this, so the quickest way to safety is probably the best.

"You'll hate it a bit less if you're small again - wait until I tell you."

And as an after-thought: "...please."

[xie_er]

Xie eyes him suspiciously, wondering what the hell kind of plan is up his sleeve before deciding he's just fine with doing this in animal form, that way Kevin can deal with whatever's going on.

It also makes a kind of sense if somebody does come after them; unless Yifu himself comes, they're going to be looking for a cat, not a scorpion.

So he sets his backpack down and shifts, climbing up on top of it to wait - though he'll move to whatever pocket Kevin suggests.

(There is a certain amount of clothing that can be included in the shift, thankfully, but a backpack is a bit much so Kevin's just going to have to take both of them)

[weird_cop]

That's not a problem. Kevin puts his hand out for the scorpion, and far more gently now he's prepared, transfers that animal to the pocket of his hoodie, now empty.

He stuffs his own small backpack into Xie's larger one, and slings it on his back, leaving the building while using his phone to send his location to another contact saved on it, along with the message now

On the street, he pulls his hood up, puts one hand in his pocket next to Xie, and adopts a fake walk again - not the swagger of the soldier he's been pretending to be for Zhao, but the half-slouch half-run of a man who feels very guilty indeed and desparately doesn't want to draw attention to himself in a way that definitely will draw attention to him.

He sets off in a random direction, feeling nervous and out of place in a neighbourhood where he definitely stands out, and keeps going.

He's so tense that when he sees the patrol car turn into the street ahead of him, the streetlights making the Battenburg squares stand out aggressively bright - he almost breaks into a run.

Instead he slows down and waits for the car to pull over.

[xie_er]

As much as it is far more comfortable to be in his actual animal form rather than forcing himself into the wrong shape, the advantage of the cat was that he generally got to see what was going on because he couldn't fit into a pocket so easily.

(Zhao Jing did, occasionally, lament the size of the cat form, despite being adamantly against the scorpion one. In his meaner moments, Xie suspected Yifu was creeped out by it)

He shuffles aside when Kevin's hand joins him in the pocket, though he is somewhat tempted to fuck with him. He's tempted to sting him, too, but he can no more do that than he could attack him earlier.

There's no avoiding brushing up against him sometimes, with the faint jostle of the pocket, but he does at least try.

He tenses at the sound of a car door closing nearby, especially after Kevin has slowed to a stop.

He still doesn't use the link to ask what's going on, though. It's part out of spite and, truthfully, part out of habit. Yifu never liked it if Xie bothered him too much.

[weird_cop]

Kevin has no idea that talking through the link is even an option yet - he had hoped that he'd figure it out as he went with the cat but the existence of Xie made everything more complicated. He resolved on the car journey to have a good conversation at the safe house, but right now his priority is safety.

He doesn't know how much Xie can hear like this either, but tries to be clear and obvious when he stops.

The police officer that comes out of the car - which he'd been driving on his own - is approaching middle age, white, and not entirely comfortable in the uniform. His face though, makes Kevin relax completely.

"There a problem, officer?"

He exaggerates his accent goes further - past the particular voice he's been using undercover, and lands firmly in caricature territory. It earns him a glare but also a barely suppressed smirk.

"Alright, mate?" The officer says. "We've had a report of a break-in in the area, you wouldn't know anything about it would you?"

"Now why would I know that?" Kevin replies. "It's not because I is Black, is it?"

(It's a little too far, he almost makes them both laugh)

"Why don't you come along to the station?"

Kevin stiffens just a little, and says:

"Are you going to read me my rights, officer?"

"Want me to arrest you, is it?"

Kevin nods, and his act slips:

"Read me my rights. Make it clear. Make it proper."

So, Kevin then has his hands on the car, he receives a cursory pat down that avoids his hoodie pocket, and his rights are read clearly loudly to him:

"Okay Sonny Jim, you are under arrest for giving me the side eye and for knowing your rights. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Happy?"

"Yeah. Okay."

Kevin gets willingly into the back seat, the officer starts the car again, and then something in the air lifts. Kevin leans his head back against the headrest and exhales.

The arresting officer just says:

"Fucking hell, Kev."

[xie_er]

Is there a problem, officer? triggers a litany of cursing through Xie's mind - not over the link, he's still holding that back, but he's quietly freaking out in Kevin's pocket, enough that he misses, at first, the hints that this isn’t entirely a genuine arrest. It's not until the pat down completely misses the pocket he's hiding in that something clicks, that everything clicks.

He'd picked up enough to realise that Kevin was working with other people, that the familiar transfer was part of some wider plan (some apparently poorly researched wider plan, but he doesn't entirely blame them for not knowing very well kept secrets), but he'd assumed it was some other gang or organisation or coven that wanted to move against Zhao Jing.

He hadn't expected police.

He doesn't know how to feel about it - he'd done a lot of bad things for Yifu, was there any chance this ended with him anywhere but a cell?

He stays still in Kevin's pocket once they're inside the car, just waiting like he was told to. The freaking out hasn't really abated, it's just shifted focus slightly.

He's not even sure he trusts them to actually be able to keep them safe from Yifu, the one saving grace being that right now Yifu doesn't have the best person to get at someone in police custody, because that's him.

[weird_cop]

"You look nice in the uniform, Gov," Kevin is saying. He still has his hand in his pocket - he doesn't even know why, he just feels like hs should keep some offering of contact, some acknowledgement he hasn't forgotten his companion. He keeps his palm turned up, hand open, just there.

"Ha-de-ha. You scared the life out of us, do you know that? Do you know where that was?"

Kevin shakes his head. "Yes, Jim. I know. There's been some complications, I'll explain in the debrief. Did you make the preparations?"

"Followed your instructions to the letter, yes. No one is getting in or out of that place by any means mundane or magical."

"Good," Kevin says. As the journey goes on, he realises just how spent he is, and stops talking for a while, until they finally pull up at a police station - Quil takes the backpack and Kevin is shown out, through the station, and then right out into the back parking lot where he gets into the driver's seat of a nice new Ford Focus, and puts his hand back in his pocket.

"I'm going to put you on the passenger seat," he says, finally addressing Xie. "I'll let you know when we're out of sight."