Loyalties: Shadows Of The Light
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Lay/Chen
Genre: AU!Criminal, Drama, Romance
Summary: There’d always be a risk with their association alone, ties that should have been severed between a rookie cop and an underling since the start. Its a price neither can afford, but continue gambling.
-
“Jie,” Lay calls softly, “Are you ever lonely?”
Liyin turned her head, a now groomed agent in her field, a difference from when she once came home in a huff, hair tangled in a constant mess with untold tales.
“Of course not. I have you,” She insists with a smile.
Lay has a difficult time believing his sister but chooses to stay quiet, just as he always had. She gained her success, attained her position and got what she wanted, but Lay didn’t understand how she could be content with only that.
“Are you nervous about joining the force? I can still enroll you in the agency instead if you’d feel that may be a better decision.”
“I’m not,” Lay affirms, but his words do against his constantly fidgeting hands and twitching fingers. He decides to sleep for the night before his shift and turns to rest on the couch.
“You’ll have it much easier than I do.” Liyin laments quietly, assuming her brother was asleep, but Lay had clearly heard her.
His sister earned her spot amongst the elite, an ambitious woman from the start. Lay on the other hand wanted to say he was nothing like her, and at this very moment-
“Oof!”
It was true. He felt the trickle of blood run down his face and another sharp kick aimed at his stomach, the grunts of pain were the only sounds able to escape his constricted throat. His arms too mangled to even reach for help.
"Dirty cop!" One of them spat.
Not yet, and at this moment, he was starting to doubt that career path.
“They want you inside,” A foreign voice speaks. Lay hears their footsteps grow distanced and remains limp on the ground, he hears some splashes in the puddles and peers through swollen eyes.
The patrolman looked up, straining his eyes to see the pale skin of the saviour who lowered himself on his knees on the soiled, wet ground. Through stinging eyes, he noticed the colored marks staining his revealed skin paired with the jacket that slung off his right shoulder.
“It’s your turn now?” Lay manages to say before passing out.
When he wakes up, he’s in a spring mattress, his arms and torso bandaged and his face wiped clean. He glimpsed at the man who stood by the window, his jeans are soiled from the ground, clothes stained by some of his blood, but none of it fazes the Good Samaritan.
As if sensing he was awake, the man finally turned; ebony eyes bore into his own, the injured cop attempts a thank you-
“Don’t speak,” The man warned.
This man- Chen, he would later find out- was someone he owed a favor to now.
-
With just a snap of his fingers, Chen was able to control the fate of the people he happened across. But it had been the first time he had stopped the men upfront. He wasn't sure what about the weak man had caught his attention, but he needed it to stop. Except the unfortunate guard was forced to patrol these streets under command, becoming an easy target for the adrenaline pumped men roaming about.
He walked outside through those lonely streets when he turned his head, and by chance, witnessed the man struggling to stand up. The distance he sought to keep between them he couldn't bother with, reason dashed as he hurried towards him. The overwhelming need blinded him but he still kept caution, making sure they weren't seen before they entered his office.
Chen bandaged the bloody wound over Lay's eye. "You're not as beaten as before."
"Maybe. I managed to run." Chen fixed the bandage carefully, disinfecting it. "You seem too good at this."
Having such a casual conversation, the two could be mistaken as friends. "With some education, you'd be surprised how far it goes."
"You were a nurse? A doctor?" Lay tried guessing. No answer; Lay was too used to the man's silence, something he less preferred to hearing his scathing words.
"Did they try to kill you?"
"Far from it." Lay murmured. "The Lau members found me and beat him as an example, a warning for the deed done to them last week."
Chen paused, how did a mere patrolman hold knowledge about the group? Lay exhaled loudly, "At this rate, I will never be able to graduate the police academy."
So that was his goal, Chen ripped off the final piece, done with his job. "You can't leave yet, you'll have to wait a bit beforehand when the streets are cleared."
Lay remained staring at him, Chen prompted, "What are you thinking?"
"Do you care?" Chen's silence ensued, Lay spoke nonetheless. "I can see from my side that the Lau family is breaking, disintegrating at its core, their numbers decreasing by the day... The day the family is taken apart, what would you do? Could you leave? Would you bother to?"
Chen lifted his gaze. "I've never given it a thought."
"Why not?"
"Because there's no other life for someone like me." Chen replied simply, the daunting realization cut into him further than he thought.
The patrolman couldn't offer condolence, words to assure him, but it may have stemmed from the fact that he didn't seem to have a life worth comparing to. A current lifestyle that would tell him things got better. For Chen, from all that life offered him, he could only offer one thing within that darkened room. Things only get worse.
-
Chen sat in the interrogation room, staring intently through the one-sided mirror. "I have no information to give." Chen uttered.
“We can charge you with obstruction of justice."
"Then do it." Chen informed, within minutes of the detective's jilted expression, he stood up and excused himself out of the room, knowing there was nothing they can hold him on. The detective roughly grabbed his elbow and he narrowed his eyes at the gruff man.
"Hyung," Chen remained still, recognizing the man that walked towards the detective and politely said, "We can't hold him. Let him go."
The man did so, albeit reluctantly, and went about his way. This had been the first time in two years since he had last laid eyes on the former patrolman, who in his current uniform, had proved he graduated the academy.
“Why did you do that?”
