Archive of Our Own

As vain or morbid as it might appear, in the aftermath of the grand fight you find yourself surveying the landscape in search of - well - yourself. 

There are dozens of you sprawled out on the ground, collapsed in a heap, slumped against another corpse, and so on; it’s hard to not feel so disgruntled yet fascinated. Although it may be some form of psychological visual bias blinking behind your eyes, you cannot help but think that there are more you that passed here than anyone else. 

Be it a measure of your survivorship or some predestined fate - perhaps your being alive right now is a funny outlier in the grand scheme of things. You have questions, to say the least. Asking Lord Liu Kang about it, however, would be impossible - not only inappropriate, given the timing, but it was doubtful he’d proffer you a straightforward explanation. 

Besides, there was no answer he could deign that would convince you that you had anything but a tendency to die or a firm absence of plain luck, both of which felt sheepish to acknowledge with finality. You are perhaps better off not exploring this pattern. 

It’s a pity above all, you think, in seeing all these mutilated versions of you: it would have been terribly intriguing to hold a conversation with yourself. Should the integrity of the timeline barriers hold too, you might never get the opportunity to ever at all. It was uncertain as to when they would close entirely, but until then you suspect it would be close to impossible to pass through undetected. 

There is a pressing twinge in your back when you straighten up; with the settling of your adrenaline, the full force of your weariness was seeping in like the congealing viscera atop your leather boots. You occasionally got a stress flare in your lower torso - such was the nature of how you fought - and it was to your misfortune it was happening now. Suddenly, everything felt nigh unbearable: the cold sweat on your neck, the grime sticking your eyelashes together. Your body quivers, de-escalating. The acid in your muscles sting. You exhale a slow breath, grounding yourself in the midst of the mass graveyard, and wipe your hands on the last clean spot on your pants.

You are alive. You are: alive.

So maybe it was simply best to count your blessings and not the number of cadavers you spot. For instance: you’ve all your limbs and fingers intact, you haven’t suffered any fatal lacerations, and you possess an ineffable confidence that the ones dearest to you have survived. For now, this should be enough. 

Sooner or later, you will have to regroup with Kuai Liang to discuss what next. If you can find your Kuai Liang, anyway, among the throng of Scorpions, some more audibly tempered than others. How intriguingly different they all were. He wasn’t the only one with range either. Only a few moments ago, you had the rare honour of standing beside a Bi-Han from another timeline whose cordiality had made your heart ache. Your sentimentality chases you everywhere, it seems. 

Tomas, only a few paces away and gingerly stepping over bodies to close the distance, sends you a disapproving look. And you know it’s your Tomas, the Smoke from your timeline, because of the knowing and fretful way he says: “I really don’t think you should be doing that.”

“What do you mean?” Then, you remember the body by your feet, wearing the same armour and tactical clothing you wear. “Oh. Looking, you mean.”

“For your own sake. It can be a heavy sight.”

He has a point, you concede. He’s crossed a few dead Smokes just to get to you, and he hardly paid them any mind - perhaps on purpose.

But you make a face of indifference and take towards the distance instead, even though the sight of your blown-out gaze overlays in your mind. It’s just so curious is all, and you’re surprised not more people find it so. “Where’s Kuai Liang?”

“I don’t know. I imagine he’s gone to find Lord Liu Kang,” Tomas surmises. Then, with renewed concern, “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“Thankfully not.” From the corner of your eye, Tomas’s eyebrows twitch and though half his face is concealed by a mask positively misted in blood, he is emotive - you can see the very moment his gaze phases from worry to relief. 

“No bones broken, sprained, nothing?”

At that moment, your skin prickles and you cannot say why. You remember your back and stay your hands; instead you touch your wrist with your opposite hand in idle motion. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Good, that’s good. You know, I…” He pauses. Ever so briefly, he spares an askance look down at the dead you. Hypocrite.

“What is it?” 

Though your attention is captured, he only shakes his head. “Never mind. Let us find Kuai Liang and any other survivors, and meet at the top. As soon as we’re sorted, I imagine we’ll have to depart at once.”

You nod and he leaves without another word. People move on either side of you but the prickling stays; you tense. For a beat, you think to hurry after Tomas and suggest looking for his brother together, so as to not be split up again. But rationale wins over your sudden bout of oddity - clinginess seemed too dramatic to describe it - and you turn on your heel. 

