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The Hand That Feeds
Last Update: November 6, 2025
After the explosion your ability to resonate seems to disappear, with the added pressure of your health you are dismissed by the Hunter's association. You turn your sights to other dreams and begin teaching music. Which is how you meet Sylus. After studio hours, apartment living does not lend itself to practising, you find yourself practising in his newly acquired Karaoke bar. Which is how he finds himself in your studio asking you to teach him to sing.
Rated R MDNI
Ships: Reader/Sylus
[Chapter One] [AO3] [Current Chapter]
Holding Autumn
Last Update: January 11, 2026
After an accident crushed your dreams of being a classical pianist, Zayne had run away. It's the only impulsive thing he's ever done in his entire life.
Until 10 years later, in an attempt to be more approachable, he ends up at a house party and there you are.
Rated R MDNI
Ships: Zayne/Reader
Tags: University AU, Hurt/comfort, Catharsis, Depictions of grief, Self Indulgent, Fake Dating-ish, Past Car Accident, Amputee-Caleb
[Chapter One] [AO3] [Current Chapter]
Verified Rumor
Last Update 09/12
Your life has been a series of "shit happens" events starting with the death of your parents. Next you make a deal with Caleb, your best friend, you grew up together, there's no one you trust more. It seemed smart to agree to sleep together instead of risking the distraction of dating and romance. It worked until you ended up pregnant but, co-parenting with your best friend isn't the worst thing in the world. Until 13 years later when his entire crew goes missing, ship and all, while you are home navigating the loss of the woman who had taken both of you in.
But you are resilient. A year later the DAA has declared the lost crew deceased and you find yourself on the edge of the N109 watching a boxing match when sparks fly with the winner but, like always when things start to go your way, shit happens.
Rated R MDNI
Ships: Reader/Sylus, Past Platonic Read/Caleb
[Chapter One] [AO3] [Current Chapter]
Longtime Yesterday
Last update 10/21
You grew accustomed to loss as a child. Your parents die, your remaining family didn't want you, Zayne leaves without saying goodbye but, Caleb is always there for you.
Fresh from a breakup with you Masters hot in hand you are already disillusioned with the Classical music scene so you move home. Back to Caleb, to help his band record their album. Where you hope time and distance will maybe open up what childhood assumptions had always kept closed.
You run a little magic shop in a busy part of town, you read tarot, make potions, offer simple spiritual services. Like any other human magic shop owner. You're definitely, probably, nothing more than that.
07/14- New Chapter is up, I am still fighting dysautonomia flares, and thanks to misinformed advising for my degree program I dropped a class that had me starting my summer job two weeks later than normal so I have been completely without an income since the last week of June, I even had to cancel a gig and a studio session because I couldn't afford the gas, so between stress and health writing has been hard. I have however written like 3 chapters of Holding Autumn since I got back on my Vyvanse last week so there's that.
The Hand That Feeds is on temporary hiatus, I am struggling with how to tie my plot points together once the chapter I'm currently working on is finished, I was hoping the Valko update would give me some juice but then it got scraped so I'm working it out.
My Kofi is linked if anyone is interested in helping out, I'm also offering online crochet classes , alternately if anyone is interested in learning music theory DM me on the same threads account linked for crochet.
06/13- I was absolutely bodied by finals, mental health, and chronic illness flares, and then having to wrap my head around a whole new plan for finishing my degree because my previous advisor was misinformed. I've been easing back into writing but 'tis the season for last minute studio sessions, gigs, and my bi annual struggle to fill my medications so I don't want to make specific promises but soon. Inbox me if you have a request for the next update, Hand only has one chapter locked an loaded and I'm stuck in a transition with it, Longtime also only has one buffer chapter, the next update will probably be Rumour or Holding Autumn
About Me:
In case you're new here, or you haven't read my AO3 notes; I am a Music Therapy major with a diploma in performance (yes I am a fan of write what you know) and I also teach private music lessons on top of being a session vocalist and songwriter. Writing is a hobby to keep me sane and I do not have a beta (I do my best despite the dyslexia).
After an accident crushed your dreams of being a classical pianist, Zayne had run away. It's the only impulsive thing he's ever done in his entire life.
Until 10 years later, in an attempt to be more approachable, he ends up at a house party and there you are.
Rated R MDNI
Tags: University AU, Hurt/comfort, Catharsis, Depictions of grief, Self Indulgent, Fake Dating-ish, Past Car Accident, Amputee-Caleb
[Chapter One] [AO3] [>>]
Chapter Two
“Pipsqueak,” Caleb scolds as you tug on your jacket. “This is stupid.”
“He was your best friend,” you argue.
“Was,” Caleb points out. “Ten years ago, he ain’t now. He left without a word, you were still livin' in a hospital bed, no emails, no calls, no cards.” He crosses his arms. “He’s a stranger.”
“Maybe he had a reason,” you shrug ducking under his arm as he holds the door open.
“Bullshit,” Caleb snorts. “Don’t use your psych textbook to gaslight yourself into letting him off easy.”
“Caleb,” you grab him by the arms and hold him still. “Everything was really fucked up, the accident changed everything for me, which changed everything for us. People do stupid things when they’re scared.”
“Pips,” he sighs pulling your hair out of your jacket. “You’re too forgiving. We were all scared, he’s the only one that ran away. Then he never even said anything.”
"Joining the Airforce wasn't running?" You raise an eyebrow at him.
"Pipsqueak," he says, jaw tight. "That's different."
“Have you ever admitted you were wrong?” You try to counter.
“No,” Caleb shrugs relaxing as Rafayel’s car pulls up. “But if I ever happened to be wrong, I would.”
You slip in the front seat and adjust it as far back as it will go.
“What’d you do?” Rafayel asks when Caleb shuts the back door.
His knees are in his armpits and he’d cross his arms if he could. “Nothin’,” Caleb pouts.
“Yeah,” Raf shrugs, pulling away. “She’s prone to punishing you for nothin’,”
“I saw my ex-”
“Carter?” Rafayel worries, tone shifting immediately. “I thought he was still abroad,”
“Her high school ex,” Caleb clarifies. “The one that crashed a car with her and then ghosted her.”
“Crashed a car? Caleb, you were driving,” you snap.
“And he wasn’t even really injured,” Caleb snipes back.
“He’s always been awkward with people,” you say ignoring Caleb. “I helped him out of an uncomfortable situation-”
“By pretending he was your boyfriend,” Caleb adds.
“Ex-boyfriend, fake dating,” Rafayel snorts, “a traumatic event that kept you separate for ten years? This is like a drama film.”
“We’re going to get coffee, and Caleb thinks it’s a bad idea,” you pout.
Rafayel glances at the giant that is vacuum sealed in his back seat. “Aside from the ghosting was he mean to her?”
“No,” Caleb admits. “He was good to her, wasn’t afraid of her being sick. Up until the accident he was my best friend.”
“Then why’s it so stupid?” Rafayel shrugs. “Jealous you’re not invited?”
“Does he think he just gets to come back like nothin’ happened after ten years of silence?”
“Caleb,” you say. “He just wants to talk.”
The car is quiet, the radio is barely on and all you hear is a subtle bass beat and whir of the fan.
“You ever do something stupid, Caleb?” Rafayel asks.
“No,” Caleb pouts.
“Yes,” you snort.
Rafayel laughs. “Me neither, but probably if I did I wouldn’t admit it. Probably I’d know I was lying to myself but even if I admitted? It how am I supposed to apologise. Probably I’d assume anyone affected hated me,” he says, voice light but there’s a serious edge. “I mean, I assume, I’ve never wronged anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
You roll your eyes.
Rafayel parks in the garage.
Inside Gideon is playing a flight simulator, fresh pizzas sits on the counter.
“I ordered them when you texted for pick up,” Rafayel says.
“I paid for them,” Gideon adds. “Since the starving artist didn’t.”
“Thanks Raf,” Caleb chirps, spinning the artist in a little circle.
“Yeah,” Gideon shrugs. “Sorry, thanks Rafayel, very generous of you.”
“I know,” Rafayel bows.
“Thanks, Gideon,” you call out.
“So,” Caleb says as he piles pizza on a paper plate and hands it to you. “What are you going to just talk about?”
“Hey, you know what?” You huff, grabbing a second plate. “I don’t feel like just talking about this right now actually.”
“And?” Caleb counters.
“Mom and Dad are fighting,” Rafayel stage whispers to Gideon.
“And,” you challenge handing Gideon the second plate on your way by. “I have free will, I’m going to my room.”
In your room, with your door closed you realize you don’t even know what you want from him.
As it turns out you have plenty of time to think about it. There’s no text from Zayne no plans made to actually meet and you wonder if it was all just the bluster of a guilty conscious.
Once upon a time, you thought you knew everything there was to know about him and while Caleb might say he’d proven you wrong you have never confused the hurt for surprise. The man you met last night didn’t appear much different than the boy who’d kissed you for the very first time covered in snow in your grandmother’s backyard.
Is it nerves holding him back, or is it simply his busy med school schedule.
*
It’s Wednesday afternoon when he wakes up after an overnight shift and remembers he was supposed to text you. He sits at his kitchen table staring at your contact in his phone over coffee and a cinnamon roll. He tells himself he’d genuinely forgotten but it feels a little like a lie.
“Tonight?” His roommate says from the doorway.
Zayne squints, and waits. When Greyson shakes his hair out of his eyes still waiting for an answer Zayne is forced to ask for the rest of the thought. “What about tonight?”
“You don’t work? You worked last night, are you there overnight again or-”
“I start very early tomorrow,” Zayne nods.
“Come to the pub again?” Greyson asks.
“I can’t be your sober driver, I have to be at the hospital at 4am,” Zayne clarifies.
“I’m not drinking,” Greyson huffs. “Leave early we just need even numbers for pool.”
Zayne stares at your contact in his phone for a moment and sighs.
He splits the first hour at the pub between staring at your contact in his phone and beating the Kinesiology students at pool. He watches as the band from last time loads in and keeps half an ear on the Kinesiology students gossip.
“-Carter, the transfer?” One of them says.
“Did you hear the rumours though?” Another mentions.
“That he got in because he’s rich? Like half the med students? Who cares,” the first snorts.
Zayne tilts his head.
“Not you,” they say quickly.
“No,” Zayne chuckles. “My family are in medicine, I may not have bought my place but my family is more than comfortable.”
“Well,” the other one says, lining up his shop. “What I meant was about the reason he transferred.”
“I heard he deferred and there wasn’t a place at his old school,” Greyson says when the cue ball misses every ball on the table.
Zayne’s head swivels when he hears you laugh from the other side of the pub.
