Link Click: Instinct (Part One) [2/5]
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prose_alchemistTitle: Instinct (Part One) [2/5]
Author:jordannamorgan
Archive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence.
Characters: Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang, Xiao Li, original characters.
Setting: Post-season two, after our heroes have had enough time to make a full recovery. (While leaving aside any possible Lu-loop drama for now. My heart can’t take it.)
Summary: Hired to solve a wealthy client’s personal mystery, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang discover there are even darker powers in the world than they realized… and the damage left in the fallout will not be easily fixed for anyone.
Disclaimer: They belong to Li Haoling, LAN Studio, and Haoliners Animation League. I’m just playing with them.
II. Corruption
The next moment, Cheng Xiaoshi was staring down at the screen of a more expensive phone than he would ever be able to afford. The image displayed on it was a now-familiar photo of a receipt; and as he lowered the phone, that very receipt came into view, resting atop a polished oak bar.
A brief instant of disorientation swept through him. It was the same every time, the strange rush of his mind adjusting to the confines of a body and brain that were not his own. The very reason he’d chosen the word dive to describe his excursions into other lives was that he felt initially like a deep-sea diver, acclimating to the foreign and heady pressure of his subject’s identity. For a moment he closed his borrowed eyes and let it all wash over him, simply feeling this new other self that was Sang Zhaojun.
A small part of that self would linger with him from then on, just like every life he dived into. Those quiet ghosts of other—unexpected reactions to matters outside his own life experience, faint emotions and desires that weren’t quite him—were a haunting reality he had learned to accept as a consequence of using his power. He was careful never to speak of them to Lu Guang, instinctively wary of a reaction that might… complicate things.
…Regardless of the fact that deep down, he was fairly sure Lu Guang already knew far too well. Even when they weren’t peering through time, his partner’s extraordinary eyes never missed anything.
Shaking his head, Cheng Xiaoshi focused on sifting through the impressions that filled him. Gleaming threads of honor and duty, of dignity and responsibility; cool glimmers of efficiency that never quite descended to impatience. Yet beneath all that armor of a corporate warrior, there was a warm core of kindness—and a quite unexpected frisson of shy. Sang Zhaojun was a man who played the confident and commanding role he had learned, yet had no idea how to express to others who he really was behind the mask.
More physically, the time traveler felt other things in a clear but somewhat detached way. A tightly controlled urge to fidget with his hands that must have been a symptom of all that shyness. Phantom stiffness in a right knee scarred years ago by… a baseball injury, he was informed by a fragment of memory that did not belong to him.—This guy was one of the best players on his college team before that injury ended his career, too. So much for judging a book by its cover.—And most noteworthy of all, he felt a pleasant, relaxing tingle that came from alcohol, but it was in no way strong enough to interfere with his thoughts.
[Don’t just stand there,] the echo of Lu Guang’s voice suddenly intruded upon his mind through their link. [Sang Zhaojun is incredibly punctual. You have to email that photo to Yujian Electronics’ accounting department now, or we won’t have it in the present to make this dive possible in the first place.]
Cheng Xiaoshi growled quietly between clenched teeth, fumbling with the phone on what was more his host’s conditioned reflexes than his own conscious effort. “Can’t you at least give me a minute to orient myself?” The muttered words came out in Sang Zhaojun’s voice, but in a peevish tone that was nothing at all like the calm and measured ones they had heard from the prim businessman during their meeting.
[It’s about more than just staying in character,] Lu Guang replied sternly. [You’re following a critical timeline now. If something does cause our client to become violent on this night, it needs to happen at exactly the same place and time as before, or else—]
“Or else no one will get hurt after all?” Cheng Xiaoshi offered with perfect innocence, and could practically see Lu Guang’s eyelid twitching before a flat response was fired back.
[…Or else someone could get hurt who wasn’t hurt in the history we know.]
That put a different light on things. Heaving a sigh, Cheng Xiaoshi cast a swift glance around to be sure no wallet or keys of Sang Zhaojun’s were left lying on the bar, and then hurriedly made for the exit. Chilly winter air hit his face and filled his lungs as he stepped out into a deepening dusk.
