ducks

Reclining against one of the outpatient wing's exam chairs like streaks of crimson weren't staining the front of his button up, the ever elusive kingpin of the N109 Zone levels a smirk Zayne's way. "Was starting to worry you were trying to turn it into a second morgue, the way you've been rotting in there. Look how much effort it took me to lure you out."

Zayne crosses his arms to deflect the not-so-thinly veiled sarcasm that's being aimed his way, already regretting his decision to handle this himself instead of taking Greyson up on his offer. "I'm only here to tell you to stop bribing the staff. Again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to catch up on some-"

"And abandon a patient in need?" A mocking, surprised whistle has Zayne pausing, hand clenching against the door handle. "Guess the Hippocratic Oath means nothing these days."

"Our nurses are fully capable of treating your-"

"Aren't you the renowned cardiac specialist here, doctor? You haven't even made sure my poor little heart will live to beat another day." Zayne can't help himself, he turns to study the injury in the center of Sylus' chest, ignoring the satisfaction that fills those ruby-red irises. "Besides, I've heard there are new developments about your… heart as well."

The double entendre of that last sentence combined with his responsibility to make sure there really isn't anything wrong with the pulmonary health of his patient, welcome or not, makes Zayne take a seat on the stool positioned next to the exam chair.

"What have you heard?" The question is quiet, low enough not to be caught by any cameras.

Thanks to the events of that blood-drenched summer night — the events that resurfaced within Zayne a maelstrom of emotions he hadn't encountered since he was a child of 12 — neither of them could be quite certain how far Ever's slimy tendrils have reached.

"Turns out Xander Sciences and the Hunter's Association have two partnership contracts," Sylus murmurs, timing his words to be masked perfectly by the sound latex gloves being pulled on and fresh tools being unwrapped. "The one that was announced to the public… and the one they took great pains to keep hidden from prying eyes like mine."

Since they'd decided to join forces, Zayne's spent almost six months in this silver-haired devil's orbit. Uncovering conspiracies, hunting for secrets, and trading information all with one goal in mind: finding you.

And yet, even now Zayne finds himself quietly awed by the depth of this man's power. It isn't just his evol or his streak of ruthless violence or his smooth-tongued persuasiveness. It's his ability to gain and maintain absolute control over every situation. To take any risk, regardless of its moral weight, in order to protect what he considers his. And though he's loath to admit it, Zayne's gut can't help but stoke an ember of admiration for it.

Blood pressure, within parameters. Body temperature, within parameters. Heartbeat... irregularly fast but not any faster than usual.

Sylus' eyes close when Zayne gently presses along the bruised edges of what appears like a (mostly) self-healed bullet wound to the sternum. Either he's purposefully left the wound open so Zayne would have a reason to treat him, or Zayne's not the only one taking more risks these days.

He angles himself so their words stay shielded from the CCTV while giving him a clearer view of the wound. "Xander, not Ever?" he asks, trying to keep Sylus talking as he moves the fabric off his chest and injects a local anesthetic.

The sound of a quiet hiss makes Zayne's eyes flick up and hone in on the imprint of teeth in Sylus' bottom lip before catching half-lidded eyes.

He snaps his gaze back to the wound, forcing his attention onto the two sutures he’s about to place rather than the heat creeping into his cheeks. “The contract?” he clips out coolly.

"On the surface, it's exactly what it looks like. Xander Sciences offers the Hunters Association access to its biotech to heal Hunters during combat."

This much he’d already known: the Association had pushed the deal hard in the press. You yourself had benefited from the improved gear in the field.

"But?" Zayne frowns, his racing mind not nearly as steady as his fingers when they tie off the first knot.

“But underneath-” Zayne catches Sylus' tongue darting out to moisten his lips and tightens his fingers around the needle before he threading it across the torn skin once more, “-multiple shipments of unmarked crates were taken from the N109 Zone straight to Xander's facilities. No records of oversight, no inspection documentation. And the timing lines up a little too well with the night our hunter vanished into the protofield."

