calebsfavoriteusedthong

Today was Saturday. Simone's birthday, the one you'd been planning with her for two weeks, color coded playlist and all.

You knew who'd show and who wouldn't. Zayne never came to anything with more than five people in a room; he'd send a gift and a text. Sylus would be there past midnight like the party had been waiting on him, which, in fairness, it usually was. Rafayel was still out of town and Xavier —Xavier had walked you to class yesterday and mentioned that he had a test to study for.

He hadn't brought up Wednesday. Hadn't asked for a repeat. He seemed happy just walking beside you in silence, matching his pace to yours, and that was enough. You were relieved because your thighs couldn't take another round like that. He'd made you cum more times than you could count and you'd blacked out before his second orgasm. You woke up to him wiping you down with a warm cloth, humming something under his breath.

And still. You missed Caleb.

He was the only friend who'd been there since high school, back when he felt like a brother —carrying your backpack when your arm was in a cast, threatening a guy who stood you up sophomore year. Then something shifted senior year, some line neither of you named, and it took root over the summer before college and never let go. He hadn't texted you all week. Not once. Not even a meme, not even the thumbs up emoji he used when he couldn't be bothered to type words. That had never happened before, not even the semester he broke his wrist and had to write messages one finger at a time.

You got to Simone's early to set everything up. Gideon showed up a couple of hours later hauling two bags of ice against his hip and Caleb wasn't with him. That was wrong on its own. Those two attended every party together.

"He's coming," Gideon said, before you'd even asked. "Said he had something to take care of."

The party filled up fast after that, someone's playlist too heavy on bass. You stayed near the kitchen with a cup you angled just right so you could watch the door without looking like you were watching it. By the second hour your stomach had knotted itself tight enough that you'd stopped tasting your drink.

Then he walked in.

Not alone. A girl had her hand curled around his arm, up on her toes to say something against his ear, dark hair falling over her shoulder as she leaned in. He laughed at whatever she said, that laugh you'd have recognized anywhere, head tipping back just slightly.

You didn't stay to see if he'd notice you. Cup abandoned on the counter, bag already in hand, the last thing you saw before you were out the back door was him still bent toward her, listening and laughing.

It was cold outside. Colder by the time you'd cut halfway across campus, arms wrapped around yourself, and ran into Greyson. One of Zayne's friends from pre med, someone you'd shared a class with and one very unfortunate group project. He took one look at you shivering in your thin top and shrugged his jacket off without asking.

"Here. You'll freeze before you make it back to your dorm"

"I'm fine," you said, already pulling it on.

He laughed and fell into step beside you anyway, talking about an anatomy exam he was dreading and his girlfriend's alarming obsession with plushies. Easy conversation that didn't ask anything of you, that let you nod and half listen while your mind kept circling back to the door, to the laugh, to the girl's hand on his arm.

At your door he said goodnight and jogged off toward his building as you went inside to let the quiet close over you.

You tossed the jacket over your desk chair and started peeling off your shoes when your hand brushed something hard in the pocket. Keys. You fished them out, it was a single silver one on a carabiner with a chewed up rubber duck keychain.

Not even ten minutes later, someone knocked.

You smiled, already reaching for the keys on your desk. Of course he'd come back for them. You scooped them up, grabbed his jacket and draped it over your arm and pulled the door open, keys dangling from your fingers before you'd even looked up.

"A bit soon to be giving me the keys to your place, don't you thi—?" it was meant to be a joke.

Caleb stood in the hallway, hands shoved in his pockets. His eyes went from the keys swinging from your hand to the jacket slung over your arm, and back again. Whatever smile he'd walked up with was already gone.

"Whose is that?"

His voice had lost the party in it. Gone was the easy tone, replaced by something flat that landed somewhere in your belly.

You knew that tone. Dug in. Stubborn. It was the same voice he used when men tried to put their hands on you. You'd forgotten what that sounded like until now.

Something reckless flared up under your nerves. Days of avoiding him and now he was standing in your doorway looking at you like that. You leaned your shoulder into the frame, unhurried.

"Just a friend's," you said, letting the jacket slip a little on your arm so he'd notice how big it was. "He walked me back from the party. It was cold."

"A friend."

"Mm-hmm." You tilted your head, biting back a smile you didn't try very hard to hide. "Nice guy. Gave me his jacket without me even asking."

"Did he?"

"He did." You shrugged, one shoulder, watching the muscle in his jaw tighten. "Very sweet, actually. I might keep it."

Caleb moved, one step, closing half the distance between you, and you found yourself backing up without deciding to.

"What's his name."

"Why does it matter?"

"I just want his name."

"Jealous?" The word came out lighter than you felt. You tipped your chin up, daring him.

His eyes narrowed. "Should I be?"

You didn't answer. You just held his gaze, arms crossed loosely, jacket bunched against your ribs, and let the silence do the talking. You'd meant it as a tease. It landed like a confession.

