Trapped in the sky and his second-worst fear, Caleb had almost – almost – managed to content himself with watching the love of his life live hers as she saw fit, even if that meant tolerating her relationship with her mysterious new boyfriend. At least, that's what he'd convinced himself… until the day she strode onto that Fleet airstrip.
Now that she's within reach once more, Caleb is determined to never let her go again.
What he doesn't account for, however, is his own unexpected history with said boyfriend, and Sylus' firm belief that there are always more solutions than there are problems…
Or: The three of them find out that love is not a finite resource, and Sylus gets a puppy to match his kitten.
Word Count: 1.4k
Relationships: Sylus x MC, MC x Caleb, Sylus x Caleb, Sylus x MC x Caleb
Tags: Established Relationship (Sylus x MC), Slow Burn, Eventual Polyamory, NO Cheating, Third Person POV, Female MC, No use of Y/N, BDSM, Top/Dom Sylus, Bottom/sub MC, Switch Caleb (Caleb will top MC and Sylus will Dom them both eventually), Bondage, Stalking, Inappropriate use of Evol, Light Pet Play, Pseudo-Incest, Gege/Meimei, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Death and Rebirth spoilers, Canon Adjacent if not Compliant, Mild Suicidal Ideation
Series: Convalescence
A/N: AO3 shutting down made me re-consider the value of having my works in more than one place. As such, I'll be slowly cross-posting to Tumblr. Currently up to Chapter 20 on AO3.
Audio: SMOKE AND WATER [the chthonic mother], by Crywolf
Do not repost, translate, or feed to AI any of my works. Likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated 🖤
The tie-breaker, so to speak, not to mention her veritable breaking point, comes not two days later, a few hours after she leaves Jenna’s office with her new mission.
A request from the Fleet.
In two weeks.
A chance to finally get some answers…
Her pulse is fluttering in her mouth.
“We’ve done the flight simulator, the Kitty Cafe, the shooting range,” Caleb counts on his long, smooth fingers. “There was the bicycle by the river, the basketball game, all those tasty restaurants… What else do you do for fun these days, my dearest Meimei?” he asks, a perfectly innocent look on his face. They’re out for ice cream – his treat – despite the chill of late evening. “‘side from clubbin’ in dresses that look like they’ll turn you into a Pipsicle in this weather. Seriously, short stuff, I know you have perfectly good jackets. Whyyyy aren’t’cha usin’ ‘em?”
Her heart stutters at his layered attack, roused by the forbidden short joke and disarmed by the fact he’s found out about her growing collection of admittedly-scanty dresses, but the true final blow is his charming little pun.
“H-Hold on now,” she replies, clutching her cone. Triple-scooped and toweringly ridiculously. They’d made a pact to get all the weirdest flavours and rank every single one, licking at each other’s cones and giggling with each new twisted expression. Because that’s how they’ve always been. Because, even now, when it’s good things are good. “How do you know what I wear?”
Caleb flicks her forehead and she yelps. “Your laundry, duh. Every time I come over, your clothes are topplin’ out of the hamper. I figure I gotta do somethin’, or one day I’ll find you buried alive in a stinky cotton heap.”
She chokes. “Did you just call me stinky?!!” Oh my God. She launches at him, smacking him with her free hand. Her ice cream wobbles dangerously, quivering in the face of her embarrassment-induced outrage.
“Oi, oi!” he ducks out of range, light-footed even without his Evol to buoy his steps. “Mind the goods! Besiiiiiiiides, it’s not a bad kind of stink.” Her Gege shrugs. Playfully tosses his ash-brown strands away from his forehead. “‘S just yours, Pips. Oh, by the way, your cone is dripping. It’s gonna get aaaallllllllll over your clothes, and some of those flavours look like they’ll stain.”
“Don’t care!” she retorts, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “From now on, you’re banned from doing my laundry! Stupid, no, stinky Caleb!”
There’s a flash of that thing again, but it’s quickly subsumed by mischief. “And let you suffocate within a week?” he teases, skipping forward. “Nuh uhhh… Next thing I know, you’ll be cryin’ at 2AM, askin’ me how to get wine out of silk. When d’ya start liking wine, by the way? Thought you hated the stuff.”
The answer flashes through her mind, rich red liquid pairing with a sybaritic laugh, with the texture of callouses stroking her thighs and the slow-honey-drip of poetry read under a ripe-cherry moon. “Oh, uhh…”
Shit.
She really has had every intention of playing things close to the chest about her boyfriend, especially around her… well… her guard dog of a Gege, but Sylus has influenced her in so many little ways. Perhaps, it is because he is at home in the darkness that he so easily gilds her most shadowed corners; she hasn’t even noticed it, so naturally it’s happened. Which means that she is thoroughly unprepared for a response, right now.
And Caleb – damn him – is far too adept at her every expression to not catch her slip. “Ah.” His head cocks. A dog that’s caught the scent. “The boyfriend,” he concludes, correctly.
“Ughhhhh,” she tries to step back but it doesn’t matter: Caleb’s already caught her.
“Must be where those fancy wine glasses in your kitchen came from, hmmm?” he drawls. His eyes glow beneath the streetlamp, a cool indigo after dark, fixed on her as ever.
