summary — in a world of vindication and revenge, in cleaning out the 'trash' and washing the red off your hands, you've been told time and time again there's no place for love or loyalty. and when dong sicheng enters your life, you realize they're all right. now, you'll be left with is heartbreak.
author's note — yes, this isn't the dancer au i really wanted to write but i like this too, so why not?
You watch him twist and turn, spin and leap around the studio. Your fingers are clutching the strap of your bag as your eyes travel over the sharp lines and planes of his body from your position in the doorway. Sicheng doesn’t seem to have noticed you yet, but you know that’s just an act. He wouldn’t have gotten this far, so high up in the ranks if he wasn’t alert nearly every second of his life.
He was letting you stand there, allowing you a glimpse into the parts of his life he kept personal and private - a part you used to share with him for so long.
His eyes are hard and mouth pressed into a thin line, but despite the stiff look on his face, his body moves with grace unparalleled, every move controlled but so very relaxed. There is tension built and it is released, he is evenly balanced, power kept on the balls of his feet and the tip of his toes in order to spin and glide. There is a certain ease with his gestures, a story he narrates with his movements, the song playing nothing but mere background noise, a prop to his stage, a frame to his art.
The dance is hauntingly familiar, and your mind recognizes the sharp, quick movements that relax into long strokes. Your muscles yearn to execute those movements once again, but you don’t know if you even can anymore. It’s been months since you’ve danced, months since you have even seen Sicheng. You don’t know what freedom you have in your hands, what you can and cannot love without jeopardizing something or the other in your life.
Perhaps Sicheng grows tired of waiting for you to make the first move, merely just standing in the doorway, so he speaks. "You remember this one, don't you?" Sicheng's eyes snap to you, movements slowly coming to a stop as he looks you over, face impassive.
You nearly flinch in surprise, before walking in. "I do," You agree, and for a fraction of a second, you catch the flicker of a smile on his face. "I would have been disappointed if you forgot,” He says lightly, before tilting his head as he looks at you. “Dance with me," He says, turning back to the mirror, but his eyes never leave your figure. "For old times sake."
You drop the gym bag you'd be holding, ignoring the sound of the equipment inside clinking together rather disturbingly. You hear the song end, before it starts once again.
"Have you been dancing to nothing else all day?” You ask, surprised, as your muscles spring to life at the familiar lyrics. You move in time with Sicheng, slowly moving around each other. "This one comforts me," He says softly, eyes averting from your presence to the floor.
You're not sure what to do with the unexpected confession, so you merely turn, stepping closer into his personal space and lacing your fingers with his. His eyebrows furrow as he glances at your intertwined hands, and then to you.
"I don't remember this being part of our original choreography?” He says questioningly, stumbling slightly when you tug him closer.
"Improvising here and there won't hurt you, Sicheng," You smile, and you see him roll his eyes. "Structure exists for a reason," He reminds you, but goes along with it.
Your movements are in sync, and it's almost as if you are one single well oiled machine, vivacious in the pictures you paint with the dance you two created so very long ago, even with the muted colours of your clothes.
On the last beat, he pulls you closer, eyes fixed on yours, fingers still gripping your own tightly. Your free hand is on his chest, and his other hangs limply at his side, before it rests on your waist. He leans down, so close you can feel his breath fanning over your face.
In that moment, you don't know where you end and he begins, and when his lips brush over yours in the faintest ghost of kiss, it feels like sparks fly under your skin, scorching hot yet comfortingly warm.
Everything is still for a second, time slowing down to a stop, and there's nothing except the sound of your breathing and the heavy beating of your hearts. You wonder if your heartbeats are in sync with the racing pulse you feel under your fingertips, even through the soft material of the turtleneck he wears.
You wonder if you've struck upon that one vital point in your life you've truly resonated with someone else, stepped in time with someone, thought the same as someone. For all your life, you felt like you were out of sync with the rest of the world, either moving too fast for some, like you shot through high school, those few years being a blur, or too slow for others, like in college, when you moved sluggishly through each day.
But you know the simultaneous movements you and Sicheng pull off are not because of connection, but mere training and practice at this point. Even if that practice had once involved feverishly warm kisses late into the night and whispers pressed into your skin, or the bumping of shoulders as you lay on the grassy ground of the park.
You know Sicheng knows this too, but you also know it won't stop him. You know how to read his sparkling eyes and what they mean, you know how to decipher the cruel smiles he sends to the people he has to take down, you know Sicheng like the back of your palm, and he knows you the same way.
So he knows you will say yes as he leans down, and whispers, "Can I kiss you properly?" But even then, you hear the seeds of doubt in his words, a testament to the pain and distance you've felt since those words rolled off your tongue one late night in your apartment. You stare at him, noting the dark circles under his eyes and the faint blemishes on his face, the only things that have truly changed, and you nod softly. “Please,” You whisper.
When he cups your jaw and tilts your head up, slotting your lips together, your heart aches, because he kisses the lips that broke your both your hearts that night with the same tender reverence he used to what feels like millennia ago, but in reality was possibly no more than two months.
Your eyes flutter shut, your fingers threading through his hair, and he relaxes into the familiarity of the action.
You ache, you long for how things used to be, but it's the heavy dread that one day you will set out and never return. It's the heavy dread that you cannot do your duty if he was ever in danger, it's the sick feeling in your gut that lets you know Dong Sicheng is your biggest weakness.
You cannot have a weakness, for the sake of the lives you protect and secrets you guard. Neither can he, and so he lets you go, lungs screaming for air.
