Work Text:
Tunan still has nightmares. Ruolai wakes in the depths of the night to hear him crying in his sleep, his voice like a small, trapped animal. High, gasping sobs are wrenched from his chest, his throat. Ruolai lays a hand on him to waken him, afraid he will speak a name before he comes back to consciousness. There is no one here but the two of them, close together in the warmth of a single bed, but they are always on guard, and certain names must not be spoken even in the dark.
The sound in Tunan’s throat changes to a deeper, guttural howl that sounds like it could bleed. Ruolai shakes him harder. “Xiansheng,” he says. “Xiansheng, wake up.”
Tunan’s eyes open. He is still breathing hard, rasping, and he looks as if he’s staring into a distance beyond the walls of their home.
“Xiansheng,” Ruolai says again.
Tunan finally looks at him. His gaze locks to Ruolai’s and one hand closes hard on Ruolai’s upper arm. His eyes are still a long distance away. Ruolai leans close, so close his lips touch the soft skin next to Tunan’s ear, and he says, in a voice not even a whisper, “Tunan.”
Tunan snaps awake, fingers digging into Ruolai’s arm. “No,” he says, so quietly the air between them barely stirs. “Don’t.”
At least he’s awake, Ruolai thinks. At least he’s back. He leans his face against Tunan’s chest and moves his lips against the smatter of hair there. “Tunan.”
****
In the morning, when they are neatly and properly suited, sliding into their respective aliases, Ruolai watches Tunan for shadows of the dream. Tunan is quiet, reknotting his tie at least twice before he’s happy with the way it lies under his vest. Then he turns his attention to Ruolai’s tie, untying and re-tying it even though Ruolai is certain it was fine to begin with. He doesn’t protest, though; Tunan’s hands move over his jacket, his vest, adjusting here and there, straightening his shirt collar.
“You miss them,” Ruolai says, and Tunan’s fingers halt.
“Of course I do.” His voice is low and hoarse.
Tunan received a top-secret letter yesterday. Ruolai had suspected it was news of his wife and child. The dream confirmed it. Tunan always sleeps poorly after he hears from his family, even though, as far as Ruolai knows, the news has never been bad. They are just so far away, and they are doing what they can without him.
“They’re safe?” Ruolai asks, and Tunan nods. Ruolai sees tears standing on Tunan’s lashes and asks no more questions.
****
Perhaps it’s the melancholy of the morning, or the stress of the latest news of the war, but Ruolai spends the day with a strange sense of unreality. Like he is a ghost in his own life.
It’s not unusual for him to see faces he finds familiar among the people he encounters in his day-to-day at the bank. Sometimes they actually are people he knows; other times it’s just an odd similarity. It’s especially jarring when he remembers the face he thinks he recognizes belongs to someone he’s certain is dead. Once he thought he saw Ruochuan at the market, and his breath stopped in his throat until the man shifted, smiled, and Ruolai realized it was only the shape of his jaw, the outline of his eyes. The rest was unmistakably someone else.
So when he sees a familiar face among the cashiers at the bank, he doesn’t do an entire double take. He blinks, thinks perhaps he was wrong, then remembers he has to be wrong, because, again, he’s certain the person he thought he saw is dead.
That night, it’s his turn to awaken after a dark, swallowing nightmare to find Tunan holding him, forehead pressed against his own. “Sh...shhhhh. It’s all right, you’re here, you’re safe.”
Which is a lie, because they are never safe, but Ruolai settles into the embrace and softly drifts back into sleep.
****
In the morning, Tunan is again overly concerned about the alignment of Ruolai’s tie. He adjusts it a few times, then brushes his hands down Ruolai’s chest. Ruolai catches them as they move, holds them a moment without really focusing. The dream is still playing along the edges of his consciousness, mocking him. Convicting him.
“What was it?” Tunan asks, breaking the delicate silence.
Ruolai meets his gaze, then looks away, releasing his hold on Tunan’s hands.
“Just...someone I couldn’t save.”
****
Later that day, Tunan summons Ruolai to his office.
“Sir?” Ruolai says from the office door, hoping this will be a short meeting. He doesn’t object to seeing Tunan, but work hours are always full, and impromptu meetings often mean something has gone wrong. “What is it?”
“Come in,” says Tunan. “Shut the door.”
He does, drawing the door shut so it makes no sound, then perching on the chair in front of Tunan’s desk. His heartbeat is thudding at the base of this throat. What has gone wrong?
But, “How busy are you today?” Tunan doesn’t seem anxious. Rather, the glint in his eyes reminds Ruolai of the day he handed Ruolai his latest birthday present.
“Very.” Tunan knows this, and Ruolai wonders why his busy-ness has been interrupted. He has at least three urgent matters waiting for him.
“I’m hiring you an assistant.” Tunan looks proud of himself. “I want your input on the final decision.”
“An assistant?”
“Yes. Someone you can delegate everyday tasks to. I need you focused on the bigger picture.”
He is right, of course. Bureaucratic details always bog down the bigger picture. Ruolai’s brain starts shuffling through everything he’s working on. An assistant could be helpful there...and there… But—
“It would have to be someone I can trust.”
“Of course.” Tunan’s smug look tells Ruolai Tunan feels he’s made a high-quality choice. “She’ll come by this afternoon.”
