Work Text:
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
->“I’m looking at you, and you’re lookin’ at me, but the glimmer in your eyes is sayin’ you wanna leave.”<- undressed, Sombr
He loved you. Fuck he’s always loved you.
Fate has a funny way of crossing your paths. He met you when he was 12, and you were 8. His mother insisted that he spend time with you, citing that “social interaction was important for a growing mind”. You didn’t really have someone else besides Caleb, your adoptive big brother, and you needed a friend.
Caleb was around his age and loved airplanes, but had a friend group of his own he regularly interacted with. Which just left you…
You were the girl next door in the beginning, bows in your hair and knee length dresses, scrapes on your knees. Something about you, whether it had been your big eyes or the way you’d pout when you didn’t get your way.
“Zayne! Zayne I’ll bet I can climb higher than you on the monkey bars!” You called out, giggling as you ran ahead, you always did, while he trailed behind you in a slow walking pace.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.” He points out, more to himself than to you. Even if you had heard him he was certain you’d never listen to him anyways.
“Hurry!” You shouted excitedly as you charged ahead, not paying attention and slipping onto the metal bar, falling and managing to hurt yourself.
“I told you to be careful.” He reminded you as your eyes welled up with tears.
“You’re such a meanie, Zayne.” You stuck out your tongue and stormed off, still sniffling as you ran home to tell your grandmother what happened, and maybe receive a little coddling from either her or Caleb.
But regardless of how mad you’d been that day, or how you’d thought he put a little snowman on your doorstep to tease you about you continued to hang out with him all summer after that.
That was until he moved away.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
> “How come you always leave me achin’, when you were never mine for the takin’?” -We never even dated, Sombr <-
The boxes in his room disappear one by one as he unpacks each one, putting everything in it’s place, exactly the way it had been the several other times he had moved. This room had a slanted roof, different to his last room. Perfect for his charts. Highschool now would be nothing on medical school when he graduated after this year.
He’d unpacked so many times he knew how to do it with his eyes closed, and he dreaded it more than anything. But there was one thing he dreaded more: seeing you. He didn’t know how much you’d grown since he’d seen you last, but it had to have been a lot. You would be in the same school as him for the first time in years. And he wasn’t sure you would even remember him.
He finds his answer out the day he drives to school. You’re already there, Caleb probably having given you a ride. Your hair is down, the gentle breeze blowing through it while you adjust the soft pink dress you’d selected. He walked past you and Caleb, and one other girl he didn’t recognize.
“Zayne?” Your soft voice called out for him, and despite himself, he turned around. You grinned when you laid eyes on him. You’d lost some of your buccal fat, your face slimmer than it had been when you were children. Your eyes though? They never changed. The light danced in your eyes as you skipped forward, similar to how the morning sun dances across the sun on a fresh snowfall.
Your arms wrap around him, soft body hugging onto his tightly. “When did you move back?”
“A week ago…”
Caleb comes up beside her, careful paces and watchful gaze even after he claps him on the back. “Good to see you.”
“Likewise.”
The following school year is like he’s never left. Your trio was inseparable, often hanging out at his house because, “Your mom always has better snacks.”
That’s where the three of you rest now after school. You’re sitting on the bed, school uniform still on, feet up in the air as you laid on your stomach while scrolling through your phone. You’d already finished your homework while still at school, but Caleb needed his help, so he waited to do until he got home.
“Carry the two…” He sighs, tapping at the paper right in front of Caleb.
“Oh shit, you’re right about that. I’ve-“
“Guys our food is here, I’ll be right back!” You cheered, dancing your way out the door and running downstairs. Zayne shakes his head, you were the same after all these years.
“So~…when are you gonna tell her?” Caleb’s wolfish grin is ear to ear, his homework long forgotten.
“I have no idea what you’re taking about.” The lie rolls smoothly off of his tongue, too used to denying things to stop himself.
“Fine. The big, fat, fucking crush you have on my sister.” Caleb nudges him. “She certainly has a crush on you.”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“I read her diary.”
Zayne’s head snapped up. “That’s a serious privacy violation.” He scolds him, and Caleb just holds his hands up in surrender.
“We’re not talking about me. Why don’t you just ask her out already?”
“I don’t think she sees me that way. Besides, I’ll be leaving for medical school soon.”
