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People’s fates didn’t disappear. There was, perhaps, the law of conservation of mass there somewhere or something akin to it; it was hard to tell. What was indisputable was that fates had patterns, and changing one person’s fate could affect another person’s life (or more than just one person’s life in some cases), and, since Tomas and Kuai Liang were so close, it was Tundra… now Sub-Zero, who ended up taking the consequences of the change. When the god, who wanted to change the future and prevent a disaster, had saved Smoke from that particular fate, it was Kuai Liang who became the next person in line to fall victim to it instead. And, to be fair, Sub-Zero would’ve preferred for it to happen to him anyway, if he was offered a choice; not to his Tomas.
Tomas, however, would strongly disagree with that idea. Lord Raiden was determined to stop him from trying to save Kuai Liang from being taken away by their former clan-mates, or what was left of them anyway, considering they were machines now and the clan had changed irreversibly and beyond recognition. Unfortunately for Kuai Liang and fortunately for their entire realm, Smoke made the last moment decision to try to stop the Lin Kuei from taking his partner away, ignoring the god and moving past him in a flurry of smoke. And that decision, after a short and futile fight, resulted in both men being captured and taken back to the temple to be automated. Kuai Liang had never wanted anything like that to happen: he would have never wanted Tomas to try to save him and share this fate. Smoke was supposed to escape instead; to survive, to move on, eventually. Just before they were separated and taken apart, soon becoming something that was no longer them, Tomas’ eyes, full of despair and love, met his own, and Sub-Zero was hopeful that he managed to convey his own feelings, as with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he was looking back at the man he loved for what he thought was the last time.
It was not in his nature to go down without a fight, so fight he did, until the very end, even when there was absolutely no hope anymore; even when he was no longer physically capable of fighting. Everything in him continued to do so, and there was no doubt in his mind that Tomas was not making it easy for their captors either. Regardless, the nightmare was soon over, as they both were gone as the men they’d used to be.
Or not.
They were different among the other cyborgs, because they were the only ones who still had their souls, unbeknown to anybody, including themselves at first. Units LK-520 and 7T2. The need to stay by each other’s side was strong, even when they didn’t exactly feel it consciously. They simply stayed close to each other, and the more time they spent together, the more they malfunctioned as machines and fought their programmes as the humans that they still were deep inside. They fought against their programme, fought against having to fight on the side of Shao Kahn, to whom the clan had pledged its loyalty, betraying everything under the sun and expecting to take a special place in Kahn’s extended empire. Together with others, Smoke and Sub-Zero were his instruments now, unwillingly, but effectively playing their part in the invasion and conquest of their own realm.
There was a connection between the two units that LK-520 couldn’t quite grasp at, and his programme provided no answers, because it went beyond anything that technology could control. His instincts, albeit muffled and suppressed, continued to tell him to hold onto that particular notion. No matter how many times he scanned unit LK-7T2, always checking him for any damage or malfunctions (and they both experienced the latter on a regular basis, which also defied explanation, at least at first), the answers continued to remain just outside his reach. Regardless, they continued to gravitate towards one another, and the glitches became worse if the two weren’t in close proximity to each other. In every other way, they were quite effective for the purposes they had been created, despite the resistance that just wouldn’t settle down in them. It would be so easy to just let go and let his programme take over completely. The discomfort would be gone, the productivity would be at its highest and nothing would torment him anymore. Nothing would malfunction any longer, nothing would hurt deep inside. But that just wouldn’t be him. He knew it in his heart of hearts.
Something was amiss, something that Sub-Zero’s programme denied him access to, keeping him under its firm control. He had been a human once, he was at least partially aware of it. And the same went to everybody else in his clan, including LK-7T2. Except, the two of them were different somehow. They had been close, and still were. Their past was blurry, replaced with their new purpose that was on the forefront of their very existence. If only he could overpower his programme and unveil the shreds of memories that were so hard to access. Were those memories even there? Were they even real or they were just glitches in his system? Was unit LK-7T2 struggling the same way? Was that the reason of 7T2’s malfunctioning that most wouldn’t even notice, but LK-520 did, for some reason? He felt protective. He wanted unit LK-7T2 to stop suffering in silence, because he could, somehow, tell that that was the case. It was expected of him to report all of the malfunctions for them to be fixed, but he didn’t and the routine scanning showed nothing, thankfully, so there was no need for a more in-depth scanning that could, potentially, reveal the problem. He stayed silent about it, and it was a small act of defiance that made him feel good, made him want to progress even further from that. It was like a lifeline to him. He knew he wasn’t a free person, but the person was there, suppressed.
There was one unique opportunity to change something, the risk he had to take. He owed it to himself and to unit LK-7T2. Driven by the sheer willpower, in a very rare moment of relative control and clarity during a battle that he knew he had been fighting on the wrong side, Sub-Zero asked the people that his programme insisted were his enemies, if any of them could help him and his partner to regain their free will. In return, he promised to assist in solving the problems that their realm was facing to the best of his ability, because the rest of Raiden’s chosen ones were, most definitely, in a desperate need of help and quite outnumbered, too. He managed to negotiate before losing control again, and he had to be incapacitated by the very people he had approached.
Nothing was guaranteed. Hacking him could end badly, but he had no other options.
Once he was in control of himself, his previously dampened brain activity returning to normal, breaking his mind free of its prison and letting him overpower the programme, it was bittersweet, because his immediate thoughts were about what his clan had become and what they had been forced to do, what he had done, personally. But his worry for Tomas was even stronger. He had to find his partner, make sure he was brought to the cathedral, unharmed, and freed from his programme the same way Sub-Zero had been freed. He refused to even consider any other steps before that happened. Some of his new allies were a little annoyed by that, but others were sympathetic and understanding. Tomas’ soul was intact, just as Kuai Liang’s own. That was the reason why they were different. He knew it now.
