the Monster Under the Lake

"Thomas."

"—I will owe you forever, I will name my firstborn after you, I will—"

"I'll go."

So here you are. The door is unlocked, which means he knows you are coming or he has simply stopped caring about basic security, and with Rafayel it could be either. You let yourself in and the smell hits you first—turpentine, salt air, and a metallic undertone that clings to the house when he has been working for days without opening a window. The curtains are half drawn. Canvases everywhere. Leaning against the walls, stacked in the corner, one propped against the leg of the kitchen table for reasons you cannot begin to guess. A few look finished. Most do not. One near the window still has wet paint on it, deep blues bleeding into reds at the center, colors so saturated they look heavy.

You find him on the couch.

He is half sprawled across it with one arm thrown over the backrest and the other resting across his stomach, still in the same white shirt he had on two days ago when you dropped off food he has probably forgotten to eat. It is unbuttoned too far, sleeves shoved up, the fabric wrinkled past saving. His hair is a disaster. There is a faint sheen at his temples.

He doesn't look up when you come in.

You drop your bag on the nearest clear surface, which takes a moment to locate, and walk over.

“Rafayel.”

Nothing.

You move until you're standing directly in his eyeline."Thomas is losing his mind because you won't answer your phone, and apparently that's now my problem too. He called me four times. Four, Rafayel. I am not your secretary."

He blinks. Slow, like the signal has to travel a long distance before it arrives. His eyes finally move up to yours and the color in them is slightly off from usual. There is too much color on his face too. High on his cheekbones, a flush that had no business being there in the middle of the afternoon.

"You look terrible," you say to him.

The corner of his mouth makes an attempt at something"That's not a very nice thing to say."

"What's going on? Are you sick?"

"I'm fine." his voice is rougher than it should be "The paintings will be ready. Tell Thomas to calm down."

But his face does something when he finishes the sentence—the flush deepens fast, color rushing up his neck—and he turns his head away and brings his arm up over his eyes like the light has suddenly gotten worse. Or like he has decided you have seen enough of his face.

You watch him for a moment.

"Rafayel."

"I'm fiiiiiine," he says again, quieter. Still behind his arm. The tips of his ears now pink. "You can go. Really. I just need another hour."

He doesn't sound like he needs an hour. He sounds like he needs a week and possibly an IV drip, and the arm covering his face is now pressing slightly harder.

You pull the low table out of the way and sit on the edge of the couch near his legs. The apartment holds its quiet around you.

"How long have you been like this?"

Nothing.

"Was it like this yesterday?"

Still nothing.

"Rafayel, I'm going to start guessing and I'm going to keep guessing out loud until you answer me. I have a lot of time and nowhere to be."

You reach out and wrap your fingers around his wrist to check his pulse and the second you touch him, he sucks in a breath and goes stiff beneath your hand. It wasn't surprise. You'd touched him before. This was different.

He pulls his arm back. The flush on his face has gone from concerning to alarming, deep red climbing all the way to the tips of his ears.

"Don't," he presses his arm back over his eyes "Please don't touch me right now."

"What do you mean? You just flinched like I burned you." you lean closer, trying to get a look at his face, which he is now actively shielding. "Rafayel. What is wrong with you? Is this an Evol thing? Did something happen? Do I need to call a doctor?"

"No." flat and immediate."No doctors."

"You are burning up!"

"It's not a normal fever." He curls slightly away from you, toward the back of the couch, and on a normal day it would be funny but his voice has gone rough enough that nothing about it is funny right now. "It'll pass. It always does."

"Raf" You keep your voice even. "Tell me what's happening."

He peeks at you from between his fingers. One eye, glassy and annoyed. “I’m an artist. We’re supposed to look tragic. It’s part of the look.”

“You’re part of the ‘about to pass out on your own couch and give me a heart attack’ look.”

He drops his hand with a dramatic sigh and flops further into the cushions like the weight of your existence is personally offending him. “You’re cruel. Coming into a man’s home, insulting his artistic suffering, and for what? So Thomas can sleep better at night?"

You crouch down beside the couch so you’re closer to eye level. Up close the heat rolling off him is worse. His skin looks damp at the hairline. You reach out without thinking and press the back of your hand to his forehead.

For a few seconds the apartment is quiet enough that you can hear the distant crash of waves through the open doors. Then he makes a soft, offended sound in the back of his throat and tips his head away, but not before you feel how warm he really is.

“It’s just… residual inspiration. Very intense residual inspiration.” He waves a vague hand at the half finished canvases. “I was in the middle of a breakthrough and then life decided to be rude. Happens to the best of us.”

You stay crouched there, unimpressed. “When was the last time you ate something that wasn’t coffee or paint water?”

“I had some grapes. Possibly yesterday.”

You straighten up and plant your hands on your hips. “Get up.”

He stares at you like you just suggested he set his favorite brushes on fire. “Excuse me?”

“Get up. We’re going for a walk.”

“A walk.” He repeats the word slowly, making sure you understand the gravity of what you've suggested. "When every bone in my body is requesting a soft death on this expensive couch. You want me to walk?”

“Yes. Fresh air. Ocean. Moving your legs like a person"

He throws an arm over his eyes again. “I should have never given you that spare key.”

“You didn’t give me a spare key. I stole it last month when you refused to answer the door for a week.”

“…That tracks,” he mutters.

You lean down, catch his wrist, and tug. Just enough to make it clear you’re not leaving without him. He resists for show, then lets himself be hauled into a sitting position with a long groan that would have been more convincing if he didn’t immediately lean into your space like the proximity was the only thing keeping him upright.

“Shoes. Now. Or I call Thomas and tell him you’re dying.”

That gets his attention. He looks up at you, eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

Rafayel stares at you, weighing the threat.

“Fine. But if I collapse on the sand, you’re carrying me home. Bridal style.”

“Deal.”

Getting him vertical takes longer than it should. He sways once, catches your shoulder, and mutters something about gravity being a personal enemy today. You wait him out, steady, until he seems relatively solid on his feet. He shoves his feet into a pair of scuffed loafers without bothering to tie them properly, grabs a light jacket from the back of a chair, and follows you toward the door with the air of a man being led to his own execution.

Outside the air is cooler, the walk down toward the shore is quiet at first. You keep half a step behind him in case he decides to run for it. He doesn’t. He just walks with his hands shoved in his pockets, head tipped back like he’s trying to convince the sky to take pity on him.

After a few minutes the silence starts to feel intentional.

“You’re hovering,” he says without looking at you.

“I’m making sure you don’t faceplant into the ground.”

“I’m fine.”

“You said that earlier while looking like a Victorian orphan with consumption.”

He shoots you a sideways glance, the corner of his mouth twitching “You’ve been spending too much time with Thomas. You’re starting to sound like him. Next you’ll be scheduling my meals and color coding my paint tubes.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

The path curves and the beach opens up ahead of you, all pale sand and clear water. The tide is low. The air smells cleaner out here. Rafayel slows as soon as his shoes hit the sand.

“I hate sand,” he complains. “It gets everywhere. Inside my shoes and between my toes"

“You live by the ocean.”

“I live by the view. The view does not require contact with the sand.”

You keep walking. He follows, grumbling under his breath the whole way, but the color in his face looks a little less alarming now that he’s upright and moving. The sea breeze seems to help. Or maybe it’s just the distraction of having someone to complain at.

You end up near the waterline where the sand is firmer. Rafayel stops, kicks off his loafers with unnecessary drama, and digs his toes into the wet sand and you do the same. The water feels cold when it reaches your ankles. He hisses.

“Its cold, the ocean is being rude today.”

“Everything is rude today according to you.”

“You didn’t have to come, you know. Thomas worries too much. I would have eventually crawled out of the couch and finished the paintings. Maybe.”

You bump his shoulder lightly with yours. “Next time just answer your phone so I don’t have to play rescue mission.”

He is quiet for a moment. The waves keep rolling in, soft and steady. Then he says, almost too low to catch“Maybe I like it when you show up.”

You glance at him. He’s looking out at the water, expression carefully neutral, but the tips of his ears have gone pink again.

Before you can decide what to do with that, something catches the light near the edge of the tide line.

A pale shape, half buried in the wet sand a few meters ahead. Not a shell or glass.

You frown and walk toward it. Rafayel trails after you, curiosity overriding whatever lethargy is left.

“What is it?” he asks.

You crouch and dig it free carefully. It’s a protocore, small and pure white. Not the usual colors you’ve seen before. This one looks almost unfinished, like someone carved a piece of moonlight and left it on the beach for the tide to find.

It pulses once against your palm.

Rafayel goes still beside you.

“That’s…” He trails off, eyes fixed on the white glow in your hand. “I’ve never seen one like that.”

Neither have you.

The pulse happens again. Stronger this time. The air around the two of you tightens, like the moment before a storm breaks.

You look up at him.

He’s already looking at you.

The second his fingers brush the white protocore everything changes.

A sudden pull that yanks the air out of your lungs and folds the beach in on itself. All of it collapses inward like someone is sucking the world through a straw. You feel Rafayel’s hand close hard around your wrist a split second before the ground disappears.

Then you’re falling.

You hit something green and scratchy with enough force to knock the breath out of you. Leaves slap your face and twigs dig into your back. Somewhere to your left Rafayel makes a noise that is half groan, half pure offense.

“Ouch—my hand—”

You push yourself up on your elbows, leaves stuck in your hair, heart hammering against your ribs. The protocore is still clutched in your hand, warm and faintly pulsing like a second heartbeat. Rafayel is sprawled half on his side in the same bush, one arm flung out, the other cradled against his chest. He looks personally betrayed by the existence of shrubbery.

“What the hell was that?”