Dong Sicheng is beautiful, you think, with eyes glistening with unshed tears that he blinks away, hair falling down in his eyes, rumpled and a mess. He has flushed cheeks and reddened ears, and most of all, he has the look of your Dong Sicheng.
He doesn't move away, and so you step back, putting some distance between the two of you once again, just like you had that night. You see it hurts him - it hurts you too.
In the room, it’s just two aching hearts longing to find solace in each other but not being able to, even though there are no physical barriers between the two.
The tension is near palpable, only becoming heavier when the song plays again, as if solidified by the notes that ring in your head and the weight of your actions. It brings back memories of nights after your first few missions, when the two of you would scrub off the vermillion splattered across your clothes and skin, when you would whisper how the crimson life you painted your hands with would have stained the world with more carnage and evil. 'The sin of taking a life is a small price to pay for the millions you save,' they'd told you.
It never stopped the memories of screams and empty orbs that stared back at you, only fading to full noises at the back of your head when you moved to rhythms.
Sicheng was a natural born dancer, lithe and agile. He was born to create beauty, you were shaped to destroy, but even then, his hands caressed the muscles of your body and refashioned them into something elegant, that could move with him fluidly like water in a stream, curling, bending and twirling to every sound.
You missed those times.
He did too. You know that because you know him, and sometimes, you wish you didn't.
You force the words to spill from your lips, the news that leaves a bitter taste on your tongue. "I'm being transferred," You rasp. The words,although said lowly, echo throughout the room. Sicheng's eyes widen fractionally, and his lips part in surprise. Raw bitten lips, you note, and resist the urge to chide him for his bad habit like you used to.
He doesn't seem to know what to say, stunned into silence. His lips repeatedly open and close, and you nearly laugh as you compare it to a fish gasping for breath in your head.
You watch him, watch the way his lips mouth the word why, before syllables tumble off his tongue. "Where?" He asks.
"Europe," You say softly. "Paris, France."
The irony of it wasn't lost on you, having to visit the city of love without the one who held your heart. Sicheng swallows, eyes roaming over your figure with thinly veiled desperation, almost as if he was convinced you would disappear into wisps of smoke right away.
Maybe it would be better if you did.
"I came to say goodbye." Your eyes drop down to the ground. "Do the others know?" He asks, and his voice sounds so, so hollow and far away, as if you’re talking through a phone miles apart, even though he's just a few feet in front of you.
"Not yet," You say, shaking your head. "It-" You're cut off by the lump in your throat. You want to cry, but you don’t. "I didn't want it, but they said I was needed."
You hear the hitch in his breath, and you’re reminded of why you broke up in the end - because you knew if it came down to it, you would save Sicheng over a billion lives any day. As someone who’s very job is to save those lives, be the Robin Hood of urban life, neither of you can afford that.
Sometimes, it feels unfair. As much as you loved your team, as much as you admire the way an organization that started off as a group of mere twenty four year old youngsters manages to do miracles on a near daily basis and protect the people, you also have had to give up too much.
There were too many people shaped holes in your life, too many gaps where memories of happiness could have fit in, but you have none to slot into those spots.
Sicheng nods. There are no tears, there is no monologue about the relationship you once had. There is no declaration of feelings lost held, there isn't anger over how things ended, no pleas to stay.
In that way, you think your break up had been best for the both of you - you both understand duty, and he understands it too. Two vigilantes dating - not unheard of, but as you had been warned a long, long time back, it would always be destined for a tragic end. You can't plead to stay, he can't beg for you to do the same, because you know there are other people out there other than just him who need you, and he knows the same holds true for him too.
The knowledge doesn't make it any less painful, but he merely nods, and then you pick up your bag. "Thank you for the dance," You whisper as you turn to him, and his lips quirk up into a small smile. "It's been a while since I've done that."
"I can see that," He says, and you shake your head. "Ever the critic, aren't you?" You say fondly.
Sicheng shrugs, focusing his gaze on you. You stare back, and suddenly, the tears prick the back of your eyes like needles. You want to scream, curse the younger you for wanting to play a hero and take on this job, because it's so, so unfair that you save people so that they can go back to whom they love, while you can't even hold the one you want.
You blink, and then arms circle you and you're engulfed in warmth. A kiss is pressed to the crown of your head, and you feel so safe.
"I hope we can dance again sometime," You whisper into his chest, feeling the rumble of his low laugh against your cheek. "I'll be waiting," He whispers, and then, the warmth is gone. It’s a foolhardy promise, because with this life, there is no idyllic end to it all. Sicheng might not survive tomorrow, you might not survive the next hour. The future has always been ever-changing and uncertain, but for people who’ve chosen this life, it feels like murky dark waters you need to wade into to get into the other side. There are innumerable creatures that swim in the depths, ready to kill and devour. Sicheng, to you, is a stroke of luck, a gemstone you find floating and manage to lock within the grasp of your hand. You understand how precious it is, and this time, when you have him in your arms, you don’t want to let go.
But Sicheng knows and lives by duty just as much as you do, for better or for worse. Your similarities and differences are endless - they are both what bring you together and what split you apart. He turns his back to you as he walks to the stereo, and you swallow lightly, eyes resting briefly on the lithe figure you used to curl up next to on cold nights and wake up to on mornings, in that small one bedroom apartment where you felt the happiest. .
You turn away, and walk away. The door swings shut, and your footsteps are all you can hear in the empty corridors. You think Sicheng must've turned up the music's volume, the faint notes of a haunting melody that offers sorrow and relief in the memories it evokes, and all you can think about is how the sound of the footsteps that take you farther and farther away from the one you love fade so seamlessly into the music of the last song you two had danced to together.