Caleb's hand caught the door before you could think to close it, and stepped over the threshold like he had every right to be there. The door closed behind him with a heavy sound that cut off the hallway light and the cold.

"You've been running from me all week," he said.

"I haven't—"

"Don't." One word, quiet, and it stopped you cold. "I saw you by the food truck Tuesday. Wednesday you turned around and walked into a building you don't even have class in. Today you bolted out the back door the second I walked through the front." He took another step. You were nearly at your desk now, nowhere left to go. "So don't tell me you haven't been running."

Your ass met the edge of the desk. He didn't stop until there was almost nothing between you, close enough that you caught the cold night air still clinging to him, and under it, the same warm cedar smell you'd have known blindfolded.

"Maybe I like it when you chase me," you said, the teasing thinner than you wanted it to sound.

Something shifted in his face. "Yeah?"

"Maybe."

He leaned in, slow, until his mouth hovered a breath from yours, close enough that if either of you moved even slightly you wouldn't be able to help it. Your heart was beating hard against your ribs.

"Say that again," he murmured.

You didn't say anything at all.

"Maybe I should go find him, thank him properly for lending you his jacket."

"Caleb—"

"What's his name?" A ghost of a smirk, infuriating. His nose brushed yours, and you nearly closed the gap yourself before he pulled back a fraction, just out of reach.

"You're impossible."

"You like impossible." He tilted his head, closing in again, slower this time, until his lips almost grazed yours and then he stopped there too, breath warm against your mouth, watching you through half lowered lashes. "Tell me to stop."

"Stop," you whispered, and it came out all wrong, breathless instead of firm.

"Try again." He was smiling now, a smile that didn't reach his eyes so much as darken them. "Say it like you mean it." he pulled back again, like he had all the time in the world and you had none.

Your fingers curled into the front of his shirt "You're doing this on purpose."

"Obviously."

He came in again, and this time you swore his mouth grazed yours, barely, gone before you could be sure it happened at all. A soft, frustrated sound climbed up your throat.

"Caleb."

"Yeah?" he still hovered there, he needed you to break first.

Fisting his shirt, you hauled him down and crashed your mouth into his.

He groaned like you'd finally given him something he'd been starving for, one hand sliding into your hair, the other gripping your waist and pulling you flush against him. The jacket dropped from your fingers, forgotten on the floor. He kissed you like the last few days had been sitting in his chest the whole time, like the wait had worn through whatever control he'd been holding onto.

He walked you backward until your knees hit the mattress, and when you sat down hard he followed you down "No more running," he said against your jaw "Not from me."

Your fingers shook, but the urgency in your chest didn't leave room for nerves to win. You caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it up his torso, and he lifted his arms without being asked, letting you drag it off and drop it behind you. You slid your hands down to his belt and he took over from there, working it loose himself, shoving his jeans down with one impatient kick until he was standing in nothing but his underwear.

The fabric strained. The thick outline of his cock was impossible to miss.

You didn't mean to stare and he didn't give you time to. He leaned over you, pulling your top over your head in one motion, and his hands went around your back a second later, unhooking your bra like he'd done it a hundred times in his head already. The marks Rafayel had left were still faintly there. You didn't notice him catch sight of them, you were too busy working your jeans down, kicking them off.

The room's light hit the bruises on your inner thighs.

Caleb went still. His breathing turned loud and something crossed his face you'd never seen on him before, not once in all the years you'd known him.

"Who?"

It wasn't even a full question. You couldn't answer it. You couldn't even lift your eyes to his, heat crawling up your neck, half shame, half something closer to fear.

His hand found your jaw, careful even now, but firm enough that you couldn't look away from him.

"I'll find out either way"

You said nothing. Your mouth stayed shut, lips pressed together, and he pulled back like he meant to walk away from the whole thing. Panic shot through you and you grabbed his forearm, held on.

"It wasn't a stranger," you whispered.

"Then who."

He was already working through it, you could see him doing it, running through the short list of people close enough to you that this made sense. He didn't need the full story. He just needed a name.

"Rafayel," you said, and then, because there was no version of this where you got to leave it there, "and Xavier."

The color left his face. "At the same time?"

"No." You shook your head fast. "No, it wasn't like that..."

That was as far as you got before he pulled his arm free and stepped back from the bed like it had burned him.

He didn't look at you. He started pacing between your desk and the window, one hand dragging through his hair over and over, like he could pull the thought straight out of his own skull.

"Rafayel," he muttered, more to the wall than to you. "Of course. Probably had you half convinced it meant something, didn't he?" A short breath, no humor in it at all. "And Xavier." He said the name like it left a bad taste. "Quiet Xavier. Too tired for a party, but not tired enough for that."

He stopped at the window, both hands braced on the sill, shoulders locked up tight. For a second he just breathed.