There are a number of bright-vested Scorpions, as you had noticed. Some have the gall to look you up and down like they’ve passed a ghost. You don’t look too hard into that.

It’s hard to tell how much time passes before you give up your search and make your way towards the pyramid. You manage instead to cross paths with Raiden and Kenshi, who graciously allow you to join their weary party up the steps. Although you hadn’t the opportunity to talk with either of them much before, you found that after such an arduous event any stiffness quickly fell away into true camaraderieship. 

“How did you find it, fighting yourself?” Raiden asks you at one turn. “Kenshi said he didn’t focus on that aspect, but it was strange, looking into my own image.”

“It’s strange to me too. I wonder what happened in those timelines - to make us so alike yet different.”

“A million little differences, I’d guess,” says Kenshi, reflective. You find that you agree.

Raiden makes a thoughtful noise. “But enough to lead a version of us into wanting the destruction of an entire timeline? I can’t fathom it.”

“I am not justifying the behavior - only explaining it,” replies Kenshi. “There must be infinite ways of how things went, the way Lord Liu Kang explained it.”

After that, the steps get more tiring and you save your breath. The vastness implied in Kenshi’s response keeps you thinking even as you reach the top plateau of the pyramid where, thank the Elder Gods, you spot both Kuai Liang and Tomas by Lord Liu Kang. Tomas turns his body towards you in greeting while Kuai Liang gives you an acknowledging nod.

“It’s time to leave,” says Lord Liu Kang once the three of you join the group. 

“Sun Do?” confirms Raiden. Lord Liu Kang nods.

You remark upon Lord Liu Kang’s profile: despite what he must have endured for eons, he stands tall and strong with the regality beyond that of a mere god: in hindsight, how did no one notice?

And yet, for all of a Time Keeper’s power, there must be some things entirely out of his control. The wickedness of Shang Tsung, for instance. What else? Across the timelines, what other unshakeable truths are there? 

You’re left to mull on this for yourself. Lord Liu Kang is the first to cross the portal to your timeline, and you stand to the side as with the other Lin Kuei defectors. You are one of the last to leave, and what a terrible sight it is before you, all the way to the horizon. 

By now, the prickling sensation has returned. Your skin is crawling with someone’s nonstop staring, like the feeling of imminent ambush. But if they didn’t strike before, why had they waited until now? Only as you are graced by an arm’s reach away to safety, do you dare try to find the assailant. 

You see nothing out of the ordinary, with everyone leaving for their respective timelines. Not at first, anyway. It is only when you are right there, with the tendrils of the portal licking your gear and coaxing you into its salvation, do you look to the side for the final time, and down the stairs. 

Standing by the edge is another timeline’s Smoke, like a statue and just as monochrome, who stares intently at you. His presence would not have put you on the edge if not for his apparent body language. He’s certainly facing you, making eye contact - and if you hadn’t seen with your own eyes Tomas’s back disappear into the portal’s abyss before yourself, why, you could swear they were one and the same.

For a moment, you’re thrown by his steady disposition - and then the environment distorts around you. A bright glare stings you and you know before even blinking back your vision that you’ve returned to Outerrealm’s capital. 

Without thinking at all, you make as though to step from whence you came but a firm hand on your elbow impedes you to a halt. You look over.

Kuai Liang stares at you, questioning wordlessly, before releasing your arm. You’re not sure what you were doing either.

Better yet, you’re not sure what to make of what just happened. But you knew, as soon as you met that Smoke’s gaze: he had been watching you. 

Unexpectedly, the realisation is not so much frightening as it is puzzling, you find. 

You and the rest of the Lin Kuei defectors end up regrouping in Sun Do longer than anticipated, taking accommodation in a villa owned by the royal family. In the city outskirts, you prepare and wait. Kuai Liang and Tomas are needed for the meetings with Lord Liu Kang: you are not. Nearly every minute is spent in knowledge that in Earthrealm, Bi-Han was fortifying the Lin Kuei. 

It still feels funny and a bit tragic in your mouth, to reject the clan so wholly now. You imagine it’s even worse for the brothers.

