Doctor Zayne

He doesn’t have to be angry at himself. He doesn’t have to sit in his childhood bedroom and reassemble every second in Colorado. He doesn’t have to decide whether Sylus had handled it badly or kindly or badly enough in a kind way. He doesn’t have to decide anything. 

There are enough people around to interrupt him before his thoughts get out of hand, anyway. 

Caleb already does this naturally by existing. Mila does it more gently. Asks if he wants tea. How he slept. If he wants to come with them to the store later, because Caleb claims they need snacks and coffee that isn’t the strong wake-the-dead kind his parents had brought back from Guatemala. 

Sweet Potato has developed the habit of using a wooden spoon as a weapon, which Zayne’s parents don’t seem to think much of—and no matter how many times Zayne or Caleb hide it, the more the monkey thinks it’s a game to find it and launch it at them. 

By early afternoon, the house has settled into that strange pre-holidays rhythm where everyone is technically doing something, but no one is moving with any real urgency. Caleb gets sucked into some errand with his father that will test both of their patience. Mila is in the kitchen with her sleeves pushed up, washing something by hand even though the dishwasher works perfectly well. 

Zayne takes this as an opportunity to have a shower. It's an odd hour to be taking one, but due to the holiday it's easier to justify doing something simply because he feels like it. And there's nothing else going on, he decides he might as well before his dad and Caleb decide tonight is going to be balmy enough to justify a campfire. 

Taking his shirt off in the mirror, Zayne is confronted with the fact that, yes, he is most definitely covered in various love bites still. Over his chest, abdomen, the hollow of his throat, his shoulders, which are apparently Sylus' favorite place to bite down. And he finds that his only regret about having them is that some of them are beginning to fade, and he doesn't know when he'll be given more.

The isolation in the heat and steam is nice. A moment of pure quiet where he briefly stops worrying about whether his loved ones are talking about him while he isn't in the room. As he's scrubbing his hair, he hears his phone buzzing on the counter. It isn't until he gets out that he finds it's a text from Sylus, because who else would it be?

Zayne is rubbing his head with a towel when he opens it, and can't help huffing a small laugh. 

What are you wearing?

Straight to the point, no context, no explanation. Just a request. 

And feeling a little cheeky, he swipes open the camera, holding it up to make it very clear that the answer is nothing. Towel over one shoulder, still soft and flushed and dripping water.

He takes the photo and sends it off without anything else attached, then sets down his phone and sets about the task of shaving his face clean.

On the counter, his phone vibrates three times in quick succession, but Zayne ignores it. Once he's dressed, he takes a glance and sees the words ‘naughty’, ‘kitten’, and ‘lesson.’ 

They go unanswered.

Outside, the sun is still up, barely hanging low enough to make the afternoon feel like the beginning of the evening. Zayne notices at the top of the landing as he glances out the window.

He opens the door to his bedroom and stops. Not because his mother is standing in the middle of the room, no. 

It’s because she has a shirt held up between her hands. And for a second, Zayne’s brain refuses to connect the image. His suitcases sit open on the floor, clothes he had not yet folded gone from a lump on the bed into piles. Some are his. Some are very clearly things he would have not owned a month ago. 

His mother turns at the sound of the door. 

“Oh,” she says, as if he has interrupted her doing something perfectly ordinary and not coming up with conclusions in her head. “There you are.” 

“What are you doing?”

“You didn’t put your clothes away when you got home.” She gives him the look she has given him since he was twelve and apparently incapable of putting anything where she believed it belonged. “They’ll wrinkle.” 

His mother smooths the shirt across her forearm, thumb catching briefly on the tag still tucked along the seam. Her expression shifts. Not much. 

“Where did you get this, Zaynie?” 

Zayne’s pulse gives one hard, stupid knock. His mouth twists into a frown from her use of the nickname. “It’s just a shirt.” 

“I can see that. It’s a little small for you, don’t you think?” 

“I can put my own clothes away.” 

“I know you can.” His mother smooths the front of the shirt with her thumb. “I was just helping.” She looks at him. Not sharply. Not yet. Just with the mild surprise of someone who has known him too long. 

“Well, they were on my bed.” As if that helps the argument any further. Not that he ever had much of the nerve to argue with either of his parents. 

“Zayne.” His mother exhales through her nose, then lifts the shirt a little higher, looking at the price tag again, flipping it over. “All I did was ask where you got this…four hundred dollar Ralph Lauren shirt.” She blinks at the tag, and then shakes her head slightly as if she can’t imagine a piece of linen costing so much. 

He crosses the room and reaches for it. “Mom.” 

She lets him take it, but not before turning the tag between her fingers again. 