He sits up with a wince, shaking leaves out of his hair. “I barely touched it and the universe decided to throw us into a hedge. Rude. Extremely rude.” He flexes his fingers, scowling. “I think I scraped my palm on a leaf."

You scramble to your feet, brushing dirt off your clothes, and look around.

The beach is gone.

Instead of open sand and ocean you are standing at the edge of a garden that looks like it belongs on the cover of an architecture magazine.

You are inside a mansion.

A full, sprawling mansion of pale stone, all clean lines and floor to ceiling glass, the kind of place that makes expensive sound like an understatement. Balconies wrap around the upper floors. Somewhere behind the structure you can hear the faint splash of water.

Rafayel stares.

Then he says, very quietly, “Oh no.”

“What?”

He is already moving, shoving through the bushes with far less grace than usual, heading for an open side door a few meters away. You follow because what else are you supposed to do. The protocore is still in your fist.

Inside is cool and quiet and smells faintly of citrus. The entryway alone is bigger than most people’s apartments. Polished floors. A vase of white flowers on a console table. Everything is spotless, lived in but somehow still perfect.

Rafayel walks straight to a side table near the door like he knows exactly where everything is. He picks up a folded newspaper that has been left there, glances at the front page and freezes.

You step closer. “What is it?”

He doesn’t answer. He just turns the paper so you can see the date printed in bold black letters at the top.

Two years ahead.

Exactly two years.

The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.

“That’s not possible,” you say “Protocores don’t— they don’t do that.”

He flips the paper open, scans the headlines like he’s hoping the date will change if he looks hard enough.

“This is one of my properties. I bought it last year as an investment. It wasn’t even finished yet. The pool wasn’t installed. The gardens weren’t—” He stops, swallows. “This isn’t supposed to exist yet.”

You look down at the white protocore still glowing faintly in your hand.

His eyes track the movement and he reaches for it again, fingers outstretched—

A sound cuts through the quiet, coming from the back of the house. Something that might be water. Or someone moving.

Both of you go still.

“That should be the pool,” he says after a second"Or where the pool apparently already is.”

You glance at him. “We should leave.”

“We should.” the newspaper is still clenched in his other hand. “But if this is actually… if we really are two years ahead…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. Curiosity already written across his face.

You move together, quiet, following the sound through the open plan living space and out through a set of wide glass doors that lead to the rear terrace. The pool is exactly where the sound suggested— huge, water so clear it looks like glass.

And there, on a sunbathing chair is Rafayel.

Not the one standing beside you.

Another one.

He is half reclined, one leg bent, the other stretched out. A large sketchbook rests against his thigh. Charcoal smudges his fingers. He is wearing only a pair of dark swim shorts that sit low on his hips, and his skin is flushed a deep, uneven red across his chest, shoulders and the high points of his cheekbones, like he has been sitting in the sun for too long, or like something under the surface is running too hot. His hair is slightly damp, pushed back from his face. He is completely focused on the page in front of him, his fingers moving in long strokes.

Present Rafayel makes a sound beside you but can’t look away.

The drawing is… not subtle. Even from this distance you can see the curve of a bare hip, the arch of a spine, the suggestion of breasts. A woman. Naked. Rendered with intimate details that make your stomach twist. Future Rafayel’s hand moves again, refining the line of a thigh, and the flush on his skin seems to deepen.

Present Rafayel’s fingers close around your upper arm, hard.

“We need to go,” he's trying to tug you back "Right now. This is— this is private. This is extremely private and we are not supposed to be here"

You dig your heels in. “That’s you.”

“I am aware it is me. That is the problem.” his voice is louder“We are leaving before—”

A splash of water cuts him off.

Someone is climbing out of the pool.

She— you— rises from the water in one smooth motion, water streaming down bare skin. A pink swimsuit clings to every curve, soaked through and heavy. She pushes her wet hair back from her face, water droplets catching the light as they slide down her throat, between her breasts, lower. She look relaxed. Comfortable. Like she belong here. Like this is ordinary.

She walks toward his sunbathing chair and Rafayel’s grip on your arm turns bruising.

“Don’t look,” he whispers, almost desperate. “Please don't look. We are going to pretend none of this happened and—”

You look anyway.

And that is when you see what he has been trying to pull you away from.

One of future Rafayel’s hands is not longer resting on the sketchbook.

His palm is pressed firmly over the front of his shorts. The fabric is stretched tight. The outline of his cock is unmistakable. He is hard, and he is not even trying to hide it. His eyes are still on the page, on the naked figure he is drawing, but his hand starts moving in a lazy, self indulgent rhythm like the two things are connected.

Your mouth goes dry.

He is half naked in the sunlight and it is impossible not to notice everything at once. The breadth of his shoulders. The clean lines of muscle across his chest and stomach, still faintly damp from earlier swimming or from the heat rolling off his skin. The way his abs tighten when his hand presses harder. He looks like a sculpted god.

Present Rafayel sounds like he is being slowly murdered.

“Stop staring,” his ears are scarlet. His whole face is scarlet. “I cannot believe he has the audacity to— in broad daylight— with a sketchbook— I am going to have words with myself. Harsh words."

Future you reaches his chair and future Rafayel finally looks up.

He smiles at her like the sun just came out and the flush on his skin darkens another shade.

You cannot look away from the version of him stretched out in the chair, hard, watching her while he strokes his cock.

“Seriously, stop looking.”

“You stop looking.”

“I’m looking at myself!”

“So am I!”

“That is not the same thing and you know it. Looking at me looking like that is a crime against my dignity. Stop.”

You do not stop and he doesn't either.

Future Rafayel sets the sketchbook aside and leans back, one hand still pressed over the front of his shorts, and watches the wet version of you like he has been counting every second.

“Took you long enough, I was starting to think you’d decided to let me suffer out here alone.”

She moves and stops between his knees, water still running down her skin in slow tracks. She tips her head, droplets falling onto his thighs. “You looked busy. I didn’t want to interrupt the masterpiece.” her eyes drop to the thick outline under his palm. “Although it seems you are having a hard time staying focused.”

He lets out a breath that is half laugh when she reaches down and presses her fingers over his, forcing him to grind harder against his own hand. “You’re evil.”

She leans in until her wet hair brushes his chest and her mouth is close to his ear. “How long have you been out here touching yourself to a drawing of me?”

“I’m starting to regret every time I told you I liked it when you teased.”

“You love it when I tease.” her voice drops lower, soft and filthy. “You like it when I make you draw me while you're hard. When I sit there and tell you in detail what I'm going to do to your cock later and watch you try to keep your hand steady." she drags one finger down his chest."You've gotten close just from that. Just from my voice. Haven't you?"

His hips jerk under her hand. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“Let me come. I’ve been good. I waited. I drew every line exactly the way you wanted—look at it, it’s—”

She picks up the sketchbook, glances at the page, and sets it back down with a small, considering hum. “That’s good enough.”

She moves back to settle on her knees between his thighs. Takes her time about it.

Rafayel’s fingers dig into your arm. “Is she—"

Her hands move to his hips. Thumbs hooked under the waistband of the dark shorts. He lifts enough to help. The fabric drags down, catching for a second on the fat head of his dick before it springs free.

It's a really pretty cock.

Long, slightly curved, thick enough that her fingers look almost delicate wrapped around the base. The head is dark pink and shiny, already wet from how long he has been touching himself. A thick vein runs along the underside. A clear bead or precum gathers at the tip and threatens to spill.

“I did not need to see that. I did not need to see my future—”

She doesn't take him into her mouth right away. She leans in and licks a slow stripe over the head, catching that bead of pre on her tongue and humming like it was exactly what she wanted. His hand flies to her wet hair, holding on“Fuck—don’t tease, not after everything—”

She drags her tongue up the underside slowly, base to tip, and his thigh jumps against her shoulder.

Then she circles the head, the flat of her tongue pressing in, taking her time with the ridge of it, the specific place that makes his breath change, and she stays there until his breathing has gone uneven enough that she can hear it clearly over everything else.

She licks the tip once and his hips move forward and then stop, the effort of keeping still visible in every muscle of his thighs.

She licks it again. Slower.

His thighs are shaking now, a fine tremor he's trying to control and can't. She watches him and waits until it gets worse.

Then she opens her mouth and sinks down.

All the way.

Her throat works around him. He groans, head falling back against the chair as she starts to move, she pulls almost all the way off so her tongue can swirl over the head before she slides back down until her nose brushes the flushed skin of his stomach.

Present Rafayel is now quiet beside you. Heat rolls off him in waves. When you glance sideways his face is the same feverish red it was on the couch. He has angled himself carefully so the front of his pants stays hidden, but the tension in his shoulders and the way his throat works when he swallows tell you everything. Future him is deep in it. Present him is feeling every second.

You look back.

She keeps teasing—pulling off to lick long, wet stripes up the underside, sucking just the head while her hand strokes the rest in tight twists, then taking him deep again until his hips keep making small thrusts he is clearly fighting. His voice has gone wrecked and pleading.

“Please— I’ve been so patient— you said if I waited you’d let me— fuck, your mouth is so wet— don’t stop—”

She hums around him. The vibration makes his whole body jolt. Her free hand slides between his legs, cupping and rolling his balls while she sucks harder, faster, the wet sounds turning filthy. Spit slicks down his shaft. Her lips stay stretched around him. Every time she takes him to the root he makes a broken little sound like he cannot believe it's still happening.

He comes with a punched out groan, hips lifting off the chair, one hand fisted tight in her wet hair. She stays on him through it, swallowing, throat working visibly around every pulse until he finally sags back, panting, still twitching on her tongue.

Something in the air shifts.