Although Kuai Liang and Tomas always return to villa at night, you never see them during the day. You think they take dinner at the palace as you never see them in the mess hall but you’re not entirely sure. It’s a shame to be short of their company but you get by as you always have. Lending a villa to a handful of assassins with, by nature of trade, soft footfall was certainly a choice: aside from the communal areas, the halls feel as vacant as the first day. 

By the third day of this routine, you manage to anchor in your own schedule. You recite your katas in the morning, take breakfast in the mess hall, communal training until noon, lunch, a walk in the courtyard, a bath at dusk, reading until dinner. Though never alone, it is a quiet living.

On the fourth sunrise in Sun Do, to your confusion you discover Tomas outside, his back towards you, a hand on a dummy. Not wanting to disturb him, you consider performing your recitations on the grass for today but then he looks over his shoulder and the chance to slip away withers.

You wait for him to greet you first but in his prolonged silence you take initiative. Striding closer, you ask, “No meetings today?”

“Not now,” he answers. “Later though, yes.”

“Anything new yet?” You don’t know why you press: while both Kuai Liang and Tomas are transparent in the endeavor, asking prematurely feels badgering. With Tomas alone now, it felt more possible, and yet -

He pulls away from the dummy. “Nothing concrete that I can say yet, about the passage. Sorry.”

You shake your head. His stilted sorry is quite near palpable. “I understand. I do.”

“Should there be new insights today, I will deliver them. But - what of you? You are faring alright here?”

“I don’t feel much one way or another. I was going to recite my katas.”

“Katas?” he repeats with a blink, and with an overtone of playfulness, “You really must be bored.”

Was it obvious? “You needn’t say that aloud. It’s for discipline.” A pause as your line of sight falls from his face, past the freckle by his mouth to his outer jacket’s collar, torn right at the low Y at his solar plexus. It is irking, the frayed rip - small things like these make you fussy. You gesture to it. “You should get that mended. Shall I?”

“Will you?” he says, so airily that you purse your mouth, wondering if you misspoke. He grimaces. “I mean - no, that’s alright. I’ll manage it myself.”

“Sure,” you say, not wanting to stir up anything this early in the morning. “My offer stands either way.”

“Thank you.”

You tilt your head in kind, taking this moment to break free. You’re losing time on your katas, after all. But then Tomas takes a step towards you, hands twitching at his sides. 

“Spar with me,” he blurts, uncharacteristically forward. 

Group training is after breakfast and you’re quite sure he knows that. But you cannot deny, there is something dear in a spar without an audience. No distractions, no judgement: just you and him. You want to refuse him - should refuse him. In fact, you scarcely think it’s a good idea now to be alone with him, you always end up having persistent and meritless and distracting thoughts -

“No weapons,” you say, eyeing his strapped karambit. “I feel I’ve gotten too reliant on my knife as is.”

“No weapons,” he promises. 

With no reason to refuse him now, you back up, stretch your legs, and get into stance. You lower your head and train your eyes, seeing nothing else but the man before you. 

“I feel as though we haven’t done this in ages, Tomas.” You say it as though the distance is not purposefully orchestrated every time.

A wry smile passes across his lips. “No kidding.”

He is, as anticipated, a formidable opponent with an incredible understanding of how you moved and thought. Between the fog haze and the bitterness of smoke that trails him in his wake, you’re exerting more effort to focus than you thought you would this morning. 

And for his integrity, you’re taken aback when he attempts mid-match to distract you with words. The next time you engage, forearm-to-forearm, he asks the strangest thing -

“How is your back?”

“My - back?” you repeat, a breath taken between the words. Then, ruing that you’ve nearly stumbled, missing the window for an offensive swipe, you double back. Setting aside the fact that somehow he had correctly deduced your invisible pains, you manage to reply in the next beat, “It’s fine.”

“You don’t have to lie. I know you like to hide your injuries.”

Lie? What an accusation. True, but needless. 

“Whether I do or not has nothing to do with you,” you say, surprise an overtone in your voice, “but - thank you kindly for the concern.” You don’t mean it but perhaps you do sound a bit cross - but in all fairness, his open expression of your vulnerability felt uncannily cornering; almost, even, too familiar. 

His eyes widen though you’ve said nothing out of the ordinary. Haven’t you? And, hell, you should be the one looking scandalised, not him. For whatever reason, you feel the necessity to completely lurch yourself out the match, drawing it into an abrupt stalemate. You stand still as he rocks to a halt, combatting his body’s inertia. 

