Colonel Kaboom

As if the statement needed proof, he leans in and bites your protruding lower lip, pulling at it for a bit before releasing.

He freezes, savoring the faint taste of you on his fangs. His gaze flickers between yours and your reddened bottom lip. Not enough, he determines. The beast within is already eager for more.

You seize the chance to overpower him, shifting your hold on his biceps so that you can twist yourself out of his grasp. In your next move, you hook your leg behind one of his causing the large man to tumble backwards, taking your with him on his descent to the floor. You quickly cage him between your thighs and lock his wrists in yours above his head, smirking proudly down at your prey.

"Who's guard isn't up?" You tease, releasing one of his wrists to mimick his fingergun from earlier. "Kaboom."

Valko just smiles, equally as proud. He can’t resist the urge to tickle your side, poking and prodding with his freed hand. Your giggles feel like a reward he hasn’t earned yet, but he wants to, desperately.

Valko knows he's still got a shot when you zero in on his fangs as he smiles. Having you studying his wolffish features with such adoration makes him feel soft and cuddly. He’d let you inspect all his not-so-human parts for however long you’d like. Map out his body with your hands, lips, tongue, until your scent was all over him. He’d let you bite. Let your dull and harmless teeth sink into his skin, over and over again, until he was certain there would be a mark there the next day.

You subconsciously lick your bottom lip, tracing the lingering phantom indents from his far too gentle bite. Unable to resist anymore, you take your pointer finger and drag it across his fangs, feeling their sharpness when he parts his lips to grant you access.

"I might bite."

"Promises, promises," you sigh, letting your smile grow with his.

Blood rushes to his cheeks, painting them a pretty pink. However, Valko is more concerned with the blood rushing to another part of his body.

Hoping to distract you from the bulge barely concealed by his pants, he bites down on your finger.

Your gasp is far too close to sounding like a moan.

"Fuck," he mumbles, shakily, the pad of your finger now resting on his lip.

The wind picks up, cooling down the sweat on your body and causing goosebumps to erupt on your bare arms. Valko can't feel the cold anymore, not now that he's bathed in your scent and tasting the salt of your skin, with his hard length so close to your core.

"Fuck?" You tease, raising your eyebrows.

"Yeah fu– wait, what? I didn’t–"

His panic is short lived, evaporating as your laughter fills his ears. Valko knows the pink in his cheeks has likely turned into a bright red by now.

He decides it's his turn to take control, rolling you both over so that he’s on top pinning you down. You thrash and pull trying to free yourself, but Valko has your wrists thoroughly pinned and your legs incapacitated, spread wide on either side of his waist.

"Valko," you say sternly, although it comes out more shaky than intended as the cool tile is pressed against your bare back. The thin cotton t-shirt you’re wearing has ridden up and exposed your lower torso to the night. You instinctively arch your back to escape the cold tile, presenting your cold and hardened nipples to the man above you.

"Fuck," he repeats, with conviction, swallowing hard as his gaze shifts to your chest.

"Yeah," you whisper, tilting your head in the opposite direction while trying to remain somewhat calm. You’re just play-fighting, that’s all, right? Then why is your pussy throbbing, wet and warm, begging to be filled. "Fuck."

You exposed your neck to him. Valko can see your pulse, practically feel it, if he counted he’d sure find it above your usual pace. Saliva gathers on his tongue at the delectable sight below him, and he fears his restraint has reached its breaking point.

"Do you, uhm–" he stutters out before all words seem to escape him. His animalistic instincts are screaming, clouding his mind to the point of silencing his human voice. Instead a wolfish growl slips out.

The sound is unexpected, leaving you confused and furrowing your brows silently asking for him to explain.

He can’t. Each quickened breath is accompanied by another soft growl or a low rumble from deep in his chest. He’s blinking rapidly trying to come up with a way to explain himself before your impression of him has been permanently tainted by this strange animalistic outburst.

"You want..?" He manages, before going quiet again. His dick has grown painfully hard within the constrictive material of his jeans. In a moment of weakness while distracted by the ache, his hips roll forward pressing his hard length directly against your core.

You both moan at the sensation before Valko finally finds a moment of clarity and he realizes what he’s done. Wide eyed and apologetic he tries to pull away and releases your wrists. He doesn’t get far when your legs wrap around his waist, keeping him tethered to you and pulling him closer.

"Yes."

Your hands cradle the nape of his neck and tangle in his hair as you pull him down for a kiss. Its hungry, messy, full of need and desire.

Finally, you feel his fangs on your lip again; a gentle tug, yet you whimper almost pathetically at the mere idea of a proper bite. You can tell by the way he growls, so unrestricted now, that he wants to use more strength too. Like you, he craves the feeling of your skin between his teeth.

With one arm, he continues supporting his weight above you, the other trails down your side before dipping in underneath the hem of your t-shirt. Warm fingers find your breast, kneading the soft flesh before devoting their attention to your nipple. Valko swallows your little whimpers of appreciation as if they provide sustenance. The only thing being fueled is his own increasingly throbbing need for you.

Tentatively, he rolls his hips again. Your legs are still locked around his waist and you use them to encourage him to continue, pressing your bodies together. Suddenly, you don’t feel cold anymore. Valko’s heat radiates off his skin and engulfs you entirely.

His heat, his scent, his touch – you’re getting lost in it.

"Val… inside," you whisper breathlessly between kisses.

"What? Here?"

"No, I mean we should go inside," you giggle.

The surprised look on his face quickly matches your amused one. His forehead momentarily drops to your shoulder where you feel a breathy laugh hit the side of your neck.

"Alright, hold on tight, babe" he says mischievously, smirking like he’s got some grand plan you’re unaware of.

You barely have time to process what the nickname does to your already rapid pulse before he’s lifting you both off the cold tiled floor. With a shocked gasp you quickly grasp his shoulder and the back of his neck, digging your nails in on accident.

Valko feels the tingle of your human claws claiming him all the way down his spine, nosing the side of your neck appreciatively.

"Bedroom?" he asks, and you point him in the right direction. You’re very eager, and Valko loves it.

He doesn’t take the time to look around. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. Your scent is everywhere. Perfume and laundry detergents he recognizes as yours, but also every other layer that is pure you. In here, he’s incapable of ignoring the scent of your arousal which has steadily increased since he arrived. In here it’s magnified.

"Fu-ck, you don’t know what you do to me."

Your back hits the mattress, fast. Tossed into the perfect little nest where your scent is the strongest.

Valko is on top of you mere seconds after, caging you in with his large frame. His hands map all the parts of your body that he can reach. His mouth descends on your chest, lips wrapping around your nipple through your shirt, eagerly sucking and lapping at it with his tongue.

He seems displeased when you shimmy away. Even glancing up at you with furrowed brows and a curl to his lip that almost exposes his fangs, until he realizes that you’re pulling your shirt off. He allows himself a moment to stare before resuming his actions. This time with direct access to your skin. His mouth works one nipple while his hand finds the other, rolling it under the tip of his finger.

Pressure continues to build deep in your core, aching with the need for more contact than his rolling hips are able to provide through clothing. Your hips rise to meet his and Valko takes the opportunity to pull your pajama pants down. Again, he takes a moment to appreciate the sight. Kissing, licking, and biting his way down your belly, golden eyes stay locked on yours.

Valko hooks his fingers into your panties, fighting the urge to simply tear the flimsy material off your body. Even with his restraint, they almost rip from the impatient tugging.

"Oh, you smell so good, babe. I need to taste you."

With a long, slow drag of his tongue, starting at your entrance and ending at your clit, Valko is addicted. There’s nothing slow or patient about how he moves. Licking and sucking like he’s truly starving for it. He starts fucking into you with his tongue, using the strong muscle to taste you properly, while his nose presses into your clit.

"Shit, Valko! Ah!" Your mind can barely keep up with him, but your body doesn’t seem to have that same issue as it races toward your first orgasm. "S-slow down."

He grunts disapprovingly, tightening his grip on your hips when you begin to squirm too much for his liking.

Your hand flies down with the intent of tugging at his plum colored tresses. Instead, your fingers find soft, furry ears atop his head. Glancing down through hazy eyes, you see a tail has sprouted from his rear and is flicking wildly back and forth.

Valko whimpers into your cunt. His body is clearly growing restless, but his eagerness to please and taste you doesn’t falter.

Despite his nearly drunken state and the newness of the situation, Valko reads your body like an open book. His enhanced hearing picks up on how your breathing changes to shallow and strained. The darkness of your bedroom doesn’t hinder his golden eyes from seeing each tiny droplet of sweat that has gathered on your skin. Your strong legs growing tense against his back, thighs closing in on his head keeping him locked against you.

You’re close.

"I’m gonna- I’m coming!"

Your orgasm hits, hard. A string of breathless moans and attempts at forming the shape of Valko’s name echoes in the room, filling his ears with your praises. He relishes in the feeling of your hips rolling against his mouth, using him to ride out your high. When you settle, he switches to gentler kisses and licks, lapping up your arousal like a reward now that he's finally earned it.

You don't have time to process the intense feeling for long. The impatient wolf at the foot of your bed clutches and releases the flesh of your hips, trying to keep himself from pouncing on you, fighting against every fiber of his being telling him to claim.

Propping yourself up on your elbow, you reach down to hook your fingers in the collar of his shirt and pull. Valko crawls over your body, wide eyed and obedient.

He's practically shaking above you. How much he's holding back, you don't know. However, you've realized that you'd prefer if he didn't. If you're going to do this together, you want all of him.

"What do you need?" You question. His lips linger only a few centimeters away from yours, parted and almost quivering with poorly concealed lust. "Whatever you need, take it. I want you to."

He pulls back slightly, shaking his head when he speaks. "Don't say that. You don't know what you're agreeing too."

"Show me."

"I might hurt you," he says, almost like a challenge.

"I'm a capable hunter."

Valko huffs out a laugh, dropping to kiss your collarbone, neck, jaw, before stopping with a teasing graze at the corner of your mouth.

"I know you are, huntress. The beast in me has sensed that about you since we met. No fear, no uncertain moves. You're confident, even when I get close like this..." he whispers, sneaking a hand between your bodies and unbuttoning his jeans. "...which is exactly why it would be dangerous. You're irresistable. If you say I can take, I won't stop taking until I've had my fill."

Valko is right, you don't know what you're agreeing to. A fact that becomes even clearer when you feel his bare cock, warm, thick, and heavy, pressed against your sensitive folds.

You see relief flash in his eyes for a moment before it's consumed by need and instinct. His pupils dilate, enhancing that bright yellow glow in your dimly lit room. A sharp fingernail you're certain was not there before trails up your side. There's not enough pressure to break skin, but enough to leave a pretty, rosy line from your hip to right below your breast.

"You asked for it, babe." Then he stands, shedding the rest of his clothes in the blink of an eye.

You knew Valko was big, obviously. But seeing him naked, all raw muscle and warm flesh, makes your previous assessments feel like a gross underestimation. He must have noticed the shift in your expression as your eyes mapped out his body, the way your breath hitched when they lingered on the impressive length between his legs.

"Scared?" The words are meant to taunt and tease. Valko wants to lure out the huntress, using himself as bait.

He climbs back in bed, trapping you beneath him. An unwilling gasp escapes you when he rubs the tip of his cock against your clit, seemingly hitting perfectly every time you try to open your mouth.

"Use your words, huntress."

With a scowl and nostrils flaring slightly, you mutter out, "n-no, I’m not scared."

He chuckles darkly, keeping his gaze locked on yours while slowly dragging his cock down from your clit toward your entrance. Both your breaths hitch when he nudges your hole. Anticipation hangs heavy in the air, lust and desire clings to your skin, and Valko seems to have reached his breaking point.

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry," he mumbles against your lips.

You don’t have time to question him. The stretch of his cock slowly sinking into you clouds your mind and overtakes any coherent thought. Its not until Valko’s growls turn into pained grumbles that you’re able to snap back.

"Valko?"

"Sorry, it’s so hard."

"W-what?" You whimper as his body shifts slightly, another couple of centimeters disappearing inside of you.

"You feel so good, babe. You have no idea. I-I cant–"

He pushes forward, sinking every hard inch of himself into your warmth. You whimper, biting your lip through the sting. Valko notices and begins nipping at your lips until your bite relaxes. He kisses you, rolling his hips back and forth a little faster than he would have liked to.

Your participation in the kiss pauses, replaced by heavy panting against his lips. Valko tries to initiate something, but you’re not entirely sure what until he speaks.

"Bite me," he mumbles, pressing his own bottom lip in between yours in an open mouthed kiss. "Bite me instead, babe, please."

