[ChicletPrime]

THEORY:  Zayne dreams of what might be his other selves. Past, future. True things of what-was or will-be, maybe its just parallels with no reality, just possibilities maybe, not sure.

CANON: says a future-self dreams of a different, past-Zayne, Zayne as we know him to be now. in that dream, we are with our Zayne and we see that "he" is now "other" and we're are angered and the dream shatters and the future-dreamer wakes up alone.

STORY: Zayne is in his office, tired from too many late nights and long days (is he trying to avoid sleep maybe?), working on paperwork. and the sun is warm, and its momentarily quiet and without meaning to he drifts off in his chair and dreams. And the dream-future-self, Dawnbreaker, wakes up then in this past, in this body, and not everything has gone completely wrong yet and he flexes his hands carefully and stares out into the dripping sunshine and we, of course, walk in the door. 

and he calls us over and its just goes deliciously downhill from there.

and Zayne wakes up. and we are there, with the strangest expression on our face, a fine tremble in the fingertips and we seem afraid somehow. a trace of tears on our cheeks? he checks the clock, he's overslept our appointment but we stammer, make our excuses, promise to come back another, better time and..  we flee. and something seems so very wrong but he can't remember anything beyond closing his eyes, paperwork scattered and half-undone with the sun is still shining and the office is stiflingly, stupidly warm. so he sits down once more in his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose to shake off the lingering malaise. and tastes blood in his mouth.

what the hell was he dreaming?

[Coldsaturn]

THEORY:  Zayne dreams of what might be his other selves. Past, future. True things of what-was or will-be, maybe its just parallels with no reality, just possibilities maybe, not sure.

CANON: says a future-self dreams of a different, past-Zayne, Zayne as we know him to be now. in that dream, we are with our Zayne and we see that "he" is now "other" and we're are angered and the dream shatters and the future-dreamer wakes up alone.

STORY: Zayne is in his office, tired from too many late nights and long days (is he trying to avoid sleep maybe?), working on paperwork. and the sun is warm, and its momentarily quiet and without meaning to he drifts off in his chair and dreams. And the dream-future-self, Dawnbreaker, wakes up then in this past, in this body, and not everything has gone completely wrong yet and he flexes his hands carefully and stares out into the dripping sunshine and we, of course, walk in the door. 

and he calls us over and its just goes deliciously downhill from there.

and Zayne wakes up. and we are there, with the strangest expression on our face, a fine tremble in the fingertips and we seem afraid somehow. a trace of tears on our cheeks? he checks the clock, he's overslept our appointment but we stammer, make our excuses, promise to come back another, better time and..  we flee. and something seems so very wrong but he can't remember anything beyond closing his eyes, paperwork scattered and half-undone with the sun is still shining and the office is stiflingly, stupidly warm. so he sits down once more in his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose to shake off the lingering malaise. and tastes blood in his mouth.

what the hell was he dreaming?

I demand at least 15k angst with happy-for-now ending

[ChicletPrime]

The building edits in my head are waffling between heavy angst (see also: blood, scratches, tears?, potential level of somewhat dubious consent or at least a level of coercion) and something more yearning/sweet, still like the coercion part though because i'm a fan of giving into temptation. i like angles, dunno which will win out but i've been scripting it in my head while drifting off at night, mashing lego pieces.

[Coldsaturn]

Both, both are good.

It's curious how everything I've thought about in relation to lads fanfiction is how perfect Sylus/Raf would be. Literally no brain juice for anything else, fiction-writing wise. The rest is being occupied by theories, timelines building, lore archiving etc.
I hope I'll at least be a bit useful to you on that lmao

I'll admit I haven't gone too deep into Zayne's character, despite knowing his story and overall arc. I think I'm suffering from a lack of focus when it comes to his relationship with MC, because Zayne is the only LI I genuinely think would perfectly exist in that world even without her. Everyone else is somehow narratively tied to her, some more some less, and yes we're theorizing that Zayne might have chosen his career path because of her, but whatever's going on with him is making him the protagonist of his own story in every way that matters, and MC is an accessory to that. At least in a strict plot-device sense. Of course he cares so much about her and loves her and would do anything for her, and you'll see his myths and how his backstory ties into everything, but whenever I read his anecdotes or World Underneath texts I'm always completely drawn to his personal plot line and I forget that MC even exists.
Which comes back to bite me in the ass because then I don't have enough drive to dive too deep into all his other cards where he interacts with MC. I should really correct that.