Synopsis: They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but what if said doctor can’t resist his own hunger? In the aftermath of catastrophe, you become the center of two very different kinds of devotion. Caleb guards you with jealous fire, his love protective yet possessive, a vow that curdles into poison. Zayne holds himself back with logic and restraint, but even his reason begins to crack as desire burns through him. And you, ripe, forbidden, impossible to ignore, ache for the doctor’s touch, knowing your step brother would see the world burn before letting you go.
Pairings: Zayne x Reader, onesided Caleb x Reader
Warning: MDNI! 18+ only for sexual themes and violence
My Zayne Masterlist🩵AO3🩵Ko-Fi
It happened just shortly before your ninth birthday; the day you almost died.
Your grandmother had taken you, as always, to one of your weekly checkups for your protocore syndrome. The hospital corridors had become almost routine by then: the smell of antiseptic, the low murmur of tired voices, the squeak of shoes on polished linoleum. She had gone to fetch herself a cup of coffee from a shop a few streets away, trusting you would be safe, because Zayne was there today and could watch you for her.
You learned later that he had walked straight from school, his bag slung over one shoulder, to wait until his parents finished yet another emergency overtime shift. Since the catastrophe, both doctors had been consumed with their work, tending to the endless flood of patients; wanderer attacks, collateral injuries, the wounded who never stopped arriving at Akso’s doors. The Li family’s lives had become woven into the fabric of the hospital itself, and so it was no surprise to find Zayne here, lingering in its corners like a quiet constant.
Sometimes you crossed paths like this, your visits aligning with his waiting. In those moments, he became your reluctant guardian, your calm shadow in the sterile halls. He had his own way of keeping you from bolting when the nurses prepared their needles: a bribe, quiet and predictable. A chocolate bar, a sweet roll, or sometimes a cup of pudding swiped from the cafeteria; an offering he pressed into your hands with stoic finality. The message was always clear without him having to say much: endure the blood draw, and you’ll have something sweet to soften the sting.
It was simple. It was Zayne. And it was on one such day that everything nearly ended.
“Can I have two chocolate chip cookies?” You asked hopefully, walking in step beside him down the long hospital hallway.
“No. You’ll be home soon for dinner,” he replied without hesitation, his tone calm but firm. He flicked his wrist, checking the watch strapped neatly around it; the only boy his age you had ever seen wear one, as if he were already halfway grown into adulthood, “my mom says it’s not healthy to—”
He never finished. From the tall window at the end of the corridor, the world ruptured. Glass shattered in a rain of shards as something massive tore through, crashing into the hallway with brutal force. The wall caved under the weight, the floor trembled violently, lights above you flickered and buzzed before dimming into spasms of shadow.
You screamed, the sound raw, but before fear could even root itself in your chest, Zayne’s arm locked around you. His movement was instinct, swift and unyielding. He yanked you back with a force that stole your breath, his body turning in one fluid motion so his back took the brunt of the danger. He caged you in with himself, holding you tightly against him, a shield of flesh and bone between you and the chaos exploding from the rift.
Your heart pounded, frantic and uneven. Your ears rang with the violent echo of impact. Dust and glass spun through the air like confetti from a nightmare. Time seemed to stop. You knew exactly what this was. A wanderer had bled through a spatial rift—an aberration that could unravel everything it touched. And now it was here, its monstrous weight crushing stone and steel within mere feet of where you stood. Within mere feet of killing both you and Zayne.
Before your mind could even catch up, the world lurched. In one swift, decisive motion, Zayne scooped you off the ground. Your body swung through the air as he gathered you tightly against his chest, his grip unyielding, protective. With his free arm, he flung it back, and from his hand burst a storm of ice, jagged crystals and glimmering shards erupting in a flurry of arctic brilliance. The frost spread with impossible speed, too much for a boy his age to summon without physical consequence, racing down the corridor like light itself, sealing the passage in a wall of frozen armor.
You cried out, your eyes squeezing shut, too terrified to look at what writhed and crashed behind him. The hospital around you roared with destruction: walls splintering, ceilings groaning, monstrous shrieks piercing through the air like steel on glass. Human voices tangled with them, patients, nurses, doctors, screams of fear and confusion as the building shuddered beneath the weight of the invasion. Each tremor beneath Zayne’s pounding strides rattled through your bones.
“I’m scared!” You sobbed, clutching him with desperate force. Your legs cinched around his waist like a vice, your arms locked around his neck, every part of you clinging for survival. His skin had grown colder in seconds, an icy aura seeping from him that burned against your own warmth, “Zayne, I’m scared! I wanna go home!”
“You’re going to be okay,” his voice cut through the chaos, steady, clear, unwavering, even as you felt the hammering of his heart beneath your cheek. He forced his breathing into control, every inhale measured, every exhale anchored, his composure a fragile shield around both of you. His long strides thundered down the shaking hallway, the world unraveling behind him, “Y/n, I need you to keep your eyes open for me. Can you do that?”
“No!” You cried, squeezing your face deeper into his shoulder, voice breaking with raw terror, “it’s scary!”
“I know it’s scary. I’m scared too,” Zayne panted, his breath sharp against your ear. Suddenly, he screeched to a halt, shoes grinding against the trembling floor as something slammed into the wall just ahead. The impact cracked plaster and concrete in a spray of dust, the whole structure groaning as though about to split open. He pivoted on his heels without hesitation, spinning you with him, and sprinted the opposite way, urgency threading into his usually steady voice, “but I need you to watch our backs so I can get us to safety!”
The force of his words struck through your panic. Somehow, you forced your eyelids apart, lashes clumped with tears as your blurred vision struggled to focus. What you saw nearly undid you all over again.
The hallway was chaos incarnate. Lights flickered wildly, plunging everything into flashes of shadow and brightness that made the destruction even more surreal. Smoke poured through fractured ceilings, mingling with the stench of scorched metal. Jagged debris littered the floor, pipes spewed water in hissing streams, walls sparked with angry bursts of electricity. Shards of ceiling rained down in fragments, each crash echoing in your bones.
It was a horror scene unfolding at impossible speed, too fast to grasp. There was no time to stop, no chance to help anyone, no hope of restoring order. Wanderers had breached Akso’s walls, tearing apart what had once been a sanctuary. Survival was all that remained.
And then you saw it. From a flickering stretch of hallway ahead, a shadow hurtled into being—too large, too fast, too wrong. Your tears blurred its outline until it came into sharp, horrifying focus. A wanderer, feline in shape, but nothing natural about it. Its fur was alive with fire, each movement shedding sparks, its body burning like molten rock given the form of a beast. Its eyes locked onto yours with slitted pupils, predatory, merciless. With a roar that shook the crumbling ceiling above, it lunged, lightning-quick, a living inferno tearing toward you both.
Your scream ripped from your throat before you could think, “behind us!”
Zayne’s arm was already swinging back, strained, his green eyes cutting a pained glance over his shoulder as his hand flared with frost. Ice erupted in a violent rush, shards and flurries racing down the hallway with a piercing chill. The crystalline barricade spread across walls and floor, locking the path in jagged brilliance just as the flaming beast lunged.
For a fleeting breath, it held. The wanderer collided with the wall of ice in a shower of sparks and shards, its roar rattling through the building. But then, too soon, the flames surged hotter, furious, melting through the barrier. Frost hissed into steam. Cracks splintered outward like veins in glass.
“It’s coming! It got through!” You screamed, your voice breaking as you clung to him, terror surging like fire through your veins.
“I know,” Zayne shot back, his words clipped and urgent, his voice pushing through the roar of destruction, “I’m going to put you down, and you’re going to run as fast as you can. I’ll catch up to you right now!”
Before you could protest, before your fear could form into words, the air left your lungs in a jolt. He had ripped you from his hold with shocking speed, his grip bruisingly tight as he steadied you on your feet. For one suspended heartbeat, his hands anchored you, holding you upright to make sure you wouldn’t stumble. Then he thrust you forward, hurling you into motion.
Your body lurched as your legs scrambled to catch the command, the world a blur of smoke and sparks. His voice, sharper than you had ever heard it, rang through the chaos, “I said run, Y/n!”
The look on his face stopped your breath cold. Wide-eyed, raw, stripped of the composure you had always known in him—the calmest boy you had ever met. Seeing that mask shatter, even for a moment, was enough to chill you to the bone.
You spun and obeyed, your legs pumping as you bolted forward, the floor trembling beneath your steps. Only once you steadied your footing did you dare look back. Zayne stood firm in the chaos, both arms thrust forward with brutal force. Frost exploded outward, a storm of ice shards whistling down the corridor. They sharpened midair, honed into jagged spears that glittered with lethal brilliance as they barreled into the charging beast.
The sound was sickening and final, the crack of ice piercing through monsterous flesh. In one blinding instant, the volcanic feline was impaled, its roar cut short as its body collapsed in a burning heap, steam hissing from where fire met frozen death.
Relief washed over you, dizzying and thin, but it lasted no more than a heartbeat. You kept running, your breaths ragged, throwing desperate glances over your shoulder. Zayne was coming after you, his strides fast and long, his pale face still carved with focus. But then you saw it: blood streaking down his hands, bright against his skin, dripping from between his fingers. The ice had answered him, but it had taken its toll; too powerful for a boy his age to control well.
“Go left!” He shouted, his voice cutting through the smoke and screams, commanding and breathless, “run towards the garden! We need to be outside!”
Right. Outdoors. No threat of a ceiling ready to collapse above your heads. You veered sharply left, nearly tripping over a jagged beam half-buried in rubble, your breath catching as your shoes skidded over broken tiles and dust. You pushed forward anyway, lungs burning, the hallway behind you collapsing into a blur of shattering walls.
You felt it before you felt him. Not the air outside, not the night’s breeze—it was him. The cold. It pressed against your skin like an invisible current, a creeping frost that stole into your lungs. A heartbeat later, Zayne was beside you, his long strides effortlessly catching your smaller ones, his presence all ice and urgency. Something was wrong.
Your gaze darted to his hands. For a second so quick you couldn’t trust yourself, you thought you understood the blood trailing down his pale skin. Not just torn flesh. Not just the price of his evol. But something else. The glint of sharpness where no blade should be. For a blink in time, it looked as if a jagged shard of ice had forced itself out between his fingers, piercing through the tender flesh of his palm. Another from the other wrist, but that hand unharmed. Then you blinked, and he was already tugging you forward with his good hand, steadying your pace with his bruising grip before the image could settle into certainty. There was no time to ask. No time to speak at all.
The garden opened up before you, spilling chaos in every direction. People ran in scattered clusters, some stumbling, some dragging others, cries for help tearing into the smoky air. A child shrieked from where she crouched beneath a broken bench. A nurse clutched a bleeding arm as she darted behind a wall. All of it was dwarfed by the monstrous presence of the wanderer tearing through the greenery, a rampaging force that shredded rose blooms and split stone fountains like paper.
And then, close, too close, a sound ripped through the garden. An animalistic screech, guttural and razor-sharp, clawed the air just feet from your side. Just as you spun, your vision caught on the silhouette of something enormous—a dragonesque wanderer, its massive body cutting through smoke as it dove straight for you. Your breath hitched, but Zayne’s arm shot out instantly, a barrier between you and the oncoming beast. His other hand flung skyward, and with a force that split the air, massive icicles erupted. They tore into the creature’s wings in a violent spray of frost and fire, knocking it sideways and driving it to the ground long enough for the two of you to bolt again.
But then it hit you. The pain was sudden, merciless—a searing pang that stabbed through your stomach so sharply you staggered mid-step, nearly collapsing. You gasped, your voice strangled in your throat as the sting burned deep, radiating outward like fire. When your eyes dropped, your shirt was no longer clean but blooming with crimson, blood pooling and spreading in a slow, terrifying bloom.
Your gaze snapped sideways, and froze. Zayne’s arm. The same arm you had clung to, desperate for safety. A jagged shard of ice jutted grotesquely from his skin, as though it had erupted from within his bones. He clutched the wound and lurched forward, his face twisting with pain as frost spread like veins along his trembling fingers, climbing upward as if to consume him.
Before you could even comprehend what you were seeing, another Wanderer cut off your escape. Its claws slashed down in a deadly arc toward Zayne. You didn’t think. You only moved. As he spun, ready to shield you with his own body and strike back with what strength remained, you threw yourself at him, grabbing his other arm, dragging with every ounce of your weight. The two of you stumbled, barely pulling him clear of the blow. The creature’s strike whistled past, raking the air instead of flesh.
In the same instant, Zayne retaliated. A final, desperate surge of ice ripped from his trembling body, pinning the beast through the wall with brutal precision. The force of it cracked the stone, dust showering down as the wanderer went still. He had saved you; saved himself too.
But your body betrayed you. A new wave of agony ripped through your core. You cried out, collapsing as you hit the concrete hard. The world blurred as heat turned unbearable across your torso. Your hands trembled violently as you dragged them to your stomach, finding not just one wound but many, ragged punctures tearing through your shirt, slick with blood that gushed between your fingers.
Your head lifted weakly, vision swimming, searching for him. Zayne was there, on his knees beside you, his body hunched forward as though he could shield you with himself alone. His chest heaved, his emerald eyes wide and wild, darting around in frantic calculation for somewhere, anywhere, he could carry you. Both his arms trembled, and your gaze caught the horror of them: jagged shards of ice protruding cruelly from his skin, his crimson stained long sleeves, stabbing outward like knives, his blood streaking down in rivulets, pooling on the ground.
For a heartbeat, your eyes met. His were blown wide, terror-stricken in a way you had never seen before, the boy who never faltered suddenly unraveling in the face of your pain. Then your strength gave out. You went limp, your head rolling against the cold pavement as dizziness swept in like a tide. The last thing you knew was the sound of him—Zayne, screaming your name. His young voice cracked as he screamed for help, breaking in ways you’d never heard. Screaming that he couldn’t use his arms, his hands—that he couldn’t even lift you. His desperation was the final sound that followed you into the dark.
summary: fem!reader x zayne | a girl finds herself transported into a world she is all too familiar with and must find help and answers. she turns to the one person she knows she can count on, but what happens when reality starts to catch on to their error?
genre/word count: isekai x self aware love interest! angst, 9k
warnings: mentions of death and self-sacrifice ; brief spoilers of zayne's myth card endings
authors note: starting of my series system fracture! i really love how this turned out i am super proud of myself. i did my best to proofread this is completely new to me and it has taken weeks of preparation and writing so please excuse any errors and i hope you enjoy ♡
it started like any other night—quiet, ordinary, forgettable. the soft glow of your screen. the familiar ache behind your eyes from staying up too late. your chest started to hurt but you wrote it off as too much caffeine throughout your day. you were constantly chasing just one more scene, one more choice, one more glimpse of him. he smiled at you through the screen. it was warm, scripted, and perfect.
you don't remember what happened after that but you wake up choking. air slams into your lungs like you’ve been drowning. your body jerks upright, pulse hammering, fingers clawing at concrete beneath you. its dark and erie, a metallic tang of something filling your nose.
well this isn’t your room.
you barely have time to think before you hear it. a low, distorted shriek and approaching fast. your head snaps up and there they are. wanderers. not on a screen. they’re real—moving, hunting, their forms glitching at the edges like something that was never meant to exist outside code.
one turns toward you, its movement snapping, unnatural. it sees you. your body moves before your brain catches up. you run. you don't have any other choice. you dont have a weapon, or protocores to help you fight in a battle.
you don’t know how long you sprint. long enough for your lungs to burn, for your legs to threaten to give out, for the sounds behind you to blur into a nightmare. every instinct screams at you to survive, even as your mind lags behind, still trying to process the impossible truth clawing its way in...this is the game. you’re in the game. and you can die here or so it feels like you could.
you lose them by accident—or maybe a stroke of luck. your hands are shaking. your chest heaves. your thoughts finally catch up all at once.
you know this world. you know what or better yet who lives in it. and there’s only one place your mind can latch onto. one location that means safety, answers, structure in a world that suddenly feels like it’s unraveling around you.
AKSO Hospital
if this is real then that’s where he will be. your stomach twists, equal parts dread and something more dangerous. hope maybe? or was it excitement to potentially be face to face with your favorite character.
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the automatic doors slid open with a sharp mechanical hiss. warm air hit you instantly. after the freezing alleyways outside, the hospital almost felt unreal. bright white lights reflected off polished floors, clean and sterile and painfully normal compared to the nightmare you had just escaped.
your legs nearly gave out the second you stepped inside. a nurse behind the front desk startled at the sight of you. "oh my god, are you hurt?"
you looked down. blood streaked your sleeve from where the wanderer had grazed you. dirt clung to your clothes. your hands were still shaking violently. right — you probably looked insane.
"i—" your throat felt raw, "i need to see dr. zayne."
the nurse blinked, "dr. zayne?"
for a horrifying second, you thought she was going to tell you he didn’t exist. that this had all been some elaborate hallucination before death finally took you. but then she frowned slightly and glanced at her tablet.
"do you have an appointment? or are you a patient of his?"
you hesitated. how were you even supposed to answer that? i know him because i spent countless nights replaying his card stories and memorizing every line of dialogue he’s ever said.
you swallowed, "please" you whispered "i just… need help."
something in your expression must have convinced her. the nurse softened immediately.
