When his daughter ordered them to sit down in the living room, this was certainly not what Sylus had expected.
“I prepared a PowerPoint presentation,” she announced and pointed to the TV, showing the title ‘I’m going on a date tonight and you’re going to let me’.
Zayne and Sylus shared a glance, both not very happy about the prospect of their daughter dating. However, they knew this day would come. The doctor waited patiently for his daughter to begin, hands neatly folded in his lap, while his husband leisurely leaned back in his armchair with a smirk.
“First of all, he’s nice.” Sylus raised an eyebrow, but when his daughter shot him a withering look, he decided to remain silent.
“His grades are, for the most part, on par with mine.” She met Zayne’s contemplative expression with a hopeful smile. “He wants to become a surgeon.” Her eyes switched to her white-haired father, the accusation clearly visible in them as she added, “And his criminal track record is clean.”
At the end of her presentation, Mr. and Mr. Li shared another glance, a silent conversation passing between them. “We trust your judgement,” Zayne offered. “When will we have the pleasure to meet him?”
“Not in the near future. I want to get to know him without dad pointing a shotgun at him.”
“Oh sweetie, I wouldn’t do that,” Sylus chuckled. “He’s a teenager, a 9mm would be sufficient.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, the resemblance to his husband hard to miss. There was never a need for a paternity test. With her white strands and the beautiful hazel eyes of his husband he so adored, one glimpse was enough.
Sylus walked her to the front door. After he made sure Zayne was out of earshot, he asked, “Do you still remember the self defense moves I showed you?”
“Yes, Dad, geez,” she grumbled as she slipped on her leather jacket.
“Did you pack your last year’s birthday present?” he probed further.
His daughter rolled her eyes but lifted her shirt nonetheless, showing him the handgun he had gifted her hidden in her waistband. “Happy?”
“For now.” With a kiss to her forehead, he sent her off.
“We should trust her,” Zayne said once Sylus had settled back down in the armchair across from him.
“I do.”
A moment of silence descended upon the room, only disrupted by the tapping of Sylus’s finger against the leather chair.
A Protocore sends you and Sylus three years into the future, where you end up crammed in a closet learning things you were never meant to know.🩷🩷
Caleb's part here Xavier's part here
CW: Smut. P in V. Oral. 🔞MDNI🔞
You were not thinking about it. You were not staring at your ceiling thinking about the N109 Zone or the man who ran it. That was not what was happening. What was happening was that you were resting. Quietly. In your own apartment, which you had every right to be in, doing absolutely nothing that involved Sylus in any way whatsoever.
Work had filled most of your time this week. Back to back missions, three cases that bled into each other, a Thursday briefing that ate the entire day. The Association had kept you moving and moving was good. Moving meant you weren't sitting still long enough to think about things you should not be thinking about.
The problem was tonight there was nothing to move toward.
You'd slowed down. Today's mission had seen to that —a clean operation until it wasn't, until you'd caught the edge of something you'd moved a second too late to avoid and ended up limping through the debrief trying to look unbothered. The Association medic had looked at your leg, told you to rest it, and now you were on your couch. Leg up. Thinking.
You'd worked with Sylus enough times to understand how your arrangement functioned, he had access to things the Association didn't and in exchange you'd give him information he found useful. You showed up. He had what you needed. You left. Repeat.
That part made sense.
What didn't was the rest of it. The part where two weeks of silence felt different now. He was the most wanted name on the Association's list and you were a Deepspace Hunter. The math on that was simple.
So no, you did not miss Sylus.
Your leg throbbed. You shifted your weight and stared at the ceiling again, trying to have an internal conversation about professional conduct and the importance of clear boundaries and then your phone lit up.
You grabbed it so fast you nearly put your elbow through the side table.
Sylus: I heard your mission went sideways. How's the leg?
You: How did you...you know what. Never mind.
Sylus: Mephisto was nearby.
You: You sent your bird to check on me?
Sylus: Mephisto goes where he likes.
You: 🙄🙄
Sylus: He said you were limping.
You: Tell Mephisto to mind his own business.
Sylus: He'll be devastated.
You: Good.
Sylus: I have something that might interest you. Have you ever seen a white Protocore?
You: White Protocores don't exist. Whatever you have is a fake.
Sylus: The seller pulled it from an anomalous Wanderer outside the N109 zone.
You sat with that for a moment.
Sylus: Come see it yourself. You'll want to.
The color alone was impossible by every known framework for protocore classification. Which meant either the seller was running an extremely convincing con, or something had come out of that wanderer that nobody had a category for yet.
Your feet were already on the floor.
You: Don't let anyone touch it. Give me 20 min.
Sylus: No need to rush, kitten. Look out your window.
You crossed the room in four steps and pulled the curtain back an inch.
Black car at the curb. No-parking sign directly above it, ignored completely. Sylus leaned against the driver's side door looking up at exactly the moment you looked down.
He raised his phone.
Sylus: Five minutes. Or I decide the leg is worse than you're letting on and leave.
You let the curtain fall.
"Not a chance," you said, to nobody.
You changed fast —jeans, jacket, hair up, sidearm checked —and ran down the stairs in a time your leg was going to remind you about tomorrow. The night air outside hit you cool and sharp.
Sylus hadn't moved from the car. He looked at you coming through the door, down the steps toward him and said nothing until you were close enough to hear.
"You ran down the stairs?"
"I want to see that Protocore."
"Of course." His mouth curved and there it was, the look that sat underneath the smirk, the one you'd filed away and kept finding again. "That's the only reason."
"It is"
"Then why are you still standing here instead of getting in the car."
You pulled the passenger door open yourself before he could do it, which seemed to amuse him. The interior smelled like expensive leather and him.
He slid in beside you, started the engine— the sound of it vibrating through the seat— and pulled away from the curb without looking at the road for the first two seconds because he was still looking at you.
"My people investigated as much as they could." He shifted gears, smooth and unhurried. "Which is why I need someone who knows what a forgery looks like at that level."
"But you also have people for that"
"I have people for a lot of things." He glanced over. Red eyes catching the streetlight for just a second. "None of them are you."
You looked out the window " Is that a compliment?"
"I didn't say it was."
The N109 Zone came up around you, neon and dark in equal measure, a place that operated on entirely different rules than Linkon City. You'd been here more times than your Association file strictly reflected. You knew the streets. You knew the hierarchy. You knew which doors opened for which names. All thanks to the man sitting in the driver's seat.
You had no idea what a white Protocore was. You had no idea what tonight was going to become but you had a feeling you were about to find out.
His office, you knew this place better than your own.
The reinforced doors. The security overrides, which ones were decoys and which ones actually mattered. The hidden safes, three of them, one behind a painting ugly enough to be forgettable on purpose. You'd learned all of it slowly, standing close enough and quiet enough that he forgot you were paying attention.
The White Protocore sat inside a glass tube at the center of his desk, and you hadn't moved in two minutes.
It looked like the others at first. Same crystalline structure, same geometry. But every other Protocore carried color, blue, gold, pink, red, green and purple. This one just a faint pulse, soft milky light spilling across the dark wood. Strange and uncategorizable.
Sylus wasn't looking at the protocore, he was watching you. His eyes were tracing the curve of your jaw, the focus on your expression. In his world of cutthroat deals and rare power, you were his white protocore.
The back of your neck went warm but you kept your eyes on the protocore.
"Can I touch it?"
A low sound from his chest. Not quite a laugh. "I don't recall ever saying no to you, sweetie."
His fingers worked the glass tube open and lifted the protocore into his palm.
You reached for it.
Your fingers brushed his skin and the protocore sat between your hands for a single second and then —
No warning. Just white light swallowing the desk and the dark walls. Then the wind hit, not from outside but from inside the protocore, like a vacuum pulling in with a force that emptied your lungs before you could inhale. The sound of it was scary, like space tearing apart. The air collapsed into that small white light in your hands, the floor dropped away and you were falling without falling.
The first thing that came back was pressure.
Arms locked across your chest and shoulders, tight enough your ribs couldn't move. Something solid at your back. You tried to breathe. Couldn't. Tried again.
"Sy" Barely a whisper. "Can't— brea—"
His arms dropped instantly.
He was on his feet before you inhaled, one fluid motion, hand going to his gun, eyes sweeping the room. No targets. His hand dropped, but his shoulders stayed coiled, still reading the space.
You sat up. Pulled air in slowly until your chest stopped aching.
"Where are we?"
He didn't answer. Still looking.
You looked too.
Dark wood, heavy draping, expensive things chosen for use as much as looks. It felt like his place at first glance.
In the corner was a record player, vinyl turning silently, needle down, producing nothing. Beside it a bookshelf climbed straight to the ceiling, a ladder running the whole length on a track.
On the low table in front of the couch sat two glasses of wine. One half empty. Whoever had been drinking had stepped away expecting to come right back.
You stood slowly.
Sylus had crossed to the far side of the room. His head was angled down at something on the shelf.
You crossed after him, boots loud on the floor.
"Sylus."
He didn't turn.
You came up beside him, followed his eyeline, and stopped.
A photograph. You in your Hunter uniform with a different insignia of a rank you didn't hold yet, holding a trophy. Your smile in the photo was wide open and unguarded, a version of happy you didn't wear on your face very often.
There was a small engraved plaque at the bottom of the frame.
Hunter of the Year — November 2051.
You picked up a magazine beside it.
Your face on the cover. Same uniform, same trophy, same smile. Hunter of the Year in bold letters across the top. Small print in the corner, neat and impossible.
November 2051.
You set it down carefully.
Behind you, Sylus had already moved to the mahogany desk near the windows. Papers shifted. Folders opened and closed. His hands stayed busy and his face gave nothing.
"Sylus." You kept your voice steady. "Look at me."
He didn't.
You crossed to the desk and placedd your hand flat over the document he was holding.
"Three years," he was staring at nothing in particular, whatever was running behind his eyes not making it to his face.
You looked at the half empty glass. The record player still turning in silence. A coat hanging by the door.
"Sylus."
"I see it."
"That's your coat."
"This is one of my safehouses"
"Since when do you keep pictures of the Association Hunters? Last I checked you called us glorified errand runners."
A slow smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth "I've got a taste for beautiful art, sweetie, and maybe I like having a permanent reminder of my favorite headache."
"I'm not your—"
"Someone's coming." his eyes sharpened, hand closing around your wrist.
"Who—"
"This way." He was already pulling you toward a closet.
He yanked the door open expecting to see his weapons.
There were no rifles or guns, just stacked piles of the same magazine you saw earlier, floor to ceiling, your face on every cover, hundreds of them.
"Do you also collect magazines?" you asked, fighting to keep your voice down as he shoved you into the tiny space and squeezed in after you, pulling the door shut. "This is a lot of me for one closet"
"If you keep talking you're going to get us both caught."
You bit down on a laugh and then it died in your throat completely.
The door clicked open and Sylus stepped into the room.
You gasped, turning on instinct to check whether he had somehow warped himself out there with his Evol, but he hadn't moved an inch.
Future Sylus's hair was a mess, like he'd run his hands over it more than once, and a bit longer than you were used to. His shirt was wrinkled, streaked faintly with mud, stretched tight across shoulders that looked broader than the ones currently pressed beside you in the dark. There was more color in his face too, like time had put some weather on him. He paced the length of the room like a caged animal, fists clenching and releasing at his sides. He stopped mid stride, head turning like he'd caught a sound in the room, inside Sylus's hand shot out, closing around your wrist as one finger came up to his lips, a silent order to stay quiet.
Then the door opened again, and future you walked in.
She looked pissed. Shirt torn at the shoulder, soot and dirt ground into the fabric, but her eyes were lit up with anger.
She was you, there was no doubt about that, but she was different. There was more color to her face too and her body was softer in some places, sturdier in others.
"You had no right, Sylus!" She slammed the door behind her "I can still fight! I had that under control!"
"You almost got killed" Sylus didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. Whatever was in his tone was cold enough to make the room feel smaller.
"That's a fucking lie and you know it!" She crossed the space between them fast, jabbing a finger into his chest. "I'm not some damsel for you to decide when I fight and when I don't!"
Beside you Sylus dipped his head, lips grazing the shell of your ear. "Different year. Same feisty kitten." His breath felt warm against your neck.
"Shut up, Sylus. Shut up" you hissed, elbowing him in the ribs. He huffed out a quiet laugh like you'd done him a favor.
Outside, the fight kept climbing.
"You think you can pull me off a fight and take me wherever you want?" her voice bounced off the ceiling. "I'm a Hunter, Sylus. I'm not joining Onychinus. Not now, not ever, no matter how many times you bring it up."
"You've made that perfectly clear."
"It's my job, Sy"
"Not anymore, it isn't."
"You don't get to make that call for me!"
He didn't answer with words. He started walking her back instead, one slow step for every one she gave up without notice, until her spine hit the ladder bolted to the bookshelf.
She was out of room. He planted a hand on either side of her head against the wooden rungs, boxing her in.
"Are you sure about that, sweetie?" Not a question so much as a challenge.
"We don't even know ye— get out of my space!"
"Make me."
Their faces were a breath apart now, close enough that the argument had stopped sounding like an argument. Through the door you felt the air on the other side change, something thick and charged, like the silence that comes right before either a fight or something worse. Your face went hot just watching it, the line between the two of them hating each other and wanting each other collapsing.
"I hate you"
"Good," he murmured so close to her lips. "You can hate me all you want, Mrs. Qin. You're still wearing my ring."
He closed the distance, hand curling around the back of her neck, and kissed her like it was the only thing he had left to say.
Beside you Sylus went completely still.
Future you made a sound against his lips that started as surprise and turned into a moan, her hands coming up to grip his shirt before she dropped them and grabbed him instead.
You turned to look at Sylus, his eyes dropped to yours and a slow smile moved across his mouth and your stomach went with it.
His shirt hit the floor first, hers followed.
Future Sylus lifted her off the floor and settled her onto a rung of the ladder. She grabbed the rung above her head to steady herself and he stepped back just far enough to look at her, taking his time with it while she sat there catching her breath.
Then he reached for her boots.
He pulled the first one off, fingers working the laces without looking down, eyes on her face the whole time. The second followed. He set his hands on her knees and dragged them up her thighs and she made a small sound before he'd even done anything.
His mouth found her collarbone. Moved down. The thin lace of her bra was still on and he put his lips over it anyway, tongue pressing through the fabric against her nipple, and her head went back against the ladder. He bit down through the fabric, and the sound she made was immediate.
You pressed your hand to your mouth.