"I gave you space," he said, quieter now, and the quiet was worse than the pacing had been. "After Zayne's, I backed off. Thought you needed space. Figured if I pushed, you'd run, so I didn't." He turned around, and the storm on his face had gone raw underneath. "And they didn't. They just moved into the space I left. Used it."

"Caleb, that's not fair, they didn't—"

"Didn't what?" his jaw ticked. "Know you were vulnerable right after? Because I think they knew exactly what they were doing." He crossed the room until he was close enough that you had to tip your head back to keep his eyes. "Did either of them ask what you wanted? Or did they just take what you were too shaken to say no to?"

"It wasn't like that."

"Then tell me what it was like." He crouched slightly, hands braced on the mattress on either side of you, caging you in without touching you "Because I waited. I told myself slow was better than not at all." His eyes dropped to the marks on your thighs and back up, something dark moving behind them. "They didn't wait for anything."

You fingers curled around his wrist "You're the one standing in my room right now."

Something flickered across his face —not a smile, too sharp for that, but close to one. "Yeah," he said. "I am."

His fury was still there, sitting in his jaw and his hands but his touch when it landed wasn't rough. It was heavy.

He didn't look for unmarked skin.

He went straight for what they'd left behind.

His mouth found your chest first, closing over the fading marks Rafayel had put there, and he sucked —slow and thorough— his tongue working until the skin flushed dark underneath his lips. His. Over the top of someone else's, but his now. When he was done he moved down, his thumbs pressing into the bruises on your inner thighs, pinning your legs open while his mouth found the soft flesh there and bit down soft enough not to hurt but hard enough to mark.

"Mine," he said, against your skin. "Every single one. By morning."

His fingers hooked into the leg bands of your underwear, pulling the fabric taut against you. "Your pretty pussy is already soaking through these."

He didn't take them off.

He dragged his tongue up the center seam instead, one slow stroke, and the friction of it through the soaked fabric hit your clit with a sharpness that snapped your hips off the mattress. He caught you, both hands pressing your hips back down, and then his mouth was on you again, lips closing around the swollen bud through the thin wet cotton, sucking in slow pulls that made your vision blur at the edges.

"I should have been first," he said, against the fabric, his voice vibrating through it and into you. The pressure of his lips didn't let up for a second while he talked. "I'm going to spend a long time thinking about that. How I had years and I waited and now I have to share something that should have been mine from the start."

The build was fast, mean and gave you no warning. You came with your fingers twisted in his hair and his name in your throat, soaking through the fabric completely.

He watched you, gave you approximately three seconds.

Then he pulled your underwear down your legs, dropped them off the side of the bed and his mouth was back before you'd finished shaking — bare now, his tongue flat and heavy against you, licking with an attention to detail that made your spine curl. He used two fingers to spread you open, his tongue pressing into your entrance, drawing back up to your clit.

"When I'm inside your mouth," his breath felt warm against your wet skin "I'm going to make you taste what you do to me." He kept going until you came a second time. This one was quieter and left you with tears leaking from the corners of your eyes, his name coming out in pieces.

He gave you a moment. Not a long one. Just enough to take his underwear off and then his hands grabbed your hips, lifting you slightly off the mattress, guiding himself to your entrance. He pushed inside — just the crown and the first two inches — and stopped there.

The sound you made was filthy.

It was everything you had imagined. The stretch, the fullness, the weight of him just sitting there while your body tried to accommodate it and couldn't decide between pulling him in and pushing him out. He stayed there until your mind went blank and your hands found the sheets and gripped. Then he pulled out.

The emptiness was felt awful.

He shifted up the mattress and settled on his knees in front of your face, fully hard, the evidence of the last few minutes glistening on his skin, and looked down at you.

"Tell me when to stop and I'll stop."

"Don't stop." Your voice had no strength left in it. Just the words, barely above a whisper.

"Open your mouth when I tell you to."

His thumb came down to your lower lip, pressing into the center of it, pulling it slightly down. He watched your mouth part under the pressure "Do you want me inside your pretty mouth?"

"Yes."

He leaned in just enough. Dragged the tip across your upper lip, leaving a hot wet streak against your skin, watching your face while he did it.

"Say it."

Your hands came up to grip his thighs, fingers pressing into the muscle there. "I want to suck your dick."

The exhale that left him wasn't quiet. "Good girl."

He took his time, dragging the head of his cock across your lips, down your cheek and back to your mouth, leaving a trail of pre across your skin that made something in your chest clench with how much you wanted it.

You kept your eyes on his the entire time. You wanted him to see how much you wanted this.

"Open up, sweet girl"

His cock came back to rest against your lips and your mouth opened wider on instinct, the whole talk flashed through Caleb's head in the same second —Zayne's voice, clipped and deeply irritating.

