Chapter Text
Lin Ling stood atop the To-Be Heroes! Advertizement building and felt as if he were teetering over the edge of a yawning abyss.
The ground was so far below it was nauseating, far enough that if he teetered forward his vision went wobbly trying to conceive of the sheer distance - so he didn't. Eyes up, allowing himself to look no lower than the tops of the sprawling metropolis before him. Since childhood, he'd been told it was a modern masterpiece of a city, a testament to exceptionalism and meritocracy. Now all he saw was a load of stone and glass, dead and cold and uncaring, just like Mr Cheng.
Lin Ling scowled at the thought of his boss. Shufting about, arms full with the contents of a desk he'd been forced to empty just that morning, he reached inside and brought out a calculator. Fat lot of use that'd get now. Seriously, why did they even allocate these to staff even everyone used phones these days? Whatever. Mr Cheng was an old balding man with the inspiration and breath of a fish, he probably refused to acknowledge that technology had moved past him. Brandishing the company-mandate calculator high, Lin Ling flung it straight off the side of the building and watched it tumble down, down, down...
down...
Clunk. There it was. That was a distant sound. From up here, he couldn't even see where it had landed.
Wow. It sure was high up.
But that was good. Right? That meant there was no chance he could fuck it up and end up paralyzed or something. Just a swift, clean hit to the head. Dead before he knows it.
Unthinkingly he stepped back from the ledge, then chastised himself in his head.
You need to do this. There's nothing else left for you now. What were you even thinking going on like that back there, testing Mr Cheng's patience, running his money and your mouth?
Hands clenching around the box, he remembered the words he'd shouted as he ran out of the building, hopped up on resentment and numbed by shock.
"I'm the reason you had all that success!"
"You'll regret this!"
Oh yeah. The thought came lathered with self-deprecation. Sure he will. They have a million of me up there. I had one job. And now I'm totally blacklisted.
So this was the end. Lin Ling placed the box down on the edge of the roof with a sense of finality, hesitating for only a moment to finger a company-brand pencil out, valuing something to do with his hands. If he just let himself haver anxiously he'd revert back old bad habits and start picking the skin off his cuticles.
Twirling it, Lin Ling kept looking up at the setting sun.
Just do it.
His front leg twitched.
Get it over with.
He stepped up and down, twirling the pen faster.
What are you waiting for? No family, no friends, no career. What else is left for you here?
He clenched the pen in his hand, so tight it creaked.
At least if I jump, Mr Cheng might see my body. Maybe that'd inspire him to feel something. Ha! Probably not.
He let himself look down, fully look down, then looked back at the stairs he'd came from. Imagined chickening out, giving up, traipsing back down. It might be scary up here, but at the bottom of those stairs it could only be worse.
No. The only way he was getting off this roof was by jumping.
As if compelled by the comedic inclinations of a sadistic deity, just as he was starting to psyche himself up to actually do what he'd came for, a company-branded blimp blew by. Obnoxiously large and fitted with a humongous screen with great big speakers designed to be heard at the ground level, Lin Ling recoiled at a familiar advertizement.
"Hey, Cheer Up!" The comforting voice of Moon trilled, reading off the script he'd given her. "Being alive does mean experiencing hardship, but please don't lose hope! Instead, watch True Love Recipe-"
"ARRRRGH!" Lin Ling finally snapped. Bringing his arm back, he fast pitched the pen straight off the side of the building. Not even waiting to hear the sound of impact, he paced the buildings edge, deaf to the advertisement's ear-bleeding volume. "No, no, no! THAT'S MY AD, YOU HEAR ME? MY AD!" jerking a finger out, he flipped it off. Nice's perfect face stared back indifferently. "MY WORK! MY LEGACY! TWENTY THREE, AND THIS IS WHAT I'VE ACHIEVED! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" angling his face down, he screamed at the empty street below. "IT'S OVER! I'M DONE! I JUST WANTED TO BE SOMEONE! IS THAT SO WRONG! AND I'M NO ONE! AND NOW I'LL ALWAYS BE NO ONE!" he hooted at the sun "FUCK YOU, CHENG YAOJIN! FUCK YOU, 'BE HERO' ENTERTAINMENT! AND FUCK YOU MOST OF ALL, NICE!"
Bolstered by the strength of his words, he finally rose a foot over the edge of the platform. Rage kept nausea from catching up to him.
It also kept him from noticing that he'd stepped just a little further than he'd intended, wanting to get another speech out before taking the dive, though he knew deep down he was putting it off.
In the end, there was no choice. Even up here gravity stayed by its same old rules, and, off-balance, Lin Ling fell.
In the nanosecond as he processed this insurmountable error, Lin Ling thought his body turned to ice. The world became an unrecognizable hell. The sky dissapeared.
