we best love: the ache toward it (2022)

[staygame]

the ache toward it (ao3 link, see original work for author's notes) | we best love, pei shouyi/yu zhenxuan, mature, 3.9k words
tags: canon universe, missing scenes, creator chose not to use archive warnings
content notes: descriptions of blood and injury, teacher/student dynamics

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The next time Yu Zhenxuan shows up at his office door, Pei Shouyi is absolutely not surprised. He'd seen the expression in Yu Zhenxuan's eyes, the way he'd looked up at Pei Shouyi through his damp bangs, towel still draped over his head, as Pei Shouyi set two bowls of ramen down between them. It was the same look the neighborhood stray would give Pei Shouyi; pitiful, insistent.

Yu Zhenxuan doesn't knock, of course. He bursts through the door, his uniform shirt hanging open against regulation. It's the first time that Pei Shouyi has seen him during the school day and it strikes him for a moment as odd, as though Yu Zhenxuan is a creature that belongs only to the night.

"Go back to class," Pei Shouyi says, looking back to his computer.

"I have a note from my teacher," Yu Zhenxuan says. He holds up his arm, a red gash running down the length of his forearm. "Also, I'm bleeding."

Pei Shouyi closes his eyes for a full five seconds, then pushes his chair away from his desk. "Sit," he commands, gesturing to the cot.

Yu Zhenxuan closes the door behind him. He half-jogs across the room, hopping onto the bed with all the ease of someone who'd already spent a night there, like he owns it. He extends his arm as Pei Shouyi approaches.

One of Pei Shouyi's clinical rotations had been in a psychiatric unit. It was mostly grunt work—dispensing medication to patients who didn't want to be there, completing intake paperwork—but he can recognize a self-inflicted injury when he sees one. He glances from the cut to Yu Zhenxuan.

"And how did that happen?"

"Pencil accident," Yu Zhenxuan says. He must know that Pei Shouyi knows, but his expression is mild, not a hint of shame.

It's not a neat cut, but it's shallow. Yu Zhenxuan doesn't even flinch when Pei Shouyi begins to dab at it with disinfectant. Pei Shouyi feels compelled to dig his thumbnail into the edge of the gash, just long enough to pass as unintentional, and then Yu Zhenxuan does react, pulling his arm to his chest. "Pei Shouyi," he objects.

"Doctor," Pei Shouyi corrects, tugging Yu Zhenxuan's arm back down to finish dressing his wound.

When he's done, he crumples the bandage wrapper in his fist and gestures to the door. "Back to class."

Yu Zhenxuan twists back to look at the clock. "There's five minutes left until lunch anyway. Do you have any more of that ramen?"

He'd even planned the timing. More clever than the average stray, then.

Pei Shouyi should say no. He should send Yu Zhenxuan back to class, then finish cataloging the student medication or whatever other menial task he could think of until the next kid with a bloody nose from dodgeball showed up in his office. He should, but he doesn't.

"In the cabinet," he says. Yu Zhenxuan beams at him, and Pei Shouyi feels it in his chest, a tiny crack in the icy pond of his heart. The first sign of thaw after winter.



And speaking of dodgeball—Yu Zhenxuan is back less than a week later, accompanied by a neatly dressed, nerdy looking student.

"He hit his head on the basketball pole during dodgeball," the other student reports. He's a head shorter than Yu Zhenxuan and standing nearly an arm's length away from him, like possibly he thinks Yu Zhenxuan's recklessness is contagious. "The gym teacher asked me to bring him here to see if he has a concussion."

"It was an accident," Yu Zhenxuan says cheerfully.

"You seem to have a lot of accidents these days," Pei Shouyi says, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise.

"I'm very unlucky," Yu Zhenxuan agrees.

The other student looks between the two of them for a second, clearly confused by their words, then asks, "Can I go back to gym now?"

Pei Shouyi waves a hand to dismiss the kid. To Yu Zhenxuan, he says, "Get in."

He makes Yu Zhenxuan wait while he finishes his email. "Any ringing in your ears?"

Yu Zhenxuan has claimed the same bed as the previous times. "Nope."

"Dizzy? Sleepy? Double or blurry vision?"

"No."

He doesn't bother with the doctor's coat, just fishes the penlight out of the pocket before crossing the room to stand in front of Yu Zhenxuan. "Keep your eyes open," he instructs, clicking on the light. On impulse, he takes Yu Zhenxuan's chin in his hand, grip harder than strictly necessary as he tips Yu Zhenxuan's head back. He shines the light into Yu Zhenxuan's eyes, watching as his pupils constrict as they're meant to. Still, for good measure he says, "Count backwards by seven starting at 100."