Zayne's quiet as he finishes off the second suture knot, wondering if his evol has the power to freeze the angry fire coursing through his body by the time he looks up.

"Looks like I'll be paying a visit to Xander Sciences soon," he concludes calmly. He starts to lean back and widen the space between them, a clear signal that this information exchange is over.

"No." Sylus’ low growl comes with a sharp tug, yanking Zayne back by the stethoscope with a firm, unyielding hand. "Don't you dare ruin this now, doctor. Not when we're so close."

Though he couldn't fully hide the sneer on his lips, Zayne's voice remained calm. "You're not nearly as clever as I thought if you believe I'd sit around knowing she might be in-"

"And you're not nearly as cunning as I thought if you believe I wouldn't happily rip that place to pieces to get her back." Their noses are a hair's breadth apart and Zayne can smell a berry-like tartness on his breath. See the faint shadows under his eyes. "But we need to be strategic about this. One wrong move and they hide her away. It'll be back to square one for both of us."

Zayne's jaw tightens when he realizes he's unable to dispute the logic. Instead, he ignores the his stethoscope-turned-leash, takes a gauze pad, and douses it with antiseptic, determined to finish his job here and leave.

As he cleanses the rest of the wound, a low moan rumbles from Sylus' throat. So quiet that, had their faces not been mere inches from each other, Zayne would’ve never heard it.

But he does hear it. And suddenly, he regrets leaving his office today, regrets not sending Greyson down here in his stead, because there’s something about the low, rumbling sound that shoots straight to his core.

It's the sound of restraint, of desperation.

Sylus' gaze catches Zayne's as he speaks in a low, coaxing voice, "Trust me to do this right."

Zayne finally rips himself away. He looks down at his hands, attempting to anchor himself. To swim away from the growing stiffness beneath his white coat as he yanks off his gloves and throws them into the waste bin.

What his body doesn't seem to understand, Zayne thinks as he hurriedly sticks a bandage onto Sylus' chest, is that he'd built himself an entire life on restraint. On discipline and control. That his desperation is a well that fills for only one person. You.

And you're gone.

The peace and happiness he felt with you is gone. The purpose he found with you is gone. The warmth and intimacy that kept his chest filled, gone.

And the only thing that's filled the emptiness? The only thing that's managed to resuscitate the beating of his heart since the last time he held you? The low, rumbling, desperate sound of the only man who's as connected to you as Zayne. A man who's currently in pain, who is currently a patient entrusted to his care, and-

Zayne surges from his seat, muttering a final, “Fine. Don’t make me regret it,” as he speeds out of the room back to the safety of his office. Leaving behind the perfectly healed but mildly confused leader of Onychinus to discharge himself from the outpatient ward.

Loss makes people do things they would otherwise never consider. It's a natural psychological response to trauma, expected even.

Zayne tells himself this over and over again, but it doesn’t stop his ears from sharpening against the grating sound of the shower running. Each noise amplified against his guest room's sleek tiles and chrome fixtures as one of Linkon's most wanted criminals showers on the other side of his, frankly, too thin wall.

He can afford Sylus the privacy if he wants to. Read the medical tome on his nightstand. Leave the room for a glass of water. He’d done it so many times when his room became too stifling. Especially since the N109 Zone refugee had been staying the night more frequently.

But that’s the thing about loss: it leaves you empty. Desperate. A soaring spirit, wild and free, turned into a leashed monster rattling its cage. And something in Zayne's chest had been clawing at him to fill the hollowness you'd left there for weeks. Months. To loosen the restraints that held back the need within him.

Up until this point, he'd labeled his lapse in judgment as simply a moment of weakness a few weeks ago. A perfectly natural, biological response after being left without his beloved for so long. In his mind, that one-time thing was summarized by one bold word, whispered over and over in his own voice: Mistake.