“I heard there was an issue with another student,” the first Kinesiology student says.
“I don’t know,” Greyson hums. “He seems normal enough”
His attention drifts. You’re bent over a lean light haired man tuning a mandolin while you speak into his ear. His hand on your waist steadies you as you slip on a cable. You both laugh. Something about the conversation happening around him is familiar but he doesn’t care. It grinds to halt regardless when someone steps up and asks to join.
“Go ahead,” Zayne says handing his pool cue over, “I’ll be leaving soon.”
He tucks himself into a hidden table out of sight. Your contact still open on his phone a shining symbol of embarrassment. It’s the same folk band from before and he can see Caleb sitting on the floor at the back helping set up a drum kit. He wonders what connects you to them as he tries to form some kind of text that will not sound as guilty as he feels.
He’s not sure how much time passes as he sits, head down, typing and erasing, before he eventually hits send but by that time the room around him fades back into place the music has started. You and Caleb are sitting at a large table near the band, you’re surrounded by people and he can see the moment his text goes through. He watches you tilt your phone on the table, the slight turn of your head, he sees your thumb clear the notification with a subtle swipe as you turn your attention back to the people on stage.
A boisterous cheer goes up from the pool table and he watches you and Caleb turn towards the sound, both of you tensing up before turning back to the band, heads tilted together in such a familiar way it makes his chest hurt.
He should leave.
“-And you don’t even know it,” the singer is saying into the microphone.
Zayne watches you pat Caleb’s arm as you start to stand.
“She’s probably written one of your favourite songs,” he continues, “But tonight she’s going to sing a few of her own with us.”
“I’ve sold like 4 songs,” you say, picking up a guitar frowning at someone off stage. “Am I good?” you ask before nodding and plugging in the guitar.
“And they all made it to the top 100,” the man insists.
“Xavier,” you groan tuning your guitar. “You guys listen to him do this every week?”
The crowd laughs, a few people clap.
“I know Y/N from the Music Therapy program at school,” Xavier explains. “I know you trust me when I tell you you’ll love what she does.”
“The girls will,” you shrug. “We’re gonna start with a song about my ex,” your eyes find Zayne in the back and you smirk. “His feet were faster than his brain, then we’re move into a song about another ex,” your eyes shift towards the billiards table. “Who’s never met a problem his Mother's wallet couldn’t fix.”
The crowd laughs.
“Then I’ve got one for my idiot brother, who almost died on military deployment.”
“But I didn’t,” Caleb calls back.
You turn towards the drummer and then the band picks up. He watches your fingers stumble over a picking pattern, he watches you shake your head, cheeks flushed red as you chuckle and shake your head before straightening it out.
Zayne watches the man who’d taken his spot at the pool table put on his coat and make towards the door. He watches Caleb slip out of his seat and intercept the man. Zayne recognizes the way Caleb uses his height to tower over the other man, he remembers joining in on the intimidation if the situation called for it, suspects maybe this is the ex with the mother you’d mentioned.
He brings his attention back to his phone, knowing you haven’t responded but checking anyway.
“So you can’t text her about that coffee date you wanted but you got time to sit in the shadows and watch her sing songs she wrote about you, huh? Caleb says, sitting heavy in the empty chair across from him.
“I had surgeries,” Zayne sputters, “And I didn’t know she’d be here.”
Caleb squints.
Zayne sighs and tries to gather his thoughts. “I meant to get my bearings and do it the next morning,” he admits. “I forgot organically.”
“You remembered when you saw her,” Caleb points out.
It’s strange to be on this side of the shield Caleb’s always kept around you. You glance back at the pool table but Greyson and his friends have found to their own seats to watch the music now that their even numbers have turned odd.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what to say for hours,” he admits again. “I’ve been staring at her contact since I woke up.”
Caleb rolls his eyes.
“I didn’t run away,” Zayne tries. It’s almost like practice with Caleb. “I just didn’t know how to say I was leaving.”
The song changes and Caleb’s eyes narrow. “That’s the lie you told yourself,” he nods. “Wanna try again?”
He rubs his hands down his face. “I can’t stay much longer I have to be at the Hospital early.”
“You got time for a couple more excuses I bet,” Caleb smiles, unmoved.
“We all knew I was leaving,” Zayne points out.
“We did,” Caleb nods. “We kinda though you’d say goodbye first.”
“She was supposed to come with me,” Zayne reminds him. “She was supposed to test in a few weeks for the music conservatory. How could I tell her I was still going to go when she clearly couldn’t?”
“Chicken shit,” Caleb snorts. “You think she would’ve tried to make you stay?”
Zayne huffs a weak laugh. “I didn’t, that’s the problem,” he says pushing his chair away from the table. “Tell her the one about me, could have been meaner.”
I'm so sorry I've been radio silent, immediately after my last post my chronic illness hit me like a bag of bricks to the face.
The semester ended, my car was in the shop 3 times in one month, I had two gigs, andtook an infuriating drawing elective. Then I had to wrap my head around the fact that my advisor misinformed me, there's no way for me to graduate early and actually if I follow the plan she gave me I won't have enough credits to qualify for financial aid in my last year, so I had to withdraw from the rest of my summer classes and restructure my next year, I had like 3 meetings with my advisor this week (ya'll ever have an unplanned sunday morning teams meeting with you advisor where neither of you have even brushed you hair?) A bunch of my transfers were misfiled or maybe not it's unclear and one of the required credits they cant find doesn't exist anymore.
BUT I think its sorted now and I only work twice a week until mid july and I think outside of getting beat up by the barometer rn my health is getting back to where i can form thoughts, so all that to say is I haven't abandoned anything I was just drowning a little
I am fighting for my life between end of semester, studying for finals and rehearsing for my gig in 2 weeks but there will be sn update of something by Sunday
Your life has been a series of "shit happens" events starting with the death of your parents. Next you make a deal with Caleb, your best friend, you grew up together, there's no one you trust more. It seemed smart to agree to sleep together instead of risking the distraction of dating and romance. It worked until you ended up pregnant but, co-parenting with your best friend isn't the worst thing in the world. Until 13 years later when his entire crew goes missing, ship and all, while you are home navigating the loss of the woman who had taken both of you in.
But you are resilient. A year later the DAA has declared the lost crew deceased and you find yourself on the edge of the N109 watching a boxing match when sparks fly with the winner but, like always when things start to go your way, shit happens.
Rated R MDNI
Ships: Reader/Sylus, Past Platonic Read/Caleb
Tags: Canon Adjacent, Co-parenting, Dad-Caleb, Step-Dad-Sylus, Single Mother, Descriptions of death, Depictions of grief, Self Indulgent, Hotel Sex, Biting, Aftercare, Face sitting, Multiple Orgasms,
[Chapter One] [AO3] [>>]
Chapter 6
It had been nearing midnight when Rafayel heard the beep of someone keying the code into the studio door lock. He listens for the click and waits for Thomas to start another lecture but it never comes. Instead he hears the shuffle of feet and the creak of one of the benches under something heavy. When he turns he catches your back as you disappear into the supply closet.
You’re hair is in braids, you’re wearing paint spattered overalls, and the bags on the bench have not just your supplies but he estimates there’s at least 6 different convenience store drinks in one of them. You haven’t said a word but Rafayel knows better than to ask you any questions when you come in like this.
You’ll talk to him if you want to.
He has questions for you though. He wants to ask you how know the Onychinus leader. Why the man seemed so interested in you? why you seemed so comfortable with him? He’s had 100 versions of these questions swimming in his head but there’s no line of questioning that doesn’t leave you with an equal amount of your own so, he bites his tongue.
He knows you well enough to know this isn’t boy trouble behavior.
When you come back out you’re dragging a canvas as tall as you are, one sleeve of your hoodie has fallen off your shoulder and Rafayel pretends he doesn’t see the hickey there. He wonders if he’s wrong, if this maybe is boy trouble behavior, but he doesn’t think so, the canvas you pull for bad dates are smaller.
“What?” You snap when you catch him staring. You watch him with your mouth pressed in a closed line as you pull an energy drink out of the plastic bag and pull the tab. “Is it the hickey? I’m an adult.”
“Of course you are,” he shrugs and watches you chug the entire drink before he turns back to his sculpture.
It’s going to be that kind of night.
You mount the canvas and get to work on prepping it. He feels the energy in the studio shift. He adjusts the volume of his ambient nature sounds at least four times but you continue to slap gesso on canvas like it’s personally wronged you. Rafayel decides he’s a little concerned for whoever has made you angry and also; it’s time to give up.
You’ve been at it for barely 2 hours, he has to concede.
Your shitty aura has pissed all over the studio and he doesn’t want any part of that in his sculpture anyway. He throws up his hands and drops his tools. He’s going to take a nap in your office, on your comfortable sofa and hope that when he comes back whatever has you tied in knots is worked out.
Also, that there’s only the one energy drink gone from that bag.
The door is barely closed behind him when the sounds of waves and birds is replaced by rhythmic drums and pulsing bass.
He sets an alarm on his phone for an hour because he’s not just your boss he’s your friend. Something is obviously bothering you and while he can’t work next to you in this mood, once you’ve settled in you might want to talk about it. Not right now, right now it obvious to him you want to hit something but he knows you don’t have a key to your gym.
It’s easy to fall asleep but it’s harder to peel himself off the plush sofa in your office when the alarm goes off. It occurs to him that he has maybe not slept or eaten much since he’d left the fundraiser. It’s almost 4am and he decides he’ll check on you, because he’s a good friend, and then he’ll go home and maybe eat before he actually sleeps.
He keys the code into the studio lock and slips in unnoticed. The music is still loud but it feels settled. No more piss aura, no more bad vibes, whatever you had been struggling with has been beaten into submission. He watches you work, oblivious to your audience of one for the moment.
Rafayel is always amazed at the speed that you work at. You claim every piece is a race against your attention span, that you know when you stop there’s a good chance that painting will be as finished as it ever will be no matter the stage. Your unorthodox tools include a heat gun, and a hair drier tonight but he’s seen you with box fans and industrial heaters before.
You like to tease Rafayel when he has paint on his face but Rafayel never points out how much worse you are when you are actually working and not teaching. There is paint in your hair, he can see layers dictating every time you pushed hair out of your face. New splotches and splatters shine on your overalls and there are layers of handprints on your arms that tell a story of contemplation, consideration, and frustration. He won’t even mention the state of your drop cloth.
It’s only been an hour since he left you halfway through your underpainting but that now is done and dry, your lines are sketched in and the bulk of your foreground seems to be finished.
Every medium you touch blends and blurs like wet on wet watercolor and Rafayel always wishes you would let him exhibit your art. Markers, oils, inks, and acrylics all work into the same flowing bends of light and liquid in your hands.