[Go to your left until you reach the end of the block, and then turn left down the side street,] Lu Guang instructed him. [Walk faster… Not quite that fast. Remember, you have a bad knee.]
Restraining his objections to his partner’s backseat driving, Cheng Xiaoshi instead chose to address the fact that was foremost on his mind.
“Our client wasn’t wrong about one thing,” he observed, dutifully turning off onto the narrow deserted side street Lu Guang had directed him to. “He really didn’t drink enough to get drunk. I can feel the effects of a little alcohol, but my head is still more than clear enough.”
[That’s what has me worried. …Be prepared to jump out at any moment, alright? Even though you haven’t done anything to change the timeline, I still can’t see how this walk is going to end—and I don’t like it.]
“Yeah, sure.” Cheng Xiaoshi took his restless hands out of his pockets and allowed them to hang at his sides, loose and relaxed but ready to be raised in a clap at the slightest alarm from his watcher.
For several minutes, Lu Guang continued to guide him down a series of streets and alleys. He soon found himself winding through darker and narrower delivery-truck driveways between the backs of downtown shops and eateries. In this space where yellowed light from back-door fixtures reflected eerily off of oily puddles, and piles of trash collected in dank corners behind stacks of crates and pallets, he had to admit that he could have started to feel like he was in a horror movie.
…Of course, it was probably just his nerves, tempted to run wild with the unconscious suggestions Sang Zhaojun’s overactive imagination had left him with.
“This area is a maze,” he remarked, more to himself than to Lu Guang. “Why would Sang Zhaojun…?—No, I take it back. I do get it. This bum knee bothers him more than he lets on, but he’s too independent to rely on Yee to take him just a few blocks. So to spend less time walking on it, he learned the shortest routes around the streets near his office.”
[According to the almanac for that date, the full moon will have been up for about five minutes now.] Lu Guang sounded entirely too serious about that little detail.
Cheng Xiaoshi raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Wait, it rose already?—You could have warned me earlier.”
[I thought you didn’t believe in Sang Zhaojun’s werewolf theory.]
“I don’t. The whole thing is just creepy, that’s all. Especially in a place like this.”
[Well, regardless, you’ve almost reached the point where I started to lose sight of Sang Zhaojun before. How do you feel?]
“I’m… fine? I might be getting just a little more heady from the wine. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, everything about his body feels normal.”
[Stay sharp. And keep talking to me.]
“Right,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed, peering cautiously into the shadows of a pair of tipped-over empty trash cans as he maneuvered around them. The night didn’t seem quite as dark here; the flood lights on the adjacent buildings must have been brighter. It felt much warmer to him in that alley sheltered from the wind, as well. A different heat that must have been belatedly due to the wine was spreading from the center of his belly, giving rise to a not-unpleasant haze that crept invitingly around the edges of his awareness. He blinked and made a conscious effort to push it back. “I think the alcohol really is hitting him now.”
[Focus, for our client’s sake. I have to know what you’re feeling. Because if I think for one second that I’m going to lose contact with you the way I lost sight of him, this dive will be over—and we won’t get another chance.]
“Mmm,” Cheng Xiaoshi pouted vaguely, feeling the warmth inside and out becoming just a little too uncomfortable. He gave in to Sang Zhaojun’s repressed nervous tic of fidgeting, and rubbed at his faintly prickling arms through his sleeves. “Y’know, for what he must’ve paid for it, this damn suit sure itches…”
A distinct note of unease crept into his partner’s voice. [Cheng Xiaoshi, stay—]
The words after that were a muddled noise. The haziness in his head was growing more insistent, but at the same time, everything suddenly felt… so vivid. His senses would normally override those of his host during dives, and he’d been sure he had better eyes than Sang Zhaojun; yet shapes and outlines were standing out more sharply in the darkness than he could ever remember seeing, even while in his own body. Furthermore, that oppressive suit felt entirely too tight on his skin, stifling his lungs and prompting him to pull his tie loose. His breaths quickened as his heart rate increased.
So hot. Heartbeat almost hurts.
Was I… talking to someone just now?
More garbled sounds in his head. The words were unrecognizable, but the urgency of a distant familiar voice spurred a nearly unconscious reaction. As golden-lighted eyes opened wide, his hands reflexively rose in front of his chest; yet he had no clear awareness of exactly what he was trying to do with them.
