Tang Fan makes it up three streets before he breaks rank on his own resolve to keep quiet, which he thinks is quite commendably endurant of him, actually, all things considered.

“I was polite!” he blurts out.

Sui Zhou just raises his eyebrows, as though he hasn’t so far spent the entire walk since they left the pharmacy staring at Tang Fan’s profile out of the corner of his eyes. In the pointed way he does, sometimes, specifically, that feels as tangible and nascently threatening as a hand coming to rest heavily on his nape. The way that very much makes it known that he is either in some manner of trouble or he’s shortly about to be.

“I asked nicely,” Tang Fan hastens to add, after a too-short pause. He’s cringing with regret before he even says it, but his mouth is apparently determined to maintain its lead ahead of his better sense. And so: he rattles off the first semblance of a defence that occurs to him. To his utter detriment.

“I’m sure you did,” Sui Zhou replies evenly. He does not even try to sound convincingly convinced. It's not an unfair slight to his character, at least on this occasion, but Sui Zhou surely owes it to him and their longstanding partnership to at least pretend Tang Fan was being perfectly professional and not at all petty.

He’d been very diligent in making sure all his good manners and good graces were in order, after all. He didn’t need to encourage Li-xiansheng to be reticent with his request when he already knew he’d be more than eager to seize on the opportunity to cause them difficulties of his own accord. Far more satisfying to let him walk into the trap of his hubris’ own devising than to beckon him over the snare.

Tang Fan pouts petulantly, holding the expression determinedly until they come to a stop at the next intersection and he can round on his heels to face Sui Zhou directly. He does not jab a finger at Sui Zhou's chest as he locks their gazes — that would be ridiculous. He's holding Gao-furen's medical records in his hand. Those are what he jabs at Sui Zhou's chest.

“What else was there to do, hm?” Tang Fan tugs the records back, tucking them under his arm with a flap of his drapey sleeve and a jut of his chin. “Let him learn a hard lesson not to be so complacent in his obstinance towards you from now on. It wasn’t undeserved.” He has his suspicions that Li-xiansheng has perpetrated disrespects even he isn’t privy to; if Sui Zhou isn’t going to do any of the heavy lifting in bearing his own grudges, then Tang Fan will simply do it for him.

Sui Zhou folds his arms across his chest, sparing a glance out to the street and the traffic before he drags his gaze back to Tang Fan’s. Then he tilts his head, just so, and cocks his hip, widening his stance so he can dig his left heel into the dirt and point the toe of his boot up, tapping it against the air idly. Tang Fan feels like he’s about to trip over his own feet just from looking at it.

“Hm,” Sui Zhou says, succinct and with a note of finality. That must be that on that, then. Tang Fan absolutely does not breathe a small sigh of relief at it being put to rest, because that would imply he has anything to feel guilty about that would warrant such relief from remaining unreprimanded. Which he doesn’t. “You have what you wanted, now. Are you going to see Lao Pei?”

Tang Fan shakes his head. “Not yet. I’m going to transcribe a copy with only the prescriptions, first. I will keep that for Lao Pei to look at, and you can return the original to Li-xiansheng.” It isn’t that Lao Pei can’t keep secrets, or that Tang Fan doesn’t trust him to, but this is a delicate matter. Gao-furen deserves as much discretion as they can accommodate without impacting their investigation. “My yamen is closer. You can come if you’d like, or you can go if you have something else you need to do and I’ll send for you when it’s done.”

With that, Tang Fan spins around and steps out into the street to set off— only to promptly find himself yanked back by the belt and gathered up against Sui Zhou’s chest, narrowly avoiding being clipped by a passing carriage.

“Careful!” Sui Zhou snaps sharply, mouth tucked against his temple. Tang Fan’s heart skips unsteadily behind his ribs for several converging, conflicting reasons, a numbing chill seeping down his shoulders and the slope of his spine.

“I’m fine!” he yelps, tone kicking over to shrill. He squirms underneath the bar of Sui Zhou’s arm, braced across his clavicle. “Aiya, it wasn’t even close, Sui Zhou!” It was very close. “They weren’t driving fast, either.” They weren’t, thankfully, but still. “Really.”

He’s not sure if it’s his own heart blundering such heavy blows that he can feel it between the wings of his shoulder blades, or if it is Sui Zhou’s, beating itself against his ribcage in hopes of breaking free to bridge between their bodies. He feels heavy with it, either way, no matter which or what; sunk low with rue, retethered abruptly to the reality of the present and the recent days.

Tang Fan squirms again, but he’s fighting, now, not to slither out of Sui Zhou’s hold but to get a hand up to pat at his forearm, slotting his elbow in tight to his waist to stop the records from sliding loose.

"I'm all right, I'm all right, see?" He brushes his hand down Sui Zhou's bracer as he flicks his fingers out in an emphatic gesture towards his intact and unharmed stature. "Yes, I know, I should have been looking, but you caught me, didn’t you? So all is well."

“I will not always—” Sui Zhou stops himself, abrupt, and releases Tang Fan with much the same caught suddenness.

It is only Tang Fan, now, who remains stuck, and the trap he is stumbling around in is no longer a physically gripping one. Opportunities lie in wait but rarely do they ever bid themselves to rise to occasions that suit their coming. This is— brushing blunt up against something they very much should talk about. Something they have not talked about, yet. Something that Sui Zhou clearly does not wish to talk about now.

But, well, Tang Fan has never been adept at leaving well enough alone, even for a greater immediate good.

So, “Of course you will,” is what he says, firm, holding as much of Sui Zhou’s gaze as Sui Zhou seems to be able to allow himself. Tang Fan doesn’t know how else to put it, beyond that, that it’s truly inconceivable that there will ever come the day that Sui Zhou is not in time, is not enough.

Sui Zhou sets his jaw, the tight clench of his teeth blatantly visible in the muscle twitching beneath the skin. Tang Fan takes the risk of reaching between them, jostling the flat of his hand against Sui Zhou’s bicep before he lowers it to wrap around his wrist. Which is not a risk at all, truly, though the apparently instinctual flinch Sui Zhou gives when first met with his grip does much of the work in sustaining that misimpression. There are no risks, Tang Fan has only newly learned, when it comes to Sui Zhou.

“You have time.” Tang Fan tweaks his thumb along Sui Zhou’s bracer, then releases him, by hand if not by hold. “Time to fuss and sulk means time to come with me.”

Sui Zhou’s nostrils flare as he exhales, mouth parting in— in that way his face gets, sometimes, where his expression is unspun loose with a surprised, shallow frustration. Tang Fan has noticed it.

“There are many roads left between here and there,” Tang Fan cuts in, before Sui Zhou can manage an answer. “I could run afoul of another carriage.”

“Not if you pay attention,” Sui Zhou contends, but it’s quiet, flat. More pensive than argumentative.

Tang Fan can work with that. “But with you, my safety is assured, yes?” He nods his head, once, making it so. “Come! Come.” Before Sui Zhou can so much as protest, Tang Fan takes him in hand again and turns away, proffering a glance at either side of the road before he proceeds to try and pull Sui Zhou across with him.

And, really, in this as with everything else, now, Sui Zhou has no choice but to follow — and would make no other were it offered, Tang Fan suspects to himself, somewhere private, pressed between the leafed-through pages of his thoughts.