They didn’t have to search for too long, because Tomas had been looking for him, confused and malfunctioning quite visibly now. Kuai Liang was glad that he had been the first one to undergo the hacking, because, at least, now he knew that Tomas wouldn’t be experimented on. Smoke didn’t have to be incapacitated and restrained. He simply followed Kuai Liang, the programme failing to affect that trust inside him, it appeared, though Sub-Zero advised others to maintain some distance for the time being, just in case. After all, Tomas had enough of powerful explosives in his body to blow up not only the entire cathedral, but the surrounding area as well, and those who opposed Kahn were seen as enemies.
Reunited at last, and both of them being in control of themselves, they couldn’t stop feeling both pained and relieved at the same time. Were they really alive? Could they consider themselves alive when they were like this, no longer having their human bodies, apart from a few parts, hidden deep inside these… husks? Those thoughts were weighing them down when it wasn’t the best time to dwell on them, because of what was happening to their world. They were together though, and that alone brought an immense relief, despite everything else. They wouldn’t leave each other’s side.
Lord Raiden observed the two of them carefully. Not immediately, but Tomas’ sacrifice and the decision to interfere back when his partner had been taken away were making the god understand the error in his initial tactics and that he had been going about it all wrong. He took the time that they didn't have to think about it, his eyes never looking away from the amulet, cracked by the previous wrong decisions.
In the end, it saved many lives and the realm, despite that being a very unconventional approach. Instead of throwing all of his efforts into defending the realm, he was determined to keep his remaining chosen ones and their souls safe instead, despite the very vocal opposition from the majority of them and the confused puzzlement from the rest. The path of non-resistance was a hard one to accept, especially for the people, whose very spirits pushed them to fight and resist, or they wouldn’t have been the chosen ones to begin with.
However, it worked. The Elder Gods, finally, interfered and stopped the invasion that went against the established rules. And just like that, the nightmare was over. People were left to pick up the pieces. It was a victory, even though it wasn’t ideal. It could’ve been so much worse; they knew it now.
But all of that had left Sub-Zero and Smoke at a loss of what they should do with their lives now. Despite everything, yes, they were alive in this strange new sense of the word. It didn’t take long for them to decide that the Lin Kuei, their clan, was their only option, even though their allies had offered them to join them instead and form something new together. As entertaining as Tomas found Johnny Cage’s jokes about their situation (“Can you, guys, solve a CAPTCHA?”), their destiny lay in a different direction, so they had to decline.
Tracking down and reprogramming the remaining units turned out to be quite easy. Kuai Liang now intimately knew how a lot of things worked, technology-wise. Technology, in general, engineering and, most of all, programming and coding. The same went to Tomas, of course. They had some limits; however, the vast database of knowledge was open to them, due to their enhanced brains.
There was a dilemma whether they should or shouldn’t deactivate the other cyborgs, but those no longer had souls, and that would’ve been just a waste. Most of them had served the clan for their entire lives, so they could continue to do so in their new form. How many of them had, actually, been against the Cyber Initiative was no longer possible to tell. Kuai Liang suspected that quite a few had secretly opposed it, but were too obedient to act on it. There were, of course, those who had voluntarily agreed, but, likely, not as many as those who, at least, had doubts. Except, nobody had been given any real choice.
Sektor now served them after being thoroughly reprogrammed. Mistakes had been made when he had been first programmed to serve the former Grandmaster, which was why the man was dead now. Or rather Sektor himself had left himself some loopholes before losing his soul. Kuai Liang had made no such mistake and left no such loopholes that would allow Sektor make his own decisions. In fact, Sub-Zero had taken extra measures for anything like that not to happen again. Sektor was a useful machine. What was the point in hating him and Cyrax now that they didn’t have souls or could be considered human beings? It was hard not to get angry at times though.
“It would be like hating a trash compactor,” Tomas joked.
“I don’t hate unit LK-9T9, I only blame the man who had started all of this before becoming 9T9,” Kuai Liang explained.
“I know,” Smoke replied. And Kuai Liang knew him well enough to know that he would be smiling right now. He pressed his metal palm against Tomas’ chest plate. There, inside, there still was the heart he’d always known, and it was beating steadily. If he tuned his sensors up, he could feel it. It was no longer there to pump blood, and it was technologically enhanced, just like their brains, but it was still the same. Tomas had given it to him a long time ago, just like Kuai Liang had given him his own heart.
“I feel the same,” Tomas uttered quietly, knowing exactly what his partner was thinking about without having to be told or using their internal communication. Most of the time, Kuai Liang’s love for Tomas was a steady presence, but sometimes it just flared up in the sweetest way possible, and this was one of such cases.
One of the most challenging things for them both was to stop feeling as if they were prisoners, confined in their new bodies, where they didn’t belong and, instead, start accepting them and become completely attuned with them. What choice did they have? They helped each other settle and grounded each other, which made it easier, of course. Perhaps, one day they would, somehow, be able to recreate their original bodies and manage to transfer their souls into them, but there was no such a possibility in sight for them so far, it appeared impossible, and they had no wish to put themselves and each other through any dangerous experiments that could result in them losing what they still had, which they, very much, valued. They had a lot of discussions on the subject. Maybe they could work on making themselves appear more human, put some effort into artificial skin and make themselves look the way they’d used to, but was it worth the effort if those bodies would not be human anyway and definitely wouldn’t feel the same? They hadn’t yet found such a solution acceptable and worth further consideration. And since they had no real options to consider, they had to make themselves ‘feel at home’ in the bodies that they currently had. It wasn’t easy, no matter how good and perfectly functional said bodies were (they had to give it to Sektor, he was a genius; an evil kind of genius, but a genius nonetheless). The process of acceptance was gradual, but they were determined and they had each other’s support at all times.
