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moongirlcleo · 10 days ago

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A Game of Love

❤︎ tags and content: foot play, oral, emotional sex, f!reader, video games ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

A video game night with Caleb is always the remedy for a rough week. But after sixteen straight losses, you need to come up with another plan.

And when he finally loses— he doesn’t take it well

The rain had been falling for hours, a soft, unrelenting hush against the windows that framed Caleb’s apartment in a watercolor haze of neon and stormlight. Outside, Skyhaven flickered beneath the weather like a half-lit dream—rooftops slick with rain, flight drones gliding through the mist like lazy fireflies, and somewhere deeper in the city, the hum of distant sirens faded into the lull of thunder. But inside, nestled in the dim warmth of his living room, it felt like the rest of the world had narrowed to two things: the glow of the television screen, and the increasingly petty war you were waging against your childhood best friend.

“I swear to God, Caleb,” you muttered, squinting at the screen like it had personally betrayed you. “If you throw one more blue shell, I’m unplugging your controller mid-race.”

He didn’t even flinch.

Seated on the floor with his back against the edge of the bed, one arm resting lazily across his knee, Caleb tilted his head just enough to glance up at you with that insufferably calm expression that had only gotten worse since he’d ranked up in the Farspace Fleet. “Strategic use of available resources,” he said simply, as if that made his sins any more palatable.

You leaned over the edge of the bed, jabbing your controller in his direction like it might actually hurt him. “You waited until I was about to land the shortcut. The shortcut. That’s premeditated sabotage.”

His mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but close. “Maybe you should’ve driven faster.”

You inhaled like you were about to start a full closing argument, then deflated with a dramatic groan, flopping backward onto the comforter like a wronged princess. “You’re insufferable.”

“Mm.” He refocused on the screen, clearly unbothered. “You’ve said that before.”

You kicked the back of his shoulder, lightly, just enough to make your point.

“And I’ll say it again if you keep playing like an emotionally stunted AI.”

That earned you a real reaction. Caleb laughed—quiet and low, the kind of laugh that rumbled more in his chest than his throat. “Emotionally stunted? That’s a new one.”

You raised an eyebrow, peeking over the curve of your knee as you sat up again, your legs casually bracketing his frame from behind. “Not inaccurate though.”

He didn’t argue. Which was both satisfying and slightly concerning.

The race reset, new characters blinking into place, the next track loading in swirls of pixelated lava and looming deathtraps. You leaned forward again, shoulder brushing his as you reached for your drink, and he didn’t move away—just adjusted slightly to give you room, so casually comfortable in your space that it felt almost too easy.

“This one’s mine,” you announced, nudging your controller to select a new kart. “I’m serious this time. No more mercy.”

Caleb hummed under his breath, amused. “Didn’t realize I was showing any.”

You blinked. “You mean you’ve been trying?” A brief pause.

“No comment.”

You stared at him, scandalized, as he settled back against the bed frame, cool as ever, like he hadn’t just thrown down the most insulting challenge of the night. Your foot twitched against the carpet. Your fingers tightened around the controller.

Oh. It was on now. But not yet. Not quite yet. Let him get comfortable. Let him think he’s safe. You’d let him win the next race if you had to. Because the one after that?

You had a plan.

***

The rain was still coming down in soft, silver waves against the windows, blurring the edges of Skyhaven into a watercolor of distant lights and muted thunder. The apartment was cocooned in warmth and quiet, the glow of the television casting lazy shadows across Caleb’s living room, where the night had stretched longer than expected and the competition had grown increasingly one-sided.

You’d lost every round so far—sixteen straight matches, each more frustrating than the last, while Caleb sat with infuriating calm between your legs, his back resting against the bed as if he hadn’t just obliterated you over and over again with the reflexes of a soldier and the smugness of someone who absolutely knew it.

He wasn’t gloating. Not out loud. But that was the problem—Caleb didn’t need to rub it in. The quiet, unreadable expression, the way his fingers moved with surgical precision over the controller, the relaxed slouch of his broad shoulders beneath his worn black t-shirt… it was all just a little too composed. Too smooth.

And something about it made you want to ruin him.

You stretched out languidly across the bed, draping yourself over the blankets like you weren’t secretly plotting war. One leg tucked beneath you while the other slid down toward him, bare toes brushing the outside of his thigh in a way that could have been accidental. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Just gave a soft hum of acknowledgment and loaded the next track, as if you weren’t currently bracketing him with your legs like a cat circling its prey.

“This one’s mine,” you said breezily, curling your toes just slightly against the fabric of his sweatpants. “I’m feeling lucky.”

Caleb didn’t look up, but you caught the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve said that every round.”

“And eventually, I’ll be right.”

“Statistically, you’re due,” he murmured, and while it sounded like dry amusement, there was something tight in his voice now. Subtle. Contained.

You smiled.

The match began with a burst of sound, the digital race surging forward in a flurry of motion and pixelated chaos, but your focus wasn’t entirely on the screen. Not anymore. Because your foot was still pressed against Caleb’s leg—light at first, thoughtless in its rhythm, your heel nudging just beneath the curve of his thigh as you leaned forward into the controller.

You traced a slow circle. Innocent. Curious. Teasing.

And this time, you felt it.

The small shift in his breathing. The slight stiffening in his posture. The muscles of his thigh tensing beneath the press of your foot—not in reaction to the game, but to you.

You didn’t stop.

Instead, you let your toes skim a little higher, drifting upward along the inside of his leg. He missed a turn. Only by a fraction, but enough for his character to collide with the wall and bounce back into second place.

You barely suppressed your grin.

“What happened there?” you asked, feigning confusion, as if you hadn’t just begun mentally carving a notch into your victory column. “A little rusty?”

He didn’t answer. Which told you everything you needed to know.

You stretched again, slow and indulgent, as if shifting your weight for comfort—when really, it was to let your foot slide higher still, until it brushed something that definitely wasn’t his thigh.

You froze for a breath.

Then pressed.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

He was hard. Not a little. Not maybe. Very. And you hadn’t even touched him properly. Not yet.

Heat bloomed behind your ribs at the realization, a flush spreading down your spine, but you kept your face serene, your voice light.

“Oh no,” you murmured, eyes fixed on the screen. “Are you… distracted?”

Caleb exhaled, long and controlled through his nose, but he still didn’t speak.

So you dragged your foot along the outline of him again—subtle, delicate, just enough to make him feel it and know you weren’t going to stop. You didn’t press harder, didn’t grope, didn’t shift from your position. You simply toyed with him, rhythmic and soft, feigning innocence like it wasn’t the most calculated thing you’d done all night.

And Caleb?

He fell apart in silence.

You watched as he clipped another obstacle, then another, his kart veering off course and struggling to recover. The Caleb who had dominated every single round before this was gone, undone by the slow brush of your foot where he was already aching, and the fact that you were pretending not to notice made it so much worse.

“Almost there,” you whispered, your tone drenched in sugar and smugness as you passed his character and hit a boost panel near the final turn. “I think I’m gonna win.”

You rolled your foot again—just once more, with the barest push of pressure—and in that moment, his hands slipped. His kart hit the lava. Yours didn’t.

The screen flashed: 1st Place.

Your mouth dropped open in mock surprise.

You gasped like you hadn’t just orchestrated his downfall with your toes. “Oh my God, Caleb. I won.”

Silence.

You looked down.

He was still sitting between your legs, his jaw tight, hands still gripping the controller even though the match was long over. His breath came slower now, deeper, the kind of measured inhale that said he was using every ounce of discipline not to react.

You tilted your head. “Wow. That’s wild.”

Another moment passed, thick and heavy with everything you weren’t saying.

Then you let your foot trail down slowly, featherlight against the line of him—one last indulgent stroke—and offered the most innocent smile you could manage.

“I guess I’m just naturally talented.”

Caleb set the controller down. And when he turned to look at you—really look at you—your breath hitched, because whatever flicker of self-control he’d been clinging to had snapped clean in half.

There was nothing amused in his eyes now.

No trace of that easygoing smirk he wore when he was being indulgent, no spark of sarcasm that might have softened the moment into something playful. Just… focus. Sharp, heavy, and confusingly quiet, like he was still parsing what had just happened, trying to sort it into a mental file that didn’t exist yet, because this—you—had just pulled something entirely out of left field.

“What the hell was that?” he asked finally, and the words weren’t harsh or angry, but measured, like he was choosing each syllable carefully, trying to keep his voice level despite the unmistakable undertow dragging through it.

You blinked, feigning wide-eyed innocence with only the faintest curl tugging at the corners of your mouth. “What was what?”

Caleb didn’t rise to it. Not yet. He just stared, like he could force the answer out of you with sheer will, like if he stared long enough he’d either unravel the joke or undo it entirely.

So naturally, you smiled.

And, because you were who you were—and because you were feeling particularly reckless in the aftermath of your very first, long-overdue win—you dragged your foot across the inside of his thigh one more time. Slower now. Lazier. Just a single, deliberate stroke of your toes down the heat that still lingered beneath the fabric of his sweats, the kind of contact that made no effort to pretend anymore, the kind that said yes, I know exactly what I’m doing—and so do you.

Caleb inhaled sharply through his nose.

His fingers flexed once on his knees, as if caught between restraint and reaction, between letting it slide and losing all sense of logic entirely. He looked like a man who had just spent the last ten minutes diffusing a bomb blindfolded only to realize someone had switched the wires mid-sentence—and now that same someone was smiling at him like butter wouldn’t melt.

“Are you serious right now?” he asked, and his voice had dropped, lower than before, rough at the edges, like it scraped against the gravel of something darker waiting just beneath the surface.

You shrugged, biting your lower lip with theatrical innocence, your foot resting now at the juncture of his thigh, no movement this time—just contact. Just heat. “I was just stretching. You’re the one who lost.”

Caleb’s jaw flexed, that sharp line cutting tighter as he looked at you—looked through you—with something dangerous gathering behind his eyes, something slow and inevitable, like the moment right before a storm breaks open and takes the world with it.

You’d pushed him. You knew you had.

He just looked at you like he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, like every second of teasing had caught up to him all at once and now he was trapped inside the consequences, sitting between your thighs with a hard-on you definitely felt, and a silence between you both that throbbed louder than the rain outside. His eyes were dark, but not in the way you’d seen them flash with temper or combat intensity—no, this was something slower, deeper, laced with something he couldn’t quite mask anymore.

Need.

And when he finally moved, it wasn’t with a growl or a curse or any heatless snap of control—it was something far more dangerous.

He rose to his knees with the kind of focused, deliberate purpose that reminded you exactly who he was: a man trained to never act on impulse, a soldier who could shut down whole pieces of himself when necessary. But that part of him—the part that usually pulled back, held tight, deflected with a sharp joke or a silence—wasn’t in charge anymore.

One hand braced beside your hip, his weight shifting with practiced ease, and then the other followed, until he was above you, really above you, his body pressing yours back into the mattress with all that careful, smoldering control bleeding into something far more primal. He didn’t crush you, didn’t pin you fully—but there was no question who had the upper hand now, and no mistaking the heat radiating from where his hips hovered just above your own, every inch of him coiled like he was barely holding himself together.

And still, even now, even with your foot having driven him to the brink and your smirk still fresh in his mind, he leaned down slowly, close enough that his breath skimmed your cheek as he spoke, voice rough with restraint.

“Tell me to stop.”

The words were soft but firm, low and aching, the kind of plea that wasn’t begging so much as giving you a single, fleeting chance to pull the pin before everything detonated. His eyes searched yours, heavy with need and something almost tender beneath it, like even now—especially now—he wouldn’t take a goddamn inch you didn’t hand him yourself.

But you didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Didn’t push him away.

You tilted your chin up instead, just enough to bring your mouth a little closer to his, and the look you gave him was shameless, teasing, just this side of wicked.

“What if I don’t say it?”

For a beat, he didn’t breathe.And then something in him broke. Just a soft, slow surrender—a quiet snap of every rule he’d set for himself since the day he first wanted you and decided he wasn’t allowed to.

His breath left him in a slow exhale, shallow and unsteady, his eyes dragging over your face like he was still waiting for the moment to vanish into smoke—but when you didn’t pull back, didn’t say stop, didn’t tease him with another smug little remark, something shifted behind his eyes, something dark and final and hungry. And then he was moving—closer, lower, every inch of him pressing against you like gravity had finally given up and let him fall into the place he’d wanted to be for far too long.

