Chapter Text
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Zayne arrived home as the Sun began to rise beyond the city's cold horizon. Its light gave the rigid, boxy buildings a slightly warmer tone, though it did little to make the empty streets livelier.
He turned back for a moment to let the early light reach him. It felt warm. He blinked to adjust quickly, tears formed in reaction, but otherwise his face was a frozen sculpture of indifference. Cold, distant…as if there’d be anyone to see him outside. “I wonder…what are mornings like in Linkon?” His thoughts wandered for a moment, trailing back to those recurring dreams he’d been experiencing lately. To the other Zayne, who is a doctor, and that girl with a kind smile. Who was worried about him, even when he acted strangely in her eyes. Every time he wakes from those dreams, it feels harder and harder to go out and face reality. A bitter envy began to nest in his stomach. Maybe loneliness starts to get the better of him.
A searing pain dragged him back to the present. His sharp features wrinkled in agony as he continued to rise on the metal stairs of his apartment building. He needed to tend the wounds from last night’s fight and have a proper rest. Those abominations seem like they’re evolving, and he finds them in greater numbers every night. Some days, it felt like he was the last person alive in the area. Maybe he was right…
With a loud clunk, the industrial lights blinked alive in the orderly furnished warehouse he lived in. Since people had abandoned the district years ago, he was free to occupy and use this building as headquarters.
He grabbed a larger first aid kit from several boxes piled on a storage shelf and patched himself up in silence. He was sure the other Dr. Zayne would be more efficient, and the thought made his chest feel heavy.
The only sounds that filled the huge space were his occasional hiss of pain and the constant humming of light tubes. It was unbearable.
“Whatever,” he commented bitterly on the vast emptiness. “I need to sleep.”
As weariness clouded his mind, he climbed the stairs to the sleeping area. It was a small office before, now comfortable and safe enough for him to rest.
With the remote control, he closed down the whole place. The entrance, the huge grilled windows had slowly darkened with the descending reinforcement. Only the small office window left out, where his jasmines bloomed. The last fragments of life he cared for every day.
The pure white flowers, with many empathic gazes, silently watched him collapse on the small single bed. His hazel eyes sympathized with the leaves against the cold world outside, as his heart struggled against the inevitable doom every day.
Zayne’s weary body had dragged him to sleep, while his mind drifted to warmer places.
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The air was cold. So cold…
It didn’t bother him most of the time, but now it crept under his blanket, which he tried to pull tighter in vain. He must’ve been too exhausted, he thought.
“...yne!” a voice from a distance.
He turned over to the other side. His breathing was shaky, his body quivering like a leaf. He was lying on a sofa, but his brain barely registered the fact.
“Zayne!” heard the voice from closer. It was soft and familiar, paired with quiet, muted footsteps on a carpeted floor.
“N…No” he managed to say between shivers, but mostly to himself. How he wished it was true! How he wished this wasn’t just a dream, but he was so tired and probably had a fever, too. Couldn’t trust his mind anymore.
“Zayne?” The gentle voice came from his back this time. It sounded dangerously real for a dream, but he was reluctant to turn around. He wasn’t ready to face the empty space behind him… “Are you awake?” Oh, but she continued. Every time this girl appeared in his dreams, she awakened something in him. Feelings he had buried deep inside. What were they called?
Longing, yearning…
A warm hand caressed his shoulder, and he involuntarily flinched at the unexpected touch. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!” She pulled back her hand swiftly, leaving a freezing absence behind. “But you didn’t answer your phone, and I was waiting at the café already. Are you unwell?”
Zayne heard the concern in her words, something he vaguely remembered how it sounded in reality, not in the medical dramas he’d watch to dispel silence. With a shaky breath, he sat up and braced himself for facing the siren of his isolation. He leaned back against the backrest and slowly opened his eyes.
As he expected, it wasn’t his sofa, it wasn’t his room. The morning sun brightened the elegant, but simple home, covering everything in cosy light. It was the other’s. And her. She was crouching before the sofa, eyes on his face as she tried to figure out what could have happened to the person she knew.
Zayne didn't even have to look at her to sense her concern. This made it harder for him to look her in the eye. He swallowed audibly before speaking. “Sorry for making you worry about me. I was…” Then a shiver ran through his body that made his breath come out shaky.
“Are you sick?” She stood up to lean toward him. Placed her hand on his forehead. Her scent invaded his space. She smelled like sweets and sunshine. And her whole presence radiated warmth he needed too much. Zayne froze. He didn’t dare to move, but his body was still quivering uncontrollably.
“I will be ok, just need some rest,” he tried to look and sound confident, to make her keep a distance. But the light catches in her hair…he wanted to touch it so bad.
She slid her hand down to his face. “You’re so cold! Is it your evol? That won’t do…” his eyelids fluttered briefly at her hand’s warmth. Tried to keep his focus, not to close his eyes, not to lean and breathe in her scent from her neck. He gripped the blanket tighter.
