Caleb is the loml

xavier

The debrief said international, low-threat, indefinite duration. That was all Xavier had bothered to read before he fell back asleep against the jet's window, snoring softly with his hood pulled up. He'd been up until four watching a drama he swore he'd only watch "one more episode" of, and now his body was paying the price — slumped, boneless, one earbud dangling out of his hoodie.

touch down in 20 minutes, the pilot's voice crackled.

You'd been half-asleep yourself until you reached for your passport and your boarding pass slipped loose. You caught it out of habit. Read it out of boredom.

Then read it again.

The airport code. The little flag icon. The name of the city printed in the alphabet you hadn't seen on official paper in years.

"Xav." You shook his shoulder. Nothing. "Xav." You shook harder. "XAVIER."

He startled awake so violently his hood fell back off his head. "Wha— hazard? Where's the—"

"We're going to my country." Your voice cracked on the last word. "Xav, this is my home."

That woke him up properly. He blinked at you — at your hands trembling around a boarding pass, at the way your whole body had gone electric in a way he'd never seen outside of a fight — and something in his chest went soft and sharp all at once. Xavier's seen a lot of skies in his time, but never you under one that was actually yours. He doesn't get homesick. He isn't sure he's allowed to. But watching you light up like every constellation had rearranged itself just for you — that, he understood completely.

"I can't wait, my star," he said, giving you a weak, sleepy smile, but his hand was already finding yours.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

You did. You showed him street food carts and the particular chaos of your mother tongue as you haggled and joked and slipped into your first language like slipping into warm water. Xavier followed a half-step behind, quiet as always, but watching — soft-eyed, completely in awe, like he couldn't quite believe this version of you had been waiting inside you the whole time.

On your last night you took him to a shadow-puppet theatre tucked behind a night market, the kind of place tourists never find because it isn't listed anywhere, it's just known. The show was old — older than the country's borders, older than most gods people still prayed to — a folk epic about a river spirit who fell in love with a mortal woman and, unable to bear watching her grow old while he stayed young forever, begged the sky to either age him or take his immortality away entirely. The sky refused both. Love was never measured by matching lifespans, the narrator intoned, only by whether you chose to stay. The river spirit chose to stay by her side anyway, mortal lifetime after mortal lifetime, meeting her again in every reincarnation, never explaining why he already loved her before they'd even spoken.

Xavier went very, very still.

You felt it before you saw it — his hand tightening around yours, not painfully, just permanently, like a knot being tied. You glanced up at him in the low lantern-light and found him leaning forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the screen like it held the answer to a question he'd been too afraid to ask the stars directly.

"Xav?" you whispered.

"I'm okay." His voice was thick. "I just—" He stopped. Started again. "I think I needed to hear that a river can love a girl for one lifetime or a hundred, and it isn't the length that matters."

You didn't know exactly what memory or fear that story had reached inside him and touched, but you knew Xavier well enough not to push. You just laid your head on his shoulder and let him hold your hand like a tether for the rest of the show.

Back in Linkon, you caught him three nights later at 3am on the couch, blue light from his phone washing over his face, seventeen tabs deep into your country's mythology. When you padded downstairs for water and raised an eyebrow at him, he didn't even look sheepish.

"There's a whole legend about the constellation that guards travelers," he said, patting the seat beside him without looking away from the screen. "It sounds like something my ancestors would've told stories about. Come here, I want to show you."

The boy who reads the stars for a living, learning to read yours instead. If that isn't devotion, nothing is.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ zayne

Zayne had been to your country before — three medical conferences, one charity surgical mission, a handful of case studies he still cited in lectures. He knew the skyline of the capital, the good coffee near the university hospital, the exact walk from his hotel to the conference center. What he didn't know was you, here. He'd only ever met you in Linkon.

So when he mentioned, almost offhand, that he had another trip scheduled — a conference, and a follow-up visit to a pediatric ward he'd operated at years ago — and you went quiet in that particular way that meant you were trying not to want something too much, he didn't need you to say it.

"Pack your things," he said simply. "You're coming with me."

You'd been homesick for months and hadn't wanted to burden him with it. Zayne, predictably, had noticed anyway. He notices everything. He simply doesn't always say so.

At the airport you were vibrating with a kind of joy he'd rarely seen from you — gripping his arm, narrating an itinerary he had no time to actually do, apologizing immediately after for "being too much." He just looked down at you, something unbearably fond behind his glasses.

"Don't apologize for being excited," he said. "I like seeing you this happy and excited."

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The hospital visit came first — always work before pleasure, that was Zayne's rhythm, precise as a suture line. The children he'd operated on years ago had grown taller, louder, and the moment he stepped into the ward they descended on him in a wave that made the unflappable Dr. Zayne visibly overwhelmed, hands raised slightly like he wasn't sure which small person to address first.

You stepped in without thinking. Crouched to their height, spoke in your mother tongue — one at a time, one at a time, he can only understand one language, be patient with him — and something about the cadence of it, the total ease in your voice, made Zayne go quiet in the doorway.

He had heard you speak your language before. A word here, a curse dropped under your breath, a lullaby half-remembered. He had never heard you speak it like this — fluent, unhesitating, fully yourself in a way Linkon never quite let you be. It undid something in his chest that he usually kept very carefully stitched shut.

Zayne feels things enormously. It's precisely why he's spent a lifetime training himself not to show it — surgeons who feel too visibly don't survive their first year. But watching you translate for him, watching a room full of children realize their doctor's girlfriend was one of them, watching them erupt into cheers because the man who saved their lives had chosen someone who understood exactly where they came from — Zayne had to excuse himself for a moment under the pretense of checking a chart. He was not checking a chart. He needed thirty seconds where no one could see his face.