"sit down for me, okay? i’ll call him."
you nodded numbly. the waiting room lights felt too bright — everything did. your pulse still hadn’t settled from the chase. every small noise made you flinch. somewhere down the hall, a monitor beeped steadily. real. this was all terrifyingly real. you stared down at your trembling hands. you had crossed dimensions. or died. or lost your mind. maybe all three. then footsteps approached — measured and calm.
your breath caught before you even looked up. the door to the examination wing opened softly. and there he was. white coat. silver-rimmed glasses. dark hair slightly disheveled like he’d been working for hours. zayne. not pixels. not voice lines. a real person standing only a few feet away from you.
his eyes landed on you immediately. cool green. sharp. observant. you had seen those eyes a thousand times before yet somehow they still stole the air from your lungs.
"you’re injured," he said.
not who are you. not what happened. just immediate concern. something painfully tight twisted in your chest. he sounded exactly the same. that low, composed voice. except now it wasn’t filtered through headphones. it existed. you realized too late that you were staring. zayne seemed to notice. one dark eyebrow lifted slightly.
"can you walk?"
"yeah," you answered quickly. your voice cracked embarrassingly on the single syllable.
his gaze lingered on you for another second before he motioned toward the hallway.
"come with me."
you followed him in a daze. the examination room was cold enough to raise goosebumps along your arms. you sat carefully on the edge of the bed while zayne washed his hands at the sink. the normalcy of the action almost made you emotional. because this was him. not the idealized version built by writers and animators. but a person.
zayne pulled on gloves and stepped closer.
"let me see your shoulder."
you hesitated before carefully pulling the torn fabric aside. the scratch wasn’t deep, but angry red streaks spread across the skin. his expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
"what attacked you?"
your stomach dropped. you couldn’t exactly say 'a wanderer from the game i accidentally got transported into'. so instead you forced out, "something in the alleyways."
"you don’t know what it was?"
you looked away, "not really"
a lie. a terrible one. zayne definitely noticed. but he didn’t push. instead he reached for antiseptic.
"this will sting."
the warning came too late. pain flared sharply across your shoulder. you hissed and instinctively grabbed his wrist. the second your skin touched, both of you froze. cold. not physically. something deeper. a strange pulse shot through your chest. and suddenly—snow.
blinding white snow. a frozen horizon. a hand reaching toward yours through a storm. then it vanished.
you jerked back immediately, "sorry," you whispered.
zayne stared at you confused. like he’d felt it too. the silence stretched. then he stepped back first. professional composure sliding carefully back into place.
"name?"
your heart sank. right — this part. you gave him your real name. zayne entered it into the system beside the bed. a second passed. then another. his eyes narrowed slightly at the screen.
"no linkon registration," he murmured
your stomach twisted violently and your face went pale.
" i recently moved here," you lied quickly.
he looked at you again. those sharp eyes felt like they could dissect every thought in your head.
"without identification?"
"i lost it" another lie. you were getting worse at this. but surprisingly, zayne only hummed softly.
"that’s unusual," he said evenly
not accusing. observing. that somehow made you more nervous.
before you could think of another excuse, the room lights flickered. once. twice. static crackled sharply through the monitor beside you. zayne looked up immediately. then the doors slid open.
your entire body went rigid. she walked in quickly, clearly mid-rush. the hunter. the protagonist. mc.
she looked almost exactly how you remembered. except more intimidating in person. kinda ironic all things considered as she was supposed to essentially be you. but that couldn't be farther from the truth.
her expression was tight with concern as her eyes searched the room.
"zayne" relief flashed across her face
then she saw you and stopped. silence filled the room instantly. you suddenly became hyperaware of everything. the blood on your clothes. your awkward posture on the examination bed. the fact you absolutely did not belong here.
mc’s eyes narrowed slightly, "there was a metaflux fluctuation near the west district," she said slowly. "i thought a wanderer attack reached the hospital."
"it didn’t," zayne replied calmly
her gaze flicked toward you again, "then who is she?"
the question hit harder than it should have. because you didn’t know either. were you supposed to play yourself?
zayne glanced briefly toward the empty database results still displayed on-screen. a subtle pause.
"a patient," he answered
something unreadable crossed mc’s face. a sense of wariness. and strangely enough, the room itself seemed to react. the overhead lights flickered violently. a pulse of static burst through the monitor. for one impossible second, the air distorted. like reality itself had glitched.
everyone froze. mc’s hand immediately moved toward the weapon at her side. zayne’s expression focused. your pulse thundered painfully in your ears. then everything snapped back. the lights steadied. the monitor resumed its soft beeping.
mc looked directly at you, "who are you really?"
your mouth opened. nothing came out. because there was no answer you could give that wouldn’t sound insane.
zayne stepped slightly in front of you. subtle. protective. you noticed immediately. apparently mc did too.
"she’s exhausted," zayne said evenly
"interrogating her can wait until after i finish treating her injuries."
mc held his gaze for a long moment. then finally exhaled, "fine"
but she didn’t leave. you tried very hard not to panic under the weight of her stare. zayne continued disinfecting your shoulder in silence. the atmosphere in the room felt suffocating. not because either of them were openly hostile. but because both of them felt something was wrong. and unfortunately, they were right.
after several painfully quiet minutes, zayne finally removed his gloves.
"you should rest tonight," he said
you laughed weakly, " i don’t exactly have anywhere to go."
the words slipped out before you could stop them. mc’s expression sharpened immediately. zayne, however, simply looked at you. like he was thinking or calculating. and for a second, something softer flickered behind his eyes. recognition. impossible recognition. it vanished so quickly you almost thought you imagined it.
but the next thing he said stunned both you and mc.
"then stay somewhere safe tonight," his gaze held yours, "linkon isn’t kind to people who wander alone after dark."
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you expected zayne to treat you and then forget about you. realistically, he should have. you were a stranger with no records, no identification, suspicious injuries, and terrible excuses. any normal situation, security probably should have escorted you out hours ago. instead, you found yourself sitting awkwardly in the passenger seat of his car while rain streaked across the windows.
the silence was unbearably dense. heavy with things neither of you knew how to explain. you kept your hands folded tightly in your lap, trying not to stare at him. it was harder than expected. zayne drove with one hand resting loosely against the wheel, posture relaxed despite the late hour. streetlights flashed across his face in brief intervals.
"you’re quiet," zayne said suddenly
you nearly jumped "sorry"
"you don't have to apologize you know"
your face warmed instantly, "oh sorry"
the faintest trace of amusement touched his face. it was enough to surprise you. because this version of zayne felt different from the one you knew. he seemed less polished and more human. you liked him more already. that realization was dangerous. you looked out the window quickly.
"you really didn’t have to do this," you murmured
"you have nowhere else to go," he replied simply
"which is odd for someone who supposedly just moved here"
"still" you insisted
"would you rather i left you outside alone?" he asked
you thought about the wanderers. the alleyways. the feeling of claws nearly tearing into you. it made your blood run cold.
"mhm thats what i thought so stop worrying about inconveniencing me."
the response should have sounded cold. instead it felt oddly gentle. the car fell quiet again until, "you knew my name before arriving at the hospital," zayne said.
your stomach dropped. of course he noticed. he noticed everything. you scrambled desperately for an excuse.
"you’re kind of famous," you answered carefully. "one of the best cardiac surgeons in linkon."
zayne hummed softly. not fully convinced.
"and yet you specifically asked for me despite being injured and unfamiliar with the city."
crap.
"lucky guess?" that finally earned you a glance. one that clearly communicated exactly how terrible that answer was. you stared firmly out the window.
"you’re very suspicious," he said calmly.
"i’m aware."
to your surprise, he actually laughed. quiet. brief. but real. and somehow hearing it in person nearly killed you. you had to physically stop yourself from reacting. unfortunately, zayne noticed that too.
"what?"
"nothing"
"that didn’t look like nothing."
you covered your face with one hand.
"please keep your eyes on the road."
another soft exhale of amusement. god. this was bad. very bad. because you were already forgetting this wasn’t supposed to happen.
when you finally arrived at his apartment building, exhaustion hit you all at once. your limbs felt heavy climbing upstairs behind him. the apartment itself didn't suprise you in the slightest. minimalistic. clean. quiet. it looked exactly like a place zayne would live in. warm lighting softened the sharp modern edges of the space. bookshelves lined on a wall. a few medical journals sat abandoned on the coffee table beside neatly stacked files. and strangely enough—it felt lived in. not staged. not fictional. but a home.
you only realized then how you had only seen small glipses of it from the game — when mc was over. oh god mc what if she came breaking the door down at any moment. you were suprised she even let you leave with him.
zayne set his keys down interrupting your train of thought.
"you can take the guest room," he said
"are you sure?"
"you’re injured and exhausted. yes."
you hesitated near the doorway. the reality of this situation suddenly crashed into you. you were alone in another universe. inside zayne’s apartment. a hysterical laugh almost escaped you.
"you look overwhelmed," he observed
that was one way to put it. you rubbed your face tiredly, "i think my brain stopped functioning several hours ago."
"that’s probably for the best." he answered nonchalantly
you blinked, "what?"
"panic tends to worsen decision making."
"is that your version of comfort?"
the deadpan response startled a laugh out of you before you could stop it. the sound lingered briefly in the apartment. zayne went strangely still. it was like what just happened in the car moments ago.
you noticed immediately, "what?"
he looked at you for a moment too long.
"nothing," he said quietly
but the expression in his eyes said otherwise. like hearing you laugh had unearthed something buried deep enough that even he couldn’t identify it.
the harsh realization that you weren't in your world, in your own bed had arrived when you couldn’t sleep. every time you closed your eyes, you saw wanderers, or snow, or the look on mc’s face. eventually you gave up and wandered quietly into the kitchen for water. only to freeze.
zayne stood near the balcony window, still awake. moonlight spilled silver across the room. he glanced over at the sound of your footsteps.
"couldn’t sleep?"
"you either." you respond reaching for a glass
"i had paperwork."
you looked at the untouched mug beside him.
"sure."
a faint huff of amusement. you poured yourself water carefully. the quiet between you felt different now. less tense. more intimate — dangerously so.
"can I ask you something?" you said softly.
"you’re going to regardless."
"probably."
that earned another tiny almost-smile. you leaned lightly against the counter, "why did you become a doctor?"
you knew why from the story perspective. mc the women he loves has a protocore syndrome — a rare and incurable heart condition and he wants to save her. but you wanted to hear his answer not the game developers.
his expression shifted subtly as he seemingly reflected on your question.
"someone once told me that saving even one life matters," he said after a pause.
your chest tightened, "that sounds important."
"it was."
the way he said it made it clear the story carried weight you weren’t hearing. you remembered the arctic research. the isolation. the grief woven quietly through his lore. except now it wasn’t lore. it was him.
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the first few days living with zayne settled into something dangerously close to normal. that was the problem. you woke to the sound of coffee brewing and soft news reports playing from the living room. you learned where he kept extra blankets and which cabinet held medicine. that he stayed up far too late reading reports he pretended weren’t exhausting him. little things. human things. and every single one made it harder to remember this wasn’t your life.
worse—it made it harder to remember he wasn’t yours. you were beginning to understand why this world felt so unstable around you. because part of you didn’t want to leave it.
“you’re staring again.”
you nearly dropped the spoon in your hand.
zayne looked up from his tablet across the kitchen island, completely calm.
“you do that often too,” he added
heat crawled into your face instantly.
“ i was thinking.” another excuse. exceot they never got better.
“about me.”
“that is an insane level of confidence.” you scoffed
a pause then, "you deny things very quickly when they’re true.”
you pointed the spoon at him accusingly.
“that’s manipulative.”
“am i wrong?” the corner of his mouth twitched faintly.
you hated how much satisfaction that tiny expression gave you.
the apartment felt warm this morning, sunlight spilling through the windows in pale gold streaks. for a moment—just one moment you forgot about metaflux fluctuations and alternate realities.
then your phone buzzed. not your phone exsctly but the spare one zayne had lent you. a message from an unknown number flashed across the screen.
'we need to talk.'
your stomach dropped immediately. another message followed.
'ALONE.'
you looked up sharply. zayne noticed the shift in your expression instantly.
“what happened?” his eyes narrowed. you stood too quickly.
“i"m going for a walk.”
“at seven in the morning?”
“yes?”
“that wasn’t a question.”
you grabbed your jacket well technically it was zayne's before he could ask anything else.
unfortunately, he caught your wrist lightly before you reached the door. the contact sent that strange familiar pulse through your chest again.
your breath caught. so did his.
for one awful second, the apartment lights flickered. static buzzed sharply through the overhead lamp. then everything steadied. neither of you moved.
zayne’s gaze slowly dropped to where his fingers rested against your skin.
“every time,” he murmured quietly.
your pulse stuttered, “what?”
but before he could answer, your phone buzzed again.
'NOW.'
the atmosphere shattered instantly. you pulled away too fast.
“i'll be back later.”
zayne looked like he wanted to stop you. instead he released your wrist slowly.
“be careful. you are still in recovery.”
something about the way he said it made guilt twist painfully in your chest. you nodded once before hurrying out.
the message coordinates led you to one of the quieter districts near the outer city. you knew who it was before you arrived.
mc stood near the edge of an empty walkway overlooking the lower transit rails, arms crossed tightly over her chest.
she turned the second she heard your footsteps. no greeting. no hesitation.
“who the hell are you?”
straight to the point. you swallowed carefully.
“ i already told you—”
“no,” she interrupted sharply. “you actually didnt say anything that day.”
the air felt colder suddenly.
“you appear out of nowhere during a metaflux fluctuation. there are no records of you. wanderers react strangely around you.”
her eyes narrowed, “and every time you’re near zayne, something happens.”
that familiar pit found its way back into your stomach again because she wasn’t wrong.
“ i don’t know what’s happening,” you admitted quietly.
“that’s not good enough.”
the words cracked harder than intended. you looked away, “i didn’t ask to be here.”
silence. for the first time, something in mc’s expression shifted. not softer exactly. but less hostile.
“you’re scared,” she realized.
you laughed weakly, “wouldn’t you be?”
before she could answer, the lights overhead flickered violently. both of you froze and a familiar distortion warped across the edges of reality.
mc’s expression changed instantly. she was going into hunter mode which could only mean one thing.
“again…”
the ground trembled beneath your feet. then—a shriek echoed somewhere nearby. your blood ran cold. wanderers. mc immediately summoned her weapon.
“you need to leave.”
another shriek. closer this time.
“i’m not leaving you alone.”
“you can’t fight them.” she fought back
“no,” you snapped, panic bleeding through your voice, “but apparently they keep following me.”
that made her pause. a horrible realization crossed both your faces simultaneously. the fluctuation. the glitches. the wanderers. you.
the world distorted again violently. this time you actually saw it—the skyline bending unnaturally for half a second like corrupted data.
mc cursed under her breath. then the first wanderer lunged from the shadows. everything happened too fast. mc fired instantly. light exploded through the alley. the wanderer shrieked violently—and another answered. then another. too many. your pulse slammed painfully against your ribs.
“run!” mc shouted
but the creatures weren’t looking at her. they were looking at you. like they recognized something. like they wanted something. terror clawed up your throat. one charged straight toward you. you stumbled backward—and ice erupted through the air.
the wanderer froze solid mid-lunge. your breath caught sharply. you knew that evol. you turned instantly. zayne stood at the far end of the walkway, chest rising unevenly like he’d run the entire way there. his gaze locked onto you first. checking — making sure you were alive. then his expression hardened as he looked toward the wanderers.
“you left without telling me where you were going,” he said coldly
“that’s your concern right now?”
“yes.” the answer came immediately. firm and certain.
it hit harder than it should have. mc stared between both of you silently. another wanderer shrieked. zayne stepped forward, ice forming sharply beneath his feet.
“stay behind me.” the command came naturally. instinctively. like he’d said it to you a hundred times before.
your chest ached violently. the battle itself blurred together after that. mc and zayne moved flawlessly together, years of trust evident in every motion. precise. coordinated. familiar. you watched from behind them, feeling very exposed. because this was where you were never supposed to fit. and yet when another wanderer broke past mc’s attack and lunged toward you—zayne reacted before anyone else.
ice speared through the creature instantly. his hand caught your arm hard enough to pull you against him.
“you okay?”
the question came low and urgent near your ear. too close. far too close. you looked up at him breathlessly. and for one impossible second—the world cracked. snowstorm winds screamed through your ears. white endless ice stretched beneath a dark sky. zayne’s face—devastated. his hand reaching desperately toward yours then the vision vanished violently. you gasped. zayne’s expression shifted immediately. because he saw something too.
“who are you?” he whispered. not suspicious. not angry. almost frightened. before you could answer, mc's voice cut sharply through the silence.
“zayne.”
you both looked toward her and immediately realized she had seen the entire thing.
