"You don’t have to do this, you know," Chanyeol said. Baekhyun looked across, but his partner kept his eyes fixed on the road. “It’s not too late to call it off. There’ll be other chances."

“Chanyeol, you know that isn’t true. It’s taken us months to get this far. Sometimes we have to take risks.” Baekhyun shook his head, frustrated. “Why are you being like this? I know you’re desperate to get these guys. It’s been driving you crazy. If this works we’ll be taking them out right at the top. We can’t count on getting another chance."

Chanyeol didn’t reply. Baekhyun sighed and started re-checking his gear. He’d already gone over it at the police station, but it never hurt to double-check. He’d borrowed Luhan's hooded sweatshirt, and he had the other man’s wallet in the pocket of his jeans, along with the burner phone and a few other items that might prove useful - a multi-tool, a few coins, a length of coiled wire, some cable ties, a permanent marker. He also had the backpack with the 3 kilos of meth in it. They’d debated replacing the drugs with a benign white powder, but decided that would increase the risk of Baekhyun’s cover being blown too much. He’d just have to do his level best to not let the drugs get back into the hands of the syndicate.

He had a miniature transmitter and microphone hidden under a patch of synthetic skin he’d applied to his collarbone, blending in seamlessly with his real skin. The device was so tiny it didn’t even make a bump under the synthetic skin. It was too risky for him to wear an earpiece or carry a radio capable of two-way communication, so he wouldn’t be able to hear Chanyeol, Sehun and Seulgi, but they’d be able to hear him, and anyone else who got close enough for the microphone to pick up, as long as they stayed in range. They’d also be able to trace his location via the GPS device hidden under the insole of his shoe. Everything was ready.

He wondered again why Chanyeol had suddenly pulled back like this. He didn't get it. Didn’t his partner think he was capable of pulling it off? Baekhyun was confident in his abilities, and he really, really wanted to get these guys. It wasn’t just that they were criminals and endangering more people the longer they were loose. Over the past few months, Baekhyun had watched the way this case had slowly but surely leeched the joy from Chanyeol, drained the light from his face and the laughter from his eyes, and he hated it. It was for Chanyeol’s sake more than anything else that he had to do this. When the syndicate was broken up and the drug dealers behind bars where they belonged, Chanyeol would be able to smile again.

He glanced at Chanyeol again. It wasn’t right that he was so quiet. That grave look didn’t suit him.

Chanyeol pulled the car over to the side of the road. They’d arrived. The Solaria Hotel was huge, taking up nearly the whole block, and the entrance was just out of sight. They would need to wait a few minutes for the other officers to get into position. Finally Chanyeol turned to look at him, and Baekhyun met his eyes.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about the whole operation,” Chanyeol said quietly. “I know it doesn’t make sense. I know you’re fully capable of doing this. But Baekhyun, please...” he broke off and searched Baekhyun’s face with a gaze that, if Baekhyun didn’t know better, might almost have called desperate. “Please be careful." He swallowed. "I...I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you."

Oh.

Baekhyun found himself unable to speak as realisation finally dawned. It wasn’t that his partner didn’t think he could do it. It was that he was worried about him. He didn’t want him to get hurt.

Chanyeol...cared? About Baekhyun?

But people didn’t care about Baekhyun. That just wasn’t how the world worked.

He'd been nine years old when it happened. A massive pile-up on the freeway, he’d been told by the police officers who’d come to collect him from school. Many people had died. Among them were Baekhyun’s mother, his father, and his five-year-old sister, Baekhee, who Baekhyun adored more than anything in the entire world. They were gone, and Baekhyun’s world was broken.

Baekhyun had no other family, so he’d been left at an orphanage. It was a big, soulless place, home to nearly two hundred kids, from the babies who didn’t cry enough, having learned nobody would come, to the big teenagers, nearly grown-up, who ruled the ranks of kids below them with the same cruelty the world had shown them. There were never enough staff, and there was simply not enough care and attention to go round. The kids who’d grown up in the orphanage had never known what it was to be loved. But Baekhyun knew, and grieved the loss of it. There was nobody to hug him, nobody who cared whether he lived or died. There was nobody to love him, and nobody he could love. He was utterly alone, and in his loneliness, he learned that love was a privilege, not a right.

