Crazy Like Me->Part Four
Caleb x Non MC x MC
TW:
angst, hurt/comfort, unrequited love, infatuation, mental health issues, self depreciation, self-esteem issues, self image issues, trust issues, history of toxic relationships, family issues, heavily implied borderline personality disorder, favorite person, mental breakdowns, more tags to be added, smut, oral sex, caleb eats pussy like he's made for it, MDNI
Tag List:
@aiycnlyme
Vibe:
The Cure by Olivia Rodrigo Hit The Wall by Gracie Abrams I Love You, I'm Sorry by Gracie Abrams Dashboard by Noah Kahan Willing and Able by Noah Kahan
Summary:
He came into your life like the summer breeze he smells of--brief, welcome and warm. He came at a time when you needed someone most. He is like you, you think. Understands what it's like to be unstable in a way you never asked for. Unfortunately, he was never yours to hold for too long. He would always belong to her.
Ongoing || Oneshot->4/10
Word Count: 4300
1->2->3
AO3 because Idk what's going on with the links
For whatever reason, he stayed.
You prepared for the inevitable downfall and the space he would leave behind in your life when he would eventually realize that you're too much. Just as you've always been told. But he never ran from you and your intensity. If anything he ran towards you at full speed. Something that you learned quickly is that he's just as intense as you are. Not in his emotions but in the way he lives life. In the way he protects those who matter to him. You saw it up close and personal when your sister got married and you weren't invited, but Jeremiah was. While it shouldn't have hurt as much as it did, it still made something deep inside you fracture. And Caleb was there through it all. He was there to catch you when you tripped or fell and he was there to put all your jagged, broken pieces back into place every time one of them got loose.
It was easy to imagine a life with him. Especially when nine times out of ten—you wake up in his bed. Telling yourself that it was just sex and that friends-with-benefits is a thing that exists never seemed to help. Eventually you would watch him laugh a little too hard or admire the way the muscles in his back tense when he makes you breakfast the morning after. And suddenly you're a stay-at-home mom of three. You can picture your life with him so perfectly it borders on delusional. But then reality comes rushing in hard and fast.
Caleb lights up every room he walks into. He's the life of every party and everyone's best friend. People seem to gravitate towards him in a way you would never understand. But that wasn't exclusive to just him. You noticed that even his sister has that effect. And it's not hard to see why so many people like her. She's young and carefree. She's stunning and sweet. She is everything that you could never hope to be. Because no matter how many times you're introduced at a social gathering, you are always looked over. No one can even remember your name. And it slowly begins to click that you are nothing more than an afterthought where Caleb and Marlee are the highlights. The main event.
He never introduces you as anything other than his friend. Which should be fine. Would be fine. It is fine. Because you aren't even dating him. You're not exclusive and you know that. But it still hurts when he brings you to a New Years party and instead of kissing you at midnight—it's her. You play it off when he asks you what's wrong, because of course you do. What other choice do you have? There is no reality in which you can tell him that you're completely, irrevocably in love with him. You can't possibly tell him that you watch your phone for his texts and calls when you're apart or that you sleep in the shirt he left at your apartment. That would make things weird. He would see you for the mentally unstable mess that you are and leave your life so fast it would be like he was never there to begin with.
It doesn't matter that he's stuck with you for breakdown after breakdown. Or that he's talked you out of some very questionable decisions. It doesn't even matter that he's seen your impulsivity and rapid cycle mood swings first hand. Because telling him how much it hurts seeing the way he looks at Marlee is so different from the way he looks at you it gives you whiplash would be a death sentence. You would rather suffer in silence than risk losing him completely.