So the occasional knock of something against the shower wall, the echo of panted grunts, and the sound of those familiar low, stifled moans sketch pictures in his mind that Zayne will never admit to seeing. 

But that doesn’t stop him from closing his eyes and remembering. 

Large, demanding hands, wrapped around his stethoscope. Smirking lips as full and red as a raspberry macaron, ready to be bitten into. A rasping voice wrapping around every sarcastic comment, every commanding directive, every iteration and honorific of his name.

And just like before, any measure of relief to be found has gone from tempting to necessary. As vital as air, water, sustenance.

Besides, only he would know. A victimless crime, Zayne reasons.

His imagination reignites his senses and, with eyes still shut, his fingers trail down the ridges of his stomach, under the waistband of his briefs. They wrap around his shaft, hands stacking on top of the other.

He strokes up gingerly and hisses, thoughts flickering between the sounds in the shower and visions of you. The curve of your spine, the greedy grasp of your hands, the velvety warmth of your walls closing in around his cock.

As he hears another faint moan from the other side of the wall, he strokes again, palms squeezing tighter, memories of you sharpening every sensation.

His fingers glide up his head, grazing the top to let a bead of fluid trail over his knuckles.

His sighs becoming shaky and erratic. Breaths huffing in rhythm with each stroke.

His jaw slackening, the muscle of his brow furrowing, his glistening lips parting.

It's when his grunts are unable to be held back by bitten lips, when the slick sounds behind the wall become more urgent that he gives in to time his moans to Sylus' until, with a final, desperate whimper Zayne covers his flushed head with his palm and shudders. He thrusts into himself as his hips ride each wave of pleasure, the syllables of your name chanted from his lips like a prayer.

Lucidity curdles his stomach before he can even catch his breath.

A small part of him is grateful that the ringing in his ears has tuned out the noise from the guest bathroom. Creating the barrier between him and Sylus that he should've been strong enough to erect himself when he had the chance.

The rest of him is centered around you. Your absence has never felt more painful as his emptiness, his longing for you, and thoughts of a maddening criminal catalyze a chemical reaction in his bloodstream. Pumping guilt and lust, shame and desire, through each vein of his existence.

And as a faint final groan from the shower slithers through the crevices of his room, he wonders, with a sharp, unwelcome clarity, if he’s really letting Sylus stay because he wants information from him.

Or because Zayne wants to see him.

He pushes his bedroom door open, ready to dispose of the coat in his hand and end his day with a shower. Unfortunately, for the second time in as many days, his bedroom isn't empty.

Zayne flicks the light switch to illuminate a large, familiar figure perching at the edge of his bed, elbows to his knees, waiting. His pose is casual, the picture of calm, but the tangled fingers squeezing together in the space between his knees, and the swirling energy storm in the eyes fixed on Zayne like a laser, betray him.

Pausing a few feet away, he understands that this is the eerie stillness of a bloodthirsty predator lying in wait.

His grip tightens on his coat, prepared to throw it back on and leave depending on the answer to his question, though the barbed knot tightening around his throat makes it more of a sharp demand, “What's happened?”

Up until this point, Zayne's had to admit that, though everything about Sylus' methods are as morally corrupt as he thought, the Onychinus leader's plans aren't just effective, they're fast. Once he found out about the sketchy shipments from the N109 Zone, it only took a few days before "his men" tracked you down to a medical facility. A “facility” that only became more suspect when Sylus revealed its owner. A name Zayne never thought he’d need to hear again, considering he’d watched the man die with his own eyes: Raymond, founder of Xander Sciences.

When Sylus shared this yesterday, he said it would take less than 48 hours for him to have eyes on you inside the building and have an extraction plan ready to go. Zayne’s heart shuffles in his chest, unsure whether to be wary or relieved that Sylus is back sooner than expected.

"I had her." The razor sharp edge of violence in Sylus' voice slices through the quiet. “I had my eyes on her. Then everything cut out. It was only a few seconds, but when it came back… she was gone."

"No." It tears out of his raw throat. Both a vehement denial and a wrathful plea.