The flush on future Rafayel’s skin deepens and when he opens his eyes they are no longer the same color. They glow in a bright, electric blue, completely different from the man who was begging a moment ago. The sea god is looking out through them now. You can feel it in the way the temperature of the air seems to drop, in the way the water in the pool goes unnaturally still for half a second.

He moves fast.

One second he is still half sprawled in the chair. The next he has hauled her up into his arms like she weights nothing, takes two long strides, and jumps.

Water explodes outward as they hit the pool together.

Present Rafayel’s breath leaves him in a rush. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no—"

They surface together and his mouth finds hers before she's finished catching her breath.

It's not a gentle kiss. It's wet and open and his tongue slides against hers like he's been thinking about doing this for hours.

He moves her back through the water.

She lets him. Her hands are at his shoulders, the water is chest high and he moves through it like it's nothing, one arm around her waist, the other already at the strings of her bikini top, pulling at the knot at her back while his mouth stays on hers and the tiled edge of the pool finds her spine.

He pulls back half an inch just to look at her, water running down her face, her hair slicked back, both of them breathing hard and then his hand finds the knot at her neck and tugs.

Her breasts spill free, wet and flushed, nipples tight from the cool air and the sudden attention. He makes a low, approving sound and ducks his head, taking one into his mouth. He bites—hard enough to make her gasp sharply—then soothes the sting with a wide stroke of his tongue before sucking hard enough that the sound carries clearly across the water. His other hand cups the second breast, thumb dragging roughly over the nipple until it is just as tight and sensitive.

Heat pools between your legs, soaking into the fabric of your panties. You can feel every pulse of your clit.

“We have to look away” you say, voice thinner than it should be.

Rafayel’s head snaps toward you. His eyes are glassy. The flush on his face has spread down his throat. “I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

He doesn't deny it again. He just stares at you, breathing too fast, while the sounds from the pool keep going.

Future Rafayel has one hand between her legs under the water. You can tell by the way her hips roll, by the way one hand clutches the edge of the pool hard enough that the tendons stand out in her wrist. They are face to face, breathing the same air, mouths almost touching.

His voice has dropped into something deeper, colder, older—nothing like the playful tone from before.

“You're shaking already and I’ve barely touched you. All that teasing earlier, all that swimming past me with your eyes on my cock, and now you can barely breathe. Pathetic.” He pushes two fingers in without warning and her head falls back with a broken sound. “You spent hours winding me up and the second I take over you turn into this?”

She is breathless. He adds a third finger and his mouth stays right against hers as he speaks, mean and relentless.

“Your pussy is needy today. Every time I curl my fingers you clench like you’re trying to keep them inside. You’re not keeping anything. I'll take them out when I want to take them out. You’re just a hole that gets wet when I stop being kind. Tell me what you are.”

“Yours—”

“Not good enough. Try again.”

“Your hole— fuck— your wet little hole—”

“Better.” the word is sharp, almost amused. “You pushed and pushed and now you get the consequences. He curls his fingers and holds.

"I'm going to make you come like this first." His mouth at her jaw. Just his lips against her skin, speaking directly into it. "Then I'm going to put my mouth on you and do it again. While you cry." his thumb circles her clit "Because you're going to cry. We both know that."

She opens her mouth.

"Don't even think about it" he says.

She closes it.

"After that—" his fingers pull back slowly and push forward and she clenches and he makes a quiet sound of acknowledgment that is worse than anything else he's done so far, "—if I decide you've earned it, you get my cock." He pulls back just enough to look at her face "Understand?"

She can only nod, trembling.

His thumb circles her clit again.

Once.

Her thighs try to close but his hand is in the way.

Twice.

She grabs at his arm. Not pushing, just needing something to hold onto. He lets her. His fingers curl inside her at the same time, in an angle he's already learned, and the combination of it makes her vision blur at the edges.

"Stay with me,"

Three times.

She clenches hard around his fingers and makes a sound that is embarrassingly close to a sob and he groans in response, satisfied, his mouth dropping to the side of her neck.

"There it is."

Four times.

She comes apart so fast it surprises her, her orgasm hitting before she's braced for it, her whole body seizing around his fingers. He keeps his thumb exactly where it is, keeps the pressure steady, works her through every wave of it without speeding up or slowing down, just that same circle while she shakes against him and grabs at whatever she can reach.

He doesn't stop until she goes still.

Then he pulls his fingers out slowly and she feels the loss of them immediately.

He looks at his hand.

"One"

Heat throbs hard between your legs. You realize you are panting, mouth open, and that present Rafayel is close and his eyes keep dropping to your mouth and then to your future selves like he cannot decide which is more dangerous.

In the pool, Rafayel ducks under the water without another word.

Her hands slap against the edge, gripping so hard her knuckles go white. Her back arches. The moan that tears out of her is loud enough that anyone walking by would think she is dying. He stays under, the water moving in small waves.

She grabs the pool edge and tries to pull herself out. He pulls her back down.

She cums with a cry that cracks in the middle and leaves her trembling.

He surfaces slowly, eyes still that bright, unnatural blue. "Two"

He doesnt give her time to recover.

He hooks her knees over his elbows, lines himself up, and pushes in with one hard thrust that punches another broken sound out of her. He fucks her like he is trying to leave bruises on the inside, his mouth staying close to her ear the whole time, voice still mean and devastatingly effective.

“Dont look away, watch me use you.” He snaps his hips harder “You're already trying to milk me. Greedy. You’ve always been a greedy girl"

She can barely form words.

“You’re going to come on my cock and when you do, you’re going to say thank you like you mean it. If you don’t, I’ll stop and leave you empty. Clear?”

“Yes— clear— please don’t stop—”

“I wasn’t asking you to beg. I was telling you the rules.” He fucks her deeper, the water splashing over the edge with every thrust. “So the next time you decide to tease me for hours, remember how it ends. Remember how the sea god fucks the attitude out of you until all that’s left is this—open legs and a mouth that only knows how to thank me.”

The heat is now unbearable. You turn away because the combination of the wet filth of it and the way Rafayel is breathing beside you makes it hard to pull air into your lungs. Your thighs are pressed tightly together. You can feel how soaked you are, how every mean word from the pool seems to land directly between your legs.

A hand brushes yours.

You look down.

Rafayel is right there—close enough that the heat of his body sinks into your skin, close enough that the flush on his cheekbones is impossible to ignore. His eyes are fixed on your face. The lewd sounds from the pool keep washing over both of you—water, skin, broken moans, the low mean murmur of future him still talking, still fucking into her with the same rhythm, still telling her exactly who she is and how he is going to keep using her.

His fingers slide against yours, until the tips brush the edge of the white protocore still clutched in your hand.

Gravity disappears. You feel his hand tighten around yours and the two of you are pulled hard into a sudden, familiar freefall.

It ends the same way it started, without warning.

You hit something warm and solid at the same time Rafayel does. The impact knocks the air out of both of you. But you are not side by side.

You are on top of him.

Your knees bracket his hips. Your hands have landed on either side of his head. His are on your waist, fingers spread like he grabbed for you mid fall and never let go. The white protocore slips from your hand and dissolves into the air. His chest rises and falls hard under yours. His eyes are wide and dark and too close.

The flush on his face from earlier has not faded. If anything it has gotten worse. Up close you can see the way his pupils are blown, the way his throat works when he swallows. You can feel every place you are touching. The press of his stomach against yours. The unmistakable hardness that is currently pressed against the inside of your leg.

He notices the exact second you notice.

The ocean keeps making its usual sounds like nothing has happened, like the two of you did not just watch his future self get his soul sucked out through his dick.

“Raf—”

“Don’t.” He closes his eyes like that will help. “Don't say anything. Dont move. I am hanging on by a thread"

You can feel the thread, currently throbbing against your thigh.

“You’re hard,” you say, because someone has to acknowledge the extremely obvious.

“Yes. Thank you for the live commentary. I was hoping we could both pretend the last twenty minutes did not happen and that I am not currently one deep breath away from doing something we will both have to live with for the rest of our lives.”

“We just watched—”

“I am aware of what we watched.” His eyes open again. They are fixed on your mouth. “Future me is a menace. Future you on her knees is a menace. The entire afternoon has been a coordinated attack on my ability to act like a functional person.”

You shift slightly and the movement drags you directly over the hard line of his cock. His fingers dig into your waist hard enough that you feel the shape of every single one.

His eyes keep dropping to your mouth and then forcing themselves back up.

“This is your fault,” he mutters. “You and your ‘let’s go for a walk’. I was having a relaxing day on my couch and now I have the memory of my own co—”

He cuts himself off.

“Rafayel.”

“What.”

“You’re still holding me.”

You can feel the damp spot between your legs, still lingering from everything you watched. Every inhale presses your chests together. Every exhale makes the space between your mouths smaller.

“If you kiss me right now I am going to let you. And then I am going to hate both of us for doing it on a public beach with sand in places sand should never be. So please, for the love of every unfinished painting in my studio. Do not.”

You don't kiss him but you also don't move off him.

His eyes are so dark they look almost black. You can feel the exact shape of his cock now and the way it jumps when you move your weight even a fraction.

A shadow falls over both of you.

Someone clears their throat.

“Am I interrupting?” Thomas asks, voice flat with exhaustion that only comes from managing Rafayel for years, “or is this the new method for meeting deadlines?"

He stands a few feet away with a folder under one arm. He looks from Rafayel's face to yours and then back to him again.

“You weren’t answering your phone. Again. The gallery has three collectors asking about the new pieces and I was informed—by you, last week—that they would be finished by today.” Thomas’s eyes drop briefly to where your knees are still bracketing Rafayel’s hips.

“I have been having a medical event,” Rafayel says through his teeth. “A very private medical event that is currently being made less private by the second.”

