keeper of the void

He has been trying, in a not entirely successful way, to stop worrying about Sylus. To accept the last several days for what they are: strange timing, poor judgment, an overactive imagination. Lack of interest.

Sylus did not sound like a man who had disappeared for several days. That is the first problem. His voice came through low and even, familiar in a way Zayne has not given it permission to become. No apology. No explanation. No obvious sign of injury, panic, or guilt.

"Miss me?"

"Are you all right?" The question was too fast. "I called the club—"

"Oh," and Zayne could hear the smile before it reached the rest of the sentence. "You were looking for me?"

There are several appropriate answers. No is the cleanest. Not exactly is probably the most accurate. I thought you might be dead has the advantage of being true, but unfortunately sounded insane when spoken aloud to someone who clearly is not.

"I was trying to determine whether something had happened to you." he said.

"That sounds like looking."

"It sounds like concern."

"Mm." A pause. Not empty. Never empty with him. "That too."

Zayne gripped the receiver a little tighter, aware of the grocery list sitting on the counter beside him. Bananas. Coffee. Bread.

"What do you want, Sylus?"

A faint shift on the other end. Fabric, maybe. The scrape of a lighter. The quiet inhale before smoke. "Come over and I'll tell you."

Zayne stares at the wall.

"No."

A laugh. Not surprised. Not offended. More like that is the first expected answer in a longer process. "No?"

"No." Repetition seems important. "You disappear for several days, answer none of the obvious questions, call me while I’m leaving for the grocery store, and now you want me to come to your apartment?"

"Loft."

Zayne looked toward the ceiling. "I’m hanging up."

"Zayne."

That stops him. If anything, Sylus said his name more quietly than the rest, like he has set something down between them and is waiting to see if Zayne will pick it up. And Zayne hates that it works.

"What?"

A pause.

"I need to talk to you."

That is different. Not much. Barely enough to count. But it changes the shape of the call anyway, pulling the irritation into something less stable.

"About what?"

"Not on the phone."

So Zayne ends up standing in front of a brick building off 16th Avenue in the Garden District, trying to decide whether this counts as curiosity or stupidity, or both.

He presses the buzzer, and for a second, nothing happens. Just the faint sound of traffic rolling past at the end of the block, his own reflection in the small metal plate around the buttons.

Then the speaker crackles. There's no voice, just static. The mechanical click of the lock from inside.

Zayne stares at the door, the permission given. He reaches out before it can lock again and pulls it open, stepping into a narrow front hall that smells faintly of floor polish and trapped warmth.

The shade inside is immediate enough that he pushes the sunglasses up into his hair. The frames catch there awkwardly, tugging at a few pieces that have already started to come loose.

Twelve steps to the first landing. Another eleven after that. Sylus is somewhere above him, waiting. Maybe injured. Possibly about to give him an answer that will make everything make sense, or not.

He continues to climb anyway.

Before he can knock on the door—which is less a door than a metal sliding slab bolted into brick—it moves.

A low metallic scrape, then it shifts open.

Sylus leans one arm against the frame, glasses held between his thumb and forefinger, his other hand resting at his hip where the dark Henley has ridden up just enough to expose an inch of skin above the waistband of his jeans. One knee is torn open, denim frayed white around the rip.

Zayne looks at him. Not dead, then. Good. Maybe not good.

Sylus does not look like a man recovering from anything. He looks awake enough. Barefoot. Intact. Hair slightly mussed and suggesting he may have slept badly before this.

"You came."

"You asked."

Zayne waits for more, because that's how conversations are supposed to work. Someone says something useless, then says something else—usually the part that matters.

Sylus only looks at him. His mouth curves slightly.

Zayne's fingers tighten once at his side. "Are you injured?"

"No."

"In trouble?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"Whether you come inside."

Zayne stares at him. Then at the exposed track above the door. Then back at Sylus, who has still not moved out of his way.

The clean thing would be to leave. Go back down three flights of stairs, get in his car, and continue to pretend that the grocery list has been the entire point of his day.

Instead, he steps forward. Sylus shifts enough to let him pass, but not too much. Enough that Zayne still has to move near him and catch the faint smell of smoke and soap.