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A year almost to the day since you met him. Since he spun your life on its head and changed the trajectory. Oh, how things have changed in the span of a year. You used to be shy and not know how to speak around him. Used to trip over your words and get so tongue-tied it was embarrassing. Now he has exclusive access to your every quirk and whimsy. He dances with you in the pouring rain and sings every song you know by heart with you. It was so disgustingly easy to fall in love with him it feels like fate. Like he was placed in your life to show you what love is meant to look like and be that light at the end of your never ending dark tunnel. When your life was stuck on survival mode, he was brought in to show you what it's like to live again. At least that's what it feels like.
So, instead of telling him any of this—he has your back against the wall with your legs strung over his shoulders. His hands hold your thighs in place like you weight nothing and they shake in his palms. With his face buried between your legs, he flattens his tongue to lick a long stripe through your center. A pleased hum escaping him vibrates through your skin. Your palms press against the wall above you. Fingers trying to grip on to something that isn't there. Sure, you've been intimate before now. You've had lovers and the like. But none of them have felt like this. Caleb makes it feel less like a chore and more of an experience. Won't even dare let you touch him until you've came at least twice. And one of them has to be with his tongue alone. It's no wonder you fell in love with him so fast, so easily. When every day spent with him feels like sunshine and sex feels like your floating in space.
You were taught that the only thing you're good for is what your body has to offer. You learned that when you were young. It's really no surprise that you fell in line so quickly. Neither of you knows who made the first step, but you have a lucky guess as to who it was. Because it would be a cold day in hell if you ever got the courage to say something to him. So, you enjoy the ride as it comes. Soaking up every bit of sunshine he has to offer.
When you bring a fist to your mouth, biting down on a knuckle to stifle the moans that roll of your tongue, he pulls your arm down. Looks at you like he's starving and only you can fill him. Ironic, considering the fact that when his cock does come into play he fills you so completely you all but deflate once he pulls out. You're not some tiny, little thing. You have some meat on your bones and the way he can so easily hold you up against the wall by your thighs makes you a little breathless. Or maybe it's the way his tongue laps at your pussy from the bottom to the top. His tongue flicks over your clit every so often. Making you squirm and your breath hitch. The walls of his penthouse are cold against your too warm skin. But it serves as a nice contrast with his hot breath fanning across your cunt.
Before, being intimate with your partners felt like a chore. Like something you had to do to keep them interested. It was something you enjoyed, sure. But it also became more of just something you did to make them happy. It lost all meaning long ago. Your body hardly feels like your own anymore at this point. If you were honest with yourself, you initially had sex with Caleb to keep him tethered to you in the beginning. To keep him in your orbit. Too scared that the closer he gets the more he's likely to make a run for it. In reality, the sex just made everything more complicated than it needed to be. Still, when he looks up at you from between your thighs, through half-lidded eyes? It feels like maybe you have a chance. Like you're the only thing he sees. His tongue swirls around your clit, just the way he knows you like so much. You're not stupid. You know that with every suck to your clit and every lap of your cunt that it's not you that he sees. Not really. He's thinking of someone else. Sees her in your place when he hums against your clit and sends vibrations through your every nerve.
His fingers grip your thighs tighter when your back arches against the wall. When your eyes shut and an almost pained moan slips free. Caleb knows your body all too well now. He's taken the time to learn you the way one does a new language. He's patient and eager. Knows all the phrases to say to make you squirm and all the places to touch that makes you slick between the thighs. One could say that he's a master in the art of you. You know that his fingers will leave bruises behind. That you'll have to cover them somehow so that way Jeremiah doesn't scold you like a mother does a young child. Reminding you of all the reasons you need to stop sleeping with Caleb. But does it really matter when his lips seal over your clit and sucks so delicately? Your body decides for you when your hips roll forward.
With breaths that come short and sharp, your hips roll to match the rhythm he sets with his tongue. Rolling and grinding into his mouth in perfect time with the pace he set. Lightning licks up the base of your spine with every flick of his tongue and every suck of your clit. Opening your eyes, you can see your arousal dripping down his chin as he flattens his tongue against you and the corners of his mouth curl into a smirk. If he wasn't so devastatingly attractive with that smirk you would have grown to hate it. His eyes flash up to meet yours from under his lashes as his tongue licks one long strip up your center. Your stomach flips and you can feel the coil of pleasure tighten even more in your abdomen.