“You’re on the beach. On top of each other. In public. Do either of you need a hand up, or should I come back in ten minutes with a a plausible deniability statement for the local press?”

Rafayel’s hands finally leave your waist like they have been burned. You scramble off him, heart still hammering, face hot. He sits up slowly, carefully angling his body so the evidence of the last few minutes stays hidden behind one bent knee. His hair is a disaster. There is sand on his cheek. The flush is still there.

Thomas looks between you both one more time, then pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I’m going to pretend I saw nothing” he turns and starts walking back to Rafayel's home without waiting for an answer.

Rafayel stares after him for a long second. Then he drops his face into his hands and lets out a muffled sound.

You sit there in the sand beside him, trying very hard not to think about the way his voice sounded when he told you not to kiss him.

He stands up carefully, brushing sand off his pants and offers you a hand without quite meeting your eyes.

“Come on. Before Thomas comes back”

You take his hand.

It is warm.

He does not let go right away.

When he realizes he is still holding it he drops it and starts walking, deciding the only way to survive this afternoon is to pretend, pretend none of it happened and that he doesn't need a very cold shower.

You follow him and watch the back of his neck stay pink the entire way.

THE LAST PART FOR THIS SERIES IS VALKO, BUT FIRST NERD! ZAYNE (SYLUS) 😈😈😏

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“You’re dripping.”

Caleb cracks one eye open. The bag of frozen peas you set at his neck fifteen minutes ago has gone soft, condensation tracking down his throat and disappearing into the collar of his henley.

“I’ll get him a new couch.”

You cross your arms and raise a brow. “With what money.”

“He can add it to my tab. Right under the chiropractor bill.”

“Careful with the tab, captain,” Sylus warns drily. “I’m very creative about collecting, and I’m starting to think you enjoy owing me.”

Caleb chucks a pillow across the room. Sylus catches it without flinching and tucks under his arm like he won it fair.

“You boys—” you look between Sylus, settled into his armchair like a throne, and Caleb, sprawled on the couch “—are going to play nice.”

“We’re behaving,” Sylus says.

“Barely,” Caleb adds.

Sylus shrugs. “Barely counts.”

They’ve been like this since tonight’s game. Before the game, actually. Since the first time they met on the ice two seasons ago, since something sparked between them the first time your brother knocked your boyfriend flat on his ass only for the silver-haired menace to come up smiling.

Tonight’s third period had been ugly. Caleb’s team down two, Sylus’s team running clock, and somewhere around the seven minute mark Caleb had taken Sylus into the boards in a way that could have looked accidental from the cheap seats and looked extremely on purpose from the bench. Sylus answered with his fists. The refs let them go for longer than they should have. Both were ejected, and you’d watched them get walked off in opposite directions like dogs separated mid-fight while five thousand people screamed.

You’d had the idea on the walk back to your dorm. Stupid. Catastrophically stupid.

Come over, you’d texted Caleb. Sylus’s place.

Three bouncing dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. He’d called you instead.

“You’re out of your mind, pips.”

“Probably.”

“Meimei.”

“Gege.”

He released a long, suffering breath. “Why?”

“Because I love you and I love him and I’m so tired of being caught in the middle like this.”

“He gave me a split lip.”

“You gave him a bloody nose.”

“And you think this is a fix?”

“I think it’s a try.”

He showed up an hour later, of course. You’d never asked Caleb for something he didn’t give you.

“How’s the nose,” Caleb says without opening his eyes.

Sylus touches the bridge of his nose, more out of habit than concern. “Fine.”

“Shame. Could’ve sworn I did more damage.”

“You always did overestimate your impact.”

“Overestimate?” Caleb’s eyes finally open. “I’ll overestimate my fist up your—”

“Okay!” you interrupt, lifting both hands in surrender. “New rule.”

“This should be good,” Sylus says under his breath.

“Each of you has to say one nice thing about the other,” you announce. “One. Single. Nice. Thing. And then we can move on with our evening like adults.”

“I am being an adult,” Sylus counters. “I haven’t poisoned his drink.”

You scoff. “That’s baseline human decency.”

“For me, sweetie, it’s generous.”

Caleb snorts. It’s the first sound he’s made in Sylus’s direction that isn’t hostile, and you watch Sylus clock it with a small flicker at his eyebrow.

“Caleb,” you say. “You first.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re in his apartment drinking his whiskey and bleeding on his furniture, and I think that earns him a compliment.”

Caleb stares at the ceiling for a long second, jaw working, like you’ve asked him to move a mountain with his bare hands.

“He’s fast,” Caleb says, finally.

“Fast,” you repeat.

“On the ice. He’s fast. Faster than he should be for his size.” Caleb pauses. “It’s annoying. Like a cockroach.”

“That’s not exactly a compliment.”

“It’s adjacent.”

You look at Sylus. “Your turn.”

Sylus takes a sip of whiskey, holding it in his mouth for a moment as he turns over his options. He swallows and tilts his glass toward Caleb.

“He doesn’t quit.”

Caleb glances over.

“Down two,” Sylus says. “Most players know when they’re beaten. He apparently lacks that particular survival instinct. Played the last seven minutes like he could bully the scoreboard into changing.” He takes another sip. “It was irritating.”

“So we’ve established you’re both fast and stubborn and you hate each other for it,” you say. “Wonderful. Truly groundbreaking diplomacy.”

“You asked for one nice thing,” Sylus says, swirling his glass. “That was one nice thing.”

“That was one nice thing wrapped in three mean ones.”

“What can I say? I’m efficient.”

“You’re efficiently a prick,” Caleb fires back.

“Mm,” Sylus hums, entirely unbothered. “Is that what you say when you don’t have a comeback, or is that what you say when your sister’s watching and you want her to think you’re tough?”

Caleb sits up. Drains his whiskey in one go, sets the glass on the table, and lets the bag of peas slide from his neck and thud to the floor.

“Watch it, pretty boy,” he says, eyes narrowed.

“It’s a genuine question. Because you do the same thing on the ice. All those big hits, the scrapping, mouthing off at the refs. It’s very impressive. Very masculine. Especially when she’s sitting third row.” Sylus tilts his chin toward you without taking his eyes off your brother. “Must be exhausting, carrying a crush that obvious for that long. I’m surprised she hasn’t said something.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“She’s a kind girl. Probably doesn’t want to embarrass you.”

“I said shut your mouth.”

“Or maybe she likes it. Having her big brother panting after her like a dog at the door every time she—”

“That’s enough!” you yell.

Both sets of eyes snap to you. You’re not one to raise your voice, and they both know it. You don’t know what you’re going to say next until you’re already saying it, and by then it’s too late:

“If you can’t talk it out, maybe you should just kiss and make up.”

You know it sounds wrong the second it leaves your mouth. You’re tired and tipsy and your brother and your boyfriend are having a conversation about you like you’re not in the room, and all you wanted was for them to stop, and what resulted was the dumbest sentence you’ve said in your entire life.

You try to chase it with a laugh that doesn’t quite land. The room doesn’t laugh with you.

You scramble to walk it back. “Kidding. Obviously. God, your faces. I’m going to get more ice—”

Sylus sets his glass down. The sound of crystal on marble is small, though it lands like a gavel.

“Interesting,” Sylus says.

“I was joking,” you reply, too fast.

“Were you.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

Sylus rises from the armchair, crossing to the couch in three steps. He holds out a hand to Caleb.

“What the hell are you doing?” Caleb asks.

“She asked us to make up,” Sylus says simply. “I’m making up. Stand up, captain.”

“You’re out of your goddamned mind.”

“She’s been mediating between us all night, and she’s running out of patience.” Sylus’s hand is still extended, patient and unmoving. “Your poor sister has spent two years trying to keep us from killing each other. The least we can do is give her what she wants for a few seconds.”

Caleb tries to look unbothered, but you catch this jaw tightening at your poor sister. ”She was being sarcastic.”

“Was she?” Sylus glances at you over his shoulder. “Sweetie. Were you being sarcastic?”

You should say yes. You should laugh it off and go get more ice and let the night fade into something survivable.

You just can’t seem to make yourself do anything at all.

Sylus turns back to Caleb, eyebrow raised. See?

“Fine,” Caleb says. “Fine. One kiss.”

He doesn’t take Sylus’s hand. He stands up on his own, because of course he does, and squares up in front of Sylus with his shoulders braced like he’s about to take a penalty shot.

“One kiss,” Caleb repeats.

“One kiss,” Sylus agrees.

Sylus cups the side of Caleb’s face, thumb settling by the butterfly bandage at his brow. Caleb swallows hard, but doesn’t pull away.

“Relax, sweetheart,” Sylus teases. “It’s a kiss. We’ve gotten more physical over a little black puck.”

Caleb’s hands curl into fists at his sides, his face carefully impassive. “Get on with it, pretty boy.”

Sylus leans in and kisses him.

It starts as nothing. A closed-mouth press, chaste, just sufficient enough to satisfy your request. Sylus’s hand stays at Caleb’s jaw. Caleb’s hands stay at his sides. It’s two men doing something for the benefit of a third person they both care deeply about, and nothing more than that.

Then Caleb’s mouth moves.

It’s the smallest shift—his lower lip catches against Sylus’s, and you watch Sylus notice it—tilting his head to change the angle, transforming the kiss from nothing to everything in the span of a heartbeat.

Caleb’s hand comes up to Sylus’s collar, fisting the cotton there. Not pulling, just holding, his split knuckles going white behind their tape. Sylus makes a small sound, approval or surprise or both. His hand slides from Caleb’s jaw to the back of his neck and he deepens the kiss, mouth opening against Caleb’s slowly, like he’s afraid to startle him, afraid for the moment to vanish, and Caleb lets him.