The loft is too big in the way a space opens all at once. Wood floors, high beams, brick. The kind of place that looks like a warehouse was taught to be expensive. Open kitchen, dark counters, metal edges. Low couches. A bed set apart on a raised platform near the back, half hidden by frosted glass and dark wooden frames.

Music plays low from somewhere near the shelves, soft enough that Zayne almost misses it beneath the size of the room. He knows he has heard it recently, probably on the radio, but he cannot place the name. A voice almost swallowed by bass.

There is another low scrape of metal on track as Sylus slides the door shut behind him, making Zayne feel more aware he is in the room. He does not know what to do with his hands. He never knows, really.

"Do you want something to drink?"

Zayne looks at him too quickly to see the man move toward the kitchen, setting his glasses on the island. Not armed. Not injured. Not a man who is about to confess to anything, either.

"No," Zayne says.

Sylus pauses near the refrigerator. "No? Water, coffee. Something stronger, if you're feeling reckless."

Somehow Zayne thinks standing in the loft is already reckless. He hates that Sylus has given his hands a reason to stop moving, even if that reason is only standing there being difficult.

"No, thank you."

Sylus shakes his head slightly and reaches for the cigarettes on the counter, pulling one loose. He brings it to his mouth while holding the pack toward Zayne, almost expectantly.

Zayne shakes his head.

Sylus shrugs. Barely even a fraction of movement through one shoulder before he tosses the pack back down and picks up the lighter beside it.

"Sit, then."

"No."

The lighter opens with a clean snap. Sylus pauses with the cigarette between his lips, looking at him over the small flame like Zayne is the strange one here. Like this visit is normal. Like Zayne has not climbed all the way up here and found the man barefoot, alive, and dressed like he has never experienced consequence.

"Zayne, are you usually this stubborn?"

"Only when I have no idea what is going on."

"All I did was invite you to sit."

"That doesn't explain anything."

"No," Sylus says, touching the flame to the end of the cigarette. "It gives you somewhere to be while I explain it, though."

That is the problem. Not the words themselves. The way he says them. Calm, practical, almost reasonable. As if he is offering structure rather than taking it. As if sitting down is not giving in, but allowing the conversation to begin.

Zayne recognizes it half a second too late.

Sylus does not push people. Not exactly.

He places a hand at the small of the situation and guides.

The cigarette catches. Sylus closes the Zippo with another soft click and exhales to the side, away from him.

"You can stand there if you want," he adds. "But you look uncomfortable."

Zayne hates that this is true.

He also hates that saying so would make it worse.

For a moment, neither of them moves. Then Zayne sits because he wants to. Not because Sylus tells him to.

The couch is low enough that sitting feels like committing to something. He places his hands on his knees, then immediately hates that, so he folds them loosely between his legs instead. That also feels wrong.

Zayne's gaze catches briefly on the statue on the coffee table, but he speaks before Sylus can say anything about it. "You disappeared."

Sylus’s gaze stays on him. "I was unavailable."

"That is a different word for the same thing."

"It’s a more accurate word."

Zayne lets out a breath through his nose. He looks away first, because the alternative is continuing to stare at him and noticing things he has no business noticing. The bare foot tucked against the chair. The loose angle of his wrist. The way the cigarette burns down slowly because Sylus keeps forgetting to smoke it.

"You said you needed to talk to me."

"I do."

"Then talk."

Sylus is quiet for a moment. Not hesitating. Zayne does not think Sylus hesitates very much if he can help it. He edits instead.

That is almost worse.

"There was an incident at the marina," Sylus says finally.

Zayne’s attention sharpens despite himself as he remembers the noise of the TV the other day. "I saw something about that."

"On the news?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"And a man was pulled from the water," Zayne says. "Which...I assume you already know."

Sylus watches him, not the pleasant kind of watching. Not threatening, exactly. Worse than that. "What else?" he asks.

Zayne’s fingers still against his knee. "What do you mean?"

"What else did they say?"

"That he was young. That it was being investigated. That there was no identification released yet." Zayne pauses. "Why?"

