I was so bummed about not having anything completed for the week that I woke up in the middle of the night and banged this out in 2 hours lmaoooo (i’ll post it to ao3 eventually)
Subscorp Week Day 1: Soulmates
💙Until You💛
((No warnings for this one 🥰 except for like one line about wanting to die, but that’s Kuai Kanon lol))
Kuai Liang peered down into the flames, called so easily to his hands.
They pulsed warmly; comfortable and right, and yet…they didn’t belong with him.
He had known this with inexplicable certainty since the first time he conjured them.
He had been elated and proud; at last, his hard work had paid off. Now he would be truly fit as a Lin Kuei warrior. But as he attuned to the beautiful orange-yellow flames he felt a rush of bittersweet nostalgia he didn’t understand.
He’d been taught about magic, that it was energy to be learned and wielded. But he knew his connection to it was more than the natural inclination his parents praised him for. His fire was not a weapon or an element. It was alive and it let him use it.
When his fingers trembled with its fantastic heat for the first time he was blindsided by such profound yearning he wept.
The fire longed for something, and that longing began to seep into his waking thoughts. He began to think he too longed for that something.
That he had always longed for it.
Likely, he should have been concerned. But he could not bring himself to be.
He would sit with it; the fire and the feelings it inspired, in the dark. And if he peered deeply into the dancing flames for long enough he would see the impression of an unknown and somehow familiar face.
But no one else could see it. Bi-Han mocked him, Tomas told him he was training too hard and his parents couldn’t understand.
He alone accepted that he was the chosen waypoint, but not the magic fire’s final destination.
He considered asking Liu Kang. But something told him not to. He began to wonder if the mystery of his flames went beyond anything a mere mortal could learn.
Or maybe, it was just beyond time.
Presently, he looked up from the fire dancing in his hands to the bristling, white-eyed spectre before him.
Scorpion.
This strange figure who shared Kuai Liang’s mantle had appeared in the temple grounds that morning, searching for something he would not—or could not name.
Kuai Liang had prevented his guards from seizing him, premonition prickling his skin.
“I think this belongs to you,” Kuai Liang said, holding out a flame-wreathed hand. His flames sang with a joy he had never felt before.
His heart skipped a beat.
This foreign, time-adrift scorpion narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“This fire,” Kuai Liang replied, a strange sense of peace washing over him. “I think it belongs to you.”
I know it belongs to you.
Scorpion raised an eyebrow, rage and impatience temporarily waylaid by confusion. “Fire…I don’t…”
Kuai Liang swallowed. “It’s yours,” he repeated.
Scorpion stepped towards him cautiously, something almost fearful in his unworldly gaze as he stared into the offered flames.
“What trick is this?” He asked quietly, seemingly arrested by the fire.
Kuai Liang laughed softly, surprised by his own reaction. Scorpion’s eyes snapped to him, wide and puzzled, begrudgingly intrigued.
I have seen this expression before.
“I don’t know,” Kuai Liang said. “All I know is that this fire, this power, this…” he shook his head. “It’s yours. It's…been waiting for you.”
I’ve been waiting for you.
“Why do you bear my mantle?” The spectre asked, retreating from Kuai Liang’s declaration and gaze with a glance at his tattoo.
“It felt right,” Kuai Liang told him. “I’ve always revered scorpions. I was stung by one as a boy, but I bore no grudge.”
He had in fact prevented Bi-Han from squishing it beneath his boot.
“I admired its tenacity.”
Scorpion looked at him for a long time. “Yes,” he rasped finally, warily. “No matter how many enemies, it continues on.”
Kuai Liang gazed at the bloody, damaged carapace and undead eyes of the man before him. He had come here against all odds and what Liu Kang said of the timelines’ repaired permeability.
“I have always admired the scorpion’s will,” Kuai Liang said.
The spectre swallowed visibly, taking a step back. “This place is…this isn’t right.”
Kuai Liang frowned. For the first time, everything was right.
“Wait, please—!“ he reached out and the fire leapt from his hand—
It burst to life—orange-yellow tendrils fleeing Kuai Liang’s skin and wrapping all around Scorpion who shouted in shock and pain. The fire turned white-gold, obscuring the spectre completely.
Concern flooded Kuai Liang as the other man was consumed. “Scorpion!”
The flames roared and pitched and would not heed Kuai Liang’s command as he fought to pull them back.
But this fire—that time and time again agreed to warm him and burn his enemies—would never hurt him.
So he ran into the blaze.
“You’re hearing is failing, Sub-Zero.”
Bi-Han? No…no it wasn’t Bi-Han it was…
His own face, weathered and grim turned to Scorpion.
”I recognized your footsteps, Hanzo.”
Hanzo!
As if that name held every waiting secret in the universe, something broke open and another life—his life—unfurled before him;
His mother’s once tender gaze; cold and still.
His father’s frozen fingers digging into his skin.
He wanted to go home.
Bi-Han was dead and they wouldn’t let him take revenge so he and Tomas—Oh, Tomas! Lost forever to the dark!—escaped the temple—
Assured vengeance was stolen along with his flesh.