When he found you again, he laced his fingers through yours without a word and simply held on, tighter than necessary.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

Two days later, once his obligations were finally cleared, you dragged him to a dessert stall you'd been dreaming about since the plane touched down — a syrup-soaked, rose-scented thing that Zayne, who has never once turned down a sweet treat in his life, was already leaning in before you'd even set it down.

"Open," you instructed, spoon raised.

He opened his mouth eagerly, no hesitation at all. Then his eyes went wide.

"...that's genuinely good," he admitted, startled, already leaning in for a second bite before you could offer it.

By the time you left, he'd bought a full box "for research purposes" and was — quietly, privately, only for you to see — smiling the entire walk back to the hotel.

"Thank you for today," he said, forehead resting briefly against yours. "I don't think I understood what home meant to you until I watched you have one."

"Anywhere with you is home too," you murmured.

"Then let's build one everywhere you love," he said, and kissed your forehead like a promise written in careful, controlled ink.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ rafayel

Rafayel had only ever seen your country in pictures — pulled up late at night while hunting for inspiration for a new painting, saved in some folder he'd never admit existed.

He wanted to know it from up close instead.

You stepped off the plane into a wall of noise and heat and color and your whole posture changed — shoulders back, chin up, a bounce in your step you didn't have anywhere else in the world. You were already pointing things out before your feet had properly hit the ground, narrating the names of trees and streets you passed like he'd asked for a botany lecture, and Rafayel was watching you with a huge, helpless grin.

"Excited, cutie?"

You barely heard him, too busy yapping about the flora.

"Look at you," he said, watching you light up over a literal tree, "all cute and happy. It's nice to see." He meant it — genuinely, helplessly — but he also couldn't resist a jab. "Why can't you look at me the same way you look at that completely normal-looking tree?" he pouted, one hand pressed to his chest like you'd wounded him.

"Raf, please," you said, laughing, dragging him along by the sleeve while he kept up a running, wounded commentary about losing to local flora the entire cab ride to the hotel.

You'd built an itinerary with the precision of a woman reclaiming lost time: Tuesday for your favorite restaurants, the streets you used to play in, the corners of the city that belonged to no one but your childhood self. Wednesday for the museums and temples and every painting-worthy inch of architecture Rafayel had been begging to see in person — his day, entirely, because you knew exactly what your boyfriend needed to feel like this trip belonged to him too.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

Tuesday, you talked. Endlessly, joyfully, switching between languages mid-sentence without noticing, joking with locals, laughing at things that didn't fully translate. Rafayel — who has spent centuries feeling like an outsider even among his own people, half-human, half-something the sea never lets him forget — recognized the specific comfort of belonging on your face immediately. It reminded him, achingly, of the rare moments he lets himself think about the ocean as home instead of inheritance.

Wednesday was his day, and he'd clearly been saving up requests for weeks. He wanted to wear the traditional clothing, eat the real food instead of his and your clumsy attempts at recreating it back in Linkon, and stand in front of every mural and sculpture he'd only ever seen photographed. You took him to the shop first, helping him into hand-embroidered robes the color of pomegranate and gold, and it would be an understatement to say he loved it.

"Wow, cutie," he said, hands smoothing over the fabric at your waist, completely reverent, "you look out of this world."

"Not too bad yourself, Raf," you said, taking in your already-beautiful boyfriend somehow managing to look even better dressed in your culture's colors — which you genuinely hadn't thought possible until right that second.

He wouldn't stop touching the embroidery for the rest of the afternoon, running his thumb along the stitching like he was trying to memorize the technique by feel alone. Once you got to the museum proper he all but forgot you existed for a solid ten minutes — dragging you by the wrist from painting to painting, talking fast and a little breathless about brushwork and pigment, pointing out gold leaf work he swore predated half of what people back home called "innovation," hands sketching shapes in the air because he physically couldn't help himself. You'd never seen him nerd out quite like this, not even in his own atelier, and watching him fall in love with a piece of you that had nothing to do with him made your chest ache in the best way.

By the end of the day he'd bought a fresh sketchbook from the museum gift shop, muttering something about his usual one running out of pages faster than expected. Every sketch in it, without exception, somehow ended up being you.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ sylus

Sylus, leader of Onychinus, has done business on every continent and in more shadowed corners of the world than most governments know exist. He's met people from your country before. Knows fragments of your language — enough to charm, enough to unsettle, never enough to let anyone underestimate him.

He also, apparently, bought a property there over a year ago. Before the two of you were even official. Just in case.

It came out on an ordinary night — you scrolling through a friend's travel photos, a small, private ache in your chest you tried to swallow before he noticed.

He noticed.

"Homesick, kitten?"

"...A little," you admitted, curling into his side.

He didn't say much. Just held you until you fell asleep. By the time you woke up, the private jet was already fueled.

"Pack a suitcase," he said, far too casually for a man who'd apparently rearranged his entire week overnight.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The house he'd bought sat on a hillside above the old quarter, all pale stone and dark wood shutters, courtyards stacked with fig trees, a rooftop terrace that caught the whole skyline at sunset. It was, unmistakably, too much — the kind of gift that comes with strings even when Sylus insists it doesn't.

"Sylus, I can't accept this," you said, trying to shove the keys back into his hand.

"You already did," he said, smug and immovable as ever, "the second I decided you were mine to spoil."