Sylus leans forward and taps ash into the tray. The sound is small, dry, almost delicate.

"You called the club."

Zayne blinks once.

That is not where he expects this to go.

"Yes," he says carefully.

"Did you give your real name?"

"No."

"Did you speak to Reis?"

"I spoke to someone who answered the phone."

"Male or female?"

Zayne’s eyes narrow. "Why does that matter?" The irritation comes back quickly, which is useful. Easier than whatever has begun to move under his ribs when Sylus says marina. He sits straighter. "If this is about me calling the club, I didn’t say anything useful. I asked if Skye was there. They said no and they hung up."

Sylus’s expression changes by almost nothing. But Zayne sees something underneath and immediately wishes he had not.

"What?"

Sylus takes another drag from the cigarette, then stubs it out before it is finished. "You asked for Skye."

"That is the name you gave me."

"Yes."

"So?"

"So there are very few places where that name and you exist in the same sentence."

The loft seems to go quieter around them. The hum from the kitchen. Traffic beyond the windows. The old building settling in its own bones.

He understands the sentence. That is not the same as understanding the situation.

"Explain it," he says.

Sylus sits back, but the ease has changed. The placement. The calculation. The way Sylus keeps his voice quiet because quiet makes people lean closer. "There was something found with the body."

Zayne waits. Sylus does not continue quickly enough.

"What kind of something?"

"A piece of paper."

"That's not specific."

"It had a number on it."

Zayne’s first thought is not Confidential Connections. It should be, maybe, but it is not. His mind goes first to the club. To matchbooks. Business cards. Cocktail napkins. The coaster in his apartment with ink pressed into the surface hard enough that the grooves are still visible when he drags a thumb across them.

"What number?" he asks.

The answer is already in the room before Sylus says it. Zayne feels that before he understands why. A change in pressure. A tightening at the base of his throat.

"Not mine," Sylus says.

Zayne’s mouth goes a little dry. He looks down at his own hands, which have gone still without permission. "Mine?" he asks.

"No."

The relief is immediate. Then gone.

Sylus’s eyes stay on his. "Your work."

The words do not arrange themselves cleanly. His work could mean several things. Confidential Connections. The hospital he no longer works at. Something else, somehow.

"My work," Zayne repeats.

Sylus watches him over the thin curl of smoke still drifting up from the ashtray. "There was an advertisement found with him."

In the moment, his mind goes to newspapers. Club flyers. Matchbooks. Cheap printed things left on counters and under windshield wipers. The sort of paper that collects in a city until no one notices it anymore.

Zayne sits with that for a second longer than he wants to. The room stays too open around him.

"I don’t understand why that matters," Zayne says.

"No," Sylus says. "You wouldn’t."

"Then explain it."

Sylus leans forward, elbows resting loosely on his knees now—amused, somehow. Attention narrowing.

"If someone contacts you about the man from the marina, you do not know him."

"I don’t know him."

"Good."

"And I don’t know why anyone would contact me."

"They may not." Sylus looks at him. Zayne hates that look. Not because it is threatening. Because it is patient in a way that makes him feel like he has already missed one step.

"There's writing on the advertisement," Sylus says. "An initial. A time. Something small enough to look meaningless unless someone wants it to mean something."

Sylus holds his gaze.

Zayne understands then that Sylus is not only telling him what happened. He is telling him what not to say later. His fingers curl once against his knee.

"Did you write something on it?"

Sylus’s mouth is now a flat line. Not enough to count as guilt. Enough for Zayne to notice.

"If anyone asks," Sylus says, "you have no idea who wrote it."

"That was not an answer."

"It's the answer you need."

"No," Zayne says. "It is the answer you want me to repeat."

For the first time since Zayne steps into the loft, Sylus looks tired. Whatever has been happening without Zayne has been happening for longer than a few days.

"I want you to tell the truth," Sylus says. "Carefully."

Zayne stares at him.

"Carefully," he repeats.

"Yes."

"That sounds like lying with better posture."