“Dude, you two are always making eyes at each other, if I have to watch you two stare longingly at each other anymore, I’m going to be sick.” Caleb makes a fake gagging noise.
“Who’s making eyes at each other?” You’re back, bag of food in your hand and phone in the other.
“Nobody, your brother is being ridiculous.”
“He’s always ridiculous.” You smile, and he’s hoping his face is downturned enough that you can’t see the way his cheeks and ears heat in embarrassment.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
“You were too good for a man's confine” -Sombr
“Zayne…” You stand tentatively to his side, watching the fireworks explode pops of color across the sky with a small smile. But it drops when you turn to him. “Do you really not…have feelings for me?”
Zayne feels ice in his veins, different from his evol. He’s not sure if it’s the absolute panic bells going off in his brain, or if it’s the drink he had earlier in the day. He really shouldn’t have had that drink…
The more time he spent deflecting your gaze, the more time he spent looking out at the water crashing against the snowy shore, the more upset your features became. Respond. He thinks. You’re not in high school anymore just tell her!
But his tongue ties. The words catch in his throat, dying before they were ever born. He’s coward. He can handle the idea of someone dying in front of him, but confessing to the girl he’s liked for years? Impossible.
What did they call alcohol? Liquid courage?
He didn’t feel courageous, just even more nervous and unusually jittery in his hands. He felt his evol pushing itself out, the cold of the ice ghosting over his skin.
“Zayne? Zayne!” You call out, eyes sad. “You know what? Forget it.” You try to hide the tear you wipe away, expressing disappointment as you walk back into his house, the one his parents set him up with during his residency.
He feels the ice bloom across his skin For the first time in his life, Zayne doesn’t think before following you, before pulling you into a kiss that made you squeak in surprise against his lips. If alcohol was liquid courage, than the drink and the one from before were incredibly late on their delivery.
He kissed you, again, and again, and again.
He feels your back hit the wall, guiding his hand to protect the back of your head.
And the rest? He assumed.
He woke up in bed without the clothes he’d carefully chosen to meet you yesterday. You weren’t beside him, your clothes also long gone. The time on the alarm clock, which didn’t do it’s job properly and wake him, perhaps he needed a new one…
11:23 a.m.
His phone said it’s Saturday, and he sits up.
Your lips on his skin, the ones that left burning trails of passion across his skin, melting the ice that once lived there so stubbornly. He loved you. Fuck he’s always loved you. He’s adored you since you were both kids. He’d almost lost control of his evol the second he thought you were going to leave him.
Being so controlling because of his own inability to confess? No…
It wasn’t safe for you.
So he did what he thought was the best thing for you without ever asking you at all.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
“How come we never even dated
But I still find myself thinking of you daily?” - Sombr
You stare at the test in horror.
No. Nonononononononono.
Zayne has been unreachable for almost four months. Every call, every text, every ask about him. It all goes unanswered. You don’t know where he went, and not even Grayson knows where he went. But it’s undeniable as to whose baby this is. Zayne needed to know. But how do you reach a man that’s disappeared into thin air? How do you find an unfindable person? There are no clues.
It's like he never existed at all, just like he was.
“You bastard…” The cry is followed by a sob, and then a knock at your door.
“Pips?”
Caleb, your best friend, your older brother, he’s stuck being your rock again. He doesn’t seem to mind it, even when you sob into his shoulder. “You’re not alone. I’ll help you. Daycare, diapers, babysitting so you can hang out with your friends. Whatever you need, I promise.”
You nod along, sniffling. Your heart feels like ice. Not the warm kind. Not like the snowman Zayne used to produce and gift you when you were sad. Not the gentle snowfall that fluttered around when you spent the best night of your life with the man you’ve loved since forever.
How could he do this to you? To your baby?
He’ll never know he’s a father, you think.
You manage without him. Your raise your daughter with as much love as you can. She wants for nothing. And she adores her Uncle Caleb. Everything goes exactly as you would have hoped. She’s 12 now. She’s chattering about a boy she likes in her class. She used to ask about her dad, and you told her he travels and that he’s a doctor.
You don’t answer when she asks if he’ll ever come back.