You obey, biting down on him like you just did on yourself. It makes him pick up the pace, rolls turn into quick thrusts that reach the deepest parts of you. The sting is still there, but you don’t care anymore.

His lip is released when your moans become too much to contain behind your teeth. Although Valko craves your bite, his alert ears excitedly welcome your unrestrained sounds of pleasure.

Strong hands claim your legs, hoisting them up onto his forearms. The slight change in angle has you seeing stars. His tongue slips out from behind his teeth, happily tasting your skin and drooling onto your neck.

The lewd sounds of skin meeting skin and liquid arousal is nearly drowned out by Valko growling and whimpering against you. You can’t see his tail, but you feel the cool winds it creates in quick gusts on your legs. Goosebumps appear, caused by chilled wisps of air or Valko’s heat, maybe both.

"So perfect," he slurs, "my pretty huntress, taking me so well."

Your gummy walls succumbed to his size long ago allowing the tip of his length to kiss the deepest parts of you.

"Val–fuck, you feel so good, Valko."

"I knew you could take it – take me. My capable huntress. Mine."

The claim unlocks something in him; a feeling and instinct he hoped to keep at bay. But then you speak again, and Valko realizes he’s doomed.

"Yours."

His teeth find your neck, biting down into the soft flesh and breaking skin. The taste of metal tingling at the tip of his tongue. Your body goes rigid, nails sinking into his shoulders, and you find yourself falling over the edge before you’ve had time to realize what’s happening.

He holds you through it, only releasing the caught skin to whimper into your ear, "mate, my mate. You’re mine now."

A new stinging sensation blooms at your entrance, the burn much more intense than before. Valko’s lips don’t leave your neck. They linger near his bite where he licks and kisses the wound, mumbling your name between each strained breath.

"You’re my capable huntress, right? You can take it, can’t you?"

You don’t know what he’s talking about until you feel an impossible stretch right before Valko stops moving. He clings to your body, warmth filling your insides as he cums.

Cautiously, he rises from the safety of your neck so that he can check in on you. Some clarity has been regained now that his knot has locked the two of you together.

To his horror, your face depicts ache and discomfort. He ruined it, he went too far. The beast claimed too much of him and now you’re dealing with the consequences.

"I’m sorry, I’m so sorry."

He begins licking your cheeks, tasting the salty tears you didn’t know had been spilled. After a brief pause, the licks are replaced by kisses.

"I’m ok," you smile, unconvincingly.

The wounded look on his face breaks your heart. Your palm begins caressing his cheek and he relaxes instantly, seeking your comfort.

"I promise, I’m ok. I just wasn’t expecting that."

"Was it ok?" His human ears have gone bright red. The wolfish pair atop his head lay flat against his hair.

You nod, smiling. This one is bright enough to convince him.

"So… how long do we stay like this?" You question.

The flush spreads to his cheeks.

"A while…" he says, vaguely, after retreating to hide in the crock of your neck.

You can’t help but giggle at him. The large wolf, bashfully seeking shelter in your arms.

"Hey, Valko?"

"Hm?"

"You bit me pretty hard just now, what was that about?"

His eyes go wide. He doesn’t respond with words, instead he sinks even deeper into your embrace and rubs his nose against your skin, leaving your mind to work out why his knot seemed to pulsate when you asked your question.

AN: First time writing Valko and first time knotting lol 👉🏻👈🏻 Hopefully someone will appreciate this even though things are so weird and uncertain rn. Thanks for reading! Likes, comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! If anyone is interested in being added to the taglist, let me know!

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Work had filled most of your time this week. Back to back missions, three cases that bled into each other, a Thursday briefing that ate the entire day. The Association had kept you moving and moving was good. Moving meant you weren't sitting still long enough to think about things you should not be thinking about.

The problem was tonight there was nothing to move toward.

You'd slowed down. Today's mission had seen to that —a clean operation until it wasn't, until you'd caught the edge of something you'd moved a second too late to avoid and ended up limping through the debrief trying to look unbothered. The Association medic had looked at your leg, told you to rest it, and now you were on your couch. Leg up. Thinking.

You'd worked with Sylus enough times to understand how your arrangement functioned, he had access to things the Association didn't and in exchange you'd give him information he found useful. You showed up. He had what you needed. You left. Repeat.

That part made sense.

What didn't was the rest of it. The part where two weeks of silence felt different now. He was the most wanted name on the Association's list and you were a Deepspace Hunter. The math on that was simple.

So no, you did not miss Sylus.

Your leg throbbed. You shifted your weight and stared at the ceiling again, trying to have an internal conversation about professional conduct and the importance of clear boundaries and then your phone lit up.

You grabbed it so fast you nearly put your elbow through the side table.

Sylus: I heard your mission went sideways. How's the leg?

You: How did you...you know what. Never mind.

Sylus: Mephisto was nearby.

You: You sent your bird to check on me?

Sylus: Mephisto goes where he likes.

You: 🙄🙄

Sylus: He said you were limping.

You: Tell Mephisto to mind his own business.

Sylus: He'll be devastated.

You: Good.

Sylus: I have something that might interest you. Have you ever seen a white Protocore?

You: White Protocores don't exist. Whatever you have is a fake.

Sylus: The seller pulled it from an anomalous Wanderer outside the N109 zone.

You sat with that for a moment.

Sylus: Come see it yourself. You'll want to.

The color alone was impossible by every known framework for protocore classification. Which meant either the seller was running an extremely convincing con, or something had come out of that wanderer that nobody had a category for yet.

Your feet were already on the floor.

You: Don't let anyone touch it. Give me 20 min.

Sylus: No need to rush, kitten. Look out your window.

You crossed the room in four steps and pulled the curtain back an inch.

Black car at the curb. No-parking sign directly above it, ignored completely. Sylus leaned against the driver's side door looking up at exactly the moment you looked down.

He raised his phone.

Sylus: Five minutes. Or I decide the leg is worse than you're letting on and leave.

You let the curtain fall.

"Not a chance," you said, to nobody.

You changed fast —jeans, jacket, hair up, sidearm checked —and ran down the stairs in a time your leg was going to remind you about tomorrow. The night air outside hit you cool and sharp.

Sylus hadn't moved from the car. He looked at you coming through the door, down the steps toward him and said nothing until you were close enough to hear.

"You ran down the stairs?"

"I want to see that Protocore."

"Of course." His mouth curved and there it was, the look that sat underneath the smirk, the one you'd filed away and kept finding again. "That's the only reason."

"It is"

"Then why are you still standing here instead of getting in the car."

You pulled the passenger door open yourself before he could do it, which seemed to amuse him. The interior smelled like expensive leather and him.

He slid in beside you, started the engine— the sound of it vibrating through the seat— and pulled away from the curb without looking at the road for the first two seconds because he was still looking at you.

"My people investigated as much as they could." He shifted gears, smooth and unhurried. "Which is why I need someone who knows what a forgery looks like at that level."

"But you also have people for that"

"I have people for a lot of things." He glanced over. Red eyes catching the streetlight for just a second. "None of them are you."

You looked out the window " Is that a compliment?"

"I didn't say it was."

The N109 Zone came up around you, neon and dark in equal measure, a place that operated on entirely different rules than Linkon City. You'd been here more times than your Association file strictly reflected. You knew the streets. You knew the hierarchy. You knew which doors opened for which names. All thanks to the man sitting in the driver's seat.

You had no idea what a white Protocore was. You had no idea what tonight was going to become but you had a feeling you were about to find out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

His office, you knew this place better than your own.

The reinforced doors. The security overrides, which ones were decoys and which ones actually mattered. The hidden safes, three of them, one behind a painting ugly enough to be forgettable on purpose. You'd learned all of it slowly, standing close enough and quiet enough that he forgot you were paying attention.

The White Protocore sat inside a glass tube at the center of his desk, and you hadn't moved in two minutes.

It looked like the others at first. Same crystalline structure, same geometry. But every other Protocore carried color, blue, gold, pink, red, green and purple. This one just a faint pulse, soft milky light spilling across the dark wood. Strange and uncategorizable.

Sylus wasn't looking at the protocore, he was watching you. His eyes were tracing the curve of your jaw, the focus on your expression. In his world of cutthroat deals and rare power, you were his white protocore.

The back of your neck went warm but you kept your eyes on the protocore.

"Can I touch it?"

A low sound from his chest. Not quite a laugh. "I don't recall ever saying no to you, sweetie."

His fingers worked the glass tube open and lifted the protocore into his palm.

You reached for it.

Your fingers brushed his skin and the protocore sat between your hands for a single second and then —

No warning. Just white light swallowing the desk and the dark walls. Then the wind hit, not from outside but from inside the protocore, like a vacuum pulling in with a force that emptied your lungs before you could inhale. The sound of it was scary, like space tearing apart. The air collapsed into that small white light in your hands, the floor dropped away and you were falling without falling.

The first thing that came back was pressure.

Arms locked across your chest and shoulders, tight enough your ribs couldn't move. Something solid at your back. You tried to breathe. Couldn't. Tried again.

"Sy" Barely a whisper. "Can't— brea—"

His arms dropped instantly.

He was on his feet before you inhaled, one fluid motion, hand going to his gun, eyes sweeping the room. No targets. His hand dropped, but his shoulders stayed coiled, still reading the space.

You sat up. Pulled air in slowly until your chest stopped aching.

"Where are we?"

He didn't answer. Still looking.

You looked too.

Dark wood, heavy draping, expensive things chosen for use as much as looks. It felt like his place at first glance.

In the corner was a record player, vinyl turning silently, needle down, producing nothing. Beside it a bookshelf climbed straight to the ceiling, a ladder running the whole length on a track.

On the low table in front of the couch sat two glasses of wine. One half empty. Whoever had been drinking had stepped away expecting to come right back.

You stood slowly.

Sylus had crossed to the far side of the room. His head was angled down at something on the shelf.

You crossed after him, boots loud on the floor.

"Sylus."

He didn't turn.

You came up beside him, followed his eyeline, and stopped.

A photograph. You in your Hunter uniform with a different insignia of a rank you didn't hold yet, holding a trophy. Your smile in the photo was wide open and unguarded, a version of happy you didn't wear on your face very often.

There was a small engraved plaque at the bottom of the frame.

Hunter of the Year — November 2051.

You picked up a magazine beside it.

Your face on the cover. Same uniform, same trophy, same smile. Hunter of the Year in bold letters across the top. Small print in the corner, neat and impossible.

November 2051.

You set it down carefully.

Behind you, Sylus had already moved to the mahogany desk near the windows. Papers shifted. Folders opened and closed. His hands stayed busy and his face gave nothing.

"Sylus." You kept your voice steady. "Look at me."

He didn't.

You crossed to the desk and placedd your hand flat over the document he was holding.

"Three years," he was staring at nothing in particular, whatever was running behind his eyes not making it to his face.

You looked at the half empty glass. The record player still turning in silence. A coat hanging by the door.

"Sylus."

"I see it."

"That's your coat."

"This is one of my safehouses"

"Since when do you keep pictures of the Association Hunters? Last I checked you called us glorified errand runners."

A slow smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth "I've got a taste for beautiful art, sweetie, and maybe I like having a permanent reminder of my favorite headache."

"I'm not your—"

"Someone's coming." his eyes sharpened, hand closing around your wrist.

"Who—"

"This way." He was already pulling you toward a closet.

He yanked the door open expecting to see his weapons.

There were no rifles or guns, just stacked piles of the same magazine you saw earlier, floor to ceiling, your face on every cover, hundreds of them.

"Do you also collect magazines?" you asked, fighting to keep your voice down as he shoved you into the tiny space and squeezed in after you, pulling the door shut. "This is a lot of me for one closet"

"If you keep talking you're going to get us both caught."

You bit down on a laugh and then it died in your throat completely.

The door clicked open and Sylus stepped into the room.

You gasped, turning on instinct to check whether he had somehow warped himself out there with his Evol, but he hadn't moved an inch.

Future Sylus's hair was a mess, like he'd run his hands over it more than once, and a bit longer than you were used to. His shirt was wrinkled, streaked faintly with mud, stretched tight across shoulders that looked broader than the ones currently pressed beside you in the dark. There was more color in his face too, like time had put some weather on him. He paced the length of the room like a caged animal, fists clenching and releasing at his sides. He stopped mid stride, head turning like he'd caught a sound in the room, inside Sylus's hand shot out, closing around your wrist as one finger came up to his lips, a silent order to stay quiet.

Then the door opened again, and future you walked in.

She looked pissed. Shirt torn at the shoulder, soot and dirt ground into the fabric, but her eyes were lit up with anger.

