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Post-contract management is the worst part of the job, but plenty of more educated blokes would argue it isn't.
It's harder to put the pieces together and smash some heads in than to write up in a report of everything that went down and how it went down and whatnot. Heathcliff's brain is his main source, and everything else falls in line with it. A crime scene can be gauged by a simple sweep, and things get complicated when extensive cover-ups are involved, and how the hell is he supposed to write that he just knew the Grant Office paid off someone to kill the blokes in charge of an Oufï-managed contract – he just knew, that's it!
“Honey, ‘m home,” he shouts, slamming the door behind him with his foot. He has three copies of his Seven uniform in case situations like these happen where the last investigation of the day ends up unexpectedly bloody. His pants are soaked with blood and the ends are burnt off from the cocky Liu fixer Hong Lu who shot in the air and then ran through the crowd of criminal Fixers like a bullet from hell. He tosses his briefcase on the couch when he doesn't get a response, and he raises his eyebrow when even that does nothing.
“Oi,” he calls, shucking off his pants and overcoat and tossing them on the floor. He'll get them up later when he inevitably makes a laundry run, but the pants are high-ruined. “Hullo? Anyone home? Cheerio and whatnot?”
He shuffles to the bedroom and sees the problem: Yi Sang's in one of their shared moods again, where a case gets too complicated. Heathcliff gets into it more than Yi Sang simply because Yi Sang's more of an intellectual than he is and goes into an investigation with a more critical and logical gaze, but it's just as often that his perception varies and strays and goes haywire until he's not sure of the facts as much as anyone else is.
“Bugger,” Heathcliff tsks, from the corridor where Yi Sang hunches over his desk, feverishly murmuring and comparing electronic case studies on his laptop to physical documents and sticky notes. Heathcliff watches Yi Sang ignore him completely and say something about the intricacies of fireworks while holding a red pen between his teeth, a phone on one hand, and a mechanical pencil in his other before he decides that Yi Sang's probably been at this for too long.
Section 4 wakes up and gets off later than Section 6 usually, so if Yi Sang looks like this now then he's probably been the same for the past two and a half hours. There's many ways Heathcliff could wake him up from his delirious, case-solving state, and many of them would probably be more loving than what he does: he grabs the smallest pillow from the bed and whacks Yi Sang over the head with it.
Yi Sang's surprised shout snaps him out of his daze. He blinks up at Heathcliff, who stares down at him with a disgruntled expression. “Yi Sang, you didn't even put on rice like I asked, you twat.”
“Oh dear,” Yi Sang mumbles, and it's muffled by the pen in his mouth, which he promptly removes. “My dearest and most sincere apologies, Heathcliff… it is just that –”
“I know, mate,” he sighs, “but get that spit pen off my desk, yeah? Rice takes like ten minutes, we'll live. How long've you been at it?”
“Ahum,” Yi Sang coughs into his gloved hand. He hasn't even taken off his uniform. “...unintentionally, I believe I have not spent a moment of leisure upon leaving work.”
“Like I thought. Take a break with me?” Heathcliff tosses the pillow on the bed again and sees the innate desire to refuse in Yi Sang's eyes, which he vehemently disagrees with, so he takes Yi Sang by the hand and pulls him out of the chair forcefully. Yi Sang makes another shocked gasp. “Take off your gloves at least.”
“I…” Yi Sang looks at least a bit guilty, but his face morphs into confusion. “Why are you without pants?”
“Tch. If you'd answered when I called you would've seen the state of ‘em.”
“You called ?”
Yi Sang is hopeless in the kitchen, so his only role is chopping up things and washing up things and other small tasks that Heathcliff doesn't have the patience to do, but Yi Sang very much does. But Heathcliff doesn't overestimate himself, either – he's not a cooking god like Don Quixote tells him Meursault is all the damn time (to hell with them, by the way), he just knows how to throw shit in a pan and season it enough to make something good. But Yi Sang seems happy with it every time and has started to wane off of ordering fast food every night like he used to, so he’s gotten better at scraping up nosh anyway.
Not that improvement means he can't be lazy sometimes. Yi Sang puts rice on while he washes off a chicken breast. “Cut some broccoli, too,” Heathcliff says, and Yi Sang quietly hums in agreement. Chicken and rice and broccoli is always simple and pretty okay for dinner, and it's Heathcliff's unique way of conveying to Yi Sang that today was hell and he just wants to lay down. “Was out with Hong Lu today, that arsehole.”