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after the fight, nothing felt stable anymore. not the city. not the world. not zayne. definitely not you. the fluctuations worsened over the next several weeks. lights flickered constantly around you now. screens distorted if you held them too long. once, while standing in the kitchen, you watched the digital clock on the microwave rapidly cycle through impossible times before shutting off completely. each incident left a sick feeling in your stomach. like reality was rejecting your existence piece by piece.
zayne noticed everything. of course he did. he became quieter afterward. more watchful. you caught him staring sometimes when he thought you weren’t paying attention. like he was trying to solve a puzzle that scared him.
you spent numerous nights doing research on your own. you couldn't ask zayne for help, he had already done more than enough for you. besides you still weren’t sure how he would react to the truth. or at least the parts you could tell him.
so you searched quietly, carefully, honestly afraid of what secrets you might uncover. one night you finally had a breakthrough. a key piece of information buried in archived reports. an old arctic research facility — abandoned, officially decommissioned after a series of "unexplained spatial anomalies" during experimental trials.
every recorded attempt to send personnel through the suspicious portal had ended the same way. no return. no bodies. no communication. unfortunately, you were becoming no stranger to that strange feeling of your chest tightening as the realization hit you. you read further, the descriptions weren't just similar to what you'd been experiencing — they were identical.
flunctuations in reality. temporal distortion. glitches in physical spaces. and then a name caught your attention in the archived personnel logs.
dr. zayne — not as he was now. back then, he had been there as a medical intern. your breath caught, of course this connected back to him. everything in your world did.
the next morning you tried to act normal. hiding the discolored bags under your eyes as you mumbled "morning," stepping into the kitchen.
your voice sounded wrong even to you — hoarse and drained. you barely slept, and your hands wouldn't stop trembling. zayne looked up immediately and froze. then he was across the room.
"what happened?" his voice laced with concern as his hand caught your arm.
you flinched only his grip tightened slightly.
"i'm fine" you tried to say. but your body betrayed you. it was a deep and unnatural cold feeling. ice-like ridges had begun forming faintly beneath your skin. like this reality itself was now physically punishing you for your existence, trying to cast you out.
zayne's expression shifted instantly into recognition,"this again," he whispered to himself
before you could ask what he meant, your vision blurred, "zayne-"
the world titled violently. his arms caught you as your legs gave out. and then everything went white. you weren't sure where you were anymore. there was no sound, no ground, just an endless void.
you drifted through it aimlessly then — a door. you hesistated before opening it. you were back in your room. only this time something was wrong. it felt distant, like you didn't belong there anymore. then you saw it.
you collapsed on the floor. pale, unmoving, not breathing. panic surged through you instantly. you opened your mouth to scream but only a choked sob came out of the back of your throat.
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you woke up gasping. white celing, hospital lights, beeping monitors. zayne and mc standing beside your bed. both of them turned the moment you stirred. relief flickered across zayne's face, if only for a moment, before he took the stethoscope around his neck and came closer in your view.
he placed the cold metal piece onto your chest, "your heart rate is still unstable" he murmured. he is the most acclaimed cardiac surgeon and even he had never seen anything like this. its almost as if your heart rate wasn't real at all.
"i'm fine" your voice cracked. another lie. how long were you going to continue to lie to him.
he ignored you, not wanting to bother arguing. that wouldn't help your current state. so he did the only thing he knew how to in this moment. treat you.
warm fingers brushed your cheek, then your jaw— careful and precise. like he was scanning for something invisible beneath your skin.
you shivered instantly from the closeness.
"i think the ice-formations stopped"
"ice formation?" so thats what happened to you back at the apartment.
zayne said quietly, almost afraid to relive the memory, "i've seen it once before...in the arctic"
and suddenly the memories you shared began to make a little bit of sense.
"i remember it too." you whispered
zayne didn't pull away, didn't interrupt just waited for you to elaborate. mc looked tense watching the two of you too closely.
“you need to tell us the truth.” the words came sharply from her mouth.
rain hammered against the windows outside. another storm. the atmosphere inside felt suffocating. you looked between them slowly.
zayne had this look in his eyes. he was trusting you to answer. that somehow made this worse. you looked down at your hands, clenched at your sides.
“how much do you know already?”
mc's jaw tightened, “enough to know you’re connected to the fluctuations.”
your throat tightened painfully. god. you hated how gentle he sounded. you laughed weakly instead.
“you shouldn’t be kind to me.”
neither of them answered. the silence pushed you forward. you inhaled shakily. then finally said the thing that had been rotting inside your chest since the moment you woke up here.
“i'm not from this world.”
silence. thunder cracked outside. mc stared at you. zayne didn’t move at all. you forced yourself to continue before courage abandoned you entirely.
“i know this sounds insane, but where i come from…” your voice faltered.
"this place isn’t real.”
mc immediately frowned, “what does that mean?”
“it means your world exists as a game where i’m from.”
the words sounded cruel spoken aloud. wrong. you already hated yourself for saying them. but once you started, you couldn’t stop anymore.
“i knew who all of you were before i got here. i knew linkon city. wanderers. hunters. AKSO.” your breathing became uneven. “i knew zayne.”
mc’s expression shifted from confusion to disbelief.
“no.”
“i know how this sounds.”
“no,” she repeated more sharply. “that’s impossible.”
“you think i don’t know that?”
the room lights flickered violently as you raised your voice. static exploded through the monitors. everyone froze. your voice cracked.
“every time i get emotional, the fluctuations get worse — you noticed that too right? that's how you know i'm not lying
zayne’s gaze became fixed to you. like he’d just connected something. you looked at him and that was your mistake. because the second your eyes met, every carefully restrained emotion inside you finally broke apart.
“i didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
your voice shook violently now, “i didn’t ask to come here. i didn’t ask to meet you.”
zayne’s expression changed subtly. hurt. it was small but devastating. you looked away immediately.
“there’s more,” you whispered.
mc stiffened. somehow she already knew she wasn’t going to like what came next. you swallowed hard.
“i died...in that world and i think when i died something went wrong.”
the room went completely still. you barely heard yourself continue.
“i think i was supposed to reincarnate here.”
mc’s face drained slowly of color,“no…”
tears burned behind your eyes.
“i think…” your voice cracked again. “i think i was supposed to become you.”
the silence afterward felt monstrous. horrifying. mc stared at you like the floor had disappeared beneath her feet. she already knew what you were going to say next though she shouldn't have.
you forced your eyes to meet their gaze, "in the game, you and zayne find each other in every lifetime. yet unfortunately, your happiness can never last."
zayne finally pushed away backing up from the side of your bed. slowly. carefully. like sudden movement might shatter something fragile.
“what are you saying?” he asked quietly
you laughed once. broken.
“i don’t fully understand it either, i am just a player, experiencing the story along with you.
"all i know is at the end of your story, something always goes wrong and i am unable to change your fate."
you wiped at your face angrily. “but i guess this time it's different. the fact that i am here means something broke the pattern. like fate wanted to change those rules and give me a chance."
"what kind of chance?" zayne said
"to change it." you couldnt fully believe what you were saying. how could you go against the laws the game developers set.
"but something happened during the reincarnation process that no one could have predicted so instead of replacing her…”
your eyes shifted toward mc, “we both exist.”
another violent fluctuation ripped through the room. the monitors glitched wildly. fragments of static burst across the screens. for half a second—you saw it. a reflection, a distorted overlap of you and her. faces misaligned, layered over each other. then it vanished.
mc stumbled backward slightly while zayne moved instinctively closer to you. as if he could stabilize what was happening, anchor you somehow.
“no…” her voice sounded genuinely shaken now. “you’re lying.”
“i wish i was.”
“you expect me to believe my entire life—”
“i’m not saying your life isn’t real!”
the outburst cracked from your chest instantly. painfully. the lights overhead burst. darkness swallowed the room except for emergency backup lighting.
your breathing became ragged. body beginning to destablize once more. growing colder with each breath. the ice-formations could come back at any point.
“i’m saying maybe neither of us were supposed to exist like this.”
the room snapped back into place and silence filled the space once more. then finally zayne placed a reassuring hand on yours while he spoke.
“when did you die?”
the question hit harder than anything else had. not because he doubted you. because he believed you enough to ask. you looked at him slowly.
“the same night i arrived here.”
his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. you forced yourself to keep speaking.
“my chest started hurting while i was playing.” your laugh sounded hollow. “i ignored it.”
the guilt crashed over you all over again. you had died alone. still chasing fictional comfort from a world that somehow became real too late.
“i don’t remember what happened after that,” you admitted quietly. “i woke up here.”
nobody spoke for a long time. the quiet was worse than the chaos that came before it. rain continued hammering the windows. mc looked devastated. zayne looked worse. because suddenly every strange feeling he’d had around you finally had an explanation. or at least the closest thing to one. you shouldn’t exist here. and yet somehow— part of him already knew you anyway.
his eyes locked into yours, hand tightening around your cold fingers.
"i can fix this" he said. not from a medical standpoint but something else entirely. something dangerously close to desperation.
mc watched both of you from the doorframe. for the first time, she saw you and realized this story wasn't just about her saving the world. it was about both of them trying to live.
──────────────────────────────
that night, you couldn’t stay. not after the truth. not after the way zayne looked at you now. not fear. not disgust. but something far more dangerous. you had seen it before in his myth cards. it was something that could hurt him.
you sat alone in the apartment long after midnight staring at the arctic research files pulled up across the tablet screen. the portal. the anomaly. the place where reality weakened enough for dimensional fractures to form. you finally understood why the visions kept involving snow. why your existence destabilized more the longer you stayed. the arctic was where this began. and maybe—were it could end too.
your chest hurt unbearably, worse than it did the night you died. because deep down, you already knew what resetting reality probably meant. you opened the notebook beside you slowly. then began writing.
zayne,
by the time you read this, i’ll already be gone. i know you’ll be angry. honestly, you should be. you opened your home to me when i gave you nothing except lies and problems in return. even now, i still don’t know how to explain everything properly. maybe because i’m scared that saying it out loud will make this all real. or maybe because part of me selfishly wanted to pretend a little longer. pretend i belonged here. pretend i could stay.
you once asked why i knew things about you i shouldn’t. the truth is… before i met you, i already cared about you. that sounds insane written down. maybe it is. but somewhere in another world, you existed as someone unreachable to me. someone fictional. safe. a person i could care about without consequences because there was always a screen separating us.
then suddenly there wasn’t. and meeting the real you ruined me a little. because you aren’t the version i imagined. you’re kinder. more human. you make coffee too strong. then add like half a cup of sugar to make it better. you stay awake when you think nobody notices. you hide concern behind sarcasm badly. and somehow knowing those small things became more important to me than everything i thought i knew before.
that’s what makes this hurt so much. i think my existence here is damaging your world. the fluctuations are getting worse. wanderers keep appearing around me. reality itself reacts every time emotions spiral out of control. if i stay, eventually something irreversible will happen.
there’s a portal connected to the arctic anomaly research. i found the coordinates in your files. i'm going there to reset things. maybe this fixes everything. maybe I disappear completely. honestly, I think that’s the most likely outcome. and strangely enough… i’m not as afraid anymore. i already died once.
but getting this extra time with you— even if it was never supposed to happen— became something precious to me. so thank you. for the apartment. for the late night conversations. for treating me like a person instead of a mistake.
and i’m sorry. i never meant to hurt you. but somehow i knew i would. i am mostly sorry for this though...not for loving you. just for what loving you seems to be doing to this world.
— yours, in another life.
you left the note carefully on the kitchen counter. then walked out before you could lose the nerve to do it.
outside, snow had begun falling lightly across linkon city. like the world already knew where you were going.
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the storm worsened the further north you traveled. by the time you reached the abandoned arctic research site, visibility had dropped to nearly nothing. snow lashed violently across the frozen landscape, winds screaming hard enough to shake the metal structures around you.
it felt familiar. that terrified you most of all. like somewhere deep inside your memories— or maybe someone else’s you had already stood here before. the facility itself looked half-devoured by time. frost covered shattered windows. emergency lights flickered weakly beneath layers of ice.
and beneath it all—you could feel it. the fracture. reality itself felt thin here. unstable. waiting. you stepped deeper into the facility slowly, boots crunching against snow that had drifted inside long ago.
the visions became worse immediately. fragments. pieces. zayne standing in white endless snow. a hand reaching for yours—your chest tightened painfully.
you pressed a shaking hand against the wall.
“just a little longer…”
the portal chamber sat at the center of the station. most of the machinery was dead, but the anomaly itself still pulsed faintly in the darkness ahead. a tear in reality. beautiful yet horrifying. the familiar static crackled softly through the air around it. you stared at it silently. if you stepped through— maybe the world corrected itself.
maybe mc lived the life she was meant to have. maybe zayne forgot you entirely. maybe this time they finally get their happy ending.
your throat burned. you told yourself that should’ve been comforting. instead it felt unbearable.
footsteps echoed suddenly behind you. fast and desperate. you closed your eyes immediately. of course he came.
“are you insane?”
zayne’s voice broke sharply through the chamber. you turned slowly. snow clung to his coat and dark hair, breath uneven from running through the storm. he looked furious. and terrified. the sight of him nearly shattered your resolve instantly.
“you weren’t supposed to follow me.”
“that’s your first sentence?”
his composure was hanging by threads now.
“you leave a goodbye note and disappear into an active anomaly zone and somehow expected me not to follow you?”
guilt twisted in your chest, “i didn’t want you involved.”
“that stopped being possible the moment you entered my life.”
the words hit with devastating force. the only sound that filled the chamber was your rapid breathing and the low hum of the anomaly. zayne stared at you for a long moment. then finally asked quietly
“were you planning to say goodbye properly?”
you looked away. because no answer would make this better. his jaw tightened.
“you really were going to disappear without talking to me.”
“i thought it would hurt less.”
“for who?”
the question cracked hard enough to make you flinch.
“you don’t get to decide that for me.”
emotion surged violently through the room. the anomaly pulsed brighter instantly. static burst across the walls. zayne ignored it completely.
“you keep making decisions alone like none of this affects anyone else.”
his voice dropped lower. rougher.
“you think i wouldn’t have wanted the chance to choose?”
your eyes burned painfully. "you shouldn’t choose me.”
“why?”
the answer came instantly. fierce. certain. and suddenly you couldn’t breathe properly.
“because i’m not supposed to exist here!”
the anomaly flared violently. ice cracked beneath your feet.
“you can see it for yourself—i damage this world just by being in it!” you snapped
the words stunned you silent. his expression shifted then. he was heartbroken.
“you love her life more than your own.”
“no—”
“you already decided she deserves this world more than you do.”
your chest hurt so badly it felt impossible to stand.
“she belongs here — she deserves you"
“and you don’t?”
the question shattered something inside you. you laughed weakly through tears.
“i died, zayne.”
the confession came out smaller this time.
"you wouldn't even have met me if that hadn't happened. can't you just go back to pretending like none of this even happened."
you continued
“i already lost my life once. i don’t know how to keep pretending this one can really belong to me too.”
slowly—zayne stepped closer. the anomaly screamed louder around you both. neither of you looked away.
“you asked me once why I became a doctor,” he said quietly.
“i told you someone taught me saving even one life matters.”
snow whipped violently through the broken windows behind him. his eyes never left yours.
“it was you.”
your entire world stopped, “what…?”
“i don’t fully understand it either,” he admitted softly. “but every time i’m near you, i remember things that shouldn’t exist.”
another pulse surged through the chamber.
memories crashed through your mind instantly. snowstorms. laughter. warm hands against freezing skin. a lifetime you never lived. or maybe one you had.
zayne’s voice shook for the first time since meeting him.
“i think some part of me has known you for a very long time.”
tears finally slipped down your face.
“that’s impossible.”
“probably.”
a weak almost-smile touched his expression, then vanished.
“but I know this.”
he stepped closer again. close enough now that you could feel warmth despite the freezing air.
“i don’t care what world you came from.”
your breath trembled, “zayne…”
“i love you.”
the words spread through the chamber like wildfire. the anomaly exploded violently in response. reality warped around you both. the entire facility trembled.
for half a second neither of you dared to move. and then zayne crossed the distance between you. no hesitation. no restraint.
his hand caught your jaw, pulling you into him like gravity had finally decided what it wanted. and he kissed you — it wasnt careful, it wasn't gentle. it was desperate.
cold lips, shaking breath, hands tightening like he was afraid you'd disappear if he didn't hold you hard enough. like everything he had ever buried, every version of him that had known loss, finally collapsed all at once into that single point of contact.
your mind went completely blank as reality continued to break completely around you both in unstable waves. but zayne didnt stop and neither did you. it lasted only a minute but it felt like every timeline collapsing into one impossible moment.
you pulled away from his lips breathlessly, foreheads still close, and hands still gripping. his thumb brushed your cheek and he looked at you. really looked at you for the first time since you had arrived. like he was memorizing you through the collapse of the world.
then softer, like the first confession hadn't been enough, "i love you" he said again. this time it wasnt a declaration it was certainty.
and from somewhere deep below—wanderers screamed. dozens of them. your blood ran cold instantly, but that didnt stop him
"i know what this, us is doing to everything. i've spent my entire life trying to stop things from falling apart. and now you tell me that every version of my story ends the same way.
feeling responsible as the player for what happened to him, tears fell from your eyes. but he wiped them away as quickly as they appeared.
"its not your fault, it was never your fault"
he held you steadily afraid what he was going to say next would break everything entirely. but he didnt care so he continued,
"i think this is the first time it feels like something matters more than the ending."
your breath caught painfully. ice feeling like it was filling your lungs. you should have been terrified, you were but not of him. never him.
you understood exactly what he meant because this time it wasnt about destiny or cycles. it was about you and him.
another violent pulse from the anomaly tore through the ceiling. zayne leaned in, throwing his body into your own. shielding you from the ice and snow fragments that rained down around you. you stared at him. at the man you had only ever known as a fictional entity. at the real version standing here with you at the end of the world. the man that loved you despite everything you had put him.