Zayne knew she had the right to question the strangeness of it all, if not only for the fact her husband has worn the same Toronto sweater for over twenty years. She seemed even more confused now that her son hasn’t given her the straight to the point answers she was used to. 

In Aspen, the store itself was absurd. Even if he was already used to being told “get whatever you want.” Zayne remembered looking over to Luke, and something on his face must have betrayed him, for he had never seen another person spring into action so fast and pull something random off the rack with barely a glance. 

He finds a hanger quickly and shoves the shirt into the nearly empty closet, sliding the door shut even with the other things that still needed to be put away. He doesn’t turn back right away, mostly because he knows his mothers face is dangerously neutral. It isn’t even something he has to to guess. But he doesn’t want her to look at his face anymore just yet. 

“It was a gift,” he starts, not exactly a lie, but enough of one that makes him not want to look while he says it. “Rafayel gave it to me.”

“An expensive gift, isn’t it?”

Zayne bites the inside of his cheek, refusing to inhale sharply and give his increasing impatience away. Forcing his face to relax, he turns, not quite yet looking his mother in the eye and pushing his glasses up his nose instead. 

“Money doesn’t matter like that to some people,” he says. “He bought it because he liked it and it didn’t fit. That’s all. There’s nothing special about it.”

It's a strange sort of nostalgia, getting used to the dark again. The way the sun would already be setting as the three of them walked home from school. How the neighborhood kids would always start playing night games on the street right after dinner. How all the adults always got tired so early. 

But it's light enough, and the street is familiar and safe enough that it doesn't seem strange when Mila asks to go on a walk with him. The mere implication of going out with her alone is really the only thing that gives him pause. 

“You don't want to bring Caleb along?” Zayne asks, and blinks when she shakes her head.

“He has an assignment he still needs to finish before the break is over. We have some time.”

Zayne doesn't know what that means exactly, but it makes him nervous. He tells his mother that they'll be back later, and she nods but doesn't look at him, which is foreboding. There's a sinking feeling in his stomach that he's really not fooling anyone in his life that something is different, and sooner or later he will have to give them answers. 

It's quiet as he follows Mila outside and trails half a step behind. Little wisps of hair stick out from the beanie she shoved over her head, hands in both pockets of her coat.

It feels too much like those years ago, when everything was easier. And really, that time wasn't even that long ago. Just 3, 4 earlier and they would be walking down this very same street. Caleb and Zayne quietly fighting for her attention, and she would notice but wouldn't say anything about it. 

The night before they all left for school, spent at the park just around the corner. Mila on the swings, Caleb pushing her, Zayne besides them with his toes in the ground and his eyes low while they reminisced and anticipated a new start. It had been a happy night, a celebration, because they would all still be together. There were no sad goodbyes. The three of them were all they needed. 

Caleb had brought a six pack, and they each had two. The hours crept by unnoticed, because it was always dark here anyway, and besides, they were too busy teasing each other about the times they embarrassed themselves. 

He remembers, vividly, watching her that night. How her skin glowed a rosy pink from the alcohol, how bright and carefree her laugh was. He remembers falling in love with her all over again in that moment. How lucky he felt, to be one of the two people she counted as hers. That was something Mila always made clear to the two of them: they weren't going to be able to get rid of her. As if either of them would ever want to be anywhere but by her side.

It makes this moment, in the here and now feel all the more melancholy. Makes him feel more guilty for the way he's acted since Josephine passed away, since she finally made her choice and it wasn't him.

When exactly did he stop trusting her with himself? Was it then? When she burned brighter with Caleb by her side, and Zayne was alone in his room, selling himself for strangers to enjoy?

Perhaps that's part of the reason he agreed to start doing the live streams in the first place, after Rafayel mentioned it almost as a joke. If he wasn't saving himself for Mila anymore, then what worth did his body really have? 

A few hundred bucks a month, as it turns out. Over a period of seven months the average cost of himself is exactly $345.86 per month. Though he hasn't done the math since Sylus began donating, and that's sure to skew the numbers by a sizable margin. 

There is one thing being home is already showing him, though. He's being unfair to those who have been everything to him his entire life. Avoiding them because he is afraid of his own inadequacy, afraid to admit he has been selfish with his own feelings. Because he can't handle the idea of being alone, that he's never bothered to imagine what he would do if he couldn't have Mila. And yet when the time came, he was a coward. He has been a coward for so long, of course she would choose Caleb. 

Caleb knows what he wants and he doesn't hesitate to reach for it. Zayne had been waiting for her to reach for him.

And perhaps that's what has drawn him so deeply into Sylus' world. It fulfills his pathetic desire to be pursued, to be wanted. It's unfair of him, to avoid his friends for something he doesn't even know is real.