He watches you huff, trying to clean a brush and Rafayel is about to make himself known and offer to bring you fresh water, when he hears the sound of someone keying the code into the door. You’re oblivious, focused on your work, music still loud as the door swings open revealing a ghost.
“There you are, Pipsqueak.”
You freeze. Rafayel watches closely as you whirl. You’re startled by a voice but not because there is a deadman standing in the studio. Your eyes, however, meet Rafayel before they land on the ghost, or maybe zombie. Rafayel is trying to decide.
“Hey Raf?” You sigh, adding another layer of paint to the path in your hair. “You remember Caleb?”
You sound so tired.
“I remember,” Rafayel says. Something like anger burns in him thinking about how many tears he’s wiped since Caleb disappeared. “I remember you telling me he died.”
That wipes the smile of the dead man’s face at least.
You hold up your hand before either of them can speak again and look Rafayel directly in the eyes. “I am too tired for this can you pretend to be nice?”
“Yes Miss Bodyguard,” he says.
Caleb rolls his eyes.
“Caleb,” you say, not stepping any closer. There’s a hint of accusation in your voice. “I didn’t say where I was going, you were asleep.”
“You’re location is on,” Caleb shrugs. “Did you sleep at all?”
You laugh, it’s dry, humorless and Rafayel hates it. He busies himself at one of the studio sinks, fussing with the water and a clean cloth.
“I’m trying to figure something out. I’ll come home when I’m done,” you say.
Caleb sets a tray on the bench as Rafayel uses the damp cloth to try to get some of the paint out of your hair.
“I brought you tea, I’ll stay while you finish,” Caleb says pulling a stool up to the bench.
“I have paperwork to catch up on,” you counter. “When I’m done here. Something came up and I didn’t get any work done yesterday.”
“It was Sunday,” Caleb laughs.
You narrow your eyes and bat Rafayel’s hand away. “It’s fine Raf, I’m fine.”
He ignores Caleb, putting himself between the two of you. He’s seen you both argue before and he’d rather not again, but he has concerns. Aside from where the hell he’s been, the year has been hard on you. He wonders if Caleb really understands that. Your mood when you arrived makes sense.
“Are you sure,” he asks cupping your paint speckled face in his hands.
“You’re tired,” you say with a genuine smile. “Go sleep, Thomas has paperwork for you, and there’s a meeting with the board at 2 you can’t skip again.”
He groans. “I forgot about the meeting, are you sure I can’t ditch them? They’re so boring.”
You laugh. “Unfortunately for you Thomas granted me some vacation days I’d banked.” You glance at Caleb over his shoulder. “Family emergency. I just have to finish that paper work.”
Rafayel pouts, but he nods, gives Caleb a withering look and leaves.
“This is nice,” Caleb says looking at the canvas you’ve been working on.
“Mmm,” you hum.
“You’re mad?” He asks.
“Caleb,” you say, rinsing and refilling your cup. “This is a lot.”
“And you’re mad,” he says again. “You’re allowed to be mad, Pips.”
“I don’t need you’re permission, to be mad” you snap.
He holds out a paper cup to you.
“I’m a lot of things,” you say, forcing yourself to relax. “Mad is one of them. I’m trying to work it out before I pick Kaiya up.”
He traces the rim of his own paper cup with his thumb. “It was hard hearing her voice and not being able to talk to her,” he says, eyes distant.
“It was hard not just telling her,” you say. “It’s hard telling her everything is fine and normal and not knowing how she’ll respond. It’s hard not getting on the next train to Skyhaven and marching into the DAA headquarters and suckerpunching as many officers as I can get my god damned hands on. A lot of things are hard, Caleb.”
Caleb chuckles. “How were you ever going to be a hunter?”
“I don’t have a problem with authority, I have a problem with assholes,” you huff turning back to your painting. “But I can’t fight the chain of command at the DAA, and I can’t just hand you the phone and surprise Kiaya like you got home early from a mission, and I can’t predict how she’s going to respond to the news: so I’m here.”
“Painting a tree,” Caleb says.
“It’s the shop, near Gran’s,” you huff. “Or, the yard at the shop, we spent a whole summer there in 5th grade I think.”
You hear the bench creak as Caleb leans on it. “I was in 5th grade,” he says. “You were in 4th.”
“Fine,” you concede too tired to argue. He’s probably right anyway.
You mostly get the painting done by the time natural light starts to filter through the skylights. Caleb gives you a one armed side hug as you clean your brushes and declares that he’s going home and he’s going to sleep in your bed since you aren’t using it.
You don’t answer, you click your wet brushes one by one into the rack over the sink to dry and scrub the paint from your face and arms. You take a twenty minute nap on the couch in your office waking up long before your alarm. By the time Thomas knocks on your door with a flat white in your favorite mug you’ve already finished the paperwork and reviewed the proposal from the opera house.
Thomas doesn’t comment on the overalls, or the paint in your hair as he sets the espresso drink in front of you.
“Rafayel left the studio around 5am,” you yawn. “I made sure he knew the meeting was at 2 and his attendance was mandatory.”
Thomas frowns at you. “The meeting is at 4.”
“I know,” you nod. “He’ll show up at 330 claiming he got stuck in traffic, and you can tell him not to worry because I was wrong anyway, and he’ll have to put on his big boy pants and deal with his investors.”
Thomas laughs. “That never works when I try it.”
“Because you’re too pretty and too earnest,” you nod solemnly. “But, I am a horrible little gremlin just like him so he’s cursed to believe everything I tell him because he thinks he knows when I’m lying.”
When you get home, you’re apartment is cleaner than it has any right to be and inside your fridge are clear signs of meal planning. Caleb has his own methods of stress reduction. You put your clothes directly in the washer and yourself directly in a hot shower to scrub the dried paint from your hair.
You stay in the shower despite your exhaustion until your fingers are more than pruney and then shuffle into your room in a towel. Caleb is sprawled face down on your bed, fast asleep. You pull on shorts and the loose shirt you’d been wearing earlier and climb into bed shoving him to his own side as you do.
The blinds are closed. The room is dark and when you check the time on your phone it reads 10:47am. You text Sylus Goodnight and an upside down smiling emoji before you plug your phone in, alarm set so that you have time for a little panic attack before you pick Kiaya up from school.
Champ [10:51am]: It’s almost 11am
Champ [10:54am]: Sleep well, I guess
Once you wake up the plan is simple. Kaiya went to school from Zayne’s, and you’ll pick her up, with Zayne’s car, and take her to the arcade to butter her up before you tell her the good news.
Caleb insists that he come along and you’re still mad enough that you don’t warn him.
Inside the hospital he walks confidently shoulder to shoulder with you while you nod and shrug at the raised eyebrows. People here know you, and as you near cardiology they know you both. They know that one of you shouldn’t be here. You wave at Yvonne as you round the corner to Zayne’s office and shrug at Greyson’s confused double take as he passes you both on his way out.
“Hey,” you say as you step out of Caleb’s way and shut the door behind him.
“Hey, Doc,” Caleb says after.
As Zayne walks towards him you think Caleb looks like maybe he’s expecting a hug, or a handshake or some kind of greeting but you know exactly how angry Zayne is with your mutual best friend so you side-step out of his way.
“Hey?” Zayne asks a moment before he shoves Caleb against the door with enough force to rattle the shelves. “Hey? Do you know what you put them through?”
Caleb opens his mouth to respond but the intercom buzzes and Yvonne’s voice rings out with clear concern. “Is everyone alright in there?”
Zayne takes a breath and turns back to his desk. “It’s fine, someone tripped.” He looks pointedly at Caleb, silently daring him to say otherwise. You snort. ”Since you’re here,” Zayne says, having wiped the smile from Caleb’s face. “Unbutton your shirt and sit down, I don’t trust the DAA to have done an adequate physical.”
“I’m fine,” Caleb groans.
“Don’t be a child,” Zayne says.
“I’m fine,” he says again.
“I’ll give you a sticker if you behave,” Zayne sighs.
You watch them snipe and scold and if you see Zayne use his evol to make his stethoscope even colder you don’t say anything. Eventually they’re both satisfied and Zayne hands you his keys.
“I’ll come by when I’m finished here and get them from you,” he says. “When I pick Caleb up.”
“Pick me up?” Caleb frowns.
“I have a spare room, Y/N does not,” Zayne says simply.
“You’re not staying another night, Caleb.” You huff. “Kaiya needs time to process it. If she’s ok you can come back tomorrow.”
“You guys changed the plan without me.” He pouts.
You shrug.
You take him home and let him fuss about a dinner, despite the fridge full of food he’d cooked and stored sometime before he’d shown up at the studio. It’s a relief to see the nerves finally getting to him as hours tick down. Caleb has been a lot of things through the years and fortunately, as thoughtless as he can be, one of those things has always been a good father.
He ransacks your cupboards and puts a menu together and is already deep into cooking when you eventually leave to pick your daughter up.
She wastes no time when she steps into Zayne’s car. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks, Kiddo. Love you too,” you snort.
“Mom, you said nothing was wrong,” she counters, leaving no time for you to breathe.
“Nothing is wrong,” you tell her, honestly. Nothing is wrong, it’s weird having him suddenly back when you’d barely accepted his death but, not bad, not wrong.
“You look like you haven’t slept and you’re picking me up in Uncle Zayne’s car,” she points out.
“Have you considered that I work for the single most exhausting person on the entire planet?” You try. “It’s an actual quantifiable fact, Thomas has financed studies.”
She sets her jaw.
“I promise, it’s not bad news,” you tell her and she frowns. “I was going to butter you up at the arcade first, what would you rather? That or food?”
“Food,” she says settling into the seat and crossing her arms.
You end up at the little cafe Zayne likes, the one he takes her too, that usually refuse. You don’t want her to fill up given what had been happening in the kitchen at home when you’d left, you want to ease her mind, but, you also don’t want to raise her suspicions any more than they are. You order a giant piece of strawberry matcha cake to share, and the newest seasonal tea on the menu for you both.
You watch her dump a concerning amount of honey into her cup while she makes direct eye contact and choose to ignore it. Zayne was worse the last time you’d come together. Eventually you get tired of her silence and you turn to stare out the window until she decides she’s ready to talk.
“So,” she says, and pushes the last bite of cake towards you. “You have a boyfriend?”
You frown. “No.”
She points to the fading mark behind your ear. “I’m 14 not stupid, you didn’t even try to cover it.”
You roll your eyes. “I don’t-” you start but she makes a face. “Kaiya, yes I’m seeing someone, that’s not what this is about.”
