It was 03:12 am, and the base was quiet, but not silent. E.V.E.N’s safehouses never really slept; they just hibernated until the morning came and Kairo started mixing, or Minjae made observations about acoustic dead zones (which were actually pretty useful, not that Onyx would ever tell him that), or Soahn pestered everyone about having breakfast — even if that breakfast usually consisted of energy bars and instant coffee strong enough to strip paint.
Vents rattled through the night, an irregular rhythm that Onyx tracked without thinking, just in case something needed fixing before it stalled out entirely. But mostly, it was still and uneventful. Onyx liked it that way.
Folding his arms against the cold bleed from the server alcove, he walked the tunnels at an easy pace, sticking to the Dead Tracks where the paths still followed predictable lines. Rats scuttled near the edges and condensation sheened on the walls. Old graffiti created a faded riot of colour and slang — the Marked Walls, layered over time with warnings, names, half-finished messages. A lot of it he didn’t fully understand. He got the gist, though: this place sucks, no way out, nothing works, “Lara loves Tommy.” Whoever they were, he wondered if Lara and Tommy were still alive down here. Probably didn't matter. People came, people went; the Ghost Lines were a dank, endless sieve of lost causes and survivors, and you rarely saw the same faces twice.
But some people stayed.
E.V.E.N stayed.
After a while, an irregularity appeared in the temperature logs on his internal HUD. Onyx changed direction to investigate, then realised where it was coming from.
Rayne’s room.
Outside the door, his HUD registered the concentrated heat bleeding through the gap beneath it. That was probably not good. He listened for any movement within the room, but there was nothing, just that strange heat output.
“Rayne,” Onyx said, “I’m coming in,” and he pushed the door open.
Rayne stood at the centre of the room, still as a statue, back straight, shoulders set. The darkness threw his silhouette into soft edges. He was shirtless, the exhaust vent at the base of his spine cycling hard. He turned slowly on the spot.
“Onyx.”
There was no surprise, but there was a slight twitch in his jaw like he was buffering something mid-thought. Onyx wondered how it was possible for a synthetic to look tired, but Rayne did in that moment, his face slack, one eyelid set a little lower than the other. Whatever he’d been pushing himself through lately, it was starting to show.
“Did you need something?” Rayne murmured.
“No,” Onyx said. “But I think you do. You’re overheating.”
“Yes. I thought if I stopped for a while, it’d settle down.”
Onyx frowned and scanned the room. It was clear and functional, but not entirely untouched; the kind of space people turned into Quiet Rooms when they needed the world to stop for a while. A folded white jacket rested across the back of a swivel chair, and sketches marked the dust on the floor — waveform lines, the physical shape of music Onyx couldn't hear. Rayne's work, presumably.
He didn’t ask.
Rayne watched him with that unreadable expression, eyes dark and unblinking, chin slightly angled downward.
“Do you sleep?” Onyx asked.
“No, not really.” Rayne gave him something like a smile, or at least an imitation of one. “I’ve been careful not to power down since Kairo and Soahn found me.” He tilted his head to one side. “Apparently, you don’t sleep much either.”
“Mm,” Onyx said, non-committal. He pointed to the vent near Rayne’s spine. “We should fix that.”
“It resets,” Rayne said simply.
“Shouldn’t need to.”
Rayne turned away and moved to the chair, touching the white jacket with his fingertips. “Do you dream?” he asked after a moment.
“No,” Onyx said. It was a lie, and maybe Rayne knew it, but it was easier than talking about sleepless nights and rapid-fire memory bursts that hit and vanished before he could name them.
Rayne glanced at him. “Lucky.”
Onyx arched an eyebrow. “You’re telling me you do dream?”
“Yes,” Rayne said, then paused. “No, I suppose they aren’t dreams. At least not how you understand them.”
“Then what are they?” Onyx asked before he could stop himself.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. Fragments. Code. They feel like dreams, but I know that’s impossible.” There was the barest hint of a question in that last part; Onyx narrowed his eyes, but Rayne continued, a little quieter now. “Faces I don’t know. A voice that says my name like it knows me. Sometimes it says I deserve better than ‘this’, but I don’t know what it means.”
Onyx stared at him for a long time. This wasn’t what he expected when he first entered Rayne’s room, and he wasn’t sure how to process it.
“Should we be worried?” Onyx finally said. “About you?”
Rayne shook his head. “I don’t think so, no. It’s probably just things I’ve picked up over the years. Not mine.” Though he still didn’t sound sure. Rayne was difficult to read at the best of times, but right then, Onyx truly didn’t know what to make of him. Even so, he could hear the soft whir of Rayne’s hardware, the vent gasping; he could feel the heat radiating from him, still far too hot.
“Seriously, if you’re burning out, I want to know before the fuse goes,” he said. This was safer ground. Ground he understood.
This time, the smile was real, if exhausted. “Then maybe don’t wait so long to find me next time,” Rayne said.
Huffing, Onyx stepped closer and indicated the chair. Rayne sat, folding his hands on his lap. “You’re staying?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
Onyx moved to the wall nearby, folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the cold concrete. They stayed like that in silence, Onyx listening to the subtle change in Rayne’s noises, waiting for the vents to ease.
After a while, Rayne said, “It’s strange, but it seems quieter when you’re here.”
Onyx shrugged one shoulder. “I’m just a distraction, that’s all.”
“Maybe.” Rayne’s attention drifted inward for a moment. “Onyx, you really don’t have to—”
“If you’re going to break,” Onyx cut in. “I’d rather be here when it happens.”
After a long time, Rayne nodded, just once. Then he eased back in the chair and stared down at the floor.
“Okay,” he whispered.
Then he went very still.
The soft whir of Rayne's hardware stuttered, internal mechanisms winding down with a quiet tick-tick-click.
“Don’t let me sleep too long,” Rayne muttered. The last word was thin and drawn out, glitching a little at the end.
Onyx stiffened, letting his arms fall to his sides as he saw Rayne power down completely for the first time in months. For a horrible moment, he almost told Rayne to stop, to wake up before he was gone, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
No. This was Rayne’s choice, and if it meant Onyx stayed watch all night, then so be it. Morning was still hours away, and he had nowhere else to be.
Onyx remained where he was, listening to the tunnels in case anyone approached while the temperature on his HUD slowly dropped.
Rayne slept — really slept — and nothing broke. The room gradually grew cooler.
And Onyx stayed, because it was what he did.