Ruolai returns to the overwhelming flood of his work and forgets about it until it’s time to go back to Tunan’s office. It’s just Tunan there when he arrives. He rises from his desk with a smile and comes around to straighten Ruolai’s already-straight tie and brush some offending yet undoubtedly nonexistent dust from his shoulder.
“She’ll be here shortly,” he says. He returns to sit behind his desk. “She’s been a cashier here for some time. I didn’t know they were hiding such talent there.”
A stray memory teases, flutters, then disappears. A cashier. Whatever the thought was, it leaves him uneasy.
“It’s strange,” Tunan is saying, “but she reminds me of you. The way she manipulates numbers-- Ah, here she is.”
He stands again as Ruolai turns, and everything in the world stops. His mouth opens, then closes.
The girl just outside Tunan’s door stands stone-still for a long breath, eyes widening. Suddenly tears spring into them, and she steps abruptly forward, closing the office door behind her.
“A-” Ruolai starts to say, in such utter shock he forgets his normal caution, and she shakes her head sharply.
Wang Qiaohua.” There’s a tremble in her voice. “My name is Wang Qiaohua.”
And Ruolai suddenly, utterly breaks down. Tears stream down his face, come from nowhere, and any words he might have made are a logjam in his throat. He is barely aware of Tunan staring at them, utterly out of his depth.
She is taller, her face less round, her bearing both more certain and more wary. But the girl standing with her back to Tunan’s office door, her hands clutching a nondescript folder, is unmistakably Fang Ling.
*
Obviously taken aback by everyone suddenly crying in his office, Tunan nevertheless maintains sufficient composure to urge Fang Ling—Wang Qiaohua—to take a seat. He spares a moment to fuss over Ruolai, who has gotten his own emotions mostly under control, and once everyone is comfortably seated, he perches on the edge of his desk and looks the two of them over.
“I didn’t realize you knew each other.”
Ruolai lets out a strangled laugh. “Of course you didn’t.”
Fang Ling is taking all of this in, her gaze warily evaluating. Ruolai had felt her eyes boring into him as Tunan patted him and settled him into a chair. Whatever she saw there, she has relaxed, the air of tension mostly leaving her.
“They told me you were dead,” Ruolai says to her. How many times has this happened to him now? Tunan had been dead, too.
“Yes.” Fang Ling’s hands are folded neatly in her lap now, the folder laid aside on a nearby table. “To keep me safe while they found a new place for me.”
Ruolai wants to ask so many questions, but he can’t. He knows this is the wrong time, and that there may never be a right time. But still…
“I’m sorry I—”
She cuts him off with a sharp movement of her hand. “You couldn’t have done anything.”
Ruolai has lived with the weight of this. He did what he could, but could he have done more? If he had tried harder when they’d taken her away, or gone earlier to try to find her, could he have saved her? Or would they have killed him for trying?
Her attention turns to Tunan. Ruolai notices her sharpness has returned, her hands white-knuckled in what should be a relaxed position in her lap, a slight tremble to her lips even as she speaks with crisp, careful tones. “Am I hired?”
“Of course.” Tunan says it with no hesitation. “You can start tomorrow. Be here at your normal start time. I’ll arrange it with the cashiers’ office.”
She stands and takes the folder, holds it out to Tunan. “My resume,” she says. A small smile comes to her mouth. “If you want it.”
Then, finally, she faces Ruolai. She bows, not deeply, but gracefully, and finally the tension leaves her. “Laoshi, it is good to see you again. We will work well together. Thank you for this opportunity.”
Then she is gone. Ruolai wonders for a moment if he imagined it all.
“Are you all right?” Tunan’s voice is gentle.
Ruolai nods. “I just—”
“Yes,” says Tunan. They both know they can’t say much more than that. Not now.
Tunan reaches out, lays his hand on Ruolai’s shoulder. Ruolai covers it with his own, squeezing tight, then lets go.
Later.
****
They go out for dinner, to a place where they know they can talk without interruption or surveillance, and Ruolai tells Tunan the story.
“She was one you couldn’t save,” he says when Ruolai is finished, and Ruolai nods. His eyes are wet, and when he goes to wipe them dry he is surprised to feel tears all down his face, under his chin. Tunan touches his free hand gently from across the table.
“She’s safe now,” he says.
Ruolai takes a napkin from the table. “Is she?” He dries the wash of tears, taking the moment to close his eyes behind the napkin and collect himself.
Tunan doesn’t answer right away, and when Ruolai lowers the napkin, it’s to see a creased brow and eyes lost in thought.
“I can find out where she’s living. I can be sure she has everything she needs. Working for us, she can at least have that protection.”
Ruolai nods. “Thank you.”
He dreams of her again that night, except this time he is her, his subconscious filling in the details of what could have happened after she was taken away and before she was spirited off into anonymity and a new identity. He jolts awake, gasping, the ghost of imagined bruises still burning on his arms and thighs. Next to him, Tunan is still asleep, and Ruolai is glad not to have disturbed him this time. He slips out of the bed and goes to the main room, opens the window. Chilly air touches his face, waking him the rest of the way. His skin sheds the memory of the dream, and he closes his eyes. His thoughts circle questions he will never ask her. All he knows—all he needs to now, all he has any right to know—is that she is safe now, as safe as she can be. And that if she never forgives him, it’s all right, because he will never forgive himself.
He spends the night on the couch under the window, afraid of waking Tunan if he goes back to bed. The dreams do not return, because he does not sleep again until the soft beginnings of dawn touch his face.