“Ah,” Yi Sang says, and he pokes his head out of the kitchen to glance at Heathcliff's pants, still on the floor. Heathcliff’s now changed into sweatpants. “I suppose that explains… Liu are always quite overkill.”
“That piece of shite just likes showing off, is what,” Heathcliff grumbles, while laying chicken in the pan. Yi Sang nudges his foot against Heathcliff's ankle. “Shi're easier to work with…”
“You are favored towards Don Quixote,” Yi Sang says simply, to which Heathcliff bites back, “ no I ain't!” , and they both laugh at the giant lie.
Dinner's done quick enough. They both lay on the couch, plates in their hands. Yi Sang sighs when he takes the first bite while Heathcliff kicks his briefcase to the floor and puts on a game show, one of those trivia ones that Yi Sang adores so much since he likes answering the questions faster than the actual people can. He attempts to take a spoonful of his food, grateful that he can finally lay back and relax and hopefully wave away the small headache he always has before he eats dinner when Yi Sang gasps.
“Heathcliff,” he says, with glee, “that's Don Quixote.”
“What, on the telly?” Heathcliff says, mouth full. He looks up and sure enough the camera has panned to the panel of contestants with a bright, starry eyed Don Quixote bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “The hell is this show about?” But his question is swiftly answered by the title card: Are You A Real Fixer Fangirl?
“Makes enough sense,” Heathcliff says. “Told me she had some special opportunity or whatever the fuck…”
“Ah! Don Quixote, I shall be cheering you on…!”
“You know she can't hear you, yeah?”
Dinner is usually a quiet affair, but today it's loud, with Heathcliff's favoritism towards his favorite Director shining brightly in the way he jabs his spoon at the television, whooping and cheering in her name when she racks up a grand total of 80 points compared to the meager 20 of the other two contestants. He and Yi Sang text her like crazy when she wins a total of 1,000,000 Ahn even though they both know she'll probably be walking away with 100,000 after taxes. Then they put their dishes in the sink and Yi Sang offers to clean them, only for Heathcliff to groan and tell him to just come to bed.
“I've to work on this for just a bit,” Yi Sang replies, sitting at Heathcliff's desk once more. “I shall set an alarm so that I do not spend unnecessary time – do not look at me in such a manner of scorn! With truth I relay this to you in hopes that you will place trust in me.”
“Fine, whatever,” Heathcliff groans, loathing in Yi Sang's elegant speech that makes a short sentence into a sprawling, long one. “If I wake up and you're not in bed I'm bannin’ you from the desk.”
Yi Sang looks deadly serious. “You shan't,” he says.
Heathcliff's used to not sleeping with a body curled against him, so it's not trouble to be sleeping without him. It does make him so-subtly upset, but it's an emotion he can push down easily. They have the same job; he knows how relentless those swirling thoughts can be, like you're at the precipice of cracking a mishmash of evidence wide open and finally being able to organize it into something reasonable, just a little more time, just a bit…
So he can't be offended and beg Yi Sang to stop overworking himself or else he'd be a damn hypocrite. Who knows how many times he's labored at that same desk, rereading the same file a million times, wracking his strained eyes over an image on a computer screen while taking pain meds for his splitting headache?
Doesn't mean he has to like it, though. He thinks of Yi Sang as he goes to bed, and has a dream about Don Quixote and Meursault getting married and the one to catch the bouquet is Heathcliff.
Heathcliff takes a bus to a stop near their flat and then makes most of the way by foot. If he's lucky, he'll catch someone he gets along with – like Don Quixote or Meursault – on the journey, and then they'll walk home together while either chatting it up (with Quixote) or in comfortable silence (with Meursault). Occasionally he'll catch someone he doesn't get along with – the damn Lius come to mind first, Samsa and Hong Lu and goddamn Ishmael , and he'll have to walk faster to avoid them.
The commute's pretty nice, all things considered. There's a café that he knows is run locally, a few Offices that he's never bothered to walk into, and a grocers owned by S. Corp that Yi Sang loves to frequent when he's at work. Today he takes the scenic route since he knows Yi Sang is working late, and the fresh air of a nice walk is more refreshing than the stifling air in a crumbling building where Samsa's just taken care of a Syndicate who thought the Oufï's claims were unfounded.