He did it again on the other side, slower, and her knuckles went white on the rung above her while her hips moved forward looking for something that wasn't there yet.
He kissed down her sternum. The soft skin below her ribs. His mouth dragged across her stomach and she was already breathing in pieces by the time his hands moved to her pants. He worked them down her legs and off, then dropped to his knees.
You made a small sound against your hand.
He was now on his knees between her thighs, hands finding the backs of them, hooking her legs one at a time over his shoulders. The muscles in his arms and neck shifted with the motion and he settled her weight there easily, like he'd done it before. Because in three years he had. Many times. You could tell by how she exhaled when her legs landed on his shoulders— relief. Her whole body recognizing what was coming.
He looked up at her.
Hands spread across her inner thighs, holding them open, red eyes on her face, waiting.
She looked down at him.
Her chest was moving fast. Her lip caught between her teeth. She held his gaze for one long second and then, quietly, barely enough to hear—
"Please."
His fingers found her thong and pulled it to the side.
One hand went to his hair, pulling him in, the other stayed above her head. Her nipples were hard against the wet lace.
Every sound came through clearly. His mouth on her wet pussy. Her breathing. Your face burned. Other things burned. You pressed your thighs together and it didn't help because the sounds didn't stop.
You turned to look at him again.
His right eye burned red in the dark closet. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that wasn't steady.
"Sy—"
"Don't stop." Future you's voice came through the door, breathless. "Fuck, Sy...just like that."
Your face went hotter and you faced forward again.
Sylus exhaled against your hair. His hand was still on your wrist. Neither of you had moved it.
He made a sound against her and the sounds that followed were louder and wetter.
Your fingers found the front of his jacket and held on.
"Is this affecting you?" he asked, right against your ear.
"Shut up."
Then her voice again, completely gone, nothing held back. "Yes — baby, my clit, suck on it — fuck yes—"
His hand tightened on your wrist. Hard.
"Sylus." Your voice came out dry. Broken in the middle. Not what you'd intended at all.
"I know," he said.
Future you screamed his name. The closet pressed in from all sides.
"We need to leave"
"Yes," he agreed, but neither of you moved.
Her thighs locked around his shoulders and shook. He stayed until the last tremor left her. Then he stood, chest glistening, and his hands dropped to the button of his trousers.
Popped it open. Pushed the fabric down his thighs.
The outline of his cock through the fabric of his underwear made your throat close. The tip already wet, a dark circle spreading through the cotton, and his fingers found the waistband—
A large hand came down over your eyes.
"Hey—" You grabbed his wrist. His fingers didn't move.
"If you want a show," his voice low at your ear, "you only have to ask."
"Move your hand." You twisted your head. His palm stayed exactly where it was.
Dark behind it.
Then the sounds hit again.
Slap.
Slap.
Slap.
Skin against skin. Her voice breaking between each impact, the sounds coming in waves that your brain immediately started filling in visuals for and that was so much worse than if he'd just let you look.
"You're burning up," he said against your ear, not in concern but in pure mockery.
Your thighs pressed together hard. "I swear to god—"
His fingers spread open.
She was still on the ladder. Legs locked around his waist, both of them flushed, sweat catching the light. He had one hand on her hair, holding her close to his face, their mouths almost touching, breathing the same air while his hips rolled forward in deep slow drives that shook her whole body. He was saying something to her, too low to carry, but whatever it was kept fracturing her expression every time he said it.
Then his voice came through clearly.
"Look at me." Steady, even over everything else. "Tell me who you belong to."
Her tongue dragged across his upper lip. "Yours—" Her head dropped back. "Ah— yours, Sy, I'm yours—"
Your underwear felt damp and your clit was pulsing with a persistence you were doing your very best to ignore.
"Do you really think," Sylus whispered against your temple, "it takes us three whole years to get here?"
"I don't—"
Future Sylus pulled back, his tongue dragged slow up her throat while she panted against his shoulder. "You taste different today."
"Because you're—" she gasped, "—you're driving me insane—"
"That's not it." He pushed forward, one deep thrust that tore a cry out of her "You shouldn't be taking field hits right now." A beat. "Not when you're carrying my child."
The closet went cold.
Your jaw dropped. Hers did too.
Pregnant.
The argument. Him yanking her off the mission. All of it clicked into place at once. She was carrying his baby. In three years, you'd be carrying his kid.
Your knees went out from under you.
Your foot caught on something hard as you stumbled back. A stack of magazines toppled with the movement, and everything blurred, sound, vision, all of it going soft at the edges.
"—watch—"
Crimson light cracked through the dark. Sylus's Evol flared, and every falling magazine froze mid air.
The energy didn't stay contained. It rolled out through the closet door and everything on the other side went dead silent.
The sounds stopped. All of them. What replaced the noise had weight to it.
Sylus's eyes were locked on the door. Jaw tight. Not a muscle moving.
"Pathetic," future Sylus said, clear, not a trace of what he'd been doing thirty seconds earlier, "a top tier Hunter and the leader of Onychinus, hiding like toddlers playing hide and seek."
Your stomach dropped straight through the floor.
"Sylus?" Future you, breathless, confused. "Who are you talking—"
"I know you're in there." He sounded almost bored. "You're both breathing like horny teenagers."
Beside you, Sylus exhaled through his nose and reached out to push the door open. "I could say the same"
He stepped out first, glanced down at his sleeve, and flicked off a piece of lint that probably wasn't there. Then he reached back, hooked an arm around your waist, and pulled you out with him. You stumbled onto the polished floor, face burning hot enough to set the room on fire.
Future Sylus had future you pulled against him, her bra strap slipping off one shoulder, hair a wreck, and she was staring between the two of you with her mouth hanging open.
"Is that—" Her eyes went from you to the Sylus standing next to you and back again. "Are we— are they—"
Sylus looked at his future self. Future Sylus looked right back.
Three seconds of silence passed between them, and somehow it felt like an entire conversation.
"You look good," Sylus said.
"And you are interrupting," future Sylus said, arm tightening around future you.
You stopped watching the two of them and scanned the room instead.
There. The White Protocore, sitting beside the wine bottle, pulsing soft in the low light.
You moved before anyone could stop you, crossed the room, and closed your hand around it.
Sylus was right behind you. His hand landed over yours, the stone was caught between your palms again, warm and humming under your skin. He tossed one last glance over his shoulder at his future self and smirked.
White swallowed everything. The floor vanished, and then thud.
The familiar light of his office in the N109 Zone.
You were flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, just breathing.
The Protocore rolled out of your hand and knocked against the leg of his desk before it dissolved into dust.
Sylus sat up, forearm braced on a raised knee, and looked down at you, smirk already back in place. His gaze dropped to your mouth, your throat, the way your chest was still heaving.
"So," he said, leaning over you with one hand braced on the floor beside your head. "A baby."
You threw an arm over your face. "I will shoot you again."
"I'm just thinking ahead." His fingers found a strand of your hair "Sounds like we've got a lot of work to do in the next three years, Miss hunter."
Along the blackwater coast of Romirro, people whisper about the Lemurians—the beautiful strangers said to emerge from the sea wearing human shapes. Legends say they come ashore seeking humans, whether as meal or more, no one knows for certain. What is certain, however, is that they always find the exhausted, the indebted, or the heartbroken first. According to folklore, the Lemurians never drag anyone beneath the waves by force. Instead, they court their chosen for months or years, until the sea begins to feel more inviting than the land ever was.
You think you know what is happening, then, when the most handsome man you've ever seen washes ashore after a storm.
This is your family's hardest year yet, and somehow, despite the unlikeliness of the tide, he's deposited along the shallow pools where you and your sister gather shellfish. Water pools too enticingly in the hollow of his throat, beads along his long lashes, glittering against his pale skin. You do not trust the look of him. But your sister is already halfway in love with him, and cannot bear to leave him behind.
So you take him home, hoping that you are wrong.
You nurse him back from the state the sea left him in, careful not to let your sister go too near. Her fantastical, romantic waxings in the warmth of your hut have you almost believing you were too quick to draw conclusions about him. She is a year younger than you, in ways that feel more like a thousand years sometimes, but the naiveté and idealism of her world view make you want to believe the world can like be that too. You hope she is right, and he is just a beautiful man.
But then he wakes, and you are all too certain he isn't.
His eyes fix too readily on you when he opens them, his attention too immediate and precise. He is too interested in you when he recovers enough to speak—and repeats your name in a way that makes a shiver slink down your spine.
He tells you his name is Rafayel, and he's been shipwrecked. When pressed, however, he cannot name his home port, the name of his ship, or any of his crewmates. The memory of what they were carrying is conveniently lost to the tides. He is too empty of anything except the sea, you think, and you watch him as closely as he watches you.
Your sister is entranced and enthralled with him. You should feel relief that his attention does not linger on her the same way hers lingers on him. But you cannot, with Rafayel inside your home, asking after you instead, your habits, your likes and dislikes. He's come ashore for something, you know, and you do not intend for him to find it in your home.
You watch him carefully, and when he is well enough, you cajole him outside with a request for help gathering shellfish. You lead him back down to the tidepools, a large bucket clutched in hand. You are apprehensive that he will catch on to your plan so you move slowly, try to turn back to him often, tipping your face up to his. You find yourself doing it almost too willingly, reluctant to tear your eyes away from him.
You turn your face up to his again as you make it to the tidepools, and Rafayel steps closer this time. His mouth lingers over yours, his body so close, the promise of something slipping between you. His eyes glint blue like the sea, and you almost forget yourself for a minute as his mouth lowers to yours.
It's half and accident when you overturn your bucket of collected rainwater between you.
But Rafayel's face changes immediately as he takes a shocked step back, and it's then that you know for sure.
Harbor folklore says Lemurians cannot pursue someone across running fresh water. And Rafayel stumbles back, long eyelashes fluttering as he stares at you in stunned disbelief. The tide laps angrily at his heels, suddenly growing discontent, roiling like a pot over the fire.
He says your name, sweet and entreating.
But you turn and leave before your small, freshwater stream can run its course into the sea. You will hang braided eelgrass across your door tonight, and burn peat in the hearth, so that he cannot get in again. You tell him as much as you clamber back up the shoreline to safety, tell him he is wasting his time on you.
But what you do not know is that once a Lemurian falls truly fond of someone, they become dangerously patient. He will wait, like the tide that keeps arriving, until the shore gives way grain by grain, and little by little slides into the waiting sea.
Vacation with the crow family was certainly never boring. Sometimes though, Sylus wished for a little bit of peace and quiet.
Relaxed back in a sun lounger, a chilled drink in one hand and a book, which Xavier had recommended to him, in the other, he enjoyed his time off at the beach. His silver-haired boyfriend was napping on the sun lounger next to him with Mephisto cuddled in his arms.
Luke and Kieran were busy digging a hole to the extent that Sylus was convinced they would soon reach the core of the earth, their red hair having stopped peeking out of the sand an hour ago.
Eventually, they seemed to have gotten tired of said hole and stood ready at the beach volleyball court, yelling at their boss-man and cuter boss-man to join them, their shouts effectively waking the latter from his peaceful slumber. Sylus sighed. Perhaps he should have gotten a babysitter.
He was about to decline, when the sudden change in view convinced him to play after all. Xavier had risen and taken off his shirt, revealing his toned torso. His shorts barely covered his equally muscular thighs, prompting the taller one’s eyes to travel up and down the shorter one’s frame.
Soon after, Sylus found himself on the volleyball court with Xavier, competing against the twins. Sylus loved it when his boyfriend’s competitive side came out and his face took on a concentrated expression. The twins tried their best, but they had no chance against Xavier’s speed combined with Sylus’s strength.
After four matches all ending in Luke and Kieran’s devastating defeat, Sylus reclined back in his chair with an exhale. Before he could have returned to his initial position, someone plopped right down on him a few seconds later and knocked the wind out of his lungs.
An amused smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You’re sweaty.”
“I know,” the silver-blonde man replied, his soft voice slightly muffled as his cheek was squished against Sylus’s shoulder.
“There’s an empty, perfectly comfortable chair right next to me.”
“Not as comfortable as this one.” To emphasize his words, Xavier yawned and nuzzled his face closer to Sylus’s neck.
The taller one chuckled and planted a kiss on his forehead. With his Evol, Sylus retrieved his book from the side table and resumed reading, enjoying the comfortable weight of his boyfriend and the gentle sound of his breathing as he drifted off to sleep.
synopsis: after a disastrous day on set, rafayel turns up at sylus’s apartment looking for whisky, attention, and a fight he can flirt his way through. what begins as sharp banter and petty provocation soon slips into something far more dangerous: being wanted by the one man who refuses to be fooled by the performance.
cw/tw: sylus x rafayel. crowfish. rafayel!actor x sylus!sponsor au. li x li. nsfw. mdni. smut. blowjob. brat behaviour from fishboy. teasing. anal penetration. edging. light powerplay. smut without plot.
read here: ao3 ⋅ tumblr
a/n: a little resurrection of a fic i once removed from the world. also, yes, i am deeply fond of watching my two men remember how much they enjoy each other.
Rafayel had spent years perfecting the art of appearing carelessly beautiful.
It required more effort than most people realised.
A jacket slipping from one shoulder could suggest exhaustion, provided it fell at the correct angle. Three undone buttons whispered of heat and impatience; four began to look desperate. Even the arrangement of his limbs across Sylus’s obscenely expensive sofa had been considered, though only briefly, because too much thought ruined the instinctive quality of the thing.
One leg stretched along the cushions. The other hung over the armrest, loafer still attached, its sole hovering perilously close to the pale upholstery. Beneath the open edges of his shirt, studio powder clung to the warm hollow between his collarbones.
He looked ravaged.
Tastefully so.
“They made me kiss her twenty-two times.”
At the windows, Sylus unfastened his watch. The clasp made a small metallic sound. Nothing else followed.
Rafayel tilted the whisky glass balanced against his stomach and watched amber climb the crystal. It was Sylus’s whisky, naturally. His own collection contained rare bottles, beautifully labelled and mostly chosen for sentimental reasons. Sylus bought liquor as though preparing to bribe kings.
“Twenty-two,” he repeated, placing great significance upon each syllable. “I can still taste her lipstick. Cherry. Artificial cherry. The sort that makes you think of cough medicine and poor decisions behind a nightclub.”
Sylus laid the watch beside his keys.
There came no sympathy from him, or even the grudging noise he sometimes made when acknowledging that another person had spoken.
Rafayel raised his voice. “Hello!? My lips may never recover.”
“They appear functional.”
