Done With Questions (I'll Just Make My Answers)
Author: anonymous
Prompt#: 465
Title: Done with Questions (I’ll Just Make My Answers)
Word Count: 5,277
Side Pairing(s): none
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s):[click to open]language, non-graphic violence/blood
Disclaimer: The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: “This was a really, really bad idea,” Baekhyun hisses, and Chanyeol snaps back a testy “I’ve noticed, thanks.” Or: Baekhyun and Chanyeol are detective partners who don’t get along.
Author's Note: ty for the wonderful prompt and ty to the mods for being so kind and patient!! also i know close to nothing about the actual workings of detective officers and the police force so pls forgive any glaring inaccuracies
AO3 ver.
This was a really bad idea.
“This was a really, really bad idea,” Baekhyun hisses, and Chanyeol snaps back a testy “I’ve noticed, thanks”, shoving his face closer to the menu and refusing to making eye contact.
Baekhyun glares holes in the back of Chanyeol’s menu. The black tacky lettering and what looks like a coffee stain glare back. “Take responsibility, Park, you got us into this!”
“Okay, look, this isn’t my fault,” is Chanyeol’s muffled reply. “Scruffy McFuck was in a rush, we were in a rush, I wasn’t looking. It was an honest goddamn mistake!”
“This is the cafe right next to our precinct! I’d say leading us in here was a little more than an honest goddamn-”
“I didn’t see you watching where we were going-”
“Are you ready to order yet?”
Chanyeol startles so hard that his knees bang up against the underside of their little booth table. The salt and pepper shakers fly off the table violently with the movement before clattering back down, though not before upending half their contents onto Baekhyun’s jeans mid-flight. He stares down and wills himself very hard to not shoot Chanyeol right there in one of his dumb long legs.
The waitress looks unimpressed.
“Um,” Chanyeol sputters, hunching closer to his menu again, “um, we, um-”
“We’ll have two cappuccinos, thanks,” Baekhyun says frostily, and waits until she takes their menus and strides away.
“I hate cappuccinos,” Chanyeol mutters.
“And I hate you, so we’re even.”
Chanyeol has the decency to look a little sorry. Baekhyun starts to stand up, planning on brushing the salt and pepper off his lap, but Chanyeol lunges across the table and grabs him just as he’s sliding out of the booth. “Don’t,” he half-squawks, and Baekhyun freezes on instinct.
Chanyeol waits until he slowly sinks back down again. “Um. Okay, don’t be a bitch about it, but I’m ninety-percent sure the guy two booths behind you is Junmyeon,” he whispers. Baekhyun stares at him. “I’m serious! I can see his dumb haircut with the weird edges. Like-”
“-a serrated plastic knife, yeah,” Baekhyun finishes. He squashes the urge to twist around in his seat to look and instead shoves his face into his hands with a long sigh. “We’re supposed to be on suspension for the rest of the month. If that’s really Junmyeon, we’re fucked, Park.”
“Which is why you should not stand up and possibly draw attention to us,” Chanyeol says.
Baekhyun snorts. “Right, like you body-slamming the table with your knees didn’t already do that.”
“I’ll body-slam you with my knees-”
“You don’t have the hand-eye coordination-”
“Two cappuccinos,” the waitress says flatly, and now it’s Baekhyun who half-chokes on his own saliva in surprise. He attempts to pass it off as a hiccup-cough-sneeze, but Chanyeol’s got his smug asshole face on, which means he didn’t buy it. Baekhyun knees him under the table before accepting the coffees from the (still very unimpressed) waitress.
“Okay,” he says, once she’s walked off. He clasps his hand around the heat of the cup and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Listen. We’re detectives. Official actual goddamn detective partners licensed by the state, and we have a case. Run down the situation, Detective Park.”
Chanyeol rolls his eyes but obliges, sitting back in the booth. “Scruffy McFuck over there,” he starts, “is suspected for running some kind of shady underground drug market. We’ve been keeping tabs on him for a few days now and now we’ve tracked him into this cafe. Due to some shitty circumstances, though, Captain Kim goddamn Junmyeon grounded us a week ago, so if he catches us tailing this perp we’ll probably be skinned alive.”
“Don’t leave out the part where leading us ass-first into this cafe, which you know is a few blocks away from the precinct and an optimal place to see our boss,” Baekhyun adds, smiling fakely, “was entirely your fault.”
“Of course,” Chanyeol simpers, tone just as fake. “I won’t leave out the part where I was just leading us after Scruffy McFuck and naturally wouldn’t have paid attention to the store front.”
Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to roll his eyes. He sticks his face into his coffee cup and takes a gulp, then deliberately lets the tension bleed out of his shoulders as he turns to eye Scruffy McFuck-Jim Hartley, or something-sitting a few tables away. In the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol sobering up too. Jesus. “Okay,” he says, “this was a shit idea and we’re so fucked right now, but we didn’t track Mr. McFuck halfway across town for the entire morning to wuss out now.”
“He’ll probably leave soon,” Chanyeol tries, grimacing. “Guy can only hang around a cafe for so long.” A pause. “Fuck, cappuccinos are awful, Byun, how do you drink these?”
“By passing it from my mouth to my pharynx and then into my esophagus,” Baekhyun intones, sticking his face into the warmth of the cup again. The city’s cold as balls this time of the year and even the cafe walls haven’t done much to hide that; his cup of coffee, however, is a different story.
“Detective Park.”
This time Chanyeol manages to not flip everything tits up, but he does jolt violently enough for his foot to smash into Baekhyun’s shin, which makes Baekhyun shriek, which makes him inhale coffee into his trachea instead his esophagus. He chokes, basically. It fucking sucks.
Junmyeon looks on disappointedly as he tries to not hack up an entire lung.
“Captain Kim!” Chanyeol blurts, voice a few pitches higher. “What a coincidence!”
(Okay, Baekhyun might be on the verge of death and wheezing his last breath, but even he can tell that was about as convincing as a piece of wet lettuce. Chanyeol should be better at lying than that.)
“What a pleasant surprise,” Junmyeon agrees. He doesn’t sound very pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t expect to see you and Detective Byun out eating together. If I’d known grounding you two to desk duty would make you stop going at each other’s throats, for once, I’d have done it a lot sooner.”
Chanyeol laughs loudly and blusters something in agreement. Baekhyun’s hardly listening, though; through the gap between Junmyeon’s arm and his side, he can see Scruffy McFuck (Hartley, whatever) standing up and collecting his things, which is a very very Bad Sign. Panic flashes through him-they’ve been tailing that guy for ages-and he jolts abruptly to his feet.
Junmyeon and Chanyeol both look up in alarm. The salt and pepper grains still piled in his lap cascade onto the floor. He forgot about that. Shit.
“Um-gee!” he exclaims, slapping a hand to his forehead. “It totally slipped my mind. I just remembered that we need to head back to the precinct to-” he widens his eyes meaningfully at Chanyeol, “-talk to Jongdae. We were supposed to meet him five minutes ago to go over last week’s paperwork!”
From the way Chanyeol’s eyes have zeroed in on something across the room, he’s caught on. “Fuck, we, yeah-” he stammers, clearly distracted by Hartley.
“Well,” Baekhyun says, sliding out of the booth and yanking on Chanyeol’s jacket to snap him out of it, “it was great to see you, Captain, but we’ve gotta blast. Have a great rest of your lunch!”
The last thing Baekhyun sees before they burst back into the cold air outside is Junmyeon staring suspiciously after them.
They’re so fucked.
