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When you land in Skyhaven for your mission, your throat is already scratchy. The feeling of being parched lingers even after you sip water from your canteen— like you've been thirsty for days with no way to quench it. You frown, but soldier on anyway with a grim tightness to your lips. It's never in your nature to slow down when there's work to be done.
Despite that, you feel like you're moving through jelly as time ticks past, fighting to shift your limbs, to stay in your own body. You're sluggish, nearly slip up and get injured during the final stages of the mission— it's only thanks to the Association's quick thinking and your own coworkers that everything wraps up smoothly. Your hands ache from clutching your gun and you wince at the thought of writing reports late tonight.
That's when Captain Jenna strides past, takes a look at you, and all but forces you to start utilizing your paid sick days. You feel hot. You're burning up beneath the stiff collar of your uniform. It's for this reason— and the cloudiness in your mind— that you limply give in.
You only release the breath you're holding when the lifeless screen of your phone suddenly lights up. You know who it is before you pick up— lift a hand to politely decline Tara's offer of a ride back home— and wobble away.
See, here's the song and dance of the matter:
Caleb always knows whenever you're in Skyhaven. He always waits a careful hour or two— he always contacts you just as work has tidied itself up. He's so very strategic about it, but you know better. You know he has tabs on you, an eye out on your location. And you say nothing. Because sometimes the look in his eyes, or the undertone of his voice when he's worried— it stabs you in the heart. You see those eyes staring back at you in the mirror sometimes; the violence that burns in their depths at the thought of losing him again. You're destructive about him. You'd be destructive for him. As such, you understand the desperate need to stay deep in the know. To ensure the other is safe.
You just think it's so sickeningly hypocritical, because he gets to keep tabs on you, and you don't. You get to watch the sky swallow him as he goes for assignment after assignment in the Deepspace Tunnel, hoping it spits him back out and lets you catch him. The way he moves, you know he'd rather have his bones crushed on impact than burden you. But you run after his falling figure. You run and run, and he gets closer to the ground, and you know you'll never make it in time. This, like many other things about him, makes you furious.
You're so, so happy to hear his voice on the phone.
“Hello.” Your own is slightly hoarse.
“Hi, honey,” Caleb says right into your ear. The words hit your brain like a gunshot to metal. You are burning alive.
The other part of this matter is the new unspeakable thing that hangs over your heads like a guillotine. After he came back into your life, you tried so very hard to keep him there. You watched him drag himself to your doorstep like a beaten dog, lingering but never coming in. So you tried even harder as a result, because you cannot bear a second, final departure. You need him in your life with such a vicious ferocity that it actually relieves you when you see it mirrored in his eyes. You wouldn't know what you would do if he didn't feel the same way.
Now, he's comfortable inviting himself in, creeping back into the cracks of your mind (as if they were ever devoid of him to begin with). Now, he carefully cherry-picks opportunities of contact with you so that he doesn't seem obsessive, doesn't worry you. You almost wish he would so that you could talk about it. It would feel so much better, having all this sickness in you be given an outlet. He calls you the same old endearments— and you make great pains to choke down the twitchy feeling that rises at the new ones thrown in. Pipsqueak, baby, honey. Pretty girl. My girl. You hated it when he crept around like he was scared of hurting you. Now he wears self-assuredness like a second skin and it messes you up the same way. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
But you swallow your saliva and prepare to reply to him. It's always easier to breathe at first, in the earlier hours of encountering him. It's a sacred, untouchable space for you— the joy sparks from a call, a text, his face. It takes you over in such a frenzy that you breathe cleaner air, feel every atom in your body resonate at a fever pitch that screams for proximity to him— the mania of it comes so bright and blinding that for a while, you can ignore the new gauntness to his face, the bags beneath his eyes, the coldness of his voice that he tempers in your presence. You can stomach it. Pretend you don't feel the keen ache of knowing that your Caleb and this Caleb still don't add up sometimes in your mind. It's not like he isn't aware of his own sharpness. He's been cutting his fingers on his own corners, hands slippery with blood as he tries to blunt them for you. But you don't want softness either, not truly. Above all things, you hate his dishonesty. It tears you apart, gravity’s force too strong on your limbs. You’ll break if the both of you carry on like this.
In practiced, careful mundanity, you ask, “What's up?”