Why must he always have a reason? "You were the one who spared my life."
“You’ll find holding those type of values will hurt someone in your career.” Chen spoke. Lay lowered his eyes, “Don’t trust someone, not even those in your unit, so easily.”
“Is that how you get by? By not confiding in anyone?” Lay asked calmly.
Chen’s silence was confirming of that thought. He left the hallway and out of the station.
He loathed cops, authority, he couldn't stand the sight of them. Yet he couldn't stand the very criminals he lived and roamed with, but he barely had a choice to decide. Within the guise of the Lau family's generosity, he allowed himself to be used as needed, to pay back his debt his parents landed him in. Gambling debts that rested in his name, his being belonging to them solely.
Too long he had been enveloped in shadows that it was impossible to see the silver lining. If there was any fact, it may have been that he simply hated life.
-
For a while, Chen stuck with the image of Lay as a timid cop. He had forgotten that overtime their rookie mentalities change, and even this man would pursue him for the wealth of information he apparently had just a few years later.
"You have the resources, the contacts, give them to me." Lay ordered.
Chen clenched his jaw. He wasn't sure when the once nervous cop had gone, replaced like the rest of them, a brute in his eyes. Or maybe Lay was too used to the role he now had to play.
"Just because you gained their trust, a name here, doesn't mean you can use me as you want now."
Lay's fists laid by his side as Chen stepped away. And with a hint of his former self, the cop admitted, "He'll kill me."
A flicker of pain struck through his chest, but Chen easily masked it. "Then let him do so." Chen countered. He left before any more could be said.
Chen returned to his small, barely maintained office that was in constant disarray, to the point that he stopped bothering to organize it. His patient, a young in his late twenties, eyed him suspiciously. Chen remained stoic, too used to it.
"You've been talking to that guy again, haven't you?"
Chen bit off the bandage, finishing covering the wound. "What of it?"
"You know he's with the rival gang, and still you talk to him like you're good friends."
"If simply talking with someone means I'm close with them, then I must have many." Chen said lowly, he turned his back to close the box but he should have known better. Even in sight of the man's injured condition, he eyed Chen with more than suspicion.
Chen was forced against the wall, covered in kisses he loathed, clothes torn at the seams. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't always fight back, this was another aspect of his debt he had to repay. But more than anything else, he hated that he imagined the person to be someone else. The one person he aimed to despise.
If it had been with him, he wouldn't have been so disgusted.
He sunk to his knees on the ground, hair tossed, left in the darkened room. It was only as night fell completely did he bother to fix himself, adjusting his clothing.
For the next few weeks he made to avoid the undercover, keeping his distance. Chen was careful that there wouldn't be attention drawn needlessly.
After that, Lay had disappeared from the rival circles, but still he came across him from time to time. Chen glanced at the men who spoke quietly with one another, he was able to decipher their exchanged looks.
Outside in the alley, Lay walked further, oblivious to the two trailing after him.
"He's carrying, you two may not be enough."
The duo stopped in their tracks. Chen came from the shadows, arms crossed over his chest, just suggesting this seed of doubt made the two hesitate and eventually fall back.
It was always a risk doing what he did, they may eventually realize where Chen’s true loyalty lied, but he found he didn’t care. He’d risk his life for him in a heartbeat.
-
Lay, long past his rookie days, was now designated better cases, with higher command. He pursed his lips as he stared across however, left to watch as a federal agency beat them for jurisdiction and raided the place he spent all his time researching.
"They take the credit, as always." He heard his partner said bitterly, Lay agreed. "They still don't have information though, and they're asking us to find it for them."
Lay didn't think it'd be assumed. He had heard his former colleague's past working with a former Lau informant, and while it did help to bring down a section of the group. Sungmin's partner still hadn't completely recovered.
An image of the the stoic man came to mind, he didn’t know in detail what he went through, but he could almost guess.
He wanted more than anything to help him escape, that had been his first hope early on in his career. But Chen clearly held no hope of ever leaving, and that left his heart in further disarray.
It was a too clear sign that the group needed to be brought down, before it could hurt anyone else.
-
Lay waited by those alleys he hadn't frequented in years, but knew that things hadn't changed. With the clan's stubborn hold on their territory, with their decreasing size, it wasn't as easy to simply leave and move themselves to another area. A fault that caught both the agency and the police's attention. The very thing that might bring them down. A fact he was too sure of.
He recognized the man who stood in the opposite street, when they made eye contact, Chen had turned to look away. But Lay gestured for him, and within those lengthened minutes did Chen cross the street. Lay couldn't help but noticed his disheveled state, the light layer of sweat on his forehead and neck.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Chen lied, "What is it?"
"The agency is planning on raid on GoJin bar, when I'm not sure, but it will be done."
"...Why are you warning me?"
"You helped me before, I should repay kindness."
Chen scoffed loudly. "Debt is what gets us into trouble in the first place..." He stepped forward with the last of his strength, evading him as his knees buckled forward. Lay just barely caught up but still Chen slid to the ground.
"Don't," he groaned out. Lay disobeyed.
Chen soon woke up in a bed within a motel room, the revolving planes of the fan welcoming back to consciousness.
"I figured you'd reject a hospital, and I thought this may be the next best thing." Lay informed. He intended not to stress the man any further than need be and kept silent- for the most part. "You lied to me, you were never a nurse."