Together with the machines that were now completely obedient to them, they soon returned to the Lin Kuei temple. Only to regret not coming sooner, because what they found was something very much resembling a concentration camp, where many remaining humans were trapped, like cattle, like cannon fodder for the future use. Those were their clan-mates, mostly either very young or old. There were no leaders now. Just a perimeter surrounded by a high voltage force field and people still surviving inside, completely cut out from the rest of the world. They had almost run out of food and other essentials, so it was bad. Damn Sektor… The barrier was easy to disable for Kuai Liang and Tomas with their new technological knowledge, but healing the damage caused by the former leadership would be a real challenge that mostly required Kuai Liang and Tomas (or Smoke, as the clan knew him, because his given name was just for his lover), not units LK-520 and LK-7T2.
Getting their lives back together included taking control of the clan. The living humans that still remained there had been, understandably, afraid at first that Sub-Zero would force them to go through the Cyber Initiative, but he was quick to assure that nothing like that would ever happen and they were safe now. And thus, the temple now had an area where humans lived, like they always had, and a technical department with Grandmaster being the brain of it, running many processes at the same time and being the centre of it all, many things computerised. He didn’t like the division, but it was necessary for all of it to work for everybody.
“You’re the brain. Then what does it make me?” Tomas asked him playfully one day.
“You’re the heart,” Kuai Liang replied calmly and without hesitation.
People of the clan were used to following orders without asking questions, but even those who had initially been on board with the automation and those who had been on the fence wanted nothing to do with it now after everything they had seen. Yet, despite everything, Kuai Liang became Grandmaster that the clan needed. Machines would follow him anyway, but people needed a leader. So, he didn’t let the virtual space suck him in and tear him away from them, and Tomas was very helpful in that regard, too, both keeping him grounded and actively participating in everything. So, yes, Tomas was the heart. It was a very strange situation, but they had to make it work. As Grandmaster, Kuai Liang had duties before the people who had been betrayed by the former leadership. Most of them were just happy to be alive, but gaining their trust would take some time. They’d known and still remembered him as a regular human, and things had started to get better when they managed to start seeing that familiar human in unit LK-520. He knew that it prevented several individuals who had, initially wanted to run away (who could blame them?) from doing so. No matter how odd this whole situation was, the clan started to adjust, despite some initial opposition, and, eventually, got used to it. It wasn’t Kuai Liang who had started it, after all, but, together with Smoke, he was the one who had ended it and was trying to fix the damage it had caused, and people were quickly becoming aware of it, which was truly important. To earn their loyalty and trust, he had to make sure they had no doubts that Tomas and himself were the dark legacy and the victims of the insane decision the former leadership had made, not the willing participants. And, thankfully, it was working.
Some of the people tentatively requested him to deactivate Sektor though, despite the reprogramming. Sektor had done so much damage that people would never trust him in any form, even as a mindless puppet. Though the more pragmatic members of the clan had no problem with him properly serving the clan now. Kuai Liang promised to think about it, and he would. Perhaps, it would be a gesture of good will on his part to do what the majority wanted. Many would sigh in relief if he did it, he knew it. He couldn’t blame anybody for wanting Sektor gone and done with. After all, even the new Grandmaster and his second in command in their present state were the products of Sektor’s actions, not to mention the rebuilt and modified part of the temple, hidden from view, but everybody knew it was there. The atrocities had happened there, but now it was merely a place where the Lin Kuei cyborgs resided.
The younger members of the clan were more accepting of the change. They had been spared the worst things, thankfully, deemed too young for the Cyber initiative. It was a relief that the older members of the clan were protective enough to, at least, not let them know what was really going on and how horrible it had been, despite not knowing what was in store for all of them. And, while they had all been trapped in the only home that most of them had ever known, the older ones had still managed to keep the children occupied with the semblance of their usual routine, even though they’d been steadily running out of resources that they needed to survive. Several members of the clan had lost their lives trying to get out when the barrier had been up, which, at least, hadn’t happened in front of the young eyes, because it had been quite brutal.
“Kuai Liang…” one of the boys approached him hesitantly. His small hands immediately flew to his own mouth before he corrected himself: “I mean, Grandmaster!”
“Yes, what is it?” Kuai Liang encouraged. Anming was currently one of the youngest members of the clan, and Sub-Zero refused to really think what would have happened to him and the other children if the Cyber Initiative hadn’t been stopped together with the Outworld’s invasion.
“Those wires you have growing out of your head… If somebody touched them, would they be electrocuted to death?” the boy asked. Kuai Liang smiled to himself. It was an indirect request, disguised as a hypothetical question. He noticed people of all ages doing something like that now that he was Grandmaster and they were quite subordinate, so, most of the time, their requests and questions were veiled and indirect.
“No, they wouldn’t. Go ahead, if you’re so curious.” He lowered his head, letting the aforementioned wires hang down low enough for the little boy to be able to easily reach them. The child’s trembling hand reached out, slightly fearfully. Perhaps, he thought that he would, after all, get hurt, as a punishment for his ‘insolent’ request. At the same time, Anming had known Kuai Liang in his human body, and was aware that it wasn’t like Kuai Liang to do such things, so, in the end, the curiosity won and the boy touched the wires. He sighed in relief, because nothing happened, and excitedly ran to the other boys to inform them of his experience; the boys who had been waiting with bated breath, watching from a safe distance. Yes, people seeing him as a human and trusting him was just as important as a wise course of actions when it came to reforming the clan. Tomas’ amusement clearly transmitted through their link in response to the scene, distracting Grandmaster from his thoughts.
“What’s so funny?” Sub-Zero murmured in response.
“You are,” Tomas teased, approaching, and wrapped his arms around him now that nobody could see. Kuai Liang almost expected to feel the warm flesh of arms around him, but, of course, it didn’t happen. He still wasn’t entirely used to it, but he enjoyed what he had anyway. He had Smoke. They were back home. That was all that mattered. He wrapped his own arms around the other cyborg in return, and they just stayed like that in silence for several minutes. There was some warmth produced by Smoke’s body, even though it was different, and Kuai Liang let himself enjoy it.