She doesn’t even bother to deny it. She shouldn’t waste effort on something so doomed to failure.
No, what she needs is to retreat.
Regroup.
“An entrepreneur in the… produce sector… who likes wine and drives a Porsche,” Caleb murmurs, stepping closer. Closing the distance she’s tried to put between them. “Does he buy you all those tiny dresses, too?” And he’s so tall – not as tall as Sylus, but enough to look down at her over the smooth line of his nose.
She lifts her chin defiantly. “Some of them,” she declares. “He lets me pick the ones I like.”
“Is that so?” He takes another step, voice lilting. He sounds just like every other time he’s teased her. And yet…
Something is whispering warnings in the back of her mind. Which is stupid. This is Caleb. Her Gege. The person she knows best in the world-
Not anymore, the voice says again, and there is something both thrilling and terrifying about that fact. And suddenly, she wants to run. To or from him, she doesn’t know.
But it doesn’t matter because, before she can take another step backwards, Caleb catches her again: this time, physically.
She sees his gaze trail over her face, down her arm to the hand holding the ice cream. Gaze downturned, his irises are shaded from the streetlamps, condensing into hungry voids.
It feels so wrong. Like seeing a true likeness for the first time, after a lifetime looking into a flipped reflection.
It also feels a little bit wonderful, that tension in the fingers that wrap around her wrist. Part of her – the part of her that is habit, that is deeply ingrained desire – wants to pull away, just to see how hard he’ll press down.
But then Caleb is tugging her, is leaning forward, lips parting, and-
There’s a hot, slick warmth on her hand, right where skin meets cone.
She nearly jumps out of her skin at the feel of his tongue, heart thudding ferociously, but his grip is like a vice. “W-What are you doing?”
“Careful,” he whispers huskily, lapping at the drips. He doesn’t lick her hand again, but she can feel the soft brush of his lips as he cleans the rest of her cone in broad, sweeping strokes. It sends shivers of awareness through her entire body. “That’s a cashmere sweater you’re wearing. I’m sure you don’t want to ruin it.”
“Oh,” she says faintly, and wonders where the air has all gone. “I didn’t know.” Her voice sounds small. Unlike her. “I just thought it was comfy.”
Caleb laughs at that, those voids fixed on her from beneath thick dark lashes. The sound is just shy of a sneer. “Such… unexpectedly expensive tastes, you have… Huh, Pips?” He gives a final lick of the ice cream – slow, almost meaningful – before releasing her.
She doesn’t move, though. Can’t.
This seems to amuse him. “Who went and grew up while I wasn’t watching, hmm?”
It’s a single crack, but it’s enough. To get her moving again. To remind her.
Not two years ago, and she might have cried with happiness. Obsessed over his touch, this moment, for weeks on end.
Now, though…
“Awww, thanks Ge.” It’s a gentle bitterness, the way she delivers it. Like a kiss, laced with poison. A pyrrhic victory. A murder suicide. “After all, I had to learn how to live without you.”
Watching his mask crumple is like watching a solar eclipse: at first, everything darkens so slowly, it's hardly noticeable at all. Warmth leeching from his features, sharpening his cheekbones as it leaves. Narrowing his eyes, pulling those perfect brows inward – microexpressions, really. But then the moon fully caps the sun, and suddenly the entire world goes dim.
It’s an eerie, unnatural thing. A kind of warning that aches the bone marrow, encoded in the parts of DNA that were sequenced long before the birth of most young stars. The kind that all of nature feels in silent chorus, breath bated, praying the moment will pass.
In the stark white of the streetlights, she sees it naked on his face: the hurt, the anger, the jealousy.
“Ha.” It’s not even close to a laugh: it’s a scoff, with his lips habitually curled into a smile.
Whether it's aimed at her or at himself, she can't tell.
But it's ugly.
It's sick.
It's honest.
Yet, the quiet prayer that slips from her lips is not one of fear…
It’s relief.
And she knows – oh, she knows, now – that she needs to talk to Sylus.
Trapped in the sky and his second-worst fear, Caleb had almost – almost – managed to content himself with watching the love of his life live hers as she saw fit, even if that meant tolerating her relationship with her mysterious new boyfriend. At least, that's what he'd convinced himself… until the day she strode onto that Fleet airstrip.
Now that she's within reach once more, Caleb is determined to never let her go again.
What he doesn't account for, however, is his own unexpected history with said boyfriend, and Sylus' firm belief that there are always more solutions than there are problems…Or: The three of them find out that love is not a finite resource, and Sylus gets a puppy to match his kitten.
Word Count: 3.7k
Relationships: Sylus x MC, MC x Caleb, Sylus x Caleb, Sylus x MC x Caleb
Tags: Established Relationship (Sylus x MC), Slow Burn, Eventual Polyamory, NO Cheating, Third Person POV, Female MC, No use of Y/N, BDSM, Top/Dom Sylus, Bottom/sub MC, Switch Caleb (Caleb will top MC and Sylus will Dom them both eventually), Bondage, Stalking, Inappropriate use of Evol, Light Pet Play, Pseudo-Incest, Gege/Meimei, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Death and Rebirth spoilers, Canon Adjacent if not Compliant, Mild Suicidal Ideation
Series: Convalescence
A/N: AO3 shutting down made me re-consider the value of having my works in more than one place. As such, I'll be slowly cross-posting to Tumblr. Currently up to Chapter 20 on AO3.
