"Nope," Rafayel replies, dipping his paintbrush onto the painter's palette held in his left hand. Two nude figures—a man and a woman—are present in the painting as indistinct blobs of paint, their features in development as part of the artistic process. The beginnings of a lotus flower unfurling its petals blooms between the lovers' mouths, blossoming in the midst of their kiss. "What's up?"

You notice something red discarded near their feet. "Is that a pomegranate?"

"Yep."

You're not sure why your gaze is drawn to that particular spot in the painting. The pomegranate looks forgotten at the bottom of the painting, as if discarded. You can feel the nerves you've steeled for this moment crumbling already. You need to focus.

"I have something important I need to tell you."

Rafayel pauses in his brush stroke, setting down his paintbrush and palette. He turns to face you with an innocent smile and a warm, caring gaze, gentle like an ocean's cool breeze. "I'm all ears."

Oh god. You feel nauseous. You can't look at him. What if you're about to crush his lifelong dreams? Could you handle seeing his heart break?

He deserves to know. It wouldn't be fair of you to keep your thoughts to yourself. You have to tell him.

"I don't want kids."

Your words come out in a jumbled rush, tripping over one another in their desperate scramble to be free.

"I've never wanted kids. I'm terrified of being pregnant. I've never dreamed of having a family. I've known since I was a little girl that I never wanted to be a mother. I'm sorry. I know I should've told you sooner but I—"

Soft hands grasp yours. Only at their touch do you realize you've squeezed your eyes shut in fear. You slowly open your eyes to see Rafayel still smiling at you sweetly. He pulls your arms towards him, guiding you to face his painting with him.

"Do you know what pomegranates represent?" Rafayel asks.

You blink twice. "What?"

"In many cultures," he continues, "pomegranates represent fertility and abundance. A fruitful wish for many offspring."

Rafayel swipes his index finger over one of the petals on the white lotus flower, catching some of the white paint on the pad of his finger.

"The lotus represents purity and enlightenment, resilience in the face of adversity. It rises above the mud and blooms beautifully." Rafayel's gaze turns to you, cerulean seas and candy pink eyes glimmering like the sunrise on a winter morning. "The lovers don't need the pomegranate’s seeds to be happy. They discovered the ultimate happiness through their own love." His finger brushes your cheek, spreading the white paint near your lips. "Just like us."

Your voice breaks, emotions overflowing like a dam ready to burst. "Rafayel…"

He holds your face in his hands the same way a sculptor caresses their most lovely carvings. "I wanted to make this painting for you so that when you see it, you wouldn't feel guilty anymore. I want you to see only beauty, both in this artwork and yourself."

You grasp his wrists tightly, struggling to hold on. The emotions have flooded out of your heart, an outpouring of hope and relief and endless love for the man before you. Your voice comes out in a whisper, a delicate and sincere melody drifting on the winds of spring. "Thank you."

"There's nothing to thank me for. Don't cry, cutie," Rafayel says tenderly, brushing away your tears with his thumbs. "You know, I'd totally carry the babies for you if you did want kids, but alas, I can't carry my female counterpart's burdens for her like male seahorses can."

His absurdness makes you laugh in the midst of your sobs. "You're an idiot."

"Your idiot," Rafayel replies with a silly grin. You sniff and hurriedly wipe away your tears.

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in suddenly for a kiss, surprising him. Rafayel's hands naturally come to rest on the small of your back and between your shoulder blades, curving your body closer to his. Like the lotus in the painting, love blooms and unfurls across your lips and his, pure and sincere. It's an eternal love that will never wither for as long as you both live, a love that doesn't need a helping hand to be true. A gentle promise for a lifetime of happiness ahead. Deep in your heart and his, beating as one, you can feel it blossoming—

The enlightenment of lovers.

Every suckle, every greedy swirl of his tongue against your pulse, sends shimmering embers through your limbs. His elegant fingers are already buried knuckle-deep inside you, stroking deliberately slowly as if you are his most precious canvas and he intends to prime every inch of you before the final masterpiece.