“No, you’re right,” Tomas says. He scrapes a hand over his forehead, sweeping his hair. Some of it sticks up in tufts. “It’s been… a strange few days.”

“Yes, it has,” you answer, not for nothing. “I think we’re all on edge between this scuffle with Shang Tsung and Bi-Han.”

He nods. “Yes, and being cooped up here can’t be easy. But going back to Earthrealm now without a plan is suicide. As soon as Lord Liu Kang can get us passage to a safe location, we should be alright. We should be getting the details on that shortly.”

His bluntness was almost painful to hear. Lord Liu Kang certainly had a lot on his plate now. “Like this afternoon, shortly?”

“Potentially.”

“In that case,” you say. “I really would insist on fixing your collar before you go to the palace.”

He blinks. At first, you think he is about to politely refuse you again, until - “If you really don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I’ve done it for you before, don’t you remember?”

“Yes, of course. I am always grateful.” 

“Get changed and give it over when you can. Well - you could give it now, too. Might be more convenient.”

He pauses, wordlessly looking back and forth from you to his gear. “Okay,” he says. He turns around to undo his jacket. 

As much as you’d like to favor him with some privacy, there is something niggling in the back of your mind. His affectations are precise but the issue was this: you know Tomas Vrbada. You’ve known him for years now, would recognise his habits, have always respected a strict distance between you and him for the tenets of Lin Kuei do not allow trust between assassins to supersede that to the clan. 

No matter how artificial that distance was, you both abided by it. It’s a given, then, that sensible, intuitive, subtle Tomas would never ask you about your back or compose himself so loosely. 

You don’t know this man. Or correction: shapeshifter. 

You shallow your breathing. Your body moves like water. Bolstered by the element of surprise, you levy one precise kick to his lower spine that knocks him roughly to his knees. It does more than give you a chance to subdue him - something solid goes absolutely flying out of his open jacket, skidding across the stone training grounds. It bounces once, twice, thrice - the glint of its metal almost luminescent in the foggy atmosphere.

Any normal situation you would hardly give any thought to a loose item falling out of an enemy’s inner pocket, but this time, you cannot stop the “Huh?” that escapes.

You both see the object on the ground, paces away, and Not-Tomas doesn’t bother to face you. Even from a distance, you recognise it right away, like your own flesh appendage. The man sighs - already knowing, forfeiting. Your chest lifts and lowers unsteadily, your own composure shattered, your suspicions muddled even further. 

“You have my knife,” you utter lamely. You wish you are mistaken but when he doesn’t rebuke anything, bewilderment awashes you from the inside-out.

Unless he somehow stole it from your room, you cannot imagine why he’d be in possession of it. The surge for a proper fight sinks and you actually find yourself wanting to flee, unwilling to confront whatever this was. “Did you steal it from me?”

“In a manner of speaking, I guess I did,” he admits, sounding less sorry than you would like. He gets to his feet and rubs the dirt off his palms. You come around in slow steps - not to immediately pick up the blade, but to look at him again. The inconspicuous little things reveal themselves to you: his hair is long enough to be pushed back, his clothes are torn in ways you never noticed before. His pale eyes are the same, pupils ever-roving to track your gaze, looking at you like you hadn’t just kicked him right in the spine.

Maybe understandably so, but you’re still disturbed. A victor’s trophy, of sorts. The hairs on your neck raise and you can finally recognise everything for what it is. “Why have you come here?”

His hands pause together. Not-Tomas makes a noise - both amused and sad at the same time. His crypticism - or plain melodrama - bothers you, even after you’ve gauged him as not the threat you thought him out to be. 

“Let’s talk inside,” Not-Tomas suggests, much too lightly for your liking. He walks to the side, swipes up your knife, and slips it away so calmly, it’s terrifying. Your muscle memory demands you to take your knife back but the way he handles it makes it clear: that knife, no matter how identical it is to yours, belongs to him in his timeline. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Who are you?”

“Tomas Vrbada. I also go by Smoke. You’re right that I’m not… your timeline’s Smoke, but I mean you no harm.” He cocks his head to the side. “(Y/N). Would you like us to kick up a ruckus out here or may I explain myself in peace?”

