Work Text:
Sometimes, when things get hard, Sicheng thinks that there's nothing left for him in this wasteland. There's other people who can do his job, and he gets sorely tempted to do what he wanted before the apocalypse--run away, find a botlhole somewhere, he and Dejun living out the rest of their days with no need for outside contact.
In times like this he reconsiders. Because there's a voice crying out in his head, desperately searching for minds in reach. The weak voice is overwhelmed with angry dull red of pain, pain like the owner of the voice has never felt before. It's coming from very, very near, barely a few feet away, which is unfortunate because Sicheng is standing in a dead end. Nothing branching off from where the hall he came from, three solid walls around.
Sicheng sighs and slides down to the floor with his back against the wall, folding his legs under him and resting his head in his palms to focus himself. Closing his eyes, he follows the thread of distress, almost reaching the other mind before he feel a push at his own.
It's Dejun, of course, alarmed at the break in the flow of his thoughts. Sicheng describes the situation in bare words, sending over a mental summary of the events. Dejun withdraws with a last spike of concern that means be careful . Sicheng picks up the thread again, busy mind quieting until only the distress call fills him.
There's a barrier when he reaches the other mind. Sicheng pushes as gently as he can, making his mind as unthreatening as possible. Then it breaches, and a tsunami of thoughts and information crashes over him. No matter how much he does this, he'll never get used to it. Time to get to work.
He searches methodically through the information, bobbing gently at the very top of the sea of a boy named Yangyang. He had been orphaned during the breakdown, scraping an existence out for himself for the past few years, until raiders found him, attacked him and stole his supplies, then blew up this place and left him for dead.
He thinks he's dead, right now, but he’s only knocked unconscious, brain still crying out for help. Sicheng can see him now, see the memories of this little apartment and the living he had carved out for himself. He tastes the tang of terror on his tongue when the raiders came, the boy terrified but not backing down until the raiders knocked him out and set the explosives.
He sees through the last few flickers of his consciousness, staring at the opening under the stones, valiantly trying to pull himself towards it before his strength wavered. Having seen all he needs, Sicheng slips out of the boy’s mind with utmost care.
With a shudder of breath he’s out, mind empty again, taking the time to reacquaint himself with the quiet of his own thoughts. Then, as he always does, he reaches for Dejun, whose consciousness melds with his own in a instance, so familiar it's as if they are only whole together. He relays the information he’s gathered to Dejun, who burns with sympathy.
Sicheng stands up, limbs wobbly, feeling slightly alien in his physical body. Now the walls around him are recognizable from his borrowed memories, and his eyes immediately draw to the hole in the wall, hidden over piles of detritus.
He heaves the mess away, arms straining. He may not be suited for a job in physical work, but he can do what he has do do. The crawlspace is small, but thankfully, he's thin, squeezing his way out the other end, covered in white concrete dust an a couple tiny stretch.
He can immediately see Yangyang, sprawled face-down, left leg pinned by a heavy dresser. Sicheng assesses the dresser, knows he can't life it on his own. So he reaches out to Dejun, lurking a little bit away. He's always a little paranoid when either of them has solo missions, for good reason. A situation like this, for example.
Sicheng's only solo right now because Kun thought there was no one left alive in here, and they were short of hands due to clan fighting too near to comfort. So Sicheng went alone, to scout for survivors and supplies. It's not like any human could harm him, after all, when he can curl around their mind and crush them from inside.
But it seems like now he needs to call in the muscle. I need help, send whoever's available. It'll take more than one person.
You're in luck , Dejun hums through. Hendery and Lucas are free, I can send them . Sicheng gives a mental nod and impresses directions to Dejun, waiting for confirmation before pulling back and crouching down to Yangyang's unconcious form.
He's still breathing, frail ribs, stubbornly pushing in and out. He looks like a ghost, covered in white dust, but he'll live for a long while if the team has anything to say about it. Sicheng finds his limp hand and gathers it in his own, squeezing gently as he attempts to comfort the distress call ringing out in the boy's mind.
It's times like this where he knows he cannot and will not run. Not only for Dejun's ake, but because no matter how much he avoids it, how unwise it is in a world like this, Sicheng cares. About their team.
Kun, who stretches himself thin with command's burden yet still finds it in himself to take care of each and every ward they take in, who took in Sicheng and Dejun where others would have turned them away in fear or sought to use them. Ten, who with a teasing tongue and worried eyes took care to stitch up the wound-ridden bodies of all he could.
Hendery, who put all he could into rebuilding some semblance of technology with this nimble mind and fingers, creating things out of random items that couldn't be more helpful. Lucas, best in the field and with a surprising head for strategy, keeping their little band alive and at peace with the other ragtag organizations of this disaster of a worlds.
And it went without saying that Dejun was there. Who is his entirety, to be honest, the one who knows all of his being, inside and out, as he did to him. They were one since the lands burned nearly a decade ago, and their minds melded together in the heat of the aftermath, abilities blossoming into each other and only getting stronger with use.
If this were another world, Sicheng would call them too invested in each other, but even though things are getting better, the world is still a wasteland. And together, they are strong, stronger than any other force. If Dejun dies, Sicheng will die with him.
Wow, you're in a sappy mood, Dejun whispers in the corner of his mind, but he’s touched. Sicheng pushes farther, until the outside edges of their consciousness meld together, tasting in the back of his throat Dejun’s idle trains of thought, the memories of Hendery and Lucas’ concerned faces as he sent them out for backup.