"stay with me" he murmered close to your ear.
footsteps echoed from the entrance behind you. you turned sharply. mc stood there frozen in the doorway. she had heard everything, every word, every confession. that isn't what broke her though — she was a witness to the kiss that crumbled the world and life as she knew it.
──────────────────────────────
the facility alarms suddenly roared to life.
WARNING: DIMENSIONAL INSTABILITY CRITICAL.
red emergency lights flooded the room. the anomaly spiraled violently now, cracks of distorted energy tearing through the air itself.
and outside—a stampede of wanderers were coming. you could hear them. the sound alone was horrifying. mc snapped into motion first.
“we need to close the fracture now.”
zayne immediately moved beside her.
“what’s causing the instability?”
mc looked toward you.
neither of you wanted to answer that question aloud. the emotional surge. the confession. the kiss. you. the anomaly pulsed harder. the floor cracked sharply beneath your feet.
you stumbled—zayne caught you instantly.
the contact triggered another violent distortion. segments of memory burst through the room itself now. afterimages flickered across the air like shattered film reels being projected over reality. a girl that looked achingly similar to you yet softer somehow was laughing beside a younger zayne bundled in heavy arctic gear. snow collecting in his dark hair while he rolled his eyes with quiet fondness.
the vision glitched. you were suddenly back in your room. curled beneath blankets. phone clutched tightly in shaking hands while tears slipped silently down your face after finishing his myth cards at three in the morning.
“i just wanted them to be happy,” your own voice echoed faintly through the chamber.
the memory shattered apart and another replaced it instantly. the tower of secrets. endless white stairs spiraling beneath a dark frozen sky. foreseer zayne shackled in a prison, dark ice impaled through his body as cold divinity clung to him like chains.
and in front of him—mc. her body clinging to his despite knowing she shouldn’t. despite knowing what it would cost.
then they were atop of the tower, surrounded by wilting jasmines. taking the creatio protocore from his scepter a white light encapsulates it as it then evaporates in her chest.
"why? i wasnt going to live much longer" she pleads
"your destiny is not written in stone" he responds as ice completely envelopes him.
astra’s voice thundered through endless space. then—another life. a forest hidden away from the rest of the world. mc being forced to make umbrellas under the divinity tree. zayne covers her eyes as she gets sleepy
"don't be scared" suddenly his voice faded away and she fell into a deep slumber.
then another distortion. at another facility similar to the one they were standing in now, flames roared around them. zayne's bloodstained figure appears before mc. she desperately tries to heal him but its no use as he falls to the ground.
"we still have time to watch this sunset"
a portal similar to the one standing before you opens up at the touch of his fingers as the tower falls they both plummet to the ground. however this time it isnt zayne who sacrifices his powers to save a life. its her.
more memories flooded in too quickly now. hands reaching across timelines. promises repeated in different voices. different worlds. always the same grief. always the same love.
the memories layered so heavily the room itself could barely withstand them. reality warped around all three of you, unstable under the sheer emotional weight of lifetimes that were never supposed to coexist at once. mc stared at the visions unfolding around her. at the love. at the suffering. at the impossible repetition of it all. her voice came out barely above a whisper.
“three and a half lifetimes.”
the words settled heavily into the collapsing chamber. because now she understood. this wasn’t coincidence. wasn’t jealousy. wasn’t some simple rupture in reality. it was fate repeating itself so many times that the boundaries between versions had finally begun to rot away. and somehow—you had fallen directly into the center of it.
the facility shook violently. a wanderer burst through the upper corridor window. then another. mc summoned her weapon instantly.
“we don’t have time anymore!”
the battle that followed felt apocalyptic. reality itself broke apart around you as wanderers flooded the station. ice exploded through collapsing walls. gunfire echoed through blizzards. distorted energy ripped through the chamber ceiling.
until finally you understood the truth. it wouldn’t stop unless one existence was removed completely. the world couldn’t sustain both you and mc.
one of you had to go. and both of you realized it at the exact same moment. you looked at her. she looked back. understanding passed silently between you.
──────────────────────────────
Ending #1
then she smiled sadly and moved first.
"wait-!"
you lunged forwaard, but mc was already stepping towards the center of the anomaly. the fracture reacting immediately to her presence. light spiraled erratically around her. zayne's expression changed instantly.
"no" the single world sounded terrified. mc looked back at him and suddenly she didn't look like a deepspace hunter. she looked exactly like he remembered when they were kids. the girl he swore to protect — to save.
and she was just a girl who loved someone deeply yet didn't get a chance to express it as much this time.
"i think..." her voice shook slightly
"i think this was always supposed to happen."
"no" zayne repeated harsher this time, moving towards her.
"we'll find another way"
"there isn't any more time" mc's eyes softened as she looked at him.
three and a half lifetimes. the impossible bond between them. she loved him acrosss realities and yet she found it in herself to save yours too.
tears slipped down her face, "you deserve to be happy too," she whispered towards you.
your chest shattered completely. this time it was a worse pain you have felt since you died.
"no—please"
she only smiled sadly, then looked back at zayne one final time.
"i loved you in every life i got...its time someone else got to experience that love for a change."
zayne reached for her too late. light consumed her instantly as she was pulled into the portal.
the world went bright and when you woke again, the storm was gone. the anomaly had sealed. the wanderes had vanished. and zayne sat beside you silently in the snow. empty, absolutely destroyed. he had saved your life at the cost of hers and neither of you would ever stop carrying that grief.
still, when his trembling hand found yours in the silence — you held on.
──────────────────────────────
Ending #2
you understood immediately — the world had already chosen. mc belonged here. you didn't.
the realization hurt less than expected. maybe because deep down, you'd known from the beginning. you looked towards zayne one last time. he saw it instantly and panic crossed his face.
"no"
your eyes burned. "you said saving even one life matters.
"don't do this."
the desperation in his voice nearly broke you. but the anamoly continued collapsing towards you, dragging you in like a magnet, as the wanderers drew closer backing you into a corner. there wasn't time.
hands trembling you gently touched his face. the contact triggererd one final flood of memories. not the ones from before that you shared. this time just your own. from downloading the game, waiting to get past the loading screen, making your character/your mc look perfect. seeing zayne in destiny cafe, that first meeting where he complained about carrots and he made you a frozen seal. the moment that not just mc fell for him but you.
your love stretching across timelines. maybe you had loved him before this life. maybe that was why finding him felt inevitable.
"i'm happy i met the real you." you whispered
mc who had been watching silently, turned away letting you have as much time as she could give you. holding the wanderers back.
"i can fix this, please let me fix this" tears fell down his face.
"you can't," your own voice cracked now too, "and that's okay."
zayne grabbed your hand tightly, refusing to let this reality take you away.
"i love you," he said again. the words destroyed you. because all you wanted was more time. a normal life. something selfish and human and impossible. but you smiled anyway.
"i know" then you kissed him. pouring all the love neither of you had enough time to hold onto.
when you pulled away, you pressed your forehead against his. trying to remember the feeling of his skin on yours.
"in another life" you whispered, then stepped backward.
zayne shouted your name. the portal consumed everything. when the world stabilized again — you were gone. no records. no traces. like you had never existed at all.
except sometimes, late at night, zayne still caught himself reaching for a memory he couldn't fully explain.
treating a patient with no face, late night conversations, a hospital room, the arctic, the feeling of warm lips pressed against his own, a confession and a feeling of profound loss. and somewhere beyond your worlds you had found peace knowing that even briefly — you had been loved back.
Zayne has just barely collapsed on the couch, still in his work clothes and tie tugged loose around his neck. So, you take your chance.
"Will you make me a cup of tea?"
He's already almost half asleep. His eyes open with a clear strain as he looks at you, curled up under the blanket with a book.
You're messing with him, of course. You expect him to catch on, to toss a cheeky remark at you like usual. You're not expecting him to wordlessly lift himself off the couch and begin trudging to the kitchen.
"Wh-Zayne! No no I was kidding!" He doesn't pay your words any mind as you struggle to kick aside the blanket, hurriedly trying to follow him.
"Chamomile, yes?" Of course, he already knows what flavour you prefer for your nightly reading. He pulls a bag from the drawer, but you grasp his wrist.
"I was just joking! Please go sit back down, you're exhausted and you've been on your feet all day." Now that you've gotten a closer look at him, the joke sits heavy in your stomach. The bags under his eyes have gotten worse, and his cheeks look more sunken in than usual.
"Let me make your tea." He mumbles, though he doesn't protest when you pull the bag from his fingers, setting it aside in favour of undoing his tie.
"I don't feel like tea anymore. Let's head up to bed, yeah?" His hands move from the counter to your waist, his whole body sinking into the embrace as his forehead rests on your shoulder. You hug him back, one hand stroking his back and the other sinking into the hair at the back of his head.
"Bed is a good idea." He whispers, voice already thick with exhaustion. You kiss his cheek, nudging him up just enough to have him follow you upstairs.
(aka: the one when you show off your very specific sense of humor)
After a whole week of mess, Saturday could not be more awaited for Y/N, though since Zayne was stuck at the hospital duty she had to fill in the day herself.
And honestly? It kind of felt good. After all it wasn;t like they were glued together. They could love each other and still not go all mopey and miserable while the other was busy and having a life. Zayne definitely wasn't overly sad about it (being himself of course) so she wasn;t going to dramatise either.
Instead, she called one of her friends, asking him if he wanted to visit the arcade and play claw because a new merch has just been dropped.
Lost in fun, laughter and having a good time, she didn't pay much attention to the surroundings. Unfortunately that made her miss someone looking at her from the distance, assessing the threat.
Blissful ignorance came crashing down later that evening when she got a disturbing text.
Saw you having fun today. Who was the guy?
Right. Typical Zayne. She knew damn well he was overthinking everything, trying to find the logical solution, but having to fight his own brain into skipping to conclusion when it came to them.
He was just a colleague.
You didn;t tell me about him.
Oh dear. He was jealous. And while other girls may tease him mercilessly about it, Y/N chose against it.
I did. Just maybe I didn’t use his name. Dylan. He's the one who's going to be transferred soon.
Oh yes. I remember now.
She decided to wait for what was coming next, but as the silence kept on stretching, it was time for a bit more drastic measures.
***
He was wondering how to answer her without admitting he was jealous when his phone started vibrating and her name lit up the screen.
"Hey." he said with a calm (not cold, never cold with her) voice
"What is going on in your head right now, Zayne?"
If they were at the beginning of building a relationship he would wriggle out of the answer. But they've been together for two years. TWO YEARS, And it was Y/N. And he had no intention of questioning her.
"Zayne?"
"Still here."
"Talk to me."
"I didn't like you with him,"
"I figured as much. But you do realise he has a girlfriend, right?"
"Noted."
"And it's not like we've done anything, you know. Oh, and by the way, I won a plushie for you. Do you want to see it?" without waiting for an answer she snapped a photo and sent it to him without disconnecting.
Oh, for crying out loud, it must have been a joke....
A carrot.
She won a carrot plushie for him.
Zayne pinched the bridge of his nose, a mix of disbelief and exasperation bubbling in his brain (and heart).
"This is not funny."
"It is a little funny. Admit it." she teased.
"Y/N--"
"It's on its way to you. I called an uber about half an hour ago so it should be there soon."
"Of course you did. And what did the other guy get? A heart?" he scoffed pettily.
"Spoken like a true cardiac surgeon." She pointed out, not letting him off the hook easily. "And for the record, he got nothing. The claw is our thing. Yours and mine. Just cause I found a temporary replacement doesn't change it. It's me and you. Together. Remember?
"hm." (meaning: inside happy dance, cause he was still her no.1)
"See you tomorrow?"
"Hm."
"Good. Don;t lose sleep over carrots, Dr Zayne."
a soft click signalled the end of the conversation. But at least now he had his hope restored.
Even when a moment later a driver delivered that silly carrot, who seemed to start watching him the second it was put on the shelf.
Because it may have been an attempt to torment him, but it came from her, so of course it was getting a honorary place.
"Stop staring at me." he muttered childishly, turning it away so those two black lines of eyes were facing the wall and not him.
And if that was a kid's action? That was between him and the enemy.
note: part 3 is here! not gonna lie, this chapter was born from me procrastinating all my school work rn. also added blank slides as buffers between each conversation to indicate time passing :) enjoy!!
tags: lots of fluff, implications of rough family dynamic
characters: zayne x fem!reader
desc: when a silly decision reveals a truth buried beneath a broken connection
song: ruin the friendship by taylor swift
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all works are done by me. please do not steal, post, or feed my work through ai. thank you! (*^ー^)ノ♪ that's all. thank you! divider by @cafekitsune
From the moment she was born, your daughter had not known the cold that came when a parent would not hold their child.
Whether it be you, her grandparents, aunts or uncles, she grew up in a loving home. One you fought hard for her to have.
Yet, no one held her as much as Zayne.
From her first breath, he held her like she was the most precious treasure in the world. He hardly even breathed, too scared that he might shatter her. That if he held her too tightly, her fragile body would wither in his arms.
Yet slowly, he learned. He learned how to hold her. Where to place his hands, how to soothe her when she wailed, and slowly too did she grow. Going from an infant who could barely utter a word, into a toddler that begged for his attention.
"Daddy, up!" she'd cry in that adorable voice of hers, and he'd obey without question. He'd bend down and scoop her into his arms.
It didn't stop even when she grew bigger. Balancing her on his shoulders, carrying her to bed when she dozed off on the couch. It was one of his favorite things as a parent, that his daughter felt so safe with him that she'd actively seek out his touch.
Until she became a teenager.
"Dad, let go." she'd huff, crossing her arms and stepping away from him when she saw her friends approach. You watch, both amusement and pity swirling in your gaze as Zayne's hands hover uselessly in the air, before he puts them down.
Your own hand moves forward, wrapping around the length of his arm as you give him a knowing look, and all he does is look away and pout. Well, as best as his face would let him.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" you ask, just as she starts skipping off with her friends. She murmurs something to them, before walking back to you both, giving you a peck on the cheek. Zayne bends down so she can do the same, though his pout doesn't fade when she turns around to join her friends.
Your walk back to the car is quiet, with you waiting for him to unload the weight on his chest. He doesn't. At least, not until you get into the car (with him opening the door for you), and he slips into the driver's seat.
. . .
". . . Do you want to talk about it?"
Zayne doesn't look at you. "About what?"
"You know what." you sigh, leaning back and fastening your seatbelt. Only then does he begin to pull out the driveway.
He still doesn't look at you, even with that adorable, yet imperceptible frown on his face.
"I'm alright." he says, eyes trained on the road ahead, and you don't pry further. Because he'll tell you anyway. Whether it's in a few minutes, a few hours or even tomorrow, he'll tell you.
For all his genius, the only thing Zayne truly wants to be the best at, is being a father.
🌷 NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR
Disclaimer, I do NOT have daddy issues and have a loving relationship w/ my father 😭
Just realized the other day I put out a lot of Dad Zayne and some people might get the wrong idea 💔
Also lost on Sylus' birthday banner so that wasn't fun. It was early too 🫠 whatevs I'll just farm. Hopefully enough before his banner ends 🙏
Speaking of birthdays, mine is on the 22nd! It doesn't feel real 🥲
Prompt: Texting the LADS Boys that you are on a date headcanons. I saw this text convo all over tiktok (not sure if its real). It reminded me of Sylus, and it got me thinking of how the other guys would respond. Pre-dating scenario. I imagined it being a blind date but you do you.
His brain short circuits as soon as he sees the text. I can picture a power outage occurring (hopefully your date isn’t happening nearby Lol).
Since this is pre-dating, he really wouldn’t know what to do. He is drowning in jealousy, but he’s also just sad and almost resigned to the idea he might have to give up on you (again).
Would plan to respond but would probably spend so long trying to decide what to say, your date is over.
He would take a walk and end up waiting outside until you got home. It is easy to tell he is down, but he’ll try to hide it and act casual.
He’ll offer to walk you to your apartment. While doing so he would force himself to ask how it went, trying to be supportive (he automatically assumes you like this person).
The second he picks up that you actually don’t like the guy, his mood flips to hopeful. He’ll start grilling you, asking why you went on the date, did you like the guy before that moment, etc.
He’d use the situation to worm in a date with you saying something like, “well, maybe you should get hotpot with someone you actually enjoy the company of. It can paint over the memory of that poor date.” You’ll agree but afterwards be confused as to whether he actually meant it as a date or not. The man is the king of vague exchanges.
Your evening will end in confusion and his will end in joy. Just never bring that guy up ever again and God help you if he ever meets him.
Rafayel
Rafayel goes into full open crashout mode. Even though you aren’t dating, this is betrayal in his eyes. What’s worse he isn’t fully sure how to handle it since, once again, you aren’t dating yet. Still, he isn’t going to let it slide.
He won’t respond for 10-20minutes, as he processes your text, then your phone blows up. Texts, calls, voicemails, etc. It’s all coming in at once. He will not stop until you answer. He NEEDS your attention in that moment. He needs you to choose him.
