hidey-writes

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wip wednesday

The phone rings, and rings again, and then connects. Despite himself, Shen Wei's hand twitches against his knee. He can picture the familiar office room now, the Justicar sitting in that chair of his, the haze of smoke, the junior officer already standing back at attention by the shining black phone.

"Heipaoshi," Shen Wei says, into the silence waiting for him on the other line.

...

After the call, the line goes dead in his hand. Shen Wei presses the phone against his cheek for a moment longer, reeling. It had been just two rings, this time. He can imagine it, the light reflecting off the justicar's leather gloves as he counts off, folding a finger down each time. It had been three rings, when Shen Wei had still been that junior officer. The phone had felt so heavy in his hand, even then.

Shen Wei puts the phone down. In the hospital bed beside him, Zhao Yunlan stirs amid fresh white sheets; Shen Wei's heart turns over.

here's a snippet from the weilan xfiles au! it's fun to play around, figuring out what this version of shen wei's relationships with the different dixing leadership looks like, compared with drama canon. (and to sneak in nods to txf characters at the same time!)

i'm a bit between fics at the moment, jumping around to whatever happens to catch my interest. the 10 weekly observations exercise really seems to be helping with the slump i was in. it's almost like doing still life drawings, but as a writer, and i can feel it making writing sentences for actual stories the slightest bit easier.

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

Gu Yiran runs after him, flashlight bobbing, and recognizes the room as soon as he steps into it. The darkened windows, the smashed furniture. Splinters of wood still scatter the concrete floor, next to a spot that’s darker than the rest.

This is where they’d brought him, at first. This is where Qin Yi had tried to bargain with him. This is where Gu Yiran had written down most of the list of ingredients needed to synthesize Lucifer, and swapped the last few for things that would explode when combined.

He shivers, then, or lets out a quiet breath. Or maybe he does nothing at all, and Zheng Bei can see it on him anyway, that he’s been here. Zheng Bei’s voice is gentle, soft, the voice he uses with young witnesses, when he asks, “Do you know this room?” He doesn’t touch Gu Yiran, but Gu Yiran hears him come around to just next to him, almost close enough that their arms brush.

i haven't been writing recently ... not quite sure why, but hoping it will come back to me soon if i just let it be and turn my attention to other things so i'm not giving myself pressure. to remind myself i have put together sentences before, here is a slightly old snippet from the part of ch5 of distance where beiran go back to the crematorium

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

Regret sits heavy in Gu Yiran’s stomach, unvoicable. He needs Zheng Bei to come with him. If the only way that will happen is for Zheng Bei to believe that Gu Yiran is the one who wants to go somewhere, then this will have to happen like that. He wants to apologize. He says instead, “Is it too cold? I think I know how to turn on the heat.” Zheng Bei, who’d been staring blankly out the passenger side window, turns to look over with barely a jolt of surprise. “It doesn’t work in this car, Gu-laoshi. Why’d you think I made you wear my coat when I was driving you here?” He pulls his hands out from where they’re tucked under his crossed arms. “We’re not all from Huazhou. This isn’t cold to me.”

wahoo babey we're back !!!!!!!!!!!!! i survived six weeks of writing gift fic without being allowed to post any of it until the end and now we're back !!!!!!!!!!!! anyway. today i'm spelunking through my seven million writing documents for the distance that i run to you and i've managed to unearth a nearly-complete down draft of chapter 5 so please enjoy this snippet from that!

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

When their mouths meet, Dom’s whole body relaxes. He lets Arthur press close, chest to chest, softens his mouth, tilts his head so their teeth don’t clack. It’s soft and then abruptly searing, just like it is every time Arthur lets it happen. He lets Arthur hook their legs together, flip them over just enough for Arthur to reach around him for the gun, bracing one hand against Dom’s chest for a moment, almost tender, to counterbalance. Dom lets the kiss keep going just long enough for Arthur to pull the gun behind him, to go to unload it.

The moment the cartridge snaps out, too light to be holding a thing, Dom twists his head away.

another snippet from the arthurcobb kiss fic! this is almost certainly not what the final kiss will be so i feel ok abt putting it out into the world without feeling like its too much of a spoiler haha

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director's commentary: 日复一日 | Day After Day

“What do people even do at a mountain retreat that can’t be done in their own homes?” asks Zhao Yunlan, partway through the winding drive up to the retreat grounds. He’s jogging his leg again, and peering out the windshield as if getting a good look at all the greenery they’re passing will get them there any faster.

Shen Wei had proposed taking the train up, but had been vetoed in favor of a “controllable getaway.” He suspects Zhao Yunlan just wanted to drive his car up another mountain. Shen Wei shoots him a look. “Didn’t you read the pamphlet?”