The state of your voice doesn't go unnoticed to him. There's a brief pause, like he's realised something, and then the response. “I was callin’ to see if you were doing anything today. But, heeey… you don't sound so good, pipsqueak. Somethin’ wrong?”
Dressing an admission of his surveillance with a casual inquiry towards your availability. Making excuses again, making excuses always. Typical, typical. Your teeth ache. “I had a mission in the area. We're already done.” A pause hovers in the air. “I wasn't feeling very well. The captain told me to take the week off.”
His tone shifts in a blink, just like you'd expected. The worry that had lingered on the edges of his voice now colors it entirely. “Where are you?”
You could go home. But you’d declined your co-worker’s offer, and you are slumped over here on a bench in a semi-empty street for a different reason. And your apartment, on worse days, is empty and cold and lifeless. Just like you'd criticized his house for being. The hypocrisy of it is truly breathtaking, isn't it? You're both so alike. You can stand being alone, but not if being alone means a specific lack of him.
“I'll text you,” you rasp, and hang up before he can say more. Blearily, you watch your fingers move across the screen, then slump back and stare at the sky as the harsh daylight pricks your eyes.
Then you wait for him to come to you.
You are waiting often these days.
The ride back to Caleb's apartment is silent, because you're dazed with a fever— he'd put a bare palm on your forehead and clicked his tongue disapprovingly, while you tried not to squirm at the terrible delight of skinship. This part is easy. He puts you in the backseat of the car so you can lie down, tells you to rest. But you don't even blink on the way home. The world tilts sideways; you anchor your eyes to the sight of him behind the wheel, lips thinned in worry and stare cold, focused. The car is a military-issued vehicle from the Fleet, so it's devoid of any personality. Built to be sleek and efficient, but nothing else.
Your eyes dip to his right arm briefly. Resentment burns in your throat. Sometimes he comes before you like a corpse reanimated from the dead. Except— rather than tattered skin and broken bones, you catch shreds of the boy he had been. It makes your ribs ache all the more.
The air-conditioning suddenly feels too cold. You shift, barely a whisper of sound, but Caleb turns, having paused before a stoplight. He's left his sunglasses on the dash. You see his violet eyes and thrill under his stare.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
You drink him in greedily, lick your chapped lips. “Cold.”
He's shrugging off his military jacket within the moment. If you were more lucid, you would protest on habit. Tell him to keep it on. But you are cold, and you hate the sight of him in it. Two selfish sentiments with one stone— why not? So you let him drape it over you, dry eyes burning into him as he turns back to the wheel and resumes the drive home.
You're not so cold anymore. Sensations and images pass before you like a dream— Caleb's arms around you, a whirl of colours and then a blissfully dim room. The kiss of warm water on your skin, careful fingers working the pins from your hair. Then you're laid down and told to rest. You protest. The first few hours of seeing him are so precious; you cannot let them go to waste. Caleb hushes you, pushes you back down into the sheets that smell like him.
Tentatively, you slip into the waiting dark.
Daylight flickers in like a dying sun.
You blink painfully, wincing as sensitive eyes readjust to fresh surroundings. You're lying in bed— Caleb's bed. Upon closer inspection, you note that you're wearing a set of lounge clothes that you left here previously— freshly laundered with his detergent. But he's nowhere to be found.
The consequent panic that strikes you is irrational and wholly unfounded given the context, but you've gotten so used to it. Icarus falls fast and violent and hurtles towards a violet ocean. You'd fling yourself after him if it meant you might find him along the way; rip your wax wings off before he could give you his. A few weeks ago Caleb had asked you what you wanted from him. In the space between a question and its reply, you'd cradled the worth of your words on your tongue carefully, tested the weight of each. I want you dead. I want you whole. I want you back. Self-destruction sparks along your nerve endings at the sight of him. I want you to know a world without me in it.
But you could never do that to him.
“You must never leave me,” you'd declared instead, spat the word never out like an accusation heavy with the underlying meaning: You made your bed. Now lie in it. If the both of you could leave each other— if such an option was even ever on the table, you wouldn't need to have such conversations, wouldn't have to undergo the anguish of each other. It's just too bad; you know that he's so very sorry, but it matters less and less to you because you'd love him even if he wasn't.
The sound of running water in the adjourned bathroom snaps you out of memory, fills you with relief. There's a familiar sound— the faint strike of metal on metal, the apple pendant around his neck jingling before the bathroom door swings open and Caleb steps out, towel around his waist. A few beads of water amble down his torso before being put to merciless end by the fluffy fabric. His hair is damp, heat wafting from the shower behind him.
