Rust feels the need to be a leader for the others and has issues with being vulnerable. Whenever he is, it’s terrifying in his eyes and he can’t be vulnerable, too many people rely on him for him to let them all down.
He doesn’t think he deserves the same things as normal humans, not because he did anything wrong, but because his purpose is as a symbol. Everyone he’s met in rebellions he ends up losing, whether by their deaths or his own deaths.
He’s been alone for… quite some time. No true home, just trying to get by in a world that is against him.
And then, on the night of a protest gone awry, he collapses in an alleyway and finds himself in the middle of nowhere, with someone who patched him up.
The someone who bears a striking resemblance to himself.
They talk a bit, and in the morning Rust leaves, not planning to ever return.
However…
Something brings him back. Maybe it was curiosity, plain and simple. Maybe it was his human nature to connect with people. Maybe they were simply drawn together by their nature.
Whatever it is, it’s what makes him end up at their doorstep time and time again.
His excuses to himself go from “got banged up pretty badly” to “it’s raining” to “I just don’t want to be alone tonight.” Zero gives him the spare room for him to use whenever he needed, and slowly, he makes it his own.
He holds a certain apprehensiveness around Zero at first, but as time passes, he lets his walls down.
It’s odd. They don’t view him as a threat to authority, or a savior of the common people, they view him as Rust. Himself. And this remains true throughout the years. There’s a certain safety he feels with Zero- they’re equals, they’re best friends, they’ve seen each other at some of their highest points and most vulnerable points.
And slowly, Rust realizes, as he is surrounded by Zero and the rest of the odd little family they’ve built, that maybe it’s okay to want.
Word vomit but rambling about Rust having internalized expectations for what he should be and how those expectations begin to break because of Zero
This is so so very awsome 🥹🌹 Rust is very awsome
