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Caleb doesn’t have any solid evidence to test against the theory; you’ve yet to confront him about any sort of dilemma. Each morning, you still greet him with your warm disposition. All soft smiles and hard laughs. You eat when he cooks for you. You sit beside him, never across from him, at the table. You look at him with an expression of such affection and none of the disgust that would be born of the knowledge that Caleb was a monster.
It was an accident, really, the first time. Summer break this year had been particularly sweltering; like most of the Linkon population, Caleb often found himself stripping down to the barely socially acceptable just to ward off the heat. It should have come as no surprise when you popped up on his social media feed all bare arms and mouthwatering legs, a shade darker from a day in the sun.
Initially, he had thought little of your admission of the day’s plans to head to the pool with friends - anything to beat the heat was a great idea as far he - or at least, your health, was concerned. What he was unprepared for was the impromptu photoshoot that followed. The reaction was catastrophic; he ended up skipping dinner plans that evening to spend it with one hand down his pants instead.
But Caleb prides himself on discipline and listening to his body. And like any good soldier, Caleb can appreciate a solid routine.
Hand tucked into the waistband of his shorts, Caleb waits until he knows you’re asleep. Being able to discern your footsteps - sturdy, quick and purposeful - from Gran’s often lighter, slower footfalls was a testament to growing up together.
The ceiling fan ticks overhead. Despite the gentle murmur drifting from the forgotten TV in the living room, the sound of his breathing sounds loud in the dark.
Caleb finds your account with ease, too comfortable with his practice to let shame overwhelm him at the sight of your tag at the top of his search history. Despite the chill in the room, heat crawls up his skin. He doesn’t have to scroll far to find his latest fixation: a carousel of photos you posted at the onset of your spring break.
The photo dump is fairly innocent: the flowers blooming on your balcony, the cat that loiters outside your building that you like to feed, the ice cream he bought you the afternoon you reunited. There are even a few flicks of him in there, too, intermittent between flicks of the plushies he’d won you and scenic snapshots of the strawberry field he took you to over the weekend. But what he’s looking for is in the back end of the collection.
You sit alongside the bank of the nearby lake, kneeling on the shared blanket, glancing over your shoulder to beam at the camera as the sun sets within its purview. It’s simple enough, modest even. Mundane enough that the guys back at the DAA would laugh at his weak disposition. Your dress is the star of the show, an open-back smock with strings for sleeves, exposing the soft expanse of your back to the sun.
Caleb’s thumb hovers over the screen, tracing the outline of your silhouette as if he could reach through the glass, through time and technology, to touch the warmth of your skin and fiddle with the fabric of the sundress draped over your knees. In the dark, he exhales sharply, an ache coiling low in his stomach, heavier than before. His limbs feel heavy, and he settles into the feeling.
His throat bobs as he swipes again, this time stopping on the last photo - the one that lingers in his head when he closes his eyes at night.
You, lying on your back, laughter frozen in the tilt of your head, the motion musing your hair. Your dress is riding up just a little too high up your thighs. Soft, sunkissed skin peeks back at him. Careless. Effortless. Completely unaware of him, shifting his boxers down his hips on the other side of your shared wall.
Caleb tightens his grip on his phone, exhaling quietly, shaky. It’s been a ritual he’s diligently followed for months when sleep evades him: allow his thoughts to wander to you, rub one out, and then wipe himself down enough that there’s less of a crime scene to deal with in the morning alongside the murky tinge of guilt in his chest.
It’s easier to bear when he’s miles away in Skyhaven, and doesn’t have to worry about meeting your eyes over the breakfast table or bumping into you on the way out of the bathroom in the middle of the night. Privacy is a luxury back in the dorms. There’s little time for pleasure and even less so for feeling bad for seeking it out.
But here, bunking together under the roof you grew up under for the holidays, Caleb is all too aware of you. Palming himself over his shorts with a sigh, he thinks of you earlier in the evening, feet cradled in his lap as you watched a movie together before bed. Only a few minutes have passed, but he’s already so hard.
The blue light of his phone burns his eyes as Caleb fiddles with his grip on his phone, struggling to zoom in on the expanse of your bare shoulders and collar bone with one hand. Caleb has always thought the straps on this particular dress were so thin. He dreams of snapping the fabric between his fingers and dragging down the side of your neckline.
Over the sound of his heart beating in his ears, he hears footsteps in the hall.
Not Gran’s.
Quicker, lighter - yours.
Caleb’s stomach drops as he yanks his hand from his waistband and locks his phone, submerging his room into complete darkness just as the door to your room creaks shut. The sound echoes through the silent hallway. His heart thunders in his chest.
Assured the coast is clear, Caleb shucks his underwear down to his thighs, grimacing at the streak of wetness on his skin and quickly gripping onto where he is hard and wanting.
It’s not hard to let his imagination run away from him. Caleb conjures up a familiar pair of curious eyes and even curiouser hands in his mind's eye. Caleb’s palms are warm and clammy against his skin as he takes himself in his hands. His lips pursed in focus, he exhales through his nose.
He tries to be quick. He really does. As if reaching his peak any faster would make him any less of a degenerate, not with you one thin wall away. Eyes squeezed shut, phone discarded, Caleb sets a punishing pace, lost in a memory, until the friction of his dry hand becomes too uncomfortable to ignore.
Licking his palm with a grimace, he imagines it’s your touch when his hand returns. His free hand brushes down his chest. Caleb’s breath hitches at the feeling. It's easy enough to envision your hands again, a fraction of his size, yet rough with callouses from hard work. He knows them almost as well as his own, memorized where the course texture turns soft in the divots between your joints and knuckles. Caleb remembers the first time he saw you handle a gun, he nearly had a heart attack. Now, he imagines that your confident grip is the wet slide of his own. That thick, simmering feeling builds, has him warm and shifting under his duvet.
And then he hears it, barely impercitable over his huffing and puffing - the click of the door handle turning.
The feeling overtakes him. His heart roars in his ears. Suddenly, seizing into his hand, Caleb cums hard. Pleasure strikes him like lightning, petering out in little shocks with each heave of his chest. He exhales through his nose on a shaky whine, lips bruising behind curled teeth in a last ditch effort to keep quiet, but his hand keeps moving. The rapid pace sends pins and needles down his spine.
Fuck.
He melts back into the mattress, uncaring of his soiled hand dampening the comforter, still reeling in the come down.
When reality rights itself, he realizes the house is too silent again. The TV has been shut off. A glance at the door handle, restored to its upright position, confirms that you’ve returned to your room, much to his disappointment. He must have missed the sound of you retreating, overwhelmed.
Rather than ruminate on which circle of hell this nails him on after tonight, Caleb closes his eyes and prays for a dreamless sleep.