You stare. Shamelessly. There's dread creeping in; you realise now that the mania has faded. The fever seems to have whittled your blind joy down to a stub, and now you can't ignore the nagging feeling in your head that tells you something is wrong, wrong, wrong. Still, you are greedy, ravenous, the still-lingering daze of illness shoving rationality and reservation to the side. You are blazing and open and raw before him. You're a wound that refuses to knit shut.
“You look tired,” you croak, then wince, surprised to find that your throat still hurts.
“Comin’ from you?” Caleb wisely does not say anything about your open stare, but again, you wish he would. If he would do something of his own accord once instead of playing this waiting game. How forward do you have to be?
You ignore the annoyance that surges up as a result, ruling it as irrational and shoving it down with an unforgiving hand. “Did you sleep at all?”
He laughs, affectionate, and turns away, presumably so you don't see the hollowed-out stretch of his tired face. “Why would I? Your fever only broke an hour ago. And I had to make you something to eat.”
Really?
There's something in you that loves the fact that he stayed at your side until he was sure you were going to be alright. It's exactly what he would do, all the time. You'd expect nothing less.
There's something in you that hates how his suffering pales in comparison to yours. Are the both of you meant to destroy each other in the end? Is that what it has always been? You know all too well that he wouldn't mind one bit if it was only him taking blow after blow for you. But you've got a habit of self-destructing to prove a point. “You could've slept next to me.”
“Nope.” His voice is light and easy, matter-of-fact. No budging on the matter.
You huff, then twitch again at the discomfort in your throat. Caleb notices this— he has pajama pants on now, you try very hard not to stare below his waist— and strides over. “Still in pain?” Before you can respond, he turns. “Stay right there.”
As if you'd go anywhere else. You're perfectly content to sit in his bed and wait, dreaming up pleasant little fantasies of domestic bliss. You’d insist on more colour in his house, more decorations. Maybe you should take him to a photobooth, make him put up more pictures of your faces, together. Then your sweeping gaze lands on his military jacket hung up nearby, and you narrow your eyes.
… You already have him back in your life, you remind yourself. You cannot get ahead of yourself. You cannot overstep these fragile lines.
( Here comes the dream that you cannot bear to call a nightmare. You know it by heart, a memory breathed to life. I would be anything for you, he says with those eyes— that gaze digging a steady hole down into the deep-dark of your soul. But it won't ever be the same. I’m sick of these games we play.
Because you can clench your fists and make your prayers. Pretend that nothing has changed— but there is no easy solution to this. Unless you curl your fingers into his brain, crush the chip in your fists, rip the machine out of the man, there is no way out.
I've been hungry for years. Did you know that?
Violet eyes, violence in your gut, the scabbed-over wound of his absence butchered up and butterflied open like fresh meat for the feasting. All that red rage rushing out, vicious, vicious, vicious. You watch him smile tightly, something self-deprecating in the thin line of it. Like he’s keeping some private joke out of reach— and doing nothing to soften the blow of it. Exclusion slashes the cut deeper.
Caleb would fix this for you. Blowing cool air on a bloodied knee, bandages at the ready. He would always be willing to patch things up.
Colonel, don't I deserve my payback too?
But this person before you— he does not belong to you. )
You must have drifted off again, because Caleb is shaking you awake, calling your name. A tray settles over your lap and you blink sleepily at the display: almond jelly with macerated berries. Sliced red apples on the side.
“They have ears,” you coo delightedly, voice still raspy.
“They're bunny-shaped,” Caleb replies, tucking a napkin into the front of your shirt and settling down. The bed dips; he leans over you, digs a silver spoon into the soft jelly. It gives way easily, letting itself be carved into a perfect mouthful. “Say ah.”
“Did you know,” you begin placidly. “I can feed myself just fine?” You're needling him again. Did you know I could live without you? It killed me inside, but I tried.
Caleb's eyes are indulgent, amused. Like he's already pictured this very scenario in his head. Like he knows, from beginning to end, how all this will go. “Open up.”
I tried very hard, when you died.