The kiss isn’t for you anymore.

You can see the exact moment it stops being a performance and starts being something private. Caleb’s other hand comes up, both fists in Sylus’s shirt now. Sylus’s fingers curl into the hair at Caleb’s nape, tugging gently. The sounds shared between them are wet and obscene and utterly, nakedly honest.

Your hands are in your own lap, fingers laced tightly together. You’re watching your boyfriend kiss your brother and the thing you're feeling isn't jealousy or shock or any of the things you are supposed to feel. What you feel instead is heat pooling low, the kind that makes you press your thighs together and the friction of your jeans agonizing.

Sylus pulls back first, turning his head just enough to look at you. His eyes scan yours, drop to your lap, then return to your face. His mouth tilts, and he’s beside you on the couch in three strides.

Caleb stands frozen in place, mouth still slightly open.

Sylus pats the empty space beside him. “Sit down, captain.”

Caleb sits.

Sylus settles between you, one arm stretched across the back behind your shoulders, the other behind Caleb’s.

“Well,” Sylus says to no one in particular. “That was overdue.”

Caleb is staring at the muted TV, jaw working, suddenly captivated by what might be the least consequential Division III basketball game of all time. His lip is bleeding again, the split reopened from the kiss, but he makes no move to wipe it clean.

“Caleb,” you say.

“Don’t.”

“Your lip—”

“I know.”

“It’s bleeding again.”

“I know, pips.”

Sylus reaches over and swipes his thumb across the corner of Caleb’s mouth, catching the blood. Caleb flinches but doesn’t pull away. Sylus studies his thumb for a second, then wipes it on his own jeans, satisfied.

“Good kisser, by the way,” Sylus says lightly. “In case that wasn’t clear.”

Caleb closes his eyes.

“Very direct. Bit aggressive. Holds on like he’s afraid you’ll leave.” Sylus glances your way. “You should try it, sweetie.”

Whatever lust-drunk haze you were in is sliced clean through by the implication, cold and brutally sobering.

“Try what,” you murmur.

“Kissing him,” Sylus clarifies. “You should try it. I think you’d like it.”

Heat floods your face. “Sylus.”

“Hm?”

“You know we can’t—that he’s—” you gesture vaguely between yourself and Caleb, then toward Sylus. “—and we’re—”

“Why not? Because we’re dating?” Sylus asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Or because he’s your brother?”

Your stomach falls through the floor.

Because you thought you’d hidden it. You’ve been so goddamn careful—with your eyes, your hands, the way you angle your body when Caleb sits too close and the way you laugh at his jokes exactly as long as a friend would and not one second longer. And Sylus just picked up everything you’ve been hiding and set it on the coffee table between the three of you, and now you’re all staring straight at it, and there’s no putting it back.

“Both,” you say. “Obviously both.”

“What if it’s neither,” Sylus says, holding both of you in the loose parentheses of his arms, as if he doesn’t find any of this complicated at all. ”What if the problem is that you’ve both wanted each other for so long you’ve turned it into something you’re not allowed to have, and the not-being-allowed has gotten so big you can’t see past it anymore.”

Caleb is staring blankly at the TV again. His throat works around his response.

“She’s your girlfriend, Sylus.”

“She is.”

“And I’m her—”

“You’re her brother. Yes. You’re also in love with her. We all know this. We’ve known it all night. We knew it long before tonight.” Sylus inspects his nails, nonchalant. “So let’s stop building the case and move to the verdict, shall we?”

“Sylus,” you whisper.

“Sweetie. Look at me.” You do. He’s giving you the look he gives when he wants your full attention, a look he doesn’t use often and one you’ve never been able to refuse. “Listen to me. Both of you. I’m going to say something, and I’m going to say it once, and after I say it neither of you gets to pretend you didn’t hear.”

You nod. So does Caleb, in sync, and you watch the small flicker pass across Sylus’s eyes that means he noticed.

“Your big brother won’t touch you,” Sylus says to you. “You know that. I know that. He knows that. He’s spent—how long, Caleb?”

Caleb blinks up at the ceiling.

“How long,” Sylus insists.

“Since I was thirteen.”

“Since he was thirteen. All those years deciding he’s not going to touch you. He’s not going to undo that tonight. Not for me. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

Your heart beats so heavily you’re certain the whole room can hear it.

“But,” Sylus continues. His arm tightens behind your shoulders. His other arm tightens behind Caleb’s. “He can touch me. Can’t you, Caleb?”

“...Yes.”

“And I can touch her. Can’t I, kitten?”

“Yes.”

“Then look at that. Look at how convenient that is.”

Caleb leans out of Sylus’s reach, dragging a hand through his dark hair. “Did I knock something loose up there, Qin? Lay into you a little too hard tonight?”

“Not nearly hard enough.” Sylus smirks, the amusement fading into something more focused. “Nobody touches anybody they’re not supposed to touch tonight. Everybody goes home having had exactly the experience they pretend they didn’t want.”

“That’s a nice speech. You rehearse that in the penalty box?”

“I had five minutes. Figured I’d make good use of them.”

“You’re delusional.”

“And you’re still here.”

That lands. You see it hit in the way Caleb’s mouth opens and stays there, the argument dying in his throat. Because he could leave. The door is right there. He has a car. A phone. Yet he’s sitting under Sylus’s arm and hasn’t taken a single step toward any of them.

Sylus sees it, too.

He reaches up and catches Caleb’s jaw, thumb finding the split in his lower lip, and presses into it. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to feel.

Caleb hisses through his teeth. His hand wraps around Sylus’s wrist but doesn’t pull it away.

“Unless,” Sylus says, his thumb resting in the seam of Caleb’s mouth, “you’d rather go back to arguing about hockey.”

Caleb doesn’t argue. He doesn’t say yes, or nod, or do anything at all except sit there with Sylus’s thumb against his lip and his hand around Sylus’s wrist and his chest rising and falling faster than it ever has on the ice.

That’s enough for Sylus.

He tilts Caleb’s jaw down and kisses him, tongue working in slow and unhurried strokes, like he has the whole night and intends to use every second of it. His thumb slides to the hinge of Caleb’s jaw and rests there. His other hand stays on your shoulder, keeping you close. Keeping you watching. A warm, heavy, point of contact that says stay and watch this and you are not going to look away from what I’m doing to your brother’s mouth.

Caleb’s hand finds the back of Sylus’s neck, and you inhale sharply.

Sylus pulls back at your gasp. His hand leaves Caleb’s jaw and finds yours with the same grip, thumb at the corner of your mouth, fingers curving under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his. His eyes scan yours, and something in his expression comes alive and hungry.

“Open, sweetie.”

He kisses you, and it’s a kiss you know. The shape of his mouth, the pace, the pressure of his tongue against yours. You’ve kissed this man so many times you could map it blindfolded.

But there’s something in his mouth that isn’t his.

It takes you a second to place it, a warmth that doesn’t belong to Sylus. A faint copper edge that blooms on your tongue when his presses against it. The blood of a split lip. Caleb’s, carried on your boyfriend’s tongue, delivered to yours with each stroke. You whimper against his mouth, and feel Sylus smile into the kiss—a small, satisfied flex that says his hypothesis just proved correct.

“There,” he says quietly, pressing a parting kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Now you’ve had him, too.”

On the couch behind him, Caleb’s eyes are focused on your face—specifically on your mouth, more specifically on the place where his blood is still sitting on your lower lip and you haven’t wiped it off.

“Now,” Sylus says, turning back to Caleb. “Your turn, captain.”

Caleb opens his mouth and Sylus kisses him, tongue sweeping wet and slow and thorough. Caleb’s teeth close around Sylus’s bottom lip and hold, pulling, tasting the sweetness that’s sitting on Sylus’s lip from yours. The bite pulls a low sound from Sylus’s throat, his eyelids fluttering at the pressure, and Caleb doesn’t let go. If anything he sucks harder, desperately chasing your mouth the only way he’s allowed to. 

Sylus finally pulls back with noticeable effort, running his tongue over his own lip where its newly swollen.

“Well?” Sylus asks, amused and knowing. “Could you taste her?”

“Apple.” Caleb swallows. “Green apple.”

The words hit you hard and low. Your Chapstick. The one he’s bought for you in bulk since you were in middle school and keeps in his glovebox because you always lose yours. The one he tosses into your lap without comment every time you get in his car, the one you reapplied before walking into this apartment.

“Yeah,” Caleb says, rougher. “Yeah, I could taste her.”

Sylus’s mouth curves. “Good.”

“Again,” Caleb says to Sylus, not asking. “Kiss her again.”

Sylus obliges. He turns to you and claims your lips, longer, dirtier, a thin strand of spit connecting your mouths when he pulls away. He turns to Caleb, who catches it with his mouth before Sylus finishes turning, desperate and graceless and nothing like the controlled athlete who commanded the ice earlier tonight. Caleb’s hand comes up to the back of Sylus’s head and holds him there, kissing him harder, letting Sylus feed him the taste of you, only pulling apart when his lungs burn for air.

“More,” Caleb groans.

Sylus huffs a laugh. “Greedy.”

“More, Sylus.”

The rhythm turns hypnotic. Sylus kisses Caleb, turns, kisses you. Kisses you, turns, kisses Caleb. Each pass filthier than the last, a little more urgent, carrying more of your brother to you—not just his taste but his small, wet sounds, his shallow breaths, the barely-held-back noises he keeps making against Sylus’s tongue that Sylus carries to you like gifts.

You don’t know how you end up pressed together.

Caleb’s thigh is flush against Sylus’s, their shoulders overlapping. You’ve managed to end up in your boyfriend’s lap, straddling his hips. And Sylus keeps one hand on each of you the entire time, one at your hip now, the other on Caleb’s bicep.