Aspen should be a wake up call for him that he will never really belong in Sylus' world. He may exist as a shadow, a secret, cared for in the dark, but never out in the open. 

Never in the way he'd always dreamed of bringing Mila home and being able to introduce her as his girlfriend. Of driving up the mountains for the view just to spend the whole time kissing her. Of proposing to her on top of that very same mountain. 

Idle dreams. Pointless, in the end. The same as any dream would be with Sylus, if he thinks about it for too long. He doesn't dream of romancing Sylus, of courting him. He dreams of the things Sylus could do to him. Of being treated roughly, pinned down by a warm, heavy body. Of the filthy things he likes to say.

Before long, he knows exactly where they're going. Up a hill at the end of the road that technically belongs to one of the neighbors, but who never cared that the kids always came here to watch the aurora at night. It's far enough away from the rest of the houses that it becomes pitch black. Possibly dangerous, but at least there's always plenty of snow to catch a fall.

There's no telling whether they'll see one tonight, but there's always a chance. Benefits of living in a small rural area. 

Neither of them speak until they get to the top of the hill. Someone, or more likely someones have taken the time to build up a little bench made out of densely packed snow. Mila sits, and looks up at him when he hesitates, patting the spot beside her. Zayne acquiesces. 

“So.” She begins, but does not continue.

“So?” Zayne pushes up his glasses and zips his coat higher. Any conversation that starts with ‘so’ tends to indicate it will be going on for some time.

He sees a puff of breath in his periphery and turns to see her frowning at him. Like he should know why they're both here. He doesn't, only because he doesn't know which of several possibilities she wants to talk about. 

Mila looks like she's chewing on her words too, trying to decide how to start. Her brows are pulled together, and her shoulders hunched the way they get when she's upset about something. 

Eventually, she apparently decides that subtly is not the name of the evening, “I'm not an idiot, you know. Not like Caleb is.”

Outwardly, Zayne is calm, but he feels his heart rate pick up. “I know.”

“You've been distant.” 

A tap of his thumb on his thigh, and he finds he can't quite meet her gaze, pretending there's a hangnail on one of his fingers. 

“I know.” Softer, this time. Really, he doesn't even know where to begin if this is the route she wants to go down. 

There's another heavy breath beside him, and she's quiet for a bit longer. Zayne imagines it must be frustrating to talk to himself. 

“Ever since we started dating, you've been pulling away.”

Ah. There it is. He can hear his pulse in his ears now. 

This is not a conversation he wants to have, has ever wanted to have. The only consolation is that by the way her eyes finally drop into her own lap, fingers tangled together, he knows that she doesn't either. It heralds only one thing: heartbreak on both sides.

Zayne can't meet her eyes.

But he can smell her perfume as she leans closer to still his fidgeting hands. It's sweet and sugary, probably called something like ‘christmas cookie’. It's a familiar smell, and doesn't that just make it worse?

“Mila…” His voice is apprehensive, “we don't have to talk about this.”

“Yes we do, Zayne. We do have to talk about this, because you're my best friend, and I love you, and I feel like…” There's a tightness in his chest as he hears her voice grow thicker, “I feel like I'm losing you right now.”

“I'm right here.” He says, but it's unconvincing to even his own ears.

“Zayne. Look at me.” Her cold hand lands on his cheek and turns him towards her so he can't look away.

Mila looks at him with maybe the worst expression she could be: pity. 

He hates that.

Every bit of him feels useless. Homeless, in a way. Halfway a part of everyone's lives, belonging nowhere. None of them know everything. And the thought of being honest with her is terrifying.

“What do you want me to say?” Zayne asks, feeling helpless under her penetrating gaze. 

“The truth.” 

“You already know. What good will saying out loud do?” 

She shakes her head, an almost imperceptible movement, “I don't know, but I need to hear it and I think you need to say it.” 

As always, Mila is perceptive and sensitive, and once she has her mind set to something, there is no getting away from it. 

The problem is that he isn't sure he has the strength to say those words. Isn't sure he is selfish enough to give that old desire a name. 

“Zayne…” she says again, and strokes his cheek with her thumb. His eyes drift closed at the feeling. “Please.”

When he opens them again, his throat feels thick and there's a burning at the back of his eyes. He knows this is the moment, the only question is how long it takes him to work up the courage to say it. 

Before he can stop himself, he's mirroring her, his own chilled fingers caressing a rosy cheek, dotted with freckles. Their foreheads press together, cushioned by their beanies, and his shaky breath fills the air between them.

“I love you.” It isn't easy to force out, but he does, and it feels like there's a boulder in his stomach. “I always have.”

“I know.” Is her simple reply, soft. Her thumb keeps stroking at his cheekbone. 

There's no use pretending to be surprised. They both knew, for quite some time now, she's always been able to read him better than most. It's one of the things that draws him to her. Being understood, despite his strangeness at times. 