He draws back just enough to let the entire crescent of council members see the glossy string of saliva connecting his lips to your skin.

Rafayel’s obsession with public claim began long before you wore his crown. As the last Lemurian prince, he grew up surrounded by murmurs about extinguished bloodlines and fragile alliances. The first time he touched you in private, he whispered, “One day, I’m going to show them all exactly who owns my heart.” 

To Rafayel, having witnesses isn’t about political necessity. It’s about etching the truth into their memories so no one can ever pretend you do not belong to him.

You feel the familiar drag of his fangs over the tender spot beneath your ear, and you keen softly. The council murmurs, but Rafayel silences them with a glance sharper than a trident’s edge.

“Shh, my Queen.” his voice rumbles against your throat. “They need to hear you, not their own empty gossip.”

His fingers curl forward, finding that secret spot that turns your vision to sea foam. You gasp, hips jerking, and he rewards you with a low, satisfied hum. The sound vibrates straight through his chest and into yours. He works you with the same devotion he pours into breathing life onto canvas, swirling and circling, pausing only to trace wet designs across the plushness of your inner thigh with the pad of his thumb.

Rafayel sees intimacy as the ultimate art form. Before the consummation ceremony, he painted your body with phosphorescent ink himself, murmuring about ‘painting his devotion where everyone can see.’ The shimmering patterns still ghost your skin—tendrils of sea mist, the crescent of his kingdom, the exact secret spot where you first confessed you loved him—and they glow brighter the nearer you are to ecstasy. He chose them specifically so the council cannot mistake your pleasure.

“Let them look at you,” he breathes, withdrawing his fingers only to bring them to his mouth. He licks them clean, lashes fluttering shut in exaggerated reverence, before fixing his gaze on the hooded figures encircling the dais. “See how sweet my Empress is? None of you will ever taste anything half as divine.”

One of the elders clears his throat, intending some ritualistic remark, but Rafayel ignores him completely. He is already guiding your thighs further apart, settling you more firmly across his lap. The heavy ceremonial robes he still wears are undone just enough to free his length, the proof of his own ache for you. He drags the flushed tip through your slickness, painting you with himself, deliberately drawing out the moment. Your forehead drops against his, breaths intermingling.

“You’re doing so well, my pearl,” he praises, and the tenderness beneath the possession undoes you more than anything else. “Now let them see you fall apart before I even take you.”

His mouth descends on your breast, tongue tracing a glowing whorl of bioluminescence around your nipple. The ink ignites, soft coral light pulsing in time with your heartbeat. The council collectively shifts; even the most stoic among them cannot hide the flicker of awe. Rafayel suckles hard enough to make you cry out, his name tearing from your throat like a prayer. He grins against your skin, one hand splayed across the small of your back to keep you arched, the other guiding himself just barely inside your aching warmth.

Rafayel’s tongue is not merely talented; it’s reverent in its pursuit. He once told you that every time he puts his mouth on you, he’s composing a love letter no brush could ever replicate. He can recite the exact taste of your want, compare it to the sweetness of moon jelly nectar, and he insists on spending at least one hour a day learning your body with his lips. The council’s presence changes nothing; if anything, it sharpens his need to demonstrate that you are the most worshipped creature in any realm. 

He nudges his cock deeper, just a fraction, and stops. Your whimper echoes off the vaulted ceiling, and he shushes you with a kiss—deep, demanding, his tongue sweeping past your lips the same way he is about to fill you. He tastes of the sweet bombons you had shared earlier, and incense and a heady possessiveness that leaves you dizzy.

“They’re watching,” he murmurs into your mouth, withdrawing just enough to stare into your blown pupils. “Every single one of them. And they’re going to witness exactly how thoroughly I please my Empress. How beautifully she takes what belongs to her.”