She was you, there was no doubt about that, but she was different. There was more color to her face too and her body was softer in some places, sturdier in others.

"You had no right, Sylus!" She slammed the door behind her "I can still fight! I had that under control!"

"You almost got killed" Sylus didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. Whatever was in his tone was cold enough to make the room feel smaller.

"That's a fucking lie and you know it!" She crossed the space between them fast, jabbing a finger into his chest. "I'm not some damsel for you to decide when I fight and when I don't!"

Beside you Sylus dipped his head, lips grazing the shell of your ear. "Different year. Same feisty kitten." His breath felt warm against your neck.

"Shut up, Sylus. Shut up" you hissed, elbowing him in the ribs. He huffed out a quiet laugh like you'd done him a favor.

Outside, the fight kept climbing.

"You think you can pull me off a fight and take me wherever you want?" her voice bounced off the ceiling. "I'm a Hunter, Sylus. I'm not joining Onychinus. Not now, not ever, no matter how many times you bring it up."

"You've made that perfectly clear."

"It's my job, Sy"

"Not anymore, it isn't."

"You don't get to make that call for me!"

He didn't answer with words. He started walking her back instead, one slow step for every one she gave up without notice, until her spine hit the ladder bolted to the bookshelf.

She was out of room. He planted a hand on either side of her head against the wooden rungs, boxing her in.

"Are you sure about that, sweetie?" Not a question so much as a challenge.

"We don't even know ye— get out of my space!"

"Make me."

Their faces were a breath apart now, close enough that the argument had stopped sounding like an argument. Through the door you felt the air on the other side change, something thick and charged, like the silence that comes right before either a fight or something worse. Your face went hot just watching it, the line between the two of them hating each other and wanting each other collapsing.

"I hate you"

"Good," he murmured so close to her lips. "You can hate me all you want, Mrs. Qin. You're still wearing my ring."

He closed the distance, hand curling around the back of her neck, and kissed her like it was the only thing he had left to say.

Beside you Sylus went completely still.

Future you made a sound against his lips that started as surprise and turned into a moan, her hands coming up to grip his shirt before she dropped them and grabbed him instead.

You turned to look at Sylus, his eyes dropped to yours and a slow smile moved across his mouth and your stomach went with it.

His shirt hit the floor first, hers followed.

Future Sylus lifted her off the floor and settled her onto a rung of the ladder. She grabbed the rung above her head to steady herself and he stepped back just far enough to look at her, taking his time with it while she sat there catching her breath.

Then he reached for her boots.

He pulled the first one off, fingers working the laces without looking down, eyes on her face the whole time. The second followed. He set his hands on her knees and dragged them up her thighs and she made a small sound before he'd even done anything.

His mouth found her collarbone. Moved down. The thin lace of her bra was still on and he put his lips over it anyway, tongue pressing through the fabric against her nipple, and her head went back against the ladder. He bit down through the fabric, and the sound she made was immediate.

You pressed your hand to your mouth.

He did it again on the other side, slower, and her knuckles went white on the rung above her while her hips moved forward looking for something that wasn't there yet.

He kissed down her sternum. The soft skin below her ribs. His mouth dragged across her stomach and she was already breathing in pieces by the time his hands moved to her pants. He worked them down her legs and off, then dropped to his knees.

You made a small sound against your hand.

He was now on his knees between her thighs, hands finding the backs of them, hooking her legs one at a time over his shoulders. The muscles in his arms and neck shifted with the motion and he settled her weight there easily, like he'd done it before. Because in three years he had. Many times. You could tell by how she exhaled when her legs landed on his shoulders— relief. Her whole body recognizing what was coming.

He looked up at her.

Hands spread across her inner thighs, holding them open, red eyes on her face, waiting.

She looked down at him.

Her chest was moving fast. Her lip caught between her teeth. She held his gaze for one long second and then, quietly, barely enough to hear—

"Please."

His fingers found her thong and pulled it to the side.

One hand went to his hair, pulling him in, the other stayed above her head. Her nipples were hard against the wet lace.

Every sound came through clearly. His mouth on her wet pussy. Her breathing. Your face burned. Other things burned. You pressed your thighs together and it didn't help because the sounds didn't stop.

You turned to look at him again.

His right eye burned red in the dark closet. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm that wasn't steady.

"Sy—"

"Don't stop." Future you's voice came through the door, breathless. "Fuck, Sy...just like that."

Your face went hotter and you faced forward again.

Sylus exhaled against your hair. His hand was still on your wrist. Neither of you had moved it.

He made a sound against her and the sounds that followed were louder and wetter.

Your fingers found the front of his jacket and held on.

"Is this affecting you?" he asked, right against your ear.

"Shut up."

Then her voice again, completely gone, nothing held back. "Yes — baby, my clit, suck on it — fuck yes—"

His hand tightened on your wrist. Hard.

"Sylus." Your voice came out dry. Broken in the middle. Not what you'd intended at all.

"I know," he said.

Future you screamed his name. The closet pressed in from all sides.

"We need to leave"

"Yes," he agreed, but neither of you moved.

Her thighs locked around his shoulders and shook. He stayed until the last tremor left her. Then he stood, chest glistening, and his hands dropped to the button of his trousers.

Popped it open. Pushed the fabric down his thighs.

The outline of his cock through the fabric of his underwear made your throat close. The tip already wet, a dark circle spreading through the cotton, and his fingers found the waistband—

A large hand came down over your eyes.

"Hey—" You grabbed his wrist. His fingers didn't move.

"If you want a show," his voice low at your ear, "you only have to ask."

"Move your hand." You twisted your head. His palm stayed exactly where it was.

Dark behind it.

Then the sounds hit again.

Slap.

Slap.

Slap.

Skin against skin. Her voice breaking between each impact, the sounds coming in waves that your brain immediately started filling in visuals for and that was so much worse than if he'd just let you look.

"You're burning up," he said against your ear, not in concern but in pure mockery.

Your thighs pressed together hard. "I swear to god—"

His fingers spread open.

She was still on the ladder. Legs locked around his waist, both of them flushed, sweat catching the light. He had one hand on her hair, holding her close to his face, their mouths almost touching, breathing the same air while his hips rolled forward in deep slow drives that shook her whole body. He was saying something to her, too low to carry, but whatever it was kept fracturing her expression every time he said it.

Then his voice came through clearly.

"Look at me." Steady, even over everything else. "Tell me who you belong to."

Her tongue dragged across his upper lip. "Yours—" Her head dropped back. "Ah— yours, Sy, I'm yours—"

Your underwear felt damp and your clit was pulsing with a persistence you were doing your very best to ignore.

"Do you really think," Sylus whispered against your temple, "it takes us three whole years to get here?"

"I don't—"

Future Sylus pulled back, his tongue dragged slow up her throat while she panted against his shoulder. "You taste different today."

"Because you're—" she gasped, "—you're driving me insane—"

"That's not it." He pushed forward, one deep thrust that tore a cry out of her "You shouldn't be taking field hits right now." A beat. "Not when you're carrying my child."

The closet went cold.

Your jaw dropped. Hers did too.

Pregnant.

The argument. Him yanking her off the mission. All of it clicked into place at once. She was carrying his baby. In three years, you'd be carrying his kid.

Your knees went out from under you.

Your foot caught on something hard as you stumbled back. A stack of magazines toppled with the movement, and everything blurred, sound, vision, all of it going soft at the edges.

"—watch—"

Crimson light cracked through the dark. Sylus's Evol flared, and every falling magazine froze mid air.

The energy didn't stay contained. It rolled out through the closet door and everything on the other side went dead silent.

The sounds stopped. All of them. What replaced the noise had weight to it.

Sylus's eyes were locked on the door. Jaw tight. Not a muscle moving.

"Pathetic," future Sylus said, clear, not a trace of what he'd been doing thirty seconds earlier, "a top tier Hunter and the leader of Onychinus, hiding like toddlers playing hide and seek."

Your stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"Sylus?" Future you, breathless, confused. "Who are you talking—"

"I know you're in there." He sounded almost bored. "You're both breathing like horny teenagers."

Beside you, Sylus exhaled through his nose and reached out to push the door open. "I could say the same"

He stepped out first, glanced down at his sleeve, and flicked off a piece of lint that probably wasn't there. Then he reached back, hooked an arm around your waist, and pulled you out with him. You stumbled onto the polished floor, face burning hot enough to set the room on fire.

Future Sylus had future you pulled against him, her bra strap slipping off one shoulder, hair a wreck, and she was staring between the two of you with her mouth hanging open.

"Is that—" Her eyes went from you to the Sylus standing next to you and back again. "Are we— are they—"

Sylus looked at his future self. Future Sylus looked right back.

Three seconds of silence passed between them, and somehow it felt like an entire conversation.

"You look good," Sylus said.

"And you are interrupting," future Sylus said, arm tightening around future you.

You stopped watching the two of them and scanned the room instead.

There. The White Protocore, sitting beside the wine bottle, pulsing soft in the low light.

You moved before anyone could stop you, crossed the room, and closed your hand around it.

Sylus was right behind you. His hand landed over yours, the stone was caught between your palms again, warm and humming under your skin. He tossed one last glance over his shoulder at his future self and smirked.

White swallowed everything. The floor vanished, and then thud.

The familiar light of his office in the N109 Zone.

You were flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, just breathing.

The Protocore rolled out of your hand and knocked against the leg of his desk before it dissolved into dust.

Sylus sat up, forearm braced on a raised knee, and looked down at you, smirk already back in place. His gaze dropped to your mouth, your throat, the way your chest was still heaving.

"So," he said, leaning over you with one hand braced on the floor beside your head. "A baby."

You threw an arm over your face. "I will shoot you again."

"I'm just thinking ahead." His fingers found a strand of your hair "Sounds like we've got a lot of work to do in the next three years, Miss hunter."

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“I know I don’t, I know,” you breathe out, face burning as you gather the courage to look xavier in the eyes. “I want to, I want it, is that- can we?” Your voice wavers as you ask, shrinking into yourself slightly. Xavier smiles at you, eyes glimmering as he leans back into your space, slotting his lips against yours.

“I need to hear you say it, starlight. I want you to be sure that you’re ready,” his eyes bore into yours, not an ounce of urgency laced in his words. Only pure patience and affection for you.

“I want to have sex with you,” you breathe out, “please?” you add sheepishly, smiling when xavier grins widely. your giggles fade quickly as he latches onto your neck, biting gently and running his tongue over your sweet spot. You moan softly, Xavier’s fingers dig into your hips.

“Tell me the moment you want to stop, okay?” He's barely holding himself together, and yet he only cares about you. “Promise me starlight, promise me you’ll tell me the moment you don’t want it anymore,” his words are stern, and your heart flutters at how gentle he is with you.

“I promise, angel eyes,” you assure him, squealing slightly when he sweeps up off your feet and into his arms. “What are you doing?”

“Taking you to the bedroom. I’m not going to have our first time on the couch, you deserve something better,” Xavier says, your stomach flipping at his words. “Is that okay with you?”

You nod gently, “it’s perfect.” Your arms wrap around his neck, lips finding his own as he carries you to the bedroom, practiced steps easily leading the way as your lips move in tandem with his. He whines softly when you bite down on his bottom lip, you smile at the sound.

Xavier sets you down gently, not bothering to flick the bedroom light on. golden orbs float around the room already, ensuring the two of you in warm lighting. You stare at him nervously, sitting on the edge of the bed as he stands between your legs. Your shaky hand reaches for the drawstring of his sweats, pulling them loose and sliding his sweats down his thick thighs.

Your mouth waters slightly at the sight of his bulge, eyes widening before staring back up at your lover. He smiles softly at you, leaning down and slowly pushing your back to the mattress. You can feel his hard-on against your clothed heat, swallowing thickly when Xavier’s lips trail to your shoulder.

“Can I take this off?” his whispers, motioning to your shirt. You stare at him for a moment before nodding, arching your back and lifting your arms. He tosses it to the side, gaze focused on you. “Still okay?” he asks, you nod.

“More than okay,” you smile, letting your fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him down and crashing your lips onto his. Xavier lets himself melt into your touch, smiling when your noses bump against each other and you apologize against his lips.

His fingers ghost over your pajama shorts, pulling away to look at you. You give him a small nod, lifting your hips as he slowly drags them down your thighs, swallowing harshly when he notices the damp spot on your panties. His eyes rake over your figure, clad in your undergarments and writhing beneath him.

“You're so beautiful, my star,” he whispers, the words come out laced in awe. You flush at his words, averting your gaze to his t-shirt, tugging at the hem as a signal for him to take it off. He complies quickly, crossing across his torso as he pulls the shirt off.

