#i like the idea of wenhan being a spy trying to steal military technology from another planet but taeil sneaks into his cold dead heart

[antiresolution]

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Each territory in this world is gutted and rebuilt by the priorities of its leader. This colony on the outer rim is both cold and alive, like the humming motor tucked inside the heart of a machine. Technology runs its cities, builds its skyscrapers, and manufactures the oxygen Wenhan holds in burning lungs as he sneaks between shadows on a suspended launch platform. His steps are quiet and his hands are quick as he climbs up to eye level with a sleeping jaeger corralled by metal staircases and unattended balconies. Even if he was caught in the engineer sector after curfew, all it would earn is disapproval and a warning. They were running too low on pilots to follow protocols.

Wenhan glances at the bracer strapped to one wrist flashing silent and red.

10 minutes left before that curly haired scientist wandered back to check on his bot. His pilot wetsuit was starting to feel like a sweatlicked second skin. 

From the outside, the angles and smooth shell of the jaeger is familiar. Sinew wires wrapped into steel joints as unassuming as every other bot he’s had to pilot. He scales the ladder into the pilot's cabin, hands hovering over a foreign control system that stays unlit even as he hits the usual sequence of switches. He tucks curses under his tongue and grinds his teeth. The neural connector panel is cold against his back and there’s no hum of a reaction underneath skillful hands. 

Cold. Dead. Everything on this planet was so still. Suspended and waiting to borrow energy from something or someone warm and alive. He’s starting to forget how the touch of wind felt on his face from home. The way grass left skin itching for days if he fell asleep under the sun. 

“You could’ve just asked if you wanted to see it.”

Wenhan looks up, and there’s a face so warm and alive peering down at him from the open hatch. Taeil’s eyes are bright and curtained by dark messy curls. He lazily tucks his chin over his arms and looks smug. 

“You’re supposed to be in the bathroom for five more minutes.” Wenhan continues trying sequences of switches.

“I can finish in one.” Taeil drops into the cabin, peering over Wenhan’s shoulder, as if the other man’s failure was more interesting than reporting an unauthorized boarding to superiors. 

“If you really want to brag about your foreplay…” 

“I really admire your propensity for being a egocentric dick, Li, I really do– but it won’t work no matter which way you fondle it... I thought you weren’t supposed to leave the infirmary for another week.” As Taeil smooths fingertips over his unlined forehead and admires the bruised reflection of Wenhan’s concentrated face in the unresponsive control panel. “New wrinkle on stonehenge.”

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping so you can fail basic training again?” Wenhan leans back into the pilot seat, exhaling through his nose. “Nepotism can’t save your ass forever.”

Taeil flips a switch above them both, and the cabin lights up with a soft white glow. The controls remain dark. 

“It won’t work because it’s not finished, idiot.” As he mutters almost inaudibly. “Like I’d make it respond to your biometrics on purpose... Now get out of my fucking robot.”

Wenhan rams shoulders with Taeil on his way out. He lets his legs dangle over the hatch, watching the other check over the jaeger’s insides. For as long as he’s been here, all his relationships have been shallow. It was easier to detach himself when multiple pilots were dispatched and few made it safely back into the station after a fight. Some part of him hoped Taeil failed training on purpose so the mouthy engineer would never have to pilot. It would be so much more boring around here without a thorn in his side. 

What would he do without a challenge.

The sector's dimmed lights flash a bright white and then darken to red, followed by an alarm that shatters comfortable silence. Wenhan immediately drops from the unresponsive bot and moves to board another, but his feet stumble into empty air as ears are blown out from an eruption of shattered metal walls and heat.

The suspended balcony creating a pathway between jaegers had snapped in half from the explosion, sending wenhan sliding forward into a death drop to the ground floor. The momentum is enough that he swings into the railing and grips hot metal to delay the fall, but his descent had already stopped. The jaeger that had been dead on its feet moments before now had metal arms extended, catching wenhan in the palm of its hand. Wenhan stares up at the glassy visor, unable to see Taeil’s form tucked inside its shell. 

He hadn't been the only one lying from the beginning.