☞
They actually do end up going back to the precinct after that. Or, Baekhyun does, at least, because his cellphone rings before they’ve even made it one block away from the café (“Is that Kim Taeyeon?” “Fuck off, Park”). Baekhyun puts it to his ear while aggressively elbowing through the rush hour crowd after Chanyeol, who hopefully is doing something smart for once and using his height to track Scruffy McFuck.
“What’s up,” he grunts.
“Whoa,” Jongdae says, “why are you out of breath? Am I interrupting-”
“What do you want, fucko.”
“New lead on Hartley,” Jongdae says, the teasing tone leaving his voice. “Security cameras caught him going into some seedy districts yesterday at six PM.”
Baekhyun covers his phone with one hand and says “Jongdae’s got security footage against Scruffy!” at Chanyeol’s back. “Listen,” he says to Jongdae, “we’ve been tailing this fucker all morning and-wait, if Junmyeon asks, we’re both back at the precinct talking about the paperwork from the Spaghetti Case-”
“You let Junmyeon see you?” Jongdae demands.
“It wasn’t my fault, okay, Chanyeol lead us into that cafe a few blocks away from the precinct that Junmyeon always goes to-”
“Snitch,” Chanyeol throws over his shoulder. “Backstabber!”
Baekhyun flips him off. “Anyways,” he says, “is the footage good enough for an arrest?”
“It’s your case, Byun, you decide,” Jongdae snorts. “Your funeral, too. Why did I get roped into helping you twats.”
“Because you’re one of our best friends and you love us,” Baekhyun coos, and Jongdae makes a retching noise. “Okay, give me five minutes, I’ll starting heading over there now.” He covers his phone with his hand again. “I’m going back to check the footage. Keep following him!” he calls to Chanyeol. Chanyeol gives him the middle finger but continues moving.
“Get me a croissant before coming back,” Jongdae hums.
☞
Jongdae’s talking to Sehun when Baekhyun makes it back to the precinct, both of them hunched over one laptop at Sehun’s desk and arguing over the sounds of aggressive clicking and tinny League sound effects.
“What the hell, that Katarina ult should’ve killed him!”
“Your shaky-ass hand probably missed him, here-”
“They nerfed Katarina two days ago,” Baekhyun says, unzipping his windbreaker as he moves past, and Jongdae looks up. He sticks a hand into the air expectantly and Baekhyun tosses the croissant to him. “Her ult’s weak as hell now.”
“Figures,” Sehun grumbles. His glances away from his pink-haired avatar lying dead on the screen and the timer counting down the seconds until he can play again. “What’s up, Baek.”
“That’s Detective Byun Baekhyun to you,” Baekhyun sniffs, reaching his desk and hanging his jacket on the back of the chair. “Show some respect, civilian.”
“That’s Administrator Oh Sehun to you,” Sehun sniffs back. “Show me some respect, scrub.”
“Break it up,” Jongdae mumbles around a mouthful of croissant. Crumbs shower out of his mouth. “I’ve got the security footage loaded onto my laptop,” he adds to Baekhyun, jerking his head towards his desk. “It should be on the desktop.”
“Wait, are you still working on the Hartley case with Chanyeol?” Sehun asks, spat forgotten. His eyebrows jump to his hairline. “You’re supposed to be grounded for the rest of the month. Fuck, you’re lucky everyone else is on lunch break, someone’s gonna report you to Captain Kim.”
Jongdae rolls his eyes. “You really think someone from our department-someone from Precinct 12-would report Chanyeol and Baekhyun stepping out of line?”
“Kyungsoo would!”
“Kyungsoo loves those idiots,” Jongdae scoffs. “He might pretend to hate their guts, but he’s secretly fond. Everybody knows it.”
“I’m right here,” Baekhyun says loudly.
“One of these days,” Sehun says solemnly, “Captain Kim’s gonna-ah, shit, I’m alive-”
“Kids,” Baekhyun sighs, shaking his head as Sehun returns his attention immediately to his game.
Jongdae snorts. “Don’t pretend to be above him.”
They go over to Jongdae’s desk across the room and Jongdae leans over to fiddle with his laptop, unplugging his earbuds and pulling the video file up. “How’s it going on Chanyeol’s end?” he asks Baekhyun as they wait for it to load.
“Dunno,” Baekhyun shrugs. “He was heading down fifth after McFu-Hartley when we split up. Knowing him, he’s probably gotten distracted by a pet store by now and forgotten all about the asshole.”
“Are you two ever going to stop your weird catfighting,” Jongdae sighs, rolling his eyes. “You’ve been partners for almost a year now.”
“Look,” Baekhyun says, indignant. “He’s loud. He’s tall. He’s horrible at lying. He noodles around like a big dog but he’s also really jacked, which is unfair?”
Jongdae loosens his tie and fixes Baekhyun with a flat look. Baekhyun’s been around Jongdae long enough to let the look fly past him. “Also, he’s fucking nice,” he continues. “Some perp spills a story about a daughter at home and he lets them go. Ridiculous.”
“Okay, first of all, you don’t have a right to complain about someone being loud,” Jongdae says, and Sehun actually laughs aloud from across the room. “And I’m not even commenting on the rest of whatever you just said, because it was-holy fuck.”
The door swings open and Kim Goddamn Junmyeon stands in the doorway, coat over his arm and hair neatly combed despite the cold-ass winds outside. Baekhyun hastily minimizes the window on Jongdae’s computer and sees Sehun do the same in his peripheral, swiftly replacing his League window with a innocuous word file.
“Hey, Captain,” Jongdae says brightly.
(Baekhyun is really, really not feeling these Junmyeon jump-scares today.)
Junmyeon nods at Jongdae and Sehun. “Kim, Oh. Good to see you two.” He looks to Baekhyun with a raised eyebrow. “Where’s your partner, Detective? I thought you were going over paperwork together.”
“We-he’s, um,” Baekhyun stammers futilely.
Chanyeol bursts through the door right after Junmyeon, hair windblown and clothing rumpled, just as Jongdae starts to say “He’s in the bathroom-”
Junmyeon turns around.
Baekhyun catches Chanyeol’s eye for a split second (he can practically hear the Kill Bill sirens) before Chanyeol looks to Junmyeon with a confused and distinctly uncomfortable smile.
“Captain!” he exclaims. “Back from your lunch so soon?”
“I was only stopping for a quick coffee,” Junmyeon says, giving him a slow once-over. “You look a little disheveled for a trip to the bathroom, Park.”
Chanyeol blinks a few times. “I…was in the bathroom.”
“So I’ve heard,” Junmyeon says smoothly. “Were you using the hand-dryer for your hair?”
A muffled noise that sounds suspiciously like a snort comes from Sehun’s corner of the room. Baekhyun wants to throttle him, a little bit.
Chanyeol’s hands fly up to his messy hair. “There was a, um. A draft in the bathroom.”
“A draft.”
“Mhm,” Chanyeol says, nodding emphatically. “From the window. We should get it checked out.”
“There aren’t windows in the fifth floor bathroom, Detective.”
“I take back what I said earlier,” Jongdae mutters to Baekhyun in a low voice, watching Chanyeol flounder hopelessly in for an excuse. “You were right. He can’t lie for shit.”
“If everybody would look back at everything I’ve been saying and preaching and praying-”
☞
“Okay,” Baekhyun says, later, once the rest of the precinct has finally trickled back in from their lunch break and Junmyeon retreated to his office with a last suspicious glance. He sits on his desk and looks at Chanyeol expectantly. “Spill, bitch.”
Chanyeol crosses his arms and leans back against his own desk (right across the aisle from Baekhyun’s, which has caused him no small amount of grief since becoming the asshole’s partner). “After you left, Scruffy just went back to his shitty apartment. Nothing suspicious that we could use.”