“Lu…!” he gasped—and his mind stumbled completely as he tasted odors of rancid meat from a nearby restaurant dumpster.
Why am I… so…
Hungry…
The burning heat in the pit of his stomach suddenly exploded into a sharp stabbing pain, pitching him onto his hands and knees to vomit uncontrollably. Through helpless spasms of retching, he felt the pain roll through his body in searing waves, so overwhelming to his mind that he couldn’t even form a conscious question of what was happening. He wasn’t sure whether it was he or the far-off voice in his head that was screaming; he heard something tearing, and didn’t know whether it was fabric or flesh.
When his stomach had emptied itself, the convulsions of vomiting relented, but that slight reprieve only allowed the sensations in the rest of his secondhand body to come into focus. Defying the fiery pain that seemed to be rending flesh and muscles apart, he mustered the effort to try to push himself upright… and he saw things that were no longer hands grasping desperately at the pavement underneath him. He saw palms hardening into dark rough pads, and claws erupting from fingertips to rake bloody trails across the ground.
For an instant, one brief coherent thought penetrated the shock and pain.
It’s all true.
Like a puppet with its strings jerked, his spine abruptly arched and his joints twisted themselves in directions not meant for human limbs, contorting his entire body with a series of sickening cracks. As his ribcage expanded and his formerly slender frame hulked to a monstrous shape, he very nearly whited out altogether from the agony. He was barely aware of once perfectly-fitted suit fabric splitting at the seams, falling away in tatters to expose patches of thick dark hair spreading and merging across his skin. A needling pressure at the base of his spine was released, freeing new flesh and bone to sprout into a long and lashing tail.
The cry that was most definitely torn from his own throat then was no longer a scream, but a howl. It was an abortive sound, choked off just as quickly by the swell of a lengthening tongue as it writhed over newly sharp teeth, lolling out between jaws that stretched and tapered into a gaping, panting muzzle. His vision warped as even his eye sockets shifted, and the warm yellow of the distant lights drained away, darkening to dull gold against the too-defined blue of the night.
As the heaving violence of the outer changes finally slowed, a primal wave of darkness welled up from deep within. It rushed at his mind, promising to sweep away not only the pain, but whatever splinters of self were left to him… and for a moment, all he knew was the desire to let that wave drown his last torturous awareness of everything.
[—Cheng Xiaoshi! Get out!]
It was the voice that he suddenly knew had been calling to him all along. He would never know how its words managed to reach some part of him in that moment—but all that mattered was that they did at last.
Even as that black wave crashed down on him, twisting talons that were once hands stretched out in desperation, clumsily but firmly coming together.
A month removed in time, Lu Guang helplessly bore witness to a nightmare wrought in flesh.
It would have been horrifying enough to watch anyone endure that transformation: to hear such chilling screams, to see a human body tear itself apart and reform into a beastly new shape. Yet to know his best friend was inside that body, experiencing every moment of it, was beyond anything he could have been prepared for. From the moment he sensed that something was terribly wrong, he had shouted Cheng Xiaoshi’s name until his voice was raw, trying to call him back to the present and the safety of his own being; but there was no response. The change had crept slowly and insidiously into the brain Cheng Xiaoshi occupied before it affected the body, numbing him to the realization of danger until it was too late, and even drowning out his anchoring link to Lu Guang.
…That is, until the very last moment, when Lu Guang could feel his final chance to reach his partner’s mind before their connection was completely broken.
Seconds later, Cheng Xiaoshi thudded heavily back into the present, crouched and panting on the floor at Lu Guang’s feet.
Relief instantly rushed through every fiber of the seer’s being. He bent down, reaching out to put a hand on the shoulder of the time traveler who appeared to be safely returned. “Cheng Xiaoshi—”
His hand never made contact. Cheng Xiaoshi twisted with a savage snarl and recoiled against the coffee table, teeth bared and pupils blown wide… and for a split second, Lu Guang thought he glimpsed one detail his friend could not have been aware of in his ordeal. He thought he glimpsed eyes glowing the same pale full-moon yellow as those of the creature Sang Zhaojun had become.