The former had the possibility to turn extremely dicey, extremely fast. Worse yet, you were curious as to what this man was doing here, if not to order the destruction of the timeline. Though clearly in disagreement with the selection, your silence makes your choice known. 

Against all common sense screaming not to, you usher him into your room with remarkable urgency. You don’t want him there, of course, but you’d prefer to sequester him than parade the fact that a Smoke from another timeline has sneaked his way into Sun Do. You sit him down in one chair and you sit opposite from him, determined to keep him in your periphery at some safe distance. 

And you still mend his jacket, as promised, even if your forehead is wrinkled all the while.

The worst part of it is that he just cannot stop staring at you and every little movement you make. Your paranoia whispers that he’s looking for an in, a hearty quarter-second to slit your throat; but you ignore it, keeping your head ducked. Your hands roam over his worn jacket, the padding thinned over the years. You’ve done this a number of times before, for multiple comrades and each time no less clinical. 

Not-Tomas was upending all sense of propriety, which was making him more trouble than worth. Not only were his answers sparse but at times he would devolve into accidental silence just so he could watch you. In his chair, he crosses his ankles and rests an elbow on the wooden armrest, so lax it’s ridiculous. Almost intolerably so.

“I did not mean to trick you about who I am,” he says, drumming his fingers. “But when you asked the question, I panicked.”

“Not helping,” you say. 

His eyebrows come together. “I’m trying.”

“Then, tell me about where you’ve absconded. Do you plan to go back?”

“I do. We suffer the same issue with being labeled as Lin Kuei defectors.”

You actually don’t blame him for wanting to skip out on this headache by dabbling in another timeline, even temporarily. You don’t say as much, however. Instead, you grunt, stabbing the stiff fabric with your needle. 

An uneasy quiet falls on the room. It’s hard to treat him as an adversary, given that he hasn’t yet done anything malicious. Maybe if you gave some information, he would be more eager to return the favour. You clear your throat and aggregate something off-handed. 

“You asked about my back earlier. Well. I had a flare-up two days ago. It’s okay now but I had to take it easy during practice.”

“I see.” You hear him shift in his seat. “So long as you know your limits.”

“That’s right. And you - any injuries?”

“Nothing I can’t manage. I took a hit on the side so there’s a bruise,” he says, and you lift your head in time to see him gesture his ribs. “But it looks worse than it is, I promise.”

“Have you tried a cold pack?”

“Heat pack,” he says. “Cold imbalances my chi.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” It’s a bit annoying, actually, that he presumes you would care about bruised ribs. You move onto another tear in his jacket. 

“Have you eaten breakfast yet?” he asks. 

“Yes,” you lie.

“What did you have?”

“Congee.”

Not-Tomas pauses. “Why? Are you ill?”

“No. It’s simple and filling and - and enough of this. I am not going to talk breakfast with a clone.” Hastened, you tear off the ends of the threads. If he wants neat stitches, he’ll have to slice off the long tails himself. “It’s done.” You raise it from your lap, goading him to take it from you himself. 

Almost too willingly, Not-Tomas does. “That was fast.” Delicately, he hovers over you and takes it, not minding his nor your own personal space. You grumble out a “yeah, yeah,” waiting for him to retreat so that you might get up and put your thread and needle away. 

But: he lingers overhead. 

“Thank you,” he says. He bends in half, hand on the back of your chair, and kisses your forehead. 

Your nerves splinter like how lightning does unto a dead tree. It would be easier to say that you blushed, Tomas’s mouth on your skin a forbidden design, but you hadn’t. The shock of his boldness chills you to the bone. 

You freeze, all two words in you’re welcome turning into a puff of - oh, for the love of - smoke in your lungs. Back again you are to thinking that someone had stolen his likeness. If he had struck then it would have been the cleanest kill ever, for you hadn’t even thought to dodge. He doesn’t even realise what he has done until he pulls away and sees your flat line of a mouth and unseeing eyes. It’s the natural transition from taking the jacket and kissing you that draws the blood from your face. 

“(Y/N),” Tomas says and by pure accident you look at how his mouth moves around your name. Like hell he wasn’t a threat - he was devastating you and it wasn’t even intentional.

“Tomas,” you reply. “I wonder if there’s been some miscommunication.” 

“I didn’t mean it.”