She isn't built like you. Don't push inside when she isn't ready or you'll hurt her throat. She has to breathe through her nose. Don't fight her jaw. Let her drool on it as much as she can, you'll thank me later. It needs to be slow. If you rush it, you hurt her.

His knuckles had gone white against the mattress. He slowed down.

Pressed inside carefully, just the tip, feeling your lips wrap around him and your breath change as your body adjusted. He stopped there. Watched your eyes. Waited for the slight shift in your expression that meant you were ready before he went any further.

"That's it," he managed, his voice mostly gone. "Breathe through your nose. Take your time."

You did. Your hands wrapped around the base, thumbs tracing the veins there while you let the saliva build and run, coating him in a way that made the slide easier and the visual of it more overwhelming than anything else that had happened tonight. You started to move, slow forward bobs that took him a little deeper each time, your tongue working the underside on the draw back.

Caleb made a sound above you that had nothing controlled left in it.

He matched the pace —hips rolling forward in shallow, careful thrusts that tested the back of your throat, a hand in your hair gripping without pulling, his whole body wound up and trembling slightly with the effort of not taking what he wanted at the speed he wanted it.

"You're so—" He stopped, jaw tight, trying again. "Suck it harder. Taste yourself on me. You can feel it, can't you."

You could.

You sucked harder, felt his thighs tense under your hands, felt the groan that moved through his whole body when your lips slid all the way down and your nose pressed into him and you held it there, looking up at his face.

The sight was doing something to him.

Your mouth stretched around him, eyes wet at the corners, saliva running down your chin and onto your chest in slow trails, and you were looking up at him. That was the part that was killing him. You were not looking away, not closing your eyes. You were loking directly at him with a ruined stare while you took him apart with your mouth, and every time he thought he had some grip on his composure you'd do something with your tongue and it was gone again.

He wanted to grip your hair and drive forward and lose his mind entirely.

Not yet. He held still. Let you set the pace. Let your mouth work him at the speed you'd decided on.

"God," he breathed, his head dropping back for a second before he forced it back down because he couldn't look away from you. "I've thought about this. Exactly this. More times than you can imagine."

The tears running from the corners of your eyes weren't distress. He knew the difference. Your hands were firm and steady on his thighs and every time you pushed forward to take him deeper there was a small sound in your throat that sent a pulse straight up his spine.

"That's it, just like that. Keep going just like that and don't stop."

You swallowed around him in response. His hips snapped forward an inch before he caught himself.

You noticed. Your eyes said so.

He pressed his thumb to the corner of your mouth, feeling the stretch of your lips around him. "You're so good at this," he said, the words coming out unsteady. "So fucking good. Look at you taking all of it. Other girls—"

He'd said it without thinking, his brain running three seconds behind his mouth, and he felt the exact moment it landed because your rhythm changed.

Faster.

Your eyes had gone somewhere else —still on his face, but different now, something sharp moving through them that had nothing to do with what you'd been doing a second ago. Your hands tightened on his thighs. Your mouth pushed forward, taking him deeper than you had been, the angle shifting in a way that made his breath leave him all at once.

"Wait—" he started.

You hummed. It wasn't accidental. A low vibration right around the tip of his cock, your throat working, your cheeks hollowed, and whatever sentence he'd been constructing about other girls dissolved completely because his brain stopped producing language.

"I didn't—" He tried again. Failed again. Your head was moving faster now "That's not what I —, I wasn't—"

You hummed again, deeper this time, and took him further.

"Okay. Okay. There are no other girls. There have not been — in any meaningful way — other girls. You are the only girl. You are the only—" His thighs were shaking. "Please, you have to—if you keep doing that I'm going to—"

You didn't stop doing that.

Your hands moved to grip his ass, pulling him forward, inviting a depth that made his whole body seize up.

"You're—" he looked down at you with an expression that was completely gone for you. "You're jealous and you're doing this on purpose and it's working. You've made your point."

You hummed a third time. Longer. Right over the most sensitive part of him. Your eyes were saying everything your mouth was otherwise occupied with.

The sound that came out of him was not quiet. He didn't have time to pull back. He didn't even try.

He came hard, the first pulse hitting the back of your throat without warning, and he felt you swallow — fast and determined— and then the next wave and the next, each one heavier, the volume of it backing up past your lips and running down your chin, dripping onto your chest.

You were watching him fall apart and made sure he knew you were watching.

His thighs were shaking and he was coming back slowly, the room reassembling itself around the two of you.

He looked down at you.

Lips swollen, chin a complete mess, eyes bright and entirely satisfied with yourself.

He reached down and dragged his thumb slowly across your lower lip.

"Other girls do not exist. As far as I'm concerned, going forward, they never did."

Something in your expression shifted. The jealous edge softening into something warmer.

"Good," you said, and your voice was ruined too, something he found extraordinarily satisfying.

He brought his thumb to your lip. "Open."