She lifts her eyebrows like she doesn’t believe you.
“You are so much like your father,” you say it without thinking.
She makes an annoyed sound. “Yeah except you know where I am.”
You can’t help it, not sure when you’ll have a better opening. Maybe you’re just as bad as him. “Now you have that in common with him too.”
You say it casually. A phone call with her therapist early in the morning had assured you that there was no good or right way to tell her, though he did suggest having Caleb jump out of a box and yell surprise was probably not great. It was the way you responded to her reaction that mattered. It was important to validate whatever feelings she did have about it.
You watch your daughter, with her father’s nose and her father’s sharp eyes. She tilts her chin and furrows her brow and then her head twitches to one side before she finds your eyes. “Mom,” she says, her voice is as stern as a 14 year old’s voice can be. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be,” you say earnestly, palms up and open on the table between you. “And for the record, your father isn’t funny either.”
Sorry it took me forever to fix the wrong blog issue
After the explosion your ability to resonate seems to disappear, with the added pressure of your health you are dismissed by the Hunter’s association. You turn your sights to other dreams and begin teaching music. Which is how you meet Sylus. After studio hours, apartment living does not lend itself to practising, you find yourself practising in his newly acquired Karaoke bar. Which is how he finds himself in your studio asking you to teach him to sing.
Rated R MDNI
Ships: Reader/Sylus
Tags: Canon Adjacent, Fake Dating, Love Triangles Resolved, Smut, Angst, Grief, Descriptions of Violence, Oral Sex, Body worship, Hurt/comfort, Catharsis[Chapter One] [AO3] [>>]
Chapter 15
The leader of Onychinus being married is still a rumor and you are still in mild to moderate danger but Sylus lets you take the lead. He doesn’t tell you that he knows the man you’re talking about. Doesn’t tell you that he’d already been planning to introduce you, though he’d pictured it happening in Phillip’s workshop not The Snake.
The Snake has existed since before the catastrophe plunged the N109 into darkness. In what was once known as the Garden district. The Snake in the Garden was just cheeky enough to entice without being cheesy. It had always been a little below board as far as Sylus knew.
He arrives for the card game, alone. The twins will make sure you’re wired, armed, and protected when you arrive a little over an hour after him. He focuses on the cards and lets you do what you do best.
What you do best, you’re discovering, is unnerve people who’ve wronged you.
You park Caleb’s old bike next to Sylus’ new one and make your way into the bar with your helmet still on. You spot him when you wave to Philip. Sitting on a stool just behind your old family friend, fiddling with an amp and a bass guitar is, Jaimie.
The man who sold you out.
You didn’t blame him at the time. The logical part of your mind understands why he would do it. You were a stranger and Onychinus has a lot of power, especially here, but he did put a dollar amount on your life and you’re starting to think that it might have been insultingly low.
Maybe Sylus is rubbing off on you.
He glances at the movement and you seize the opportunity to take off your Helmet.
“Uncle Phillip,” you call out. “I can’t believe it’s been so long.”
“I can’t believe you’re still calling me Uncle,” The older man chuckles. “You’re a whole adult now, kiddo.”
“Only on paper,” you shrug.
The bass player coughs.
“Thought the songs you mentioned might sound better with a rhythm section. Drummer’s in the back room watchin’ the card game, that’s Jaimie on bass,” he snaps his fingers to get the other man’s attention, like it hadn’t been on you since the helmet came off. “Y/N,” he wraps and arm around your shoulder and huffs a laugh. “My niece, came all the way from Linkon to sing a few songs with me. Sweet kid huh?”
“Yeah,” Jaimie mumbles.
You smile and reach out your hand. “You ever play in Linkon? You look really familiar.”
He shrugs. “No, don’t think so.”
“We’ll do a quick line check in ten,” Phillip tells you. “Pub’ll start to fill up in 15 or 20 and we’ll get this show on the road, audience usually only lasts long enough to eat but sometimes lady lucks forgotten soldiers will stick around.”
You nod as he fills you in on all the things he’d skimmed in his email and you keep the bassist in your peripheral the whole time. Phillip points you to the bathroom so you can fix your hair and makeup, and when you step out Sylus is waiting. His hand skims your waist as he slips past you in the tight hallway to get to the washroom. Like any stranger might.
You order a round of bourbon shots before you go back to Phillip’s makeshift stage. When you offer them to the three men you make a point of picking one up and holding it out to Jaimie.
“No thank you,” the big man says, shaking his head.
“Really?” Phillip snorts, obviously surprised.
The bassist shakes his head.
You shrug and take the shot yourself.
“More for me,” the drummer snorts when two shots are left on the little tray.
It’s a simple gig. You sing some Folk, Blues, and older Rock songs to a small crowd mostly there for food and drink and you let the nostalgia build a middle ground between you and Phillip. You banter a little with him, talk about being a little girl in Gran’s kitchen begging him to play one more song while Josephine and Caleb tried to get you to go to bed.
It’s a sweet little bonus that he hired the man who handed you over to Onychinus.
When the crowd at the bar starts to thin out and the poker game winds down, a bored Sylus slips out to watch you. You don’t miss him standing by the bar and neither does Jaimie, his fingers clumsy for a bar or two before he recovers.
For fun you let your eyes widen and your shoulders tense while looking at Sylus, and glance nervously over your shoulder so the bass player notices.
Sylus barely lifts an eyebrow in response. You call a rough song from your list, something that flits between defiance and fear and you sing it directly at Sylus.
He plays into the bit.
He doesn’t have to know the scheme to know he wants to see the scene play out. He migrates slowly so that by the climax of the song he is standing in front of you, an arms length away. He watches you with a challenge in his posture and you take it. You twist your fist in the front of his shirt as you belt the climax of the song directly at him, faking something like fearful defiance.
You’re trying to give; how did you find me?
He lets you manhandle him, staggering forward and backwards with your push and pull, all the while smirking at you.
You give him a wink as the song ends shoving him with a flat palm so that he stumbles backwards brushing the wrinkles out of his shirt.
While you thank the diminished crowd and announce that this is your last song, Phillip is looking between you and Sylus, his face drawn in concentration as he tries to put the pieces together. Sylus stays where he is.
“Do you know who that is?” Jaimie hisses. “You could get us all killed.”
You smirk as you chug some water while Jaimie tunes his bass for the fifth time. “Now that it’s a you problem you don’t seem as remorseful.” You say lowly. “Or did you run and hide before Onychinus showed up to claim me?”
Oblivious Phillip signals the drummer and the last song starts up. A few card game losers stop for a moment to watch before they begin their walk of shame home but by the time the last chord rings out the pub is practically empty aside from the deep pockets in the back room.
Hearing your jibe to the bassist in his earpiece Sylus puts the pieces of your game together. Before you can start to tear down the stage he hugs you around the waist like he’d watched Xavier do, and swings you in a wide circle before planting a chaste kiss to your lips and setting you back on your feet. “Amazing, fantastic, a life changing experience,” he coos smoothing out your hair.
“Mm,” you hum. “Your review reeks of bias, I’m not sure I can accept it.”
Sylus tucks his knuckle under your chin and tilts your face towards him. “You need to learn to take a compliment, Sweetie,” he says before kissing you on the forehead. “Don’t worry I’ll offer you plenty of opportunities.”
The bassist is frozen.
“Good to see you again, Sylus,” Phillip nods as he wraps cables. “Just gonna sit there Jaime?”
“Rather die with my bass in my hands then wrapping fucking cables,” he mutters.
“You sure,” you say loud enough for anyone to hear this time. “That you sold me to the old crow?” You glance at Sylus. “Sy, it’s one thing to waste money on gifts but if you wanted to see me you could have just said.”
“Onychinus wanted the girl with the aether core,” he sputters. “Man who paid me said she was a gift for the Crow.”
“Everyday I get to see you is a gift,” Sylus shrugs
“Fuck off,” you say stifling a laugh.
“She’s a gem,” Sylus nods his head smiling fondly before business takes over. “She’s right though. Why would anyone purchase my wife as a gift for me?”
“The man said–”
He interrupts. “She has my black card, why would I offer a reward for a woman who holds my heart and my wallet.”
“She had an Aether core!” The bassist argues. “Wore it around her neck like she wanted to get got!”
“This?” You pull the red pendant out from under your shirt. “It’s just a fucking garnet.”
“A gift from me,” Sylus says tucking his finger under the chain. “Even if it was an Aether core, she’s still my wife, did you not consider why they would want a spoiled rich girl unconscious before they hauled her off.”
You snort at the lore he makes up as he goes along.
“They put a call out for a name, that you lied about,” Jaimie hisses.
“Cameron,” Phillip assumes.
“I don’t know his name,” Jaimie shouts. “He told me–”
“He lied,” you snap. “And he ripped you off.”
“He gave me 10 grand,” the bassist defends.
“Only ten?” Sylus tsks, disappointed. “He always was cheap, I told him time after time if he’d just pay a fair price he’d keep his knuckles clean.”
You intertwine your fingers with Sylus and without warning you feel the familiar energy humming just below the surface.
A memory floods your vision, of you and Caleb as children. A storm raging outside your open window as Caleb held you while you cried and shook. The way your evol had simmered then as you dug your fingers into his bare arms you felt the weight of his evol and used it to slam the window shut.
Red Mist forms in the empty space in front of you and you can feel Sylus tense beside you. It twists around the bassist and pulls him to his knees in front of you.
“My love?” Sylus questions as your grip on his hand relaxes.
You let control of Sylus’ evol slip back into his hands. You watch as he cocks his head and blinks at you before he gives the big man on his knees in front of you a little shake. “What shall we do with him.”
“Let him go,” you sigh. “I’m not a monster, not like Cameron was. I’m sure he needed the money. Just maybe vet the next gangster you sell a person to, or maybe consider not selling people at all.”
You’ve never seen someone pack up a bass so fast.
“Friend of yours, Kiddo?” Phillip asks when the door swings shut behind Jaimie.
You step forward to help tear down only to find yourself tugged back, as Sylus huffs out a soft; “That’s enough, Kitten.”
“Shit,” you curse reigning yourself in.
Phillip whistles through his teeth. “Haven’t seen you do that in a while.”
“You knew it was me?” You ask, head snapping towards him so fast Sylus’ neck hurts.
Phillip nods. “Saw you play with Caleb’s evol, once or twice.”
“It was a first for me,” Sylus says. “She did shackle us once when she was unconscious however.
“It went away on it’s own after a few hours,” you added with a blush.
Phillip nods. “I’ll finish packing up and meet the two of you at the shop.”
“The shop?” You look at Sylus.