Shit. Every emotion drained. All anger became inconsequential. Suddenly, his problems no longer seemed so serious. I don't wanna die!
Then, as if gravity itself responded to his thoughts,
He stopped.
Suspended in midair, Lin Ling blinked at the ground, still far below. He hadn't even gotten as far as a metre, couldn't have fallen for more than a second. Yet he had still fallen.
And yet, he had stopped.
....What the fuck?
"Hey there. Sorry to interrupt, but I can't let you do that."
Lin Ling blinked again. Frowned. Turned. Registered the feeling on his arm. Registered the sudden odd look of the building he had just ejected himself from the top of.
Everything was - rainbow, disorienting shades of neon interlapping and changing, and Lin Ling thanked someone that he wasn't the type to have seizures. In this dreamlike confusion he looked up, only to come face to face with precisely the last person he'd have ever guessed.
Keeping him back effortlessly with a hand wrapped around his wrist, the no.1 hero stared at him with a raised brow from behind sunny aviators.
Hey, no, what the literal fuck?
"Right." X said, jaw tense. "Get back up here, then."
Supernaturally compelled by his words, Lin Ling felt his body jolt forward, feet finally re-making contact with stone and mortar, body angled upright. Already stumbling and disoriented with X's hand still keeping him in place, all hope of equilibrium was lost when the hero let go. Immediately pitching to the side on shaking legs, Lin Ling gave up the pretense and dropped to his hands and knees.
"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!"
"...Are you alright?"
"Dude!" Lin Ling yelped, looking up. He knew he had to look feral there on the ground, heaving out breaths that made it sound more like he was coughing up a lung, but first impressions were already long out the window. Or, er, off the roof. "I just nearly fucking died!"
"Ah. Well. Yes." X stared down at him, tension visibly drooping from his frame. Now the poor man just looked confused. "I thought that was your intention."
"It WAS!" Lin Ling blurted, heart racing. "Oh my god! I need to lie down for a moment."
Body already drained of all energy, it was easy to let himself flop to one side and then sprawl onto his back, uncaring of the way small sharp rocks embedded into his skin and head. The pain was good, it was great even, it meant he was alive! He couldn't believe he'd been so ready to die, just to stick it to the man! The sky above was so far away, yet the peaceful fluffy clouds floating past seemed closer than the ground below had been. He yearned to reach up and touch them, to be like Nice and be able to fly wherever his heart desired.
Still not happening. He reminded himself, but in the wake of his traumatic experience the thought carried less sting
A bespectacled head poked into his peripheral, consternation writ across the man's handsome features. "Oh dear. You haven't hit your head, have you?"
Oh yeah. Right. Well, no relief was hiding this embarassment.
"No" Lin Ling groaned, throwing an arm limply over his eyes so he didn't have to see the other. "I'm good."
"Care to explain the situation I found you in, then?"
"No" he repeated, a tinge of exasperation making its way into his voice. Why would X even care? All he was really obligated to do was take Lin Ling back down to ground level, after that he was free legally speaking to fuck off wherever his heart desired. "I just want to take a moment to appreciate the feeling of my brain still being inside my skull. Wow. Always took that for granted."
"By all means." X hummed, and a shufting sound had Lin Ling glancing over to see - only to jolt in horror at the sight of the no.1 hero assembling his lanky limbs into a cross-legged sit. Apparently comfortable, the man rested his face in a palm. "I'm in no hurry, recover from the shock."
"You can go." Lin Ling pleaded. Why wasn't he gone already?!
"I'm fine here."
"There is no way you're comfortable."
"Are you?" X retorted, and Lin Ling had no good rebuttal for that.
It took a while, but he sat and watched the sun sink into the horizon. The entire time he expected X to get bored and run off, but it never happened. Even after a good hour had went by, the other stayed politely folded up by his side, only ever twitching once to check his wrist-watch before sighing and giving an uninterested shrug at whatever had been on it.
Annoyance made way to guilt. It was Lin Ling keeping him up here. "You can take me down, if you want."
"Are you ready to go down?"
A sick arc shot through his stomach at the thought. "Um."
"Really, don't worry. I was just having a post-work walk when I caught sight of you, my evening is clear." X's voice was soft. Lin Ling had a ridiculous thought that he'd do well in ASMR.
"How did you even see me?" It suddenly came to mind, jerking up and giving the other a bewildered look. "There's no way you could see me from all the way down there."
"You were yelling quite a lot."
"Oh. Well, yeah." Lin Ling went red. "But that was right at the end."
"To be quite honest with you," and X gave him a wry smirk that made his skin tingle, "I was alerted by the catastrophic sound of a calculator hitting the ground from about a quarter of a mile high. It narrowly avoided my head, and the remains made it an impressive distance across the street. I then had to avoid being brained by a similarly lethal pen, mercifully telegraphed by your screaming."
