Work Text:
Yang Cheng looks from the armor laid out on the workbench to Shang Chao and back again.
This…
This is asking a lot of him, and for once, Yang Cheng isn’t sure he’s going to be able to deliver.
“Shang Chao, this is a little…”
Shang Chao blinks and follows his gaze to the armor. Armor is maybe too generous a word for the outfit, actually — a skin-tight suit with zero padding, a more streamlined helmet sans visor, knee-high boots that look like they’d be murder on his arches if he tried running in them… aside from the color scheme and the specially-made gloves that conduct his electricity, he’s honestly hard pressed to say this resembles an E-Soul costume at all.
“You don’t like the new design?” Shang Chao asks, sounding as baffled as Yang Cheng feels right now. “I’m trying to play to your strengths, Yang Cheng. You’ve got a solid build, a friendly face. We want people to be able to recognize you the moment you step on the scene. Your eyes are visible this way, and the suit isn’t as bulky as the old E-Soul’s. I don’t see the problem.”
“It’s not a problem,” Yang Cheng admits, “I mean, not exactly? I just don’t think I’m going to look, uh. Good. In this.”
He can feel his ears burning , oh god.
“No, not like that,” he rushes to insist, before Shang Chao can even open his mouth. It’s flustered and desperate and obvious , and Yang Cheng wants to go find a hole to crawl in and die, effective immediately. “Who cares about if anyone thinks I’m— um. Appealing. Like that. But I don’t know if people are going to be intimidated without the plating, or the visor. What if I make a really dumb face? They’ll be able to see everything. ”
He sounds like a kid afraid of giving a class presentation, not a would-be hero looking to climb the rankings.
Avoiding Shang Chao’s eyes, he picks up the helmet and flips it around to face himself, like he’s interested in examining it from a different angle. It reminds him of a standard motorcycle helmet, and like this he can see that there is a visor — it’s transparent, though, and would, hypothetically, reveal whatever goofy expression he might be sporting to villains and civilians alike. Even if Shang Chao has a point about looking more approachable, Yang Cheng can’t help but think people won’t respect him all that much if he looks like he’s going to piss himself from fear in the middle of a fight.
A touch on his wrist makes him jump, and he flicks his gaze up to see Shang Chao’s crossed over to stand in front of him. Close, really… really close, actually, like, maybe a little too close. Yang Cheng stares at the hand on his wrist, and as he watches Shang Chao curls his fingers, thumbing over Yang Cheng’s pulse point. He can’t help the shiver that ripples through him at the touch, and he can only pray the reaction isn’t apparent in whatever face he’s pulling right now. Shang Chao’s enigmatic smile gives him absolutely no hints to go off, which is frustrating.
And, well. Kinda… hot.
He reflexively glances around the warehouse, as though Xia Qing — out running an errand with Pomelo for her parents — is going to materialize and turn a disapproving glower on him for betraying his crush on her.
He’s not. Doing that. Not really. Shang Chao is just touchy, and Yang Cheng hasn’t had many friends and definitely never a girlfriend; he’s still getting used to someone looping an arm over his shoulders, or dragging him along by the hand to see something, or pressing into him shoulder to hip while they analyse footage of E-Soul’s historic battles on the dingy, too-small couch Shang Chao bought for the warehouse.
It’s fine. He’s fine. And he likes Xia Qing, still.
“Yang Cheng?”
“Yes!” Yang Cheng winces at the way his voice cracks on the word.
Shang Chao takes the helmet from his hands and sets it down on the nearby table, then pats the free spot on the workbench. “Come here, sit down for a second.”
He eyes Shang Chao warily for a second, but he still can’t read anything from his expression, so he does as asked and gingerly sits down on the bench.
“Okay!” Shang Chao claps his hands together and then drops to his knees in front of Yang Cheng.
What.
The image alone — of Shang Chao between his spread knees, hands resting on his own thighs and head tilted back just so to continue smiling at Yang Cheng — turns Yang Cheng’s thoughts to static. When Shang Chao leans forward and moves his hands to curl over Yang Cheng’s knees, his brain short-circuits entirely. There’s the distant thought that even the motorcycle helmet would be preferable to having nothing to cover his blisteringly-red face, but it only warrants a twitch of Yang Cheng’s otherwise numb fingers before it’s gone, swallowed up by a wave of something .
Desire, maybe. Nausea, definitely.
“What are you— what’s happening?” He can’t pass out, he absolutely cannot do that, he’d never live down the embarrassment. “Shang Chao, please get up, the floor’s dirty—”
“It’s not dirty, we just swept in here this morning.” Shang Chao’s hands inch their way up over Yang Cheng’s thighs, a warm, insistent weight even through the fabric of his jeans. “And I’m gonna do this properly, so this position is a must.”
Forget passing out, he’s going to have a fucking heart attack at this rate.
Yang Cheng swallows down the first three things that try to pop out of his mouth, namely god yes and wow you’ve got such pretty lashes and argh . His mouth works uselessly, because what is going on what the fuck what the actual fuck , until he manages to choke out, “Do what ?”
“Beg,” Shang Chao says, with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth smile and a subtle quirk of his brow, like he’s silently asking what’s gotten Yang Cheng so worked up. He tilts his head, flutters his pretty lashes. “Chengcheng, please? Please wear it? For me?”
Yang Cheng gapes at him. There’s a blush crawling down under the neck of his t-shirt and he can feel the tip of every one of Shang Chao’s fingers on his thighs like a brand and he’s dying. This is it, no more New E-Soul, no more engineering degree — no more blood in his head, holy shit , Shang Chao has no right to be that good looking and that forward when he knows Yang Cheng doesn’t have any defenses against him.