"You smell like smoke," Yu Zhenxuan says instead.

"You're fine," Pei Shouyi announces, turning the light off. Yu Zhenxuan is still looking up at him, and it occurs to him that they've been here before, when Pei Shouyi found him injured outside the school. Then, Yu Zhenxuan's gaze was defensive, as though he expected Pei Shouyi's kindness to be prelude to an attack. Now, his expression is startlingly open, even though Pei Shouyi isn't sure that Yu Zhenxuan even knows what he's asking for with it.

Even when Pei Shouyi releases his chin, Yu Zhenxuan doesn't look away. "I'm feeling very sleepy now," he says.

Pei Shouyi heaves a sigh. "You can have twenty minutes. Try not to make any noise."

Yu Zhenxuan lasts two minutes. "Do you have a girlfriend?" he asks from the bed. When Pei Shouyi looks out of the corner of his eye, he finds that Yu Zhenxuan is lying on his back with his head towards Pei Shouyi, arms outstretched over him and fingers fanned out.

"None of your business," Pei Shouyi says.

"A boyfriend?" He probably thinks he's being subtle, unaware of the hopeful hitch at the end of his question.

"If I feed you, will you stop talking?" Pei Shouyi asks.

The cot gives a faint creak as Yu Zhenxuan rolls over onto his stomach. He grins up at Pei Shouyi, hair rumpled and the collar of his uniform shirt crooked. "I promise."

Pei Shouyi clears some room in the middle of the desk for two bowls of ramen and his kettle, gesturing for Yu Zhenxuan to grab a chair. Yu Zhenxuan pulls his knees up to his chest as soon as he's sitting, perching on the chair.

"Can you sit like a normal person?" Pei Shouyi says.

Yu Zhenxuan squints his eyes in annoyance, then dutifully maneuvers his feet back to the floor. "You should get more of that other flavor," he says, holding the bowl up to his face to inspect it. "This one isn't as good."

"Any other requests?" Pei Shouyi asks. "Should I get Egyptian cotton sheets for you as well?"

"The slippers could be softer," Yu Zhenxuan says. Pei Shouyi makes like he's going to reclaim the ramen and Yu Zhenxuan quickly tightens his grip, dragging the bowl back to him. "No, no, no. Your hospitality is much appreciated." He pauses for a moment. "Doctor."

Pei Shouyi shakes his head. "Remember, in exchange for food, no talking."

Yu Zhenxuan silently brings a clump of noodles up to his mouth.





"It's not other students doing this to you, is it?" Pei Shouyi asks one night, when he's disinfecting a mess of road rash along Yu Zhenxuan's arm and elbow. He's also sporting a busted lip and the beginning of a bruise under his eye socket. Yu Zhenxuan doesn't even attempt to claim that this was an accident. Pei Shouyi does not particularly care who's responsible, but he's obligated to ask.

"No," Yu Zhenxuan grunts. He's surlier than during the day, like his fight reflex hasn't quite subsided.

"Or your parents?"

"No," Yu Zhenxuan says, his response immediate and therefore suggestive. He seems to realize this and lets his shoulders droop a little, sighing. "And it's 'parent', singular. Only my mom's around."

"But not keeping you out of trouble," Pei Shouyi comments, and smacks a bandage down onto the back of Yu Zhenxuan's arm.

Yu Zhenxuan frowns up at Pei Shouyi. "It's my own problem."

Pei Shouyi is not in the mood to argue with a teenager about poor life choices. "Anywhere else?"

"Yeah." Yu Zhenxuan lifts the hem of his shirt until he exposes another patch of red and angry skin. He holds the shirt at the bottom of his rib cage, but Pei Shouyi can see the way the bone juts out beneath the surface. He sucks in a sharp breath when Pei Shouyi presses a swab to the broken skin, then says, "Cold."

"Suck it up," Pei Shouyi tells him.

He leaves Yu Zhenxuan sleeping on the same cot. "This isn't going to be a routine," he'd warned Yu Zhenxuan earlier, but before he locks up, Pei Shouyi reaches for the same mug, the spare toothbrush he hadn't tossed after the first time Yu Zhenxuan slept here. Too late for that, he thinks, and leaves the items beside the bed.