Baekhyun can feel his entire body deflate a little in disappointment. “Nothing here, either,” he sighs. “Cameras caught him going into a suspicious area but there wasn’t anything concrete about it.”
“What the fuck,” Chanyeol groans in annoyance. “How is he covering himself up so well?”
“He’s got a good blanket,” Jongdae calls from across the room, shuffling lazily through a stack on files on his desk. “Keeps the draft out when he uses the restroom.”
“Fuck off,” Chanyeol snaps, and Jongdae laughs. “Don’t you have a case to work on? Suspects to interrogate?”
“Don’t you have desk work to be grounded to?” says Kyungsoo, and they all jump. “Or are you still trying to track down Jim Hartley even after being suspended?”
Baekhyun balks. “We-”
“I heard,” Kyungsoo interrupts, rolling his eyes. He stands with his arms crossed. “Sehun told me. I’m shocked you managed to keep it under wraps for a week, to be honest.”
“That nosy bitch,” Chanyeol grumbles. “Did you come here to lecture us?”
“Against my better judgment, I came to help you, actually,” Kyungsoo sighs. Baekhyun sees Chanyeol’s mouth fall open. “I have Hartley’s address.”
“We have that already,” Baekhyun begins, and Kyungsoo holds up a hand.
“I have his hideout address,” he corrects. “Where he stores his shit. The kind of shit you could use for your case.”
“How’d you get that?” Chanyeol asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Sources,” Kyungsoo says enigmatically.
“Sources,” Baekhyun repeats.
“Sources,” Kyungsoo agrees.
☞
Kyungsoo sends them the address after several more years of stalemate, and they decide to scope it out quickly before dinnertime.
Chanyeol turns the radio on when they slide into the car (they’re taking Chanyeol’s weathered pick-up truck to the hideout, since driving a squad car right into Scruffy’s backyard will probably be the equivalent of shouting WE’RE HERE TO ARREST YOU into a megaphone). Some bubblegum pop song starts blasting at ninety miles an hour. “This case sucks and you suck and I’m really, really fucking hungry,” Chanyeol mumbles.
“We can get dinner after this. Stop being a whiny pissbaby,” Baekhyun says, reaching forward to switch the station.
“As if I’d want to eat a meal with you,” Chanyeol sneers. He switches the station back. What the fuck.
“We literally ate breakfast together yesterday, Park,” Baekhyun snaps. He very deliberately decides to leave the radio alone. “And in that thirty minute span you managed to spill salt and pepper everywhere, so you should be consider yourself a lucky fucking bastard that I’m even sitting in this car with you.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol snorts. “Thank god. I might’ve been able to get rid of you, but I didn’t. What a miracle.”
“You’d better believe it,” Baekhyun says archly, and they leave it at that. The pop song continues to blare obnoxiously as they make a few turns into a seedier district, and soon it peters out into its last chords. A few seconds of silence pass after the song ends.
“You could, you know,” Chanyeol suddenly says, weirdly quiet. “You could. I mean-”
“What,” Baekhyun says.
“You could file a report to Junmyeon.” Chanyeol’s eyes flick to him and then back to road. “Ask for a different partner.”
Something weird hitches uncomfortably in Baekhyun’s chest. “Bet you’d love that.”
Chanyeol shrugs. Another strained silence fills up the space of the car. Baekhyun stares out of the window and ignores the feeling in his chest.
Finally, Chanyeol clears his throat. “We can get Chinese after this,” he mumbles, and turns the radio up.
☞
“Okay,” Baekhyun says when they finally pull up to the curb outside a truly shitty looking residential block. “You’re sure this is the address Kyungsoo gave us?”
Chanyeol checks his phone. “Unfortunately.” He grimaces as his stomach growls. “Can we just do this some other day? I don’t think you understand the full magnitude of how goddamn hungry I am.”
“The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can eat, Park.”
The whole building is silent and worn down, like the gross shell of a dead bug. It doesn’t seem like it’s been lived in for years, but Baekhyun can see the little signs of life; empty cans of food on the floor, recently crushed-out cigarettes, the god-awful smell.
“Doesn’t look like he’s home,” Chanyeol mutters. “Probably a good thing if we want to investigate at all.”
They creep along in silence for several more minutes, passing dim cluttered rooms and covered windows. By the time they reach the last room, Baekhyun’s so tense that every nerve in his body feels like matchwood ready to be struck.
“This is weird,” he finally mumbles, and Chanyeol makes a low noise of agreement. “Did Kyungsoo-”
The next thing he knows, there’s the loud crack of gunfire and Chanyeol’s tackling him to the ground. He can feel the air punch out of his chest as they hit the ground like deadweights, and it takes him a moment to wrench his breath back and lift his head in time to see Scruffy McFuckface himself sprinting past them and through the open door, gun in hand and beard atrocious as ever.
“Shit,” he gasps, lurching up, “shit, we need to-”
“Byun,” Chanyeol coughs.
Baekhyun stops.
Chanyeol’s still lying half on him, curled in on himself, face twisted and shadowed. “You-” Baekhyun starts, mouth dry. He disentangles himself slowly and rolls Chanyeol onto his back.
Two bullet wounds. One in the thigh and one in the arm, both staining Chanyeol’s clothes an angry red, both enough to make Baekhyun’s heart drop into his stomach. His throat closes up. Chanyeol’s the one bleeding out, but he can feel his own blood drain out of his face.
“That son of a bitch,” Chanyeol gasps, and Baekhyun wrenches himself out of his stupor.
“Fuck,” he hisses, clamping two hands over the wound in Chanyeol’s thigh and applying pressure. Chanyeol’s already turning an ashy grey color. “Fuck, Park, why would you-”
“I hate you,” Chanyeol groans, breath hissing through his clenched teeth as his head thuds back against the ground. “I hate you with every fiber of my being, you know that?”
“Put pressure on your arm,” Baekhyun snaps. Chanyeol grimaces, jaw tightening, but clamps his own hand over the bullet wound in his arm. “Listen, it’s not my fault your head is two miles up your own ass, and it’s definitely not my fault you decided to pull that superhero fuckery.”
“He was gonna shoot you,” Chanyeol bites.
“You’re a detective, Park, not a secret agent,” Baekhyun bites back, pulling one bloodied hand away from the bullet wound to fumble for his cellphone.
“You don’t need to be a secret agent to have human decency-”
The cellphone drops out of Baekhyun’s slick fingers and Chanyeol cuts off. Baekhyun looks up as it clatters on the floor to see Chanyeol staring, eyes hazy but eyebrows raised, at his hand, which Baekhyun realizes belatedly is shaking. Fuck.
He ignores it and picks up his phone again. “Of course you consider throwing yourself in the line of fire human decency,” he mutters, and sloppily navigates to his speed dial.
“You might’ve died,” Chanyeol insists.
“And your life would probably be a lot fucking easier if I did, huh?”
Chanyeol blinks and Baekhyun puts his phone to his ear.
“What shit did you get yourself into this time,” Jongdae says.
“Hartley’s gone,” Baekhyun says, exhaling sharply through his noise. “Investigation went to shit. Chanyeol’s dumb ass is bleeding out here. Try to-I don’t fucking know, find some way to track him before he gets too far.”
The rustle of movement. “What the fuck, what happened?” Jongdae demands, even as Baekhyun hears him collecting his things.
“I need to call an ambulance,” Baekhyun says instead. He’s acutely aware of Chanyeol’s labored breaths and the wet feeling of blood beneath his hand. “Thanks.”
He hangs up and starts dialing 911.
“That’s not true,” Chanyeol suddenly says into the silence, as the sound of the dial tone drones on in Baekhyun’s ear. His words are starting to slur together. “That’s-I don’t think that.”
