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Dealing with disagreeable patients and even mouthier, entitled doctors who expect the entire nursing staff to drop everything in hand to attend them always leaves Yifan feeling especially grumpy and tired after a long day on his feet. Today had been especially difficult since the chief of staff Lee Sooman decided to drop by for a surprise visit and inspection of the pediatrics ward where Yifan is stationed. He had to literally fly back and forth while doing his regular rounds because residents kept pulling him out to attend to them under Dr. Lee’s purveying eye. And while Yifan does take pride in being a dependable nurse, he also just wants the attending residents to realize that he alone cannot make up the entire nursing staff.

He grumbles indistinctly to himself as he turns the key to his apartment, silently promising himself a much-deserved and backlogged vacation that he knows he’ll never end up taking anyway because he’s the lousiest pushover ever, and clatters noisily into his home. Kicking off his orthopedic shoes with a grunt, Yifan shrugs off his heavy winter coat and tosses it carelessly onto the empty couch in front of the television stand. He yawns once, wide and unattractive, and shuffles into the bedroom, not even bothering to make himself something to eat this late into the night.

He blows out his breath, a big gust of irritation and exhaustion leaving his chest, and is about to flop straight onto his big wide bed when he registers the softly-snoring, curled up lump under the navy blankets. Yifan blinks dumbly, has to let the image sink in for his rapidly draining systems to process. The unmistakable snuffling and honey-blonde tufts of dyed hair sticking out from the sheets register, finally, and suddenly all the built-up tenseness and dourness of the day bleeds away from his body. Yifan allows himself a smile, fond and that touch smitten he always denies when Lu Han points it out with an awful grin, and he sits down gently on the edge of the bed.

Lu Han’s taken up the whole center of the mattress for himself, tucking in his chest but spreading out his legs so they lay equidistant from both ends of the bed. It’s an old habit of his, something Yifan had to deal with the first few weeks into their cohabitation. Taking up spaces is Lu Han’s quirk--it meant you’d notice less of how empty the bed really was with just one body. It took a solid month of coaxing, slipping an arm in here and tangling a leg there, for Lu Han to understand he didn’t need to compensate anymore; Yifan filled up his gaps.

Seeing Lu Han back in bed, though, means that his thesis examination is finally done; Yifan had spent a month with only himself for company and the rare lunch date with his boyfriend because Lu Han had been so determined on building up an impenetrable thesis defense that he’d shut himself in his office at the university for total focus. It feels like a quiet punch to the throat to find Lu Han back in his bed, like a misplaced key slotting back into place; Yifan is willing to admit much of his recent irritability has been largely because of Lu Han’s gaping absence from his daily life.

(It’s funny. Yifan’s had relationships long before Lu Han came into the picture, but this is the first time he’s ever allowed himself to let someone sink so deeply into his bones that it actually aches when they pull away. It should ring alarm bells, but all Yifan wants to do is fall deeper, let Lu Han tattoo his claim into his marrow so that everyone can see who he belongs to. Yifan reaches out to smooth back Lu Han’s tangled bangs; maybe one day he’ll even let Lu Han know.)

Lu Han makes a slight noise, a quiet mumbling, but stays asleep. Yifan peeks under the bed covers a little and smirks; Lu Han apparently tumbled into bed immediately after he got home, because he’s still dressed in the wrinkled plaid button-down Yifan had seen him in on their last lunch date three days ago. The skinny jeans were apparently shed though, he notices, catching sight of the crumpled denim on the floor of the other side of the bed. He shakes his head in exasperation. One of these days, Lu Han’s gonna catch a cold with how little he cares about being properly dressed.

A yawn cuts through, though, halting any other half-formed thoughts Yifan had, and he stretches it out pulling his arms up and straightening his back for a long moment before slumping back down. He glances down at Lu Han’s sleeping form and slowly lowers the rest of his body down onto the bed, not bothering to remove his socks or scrubs. He can change when he wakes up. Yifan settles himself atop the covers, not wanting to disturb Lu Han’s sleep by shifting the blankets and exposing him to cold air; Lu Han’s extreme sensitivity to the cold would wake him up in seconds. He draws close to Lu Han’s body and fits himself gingerly against the blanketed curve of his back and slowly curls an arm over his waist.

(Yifan’s missed this, the banked heat of another body against his, hugging someone he loves dearly close to him. Even before Lu Han’s self-imposed isolation and withdrawal, he’d never been the most openly affectionate of lovers--to his friends, sure, but to his partners? It would be easier still to get Lu Han to call himself girlishly pretty. So, touches like this are rare and few in between, and well, damnit, Yifan just wants to cuddle his boyfriend after having to suffer through a month of near-zero contact. Lu Han can just deal.)

He nuzzles his face to Lu Han’s shoulder blades for a moment, blunted by the cover of their blankets. His eyes are already sliding shut without his permission, and he’s about to slip off into sleep when he feels Lu Han’s body shifts. An arm snakes out from under the sheets and covers Yifan’s curled arm, lacing his large fingers together with its smaller digits.

“Hey,” Lu Han croaks, voice sleep-crusted and hoarse. “Welcome back.”

Yifan grins, eyes shut and mouth widely gummy, and leans his forehead up against the back of Lu Han’s neck. “I’m home,” he whispers into his nape, breath warm and curling the strands of hair at the edges.

Lu Han tightens his grip on Yifan’s hand and shifts until his back is fully pressed against Yifan’s chest, separated only by the blankets. He brings up Yifan’s arm and drops a lingering kiss on his fingers before wrapping it around his waist tightly.

“Me too,” he says.