You were too jet-lagged to properly argue. That would come later.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The next morning you came across a small market, vendors shouting over each other in your native language, trying to lure people to their stalls. One of them zeroed in on you immediately — draping a scarf around your neck before you could protest, steering you toward a mirror to admire how it looked against your skin.

"Well hello, my darling — care for a scarf? Premium quality, and that colour matches your skin tone perfectly," he said, already sensing a sale.

"How much?" Sylus asked, stepping in behind you.

The number the shopkeeper quoted was almost laughable — the kind of price only a "not quite local anymore" accent gets charged.

"That's too much, I can get a better price elsewhere," you said in your own language, straight to the shopkeeper, before switching back to add out loud, "£30 is all I'm taking this for," arms crossed in total conviction.

Sylus went quiet beside you, delighted, watching you try to haggle for what you were fairly sure was the first time in your life — normally this was your mother's job, or your older sibling's, never yours.

Thirty minutes in, you were still arguing. Sylus had that insufferable little smirk on his face the entire time, watching his kitten bare her claws. When the shopkeeper still wouldn't budge, you finally snapped, switching fully back into your language: "Your clothes are cheap and tacky anyway, no one's going to buy from you," and dragged Sylus away from the stall, empty-handed and seething.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

You couldn't let it go. "That man yesterday infuriated me," you grumbled the next morning. "All I wanted was a fair price and he wouldn't budge."

"I could get you a good price, kitten, if you're that hung up on it," Sylus offered.

"No — I want to do it myself. I've watched my family haggle my whole life, I just never got to try."

He loved that about you, your stubborn independence — even if, privately, he thought yesterday's attempt had been a tragedy. So he leaned down and murmured a few tactical pointers in your ear before you went back: start low enough that there's real room to move, keep your face neutral no matter what he counters with, and be ready to actually walk away — that's what gets the price down, not the number itself.

"You're back again," the shopkeeper said, unimpressed.

"Of course. Couldn't stop thinking about that scarf," you said, chin up.

Sylus's tips fresh in your mind, you opened absurdly low: "I'll take it for £10," you said in your language, utterly convinced.

The shopkeeper looked personally offended. "£60, or nothing — I'm being generous here," he shot back, clearly thinking he could still take you for a fool.

Sylus leaned in, murmuring against your ear, "Don't worry, kitten, this is part of the game."

"£20," you countered. "Aren't I one of your own? I'm not a tourist, am I?" — leaning hard into the guilt trip, and watching it land.

"...That's true," the shopkeeper admitted, some of the fight draining out of him. "You are one of us."

"You wouldn't sell it to a local at that price. What would you actually charge one of your own?"

He sighed. "£20."

"Then I'll take it for £20," you said, already handing over the money before he could reconsider.

You dragged Sylus away practically vibrating, gushing the whole walk back about your first successful haggle, ego thoroughly inflated.

"Well done, kitten. Your first deal," he said, dry as ever — but he was, in fact, unbearably proud. Sylus gets what he wants out of people through charm and careful pressure applied at exactly the right moment — it's more or less his entire business model — and watching you do the same thing, cold and sharp and completely unbothered in a language that wasn't his, felt like watching someone speak his native tongue for the first time. Hands on your hips, thoroughly pleased with yourself over a £20 scarf, you'd never looked more like his kind of trouble.

"Remind me never to let you sit in on one of my deals," he said. "You'd talk me out of my own profit."

"Maybe I want to," you said, still riding the high.

"Mm." He kissed the crown of your head. "Then I'd let you."

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ caleb

With Caleb, it was different from the start. You'd been adopted as a young child, and for most of your childhood your country of origin was less a place than a question mark — a blank space you filled in with guesses every time you caught your reflection looking different from everyone around you. You were curious about it for as long as you could remember, but it took years before you worked up the nerve to actually ask.

Grandma Josephine was the one who finally told you the truth of where you came from, patiently, over a kitchen table, answering every question you had and the dozen more you asked after that. And once you knew the name of the country, you couldn't let it go — you told Caleb, half-embarrassed, that you wanted to learn the language. All of it, properly. Not just a few phrases for a party trick, but actually learn it.

Caleb didn't blink. He just started studying alongside you that same week.

You two spent years on it — clumsy pronunciation, flashcards taped to the bathroom mirror, Caleb butchering tones so badly in the beginning that you'd both end up in tears laughing instead of practicing. But you kept at it, both of you, long after the novelty should have worn off, until one day you realized you were actually fluent — properly, comfortably fluent — and Caleb wasn't far behind you.

It happened on an ordinary night, curled into his side with the TV on low, that you finally said out loud what you'd been circling around for months: you wanted to go there. See it in person. Not just the language anymore, but the actual place.

"Then let's go," Caleb said instantly, like it was the easiest decision in the world. "I'll fly us there myself."

He had you packed and an itinerary drafted within days — real, authentic food at the top of every list, clearly done with the years of your and his failed home-cooked attempts back in Linkon still fresh in his memory. The flight over was smooth, steady, exactly what you'd expect from your favorite pilot showing off a little for the occasion. By the time you stepped out of the airport into the warm evening air, all you could do was stare — the skyline, the smell of the streets, weather that felt like it had been waiting for you specifically.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The next day you finally got to explore properly. It was overwhelming in the best way — loud, fast, a little disorienting even for you — and when you two got turned around looking for a train station, you were the one who stepped up and asked a local for directions in your own language, understood every word of the answer, and even walked away with a restaurant recommendation for good measure.

