idciysidciyc

her eye twitches as she ogles you. when you finally notice her staring, you deign to give her a smile. “same as usual! valko ma—”

“enough!” her desk chair creaks as she reels back in exasperation. “you keep saying this designer makes all your jewelry, flaunting how rare and custom it is. it’s so high-end, i can’t even find it online! stop bragging! i get it, it’s exclusive. not made for taras like me. i just don't know how you can afford so many valko designs with our salary.” she folds her arms, juts out her bottom lip, and huffs. 

“um…tara?” you have the nerve to look shocked. 

“let me guess. you got nipple rings too, and valko made them?”

“tara! valko is my boyfriend.” 

instantly, she freezes. “what?”

“yeah! he can manipulate metals, so he gives me all these cool little trinkets as gifts. actually…” you shift your gaze to the wall clock. “he should be just about done with work. i can ask him to make you something right now, if you'd like.”

“uhm,” she sputters, finally remembering to uncross her arms. “um—yeah! that would be awesome, and also, i am so sorry.” 

“don’t worry about it.” chuckling, you tap a few buttons on your phone and raise it to your ear. “honey? my friend wants a pretty ring. could you do that for me?” 

tara watches your face flush at whatever his response was. 

“yes, i know your talents are reserved for me. but if you say yes, i’ll…” 

her eyes glaze over as you turn your head to the side and cover your whispering mouth. so this is what she’s missing out on living the single life, huh?

your sudden cheer snaps her out of it. “really? you will? i love you, thank you so much!” beaming, you end the call. just a few moments later, your phone chimes, and you flip it around to show her a dazzling gold ring. “is this good?”

she stares, dumbfounded. “i literally could not have imagined anything better.” 

“great! i’ll bring it to you tomorrow. for now, though, i gotta get home. i owe our jeweler a favor,” you whisper conspiratorially. 

as you sashay out of the office, earrings jingling all the way, tara drops her head into her hands. no wonder you look so cute all the time.

wait a second.

you and valko…cute couple, cute jewelry. and she thinks she’s pretty cute herself, sometimes.

he feels SO proud of you the first time you pout and tell him that wasn’t what you ordered.

“leb… this isn’t what i ordered,” you frowned, caleb feels his heart soar at how proud he is of you. he immediately calls the waiter over and has them bring the right food out, he smiles brightly when you tell the waiter what you’d originally ordered.

he is incredibly healing when you’re in a group setting, always listening to you so intently and responding to you when you think no one is listening.

“what happened after that?”

“is this the same prof you said had a 2.0 average?”

“didn’t that same coworker have a messy breakup a month ago?”

someone once said you were too quiet and needed to speak up, caleb almost crushed them with his evol and you had to stop him.

“we can’t even hear anything you’re saying, why can’t you ever talk louder?” they’d groan, you felt heat spread up your neck and across your face, blood going cold as you apologized, tears pricking your eyes.

“what the fucks your problem?” caleb growled, eyes dark as he turned to them, brows furrowed angrily as he stood from his seat.

“doesn’t it get annoying dude? it’s like you always have to fucking babysit” they scoff, standing up to try and seem tough, only to not even be eye level to your boyfriend.

“watch your fucking mouth,” his voice is low and dangerous, theres familiar purple rays distorting around the man, his knees buckle underneath the pressure of gravity, your eyes widen.

“caleb cmon let’s just go, please?” you say quietly, gently touching his arm. his head whips around to you, face immediately softening and eyes sparkling when you give him a pout. “please?”

you glance over your shoulder as the two of you walk away. calebs words repeat in your head.

‘you don’t have to take what they give you if you don’t like it.’

maybe his bold demeanor had rubbed off on you. before you know it you’re lifting a hand and flicking him off, yelling from a couple feet away,“pussy ass bitch!”

your heart races as you and caleb walk away. calebs jaw is practically on the floor as you laugh in disbelief of your own actions.

“this is why i never make you angry,” he chuckles, “the shyness is actually just a façade, you’re terrifying.” you roll your eyes at him, pinching his arm softly.

caleb is never shy when it comes to you, any social media he has is littered with photos of you. there’s a picture of you on the back of his phone case, in his wallet and in his colonel hat. he has a framed picture of the two of you on his desk. he calls you to look out the window and making a heart shape with the plane he’s piloting.

caleb tells everyone about you. how funny you are, how sweet and thoughtful you are, how lucky anyone would be to be let into your heart.

and when you get insecure about how shy you are, he’s quick to comfort you.

“you’re perfect the way you are, there isn’t anything wrong with being shy,” he kisses your temple. “plus you’ve grown a lot since i first met you, you even ordered for both of us when i went to the restroom the other day!”

you groan at his words, “that’s such a baby step! i wish i could be more like you,” you frown, messing with the rings on his fingers.

“a little growth is still growth is it not?” he waits for your rebuttal, grinning when it never comes. “the right people will come along for you, people who care to listen and who will love you like i do— well not as much as i do, no one will love you as much as i love you,” he mumbles, smiling when you smack him softly, craning your neck to look up at him.

“i love you caleb,” you say, words crystal clear.

“i love you, sweet girl,” he replies.

caleb loves how shy you can be, it just means he gets to take care of you more than he already does <3

masterlist

The whispers follow your steps down the school hallways. You hear that something's missing in the hushed cadence of Grandma whispering into the phone's receiver.

You sit on the top of the stairs, hidden in the shadows, knees pulled to your chest as you wonder what weight those soft words carry. What silent statements are being exchanged when looks are shared between your teacher and your guardian at school conferences.

"She has some of the top scores in her class. She's a smart kid," they say, and hesitate. "Just…quiet."

Gran nods, and smiles down at you. A tight-lipped smile, with almost enough reassurance in her eyes to outshine that assessment, that disappointment. Trying to figure out what was wrong. How to fix it.

On the playground, you draw circles in the sand with a stick. The kids take wider circles around you. A large berth to evade that vacant look in your eyes, in case it was contagious.

Maybe it was.

Who knows? Maybe they'd catch it if they got too close.

If one of them touched you, maybe they'd be like you. All empty eyes and unsettling smile.

Or maybe you'd just suck all the life out of them. Maybe—

"Pipsqueak!"

Your head lifts, eyes finding your sun.

There he stands, at the center of everything, with scraped knees and a band-aid across a lightly freckled nose. His hair is in desperate need of a trim, a smudge of dirt on his cheek from roughhousing with the other kids, the ones closer to his age. The ones who Gran encourages him to spend more time with.

So he does. Because if he doesn't, he'll have scheduled playdates. He'll be taken away from you for an afternoon, or a whole day.

Instead, he gives it ten minutes of playtime. You feel listless, floating in empty space, but you wait. You try not to count the seconds in your head until he returns, tugging you gently back into his orbit.

His fingers wiggle out towards you, and your eyes—too expressionless, too empty, too wrong—flash down to his hand, extended to you this whole time.

Waiting for you to drain his life too.

You hesitate.

He catches it, the slight shift of your smaller body away from him, and he frowns. His other hand rests on his knee, leaning towards you, hand thrust right in front of your eyes. He keeps waving it right there each time you try to turn away.

"Pips, c'mon," he encourages, poking you in your round, freckled cheek.

A smile catches on his face when you huff, and your lips feel like they're tugged up by gravity in return. You think about blaming him for using his Evol, but it's not that. It's just him.

Your Caleb, easing that baring of teeth into something softer. Something less wrong.

He'll catch it, you think when you lift your hand. You stop. He'll catch all that wrong if you're not careful.

That's what all the other kids say. They talk about it when you're in the back of the class, not noticing you in the dark, waiting for your sun to return.

Poor Caleb, they say. All that light with the shadow trailing behind. His brilliant galaxy eyes mirrored by the wide, unblinking stare peering around from behind him. Couldn't get rid of her if he tried.

The gentle call of your name has you looking up again to see him crouched in front of you. He's frowning, so you're frowning, because you don't like it when his smile goes away. You don't like it at all when clouds try to make him a bit less bright. You want him to shine, always, and you want to always be the one to see it.

His hand is still there, inches from yours. His fingers are a bit longer; always have been, and always would be.

He could just take yours if he wanted. He could tug you after him, make you play. It's not like you would complain. You would do whatever he wanted.

But your Caleb was always like this. He always wanted you to choose.

And you always wanted to choose him.

He'll catch it.

One day, your golden boy would catch all the darkness curled up inside you.

You hesitate again. Then you look up and oh, no.

Now his eyes are big and wet, the purple shining all glossy like the gazes of those puppies in the sad commercials on TV, the ones that make you run from the living room when they play. It reminds you of something else, something you can't name, and it makes your skin crawl and you hate it.

Seeing it on Caleb was even worse. Too real, too much like that unnameable thing.

It hurt.

Your fingers land in his, and his despair at you not wanting to play with him anymore evaporates like puffy clouds. You relish in the sunshine of his gaze fully focused on you, feeling the warmth of it in your chest when he holds onto you tight, pulling you up after him, and away.

Away from the kids who sneer, the adults who whisper. Away from what you know you should be but can't, have never been able to be.

Each step away, and you feel a bit lighter, a bit warmer. Each time he squeezes your hand and smiles back at you, you feel less wrong.

He'll catch it.

You feel bad, because you feel good. Because he makes you happy, he makes you forget, he makes you normal.

You feel bad, because you know he's taking the darkness from inside your heart to give you his sunlight. You know he'll succumb to that emptiness, that darkness, too.

You don't want him to lose his light.

You just want to be as much a part of him as he's a part of you.

It's not as bad once you're a bit older, a few years down the line.

The feeling is still there, that unnameable yawning chasm in your chest, along with the heart that flutters and struggles to beat.

But you've buried enough of what's unsettling that your smiles aren't all sharp teeth, ready to tear into flesh. Your lips are shut tight to hide them, and the smiles are small, but it's better.

Even better when Caleb's gravity pulled them from you.

Those smiles were real. Those ones had you fighting to keep the points of your teeth hidden, had you smiling wider when he poked and tugged at your cheeks until the points of your canines showed.

He never looked scared. Never looked like he would do anything but offer his own skin to your lips and say, here. Bite down. I'm not afraid.

Caleb never did say it, but you saw it. It was in the gentleness of his gaze, the way his palm always found yours when he walked you home after school.

It was there in the way he pinched your cheeks, poked each freckle to count them instead of counting the stars when you stayed up too late, gazing out his window. So close to your sharp bite, and never flinching.

He would let you bite if you wanted to. He'd let you do it until you had enough, or until you got tired. He wouldn't shake you off, even then.

You knew. He knew you knew.

And you did bite, a few times. It got worse in those years when he started going to a different school than you.

You'd look at the marks left on his hand, and you wouldn't feel bad. He'd look at them too, and wouldn't hide it.

He'd just smile, ruffle your hair, and buy you candy from the corner-store with the money he'd earned with the little jobs he did around the neighborhood. He could do that now (older, bigger, one step ahead), and he'd always spend it on you. For your happiness, for your smile.

You wondered if it was an obligation. You wondered if it was just habit.

But your smile would make him smile, too, and it was so bright. So, so bright, and all for you.

And sometimes you think that maybe, just maybe, he revolves around you too.

Kids don't shun you as much, once you and Caleb are in the same school again. But you're still weird.

Your eyes aren't as wide and empty, but there's something just a little bit off. Practice doesn't quite make perfect after all.

So they still don't really like you—but they don't hate you, at least.

And of course, Caleb does help. Because if he likes you so much, if he truly adores you, then there must be something about you to like.

So some of them try and talk to you. Except you don't really know how to talk. Not to them, not to anybody that's not your Caleb.

You know very well, at this point, you're way too old for this. You've grown too much, your body changing and shaping in the places that tell you that you need to be your own person. You need to stop being his shadow.

Gran said he wouldn't want you to tag along forever.

It made Caleb mad when she said it.

He hid it well, with a smile as charming as ever. But you saw the flash in his eyes, the tension in his jaw. The twitch of his fingers around his fork, holding on too tight.

Anger looked wrong on him, like how a smile used to look wrong on you.

You liked how it looked.

You felt wrong again, for liking it.

You felt worse, knowing that you liked him not just angry, but angry for you.

Like you were really part of the flock. Like he was really made to look after you, to guard you from harm.

To protect you from the wolf, from yourself.

"No one's gonna take me away from you," he tells you when you sneak into his room late that night.

Both your backs rest against the foot of the bed, knees bumping together. Your head finds his shoulder, and his head rests on yours. You always fit like this. Comfortable. Right.

The well-loved apple plushie rests between your arms, his longer fingers idly picking at a small hole worn into the red fabric.

"How do you know?" you ask, and he frowns deeper, brows pulled together.

You like the anger less when you know something you said brought it back.

"I just do," he mutters, and looks back at you. His irritation is gone so fast with one look at you, replaced by a bright smile. "It's gravity, Pipsqueak. We don't gotta worry about it."

Smiling back is a new, happy habit now.

You find that you like it more than the anger, when your smile makes his own just a bit brighter.

You keep growing older, and so does he. You're tall, but he's taller. He's bigger, stronger. Pretty growing up, and even prettier now, in a way that makes your throat tight and your heart hurt, more than it usually does. Different than it usually does.

He's always just a bit ahead of you. Always reaching back with a smile.

When he walks you home after school, on the days he doesn't have practice for some sports team or another, the other girls giggle when he passes them.

Sometimes you want to giggle, too.

When he looks for you after scoring a point in a game, eyes lighting up when he finds you cheering for him in the crowd. Fingers even longer now, rougher, pushing back the hair from his sweaty forehead before waving with a grin.

Your classmates sigh around you, and you feel the same flutter in your heart that they must when you get to be the one who waves back.

One of them leans over to you, daring to steal your attention after Caleb scores another point. You frown when you have to look away from Caleb's searching gaze again, denying you the rush of it meeting yours.

"We're all heading out to the lake this weekend." The girl in your class, whose name you don't even know, smiles at you. Even as she glances towards where you were supposed to be looking right now. "You should totally come!"

"I—"

The buzzer sounds, cutting you off. You frown, glancing around the gym as people start to rise. Caleb must still be on the court, and your gaze cuts through the busy crowd, searching for him as surely as he searches for you.

"Bring Caleb!"

You flinch as the words land next to your ear, a command more than a question, with another giggle that makes your stomach turn.

Why would she want Caleb?

You stand, pushing your way out of the bleachers, following that familiar instinct, that tug of gravity to him.

You find him with all the others pulled into his gravity, helpless but to be drawn to him. His friends slap him on the back in approval of his winning point—the one you'd missed, your nails biting into your palms at the realization.

Girls are there, too. Pretty girls, older than you. They smile up at him, and bat their eyelashes and giggle the way that you want to giggle, and you dig into your palms even tighter.

Why do they all want Caleb?

It's a stupid question, really. Of course they want the sun to shine down on them, to warm their skin, to light up their days.

Your sun.

"Caleb!"

It's selfish to call out to him.

You know it is, when his universe is bigger than yours, when he deserves to explore all it has to offer.

When you know he'll come running right back anyway just at the first call of your voice.

And here he comes. Running, bright-eyed and eager, smile splitting across his face so wide it looks like it hurts.

"Did you see that last one, Pipsqueak?" He asks as he leans down towards you, another clump of sweaty hair falling in front of his eyes.

Surrounded by all that approval, that praise and worship, and he only sought yours.

You smile and push the stubborn strands of hair back from his sunset eyes before he has to.

You realize belatedly, when his lips twitch higher at the brush of your fingertips against his forehead, that he didn't even try to fix it himself. He knew you would.

And then you remember the answer to his question.

You remember you're not the only one circling him. And that maybe you're just the one that he's used to.

Obligation? You remember those questions that used to linger, like the indentation of your teeth in his skin, back when you both were smaller. Habit?

And there it is again: your name, falling softly from his lips. Like he was never meant to say anything else.

No matter what he called you, you'd look. You loved whatever he did call you, whichever nickname he latched onto, the affection that laced through each syllable.

But your actual name, any slight variation of it—that's what always brought you right back, with an inexplicable force that nearly had you crashing into him.

Or wanting to.

Your mouth opens, and closes. You struggle in resisting his gravity, in knowing you were just another speck of cosmic dust floating around in it. Knowing you shouldn't be selfish.

Knowing how selfish you'd always be.

Why did they all want your Caleb?

"Hey." There's a gentle tug on your chin when your gaze wanders again, callused thumb turning your face back to him. Clouds cover the rays of sun in his gaze again. Because of you. He'd catch your wrong. He'd lose his light. "What's up?"

You suck in a breath, feel it piercing your lungs, and the words rushing out feel like knives in your tongue.

"Want to go to the lake this weekend?"

You hated the lake.

Watching as they all flock to him, tugging his precious attention away every time it barely started to drift back to you.

You hated this.

They laugh at something he said, and he smiles at them.

You hated them.

In one of the longer lulls where he can't glance back at you—somebody clinging to his arm and taking all the attention that was your birthright, with another two giggling—you sulk off to the little public bathroom nearby. You pull your legs up on the closed toilet seat in the stall, staring at the graffiti on the door, words spelling out crushes and curses alike.

They all had crushes on Caleb, didn't they?

And you—

"Did you see that look in her eyes?" Laughter between a couple girls echoes into the empty bathroom with the bang of the opening door, and you hug your legs tighter. "It's scary."

"Haven't you heard about when she was younger?" You watch their shadows pass on the ground, stopping at the sinks. "She's always looked like that, but it used to be worse."

"Worse?" A sharp laugh, and your skin crawls, because you know. You know what they laugh about. You've always known. "How could it be worse?"

"She looked soulless. And when she smiled, she just showed her teeth—like this!" More laughter, and you hug your knees tighter. Nails digging into your skin, chills down your spine. "We thought she'd bite us."

"Did she?"

"No, but Jake said she bit Caleb."

"What?"

"I mean, we don't know if she did. But he saw the marks once."

"Ugh, poor Caleb." You don't like how they say his name. Don't like how they draw it out, how they sigh the string of letters meant for your mouth. "He's stuck with her. Couldn't get rid of her if he wants to."

You feel it again.

"Do you think he wants to?"

Laughter echoes.

You feel the wrong under your skin, thrumming. Coiling. Aching.

He's your Caleb.

"Wouldn't you? She's like a ghost! God, could you imagine living with that?"

He's your Caleb.

"Oh, man! Waking up in the middle of the night and seeing her in the mirror—"

Your feet slap against the floor, the world burning too bright when you slam the stall door open.

The screams that echo when you glower into the reflection they're vainly gazing into is far too satisfying.

They stare, petrified, as you walk up between them to wash your hands.

It doesn't make you feel better. Doesn't wash away the feeling of wanting to rip their throats out any less.

You shake the water off your fingers, feeling the points of your teeth grate together when they yelp and jump back at the flying droplets.

You don't remember walking out. You don't remember how far you got from the lake before he was there; arms around you, voice urging next to your ear.

"Pipsqueak?" You don't stop moving, not even at the press of his warm palm against your heated cheek. He pokes gently at the freckles that didn't fade as much as his, the ones he used to count like stars. "Pips, hey. Hey. Slow down."

You do, because he doesn't make you. Because he always gives you the choice.

Is it because he's always known what your choice will be?

Your head shakes.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if he knows. It couldn't change the truth that he's your world, that he's all you've ever wanted.

Your hand isn't even halfway reaching for him when he's already taken it.

"Let's go home, yeah?" Caleb murmurs, brows knit together in concern. It warms that hollow feeling in your chest, and you sink into it.

It's only when you nod that you feel the streak of tears dripping off your chin.

What you hate most about the lake is how it changes things.

How it changes you.

Suddenly you're much too aware of Caleb's place in the universe. How he has wings untested, never stretched to fly, because he's stuck on the ground with you.

You are selfish, and he lets you be. He loves you so much that he lets you take and take, and you love him so much that you don't want to. You don't want to be that selfish. Not anymore, not when he can have everything.

So you try to grow some distance between you, even as it tears you apart.

It's easier when he graduates high school. Easier to tell yourself he's got that whole wide world, that he deserves for it to all be all his.

Easier to realize you were a wolf in sheep's clothing, clinging to the loyal dog that tended to the flock.

You learn better, how to pretend to be normal. You get so good at smiles and burying the thrumming and aching so deep below your skin that you start to feel normal.

The wolf still adores what it cannot be, what it cannot have. You still adore your Caleb. Still bask in the sun when it returns home.

You still have your moments when you want to sink your teeth in until he stays, until he forgets about ever leaving again.

But you get better at being better.

Or just better at pretending, you think whenever you feel his absence again. Readjusting to it, aching with it so deeply that you think you might die.

Eventually, you're so good at what you've become that you start to really believe it.

You get your own life, you make your own friends. There's a dream you've always had stirrings of, one you start to believe in.

You throw yourself into college, then a career, and you find purpose within it until you're circling farther and farther out of his orbit. Until you feel like you're finally what they've all always wanted you to be.

And your Caleb flies higher, and higher, until he doesn't come home.

Until you realize he wasn't the sun, but had gotten so close to it that he came crashing and burning back down.

Darkness returns.

It is all you know.

And when he comes crashing back into your own orbit, he doesn't bring the light back with him.

There's a look in his eyes that you don't recognize. The face you had memorized like the back of your hand twists in ways that make your heart stutter, make your mind spin, your stomach turn.

He says the things you used to feel, things that you realize you still feel. It's easier to accept, when your obsession and desperation are reflected back at you. When it's even darker and hungrier in him than it had ever been in you.

You sink deeper into it. You sink your teeth into that longing, drunk off every taste you get of being his center of gravity.

You don't know what's changed, exactly.

You don't even know if anything had changed at all. The longer you circle each other, the more times you come dangerously close to crashing together. And the more you wonder how it couldn't have always been this way.

And it's addictive, when you finally fall apart, to fall back together.

The touch of his lips against your aching skin; the sweet, desperate call of your name from them.

To sink your teeth into your entire world; to feel him do the same to his.

To feel him be the same. To know you had always been the same.

One night, tangled up in the sheets and in him, you hear his quiet whisper of confession. One of many sins committed in your name, finally revealed into the dark.

"Remember when you had just started high school?" Caleb's fingers trail up and down your spine with the words, tracing each notch, reverent in how it made you. "And that kid asked you out as a prank?"

You rifle through your memories, thoughts sluggish under the warm comfort of his touch.

"Mm," you hum in acknowledgment when you've found the mental image. "I didn't know you had come up behind me until he and his friends ran away. Must've been some glare you sent them, but you were just smiling at me when I turned around."

"Yeah," it's a deep sigh, still husky in the evidence of how you'd come together. His arm wraps around your waist, dull nails gently scratching at your soft skin, and you shiver when they dig in. "I broke his nose."

You freeze, fingers pausing where they trace circles over the rapid beat of his heart through his heated skin. "You...what?"

"It was so easy," he mumbles, voice taking on that new shade of darkness. Emptiness so familiar in yourself that it makes you shiver in pleasure you'd never voice out loud. "All it took was an extra twist of gravity when he tripped during a track meet. Fell forward just a bit too hard, enough for it to snap."

You swallow thickly, wrapping your arms around him tight. Pressing your skin to his until you could never be apart again.

Caleb's eyes meet yours in the night, searching for fear.

He smiles, hesitant; then sinking into relief, adoration, when he never sees it.

Another night beckons another confession. Another moment where gravity bent so easily under his fingertips, just for you. Even if you never knew.

What nearly drives you crazy is that you were never supposed to know. He would've kept himself as your sun forever, leaving you happily oblivious of the black hole he'd created as a buffer around you.

He slowly combs back through your memories. Happy memories with him, overshadowing the things he did in the dark. All in your name, all to protect you.

Sometimes you trace the familiar lines of his face, the crinkle of his eyes when he smiles, and wonder, was it really always there? His darkness always lurking, always lingering, just as sure as yours.

Or perhaps his obsession ran even deeper than yours. Sinking into the marrow of his bones, as crucial to his bloodstream as his love for you, rushing through his veins to keep his heart beating.

Were you truly too dazzled by the radiance of his smile to notice his teeth were as sharp as yours?

What if I told you I was always like this?

Maybe you had just been too blind from gazing into your own sun to see all the darkness the light cast on his own.

Too in love with one side of him to see both, to see that you were never the only wolf hiding among the flock.

It had gotten to the point where, man or woman, you weren’t going to bother with romance at all. You didn’t stand out, you see. You weren’t pretty like Libby from public relations, you weren’t sociable like Rick from customer service, and you weren’t brilliant like Katherine from accounting. You were just…there, running around after everyone like you were still an intern, and the prospect of a promotion to where you actually had autonomy in that tedious job had long fizzled out of existence.

At least you could feel a little appreciated when you opened the app and that theme song started playing again. It was then that you realised you were grasping at straws, quite literally. Becoming reliant on some pixels and coding stuck in a screen, fictitious? Where the character you play as is pretty, is sociable, and is brilliant? Truly laughable.

So, what the hell is this?

About three minutes ago, you’re pretty sure, you opened your eyes. Your sheets are soft-blue and flannel, because it’s winter. These sheets are wine-red and silken, perfect for the summer, or late-spring. The duvet isn’t too thick, either, and it distinctly smells of sandalwood and expensive cologne, utterly unfamiliar, masculine. Your arm’s up over it, chilled in the early-morning air, and bare. Your pajama top is long-sleeved because, as aforementioned, it’s supposed to be winter. You don’t really wear spaghetti straps unless it’s summer, and in the short one-hundred-and-eighty-and-counting seconds since your eyes sprang open, you’ve long realised you’re not wearing a top at all.

It all slowly comes to you in quick successions of realisation. One, you’re in someone else’s bed. This one’s a superking, you’re pretty sure, considering the good distance from you to the edge of it. Your bed is a king-single, barely. Your dingy apartment can only fit so much. Two, you haven’t got any clothes on. Your legs are sticking uncomfortably to each other, which is why, whether summer or winter, you usually wear long pajama pants, and dislike being in the nude anyway. And three, someone has their arms wrapped around you, and their chest is pressed to your back.