You opened. He pressed inside, watched you close your lips around it, watched you hold his gaze while you tasted what was on it.

He pulled his thumb back.

"You're going to be the death of me," he said. Just a fact. A fact he was making peace with.

He brought his mouth to yours. Tasting everything, not flinching from any of it.

When he pulled back his forehead dropped to yours "I'm not done," he said, into the space between your faces.

"I know," you said.

"I want to do this right." His hands cupped your face, thumbs brushing your cheekbones, "I've been waiting too long to rush it."

Years. Easy laughter. Carefully maintained distance. Him looking at you the whole time with that steady certain gaze that you'd been pretending not to understand.

"Then don't"

He kissed you again. Softer this time. And then he laid you back against the mattress and took his time.

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"We're out of green onions," he announced with his head inside the fridge. "And ginger. Grandma said we have to buy soy sauce and it has to be the right brand."

"Which brand?"

He turned around with an expression that said he had absolutely no idea.

"Great," you said. "Really helpful."

"She showed me once. It has a red label. Or maybe yellow." He pulled out a tote bag from the cabinet and dropped it on the counter in your direction. "We'll figure it out when we're there."

"The market is a fifteen minute walk in this heat."

"Then we should leave now."

"Caleb—"

He was already heading for the door. "Come on."

You grabbed the bag and your sunglasses and followed him out into the heat, which hit you like a wall the second you stepped off the porch.

The neighborhood was quiet on summer afternoons, everyone wanted to be inside with their fans on. You walked beside Caleb through streets you'd both known since childhood, past the park, past the corner ice cream store with the faded awning, past Mrs. Yuen's house with the wind chimes that had been making the same sound for fifteen years.

He was telling you about an incident with a new recruit that had happened at a training exercise last month and you were laughing.

"Did he get hurt?" you managed.

"Bruised his ego more than anything." Caleb pushed your sunglasses up. "Poor guy spent the rest of the session pretending it hadn't happened."

The market was cool and smelled like the same brand of air freshener they'd been using since you were ten. You grabbed a basket and split off toward the vegetables while Caleb wandered in the direction of the snack aisle, which —you'd learned over years of shared grocery runs— meant you were going to spend the next several minutes complaining about his choices.

You found the green onions. Found the ginger. Turned the corner into the snack aisle and found Caleb standing in front of the chips with two bags in his hands, deliberating.

"We don't need chips," you said.

"Yes we do."

"We have food at home."

"Chips are not food, chips are a separate category." He held them both up. "Salt and vinegar or barbecue."

"Neither. We're here for dinner ingredients."

"And chips." He put the barbecue in the basket.

You took it out. He put it back in.

"Caleb."

"It's for the walk home. You'll want some on the walk home."

"You are so—" You stopped, pointed at his chest. "Fine. One bag. And you're carrying it."

He was already reaching for a second one.

"One bag."

"Salt and vinegar for you, barbecue for me. That's technically one bag each which is—"

"That's two bags."

"One per person."

You let him keep both bags because the alternative was standing in the snack aisle for another five minutes.

The soy sauce took longer. You found the section, found approximately ten different brands, and stood there for a moment in silence.

"Red label or yellow?" you said.

"I said I wasn't sure."

"You said you'd seen it."

"I'd seen it, I didn't memorize it."

"Caleb, if we get the wrong one—"

He picked one up, turned it over, put it back. Picked up another. "This one looks right."

He put it in the basket and you picked up a different one, compared the labels side by side, and put his back and kept yours.

He switched them back the moment you turned away.

------

You were outside, bag on Caleb's shoulder, chips already open when your hunter's watch went off.

The sound cut straight through everything. Your hand was in the chip bag one second and at your holster the next, the muscle memory of it faster than conscious thought. The screen had gone red.

Wanderer detected. Class: High energy anomaly. Proximity: 100 meters.

Caleb stepped in close "Behind the market. Let's go."

You were already moving.

---

The alley ran behind a row of shops, narrow and shadowed, the air warping at the far end and that meant the Wanderer had already been there long enough to disturb local reality. You pulled your gun and kept your back to the wall, moving fast. Caleb came in on the other side, gravity already building at his hands, the air around his knuckles bending in a way that meant he was ready.

The Wanderer was enormous, the geometry of it not quite making sense no matter which angle you looked from. It moved fast for something that size, swinging a limb in your direction before you'd fully cleared the corner.

You fired twice. The shots connected and it shrieked, momentum redirected enough that the hit meant for you shattered a section of wall instead.

"Flank!" Caleb called.

You were already going wide. He pulled gravity in from the left, compressing the Wanderer's movement, slowing it just enough for you to get behind it and put three more shots into the joint where two of its limbs connected. It screamed and lurched sideways.

"Keep it off the street," you yelled over the noise.

"Working on it." He dragged it backward with a gravity pull that made the pavement crack under the force of it, steering it further into the alley.