Audio: 505, by Arctic Monkeys
Do not repost, translate, or feed to AI any of my works. Likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated 🖤
“I’m not so easily threatened.” Recollection lends a faintly bitter cast to the words as Sylus reclines in the driver’s seat. The street is decently lit, but the place where he has parked gathers slightly more shadows than usual. He dwells in the silence, absorbing the darkness even as it absorbs him in return, while he waits…
Sylus does not consider himself to be an anxious creature, but he is a cautious one.
He’d learned long, long ago that being born at the very apex of the food chain and wielding enough power to rival a minor god just doesn’t cut it, sometimes.
That, sometimes, all it takes is one bad day and an idiot with a borrowed sword.
So, Sylus plans. Sylus prepares. Sylus makes the point of conducting a lot of business personally – an unusual habit for the leader of an underworld organisation. He finds people he can trust with the minor details, the aspects of his business he simply does not have enough time in the day for, and even then he checks and triple-checks.
It’s not an efficient business model, truth be told – the proof of that lay in how quickly Onychinus cannibalised itself while he was away – but he’s been punished for his carelessness too many times to allow for the slightest compromise of personal security.
Which is to say that, minutes after a certain individual hacked into the security feeds during Sylus’ date with his Hunter several months ago, Sylus knew about it.
Of itself, the event wasn’t remarkable – he has a lot of enemies and very few of them have truly novel ideas – but it had been strange.
After all, Sylus isn’t actually that involved with Skyhaven’s notorious Fleet. What could possibly have warranted one of their Colonels – specifically their new dark horse, about whom a good portion of the underworld was whispering about – to personally attempt to track his whereabouts?
That was what he couldn’t figure out.
So Sylus had done what any cautious man in his line of work would do: he stalked the man right back.
Only to find… nothing.
Caleb Xia – twenty-five, male, 188cms tall, and in possession of the gravity Evol – had suddenly appeared like a well-built apparition in the middle of last year and almost immediately had half of the Farspace Fleet on its knees, yet somehow nobody knew anything about him.
Oh, there were his obviously-faked records and resume, but they were to be expected. There were the reports of him being an amicable but incredibly ruthless superior, but those weren’t of interest. Apparently, the young man had genuine talent as a pilot, which was of interest – after all, Sylus cannot help but like, on sheer principle, any being who also loves the skies – but not of much use.
There was also the curious fact that, as far as Sylus had been able to tell, Colonel Xia wasn’t actually doing anything aside from watching him… or, well, attempting to.
Perhaps, it was the strangeness of it all that had kept him in the back of Sylus’ mind all this time. Well, that and his dogged consistency. The man had made constant hacking attempts – even going so far as to hack his darling Hunter’s phone as a means of gaining access to the Onychinus head… At least, that’s what Sylus had thought.
Until several weeks ago, when his kitten had disappeared without a word – though her destination had been pretty obvious, given the similarities of the Skyhaven explosion to the one she had barely survived – only to return extremely emotionally volatile and clutching the bewildering revelation that the new Colonel was, in fact, none other than her presumed-dead, formerly-adopted brother.
He’d been sitting there in the base, comforting her between sobs as she’d finally opened up about her childhood, about the feelings she’d been so obviously bottling up since the Bloomshore incident, when she’d managed the courage to show Sylus a picture. An ordinary selfie, taken not long before the explosion.
Needless to say, he’d been rather shocked to find the very same face that had been haunting his idle thoughts for months staring back at him from what was clearly a grocery aisle – Colonel Xia was undoubtedly softer in the picture, but still unmistakable…
Several people had been reprimanded severely that night.
After that little plot-twist, it’d become quite obvious that the Colonel’s interest had not been focused on Sylus, after all. But as to the type of interest he was so blatantly directing towards Sylus’ lover, as well as its extent… Not to mention his suspicious reappearance, and the kinds of backing and resources one might need to do what he’d done with the Fleet…
Sylus slides a coin from his pocket, flipping it across his knuckles idly. It winks as it catches stray light from a streetlamp.
He casts a heavy-lidded glance at the fourth storey window, which had conjured the Colonel’s silhouette not fifteen seconds after Sylus had parked. He’d stood there motionlessly, ever the naughty voyeur, until Sylus had drawn his huntress in for a kiss, at which he’d flinched back, jerking reflexively.
And obviously, Sylus had filed that reaction away but, if he's being perfectly honest, it isn’t actually Caleb Xia’s intentions that he's worried about.
No, it's hers.
It's the way she’ll sometimes peek at Sylus contritely even as eager fingers answer a call from her ‘Gege’. The way she’ll go from bouncingly enthusiastic to awkward and floundering in the middle of recounting some story from her teenage years, about all the girls and boys and in-betweens she’d had to fend off of her flawless older brother. The way her eyes had shifted as they left the club that Friday, when he’d expressed his desire to meet said mysterious brother of hers, her gaze becoming heavy.
Sylus has been watching humans for ages.
He didn’t even need his eye to recognise the weight that lowered her lids, to know that his ever-greedy kitten has some very complex feelings about her pseudo-sibling, this Caleb Xia.
