₍ ᐢ. ̫.ᐢ ₎

(23 / 🔞 / Minors DNF)

[baobpn]

❝ baobpn ❞ ⬩ yumejin / multifandom ⸺ ✦

➥ baobpn.carrd.co

This account contains 18+ content, some of which can be discomforting to certain viewers. Read carrd for more info.

Browse at your own discretion.

❝ Healing Scars ❞ | Caleb x Reader x Zayne — (Ongoing)

⬩ Part 1 ❝ A picture is worth a thousand words ❞ | Rafayel x Reader — (Ongoing) ⬩ Chapter 1

⬩ Squid Game!Love and Deepspace ⬩ The Promised Neverland!Love and Deepspace ⬩ Here comes the airplane! (Caleb 18+)

⬩ Vampires (18+) ⬩ Surprise visiting Caleb on campus ⬩ Giving Zayne gloves (fanfic idea) ⬩ Rafayel x Anti-Lemurian!Reader (fanfic idea)

1. I don't do tag list

2. I don't fulfill requests but you are absolutely more than free to share your ideas with me if you want to chat about it

3. Translations of my works is permitted as long I am properly credit (ex. listing my name + linking back to the original)

4. Reposts of my work is prohibited

5. As perverted as my (re)posts are, I am not comfortable with people horny posting in my DMs (horny posting in the comment section if the post is 18+ is perfectly ok)

✦ Dividers Credit riottsrph , cafekitsune , and emirkocturk

[rawme-price]

No thoughts just German shepherd hybrid!ghost who's nearing retirement, and of course price wants his genes for his next dog, right?

Ghost is the best at what he does, amazing tracking abilities and more obedient than any other mutt owned by the SAS. It would be a shame not to try and pair him.

Which is where you come in.

A new breeding dog, fresh out of training, untouched by any other hybrid. Price had to pull some strings, knowing ghost would appreciate the first bite.

You're so nervous when you first meet ghost, tucked close to prices side and whimpering at the big scary dog. He tracks you with your eyes, muscles coiled, nose flared at the sweet heat rolling off you. When he speaks, it's directed at his owner "rules, sir?"

Don't break me, please be nice. You wish, hoping price will call his dog off. Instead he chuckle and unclips your leash "just finish inside it, ghost, we're hoping for pups. You can play after it's confirmed."

Not no biting or don't wear it out. Just a simple rule to make sure you're bred. Ghost smiles at you like you're prey.

Which is how you end up pinned to the floor under ghosts body weight, little ears pulled back and yipping at the way his hips slam against you. He presses his knot against your slit, a promise and a threat, drool dripping onto the floor by your head "never been used before, huh runt? They don't give you real knots in yer little trainin', just the fake shit, yeah?"

Hours later you're limp under ghost, his knot snug inside you for the eighth time, belly so full you feel heavy with it. He teasingly licks up the back of your neck, breath hot "once yer pupped you'll learn how to take a knot in yer mouth. John will let me keep you if I ask. How's that sound? Being my dedicated toy?"

The first day is hardly over and you already feel worn out. To think you're supposed to be here two whole weeks....

[bibbysstuff]

A Rude Awakening

bonus doodle:

[jyacira]

fem caleb in colonel mode

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Housecat Hospitality.

Pairing: Yandere!Gojo Satoru x Reader (JJK).

Written for a very lovely anonymous commissioner.

Word Count: 3.5k.

TW: Dub/Con -> Non/Con, Hybrid AU, AFAB!Reader, Snow Leopard!Gojo, Puppy!Reader, Oral Sex (F. Receiving), Rough Sex, Heat Cycles, Verbal Degradation, Unbalanced Power Dynamics, Reader Is Very Oblivious, and Manipulation.

[Part One] [Part Two]

Because the world was unfair, Satoru got blamed for the picture incident. As if you weren’t the one hogging center-frame.

Suguru pulled out the crate as soon as he got home. It was less of a punishment and more his way of saying ‘I don’t want to deal with you right now’, which to Satoru was the cruelest punishment of all. Yowling and screeching, he was forced inside and left to rot while you got special treatment — a warm bath, a long walk, and a lecture not to put strange things in your mouth again. If Suguru disciplined you at all, Satoru’s keen ears didn’t catch it. That was just like Suguru. Pamper his dumb, slobbering mutt while neglecting the prime example of an endangered species that lived under the very same roof.

Still, time-out on is own, he could tolerate. The fact that his punishment meant Suguru was withholding food until the next morning was less easily dealt with. He was an apex predator. He needed raw meat, a lot of it, and as often as he could shovel it into his mouth. More damningly, he was a spoiled housecat. Skipping a meal wasn’t an inconvenience — it was torture. By that evening, he was grumbling. By sunset, he was sharpening his claws on the aluminum bars. By midnight, he was curled into a ball, snarling at every shadow that flickered across the empty room and whipping his tail against the floor. Not that it mattered. He could growl and scream all night if he wanted to. Suguru was too stubborn to fall for something like that. He couldn’t be coming to check on Satoru until tomorrow morn—

His rounded ears perked up as the bedroom door opened, soft footsteps scampering through the hallway and into the kitchen. He heard the plastic clacking of someone rummaging through the fridge, the metallic chafe of a knife cutting on marble. Eventually, your feet came into view, dragging anxiously. There was something wet and red in your left hand.

You crouched in front of his crate and held out your offering — a slice of raw meat about the size of your palm, the edges ragged where someone had hacked it away from a larger chunk. Glaring at you, he snatched the cut away and sank his fangs in. You watched him eat in silence, those big empty eyes of yours glossy with curiosity. When he was done, you asked, “What is it?”

“Dog,” he snarled. It was an obvious lie, not even really a clever one. Boar or rabbit would’ve been more realistic. Satoru couldn’t tell. He’d never had an overly discerning palate. Preference was counterintuitive to survival. Hunger was hunger. Meat was meat.

He expected you to flinch back. Bare your teeth at him, even. Instead, you just blinked and continued you stare blankly.

Satoru’s frown deepened. “You do know you’re a dog, right?”

“Mhm.”

“A common breed, at that. Easily replaceable.”

“Yeah! I think you’ve mentioned that, before.”

Satoru groaned. Even you couldn’t be this stupid. “It’s like you want to end up on somebody’s plate.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind. Not if it’s yours.” Your ugly tail was starting to wag. “As long as I’m helping.”

“You really don’t know what that word means, do you?”

Even in the dark, that idiotic smile of yours was brighter than the sun. “Of course. It means I’m helping you.”

If Satoru hadn’t been such a well-behaved, beautiful, noble creature, he would’ve reached through the bars of his crate to throttle you.

“Go back to bed, puppy.”

“Okay!” Your blunt claws scratched against the floor as you scrambled to your feet. You started towards the bedroom, but paused, glancing over your shoulder and letting your tail droop. “But, you’ll be alone.”

And it would still be better than spending another minute with you. “I’ll be fine.”

You pouted. He curled up and clenched his eyes shut as you scampered off toward the bedroom, only to circle back a few seconds later, rest something against his crate, and retreat without another word. He only dared to check once he knew you were gone, not wanting to deal with your stupidity first-hand again so soon.

You’d left him one of your stuffed animals. Suguru had bought you a legion of them when he first brought you home, and the handful Satoru hadn’t desecrated beyond repair were now your most prized possessions. You’d left him one of your favorites — a little white cat, all neatly combed fur and gigantic blue eyes.

Something turned over in Satoru’s stomach. Carefully, with gentle hands, he pulled the stuffed into his crate, dragged a nail down the length of its stomach, and spent the rest of the night tearing it to shreds.

~

You’d been a nuisance before. After that night, you became unbearable.

No matter how hard he tried to pretend that you simply didn’t exist, he couldn’t seem to stop noticing you. The way your body curled into the smallest possible ball as you napped in the backyard on sunny days. How your tail would beat against the floor whenever someone spoke after a long silence. The tasks you left half-finished because, no matter what you were doing or how much time it had taken, you’d forget about it entirely if he or Suguru called your name at any point. It was frustrating. Worse — it was smothering. He’d always thought of you as annoying, but ignorable, on par with a tacky rug or broken lamp. Now, you were more like a housefly. Always flitting about in his peripheral but never close enough to swat.

And you were gloating, too. Inescapably. All the time. Grinning like an idiot and stepping on his heels as you asked if there was anything you could help with, anything he needed. You even started sleeping on the foot of Suguru’s bed, which was obviously Satoru’s spot. He had his own room and hammock, sure, and he wouldn’t be caught dead putting himself below a human, but still. You should’ve known. You should’ve stayed away.

Or, at least, pretended to be sorry when he slipped into Suguru’s bedroom in the early hours of the morning and caught you red-handed. You weren’t smart enough to grovel, though. You weren’t even smart enough to wake up. It took long, groggy seconds before your nose began to twitch, your eyes flashing open a second later. You tensed then, recognizing the shape looming over you, relaxed. After wasting more of his time to yawn and stretch, you smiled up at him.

“Do you need help with something, ‘toru?”

You made no effort to keep your voice down. His gaze shifted to Suguru — still sound asleep on the other side of the mattress. He’s been away for longer than usual, that day, and he’d come back with bruises over his knuckles and bandages on his chest. Something about an escapee at the research facility — Satoru wasn’t sure. But he’d seen Suguru come home like that before. He wouldn’t budge up until sunrise, if even then. No amount of noise could possibly wake him up.

But you didn’t know that.

Satoru nodded. “We have to be quiet, though. Really quiet.”

He’d never seen your brainless eyes so wide. “I can do that.”

“You have to promise, puppy.”

You rolled onto your chest, clambering toward the side of the bed. “I—” Already too pitchy, already too loud. Satoru cringed, and you fell into a harsh whisper. “I promise.”

And yet, you yelped as he grabbed your waist. It would be pointless to try and explain what he wanted when the only words that made it through your thick canine skull were ‘sit’, ‘stay’, and ‘roll over’. It was easier just to pull and jerk you into position — your lower body hanging off the edge of the mattress while your hands grabbed at Suguru’s sheets. For a predator species, you had terrible reflexes. It took you long, clumsy seconds for you to get your feet on the ground and even longer before you thought to look at him, more confused than alarmed. Again, Satoru opted not to waste his breath. You’d get it soon enough.

Or you wouldn’t. Satoru could’ve purred at the thought alone.

You didn’t wear much to bed. One of Suguru’s t-shirts, but nothing else, nothing close to the silk sets Satoru needed to keep his fur unmatted. The flimsy material rose up as you squirmed, leaving your ass and cunt exposed. You made no attempt to cover yourself. Whether your last owner had been less strict about human modesty practices or you were just genuinely that oblivious, Satoru couldn’t tell. By way of punishment, he dug his fangs into the curve of your ass, his ears perking up to better catch the pitchy bark you only halfway choked down in response. Your hands darted to your face, covering your mouth. Good. You were finally catching on.

He edged your thighs apart with his shoulders, settling between your legs. Admittedly, he didn’t have much experience with other hybrids save for the videos he caught Suguru watching every now and then, but he was a smart cat, and the details weren’t that hard to figure out. You were already wet — your cunt slick and glistening in the bedroom’s dim light. Experimentally, Satoru ran his tongue over the length of your cunt, his rough bristles catching on the sensitive skin. You let out another strangled noise, something between a groan and a whimper, before whining. “Wait, I— That feels—”

“Quiet,” he hissed, the command forced out between pointed fangs. “Or are you just too stupid to keep your mouth shut?”

He felt you stiffen above him, then shift. When you spoke, your voice was muted, barely above a whisper. If he hadn’t known better, he might’ve thought you sounded a little upset. “Right, ‘toru. I’m sorry.”

Satisfaction coursed through him, as warm as sunlight on concrete. Maybe you were good for something, after all.

He couldn’t afford to waste more time on your impromptu training. He settled back into place, shutting his eyes and letting instinct take over. The flat of his tongue fit perfectly over your pussy, never leaving more than an inch of you exposed at a time. You wriggled, and when that didn’t help, buried your face in a pile of bedsheets and moaned. Suguru never so much as stirred.

He couldn’t get to enough of you, like this. Curling his hands around your thighs, he dragged you back, creating more room between you and the edge of the mattress — room that he was quick to fill. You were starting to drip, now, and Satoru lapped up your arousal before a drop could go to waste. You tasted sweet. Not saccharine or sugary, but sweet. Like fresh cream or raw honey. Like uncooked meat.

Hungrily, he pushed deeper, letting the curled tip of his tongue slip inside of you. Your body twitched underneath him, but that didn’t matter, you weren’t strong enough for it to matter. Holding you down was child’s play, but as always, you failed to acknowledge the prowess of your betters. Your smaller body continued to buck and writhe while he curled and flexed his tongue inside of you, his broadened feline nose grinding against your clit all the while. You were getting loud again, but for whatever reason, he found it hard to be annoyed by your little pained noises. Probably because it was the closest thing to an intelligent sound you would ever make.

It happened too quickly to savor. Your thighs shuddered around his head, your cunt clenching around him, and then, you were cumming on his tongue. It was humiliating and hot and twitchy, and he drank it down without stopping to think. When the aftershocks waned, you slumped into the bed, exhausted when all you’d done was lie there and take what he was kind enough to give you. He should’ve expected as much, really. You’d always been an ungrateful mutt.

Wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, he pushed himself to his feet. You raised your head, tracking him as he silently padded across the room. The last thing he saw before he closed the door was your wide, glassy eyes, unblinking and unfalteringly trained on him.

~

You didn’t leave the bedroom the next day, or the day after that. Satoru lounged outside your door as Suguru came and went, looking paler and more strung-out than usual, toting medication or blankets or water bottles by the armfuls. The door was kept shut, but even from the corridor, he could smell you. Not that dirty, muggy, wet-dog smell no amount of Suguru’s expensive hair products could wash away, but the other one. Raw meat, sweet and fresh and bloody.

On the third day of your quarantine, Suguru had to go out. “Work emergency,” he explained, as he pulled on his shoes. A plain folder was tucked under his arm, and he’d been scowling for the past fifteen minutes. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Satoru watched from the other side of the corridor. His tail thrashed to either side, sweeping over the floor. “And the dog?”

“(Y/n)?” Suguru grimaced. “I’ll handle it when I get back.”

He grinned, closing the distance between them. He crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet and resting his cheek against Suguru’s inner thigh. “I can help.”

A calloused hand landed on top of his head. Satoru began to lean into it, but fingertips quickly knotted themselves in his hair and dragged him away by force. “I’ll handle it when I get back,” he repeated, his voice as dense and as heavy as lead. “Behave yourself.”

Satoru huffed, rolling his eyes. Suguru left without another word and for once, Satoru wasn’t sad to see him go.

The bedroom door was locked. Amateur mistake. Closed doors only made cats more curious. Satoru used one of his claws to unhook the fastener and let himself in. Your scent had been strong, at a distance. Inside, it was suffocating. The air seemed thick with it, as hot and as humid as the flesh of a fresh kill. Satoru closed his eyes, breathing it in. Maybe, if you were always so appealing, he could forget how much he hated you.

You were a wreck. Curled up on the center of the bed, your knees pulled up against your chest and your tail tucked between your legs. You’d piled sheets and blankets around yourself, walling yourself in to a miserable little den. You were still wearing Suguru’s shirt, but just barely, the thin material bunched up above the curve of your chest. There was something inside of you, too — bright pink and bulbed where it pressed against your cunt. A toy, molded in the shape of a knotted cock.

Immediately, Satoru’s smile fell away. As if you needed something like that when you had him.

You barely acknowledged him. There was a slight lift of your head as he climbed onto the mattress, a low whimper as he trampled over your makeshift barriers, but that was all. You only looked at him once he was on top of you — his larger form bent over yours. Your face was flushed, your hair plastered down with sweat. You blinked lazily at him, your usual intensity dulled into something soft and liquid. Your entire body radiated warmth, so strong he could feel it from inches away.

You were in heat.

Perfect.

“Wake up, puppy.” You eyes were already open, but he slapped your cheek softly for good measure. “I need your help.”

“‘toru?” Airy and uncertain, as if you didn’t recognize him. As if anyone else would bother to check on you. “I can’t really— I’m in a lot of—”

“Then you’re useless.” You shrank that much smaller. Satoru took you by the shoulder, pawing you onto your back. “Fine. When Suguru comes home, I can tell him that you don’t want to do your job, anymore. That you’d rather just lie around and whine. That you’d rather be in the pound.”

“No!” You clenched your eyes shut, features scrunching. “Please, please don’t. I can— I’ll do anything you want. Just— Anything but that.”

His hand fell to your knee. “Spread your legs.”

Despite your begging, you were reluctant. “It hurts, ‘toru.”

“Do you want me to make it hurt more?”

Your ears flattened against your head. He could see the corner of your lips begin to curl back, the thinnest sliver of pointed teeth, but it was gone just as soon as it’d appeared. Obediently, you held still while he pried your thighs apart, pushing until your knees were flat against the bed. That ugly thing was still inside of you. He tore it out as quickly as he could, your hips chasing the toy despite your pained mewls. As if you needed it. As if it did anything for you that he couldn’t do better.