His mouth found yours in a kiss that didn’t start soft.

It was slow, yes—measured for all of two seconds—but it carried the weight of every look that lingered too long, every secret touch that never happened, every thought he shouldn’t have had and had anyway. His lips crushed into yours with all the careful control of a man unraveling, the kind of kiss that tasted more like confession than victory, more like need than triumph. He kissed you like he didn’t know how to stop, like he didn’t want to learn, like he had no idea how he’d gone so long without this and no plans to ever go that long again.

And as he kissed you—deep and slow, teeth grazing your lower lip before sucking it in with a sharp inhale—his hands finally moved.

They weren’t shaking, not exactly, but there was urgency in them now, the kind of practiced coordination that trembled at the edges, like his body knew what it wanted but hadn’t yet caught up to how much it needed. One hand slid down along your waist, fingers brushing under the hem of your shirt before curling at your hip, warm and possessive. The other dipped lower, slipping past the edge of the blanket to hook into the waistband of your pajama shorts—those soft, slouchy ones you wore around the apartment, the ones that barely hung on your hips and absolutely hadn’t been designed to withstand the rough drag of a man who had finally stopped pretending he didn’t want you.

His fingers curled into the fabric, slow at first, tugging until the elastic caught beneath your thighs, dragging it down with such deliberate care it made your breath stutter. His mouth never left yours, only deepened the kiss with each breath, as if he could memorize you faster this way, as if he could make up for the time he’d lost, all the nights he’d come home and sat across the room, watching you laugh in those same damn shorts, pretending it didn’t drive him crazy that he hadn’t had permission to do this.

And now?

Now there was nothing holding him back.

He pulled at the waistband again, a little harder this time, his knuckles brushing the curve of your bare hip as your shorts slipped lower, and you could feel the restraint thinning by the second, his body tight with need and muscle and control that was so close to giving out completely. His kiss turned rougher, hotter, tongue sweeping into your mouth with a groan that he tried—and failed—to swallow, as if the sound alone might tip this into something too far, too soon.

But it was already too late– Caleb was losing himself in you, and he wasn’t hiding it anymore.

The fabric slid past your thighs in slow, uneven tugs, Caleb’s hands no longer moving with military precision but with the clumsy, desperate grace of a man completely undone, his composure disassembled by the taste of your mouth and the feel of your skin and the unbearable weight of having waited for this—for you—for so damn long. He broke the kiss just long enough to look down, to watch your shorts fall away beneath his palms like silk melting off fire, and the way his throat worked around a groan would’ve been embarrassing if it weren’t so wrecked, so grateful, so full of a kind of awe that made your breath catch before he’d even touched you properly.

And then he did.

His hands slid up your thighs—slowly, reverently, like he was mapping out a holy place he wasn’t sure he deserved to enter. His palms were warm and wide, fingers splayed as they traced over the soft give of your skin, the inside of your knees, the curve of your hips, his touch unsteady now, because he was feeling you like he’d dreamt of doing in secret for years and could barely believe this wasn’t something he’d have to wake up from.

“God,” he breathed, low and ruined, his voice shaking with it as he leaned in and pressed his lips to the inside of your knee, his breath hot against your skin, his mouth moving slowly—so slowly—upward. “You don’t know… you don’t know how long I’ve wanted this.”

You did. Maybe not the full weight of it, but the tremble in his voice, the reverence in his hands, the way he was breathing like every inch of you was oxygen—that told you more than words ever could.

And when he kissed your thigh again, this time higher, his teeth just grazing the edge of where your skin grew softer, more sensitive, you felt the moment he lost the last sliver of control he’d been trying to hold onto.

Because suddenly he was on you—mouth hot and open and worshiping, dragging his tongue across your skin like he’d been waiting for this taste since the day you first touched his hand and called him your best friend. There was nothing careful about him now. No slow tease, no smirking restraint—just heat and desperation and a groan that vibrated through you as he buried himself between your thighs and devoured you like he didn’t care about anything else but this.

And the way he touched you—God. It wasn’t just lust. It was awe.

Like he was trying to memorize every breath you took, every soft sound you made, every twitch of your hips beneath his mouth. His hands gripped your thighs like he couldn’t let go, like he was afraid you might vanish if he loosened his hold, and all the while his mouth moved against you with a rhythm that felt like it had been waiting—waiting—for permission to finally let go.

And now that he had it? He wasn’t stopping.

“Let me,” he whispered against your skin, voice hoarse, eyes flicking up to meet yours for a single, breathless moment as his fingers dug into your hips and pulled you closer to his mouth. “Just let me make you feel good. I need—God, I need to feel you like this.”

And then he did.

Again. And again. Until your back arched and your hands found his hair and the only sound in the apartment louder than the rain was your breathing shaking under his tongue.

You shattered beneath his mouth like glass catching sunlight—quiet at first, almost too stunned to move, then all at once, your body tensing in his hands, your thighs trembling against his shoulders, your voice falling apart in a stuttering gasp that wasn’t even a word, just the beginning of his name and a sound so sweet and wrecked he nearly came right then and there.

But Caleb didn’t stop.

God, he couldn’t stop—not with your taste on his tongue and your fingers knotted in his hair and your hips rocking against his mouth like you didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world but here, with him, under him, coming undone because of him.

So he held you through it.

Pressed his mouth against you with a desperate, reverent rhythm, lips and tongue and teeth working in tandem as if he could drag every last tremor from your body and keep them for himself. One hand braced beneath your thigh to anchor you down, the other sliding up, up, until he was gripping your waist like he needed it to breathe. His groan was muffled, low and desperate against your skin as you bucked under him, overwhelmed and still unraveling, your body caught in that aftershock haze where every brush of his tongue was too much and not enough all at once.

And still—he didn’t stop.

Not until you pushed weakly at his shoulder, not until your legs twitched and your voice cracked and you whispered his name in a way that wasn’t teasing anymore, wasn’t daring or smug—it was raw. Real. Please.

He pulled back only then.

Only when you needed him to.

His lips were slick with you, his breath ragged, his chest rising and falling like he’d just sprinted through a firefight, and when he looked up at you, flushed and panting and ruined, you saw it—everything he’d held in for years. Want. Awe. Love, sharp and devastating in its clarity.

“Fuck,” he whispered, dragging a hand through his hair, trying and failing to slow his breathing. “You’re—Jesus, you’re unreal.”

You reached for him on instinct, still dazed, still breathless, and he came willingly, crawling up over your body with the kind of slow, fluid urgency that said he wasn’t going to last much longer if you so much as looked at him the wrong way. His hands framed your face as he kissed you again—sloppy and wet and needy, tasting like everything you’d just given him—and by the time his hips pressed against yours, there was no mistaking how hard he was, how long he’d been holding back, how close to the edge he already was just from touching you.

“Need you,” he muttered against your mouth, his voice cracking around it, like he’d never said anything truer in his life. “I need—God, please—I need to be inside you.”

You nodded, already wrapping your legs around his hips, already pushing his sweats down his thighs, already too far gone to pretend this wasn’t exactly where you both had always been headed.

And when he finally pushed in—slow at first, inch by aching inch, his breath breaking across your throat like a prayer—it wasn’t just sex.

It was relief. Like he was sinking into something he’d been starving for, denied for too long, and now that he had it, now that he had you, he was never letting go.

“Fuck,” he breathed again, his forehead pressing to yours as he bottomed out inside you with a shudder that shook his whole frame. “You feel so good. So fucking perfect. I can’t—”

He broke off, groaning low in his throat, and started to move.

He meant to hold still.

He meant to—God, he swore he was going to take his time, make this slow, make it unforgettable—but the second he sank into you, the second your body gave way around him, hot and tight and so much better than anything he’d ever imagined in all those nights spent alone with your name stuck in his throat and his hand on his cock, his vision blurred. Literally. His breath caught in his chest like a blow, his arms shook where they braced on either side of your head, and for a split second he just hovered there, forehead pressed to yours, like if he moved again—just once—it would all be over.

And then your legs tightened around his waist.

A soft, involuntary clench of your body around him, and he snapped.

He started to move—he had to, there was no choice, no air, no logic left in his body that could’ve kept him from chasing that heat once he had it—and his first thrust wasn’t slow, wasn’t gentle, it was needy, a little too hard, a little too deep, dragging a groan from his chest that sounded like it had been waiting years to be freed.

“Fuck—” His voice broke open on the word, breath shaking as he pulled back and pushed in again, the motion jerky, just shy of rough, driven by the kind of feral hunger that made it clear he was already half gone. “I—I can’t—I’m trying to—”

But he couldn’t finish the sentence.

Couldn’t form the words when every inch of him was raw with how good you felt, how you fit around him like you’d been carved to take him, like your body had been made for this moment, for him, and now that he was inside you, moving in you, it was napalm—burning through every last fiber of restraint until all that remained was the rhythm of his hips and the low, broken sounds tearing out of his throat.

He thrust again, harder this time, and the shock of it punched a sound from your mouth that made his eyes roll back, his body shudder. His pace stuttered, hands curling into the sheets beside your head, like if he didn’t anchor himself, he’d lose whatever was left of his control.

“Fuck, baby, you feel—” He gasped, eyes wide and wild as they met yours, voice hoarse and disbelieving. “You feel too good—I can’t—I can’t stop—”

And he didn’t.

He kept moving, shallow, desperate thrusts that pressed your body into the mattress with every snap of his hips, his breath fanning hot over your cheek as he dipped his head, mouthing at your jaw, your neck, anything he could reach. He was muttering now, rambling between kisses, his words slurred with pleasure and disbelief.

“So perfect—so fucking perfect—mine—God, you’re mine—how did I go so long without this—without you—”

Your name broke from his lips like prayer.

He was close. Too close.

You could feel it in the way his rhythm faltered, in the way his hands gripped the sheets like anchors, his hips stuttering in those short, desperate thrusts that landed harder with every pass. He was moving like he couldn’t help it, like stopping would hurt worse than coming undone, like your body had swallowed him whole and he didn’t want to be anywhere else in the universe ever again.

And for a moment, all you could do was feel—the burn of his breath on your throat, the slick heat of him pounding into you with barely-checked force, the rumble of every half-formed sound he made in your ear as if his body was trying to apologize for how completely it had betrayed his control.

But he was trying. God, he was trying to hold back.

You saw it in his eyes, blown wide and dark with something almost vulnerable—like he was terrified this would end too soon, that this would be over before he could show you what you meant to him. He was chasing the high, but also resisting it, even as his body begged to let go.

So you moved.

One hand slid up the tense plane of his back, fingers splayed between his shoulder blades as you lifted your head to meet him, dragging him down to you, not with force but with want. And when your mouth met his again—slow, deliberate, tender in a way that cracked something deep in his chest—you kissed him like it was your turn to give, your turn to take. You kissed him like you’d been starving too.

He groaned into your mouth, the sound raw, trembling, wrecked, like the feeling of your lips on his had undone whatever last thread of control he’d been clinging to. His thrusts slowed—not because he’d regained composure, but because he was trying to make it last now, trying to breathe through it, to memorize the exact way your mouth moved against his when you kissed him back like that, like he was yours.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” you whispered against his lips, your breath mingling with his, your hands curling into his hair as you held him there, your eyes meeting his with heat and honesty in equal measure. “I wanted you—I just didn’t know how to say it.”

His expression broke.

A soft gasp left him as he pressed his forehead to yours, his hips still rolling into you in slow, uneven thrusts, deep and tight and aching.

“You’re gonna kill me,” he breathed, his voice fraying apart. “You’re gonna fucking kill me, and I’ll thank you for it.”

You smiled—soft, dazed, in love—and kissed him again, slower this time, coaxing a low, choked groan from his throat as he shuddered in your arms. His hips stuttered. His whole body locked. And then—

He came.

Hard. Buried deep inside you, holding you like you were the only thing in the galaxy keeping him tethered to earth, Caleb broke with a sound that was part prayer, part curse, part disbelief. His mouth found yours again as he spilled into you, his groan lost in the kiss as he rutted helplessly through it, lost and breathless and completely undone, moving even after he was spent until you followed him over the edge with a cry of his name.

***

Neither of you moved for a long time.

The rain kept tapping at the windows, the screen still casting a low blue glow across the apartment, but the world felt muted now, far away, as though it had receded to give you this—this moment of quiet, trembling peace in the wreckage of what the two of you had just done.