“It's been difficult for you. To be around us.” Not a question, a statement. It doesn't need to be asked, only acknowledged. Zayne nods, and feels miserable. 

That is, until her forehead shifts against his own, and then her breath is much closer, warmer. His own catches in his throat as he tilts closer too. A question. Tentative, in this quiet, private moment. The moment feels more like a dream than reality. They move slowly, dancing around it, unsure.

And then the question is answered. Her lips press against his own, featherlight, and because Zayne is terrible and selfish, he meets her. It is not the way he ever wanted his first kiss with her to go. When they were younger he used to imagine it happening under the bleachers, like in movies, or during a school dance. 

This way, it feels more like a goodbye rather than the beginning he wanted it to be. 

And yet, he doesn't know what it means to her, if anything at all. If she ever felt the same. If he ever had a chance. 

Behind them, the sky begins to glow, drawing bright green ribbons between the stars. 

When they part, there are tears in both of their eyes. Not falling, but they make hers glitter. 

“I'm sorry, Zayne.”

His smile is little and sad, “Never apologize for your own happiness.” Whether it hurts him or not, this is exactly what he has been trying to avoid. Pity, or guilt, for feeling like she's taken something from him that never belonged to him in the first place. 

Mila takes a deep, steadying breath and nods, letting his face go so she can scoot closer and lean against his shoulder. 

“There's actually something else I brought you out here for.” She admits after a moment, as they both turn their gaze to the aurora. It is much brighter than it was in Aspen. Funny, how the two moments feel so similar in his heart. 

“Oh dear.” Zayne says, and is pleased to hear Mila laugh at his response. 

“I'm pregnant.”

He goes still again. Whether or not to offer a congratulations he isn't sure, based on her tone.

“Oh.” A beat. “Are you keeping it?” 

A long inhale that he can feel expanding her chest against his shoulder. She takes his fingers and toys with them idly, a habit from when they were children. 

“Yeah. I am.” 

“Congratulations, then. You'll make a wonderful mother.” And he does mean that wholeheartedly. Mila has always been the right blend of gentle and strict, of feisty and protective. She'll teach her children to hold themselves in high regard, and at the same time tell them when they are wrong. 

She squeezes his hand. “Thanks Zayne. That means a lot coming from you.”

“Does Caleb know?” 

“Not yet. I only found out a few days ago, before we left. Kept getting sick in the mornings, so I bought a test. And before you ask, yes, I got three of them, all different brands.” He chuckles, and turns his hand over to squeeze back.

“When are you planning on telling him?” 

“I don't know… would it be weird if I said something on Thanksgiving?”

Zayne hums, “That depends on whether or not you want pregnancy advice from an orthopedic surgeon and a pediatric oncologist.”

Now Mila laughs, “They wouldn't be that bad, would they? It might even be helpful.”

“I know my parents would both be thrilled to hear the news, if you wanted to share it. Maybe it would get them off my back.”

“Oh yeah!” Mila shoots upright, surprising him, and gives him the same look his mom did earlier today. It makes him shrink back. “That reminds me: who’s Sylus?”

Right now, Sylus is the last thing he wants to talk about.

The women in his life are too perceptive. For the first time ever, he finds himself wishing he was surrounded by Caleb's. Zayne rubs at the spot between his eyebrows. 

“No one.”

“No one? Is that why you looked like you were going to throw up in the car yesterday?” She raises a brow. 

Damn.

Zayne sighs, “Someone I met.”

She looks unimpressed by his answer. In fact, she looks almost like his mother, and clearly wants more information than that. But she also knows him, and knows it's impossible to get information out of him before he's ready to offer it. 

“Do you love him?”

No question about his supposed sexuality, no confusion about the fact that he's just admitted that he's in love with her, and has been for the better part of a decade. Just curiosity. 

Does he love Sylus? It's a question he has been avoiding looking in the face, and he does so now as well. 

“I don't know.” He says, as he looks back at the sky. The northern lights begin to fade. Now, more than before he feels the similarity to this moment and that one with Sylus. Can remember the feeling of holding him in his arms, of the soft intimacy of both these moments. 

Maybe there is something magical in the aurora, in the way it reminds you how unimportant so many things really are. 

“Maybe.”

No other explanation. Just a polite, “Happy holidays” before he disappears, leaving Zayne alone in the tiny private terminal with two desk workers and an older woman in a fur coat giving them hell over something. A well-dressed man in a chauffeur's cap waits beside her, hands folded neatly in front of him. Zayne understands immediately. 

Being near rich people, apparently, did not make anyone feel less adjacent. 