There's that sick feeling that's been recurring lately; it's a conflict tearing a gash down the heart of you. The threads of your very being yank taut between the joy of reunion and the sting of resentment— here you are again, divided between land and sky. Portioned out in pieces, unable to give your whole being to him the same way you had before. You are newly-cautious, newly-skinned. Dripping blood all over the sheets, unwhole.
Never whole, not since he'd left.
You think it’s childish. But is it so bad that you want to throw the tantrums you've grown out of years ago? Storm and scream and sob for your Caleb back— not him, you are not him, is what wants to spill from your mouth like a child's cry in moments like this. You do your utmost to regulate them, but you still fail every now and then. Give him back to me. You are not him.
You frown at him, but accept at last, lips parting.
You are glaring daggers into him now, and it must disrupt the careful mechanisms of the entire scenario, because blessedly, finally, his smile flickers. “Somethin’ wrong, baby?”
Baby.
“No.” Another spoonful. The almond jelly is cool and sweet as it slides down your throat. You wish it would soothe some of the soreness, make it easier to bear.
“You know you can tell me anything.”
Yes, perhaps, once upon a time. But now? Can you say it all now? Fifth-floor reveries, dreams of housefires. The blaze eats you, or the pavement embraces your broken-boned body. Skyhaven is so high up, you forget to stay grounded in whole-person form when you visit him. There's an entire universe swallowing you alive and only one person who can ease your pain— the very person who can cause that same pain. You think about standing naked before your mirror the afternoon of his funeral, dressing yourself just to weep over an empty hole in the ground. And how you broke that very mirror beneath your fists the first day you got home after reuniting with him and saw his own animal desperation in your eyes; one and the very same. You'd thrown yourself into work, racked up a fortune of sleepless nights to dull your jagged edges. The moment you think too hard about anything at all, you might just break.
And here you are, no more work to be done, in bed with your beginning and your end. And you can't find a thing to say.
So you don't. You look at him silently.
And Caleb puts the spoon down, thank God, because you can't breathe right now. You're burning up again. “Sometimes,” he starts quietly, and you teeter forward in breathless anticipation. “I wish you would be more upset.”
“Upset?” Your voice is not your own. Your voice sounds like someone has taken it right out of your throat, wrung it dry with grief. Dragged it through gravel. You are sick. You have always been sick about him.
“Angry,” he amends. “With me.”
The traces of almonds and sugar in your mouth have started to sour. It's the kind of aftertaste that begins to rot unless you eat more of it, but the unpleasantness is inevitable. It begs to be scrubbed away, but you don't do that yet. “I am angry,” you begin carefully. Watch as it wounds him. You are good with these killing blows; he goes bloodless, dismayed. “I'm so angry that I think I'd die if I ever stop.”
“Why don’t you ever show it?”
Oh, you could. You have. You threw a cup at him once, watched it break on the floor. Then, he’d looked at you with those eyes full of affection and indulgence, like he was handling a dismayed child, and asked if you felt any better.
“Would that be easier on you?” Your voice is low. “You’d prefer that, right? Me crying, hitting you. Throwing things. Having me mete your penance out for you, so you know that you’re getting exactly what you deserve.” You know from the look in his eyes that you’re right. And it’s not like you haven’t dreamed of it.
But when you’re calm, when you don’t do any of that, he suffers more.
“‘S not about me.” He grips your hand. “This is about you. Tell me how to fix it, to make you feel better.”
In some ways, your rage at him turns inwards, because—
Caleb would never want to hurt you.
And Caleb's very presence is an open wound.
“You make me feel better just by being here.”
It’s not like you’re lying. And it’s not like the blame is all his. Can he even be held wholly be at fault? Your souls have been entangled into each other’s so thoroughly, this is what you are certain of— if two people overlap so keenly, then maybe you've had a hand in this resurrection act as well.
( Your nightmare dream flickers like a dim bulb at the back of your mind. If we're talkin’ about bones to pick, then I have a long list of my own grievances. )
So, that’s just it. This is retribution for wanting the dead man walking.
( You don't deserve that after you've killed my Caleb. )
This is payback to even the score.
( Is that really what you think— was that what you wanted? Was that the boy you wanted to keep playing house with? )
You’d thought at first that this thing— this creature that crawled home to you, speaking with his voice and smiling through his teeth— had shot your golden boy dead. He’d sold his soul off and named it yours in a way you were unfamiliar with, and all it did was leave bitterness on your tongue. There are secrets being kept. If you could love him less, you’d stoop to and beneath his level. Crush him between your teeth like a beast to prey, consume him so he can’t leave you again. Break him back down to that which you know and are familiar with.