Caleb stayed pressed over you, his chest rising and falling against yours in slow, heavy waves, sweat cooling on his back, his arms trembling faintly where they braced his weight above you. He hadn’t pulled out yet—hadn’t even tried to—and when you shifted beneath him just slightly, he let out the softest sound, almost like a protest, almost like a prayer.

His eyes met yours, dazed and glassy, pupils still blown, lips parted like he’d tried to speak and lost the words before they could rise.

“Are you okay?” you whispered, brushing your fingers through the damp strands of hair at his temple, watching him melt just a little more beneath the touch.

He nodded, slow and shaky. Swallowed hard.

Then finally—finally—he lowered himself fully, letting his weight sink into you as his head dropped into the crook of your neck, his arms wrapping around your waist like he wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go even if he wanted to.

Which, clearly, he didn’t.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” he murmured into your skin, voice thick and muffled, as if saying it out loud might undo it. “I’ve wanted that—I’ve wanted you—for so long it feels like a goddamn fever dream.”

You let out a breathless laugh, quiet and shaky, your fingers stroking up and down his spine now, soft and slow, like you were still learning the shape of him beneath your hands. “You could’ve said something, you know.”

He exhaled sharply, almost a scoff, though it lacked any real bite. “You think I didn’t want to? You think I didn’t try?” He lifted his head, propped himself up just enough to look at you again, and his expression was still open, still raw, something so painfully honest it made your chest ache. “You were always right there, and I wanted you so badly it hurt, but I didn’t want to risk losing what we had. So I kept quiet. And I watched you laugh, and touch me like it didn’t mean anything, and wear those goddamn shorts—”

You snorted. “Those were your breaking point?”

“They were a breaking point.”

You couldn’t help but smile, one hand curling gently around the back of his neck as you leaned up to kiss the corner of his mouth—just a soft, lingering press of lips against skin. “I didn’t say anything either,” you whispered. “I was scared if I made a move, you’d pull away. Or worse—you’d pity me.”

His expression twisted, wounded and tender all at once. “Never.”

“I know that now,” you said, voice breaking a little. “But I didn’t then.”

Caleb’s arms tightened around you, his forehead pressing back into yours as he breathed you in like something holy, something necessary. “I’ve been in love with you for years,” he admitted, voice so quiet you almost missed it. “I just never thought I’d get to tell you, let alone still inside you.”

You laughed, teary-eyed and breathless, pulling him down into another kiss—slow, warm, and deep, the kind that said this isn’t over and you’re mine now.

And when you broke apart, when you stared up at him with nothing but love and wonder softening every edge of your expression, you whispered, “Then don’t wait anymore.”

And he didn’t.

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #love and deepspace smut #lads smut #lnds smut #caleb smut #caleb x reader #caleb x you #caleb #lads caleb #xia yizhou #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 10 days ago

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Masterpiece - a drabble

❤︎ tags and content: body worship, oral, f!reader x rafayel ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

The sea murmured against the glass of his ocean-view studio, moonlight filtered through salt-slick windows and spilled across the floor like liquid silver. The candles had long since burned low, their flickering glow throwing long shadows over scattered canvases and jars of pigment. Somewhere between his need to paint and his need for you, Rafayel had made a decision—one that involved neither brushes nor restraint.

You were sprawled across a long chaise draped in linen, bare save for the delicate slip of his discarded shirt falling off one shoulder. His eyes devoured you—not with the hungry gaze of a man, but the fervent obsession of a creator studying his magnum opus. He stood in front of you, shirtless, hands slick with something that shimmered faintly in the candlelight—red coral paint, soaked with memory, sacred to Lemuria.

"You don’t know what you do to me," he murmured, stepping closer. His voice was velvet, but frayed at the edges, undone. "Every time I look at you… I want to ruin you the way I ruin canvas—over and over until there’s nothing left but color and sensation."

You opened your mouth, but he was already sinking to his knees between your legs, warm fingers ghosting up the curve of your thigh. The paint left faint trails behind, glowing faintly against your skin.

“Stay still,” he whispered, breath fanning against the inside of your knee. “Let me study you. Mark you.”

You shivered as he dragged the pad of his thumb upward, the coral pigment mixing with the heat of your skin. His touch wasn’t gentle—it was reverent, consuming, like he was trying to learn the shape of you with his hands alone.

Then his tongue followed, slow and deliberate, tasting the inside of your thigh as if testing the flavor of the divine.

“Color theory,” he murmured, lips brushing higher. “Your skin goes pink when I breathe here… red when I do this—”

His teeth grazed your inner thigh, and you gasped, fingers clenching the edge of the chaise.

He looked up at you through his lashes, eyes twin galaxies of cerulean and rose. “I want to see how many shades I can bring out of you.”

His mouth was fire and worship and destruction all at once. He parted you with his thumbs, kissed the slick heat of you like it was something sacred, and moaned—deep, guttural, possessive—as if your taste confirmed something he’d long suspected.

“Sweet,” he rasped against you. “Of course you are.”

You arched, a breathless cry escaping as he licked a slow stripe up your center, tongue curling just right—just perfectly—until your vision blurred and your hips bucked helplessly against his mouth.

He didn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. He pinned you with one arm thrown across your stomach, the other hand gripping your thigh as his tongue worked you over like a man possessed. Each flick, each slow, deliberate circle of pressure, sent sparks through your nerves. When your moans turned ragged and breathless, when your thighs trembled and your fingers tangled in his hair, then—only then—did he pull back.

His lips were wet, flushed, shining.

“You’re already shaking,” he murmured, voice thick. “Haven’t even put my cock in you yet.”

Your name left his mouth like a prayer as he rose, capturing your lips in a kiss that tasted like salt and heat and the ocean’s fury. You tasted yourself on him. You didn’t care. His hand cupped your jaw, tilting your face just so, and he kissed you again—deeper, hungrier.

Then he pulled back, just enough to whisper:

“Get on your hands and knees.”

You obeyed. He stood behind you, palms ghosting over your hips, thumbs pressing bruises into your skin. You heard the sound of his pants hitting the floor, the low groan as he fisted himself behind you, lining up with your soaked entrance.

“Tell me you want this,” he said, voice barely a growl. “Tell me whose you are.”

You looked over your shoulder, cheeks flushed, eyes glassy.

“Yours,” you whispered. “Only yours.”

That was all it took. He buried himself to the hilt in one smooth, brutal thrust, and the sound that tore from your throat was obscene. The stretch was perfect—too much and not enough all at once. Rafayel grunted, holding himself still inside you, one hand tangled in your hair.

“Fuck,” he hissed. “You feel like you were made for me.”

Then he moved. Each thrust was art—vicious, gorgeous, devastating. He fucked you like a man who didn’t just want you—he needed you, like the sea needed the moon, like pigment needed canvas. The sound of skin slapping echoed through the studio, mixing with your cries and his ragged groans.

"Look at you," he snarled, dragging you back onto him. "Dripping, desperate. You like when I treat you like this? Like something to be framed and ruined?"

You sobbed out something between a yes and a plea.

He reached around, fingers finding your clit with cruel precision, rubbing tight, fast circles. The pleasure hit like a tidal wave—your body spasmed, clenched, came apart all around him.

You screamed his name.

Rafayel followed with a guttural moan, hips jerking as he spilled inside you, hot and endless.

For a moment, all you could hear was the sea and the ragged cadence of your breathing.

Then he collapsed against your back, pressing kisses to your spine, your shoulder, your nape.

“Still not finished,” he whispered, pulling out slow, watching you shudder.

“I haven’t signed my masterpiece yet.”

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #love and deepspace smut #lads smut #lnds smut #rafayel x reader #lads rafayel #lnds rafayel #qi yu love and deepspace #qi yu smut #qi yu lads #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 10 days ago

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Benediction -a drabble

❤︎ tags and content: public sex, wall sex, f!reader x xavier ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

The alley was narrow, carved between two flickering holo-ad boards and draped in the perpetual dusk of N109’s underbelly. Neon spilled like spilled ink across the puddles at your feet, reflections rippling with every breath you took—each one more shallow than the last. You weren’t sure how you ended up here, only that Xavier had found you first.

Not Xavier, not now. Lumiere.

His mask gleamed faintly under the weak light, a curve of silver and glass that obscured half his face but did nothing to dim the intensity of his presence. He stood too close, his gloved hand braced against the wall near your head, caging you in with nothing but heat and proximity. Your back pressed into the cold concrete, chest heaving, every nerve singing in anticipation.

“Someone could see,” you whispered, the words caught somewhere between protest and plea.

Xavier tilted his head, the visor casting soft light across your flushed skin. “Then don’t be loud.”

You swallowed, throat dry.

His other hand found your waist, slow and deliberate, fingers trailing the curve of your side like he had all the time in the world. Beneath the leather, his grip was commanding—not rough, but possessive in a way that made your knees ache to bend. You hated how easy it was to melt under his touch. No, not hate. Craved.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice low and unreadable.

“You’re… really close,” you managed, eyes darting to the mouth barely visible beneath his mask.

“You asked me to come,” he reminded you, and there was no cruelty in it—just the truth, heavy and quiet.

And you had. An encrypted message, a traceable risk. You’d said you needed to see him. You hadn’t said why, only that it couldn’t wait. And now, here he was, with the patience of a ghost and the intent of a man unraveling.

His hand slipped under your coat, dragging up the hem of your shirt, fingertips ghosting over bare skin. “You’re warm here,” he murmured, almost to himself.

“Xavier…”

“Say it again.”

His voice wasn’t harsh. It was reverent. Like the syllables of your name in his mouth were prayer and profane all at once.

“Xavier,” you gasped as his hand dipped lower, beneath the waistband of your pants, the drag of leather exchanged for the glide of skin.

His mouth hovered over your ear. “You’re soaked.”

Mortified, you tried to shift, to press your thighs together, but he had you pinned and pliant with only one hand. Your face burned, and Xavier didn’t miss it.

“Do you know what you do to me?” he asked, his lips brushing your cheek, your jaw, your throat.

Your voice was barely a whisper. “Tell me.”

He groaned, the sound guttural and grounding, then he found you with his fingers—slow and certain. You moaned, soft and broken, head tilting back against the wall.

“That,” he said. “Right there.”

Your hips bucked into his hand, the friction perfect and terrible. Your breath hitched, your nails scrabbling at the fabric of his coat, desperate to anchor yourself to something as his fingers worked you open with devastating patience.

“Xavier—”

“You’ll take me here,” he said, voice iron beneath silk. “Say yes.”

You didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

His breath caught, and for a heartbeat, he stilled—then his hand was gone, and you almost cried at the loss.

But then he was freeing himself, and your thighs spread to accommodate the press of his body against yours, his heat, his weight, the impossible stretch as he sheathed himself inside you in one, controlled thrust. You bit your lip hard enough to bruise, eyes wide, back arching off the wall.

“Shh,” he murmured, though he didn’t sound calm anymore. “You have to be quiet.”

He started to move, a pace slow and deep, deliberate, grinding his hips just right—making sure you felt every inch, every drag and pull. He watched your face with open fascination, even behind the mask. You knew his eyes were on you, memorizing every gasp, every flutter of your lashes.

Your head fell forward, forehead pressing against his shoulder. He was still in his coat, you realized distantly. Still half-armored like a soldier in the middle of war. And still, he held you like you were something precious, ruined and holy all at once.

“Please,” you whispered, though you didn’t know what for.

“I know,” he said, and then he shifted the angle, lifting one of your legs to wrap around his waist, and you broke.

The orgasm hit like starlight, like falling into gravity and being caught, your body shaking, breath escaping in silent sobs as he drove into you with a low, reverent groan.

He followed seconds later, with your name on his lips like benediction.

You stayed there, bodies pressed close, the alley quiet save for your ragged breaths.

Then Xavier slowly withdrew, fixing your clothes with gentle hands, fingers lingering like he didn’t want to let go. He tugged your coat closed, brushing your cheek with the backs of his fingers.

“Still warm here,” he murmured.

You nodded, dazed. “Thanks to you.”

His mouth curled faintly.

Then, just before he disappeared into the shadows again, he whispered, “Call me next time. I’ll come faster.”

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #love and deepspace smut #lads smut #lads xavier #lnds xavier #xavier x reader #xavier love and deepspace #shen xinghui #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 12 days ago

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'Republicans graduating from law schools' have invalidated the Constitution, due process, and habeas corpus all to not offend First Felon and his highly illegal and morally devoid policies.

