#like there's just ... there's this Specific flavor of like ... fucked up parent-child dynamic that i'm trying to capture here

[hideyseek]

✨ weekend wip exposure club ✨

rules: post 7 sentences/a snippet of an unfinished work

tagged by eru @forerussake mwahhhhhh thank u !!!!!!! it's just past the weekend but here's a little bit more from the frustration fic, which is a fun (for me) glimpse into zhao yunlan's dynamic with his dad in his early days as sid chief, pre-drama canon:

“--but there are other people’s lives on the line in this job, Yunlan,” his father is saying now, fierce and quiet, the way he gets sometimes. “You can’t be sloppy with the things that have been entrusted to you anymore. You’re an adult now, and you need to act like it.”  Zhao Yunlan’s ribs ache. He wants a smoke. He wants to fall asleep for the next twenty hours, and wake up to his mom’s home cooking. He opens his eyes again. His father sighs, short and sharp. “Yunlan, I know you find all this lecturing tiresome. I don’t want to do it either — there are other important things that my time is needed for. But the Special Investigation Department has a reputation to uphold, and I can’t bear to see that reputation tarnished because I convinced Lao Zhang that handing the reins over to my son wouldn’t be a bad decision.”  As if Zhao Yunlan wasn’t already trying to prove that it wasn’t, with every piece of himself that he could scrape together. He pushes off the wall. “Look, dad, I get the message. Do better next time, loud and clear."

tagging: @crehador @iamanonniemouse @zrllosyn @frogiwi @strangegeology @evolutionsbedingt @motionalocean if you'd like!!!