“You don’t think what,” Baekhyun says. His gut clenches tightly, half out of fear and half out of something else.
“I wouldn’t be happy if you died,” Chanyeol murmurs. His eyes flutter as he struggles to stay conscious.
“Hey,” Baekhyun says, breath hitching in alarm, “Chanyeol, hey, stay with me-”
☞
When Chanyeol swims into consciousness, the first thing he does is immediately regret it. God, the hospital lights are fucking bright.
The second thing he does is try to figure out what the fuck is happening, and-
The third thing he does is realize Byun Baekhyun is asleep in the chair next to him, slumped forward so that he’s collapsed half on the bed and his head is lolling onto Chanyeol’s thigh (not the one he got shot in, thank god). It would be laughably cliché if it weren’t for the fact that, one, Baekhyun looks dumb, as always, two, his thigh is probably numb, and three, Baekhyun’s head is practically on top of his dick.
Chanyeol’s just wondering how he might be able to roll him off despite being barely able to move when Baekhyun slowly starts stirring awake. Chanyeol waits until he’s lucid enough to hear words before saying, very slowly and very nasally, “Your head is. Like. Resting right on my dick, Byun.”
Baekhyun jolts up so fast Chanyeol can hear his back crack. He cackles stuffily.
“Fucking…don’t do that again,” Baekhyun groans.
“Someone’s head is resting on your genitals, you gotta let them know,” Chanyeol snickers.
“I meant,” Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes, “don’t, you know. Don’t get shot and almost die again.”
Chanyeol blinks. Oh.
“Was that-” He tries to place his hand over his heart but finds that it’s kind of difficult, “-kindness? Does your tiny shitty body actually hold some semblance of sympathy for me?”
“I should’ve left you to die in Scruffy McFuck’s hideout,” Baekhyun says immediately.
“Hey, okay, sorry,” Chanyeol snorts. He feels himself sobering a little. “Listen, what kind of weak-ass detective do you think I am, Byun? Nobody can kill me that easily.”
“Right,” Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes, but he looks a little less strained.
“If I ever die I’ll come back to haunt your sorry ass, anyway,” Chanyeol hums.
☞
The precinct is bursting with activity for the next couple of days.
Jongdae takes over the Hartley case with the help of Kyungsoo, who won’t stop looking vaguely guilty about what happened to Chanyeol. He’s Kyungsoo, so of course he doesn’t actually say sorry for anything (not that he needs to), but he keeps acting shifty and apologetic until Baekhyun finally tells him it makes him uncomfortable for Kyungsoo to be nice. Kyungsoo socks him in the shoulder but also stops, so.
Obviously the whole fiasco means Captain Kim finds out that they were not, in fact, only doing desk work like they were supposed to, so Baekhyun gets called into his office a few days later.
“I trust Chanyeol’s recovering well?” Junmyeon asks when he sits down, busy shuffling some papers around.
“He’ll be back on his feet in a few weeks,” Baekhyun says. He shifts awkwardly. “Captain-”
“That’s good,” Junmyeon hums. “We can’t have one of our detective pairs going inactive.”
Baekhyun’s mind stutters hopefully. “We what?”
“You heard me, Byun,” Junmyeon says. He glances at Baekhyun over the stack of paperwork he’s arranging.
“You’re not gonna…I don’t know, sack us?”
“What for?”
Baekhyun stares at him in disbelief. “Misconduct? Working on a case after we’d been suspended?”
“Detective Byun,” Junmyeon says, setting the papers down and fixing him with the most withering look Baekhyun’s ever experienced, “if I wanted to fire you and Park for misconduct, I would’ve done so after the first time you two set fire to Detective Do’s chair.”
“Ah,” Baekhyun says. “Ah. Right.”
“Neither of you did a very good job of pretending to not investigate the Hartley case, anyway,” Junmyeon sighs. He sits back in his chair and taps his pen on the desk a few times. “I trust you’ve learned from the experience, at least?”
“Captain,” Baekhyun says seriously, “it’s almost like you have a heart.”
“Answer the question, Detective.”
“Absolutely, sir, I’ve learned a lot.”
“Thank you,” Junmyeon says. He checks his watch. “It’s almost noon. You should go visit Park in the hospital. I’m sure he’d enjoy that.”
☞
Baekhyun does go to see Chanyeol in the hospital after that, though only because Junmyeon gives him another terrifying withering look when he scoffs at the suggestion. Jongdae catches him before he goes and loads his arms up with all the gifts the rest of the precinct have addressed to Chanyeol.
“Are people just…grabbing shit from their houses and writing To Chanyeol on them?” Baekhyun asks incredulously, staring down at his arms.
“Probably,” Jongdae snorts. He continues piling seemingly random items onto the stack.
“One of these is a box of a condoms.”
“Indeed it is.”
“Why is someone sending Park a box of condoms.”
“Can’t say.”
“What the fuck.”
When he finally gets to the hospital he drops everything unceremoniously onto Chanyeol’s bed and purposefully ignores both the complaining wheeze Chanyeol makes and the disapproving looks all the nurses send him. He’s just spreading the goodwill of the precinct.
“You would not the believe the shit I had to go through to bring all these, Park,” he says, dropping into the chair next to the bed. “Half of these are probably from Jongdae.”
Chanyeol picks at the gifts gingerly. “Oh, poor baby, you’ve been through so muc-is this a box of condoms.”
Baekhyun chokes on his spit in a splutter that’s half surprise and half shrieky laughter, because the look on Chanyeol’s face is probably the funniest fucking thing he’s seen all week, especially after everything that’s been happening (and fuck Chanyeol, Baekhyun has been through a lot). The nurses look even more disapproving.
“Okay,” Chanyeol says. “Okay, calm down, it wasn’t that funny.”
“It was,” Baekhyun sighs, sitting back in his chair as his laughter peters off. “I wish I got a picture.”
There’s a brief stretch of (surprisingly not-uncomfortable) silence, in which Baekhyun gets the distinct feeling that Chanyeol’s sizing him up, before Chanyeol suddenly clears his throat and says, “Remember how we were gonna get dinner together that night? After checking out Scruffy McFuck’s place?”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Would you, uh,” Chanyeol says, “still be down for that?”
Baekhyun squints at him. “For dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still in the hospital, Park.”
“I mean once I’m discharged, Byun, jesus.”
“I mean-fine,” Baekhyun says, suddenly suspicious. “You mean as a celebration kind of thing? For being discharged?”
Chanyeol shrugs. “Not. Not necessarily.”
“Then what?”
“Use you brain, Byun,” Chanyeol grumbles, and, okay, what the fuck, why else would-
“Oh,” Baekhyun says. “Oh.”
“I can see the light bulb,” Chanyeol deadpans, and Baekhyun flips him off before clearing his throat.
“I mean,” he says, “I mean, that’s…fine. I’m down.”
“Yeah?”
Baekhyun can tell Chanyeol’s feigned nonchalance is belying the the hopeful look in his eyes, and something about that makes his mouth pull up a little. “Yeah,” he confirms.
A beat. “Well, I’m not surprised or anything, because who could possibly say no to a date with me-”
“I take it back, fuck you.”
“Not on the first date, Byun, at least take me to dinner first-”
“Our first date is dinner, Park, how are you this dumb-”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but if you continue to disturb Mr. Park and the other patients I’ll be forced to ask you to leave.”
“Well, I’ve got condoms right here, so-”
“Sir.”