You hold yourself up on your elbows, eyes never once leaving the rippling muscles of his abdomen, subconsciously clenching your thighs together when his arms flex to toss the shirt aside. Xavier smirks down at you, eyes glinting mischievously before he leans back down, mouth hovering over your chest, he looks up at you through his lashes, a silent ask for permission. You give him another nod, arching your back slightly.

Xavier’s eyes flutter shut the second his lips are on your soft skin, a low groan rumbling in the back of his throat as his other hand gently cups your other breast over your bra. you gasp the feeling, “Xav- take it off,” you rush out, fumbling to prop yourself up so he could undo your bra clasp. It doesn't take long for his dexterous fingers to reach behind you, easily unclasping your bra with one hand. Xavier gently sliding the straps down your shoulders, pressing gentle kisses to your shoulder.

“You’re everything to me,” he mutters, “I can’t believe I’m so lucky.” His eyes find yours, you’re about to reply when he takes your nipple in his mouth, sucking gently and making your words die on your tongue with a whine.

“X-Xavier,” you breathe out, head thrown back as you try to stop your racing thoughts, focusing on the feeling of his mouth on you. Your eyes open, staring at the ceiling as you try and ground yourself, “w-wait,” you stutter out, pushing his head away from you gently. Your lover stops immediately, concern in his eyes as you try and steady your breathing.

“Starlight, I’m here okay? It’s just you and me,” his soft voice pulls you out of your own head, turning your head and coming face to face with a bun bun plush.

You can’t stop the smile on your face, your hands coming to cover your face in embarrassment as you laugh. Xavier sits confused for a second, tentatively moving to lay next to you.

“God, I’m sorry Xav- I wanted this to be all sexy and awesome for you, and instead I’m- I got all in my head and then bun bun was staring right at me and–” you cut yourself off with a frustrated groan, finally moving your hands away from your face and looking at Xavier.

There's no frustration, no disappointment, no anger anywhere on his face. He's smiling down at you, giggling quietly as you stare at him with a pout.

“Don't apologize, you’ve already given me so much, I would never ask for more.” he reassures you, placing a kiss on your temple, “we move at your pace, whatever you want. I’m just happy to be here.”

You smile at his words, heartbeat slowing as you let yourself scoot against his body. “Can we- is it okay if we just kiss?” Xavier nods happily.

Somewhere between soft kisses and giggles you’d ended up on top of his lap, softly grinding down on his growing bulge as he bites your bottom lip.

You guide his calloused hand to your bare breasts, letting him pinch your pert nipples as you litter his jawline with wet kisses, breathing heaving as suckle on the skin beneath his ear.

“F-fuck star,” he groans, hips bucking up to meet yours, you let out a whine when his clothed cock bumps just right against your clit.

“I want- I need you,” you mumble, “need you inside me xavier please,” you cry, grinding down harder as your eyes fill with tears. Xavier smiles at you, catching your lips in his as he puts one arm on your back, supporting you as he easily flips the two of you. When he sets you down gently he reaches over you, turning the bun bun plush around. You can’t help but giggle as you get comfortable beneath him. “Xavier,” you whimper, the sound immediately goes to his cock. 

“I’ll give you anything you want, my star,” he whispers, biting gently at your neck before letting his fingers hover over your underwear. “Is this okay?” he asks, you nod quickly, lifting your hips for him to pull them down your legs.

You can hear a growl in his throat as he comes face to face with your heat, the sound makes you blush. for a second he doesn’t move, worry fills your mind as you swallow thickly, about to speak when he peppers kisses on your inner thighs, taking a deep breath before licking a long stripe over your cunt.

A small gasp leaves your lips, a strangled moan coming out of your throat when his tongue laps at your entrance, nose nudging your clit as he devours you like a man starved. Your fingers tangle in his soft hair, mind blank as his tongue works wonders on you. There isn’t room for you to overthink, not as your ears are filled with lewd slurps and groans from Xavier and wanton moans from you.

Xavier traces your entrance with one finger, easily slipping in and pumping before adding another.

“Fuck starlight, taste so fuckin’ good for me,” he mumbles, face still between your thighs, barely looking at how wrecked you already were. “Makin’ a mess for me, yeah? doing so good,” he praises, lapping up your juices as you clench around his digits from his words.

“Want you,” you manage out, fucking yourself down on his fingers, “need you Xavier, please,” you beg, eyes still screwed shut in pleasure.

You can feel Xavier smile against you, jumping as he presses a kiss to your clit before reluctantly pulling away from your sopping pussy.

“anything you want, starlight,” he whispers, you pull him up to your face immediately, kissing him and moaning when his tongue slips into your mouth, making you taste yourself. Xavier doesn’t disconnect your lips as he slips out of his boxers, letting his leaking tip brush against your clit.

“Don’t tease me anymore, please” you whine against Xavier's lips, eyes fluttering open as you pull away from him. A small string of saliva connects the two of you, one Xavier greedily laps up when he leans in to press one last kiss to your lips. Xavier’s eyes are blown wide, dark blue as he stares down at you with flushed cheeks and ragged breathing.

“Let me know if you need me to stop, okay?” he says, voice shaking as you nod. Your hands grasping onto his biceps, nails digging slightly into the skin as you take a deep breath.

Xavier’s abs clench as his tip meets your leaking entrance, and it takes every fiber of his being to not move faster than he does. He moves slowly, watching you intently and throwing his own pleasure out the window. He stops when you wince slightly, sealing hard before nodding at him.

“Doing so good,” he whispers out, biting back a moan when you clamp down on him at the praise, he makes note of it. He almost collapses on top of you when he’s finally at the hilt, cock so deep inside you you feel it in your throat. “doing okay baby?” he asks, you barely manage a nod.

“So big,” you manage out, taking deep breaths as you adjust, “o-okay,” you nod, looking up at Xavier.

His eyes don’t leave yours as he moves slowly, dragging his hard length against your gummy walls. His heart swells when you let out a soft moan, he can feel you relax beneath him as he moves slightly faster.

“Is that good, starlight?” he asks, hips thrusting against you as your eyes glaze over, mouth agape as you moan.

“So good! fuck Xav-” you cut yourself off with a moan, Xavier smiles when he feels your fingernails digging into his shoulder blades.

Your head is thrown back in pleasure as xavier fucks into you, a sharp moan leaving your lips everytime his tip brushes just right against the gummy spot inside you. You couldn’t speak even if you wanted, your lover's name coming out like a prayer as your hips move on their own to meet his thrusts. Stars paint your vision as your toes curl, the coil in your belly growing tighter and tighter with every grunt and groan xavier lets out by your ear.

“Fuck starlight you’re so fuckin’ perfect,” he groans, “such a pretty girl and you’re all mine, right? doing so good f’me baby- ah you like that don’t you?” he smiles, biting your ear lobe lightly and chuckling.

“Pussy is all wet just for me, doing so perfect for me,” he accentuates every praise with a thrust, making your grip on him tighter. The sound of skin on skin filling the bedroom, the bed creaking beneath him as you wrap your legs around him locking him into place.

“Xav- ngh- gonna cum,” you whimper, back arching off the mattress and pressing yourself against your lover.

“Let go for me pretty girl, cum around my cock, ‘m all yours baby take what you want,” he moans, “fuck star i love you, love you, love you love you s’much,” he chants, thrusts becoming sloppy when he feels your clenching down on his harder than before.

“Xavier!” you gasp, moaning loudly as you bury your face in his neck, biting as your fingers claw at his back, vision blurring while your legs tighten around him.

“Give it to me baby, that’s it let go f’me, my good girl,” he whines. You can feel his tip twitching inside of you as he tries to hold out for longer.

“Inside,” you manage out, barely making eye contact with him as your legs push him further into you. Your words are all it takes for Xavier to come undone. He's a groaning mess as he releases inside of you, thick spurts of his seed painting your walls white as you pull his hair roughly and place your mouth on his.

Xavier doesn’t hesitate to move his mouth against yours, moaning shamelessly into your mouth as he fucks his cum into you, whimpering at the overstimulation. Your legs keep him in position, moaning against him as you clench down on him, milking him for all he offers.

Xavier doesn’t let himself collapse on top of you, quickly gathering his bearings and focusing on you. “You okay? Wasn't too much?” he asks quietly, the two of you still panting, a thin sheen of sweat covering both of you.

You smile hazily at him, shaking your head ‘no’ before letting your eyes flutter open. Xavier almost cums again at the sight of your glazed eyes. God, you looked utterly fucked out. He smooths your hair down, tucking a strand behind your ear and taking in the sight beneath him.

“What?” you ask, suddenly nervous under his gaze. As if he wasn’t still balls deep in you.

“You're just so beautiful, sometimes I can't believe I got so lucky,” he whispers, leaning down and placing a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“Shut up,” you giggle, Xavier smiles at you, “I’m lucky too y’know,” you mumble, watching as his face flushes crimson at your words.

“Ready?” he asks, you nod. Xavier pulls out slowly, you involuntarily whimper at the loss of him, pussy clenching around nothing as his cum leaks out of you. Xavier can’t help but take a finger gathering his release and fucking it back into you, apologizing sheepishly when you whimper.

Xavier is gentle as he cleans you up, checking in with you every couple moments and blushing when you smack him lightly. He carries you to the restroom, turning the hot water on and placing a kiss to the top of your head as it heats up.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asks nervously, you can’t help but laugh, letting yourself melt into his side.

“Xavier, that was the best I’ve ever had,” you admit, smiling when a proud smirk forms on your lover's face. “Thank you,” you mumble as you step into the shower, Xavier follows suit as he rinses your hair.

“For what?”

“For being patient with me,” you say, eyes focused on the water in the tub, goosebumps rising on your skin when he places a feathery kiss to your shoulders.

“i would wait for you hundreds of years if you wanted me to, I love you so much, my star.” The words come so easily to him, the comfort makes your eyes water.

“And if I decide I don't want to have sex again?” you ask, heart pounding in your chest.

“Then I won’t have sex again,” he shrugs, shutting the water off as he reaches for your shampoo, “as long as I have you, I have everything I want.”

You grin as he lathers the shampoo in your hair, sighing softly as he scratches your scalp. You do the same for him, making his hair into a giant spike and giggling when he places bubbles on your nose.

Finally the two of you are under the covers, nestled impossibly close to one another. Xavier’s breathing is soft, and you can’t help but peer up at him, tracing his features with your eyes. you jump slightly as he opens his eyes, smiling when he catches you staring.

“Everything okay?”

"Everything's perfect,” you reply, sighing contently as you rest your head on his chest, eyes closing. “We'll be having sex again, by the way, that was just a hypothetical.”

Xavier chokes on his saliva, he hopes you’ll ignore the boner he has. you don’t.

masterlist

“didn’t wanna spend anymore time apart from you,” he pouts, you giggle at the way his brows furrow sadly. “long day?” he asks, settling in easily in the space next to you, wiggling a bit until you’re comfortable, you body nestled right up against his and popcorn bowl placed perfectly between his legs.

you hum in response, letting your head rest on his chest as you grab the remote, scrolling through available romcoms before finally landing on one.

“if you’re a bird I’m a bird,” xavier mumbles to you quietly as the movie starts, placing a gentle kiss to your temple. you can’t help the giant grin on your face as you turn to look at your lover.

“when did you watch the notebook?” you tease, savoring the way he smiles sheepishly as his cheeks turn the shade of pink you adore on him.

“i really like romcoms,” he mutters, face turning to avoid yours. a small gasp leaves your lips, quickly replaced by incessant giggles when you cup his cheeks with both hands, forcing him to look at you.

“my hopeless romantic,” you smile softly, pressing a chaste kiss to the top of his nose. xavier smiles, blinking quickly before placing his hands softly on either side of your face, grinning before placing a kiss to your lips. you squeak softly, eyes fluttering shut and whining when he pulls away with a quiet chuckle.

“for you, always.”

you giggle at his words, ignoring the way your face heats up and refraining from commenting on his bright red ears. it was true though, he was a hopeless romantic.

memories of him constantly giving you flowers, sharing headphones, buying you things, confessing his feelings to you after you’d argued and he almost burst into tears, kissing in the rain. the thought made you smile, xavier noticed, of course he did.

xavier only cared for romcoms because he knew you’d love them. he knew you’d want a love so strong they’d run in the rain for you, a love so deep that no matter what happens, your lover would find their way to you. and he gave you that, time and time again he was your fated lover.

neither of you made it past the thirty minute mark of the movie, exhaustion creeping up on the two of you. the comfort of being home with the person you trust the most made your eyelids heavier.

you pretended to be awake when xavier stirred next to you, eyes glued to the screen for half a second before you head lolled forward. xavier didn’t bother acting, soft snores leaving his lips as sweet scenes unfolded on the television.

loud arguments from the movie caused the two of you to jump slightly, eyes bleary as you both blinked quickly and tried to cover up the micronap you’d just taken.