She reminds you of him in some ways. She likes flowers, she wants to be botanist when she grows up, and Jeremiah has promised to let her work in his flower shop part time when she gets a little older while she’s in college.
You drop her off, fiddling with the fan in your car as she slips out. “Bye Mom!” Her sweet voice calls out. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
You wave her off, and you wonder if she knows she’s about to meet her father without knowing it’s him. You wonder if he’ll register her green eyes and dark hair. If he’ll wonder about her paternity, if he’ll even think about it at all.
You’d heard he was back, Caleb had found out about it first. He was angry, and rightfully so. You thought about going up with her. Even just to look him in the eyes and make him think. Make him wonder about it directly. But a handsome doctor in his thirties? He’s probably married by now. And the idea of him not thinking of you at all hurts more than you want it to.
You felt so foolish. A love from over a decade ago and your heart has never gotten over it. You haven’t even bothered to date. Not that you had time. Between your job as a hunter, and your daughter? No, men were out of the question.
Especially since one in particular has haunted your mind since…
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆
Zayne’s eyes shift from the computer to the girl who walks in his office. Her file says she’s 12, diagnosed with protocore syndrome. It presented late, according to his colleagues, who all pushed this particular patient to him.
Her black hair is cropped into a shoulder length bob, her green eyes tentative as she sits across from him. But her face…it looks so much like the one that has haunted his dreams. She looks so much like him but also like You..
It couldn’t be, could it…?
No. That’s a foolish thought. Lots more people other than him would have the same features.
“…Dr. Li?”
His eyes focus again. The girl opens her mouth, Grace. He remembers. “I’m sorry. Would you mind repeating that?”
“My mom said you were the best in the field for my condition.”
He nods, opening her file to make a few notes. “And your father?”
“My father?” Grace hums. “I never met him.”
Zayne pauses. He reviews all the information again. 12 years, black hair, green eyes the same shade as his, looks like a situationship he had years ago? “Would you mind telling me your mother’s name?”
Grace rests her head in the same way he does, and it only serves to remind him of what could be. And then she says your name. Your name. The name of the woman that’s haunted him for 12 years.
Guilt is a rot, and even the ice of his evol couldn’t choke it out. Even when the guilt had consumed him so late in the night and he let the ice cover his body in angry black crystals. His own foolish way of punishing himself for a sin never forgotten. Not by him. Never by him.
“Would you mind, contacting your mother for me?”
Grace nods, confused in every understandable way. But she does.
And then you’re here. In his office.
“Grace, wait outside.” You tell her.
And then the office door closes.
“Grace…She’s mine, isn’t she.” He speaks, but he doesn’t meet your eyes. He knows this is serious. He knows he should look you in the eyes. But he’s a fucking coward.
“Yes.” You don’t lie. “I tried to tell you. I tried to find you.”
“I was in the arctic. I didn’t want…”
“What? You didn’t want to be with me, so you left me behind to deal with your absence?” You try not accuse, but it comes out anyways.
He winces. “NO that’s not-“
“It fucking sucked and I missed you so much. I raised our baby alone. I was alone and depressed and grieving because I had no idea what was so wrong with me that you were so disgusted to leave like that out of the blue and-“
He stands up almost immediately, grabbing you by your shoulders, you still. “Never think that. It was never that. Ever.” He pulls you in, showing you a warmth he didn’t think he was capable of possessing for anyone but you anyways. “I ran because I was a coward. Because I was afraid it had been a mistake on your part. Because my own brain convinced me that you didn’t feel the same and that I would eventually not have you in my life. Or that I would hurt you if you stayed. Or even that I was too possessive to be with you. Because I don’t want you to look at anyone else but me. And I never want to look into the eyes of any other woman but you for the rest of my life. My heart, every beat, every atrium, every ventricle, every aorta. It only works because you still draw breath.”
The pause in the air is astounding. You both hold your breath. His fear rises again, those icy black crystals from before begin to rise.
But years have taught you these signs.
He watches you take his hand and resonate with him, the warmth in the golden glow cracking every crystal and forcing them away. “Don’t ever, and I mean, ever make a choice for me again, Zayne Li.” You warn. “I love you too.” He feels your hands in his hair, and he subconsciously leans into it.
“I won’t.”
“So, do you want to officially meet your daughter?”
“HE’S MY FATHER?”
Well, shit.