You lean in after one of the passes and catch Sylus’s mouth before he’s fully turned away from Caleb, the kiss off-center and messy, and you taste Caleb so strongly that your hips buck against Sylus’s.

Sylus laughs. He gives your ass a teasing smack.

“Bedroom,” he says.

Caleb pulls back, eyes widening. “Sylus—”

“We’re moving this to the bedroom. This couch costs more than your car, and your sister’s about to ruin it.”

You frown. “I am not—”

“Sweetie, your hand is on his belt.”

You look down. Your hand is, in fact, on Caleb’s belt.

Not through Sylus, just—your hand, on Caleb’s belt buckle, fingers curled around the leather, and you don’t remember putting it there and you don’t remember Sylus guiding it, and you’re dangerously close to not remembering why this whole thing was ever a bad idea in the first place.

You pull your hand away like it’s been burned.

“Bedroom,” Sylus repeats, an order rather than suggestion. He stands, bringing you with him, your legs wrapped around his waist. He eyes Caleb and tips his head toward the hallway. “Now.”

Nobody argues.

Sylus’s bedroom is all dark wood and low light, with a bed that takes up most of the space. It’s a mattress you’ve been on a hundred times. You know how the sheets feel bunched in your fists, how the pillow positions your hips at just the right angle when he puts it under your stomach, how the comforter feels around your shoulders when he tucks you in with a kiss to your temple.

You have no idea how different it’ll feel with three people on top of it.

Sylus deposits you in the middle of the bed before crossing to his nightstand. 

“Caleb,” Sylus says. He turns the lamp down another notch. “In or out. I won’t ask twice.”

You watch your brother from the doorway, his gaze flicking to and away from you, like the sight of you—leaning back on your elbows, lips kiss-swollen, hair a little mussed, eyes alive and wanting—is too much to bear.

He steps in, locking the door behind him with a loud click. “I’m doing this for her.”

“Of course you are,” Sylus says.

“I mean it, Sylus. This isn’t—I’m not here for you.”

“Nobody asked you to be.”

“Good.”

“Good.” Sylus reaches behind his neck, pulling his shirt up and over his head. “Clothes. Off. Both of you.”   

“All of them?” Caleb asks, still lingering by the door.

Sylus drapes his shirt over the back of his desk chair. “Leave the underwear. We’re not animals.”

“Debatable,” you mutter, and Sylus’s mouth twitches.

The three of you strip in silence, shirts tossed aside, all three pairs of jeans hitting the floor at different speeds— Sylus’s first, folded; yours next, kicked off the edge of the bed; Caleb’s last, shoved down and stepped out of.

You’ve seen your brother shirtless—at the beach, after a shower, when he mows the lawn in the dead of August. What you haven’t seen is your brother in gray boxer briefs that do nothing to hide the way his erection strains against the fabric, tight enough that you can tell where the head of his cock meets the shaft, that you can see the darkened spot at the tip where precum bleeds through.

Caleb catches you staring, eyes finding yours and holding them until you’re the one that breaks. Your cheeks burn violently, fingers fumbling with your bra clasp like you’ve forgotten how it works.

“Eyes up, captain,” Sylus warns, moving to the foot of the bed. “She’ll still be there in a minute.”

“You going to coach me through this like it’s a power play?” Caleb grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“If that’s what it takes. You never could finish without a setup.”

“I have fourteen goals this season.”

“And how many assists?”

Caleb's mouth opens and shuts.

“...Shut up.”

Sylus huffs out a laugh. He pulls you to the edge of the mattress by your ankles, and you yelp.

“I’m going to tell you where to look all night, sweetheart. Get used to it,” he says to Caleb before turning his attention back to you. “Lie back, kitten.”

You settle back. Sylus stands between your legs, one hand braced beside your head, and for a moment it’s just the two of you. He kisses your throat, your collarbone, mouth moving down the center of your chest slow and warm. His free hand finds your waist and holds there, thumb tracing the skin above the waistband of your underwear.

“Caleb,” Sylus says against your skin. “Behind me.”

“I’m not cuddling you, Sylus.”

“Nobody’s cuddling anybody. Get behind me. Hands on mine.”

“This isn’t—”

“For her, captain. You’re doing this for her. Remember?”

Caleb positions his knees on either side of Sylus’s calves, chest close to Sylus’s back but not quite touching. He braces one hand on the mattress, the other settling over Sylus’s at your waist, lining up finger over finger, his broader palm bracketing Sylus’s against your hip. The added weight presses Sylus’s grip firmer into your skin, and you arch up into it.

“There,” Sylus says. “Feel her through me. When I move, you move. Yes?”

Caleb’s voice is barely there. “Yes.”

Sylus’s thumb traces up the curve of your waist. Caleb’s follows—riding the back of Sylus’s hand, tracking every motion. Sylus’s hand slides to your ribs, and Caleb’s follows, up and around. Sylus’s fingertips graze the underside of your breast and you gasp, and Caleb’s knuckle catches the edge of your skin where Sylus’s hand doesn’t fully cover.

Caleb freezes.

“I didn’t—I—”

“Caleb…” you whisper.

You look up at Sylus, but he doesn’t intervene. He watches your face from above, letting you be the one who tells Caleb what’s allowed.

“It’s okay, gege,” you decide. “You don’t have to stop.”

Caleb’s hand unfreezes. His fingers resettle over Sylus’s, and they keep moving.

The next touch isn’t an accident.

It’s the back of his ring finger, tracing a line along your ribs that Sylus’s hand doesn’t cover. A quarter-inch of contact, gone, then back—his pinky, grazing the curve of your waist as Sylus’s hand slides lower, gone just as fast. Ghost touches, so minimal you could pretend they didn’t happen. Caleb finding the gaps and pressing into them, testing, learning you through the spaces between your boyfriend’s fingers.

“Sylus,” you whisper.

“I see it, sweetie.”

“Is he—”

“He’s being creative.” Sylus’s mouth lifts. He shifts his hands enough to widen the gaps between his fingers by a fraction, adjusting his grip to give Caleb more room. “I’m allowing it.”

Caleb presses closer behind Sylus. His chest makes contact with Sylus’s back, and the added weight pushes Sylus’s body down against yours.

“Caleb,” Sylus says, in warning and permission at the same time.

“I know.”

“You’re on top of me.”

“I know. That doesn’t mean I like you.”

“You liked me just fine on the couch.”

“That was—that was the situation. That was for—”

“For her. Yes. You’ve mentioned.”

Sylus lowers his mouth to your breast. His tongue traces the curve, teeth teasing your nipple, and you arch up into him. The motion presses your hips against his, and Sylus’s hips press back against Caleb’s, and Caleb—

Caleb grinds forward.

It’s a small, involuntary roll of his hips against Sylus’s ass that pushes Sylus’s hips into yours, and you feel the force of Caleb traveling through Sylus like a wave cresting against you.

Your mouth falls open.

“Caleb. Do that again,” you urge.

“Pips—”

“Gege, please. Do that again.”

He does it again, harder this time. His hips roll forward, grinding Sylus into you, and the pressure hits you exactly right. You gasp and grab Sylus’s shoulders. Sylus makes a low, strangled sound you’ve never heard from him before, Caleb’s hips driving him forward and yours rocking up to meet him.

“More,” you gasp.

Caleb grinds harder, his exhales ragged against Sylus’s neck. The bed is moving. You’re moving. Caleb’s hands are now white-knuckled on Sylus’s hips and Sylus’s are braced on either side of your head and you’re gripping the sheets with both fists as the room dissolves to nothing but friction and heat and breath.

“Caleb—” Sylus manages, his voice is rough in a way that makes your stomach clench, “Caleb, you need to—fuck—you need to—slow down.”

Caleb doesn’t slow down. His next stroke grinds Sylus into you so hard you nearly scream, grabbing onto Sylus’s shoulders, and your boyfriend shudders—actually shudders—and Caleb’s hips snap forward again, relentless.

Sylus throws his weight backward, driving Caleb off him enough to break away. He holds a hand between you and Caleb like a referee calling a penalty—chest heaving, skin flushed, entire body vibrating with the effort of stopping.

“Christ,” he grits out. “The pair of you.”

You stare up at him, breathless. Caleb has one knee up at the end of the bed, hands still shaped around hips that aren’t there anymore.

“We need to slow down,” Sylus says, pushing his hair back with one hand, “or one of us was going to finish in our underwear like a teenager, and I am not going to let that be me.”

“Could’ve been me,” Caleb says, roughly.

“It was going to be all three of us. And we haven’t even started yet.” Sylus looks between you, eyes dark, still catching his breath. “Underwear off. All of us.”

“Thought we weren’t animals,” Caleb mutters.

“We evolved.” Sylus counters, already halfway out of his own boxers. “Take them off, captain.”

You lift your hips and shimmy out of your panties, tossing them off the side of the bed without ceremony. Caleb relents, kicking his underwear off in the general direction of his jeans.

It’s seeing them side by side that knocks the air clean out of you.

Sylus stands tall, lean and carved, all controlled lines and casual strength. A trail of silver hair guides your eyes to where his cock hangs heavy between his thighs, the tip flushed and leaking. Caleb stands broader, rougher around the edges, the bruise on his ribs going green, tape still half-wound around his knuckles. Dark hair runs in a line below his navel, and when you see your brother’s cock for the first time—thick and eager in his hand—you draw your knees together.

Sylus’s hand catches them before they close.

“Uh-uh,” he says simply. With one palm on each knee, he eases them back apart. “None of that, sweetie.”

He guides you back against the headboard, adjusts the pillow under your lower back, running a hand down your calf once he’s finished like he’s admiring his handiwork.