This is human trafficking. Always a projection.

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moongirlcleo · 14 days ago

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Between Silence and Stillness

❤︎ tags and content: hurt/comfort, soft sex, worship, office sex, oral, f!reader x zayne, not beta read ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

You’ve always held your own in the field, even in the aftermath of a devastating Wanderer attack. But when Zayne finds you bleeding in the rubble, something inside him finally fractures. He brings you back to Akso under the guise of medical care—but the tension that’s been simmering between you for months refuses to be buried any longer. In the quiet of his office, Zayne lets go of his restraint and touches you like a man starved—carefully, reverently, worshipfully.

And in the stillness after, he finally tells you everything he’s never been brave enough to say.

The air was thick with smoke and scorched ozone, the remnants of a Wanderer’s devastation lingering like the echo of a scream that refused to die, clinging to the collapsed buildings and shattered pavement as if the city itself had drawn a ragged breath and forgotten how to exhale. Sirens wailed in the distance, their sound fractured by the broken skyline, and the distant hiss of ruptured gas lines gave a rhythm to the silence, a heartbeat beneath the ruin.

You stumbled forward through the wreckage, the bite of gravel and broken glass beneath your boots barely registering over the dull throb pulsing at your temple. Dust clung to your lashes, to the blood that traced a slow, warm line down your cheek, and the gash above your brow blurred your vision in soft streaks of crimson—but you were upright, breathing, and conscious, which, in the aftermath of a Category-Three, felt like a miracle in itself.

And then, like some frozen current had torn through the heavy air and cleaved it in two, he appeared.

Zayne moved through the smoke with the kind of unrelenting purpose that turned heads and silenced rooms, his figure cutting clean against the gray haze like a scalpel through flesh—sharp, deliberate, and brimming with controlled fury. His gaze locked onto you the instant your form emerged from the rubble, and whatever thought he’d been having was erased in that moment, overwritten by something deeper and far more dangerous than concern.

You breathed his name like a half-prayer, half-exhale, the weight of survival catching up to you all at once. “Zayne.”

But he didn’t answer. He simply stared, motionless in the destruction, and for a beat too long, it was as if the battlefield around you ceased to exist—the firelight dimmed, the sirens faded, and the crackling remnants of chaos melted into silence beneath the force of that look.

One moment you were standing alone in the remnants of a collapsed corridor, and the next his hands were on your face, gloved fingers cupping your jaw with clinical precision that barely concealed the tremor just beneath his touch. He examined you like he didn’t trust his eyes—his thumbs brushing along the curve of your cheekbones to wipe away the blood that had begun to dry, his breath shallow and laced with something far more potent than adrenaline.

“You’re bleeding,” he said, though it sounded more like an accusation than a statement, his voice tight and low, the kind of tone he only used when something inside him was unraveling.

“It’s superficial,” you replied, or tried to, the words catching slightly as the pads of his fingers ghosted over the edge of your wound. “It looks worse than it is.”

But Zayne wasn’t listening. Not really. He was already cataloging each cut, each scrape, each place where your skin had come too close to destruction—and when his gaze dropped to the tear in your jacket, revealing the singed fabric beneath and the faint bruise blooming along your ribs, something subtle but unmistakable shifted in the set of his shoulders.

Without a word, he wrapped an arm around your waist, firm but careful, guiding you with a precision that left no room for protest.

“You’re coming with me,” he said, his voice quieter now, but no less commanding. “To the hospital.”

“I can go to HQ—”

“No.”

It was a single word, clipped and final, spoken in that tone of his that ended all further discussion before it could begin.

The journey back through the heart of Linkon was a blur, the city a smear of flickering lights and half-functioning infrastructure in your periphery, but you barely registered the passage of time, focused only on the subtle pressure of Zayne’s hand at your back, the way he moved like a blade honed too sharp to be touched. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Every clipped step down the sterile corridors of Akso, every passing glance from the staff that caught the edge of his expression and immediately looked away, said enough.

The moment his office door slid shut behind you with the soft hiss of sealed air, the world exhaled.

You stood in a space that mirrored him almost perfectly—modern, minimal, composed. The sleek surfaces gleamed under low lighting, chrome and dark wood softened only by the faint hum of the central systems that kept the temperature just shy of clinical. A wall of glass framed the city below, the storm-drenched skyline veiled in rain and the dim flicker of auxiliary power grids.

He said nothing as he motioned toward the long couch against the far wall, one clearly used more for medical examinations than relaxation, and began to gather supplies from a cabinet beside his desk. Antiseptic. Gauze. Suture strips. Every movement was exact, measured down to the angle of his wrists, but you could see it—the tension in his shoulders, the rigidity in his posture, the storm trapped behind the glass of his composure.

When he returned to you, he knelt without ceremony, one hand curling around your wrist to steady your arm while the other began to clean the wound at your temple. The antiseptic stung, but not as much as the silence.

“You didn’t follow protocol,” he said at last, voice low, not angry—but dangerous in its restraint.

“There was a child,” you answered, your own tone soft but firm. “Trapped under the east wing.”

“And what if you hadn’t made it out?” he asked, still focused on his work, though the set of his jaw betrayed him.

“Then I’d have gone down doing something that mattered.”

Zayne exhaled slowly through his nose, his grip on the gauze faltering for just a second before he steadied it again. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” you asked, trying—and failing—not to let your voice tremble. “Because it scares you?”

He didn’t answer. Not immediately. Instead, he set the gauze aside, his hand lingering on your cheek as he met your gaze—and for a moment, everything else receded.

Not the blood. Not the bruises. Not even the war outside the hospital walls.

Just that look. Unfiltered. Unmasked. Something raw flickered in his eyes—briefly, beautifully—and you recognized it for what it was.

Fear.

Not of you. Not of the danger you’d faced. But of losing you. He spoke your name then—quietly, carefully, like it tasted different on his tongue now. As if everything he’d been holding back was wrapped in just those two syllables.

“You could’ve died,” he whispered.

You hadn’t meant to raise your voice, not really, but something about the look in his eyes—the way he hovered so close yet refused to speak the truth—ignited something sharp in your chest, a flare of defiance that rose before you could smooth it over.

“I’m not reckless,” you said, quieter than a shout but no less firm, the edge of irritation threading through your words, not at him exactly, but at the way he seemed to fold you into some delicate category that had never suited you. “I knew what I was doing.”

Zayne didn’t respond, not immediately, his silence louder than most people's shouting, his hands still hovering near your skin like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to keep touching you or if he’d already crossed some invisible line. You could see it in the twitch of his jaw, in the way his gaze had dropped to the floor between you—as though looking at you too long might make something unravel in him that he wouldn’t be able to take back.

“I am not some fragile thing you need to rescue, Zayne,” you continued, stepping toward him, voice low but unflinching, the words drawn not from pride but from something deeper—something that had been sitting heavy on your chest for far too long. “I’ve trained for this. I’ve survived worse than this. I knew the risks, I assessed the situation, and I made a call—and if it were anyone else, you’d respect that.”

His eyes lifted then, the weight of them sudden and sharp, and the look he gave you was so full of restrained emotion it nearly stopped the breath in your throat. You weren’t sure what you expected—maybe a retort, maybe silence—but when he finally spoke, his voice was rough around the edges, like something too long kept beneath water had finally broken through the surface.

“It’s not the same.”

“Why?” you asked, quietly now. Not because the fight had gone out of you, but because something else had taken its place—something heavier, quieter, something that hurt a little to say out loud. “Because it was me?”

Zayne exhaled slowly, like the weight of your words had hit exactly where he’d hoped you wouldn’t aim, and when he turned away, it wasn’t avoidance—it was strategy, a feint, like if he gave himself just one more second, he might be able to gather the pieces of whatever composure he had left. He braced both hands on the edge of the desk behind him, head bowed slightly, shoulders taut beneath the fabric of his coat, and when he finally answered, the words were so quiet they barely carried across the space between you.

“Yes.”

Just that.

One word, but it broke something open.

“I know you’re capable,” he said, not looking at you now, because if he did, he might not be able to stop. “I know how skilled you are. I’ve read your reports, I’ve seen you in the field, I’ve watched you walk into situations most people wouldn’t dare touch and come out stronger. I trust you.”

He paused then, his knuckles white against the edge of the desk.

“But that doesn’t make me any less terrified.”

Your breath caught, your heart stuttering somewhere behind your ribs, and for a moment, the silence between you felt like it had its own gravity.

“I’m not built for this,” he went on, his voice quieter now, rougher around the edges, like it was costing him something just to say the words. “This… whatever this is between us. I’ve spent my entire life learning how to detach, how to stay focused, how to be precise. I don’t make mistakes. I don’t let my emotions interfere. But today—” He broke off, inhaling sharply. “Today, I saw that building fall and thought I might never see you again, and I realized that somewhere along the way, you stopped being just another person I was trying to protect.”

He turned toward you then, finally, and the look in his eyes—raw, open, unguarded—was something you’d never seen from him before. Not even in the quiet moments, not even in the way he sometimes lingered just a second too long after a conversation had ended.

“You do mean something to me,” he said, no flourish, no metaphor, just the plain and devastating truth of it laid bare. “You have for a long time. And I’ve tried—I’ve really tried—to keep that to myself, because I didn’t want it to compromise you, or me, or the work we do. But the moment I thought you were gone—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to.

You stepped forward without thinking, closing the last few inches between you, and though he didn’t reach for you at first, he didn’t back away either. He just stood there, breathing you in like the silence between you had finally shattered, and all that was left was the truth of what had been building for far too long.

“Then stop pretending,” you whispered, not pleading, just honest. “Because I’m done pretending too.”

And then—very slowly, as if giving you one last chance to pull away—Zayne lifted his hand to your face again, and this time, when his fingers brushed over your cheek, there was nothing clinical in the touch.

Only heat. Only want. Only everything he’d finally stopped trying to bury.

***

His touch lingered against your cheek, and for a long, breathless moment, he didn’t move—didn’t lean in, didn’t pull you closer, didn’t cross that final line—but you could feel the tension radiating off him in waves, like something inside him was tearing loose at the seams, something he’d spent years reinforcing with steel and silence. His gaze flicked between your eyes, searching, almost hesitant, as if he still couldn’t believe you were here, that this moment was real, that it was allowed.

With every inch of emotion he had kept buried, every unsaid word, every glance that had lingered too long and every touch that had stopped just short of crossing the line. His lips brushed yours like a question at first—soft, almost reverent—testing, asking, offering, not demanding.

But when you answered—when you leaned in, tilted your head, parted your lips against his like the answer had been yes for months—his control shattered in a way that was quiet, but absolute.

Zayne kissed like a man who had held himself back too long, who had known the taste of denial far more intimately than desire, and now that he had you, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to stop. His hand slid into your hair, fingers curling at the nape of your neck with a pressure that bordered on possessive, and the other found your waist, pulling you flush against him with a low, almost involuntary sound caught somewhere in the back of his throat.

The heat between you bloomed slowly but fiercely, like a frostbitten surface thawing all at once under direct flame, and you could feel the shift in him—the unraveling of restraint, the sharp need held just beneath the surface, the way his mouth moved against yours with a precision that had nothing to do with technique and everything to do with wanting. Wanting you.

When his tongue slid past your lips—slow, deliberate, tasting like control just beginning to slip—it wasn’t a demand, but an inevitability, and you met him there with a hunger of your own, one you’d buried under professionalism, under friendship, under all the lines neither of you had dared cross until now.

You didn’t remember moving, but your back met the edge of his desk with a soft thud, and Zayne pressed into the space between your knees like he belonged there, like he’d always been meant to fit against you in that exact way, body to body, breath to breath. His coat was still half-buttoned, his tie loosened but not undone, and there was something unbearably hot in the contrast of his usual precision against the way his hands now gripped your thighs like he was barely holding himself together.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his lips flushed, his breath uneven, and there was something dark and tender in his expression—something vulnerable.

“I should stop,” he murmured, voice hoarse and wrecked and so clearly full of want that it made your pulse stutter. “You’re still hurt. You should be resting. I should be—”

“Don’t,” you whispered, fingers curling into the front of his shirt, anchoring him there, needing him close in a way that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with finally, finally being allowed to feel. “I don’t want you to stop.”

His breath hitched—sharp, quiet, and full of something he couldn’t hide anymore.