A smile threatened at the corner of Rafayel’s mouth, though he smothered it beneath an injured sigh. “You could at least pretend to care.”
“I could.”
“How comforting.”
Sylus shrugged out of his jacket. The movement drew the dark fabric taut across his shoulders before it came away, revealing the cleaner lines of his waistcoat beneath. Every part of him remained offensively composed. After midnight, following meetings that had probably involved threats, bloodshed, or financial reports—Rafayel had never determined which Sylus disliked most—he still looked as though disorder had approached and been refused entry.
Rafayel drank. The whisky warmed his tongue, followed by a ribbon of smoke and spice.
“You know,” he continued, “I’ve kissed fewer people in my entire life.”
Sylus glanced over.
“I highly doubt that.”
The insult arrived with such calm precision that Rafayel placed a hand over his heart. “Cruel.”
“Accurate.”
“Cruelty disguised as accuracy remains cruelty.”
“You should put that on a pillow.”
Rafayel stared at him.
Sylus’s expression held for perhaps two seconds before amusement disturbed it, a brief tightening near the eyes, the ghost of a smile he clearly intended to deny.
There you are.
Rafayel shifted deeper into the cushions, pleased with himself. “She had no rhythm, either.”
“Tragic.”
“It was. I moved closer; she moved away. I turned my head; she turned in the same direction. We nearly broke each other’s noses during take fourteen.”
“A shame you didn’t.”
“Are you jealous?”
Sylus had begun rolling his sleeves. One precise fold, then another, revealing his forearms inch by inch. “Should I be?”
“At least a little. I spent eight hours with my mouth on another person.”
“And still came here.”
The answer settled lower than Rafayel expected. He covered the flicker in his chest by taking a sip.
“I came for the whisky.”
“Of course.”
“And your charming company.”
“I’m touched.”
“You disguise it well.”
Taking the empty glass from Rafayel’s loose fingers, Sylus examined it as though the evidence of theft had only just become apparent. Then he lifted it to his own mouth and finished the thin amber trace clinging to the bottom.
From the same edge Rafayel had used. A negligible act. Meaningless, perhaps. Rafayel’s gaze remained on Sylus’s lips anyway.
“How was the scene?” Sylus asked.
“Catastrophic. We may have destroyed cinema forever.”
“That bad?”
“The director wept.”
“With joy?”
“I didn’t ask.”
Sylus crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured another measure. Ice cracked beneath the liquor. “You usually enjoy making people weep.”
“Only when they deserve it.”
“And she didn’t?”
The whisky arrived before Rafayel could reach for it. Sylus held the glass just beyond his fingers, waiting. A petty punishment. Rafayel pushed himself upright enough to take it, though Sylus retained his hold for one beat longer than necessary.
Cold crystal between them. Their fingers touching.
Then the glass came free.
Rafayel settled back. “She smiled.”
Sylus’s brows drew together.
“During the confession,” he explained, watching the ice instead of the man standing over him. “Every time the camera came close, she smiled.”
“Perhaps she was nervous.”
“Perhaps.”
“Were you?”
The question slipped under his guard with irritating ease.
Rafayel scoffed and tipped his head against the cushions. “I have never been nervous in my life.”
“You threw up before your first opening.”
“That was food poisoning.”
“You drank champagne for breakfast.”
“The grapes had turned.”
Sylus lowered himself into the armchair opposite, one ankle crossing his knee. “Naturally.”
Rafayel took another drink.
Silence pooled around them, accompanied by the low hum of the city beyond the windows. Usually he could bend silence into whatever shape he wanted. A laugh would make it conspiratorial, a sigh turned it dramatic, one well-chosen remark could fill a room more effectively than music.
Tonight, it resisted him.
“She smiled,” he said again, quieter now, “as though she’d already seen herself in the trailer.”
Sylus waited. The patience of him could become unbearable. He simply watched, leaving Rafayel to decide whether the truth should live or be smothered.
“It was supposed to be ugly.” Rafayel’s thumb moved along the damp side of the glass. “The confession, I mean. He’s loved her for years and resents her for making it impossible to stop. She knows accepting him will ruin them both. There should have been shame in it. Anger. Something that cost her.”
“And instead?”
“Cherry lipstick.”
A small smile softened Sylus’s mouth.
Rafayel flicked a cushion at him.
Rather than strike him, it sailed past the armchair and collapsed several feet away with an undignified sigh.
Sylus followed its path with his eyes. “Impressive.”
“I adjusted for the air current.”
“There is no air current.”
“Exactly. Sabotage.”
“By the air?”
“It has always resented me.”
His own laughter came more easily this time, loosening something caught beneath his ribs. Sylus did not join him, though the amusement remained on his face.
Rafayel stretched his legs across the glass table. The soles of his loafers landed on its spotless surface.
Sylus’s gaze dropped.
“Remove them.”
“Come and remove them.”
Another sip of whisky concealed Rafayel’s smile.
Across from him, Sylus gave no immediate response. He merely studied the offending shoes, then Rafayel’s face, measuring the provocation for hidden edges.
“It must be exhausting,” Rafayel mused, “having everything exactly where it belongs.”
“It was, before you arrived.”
“And yet you continue giving me the access code.”
“A temporary lapse in judgement.”
“Repeated weekly.”
“I remain optimistic.”
Rafayel dragged one heel across the glass, leaving a deliberate streak. “About reforming me?”
“About the possibility that you’ll grow bored.”
“With you?” He let his attention wander over Sylus’s loosened collar, the rolled sleeves, the powerful lines of his hands. “Unlikely.”
The room changed.
Barely.
A thread had tightened somewhere between them, invisible and suddenly capable of drawing blood.
Sylus raised his glass. “You like the attention.”
Rafayel’s smile became sharper. “Everyone likes attention.”
“You need it.”
“I inspire it. There’s a difference.”
“You arrive complaining about being watched, then sprawl across my furniture until I look at you.”
“I’m tired.”
“You put your shoes on my table.”
“My legs are tired.”
“You opened another button while I was pouring the whisky.”
Rafayel looked down.
His shirt had, indeed, acquired a fourth opening.
“How observant.”
“You made certain I would be.”
A laugh hovered at the back of his throat. He swallowed it with the whisky, although warmth had already begun creeping beneath his skin.
“Perhaps I enjoy presenting you with something worth looking at.”
“Perhaps,” Sylus murmured, “you’re testing how much you must reveal before I stop seeing the performance.”
The warmth vanished.
Rafayel rested the glass against his thigh. “You’re very pleased with that sentence.”
“I’m pleased when I’m right.”
“Then I imagine you’re accustomed to disappointment.”
Sylus leaned back.
No retaliation came. No clever barb or victorious smirk.
Only that gaze.
Steady. Unimpressed by brightness. He looked at Rafayel the way he might look at a locked door whose mechanism he had already understood.
Rafayel nudged his knee with the toe of his loafer.
The gesture restored movement to the room, or seemed to.
“Nothing?” he prompted.
Sylus glanced down at the leather pressing against the crease of his trousers.
Rafayel pushed higher.
“Twenty-two kisses,” he said, voice softening around the provocation, “and I come home to a man who refuses even to pretend he wants me. Imagine what that could do to my self-esteem.”
“This isn’t your home.”
“Cold.”
“And you possess enough self-esteem for several minor countries.”
“Still cold.”
His foot travelled farther up Sylus’s thigh. The edge of his sole brushed close enough to feel the heat beneath the fabric. Rafayel watched the movement, then lifted his lashes.
“Maybe you don’t know what to do with me.”
Sylus placed his glass on the table.
A quiet click. Crystal against wood.
The sound passed through Rafayel more effectively than any raised voice.
Sylus’s hand closed around his ankle.
Firmness without force. Heat encircling the slim joint. Rafayel’s muscles tightened beneath the grip, a response so immediate that amusement flashed across Sylus’s features.
“Careful,” Rafayel warned, though the word emerged lower than intended. “These shoes are custom.”
“They’re on my table.”
“And therefore deserve execution?”
“They’re in my way.”
Sylus slipped the loafer from his foot.
The motion should have been ordinary. Practical. Instead, his thumb dragged along the hollow beneath Rafayel’s ankle, where the pulse fluttered close to the skin. He took his time removing the second shoe, fingertips following the curve of bone before the leather came free.
Both loafers landed neatly on the rug.
Rafayel remained held.
“You could let go,” he observed.
“I could.”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“You’ve become quiet.”
“Enjoy it. A rare luxury.”
Sylus pressed his thumb against the pulse beneath his hand.
Rafayel’s toes curled.
A single betraying movement. Small enough that another man might have missed it.
Sylus didn't.
His gaze lifted, heavy now with recognition.
“Still want me to let go?”
Rafayel leaned farther into the cushions. “I want to see what you intend to do.”
“Liar.”
“Excuse me?”
“You already know.”
The fingers around his ankle slid beneath the hem of his trousers, gliding over warm, bare skin. Slowly enough that each centimetre registered. Rafayel suppressed a shiver by drawing his other knee up, adopting an ease he no longer felt.
“Presumptuous.”
“You came here for this.”
“I came here for the whisky.”
“You drank it.”
“I might want more.”
Sylus’s thumb travelled along the inside of his calf. “You want many things.”
“And you’re famously generous.”
“Only when asked properly.”
The statement hung between them, darkly polished.
Rafayel laughed, but something brittle entered the sound. “How tedious. You know I don’t beg.”
“Oh, I know you do.”
His breath caught.
Sylus released him.
The sudden loss of contact felt like a punishment. Rafayel drew his leg back before the instinct to follow became visible, folding both feet beneath him as he sat upright.
“Arrogant bastard.”
A tilt of Sylus’s head acknowledged the familiar accusation. “You’ve said that already.”
“I’m trying to help you remember.”
“I remember everything you say.”
The reply stripped the next joke from Rafayel’s tongue.
For a moment, the room held only their breathing.
He looked away first.
Below them, traffic passed through the city in streams of pale light. Thousands of windows, thousands of private rooms. People moving through their small lives, performing joy, grief, desire. Telling each other whatever was required to remain loved until morning.
“It gets old,” he admitted.
Sylus didn't ask what he meant.
Rafayel’s fingers worried the cuff of his shirt. “The staring. People decide what they want me to be before I enter a room. Charming. Difficult. Beautiful. Cruel. It saves them the inconvenience of meeting me.”
“You encourage them.”
“It’s my job.”
“It’s convenient.”
His jaw tightened. “You think you understand everything.”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“Only you?” Rafayel guessed, allowing mockery to return.
“Yes.”
His eyes snapped back to Sylus.
There was no smile waiting for him. No indication that the line had been offered for effect. Sylus watched him with an unnerving steadiness, his attention resting on details Rafayel could not conceal: the faster rise of his chest, his fingers gone still around the cuff, the pulse beating at the exposed base of his throat.
“You should teach a course,” Rafayel muttered. “How to make affection sound vaguely threatening.”
“Would you attend?”
“I’d heckle from the back.”
“You’d sit in the front.”
“And distract you.”
“You already do.”
The admission settled warmly between them.
Rafayel’s mouth curved. Softer this time.
Then Sylus stood.
The size of him altered the room. One moment he sat across from Rafayel, contained by the armchair; the next, his shadow fell over the sofa, darkening silk and skin.
Rafayel tipped his chin upwards. “Looming is terribly unsubtle.”
“I’m aware.”
“You could at least offer me another drink before taking advantage.”
“A third? I think you’ve had enough.”
“And there goes the romance.”
Sylus’s fingers found the open collar of his shirt. Rather than undo the next button, he traced its edge, following the line where silk met skin. Rafayel felt the path of that touch in places it had never reached.
“This is what you came for,” Sylus murmured.
Rafayel’s hand settled against his waistcoat. “You remain very certain.”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
The challenge warmed Sylus’s breath against his mouth.
Rafayel could have denied it. The scene offered him every opportunity: a scoff, a laugh, some exquisite little insult to restore distance.
Instead, he hooked two fingers beneath Sylus’s collar and pulled.
Their mouths met without elegance.
The first kiss bruised rather than persuaded. Teeth caught, whisky passed warm between tongues, and Rafayel’s head struck the cushions when Sylus followed him down. He laughed into the kiss, startled and pleased by the sudden violence of it, then bit Sylus’s lower lip until a low sound vibrated through the man above him.
At last.
Rafayel drew back just enough to speak. “Twenty-three.”
Sylus’s eyes were darker at this distance. “What?”
“My total for the day.”
“You’re counting that among the others?”
“Jealousy suits you.”
One hand closed around the back of Rafayel’s neck.
“I’m not jealous.”
“No?” He brushed his mouth against Sylus’s, withholding the kiss at the last instant. “Then perhaps I should describe them.”
“I’m familiar with poor acting.”
“Her mouth was very soft.”
Sylus tightened his grip.
Rafayel’s grin flashed.
“She made this little sound whenever I—”
The rest disappeared beneath Sylus’s mouth.
He kissed Rafayel as though trying to erase every touch that had preceded him. The slow refinement vanished, replaced by hunger sharpened through restraint. Rafayel welcomed it with equal greed, hands moving over Sylus’s shoulders, dragging the waistcoat open until buttons strained beneath his fingers.
Sylus broke away only to seize the silk at Rafayel’s chest.
One button slipped free.
Then another.
He worked downwards with infuriating patience, exposing Rafayel a measured piece at a time. Cool air touched his sternum, his ribs, the tense plane of his stomach.
“Is this meant to intimidate me?” Rafayel wondered aloud.
Sylus’s knuckles skimmed the edge of his nipple.
His breath stumbled.
“Apparently not,” Sylus replied.
“Cheap trick.”
“Effective.”
Two fingers closed around the sensitive peak and twisted with controlled pressure.
Pleasure flashed beneath Rafayel’s skin. His spine lifted from the cushions before pride could interfere, chest pushing into Sylus’s hand.
The answering smile appeared slowly.
“I hate that expression.”
“You put it there.”
“Then I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
“Another one.”
Sylus lowered his mouth to Rafayel’s throat.
A kiss first, warm and deceptively gentle. Then teeth. The bite drew a sharp sound from him, followed by the heat of Sylus’s tongue passing over the mark.
Rafayel curled a hand in his hair. “That will show on camera.”
“Yes.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
Another bite bloomed lower, over his collarbone.
Rafayel’s fingers tightened. “People pay a great deal of money for this skin.”
“They can admire what’s left.”
Laughter broke from him, breathless and disbelieving. “Possessive.”
Sylus raised his head. “Do you object?”
The directness of the question cut cleanly through the game.
