19/50: unravel, unbecome
Title: unravel, unbecome (19: heart's armour)
Characters: Sun Quan, Zhou Tai
Rating: PG; 650w
Notes: Originally a prompt i wanted to put up for the pan-fandom *-punk meme (which you should totally check out and request/write on if you are into AU's at all-it's still ticking along, albeit slow), but it ran away from me. :'D not even i am usually sadly a big enough tool to answer my own prompts, so. here. cyberpunk. zhou tai and woobie!quan.
Sun Quan, when he's drunk, emotional, grateful to the point of tear-stained regret, wishes sometimes that Zhou Tai had just never been human from the start. Because with each passing year at war underground, with each lost fight and direct hit Zhou Tai takes in Sun Quan's stead, a little more red humanity transmutes into cool, brushed steel and insensitive circuitry.
A little more breaks Sun Quan's heart.
*
"Zhou Tai," he says after one such battle, recalling his whip-sword. It's missing three segments and blue energy crackles through live wires bared as the weapon's sheath snaps back around it, but the damage is not irreparable. Sun Quan's arms ache with the sudden loss of adrenaline, fatigued muscles trembling slightly, but yet again he has emerged unscathed. "Zhou Tai," he repeats. "Are you still…" Alive? Functional? Operational? Sun Quan isn't even sure what to say anymore. He holds his breath, not daring to turn around.
"…yes," Zhou Tai reports after a beat, his modulated voice void of inflection.
Sun Quan's fist tightens in his shirtsleeve as his heart takes a tumble. (The shirt is slashed and slivered but none of the blood is his own. He'd seen the hooks sink into Zhou Tai's flesh though. They'd been fighting back to back and once or twice Zhou Tai had hauled him bodily aside. He'd seen…) "Can you still move?"
"Yes."
"Come to me."
It takes a few seconds for Zhou Tai to comply, and Sun Quan feels the guilt all over again when his friend (-comrade. Bodyguard. Partner) rounds the corner, his eyes dark, dimmed.
Zhou Tai is torn and stained. Glistening metal, scratched and dented, shines through his skin in places; blood and silicone oil mix trickling down his face, dulling his clothes. One strong hand jerks to a silent rhythm-a shorted circuit, perhaps, or corrupted data elsewhere. Zhou Yu would be able to tell for sure. Sun Quan cannot. He takes a deep breath, composing himself. "Report."
"Two score targets eliminated," Zhou Tai tells him. "Damage… non-critical. Emergency core cooling system on standby."
Sun Quan looks up and Zhou Tai's prosthetic eye flickers to sharp, electric-red life, cosmetic lens shattered. The synthetic skin above and below it is split by a long, vertical slash and curls unnervingly back from the metal plate beneath. Just short of reaching out, Sun Quan clenches his hand and drops his gaze to the ground where both their boots still stand intact and he can pretend for a moment that so does Zhou Tai. "Does it hurt?" His voice, though quiet, doesn't shake.
Zhou Tai does not reply.
Sun Quan looks back up with almost a glare. There's anger on the tip of his tongue, in his eyes, fiercely self-depreciating but he can't say any of it because there are people who look to him, who respect him and expect him to… protect them.
Zhou Tai reaches out, slowly, touching Sun Quan's arm with the hand that isn't paralysed. The brief contact is warm and soft, so innately human that Sun Quan's gut twists all over again. "Doesn't… matter."
Yes, Sun Quan interprets with guilt, closing his eyes. Yes, it hurts but I don't matter. He can't stop the tears; still, Zhou Tai never wants apologies so all Sun Quan can give is a silent thank you as he rests his forehead against a steel-lined chest and cries for the beating of a still-there heart.
*
Sun Quan wishes, when it's dark, when he's alone, it's cold and he's more than lonely; wishes sometimes that it was love. To write Zhou Tai's selfless sacrifice off as something emotional and irrational would be easier than accepting it as duty, as due, as for the cause-for Sun Quan the figurehead and symbol of the Resistance rather than Sun Quan the man who would love right back and freely fight and bleed and give his life in return.