Then he thrusts up, full and deep, burying himself to the hilt in one slow, unstoppable stroke. The moan that escapes you is half-sob, half-symphony. Rafayel’s composure fractures for exactly one heartbeat—his hips stutter, his forehead drops to your shoulder, an almost wounded sound escaping his throat—before he regathers himself with a wicked curve of his lips.

“Perfection,” he announces loudly, so the council cannot mistake the word. “Absolutely perfect, she is.”

He moves inside you with rolling patience, each stroke focused to drag against every sensitive inch of your body he has spent months memorizing. His fingers find your clit again, tracing spirals of cool pressure that counterpoint the heat of his possession inside you. He coos instructions that are meant as much for the audience as for you, “Good girl, just like that,”; “Let go for me, I want to feel you lose yourself to me,”; “They need to know, don’t they? How well I take care of my Empress.”

When your climax crests, it’s a tidal wave. Your vision whites out, your nails rake the exposed skin of his neck, and your cry shatters against the throne room’s stained-glass windows. Rafayel doesn’t slow. He rides the convulsions of your body with single-minded focus, his tongue tracing the shell of your ear as he whispers filth-edged devotion.

Only after your body goes pliant and trembling does he allow himself to chase his own release. His rhythm turns ragged, the artistry giving way to raw need. He buries his face in your hair, inhaling deeply as his hips piston upward. When he finishes, he groans your name—not your title, not “my Queen,” but the intimate syllables you’d almost forgotten existed beneath all the formality. He fills you with thick pulses of heat, and you feel the glow of the phosphorescent ink on your skin spike brilliantly, illuminating the entire dais in a private aurora.

The council is utterly silent. Then, one by one, they lower their heads in a bow deeper than any you have ever received.

Rafayel doesn’t pull out immediately. He keeps himself tucked inside you, softening but still claiming, one arm wrapped around your waist while the other hand cups your cheek. He studies your flushed face with an artist’s greed, making silent note of each blown pupil, each kiss-swollen lip.

“They’ll remember this, my darling Empress,” he says softly, but his voice carries so much tenderness, as much as possessiveness. “Every time they lay eyes on you, they’ll see you draped across my throne, falling apart on my fingers, taking my cock like you were forged for it. They’ll never doubt again, that you are mine, and I am yours. That you shall take me as I take you, yearn for me as I yearn for you.”

He presses a reverent kiss to your forehead. His thumb traces your cheekbone, leaving a shimmer of your own wetness behind.

“My masterpiece,” he breathes, just for you. “My beloved bride. My love.”

The council begins to file out in ceremonial silence, but Rafayel doesn’t spare them a glance. He is already using the hem of his robe to tenderly clean the inside of your thighs, pressing soft, apologetic kisses to every spot where his grip bruised.

Later, you know he will carry you to the royal baths and spend an hour just holding you, murmuring about all the paintings he wants to make of tonight’s tableau. But for now, before the empty throne room, he lets you curl against his chest, still intimately joined, and hums the lullaby of the deep that only Lemurian royalty ever learn.

And you, his Queen, his Empress, the sole keeper of his fathomless heart, drift in a pleasure so complete it feels like the tides themselves are cradling you home.

© zaynessbeloved 2026. please don’t copy, repost or translate my works. thank you!

🏷️: @aiycnlyme, @syluslittlecrows, @asiaticapple, @youkoden, @w0ndert1nk, @deadlyskepticalnightmare, @2affectionate4z, @daisybbyxx, @kokoa21, @imaginationofafan

The gentle receding tide coyly invites you to dip your feet into the water. And you do.

The water is cold, but not sharp, crashing against your ankles. You let yourself sink into it all, the lapping waves, the sounds of water rushing in... and out. In and out…

You don’t know how long you have stood there when you hear a familiar voice behind you.

“Hey, cutie.”

Startled, you look back and see Rafayel. He is softly smiling at you, his eyes reflecting the brilliant golds and violets of the sunset.