Rafayel studied him, close enough to see the faint flush beneath his cheekbones and the strain hidden within his stillness. Control, he realised, had never meant indifference. Sylus felt it all; he simply refused to be ruled by it.
Rafayel slid his palm along the hard line of his jaw.
“No.”
The word came quietly.
Sylus waited.
“No,” he repeated, drawing him closer. “I don’t object.”
A kiss touched the centre of his palm.
The tenderness of it disturbed him more than the teeth had.
Before it could deepen into something dangerous, Rafayel caught Sylus by the front of his shirt and rolled, forcing him backwards into the sofa. Surprise widened those red eyes for a fraction of a second.
Rafayel straddled his lap.
“There,” he breathed, settling his weight over the hardening shape beneath Sylus’s trousers. “Much better.”
Sylus’s hands came to his hips. “You need the illusion of control?”
“I need you to stop behaving as though desire is something you supervise.”
Rafayel ground down.
The composure beneath him fractured.
A rough exhale escaped Sylus; his fingers dug through the thin fabric at Rafayel’s waist, strong enough to bruise. The response delighted him. He moved again, slower now, feeling the hard length trapped between their bodies.
“Look at you,” he murmured, echoing Sylus’s earlier tone. “All that discipline.”
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Immensely.”
He opened Sylus’s waistcoat, then began on the shirt beneath, far less patient than the man had been with him. Buttons came free beneath hurried fingers. One tore loose and vanished somewhere between the cushions.
Sylus glanced down.
Rafayel followed his gaze. “I’ll buy you another.”
“That was custom.”
“So were my shoes.”
“Your shoes remain intact.”
“For now.”
With the shirt spread open, he dragged both hands over Sylus’s chest. Warmth and muscle shifted beneath his palms. A pale scar crossed one side, then another lower down, each mark carrying a story Rafayel had never been given in full.
His mouth softened over the first.
Sylus went still.
The kiss lingered. Less seduction than recognition.
Then Rafayel bit.
A hand caught sharply in his hair.
“Brat.”
He smiled against Sylus’s skin. “There’s the affection.”
Tugging his head back, Sylus exposed his throat. “You’ve been provoking me since you arrived.”
“I’ve been entertaining you.”
“You threw a cushion at my head.”
“It was a weak moment.”
“You put your shoes on my table.”
“You were neglecting me.”
“And now?”
Rafayel rocked his hips against him, mouth parting when friction dragged across his cock through the layers of fabric.
“Still undecided.”
Sylus rose with him.
The sudden movement forced Rafayel to catch his shoulders. A second later, his back met the sofa again, Sylus settling between his thighs with enough weight to steal the next breath.
“Decide quickly.”
The command darkened the air.
Rafayel’s trousers opened beneath practised hands. Button. Zip. The waistband peeled back from his hips, followed by underwear, cool air slipping across heated skin.
Sylus looked down.
The silence became almost unbearable.
Rafayel was already hard, flushed and wet at the tip, desire leaving no room for pretence. He resisted the impulse to cover himself beneath another joke.
“Nothing clever?” he asked instead.
Sylus took him in hand.
Every prepared sentence vanished.
His thumb passed slowly over the sensitive head, spreading the moisture there before gliding down. Rafayel’s hips jerked; a broken laugh caught between his teeth.
“That was clever enough,” Sylus decided.
“Smug bast—”
The grip tightened.
His voice failed.
Sylus stroked him with maddening steadiness, neither hurried nor gentle, learning each reaction as though Rafayel had not already given him this knowledge before. Pressure changed near the base. The next pass twisted slightly beneath the crown. Rafayel’s thighs drew closer around Sylus’s hips.
“Too slow,” he complained.
“You’ve been here less than an hour.”
“I’ve had a difficult day.”
“So I heard.”
“Twenty-two times.”
Sylus’s thumb pressed into the slit.
Pleasure speared through him. Rafayel’s head fell back. “Fuck.”
“Twenty-three.”
The correction arrived against his throat.
He laughed helplessly, the sound breaking when Sylus stroked him again. “If you’re trying to make me forget her, you’ll need to do better.”
Sylus’s hand stopped.
Rafayel opened his eyes.
“That,” Sylus murmured, “was unwise.”
He released Rafayel’s cock.
Before protest could form, Sylus moved lower. His mouth travelled over Rafayel’s chest, pausing to close around one nipple until Rafayel arched beneath him, then continued across the trembling muscles of his stomach.
Realisation came with the warmth of breath against his hip.
Rafayel’s fingers tightened in the cushions. “Sy.”
Sylus looked up.
The sight alone nearly undid him: broad shoulders between Rafayel’s spread thighs, hair fallen slightly out of place, mouth hovering close enough that each exhale ghosted across exposed flesh.
“Still remember her?” Sylus asked.
“I’m making an effort.”
“Poorly.”
His tongue traced the underside of Rafayel’s cock from root to tip.
Rafayel’s body bowed.
A sound tore loose, far too honest to reshape into laughter. Sylus closed his mouth over the head and sucked, slow enough to make every sensation distinct—the heat of his tongue, the pressure of his lips, the hand holding Rafayel steady at the hip.
“Fuck,” Rafayel gasped again. “You arrogant—”
Sylus took him deeper.
Words collapsed.
His fingers found Sylus’s hair, curling there without deciding whether to push him away or drag him closer. The latter instinct won. Sylus allowed the pressure, throat relaxing around him as Rafayel’s hips lifted.
A low groan vibrated through the wet heat.
Rafayel’s vision blurred at the edges.
The man had no right to look so composed while doing something so obscene. Even with his mouth stretched around Rafayel’s cock, Sylus maintained that watchful, infuriating focus, his gaze fixed upwards, reading each tremor.
“Stop looking at me,” Rafayel breathed.
Sylus withdrew with one last pull of suction.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
A lick passed lazily over the tip.
Rafayel’s thighs trembled.
“You’re impossible.”
Another slow stroke of his tongue.
“I hate you.”
Sylus’s mouth curved against him. “Still performing.”
He took Rafayel deep once more.
The pleasure became merciless. Wet sounds filled the room, punctuated by Rafayel’s faltering breaths. Sylus worked him with mouth and hand together, setting a pace that drove him towards the edge, then easing back whenever tension tightened through his body.
Twice.
Three times.
By the fourth, Rafayel’s composure had been stripped to threads.
“Sylus.” His voice emerged hoarse.
The mouth around him slowed.
“Please.”
That earned him another deep pull, followed by Sylus’s tongue pressing firmly along the sensitive underside.
Rafayel cried out.
His hips lifted, chasing the heat, but Sylus drew away before release could reach him. Cool air struck his slick skin.
“No.” Rafayel’s eyes flew open. “Absolutely not.”
Sylus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You said I was too slow.”
“I didn’t ask you to stop.”
“You didn’t ask me to continue.”
Murder became a reasonable response.
Rafayel seized his collar and dragged him upwards. Their mouths crashed together; he tasted himself on Sylus’s tongue, salt and whisky and something indecently intimate. The flavour only sharpened his hunger.
His hand slipped between them.
Sylus’s trousers had become intolerably restrictive. Rafayel opened them without finesse, pushing fabric aside until his fingers closed around hot, rigid flesh.
The breath against his mouth changed.
At last, some justice.
Rafayel stroked him, learning the weight and heat, the velvet drag of skin. Sylus’s forehead lowered against his, composure thinning with each pass of Rafayel’s fist.
“You’re very quiet,” Rafayel whispered.
A hand closed around his wrist, guiding the rhythm harder.
“Does that disappoint you?”
“It makes me curious.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“Let me hear you.”
Sylus’s eyes narrowed.
Rafayel twisted his wrist beneath the head.
The response came low and rough, a sound felt through both their bodies.
His smile turned luminous. “There.”
Sylus kissed it away.
Clothes became intolerable after that.
A shirt shoved from one shoulder. Trousers dragged low enough to free movement. Rafayel’s silk lay open beneath him, wrinkled and damp against his skin. Each attempt at elegance dissolved under hands made impatient by hunger.
When Sylus reached towards the table drawer, Rafayel caught his wrist.
“Bedroom?” Sylus asked, breathing hard.
Rafayel looked at the distance between the sofa and the corridor, then at the man above him.
“Too far.”
Amusement flickered. “Impatient.”
“I’ve waited all evening.”
“You arrived forty minutes ago.”
“An eternity.”
The drawer opened. Lubricant appeared in Sylus’s hand.
Rafayel’s pulse quickened at the sight.
Playfulness remained between them, but something steadier had gathered beneath it. Sylus touched his thigh, his gaze holding Rafayel’s.
“Tell me.”
It took no effort to understand.
Rafayel reached down, taking Sylus’s slick fingers and guiding them between his legs.
“Yes.”
The first touch was exploratory, circling, spreading warmth over sensitive skin. Rafayel drew his knees higher, opening himself beneath Sylus’s gaze.
“Still yes?” Sylus asked.
Rafayel pushed back against the pressure. “Unless you intend to interrogate me all night.”
One finger eased inside.
His breath escaped through parted lips.
The stretch came gradually. Sylus gave him time to adjust, moving with a patience that contrasted almost painfully with the hunger in his expression. A second finger joined the first, pressing deeper until Rafayel’s body opened around them.
The teasing answer he had prepared dissolved when Sylus curled his hand.
Pleasure struck hard and bright.
Rafayel’s heel dug into the sofa. “Again.”
Sylus obeyed.
His fingers found the same place with devastating precision, rubbing until sparks climbed Rafayel’s spine. The open shirt shifted beneath his heaving chest; sweat gathered at his temples. No camera would have loved this version of him. His mouth hung open, eyes dark and unfocused, each sound arriving without polish.
Sylus watched as though nothing could be more beautiful.
The realisation hurt.
Rafayel reached for him, fingers closing around the back of his neck. “Come here.”
Their mouths met more gently than before.
Sylus continued working him open through the kiss. A third finger entered, the fuller stretch edged with discomfort, then warmth as Rafayel relaxed around it.
“You’re tense,” Sylus murmured.
“You’re large.”
“And you’re flattering me.”
“I’m complaining.”
“Poorly.”
Rafayel bit his jaw. “Fuck me before I change my mind.”
Sylus stilled.
The hand inside him remained steady, neither retreating nor advancing.
“Will you?”
Rafayel understood the question beneath the question. He softened his grip, stroking his thumb behind Sylus’s ear.
“Yes,” he answered, free of theatre. “I want you.”
A kiss pressed against his brow.
Then the fingers withdrew.
The loss left him aching. Sylus positioned himself between Rafayel’s thighs, one hand beneath his knee, the other guiding his cock against the slick entrance.
The first pressure forced the breath from both of them.
Sylus pushed slowly.
Rafayel’s body resisted, then yielded by increments. The stretch burned through him, each measured advance leaving less space for thought. He clung to Sylus’s shoulders, breath breaking against the side of his neck.
“Easy,” Sylus murmured.
“Don’t patronise me.”
“You’re shaking.”
“You’re still talking.”
That earned him a huff of laughter.
Sylus pressed deeper.
Rafayel’s nails scored his back. “Oh—Oh.”
“Too much?”
“No.” He tightened his legs around Sylus’s waist. “Keep going.”
The final inch seated Sylus fully inside him.
For several breaths, neither moved.
Rafayel felt impossibly full, stretched around the thick heat of him, every nerve awakened by the slightest shift. Sylus’s forehead rested against his. Their mouths hovered close without kissing.
“This,” Rafayel managed, “is a terribly inappropriate use of designer furniture.”
“I’ll have it cleaned.”
“How unromantic.”
“I’ll burn it.”
“Better.”
Sylus withdrew slowly, dragging against every sensitive place, then pushed back inside.
Rafayel’s laughter fractured into a moan.
The next thrust carried more force. Then another. A rhythm built between them, restrained at first, granting his body time to soften around the intrusion. Sylus’s hands held him securely at the hips, controlling the angle, while Rafayel met each movement with a lift of his own.
The sofa complained beneath them.
Somewhere, the abandoned whisky glass tipped against the wood but did not fall.
Rafayel buried his face in Sylus’s throat, breathing him in while pleasure gathered again. Each thrust travelled deeper, driving a rough sound from his chest.
“Harder,” he whispered.
Sylus obliged.
The force pushed Rafayel higher across the cushions. His shirt tangled beneath him; his hair caught at the corner of his mouth. All grace abandoned him. He moaned openly, one hand gripping the sofa while the other dragged along Sylus’s back.
“That,” Rafayel gasped, “is going to bruise.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Sylus made a sound that bordered on a growl.
The next thrust struck the place his fingers had found earlier.
Rafayel arched hard. “There.”
Again.
His vision flashed white.
“There—Sy, right there.”
Sylus adjusted the angle and gave him exactly what he had asked for, each drive of his hips forcing pleasure through Rafayel with brutal accuracy. The room filled with broken sounds, skin against skin, breath catching and releasing.
Rafayel’s cock dragged between their bodies, slick and neglected.
Sylus reached for it.
The moment his fist closed around him, Rafayel cried out.
“Too much?” Sylus asked, though his hand continued moving.
“Don’t you dare stop.”
“Ask properly.”
Rafayel opened his eyes.
Even now. Even with control slipping from both of them, Sylus held his gaze, asking for the one thing Rafayel found hardest to surrender.
Honesty.
Another thrust drove the answer loose.
“Please,” Rafayel breathed. “Make me come.”
Something fierce moved across Sylus’s face.
He kissed him, one hand stroking Rafayel in time with the movement of his hips. The rhythm turned relentless. Pleasure tightened low and hot, drawing every muscle taut.
Rafayel clung to him.
No room remained for charm. No audience waited beyond the glass. Nothing existed except the body above him, the body inside him, and the unbearable certainty of being seen without costume or light.
“Sylus.”
His name came apart in Rafayel’s mouth.
“Again.”
“Sylus.”
“Look at me.”
Rafayel did.
The climax broke through him.
His back arched from the sofa as pleasure tore along every nerve, violent enough to empty him of thought. He came across Sylus’s hand and his own stomach, each pulse wringing another helpless sound from his throat.
Sylus watched him through it.
Watched the exact moment performance became impossible.
The sight seemed to finish him.
His rhythm faltered. A curse escaped beneath his breath, followed by several deep, uneven thrusts. Sylus pulled out just before release, spilling hot across Rafayel’s hip and stomach, his hand braced against the sofa as tremors moved through his body.
For several seconds, neither man spoke.
Then Sylus lowered himself carefully, avoiding the worst of the mess, and rested his forehead against Rafayel’s shoulder.