“did you fall asleep?” you ask quietly, rubbing your eyes as xavier yawned.

“… no, did you?” you stare at xavier with narrowed eyes, he blinks rapidly under your gaze before the slightest smile appears on his lips. “okay maybe for a bit.”

“it’s okay, me too,” you chuckle, grabbing the remote and pausing the movie. you stretch with a quiet groan, letting your body fall limp onto your lover.

“‘m so tired, can’t do anything anymore,” you mumble, eyes closing on their own accord as you listen to xavier’s steady heartbeat.

“then we don’t have to,” he replied simply, placing the popcorn bowl on your coffee table before maneuvering his arms underneath you. “let’s just go to sleep, tomorrow we can have a movie night, sound good?” his quiet voice only helps lull you deeper into sleep.

“mhm,” you hum, arms wrapped around his neck as he walks to your bedroom, tucking you into bed. he slips out of his clothes and joins you under the sheets. you smile slightly at the smell of his body wash and cologne, curling your arms tighter around him. xavier feels his stomach flip at the action.

“you won’t leave right?” you slur, right on the line between lucid and asleep. xavier holds back a chuckle at your words, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead before letting his eyes flutter shut.

“i won’t ever leave you, my star,” he whispers, “I’ll be right here with you, always.” your silence makes his eyes open, heartbeat calming when he finds you’ve just fallen asleep. he lets out a small sigh, “i love you starlight, more than you know.”

maybe engraved in his dna along with the nucleic bases you were woven in, a part of who he was no matter what. it was always going to be you, nothing could change that. not the timeline he was in, not the world he inhabited or the role he played.

it was always you and him, and he wouldnt have it any other way.

masterlist

When you get out from the shower still patting down your slightly damp hair, you notice Xavier standing in the middle of the kitchen staring at something in his hand that you cannot immediately recognize as you step closer, faintly noticing the serious expression drawn across his face.

It's unusual for him not to turn his head in your direction, especially when you had been too impatient to go and dry your hair first — something, that will always have you end up with a runny nose for a couple of days after and put on long sleeves even during the warmest summer days.

Usually, Xavier would immediately offer to get the hairdryer for you, have you sit down on the sofa, so he can take his time making sure your hair would be completely dry before you lie down somewhere else. He's learned your care routine over the months of dating you and has gotten pretty good with it, to the point you trust him with everything while you relax under his magic spell.

But tonight, Xavier looks.. distressed? He's still staring at whatever is in his hand, his back turned to you that you have to tiptoe around him in an attempt to get a look, but he's faster and already moving away before you can see what has him so riled up.

You spot the bag you brought home just a couple of hours ago sitting on the counter in front of him: it's from that fancy patisserie that just recently opened which Zayne recommended to you during one of your appointments last week. And since Xavier's coming over tonight for dinner, a movie night and probably some cuddling after, you made sure to stop by on your way home to bring back an array of freshly baked goods you two could have as a dessert.

You assume he must have taken them out to serve them on some plates while you had been in the shower, yet whatever happened during it, must have left him so conflicted that he has silently contemplating something without saying a word to you even when you're right next to him.

"What's on your mind?" you ask him casually, walking over to the cupboard to take out some plates, "You've been so quiet."

Xavier doesn't respond. You walk over to the drawer next to him and reach for some forks, take a quick glance up and realize that whatever must be on his mind is not something you should be taking this lightly; there's something unexplainable behind his eyes which you always loved to compare to the prettiest stars in the sky — something dark and dangerous that you can't put the right words behind.

"Xavier?" you reach for his hand and gently pat it, and Xavier's eyes widen for a quick second as his head whips up and he stares right back at you, "..are you alright?"

"Where did you go today?" he asks instead of answering your question, his arm wrapping around your waist as he pulls you closer, "After work, I mean."

"Hm? Oh, I stopped by that pastry shop," you remind him, your arms returning the embrace without realizing how tight his grip has gotten, "The one that just opened near the association. I think it's called.. 'les étoiles'? Why?"

You turn towards the bag on the counter and carefully open the box, showing him what's inside, "Looks great, doesn't it?" you chirp with a small giggle, "I picked out a bunch for us to try. The staff there recommended this one when I-"

"The staff, huh"

His voice drops, and the part of your skin that his hands are touching starts feeling incredibly warm. You recognize this tone and the way these words coming out of his mouth sound: it's reminiscent of how Xavier always acts when you talk to him about your neighbor Charlie, or how he reacts when you tell him about getting free macarons from Zayne after finishing your monthly check-ups.

It's something you have learned about him just after you two started dating. The sudden changes in his mood when you had happily told him about getting free bread had taken you by surprise at first, and it's only a while later that you realized it's only with certain people that Xavier gets like this: he is jealous.

You've never thought of him as the jealous type when you had first gotten to know him; Xavier always seems so calm and collected about everything else in his life, that you never realized how easily affected he is when you closely hang out with someone else until you started taking a closer look at him and the way his face changes.

Except the thing is, for today, you don't think something had happened that would result in him looking this angry: in fact, since he wasn't even there when you went to pick up desserts, there's no reason for him to look this upset. Especially, since this isn't something unusual for you two; there have been a lot of occasions where either of you go and pick up food for each other, and never had it resulted in an argument like it sometimes does when Xavier's jealousy makes it hard to even greet people you've known for a while.

"Did they say anything to you?" he asks, his voice rough around the edges, "What did they look like?"

You look up at him and tilt your head, "Uh, I don't think I remember tha-"

"Do you really? Or are you just saying that so I don't pry further?"

He looks tense, his eyes scanning every single bit about you as if trying to find a hole in your story that just isn't there. And then you finally spot the slip of paper in his palm that he had tried to hide away from you this whole time.

"What's.. that?"

You reach for it before he's able to register what is happening, and when you finally manage to read it all, the puzzle full of questions starts solving itself bit by bit:

It's a note someone must have put on top of the box of pastries you have gotten earlier today, that you didn't even notice until Xavier did. The phone number, hastily scribbled down next to a very flirty message that is trying to catch your attention, has you let out a small gasp; especially when you recall not having whatsoever of an overly friendly conversation with the person taking your order. In fact, you are pretty sure you had asked for a recommendation, keeping in mind a certain someone who liked anything with cherries in it.

"Who-"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," he replies coldly, "Why did you take this?"

"I didn't! I didn't even know this existed until just now-"

"And he just happened to ask to get to know you better when all you did was order? Is that really what you want me to believe?"

You are staring at him wide-eyed; his harsh words echoing in your head as your heart stops beating for a second and you feel a pained sting in your chest. This isn't the Xavier you have grown to love and cherish; not the one, who you have promised to be with for as long he'd keep shining for you. This is an unreasonable part of him that has forgotten about everything you've ever told him.

And he can clearly tell how hurt you are. The moment the words leave his lips, it's like he stops breathing for a second, realizing what he had done. Xavier huffs, taking the note out of your hand to give it one last read before he crumples it in his fist. And then, without saying another word, he backs off and quietly walks away.

He doesn't get far, because you are following him closely, your hands reaching forward to hold him back because his silence has you worried about what's going through his head. Xavier's jealousy has never really been an issue for you; in fact, there is a part of you that finds his possessiveness quite attractive since he doesn't really go too far with it except for trying to prove the point that you are his, and his only. It's just that in rare cases like this, his impulsiveness will bury any rational thought he'd usually have, had this not been about you.

You are certain that deep down, Xavier knows, that you won't ever have eyes for someone else, but he despises the idea of someone else looking at you the way he does: your loveliness, charm and sweetness something only he wants to lay his eyes on, even though that's not really possible.

"I really had no idea.." you mumble, your fingers tightening around the fabric of his shirt, "I'm sorry, Xav, I didn't really mean to-"

"There's no reason for you to be sorry," he mutters, shaking his head, "It's me. I just.. need some time to cool my head right now-"

You wrap your arms around his back and feel the way his muscles tense under your touch when you press your body closer. "You can talk to me about it, I don't mind" you mutter, "I.. I get worried when you stay too quiet and don't even look at me"

Xavier turns around, his hand reaching up to cup your face, "I'm sorry" he mumbles, his eyes finally looking familiar again, his thumb brushing your cheek slowly. His eyebrows are furrowed as he looks at you, his voice softer than before "I didn't mean to hurt you with my words and I didn't mean to get this angry. It was stupid of me-"

"I'm all yours" you interrupt him, nuzzling your face into his palm, "And you are all I ever think about, don't forget that. No one's ever going to change that, and I'll make sure to keep telling you until you realize how madly in love with you I am."

The breath he lets out sounds like he has been holding it for a while; Xavier's ears turn pink and you watch how a fluster fills up his face, "I also don't want anyone else but you," he says quietly, "And I will always choose you. I'm sorry for hurting you."

Your stomach flutters and you reach your hands up to pull him down by the drawstrings of his hoodie, closing the distance between you two until his face is just right in front of yours, "What can I do to make you stop looking this guilty, hm? Tell me how I can repay you, and you'll have all of me."

"..Please kiss me."

Your lips find his without a second thought. Xavier parts his lips and invites you in, swipes his tongue across your lips as he deepens the kiss and pulls you even closer. You call feel his warmth as it engulfs you, his lips making sure to tell you how much his heart beats for you, and you only. He tastes sweet, which is confusing, considering the desserts haven't even been touched at all; and if this is how sweet he is, then there's no need for any pastries tonight when you can have all of him instead.

"More," he mumbles, his voice raspy as his arms wrap around you to keep you just where he wants you to be: right in his arms, with not an inch of space keeping you away from him, "I want more."

"Perimeter's clear," he said, quiet, like nothing in the world could rattle him. He crossed the debris toward you, boots crunching over glass and rubble. "You're bleeding, though."

You looked down. A chunk of crystal debris had opened a gash along your calf and you hadn't even noticed.

"Huh. Didn't feel that happen."

"Let me look at it." He dropped to one knee, taking a bandage roll out of your hands before you'd even fully pulled it from your pouch.

His hands were warm. Warmer than it made sense, given the cold. When he folded the torn fabric of your pants back to get at the wound, his fingers grazed bare skin and something jumped straight up your spine. You bit down on the inside of your cheek so you wouldn't make a sound about it.

This was the problem with Xavier. Some days he fell asleep against your shoulder like it was the safest place in the world. Other days he kept a careful distance between you and answered everything in a polite, unreadable tone, and you were left wondering if you'd imagined the whole thing.

"Does that hurt?" his thumb pressed against the unbroken skin just above it — the touch was not necessary to wrap the bandage.

"A little," you said, watching the top of his head, how the moonlight caught the color of his hair. "Xavier. Can I ask you something?"

His hands didn't stop moving, but his shoulders went still. "Yeah."

"Why do you do this?" You asked flatly, too tired to dress it up. "Sometimes I think we’re... I don't know, really close. And then other times, you look at me like I'm just another Hunter from the Association. It's confusing."

He finished tying off the gauze, stood up and finally looked at you "I just think about things. More than I probably should."

He reached out to help you up, hands closing firm around your forearms.

"Think about what?"

You went to test your weight on the bandaged leg and the ground chose that second to be uneven. You pitched forward, right into him, your chest hitting his. His hands slid from your arms to your waist to catch you.

Neither of you moved.

You could feel his heart going fast under his uniform, which didn't match the calm on his face at all. His eyes dropped to your mouth, came back up.This is happening, you thought, a little dizzy with it. He's actually going to—.

His grip on your waist tightened. Something cracked open behind his eyes, just for a second "You shouldn't stand this close to me"

"Xavier—"

He stepped back before you could get anything else out.

Crunch. Something snapped under his boot.

A white protocore.

He picked it and it suddenly went off with light, a white light expanding outward faster than you could track. The air got sucked straight out of your lungs. Your ears popped hard enough to hurt, and then the ruins, the sky, and everything else was sucked into a roar of wind that yanked you forward like the world had grabbed you by the throat.

You hit something solid and warm.

"Oof — sorry —"

A grunt came from underneath you. You blinked against sudden dark, hands slapping down flat against Xavier's chest. You were sprawled on top of him, legs tangled, face mashed against his neck.

"Oh my god." You scrambled back so fast you scraped your palms on the floor. "Sorry — are you okay?"