It was not a clean fight. It kept redirecting, slamming into the walls, filling the alley with debris that you had to dodge while maintaining your sight lines.

Eventually the thing started to slow. Eventually it disappeared.

Then you saw it.

On the ground where the Wanderer had dissolved — a Protocore, small, throwing off an iridescent white that you'd never seen from a Wanderer before.

"That's not standard," Caleb said, coming to stand beside you. He crouched down to look at it without touching it. "I've never seen one this color."

"Me neither." You holstered your gun. "I should take it to HQ."

"Agreed." You crouched beside him, reaching for the core at the same time he did, and your hands closed around it simultaneously.

White light erupted.

It collapsed inward, pulling everything —sound, light, air, the alley— into a point of white noise and wind, and then nothing, a few seconds later there was a floor coming up very fast.

You hit the carpet with a thud that knocked the breath out of you.

Caleb landed beside you, one arm slamming down to catch his weight before he pushed himself up.

"Are you hurt," he said, breathing hard.

You did a fast inventory. "No. You?"

"No." He looked up. Looked around.

You were inside a huge apartment. Carpeted floor and warm light from the windows. A long couch. A coffee table with papers on it. A mug. A jacket draped over the back of a chair.

Someone's apartment.

You stood up slowly. Caleb was already at the bookshelf, and you followed, and then you saw the first photo and everything in your chest felt strange.

It was you. You and Caleb, standing somewhere sunny, laughing at something out of frame. You were wearing a jacket you didn't own. His hair was slightly different, grown out and pushed back.

There were more. The two of you at a restaurant, faces close across a small table. A shot of you asleep on a couch, and Caleb sitting at the other end with a book, but whoever had taken the photo had caught him looking at you and not at the page.

Your throat felt tight.

"This is my apartment," Caleb said quietly, from somewhere to your left.

You turned to look at him. He was looking at the leather jacket on the chair. His leather jacket, the one currently in his wardrobe back at the base. A pilot's manual on the shelf, the same one he'd been working through. A mug from the Farspace Fleet. A framed photo of your grandmother that matched the one at home.

"The photos—" you started.

"I know."

He crossed to the coffee table, picked up the newspaper and scanned the top page. He held it out.

The date at the top was two years from now. Exactly two years.

---

You spent the rest of the afternoon going through the apartment with careful attention, very aware you were somewhere you weren't supposed to be. You were trying to understand what the last two years had produced.

Caleb's future self left notes everywhere. Fridge, desk, bathroom mirror. His handwriting but with a different quality to it, more settled. There were more photos than you'd first noticed — tucked into the edges of the mirror in the hallway, stuck to the inside of a cabinet. A birthday card in your handwriting on the desk, standing open. A second toothbrush in the bathroom.

You both looked at that for a moment.

"I'm not going to say anything about any of this," you said finally, standing in the kitchen with your arms crossed.

"Good call," Caleb said, from the doorway.

"I'm —this is a lot of information."

"It is."

"And I'm not drawing any conclusions."

He went quiet.

The sun went down. The apartment went from warm gold to dark while you sat on the floor of the living room eating crackers you'd found in the cabinet, your backs against the couch, the Protocore sitting on the coffee table throwing faint white light across the ceiling.

"We'll figure out how to get back," Caleb said.

"I know."

"Same energy that brought us here should be able to—"

"Caleb, I know. I'm not panicking."

He looked at you sideways. "You're quieter than your normal quiet."

"I'm just thinking."

He nodded slowly. Ate a cracker. Didn't push it, he knew when to let something sit. Almost two decades of knowing each other and he'd learned exactly where the lines were.

You were about to say something else when you heard it.

Voices outside.

Both of you were on your feet before the door handle moved. Caleb stepped toward the entryway on pure instinct and you grabbed his arm with both hands and pulled.

"Don't," you said, low and fast.

"I just want to see—"

"You cannot make contact with yourself. Do you understand what that does to the timeline? Do you understand what happens if you alter something?"

"I wasn't going to —"

"Caleb." You got in front of him, hands on his chest, looking up at him with full seriousness. "We hide. Right now. We have to wait."

He looked at the door. The handle was starting to move.

"Fine," he said before he grabbed the protocore and then your wrist to pull you toward the hallway closet in two long strides, opening it fast and pulling you in after him, easing the door shut.

The closet was full. Coats, bags, a stack of boxes on the floor that immediately became a problem because you had nowhere to step back, which meant you were now pressed against Caleb from your shoulders to your knees.

You could feel every breath he took.

"This is very small," you whispered.

"I know," he said, directly behind your ear.

His arms were on either side of you because there was nowhere else for them. His chin was above your head. You could feel him making adjustments to keep whatever minimal distance physics was willing to offer, and it was working as well as you'd expect. Which was not well.