The gazes of the two young men locked for an endless, fragile moment, and Lu Guang slowly released the breath he was holding. No. Not moon-yellow, but only the brighter gold that lighted Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes when he summoned his power. …For that matter, Lu Guang noticed that his hands were not raised in one of Master Siwen’s fighting stances, but braced to clap together.
A fight-or-flight response—and this is the reaction that most instinctively means flight to him, Lu Guang realized with a pang.
Something was still terribly wrong.
Cheng Xiaoshi continued to stare at him, seemingly without recognizing him. After a moment of uncertainty, Lu Guang stifled the anxious ache in his heart and crouched as well: hands open and spread wide to present no threat, head lowered beneath Cheng Xiaoshi’s eye level to make his own position the more vulnerable one. He spoke in a soft and soothing tone, never letting their eyes break contact.
“It’s okay. You’re back in the present, Cheng Xiaoshi. You’re safe. …You’re human.”
He wasn’t quite sure why he added that last, seemingly obvious assurance, and it caught distressingly in his throat as he said it. Nevertheless, it was what Cheng Xiaoshi finally responded to. Golden eyes slowly darkened to deep brown, coming alive with recognition once more; and then they closed as he slumped to his knees, covering his face with his hands. A faint sob wavered in the uneven breath he let out.
“Lu Guang…” he whispered in a shaking voice, and promptly gave up any further effort to hold back tears.
Assured now that contact would not cause alarm, Lu Guang was quick to kneel beside Cheng Xiaoshi and simply hold him. For only a moment he felt a ripple of tension pass through his friend’s shivering frame, but then Cheng Xiaoshi leaned into his arms like a child, tangibly exhausted in body and spirit as he wept on the shoulder of his guide.
They sat there like that for a while, as Lu Guang finally allowed himself to process everything that had happened, and just how much damage he now knew had been done: not to the past, but the present.
All because of him.
Because he hadn’t been able to see this coming—and yet even without a clear vision from his power, he should have been able to see it coming. He knew something was off before Cheng Xiaoshi ever made the dive. He’d sensed a danger and let himself dismiss it, and he hated himself for that, because it meant what his partner was suffering now was his fault. No matter how willing Cheng Xiaoshi had been to take the job, to help their client and earn a generous paycheck, Lu Guang should have been the one to listen to his instincts and say no.
Yet he knew Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t see it that way, and that was quite possibly the worst part of all.
“I’m sorry,” the seer apologized at last, when the time traveler eventually grew quiet and still against his shoulder—incidentally leaving a sizable snot stain on his shirt, but that was the very last thing he was going to complain about right now. “I never should have agreed to let you make that dive.”
Predictably, Cheng Xiaoshi only shook his head as he pulled away, glancing up with reluctance through swollen and bloodshot eyes. In its own way, that simple and immediate dismissal of Lu Guang’s guilt was more crushing than any rebuke he could have given vent to.
“Sang Zhaojun was right,” he murmured brokenly. “…And we have to tell him.”
“I’m not worried about him right now,” Lu Guang asserted with blunt candor. “What I’m worried about is you.”
Another vague head shake. “I’ll be fine. I just… need some time to clear my mind.” Cheng Xiaoshi pushed himself slowly to his feet, drawing in a deep breath that he almost managed to make convincingly steady. “What matters right now is figuring out how to help him, before…” And there was the faint quiver once more. “Before that happens to him again during the full moon tomorrow night.”
From that small hitch in his breath alone, Lu Guang was intensely aware that Cheng Xiaoshi was not fine, and would very likely not be fine for quite some time; but he also knew it would be impossible to convince him to put his needs before someone else’s. Heaving a sigh, he also rose from the floor, and focused on what was important to his friend in that moment. The sooner they helped Sang Zhaojun, the sooner Cheng Xiaoshi might accept help as well.
“We can ask him to meet with Captain Xiao,” Lu Guang proposed. “He’s trustworthy, and after seeing our powers at work, he should also be willing to believe the truth about Sang Zhaojun.”
Cheng Xiaoshi took a long moment to consider that, as if his mind was still working to fully surface from the depths it had been dragged down to. At last he gave a faint nod of agreement, and Lu Guang reached for his phone.
© 2023 Jordanna Morgan
Author:
jordannamorganArchive Rights: Please request the author’s consent.