Xavier sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his neck, hair falling into his eyes. "Fine. Are you hurt?"

"No, I— " You stopped. Looked around. "Wait."

You weren't standing in the ruins anymore. You were standing on a balcony with black wrought iron railing and a view of city streets that looked oddly familiar.

"Is this our building?" You turned in a slow circle, "Xavier, did you just teleport us home?"

"I didn't teleport us anywhere."

"You definitely did something..."

"I didn't" He was already moving past you toward the railing, scanning it like it might answer a question you hadn't asked yet.

"Okay, well, something got us here," you said, following him. "So if it wasn't you, what was it?"

He didn't answer right away. He crouched by one of the plants, fingers brushing the soil. Damp. Recently turned. "I don't have an explanation for this."

"When did you get so many plants?."

He moved to a small table near, where two mugs sat, both used, one rimmed faintly with lipstick.

"This is kind of freaking me out."

You spotted a newspaper folded beside the mugs and reached for it before he could stop you.

The date on the header didn't make sense. You read it twice.

"Xavier." You held it out to him, throat tight.

He took it, scanning it fast, and for the first time all night something like real alarm broke through his usual calm. "This is two years out."

"Two years." You said it slow, testing the weight of it. "Okay. We're just —somewhere else. Somewhere with your exact view, which is a really specific coincidence, but fine, sure, this is wrong, so so wrong—"

"Calm down."

"Xavier."

"What."

You pointed, wordless, toward the far corner of the balcony, where a lumpy, badly painted bird feeder hung crooked from its hook, one wing chipped clean off. You'd have known it anywhere.

"That's Fatso"s" you said.

Xavier followed your finger, and whatever he'd been telling himself died on his face.

You grabbed for your communicator on reflex. Dead screen. "No signal," you said, more to yourself than to him.

"Mine's the same. Clock's not even holding steady." He pocketed the device "We need to see what's inside. If someone's living here, we ask them what year it is."

"Oh yeah because that is a completely normal question to walk in and ask a stranger."

"Stay behind me," he reached for the handle on the sliding glass door, testing the weight of it without committing to opening it yet. Behind the curtain, something moved.

You froze. Your fingers found the sleeve of his uniform and held on.

A hand pressed flat against the glass from the other side of the curtain, fingers spread.

Xavier looked ready to run.

A second hand appeared beside it. Bigger. Scarred across the knuckles. Something in your chest went cold with recognition even before your brain caught up. The second hand moved to close over the first, fingers lacing through.

There were two people on the other side of that door. And from the way the curtain was moving, they were not just standing there.

"Xavier," you whispered, barely any air behind it at all.

He didn't answer. He didn't move his hand off the door either —just stood there frozen, staring at those hands through the glass like his whole nervous system had collapsed.

Then he moved. His hand closed around your shoulder and pulled, one smooth backward motion that tucked you both into a narrow space where the balcony wall met the building's outer brick. The spot was tight —barely enough room for two people to stand without touching —and the angle it gave you was merciless. The glass door sat directly in your line of sight, lit from inside.

You should have looked away immediately.

But you didn't.

The curtains moved a bit. Two bodies, pressed close. The woman's face was hidden, her head tipped back behind the line of the man's shoulder. His face was visible. Hair catching the light. That jaw.

Xavier

The anger came fast and hot and settled behind your sternum like coal. Months of warmth and then distance. Months of patience that felt like it was always just about to become something and never did —and here was the answer to all of it, pressed against a glass door in an apartment that was still his, two years from now, with someone else.

He was kissing her the way someone kisses when they've stopped being careful about it. Deep, his hands dragging her back against him, the movements of his lower body slow and unmistakable.

You looked away. Focused on a crack running through the middle of the wall beside you. Breathed through your nose.

Beside you, Xavier was still looking. His face was flushed.

"Is that—" His voice came out wrong.

"Yup," you said. The bitterness in it sharper than you'd intended. "That's you"

A sound came through the glass.

The impact of skin against the glass door followed immediately by a broken moan, the sound dragged your eyes back to the glass door against your will.

The curtain had been pulled aside all the way.

The view was now unobstructed.

The woman was pressed flat against the glass, her bare breasts against the cold pane, her hands finding the frame for something to hold onto. Her face was fully visible now.

The anger in your chest went out like a light.

It was your face.

Your shoulders, your hands, the sound of your own voice coming through the glass in pieces, breathless and nothing like anything you'd heard from yourself before. Your future self's cheek was pressed to the glass too, eyes half closed, lips parted around sounds that weren't words.

Future Xavier's teeth found her shoulder and bit down, not gently, leaving something that would be visible tomorrow. His hand came around the front of her, sliding between her thighs to line his beautiful cock against her entrance.

Then he drove forward.

The sound she made came through the glass loud and clear and a small involuntary noise started building in your own throat.

Xavier's palm came over your mouth.

Fast. Firm. His fingers sealing the sound in before it could escape. His hand was shaking.

The glass door shook with the next impact. And the next.

Xavier had his mouth at her ear saying something you couldn't hear through the glass but could read in the way her expression changed when he said it.

Xavier made half a sound against the back of your head and he immediately swallowed the other half.

You felt it anyway. Felt the way his arm tightened across your chest, felt the unsteady rhythm of his breathing where his chest pressed into your back.

You couldn't look away from his face —the future version of the face that was currently breathing against your temple— wearing an expression you'd never seen on him before.

"Xavier," you said, against his palm. Muffled.

His arm tightened.

"Xavier." Louder this time, enough that he could feel the shape of his name against his hand.

His mouth dropped to your ear "Don't move." The words came out rough "If they see us—"

Inside the apartment, your future self pressed her palm hard against her lips.

Future Xavier's hand closed around her wrist.

He pulled it down. He held her hand at her side and kept it there, and when she turned her face toward him he was already looking at her.

He wanted to hear her.

Below you a glass door scraped open.

One floor down, a man stepped out onto his balcony. Cigarette unlit between his fingers, head tilted slightly, listening to the night.

You pressed further into the shadow.

The rhythm inside the apartment changed. Not slower. The opposite. The glass shook in its frame and the sounds coming through it stopped being something that could be mistaken for anything else, and the man one floor down stopped trying to light his cigarette.

You looked at future Xavier's face.

His eyes were angled down and to the left.

He picked up the pace.

She tried again, her hand came up toward her mouth. Future Xavier caught her wrist without looking and his mouth moved against her ear again.

Whatever it was, she stopped trying to be quiet.

You thought about what you'd just watched him do. The escalation. The man on the balcony below. The reason your future self's hand kept getting pulled back down.

Was he jealous of that stranger?

Inside, her feet left the ground. Xavier had both arms around her, her arms caught under his, breast bouncing with every thrust.

You saw it first.

An unmistakable pressure beneath the surface of her stomach. Moving with every thrust. A belly bulge.

Your mouth went dry.

She was dripping. You could see it even through the glass —the inside of her thighs slick and glistening where his movements had worked everything down, coating her skin, catching the apartment light every time he pulled back. The glass had a faint fog to it from her breath, small clouds appearing and disappearing with each exhale.

The deep flush running from her chest to her throat made something in your lower stomach pull tight.

The Xavier beside you tracked every place her body responded to him, her hardened nipples, the way her toes curled against nothing, the flutter beneath her skin that mapped exactly where he was.

Crash

A flower pot.

It hit the floor and you both stopped breathing.

Inside the apartment, silence.

Immediate and total.

Through the glass you watched future Xavier's head come up. No panic in it. No confusion. Just a slow turn toward the sound, his eyes moving through the dark until they found the spot where the two of you were standing.

He couldn't see you. The angle was wrong, the shadow too deep.

He knew someone was there anyway.

His expression went cold and your future self said something against his chest. The curtain moved slowly across the glass from inside and the light behind it went out.

You had thirty seconds. Maybe less.

Xavier crouched beside you. The Protocore looked small against his palm, throwing a faint white pulse between his fingers for just a second.

The glass door began to slide open.

The air changed, the balcony, the broken pot, the man with his unlit cigarette, all of it collapsing into white noise and rushing dark.

You hit the ground hard. Your knees met broken stone, the air was knocked out of you on impact and you spent the first few seconds just existing on the ground.

Xavier landed beside you.

You pushed yourself up to sitting. "So..."

Xavier said nothing.

"That was weird."

Still nothing.

"We were—"

"I saw it" he opened his hand and noticed the Protocore was gone "I was standing right next to you."

"So we're both aware of what we watched."

"Yes."

"And we're not going to talk about it?"

He looked at you. "Are you going to be able to not talk about it?"

"Probably not."

He made a sound that wasn't quite a sigh, stood up and offered you a hand. You took it and he pulled you to your feet and didn't immediately let go.

"That man on the balcony," you said.

Xavier's jaw moved. "What about him."

"Future you saw him and then—"

"I know what he did." He dropped your hand. Turned to look at anything that wasn't your face. "You don't need to walk me through it."

"I'm just—" You pressed your lips together, trying very hard not to smile, it felt inappropriate and also completely unavoidable "Was he showing off?"

"We're not talking about that."

"Xavier—"

"Not yet." He said it quietly. Just a line in the ground, clearly drawn. "Not tonight. There's—" He exhaled. "There's a lot I need to sit with before I talk about any of it."

You nodded. That felt fair.

You started walking, picking your way back through the rubble toward the gap in the wall where you'd come in, and Xavier fell into step beside you like he always did —slightly behind, slightly to your left, a position that meant he could see everything around you before you could.

The walk back was quiet. You were almost at the gap in the wall when he spoke.

"Can I ask you something."

"Go ahead."

He was quiet for a beat. Just long enough that you glanced over at him.

"Future me?" he said. "Or me?"

You stopped walking. "What?"

"You heard me. Who do you like more?

"Xavier, that's not—you are the same person—"

"Future me is two years ahead and has information I don't have and he was doing—" a small pause, "—things to you that I have not yet done. So. Future me or me?"

You stared at him.

He stared back.

"That is the most ridiculous question you've ever asked me"

"Humor me."

"You"

Something in his face changed.

"Good," he said.

"But future you did have his—"

The not quite smile disappeared. "We're going home," he said, and turned toward the gap in the wall.

You followed him, and you were very glad he was walking ahead of you this time because the smile on your face was not something you were ready to explain.

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.

You weren't official family. That was the problem, the one that the Farspace Fleet kept running into every time you called. Childhood bonds didn't have paperwork. Shared trauma didn't have a form number. The promise made in the darkness of his room more than a year ago didn't hold any legal weight, and so every time you called you got the same automated voice, the same words in the same order.

The expedition into the deepspace flux zone is ongoing. All communications are classified under Level 4 security protocols.

You'd stopped counting how many times you'd heard it.

A week ago rumors started moving through the hunter channels, spreading fast and going quiet the moment an official walked into a room. A collapse inside the tunnel. A squadron cut off from the extraction point. You'd cornered a senior officer at the Association headquarters and watched her look at everything in the room except your face while she told you to prepare for the worst. As if that was a sentence you were supposed to absorb and go home.

They were writing him off. Filling in forms. Moving toward the moment where they'd call it officially and send you a letter with his name at the top and a condolences paragraph at the bottom, and the universe would have taken him from you a second time. The first time had been the explosion. You'd been clueless then, and the grief had carved something out of you that had never fully grown back. Thirty two days of silence and you could feel those same edges again, the same hollow shape of a loss you didn't know how to survive this time.

You'd spent the last two days crying under your duvet without a reason to come out.

2:14 AM. The front door clicked.

You sat up so fast the blood rushed out of your head. Sat completely still in the dark, heart hammering, telling yourself it was nothing— probably a neighbor's door, your own exhausted mind making up sounds it wanted to hear. You'd been doing that. Hearing things. Seeing his face in the corner of your eye on the street and turning to find a stranger.

Heavy footsteps in the hallway. A duffel bag dropped onto the hardwood floor. The weight of it, the carelessness of someone too exhausted to set something down gently, sent something electric straight up your spine.

You got out of bed. Your legs weren't entirely reliable. You caught the door frame, steadied yourself, crossed the hallway on autopilot with your heart somewhere in your throat.

The bathroom light was on. Through the glass the steam was already building, the shower ran hard and hot, and you could smell it from the doorway—your shampoo.

You pushed the door open.

The steam rolled out around you, warm and thick, and through the clear panel of the shower glass—

Caleb.

He didn't know you were there yet.

He was standing under the water with his forehead pressed against the tile, shoulders rising and falling. The water was too hot—you could tell because the steam was already thick enough to blur the far wall—but he wasn't adjusting it. Just standing in it. Letting it hit the back of his neck and run down the lines of his shoulders to carry whatever he'd brought back with him down the drain.