He will claim there is an emergency, you need to come immediately. You lowkey know there probably isn’t an actual emergency but can’t stop yourself from appeasing him. Plus you deep down know if you ignore him, there might actually be an emergency by the end of the night.
This man is going to be MAD. He knows he doesn’t have the right to be openly mad about you dating someone yet, so he tries to mask the reason why but you both know, it is clear as day. Eventually he doesn’t really bother masking it, because boy is he seething.
He can’t keep himself from asking about the date. He will openly insult him/the date even if it doesn’t make sense. He is also carefully gauging your reactions to his insults to make sure you aren’t actually interested in that guy.
Raf will be exceptionally clingy for the foreseeable future. This man is going to make sure that any spare time you have is spent with him and not on random dates.
Caleb
Goes radio silent the second you send the text saying you are on date, so you continue on as normal.
As you and your date walk outside, you will find Caleb waiting with the coldest expression until he spots you two, then it snaps into the fakest friendliness. It won’t be hard for you to tell he’s putting on a front.
Uses the brother card big time, claiming he was here to pick up his little sister. Leaves absolutely no room for you to say no. You can tell he is angry even through his friendly act.
As soon as you two get into the car, he snaps. Telling you how dangerous strangers can be, how men can’t be trusted, how could you not tell him about this earlier, etc., etc. He hides his intense jealousy under “brotherly protectiveness”.
It leads to a fight because you’ll feel like he’s infantilizing you, and he can’t fully defend himself because that would require him to be truthful about why he is mad. It will probably end with you two not talking for a few days before giving in and making up.
He’ll convince you to make a promise to tell him in advance if you are going on a date. That it’ll just make him feel better so he knows you're safe.
And yeah, the second you agree, your dating life outside of Caleb is doomed lmao.
Zayne
Zayne is a private crashout. He won’t run around screaming but he is in his head. This is one of his worst nightmares come to fruition.
Will respond politely but curtly as he spirals. Something short like:
“I see.”
“Let me know you got home safely.”
He is going to be sitting by his phone waiting for a reply. If he is at work, he’ll be checking it every free moment. He is mentally begging for this to be a joke. He is trying to intellectualize how this happened and how he can still fix it.
Eventually, he can’t take it anymore and will text you offering to pick you up after the date, for safety reasons of course. Lol.
He’ll wait outside anxious as all hell. He doesn’t want to be there but also doesn’t want to not be there. He doesn’t know what he is going to say. He just feels like his head is going to explode.
He is going to be so awkward and curt in the car, potentially downright rude, and you're going to wonder why he bothered offering to pick you up in such a mood. In reality his head is flooded with jealousy.
He will realize he’s being a dick, and stop for dessert as an apology.
Eventually it will eat at him and he’ll ask about the date. He just has to know for his own sanity. Once you tell him it was nothing, he will calm down 10x. Seriously, you’ll be able to physically see his nervous system relaxing.
H is definitely going to be more persistent in his pursuit after this experience. He will NOT be experiencing this again.
Sylus
100% can see him responding like the photo and he will absolutely follow through with it so don’t call his bluff.
Be ready for date #2 because he is going to remind you why there is truly no other choice but him. You are going to be out all night.
He will pull up in one of his most expensive cars, shamelessly collect you from your date (poor guy) and he’d openly say you are now going on another date in front of him.
Not going to lie, he is going to be peacocking. He needs to make sure the other guy also knows he’s inadequate. It's not even that he personally dislikes the guy, he just needs to make sure the guy gives up.
Sylus would probably tease the guy saying you have poor date planning, putting them both back to back like this. (Ignoring that he set this up)
He’ll seem confident but not truly happy during the date. Truthfully, he is upset. He really just wants reassurance that you want him. Small cracks will eventually give it away.
He probably will never ask about the guy and if he does, it will be a general question of why you went on the date (indirectly confirming you don’t care for the guy), but nothing specific. He really doesn’t want to pry and knows it would probably make you uncomfortable.
If you give him that reassurance, it will totally change his mood and he’ll start genuinely enjoying the evening.
Synopsis: To the world, Zayne and you were nothing but academic rivals from back in the day and workplace rivals right now, but what happens when rivalry turns into longing and that in turn ends up with you under him?
Pairing: Zayne x female reader
Content warnings: medical student reader and Zayne, student rivalry, work rivalry, cardiac surgeon Zayne, emergency medicine reader, neurosurgeon Sylus, too much of longing and pining, jealous Zayne, possessive Zayne, cliché misunderstandings, slight enemies to lovers? (only if you squint), protective Zayne, eating out, penetrative sex, kissing and marking,
MENTIONS OF HARRASSMENT. (mild)
This is a 4 part series that was initially meant to be a one shot but I went into too much detail lol. One of the longest pieces i have written in awhile and my first LADs work that am posting. I have almost 8 more ongoing lads drafts which I will try to post as soon as I can
skip to part 4 if you only want smut.
MDNI. Click away if uncomfortable.
Few years back
It was your fourth all nighter in a row and probably your 40th cup of coffee, you didn't keep a count honestly. Finals were coming up and being the last lap of this marathon, there was no question of losing.
No question of losing to HIM.
It had all started with a small disagreement in your first year of medical school. Zayne had stood out among the class naturally with his brilliance and had a horde of people sucking up to him, classmates and professors alike. He had piqued your interest too, but that wasn’t what you were here for. Both of you had been assigned to the same group for anatomy dissection and that's where it all began.
“It’s an artery” Zayne made a note nonchalantly. Nobody had even bothered to look at what he was looking at and blindly nodded their heads until you had decided not to.
“No the fuck it isnt. It’s a vein” you snapped back, making your entire group turn and look at the awkward conversation between the genius Zayne and a rookie like you. Glares and glances alike, wondering who it was who dared to correct Zayne.
After all, the said man could never go wrong with his dissection skills right?
Wrong.
“It is indeed a vein, Zayne.” clarified your anatomy professor earning audible gasps from your group. The record had been broken and you couldn't be more elated. “Keep in mind the texture and the thickness of the structure you are holding. Good job Y/N, could you tell us what vein it is?”
“ External iliac vein sir”
“Correct”
Zayne couldn’t sleep at all that night. For once it wasn't his rigorous study schedule keeping him up but you.
Unbeknownst to anyone for that matter, Zayne had noticed you right after the first set of exams were conducted. Fairly confident in his skills and answer writing, he did indeed top the exams and shook quite a few congratulatory hands that day.
That same evening as he was exiting the library and picking up some printouts near the campus, he had noticed you.
Glassy eyes, tear stained cheeks and trying not to cry more while glancing at the results on the bulletin board and walking away.
Zayne had only figured out later that he had managed to defeat you by a single mark.
Since then, it became a habit of his. To keep a track of you, you were somehow always in his line of sight or he had trained his field of vision in such a way, he couldn't tell.
From interest it had turned into obsession. Unlike you, who played just as hard as you worked, Zayne’s academic success had intimidated people. While your bright easy going nature had gotten you invites to house parties and clubbing nights with your classmates, Zayne was dining with his professors who went droning on about their achievements that he honestly couldnt muster a single fuck about.
He wanted to be with you, he wanted to be around you. But neither of your natures allowed that, both of you being on two ends of the spectrum, except at one point,
The library.
“On your 10th revision already, Zayne?” you had asked him sarcastically, making your way past his cubicle, to sit in yours which was exactly diagonal to him. Zayne made a mental note of your lilly like scent, trying not to breathe in the sexy perfume.
“Nah, just the third one yet. What about you?”
“Tch. I haven't started yet. But you bet I will be done with at least five before our exams”
Although in reality neither of you had gone past two revisions, zayne had come to love these snippets of conversation with you.
His study break included glancing at you, engrossed in your textbook, biting your lips hard while concentrating, it arose within zayne a tingling sensation he couldn't quite understand. He wasn't coming down with neuropathy now was he?
He loved the way you ended up passing right on top of your books at the end of the day. Zayne wasn't the heaviest sleeper and to his unfair advantage in a sense he worked just fine, with just 3 hours of sleep everyday but you weren't the same. The longer you slept the faster you worked, but all of that was a sacrifice if you wanted to defeat Zayne.
On the days his body and mind weren’t cooperating he had subconsciously started to think of you. The conversation he would have if he scored more again this exam, the way you would glare up at him and the way your nose would crinkle a little every time you had, he would pinch it if he could.
As months passed his obsession only got stronger, learning your routine, where you were posted in your clinicals and trying to talk longer routes in hopes of crossing paths with you
But he knew better. He told himself that at the end of the day you were nothing but a rival. Maybe you don't even care about him in a way he had.
He had become your obsession in your own way too. You wanted to know the man better, how he studied, what references he used but what stood before you was a wall. A silent man who spoke not more than a few necessary words and carried around with him an air of arrogance. But all those nights in the library together, while he would skim through the fattest books around, your mind reeled with questions.Why didn't he ever attend a party? You had gone to 3 this month alone and found him in none of them. Why does he never speak to anyone beyond a certain polite extent? You had around 10 people to keep up with. But curiosity had turned into a habit. Somehow you also found yourself looking at him for minutest things and gosh were you looking
The soft supple skin that graced his face, even you couldn't deny how good looking zayne was. His beautiful hazel eyes, his unusually delicate lips and his hands that sent a shiver up your spine every time you looked at them
Long nimble fingers with veins that would drive the nurses mad, you knew the moment you looked at them, he would be a precious asset as a surgeon.
“I wonder how deep they would go”
“What?” Zayne replied, looking at you with a quizzical expression, peering through his glasses, engrossed in his study session until he heard you.
Holy fuck, did I say that out loud??
“Nothing, I was wondering how deep do 3rd degree burns go?”
“Uh..till the subcutaneous tissue if I'm not wrong” answered zayne, hopefully unsuspecting of your dirty flight of ideas.
“You aren't.”
Things had progressed quite a bit between both of you. Although your hangouts were limited to the library, you didn't mind it one bit.
But zayne on the other hand was falling hard. He wanted to treat you and take care of you. Random pieces of candy would appear on your desk after you woke up from a nap mid study session. Zayne wanted to the keep your glucose going. Once in awhile, a can of coffee would appear on his desk. You wanted him to stay awake with you for a little while more. A mistake in a case presentation someone is making and you would find yourself searching for zayne to see if he had noticed it too. By the time you turned, there he was, already looking at you. Both of you smiling unknowingly.
Zayne was always on time. Be it presentations or class. He was there at the dot. But not this time. Not when he found you holding hands with another guy in the late hours of the campus. He wished he could remove the sight of it out of his head. With you being his first love, he didn't know what to do with himself. He didn’t know if you liked him back and before he could even muster up his courage and ask you out, he had seen you both. He hadn't realized it was too late already until this moment and gosh darn did his heart hurt so much.All the while, here you were on the other end trying to console a sobbing mess of a guy who confessed his love to you and that you had rejected. God why won’t he stop grabbing my hands?
Curiosity turned crush, you couldn't keep zayne out of your mind. You wanted more. There was no way you were dating anyone else while Zayne occupied all the 4 chambers of your heart.
But things had taken a weird turn after that day, you couldn't comprehend why.
Maybe the finals are stressing him out
The aloof zayne with his curt replies was nowhere to be found. Instead here was a man who was now so obsessed with his work that he won't spare you a glance and gosh did that hurt. You tried and tried to make conversation with him by asking him unnecessary doubts, asking about the exam schedules you already know like the back of your hand but to no avail. All you got was a reply clearly meant for a stranger. The last straw was him moving away from his cubicle diagonal to yours.
So you had given up. Convincing yourself yet again that you had much more important things to worry about. Like your upcoming finals, but studying without zayne just being a constant in your peripheral vision was strangely..sad.
You couldn't understand why it bothered you so much, it was but a small crush so why did you want to grab zayne by his hand and plop his ass back down on his now empty space. What had happened between you guys that he had changed seats or were you mistaken this whole time and this was just how he was in reality. Your head ached and reeled but to no use.
—
If it meant if he could see that glorious expression on your face everytime the results were out, Zayne maybe would have given up on his studies long ago and that thought had scared the wits out of him. You were shaking his world apart all the while being a mile away.
“I DID IT ZAYNE I DEFEATED YOU”, you had screamed, grabbing his hands and looking up at him with a teary eyed smile and blush gracing your beautiful face. Somehow it did not matter to you, that you topped your final year and defeated zayne with a 10 mark margin the highest gap you guys have ever gotten, all that matters was you could talk to zayne now, tease him about it and if things allowed, maybe talk to him. His absence was your least favorite thing about him.
All zayne wanted to do was kiss you. He wanted to claim your success as his own, he wanted to run his tongue down your slightly bruised lips that he always noticed, he wanted to hug you and peck your nose and ears and tell you how proud he was. Maybe he should have, he was so close to you, cupping your cheeks gently, his touch feather like on your skin, his warm calloused hands urging you to nuzzle into them, while looking at you with eyes that had a storm of emotions raging within them as graceful as gemstones themselves.
The same eyes had turned emotionless the moment he heard a strangely familiar voice call out to you.
“Heyy…Y/N..congratulations..!”
It was the same guy he had seen you with and he immediately realized his proximity with you and let go. You were not his and he wasn't meant to be by your side.
“Congratulations Dr Y/N. You finally did it.” were the words he blurted out before dashing away all the while leaving you bewildered.
What the heck was wrong with this man?
“So you coming to the afterparty? Wanna go along with me?”
“Shut up jeremy I told you i'm not interested, i will find a date for myself if i have to”
a/n: this has been in my drafts for a year now, will try posting the rest of the parts soon enough.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ synopsis: prince zayne has a choice—whether to succumb to his desires or to his title.
prince zayne never believed in soulmates. from the day he was born to his upbringing, the royal family drilled one thing into the crevices of his brain: marry another royalty and expand the power his family already grasps.
he spent more time burying his nose in books, sweating at the castle grounds with a sword in hand, and memorizing social graces and etiquette with prince caleb growing up. and through it all, he received more red marks and scrutiny from the governess of the household rather than any idea of what a soulmate actually was.
prince zayne never believed in soulmates, more so because he didn't have the liberty to think about the concept in the first place.
so when he found himself falling into an old, dried-up well in their garden during the full moon when he was eight years old, with the gardener and apothecary's daughter, the same age as him, following him suit in an attempt to rescue him, he couldn't quite understand the feeling broiling in his stomach.
the memory has been hazy for him, all static and fuzzy as he tried to recall the distant past. he only remembers crying silently and examining the scrape on his knee helplessly, then the girl tumbling down next to him with a chipped tooth and a grin plastered on her face.
the next thing, he was no longer crying and was instead sitting closely with the girl, reading the encyclopedia that had engrossed him before he had tripped down the well.
he could faintly remember the smell of the girl, recalling it was a mix of jasmine and mint, mostly because of the number of jasmines blooming beside them.
he remembers the sparse clouds that littered the sky, the moon giving them a little light for their reading.
zayne ignores the clumsy fluttering of his stomach as he gently protests with the girl's knowledge. the girl would prove to be as unyielding, frowning when he would argue, and she would talk back like he wasn't royalty.
which was a first for him.
adults feared questioning him even about the most mundane and silly things. he could say that the sky is gray during a sunny day, and the grown-ups would just nod gently and agree.
so meeting someone as similar to him, whose interest was in understanding the complexities of the world, he was baffled.
soon, that silly fluttering in his stomach would soon rise to his chest, and he just couldn't seem to understand where the feeling was coming from.
much more when he suddenly heard a voice in his head that he was certain wasn't his.
the prince might be blindingly stubborn but i suppose he wouldn't be awfully lonely anymore if i joined him in his leisure...
the two of them whip their heads quickly towards each other that they ended up bumping their foreheads against one another, eliciting loud whines from both children. but before they can even argue and demand the other to apologize, he remembers the swarm of servants surrounding the opening of the well, frantic and panic-stricken.
since then, the memory has sat at the back of his mind whenever he was demanded to sit at important (his father's words, not his) meetings with various royalty about marriage. he would mindlessly trace the intricate patterns of the goblet at hand, not bothering to listen to whatever the older men had to say, his imagination floating him back to the old, dried-up well in their garden.
sure, prince zayne didn't mind playing the role of the linkon kingdom's prince and providing his presence to whatever the royal counselor told him to. but he draws the line at putting up a nauseating facade in the name of his father's overwhelming greed for power.
prince zayne and prince caleb didn't inherit the king's insatiable lust for the throne, oftentimes seeking each other for refuge whenever their father became unreasonable.
and yet right now, he couldn't find caleb anywhere.
as a matter of fact, zayne couldn't see anything past two meters within his radius, without his stupid eyeglasses. the family's modiste just had to strictly recommend that he take off his glasses for the night, lest he ruin his saintly outfit during his engagement gala.
it was no secret that his eyesight is the worst. you could wave out to him on a busy street, and he would, unintentionally, zoom past you until he would catch a whiff of your perfume.
but for some strange reason, when he catches an unbelievably clear sight of your glassy eyes underneath the pale moonlight, and your fists balled to the sides of your gown, zayne finds his heart shattering into a million pieces.