Revenants.
Blood.
So much blood.
How he had craved death!
But he carried on.
Did his best to make up for the sins of the past.
Life was a cold, solemn duty
Until a pot of tea and Hanzo’s distrusting eyes and Frost—so much guilt and grief!—and an alliance that blossomed into friendship and something sweeter—
“We will avenge your clan.”
Hanzo, steadfast and understanding, kept him from breaking completely.
“He is dead.”
No!
Kuai Liang gasped as if being thrown from a dream. He stumbled, reeling with the loss of his people and his time and Hanzo! His tongue felt thick with the brimstone air of the Netherrealm.
I should never have left him alone.
He rubbed his eyes and found that the violent flames from before were reduced to gentle embers sailing around them like fireflies.
In Hanzo’s palm a familiar ball of flame pulsed softly, fading as he looked up.
His eyes were no longer filmy white, but the deep brown Kuai Liang had known—knew again—so well.
For a moment that might have been forever and no time at all, they stood there; two souls silently rediscovering themselves in ways they could only manage in the presence of one another.
”…You said you didn’t know what you were looking for,” Kuai Liang hedged, each word foreign on his tongue. As if he had never spoken before.
”I remember now,” Hanzo rasped, stepping forward. Tears welled up in those beloved eyes. “I was looking for my heart.”
Kuai Liang bit his lip, straining against a sudden sob. ”I felt the timeline collapsing,” he recalled, breath hitching as Hanzo—warm and solid and beside him once more—grasped his arm. “And all I could think about was you, trapped down there. That you would never see the sun again.”
Hanzo swallowed, tears rolling down his face. “You didn’t need to worry, Kuai Liang. My very last thought was of you.”
Kuai Liang sobbed, embracing the lost half of his heart. “Hanzo,” he cried. They held to each other harshly, bruisingly. Kuai Liang’s mind churned as his two lives continued to converge, plans to keep this Tomas safe and reclaim his brother from the dark begging for his attention. He tried to shake free of them, just for this precious moment of reunion, but another realization seized his gut.
“Harumi is alive,” he croaked. “Your wife.”
Hanzo was silent for a long, aching moment. He let out a deep sigh and cupped Kuai Liang’s chin. ”She is not my wife,” he murmured gently. “She does not know me.”
”She could come to know you,” Kuai Liang protested softly. He would never deny Hanzo this, even if it destroyed him.
”Kuai Liang,” Hanzo’s tone was hard as he kissed Kuai Liang’s head. “You carried my fire, my will for me into a new life.” Warm fingers brushed Kuai Liang's hair back as Hanzo stared fondly at him. “You held my heart.” He grasped Kuai Liang’s face. “You are my heart.”
They surged towards each other and kissed and Kuai Liang felt as if the whole world heaved a sigh of relief. In his mind’s eye, an hourglass flipped and two fractured lines tangled together into a golden thread of fate.
He might have been concerned by such a vision had he never watched Hanzo’s face from a ball of fire.
“I begged for you to live,” Kuai Liang murmured against Hanzo’s mouth. “For the next life to be kinder to you.”
Hanzo kissed him again, harder, and backed him against a tree, hands clutching at his yellow uniform—Hanzo’s color!—in desperation. “Kuai Liang.”
”I prayed,” Kuai Liang groaned as Hanzo kissed and bit the hollow of his throat.
”You don’t believe in any god,” Hanzo rasped, eyes wide with arousal and awe as they refocused on him.
”I know.” Kuai Liang spared a glance at his tattoo. “I think…I took your mantle so you wouldn’t have to.”
Hanzo’s head fell against his, eyes squeezed shut in anguish. “Did you suffer for me, Kuai Liang?”
“Being Scorpion did not add to my suffering,” Kuai Liang replied honestly. His parents had loved him well and Bi-Han was not beyond hope. He was alive, Tomas was alive, and the Lin Kuei had no dark past to correct. Emotion surged through him as he found his next words. “And this life has been far kinder to me than the last.”
Relief shuddered through Hanzo’s body and he pulled Kuai Liang into a bone-crushing embrace.
Kuai Liang sighed, dizzy with relief.
“Do you think we might spend this life together, Kuai Liang?” Hanzo asked, kissing him softly.
”Yes,” Kuai Liang grasped his face. “And whatever life comes next.”
Hanzo’s answering smile stole his breath.
Kuai Liang mentally tugged on Hanzo’s flames and felt them pulse in response. Felt Hanzo stiffen in surprise before leveling Kuai Liang with an amused, but wary look.
There could’ve been enough room for Jesus between them with how far apart they’re standing, but this is Hudcon, so of course Connor has to lean closer, keep a hand under Hudson’s thigh, and Hudson wraps an arm around him 😭
I can’t deal with how much vulnerability they show each other, being through so much, the pretty, the ugly, the in between, they still are the same to each other - a person they can be defenseless with, themselves without any fear of being misunderstood. All 16 years in these songs by the way, half of their lives, only they could fully understand each other’s experiences because they lived them together, together. Side by side.
And anyone who says their songs aren’t about the same relationship is just lying to themselves.