A week later, when Pei Shouyi is at the store, he hesitates in front of the instant noodles, long enough to feel stupid by the time he sweeps four ramen bowls into his basket, remembering Yu Zhenxuan's ribs and the sharp edges of his elbows. The kindness is out of character and he feels an itch under his skin, something bothersome about the gesture, that only seems to go away when he finds Yu Zhenxuan cheerfully eating noodles on the floor during lunch.

"I'm going to start locking the door," he tells Yu Zhenxuan, but he never ends up following through.





Pei Shouyi doesn't bother to ask what Yu Zhenxuan's excuse is this time. It's a Friday afternoon, and he's already thinking ahead to getting a drink at his favorite bar and sleeping for twelve hours straight, so he just shrugs at the teacher's note that Yu Zhenxuan offers him.

"Can you at least do your homework or something productive?" Pei Shouyi asks, as Yu Zhenxuan begins to entertain himself by methodically peering inside every drawer around the office.

"No thanks," he says, dropping a roll of gauze back into its container. "Not a fan of math."

If only because Yu Zhenxuan's constant movement is bugging him, Pei Shouyi offers, "Need some help?"

They sit together at Pei Shouyi's desk, Yu Zhenxuan's math textbook and notebook spread out between them. Yu Zhenxuan's handwriting is predictably awful and his notes are a mess, complete with shitty, chicken scratch doodles in the margins. It takes Pei Shouyi just a minute to scan the page and make sense of the problems Yu Zhenxuan is supposed to be solving. He'd always been good at math, was even roped into tutoring his baby cousin after Gao Shide's father left.

"Show me how you'd work this one out," Pei Shouyi says, tapping on a problem.

Yu Zhenxuan furrows his eyebrows as he works, hunched over the paper. There's a bruise on his cheek that's nearly healed, fading into a dull purple that blends in with the bags under his eyes. Pei Shouyi wonders how much he sleeps. Where he sleeps.

After a few moments, Pei Shouyi leans over, circling Yu Zhenxuan's misstep with his pen, saying, "Here. Let me show you the right way."

He doesn't notice how long they spend working together until the final bell rings. Yu Zhenxuan is slow to pack up his things, like there's something he wants to do before he's ready to go, but he waits until he's at the door.

"Pei Shouyi," Yu Zhenxuan says, voice warm. "Thank you."





In the middle of a calculus problem, Yu Zhenxuan sets down his pencil, and says, "You know, a doctor said that I'm autistic."

"And what does that mean?" Pei Shouyi knows what it means from his abnormal psychology lectures, patients he's seen during rotations. Still, he wants to hear it from Yu Zhenxuan.

"That I'm weird, mostly," Yu Zhenxuan says, shrugging his hunched shoulders. He pushes the pencil with his index finger and it rolls to the edge of his notebook. "And that I'm not good with people. I don't know how to get along with others. Sometimes I feel like I would be better off if I just stopped trying."

Yu Zhenxuan says this, like his need for connection isn't leaking out of him. His ache to reach out was obvious to Pei Shouyi from the first time he showed up uninvited to the office.

"Sorry, kid. You don't get to remove yourself from polite society," Pei Shouyi says. Their knees are touching under the desk and he feels Yu Zhenxuan shift, drawing his legs up to his chest. "What do you want to do after university?"

"Make things," Yu Zhenxuan answers. "Make software. By myself."

"But you'll still have a boss, you'll still have coworkers. You'll have to deal with other people at some point. You just have to wear a mask, convince people you're a normal person. We all do it."

He thinks of his last boyfriend, who'd been in tears when he dumped Pei Shouyi, saying, "Sometimes I feel like you don't feel anything at all." Pei Shouyi had known what reaction he was supposed to have—hurt, regretful—but he couldn't make himself act it out. He never liked the guy all that much anyway.

"You don't wear a mask around me," Yu Zhenxuan says.

Pei Shouyi cocks his head. "I don't?"

"If you did, you'd probably be nicer."

He's right, which makes Pei Shouyi laugh. It's one of those laughs he's not expecting, bursting out of his chest, more breath than noise, like he can't remember the last time he laughed. Yu Zhenxuan looks pleased with himself for having caused it, his own smile stretching wide across his cheeks.

For a single moment, Pei Shouyi's fingers twitch at his sides as he fights the impulse to reach out, run a hand through Yu Zhenxuan's hair. He needs a cigarette, and possibly also a lobotomy. He reaches for his coffee instead. "High school isn't the whole world. Don't rule out the possibility that you'll find your own people."

"Okay," Yu Zhenxuan says.