With it gone, your pussy clenched around nothing. You were dripping wet, literally. Slick coated the inside of your thighs, dampening the sheets underneath you. Satoru lapped as much as he could up before letting his mouth drift north — to your navel, then your neck. He could feel your pulse beating under your skin, as fast and as frantic as any prey animal. You were scared of him.

His cock twitched. He wasn’t going to last much longer, at this rate.

Pulling away, he forced himself to focus on your cunt. His cock was hard to the touch, the slanted head already beginning to leak. He wasted time he didn’t have lining himself up, giving you a chance to crane your neck and squeak, recoiling hastily. Satoru laughed.

“You’ve never mated with a cat, have you?”

A beat of hesitation, then a quick shake of your head. Of course not. He’d be surprised if you even knew the meaning of the word.

Most cat-hybrids had some kind of barb, larger species included. You wouldn’t have noticed them last time you saw his cock, too focused on choking him down to wonder what was pricking the inside of your mouth. They weren’t meant to cause pain. Most female cat-hybrids had a way to deal with the discomfort, but you weren’t a cat-hybrid.

And judging by the look on your face, you’d realized that too.

He pushed into you before you without warning, without giving you a chance to pull away. The sound you made was pitiful — so pitchy and so heartbreaking and so, so good. He pulled back just as harshly, pounding into you again, and again, and again, a pathetic little sound meeting every thrust. Your body writhed and twisted beneath his, more snared rabbit than cornered dog. He could feel your claws on his back, scratching away at his skin, make out the bulge of his cock through your lower stomach. He ground his hips into yours and you arched against him, your open mouth finding the side of his throat. It took long, clumsy seconds for your dull teeth to break his skin. If he hadn’t known better, he might’ve thought you were actually trying to hurt him.

It was a testament to Satoru’s feline superiority that he didn’t cum on the spot. Rather, he savored the feeling of your saliva dripping down his neck and fucked you that much harder, giving into the needy, instinctual part of himself that howled for something to claim, something to have. Because that’s what you were, weren’t you? Suguru had gotten you for him. You were in a comfortable bed instead of a concrete cell because of him. You were pampered and coddled and loved because he needed you. You were his. You were—

His conscious thoughts broke off into a euphorically empty void. His hands caught underneath your knees, shoving your legs up until they pressed into your chest. Your body folded perfectly underneath him, your mouth finally unlatching in favor of moaning, whining, screaming — every sound you were capable of making melding together in Satoru’s sensitive ears to form one prolonged declaration of gratitude. Your pussy clenched around him, and he buried himself that much deeper inside of you. Warmth flooded through him and filled you to bursting, the excess forming a white ring around the base of his cock. He couldn’t be mad. The only thing you’d ever done right was take what he had to give you.

When it was over, he didn’t move. He stayed here, prone on top of you, watching his cum leak out of your ungrateful body. When he could stand to look away, he found your wide eyes boring into him, glossy with tears and all-but vacant. Your heat had broken, leaving behind only raw hurt in its place.

Your voice was barely above a whisper. “Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you, puppy,” he laughed, licking a stripe up your cheek. For the first time, you grimaced, melting away from him. Not that it mattered.

It wasn’t as if he was ever going to let you go again.

“How could I ever hate my adorable mate?”

[giggletea]

Caleb x Bunnygirl!Reader

A/n: He’s got an unhealthy amount of obsession with your tail… 𑣲₍ ᐢ. .ᐢ₎

Pairing: Caleb x Bunnygirl!Reader ☆ 18+

SFW:

Messes with your bunny tail a lot. Loves to give it a soft squeeze whenever you’re least expecting—while he walks past, while you’re lounging around the house, or even while you’re in the shower (he sneaks into the bathroom and gives you a fright). 

As long as your tail is within view, Caleb’s reaching over to cup a handful. (And it’ll always be within his sights… as if he’d ever take his eyes off you, silly bunny.)

It’s mostly to annoy you, he loves that your tail’s sensitive and that it incites such a reaction. He’d never be too rough with you though. It’s never to hurt, only to tease. But sometimes he treats it as a stress toy.

Loves having you sit in his lap, chest to chest, legs around his waist. He squeezes and fondles your tail with one hand, while he occupies himself doing fleet work with the other. 

Clicks his tongue when you eventually get bored/stiff and shift in your seat, telling you to “Be good f’me, just a little longer.” 

Tugs on your ears and tail when he wants to get your attention. He’ll apologise when you nip at his fingers angrily, but he’s back to being a nuisance within the hour. 

NSFW:

Gets you a carrot vibe (he doesn’t care that it’s a little too on the nose). At first it’s just for fun, but the more he uses it on you, the more his carrot-themed collection grows. (If you look like you’re enjoying the toys too much though, he gets jealous.)

We know Caleb’s an eater, he could stay between your thighs forever if you’d just let him. But while he’s down there, he also loves to kiss where your tail meets your lower back <3

Calls you his sweet bunny while you’re getting fucked silly. When he’s about to cum, he’ll use your ears to pull your face close to his, so he can kiss you.

In general, I think that Caleb has a sort of predator/prey kink. He loves tracking and hunting you down… you being a bunny girl intensifies that by tenfold. Would bring you somewhere secluded, giving you a head start to run off… but even with your heightened bunny senses, you never seem to see him coming. 

Same goes with his breeding kink. On a normal (human) basis he already loves filling you up and keeping you full of his cum, but as a bunny girl? He’s crazy about breeding you.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

The Drive

Summary: “Enough.” John says, setting his mug down on the table. “We keep fighting amongst ourselves, nothing is going to get better. Tensions are high, but none of this is about us. We have to keep our heads on straight for the sake of our pack, and our omega. Simon and I will go to town today. That’s final.” 

Pairing: None

Warnings: alternate universe, alpha/beta/omega dynamics, angst, language, just Simon and John hashing it out really

A/N: Just a little look into the reason why John wanted Simon to make that first trip to town in Chapter 37

MASTERLIST

Simon stares out at the green flying by the car as Price drives. It’s not a terribly long trip into town, but it still makes his stomach twist and squeeze in fear. You’re alone with only Kyle and Johnny to keep you safe. It’s not that he doesn’t trust them to take care of you. With the threat still looming over their head, he won’t trust anyone but himself to be there in case something does happen. 

In case someone finds out their location. 

Two people too many know their location, and he can’t even entirely trust those in the house either not to betray them. 

“I don’t like this.” Simon says, turning his attention back to the road in front of them. 

“They’re perfectly capable of keeping the house safe.” John says. “I need you here because we need to have a conversation.” 

Simon glances at John, the other alpha’s eyes glued to the road. Part of him feels like he already knows what this conversation is going to be about. 

“I’ve fucked things up royally.” His grip tightens around the steering wheel. “I’m not sure things can ever be fixed, at least not between me and my omega.” He lets out a long breath. “There’s going to come a time when I have to make a very difficult decision.” 

Simon knows what he’s talking about. It’s been on his mind too. 

“You need to be first.” John says, his voice wavering just slightly. “I need you to be first. She needs you to be first. You saved her life, Simon. She needs an alpha that’s willing to do that, not one that puts her second.” 

“She’ll never forgive you.” Simon says, still staring at John. 

“No, she won’t. She won’t. I knew she wouldn't.” John says, running a hand over his face. 

“That's why you sent me after her to-”

“Save her life.” John says at the same time as Simon. “You love her. I know you're trying to deny it, but you do. John glances at Simon, the other alphas eyes on the road again. “You can care for her in a way I never could. You can give her what she needs in a way I never could, I’ll never be able to. She was made for you, Simon. That's perhaps the most cruel thing about the entire initiative.”

It falls silent between them for a moment, John giving Simon a moment to process his words. 

“If there had been a choice, I would have let you do it from the start.” John hands grip the steering wheel tighter. “I need you to do this, not for me, but for her. For the rest of the pack.”

“You're not coming back.” 

“If she lets me, yes. It's her decision in the end.” John's voice wavers. “I need you to pick up the pieces.”

“That’s hardly fair, throwing your problems on someone else.” Simon says.

“It’s not fair, but that’s the way it needs to be.” John says. There’s a finality in his tone that tells Simon there’s no changing his mind. “I know I’m asking a lot of you.” John’s voice has softened again. “You’re the only one I trust to do this.” 

It falls silent between them for a moment. There’s a tenseness to the air, like an electric charge waiting to shock them both. 

“I can’t agree to do this.” Simon says after what feels like a lifetime. “I can’t agree because I don’t agree with your decision. You want to lead this pack, then you need to consider the good of it before anything else.” 

“What I’m going to do is for the good of the pack.” John says. 

“What you think is good and what’s actually good is different.” Simon says. “That’s what got us into this in the first place.” 

“That’s why I need you to lead.” John says, his grip around the steering wheel tightening. “You know what the pack needs. You can think about them above yourself. You’ve always been a better alpha than me.” 

It falls silent again for a beat, Simon staring out the window. He can’t stand to look at John any longer. 

“What happens if you do come back?” 

John is silent for a moment. “We’ll figure that out when we get there.” 

[seichimi]

🍊⚡️

Rawr means ily in leopard XD

[baobpn]

OMFG tumblr is being annoying and slapping on mature labels on my reblogs, thus making it completely unavailable. Keep in mind, the original poster doesn’t get a label slapped onto it so why the hell am I the one getting punished????

[baobpn]

I am missing a lot of fanfics from my library and it sucks I can’t locate them without scrolling very far down to see if it got penalized.

It doesn’t help I can’t remember when I reblogged those posts so I could be scrolling for ages.

[nagitoandkokichioneshots]

Happy Birthday Kokichi (NSFW)

Mod Mikan: Happy birthday to our favorite panta gremlin :)

Warning: SMUT, Fem!Reader, breasts play, cunninglus, (slight) fingering, PIV sex, bondage, use of toys, praise, mentions of pr3gnacy, marriage and children

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[xxfrozenpearlsxx]

Squeeze and I'll Come

—⊹ this work was originally commissioned and given consent to be shared (personal details about the commissioner had been edited out)

MDNI 🔞

Synopsis: Sleepless nights tangled with buried feelings plague your mind, and those soft yet unreadable pink-blue abyssal eyes haunt your restlessness just as they have so many nights before. So your hand reaches for the only thing that bridges your heart to his. The fishtail beacon. Content warnings: Abysswalker x princess, Implied Insomnia, Implied Slowburn, Emotional vulnerability, Mutual pining, Princess x Assassin Dynamic, Forbidden love, Yearning, Soul bond, Reincaration & Past lives (implied; kind of connected to his myth), Sexual tension, First kiss, Love confessions, Body worship, Glove & hand kink, Breath play, Sensation play (slight), Biting, Hair pulling, Nipple play, Soft dom & Service top Rafayel, Fingering, Slight Dirty talk, Teasing, Straddling & Thigh grinding, Implied virginity, Vaginal sex, Multiple orgasms, Creampie, Cuddling Word count: 7.7k Author's note: soo mhm, finally time for some Abysswalker;) it's curious and sad that i don't see as many Abysswalker fics out there, and i've wanted to write him for the longest time. hopefully i did him justice ♡

The fishtail beacon is warm.

It shouldn’t be. It is bone and scale and whatever strange Lemurian craft shaped it into the delicate thing it is, small enough to curl inside the bowl of your palm, light enough that you forget you are holding it until the heat reminds you.

And it is always warm. Not the borrowed warmth of a thing held too long against skin but rather something deeper, something that pulses faintly when you press your thumb to its ridged spine, something that feels like it is breathing.

You turn it over between your fingers. The candlelight catches on its edges, casting small flickering shadows across the sheets you have kicked into a tangled mess at the foot of the bed.

You cannot sleep.

This is not unusual. Sleep has never come easily in this palace, in this room that is yours only in the way a gilded cage belongs to the bird inside it. But tonight the restlessness is different. Tonight it has a shape, a name you keep pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth to keep from whispering aloud.

Rafayel.

You close your eyes and your chest tightens like something is cinching around your ribs, like the air in the room has gone thin and hot and you are breathing through it too fast. The fishtail beacon pulses against your palm. You set it down on the table near your bed. Pick it up again. Set it down. Your hand hovers over it, fingers curling and uncurling, and your pulse thuds dully in your wrists and the base of your throat.

He gave it to you three weeks ago. Pressed it into your hand on the rooftop overlooking the dunes, his gloved fingers lingering against yours for two seconds longer than necessary, his eyes unreadable above the dark line of his mask. “This’ll connect me to you,” he told you, and the laziness in his voice didn’t match the intention of his hands, the way he folded your fingers over it one by one. “No matter where you are. You squeeze that, I’ll know to come to you.”

You asked him why. He tilted his head, and even with half his face hidden you could see the smirk pulling at the corner of his eyes. “Maybe I just get bored easily, princess.”

That is the thing you learned about Rafayel. Everything is a deflection. Every sincere gesture wrapped in three layers of teasing, every vulnerability dressed up as indifference, every act of devotion disguised as convenience. He showed up on your balcony the night you nearly drowned in the canal during your ninety-ninth escape attempt, pulled you out of the water by the back of your dress with one hand while the other held a blade still wet with someone else’s blood, and when you gasped up at him, choking and shivering, he looked down at you like you were an inconvenience he had not budgeted for.

“You got a death wish or something?” he drawled, and the mask muffled the lower half of his voice into something dark and velvet. “Cause if you’re gonna keep throwing yourself into rivers I’m gonna need a heads up.”

You called him Abysswalker because he would not give you his name. The way his eyes flickered, sharp and startled, before the indifference slid back into place. You did not understand then why the name struck him like that. You still do not fully understand now. But you remember the way his jaw tightened behind the mask, the way he exhaled slowly through his nose, and the way he finally, reluctantly, gave you his real name just to make you stop.

That was weeks ago. He has been a constant since.

Not constant in the way of something reliable or predictable, nothing about Rafayel is predictable, but constant in the way of something you cannot stop being aware of. He appears on your balcony at odd hours, never announced, always with an excuse. He sprawls across your furniture like the concept of personal space is a quaint human custom he has chosen not to observe. He picks up your things, examines them with exaggerated curiosity, puts them back in the wrong places. He calls you ‘Your Highness’ with enough irony to fill a cathedral, and sometimes, when he forgets to perform, he calls you ‘Princess’ in a voice so quiet it barely clears the space between you, and the word sounds like something else entirely.

You have memorized him in pieces without meaning to. The way the candlelight catches on the row of silver piercings climbing his ear when his hood falls back. The sharp line of his jaw above the mask, the only inch of his face he allows you. His hands, always gloved, leather worn soft at the knuckles, and the way they move when he talks, lazy and expressive, mapping the air between you with confidence that could dip into arrogance. 

You know the sound of his breathing when he is amused. The slower cadence of it when he is thinking. The way it hitches, just barely, when you catch him off guard with something honest, and the fraction of a second it takes him to recover before the smirk slides back into place.

You know he is hiding something. There’s something like a mark on his chest, the one you have only glimpsed twice. He adjusts his clothes whenever he catches you looking. He changes the subject. He deflects.

And you know, with the kind of certainty that sits in your bones like something you were born with, that he is not here by accident. That whatever brought him to your city, whatever mission lives behind those unreadable eyes, it involves you. Your heart. The heart that is not really yours, the one that belongs to Philos and its people and whatever divine purpose decided before your birth that your chest would house something too valuable for you to claim as your own.

Everyone wants your heart. You have known this since you were old enough to understand why they kept you locked in this palace, why they dressed you in silk and called you princess and never once asked what you wanted. Your heart sustains the planet. Your heart grants immortality. Your heart, your heart, your heart.

Not you. Never you.

And Rafayel... you do not know what Rafayel wants. That is what keeps you awake at three in the morning turning the fishtail beacon over and over in your hands like a rosary, your pulse hammering against the skin of your wrist, your mind replaying the same scene on a merciless loop.

The ruins. Four nights ago.

He had taken you to the sand dunes beyond the city, the ones that stretch endlessly under a sky so vast and dark you could feel the weight of it pressing down on your shoulders. The ruins of something ancient jutted from the sand like the bones of a creature too massive to comprehend, and he walked through them with the familiarity of someone who has walked through them a thousand times, his coat trailing behind him, his hand loose at his side.

You stumbled on a crumbled stairway, your foot catching on stone that shifted beneath you, and he moved faster than you could process, his arm around your waist, your back flush against his chest, and the world stilled.

His hand spread wide across your stomach, fingers pressing gently through the fabric of your dress. His breath was warm against the shell of your ear, filtering through the mask, and you could feel his chest expand against your spine with each slow inhale. You were not in danger. The stairway was three steps high. You would have scraped your knee at most.

He did not let go.

“Be careful, Your Highness.” he murmured, and his voice was so close you felt it vibrate through the bones of your skull more than you heard it with your ears.

You stood there, his arm locked around you, the heat of his body seeping into every point of contact, and something inside your chest cracked open like a door you had been leaning against for weeks finally giving way. Your fingers drifted upward, almost involuntarily, reaching toward the edge of his mask where it met the line of his jaw, and his free hand caught your wrist.

Not roughly. His thumb rested against your pulse point and his grip was gentle and his hand was shaking.