Chen forced a deep breath, "I didn't lie to you. You just assumed, and I didn't bother to correct you." He took a breath, "and you, you're no longer undercover, moving up the ranks since then."
"You've also been checking up on me." Lay said in mild surprise. Chen averted his gaze and sat up, despite Lay attempting to force him back down to rest. The man easily avoided him but soon swayed against the wallpapered wall, laying against the cold feel. He rested on the musty carpet, head near the bedside table, the dim light of the lamp lit his pale face.
"Don't come any closer." He warned before Lay could take a step towards him. "I'll be fine once I rest."
Lay didn't listen, and to the man's surprise, was brought close to his chest. "That isn't enough for me." Lay stated.
"You didn't have to do this." He murmured.
"Simply because I didn't have to means nothing to me. An officer knows such a difference."
Chen scoffed, but cringed as Lay took off his jacket as carefully as he could without disturbing the man to check for wounds. Instead, focused on the image he saw.
Chen's arm was covered in a distinct tattoo, enwrapping itself to the edge of his neck and down the left side of his body, its colors staining his otherwise fair skin. Chen noticed the man's intent stare. "This demonstrates who I belong to. Does it scare you?"
Lay adjusted Chen closer to him, arms considerately keeping him balance. They remained like that for a while without speaking, Chen slowly coming to, feeling better as each hour passed.
"I studied in medical school, I was only a year away from graduating." Chen admitted, Lay listened to his weak voice. "The loans stopped, the money intended for my education was taken just like that and I had to drop out... No one hires a doctor without proper credentials."
"You're their help." Lay said quietly. "You're ordered to take care of everyone, but no one does the same to you."
It was then that Chen pulled away from his embrace, standing up with every bit of strength he could muster.
The weakness he showed before, the brief glimmer had disappeared instantly, resuming his former cold look.
"Don't pretend to act kind with me. I don't need someone who assumes they can take advantage of me." Chen kept away from the man, eyes narrowed into slits. "What information do you want? Inside info of the clan's inner workings? Because I regret to inform you I know nothing of it. And even if they did speak of their matters, I know how to act deaf to it."
"I know that can't be true." Lay contradicted.
"It's been years since I've lived with their gruesome talk, it's easier to go deaf to it after the first two." Chen stalked off to the door, turning it open.
"If you became a doctor, then it shows you must have some compassion in you." Lay called out. "Bringing down these people will-"
"Don't speak to me about morals." Chen uttered, his hand on the doorknob. "I don't give a damn."
The door slammed shut behind him.
-
It had been more than a year since he last saw him, and he felt lonelier than ever. He looked on through the window as he heard the men talk amongst themselves.
“This is who we take care of,” a member spoke.
“We’re risking having an entire force after us.”
“Cops are so hated, they’ll spend months just trying to come up with a list of suspects.”
Chen’s eyes rested on one of the men circled in the photo.
"It'd be a foolish decision. It won't increase his favor of you, and I doubt he'd approve of this." Chen uttered, the group turned their heads at him but the still weakened bystander offered nothing more.
Chen cleared his throat. Despite his status amongst the members, he still had a decent amount of power that came with the years he remained; but even with his best assumption of their clan leader, that will surely meet with some argument.
He doubted he can hold that control for long. The clan was struggling to maintain a front, and even he could sense it, but he still aimed to stop what he could.
It was clear to him what'd he do; whoever decided to end that cop's life, will die.
Before he could worry about the plans implemented, they were forcibly stopped.
Lay stepped foot within the clan's building, the station claiming jurisdiction, with slammed open doors, they barged in with raised guns. Barking orders and their men stopping the members at large, they continued on before the evidence could be completely destroyed.
Lay watched the arrested men be pulled away, and he continued on in case there were still lurkers within the building. He opened one door and checked inside, he saw a brief outline and raised his gun.
Chen was by the opened window, the light outlining his figure. The gun remained between them, raised at Chen who remained frozen. Not a single word was spoken.
The footsteps came by the hallway, the door shielded Chen's presence from their sights. All it took was a single word, and Chen would be caught with the rest of them. The footsteps finally reached the door, the voices spoke through.
"Clear." Lay called out, the men walked past him as Chen inhaled deeply, not realizing he had been holding his breath all along.
"You didn't have to do that." Chen stated quietly.
Lay stepped towards him, gun lowered as the door slowly closed. "You keep saying that, and it hasn't changed." He could tell with quick glance that Chen still wasn’t well and supported his back. "Let's go, before my men notice you. Even I can't command them to turn a blind eye to a fugitive."
Chen stubbornly pulled back. "Why not just let them put me in a jail cell with the others?"
Lay was able to pull him forward, with a display of strength Chen was surprised by. "You've been cooped up with trash long enough."
The agent in question returned home once filing his report, scrunching his eyes from the adjustment to light once within his room. The pale figure remained beneath the sheets, the evening moonlight strayed through the windows and fell gently on his face.
The bed dipped as Lay sat on the edge of it, hand on his waist. Chen stirred slightly, Lay smiled and coated his warm lips, gently pressing them together.
Chen opened his eyes as Lay pulled away. "You dare to do that?"
"I enjoy living by risks."