Their brains were, generally, intact, albeit, obviously, with some modifications, and with their owners being completely in control, their memories and emotions were all there, completely accessible to them. Nothing had been erased or damaged. They had simply been inaccessible to them after the automation. But no, they hadn’t really been stripped away, which had been one of their greatest fears. Those memories were so precious to them, they’d had to re-examine and make sure nothing had disappeared. But it was all there: they remembered the good and the bad. They remembered their childhood and how they’d had to find ways to deal with their harsh upbringing. They remembered the nights they’d spent together, and when they’d gotten older, the times when they’d been learning to give each other pleasure. Unlike soulless machines, they had dreams, and, in those dreams, they saw themselves in their human bodies.
Their communication was always open for each other. Thanks to that, and if they weren’t physically too far away from each other, they could sense each other’s moods and emotions now, even when no words were said, verbally or via in-built communication, which, in a way, compensated for the absence of facial expressions. It was the connection that they both held onto. Kuai Liang suspected that one of the reasons was the fact that they had almost lost each other and it had, after all, left scars. He couldn’t really tell that they were closer now than they’d used to be; it was simply different. Sometimes Tomas pinged him while Kuai Liang was in his sleep mode, softly stirring him awake. Those pings were gentle, like a touch of a lover waking up next to you. They made Kuai Liang smile to himself and make his systems boot almost lazily. Throughout the day, he received more pings when the two weren’t in close proximity, busy with their respective duties, sometimes playful, like being elbowed lightly or those that resembled a quick kiss. And, yes, somehow, he knew the difference. He always responded. Perhaps, it was a strange way to interact, but they were making the best out of their circumstances (as always) and enjoyed whatever intimacy they could share, apart from brushing against each other’s magnetic fields and simply using words to communicate. Their contact, otherwise, wasn’t as physical as before, though they continued to take care of each other, only in new ways, such as clean and polish each other’s bodies. In the past, they'd helped each other bathe plenty of times, so it wasn't all that new, to be fair.
Another unusual thing they could do now was share their memories with each other, things from their past. Sharing the post-automation memories was not hard at all, it was just a transmission of a media, but sharing what had happened before that was trickier. Those memories from before weren’t very clear like a normal media would be, such as video, audio or any other type of information (that type they could record now if that was what they wanted to do, and it was not the same), it was on a deeper level, too, but because they had both experienced it in the past, their own minds could complete those memories when they shared them. It was odd, to say the least. They discovered that they could even make a digital backup of them, as hard as it was.
Tomas initiated such a contact one day and sent his own vision of how their relationship had started to become romantic. Because the contact was initiated by him, the memories and related emotions, and even sensations, were mostly his, but since Kuai Liang remembered it, too, his own thoughts and feelings were also a big part of the shared experience:
Since he had no memories, he was nameless. Most of the time, people of the clan called him ‘Slavic boy’, or later ‘Smoke’ in addition to that, because of his mysterious ability to both move akin to smoke and actually produce and control it, even though it had been weak and he hadn’t been all that in control of it in the beginning. And, while he didn’t mind (they had to call him something, after all), his subconsciousness, more and more often, suggested what he intuitively knew had been his actual name before… whatever had happened to make him forget absolutely everything. Tomas. That was the name. Naturally, Kuai Liang was the first one to learn about it, and would actually remain one of a very few people who would ever learn about it.
“Tu… Tuomasu. Tuomas,” the young cryomancer tried. The other boy giggled and was absolutely delighted by Tundra’s attempts. They were like music to his ears. And it was so like Kuai Liang! If something didn’t immediately come easy to him, he would continue to try over and over again, perfecting his skills, improving. That was how he was with his cryomancy in particular, but many other things got the same focused diligence from him. Kuai Liang frowned at Tomas’ jovial reaction with a mild annoyance. “Does the stress fall on the last syllable?” he asked.
“Yes,” Smoke nodded. “Keep trying,” he teased, but he was so happy to both share something like this with his only real friend and actually discover that he did have a name, and that name was unlike anyone else’s in the clan. It was supposed to be a small thing, really. But, to him, it wasn’t. He had been teasing, of course, and Tundra’s very next attempt was quite successful. Hearing his friend’s voice saying his name felt so satisfying. So much so that Tomas ended up wrapping his arms around Kuai Liang and kissing his cheek, which he had never done before.
“What was that for?” Tundra blinked at him, looking a little unimpressed. The reaction dampened Tomas’ mood a bit.
“I’m… I’m just happy I have a real name,” he quickly replied. It softened Kuai Liang, and Smoke’s eyes couldn’t help lingering on his friend’s. He liked them, both in their normal state and when they started to glow pale-blue when Tundra’s natural cryomancy was even a little bit active, even if you couldn’t tell that it was, unless you touched his skin that felt slightly (or sometimes a lot) colder than it normally was. Tomas was mesmerised when it happened to those eyes, even though he didn’t mind either way, especially if the eyes in question were focused on him.