The silence lasted three seconds. Maybe four. Long enough for you to feel the thunder of his heartbeat against your shoulder blade, fast and hard and completely at odds with the steadiness of his hands. Long enough for the heat between your bodies to become something you could taste at the back of your throat, sweet and metallic and dizzying.

Then a sound in the distance, the scrape of sand shifting, an animal or the wind or nothing at all, and he released you. Stepped back. Adjusted his mask. Shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat.

“Watch your step next time,” he offered, and his voice was perfectly, infuriatingly casual.

You did not speak about it. You walked back to the palace in silence and he left through the balcony and you pressed your forehead against the cool stone of the wall and breathed and breathed and breathed until the trembling in your hands subsided.

It did not subside.

It has not subsided since.

You pick up the fishtail beacon again, restless. The heat of it seeps into your palm, travels up through your wrist, settles in the center of your chest where that cursed heart of yours beats too fast for a girl who is supposed to be sleeping. You think of his hand across your stomach. The vibration of his voice against your ear. The shaking of his fingers around your wrist and the way his pulse betrayed every lie his voice tried to tell.

You squeeze the beacon.

Not by accident. Not impulsively. You look at it, you feel the warmth of it, and you close your fist around it with the full and terrifying knowledge of what you are doing. You are calling him. At three in the morning, in a thin nightdress, with your hair loose and your chamber a mess and no excuse prepared and nothing to offer him except the truth that you could not bear another night of pretending you do not want him here.

The beacon flares warm, then cool, then warm again, like a heartbeat answering yours.

You wait.

The balcony doors are open. The desert air drifts in carrying the dry scent of sand and the faint sweetness of night-blooming flowers that climbs the palace walls, and you are sitting on the edge of your bed with your fingers twisted in the fabric of your nightdress, your heart hammering in your ears so loudly you almost miss the sound of his landing.

Almost.

The soft scrape of boots on stone. The whisper of fabric settling. And then he is there, a silhouette framed in the balcony archway, the moonlight catching on the silver chains at his chest and the piercings in his ear, his hood pushed back, his coat open, his mask still on.

His eyes find yours across the dark room and something moves behind them, quick and unguarded before the familiar laziness slides into place like a curtain being drawn.

“You called for me, Princess?” he steps inside, and his voice carries that drawl, that slowness that makes every word sound like he is doing you a favor just by speaking.

Your mouth opens and closes a few times. Throat drier than the desert sand. “I... couldn’t sleep.”

He tilts his head. One eyebrow lifts above the line of his mask. He does not believe you. You can see it in the way his gaze drops from your face to the beacon in your hand and back again, slow and knowing, and the corner of his eyes creases with a smirk you cannot see but can feel like a physical touch across your delicate skin.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he echoes, stepping further into the room, his gloved hand trailing along the edge of your vanity, fingers tipping over a small glass bottle of perfume with exaggerated carelessness. “So you summoned the Abysswalker into your chambers in the middle of the night.”

“I didn’t summon you.” you try to lie, but it’s pointless.

“You squeezed the beacon,” he picks up one of the ribbons from your vanity, winds it around his index finger, lets it unravel. “That’s kinda what it’s for, Your Highness.”

The heat climbs up the sides of your neck. You tuck your chin, averting your gaze toward the window where the sand dunes shimmer faintly under the moon, and you feel rather than see him move closer, even if his steps are dead silent. The room is not large. Four steps and he would be at the edge of your bed.

He takes three.

“You didn’t have to come,” you manage, and your voice comes out thinner than you intended.

He is quiet for a few moments. His hand drops the ribbon. When he speaks again, the teasing has thinned just slightly, like a layer of paint wearing through to something rawer underneath.

“Yeah, well.” he shifts his weight, and his gaze slides sideways, and for a moment he looks almost uncertain. “We both know that’s not true.”

The silence stretches. You can hear the palace guards’ distant footsteps in the corridor beyond your door, the soft murmur of Natasha speaking to someone down the hall. The world outside this room, the world of duty and hearts and gilded cages, presses against the walls like water against a dam.

“Raf.” your voice is as soft as the ribbon previously swirled around his finger.

His eyes snap back to you. You have never called him that before, even though he gave you his name, you never dared call him something more intimate than it. The truncation of his name sits between you like a lit match.

You stand up from the soft mattress. The nightdress moves around your thighs, thin silk that you chose for the heat, not for him, though the way his gaze drops for a fraction of a second before jerking back up to your face makes your skin prickle with awareness and shyness. 

You want to see his face, gauge what his emotions truly convey in his expression. You cross the space between you in two steps and your hand rises slowly, your fingers reaching for the hem of his mask.

His gloved hand catches your wrist before you can fully touch it. His grip is loose, barely there, his thumb resting exactly where your pulse hammers against the thin skin.

“Your Highness.” he coos, the teasing lilt curls around the title like smoke. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“You always wear it.” your voice is soft. Steady, somehow, despite the heat rushing through your veins. “Why? Are we not close enough for you to drop it, or do you simply not want me to see your face?”

His eyes search yours. For a long moment they are completely unreadable, deep and still like water that is darker than it looks, and then something shifts in them, something that is not quite amusement and not quite pain but lives in the space between.

“Maybe I’m just ugly under here,” he deflects, but the usual sharpness is missing from his voice. “Ever think about that?”

“Show me, then.”

“Why?” he tilts his head, as his thumb traces a slow circle over your pulse point that makes your breath stutter in your chest. “What’s so important about seeing my face, Princess?”

“I want to see you when you speak to me.” you hold his gaze. Your fingers hover at the edge of the dark fabric, close enough that your knuckles brush his jaw. “I want to see all of you, not only what you allow me to.”

Something flickers across his expression. A crack, hairline thin, there and gone. He exhales through his nose slowly. “You’ve seen glimpses of it before,” he murmurs. 

“Glimpses are not enough.”

The words land between you and his grip on your wrist loosens, finger by finger, until his hand falls away entirely. He doesn’t move or speak again. Just watches you with those impossible to read eyes, blue-pink ombres in the candlelight, and the silence is permission.

You hook your fingers under the fabric and draw it down.

It slides past the bridge of his nose, past the sharp cut of his cheekbones, and the fullness of his face unfolds beneath your hands like something sacred being unwrapped. The line of his mouth, fuller than you imagined, the lower lip bitten faintly pink. The small beauty marks scattered across his skin like constellations you want to map with your fingertips. The jaw, sharp enough to cut, and the way it tightens when your thumb grazes the corner of his mouth.

He is beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful. In the way a fire is. In the way that something dangerous becomes holy when you hold it close enough to burn.

“There,” he breathes, and his voice is stripped bare now, no mask to muffle it, every vibration of it reaching you unfiltered. “Happy now?”

You don’t answer him, too busy committing him to your memory, just how beautiful he truly is. Your thumb is still resting at the corner of his mouth and his lips part just barely under the pressure of it. His breath is warm against the pad of your finger. His eyes are locked on yours and they are not unreadable anymore. They are saying everything his voice refuses to, and you are still unsure of what to make of whatever you find there.

“The ruins,” you whisper. “Four nights ago, when you caught me...”

His jaw flexes under your hand. “You tripped. It would be careless of me to let the Princess fall.”

“You didn’t let go after.”

Silence. His chest rises and falls. You can see the column of his throat work as he swallows.

“Rafayel.” your voice drops to barely a breath because the guards are outside and Natasha is down the hall and this room is the only safe place left in a palace full of eyes and ears. “Why didn’t you let go of me?”

He closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the laziness and the teasing, all of it has burned away like fog in direct sun. What is left underneath is raw and exposed and so full of longing it makes the air between you feel too thick to breathe.

“You know why, Your Highness,” his gloved hand comes up to cover yours where it rests against his face, pressing your palm flat against his cheek, and the tremor in his fingers is the same one you felt in the ruins, the same one he tried to hide. “I can’t seem to be able to stop... Wanting to be close to you.” 

His words wash over you like cold water in a suffocating desert. Your throat works slowly, tasting your words on the tip of your tongue before you actually decide to let him hear them. It was a simple gesture, catching you so you wouldn’t fall. He could just as easily say so, if it truly meant nothing to him. But nothing is ever accidental with Rafayel, you know this.

A simple touch, a simple embrace under the guise of protecting you to not fall was like opening a door between you, one previously closed, partly on his end. A simple gesture of proximity, one he leaned into before he could have stopped himself. One you didn’t mind, but rather wanted more of.

“Be close to me, then.” your eyes lift up to his, thumb stroking gently over his warm face, “I want you close to me, too.” The words land like a bird’s feather, too soft and barely audible, but enough to reach his ears in the closeness of your bodies.

“Words carry meaning, Your Highness,” his voice drops lower. His thumb traces along your knuckles, slow and gentle. “Actions do, too. So be honest with me… Why did you summon me tonight?”

The words hit your sternum like a fist. Your breath leaves you in a rush and your hand fists gently against his cheek and his eyes darken, his pupils swallowing the color, and the distance between you collapses. There’s no room for pretense anymore, not that you really want to anymore, not that you can.

You kiss him.

It is not quite gentle. It is the culmination of weeks of almost and not quite and what if, and your mouth finds his with a desperation that startles you, that feels like falling except you have been falling for weeks and only now hit the surface of whatever waits below. His response is immediate, his hands gripping your waist, fingers pressing into the silk of your nightdress, pulling you flush against him until you can feel the chains and buckles of his coat pressing into your chest, the warmth of him bleeding through every layer of clothing that separates you.

He kisses you back like drowning, like burning, his mouth hot and insistent and tasting faintly of salt, and your hands are in his hair, the strands impossibly soft between your fingers, strands you ached desperately to touch and feel, and now you’re finally permitted to do so. The sound he makes against your lips, low and raw and wrecked, vibrates through your entire body. 

He breaks the kiss first, his forehead dropping against yours, his breathing ragged. His hands haven’t moved from your waist, and his intention of not withdrawing doesn’t miss you even as your thoughts scramble to dust trying to come to terms with the fact that you just kissed him in your chambers in the middle of the night.

“You got no sense of danger whatsoever, Your Highness,” he murmurs against your mouth. The teasing lilt you’re so familiar with is back but it’s thin now, translucent, stretched over something that trembles. “Summoning an Assassin to your room in the middle of the night. Kissing him, too.”

“You kissed me back.”

“Didn’t say I was the smart one either.”

Your laugh is barely a breath before his mouth catches it, kissing the sound from your lips before it fully forms. Then he is turning you, his hands guiding you by the waist until your back meets his chest in an echo of the ruins that makes your skin sing. His arms wrap around you from behind, his chin settling against the curve of your shoulder, and you feel his breath fan hot across the side of your neck, making you shudder from how good it feels, trickling down your feverish body.

“This dress,” he coos, and his gloved fingers splay across your stomach, wide and warm, the leather soft against silk. “This thin little thing...” his thumb traces a slow line from your navel to the base of your ribs and the sensation shivers through you in a wave that you feel in your scalp and between your legs. “You called me here dressed like this? Shameless.” his lips brush the shell of your ear and you can hear the grin in his voice. “Not very princess-like behavior if you ask me, Your Highness.”

Your cheeks burn in both embarrassment and something akin to pleasure, because he’s suddenly switched on you from raw and honest to this version of him you are familiar with yet not at all, at the same time. Your hands come up to rest over his, pressing them closer against your stomach, and you feel the sharp intake of his breath against your damp neck.

“I was not expecting company when I prepared for bed,” you manage, though your voice is embarrassingly breathy.

“Does the Princess know she doesn’t lie very well?” he mouths the word against the hinge of your jaw, and then his lips trail lower, down the column of your neck in a line of barely there kisses that leave heat blooming in their wake like brushstrokes of fire. “You squeezed the fishtail beacon in your hands and thought of me, knowing exactly what you were inviting into your chambers by doing so.”

You tilt your head to give him access and you feel his mouth curve into a smile against your throat before he presses a kiss to the pulse point there, lingering to feel the frantic rhythm of your heart against his lips. His hands map your body with agonizing slowness, the leather of his gloves dragging over the silk in a friction that makes your nerve endings light up, tracing the curve of your waist, the curve of your hips, the dip of your lower back, and your whole body is shivering, leaning back into him, your weight settling against his chest.

“Cold?” he taunts softly, his mouth at the junction of your shoulder and neck now, open and warm.

“You know I’m not cold.” your voice cracks on the last word because his thumb has found your collarbone and is tracing the bone of it so slowly and maddening, that feels like he is drawing you with intentions alone, his finger as featherlight as a paintbrush on canvas.

You reach behind you, your fingers finding the fabric of his hood where it gathers at his shoulders, and you push it back and off, while your hands slide up into his hair, an action that makes him groan against your neck. A low vibration that you feel in your spine. Your fingers tighten and his hips press forward against you involuntarily. The sensation sends heat pooling low in your belly, your legs almost giving out at what you feel pressed against your lower back.

You turn in his arms, a bit impatient. Your hands go to his chest, palms flat against the fabric of his tunic, and beneath your right hand you feel it. A wave of warmth, sharp and sudden, and when you look down you see it through the thin fabric, a red and pulsing glow. The mark on his chest burning to life under your touch like something answering a call.

His whole body goes rigid at your touch, even as a slight shiver runs through him.

“Don’t...” he starts, but his voice fractures on the syllable. Despite his sudden withdrawal, his hands are still on your waist and he is not pulling away. 

“What is this?” you press your palm harder against the glow and his breath stutters out of him in a sound that is almost a whimper, his head tipping back, his throat exposed, his eyes squeezing shut. The image in front of you makes your lips part in surprise and wonder, because yes, you are curious about the mark and have been for a while. But seeing his reaction to your unprompted touch, how he reacts as if you struck him in either pain or pleasure...

“It’s... complicated, Your Highness.” he forces the words out through gritted teeth. “What you have to know it’s that it’s old. It’s... ours.”

Ours.

The word detonates in your chest, and your brain scrambles for meaning, for logic, but finds none. You don’t need to know, not now, at least. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to interrogate him about it another time, but for now, your fingers curl into the fabric of his tunic and you pull him forward. His mouth finds yours again and this time the kiss is slower, deeper, his tongue sliding against yours and his gloved hand coming up to cradle the back of your skull, tilting your head to deepen the angle. You moan against his lips and feel his fingers tighten in your hair.

You walk him backward. It takes effort, he’s taller and solid and his arms are locked around you, but he goes almost willingly, his mouth still on yours, his boot catching on the edge of the rug as he walks. When the backs of his knees hit the mattress of your bed, he sits and you climb into his lap with a gracelessness that burns your ears red.

He pulls back just enough to look at you through heavy, half-lidded ombre eyes. You are straddling his thighs, your nightdress rucked up around your hips, your hands braced on his shoulders, your face flushed and your breathing ragged. The feeling of him under your body, pressed so close you feel his warmth, his solid muscles, and the state you turned him in... all of it sets your whole body alight and your brain is too far gone to really grasp what you just did. But his is not.

The slowest, most devastating grin spreads across his face.

“So bold, Your Highness.” his hands settle on your bare thighs where the silk has ridden up, his thumbs tracing small circles against your skin. The contrast of leather against bare flesh makes you dizzy. His gaze drops to the tangled sheets beneath him, the pillows thrown sideways, the blankets kicked to the floor. “The sheets are a mess. You really couldn’t sleep tonight, could you?”

You were a fool to think he wouldn’t call you out on it, but the way his words drawl, slow and teasing and maddeningly sexy makes you come to the conclusion that you don’t mind a little bit of his teasing, even if it turns your rosy cheeks two shades darker. You press your forehead against his, your fingers knotting in the chain at his collar. “D-Don’t speak like that.”

“Did something trouble the Princess’ mind?” he leans back on one hand, casual and a tad insufferable, even as his other hand slides higher up your thigh with a slowness that makes your muscles clench at how good it feels, the feeling of his cold glove on your bare skin. “Was it a certain Assassin she boldly called in the middle of the night to come put her to sleep?”

“I will throw you off this balcony.” You avert your eyes, suddenly too shy at his words but too stubborn to let him see the full effect his words have on you.

“Promises, promises.” he catches your chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting your face so the candlelight catches your eyes. The smugness softens, melts into something that makes your throat ache. “You’re blushing so hard, Princess. Your ears are red.”

You bury your face against his shoulder and feel the rumble of his laughter vibrate through his chest against your palms.

“Hey,” his voice gentles, his hand coming up to the back of your neck, fingers threading into the hair at your nape to guide your gaze back to his. “C’mere. Won’t you look at me?”

You lift your head, albeit a little hesitant. Your eyes are wide, you know, bright and pleading, the want in them so naked it terrifies you. You know he sees it, too, by the way his throat bobs slowly, by the way the playfulness drains from his expression like water from cupped hands and what is left is hunger, raw and deep and shaking and it startles you but also makes your body shiver in delight once more. 

He kisses you again, and this time it is not a question nor a hesitation. His slick, soft lips find your trembling ones while his hand slides to the strap of your nightdress. His fingers pause there for a moment. A question in the hesitation, and you answer it by reaching up and sliding the strap off your own shoulder.