A faint smile touches Sylus’s mouth, gone almost as quickly. "It can be," he says. "But in this case, it means you do not volunteer connections. You do not guess. You do not try to be helpful. If someone asks whether you recognize the man, you don’t. If someone asks whether you know who wrote something on that ad, you don’t."

Zayne’s stomach turns slowly. "And if they ask about you?"

Sylus is quiet.

So that is the part he is supposed to understand without being told.

The line under the line.

Sylus reaches for the cigarette again, then seems to think better of it. His hand lowers back to the arm of the chair.

"If they ask about Skye," he says, "you met someone at a club."

Zayne lets out a short breath. "That is what happened."

"Yes."

"And if they ask for more?"

"Then you give them less."

Zayne looks at him for a long moment. The advice is practical. Controlled. Almost clean. Enough that it makes him stand.

Not calmly. Not gracefully either. The couch is low enough that it takes half a second longer than it should, and by the time he is upright, his irritation has already turned into something sharper.

"I’m leaving."

Sylus looks up at him from the chair.

The cigarette is still between his fingers, burned low enough that ash hangs from the end in a fragile gray column.

"No."

Zayne stares at him. It is not even the word. It is how easily he says it. Quiet. Certain. Like Zayne has misunderstood the room.

"No?"

Sylus leans forward and puts the cigarette out in the ashtray with one slow twist. "No," he says again.

Zayne’s jaw tightens. "You are such an asshole."

Sylus’s mouth twitches.

That does it.

Zayne turns for the door.

He makes it three steps. Maybe four. He does not count this time, which is how he knows he is angry. Sylus behind him, still not explaining enough, still deciding how much of the truth Zayne is allowed to touch.

His hand reaches the steel handle. A hand catches his wrist. Not painful. Not gentle either.

Zayne turns sharply, already pulling back, but Sylus moves with him. One step, then the door is against Zayne’s back, cold metal pressing through the thin cotton of his shirt. Sylus’s other hand hits the slab beside his head with a dull sound that travels through the track above them.

For one second, neither of them breathes right. Sylus is close enough that Zayne can see the small, tired line at the corner of his mouth.

"Don’t walk out of here angry," he says.

Zayne’s laugh comes out thin. "That’s your threat?"

"No." Sylus’s voice drops. "The threat is that if you leave and say the wrong thing to the wrong person because you're angry, I may not be able to fix it."

Zayne pulls against his grip. "Let go."

Sylus does immediately. His hand drops like it has burned him. His eyes flicker down to Zayne’s wrist, then back up. "Sorry," he says under his breath. The apology is quiet and rough. Almost involuntary.

Zayne looks at him, and the anger slips. "You don’t get to do that," he says.

Sylus does not move away. "Do what?"

"Act like you’re sorry after."

Sylus’s eyes stay on his face. "I am."

"You’re sorry your threat didn’t work."

Sylus’s jaw shifts once, subtle enough that anyone else might have missed it.

He should move. The door is behind him. Sylus is in front of him, but he is no longer holding him there. There is space, technically. Enough to leave if Zayne wants to make leaving the point.

Instead, he stays. His hand comes up before the thought finishes forming. Fingers at the back of Sylus’s neck, sliding into the hair there, gripping hard enough that Sylus’s breath catches.

Good.

Zayne pulls him in and kisses him. It is not clean. It is anger first, mouth second, teeth catching too hard. Sylus makes a low sound against him, short and surprised, and Zayne feels it in the stupid, useless place where fear has been a second ago.

His hand comes back to the door beside Zayne’s head, bracing there. The other finds Zayne’s waist, fingers spreading over the cotton shirt like he means to hold him still.

Zayne kisses him harder for that. For the way Sylus’s body presses like he is trying not to take too much.

It makes Zayne furious. It makes him pull again.

Sylus breaks the kiss just enough to breathe, his mouth still brushing Zayne’s.

"Zayne."

"No."

"You don’t know what you’re doing."

Zayne tightens his grip at the back of his neck.

"I know you’re still talking."

Sylus goes still.

Then he laughs once, very softly, right against Zayne’s mouth.