With a huff, he pulls the scarf from around his neck. It still smells too much like clean sheets and cologne. Too much like the suite. Like a hand at the back of his neck and a voice telling him where to stand, what to pack, how to fuck and when to leave. He shoves it into his pocket along with the gloves he had been wearing, then mentally zips Aspen back up.

For the moment, at least.

Slumping into one of the seats, he pulls his phone from his pocket and turns airplane mode off. Notifications bloom across the screen almost immediately, too many of them, but his thumb ignores all of it and goes straight for Rafayel’s contact.

Rafayel answers on the third ring. “Well?”

He doesn’t even wait for Rafayel to get started. If he doesn’t get it out of the way now, he will never hear the end of it.

“Thank you, again.” Zayne says.

“Yeah, well, I went to the bar with them at least two times this week because you were too busy with your research papers.” A pause. “By the way, my other excuse was that you were posing nude for me for my still life thesis.”

Zayne presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose, resisting the urge to let out the sigh he has been holding for the entire flight.

“That’s not technically a lie. I did finish them early.”

“So what’s wrong then, show off? Daddy boring you already?”

“I’m home.”

The words come out wrong. Something too flat. Too final. He is not home yet, technically. But it is the closest thing to home he has been all week. All year. He is sitting beside two suitcases, one of which he did not own three days ago, wearing a wool coat like a correction. Charcoal, knee-length, expensive in a way that did not announce itself until his fingers found the lining. Smooth buttons. Heavy seams. A collar that turned up neatly against the cold instead of folding badly like every coat he had ever owned.

“I thought you weren’t going home till Sunday night,” Rafayel says.

“Didn’t work out that way.”

In a rare instance, Rafayel seems to pause and choose his words very carefully. Even if they are, “Fuck him.”

“No, I mean—”

“No, I understood what you meant,” Rafayel says. “I’m choosing the broader interpretation.”

Zayne closes his eyes. “Don’t.”

That softens him. Or at least, it makes Rafayel quiet in a different way.

“What happened?”

Zayne looks down at the weekender. Then at the old suitcase beside it. “His children came early.”

“Oh.”

“They weren’t supposed to be there until later. Monday, I think.” His throat tightens around the explanation, which is stupid. It isn’t difficult information. It’s just information. “They showed up. It was handled.”

He hates that word, handled, the moment it leaves his mouth.

“He arranged for me to leave before anyone saw me.” Zayne’s thumb presses against the side of his phone. The words hadn't come out right.

“He sent me away,” he tries again. The sentence sits there, just as ugly as the one before it. Incomplete. Unfair. He knows that as soon as he says it. Sylus had not been cruel. Had not looked relieved, either. If anything, he had looked like every part of the decision had cost him more than he wanted Zayne to notice. But that is not the same thing as being asked to stay.

“Zayne…”

Zayne swallows. “No. That’s not—he arranged for me to get home. It was complicated.”

“Was it complicated, or was he complicated?”

Outside the glass, Alaska is dark and wet and practical. Nothing like Aspen. Nothing like the suite. Nothing like the life Zayne had briefly, stupidly let himself stand inside.

“I don’t know. It’s fine.” His voice lowers. “I just have to call someone to come get me when I get to town.”

His childhood home sits off of Chena Ridge Road, fair enough away from town that the show seemed cleaner and the quiet had room to spread. A pale two-story house tucked back away from the road with a garage big enough for cars his parents were rarely home enough to drive. 

Unfortunately, he would have to wait till the next day to see the views from outside his window of the surrounding ridge-lines. On the ride home he is met with the lights of Fairbanks low in the dark, the hills blue black beyond it. 

By the time they pull into the garage, Zayne has already answered every question his father asks.

Hungry?

No.

Cold?

No.

Did you sleep?

Some.

There was no questioning regarding early arrivals. Not yet, anyway. But between the two of his parents, Zayne supposes he never had much hope of being mysterious. 

Jace Li could be strange. Frequently. Publicly, on occasion. But he also knows when to sweep eggshells under the rug and not to start a fire where there shouldn’t be one. He had often tried to convince Zayne that mild delinquency was an important developmental milestone, yet had never pushed despite all of his enthusiastic advocacy of low-stakes teenage rebellion. He knew how to offer a door without shoving someone through it. 

So even now, in the garage, he does not ask Zayne why he came home early, if anything had happened. He just sits with both hands still on the steering wheel and says, “Your mother went to bed early.” 

His mother would have asked. Not immediately, and not carelessly, but she would have asked too soon. Watch his face and his hands in a way he is much too tired for tonight.  

There is already enough Zayne feels like he has to process. The day feels longer than it should, stretched thin by cabin pressure and the unreality of looking down at the world from thirty thousand feet through almost all of it. All while feeling some vital part of himself was left behind in Colorado. 