The two of them slowly and gradually becoming something more than friends felt like a natural progression. Being friends in the Lin Kuei was already not something that was encouraged, but they were starting to discover something even less acceptable. Sometimes Kuai Liang wondered why they couldn’t just be normal friends and initially tried to resist a little. But to no avail, because it couldn’t be helped, it appeared, and they were steadily becoming lovers, even though it remained mostly platonic for quite a while. Well, except for a few things, such as kissing that wasn’t even all that romantic at the time. In addition, their friendship didn’t disappear; something that Kuai Liang had been worried he would lose. But, no, that hadn't happened. Their feelings for each other manifested themselves in many different ways, such as the two of them providing each other with care and gentle comfort if one of them was injured, for example, which was something that the vast majority of Lin Kuei people had always been deprived of. It was the two boys’ secret. Just like the fact that they often slept together as teenagers. It had started with one of them, on occasion, falling asleep in the other’s bed, too tired to go to his own chamber when they stayed up for too long, playing games like Go or a two-player variant of Mahjong (such things weren’t exactly forbidden, though nobody wanted to be caught playing, even though some people in the clan secretly did enjoy at least an occasional game), reading something or talking to each other, sharing thoughts and even silly fantasies, at times. But then, when it no longer felt like anything unusual to them, they started to deliberately stay with each other when they knew it was safe. They were no longer young enough for the older members of the clan to check on them, so nobody knew. At first, Kuai Liang felt uncomfortably warm with Tomas’ body pressing against his own all night, especially when they were both under the same blanket, but, gradually, his own body seemed to have adjusted, and he felt much more comfortable, to the point that it was, actually, the absence of Tomas next to him that didn't feel right anymore.
Tomas sometimes kissed Kuai Liang when the latter was sleepy or already half-asleep. His eyes were tired, eyelids heavy, and Tomas loved seeing him like that, partially because nobody else could, not even Bi-Han now that Tundra was practically an adult and had his own chamber. So, when such intimate moments happened, Smoke pressed his own mouth against Kuai Liang’s, sometimes his cheeks, too, at times teasingly, feeling like annoying the other youth a little. He did it over and over again, and almost with every kiss, Kuai Liang made those adorable noises somewhere in the back of his throat: something that resembled grunts, but they were barely audible, and they, somehow, sounded both content and grumpy at the same time, because he was so sleepy and couldn’t decide whether he wanted to stay awake for more kisses or wanted to stop being bothered. Sometimes Smoke even playfully covered his whole face with kisses, and the young cryomancer would not be able to predict where the next one would be planted. One night, he even turned away and covered his entire head with a blanket, and Tomas kissed him through it, because there was no escape when he was like that. Tundra knew Smoke really enjoyed such moments. When Kuai Liang, eventually and inevitably, lost his struggle to stay awake and no longer could, his breathing evened out, he felt his own features relaxing completely. The grey-eyed boy stayed awake for a little while longer, watching his friend before he himself fell asleep, often holding the other boy’s hand.
Tomas himself, on the other hand, was a bit more of a night owl, and his grumpiness was reserved for mornings, which was when Kuai Liang could get even for being bothered by being deliberately loud and a little annoyed and annoying, because Tomas refused to get up and kept asking for a few more minutes or, eventually, even snapping at his friend, which said friend found strangely entertaining. It was a payback, after all.
“Well, how do you like the taste of your own medicine?”
“I said I was getting up in five minutes. Get out!”
“Yes, you’ve been saying it for half an hour now. And this is my room.”
Kuai Liang found himself chuckling when the flow of pleasant memories ended and he onlined his vision, only to find Tomas next to him, looking at him, transmitting something that could be interpreted as serene and pleasant laziness through their connection. Sub-Zero responded with mirth. They’d been so young. Only when he’d turned sixteen, the two of them had, finally, shared a proper romantic (albeit inexperienced) kiss, both of them thrilled and a little anxious. It was so much deeper than all those countless pecks on the lips, cheeks and other parts of each other’s faces they had shared before. And it had happened in Tomas’ bed, in complete darkness; with the two of them whispering both sweet nothings and serious promises into each other’s ears afterwards.
Kissing was, obviously, out of question now, let alone anything sexual. They no longer had any body parts that allowed them to have sex, but they had their brains and their countless sensors connected to those brains. They could feel arousal as a result of that, as well as of those phantom sensations that their minds remembered well from their lives in human bodies. But, of course, it went nowhere.
“I want us to be close again,” Tomas said one day. But Kuai Liang could tell that it was more than just a confession. Just a few seconds earlier they’d been talking about the clan’s business, so the confession had come seemingly out of nowhere.
“We are as close as we’ve always been, my love, aren’t we?” Sub-Zero replied, approaching him from behind.
“You know exactly what I mean,” Tomas huffed, a very mild irritation in his voice, making it clear that he didn’t need to be comforted right now.
“I want you, too,” Kuai Liang assured, stroking his back, then stroking his wires in a soothing manner. Tomas leaned into the touch.
“I’m working on something,” he informed cryptically. Kuai Liang sent him a curious ping in response, a wordless request to elaborate. “No. I’m not going to explain until I decide that it’s a viable idea.” He was obviously pensive, his mind preoccupied. He was clearly up to something. Kuai Liang didn’t insist on him sharing, despite his curiosity. His clever, marvellous lover would tell him when he felt like it, so Sub-Zero just had to wait.
A couple of weeks later, his sleep mode was interrupted when he felt somebody moving next to him, though he immediately knew it was Tomas, so he wasn’t alarmed. He was awake nevertheless, and onlined his vision. The link between them told him that Smoke was absorbed in thought, and he looked the part, too, scanning Kuai Liang’s body, which Sub-Zero, as always, could feel as a slight tingling, not to mention the fact that his systems informed him that scanning was in progress, once he was awake enough.
“What is it?” he asked. He hadn’t been injured or malfunctioning in any way, so he had no idea what this was all about.
“We need a more stable, direct connection to each other. And for that we need specific ports. I already have mine,” Tomas answered, lifting one arm slightly and nodding at the side of his own chest. That port was concealed and currently closed, so it wasn’t noticeable. But Sub-Zero knew his body well, so he did notice the new detail.
“So, what is it for, exactly?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” Smoke replied. “I just need a good spot and make sure it doesn’t disrupt anything else or accidentally trigger any of your weapons…” Tomas murmured, more like to himself.
“But it’s offline. Whatever it is that you want to do, you won’t trigger it,” Kuai Liang assured. Surely Smoke knew it anyway? Grandmaster was even more puzzled now.
“I know, but you won’t always be in complete control during the connection, so I want to avoid any risks, even if they are minimal.”