His penthouse has been filled with the wet sounds of his mouth and tongue working your soaked pussy and your high moans for the better part of an hour or two. You've already came once from his fingers. But he decided that wasn't enough. Mixing with soft gasps and groans every now and then when his tongue curls just right around your clit. Which he proceeds to do. Making your eyes flutter shut and a low moan escape your throat. Hushed murmurs of his name over and over again when he resumes flicking his tongue over your clit in the same rhythm his name leaves your mouth. Without thinking, your fingers slide into his hair. Tugging and playing with the chocolate strands now laced with sweat. Caleb hums and moans against your sensitive skin with every tug. Letting you know that he enjoys when you play with his hair.
Caleb eats pussy like it's his last meal and he's starving. He does this every single time he has your pussy in his mouth. You're not used to being worshipped in any capacity. But, fuck, if you don't adore it when it comes from him. It doesn't even matter how in love with him you are or that the only time you think he might feel the same is the mornings after he makes you shatter over and over again. You could die happy, you think. Could live the rest of your life with him just like this. You haven't even noticed how much louder your moans have gotten. Or the fact that your fingers have tightened in his hair. Nails lightly digging into his scalp with one final lap at your clit. Your vision goes white and stars burst behind your eyes. Pleasure so consuming crashes over you in wave after wave. And Caleb drinks all of you in. He laps at your release like he's dying of thirst. Like he's been scouring the dessert for water to find the most delicious ambrosia he's ever tasted. Thighs shaking and back bowing off the wall—you cry out his name.
Your climax hits you hard as you release into his waiting mouth and eager tongue.
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You avoid Jeremiah's eyes like your life depends on it. You avoid talking about much of anything with him if you can help it. Because any and all conversation leads back to what you're doing with Caleb. And you know it isn't healthy. You know it's not good for you to keep doing this. Sleeping with him every time he so much as looks at you with his mouth twisted into a smirk. And while you know Jeremiah is coming from a place of care and concern, because he knows how you can be, you would rather not hear how you're only setting yourself up to be hurt.
It's been a month since the last time you were intimate with Caleb. Since the last time he looked at you with hazy, half-lidded eyes. But you know it's for the best that it hasn't happened again. Because it was never you that he's seeing. It's never you that he's looking at or your name he groans out when he finally hits his limit. He never quite says her name. Never quite forms it on his tongue, but you can tell by the sound he makes that he's trying not to say it at all. Too scared to admit that he's in love with the girl he's treated like a sister his whole life. Too scared to admit the the girl he really wants to lose himself in isn't you—it's her and would always be her. He'll never say it out loud, but it 's there in the little things he does. He'll never say it out loud, but you know. You can tell, because they're all the things you would do for him.
"You haven't been getting dropped off by him lately," Jeremiah ventures, voice tentative and unsure, "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"
"Just haven't seen him around like we usually do."
"If you're trying to say something, Jer," you sigh, unsure if you really want to hear what he's trying to say, "Then don't pussy around the subject and say it."
"He's been fawning over Marlee, hasn't he."
Soft. Knowing. Straight to the point just like you asked.
You regret it as soon as it comes out of his mouth.
"Sure has," you murmur, "How did you know?"
"Xavier said that she got sick and had to stay in the hospital for a while. Said that usually Caleb stays with her."
Jeremiah isn't wrong. This is the exact reason that he had told you roughly a week ago when you asked why he hasn't been around the much. Sure, you've spoken since that last hook up a month ago. You've talked to him on the phone and texted him semi-regularly. But they were short, meaningless conversations that you would make with anyone. Not someone as close as the two of you are. Or used to be. Because it doesn't exactly feel like he's your favorite person right now. Right now, it feels a little less like he's something safe and a lot like he's a threat. And you try not to let it affect you. But there is something poisoning your thoughts. Makes your tongue burn with everything you want to say but don't. Which makes your jaw ache with the restraint. You don't say any of this to Jeremiah. But you don't have to either.