Lay's restrictions diminished in an instant, his heart encouraging what he tried to suppress for too long, kissing him once more.
Chen made no reaction, unsure of what to make of the situation at hand, the change in circumstances he still had yet to grasp.
"I'm offering you freedom." Lay spoke against his lips. "Do what you want with it."
Chen listened to those words, still slightly coherent as he feigned sleep. He dared to take his words to heart, to hopelessly wish they were true, but this freedom felt truer than any lie he'd ever been told.
If he dared to say it, things seemed to be changing.
Lay looked on and understood that within the coming weeks, it was difficult to convince him of this new lifestyle. To his relief however, he gradually adapted, the cold look diminishing, the formerly dark and vacant eyes were gaining life within them.
"You never had a formal record with the police," Lay informed to him one afternoon. Chen looked back as he continued. "Truth be told, the only things acknowledged in your file is that Kim Jongdae had left school and lived an undocumented life since then."
"Are you planning on filling in the details?"
Lay smiled, handing him a file. Chen reached for it when Lay then said, "You paid your debt. You can now live the life you wanted." Lay left the room, Chen lifted the files to eye level.
In his hands were each filled out forms, with just a simple signature, everything could resume to how they once were.
No, maybe not exactly as they once were, but close enough was better than before.
Lay returned to the living room to see Chen napping on the couch, he smiled softly when his gaze shifted to the files on the table. He dared to peek at the papers inside and gave a relieved smile.
'Re-admission.'
And with a single signature, Chen- Kim Jongdae reentered his final year of medical school.
-
“Lay,”
“Mm?” He tilted the cell closer to his ear as his sister sighed,
“I think it would have come by better if you had joined the agency.” She may have been proud of what had been done, but the usually composed agent still held concern for her younger brother.
“Joining the force wasn’t any easier. In fact, it was probably one of the most difficult paths I’ve ever taken.” Lay affirms quietly,“but I don’t regret my choice.”
She laughed lightly, “Is that so?”
Lay’s gaze remained on the sleeping figure that remained by his side, with an arrange of books messily plopped around the background of the room and in Chen’s exhausted hold. With a gentle hand on his shoulder, Lay wordlessly nodded into the cell, a smile tugging on his lips.
-
The Present Day
Chen stepped into the apartment, dropping his keys to the counter. "Jay thanks you for what you've done." Lay uttered, he carefully fix the straps around his waist. Chen chuckled at the man's struggle with his uniform.
"It was a small favor, keeping his name out of patient records without a hint that Minwoo had ever entered, was hardly a challenge."
Lay pretended not to hear of the potential crime in question, but winced, his arm still healing from a former assignment. Chen gestured for him to sit on the chair as he reached for his supplies.
Lay rolled up his sleeves as Chen knelt before him. "You should have been more careful."
"I was."
"Lies." Chen scolded. "I tell you not to stress your body any more than it has to, but you still do such things. You're getting older, don't be ashamed to admit it to yourself."
"Says the one who can't admit he's getting older too." Lay countered, Chen narrowed his eyes. "And what good does being careful do? You know my job requires stress."
Chen sighed, "At this rate, you'll be needing constant care."
"Then sleeping with a doctor has its benefits, no?" Chen met Lay's sly smile and ignored him, hearing his phone beep and checked the message. He stood up, preparing to leave for his shift that evening when Lay grabbed his elbow.
"Stay."
"You know I can't."
"For just a while longer." Lay pleaded. Chen met his gaze, and it doesn’t take much debate before he agrees to. He helped Lay to the bed, carefully attempting to lay him down yet Lay persisted once Chen’s back was turned, defiantly leaning against him. The shadows of the room were able to hide them for the moment.
With his close proximity, Lay's eyes were able to peek inside his collared shirt at the tattoo ranging from the tip of his neck and further down. If his collar was shown just a little lower or the sleeve just a bit higher, proof of Chen’s past would reveal itself with ease. Lay never minded, never disgusted as his fingers brushed against these plaguing marks, his lips teasingly brushing against his now bare shoulder.
With a quick tug of the bedside lamp’s string on Chen’s part, its light reflecting off his back as he stood up, fixing his shirt. He paused just as he pulled up his sleeve, "If I wanted to, I could have this removed." He glanced at the nearby mirror and watched for Lay's reaction.
"If you want to, but... I may not recognize you in the mornings."
Chen narrowed his eyes behind him but Lay just stood up alongside him, embracing him from behind that Chen didn’t quite mind. Their need for each other growing still.
Before, simply being within distance one of another might have gotten him, them both killed. Now the risk was gone, but this surge of adrenaline that ran through him never lessened.
He had been too comfortable in darkness, unwillingly embraced by its roaming clutches. And he smiled briefly, losing him in ebony, in the soft black pair that met his own, the only darkness he willingly lost himself in.
-
Other Stories From The Loyalties!AU:
[ A Candle's Glow | Eunhyuk/DongHae ] ♦ [ Skewed Promises | Yunho/Jaejoong ] ♦ [ Nameless Melody | Sungmin/Ryeowook ] ♦ [ Cardinal Interests | Kyuhyun/Yesung ] ♦ [ Zealous Claims | Jay/No Minwoo ] ♦ [ Shadows Of The Light | Lay/Chen ] ♦ [ First Impressions | TBA ] ♦ [ The Departing Train | TBA ]
-
Pairing: Lay/Chen
Genre: AU!Criminal, Drama, Romance
Summary: There’d always be a risk with their association alone, ties that should have been severed between a rookie cop and an underling since the start. Its a price neither can afford, but continue gambling.