And maybe if this had happened before, back when they’d met as enemies and not lovers, Sylus might actually have considered gracefully giving way to them both and slipping back into the shadows that had borne him.
After all, the sacred yet profane entwining of their souls results in Sylus being uniquely inclined to give her everything she desires. Means that her happiness is genuinely his happiness.
However…
However…
That was then, and this is now. Now, after an eternity without, Sylus finally knows the contentment of being whole once more. Finally, he has his beloved in his arms…
And unless she outright decries him, unless she beats and rebukes and banishes him, Sylus… well…
He snatches the coin from the air with sure fingers.
Sylus does not intend to relinquish her easily.
This… must be some special kind of torment, she thinks. There is proof of hell’s existence, and it is that she is currently trapped in it.
Between the rock: her Caleb, her Gege, also the last person she wants to see right now (well, discounting the instinctive jump of her pulse and the giddy weightlessness, partly a courtesy of his Evol but mostly the elation that he’s alive… he’s alive…).
And then, there’s the hard place, the catalyst for her complicated emotions: also known as Sylus Qin or her boyfriend.
Because she knows that all she needs to do is pull out her phone – heck, if she yells out there’s a good chance Mephisto is present and able to hear her – and Sylus will immediately drop whatever business he’s supposed to be attending to come and rescue her.
But that will also require explaining, see, and she has been doing her absolute best over the last few weeks in particular to avoid explaining. Shit, she’s been doing a semi-successful job of not thinking, either.
As successful as she can be, at least, when her rock in particular seems determined to show up at the most random of times. It’s like she’s a pond and Caleb the stone that refuses to let the silt clear. To let her muddy feelings filter quietly to the bottom and settle where they belong.
Ge, I have a boyfriend… Just the thought of saying it makes her choke up, because beneath it she can hear the echo of her former self saying, selfishly, “Caleb, you can’t get a girlfriend.”
And Caleb, her beautiful, dutiful twin, had stayed true to his promise.
Then he’d fucking died.
He’d died, and she hadn’t even lasted the traditional year-long mourning period before seeking (and finding) solace in the arms of another man. To say nothing of the fact that her boyfriend is a fucking crime lord, a crime lord she was too busy fucking the entire weekend to spare a single thought for the not-brother who’d miraculously reappeared barely a month ago and- “Caleb,pleaseputmedownpleaseI’mbeggingyou.”
There’s real distress in her voice now.
Caleb startles at it, immediately tossing the tongs aside to catch her in his arms as his gravity releases its hold on her, and it’s crazy how he’s changed so much and yet he smells the same, feels the same. “Hey, Pips, you okay?” he asks worriedly, a line splitting his fine brow.
She takes a breath to steady herself, but it only smells more like him, him, him, and- “I’m serious,” she coughs out, looking anywhere but him. “I really did leave something downstairs.”
My sanity and my chill, she thinks, so technically it’s not a lie.
She feels Caleb tense beneath her, fingers flexing against her almost painfully. His voice is light, but flat around the edges when he says: "Porsche owners are working as drivers these days? Mannn, the economy in Linkon must be worse than I realised."
Oh, fuck…
And just like that, her last desperate resort – the possibility of five minutes to catch her breath in the fresh air – is gone.
She’s been caught lying between her teeth.
Now, all she can do is take her punishment on the chin like a good girl. Or, at very minimum, a bad girl trying to be better.
That’s what she resolves, at least, but it almost immediately crumbles as she imagines the look on his face. Ge, I have a-
She winces. Leans into his broad chest, trying to breathe evenly.
“I’m sorry,” she says dismally. “I’m sorry… But… Can you just… ignore it? Just for a little bit?”
There’s a flash of something in his daybreak eyes. She watches him calculate quietly.
Then the sun dawns over the horizon, and Caleb is smiling brightly. Pinching her cheek in a way that makes her yelp. “Ugh, you lil rascal… You know I can’t resist when you make pouty faces at me.” He sighs dramatically, “Alrighty then… one get-out-of-interrogation voucher coming up, valid untillllll…” There’s a hum as he thinks. “After dinner? Come on, Pips, whatd’ya think? Food’s getting cold.”
The promise of a reprieve, even temporary, is immediately calming. The promise of chicken wings helps, too.
She’s not even finished nodding before Caleb is gently setting her down by the sink. “Can you wash your hands?” he asks, “Or should I?”
As a teenager, the question would have irked her to the point of stomping and sulking: “Well, duh, Ge, I’m not a kid…”
As a currently exhausted adult with many responsibilities, however… the offer is a little too tempting.
“I can do it,” she tells him.
Caleb just bobs his head in acknowledgement, already bustling about the kitchen as he retrieves new tongs to serve up. He’s made multiple dishes, she realises as she lathers the soap. They’re all her favourites, too.
Which is amazing and delicious but…
“How…” There’s a moment of hesitation: she's a little afraid of his answer, afraid of what hearing it will do to her right now, even though she already knows. She licks her lips anyway. “How long have you been here?” she asks.
Her Gege pauses. Pops another charming smile as he wags a finger at her. “Nuh uh, princess. We just agreed that dinner is truce time. That means no interrogations from either of us, mmkay?”