They are asleep; warm, soft breaths puffing into your ear and neck, crotch slotted snugly to your behind, and hair tickling your cheek. You’ve tried moving, tentatively, and found their grip around you to be quite solid. You are caged in this man’s arms. Your heart is beating out of your chest at this point, like a trapped bird, breathing growing laboured.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh. God. What did I do? What have I done? Why am I here? Who even is this? I’m not hungover, and I did not go out drinking last night—I think I went to bed after my shower at the usual time… Your mind is racing a million miles a second. Trying to piece this all together, trying to work it out, trying to recall the very big blunder you must’ve made and the sticky situation you’ve gotten yourself into here—it’s all getting quite overwhelming very quickly. What did I do?

There is some kind of gap in your memory, there has to be, because you distinctly remember exhaustedly crawling into bed just last night, alone, barely even possessing the energy to complete your dailies on Love & Deepspace, or any other games you played. Somehow, you managed, but you went out like a light shortly after that. You remember feeling very happy at the knowledge that tomorrow—today?—would be Sunday, your day off, and you could finally sleep in for the first time in a good millennia.

Carefully, as slowly and as gently as you can, you slip your uncovered arm under the blanket, both hands now moving to pry the man’s from around your waist, eyes darting around your limited vision to try and spot any kind of clothing you could cover yourself with once free. You need to get out of here. You don’t dare look over your shoulder at whoever it is that’s holding you. You just need to leave.

You listen closely to his breathing patterns—they’re soft, rhythmic, deep, a sure sign of complete slumber. It’s painstakingly slow, the way you move then pause then move then pause, but, bit by bit, you ease his hold off you, and you carefully shift to separate yourself from him.

Whoever this man is, you know you don’t know him, and you know that you have no business being here. Never in your life would you have ever dreamed of having a one-night stand—well, maybe when you were younger and more starry-eyed and naïve and excited for the future, but now, you are utterly indifferent. You don’t think you’re the sort of woman men look twice at, anyway, even when piss-drunk.

It would be for the best if you were to take your leave before things get severely awkward. Just by casting one glance around the place is more than telling enough about this individual’s financial status. If you had less dignity and more ulterior motives, you’d stick around, but all your dignity is already long gone now anyway, and you want to salvage the last few remnants left by high-tailing it out of here.

You softly exhale in relief when you successfully get his hands off you, stopping to listen to his breathing again. Still asleep. A bit more encouraged now, you slowly sit up, holding the blankets close over your chest, and look around a bit more closely. 

Much to your chagrin, there is no item of clothing suitable enough within reach to grab and shuck on—you lean to the side, if a bit strained, to peer over the edge of the rather magnificent bed, where you lay eyes on the carpeted floor. Heat flares up your neck immediately.

Shirts and bottoms and a jacket and a coat and a bra, your size, along with a few other…bits of clothing, lie strewn across the ground, tossed haphazardly, evidence of impassioned rush and obvious…enthusiasm. You blink. You gulp. Oh, I’m in the shit now, aren’t I?

The nearest thing to you is a belt. A man’s belt. It looks expensive, too. You pointedly look away from it. The room is dim, with a high, beamed ceiling, a cold fireplace, a sofa, a massive TV, two armchairs, a large dresser, vanity, and an ajar door to, presumably, the closet. The other, average door, is shut closed, its knob gold, and there is a sliver of sunlight splayed across the floor, working its way along the room, stopping somewhere halfway up the wall to your right. The wallpaper also looks expensive. Everything looks expensive. Not anywhere the likes of you have any business being around.

Now it’s time to brave it all and look over your shoulder at your companion. You’d really rather just get out of here, but fearful curiosity has you rooted to the spot, duvet clutched to your front, bare back rippling with goosebumps from the chill. It would be the polite thing to do to wake him up and let him know of your departure, but you have this terrible feeling that getting any more embroiled in this mess you literally just opened your eyes to, not ten minutes ago, would be a very bad idea.

Slowly, you look to your left and set eyes on the drawn curtains, towering high over the room, where a narrow gap lets in the early-morning sunlight. In your periphery, you see a shoulder, a bicep, and a jawline. You suck it up and look at him fully. And then you almost scream.

Silver hair, mussed and dropped low over a brow. Broad shoulders. His arms lay limp where you just were, empty of you, toned and bulky and very familiar. And then there is his face.

Unfortunately, considering the circumstances, you’d know those lips and that nose anywhere. There is also the issue of his criminal jawline. It’s getting harder not to shriek in horror.

With a barely-concealed gasp, you whip back around and stare wide-eyed at the wall in front of you. There is no way. There is just no way. I’m dreaming. I’m still asleep and dreaming, aren’t I? Wouldn’t this kind of thing be a nice dream, though, and not one that feels like a nightmare? What the hell is going on?! Why am I so scared?!

Probably because the man you just woke up next to is a) a fictional character, b) far too familiar for this to bode anything well and c) kind of a villain. As in, he’s the head of a fictional crime syndicate in a fictional universe that is not real. No one is that good-looking and perfect in real life. This is truly it. I’ve really lost my marbles now, haven’t I?

Perhaps you were driven to the brink of insanity because of that horrid nine-to-five (well, nine-to-eight, really—yay for overtime!) you finally got a break from, even if for only a very short while, and the mistreatment of your coworkers. 

Suddenly, you have the urge to laugh. Gosh, this is just so ridiculous. Me, waking up in bed with some Love & Deepspace character? Please! That’s when you grin a little, pinch yourself, hard, and expect to awaken in the real world, in your bed, in your apartment, not here.

But you don’t. It leaves nothing more than a mark on your skin from your nails. All over again, panic washes through you. You physically feel yourself blanching. God, no. Please, no, it can’t be.

Deciding against wasting any more time, you quietly and carefully, and with great self-consciousness, peel off the covers, and swing your legs over the side of the bed, dearly wishing his back was to you. But he’s asleep, so it’s not like he’ll see anything, anyway. You just need to leave.

You’re almost standing when an arm winds itself around your waist.

With a yelp, you’re tugged back into the sheets, back pressed up against a wide, muscled chest, clutched to him tightly in a firm, but tender, embrace, quite inescapable. There’s a chuckle—and, by god, in any other situation, you would’ve loved to have heard that laugh spill right into your ear—and then he’s sleepily nuzzling his face into your neck. “That eager to leave, are you, my dear?”

You have no idea what the hell to say, or do. Completely frozen, you’re too stunned to do anything else other than just let him press kisses to your jaw and squeeze you close. He’s…very affectionate? You’d revel in it, too, if it was meant for you, that is.

“Um…” you croak out, grimacing at the crack of your voice. What the hell do I say to get him off me? “I just…needed to go to the bathroom.”

He’s now nibbling on your ear, and you try not to cringe away. “Ah. Considering how all sneaky you were being, I was starting to fear you were trying to run off.”

You rest one of your hands over his, its wide expanse splayed over your hip, shrewdly trying to slip it off you. “Uh—haha, now, why would I do that?”

“You tell me,” he breathes, turning you over so he’s hovering before you, gazing down, and you’re well and truly trapped. That face you’d only ever admired from in front of a phone screen, so flawless and roguishly handsome and smug, looms above you; a pair of eyes, almandine in this lighting, are staring with an intensity you find too hard to hold. The man tilts his head playfully, full lips curling up at the corners—not into a smirk, but into a soft smile replete with devotion. The sight shocks you. “It was this time yesterday evening when you were insisting that I was strictly off-limits for you, apparently.”

As subtly as you can, you tug the sheets up and over your chest, forcing a smile and averting your gaze. Yeah, what the hell is he talking about? “Oh, well…that was…yesterday.”

“Oh? You’re saying that you’ve had a change of heart now?”

Your eyes snap back to him at his words, stunned—and you’re only further astounded by his expression. Something you can only describe as hope lightens the shadows of his face, and then he dips back down to push his face into your collar and the crook of your neck, practically purring. “That almost hurts me, beloved. It’s like you only care now that you’ve gotten a taste.”

“I…” You really, really want to go home now. You want to get away from this guy, get away from whatever this whole mess is, and return to your usual mundane routine that does not involve waking up next to a man that only exists in an idiotic dating sim.

“No matter. We’ve got this whole place to ourselves, remember? I think I’ve got plenty of time to convince you to stay.”

“Er…” If you’re acting out-of-character, he doesn’t seem to notice; he’s currently too busy snuggling up to you like some overly-smoochy housecat that’s starved for affection, and it only serves to further solidify the fact that you’re definitely in the wrong place, with the wrong person, and probably in the wrong body.

The very thought makes your stomach drop and swoop in dread. Knowing this man, what will he do if he finds out? Sooner or later, he and his annoying astuteness will figure out that you’re missing a lot of your memories—in fact, you don’t have any at all—and that you are currently very uncomfortable with having some guy invade your space so closely, apparently unable to keep his mouth off the skin of your throat for more than thirty seconds.

But the thing is—he isn’t just some guy. This is Sylus, one of the six love interests of Love & Deepspace, and you are not supposed to be in bed with him right now.

It’s starting to dawn on you now. There is no way. It’s supposed to be fiction!

“Are you sore?” he suddenly asks, finally emerging from your nape, silver fringe falling low over his carnelian eyes. They’re a deeper red, and far more striking, than depicted through 3D graphics and semi-realism. You were expecting him to move to continue the obvious…deeds of the previous evening you don’t have any recollection of, but then you remember what kind of man he is. That relaxes you a little.

“Uh, not too much,” you lie, because you’re suddenly conscious of your lower region. Your face flares with heat. What a joke. I apparently spend the night with a man any woman would kill to fall into the arms of, and I can’t even remember it? Again, it only serves to reaffirm the point of how you’re not supposed to be here.

“I’ll clean you up,” Sylus says, shifting to rise—but you’re instantly flinching upright, covers held firm to your front, shaking your head vehemently. “No! No, that’s alright. I’ll have a shower and worry about myself. You—uh, don’t have to be concerned. I, um, need to go to the bathroom, anyway.”

Sylus is staring at you with lifted brows, probably a bit surprised over your small outburst, his eyes wandering over your face. It’s then that you realise he’s risen up to knees, leaning back against his heels, looming over you in all his glory. All his glory. You don’t even give yourself time to steal an admiring glance before you snap your eyes away, entire frame now burning white-hot with embarrassment. 

“Hm,” is all the man lets out, voice rumbling low. He remains there, as if considering you, before he fully moves off the bed to stand—and promptly leans over you to hike you up into his arms. “If I knew you’d be so shy, I would’ve gone easier.”

“What the—!” With a yelp, you flail a bit and lose your balance, leaving you no other option apart from tightly grasping his neck, as Sylus wastes no time in making his way for the ensuite, presumably. “I—I don’t think this is necessary! It’s not like I can’t walk!” “And how do you know that?” he quips. “Want me to put you down and let you have a try?” “Yes!” So I can get my clothes on and bolt, thank you very much! “Just—let me shower and brush my teeth and make myself presentable, so I can leave.”

“Leave?” Instantly, Sylus halts in his tracks. You can feel his eyes on your face. “You…want to leave?” “Yes,” you say again, shaking your head and refusing to meet his eyes. You’re too frazzled to be polite and act as you probably should. “Look, it’s probably best if I’m blunt about this, Sylus. That was all—everything last night was—I…I don’t know. I don’t think either of us were in our right minds. This is harsh of me, I know, but—I really don’t—it’s not…”

You trail off, helpless, unable to find the right words. This is certainly one hell of a mess you’ve been dumped into. How in the world are you going to explain yourself to him? Your current behaviour is probably extremely peculiar to him—especially if, as you fear, you’re inhabiting the original MC’s body.

Somehow, you don’t think so, which is even worse. If you’ve just been shoved right between them, where the story dictates his love for her, you’re in deep shit. You’re an anomaly, and you need to leave.

“Perhaps I was…” he suddenly begins, after a good long, torturous stretch of silence, “hasty.”

“I—I think we both were.” Am I getting through to him? He’s more yielding than I thought he’d be. Good. You’re still in a panic—and when you’re in a panic, you’re far less genial. “Let me down now. I’ll clean myself up on my own.”

Sylus immediately protests, “But I want to take care of y—”

“No,” is your testy answer. Then you shut your eyes tight in regret, seeking to control yourself. So you force a smile. “…Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. Just…Just please put me down, Sylus.”

You aren’t fond of his expression. It’s a mixture of confusion, dismay, and hurt. Why? You don’t have a clue, and you’re not interested in finding out. The fact is, you know too little about your current situation to stay relaxed and rational about this, to the point where you can calmly humour this man and his (weirdly affectionate) whims, and you don’t want him figuring out what, to him, would be a very strange bout of amnesia.

With visible reluctance, Sylus finally complies and sets you down on the ground. Then you instruct him to turn around as you find something to cover yourself with.

The smirk he gives is a clear attempt at concealing how awkward he’s probably feeling inwardly. “I’ve already seen everything, sweethea—”

You grasp his shoulders to physically turn him around. “Doesn’t matter. Look away.”

You’d never possess the strength to force him away yourself, so he allows himself to be rotated with a shake of his head. You can just sense his bewilderment. You feel sorry. None of this is his fault, really. It’s whatever ended you up here, and you’re still about eighty-percent sure you’re having some absurd dream.

“I’ll shower and call a cab,” you remark, snatching up a nearby robe—his, unfortunately—and hurriedly wrap it around yourself. As expected, it’s far too big to fit on you properly, but you, too out of sorts to care, deal with it. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience. This is probably one big mess for y—”

“No cab will come out here, sweetie.” Sweetie. You jump at his use of that pet name and half-snap your neck to look up at him from over your shoulder. Sylus is facing you again, arms now crossed, not a trace of amusement on his face. A glaring contrast to the sarcastic lilt of his voice. “Too far.”

Your stomach drops, and you try to ignore the sensation. So he had to pick one of his safe houses right in the middle of nowhere for a bit of nighttime fun? Are you kidding? “W-Well, I’ll have to make do, then. Could I, uh, trouble one of your men to escort me back into town?”

He gazes at you wordlessly. It’s almost enough to make you forget he’s unashamedly, definitely-not-purposefully, directly in front of you, contentedly sporting his birthday suit right now—with the gall to even jut out a hip. Suddenly, your eyes have this uncontrollable urge to move downwards—but, out of your own, admittedly fragile, fortitude, you manage to keep them on his face, and forbid them from straying any lower. Now is not the time for sightseeing, anyway. You should probably give him his robe back. 

“What if I say no?”

And that immediately shoos those thoughts away, making you straighten, the hackles on the back of your neck standing on end. “Then I’d find a way to leave of my own accord.”

A pause. Sylus’s full lips purse. “May I…ask why you wish to leave so badly?” “Because I shouldn’t really be here,” you reply, sizing him up. No point. The bastard dwarfs you by a good mile. “Last night was—was a mistake.”

It’s not fun having to pull out the classic angsty rom-com line you’ve heard far too many times in books and movies, but you have a point to get across. You manage to refrain from physically cringing, though; he doesn’t. But his grimace is of a different kind—visible dejection. It makes your stomach drop all over again. 

“…I see.” Sylus’s Adam’s apple bobs. “Well, then.”

Your conscience screams at you, especially from the sight of that appallingly crushed expression, but you muster the courage to drive in the final nail. This is so weird. What the hell’s got him so worked up? “Yes. So, uh, may I go now?”

The man isn’t looking at you anymore—he’s cast his stare aside, and you’re further perturbed by the evident conflict and uncharacteristic rue on his face. Seriously, what the hell? I certainly am not the main character, so why’s he making that expression over this? We shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place! Such forlorn eyes are reserved for his soulmate only. Something is definitely wrong here.

“Fine,” is his eventual answer, as he heaves a sigh of obvious defeat. “I’ll…call for a driver.”

“Wonderful.” Pushing those questions aside, you’re heartened by his acquiescence and immediately stoop to snatch up your strewn clothing. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

“You don’t want to stay for breakfast, at least?” That inflection of desperation in his voice weirds you out even more. “I’ll brew your coffee just the way you like it.”

Yes, this certainly is Sylus Qin. So gracious and attentive and loving—too bad you’re the wrong recipient of such affections. And how would he even know the way I take my coffee? “No, thank you. But I appreciate the offer. I’ve already overstayed my welcome, you know? Look at the mess I’ve made here! We really were foolish.”

He elicits something like a scoff at that. It sounds brittle. “…Ha. Suppose we were.”

All that your clothing is are your undergarments, a tossed necklace that glimmers with gems so large, you almost blow your cover and gape at them—and an evening gown. A lovely evening gown. You put a hand to an ear and find an earring, modestly pensile—not heavy enough for you to have previously noticed smacking against your cheek. It likely matches the necklace. Would it be a stretch to presume that these are…gifts from him?

Most likely. You’d never be able to afford such jewellery even if you were making over a hundred-grand a year. You should probably give them back. No strings attached. You need to draw a very clear, bold, and uncrossable line here—for your own safety.

You gingerly take up the necklace and decide to act on your hunch, praying it doesn’t backfire. “…Here, I’ll return this to you. I have no further use for it. Do you still have the box it came in? I’ll need it for these earrings, too.”

Sylus is practically glaring at you now—but those brows aren’t knotted in hate, you find. His eyes pierce with undisguised anguish. “…No.”

“No, what?” you press, wandering into dangerous territory. You’re doing your best to conceal your intimidation with this clueless act. “You won’t give me the boxes?”

“I don’t have the boxes,” he clarifies, jaw set. “They are yours.”

“For one evening,” you continue, shaking your head, struggling with this pretense on the inside. “In what world will I ever need to wear these again? Besides, if anyone found out I had such valuable jewellery in my possession, I’d be set right up to be robbed.”

Sylus doesn’t respond, merely settling to stare at you in what appears to be incredulity. His going nonverbal serves to only disconcert you further; there is far more to all of this than what’s already meeting the eye here, and you’re worried you’re being very stupid right now. Still, you must continue to push the envelope so all ties are cut once you leave. “…Same with the dress. I’ll return that to you as well. And the shoes.”

“You…” he breathes after a long pause, uncrossing his arms. They fall limp at his sides. You manage to stay in place and not take a step back at the look in his eyes. “How… Why?”

Resolve steadily beginning to crumble now, you somehow squeak out, “Wh-Why what?”

“Why would you do this to me?” Sylus approaches you, visibly agonised. “Was it something I did? Said? Tell me.”

You press the items in hand to your chest and back away. “Hey—what? I don’t understand—”

“Why are you leaving? So help me, if this is about the Hunter again—” Pausing in his tracks, he runs a hand down over his face, and then up through his hair, head tilted back, peering down at you. The sight serves to inadvertently erupt your stomach into butterflies, which has you immensely uncomfortable. Oh, lord. This is bad. This is very, very bad. He said ‘Hunter’. That cannot bode well. “Listen. I told you last night of my sentiments for her. It has complicated things immensely, yes, and that was my fault. But, please, you must give me a chance, sweetheart. Please. I promise you, there is nothing more I have to do with her—”

The words are out of your mouth before you know it. “I don’t care about that. It was a fling. Shouldn’t we part ways now?”

Yep. Precisely the wrong thing to say. Well done, you! Now, why don’t you go ahead and sign your death certificate while you still can for us? Because that look on his face right now might just mean an early grave.

Or not. He goes pale, and then he flushes red. What he doesn’t understand, can’t understand, and won’t understand is that, as much as it pains you terribly to treat and speak to him in such a way, laying cutting words on thick so he’ll fold and let you go permanently is crucial at present. You do not want anything to do with a crime lord. You do not want anything to do with any of this. In fact, you’d take your awful nine-to-five and condescending coworkers and verbally abusive clients over all of this any day.

“Is that…truly…?” The poor man can’t even seem to find the words. What have you done? Have you just succeeded in knocking the prideful head of Onychinus down a peg or two? Well, if that’s how it’s going to have to be. Perhaps it’ll do him some good to be humbled—but you don’t want to break his heart.

If it can be broken by you. You almost laugh out loud at the notion. Me? Right, and pigs can fly! “Look, Sylus—I don’t want to, uh, hurt you here, but I really don’t think any of this is very sensible. I, uh, am…aware of your sentiments for the Hunter, and that—”

“I told you, I feel nothing for her.” Now Sylus grasps your upper arms, and you immediately flinch at the unexpected physical contact. Upon seeing you jolt in his hold, though, Sylus’s expression twists and he lets you go, turning away. He runs a hand down his face. “I just—have I not proven myself to you countless times? Why must you—why must you continue to toy with me so?”

You blink in shock. “T-Toy with you?”

“Yes, toy with me.” Never would you have thought you’d see such a wretched expression on this man’s face. And it appears Sylus can barely even look at you, too. Oh, god, I am missing so much context here. “You—You know of my feelings. Was last night not a statement enough? Was baring myself to you completely and taking you to my bed not enough of a physical demonstration of my affections?”

Speechless, you can only gawk at him and try to collect your thoughts—try and make heads or tails of all this. You can hardly even remember to blink. Is he…well, is he confessing his love right now?

For, from the little you can tell, what seems to be the nth time?

Just what kind of person am I in the shoes of now? What in the world has been going on here? Why is the original storyline not being followed?

“I…I once said that I wouldn’t care if you never reciprocated my feelings,” Sylus continues, heaving a sigh. “But now…now I am unsure if I can stand this any more. Especially not when you turn around and do—this. To me.”

“…Okay, now, look,” you try, forcing yourself to relax where you stand and take a tentative step forward. How do I ask him to explain all this to me without looking like some blockhead who’s mysteriously lost her memories? “The thing is, Sylus, is that…well…let’s say I’ve had some, you know, second thoughts? You get me? You see, I’m not sure if—”

“And yet you humour me anyway.” The man turns and faces you again, eyes flaring. “You let me take you out for dinner and wear all the dresses I pick out for you and attend the various events I ask you to be my plus-one for. Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? You’re…You are being so cruel.”

“…Cruel?” you echo, voice small and pathetically puzzled.

But he doesn’t seem to notice. “Yes, cruel. You are leading me on, despite knowing of my desire to enter into a relationship with you. And last night—when you kissed me back, and—”

Sylus cuts himself off and turns away again, back fully to you now, both hands rising to his face. Those wide shoulders lift and sag with a heavy exhale, and then, after a moment of onerous silence, he shakes his head. “…I couldn’t care less if you’re just using me for my money, but now…now, I’ve begun to dislike being taken advantage of—even by you.”

The diamond necklace and dress in your hold right now suddenly feel terribly burdensome; you’re left at a complete loss because you have no idea what to do or say to rectify this. To rectify this mess you’ve somehow gotten yourself into that, frankly, has absolutely nothing to do with you.

The woman he seems to love is not me, you think, squeezing your eyes shut. And it doesn’t appear to be the MC either. Seriously, what kind of freak show is this? What am I going to do?

“…Do you truly feel nothing?” You start at the sound of his low voice, as Sylus half-turns to peer at you side-long, from over a shoulder. His expression spears you through. “Will you not even give me a chance? Even after—after everything?”

What do I say? How do you reply? This abrupt, unforeseen situation has not gone the way you expected it to at all. First, it began with sheer panic on your end and warm affection on his, and then the first obstacle of just wanting to get away—and then this, some bizarre escalation into a love confession, of all things.

What is this, seriously? Pride & Prejudice? Only, Elizabeth Bennet had her memories—you do not, and you haven’t been given even five minutes to think about all this and figure it out and ascertain a way to go home. That’s part of the reason why you wanted to use the bathroom—so you could sit on the toilet seat and have your panic attack in there, in peace.

So how are you supposed to reply to this? How, other than disappointing him again—at least, what appears to be ‘again’? Perhaps it would all work out for the better, though. It really looks like that…with whatever’s been going on here, he might need closure. 

And if he has to get it from you, a woman he has no idea is a stranger inhabiting (what you can only rationalise to be) another woman’s body, then so be it. Wouldn’t it be a win-win, either way? Then, you could perhaps have the assurance that he won’t be bothering you after this.

You still feel awful though, even though none of this is your fault. It really does look like he’s got some serious, er, sentiments for ‘you’ here, which he should really only have for the MC—and how it all started in the first place, you don’t think you really want to know. It sounds very messy. And melodramatic. And probably eye-roll-and-yawn-worthy, if that makes sense. 

This is a love interest from a dating sim, remember. What else could one expect from such an individual and, well, world, other than silly theatrics?

“Well…” Falteringly, you try again to get the right words out, and deliver them best and as kindly as you can. I really, really don’t know what to say here. “I can see now that I’ve…hurt you, Sylus, and I should—apologise for that. I’m, uh, sorry. It’s clear I’ve been careless with—your feelings, despite being knowledgeable about them, and…essentially, er, cashing in on them, so to speak.” You wince; ‘cashing in on them’? Are you serious? Are you trying to rub salt in his apparent wounds here? “It was…terribly wrong and, as you said, cruel of me. So, well, it’s largely because of that, guilt has been eating at me, and…after last night…after, you know, um, having relations, I think I’ve—taken this too far.” Clutching the items in hand to your chest closely has a weak way of self-encouragement and shielding, you smile up at him feebly. Then you promptly avert your eyes at the look in his. Oh, lord. “…I really am sorry. I was selfish. It was unfair to you and, well, inexcusable.”

Left with nothing much else to add, you fall silent, hoping your ‘apology’ came across sincere enough. You’ve never been much of an actress. And this man, for all your familiarity with his character in-game, was never an easy one to fool—and certainly not one to suffer them.

“…I see,” Sylus finally utters, after a long, long moment of silence. His hands are on his hips and he’s still only half-facing you. He’s also, unfortunately, still quite unclothed. Not that he’s no sight for sore eyes, you ponder appreciatively, before wrenching yourself back to the present, scolding yourself. Idiot! Focus on the issue at hand, not his—assets!

“So that’s why…” you begin once more, just as haltingly, “it would be better if we went our separate ways, you know…?”

Again, nothing. He makes no reply. You stare down at your bare feet and wonder at how this is all going to end—how you’re going to get back to your world. Is there even a way back? Will I ever find out just what’s going on here? Like, why the hell I’m in the realm of Love & Deepspace?