“Inviting me into your bed,” he whispers sweetly against the corner of your mouth, his fingers trailing down your arm as the silk falls. “What happens if the guards outside the door hear something and come find the princess in such an... unfit position?”

“Then you’ll have to keep me quiet,” you breathe, swallowing when his eyes go black. Your spine feels like lightning bolted down from the nape of your neck and down to your lower back and then down still, right between where your thighs are bracketing his lap, in the place now moist and throbbing and needing friction you’re still not bold enough to seek.

His mouth descends on your neck, open and hot. His teeth graze the sensitive skin below your ear, making you gasp while his gloved hand comes up to cover your mouth, gentle but firm, muffling the sound against leather.

“Shhh,” he whispers against your throat, and you can feel the smile there. “That’s more like it.”

His hands undress you in pieces, peeling the silk away with a slowness that is both exhilarating and torturous, pressing his mouth to every inch of skin he reveals, your collarbones, the dip between them, the curve of your ribs. His lips trace the shape of you like he is committing your naked body to memory, like he is painting you with his mouth, and every point of contact sends sparks cascading down your spine until you are trembling in his lap, your fingers tangled in his hair, your head tipped back in pleasure while soft sounds escape between your parted lips.

You tug at his coat impatiently and that makes him laugh, low and breathless, shrugging out of it without detaching his mouth from your sternum. His tunic follows, making the red mark on his chest visible where it blazes in the low light, pulsing in time with his heartbeat, so so beautiful. You press your lips to it and he hisses, his hands fisting in the sheets, his hips rolling up against yours.

“F-Fuck,” he breathes, the word sounds punched out of him, unplanned, raw. It does unspeakable things to your own body, shooting precisely between your legs, like an arrow hitting bullseye.

His mouth finds yours again, more hungry now, and his hands are gloveless now. You barely registered when he took them off, but they map the skin of your chest with such gentleness that makes your eyes sting, thumbs tracing and circling your peaked nipples until your back arches and a sound escapes you that you did not know you could make. You guide his hands upper, your fingers wrapped around his wrists, pulling him closer, pressing his palms flat against your breast. He groans into your mouth and you swallow the sound.

“I might be the Assassin, but you are the lethal one here, Princess,” he whispers against your lips before his hand slides lower, down the plane of your stomach, slow and purposeful. In no time, his fingers find the hem of the silk still bunched at your waist and slip beneath it.

Your hands grip his shoulders so hard your knuckles go white. He watches your face with those devastating bicolored eyes, heavy lidded and swallowed by lust, reading every flicker of sensation that crosses your features. His forehead presses against yours and his free hand cups your jaw, thumb stroking your cheekbone in such a tender gesture despite the lust consuming his soul. When his fingers, gentle and knowing and unbearably precise, find how wet you are, the sound you let out is somewhere between a sob and a plea for more of it.

“There she is,” he murmurs, his voice low and thick and dripping with something that sounds like awe disguised as arrogance, probably already knowing the effect it has on you when he weaponizes his honeyed voice as such. “My beautiful Princess.”

He moves his hand in slow, maddening strokes, building a rhythm that tightens every muscle in your body, and when the sounds you make grow too loud his mouth covers yours, absorbing every gasp and whimper against his lips. His other hand presses flat against the small of your back, holding you against him, steady and sure while the rest of you falls apart.

“That’s it, Your Highness,” he whispers against the corner of your mouth, and his voice has gone rough, wrecked and raspy. “Cling to me. I’ve got you, let yourself fall.”

You shatter in his arms with your face buried against his throat, your teeth sinking into your own lip to keep from crying out, your body bowing into his like a wave breaking against shore. He holds you through it, his lips pressing against your temple, your forehead, the damp curl of hair at your ear, murmuring soft nonsense that sounds like your title and his heartbeat and something in a language you don’t recognize, older than either of you, oceanic and aching.

When your breathing steadies, when the tremors slow to aftershocks and you lift your head to look at him, he is wrecked and unrecognizable. His cheeks are flushed dark, the color bleeding into the tips of his ears. His lips swollen and bitten red, and his chest is heaving and the mark on it pulses like a second heart.

He doesn’t rush to the next part, doesn’t even assume there will be more than what he gave you just now. He just gazes down at you, savoring how you look as the highs of pleasure wash over your body in subsiding waves. You just gave a part of yourself to him, one you can never take back but you don’t want to. It is his now. It was his to take so it is his to keep, now and forever. And you want to give him more parts of yourself, feel like he’s the only one who’ll keep you safe and not feeling like a trapped bird.

This was yours to give, and yours to decide how and when to give it. You want to give him so many more parts, no matter what it is he wants to take. A few pieces, more like this one. Your heart, which is already in his possession, even if he is unaware of it. You’ll give him your fleshed heart too, if only he asked.

Yours to have, yours to give. And you choose him to take it.

You cradle his face in your hands. Your thumbs trace the beauty mark beneath his eyes, and your voice, when it comes, is barely a whisper, raspy but full of unspoken feelings. He awaits an answer to a question he doesn’t voice or even attempt to form, but you choose to speak it anyway.

“I’ve made a selfish decision by summoning you here, but I... I want this. I chose this.” your forehead presses against his and your breath mingles warm between your parted lips. “You are my freedom, Rafayel. I choose you to have me and my body... my heart.”

His eyes search yours, and the vulnerability in them is staggering. The kind of openness that looks like it costs him everything. His hands come up to cover yours where they rest against his face, his fingers lacing through yours, trembling.

“How sure are you of this, my beloved Princess?” his voice is barely above a breath. All the teasing turned to something so naked it makes your chest ache, something painful and raw. “Is it truly what you want from me?” his thumb traces the line of your jaw and his gaze drops to your mouth and back to your eyes. “Giving yourself to someone like me... a reckless thing for a Princess to do. Do you truly want me?”

You kiss him slowly, certain of your decision, wanting to make him understand it, too. Your hands slide into his hair, your body pressing flush against his, and when you pull back your lips brush his as you speak.

“There will never be anyone else I want.”

The sound he makes when he registers your soft whisper is something deep, something that starts in his chest where the mark burns red between you and travels through his entire body in a shudder that you feel everywhere your skin touches his. His arms lock around you and he pulls you against him. His mouth finds yours with a ferocity that steals whatever breath you had left, if you even had any.

He lays you back against the tangled sheets with a gentleness that contradicts the desperation in his kiss, settling over you, the weight of him warm and solid and everywhere. The mark on his chest glows between your bodies like something forged in a furnace, the red of it casting your skin in shades of amber and flame.

“Gotta continue to keep quiet for me, Princess,” he breathes against the hollow of your throat, cooing the words in a teasing lilt, but his voice is shaking now, barely held together. “Unless you want the whole palace knowing who you chose to give yourself to tonight.”

You pull him closer by the back of his neck and his hips press forward with the move. It’s what you both want and crave, if the sounds you both make are any indication. Your shared moans are greedily swallowed by each other’s mouths. His hand finds yours on the pillow, fingers interlacing, squeezing tight.

The world narrows to the space between your bodies. To the rhythm of him moving with you, against you, inside you... To the flex of his jaw when he bites back a groan as you squeeze tightly around him. To the way your name sounds when he whispers it against your collarbone like a confession he has been holding in his mouth for lifetimes. 

Your back arches off the mattress when he hits a certain spot, somewhere deep where it’s tender and untouched, and feeling him press there makes your eyes roll back into your head. His arm hooks beneath you, pulling you against him, his forehead pressed to yours, his breathing fractured and raw.

“Fuck, Your Highness...” his voice breaks on the words, his hips stuttering as they thrust inside your warmth. His bare hand presses firm and warm over your mouth when you cry out in pleasure, and the look he gives you is equal parts desperation and lust. “Keep quiet... the guards...”

You can’t. You pull his hand away and replace it with his mouth, kissing him hard, making him groan against your lips. The sound vibrates through your whole body and the sheets are twisted beneath you and his hand is gripping your thigh and pulling you impossibly closer, and you don’t want this moment to stop. You never want to be away from him after tonight, not ever.

“My beautiful Princess,” he gasps against the corner of your mouth when his rhythm falters for a moment, then quickens, his whole body trembling above you. It’s a beautiful tell you recognize as him losing himself inside you, and you assume he is as close to feeling this closeness between you as you are, this shared pleasure. “Your body doesn’t lie... clings to me so tight...”

Your nails drag down his back and he hisses at the sensation, the feeling of them marking his bare skin makes his hips snap forward and makes the bond mark on his chest blazes so bright you see it through your closed eyelids, red and fierce and consuming. You break apart at the same time, or close enough, his face buried against your neck as he spills so much warmth inside you. Your fingers knotted in his hair from how good it feels. The sound he lets out against your skin, muffled and shattered and utterly broken, is the most honest thing you have ever heard him say.

He stays after that.

The candlelight has burned low by the time the trembling stops, by the time your breathing evens out into something resembling relaxation and his heartbeat slows against your back where he has curled around you, his chest warm and bare against your shoulder blades, his arm draped over your waist, his fingers tracing absent patterns on the inside of your wrist. The bond mark still glows faintly, a soft red pulse that matches the cadence of his breathing.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” he mumbles against your hair, and the drawl is back but soft now, heavy with sleep, the consonants blurred. It makes you smile and move closer in his embrace, “M’trying to enjoy this before you kick me out of your bed.”

It’s a jest, you recognize it as such. Yet even as he jokes, your chest feels heavy where his words settle, scraping against your heart like little knives.

“I’m not going to kick you out.”

“Promise?”

There is something in his voice. Something small and young and achingly uncertain, something that lives under all the smirking and carelessness, and it cracks the last wall inside your chest like a fist through thin ice.

You turn in his arms and press your palm flat against the mark on his chest, the red glow warm beneath your hand. You look him in the eyes with a gaze so raw and honest and blurred by the moist of unshed tears, and you tell him.

“I promise.”

His expression does something complicated, and for a moment his mask wavers so completely that you see everything in his eyes. The relief, the ache, the love so vast and old it seems to spill beyond the borders of this single life. Then he blinks and the smirk ghosts back across his lips, smaller now, gentler, like a muscle memory he can’t quite shake.

“Good,” he whispers, pressing a lingering kiss to your forehead, his lips warm and impossibly soft. “‘Cause I wasn’t gonna leave anyway.”

His eyes close and his breathing slows. His arm tightens around you in his sleep, an involuntary , instinctive thing, as though even unconscious his body refuses to let go of something it has waited too long to hold.

You lie in the dark with his heartbeat against your palm and the fading glow of the mark beneath your fingers and for the first time in your life, you feel like something that belongs to you.

Outside the window, the desert stretches to the horizon. The dunes roll in smooth, undulating waves under the moonlight, pale gold and endless.

If you look long enough, they almost look like the sea.

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[applefishcake]

childhood bestfriends caleb and nonMC!reader, who he's secretly in love with while she thinks he likes someone else

warnings. angst, fluff, rejection, she fell first he fell harder, caleb is down bad, groveling, miscommunication, caleb sucks at feelings, slow burn, childhood friends to lovers, he gives her a nickname adjacent to pipsqueak preview. "I love you," he says, pressing his forehead against yours. You want to tell him that it's not fair to treat you the way he does and expect you not to fall for him. That holding your hair when you vomit, falling asleep at your bedside when you're sick, and his eyes closing in on you in any room is not fair. "Then prove it to me." wc. 8.4k (she's hefty...)

You proposed to Caleb for the first time when you were nine years old, with a flower ring.

The winter air had nipped at your flushed cheeks as you stepped into ice, holding it out to him. Your breath had puffed into the air like a dragon, and you nuzzled your chin further into the wool of your scarf to keep warm. It had been the only flower left after fall had faded away, yet its white petals stood brilliantly in between your fingertips, weathering against the cold.

The child in front of you was closed off. Eyes narrowed, fists balled inside his pockets, and usually adorning a solemn look on his face. Though, it had certainly gotten better since you first met him as one of Grandma Josephine’s adoptive children. Back then, he hadn’t even spoken much—only keeping MC tight at his side, as if she might disappear if he didn’t. He wasn’t rude by any means…just, cautious. Too aware for a child of his age.

But without a doubt in your mind, he was the most handsome boy you’d ever seen.

He’d raised his brows. “You just met me last week.”

“It’s love at first sight.”

He rejected you, naturally, but it did little to make a dent in your childish heart. Not when his purple hues gazed into your own, with a softness that didn’t seem intent on hurting you.

The next two decades becomes a perpetual cycle of this encounter—in which you learn that Caleb is a very caring person.

In that time, you learn a lot about him, aside from his gorgeous face. You find that he’s fond of nicknames. Pipsqueak for MC. Splints for you, when you launched yourself off a swing and broke your wrist trying to impress him. Safe to say, it didn’t impress anyone but your doctor, who was baffled you managed to fly so high into the air with your 11-year-old legs. Caleb held your other hand tight in the emergency room as you wailed helplessly, waiting for the doctor to ease the pain. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t cry just a tad longer to keep your hand in his.

“This thing is so ugly,” you whine, picking at your cast as he walks you back home. “Do you think I’m gross now, Caleb?”

“It’s not ugly. You need it to get better.”

“I thought you’d fall in love with me if I went high enough,” you sniffle fake tears, which he reads in an instant. “I did go pretty high up, though. So maybe you like me at least.”

He laughs, and you scowl, insisting that you aren’t joking. So instead, he smiles and holds your free hand in his again. Your heart skips a beat. A childish, but innocent love fluttering in your chest. “Come on, splints. Let’s go watch TV, and I can sign your cast.”

The broken wrist is so worth it.

With MC being two grades lower than the two of you and thus having a different schedule, it doesn’t take long before you’re doing practically everything with Caleb. He’s your seatmate in class, the two of you walk to and from school, and there doesn’t seem to be a moment where you aren’t glued at the hip. Throughout all of this, you make sure you shoot your shot whenever the chance arises—even when it doesn’t arise at all.

“You get any chocolates for Valentine’s?” you ask as you plop down in your seat with your lunch, not-so-conspicuously eyeing his desk as his friends begin to crowd around the two of you. It didn’t take long for Caleb to adjust to ordinary school life. After his initial bumpy introduction where he seemed hesitant to get close to anyone his grandma would introduce him to, he was quick to adjust to a level of charisma even you haven’t gotten to. 

By now, he’s charisma personified. You, yourself, have no idea how quickly he adapts to things. Though, you do recall that after an exam measuring his intelligence, he was told he couldn’t lower his grade by two years to be with MC. So you suppose he’s rather bright—almost as much as his face.

“Too many,” one of his friends groan, dragging his hand down the side of his face. “Life’s so not fair, dude.”

“Just a few,” Caleb laughs, turning to feel me stare at him expectantly. “Most of them are obligatory. I just helped a couple people out during gym.”

You glance at his friends. “How many is a few?”

“At least five,” another one grins. He wiggles his eyebrows at you, and his friend snickers at his shoulder. “You jealous?”

It’s not like your crush on Caleb is new news. In fact, it’s practically common knowledge at your school, given how open you are with your affection with him. Asking him out with a giant poster on orientation day, sending him notes with hearts littered everywhere during class, and refusing to be subtle when you’re discussing it with your friends…it tends to add up. Most people believe your relationship to be strange, but those who matter thought of it as the norm, so it doesn’t really matter. 

“Jealous? I don’t think so, why?”

“Most girls would be if their boyfriend got a bunch of chocolates,” he responds, to which Caleb immediately reminds him that you’re not dating. Then his friend sighs. “It’s cute when girls get jealous, isn’t it?”

At this, your ears perk.

“Should I be jealous?” you ask Caleb, making his friends erupt into snickers. “Do you think it’s cute too?”

He rolls his eyes and flicks your forehead softly. “Do you ever ask normal questions, splints?”

Throughout your childhood together, everything involves him. Family dinners, graduation, holidays, all of it. Of course, this means that MC is there for all of it too. You’re helplessly in love, but you’re not stupid. You know what love looks like from the movies their grandma would play on their TV. He cares for her with a different look in his eyes. He protects her with a lovingness in his voice that he doesn’t spare for you. 

The same fingers that flick your forehead touch her arm gingerly, like she could crack in half if he holds too hard. He doesn’t touch her very easily either, whereas he often falls asleep with his head fully leaning against your shoulder on the bus ride home. He wakes up at the crack of dawn to make her lunch, while the two of you munch on sandwiches from the school cafeteria during lunch breaks. He scolds you when your clothes are tossed on the ground while he folds hers without her having to ask. He never enters her room to protect her privacy while he lounges in yours like he owns the place.

Your Caleb, you have found, is different from MC’s Caleb. 

MC’s Caleb is easy to depend on. Trustworthy, perfect, and never makes a mistake for the life of him. He never loses his cool in front of her, never has a hair out of place, lets her win at all the board games, and always has this clear but dazed look in his pretty purple eyes. Your Caleb has none of that. Your Caleb teases you mercilessly when you lose the card game for the fifth time in a row. Your Caleb passes out on his desk while studying for an exam, essentially drooling on his notebook to lie to MC that he’s naturally talented at math. Your Caleb sends you stupid videos about plane models and forces you to sit through a thirty-minute explanation about it.