She huffs a soft laugh, which makes him reach out and poke her cheek. She swats back at him. Misses.
And it’s annoyingly impressive, how he manages to dodge her attacks, even half-hearted ones, without spilling a single morsel of food from the plate he’s holding. “That’s enough from you,” Caleb scolds playfully. “Get your cute butt to the dining table… Unless you have a thing for eating off the floor.”
She stumbles mid-step at that, heat flooding her cheeks. Coughs, before awkwardly resuming her journey, silently hoping he doesn’t notice anything.
Caleb, on his part, has absolutely noticed. He cocks his head, turning over the little interaction in his mind. Was it… too much? He’d known that calling her butt cute might be toeing the line a bit, especially given how she’s been reacting lately to the more… ambiguous things he says and does, but still…
Huh.
He doesn’t know what exactly has caused the change because, before, something like that would’ve gone right over her pretty little head, but it has been enjoyable. Watching her finally react to him, that is. He likes seeing the fluster, the way she can’t quite meet his gaze the way she used to, the way she’s constantly shifting towards him before lurching right back…
The fact that this change might also have something to do with her boyfriend is intentionally ignored – it wouldn’t do to spoil his appetite.
Instead, Caleb sets down the dishes, all within easy distance, neatly arranging the foods in the order he suspects she’ll reach for them. Then takes his seat adjacent to her, to make it easier to feed her if the chance arises. He doesn’t expect it will, but still…
They eat.
She reaches for the foods he predicted, piling generous heapings onto her plate with her chopsticks. Caleb watches approvingly, gauging the distribution of macros, before adding a few more things of his own.
She gives him a mild pout, which makes him laugh. “What’s that look, huh? Hunters need to eat their veggies too, you know.” He refrains from the easy short joke – it yields a fairly consistent response, but he doesn’t want to prod any sore spots, not even as a joke, in her current mood.
It’s easy to see that she’s nervous, that she’s not entirely happy that he’s surprised her like this, but Caleb won’t let that phase him. Because underneath the anxiety, he can see her relaxing in his presence. His baby girl goin’ all soft and soupy in the middle as she groans with delight over each new mouthful.
“It’s stupid how good of a cook you are, Ge,” she says for what must be the thousandth time, pointing her chopsticks in his direction. It was a pretty common phrase back when they still lived together. “You should just open up a restaurant already. Do it here, in Linkon, and I’ll eat there everyday.”
I don’t wanna cook for anybody else, is what Caleb thinks.
“Awwwwww, thanks, Pipsqueak! But, y’know, if I did that, I’d go broke from all the free meals you’d be gettin’, ‘cuz there’s no way I’d charge you,” is what Caleb says, instead.
Carefully, carefully, always so carefully… Editing his thoughts in real-time. Buffing away his edges so that when he wraps around her, she’s swaddled in absolute comfort. Studying her every action, so he can optimise his reaction.
And it works – he can see the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and he hasn’t even served himself but he already feels so full.
He can also see something brewing behind her eyes as they eat. A question, maybe. Or an answer to one.
Maybe tonight will go easier than he’d thought.
But she doesn’t speak, even as dinner ends. Just silently starts collecting the soiled dishware.
“I’ve got it,” he stands, reaching for her wrist, but she moves out of reach.
“Nuh uh,” she insists. “Not when you spent who-knows-how-many hours cooking.”
“It wasn’t that many!” he protests, stepping forward, reaching out again.
She fixes him with a narrowed look. “Yeah?” she challenges, and he feels a flash of something tingly as her tone deepens with warning. “When did you get here then, Ge? Hmm? What time did you arrive in Linkon?”
Caleb blinks. In that split-second, he calculates. When his eyes open, he sees the path they will take. He smiles at her gently, letting it fall short a millimeter or so. "Well,” he delays deliberately, drawing the answer out. Makes a show of scratching his head. “I got an unexpected day off work, sooooo... around 11AM?"
He watches her face fall as she glances at her watch. Then back to him. Carefully monitors the guilt creeping back – he only requires a little to get what he needs, he doesn’t want to hurt her. “Caleb, you can’t be serious,” she says, in that way that means she wishes she doesn’t believe him. “That’s… that’s over seven hours.”
Caleb shrugs helplessly. It’s not like he hadn’t expected it, not when he’d realised who she’d decided to let occupy her weekend. It’s not like he hadn’t planned for it.
Frankly, he’d thought the boyfriend would take longer to relinquish her. He certainly would have, if their positions were switched.
There’s a regretful look in her eyes at that. Exasperation, too.
She makes up her mind, then. “Caleb Xia… I swear…” She gestures towards him threateningly, “If you touch even one dirty dish, so help me, you’re toast. Do you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answers automatically, stepping back to allow her passage through the kitchen, before following her into the space.
She dumps the dishes in the sink before turning to look at him suspiciously. “What are you doing?” she asks.
He grins, “If I’m not allowed to touch dirty dishes, I guess that means I’m on drying duty, yeah?”
He gets thumped for that, a deliberate enough blow to his mechanical right bicep that he can actually feel a small shock of pain. Which, in turn, sends a frisson of pleasure through him. “Ow, brutal!” Caleb gasps, tracing the spot with his good hand. “That hurt, you know!”