You were two childhood friends in a closet in an apartment that was apparently his, two years in the future, surrounded by photographic evidence of something neither of you had said out loud yet, and he was doing his very best not to press against you and his very best was losing badly to the laws of spatial reasoning.

The front door opened.

Through the slats of the closet door, the living room light clicked on.

"I told you." Your own voice, but looser, threaded through with laughter that had a very specific quality to it. "I told you we shouldn't have had that last drink."

"Yeah," came the reply. Caleb's voice, except it was rougher and stripped of the easy warmth you knew and replaced with something that made the back of your neck prickle. "You were flirting with the bartender just to watch me lose it."

"Maybe I was." Future you sounded unrepentant about this.

Through the slats you watched two people stumble into the living room and your brain took several seconds to process what your eyes were seeing. She was in a dress, form fitting, gorgeous, currently half unzipped down the back. Future Caleb had shed his jacket somewhere between the door and the living room, his shirt untucked with half the buttons open, chest visible, hair slightly wrecked.

Behind you, Caleb had gone completely rigid. You felt it happen, every muscle in his body locking up at once.

Then future Caleb grabbed future you by the waist and walked her backward into the living room wall.

The impact was loud. What followed was louder, the sound of them kissing, which was not the word for what was happening, kissing implied something with more restraint than this. Future Caleb had his hands in her hair and on her waist and sliding down to bunch the fabric of her dress up her thighs, all at the same time.

You made a sound you hadn't planned on making.

Caleb's hand came over your mouth so fast you didn't even see it coming, his palm pressing firm and warm against your lips, his forearm across your collarbone. His chest was heaving against your back and something else was pressing against the small of your back that you were both absolutely not acknowledging.

You made a muffled sound against his hand anyway.

His arm tightened.

Future Caleb pulled back just far enough to speak "You want to play games tonight?" A pause, heavy with intent. "Let's find out how loud I can make you scream."

He pushed his hand up her skirt.

You'd never made that sound in your life. Or apparently you would. In two years. Against that wall.

"Caleb—wait, wait—the couch—"

That was it. That was enough. Your hand shot out in the dark and found the closet door handle and you grabbed it.

Caleb's hand came off your mouth and closed around your wrist, pulling it back against you, his mouth dropping to your ear.

"Don't you dare," he breathed.

"We have to stop watching this—" you hissed.

"If you open that door they'll see us—"

"Then they see us—"

"And alter the timeline," he said. "Your words. Two minutes ago."

He was right and it was the worst possible moment for him to be right.

"Just—" His voice came out strained "Just don't move."

"Caleb—"

"I'm a guy, and you are literally grinding into me," he snapped softly, though there was no real anger in it. His forehead dropped briefly to the back of your head. "Just..." sigh "give me a second."

Outside the closet Caleb lifted her clean off the floor. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he carried her the few steps to the couch and dropped her onto it.

His hands yanked the straps of her dress down, baring her breasts. He pinched a nipple, and she arched with a sharp cry. "You are so fucking wet already. Been thinking about my cock all day? Want me to stretch that pretty pussy out right here?"

"Yes—fuck, Caleb, touch me," she gasped, hips grinding up.

Your breath hitched. Heat flooded between your legs, sudden and embarrassing. Caleb's cock twitched against your ass and you had to bite your lip to stay quiet.

Future Caleb reached down and shoved his pants off. You couldn't look away. He was big, thick, flushed, veins standing out. Ready.

Panic hit you. "Don't look," you whispered frantically. "That's... me. Turn around or do something—"

"Like hell," he said against your ear, teeth grazing the shell. "You're the one staring. You like seeing him like that? Seeing what I— what he wants to do to you?"

"Caleb, shut up," you whimpered, thighs pressing together.

He didn't fuck her right away. He grabbed her ankles, yanked her to the edge of the couch, and spread her wide. Dropped to his knees.

"Caleb—" she started, but it dissolved into a broken moan as he buried his face between her legs.

The sound of his tongue working her was loud and messy, completely shameless. Her head dropped back against the cushions, fingers twisted tight into the fabric, her whole body shaking every time he dragged his tongue over her clit in greedy strokes. He licked broad stripes up her slit before focusing on her clit again, sucking it into his mouth with a low groan.

"Fuck, you taste so good,”Caleb growled against her pussy, voice muffled but clear enough to carry.

"Just like that baby” she moaned, one hand fisting his hair, the other still twisting in the couch cushion.

He pinched her nipple hard with his free hand, rolling it between his fingers as he sucked harder. Her thighs trembled around his head.

Behind you, Caleb let out a broken groan that made your knees go soft. His arm snapped around your waist, holding you steady, fingers digging into your hip the exact same way his future self was gripping her out there.

“Fuck,” you whispered, head falling back against his shoulder before you could stop yourself. Your pussy was throbbing, aching so bad it almost hurt.