With your other hand, you clutch at the robe around you, half-considering slipping it off and giving it back to him—after changing in the bathroom, of course. What a weird dream, whatever this is. Or way to wake up, I don’t know. I really haven’t the faintest idea what’s going on here. I’m in way over my head, aren’t I?

“Then, you don’t love me?” Sylus’s voice is quiet, but it makes you jump a bit again, nonetheless. Your head snaps up to stare at him, at his disconsolate, yet strangely resigned, expression. “You feel nothing?”

If you were in any other situation, in any other context? Sure. But right now? Not in the slightest. Being thrown into such a compromising—and dangerous, if he were any other man—position as this out of nowhere has effectively erased any and all feelings you may have initially had for what you believed to be nothing more than a bunch of pixels, of code and programming, on a screen. Objectively, he’s a total dreamboat, and even now, you’re actively trying not to stare—but that’s about as deep and far as it goes. Other than that, you feel nothing. Nothing other than dread and a need to flee, that is, even if you’re pretty certain he’d never intentionally hurt you. He may run a crime syndicate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the type who enjoys inflicting indiscriminate harm upon others.

So, with a contrite, awkward, slow shake of your head, you finally deliver, what you hope is, the softest final blow. “…No, I do not. I’m sorry.”

Again, silence. Penitently, you cautiously set about gathering ‘your’ things from the carpet, far more than eager to finally take your leave. I’d better find those boxes he gave me for this jewellery, so I can return them. Same with this dress—oh, and these shoes—

“Leave it,” comes his voice from above, and you jerk back in fright to peer up at him. And it’s clear Sylus noticed your reaction, too, which you feel immediately sorry for, because his expression just looks even more wounded. “…I’ll summon someone to clean this up for you in a bit. Just…if you need a shower, feel free.”

“Thank you.” Leaping at the chance, you straighten and bob a grateful bow in the meantime. It earns you a flimsy scoff from the man. “I’ll have one now. Er…I apologise for taking your robe, I—wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s fine.” Sylus waves a dismissive hand, still not looking at you. He instead strides for the wardrobe, pulling it open, selecting another robe inside for himself. The room is oppressive with his clear melancholy. I really didn’t mean to hurt him. “There are…plenty of your size in here, if you need one. Also, there are clothes. Take what you need.”

Heart squeezing at the allusion in his words, you beat it down and do your utmost to tell yourself that you have nothing to feel bad for—it’s whoever, well, ‘I’ was before I arrived who’s at fault here! “…You, um, have my thanks. I’ll be quick, and out the door before you even know it! Haha…”

No response, and you shrink in on yourself in shame, inwardly cursing. The man merely dons the robe with his back to you, shoves his feet into his slippers, and barely spares you a glance as he turns to retrieve his phone from the bedside table. “…Your driver will be here in half an hour. There’s no hurry.”

With that, Sylus crosses the room, presses his phone to his ear, pulls open the door, and curtly clicks it shut behind him. Now, you are left completely alone in this vast room, where his clothes from the previous night still lay strewn on the floor, the bedsheets all twisted and haphazard on the expansive mattress, the analog clock on the wall faintly ticking away. It’s getting on to about nine in the morning. Wouldn’t this be Sylus’s bedtime? Well, you suppose that’s not your issue anymore—as if it ever was. Selecting the clothes you will wear from the wardrobe, you step into the ensuite, lock the door behind you, and get into the shower.

Well, what the fuck. It’s not everyday one ends up in a whole other dimension with a whole other life, let alone said dimension being an otome game and ending up in your favourite love interest’s bed. And then having a whole angsty dispute with him that would be quite soap opera worthy. Seriously, I have to be dreaming.

Oh, well. Once you get in the car awaiting you and depart the premises and never lay eyes on that man again, you suppose you’ll be able to adjust somehow to your new environment, and then get to figuring out a way to get back home. If that’s possible. I should hope it is.

back to where the air inside the car felt choked by the stench of stale iron—like an old toolbox left out in the rain. he hadn't said a single word to you, had he? that was the part that made your heart thrash against your ribs. monsters in the movies always growl, always give you a reason to fear them, but this one just had those quiet hands. when his leather-gloved fingers shoved you back against the passenger seat, it felt like being tucked into a coffin by someone who was simply doing their chores.

“get off—ugh, let me go!” the words were nothing but little scraps of sound, bouncing uselessly off the dashboard.

you weren't a delicate creature who knew how to faint on cue, though. no, you were wilder than that. 

your boots found the floorboards, digging in until the rubber groaned, and you lunged forward with your teeth bared. when you bit down on the rough canvas of his sleeve, you tasted a faint hint of peppermint. it was an ugly, frantic thing. he didn't even flinch, not even when your knee drove hard into the center of his chest. he just tilted his wrist, and that sharp little silver tooth of a dagger bit down into your thigh. one. two. three. four times. a sickening prickle of heat that turned the dark woods outside into a blinding flash of pure white canvas.

“aaagh!!”

but it bought you a second. just enough for your numb fingers, tied, to catch the cold metal of the door latch.

and then, tumble. crack. you were down in the dirt, out in the five o'clock air.

running when your hands are bound tightly behind your back with plastic zip-ties is such a silly childish sight, isn't it? you looked like a little bird with its wings clipped, tilting dangerously forward as you leapt over the mossy roots of the acacia trees. behind you, the heavy thud of the car door closing wasn't loud, but it settled deep in your chest.

run, run.

the sky above was throwing a tantrum, bleeding out into a bruised palette of deep violet and charcoal clouds. the acacias hung their heads low, their massive branches whispering secrets to each other as the first few drops of cold rain began to prickle the air.

“help! please, is anyone out there?” 

your jeans were soaked through now, the dark denim turning heavy and stiff as the warm ribbons of red ran down your shins. every step was a blind guess. you couldn't see the sharp stones hidden beneath the carpet of dead leaves, couldn't tell where the earth simply dropped off into the black throat of the ravine. you were just a panicked thing breaking through the brambles, your heart drumming a frantic little rhythm against your ribs, running from a hunter who didn't even have to chase you to keep you moving.

but the universe is a playful storyteller, and it loves to toy with its favorites.

with a sharp gasp, your boot caught the slick underbelly of a wet log. the earth rushed up to meet you, knocking the air right out of your lungs with a miserable huff. you stayed there for a moment, your cheek pressed into the rotting mulch. stay down, the mud seemed to whisper. it’s easier if you stay down.

everything was gone. your purse, your keys, the small trinkets of your ordinary life—all left behind on that leather seat. but there was still a reassuring weight pressing against your hip. your phone was still there, tucked away in the closed pocket of your jeans.

you twisted your torso, your purple-tipped fingers scratching uselessly against the thick fabric behind your back. but with your wrists clamped together so tightly, your hands were nothing but clumsy weights. you couldn't even reach the metal teeth of the zipper. you wanted to cry out again, to scream for a savior, but the woods had grown eerily quiet. if you made a sound, you’d be giving the man with the knife a perfect map straight to your hiding place. so you just lay there, grinding your wrists against the plastic ties until the skin split, hot tears finally cutting clean paths through the grime on your face. please, just break. please.

snap!

only it wasn't the plastic that broke. it was a twig, just a few feet away.

instantly your head jerked up, eyes wide and glassy with a primitive sort of horror as you pressed your spine hard against the rough bark of the log. through the misty twilight, a silhouette stepped out from between the acacias. a tall, familiar frame. an oversized hoodie that looked entirely too ordinary for a nightmare like this.

a boy.

for some reason, your brain gave a dizzy little hiccup—a spark of memory that felt like looking at a blurred high school yearbook through a window. wait... do i know those eyes? but your survival instinct didn't care about names. it just screamed at you to crawl, and so you scrambled forward on your knees like a broken doll, throwing your weight toward him.

“please,” you sobbed, your voice breaking into pieces. “please, you have to help me... there’s a man... he has a knife...”

the boy stopped dead in his tracks. for a heartbeat, his face went completely blank—a sort of stillness that felt a bit too quiet. then, like a curtain being pulled back, his expression shattered into pure breathless panic.

“oh my god—hey, hey, stop moving, what the fuck happened to you?”

he dropped heavily into the leaves, his knees sinking into the damp dirt. his hands hovered over your shaking shoulders, trembling slightly as if he were afraid that touching you would make you fall apart into smaller pieces.

you knew this guy. it was... calvin. wait, no, clark? cal... caleb! 

caleb from senior high. the boy who used to sit just two rows ahead of you in class. what was he doing out here in the deep woods? why now? 

none of it mattered, anyway. he wasn't the man in the mask. he was safe. and you have to ask for help. 

“jesus, your legs... you're bleeding so much,” he stammers, his eyes wide and swimming with concern while he takes in the state of your torn denim. “are you okay? can you hear me? who did this to you?”

isn't it beautiful how the world works? out of all the corners in this forest, the universe dropped a safe familiar boy right into your path. you could finally let go of the breath you’d been holding. everything was going to be fine now.

the tiny click of his pocketknife was the sweetest sound you’d ever heard. the moment the plastic tie snapped, your hands flew forward like trapped birds escaping a cage. your fingers were stiff, burning with a painful rush of pins and needles, but you ignored it, shoving your hand into your pocket to pull out the small rectangle of your phone.

your thumb left a dark smudge of dirt across the glass as the screen flashed to life, illuminating your pale face in a harsh square of digital light. no service. the little gray bars in the top corner were empty, a row of hollow lines laughing at your desperation. you dialed the three emergency digits anyway, your thumb shaking so violently you could barely hit the glass, but the screen just spun a uselessly endless circle before dropping into nothingness.

“no, no, no... please, work,” you whispered, the tears finally spilling over your lashes. you instinctively reached out, your fingers bunching into the fabric of his jacket before you even realized you were gripping him. “please—your phone. try your phone. we need the police. we need an ambulance right now!”

he looked down at you, his features soft and utterly helpless, heavy with pity. he slowly pulled his own phone from his pocket, his thumb tapping the glass with a worried crease between his brows, before turning the empty screen toward you. “there's nothing,” he said softly, voice dropping into a comforting murmur meant to soothe your rising hysteria. “we’re too deep down in the valley. the reception doesn't really reach out here...”

“w-we have to walk then,” you babbled, a spike of adrenaline forcing you to try and push yourself upward. you pressed your palms against his shoulders, trying to force your legs to bear your weight, but the moment you put pressure on your right thigh, the cuts ripped open with a blinding flare of agony. your knee buckled instantly, the world tilting sideways as your vision went fuzzy.

if he hadn't caught you, your head would have cracked right against the rotted log.

but caleb’s arms were right there, locked around your waist to keep you from falling. “hey, hey, hey easy. please stop trying to move,” he coos, his voice falling right back into that familiar one you remember from years ago, though he looked at you with the detached worry of a stranger who had simply stumbled upon a tragedy. “you can't run in this state, ma'am. you're losing too much blood, and the main highway is miles away. if you try to walk, you're going to collapse before we even make it past the ridge.”

then, he fell silent.

his hands stayed planted firmly on your hips, placing you against him. for a long second, the frantic panic on his face settled into something else—something unreadable, calculated, and entirely too still. his violet eyes slowly dragged down the length of your torn jeans, watching the way the wet crimson was staining the fabric. he took in the shivering curve of your exposed throat, the way your breath came in terrified little hitches.

“please, ma'am, listen to me,” he whispered, his breath warm against your freezing cheek. “my cabin is just over the crest. it’s not far, maybe a five-minute walk at most. i can wash these cuts, bind them up so you stop bleeding, and let you rest. once the storm passes and you're stable, i'll get you out of here. okay?”

no, no, you wanted to fight him on it. you wanted the safety of a hospital room, the comfort of the lights, the security of walls that didn't belong to a lonely house hidden in the middle of nowhere. but your body was giving up. the blood loss was drawing a curtain over your mind, making your eyelids feel like lead weights. 

the air was turning freezing cold, and caleb was the only warm thing left in the whole world.

before you could even mutter a protest, he shifted his weight, slipping one strong arm under the crook of your knees and the other behind your shoulders. he lifted you effortlessly, pulling you tightly against his chest as if you weighed nothing at all.

“hospital...” you managed to slur, the word breaking apart on your lips. “take me... to the hospital...”

“no need for now, alright? i’ve got you,” he murmured back—the very last thing you heard. 

—

you open your eyes. slowly.

and there, you find yourself—

tucked away so neatly, blanketed on a sunken couch that divots deeply under your weight, right within the quiet premises of the cabin caleb promised an hour ago. the orange glow of a crackling fireplace dances across the exposed timber walls, casting playful shadows that stretch across the floorboards like reaching fingers. you’re still wearing the same clothes, dried into uncomfortable creases against your skin, and the iron tang of your own blood has cooked into a heavy musk under the warmth of the wool thrown over you.

just as the fog in your mind begins to lift, a rhythmic scuff of socks echoes from the far end of the hallway.

out steps caleb—carrying a candlestick, the small yellow flame haloing his face in a way that makes him look almost saintly, a golden boy stepping out from the shadows to check on his patient. the moment his eyes find yours open in the firelight, his entire posture softens, with shoulders dropping into a visible sigh of relief.

“oh, thank goodness,” he rushes to you, his steps hurried but careful, setting the candlelight down on a small wooden side table where it flickers against the polished grain. “you're awake. i... jesus, i am so sorry about all of this. the situation, the... the place. it’s a bit rustic, i know, and it probably feels terrifying waking up somewhere, you know, after what you've been through.”

you try to swallow, but your throat feels like it's coated in sand. 

your head is still heavily fogged, swimming with the lingering aftereffects of shock and blood loss, so all you can do is look around cautiously, wordlessly, and tiredly. 

the cabin is small, wrapped in dark wood, the corners swallowed by a cozy gloom. on the table beside the candle, a white plastic medical kit sits waiting, its red cross staring back at you like a clinical eye...

“oh, uhm- i wanted to wait until you woke up before i did anything,” caleb explains gently, kneeling down by the edge of the couch so he's at eye level with you. “i didn't want to start treating your wounds while you were unconscious. i thought... well, given everything, waking up to a stranger touching you would be a nightmare.”

you try to shift, pulling your legs inward to sit up, but the movement drags the dried denim against the raw gashes along your thighs. so the cuts sting fiercely, a sharp reminder of the dagger that makes you wince. “ugh—”

“hey, hey—don't move, please,” caleb says instantly, moving closer and sitting on the very edge of the cushion beside you. his hand hovers over your knee, twitching slightly as if he wants to press you back down, but he keeps his distance to maintain that careful boundary. “you're going to tear the edges of the cuts open again. just... stay still.”

he looks down at your legs, and a subtle awkward tension thickens the air between you. 

with your tight jeans still on, it’s obvious to both of you—it would be incredibly hard to treat cuts that high up without getting the fabric out of the way. he clears his throat, his cheeks catching a faintly boyish flush in the firelight as he pulls the medical kit a little closer, though he doesn't make a move to touch you.

you ignore his gentle commands, your brain completely bypassing the medical kit, because of a cold prickle of reality beginning to chip away at the warmth. your eyes travel past his shoulder, fixing onto the dark pane of the window. outside, the rain is persistent and incredibly loud.

“...what time is it?” your voice comes out rough, cracking against the quiet of the cabin.

caleb blinks, shifting his weight as he awkwardly clears his throat again, his gaze deliberately facing away from your legs, staring instead at the flickering hearth. “it’s... just past seven, the storm really rolled in fast. it's coming down pretty hard out there.”

“seven?” 

two hours. 

you’ve been away for two hours. 

and your bag is gone. 

and your phone is fucking dead. 

you turn back to him, your eyes growing more frantic as the questions begin to tumble out of you, one after another, getting faster and more panicked by the second. “where exactly are we, caleb? how far is the road? did you see anyone else out there? did you hear a car? my family—someone is going to notice i'm missing, they're going to call the police, we need to try the phones again, there has to be a landline here, right? caleb, is there a landline?”

there was a tiny microscopic hitch in his shoulders, the sort of stillness that makes the fire crackle just a little louder in the silence. he doesn't answer right away. instead, his head turns slowly back toward you, the candlelight catching the genuine confusion written across his brow. his lips part, a faint perplexed half-smile tugging at one corner of his mouth as he points a finger at his own chest.

“wait, how... how do you know my name? have we... met before tonight?”

you stare at him, your own panic temporarily short-circuiting into bewilderment. 

huh, how did he not remember you? 

your mind races, digging through the fog. sure, you two were never close—never the type to hang out after the final bell or trade text messages—but you sat right behind him during senior year calculus. you watched him doodle in the margins of his notebook for an entire semester. you walked the same stage at graduation. granted, it had been years, and people change, but to be erased from someone's memory while you were currently bleeding out on their couch felt like a joke.

“a-are you serious?” you ask, your voice cracking slightly as you look at him. “caleb. caleb xia, right? we went to senior high together, we graduated from the same school.”

caleb blinks, his brow furrowing deeper as he genuinely seems to search his brain, looking at you with clueless eyes. “i—yeah, that's my name, but... high school? sorry i'm trying to place you, but my head is kind of spinning right now with the whole... you know, finding you in the woods thing.” he bites his lip, that was a bit too insensitive? “uh did you go to the main campus?”

“yes!” you burst out, frustrated by the sheer absurdity of the timing. “we were literally in the same department. we took the same core classes. think about it—do you remember section three? mr. harrison's homeroom? the room right at the end of the second-floor hall next to the old laboratory?”

there is an agonizing stretch of silence where caleb just stares at you. 

the rain hammers against the windowpane, loud and persistent, filling the gap between your desperate breaths. and then he looks at your face, eyes tracing your features with a deliberate attempt that makes the hairs on your arms stand up, though his expression remains perfectly and innocently blank.

then, his eyes widen—

“oh!” he lets out a breathless gasp, his hand flying up to rub the back of his neck in sudden realization.

“oh my god, to think that you still remember me...” he breathes, shaking his head as a self-deprecating smile breaks across his face. “wow. you're... you're that girl. you're [name], right? from the back row? wow, jesus, i am so stupid. sorry, [name]. it’s been what, four, five years? what are the odds?”

“clearly very high.” you mutter, rubbing your temple as a fresh wave of exhaustion hits you. a chill ripples down your spine despite the heat of the fire—something about the seamlessness of his realization feels just a fraction too neat, but you shake it off. you don't have the mental capacity to analyze high school politics right now. “look, it doesn't matter. the point is, i need to get to a hospital, caleb. or a police station.”

“right, right, obviously,” caleb slides off the edge of the cushion, kneeling back down on the floorboards and pulling the white plastic medical kit toward him. the latch pops open with a snap. “but like i said, the storm is terrible right now and you're actively bleeding through your clothes. we need to clean these cuts before they get infected. let me just get the antiseptic and the gauze, and i can—”

“i can do it myself,” your hand extends to block his path, palm flat against the cool plastic lid of the box.

caleb stops, his fingers hovering over a roll of white bandages. he tilts his head, looking up at you through his eyelashes with a look that is too innocent. “are- are you sure? you can barely sit up straight without wincing. it's really no trouble, i can just do it for you. i took a first-aid course back in college, i promise i won't mess it up.”

you look down at him, one of your eyebrows slowly arching as the reality of the situation settles between you. 

“caleb,” you say, deadpanning. “they're thigh wounds. you're... implying that you're going to sit there and watch me take off my jeans?”

immediately, caleb’s cheeks catch a bright furious flush, the boyish color rushing all the way up to the tips of his ears. 

“no! no, oh my god, obviously not,” he mumbles, you could clearly hear his voice cracking while he scrambles backward an inch or two on his knees. “i swear i wasn't thinking about it like that. i just saw the blood and kinda panicked. i am so sorry, didn't mean to make you... uncomfortable at all.” 

you remained quiet, looking at the medical kit, then down at the dark crimson patches drying high up on the denim of your thighs, and then right back into his eyes.

“look, i'll—i'll just give you the supplies. i can leave the room, i'll go to the kitchen, get some water, whatever you need. and you go ahead.” he looks so genuinely flustered, so thoroughly embarrassed by his own lack of foresight, that a tiny part of the tension in your chest actually loosens. he’s still the same harmless, easily flustered guy from senior high. 

safe... 

respectable...

—

the bathroom of the cabin had been a cold sort of mercy. peeling the copper-scented denim away from the raw gashes on your thighs had brought tears to your eyes, the hot water from the showerhead stinging the freshly bandaged wounds until your hips throbbed in rhythm with your pulse. but the clothes caleb had left hanging on the brass hook outside the door were clean. they smelled deeply of laundry detergent and cedar, though they were too large—the soft grey sweatpants bunched heavily over your ankles, and the oversized flannel shirt hung low enough to clip the backs of your knees. it made you look small, swamped, and ridiculously fragile.

you stepped back out into the main room, twisting the damp ends of your hair into a white towel. 

but as your eyes swept the room, you froze.

caleb wasn't by the couch. he wasn't tending to the fire, nor was he standing awkwardly by the kitchen counter like you’d expected. it was something far much more unexpected, because instead he was sitting exceptionally straight in a heavy wooden chair by the small dining table at the end of the room. 

his broad shoulders were squared, large hands resting flat against the dark wood in a posture that felt way too rigid, too deliberate. on the table between his hands sat a dark bottle of red wine, two tall-stemmed glasses catching the amber firelight, and a large ceramic plate piled with perfectly seared cuts of meat that were still glistening with warm fat.

you stopped in your tracks, one hand still holding the towel over your shoulder with your eyebrow slowly crawling upward. 

how... domestic? 

it looked like a dinner date. a romantic little setup prepared solely for you, laid out in the middle of a literal survival nightmare. it was so incredibly and profoundly awkward that you didn't even know how to orient your mouth to speak.

caleb caught your expression.

“oh—hey! you're out,” he stammered, his voice jumping a half-octave before he gestured vaguely toward the table. “i... uh, i hope the clothes fit okay? and, i’m sorry if this looks... weird. or sudden. i just thought, you know, you’ve been through a lot out there earlier, and your body probably needs the protein. i had some steak in the cooler, and... well..."

he broke off, clearing his throat awkwardly as he picked up the wine bottle, thumb nervously tracing the edge of the label.

“and the wine, it’s... it’s been sitting in the cabinet for months,” he rambled on, his violet eyes darting to your face and then quickly dropping back down to the polished wood. “it’s a really nice vintage, honestly. my dad gave it to me, and it just felt like... it would be a total shame not to share it with someone. and since you’re here, and it’s raining, and we’re stuck... i just thought it might help take the edge off the shock, no?”

you watched him tumble over his own words, your mind working through the surreal nature of the moment. you walked over to the edge of the dining area, your bare feet making no sound against the floorboards. deliberately, you unraveled the towel from your head and began folding it into a neat square, draping it over the high back of an empty chair.

“...do you have any cigarettes?” you had asked.

caleb blinked up at you, his thumb freezing against the wine bottle. as if the concept of a cigarette had never crossed his mind in his entire life. “cigarettes? oh. uh... no. no, sorry, [name]. i don't smoke.”

“shucks.” you let out a humorless little breath, dropping your hands from the chair.

you didn't pull out the seat, though. you didn't sit across from him at the neatly set table, and you certainly didn't lean into the cozy and intimate atmosphere he had so carefully constructed. you felt more comfortable with reaching across the dark wood, fingers wrapping around the stem of one of the wine glasses, and then taking the heavy ceramic plate of meat right out from the center of the table.

caleb watched you, his mouth parting slightly as you simply turned on your heel, walking away from the dining setup entirely.

you walked back over to the fireplace, the heat hitting your face in a comforting wave. with a soft grunt, you lowered yourself directly onto the floor near the hearth, tucking your oversized sweatpants around your ankles. you set the plate in your lap and the wine glass beside your knee, content to eat like an exhausted animal on the floor and miles away from the polite constraints of a dinner table.

“are you... comfortable down there?” caleb’s voice drifted over from the dining area, sounding faint and distinctly hollow.

“perfectly,” you replied, picking up a piece of the meat with your fingers, not even caring about silverware. “the fire is warm.”

“right. yeah. the fire is good,” 

“and thank you, for the food.” from where you sat, focused on the crackling logs and the heavy comfort of the red wine coating your throat, you couldn't see his face. you couldn't see the way caleb remained seated at that table, a few meters away in the shadows. you couldn't see the utter, freezing disappointment that washed over his features, the soft curve of his mouth twisting into something odd while he stared at the back of your damp head.

the scent of the wine was just beginning to blunt the raw edge of your nerves when you decided to break the silence. you chewed slowly, swallowed, and leaned your head back against the edge of the couch. “so, what is this place, anyway? and why do you quite literally live in the middle of nowhere?”

at the table, the tension in caleb’s shoulders evaporated. it was like watching a wilted flower catch a drop of water—he lit up, immediately grabbed his own finished plate to discard it down the sink with an easygoing smile returning to his face.

“oh, this? it’s actually my grandfather’s old hunting lodge,” caleb answered, his voice rich and fluid while he stepped out of the dining area with the wine glass and walked into the warm radius of the firelight. “he left it to me when he passed away a couple of years ago. it was pretty run-down, but i've been fixing it up by myself whenever i get a break from work. it's quiet. and really nice.”

with ease, caleb lowered his large frame directly onto the floorboards, sitting a few feet away from you. he kept a careful distance—close enough to share the warmth of the hearth, but far enough that your knees wouldn't brush. 

“must be a long drive to work if you're living out here permanently,” you remarked, poking at another piece of meat. you’d always been a slow eater, but tonight the exhaustion made your hands heavy.

“well, i don't live here full-time, just most weekends,” he swirled the dark red liquid in his glass, his eyes reflecting the orange tongues of the fire. “and my job isn't exactly local. i'm actually based out of the regional airfield near the coast now. aha, i went into aeronautical engineering after graduation.”

you paused, a piece of meat halfway to your mouth. you turned your head to look at him. “aeronautics? i figured you’d end up in business or something corporate. you always looked like the type.”

caleb let out a boyish chuckle, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “yeah, everyone thought that. my dad wanted me to take over his agency, actually. but i don't know... i like things that are precise. there's a weird comfort in that kind of control.” he pursed his lips inwards, stealing a glance from you. “like- like if a plane stays in the air, it’s because you engineered it perfectly. no room for variables.”