"Finish the problem," Pei Shouyi tells him. He watches as Yu Zhenxuan schools his expression one more serious, the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth smoothing out, smile tucked away for safekeeping.





Two weeks after the students return from the lunar new year break, half the school seems to come down with a nasty strain of the flu. Five kids cycle through his office before lunchtime, each with a fever and a wet cough, slumped over with aches until their parents arrive to take them home. He's not surprised to see Yu Zhenxuan, but he is mildly shocked that his reason for showing up isn't self-inflicted.

He looks like shit, with a greyish pallor to his skin and puffy eyes. Pei Shouyi steers him into a seat, and even with probable flu, Yu Zhenxuan manages to complain, "Eh, no bed?"

"Do you see a bed open?" Pei Shouyi asks. He almost points out that the cots are reserved for the students who are puking, but he doesn't doubt that Yu Zhenxuan could make himself vomit out of spite. He slides a fresh sheath onto his thermometer and demands, "Open up."

"You're really not playing favorites," Yu Zhenxuan mutters before letting Pei Shouyi slide the thermometer under his tongue.

"What favorite?" Pei Shouyi asks as something shifts restlessly in his gut. He holds the thermometer, even though Yu Zhenxuan should be able to hold it in place on his own. There's an urge building under his skin, the faint desire to press his gloved fingers into Yu Zhenxuan's mouth, to feel the ridges of his teeth and the meat of his tongue. Yu Zhenxuan watches him, gaze steady despite the droop in his eyelids.

The thermometer beeps. 38.7 degrees. "Looks like you're going home," Pei Shouyi announces, stepping back and away, before any other uncomfortable thoughts can make themselves known.





Yu Zhenxuan is out the rest of the week with the flu. The mug that he uses in the office, the one that's unofficially his at this point, sits untouched at the corner of Pei Shouyi's desk the whole time.

The irritating, unpleasant truth of it: Pei Shouyi's office feels empty without Yu Zhenxuan's presence.





Pei Shouyi finds Yu Zhenxuan crouched outside of his office. The key is poised in his hand, ready to lock up for the night, and he still could, but he sighs. He slides the keychain back into his pocket.

"What, you don't barge in at night?" Pei Shouyi asks as Yu Zhenxuan shuffles inside.

The office lights flicker back on one at a time, revealing all of Yu Zhenxuan's injuries in harsh fluorescence. He's got a smear of dried blood under his nose and the knuckles of his right hand are battered red. The hem of his uniform shirt is torn, like maybe Yu Zhenxuan had fought hard to slip out of someone's grasp.

Instead of the cot, Yu Zhenxuan sits in the chair beside Pei Shouyi's desk, arms circling his knees as he perches.

Pei Shouyi grabs the first aid kit and rolls over in his office chair to face Yu Zhenxuan. "Hand," he demands.

Yu Zhenxuan no longer flinches when Pei Shouyi begins to dab disinfectant into the scrapes along his knuckles. He's got long fingers and thin, bony wrists stuck at the end of thin, bony arms. He might look breakable, if Pei Shouyi didn't know any better.

"I don't have any bandages that'll work here," Pei Shouyi says, releasing Yu Zhenxuan's hand. "Remember to wash with soap and water later."

"Yes, doctor," Yu Zhenxuan says, to which Pei Shouyi rolls his eyes.

"Let me see your nose," Pei Shouyi says. There's no swelling, no abnormal crook to the bridge. He pinches the tip of Yu Zhenxuan's nose. "Pain? Trouble breathing? Tasting blood?"

Yu Zhenxuan shakes his head. "It's not broken this time," he says, voice nasally until Pei Shouyi releases his grip.

"This time," Pei Shouyi repeats. He presses a damp cotton ball to Yu Zhenxuan's nose, wiping away the blood. "How much longer do you plan on doing this to yourself?"

"It's not like I have a choice," Yu Zhenxuan says. He looks up, eyes meeting Pei Shouyi's. His pupils are wide and dark, a boy possessed. "Besides, this is the only way I can get you to touch me."

Pei Shouyi immediately pushes back his chair. It hits the corner of the desk, hard, and something goes crashing to the floor with a sharp crack. It's Yu Zhenxuan's mug, Pei Shouyi notices when he looks. A shard of ceramic has broken off.

"You don't know what you're doing," Pei Shouyi says. He rolls back behind his desk, putting a barrier between them, but Yu Zhenxuan only scoots his own chair forward. The sound of the chair legs scraping against the floor feels especially harsh.

