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Chapter 1: Reactants
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: 2.3k
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: Hot Blooded, by New Constellations
Do not repost, translate, or feed to AI any of my works. Likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated 🖤
It’s storming in Skyhaven.
Caleb sits alone on a couch large enough to fit a family.
The rain patters against the impartial windows of his living room – though, if he’s being honest, it could hardly be called that. The rare evenings where the sky relinquishes him he spends much like this one.
With only silence for company, as he waits and waits and waits…
For the flash of blue light, for the ping of a personalised message tone transmuted from ground to atmosphere by cell towers, to tell him that she has remembered him. That there is still a place for him on the earth. His own personal lightning rod.
Caleb is used to this endless waiting. It became his companion around the same time the silence did, though there was a time he feared the quiet more than anything.
“She isn’t as strong as you are…”
The words trickle down his skin like cold water, like his floor-to-ceiling windows have given in to the pressure of the wind and the storm has swept inside his house. Inside him.
“My brave boy… Can you teach her to be strong like you?”
He shivers in the dark, feeling the echo of acid creeping up his throat.
There’s a bitter taste in his mouth that he swallows compulsively; he has never been able to spit it out, no matter how much it poisons him.
…His head hurts.
Outside, the lightning tries to split open the darkness, thunder crashing wildly, but Caleb cannot bring himself to feel impressed by it. Not when he’s seen the sky actually split open, seen the universe open its giant maw, seen god descend from between jagged teeth.
Instead, he closes his eyes and focuses on the tingling sensation of the Toring chip in his skull. Imagines that he is in the cockpit, the runway stretched before him. Imagines the rumbling of the engines beneath his skin, the feeling of the world setting to motion.
Running away is counter-intuitive – he’d learned in eighth grade physics that it is easier taking off into a headwind. Just move fast enough, gather enough power, and the air will do the rest. And everything seems insignificant from 50,000ft.
The pain in his mind eases in increments, with every breath, until Caleb is calm once again.
Till the silence fills him once more.
But then his phone is lighting up, and Caleb is a well-conditioned dog the way his heart sparks to life. The way electricity crackles over his skin as he reads her text: “Out tonight with the girls. Call tmr?”
He swallows again, painfully. Ignores the ill feeling spreading throughout his body as he opens his notes app. Ignores the graveyard of texts unsent, edited, erased. It takes three drafts before he gives up.
“Sure thing, Pips,” he replies. “Don’t stay up too late.” The screen goes black once again, abandoning him to the twilight.
With nothing left to tether him, Caleb drifts through his house. He doesn’t bother to turn on the lights, relying half on muscle memory and half on the soft glow from the rain outside.
He climbs into his cold bed. Watches the flashes of lightning across his ceiling. The thunder sounds hollow, like the space between his arms. He remembers other nights like this, better ones.
There was a time when stormy evenings were his favourite. The way she’d creep into his bedroom, the way he’d have to hide his smile in her hair as he felt her ragged hiccups even out. He’d relished the pins and needles the mornings after, massaging the weight of her sleepy head into his bicep just that little bit longer.
She doesn’t need him anymore, it seems.
The feeling bleeds into him, staining the silence.
And when Caleb finally falls asleep, he dreams.
The club is clouded with a dizzying mix of sweat and perfume, thickened from the humidity of the downpour. Bass thrums so hard she can feel it forcing her heartbeat to match its rhythm.
Tara and Simone are giggling beside her, and it’s too dark to tell who is grinding against who beyond the occasional flash of strobes.
She hadn’t wanted to come out tonight, not initially, but it’d been too difficult to come up with an excuse for bailing. Not when she’d spent the better part of a year convincing them both that clubbing was her release of choice, dragging them out at every possible opportunity for drinks and flirting that only barely toed the line of what was appropriate.