You know he likes her. He knows you know he likes her. She doesn’t know anything at all. All jumbled up, like a wordless pact ready to crumble at any moment. 

Of course, this means that he prioritizes her over you at times. All the time. It’s to be expected. She’s family, you’re not. You’ve grown used to it, and so has he.

MC doesn’t notice though, because she doesn’t have to. Because to her, Caleb is just a slightly nagging but cool adoptive brother. Nothing more, nothing less. And you’re one of her childhood friends, and Caleb’s best friend. Nothing more, nothing less.

The first year after you graduate high school is a dramatic shift from your cozy hometown. You somehow manage to get into the same college as Caleb–and you attribute his tutoring to be the main culprit—though in different majors. It’s a lot to convince him to go so far from home given that MC is still at home, but after a lot of reluctant discussion, he agrees.

“Take off your shoes at the door,” he reminds you as you barge into his dorm room after a particularly difficult exam for one of your classes. You do as he asks, grumbling about how he has no mercy for the fallen, tossing them haphazardly beside the door and prancing past him. He takes the time to tidy them up, as if he’s expecting it. “How was your exam?”

“Awful. I went through war.”

Caleb grins as he sits down at the coffee table beside you, watching as you bury your face into your arms. “And whose fault is it that they didn’t want to study?”

“Yours.”

“Funny,” he snorts, and you feel his large hand ruffling the top of your head. “It’s alright, splints. I can tutor you a bit earlier on the next one.”

“Even you can’t save me for this class.”

“Is that a challenge?”

He ends up cooking up something quick in his makeshift kitchen (essentially just a rice cooker), while you laze around on his bed, scrolling aimlessly on your phone. Once he’s finished, you scarf down his food like a man starved, lips stretching widely. At times like these, you’re oddly grateful for his hopeless love toward MC. How else would he have learned to cook such good food?  “You should honestly be a chef, Caleb. Actually, no, that would mean other people would eat your food. I guess you can just be my personal chef when we’re married.”

Caleb remains completely unaffected, wordlessly cleaning the plate in front of you. “I didn’t realize I was engaged.”

“Well, now you know. Not sure if you remember, but I had fireworks for you and everything when I proposed. Plus an orchestra.”

He hums, looking up as if he’s in thought, and then nods. “Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar, splints. How could I forget?”

You shrug. “You tell me.”

His face falls as you pace to the door and begin to put your shoes back on. “Where are you going? Aren’t you done with class?”

“Going out. I deserve it after that exam.”

“With your friends?”

“No, with four guys,” you joke, but he doesn’t seem to find it very funny. “I’m just going to a club. I won’t be back too late.”

He’s already grabbing his jacket. “I can come.”

You push him back with your finger by the nose, and he blinks in surprise, making you laugh. “No need. You have exams too, y’know.”

“I’m done studying.”

“Liar.”

Though it takes some convincing, you eventually have him sit at his desk once more. He manages to nag a whole lot as you leave, reminding you to call him once you’re done so he can pick you up, but you just wave him off as you leave out the door. You take your time getting ready–dolling yourself up to hide the dark circles beneath your eyes. As you get ready, you video call MC, where she asks how you and Caleb have been doing in her absence. She rants about her days with her grandma, complaining about how quiet the house is when Caleb isn’t home, though she indulged in the beginning. She asks you to show her your outfit once you’re done, and she beams brightly in your screen, squealing about how you’d likely get a boyfriend soon that you can tell her all about.

You just smile, because you don’t know how to tell her that the only boy you want is wrapped around her unknowing hand.

The club is loud. Where the music rumbles through your feet to the tips of your fingertips, and the lights are flashing in a dimly lit room. Your friends flock to a table and order drinks while you let yourself feel the music and crack a joke or two once in a while.

A group of guys approaches you with easy smiles and louder voices than necessary—confidence sharpened by cheap cologne. One of them leans against your table like he’s done it a hundred times before, asking your name, where you’re from, if you come here often. The usual.

You answer, choking out a laugh to humor his unfunny jokes alongside your friends, while the swigs you take from your drink become deeper and deeper. 

He’s not bad at flirting, you think. Subtle, and not too glaring about it. But you don’t particularly enjoy humoring it, and it becomes gradually more apparent as your eyes keep drifting elsewhere and you keep having to ask him to repeat himself. You’re growing bored. Irritated.

Because he’s not Caleb.

It hits you in strange, inconvenient flashes. The way this guy stands just a little too far away. The way his voice doesn’t quite reach you over the music, even when he’s close. The way you don’t feel that familiar, grounding presence like an anchor holding you to the ground.

You find yourself glancing past his shoulder. Half-wishing to see Caleb there. Watching. Hovering.

But there’s only strangers. Blurred faces and flashing lights.

“You okay?” the guy asks, tilting his head.

“Yeah,” you say too quickly. “Long week.”

He grins, like that’s an invitation. Says something else—something about getting you another drink, maybe dancing, maybe getting out of here.

You nod again. Smile again.

Across the room, your friends are already disappearing into the crowd, dragged toward the dance floor by laughter and hands you don’t recognize. One of them glances back at you, gives you a look that asks ‘you’re good, right?’ before she’s gone.

You sit back down at the table when the guy steps away. Maybe to grab drinks, maybe because he senses your attention drifting. You don’t really care which.

The music swells in your chest. The lights flicker. You wish you could enjoy yourself, but it’s particularly hard today.

You take another sip. Then another. Your phone rests face-down on the table, but you flip it over anyway.

No messages.

Of course not. He cares, but not like that. Not in the way that he would spam MC’s phone whenever he didn’t know where she was or how she was doing. No, not like that at all.

Another sip. The glass is nearly empty now.

And suddenly, you’re pressing send before you can even register what’s happening.

[you]: hi

The answer comes immediately, the grey bubbles popping up on his end of the screen.

[futre hubs <333]: do you need me to come pick you up?

[futre hubs <333]: i can

You’re not sure why you feel like shit, but you hate it. In moments like these—moments where the alcohol lets you lower your walls and truly think—it hits you like a truck, like a deeply sinking feeling in your chest. The years of rejection after rejection that the two of you frame like a bit—as if your feelings have become so miniscule that it no longer even phases him. 

It hurts, a bit. More than you let yourself feel.

You’re not sure how much time passes. Maybe minutes or maybe an hour. There’s buzzing throughout your body. The grip on your waist belonging to the man you’ve been half-heartedly entertaining suddenly becomes harsher, snapping you out of your trance. It feels unlike Caleb, but you let it sit anyway. However, the hand moves to your wrist, and you’re being pulled out of the crowd towards the wall.

Too touchy. He’s saying something into your ear, and you feel his breath against your skin. You don’t like it. Too close. The buzzing feeling feels more like an alarm now.

The words either go unheard due to the music or don’t deter him. You want to go back. Back to Caleb. In the moment, you begin to think—almost as if the world is in slow motion. Perhaps the drinks, you think. You wonder if Caleb will leave you. You wonder if he’ll leave to go be with MC. You wonder if the years you’ve spent expressing your love to him meant as much to him as it did to you, or if he just found it plain annoying. You wonder if now that you’re in college, he’d want to explore other people, and he’ll finally find an outlet to get rid of you for good. 

But you know he wouldn’t. Because he cares for you. Just not as much as he cares for her.

You wonder if he’s ever looked at you with the same softness he does with MC.

Someone pulls you away from the man and into their chest, and the worries dissipate in an instant. His scent. His warmth. You knew he’d come. He always does. It only takes a warning glare from Caleb before the man disappears into the crowd again, and you feel the grip on your wrist loosen. Caleb stares down at you, your back still to his chest as you blink wearily, almost in slow motion, and he sighs. He doesn’t give you the same smile he gives to MC when she’s in trouble. 

A part of you wishes he wasn’t always there for you—not when it’s so different from how he’s there for her. 

You sit idly in front of a convenience store parking lot while Caleb fetches you some water and ice cream. You have your knees to your chest, arms pulling them close as you shiver against the cold autumn breeze. You should’ve brought a jacket. The buzzing, hot feeling of the alcohol is subsiding too quickly.

“Drink.” You feel a water bottle press against your cheek from behind, and Caleb plops down beside you with a plastic bag. He notices how you’re holding yourself together and frowns. “Are you cold?”

“No.”

“I told you to grab a jacket.”

“You nag too much.”

He snickers and twists open the cap of the water bottle for you to drink, which you sip carefully. He strips his jacket off and drapes it over your shoulders, and you immediately bury yourself in it. It smells like him.

“What kind of woman do you like, Caleb?”

“You and your questions.”

“I want to know.”

He shifts to face you, motioning for you to lift your arms. He grabs either side of his jacket and pulls it shut, fumbling with the zipper until he manages to zip it to your chin. You can barely claw your hands out of his sleeves—the fabric almost engulfs you—but he just laughs. “My type? A woman who brings jackets when it’s cold.”

You scowl, making his laugh echo louder. “Other than that.”

“A woman who goes to class in the morning.”

“...Other than that.”

“A woman who doesn’t leave her clothes all over my floor when she feels like sleeping over.”

“Something else.”

“A woman who eats healthy, balanced meals. A woman who doesn’t steal all my pens and then still ends up asking me for more. Maybe someone who doesn’t pass out drooling on my pillow. Or someone who doesn’t let half the world know that they like someone—hell, maybe even the entire world.”

Caleb glances at you, chuckling to himself, but stops the moment he sees that you’re not laughing with him. Your head hangs low, your feet shuffling anxiously. His face twists, and suddenly the air thickens.  “Splints?”

You pick at your sleeves. “So just not me?”

“I was just kidding around.”

“Jokes have some truth to them.”

“Not all of them. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Caleb,” you finally meet his eyes again, and shrug. “I know you like someone else. I’m not an idiot.”

Silence commences, like a bell dropping on your head.

Caleb shifts his weight, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. It’s a nervous habit you’ve seen a hundred times—usually followed by some half-joke, something to smooth things over.

But nothing comes.

The space between you suddenly feels too small and too big all at once. You try to act normal. You really do.

You fiddle with your sleeve again, smoothing it down, then pulling at it, then smoothing it again. Anything to give your hands something to do, so they don’t reach for him out of instinct. 

Caleb glances at you. Then away.

Then back again, like he’s trying to solve something written across your face but can’t quite make out the words.

“Hey,” he starts, softer this time.

You hum in response, not trusting your voice yet.

Another pause. God, it’s awkward.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he mutters again, quieter now. Not defensive. Unsure. “You know I think you’re amazing.”

Just not enough.

“I am pretty great,” but it comes out too soft.

Neither of you knows what to do with another stretch of silence. So you opt to drink some more water instead.

“Why do you like me so much?” He eventually mutters out as he bites his bottom lip, eyes falling to the ground like he can’t bear to watch your expression. “You could do a lot better.”

You smile, but it’s half-hearted. “How could I not?”

He pauses, as if choosing his words carefully before his voice comes out in a soft whisper. “You mean so much to me. You’re smart, beautiful, and everything good in between—whoever gets to call you theirs is the luckiest person I know. And you know I’d do anything for you.”

Despite their sweetness, his words feel like judgement wrapping around your heart in vines, squeezing just before it’s about to pop. You wish you could block your ears out for what comes next.

“But it can’t be me.” Caleb’s lips purse, brows furrowing as he looks away. “I can’t give you what you want.”

The rejection hurts more than you realized it would. You want to tell him that it’s not fair to treat you the way he does and expect you not to fall for him. That holding your hair when you vomit, falling asleep at your bedside when you’re sick, and his eyes closing in on you in any room that you’re in is not fair. 

Instead, you nod. And you swear to yourself that you’ll swallow this sickening lump in your throat that makes you want to hurl and sob at the same time. That you’ll bury it deep in a graveyard within you that even the closest person to you would never know of. Especially him.  

“I don’t want it, either,” you snort back, immediately perking up to slap his back in what results in a jolt. His shoulders tense as he blinks wide at you, unsure of the sudden shift in atmosphere. “I don’t want feelings that belong to someone else, dumbass.”

Once it sinks in that you mean it, a smile finds its way onto his face, though something flickers beneath it, like a flash of something you don’t want to look too far into.

Not because you still had hope, but because whatever existed between you had never been something as simple as a crush. It had roots—tangled deep into your souls and impossible to pull free without tearing something open. You wanted to keep what was left. Even if it lingered just a little longer, and even if you pretended not to see the splintering strands in the string tying you together.

So you let it settle. Let it rot somewhere you couldn’t feel it.

The two of you fall into the kind of closeness that you’ve always had, and time passes as if it was always meant to be this way. It’s easier this way. For a while, it does work, but nothing ever really stays under wraps. Despite your incessant protests in telling yourself it’s fading, the scars he’s inflicted on you are just that. Scars. Unmoving yet subtle.

The thinning thread finally snaps a few years later, when MC develops feelings for a coworker in the Hunter’s Association. The day the cracks in the glass bridge holding you together shatter beneath your feet into a million different pieces.

“When’s the last time you’ve slept?”

He’s sprawled shirtless on the couch of his apartment in Skyhaven, freshly out of the shower after you arrived to visit him for the first time in months—only to see that he’s nearly overworking himself to death. Despite him going off to the DAA after college, you’d kept close contact, the connection between the two of you never wavering regardless of your restricted time. It only changed after news of MC broke out. Worried, you’d rushed to Skyhaven to make sure he was doing okay, which you’re clearly glad you did now. You’d practically had to drag him to the shower to keep him from passing out next to the front door in his gear.

Caleb, clearly, is off. You suppose you don’t blame him. The woman he loves is yearning for another. Almost poetic, really, but you don’t like seeing him this way. Especially when you know what it feels like yourself, even if you’ve gotten used to it. Gotten over it. He looks like a kicked puppy. Hurt, like a dog who’s just been scratched by its owner. 

“I dunno.”

You peer into the empty abyss that is his fridge and frown. There’s a few measly apples sitting inside, and a half-eaten protein bar that’s been there for god knows how long. “What the hell have you been eating?”

He responds with a grunt, letting his head fall back against the sofa. You decide to make do with the instant noodles he has stashed in one of the cupboards and bring it over to him once it seems mostly done. With a fork, you stick out a few noodles to his face, urging him. “Eat.”

“Not hungry,” he mutters.

“Don’t care. Sit up.”

He opens one of his eyes to peek at you, which somehow urges him forward. There’s darkness beneath his eyes—even stubble littering his chin from a few days worth of not shaving. You want to reach out and poke fun at him, but the state he’s in deters you. Instead, you silently feed him, watching him chew his food while staring at your hands. It makes you wish you put on a fresh set of polish before you came.

You twirl another small forkful and hold it out. He leans forward this time without being told, taking it quietly. His shoulder brushes yours as he settles back against the couch, and you can feel his skin through your shirt.

“Thanks,” he mutters, voice rough from disuse more than anything. “For coming.”

“Yeah,” you say, quieter now. “Someone had to make sure you didn’t rot in here.”

He huffs a faint laugh, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Probably would’ve. Dramatic way to go out, huh?”

You nudge his knee with yours. “Starving to death in your own apartment? Real heroic.”

A ghost of a smile flickers across his face. It makes your heart flutter. Stupid feelings.

“…thanks for coming, splints,” he says.

Your chest tightens—sharp and sudden. It feels like it’s threatening to feel something that’s not yours to feel. So instead, you look down at the bowl, pretending to focus on separating another bite. You twirl your fork, more carefully this time. “I had to. You weren’t responding, so I thought you died, or something. Open.”

He rolls his eyes, but obeys anyway. “Bossy.”

“Learned from the best.”

His lids flutter shut, voice dropping to a lower hum. “I missed this.”

Your hand stills. “What?”

He shrugs, eyes still closed. “You being here.”

His hair is sticking to his forehead, still damp from the shower. Before you realize what you’re doing, you brush a stray strand of hair off his forehead. You speak quietly. “You look like shit.”

“Wow,” he mutters. “You have a way with words.”

You frown, and without thinking, your hand lingers at his temple for just a second longer than it should. His skin is warm, still hot from the shower.

“Idiot,” you whisper.

He catches your wrist. Not tight, not stopping you. Simply holding it there for a moment that feels too long and not long enough at once. Your eyes meet for a fleeting moment, and then you’re looking away, setting the mostly finished bowl of noodles onto the coffee table to pull away.

“Don’t make this a habit. I’m not flying out here every time you forget to eat.”

“Could,” he murmurs. “You would.”

You don’t respond to that, because he’s not wrong.

“…Is she okay?”

It slips out of him like instinct. Like breathing. And just like that, everything shifts. You don’t answer right away—instead, your fingers tighten slightly around the fork.

“She’s fine,” you say eventually. Leave it, you plead in your head.

“Did she say anything?” he asks, sitting up a little more now. There’s something in his eyes, like he’s searching. “When you talked to her.”

You shrug, trying to keep your tone even. “Just normal stuff.” Stop, you think. Please stop talking.

“Like what?”

“Like her job. Her grandma. Nothing serious.” Shit.

He frowns slightly. “She didn’t mention him?”

There it is. It’s always about her.