“Rafayel? How did you—?” You are surprised, this beach is not close to his studio.

“The ocean told me you were here,” he says nonchalantly.

You look at him, not sure if he is serious or not. The waves continue lapping at your feet gently, as if saying, “sorry for telling on you, but you need it.”

“I brought you a blanket.”

You see the familiar blanket printed with cartoon octopuses in his hands and can't help but smile.

“Will it take us both away?”

“Yes,” he steps towards you and wraps both you and him closely together in the fluffy blanket, covering you almost entirely. The fleece and the warmth of his body now shielding you from the cold settling in from the sunset. “It will take us far away to somewhere quiet and nice, where it's only us, and the waves, where nothing can touch us and we will never be apart.”

You close your eyes and lean into him, breathing in his scent that now envelopes you.

“We don't have to go that far,” you murmur. “I have what I need here.”

“You say that now… Next time, don't come stare at the ocean without me, yeah?”

“Yeah... I won't. I will tell you to bring the octopus to kidnap me.”

He chuckles. “Deal.”

Under the shelter of the blanket, he gently dips his head, capturing your lips in a soft, steady kiss.

“You are not alone. You have me," he whispers, his lips brushing by your cheek. “Whatever is weighing you down, I can take it. Don’t make me jealous of the ocean.. it's not right.”

A bubble of laughter rises from you. You tip-toe and steal a quiet kiss of your own from him. “Got it,” you whisper back, smiling. “I will call you next time.”

—-----

“it’s not an artistic choice.” rafayel had confessed the first time you’d mentioned it, weeks ago. he’d said it almost as a whisper, with his face and ears turning blazing red from the actual truth.

“the leather underneath… it’s seen things.”

you hadn’t understood then.

you were starting to understand now.

your thighs were trembling. a fine sheen of sweat made the small of your back slick against the humid air of his living room, hair strands sticking to your burning skin.

you were straddling him, your knees sinking deep into the plush layers of blankets that protected the expensive, and apparently scarred, italian leather beneath.

his hands were on your waist, fingers flexing with a restraint that looked physically agonizing.

“raf.” you breathed, your voice a frayed moan as you rolled your hips down, taking him deeper.

the sound he made was not human. it was a low, oceanic groan that vibrated up from his chest and settled directly on your clit.

“car– ugh– eful.” he warned, though the word was mangled, chewed up by the tension in his jaw. his head was thrown back against the cushions, the column of his throat a gorgeous line of desperation.

his hands flew away from your torso, now harshly grabbing the blankets on the couch.

his eyes — those otherworldly, violet-pink galaxies — were squeezed shut.

not in ecstasy, but in concentration. like an expert listening for the decisive click.

you ignored the warning; how could you not?

the sight of him like this, the usually composed, ethereally smug painter coming undone beneath you, because of you, was a drug more compelling than any creation he could mix on his palette.

you braced your hands on his shoulders, feeling the corded muscle strain and burn under the thin cotton of his shirt.

you lifted up higher, feeling the slick drag of his cock leaving your body, and then you dropped back down with a wet, sharp slap of flesh.

jittering away the scattered blankets and rumpled pillows.

and then–

sizzle.

the sound was soft, almost like a whisper of static. but you felt it in your palms first — a sudden bloom of heat that radiated from his collarbones. the air around his shoulders shimmered, just slightly, like asphalt on a summer day.

“s–shit.” he gritted out, his eyes flying open at the abrupt bodily change. they were glassy, pupils blown wide, his dual colours only framing rims. “i’m– cutie, slow down. i can’t– you feel too–”

you silenced him with a kiss, messy and uncoordinated, teeth clacking against his lower lip as you guided him to stillness.

you didn’t want slow.

you wanted to consume him fully.

you rolled your hips again and again, grinding your clit against the hard plane of his pelvic bone as you clenched around him.

this second time, the sound was a distinct crack.

the pink blanket under his left hand turned a shade darker at the edges, the fluffy fibers shriveling into tiny, hard black beads.

the smell of scorched polyester instantly filled the space between you.