Your eyes snap up at him. “The kiss or the miscommunication?” Your voice pitches high, but you manage to wrangle it down by the end. “Why would you - what - ”

His fingertips are against his lips like he cannot believe what he’s just done either. 

The emotion vibrating out of his body suddenly makes sense. The pieces fall into place. You force your diaphragm to settle. Eyes downcast, you jab your sewing needle into the thread. 

“I feel like I have to let you know this place’s Tomas doesn’t kiss me on the forehead after I fix his clothes.”

He winces. “Judging from your reaction, I figured. I won’t do that again.”

You sigh through your nose. “You will not mistake me for whoever I am in your timeline.”

“No,” he says, and he sounds breathless. A creak on the wooden floor indicates he has taken a step backward. “I won’t.”

“Did I - did the me from your timeline die during the battle against Titan Shang Tsung?” you ask because you have to. 

“No,” he affirms. Then, eyes on his loose jacket bundled in his arms, touching the stitches you’ve made: “You died before that.” 

“I see.”

“We were ambushed and I underestimated how many were laying in wait.” 

“You’re lying. An ambush?”

He searches your face. “Why would I lie about that?”

You swallow, your mortality too close for comfort. Given that you’re not falling to hysterics, you’d say you’re faring alright. But, goodness - maybe you really were meant to die young, in every timeline. Your heart is plummeting yet to feign otherwise: “Well. I had thought you killed me and took my knife as a trophy so frankly, this is a welcome discovery, if true.”

Tomas’s face falls; he looks stricken that you would say such a thing and so blithely as well. “I would never betray you. I swore that to you from the start.”

“The start?”

His voice is controlled but the flush creeping up his neck is undeniable. Ignoring your outcry, he asks, “What is the nature of your relationship with your Tomas here?”

You wonder if you look as sick as you feel. He was saying something so ludicrous, it feels unreal - you and Tomas, what - how could that happen - by the tenets of the clan, who could condone it? You bark out a clipped laugh. “Why is that a point of interest? Were you together? Our tenets do not allow that.” It is all rhetorical, because oh, shit. The truth is glaring from the way he conducts himself to what he speaks, like it was written right above his head. “You really came here to see me because I died in your timeline.”

Exiting the chair to afford some space between you and him, you make your way to the edge of the bed. Reeling, you almost stumble into a table.

In a way, it should not come as a shock that somewhere, in at least one of the timelines, you had the bravery and luck to have Tomas for your own. Well - not a whole lot of luck, anyway, since you still apparently died over there. 

You think he says your name multiple times, but it is only when he is right behind you, his voice a low whisper pervading through your entire body, that you can hear him. You feel his body heat boxing you in from behind, your knees knocking against the mattress. It sounds identical to how Tomas - your Tomas - talks on reconnaissance assignments with you, with his head tilted close to your ear, except his mask is off now and you can hear the natural timbre in his voice so much more clearly.

“You were hesitant, at first. We both were. But things happened and I knew - I couldn’t just let you go.”

“Clearly. You’ve jumped a rogue timeline to see a version of your lover.”

“I’m sentimental,” he agrees. “The you I knew was too.”

You make an instinctive moue of disgust. “What a gross echo chamber of emotion you two must be.”

He has the audacity to smile at this - you can practically hear it in his voice. “As far as flaws go, it could’ve been worse.”

“My friend, everything could be worse, it’s hardly a measure,” you bleat.

“Oh,” says Tomas. In the following sheepish mumble, “Oh… that’s right. I guess we are only friends here.”

By the gods, you think, stunned: he’s lost the plot. You refrain desperately from pinching your nose bridge, refusing to believe that your ears are as hot as they seem to be. You’ve never heard him so whiny. It’s something marvelling. Is this truly what he is like, in other timelines? In the ones where you and him - ?

You cannot bear finishing the thought. Forget him - you’re evidently losing more than the plot yourself.

“Alright, widower. I’m sorry I died, but that’s out of my hands. Can’t you speak with your Time Keeper?”

“No, no, I’m not here to revive you.”

Even his protest is endearing. “I don’t understand why you’ve come then.”

“I suppose - ” He stops, clearly rearranging his thoughts. “I suppose I’m here to see you were well, in this timeline if not in mine. And to say goodbye.”