“Alright, come on, Kitten,” he says, hand finding yours. He grabs your bag from where it sits and slings it over his shoulder before hooking your helmet on his fingers and leading you out of the bar.
“You knew him already?” You snap.
“I’d been planning to take you to meet him,” he shrugs leading you towards the bikes. “Your plan was convenient.”
“You could have said you knew him,” you stop and dig your heels in.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Sylus shrugs. “I didn’t warn him I was coming.”
“Sylus,” you say his name like a warning and watch him straighten up. “You’ve been, honest with me up to now, why lie about this it seems so small?”
He stands in front of you, jaw clenched for a moment as he frowns down at you. The hand with the helmet moves, like he wants to reach for you. He makes a small frustrated noise. “I needed to see,” he starts and when you open your mouth to interrupt he tugs your hand to keep you quiet. “Your interactions had to be genuine,” he clarifies.
“Sylus-”
“If I had told you I knew him,” he snaps. “Would you have behaved exactly as you did tonight or would you have adjusted your behavior based on the information I would have disclosed.”
“I had a plan,” you say through your own gritted teeth. “Whatever intel you gave me would have only-”
“Exactly,” Sylus sighs running a hand through his hair. “I trust that you are capable, your plan was effective and you even found the surprise at the bottom of the bag,” he says, relaxing. “But we both know you are trained to consider all the information you have. I know you will always default to your Hunter conditioning, frankly it’s been an asset, this was not the time.”
“I don’t understand,” you complain trying to throw your hands up in frustration and then growling when he holds tight.
“Sweetie, I needed you to behave naturally,” Sylus says stepping closer. He speaks to you like a cornered animal. “Phillip is smart, you don’t dodge Ever for this long without being smart.”
“Dodge Ev-”
“If you’d known,” he continues dropping the helmet to cup your cheek in his palm. “You’d have acted different and he’d have known. You’d never have gotten anything out of him. Now he knows who you are, and he knows we’re working together. We both need the level of trust that will allow us.”
He watches all the fight bleed out of you as you rest your cheek in his palm. He tugs you closer by the hip as he presses his lips against yours. Sighing as you kiss him back and press yourself closer to him.
“Sylus?” You ask, barely pulling away, lips still brushing his as the curl into a smile. “Are you hard right now?”
He laughs under his breath.
“From arguing?” Now you do pull away, eyeing him with incredulous amusement.
“No, Sweetie,” he huffs. “It didn’t help, but it’s not from arguing.”
You stare for a moment, the picture forming in your mind before you gasp. “Because I used your Evol?”
He kisses you again, growling and breaking away when some passing hooligans whistle and holler. “Is there a fool who wouldn’t be affected after being used by a beautiful woman?”
You laugh but your cheeks are pink. “Sylus.”
“Hmm,” he hums leaning back in.
“Your dumb lie was pointless, I barely asked Phillip anything,” you snort.
He pulls away. “What?”
“I mean he did trust me,” you shrug and cross your arms. “It did work, but I as going to talk while I helped him pack up, then double back when he left,” you slip past him and snag your helmet from the ground. “You said the card game went all night.”
“It was boring,” Sylus shrugs.
You swing your leg over your bike. “Uh huh.”
“I was waiting for you, Kitten,” he says helping you with your helmet. ”Ensuring your safety, listening to the same boring stories, the same boring threats.”
“The same boring bullshit.” You roll your eyes and flip your visor closed as you flip the starter on Caleb’s old bike.
“Stay on this street, Sweetie,” he points. “4 blocks that way then take the left, don’t worry about going the wrong way, look for Mephisto, he’ll show you the rest of the way.”
You rev the engine once and pull away trusting him to move.
The streets here are eerily empty, with fewer working streetlights the farther from the bar you get. It’s late, you tell yourself even though it’s not that late, this is strange even for the N109. There are pedestrians sometimes. Nothing notable to link them together you wonder if perhaps this part of the N109 is, more walkable, perhaps safer?
You give up worrying about it. If it wasn’t safe Sylus wouldn’t have let you leave on your own.
“Don’t forget left turn, you’ll think it’s the wrong way,” his voice says over the line in your ear.
You do what he says. Looking for the crow as you turn towards the big red wrong way sign.
It looks like an abandoned barn. Mephisto looks extremely at home perched in the spiderweb coated eves. You can hear the groan of Sylus’ bike getting closer as you kill your own engine so you drop the kickstand and wait.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Sylus chuckles, flipping his visor up.
You snap it back down and pull him closer, fixing your lipstick in the reflection. “Wasn’t waiting,” you wink turning towards the barn.
Phillip is waiting when you turn, yellow light spilling out around him, an amused look on his face. “Sorry Boss, I wanna see the girl alone first.”
Sylus frowns at Phillip while you mouth the word Boss at him. “The girl is just as much your Boss as I am,” he shrugs.
“If Josephine was still around I’d argue more,” Phillip says stepping outside to make room for you to pass.
You set your helmet on a work bench as you follow him through the shop. He points to chair that looks like it belongs in a dentists office.
“Sit,” he tells you. “How long have you known him?”
“A few months,” you shrug, hesitating for a moment before you do what he says.
“So after,” he nods. “You took longer than I expected to find me.”
“I don’t exactly spend much time in the N109,” you say cooly.
“I suppose a Hunter might not,” he nods. “You have been lately though.”
“Hunter,” you huff. “You didn’t come to the hospital.”
“Wasn’t safe,” Phillip shrugs, back still to you as he digs through notebooks.
“You didn’t come to the funerals.”
“With you in the Hunters, and anyone else who might be watching, would’ve been risky to come to Linkon.”
“What about after?” You press.
“Risky,” he repeats. “You had the association at your back.”
“Did I?” You say with a little more bite than you meant. “No Gran, no Caleb, my Evol on the fritz, I was barely on my feet before the association cut me loose. All I had was Zayne and Xavier and you were here. Hiding.”
“I sent my con-” he starts before spinning. “Your evol worked fine at The Snake.”
“If working fine means activating without warning after more than a year of nothing, then–”
“When did it stop?”
“When can Sylus come in?” You retort.
Phillip sighs. “He-”
“Like I said we met a few months ago, by chance. He’s not manipulating me, he–”
“Didn’t tell you he knew me,” Phillip points out.
“Yeah he thinks he’s smart, it’s kinda my job to prove him wrong,” you snort. “Since we’ve met he’s been there every time I needed him, he’s the only person in my life who doesn’t treat me like glass because of my heart or my evol.”
“Your grandmother’s notes,” Phillip says.
“I read them, with Sylus watching,” you snap. “Can he come in?”
Phillip inhales deeply and then walks slowly towards the door to beckon him in.
“I trust she’s convinced you I’m not mistreating her?” Sylus says, setting his helmet next to yours.
“She says,” Phillip shrugs. “Might be lying.”
Sylus chuckles.
When Phillip comes back to you it starts to feel like a visit to Zayne’s office, only clumsier. “When did your Evol stop working?” He asks again as he shines a light in your eye.
“A few months before the explosion is when I noticed it, it could have been longer but that’s the first time it happened and I couldn’t explain it,” you tell him as he checks your pulse.
Sylus stands with a hand on your shoulder watching.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, I was on a mission with Xavier, we were cornered but there was no reason, nothing to cut the connection, it was us verses a mid-tier wanderer,” you shrug.
“You weren’t angry at your partner?”
“No?”
“Scared? Anything that might make you question your opinion of thim?”
“Nothing, it cornered us because we let it, adrenaline was pumping but even with just my pistols it went down pretty easy,” you huff.
Phillips eyes flick to Sylus for a fraction of a second. “After that?”
“I don’t know, it got steadily worse, they were putting me on stress leave calling it a vacation, and then after the explosion it was gone. I threw myself at trial after trial, I followed Xav to the no hunt, never more than a spark until that Wanderer at the Karaoke club.”
Phillip is scanning his open notebook. “What happened?”
“Zayne gave me some journals of Gran’s,” you tell him as he starts to hook you up to electrodes. “This wanderer appears, and Sylus grabbed my hand so we could lead it out of the club and I just,” you sigh trying to not move too much. “I wasn’t trying to but I just felt it happen.”
“The shackle?” He asks turning to a monitor.
“She was unconscious,” Sylus repeats.
“Protocore syndrome flair, I fainted” you explain. “Sylus saw, I don’t know what happened.”
“And when it ended?” Phillip presses.
“Oh my god,” you complain when you remember.
Sylus chuckles. “I was cooking for her.”
Phillip glances between you dubiously and then back to the monitor. “Any other evol moments?”
“Just tonight,” Sylus says.
“Uh huh,” Phillip nods flipping through another notebook. “Usually, for your evol to stop working something has to be blocking it, or disconnecting you from them. Your hunter partner were you upset at him?”
“No,” you shake your head.
He frowns. “Anything different between you?”
“No,” you repeat.
“After the explosion makes sense, I imagine you were disgusted with the state of things, maybe,” he trails off flipping through more pages. “Caleb was always the better conduit,” he mumbles.
“What does that mean?” You snap again but Sylus tightens his hand on your shoulder.
“But you’re an untested variable,” he points at Sylus.
You glance behind you in time to see Sylus nod. Phillip tugs the electrodes off of you and pulls a lever.
“Let’s get this over with,” Sylus says, sounding almost bored. Phillip tosses you a dull looking long sword as an iron curtain crashes down to separate you. “Watch your back, Kitten,” Sylus calls as you feel metaflux gathering to your left.
With more trust in your ability to access your evol the G-2BW goes down without much fuss. You and Sylus work together with ease, anticipating each others moves like a well oiled machine. You retrieve it’s protocore and drop it on the workbench next to Phillip.
“It’s a shame,” Phillip says, sentence drifting off.
“I don’t think it is,” Sylus says coldly. “I don’t think you’d like the reality of that thought.”
Phillip looks at Sylus as though he’s deep in thought. “I suppose you’re probably right. We were already in over out heads.”
“What does that mean?” You demand.
“Josephine was better than the rest of us. We should have listened to her, we–” he shakes his head. “But it is what it is.”
Sylus snorts.
“You read her journals, you’re here for a reason I suppose,” Phillip sighs.
“I thought you might be able to explain them,” you tell him.
He sighs, slumping against the workbench while Sylus wraps a protective arm around your waist. “Then you know your weren’t adopted?” He clarifies.
“Yeah,” you snort. “I figured.”
“There’s not much I can tell you,” he starts.
“You were there,” you point out.
“I’ll rephrase that,” he sighs. “I could tell you everything I know but it would sound like a lie without context.” He points to Sylus. “He probably knows more about you than I do.”
You turn.