Rating/Warnings: PG for fantasy violence.
Characters: Cheng Xiaoshi, Lu Guang, Xiao Li, original characters.
Setting: Post-season two, after our heroes have had enough time to make a full recovery. (While leaving aside any possible Lu-loop drama for now. My heart can’t take it.)
Summary: Hired to solve a wealthy client’s personal mystery, Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang discover there are even darker powers in the world than they realized… and the damage left in the fallout will not be easily fixed for anyone.
Disclaimer: They belong to Li Haoling, LAN Studio, and Haoliners Animation League. I’m just playing with them.
II. Corruption
The next moment, Cheng Xiaoshi was staring down at the screen of a more expensive phone than he would ever be able to afford. The image displayed on it was a now-familiar photo of a receipt; and as he lowered the phone, that very receipt came into view, resting atop a polished oak bar.
A brief instant of disorientation swept through him. It was the same every time, the strange rush of his mind adjusting to the confines of a body and brain that were not his own. The very reason he’d chosen the word dive to describe his excursions into other lives was that he felt initially like a deep-sea diver, acclimating to the foreign and heady pressure of his subject’s identity. For a moment he closed his borrowed eyes and let it all wash over him, simply feeling this new other self that was Sang Zhaojun.
A small part of that self would linger with him from then on, just like every life he dived into. Those quiet ghosts of other—unexpected reactions to matters outside his own life experience, faint emotions and desires that weren’t quite him—were a haunting reality he had learned to accept as a consequence of using his power. He was careful never to speak of them to Lu Guang, instinctively wary of a reaction that might… complicate things.
…Regardless of the fact that deep down, he was fairly sure Lu Guang already knew far too well. Even when they weren’t peering through time, his partner’s extraordinary eyes never missed anything.
Shaking his head, Cheng Xiaoshi focused on sifting through the impressions that filled him. Gleaming threads of honor and duty, of dignity and responsibility; cool glimmers of efficiency that never quite descended to impatience. Yet beneath all that armor of a corporate warrior, there was a warm core of kindness—and a quite unexpected frisson of shy. Sang Zhaojun was a man who played the confident and commanding role he had learned, yet had no idea how to express to others who he really was behind the mask.
More physically, the time traveler felt other things in a clear but somewhat detached way. A tightly controlled urge to fidget with his hands that must have been a symptom of all that shyness. Phantom stiffness in a right knee scarred years ago by… a baseball injury, he was informed by a fragment of memory that did not belong to him.—This guy was one of the best players on his college team before that injury ended his career, too. So much for judging a book by its cover.—And most noteworthy of all, he felt a pleasant, relaxing tingle that came from alcohol, but it was in no way strong enough to interfere with his thoughts.
[Don’t just stand there,] the echo of Lu Guang’s voice suddenly intruded upon his mind through their link. [Sang Zhaojun is incredibly punctual. You have to email that photo to Yujian Electronics’ accounting department now, or we won’t have it in the present to make this dive possible in the first place.]
Cheng Xiaoshi growled quietly between clenched teeth, fumbling with the phone on what was more his host’s conditioned reflexes than his own conscious effort. “Can’t you at least give me a minute to orient myself?” The muttered words came out in Sang Zhaojun’s voice, but in a peevish tone that was nothing at all like the calm and measured ones they had heard from the prim businessman during their meeting.
[It’s about more than just staying in character,] Lu Guang replied sternly. [You’re following a critical timeline now. If something does cause our client to become violent on this night, it needs to happen at exactly the same place and time as before, or else—]
“Or else no one will get hurt after all?” Cheng Xiaoshi offered with perfect innocence, and could practically see Lu Guang’s eyelid twitching before a flat response was fired back.
[…Or else someone could get hurt who wasn’t hurt in the history we know.]
That put a different light on things. Heaving a sigh, Cheng Xiaoshi cast a swift glance around to be sure no wallet or keys of Sang Zhaojun’s were left lying on the bar, and then hurriedly made for the exit. Chilly winter air hit his face and filled his lungs as he stepped out into a deepening dusk.
[Go to your left until you reach the end of the block, and then turn left down the side street,] Lu Guang instructed him. [Walk faster… Not quite that fast. Remember, you have a bad knee.]