But then there are the kinder moments. And restraint rears its head, so you hold your reins— now, a sickened, diseased portion of your heart revels in the fact that he doesn’t want to let you go either. Instead, you’ll just make him hurt too.
You aren’t a very good person, at all.
“If that’s what you say, then I believe you.” His eyes are a clear sky now, clouds parting and leaving him open, honest. You stare at him until it stabs you in the back.
“Okay.” You drop your eyes. “Good. You’d better.”
Your throat hurts far less on the second day. Maybe you’ve just made a habit of overworking yourself; the two days of rest you’ve gotten here have done wonders for you. Caleb makes more soft foods to soothe your throat, makes offerings of lemon mint candy to suck on. Saliva floods your mouth at the sour taste and you recall an old habit of his. “Is this your new trick to stay focused?”
Caleb winks. “Nah, this is too sweet. I prefer the good old thing.”
“Lemon acid is bad for your teeth,’ you chide, picking up the spoon.
He steals it from your grasping fingers. You smack at his shoulders in exasperation, then bat at his pendant listlessly like a kitten gone soft again. “Caleb!”
“Yes, dear.”
“Give that to me.” You reach out for the spoon; he lifts it away from you, presses you down with his other hand so you stay squirming in place. “Caleb. You’d better—”
“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he interrupts, cheerfully spooning another scoop of jelly over your vaguely indignant statement, right into your mouth before another word slips out. “Since you’ve found it within yourself to start bossing me around again.”
See, this is easy— slipping back into banter with him like he’d never left. You wear your heart on your sleeve; he handles it the way he used to, easy pickings for him and only him. How do you resist that sort of temptation? You don’t even try.
Having emptied the bowl in joint efforts— him spooning it up, you eating— you redirect your attention to the tray and pick up a slice of apple between your thumb and forefinger before biting into it. Let the juice roll over your tastebuds, sweep the slowly-bittering aftertaste of almond and sugar off your palate. Caleb slides his hand into your hair with a tender look in his eyes, and suddenly you are too keenly aware of many things. That he is so close to you, almost caging you in with seemingly no intention to move. That you’ve always liked the smell of his shampoo. That he isn’t wearing a shirt (again, today), and you want to put your hands on him (again, always).
His fingers work against your scalp with a delicious pressure and you purr, settle back with your eyes sliding shut. “Just like you to show up outta nowhere and expect me to drop everything to take care of you.” His voice is warm, teasing.
“You like it.” You're brutal with him. You're breaking apart at the seams. “You need me to need you.”
“Yeah?” His smile goes a little taut at the edges, but there’s relief in it too, for him to see that you’ve already recognized that piece of him, and isn’t shunning it. “Maybe I do.”
“It’s not a maybe statement,” you muse mildly, poking him in the cheek.
Caleb laughs. Laughs like the sun after a downpour. His grin gleams only at a fraction of its previous luster, but you’ve already learned to sit with that loss. You are well-accustomed to grieving by now. Still, being around that kind of light— dimmed by pain or not— is infectious. “Okay, baby, you win.”
The childish joy of it almost swallows you. Then your head turns at a buzzing sound from the nightstand, where you see your phone. He’d plugged it in for you, so very like him to take care of everything. Distracted, you pick it up, and see a few texts from Tara asking after your health a day ago. Are you feeling better now? Did you reach home safely?
Caleb looms over you, still, eyes following the words on your screen upside-down. “Do you want me to take you back to Linkon?”
You blink at him. “So soon? Do you want me gone so quick, Caleb?”
Worry flashes across his eyes at your seemingly-hurt words before he notices how your downcast eyes are sparkling in mirth. Then he just scoffs, ruffles your hair with such violence that you start to protest. “You know that’s never gonna be the case.”
You feel warm, in a sun-kissed sort of way. “How would I know for sure, though?”
“You— tsk,” he clicks his tongue, but he’s not upset. Then he’s pressing closer, suddenly, and your breath is flickering in your lungs like a sputtering flame. In delight or delirium, you can’t tell— his bare chest is shoved right against your pajama shirt, you can feel the firm outlines of his form right against yours. And he’s got an amused little gleam in his eye. This is teetering dangerously close to something you should know to back away from. “Still a skeptic? I’ll have to tickle those kinda thoughts out of you.”
