Influxum
By EclipseKlutz

T, PG-13 (implied themes)
Drama/Angst/Romance (implied Shang/Ping)

Disclaimer: My owning Mulan is about as likely as my owning the world, so not likely to happen unless they feel like putting power-hungry demented folks in charge anytime soon.

A/N: This resulted from watching Mulan today for the first time since it initially came out, and is based on the premise that caused my dad to run from the movie halfway through… which was a funny site, actually. The title is Latin, by the way, for lack of any better ideas for it.

There was a war inside his head. And there was a corporeal one as well, waging all around him, destroying towns and erasing lives. One harmed nothing aside from himself, the other everything. The acknowledgement of which war was the most devastating should have been considerably simple: the one that stole his father. But it weighed equally with the one that stole his heart.

He bit back a sigh, eyes focused straight ahead—looking at Imperial City, but not actually seeing. He saw only the mountains behind him, the pass on which he'd left Ping stranded… no, Mulan stranded. It occurred to him that the separate names meant nothing and yet everything—a thought he needed to shove out of his mind, something to ponder over later. Or never.

But still, the first day on camp sat clearly in his memory. The first man he'd been introduced to; the fumbling lunatic named Ping. (Where had she come up with such a horrifically stupid name anyways?) Then Ping had been a walking disaster, accused of causing a camp-wide brawl on the first day. Things hadn't actually improved from there—the boy made a mess of everything, appeared to always seek the easiest way out, never put his all into anything. Shang had been aggravated beyond the point of no return, and finally gave up trying to train him, and sent him home.

Looking back on that night, when he cornered the boy in the middle of camp and dropped the reigns of his horse into the boy's small hands, it'd been a foolish choice. That night had been the start of everything—if it'd never happened, Ping would have continued to be clumsy and unmotivated and would by no means ever prove himself even remotely attractive.

Shang had emerged from his tent the next morning to have an arrow lodged into the dirt directly before him. He'd looked up, half-expecting enemy invaders and found Ping instead, sitting smugly at the top of the pole, the weights still fastened around his wrists and the sun framing his small form all too perfectly.

From there, Ping had evolved into his best soldier. Relentlessly determined, finally motivated (by Shang, no less), and even occasionally managing to spew out something intelligent and coherent all at once. Shang hadn't realized what he'd been doing at the time, but he'd been keeping watch over the boy, keeping tabs—he eventually found himself spending more training time with this boy then any of the other soldiers, even those who required it most.

But when it hit him, when it sunk in, it came full force. He couldn't ignore it, nor deny it, however much he wanted to; dealing was his best option, and that was hardly tolerable. This lust, this want defied everything honorable, everything acceptable, everything he'd been raised to believe. And yet, at the same time, it had felt alright. Alright because part of him felt that he wasn't alone in his feelings, that Ping was there too, enduring the same conflicted agony as him. Alright because he wasn't alone.

And when he grieved for the death of his father, when he constructed a crude monument that wasn't nearly worthy of his father's legacy, it had been Ping who stood behind him and said what he needed to hear most. Two words—two words that meant nothing in reality, but when said by Ping in that awfully compassionate voice meant something: "I'm sorry."

He'd amazed himself by standing then, and further by managing to hide that Ping had completely disarmed him in three syllables. Part of him wanted to grab the boy and hold him and not let go, but his common sense won over the impulse in the end. He settled himself by placing a hand on his shoulder and giving him a look that he could only hope thanked him for as much as he owed him.

And as he inwardly grieved and outwardly shouted idiotic orders, vowing revenge on a single purpose, Ping had completely disregarded him. Had it been anyone else, he would have screamed and shouted until his throat was too soar to issue anymore noise, but as it was who it was he'd let it slide—then watched helplessly as Ping stationed himself barely ten feet away from the stampeding Hun army.

Helpless was a feeling he'd never felt before, and one he prayed never to feel again. It was like admitting defeat before a battle begun, only more painful—especially when he sat on the outside looking in. His mind had stopped, his body froze—he couldn't move, which would be the main contributor to the overwhelming feeling of helplessness. But when it wore off, he raced as fast as his legs would allow towards Ping, who seemed to be having some major difficulties lighting the rocket.