“I’ll make some tea, that will make you feel better.”
The sudden distance made him freeze more. His hand reached out and grabbed her sleeve. It was almost instinctual. “Stay!” his voice came out more commanding than he expected. He immediately regretted the tone, then averted his eyes in shame. “Please…”
At first, he thought the girl would be angry…if he ever had a chance, he screwed up. But when she turned around, her smile had melted the remaining icicles from his heart.
“Okayy, Dr. Zayne!” she laughed. Her voice was playful and kind. “If you ask me so nicely, I will keep you company.”
She sat down beside him, knees facing the backrest, her hands taking his. Her warmth was almost burning into his cold skin. She started to rub his hand like on a chilly winter day. That was when he realized her lips were painted in a captivating, sweet, and dark shade of red like a red velvet cake. It was a miracle, he thought.
She was a miracle. And when led by an instinct, she raised his left hand up to her mouth, warming it with her breath, Zayne chuckled.
“You’re not real,” he said, and he meant it, but the girl still stared at him with an affection he didn’t deserve. It wasn’t for him.
She reached for the blanket, but he was reluctant to let her, just pulled the fabric tighter. “It’s ok, I want to help you,” she said in a calming tone. Sounding soft, every word pulling his heartstrings, every pronounced syllable her deep red lips formed was an assault against his self-control.
Then she tried again, reaching out to the opening of the blanket, right where his freezing right hand gripped the fabric together. She began to pull the edge of the material with a gentle motion, shuffling closer until their thighs brushed. Her body heat radiated through their clothes, and the feeling of her closeness made Zayne shudder not just from the cold. His breath became shallower as her hands settled on the simple black t-shirt he had on from last night.
She felt his heart speed up under her hands as they trailed down to his sides. She moved closer, wrapping him in a tight embrace while her head rested on his shoulder. Zayne hesitated for a moment, but eventually gave in. He covered them both with the plush fabric, but his body was still tense, the constant shivering calmed down just so he didn’t shake her as well.
Their upper chests pressed flat together in the embrace, and he felt his breathing slowly align with hers, though not his world. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he still waited, feared that next time he closed his eyes, he’d wake up in the nightmare he came from. The thought of going back to the empty streets, endless fights, and a crumbling humanity makes him crave her company more. He let some of the fears evaporate through a shaky breathout, burying his head in the curve of her neck. And he was right, her sweet scent was intoxicating, he couldn’t help but inhale it in, revel in it, like it was the last thing in the world he could do.
Then he felt her breath hitching, hands clenching on the fabric of his t-shirt. If he wasn’t already drowned in it, he would be shocked at the thought that she didn’t break their closeness. But he lost too far, and couldn’t help but press his mouth to her warm, silky skin, slowly sealing passionate kisses on her neck. A small breathy moan left her mouth, and it ran through his body like an electroshock. It had awakened something in his core he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was an aching need to feel her more, to get lost in her. Like a snowflake melting on a winter's night, when the cold air surrenders to the warmth of a gentle touch, and their existence becomes the only living thing in his desolate world.
Zayne continued his path along her jaw, with each touch hungrier than the last. Her breath became ragged as the tension between them became unbearable. When he reached the corner of her mouth, they both stopped, frozen in motion. The temperature has dropped again, and the air carried sparkling, frosty particles across the room.
Their breathing was the only sound breaking the overwhelming silence, but their drumming hearts beat so fast it echoed through their bodies. Zayne’s eyes fluttered open, just to pull in the depth of her dilated pupils that stared right into his core. They mirrored his almost painful expression, battling with restraint. Her hands cradled his face, eliciting a sigh, fingers tracing the contours of his cheeks. Without breaking eye contact, he placed his hands, accompanying hers.
Then Zayne suddenly saw her expression change.
As his gaze darted between her eyes and mouth, she noticed black frost flowering on his skin, creeping up from his collarbone to the side of his neck. Hesitation stalled her, tightened her hands, and lifted his face to take his attention.
Zayne couldn’t avoid her. A small unintentional sound escaped his lips, his fingers twitched on hers, betraying the remaining composure. Did he get caught? His throat tightened, his mouth opened to speak, but the words died on his tongue before even manifesting.
“You’re him, aren’t you?” Her whisper cut through his growing panic. It was more of a statement than a question. “The other one…”
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He woke up gasping for air. His clothes soaked with sweat and he was still half erect from all the sensation in the dream. Letting out a painful sigh, he brushed his damp hair back and tried to blink out weariness. It took a moment for Dawnbreaker to realize he was lying in his own bed. In the dream, the same girl appeared again. She was always so alluring and soothing that her presence eased his painful solitude. Even if just for the time he slept.
But he was alone now, like always when awake, and bitter sadness threatened to erupt from his throat. He let it. Turned his back to the jasmines, judging him at the window, and he cried himself to sleep in the dark.