Rafayel stared at the ceiling.
The chandelier remained intact. A mild disappointment.
His breathing slowed by degrees. Beneath his palm, Sylus’s heart pounded with gratifying disorder.
A Protocore throws you and Xavier two years into the future. You end up on his balcony. Your future selves end up against the glass door 😏.
CW: Smut. Jealousy. P in V 🔞MDNI🔞
Huge thanks to @stardustsirens for helping me with this series! 🧡🧡🧡
Caleb's part here
"Please tell me that's the last one"
The air reeked of burned grass and dead wanderers. You let out a long breath and let your shoulders drop as the last Wanderer dissolved into light that flickered once and went dark.
A few paces away, Xavier had a few hair strands stuck to his forehead and a thin sheen of sweat at his throat, and that was the extent of the damage. Meanwhile you looked like you'd been dragged behind a truck.
"Perimeter's clear," he said, quiet, like nothing in the world could rattle him. He crossed the debris toward you, boots crunching over glass and rubble. "You're bleeding, though."
You looked down. A chunk of crystal debris had opened a gash along your calf and you hadn't even noticed.
"Huh. Didn't feel that happen."
"Let me look at it." He dropped to one knee, taking a bandage roll out of your hands before you'd even fully pulled it from your pouch.
His hands were warm. Warmer than it made sense, given the cold. When he folded the torn fabric of your pants back to get at the wound, his fingers grazed bare skin and something jumped straight up your spine. You bit down on the inside of your cheek so you wouldn't make a sound about it.
This was the problem with Xavier. Some days he fell asleep against your shoulder like it was the safest place in the world. Other days he kept a careful distance between you and answered everything in a polite, unreadable tone, and you were left wondering if you'd imagined the whole thing.
"Does that hurt?" his thumb pressed against the unbroken skin just above it — the touch was not necessary to wrap the bandage.
"A little," you said, watching the top of his head, how the moonlight caught the color of his hair. "Xavier. Can I ask you something?"
His hands didn't stop moving, but his shoulders went still. "Yeah."
"Why do you do this?" You asked flatly, too tired to dress it up. "Sometimes I think we’re... I don't know, really close. And then other times, you look at me like I'm just another Hunter from the Association. It's confusing."
He finished tying off the gauze, stood up and finally looked at you "I just think about things. More than I probably should."
He reached out to help you up, hands closing firm around your forearms.
"Think about what?"
You went to test your weight on the bandaged leg and the ground chose that second to be uneven. You pitched forward, right into him, your chest hitting his. His hands slid from your arms to your waist to catch you.
Neither of you moved.
You could feel his heart going fast under his uniform, which didn't match the calm on his face at all. His eyes dropped to your mouth, came back up.This is happening, you thought, a little dizzy with it. He's actually going to—.
His grip on your waist tightened. Something cracked open behind his eyes, just for a second "You shouldn't stand this close to me"
"Xavier—"
He stepped back before you could get anything else out.
Crunch. Something snapped under his boot.
A white protocore.
He picked it and it suddenly went off with light, a white light expanding outward faster than you could track. The air got sucked straight out of your lungs. Your ears popped hard enough to hurt, and then the ruins, the sky, and everything else was sucked into a roar of wind that yanked you forward like the world had grabbed you by the throat.
You hit something solid and warm.
"Oof — sorry —"
A grunt came from underneath you. You blinked against sudden dark, hands slapping down flat against Xavier's chest. You were sprawled on top of him, legs tangled, face mashed against his neck.
"Oh my god." You scrambled back so fast you scraped your palms on the floor. "Sorry — are you okay?"
Xavier sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck, hair falling into his eyes. "Fine. Are you hurt?"
"No, I— " You stopped. Looked around. "Wait."
You weren't standing in the ruins anymore. You were standing on a balcony with black wrought iron railing and a view of city streets that looked oddly familiar.
"Is this our building?" You turned in a slow circle, "Xavier, did you just teleport us home?"
"I didn't teleport us anywhere."
"You definitely did something..."
"I didn't" He was already moving past you toward the railing, scanning it like it might answer a question you hadn't asked yet.
"Okay, well, something got us here," you said, following him. "So if it wasn't you, what was it?"
He didn't answer right away. He crouched by one of the plants, fingers brushing the soil. Damp. Recently turned. "I don't have an explanation for this."
"When did you get so many plants?."
He moved to a small table near, where two mugs sat, both used, one rimmed faintly with lipstick.
"This is kind of freaking me out."
You spotted a newspaper folded beside the mugs and reached for it before he could stop you.
The date on the header didn't make sense. You read it twice.
"Xavier." You held it out to him, throat tight.
He took it, scanning it fast, and for the first time all night something like real alarm broke through his usual calm. "This is two years out."
"Two years." You said it slow, testing the weight of it. "Okay. We're just —somewhere else. Somewhere with your exact view, which is a really specific coincidence, but fine, sure, this is wrong, so so wrong—"
"Calm down."
"Xavier."
"What."
You pointed, wordless, toward the far corner of the balcony, where a lumpy, badly painted bird feeder hung crooked from its hook, one wing chipped clean off. You'd have known it anywhere.
"That's Fatso"s" you said.
Xavier followed your finger, and whatever he'd been telling himself died on his face.
You grabbed for your communicator on reflex. Dead screen. "No signal," you said, more to yourself than to him.
"Mine's the same. Clock's not even holding steady." He pocketed the device "We need to see what's inside. If someone's living here, we ask them what year it is."
"Oh yeah because that is a completely normal question to walk in and ask a stranger."
"Stay behind me," he reached for the handle on the sliding glass door, testing the weight of it without committing to opening it yet. Behind the curtain, something moved.
You froze. Your fingers found the sleeve of his uniform and held on.
A hand pressed flat against the glass from the other side of the curtain, fingers spread.
Xavier looked ready to run.
A second hand appeared beside it. Bigger. Scarred across the knuckles. Something in your chest went cold with recognition even before your brain caught up. The second hand moved to close over the first, fingers lacing through.
There were two people on the other side of that door. And from the way the curtain was moving, they were not just standing there.
"Xavier," you whispered, barely any air behind it at all.
He didn't answer. He didn't move his hand off the door either —just stood there frozen, staring at those hands through the glass like his whole nervous system had collapsed.
Then he moved. His hand closed around your shoulder and pulled, one smooth backward motion that tucked you both into a narrow space where the balcony wall met the building's outer brick. The spot was tight —barely enough room for two people to stand without touching —and the angle it gave you was merciless. The glass door sat directly in your line of sight, lit from inside.
You should have looked away immediately.
But you didn't.
The curtains moved a bit. Two bodies, pressed close. The woman's face was hidden, her head tipped back behind the line of the man's shoulder. His face was visible. Hair catching the light. That jaw.
Xavier
The anger came fast and hot and settled behind your sternum like coal. Months of warmth and then distance. Months of patience that felt like it was always just about to become something and never did —and here was the answer to all of it, pressed against a glass door in an apartment that was still his, two years from now, with someone else.
He was kissing her the way someone kisses when they've stopped being careful about it. Deep, his hands dragging her back against him, the movements of his lower body slow and unmistakable.
You looked away. Focused on a crack running through the middle of the wall beside you. Breathed through your nose.
Beside you, Xavier was still looking. His face was flushed.
"Is that—" His voice came out wrong.
"Yup," you said. The bitterness in it sharper than you'd intended. "That's you"
A sound came through the glass.
The impact of skin against the glass door followed immediately by a broken moan, the sound dragged your eyes back to the glass door against your will.
The curtain had been pulled aside all the way.
The view was now unobstructed.
The woman was pressed flat against the glass, her bare breasts against the cold pane, her hands finding the frame for something to hold onto. Her face was fully visible now.
The anger in your chest went out like a light.
It was your face.
Your shoulders, your hands, the sound of your own voice coming through the glass in pieces, breathless and nothing like anything you'd heard from yourself before. Your future self's cheek was pressed to the glass too, eyes half closed, lips parted around sounds that weren't words.
Future Xavier's teeth found her shoulder and bit down, not gently, leaving something that would be visible tomorrow. His hand came around the front of her, sliding between her thighs to line his beautiful cock against her entrance.
Then he drove forward.
The sound she made came through the glass loud and clear and a small involuntary noise started building in your own throat.
Xavier's palm came over your mouth.
Fast. Firm. His fingers sealing the sound in before it could escape. His hand was shaking.
The glass door shook with the next impact. And the next.
Xavier had his mouth at her ear saying something you couldn't hear through the glass but could read in the way her expression changed when he said it.
Xavier made half a sound against the back of your head and he immediately swallowed the other half.
You felt it anyway. Felt the way his arm tightened across your chest, felt the unsteady rhythm of his breathing where his chest pressed into your back.
You couldn't look away from his face —the future version of the face that was currently breathing against your temple— wearing an expression you'd never seen on him before.
"Xavier," you said, against his palm. Muffled.
His arm tightened.
"Xavier." Louder this time, enough that he could feel the shape of his name against his hand.
His mouth dropped to your ear "Don't move." The words came out rough "If they see us—"
Inside the apartment, your future self pressed her palm hard against her lips.
Future Xavier's hand closed around her wrist.
He pulled it down. He held her hand at her side and kept it there, and when she turned her face toward him he was already looking at her.
He wanted to hear her.
Below you a glass door scraped open.
One floor down, a man stepped out onto his balcony. Cigarette unlit between his fingers, head tilted slightly, listening to the night.
You pressed further into the shadow.
The rhythm inside the apartment changed. Not slower. The opposite. The glass shook in its frame and the sounds coming through it stopped being something that could be mistaken for anything else, and the man one floor down stopped trying to light his cigarette.
You looked at future Xavier's face.
His eyes were angled down and to the left.
He picked up the pace.
She tried again, her hand came up toward her mouth. Future Xavier caught her wrist without looking and his mouth moved against her ear again.
Whatever it was, she stopped trying to be quiet.
You thought about what you'd just watched him do. The escalation. The man on the balcony below. The reason your future self's hand kept getting pulled back down.
Was he jealous of that stranger?
Inside, her feet left the ground. Xavier had both arms around her, her arms caught under his, breast bouncing with every thrust.
You saw it first.
An unmistakable pressure beneath the surface of her stomach. Moving with every thrust. A belly bulge.
Your mouth went dry.
She was dripping. You could see it even through the glass —the inside of her thighs slick and glistening where his movements had worked everything down, coating her skin, catching the apartment light every time he pulled back. The glass had a faint fog to it from her breath, small clouds appearing and disappearing with each exhale.
The deep flush running from her chest to her throat made something in your lower stomach pull tight.
The Xavier beside you tracked every place her body responded to him, her hardened nipples, the way her toes curled against nothing, the flutter beneath her skin that mapped exactly where he was.
Crash
A flower pot.
It hit the floor and you both stopped breathing.
Inside the apartment, silence.
Immediate and total.
Through the glass you watched future Xavier's head come up. No panic in it. No confusion. Just a slow turn toward the sound, his eyes moving through the dark until they found the spot where the two of you were standing.
He couldn't see you. The angle was wrong, the shadow too deep.
He knew someone was there anyway.
His expression went cold and your future self said something against his chest. The curtain moved slowly across the glass from inside and the light behind it went out.
You had thirty seconds. Maybe less.
Xavier crouched beside you. The Protocore looked small against his palm, throwing a faint white pulse between his fingers for just a second.
The glass door began to slide open.
The air changed, the balcony, the broken pot, the man with his unlit cigarette, all of it collapsing into white noise and rushing dark.
You hit the ground hard. Your knees met broken stone, the air was knocked out of you on impact and you spent the first few seconds just existing on the ground.
Xavier landed beside you.
You pushed yourself up to sitting. "So..."
Xavier said nothing.
"That was weird."
Still nothing.
"We were—"
"I saw it" he opened his hand and noticed the Protocore was gone "I was standing right next to you."
"So we're both aware of what we watched."
"Yes."
"And we're not going to talk about it?"
He looked at you. "Are you going to be able to not talk about it?"
"Probably not."
He made a sound that wasn't quite a sigh, stood up and offered you a hand. You took it and he pulled you to your feet and didn't immediately let go.
"That man on the balcony," you said.
Xavier's jaw moved. "What about him."
"Future you saw him and then—"
"I know what he did." He dropped your hand. Turned to look at anything that wasn't your face. "You don't need to walk me through it."
"I'm just—" You pressed your lips together, trying very hard not to smile, it felt inappropriate and also completely unavoidable "Was he showing off?"
"We're not talking about that."
"Xavier—"
"Not yet." He said it quietly. Just a line in the ground, clearly drawn. "Not tonight. There's—" He exhaled. "There's a lot I need to sit with before I talk about any of it."
You nodded. That felt fair.
You started walking, picking your way back through the rubble toward the gap in the wall where you'd come in, and Xavier fell into step beside you like he always did —slightly behind, slightly to your left, a position that meant he could see everything around you before you could.
The walk back was quiet. You were almost at the gap in the wall when he spoke.
"Can I ask you something."
"Go ahead."
He was quiet for a beat. Just long enough that you glanced over at him.
"Future me?" he said. "Or me?"
You stopped walking. "What?"
"You heard me. Who do you like more?
"Xavier, that's not—you are the same person—"
"Future me is two years ahead and has information I don't have and he was doing—" a small pause, "—things to you that I have not yet done. So. Future me or me?"
You stared at him.
He stared back.
"That is the most ridiculous question you've ever asked me"
"Humor me."
"You"
Something in his face changed.
"Good," he said.
"But future you did have his—"
The not quite smile disappeared. "We're going home," he said, and turned toward the gap in the wall.