“Yeah? Well, you deserved it!” she defends, and he can’t help but agree.
Do it again, he pleads silently.
She doesn’t.
Instead, she turns back to the dishes and, as she goes about the task, he can see it happening again: the guilt cutting through the haze of her food high, through the buffer of irritation inspired by their bickering.
It’s okay, he tells it. Just a little longer…
She’s almost done when he hears it: a quiet “I’m sorry.”
It sounds gritty, plucked from a dehydrated throat, but it’d probably be ill-advised to get her a glass of water right now. “Ooooh?” Caleb draws out. “What are you sorry for, Pipsqueak?”
He doesn’t miss the way her fingers tense, the three fast little breaths she draws before sighing. “I'm sorry for missing your call," she eventually says. Corrects herself: “Well, for rescheduling, actually, and then not following through.” And she can’t even look at him when she finishes with: “I know you must have been… worried.”
And Caleb can’t help but feel a little awful for what he’s doing. Because he can hear it, how the thickness in her voice betrays the weight of her empathy, how it is coloured by her own experience with grief. It’s okay, he soothes her silently. Himself, too. You can punish me later.
He pitches his voice to easy and smooth. “Don’t worry about it,” Caleb tells her, leaning over to ruffle her hair. Not too much, not enough to irritate her. No, just a bit of pressure to keep it comforting. Brotherly. “What matters to me is that I know you’re safe now.”
And it hits her the way he expects it to: devastatingly.
She lets out a little sigh that is very nearly a sob, and all he wants is to take her in his arms and kiss it better, but he can’t…
Not yet, Caleb tells himself. He’s been patient this long. He can be patient a little longer.
Her hands are shaking, and he knows that this next part is going to be the most delicate. Right now, he's got her primed in that perfect sweet spot where the desire for penitence will make her spill nearly anything. But if he pushes too hard, she’ll shatter and, frankly, he’d rather have his good arm blown off as well then let that happen.
So Caleb carefully – so very carefully – pretends like he didn’t notice her reaction. Perks up obviously, visibly adjusting his posture, switching right back to teasing when he asks, “Soooo... Who was that outside, then?"
The trick is that he can’t sound too casual – they’ve lived together for most of their lives, and she’s all too aware of his… well, she’d call it protectiveness. On an honest day, Caleb would call it jealousy.
But he also can’t be too overbearing, either.
No, what he needs is to let his Meimei think all her anxious-worst-case-scenario thoughts and then, when he doesn’t react as terribly as she’s expecting, ride the overwhelming relief until he’s gotten the information he needs.
Don’t get ahead of yourself, he scolds.
Back to the present, and his shifty, nervy princess. “Who… do you mean?” she asks, the question a touch breathy at the end.
Caleb laughs. Keeps it light. “Your ‘taxi driver’, Meimei. Who else?”
He sees her shoulders tense, hard, hands gripping a bowl so tight he’s amazed it isn’t cracking beneath the force, and for a second he wonders if it was too much.
If he needs to walk it back, stat.
But then the guilt wins, and she’s sighing resignedly before saying: “Ugh… Okay, fine.” The reluctance in her tone is thick. “I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to get mad."
And he’s not supposed to know anything, so Caleb tilts his head. Blinks innocently at her. "Why would I get mad?"
She shoots him a glare then, and he bites back a smile. “Just promise!” she snaps.
He lifts his hands in surrender, settling in. "Okay, okayyy,” he croons. “I promise."
She glances down at her hands. Then back at him, before settling on her hands. “Ge, so I…” she swallows. And even though Caleb hates the words that are about to come out of her mouth, he’s proud of her for being brave enough to admit them. “I... have a… boyfriend...”
Trapped in the sky and his second-worst fear, Caleb had almost – almost – managed to content himself with watching the love of his life live hers as she saw fit, even if that meant tolerating her relationship with her mysterious new boyfriend. At least, that's what he'd convinced himself… until the day she strode onto that Fleet airstrip.
Now that she's within reach once more, Caleb is determined to never let her go again.
What he doesn't account for, however, is his own unexpected history with said boyfriend, and Sylus' firm belief that there are always more solutions than there are problems…
Or: The three of them find out that love is not a finite resource, and Sylus gets a puppy to match his kitten.
Word Count: 2k
Relationships: Sylus x MC, MC x Caleb, Sylus x Caleb, Sylus x MC x Caleb
Tags: Established Relationship (Sylus x MC), Slow Burn, Eventual Polyamory, NO Cheating, Third Person POV, Female MC, No use of Y/N, BDSM, Top/Dom Sylus, Bottom/sub MC, Switch Caleb (Caleb will top MC and Sylus will Dom them both eventually), Bondage, Stalking, Inappropriate use of Evol, Light Pet Play, Pseudo-Incest, Gege/Meimei, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Death and Rebirth spoilers, Canon Adjacent if not Compliant, Mild Suicidal Ideation
Series: Convalescence
A/N: AO3 shutting down made me re-consider the value of having my works in more than one place. As such, I'll be slowly cross-posting to Tumblr. Currently up to Chapter 20 on AO3.