“Comfortable?” he asks, sitting back on his heels.

You nod. “Yes.”

The mattress dips as Caleb moves to kneel behind Sylus. He reaches for your boyfriend’s hip, already angling to resume the position—his chest against Sylus’s back, Sylus between your legs, the structure of this arrangement he knows and trusts.

“No,” Sylus stops Caleb with a hand around his forearm, pulling him to kneel beside you instead. “I want you to see something.”

Sylus settles between your legs, lowering himself on his elbows. His mouth grazes the inside of your thigh, red eyes pinning Caleb.

“You can look, captain.”

Caleb swallows. “I am looking.”

“Then look properly.” Sylus’s breath hits your aching core with each word, and you squirm. “It’s okay. Look at her.”

Sylus holds Caleb’s eyes as his mouth moves higher. He kisses your hip, the crease of your thigh, the soft skin below your navel. Then his tongue teases your clit, and your hips jerk up off the bed. Caleb’s hand, resting on his own thigh, curls into a fist.

“See how pretty she is?” Sylus murmurs against you.

“Sylus—”

“Look.”

Sylus parts you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue, closing his lips around your clit with a teasing suck before pulling away—giving your brother an unobstructed view, you realize hazily. He spreads you open with both thumbs, displaying your swollen, slick pussy with an almost reverent care. You’re so wet that you’ve made a mess of your inner thighs, so wet it should shame you, but the way Caleb is looking at you right now leaves no room for any feeling other than the dizzying certainty that your brother wants you as badly as you want him.

“You did this, Caleb. Your sister’s pretty little cunt is ruining my sheets. All because of you,” Sylus muses. He drags a thumb up through your slick heat, eyes locked on Caleb’s expression as he circles the wetness around your clit. “She’s been like this since you grabbed me by the shirt. Since you made me bleed on the ice, I’d imagine.”

Sylus lowers his mouth to you once more, tongue patient and expert, licking into you the way he knows you like. The sensation makes your toes curl, but you’re faintly aware that the act isn’t for your pleasure, but for the benefit of the man kneeling beside you with bated breath.

Caleb watches intently—the way Sylus’s jaw works, the speed and pressure that makes you gasp, the way your hips buck when he hums against you every few strokes—studying like an exam he’s desperate to pass.

“Caleb,” Sylus says, lifting his mouth just enough to speak. “Spit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t put your mouth on her,” Sylus explains. “But you can give her something from it. Can’t you?”

Caleb exhales hard through his nose, but doesn’t deny it.

He leans over you, and his face is close, close enough that his breath heats your stomach, close enough that you see his nostrils flare, briefly, involuntarily, his lips parting at whatever he finds there. He lets saliva pool under his tongue and glances at you sideways, a silent plea for approval.

You nod, quickly, anticipation buzzing under your skin. “I want to feel you there, gege.”

He spits.

When it lands directly on your swollen clit, you cry out. The streak of saliva runs down your slit slowly, torturously, so erotic it makes you clench around nothing.

“Good,” Sylus murmurs, and drops his head back down. He works it in with his tongue, and the added slick makes you moan. “Feel that, sweetie? That’s all your brother. You’re taking him so well.”

Your hand finds the nearest solid thing—Caleb’s thigh—and grips tight.

Caleb lets out a strained sound at the contact, but he doesn’t pull away. You can feel the small shifts in his weight as he leans closer, pulled in, unable to help himself. He watches Sylus’s mouth on you with an expression that’s long passed hunger and arrived somewhere more primal.

“Sylus,” Caleb says, more groan than word.

Sylus hums against you but doesn’t move.

“Sylus. Let me—”

Sylus lifts his head, mouth glistening. He looks at Caleb with his chin resting against the inside of your thigh and a lazy, knowing expression that makes your stomach flip.

“Let you what, captain?”

Caleb’s throat moves. “Taste.”

“Taste what.”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I’m going to make you say it.”

“Her. I want to taste her. Sylus, let me—”

“How badly.”

His jaw flexes once. Twice. “Badly.”

Sylus presses a kiss to your thigh before sitting up, giving his cock a few lazy strokes. “Hm.”

He positions the head of his cock between your legs—not to enter, just outside—sliding just the tip up and down the wet of you. You gasp, cunt throbbing, aching to be filled by him—by Sylus, by Caleb, by both.

Caleb is watching with his mouth open.

“How badly,” Sylus repeats, eyes on your brother as he rolls his hips against you this time, dragging the full length of him through your folds.

“Sylus—” Caleb urges.

“Tell me, sweetheart. I want to hear you say it.”

“Please.” It falls out of Caleb’s mouth unauthorized. “Please, Sylus, let me—”

Sylus grinds against you again, slower. He makes sure every inch of him is covered, glistening with you, and Caleb is watching with every muscle tense and his hands gripping his thighs hard enough to bruise.

“More?” Sylus asks Caleb, almost bored, like he’s asking about the weather.

“Sylus, for fuck’s sake—”

“That didn’t sound like more.”

“More. Yes. More, just—Sylus, come on—”

Sylus rolls his hips into you one last time, a long, slow grind that pulls a moan out of you and leaves him drenched. He rises onto his knees, cock gleaming with you, and looks at Caleb.

“Come here, captain.”

Caleb moves before the sentence is finished.

His mouth is on Sylus faster than you can process it—tasting you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue from base to tip; a wrecked, thankful sound torn from somewhere deep inside his chest.

“That’s it.” Sylus’s hand finds the back of Caleb’s head and holds there. “Taste your baby sister, Caleb. That’s what she tastes like when she wants you. And she’s been wanting you all night. Can you taste that? Can you taste how badly her body needs yours?”

Caleb’s hands grip Sylus’s thighs as his mouth works—tasting, chasing it, trying to get every trace of you off Sylus’s skin. You watch your boyfriend lose himself for a moment: his hips jerk forward once, and he looks down at Caleb with an expression you’ve only ever seen him give you.

“God, look at you,” Sylus says, low. “This is what you’ve been missing. Years, Caleb. Years of this.”

Caleb lifts his head. His mouth is wet, eyes nearly black. He looks at Sylus first—a look that is somehow both grateful and furious—and then he looks at you.

“I know,” he says, bitter but not at you. 

“Was it worth it? Being noble?”

Caleb shakes off Sylus’s hold, running his hand over the back of his head like he could erase the man’s touch. “Shut up, pretty boy.”

Sylus raises his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not saying anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“I’m thinking—” Sylus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and settles beside you against the headboard. His hand finds your knee, pulling it closer to your chest. “—your sister has been lying here all alone, begging for you to fuck her, while you’ve been busy showing a lot of enthusiasm for a cock you claim to hate.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Qin.” His words are calm. His ears, unfortunately, are bright red. “That was for her, not you.”

“Was it. Then prove it.” Sylus gives your thigh a squeeze. “Do something for her she can actually feel. Between her legs, captain.”

“No. That’s—no. That’s not what we agreed to.” Caleb’s whole body goes rigid. “You said nobody touches anybody they’re not supposed to. That was the rule.”

“We didn’t agree to anything,” Sylus counters. “We’ve been making it up as we go. And so far, everything we’ve made up has worked, hasn’t it.”

“This—this is different.”

“Is it? You tasted your sister on my cock and the world kept turning.” Sylus raises a brow. “What makes you think this will be any different?”

“It’s completely different and you know it.”

“How.”

“Because she’s—” Caleb gestures at you without looking at you. “She’s right there, Sylus, and I—”

“Look at her, Caleb.”

Caleb looks at you, and you don’t soften it. You don’t close your legs or reach for the sheet or give him something to hide behind. You let him see the aftermath of an hour of being touched through another man, what a lifetime of being so close to your brother but never close enough has done to you.

“Caleb,” you say. “Please. Just come here.”

His hands open and close at his sides. “Pips, you don’t know what’s going to happen if I—”

“I know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“You don’t.”

“You’re going to touch me and it’s going to feel like it should have felt a long time ago. And I’m going to be fine. And you’re going to be fine. And I’m asking you, gege. I’m asking. Please.”

He’s quiet. He looks at Sylus—not for permission, not exactly. Giving your boyfriend one last chance to change his mind, to tell him this is wrong, to kick him to the curb and slam the door behind him and pretend none of this ever happened.

“She’s asking, Caleb,” Sylus says gently. “And I’m tired of being the only one who listens to her.”

Caleb closes his eyes with a heavy exhale. Opens them.

He moves between your legs.

“Closer, sweetheart,” Sylus directs from beside you. “She’s not going to bite. Yet.”

Caleb nods and inches closer on his knees, until the front of his thighs are flush against yours. He takes himself in hand and you open for him, drawing both knees tighter into your chest.

“I don’t—” Caleb starts. “What if I—”

“Just the outside,” Sylus says. “You don’t have to go in. Just feel her against you. That’s all.”

That’s all.

He presses the length of his cock flat against you the way he watched Sylus do, sliding slowly through your slick heat without entering, and the weight of your brother against your cunt makes you forget how to breathe.

“There,” Sylus says from beside you. You watch him wrap his hand around his own cock, stroking it in time with Caleb’s slow rolls, the visual sending a new wave of heat down your spine. “Just like that. Easy, captain.”

Caleb rocks his hips in long drags, hot and devastating as he slides through the wet of everything the night has built. His hand is still on himself, still controlling the angle, still holding onto the last bit of restraint he has left.

“Shit,” he manages. “Sylus, she’s so—feels so—”

“I know.”

“She’s—I can’t—”

“You can,” Sylus assures, gentle and genuine. “You’re fine. She’s fine. It’s just the outside.”

Your hips rock up to meet his on the next stroke, shifting the angle, and the head of his cock catches at your entrance.