You followed him, and you were very glad he was walking ahead of you this time because the smile on your face was not something you were ready to explain.
me again! (common goal anon it seems at this rate)
to answer your question, it really is true that i’ve never played LaDS! i’ve seen a few things about the game over the last few years, so i’d say that’s how i know about it. i wouldn’t consider myself part of the fandom though but every so often i read fanfics about LaDS since i take a lot of comfort in fiction. additionally, the way i got here was i happened to see common goal through a reblog (which i’m absolutely delighted that i did! I actually initially put off reading it for a day or two because i was unsure if i could commit to such a long fic in my current situation but i’m beyond glad that i did as now common goal means so much to me)!
interestingly enough, i am also chronically ill! and for the last month or so, have been in a major depressive episode and overall feeling icky (also i’ve been nauseous the last few days so our common goal circumstances seemed to have happened to align??). however, reading common goal is probably one of the things that’s made me happiest as of late. hearing what you endured when you were writing common goal saddens me, but hearing how much comfort the series provided you warms my heart. it’s clear that so much love and care was poured into it. and the fact that it got your out of a ten years writer block and through such a difficult time is amazing! your “little story” seems to have amazing healing powers!!
if a second fanfic were ever to happen, i’d be there immediately! the shield evol was INCREDIBLE and i loved the presence of it in the story so dearly (my heart dropped out of my ass when the reader was falling after blocking adam’s shot and caleb couldn’t use his evol to save the reader). honestly, i had been thinking of oneshots in reference to hoping you write more about the common goal cast, but the fact that there may or may not be potential for a second fic excites me! whether or not you do write a second full fledged fic or not, the idea that common goal will live on warms my heart nonetheless (i’ve become so incredibly attached to the story and cast)! i’m shaking at pandora’s box and prodding at it also!! if that box ever gets opened i’d be overjoyed
also on a silly note: i adored the epilogue for the series but the entire time i had the silly half expectation that it’d be family christmas since in chapter 11 the reader hoped that emcee never got the idea that all of them should spend christmas together HAHA
Haha common goal anon it is 😂
Ah I see! So fate brought us together.
I'm sobbing! 😭 So you could say we have a Common Illness...sorry, I see myself out. I'm so happy that it also helped you through a difficult time! It breaks my heart that you have to deal with chronic illness and depression as well, that combo really sucks. (When I told life I want both I meant Xavier and Caleb, not pain and suffering).
Nooo, pls don't get your hopes up! I don't want to disappoint you. We have to keep the box closed for now. I have so many ideas for other fanfics, it's not even funny at this point. I can't keep up 😅😂 (I have a spreadsheet.)
OMG a Christmas epilogue was actually my first idea 😂😂 and exactly because of that one line. But since I wrote and posted it months after Christmas, I thought that might be weird. Then I thought I'll make it a bonus chapter, but I wanted to keep the story completed as is since I didn't want people to get annoyed with me constantly updating it. However, it is actually on my list of one shots I might write, like a Christmas crowfamily, Caleb + reader get together. I actually have some lines written, or more like ideas, and I completely forgot about them. It's on my list now for December 👀
hello!! i’m the anon from a day or so ago who sent an ask about common goal! i feel like in my first ask, i couldn’t properly articulate just how much i adore the series and the impact it has left on me. i apologize in advance for how i’m about to be more than a bit cheesy and how forthcoming i am with my emotions (i’m super emotional over the series right now HAHA), but i wanted to send in another ask just to talk about how much i love what you’ve written and the impact it has left on me! also, i am very much into big hugs but i will also take that very enthusiastic handshake!!
despite it being a day or so since i’ve finished the series, i can’t help but think about common goal non-stop. funny enough actually, i’m not part of the LADS fandom nor have i ever played the game (so the impact common goal has left on me is truly one of a kind i must say!!). i’m meant to be working on a research paper that’s due in a little less than a week, but i keep staring at my screen instead, wishing to be immersed in the world of your series all over again. all my close friends have heard about it, or at least heard me talking about this illusive series that’s been occupying all my thoughts and made me unable to work on my paper
i already mentioned it in my first ask, but i’ll reiterate again that everything about the series truly blew me away. honestly, it felt tailor made to my tastes in a way that both amazes me but also horrifies me because i’m a little scared i won’t read another series that has the same impact on me as common goal has!! unfortunately (very fortunately actually), the series has lodged itself into my heart in a way i cannot quite describe. every time i’ve been trying to read something new, i feel like i’m waiting for my spouse to come home from war because i just keep thinking about common goal and how perfect it was (i’ve literally just sat there, thousand-yard-staring with my phone in hand, thinking about how i miss common goal and everything about it).
i loved the characters so much, truly. the way you fleshed them out throughout the story, defined their personalities, their dynamics, and showed their growth blew me away. i adored the shift in dynamic between the reader and caleb–how emcee was both of their worlds but their worlds grew to include each other as well. the banter between the two was playful and felt so real and only added to the tension between them (which also felt so real). additionally, i love emcee! she was so sweet, playful, and strong, it was clear why everyone was so enamored with her and if i knew her in real life, i would be too! but even more so, i loved how independent she was and how it showcased that she was capable of taking care of herself and how it contrasted the reader and caleb’s overprotective nature. not to mention sylus, who despite being also protective over emcee, recognized that she was her own person with autonomy and that he can’t blame others for the actions she takes that put her in harms way! the friendship between the reader and emcee honestly meant the world to me and i loved reading their interactions throughout the story. the way the two adored each other despite their secrets they kept and how the two eventually opened up and laid the truth bare touched my heart! everything did actually, if it wasn’t obvious by how egregiously long my ask has become!! additionally, the side dynamics like the one between the reader and sylus made me so happy! i cannot begin to explain how the way that all the characters felt real and how their dynamics were fleshed out rather than pushed aside made me feel. sylus giving the reader the newly polished gun engraved with the safehouse coordinates was so touching, especially what it symbolized and how it showed sylus takes care of everyone in his life!! not to mention the twins as well! they were so playful and fun, i absolutely adored the two!! when the reader was surrounded while trying to make her escape and the twins dropped down i got so impossibly giddy!
despite how long this ask has become, i still don’t quite feel like i’ve properly articulated how much i adore common goal and how much this series now means to me. quite frankly, i think i lack the words to explain it because now common goal and its cast have found a place in my heart. i think if i tried to explain it even further this ask would become even more absurdly long!
i do earnestly–and a little bit selfishly–hope that you continue to write about the common goal cast even after you finish the last planned oneshot for the series. the series you’ve written means so much to me–it was an absolutely pleasure and honor to read it and be immersed within the story you told. this series is somehow my biggest joy and indulgence as well as heartbreak at the moment. i adored every second of it but now i find myself stuck between wanting to reread it or to not reread it and preserve the seemingly sacred feeling of what it was like to experience it for the first time. whether or not you write more about the common goal cast in the future, i just wanted to tell you how much of an impact the series has left on me and my pure adoration for it! thank you so much for writing such a beautiful story, i think i’ll spend a long time looking for another one that lodges itself so deeply in my heart. i look forward to whatever you write in the future, you’ll always have one loyal reader (especially when it comes to common goal) (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ
P.S: despite adam having a description for appearance, the entire time i could not think of anyone except the new van dyne adam warlock skin for marvel rivals because it was revealed recently </3
I was and still am very much speechless. The time and care you spent to write this ask makes me a bit (a lot) emotional 😭
What do you mean you're not part of the fandom or play LaDS? How did you find my fanfic? HOW DID YOU GET HERE? I'm even more speechless 😂
Ah a fellow researcher, I see! (Don't tell anyone, but I wrote Common Goal while I was supposed to research my PhD topic 🫠).
I'm truly blown away and blushing at your words! 🥺 I don't even know what to say or how to show you my gratefulness.
I mentioned this somewhere before, but Common Goal was the first thing that got me out of a ten year writers block, so it's also very dear to my heart. I spent almost a year working on it, living with the characters in my head on a daily basis. To hear that someone else shares my feelings toward this little story of mine is truly unbelievable. Part of that time I was in the clinic, struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts besides constant pain and nausea due to my chronic illness. Writing this fanfic was the only thing I looked forward to. So, I deeply appreciate you and your ask.
You're so sweet! I fear I reached my personal peak with that fic, so please keep your expectations for my future works to a minimum 😂 I kinda played with the thought to make a second fanfic, because the shield Evol alone was so much fun to write and has so much potential. Buuuut I would need an idea first, and quite honestly, I don't know if I can write an interesting story with the relationship between Caleb and reader already established 😅 The intrigue and tension would have to come from the plot alone. (Or one could go more into detail with Caleb's controlling nature...no, no, no, let's not open pandora's box!)
(Very interesting to see how you imagined Adam! I think everyone had a different idea of him, and I love that!)
Thank you sooooo much!!! 💕 I'll gladly give you the biggest hug and the most enthusiastic handshake you have ever received! Just know, you have my love and devotion, and I will think of you for the rest of my existence 😌
Tags: Friends with benefits, drabble, feelings realization, domestic setting, low stakes, fluff, one-shot, light smut, kissing, parking lot shenanigans, mentions of sex, explicit language, dirty talk, mentions of inappropriate uses of vegetables, Zayne's impeccable restraint -> Zayne's erotic loss of it
Summary: "I love you," he rasped, navigating to your neck, "couldn't you tell by the way I fucked you."
Word Count 1.7k
Let me walk you through this one. Writer's block -> love for Zayne -> asking best friend for random prompts -> wanting to prove I can write a one-shot that doesn't progress into a full blown story (this almost became a whole story - don't ask) -> produce aisles and cucumbers. My first time writing for Zayne!
"Prove it then," you challenged, "prove you don't have feelings for me."
Hazel eyes remained gentle, calm, composed in that brutal way you found infuriating. Long fingers were curled around the handle of the shopping cart, the evening's dinner compiled in the basket, the ice cream beginning to melt. What had started as a tame shopping trip had quickly escalated into conflict.
Because last night, when Zayne had taken you atop his desk in his home office, something within your heart had shifted violently. His soft voice whispering into your ear, his precise hands bracketing your waist, and his piercing eyes - fervent with passion, wild with ecstasy. All attributes you wanted to savor for a lifetime.
"That is a rather bold conclusion," Zayne responded, reaching above his head to snatch a produce bag from the supplied roll. Methodically, he used his fingernails to split the plastic, and began inspecting the bell peppers with an eye only possessed by a doctor. "What evidence have you gathered to make such an accusation?"
"You haven't kissed me."
He faltered, a minute twitch of his index finger as he reached for the piece of fruit he had determined as adequate. Slowly, he deposited the bell pepper into the bag, then grabbed another one. You stepped closer, invading his space. His eyes glanced at you, a simple observation, then he was rounding the cart to place the bag next to the frozen lasagna.
"Zayne," you prompted, an edge to your voice indicating frustration, "I can't do this anymore."
"The produce section of the grocery store is not where we should be having this conversation," he continued to grab more items, this time, filling a bag with celery.
His professional demeanor had always attracted you to him: his polite respect for strangers and companions, his near damn perfect posture, his relentless ambition to get things right. It made when he lost control that much more enticing. The filthy words, his blazing eyes, the grunts as he buried himself to the hilt. It was one or the other, no in-between.
You wanted the domestic side. Yes, shopping together was domestic indeed, but you could do such chores with your friends and family. You wanted the romance, the kisses in the kitchen while cooking, the hugs from behind as he explained the hardships of the day.
Pining after this man for so many years had its downsides. You were desperate, on the brink of pushing limits, placing him in an uncomfortable situation.
Around Zayne, you had been calculated. His words were sometimes few, but resonant. If you were about to enter a conversation with the potential to expand, you would become his focal point. And that stare of his, pure as ice, always melted your resolve.
On a whim, out of fear of the serious, you had navigated a conversation months ago, ultimately settling upon a new dynamic. Friends, you two had forever been, so what was the danger of some benefits? Other men barely caught your interest, and if they did, it was fleeting. Zayne, on the other hand, had been the first person you imagined kissing when those thoughts were born from puberty.
"Well, you don't seem to want to have this conversation anywhere else," you replied, venom curling your pronunciation. That wasn't true, you knew Zayne would be open to a conversation late in the evening, maybe at the coffee shop you two frequented before work. He would even consider it as you two caught your breath underneath his fancy blankets, skin marked in bites and bruises.
You were projecting.
Zayne had moved onto cucumbers. The sleek shine of the vegetable's skin pronounced beneath his pristine hands. He twisted his wrist, scouting for any imperfection. And your brain, lost in some delirium, reminisced.
His hand had cradled his own erection quite similarly the night prior, near the base, poised so you could sink down upon him easily. That smirk he wore as your rode him sprinkled burning sparks across your skin, and your nails had dug into his chest, a form of restraint to prevent your mouth from finding his.
You had always taken the initiative, Zayne had always guarded his inhibitions. You wanted his lips fused to yours, his tongue spearing deep and meeting your tenacity.
"Insertion of this vegetable has become more common."
You choked on nothing but your own saliva, "you aren't suggesting we - nevermind."
"No, I was just stating what I had learned at a meeting this week."
You weren’t entirely sure how to carry on the conversation after that. So, you didn’t. Zayne had always been comfortable with silence between you two, and of course, you had too.
The rest of the grocery trip went by with mindless glances at random products, and occasionally looking at your phone. Zayne kept to his routine, checking expiration dates, comparing prices, and purchasing products only his personal research had approved of.
It wasn’t long before the cart was tapping the bumper of his car, filled with the reusable bags he had taken from their designated spot in his pantry. Zayne unloaded the groceries into the trunk as you leaned against the passenger side door. Usually, you would aid in emptying the cart, but a petty stubbornness had compelled you to just watch.
Zayne expressed his own dissatisfaction, huffing when he latched the trunk hatch and walked the cart to its corral.
You observed, noting his stride, the confidence in his step. You went to open your door, only to find it locked.
You frowned.
Zayne strode past his vehicle to meet you at your side. Rotating so you faced him, your back to his car, your mouth opened.
“What are you -”
“For once, I won’t ask for permission.”
His kiss was like ice shattering, a foundation crumbling beneath your feet.
Zayne was rough.
Zayne was taking control, he was dominating.
And hell, if you didn't devour him in return.
The handle of the car door dug into your waist, but that was the least of your worries, especially with the doctor bending your back over the curve of the car. Your hair brushed the roof of the chassis, hands grappling onto his upper arms.
"I've wanted to kiss you," his voice was feather-light, that monotone, yet beautiful timber he often consulted you with, "for quite some time."
"Then why didn't you?"
He considered your question, lips resting over yours. His sharp nose nuzzled your cheek as he playfully nudged you.
"I knew once I did, I would completely fall."
Your gasp felt unnervingly loud in the parking lot. A shopping cart rattled in the distance, car doors slamming. And here was one of the most composed gentlemen you had ever known, prying your lips apart with his tongue, and sweeping inside to taste.
His breath punctuated his movement, harsh sounds relaying his desperation. Each smack of your lips drew heat into your abdomen, accumulating, eventually seeping from between your thighs.
"Please do," you urged, "fall for me completely as I have for you."
His heart thudded against your chest, lips departing from your mouth to trail over your jawline. Above, flakes of snow swirled, caught in the overhead lights of the parking lot. They littered his hair, dots of white against raven-black. Your hand raked over them, the minor chill exhilarating.