Perhaps he would have turned into just one more bitter and broken product of the Korean orphanage system, if Seungwan hadn’t come. From the moment Baekhyun’s eyes had fallen on the little girl’s solemn face, her huge dark eyes that had seen too much, her black hair tied up with mismatched ribbons, he had known. Here was a girl who desperately needed loving. Here was a boy who desperately needed to love. Here were two children who could save each other.

She'd looked so much like Baekhee.

With Seungwan by his side – his little Wendy Darling, who called him Peter Pan, and believed he could do anything, as if he was truly magic – the wound in Baekhyun’s heart finally, finally began to close. His world had been broken, but with his help, with his love, Seungwan’s world had healed.

But a wound so deep would always leave a scar, and the scar it had left Baekhyun with was the understanding that, apart from Seungwan, nobody would ever really care about him. It wasn’t a bitter feeling. It was just a simple acceptance of fact. Like accepting that gravity would make you fall from the sky, if you didn’t have enough pixie dust.

But now, here was a man looking into his eyes as if he wanted nothing more than to protect Baekhyun from anything the world could throw at him. Looking the way Baekhyun felt when he looked at Seungwan. Like here was someone precious. Someone who made the dark world just a shade brighter, just a little more bearable.

Baekhyun reached out, placed his hand on Chanyeol’s arm, and found his voice.

“It’ll be okay, Chanyeol,” he said. “I’ll be careful. You guys will be right behind me. Everything will be fine.” He gave Chanyeol his best and brightest smile. “Remember what Seungwan calls me? Peter Pan can’t be defeated, not even by the most wicked pirates.”

A smile tugged at the corners of Chanyeol’s mouth.

“Oh, you,” he said, and the tension in his body lessened just a touch. “She’s right to call you that. Isn’t he the boy who’ll never grow up?”

Baekhyun laughed. “That's right. I always thought growing up was highly overrated.”

Chanyeol grinned. “Can I join in with this role-play?”

Baekhyun gave him his most mischievous smirk. “Sure! Seungwan and I always wished we had someone to be Tinkerbell.” He ducked as Chanyeol swatted at his head, overjoyed to hear him laugh.

The radio crackled, informing them that the other squads were in place, and their playfulness disappeared as if it had never been. Time to focus. Sehun and Seulgi reappeared from their check of the perimeter of the hotel and got into the back seats of the car. They’d be monitoring Baekhyun’s microphone through the radios installed in the car, ready to move in at the right moment. The operations van would also be monitoring comms, and keeping tabs on his GPS device as well. They tested Baekhyun’s transmitter, and the technicians in the ops van confirmed that they had a lock on his GPS.

“Ready to move in,” Baekhyun confirmed. He hooked a black cloth face mask over his ears and made sure his hood was pulled low over his hair, shading his eyes. He met Chanyeol’s eyes one last time, gave him a reassuring smile that crinkled his eyes above the mask, and got out of the car.

The hotel lobby was big and glamorous, all gold marble and chandeliers, with a gold embossed frieze depicting mythical creatures ringing an upper gallery. Baekhyun glanced around. It wasn’t hard to act nervous. He had no idea what was going to happen, and he needed every sense on high alert. Uncertain where to go, he wandered across to a display of tourist brochures and display cases containing examples of folk art. He picked up a booklet detailing tour packages and flicked through it.

Footsteps squeaked on the marble floor. Someone was approaching. Baekhyun pretended to be absorbed in what he was reading until the person stopped beside him.

“Can I help you?”

Baekhyun turned to see a man dressed in the white shirt and dark red waistcoat of a hotel staff member. Despite the uniform, he didn’t look much like a concierge. He was probably half a foot taller than Baekhyun, and his broad shoulders and muscular arms were almost bursting out of the shirt.

“I’m just waiting for someone, thank you,” he said politely.

The man gave him a meaning look and made a gesture across his face that Baekhyun knew meant he wanted him to remove the mask. Heart pounding, he unhooked one ear and exposed his face.

The man’s eyes flicked across his face, but he didn’t react. “I know who wants to meet you. Follow me.”

Baekhyun suppressed a sigh of relief. This man, at least, didn’t know Luhan’s face well enough to know that Baekhyun was an imposter, but that didn’t mean he could relax. He put the tourist brochure back, hooked th