-
“Jie,” Lay calls softly, “Are you ever lonely?”
Liyin turned her head, a now groomed agent in her field, a difference from when she once came home in a huff, hair tangled in a constant mess with untold tales.
“Of course not. I have you,” She insists with a smile.
Lay has a difficult time believing his sister but chooses to stay quiet, just as he always had. She gained her success, attained her position and got what she wanted, but Lay didn’t understand how she could be content with only that.
“Are you nervous about joining the force? I can still enroll you in the agency instead if you’d feel that may be a better decision.”
“I’m not,” Lay affirms, but his words do against his constantly fidgeting hands and twitching fingers. He decides to sleep for the night before his shift and turns to rest on the couch.
“You’ll have it much easier than I do.” Liyin laments quietly, assuming her brother was asleep, but Lay had clearly heard her.
His sister earned her spot amongst the elite, an ambitious woman from the start. Lay on the other hand wanted to say he was nothing like her, and at this very moment-
“Oof!”
It was true. He felt the trickle of blood run down his face and another sharp kick aimed at his stomach, the grunts of pain were the only sounds able to escape his constricted throat. His arms too mangled to even reach for help.
"Dirty cop!" One of them spat.
Not yet, and at this moment, he was starting to doubt that career path.
“They want you inside,” A foreign voice speaks. Lay hears their footsteps grow distanced and remains limp on the ground, he hears some splashes in the puddles and peers through swollen eyes.
The patrolman looked up, straining his eyes to see the pale skin of the saviour who lowered himself on his knees on the soiled, wet ground. Through stinging eyes, he noticed the colored marks staining his revealed skin paired with the jacket that slung off his right shoulder.
“It’s your turn now?” Lay manages to say before passing out.
When he wakes up, he’s in a spring mattress, his arms and torso bandaged and his face wiped clean. He glimpsed at the man who stood by the window, his jeans are soiled from the ground, clothes stained by some of his blood, but none of it fazes the Good Samaritan.
As if sensing he was awake, the man finally turned; ebony eyes bore into his own, the injured cop attempts a thank you-
“Don’t speak,” The man warned.
This man- Chen, he would later find out- was someone he owed a favor to now.
-
With just a snap of his fingers, Chen was able to control the fate of the people he happened across. But it had been the first time he had stopped the men upfront. He wasn't sure what about the weak man had caught his attention, but he needed it to stop. Except the unfortunate guard was forced to patrol these streets under command, becoming an easy target for the adrenaline pumped men roaming about.
He walked outside through those lonely streets when he turned his head, and by chance, witnessed the man struggling to stand up. The distance he sought to keep between them he couldn't bother with, reason dashed as he hurried towards him. The overwhelming need blinded him but he still kept caution, making sure they weren't seen before they entered his office.
Chen bandaged the bloody wound over Lay's eye. "You're not as beaten as before."
"Maybe. I managed to run." Chen fixed the bandage carefully, disinfecting it. "You seem too good at this."
Having such a casual conversation, the two could be mistaken as friends. "With some education, you'd be surprised how far it goes."
"You were a nurse? A doctor?" Lay tried guessing. No answer; Lay was too used to the man's silence, something he less preferred to hearing his scathing words.
"Did they try to kill you?"
"Far from it." Lay murmured. "The Lau members found me and beat him as an example, a warning for the deed done to them last week."
Chen paused, how did a mere patrolman hold knowledge about the group? Lay exhaled loudly, "At this rate, I will never be able to graduate the police academy."
So that was his goal, Chen ripped off the final piece, done with his job. "You can't leave yet, you'll have to wait a bit beforehand when the streets are cleared."
Lay remained staring at him, Chen prompted, "What are you thinking?"
"Do you care?" Chen's silence ensued, Lay spoke nonetheless. "I can see from my side that the Lau family is breaking, disintegrating at its core, their numbers decreasing by the day... The day the family is taken apart, what would you do? Could you leave? Would you bother to?"
Chen lifted his gaze. "I've never given it a thought."
"Why not?"
"Because there's no other life for someone like me." Chen replied simply, the daunting realization cut into him further than he thought.
The patrolman couldn't offer condolence, words to assure him, but it may have stemmed from the fact that he didn't seem to have a life worth comparing to. A current lifestyle that would tell him things got better. For Chen, from all that life offered him, he could only offer one thing within that darkened room. Things only get worse.
-
Chen sat in the interrogation room, staring intently through the one-sided mirror. "I have no information to give." Chen uttered.
“We can charge you with obstruction of justice."
"Then do it." Chen informed, within minutes of the detective's jilted expression, he stood up and excused himself out of the room, knowing there was nothing they can hold him on. The detective roughly grabbed his elbow and he narrowed his eyes at the gruff man.
"Hyung," Chen remained still, recognizing the man that walked towards the detective and politely said, "We can't hold him. Let him go."
The man did so, albeit reluctantly, and went about his way. This had been the first time in two years since he had last laid eyes on the former patrolman, who in his current uniform, had proved he graduated the academy.
“Why did you do that?”