Zhao Yunlan shrugs. He’s leaning way too close, and when he seems to realize this, he tilts a little closer and says in a quiet tease, “It sounds like you read the pamphlet, husband. Why don’t you tell me?"

Shen Wei pulls in a fortifying breath of air against both the proximity and the husband and says primly, “I won’t reward slacking, Yunlan. You’ll just have to see when we arrive.”

this is a bit of a spoiler, but it's so so fun to me to see in retrospect that the main weilan dynamic of the fic — zhao yunlan unaware of things, shen wei aware of things and refusing to tell him — is already being demonstrated for the reader so early on the fic. they're already playing out the interaction that becomes their biggest interpersonal conflict in this fic, and they haven't even made it to the retreat yet! admittedly they're both acting out of very different motivations than what puts them in the bigger version of this dynamic later in the fic, but hah! i love foreshadowing.

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director's commentary: 日复一日｜Day After Day

They’re in his office on a nondescript Tuesday afternoon in the middle of spring term, Zhao Yunlan pacing in tiny, aborted circles in front of Shen Wei’s desk because jogging his knee in the visitor’s chair hadn’t been enough. There’s a student plaintively asking for an essay extension in the hall outside.

i'm rereading the fic today, and haha i remeber feeling like such a genius when i revised this paragraph, which is the second one. in this fic about being caught in time loops and wanting just a little bit longer to spend with someone, these are the first two things we see anybody do: walking in circles, and asking for more time.

and while i don't expect any reader to ever pick up on this (i remember distinctly thinking that even as i was writing this), it tickles me to be able to include this stuff so early on, before the reader has any sense that it's anything more than two random details that happen to fit the setting.

[hidey-writes]

six sentence sunday

It’s like it doesn’t matter what Arthur says. Dom wants what he wants and he gets it — hotel rooms instead of motel rooms, dinner in nice restaurants like he’s still hopped up on research money instead of the reality, which is Arthur crossing off favor after favor in his notebook, making calls in the alley behind the kitchen staff’s entrance between courses to try to find someone else to foot the bill. Arthur’s got four dollars crumpled in his jacket pocket after buying tonight’s dinner.

He doesn’t want to cajole Dom. He doesn’t want to play the game tonight. The gas station had only had one turkey sandwich left by the time Arthur got there, and he’d been holding onto the idea of it the whole way back.

and now for something completely different HAHA. i bashed out half a fic on a whim earlier this week for the prompt "a kiss to gain something" and its. turning into yet another power dynamics pre-canon arthurcobb on the run fic. whoops?

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wip wednesday

On the other side of the fence, Zheng Bei hands his flashlight to Gu Yiran. “Hold this for a moment,” he says. In Gu Yiran’s hands, the beam cuts a steady yellow light across trees and gravel, catches the edge of the fence, a fluttering strip of police tape they’d disturbed.  “I’ll be right back,” Zheng Bei says, and turns around. When Gu Yiran calls after him, all he shouts back, jogging toward the chicken van, is, “ — something in the car!” Gu Yiran flips the flashlight around, tracks it to just a few feet in front of where Zheng Bei’s feet are to light his way, watches him all the way back to the chicken van until Zheng Bei disappears around the back to get to the driver’s side. Gu Yiran tilts the flashlight down, lets his eyes adjust until he can see Zheng Bei, opening the driver’s side door for show and then merely standing there, almost invisible in his dark clothes in the darkness, one hand braced against the side of the chicken van, head down.   Gu Yiran wants to pull the flashlight even farther away, but that would be too telling. It’s hard enough to pretend already. So he tilts his head away, until he’s watching Zheng Bei out of the corner of his eyes, past the focusing edges of his glasses, where all he can see is the blur of the shape of Zheng Bei standing beside the van, and none of his expression.  Zheng Bei’s blurry shape stands there for a long moment. One breath, two, three. Gu Yiran’s watch is on the wrist of the hand he’s holding the flashlight in. He doesn’t dare move it to check. Four breaths, five, and then Zheng Bei slides into the driver’s seat, ducks down to look between the seats, roots around in the back, and then climbs back out.  When Zheng Bei slams the door shut and comes back around, Gu Yiran is ready with the flashlight, and guides Zheng Bei’s footsteps all the way back, until the beam becomes a single white oblong shape, wavering on the edges, as Zheng Bei draws close to him. Gu Yiran is pretty sure Zheng Bei hadn’t forgotten anything in the car. He can read the new line of Zheng Bei’s posture well enough, had recognized the careful posture and movement of Captain Zheng, even blurry, as soon as Zheng Bei came back out of the chicken van.

what a long snippet, haha. also from ch5. anyway drafting has gone ... dare i say, well? the last two days. i'm treating it as a fluke, but it's still nice to just sit and bash out some words and know i'm making progress.