Boots off by the door. Suitcases brought upstairs. His father leaves him in the hall with a hand briefly pressed between Zayne's shoulders before going back to whatever it was he had been doing before being dragged from the house to the airport.  

In his old room, he wastes no time pulling off his coat. The old one. Dark green, too bulky through the shoulders, the one he swapped into before getting on the plane to Fairbanks. A childish attempt to feel better. He throws it over the desk chair and watches it become a shapeless heap. Then he exhales, quiet and uneven, and shuts the door behind him while pulling his phone from his pocket and unlocks it. The light from the screen reflects off his glasses. No notifications. 

The message he sends Sylus is simple. 

I’m home. 

That’s it. No explanation or punctuation that might imply too much. No apology or comment on the flights or the cold or him standing in his childhood bedroom. He sends it before he can revise it into something worse or not send anything. Then he tosses the phone onto the bed and mentally begs it not to slip into the narrow space between the mattress and the wall, because the last thing he needs tonight is to go digging for it like an idiot. It’s a small mercy when it lands face up. 

Zayne sits on the edge of the bed and pulls his glasses off. The room softens immediately, familiar shapes blurring at the edges. Desk. Bookshelf. Old curtains. The quilt on the narrow bed he had slept in for years, though now it all feels smaller than he remembers. Or maybe he is just too aware of having been somewhere else. Too aware of the suite at The Little Nell. Of firelight. The humiliating absence of the hands that had been all over him. 

Of the hotel manager catching him on the way out, pressing a snow globe into his hand like a parting gift and not something you hand off in a hurry to the guest of one of your top clients. 

Inside the glass had been a tiny range of white-capped mountains. Perfect beneath a snowfall that would never melt. It currently sits buried beneath clothes that had been packed too quickly. A small piece of Aspen dragged all the way back to Alaska with him. 

Zayne sets his glasses on the nightstand. He pushes down his jeans and kicks them to the side. Pulls off his sweater next, the thermal layer beneath thin and soft in a way that still feels too aware of every temperature change. 

He does not change properly, brush his teeth, shower, unpack. Either too tired or avoiding opening suitcases and touching anything inside. He can do it tomorrow. Probably. For now he’s content to lay exactly as he is, half-dressed, his body finally still underneath the heavy patchwork quilt after a day that lasted far longer than it should have. 

He must fall asleep at some point. Enough for the room to lose its edges, for thought to become a slow and shapeless thing he can stop touching. 

And then the phone rings—Zayne wakes with a start, and for one disoriented second has no idea where he is, or where his phone is. He reaches for it once everything takes shape, narrowly knocking it into the void between the wall and the mattress again; fingers catch the edge before it can slip. The screen lights in his hand. He squints at the name, still half-blind from sleep.

"No thanks," He says to himself as he jabs the volume button to silence the ringer. But as soon as he shoves the phone under his pillow settles back against it, the ringing starts again. This time Zayne answers before he can let it stop. 

“Yes?” 

The pause on the other end is just enough for Zayne to hear the faint shift of breathing, the small adjustment of someone holding a phone too close. 

“I woke you,” Sylus says.

“No.” 

A quiet exhale that’s almost a laugh, but too tired to become one. 

“I fell asleep in the living room,” Sylus says. “I saw your message late.” 

“Congratulations. My father does the same thing.” Zayne lies there with the phone pressed too hard to his ear, staring at the wall. 

“Does he?” 

“Yes. Usually in a chair with the television on. Like the elderly.” 

“Wow,” another faint breath. This one is closer to amusement. 

“That’s probably what he would say too.” 

Zayne closes his eyes again, already regretting that he answered and knowing that somehow it would have been worse if he didn’t. 

“You called twice,” he points out.

“I did,” Sylus says. 

“So you were committed to bothering me.” 

“Yes.” 

That answer is too honest. Zayne opens his eyes again. The wall is still there. Pale and unhelpful in the dark. 

“I didn’t call to bother you,” Sylus says after a moment.

“You just said you were committed to it.” 

“I said yes because arguing with you when you’re half-asleep seems unwise.” 

Zayne turns his face further toward the wall. His old bedroom smells faintly like laundry detergent and cedar sachets his mother still insists on putting in the drawers. Everything here is suddenly too familiar to be comforting, or at least fit inside it properly. 

“I didn’t disappear,” he points out. 

“I called because I thought you might after today.” 

That lands badly mostly because he had. Zayne was ready to let the text do the work. Make arrival fact instead of conversation. To be home. To be safe. To be angry or hurt or humiliated or whatever this is in a room  where no one could see the shape of it. Figure it out and take the time to reason with himself once he had gotten rest. 

Except maybe Sylus had already seen enough already, maybe more than that. 