There’s a whistling noise, high-pitched and piercing like a tea kettle going off, and he hopes with the last shreds of his sanity that it’s not him making it.
“Hm?” Shang Chao’s mouth draws into a pout. “Chengcheng? I really want to see you in this suit.” He slides his fingers upwards along the seams of Yang Cheng’s jeans and rises slightly on his toes, pushing further into Yang Cheng’s space until they’re nearly nose to nose. “Won’t you be my own personal hero, Yang Cheng?”
“I—”
He can feel Shang Chao exhale against his lips, they’re so close. He could just — lean down that last bit, couldn’t he? Brush it off as an accident, a mistake, nudge his nose into Shang Chao’s cheek and then pull back and be — normal.
This is just teasing… right? Normal friend teasing, the kind Yang Cheng had been too socially inept to experience in high school. Shang Chao isn’t— he’s popular, and good-looking, and charming, and smart . Something like this, it would only get in the way of Shang Chao’s dreams. So it has to be a joke.
“I… I want to be.”
That doesn’t mean Yang Cheng is strong enough to resist it, joke or not.
“Your hero,” he repeats, staring just to the left of Shang Chao’s eyes, unable to speak above a whisper. “I want to be your hero. You’ve done so much for me, believed in me when I didn’t… couldn’t believe in myself. So if… if you want me to wear the suit, I can do that.”
Shang Chao lets out a quiet oh , like he’s surprised, and it draws Yang Cheng’s eyes back to him. The expression on his face is a little clearer, now — surprise, yeah, but more than that, it’s… happy. Delighted, even. His brows are raised nearly to his hairline, his mouth parted on an aborted response, and there’s a hint of color high on his cheeks. Pink, not the ugly red scrawl Yang Cheng gets all over when he’s embarrassed. It’s so cute he sends out a mental apology to Xia Qing, because this definitely qualifies as betraying his crush on her.
“Yang Cheng—”
“Hey, New E-Soul! Where are you, we’ve got snacks and you’re not getting any if you don’t let me try on your newest gauntlet!”
Yang Cheng stands abruptly, belatedly reaching out to steady Shang Chao before he topples onto his ass. It’s only a burst of electricity that lets him pull off the maneuver in time, but his powers fail him the moment Xia Qing and Pomelo duck under the garage door and come into view. He flails for an excuse, anything , and winds up snatching the suit from the workbench and holding it in front of himself like a shield.
“I’m trying on a new design!” he says, staring resolutely at the helmet Shang Chao discarded earlier so he doesn’t have to face whatever expression Shang Chao — or Xia Qing — might be making.
Pomelo darts right over to his side, which prompts Shang Chao to step back; Yang Cheng’s answering sigh of relief isn’t very subtle, but he’s dealing with a lot at the moment, sue him.
“This isn’t nearly as cool as the other one,” Pomelo complains, wrinkling his nose as he pinches one dangling sleeve between two fingers and stretches it out. “It looks even worse than the one you wore for the hero show.”
“Oh, uh, really? I kinda like it,” Yang Cheng says, haltingly. “It shows off my good points, doesn’t it?”
Pomelo snorts and drops the sleeve, spinning on his heel to grab the bag of snacks from Xia Qing. Yang Cheng doesn’t have the heart to even pretend to look at her. “No way. Go back to the drawing board, or else you’re gonna lose all that Trust Value you earned to dumb comments on the internet. Do you like X-Energy?”
Xia Qing tsks and takes the can from Pomelo’s hands. “Did you sneak this in when I wasn’t looking? No one here needs this, it’ll only make Yang Cheng’s anxiety worse.”
Hard to imagine anything could do more of a number on him at this point, but it’s probably best not to chance it.
“I like the suit,” Xia Qing adds with a smile at Yang Cheng, and then to Shang Chao, “But it doesn’t look like it’ll do much to protect him… can’t we add more padding around the torso at least?”
“Yeah,” Shang Chao says, and he sounds — fine. Normal. Like he usually does. Yang Cheng peeks at him from behind the suit he’s still presenting to the room and swallows at the slight blush still staining Shang Chao’s cheeks. “I have some more ideas, don’t worry. We’ll make sure our Yang Cheng has everything he needs to be a great hero.”
He catches Yang Cheng’s eye, then, and his smile goes soft around the edges, his eyes crinkling at the corners. When Xia Qing turns away, luring Pomelo over to the sink to wash his hands, Shang Chao presses a hand to his heart and mouths “ My hero. ”
Then he scoops the suit — his shield! — from Yang Cheng’s unprotesting fingers, along with the helmet.With a wink at Yang Cheng, he follows in Xia Qing’s footsteps, leaving Yang Cheng defenseless and exposed, like the raw nerve he is.
A breath rattles out of him, and he thumps a fist against his chest, feeling like he’s got to restart his heart after all of… that . What that even was, he has no idea. Maybe it’s better that way. Maybe—
Yang Cheng squeezes his eyes shut.
He wants to be brave. He wants to be a hero. And that means he can’t just run away when it’s more convenient for him.
“Shang Chao,” he calls out, surprising both of them with the volume of his voice but barreling on before he can talk himself out of this, “can I try it on? The suit. Just, um, to make sure the measurements are right. I’ve been working out, they might’ve changed since the last one…”
A slow, golden-warm smile spreads across Shang Chao’s face. “Yeah, of course. We have to be as precise as possible, that’s a good idea. Stick around after Xia Qing and little Pomelo leave?”
It’s as much a plea as his nonsense from before, and real this time, in a way that only makes Yang Cheng want to throw up a tiny bit.
He forces himself to nod, to smile back. Shaky, but honest. “I can do that.”
It’s the least he can do — and he’ll show Shang Chao just how much he appreciates his support from now on. Even if it means things are only to get more embarrassing for both of them.