"i wish to know why i was invited since i am only a commoner. was i invited because of your grace and recognition that i am up to par with your prowess? or was i merely invited so you can rub salt to my wound that in this universe i could never be with my soulmate?" you demand.
with the thousand ways that zayne abided by the royal standards, it was safe to say that he was used to the vexations and pleasantries (or the lack thereof) of the royal family.
and as a royalty, he has learned that the world has always been cruel to those who yearn and with undying devotion in their hearts.
he barely picked up the rustling of the wisterias or the cicadas singing in the background. zayne could only listen to the wild thumping of his heart against his chest as he watched you compose yourself.
zayne thinks of multiple routes across the scenario unfolding in front of him. he could take your hand and apologize. he could tell the truth and ask you to elope. he could ask to remain a platonic relationship just to keep you at arm's length.
alas, he was still a prince.
"my apologies, my lady," zayne begins. "you must have mistaken my intentions."
and as the prince of the linkon kingdom, he must always put the royalty's interests first before his.
he watches you swallow thickly, nodding, "indeed," you croak, "i must have."
you stiffly curtsy to zayne one last time and with a shaky breath, you say, "i shall not take much of your time any further. thank you for the dance."
then, with restrained movements, he watches you turn your heel slowly.
the clouds disperse from the sky, revealing the full moon glistening in all its glory.
i will never have zayne, this i already know. i shall not wallow in my sadness around with something already delusional.
please, i ask you to stay. do not take any further steps. allow me to fiight for us.
you feel the airway in your throat constricting as you take a quarter step away from the prince with the full moon orbiting mockingly in the sky. hiding the sniffles from your repressed tears through the click-clack! of your heels against the polished marbled floors, echoing against the space. but before you can take another step further from your supposed soulmate, you feel a tight clasp around your wrist and the warmth of a body on your back.
you freeze.
"my dearest miss," zayne speaks so softly.
you dare not turn around.
"before we bid farewell, i am compelled to show you something," he continues.
you almost scoff at his words, realizing that he couldn't even apologize for his cold display of demeanor towards his soulmate earlier. but before you could even make a disgruntled sound, prince zayne was already tugging at your wrist and essentially dragging you through the hedge maze-esque of the castle's garden.
you know you have a choice.
to pull your hand away.
or to stop dead in your tracks.
or to demand answers from him.
instead, you let him.
you let him pull you away from the twisted reality of his noble life and your humble dreams. you decide that if this would be the last night of having your soulmate to yourself, you would at least let yourself indulge while he is still yours—bound by fate but severed by reality.
then, zayne stops.
you follow suit.
feigning irritation, you huff, "shall this be the time to dilly-dally when the king and his wife must be looking for you?"
he ignores your words, which only makes your annoyance come to life. with a scowl on your face, you take a step forward, ready to give him an earful, "hey—"
the moon is mocking you.
you were certain.
you catch a glimpse of its glimmering light, turning your head in that direction, you see it.
oh.
oh.
being the daughter of a humble gardener and apothecary, you were used to visiting houses of the townsfolk while one of your parents would do the task they were assigned to do.
but there were instances where your parents would visit the nobility together, bringing you along to their work.
and there was this faint instance that you recall being stuck in a well with a snobbish brat of your age, with the intent of rescuing him.
the memory never consumed your waking days, you couldn't even make out the events that transpired during that fateful evening.
until the sight of the well seemed to unlock a plethora of pictures in your head.
you stand there, frozen, with zayne's rugged palms still encircling your wrist.
your lips part but you could barely make a sound.
"i frequent this part of the castle when i feel rather lonesome. it was sort of a safe haven for me," he continues. "not even the king himself dare step into this space. you could say it's the only piece of land in this kingdom that has my name written on it," he dryly jokes.
you remain silent, watching the fireflies flickering beneath the tall grass and the various insects crawling on top of the growing vines covering the well.
zayne clears his throat awkwardly, "i only jest, of course. however, it is the truth when i said that this has become a space for prince zayne himself only."
you blink, forcibly pulling yourself out of the trance, "why?" you murmur.
"hm?"
you turn to him, "why?"
zayne cocks his head to the side in a pensive act, "why, you ask..."
it takes zayne exactly eight seconds to respond, "perhaps it's because when i am within this vicinity, i long for the moment when i tumbled down this well to be repeated again."
usually, you would shriek with laughter at him, pointing at him in an attempt to embarrass him further. you would try to voice out in between laughter how "the prince fell down the well foolishly," and how "the star pupil of The Academy ended up actually hitting himself in the head as a child."
but this time, you could only stay silent.
"i suppose you remember, then?" he mutters.
you swallow thickly, unsure how to answer him.
before your mind could even register a single word in your head, he gently pulls you to face him, and underneath the glow of the moonlight, you witness your supposed rival and undeniably your soulmate speaking to you through the mere glint in his eyes.
zayne looks at you with utter devotion and longing, with his lips wobbling in anticipation and his breath shaky, brows knitted together helplessly.
he traces his thumb against your skin, sacred and revered.
"i despise that i ended up this way," he whispers, pulling you closer until you are inches apart. "a royalty with no autonomy. an absolute fool of a status. even a nobleman would have more agency in his life than i do."
you press your palms against his chest flatly, "prince zayne, we cannot—"
"how dare this cruel universe subject me to profound sorrow by making me experience you?" he cuts you off shakily, "the heavens sing and the moon itself shines when i am with you. so tell me, is it such great sin for me to want to be with you?"
"the odds are against our favor—"
"it is blasphemous that i cannot love you!"
the axis of your world tilts.
"for me to say that you do not occupy my thoughts would be absurd..." zayne exhales shakily, "and i have spent all of my waking days trying to escape this madness."
he shakes his head, his touch delicate as if you could step away and he would let you.
"so please... i beg of you," zayne murmurs, gazing into you as if reading your entire soul, "what does it take for a lowly prince like me to sit beside your throne?"
the utter wreckage of his voice and his holy touch earns a tight clench of your chest, tears silently slipping out from the corners of your eyes. you no longer what day it is, or how long have passed since you two tiptoed away from the spotlight of the gala. you no longer remember the scrutinizing glares of the aristocrats, neither the dreams of becoming renowned in the medical field of linkon kingdom.
all your mind could scream at this exact moment was prince zayne in the palm of your hands.
and maybe, you could let yourself indulge just for once.
you beg the universe, just this once.
please.
give this to me.
"your majesty, i must—"
"zayne!"
the both of you whip your heads so hard to the direction of the voice bellowing that you almost bump each other clumsily again. you see at the other side of the garden the younger prince, caleb, sweaty and hair tousled as if he ran his fingers a million times through it in frustration.
"what are you doing, running off here at this ungodly hour?! the family is looking for you!" caleb yells, prompting zayne to pull away from you.
"looking for me?" zayne scoffs. "the world must be in flames for father to look for me for once."
caleb stomps over to him, "unfortunately, this is your engagement gala."
you were sure the moon was mocking you.
with the way the clouds begin to hover the satellite, casting shadows over the entire expanse of the garden, you were certain it was laughing at your expense.
and you certainly could laugh at yourself right now too.
there may be a string tied between you and zayne, but the universe feeds off of your agony.
and you remember, zayne is still a prince—one who abides more with societal norms and expectations rather than someone who is your soulmate.
a/n: ... first time posting in a while. kinda nervous . . . im so sorry it took this long to be released >< another part will be up before the entire fic release :) comments are very much appreciated !!
“you’ll catch a cold”. zayne refused to take back his coat that he had been holding out for you despite you rejecting it twice.
you had found him stranded with his car broken down on your way back home from a mission and offered him a lift, feeling quite smug about it right up until your bike tire punctured two kilometres later.
so now you were both sitting at a small bus stop at the edge of nowhere, watching snow accumulate around you while waiting for your colleagues to come to your rescue before the snow buried you entirely.
"and so would you," you said, refusing again just as a snowflake landed on your arm and made you shiver, this made him give you a stern look. defeated, you took the coat from his hand and shifted as close to him as the narrow bench allowed, draping it over both your shoulders like a blanket.
you feel him stiffen beside you. your own cheeks went warner but you chose to blame the cold for it.
the warmth of his body offered you some respite from the biting cold. but then you noticed his hands—small black crystals beginning to form on them as they trembled with cold. without thinking you reached over and took them both in yours, pressing them between your palms and gently rubbing to warm them.
he looked down at your joined hands, then back up at you and forgot the world around him. his mind drifted into a daze, intoxicated by the cold and your proximity as he lost himself in your eyes.
"earth to dr zayne? hello?" you snapped your fingers in front of his face.
"forgive me. i seem to have been lost."
"so what i was trying to say is that i might have to miss our regular checkup. i have a week long mission in skyhaven." you repeated yourself.
"yes," he said absentmindedly, still captivated by your eyes.
"yes? you're not going to lecture me about it?"
"you're..." he begins.
"impossible?" you offered, mimicking his serious tone.
"beautiful," he says at the same time as you.
you stared at him blankly as your own response caught in your throat, your mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
zayne cleared his throat, ears pink and head turned sideways. "i apologise. i didn't mean to-”
"thanks," you managed to whisper.
the air grew colder but somehow you felt warmer than ever.
you can't quite remember how your face moved closer to him, but you got so close that you could see the gold in his irises as your breath fogged and mingled in the small space between you. and almost unintentionally your eyes fell on his lips, so did his.
“found you!" you hear tara scream as she blasts the car's horn, and pulled back so quickly that you almost slipped off the bench. zayne moved fast, catching you and pulling you towards him.
tara climbs out of the car. "aww, are you two huddled together for warmth? that's so cute…”
✩ synopsis: you run to reddit for advice when it comes to your unsteady relationship with zayne.
✩ pairing: zayne x non!mc reader / wc: 4034
✩ cw/tags: slight angst, hurt/comfort, misunderstanding
✩ crossposted in my ao3
✩ a/n: written in second pov but will be in first pov with the reddit posts. not proofread, first time writing in a while pls be kind !
r/relationship_advice
u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 12h
I (25F) feel like my boyfriend (27M) is falling out of love with me, and I don’t know what to do.
As the title states. For additional context, I (25F) am your average girl. I work at a fairly well-known company in the personnel division, doing the most mundane tasks you could think of. Aside from that, I am often one of the faces of the division as I deal with the people in our company everyday so I’ve memorized all of their quirks and personalities–but that’s about it when it comes to me. On the other hand, my boyfriend (27M) is a profound professional in the medical field. He (quite literally) saves lives every day, and he is very well-known in his line of work. If I add more context as to his career, you would immediately find out who he is–the stark difference between us already says a lot.
We met a few years back through a common friend who is also a professional in the medical field and his close colleague at the hospital where he works. Throughout the relationship, he has been everything that I asked for. However, all of this started when last month, I was notified by my boss that I wasn’t promoted to the position I was vying for. It was heartbreaking. And naturally, I thought of seeking refuge with my boyfriend. When I messaged him, asking him to meet later that evening, he turned it down, saying he was finally meeting with his childhood best friend (24F). If it were any other day, I would’ve been ecstatic, as this was the same friend he mentioned to me that he had lost contact with. But that night, I felt as though it was the cruelest timing of the universe, especially how he described to me with earnest fervor everything about his best friend. How she was a rising hunter, and she found contact with him through a magazine article about him (yes, he’s that famous). However, I couldn’t bring myself to ruin his evening. And so, initially, I understood the situation since I don’t want to seem an overbearing, controlling partner. And so, I thought it would be best if I instead sat with my feelings first and sought comfort from him in the following days.
But those days did not come. Instead, I was always greeted by his cold exterior, oftentimes he would be too busy to respond to me as he was in the midst of his hospital shifts, and once he did become free, he either was too exhausted to converse properly or would spend his time with anyone else other than me. Mostly, his best friend too.
While I am aware that his best friend is also in a relationship (with their other childhood friend, it seems), I still can’t help but feel uneasy about the situation.
It has been a month since I noticed this behavior, and I’m not sure whether this was already occurring before, as my boyfriend could come off as nonchalant at times and stoic.
Usually, I’m not the one to jump to conclusions, but from the situation itself, it seems that my boyfriend has been drifting apart from me. I really love him and adore him, but with each day that we spend apart, it further breaks my heart as it feels like he no longer acknowledges our relationship. Is this worth fighting for, or is our relationship beyond saving at this point?
EDIT: Please do not post this on other social media sites, I’m afraid he might see.
⬆️1,304 💬252
u/linkonsfinest ∙ 12h
first off, i’m so sorry to hear about your career rejection. i’m sure it will redirect you to greener pastures, OP. anyway, about your relationship, this sounds like a classic case of sitting down and talking about your feelings with him. have you tried that, OP?
also, whether you like it or not, he is bound to see this post since it’s public, after all.
⬆️482
u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 12h
Thank you for your kind words. But I would have if he had given me just a few minutes of his time.
EDIT: What’s with the downvotes?
⬇️-167
u/starbunny ∙ 11h
Ignore them, OP. It’s reddit after all lol. My advice is that U try and think abt what what matters most for U. Ur relationship with him or ur peace. The meeting with the bestfriend part may seem sketchy but U know ur boyfriend best than compared to us strangers on the internet.
⬆️254
u/fishie_painter307 ∙ 11h
Seems to me that you have hidden insecurities, OP. There was a tendency to look down on yourself in the paragraphs you have written, while you write about your boyfriend as if he had discovered the cure to the protocore syndrome. But it sounds like you’re just as amazing and as hardworking as he is. But I didn’t come here to give you free therapy sessions lol. I fear the only way we can find an end to this is to sit down with him and talk about the icky, uncomfortable thing called feelings. For now, try assessing what you have right now, and consider talking with him as soon as his schedule clears up. Better yet, just barge into his office and demand some answers lol, since he seems like he isn’t the type to care until the last minute.
⬆️393
u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 10h
The last comment seemed unnecessary, but it felt like cold water splashing me. Maybe it’s the truth. Thanks.
⬆️146
u/evil_overlord901 ∙ 10h
Since he’s a doctor, you should just pretend you’re on the verge of death to make him worry and as revenge for his neglect, hahaha.
⬇️-673
u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 10h
I’m not that crazy enough.
⬆️206
Zayne has been staring at his phone for what seems like hours. But really, it has only been twenty minutes since Greyson hurled open his office doors with a frown etched unusually on his face.
“What have you done to my friend?” Greyson asked, brows knit together. “Pardon?” Zayne could only reply.
Greyson scoffs, running a hand through his hair, “They were right, you really don’t seem to care.”
“What is going on?” Zayne asks, finally setting down the pen he has in between his fingers. “Is there something the matter?”
The younger man holds back a grumble under his breath, “Just see for yourself.” He then set his phone across Zayne as the latter read the title.
I (25F) feel like my boyfriend (27M) is falling out of love with me, and I don’t know what to do.
“What is this supposed to be, Greyson?” Zayne asks, “Is this what the staff are gossiping about in the hallway today?”
He recalls the way the nurses and doctors hushed murmurs in the hallways, sneaking glances towards Zayne as he waltzes through the bleak corridors. He paid no mind to it as he knew it wasn’t his business to pry into whatever they were gossiping about.
“They were gossiping about you, Dr. Zayne.”
“What?”
The conversation seemed like it was going nowhere, so Greyson just sighed defeatedly while retrieving his phone. A resounding ping! echoed from Zayne’s phone.
“I sent you the link to the post. Make sure to read every single word and tell me that isn’t you.”
That was twenty minutes ago, and Zayne was sure that every word was tattooed on the crevices of his brain at this point. But what else should he do now that he’s memorized it? He’s sure at this point that user cheesecake_plushie73 is most definitely you. There’s no denying it, with the way you described the circumstances and your impeccable writing style that mimics his. Yes, he’s certain it’s you.
But now what?
Smoke curls from the teacup you’ve set down seconds ago as you inhale the autumn breeze from your balcony. Your phone is on temporary do not disturb from the hundreds of Reddit notifications you received since last night. You observe the sky-high buildings and rigid architecture of the city, eyes fixated on nothing and everything all at once. It has been a month since you received the news, the words of your boss linger at the back of your mind, and the rejection email sits heavily on your phone, tucked away from the thousands of junk mail you receive. The nonacceptance of your promotion still gnaws at your chest despite the long time you’ve spent trying to accept it. Nevertheless, you have slowly come to terms with the rejection, chanting the line that the redditor told you in your post–that it’s just redirection. However, you can’t help but feel that the redirection that the rejection launched in your way also involved your relationship with Zayne.
You’re sure you’ve told Zayne about the promotion, how you applied for it, and how the chances of getting in seemed highly possible. And yet, you can’t seem to recall whether Zayne was supportive of it or if he had said anything at all. Your mind has been all muddled and cloudy with all of the heartbreaking scenarios you’ve made up since you received his message that he was meeting his childhood friend.
It was silly, and since then, you’ve felt perpetually stupid for thinking horrendously of your boyfriend. You know he wouldn’t cause such a scene like that, to see another woman behind your back–it was preposterous! The thought still makes you gag to the point where you couldn’t believe you actually went and logged into an online forum just to seek advice. The idea alone was enough to make you physically convulse and cringe because you knew that if he wanted out of your relationship, he would’ve already done so.
Which somehow makes you hurt more.
You’ve gone uncharacteristically by posting at an online forum just to seek advice from some stranger on the internet to tell you what to do. But how could you blame yourself? You’re just trying to make the situation better for you. But what is it going to take just to feel okay? Is it hope? Is it love? Do you talk? Or is it therapy?