“Listen to that. Listen to how wet you get for me.” Caleb shifted his hips, grinding the thick ridge of his cock against your ass through your jeans, dragging the seam right over your soaked cunt.

On the couch, she was losing it. "I need you inside me. I can’t wait anymore.”

Future Caleb pulled back, mouth shiny, breathing hard. He stroked himself once, twice, then lined up and drove into her in one rough thrust. Her legs wrapped around him as he started fucking her deep and hard, the couch creaking like it might give out any second. His back and ass flexed with every thrust, hips snapping forward. “Gonna come on my cock like a good girl?”

He leaned over her, one hand pinning her thigh higher as he fucked her. “Gonna fill you up. Want you leaking my cum the rest of the night. You love being my dirty little slut, don’t you? Say it.”

“Oh my god,” you choked, voice barely there. Watching yourself get railed like that—by him—was too much. The guy whose arms were currently locked around your waist, the same guy you’d known since you were kids, was pounding into a future version of you like he owned her.

She gasped between moans, nails now digging into his back. “Yes—your slut, Caleb—harder—”

“That’s my girl.” His hips snapped faster “Come on my cock like you did last night."

In the closet, Caleb’s forehead dropped to your shoulder, his cock twitched hard against your ass, hips making tiny, helpless thrusts.

You couldn’t tear your eyes away, every filthy word making the ache between your legs worse.

“Jesus,” Caleb whispered raggedly “We really talk like that?”

You twisted hard, trying to turn around in the cramped space so you wouldn’t have to see it anymore.

“Stop moving,” Caleb gasped, his control fraying fast as your ass rubbed right over the head of his cock.

“I can’t watch this—let me turn—”

Your foot caught on a heavy boot buried in the mess at the bottom of the closet. Balance gone.

“Whoa—” Caleb grabbed for you, but it was too late. Your combined weight slammed into the door.

The cheap magnetic latch popped open with a sad little click.

The squeaking of the couch cut off like someone had yanked the plug on the whole universe.

The silence that followed rang in your ears. You pushed up on your elbows, face so hot you were surprised you hadn’t spontaneously combusted. Caleb was beside you, shirt rucked up, the very obvious, very hard line of his erection pressing against your thigh.

You both slowly turned your heads toward the couch.

A few meters away, future Caleb was frozen mid thrust, hands locked on future you’s hips, his body still buried deep inside her. She had one leg hooked high around his waist, hair a wild mess, chest heaving. Both of them stared at you with identical expressions of what the actual fuck.

They were a sweaty, flushed disaster, very naked and very, very mid fuck.

“What the…” future Caleb started.

Future you blinked slowly. “Is that… us?”

You opened your mouth, brain offering the most useless sentence in history. “We were just looking for soy sauce—”

The white light from the Protocore exploded again. The apartment, the couch, your naked and extremely confused future selves—all of it ripped away in a roar of rushing air.

Thud.

You hit the dirty alley hard enough to knock the wind out of you again.

Caleb groaned beside you, flat on his back, one arm flung over his eyes. His chest rose and fell in sharp pulls. You could still feel the ghost of his hardness against you, the way his fingers had dug into your hip in the closet. Your own body was still buzzing, thighs slick, pulse pounding between your legs like a second heartbeat.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then Caleb let out a shaky laugh that sounded half hysterical. “Soy sauce. Really?”

You rolled onto your side, wincing at the scrapes on your elbows. “It was the first thing that came to mind, okay? We just watched ourselves— I mean, they— we were—” You gestured vaguely, face burning all over again. “You know.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”

He sat up slowly and ran a hand through his hair. The front of his shorts was still a bit tented. He didn’t bother trying to hide it. You weren’t exactly in a position to judge, your nipples were tight against your shirt, and you were pretty sure your face was the color of a ripe tomato.

The protocore gave one last weak shimmer and dissolved into harmless blue dust that scattered across the pavement.

Caleb looked at you. “So… two years from now, huh?”

You swallowed. “Apparently we, uh… figured some things out.”

He huffed another laugh, but it was softer this time. Almost wondering. He reached over and brushed a bit of alley dirt off your cheek with his thumb. The touch lingered.

“We should probably go”

You nodded, but neither of you stood up right away. The air between you felt thicker than the summer humidity, charged with everything you’d just seen and felt in that stupid closet.

Caleb’s gaze dropped to your mouth for a second, then flicked back up. “When we get back to the house…”

“Yeah?” you whispered.

He smiled, small and crooked and a little nervous, the same smile he’d given you a thousand times growing up, except this one felt different.

“I’m not waiting two years,” he said.

Your heart did something complicated in your chest.

You grabbed his hand, pulled him up with you, and the two of you started walking out of the alley like nothing had happened.

But everything had happened.

And as your fingers brushed again while you walked, neither of you pulled away.

Nerd! Zayne Part 5 coming soon. I promise.