Restraining his objections to his partner’s backseat driving, Cheng Xiaoshi instead chose to address the fact that was foremost on his mind.
“Our client wasn’t wrong about one thing,” he observed, dutifully turning off onto the narrow deserted side street Lu Guang had directed him to. “He really didn’t drink enough to get drunk. I can feel the effects of a little alcohol, but my head is still more than clear enough.”
[That’s what has me worried. …Be prepared to jump out at any moment, alright? Even though you haven’t done anything to change the timeline, I still can’t see how this walk is going to end—and I don’t like it.]
“Yeah, sure.” Cheng Xiaoshi took his restless hands out of his pockets and allowed them to hang at his sides, loose and relaxed but ready to be raised in a clap at the slightest alarm from his watcher.
For several minutes, Lu Guang continued to guide him down a series of streets and alleys. He soon found himself winding through darker and narrower delivery-truck driveways between the backs of downtown shops and eateries. In this space where yellowed light from back-door fixtures reflected eerily off of oily puddles, and piles of trash collected in dank corners behind stacks of crates and pallets, he had to admit that he could have started to feel like he was in a horror movie.
…Of course, it was probably just his nerves, tempted to run wild with the unconscious suggestions Sang Zhaojun’s overactive imagination had left him with.
“This area is a maze,” he remarked, more to himself than to Lu Guang. “Why would Sang Zhaojun…?—No, I take it back. I do get it. This bum knee bothers him more than he lets on, but he’s too independent to rely on Yee to take him just a few blocks. So to spend less time walking on it, he learned the shortest routes around the streets near his office.”
[According to the almanac for that date, the full moon will have been up for about five minutes now.] Lu Guang sounded entirely too serious about that little detail.
Cheng Xiaoshi raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Wait, it rose already?—You could have warned me earlier.”
[I thought you didn’t believe in Sang Zhaojun’s werewolf theory.]
“I don’t. The whole thing is just creepy, that’s all. Especially in a place like this.”
[Well, regardless, you’ve almost reached the point where I started to lose sight of Sang Zhaojun before. How do you feel?]
“I’m… fine? I might be getting just a little more heady from the wine. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, everything about his body feels normal.”
[Stay sharp. And keep talking to me.]
“Right,” Cheng Xiaoshi agreed, peering cautiously into the shadows of a pair of tipped-over empty trash cans as he maneuvered around them. The night didn’t seem quite as dark here; the flood lights on the adjacent buildings must have been brighter. It felt much warmer to him in that alley sheltered from the wind, as well. A different heat that must have been belatedly due to the wine was spreading from the center of his belly, giving rise to a not-unpleasant haze that crept invitingly around the edges of his awareness. He blinked and made a conscious effort to push it back. “I think the alcohol really is hitting him now.”
[Focus, for our client’s sake. I have to know what you’re feeling. Because if I think for one second that I’m going to lose contact with you the way I lost sight of him, this dive will be over—and we won’t get another chance.]
“Mmm,” Cheng Xiaoshi pouted vaguely, feeling the warmth inside and out becoming just a little too uncomfortable. He gave in to Sang Zhaojun’s repressed nervous tic of fidgeting, and rubbed at his faintly prickling arms through his sleeves. “Y’know, for what he must’ve paid for it, this damn suit sure itches…”
A distinct note of unease crept into his partner’s voice. [Cheng Xiaoshi, stay—]
The words after that were a muddled noise. The haziness in his head was growing more insistent, but at the same time, everything suddenly felt… so vivid. His senses would normally override those of his host during dives, and he’d been sure he had better eyes than Sang Zhaojun; yet shapes and outlines were standing out more sharply in the darkness than he could ever remember seeing, even while in his own body. Furthermore, that oppressive suit felt entirely too tight on his skin, stifling his lungs and prompting him to pull his tie loose. His breaths quickened as his heart rate increased.
So hot. Heartbeat almost hurts.
Was I… talking to someone just now?
More garbled sounds in his head. The words were unrecognizable, but the urgency of a distant familiar voice spurred a nearly unconscious reaction. As golden-lighted eyes opened wide, his hands reflexively rose in front of his chest; yet he had no clear awareness of exactly what he was trying to do with them.