"Pip, you're amazing," Caleb said, delighted, watching you navigate the train station like you'd never left. He wasn't exaggerating for your benefit, either — years of late-night study sessions and butchered pronunciation had led to this, watching you thrive in a place you'd once known almost nothing about.

"I told you I was fluent," you said, smug, practically strutting toward the platform.

"You told me. I just didn't believe you'd be this smooth about it," he teased, slinging an arm around your shoulders. "Kind of unfair, honestly. I'm supposed to be the pilot. I'm supposed to be the one who knows how to get us places."

"You got us here," you pointed out. "I'm just getting us to lunch."

The lunch spot the stranger recommended turned out to be a tiny family-run place three streets over, no sign, no menu in any language but yours — the kind of restaurant that exists purely on word of mouth between people who already belong there. Caleb ordered by pointing enthusiastically at whatever you were eating, mangling the dish's name so badly the owner laughed out loud and corrected him twice, patient and delighted, before finally giving up and just patting his shoulder like he'd adopted him on the spot.

"I love it here," Caleb said around a mouthful of food that was clearly too spicy for him, eyes watering, refusing to admit defeat. "I love — ow — I love that everyone just, like. Feeds you. Adopts you. No questions."

"That's just how it is," you said, sliding your water toward him without a word.

"No, I mean it though." He set his fork down, suddenly more serious than the moment called for. "You spent your whole life not knowing this part of yourself. And now you're just — fluent. In the language, in the food, in knowing which street to turn down. You did that. Grandma Josephine helped, sure, but you're the one who kept showing up to learn even when it was hard and you had every excuse to give up."

You blinked at him, throat suddenly tight. "Caleb—"

"I'm just saying I'm proud of you," he said, easy and warm, already reaching over to steal a piece of your food like the moment hadn't just cracked something open in your chest. "Also, incredibly attracted to you right now, for the record. Bilingual Pip ordering street food like a local is doing something to me."

"You're ridiculous."

"I'm in love," he corrected, grinning. "There's a difference."

That evening he insisted on one more stop before the hotel — a night market you hadn't even mentioned, one he'd apparently found and researched himself weeks ago without telling you, tucked between two apartment blocks and lit end to end in paper lanterns. A woman selling hand-painted kites recognized the regional dialect the second you spoke and lit up, launching into a story about her grandfather who'd made kites the same way for sixty years. You translated for Caleb in real time, and he listened to every word like it was the most important flight briefing of his life.

"Buy one," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"The kite. Buy it. We're flying it tomorrow before we leave, I don't care if I have to reroute the whole trip." He was already grinning at the woman, giving her an enthusiastic, badly-accented thank-you that made her laugh again. "I want a piece of this place to bring home. And I want it to be something you picked, because everything today has been you finally getting to be all of yourself at once, and I don't want to forget what that looked like."

You bought the kite. The next morning, on a hill just outside the city with the whole skyline spread out gold and hazy below you, Caleb ran it into the wind like a kid, whooping when it finally caught, turning back to grab you by the waist and spin you both around until you were dizzy and laughing and thoroughly convinced you'd never loved anyone this much in your life.

"Home looks good on you, Pip," he said, breathless, forehead against yours. "I hope you know I'd learn a hundred more languages just to keep hearing you talk about it."

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

✦ valko

Valko has never needed the lecture on why home matters. He runs with a pack, quite literally — raised on a hierarchy built out of loyalty instead of blood, on the instinct to circle around whoever's yours and keep them safe without being asked. It's not so different, he'd tell you, from what you grew up with. Family is family whether it howls or not.

So when you finally worked up the courage to admit how much you missed your country — half-expecting to have to explain it, the way some of the others initially needed it explained — he just nodded, slow and understanding, like you'd told him something about yourself he'd already clocked weeks ago.

"You don't have to justify wanting to go back to your pack," he said simply. "I'd never ask you to."

Pack. You'd never thought of your family that way before, but hearing him say it — easy, matter-of-fact, like it was the most natural translation in the world — made something in your chest loosen.

He didn't turn it into a production. No grand itinerary, no dramatic gesture — just quiet, steady logistics handled without fuss, because Valko's love has always looked like showing up rather than performing. Before you'd even booked the flights, he was already asking to learn a few basic phrases — not tourist phrases, but the ones that mattered. How do I say thank you to your mother. How do I ask your grandfather how he's feeling. How do I tell your cousins my name.

⋅ ⋆ ⋅

The strange thing was, once you landed, Valko barely looked at a single landmark. He'd glance politely at whatever monument or view you pointed out, nod, and then his attention would drift straight back to whoever was in the room — the way your mother refilled everyone's plate before her own, the pecking order between your older cousins, which aunt secretly ran the whole household despite never raising her voice. He read family dynamics the way other people read a map, fluent in it instantly, because it was a language he already spoke fluently back home.

"Your family runs it a lot like my pack does," he told you one night, quiet, almost amazed. "The oldest look after the youngest without being told to. Everyone eats before anyone leaves the table. Nobody's really in charge, but everyone knows exactly who to listen to."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's the highest compliment I have," he said simply.

He started sharing pack stories back, unprompted — who'd raised him, who he'd fought to protect, the strange found-family logic that had shaped him just as much as blood shapes you. Your grandmother, delighted to have a captive audience, traded him story for story across the kitchen table for hours, neither of you needing much translation once the two of them found their rhythm.

By day three he'd stopped asking whether he could help around the house and just started doing it — hauling in groceries before anyone noticed they were missing, fixing a wobbling table leg your father had complained about for a decade, appearing at your grandmother's elbow the second she so much as reached for a heavy pot. Your youngest cousins adopted him within the hour, dragging him outside for a game that seemed to have no rules beyond "chase Valko," which he submitted to with the patient good humor of someone used to being climbed on by things smaller than him.