Sylus looks unbothered. “I might, but much the same I think there needs to be more context.”
“You were an experiment,” Phillip says. “You and Caleb. The Gaia Research group had a facility, Josephine didn’t adopt you, she didn’t smuggle you out but she was the only one of us to develop a conscience before it was too late.”
“Too late?” You try to clarify.
“If you want answers find the Gaia research facility,” Phillip says. “Anything else I could say would sound like fiction, if you find the facility you wont need my answers.”
“That’s it?” You huff. “That’s all?”
“Come on, Sweetie,” Sylus says.
“Don’t get me started,” you turn on him.
“You can slap me around all you want at home,” he says leading you towards the door. “We’ve been here too long, it’s starting to get risky.”
Sorry! updating moved to Tuesday, disability is shockingly disabling. It's wet and cold and between review for my midterm and working on my music therapy song assignment my hands are distroyed (fully relaxed my middle 3 fingers are so stiff they dont touch the table)
There will be an update this week and I will fix the wrong blog update this weekend I totally forgot. I'm hoping now that since February is over and the deep seated belief that someone i knoe will die at any moment recedes that everything will feel much less overwhelming. I have gotten some backlog done in the last week at the very least but-
To do list/life update/Excuses under the cut
My car broke down Monday
I have my specialization application for my degree (with a 2 page essay) in 2 weeks
also met with my advisor and I'm basically just no break until graduation
my thesis statement is due next week
I just submitted my midterm assignment for practising music
I have to submit my topic for my music therapy song tomorrow
taxes/loan applications
end of the season skating competition for my son
and I have to find time and money to go to 4 concerts with specific criteria in 3 weeks
After the explosion your ability to resonate seems to disappear, with the added pressure of your health you are dismissed by the Hunter’s association. You turn your sights to other dreams and begin teaching music. Which is how you meet Sylus. After studio hours, apartment living does not lend itself to practising, you find yourself practising in his newly acquired Karaoke bar. Which is how he finds himself in your studio asking you to teach him to sing.
Rated R MDNI
Ships: Reader/Sylus
Tags: Canon Adjacent, Fake Dating, Love Triangles Resolved, Smut, Angst, Grief, Descriptions of Violence, Oral Sex, Body worship, Hurt/comfort, Catharsis[Chapter One] [AO3] [>>]
Chapter 15
The leader of Onychinus being married is still a rumor and you are still in mild to moderate danger but Sylus lets you take the lead. He doesn’t tell you that he knows the man you’re talking about. Doesn’t tell you that he’d already been planning to introduce you, though he’d pictured it happening in Phillip’s workshop not The Snake.
The Snake has existed since before the catastrophe plunged the N109 into darkness. In what was once known as the Garden district. The Snake in the Garden was just cheeky enough to entice without being cheesy. It had always been a little below board as far as Sylus knew.
He arrives for the card game, alone. The twins will make sure you’re wired, armed, and protected when you arrive a little over an hour after him. He focuses on the cards and lets you do what you do best.
What you do best, you’re discovering, is unnerve people who’ve wronged you.
You park Caleb’s old bike next to Sylus’ new one and make your way into the bar with your helmet still on. You spot him when you wave to Philip. Sitting on a stool just behind your old family friend, fiddling with an amp and a bass guitar is, Jaimie.
The man who sold you out.
You didn’t blame him at the time. The logical part of your mind understands why he would do it. You were a stranger and Onychinus has a lot of power, especially here, but he did put a dollar amount on your life and you’re starting to think that it might have been insultingly low.
Maybe Sylus is rubbing off on you.
He glances at the movement and you seize the opportunity to take off your Helmet.
“Uncle Phillip,” you call out. “I can’t believe it’s been so long.”
“I can’t believe you’re still calling me Uncle,” The older man chuckles. “You’re a whole adult now, kiddo.”
“Only on paper,” you shrug.
The bass player coughs.
“Thought the songs you mentioned might sound better with a rhythm section. Drummer’s in the back room watchin’ the card game, that’s Jaimie on bass,” he snaps his fingers to get the other man’s attention, like it hadn’t been on you since the helmet came off. “Y/N,” he wraps and arm around your shoulder and huffs a laugh. “My niece, came all the way from Linkon to sing a few songs with me. Sweet kid huh?”
“Yeah,” Jaimie mumbles.
You smile and reach out your hand. “You ever play in Linkon? You look really familiar.”
He shrugs. “No, don’t think so.”
“We’ll do a quick line check in ten,” Phillip tells you. “Pub’ll start to fill up in 15 or 20 and we’ll get this show on the road, audience usually only lasts long enough to eat but sometimes lady lucks forgotten soldiers will stick around.”
You nod as he fills you in on all the things he’d skimmed in his email and you keep the bassist in your peripheral the whole time. Phillip points you to the bathroom so you can fix your hair and makeup, and when you step out Sylus is waiting. His hand skims your waist as he slips past you in the tight hallway to get to the washroom. Like any stranger might.
You order a round of bourbon shots before you go back to Phillip’s makeshift stage. When you offer them to the three men you make a point of picking one up and holding it out to Jaimie.
“No thank you,” the big man says, shaking his head.
“Really?” Phillip snorts, obviously surprised.
The bassist shakes his head.
You shrug and take the shot yourself.
“More for me,” the drummer snorts when two shots are left on the little tray.
It’s a simple gig. You sing some Folk, Blues, and older Rock songs to a small crowd mostly there for food and drink and you let the nostalgia build a middle ground between you and Phillip. You banter a little with him, talk about being a little girl in Gran’s kitchen begging him to play one more song while Josephine and Caleb tried to get you to go to bed.
It’s a sweet little bonus that he hired the man who handed you over to Onychinus.
When the crowd at the bar starts to thin out and the poker game winds down, a bored Sylus slips out to watch you. You don’t miss him standing by the bar and neither does Jaimie, his fingers clumsy for a bar or two before he recovers.
For fun you let your eyes widen and your shoulders tense while looking at Sylus, and glance nervously over your shoulder so the bass player notices.
Sylus barely lifts an eyebrow in response. You call a rough song from your list, something that flits between defiance and fear and you sing it directly at Sylus.
He plays into the bit.
He doesn’t have to know the scheme to know he wants to see the scene play out. He migrates slowly so that by the climax of the song he is standing in front of you, an arms length away. He watches you with a challenge in his posture and you take it. You twist your fist in the front of his shirt as you belt the climax of the song directly at him, faking something like fearful defiance.
You’re trying to give; how did you find me?
He lets you manhandle him, staggering forward and backwards with your push and pull, all the while smirking at you.
You give him a wink as the song ends shoving him with a flat palm so that he stumbles backwards brushing the wrinkles out of his shirt.
While you thank the diminished crowd and announce that this is your last song, Phillip is looking between you and Sylus, his face drawn in concentration as he tries to put the pieces together. Sylus stays where he is.
“Do you know who that is?” Jaimie hisses. “You could get us all killed.”
You smirk as you chug some water while Jaimie tunes his bass for the fifth time. “Now that it’s a you problem you don’t seem as remorseful.” You say lowly. “Or did you run and hide before Onychinus showed up to claim me?”
Oblivious Phillip signals the drummer and the last song starts up. A few card game losers stop for a moment to watch before they begin their walk of shame home but by the time the last chord rings out the pub is practically empty aside from the deep pockets in the back room.
Hearing your jibe to the bassist in his earpiece Sylus puts the pieces of your game together. Before you can start to tear down the stage he hugs you around the waist like he’d watched Xavier do, and swings you in a wide circle before planting a chaste kiss to your lips and setting you back on your feet. “Amazing, fantastic, a life changing experience,” he coos smoothing out your hair.
“Mm,” you hum. “Your review reeks of bias, I’m not sure I can accept it.”
Sylus tucks his knuckle under your chin and tilts your face towards him. “You need to learn to take a compliment, Sweetie,” he says before kissing you on the forehead. “Don’t worry I’ll offer you plenty of opportunities.”
The bassist is frozen.
“Good to see you again, Sylus,” Phillip nods as he wraps cables. “Just gonna sit there Jaime?”
“Rather die with my bass in my hands then wrapping fucking cables,” he mutters.
“You sure,” you say loud enough for anyone to hear this time. “That you sold me to the old crow?” You glance at Sylus. “Sy, it’s one thing to waste money on gifts but if you wanted to see me you could have just said.”
“Onychinus wanted the girl with the aether core,” he sputters. “Man who paid me said she was a gift for the Crow.”
“Everyday I get to see you is a gift,” Sylus shrugs
“Fuck off,” you say stifling a laugh.
“She’s a gem,” Sylus nods his head smiling fondly before business takes over. “She’s right though. Why would anyone purchase my wife as a gift for me?”
“The man said–”
He interrupts. “She has my black card, why would I offer a reward for a woman who holds my heart and my wallet.”
“She had an Aether core!” The bassist argues. “Wore it around her neck like she wanted to get got!”
“This?” You pull the red pendant out from under your shirt. “It’s just a fucking garnet.”
“A gift from me,” Sylus says tucking his finger under the chain. “Even if it was an Aether core, she’s still my wife, did you not consider why they would want a spoiled rich girl unconscious before they hauled her off.”
You snort at the lore he makes up as he goes along.
“They put a call out for a name, that you lied about,” Jaimie hisses.
“Cameron,” Phillip assumes.
“I don’t know his name,” Jaimie shouts. “He told me–”
“He lied,” you snap. “And he ripped you off.”
“He gave me 10 grand,” the bassist defends.
“Only ten?” Sylus tsks, disappointed. “He always was cheap, I told him time after time if he’d just pay a fair price he’d keep his knuckles clean.”
You intertwine your fingers with Sylus and without warning you feel the familiar energy humming just below the surface.
A memory floods your vision, of you and Caleb as children. A storm raging outside your open window as Caleb held you while you cried and shook. The way your evol had simmered then as you dug your fingers into his bare arms you felt the weight of his evol and used it to slam the window shut.
Red Mist forms in the empty space in front of you and you can feel Sylus tense beside you. It twists around the bassist and pulls him to his knees in front of you.
“My love?” Sylus questions as your grip on his hand relaxes.
You let control of Sylus’ evol slip back into his hands. You watch as he cocks his head and blinks at you before he gives the big man on his knees in front of you a little shake. “What shall we do with him.”
“Let him go,” you sigh. “I’m not a monster, not like Cameron was. I’m sure he needed the money. Just maybe vet the next gangster you sell a person to, or maybe consider not selling people at all.”
You’ve never seen someone pack up a bass so fast.
“Friend of yours, Kiddo?” Phillip asks when the door swings shut behind Jaimie.
