The reason I've written this bonus chapter is in part a thank you for all your continued support (and the nominations for the EXO Fan Fiction Awards 2016 for TBBC and Attayear!), in part an early Christmas present, and in part because lots of people have expressed a desire to see more TBBC Lay.  Unfortunately there won't be a spin-off involving him, but here is some Jongdae/Yixing buddying up on the job for you, and as those of you who are following Blood Bound already know, after Blood Sister (and probably Rogue) is finished, I'll be embarking on a new fic involving another EXO member and today I can reveal that that member will be...

*drumroll*

Lay!

By popular vote for me to write a royalty AU.

Prepare yourselves for Prince Yixing, coming sometime 2017!

Rookie Rumbling

It was amazing how quickly one’s dream job could disillusion you of the “dream” part and make you really, really hate it.  For Jongdae, it had happened within three weeks of landing a job at the Seoul Police Department, when he’d been rotated (and fixed in) the basket case of a branch that was supposed to deal with organised crime.  For Yixing, it was before he’d even landed a job.

Jongdae wanted to fight crime, bring peace to the streets, and seek justice for those who had been wronged.  As far as he was concerned, that was the main reason why anybody should be in the police force, and the lackadaisical attitude of many of his colleagues, and the way that they laughed off their bungles and incompetence when people’s lives were at stake, managed to jade him within the span of a month.

Yixing enjoyed himself most when he was playing mind games with people, pitting his wits against theirs, and seeing how far he could push them.  Unfortunately, it was not a trait that lent itself well to employment in general, and his despairing mother had all but yelled at him when he graduated from university was that his only prospects were as a research psychologist or a criminal mastermind, but he was too lazy for the latter and would have found the former boring with all the ethical red tape when it came to carrying out experiments.  If he couldn’t be a mastermind, then his only option was to catch the masterminds, but he didn’t fulfil the necessary citizenship requirements to join an intelligence agency and had gone into the police instead.

Jongdae met Yixing in week five when the young Chinese police officer was given a promotional transfer in from Daegu.  As the youngest rookie, he’d been stuck on photocopying and coffee duty, and if one of the copies he’d made hadn’t happened to have been of Yixing’s reference (things were so dire in the office that he might have snuck a peek at them, even if it was all above his security clearance), he would have been ecstatic at the enthusiasm that seeped out from Yixing at every bouncing step he took when Siwon turned up to introduce the department’s newest recruit.

Instead, that smile and bubbling happiness looked more and more like Yixing was unhinged with every passing second.

“This is Yixing,” Siwon had announced to the gathering.  Yixing looked around and nodded politely with a smile.  Jongdae was pretty sure he was the only one paying attention: Eunhyuk was busy making paper aeroplanes (it was actually terrifying how quickly his hands moved); Seohyun had managed to blow a pink bubblegum bubble that covered almost the entire bottom half of her face; Sooyoung was busy texting away and clearly paying no attention to anything beyond her phone screen; Yesung was actually on the phone and laughing at whatever the other person was saying.  Almost everybody else was engaged in a game of Hot Potato, Pass It On! with a small, electric blue bean bag.

Siwon had faced this too many times to even attempt some form of order.

“He’s joining us as a Senior Inspector, and he’ll be my number two,” Siwon went on.

The blue bean bag hit him squarely on the forehead and a cheer went up.  Cursing and mumbling to himself, Siwon called it quits and made to leave.

It was at that point that Yixing opened his mouth and said the most criminal thing he possibly could have done in that situation.

“Why are none of you in uniform?” he demanded, conveniently glossing over the one properly dressed, actually listening person in the room.  “Are none of you proud of serving your country or something?”

***

As far as Jongdae was concerned, their next encounter was far too soon.  The rest of the team had made it clear that Yixing was to be ostracised the second Siwon had left the room and Jongdae had been sent back to the photocopier to get coffee (he didn’t understand either) and Yixing was nowhere to be seen by the time he got back.

At lunch, Yixing made his reappearance, thumping his tray down opposite Jongdae’s in an obscure corner of the room with a wide grin and Jongdae nearly leapt out of his skin.

“What are you doing?” he demanded around a mouthful of burrito.

“This place is a sh*thole,” Yixing announced, still beaming.  Obscure as the corner was, he was still attracting stares, although it was impossible to tell whether or not that was because of his loud entrance or because he was sitting with Jongdae.  “What’s the best way to tell Siwon he needs to fire his entire department?”

Jongdae just stared at him.  Yixing tucked into his bowl of pasta.  There was a silence of several long seconds as Yixing slurped his way through the spaghetti, and then Jongdae found his voice again.

“Why the would you ask me that?”

“You’re the only one who so far hasn’t decided I’m a pariah.”

“No, I mean you must be out of your mind.”

Yixing laughed.  “I knew we’d get along well.”

“No we won’t.”  Jongdae jabbed his burrito at him.  He would have jabbed his fork or chopsticks instead, but the burrito sadly did not require cutlery, so a burrito jab it was instead.  “I saw your file.  Daegu kicked you out because you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

Yixing raised an eyebrow, looking even more amused.  “I saw your file too, but I didn’t think you’d be this straight-laced.”

“You got almost half of your own police force arrested!  In one go!  It’s left them chronically short-staffed!”

Yixing slurped up more spaghetti.  “The only real way to topple a drug gang of that size and structure is to get rid of the entire web in one go, and having half the police force involved in it made it pretty hard to orchestrate.  Also, they’re not chronically short staffed; that’ll repair itself by the end of next year with the new intake and supplementary forces from other police forces in the country.”

“Still,” said Jongdae, but there was nothing he could add to that, so he coughed awkwardly and continued eating.

“I can’t purge this department by myself,” Yixing said matter-of-factly.  “I probably could start getting rid of organised crime in this city by myself, but it’ll take at least double or triple the time it would without people on the same page as me, and I’d really like a functioning team working with me.  You’re still wearing your uniform, which means you haven’t gone over to the dark side yet, but you can’t tell me you enjoy working here.  Siwon wouldn’t know a baton if it hit him in the face and I’m pretty sure he thinks the primary use of handcuffs is for a bed.  Do you want me to start on the others?”

Jongdae gaped at him over his burrito.

“You’ve got a department full of hopeless pen-pushers, Jongdae.  They’re bureaucrats, not people who are going to take action.  Or they would be if they bothered to do anything.”

Unable to shake off a feeling of unease, Jongdae put the remainder of his burrito down.  “What are you planning?”

“I knew we’d see eye to eye.”

“… I just get the feeling you’ll do something whether or not I join you.”

Yixing gave a careless shrug.  “True.”

“But you don’t play by the rules.”

Yixing laughed, but this time it was soft, not quite mocking, but enough to send a shiver down Jongdae’s spine.

“Oh, Jongdae,” he said, his smile growing even wider.  “Nobody cares about your method if you get results.”

***

It was the start of a long partnership and an even longer friendship.  Disturbed at  Yixing’s hints at something to overhaul the department, Jongdae had gone to the chief commissioner, unsure how best to handle things but knowing it would only cause bad blood if he said anything to Siwon, who probably wouldn’t trust a new recruit anyway.  It had triggered an internal review and the chief commissioner had spent several hours grilling Jongdae about the behaviour and responsibility of his colleagues.  All of them (except Siwon, who had enough of a good record to escape everything) were put on probation, and almost all were moved to different departments and demoted or fired.  Jongdae came out of Siwon’s office in a daze when the man told hi