She’d donned a mask – donned his mask, sunny and social. Wore a second skin of his mannerisms. Made a show of laughter and swaying hips and body glitter, and neglected to tell them that she only came here to feel like there was something still pounding in her chest cavity, even if it was just the music. That, like music, the echoes would fade back to silence the moment they’d usher her wasted form into a cab along with some cash and her home address.
It’d taken months before she could make it an entire night without falling into the well-worn grooves of habit-texting the ghost of her dead brother something trivial like “Omw home, Ge” before realising… well… Those nights had been rough, tears flavouring the ritual in salt and bitter grief as she followed up with endless iterations of “come back” and “I miss u so much...”
Perhaps that’s why it’d felt so confusing when somebody new became the recipient of those late night assurances.
Because, on one hand, nothing could ever replace Caleb. He is written into her body – in her DNA, despite the fact they don't share it. The other hand, however, had begged for the comfort of a response after her thumbs hit send. Comfort that had grown into love for her boyfriend in its own special way...
Perhaps that’s why it’d felt even more confusing to find out that her twin is alive, after all.
Now, there are two people she needs to keep updated.
Tara leans in enthusiastically, cutting off her thoughts. “Hey!” her friend shouts into the small space. “We’re thinking of getting more drinks! Want one?”
“Sure! I might stay here and keep dancing, though!” she yells.
Tara gives her a thumbs up, and she waves the two girls away. Uses the brief reprieve to pull out her phone. Shit, it’s later than expected… She types out an apology message, already feeling the guilt: “Out tonight with the girls. Call tmr?”
Hits send.
“And just who are you texting at this hour, kitten?” There’s a sudden voice, a sudden presence, in her ear that makes her jump. Normally, this kind of surprise would warrant at least the threat of violence, but she'd recognise that low, smokey drawl anywhere. It is smooth expensive whiskey, the way it heats her body an extra few degrees in the already-warm club.
A heat she can’t help but melt into.
She doesn't ask how he knew to come here. By now, she's well-used to the flutter of wings that follow her like a mechanical shadow.
Sylus always feels like this: an exhilarating blend of danger and safety. A shot of burning adrenaline with an aftertaste of empowerment, chased down with what she can only describe as security. He indulges, but never coddles. Showers her with affection and praise, but pulls her up when she acts recklessly. Instead of herding her away from danger, he fixes her fighting form and then follows her into it, and in his hands she feels powerful, capable, radiant.
So it costs only a moment of hesitation before she answers “Just my…” She has to look behind her shoulder, turn her face to her boyfriend’s, to compete with the music’s volume. “...Just Caleb.”
There’s a flash of the strobe that catches his gaze, making the red of his irises glint in the uncanny way they do sometimes, and for a second she thinks he looks... hungry.
Then the light fades as quickly as it arrived, and darkness rushes in to fill the vacuum with obscurity.
The moment passes.
“Ah,” Sylus says easily, his large hand smoothing over her abdomen, pulling her closer. For ease of communication, of course. “The brother I’ve yet to meet.”
His touch burns.
And she can’t help but feel a tiny bit guilty towards her boyfriend now, too, even in the absence of any actual wrongdoing. “I was just letting him know I can’t call him tonight,” she explains, instead of trying to correct him. Instead of telling him not my brother… my twin… my sun… my Caleb… "He... likes to know I'm safe," she finishes lamely. Because, hell, how is she supposed to translate feelings she can’t understand herself?
Somehow, Sylus seems to understand anyway.
“You don’t need to explain yourself, kitten,” he soothes, using his other hand to cup her jaw gently. “I’m not so easily threatened.”
How lovely he is can only be matched by how helpless she feels. How useless all the words in her mouth are. “I just-”
“OHMIGAWD SKYE IS THAT YOU?!” Tara’s shriek cuts through the moment, and the pair turn to the returning girls. Simone is cool and gorgeous as always, settling for a casual nod and salute.
There’s another glint of crimson, a silken laugh right in her ear that sends shivers down her skin, and now she is the one who feels hungry. “Tara… Simone…” her boyfriend grins at them. “A pleasure as always.”