“If you would just explain what’s on your mind…”
“You’ll see,” his infuriating, beautiful and brilliant lover replied yet again, interrupting. Sub-Zero huffed and shook his head.
Tomas hadn’t always had the best ideas growing up. Like that one time when, in their adolescence, he’d gotten a hold of a bottle of alcohol (stolen it, of course), out of sheer curiosity and possibly defiance, too, because it was, very much, against the rules. He’d taken it as some sort of a challenge to drink the spirit, because it tasted awful by his own admission. Kuai Liang had just rolled his eyes at Smoke’s antics, making jokes about it and half-heartedly warning that he’d get in trouble if anybody smelled it on him, as well as refusing to participate (because, if nobody else, Bi-Han would’ve noticed his brother behaving in any way strangely and there would’ve been hell to pay). The jokes and teasing ended when Tomas had gotten an alcohol poisoning, become violently ill and started throwing up. Crying pitifully, he’d stated that he believed he was dying. Kuai Liang had been horrified, not knowing what to do other than just take care of his partner, bring a bucket, hold the limply hanging grey hair, clean up and then, holding Tomas the whole time, stay up all night to make sure that, no, he had not died in his sleep. Tundra had been torn between keeping the other young man’s transgression secret, like they always did for each other (and this one would have absolutely resulted in a harsh punishment), and seeking medical help for him. Thankfully, it had not become necessary, even though just sleeping it off had not been enough, with Tomas looking ill and subdued the next day, and Kuai Liang had also had to cover up for him. He’d made sure everybody’s attention was on him, which wasn’t typical of him, so that people didn’t notice Smoke suffering from a hangover, paying him as little attention as possible. It had taken a couple of days for the effects of the alcohol poisoning to wear off completely, and Tundra had been a little angry with his partner for doing something so silly to himself. Tomas would never deny that that had not been his proudest moment, especially because he’d made Kuai Liang so worried. He’d become more cautious with age.
And now, after the automation, he seemed to have become even less inclined to take any risks, so Kuai Liang wasn’t worried.
He didn’t want to examine, scan and study the whole thing, because he trusted Tomas. His partner believing that it was safe and wouldn’t fry anything in their bodies was enough for Kuai Liang. They had matching new ports on the side of their chest plates now, except Sub-Zero’s was on the opposite side. And there was a cable that had been made for this particular purpose: to connect them. It was thick and relatively short, but with the two of them standing directly in front of each other, the length was enough. All of it, somehow, seemed a bit outdated, and Kuai Liang still had no idea what this was supposed to achieve when they could already connect and share a lot of things without any cables; in fact, they were always connected, the degree of it depended on them, so this new connection that Tomas wanted to try was still a mystery to Sub-Zero. He could only speculate.
He could barely feel anything when the cable linked the two of them, other than its weight, but then Tomas, on his end, initiated something that sent an electrical impulse through the cable, and Kuai Liang immediately felt his body responding with some tingling, more intense than any scanning. Whatever it was, they were connected on an even deeper level now. He frowned to himself a little, unsure what to think when, almost gently, it took a hold of his systems and he lost his visual feed. He saw some visions in his mind then, but it was nothing clear and too rapid for him to make sense of. It could, in part, be because he was distracted by the odd sensations. Among other things, it felt as if he was being hacked, and his systems protested. But he trusted Tomas, so he just let it happen and relaxed into it, lowering his defences.
A connection was open, the same way they shared media with each other, as well as the memories from the time before their automation; yet something was different.
Kuai Liang almost forced his vision to work, because he wanted to see what was going on, if there was anything to see, that is. He managed to do so and was surprised to see Tomas’ faceplate in front of him slowly changing into his human face. He was stunned to see the beloved features of the man who was his soulmate, and who was now smiling at Kuai Liang, light-grey hair calmly floating behind him. Their surroundings were also changing, turning into something else; the inside of a spacious room in some house, from what he could tell. A living space. He couldn’t recognise the place, so he strained his memory, wondering where they were. Until he realised that, no, this time, it wasn’t a memory. He had expected the whole idea of this connection to be the two of them sharing some intimate experience they’d had in the past, only clearer and with more immersion than their usual exchanges. But this was something else. It was a fantasy that Tomas was sharing with him.
“What is this place?” he asked. The place in question wasn’t overly lavish, but it was quite nice. There was some furniture, such as a medium-sized table with two comfortable-looking backless chairs with cushioning, a bed at one of the walls and a few other things. There was a carpet with a somewhat intricate pattern currently under their feet on the wooden floor; the walls had some decorations, such as tapestries and weapons, but those weren’t numerous or too flashy. The windows were large, with ornate frames, as well as long curtains, currently open. The ceiling of the room was high. There was also a nice atmosphere that Sub-Zero couldn’t quite put into words.
“There were times when I fantasised about the two of us running away together and having a home of our own, just for the two of us. It looked like this; more or less. I know it doesn’t look very personal or well-lived, but it’s not real and I’m trying to keep it all together. It’s just you and I here.”
“I see,” Kuai Liang replied, torn between looking around for more details and not wanting to take his eyes off the other man’s face in front of him.
“Well? Is the level of immersion sufficient?” Tomas asked. The long, semi-transparent curtains moved from the air lightly, but Kuai Liang could barely feel said blow of air on his skin. But it was getting better with each passing second, so he realised he just needed to give it time and open himself up for it. The scenery outside the windows was a bit blurry, but that, too, was starting to look more realistic. He could only tell that the house was situated on a highland and there were just mountains and forest around and below. It was an isolated place, clearly far away from any human settlement. Is this what Tomas had secretly fantasised about?
From what he could tell, it was a two-story house, and they were on the upper floor, but he wasn’t completely sure about it and didn’t feel like exploring, because that would mean temporarily leaving his lover or simply ruining the moment between them.