“sounds tedious,” you muttered, taking a sip of the wine.

“it can be,” he agreed, his gaze shifting from the glass straight to your face again. “but it pays well. and it gives me enough free time to come out here and disappear for a few days. but uh, what about you, [name]? last i heard, you were finishing up your degree city-side. what brings you back to the outskirts? and... working at that restaurant by the highway?”

“it's just supposed to be temporary until i figured out my next move. then the shit earlier happened.”

“jesus, [name]...” caleb’s voice dropped into a sympathetic murmur. “i still can't believe it. when i heard the screaming through the trees, i thought i was losing my mind. to think you were just working a normal shift and then... some psycho...” he trailed off, shaking his head as if the weight of the reality was too much for his sensibilities to handle. “have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around the restaurant lately? any weird customers? stalkers?”

“no,” you said, your eyes fixed on the flames. “it's a quiet place. mostly truckers and old couples. the man... he didn't say anything. just grabbed me from the alley behind the kitchen while i was taking out the trash.”

“that's insane,” caleb whispered, his expression darkening with a protective sort of worry. “the world is getting so fucked up. but hey... you're safe now, you're here. he's not getting through that door.”

“i know,” 

you turned your head to look at him, intending to ask about the old high school crew, but as your eyes met his, a strange feeling established itself.

you held his gaze for a second, two seconds—but caleb’s eyes on yours didn't waver. they were perfectly and intensely still, holding your stare with an unblinking confidence that felt entirely out of character for the stuttering, flustered boy from minutes ago. after a moment, the weight of it felt too heavy, and you were the one who blinked your eyes back to the fire.

“do you ever hear from anyone else?” you asked, trying to keep the conversation flowing naturally. “like... gideon? or that girl who used to sit next to you—tara?”

“tara moved to the capital, and gideon... well, gideon and i lost touch after he started getting into some sketchy stuff. people drift, you know? you think you know someone in high school, and then years later, they’re a completely different person.”

“yeah,” you murmured, cutting another piece of meat. “people do change.”

“or maybe they just stop hiding who they always were,” 

you looked up again, caught by the odd phrasing, and once more, his eyes were already there waiting for you. they were dark, absolute, and perfectly locked onto your own. again, an instinctual prickle of discomfort made you break the contact first, your eyes dropping down to your glass. maybe he was just like that, you reasoned. some people just had intense eye contact. it didn't mean anything.

“either way,” caleb said, his tone warming up as he raised his wine glass toward you in a silent toast. “i'm just glad i was the one who found you tonight, [name]. out of everyone else who could have been in these woods... i'm really glad it was me.”

the warmth of the red wine had just begun to settle in your stomach when the words finally caught up to your brain. working at that restaurant by the highway.

you paused, your fork hovering a few inches above the ceramic plate. “wait a minute... how did you know i worked at that restaurant?”

for a fleeting second, his shoulders went rigid, and his gaze dropped from your face, breaking eye-contact to stare down at the dark remnants of wine in his glass. it was the first time tonight he had been the one to look away first.

then, just as quickly as it had vanished, the sheepish smile slid back onto his face. he let out an amused huff, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. “oh, that? well, i drive past that stretch of the highway all the time when i'm heading out to the airfield. i've seen you through the front windows a couple of times while i was stopping for gas across the street. it’s hard to miss a familiar face, even if it’s been years.”

you raised an eyebrow, “and you didn't bother stopping in to say hi?”

“well...” caleb chuckled, his cheeks catching that familiar flush in the firelight as he looked back up at you through his lashes. “we weren't exactly friends in high school, you know? i didn't want to be that weird guy who bursts into your workplace like, hey, remember me from highschool? i figured it’d just be awkward for both of us.”

you stared at him, letting the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable. your fingers tightened slightly around the stem of your glass. “so you did recognize me. which means when you found me out in the woods... you already knew my face?”

caleb’s hand froze against the back of his neck.

“but earlier,” you continued, “you acted like you had no idea who i was. you asked if we'd ever met. you even made me list out our old high school section just to get you to remember my name.”

caleb stopped rubbing his neck. he didn't stumble over his words this time. he just sat there on the floorboards, staring right into your eyes with that stillness you had noticed earlier. then, he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, nodding slowly to himself. a breathy laugh escaped his lips.

“okay,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a smoother and an entirely unbothered tone. “fine. you caught me. i kind of lied.” he swirled his wine, watching the dark liquid catch the orange glow of the hearth. “i did recognize you when i pulled you out of the brush, [name]. but it’s true that i genuinely couldn't remember your name right away. my... brain was in full panic mode seeing all that blood. but as for the rest of it... yeah. aha. i played dumb for a second.”

an uneasy spike of suspicion bloomed right in the center of your chest. your survival instinct, the one that had been temporarily put to sleep by the warm blankets and the steak, suddenly jolted awake. “why... would you lie about something like that, caleb?”

“because think about it,” caleb answered instantly, turning his head to face you full. “it’s already an incredibly high-stress situation. you’re running for your life, you’re bleeding, you’re... traumatized. then you stumble upon a guy you used to know, but barely talked to, living in a secluded cabin. don't you think it would feel just a little bit... awkward? or weirdly intense if i immediately went, oh hey, [name], wild seeing you here!?” his eyes searched your face as he momentarily placed the glass on the floor. “i thought it would be easier on you if we just focused on getting you safe first, without the weird high school baggage. you know, i was just trying to keep things low-key.”

you remained quiet, eyes dropping down to your empty plate. you didn't nod. you didn't tell him it was fine. you just left the explanation hanging in the air between you, letting it rot.

it’s not safe out here. 

it didn't matter that he had sat two rows ahead of you five years ago. it didn't matter that he had an aeronautics career or a nice smile. you were a wounded, exhausted girl trapped in a damn cabin in the middle of a raging storm, miles away from civilization, alone with a man.

you looked away, your gaze fixing onto the persistent sheets of rain lashing against the windowpane, your mind frantically trying to map out a way to stay awake until dawn.

“hey.”

you turned your head back toward the hearth, your breath catching in your throat as you realized caleb had moved. he had inched closer across the floorboards while you were lost in your thoughts. now, he was resting his elbow directly on the plush edge of the couch right behind your shoulder, resting his temple against his fist, tilting his head slightly so he was looking up at you from under his thick lashes.

“what are you thinking about there so hard?” a small, almost teasing smile played at the corners of his lips. “you aren't... suspicious of me, are you, [name]?”

“no,” you forced a shrug of your shoulders, keeping your palms perfectly loose against the floor. “why would i be suspicious? you saved my life... i-i’m just tired. my head feels like it’s full of cotton.”

it was the safest play. 

if he really was someone you needed to fear, showing your teeth now—when you could barely stand without your thighs screaming in agony—would be nothing short of suicide. 

caleb stared at you for one more second, his eyes searching the micro-expressions on your face from beneath his lashes. 

“good,” he let out a relieved chuckle, pushing himself up from the floor. “because if you were, i’d have to start questioning my hospitality skills. my ego wouldn't be able to take that tonight.” he reached down to gather the empty ceramic plates and the two wine glasses, turning toward the small kitchen alcove. “you've been through a lot tonight, [name]. i think it's time to call it a night? you can take the bedroom,”

“i can sleep here.” you said quickly, gesturing vaguely toward the plush couch near the hearth. “you ...don't have to give up your room for me. i've already taken up enough of your space.”

“absolutely not,” caleb called out over his shoulder, the sound of running water echoing from the sink while he rinsed the dishes. “i am a lot of things, but a bad host isn't one of them. you're wounded and you need a proper bed, so i'll take the couch.”

he turned off the tap, drying his hands on a dishtowel before walking back over to you. 

he extended a hand, fingers open and waiting. “come on. let's get you sorted out.”

—

caleb guided you down the short, dimly lit hallway toward the back of the cabin. when he pushed the wooden door open, the space that greeted you was surprisingly large—far more spacious and clean than the rustic exterior of the lodge suggested. in fact, it looked a bit too clean. the dark wooden dresser was pristine, the bedside table completely bare, and the large queen-sized bed was stripped down to a simple fitted sheet. 

it almost looked like a room that had been meticulously prepared for a guest who hadn't arrived yet.

“sorry it’s a little bare in here,” caleb broke the silence. “i usually just crash on the couch myself when i'm working on the place, so i haven't really decorated the bedroom yet- oh, let me get the comforter out of the closet.” he crossed the room, pulling a massively thick comforter from the built-in wardrobe. it was a heavy plush thing, clad in a crisp grey duvet cover.

“alright,” he grunted, shaking it out. “help me spread this out so you don't freeze to death tonight.”

you limped over to the opposite side of the mattress, catching the corners of the heavy fabric as he tossed them over. but it was incredibly thick, and the duvet seemed to have a mind of its own, bunching up inside the cover like a stubborn weight. when you tried to pull it toward your side, your foot caught on the edge of the bed frame, making you stumble slightly. caleb lunged across the mattress to catch the fabric before it slid off, his own weight dragging the entire comforter into a tangled knot right in the dead center of the bed.

you both froze, staring at the absolute disaster of crumpled grey fabric between you.

this is... awkward. 

“well,” caleb said, his voice deadpan as he looked from the tangled mess up to your face. “i did mention i went into engineering, right? clearly, that does not translate to making a bed?” 

a sudden laugh bubbled up from your throat before you could stop it—a genuine sound that cut clean through the lingering web of suspicion in your chest. it was just so ridiculous. you were running for your life a few hours ago, and now you were having a tug-of-war with a blanket.

caleb’s face immediately lit up at the sound of your laughter, his eyes crinkling into crescents before he let out a loud chuckle of his own. “don't laugh at me! this is a two-person job, [name], you clearly pulled too hard on your end.”

“i pulled because you were hoarding the entire left side,” 

“i was not hoarding!” he protested playfully, finally managing to untangle the knot and smooth the heavy comforter across the mattress with a satisfying whack. “there. perfect. good job, caleb.” he stepped back, dusting his hands off with a satisfied smirk before turning his attention back to you. “...you should be good now. the pillows are fresh. if you need another blanket, just yell, 'kay? i’ll be right outside.”

“...thanks, caleb,” despite of your head telling you to stay alert, you allowed your own voice to show the small thread of gratitude weaved into it. “really. for everything.”

“don't mention it,” he stepped toward the doorway and caught the brass handle, pausing for a moment to look back at you over his shoulder. “lock the door from the inside if it makes you feel better. i won't mind. just get some sleep and we’ll figure out you going home first thing in the morning.”

“okay. goodnight.”

“goodnight, [name].”

and finally, he closed the door with a click. 

you stood in the quiet room for a long moment, listening to the muffled sound of his retreating footsteps when he walked back down the hallway toward the living room. meanwhile, the rain continued to beat a persistent rhythm against the bedroom window. 

slowly, you walked over to the door and turned the small thumb-lock, the metallic snap providing a fragile shield against the dark. you crawled beneath the cedar-scented comforter, your exhausted body sinking into the mattress as you stared up at the dark ceiling. 

he was safe. he had to be. he was just caleb—just the same boy from before.

—

tick. tick. tick.

the sound of a small wood-framed clock somewhere in the shadows is the first thing that bites through your sleep. 

you hadn't even realized you’d drifted off, but the blackness of the midnight hours has already swallowed the evening whole. you wake with a faint groan catching in your throat, your eyelids being heavy with the residue of exhaustion and red wine.

you turn your head to the side, expecting the warm flicker of the candles caleb had left on the bedside desks.

nothing.

the room is ...pitch black. 

the candles are entirely gone—not just blown out, but absent. 

adrenaline instantly slices straight through your groggy brain, melting the last remnants of sleep. and then your eyes travel to the foot of the bed, only to see that—

the door is open.

it isn't really wide open, just slightly ajar, a narrow slice of dim orange light cutting through the darkness from the hallway outside. a thin sliver of the living room’s dying hearth dances across the floorboards like a warning. 

how...? 

you distinctly remember the weight of the little brass thumb-lock turning under your fingers....

a lock doesn't just undo itself in the dead of night.

gone was the cozy and domestic quiet of a boy hosting an old classmate; now it’s a tight breathless suspense, like the air inside a room right before a balloon pops. every instinct you possess—the cold-blooded survival code that got you out of that leather passenger seat—screams at you to move.

carefully, so carefully, you slide your legs out from beneath the heavy down comforter. the grey sweatpants caleb lent you sweep against the sheets with a hush that sounded more like a roar in your ears. the moment your bare feet touch the cold floor, the gashes along your thighs throb in protest, a burning ache that you force yourself to swallow. you don't wince. you don't breathe.

you creep toward the vertical slit of the door, fingers pressing lightly against the wood as you peer out into the hall.

all the candlelights have been shut dead, their little wicks pinched into cold black stumps. the only illumination left is the bleeding glow of the hearth in the living room, casting distorted shadows against the dark wood walls.

your bare feet make no sound while you steal down the hallway, and your eyes scan the darkness, hunting for a silhouette, a mask, the silver glint of a dagger. 

if your lock was bypassed... if someone broke in while you were unconscious...

you round the corner into the living room, your chest heaving in shallow and silent hitches.

there, on the plush couch near the fireplace, laid a shape. 

you freeze, your muscles locking instantly in place. but as you squint through the deep red gloom, you realize it’s just caleb. he’s wrapped entirely in his thick blanket, his large frame buried beneath the wool. his head is tilted back against the cushion with eyes shut. 

he looks completely peaceful, harmless.

but a fresh wave of horror washes over your skin.

if caleb is asleep right here... and the front door is still barred from the inside... then who the fuck opened your bedroom door? did the masked man find a way in without making a sound? did he look at you while you slept? 

your mind spins a terrifying web of variables, but you refused to just let yourself panic. there is no room for tears. there is no room for questions. there is only the necessity of getting out.

you turn away from the sleeping boy, your eyes scanning the dark perimeter of the room. you need a tool. a weapon. a map. a landline. anything.

as you glide toward the dark wooden cabinets flanking the stone hearth, your fingers were trembling slightly. you slide the first latch open, the wood giving a slow creak. you reach inside, your hands blindly rummaging through the contents—old decks of cards, manuals, boxes of matches, heavy iron tools for the fireplace. your fingertips scrape against the rough edge of a folded piece of paper. a map? a ledger? could it be? you immediately pull it out, trying to catch the faint red light of the dying embers to read the print.

please. just give me a direction. let me find the highway. i need to go home.

“[name]?”

you immediately jerked your shoulders back at the voice, the paper slipping from your fingers and fluttering back into the open cabinet drawer. 

shit, caleb is awake.

as you turned around to face him, he was already sat up on the couch, the wool blanket pooled in folds around his hips. and...

he was... shirtless.

you couldn't help your eyes from flicking down to the broad line of his shoulders and the manly expanse of his torso before you forced your gaze back up to his face. you knew plenty of guys slept like that, but the domesticity of it felt like a trap. there was no time to get flustered right now. your fingers curled into tight fists against the cabinet door.

“what...” caleb's voice came out thick, raspy with sleep. he blinked up at you while rubbing his left eye. “what are you doing up this late?”

you awkwardly cleared your throat, the sound dry and scratching against the quiet of the room. you needed an excuse that didn't involve the open bedroom door or the fact that you were currently hunting for a map to escape whatever it is you need to escape from.

“i'm just... looking for a cigarette,” fuck, that was such a bad lie. “i couldn't sleep. thought you might have some hidden in these cabinets.”

caleb could only blink at you, his head tilting slowly to the side while his brain tried to process the words. cigarettes? this late? he let out a huff that sounded like a sleepy laugh, rubbing the back of his head where his hair was slightly messy.

“a cigarette...?” he looked from you to the open cabinet drawer, then back up to your face. “you really must have an addiction, huh? i told you earlier, [name], i don't smoke. my grandfather didn't either.”

you had no choice but to nod, keeping your posture stiff against the woodwork. “right. worth a shot, though...”

caleb let out a sigh, the sound long and loose as he shifted his weight on the cushions. he swung his legs out from under the rest of the blanket, his bare feet hitting the timber floor. he stayed there for a second, hunched over with his hands dangling between his knees, just staring at the floor as if waiting for his head to stop spinning from the sudden wake-up.

“look,” his voice drops into a more grounded register while he looked up at you through his bangs. “if you're that restless, i can go to the kitchen and put the kettle on. make you some chamomile tea or something? my dad swears by it for shock.”

“i-i don't need tea,” you muttered, shifting your feet.

but the movement was a mistake. 

the sudden twist of your hips dragged the loose fleece of the sweatpants directly across the gashes on your right thigh. and it fucking stung.

he seemed to have notice it, as his eyes abruptly snapped down to your legs. the sleepiness have also seemed to vanish from his posture by the way his broad shoulders squared when he slid off the couch and stood up. 

“hey,” he gestured vaguely toward your lap. “you're limping again. did you tear the bandages when you got out of bed? you shouldn't even be walking around right now.”

“...they're fine,” 

“they don't look fine,” caleb pointed a thumb back toward the couch. “sit down. let me actually look at them this time. if you bled through the gauze while you were sleeping, we need to change it before it sticks to the cuts.”

your throat felt incredibly dry as you swallowed, your hand lingering on the edge of the cabinet door. “seriously, it really is fine. you don't need to do all this...”

he didn't argue immediately. instead, he simply turned toward the side table where the white first-aid box still sat under the dying light of the hearth. his fingers wrapped around the handle, lifting it with a clack. but as he turned back to face you, he froze, his eyes dropping down to his own chest, then flicking rapidly back up to your face. 

“oh—jesus,” he mumbled, his hand flying up to rub the back of his neck. “i... i am so sorry. is it because i don't have a shirt on? let me just... go grab something from the room. give me a second.”

“it's not about that,” you said quickly, the words slipping out before he could turn away. 

am i just losing my mind?

you asked yourself, your fingers gripping the soft flannel of the oversized shirt he’d lent you. is this just the trauma? you had been kidnapped, almost stabbed, and chased through the dark by a literal monster. it made sense that your brain was treating everything—even the creak of a floorboard or a slightly ajar door—as a mortal threat. you were painting a sinister caricature over a guy who had literally dragged you out of the mud, sliced his own knuckles to free your hands, and offered you his bed. if he wanted to hurt you, if he wanted to do anything to you at all... he’d had hours while you were unconscious, dead to the world under his roof. 

but you had woken up untouched.

and yet, that voice in the very back of your skull refused to fully quiet down. stay on guard, it whispered. always stay on guard.

still, the sheer weight of the guilt was starting to make your chest ache. he was trying so hard to be the helpful guy, and you were treating him like the monster in the woods.

with a slow sigh, you crossed the small distance between the cabinet and the couch. 

“fine,” you lowered your weight onto the edge of the cushion. and unceremoniously, you began to pull the hem of the sweatpants up, the fleece dragging against your skin until it bunched up in folds around your upper thighs. the movement exposed the white gauze wraps—now messy, slightly unraveled at the edges, and blooming with wet spots of red where the cuts had split back open from your midnight walk.

caleb stood perfectly still.

as you focused on adjusting the bunched fabric around your lap, you missed the way his breathing hitched. his eyes lingered, carefully, on the exposed line of your ankles, climbing up the curve of your calves, on the skin behind your knees, and finally settling on the wounded skin of your thighs. 

but before you could look up and catch that, he was already moving.

in one motion, caleb lowered himself onto his knees right beside your legs. he popped the latch on the medical kit, fingers pulling out a fresh roll of gauze and a packet of antiseptic wipes with a faint smile. “i hate to say i told you so, [name], but... you did a total hack job on these bandages.”

“i was working with one hand and a lot of adrenaline,” you shot back, trying to keep your voice even while he brushed his fingers against the side of your knee to steady your leg.

“clearly,” he teased, his thumb lightly pressing against your skin to test your reaction, his eyes crinkling at the corners with that playful grin. “you wrapped them up all wrong. it's too loose at the top and too tight at the bottom...”

the crinkle of the wrapper was the only sound for a moment as caleb tore open a fresh pad of gauze, but you kept your face resolutely turned toward the stone hearth, watching the orange embers pulse and die in the ash. 

he didn't say anything for a while, his fingers working with a touch while he peeled away the blood-soaked cotton from your skin. his thumb caught the edge of a fresh strip of medical tape, tearing it with a sharp rip with his teeth.

“you know,” caleb murmured, breaking the quiet without looking up from his work. “you're giving the fireplace a really intense stare. if it's because i'm still missing half my clothes, i can really just go grab a shirt.”

“i'm fine,” though you kept your eyes locked on the brickwork. “i'm just tired.”

he let out a breathy laugh, fingers gently smoothing the edge of the clean white pad against the meat of your upper thigh. “you should've just let me handle the first round of bandages earlier. would've saved you the trouble of bleeding like this.”

you decided not to reply.

and he didn't mind your continued silence, pulling the roll of gauze to tighten the dressing. but as he went to tuck the loose end, his thumb pressed down—just a bit too hard—directly into the swollen edge of the fourth laceration.

“shit, that hurts-” your hands instantly flew to the leather cushion to push yourself backward.

caleb gulped, the prominent line of his throat moving sharply in the dim red light when he stole a glance at your face. “sorry,” he whispered, a little raspy. “you okay?”

“be careful.” you choked out, your breath coming a little faster now as you stared back at him. 

his palm remained resting flat against the curve of your knee, his thumb lightly, almost absently tracing the edge of the sweatpants' hem. he looked down at your legs for a quiet second before his eyes slowly crawled back up to meet your frown.

“is this your first time?” 

your brow furrowed deeper, “what?”

“seeing a guy half-naked this close,” caleb clarified, a knowing smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth, though his eyes remained perfectly steady and unblinking. “you look like you're holding your breath, [name]. i didn't think i was that intimidating...?”

“no, it's not my first time.” 

“oh yeah?” 

caleb tilted his head, his elbow resting on his knee to lean in further. “so there's been other guys then? past boyfriends?”

“...what does that have to do with anything?”

“nothing,” letting out a low chuckle, he finally pulled his hands back, capping the antiseptic bottle along the way. “just making conversation. we're catching up, aren't we? five years is ...a long time. i figured a girl like you would've had someone.”

caleb slowly sat back on his heels, eyes tracking the way your fingers dug into the fabric of your flannel shirt. 

“there was... someone,” you muttered, wanting to shut the topic down. “a while ago. it didn't last.”

“really?” his voice carried a strange satisfaction as he picked up the discarded bandages. he didn't look disappointed at all. in fact, his shoulders seemed to loosen even more. “why's that? he didn't know how to appreciate what he had?”

“he was just too much, too possessive. always wanted to know where i was.”

caleb stopped moving for a split second, his back to the fire. “hmm, can you really blame him?”

“yes, you can blame him.” you reached down, your fingers catching the hem of the grey sweatpants to slide the heavy fleece back down over your calves. “how would you feel if you had a partner like that? someone constantly demanding to know every single person you talk to?”

caleb stared up at you from beneath his fringes.

“i don't-” a faint, almost imperceptible tilt of his head accompanied the words. “i don't think i'd mind it at all.”

you let out a humorless click of your tongue, pulling the fabric down past your ankles. “you're just saying that because you've never actually experienced it.”

caleb simply laughs, “well... you've got me there, [name]. i guess i haven't really had the chance to be in a relationship yet.”

that caught your attention. 

“really? in five years? i remember girls in high school lining up to slide letters into your locker. you're telling me you never got into anything like that?”

“never,” he snapped the lid of the medical kit shut. “a few talking stages that fizzled out after a couple of weeks, maybe a blind date or two that my friends dragged me into because they felt sorry for me. but nothing too close. nothing that lasted.”

“that's pretty hard to believe.” 

caleb xia was the definition of the golden boy back then, as far as you could remember—approachable, attractive, naturally charismatic, and the exact type of guy most people wanted to take home to their parents. it didn't make sense that he was so utterly single. “what could possibly be the reason? are your standards just impossibly high or something?”

caleb stood up from the floor, lifting the medical kit in one hand. but instead of walking away to put it back on the side table, he stayed right there, standing over you in the dim glow of the hearth.

“hey, my standards aren't high at all, i think i'm actually pretty simple. when i find something- or someone- that actually catches my attention, i tend to, just, keep my focus entirely on them. i don't see the point in looking anywhere else if... if- the perfect thing is already right in front of me.” he tears his gaze away to put the first-aid back into its place.

“well, good luck finding that in the city. people change their minds every two weeks out there.” goddamn it, the pain below is really getting unbearable. you were far too focused on the throbbing ache in your thighs, your brain already drifting back to the logistics of tomorrow morning's drive to the police precinct. 

“maybe... but luckily for me, i'm a very patient guy. i don't mind waiting for- for a long time.” you hear him murmur. with his back faced to you like this, you can't really help yourself but trace the beautiful definition of his back muscles with your eyes, and the ridiculous ratio of his broad shoulders down to his waist. 

with that physique, he might be a liar, he definitely have some situationships going on.

caleb suddenly turns around to meet your eyes, making you instinctively avert them. “you still want that tea?”

“no thanks, i'm really... fine 'nough now.”

“i see. well, i think you probably couldn't sleep back there because of the cold,” he walked towards the hearth to throw more logs into the pit. only now you realized how dim the room had been getting when the fire crackled back into its fiery light. “you need the warmth here in the living room, no?”

you sheepishly smile. “would that be okay?”

“of course, [name].”

—

“you're kidding me.”

under the sun through the acacia trees, you squinted your eyes. 

the words didn't even have the energy to carry a real edge. they just fell out of your mouth, evaporating into the cold morning mist that hung thick between the towering leaves.

meanwhile, caleb didn't bother looking up from under the rusted hood of his dark blue pickup truck. he was hunched over the engine bay, the fabric of a sleeveless hoodie stretched tight across his shoulders. his hands, grease-stained and calloused, were buried deep near the battery terminal with a wrench catching the daylight.

“i wish i was, not gonna lie.” caleb muttered, his voice muffled by the metal hood. he let out a frustrated sigh that blossomed into a little puff of white steam in the damp air. “i've tried priming the pump, i've checked the spark plugs... nothing. the starter won't even click.”

you had woken up with a spark of renewed relief in your chest, because finally, finally, you can go back to where you feel the most safe, you can finally report whatever bullshit that happened to you yesterday. 

but instead, you were met with an apologetic boy trying to fix his truck because, apparently, the engine decided to end its own life overnight. 