The row of shops are unfamiliar, but none of them really interest him until he catches a glint in the corner of his vision. He turns to look at the display window: a wedding ring priced so steeply that he'd only be able to afford it in his wildest dreams. The shop owner, a small man with a mischievous expression, sees him looking and brings him inside to chat him up about it, saying that it's special and proposing with it guarantees a long marriage and an even longer life, with special material brought in from the treasures of the Great Lake.
“Do you have someone you'd like to propose to, good sir? You've got to take this ring. It's practically essential ! Anything else might ruin your marriage – women always care about the size, after all.”
The jewel on the ring is pretty huge. Heathcliff glances at it again as the man shakes his hand. “You're swindlin’ me, mate,” he replies, shaking his head and placing his palm against his forehead; he's starting to get a headache just from his man talking. “A highway robbery. I'd die before paying that much money for a damn ring.”
“Then can we interest you in anything else? A luxury pillow? A bouquet of flowers? Women appreciate the romantic things – and you might not be providing that! They won't tell you that you're not doing enough for them until they've already left you, good sir, so you have to start taking the initiative or she'll leave you to the dust!”
Heathcliff purses his lips and stares at the ring on his own finger. Dark gray and juvenile and only coming off when he doesn't want it to get dirty. He throws his head back and thinks about Yi Sang's tired expression. Yi Sang smiling, face red from three cans of beer. Yi Sang looking at him with disgust and saying, “Heathcliff, I was never truly satisfied in our relationship, for you did only the bare minimum for me,” or something smart like that.
He feels silly. Yi Sang isn't that type of person, he tries to convince himself. Yi Sang wears his heart on his sleeve a little too eagerly and trusts people with his heart and soul a bit too much; he wouldn't leave him over something silly like that, not without talking about it first.
He thinks of brown dresses and matching rings covered by gloved hands. “I wouldn't degrade myself by marrying Heathcliff,” Yi Sang says. “It would be unwise for the both of us, Nelly.”
In the end, he buys the most expensive bouquet of crimson red roses that he's ever purchased.
Thankfully, when he gets home, Yi Sang isn't there, so he can safely tuck the flowers – which were advertised to be non-wilting – into the storage closet that he knows Yi Sang never looks in.
“Being a Fixer means that romantic life is a pipe dream,” Rodya sighs into her sandwich. “I mean, I'm pretty cute, aren't I? But as soon as I say I'm Liu…”
“Well, you're expected to die pretty fast,” Ishmael mumbles in reply, stirring her soup with her spoon over and over. “What kind of person would date someone like that? Not me, that's for sure.”
“I tried to shoot my shot with a cute lady at the store yesterday, but when I told her my occupation, she got super uninterested. Am I fated to die alone? I haven't gotten laid in weeks.”
“Can we not talk about sex while I'm eating,” Heathcliff bites, with his mouth full of ham sandwich. Rodya scoffs, but it's all in good nature, and she leans back with a teasing expression.
“How long have you and Yi Sang been together now, Heathcliff? Like, two years? That's so cute. Maybe my problem is that I have to go after the Fixers.”
“I always thought you –” Heathcliff takes a moment to swallow and coughs into his hand: “I always thought you ‘n Samsa were a thing?”
“Is that what it looks like?” Rodya says, but her expression seems flighty and nervous. “I don't know. We've slept together, but he's – haha, not for me?”
“He sure seems like he's for you ,” Ishmael snickers. “He goes beet red whenever you call him Greg.”
The rest of the conversation turns to Ishmael and Rodya talking about Samsa in voices just loud enough for Heathcliff to not want to be associated with them. His fate is sealed anyway, because if he moved then Ishmael would pick a fight about it, and he would have to fight back physically, and he doesn't want Faust shooting him I'm telling our Director looks over the counter. He finishes his sandwich.
“If Fixer romance ‘s that barmy,” Heathcliff sighs, and mumbles under his breath, “then marriage must be a fucking pipe dream, huh…?”