“Oh my fucking-”
“Sir. I’m aware you’ve just been asked out, sir, but you’re causing a disruption-”
Prompt#: 465
Title: Done with Questions (I’ll Just Make My Answers)
Word Count: 5,277
Side Pairing(s): none
Rating: PG-13
Warning(s):[click to open]language, non-graphic violence/blood
Disclaimer: The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: “This was a really, really bad idea,” Baekhyun hisses, and Chanyeol snaps back a testy “I’ve noticed, thanks.” Or: Baekhyun and Chanyeol are detective partners who don’t get along.
Author's Note: ty for the wonderful prompt and ty to the mods for being so kind and patient!! also i know close to nothing about the actual workings of detective officers and the police force so pls forgive any glaring inaccuracies
AO3 ver.
This was a really bad idea.
“This was a really, really bad idea,” Baekhyun hisses, and Chanyeol snaps back a testy “I’ve noticed, thanks”, shoving his face closer to the menu and refusing to making eye contact.
Baekhyun glares holes in the back of Chanyeol’s menu. The black tacky lettering and what looks like a coffee stain glare back. “Take responsibility, Park, you got us into this!”
“Okay, look, this isn’t my fault,” is Chanyeol’s muffled reply. “Scruffy McFuck was in a rush, we were in a rush, I wasn’t looking. It was an honest goddamn mistake!”
“This is the cafe right next to our precinct! I’d say leading us in here was a little more than an honest goddamn-”
“I didn’t see you watching where we were going-”
“Are you ready to order yet?”
Chanyeol startles so hard that his knees bang up against the underside of their little booth table. The salt and pepper shakers fly off the table violently with the movement before clattering back down, though not before upending half their contents onto Baekhyun’s jeans mid-flight. He stares down and wills himself very hard to not shoot Chanyeol right there in one of his dumb long legs.
The waitress looks unimpressed.
“Um,” Chanyeol sputters, hunching closer to his menu again, “um, we, um-”
“We’ll have two cappuccinos, thanks,” Baekhyun says frostily, and waits until she takes their menus and strides away.
“I hate cappuccinos,” Chanyeol mutters.
“And I hate you, so we’re even.”
Chanyeol has the decency to look a little sorry. Baekhyun starts to stand up, planning on brushing the salt and pepper off his lap, but Chanyeol lunges across the table and grabs him just as he’s sliding out of the booth. “Don’t,” he half-squawks, and Baekhyun freezes on instinct.
Chanyeol waits until he slowly sinks back down again. “Um. Okay, don’t be a bitch about it, but I’m ninety-percent sure the guy two booths behind you is Junmyeon,” he whispers. Baekhyun stares at him. “I’m serious! I can see his dumb haircut with the weird edges. Like-”
“-a serrated plastic knife, yeah,” Baekhyun finishes. He squashes the urge to twist around in his seat to look and instead shoves his face into his hands with a long sigh. “We’re supposed to be on suspension for the rest of the month. If that’s really Junmyeon, we’re fucked, Park.”
“Which is why you should not stand up and possibly draw attention to us,” Chanyeol says.
Baekhyun snorts. “Right, like you body-slamming the table with your knees didn’t already do that.”
“I’ll body-slam you with my knees-”
“You don’t have the hand-eye coordination-”
“Two cappuccinos,” the waitress says flatly, and now it’s Baekhyun who half-chokes on his own saliva in surprise. He attempts to pass it off as a hiccup-cough-sneeze, but Chanyeol’s got his smug asshole face on, which means he didn’t buy it. Baekhyun knees him under the table before accepting the coffees from the (still very unimpressed) waitress.
“Okay,” he says, once she’s walked off. He clasps his hand around the heat of the cup and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Listen. We’re detectives. Official actual goddamn detective partners licensed by the state, and we have a case. Run down the situation, Detective Park.”
Chanyeol rolls his eyes but obliges, sitting back in the booth. “Scruffy McFuck over there,” he starts, “is suspected for running some kind of shady underground drug market. We’ve been keeping tabs on him for a few days now and now we’ve tracked him into this cafe. Due to some shitty circumstances, though, Captain Kim goddamn Junmyeon grounded us a week ago, so if he catches us tailing this perp we’ll probably be skinned alive.”
“Don’t leave out the part where leading us ass-first into this cafe, which you know is a few blocks away from the precinct and an optimal place to see our boss,” Baekhyun adds, smiling fakely, “was entirely your fault.”
“Of course,” Chanyeol simpers, tone just as fake. “I won’t leave out the part where I was just leading us after Scruffy McFuck and naturally wouldn’t have paid attention to the store front.”
Now it’s Baekhyun’s turn to roll his eyes. He sticks his face into his coffee cup and takes a gulp, then deliberately lets the tension bleed out of his shoulders as he turns to eye Scruffy McFuck-Jim Hartley, or something-sitting a few tables away. In the corner of his eye, he can see Chanyeol sobering up too. Jesus. “Okay,” he says, “this was a shit idea and we’re so fucked right now, but we didn’t track Mr. McFuck halfway across town for the entire morning to wuss out now.”
“He’ll probably leave soon,” Chanyeol tries, grimacing. “Guy can only hang around a cafe for so long.” A pause. “Fuck, cappuccinos are awful, Byun, how do you drink these?”
“By passing it from my mouth to my pharynx and then into my esophagus,” Baekhyun intones, sticking his face into the warmth of the cup again. The city’s cold as balls this time of the year and even the cafe walls haven’t done much to hide that; his cup of coffee, however, is a different story.
“Detective Park.”
This time Chanyeol manages to not flip everything tits up, but he does jolt violently enough for his foot to smash into Baekhyun’s shin, which makes Baekhyun shriek, which makes him inhale coffee into his trachea instead his esophagus. He chokes, basically. It fucking sucks.
Junmyeon looks on disappointedly as he tries to not hack up an entire lung.
“Captain Kim!” Chanyeol blurts, voice a few pitches higher. “What a coincidence!”
(Okay, Baekhyun might be on the verge of death and wheezing his last breath, but even he can tell that was about as convincing as a piece of wet lettuce. Chanyeol should be better at lying than that.)
“What a pleasant surprise,” Junmyeon agrees. He doesn’t sound very pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t expect to see you and Detective Byun out eating together. If I’d known grounding you two to desk duty would make you stop going at each other’s throats, for once, I’d have done it a lot sooner.”
Chanyeol laughs loudly and blusters something in agreement. Baekhyun’s hardly listening, though; through the gap between Junmyeon’s arm and his side, he can see Scruffy McFuck (Hartley, whatever) standing up and collecting his things, which is a very very Bad Sign. Panic flashes through him-they’ve been tailing that guy for ages-and he jolts abruptly to his feet.
Junmyeon and Chanyeol both look up in alarm. The salt and pepper grains still piled in his lap cascade onto the floor. He forgot about that. Shit.
“Um-gee!” he exclaims, slapping a hand to his forehead. “It totally slipped my mind. I just remembered that we need to head back to the precinct to-” he widens his eyes meaningfully at Chanyeol, “-talk to Jongdae. We were supposed to meet him five minutes ago to go over last week’s paperwork!”
From the way Chanyeol’s eyes have zeroed in on something across the room, he’s caught on. “Fuck, we, yeah-” he stammers, clearly distracted by Hartley.
“Well,” Baekhyun says, sliding out of the booth and yanking on Chanyeol’s jacket to snap him out of it, “it was great to see you, Captain, but we’ve gotta blast. Have a great rest of your lunch!”
The last thing Baekhyun sees before they burst back into the cold air outside is Junmyeon staring suspiciously after them.
They’re so fucked.
☞
They actually do end up going back to the precinct after that. Or, Baekhyun does, at least, because his cellphone rings before they’ve even made it one block away from the café (“Is that Kim Taeyeon?” “Fuck off, Park”). Baekhyun puts it to his ear while aggressively elbowing through the rush hour crowd after Chanyeol, who hopefully is doing something smart for once and using his height to track Scruffy McFuck.