"I love you," he rasped, navigating to your neck, "couldn't you tell by the way I fucked you."
"Perhaps I need to reassess your performance."
His chuckle was saturated in mirth, "I always recommend a reevaluation before submitting final results."
Pain erupted from the slope of your neck, his teeth capturing a portion of skin to pinch. He suckled, each pull confirmed with a messy lick of ease.
"Where did those pretty sounds go?" He teased.
"Zayne, we are in public!"
"I'll admit,” he paused, catching his breath, “there's something undeniably addictive about stepping out of line.”
He wasn’t finished.
“I don’t know where to start with you,” he exhaled, as if restraining those words had been a considerable burden.
With your head tilted back, flakes rested upon the skin of your neck, thawing in time with each swallow. Droplets trailed down to soak your hoodie, and Zayne watched, eyes riveted by the slopes of your body. It gifted you some time to observe his mouth, and how those lips had finally touched yours.
Your arms wrapped around his neck, and you rose, rising on the toes of your shoes to kiss him. He took one step back, bracing from your momentum. His body always had moved in ways that were subtle, never explosive, always a source of consolation. But his hands grasped, nearly clawing at your hips. An ache registered as he applied pressure, arresting your freedom, and yanking you against him.
“Feel me,” his demand was carried by a whisper, hands roaming to your rear, nails digging into your flesh through your sweatpants. Your hiss was stolen by his ministrations, your body surrendering to his lead. “Feel exactly what you do to me.”
You did. Pressed this close together, his length nudged against your navel.
There was a joke buried in this situation, one hinting at the use of a cucumber. You would have verbalized it if it wasn’t for the onslaught of his lust.
Your leg steepled, hooking your knee over the jut of his hip, cradling his cock in the vent of your heat. All he had to do was push your waistband down, undo his zipper, and vault his hips forward, sinking deep into the crease of your cunt.
If he had wanted.
Zayne wouldn’t.
“The ice cream is melting,” he noted despite the reaction of his body as he lurched, driving the crown of his arousal over the outline of your pussy. “And we have perishables.”
You knew him too well.
“So shall we go?” You suggested.
“It’s not safe to drive when distracted,” he reasoned.
His hand dug into his pocket, procuring his keys. The car beeped, his arm outstretched, hand grasping the handle for the backseat. Your heart stumbled to a near stop, your limbs would be tangled in the narrow space provided, the windows would fog, and the chassis might rock.
Zayne had a plan, the glint of his eyes ensuring security.
With a voice laden in satin, he ordered regardless,
“Get in.”
This had been in my drafts since February 23rd - yikes
Xavier’s voice remained in its usual soft cadence as he commanded Sylus, who laid stripped bare before him. The silver-blonde, however, sat calmly and fully clothed on the edge of their shared bed at the Onychinus base, a thick Shibari book he had bought a couple of days prior open in his lap.
Just an hour earlier, innocent bright blue eyes had looked up at Sylus when Xavier suggested they try out something new. Of course, the taller one was down the second he saw the ropes in his boyfriend’s hands, the thought alone of what was going to happen next enough to send a thrill down his spine.
A careful man like him should have known it was a trap.
Now he was exposed, tied up, and completely at his beloved’s mercy, who sat next to him serene, focused, and seemingly oblivious to his growing need. Sylus was painfully hard, but his boyfriend wouldn’t even spare him and his rather prominent predicament a glance as he read the chapter intently, his lips silently forming the words on the page while his brows furrowed in concentration.
Sylus watched, his chest rising and falling rapidly in anticipation, as Xavier adjusted the knot. “Tell me if it’s too tight.”
A groan escaped him at the touch, which finally drew the shorter one’s attention away from the book. Darkened sapphire eyes roamed over his body appreciatively, causing Sylus to instinctively strain against the rope.
“Hmm, I think I tied the knot wrong,” Xavier mused, carefully studying his work. Slender fingers traced the rope binding Sylus’s limbs with a slow, deliberate caress, eliciting a shudder from the taller one. “Seems like I have to start over.”
Sylus’s head hit the pillow with an exhale, his pulsing erection painful from neglect. It didn’t help that his boyfriend began to untie him, the touch from his soft hands on his heated skin driving him insane.
“If you keep making me wait, I might have to return the favour next time,” he challenged with a quirk of his eyebrow, but from the way the other man smirked told him the silver-blonde wasn’t done with him just yet.
Xavier’s answering chuckle was something between sweet and cruel.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make it worth your while soon enough.”
hello i just finished binge reading common goal and i just want to let you know im OBSESSED 😭😭 ive been sitting here for the last hour just thinking about it…everything about it was so beautiful and the building of the world, characters, and plot absolutely blew me away 🥹🥹 i loved the tension between the reader and caleb, the friendship with emcee, and the blooming dynamic between the reader and the crow family SO MUCH AUGHHH worlds cannot encapsulate how obsessed i am with it 😭😭 i wanna reread it all over again and just stay absorbed in the world of it
Anon, you're too sweet 😭 You have no idea how happy reading your kind words makes me 😭 Thank you sooo much 🥺 I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
I really appreciate you taking the time to reach out 🥹💕 Sending you the biggest hug, and if you're not into that, a very enthusiastic handshake!
I’d like to apologise in advance for the following spam. My pinned post is getting a bit cramped, so I’m updating it and create a separate masterlist with a "coming soon" section, because I thought that would be fun. I’ll also use this opportunity to add a series masterlist for blurbs, so you only have to endure this spam once.
I'm currently working on a piratecaptain!Sylus x reader one shot AU with a bit of spicy Valko sprinkled in (Can I offer you guys a wolfcrow threesome in these trying times?). I hope to get it done and have it ready to post next month. In the meantime, I have some blurbs lined up I want to share with you, one of which I'll post later tonight.
Well, when I said this request would be controversial, I wasn't kidding. So, here goes.
May I request: Non-MC knows her marriage with Caleb is over when he requests (read: demands) that she let MC have his first child.
okay i actually had a lot of fun writing this one cuz i was writing fluff and smut all day and this angst just hit PERFECTLY 🙂↕️ thank you for leaving this request, it was such a breath of fresh air and got my brain all excited for it!! hopefully i didn't misunderstand your request and you'll enjoy it! ♡
p.s. not proofread
⋆. — content warnings: heavy angst, no comfort, cheating, infidelity, marriage falling apart, unrequited love, self-deception, caleb loves mc & is married to non!mc/reader
The kettle was still whistling when he said it.
You’d been pouring tea, that ridiculous oolong he’d bought you for your birthday last year, the one in the tin with the gold lettering, and your hand was steady on the handle and the steam was rising and Caleb was sitting at the kitchen island with his sleeves pushed up and his forearms resting on the marble and he said it the way someone might mention the weather.
So fucking casual, you almost couldn’t believe your ears.
“I need you to let her carry the first.”
You poured the tea.
It was important, somehow, to finish pouring the tea. The amber liquid filled the cup. Steam curled. Your hand did not shake. Whose first, your brain offered politely, because your brain was being kind to you, was buying you time, was pretending it didn’t already know.
You set the kettle down.
“Whose first what?”
Caleb didn’t look at you. That was the first thing you noticed, focusing on that instead of how your stomach turned involuntarily. He looked at his hands, at the marble, at the soft fold of his rolled sleeve. Anywhere but at you. Caleb who could meet anyone’s eye through anything, Caleb who’d talked you down through three panic attacks and held your stare during all of them, was looking at the countertop like the answer was etched into it.
“My first child,” he said quietly. “I need it to be hers.”
The cup was hot. You only noticed because your fingers were still wrapped around it. You were going to burn yourself if you didn’t let go. So you let go. You set it down on the saucer almost too carefully, and watched your own hand do this, like your hand belonged to a stranger, like you were watching a film of someone receiving the worst news of their life and being very polite about it.
Oh, you thought.
Oh, of course.
It was strange how fast the rest of you caught up. How the body knew. Your stomach was already cold. Your ears were already ringing. There was an ache low in your chest, somewhere beneath your ribs, like something with weight had just settled there permanently.
You felt sick.
“Caleb.” Your voice was flat. You were proud of your voice. “We’ve been married for two years.”
“I know.”
“We were going to start trying in spring.”
“I know.”
“You said—” and here it almost cracked, you caught it just in time, “—you said you wanted a little girl with my eyes.”
A long silence. He still wasn’t looking at you. His jaw was working in that small, controlled way that meant he was holding something back, and the worst part was that you knew he was holding back something gentle. Some softening. Some apology. He was going to try to make this kind, and you were going to have to sit there and let him, and it was going to be the most violent thing that had ever happened to you.
“It has to be hers first,” his words hit bullseye straight into your heart, finally. “You understand.”
You did, actually. That was the obscene part. You’d always understood.
You’d known the day he proposed.
He’d done it sweetly. He’d done it on the balcony of the apartment you used to rent together, with a ring he’d had resized twice to make sure it fit, and he’d said all the right things, I want to build a life with you, you make me steadier, I love you, I love you, I love you, and you’d cried and said yes and meant it. You meant it with your whole chest, tears ruining your makeup, but they were happy tears, because you’ve wanted the same life for so, so long.
Then his phone buzzed twice in his pocket while he was on one knee, and you’d watched his eyes flicker, just for a second, just for less than a second, and you’d known.
You’d known and you’d said yes anyway.
Because she hadn’t said yes to him. Because she’d never said yes to him. Because Caleb had been in love with her since they were children, and she’d chosen someone else, several someone elses if the rumors were accurate, and Caleb had needed somewhere to put all of that ruined devotion, and you had been right there, kind and patient and so stupidly in love with him that you’d opened your hands and said give it to me, I’ll hold it for you.
You’d thought, in the deluded little corner of your heart you didn’t show anyone, that maybe if you held it long enough it would become yours.
It never did.
You’d seen it. That was the thing you would have to admit to yourself now, in the unflinching light of the present nightmare staring you dead in the eye. You had seen it every time, and you had decided every time not to see it.
You’d seen it at your engagement dinner, when his phone lit up across the table and he had glanced down for a fraction of a second too long, his thumb hovering over the screen before he turned the phone face down as if he wasn’t dying to pick it up and run to her. You had not asked whose name was on it. You hadn’t needed to, really.
You’d seen it the night she came to your housewarming. She’d hugged Caleb hello, a polite hug, a friendly hug, exactly the kind of hug an old friend gives, and Caleb’s hand had landed at the small of her back in a way it had never landed at yours. Light. Familiar. Cherished, loving, as if he waited lifetimes to hug her exactly like that.
You had watched it from across the room with a glass of wine in your hand and you had smiled at someone’s joke. Whose joke, you couldn’t remember.
You’d seen it every time her name came up at dinner. The way he stopped chewing for a beat. The way his shoulders would set themselves before he answered, oh, she’s fine, she’s traveling, I haven’t seen her in a while, careful and casual, the cadence of a man speaking around a hot coal in his mouth.
You’d seen the gift he kept in the back of his desk drawer, wrapped in pale blue paper, never given. You’d found it once, while looking for some tape. You had not asked who it was for. You had closed the drawer very gently and walked away and told yourself, fiercely, it could be for anyone. It could be for one of his friends. It could be for a colleague. It could be for—
It could be for anyone but you. That was the truth. You had known that even then.
You had built a marriage on top of every one of those moments. You had laid bricks over them, paved them over, planted gardens above them. And every so often the ground would tremble and you would pretend it had not, and you would pour another glass of wine and tell yourself you were imagining things.
You had not been imagining things. But lies were much easier to swallow than the humiliating truth.
“How long?” you heard yourself say.
He looked up at last, purple eyes finding your hollow ones. His eyes were red-rimmed. That, somehow, was the cruelest part. He was upset. He was upset on your behalf, he was sorry, he genuinely felt terrible, and that was so much worse than if he’d been cold about it. A cold man you could have hated cleanly. A man who cried while ruining your life had to be loved through it, and you didn’t have the strength.
“It’s not—it isn’t what you think,” he started. Oh, but you knew. Still, you let him explain, let him feed you sweet lies, hollow words, words he had served you time and time again throughout your whole marriage. You let him every single time.
“How long, Caleb?”
“Six weeks ago.” he sighed in resignation, “We didn’t—it was once. She came to me about—it doesn’t matter. It was once.”
The word hit your body before your brain caught up. Once.
You had braced, somewhere in the back of yourself, for the slow betrayal. For the years of unspoken longing. For the leftover heart you had married. You had made peace with that, deep down in your currently breaking, fragile heart. You had told yourself, he doesn’t act on it. That’s the thing that matters. He chose me with his life, even if he didn’t choose me with his heart.
You had not braced for once.
For the literal, physical once. For his hands on her. For whatever night it had been, and your mind was already searching, already flipping through your shared calendar like a desperate librarian, and the version of him that had come home afterwards. Had he kissed your forehead good night with her still on his skin? Had he made you breakfast the next morning? Had he held you, three weeks ago, when you cried about something stupid at work, his palm steady on your back, with the memory of her warmth still in his mouth?
Your stomach folded in on itself.
You set your hand flat on the marble to steady yourself. The marble was cool. The cup was still steaming. Caleb’s eyes were red and puffy across the island, and you wanted very suddenly to throw the kettle through the kitchen window just to hear something break that wasn’t you.
“And she’s pregnant,” you supplied the answer for him. Your voice was a thing operating without you. It was not your voice. You hated it.
“Not yet.” he swallowed. “She wants to be. She’ll only consider it if—” he stopped. Coward.
“If I’m out of the way.” you hated your own voice, hated the hollowness of it. Hated how the words kept pouring out of you, unable to stop saying and imagining the worst.
“If you—” he closed his eyes. “If you give us your blessing.”
You laughed.
You didn’t mean to. It came out of you like something physical and unwelcomed, like a thing dislodged, and Caleb flinched at the sound of it, which made you laugh harder, your hand finding the edge of the counter for balance because the kitchen was tilting, your whole life was tilting, and somewhere in the back of your throat the laugh was already turning into something else.
Blessing. He wanted your blessing. He wanted you to bake them a cake. He wanted you to be gracious, to be the bigger person, to perform the dignified exit of a woman who had always understood she was the placeholder.
It was the demanding of it that finally lit something in you.
Not asking for permission or pleading for forgiveness or understanding. Demanding, in that quiet, reasonable voice, like a surgeon explaining a procedure you did not have the right to refuse. He had thought it through. He had decided this was the kind path. He had cast you, in the script of this conversation, as someone gracious enough to step aside, because the version of you who lived in his head had always been someone gracious enough to step aside. The wife who understood. The wife who was grown-up about it.