His skin was pale, the kind of pale that came from a month without real sunlight, and every muscle in his back was wound so tight it looked painful.

He looked like he had fought his way to a door and wasn't entirely sure yet that he'd made it through.

His head turned.

His eyes found yours through the condensation and steam, bloodshot from lack of sleep and completely awake in an instant, and the look on his face when he saw you standing there—the unguarded relief of it—hit you somewhere behind your ribs and stayed there.

He reached back to shut the water off then stepped out without reaching for a towel, water running off his shoulders and chest, steam rising off his skin. He looked different. Harder at the edges. Several days of dark stubble caught the harsh bathroom light and he looked nothing like the man who'd kissed you goodbye a month ago, or he looked exactly like that man, just with everything worn closer to the surface, less of it contained.

Neither of you spoke. You weren't sure you could. The reality of him standing in front of you—breathing, dripping water onto the floor—was still making its way through days of silence and the grief of someone who had already lost him once and had spent the last forty eight hours preparing to do it again.

"Caleb." It came out barely a sound.

He crossed the bathroom floor in three steps, water trailing behind him, and his hand wrapped around your wrist. His grip was warm, real and it made your eyes sting immediately. He didn't say anything. He just held you for a moment, his thumb pressed against your pulse point, and let you feel that he was there.

He kept hold of your wrist the whole way. Down the hall, through the door of your room, until your shoulders found a wall and he stopped in front of you. The sight of him, still yours, broke something open in your chest that you'd been holding very carefully shut.

"Caleb,—the fleet, they—I thought you were—"

"I'm right here." His voice came out rough, scraped down to something raw and unrecognizable, nothing of his usual warmth in it yet. "Forget what they said. I'm right here. I'm safe."

He placed his palms against the wall on either side of your head, steadying the space around you like he always had. The heat coming off his skin was startling against the cool air of the bedroom. You looked up at him, at the dark sharp lines of his jaw and the thick stubble that made him look exhausted and more real than anything you'd let yourself imagine in the last four weeks.

"Look at you," he said quietly, eyes moving over your face, your shaking hands, "Why are you trembling. It's okay." His voice dropped further. "I've got you."

"I thought you were dead." The first sob broke through before you could stop it "They wouldn't tell me anything, Caleb. They told me to prepare for the worst, I didn't know what that—fuck, I did know what it meant and I couldn't—"

"I know." He pulled you away from the wall and buried his face in the curve of your neck, you felt the rough drag of his stubble against your skin and gasped. He breathed you in slowly, deeply, his whole chest expanding against yours. "I know what they're like." His arms tightened around you. "But I promised you. I have always promised you. I fought my way out of that tunnel because leaving you again was not an option."

His hands moved down and without any warning he hooked his hands under your thighs and lifted you clean off the floor.

You wrapped your legs around his waist on instinct, hands flying to his shoulders. Your shorts rode up with the movement, bare thighs pressing against the heat of his hips.

"Baby—"

His mouth came down on yours.

It wasn't desperate in the way you'd expected. It was slower than that, deeper, a kiss that had too much behind it to rush. A month of darkness, cold and whatever he'd fought through to get back to you, all of it pressing into the way his lips moved against yours, his tongue parting your mouth in a heavy stroke that made your fingers curl into his damp hair and pull.

He shifted your weight, pressing your spine gently but firmly into the wall, and you felt the full length of his cock against you through the thin fabric of your shorts—already hard, already searching for the closeness you both needed, his hips moving in a slow rhythm that mirrored exactly what his mouth was doing.

He broke the kiss just far enough to look at you again.

"I'm here," he said, his words almost too quiet to hear. "Right here. I'm not going anywhere."

"I need—" Your voice broke, tears were streaming down your face. "Please. I need to feel you. I need to know you're actually—"

The sound that came out of him was pained. He lowered you until your feet touched the floor, keeping one arm tight around your waist, and his free hand went to your waistband, careful, guiding your shorts and underwear down together until they pooled at your ankles and you stepped out of them.

He straightened back up and you looked at each other in the quiet of the room. He was watching your face with an expression that made your throat close up again. The marks of the last month were all over him, the exhaustion, the weight loss, the hollowness around his eyes, and he was still the most beautiful man you'd ever seen.

He reached for the hem of your shirt and pulled it over your head, tossing it behind him without looking. Then he was back against you, chest to chest, and the heat of his body in front of you and the cool hard wall behind you made your breath leave you all at once.

His jaw dragged down your throat. The stubble was rough and you felt every millimeter of it, that scraping friction kept pulling you back into your body every time emotion threatened to pull you out of it. He was doing it on purpose. Making sure you felt him. "Right here," he said softly against your skin. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours."

There was nothing left to say that your body wasn't already saying for you.

He hooked one of your legs over his hip, his forearm sliding under your thigh to hold you there. His free hand moved between you, guiding himself to your entrance, and he paused—just for a breath, tip pressed against your heat—eyes on your face, waiting.

"Please. Now. Ca—"

He pressed forward and you buried your face in his neck.

The sob that came out of you surprised both of you. He felt it move through you and pulled you closer, both arms wrapping around you, his hands spread wide across your back.

"I've got you," he whispered, lips against your temple. "I've got you. I'm here."

He pulled back slowly. Almost all the way. Let you feel the drag of it, the absence, and then drove back in deeper.

"Caleb—" he swallowed the sound of his name with a sound of his own, low in his chest, his forehead dropping to yours.

He began to move and there was nothing fast about it. Just you and him.

The heat built fast anyway. Your nails found his back, his shoulders, whatever you could reach, and he let you—didn't flinch, didn't shift away, just kept moving in a steady rhythm while the wet sounds of it and both of your breathing filled up the room. Your tears were still falling and you stopped trying to do anything about them, just let them come while your mouth left marks on his body.

His shoulder pulled away from your mouth.

"Look at me." Came his voice, strained, like it cost him something to speak. "Let me see you."

You lifted your head. Your vision was a bit blurry, everything fractured through tears, but you could see him clearly enough, jaw clenched, neck tight, the muscles in his face working against something he was holding back.

"You don't have to be scared anymore," he rasped, hips driving forward again, finding a shorter faster rhythm that dragged against every nerve ending you had. "I'm right here, baby. I'm staying right here."

"I was so scared—" The words broke apart before you got through them, your body clenching around him in tight pulses. "Caleb, I thought—I kept calling and they wouldn't—and then she said to prepare and I didn't—"

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you had to sit with that."

"Don't apologize—"

"Look at me," he said again, softer this time. "Stay with me."

He grabbed your other leg, hoisting you higher until you were fully suspended—nothing under you but him, every thrust finding someplace deeper, enough to make your whole body seize up and your head fall back against the wall.

"Oh—Caleb—I'm going to—I—"

"I've got you." He brought his face to your cheek, lips moving against the wet, salty skin there, breathing you in. "I've got you. Let go."

The past month collapsed into a single point in your chest and then detonated. Not just pleasure—though that rolled through you in long shaking waves—but everything under it. Every night staring at his empty side of the bed. Every time a voice said please await official updates. The two days under your duvet where you'd let yourself start to grieve him. All of it coming up at once, unstoppable, your whole body shaking with it while he held you against the wall and didn't let you fall.

"I love you," you sobbed into his neck, the words coming out in pieces. "I love you—I love you—"

"I know." His voice cracked on the second word. He was close. His lips pressed to your temple, your jaw, your wet cheek "I know, baby. I love you. I love you. I'm home."

He buried himself as deep as he could go, shaking, your name in his mouth like a prayer he'd been repeating for a month to keep himself moving forward.

He carried you to the bed eventually. Lay down with you still tangled against his chest, one hand moving slow up and down your back, the other tucked under his head.

"They really told you to prepare?"

"Three days ago."

He was quiet for a moment. His hand stilled on your back.

"They wouldn't tell me anything because I'm not—I'm not on any form. There's no box I fit in. I'm not—" You stopped. Felt your throat tighten again and breathed through it. "There's no paperwork that says I'm yours. So as far as they were concerned I was nobody and they owed me nothing."

Caleb didn't say anything. His chest rose and fell steadily.

"I need that to change"

"Okay," he said.

"I mean it, Caleb." You pushed yourself up onto your elbow and looked at him, his eyes were already on you. "I need it to actually change. Not someday. Not when things settle down or when the fleet rotation is easier or when we find a better time. I need—" your voice came out fierce and a little unsteady and you let it be both. "I need to be your wife. Legally. On every form and every document and every emergency contact line they have. I need there to be paperwork that says you're mine so that the next time someone tries to lock me out of a room where decisions are being made about your life, I can put it on their desk and they cannot say no to me."

He was very still.

"I'm not asking you to do something romantic," you said. "I'm not—this isn't about a ceremony or a dress or any of that, though I want all of that too, I do. I'm asking you because I spent a month being nobody to the people who had information about whether you were alive. I'm asking because I sat in this apartment with no legal right to know anything and I cannot do that again. I will not do that again."

Caleb looked at you for a long moment then he reached up and put his hand against the side of your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone.

"I've wanted to ask you, I kept waiting for the right moment."

"This is the right moment."

"You're proposing to me at four in the morning."

"I am."

The corner of his mouth pulled up. The first real version of his smile you'd seen since he walked through the door, the one that reached all the way up, the one that was so him it made your chest ache.

He pulled you back down against him, arms wrapping around you, lips pressing to the top of your head and staying there. "First thing tomorrow we go to the registration office. We fill out every form they have. We put your name on everything."

You pressed your face into his chest and closed your eyes, this time it wasn't to wait for a notification that never came.

It was just to sleep.

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You felt it before your sex stupid brain could process it- this thick, swelling pressure at your already stuffed hole. Stretching you wider. Wider. Too wide-

His knot.

It shoved inside with a wet POP and you shrieked, back bowing clean off the mattress, nails carving bleeding trenches down his spine. The sudden fullness -that fat bulge locking him in, plugging you up, pressing against every sensitive nerve- had your vision whiting out again. Your cunt spasmed around him, another orgasm cresting before the last one even finished, milking his knot in desperate fluttering clenches.

“Huh? What happened?” Total confusion. His ears shot up, head tilting, “You alright babe? Did I do something?”

“Your- your fucking knot- fuckfuckfuck-“ you choked out.

“What?” He blinked down at you, all golden puppy eyes while his monster sized knot split you in half, “What's wrong with it?”

“Ser -seriously? Sh’too- It's s’too big-“

“It is?” As he smirks he shifts his weight and you damn near passed out, “seems fine to me?”

You laughed -or sobbed, hard to tell- and it broke into a moan when he rolled his hips experimentally. You grabbed his hand and shoved it down between your bodies, pressing it against the bulge in your lower belly. Obscene. Fucking obscene.

“Valko.”

He looked down. Blinked. His tail started wagging. Actually wagging!

“Oh wow.” Like he'd found something mildly interesting, “That's pretty crazy.”

“YEAH.”

“Does it actually hurt?” He pressed against the bulge with genuine curiosity and your eyes nearly rolled back into your skull. Tail still going.

“Do you- hahh- do you seriously not know- how huge-“

“Dunno, never measured?” He dropped a casual kiss on your forehead, sweet as anything, while his fat fucking knot throbbed like it was trying to reshape your insides. “Always been like this. Annnnd those noises don’t really convince me you’re in pain.”

You were gonna fucking murder him. Right after you finished losing your mind on his cock.

He ground down into you and you came so hard you forgot your own name, pussy clenching around him like a goddamn vice.

“Oh- shit- shit-“ Finally cracking, his voice going high and whiney, “Squeezing me so tight, you’re gonna make me-“

He buried his face in your neck and came with a broken whine, and you felt it- pulse after pulse of hot cum pumping into you, filling you up til your belly rounded out even more. His arms caged you in, tail thumping against the mattress as he bred you full.

“S'good,” he slurred against your throat…

“Valko,” you whimpered, brain leaking out your ears., “M'so full-“

“Mm?” He sounded so pleased with himself.

Still absolutely clueless.

Way later -who even knows how long- he was still on top of you, weight braced on his elbows so he didn't crush you. His knot pulsed lazy and another warm gush filled you up.

“Hey,” he mumbled into your hair, and you could hear the grin in his voice.

“Mm.”

“So...” His fingers walked playfully up your side, making you squirm- which only made you clench around his knot and whimper, “You think my knot's big, huh?”

“Shut up.”

“Nah but like-“ He propped himself up to look at you, smirking, tail swishing, “You were really loud about it. Pretty sure the neighbors know now.”

“I hate you.”