Gods. You feel the last strings of self-restraint snap. You turn and yank him in by the front of his robe, he yelps, and you two fall on the duvet. 

As much as you think to pull all the stops and go straight into having sex with Not-Tomas-But-Still-Tomas, you’re unimaginably fine with lying beside him, peering at him from a vantage point you have never once before seen in your life and it’s really a wonder of sorts. By consequence, you’ve missed breakfast. He fiddles with your loose belt that has betrayed you and crossed to his side of the bed. 

“I take it that you like me in this timeline too?” he asks, resting on his side. It’s such an insidious question, too, that your reply feels like it is uttered around a wet mound of cotton. 

“Maybe.”

“But you and him aren’t - ?” 

A creep of heartbreak or something akin to it lodges itself in the base of your throat. “No. Not this timeline.” You point your gaze decidedly at the ceiling panels. “I don’t think it’s like that.”

Tomas hums. 

“You think otherwise.”

“I want to believe you,” he says. “But I loved you far longer than I ever let on.”

The tip of your nose tickles. You try desperately to hide your fluster, but his gaze isn’t at all teasing. In fact, it’s a bit far away. “I never got the chance to tell you that,” he murmurs. 

Though you’re curious, you hesitate to ask about yourself. You allow him to exist in his own thoughts. Eventually, he props his head up on an elbow and says, “If you ever get ambushed in the southeast of Arctika while on patrol, please find a way to flee no matter what.”

His words end eerily; he almost certainly implies something happened that held you back from saving your own hide first. “And you said you were on the patrol too?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know I can’t do that.”

A whisper of a smile passes over him. Maybe he did know that. 

“The Lin Kuei tenets are there for a reason, I cannot refute that,” says Tomas, changing the subject obtusely. “But you’re no longer obliged to them.”

You’re startled to find that you hadn’t thought about it and indeed, he’s right. You’re not Lin Kuei anymore, not technically. The limbo period you fell into now was lawless, however, and as easy as it was to recognise that, you could not shake off principles you have internalised for years. 

“Just think on it,” he says in your silence. “Because what is it that you fear? Exile? Or rejection?”

“Both?” you gander.

“You need only fear one.”

This is un-fucking-real, the conversation, his presence, his proclamations, the knife, all of it. “So you say, but you’re biased. You’ve already fallen in love.”

“Yes, but I’m also me? I think that counts for something.”

You turn to him, forcing his half-lidded gaze up at you. “So who made the first move - me or you?”

“I… hm, I don’t think I should say.”

Aha, you think: you have got him now. “You aren’t one to stray from tradition. Neither am I. Forgive me for my doubt but what you speak of doesn’t sound very plausible. You risked exile? My - this Tomas would not.”

Tomas pauses.

“I think I understand your concern,” he says eventually, his mouth pursed. “You suspect I return your feelings but think that I would never admit it, not that I don’t like you at all.”

His chiding tone has you faltering. “No, that’s not... Listen, I don’t know anything - you’re putting words in my mouth!” 

Tomas only chuckles.

This merits a groan. There’s something to be said about him attempting to be his own wingman and then bungling it, but that’s neither here nor there. “You were daring to come here. For all you knew, Tomas Vrbada could have been my number one nemesis that I’ve been trying to exterminate.”

“Well,” Tomas says, “you looked pretty friendly with him there at the pyramid. I had to take the shot.”

“You were watching me all that time? In the middle of a, I don’t know, timelines-shattering battle of our lives?”

“I’m a half-decent tracker. I can multitask.”

You snort, your chest in flutters. You two take off your gear and gauntlets and adjust how you rest atop the bed. The conversation turns winding after that, swapping stories and seeing where in both timelines paralleled and where they diverged. Rather than the content, you can tell he delights in the act of conversing with you, and who are you to deny him?

Some truths, you find, are rock solid. Unmovable. Shang Tsung’s wickedness, Bi-Han’s ambition, Emperor Jerrod’s murder. Time becomes abstract for a while. 

You kiss Not-Tomas some time after lunch, when you should be on a walk. You did not mean for it to happen but it does. You kiss him after he tells you the barriers are closing so he ought to leave before they do. Lest -

“I could take your Tomas’s place,” he suggests, while turning from the window. You think he’s still half-joking.

“The Time Keepers would know,” you counter, as if that’s the issue here. 