“I’m sorry,” Zayne says. 

“For what? That’s not usually how apologies work.” 

“I don’t know. I’m tired.” 

“I know.” 

Zayne swallows, annoyed by the gentleness more than he would be by anything else. He almost wants a correction. A sharp edge. Something he can push against without feeling ridiculous for needing to push at all. Instead he’s given room, and that only makes him bite the inside of his cheek in consideration.

“I know why you did it,” he finds himself saying. “I think.” 

Sylus does not answer. 

“It would have been weird.” As if that covers earlier when Sylus was half dressed with him tucked away in the bathroom putting on his clothes wrong. Zayne understands that. But understanding does not help. 

“It just...made me feel like I wasn’t a person,” he says. 

He is met with silence again. 

Then Sylus says, “I know.” 

“No, you don’t. You’re not me, so you don’t know.” 

“You’re right. I’m sorry, Zayne.” 

There it is again. Soft. Careful. Almost unbearable in a way that makes Zaynes hand tighten around the phone. Somehow it’s worse than arguing. He inhales sharply. 

“I’m not a child. You sent me away like I was one.”

“I did.” No defense. Just there. Acknowledged. 

Zaynes grip tightens around the phone. His skin feels tight under the thermal, the quilt suddenly heavy over his legs. He knows there are reasons. Of course there are reasons. Sylus is almost entirely made of reasons. He had been aware of them all along, yet here he was. It wasn’t like he had been forced off the cam-site and onto that jet to Aspen.

“Don’t explain it,” he says. 

“I wasn’t going to.” 

“Yes, you were.” 

Sylus exhales, and Zayne imagines him running a hand down his face, or through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re right.” 

“I just told you. I know why,” Zayne continues. “Or enough of why. I’m not stupid.” 

“I know you’re not. When have I said that?” 

Zayne hears the question but chooses to ignore the truth in it. “Then don’t make me listen to all the reasons that it made sense to you.” 

There’s the sound of movement on the other end, Sylus sitting up against the headboard, maybe. Zayne can’t tell if the quiet is a good thing—wishes he could see his face to confirm it. 

“They can all be true,” he says, “It can all make sense, and still make me feel like that.” 

“Yes.” The answer is immediate. “And I’m sorry,” Sylus says. “For that. I didn’t bring you to Aspen because you were easy to hide. I wanted you there.”

The words do not fix it, as much as they sound like they should. They do not make the week disappear, the closeness, or the neatness of being sent away after standing in a bathroom. 

“What can I do?” Sylus asks, voice soft again. “If you could have anything in the world right now, tell me what it is.” 

Zayne huffs. “Let me go back to sleep.” 

Sylus gives a low, tired sound. Not quite a laugh, but close enough. “Alright.” 

Zayne turns in the other direction, settling one arm under the pillow while keeping the phone to his ear. 

“Don’t send me anything,” he adds. 

“I won’t.” 

“Don’t arrange anything else, either.” 

“Okay.” 

“Don’t call again tonight.” 

“Got it.” 

The answers come easily. No argument or negotiation. That helps more than whatever Sylus had been trying to offer. 

“Good,” Zayne says, but it’s lost most of its edge. For now. 

He'd offered to go pick up Caleb and Mila before either of his parents could protest. Saying something about how it was the least he could do if they'd all be staying here for the week, and when his mother tried to tell him all that they needed was his presence, he used the excuse that he was just excited to see them.

To his mother and father, who rarely see their son express excitement about anything at all, it's a good enough reason. He's not excited to see them, because he knows he'll have to explain himself to them as well. All he can hope for is that his abrupt arrival and disappearance the week before don't become a topic of conversation between the four of them. 

For a little while, the drive does ease his nerves, and makes him aware that it's the first time in over a week he's had more than a few minutes alone. In Aspen, Sylus was always there, even if he was in the other room. Strange how quickly he had grown used to someone else around him so often, when most of his time tends to be spent alone. Ironic that he finds it uncomfortable now. 

When he gets to the airport, he gets a text from Mila that they're still waiting for their luggage, and takes two more laps around before he pulls up and sees them standing near gate 3. They don't recognize his dad's car, but Caleb waves with a grin when he catches sight of Zayne behind the wheel as he pulls up. Chivalrously, he has all of their bags hanging off of his arm, and a suitcase in both hands.

Zayne gives them both a nod as he pulls up, unlocking the car and pressing the button to open the trunk. 

Before he can make any attempt at small talk, Caleb already has his mouth open. 

“Long time no see Zaynie, why didn't you tell us you were leaving early?” He calls through the open air between the trunk and the driver's seat. It's frigid outside, and the cold Alaskan winter blows straight through the heater. 