It went off before Shang reached him, and all he saw was a missile veering off course. But somehow he wasn't angry; even when he thought it was a mistake that could have cost a troop their lives, he wasn't angry. When he saw its actual target, and its actual effect, he felt a twinge of pride run through him, but it was short-lived. Ping, sensibly for a change, began running in away from the avalanche as Shang just stood there.

Ping had moved out of his way to grab Shang's wrist, and then later to drag him from the snow itself, to pull him over the back of his horse. The sequence was a blur, but he remembered through it Ping's face—defiant, concentrating only on keeping the two of them alive.

"Ping, you are the craziest man I've ever met. And for that, I owe you my life," he'd declared when they at last reached solid ground. But he couldn't leave it there, he had to add the one thing that would be as close to a declaration to his feelings as he'd ever come: "You have my trust."

He'd learned then that Ping was wounded, badly, and quickly fading. The terror he'd felt at that was terrifying in itself for its extremes. In his opinion, the medic couldn't come fast enough—the medic couldn't take any more time healing Ping. Meanwhile, all he could do was pace, back and forth and back and forth. Helpless. Again.

When the medic emerged from the tent, looking solemn, he'd just barely managed to stop himself short of tackling the man, "Is he alright?"

The medic had been a tad uncomfortable for a minute, shifting his weight back and forth before resolving to tell Shang something that made him feel as though he'd gone temporarily deaf. At his confusion, the medic had insisted his point, and finally Shang barged into the tent—to find Ping, his Ping, as someone else entirely.

It was betrayal that set in first. The feeling crashed down on him like a waterfall, but then relented slightly as relief set in. He felt them both at the same time, betrayal and relief, like a demented whirlpool of emotions. Betrayed because Ping had lied to all of them, had lied to him. But then, relieved because Ping had lied.

But it was far too much for him to handle. He stormed out of the tent, thoughts jumbled and colliding with one another, no intentions other then to get away from her.

"I can explain," she'd called, for the first time sounding like that—a she. His head throbbed attempting to absorb this, trying to comprehend the distinctions between this girl and Ping, if there were any.

Chi Fu interfered before he could manage a response, but probably for the better as any reply he might have conjured would have been confused beyond all belief. Chi Fu exclaimed something that didn't quite measure in his ears, something that sounded more like white noise then actual words. Shang built himself a barrier between him and those around him; he couldn't hear them—wouldn't hear them, not now.

But she broke through. The barrier crumbled the moment she opened her mouth, all because he still cared what she had to say, even if it was another lie. It sounded nothing of the sort, "My name is Mulan. I did this to save my father."

Chi Fu shouted something harsh, but it fell on deaf ears. Shang heard only her as she continued defending herself, meekly but still, somehow, bold, "I didn't mean for it to get this far. It was the only way, please believe me."

Suddenly Chi Fu quieted, looking at him expectantly, and it occurred to him what hadn't before: the laws. The laws that once looked so black and white and now gray and distorted and wrong.

Treason. She'd committed treason, but while saving him and China. The penalty for treason was death, at his hands. And she sat there, head bowed, expecting it, waiting for the blade.

The confusion gave way to anger—at her for actually thinking he would kill her, at the laws, at Chi Fu, at everyone and everything. His hands shook, but he reached for her sword despite. He approached her slowly, footsteps heavy in the snow, and stared down at her. She lifted her head to him, as if wordlessly asking him when he'd finish his job, and it came to him that how she'd ever passed for a man for so long was preposterous. As a man, she was handsome, as a woman she was positively beautiful—and now kneeling in the snow, more skin exposed to the men around her then ever considered decent by the rules of society, shivering but trying to suppress it.

She knelt as a scorned woman. She was suddenly no longer the boy who had saved all of their lives, but the woman who had betrayed them to do so. She was no longer the boy whom he'd been so attracted to, but instead a woman he found more appealing for her ever-lasting determination.

He'd fought all the words he wanted so desperately to say, even if he didn't quiteknow what they were, and dropped the sword to the ground before her, "A life for a life. My debt is paid."

But it wasn't, not at all.

He blinked his way from his thoughts in time to see Imperial City, finally close ahead. But it didn't matter, not really. Rewards and riches would come from their defeat of the Huns, but it wasn't truly their defeat. It was hers, and that right belonged to no one else, yet here they were to claim it. This war in his head was only getting worse.

A/N: Reviews are appreciated, reviewers are adored (hint, hint). People wielding flames rather then constructive criticism will awake tomorrow to find a bonfire in their backyard, roasting their computer.