Lin Ling thought he might jump right back off the roof. "Oh my god." Aggrieved, he buried his face in his hands.
"Don't worry, I know you didn't intend to hurt anyone, let alone me. I was against the wall perusing a vending machine, actually, so there is no way you could have seen me there."
"I almost fucking killed you."
"You almost killed yourself." X's voice took back on a bit of an edge. "Worry more about what you'd intended than what you hadn't."
"Would you believe me if I said falling was an accident?"
"I'd be dubious. Why, was it?"
"...Okay, not really." Lin Ling deflated. "I didn't mean to fall like I did, I lost my balance, but yeah. Yeah, I came up here to kill myself." Saying it brought a weight off his chest even as it laid a new one burdened with shame.
"Would you find any merit in talking?"
"What, to you?" X nodded. "I- you want to hear all that? Seriously, you've already sat up here with me. It's okay."
"It is okay, yes." X agreed, firm, turning his words right back on him. "If it helps you, call it recompense. You've kept me in silent suspense this long, after all."
Lin Ling drew into himself, hugging his knees. This was all so surreal, he wondered if he really had fallen and this was his brain making up some bullshit to distract him in his last moments. Well, if it was that, he supposed he had no reason to hold back. A hallucination couldn't judge you.
"It's really silly." He finally managed, bitter. "Nothing that justifies all my screaming. I just... I got fired from my job, for a really stupid reason, and I blew it storming out of there yelling my head off. There's no way I'll make it back in the industry, and that's my only skillset, I even moved here just to pursue this career so I..." realizing he was pulling at his hair, he let his anxious hand slip back to his body. "Guess I panicked and thought everything was over. Sorry. Doubt you really get this. It must sound so melodramatic." tears sprang to his eyes and he hastily brushed them away.
"Not at all." X murmered, an odd expression on his face. 'The corporate world is brutal, and it's practically impossible to break back into a market you've been walled from. There's nothing at all silly about feeling devastated that all of your work has been wiped from your record."
"What, you'd know?"
The top hero gave him a look, inscrutable yet piercing. It was hard to know what it meant.
"Okay..." Lin Ling trailed off, huffing. "I appreciate that you get where I'm coming from, but in the end none of this matters anyway. Valid feelings or not, I'm still screwed. I'm renting in the heart of the city, I can't afford even falling behind one payment. And once I'm out? That's it for me. Nowhere left to go."
Tentative silence. X looked to be in thought, which Lin Ling thought was sweet but unnecessary. There was nothing to be done about it, short of maybe X waltzing into his former workplace and demanding his boss take him back. And while that might actually work, it sounded both humiliating and un-endearing. He'd already been treated like a nuisance before, if they were made to renew his contract against their own wishes he knew his work life would become another hell, and he'd be driven straight back up to this roof top.
"What..." X clicked his tongue, looking considerate. "What work did you do? What was your role in the company?"
What was this, an interview? "Uh. Social Media Manager and Creative Director. TV show ads for heroes on contract, stuff like that."
"Adverts. Things like that?" X jerked a finger at the blimp, nearly too far to see, still on its circuit.
"Exactly that." Lin Ling agreed, miserable. "That one specifically. And all the other ones from the same run. And those before them, and so on. Basically, all of Moon's stuff and most of Nice's."
X's brows rose into his hairline. "Huh. And why were you let go?"
Lin Ling straightened up, forcing air into his lungs. For a moment he let himself forget his surroundings, channeling the self he'd used in his recordings, the self he'd put into his script. "In this era where heroes are forged by trust!" he started, a little amused at the way X's eyes became startled behind his glasses, probably finally recognizing his voice from so many commercials when he intonated like this. "Everything creates heroes, and everyone can be a hero!" finishing off, he gave the good old fashioned Nice-brand fingerguns.
X seemed nonplussed, though there was a quirk at the corner of his mouth. "Sounds good to me."
"I know, right!" Lin Ling exclaimed, relieved beyond belief to be so continually validated. "It was meant to be inspiring! But Mr Cheng-" oops, should he just say his name outright? "Told me I'm only meant to focus on the hero, no additional messages. Started yelling in my face saying I was a kid playing pretend, asking me how I thought I could be a hero as I was. And I know that! He's not wrong, but..." he trailed off. "No, he's completely right. There's nothing noteworthy about me. No abilities. No special traits. I'm... average, mediocre." The words were so bitter in his mouth. "I needed to accept reality. A wageslave like me could never be a hero."
"Never a wageslave, huh?" X tapped his chin. "Is that really what you think?"