Rodya and Ishmael turn on him immediately. “ Marriage ,” they shout, very loudly, and Heathcliff looks at them with betrayed, shocked eyes and rapidly swings his arms to tell them to shut the fuck up. “Marriage,” they whisper, incredulously – Ishmael looks a bit offended. “You're thinking of getting married now ? Two years? Holy shit, you move fast,” says her, which makes Heathcliff roll up his sleeve.
“A’right, lass, if you wanna make a damn comment,” Heathcliff growls, preparing to strike her, and Rodya's teasing grin absolutely does not help.
“Marriage!” she says. “To Yi Sang? Oh, I can imagine it! You'd be the bride, of course, and Yi Sang would walk down the aisle, and then chiquita would pronounce you husband and wife…”
“Don Quixote is never officiating a wedding, ” Heathcliff hisses. Then he chops her on the head: “I wouldn't be the bride , you muppet!”
“No, you definitely would. You do all the cooking and laundry, don't you,” says Ishmael, with a wicked undercurrent in her speech, “kind of like a housewife, huh… wow, Heathcliff, really changing up the gender roles here, huh?”
“ Shut your gay ass up , you fucking bitch,” Heathcliff says, slamming his fist on the table. “Just forget I said anything, a'right?! Forget it! Goddamn!”
Then Rodya's evil face smooths to something more genuine, and she stuffs a cream puff into her mouth before replying. “I think it would be very beautiful, and I'd be heartbroken if you didn't invite me to whatever budget wedding you have, because I'd cheer and shout and cry your congratulations, babe.”
“Whatever,” Heathcliff mumbles, suddenly flustered.
“Uh, me too,” Ishmael chimes in.
“No, you aren't invited,” Heathcliff grins. “Everyone but you, bitch.”
Faust, over the counter, gives him a look that suggests she's telling the Director about this. Goddamn it.
Two weeks into a case and all he can think about is getting married. As if his disgusting thoughts of domestic life weren't already fulfilled when Yi Sang very simply proposed they live together for convenience and shared rent – his desire to take care of Yi Sang, to see the most vulnerable sides of him, is already reality. Yi Sang bares his neck for him and he carefully and lovingly bites into it, just enough for Yi Sang to keep the hidden blood flow inside his jugular but not enough to where Yi Sang's skin is not unblemished. Heathcliff is already a part of Yi Sang's world; he is already a constant in Yi Sang's thoughts.
That's what he'd like to believe, anyway. The bouquet is still in the storage closet – he checked, and the petals are in the same bloody red that they had been before. Yi Sang isn't the type to manipulate him, he'd like to think, but a good conman can keep an act up for a century and only give it away when they're already gone. If Yi Sang took him apart and then left him with only a single piece to his name, Heathcliff doesn't know what he’d do. He wouldn't be able to handle it again, he reckons, and when he thinks that his heart hammers while thinking about a manor he doesn't remember.
“Fuck,” Heathcliff groans, sliding against the wall until his bum hits the bottom. He shakes the papers in his hand and rereads them twice while Faust taps her foot against the ground beside him.
“You are distressed,” Faust says. “Faust would advise you worry less about what you are distressed about and more about the –”
“Resolution of this case, yeah, shut your flap, lass,” he snarks, thrumming his fingers against his knee. The hallway beyond where they both are is quiet – Don Quixote decided that as celebration for her winning the game show, she would do this case for Heathcliff (in her words, she believed she was owed a culling and assassination of true evildoers, which this case was very much about). “You're still handlin’ the PCM?”
“Affirmative.”
“Thank god.”
“Faust would be willing to listen to whatever is on your mind if it would help you to relax.”
“Huh?” Heathcliff looks up at her, running his free hand through his hair. That’s a new one; him and Faust's relationship, despite being frequently paired up for investigations, has never gone beyond tense coworkers. “Uh… you sure?”
“Faust would not make a claim she does not intend to follow up on,” Faust says, with that same blank-neutral tone that makes it incredibly hard to tell what the bloody hell she's thinking. Heathcliff's head gently taps against the wall as he leans back, confused.
“It's… not anything important?” Heathcliff says. When it comes out as more of a question, he laughs and shakes his head. “Yeah, don't worry about it, lass.”
Faust eyes him suspiciously. “Are you sure?”
“Are you pushin’ because you're a nosy bastard or because you really wanna know?”
“Faust has a suspicion on the cause of your distress and would like to concern it for herself.”