“n–no.”

his hands flew off the blankets as if they were the one burning him. then he held them up, palms out, fingers spread wide, like a convict.

a faint, ethereal shimmer of violet and red danced in the lines of his skin, the evol leaking through his carefully constructed dam.

“see?” he rasped, his voice wrecked, breath uneven from your ministration and his embarrassment. his face, reddish with lust, was turning a shade full of shame. “this is why. this is why the blankets are here.”

you looked down at the disaster zone.

through the mishap of blankets, you could see the dark spots in the leather of the couch. and now that you see them, you realized: those weren’t just fresh marks.

it was a glimpse of past mistakes.

you could make out the faded, older imprint of his hand — a perfect, five-fingered brand from the time he’d gripped the armrest while you sucked him off. there was a longer, more erratic scorch mark that snaked down the side of the upper cushion — a memory of the first time he’d let you ride him, and he’d lost control so completely he’d nearly set it on fire.

he saw you looking at the damage. shame flickered across his features, cutting through the previous lust. “i ruined it.”

‘it’ being the couch and the entire moment.

but, contrary to his expectations, you grabbed his hovering wrists. the heat coming off his palms was still intense, but not unbearable. it was the warmth of a sunbeam through a window, concentrated and pure.

“shush.” you shortly muttered, your voice steadier now that the bouncing stopped. you pulled his hands back down, pressing them firmly onto leather. the heat seeped through the fabric, a delicious, dangerous sizzle already blooming beneath his fingers. “it’s evidence.”

he hissed, his hips jerking up involuntarily at the contact of your hands on his, at the obvious acceptance in your tone. “evidence of what? that i’m a fire hazard?”

“evidence that you lose your mind when you’re inside me.” you corrected, rolling your hips in a slow, deliberate circle that made the leather couch groan beneath the weight of both of you and the mountain of ruined blankets.

his fingers dug into the couch, ten oval shapes slowly being carved into the surface from the increasing temperature. the heat in his hands raised with every bounce on his cock, with every grip of your sweet, wet cunt.

the air turned hot and dry, but all you could feel was the continuous wetness between your bodies.

you could hear the faint, dry hiss of the leather burning up under his palms, but it only motivated you to move faster.

“that’s it, raf.” you praised him slowly, leaning forward to pepper kisses all over his face. to help him accept his evol fully. “let it go. burn the whole damn couch if needed.”

and that…

that broke him.

with a sound that was half-sob, half-roar, his control snapped.

the heat of his evol bloomed like no other. it was a wave of pure, dry pressure that pushed against the couch. the blanket under your knees, too close to his uncontrollable evol, crumbled into ash and hot dust.

the leather underneath, pristine and cool just moments ago, began to shrink and crackle under the combined heat of his evol and the frantic, desperate rhythm of your bodies.

“f–fuck, cutie, you’re so ah– fucking hottttttt.”

you were riding him hard now, chasing the edge of a climax that felt like falling into the sun.

the room smelled of sex, sweat, and the strange tang of burnt leather. every snap of his hips up into you was punctuated by another tiny pop of fabric igniting or leather warping.

“ugh– shit, shit.”

he looked up at you, and his face was a masterpiece of ruin. purple hair plastered to his forehead, eyes blazing with literal fire, lips parted in a silent moan.

the couch was a furnace.

the blankets were the fuel.

and when you finally came, crying out his name as your vision tunneled on the marks on the couch, the final wave of heat from his own release seared a new, deep handprint into the cushion right where your bodies joined.

then silence, thick with smoke and the heavy breathing of two exhausted bodies.