"Um. It's not like anything contradicts me. All the top 10 are like... celebrities, living it large on magazines and partying in highrises. Do I really look like someone who'd fit that?" Lin Ling asked helplessly.
X looked at him, really looked at him - and then his expression shifted. Before Lin Ling could decipher what it meant, the rest of X shifted. The boy could only watch and gawk as the man before him changed before his eyes, going from the gorgeous man at the top in his familiar snazzy white suit and aviators, into-
Into- into another very, very handsome man. It.was hard to process what he was looking at when that fact was what jumped out at him.
Lin Ling was so fucked.
"So." X said, voice the same in his unfamiliar appearance "How do I look, to you?"
"So good." Lin Ling sputtered, and then short circuited. His brain felt like it was wired wrong, he was such a fucking loser, always so weak for a pretty face- "Oh! Oh god. No, I didn't mean-"
X looked stunned. Then, unexpectedly, he tipped his head back and barked out a laugh. It came to an end, but then he seemed to catch sight of Lin Ling's mortified expression, and suddenly the laughter began anew.
"Hey!" Lin Ling exclaimed.
"Sorry!" X chuckled, shaking his head. The guy looked so beautiful smiling, having already been a vision in white, black seemed to suit him better. He looked plainer, yes, more unassuming, but you could still see his personality bursting through. "That's my fault entirely, the fault is in my wording. I do appreciate that, though."
"Stop." Lin Ling groaned.
The chuckles slowed until they finally halted. A smile still played on the other's face as he spoke, though. "What I meant to say was... do I look like a hero to you, right now? All powered down, my day-to-day. If you passed me on the street, would you really think I'd be capable of what you know I am?"
Hesitation.
"You won't offend me." X insisted.
"I probably wouldn't." Lin Ling admitted. "You really do just look like an office worker."
"You'll never believe my day job." X teased, warm. "Your boss is foolish. People idolize us and forget it is that exact idolization that provides us with our powers, not any innate qualities we possess. Anyone can be a hero? Well, that's pretty much the fact of it."
"Really?"
"I still steal sugar packets from my workplace's coffee machine." X leant forward to whisper conspiratorially. "Fit that into some brand slogan, use that to run a commercial."
Lin Ling snorted, feeling lighter. "This is nice. It's nice, knowing you like this. Thank you."
"No issue." X responded. "Though I'd prefer if you let none of this slip."
"Of course. Although I don't think anyone will listen to some unemployed loser."
"Unemployed?" X's eyes twinkled. "Leave that to me. I admit, I usually shunt that side of my image off to a third party, but perhaps having an intermediatory would help. Add cohesion. Add personality."
Lin Ling's jaw dropped. "No way." and then guilt. "You shouldn't do handouts like that, not out of pity."
"It's not." X assured. "Believe me, I've seen your work. It's good stuff. I've seen firsthand the quality you can provide, and I think you'd do much better outside of a place that'd drive you up here."
"Dude, I... I don't even know what to say."
"Then don't say anything yet. Why don't I get you back home, and you can think it over there?"
Lin Ling was about to respond and thank him even more effusively when an odd feeling washed over him, pinpricks and goosebumps rising up his arms and the back of his neck. A weird anticipation drove him to look behind, back toward the other side of the building, toward the 'home-share!' advert emblazoned with Nice's charming face-
To see Nice himself drifting down from the heavens, impassive, looking right at him.
"Er." Lin Ling pinched himself. Nope, not a dream.
It didn't help, because the image didn't seem to justify itself no matter how long he stared. Nice was approaching, somehow, for some reason, and all Lin Ling could do was gawk and wonder if he ought to say something, until his brain short circuited at the sight of the top 15 hero's feet leaving the edge of the building, body twisting as the guy gave his signature pose. There didn't seem to be any intention of flying away.
Is it national 'attempt suicide' day or something?! he thought hysterically, useless and limp as he watched X rise as quick as a whip by his side, at the edge once more in a blur faster than the eye could track, hand wrenching in the back of Nice's finely tailored cloak and collar.
Oh man, he did not look happy.
Nice looked baffled, staring back into the face of some strange office worker. X just looked exasperated beyond belief.
"Alright." X said. "Quick. Are you photo-sensitive?"
Nice's brow furrowed, apparently too lost to even try wriggling out of the stranger's grasp or give any indication he comprehended the situation he had just been caught in. "Uh." He laughed awkwardly, fake. "You want a picture?"
"Lord help me-"
"He means epileptic!" Lin Ling cried from the ground, jumping up and waving his hands. "He wants to know if you have epilepsy!"
"Oh!" Nice said, still carefully blank and confused. "No?"
"Good." X grumbled, collecting the both of them toward him and snapping his fingers. "Let's get down from here."