One of them — barely seven, all elbows and nerve — took one look at his size, his quiet, and his permanently serious expression, and decided, very firmly, that he was terrifying.

"Is he mad?" she whispered to you, hiding half behind your leg.

Valko, crouched a respectful distance away, heard her anyway. Instead of getting louder or more animated to prove otherwise, he just lowered himself the rest of the way to the ground, folded his hands in his lap, and waited — patient as anything, letting her come to him instead of the other way around.

"I'm not mad," he said, gently. "I'm actually pretty easy to win over. Ask your cousin."

It took her the better part of an afternoon to fully believe it. By evening she'd claimed his shoulders as her preferred seat for the rest of the trip, one small fist gripping his hair like reins, entirely unbothered by the fact that she'd called him scary that same morning. Watching your six-foot, permanently stoic boyfriend get bossed around by a seven-year-old with complete, cheerful obedience did something to your heart you weren't fully prepared for.

By the end of the week he knew every name in the house — not just the adults, but every cousin, every nickname, which grandparent preferred which nickname and which one hated theirs. He helped your grandfather to his chair every evening without being asked twice. He sat through your grandmother's longest stories without once checking the time.

The night before you left, watching your whole family crowd around the table one last time, laughing too loud and talking over each other in a language he'd only just started to learn, Valko went quiet in a different way than usual — jaw tight, eyes a little too bright.

"You okay?" you murmured.

"Yeah." His voice was rougher than he meant it to be. "It's just — this is exactly what I'd want for a pack of my own, someday. Watching you have it already, watching them already love you this much, it's—" He stopped, cleared his throat. "It's a lot. Good. But a lot."

At one point your uncle, sizing him up the way protective uncles do everywhere, asked bluntly through you whether Valko would look after you the way family should. Valko didn't wait for the translation.

"Always," he said — plain, immediate, a single word that needed no dialect to land.

Your uncle understood him just fine. By the time you left, he wasn't a guest anymore. He was just Valko — cousin-approved, grandmother-fed, fully and permanently folded into the family, the same way he'd have folded any one of them into his pack without a second thought.

Different language. Different word for it. Same love, exactly.

⊹₊ ⋆ ⋅☆⋅ ⋆ ₊⊹

𓆩♡𓆪Xavier

Xavier definitely does not know what he's doing when it comes to your hair — he barely knows anything about his own hair, he just wakes up looking perfect somehow. So when you ask him to help with your braids, he's absolutely clueless, but so eager to learn.

It's a lazy Sunday afternoon, sunlight slanting in through the blinds and striping the carpet gold. Your hair is freshly washed, blow-dried, and moisturized. Your bedroom floor is scattered with everything you'll need — a rat-tail comb, a tub of edge control, packets of braiding hair still in their plastic. Xavier sits cross-legged behind you on a cushion, looking at the setup like it's a puzzle with no instructions.

"Xav, can you part my hair pretty, please?" you ask, voice all whiny and pleading.

Of course he was going to say yes — not with your face looking that cute, chubby cheeks and all. He just had no idea what he was signing up for.

"Xav, you need to part my hair ear to ear, okay baby?" you say, settling between his thighs, your back warm against his chest.

"Okay, my star, I'll try," he says, gripping the rat-tail comb like it might bite him. He presses the tip carefully to your scalp, tongue poking out slightly in concentration, and drags it slow and shaky in a line from one ear to the other, stopping every few centimeters to check he hasn't gone crooked.

You double-check the part with your fingers, tracing the clean line through your scalp. It's perfect.

"XAV. THIS IS PERFECT," you say, jumping up and hugging him tightly. He melts into it instantly.

"Did I really do that good?" he asks, still half-suffocated by your grip.

"Yes baby, it's perfect, how are you so good at this?" you say, reassuring him.

"I was just being precise. Like I'm cutting a Wanderer in half — except it was your hair," he says.

You stare at him blankly before bursting into laughter, smacking him lightly. He starts laughing too. God, your boyfriend is so silly.

After that, Xavier helps by handing you extension hair for your braids, unwrapping each packet and combing through the ends so they're smooth before passing them over, even attempting a knotless braid himself — fingers fumbling with the feed-in technique, hair slipping loose twice before he gets a section to actually hold. It isn't perfect, the tension a little too loose near the root, but at least he tried.

Once your hair's done —  braids trailing past your shoulders, ends dipped in warm water to seal them — all he can do is admire you, fingers slowly raking through the braids, testing the weight of them in his palm.

"You're so beautiful, my star," he says, still admiring your shared handiwork.

"Next time, can I properly do your hair, my star?"

"Of course, Xav," you say, smothering him in kisses.

After that, you tie your satin bonnet on, the room dimming as the sun finally dips below the windowsill, and you both cuddle up in bed, drifting off to sleep together.

--

𓆩♡𓆪Zayne

Zayne actually has some knowledge when it comes to your hair texture, because to him, wash days are also his days — a chance to slow down and spend real time together. Taking care of your hair is genuinely one of his favorite things to do with you.

It's a Saturday morning, soft grey light filtering through sheer curtains, the whole apartment quiet except for the low hum of the coffee maker. Zayne has no work today. You told him the night before that you were planning to wash your hair and do a twist-out, and he offered to help before you'd even finished the sentence.