But it is not love.
It is nothing like love.
Characters: Sun Quan, Zhou Tai
Rating: PG; 650w
Notes: Originally a prompt i wanted to put up for the pan-fandom *-punk meme (which you should totally check out and request/write on if you are into AU's at all-it's still ticking along, albeit slow), but it ran away from me. :'D not even i am usually sadly a big enough tool to answer my own prompts, so. here. cyberpunk. zhou tai and woobie!quan.
Sun Quan, when he's drunk, emotional, grateful to the point of tear-stained regret, wishes sometimes that Zhou Tai had just never been human from the start. Because with each passing year at war underground, with each lost fight and direct hit Zhou Tai takes in Sun Quan's stead, a little more red humanity transmutes into cool, brushed steel and insensitive circuitry.
A little more breaks Sun Quan's heart.
*
"Zhou Tai," he says after one such battle, recalling his whip-sword. It's missing three segments and blue energy crackles through live wires bared as the weapon's sheath snaps back around it, but the damage is not irreparable. Sun Quan's arms ache with the sudden loss of adrenaline, fatigued muscles trembling slightly, but yet again he has emerged unscathed. "Zhou Tai," he repeats. "Are you still…" Alive? Functional? Operational? Sun Quan isn't even sure what to say anymore. He holds his breath, not daring to turn around.
"…yes," Zhou Tai reports after a beat, his modulated voice void of inflection.
Sun Quan's fist tightens in his shirtsleeve as his heart takes a tumble. (The shirt is slashed and slivered but none of the blood is his own. He'd seen the hooks sink into Zhou Tai's flesh though. They'd been fighting back to back and once or twice Zhou Tai had hauled him bodily aside. He'd seen…) "Can you still move?"
"Yes."
"Come to me."
It takes a few seconds for Zhou Tai to comply, and Sun Quan feels the guilt all over again when his friend (-comrade. Bodyguard. Partner) rounds the corner, his eyes dark, dimmed.
Zhou Tai is torn and stained. Glistening metal, scratched and dented, shines through his skin in places; blood and silicone oil mix trickling down his face, dulling his clothes. One strong hand jerks to a silent rhythm-a shorted circuit, perhaps, or corrupted data elsewhere. Zhou Yu would be able to tell for sure. Sun Quan cannot. He takes a deep breath, composing himself. "Report."
"Two score targets eliminated," Zhou Tai tells him. "Damage… non-critical. Emergency core cooling system on standby."
Sun Quan looks up and Zhou Tai's prosthetic eye flickers to sharp, electric-red life, cosmetic lens shattered. The synthetic skin above and below it is split by a long, vertical slash and curls unnervingly back from the metal plate beneath. Just short of reaching out, Sun Quan clenches his hand and drops his gaze to the ground where both their boots still stand intact and he can pretend for a moment that so does Zhou Tai. "Does it hurt?" His voice, though quiet, doesn't shake.
Zhou Tai does not reply.
Sun Quan looks back up with almost a glare. There's anger on the tip of his tongue, in his eyes, fiercely self-depreciating but he can't say any of it because there are people who look to him, who respect him and expect him to… protect them.
Zhou Tai reaches out, slowly, touching Sun Quan's arm with the hand that isn't paralysed. The brief contact is warm and soft, so innately human that Sun Quan's gut twists all over again. "Doesn't… matter."
Yes, Sun Quan interprets with guilt, closing his eyes. Yes, it hurts but I don't matter. He can't stop the tears; still, Zhou Tai never wants apologies so all Sun Quan can give is a silent thank you as he rests his forehead against a steel-lined chest and cries for the beating of a still-there heart.
*
Sun Quan wishes, when it's dark, when he's alone, it's cold and he's more than lonely; wishes sometimes that it was love. To write Zhou Tai's selfless sacrifice off as something emotional and irrational would be easier than accepting it as duty, as due, as for the cause-for Sun Quan the figurehead and symbol of the Resistance rather than Sun Quan the man who would love right back and freely fight and bleed and give his life in return.
But it is not love.
It is nothing like love.