“No, Caleb, no—” you say in a voice an octave higher, and then he digs his fingers into your sides. Game over. You burst into breathless laughter, writhing uncontrollably as his hands move along your weakest spots, finding refuge in places that leave you gasping. It goes on until you think you might explode. “Stop, stop,” you wheeze, “Can’t breathe— I give up! I surrender!”
Blessedly, the torment comes to an end. You are left flushed, rosy-cheeked and still pinned beneath him. Caleb’s hair is tousled— the effects of your attempts to fight back— and he looks down at you on the coattails of a laugh with something so great and unspeakable in his expression that you don’t say a word in the moment.
You suck in a breath and try to turn your face away. But his hand comes up, cradling your jaw. He’s giving in to his selfishness. He’s breaking down, just like you. Forcing you to see. “Not yet,” he murmurs. “Stay a while.”
He loves you. Nearly sick with it; you can read it in his eyes and that's the worst part. To see firsthand how all the masquerade masks he wears falter in the face of this sole sentiment, that his love is the first thing to crack through. That the shadow of devotion in his eyes will darken your doorways for the rest of your life. You know it in your heart— one way or another, this moment will haunt you to the grave, and if he had it his way, so would he.
“Caleb,” you say slowly, drawing out the syllables on your tongue. “I don’t like the way things are between us now.”
Your words should land like a blow but he doesn’t even flinch. His grip on your face tightens a degree, the heat death of an entire star collapsed within his eyes. “Why not, baby?”
“We’re not really being honest with each other.” You bat at his necklace again, watching it sway back and forth listlessly before you look back up at him. “Do you understand?”
He regards you, sifts through the thoughts and feelings left open for the taking on your face. You beg for all the cosmic forces in the world to give this to you. Throw you a bone. Let your dog-teeth be soothed on a mouthful of him. You can’t stand the mere act of orbiting him much longer; you have to collide.
You feel it before you hear it. Relief ripples across you like a heat wave the moment he opens his mouth. “Sure, I do.”
Then he dives down and kisses you.
You melt into him, embrace the feeling of his mouth on yours like it’s the only thing left for you to find sanctuary in. Your phone falls off the bed, hits the carpeted floor with a thunk, but you barely care beyond where he ends and you begin; it’s merely the both of you, heated and hungry, gravity sucking you closer and closer. Everything you’ve ever wanted raises his head from your mouth and you catch his eyes. He’s so beautiful and you are done. He is every bit as unravelled as you. You kiss him again and taste the remnants of your lemon candy on his lips. You let his tongue probe into your mouth like a puzzle piece before you break apart once more, panting, breathless. His pendant slides against your collarbones and you twitch at the icy touch of it, watching it blink in metallic flashes back at you.
“Cold again?” he purrs, and then it’s replaced quickly with his mouth, his lips suctioned to your throat. You squirm, dig your hands into his shoulders in half-indignation. “Caleb!”
“What?” he mumbles before he begins to suckle. “Don’t you feel good?”
You do; you feel amazing, actually. Liquid heat pools in your gut and you wriggle again, hips nudging against his, trying to seek out friction. Caleb moans against your skin and bites down with teeth. “You’re being eager, baby.”
“What’s wrong with that?” you challenge. “Why can’t I have what I want?” Because you do, you want him so much. The sentiment of it has been forcibly faded into the background of your mind for a long time, but now it’s back and bursting with colour, so bright it overwhelms you.
“Mm, you want me?” He’s such a hypocrite. You can tell from the hardening outline against your lower belly that Caleb is every bit as eager as you. You retaliate; dig your nails into his shoulders and hear him hiss. He bites you again, not so savage as to break skin, but enough to darken it. Enough to leave a lasting mark. You understand that craving all too well; you’d take a bite out of him if you could.
“Don’t be stupid,” you snipe back. Desire roughens you around the edges, makes everything sharper and brighter. You are drunk on it as you yank him by the chain and demand his mouth on yours again. He calls you a brat; you clamp your teeth down on his lower lip and draw another moan from him. Perhaps you’re a little angry too. You are always going to be angry. Every emotion you’ve ever felt towards him filters through you now, dizzyingly hot, and you welcome the burn. This must be the only thing that holds you together in the world.