You step forward to help tear down only to find yourself tugged back, as Sylus huffs out a soft; “That’s enough, Kitten.”
“Shit,” you curse reigning yourself in.
Phillip whistles through his teeth. “Haven’t seen you do that in a while.”
“You knew it was me?” You ask, head snapping towards him so fast Sylus’ neck hurts.
Phillip nods. “Saw you play with Caleb’s evol, once or twice.”
“It was a first for me,” Sylus says. “She did shackle us once when she was unconscious however.
“It went away on it’s own after a few hours,” you added with a blush.
Phillip nods. “I’ll finish packing up and meet the two of you at the shop.”
“The shop?” You look at Sylus.
“Alright, come on, Kitten,” he says, hand finding yours. He grabs your bag from where it sits and slings it over his shoulder before hooking your helmet on his fingers and leading you out of the bar.
“You knew him already?” You snap.
“I’d been planning to take you to meet him,” he shrugs leading you towards the bikes. “Your plan was convenient.”
“You could have said you knew him,” you stop and dig your heels in.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything,” Sylus shrugs. “I didn’t warn him I was coming.”
“Sylus,” you say his name like a warning and watch him straighten up. “You’ve been, honest with me up to now, why lie about this it seems so small?”
He stands in front of you, jaw clenched for a moment as he frowns down at you. The hand with the helmet moves, like he wants to reach for you. He makes a small frustrated noise. “I needed to see,” he starts and when you open your mouth to interrupt he tugs your hand to keep you quiet. “Your interactions had to be genuine,” he clarifies.
“Sylus-”
“If I had told you I knew him,” he snaps. “Would you have behaved exactly as you did tonight or would you have adjusted your behavior based on the information I would have disclosed.”
“I had a plan,” you say through your own gritted teeth. “Whatever intel you gave me would have only-”
“Exactly,” Sylus sighs running a hand through his hair. “I trust that you are capable, your plan was effective and you even found the surprise at the bottom of the bag,” he says, relaxing. “But we both know you are trained to consider all the information you have. I know you will always default to your Hunter conditioning, frankly it’s been an asset, this was not the time.”
“I don’t understand,” you complain trying to throw your hands up in frustration and then growling when he holds tight.
“Sweetie, I needed you to behave naturally,” Sylus says stepping closer. He speaks to you like a cornered animal. “Phillip is smart, you don’t dodge Ever for this long without being smart.”
“Dodge Ev-”
“If you’d known,” he continues dropping the helmet to cup your cheek in his palm. “You’d have acted different and he’d have known. You’d never have gotten anything out of him. Now he knows who you are, and he knows we’re working together. We both need the level of trust that will allow us.”
He watches all the fight bleed out of you as you rest your cheek in his palm. He tugs you closer by the hip as he presses his lips against yours. Sighing as you kiss him back and press yourself closer to him.
“Sylus?” You ask, barely pulling away, lips still brushing his as the curl into a smile. “Are you hard right now?”
He laughs under his breath.
“From arguing?” Now you do pull away, eyeing him with incredulous amusement.
“No, Sweetie,” he huffs. “It didn’t help, but it’s not from arguing.”
You stare for a moment, the picture forming in your mind before you gasp. “Because I used your Evol?”
He kisses you again, growling and breaking away when some passing hooligans whistle and holler. “Is there a fool who wouldn’t be affected after being used by a beautiful woman?”
You laugh but your cheeks are pink. “Sylus.”
“Hmm,” he hums leaning back in.
“Your dumb lie was pointless, I barely asked Phillip anything,” you snort.
He pulls away. “What?”
“I mean he did trust me,” you shrug and cross your arms. “It did work, but I as going to talk while I helped him pack up, then double back when he left,” you slip past him and snag your helmet from the ground. “You said the card game went all night.”
“It was boring,” Sylus shrugs.
You swing your leg over your bike. “Uh huh.”
“I was waiting for you, Kitten,” he says helping you with your helmet. ”Ensuring your safety, listening to the same boring stories, the same boring threats.”
“The same boring bullshit.” You roll your eyes and flip your visor closed as you flip the starter on Caleb’s old bike.
“Stay on this street, Sweetie,” he points. “4 blocks that way then take the left, don’t worry about going the wrong way, look for Mephisto, he’ll show you the rest of the way.”
You rev the engine once and pull away trusting him to move.
The streets here are eerily empty, with fewer working streetlights the farther from the bar you get. It’s late, you tell yourself even though it’s not that late, this is strange even for the N109. There are pedestrians sometimes. Nothing notable to link them together you wonder if perhaps this part of the N109 is, more walkable, perhaps safer?
You give up worrying about it. If it wasn’t safe Sylus wouldn’t have let you leave on your own.
“Don’t forget left turn, you’ll think it’s the wrong way,” his voice says over the line in your ear.
You do what he says. Looking for the crow as you turn towards the big red wrong way sign.
It looks like an abandoned barn. Mephisto looks extremely at home perched in the spiderweb coated eves. You can hear the groan of Sylus’ bike getting closer as you kill your own engine so you drop the kickstand and wait.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Sylus chuckles, flipping his visor up.
You snap it back down and pull him closer, fixing your lipstick in the reflection. “Wasn’t waiting,” you wink turning towards the barn.
Phillip is waiting when you turn, yellow light spilling out around him, an amused look on his face. “Sorry Boss, I wanna see the girl alone first.”
Sylus frowns at Phillip while you mouth the word Boss at him. “The girl is just as much your Boss as I am,” he shrugs.
“If Josephine was still around I’d argue more,” Phillip says stepping outside to make room for you to pass.
You set your helmet on a work bench as you follow him through the shop. He points to chair that looks like it belongs in a dentists office.
“Sit,” he tells you. “How long have you known him?”
“A few months,” you shrug, hesitating for a moment before you do what he says.
“So after,” he nods. “You took longer than I expected to find me.”
“I don’t exactly spend much time in the N109,” you say cooly.
“I suppose a Hunter might not,” he nods. “You have been lately though.”
“Hunter,” you huff. “You didn’t come to the hospital.”
“Wasn’t safe,” Phillip shrugs, back still to you as he digs through notebooks.
“You didn’t come to the funerals.”
“With you in the Hunters, and anyone else who might be watching, would’ve been risky to come to Linkon.”
“What about after?” You press.
“Risky,” he repeats. “You had the association at your back.”
“Did I?” You say with a little more bite than you meant. “No Gran, no Caleb, my Evol on the fritz, I was barely on my feet before the association cut me loose. All I had was Zayne and Xavier and you were here. Hiding.”
“I sent my con-” he starts before spinning. “Your evol worked fine at The Snake.”
“If working fine means activating without warning after more than a year of nothing, then–”
“When did it stop?”
“When can Sylus come in?” You retort.
Phillip sighs. “He-”
“Like I said we met a few months ago, by chance. He’s not manipulating me, he–”
“Didn’t tell you he knew me,” Phillip points out.
“Yeah he thinks he’s smart, it’s kinda my job to prove him wrong,” you snort. “Since we’ve met he’s been there every time I needed him, he’s the only person in my life who doesn’t treat me like glass because of my heart or my evol.”
“Your grandmother’s notes,” Phillip says.
“I read them, with Sylus watching,” you snap. “Can he come in?”
Phillip inhales deeply and then walks slowly towards the door to beckon him in.
“I trust she’s convinced you I’m not mistreating her?” Sylus says, setting his helmet next to yours.
“She says,” Phillip shrugs. “Might be lying.”
Sylus chuckles.
When Phillip comes back to you it starts to feel like a visit to Zayne’s office, only clumsier. “When did your Evol stop working?” He asks again as he shines a light in your eye.
“A few months before the explosion is when I noticed it, it could have been longer but that’s the first time it happened and I couldn’t explain it,” you tell him as he checks your pulse.
Sylus stands with a hand on your shoulder watching.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know, I was on a mission with Xavier, we were cornered but there was no reason, nothing to cut the connection, it was us verses a mid-tier wanderer,” you shrug.
“You weren’t angry at your partner?”
“No?”
“Scared? Anything that might make you question your opinion of thim?”
“Nothing, it cornered us because we let it, adrenaline was pumping but even with just my pistols it went down pretty easy,” you huff.
Phillips eyes flick to Sylus for a fraction of a second. “After that?”
“I don’t know, it got steadily worse, they were putting me on stress leave calling it a vacation, and then after the explosion it was gone. I threw myself at trial after trial, I followed Xav to the no hunt, never more than a spark until that Wanderer at the Karaoke club.”
Phillip is scanning his open notebook. “What happened?”
“Zayne gave me some journals of Gran’s,” you tell him as he starts to hook you up to electrodes. “This wanderer appears, and Sylus grabbed my hand so we could lead it out of the club and I just,” you sigh trying to not move too much. “I wasn’t trying to but I just felt it happen.”
“The shackle?” He asks turning to a monitor.
“She was unconscious,” Sylus repeats.
“Protocore syndrome flair, I fainted” you explain. “Sylus saw, I don’t know what happened.”
“And when it ended?” Phillip presses.
“Oh my god,” you complain when you remember.
Sylus chuckles. “I was cooking for her.”
Phillip glances between you dubiously and then back to the monitor. “Any other evol moments?”
“Just tonight,” Sylus says.
“Uh huh,” Phillip nods flipping through another notebook. “Usually, for your evol to stop working something has to be blocking it, or disconnecting you from them. Your hunter partner were you upset at him?”
“No,” you shake your head.
He frowns. “Anything different between you?”
“No,” you repeat.
“After the explosion makes sense, I imagine you were disgusted with the state of things, maybe,” he trails off flipping through more pages. “Caleb was always the better conduit,” he mumbles.
“What does that mean?” You snap again but Sylus tightens his hand on your shoulder.
“But you’re an untested variable,” he points at Sylus.
You glance behind you in time to see Sylus nod. Phillip tugs the electrodes off of you and pulls a lever.
“Let’s get this over with,” Sylus says, sounding almost bored. Phillip tosses you a dull looking long sword as an iron curtain crashes down to separate you. “Watch your back, Kitten,” Sylus calls as you feel metaflux gathering to your left.
With more trust in your ability to access your evol the G-2BW goes down without much fuss. You and Sylus work together with ease, anticipating each others moves like a well oiled machine. You retrieve it’s protocore and drop it on the workbench next to Phillip.
“It’s a shame,” Phillip says, sentence drifting off.
“I don’t think it is,” Sylus says coldly. “I don’t think you’d like the reality of that thought.”
Phillip looks at Sylus as though he’s deep in thought. “I suppose you’re probably right. We were already in over out heads.”
“What does that mean?” You demand.