Right. It's not about him, it's about proving her infinite vastness of knowledge or whatever. He sighs and waves the papers at her. “Then try it.”
“Faust thinks you are in a dilemma because you would like to wed your current romantic partner, Yi Sang of Section 6. However, your own insecurities are preventing you from following through with this action, in fear that he may reject you or hold hidden resentment for you.”
Heathcliff stares at her with wide, unblinking eyes. “Uh… you… hit the nail on the head…? That's ace.”
Faust does not say anything encouraging: her neutral pursed lip expression simply blooms into a smug, self-satisfied smirk. “Faust knows all,” she says, and the conversation ends right there because footsteps come from the hallway along with the jubilant sound of Don Quixote quietly humming the theme song of Siegfried the Hero.
“The offending party hath been assassinated by my hand,” she whispers with glee. “Let us depart from this place. This stench stings mine nose.”
They all walk out together, but Don Quixote pulls him to the side when they reach the Office again. It's not as unexpected as she probably intends it to be, because she glanced at Heathcliff the entire time they were walking with something joyful and coy in her ever expressive eyes.
“ HEATHCLIFF! ” she shouts, which is fine and dandy since they're outside but Heathcliff shushes her anyway. “Heathcliff! I! Have! The utmost grandest of news! Nay, not grandest – greater than grand , my good sire!”
“Hark,” Heathcliff says. “What’s up?”
Don Quixote isn't as bad of a conversation partner as everyone assumes. At first he hated her because she was loud and annoying and didn't speak proper, but then he formed a camaraderie with her after learning that both of them were detested by their coworkers for being, well, idiots. Don Quixote isn't an idiot, for one – she's a Director for a reason, and she's scarily good at her job when she needs to be. She understands him more than others, which is why he'd prefer to eat lunch with her than someone like Ishmael if he could.
“Hail, hail! Open thy hand!”
A gift? He closes his eyes like he expects she wants him to and opens the palm not carrying his briefcase. She places something small and sharp into his hand and closes it – it feels a bit circular? “Open!”
He opens his eyes and uncurls his fist.
…it's a ring.
“The hell, lass,” he mumbles, staring at the ring. It's small enough to fit on one of her fingers but probably not his. He doesn't recognize the jewel in the middle, but he knows it's clear and sparkly and looks like it cost a pretty penny. “You proposin’ to me? Meursault'll beat my ass.”
“He would do no such thing,” Don Quixote laughs, punching his shoulder. “Hail, my good sir! With my prize money I hath bought you a proposal to your beloved!”
“Oh my god,” Heathcliff mumbles, holding the ring between his pointer and thumb, staring at the beautiful way the sun catches on the gem: “Quixote, I can't fucking accept this. You have a boyfriend too.”
“We will not be wed for many more years,” Don Quixote replies. “We agreed thusly. You have done quite a good service for me, as my good companion on my adventure. If I will be honest, at times I found myself in strife and contemplation, wondering if the path of the Shi Fixer was right for me. After all, the things I must do… are not just or true.”
Her face darkens for a moment, then brightens again with the full force of her grin. “But the companions on one's adventure can drastically change the outcome! Hark! Mineself believes that you and Yi Sang are two of my greatest friends… so a matrimony I wish for you, if only to see you at your happiest! Consider it payment for your service as my friend – and, as it was paid for with the prize money, say it is a gift for your stark encouragement of mineself!”
“Bloody hell,” Heathcliff breathes. “Where'd you even hear that I wanted to marry him?”
“Ah,” Don Quixote says, scratching her neck. Her bright grin dims a bit in shame, and Heathcliff sighs. “Rodya informed me.”
It takes him a month to work up the nerve. By the time he does, everyone he knows knows that he's going to propose except Yi Sang, which he's grateful for if not a little annoyed by. It's not Don Quixote who spreads the rumor, or even Rodya, but Hong Lu of all people, who heard it at the tail end of a conversation between Rodya and Ishmael! Even Samsa, who Heathcliff doesn't particularly care for, pats him on the back in the Seven cafeteria and says, “go get ‘em, bud,” and it makes Heathcliff seethe in rage for the entire day.