“Mmhm.” He rolled his hips just slightly -enough to make you gasp- and his grin widened. “That why you're still milking my cock right now?”

Your face burned, “I- I can't- it's involuntary-“

“Sure it is.” He pressed a kiss to your cheek, nuzzling, “S'okay baby. I think it's cute how much you love my huge knot.”

“I never said-“

“‘S'so fucking big Valko,'”he mimicked in a breathy voice, and you smacked his chest while he snickered. “'Your knot Valko, oh my god-“

“I do NOT sound like that.”

“You kinda do.” Another lazy grind. Another gush of cum. His eyes glittered. “Wanna hear what else you said? Got real creative toward the end there.”

You shoved at his shoulder uselessly. He didn't budge, just laughed and buried his face in your neck, pressing smiling kisses to your skin.

“M'just teasing, babe” His tail curled around your thigh, “youre cute when you're embarrassed.” He nuzzled the tippy top of your head.

“I'm gonna kill you when your knot finally goes down.”

“Mm, that's fair.” He snuggled closer, entirely unbothered, “Gives me like twenty more minutes to annoy you though.”

His hips shifted again, lazy and deliberate, and the noise you made was mortifying.

"That's not what this is about and you know it," Caleb said, his voice gone quiet, that meant he was past the point of raising it. He stood in the living room with his arms crossed "You've been doing this for months. Every time I'm here you find something. The coffee, the blanket, the remote—"

"She was cold," Valko said. "I gave her the blanket because she was cold. You were sitting right next to her and you didn't notice."

"I noticed."

"You were watching the stupid game."

"I can watch the game and notice she's cold at the same time."

"Clearly not, since I'm the one who got up."

Caleb's eye twitched. Just slightly. "You got up from the other side of the room to bring her a blanket that was sitting six inches from my hand so you could—"

"So I could what, Caleb? Make sure my girlfriend wasn't cold? That's the crime we're prosecuting today?"

"She's my girlfriend too."

"Then act like it."

Caleb uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, and Valko, because Valko had never backed up from anything in his life and wasn't about to start now, also stepped forward to meet him. They ended up in the middle of the living room with their chests almost touching and matching expressions of immovable stubbornness.

"You want to talk about acting like it," Caleb said, very quietly. "Let's talk about last Tuesday."

"I'm gonna need you to be specific."

"You called her ten times, Valko."

"I was checking on her."

"Ten times. In an hour. I was with her. She didn't need to be checked on, she was fine, you just wanted to make sure I knew you were calling"

"This is actually insane," Valko threw one hand up. "You're telling me I'm not allowed to call my girlfriend?"

"Not when I'm with her"

"I'm trying," Valko said, clipped and precise, "to take care of her. Which I realize is a foreign concept to a man whose primary contribution to this relationship is showing up on weekends and looking pretty—"

"I look..." Caleb stopped. A vein in his temple was doing something concerning. "That is not the point—"

"Oh my god, that is enough."

They turned at exactly the same time, the argument dying mid breath, and found you standing in the bedroom doorway. You had your arms crossed, a silk blindfold hanging from each hand, and the expression on your face was one you reserved for occasions when you had reached the outer limit of what you were willing to tolerate.

You looked at Caleb. Then at Valko. Then at the ridiculous amount of physical space they had managed to eliminate between two fully grown men who had, three days ago, been in your bed at the same time without anyone losing a limb.

"I have watched you two argue all day" you said. "You have both been in this relationship for months. You have both—" you paused, choosing words, "demonstrated, repeatedly, that you are capable of being in the same room as each other."

Neither of them said anything. Caleb had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. Valko looked like he wanted to say something and was physically restraining himself.

You held up the blindfolds.

"I'm done mediating. You want to act like you don't know how to share?" Your eyes moved between them, steady and completely unmoved by the combined effect of the two of them standing there looking like scolded golden retrievers. "Then I'll make it simple for everyone."

-------------------------------------------------

The bedroom was very quiet by the time you got them both in there.

They ran out of things to argue about. It was hard to continue a territorial dispute when they couldn't see where they were in the room. They stood where you'd put them, stripped bare, blindfolded, shoulders still carrying the tension from the living room but with nowhere to direct it anymore. Both of them had their hands at their sides, not touching anything, assuming they were far away from each other.

They were not.

They were close enough that if either one of them exhaled too hard they'd feel it. You'd done that on purpose.

You sank to your knees between them and looked up at their faces —both of them tight jawed, heads slightly tilted, trying to orient themselves by sound alone— and took a moment to appreciate the fact that two of the most difficult men you'd ever met were currently standing blindfolded and completely at your mercy because of a disagreement about coffee.

You poured the lube and wrapped your hand around Caleb's cock first.

His head went back immediately, a rough groan pulling out of him, hands gripping his own hips to stop himself from reaching for you. "God, your hand—can do it a bit faster?"

"Don't rush her," Valko's voice came out tighter than he intended. He was trying to figure out from the sound of Caleb's voice exactly how far away he was standing.

You moved your hand to Valko and his whole body shuddered, a sharp exhale escaping through his nose. "Fuck, I've been waiting all day."

"You're both getting it," you said, keeping your voice smooth and even.

You picked up the sleeve from the floor beside you.

Dual entry, no center barrier, ribbed on both ends. They knew you loved toys and they loved using them on you. Neither of them had any reason to suspect what this one was about to do.

You lined it up, shifted your weight onto your heels, and pushed it down over both of them at the same time.

The sound they made was almost identical, two sharp, breathless gasps in perfect sync, the ribbed interior gripping them both tightly. For a second they both just stood there processing the sensation.

Then you pushed them closer, the rest of the way in.

The tips of their cocks met somewhere in the barrierless middle.

"What—" Caleb's whole body recoiled, knees buckling, one hand shooting out sideways for something to grab onto and finding nothing. "What the—what is that—"

Valko made a sound that was not a word in any language. He'd gone completely rigid, every muscle locked up, his chin dropped to his chest.

"Is that—" Caleb's voice came out strange and strained, working through the information his body was sending him with visible effort. "Is that another—is someone else—are you—" He stopped. "What the fuck?"

"That's 'ko," you said pleasantly.

"What the hell—" Valko's hips snapped back on reflex, a choked sound tearing out of him that he was going to pretend hadn't happened. "Sweetheart, what did you just—"

"Relax," you said, both hands clamping down over the center of the sleeve, fingers squeezing the material to keep them where they were. "You didn't want to share so now you're sharing this."

Caleb's breathing had gone completely to pieces. His chest was heaving, jaw working around words that weren't coming out in the right order. "You actually—" A sharp breath. "You seriously—"

You gave the sleeve one slow twisting squeeze and he lost the sentence entirely.

"Look at you both," you teased, from your knees again, looking up at two flushed faces with tremendous satisfaction. "So territorial. So impossible. And completely hard inside the same toy."

"I am hard for you," Valko snapped, the words coming out slightly less convincing than usual given the circumstances. A dark flush had crawled all the way up his neck and into his ears. He tried to step back, thighs shaking. "Take it off. Right now. I am not doing this, I don't—"

"You're not going anywhere."

You delivered the first stroke before he finished the sentence and the sound that came out of both of them at the same time was something you were going to think about for a very long time.

The friction was immediate and overwhelming—the ribbed interior stimulating the entire length of their cocks while they were pressed tip to tip. Neither of them pulled away.

What happened instead was considerably more predictable given who they were.

Valko's jaw set. You felt him shift his weight, recalibrate, and then drive his hips forward hard—a full thrust into the sleeve that was transparently designed to shove Caleb back through force of will. "Move," he said, through his teeth.

"No," Caleb answered and met him head on.😝

The impact of them hitting tip to tip inside the slick toy punched a moan out of both of them, loud enough that you were briefly grateful for the thickness of the bedroom walls.

You started pumping the sleeve to match their rhythm and leaned in. "There you go," you kept your voice low, right in the space between them. "All that energy you've been wasting arguing about coffee." Another stroke, firm and deliberate. "Look how much better this is."

"Don't act smug about this."

"I'm not acting smug," you said, completely smugly, picking up the pace. "I'm just saying. You've both been impossible for three months and it took me five minutes to solve it."

"This isn't solved—" Caleb's voice broke on the last word as you twisted your wrist on the next steoke. He swore, hips stuttering forward. "This is—this is not what I'd call solved—"

"Less talking," you said."More cooperating."

"I am not cooperating with him," Valko thrusted forward again.

Caleb met him again without hesitation.

"Come on, 'ko," you watched his face carefully. "He's pushing you back. Are you really going to let him?"

"Pips—"

"Absolutely not," Valko said through his teeth and reached out blindly until his hands found Caleb's shoulders and dug in. He used the grip to anchor himself, rolling his hips forward in slow circles that ground them together until his voice betrayed him, dropping from furious to undone in the space of a single breath. "I'll—" a shaking exhale, "I'll outlast him. Just like I've done it for months."

"You are shaking," Caleb pointed out, panting, sweat running down his temples and soaking into the edge of his blindfold. His hand had found its way into Valko's hair, gripping tight, the only thing keeping him upright as your hands worked faster. "You're already—you're twitching, I can feel it—you're so close you can't even—"

"Don't," Valko warned.

"You're falling apart and I've barely—haah—" Caleb's smugness dissolved as you squeezed the center of the sleeve. "God—"

"Shut up," Valko's command would have landed better if it hadn't come out an octave higher than his normal voice, cracked clean down the middle by another roll of his hips.

You slid your free hand up the flat of Caleb's stomach, felt every muscle pulled tight, holding back. "Tell me how it feels," you ordered.

"It's—" Caleb's was losing rhythm, the competitive edge bleeding into something desperate. "It's too much. The heat—I can feel him—Pips, please, I'm going to—"

You stopped the stroke immediately, keeping them locked against each other with nowhere to go.

Caleb made a sound that was mostly just suffering.

"Not yet," you said, turning your head slightly. " 'ko. Tell him."

"Tell him what?" Valko gritted out.

"How close you are."

A long silence broken only by both of them breathing like they'd been running.

"Damn it," Valko said finally, the grip on Caleb's shoulders turning white knuckled. "He's—" another shaking breath, "he's too much. Too hot. Everything he does just—" He cut himself off, jaw clenching. "Stop moving, Caleb. I'm serious. Stop—"

"I can't," Caleb moaned, his whole body moved forward, one final thrust that buried him as far into the sleeve as he could go.

Valko's forehead dropped forward, finding Caleb's shoulder, Caleb's hand was still in his hair. Their chests were heaving in the same broken rhythm, breath mingling in the small space.

"There," you said quietly. "Was that so hard?

Slowly, like he was doing it without deciding to, his body moving before his brain caught up, Valko's forehead dragged up from Caleb's shoulder, sliding along the curve of his neck, up his jaw, until it came to rest against Caleb's forehead.

Caleb went completely still. You didn't move. Didn't speak. Just watched.

Valko's hands, still gripping Caleb's shoulders, slowly loosened. Spread flat. Like he was steadying himself against something he hadn't been prepared for. His breath came out ragged and uneven against Caleb's lips.

Caleb's fingers in his hair tightened again and he tilted his head up slightly.

Valko tilted his down.

Their mouths met somewhere in the middle and neither of them made it a question.

It wasn't soft. It was two people who'd been circling each other for months finally landing, all that accumulated tension finding somewhere to go at once—Caleb's hand pulling Valko in by the hair, Valko's hands sliding from Caleb's shoulders to the back of his neck, both of them breathing hard through their noses because neither one was willing to break it long enough to properly inhale.

You started moving the sleeve again. Slow at first. Then faster.

Valko broke the kiss on a sharp desperate sound that Caleb swallowed immediately, pulling him back in, and then both of them stopped pretending there was anything controlled left about any of this. Their hips moved together instead of against each other for the first time, same rhythm, same direction, working into the sleeve in sync while the sounds they were making dissolved from words into something much more honest.

"Together," you said quietly, from below "Both of you."

They came at exactly the same moment, Valko first by a heartbeat, Caleb right behind him, both of them shaking, gripping each other and breathing into each other's mouths while it rolled through them in long waves. Valko made a sound low in his chest that you'd never heard from him before. Caleb's knees buckled and Valko caught him without thinking, arms wrapping around him on reflex, and they stood there holding each other up.

You looked up at both of them, blindfolds askew, foreheads together.

"So," you laughed "Same time next week?"

Caleb laughed first. Just one short exhausted sound, but it was real.

Valko pressed his lips to Caleb's temple, which surprised everyone in the room including him, and said nothing.

You stood up, brushed off your knees, and went to make yourself a cup of coffee. Nobody had taken the last of it this time.