His mind is already rummaging through every factor, analyzing every variable in this situation for something they can do. The first one is you. You're always quick on your feet under pressure and ten steps ahead in high-intensity situations, it's what made you a brilliant hunter. So there's a decent probability that you are the reason you'd disappeared. A decent probability meant nothing though.

"This wouldn't have happened if I'd gone to Xander Sciences when you uncovered the contract," his voice is cold but his eyes burn with accusation.

"Oh yeah? Then tell me, doctor." Sylus shot up from the bed, spreading his arms open mockingly and raising a derisive brow. "What would Akso Hospital's prized surgeon, the man with all of Linkon's eyes on him, have done when he got there?"

The second variable, and the far more unpredictable one, is the real enemy you're all facing. Because there’s no doubt Ever has its poisonous thorns hooked into every player in this, the Association, the contract, Xander Sciences, Carter.

"Do you think you're the only one with information?" Zayne clips back, throwing his phone and coat in the direction of his bed. "Or did you forget that things like secrets and blackmail aren't unique to the N109 Zone?"

Zayne acquired plenty of it during his time with the X Heart project, and if they’ve taken you, are harming you in any way… Zayne will bring every scrap of influence, every ounce of power he’s acquired over the last decade down like a battleaxe on whoever's responsible.

"Secrets aren't unique to the N109 Zone," he concedes, taking a step forward and pointing a finger at his chest. "But I am. Onychinus' name has been all over this since the beginning. I was with her when she disappeared. So what do you think they'll think when one of their top doctors is blackmailed, hm?"

Zayne’s jaw sharpens into the jagged edge of flint, one twitch away from sparking a flame. Of course he knew about Carter.

"The second they connect the dots, it's over for us." Sylus' words are still harsh, but his tone is softer, less belligerent. "More importantly, it's over for your… our hunter."

The thought hardens his expression. Tempers the simmering panic and worry in his mind, cooling it down into something sharper, more ruthless. Settling into him the way ice settles across a mountainside, vast and indiscriminate in its violence. Crushing forests and swallowing all life into a stark, white void.

"Doctor?"

The sound around him dulls and his pulse slows to a cold, methodical beat that narrows his vision and drains the heat from his limbs until all that's left is a still, deadly focus that erases all hesitation. Leaves no room for mercy.

"Doctor."

A single-minded purpose encases him like frost, so cold he becomes more glacier than man.

"Zayne."

It’s only when a warm hand wraps around the nape of his neck and a powerful force pins his wrists against the wall at his sides that he realizes the cold that's descended over him is real.

Pieces of him sluggishly slot back into awareness and he realizes frost has coated the tips of his lashes and the edges of his lips. That ice has crawled up his exposed forearms and his neck, and a large, scythe-like shard is protruding from his palm.

There’s a hollow whir in his ears, like the endless gales of a snowstorm, and he blinks in an attempt to focus on the curves of Sylus’ mouth moving in front of him. They're both breathing clouds of warm air into the space between them, yet his brain isn't processing any of the oxygen his lungs are receiving.

Zayne has a wild, fleeting thought that he might end up in a medical textbook rather than his research: first recorded case of a man killed by his own evol.

Suddenly the grip on his nape tightens, and Sylus’ lips capture his, soft, violent, searing hot.

Air rushes back into his lungs.

It’s an angry kiss, an argumentative one. Lips crushed, teeth clashed, breaths stolen. Tit for tat.

But Sylus’ mouth is stirring something wild and half-feral from deep inside him, coaxing out that slumbering animal that started its cold hibernation the day you were taken from him. Zayne groans at the thought, the sound rough and unwilling, even as his shivering body leans into the heat.

When Sylus finally draws back, both of them are panting, frost-bitten lips brushing with every inhale, every exhale. Crimson eyes search him in silence, and Zayne studies his in return.

“I’m fine,” he rasps. His throat is raw, but his voice is steady.