And then he kissed you again—deeper this time, with none of the hesitation, none of the careful restraint he’d worn like armor for so long. This kiss was heat and gravity and confession all at once, the culmination of too many moments where he'd looked at you like this, touched you like this, but always stopped short.

His mouth moved over yours like he was memorizing you—each kiss a little deeper, a little more unraveled, his fingers tightening at your waist like he needed to anchor himself or risk losing the last threads of control that held him together. You felt it in the way his body pressed closer, the faint tremor in his breath as your hand slid beneath the lapel of his coat, fingertips grazing the warm line of his collarbone through the thin fabric of his shirt.

When he pulled back, it was only far enough to look at you again—eyes dark and burning with something deeper than heat, something aching, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to fall to his knees or drag you back against him until there was no space left at all.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he murmured, his voice little more than a rasp against your lips, and the way he said it—low, reverent, like a confession half-laced with regret—sent a shiver spiraling down your spine.

“I think I do,” you whispered back, your palm flattening over his chest, right where his heartbeat thundered beneath the neatly pressed fabric. “I just think you’re the one who’s been pretending it doesn’t matter.”

That broke something in him.

Zayne reached up, slow and deliberate, brushing your hair away from your face before his hand drifted lower—fingertips tracing the line of your jaw, the curve of your throat, down the slope of your shoulder until his thumb brushed over the bruised edge of your collarbone where the blast had caught you. He didn’t speak. Didn’t ask if it hurt. Just looked at you like every mark on your body was a testament to the fact that you were still here, and he would carry the weight of what could have been for the rest of his life if you hadn’t been.

Then he dropped to his knees. Not dramatically. Not suddenly.

Just—quietly. Like worship.

His hands slid over your thighs, spreading them apart with care as he settled between them, not as a man seeking pleasure but as someone reverent, desperate to see, to touch, to know that you were real and whole and still his to reach for. He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, then another higher up, his hands trailing along the backs of your calves as if grounding himself in every inch of you.

When he looked up, the storm in his eyes had settled into something deeper, heavier—a kind of devotion that made your breath catch.

“I need you to tell me if I go too far,” he said, and though his voice was calm, it trembled with restraint, with a kind of honesty that was more intimate than anything else he’d touched. “Because if I start, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.”

You leaned down slightly, threading your fingers through his hair, tugging gently until his mouth met yours again—hot, open, hungry.

“Then don’t stop,” you breathed against him, and the shiver that passed through his body in response was almost violent.

But he didn’t rush. No—Zayne wasn’t built for frenzy. He was built for precision, for control, for the exquisite torment of taking his time. And now, with you beneath his hands and your words echoing in his mind, he was going to feel this—every inch, every gasp, every surrender—and make sure you felt it too.

He stood again, slow and fluid, and this time when he kissed you, there was no hesitation. His hands found the hem of your shirt, fingers sliding beneath the fabric, not tugging it away just yet, but mapping the heat of your skin like he wanted to memorize the shape of you before daring to bare it completely. When his mouth trailed down your neck, his tongue flicking lightly over the pulse beneath your jaw, you felt your knees weaken—not from shock, but from the overwhelming, maddening care he took with every movement.

He pulled back enough to murmur against your skin, his voice no longer ragged, but dark and velvety, controlled in a way that only made the tension coil tighter in your gut.

“Tell me what you need, and I’ll give you all of it.”

Zayne didn’t move quickly—he never did—but there was a new kind of gravity to the way his hands slid beneath the hem of your shirt, slow and deliberate, his eyes never leaving yours as if waiting for that single moment of hesitation, that flicker of uncertainty that would stop him in his tracks. But it didn’t come. You gave him nothing but breathless stillness, a trust that shimmered in your gaze and tightened in your throat as he began to lift the fabric upward, inch by inch.

His fingers brushed over bare skin as he went—knuckles grazing your ribs, the heel of his palm sliding up your stomach—and it wasn’t just undressing. It was unveiling. Like every inch of skin revealed beneath his touch was sacred, something he hadn’t dared imagine he’d ever be permitted to see, let alone claim.

The shirt cleared your shoulders, then your arms, and he let it fall behind you without looking away. His hands came back to rest against your waist, warm and steady, grounding you there against the edge of his desk like he was anchoring himself in the moment just as much as you.

Then—his mouth followed.

He dipped his head and pressed a kiss just below your collarbone, soft at first, almost tentative, and then another, slightly lower, lips brushing over bruised skin with something that felt like apology and promise all at once. His hands smoothed over your sides, thumbs tracing the line of your ribcage, his touch so gentle it made your whole body ache with the restraint of it. He could have taken more—gripped harder, pulled faster—but he didn’t. He wouldn’t.

Zayne worshipped.

He moved down your body in careful increments, kissing the curve of your breast, the space just beneath, the line where your skin dipped into your abdomen. With each movement, his mouth lingered a little longer, growing more emboldened, but never hurried. He wasn’t trying to coax a reaction out of you—he was absorbing you, like he needed the memory of your taste, your scent, the way your breath caught under his lips, to anchor himself against the chaos he so often lived within.

When his hands found the waistband of your pants, he paused—not for effect, not to tease, but because he was looking up at you again, his eyes dark and unreadable, searching your face as if to ask again: Are you sure? Can I have this? Can I have you?

And when you gave him that small nod, your hand threading into his hair in silent permission, his mouth curved—not quite into a smile, but something softer, something awed.

His fingers moved then, undoing the fastenings with the same precision you’d seen him use on an operating table—no fumbling, no urgency, just calm control made intimate. He knelt again as he slid the fabric down your hips, his mouth brushing along the exposed skin as it appeared, lips trailing over the crest of your hipbone, the sensitive skin just beside it, the place where your breath hitched and your fingers clenched a little tighter into the strands of his hair.

He peeled the last of your clothing from your legs with reverent care, pausing only to press a kiss to the inside of your thigh, then another higher up—closer now, not yet there, but near enough that your pulse stuttered under your skin. And when you stood before him, completely bare, body humming with anticipation and heat, Zayne didn’t rush to touch you again. He just looked.

And gods, the way he looked at you.

Like you were something celestial—something rare and luminous and his for the first time after years of telling himself he didn’t deserve to want it. There was no hunger in his expression, not yet. Only awe.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, so quietly it almost got lost beneath the sound of your breathing, but the weight of it settled low in your belly, deeper than anything he’d touched so far. With a kind of reverent finality, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your hip, his hands curling gently around the backs of your thighs as he breathed you in—slow, unhurried, devoted.

“I’ve imagined this,” he murmured against your skin, voice rougher now, the edge of restraint starting to fray. “But it doesn’t come close.”

Zayne remained on his knees before you, hands cradling the backs of your thighs like you were something both sacred and fragile, something he was desperate to claim but terrified to break. His breath skimmed over your skin in slow, measured exhales, but the control in his expression had begun to shift—no longer absolute, no longer cold. There was warmth now, fire, barely banked, flickering just beneath the surface.

His mouth found your inner thigh again, lips parting just enough to press a kiss softer than breath, and then another, higher this time, his tongue flicking out to taste the heat of your skin. You felt it in your knees first—the weakness, the way the air seemed thinner here, in the center of his attention—and then in your gut, in the low, tightening ache that built with every kiss he laid along the insides of your thighs, closer and closer until the space between them was lit with anticipation.

But he didn’t rush. Of course he didn’t.

Zayne moved like a man savoring something he’d denied himself for far too long—kissing his way inward with reverent precision, letting his nose brush where your scent was strongest, his breath now ragged, shallow, no longer untouched by want.

And when his mouth finally found you—when his lips parted against your folds, his tongue sliding slow and deliberate through your heat—you swore you stopped breathing.

He groaned softly at the first taste of you, the sound low and guttural, and his hands tightened just slightly around your thighs, drawing you closer to his mouth with a reverence that bordered on desperate. His tongue moved with practiced care, circling your clit with maddening restraint before dipping lower, exploring, tasting, claiming you in long, slow strokes that left no part of you untouched.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t messy. It was methodical—Zayne—but laced with so much intensity that you couldn’t stay still beneath it.

He mapped you with his mouth like a man memorizing scripture, his lips sealing around the most sensitive part of you in soft pulses that had your hips arching toward him before you realized you were moving, a sound escaping your lips that barely resembled his name.

Your hands found his hair, tangling in it, pulling—not to guide him, not really, because he knew exactly what he was doing—but because you needed something to hold onto, something to ground you as your body began to tremble under the weight of the pressure he was building so expertly inside you.

When he groaned again, it vibrated through you, deep and devastating, and his hands slid higher, over your hips now, holding you there, mouth pressed fully to your core like he couldn’t get close enough, like he wanted to devour you.

You gasped his name, breath hitching, thighs beginning to shake, but he didn’t let up. If anything, he doubled down—tongue swirling, sucking, licking in precise, devastating patterns that had your spine arching and your breath breaking apart in his hands.

“Zayne—” you gasped, and gods, the way his name tasted on your tongue, the way he moaned into you when you said it—it only made it worse.

Or better. You weren’t sure anymore. Your thighs began to close around his head, overwhelmed by sensation, but he just gripped your hips tighter, dragging you impossibly closer as his mouth worked you open again and again, coaxing you to the edge with maddening control, keeping you there, circling your clit with just enough pressure to make you cry out, to make your legs tremble harder, to make your voice break.

“I—Zayne, please—” The words tumbled out before you could catch them, raw and pleading, so unlike your usual self it would’ve startled you if you weren’t already drowning in the pleasure of it. “I can’t—please, I need you, I need—”

That stopped him. He pulled back just enough to look up at you, mouth slick with your arousal, hair tousled where your hands had pulled at it, and the sight of him like that—on his knees, ruined for you, because of you—sent another shockwave through your body. His voice, when he spoke, was wrecked.

“I’ve wanted to hear you beg like that,” he murmured, dragging his hands slowly up your waist, rising to his feet in one sinuous, predatory motion that left your breath shallow and your body desperate. “But now that I have…”

He leaned in, mouth brushing against your ear, his voice low and full of hunger he could no longer hide.

“…I don’t think I can hold back anymore.”

He kissed you again, softer this time—no less hungry, but gentler now, as though something in your plea had snapped him out of the heat and reminded him of everything that had led to this moment. You weren’t just here in his office, bare and shaking with want; you were here after a near-death encounter, after pulling yourself from the rubble of a city half in ruin, after walking through smoke and blood and broken concrete to find him again.

And Zayne… he felt it.

You could see it in his eyes—how fiercely he wanted you, yes, but also how carefully he reached for you now, his hands warm and steady as they returned to your body like a man laying hands on something precious. He slid one hand behind your back, the other beneath your thighs, lifting you with effortless strength as though you weighed nothing at all, and he set you down on the edge of his desk with a gentleness that made your chest ache.

“You’re still hurt,” he murmured, the words rough around the edges, not because he doubted your desire but because he couldn’t bear the idea of causing you pain when all he wanted was to worship you. “I need you to tell me if anything feels wrong. If it’s too much, if you—”

You kissed him this time—slow, deep, silencing the storm of worry before it could take root.

“I want you,” you whispered, pressing your forehead to his, your breath mingling with his. “I need you. I’m okay. I swear.”

He took his time undressing himself—unbuttoning his shirt one piece at a time, sleeves rolled up with meticulous care as if revealing himself to you meant just as much as touching you. When his skin finally met yours—warm, solid, unyielding—it felt like something inside you had finally clicked into place.

He kissed you again, this time along the curve of your shoulder, then lower, down the center of your chest, lingering where bruises had bloomed, his lips moving with almost unbearable tenderness over every mark like he was apologizing for the world and every wound it had dared leave on your skin.

Then he pressed his forehead to your sternum, and stayed there for a moment, his breath shaky, his hands splayed against your hips.

“I thought I’d lost you,” he said softly. “And I don’t know how to come back from that.”

You ran your fingers through his hair, smoothing it back from his face, and tilted his chin until his gaze met yours. “You didn’t lose me,” you whispered. “I’m right here. Take me, Zayne. Please.”

And gods, the way he responded to that—like it undid something deep in his chest, like your permission healed something raw in him—was almost more intimate than anything else.

He lined himself up between your thighs, and even then, even as his body trembled and the tension rolled off him in waves, he didn’t move until your hands were on him, until your legs pulled him closer, until you looked him in the eye and let him in.