“What brought you out tonight?!” Tara bounces, eyes feverish, her bob cut sticking slightly to her skin.
And god, she can just feel Sylus smirking. “Oh, I’m on best friend duty… You know how it is.” The ‘best friend’ in question can’t help but pinch his side as Tara guffaws.
Simone shoots him a deadpan look that would strip the hide off a lesser man, but Sylus just grins into it and tucks his lover closer. Ignores the subtle vibration of protest that he only feels when he rests his chin on her pretty head.
“I was in the area,” he adds. “Figured I might as well earn some karma points and make sure this one makes it home safely.”
She growls beneath him. Pinches him again. “I can take care of myself, Skye.”
Her boyfriend raises his hands in protest, palms offered in peace. “Oh, I’m well aware, sweetie. It’s everybody else I’m worried about.”
And some friends those two are, the way they cackle, heads thrown back, hair swaying behind them!
She’s mollified by his answer, if not slightly frustrated at how easily he manages to charm the people around him. He’s a wanted man, for goodness’ sake! The last thing he should be doing is cavorting with more Hunters!
But Sylus flirts with danger like it’s… well… her. Confidently and without abandon – like it’s all a matter of inevitability, but he’d be delighted to be challenged on the matter.
"Uh-huh." Tara levels a knowing look at Sylus, and then grabs Simone’s hand. “We might leave you to it, then! My feet are starting to hurt, anyway!”
And his love can only watch them leave, mild despair in her eyes, before twisting in his casual, secure grip.
His hands settle on her hips now, chest flush to hers.
“I still wanna dance a little longer!” she tells him, and she’d sigh if she could figure out how to yell it over the music.
But then he looks down at her, adoration stripping her naked of her exasperation, and she’s melting all over him again. “By all means, kitten,” Sylus replies, ever indulgent to her whimsy, and punctuates it with a body roll so precise and perfect it’s almost agonising. Pressed against him, she feels every hard, muscular inch of him.
…Perhaps she should have thought this through more.
Because dancing with Sylus is always thrilling.
She hadn’t expected him to be interested in clubs, in this kind of dancing, but he matches her rhythm easily, the way he does for anything that requires their physical coordination. Like they’re moving to a duet written just for them. Like he already knows each step she’ll take, like he’s just been waiting for the music to start.
They fight together like they’re dancing, and they dance together like they’re fucking. And when they’re fucking…
The liquor burns in her veins. There’s a second heartbeat between her thighs now, and she feels so very alive.
He always feels so very alive.
It’s intoxicating, the way he can make a touch between her shoulders feel like pure filth. The way a puff of breath against her throat pulls a whimper from her lungs and thoughts of his teeth sinking into her tender flesh. She’d let him, too, if it meant sharing this heat.
By the dim lights, however, it seems her lover doesn’t need to bite down to feel the same. He already does.
And it is then that she becomes singularly aware of the desire pressing against her lower abdomen. “Actually…” she says throatily.
Sylus’ rubied gaze flickers to her lips and back. “Yes,” he purrs, “let’s get out of here.”
She doesn’t need to be told twice, grasping his large hand and leading him purposefully out of the club. Tara and Simone are nowhere to be seen, but she can just text them on the way home…
“I would like to meet him eventually, however,” her lover says casually – thoughtfully – behind her as they reach the entrance. The music isn’t as encompassing here, enough to hear the patter of the rain outside, enough that his volume has levelled to almost-normal.
It takes her a minute to realise what he’s talking about. Caleb. Her not-dead not-brother. “Yeah?”
“Of course, kitten,” Sylus replies, and she's too busy gauging the storm, strategising how best to get to his car – wherever it may be – to notice his half-lidded gaze as he looks over his shoulder, how it considers the cameras of the club, their angles. Too busy to notice the depth to his voice when he adds: “I feel like I know so much about him already…”