“Apart from some details, everything looks very realistic,” he agreed, before adding: “I like it here.”
“Just focus on me,” Smoke prompted.
“There’s nothing else I’d rather do right now,” Kuai Liang replied gently. That this was virtual didn’t matter at all. He reached out and touched the warm skin of his beloved. His own hand looked human as it stroked the side of Smoke’s face and then slid down to his neck to cup it, but the hand didn’t feel human at first, even though it looked perfectly like the one that belonged to his original body. However, the more he touched and stroked, the more human and real it felt, and, soon enough, it felt just the way he remembered. And it wasn’t just his hand, it was his entire body, made of flesh and blood again. It felt like it. It felt right. It looked right, too, which he discovered upon briefly looking himself over. He could now even feel the carpet under his feet and how the clothes felt against his skin.
“Wouldn’t you feel too isolated in a place like this?” he asked with a smile.
“Sometimes I just wanted to be with you in the middle of nowhere without any risk of any annoying and nosy people discovering us,” Tomas confessed. Kuai Liang had felt the same. At the temple, they’d always had to hide and be aware of their surroundings, not to cause any suspicions about the true nature of their relationship. They’d made love countless of times, but, more often than not, shrouded with darkness, their love as stealthy as their training (and abilities, in Tomas’ case) allowed them to be. Even having assignments away from the temple had still had some risks of somebody from the clan keeping an eye on their progress, though they’d rarely skipped an opportunity to become intimate even then. But they didn’t have to hide from anybody here. And this place was well-lit, too, but not overly so. It was daytime, but the day was somewhat cloudy; not in a bad way though. The lanterns weren’t currently lit, but Kuai Liang imagined that they created a domestic, warm atmosphere when it got dark outside and those lanterns were lit for those who inhabited the house; which, he realised, were the two them. This was their house.
“In any case, this place may not be real, but I am,” Tomas shrugged.
“I know. And that’s all that matters to me,” Kuai Liang said. His senses were sharper now, and he took advantage of it by reminding himself what a delight it was to play with Tomas’ hair, to look into his grey eyes that were looking back at him. His Tomas was precious to him in any body, but this human body would always be more familiar. He was sure Smoke felt the same about him.
“Don’t worry, if anything goes wrong, I can always break the connection, and we’ll be immediately back to our physical reality. I’ve taken measures,” Tomas assured, at the same time enjoying the caress.
“I’m not worried,” Sub-Zero huffed out with a warm smile, reserved for his life partner alone. “I trust you. I always have.” Gently, he took Tomas’ chin in his hand and pulled his face towards himself, at the same time, stepping forward. Their lips connected.
In no time at all, he couldn’t get enough of kissing Tomas and being kissed by Tomas; couldn’t get enough of the two of them holding and stroking each other. The sensations may be pseudo-physical, simply because they’d experienced them before, but they felt it all so clearly. Kuai Liang was aware now that their current experience relied on the patterns that their brains had formed over the course of many years, like any, at least biological, brain would do (but, likely, an artificial as well, even though it wasn’t their case, thankfully, despite the enhancements), but it seemed enough to make it feel real. Besides, somewhere outside it all, he could feel his sensors as if they were all alight with arousal; that was, very much, real; the electric impulses were prickling his mostly metal body so pleasantly, even though his mind was mostly detached from it at the moment. It was just as real as Tomas being a big part of it all, a very eager participant. All Kuai Liang had to do was simply let go and enjoy it.
Their groins were pressed together and they were grinding against each other, both of them hard. Tomas drew his hand down the other man’s stomach and stopped on the bulge between his legs, massaging it lightly, as they continued to kiss. Kuai Liang moaned into his lover’s mouth. He was so aroused, almost as if he was a hormonal youth again. Smoke started to undress him; the sensation of air against the skin of his bare torso felt nice. Then the skilful hands freed Sub-Zero’s erection from the confines of his clothes, and Kuai Liang could feel a pleasant, tugging sensation in his lower stomach and groin, the sensation he knew so well. He could clearly feel the rigid and heavy organ hanging almost obscenely between his legs, raised from arousal; the weight of it felt so welcome. He looked down and chuckled softly, wondering if, perhaps, it was untypically immature of him, but not really caring if it was. There, below a trail of dark hair that started below his belly button and descended to his groin, where it thickened considerably, was that very organ he’d been born with.
“Yes, yes, I missed it, too,” Tomas teased and wrapped his hand around it, not stroking, just holding in a gentle, but secure grip. Kuai Liang inhaled, his eyes closing from another sensation that he knew so well. “It’s your turn to undress me. I want to feel your hands all over me,” Tomas murmured against his ear. Kuai Liang didn’t need to be asked twice; he gladly obeyed. Technically, he imagined Tomas could make their clothes just disappear, but that would break the psychological immersion. Besides, them undressing each other was a pleasurable act in and of itself.
Smoke shivered as Kuai Liang’s lips touched the skin behind his ear and started to descend down the side of his neck in a trail of kisses, barely breaking the contact. He was undressing his lover from top to bottom, and his mouth was moving downwards as well, until he was on his knee, untying Tomas’ pants and lowering them. And his lips followed the waistband of both the pants and the underwear as Kuai Liang was pulling them down at the same time: the lower stomach, the hipbone and down to Tomas’ groin. Sub-Zero was lavishing the warm skin with kisses that made said skin break out in goose bumps from the arousal. Tomas’ breath was shaking and, because his member was already fully hard, it got caught in the clothes a little. Kuai Liang licked the underside of the twitching length and took it into his mouth, as soon as he'd freed it. His lover’s desperate hand grabbed his shoulder, and Sub-Zero had to steady the other man by holding onto his hips.
He knew how Tomas liked it most, so pleasuring him was familiar and emotionally rewarding. On occasion, he looked up, only to see his lover losing himself in the moment, eyelids lowered, lips parted.