When he finally slid into you, it was slow—so slow—his breath catching in his throat like the feel of you was overwhelming, like it wrecked him more than any enemy ever could. He groaned low in his chest, a sound you felt more than heard, and his forehead dropped to yours as he pushed in fully, his hands bracing on either side of you to keep himself grounded.

“God,” he whispered, breath ragged, “you feel…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, just kissed you again, a soft, aching thing full of reverence and restraint, hips rolling gently as he began to move.

Every stroke was deep, steady, as though he wanted you to feel each inch of him, to memorize the shape of his devotion. His hands slid behind your back, holding you close with an unyielding tenderness, his thumbs brushing over your spine as if he was still checking for pain, still protecting even as he came undone inside you.

You moaned his name into his mouth, breath breaking, and the way he responded—his hips stuttering, a soft, desperate sound caught in his throat—made your whole body tighten around him.

“Zayne,” you gasped, fingers digging into his back, nails scraping over sweat-slick skin. “Please—don’t stop. Please.”

“I won’t,” he breathed, voice raw, lips trailing down your jaw as he rocked into you with devastating care. “Not until you fall apart for me. Not until you know exactly what you mean to me.”

And he kept going—slow, deep, loving—as the world outside that office slipped away, and all that remained was the rhythm of your bodies, the heat between you, and the soft, trembling truth of everything you’d both kept locked away… until now.

Zayne’s rhythm remained steady—controlled, reverent—as if every movement was a prayer pressed into your skin, an act of penance for the times he’d stood too far, looked too long, wanted too much and told himself he shouldn’t. His thrusts were deep and deliberate, angled with precision, hitting that tender, aching place inside you again and again until your body melted around him, until the words on your tongue dissolved into gasps and half-formed moans that only he had ever drawn from you.

He watched you like he was unraveling—like he couldn’t look away, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe without the sight of you falling apart beneath him. His lips grazed your cheekbone, your jaw, the hollow beneath your ear where he whispered your name like it was the only thing he remembered from a lifetime before this.

“Look at me,” he murmured, voice low and trembling as his hips rolled into yours again, and again. “Let me see you.”

And you did—you looked at him, really looked, and the emotion in his eyes wrecked you more than the slow, grinding pleasure building between your thighs. You saw the weight he’d carried, the terror of nearly losing you, the hunger that had lived beneath his skin for far too long. But beneath all of that—there was love.

Undeniable, quiet, crushing.

His hand found yours where it clutched his shoulder, fingers intertwining as he rocked into you deeper, harder now, but never losing that softness, that care, even as your cries grew more desperate, your legs tightening around his waist as if trying to draw him deeper still.

Your head fell back with a choked gasp, body trembling around him as the tension in your core coiled tighter, hotter, until it felt like the entire world had narrowed to the place where he moved inside you, the sounds he made, the way he touched you like he was afraid you might disappear if he let go.

“Zayne—” you breathed, voice breaking as your body began to shake beneath the mounting pressure. “I—I'm so close, I—please, don’t stop—”

He groaned against your skin, mouth pressing to your collarbone, and his thrusts grew just a little deeper, more insistent, his pace edging into something he could barely restrain, like your voice alone was enough to undo him.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered. “I’m right here. Let go for me.”

And with those words—low, tender, commanding—the world tipped sideways.

Your climax hit hard, sweeping through you like a tidal wave, unstoppable and consuming, your body clenching around him in rhythmic spasms as you cried out his name, nails digging into his back, stars bursting behind your eyes. Every nerve lit up under his touch, every muscle trembling as he held you through it, his arms tightening around you like he could shield you from even your own undoing.

He followed not long after, burying himself deep as he let out a broken, guttural sound against your neck, his body shuddering through the release with the kind of quiet intensity only Zayne could have—something not loud or rough, but devastating in how full of feeling it was.

For a long, beautiful moment, neither of you moved. Your breaths tangled. Your hearts pounded in sync. His forehead rested against yours, his fingers brushing lazy, trembling circles into your hip like he couldn’t stop touching you, not now, not after this.

And when he finally spoke, his voice was soft. Fragile.

“I love you.”

You pulled him close again—not because he needed to say it, but because it had been there all along, in every kiss, every sigh, every slow, careful thrust that felt like a vow stitched into your skin.

“I know,” you whispered back, lips brushing his. “I love you too.”

The silence that followed was not empty, but full—thick with unspoken things that didn’t need to be voiced just yet, with breathless warmth and the faint tremble of overworked limbs finally beginning to settle. Zayne didn’t move at first, still nestled between your thighs, forehead resting lightly against yours, his breath brushing your lips as he slowed his own heart alongside yours.

His arms remained around you, cradling your back and waist like you were still something fragile, even now, even after you’d taken everything he’d given you and asked for more.

“You okay?” he whispered, barely above a breath.

You nodded, dazed and glowing, a small smile curving your lips. “More than okay.”

He exhaled—long, quiet, like he’d been holding that breath in for longer than just the last few minutes. Then, with gentle hands, he lifted you slightly, his movements so careful you barely noticed you were being repositioned until your back met the cool surface of the desk again, this time cushioned by the coat he slipped off and laid beneath you.

His fingers brushed along your thigh, now slick and sensitive, and he paused.

“I’m going to clean you up,” he murmured, voice still that soft, steady murmur you’d come to recognize as Zayne’s version of intimacy. “I’ll be gentle.”

And he was. He moved with the same deliberate grace you’d seen him use in surgery, but now it wasn’t detached—it was personal, intimate, achingly tender. He dampened a soft cloth with warm water from the sink tucked in the corner of his office, and when he returned, he knelt between your legs again, his hands supporting your hips as he tended to you with reverence.

The cloth was warm against your skin, soothing, the kind of care that made your chest tighten—not because of discomfort, but because it was him. Zayne. The man who never let anyone see past the practiced calm. The one who barely allowed himself to feel, and yet here he was, cleaning between your thighs with infinite care, pressing a kiss to your knee when you flinched from the oversensitivity, whispering, “Almost done,” like it was more apology than reassurance.

He worked in silence, but his touch never left you—not once.

When he finished, he placed the cloth aside, his hands returning to your waist, thumbs brushing slow circles into your skin like he didn’t want the contact to end.

Then he looked up at you—really looked, like every layer of him had been stripped bare, and there was no mask left to hide behind.

“I don’t always know how to say things,” he admitted, his voice low and laced with something vulnerable, something raw. “I know I come off cold. Distant. Like I’m watching everything from a distance even when I’m right beside you.”

You reached for him, fingers curling lightly at the nape of his neck. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I do,” he said, gently. “Because I want you to know that just because I don’t say it all the time… doesn’t mean it isn’t there. You matter to me. So much more than I’ve let on.”

He shifted forward, resting his forehead against your bare stomach now, his arms wrapping around your hips like he was grounding himself in your warmth.

“I don’t show it the way others do,” he whispered, each word a quiet vow pressed to your skin. “But I will always protect you. Whether you’re right next to me or on the other side of the damn city. Whether you’re bleeding or standing strong. I’ll always be there. I need to be there.”

Your fingers threaded through his hair again, your voice soft but sure. “I know.”

And you did. Because this—his silence, his care, the way he kissed the bruises left behind by the world and still asked Are you okay? like it was the most important question—this was how Zayne loved. Quietly. Fiercely. Completely.

He lifted his head again, eyes searching yours. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” you said with a tired smile.

He kissed you one more time, slow and deep, before gently gathering your clothes, helping you into his shirt instead of your own, wrapping you in fabric that smelled like him, that felt like him—warm, safe, steady.

And when he finally carried you to the small couch in the corner, settling you in his lap with a blanket tucked around both of you, he didn’t say another word.

He didn’t have to. His arms were around you. His heartbeat was steady beneath your cheek.

And you fell asleep to the quiet promise of his breath in your hair, the strength of his hold, and the certainty that whatever came next—he was yours.

And you were his.

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #lads smut #love and deepspace smut #lnds smut #lads Zayne #zayne x reader #lnds zayne #li shen #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 14 days ago

Note

your rafayel marriage fic was INSANELY good!!!!!! your characterization, build up, writing just was gorgeous. I’m really a very loyal caleb and xavier person but wow!!!!!! I was gripping my seat reading it (and I’m an impatient reader lol I jump straight to smut) but I was so enraptured with the way you wrote and built up to the moment of reveal. you are very talented!

awww thank you so much anon <3 this really makes my day! (I too am a loyal Caleb girly so I get you ahah)

#anon ask

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moongirlcleo · 17 days ago

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hi love the new caleb poker fic! just wanted to let u know the html was messed up there’s a typo with <hr> instead of <br> a few times throughout the post and i just wanted to let u know in case !!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️

ahhhh tysm !! <3

Yeah I usually change those to *** but forgot to before I posted bc it was formatted for ao3 😅 ty for letting me know though I appreciate you !

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moongirlcleo · 18 days ago

Text

Folded Hands

❤︎ tags and content: strip poker, light dom themes, rough sex, aftercare, table sex, f!reader, caleb x reader, not proofread ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

It starts with a bottle of wine and an innocent game of poker—just a quiet night on Skyhaven, something light to pass the time between missions and memories. But when the clothes begin to come off, the stakes rise higher than either of you planned.

For Caleb, restraint has always been second nature: in battle, in command, even in love. But when he sees you again—sitting before him, laughter on your lips and old longing in your eyes—he learns what it means to fold.

You don’t warn him that you’re coming.

You know his schedule by now—know the window when patrol shifts ease and the briefing rooms go quiet, when he might have a sliver of time to breathe without a headset pressed to his ear or someone barking his title down a comm line. It’s selfish, maybe, showing up unannounced, but something about Skyhaven’s artificial skyline and the faint hum of the platform beneath your boots feels too sterile without him.

You pass two levels of clearance before reaching his wing. The security personnel stationed outside glance at you but don’t question a thing—they know your face, probably know your name too. Caleb’s name gets you into places most people never dream of, and the thought settles strangely in your chest.

You pause outside his door, hand hovering near the chime for a beat longer than you mean to. Then, with a quiet breath, you press it.

The door slides open almost immediately, like he was already on the other side.

He doesn’t speak at first—just stands there in the entryway, jacket sleeves rolled to his elbows, dog tags peeking from beneath the collar of his half-buttoned shirt, hair still damp from a recent shower. There’s a moment of silence, but it isn’t awkward. If anything, it stretches soft and golden between you like the sun lingering just a little longer on the horizon.

Finally, his voice breaks it. “Pipsqueak. You came.”

You smile, tucking your hands into your jacket pockets. “I figured you might need someone to make sure you were still eating real food and not surviving off nutrient packs again.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “Guilty as charged.”

You expect him to step aside, to usher you in like he always does, but instead he studies you for a second longer—eyes flicking briefly down your frame, as if double-checking you’re really there and not some illusion conjured by exhaustion or hope. Then he steps back, wordlessly holding the door open.

The moment you cross the threshold, the quiet hum of Skyhaven gives way to something softer—his space is dim, cozy, nothing like the sterile exterior of the station. A warm light glows from a small lamp near the couch, casting lazy shadows across the room. There’s a pot simmering somewhere beyond the partition, faintly spicy and comforting. And the faintest trace of your favorite scent lingers in the air—subtle, but unmistakable.

“Been working late?” you ask, shrugging off your jacket and draping it over the back of his chair.

“Always,” he says, closing the door behind you. “But… I’m glad you’re here.”

You glance toward the source of the smell, eyes flicking toward the kitchen. “You cooking?”

He nods, sheepish. “Trying to, anyway. Got roped into making a proper meal tonight. I may or may not have bribed someone on the logistics team for decent ingredients.”

You raise a brow, mock seriousness. “You bribed someone for dinner?”

“Only a little,” he says, lifting one hand in mock surrender. “I didn’t know you were coming, but there’s enough for two. Stay?”

You don’t even have to think about it. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

He doesn’t move right away. Just watches you for a moment longer, the faintest crease between his brows, like he’s still calibrating the reality of you standing in his space. Then something eases in him—shoulders relaxing, expression softening—and he gestures toward the small dining nook by the window.

“I’ll plate up,” he says. “Make yourself at home.”

And just like that, you’re back in orbit around him again, the two of you drawn together in quiet gravity, as if no time has passed at all.

Dinner is quieter than you expected, but not in a bad way. Caleb sets the table with military precision—two bowls of something simmered and savory, still steaming from the pot, a bottle of wine between you, half-full glasses catching the soft light like blood-red glass. You’re close enough to see the fine scar just under his jaw when he leans forward, but far enough that you still feel the distance he keeps around most people.