“Lu…!” he gasped—and his mind stumbled completely as he tasted odors of rancid meat from a nearby restaurant dumpster.
Why am I… so…
Hungry…
The burning heat in the pit of his stomach suddenly exploded into a sharp stabbing pain, pitching him onto his hands and knees to vomit uncontrollably. Through helpless spasms of retching, he felt the pain roll through his body in searing waves, so overwhelming to his mind that he couldn’t even form a conscious question of what was happening. He wasn’t sure whether it was he or the far-off voice in his head that was screaming; he heard something tearing, and didn’t know whether it was fabric or flesh.
When his stomach had emptied itself, the convulsions of vomiting relented, but that slight reprieve only allowed the sensations in the rest of his secondhand body to come into focus. Defying the fiery pain that seemed to be rending flesh and muscles apart, he mustered the effort to try to push himself upright… and he saw things that were no longer hands grasping desperately at the pavement underneath him. He saw palms hardening into dark rough pads, and claws erupting from fingertips to rake bloody trails across the ground.
For an instant, one brief coherent thought penetrated the shock and pain.
It’s all true.
Like a puppet with its strings jerked, his spine abruptly arched and his joints twisted themselves in directions not meant for human limbs, contorting his entire body with a series of sickening cracks. As his ribcage expanded and his formerly slender frame hulked to a monstrous shape, he very nearly whited out altogether from the agony. He was barely aware of once perfectly-fitted suit fabric splitting at the seams, falling away in tatters to expose patches of thick dark hair spreading and merging across his skin. A needling pressure at the base of his spine was released, freeing new flesh and bone to sprout into a long and lashing tail.
The cry that was most definitely torn from his own throat then was no longer a scream, but a howl. It was an abortive sound, choked off just as quickly by the swell of a lengthening tongue as it writhed over newly sharp teeth, lolling out between jaws that stretched and tapered into a gaping, panting muzzle. His vision warped as even his eye sockets shifted, and the warm yellow of the distant lights drained away, darkening to dull gold against the too-defined blue of the night.
As the heaving violence of the outer changes finally slowed, a primal wave of darkness welled up from deep within. It rushed at his mind, promising to sweep away not only the pain, but whatever splinters of self were left to him… and for a moment, all he knew was the desire to let that wave drown his last torturous awareness of everything.
[—Cheng Xiaoshi! Get out!]
It was the voice that he suddenly knew had been calling to him all along. He would never know how its words managed to reach some part of him in that moment—but all that mattered was that they did at last.
Even as that black wave crashed down on him, twisting talons that were once hands stretched out in desperation, clumsily but firmly coming together.
A month removed in time, Lu Guang helplessly bore witness to a nightmare wrought in flesh.
It would have been horrifying enough to watch anyone endure that transformation: to hear such chilling screams, to see a human body tear itself apart and reform into a beastly new shape. Yet to know his best friend was inside that body, experiencing every moment of it, was beyond anything he could have been prepared for. From the moment he sensed that something was terribly wrong, he had shouted Cheng Xiaoshi’s name until his voice was raw, trying to call him back to the present and the safety of his own being; but there was no response. The change had crept slowly and insidiously into the brain Cheng Xiaoshi occupied before it affected the body, numbing him to the realization of danger until it was too late, and even drowning out his anchoring link to Lu Guang.
…That is, until the very last moment, when Lu Guang could feel his final chance to reach his partner’s mind before their connection was completely broken.
Seconds later, Cheng Xiaoshi thudded heavily back into the present, crouched and panting on the floor at Lu Guang’s feet.
Relief instantly rushed through every fiber of the seer’s being. He bent down, reaching out to put a hand on the shoulder of the time traveler who appeared to be safely returned. “Cheng Xiaoshi—”
His hand never made contact. Cheng Xiaoshi twisted with a savage snarl and recoiled against the coffee table, teeth bared and pupils blown wide… and for a split second, Lu Guang thought he glimpsed one detail his friend could not have been aware of in his ordeal. He thought he glimpsed eyes glowing the same pale full-moon yellow as those of the creature Sang Zhaojun had become.
