Listen, so bitter and sweet (Caleb x Non MC Pt.2)
Tags: Caleb x NonMC!Reader, Fluff, slight bits of angst. MC and Caleb are sibling-adjacent. Not proofread explode like Caleb boom pow
An: travelling for a long time so heres a part twoooooo
Part 1 here
-------------------------------------------------------
Two years have passed.
Two frustrating, incredible years of Caleb living a life he never imagined he would get the chance to.
He had to give you credit where it was due. If you were anything it was consistent. Every day felt like a study on the person you were, yet despite memorizing everything there is about you, from the meaning hidden behind your "I dont know"s when its time to choose a meal to the exact cadence of your voice when youre planning to be mischevious, you would still find some way to catch him by surprise; and he had long stopped pretending it did not endear you to him even more every moment.
Before he knew it, Caleb realized..he had changed. Smiling came a little easier now, like the curve on his lips was held up by a piece of light. Sometimes he puts his hand on his chest, wondering when he stopped feeling that weight that once felt so much like home. Like an empty metal box- heavy and large, yet ultimately hollow. But home was different now. Home was coming back from work to your face beaming at him, surrounded by a mix of his and your things, not moved in together yet but might as well have.
His shelves held more mementos. Not just to you, or to you both- but to him.
He would have been more than happy if you took over the whole space, covered it in your things, your scent, bedazzled every surface til it looked like a colorful fever dream and all on his dime no less. But you didnt do that. Not completely anyway. Instead, the Person you brought out from the depths of his heart, one he thought was long gone and irrelevant began to show around his house, as if nature was taking it's course and growing through the cracks of the sterile apartment, life rooting in an empty shell.
A shelf for every new model airplane he put together, closet full of yarn for when his body is too restless and anxious and his fingers need to knit to expel that energy- equipment for a home gym complete with dumbells and a treadmill all dotted with cute apple stickers (courtesy of you). Potted plants to get him up in the morning including a bonsai apple tree you gifted him on his birthday, and books slowly crowding his nightstand fall asleep to. And while his favorite things remained your sweater slung over the back of a kitchen chair, your products in his bathroom and the now ever-present traces of your scent, he wont deny, even when you werent home and had taken the sweater with you..
The space you left, it was easier to breathe in.
Caleb thought hes overcome his fears that came when he first met you. He still felt unworthy of your attention and care, but you had a way of softening the edges of his fucked up psyche into something that made room in his brain for himself. The fear of inadequacy, of not having meaning and worth to justify something like you in his life, all of that still existed, but had softened over the years.
Yet nothing prepared him for the fear when you met MC.
He really, really thought it would go better than this. You knew what MC meant to him, its one of the reasons why you claim you fell for him. Yet he left the room for 5 minutes and by the time he came back you two looked like cats with their hackles raised.
He tried to dispel the energy at first. A lighthearted joke, find common ground, but nothing worked. It was like trying to make two north pole magnets meet, and any attempt to push them together would only result in them pulling apart even more aggressively.
In short, Caleb was freaking out.
They were in Linkon for two weeks. Every time you and MC met there seemed to be some sort of bad energy in the air. He couldnt understand it. MC was delightful to be around and so were you, so why did you not get along? He had never seen you so on edge than when you were around her, and he hated the sight.
Two days before youre slated to go back to Skyhaven, Caleb meets with MC privately.
Truthfully, he was terrified. He should have known things were going too well for someone like him. Something was bound to break, and unfortunately it happened where it hurt most because now, in his brain that had been spiralling for the past two weeks, sat first and forward the very real possibility that this dream he has been living in will end.
The conversation went no less than a beg. His heart hammered in his chest the entire time, threatening to spill ugly, coiling black tar of anxiety onto the coffee table between them. Hes not asking MC to change her mind, but he begs nontheless. For the first time Caleb asks for something only and only for himself. For a life that he had gotten too close to tasting to be pulled back from again. He just wants his family together. Just wants to add another seat at the table that only ever held the two of them. A small, broken table that barely fit the weight of their experiences, too big and empty for the children they were, and too small and creaking for the adults theyve become. You somehow not only fit yourself in it, but also made it bigger. Not with the sterile cold iron or a laboratory, but the warm wood of an apple tree. Inviting and open.
He just wants to protect the little light he has for himself, and he is devastated by his own selfishness.
MC doesnt react at first, she merely watches him with a neutral expression and her arms loosely crossed. As he finishes speaking, she lifts her teacup to her lips and takes a sip, before asking him the question he dreaded the entire time.
If she says no, then would he pick you over her?
He had always envisioned that if (hard, hard if) he started dating, he would want his girlfriend to get along with MC. Back then it used to be a no-brainer. Shes the only family he has. If it came down to it, he would rather abandon the world than abandon MC.
But now, faced with the actual idea of it, he could die from shame, knowing his traitorous, selfish heart wants to go back on his word. That somehow, the brainworm that was you had infected him so deeply he..actually wanted something just for himself. And to benefit nobody else.
He wanted you.
His answer comes delayed and despaired. That if MC wanted to pull away from him, he wouldnt stop her. But hes seen her build this life for herself, and he knows..she will be okay now, even if this life does not have him in it anymore. She will always be welcome in his home, welcome to his life. The door of his love and aid would never close on her, even if she only uses it if she needs and never speaks to him again. It went unspoken that he would keep an eye on her from afar as he always has, ready to strike at the whiff of danger to her. Itd crush him, but he would do it for her. (Her? Her, or Her?)
But he cant do this anymore. Not alone. He cant let you go after hes had a taste. And he cant pretend his being doesnt burn at the notion of not keeping you fiercely in his arms.
MC is silent for a few moments, and Caleb feels his head settle on the proverbial guillotine waiting for final judgement, for the bell to ring and the blade to fall, humbling him with the swift, cold cruelty he likely deserves-
MC gets up and hugs him.
His entire body goes rigid, faced with the branch of possibility he wouldnt have even considered.
"Shes really changed you, huh..."
Caleb pauses, as if the weight of that sentiment had never truly settled for him until now. He really, really had...
"..yes. I'm sorry. I dont know if this is too much for me to ask of you but.."
His vision blurs
"All I have is you and her. I cant lose that too. I'll do anything to keep this, ill give up anything. But please, please just let me have this.."
With his head lowered to hide the waver in his voice, he couldnt see the tears brimming in MC's eyes. She was so, so worried. Caleb deserved someone as sweet and considerate as you, but was Caleb ready for it? Was he ready to face and mould himself for you? Because that would mean being selfish. And if theres one thing she knows, its that Caleb is not selfish, and she could not let you go through that. Through the heartbreak that comes with love for a man who cannot slice enough of a piece of himself for himself.
But you changed him. And she could not be happier.
"Youve done enough. Now its your turn to be selfish"
His vision blurred, turning mc in front of him into blobs of color until all he could sense was her hands on his wet cheeks. His arms crushed her against his chest, blabbering thank yous and im sorrys. What he was apologizing for? He could only hurt, he could only worry people around him. He could only selfishly soak in the warmth, in the happiness and comfort you and this family gives him. This tiny, precious and fragile family which, through luck he never considered himself worthy of, he was allowed to keep.
He was allowed to have and protect this.
He could only revel as his soul became lighter, drawn like a lost spirit to the one place it knew it would be held and cherished. To your side. To your magical arms that wiped it all away. And he could only cry. Such a spoilt child, he had become.
The velvety box weighing in his pocket would be his final act of selfishness, he lies once more.