Except you’re not most people.

He waits until you’ve eaten a few bites before speaking, and when he does, his voice is softer than usual.

“So,” he says, watching you over the rim of his glass, “how’ve you been holding up?”

You shrug, rolling your shoulders as if it’ll shake off the weight of everything. “Same as always. Working, reporting, picking up intel where I can. Got clipped by a rogue Wanderer last week, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

His jaw tightens just slightly. You catch it even if he thinks you won’t. “You shouldn’t be dealing with that alone.”

You offer a small smile, lifting your glass to your lips. “I wasn’t alone. Zayne had my back. We made it out clean.”

He’s quiet for a moment, eyes dropping to his plate. When he speaks again, it’s low, almost like he’s talking more to himself than you. “I hate that you’re still in the middle of all that.”

You tilt your head. “You think I should be locked away in here with you?”

He looks up sharply, but there’s no bite to your words—just a trace of amusement, tempered with something softer.

“I think,” he says after a pause, “that I’d sleep better if I knew you were safe.”

You don’t answer right away. The silence stretches, not uncomfortable, but full—like a breath you’re both holding, unsure when to let it go.

Eventually, you break it with a quiet laugh. “God, this wine is strong.”

He glances toward your glass, brow lifted. “Already feeling it?”

“Maybe a little,” you admit, nudging your plate away. “But in a good way. I think I needed this.”

There’s a flicker of something in his expression. You lean back in your chair, swirling the last of your wine lazily, and glance toward the side table where the deck of cards sits, half-hidden under a data tablet.

“Hey,” you say, catching his gaze, “still keep a deck around?”

His eyes flick toward the cards, then back to you. “Always.”

“Good.” You smirk, setting your glass down. “You up for a game of poker?”

He leans back, arms folding across his chest, that familiar amused glint in his eyes returning. “You’re tipsy.”

“Which means I’m just reckless enough to win,” you shoot back, giving him a mock-challenging look. “Unless you’re scared I’ll beat you again.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, already reaching for the deck. “You cheated last time.”

“Did not.”

“You stacked the deck when I blinked.”

“Prove it.”

He stands, pulling the cards free with a flick of his wrist, and walks slowly back toward the table. “You’re on, then. But I’m warning you... I play for keeps.”

You look up at him, heartbeat catching just a little at the way the warm light slides over the edge of his jaw, the faint smirk at the corner of his mouth.

“That so?” you murmur, voice soft with challenge. “Guess we’ll see what you’re willing to bet.”

And just like that, the room feels warmer. Not just from the wine. Not just from the way his eyes linger on you a second too long. But from something simmering beneath the surface—just waiting for one of you to fold.

<hr>

The cards move fluidly between Caleb’s fingers, shuffling in smooth, practiced motions, each flick of the deck precise in a way that feels entirely him—controlled, deliberate, like even this moment of downtime is something he needs to master. He sits across from you now, long legs stretched under the table, sleeves pushed to his elbows, the fitted line of his jacket hugging his frame like it was made for him. There’s a slight crease between his brows as he cuts the deck, but it softens the moment he glances up and catches your gaze, a spark of amusement flickering there.

You lean into your hand, the curve of your mouth lazy. “You gonna deal, or just admire the cards all night?”

His gaze lingers on you, eyes half-lidded, voice low. “Thought I was admiring something else.”

Your stomach tightens, not because of the wine—but because of that voice, that look, and the way he says it like he means every word.

He starts to deal, and the first few rounds pass easily—banter traded, hands won and lost. You bluff; he calls it. He folds; you grin. There’s tension simmering under the surface now, subtle but growing with each glance, each casual brush of fingers on the table or leg beneath it. The room is too warm. Or maybe it's just him.

“So,” Caleb says, tapping his cards against the table, “what exactly are we playing for?”

You shrug, watching the way the light catches in his hair, casting faint gold at his temples. “Didn’t set terms.”

He hums, as if weighing options. “We could make this interesting.”

You arch a brow. “Interesting how?”

He lifts his glass for a slow sip, gaze unwavering. “Loser of each hand removes something.”

There’s a quiet beat—just a moment where the air stills and your breath stalls—but then you set your wine down, fingers brushing your cheek as you pretend to think.

“You’re serious?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “Only if you are.”

You meet his eyes, steady. “Alright, Colonel. But you’re going to regret this.”

He grins, all confidence and something darker beneath it. “Can’t wait.”

The cards are dealt. You lose the next round, of course—whether by fate or the fact that your mind is no longer entirely on the game. With an exaggerated sigh, you slide your sweater off your shoulders and toss it over the arm of the couch behind you. You don’t look at him, not directly, but you feel his eyes track the movement like a predator watching the first sign of weakness.

The round after that, he folds way too early.

You tilt your head, not bothering to hide your smirk. “Really? You’re giving up that easy?”

“Maybe I just wanted to even the field,” he says, and this time, he unzips his jacket.

He peels it off in one slow, smooth motion, the fabric whispering over his skin as he drapes it over the back of his chair. The dark shirt beneath fits him too well—clinging to the curve of his shoulders, the line of his arms, like a second skin. You swallow a little too quietly.

The game continues, barely. Small losses, smaller victories. Neither of you’s really trying it seems. Your bracelet ends up on the table. His socks go next. It’s almost ridiculous, but neither of you laughs.

It’s your deal. You flick a card onto the table with the sort of flair only three glasses of wine can inspire. “Call it.”

Caleb leans forward, folding his arms against the table, his voice quieter now. “Don’t tell me you’re throwing this one too.”

You shrug, feigning innocence. “Who says I’m not just bad at poker?”

He tilts his head, studying you with a gaze that sees straight through your act. “You forget I grew up with you. I know when you’re pretending.”

You hold eye contact, the challenge clear, but so is the invitation. “Your turn.”

He looks at his cards, then at you. There’s a slow exhale, almost like he’s bracing for something—and then he lays them down.

A flush. A clear win. But he doesn’t smile.

“I had a choice,” he says softly. “And I’d rather lose to you.”

Then—without waiting—he reaches for the hem of his shirt.

This time, the motion isn’t quick. There’s no humor in it, no shrug. Just slow, deliberate movement as he drags the fabric up his torso, revealing inch by inch the toned expanse of his chest—cut with lean muscle, marked by faint scars, the synthetic gleam of his right shoulder catching faint light. His eyes don’t leave yours. If he’s giving you a show, it’s intentional. If he’s waiting to see how you’ll react—he’s watching closely.

The shirt hits the floor shortly after. And when the silence stretches, heavy and filled with a different kind of charge now. Caleb doesn’t reach for more wine. He just breathes slow and deep, bare and still, like the next move is yours to make.

<hr>

You should have folded.

The thought hits you a moment too late—right as Caleb places his hand down on the table with quiet finality, his cards a clean, easy win. He doesn’t gloat. He doesn’t need to. The way he looks at you, eyes steady and dark with quiet heat, is far more effective than any smirk or tease.

The silence that follows stretches, weighted and slow, and you feel it settle over your skin like the hum of something electric waiting to arc.

There’s no way out. You’ve lost the round. You take a breath, steadying your hand as you reach down to the hem of your shirt, feeling the faintest tremble in your fingertips—not from nerves, not exactly, but from the awareness that this moment has long since stopped being about poker. With careful fingers, you lift the shirt over your head and pull it free, the air cool against your skin as your bare shoulders meet the open room. You’re still in your bra, modest and simple, but under his gaze, it might as well be nothing at all.

You place the shirt beside your jacket with what you hope is casual ease, though you can feel your heartbeat stuttering just beneath your ribs. When you glance up, Caleb is watching you, unmoving, his expression unreadable—but the tension in his jaw, the way his gaze lingers, betrays him.

You clear your throat softly, needing something—anything—to cut through the moment.

“I, um… I need more wine,” you say, pushing up from your seat before he can respond.

You cross the room with too much purpose, your steps just a little too quick, the air against your skin feeling too sharp now, too exposed. Your fingers reach for the bottle, more for something to do than for any real need to drink. You’re not even sure if you meant to escape the moment, or if part of you just wanted to feel the cool glass in your hands before the warmth burning in your chest gets too much to hold.

But before you can pour, you hear the quiet scrape of a chair behind you, the soft sound of his footsteps—slow, deliberate—drawing closer.

You don’t turn. You don’t have to.

His presence fills the space behind you like a shadow stretching in the light—close enough that you can feel the heat of him ghosting along your back, but still not touching, not yet.

“You sure you need more wine?” he asks, voice low, with just the barest hint of gravel at the edges.

Your fingers pause on the neck of the bottle. “I’m just... cooling off,” you murmur, trying to sound breezy, unaffected, though your voice is already tighter than you’d like.

There’s a beat of silence, and then he hums—not skeptical, exactly, but amused in a way that makes your skin prickle with awareness.

“That why you’re trembling?”

The words land too softly to be accusatory, but they knock the breath from you all the same. You close your eyes, just for a moment, and instantly regret it—because now every inch of him feels closer, like the air has folded in around you, and you’re standing in the center of a storm that’s just barely restrained.

You turn your head slightly, just enough to look at him over your shoulder, and you find him already watching you—his gaze pinned to yours like it’s holding you in place.

“I thought you said you play to win,” you manage, your voice low, barely more than a breath.

There’s something in his eyes now, something deeper—desire, yes, but also something rawer beneath it, something like vulnerability wrapped in steel. He lets his gaze drop, tracing the line of your jaw, the curve of your lips, then lower, lingering at the bare skin of your shoulder before meeting your eyes again.

“Maybe I’m tired of pretending I don’t want to lose,” he says softly, and there’s no teasing left in him now—just honesty, quiet and bare and thick with everything neither of you has said aloud.

You don’t speak. You don’t have to. Because then his hand lifts, slow and careful, and his fingers brush the side of your arm with a touch so light it barely registers as contact—just a whisper of skin against skin, a question asked without words.

You don’t pull away. And in that silence—warm, charged, breathless—the line you’ve both been toeing begins to blur, then fade entirely.

Caleb’s fingers linger at your arm, unmoving for a breath, and then they trail upward—slow and deliberate—sliding over the curve of your shoulder and up along your neck, his touch featherlight but sure. He’s watching you closely, as if waiting for hesitation, for a sign that you’ll step back.

But you don’t.

Your breath catches as his hand finds the edge of your jaw, thumb brushing just below your cheekbone, his palm warm and steady against your skin. And still, he waits—so close now you can feel his breath on your lips, but he doesn’t move that final inch until you do.

You lean into him, just barely, and that’s all it takes.

He closes the distance like gravity finally winning—no pretense, no gentleness, just years of wanting poured into the kiss as his mouth crashes into yours with an intensity that steals the air from your lungs.

It’s not soft. It’s not polite. It’s a question, a claim, a thousand unsaid things slammed into one desperate kiss. His hand tilts your jaw up, deepening the angle, and you meet him with just as much urgency, fingers digging in the bare line of muscle at his side, pulling him closer, like you’re afraid he’ll disappear if you don’t hold onto him. His other hand braces at your waist, grounding both of you as your bodies come flush, heat meeting heat with nothing left between but breath and skin.

You sigh into his mouth—soft, shaky—and he swallows the sound like it’s the only thing he’s needed since he came back from the dead. You can feel it in the way he kisses you: the hunger, yes, but also the grief, the guilt, the impossible devotion he’s been carrying like armor. His mouth moves with desperate precision, lips parting yours like he’s memorizing every second of this in case it gets torn away again. When you pull back for air, just barely, his forehead rests against yours, breath ragged, eyes fluttering shut like the moment is too much to hold.

“Tell me this is real,” he whispers, voice rough, thick with something cracked open and raw.

You nod, your fingers curling against the base of his spine. “It’s real.”

And then he kisses you again.

The second kiss is deeper, hungrier—less careful now, as if something inside him has cracked open and there’s no point in trying to put it back. Caleb’s hands slide down your back with firm, reverent pressure, like he’s relearning the shape of you by touch alone, his grip tightening when you arch into him.

Then—without a word—he pulls you back toward the table. With one swift motion, he sends the deck of cards, the half-empty wine glasses, everything scattering to the floor with a crash that makes your heart leap. The sound doesn’t faze him. If anything, it makes his breath deepen.