“What’s up,” he grunts.
“Whoa,” Jongdae says, “why are you out of breath? Am I interrupting-”
“What do you want, fucko.”
“New lead on Hartley,” Jongdae says, the teasing tone leaving his voice. “Security cameras caught him going into some seedy districts yesterday at six PM.”
Baekhyun covers his phone with one hand and says “Jongdae’s got security footage against Scruffy!” at Chanyeol’s back. “Listen,” he says to Jongdae, “we’ve been tailing this fucker all morning and-wait, if Junmyeon asks, we’re both back at the precinct talking about the paperwork from the Spaghetti Case-”
“You let Junmyeon see you?” Jongdae demands.
“It wasn’t my fault, okay, Chanyeol lead us into that cafe a few blocks away from the precinct that Junmyeon always goes to-”
“Snitch,” Chanyeol throws over his shoulder. “Backstabber!”
Baekhyun flips him off. “Anyways,” he says, “is the footage good enough for an arrest?”
“It’s your case, Byun, you decide,” Jongdae snorts. “Your funeral, too. Why did I get roped into helping you twats.”
“Because you’re one of our best friends and you love us,” Baekhyun coos, and Jongdae makes a retching noise. “Okay, give me five minutes, I’ll starting heading over there now.” He covers his phone with his hand again. “I’m going back to check the footage. Keep following him!” he calls to Chanyeol. Chanyeol gives him the middle finger but continues moving.
“Get me a croissant before coming back,” Jongdae hums.
☞
Jongdae’s talking to Sehun when Baekhyun makes it back to the precinct, both of them hunched over one laptop at Sehun’s desk and arguing over the sounds of aggressive clicking and tinny League sound effects.
“What the hell, that Katarina ult should’ve killed him!”
“Your shaky-ass hand probably missed him, here-”
“They nerfed Katarina two days ago,” Baekhyun says, unzipping his windbreaker as he moves past, and Jongdae looks up. He sticks a hand into the air expectantly and Baekhyun tosses the croissant to him. “Her ult’s weak as hell now.”
“Figures,” Sehun grumbles. His glances away from his pink-haired avatar lying dead on the screen and the timer counting down the seconds until he can play again. “What’s up, Baek.”
“That’s Detective Byun Baekhyun to you,” Baekhyun sniffs, reaching his desk and hanging his jacket on the back of the chair. “Show some respect, civilian.”
“That’s Administrator Oh Sehun to you,” Sehun sniffs back. “Show me some respect, scrub.”
“Break it up,” Jongdae mumbles around a mouthful of croissant. Crumbs shower out of his mouth. “I’ve got the security footage loaded onto my laptop,” he adds to Baekhyun, jerking his head towards his desk. “It should be on the desktop.”
“Wait, are you still working on the Hartley case with Chanyeol?” Sehun asks, spat forgotten. His eyebrows jump to his hairline. “You’re supposed to be grounded for the rest of the month. Fuck, you’re lucky everyone else is on lunch break, someone’s gonna report you to Captain Kim.”
Jongdae rolls his eyes. “You really think someone from our department-someone from Precinct 12-would report Chanyeol and Baekhyun stepping out of line?”
“Kyungsoo would!”
“Kyungsoo loves those idiots,” Jongdae scoffs. “He might pretend to hate their guts, but he’s secretly fond. Everybody knows it.”
“I’m right here,” Baekhyun says loudly.
“One of these days,” Sehun says solemnly, “Captain Kim’s gonna-ah, shit, I’m alive-”
“Kids,” Baekhyun sighs, shaking his head as Sehun returns his attention immediately to his game.
Jongdae snorts. “Don’t pretend to be above him.”
They go over to Jongdae’s desk across the room and Jongdae leans over to fiddle with his laptop, unplugging his earbuds and pulling the video file up. “How’s it going on Chanyeol’s end?” he asks Baekhyun as they wait for it to load.
“Dunno,” Baekhyun shrugs. “He was heading down fifth after McFu-Hartley when we split up. Knowing him, he’s probably gotten distracted by a pet store by now and forgotten all about the asshole.”
“Are you two ever going to stop your weird catfighting,” Jongdae sighs, rolling his eyes. “You’ve been partners for almost a year now.”
“Look,” Baekhyun says, indignant. “He’s loud. He’s tall. He’s horrible at lying. He noodles around like a big dog but he’s also really jacked, which is unfair?”
Jongdae loosens his tie and fixes Baekhyun with a flat look. Baekhyun’s been around Jongdae long enough to let the look fly past him. “Also, he’s fucking nice,” he continues. “Some perp spills a story about a daughter at home and he lets them go. Ridiculous.”
“Okay, first of all, you don’t have a right to complain about someone being loud,” Jongdae says, and Sehun actually laughs aloud from across the room. “And I’m not even commenting on the rest of whatever you just said, because it was-holy fuck.”
The door swings open and Kim Goddamn Junmyeon stands in the doorway, coat over his arm and hair neatly combed despite the cold-ass winds outside. Baekhyun hastily minimizes the window on Jongdae’s computer and sees Sehun do the same in his peripheral, swiftly replacing his League window with a innocuous word file.
“Hey, Captain,” Jongdae says brightly.
(Baekhyun is really, really not feeling these Junmyeon jump-scares today.)
Junmyeon nods at Jongdae and Sehun. “Kim, Oh. Good to see you two.” He looks to Baekhyun with a raised eyebrow. “Where’s your partner, Detective? I thought you were going over paperwork together.”
“We-he’s, um,” Baekhyun stammers futilely.
Chanyeol bursts through the door right after Junmyeon, hair windblown and clothing rumpled, just as Jongdae starts to say “He’s in the bathroom-”
Junmyeon turns around.
Baekhyun catches Chanyeol’s eye for a split second (he can practically hear the Kill Bill sirens) before Chanyeol looks to Junmyeon with a confused and distinctly uncomfortable smile.
“Captain!” he exclaims. “Back from your lunch so soon?”
“I was only stopping for a quick coffee,” Junmyeon says, giving him a slow once-over. “You look a little disheveled for a trip to the bathroom, Park.”
Chanyeol blinks a few times. “I…was in the bathroom.”
“So I’ve heard,” Junmyeon says smoothly. “Were you using the hand-dryer for your hair?”
A muffled noise that sounds suspiciously like a snort comes from Sehun’s corner of the room. Baekhyun wants to throttle him, a little bit.
Chanyeol’s hands fly up to his messy hair. “There was a, um. A draft in the bathroom.”
“A draft.”
“Mhm,” Chanyeol says, nodding emphatically. “From the window. We should get it checked out.”
“There aren’t windows in the fifth floor bathroom, Detective.”
“I take back what I said earlier,” Jongdae mutters to Baekhyun in a low voice, watching Chanyeol flounder hopelessly in for an excuse. “You were right. He can’t lie for shit.”
“If everybody would look back at everything I’ve been saying and preaching and praying-”
☞
“Okay,” Baekhyun says, later, once the rest of the precinct has finally trickled back in from their lunch break and Junmyeon retreated to his office with a last suspicious glance. He sits on his desk and looks at Chanyeol expectantly. “Spill, bitch.”
Chanyeol crosses his arms and leans back against his own desk (right across the aisle from Baekhyun’s, which has caused him no small amount of grief since becoming the asshole’s partner). “After you left, Scruffy just went back to his shitty apartment. Nothing suspicious that we could use.”