“Yes, but we would be together. You wouldn’t have to deal with me holding you at arm’s length and I wouldn’t - ” Tomas stops himself.

You raise your eyebrows. “Wouldn’t deal with a dead me.” Very healthy way of handling grief, you’re sure.

“Wouldn’t let you die this time,” he corrects. He dips close, an affectionate hand on your jaw but you take it a step further, your own exploratory hand pulling on his hem.

His breath ghosts your lips. It almost doesn’t even happen, you getting cold feet or maybe he does, but then Tomas closes the distance and takes you into his arms like it’s nothing new, like he’s done this innumerable times before. 

Tomas makes a soft sound into your mouth, and with his eyes shut you can only imagine what he was thinking. All you knew was that if you thought too hard about your own actions it would make your head spin.

A small, defiant part of you tells you that you’re making everything worse for yourself. Common sense does return, eventually. 

“I missed this,” he says after a while, his voice a rasp. “All of it. Being with you, being in the same room as you, talking.”

“That’s it, then,” you say, not quite a question but not a statement either. 

He squints down at you, still reclining on the bed. “I think so. You look well and I’ve all but said my farewells.”

“What a disciplined, virtuous man you are. You really loved me, huh?” 

His eyes are shiny. “You have no idea. Well, you might find out soon enough.”

You pull yourself up, sitting on your knees. Allow yourself a small smile. “Goodbye, Tomas.”

It’s unceremonious as departures go. Tomas takes his mended outer jacket and leaves like a wraith and you collapse on the bed, sprawled out and exhausted. Left with a hollow feeling as if you’ve lost something you can never retrieve, you forego your routine for the rest of the day. Once you’re positive the anomaly of a man must be half across the city, making his way to the portal, it’s only then you get up to get your knife, if just to look at it. 

It’s nothing special really, form-wise. It’s not shabby. Not built for his grip but anyone could use it decently. But you get it, why he carries it. You do.

You try to distract yourself by reading but none of the print makes any sense. After dinner, you roam the halls like a spectre or maybe like a forlorn puppy, antsiness unbidden. 

Kuai Liang and Tomas return after the sun sets. You linger only long enough to see that it is your Tomas that returns - familiar choppy hair and dark eye circles from sleepless nights - before retreating. You could not in good conscience bombard him now with what you’d just experienced but in due time, maybe. 

Simultaneously wanting to monopolise his space and to leave him utterly alone, you compromise in sending him a polite nod before taking your leave. It’s strangely thrilling, how you know things that he has yet to understand. You feel his stare on your back, a prickling sensation, all the way until you turn a corner and disappear from his line of sight.

On Earthrealm some weeks later, things slow down. Although the accommodation provided by Harumi Shirai is no less transitive than the one in Sun Do, there exists a certain atmosphere that allows you to breathe comfortably. Kuai Liang is looking brighter too, which is a good sign needless to say.

The Tomas that laid in bed with you in Sun Do sometimes returns to mind like a cozy dream, but it’s the Tomas that stands before you now that fascinates you. Although you could never be entirely certain of his sentiments towards you now, you possessed a terrifying hope. 

One of the unexpected downsides about losing so many fellow comrades was in fact losing sparring partners. You’d discovered this in your lazy days in Sun Do, but it seems like Tomas, who had been wrapped up in meetings, was only realising this at full force now. His movements against the dummy were paced, memorised. 

If he was bored, he didn’t let that show. You want to toss him a lifeline anyway. 

Steadily, you made your way to him, tucking the ends of your finger bandages neatly. Already noticing you approach from the side, he tilts his head. “Is everything okay?”

He looks at you with curiosity, and none of that overflowing adoration and intrigue Not-Tomas does. In retrospection, Not-Tomas had a fair bit of blind faith in this, in you two. Does this Tomas already know you find your lonely katas boring? Or will he eventually find that out for himself? Food for thought.

All of a sudden, you think how funny it might be to do away with courtship altogether and just hit him with I love you, by the gods I love you and it took another you to say that to me to realise it for myself, paradoxically enough - and see how he flails. 

You don’t do that, though. That’s more of a second date sort of thing. 

“Of course. Will you spar with me, Tomas?”

And, you don’t know why exactly, but you’re pleased at how readily he agrees.