The gazes of the two young men locked for an endless, fragile moment, and Lu Guang slowly released the breath he was holding. No. Not moon-yellow, but only the brighter gold that lighted Cheng Xiaoshi’s eyes when he summoned his power. …For that matter, Lu Guang noticed that his hands were not raised in one of Master Siwen’s fighting stances, but braced to clap together.
A fight-or-flight response—and this is the reaction that most instinctively means flight to him, Lu Guang realized with a pang.
Something was still terribly wrong.
Cheng Xiaoshi continued to stare at him, seemingly without recognizing him. After a moment of uncertainty, Lu Guang stifled the anxious ache in his heart and crouched as well: hands open and spread wide to present no threat, head lowered beneath Cheng Xiaoshi’s eye level to make his own position the more vulnerable one. He spoke in a soft and soothing tone, never letting their eyes break contact.
“It’s okay. You’re back in the present, Cheng Xiaoshi. You’re safe. …You’re human.”
He wasn’t quite sure why he added that last, seemingly obvious assurance, and it caught distressingly in his throat as he said it. Nevertheless, it was what Cheng Xiaoshi finally responded to. Golden eyes slowly darkened to deep brown, coming alive with recognition once more; and then they closed as he slumped to his knees, covering his face with his hands. A faint sob wavered in the uneven breath he let out.
“Lu Guang…” he whispered in a shaking voice, and promptly gave up any further effort to hold back tears.
Assured now that contact would not cause alarm, Lu Guang was quick to kneel beside Cheng Xiaoshi and simply hold him. For only a moment he felt a ripple of tension pass through his friend’s shivering frame, but then Cheng Xiaoshi leaned into his arms like a child, tangibly exhausted in body and spirit as he wept on the shoulder of his guide.
They sat there like that for a while, as Lu Guang finally allowed himself to process everything that had happened, and just how much damage he now knew had been done: not to the past, but the present.
All because of him.
Because he hadn’t been able to see this coming—and yet even without a clear vision from his power, he should have been able to see it coming. He knew something was off before Cheng Xiaoshi ever made the dive. He’d sensed a danger and let himself dismiss it, and he hated himself for that, because it meant what his partner was suffering now was his fault. No matter how willing Cheng Xiaoshi had been to take the job, to help their client and earn a generous paycheck, Lu Guang should have been the one to listen to his instincts and say no.
Yet he knew Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t see it that way, and that was quite possibly the worst part of all.
“I’m sorry,” the seer apologized at last, when the time traveler eventually grew quiet and still against his shoulder—incidentally leaving a sizable snot stain on his shirt, but that was the very last thing he was going to complain about right now. “I never should have agreed to let you make that dive.”
Predictably, Cheng Xiaoshi only shook his head as he pulled away, glancing up with reluctance through swollen and bloodshot eyes. In its own way, that simple and immediate dismissal of Lu Guang’s guilt was more crushing than any rebuke he could have given vent to.
“Sang Zhaojun was right,” he murmured brokenly. “…And we have to tell him.”
“I’m not worried about him right now,” Lu Guang asserted with blunt candor. “What I’m worried about is you.”
Another vague head shake. “I’ll be fine. I just… need some time to clear my mind.” Cheng Xiaoshi pushed himself slowly to his feet, drawing in a deep breath that he almost managed to make convincingly steady. “What matters right now is figuring out how to help him, before…” And there was the faint quiver once more. “Before that happens to him again during the full moon tomorrow night.”
From that small hitch in his breath alone, Lu Guang was intensely aware that Cheng Xiaoshi was not fine, and would very likely not be fine for quite some time; but he also knew it would be impossible to convince him to put his needs before someone else’s. Heaving a sigh, he also rose from the floor, and focused on what was important to his friend in that moment. The sooner they helped Sang Zhaojun, the sooner Cheng Xiaoshi might accept help as well.
“We can ask him to meet with Captain Xiao,” Lu Guang proposed. “He’s trustworthy, and after seeing our powers at work, he should also be willing to believe the truth about Sang Zhaojun.”
Cheng Xiaoshi took a long moment to consider that, as if his mind was still working to fully surface from the depths it had been dragged down to. At last he gave a faint nod of agreement, and Lu Guang reached for his phone.
© 2023 Jordanna Morgan