Of course he thought you would say yes. You had said yes to everything. You had been saying yes to less than you deserved for two years, and he had taken it, and now he was assuming, with the easy confidence of a man who had never once been told no by you, that you would say yes to this too.
The audacity of it rose into your throat like smoke.
You thought of the morning, six months ago, when he’d brought you breakfast in bed because you’d had a fever, and he’d sat on the edge of the mattress and pushed your hair back and said, I don’t know what I’d do without you, and you had believed him.
You thought of him, two months ago, going still at the sound of her name on someone’s phone in a restaurant, and how he had ordered another bottle of wine and pretended not to have heard.
You thought of the spare bedroom you’d been quietly redecorating in soft yellow, because he wanted a little girl with your eyes, and he had said the words out loud, and you had built a future on them.
“Get out,” your mouth moved before the feeling could catch up. Voice dull, scraped clean of anything soft.
“Sweetheart—”
“Don’t.” Your voice was very quiet. You barely recognized it. “Don’t sweetheart me. Don’t you dare, Caleb.”
He hesitated, like he wanted to say something else, like there was a version of this where he could thread the needle and keep some part of you, and you looked at him through it all and saw the moment he understood that there wasn’t.
He went to the door, and you thought he would leave without saying more. It would have been too kind, so he paused with his hand on the frame.
“I do love you,” the confession left his lips, but it only made your heart break faster, “I want you to know that I—I do.”
“I know.”
You did know. That was the thing. He did love you. He had loved you in the secondhand, leftover way that men love the women they marry when they cannot have the women they want. He had loved you sincerely and he had loved you less, and you had taken less because less was more than nothing, and you had told yourself it would be enough.
The door closed behind him.
You stood in the kitchen with the tea you would never drink and the ring you would not be wearing by morning, and you finally, finally let yourself feel it.
It rose up out of you in one long, silent wave. It wasn’t a sob, you felt too hollow to accept that, you still clung to your last drop of control. But it was present nonetheless, the terrible understanding that you had spent two years of your life building a loving home for a man who had been waiting, the entire time, for someone else to come back for him.
11. "I know baby" while you are cumming with Caleb.
🔞MDNI🔞
Click here for more of the Horny Thoughts list.
The silence was the worst part.
Thirty two days of it. It was not like the comfortable quiet of your apartment on a Sunday morning, it was something heavier, pressing down on your chest until every breath felt like work. You'd developed routines around it without meaning to. Checking your phone at the same times every day. Sitting on the edge of your bed in the dark, watching the notification light on your watch for something that never came. Eating when you remembered to. Sleeping when you couldn't stay awake anymore.
The Fleet had given you nothing.
You weren't official family. That was the problem, the one that the Farspace Fleet kept running into every time you called. Childhood bonds didn't have paperwork. Shared trauma didn't have a form number. The promise made in the darkness of his room more than a year ago didn't hold any legal weight, and so every time you called you got the same automated voice, the same words in the same order.
The expedition into the deepspace flux zone is ongoing. All communications are classified under Level 4 security protocols.
You'd stopped counting how many times you'd heard it.
A week ago rumors started moving through the hunter channels, spreading fast and going quiet the moment an official walked into a room. A collapse inside the tunnel. A squadron cut off from the extraction point. You'd cornered a senior officer at the Association headquarters and watched her look at everything in the room except your face while she told you to prepare for the worst. As if that was a sentence you were supposed to absorb and go home.
They were writing him off. Filling in forms. Moving toward the moment where they'd call it officially and send you a letter with his name at the top and a condolences paragraph at the bottom, and the universe would have taken him from you a second time. The first time had been the explosion. You'd been clueless then, and the grief had carved something out of you that had never fully grown back. Thirty two days of silence and you could feel those same edges again, the same hollow shape of a loss you didn't know how to survive this time.
You'd spent the last two days crying under your duvet without a reason to come out.
2:14 AM. The front door clicked.
You sat up so fast the blood rushed out of your head. Sat completely still in the dark, heart hammering, telling yourself it was nothing— probably a neighbor's door, your own exhausted mind making up sounds it wanted to hear. You'd been doing that. Hearing things. Seeing his face in the corner of your eye on the street and turning to find a stranger.
Heavy footsteps in the hallway. A duffel bag dropped onto the hardwood floor. The weight of it, the carelessness of someone too exhausted to set something down gently, sent something electric straight up your spine.
You got out of bed. Your legs weren't entirely reliable. You caught the door frame, steadied yourself, crossed the hallway on autopilot with your heart somewhere in your throat.
The bathroom light was on. Through the glass the steam was already building, the shower ran hard and hot, and you could smell it from the doorway—your shampoo.
You pushed the door open.
The steam rolled out around you, warm and thick, and through the clear panel of the shower glass—
Caleb.
He didn't know you were there yet.
He was standing under the water with his forehead pressed against the tile, shoulders rising and falling. The water was too hot—you could tell because the steam was already thick enough to blur the far wall—but he wasn't adjusting it. Just standing in it. Letting it hit the back of his neck and run down the lines of his shoulders to carry whatever he'd brought back with him down the drain.
His skin was pale, the kind of pale that came from a month without real sunlight, and every muscle in his back was wound so tight it looked painful.
He looked like he had fought his way to a door and wasn't entirely sure yet that he'd made it through.
His head turned.
His eyes found yours through the condensation and steam, bloodshot from lack of sleep and completely awake in an instant, and the look on his face when he saw you standing there—the unguarded relief of it—hit you somewhere behind your ribs and stayed there.
He reached back to shut the water off then stepped out without reaching for a towel, water running off his shoulders and chest, steam rising off his skin. He looked different. Harder at the edges. Several days of dark stubble caught the harsh bathroom light and he looked nothing like the man who'd kissed you goodbye a month ago, or he looked exactly like that man, just with everything worn closer to the surface, less of it contained.
Neither of you spoke. You weren't sure you could. The reality of him standing in front of you—breathing, dripping water onto the floor—was still making its way through days of silence and the grief of someone who had already lost him once and had spent the last forty eight hours preparing to do it again.
"Caleb." It came out barely a sound.
He crossed the bathroom floor in three steps, water trailing behind him, and his hand wrapped around your wrist. His grip was warm, real and it made your eyes sting immediately. He didn't say anything. He just held you for a moment, his thumb pressed against your pulse point, and let you feel that he was there.
He kept hold of your wrist the whole way. Down the hall, through the door of your room, until your shoulders found a wall and he stopped in front of you. The sight of him, still yours, broke something open in your chest that you'd been holding very carefully shut.
"Caleb,—the fleet, they—I thought you were—"
"I'm right here." His voice came out rough, scraped down to something raw and unrecognizable, nothing of his usual warmth in it yet. "Forget what they said. I'm right here. I'm safe."
He placed his palms against the wall on either side of your head, steadying the space around you like he always had. The heat coming off his skin was startling against the cool air of the bedroom. You looked up at him, at the dark sharp lines of his jaw and the thick stubble that made him look exhausted and more real than anything you'd let yourself imagine in the last four weeks.
"Look at you," he said quietly, eyes moving over your face, your shaking hands, "Why are you trembling. It's okay." His voice dropped further. "I've got you."
"I thought you were dead." The first sob broke through before you could stop it "They wouldn't tell me anything, Caleb. They told me to prepare for the worst, I didn't know what that—fuck, I did know what it meant and I couldn't—"
"I know." He pulled you away from the wall and buried his face in the curve of your neck, you felt the rough drag of his stubble against your skin and gasped. He breathed you in slowly, deeply, his whole chest expanding against yours. "I know what they're like." His arms tightened around you. "But I promised you. I have always promised you. I fought my way out of that tunnel because leaving you again was not an option."
His hands moved down and without any warning he hooked his hands under your thighs and lifted you clean off the floor.
You wrapped your legs around his waist on instinct, hands flying to his shoulders. Your shorts rode up with the movement, bare thighs pressing against the heat of his hips.
"Baby—"
His mouth came down on yours.
It wasn't desperate in the way you'd expected. It was slower than that, deeper, a kiss that had too much behind it to rush. A month of darkness, cold and whatever he'd fought through to get back to you, all of it pressing into the way his lips moved against yours, his tongue parting your mouth in a heavy stroke that made your fingers curl into his damp hair and pull.
He shifted your weight, pressing your spine gently but firmly into the wall, and you felt the full length of his cock against you through the thin fabric of your shorts—already hard, already searching for the closeness you both needed, his hips moving in a slow rhythm that mirrored exactly what his mouth was doing.
He broke the kiss just far enough to look at you again.
"I'm here," he said, his words almost too quiet to hear. "Right here. I'm not going anywhere."
"I need—" Your voice broke, tears were streaming down your face. "Please. I need to feel you. I need to know you're actually—"
The sound that came out of him was pained. He lowered you until your feet touched the floor, keeping one arm tight around your waist, and his free hand went to your waistband, careful, guiding your shorts and underwear down together until they pooled at your ankles and you stepped out of them.
He straightened back up and you looked at each other in the quiet of the room. He was watching your face with an expression that made your throat close up again. The marks of the last month were all over him, the exhaustion, the weight loss, the hollowness around his eyes, and he was still the most beautiful man you'd ever seen.
He reached for the hem of your shirt and pulled it over your head, tossing it behind him without looking. Then he was back against you, chest to chest, and the heat of his body in front of you and the cool hard wall behind you made your breath leave you all at once.
His jaw dragged down your throat. The stubble was rough and you felt every millimeter of it, that scraping friction kept pulling you back into your body every time emotion threatened to pull you out of it. He was doing it on purpose. Making sure you felt him. "Right here," he said softly against your skin. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours."
There was nothing left to say that your body wasn't already saying for you.
He hooked one of your legs over his hip, his forearm sliding under your thigh to hold you there. His free hand moved between you, guiding himself to your entrance, and he paused—just for a breath, tip pressed against your heat—eyes on your face, waiting.
"Please. Now. Ca—"
He pressed forward and you buried your face in his neck.
The sob that came out of you surprised both of you. He felt it move through you and pulled you closer, both arms wrapping around you, his hands spread wide across your back.
"I've got you," he whispered, lips against your temple. "I've got you. I'm here."
He pulled back slowly. Almost all the way. Let you feel the drag of it, the absence, and then drove back in deeper.
"Caleb—" he swallowed the sound of his name with a sound of his own, low in his chest, his forehead dropping to yours.
He began to move and there was nothing fast about it. Just you and him.
The heat built fast anyway. Your nails found his back, his shoulders, whatever you could reach, and he let you—didn't flinch, didn't shift away, just kept moving in a steady rhythm while the wet sounds of it and both of your breathing filled up the room. Your tears were still falling and you stopped trying to do anything about them, just let them come while your mouth left marks on his body.
His shoulder pulled away from your mouth.
"Look at me." Came his voice, strained, like it cost him something to speak. "Let me see you."
You lifted your head. Your vision was a bit blurry, everything fractured through tears, but you could see him clearly enough, jaw clenched, neck tight, the muscles in his face working against something he was holding back.
"You don't have to be scared anymore," he rasped, hips driving forward again, finding a shorter faster rhythm that dragged against every nerve ending you had. "I'm right here, baby. I'm staying right here."
"I was so scared—" The words broke apart before you got through them, your body clenching around him in tight pulses. "Caleb, I thought—I kept calling and they wouldn't—and then she said to prepare and I didn't—"
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to sit with that."
"Don't apologize—"
"Look at me," he said again, softer this time. "Stay with me."
He grabbed your other leg, hoisting you higher until you were fully suspended—nothing under you but him, every thrust finding someplace deeper, enough to make your whole body seize up and your head fall back against the wall.
"Oh—Caleb—I'm going to—I—"
"I've got you." He brought his face to your cheek, lips moving against the wet, salty skin there, breathing you in. "I've got you. Let go."
The past month collapsed into a single point in your chest and then detonated. Not just pleasure—though that rolled through you in long shaking waves—but everything under it. Every night staring at his empty side of the bed. Every time a voice said please await official updates. The two days under your duvet where you'd let yourself start to grieve him. All of it coming up at once, unstoppable, your whole body shaking with it while he held you against the wall and didn't let you fall.
"I love you," you sobbed into his neck, the words coming out in pieces. "I love you—I love you—"
"I know." His voice cracked on the second word. He was close. His lips pressed to your temple, your jaw, your wet cheek "I know, baby. I love you. I love you. I'm home."
He buried himself as deep as he could go, shaking, your name in his mouth like a prayer he'd been repeating for a month to keep himself moving forward.
He carried you to the bed eventually. Lay down with you still tangled against his chest, one hand moving slow up and down your back, the other tucked under his head.
"They really told you to prepare?"
"Three days ago."
He was quiet for a moment. His hand stilled on your back.
"They wouldn't tell me anything because I'm not—I'm not on any form. There's no box I fit in. I'm not—" You stopped. Felt your throat tighten again and breathed through it. "There's no paperwork that says I'm yours. So as far as they were concerned I was nobody and they owed me nothing."
Caleb didn't say anything. His chest rose and fell steadily.
"I need that to change"
"Okay," he said.
"I mean it, Caleb." You pushed yourself up onto your elbow and looked at him, his eyes were already on you. "I need it to actually change. Not someday. Not when things settle down or when the fleet rotation is easier or when we find a better time. I need—" your voice came out fierce and a little unsteady and you let it be both. "I need to be your wife. Legally. On every form and every document and every emergency contact line they have. I need there to be paperwork that says you're mine so that the next time someone tries to lock me out of a room where decisions are being made about your life, I can put it on their desk and they cannot say no to me."
He was very still.
"I'm not asking you to do something romantic," you said. "I'm not—this isn't about a ceremony or a dress or any of that, though I want all of that too, I do. I'm asking you because I spent a month being nobody to the people who had information about whether you were alive. I'm asking because I sat in this apartment with no legal right to know anything and I cannot do that again. I will not do that again."
Caleb looked at you for a long moment then he reached up and put his hand against the side of your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone.
"I've wanted to ask you, I kept waiting for the right moment."
"This is the right moment."
"You're proposing to me at four in the morning."
"I am."
The corner of his mouth pulled up. The first real version of his smile you'd seen since he walked through the door, the one that reached all the way up, the one that was so him it made your chest ache.
He pulled you back down against him, arms wrapping around you, lips pressing to the top of your head and staying there. "First thing tomorrow we go to the registration office. We fill out every form they have. We put your name on everything."
You pressed your face into his chest and closed your eyes, this time it wasn't to wait for a notification that never came.