“how does a truck that was running fine yesterday just die overnight, caleb?” you walked closer, your knuckles white as you shoved your hands deep into the pockets of the flannel shirt. 

he finally pulled his head out from under the hood, wiping a thick smear of black grease across his forehead with the back of his forearm. he looked at you through his messy fringes, and you caught the way his eyes looked a little bit too... puppy-like. 

“the storm,” caleb vaguely gestured. 

the ground was completely saturated, littered with fallen leaves and broken branches from the torrential downpour that had finally died down to a drizzle just before dawn. “with this much humidity and the drop in temperature, moisture probably got into the distributor cap. or a wire shorted out. these old engines are finicky as hell, [name]. i'm sorry.”

you stared at the truck, your jaw locked so tight it made your temples throb. 

a miracle. 

a perfect little miracle for a guy who had just told you last night how much he loved precise systems where nothing was left to variable.

“...i can't stay here,” you insisted, your voice rising just a fraction. “my family is probably contacting the police right now. and my manager... caleb, they're going to think i'm dead. i need to get to a phone. i need to get to the highway.”

“i know that.” he replied, stepping away from the bumper. “i know you do. but, we can't drive this thing until i figure out what's wrong with the ignition.”

“then i'll walk.”

caleb’s hand froze mid-air as he went to wipe his wrench with an old rag. his dark eyes narrowed. “walk? [name], you can barely take three steps without a limp.”

“i don't care. you have a map, or- or a compass. i know you do- this is a hunting cabin after all.”

“no.”

“what?”

caleb tossed the wrench onto the truck's battery cover with a clank that made you jump. “it's not just about the distance,” he took two steps toward you, his large frame instantly blocking out the morning light. “the highway is nearly seven miles from here, and there are ravines out there that are flooded right now from the storm. one bad slip and you'll tear those stitches wide open, and then you're bleeding out in the mud with nobody to help you.”

“i'll take my chances.” you muttered.

caleb raised a brow. “and what about the man with the knife, [name]? he could be sitting behind a tree just half a mile from here, waiting for you to walk right back into his arms. do you really want to risk that?”

your fingers curled into the rough cotton of his top, the cold reality of his words settling into your stomach like a block of ice.

he had a point. 

a terrifying, undeniable point. the monster was probably still out there.

“it's better to be safe,” caleb murmured, his tone softening back into that sweet cadence. “i'm not trying to keep you prisoner here, i swear. i want to get you home just as much as you want to go. but you have to trust me on this. it'll take me a few hours, maybe 'till noon.” he turns back to the hood of the truck with a frustrated frown. “just go back inside and let me do my job. okay?”

you let out a trembling sigh, looking away from his face to stare at the woods surrounding the clearing. you hated the situation. you hated how logical his arguments were, and you hated the warmth where his eyes had just been.

“fine,” you whispered, your shoulders slumping in defeat. “just... hurry up, please.”

“i will, promise.” 

you went back inside.

hours had bled away into the sluggish afternoon, and you had done nothing but count the knots in the pine ceiling and flip through the moldering pages of three-decade-old hunting manuals you found in the dusty cabinets. 

they got you nowhere. 

no phone numbers scribbled in the margins, no hidden emergency radios, no secret landlines. just instructions on how to field-dress a deer and diagrams of traps.

it was past two in the afternoon now. and this was getting ridiculous.

you paced the creaking floorboards of the living room, your bare toes digging into the cold grain of the wood. through the window pane, you watched caleb. he was still out there. his sleeveless hoodie was damp from the mist, broad back bent over the open hood of the truck with a disciplined concentration that should have been comforting. 

he looked like a saint, honestly. a boy working himself to the bone in the cold just to get an old classmate back to safety.

but the timing was too perfect. the dead engine was too convenient. and you couldn't afford to spend another night here, isolated in the middle of nowhere, wrapped in his clothes and eating his food.

your eyes drifted from the window, turning slowly toward the hallway.

there was a second door down there. it sat right beside the bedroom he had given you last night—a wooden door with no brass lock on the outside, completely quiet and unassuming. but it had been poking at the back of your mind since you woke up. and for some reason, a hum of intuition told you that behind that specific piece of wood lay the missing piece of the puzzle.

you glanced back out the window to see caleb having his back turned, and reaching for a socket wrench from his toolbox.

quietly, holding your breath until your lungs burned, you padded down the hallway. the floorboards seemed to hold their breath with you, refusing to creak just as you stopped in front of the door, your hand hovering over the cold brass knob. 

until, eventually, you stopped hesitating and twisted it. 

it wasn't locked. 

with an agonizingly slow click, the latch gave way, and the door swung inward.

you stepped inside, ready to find a dusty storage closet or a pile of old lumber. 

instead,

the room was... dark, the only light filtering through a heavy black curtain drawn tight over the single window, but it was enough to reveal a space that looked less like a cabin bedroom and more like the inside of an... obsessively structured mind.

you didn't know why, but your legs felt suddenly weak, a cold sweat breaking out across your forehead as you stepped deeper into the gloom. the walls weren't bare wood. they were covered in large corkboards, maps of the county and hand-drawn diagrams. and in the center of the main board, pinned with color-coded pushpins, was you.

it was a photo from your high school yearbook, your smiling face circled in faded red ink. but next to it were newer photos, candid shots. 

you walking to the vintage restaurant. 

you holding a trash bag in the alley behind the kitchen, captured from the treeline. 

you sitting by the register.

then, scrawled beneath the photos in a precise draftsman's print—the hand of an engineer—were pages of notes.

> [name]'s shift: 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

> route predictability: 94%

> vulnerability point: rear kitchen exit (blind spot from highway)

your hands began to tremble so violently you had to press them against your thighs to keep them still. your eyes darted across the board, picking apart the timeline he had constructed. there were outlines of schedules, maps of these very woods with red ink tracing the exact path you had run last night. there was even a drawing of a leather passenger seat with a detailed list of strap measurements.

so, he hadn't really saved you...? 

your eyes swept to another section of the wall, where photos of other people were pinned—friends you used to know, people you were still connected with in the city, and even your ex boyfriend. across his face, a line had been drawn in black marker, with a note written beside it: easily removed.

your brain screamed at you to run, to get out, to lock yourself away. but your eyes were drawn to the far corner of the room, where a smaller, shadow-draped board hung.

you took three slow steps toward it.

there were no yearbook photos there, there were polaroids instead. raw and flash-lit pictures of coldly pale skin, bloodshot eyes staring at nothing, and wet earth. 

dead bodies. 

people who had gone missing from the county over the last few years, their faces preserved in caleb's organized archive.

“what the fuck—...”

you stumbled backward, your heel catching on the edge of a small wooden stool. it caused you to hit the floorboards hard, the jarring impact sending a fresh flare of agony through your wounded thighs, but you barely felt it. you scrambled back on your hands and knees, your palms smacking against the cold wood as you frantically covered your mouth with both hands to choke back the sob of pure terror rising in your chest.

what the fuck is this? 

what the fuck did he do?

don’t scream. if you scream, he’ll know exactly how much of his little theater you’ve torn apart.

there was no time to feel the dizzying slide of panic in your veins. your body, now operating on a raw survival code, simply forced you up. you scrambled off the floorboards of that room, your numb fingers catching the edge of the doorframe to drag yourself out. and immediately, you pulled the wooden door shut behind you.

you stood in the hallway, your chest heaving in ragged hitches, your hands pressed flat against your ribs to keep your heart from bursting out of your skin. calm down. calm down. if you pass out now, you're dead.

you gulped down the air of the hallway, forcing your legs to carry you back to the living room. you limped to the windowpane, your fingertips pressing against the cold glass as you peered out into the misty clearing.

the truck hood was still open. the wrench was resting on the battery.

but caleb was gone.

shit. 

shit, where is he?

a cold prickling wave of dread washed down the back of your neck, and you abruptly turned around—

and there he was.

caleb was leaning casually against the laminate kitchen counter, holding a clear glass of water and slowly drinking from it. his violet eyes watched you over the rim, perfectly still, perfectly calm, tracking the frantic movement of your shoulders. he then lowered the glass, setting it down on the counter with a hollow thud, before using the back of his hand to wipe a stray drop of moisture from his chin.

“what's wrong?” he asked, a sweet smile touching the corners of his mouth. “why do you look so pale, [name]?”

you couldn't even bring yourself to answer. 

is he... is he the one with the mask? 

no, it didn't make sense. you had bitten the masked man's sleeve, you had wedged your knee into his chest, you had run while caleb found you. but the room... the photos of you and your friends with a black line through their face... the dead bodies...

it was an orchestration, wasn't it? 

a sick, meticulously trap designed to drop you right into his waiting arms. and he was playing the savior so perfectly. 

this sick bitch.

caleb's brow furrowed, his expression changing into a soft look of pure concern. “hey, are you alright?”

he looked so soft. he looked like the kind of boy you could rely on when the world was falling apart. it was disgusting. it was terrifying.

your eyes darted wildly around the room. a weapon. i need a weapon right now. your gaze flicked to the fireplace tools—the heavy iron poker—but it was too far. you looked to the kitchen counter, but caleb was blocking the knives. you were trapped.

caleb’s brow raised slightly, his tone softening even more. “are you hurt? did the wounds on your thighs start bothering you again? let me see, i can—”

“stay back!” you screamed, the sound tearing out of your throat, raw and jagged. you pressed your back hard against the wall near the window. “i'm getting out of this house! don't you dare come near me! stay the fuck back!”

caleb stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes widening in what looked like genuine fear. the sudden outburst actually seemed to startle him. he quickly raised both of his hands in front of his chest, palms open and facing you in a classic gesture of surrender.

“whoa—whoa, [name], okay! easy,” he stammered, his voice trembling slightly as if your anger was physically hurting him. the safe-boy mask was still pinned so perfectly to his face. “i’m not coming closer. i swear. please, just breathe. the engine... i’m almost done fixing it, okay? just ten more minutes. please, just sit down, calm down, and let me make you some tea—"

you didn't let him finish.

you didn't care about his hands, or his voice, or the pathetic, frightened look in his eyes. you just lunged toward the front door, your feet slipping slightly on the timber—

“don't open that fucking door, [name].”

you stopped.

the hand you had stretched toward the brass deadbolt froze, hovering barely an inch from the metal. you couldn't move. your feet felt as though they had been poured into the floor, rooted by a sudden paralyzing instinct that warned you any sudden movement would end in violence. you didn't look back at him. you couldn't bring yourself to face whatever had just taken the place of the guy that had been so good to you.

then, you heard him sigh. 

it wasn't the frustrated breath of a man losing his temper, but an almost endearing sound, like a parent watching a child refuse to eat their dinner. the scuff of his socks against the wood started up again, drawing closer and closer.

“i'm sorry...” 

another step closer.

“you just... you've been acting so off since this morning, [name]. why won't you just trust me?”

the hypocrisy of it reeked. 

you didn't move as he stepped into your space. the heat of his chest pressed nearly against your back, casting his shadow completely over the door. slowly, his hand reached around your face, fingers remarkably steady while they caught the edge of your jaw, gently but firmly lifting your chin. his skin was hot against your cold face. and with his other hand, he reached past your shoulder, his fingers intentionally wrapping around the brass handle of the door.

your breath hitched.

god, what do i do?

your mind scrambled and dug into the walls of your brain, fighting to find a way out. you couldn't fight him—not with your legs this torn up, not in his territory. if you ran, he’d track you down in the timber in minutes. if you screamed, no one would hear you. so...

the only way out was to play the game. 

you had to dismantle him from the inside, lower his guard, and make him believe his perfect plan was working exactly as planned.

you gulped, forcing the frantic rhythm of your chest to slow down, forcing your hands to uncurl. then, slowly, you turned your head to meet caleb's questioning gaze.

his face was so close, eyes wide and looking down at you with a searching innocence that made your stomach twist with revulsion. he looked like he genuinely cared. he looked like he was waiting for you to tell him it was all just a bad dream.

“i...” 

you looked at his lips, then back up to his eyes. 

“i found it.”

caleb’s brow furrowed, his head tilting slightly to the side as his fingers finally removed themselves from your chin. “found what, [name]?”

“the... the pictures,” you whispered, letting your gaze drop to his chest, then slowly rise back to his face, just to make sure your eyes looked warm and convincing enough. “in that room. i... i found everything, caleb.”

the wind outside seemed to die down, leaving only the sound of your own breathing.

you just hoped to yourself that whatever it is you were planning would also work as perfectly as caleb's did. otherwise, the universe would be a sick, unfair thing.

caleb just blinked down at you, and you couldn't seem to figure out what look he had on his face. his eyes, reflecting the dim light of the cabin, stared into yours without a single shred of readable emotion. it was like looking into a pair of deep wells.

he smiled, then.

a screeping tilt of his mouth that crinkled the edges of his eyes, blooming into a face of what seemed like euphoric disbelief.

“you found them?”

“yes,” you forced a shaky laugh to escape your lips, playing the part of the girl who had finally found her savior. “and i... i just wish you would've told me sooner, b-because... i've been waiting.” you gulped. “i've been waiting for you, too.”

caleb put on a frown. “really? you... you aren't disgusted? you accept me?”

you swallowed hard, nodding your head. “yes, i accept you.”

“even if i've been plotting this since high school, [name]?”

“even then,” you whispered, nodding again.

“even if it took me this long to finally find the courage to speak to you?”

“yes.”

“even if...” you watched the way his eyes narrowed, lingering just right below your neck. “i killed people for you?”

your stomach did a sickening flip, but you forced your expression to remain compliant. “even then.”

“even if it thrilled me when i cut your thighs?”

when i cut your thighs...?

so the man in the car... the monster with the knife...

it really was him.

but how? where was the car he had used? how had he chased you through the mud, sliced your legs, and then somehow circled back to “find” you and carry you to his cabin without a single drop of mud on his clothes? how had he flawlessly executed a sequence that should have been physically impossible? and if he was this dead-obsessed with you—if he had built a literal shrine to your existence in his spare room—why would he hurt you? why would he carve into your flesh?

is he really that fucked in the head? 

he wasn't just an obsessive stalker. he was a sadist. a monster who needed to break you, to bleed you, just so he could be the one to stitch you back together and play the hero.

you had to answer. you had to.

forcing your eyes to soften, forcing the horror back into the darkest corners of your mind, you let out a trembling sigh. 

“yes.” 

the shuddering breath that left caleb’s chest was shaky, thick with an almost pathetic relief. 

he let his eyes slip shut, his shoulders finally dropping when he leaned forward to rest his forehead directly against yours. it's like he left only the boy who looked entirely drunk on your submission.

only now you realized that his fingers were already on your neck, sliding up to tangle into the strands of your hair and cradling your head like a piece of porcelain. “such a pretty, pretty little thing... i knew you'd understand. i knew it had to be you.”

but behind your closed eyes, your mind was nothing but a machine. you gulped, the sensation of his hand on your throat still making your skin crawl, but you forced your pulse to steady. keep it together. you needed to break this stalemate. you couldn't stay in this cabin for another hour, let alone another night. if you kept playing the passive victim, he would keep you here forever.

you needed him weak. you needed him distracted, his guard completely shattered, so you could find an opening, grab whatever heavy object was closest, and run.

and the fastest way to blind a boy like caleb was to give him exactly what he’d been dreaming about since high school.

without saying a word, you reached up, your fingers wrapping slowly around the side of his jaw. 

caleb perked up instantly. 

his eyes snapped open, pupils blown so wide they almost swallowed the deep purple of his irises. he looked down at you with a breathless, desperate anticipation—like a stray puppy waiting for a hand to finally feed it.

and then, dreadfully, you leaned in and pressed your lips against his.

it's the perfect distraction, and–

you had experience. you knew the rhythm of it, how to tilt your head, how to apply just enough pressure to make a man lose his focus. but caleb was an entirely different story.

the moment your lips met his, his entire body went rigid. for a split second, he didn't even seem to know how to breathe, his lips dry and unmoving against yours as if the sheer shock of the contact had short-circuited his brain. it was the kiss of a boy who had never done this before—clumsy, hesitant, and utterly terrified of breaking the illusion.

but the innocence didn't last.

“mhmm—” 

as the realization of what was happening finally sank into his brain, caleb got completely carried away. another needy groan vibrated deep in his throat—a desperate sound that echoed in the cabin. before you could even pull away, his large hand slid down from your neck, arms wrapping tightly around your waist like iron bands.

and with a sudden tug, he pulled you backward. his bare thighs hit the armrest of the nearby couch, and he sank onto it, dragging you with him until you were standing flush between his knees.

he didn't let go of your mouth for a single second. the kisses became heavier, deeper, and uncomfortably loud as his lips parted against yours. a deep frown was etched across his brow, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as if he were trying to force himself to wake up from a dream he couldn't quite comprehend. 

the sound of his mouth against yours suddenly cut off as caleb pulled back. he didn't go far—just a fraction of an inch, just enough for the cold draft of the cabin to rush between your lips, leaving them chilled and slick. his chest was heaving, torso expanding and contracting in heavy hitches while he stared directly into your eyes. 

from this close, the bruised purple of his pupils looked almost black, dilated so wide that the iris was nearly gone.

slowly, a cruel smirk carved its way across his mouth.

“you're good,” caleb whispered, his voice a low vibration that brushed against your wet lips.

“you're really, really good, [name]. but i'm not an easy guy to fool.”

your hands, still resting against the sides of his neck, went cold.

“you saw everything. of course you're terrified of me.” his smirk widened, and his fingers tightened around your hips. “you even wanted to run out that door the second you realized what i did. so... what are you kissing me for, huh?”

your eyes widened slightly, your breath catching in your throat. he knows. the universe was indeed a sick, unfair thing, but you should have expected this. as irreversibly sick in the head as caleb xia was, he wasn't stupid. he was an engineer. he spent his life calculating variables, measuring tolerances, and anticipating failure points. of course he had planned for the possibility of you trying to manipulate him.

you couldn't speak. your tongue felt like lead in your mouth as you simply stared at him, the carefully crafted mask of compliance slipping away to reveal the terror underneath.

seeing the fear finally return to your face, caleb let out an amused sigh. he pulled back a bit more, putting a physical distance between your faces, though he remained sitting on the armrest with you standing locked between his knees. deliberately, his hands slid off your hips, his arms dropping to his sides in a gesture that looked mockingly like surrender.

“if you're really that scared of me... then go. run away. the door is right there.”

he nodded toward the exit behind you.

it felt too good to be true. it was a trap—it had to be. but as you stared at the brass deadbolt just feet away, your survival instinct screamed at you that staying here, trapped between his knees, was a guaranteed death sentence. it would be incredibly stupid not to take a chance in a desperate situation like this. if you could just get the door open, if you could just reach the misty treeline...

you inhaled a sharp breath, gathering every ounce of strength left in your aching thighs.

then, you turned on your heel and lunged for the door.

but you didn't even make it a single step.

before your foot could fully plant on the floor, caleb’s hand abruptly wrapped around your upper arm like a steel cuff. and with a violent surge of strength, he tugged you harshly backward. the world instantly spun in a blur of gray as your feet lost their grip, and your body was slammed hard down onto the cushions of the couch. 

“ah—!”

and before you knew it, caleb was already over you.

it was indeed too good to be true. 

his frame completely pinned you into the deep cushions, blocking out the light, the room, and the air. and immediately, as if afraid that he might also lose a chance, his mouth was already devouring yours from above.

it wasn't the clumsy kiss of a boy anymore. it was a rabid, starving thing. he pinned your wrists to the couch on either side of your head, his calloused hands locking over your joints with a crushing force that left no room for struggle. you writhed beneath him, trying to turn your head away, trying to keep your neck angled high to escape the suffocating heat of his face, but he simply used his weight to hold you down, lapping at your mouth, his lips parting yours with a wild hunger.

“god— hmm...” he was kissing you as if he were trying to pull the very breath out of your lungs, his head tilting from side to side to drink you in deeper, harder, completely losing himself in the taste of you.

finally.

that was the only word echoing through the hollow spaces of his head as he crushed your body beneath his. finally.

your fingers, pinned flat against the couch, twitched helplessly beneath the crushing weight of his palms. you tried to keep up. you tried to keep your head above, trying to maintain the distance that had kept you alive since last night. but the overwhelming reality of him was starting to dissolve the boundaries of your own mind.

why were you keeping up? 

all of this, all of it—it was a visceral assault on your senses. it felt gross. it felt incredibly, deeply gross to be the literal centerpiece of a sick years-long blueprint, to have your body subjected to the whims of his twisted fantasies. but as his weight settled more heavily beside your thighs, pinning you down until you couldn't move an inch...

it felt... good?

it felt good.

you found yourself ghost-blinking, your vision swimming as a sudden feverish warmth crawled up from your chest, flooding your throat and burning across your cheeks, before pooling into an ache in your lower body. you were completely paralyzed by it, caught in a terrifying tug-of-war between your survival instincts and a thrill you had never felt before. but you didn't dare kiss him back. you kept your lips stiff, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response, even as your body betrayed you.

caleb, still lapping hungrily at your mouth, finally and unwillingly began to pull away.

the transition was painfully slow, his lips dragging against yours with a heavy reluctance. as he lifted his head just a few inches, a glistening string of saliva stretched between your parted lips, bridging the tiny gap between you before it finally snapped.

your chest hitched. 

the sight of it made a burning blush erupt across your face. you couldn't explain it to yourself. you didn't know how to place the sudden, wild drumming of your pulse. it felt like discovering a hidden corridor inside your own house, a door you had never known existed, and you had absolutely no idea what to do with the monster waiting inside it.

above you, caleb stared down. his eyes narrowed, glassy, and wild, like a lovesick dog that had finally been thrown a scrap of meat but was still starving for the whole meal.

his fingers tightened around your wrists with a sudden bruising force, pinning your arms so hard against the leather you could feel the pulse in his own palms hammering against your skin. 

“i didn't do any of this to hurt you, [name],” he whispered frantically, eyes scanning your face, searching for any sign of comprehension in your gaze. “you have to believe me. you have to understand. i've been so quiet for so long. for five years- five years of watching you from afar, watching you walk home, watching other people take your time, watching them treat you like you were just... normal.” a breathless laugh escaped his lips. “like you weren't the center of the fucking universe.”

his forehead dropped for a split second to press against yours, closing his eyes shut.

“the people who tried to touch you, the ones who thought they had a right to you—” then, he opens his eyes ajar, pulling away just an inch. “i had to clear them out. i had to. because no one else could love you like this. no one else would go this far for you, [name].” 

he gulps, letting out a small grunt. “no one.”

his grip on your wrists tightened even more, the bones of your hands aching under his hold, but his expression was so incredibly, terrifyingly soft. 

“tell me you understand that. please. tell me you see it now.”

he didn't look away, he couldn't. his entire body trembled with the weight of his own confession, desperately waiting for you to say something. to curse him, to scream, to agree—anything.

but you remained flush beneath his grip.

you lay there, pinned to the couch. the words washed over you in a dizzying wave, but you couldn't process a single one. you couldn't think. you couldn't move. you could only listen to the rhythmic beating of your heart against your chest. only that. 

caleb watched the rise and fall of your chest, tracking the silent rhythm of your breath as you lay trapped beneath him. you weren't screaming. you weren't trying to tear your wrists from his fingers anymore.

a drop of satisfaction settled into his features. to a mind as twisted as his, the absence of a fight wasn't fear—it was an invitation. it was consent.

slowly, his gaze drifted away from your face. his eyes traveled down the column of your throat, sliding past the open collar of his oversized flannel shirt, before tracking the line of your torso. and finally, his eyes landed specifically on your thighs.

even beneath the sweatpants, the muscles in your legs were locked rigid, your knees pressing together so tightly that the fabric was bunched and strained between your joints.

caleb raised a single brow. his eyes flicked from your locked knees back up to your face.

fuck.

the warmth that had pooled in your lower body was a physical weight now, and the fact that he was actively studying it made a sudden surge of panic flare up in your chest.

“let go,” you choked out, twisting your hips and jerking your wrists in a frantic effort to hide yourself from his stare. 

his palms remained locked over your wrists like iron clamps, while he just watched your struggles with a curiosity, his head tilting slightly. “why are you doing that?” 

you stopped twisting, your teeth clicking together as your glare turned into a frown. “doing what?”

then, without warning, the suffocating weight above you vanished.

caleb simply let go of your wrists. he rose from the couch in one motion, his bare feet hitting the timber floor without a sound. 

he turned his gaze entirely toward the front door. and when he turned his face back toward the couch, the sadist from a second ago was gone. his eyes were bright, his face soft, and that sweet, reliable smile was pinned neatly across his lips. “the engine is finally fixed. the moisture cleared out of the distributor cap while we were... catching up.”

you sat up slowly, your elbows trembling as you propped your weight up on the cushions. what the actual fuck?

“i can drive you home now,” caleb continued, walking over to the side table to pick up his truck keys. “or the police precinct. or anywhere else you want to go. let's get you sorted out, yeah?”

you just stared at him, completely bewildered, your brain grinding to a screeching halt. he couldn't just do this. he couldn't build a literal shrine to you, kiss you like that, pin you to a couch until you were wrecked, and then just pull back and offer to take you to a drive-thru the next second. it was insane. the sheer whiplash-inducing absurdity of his behavior was breaking your ability to process the situation.

caleb turned on his heel, turning his back to you as he took two easy strides toward the wooden exit.

fuck it.

your survival instinct was screaming at you to just let him open the door, to get into the truck and never look back, but the chaos of the entire afternoon had pushed you past the breaking point.

“caleb,” you called out.

he paused, his hand hovering just inches away from the door handle. smiling, he turned his head back over his shoulder.

“hmm?”