You sigh for the umpteenth time of the day, watching the glow of the sun turn orange and pink as it continues to slowly illuminate your space. For some reason, despite being on a (fake) sick leave, you couldn’t bring yourself to stay inside your house.
It just felt… emptier.
The doom and gloom of the space makes the apartment stuffier than usual, and no matter how much you’ve dusted the space, you’ve felt like going through different stages of your chest tightening. Perhaps it’s because of the memories that it carries, the way the air permeates Zayne’s faint perfume, or his touch that lingers in your skin when you settle on the couch, remembering how he used to tightly hold you on Friday evenings while watching something.
You just couldn’t take it.
The apartment feels heavier, and you couldn’t bring yourself to go back inside. And so, as a remedy, you find yourself tucked away on the balcony with a book you’ve forgotten the plot to, sitting idly on the table beside you. Your mind races a thousand thoughts, all of which contain the same wish. How you wish that everything would just end soon and that tomorrow the sun will rise again, and you can try again.
But what could be said for a new day when your chest is unwillingly clenching every time you think of Zayne? You want to be angry at him for neglecting you just like that one Reddit user said. You want to do something impulsive, irrational, and unmistakably stupid just to see him come running and say what you’ve been wanting to hear for the past month.
And yet, what is that something that you want to hear from him?
How are you?
I missed you?
I’m sorry?
…Let’s break up?
And what were you going to respond anyway?
I’m okay?
I missed you, too?
I understand?
…Is it her?
Oh dear heavens. You think to yourself, burying your face in your hands. You feel ridiculous and helpless. The Reddit users were right. You should talk to him soon, lest you lose your mind over all of this.
Succumbing to the most vile thoughts you have ever conceived, you didn’t notice the indisputable beeps of your keypad door lock echoing in your apartment. Neither the loud swinging of the door nor the frantic removing of shoes by the doorway, nor the heavy padding throughout the dim space.
Your head only whips in attention when you hear the door frame to the balcony rattling behind you.
“There you are.”
Oh.
“I’ve gone to your work, and they told me you were sick… Are you okay?”
Oh.
You sit upright, smiling meekly at Zayne. “You surprised me.”
Zayne closes the glass door behind him and carefully takes the vacant seat beside the table. You dart your gaze from him and settle on your now cold tea, “Would you like some tea?” You offered. To which he shakes his head.
Silence envelops the two of you. And for once, after all the daydreaming of possibilities of when he will arrive, you don’t know what to do.
“Why would I surprise you?” He asks.
“I dunno… It’s been a while since you’ve come here. And it’s unlike you to drop by unannounced,” you say with a faint chuckle.
“Oh. I’ve left a text. But your notifications were silenced.”
“Oh.”
You picked up your phone and went to your messages, and lo and behold, he did send a message just twenty minutes ago.
“Twenty minutes ago?” You say out loud before you can even stop yourself.
“...Is there a problem?”
You sheepishly rub the back of your head before setting your phone back down, “Nothing…” You begin hesitantly, “You usually just give me a heads up at least hours prior. But it’s no big deal. I’m not complaining!” You defend.
Zayne nods at you promptly, and once again, silence wraps the two of you. You refuse to look at Zayne for a second longer than you should, afraid that the waterworks might come unwarranted.
“I see.”
You only let out a grunt of approval, eyes drifting back to the buildings across from you two. Your refusal to look at him for a second longer warranted you to miss two things:
Zayne’s usually perfect hair seemed unkempt, like he had been running his fingers through it numerous times.
He refuses to look away from you even for a second.
And yet now that he occupies your space, you don’t know how to act. Why was he here anyway? You couldn’t bring yourself to act. Not when you caught a whiff of his perfume once again, making you want to both hurl in anxiety and lunge forward at him, wrapping your arms around his waist and just burying yourself in the comforts of his chest.
Zayne wasn’t doing much better either. The moment he read the comment from user evil_overlord901, he thought about how you’d go to terrifying lengths just to gather his attention. While he knows you won’t go that far, the thought still gnaws at his brain like a pesky pest. To the point where he might’ve broken a few traffic rules just to get to your place.
The silence hangs in the air, and Zayne doesn’t seem to know what to do now that he’s seen you all safe and sound. A thousand questions were running around in his brain, but he didn’t know where to start.
Nevertheless, he kept his eyes locked on your figure. Your elbow is propped on the table, your chin resting on the palm of your hand, and your glassy eyes sporting that distant look. He didn’t miss the swell of your eyelids nor the heavy bags starting to form. And for some reason, he hates himself for it. He hates how he barely noticed anything about you for the past month, how he felt utterly selfish for casting you aside.
He loathes it.
And yet, he couldn’t throw himself a pity party when all he wants right now is to take you within his comfort.
After a couple more minutes of silence between you two, Zayne inhales. “...Cheesecake_plushie73?”
“...What?” You turn your head towards him mechanically, blinking slowly at his words.
“Does that…phrase ring a bell to you?”
You chuckle nervously in response, “...I suppose?”
You see Zayne and his usual pensive expression written across his features. “You suppose…” He parrots.
“Why? What’s that about?” You ask, your voice a bit smaller.
“Nothing… Greyson just showed me this post from a forum that seems eerily like you.”
Like us.
“Oh. I see.”
“...Have I been neglecting you?”
“What?”
“I have, haven’t I?”
You attempt to school your expression into something neutral, but you couldn’t deny the wild thumping of your chest when you see the way his eyes bore into yours with such intensity that you were certain you could melt from it. Zayne reaches out from his seat, clasping both of your hands with his much bigger ones. You hold back a flinch, startled from the sudden contact after being deprived of one for way too long. His hands were warm, you note, much warmer than your freezing ones.
Before you could even respond, he abruptly stands up, which makes the chair almost tilt back, and immediately, he kneels across you. Your eyes widen, wanting to scramble and make him rise from the cramped space of your balcony, but before you could even do anything, his lips ghost over your fingers, and you feel electricity coursing through your veins.
“I’m sorry,” was all Zayne could murmur, “Your heart must be heavy from the weight of carrying our burdens.”
Your breathing constricts, and you feel your eyes well from his words alone. “It was foolish of me not to notice how you were going through such a terrible time, and I am so sorry for letting you go through that without me,” he continues, pressing chaste kisses on each of your fingers.
“Zayne, it’s nothing–”
“Please do not belittle yourself any further. I can’t stand seeing you speak so lowly of yourself, my love,” he says with finality that makes you clamp your mouth shut. He then turns his gaze back to you, his eyes soft and glassy, and you don’t miss the way his lips tremble. He then tightens his hold on your hands, pressing them onto his chest, “Do you feel how my heart only beats for you? How its pace quickens when I catch just a sight of your silhouette in the crowd?”
And you do.
The way his heart rapidly pounds in his chest, even when you lie on top of him as you snuggle, or even as mundane as fleeting embraces, when it’s time to say goodbye.
You always feel it.
“Only you have that effect on me, my love. And I despise myself for having you doubt my love for you. I have done poorly recently, so it seems,” Zayne continues, his hands still clutched tightly against yours. “There’s absolutely no one else that could make me feel this way. Only you.”
“Zayne…” Your lips wobble from the declaration of his love.
“Please forgive me for being such a terrible lover, my dear. There was no excuse to it,” he says, almost pleadingly.
You feel a lump forming in your throat, and before you know it, Zayne already unclasps his hand from yours, and you feel his warm thumb gently caressing the salty tears from your cheeks.
“It was just unfair, Zayne. How… how I felt so alone and miserable without having you by my side, while it felt like you were doing more than okay,” you mumble through fits of your tears.
“I was a fool, my love. Please don’t cry, it hurts me more than you know,” he whispers, inching closer to you.
You shake your head, “I’ve soon come to terms with the rejection, but I couldn’t accept how I was so lonely throughout the process. I just wanted you. But you had other plans. Other people to meet. Other people who seemed more important than I am, and I h-hated that…!”
The knot in your chest tightens as you finally let the damn burst wide open.
With no words left to say, Zayne rises from the floor and engulfs you in his tight embrace, letting your tears damp his shirt. He strokes your head carefully, humming to you as he tries his damndest not to cry with you.
The sight alone makes him physically ache as he continues to wallow in his regret and pity. For the first time in his life, Zayne feels helpless. He could only bring himself to hush you with comforting words like, “It’s okay, my love. I’m here now.” Or “I was an idiot. I didn’t love you properly when you needed it the most.”
And across you two, the sun slowly began to finally set, casting the last golden glow onto your skin. You claw tightly onto his back, desperate to feel that he is there with you and nowhere else.
“I’m sorry,” you hiccup, your tears slowly dissipating. “I felt so terrible that I posted our relationship on an online forum.”
“It’s okay, my love. You didn’t know what else to do, and that’s okay,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry too for neglecting you and hurting you in the process. I never desired for you to hurt because of me.”
You shake your head, but you couldn’t bring yourself to say that it’s okay. You swallowed thickly, “I forgive you,” was all you could say.
“And I don’t deserve such forgiveness from the sweetest girl in the world.”
You chuckled half-heartedly, digging yourself closer to his chest and inhaling his scent much further, memorizing the warmth of his body, and how he holds you.
“Am not,” you retort jokingly.
“Yes, you are, miss cheesecake_plushie73.”
You weakly punch his stomach in response, laughing softly at his attempt to lighten the situation. He sighs contentedly, pressing a kiss on the crown of your head.
“I love you, my dear.”
r/relationship_advice
u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 12 mins ago
UPDATE: I (25F) feel like my boyfriend (27M) is falling out of love with me, and I don’t know what to do.
I think I owe everyone an update here. My boyfriend and I had finally talked things through, and all my worries had vanished. Apparently, he was meeting up with all his childhood best friends, and it had been a decade since they last saw each other. He also apologized for the neglect, and he took two weeks off from his work to go on a short trip with me to make up for lost time. I felt silly for being worried, but he assured me that it was not silly to feel valid emotions and that we would work things through. I also apologized for closing myself off and for making up bad assumptions about his bestfriend. Anyway, I’m off to pack for our trip. Thank you all for all the advice and comments.
P.S. He also saw my post here which prompted our conversation T___T
⬆️201 💬79
u/linkonsfinest ∙ 5 mins ago
see! all you need is a good ol’ conversation and everything’s okay! glad you fixed it, OP! despite him seeing the post and prompting the conversation lol. still, congrats!
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u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 3 mins ago
Thank you.
u/starbunny ∙ 5 mins ago
Nice. Glad U worked it out.
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u/fishie_painter307 ∙ 5 mins ago
Finally some good news in my feed! Congrats, OP! Bring us some souvenir from the trip, will ya? ;)
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u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 2 mins ago
Thank you! Also, my boyfriend said your comment was one of the reasonable ones including u/linkonsfinest. Except he didn’t like how you called me insecure lmao T__T
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u/evil_overlord901 ∙ 3 mins ago
Aw, no fake deaths?
⬇️-91
u/cheesecake_plushie73 ∙ 1 min ago
Please get off the internet.
⬆️90
a/n: heavily inspired by empty house by neck deep and is it over now by taylor swift !! also, i saw this reddit style format writing somewhere in tumblr and thought i had to give it a try!! comments r very much appreciated :)
It's something you've known for a while. He tried to keep it under wraps for your benefit, probably not wanting to freak you out. But it started to get obvious every time his fingers gently traced your back, admiring it so openly whenever he got the chance.
So, you started to suggest it more, happy to please him. Plus, you really like it too.
Well, except for one thing.
"Take-take it off." You gasp, nearly tearing a hole in the sheets with your nails. Zayne is pounding into you from behind, hips slamming into yours loudly. It feels incredible, but the thin latex preventing you from properly feeling his cock is really ruining the experience.
Huh, Zayne was right. It really is a slippery slope skipping the condom just the one time.
"What?" He slows his pace, still panting. You squirm, hating the feeling of your orgasm beginning to ebb away.
"Take the condom off! Please Zayne I need-I need to feel you." Your words are dripping with need as he pulls out, but then hesitates.
"You're ovulating right now, which means a higher chance of pre-"
You cut him off by reaching back, grasping the latex and quickly pulling it off him with a loud snap, tossing it aside. When he still doesn't move, you whine in urgency, pushing back against him and feeling his tip brush against your entrance. He hisses at the stimulation, grasping your hips to keep you in place.
"A-Alright." He chokes out, slipping inside you.
A few weeks later, the two pink lines are hardly a surprise.
summary: you're giddy and reluctant about your crush on zayne. he knows btw.
pairing: zayne x reader
tags: fluff. a tiiny bit of crack, slightly suggestive, sprinkle of angst, a bit of a reversal in terms of who's usually the reticent one.
a/n: pt 1.5 of two halves of a whole. just a small cute interaction before we get to the yearning!! also i fear this is not upto standard.. i think im approaching a writer's block im sorry :( not yearny enough. reader has a crush.. pt 2 will be the yearn version my bad everyone i need to j build up to it...
pt 1 (two halves of a whole) here.
╰ ── .✦ masterlist ✦.──
there is a softness in the way you touch zayne.
your fingertips graze his jaw, ever-so-gently trailing down to the slope of his neck. you go low. lower. you trace the veins across his collar, glide your fingers against the swell of his chest. you don't apply pressure. just enough to close the gap between his tight black dress shirt and the calluses of your skin.
you ignore the erratic beating of your heart, the flush of blood rushing to your cheeks. because you want more.
you want to glide your hands up his biceps– want to trace your fingers over his lips, over his cheekbones, slide them into his jet-black hair–
no.
you pull away. “there. the snow's all off now.”
you've got to step back. you were a hunter, of all things! a glorified monster-killer trained to protect your city from some of the most horrifying anomalies that have come to plague this world. your days are spent with your feet forced into concrete against the recoil of your guns, shrapnel lacerating bits of exposed skin– the air knocked out from your lungs when a mission gets inevitably compromised.
you get the job done, every time. you don’t bother to moisturise your calluses– they have better grip– nor do you have the time to indulge in much self-care aside from your mandatory medical checkups and the plethora of hobbies that build up during your breaks. so naturally, you do not have the time or space in your schedule for love of all things.
or so you thought, because doctor zayne looks at you like you’ve hung the moon.
you don’t miss his gaze. you don’t miss the way he says your name, enunciating each syllable as if calling out to your heart itself. and you definitely don’t miss the way your breathing shallows a little more, warmth that flooding your system when you finally catch sight of him.
you can’t help it.
zayne was always more than he let on to be. always at the edges of your roughest missions, always the one beside your hospital bed each time you tasted death. he has seen and held parts of you you wouldn’t dare to face in front of a mirror. zayne, your childhood friend, and then your primary care physician– a consistent presence, an unwavering pillar. something without analogies. something sacred.
something fragile.
and so you were careful, so very careful.
you never push, never pull. you do anything to be as steady as he is, anything to be the diamond-strong presence he has consolidated himself as in your life. anything to let him lean on you, too, without making it obvious or leaning back so hard that everything you had carefully preserved would shatter.
you've had your fair share of encounters with danger. unfortunately, the hunter manual did not prepare you for this sort of danger.
every time you meet his hazel-green eyes, fresh jasmines seem to sprout around him. when you spot him in a crowd, his silhouette literally glows-- a soft, icy blue mirroring that of iridiscent snow reflecting the aurora. when he spoke, his voice was an dulcet melody weaving through the reticent nature of your own, his gaze piercing through your shallow resolve to melt every wall you had painstakingly put up.
you were convinced that you are suffering the symptoms of something far more fatal than you've let yourself realise.
its too late. by the time you spotted the package of pastries from your favourite bakery on his hands and the hand-knitted scarf you gifted him wrapped around his neck, whatever was left of you melted into a gooey pile of mush.
and so you invited him over to your place for dinner without even thinking twice about it. worst of all, he agreed. worst worst of all, you're happy that he did.
your voice is jittery when you instinctively respond: “yippie!”
ouch. awkward.
zayne seems to have missed it, though. he lets out a soft chuckle of his own, offering a hand as he turns to the direction of the road leading home. you take it tentatively, your roughened fingers brushing against his. his warm hand flattens against yours, grip akin to that of a well-fitting sweater– a stark contrast against your hesitant grasp. you don’t relax your fingers. you can’t. shit. are your palms sweaty? can he feel this right now? please no oh g-
“Y/N, are you alright?” zayne gently squeezes your hand. the sensation goes straight to your chest, bubbling up in a cauldron of anxious fire and gentle warmth, fighting, colliding. you part your lips to reply, but let out a small gasp instead. your throat has literally closed up.