"You're doing it again aren't you?" His voice snaps your attention out of your own thoughts and back to where you are.
Even you hear the snap in your voice when you respond. "Doing what?"
"That thing where you go from thinking he's great to thinking he's the worst?"
You can't look at him. Your mouth twisting into something painful and resentful. This is the part of yourself that you hate the most. The part of you that turns angry and bitter at the smallest of changes in your relationhsips. Any time you feel slighted or wronged this happens. You go from looking at someone through a rose-colored lens to looking at them like they personally ruined your entire life. Like they're out to get you and only pretended to like you until they couldn't take it anymore. And that's what's happening with Caleb isn't it? He isn't someone of safety anymore is he? He's a threat in your mind's eye.
"It's stupid." You manage to bite out.
"What is?"
"All of it," you say without thinking, "I'm hurt and pissed at him for what? We aren't dating by any means. It's not like he's obligated to tell me what's going on or whatever."
"But?"
"But it still really fucking hurts. Like physically. Every time I think about it my chest hurts and…"
Jeremiah has mastered the art of pulling information out of you when you're tongue is under lock and key. He knows how to get you to open up and tell him how you're feeling without even really having to try. He truly does know you better than you know yourself. And it's not like you don't know what he's doing. But it doesn't make the tears come any slower than they are.
"Keeping it bottled up like you do isn't good for you," he coaxes softly, "Let it out."
"I hate him."
"No, you don't. You hate the situation. You're allowed to be hurt and cry about it."
Stupidly, you wipe at the tears that fall from your eyes with the back of your hand. Wiping them off your cheeks so harshly it burns your cheeks red. "What's wrong with me, Jer?"
"Nothing is wrong with you."
"Then why does no one want me? What's so fundamentally wrong with me that he doesn't love me? I do everything a guy likes. Everything they want and still nothing. There's always someone better. This time, I guess she was already there."
In the back of your mind, you know you're being irrational. You know that this is quite possibly the stupidest spiral you have ever had. After all, it isn't like Jeremiah didn't warn you not to sleep with Caleb. It isn't like he doesn't know all your little habits and secrets. It isn't like Xavier didn't warn you that you would only be a temporary distraction. But you were stupid and in love. No, you were too wrapped up in infatuated bliss to care. Too wrapped around Caleb's finger to listen to anything or anyone else. And the sad part is that he hadn't even had to try. You were already his the moment he stepped foot inside Philo.
What a difference a year makes.
From perfect strangers to more than friends but less than lovers. What even are you and Caleb? Something? Anything? Nothing? Does it even matter what you are to him anymore when you would die just so he could live in peace? You decide that it doesn't and that only serves to piss you off at yourself more. At some point, Jeremiah came to stand closer. Lying his head on your shoulder in a form of comfort he knew you would allow when you're in this state. Normally, you hate being touched when you're self destructing. But this simple act of reassurance and solidarity was what you needed. You need something to ground you and make your breathing even out. Funny how it's usually touch that pulls you up for air while it simultaneously pushes you under more. You don't know what you did to be blessed with a friend in Jeremiah. But you don't question it either. Because being his friend feels like you're a little closer to sunshine than you have ever been in your life. He is the one constant in your life. The only one you never question when he exit sign will come. He's never given you a reason to doubt his friendship.
"There is nothing wrong with you," you expect him to say your nickname, but this time he says your real name and that makes your chest tighten painfully, "Absolutely nothing, okay? It's him that's stupid. If he can't see what's right in front of him and cherish it for all it's worth? That's his failing—not yours."