“Josephine was better than the rest of us. We should have listened to her, we–” he shakes his head. “But it is what it is.”
Sylus snorts.
“You read her journals, you’re here for a reason I suppose,” Phillip sighs.
“I thought you might be able to explain them,” you tell him.
He sighs, slumping against the workbench while Sylus wraps a protective arm around your waist. “Then you know your weren’t adopted?” He clarifies.
“Yeah,” you snort. “I figured.”
“There’s not much I can tell you,” he starts.
“You were there,” you point out.
“I’ll rephrase that,” he sighs. “I could tell you everything I know but it would sound like a lie without context.” He points to Sylus. “He probably knows more about you than I do.”
You turn.
Sylus looks unbothered. “I might, but much the same I think there needs to be more context.”
“You were an experiment,” Phillip says. “You and Caleb. The Gaia Research group had a facility, Josephine didn’t adopt you, she didn’t smuggle you out but she was the only one of us to develop a conscience before it was too late.”
“Too late?” You try to clarify.
“If you want answers find the Gaia research facility,” Phillip says. “Anything else I could say would sound like fiction, if you find the facility you wont need my answers.”
“That’s it?” You huff. “That’s all?”
“Come on, Sweetie,” Sylus says.
“Don’t get me started,” you turn on him.
“You can slap me around all you want at home,” he says leading you towards the door. “We’ve been here too long, it’s starting to get risky.”
Update will be up late, between Wednesday and Friday instead of by Sunday. I have a Psych Midterm Wednesday and forgot my research proposal is due Friday.
After an accident crushed your dreams of being a classical pianist, Zayne had run away. It's the only impulsive thing he's ever done in his entire life.
Until 10 years later, in an attempt to be more approachable, he ends up at a house party and there you are.
Rated R MDNI
Tags: University AU, Hurt/comfort, Catharsis, Depictions of grief, Self Indulgent, Fake Dating-ish, Past Car Accident, Amputee-Caleb
[AO3] [>>]
Chapter 1: Surprise Encounter
It’s not the first time Zayne has thought he’s seen you in a crowd.
Ten years is a lot of time to get over a person and he thinks he’s done a good job. Even if sometimes he smells your fabric softener in the elevator and it changes the tone for his whole day. It’s only sensory memory, the remnants of first love can do that.
So can trauma but Zayne isn’t traumatized. Nothing bad has really happened to him.
When he first left, he would often think he saw you in crowds, unsure if it was hope or fear he felt at the thought of you coming to find him. Unsure if he would prefer to run into you by chance or for you to have sought him out. He doesn’t allow himself the fantasy to think of you missing him, searching for him, travelling to find him years later.
Seeing the ghost of you, occasionally, over ten years was one thing but, twice this week was starting to worry him. During rounds he sees the profile of a woman carrying a heavy guitar case as she rushes to keep up with the woman ahead of her, as they disappear into an activity room he thinks the sweater she wears looks familiar.
He’s not the most social of the senior residents. He works, he studies, he sleeps too little, and runs when he needs to clear his mind, could he be starting to crack?
His roommate cajoles him into going out one night; just a pub with some friends.
Zayne sits awkwardly at the big pub table as everyone talks and laughs, he has absolutely nothing to say. He drinks water and he’s picking at a piece of cheesecake when he thinks he hears your laugh. His eyes find the back of a woman’s head, the plush toy hanging off her bag looks like a character you had liked.
Still, young love can linger, it lends its self to bouts of sentimental longing, so he doesn’t dwell on it. He goes for runs. He does all the things he normally does, unaffected. He shadows his attending and doesn’t look for the girl with the guitar.
“I think you’re an excellent student, and I know you'll be an excellent surgeon” his Advisor tells him. “But if the other interns are afraid of you, it’s going to be difficult to get a placement at a children's hospital, I know the kids like you but does anyone else?”
The blunt honesty would sting if he hadn’t heard it before. His Advisor, however, is correct so, the next time he has a night off he accepts an invite out. He doesn’t think much on it, there’s a mixer of some sort happening and he agrees to meet a classmate there. He assumes others are going from the way she speaks. He realizes twenty minutes in that he is on a date.
Which is fine. Probably.
He thinks he should at least get to know her, maybe he could like her enough to see her again but, she’s already taking liberties. Already acting more familiar than he thinks is appropriate. Touching his arm, his hand, sitting closer than strictly necessary. She leans into him when she laughs and Zayne thinks someone else might find it endearing but it just makes him uncomfortable.
“Why did you specialize in Pediatric Surgery?" She asks as though it wasn’t his icebreaker for every survey class.
“A childhood friend,” he starts, eyes catching a familiar figure at the end of the room. “She had a genetic-”
It’s not you he sees this time, Caleb’s silhouette is hard to forget. Almost always the tallest person in a room, tonight is no different. He’s filled out, his shoulders are broader, the childish roundness to his cheeks now sharp, he’s grown, become an adult since the last time Zayne had seen him, but the smile on his face hasn’t changed at all. The only problem is if Caleb is here; the laugh at the pub, the woman with the guitar?
She can only be you.
“Everything ok?” His accidental date asks.
“Mm? Fine, it’s fine,” he says as his heart rate betrays him. “I think I saw someone I know.”
“Oh? Should we go talk to them?” She asks, brightening up like they’re speedrunning the game of life.
“I haven’t seen him in a long time,” Zayne says waving her off. “I’ll wait.”
She shrugs and tucks her arm around his. “Ok, do you want a drink?”
He shakes his head.
“You don’t have to be DD, I live on campus,” she says, lowering her voice.
“I do not,” he tells her, feigning ignorance.
He can hear you laughing now. The bubbling sound of it floating toward him as he scans the room still finding only Caleb, if you’re with him you’re lost in the crowd around him as he plays a round of beer pong.
Zayne tries to make a plan to leave gracefully, tries to put some space between him and his classmate but for every inch of room he makes she takes three more close to him. He makes conversation on autopilot while he runs scenarios in his head.
“Oh thank god, there you are, Zayne,” he hears you say. “I thought I was at the wrong house party.”
He blinks, turning towards your voice, stumbling as he steps towards you.
“I’m so sorry I’m late, Baby,” you pout reaching for him like no time has past. Like he’s 16 years old and this is some high school house party Caleb had dragged him to using you as bait.
“It’s fine,” he says, trying to keep his voice even as you tuck yourself under his arm, like the space still belongs to you.
Maybe it did.
“Baby?” he hears beside him.
“Oh,” you smile sweetly reaching out a hand. “You must be Zayne’s friend, thank you for inviting him out, he’s always so busy he forgets to be a person,” you let your hand hang between you, smiling that saccharine smile that reads to Zayne as danger. You wait until she’s forced to shake your hand. “I’m glad he’s making friends.”
“Uh,” she says glancing between you. “You’re-”
“I’m Y/N,” you supply, like maybe she should know that.
“His,” she pauses and glances between the two of you. “Girlfriend?”
You nod. Across the room Zayne sees the moment Caleb finds you, then the moment he sees Zayne with you. Something that used to be familiar but now? He watches Caleb try not to grit his teeth as the crowd begins to slowly part in front of him.
“He doesn’t talk about you,” his not date says bluntly.
“Does he talk about anything besides the superior venus cava, or capillaries, or the circulatory system or whatever?” You snort.
“You’re dating?” She says again, incredulously.
“Since highschool,” Caleb adds, helping for some reason Zayne can’t comprehend. “12 years now right, Pips?”
You laugh. “Almost 13.”
“You’re dating?” She repeats
“God I hope so, why else would I have his handwriting tattooed on me?”
Zayne notices the way Caleb observes him as he does his best not to react when you roll up your sleeve to show her a small tattoo; 7 words in his own handwriting from a note he’d put in a bouquet of flowers when you’d gone in for what should have been your last surgery.
In spite of everything, you always survive.
He remembers watching the artist work when he couldn’t talk you out of it.
His not-date nods tightly and downs her drink.“Oh look,” she says. “I guess I need another drink, see you around.”
If it were possible Zayne thinks he would see steam coming from the woman’s ears
“I’m sorry,” you say when she’s out of earshot. “I’ve been trying to respect, you know,” you shrug and glance at your feet. He doesn’t know. “Whatever but, you just looked really uncomfortable.”
Caleb’s scrutiny is a physical thing. It coils around him and squeezes like a python.
“Thank you,” Zayne says. Lost for words.
“I guess you still can’t tell when someone is flirting with ya huh, Doc?” Caleb says. Fake smile plastered on his face.
“I suppose so,” he agrees.
Someone calls Caleb’s name and he shifts, putting himself between you and Zayne. “You good, Pips?”
“Caleb, I’m an adult,” you complain.
“Mmhm,” he says, turning back to Zayne. “She took the spite thing really serious.”
“I’ll spite you, if you don’t shut the fuck up,” you mutter.
He shrugs, crowd parting as he steps in the direction his name had come from.
“I’m not here,” you start. “ I mean I didn’t transfer here because of you,” you say. “I didn’t even know until–”
“How would you have known?” He frowns.
“I didn’t,” you huff. “That’s what I’m saying. I realized a week or two ago, when I saw your nam–”
“Thank you,” he says stopping you from saying more. “I was struggling to find a polite way to remove myself.”
“Hard to Irish Goodbye when you’re being held against your will I guess,” you smile.
“You don’t have to avoid me,” Zayne says without thinking.
“Ok,” you nod, hands clasped in front of you, looking at your feet.
“Are you free tomorrow?” he asks, without thinking.
“Zayne,” you sigh. “It’s been 10 years we can’t-”
“We can have coffee,” he says. “And talk. Nothing more.”
“We can have coffee,” you nod. “Ok and talk. Can I get your number?” You hold your phone out to him.
“It hasn’t changed,” he says not reaching out. He studies your face as a pretty blush dusts your cheeks.
You glance down at your phone and he’s distracted by the way your face has changed, there are more freckles scattered across your nose, you still do your make up the same and the hint of a tattoo peeks out behind your ear. He startles when his phone buzzes in his pocket.
“I want to say I can’t believe you never got a local number,” you smile. “But it’s kinda nice that you haven’t changed it.”
Someone calls your name and he tries to find the words to say something profound but nothing comes.
“I’ll let you know when I’m free,” you say over your shoulder as you disappear into the crowd.
Update by Sunday. It will be the new one, university AU med student zayne. I have a feeling this fic is gonna be my response to semester 2 of intro psych.
Update is posted. I'll try to get one more up before xmas but no promises. I'm still recovering from the flare and my brain is foggier than i thought, editing took me like 4 hours.
But all the big distraction are done after Tuesday
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