His eyes trace over Zayne's face once more before releasing the nape of his neck. He straightens, putting a few inches of space between them as the restraints on Zayne’s wrists disappear. Zayne flexes his hand, realizing Sylus had pinned him with his evol.

His mind, though still hazy from the shock of cold, the depths of his own power, can’t deny the thawing effect that's sluiced over his body. Whatever Sylus had just done, it had grounded him. Cut through the icy tempest within him.

Guilt and shame rise to the surface again. Up until now, you were the only one who could reach Zayne when he lost control. The only one who could bring him back when he lost himself to the barren cold.

Not only did he just lose himself the moment you needed him in control the most, he had to be reeled in by him. The only person who seems to effect him as much as you do.

“We will get her back. But she needs both of us." It's spoken like a certainty. And, like he's come to the same conclusion as Zayne, his voice dons on a calming rumble. “Which means you, unfortunately, need me. And I, very unfortunately, need you.”

His brow raises, as if daring Zayne to protest.

But it’s a raw and vulnerable thing to need someone. It leaves you exposed, your defenses down, your control only as strong as the person you’re relying on. Zayne always thought he would only ever need you. You fit so naturally together, keeping each other grounded while letting each other soar.

He realizes what he’s been grappling with these past few weeks isn’t just the ache of losing you or the slow erosion of hope as time passes. It’s the terrifying clarity that the only person capable of affecting him the way you do is also your complete opposite. Someone who has the ability to make Zayne want him while simultaneously amplifying Zayne's craving for you.

“From now on, we need to be in lockstep.” He leans back in, his gaze unyielding and steady and grounding. "I need you by my side.”

He'd almost found the resolve to step away. To finish this crazy argument and send him away. To recognize that this wasn't fully him. That the cold and hot flashing through his body was enough to muddle anyone's mind.

But those words, the way they're said. They're yours. And suddenly there's so much you surrounding him that Zayne's vision blurs and his resolve melts like ice, drips like condensation to the floor as he crushes his lips to a criminal's. Immediately, the world narrows to that press of warmth, the sweet memory of you mingled with the bitter taste of him.

Their lips move in synchronized chaos, biting, demanding, bruising, desperate. Zayne's hand fists Sylus’ collar and tugs, tearing a gravelly moan from him as their lips part and their tongues commence battle.

Little details of you project into his mind. The scrape of your teeth, one hand around his nape, the other halfway to his pulsing cock, undeterred by the obstruction of his belt. Every kiss, every movement is yours and not-yours at once, and he accepts the flesh-eating hunger and shame that infect him with the double vision.

“Say it again.” Zayne presses his chest into him, his grip at Sylus' collar unyielding until he takes one step back. Two.

“What?” A half-breathless gasp, half-teasing hum as Sylus wraps a hand around Zayne's base, forcing a hiss from between his teeth. “That we need to be in lockst—”

“No.” Zayne cuts him off, his free hand unbuttons and unzips Sylus’ trousers in two quick motions. “That you need me.”

A laugh rumbles out of Sylus, low and teasing. “I seem to recall saying we both need—”

The rest of Sylus' sentence dissolves in his throat when Zayne's right palm grips the root of his cock with the same ruthless force Sylus is using on him. Zayne's left palm moves from his collar to his throat, securing against the thrum of Sylus’ pulse.

“Tell me you need me,” Zayne commands, teeth grazing Sylus’ lower lip. Both of his hands tighten with each word.

Sylus smirks against Zayne’s mouth, an incendiary gleam in his eyes when he growls past the hand clamped on his throat, “What I need is for you to start moving your hand before you lose it.”

He punctuates the reprimand with a sharp roll of his hips into Zayne’s palm, leaving no room for doubt which hand he’s talking about.

“See? This is where you fail.” Zayne clenches his hand around Sylus but purposefully keeps it still. Sylus twitches in response, a strained sigh escaping him. Zayne forces him back with two deliberate steps until Sylus’ heels are a few inches from the bed. “You keep thinking you can strong-arm me into doing things your way.”