After breakfast — eggs he insisted on making, plated far too neatly for a Saturday — you sit between his thighs on a folded towel in the bathroom, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, a row of bottles lined up on the counter like he's prepping for a procedure: pre-shampoo oil, a wide-tooth comb, a spray bottle of water. He sections your hair into four and starts at the very ends, gently parting it, careful not to hurt you, working the pre-shampoo through strand by strand to slowly detangle it before any water touches it at all.

"Does that hurt, my love?" he asks softly, brushing out the knots with slow, deliberate strokes, always combing from tip to root so he never rips through a tangle. You shake your head no, and he keeps going.

During wash day, Zayne loves showing off his random hair facts, and you think it's so cute when he does.

"Did you know red hair is the rarest hair color? Only about 1% of people have it," he says, still gently detangling.

You laugh lightly at the random fact.

"Also — did you know each hair follicle contains enough genetic material to clone an entire human being?" he says, dropping another fact.

"Really?" you say, skeptical.

He goes on to explain exactly how, and you find yourself smiling as he rambles on, his voice a low, even murmur against the quiet of the bathroom.

For the actual wash, since he wants you to feel completely relaxed, he runs a nice bubble bath, water tinted faintly amber from your favorite bath oil, your favorite candle lit on the edge of the tub throwing soft flickering light against the tile, something soft and instrumental playing low from his phone propped against the mirror.

You sink into the warm water, foam brushing your collarbones. Zayne rolls up his sleeves further, ready to rinse the pre-shampoo out. While you're in the bath, he even gives you a light massage first — thumbs working slow circles into your shoulders, down along your spine — before he even touches the showerhead. It's quiet, just the sound of his classical playlist, soft piano threaded with violin, and the two of you finally catching up on the week you'd barely seen each other through.

Then he grabs the showerhead, tests the water against his wrist twice before getting the temperature just right, and washes your hair thoroughly, giving you the best scalp massage of your life — the kind that has your eyes fluttering shut and your shoulders dropping every bit of tension they were holding. He works the shampoo through slow and deliberate, fingers massaging in small circles from your hairline to the nape of your neck, then the conditioner after, detangling one more time with his fingers before he even reaches for the comb. Once he's rinsed everything out, he wraps your hair up in a microfiber towel, twists it into a little turban on top of your head, and helps you out of the bath, wrapping you in a towel like you're something precious.

"There," he says, pressing a kiss to your damp forehead. "All clean."

The actual styling he leaves to you — he's smart enough to know twist-outs aren't his area of expertise — while he heads to the kitchen to start dinner. But he doesn't fully disappear. Every twenty minutes or so, he wanders back in, leaning against the doorframe with a dish towel still slung over his shoulder, the smell of something simmering drifting in behind him.

"How's it coming along?" he asks the first time, watching you rake leave-in cream through a section, then twist it tight from root to tip.

"Good. Slow, but good," you say, twisting a section around your finger, smoothing the flyaways down with a little oil on your fingertip.

The second time he checks in, he's got flour on his sleeve and the faint smell of garlic trailing in behind him. He doesn't say anything, just leans in the doorway and watches you finish off a twist, quietly fascinated by the process the same way he's fascinated by everything you do.

"You're staring," you say, not even looking up.

"I like watching you," he says simply, like it's the most obvious thing in the world, before disappearing back to the stove.

By the time your twist-out is fully done — hair wrapped up safely in ur pink bonnet, catching the last of the evening light through the kitchen window — dinner's ready too, plated and waiting, a candle already lit on the table. He pulls your chair out for you, tucks a stray curl behind your ear before you even sit down.

"Worth the wait?" you tease, gesturing at your hair.

"Everything about today was worth it," he says, and he means it — the quiet morning, the facts you humored him on, the hour with his hands in your hair. To Zayne, none of it was a chore. It was just another way of being close to you.

--

𓆩♡𓆪 Rafayel

Rafayel has definitely noticed how long you take on your hair. He loves that you take pride in it, but he also just wants to whisk his girl out to dinner already.

"Cutie, do you know what time it is?" he whines, wandering toward the bedroom, already dressed sharp for the reservation, cologne trailing after him.

"Baby, I'm just doing my hair, I'll be out in a second," you say, hunched over the bathroom mirror, still slicking it back into a ponytail with a brush in one hand and sticky edge control on the other hand.

"You're taking forever, cutie, we're going to miss the reservation."

"Since when does Rafayel care about reservations?" you shoot back, rolling your eyes, not even looking up.

"Since now — I just want to eat with my beautiful girl," he whines.

"How hard can doing hair really be? It shouldn't take this long," he says.

"Well, it is hard. Why don't you try doing my hair and see for yourself?" you say, sassy.

"Bet," he says, smug. "I could probably do it better than you."

You don't think much of it — you're sure he'll never actually follow through. But Rafayel is now a man on a mission: prove you wrong, and do it faster than you ever could.

Weeks later, he asks if he can do your hair. You agree, reluctantly, half-regretting ever provoking him — but he's determined, and you can't say no to that.

By now it's been a month of secret practice — late nights on his phone, a Pinterest board titled cutie's hair with dozens of saved pins, a spare mannequin head he'd bought and hidden in his studio closet, gel and rat-tail combs sitting among his paint supplies like they belonged there. Your hair was his canvas and his hands the paint, and he was ready.

He'd called Thomas the day before, asking for the best of the best — human hair with the perfect body-wave curl, hair gel, a proper hooded dryer, everything. You were stunned he even knew what a body wave was.