Baekhyun can feel his entire body deflate a little in disappointment. “Nothing here, either,” he sighs. “Cameras caught him going into a suspicious area but there wasn’t anything concrete about it.”
“What the fuck,” Chanyeol groans in annoyance. “How is he covering himself up so well?”
“He’s got a good blanket,” Jongdae calls from across the room, shuffling lazily through a stack on files on his desk. “Keeps the draft out when he uses the restroom.”
“Fuck off,” Chanyeol snaps, and Jongdae laughs. “Don’t you have a case to work on? Suspects to interrogate?”
“Don’t you have desk work to be grounded to?” says Kyungsoo, and they all jump. “Or are you still trying to track down Jim Hartley even after being suspended?”
Baekhyun balks. “We-”
“I heard,” Kyungsoo interrupts, rolling his eyes. He stands with his arms crossed. “Sehun told me. I’m shocked you managed to keep it under wraps for a week, to be honest.”
“That nosy bitch,” Chanyeol grumbles. “Did you come here to lecture us?”
“Against my better judgment, I came to help you, actually,” Kyungsoo sighs. Baekhyun sees Chanyeol’s mouth fall open. “I have Hartley’s address.”
“We have that already,” Baekhyun begins, and Kyungsoo holds up a hand.
“I have his hideout address,” he corrects. “Where he stores his shit. The kind of shit you could use for your case.”
“How’d you get that?” Chanyeol asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Sources,” Kyungsoo says enigmatically.
“Sources,” Baekhyun repeats.
“Sources,” Kyungsoo agrees.
☞
Kyungsoo sends them the address after several more years of stalemate, and they decide to scope it out quickly before dinnertime.
Chanyeol turns the radio on when they slide into the car (they’re taking Chanyeol’s weathered pick-up truck to the hideout, since driving a squad car right into Scruffy’s backyard will probably be the equivalent of shouting WE’RE HERE TO ARREST YOU into a megaphone). Some bubblegum pop song starts blasting at ninety miles an hour. “This case sucks and you suck and I’m really, really fucking hungry,” Chanyeol mumbles.
“We can get dinner after this. Stop being a whiny pissbaby,” Baekhyun says, reaching forward to switch the station.
“As if I’d want to eat a meal with you,” Chanyeol sneers. He switches the station back. What the fuck.
“We literally ate breakfast together yesterday, Park,” Baekhyun snaps. He very deliberately decides to leave the radio alone. “And in that thirty minute span you managed to spill salt and pepper everywhere, so you should be consider yourself a lucky fucking bastard that I’m even sitting in this car with you.”
“Oh,” Chanyeol snorts. “Thank god. I might’ve been able to get rid of you, but I didn’t. What a miracle.”
“You’d better believe it,” Baekhyun says archly, and they leave it at that. The pop song continues to blare obnoxiously as they make a few turns into a seedier district, and soon it peters out into its last chords. A few seconds of silence pass after the song ends.
“You could, you know,” Chanyeol suddenly says, weirdly quiet. “You could. I mean-”
“What,” Baekhyun says.
“You could file a report to Junmyeon.” Chanyeol’s eyes flick to him and then back to road. “Ask for a different partner.”
Something weird hitches uncomfortably in Baekhyun’s chest. “Bet you’d love that.”
Chanyeol shrugs. Another strained silence fills up the space of the car. Baekhyun stares out of the window and ignores the feeling in his chest.
Finally, Chanyeol clears his throat. “We can get Chinese after this,” he mumbles, and turns the radio up.
☞
“Okay,” Baekhyun says when they finally pull up to the curb outside a truly shitty looking residential block. “You’re sure this is the address Kyungsoo gave us?”
Chanyeol checks his phone. “Unfortunately.” He grimaces as his stomach growls. “Can we just do this some other day? I don’t think you understand the full magnitude of how goddamn hungry I am.”
“The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can eat, Park.”
The whole building is silent and worn down, like the gross shell of a dead bug. It doesn’t seem like it’s been lived in for years, but Baekhyun can see the little signs of life; empty cans of food on the floor, recently crushed-out cigarettes, the god-awful smell.
“Doesn’t look like he’s home,” Chanyeol mutters. “Probably a good thing if we want to investigate at all.”
They creep along in silence for several more minutes, passing dim cluttered rooms and covered windows. By the time they reach the last room, Baekhyun’s so tense that every nerve in his body feels like matchwood ready to be struck.
“This is weird,” he finally mumbles, and Chanyeol makes a low noise of agreement. “Did Kyungsoo-”
The next thing he knows, there’s the loud crack of gunfire and Chanyeol’s tackling him to the ground. He can feel the air punch out of his chest as they hit the ground like deadweights, and it takes him a moment to wrench his breath back and lift his head in time to see Scruffy McFuckface himself sprinting past them and through the open door, gun in hand and beard atrocious as ever.
“Shit,” he gasps, lurching up, “shit, we need to-”
“Byun,” Chanyeol coughs.
Baekhyun stops.
Chanyeol’s still lying half on him, curled in on himself, face twisted and shadowed. “You-” Baekhyun starts, mouth dry. He disentangles himself slowly and rolls Chanyeol onto his back.
Two bullet wounds. One in the thigh and one in the arm, both staining Chanyeol’s clothes an angry red, both enough to make Baekhyun’s heart drop into his stomach. His throat closes up. Chanyeol’s the one bleeding out, but he can feel his own blood drain out of his face.
“That son of a bitch,” Chanyeol gasps, and Baekhyun wrenches himself out of his stupor.
“Fuck,” he hisses, clamping two hands over the wound in Chanyeol’s thigh and applying pressure. Chanyeol’s already turning an ashy grey color. “Fuck, Park, why would you-”
“I hate you,” Chanyeol groans, breath hissing through his clenched teeth as his head thuds back against the ground. “I hate you with every fiber of my being, you know that?”
“Put pressure on your arm,” Baekhyun snaps. Chanyeol grimaces, jaw tightening, but clamps his own hand over the bullet wound in his arm. “Listen, it’s not my fault your head is two miles up your own ass, and it’s definitely not my fault you decided to pull that superhero fuckery.”
“He was gonna shoot you,” Chanyeol bites.
“You’re a detective, Park, not a secret agent,” Baekhyun bites back, pulling one bloodied hand away from the bullet wound to fumble for his cellphone.
“You don’t need to be a secret agent to have human decency-”
The cellphone drops out of Baekhyun’s slick fingers and Chanyeol cuts off. Baekhyun looks up as it clatters on the floor to see Chanyeol staring, eyes hazy but eyebrows raised, at his hand, which Baekhyun realizes belatedly is shaking. Fuck.
He ignores it and picks up his phone again. “Of course you consider throwing yourself in the line of fire human decency,” he mutters, and sloppily navigates to his speed dial.
“You might’ve died,” Chanyeol insists.
“And your life would probably be a lot fucking easier if I did, huh?”
Chanyeol blinks and Baekhyun puts his phone to his ear.
“What shit did you get yourself into this time,” Jongdae says.
“Hartley’s gone,” Baekhyun says, exhaling sharply through his noise. “Investigation went to shit. Chanyeol’s dumb ass is bleeding out here. Try to-I don’t fucking know, find some way to track him before he gets too far.”
The rustle of movement. “What the fuck, what happened?” Jongdae demands, even as Baekhyun hears him collecting his things.
“I need to call an ambulance,” Baekhyun says instead. He’s acutely aware of Chanyeol’s labored breaths and the wet feeling of blood beneath his hand. “Thanks.”
He hangs up and starts dialing 911.
“That’s not true,” Chanyeol suddenly says into the silence, as the sound of the dial tone drones on in Baekhyun’s ear. His words are starting to slur together. “That’s-I don’t think that.”