He actually plans to propose a week before he does, but a pretty intense case comes up that he works his ass off to solve. Him and Faust pour over files in their offices after hours. He compiles data on bulletin boards and locks his room up because other people keep coming inside and breaking his flow. When the Director manually unlocks his door and pretty much forces him out of the office, he takes the flash drive and continues putting it all together.
He pulls out a notepad and a black pen and writes down important shite to keep track of. He reads testimony after testimony, eyes straining from the bright light of his computer that he's been staring at all day. Tomorrow he, Faust, and Ishmael will go and get more testimony from more Fixers, and then make a lengthy journey to a neighborhood where the afflicted lived before death, and…
He pops an ibuprofen and continues to work. He knows Yi Sang's gone out to get dinner with Don Quixote and Emil. He won't be back any time soon, so Heathcliff can keep working until then, and wait for Yi Sang to bring leftovers…
His head hurts like someone's caving it in repeatedly, pounding against the cavern of his skull. His ears ring from exhaustion, his eyes are sunken, but there's a connection between this evidence and the testimony here, if he could just pick it up …!
He's interrupted by something slamming into his already pounding head. He shouts a curse.
“Heathcliff!” Yi Sang says, loudly and boldly from above him, holding the smallest pillow they have. “My love.” then, quieter: “how long?”
“Uh,” Heathcliff mumbles dumbly. He looks at the time and cringes. “Five hours.”
“No more of this. All-nighters are barred in this household unless strictly necessary. Is this such a case?”
Heathcliff sighs. “No, it ain't.”
“Then come! I have brought leftovers.”
Yi Sang's shouting a bit too much to not be a little tipsy, and he always gets a little tipsy when he goes out with Don Quixote and Emil – contrary to popular belief, those two drink like alcoholics, and Yi Sang is very loud after he spends enough time with Quixote, the loudest person he knows. While dragging him to the living room, Yi Sang describes the night: he only had two shots, he reassures, when he says about how Don Quixote had gotten hammered and danced with a stranger. He brought leftovers, because he always does.
The look on his face is so unbearably fond. When they sit on the couch with the night lit up by lanterns from the windows, Yi Sang smiles at him. “I understand the circumstances drove you to decline her request,” he says, “but we were dearly upset you could not join us. She, especially, wailed in sorrow, as if your simple non-presence contained the weight of a funeral.”
“She's a damn dramatic, that's the problem,” Heathcliff says, and kisses the corner of Yi Sang's mouth. Yi Sang laughs softly. “Are you sober?”
“About ninety nine percent,” Yi Sang nods.
“A'right. Bloody hell. Wait here.”
Heathcliff kisses him again and then places both of his hands on Yi Sang’s shoulders to emphasize him staying there before he heads to the storage closet that Yi Sang has never once checked since they rented the flat. The petals on the roses in the bouquet are still as vibrant red as they were when he first bought it, and he fishes inside the pocket of his sweatpants until he finds his wallet and, in extension, Don Quixote’s gift to him.
He owes it to her, he supposes, to use it.
He thinks about Yi Sang's rejection: “not now, I'm not ready” is alright. “I don't want to, not ever” is less alright, but he'll stick through it. “I've never wanted you in the first place” stings like a bitch and reminds him of thunderstorms and patches of heath.
He takes a breath in and stares at Yi Sang from the couch. Yi Sang is staring at the giant, stupid bouquet of roses in his hand with a slack jaw and a red face.
“I wouldn't degrade myself by marrying Heathcliff,” Yi Sang says. “It would be unwise for the both of us, Nelly.”
“However, your own insecurities are preventing you from following through with this action, in fear that he may reject you or hold hidden resentment for you,” replies Faust.
It's all or nothing.
He takes a step forward.
“I am getting a text!” Quixote says, laying against Meursault while Emil flips through channels with a bored expression. “From Heathcliff! Everyone rejoice!”
“Woooo,” Emil says, intentionally bland. “What's he got to say at this hour?”
Don Quixote is very, very quiet for a moment. She taps Meursault's arm so that Meursault peers at her phone, and he nods once and says “congratulations to them,” which makes Emil way more curious than he was before. With wide eyes, Quixote shows him a sent image:
Yi Sang's hand, with his ring finger adorned with the same ring Don Quixote had excitedly shown him a few months ago as a gift for Heathcliff. Only now does he understand the true meaning of it.
A text is right under:
I fucking did it. Stop asking me.