All three of you gasp at the same time.

“That’s okay. Just a little is okay,” Sylus says, quieter now. He leans closer to rest a hand on Caleb’s lower back. “You can give your sister just the tip. That’s allowed. That’s nothing.”

“That’s not nothing—”

“It’s close to nothing. Let it happen.”

Caleb rocks forward and the head of him slides in—just barely inside, the tight heat of you closing around the first inch, your legs falling wider open with a small gasp. He collapses forward, free hand fisting into the sheets beside your shoulder. Your mouths open, only inches apart now. His hand tightens around himself like a brake.

“There,” Sylus murmurs. “See? That’s fine. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” Caleb grits out.

“Then go a little further. You can let go of yourself. You don’t have to hold on anymore.” His thumb soothes small arcs on Caleb’s back. “Why don’t you give her a little more. Just an inch. She can take it. Can’t you, sweetie?”

Caleb’s hand releases. He plants it beside your other shoulder.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Yes, more, please—”

Caleb sinks deeper. An inch. Another. His jaw is clenched so hard you can see the tendon at his neck as his eyes lock on yours, searching for the thing that will tell him to stop.

You don’t give it to him.

“More,” you beg. “I can take it. I promise I can take it.”

“Pips—”

“Gege, please. I need you closer. I need more.”

“All the way,” Sylus says, and his hand presses flat against Caleb’s lower back. “All the way, sweetheart. She’s asking so nicely. Give your baby sister the cock she’s been begging for.”

Caleb pushes all the way in.

His forehead drops to yours, eyes squeezing shut. His forearms are shaking where they cage your head, and you’re full of him, completely, finally, and you have never in your life felt more whole.

Your arms come up around his neck, legs wrapping around his waist, and you hold him there, as deep as he can go. Sylus strokes the back of Caleb's head once before returning to your side.

“There you go,” Sylus murmurs. “There. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Caleb’s breath shudders against your mouth.

“Give me a second,” he says. “Meimei, give me one second.”

You give him a second. You give him several. You lie there with him buried inside you and his sweat-slicked forehead against yours and your breath mixing in the inch between your mouths and you wait.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

When he moves, it’s in rolls, not thrusts. He moves like he’s terrified of the end of this, like if he goes slow enough it will never stop, and you let him, because you’ve waited years and you can wait a few more minutes.

Sylus settles back against the headboard, stroking himself slowly, watching the two of you with half-lidded eyes, his free hand resting on his own thigh. Occasionally it drifts—brushing a strand of your hair out of your face, giving a reassuring squeeze to Caleb’s forearm. Though you can barely register anything aside from the way Caleb is looking at you the way you always dreamed he would, like he’s burning alive and doesn’t want to be saved.

“Faster,” you plead, gripping his forearms for leverage.

Caleb doesn’t check with Sylus anymore. He goes faster.

You dig your heels into his ass, pulling him impossibly deeper. He groans against your throat, the loudest sound the room has heard all night, and his hips snap forward and the bedframe hits the wall with each thrust and neither of you cares. You’re nothing but two people who have been starving trying to eat at the same time, and it’s too fast and too much and not enough and—

“Caleb,” Sylus says.

His rhythm stutters. “What could you possibly—”

“Kiss her.”

Caleb cuts Sylus a sidelong glare, but he doesn’t reply.

“You heard me, captain.”

Your brother looks down at you, hips still rolling in a steady rhythm. He lowers his mouth to your forehead and presses his lips there. It’s the kind of kiss you’ve received a thousand times—at the airport, at graduation, in the parking lot after games. Safe. Known.

Sylus clicks his tongue, dissatisfied. “Lower, Caleb.”

Caleb inhales sharply, eyes scanning your face, contemplating. His hips have all but stilled, as if he needs all of his focus to fulfill the request. He picks a lower spot—the apple of your cheek—and kisses you there softly.

“Gege,” you whisper against the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“Please.”

“I know, meimei.”

You tilt your chin up, lower lip brushing his. “Please. Just one.”

Caleb kisses you, and the world falls away.

It’s slow, unbearably slow, just the full, warm weight of his mouth against yours for the very first time. His hand comes up to cradle your face, the gesture so tender you feel the start of tears pooling behind your lashes.

Caleb pulls away a fraction and comes back. His lips part, barely, and yours open to meet them. His tongue finds yours tentatively, nothing like the way he kissed Sylus, and you savor the way it glides against yours like it was always meant to. He tastes like whiskey and copper and Sylus’s skin and underneath all of it like Caleb—not number five, not the hockey captain, but your older brother, the one who taught you to skate when you were nine and held both your hands the whole time and never once let go.

His hips start moving again, each stroke matched to the kiss, each deep roll timed to the slide of his tongue against yours. Your hand moves from his jaw into his hair, and you kiss him back and feel a lifetime of careful distance dissolve like it was never there. Like all those years you thought were keeping something out were really keeping something in, something alive and wound tight and desperate for the chance to break free.

Caleb deepens the kiss, hungrier now, tongue licking deeper against yours as his hips snap forward so hard it’s almost painful.

“There he is,” Sylus says, barely above a breath, hand quickening on himself. “Fuck, look at you two. Let go. Together. Let everything go.”

“Gege,” you manage. “I’m close.”

“I know.” Against your lips. “Me too, meimei. Me too.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m not—I won’t—I—”

You both let go.

You break around him. His hips stutter. The sound he makes into your mouth is the twin of the one you make into his, and there’s nothing poetic or graceful about it. He holds your face like he’s trying to live inside the kiss, like if he stays long enough it’ll become something he can keep. You feel his release pulse hot inside you, your own orgasm pulling him in even deeper, and you hold each other through every wave, never breaking the kiss. Not even when he’s shaking, and you’re shaking, and neither of you can breathe.

Beside you, Sylus comes with his forehead tipped back against the headboard and his hand in your hair, fingers tangled loosely in the damp strands at the back of your neck while the two people he brought together fall apart. His exhale is long and heavy and sounds, if you’re listening for it, like satisfaction.

The kiss finally, reluctantly breaks.

Caleb pulls back an inch, resting his forehead against yours, the two of you trading shaky breaths while you wait for the room to stop spinning.

“I just kissed you,” he whispers.

You laugh, and it comes out wet. “You did a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, but—“ He wipes away a tear from your cheekbone you didn’t realize had fallen, his eyes glassy and dark and full of so many emotions your chest aches. “I kissed you, meimei.”

“Yeah, gege.” You grin. “You did.”

He smiles. It’s a smile you’ve know your whole life but never from this close, and from here it simply looks like pure, wild joy. And you think, without deciding to, that you’d burn the entire world to the ground just to see him smile like that twice.

Caleb stays inside you for a long time. His face is in your neck, your fingers in his hair, the two of you so thoroughly entangled your heartbeats are nearly synchronized.

Sylus is the first one to move.

He gets up quietly. You hear the tap run in the bathroom, the sound of a drawer opening and closing. He comes back with a glass of water and a warm cloth, sits on the edge of the bed, and rests a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

“Out,” he says, gently. “Easy. I’ve got her.”

Caleb pulls out—reluctantly, carefully—and rolls onto his side. He reaches for you immediately, pulling you against his chest, arm heavy over your waist, nose in your hair, like he’s afraid someone’s going to call time.

Sylus cleans you up. Sets the water on the nightstand within reach. Pulls the sheet up over both of you, kisses the top of your head, and goes to the other side of the bed.

He lies down beside Caleb. Not touching, giving the two of you your own space to come down together. Caleb’s palm presses into your bare abdomen, soothing circles over your stomach. And after a minute or two, he shifts backward. Just enough that his shoulders meet Sylus’s chest.

Sylus lifts his arm and drapes it over both of you, over Caleb’s ribs, your waist, his palm settling on your stomach on top of Caleb’s hand.

Caleb exhales. His whole body goes slack against Sylus’s chest.

“Don’t you dare say a word, pretty boy,” Caleb murmurs.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“And don’t bring this up ever again.”

“Bring what up.”

“This. Any of this. Not on the ice, not in the locker room, not ever.”

“Caleb, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m asleep. You’re asleep. She's asleep. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing at all, sweetheart,” Sylus confirms. “Though if it had, I’d be putting myself down for the assist.”

“I will smother you with this pillow.”

“That would require you to let go of her first, captain.”

Caleb’s arm tightens around your waist. Sylus’s arm tightens over his. You lace your fingers through both of their hands where they overlap on your stomach and close your eyes.

Somewhere in the living room, the basketball game has ended, the TV humming without an audience. Nobody gets up to turn it off.

Nobody gets up at all.

if u made it this far....thank u for reading, fellow freak ;)

still hungry, sweetie??? -> masterlist | ao3

Night after night, Zayne had visited the man in a different disguise. Hoping for an inch of his freshly made feminine form to resemble the man's unknown woman.

But the man knew. The man felt the difference. And he was full of rage.

The imitation of his lover was ghastly. A mere figment of who the woman he loved truly was.

You see, Zayne had never struggled in life. he had lived a million years, and a million before that. The months passing in ways only a human would attribute a meaning to. Everything came to him. A touch of insinuation and the being was in the palm of his hands.

He fed on desire. And mankind carried it in abundance. A swish of his hair, a suggestive touch placed in the night, a whisper into the darkness at the right time, and he had the human writhing around in their dens before they knew any better.

And he was good at what he did. He fed on desire, he increased the population of mankind, and he left well enough alone. He did what he had to do to ensure his future was secure. To ensure he would have beings to seduce and continue his pattern for another million years.

He was very good at what he did.

And yet this man would prove to be his biggest challenge yet.

oh my god I'm starting a tags list? who am I? lol @calebsfavoriteusedthong @pearlescenthoney