“You don’t think what,” Baekhyun says. His gut clenches tightly, half out of fear and half out of something else.
“I wouldn’t be happy if you died,” Chanyeol murmurs. His eyes flutter as he struggles to stay conscious.
“Hey,” Baekhyun says, breath hitching in alarm, “Chanyeol, hey, stay with me-”
☞
When Chanyeol swims into consciousness, the first thing he does is immediately regret it. God, the hospital lights are fucking bright.
The second thing he does is try to figure out what the fuck is happening, and-
The third thing he does is realize Byun Baekhyun is asleep in the chair next to him, slumped forward so that he’s collapsed half on the bed and his head is lolling onto Chanyeol’s thigh (not the one he got shot in, thank god). It would be laughably cliché if it weren’t for the fact that, one, Baekhyun looks dumb, as always, two, his thigh is probably numb, and three, Baekhyun’s head is practically on top of his dick.
Chanyeol’s just wondering how he might be able to roll him off despite being barely able to move when Baekhyun slowly starts stirring awake. Chanyeol waits until he’s lucid enough to hear words before saying, very slowly and very nasally, “Your head is. Like. Resting right on my dick, Byun.”
Baekhyun jolts up so fast Chanyeol can hear his back crack. He cackles stuffily.
“Fucking…don’t do that again,” Baekhyun groans.
“Someone’s head is resting on your genitals, you gotta let them know,” Chanyeol snickers.
“I meant,” Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes, “don’t, you know. Don’t get shot and almost die again.”
Chanyeol blinks. Oh.
“Was that-” He tries to place his hand over his heart but finds that it’s kind of difficult, “-kindness? Does your tiny shitty body actually hold some semblance of sympathy for me?”
“I should’ve left you to die in Scruffy McFuck’s hideout,” Baekhyun says immediately.
“Hey, okay, sorry,” Chanyeol snorts. He feels himself sobering a little. “Listen, what kind of weak-ass detective do you think I am, Byun? Nobody can kill me that easily.”
“Right,” Baekhyun says, rolling his eyes, but he looks a little less strained.
“If I ever die I’ll come back to haunt your sorry ass, anyway,” Chanyeol hums.
☞
The precinct is bursting with activity for the next couple of days.
Jongdae takes over the Hartley case with the help of Kyungsoo, who won’t stop looking vaguely guilty about what happened to Chanyeol. He’s Kyungsoo, so of course he doesn’t actually say sorry for anything (not that he needs to), but he keeps acting shifty and apologetic until Baekhyun finally tells him it makes him uncomfortable for Kyungsoo to be nice. Kyungsoo socks him in the shoulder but also stops, so.
Obviously the whole fiasco means Captain Kim finds out that they were not, in fact, only doing desk work like they were supposed to, so Baekhyun gets called into his office a few days later.
“I trust Chanyeol’s recovering well?” Junmyeon asks when he sits down, busy shuffling some papers around.
“He’ll be back on his feet in a few weeks,” Baekhyun says. He shifts awkwardly. “Captain-”
“That’s good,” Junmyeon hums. “We can’t have one of our detective pairs going inactive.”
Baekhyun’s mind stutters hopefully. “We what?”
“You heard me, Byun,” Junmyeon says. He glances at Baekhyun over the stack of paperwork he’s arranging.
“You’re not gonna…I don’t know, sack us?”
“What for?”
Baekhyun stares at him in disbelief. “Misconduct? Working on a case after we’d been suspended?”
“Detective Byun,” Junmyeon says, setting the papers down and fixing him with the most withering look Baekhyun’s ever experienced, “if I wanted to fire you and Park for misconduct, I would’ve done so after the first time you two set fire to Detective Do’s chair.”
“Ah,” Baekhyun says. “Ah. Right.”
“Neither of you did a very good job of pretending to not investigate the Hartley case, anyway,” Junmyeon sighs. He sits back in his chair and taps his pen on the desk a few times. “I trust you’ve learned from the experience, at least?”
“Captain,” Baekhyun says seriously, “it’s almost like you have a heart.”
“Answer the question, Detective.”
“Absolutely, sir, I’ve learned a lot.”
“Thank you,” Junmyeon says. He checks his watch. “It’s almost noon. You should go visit Park in the hospital. I’m sure he’d enjoy that.”
☞
Baekhyun does go to see Chanyeol in the hospital after that, though only because Junmyeon gives him another terrifying withering look when he scoffs at the suggestion. Jongdae catches him before he goes and loads his arms up with all the gifts the rest of the precinct have addressed to Chanyeol.
“Are people just…grabbing shit from their houses and writing To Chanyeol on them?” Baekhyun asks incredulously, staring down at his arms.
“Probably,” Jongdae snorts. He continues piling seemingly random items onto the stack.
“One of these is a box of a condoms.”
“Indeed it is.”
“Why is someone sending Park a box of condoms.”
“Can’t say.”
“What the fuck.”
When he finally gets to the hospital he drops everything unceremoniously onto Chanyeol’s bed and purposefully ignores both the complaining wheeze Chanyeol makes and the disapproving looks all the nurses send him. He’s just spreading the goodwill of the precinct.
“You would not the believe the shit I had to go through to bring all these, Park,” he says, dropping into the chair next to the bed. “Half of these are probably from Jongdae.”
Chanyeol picks at the gifts gingerly. “Oh, poor baby, you’ve been through so muc-is this a box of condoms.”
Baekhyun chokes on his spit in a splutter that’s half surprise and half shrieky laughter, because the look on Chanyeol’s face is probably the funniest fucking thing he’s seen all week, especially after everything that’s been happening (and fuck Chanyeol, Baekhyun has been through a lot). The nurses look even more disapproving.
“Okay,” Chanyeol says. “Okay, calm down, it wasn’t that funny.”
“It was,” Baekhyun sighs, sitting back in his chair as his laughter peters off. “I wish I got a picture.”
There’s a brief stretch of (surprisingly not-uncomfortable) silence, in which Baekhyun gets the distinct feeling that Chanyeol’s sizing him up, before Chanyeol suddenly clears his throat and says, “Remember how we were gonna get dinner together that night? After checking out Scruffy McFuck’s place?”
“Yeah,” Baekhyun says, raising an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Would you, uh,” Chanyeol says, “still be down for that?”
Baekhyun squints at him. “For dinner?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re still in the hospital, Park.”
“I mean once I’m discharged, Byun, jesus.”
“I mean-fine,” Baekhyun says, suddenly suspicious. “You mean as a celebration kind of thing? For being discharged?”
Chanyeol shrugs. “Not. Not necessarily.”
“Then what?”
“Use you brain, Byun,” Chanyeol grumbles, and, okay, what the fuck, why else would-
“Oh,” Baekhyun says. “Oh.”
“I can see the light bulb,” Chanyeol deadpans, and Baekhyun flips him off before clearing his throat.
“I mean,” he says, “I mean, that’s…fine. I’m down.”
“Yeah?”
Baekhyun can tell Chanyeol’s feigned nonchalance is belying the the hopeful look in his eyes, and something about that makes his mouth pull up a little. “Yeah,” he confirms.
A beat. “Well, I’m not surprised or anything, because who could possibly say no to a date with me-”
“I take it back, fuck you.”
“Not on the first date, Byun, at least take me to dinner first-”
“Our first date is dinner, Park, how are you this dumb-”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, sir, but if you continue to disturb Mr. Park and the other patients I’ll be forced to ask you to leave.”
“Well, I’ve got condoms right here, so-”
“Sir.”
“Oh my fucking-”
“Sir. I’m aware you’ve just been asked out, sir, but you’re causing a disruption-”