#beiran

The First Shot (2024)

When Gu Yiran comes back into the main room, it’s quiet. Too quiet. It takes him a moment to see — Zheng Bei is sitting on the couch, shoes off, eyes closed. Slumped slightly over to his right in sleep. Something clutched in his hand. His chest moves. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, the slightest burr of a snore. Gu Yiran steps over to him. Zheng Bei is still holding the crumpled photograph of Gu Yiran’s father, tucked up against his chest. The shape of his father’s half-smile held in Zheng Bei’s capable hands. A half-smile that Gu Yiran will never see again. And yet, Gu Yiran thinks, for the first time, lets himself believe, that maybe — together, they might find him. Might find where his body has been kept, all these years. Something stirs and then settles in Gu Yiran’s chest, gentle and warm and certain. Gu Yiran reaches out, unhesitatingly and brushes his hand against Zheng Bei’s forehead. The lightest of touches, as he sweeps his fingertips against Zheng Bei’s ear, even though his bangs don’t reach that far, and then pulls it away again. Dinner can wait. Gu Yiran turns to go fetch the light blanket from the bedroom to put over Zheng Bei.

so many of us have remarked on gu yiran's unbelievably slutty pronunciation of "da-GE~~~" that it needed to be shared here, also dear xhs user with the exact same number of tildes, pls be my bestie:

omg mwaaaaah hi onyx!! thank you for the ask! okay yes i umm my evil son... i've been writing this freaking thing for two freaking years and i just signed up for @/wipbigbang to ensure that it finishes this year!!!! final chapter on or around 中秋节 i swear!!!!

anyway the premise of this fic is i was really pissed that in the show one guy (gu yiran, nerdy chemist with dad problems) got kidnapped and tortured and rescued by the other guy (zheng bei, police captain with didi problems) in a near-perfect parallel of zheng bei's defining childhood trauma (except nobody died this time) and then the show moved on in about 10 minutes. from both that massive interpersonal thing and a plot beat that could have wrapped the main case without the actual truth being figured out.

so i was like: well. if the show won't give me what i want then i'm going to give myself what i want! (aka: nuanced exploration of what could happen if we actually went with the worst possible case available from that point in the story, ie: the case closes on a false conclusion, gu yiran who is a consultant on zb's team is about to be sent home, and zheng bei has problems forever by himself without ever learning to open up to others and accept help).

i thought it would be like, idk. 3k. as of right now the first 20k is on ao3 and hasn't been updated in ... 1.25 years. -_- but i do have about 12k drafted that just needs to be cleaned up ... and rewritten again ... slowly but surely!!