“what are you doing?” 

caleb fully turned his body away from the door, his hand dropping loosely to his side with the truck keys giving a jingle in his palm. “what do you mean?” 

a spike of frustration flared up in your chest, mixing dangerously with the adrenaline still lingering in your veins. what was he trying to pull? did this look like a joke to him? the absolute whiplash of his behavior—switching from a dead-obsessed guy on top of you to a polite, helpful one in the span of thirty seconds—was maddening. 

you took a slow breath, your fingers digging into the cushion of the couch. “replace the bandages,” you told him. “before we go anywhere. they're bleeding again.”

caleb blinked at you, a momentary flash of surprise crossing his features, but it was gone just as quickly as it came. 

“of course,” he murmured, setting the keys down on the kitchen counter. “give me a second.”

minutes later, the quiet of the cabin was broken only by the pop of the first-aid box latches. you sat on the edge of the couch, your spine rigid, watching caleb lowering himself onto one knee on the floor directly in front of you. he was focused, broad shoulders hunched forward while he neatly laid out the fresh rolls of gauze, the medical tape, and a packet of antiseptic wipes onto the small wooden coffee table.

you pursed your lips inward, your fingers reaching down to the elastic waistband of the grey sweatpants, preparing to roll the heavy fleece back up your thighs.

“actually,” caleb said, without looking up from his neat arrangement of the medical supplies. “take them off this time.”

your fingers froze against the fabric.

“the blood's probably soaked through to the inner lining by now,” he explained, before he lifted his eyes to meet yours through his bangs. “if you keep them on, the fabric's just going to rub against the fresh dressing while i'm driving. i'll just grab you a new pair of pants from my room before we walk out.”

you hesitated for a long, heavy second. every sensible instinct in your brain told you to refuse, to maintain whatever boundary you had left. but there was something else shifting beneath the surface—a pull of submission, a curiosity that quietly nudged you to just see how far this would go.

keeping your eyes locked on his face, your hands gripped the waistband. you slid the fleece down past your hips, down your thighs, and kicked the sweatpants away, leaving your legs bare, covered in nothing but your underwear.

but caleb didn't look.

he didn't lean in, he didn't smirk, and his eyes didn't wander down the exposed line of your hips. instead, he kept his gaze entirely focused on the task at hand, his fingers moving with a careful discipline as he reached out and gently peeled back the blood-stained cotton from your torn skin.

“sorry,” his thumb lightly brushed the undamaged skin just above the laceration to steady his hand. “sorry about these.”

even with the pants gone, you couldn't help it—your knees were still locked together, your inner thighs pressing flush against each other in an instinctive attempt to hide the dampness ruined into your underwear.

with a fresh roll of gauze held between his fingers, caleb looked up at you from his knee on the floor. his expression was entirely too innocent, brow tilting up with that infuriatingly boyish look.

“if you keep pressing your legs together like that, i won't be able to wrap the tension properly. they're just going to split again.” he let out a quiet chuckle. “come on. relax for a second.”

the audacity of the sound made your jaw tighten. you didn't know what was happening to you anymore. the logic of the world had unraveled within the span of an hour. you knew who he was now; you knew what lay behind that closed door down the hall. you should have been frozen in pure, unadulterated terror. you should have been vomiting from the revulsion of sitting naked in front of a monster.

but you weren't. 

instead, that heat was turning into a literal ache between your hips. your pulse was hammering directly into the cushion beneath you, your skin hyper-aware of the cool air traveling over your bare skin. why are you like this? why do you want him to do something?

with a gulp, you slowly let your muscles give way.

you spread your legs just an inch or two, exposing the wet patch blooming right through the center of your cotton panties.

caleb’s eyes dropped down.

he stared at the damp fabric for one long, unblinking second, but he just wordlessly forced his gaze back down to the lacerations on your right thigh, his throat moving as he swallowed hard. his hands became incredibly precise, almost stiff, as he rapidly laid the clean pad down and began winding the white gauze around your leg, securing it with three tight strips of medical tape.

once the final piece of tape was smoothed down against your skin, caleb didn't linger. he immediately picked up the discarded wrappers, dropping them into the white first-aid box and snapping the latches shut.

you blinked, the sudden withdrawal leaving you feeling strangely hollow. trying to shake the dizzying fog from your head, you leaned forward, your fingers reaching toward the floor to grab the discarded sweatpants.

“are you just going to leave it like that?”

caleb’s voice cut through the room, low and raspy. 

your hand froze on the fleece.

then, you looked up. he was still kneeling between your feet, his hands resting flat against his own knees. 

“do you want to take care of that too before we go?” he had asked.

the question left you staring at him, bewildered, with your mouth parting slightly. you felt yourself grow even wetter, the cotton clinging miserably to your skin as the ache intensified.

caleb didn't wait for a verbal answer, because your reaction was written entirely across your burning face.

he stared at you for one more second, and then, his hands reached forward, fingers wrapped firmly around the insides of your knees. with an unyielding pressure, he pushed his arms outward, spreading your legs even wider, just to leave you open and exposed to him.

he kept his dilated eyes locked directly onto yours from below, his mouth curving into a small smile. “i guess that makes the two of us, then.”

his thumbs swept slowly across your skin, tracing burning circles right over the edges of the fresh white bandages, his eyes never leaving yours. 

“you're shaking,” the contrast was dizzying—the innocent smile still pinned to his face while his pupils were dilated so wide they looked like pools of leaked ink. “is it because it's cold in here, [name]? or is it because you're finally realizing you belong right here?”

“shut up.” you choked out, your knuckles turning white as you dug your fingernails into the cushions beneath you. your brain was screaming at you, a siren warning you that this was the man who had carved into your flesh, the monster who had mapped out your entire life on a corkboard down the hall. 

but your body was operating on an entirely different command. the dampness between your legs had soaked through the cotton, and the cool air of the cabin rushing over your exposed skin made the ache unbearable.

caleb let out an amused hum, the sound vibrating against your bare knees as he slowly lowered his head. he leaned in close to your right leg, his warm breath fanning across your skin a second before his lips pressed down against your inner thigh.

god.

the kiss was slow, heavy, and searingly hot. he dragged his mouth upward, his lips parting slightly as he nipped at the soft skin just an inch away from the white gauze wrap. you let out an involuntary gasp, your hips jerking slightly against the couch.

“caleb—stop—” the protest was weak, entirely devoid of any real force.

“can't do that,” he whispered against your skin. “you're too wet, [name]. it's messy. let me clean it up for you.”

he shifted, dropping fully to both knees between your feet while his hands slid up from your knees, his palms flattening against the outsides of your hips, anchoring you into the cushions so firmly you couldn't move an inch even if you tried. he looked up at you one last time, a lovesick gaze taking over his features before he bent his head down completely.

his nose nudged the edge of your panties, pushing the damp cotton aside with a single finger until he found you.

when his tongue first made contact, a broken sob immediately tore right out of your throat.

“hngh-!”

it was slow. agonizingly slow. caleb wasn't rushing to finish, it was like he was testing you, studying the way your breath hitched, measuring just how much you resisted him. his tongue was broad, hot, and thick as he swiped it upward, tracing the sensitive length of your clit with his mouth. it made your toes curl inside his wool socks, your back arching off the couch.

“you can't... just...” your logic was losing the war, shattering into pieces under the heat of his mouth.

caleb let out a rumble of satisfaction against your skin, his hands gripping your hips tighter, his fingers digging into your flesh. he began to pick up the pace, his tongue lapping at you hungrily and drinking in the sweet taste of your cunt with an uncomfortably loud sucking. 

he was testing himself too, learning the exact angles that made you writhe, the specific way that made your breathing turn into desperate pants. every time you tried to pull away, tried to reassemble the logic that told you he was dangerous, he would use his tongue to push you right back over the edge, lapping you down from below until you were helpless under his control.

“you taste so good,” he gasped out, pulling away for a mere fraction of a second, his lips shiny and wet in the dim light before he buried his face right back between your thighs. “so perfect. i knew you would. i knew it.”

the heat between your thighs suddenly vanished, leaving the sensitive skin tingling and cold against the drafty air of the cabin. you let out a whine, your head tossing against the cushion as you blinked through the dizzying haze of pleasure.

but caleb didn't give you room to breathe.

he crawled up your body like a shadow, his large frame blocking out the rest of the room as he pinned you back down into the couch. he was panting, his purple eyes fixed on your face with a rabid hunger.

“you're... so loud for me, [name],” he rasped, his voice a deep, gravelly vibration that brushed against your burning cheek. “i love it. i love hearing what i do to you.”

before you could even gather the breath to respond, his hands slid up your torso, his fingers hooking into the front of the oversized flannel shirt. with one tug, he parted the fabric to bare your chest to the cool air and his scorching gaze. your breath hitched sharply as his eyes locked onto your breasts.

“...so beautiful. so perfect.” he breathed.

and immediately, caleb leaned down, his mouth targeting your left breast while his large hand cupped the right one, his calloused thumb rubbing over the sensitive tip with a pinch that made you arch off the cushions. when his hot tongue finally swiped across your nipple, a broken gasp tore out of your throat.

he took your nipple into his mouth, his lips locking around it as he sucked deeply, pulling the sensitive nub against the roof of his mouth. 

“caleb—ah! wait—” you whimpered, your hands flying to his broad shoulders, your fingers digging into the hard muscle to push him away.

your logic was screaming at you, a fading voice telling you how humiliating this was, how deeply wrong it was to be falling apart under the touch of the man who had orchestrated your capture. the shame burned hotter than the blush on your face. but even as your hands pressed against his shoulders to push, your hips instinctively tilted upward, begging for something more, for something else. 

caleb switched sides, his wet mouth dragging across your chest to devour your other breast, his tongue lapping and swirling around the stiff peak until you were panting.

“...you like it,” he murmured against your skin, “you want more, don't you? tell me.”

“no... i don't—ah!”

the lie died instantly in your throat, turning into a ragged sob as a sudden intrusion stretched you open from below.

while your mind had been entirely consumed by the sensation of his mouth on your tits, caleb had slid his hand back down your abdomen. his fingers had touched the cotton of your underwear, and without a single word of warning, he had buried two of his fingers deep inside your tight warmth.

the suddenness of it made your toes curl once more, your fingers instantly gripping his hair to pull him hard against your chest. his fingers were so long, stretching you open before he immediately began to pump them inside you, his knuckles rubbing hard against your clit with every thrust.

caleb's tongue dragged flat over your wet nipple, his teeth catching the peak just hard enough to make your hips jerk off the cushions. he sucked it deep into his mouth, chest expanding with a rough breath while his two fingers drove all the way into you, bottoming out against your tight walls.

the sliding sound of his knuckles against your soaked panties filled the space between you, sharp and uncomfortably loud.

caleb pulled his mouth away from your breast, his eyes locked onto yours with his messy bangs brushing your forehead. a slow, small smile crept across his lips—that same dependable expression he used when he was tending to you last night, now utterly curdled by the sight of you pinned beneath him like this.

“shh, it's okay,” he whispered, suddenly pulling his fingers out of your heat. “i'm just taking care of you, [name]. we can't have you getting into the truck all wet like this,” and then, he plunges them back into you much, much deeper again. “that'd be something, wouldn't it?” 

“fuck you,” you choked out, the curse losing all its weight when he suddenly hooked his fingers and drove them faster, hitting your spot with a punishing pace.

“ah—! caleb—”

you were a complete hypocrite. 

your brain was screaming at you that this was the man who had planned your isolation, the monster who had cut your legs, but your body was entirely detached from your sanity. shame burned hot in your throat, a nauseating weight in your stomach, but as he drove his fingers in even faster, your knees instinctively fell further apart.

you spread yourself wider for him, your thighs loosening and opening your pussy to his hands as you chased the pressure of his knuckles.

caleb let out a grunt that was followed by a chuckle, “hmm, look at you. look how wide you're opening up for me.”

he drove his hand in harder, his thumb pressing firmly against your clit, rubbing in circles with every wet thrust. 

“caleb, please—fuck—stop, it's too much—!”

“no, it's not?” he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his hot breath blooming against your skin. “you want this. just take it, [name]. let me finish taking care of you.”

the friction inside you became too much, the pressure of his knuckles building into a wave that you couldn't fight anymore. your breath caught in your chest, your fingers clawing uselessly at the fabric of his hoodie as you felt something tightening into a knot in your lower abdomen. your logic, your shame, the memory of the room down the hall—everything completely shattered as the sensation pushed you over the edge.

you fell straight into an orgasm.

“caleb—ah! caleb!”

your thighs convulsed, legs trembling against the cushions as you came hard right against his hand, the muscles inside you clamping down around his fingers in pulses. you were utterly mortified, tears of pure overstimulation stinging the corners of your eyes, but your body was utterly out of your control.

and caleb didn't stop.

even as your hips bucked and your legs shook, he kept his fingers inside you just to continue to pump his hand. he didn't slacken the pace for a single second, driving his hand in deep, forcing you to ride out the hypersensitive waves of the climax. 

“aw, look at that,” he squeezed and grunted his voice. “look how much you're cumming for me, [name].”

he gave two more deep, dragging thrusts, bottoming out against your walls one last time before he finally and slowly curled his fingers and pulled his hand out of you.

the sudden withdrawal left you feeling empty, shivering instantly as the cool air hit your wet skin. you lay there helpless, your arms thrown back against the cushions, your chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath. 

you watched the way caleb lifted his wet hand, how his fingers were coated in your orgasm, shining in the low light. keeping his eyes locked onto yours, he brought his hand to his mouth and wrapped his lips around his middle fingers, sucking the slick moisture off his skin.

you widened your eyes, “hey, that's-”

he suddenly reached up, his palm resting gently on the top of your head. his fingers smoothed through your messy hair, patting you with a smile that felt terrifyingly domestic, like a pet owner rewarding a good animal. 

“there,” caleb murmured. “is that already better, [name]? did i take good care of it for you?”

he let his hand slide down from your hair, his thumb lightly brushing the side of your knee where your legs lay loose and parted against the cushions.

“no more legs tightening now, right?”

“shut up.”

caleb stayed kneeling between your feet for a few moments longer, his serene smile never wavering as his thumb traced a gentle circle on the side of your knee. “i'll get those pants for you now.” 

he stood up, his bare feet making no sound against the floor while he walked toward the hallway. you watched his broad frame disappear down the corridor, heading toward the bedroom—past the heavy wooden door that held the corkboards, the maps, the candid photos of your life, and the polaroids of the dead.

the second he was out of sight, the spell broke.

the fog in your brain cleared with a sudden, violent snap. the shame was a bitter taste in the back of your throat, but you couldn't afford to sink into it. your legs were loose now, the tight tension gone, replaced by a cold adrenaline. you sat up, your bare feet hitting the floor. 

you didn't wait for the new pants, instead you grabbed the discarded ones on the floor and put them back on again. 

then, your eyes locked onto the kitchen counter.

there, resting on the laminate wood right next to the empty glass of water, was the heavy metal keyring. the keys to the truck.

holding your breath, you stood up on your trembling, bandaged legs. every step was a sharp flare of agony against the fresh gauze, but you pushed through it, padding silently across the living room. your fingers closed around the cold metal of the keys, wrapping tight to keep them from jingling.

you turned toward the front door, before your hand gripped the brass deadbolt.

click.

the sound of the latch releasing felt as loud as a gunshot in the cabin.

“[name?]”

you didn't look back. you threw the door open, the air of the misty afternoon hitting your bare skin like a physical blow. you lunged out into the gray light, your wool-socked feet slipping on the wet grass as you sprinted toward the open hood of the truck.

slimming into the driver's seat, you jammed the key into the ignition and turned it. the engine roared to life, coughing violently before settling into a rumble.

through the grimy windshield, you saw him.

caleb had stepped out onto the porch of the cabin. he didn't run down the steps. he didn't scream your name. he just stood there in the mist, holding a pair of neatly folded red flannel pajama pants in his left hand. his eyes locked onto yours through the glass, his face entirely expressionless as the wind whipped his messy bangs across his forehead.

you slammed the truck into reverse, the tires spinning and spraying thick mud into the air as you backed out of the clearing. you threw the gear into drive, stamping your foot down on the gas pedal, tearing down the overgrown dirt track that led toward the highway.

the trees blurred past in a sickening rush of green and gray. you were breathing hard, tears finally spilling over your hot cheeks as you gripped the steering wheel so hard your knuckles turned white. 

finally, you were escaping. you were going home.

but as your eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror, watching the silhouette of the cabin disappear into the dense timber behind you, a sickening realization settled deep into your chest.

you had the truck. you had the keys. but he had the blueprints. he had your schedule, your routes, your predictable blind spots, and the black line drawn neatly across the face of everyone you loved. you were driving back to the city, back to your life, but you knew—with a certainty—that you were just moving along the exact path he had already paved for you.

You’d marched straight over, hauled his sick ass off the couch with far more determination than either of your feverish bodies probably should’ve possessed, and informed him that if he intended to survive the week, he’d be sleeping in an actual bed, in yours, with you, like he usually would when he’d stay in Linkon. Caleb, of course, had immediately argued that he didn’t want to kick you out of your own room. You, equally stubborn and feeling far too miserable to entertain his self-sacrificing nonsense, had threatened him with death if he didn’t stop being an idiot and listen.

What followed was several exhausting minutes of arguing in circles, both of you wrapped in blankets, shivering despite the warmth of the apartment while your fevers drained whatever little energy you had left. Every point he raised was met with another from you. Every excuse he offered was shot down almost as quickly as he could think of it, until the entire conversation blurred into one long, fever-induced cycle of stubbornness neither of you was truly equipped to win.

Eventually, whether because he realized you weren’t backing down or because he simply didn’t have the strength to keep arguing anymore, Caleb let out a long, tired sigh. His shoulders sagged in quiet defeat, and without another complaint, he finally gave in, obediently following you down the short hallway toward your bedroom.

You’d already turned on the heating pad beneath the blankets near the foot of the bed, knowing your perpetually cold feet would be miserable otherwise, and had pulled on a pair of fuzzy socks before climbing underneath the comforter beside him. Both of you were dressed in your pajamas, looking every bit as pitiful as you felt, though Caleb’s choice of sleepwear did him absolutely no favors.

Normally, he was practically a human furnace. It was one of the many things you relentlessly teased him about, considering he could somehow be warm even in the middle of winter. Apparently, the flu had robbed him of that particular talent. Dressed in nothing more than a baggy T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, he curled into his side of the bed with the blankets pulled up to his neck, trying, and failing, to hide the occasional shiver that ran through him. His nose was flushed from blowing it all day, his hair stuck out in soft, sleep-rumpled tufts, and the exhaustion settling over his features made him look far younger than the composed, dependable colonel everyone else knew.

After a moment, he cautiously slipped one hand out from beneath the warmth of the blankets, visibly regretting it the instant the cool air hit his skin. He fumbled around the nightstand until his fingers found the television remote, then pressed the power button. The screen flickered to life, filling the dim bedroom with soft light and the familiar murmur of whatever happened to be playing, giving the two of you something mindless to watch while you waited for the worst of the flu to pass.

“it’s so bright,” you whined, tugging the comforter over your head until the blanket cocooned you from the harsh glow spilling across the room. Even with your eyes squeezed shut, the light seemed to press insistently against your eyelids, making your already pounding head throb even harder, “Caleb, can you turn the lights off if you’re gonna have the TV on?”

“Sure.”

He was already pushing himself upright before you had even finished asking. Every movement looked sluggish, weighed down by the same fever that had settled into your own bones. His voice was thick with congestion, each word muffled by the stuffiness clogging his sinuses, while the lingering flush across his cheeks and the tiredness clouding his eyes made it painfully obvious how miserable he felt. Still, he shuffled across the room without complaint, shoulders slightly hunched as another chill ran through him, making him instinctively hug his arms closer to himself while he made his way toward the light switch.

“I wasn’t really planning to watch anything,” he said, “just figured we could use some background noise so ya won’t have to hear me.”

“Hear you?” You repeated, lowering the blanket just enough to peek out from underneath it.

You watched him flip off the lights, the bedroom immediately falling into a softer darkness illuminated only by the muted glow of the television. The flickering screen painted gentle washes of color across the walls as Caleb turned around, his bare legs making quick work of the short distance back to the bed. Even bundled in nothing more than his oversized T-shirt and basketball shorts, he still looked like he couldn’t get warm, another visible shiver passing through him before he reached the mattress.

“Yeah,” he hurried, climbing back beneath the blankets so quickly that the mattress dipped beneath his weight and bounced lightly beside you. He wasted no time scooting back into his corner, pulling the comforter up around himself until only his shoulders and messy brown hair remained visible, “I keep makin’ this weird noise right when I’m about to fall asleep cause of all the stuffiness.”

Your lips curled into an amused smile. Only then did you notice how much space he’d deliberately left between the two of you, practically plastering himself against the edge of the bed as though he were still trying to avoid getting any closer than necessary. Even now, after you’d practically threatened bodily harm to convince him to sleep somewhere comfortable, he was somehow still trying to make himself as small and unobtrusive as possible.

“What noise?”

“Like this,” he obediently demonstrated, letting his head sink into the pillow as he exaggeratedly pretended to drift off to sleep. A second later, he made a flat, deep, almost robotic sound, “uhh!”

The ridiculous noise caught you completely off guard. A laugh escaped before you could stop it, warm and genuine despite how awful you felt, “what the fuck? I haven’t heard you do that.”

“Well yeah, cause I’ve been trying to stay the hell away from you,” he couldn’t help but laugh back, the corners of his mouth lifting into the first real smile you’d seen from him all day. With an embarrassed little huff, he rolled back onto his side until his back faced you again, retreating into the blankets as though hiding from his own admission. Even sick, exhausted, and running a fever, he was still more worried about inconveniencing you than himself.

Ignoring the gap he’d so carefully put between the two of you, you scooted closer anyway. Then closer still. Until your chest rested lightly against his back and you could settle your cheek between his broad, muscular shoulder blades. Even through the thin cotton of his T-shirt, you could feel the warmth radiating from him. Normally, Caleb always ran hot enough to make you complain whenever he stole the blankets, but now the fever had turned that familiar warmth into something almost comforting, a steady heat that seeped into your chilled skin the moment you touched him. The contact made him stiffen ever so slightly beneath you.

“Why?“ You asked, “it’s not like either of us are really contagious to each other…”

He was quiet for a moment before answering.

“…Well, I don’t wanna wake you up if you fall asleep and you hear me make noises next to you,” he murmured, his voice softened by exhaustion and hopelessly stuffed with congestion, “you need rest. I was honestly fine on the couch. Don’t blame me if ya can’t fall asleep, now…”

A small laugh escaped you, weak and scratchy from your sore throat. You slipped an arm around his waist from behind, holding him loosely as you nestled closer against the broad span of his back, shamelessly stealing whatever warmth you could.

“I don’t think I can fall asleep, even if I tried,” you admitted with another tired chuckle, “I’m too sick…You can sleep though. Are you sleepy?”

“Kinda? But I don’t think I could fully fall asleep either. Everything‘s all achy,” the last few words dissolved into a miserable groan, followed by a congested snort that made him sound every bit as pathetic as he felt.

You frowned sympathetically, “do you want another Sudafed?”

“Maybe. I’ll get you one right now.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he started to push himself upright, already trying to wriggle out of your embrace despite looking like standing up would require the effort of climbing a mountain.

You immediately tightened your hold just enough to stop him, “no, you stay put. I got it.”

He barely made it halfway upright before you nudged him firmly back toward the mattress.

“No, Pips, quit getting up,” he protested, trying to sit back up again despite the obvious fatigue dragging at every movement,“you needa just stay put and get some rest until your temperature goes down.”

“Well, we left the thermometer in the kitchen,” you reminded him, “I have to get that, too.”

That only seemed to strengthen his resolve. With a determined little grunt, Caleb sat upright again, preparing to swing his legs over the side of the bed. You were quicker. Holding up a single finger, you fixed him with the sternest look your fever-addled brain could manage.

“Stay,” you warned, widening your eyes for emphasis, “don’t make me have to fight you! If you want me to rest so bad, then stop being a stubborn idiot and let me take care of you. You’re doing too much.”

For a long moment, he simply stared back at you. Then his shoulders sagged. A helpless, thoroughly miserable groan escaped him as he surrendered, letting himself flop backward onto the mattress with all the dramatic defeat of a man who’d just lost the most important battle of his life. He huffed out a long breath through his nose before muttering, “you never listen…”

“If I listened, you’d be twisting your spine in all kinds of uncomfortable positions on my shitty couch,” you pointed out.

Crossing your arms against the lingering chill that still clung to your body the moment you stepped away from Caleb’s warmth, you climbed out of bed and shuffled toward the bedroom door, already bracing yourself for the cold walk to the kitchen.

By the time you made it to the kitchen, you were questioning whether the short walk had always been that long. Your head felt heavy with congestion, your fever leaving you lightheaded enough that you had to steady yourself against the countertop for a moment before opening the medicine cabinet. You fished out the box of Sudafed with sluggish fingers, popped one of the tablets from its blister pack, and swallowed it down with a glass of water. The cool drink did little to soothe the raw ache in your throat, but it was enough to make you feel marginally more human.

Remembering Caleb, you pressed out another pill before moving to the refrigerator. A pitcher of pink lemonade sat on the top shelf, and the thought of something cold sounded infinitely more appealing than another cup of tea. You filled a second glass nearly to the brim, the pale pink liquid clinking softly against the ice cubes before gathering everything in your hands and carefully making the slow trek back toward your bedroom, completely forgetting the thermometer and leaving it for later.

The room was quiet when you returned, save for the muffled murmur of the television still playing in the background. You set your own water down on your nightstand before carrying the lemonade and Sudafed over to Caleb’s side of the bed. He’d apparently managed to drift off in the minute or two you’d been gone. Curled beneath the blankets, he looked completely boneless, his breathing slow and even as exhaustion claimed him almost instantly. You reached out and gently nudged his shoulder.

“Caleb,” you murmured softly, motioning for him to sit up.

The moment he stirred, a strange, congested sound escaped him, “uhh!”

His violet eyes flew open, unfocused at first as they locked onto the ceiling. A second later they found you standing beside the bed, and almost immediately, he looked away with unmistakable embarrassment.

“See, it’s that stupid sound…” He complained.

A quiet giggle slipped past your lips despite yourself. You slipped an arm behind his shoulders to help him sit upright before placing the pill into his hand, “I think you sound cute.”