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six sentence sunday

Zheng Bei in the passenger seat is so quiet, so complacent. He’d come so easily, once Gu Yiran had said, “Please come with me.” All dark, concerned gaze, pulling on his jacket, picking up his keys. If the tear tracks hadn’t still been on his face, Gu Yiran wouldn’t have believe that their earlier conversation had happened. Even with them, the transformation, the change in Zheng Bei is so absolute — the person in the car with him is older brother Zheng Bei, captain Zheng Bei.

Regret sits heavy in Gu Yiran’s stomach, unvoicable.

typing diligently every day !

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

“What do you want to go there for?” Zheng Bei asks, nearly a demand, and there’s a thread in his voice that sounds almost like fear. “The case is over. I won’t— I don’t begrudge you looking, but what do you think is still there to find?”

Nothing. Gu Yiran knows there’s nothing left at the [factory site] to find. There’s no logical reason to be going there. Except — Zheng Bei had dreamt about Lele for fifteen years after the fact. However Gu Yiran shows up in Zheng Bei’s nightmares isn’t how Gu Yiran wants Zheng Bei to remember him. This is the only thing he can think to do about it.

“Nothing concrete,” Gu Yiran says. And then, with his eyes fixed on the empty road outside the driver-side window, he says without thinking about it: “closure, I guess.”

The headlights of a passing car on the road sweep across Zheng Bei's face and leave it in shadow.

“I don’t want to hold onto it after I leave,” Gu Yiran says, and the half-truth is easy in his mouth, because what he’s really saying is: I don’t want you to hold onto it, after I leave.

another snippet from ch5! i will say one of a variety of beautiful consequences of taking so long to write this fic is that i went from not knowing how to drive to somewhat knowing how to drive during it, which makes it very covenient that the only scenes in which our pov character is driving at near the end :3

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six sentence sunday

Under Gu Yiran’s hands, the chicken van bumps along the uneven road like a living thing, and he tightens his grip against it. Beside him in the passenger seat, Zheng Bei stares out the side window in silence. Gu Yiran had made Zhao Xiaoguang show him the map, during one of the endless waiting afternoons in the hospital when Zheng Bei wasn’t there. He’d reached out to trace the circled spots, all three, the sleeve of his hospital shirt catching against the edge of the paper as Zhao Xiaoguang said, Ge wanted us to check all of them, even though he was pretty sure you could only be here, pointing. A cluster of rectangles marking the abandoned crematory buildings north of Halan. Zhao Xiaoguang had left a fingerprint smear of grease along the entry road, right where it ran along the train tracks.

another snippet from the start of ch5! it feels so weird to be back to down drafting now that ch1-4 have shifted the story so far from the original final chapter outline that literally none of the draft material is appropriate anymore lol but it's really enjoyable to just sit and type the most medium sentences in the world without having to do any higher-level thinking about pacing or subtext or anything :) brain off drafting my beloved :)

[hidey-writes]

six sentence sunday

Gu Yiran’s hands are steady on the wheel as he backs them out of the factory driveway, turns onto the main road, and guides them back toward Halan. There’s a heady thrumming of his heart that he can feel. In the distance, the bright glimmer of the sun breaking over the horizon line, the sudden wash of sunrise in the span of seconds.

Zheng Bei, beside him, is quiet. He’s put on his sunglasses against the glare, so Gu Yiran can’t see his eyes, but nonetheless he can feel the heavy weight of his regard.

It’s not uncomfortable.

slooooooowly working my way through ch5 — here's a section from somewhere in the middle

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Gu Yiran keeps watching him as it all happens, looking for the cracks in Zheng Bei’s behavior, and Gu Yiran keeps finding nothing. If Zheng Bei feels anything other than pure, unadulterated joy, accomplishment, pride, and cheer — if Zheng Bei feels the same disquieting press of passing time against his shoulders that Gu Yiran does, with every bite, with every thank you, with every refilled cup of alcohol, he doesn’t show it at all, not in a way that Gu Yiran can understand, not in a way that Gu Yiran can recognize.   And so Gu Yiran pretends, as best he can, that he doesn’t feel it either. If tonight is the last night that things will be the same, if tonight is the beginning of the end, well — it’s been a long time since Gu Yiran could see an ending coming. It’s been a long time since he’s had the chance to brace himself for it. 

in chapter four: the post-case celebration dinner, and the night after.