Audio: Waiting Game, by BANKS
Do not repost, translate, or feed to AI any of my works. Likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated 🖤
“Soooo, I don’t think I caught your boyfriend’s name?” Caleb asks ever so casually on Tuesday evening, using his little mallet to bat the puck towards her goal.
They’d absolutely flayed the claw machines, stripping the dastardly coin sinks of their precious plushie treasures so hard that they’d had to call it before a store member accused them (maybe rightfully so, considering the way some of those toys had mysteriously stabilised in the claw’s wobbly grip) of cheating.
Instead, they’d decided to check out the other arcade games. She’d known better than to let Caleb thrash her at the basketball toss (why hand him a certain victory?), which meant they’d inevitably ended at the air hockey tables.
“Take THIS!” She pretends not to hear him as she moves to defend, a battle cry tearing itself from her chest as she sends the puck ricocheting down the sides of the table.
The extra time is enough for him to perfectly calculate its trajectory, pilot instincts kicking in, and he has his hand in place long before the little disc reaches him.
But that’s what she wants, see – “By the way,” she begins offhandedly – for him to let his guard down so that, when he bats the puck towards her in a too-relaxed straight shot, she’s ready for him with a blow so precise, so savage, she seriously contemplates asking somebody for the footage. “Did I tell you that Gideon called me the other day?” she finishes cleanly, “It was nice. I kinda missed him.”
Apparently, Sylus seems to be rubbing off on her, because it does exactly what she intends it to do.
The puck disappears into Caleb’s goal with a thunk and a clatter, and she lets out an exaggerated whooping cheer, delighting in the shock-and-something-else on her Ge’s pretty dummy face. Got him.
He recovers quickly.
“Woah, Pips!” Her not-brother exclaims, convalescing into an excited grin, purple eyes blinking with pride, “Shoulda known you were keeping a move up your sleeve, you lil sharp-shooter!” And she marvels at how, despite the fact that he’s so used to constantly winning at everything – because of course he is, her Gege the golden boy – he places the metaphorical crown on her head like it’s his default setting. Like it’s only natural.
She likes it, avaricious thing that she is, basking in her all-round victory: she’s not nearly as accustomed to winning over Caleb as Caleb is losing to her, not when she’s spent her entire life feeling like he has the answers to questions she doesn’t even know to ask.
But she thinks of Gran, thinks of the files Zayne served her with a soft condolatory tone, thinks of the practised way her Gege’s chapped-yet-incomprehensibly-inviting lips had formed around the words ‘Aether core’ in that cold interrogation room she’ll likely never forget.
And thinks that, maybe, she’s starting to figure out some of those questions.
For now, though, she’ll be content with this rare win: Sylus safely shielded from Caleb’s attention as her twin sun spends the rest of their evening coaxing information about her call with Gideon out of her deliberately obtuse mouth.
Unfortunately, a single battle does not, a war of attrition, win. And her not-brother is weirdly excellent at playing the long game.
It goes a little something like this, with Caleb asking, “What does your boyfriend do for work, then?” during a game of Kitty Cards.
She’s forced him to skip an Assist Turn, laying down an orange six in a matching cup that doubles her points.
She has it in the bag, she’s all but certain: there’s only one more space left, and she’s 26 points ahead.
“Ge,” she warns, gaze narrowing at his question.
To which Caleb just pouts, serving the most devastating puppy eyes.
They should be banned, she thinks. After all, this is a Kitty Cafe.
Seriously, where is the manager at times like these? Also: wow, Sylus really is influencing her.
“Come onnnnn,” he sings, picking up his newest Assist card. And it’s then that she realises that, while Caleb now has five Assist cards, she only has two Meow This! cards. Fuck. “You have to tell me something about him that isn’t vague deflection. Otherwise, I’ll be forced to assume there’s something shady about him.”
It’ll be fine, she tells herself, tracing the edges of her cards nervously. I’ve got the win, as long as he doesn’t have like… three Bye-Byes, or something crazy. “Ugh, okay,” she concedes. Because, in the end, the goal is for them to get along. Or, at very minimum, keep them from each other’s throats. “He’s… a businessman.”
It’s a shocking thing to even have to consider: Caleb and genuine violence. But she’d seen what he’d done to that Fleet member. The cold exactitude of his tarmac execution had been a far cry from the days he spent defending her from sidewalk bullies.
When she thinks of what her not-brother might do if he knew the details of her introduction to the N109 zone, she has to suppress a shudder.
Caleb raises an eyebrow. “A ‘businessman’? Really, Pipsqueak? I thought the point was to make him sound less shady.”
“He’s not shady!” she denies, perhaps a little quickly. “He’s an entrepreneur!”
He gives her a knowing look, an amused smile curling across his gorgeous face as he puts down a Kitty Plot.
And oof... But it’ll be fine, right?
She counters with a Meow This.
“Right, rightttt…” Caleb teases, countering with his own Meow This. “As in an actual entrepreneur, or one of those ‘middling-talent-offset-by-a-secret-trust-fund’ types?”
And she can’t even pay due attention to his apparent aptitude for mean remarks (that ‘bauble grows a brain’ comment still circles in her thoughts, sometimes), because rude! From what Sylus had told her, her boyfriend had started out with nothing. And sure, his methods of growing his considerable – downright excessive, if she’s being honest – wealth weren’t exactly legal, but she’d heard enough on the streets in the N109 zone to know that things were far, far worse before Sylus wrested some control from the chaos.