Zayne kisses him again. This time Sylus meets him faster, rougher, like whatever restraint he has left has thinned. His hand slides from Zayne’s waist to the door, then back again, thumb dragging once over the hem of his polo where it has pulled loose from his jeans.

Zayne’s breath catches before he can stop it. He hates him enough, in that moment, to bite his lower lip.

Sylus’s hand clenches at his waist. "Greedy thing," he murmurs. It comes from somewhere low, almost a growl. Long fingers tug once at the cotton of his shirt, then slip beneath it, brushing skin.

"I’m not."

Sylus’s mouth moves to his jaw, then lower.

The hand at his waist moves again, sliding back over his hip, over denim, fingers spreading across the curve of him. Then they curl over his back pocket, firm enough to pull him forward by half an inch.

Not much.

Enough that Zayne’s body follows before his mind can object.

Sylus exhales against his neck, quiet and pleased.

Zayne’s eyes close. Only for a second.

Then his hand tightens at the back of Sylus’s neck, fingers sliding into his hair, gripping hard enough to pull his mouth away from Zayne’s throat. He drags him back up and kisses him before Sylus can say anything smug enough to ruin it.

The kiss turns worse immediately. Mouth open, breath caught wrong, Sylus’s tongue sliding against his in a way that makes Zayne’s grip tighten. There is no room to think around it. The faint scrape of teeth, and Sylus pressing closer.

Then Sylus’s hand moves. His fingers drag over Zayne’s hip, then down, knuckles brushing the front of his jeans before his palm settles against the hardness there, pushing slightly. Slow. Firm enough that Zayne’s breath stutters into Sylus’s mouth before he can stop it.

Sylus pulls back just enough to look at him. His eyes are darker now. Less amused than before. "This isn’t greedy?"

"It’s anatomy."

For one second, Sylus just looks at him.

Then something shifts.

Not much. A small pause. A blink, slow enough to mean something. His mouth parts slightly, and Zayne has the sudden, satisfying sense that he has managed to catch him off balance for once.

"Ah," Sylus says.

His hand leaves the front of Zayne’s jeans, which is both a relief and a problem. He reaches up instead, takes the sunglasses from where they sit crooked on Zayne’s head, and folds them with unnecessary care before hooking them into the loose collar of his own Henley.

Then the same hand slides back into Zayne’s hair.

Not gentle.

Not rough either.

Just enough pressure to make Zayne’s chin lift before he decides whether he wants it to. Sylus’s fingers thread through the dark pieces the sunglasses have already failed to keep back, tugging until Zayne’s throat is exposed.

The air hits the damp place where Sylus’s mouth has been.

Zayne swallows.

Sylus notices that too.

"Forgive me," he says, voice low, mouth close enough that the words brush skin, "for forgetting, doctor."

The word hits somewhere behind Zayne’s ribs.

Doctor.

His lungs expand and then stop there, held too full for a second, tight enough to sting. It should not matter. It is a word. A title he does not use anymore. A shape from a life he has worked very hard not to touch with this one.

Then Sylus’s teeth graze his throat.

Not hard enough to mean anything.

Just enough to make Zayne’s breath leave him wrong.

"H-how did you know?"

The question comes out rougher than he wants it to. Too close to a stutter. Too close to giving Sylus the satisfaction of knowing the word has landed exactly where he means it to.

Sylus’s mouth pauses against his skin.

Only for a second.

Then he kisses the place he just bit, like that fixes anything. "You’re not exactly subtle."

Zayne’s fingers tighten in his hair. "That is not an answer."

"No," Sylus murmurs, lips dragging along his throat, "but it is true."

Zayne pulls at the back of his neck, forcing him up enough to look at him. Sylus lets him, though his hand stays in Zayne’s hair, thumb brushing once near his temple like he has any right to be gentle after saying something like that.

"I never told you that," Zayne says.

"You told me plenty."

"I didn’t."

"Not directly."

The anger should be easier to hold onto. It is there. Still sharp. Still justified. But Sylus is close enough that Zayne can feel each breath against his mouth, and the sunglasses are hooked into the collar of his Henley like some stupid piece of evidence.

His evidence. His sunglasses. His bad decision sitting against Sylus’s chest.