“How about… we use that bed?” Smoke offered just a couple of minutes or so later, his voice wavering, his body trembling.
“Have I thrown you off balance?” Kuai Liang teased softly, looking up. The grey eyes narrowed at that, looking down.
“I’d like to respond in kind, and I can’t do that, unless you’re ready to hold me upside down and, at the same time, continue to use your mouth for something better than talking.”
“That’s an excellent idea for some other time,” the other man shrugged, in a rare mood for a banter. Smoke huffed, but failed to hold back a smile. His hands stroked the sides of Kuai Liang’s face, who, in return, affectionately wrapped his arms around his lover’s hips and held for a few seconds before standing up. He adored, loved and wanted Tomas so much.
They shed the rest of their clothes on their way to the bed. Tomas encouraged him to lie down on his back. The bed felt comfortable, the bedcovers fresh, the size and everything else about it seemed perfect for the two of them to fall asleep and wake up together every day. Sleeping was the last thing on Sub-Zero’s mind right now though. Smoke climbed on top of him, but it was his private parts, not his face, that Kuai Liang saw right above his face. Well, he already knew what Tomas wanted to do, so he just went along with it. The grey hair brushed against his thigh first, then his achingly stiff erection was covered with kisses and teased by his lover’s very warm tongue that circled the most sensitive parts, before the heat of Tomas’ mouth finally engulfed it, lips holding tight. All Kuai Liang could do was let out a shaky exhale and take the other man’s still very hard member back into his mouth to continue what he’d started before.
He didn’t, typically, prefer the two of them doing it for each other at the same time, so they’d rarely done it like this, because he often ended up focusing more on pleasuring Tomas than on receiving it and appreciating his lover’s effort, but he was in the right mood for this now, and both giving and receiving pleasure felt as if they were perfectly on the same wavelength. Perhaps, the enhanced brain was also responsible for this (not that he was thinking about any enhancements at the moment). For once, he just forgot everything and enjoyed himself and his lover.
They were both impatient, nearly to the point of frustration, so, almost in no time, Kuai Liang felt that he was getting close, aware that his lover was just as close by the taste of him and the way he’d started to fidget, as well as the soft noises he was making even with his mouth being occupied. Sub-Zero kept him steady, but also had to keep himself still to resist the temptation to start thrusting into the enthusiastic mouth with that crafty tongue that wouldn’t stop teasing. But his body had a mind of its own when his back arched and he went rigid all over, moaning his orgasm around his lover’s pulsating length ejaculating into his mouth at the same time. He swallowed it all to the last drop; the trembling man on top of him did the same for him.
His mind in a pleasant haze, he was resting on the bed that felt even more comfortable now, his lover’s arms around him. Minutes had passed before he realised that his eyes were closed, so he opened them, only to see Tomas watching him, their faces close.
“Don’t fall asleep on me. I’m not done with you yet,” Smoke smiled. There was some teasing in his voice, but also a promise. Kuai Liang felt his spent member starting to slowly stir to life again with interest.
They took their time, kissing and caressing each other, still too sensitive, but slowly getting aroused again. When they were, they became less gentle with each other, and before long, Tomas was on his knees, his front against the wall, with Kuai Liang’s body pressing against his back. Tomas made enough room between the two of them to slide his hands down his buttocks to part them and hold himself open for his lover, whose breath hitched at the erotic display. The exposed entrance was slick with oil and slightly stretched from their earlier foreplay. Kuai Liang quickly covered his erection with some more oil.
The eager body was opening up to him, as it always did, as he was slowly pressing inside, gently coaxing it to accommodate him. Both men were trembling by the time he couldn’t go any deeper. Tomas put both of his hands on the wall, and Kuai Liang covered them with his own, slowly starting to move. Smoke eventually starting to spur him on soon resulted in Kuai Liang pounding into him, the pace frantic. That was how they both wanted it right now. Tomas met it with backwards motions of his pelvis. At the same time, his body was recoiling from the fast and almost sharp thrusts, skin slapping against skin, and arousing noises escaped Tomas in response to each and every thrust. All of it in combination was too much, and Kuai Liang had to stop, because he was really close to the point of no return. He groaned and pulled out of the other man, holding his erection tight at the base. Smoke made it very clear that he felt bereft and empty. Kuai Liang didn’t keep him waiting and, as soon as he knew he wasn’t going to climax within moments, he was back inside his lover, and he really drove it home this time, in one intense thrust. Tomas gasped and actually laughed at that: a happy, triumphant chuckle. Kuai Liang held his precious man in a tight embrace, bucking into him.
They really didn’t have to hold back, and they were aware of it, so they didn’t. They vocalised their pleasure without restraint: groaning, breathing raggedly. Kuai Liang slid his hand down his lover’s flexing stomach, wrapped it around the already dripping length and stroked it a few times. And that was all that it took. He let the pleasure sweep him away then, apart from the strong wave of it, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of spilling deep into Tomas, whose body was contracting around him in pleasant ripples and shivered at being filled, as well as due to his own orgasm.
Spent and still reeling in the best, most enjoyable sense of the word, Kuai Liang held his lover in both arms, eyes closed, both of them slowly coming down, enjoying the blissful moments of such a deep intimacy, as well as the familiarity of it, which they had missed.
They lay down again. There was a part of Kuai Liang that wanted to stay here, in this fantasy house that Tomas’ imagination had built just for the two of them. But they had a life outside this place, where they still, very much, had each other anyway.
Slowly, they came back to their physical reality. Still connected, still standing close in front of each other, they were touching, even though their bodies no longer felt human, because they weren’t. But it didn’t matter, because it didn’t make them any less valuable for each other.
“We can connect like this again whenever we want to,” Tomas informed. Kuai Liang had suspected that much.
A very clear, wordless 'I love you' transmitted through their link and returned, echoed, or, more accurately, had been shared, filling them both with emotional warmth.