Why must he always have a reason? "You were the one who spared my life."
“You’ll find holding those type of values will hurt someone in your career.” Chen spoke. Lay lowered his eyes, “Don’t trust someone, not even those in your unit, so easily.”
“Is that how you get by? By not confiding in anyone?” Lay asked calmly.
Chen’s silence was confirming of that thought. He left the hallway and out of the station.
He loathed cops, authority, he couldn't stand the sight of them. Yet he couldn't stand the very criminals he lived and roamed with, but he barely had a choice to decide. Within the guise of the Lau family's generosity, he allowed himself to be used as needed, to pay back his debt his parents landed him in. Gambling debts that rested in his name, his being belonging to them solely.
Too long he had been enveloped in shadows that it was impossible to see the silver lining. If there was any fact, it may have been that he simply hated life.
-
For a while, Chen stuck with the image of Lay as a timid cop. He had forgotten that overtime their rookie mentalities change, and even this man would pursue him for the wealth of information he apparently had just a few years later.
"You have the resources, the contacts, give them to me." Lay ordered.
Chen clenched his jaw. He wasn't sure when the once nervous cop had gone, replaced like the rest of them, a brute in his eyes. Or maybe Lay was too used to the role he now had to play.
"Just because you gained their trust, a name here, doesn't mean you can use me as you want now."
Lay's fists laid by his side as Chen stepped away. And with a hint of his former self, the cop admitted, "He'll kill me."
A flicker of pain struck through his chest, but Chen easily masked it. "Then let him do so." Chen countered. He left before any more could be said.
Chen returned to his small, barely maintained office that was in constant disarray, to the point that he stopped bothering to organize it. His patient, a young in his late twenties, eyed him suspiciously. Chen remained stoic, too used to it.
"You've been talking to that guy again, haven't you?"
Chen bit off the bandage, finishing covering the wound. "What of it?"
"You know he's with the rival gang, and still you talk to him like you're good friends."
"If simply talking with someone means I'm close with them, then I must have many." Chen said lowly, he turned his back to close the box but he should have known better. Even in sight of the man's injured condition, he eyed Chen with more than suspicion.
Chen was forced against the wall, covered in kisses he loathed, clothes torn at the seams. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't always fight back, this was another aspect of his debt he had to repay. But more than anything else, he hated that he imagined the person to be someone else. The one person he aimed to despise.
If it had been with him, he wouldn't have been so disgusted.
He sunk to his knees on the ground, hair tossed, left in the darkened room. It was only as night fell completely did he bother to fix himself, adjusting his clothing.
For the next few weeks he made to avoid the undercover, keeping his distance. Chen was careful that there wouldn't be attention drawn needlessly.
After that, Lay had disappeared from the rival circles, but still he came across him from time to time. Chen glanced at the men who spoke quietly with one another, he was able to decipher their exchanged looks.
Outside in the alley, Lay walked further, oblivious to the two trailing after him.
"He's carrying, you two may not be enough."
The duo stopped in their tracks. Chen came from the shadows, arms crossed over his chest, just suggesting this seed of doubt made the two hesitate and eventually fall back.
It was always a risk doing what he did, they may eventually realize where Chen’s true loyalty lied, but he found he didn’t care. He’d risk his life for him in a heartbeat.
-
Lay, long past his rookie days, was now designated better cases, with higher command. He pursed his lips as he stared across however, left to watch as a federal agency beat them for jurisdiction and raided the place he spent all his time researching.
"They take the credit, as always." He heard his partner said bitterly, Lay agreed. "They still don't have information though, and they're asking us to find it for them."
Lay didn't think it'd be assumed. He had heard his former colleague's past working with a former Lau informant, and while it did help to bring down a section of the group. Sungmin's partner still hadn't completely recovered.
An image of the the stoic man came to mind, he didn’t know in detail what he went through, but he could almost guess.
He wanted more than anything to help him escape, that had been his first hope early on in his career. But Chen clearly held no hope of ever leaving, and that left his heart in further disarray.
It was a too clear sign that the group needed to be brought down, before it could hurt anyone else.
-
Lay waited by those alleys he hadn't frequented in years, but knew that things hadn't changed. With the clan's stubborn hold on their territory, with their decreasing size, it wasn't as easy to simply leave and move themselves to another area. A fault that caught both the agency and the police's attention. The very thing that might bring them down. A fact he was too sure of.
He recognized the man who stood in the opposite street, when they made eye contact, Chen had turned to look away. But Lay gestured for him, and within those lengthened minutes did Chen cross the street. Lay couldn't help but noticed his disheveled state, the light layer of sweat on his forehead and neck.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." Chen lied, "What is it?"
"The agency is planning on raid on GoJin bar, when I'm not sure, but it will be done."
"...Why are you warning me?"
"You helped me before, I should repay kindness."
Chen scoffed loudly. "Debt is what gets us into trouble in the first place..." He stepped forward with the last of his strength, evading him as his knees buckled forward. Lay just barely caught up but still Chen slid to the ground.
"Don't," he groaned out. Lay disobeyed.
Chen soon woke up in a bed within a motel room, the revolving planes of the fan welcoming back to consciousness.
"I figured you'd reject a hospital, and I thought this may be the next best thing." Lay informed. He intended not to stress the man any further than need be and kept silent- for the most part. "You lied to me, you were never a nurse."
