Guiying shot up from the bed so fast the room tilted sideways...he grabbed the headboard with one hand and stood there for a second, breathing through it, before his legs decided they were going to cooperate.

There was no time for a headache right now.

He was in the bathroom before he’d fully decided to move, the shower running cold first then hot, and he stood under it and did the math in his head three times because the first two answers made him feel physically ill.

The flight alone was fourteen hours and that was before you factored in getting to the airport, boarding, the time difference...

He was so dead.

He came out of the bathroom still towelling his hair, moving fast, and walked straight into Liuxian coming through the suite door holding a packaged bag that smelled unmistakably of hangover soup.

"Have you taken your bath?" Guiying asked without stopping.

Liuxian watched him cross the room with the calm expression of someone who had left a sleeping person and returned to find a completely different situation. "Yeah. I got the hangover soup."

Guiying looked at the bag.

Then at Liuxian.

"Don’t need it." He was already pulling clothes from his suitcase. "I just found out I have a photoshoot at 10am Beijing time and I’m still in Vegas." He held up a shirt, looked at it, put it back and grabbed another one. "That cleared the hangover right out of me. We have to go back right now."

Liuxian was quiet for a moment.

"Just tell them to reschedule," he said. "There’s no way we’d make it. It’s a fourteen hour flight and we still have to wait for Zhang Wei."

Guiying stopped.

He turned and gave Liuxian a long, slow look.

Liuxian looked back at him. Then at the ceiling briefly, with the expression of a man running a very quick internal calculation and arriving at a result he wasn’t entirely happy about.

He sighed.

"Alright." He set the hangover soup on the table. "I’ll tell Zhang Wei to take a separate flight back. If we leave now we could make it around morning the next day..." He thought for a moment. "But in the meantime message them. Tell them you’re not in the country and ask if they can push it back, that you’ll be roughly fourteen hours late."

Guiying nodded, reaching for his phone.

There was no hope of making it on time but warning them was better than simply vanishing on the first day, which would be a significantly worse look.

He typed the message, read it back once and sent it.

Then he looked around the suite.

Disneyland was supposed to be today.

He looked at Liuxian.

Liuxian looked back at him with the patient expression of a man who had already made his peace with this particular development.

"I’m sorry," Guiying said. "About Disneyland."

"We’ll come back," Liuxian said simply.

Guiying looked at him for a moment.

No performance in it, no reassurance dressed up to sound better than it was. Just the flat easy certainty of someone who meant exactly what they said.

He turned back to his suitcase.

"Start packing," he said.

Liuxian picked up his phone and called Zhang Wei while Guiying disappeared back into the bathroom to finish getting ready.

It rang twice before Zhang Wei picked up, his voice carrying the particular alert quality of someone who had been awake for a while already.

"Boss?"

"Change of plans," Liuxian said, moving to his own suitcase and opening it with one hand. "We’re leaving this morning. Take a separate flight back, I’ll have the team arrange it for you."

A pause on the other end. "Is everything alright?"

"Guiying has a shoot in Beijing today."

Another pause, shorter this time. "Ah." Zhang Wei said it with the tone of someone who had understood the entire situation from a single sentence and was choosing not to comment further, which was, Liuxian thought, genuine professional growth.

"I’ll sort out the flight on my end," Zhang Wei said. "Have a safe trip back, boss."

Liuxian hung up and finished packing with the efficient unhurried focus of someone who had rearranged plans on shorter notice than this and didn’t find it particularly distressing.

Guiying came back from the counter properly dressed, hair done, moving through the suite with the systematic efficiency that appeared whenever he shifted into that particular gear of his.

Camera bag checked and zipped.

The small gold ring from the accessories shop in New York transferred from the bedside table back to his right hand where it belonged.

He looked around the suite one last time.

The Strip was doing its morning thing outside the windows, washed out and unhurried, all the previous night’s drama dissolved into pale Nevada daylight.

The hot tub sat behind its frosted glass partition, quiet and still.

Guiying looked at it briefly.

Then he picked up his suitcase.

"Ready.." he said.

Liuxian picked up his own and they moved toward the door, and Guiying was pulling it open when his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He stopped and checked it.

TongShu had replied.

Mr. Tang! Oh no, not to worry at all, we completely understand. We’ll push the shoot to tomorrow morning at 10am instead, please rest well on your flight back and we’ll see you then! Looking forward to meeting you!

Guiying stared at the message for a moment.

The relief that moved through him was considerable and slightly embarrassing in its intensity. He let out a slow breath and pocketed the phone.

"They rescheduled?" Liuxian said.

Guiying looked at him. "How did you know?"

"Your shoulders dropped, that’s a sign of relief.." Liuxian said simply, and walked past him through the door.

Guiying stood in the doorway for a second, considered this, decided he wasn’t going to dignify it with a response, and followed him out into the corridor.

They walked toward the elevator together in the easy quiet that had become their natural state, luggage rolling on the carpet, the hotel moving around them with its morning hush.

Guiying pressed the elevator button and stood beside Liuxian and looked at the closed doors.

"We’re still coming back.." he said. "For Disneyland."

"Or we can go to the one that’s close by. Your husband is a busy man and time, I don’t always have it in abundance.." Liuxian said, as he yawned slightly.

The elevator arrived and they got in and the doors closed and Guiying looked at their reflection in the mirrored panel opposite, the two of them standing side by side with their luggage, looking like exactly what they were.

His phone buzzed again.

He checked it.

It was Limo this time.

Baby are you coming back soon?? I miss you.