“c–cutie...”

afraid to touch your bare skin, rafayel decided to just lean over. with his face buried in your chest, he finally spoke up: “i’ll buy more blankets.” he murmured against your skin, his voice hoarse and utterly spent.

you looked down at the area around your bodies, and hummed in approval, admiring the new smoking crater in the leather.

a perfect, chaotic stamp of this moment.

“don’t.” you said at last, cupping his hands between your palms and slowly turning them toward you. checking their condition.

the skin was fine, unaffected by his evol, slightly warm and so so inviting to more touching.

“i like the couch better this way. i like it when you lose control.”

“ah, cutie, you can't say th–hatttt.”

©pearlescenthoney 2026. do not copy, translate, or claim any of my writings or works as your own.

All he has now, is a cold, lifeless apartment to go back to. With plastic still wrapped around his furniture and the fridge empty except for a few bottles of alcohol and an apple. He’d never found much purpose in making the apartment look more like his—because it wasn’t his home anyway. Not when he had nobody to welcome his return.

Just a loud, ticking clock he wants to throw away.

When Caleb returns to the base, he’s the only one that stays past dark while everyone else rejoices to return home for a fresh shower. He opts to wash his hair in the sink beside his office instead, the icy water doing little to add to the numbness of his skin, if it does anything at all. He stares at himself in the mirror, blinking slowly, and then decides he should really shave.

What a mess. His eyes bore holes into the dog tag he carries everywhere. It feels like an omen of luck, while it remains a burden in his chest—as if the only thing that still manages to make him feel worse than he already does. 

Is this it, he wonders? Is this what the rest of his life will be like? Spending out his days in his office or in the deepspace tunnel, wondering if those few hours will be his last? There are thoughts that slip in quietly---ones he should repress. Would it be so bad? To get lost in the tunnel, and never having to return to the base again? To finally melt away into nothingness to ease the pain? He grits his teeth, realizing that his nails are digging crescents into the palms of his hands.

No, his men have families. His men have people who still need them–a purpose.

After he’s finished somewhat tidying himself up (though even heavy concealer can’t cover his eyebags), he skulks out of the bathroom to head to his office. It’s usually pitch dark on the floor at this time of night. So when he notices one cubicle that remains illuminated by a lamp, he thinks he’ll have to scold whoever it belongs to for wasting the energy bill. He sighs irritably and stalks over, his brows furrowing into a halt when he sees the cubicle isn’t empty at all.

You blink up at him. “Oh.”

You’re an unfamiliar face. A new employee, perhaps. How long have you even been here? Especially this late at night? His eyes scan your desk to see the doodles you’ve been drawing onto multiple sheets of paper and his scowl deepens. And you’re here for this?

Suddenly, you shoot up to your feet, shoulders tense as you bow your head. “Colonel Xia. I’m you’re new assistant—I’ve been assigned here since last week.”

He quirks a brow at your drawings. Your face heats, and you scramble to shove them to the side, clearing your throat. 

“What are you doing here?”

“I was waiting to greet you, sir.”

“It’s 2:37 in the morning.”

“Off the clock,” you respond. 

“How long have you been here doing—that.”

“Since 7.”

“PM?”

“AM. They told me they weren’t sure when you’d be getting back,” you scratch the side of your face sheepishly. “Better safe than sorry.”

He wants to ask if there’s something wrong with you, but he stops, taken aback. No, he’s sure there’s something wrong with you. There is, but his eyes widen just the slightest anyway. 

For the first time in years, someone had been waiting for the colonel.

He quickly finds that you’re good at your job. A bit confused in the first few weeks, sure, but he knows that what he asks of you is a bit much. You somehow manage to get it to a T anyway in the first month, and he wonders if HQ finally made a good hiring decision for the first time in a while. He watches you through the glass of his office, scrambling in your cubicle as your coworkers ask you questions that instill that you’re probably holding the place together. Your first point of action every day is to make his coffee. Afterwards, you make your own. Then, you drop it off and chat with your coworkers for a bit before a crisis arises and you’re sprinting to whatever disaster you have to solve. And when you knock on his door, you keep your eyes down, as if to avoid him as you drop off his paperwork.