Your hair's already washed and blow-dried beforehand, so there's not much prep needed. His studio's been rearranged for the occasion — easel pushed to the side, a proper salon chair he'd somehow sourced set up under the best light in the room, a rolling cart beside it lined with combs, clips, and product in a neat row like surgical tools.

"Welcome to my salon, cutie. It's called Slayed by Raf," he says, gesturing you toward the chair.

All you can do is sigh at how ridiculous he sounds. You sit and wait while he disappears to grab his supplies, the smell of gel and hairspray already faint in the air.

"Okay, Slayed by Raf — make sure you actually slay my hair, and not slaughter it," you say, sarcastic.

"Oh, cutie, I was made for this."

"So what style do you want?" he asks, fully committing to the hairstylist bit, tying a small cape around your shoulders for dramatic effect.

"I have zero expectations, so do whatever you want, Raf."

So he does. He parts your hair with total precision, comb gliding in clean, even lines, dabbing gel along your edges with a toothbrush and smoothing it flat before cleanly cornrowing the front, each row so tight and even it looks machine-made. He'd been torn between Fulani braids and mermaid braids with gold cuffs and beads threaded through while researching, so — bold move — he decides to do both, blending the two styles seamlessly down the length of your hair. He's locked in, focused, tongue between his teeth exactly the way he gets when he's mixing paint, because he wants his girl to look and feel her absolute best.

"I've never seen you this locked in, Raf. Not even when you're painting," you remark.

"Well, my love, beauty takes time, and I want you to look beautiful," he says, working the back of your hair, fingers weaving hair extension in seamlessly section by section.

Hours and several breaks later — snack runs, a shoulder massage he insisted on giving you halfway through, one moment where he stood back just to squint at his own work like it was a canvas — the masterpiece is finished. He dramatically hands you a mirror. "Look at my beautiful work, cutie."

You're speechless, staring at yourself in shock — the braids swept elegantly to one side, gold accessories catching the light, the front laid flatter and cleaner than any salon you'd ever paid for.

"Speechless, my love?" he says.

"Very," you say, looking up at him.

"I guess I was wrong," you admit, looking at him with puppy eyes. He leans down and gives you a quick peck.

"Raf, you're my hairstylist from now on, right?"

"Of course, cutie. Anything for my special girl."

--

𓆩♡𓆪 Sylus

Sylus doesn't really play an active role when you're doing your hair — he just watches. He'll sink into the armchair in the corner of your room, one ankle crossed over his knee, glass of wine in hand, eyes tracking every movement of your fingers like it's the most interesting thing he's seen all week.

"Sylus, you're staring."

"I know, kitten."

"Are you just going to stare?"

"Yes, kitten," he says, red eyes locked on your hands as you section and braid, the low lamp light catching the shine of your edge control.

One time, while you were doing your hair, he noticed the bottle of your favorite conditioner was nearly empty, sitting almost flat on its side on the bathroom shelf. His girl running out? Unacceptable. So he does what Sylus does — steps into the hallway and makes one phone call, voice too low for you to catch the words. You hear him on it but think nothing of it.

The following week, on wash day, the doorbell rings — three huge boxes stacked in the hallway outside your apartment door, tape still fresh, courier badge scanned twice for confirmation.

"Package for Y/N L/N," the delivery driver says, handing you a tablet to sign.

What the hell, you think, as he wheels the boxes into your apartment, one after another. Then it clicks.

Sylus.

Of course it was him — audacious enough to do exactly this. You open one box: your favourite conditioner, dozens of bottles wrapped in tissue paper like it's a boutique order, roughly a lifetime's supply. Stunned and a little annoyed, you call him.

"Sylus," you say, exasperated.

"Did you get your treat, kitten?"

"Sylus, why?"

"I can't have my favourite girl running out of her favourite conditioner," he says, smug, and you can practically hear the smirk through the phone.

"Sylus, this is a lifetime supply. Where am I supposed to put all this?"

"Just move in with me. I have the space."

"Ugh, you're so annoying," you say, hanging up — equal parts grateful and completely exasperated, wondering how you ended up with this man.

--

Sylus will absolutely buy a hair company for you, or at least threaten to, if pushed.

So one day, your favourite shampoo changes its formula, and your wash-and-go doesn't come out right — hair frizzy at the roots, curls falling flat by noon. Frustrated, you vent about it in bed that night, bonnet already on, arms crossed over your chest.

"Today's been the worst, Sylus."

"What happened, kitten?" he asks, setting his tablet aside, giving you his full attention the way he always does when your voice does that particular tired thing.

"They changed my favourite shampoo's formula, and now I'm having the worst hair day," you say, frazzled.

"But your hair looks beautiful, kitten," he says, gently smoothing a hand over your bonnet.

"Ugh, you just don't get it, Sylus," you say, frustrated, snuggling into his chest anyway.

Sylus notices you've been down about it for days — quieter at breakfast, less patient with your edges in the mirror — and he can't have his girl this distraught over shampoo. So he's on a mission. He and the twins dig into it and find out the company cut costs with cheaper, harsher ingredients to pad their margins. He's furious — his kitten does not get cheap products in her hair. So, in true Sylus fashion, he doesn't just complain about it. He buys the company outright and pours funding straight into the formulation team, personally reviewing lab notes he barely understands just to make sure it's done right.

You have no idea any of this happened — he'd just been unusually busy, though he's always busy. So on your next wash day, he sets a single, sleek new bottle on the bathroom counter without a word: the same shampoo, reformulated, improved. You're stunned by how good it feels lathering through your hair, and that's when he leans in the doorway and drops the bomb that it was all him.

"Sylus," is all you can manage.