“It slipped my mind.” Zayne says, unwilling to try and offer an explanation. His finger taps on the steering wheel before he realizes he should turn down the radio. 

“Yeah, Raf told us,” Caleb is distracted fitting their luggage into the back, and though his thought is half finished, looks behind him, “that everything, baby?”

“Just this,” Mila tosses in the small bag on her shoulder, and slamming the trunk shut, they both make their way back around to hop in; Caleb in the back and Mila beside Zayne in the passenger seat. 

“Here,” Zayne hands her his phone, open to the Spotify app so she can pick something else to listen to. He's aware that his music choices are not either of their favorites. Mila has grown to like Sleep Token, due to osmosis from him, but Caleb prefers Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift. 

Mila’s taste in music is a bearable middle ground for both of them. 

“How was your flight?” He asks, checking the rear view mirrors and flicking on the blinker to pull back onto the road. 

“Too long!” Caleb groans, stretching his long arms as much as he can in the cramped space of the car. “And there was a kid kickin’ my seat the whole time too.”

Mila, meanwhile, focuses on scrolling through Zayne's playlists until she decides on something inoffensive to them all. 

Then, because of course it does, his phone vibrates in her hand, and Zayne's eyes automatically flick over to see her reading whatever message has just popped up at the top of the screen. Anxiety twists his gut so quickly he feels a bit nauseous. 

Please let it be Rafayel saying something meaningless and non-incriminating, please don't let it be that stupid old–

“Sylus says, ‘give me a call when you have time.’” Mila announces to the whole car, and for a second Zayne forgets how to breathe, hearing her say his name. It doesn't belong here. Not on her lips. “Do you want me to message him back?”

“No.” Zayne answers too fast, and then clears his throat. The last thing he needs her to see is their message thread. “I'll reply when we get home.”

As horrifying as the moment is for him, neither of his passengers seem to notice, and Mila clicks the screen off and sets his phone back down in the center console, turning her sights out of the window. 

“You know, next time you have Rafayel make up excuses for you, you should probably be more specific. You know what he told us?” She asks, looking back towards him with a grin. 

It helps ease some of the tension in his shoulders to have the subject changed so easily, and with no effort on his part. 

“I haven't posed nude for any of his paintings, if that's what he said.” Zayne shakes his head. Of course. Why, of all things, would Rafayel lie about that? 

The two of them erupt into giggles, apparently highly amused at the thought of him naked. 

For the rest of the roughly hour long drive home, Zayne becomes acutely aware of how divorced he's become in these last few months from his two best childhood friends. Their conversation flows easily with one another, and it isn't as if they're leaving him out, but he feels like an outsider. 

For instance, Caleb finds great pleasure in tugging at both of their ears from the backseat, Mila shrieking from the feeling and turning around to smack at him. Zayne just flinches and glares at him through the rear view mirror, reminding Caleb that he is driving right now. If he didn't know any better, he'd say that Caleb seems to be more amused by his reaction than hers. 

Overall… it's not entirely unpleasant. It just makes him feel guilty once more. And thank god, neither of them seem to have given any further thought to whoever Sylus might be. Probably assuming he's a classmate or a professor wanting a call about some school project. And he will allow them to believe that as long as they like. 

“Home sweet home!” Caleb exclaims once they turn the corner onto the street where they all grew up, and if it's possible, he's in an even better mood than he's been the rest of the ride. 

“My mom said she'd have dinner ready by the time we get back. So you can go put your things in the guest room and come back down to eat.” Zayne says as he pulls into the driveway and retrieves his phone. 

Why does Sylus want him to call him again? What could he possibly want to talk about?  The thought grates on his nerves as he looks at the message, now sent over an hour ago. It fills him with a sick sort of vindication to think that he's left the man waiting on a reply. 

Around him, Caleb and Mila get out of the car and disappear behind the trunk. Zayne follows a moment after, deciding to leave the message unanswered. Sylus will just have to wait. 

And of course the moment he opens the door, Caleb leans around the back of the car, and a snowball lands squarely on Zayne's face. He jumps and then freezes with shock, pulling off his glasses, wiping his face free of the cold snow. 

Caleb is absolutely howling with laughter, and unseen, he can hear Mila giggling as she pulls her bag back over her shoulder. 

“Serves you right, Li! Never let your guard down!” Caleb cackles, and Zayne glares as he cleans the lenses of his glasses with a sleeve pulled through his coat. 

“Watch your back, Xia.” He replies in a deathly cold tone that promises revenge. “Now get inside, it's freezing out here.”

He does get his revenge, by making an excuse to loiter by the car for just long enough to get his own handful of snow, which he shoves right down the back of Caleb's shirt. 

The resulting girlish shriek is more than worth the childish noogie Caleb forces upon him in return.