"Because I'm a student?" Yu Zhenxuan asks.

"Because you're a child," Pei Shouyi corrects. It feels like the bottom has dropped out of his stomach, and the physicality of this reaction is more surprising than Yu Zhenxuan's desires. He shifts uncomfortably. "And whatever you think I am to you, I'm not. It's my job to clean your wounds. That's all."

Yu Zhenxuan blinks hard and fast. "That's not true," he says, insists. "You don't treat me like anyone else."

"You're mistaking duty for kindness, sorry."

Pei Shouyi turns away, but his chair is yanked back and then at once, Yu Zhenxuan is in his lap. His body is a solid mass and as the chair creaks under the new weight, Pei Shouyi's hands automatically come up to hold Yu Zhenxuan's waist. Yu Zhenxuan seems to take this as an invitation—he leans in and presses his mouth to Pei Shouyi's.

It's a clumsy kiss, dry lips against a protest that dies in Pei Shouyi's mouth. Yu Zhenxuan's hands clutch either side of Pei Shouyi's face, holding him in place until Pei Shouyi can wrench his head back and put some space between them.

"You shouldn't do this," Pei Shouyi says.

Yu Zhenxuan tries to catch his eye. "You want me too," he says. His voice is faintly confused, and Pei Shouyi knows that he must've given too much of himself away if Yu Zhenxuan knows. "I've seen the way you look at me."

There is something wild in his expression, naive desperation. Pei Shouyi is certain that Yu Zhenxuan would let him do anything—fuck him, hit him, scrape his nails across every inch of his skin—as long as Pei Shouyi touched him. He is also certain that Yu Zhenxuan would thank him for it. He's already attached as it is, and indulging in these desires would only make it worse. But maybe that's what convinces Pei Shouyi; he can't provide anything else that Yu Zhenxuan wants.

"I won't tell," Yu Zhenxuan whispers. The thought honestly hadn't occurred to Pei Shouyi yet.

"Have you ever even kissed anyone?" Pei Shouyi asks.

Yu Zhenxuan shakes his head.

"Then follow my lead."

This time, Yu Zhenxuan isn't pushing, fighting for it. His mouth parts softly under Pei Shouyi's, a little desperate groan slipping out when Pei Shouyi's tongue pushes past his teeth. There's a faint taste of blood mixed with antiseptic, sour and metallic. Yu Zhenxuan's battered hands are twisted up in the collar of Pei Shouyi's shirt and his hips are grinding down, cock hard in his uniform slacks. Heat stirs in the pit of Pei Shouyi's stomach in return.

Yu Zhenxuan's movements are becoming erratic and Pei Shouyi leans back, looking at Yu Zhenxuan's pleading eyes. "Calm down," Pei Shouyi instructs, at the same time that he starts unbuttoning Yu Zhenxuan's pants.

When Pei Shouyi finally touches his bare cock, Yu Zhenxuan shudders. It racks his entire body, a teenage boy's heightened sensitivity. His cock is slick with precome at the head and heavy in Pei Shouyi's fist. Even though the angle isn't great, Yu Zhenxuan's easy, panting against Pei Shouyi's mouth, rolling his hips to meet Pei Shouyi's strokes. Pei Shouyi's cock is hard underneath Yu Zhenxuan, the friction bordering on painful, but Pei Shouyi still thinks he might come like this, like he's back in high school, getting off with a random senior in an empty clubroom.

"Pei Shouyi," Yu Zhenxuan says, and Pei Shouyi uses the grip on his hair to pull Yu Zhenxuan in for a kiss. His ass grinds down harder against Pei Shouyi's crotch as he gets closer, and in that moment, Pei Shouyi imagines bending Yu Zhenxuan over one of the infirmary beds, fucking him in front of the office window, leaving him hard and aching behind the curtain while Pei Shouyi finishes paperwork. The images come easily, and besides, Pei Shouyi is too far gone to stop them.

The tension in Yu Zhenxuan's body snaps with a breathy laugh and he comes all over Pei Shouyi's hand. Pei Shouyi pumps him through it, Yu Zhenxuan's cock twitching and spurting in his grasp. Their panting, the sound of skin on skin—all of it is deafening for a moment, but when the static in Pei Shouyi's ears fades, he's horrified to find that he's come in his pants.

Yu Zhenxuan looks up at him, and his smile is radiant, even with a smudge of flaking blood under his nose.

He is attached. Pei Shouyi knows what he has to do.