He knows he makes your life hard. But you deal with it anyway.

It’s amusing, really. You’re amusing to him. But anything remotely lively is amusing in this dreary building.

“Are you leaving, sir?” you ask him one night, when only the two of you are left. He fixes his coat onto himself, finally released from that suffocating hat that he’s has to wear to remain in uniform. You follow him to the door, pacing right behind him as you always do.

Caleb usually doesn’t like anyone behind him. Not when there’s so many people who would seize the opportunity to stab a knife into his back. But for some reason, when you do it, he doesn’t mind. Maybe because he knows you couldn’t damage him at all. Maybe because he knows you wouldn’t.

“I am.”

Your ears perk. “You must have plans.”

“...Do I have something else on my calendar?”

“Well no, sir, it’s just…” you pause for a moment, glancing at him apprehensively. “...Well, it’s your birthday, so I just assumed.”

Had time already gone by that quickly?

Not that he cared about his birthday. It just meant another year without anyone to return home to.

“I left you something in your office,” you nod. “I hope it’s to your liking.”

His eyes stare right into yours. A million thoughts run through his head. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s a bomb. Maybe it’s more paperwork. Maybe it’s a resignation letter. From all the regular things to the worst things imaginable, it runs through him all at once, and then it stops, as he just steps out the door. “Alright.”

Though he should’ve gone home to wait until the next morning to check what it is, he returns a few hours later, when you’ve left. It’s a bit pathetic, really, but he couldn’t sleep. Not necessarily because of what you said, but because his body is more accustomed to falling asleep in his office than his own “house”. 

Definitely not because of the small cactus succulent you left on his desk, with a post-it in your handwriting. It contrasts heavily with the monochrome of the rest of the room, bright with life. The thorns feel sharp against his fingertip as he presses against it, as if to see how much he can push before it breaks skin.

‘Happy birthday’

As you’re dropping off papers a few weeks later, you point out that it looks like it can use water. He doesn’t look up from his work, clicking his tongue. “It’s a cactus. It can survive deserts–I’m sure it’s fine.”

But you stand there, staring at him with a frown, which for some reason gives him an unsettling feeling in his stomach. He swallows, and then sighs with annoyance. “Knock yourself out.”

You beam. So you can smile at him.

After that, he’s learned to read your knocks. Three knocks means paperwork, or something regarding his work. Two knocks means there’s someone who’d like to see him. Four knocks means you’re here to water the damn cactus. It happens once every few weeks, but his ears pick up on it easily. He pretends that he’s not watching your every move as you water, observing how you smile at how well it’s doing.

“Don’t you have better things to do? It doesn’t need that much care, does it?”

You simply shrug. "Just because it doesn’t need so much, doesn’t mean it doesn’t need it at all.”

He doesn’t say much to that.

But when you leave, he strangely finds his eyes drifting to the cactus. It’s a resilient thing, he thinks. He presses his fingertip against a spike, and it draws blood this time, trickling down his finger gently in a brilliant red. An ugly, resilient thing. From the corner of his vision, he sees a bud. It’s small–barely there–but he sees it. He wonders if it’ll bloom. If his office even receives enough light for it to bloom.

Could a flower bloom from such an ugly, hurting lifeform?

He begins watering the cactus himself, and he’s sure you notice, because you begin to bring in less water each time.

“I’ll keep your cactus well fed, sir,” you say the day he leaves for a few months excursion. The longest he’s been on. The most dangerous, too. It’s almost as if the higher-ups want to kill him. While his men weep and say goodbye to their families, you gaze up at him with a stack of folders clutched in your arms. Despite how defenseless you look to him in comparison to the military-trained men he works with every day, you seem unmovable. Like a tree standing in the middle of a meadow. Full of life. You’ve always seemed strong. Perhaps that’s why he’s always found you amusing.