The tips of his ears immediately turned a shade pinker than they already were from the fever. He answered with the tiniest groan of embarrassment, his expression twisting into reluctant resignation. Even now, he still seemed uncomfortable letting you witness him like this; sniffling, exhausted, making involuntary noises every time he started to drift off, as though getting sick around you was somehow something to be embarrassed about.

It wasn’t as if he’d had much choice. He accepted the glass from you, tossing back the Sudafed before washing it down with a long drink of the pink lemonade. The change in his expression was immediate. His brows lifted ever so slightly, pleasant surprise flickering across his tired features as he looked down into the glass, then back up at you.

“Ohhh…” A warm smile spread across his face, softer than any you’d seen from him all day, as he watched you climb back into bed on your side, “pink lemonade, huh? Thanks, Pips…You’re the best. Want some?”

You smiled back, scooting closer once you’d settled beneath the blankets again. Instead of answering, you simply reached over and took the glass from his hands. The first sip was bliss. The lemonade was cold enough to soothe the heat lingering in your mouth, its tartness tempered by just enough sweetness to take the edge off your sore throat as it slid down. You hadn’t realized how thirsty you’d been until then, and for a brief moment, the cool drink was enough to distract you from the pounding in your head and the ache in your body.

With an approving nod, you handed the glass back. Caleb finished setting it on the nightstand before easing himself down onto the pillow once more, and a second later you followed, the mattress dipping gently beneath the combined weight of the two of you as you settled back into bed together while the television continued to murmur quietly in the background.

“Don’t crawl away,” you whined, catching him before he could slip from your reach. You rested your cheek against the steady warmth of his chest, letting out a quiet sigh as you threw one leg over his thigh to trap him beneath you. Your arm slid around his tummy, holding him close while you burrowed into him in search of the warmth he always seemed to carry, “I’m freezing! Stop running from me, Caleb…You’re so annoying.”

A soft laugh escaped him, low enough that you felt it rumble beneath your ear before you heard it. After only a moment of resistance, he finally relented, his long arm settling carefully across your backside as the stiffness that always lingered in his body gradually eased, “fine, fine, I’ll stay put. I just don’t want you getting any sicker…”

You knew that was only half the truth. Caleb had always been the type to disappear whenever he was the one feeling ill, brushing off your concern and avoiding you until he recovered, unwilling to let you witness even the smallest sign of weakness. But this was different. This wasn’t just about protecting you from catching whatever he had. Caleb had another habit; one you’d quietly taken notice of over the years.

Whenever you became too physically close, something inside him seemed to lock up. A simple nap together was easy enough until you instinctively curled against him, and then he’d go rigid beneath your touch, every muscle drawn tight as if he were afraid to move. Even the quick kisses you pressed to his cheek, something the two of you had shared so naturally for years, still managed to paint his face a deep shade of red every single time. Whenever you rested your head in his lap and asked him to play with your hair, his fingers would always hesitate first, trembling ever so slightly before they finally threaded through the strands. He never pushed you away. He never asked you to stop. He simply endured every affectionate gesture with an almost painful restraint.

It made sense on paper…Didn’t it? Caleb had grown up beside you. Grandma Josephine had raised the two of you under the same roof, giving you the same home, the same family, and the same childhood memories. Even after everything had changed, after Josephine’s passing, after the explosion, after the Fleet, after your adoption papers and the legal ties to him were absolved so you were no longer step siblings in any legal sense, some things had never truly changed. Caleb still carried himself around you with careful hesitation, drawing invisible boundaries that no longer needed to exist. Yet no matter how often you tried to convince yourself that was all it was, the question refused to leave your mind. Was he still treating you like the little stepsister he’d spent his whole life protecting…Or was it because, somewhere beneath all that restraint, he saw you the same way you had always seen him, even when you were children?

You wondered sometimes if there was something fundamentally wrong with you. Maybe everyone else would call it obsession. Delusion. Maybe they would say you were sick for keeping such meticulous track of every tiny thing Caleb did, cataloging each fleeting expression and every unconscious gesture like precious evidence locked away inside your own mind. You couldn’t help it. Your brain did it before you even realized it was happening. Every blush that dusted his cheeks after you kissed them. Every time his hand instinctively reached for yours before he thought better of it. Every lingering glance that lasted a heartbeat too long. Every tiny tremor that ran through his fingers whenever you leaned into his space. You remembered all of it. You replayed it over and over until the moments felt engraved into you, convincing yourself that no one reacted like that unless they felt something. Unless they loved you too. You needed to believe that. Because if those moments didn’t mean anything…Then what did that make you?

Eventually, the doubt became unbearable, and you started testing reality against everyone else’s. You’d slip seemingly innocent questions into conversations with friends, pretending they were meaningless hypotheticals while your stomach twisted itself into knots waiting for their answers. Was it weird to cuddle with your stepbrother? To fall asleep in the same bed because you both slept better that way? To drag him around the grocery store by the hand simply because you liked knowing exactly where he was? To disappear beneath the same blanket during scary movies until you were practically wrapped around him? To miss him so much after a single day apart that your chest physically ached?

Every answer came back the same. No. That wasn’t normal. The awkward looks, the uncomfortable laughter, the way conversations suddenly shifted away from the topic—they all told you more than words ever could. Little by little, their reactions burrowed beneath your skin, feeding the ugly voice already living inside your head. Maybe you were exactly what they’d think you were if they ever knew the truth. Maybe “stepbrother” was enough to make every feeling you’d ever had disgusting in the eyes of everyone else. Maybe they’d call you obsessive. Possessive. Deranged. Maybe they would say the way your entire world revolved around Caleb wasn’t love at all, but something warped. Something taboo. Something that should have been buried instead of cherished.

The thought made something ugly curl inside your chest. You hated them for it. You hated that strangers who had never seen the way Caleb looked at you somehow believed they had the right to decide what your relationship was supposed to be. They hadn’t watched him give you the larger half of every meal without thinking. They hadn’t seen the way his eyes found you first in every crowded room or how he instinctively reached for you whenever you were within arm’s length. They hadn’t noticed the blushes he tried to hide, the hesitation in his breathing whenever you touched him, the way he endured your closeness while looking as though every ounce of restraint he possessed was hanging by a thread. They didn’t know him. They didn’t know you. They certainly didn’t know what existed between the two of you. So why should their opinions matter?

Still…The question lingered anyway, scratching relentlessly at the back of your mind until it hurt. What if they were right? What if every stolen glance and trembling touch meant nothing? What if you’d built an entire fantasy out of ordinary affection because you wanted him so desperately that your own mind had begun lying to you? The thought made your stomach churn. You couldn’t bear it. You refused to bear it.

“Pips?”

His voice sliced cleanly through the spiral before it could drag you any deeper. You blinked hard, your thoughts scattering as you lifted your head to find Caleb already studying you, concern softening the sharp edges of his expression. His violet eyes searched yours with quiet intensity before he raised the back of his left hand to your forehead, his cooler skin a stark contrast against the fever radiating from your own.

“You okay?” He asked quietly, “you’re really warm…And you’re squeezin’ the life out of me.”

Only then did you realize how tightly you were holding him. Your leg had locked around his thigh with enough force to keep him pinned exactly where he was, while your fist had twisted itself into the hem of his shirt beneath the blanket, the fabric wound tightly around your fingers until your knuckles had gone tight. You hadn’t even noticed yourself doing it. Somewhere in the middle of your spiraling thoughts, your body had decided that if your mind couldn’t guarantee Caleb would never leave you, your hands would simply refuse to let him.

“Sorry…” You loosened your grip only enough that he could breathe before instinct pulled you right back against him, greedily reclaiming every inch of warmth his body offered. Your cheek settled over his heart again, your fingers smoothing absentmindedly over his side as you guided his arm back around your waist where it belonged. Wrapped in him, surrounded by him, you could almost pretend the rest of the world had disappeared, “I just…I’m cold. Just wanna crawl inside of you and wear you like a blanket right now.”

It wasn’t even entirely a joke. The thought had crossed your mind before. More than once. If you could unzip him and crawl beneath his skin, tuck yourself safely inside his ribs where no one else could ever reach you, you thought you probably would. You were almost certain you’d finally stop worrying then. No more wondering where he was. No more waiting for him to come home. No more fear that something, or someone, would take him away from you again. You could stay with him forever, nestled beneath his heartbeat where you belonged.

Caleb laughed beneath your ear, the sound warm despite the fever weakening it, vibrating through his chest until you could feel it as clearly as you heard it. His fingertips found your hair with practiced affection, combing slowly through the strands before his free arm joined the other around your body, surrounding you completely. The embrace made something inside you bloom so violently it almost hurt. Half of you basked in the simple joy of being held exactly the way you’d always wanted. The other half ached with an endless, ravenous longing, mourning everything you still weren’t allowed to have.

“What, ya want me to be your skin suit?” He teased, his voice dripping with easy affection.

“Yes, actually,” you tipped your head back without hesitation, your eyes locking onto his as your arms instinctively tightened around him again. Your breath fanned softly beneath his chin, leaving barely any space between your faces, “I do, Caleb. Is there something wrong with that?”

For the briefest moment, you watched it happen. His throat bobbed. His breathing caught. His entire body stiffened just enough for you to notice. There it was again. Another one. Another tiny reaction to quietly tuck away with all the others. Another secret little piece of evidence your mind greedily collected before anyone else could explain it away. Then, just as quickly, he forced himself to relax.

“Nah…” He chuckled, a faint flush already beginning to creep toward the tips of his ears, “but I might be too big for ya. You might have to lop off my legs at the shins.”

A bright giggle escaped you before you buried your face into the comforting heat of his neck, laughing against his skin while his own quiet snickers vibrated beneath your cheek. You lingered there for another moment, breathing him in until the familiar scent of detergent, soap, and Caleb settled the frantic beating of your heart. Then curiosity, and mischief, got the better of you. You pushed yourself farther up his body until you were practically draped over him, cupping his face between both hands before immediately beginning to squish his cheeks together. His lips stretched into the most ridiculous shape imaginable, completely ruining the composed, handsome face that always made your heart stutter. You couldn’t stop laughing.

“What about your giant head?” You whispered between amused giggles, giving his cheeks another playful squeeze before one hand wandered into the stick straight strands of his bangs. You pinched a lock of brown hair between your fingers and tugged it upward until it stuck straight into the air, making him look even more ridiculous “what should I do with it?”

“Make a hood out of it, you silly goober,” he laughed, finally catching both your wrists before you could completely destroy whatever was left of his hair. His fingers wrapped gently around them, more restraining than scolding as he smiled at you, “you can turn me into one of those cute Kigurumi onesies.”

You burst into delighted laughter, the sound bright enough to fill the room as you poked both of your index fingers into his dimpled, grinning cheeks, delighting in the way they squished beneath your fingertips, “you’d make the cutest onesie…I’d wear you to bed every night!”

He looked up at you with an almost offended little pout, his brows knitting together just enough to make you smile wider, “just, to bed?”

You blinked, amused by the genuine disappointment in his voice, “why, you’d want me to wear you during the day, too?”

“I’d want you to wear your Caleb onesie twenty-four seven,” he replied without missing a beat, his smile softening into something quieter, something that settled heavily between the two of you. His hands remained comfortably around your wrists, his thumbs absently stroking over your skin as though they belonged there, “I’d never want you to take me off of ya.”

Your teasing smile faltered for the briefest moment. He’d said it like a joke. But Caleb had always hidden his truest feelings inside jokes. You knew that better than anyone. Your heart gave a painful squeeze because, if he truly meant even half of that, then it mirrored a desire you had buried for years. There wasn’t a part of you that didn’t crave his constant presence. You wanted to wake up with him every morning, fall asleep against him every night, know where he was every second in between. The months you’d spent believing he had died had carved something ugly into your heart, something possessive and desperate that never seemed to heal. Ever since he’d come back, every goodbye made a quiet panic bloom beneath your ribs, irrationally terrified that the next time he walked away, he wouldn’t return. If there was a way to keep Caleb with you forever, to make sure no war, no Fleet assignment, no cruel twist of fate could ever steal him away again, you weren’t entirely convinced you wouldn’t take it.

“What about when I shower?” You asked curiously.

He blinked at you, visibly caught off guard before an unmistakably thoughtful expression settled across his face. Rather than dismissing the question, he actually considered it, his violet eyes drifting for a moment as though he were searching for the most practical solution to an otherwise ridiculous problem. You couldn’t help smiling. That was Caleb. No matter how absurd the conversation became, he always met you there without hesitation.

Finally, he reached up and gently guided both of your hands over his face, covering his eyes with your palms. His larger fingers curled securely around yours, holding them in place with an easy familiarity.

“I’ll close my eyes like the perfect gentleman,” he promised with a laugh that rumbled softly beneath your hands, “promise I won’t peek.”

Mischief bubbled up inside you as you slowly spread your ring and middle finger apart, creating a narrow gap until one of his eyes peeked through. It immediately found yours, as though it had been searching for you the entire time.

“Well…” Your voice softened without meaning to, “if you were my skin suit…I wouldn’t be mad if you did…”

The words slipped out before you had the chance to catch them. The moment you realized what you’d admitted, heat flooded your face, and you instinctively looked away, suddenly fascinated by a wrinkle in the blanket instead of meeting his eyes. For a second, Caleb said nothing. You felt his gaze instead. Steady. Unwavering. Almost unbearably warm. When you finally risked another glance, his face had turned just as red as yours, the blush stretching across his cheeks before disappearing beneath the tips of his ears. He laughed, but it sounded almost breathless this time, as though your words had lodged somewhere deep inside him.

“You’re such a silly goober,” he murmured, smiling with a tenderness that made your chest ache.

One hand slipped free to affectionately ruffle your hair, but instead of stopping after a few playful passes, his fingers lingered there, combing gently through the messy strands. His touch slowed until it became absentminded, almost possessive, as though he simply liked feeling you beneath his hand.

“Besides…” He added with a crooked grin that was just a little too knowing, “if you’re wearin’ me all the time, nobody else gets to borrow me.”

The joke should have sounded ridiculous. Instead, it settled into the same strange corner of your heart where all the others did. Because you realized, with a quiet sort of horror and delight, that you didn’t want anyone else borrowing him either. Not even for a little while.

Before you could hide behind your embarrassment any longer, Caleb gently tugged you back down against him, answering your fluster with action instead of teasing. His arms slipped around you in one smooth motion, strong and certain as they gathered you completely against his chest until your face was buried against the feverish warmth of his neck. He hugged you with enough strength that you felt safely trapped, your back pressed firmly beneath one arm while the other settled securely around your waist, drawing you impossibly closer. A tiny, contented sound escaped him; soft enough that anyone else might have missed it, but you felt it vibrate against your cheek. It was a sound of pure happiness, unguarded and instinctive, and it made your heart swell so painfully you thought it might burst.

You wasted no time returning it. Your own arms tightened around him with equal desperation, your fingers spreading across the broad plane of his back before kneading gently between his shoulder blades. Even through the fabric of his shirt, you could feel the hard lines of muscle beneath your palms, each slow pass reminding you just how solid he was, how real he was, how he was here. Alive. Breathing. Holding you. You never took that for granted anymore. Not after losing him once.

Caleb rocked you slowly from side to side, the movement absentminded and soothing, as though his body had fallen into a rhythm it already knew by heart. It felt so natural that a dangerous thought slipped quietly into your mind. You fit here. You always had. Against his chest. Wrapped inside his arms. Hidden away where the rest of the world couldn’t touch either of you. You wished time would stop. You wished duty would forget his name. You wished the Fleet would lose every record they had on Colonel Caleb, leaving only the boy who belonged here with you. The thought was selfish. Horribly selfish. You knew that. You didn’t care. If loving him meant becoming the sort of person who wanted to keep him tucked safely away from the rest of the world forever, then perhaps you had already crossed that line years ago.

Eventually, almost reluctantly, his embrace loosened. Not because he seemed to want to let go. He knew he had to. His hands lingered on your back long after the hug should have ended, rubbing slow circles between your shoulder blades before patting you gently, as though trying to memorize the feeling of you beneath his palms. There was something equally unwilling in the way his fingers dragged ever so slightly before finally settling again, like some quieter part of him resented every inch of distance that returned between you.

When you finally lifted your face, you found him already looking at you. He was smiling. Not the easy, teasing grin he wore whenever he wanted to make you laugh. This one was softer. Quieter. Almost wistful. There was regret hidden inside it. You’d seen that expression more times than you could count. It always appeared whenever Caleb drifted somewhere far away inside his own thoughts, his violet eyes growing distant while words gathered behind them that never quite found their way into the open. It was the same look he wore whenever he insisted everything was fine despite the unmistakable weight settling across his shoulders. As though he carried entire conversations inside himself that he refused to let anyone else hear. Especially you.

You wondered, not for the first time, if the secret lodged inside his heart resembled the one poisoning yours. If he spent sleepless nights swallowing the same impossible confession. If every smile he buried, every blush he disguised, every touch he hesitated over existed for the same reason your own heart had become such a hopeless mess. That he loved you so completely it had become unbearable to keep pretending he didn’t.

“…Caleb?” Your voice broke the comfortable silence before it could stretch any farther.

Both of your hands rose to cradle his warm face, your thumbs brushing lightly along his fever-flushed cheeks while, almost automatically, his own fingers wandered back into your hair. They combed through it with slow familiarity, lingering near the nape of your neck as though he simply couldn’t help himself.

“Do I…” You hesitated, suddenly unsure whether you wanted to hear the answer after all, “…Ever make you uncomfortable?”

“Hm?” His brows lifted with genuine confusion, his expression softening almost immediately, “nah, I don’t think so…Why?”

Your stomach twisted. You searched his face for even the smallest hint that he already understood what you were trying to ask.

“…Because whenever I wanna get closer…” Your voice came out quieter this time, your thumbs unconsciously stroking his cheeks as though reassuring yourself he was still there, “…You get tense…And freeze up.”

The words left your mouth before you could swallow them back, and almost instantly you wished you could. Not because you regretted asking, but because the answer suddenly felt terrifying. If he’d only ever stiffened because he truly saw you as family, you weren’t sure your heart would survive hearing him say it out loud. Yet another part of you, the same obsessive, hopeful part that counted every blush and every trembling breath, clung stubbornly to the possibility that his hesitation had never been rejection at all. That perhaps Caleb froze for the same reason you did whenever you caught yourself imagining a future where neither of you had to pretend anymore.

He blinked at you, the confusion on his face lingering for only a heartbeat before realization slowly settled over his features. His eyes widened just slightly, followed by a quiet, almost breathless, “ohhh…”

He looked away with an embarrassed smile, rubbing the back of his neck for a moment before his gaze found you again.

“Well, I just don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, that’s why,” he explained, “I’m a guy…You’re a girl…And I get scared that if I let you get too close, it’ll be too much for your comfort. That I’ll be pushing past your boundaries.”

His explanation should have eased the ache in your chest, but instead it only deepened it. Even now, after everything the two of you had survived together, Caleb’s first instinct was still to protect you. He always worried about everyone else before himself, and somehow he’d even convinced himself that the greatest thing you needed protecting from might be him.

A small pout tugged at your lips as you looked at him, “but I can think for myself…I’m aware of my boundaries. Sometimes it feels like you forget I have autonomy, too…You don’t have to look after me so closely, Caleb. I’m an adult, now…I can decide things for myself.”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he sat quietly with your words, his gaze drifting downward until it settled on your lips with an intensity that made your pulse stumble. He looked almost unaware he was doing it, as though he’d become lost somewhere inside thoughts he had no intention of sharing. You watched the subtle tightening of his jaw before his hand rose almost unconsciously to cover his own mouth. The gesture wasn’t awkward or embarrassed. It looked instinctive, like a reflex he’d repeated so many times he no longer realized he was doing it. It felt less as though he were shielding himself and more as though he were shielding you from whatever lived inside his own head. The sight made something click painfully into place inside yours. Maybe he had never been afraid of making you uncomfortable. Maybe he’d been terrified of what would happen if he stopped holding himself back.

“You don’t—…” Your voice softened as your hand found his, your fingers carefully wrapping around his pinkie before slowly guiding his hand away from his face. He could have resisted. He could have pulled away. Instead, he let you move him, his fingers relaxing beneath yours until nothing remained between your faces, “…Have to protect me from you. I—…I don’t want there to be anything standing between us…”

His breath caught so quietly you almost questioned whether you’d imagined it, but then you felt his heartbeat quicken beneath you as you lay against his chest. Your fingertips lingered against the back of his hand before drifting upward to trace the line of his chin and the strong curve of his jaw. His skin was warm beneath your touch, fever heating him almost as much as the blush steadily blooming across his cheeks. You could feel the restraint humming through every inch of him. He wasn’t retreating from your touch, nor was he leaning into it. Instead, he remained perfectly still, as though every instinct urging him closer was being held in place by years of relentless self-discipline. It struck you then that his hesitation had never felt like rejection. It felt like someone clinging desperately to the last thread of control, terrified that if he indulged himself even once, he’d never be able to stop.

“…Would it really be that terrible if we got just a little closer?” You whispered, your voice carrying more vulnerability than you’d intended as your thumb gently stroked the warmth of his jaw. Caleb continued looking up at you with an expression so painfully conflicted it made your chest ache. There was longing in his eyes that matched your own, softened by guilt, restraint, and an affection so profound it almost looked painful to carry, “Caleb…It’s always felt this way for me. Like—…Like close is never quite close enough. You know what I mean?”

Something inside him softened at your confession. His eyes searched yours. The hand you’d guided away from his mouth never returned there. Instead, it slowly settled against your side, his fingers curling gently into the fabric of your shirt. The grip wasn’t forceful, but it lingered with quiet intention, betraying a possessiveness he was trying very hard to disguise as tenderness. It felt less like someone afraid of crossing your boundaries and more like a man who had spent years convincing himself that if he ever allowed himself to hold you the way he truly wanted to, he might never find the strength to let you go again.

“…Yeah?” He asked quietly, the single word carrying far more uncertainty than the question itself.

It sounded less like disbelief and more like he was searching for reassurance, for permission, for the impossible comfort of hearing you say it again.

“You want us to be even closer than we already are? You’re—…” He swallowed hard, the movement visible beneath your gaze, “you’re literally on top of me right now, Pips…I don’t know how much closer we could get. I mean—…”

You could. You had spent years imagining all the ways. Your fingertips drifted upward with agonizing slowness, brushing beneath his lower lip before tracing the familiar line of his chin. Every inch of him radiated warmth, the fever making his skin almost unbearably hot beneath your touch. You followed the strong line of his throat until your fingers settled over the frantic flutter of his pulse. It pounded against your fingertips with such urgency that you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling. Gently, almost reverently, your hand curved around his throat, your thumb resting beneath his jaw while your fingers cradled the opposite side. You weren’t squeezing. You didn’t need to. Simply holding him there, feeling the life racing beneath his skin, was enough to satisfy the possessive ache blooming inside your chest.

Caleb’s reaction came immediately. His eyelids fluttered weakly, his breathing turning uneven as another helpless swallow rolled beneath your palm. You felt every tiny movement, every involuntary response. His pulse only grew faster the longer your hand remained there, hammering wildly against your fingertips while the rest of him stayed perfectly still beneath you, as though he didn’t trust himself to move. A sheen of perspiration glistened across his forehead, dampening the loose strands of brown hair that framed his face, and the flush warming his cheeks deepened until it reached the tips of his ears. Watching him unravel beneath you sent a feverish thrill coursing through your body. Even if you hadn’t been sick, you knew it would have affected you exactly the same.

You loved seeing him like this. Not because he looked vulnerable. Because he was yours. At least, that was how your heart wanted to believe it. The world had already stolen him from you once. It had ripped him away without warning and left you to grieve a future that never happened. Ever since he’d returned, a quiet panic had rooted itself somewhere deep inside you, whispering that it could happen again if you weren’t careful enough. You hated that feeling. You hated every mission that took him away, every order that demanded his attention, every person who borrowed pieces of him you selfishly believed belonged to you.

Sometimes your love stopped feeling soft. Sometimes it became desperate. Hungry. You wanted to wrap it around him so tightly that nothing, not death, not war, not the endless stars themselves, could ever pull him free again. You wanted to shackle him with every ounce of affection your heart could hold until loving you became as inescapable as gravity itself. You wanted him hopelessly tangled in your orbit, bound so completely to your side that leaving would become impossible, not because he was forced to stay, but because the very thought of existing anywhere without you felt unthinkable. The frightening part wasn’t the thought itself. It was how right it felt.

“…We could get even closer,” you whispered, your thumb absently stroking beneath his jaw as you watched his pupils slowly widen, swallowing more and more of the brilliant violet until his eyes resembled galaxies collapsing inward, “we could get so close that I never have to worry about losing you again. That I could just…I could just meld you to my side forever and ever. Wouldn’t you want that, Gege?”

The nickname seemed to melt straight through him. His lips parted soundlessly, his next breath catching in his throat beneath your hand as though the single word had reached somewhere he’d spent years trying to bury. His pulse fluttered wildly against your fingertips, betraying him long before his face did, and for a fleeting moment the restraint he’d worn so faithfully looked dangerously close to splintering. There was no fear in his expression, no discomfort, no desire to escape your touch. Instead, he looked at you with an aching hunger that mirrored your own, as though your impossible fantasy wasn’t frightening to him at all. If anything, it looked painfully familiar, like you’d just spoken aloud the very thought he’d spent years locking away inside himself, terrified that if he ever admitted how badly he wanted to keep you just as close, he might never be able to pretend otherwise again.

“…You know that’s a line we’ll never be able to uncross if we cross it, right?” He breathed, his voice barely louder than the space between you.

The words sounded like a warning, but they lacked conviction. If anything, they carried the aching uncertainty of someone who already knew the answer and was desperately hoping the other person would make the choice for him. There was fear in his eyes, but it wasn’t fear of you. It was fear of himself. Fear that if he took even one step beyond the invisible boundary he’d spent years drawing around the two of you, he’d never possess the strength to walk back across it again.