Caleb clasps you tighter, watches your hips grind recklessly against his, biting his lip with a gasp. His eyes have darkened, pupils blown wide in near-complete eclipse. After he had died, you'd grieved him with an intensity that sliced deep to the bone— memories of summer holidays and crisp apples slipping from your fingers like sand. Summer had clouded over with a grey that swallowed you up for months, keeping your head underwater lest the recollections broke you anew. An idealized version of him lingers vaguely in your mind’s eye but it is falling to pieces now. First, it was crushed beneath the Colonel's boot as he cracked his memorial into halves. Now, it’s being rent apart limb-from-limb as he croons at you and you scrabble at his shoulders, beginning to pine aloud. “What do you want, honey?” he asks, tone so syrupy you feel the stickiness at the back of your throat. “Tell me how to help you.”
“You know what I want,” you half-whimper, half-seethe. You are the beast waiting to have him whole. You are the feast on the table. You are so angry, and so exhilarated, and only Caleb can soothe that ache. Greedily, you grasp at his fingers and bring his hand to your shorts, letting him thumb at the worn fabric with an insinuation that makes you feel weak. “Give it to me— please, please, feels like I’ll die if you make me wait any longer.”
You let go of him, entrust your blind faith to him— and blessedly, he delivers, nudging his fingers against you and dipping the tips in… before withdrawing.
You’re vibrating with rage. You snarl and snap at him and Caleb laughs, the sound so wholly delightful upon your ears that you can almost forgive how mean he’s being in the moment. But you’re not one to give up so easily; your hips move on their own, chasing more, so he takes mercy on you. He places a heavy palm on your stomach and holds you down as he finally, blissfully works two fingers in to the knuckle. “Easy, sweetheart. If you want this so bad,” he crooks his fingers and you cry out, “you’ll have to be nice about it. Okay?”
Everything is molten, the delicious drag of his fingers inside you stirring your arousal to a fever pitch. You are delirious, trying to rock your hips into his hand. “Okay,” you say shakily, more pliant now under the relief of his ministrations. He keeps you still, a firmness to the action that belies the intent in his eyes. It makes you squirm a little in pleasure. You like being under his control. You like that you enjoy everything he gives you. You like him so very much, more than anyone in the world. “Ca-leb,” you slur, trying to get a firmer grip on his shoulders, then grasping at his prosthetic arm holding you down instead. “More.” His thumb nudges your clit and you jerk, see the smile on his face like a knife when he realises he’s won something.
“Have some patience, baby.” He looks just as undone as you feel. He’d be lying through his teeth if he tried to deny it.
You think that this isn’t so bad, that anything from him is survivable. You had asked if he was still the boy you loved in your youth— but was he ever that boy to begin with? You look at him long and hard through the pleasure and it feels like you’re seeing in full colour for the first time. Instability pressurized into a human shell, a collection of high risks coalescing into a being with an aim. He'd swung the pendulum of purpose from weapon to protector and locked his eyes onto the target. Look what you've called down from the sky—
You should've known he'd never leave.
“You’re squeezing me,” Caleb groans, staring rapturously at the place where his hand slots between your thighs. “And I haven’t— not even— is this your first time, honey? Have you done this before?”
Your rage flares up again. “Do you want to make me mad?” you challenge, deflating a little when he rubs at your clit again, “have you?”
“Of course not,” he breathes without missing a beat. “There was only ever you. Just you. How could I ever want anybody else?
“T-then you should know my answer, and stop being a dummy,” you snap. You’re so close to ecstasy. You can feel it creeping in like a tide. “I would never let anyone else do what you’re doing.”
Caleb smiles, suddenly. It’s a sharp thing; it makes his eyes pierce all the way through your skin, devouring the very sight of you. “I just wanted to hear you say that.”
His fingers curl, his thumb rubs you one final time— and then he withdraws, leaving you hanging by a thread, teetering on the edge of your climax.
The tide ebbs away and you are left spiralling. “No,” you whimper like a wounded bird, hips twitching. “Why—”
Fabric whispers in a rustle; it reaches your ears and Caleb hushes you, puts a hand on your cheek to try and settle you. You nearly fly into a rage and claw at him, but the metal beneath your fingertips reminds you that the pain wouldn’t even reach him. “No, no,” he soothes. “Calm down.” He’s freed himself from his pants; you glance there and saliva fills your mouth. Suddenly, you’re a little more pacified. “Is that for me?”