Chen forced a deep breath, "I didn't lie to you. You just assumed, and I didn't bother to correct you." He took a breath, "and you, you're no longer undercover, moving up the ranks since then."
"You've also been checking up on me." Lay said in mild surprise. Chen averted his gaze and sat up, despite Lay attempting to force him back down to rest. The man easily avoided him but soon swayed against the wallpapered wall, laying against the cold feel. He rested on the musty carpet, head near the bedside table, the dim light of the lamp lit his pale face.
"Don't come any closer." He warned before Lay could take a step towards him. "I'll be fine once I rest."
Lay didn't listen, and to the man's surprise, was brought close to his chest. "That isn't enough for me." Lay stated.
"You didn't have to do this." He murmured.
"Simply because I didn't have to means nothing to me. An officer knows such a difference."
Chen scoffed, but cringed as Lay took off his jacket as carefully as he could without disturbing the man to check for wounds. Instead, focused on the image he saw.
Chen's arm was covered in a distinct tattoo, enwrapping itself to the edge of his neck and down the left side of his body, its colors staining his otherwise fair skin. Chen noticed the man's intent stare. "This demonstrates who I belong to. Does it scare you?"
Lay adjusted Chen closer to him, arms considerately keeping him balance. They remained like that for a while without speaking, Chen slowly coming to, feeling better as each hour passed.
"I studied in medical school, I was only a year away from graduating." Chen admitted, Lay listened to his weak voice. "The loans stopped, the money intended for my education was taken just like that and I had to drop out... No one hires a doctor without proper credentials."
"You're their help." Lay said quietly. "You're ordered to take care of everyone, but no one does the same to you."
It was then that Chen pulled away from his embrace, standing up with every bit of strength he could muster.
The weakness he showed before, the brief glimmer had disappeared instantly, resuming his former cold look.
"Don't pretend to act kind with me. I don't need someone who assumes they can take advantage of me." Chen kept away from the man, eyes narrowed into slits. "What information do you want? Inside info of the clan's inner workings? Because I regret to inform you I know nothing of it. And even if they did speak of their matters, I know how to act deaf to it."
"I know that can't be true." Lay contradicted.
"It's been years since I've lived with their gruesome talk, it's easier to go deaf to it after the first two." Chen stalked off to the door, turning it open.
"If you became a doctor, then it shows you must have some compassion in you." Lay called out. "Bringing down these people will-"
"Don't speak to me about morals." Chen uttered, his hand on the doorknob. "I don't give a damn."
The door slammed shut behind him.
-
It had been more than a year since he last saw him, and he felt lonelier than ever. He looked on through the window as he heard the men talk amongst themselves.
“This is who we take care of,” a member spoke.
“We’re risking having an entire force after us.”
“Cops are so hated, they’ll spend months just trying to come up with a list of suspects.”
Chen’s eyes rested on one of the men circled in the photo.
"It'd be a foolish decision. It won't increase his favor of you, and I doubt he'd approve of this." Chen uttered, the group turned their heads at him but the still weakened bystander offered nothing more.
Chen cleared his throat. Despite his status amongst the members, he still had a decent amount of power that came with the years he remained; but even with his best assumption of their clan leader, that will surely meet with some argument.
He doubted he can hold that control for long. The clan was struggling to maintain a front, and even he could sense it, but he still aimed to stop what he could.
It was clear to him what'd he do; whoever decided to end that cop's life, will die.
Before he could worry about the plans implemented, they were forcibly stopped.
Lay stepped foot within the clan's building, the station claiming jurisdiction, with slammed open doors, they barged in with raised guns. Barking orders and their men stopping the members at large, they continued on before the evidence could be completely destroyed.
Lay watched the arrested men be pulled away, and he continued on in case there were still lurkers within the building. He opened one door and checked inside, he saw a brief outline and raised his gun.
Chen was by the opened window, the light outlining his figure. The gun remained between them, raised at Chen who remained frozen. Not a single word was spoken.
The footsteps came by the hallway, the door shielded Chen's presence from their sights. All it took was a single word, and Chen would be caught with the rest of them. The footsteps finally reached the door, the voices spoke through.
"Clear." Lay called out, the men walked past him as Chen inhaled deeply, not realizing he had been holding his breath all along.
"You didn't have to do that." Chen stated quietly.
Lay stepped towards him, gun lowered as the door slowly closed. "You keep saying that, and it hasn't changed." He could tell with quick glance that Chen still wasn’t well and supported his back. "Let's go, before my men notice you. Even I can't command them to turn a blind eye to a fugitive."
Chen stubbornly pulled back. "Why not just let them put me in a jail cell with the others?"
Lay was able to pull him forward, with a display of strength Chen was surprised by. "You've been cooped up with trash long enough."
The agent in question returned home once filing his report, scrunching his eyes from the adjustment to light once within his room. The pale figure remained beneath the sheets, the evening moonlight strayed through the windows and fell gently on his face.
The bed dipped as Lay sat on the edge of it, hand on his waist. Chen stirred slightly, Lay smiled and coated his warm lips, gently pressing them together.
Chen opened his eyes as Lay pulled away. "You dare to do that?"
"I enjoy living by risks."
Lay's restrictions diminished in an instant, his heart encouraging what he tried to suppress for too long, kissing him once more.