You squeeze your eyes closed in an attempt to make the world stop feeling like it's falling. Make the shop stop spinning for a few fucking seconds so maybe you can breathe without feeling like you'll break if you take too deep of a breath.
"You're kind and funny and beautiful," he continues, telling you things you've heard before but never quite believed until now, "You're insanely smart. You're an amazing person and if Caleb can't see that then fuck him."
There's a joke there that you bite down. Repressing the urge to tell him that you have, in fact, been fucking him and that's part of the problem. But you don't really need to tell him, because he already knows. Jeremiah knows you too well. He knew the moment Caleb started dropping you off at work and picking you up that you were tangled in his sheets already. Because using your body is what you're good at. It's what everyone wants isn't it? To get lost in the feeling of your skin and the sound of your moans. If only for a night. A moment.
That's all you ever are.
A moment.
And then there's Jeremiah with his smile that feels like wonder and his hugs that feel like sunshine. You've compared Caleb to sunshine too, you realize. But they are two very different kinds of sun. Where Caleb is bright and brilliant and all consuming—warming you to the bone with his laughter and attention—Jeremiah is subtle and gentle. He warms slowly. Like he's trying to dethaw the ice that has formed over your heart.
You lose it.
Tears come swift and without your consent. There's no stopping the breakdown that shatters you entirely. There's no softening the pain that grips your battered heart. So, you just stand there and cry. Letting the sobs wrack your shoulders so hard you drop the spray bottle in your hand and press your palms to the counter. Using the smooth, cool surface to ground you a little more. And suddenly—this isn't just about Caleb anymore.
"You're all I have, Jer," you choke out in between sobs, "How can I be stupid enough to think he can love me when my own parents don't? My fucking mother can't even love me. How fucked up is that? Someone who's supposed to love me unconditionally hates me."
Jeremiah pulls you into his arms then. Catching the exact moment your knees start to shake and give out. "Your mom can fight me. She made this incredible, selfless, compassionate girl and doesn't know how to appreciate her. Your mom doesn't deserve you as a daughter." His fingers comb through your hair and he presses a kiss to the crown of your head. Familial not romantic.
No wonder everyone expects you to fall for him.
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Being drunk probably isn't the best time to be making decisions. But it tends to be when you make most of your decisions. You walk out onto your balcony where you find Jeremiah sitting with a beer. And Xavier with a blunt in hand. You wanted to be alone. Wanted to be able to cry in peace and dwell in the misery that has become your life. But Jeremiah wouldn't let you go home by yourself. Not after you sat in Philos and sobbed for well over and hour. Not after you kept telling him that you couldn't breathe. So, he drove you home and invited Xavier so that there would be a pair of eyes on you at all times. Sometimes you hate how over protective he is with you. Most times you're thankful that you have someone that loves you this much.
Someone to keep you safe from yourself.
The phone rings in your hand. It's on speaker, because you don't really care if they hear the conversation in full or not. You just need to hear his voice and talk to him. Neither of them fully take notice of what's going on. Xavier's too high to really care either way, you think. But Jeremiah is sober. Never getting so much as tipsy when he drinks. Just enough to take the edge off. Or so he says. It rings three times before he answers.
"Hey, everything okay?" Your stomach drops with how worried he sounds, "You haven't called me for a while."
Suddenly, your plan goes out the window. Or so you think it does, because as soon as you hear Caleb's voice—your chest tightens. "I think we need to have a talk, Caleb." Your voice breaks. Makes you sound more vulnerable that you want him to catch on to.
"What's wrong?"
"I think—" you don't get the chance to say what you want.
Xavier takes your phone and hangs up before you can finish. Sends out a quick text telling Caleb that you're drunk and being taken care of. Your eyes narrow, tears brimming when he pockets the device. Guess he was paying attention and very much does care.
"You can have this talk when you're sober," he says, voice impossibly soft, "You'll regret it if you do it now. Trust me, I know the feeling."
And you nod.