A breathless chuckle dusts over Zayne's lips. “Oh, you haven’t even seen a fraction of how strong my arms can be.”

Zayne growls as a sudden coil of black-red mist winds tight around Zayne’s thigh and in the next breath Sylus and his evol wrench him around, one of Sylus’ hands bracketing Zayne’s throat.

"Do you miss her?" Sylus' voice is a ragged whisper that recenters him, and Zayne isn't sure if the cause is the thought of you or what they're doing.

Still, he finds himself nodding, hand reaching behind him to grip Sylus again, this time stroking, rhythmic and slow and merciless.

Sylus' hips buck and he hisses out, “Do you want her back?”

Zayne gasps when he sees a black-red mass of energy slither down and disintegrate the buckle of his belt. A pale, muscular forearm takes the mist's place as Sylus’ hand pushes down Zayne's briefs and wraps firmly around the head of Zayne's cock, this time skin-to skin. Heat sears through Zayne's gut, a shudder traveling the length of his body. “Yes," he forces out.

“And what are you willing to do?” Sylus’ teeth sink into the pale column of his neck, biting down before soothing over it with his tongue. Zayne’s head falls back against Sylus' shoulder, ragged breaths breaking as the next growled question pours straight into his ear. “How far are you willing to go?”

“To the end of the world,” Zayne snarls, yanking so hard on Sylus' cock Zayne's hand can barely complete a full stroke in the space between them. “I’ll destroy everything if I have to.”

Hazel suddenly collides with scarlet and there's a wild look shared between them.

“Yes,” Sylus exhales, drawing the word into a sigh, like Zayne's confession is music to his ears.

The hand at Zayne’s neck pushes him down suddenly, forcing his chest toward the bed until his palms brace against the top of the duvet. Sylus' grip shifts from Zayne’s throat to the back of his head, long fingers threading into his hair and squeezing the strands between them.

“And that-” His other hand moves in a punishing stroke up the length of Zayne, then back down. “-is why you need me. That-” Another stroke. “-is what I am. Now,” Another. “Make me your weapon."

Maybe control was never about banishing the darkness, Zayne thinks, but about accepting it. Embracing it. Wielding it to tear the world apart to get to you.

Zayne’s lips peel back in a broken groan, his voice spilling out rough and unsteady, "Deal."

It isn't a surrender but the seal of a pact. The crossing of a threshold into something he's always held himself back from approaching.

Sylus’s evol tightens, coiling around Zayne’s thigh to widen his stance, holding him in place as his arm strokes up and down again, faster now. Zayne’s body arches helplessly against him as his own hand, bicep aching at the angle of his reach, retaliates.

Both of them are poised at the edge of a precipice, hearts pounding, skin prickling, unwilling to commit to their climax and fall into an abyss of no return. They stay suspended in symphony of smacking and panting and sucking and whimpering and rubbing and-

A buzzing noise cuts through the room like a record scratch and Zayne barely registers the fact that it's his phone before his ring finger, trembling where it rests near the device on the bed, presses into the touchscreen.

“Zayne, it's me,” crackles a voice, sweet and beautiful and absolutely unmistakable. “I'm on my way home.”

In any other moment Zayne would freeze. He would pause his life, push everything, everyone, to the wayside and let his entire being focus on you. On logic, reason. On the when, where, how, and why of your call.

But the wires in his brain are so crossed, the emotions in his chest frayed so raw, that all his body can do is give Sylus a rough, twisting squeeze when he hears it. The sound of his name on your lips — the gasping excitement of it — makes relief, shame, love, grief, and pleasure coalesce into a reverent chant of your name that becomes perfectly synced to Sylus' growled "Kitten" in his ear.

The words ‘I need you by my side’ crash around his mind as he finally leaps over the edge and breaks apart. Physically, psychologically, spiritually.

And with a final stroke, a final gasping sob, his vision goes white.

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