"You looked into me."

Sylus’s expression does not change enough. That is answer enough.

Zayne’s grip tightens. "You asshole."

"Yes," Sylus says softly, "you’ve already called me that, sweetie."

"Don’t call me that."

Zayne reaches for the hand still in his hair. He expects resistance, or at least pressure, but Sylus lets go almost as soon as Zayne’s fingers close around his wrist.

He ducks under Sylus’s arm and steps away from the door, back into the room he has not been entirely sure he is allowed to leave. One hand braces at his own hip because it has to go somewhere. The other drags down his face, over his mouth, like that will do anything about the heat still sitting under his skin.

"How?"

Sylus does not look especially pleased by the lack of contact, or by Zayne's question.

Good.

Maybe.

He steps back too, not toward Zayne, but toward the square pillar near the counter. He leans against it with one shoulder, loose and barefoot and irritatingly comfortable.

Zayne looks at his face.

Deliberately.

"A little birdie told me," Sylus says.

Zayne stares at him. "Do you plan to answer me properly, or stand there like that?"

Sylus glances down as if he has only just realized what his shirt is doing.

"Like what?"

Zayne’s jaw tightens. "Don’t."

"Maybe we should start over," Sylus offers, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as if he has just offered an ultimate solution.

Zayne merely looks at him. Then at the sunglasses still hooked into the collar of his Henley. "How did you know?"

Sylus follows his gaze, then looks back at him. He does not give them back; he is quiet long enough that Zayne knows the first answer he gets will not be the whole truth. "I looked. In order to keep this from becoming something bigger."

Zayne’s jaw tightens. "Bigger than a dead man in the marina?"

Sylus’s expression changes by almost nothing, regardless of how honest the answer seems. "Yes."

The loft feels very still around them. Too much space. Too much brick and glass and light. The kind of room that makes silence look intentional.

Zayne lets out a short breath. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means there are parts of my life that do not respond well to police interest."

Zayne lets out a short breath. A huff of laughter, almost. "That is the most suspicious sentence you could have chosen."

"I know. I’m trying not to lie to you."

"Are you?"

The amusement is not gone from Sylus, only thinned into something sharper. "A man turned up dead with something connected to your work in his pocket," Sylus says. "There's enough on it for someone to decide it means something, even if they have to invent the rest."

Zayne’s stomach pulls tight.

Sylus continues, quieter. "If that connects to me, it becomes my problem. If it connects to you, it becomes yours. If it connects us together in front of the wrong person, it becomes something neither of us controls."

The word control sits there between them. Zayne hates that the statement makes his mouth go dry.

"What wrong person? The police?"

"Not only."

Zayne stares at him, at the easy lean against the pillar, the bare feet, the exposed strip of skin. The lack of defense is almost worse than an argument. Sylus just stands there looking like the kind of man who has never once been inconvenienced by another person’s moral outrage.

"You’re an asshole," Zayne says again.

Sylus’s mouth curves. "You’ve said."

"I’m going to keep saying it."

"And you're an idiot for telling me all of that."

Sylus tips his head slightly, eyes staying on him. "You're right. And the rest of Onychinus will probably think so too."

For half a second, the name does not land as a word to Zayne. It lands as sound. Something half-remembered from newspapers left folded on hospital breakroom tables, attending physicians who lowered their voices when residents came too close, from rumors about donors and nightclubs and men who did not get charged with things everyone knew they had done. Because in some way it supported the economy of the city.

The door. The expensive loft. The missing days. The advertisement. The careful instructions about what not to say. All of it shifts a quarter-inch closer to something ugly and organized.

That detail of his missing sunglasses feels suddenly absurd but gives him something to say. "You took my sunglasses."

Sylus glances down. "That’s what you’re focusing on?"

"I’m choosing a manageable detail."

Zayne sees it. The little tightening near his mouth. The amusement thinning out. Something behind it moving closer to the surface before Sylus pushes it back down.

"And I'm being more honest than is good for either of us," Sylus says.

Zayne hates that he believes him. Not enough to be sensible.

He takes one step back.

Sylus watches him for a second too long. "You’re scared."