You know he’s in a vulnerable spot right now, but it does nothing to ease the sudden flame roaring in your chest. Whether it’s from years of repressed hurt or shame, all it amounts to is a relentless ball of rage inside of you that leaves your nails digging crescents into the palms of your hands. You stare at him, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you inch away from him. 

“Does it matter?”

Caleb’s face relaxes. “What?”

“Why does it matter what she thinks about him? She likes him, end of story, no?”

“I just want to know if he’s a decent guy.”

Your ass. “That’s not really your business, Caleb, but sure. He’s a great guy. Amazing, honestly. He’s really gentlemanly and checks every single box. He lives above her apartment, so they’re right next to each other. He treats her gently, too. I’d bet every girl would jump at a chance to date a guy like that.”

You’re not sure where the words are tumbling out of, but it’s too late to go back. Neither do you want to.

“I wonder if he has a brother. Maybe MC could set me up or something.”

“Oh. Is he…” Caleb’s back straightens, and you notice his fingers digging into his thighs. “...handsome?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m telling you, he’s perfect. His face could pay for the Linkon rent by itself.”

He suddenly stands, and you glare up at him through your eyebrows. “Why are you talking like that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you scoff.

He narrows his eyes. It’s something you haven’t seen in a while, since Caleb rarely gets upset at you. “You know exactly what I’m talking about, splints.”

“Can you just spit it out? What am I saying differently?”

“You’re angry.”

You stand, following suit. He looms over you to have his shadow essentially engulf you, and you wish you could kick his ankle so he falls to the ground. “Maybe if you weren’t so irritating, I wouldn’t feel so annoyed right now.”

“What?”

“It’s hard to watch, Caleb,” you hiss out in exasperation, throwing your hands into the air. “It’s always pipsqueak this, pipsqueak that, pipsqueak what. Seriously, we’re not kids anymore, you need to get over it!”

You’re not sure if you’re talking to him or yourself anymore.

“Can we calm down and talk? If I’ve been talking too much about it, I can stop, so—”

“We haven’t seen each other in months, Caleb! And all you want to ask me about is how she’s been? Why don’t you ask her yourself, if you’re so curious? Oh, but you can’t, because you always have to be perfect in front of her. So instead, you dump all of this on me. Your goods and bads, all of it, just for me to get kicked to the curb like I’m some dispensable object.”

“What?” his balks. “Dispensible? Are you serious? As if I haven’t gotten you out of every little thing you’ve gotten yourself into the past decade of our lives? As if I haven’t picked you up every weekend from your friends’ places at three in the morning? Like I haven’t called you every single week—”

“Well, I want you to stop that!” your words spit at him like weak knives, growing louder by the second. 

“You didn’t seem very against it the last forty times.”

“I am now.”

“What has gotten into you, splints?”

“Don’t call me that right now,” you glower, and you try to ignore the hurt flashing across his expression. “I’m just sick of seeing you follow her around like some wet dog. She doesn’t see you like that, can’t you see that?”

Your breathing begins to stutter, and you suck in a deep breath through your nose. Your chest stings, and you pray that you don’t lose composure so the tears threatening to bubble at the corners of your eyes remain hidden.

“You told me that you couldn’t give me what I wanted. Well, she can’t either,” you bore holes into his chest, too afraid of what you might see if you look up. “If I can get over my stupid feelings, so can you.”

But you’re not over it. Not at all.

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. For the first time in a while, you’ve rendered him speechless, and it feels even worse than what it felt to be rejected years ago. You’re not sure how your nails haven’t drawn blood at this point. You’d rather that they do, so you have some excuse to use the restroom.

“It’s not fair what you do, Caleb,” you try to will your tears to stay at bay, but you can’t help them. They sting, blurring your vision as you drop your head in some pathetic hope that he won’t face them head on. “How you treat me when you don’t like me like that is not fair. At least MC doesn’t know, but you—you know, and yet you—”

The rational part of you says that it’s not entirely his fault. Sure, you insisted on staying by his side. Sure, you insisted that you could push down your feelings. Sure, you’ve promised a lot of things, but it’s his fault too, for being the way he is—so kind, so thoughtful, just so him. 

You wipe desperately at your tears. It was a lost cause from the start.

“Please don’t cry.” His face drains of color, apparent even against the dim lighting in his apartment. He steps towards you, and you take a step back. “Please don’t cry, splints, just not that.”

But when your tears refuse to cease dripping down your cheeks, your face flushing in humiliation, you feel both his hands cupping either side of it. He tilts your gaze up, and you realize that he’s only inches away from you, so much so that you can feel his breath against your skin. It’s moments like these that you lose yourself in his beauty. The deepness of his eyes that seem to peer into your very soul is one of the first features that you fell in love with as a child, and it hasn’t changed since. Damn him. You blink, eyes wide while his own flicker to your lips. 

“Be as mad as you want. Hit me, hate me even,” he whispers, his nose almost touching yours now. His thumb pad smooths your tears away. “But don’t waste your tears on someone like me.”

You think you might be imagining things. Because with the tension that nearly suffocates you and his lashes almost fluttering against your skin, you think he might be about to kiss you.

A sharp pain jabs you in the chest. Is it pity? A consolation prize dressed up as something softer? Is it to smooth things over, to make this moment easier for him to leave behind? Or is it rebellion? Something reckless from the fact that he can’t have her? Your tears have dried up, but the rest of your body seems to weep, as no excitement, no butterflies course through your veins. 

Why is it always something else? Why is it never you? It only hurts—because even now, you’re just the place he empties everything he feels for her.

Instinctively, you press your palm into his lips to push him away, and it feels like the air itself has stilled.

His breath lingers against your skin. Yours stutters like it’s forgotten how to exist in the same space as him. The air is so thick you could slice it with a knife.

Eventually, he pulls away. Caleb stares at you with an expression you haven’t seen before, though you don’t look long enough to analyze it. Wordlessly, you gather your things, stuffing your jacket into your bag and stumble over to the door—all while he stays locked in a petrified state, like he’s processing what he just did. Your gaze remains fixated on the wooden panels of the floor while you pack, refusing to look any higher in case you might see anything other than his feet.

“Don’t follow me,” you tell him as you leave. 

You don’t wait to see if he hears you.

The journey home feels like there’s a gaping hole in your chest, and all you can do is stare out the window as you feel the vibrations of the train through your fingertips. Outside, the world blurs past in streaks of dim lights and shadowed shapes, and you wish that your feelings were as fleeting as the buildings blurring by. 

You try to count the number of trees you see. Not on the warmth of his breath against your palm. Not on how close he’d been. Not on the fact that, for a second, you almost let him.

If you hadn’t pushed him away, would it have meant anything? Or would you have just been a mistake he’d regret in the morning?

Your phone buzzes frantically in your pocket, and you pull it out to see his name in big bold letters. He’s texting you simultaneously, apologizing in so many different ways that they all start to blend into one message you don’t plan on reading. You refuse to give into what your heart wants. It’s hurt you too much in the past. So instead, your thumb hovers above the ‘mute’ button.

You press it and shut your eyes.

Even if it’s difficult to adjust the first few weeks without him, you can’t bear to face him either. He shows up at your door. Nearly every day for some time, knocking softly and asking if you’d be willing to talk. When you simply plug in your earbuds and bury yourself into your bed, he apologizes through the door and leaves you something to eat. You tend to throw it out at first, but after a while, you figure it’s just a waste. Just like that, a month goes by. And then another. Then another. Until you can’t count them on one hand anymore. He comes by once every two weeks or so now, likely busy with his work.

Despite how much your body seems to miss his presence, you wonder if you should distance Caleb permanently. It’s a daunting idea. One that you never would’ve thought just a few years ago, but the embarrassment runs deeper than you want to admit. The feelings you’ve tried so hard to hide clearly aren’t hidden. Is this sustainable? 

Regardless of what you think, he comes around like clockwork.

“Are you in there?” He knocks gently on your door, voice soft. He probably knows you are.

“No.”

He chuckles from the other end. “Right. Happy birthday, splints.”

You glance at your phone calendar. He’s right. 

As usual, he begins to talk about random events in his life that he hasn’t had the opportunity to tell you, and while you usually muffle it out, you decide to quietly shuffle over to the door today. To tell him, maybe, that you don’t want to keep doing this. Or maybe just to hear his voice, you don’t know. Either way, you slide your back down the door where he’s on the other side, pulling your knees into your chest.

“I don’t know if you’ve read my text, but–”

“I don’t read them.”

Caleb stops, and you can almost hear his breath hitch. You usually don’t give him more than a few words, much less a full sentence, so it seems to have taken him aback. After the brief remission, you hear him clear your throat. “Splints, can you open the door? I want to talk—apologize to you.”

Silence.

“Or I can do it out here. That’s fine,” he sighs. “I want you to know that it’s okay if you want to hate me forever after this. I won’t keep clinging to you if you at listen to what I have to say, but I really just—I need to say that this is my fault.”

You half-heartedly hear his words drone on, his confidence wavering every so often while you pull up his chats on your phone. You have no idea how you hadn’t folded and read his chats until now, though it might’ve been more so for your own peace than anything. There’s too many to scroll up to, so you read the most recent messages, squinting in the dark against the light of your phone. 

[1:41PM]

[caleb]: are you eating well?

[caleb]: i made this today

[caleb]: [image attached]

[caleb]: your favorite dishes :) i’ll drop them off at your place later

[caleb]: i hope you’re not just throwing them out…wouldn’t blame you tho

[caleb]: at least take care of yourself :)

[8:13AM]

[caleb]: hi splints :)

[caleb]: you probably watched it already but that movie you wanted to see came out a week ago. I went to go see it

[caleb]: i still think it’s kind of bad…but it was entertaining

[caleb]: unless you wanna argue about it ?? :3

[5:32PM]

[caleb]: ranked first today

[caleb]: i was excited to celebrate it with you and then remembered :/

[caleb]: it doesn’t feel as good when i can’t tell you lol

[caleb]: hope you’re okay

[11:23PM]

[caleb]: i wish i hadn’t been so stupid

[caleb]: i didn’t deserve you back then

[caleb]: i still don’t

[caleb]: i shouldn’t have lost my cool when you were over here. didn’t like hearing you talk about that guy like that

[caleb]: im sure he’s a good looking guy, and i know you’re particularly weak to good looking guys…

[caleb]: i was being childish and i wish i could’ve explained it to you then

[caleb]: i know you don’t owe me anything and you don’t have to listen to what i have to say

[caleb]: but i never wanted to make you feel used, and i never did. if that even sounds believable lol

[caleb]: it was never about her

[caleb]: there’s so much more i want to say but i’ll say it in person

[caleb]: miss you a lot

[caleb]: sleep tight

You wish the tightness in your chest would go away. You wish you didn’t feel his sorrow through him. And you wish you didn’t care about your own feelings for him.

“I love you, splints,” he murmurs, and your attention tears away from the chats, your phone nearly clattering onto the floor. Your eyes widen, suddenly regretting that you missed the first half of his speech. 

“Not in the way you say it to your friends, or the way you say it to family. You’re my life, and you’ve been my life since the day you gave me that ring. I care for MC, but what I feel for you is different. It’s always been different. I realized that years ago, but I was afraid that it wouldn’t be fair for you. I thought you deserved someone better than someone who doesn’t know how to understand their own feelings.” Your throat dries. “I thought it wasn’t fair because I’d already put you through so much.”

“At the same time, I’m a selfish guy, you know? I couldn’t let you go either, because I couldn’t bear to see you with someone else. I wanted it to be us, and the only way I could think of existing without feeling like I was ruining you was to stay how we were. Stagnant, I guess,” he chuckles, but it feels sad. Weak. “I’m an idiot when it comes to you, you know.”

You don’t respond.

Not because you don’t have anything to say—if anything, there’s too much. It crowds your throat, every word scraping against the next until none of them can make it out. Your fingers hover uselessly over your phone, screen still lit with a conversation you can’t even remember reading.

‘I love you.’

The words echo, but they don’t land the way you once dreamed they would. They don’t bloom or soften or fix anything. They just sit. Too heavy. Too late.

Your chest tightens, aching outward like it’s trying to break free. Because you’ve wanted this—God, you’ve wanted this—for so long that you stopped letting yourself imagine it could ever actually happen. It should feel like relief. Instead, it feels real, but fragile.

Because you remember too much. The almosts. The waiting. The way you learned how to swallow your emotions when he built a wall between the two of you—and that doesn’t disappear just because he finally found the words.

Your hand curls slightly against the door, fingers brushing the cool surface.

Even with all that, you still miss the warmth of his skin. How his hair felt through a towel as you dried it. How he’d flick your forehead when you’d get a question wrong during one of his tutoring sessions. How he’d tease you about your grades or interests, and learn more about them anyway. How he’d message you throughout the day about random endeavors. How he’d always be there. How with just a call of his name, he would’ve crossed the continents for you. His eyes. His lips. His face. His painfully handsome face.

You remember him in all parts of your life—and not a single moment you’ve spared has gone without him. You remember how he held your hand when you’d broken your arm, and the way he’d lifted you into the air and embraced you when you were accepted into the same college as him. You remember how he’d pet your hair as you complained about him going too far for the DAA, promising he’d visit often. And he did. He always kept his promises.

Your body moves on its own, as if this was how it was always meant to be. The door slowly creaks open.

“…We’re a mess.”

A faint, tired smile is all you can give him. Still, when he sees you, the world seems to stop for just the two of you, and it takes him a moment to fully register that you’re really there. That you’re not just a figment of his imagination, and he hasn’t truly lost you forever as he’d feared. “This doesn’t mean you’re completely out of the woods. I’m still mad.”

“You should be,” he whispers out, nearly breathless.

Hesitantly, you step towards him. He reaches his arm out, brows furrowed cautiously like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to even blink right now. The tips of his fingers twitch towards you. You raise a brow, and he swallows the lump in his throat, retracting back until you nod. 

Realizing you don’t have shoes, you step onto the fronts of his shoes one foot at a time, taking his hand until you’re flush against him and he’s already engulfing you into a crushing embrace. His arms wrap around you, strong and warm. He smells good. Though you can’t confidently say the same for yourself given the state you’re in, he drops his chin into the crook of your neck and inhales deeply, like a man starved.

“Note to self,” you mumble. “Don’t propose to any handsome guy you see.”

Caleb laughs, airy this time, and you feel it against your collarbone. “I thought you were going to leave your husband out here to die in the cold.”

“I should divorce you. We’re not even married yet.”

He grins, lopsided. “You should.”

“I won’t.”

“I know.

You bury your face into his chest, fingers digging into the fabric on his back. “I don’t want a version of my life without you, Caleb. As annoying as you are.”

He pulls away for a brief moment and places a kiss on your cheek, his own dusting red. Flowers feel like they’re blooming on the spot he pecked, but somehow, it feels natural. You’ve always been close to him physically throughout your upbringing, even if it never involved lips–that was new territory. You cross your arms, relying on his hands around your waist to keep you upright. “Tell me more.”

“You nag too much.”

He kisses your nose. “Hm?”

“You’re emotionally repressed.”

“Ouch.” He kisses your temple.

“You’re too good at things you don’t try at.”

Your jawline.

“You’re unstable. You’re too protective. You’re stupid.”

“I love you,” he says, pressing his forehead against yours. His lips hover above your own, just centimeters away.

Your lashes flutter against his. “Then prove it to me.”

“I will,” he whispers, just as his mouth slots against yours, and a warmth blooms throughout your chest. You melt into him, like you always have and you always will. “I’ll prove it to you for the rest of my life.”

[applefishcake]

caleb and nonMC!reader in an loveless arranged marriage, where he's secretly in hopeless love with her

warnings. angst fest, eventual fluff, failing marriages, misunderstandings, suggestive content, jealousy, stalking/following, caleb getting rejected, reader in denial, feelings are hard preview. "Why wouldn't I be romantic? I'm your husband." He's been doing that lately--dropping lines like that out of nowhere, like they're nothing. Somehow always when you're least prepared for it, and always with a lopsided grin that tells you he's either completely oblivious or knows exactly what he's doing. You're willing to bet on the latter. wc. 7.4k

Your husband does not love you. He doesn’t love anyone except for one, and it is not you.

You used to like romance. You’d fantasize about who your beloved forever would be in your room, kicking your feet childishly at the thought of someone loving you so purely. So innocently. You wondered what kind of person they’d be, what kinds of foods they’d like, what their family is like. You wondered which holiday would be their favorite, whether they’d want children, whether they’d have a time-consuming job. But really, none of it mattered, because you only wanted someone by your side.

So when you were told you’d be put into an arranged marriage, you tried to be hopeful. An embarrassing, pathetic hope that maybe this man could love you the way men love in books and movies if you tried hard enough.

Caleb Xia is not a loving person. You realized this the moment he stepped into the room with cold, lifeless eyes that seemed to stare straight through you as if the wall was worth more than your presence. He’d smiled, but it felt stiff. Awkward. But you’re sure yours was the same.