“What do you think?” He leans back, peels your shirt off your body. Crawls over you, tip bumping at your entrance. You angle your hips so that he catches there, and stare up at him with wide eyes. You are angry and ecstatic. You are alive. You want him so badly your teeth ache. “Give it to me,” you say, then softer, more pleading now. “I want you.”
Caleb sighs, indulgent, stroking a hand along your cheek, thumb rubbing under your eye. “When you ask me like that, baby, how could I ever say no?”
He sinks in slowly. Your eyes roll back.
Later, when your mind is clearer, you will look down— look at him, and wonder how he fit inside you. Because he’s so big, the stretch forces him to go slower, alternating shallow thrusts with taps to your clit, taking it easy on you… but you love it. In this moment you are driven by your frenzied wanting, so the size of him only spurs you on. The concept of that in you makes you feel like you’re set afire. You twitch and moan and cry your appreciation for him all the way down, inch by inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. And when you glance down, you see the faintest outline of him through the soft flesh of your belly, feel him throbbing inside you.
You can’t help it. You quiver, and orgasm on the spot, squeezing him like a vice.
Caleb’s eyes widen, his hands sink into your waist, and his hips roll forward like he’s barely holding back. “Did you just— oh, angel, did you just—?” He’s on the verge of cracking, you see it in his eyes. So you lift your trembling knees up and hook them around his hips, drawing him closer, deep as he can go.
It is this act— the pure, shameless want of it, that finally breaks him. The haze of rapture is so scorching that you can taste it on your tongue as he tightens his hands on your waist, draws out from root to tip— then slams back in.
You cry out, and scrabble at his back, trying to remember how to speak. A whimper is the only thing that escapes you instead. You let him have his way, let him indulge his selfishness as much as you are sating yours. Caleb strikes you hot and deep, voice lowered to a near-growl that betrays his worst intentions. “You’re taking me so well, baby. I knew you’d look so pretty like this, crying under me. I knew I wanted you to cum only on my cock.”
The pleasure hollows you out, makes you feel raw and tender, overstimulation blooming on the edges of your nerves as you welcome him into you again and again. “Caleb,” you slur. “Caleb, you feel so good.”
“I know, baby. I make you feel good, don’t I? I make you happy?” He coos your name, presses down on your stomach at the same time he thrusts in. You nearly black out with pleasure. “S… so happy,” you mumble, pressing your face into his pillow, breathing him in.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Caleb’s voice is a little sharper, demanding. “Eyes on me.”
You like it when he’s selfish. It’s so rare that he allows himself to take what he wants without self-flagellating about it. So you oblige, turning back to him, watching and feeling as he speeds up, pace getting jerkier, more desperate. “Are you gonna cum in me?” you ask dizzily, reaching up to him. He lets you put your palm against his cheek, leans into it with a devotion so intense it burns right through you.
“Do you want me to?” he breathes, eyes a yawning void that threatens to swallow you whole.
“Mhm.” You stare at him through your lashes.
It’s so simple for you, but the mere word spurs him on with fervor. “Oh, you’re such a good girl,” he groans, hips slamming into yours. You squeak, a punched-out sound that seems to delight him. He sweeps his hand over your hair, tucks it away from your flushed face. “You’re always so good to me— such a good girl, my girl.”
I don’t know about that, you think, staring up at him through a rapturous daze right as he tips you over the edge of another climax. I think I am a very bad person. You have no idea.
But you don’t care, and neither does he. Not right now. Not like this.
Caleb’s hips stutter, jerk, and you feel warmth fill you to the brim as he shudders. You hold him through it, and he holds you; inseparable to the last. You’re content, blissed-out, feeling more right than you’ve ever felt in your whole life, and he sighs, unmoving above you. You are so terrified of this fragile moment. You want to devour it whole and you want to run far away from it, lest it breaks.
“Don’t move,” you say instead, voice coming out sleepier than intended. “Stay for a while.”
“Okay.” Caleb’s breath is warm against your neck. “Okay.”
Without shifting too much, you stretch an arm out blindly for your abandoned phone on the floor right next to the bed. The half-finished text blinks back at you from the screen; you complete it, and press send. Then you wrap your arms around him with a sigh. It’s easy as breathing; you let your text blink across the screen before it’s powered down.
I’m fine.
I’m right where I want to be.