"Of you?" Zayne says.

When he tries to make the man in front of him frightening, it does not quite hold. Sylus can be dangerous. That is obvious now, maybe it always was. But the fear is not his mouth, or his hands, or the way he stands there too comfortable in a room that suddenly feels less like an apartment and more like proof.

"Breathe," Sylus says.

"I am breathing."

"No." Sylus’s voice stays low. "You’re holding it."

Zayne becomes aware of his lungs then, tight and full, his chest locked around air he has not let go of. He exhales too sharply.

His hand moves to his face again, thumb pressing briefly at the corner of his mouth before he drops it. He can still feel Sylus there. Smoke and heat and teeth that were not hard enough to be anything except deliberate.

"You should have led with that the other night," he says.

Sylus tilts his head. "I don’t find it works well as an introduction."

Zayne can’t help the laugh that comes out then. Sharp. Like he has been told it is the appropriate place to laugh because everyone in Ellen's audience is doing the same.

"I was concerned," he says. The words leave his mouth before he can make them sound any different.

He does not have to justify his worry to Sylus.

He does not have to explain that one narrow strip of attention has been enough to make him spiral in ways he does not understand and would roll his own eyes at if anyone else admitted to it.

He is still concerned. Only now it feels less clean. Anger, mostly.

Sylus looks at him for a long moment.

"I know," he says quietly.

Zayne looks away first. Toward the coffee table, the statue, the dead cigarette in the ashtray. Anything that is not Sylus’s mouth.

"You could have called."

"I couldn’t."

That is probably the truth. But not enough.

Zayne presses his tongue against the back of his teeth and tries to decide what shape the anger is supposed to take now. It was simpler when he thought Sylus was just careless. Easier when this was a man playing games because he enjoyed watching people chase the rules.

Now there is Onychinus. Now there is a dead man. Now there is an advertisement from Confidential Connections sitting somewhere it should not be.

"I don’t know what you expect me to do with any of this," Zayne says.

"Nothing yet."

"Yet."

The word sits badly between them. Sylus does not soften it. He does not dress it up into something better. For some reason, Zayne almost appreciates that.

"I won’t touch you like that again," Sylus says.

Zayne looks up. For a second, he does not know which part Sylus means. The grabbing. The door. The threat. The hand in his hair. His mouth at Zayne’s throat.

All of it, maybe.

"Before you ask," Sylus adds.

The words move through Zayne more slowly than they should. A boundary placed clearly. It makes heat crawl up the back of his neck.

His sunglasses are still in Sylus’s collar. Proof that Zayne has already allowed too much of himself to end up on this man.

"Give those back."

Sylus glances down. Then he removes them carefully, folding the arms in with one hand. He does not come closer. He only holds them out, letting the distance remain.

The first few steps feel controlled.

The last one does not.

By then, Zayne is close enough to smell smoke on him again. Close enough to see the place on his lower lip where Zayne has bitten him.

Zayne reaches for the sunglasses.

His fingers close around Sylus’s wrist instead.

For one second, neither of them moves.

Then Zayne kisses him.

Hotter.

Sylus lets him set the angle. Lets him press in. Lets the kiss turn open and unsteady before his hands finally lift. Even then, they stop just short of Zayne’s waist.

Waiting.

Zayne makes a frustrated sound into his mouth and pulls Sylus’s hand to himself.

The sunglasses hit the floor with a small, useless thud.

Zayne pushes forward, and Sylus gives ground until his back meets the pillar, one shoulder first. His hand catches the back of Zayne’s shirt, fingers bunching cotton between his shoulder blades, and pulls once. Sharp enough to bring him close. Close enough that when their bodies line up, Zayne feels him hard against him.

The kiss breaks wrong for half a second.

Then Zayne moves. Barely a roll. More frustration than rhythm. Friction catches between them, dull and rough and still enough to make his breath leave him.

Sylus’s mouth is wet when he smiles against him.

"Still anatomy?"

"Shut up."

"Mm."

To his credit, Sylus almost does. Then Zayne does it again, harder this time, and Sylus’s breath catches against his mouth.