Still, his eyes were beautiful. Your hope flickered like a small stubborn flame in your chest that you wanted to guard against the blizzard. The marriage was simple. You showed up to the courthouse in a knee-length white dress, constantly adjusting at the pearls around your neck anxiously while he signed the papers. Once he was done, he’d simply slid it over to you, evidently avoiding your eyes. 

“Are you sure?” you’d asked meekly, as if speaking any louder than a whisper would shatter your heart. You weren’t sure if you were asking him or yourself. Not that it mattered, much.

He spared you a soft smile. Pity, maybe, with how his eyes remained empty, but you took it anyway. 

A starved man does not beg for more. The flame remained.

The only reason he married you was because MC had gotten married to another childhood friend of theirs. When he mentioned it, you thought nothing of it at first. But when the only photo he’d put up throughout your entire house was one of him and her as children, while your awkwardly situated courthouse picture sat beside it, you knew. He didn’t stop to stare at your photo, ever. Not any of the photos. Only hers.

The final blow to the puny flame remaining in your heart was when you’d finally initiated physical contact. To perform the marital duty, he’d hovered above you in just his pants while you stared up at him in your thin pajamas that did little to hide what was beneath it. There was no setting the mood. The air was cold, the room dull because only your half had any semblance of effort that had gone into decorating it. When he kissed you, it felt more like his lips were simply touching yours gently. Almost tapping it. 

It felt like nothing.

This was not romantic at all.

“Are you okay? Is this okay?” he asked, pulling back with a furrow in his brows—probably because you were lying lifelessly while holding your breath. You wondered how he could ask something so softly when his eyes remained so muted. Maybe not softly. Maybe just quiet.

“It’s okay.” You wanted to curl up and go to sleep, but he was the only semblance of warmth in the freezing room.

But when his hand slid up your shirt, resting atop of your stomach, you stopped breathing again. He stopped as well. Your gazes met silently, and for a moment, the world seemed to stop. A dull, slow stop. And then suddenly, he was off you, clambering to pull his shirt back on as you sat up in confusion, eyes wide.

“I can’t,” he muttered. “I’m sorry.”

The flame went out.

Were you really so distasteful? So disgusting that he didn’t want to lay his hands on his own wife? Or was it that you were just too different from her? Should you be offended? Are you even offended? Relieved? Hurt? 

Does it even matter?

Once you were sure he’s gone, you cried yourself to sleep.

The next few years are a blur that you wish had somehow gone even faster. The days are a bore. He’s away for weeks—maybe even months—at a time. In those periods of time, the house feels like a maze not meant for only one person. At the same time, maybe it’s better he’s away.

Caleb Xia is not a mean person. On paper, he’s a decent husband. He cleans, cooks, and never complains if you ask him to do something. He smiles, nods, and goes on his way. Yet, it feels more like a vaguely close roommate than a husband. The two of you eat in silence, watch TV in silence, and even go to bed in different rooms. You suppose you can’t complain—it’s not like you put in much effort to get to know him well anyway.

The only thing he does that even comes close to romance is bringing you flowers. You’d told him once that you wished the house had space for a garden to plant them, and he’d brought you a bouquet later that week. Since then, he brings them every few weeks routinely. They appear in the vase beside the couch as if they’ve just magically appeared. 

They’re pretty, you think.

Resentment builds, slowly but surely, probably on both ends as in most marriages. This kind of life is killing you inside. This lonely, aimless life in a house that makes you feel like you’re the only person in the world, in a bed that feels too large. 

“I want to work,” you say one day, picking at your food blankly. “I have an interview tomorrow, so I won’t be here for most of the day from now on if I get it.”

A fork clatters from across the table. “What? Why?”

You don’t necessarily have to work given Caleb’s plentiful paycheck, but you want to anyway because you can’t stand being in that gigantic house all by yourself. But of course, how could you tell this to the man in front of you? The man you don’t even know the favorite color of?

“It’s a regular office job.”

“I didn’t ask what it was,” he blurts, eyes narrowing in concern. “I’m asking why? Do I not give you enough money? You know you have access to everything on the card, right?”

You shrug. “It’s not about the money…I just think I need something to do throughout the day.”

“What about picking up another hobby?”

“I’ve exhausted most of them.”

“Then traveling?”

“By myself?” you frown. “It’s not like you’re ever here.”

You’re not sure why the words slip through your teeth, but they do, and the disdain is apparent. He seems surprised at first, blinking, before his shoulder slump again and the corners of his lips twitch downward. For some reason, it makes you feel—good? Alive, more so. So you keep talking. “You’re always working. You even missed my friend’s wedding after I told her we’d be there.”

He shoots back immediately, brows tight. “That was a special case—it was an emergency.”

“That’s fine,” you chew slowly on your food. “But I don’t want to wait around all day for you to get back.”

“You shouldn’t work if you don’t have to. I make more than enough.”

“Again, not the point.”

His lips tighten, pursing. “What will your family think if they hear that I’m making you work after I told them that I’d take care of you?”

You snort. “Is this what you call ‘taking care of’?”

Immediately, you can tell that you’ve struck a nerve. And for some reason, it feels good again. Like you’re alive, again. Maybe you just like pissing him off. His expression shifts momentarily to something you can’t recognize before it settles disapprovingly and silence befalls the both of you. You like when he doesn’t have that stupid smile he always has. The fake, lifeless smile he’d given you when you first met. You’d rather he just be upset, just like this. He looks like he wants to say something, but then shuts his mouth, swallowing the lump in his throat. 

His phone rings, slicing the tension in the air like a knife. Caleb glances at the caller ID for a split second before he’s already on his feet, pacing to the sink to put his plates away in a hurry. “I’m sorry, I need to take this. Let me know how the interview goes..”

You stare at your plate, listening to his feet pad around in a hurry. “Is it MC?”

He whips his head around. “What?”

You stand from your seat to dump your food into the sink, ignoring the slight clench in your chest. He’s always been this way. Jumping at any opportunity to be useful to her, while he leaves everyone else in the dust. “Nevermind. Go.”

Once you hear the front door shut, you slump into the couch face first, hoping it swallows you whole before he comes back. This has to be some sort of humiliation ritual. Perhaps you committed a grave sin in your past life, because you’re not sure what you could’ve possibly done to warrant such a feeling. The sunset seeps through the window planes and hits half of your face, bathing you in a warmth that had been missing from the rest of the house. The heat makes you sleepy, and you soon find your eyelids drooping shut, gazing lazily at a photo of the two of you on the coffee table. You don’t remember when it was taken, but in it, you genuinely look like you’re almost enjoying yourself. You can’t tell with him, though. You can never really tell.

“Stupid Xia,” you mutter as you fall deep into slumber.

When you awake again, the sun has fully set. There’s a blanket draped over you and when you blink away the blots in your vision, you’re met face to face with a fresh vase of flowers on the coffee table. They smell nice.

Damn it. 

Sometimes, you wish he was just an asshole.

You learn about him through the photo albums he has stashed away in the attic. It’s not like you were looking for them. You’d only been cleaning when they managed to topple right into your hands, and since he always says whatever’s his is yours, you figure you might as well satisfy your curiosity. There’s less than you expected, unfortunately. Most photos are taken by him, but there’s a few in between where he’s the subject. Him at his birthday party, his graduation ceremony, him packing for college, and the day he left for the DAA. 

It’s odd. You forget he was a normal teenager at one point, and not a high ranking colonel.

The pictures are through his eyes. Before you can stop, you find yourself becoming engrossed in lacing the photos together into some semblance of a story in your head. You see his childhood home and the model planes he enjoys building. His outings with MC and his grandmother. His last minute halloween costumes. Him and his friends carrying out a prank on someone. His studies. His likes. His dislikes. 

Caleb Xia is a charming person. If you hadn’t met the way you did, you think you might’ve liked him a little more.

When you ask him a question regarding one of the photos at dinner, he nearly chokes on his food. You quirk a brow in response. “Was I not supposed to see them?”

“No, it’s fine if you look…” he mumbles, taking a sip of water to gather himself. You squint—are his ears pink? You didn’t know he was capable of doing something kinda adorable. “It’s just a little embarrassing.”

“Like the picture of your airplane swim trunks from when you were a kid–”

He coughs again, and you snicker.

You think he’s tolerable—just a bit.

Weeks pass. Life gets a little easier with your job and more to do—it might even be a bit fun. With your new friends at your workplace and a new sense of accomplishment, the less you stress about your loveless marriage and the more you appreciate what you have. Your interactions with Caleb become less forced. Not because you’ve somehow managed to miraculously understand how his brain functions, but because you put less weight on what you say. It’s hard to see someone as intimidating when you’ve seen a photo of them in a stupid halloween costume. He seems to notice the change too. 

[Caleb Xia]: I got us fried chicken for dinner. Don’t be too late so it doesn’t get cold :)

Your mouth waters. It’s nice, almost. Emphasis on the almost.

Outside, the evening chill hits your cheeks, sharp enough to wake you up and wrap your jacket tighter around yourself. The street is busy but not crowded, as the sun has just set. A couple laughs too loudly across the road. Somewhere, a bus exhales.

You start down your usual route.

At first, it’s nothing. Just footsteps. Not out of place. People exist. People walk. People go home.

But something’s off. Your gut insists on it, and it’s hard to ignore.

You slow slightly, just enough to be subtle. The footsteps slow too.

Your fingers tighten around your bag.

Coincidence, surely.

You don’t turn around, yet. Turning means you have to see something and acknowledge that it’s real. Instead, you adjust your pace again. Faster this time.

The footsteps quicken, dropping your heart to your stomach. 

Your eyes dart around you anxiously. It’s dark. Streetlamps are guiding your path home, and though the neighborhood is nice, it’s empty. Well, except for you and the footsteps that seemingly sound like they’re getting ever so closer every few seconds. You throat feels dry. 

Phone. You need to tell someone. Even if you’re wrong—even if it’s just a hunch.

[You]: Still there?

[Caleb Xia]: Yea. why?

[You]: I think there’s someone following me

Your message sends, and for a moment air doesn’t enter your lungs.

The typing bubble appears. Disappears. Appears again.

[Caleb Xia]: I’m coming.

You don’t know how he’s going to find you, but you don’t bother questioning it at the moment. You swallow, and your throat is dry enough that it hurts. The streetlamps cast long shadows across the pavement, and it’s hard to discern whether something is just a shadow or something else in the dark.

You don’t turn around.

Your legs carry you as fast as you can go without breaking into a sprint, and your grip tightens around your phone until your fingers ache. Hurry, you think. Hurry up, Caleb.

A car passes.

He’s closer now, whoever it is.

Your breath catches. Your shoulders tense, every instinct screaming at you to run, but your legs feel like they’ve forgotten how.

Suddenly, a car turns the corner too fast, tires kissing the curb before readjusting and you nearly jump out of your own skin. The tint on the car makes it too difficult to see inside, not that you’d be able to see much regardless due to the dark. It slows to a stop as it sees you, and you think if this isn’t who you’re expecting, it might actually be the end for you. 

The passenger door swings open.

“Get in.”

Relief floods your body when you hear his voice and you stumble to clamber in.

Relief?

This is Caleb Xia you’re talking about. Now that you think about it, you’re unsure why he was the first you contacted instead of the police. Your fingers had tapped on his profile faster than you could think. Was it just because he was at the top of your contacts? Was it because he was near? It must be, right? It had been instinctual. Your body had reacted—and it had somehow worked out. 

Regardless, you can’t possibly deny how relieved you feel right now.

You wonder if this is how MC always feels. It must be nice to know that someone so reliable is always at her beck and call, right? To come running at just a few words—maybe she wouldn’t have had to walk home in the first place. Maybe he would’ve driven her. You feel sick. This isn’t what you should be thinking about right now. Right now, you need to report it to the police and take a much needed nap. 

A part of you is envious of her.

“You should’ve called me earlier.”

The chicken doesn’t look as appetizing anymore even despite it sitting before you in all its crispy fried glory. The growling in your stomach from earlier is replaced by a slight pain, and it’s difficult to tell if you’ve only lost your appetite or if it’s a different kind of anxiousness. He watches you from across the table with a perplexed frown while you pick at the chicken aimlessly, nodding blankly.

“I’ll report it first thing in the morning,” Caleb sighs. “I should pick you up from work from now own. Or I’ll call you a taxi if I can’t.”

You nod again.

“Are you okay?”

Ah, he’s asking that again. You hate when he does.

You tilt your head. “I’m just sort of in shock, I think.”

“I know, but you should eat at least a bit. Here.” He holds a piece of chicken on a fork to your face and you scrunch your nose. He smirks. “Here comes the airplane?”

“I might vomit all over you.” A half lie.

He replies instantly. “Then I’ll clean it. Eat.”

For a reason that you just attribute to exhaustion, you don’t bother arguing. Instead, you pop it into your mouth, cheeks dusting pink at the intimacy of the act. He hums in approval and you try your best not to choke. Why was he feeding you—a grown woman? And why were you letting him? 

How bizarre. This whole day is bizarre.

At least you’re home—thanks to him.

“Thank you,” you mumble softly. “For getting there so fast.”

He looks almost offended, shaking his head. “Don’t thank me, it was a given. I’m just happy you thought to call me. I was worried you wouldn’t.”

Why did you call him? Well, you suppose he is your husband at the end of the day. One who has eyes for another, but your husband nonetheless. “Why wouldn’t I?”

He stops for a moment, as if in thought, and then smiles sheepishly. Not the annoying fake smile he puts on for show, but one that’s riddled with guilt. Shame. You want to know why. “Just assumed you wouldn’t.”

Strangely, the words make your chest tight.

Your eyes meet his usual striking violets, shoulders slumping as you look away once the eye contact feels too intense. “I’m glad I did.”

You barely catch the tips of his ears turning pink.

Caleb keeps his word for the months following the event. You never have reason to pass by that street again on foot, and although you continue to insist it’s not necessary, having him as your private driver of sorts does feel kind of nice. You think eventually, you’ve come to call him more than a stranger. He’s easier to talk to. Funnier than you thought, actually, when he’s not being annoying to tease you.

You’d never tell him that though, of course.

You blink warily, rubbing at your eyes with the back of your hand when a ray of sunlight escapes through the shades of your bedroom and hit your face. However, it’s not what awakes you. Rather, it’s the insistent buzzing of your phone on your bedside table, which you barely manage to snatch without falling off the edge of the bed. 

[Caleb (husband)]: morning sleepinghead, you awake?

[Caleb (husband)]: Come eat breakfast :> made apple juice too

[Caleb (husband)]: I better hear you shuffling around in your room in the next few minutes or i’ll have to come drag you out.. :)

Caleb Xia, you find, nags a lot.

“Sleep well?” he chuckles when you finally emerge, still half-awake despite being fully dressed. You scratch the back of your neck, yawning as you perch yourself on one of the chairs at the counter where he’s standing with an apron tied neatly behind him. If you were just a tad bit more awake, you’d have a field day making a snide comment about it.

“Mm.”

He laughs again, gently. Did he always sound so soft?

“You can always quit your job, y’know,” he shrugs, placing a plate of breakfast foods in front of you. It smells immaculate, as usual. “Offer’s always on the table.”

You shove a forkful of eggs into your mouth, squinting at him. “Why do you wanth me shoo be unemployed sho bad? My parentsh don’t care.”

“It’s not about your family…It just doesn’t seem necessary.”

“I like working. Just not waking up so early.”

“I only want you to avoid overextending yourself if you don’t have to,” he pops a tomato into his own mouth. “I make enough for you to get whatever you want, don’t I?”

“But I want my own money, too.”

“My money is your money. This is the least I can do.”

“Careful,” you snort. “You sound dangerously close to being romantic.”

He tilts his head. “Why wouldn’t I be romantic? I’m your husband.”

This time, you really choke on your food, coughing as he quickly hands you the apple juice. He’s been doing that lately—dropping lines like that out of nowhere, like they’re nothing. Somehow always when you’re least prepared for it, and always with a lopsided grin that tells you he’s either completely oblivious or knows exactly what he’s doing.

You’re willing to bet on the latter.

Caleb Xia, as you figure out in the time you spend with him in his car on the way to work, has terrible taste in films.

“That movie is awful. There’s no way that’s your favorite.”

He gasps dramatically and you don’t bother suppressing the urge to roll your eyes. “Hey, don’t judge before you try it.”

“I’d like it if I never had to try it, actually.”

The smile adorning your lips falls in an instant the car slows to a stop. You find yourself growing disappointed when you arrive at your workplace, because it means you’ll have to leave him. You want to scold yourself for thinking such preposterous thoughts. What are you? A teenager who’s hanging out with a boy for the first time?

You’re married, for god’s sake.

Then again, so what if his company isn’t so bad? What if you think he’s a bit more to you than tolerable? Isn’t that allowed? He’s your husband, after all. If it doesn’t feel so bad, maybe you could let yourself reprise and enjoy it while it lasts.

“Ah, right, I should tell you—I’ll be leaving this weekend for work.”

Ah, nevermind. Reality has a way of slapping you across the face when you least expect it.

“How long?”

“A few weeks at best,” he pauses, voice quieter. “Months, if I’m unlucky.”

You really despise the subtle aching in your chest.