"Surprised, kitten?"

"Yes! You didn't have to go that far."

"Anything for my favourite girl," he says, and you smother him in kisses as he chuckles.

--

𓆩♡𓆪 Caleb

Caleb is not new to this — he's true to this. Doing your hair is his bread and butter. He knows everything about your hair: braids, cornrows, silk presses; he even installed a wig on you once for prom.

Growing up, he always did his best with your hair — researching products in the school library on weekends, building the perfect routine one trial and error at a time. It was comforting, and it always made you feel loved and confident. When kids used to tease you about it, he'd chase them off, shouting that he did your hair and it was beautiful. Your hair has always been an important part of your relationship.

Now that you're older and both busy with work, he still makes time every month to do your hair, and to go through your products and shop for new ones with you.

It's a sunny July afternoon, warm light pooling across your living room floor, and Caleb's finally back in Linkkon after too long away with the fleet. You've missed him terribly — FaceTime just wasn't enough.

"Pips, I'm home!" he shouts, letting himself in with the spare key you gave him,  bag still slung over one shoulder.

Silence. Too quiet. He starts to panic, thinking the worst, dropping his bag by the door and frantically searching for you room to room. Meanwhile, you're just quietly struggling in the bathroom, arms aching, halfway through taking out your old braids, hair scattered across the counter.

"Ugh, I wish Caleb were here," you sigh — right as the bathroom door bursts open, Caleb panting, visibly frightened.

"Are you okay?" he says, catching his breath as his heart rate settles, seeing you're fine, just stuck, comb hanging limp in your tired hand.

"Need help, Pips?" he says, sliding off his jacket and hanging it on your door.

"Please, Caleb, my arms hurt," you pout.

"Sit down, my love," he says, gesturing to your desk chair, already rolling his sleeves up before you've even sat.

You sit as he grabs the comb off your bed and gets to work, starting at your nape, unravelling each braid with quick, practised fingers, careful never to tug too hard at the root.

"Caleb, I missed you. And this," you say, looking up at him lovingly.

"Missed you too, Pips," he says, kissing your forehead before going back to the braids.

You two talk and reminisce as he finishes taking them out, the pile of loosened hair growing in your lap, afternoon light shifting slowly across the wall as the hours pass.

"You need a trim, Pips, your ends feel really dry," he says, rubbing a strand between his fingers to check.

"I know, baby, I've been busy." Caleb knows your hair best, so he gets to work after a thorough wash — clarifying shampoo first to strip the buildup, then a deep conditioner he leaves under a plastic cap while you both eat lunch. You take a break to eat, then it's back to styling — simple cornrows this time, since you'll mostly be wearing a wig. You settle back into the chair as he trims your ends with quick, even snips, sections your hair into clean neat rows with the tail of his comb, and braids it down close to the scalp, each row perfectly straight. When he's done, he finishes with a splash of oil that makes your scalp shine under the lamp light, and ties your bonnet on for you.

"Thanks, Caleb. It means a lot."

"Anything for you, Pips."

--

𓆩♡𓆪 Valko

Valko, like Caleb, isn't new to this either. Growing up in the pack, he helped style his younger cousins' hair a lot, so even though he doesn't know much about your texture specifically, he's eager to learn. He's also a massive nerd about it — genuinely curious, tail wagging the whole time, asking "what does this do" and "what's this for" about every product, determined to learn your entire routine inside and out, occasionally jotting notes on a little pad he keeps in his back pocket.

Lately, you've been frustrated with your hair — after taking your braids out, it's dry and breaking, snapping off in short pieces at your crown even though you're using everything that's always worked before. Right after washing it, hair still damp and sectioned under clips, you vent your frustration out loud.

"Ugh, why is it still so dry?" you say, running your fingers through a strand and wincing as a few break off in your hand. Valko hears you and comes over.

"Everything okay, pup?" he asks, wrapping his arms around you from behind, chin resting on your shoulder.

"No, babe, my hair's just so dry, and I don't know what to do," you sigh. "I don't know if it's the formula or what."

"Let me look," Valko says, taking the bottle from the bathroom shelf to read the ingredients, eyes scanning the label the way he'd read a lab report.

"There's a lot of chemicals in here that can dry hair out — if the formula changed, these are more chelating than moisturising, that's probably why it's drying out," he explains, tapping a claw against a line on the back of the bottle.

"Give me two or three months. I'll make you something even better," he says, kissing your cheek.

Four months pass, and you don't hear much from him about it — you've just switched products in the meantime, and your hair's been recovering. Meanwhile, Valko's been locked away in his lab most evenings, beakers and small sample jars lined up across his desk, testing formulas late into the night, determined to make the best shampoo possible. Finally, he comes to you with the finished product — a small unlabeled bottle, hand-lettered tag tied around the neck that just says for you.

"Here — the best moisturising shampoo you'll ever use, made by your own special wolf," he says, more than a little proud of himself, practically vibrating as he waits for you to try it.

"I thought you forgot."

"How could I? It just took longer than I expected — I wanted it to be perfect for you."

That night you finally test it out, lathering it through freshly wet hair while Valko hovers just outside the shower curtain, asking every thirty seconds how it feels. By the time you towel-dry, your hair already feels different — softer, heavier somehow, not that straw-like dryness from before. You run your fingers through it in the mirror, genuinely stunned.

"Valko. It actually worked."

"Of course it worked; I tested it forty-seven times," he says, tail wagging so hard it nearly knocks a bottle off the counter.

"Thanks, Valko. I really appreciate it, my cute nerd."

"Only for the best girl."