“Uh…”
you feel his fingers slowly pulling away. “Are you uncomfortable? My ap-”
“No! No not at all I’m more than comfortable actually!” you blurt, positively mortified. In a desperate attempt at emphasis, you squeeze his hand a little tighter than you intended before realising and promptly loosening the grip. you curse under your breath. he definitely felt that.
fuck.
zayne laughs. he laughs, deep and warm, eyes closed, skin crinkling at the corners, shoulders shaking slightly as his lips part into the prettiest grin you’ve ever had the blessing of seeing.
your heart stutters at the sight. zayne’s expression goes back to his classic poker-face in a split second, the ghost of a smile still lingering. he looks straight ahead as you walk together, the gentle glow of the streetlights bathing him in silver.
your eyes catch the bright crimson dusting his ears, and the way he tilts his head away from your piercing gaze. did you just...make him nervous?
you feel your heart beat against your ribcage, harder. harder. a relentless drumming, your body hyperfocused on the feeling of your skin on his. you shift your gaze.
your joined hands sway between you two, footsteps falling in tandem beside each other; the proof carving into the sheer carpet of snow blanketing the pavement. you nearly freeze when you feel him pull away-- only to be replaced by the sensation of zayne lacing your fingers together. interlocking them. holding your hand firmly, surely. i'm here, it seemed to say.
i'll always be here.
synopsis: how he reacts when you call them by their full name in front of other people
character/s: xavier, zayne, rafayel, sylus, caleb x f!reader (separate)
warning/s: none!
note/s: my favorite one has to be zayne and sylus' im ngl i had so much fun writing this
xavier:
you should’ve known that dating the notorious quiet, handsome man in the association would be an open invitation for your coworkers to pry and get answers for the questions they always had but never dared to ask.
how could they? whenever they talk to xavier, he replies with one-word answers, worse, sometimes he just stares as if the question was the stupidest thing he has ever heard. and honestly, that idea wasn’t far-fetched.
having you as his partner and girlfriend only solidified the association’s curiosity about xavier.
“i don’t think he’d care.” simone mutters as she bites another mini sandwich from the snack display.
tara shakes her head as if trying to convince her to change her mind. “he can’t not care! right?” she turns to you as you tilt your head in confusion, not catching majority of the conversation, too caught up in a mini staring contest that you and xavier had from across the room.
“what?”
“how do you think xavier would react to being called by his name.” you furrow your brows at tara’s question, not exactly getting it.
“nothing? it’s his name…” “no, not his name but his name-name.”
in all honesty, tara lost you. but you urged her to explain that couples usually dislike it when they’re called by their given names rather than a pet name.
and now that you’ve thought about it, you didn’t think that you’ve ever called xavier by his real name.
with tara’s devilish grin, you almost felt bad for wanting to test it out, after all, no better time than the present, right?
“i bet twenty that he doesn’t care.” simone wagers, you almost scolded her, if not for tara’s enthusiastic counter with a fifty.
your gaze flits towards xavier who was already approaching the three of you with two drinks in hand.
he smiles softly as he hands you the flute of champagne. you gave him a grateful smile, the words slipping out of your lips almost in a foreign way.
“thank you, Xinghui.”
you could see the way xavier’s smile twitches. he does not respond; instead, he wraps an arm around your waist.
“are you having fun, star?” you nod before turning back to your friends whose expressions differed from triumph to devastation at the immediate turnout of their bet.
“mm!” you nod, a smile on your face as you lean over to his warmth. “i was just telling simone and tara how much my Shen Xinghui treats me well.”
xavier swoons at the my but not so much what came after.
“ah. i see.” he tightens his grip around your waist before he gestures towards the open balcony, in the guise of fresh air.
you bid your friends a wave goodbye, tara looking like she was trying her hardest not to laugh and simone already counting the bills in her wallet to slap on tara’s waiting hand.
once you and xavier were on the clear, he pulls you into his arms, his face buried on the crook of your neck.
“did i do something wrong? i’m sorry.” xavier says softly against your skin, tickling you slightly.
you giggle, pulling his face away to see a pout on his lips.
“what do you mean, Xinghui?” his pout deepens.
“i don’t like that name.” “what do you mean? it’s literally your name.”
“yeah, to others, but not to you.” xavier says as he holds you tighter against him.
you conclude that it was the end of your little prank, as you explained the bet that your friends made. xavier huffs as he mumbles at the crown of your head.
“i’d rather you call me lumiere.”
“really?!”
“no.”
zayne:
when zayne told you that his parents were going to visit, it was safe to say that you spent the entire day ensuring that your home was welcoming. you and zayne spent time cleaning and redecorating your shared space.
the doorbell rings, and for a moment, you thought it was his parents who arrived an hour early, but to your surprise, it was only the deliveryman for the patisserie you ordered from.
knowing that althea and jace rarely spent time in linkon, you wanted to ensure that they could try new delicacies, so you ordered linkon’s finest macarons, and as a bonus, you bought them their favorite tea as well.
you placed it on the kitchen countertop and forgot about it, thinking that you could easily plate them once they arrived. you failed to notice the curious doctor who approached the box after you left.
althea and jace arrived right on time, you greeted them with a smile as althea hugs you, complimenting how beautiful you had grown from the last time she saw you, while you led them to the couch. zayne sat on the opposite sofa, engaging in small talk, blushing slightly as his father coos about how chubbier his cheeks are and how healthier he looks.
“i’ll prepare some tea.” you excuse yourself as you walk to the kitchen to steep the tea.
once it was finished, you put the teacups on the tray as you walked back to the living room, where they were.
“oh! zayne, could you pour out the tea? i’ll go get the dessert,” you say to your husband, who freezes for a split second.
“no need, darling,” zayne says as he makes a move to stand up. “i can get it; you should sit down. you’ve done enough,” he says, coaxing you to sit down. you shake your head, stopping him from standing up.
“it’s okay, zaynie, i’m already standing up, just sit down and catch up, i’ll be right back.” you say, giving his cheek a swift peck, hearing his mother coo at how domestic the two of you were.
you went back in the kitchen, humming slightly under your breath before it stops as you opened the box ofdesserts.
there were only six macarons left. you ordered eight.
your jaw drops at the only answer as to why two were suddenly missing. without saying anything more, you plated the remaining macarons before carrying it back.
you can see zayne’s back as you walk, slightly tense as he tries to keep up with a conversation with his father.
“Li Shen.” zayne jolts as you say his name, you can’t see his exact expression, but judging by the way althea was biting her lip in amusement and jace was already grinning, you know that he knows that he’s in trouble.
“yes, dearest?” zayne answers, his hand on the teacup as he takes a small sip, trying to act unbothered.
“why are there only six macarons?” you walked slowly, placing the plate in the middle of the coffee table and facing him, crossing your arms.
zayne blinks slowly, you can see the small gulp he took.
“perhaps the patisserie made a mistake. we can contact them after,” he says in a calm tone.
you raise a brow.
“you have crumbs at the corner of your mouth, Li Shen.” his eyes widened before he put the teacup down, wiping at his mouth, trying to get rid of the evidence, but the four of you know it was too late.
althea laughs at the display, patting her husband affectionately on the arms.
“this reminds me of when we caught our little zaynie sneaking for the cookie jar when he was young, right jace?” jace nods, a stifled laugh leaving his lips.
zayne looks down in embarrassment. you clicked your tongue softly before sitting beside him.
“i told you the desserts were for your parents!” you whined softly as you took one of the macarons, slicing it and eating it, stabbing another bite for zayne.
he unashamedly takes it.
“i apologize, my love.” he was not sorry at all.
althea and jace only look at the two of you, amused. yet, happy that their zaynie truly found love.
you reached down absentmindedly towards zayne’s teacup, only for you to flinch.
his teacup was frozen solid.
you looked at him who avoided your gaze, before clearing his throat.
“i’d argue that the frozen teacup is your fault.” zayne says, immediately regretting it as you glared at him.
“what was that?”
“i said that you are sweeter than any macaron i have ever tried.”
sounds about right.
rafayel:
rafayel has been working on a painting for the last three hours. well, that’s how long it seemed to you because you’ve only been in his mansion for three hours. you knew he was painting for longer, given that it looked like it physically hurt him to adjust his posture.
“raf, take a break,” you say gently as you place a hand on his back.
he looks at you with a smile on his face. “in a bit, cutie! i promise. i’m about to invent a new color.” you rolled your eyes at his quip, yet let him do it, you wouldn’t have been able to pry him off anyway.
the sound of a doorbell ringing takes your attention off your boyfriend, who seems to have the idea of ignoring the sound.
“don’t worry, cutie. it’s probably thomas.” rafayel waves it off. you sighed and walked towards the door.
“you know, he wouldn’t be as overbearing if you stopped ignoring him,” you retort.
“no, cutie. he’d lock me up in his basement to keep painting if he could.”
you paid his response no mind as you opened his door, awaiting to see thomas’ brunette hair and stressed-out expression. only to be pleasantly surprised when you see the shade of rafayel’s hair greet you.
“talia! what a surprise.” you say, greeting her as your eyes flit downwards, seeing the luggage at her feet. “oh! let me carry those in, please come inside. i didn’t know you were visiting.” you hurriedly grasp her luggage, then usher her in.
talia thanks you with a smile on her face, giving you a gentle laugh as you fussed over her.
at this point, you were flustered. you did not know that rafayel’s aunt was visiting; had you known, you would’ve made a greater effort in getting rafayel to clean his own home. it was in no means ready to cater to a guest.
“ah, really?” talia asked, genuinely surprised. “i thought rafayel might’ve told you. but then again, rafayel easily forgets things.”
you smiled, nodding, still giving her your best host-like smile, while inside your head, you were already scolding your boyfriend in your mind.
“--just like how he forgot to pick me up from the airport.” “what?”
you couldn’t help but cut talia off as your eyes widened. you looked over to the painter who was still stuck in his own world, as if his only remaining family member wasn’t standing in his house.
“Qi Yu.”
rafayel freezes in his action, the paintbrush dropping from his hand for a split second before he sharply turns towards you, who looks back at him, unamused.
your arms were crossed, a glare on your face as you stared him down.
“...yes, my cutie?”
you give him an unimpressed look before raising a brow. rafayel seems to have noticed the additional presence in the room as his eyes widened. from under his breath, you could hear him mutter a curse.
he immediately straightens, ignoring the kinks in his back that screamed at him from the sudden movement, before he walks to where the two of you were, his arm rising to wrap against your waist, only for you to dodge it in an obvious way.
“cutie–”
“you didn’t tell me that talia was visiting!” you say, exasperated. “and how could you invite her here when this place is such a mess! she came all the way from varona and this is what you greet her with?”
rafayel rubs a hand behind his neck, sheepish. “i forgot.”
“really, Qi Yu. you forgot.”
rafayel flinches as you use his full name; that action spurs talia to let out a laugh at the banter.
“i have seen rafayel be summoned by his father using that name, and he does not even bat an eye, yet…” talia smirks as she interlocks her arm with yours.
“i see my nephew has a weakness.”
rafayel would’ve found a way to refute, really, he would, but his face was burning and his lips were formed into a pout as he saw you visibly soften at talia’s assurance.
“no need to worry about me, dear. i’ll make myself at home in the guest room.” talia pats your arm once before she wheels in her luggage towards the relatively tidy guest room.
when talia was gone, you looked at rafayel with a blank expression on your face.
“cutie…”
“so, let me get this straight.” you interrupt him. “you ignore me for three hours even though you invited me to your house. you forget to pick up your aunt from the airport and you forget to tell me so i can prepare to accommodate her, and now all you can say is cutie? really, Qi Yu?”
rafayel wraps his arms around you, pulling your front flush to his chest as he whines. “cutiee—” he buries his face onto your hair. “i’m sorry. please never call me that again.”
your lips twitch, secretly having fun with his reactions.
“Qi Y—” “cutiee. stooop.” rafayel whines as he nuzzles his face onto your neck. he sighs as he pulls away, a pout still on his face. “i promise i’d take better notice of my schedules.”
“and?”
“and?!” rafayel echoes back, offended that you didn’t take the bait before he collects himself. “and i’ll treat you and talia to an expensive dinner tonight.”
“good.”
rafayel pouts.
“you can be so mean sometimes, cutie.”
“really, Qi—” “stop!”
sylus:
sometimes, you curse yourself for being competent. at first, you thought that showing guts in the hunter’s association would bring you more respect and dignity.
in reality, it just thrusts you on more missions that make you question if the salary was justifiable.
you were so tired, you just got back from a week-long mission.
you just wanted to rest in sylus’ arms and whine about how the association was wringing you dry and look at him in appallment once he suggests quitting your job. you know, the usual.
as you ride your motorbike to the N109 zone, you can already imagine the conversation. you smiled softly to yourself as you approached the heavy doors that seemed to readily open to you.
you walk towards the main hall, brows furrowing as you hear luke and kieran throwing out profanities and the sounds of controllers clicking.
you push open the door to see luke, kieran and, surprisingly sylus, on the couch with their vr gear on. you see the tv playing a racing game that you vaguely remember playing. judging by the twins’ response, you assumed that sylus was in the lead.
as much as you would’ve loved to join in and have a little game night, you were tired and wanted nothing more but to be held by your lover.
seeing sylus be so unguarded and oblivious to your arrival, you couldn’t help but time your entrance, once you see sylus seconds away from the finish line, you cleared your throat as you loudly called out.
“Qin Che.”
luke and kieran freeze as if they were the ones being called as they ripped out the vr gear from their faces, looking like deer in headlights. sylus also takes his off, albeit slower, as he takes in your figure. a look of surprise and longing in his expression.
you had your arms crossed, a blank expression on your face as you stepped closer.
almost immediately, you see the twins skedaddle past you, dropping their gear and leaving sylus sitting on the couch.
“ooooooo, dad’s in trouble!” you hear luke tease, and a sharp smack! right after, as kieran urges him to move faster, the door slams shut.
an offended caw resounds in the room, you turn around to see mephisto banging itself on the door, wanting to get out as well. you bit back laughter as you see the door open for just a sliver before a gloved hand– you’re assuming luke, reaches out to pull mephisto by the wing, an indignified squawk leaving the metal crow’s beak.
the room was silent, save for the video game’s background music, to which sylus shuts down.
you walked over to him, who sat there waiting for your next move.
without another word, you sat on his lap, your face pressing against his chest, hearing the way his heart was beating significantly faster.
“welcome home.” sylus says as he wraps his arms around you, breathing in your scent.
“your heart’s beating really fast.” you point out, voice muffled by his chest. you pull away slightly to look up at sylus who immediately presses a kiss on your forehead.
“well. it seemed like a certain kitten hissed at me unprovoked,” sylus said as he affectionately ran his fingers through your hair.
“all because i called you by your name?”
sylus chuckles as he presses another kiss to the crown of your head.
“sweetie, you underestimate the power you have over me.”
caleb:
you really shouldn’t have agreed to be caleb’s date at their high school reunion. hell, he shouldn’t have even bothered going.
the day could’ve been spent with the two of you cuddling in comfortable clothes on your sofa, but no. caleb thought it would be a good idea to show you around the DAA.
which wasn’t what was happening as his former classmates whisked him away. you stood off to the side, a frown on your face, arms crossed over your chest.
caleb promised you that he’d be back in five minutes. it’s been thirteen minutes, and there was no sign of him ending the conversation. good thing that gideon was right beside you, keeping you company, as he only arrived a few minutes ago.
“your boyfriend sure is popular, huh?” gideon teases as he nudges you with his elbow.
“too popular if you ask me,” you mumble under your breath, eye twitching as yet another former classmate approaches him.
gideon snorts under his breath. “he’s always been popular, not even your scrunchie on his wrist managed to ward off the girls at the time.” you huff at that, eyes zoning in on the girl by the corner of your approaching caleb.
it was irrational, you’re well aware of that, but enough was enough.
‘caleb is mine.’ the jealous part of your mind screamed.
“Xia YiZhou!”
for a split second, you can feel the tension in the room drop, and everyone in the room freezes. caleb immediately turns to where you were standing, smiling sheepishly.
“coming, honey!” caleb walks briskly to where you were, but you gave him the cold shoulder.
he tries to pry your arms away from your chest as he attempts to coddle you.
“you said five minutes, Xia YiZhou.” you say, turning away from him. from the side, you can hear gideon stifle a laugh as caleb’s face drops at your words.
“pips, you know—” “five minutes. you said.” you glare at the way caleb’s lips twitched, you knew the bastard was fighting a smirk.
“is my pipsqueak feeling bored–” he reaches up to playfully pinch your cheek, but you dodged his hand before walking away.
“damn dude, good luck.” you hear gideon say as you exit the venue.
caleb follows you, letting you walk three steps ahead. you walk by the school’s open garden, feeling the breeze pass your face.
“go away, Xia YiZhou! i don’t wanna see you.” you hear caleb chuckle from behind you, and all of a sudden, he’s right beside you, flinging an arm around your shoulders.
“what’s got my baby apple upset, hm?” you huffed, reaching for your opposite shoulder to pull his hand, only to feel his palm sweating.
and caleb’s palm only ever does that when he’s nervous.
you fight the grin that threatens to escape your face. however, caleb already caught sight of it.
“ah, i see. someone just wanted my attention.” you rolled your eyes, dropping the facade.
“there were too many girls trying to talk to you.” you huffed. “it’s like they don’t know you have a girlfriend!” you squint your eyes, accusatory.
“unless you told them you didn’t have one.”
“hey now, pipsqueak.” caleb flicks your forehead softly. “even if they didn’t know, i’d let them know. no need to be jealous,” you huff, turning around.
caleb couldn’t help the chuckle that leaves his lips as his arms snake around your waist, pulling you flush against him.
“i’m all yours, pipsqueak.”
“Xia YiZhou, you dummy!”
caleb only smiles against the back of your head, finding your little tantrum cute.
“yeah, yeah. your dummy. i know.”
mentally, he was already planning all the ways he could get you to call out to him affectionately once more.
note/s: omg two uploads in one day that's craaaaaaazy lmao i hope you enjoyed this one <3
