#previous era

Did we ever get to see Edens mantis form? For some reason I feel like it resembled a sea animal or am I remembering wrong?

under the cut

“Su, could you pass a private message to Kevin for me?”

It is late. At this hour, most of the Lab’s regular staff have surrendered to exhaustion, leaving only the enhanced like Su or the insane like Mei up and about. Though the low and constant hum of lab equipment, punctuated by the scratch of pens or the tapping of computer keys, seems twice as loud at this hour, Su hears Mei clearly. He pauses his work, looking up and waiting for her finish scanning the empty room to meet her eyes. A ‘private’ message huh?

“I’d be happy to help you Mei,” he says and it is genuine. He knows how intensely his two friends love each other, and how equally frustrating their situation was. Mei seemed happy to hear his response, and if Su wasn’t beginning to feel the late hour himself, he could’ve sworn he saw a glint in her eyes.

“Alright, here it is,” Mei says, setting her things down and coming closer. “Please deliver this message exactly as is to Kevin.”

Su waits, slightly amused. Must be a terribly romantic private message then, Su thinks. It might be a bit awkward to deliver it-

For a very long moment, Su’s mind exits the mortal plane as Mei lips come into contact with his. He feels her hand on his skin, tilting his chin up, rough in the same way his are from years of surgical gloves and scrubbing clean. Su thinks he might be gaping stupidly at her, a reaction Mei must have taken advantage of like the tactician she is, because is that her tongue?

The moment stretches to infinity, and then folds inwards into a singularity as Mei parts from Su, and the latter very embarrassingly notes the line of saliva connecting them. Su’s hands fly up to his mouth as he feels his face heat and Mei chuckles, a mischievousness he’s rarely seen since they were in high school on her face.

“Can you help me deliver that to Kevin, Su?” Mei asks, her voice innocently soft. “Exactly like that.”

Su’s multi-emotional response, complete with a seven paragraph report, comes out as an unintelligible choking noise, so he forgoes gathering up all his scattered little braincells from whatever higher plane Mei banished them to and surrenders in the simplest way he knows- he nods and moves to flee.

“Ah, wait Su,” Mei says, moving across to obstruct his escape route. I really can’t deliver two of this, Su thinks in a panic, as Mei closes in on him again. Su feels like a mouse at the mercy of cat, despite the reality that Mei is the mouse here and Su the surgically-enhanced-mutant-cat-with-laser-beams. He could force his way past her, honestly speaking, but this is Mei here and Su wasn’t an aggressive person by nature.

“This one is just for you, as a thank you,” Mei says as she closes in and as Su’s mind empties again he vaguely thinks about how fortunate he is as a scientist to be experiencing not one, but two singularities in his life time.

Fushi: Not really.

Gugu, embarrassed: Please… My entire family is watching…