“He’s an actual entrepreneur, thank you very much,” she replies, adding mentally: He just… an entrepreneur who also happens to be super shady. And probably never pays his taxes. But whatever, right? Nobody’s perfect.
When she puts her second Meow This down, and Caleb doesn’t produce another, she exhales with relief. Thank fuck.
“Okayyyy,” her Gege raises a thick, dark eyebrow. “So what does he do, then?”
She holds his gaze reluctantly. Sighs. “...Fruit,” she mumbles quietly, head pitching forward. She can’t look at him when she says it, colour flushing her cheeks as she remembers the ridiculous backstory her boyfriend had come up with. Had told her coworkers, no less, without an ounce of shame.
“What was that?” her not-brother croons obnoxiously, “You were bein’ too quiet.”
She sighs again, “I said-”
But then he puts down another card, this one a Bye-Bye, and her mouth can only hang uselessly as he follows up with a Magic Paw and a Paw Combo.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” she says, too stunned for any kind of eloquent retaliation. Her colour-matched four gets reduced to a measly two points total, leaving her at only eight points ahead…
Which Caleb immediately rectifies, laying down an orange three and doubling it, before placing a green four in the final white cup.
“Read it and weep, Pipsqueak!” he announces his two point lead with a flourish, teeth flashing in a positively-pearlescent shit-eating grin. “A classic Caleb win!”
His eyes, untouched by his smile, linger a little too long.
His next move comes on an unseasonably balmy Wednesday afternoon, all blue skies and sunny expressions. “I mean… How’d you even meet him?”
And she knows for sure what’s happening now. Knows she hasn’t been imagining it. How being with Caleb is just like always – as easy as breathing, like napping in a summer sunbeam – until the topic of her boyfriend clouds her Gege’s eyes.
It sets her teeth in a hard line, anxiety grinding down because shit, she’d hoped, but it’s fine.
It’s fine.
This is just another version of the game they’ve been pretending not to play for most of their lives.
A game of chicken.
Of ‘will he, won’t she’s.
And while she may not be very good at winning, she knows she can’t lose as long as she doesn’t acknowledge it.
The river scintillates as she looks out over it, glitter that very nearly passes for gold in the light. “Oh, nothing too crazy,” she deflects. “A guy at a club was giving me a bit of grief, and he stepped in to help out. It developed from there, I guess.”
It’s absurd, really, to sum up her first meeting with Sylus in such a way. All that terror and confusion mutilated and reshaped until it looks like something else.
She wonders if this is how Caleb feels when he lies to her, stripping back the gory details like it’s a taxidermy project, replacing bone and gristle with sterile plastic until the only thing left is skin stretched over a poor facsimile of the truth.
She wonders if it feels as lonely for him as it does for her now. Wonders what he does with the entrails, if he no longer has use for organic things that rot.
She loves him so much it hurts.
Enough to keep the quietest part quiet: When you died, it felt like I’d gone with you… And: Sylus gave me the desire to live again.
“A guy was bothering you?” Her Gege’s tone is edged as it can be. Tight and serious, in a way she’s only heard a scant few times and, most of those, recently.
The thought of it, how he’s changed, how maybe he actually hasn’t, makes her angry all over again.
“What does he look like? Did you catch his name?”
A laugh bubbles in her chest at the absurdity, but she tamps it down. What is she supposed to say, after all? Sorry, Ge, but he’s already dead. My criminal boyfriend didn’t even deign to leave the bones behind after literally dusting the creep.
“Oh?” she asks, sharpening her smile right before she aims it at his throat. “What are you gonna do about it, Colonel?” Her voice dips mockingly, almost cruelly. “Track him down and teach him a lesson?”
And she sees it, then: the flash of the thing in her not-brother’s eyes. The darkness that seems to live behind his sunny smile, now. Has always lived there, according to him.
“I always held back and endured. Day, after day, after day. It was suffocating…”
He flusters at her question, at the trap that is her counterattack.
Who are you, Caleb?
Her Gege, that she knows for sure, but… who else? How much else?
For a brief second, she hopes that he’ll tell her. Hopes that the answer won’t break her completely…
…But no matter how she’s improved at this game, he’s been playing for much longer. His mouth presses into a thin line as he gazes out over the city. When he looks back, though, he’s back to smiling.
Back to her wholesome older brother, sweet as an apple.
Cyanide in the seeds buried in his chest.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter, huh,” he says, ruffling her hair. “Sounds like you taught him a lesson.”
And fuck, he’s so fucking frustrating!
She has to restrain the urge to bite him. Sink her teeth through his pale, smooth flesh until his blood covers her teeth, coats her tongue. And even then, it’s unfair. How the desire to hurt him cuts both ways – like sawing off her own arm – even when he deserves it.
“My grown-up Meimei, Hunter Extraordinaire," Caleb continues, obliviously. Or, at least, she thinks so – she can hardly tell, anymore.
She smiles back at him, just as sweet. Teeth aching. “You better believe it!” she insists.
In the back of her mind, the words echo: “But now, I’m tired of playing these games.”
