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It’s still dark when Cole feels the weight beside him shift.
He rolls over, sliding under the sheets in a lethargic stretch. The space beside him is freshly vacant. “Morning.”
“Not quite.” Zane looks over his shoulder, soft smile barely visible in the dim room. He sits at the edge of the bed, buttoning up his dress-shirt. “You have nearly two hours until the sun rises.”
“Where are you off to?”
Zane stands, brushing a piece of lint off his collar. “I am presenting a new funding redistribution budget. The commissioner has asked me to convene with him prior to my pitch.”
“You’re real important, aren’t you?”
“I am getting there.”
“Knock ‘em dead, pinky.” Cole lay on his back, watching Zane roll up his sleeves with a warm, sleepy smile.
“I will try not to end their lives, but the presentation will be good.”
Cole snorts and rubs his eyes, settling back into bed. “Bye.”
“Goodbye. Get some more sleep, please. I will see you this afternoon.”
“As you wish, Mr. Public Servant,” Cole murmurs into the pillow. He’s asleep before the door closes behind Zane.
---
It had been good, after the end of it all. The two of them and an apartment uptown. Privacy. Nothing ahead but the promise of peace. At first it was strange, having nothing looming over them, and then it was a relief. It had only taken a few weeks for the looming to resume.
With no consistent team to keep the peace, holes began to appear in the city’s public defenses. For nearly 50 years there had been a constant, available force of elemental masters that took on the bulk of crime. Two generations of poorly-trained police, reliant on outside help, now left to flounder through it on their own. The people noticed- the wrong people. Evening after evening, Cole watched Zane watch news reports and comb through criminal statistics. He’d felt the distance between them then. When Zane had told him he planned to enter into civil service as an elected official, Cole felt it widen, and he had understood then that it was the beginning of the end. He let it happen. Nothing else to do but try to savor the last of it until there is nothing left to savor.
---
The alarm clock beside the bed shines out a series of green numbers. 1:03 A.M.
“Hey, Zane?” Cole leans against the bedroom’s doorframe. Light from the living room trickles into the dark behind him.
“Mhm?” Zane sits at the couch, plugged into a laptop on his lap. He doesn’t look up.
“Coming to bed soon?”
“To sleep is a luxury, Cole. Enjoy yours.” His eyes are blank. He’s in his head, in the computer, in the cloud. Away.
“It’s hard when you’re not there with me, tincan.”
“I’m sorry.” Zane’s eyes flicker.
Cole waits for a continuation that doesn’t come. “...Okay. I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”
“Not likely. I have a conference with district 5’s chief of police. Early.”
“Okay. Goodnight, bud.” Cole turns back to the bedroom.
“Mhm. Sleep well, Cole.”
“I’ll try.”
---
It took four months after Zane’s election to wear Cole down. Shorter than he’d like to admit to himself. Half a lifetime by Zane’s side. Only eighteen weeks until he couldn’t stand anymore. It wasn’t Zane; it was the absence of him. Eighteen weeks of taking it one day at a time.
---
Cole leans against the windowframe. The sun is setting behind him. “Zane?”
“Cole?” The nindroid looks up from where he stands at the stove, tending to a pan of potsickers. He shines in the day’s dying light. Steam floats up from the food, clouding the metal of his hands.
“When will you be finished with the work you’re doing?”
“I have a press appearance later this evening, but then I should have time to-”
“No, no- when will all of it be finished?”
The sizzling from the pan slows as Zane takes it off the heat and turns his attention to Cole. “I…do not know. There is endless work to be done.”
“I miss you, pinky.”
“I’m here right now, Cole.” The pan is forgotten.
“Don’t pretend you’re not scheduling another police consultation in your head right now. You’re here, but you’re not filling the space you’re taking up, tincan.” Cole turns to look out the window.
“I am making progress. Significant progress.”
“And you’re just one man. You’re climbing up a mountain of broken institutions, and you’re by yourself.”
“I am not alone.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I have you.”
“I don’t feel like you do.”
“I…do not know how to fix that.” The smell of salt and flour is heavy in the air. Zane wipes off his damp wrists.
“You don’t have to lie.”
“...”
Cole turns back to him. His face is kind. “It’s okay, Zane. You’re helping. You’re allowed to make change happen. Good things are happening. I just need you to tell me if there’s room for me.”
“There will be.” Zane makes his way across the apartment, sliding off his apron as he approaches Cole.
“Okay.”
“Is it? Okay?” He asks, taking Cole’s hand. The metal of his fingers is warm from the oven. He smells like potstickers.
“No. Not really.”
“Then do what you must. It would be unfair to make you wait.” Zane’s eyes are so understanding. Readable. He puts thought into how he shows emotion. It makes it difficult to be upset with him.
“Will we be the same? When it’s over?” Cole doesn’t mean to ask out loud, but it escapes him.
“I don’t think it will ever be over. It will just…be less. If we haven’t changed by then, then something is wrong with us.”
“You’re right. You usually are.”
“Not always.”
“I know.”
---
He leaves in the late afternoon the next day. He stays an hour longer than he thought he would. Some kind of dull hope that Zane would be back in time to say goodbye keeps him waiting. He’s not. Cole takes a backpack and a few hundred dollars. He leaves a note. It doesn’t say much. It doesn’t have to.