Your lips curled into the smallest smile, “yeah…”

The answer came so easily it almost surprised you. You’d made peace with that possibility long before this conversation had ever happened. Slowly, almost absentmindedly, you shifted against him, arching your spine just enough that your body settled even more completely over his. The movement was subtle, but you felt the immediate effect it had on him. His hands, already resting at your waist, tightened instinctively until they trembled. His fingers curled into the fabric of your shirt and sweats beneath the blanket, gathering them into tight fists as though he needed something to anchor himself before every ounce of restraint he’d built over the years simply dissolved. The grip wasn’t enough to hurt. It wasn’t even enough to stop you. It was enough to keep you there. Enough to make sure you couldn’t drift even an inch farther away.

You couldn’t help noticing the irony. Caleb had spent years pretending he was the one constantly creating distance between you, convincing himself every careful hesitation was an act of self-control. Yet whenever you actually found yourself in his arms, he never seemed capable of letting you go. Every embrace lingered longer than it should have. Every goodbye ended with his hand still resting on your back for one last second. Even now, while insisting he was afraid of crossing lines, his body betrayed him completely. His grip clung to you with a quiet desperation that felt almost unconscious, as though some instinct buried deep inside him refused to risk losing contact once he’d finally been allowed to hold you.

Typical Caleb. Always pretending he was the composed one. Always pretending he wasn’t just as needy. Just as clingy. Just as hopelessly attached.nThe realization made something warm bloom inside your chest because, for all the ways you liked to imagine yourself as the more obsessive one, the truth was beginning to look far more balanced than either of you had ever admitted. You counted every blush and every trembling breath like treasured keepsakes, secretly wanting to wrap him so tightly in your love that nothing in the universe could ever pull him away from you again. Caleb, meanwhile, spent every waking moment convincing himself not to reach for you while unconsciously refusing to loosen his grip whenever he finally did. The two of you weren’t standing on opposite sides of the same line. You were simply staring at it from opposite directions.

“But…” Your hand slowly left his shoulder, one fingertip drifting upward until it found his lower lip. You traced it with impossible gentleness, feeling the faint, familiar layer of lip balm he’d only ever seemed to remember when you were around. The thought made your heart ache with quiet affection. You wondered if he’d ever noticed that little habit himself or whether he’d simply grown so accustomed to wanting to look after every tiny thing whenever you were near that he’d stopped questioning it altogether. Your thumb lingered there for another heartbeat before your eyes lifted to meet his again, “…What if I told you that I wanna cross every line? Would you cross them with me?”

The room fell impossibly still. Caleb didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t know. Because he did. His gaze remained locked with yours, his pupils swallowing the violet of his irises until almost nothing remained but black, and the hands gripping your waist tightened by the smallest fraction. It wasn’t enough to restrain you. It was enough to tell you that somewhere beneath all his discipline, all his careful boundaries, all the promises he’d made to himself about protecting you from the parts of him he considered too selfish to deserve daylight, there lived a man who had spent years standing at that very same line, wondering what it would feel like if, just once, the two of you stopped pretending neither of you wanted to cross it.

The poor man looked as though he were moments away from spontaneously combusting beneath you, and the sight sent an intoxicating rush through your already fever-addled mind. His face had flushed so deeply that the color stretched from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, every shallow breath lifting his chest beneath you while his violet eyes remained hopelessly fixed on yours. You couldn’t tear your gaze away from him. Every tiny reaction he gave you felt impossibly precious, each one feeding the obsessive part of your heart that had spent years wondering if you were alone in your feelings.

Your own pulse raced just as wildly, your thoughts softened into a hazy blur by the fever burning through your body. Logic had long since melted away beneath the relentless heat and the unbearable closeness between you. Somewhere in that delirious warmth, a reckless thought settled into your mind, growing impossible to ignore. It was something you knew you would never have the courage to do under ordinary circumstances. If he didn’t want it, if you’d misunderstood everything, you could blame the fever afterward. You could both laugh it off, call yourselves delirious, pretend your overheated minds had wandered somewhere they never truly intended to go. The possibility offered just enough courage for your body to move before your fear could stop it.

Slowly, you shifted lower against him, your body gliding only a few inches down his taller frame until your hips settled nearer his. The movement was tentative, almost hesitant, until both of you inhaled sharply at exactly the same moment. The shared gasp hung suspended between you as Caleb’s hands flew instinctively to your hips, gripping them with trembling urgency. The hold felt beautifully conflicted. One hand seemed determined to stop you where you were, while the other betrayed him completely, pulling you the last fraction of an inch closer instead.

Then you felt it. Heat. Firmness. An unmistakable hardness resting beneath the loose fabric of his basketball shorts. It lay slanted across the hard line of his pelvis, pressed along the space above his thigh, fever-warm and impossibly rigid beneath the thin material separating the two of you. Even with no experience of your own, there was no mistaking what your body had found. That was his cock. His rock hard cock. The realization stole the breath from your lungs. Your heart lurched so violently it almost hurt. Every blush, every trembling hand, every frozen embrace, every carefully measured breath suddenly rearranged themselves into something painfully obvious. He wanted you. God, he wanted you.

The thought echoed through your feverish mind with dizzying intensity. Something possessive inside you bloomed almost painfully at the discovery, wrapping itself around the realization with greedy delight. Somehow, seeing the physical proof affected you more than any confession ever could. His body had betrayed every secret he’d fought so desperately to bury, and for one fleeting, intoxicating moment, he was completely incapable of hiding from you. It made your chest tighten with an almost overwhelming need to gather him closer, to cradle him until there wasn’t a single inch of distance left between either of you. Every irrational part of you wanted to keep him exactly like this forever; flustered beneath you, blushing because of you, unable to disguise how deeply he wanted you in return. You wanted to lock this moment away somewhere no one else could ever reach, selfishly hoarding it alongside every blush and every stolen glance you’d spent years collecting.

“Please,” Caleb breathed, the word escaping him with heartbreaking vulnerability. His voice sounded rough, strained almost to the point of breaking as another shaky breath left him. Fever had left him flushed and unsteady, but there was something else unraveling him now, something he’d clearly spent years holding together through sheer force of will, “Y/n, I’m too weak to think straight right now, I—…Might just…Give in…You sure? There’s no going back once—“

“—I’m sure,” you answered before he could finish, the words leaving you almost faster than your thoughts could keep up.

Relief crashed through you with such overwhelming force that it nearly made you dizzy. It had never all been in your head. You weren’t the only one carrying this impossible secret. The love you’d spent years hiding, nurturing, questioning, and quietly convincing yourself was too obsessive to ever be returned had been living inside Caleb all along, just as fiercely, just as painfully restrained. Neither of you had been suffering alone. Neither of you had been the only one standing at that invisible line, terrified to take the first step across it. All those years of carefully dancing around one another suddenly felt unbearably unnecessary. The final barrier that had existed between you, the one built from fear, guilt, and relentless self-denial, finally stood within reach, ready to crumble beneath the weight of everything the two of you had been starving to admit.

Unable to stop yourself, you eagerly climbed back up his body until your faces were only inches apart once more. Your hands rose instinctively to cradle his fever-warmed cheeks, your thumbs brushing softly across skin that had become impossibly familiar over the years. His eyes never left yours. They searched your face with almost desperate tenderness, as though he were still trying to convince himself this wasn’t another dream destined to disappear. His arms circled your waist again without hesitation, pulling you securely against him while one hand slipped into your hair with practiced familiarity. His fingers threaded through the strands before cupping the back of your head, guiding you just a little closer until scarcely enough space remained for another breath between you. The gesture was gentle, but there was nothing uncertain about it anymore. It felt like the first time he’d allowed himself to hold you the way he’d secretly wanted to for years, no longer pretending that letting you go had ever been something he truly wished to do.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” you finally confessed.

Caleb closed the distance himself. The realization didn’t fully register at first. For one dizzy, impossible heartbeat, your fever-clouded mind refused to believe what your body was feeling. Surely the heat had finally cooked the last sensible part of your brain. Surely this was another dream; the kind that had haunted you for years, so vivid they left you grieving when you woke. But dreams had never felt like this. Dreams had never carried the scorching warmth of his skin as his face fit naturally against yours. Dreams had never pressed trembling lips against your own with such aching certainty. Caleb was kissing you. Caleb had chosen to kiss you. He had been the one to erase the final inch between you, his fist tightening involuntarily at the roots of your hair as though even now, after finally surrendering, he couldn’t stop himself from holding on.

Your head spun so violently you thought you might lose consciousness. Fireworks exploded behind your closed eyelids, bright enough that the rest of the room simply disappeared. Nothing existed except him. You clutched him with the same desperate hunger, one fist knotting itself into the damp collar of his shirt while your other hand cradled his burning jaw, terrified that if you loosened your grip for even a second, reality would remember itself and rip him away again.

At last. After all these years…At fucking last. Every lonely, miserable night came crashing back into you all at once. Every time you’d lain awake staring at the ceiling until dawn because your heart wouldn’t let you sleep. Every time you’d hidden beneath your blankets, too ashamed to admit where your thoughts always wandered. Every stolen fantasy that ended with Caleb’s face. Every trembling kiss you’d practiced against the back of your own hand while pretending, just for a moment, that it was really him. Every time you’d touched yourself between the legs while imagining his voice, his hands, his body, only to come apart with his name trapped silently inside your throat before curling into yourself afterward, consumed by the crushing certainty that there had to be something deeply broken inside you. You had cried over it more than once. You had begged yourself to stop. You had promised yourself you would move on, that you would bury those feelings somewhere no one, including Caleb, could ever find them.

You never could. No matter how much guilt hollowed you out afterward, no matter how disgusted you felt with yourself, no matter how desperately you wished your heart would simply choose someone else, it always circled back to him. It was always Caleb. Every fantasy. Every impossible future. Every aching daydream. Loving him had become less like a feeling and more like an illness that had rooted itself so deeply inside you that separating it from your own identity no longer seemed possible. Sometimes you genuinely wondered whether your brain had been wired wrong from the very beginning. Whether something inside you had always been hopelessly twisted. Obsessive. Possessive. Irredeemably depraved. You had spent years believing you were carrying that sickness alone.

You weren’t. Caleb was kissing you back. Not cautiously. Not out of pity. Not because the fever had stolen his judgment. He kissed you like a starving man who had finally been allowed to eat. His lips met yours with years of restrained longing poured into a single impossible moment, every careful wall he’d built around himself collapsing all at once. You felt it in the way he held you, in the way his fingers refused to leave your hair, in the way his body instinctively drew yours closer instead of letting you drift away. He had wanted this. He had wanted you. For how long? The question made your heart ache almost as much as it thrilled you.

Maybe every blush you’d collected, every trembling hand, every frozen embrace, every lingering glance hadn’t simply been evidence of hidden affection. Maybe they had been evidence of the exact same madness. Maybe Caleb had spent years swallowing the same unbearable hunger. Maybe he’d stared at the ceiling at night imagining you. Maybe he’d hated himself afterward, just as fiercely as you had hated yourself. Maybe he’d spent years pretending distance was enough because he knew that if he ever allowed himself one kiss, one confession, one selfish moment, there would be no putting the pieces back where they belonged. Maybe he was every bit as obsessive. Every bit as possessive. Every bit as hopelessly ruined by loving you as you had always been by loving him.

The thought should have frightened you. Instead, it soothed something ancient and aching inside your chest. You weren’t alone. You never had been. The secret that had poisoned both of your hearts for years had never belonged to just one of you. Relief crashed through you so fiercely it almost hurt. Your lips chased his with desperate devotion, kissing him harder, greedier, pouring every lonely year into the way you held him. You coaxed his mouth open with gentle insistence until he finally surrendered, and the first tentative brush of his tongue against yours drew the same helpless sound from both of you. The quiet moans dissolved into the warmth between your mouths as your fingers dug deeper into each other, neither of you capable of deciding whether you were trying to pull closer or simply afraid to let go. Beneath the blanket your bodies pressed together with a desperation that felt years in the making, clinging to one another with the quiet panic of two people who had already lost each other once and silently vowed they would never survive enduring it again.

When the two of you finally broke apart to breathe, it wasn’t because either of you wanted to. It was because neither of you could pull enough air through your congested noses, leaving you both panting softly into the narrow space between your faces. Even then, neither of you loosened your hold. Your fingers remained buried in his sweat-damp shirt, in his hair, against the feverish warmth of his skin, while Caleb clung to you with equal desperation, his hands refusing to leave your back as though they had forgotten how to exist anywhere else.

When you looked into his eyes, another shiver rolled deliciously down your spine. His violet gaze had gone heavy-lidded, half hooded beneath lashes dampened by fever, the intensity behind it almost frightening. He looked completely overtaken by you. His breathing came in uneven pants, his cheeks burned crimson, and whatever discipline had once lived inside that brilliant, controlled mind of his had finally been drowned beneath the same delirious sickness consuming your own. The realization sent adrenaline surging through your already depraved little brain. He looked every bit as poisoned as you were. Every bit as hopelessly gone. It filled you with a sick, overwhelming sort of joy that made your arms instinctively tighten around him. You wanted him closer. Closer than this. Close enough that there would never again be room for anyone or anything to wedge itself between the two of you.

The need became unbearable. Before either of you consciously decided to move, your mouths crashed together again, the second kiss carrying none of the tentative disbelief of the first. It was greedier. Hungrier. Years of starving restraint finally collapsing beneath the weight of mutual surrender. You kissed him like someone terrified he might disappear if you stopped, your lips chasing his with desperate devotion while his answered with equal urgency, every sound he made dissolving against your mouth.

Somewhere in the haze of fever and adrenaline, your body moved before your thoughts could catch up. Without thinking, you shifted against him, instinctively seeking the hard length of his cock beneath the thin fabric separating you. The moment you found it, both of you gasped into the kiss. His cock settled firmly between your thighs, thick, feverishly hot, and throbbing with a quick, undeniable pulse that made your entire body tense in response. Dear God…He was so warm. So achingly, irresistibly real. The sensation tore a shameless whine from him, loud enough that it echoed softly through the quiet room before disappearing into your mouth.

You felt his throat bob beneath your fingertips as he swallowed hard, only to kiss you even more desperately than before. His powerful arms cinched around the entirety of your back until you were almost crushed against him, holding you with an intensity that bordered on possessive desperation. When you slowly ground yourself down along the unmistakable shape of his thick cock, you felt him shudder beneath you, his body trembling as though every nerve had become painfully attuned to yours. The sound he made against your lips was equal parts relief and torment, and it unraveled something inside your own chest.

“I’ll cum,” he blurted out with naked desperation, the warning tumbling helplessly from him even as he devoured your mouth in another kiss. His words were swallowed between your lips, breathless and strained, while his hands roamed over every place they dared to touch. They pressed along your sides, your waist, your back, his fingers flexing helplessly against you as though he was trying to memorize every inch of your body without crossing the final line his restraint still desperately clung to. His palms followed the slow roll of your hips with aching precision, trembling as if every instinct inside him screamed to grab your ass and grind you down harder against him himself, “I’ll cum if you keep doing that—!”

The sound of him nearly shattered whatever composure you had left. His voice had always done something dangerous to you, but you’d never heard it like this. It was wound so tightly with arousal that every syllable trembled beneath the strain of it, roughened by need until it bordered on pleading. It was exactly the sound you’d spent years imagining in the privacy of your own bedroom, the sound that had haunted countless fantasies until you could practically hear it whenever your thoughts wandered to him.

There had been so many nights when you’d buried your face into your pillow to muffle your own moans while imagining Caleb saying your name with that same helpless desperation, your fingers working furiously between your thighs until your entire body fell apart around the fantasy of him. Every time it happened, guilt always followed. Shame always followed. You’d lie there afterward with tears stinging your eyes, furious with yourself for being so hopelessly fucked in the head that even your own pleasure belonged to him. Yet none of those fantasies had come close to this. Nothing your imagination had ever conjured compared to the reality of hearing Caleb unravel beneath you.

Heat exploded low in your stomach, so fierce and all-consuming that it almost hurt. It pooled between your thighs until your entire body seemed to move on instinct alone. Before you realized what you were doing, you pushed yourself upright, climbing fully over him until you straddled his hips with frantic determination. The sudden motion made the room tilt violently around you, your fever and the dizzying intensity of kissing Caleb threatening to send you tumbling sideways. For one brief, disorienting moment, you actually thought you were going to fall.

Caleb caught you before gravity had the chance. His large hands closed securely around your hips with practiced steadiness, grounding you as effortlessly as though he’d been waiting for you to lose your balance. You instinctively braced yourself with both hands against his broad chest, your fingers gripping tightly enough to wrinkle the sweat-soaked fabric stretched across hard muscle beneath your palms. His body radiated heat. It poured through the damp cotton until it almost burned your skin, and everywhere the shirt clung to him, you could see the darker stains left by fever and exertion. The material hugged every contour of his body, tracing the powerful curve of his chest before dipping into the deep line dividing his pecs and stretching lower across the sharply carved planes of his abdomen. Even hidden beneath fabric, the strength of him stole your breath.

Dear God…You couldn’t stop staring. You didn’t want to. The sight of him beneath you, flushed scarlet from fever and want alike, panting softly as those impossibly violet eyes looked up at you with complete, undisguised awe, sent another wave of longing crashing through your chest. He looked almost overwhelmed by you, as though he still couldn’t quite believe you were real, and the expression made your heart ache with possessive affection. Every irrational part of you wanted to keep that look forever. To make sure no one else ever inspired it. To selfishly hoard every blush, every breathless stare, every beautiful, vulnerable expression until they all belonged to you and you alone.

Without thinking, your hands abandoned his chest and reached instead for the hem of his shirt. The decision felt completely instinctive. You didn’t ask. You simply needed him. Needed one less barrier standing between the two of you. Your fingers hurried beneath the damp fabric, racing to tug it upward, and for the briefest moment you wondered whether he’d stop you. He didn’t. If anything, Caleb moved faster than you did.

The instant he realized what you wanted, his own hands flew to the shirt, helping you yank it over his head with an urgency so wonderfully clumsy it made your heart race even harder. The fabric caught briefly around his arms before he finally tore it free, tossing it somewhere into the room without either of you sparing it a second glance. A heartbeat later he dropped back against the mattress, bare-chested and breathing hard, his skin glistening faintly with perspiration as the fever left him flushed from throat to chest. His hands found your hips again almost immediately, settling there with unmistakable familiarity as though they’d already decided they belonged nowhere else, his fingers curling just a little tighter than before, reluctant to risk even the smallest chance that you might slip away now that he’d finally been allowed to hold you like this.

“Put your weight down on me…” He breathed hoarsely, his voice rough enough that it barely sounded like him anymore.

His hands tightened around your hips in a slow, encouraging squeeze that hovered dangerously close to possessive as he guided you to settle your full weight over the throbbing, feverishly hot hardness trapped between him and your pussy. The instant you sank against him, a sharp sigh tore free from his chest. His violet eyes fluttered before rolling back beneath heavy lids, his lips falling open as every muscle in his neck strained visibly beneath skin slick with perspiration. His broad chest rose sharply beneath your trembling hands while a shudder raced through his entire body.

“F-fuck! Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re—…D-doing this to me!” The last words escaped between gritted teeth, dragged from somewhere deep inside him with a growl that sounded equal parts overwhelmed and utterly ruined.

The sound alone nearly unraveled you. Your pussy fluttered helplessly around nothing, your clit buzzing with sharp, relentless electricity as you rolled your hips along the unmistakable shape of his cock without the slightest trace of hesitation. There was no teasing. No coy smiles. No careful restraint. Years of starving yourselves for one another had stripped away every ounce of patience either of you possessed, leaving behind nothing but raw, savage need.

You moved against him with the desperate greed of someone who had spent too many nights imagining this exact moment, chasing every impossible fantasy until reality finally surpassed it. Watching Caleb come apart beneath you was intoxicating in a way you never could have prepared yourself for. Every strained breath, every helpless grunt, every growl vibrating up from his chest sent another violent pulse of heat crashing low through your stomach. His voice, roughened by fever and pleasure alike, poured deliciously into your ears until another shiver raced through your entire body. You couldn’t tell anymore whether you were burning because of the fever or because Caleb looked so devastatingly beautiful losing himself beneath you.

Your thoughts dissolved into complete mush. All you could think about was him. The way his hands kept begging at your hips, gripping tighter every time you rolled yourself over the thick press of his cock as though he couldn’t decide whether he wanted to slow you down or desperately encourage more. The way his entire body refused to stay still, restless beneath you as grunts, sharp sighs, rough growls, and the occasional miserable little sniffle slipped free despite his obvious attempts to keep himself composed. Even now, sick and flushed and panting, Caleb still looked as though some stubborn part of him wanted to maintain control, yet every movement of your hips shattered another piece of that discipline until all that remained was the man underneath it; the one who had spent years pretending he didn’t ache for you exactly like this.

It thrilled you. God…It thrilled you so much it almost frightened you. Some possessive, ugly part of your heart drank in every helpless sound he made. You wanted to memorize them all. Lock them away beside every blush, every trembling breath, every stolen glance you’d hoarded over the years. You wanted to be the only person who ever heard Caleb sound like this. The only one who ever made him fall apart so completely. The thought was selfish. Twisted. Maybe even a little insane. You knew that. Yet instead of pushing it away, you only found yourself grinding harder, greedier, silently delighting in the way his body answered yours so eagerly. If loving him had turned you into something obsessive, then perhaps there had never been any saving you. Judging by the way Caleb clung to you with equal desperation, perhaps there had never been any saving him either.

The room dissolved into nothing but heat. Both of you panted into the tiny space as your bodies writhed together with desperate, uncoordinated urgency. Every roll of your hips drew another strained sound from Caleb, every helpless thrust of his hips beneath you answering yours without conscious thought until neither of you seemed capable of remembering who had begun moving first. The heat between your legs grew blinding. Your clit throbbed with relentless intensity, every brush against him sending another wave crashing through your body while your thighs burned from the effort of refusing to stop. Sweat dampened your skin until strands of hair clung to your forehead, your breathing dissolving into broken little pants as the pressure low in your stomach tightened so suddenly it almost stole the air from your lungs.

The realization struck all at once. Your entire body tensed. A startled gasp tore from your throat as your fingers dug instinctively into Caleb’s flushed, sweat-slick chest, your nails leaving crescent-shaped marks against his skin while your hips faltered for only a heartbeat, “I-I’m gonna cum! I’m gonna cum! I’m gonna cum, oh, fuck!”

Before your mind could even catch up, Caleb’s fist shot forward, latching onto the front of the elastic waistband of your sweats. His fingers balled the fabric with such desperate force that you felt the urgency pouring out of him seep through your very skin, as though his need had become something tangible enough to wrap around you completely. Your eyes flew open for the briefest moment, only to find him staring up at you with an expression so fiercely, frighteningly passionate that it stole the last coherent thought from your mind. His violet eyes looked completely consumed by you, stripped of every careful wall he’d spent years hiding behind. The intensity of that gaze alone was enough to send you tumbling over the edge, and when his desperate grip silently urged your hips into another merciless grind against him, the pressure bursting through your clit became too much to bear.

“Caleb!” You cried, your jaw falling open as your head tipped back toward the ceiling.

Your eyes squeezed shut so tightly that bursts of brilliant color exploded behind them, white-hot pleasure crashing through your clit before radiating violently through every inch of your body. Your entire frame shook from your head down to your curled toes, every muscle locking and trembling as wave after wave ripped through you. You desperately shoved yourself along the thick shape of his cock, riding out your climax with broken moans and ragged gasps while your fingertips dug helpless crescent marks into his flushed, sweat-slick chest. The sensation overwhelmed you so completely that you couldn’t tell where your own body ended and his began anymore. Everything inside you had become heat, trembling, and Caleb.

“Cum for me!” Caleb fell apart beneath you with absolutely no shame, his voice bursting from him in a feverish frenzy that sounded almost euphoric. His powerful hands locked around you as though he couldn’t bear the thought of you slipping away even a fraction, holding you firmly against the trembling grind of his hips as they bucked helplessly beneath yours, “Y/n! Y/n, cum! Yeah! Yeah, cum on it! C-cum—! With me—! Cum with me…”

Every word dissolved into a groan so deep and raw that it vibrated through his entire chest beneath your hands. Even without any experience, there was no mistaking that sound. It wasn’t simply another moan or another strained breath. It was unmistakably the sound of Caleb coming apart beneath you. His whole body convulsed in powerful shudders as his cock pulsed hotly between your legs, each involuntary tremor stealing another helpless sound from his throat while his breathing dissolved into broken pants. The expression on his face, eyes squeezed shut, brows drawn tight, lips parted around another wrecked groan, burned itself into your memory with painful clarity. You knew, without anyone ever needing to tell you, that you were witnessing his climax, and something fiercely possessive bloomed inside your chest at the realization that you were the one who had undone him like this.

The room pitched violently around you. Your head spun so hard that you couldn’t remain upright any longer, your exhausted body threatening to collapse as the aftershocks still rolled through your trembling thighs. Caleb caught you before you could even begin to fall. His arms wrapped around you with the same instinctive certainty they’d always had, gently pulling you down until your body melted against his burning, sweat-slick chest.

You couldn’t think. You couldn’t move. You could barely remember how to breathe. All you could hear was the frantic pounding of his heart beneath your ear, still hammering wildly inside his chest as though it hadn’t yet realized everything was over. His arms trembled from exertion and fever alike as they settled around you, but they never loosened. One broad hand found the back of your head, cradling you with impossible tenderness while his fingers lazily stroked through your hair. The slow rise and fall of his chest rocked you gently as you buried your face against the heated scent of his damp neck, finally allowing yourself to sink into him completely.

The two of you lay there for a long while without speaking, still tangled together beneath the blankets as you caught your breath in quiet unison. Caleb continued holding you with absentminded affection, his thumb tracing slow circles through your hair while every so often his lips brushed softly against your forehead or temple, as though reassuring himself you were still there. You noticed he never once loosened his embrace. If anything, he seemed to gather you a little closer every passing minute, unable to stop touching you now that he’d finally allowed himself to.

“I’m never letting you go, Pips…” He breathed quietly, his voice warm against your hair, “you know that, right?”