You hate how easily it slips in. How, for a second, it makes the flame that’s gone out years ago flicker, as if these moments could mean more than they do. They don’t. You know they don’t. They aren’t yours to keep. None of it is.

The warmth, the ease, the way he looks at you like this—like you’re something he actually cares about—it’s all fake. Stolen. You’re just standing in the space where someone else is supposed to be.

You press your lips together, forcing the feeling down before it can spread any further. Get a grip.

His palm pats the top of your head, making your cheeks heat against your will. With a grin, he nods. But it’s stiff. The slight crinkle between his brows. Upset. Upset? “I’ll see you tonight.”

It’s like he knows what you’re thinking before you know yourself.

“Who said I want to?”

“You wound me.”

As soon as you enter the building, you feel your phone buzz in your pocket.

[Caleb (husband)]: I know you’re at work, but…

[Caleb (husband)]: Movie night tn ?? i can make us popcorn :D

[Caleb (husband)]: And yes we’re watching my fav so you can stop calling it bad :>

[Caleb (husband)]: Last hurrah before i leave

This is dangerous, you think. Really, really dangerous. 

You seriously hope you don’t fall for him, if it isn’t too late already.

A few hours later, the living room is dimly lit with soft lights, the low hum of something playing in the background as Caleb sets everything up. The bowl of popcorn ends up a little too full, a few pieces spilling onto the counter as he carries it over, muttering something under his breath as he munches on the ones that are about to spill over. You sink into the couch, watching him move around the room—adjusting the volume and flipping through options he’s already decided on. 

It’s strange, how easy it feels. How normal.

You don’t realize you’re staring until he glances over.

So you look away quickly, fixing your gaze on the screen. But a few seconds pass, and you can feel his attention still lingering.

You pretend not to notice.

What are you doing? What are either of you doing?

You don’t say anything, swallowing the question down into the pit in your stomach.

The movie stars a side character with a passionate devotion to his family, who reminds you of Caleb. Oddly enough, the resemblance is almost uncanny. You kind of want to root for him but also want him to lose terribly. You huff quietly. “He’s so intense.”

Caleb glances over, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. “What? You wouldn’t want someone like that?”

You tilt your head, pretending to think. “I mean… he’s a bit much.”

A pause.

“…but it comes from a good place. I like him.”

He stills.

You pick at a piece of popcorn, rolling it between your fingers. “He reminds me of you a little.”

“Yeah?”

You shrug, still not quite looking at him. “Yeah.” A small breath escapes you before you can stop it. “MC is really lucky to have you.”

He goes quiet. When you glance over, he’s already looking at you.

“…Lucky,” he repeats, almost to himself.

You hesitate, then ruin it by saying more. "I mean, you're always there for her, you know? If she calls, you come running. Everyone wants someone like that."

It was supposed to come off lightheartedly, but it only digs the hole deeper.

Something in his expression shifts. His smile fades, his face losing its usual ease as it drops to something you’ve never seen on him before. It contorts in phases. Surprise, and then confusion, and finally into one you prefer the least.

Panic. Something is wrong.

You wish you’d just shut up. The long pause makes you wish you were just a fly on the wall right now.

“Is this why?” he blinks, and his eyes glisten with something you haven’t seen from him. Void of the usual emptiness but replaced with something fuller. Heavier. “Is this why you hate me so much? Because of MC?”

Huh?

“Fuck,” one hand pulls at the roots of his hair, his top teeth sinking into his bottom lip as he attempts to hide his face from you. “I’m a moron. I should’ve known.”

What? Despite your hands growing clammy, you feel cold. Like the blood is draining from your face.

“You must hate me so much.”

When did you ever hate him? You’ve loathed him, certainly, when he’d disappear for weeks on end leaving you all alone in this cold, lifeless house. You’ve wanted to punch your balled up fists into his chest, knowing that it wouldn’t phase him in the slightest simply to alleviate some of your own anger. You’ve wanted to run away a multitude of times. But hate? Have you ever hated Caleb? Can you hate Caleb?

“Caleb.”

“This is my fault. I should’ve been more aware. It’s so obvious now, I feel like an idiot.”

“Caleb.”

“I thought you just hated me because this isn’t a marriage you wanted,” his voice cracks, and he’s burying his face into his palms. “I thought staying away from you was what you wanted. Shit, I’m so stupid.”

“Caleb,” you say, more firmly this time, and he finally looks at you. There’s a watery film over his usually lifeless eyes, glistening against the light of the TV screen, and it makes the pit in your stomach grow deeper. You don’t like seeing him like this. You thought you would, but you don’t.

His voice is a mere whisper now. He looks like he wants to vomit out a million words at once, but there’s three specific ones that linger on his tongue. Is this what they call a woman's intuition? You’re not sure how, but in the moment, it feels like you’re in his head. For the first time in the 4 years you’ve been wed to Caleb Xia, you feel like you can understand him. 

A victory that doesn’t feel like one at all.

“Listen to me,” he grabs your hands in his, holding them in front of his chest. “I don’t love her—not as a woman. I haven’t in a long time. She and Zayne are like my family, and I’d be a terrible person not to be happy for them. I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear to you. I’m so sorry.”

Your heart doesn’t seem to be beating anymore.

The air is too thick. Like liquid entering your lungs.

Caleb opens his mouth and then shuts it again, his words stuck in the back of his throat. You’re not sure if you want to hear what he wants to say. The words hold too much value, too many years of hurt, and you don’t know how you’ll react. You don’t want to acknowledge any of this as real, because if it is, what was all of this for? What were the years you spent holed up in your room meant to achieve? Were you just being a fool? And in that case, would you even want to know?

No. You don’t.

So instead, you kiss him.

A wordless, messy kiss. Though he’s taken aback at first, he’s quick to slot his mouth against yours eagerly, hands flying to your waist to pull you closer as if a man starved. It’s desperate. Different from the kiss you shared with him at the courthouse, or for transactional purposes. His mouth feels hot against yours, and when his tongue swipes against your lip, you let him in. 

You climb onto his lap, straddling him as he presses you flush against him. The movie is long forgotten. His hair weeds through the crevices between your fingers and he deepens the kiss as if he’s trying to physically become one with you. His heart hammers against your own like a timer, warning you of what this could mean, but you don’t care.

“Put your arms around my neck,” he mumbles against you, and then you’re suddenly being lifted up to your room with his hands supporting your thighs around his waist. But even those few seconds aren’t worth staying apart for, because he’s kissing your neck, mouthing at spots that have you pursing your lips to avoid making any embarrassing sounds. He lets you down gently onto the middle of your bed and follows suit, pushing you onto your back.

You’re here again.

He’s looming over you, face flushed in a deep red this time. He’ll ask if you’re okay. If this is okay. And then he’ll take off his shirt and his hand will slide up yours. It’ll be better this time, because it’s not out of some twisted sense of duty. Desire pulses at your core, but you can’t help but shake off this curdling feeling in your chest, as if you want to hurl. You wait for what you expect, eyes never leaving his.

Instead, he breathes sharply. “I love you.”

The world stops. 

“You don’t have to say anything back that I don’t deserve. I just want you to know,” he whispers.

Can anyone love someone like you—much less, your husband? You start breathing again because you have to, staring up at him as if he’s gone insane. In fact, you think you’ve gone insane. Kissing him, lying beneath him, enjoying his presence, looking forward to his breakfasts, letting him drop you off at work, feeling disappointed that he’s leaving—you’ve most definitely died and come back as another person, because this is not you.

This is Caleb Xia. He is an unloving person. He cannot love. But what happens if he does? With tears stinging at his eyes, watching you with a mix of pure adoration and sorrow, he’s telling you he loves you. Love is a strong word, isn’t it? But he means it. He loves you. Caleb loves you. You want to call him a liar, but he’s not.

You want to cry into his chest and run away at the same time.

The flame flickers, and you panic. Not because you despise him, or because his confession is one you don’t want to accept, but because this flame is not one you welcome with open arms anymore. It’s too easy to hurt. Too easy to shrink, yet somehow impossible to destroy.

“I can’t,” you croak. “Not right now.”

Even Caleb can’t mask the hurt that deepens his frown, as if you’ve torn his heart straight from his chest. For a man with so much power, he’s never looked more powerless than he does now.

It feels too vulnerable. Open. As if you’re naked and he’s fully clothed, when it’s infact the exact opposite. You don’t want to open up to him again. You don’t want him to snuff out that small flame you have that never seems to go out no matter how much you douse it in water. Or maybe you do?

He forces a crooked smile, strained against his very will and nods before leaving the room. As the door slips shut, he doesn’t turn to look at you. “Sleep tight.”

You don’t get much sleep that night at all.

Morning comes anyway.

And then another.

And another.

His absence returns, but this time because you’re the one avoiding him. You leave earlier than usual, linger longer at work, find excuses in the smallest things—emails, errands, anything that keeps you just a little out of sync with him. When you do cross paths, it’s brief. Polite. A short good morning or a quick goodnight. It’s easier that way.

You tell yourself this is what you wanted—to put distance back where it belongs. Whatever that night was, whatever flame flickered between you, it will fade. It must fade.

He isn’t yours. Even if he says he is, there’s too much pain--too many years of resentment built up that you don’t know what to do with.

You catch yourself thinking about it at mundane times—standing in line, walking home, staring at your coworkers chatting amongst themselves. The apartment feels different already, like it’s preparing to be emptier. As cold as it was a few months ago, when he was still Caleb Xia, and not just Caleb.

You take the time away from him to reset. To think, but not too much. You find yourself flipping through his photo albums again, smiling when you flip to a particularly embarrassing one. You hear him shuffling outside your room, probably packing for his business trip. You’re aware of what he risks everytime he disappears for weeks at a time—not only his life, but the lives of his men—and you don’t know how he bears to leave home everytime he does. 

But he always comes back. He has to. 

You suppose it’s for the best for now. And when he returns, things will return to normal. The house won’t be as awkward as it is. The two of you will slip into your usual routine of a loveless marriage, and you’ll find other avenues in life to derive joy from. So will he.

The front door shuts faster than you anticipated. 

He’s gone.

This is fine.

This is what you wanted.

The house is empty again. You pace to the living room, and surprisingly, a fresh bouquet of flowers is propped inside their usual vase. You lift the vase into your hands, letting the scent of the flowers waft into your nose. They smell good. New. Sort of like the detergent he uses when doing the laundry.

You set the vase back down, nails pressing faint crescents into your skin.

His face when you last saw him keeps flickering in your mind. So much hurt. Raw with fear.

“I love you.”

You want to tell him he doesn’t. You want to remind yourself that this is your husband. Your heartless, cunning husband who kills people for a living—who doesn’t care about anyone but his family. 

But you’re his family, aren’t you?

You can still smell his cologne in the air.

You must’ve missed it from the glint of the sunlight in the glass coffee table—there’s a small shimmer of something sitting beside the vase. With a quirked brow, you pick it up. He usually never leaves trash lying around.

You nearly drop it.

His wedding band.

Your breath stutters, sharp and uneven, like your lungs have forgotten how to work. Your heart pounds as you realize that you're shaking, eyes wide as saucers as you stare at the object in your hands.

No.

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t just leave it.

The ring sits in your palm like a brick that weighs your entire body down. This isn’t something you can pretend will reset when he comes back.

This means no more quiet dinners. No more stupid arguments over movies he insists are good. No more messages waiting for you when you’re at work. No more him, standing at the counter every morning with a pan in his hand. No more him.

And worst of all, no more chance to fix it. To tell him your side of the story.

Your body moves before your mind catches up.

You wrench the front door open, not bothering to lock it behind you as your feet hit the pavement with just your socks. The air burns your throat as you run, lungs screaming, heart still pounding like it’s trying to break through your ribcage.

He can’t leave.

The stinging beneath your feet go unregistered as you clutch the ring so tightly that it feels like it might dig into your flesh. 

Just forward, you hiss to yourself. Faster. You turn corner after corner, your body begging you to stop overexerting yourself, but you can’t bother to care. You don’t even register where you’re going, but you need to go somewhere. It feels like ages and seconds at the same time, as you beg nobody in particular for one more chance.

A chance for what, you're not sure.

Reconciliation? Love? Understanding?

Is any of that possible? And if not, why are you running like your very life depends on it?

The ring digs further into your skin, and you realize it doesn't matter as long as you find who it belongs to. Him. Caleb. The reason and bane of your existence, and apparently what has you running across the entire town in hopes of bringing him back.

Finally, you slam into something solid.

The impact knocks the breath out of you, your grip loosening as the ring nearly slips from your fingers. A hand catches your arms before you can stumble back too far, steadying you with a familiar scent that somehow lets you breathe again.

“Hey—watch it—oh.”

You freeze in place, breath hitching as you look up. Standing right in front of you, he appears slightly disheveled, one hand still gripping your arm while the other awkwardly balances a paper bag of groceries. Caleb blinks, his eyes immediately scanning over your frame before landing on your feet. “Why are you here? Are you okay? And where are your shoes, it’s dangerou—”

“Don’t go, Caleb,” you sniffle, tears already stinging at your eyes as your body finally has a chance to rest, though it doesn’t feel much better. “Please don’t go.”

He stares at you as if you've grown a third eye, nearly dropping his bag of groceries at your pleas. Even the tips of his ears turn red, flustered. "What are you--"

“Why did you leave the ring? Did you lie?” About loving me?

His expression falls, attention honing in on the ring gripped in your fist. Something seems to click in his head, and immediately, he shakes his head. “No, of course not, I was going to leave a note. I just went out to get groceries before I left—”

“So you were going to leave the ring?”

“Well, yes, but can we–”

“Do you not like me anymore?” you blurt, finger bunching at the fabric of his sleeve. “Is it because I ignored you for a week?”

He almost looks offended. “Of course I still like you.”

“Then why?”

His voice softens, as if speaking too loud will scare you away. Hesitantly, he sheepishly releases your arms. Instead, he slowly takes your hand in his, lips pursing as he sighs. His palm feels rough with calluses from the work he does, but light as feathers against your skin. His touch is gentle, as if you’re the most precious thing in the world. “I figured there was no reason for me to tie you to me anymore. I won’t force you to be with someone you can’t even stand to be around. Someone you hate. It’d be selfish.”

Your words tumble out before you can process them. “I don’t hate you.”

Finally, with your hand in his, the world feels okay again. This feeling tells you you’re screwed, but you don’t care.

“I’ve been mad at you, and I don’t know what to do with your feelings because they make no sense, but I don’t hate you,” you mutter. “You’re just too confusing.”

“...Confusing?”

“I just—I don’t know what to do, Caleb,” you wipe vigorously at your eyes with your free hand, head falling to avoid looking him at him. “I don’t know what to think about you. How to feel about you.”

His eyes ease, and you feel him squeeze your fingers. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

“Do you love me?”

“I don’t know.”

Caleb has always been better at reading you than yourself. A flash of hurt ripples across his face, but his eyes maintain its soft glimmer—because he knows. Even if you say you don’t know, he knows. He also knows that you’re afraid of those words, and he doesn’t blame you for it.

So instead, he asks something else. “What am I to you?”

You want to call him a million things. The man who left you by yourself, the man who refused to touch you for so many years, the man who’d chosen to sleep in the guest bedroom just to avoid taking up space in yours. He’s felt awful, inconsiderate, and cold. But he’s also the man who’s gotten you flowers, the man who’d break four speeding laws to make you feel safe, the man who makes sure you’re never hungry, the man who folds your laundry neatly and organizes it color-coded in your closet. The man who you wish you could slap across the face and hold close to you at the same time. The man who’s made you feel alone yet so cared for all at once.

You like him, you think. In some strange way that’s never been covered in the romantic films you used to clutch onto like a life line, you like him. The ‘L’ word teeters on the tip of your tongue like a marble rolling around to decide what these emotions settling in your heart really are, but it doesn’t really matter. All you know is that you need him. You want him. You want him to hold your face and kiss you tenderly, like he did that night. You want him to do it again and again until you can’t breathe, and all you can feel is him. You want to eat dinner with him every night and wake up in the morning to his stupid apron. You want to go grocery shopping with him. You want to fall asleep watching a movie in his arms.

“What am I to you?”

Tears fall down your cheeks in fat globs and you try your hardest not to let your voice crack. “My husband.”

His eyes widen for a moment, and then his lips split into a wide grin that resembles the lovesick expression of a teenage boy who’s holding hands for the first time. Caleb drops his grocery bag to his feet and reaches either hands to the sides of your face, cradling you gingerly as he guides you closer. Before you’re even registering it, he brushes a strand of hair out of your forehead and presses a soft but firm kiss to your temple, where you can feel him smile against your skin.

“Who am I to say no my wife?”

Your marriage is a messy, complicated jumble of emotions. The confusion. The fear. The warmth. It’s not perfect. It never will be. And despite it all, you don’t want it any other way, because Caleb Xia is a loving person.

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[bossubeats]

cab u draw gonta.....

i actually have but it was five hudred billion years ago,,

[bossubeats]

ermm did someone say more postgame trapped in a killing game recovery program from hell au??

[bossubeats]

*grabs you* did you know kokichi and kaito have a bunch of liked gifts in common ,

[bossubeats]

this is your sign to read the n-body problem by pupsake