Chen made no reaction, unsure of what to make of the situation at hand, the change in circumstances he still had yet to grasp.
"I'm offering you freedom." Lay spoke against his lips. "Do what you want with it."
Chen listened to those words, still slightly coherent as he feigned sleep. He dared to take his words to heart, to hopelessly wish they were true, but this freedom felt truer than any lie he'd ever been told.
If he dared to say it, things seemed to be changing.
Lay looked on and understood that within the coming weeks, it was difficult to convince him of this new lifestyle. To his relief however, he gradually adapted, the cold look diminishing, the formerly dark and vacant eyes were gaining life within them.
"You never had a formal record with the police," Lay informed to him one afternoon. Chen looked back as he continued. "Truth be told, the only things acknowledged in your file is that Kim Jongdae had left school and lived an undocumented life since then."
"Are you planning on filling in the details?"
Lay smiled, handing him a file. Chen reached for it when Lay then said, "You paid your debt. You can now live the life you wanted." Lay left the room, Chen lifted the files to eye level.
In his hands were each filled out forms, with just a simple signature, everything could resume to how they once were.
No, maybe not exactly as they once were, but close enough was better than before.
Lay returned to the living room to see Chen napping on the couch, he smiled softly when his gaze shifted to the files on the table. He dared to peek at the papers inside and gave a relieved smile.
'Re-admission.'
And with a single signature, Chen- Kim Jongdae reentered his final year of medical school.
-
“Lay,”
“Mm?” He tilted the cell closer to his ear as his sister sighed,
“I think it would have come by better if you had joined the agency.” She may have been proud of what had been done, but the usually composed agent still held concern for her younger brother.
“Joining the force wasn’t any easier. In fact, it was probably one of the most difficult paths I’ve ever taken.” Lay affirms quietly,“but I don’t regret my choice.”
She laughed lightly, “Is that so?”
Lay’s gaze remained on the sleeping figure that remained by his side, with an arrange of books messily plopped around the background of the room and in Chen’s exhausted hold. With a gentle hand on his shoulder, Lay wordlessly nodded into the cell, a smile tugging on his lips.
-
The Present Day
Chen stepped into the apartment, dropping his keys to the counter. "Jay thanks you for what you've done." Lay uttered, he carefully fix the straps around his waist. Chen chuckled at the man's struggle with his uniform.
"It was a small favor, keeping his name out of patient records without a hint that Minwoo had ever entered, was hardly a challenge."
Lay pretended not to hear of the potential crime in question, but winced, his arm still healing from a former assignment. Chen gestured for him to sit on the chair as he reached for his supplies.
Lay rolled up his sleeves as Chen knelt before him. "You should have been more careful."
"I was."
"Lies." Chen scolded. "I tell you not to stress your body any more than it has to, but you still do such things. You're getting older, don't be ashamed to admit it to yourself."
"Says the one who can't admit he's getting older too." Lay countered, Chen narrowed his eyes. "And what good does being careful do? You know my job requires stress."
Chen sighed, "At this rate, you'll be needing constant care."
"Then sleeping with a doctor has its benefits, no?" Chen met Lay's sly smile and ignored him, hearing his phone beep and checked the message. He stood up, preparing to leave for his shift that evening when Lay grabbed his elbow.
"Stay."
"You know I can't."
"For just a while longer." Lay pleaded. Chen met his gaze, and it doesn’t take much debate before he agrees to. He helped Lay to the bed, carefully attempting to lay him down yet Lay persisted once Chen’s back was turned, defiantly leaning against him. The shadows of the room were able to hide them for the moment.
With his close proximity, Lay's eyes were able to peek inside his collared shirt at the tattoo ranging from the tip of his neck and further down. If his collar was shown just a little lower or the sleeve just a bit higher, proof of Chen’s past would reveal itself with ease. Lay never minded, never disgusted as his fingers brushed against these plaguing marks, his lips teasingly brushing against his now bare shoulder.
With a quick tug of the bedside lamp’s string on Chen’s part, its light reflecting off his back as he stood up, fixing his shirt. He paused just as he pulled up his sleeve, "If I wanted to, I could have this removed." He glanced at the nearby mirror and watched for Lay's reaction.
"If you want to, but... I may not recognize you in the mornings."
Chen narrowed his eyes behind him but Lay just stood up alongside him, embracing him from behind that Chen didn’t quite mind. Their need for each other growing still.
Before, simply being within distance one of another might have gotten him, them both killed. Now the risk was gone, but this surge of adrenaline that ran through him never lessened.
He had been too comfortable in darkness, unwillingly embraced by its roaming clutches. And he smiled briefly, losing him in ebony, in the soft black pair that met his own, the only darkness he willingly lost himself in.
-
Other Stories From The Loyalties!AU:
[ A Candle's Glow | Eunhyuk/DongHae ] ♦ [ Skewed Promises | Yunho/Jaejoong ] ♦ [ Nameless Melody | Sungmin/Ryeowook ] ♦ [ Cardinal Interests | Kyuhyun/Yesung ] ♦ [ Zealous Claims | Jay/No Minwoo ] ♦ [ Shadows Of The Light | Lay/Chen ] ♦ [ First Impressions | TBA ] ♦ [ The Departing Train | TBA ]
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