You’re more deserving of this uniform than he is, but he hopes you never have to wear it. Someone like you should never have their life snuffed out like that.

Caleb places his hat onto your head, and for a moment, you blink. He presses it down to fit your head, though it remains slightly large anyway, and then drops his hand. “Have it cleaned by the time I come back.”

He doesn’t think you need to know that he had it cleaned just a few days ago.

Days of the excursion blur into one another, stitched together by gunfire and the low hum of the ship’s engines against the nothingness of the deepspace tunnel. Sleep comes in fractured pieces. Food tastes like nothing. The men still talk about home, though quieter now. 

There’s a moment where he stands alone at the observation deck. The glass is scratched, the stars beyond it warped and smeared like paint dragged across a canvas. It’s ugly out here. Empty yet consuming, like the universe itself is trying to swallow him whole.

He presses his hand against the glass.

Would it really be so bad? If he just… didn’t go back.

If he drifted a little too far. Took one wrong turn in the deepspace tunnel to let the ship go silent. Let himself go with it. No empty apartments. No ticking clocks. No unfurnished rooms. No reminders of a life that he no longer has access to. It almost feels merciful—like the tunnel is offering him a way out.

There’s no one there to mourn him anyway.

No family. No home. Just nothingness, like the rest of the tunnel. As if he belongs.

But then, his thoughts are interrupted. Not by anything else, but by a face.

It’s not even intentional. It comes uninvited, like a part of himself is trying to remind himself that he’s still human, even with the damn chip in his brain. Your face, bright and out of place in the sterile emptiness of his mind. The way you look up at him, eyes too eager for a place like that base. The way you huff proudly to yourself when you make his coffee. The way you nod vigorously as if to hype yourself up before you knock on his door. The way you tell off your coworkers while also remaining welcoming. The way you care for that stupid cactus. The way you frown at him like he’s something worth worrying about.

The way you wait for him at the docks, first to greet him every time he returns without fail.

When did you come to mean so much to him?

His jaw tightens. 

He needs to see the cactus bloom.

And so, with the determination he hasn’t felt in years, he arrives back at the base in one piece, where you’re waiting for him as you always have.

Caleb never tells you what you did for him that day, even when you were lightyears away. Even once he manages to get it through your thick skull that he harbors real, raw feelings for you, he doesn’t tell you how much that cactus has done for him. 

His life is brighter now, with you in it. His apartment, which once lay bare, as if nobody occupied the space now seems warmer. Your coat is tossed onto the couch, the sheets are crumpled, and there’s more than enough food in the fridge. There’s two toothbrushes in the bathroom, and potted plants are littered throughout the entire apartment. There’s magnets on the fridge—pictures of him returning from each excursion—and the two of you growing closer and closer with each photo. The most recent one has you flush to his side, your hands intertwined in his. So much has changed that it doesn’t even look like the same apartment anymore.

It feels like home.

In the morning, before you wake up, he gazes at you through lidded eyes, the soft sunlight peeking through the curtains and hitting his back to avoid reaching your face. He grins proudly at the dark marks littering your neck down to your chest, which surely adorn his own torso. There’s a sense of relief he gets from moments like these—being able to awake early out of his own will rather than being forced by the nightmares plaguing his mind. He cups the side of your face and rubs your cheek with his thumb as you stir, yawning softly. So pretty.

“Morning, colonel,” you squint.

"Caleb," he corrects.

"Boss."

"I can take a lot of your teasing, but that's crossing a line."

You smile, the way he loves. "Then what should I call you?"

Caleb looks to the side, pretending to be in thought. "'Sir?"

"I'm going to kill you."

“You seemed to like it last night,” he grins, guiding your face to kiss him before you can complain about his joke. Despite your pleas of morning breath, you melt into him. Your lips feel soft against his, your body warm. He wants to hold you forever. Treasure you forever. Stay here forever.