read chapter 4 of the distance that i run to you | 我朝你奔跑的距离 on ao3

[hidey-writes]

wip wednesday

“It’s too early for plane tickets,” Gu Yiran blurts. There’s too much here to leave behind, still.  Zhao Xiaoguang stares at him. “Ran-ge, what are you talking about? It’s the end of tourist season, it’s too late for plane tickets. Yaoyao, don’t listen to him.” Gu Yiran starts. “What— what are we talking about?”  But the conversation is already moving on without him as Ding Guozhu says, Yaoyao, you really should consider that it’s really close to peak tourist season already, the prices—, and she retorts, If Director Gao is going to work us so hard I can only vacation once a year, when else would I go? The team’s conversation washes over him, and he can’t quite seem to latch onto it. — then stop having opinions about the souvenirs I’m bringing my dad — Zheng Bei is in the kitchen, gesturing at something while his mother smacks him gently on the shoulder. — should know he’s only being polite about it — Through the window, Zheng Bei makes a faux-hurt face, and ducks back out into the dining room. The glass in front of Gu Yiran is full again, and Gu Yiran picks it up to take a sip that burns down the back of his throat. When he looks back up, he’s lost track again of where Zheng Bei is in the room. Someone smacks his shoulder. “Ran-ge,” Zhao Xiaoguang says, in a tone like he’s repeating himself, “tell Yaoyao that the shoes I got my dad are good ones.” He turns to Zhang Xueyao, “He likes the shoes, he’s asking for them this time,” and then back to Gu Yiran, nudging his shoulder, “You should get them for your dad too, Ran-ge, when you go back. Bring him some Northern fashion!”

it's still wednesday to me. i love need you public accountability. anyway, i've written like five versions of this scene (the team talking about their post-case plans at the celebration dinner) already. this is ... yet another version that will not be in the final draft. whatever ! surely the possible count of iterations of this scene is a finite number and therefore i will eventually reach the end ! right ????????

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six sentence saturday

The streets are half-familiar now, as Gu Yiran walks backward down the path he’d run each day to work. Here is the intersection where the pedestrian light never seems to come on, and Gu Yiran glances quickly both ways and crosses against a red light. Down that street is the corner of the park where if Gu Yiran cranes his head to look in the mornings, he can see the elderly folks of the neighborhood gathering for tai chi. And this shop he’s walking past, closed now, is the one Zheng Bei had taken him to buy a jacket at, the first weekend after he arrived. Gu Yiran had only worn that jacket for a few weeks before the weather changed. He’s not sure if he’ll ever have much use for it in Huazhou, heavy as it is.

a snippet from chapter 4 :3 i'm sloooowly working my way through the revision and hopefully returning to public accountability will help

[hidey-writes]

wip what could have been wednesday

“Who hasn’t lost sleep over something or another in their life?” Zheng Bei says carelessly. He drinks again, eyes averted. “It was only tonight, anyway. I’m sure it’ll be out of my system in a few days.”  Gu Yiran’s mouth flattens. “Am I really supposed to believe that?” He’s not stupid. He knows how Zheng Bei gets. He can work backward and guess that this round of nightmares has been happening since his kidnapping, or at least since his rescue.   Zheng Bei sits in mulish silence, staring at the cup in his hands.  “Zheng Bei,” Gu Yiran snaps, tired. “For once, why won’t you just—” This isn’t how he wants to say it. He takes a deep breath. Zheng Bei has looked out for him so much already. Here, at the end, this is all he can do. “I know you take responsibility for these things. You’re the captain. You’re the da-ge. You want to, and to an extent, you have to.” He closes his eyes. “But you can’t let things eat at you like this. You have to sleep. If it brings up your old nightmares like this— if you won’t talk to me, go next door and talk to your parents, or your sister, or Xiaoguang.” He opens his eyes again. “Someone, Zheng Bei. Anyone.” Zheng Bei, who’s looking at him with a mixture of surprise and disbelief, laughs. It’s a soft and humorless sound. “If talking to people worked, it would have worked by now.” He sets his cup down hard enough that water sloshes onto his wrist.

ahhh my beloved "if talking to people worked, it would have worked by now" line ... this section is a cut bit from chapter 4: alas zheng bei's arc in that chapter isn't allowed to include him acknowledging that things are difficult anymore, but i liked the exchange a lot so here u go!

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Come on,” Zheng Bei says impatiently. “You’re going to be late on your first day back.” But even as he says it, there’s something reluctant about the way he’s standing, the tilt of his shoulders away from the precinct doors. “Late for what,” Gu Yiran presses. “Watching Xiaoguang throw a fit when Guozhu beats his Tetris score again? I’ve heard the play-by-play enough times, there’s nothing to get out of watching it in person.”  Zheng Bei shifts on his feet, and between one breath and another all of his too-telling body language is gone. “It’s important to make a good impression, Gu-laoshi,” Zheng Bei chides in his captain’s voice, “Director Gao’s coming down himself to welcome you back. You really should be on time.” 

in the third chapter: youtiao, group hugs, and certain things coming to an end.

read chapter 3 of the distance that i run to you | 我朝你奔跑的距离 on ao3