As if summoned, Sicheng hears something a ways away and pulls reluctantly away from Dejun's mind, reaching out to make sure it's Lucas and Hendery and not raiders come back to salvage. It is, and he presses a guiding touch upon them until he hears voices right on the opposite side of the wall.
"Sicheng, you in there?" Sicheng yells back an affirmative. "Get back, we're going to break down the wall." They’re far enough on the other side of the room to be fine, probably. He scoots in front of Yangyang's limp form.
The plaster wall is already unsturdy, and cracks run through it as they thump against the wall. It finally gives, and there Lucas appears, waving the dust away and stepping through, Hendery right on his heels. "Oh, damn," Lucas says, eyes landing on the boy trapped under the dresser. "Sicheng, move over."
Sicheng scrambles out of the way, pressing himself into a corner as Hendery and Lucas communicate wordlessly in a way borne out of urgency. They get a good handhold on the beam and lift. It's so heavy that even the both of them struggle to lift it, huffing and puffing as they carry it a few feet and let it drop down to the floor.
Hendery goes ahead to clear the opening out more and Lucas delicately lifts the injured boy across his shoulder, careful not to touch his leg. They rush through the halls, Hendery in front and Sicheng following quick in the back.
Before he can ask it, Hendery shouts back to him, “Ten's just outside, Dejun said to bring him." Sicheng sighs in relief. Ten likes to deny it, but he's the best doctor for miles around. Doctors are more rare and valuable than anything else in this wasteland, where most people resign to hoping they don’t die from their injuries..
The dust finally clears from the air as they emerge from the ruined building. Ten is standing, figure tensed, near their van. The back is open, and Hendery hops into the van and helps Lucas gently lay Yanyang into the makeshift cot. Ten jumps in, casting a critical eye over his injuries.
"I can't fix this here, we need to get back as quick as possible," he says in a clipped voice.
“I'll stay here to help,” Lucas says. With one last glance, Sicheng and Hendery hop out the back, closing the van back firmly and getting into the driver and passenger seats. As Hendery starts up the car, Sicheng rests his forehead against the window and sinks into the silence.
**
When the apocalypse hit, Sicheng and Dejun had been half-asleep on the couch, like any other normal day. In that moment, Sicheng had looked down at his boyfriend's head pillowed against his shoulder, and wished that he could see what was going on inside of his head. They had been dating for about six months.
This was something Sicheng never thought he would have, to be honest. To say he was unlucky in the dating scene would be an understatement. But Dejun had caught him off guard from the moment they met, kept surprising him in beautiful ways.
His way of thinking was positively alien, but one that Sicheng wanted to know. There was a niggling fear that once he knew Dejun inside and out, there would be no spark anymore, no relationship without novelty.
In the end he didn't have the time to do any of that, because the world exploded into reds and oranges as sound ripped through the country. Well, he got his wish, his world flooded with panic as he woke up with someone else in his mind. Boundaries became a thing of the past in a split second when with Dejun.
It was painfully difficult in the beginning, as every thought Sicheng tried to keep private drifting over to his mental other half, trying to differentiate what thoughts and memories were his and which were Dejun's.
The only thing that kept them together while learning control was the urgency of survival. He doesn't know how they got through it, honestly, it was all a blur. But over the rough two years they learned how to control every degree of their mental connection. Sicheng most certainly got his wish, and him and Dejun’s minds work together in ways he could never imagine, their differences fitting together as two halves.
Dejun’s mind paints swathes of beautiful imagery, recreating times and places with emphasis on what stood out to him, his quiet commentary flowing to frame the picture. Sicheng’s mind is like a forever-expanding page, different trains of thought writing themselves out and connecting to others in a giant web of words and information just as accurate as any picture.
And that's when they got picked up by Kun. Kun was stubborn as a bull, and all that determination went into keeping people together, saving lives, and defending innocents from the scavenging raiders roaming the desolation. Their powers have only grown since that time, reaching out into influencing others. At this point, love is too small a word to describe them.
They're Kun's most valuable asset now, but that's not why they stay. Better than food, weapons, security, or anything else coveted in this wasteland, was this little family they've made for themselves.
**
“Sicheng, we're here,” Hendery says gently. Sicheng raises his head form the window and blinks. They are, and Ten and Lucas are already rushing the injured boy inside the warehouse. Sicheng gets out and follows, feeling uncommonly useless as Ten starts work on Yangyang's leg, his medical equipment surrounding him.
Sicheng hovers a few feet away, keeping a corner of his eye out for any progress. The grey metal walls of the warehouse reflect light strangely, rippling blue light all around. Sicheng's closed his mind off briefly to get a respite from the harsh spike of Yangyang's distress call, so it surprises him when he feels arms thrown around him.
"You’re back," Dejun murmurs into his ear, pulling him close. Sicheng turns around, the tension leaving his body in Dejun's warm arms. He didn't realize how stressed he was until he came back home. Dejun presses a kiss to his forehead. "Ten, how does it look?"
"He'll make it, and there's a pretty good chance he'll walk again, though not without a limp. Sicheng sighs in relief, hands pressing Dejun against him. Finally relaxing, he opens his mind, feels Dejun pool into the spaces of his mind and fit in all the right, familiar ways.
As he stares into Dejun's dark eyes, he feels hopelessly destroyed and way too lucky. Dejun breaks eye contact and does the mental equivalent of blushing fiercely. It brings a heartfelt smile to Sicheng's face, and knows there's no other life he'd choose to have, even in this barren wasteland. He's the happiest he’s ever been.