That sound does something to him. Zayne’s hand braces against the pillar beside Sylus’s head. Not because he means to trap him there, but because his knees have become briefly unreliable.

Sylus’s hand slides under his polo, thumb pressing into the tender crease just inside his hipbone.

Zayne’s body jerks before he can stop it.

Sylus notices. "Careful," he murmurs. "You’ll hurt my feelings if you keep lying to me."

Zayne’s answer comes before he has time to make it less revealing. "Then I'll just have to make you honest."

Zayne feels heat crawl up his neck immediately, because that is not what he means to say.

Sylus goes still against him. Not cold. Not distant. Still like he has just been handed something sharp.

Then he hums, low in his throat. Fingers thread into dark hair and tighten just enough to make Zayne bite his own lower lip to hold back whatever sound tries to follow.

"You sound sexier in person, Noah."

Not through a receiver. Not wrapped in static and distance and a version of himself he can hang up when the call gets too close. Here, the name sits warm against his mouth.

Zayne’s hands move because they have to. Beneath the raised edge of Sylus’s shirt first, fingers spreading over bare skin, then higher. The shirt is already shoved half up his body, and Sylus has done absolutely nothing to fix it.

His thumb catches on metal and stops. For one stupid second, his mind does not move forward. Warm skin around cool metal. The fact of it sitting there like something he should have known and absolutely did not.

He pushes the shirt higher, just enough to see.

The dark cotton drags up Sylus’s chest, and there it is: metal catching dull light, small and deliberate, threaded through flushed skin.

Sylus watches him notice.

Zayne brushes it with his thumb again, more intentionally this time.

Sylus’s fingers dig into his waist.

That reaction is immediate.

Useful.

Zayne does it again, firmer, not quite a pinch, just enough to make the metal shift against skin.

Sylus exhales sharply through his nose, jaw tightening.

"Oh," Zayne says. He does not mean to say it.

Sylus’s mouth curves anyway, but not steadily. "Found something?"

Zayne looks at him, then at the metal beneath his thumb. He should say something clinical. Something that makes this less embarrassing than the fact that he is standing in Sylus’s loft with one hand under his shirt.

Zayne gets no warning before Sylus pulls him in again. Heat caught badly between them.

Zayne’s mouth finds his throat because he cannot keep kissing him and breathing at the same time.

He bites. Not hard enough to mark at first. Then harder when Sylus says his name.

"Don’t."

Sylus laughs once, breathless and almost ruined. "Don’t what?"

"Say my name like that."

Sylus turns his face enough that his mouth brushes Zayne’s ear.

"Then move like you mean it, Noah."

Zayne’s breath catches as he freezes.

Because he does. He wants to enough that it becomes suddenly clear how bad of an idea this is. The thought is blunt enough to embarrass him.

"Make me honest," Sylus murmurs against his mouth.

That should help. That should do something to him, and it almost does before he stops, pulling himself away. Not because he does not want to. Because he does.

He pulls back.

"No." The word comes out too fast.

Sylus stills but says nothing, only pulls his hands away, and would probably step back if the pillar weren't behind him. "Okay. Sorry."

"It's okay. I just—"

"You want dinner and drinks first." Sylus says it lightly enough to pass for a joke, but not quite lightly enough to be one. "I get it."

It is not the truth. Zayne knows it is not the truth. Sylus probably does too. Still, Zayne does not particularly feel like explaining that his body has started to feel like TV static.

So he lets it sit there. For now.

a/n: Hi all, I wanted to get this up earlier but I hit a bit of a wall and ended up in the ER over the weekend for an allergic reaction to TOOTHPASTE. I can't even make this shit up anymore. For some reason I've been having trouble with editing / getting my words together. Not sure why. Might need new glasses. Might be dying. Who knows (it's Tomodachi Life and Paralives). A bit of a more fun note → because I like visuals I am working on a map of the city that I will be uploading/updating Thank you so so so much for reading. All comments and shares are so much appreciated. And thank you for your patience! I hope the wait before chapters is worth it, and as life changes, I hope the space between updates isn't too much. See you next time! my neocities

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