He looks at you, chest rising and falling with barely leashed control, his hands already sliding down to your hips, guiding you back until your thighs press against the table’s edge.

“I’ve been patient,” he says, voice hoarse and low, each word like gravel dragged across silk. “For years, I waited… I held back… but not anymore.”

You don’t speak—you can’t. Because the way he’s looking at you, like you’re the only thing left in the universe that matters, steals every coherent thought from your mind.

He turns you with careful insistence, hands firm but reverent as he guides your body to face the table. You grip the edge, breath catching, the cold surface against your palms a stark contrast to the heat that radiates from him behind you.

When his hands return, they’re rougher now—claiming. He drags them slowly over your sides, then up your back, the tips of his fingers teasing the band of your bra. He bends down, pressing a kiss to your shoulder, then another, slower, teeth grazing the skin just enough to make you gasp.

“You have no idea how many times I dreamed of this,” he murmurs, lips brushing your ear as one hand slides around your waist, the other flattening over the small of your back. “Of you, right here—mine.”

The last word is a growl.

He presses against you, chest to your back, hips flush to yours, and you feel how hard he is already, the heat of it grinding just enough to make you whimper. His metal arm braces against the table beside yours—cold steel humming with quiet energy—and when you shift your hips back into him, he curses under his breath.

“That’s it,” he growls, one hand sliding between your thighs, forcing them to part. “Keep doing that and I won’t last.”

He dips his head again, this time kissing down your spine, slow and reverent, but each kiss feels like a brand—like he’s marking you one breath at a time. His hands return to your hips, and when he straightens, you feel the weight of his stare on your back like a spotlight.

“You don’t get to hide from me anymore,” he says, hands gripping your waist like you might vanish if he lets go. “You’re mine now. Say it.”

You bite your lip, breath ragged. “I’m yours.”

Your breath catches when you feel Caleb’s fingers slide into the waistband of your pants, his touch both reverent and possessive, and though his movements are deliberate, there’s no mistaking the weight behind them—he’s not teasing anymore; he’s unraveling, and he’s going to take you with him.

He leans in close, his mouth grazing the shell of your ear as he murmurs, “Don’t move,” and the way he says it, low and threaded with rough restraint, leaves no room for disobedience, only heat curling low and fast through your core.

You brace your hands against the table as he begins to tug your pants down your hips, dragging the fabric with agonizing slowness, like every inch he reveals is something sacred, something he’s waited too long to see again. His knuckles brush your thighs, his breath warm against the back of your neck, and when your pants pool around your ankles, he lets out a quiet, nearly broken groan that vibrates straight through you.

It’s your panties he lingers on.

His fingers trace the waistband, sliding along your skin like he’s memorizing you by feel alone, and then, without warning, he curls his fist into the lace and tears it clean in one savage motion—just a sharp, decisive snap, and then nothing but cool air on bare skin and the hot, heavy sound of his breathing behind you.

“I’m not waiting anymore,” he says, almost like a confession, and the ruined fabric is discarded without care as his hands return to your hips, steadying you, grounding you, claiming you all over again.

His touch drifts lower, smoothing over the curve of your ass, then up the small of your back, the contact so firm and slow that it borders on worship, his thumb brushing along the dip of your spine like it belongs there. He leans down, lips pressing against your shoulder, trailing heat with every kiss as he works his way downward, pausing only to let his teeth graze lightly against your skin, the quiet sound of your gasp spurring him on.

“You have no idea,” he whispers, voice hoarse with the weight of everything he’s been holding back, “how many times I dreamed of this—of you, bent over in front of me, mine to touch, mine to take.”

The sound of his belt unfastening fills the silence like a drumbeat, followed by the low scrape of a zipper and the shuffle of clothing pushed hastily down his thighs, and then he’s behind you again, thick and hot and hard, the head of his cock sliding through your folds, coating himself in the slick evidence of how ready you are for him.

He doesn’t press in—not yet.

One hand anchors you by the hip, the other coasting along your front, splaying across your belly before drifting downward, parting your thighs further until you’re open for him, exposed and trembling beneath his touch.

“I thought I’d lost you forever,” he murmurs, his voice cracking on the edge of a growl as he guides himself to your entrance, teasing the sensitive skin with slow, shallow strokes. “Thought I’d never get to fuck you like I always wanted.”

When he finally pushes in, he does it in one slow, brutal thrust, the force of it knocking the breath from your lungs as your body stretches to take him, your hands clutching at the edge of the table for dear life. He doesn’t move right away—just stays buried inside you, fully sheathed, his hands tight on your waist as if he’s holding himself back from coming right then and there.

“Fuck,” he groans, low and guttural, his mouth pressed against your shoulder blade. “You feel like heaven.”

And then he begins to move.

Each thrust is hard and deep, perfectly paced to drive you wild, his hips slamming into yours with a rhythm that’s all hunger and dominance and years of frustration finally, finally, breaking loose. The table creaks beneath you, your legs spread wide, the sound of skin against skin echoing through the room with every punishing snap of his hips.

His hand slides up your back, pressing between your shoulder blades and urging you further down against the table, and when your cheek hits the cool surface, your breath escapes you in a soft, desperate moan.

“You were made for this,” he growls, his mouth near your ear, the heat of his voice sinking into your skin like a brand. “For me. This body, this sound—mine.”

You manage his name on a broken gasp, your voice shaking, your body already on the verge of losing itself entirely as he continues to thrust into you, each movement rougher, deeper, more desperate than the last.

His hand slides between your thighs again, this time to circle your clit with unrelenting pressure, the pads of his fingers slick and confident, and when you cry out, he doesn’t stop—he doubles down, whispering, “Come for me. Let me feel you fall apart.”

And gods, you do.

The orgasm crashes into you like a storm, seizing you from the inside out, your entire body tensing, walls clenching around him as pleasure tears through your spine and explodes behind your eyes. You sob his name, breathless and undone, and he holds you through it, his hand on your hip tightening, the rhythm of his thrusts faltering as he loses himself in the feel of you shattering around him.

“Ah—fuck—gonna come inside you,” he groans, every muscle in his body going taut as he drives into you one last time and stills, buried deep, spilling into you with a guttural moan that’s as much pain as it is relief. His chest presses flush to your back, arms wrapping around your waist like he’s anchoring himself there, like he can’t bear the thought of letting go.

For a long moment, neither of you moves. The air is thick with heat, your bodies tangled, breath syncing in a slow, uneven rhythm that speaks more than either of you could right now.

He doesn’t say anything, but the way he holds you, the way his lips brush the side of your neck in a kiss so soft it almost breaks you, says everything he can’t.

The silence that follows is heavy. It’s the kind of quiet that settles deep into your bones, warm and full, like the world has finally stopped spinning long enough to let you catch your breath. Caleb doesn’t move for a long moment, his chest still pressed against your back, his arms wrapped around your waist like he’s anchoring you to the earth itself. His breath ghosts over your shoulder in slow, unsteady exhales, his body still trembling faintly against yours as the aftershocks roll through both of you.

Then, with a gentle murmur—your name spoken like a vow—he presses a kiss to the back of your neck and pulls out of you slowly, carefully, as though he’s afraid he might hurt you if he moves too fast. He catches your waist as you sway slightly, already reaching for you before you even realize you need the support.

“Easy,” he says, voice low and still rough at the edges, but his hands are impossibly gentle. “I’ve got you.”

And you believe him. You always have.

He helps you straighten, one arm still firmly around your middle as the other brushes a loose strand of hair from your face. When you glance up, your eyes meet his, and for the first time tonight, you see all of him—not just the soldier or the survivor, not the boy who left or the man who came back, but Caleb, who looks at you like you’re the one thing that kept him tethered while the rest of his world burned.

Without a word, he leans in and kisses your temple, slow and soft, before guiding you gently toward the bed in the corner of the room. The lights dim as you pass—probably movement-commanded, but it feels like the room itself is exhaling.

“Stay,” you murmur, already missing the warmth of his body as he helps you sit at the edge of the bed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says immediately, brushing his thumb over your thigh as if to reassure himself more than you. “Just getting something.”

He returns a moment later with a warm, damp cloth and a fresh towel, kneeling in front of you like you’re something precious, like tending to you is the most natural thing in the world.

Caleb’s silent as he cleans you—tender, focused, his touch slow and steady as he wipes between your thighs, along the insides of your legs, his hand cupping the back of your calf as he works. There’s nothing hurried or clinical in his movements; everything about the way he touches you now speaks of devotion, of reverence, like this is part of the ritual. Like this is sacred, too.

“You okay?” he asks quietly, eyes flicking up to meet yours as he dabs the cloth gently between your legs.

Your voice is small, but sure. “Better than okay.”

A soft smile tugs at his lips, and he presses another kiss—this time to your knee—before setting the cloth aside and wrapping the towel gently around your hips. He helps you ease back into bed, pulling the blankets up over your shoulders, and then, finally, finally, he slips in beside you, the mattress dipping under his weight as his arms curl around your body and bring you close again.

You rest your head against his bare chest, listening to the slow, rhythmic thud of his heart as his hand drifts through your hair in lazy strokes, his other arm banded around your waist, holding you like you’re the last thing worth protecting in the universe.

“I missed you,” he says after a while, voice barely more than a breath. “Just—” his hand squeezes gently at your waist “— you. Everything about you.”

You tilt your head, fingers brushing lightly over the scar near his ribs. “You always had me. Even when you weren’t here.”

He doesn’t answer with words—just a long exhale, a kiss pressed to your forehead, and the way he holds you tighter like he’s finally allowing himself to believe it.

And in the quiet hum of Skyhaven, tangled in Caleb’s arms, with nothing between you but skin and truth, you feel more safe, more known, more his, than you ever have before.

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #lads smut #lnds smut #caleb x reader #caleb smut #xia yizhou #lads caleb #lnds caleb #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 19 days ago

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I'd Give Up the Stars - a drabble

❤︎ tags and content: smut and fluff ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

It’s quiet in Skyhaven tonight—too quiet, Caleb thinks, given the way his heart still slams against the inside of his ribs like he’s flying through turbulence, not lying in bed with the only thing that’s ever made him feel safe. The walls of his quarters are dimly lit by the dull blue of the city’s pulse outside, the soft light cutting across your bare shoulder as you curl against him, sweat-damp skin sticking to his as though even your body knows not to drift too far. His arm—that arm—rests by his side, still humming faintly with the aftershock of contact, the metal cooling but the rest of him burning.

You smell like him now. Like skin and heat and the faint metallic tang of the sheets beneath you, like something claimed, and the possessive ache that’s carved itself hollow inside his chest softens only when he watches you breathe—slow, steady, here.

He traces the curve of your back with calloused fingertips, the human ones, dragging slowly like he’s trying to memorize the shape of you with touch alone. You hum, sleepy and spent, and he wants to believe this is enough. That this—this—could be the thing that finally anchors him after years of floating untethered in the dark.

"I’d give up the stars,” he murmurs, voice low and ragged, mouth grazing your temple, “if it meant keeping you here.” A pause, one breath, two. “In my bed. In my arms. Always.”

You shift to face him, eyes still heavy-lidded but searching, and your hand comes to rest over his chest like you’re trying to quiet the storm beneath his ribs. “You don’t have to give anything up,” you whisper, brushing your lips over his collarbone. “I’m already yours.”

Caleb makes a sound—half broken, half reverent—and pulls you on top of him again, because words aren’t enough, and neither is this, but he’ll keep chasing the shape of you with his hands, his mouth, his body until he believes it’s real. Until the last of the cold metal in him remembers what it means to feel.

You’re still warm, your body molded to his, but there’s a different kind of heat building now—low and slow, simmering between your hips as you shift against him. He groans, low and rough in his throat, the sound vibrating against your chest as you slide your thigh over his waist, deliberately brushing against the hardness already growing between you.

“Already?” you murmur, your voice a sleepy tease, but your breath stutters when his hands grip your hips, strong and possessive.

“You’ve been lying here,” he rasps, voice tight, “soft, perfect, mine—what did you think would happen?”

You reach between you and guide him in with a practiced ease, and his reaction is instant—his head falls back against the pillow, jaw clenched, a curse bitten off through his teeth as you sink down slow. He fills you like he always does: deep, thick, like he was meant to be there. One hand fists in the sheets, the other comes up to cradle your jaw, thumb brushing your bottom lip as he looks up at you like you’re the only thing left in the galaxy that matters.

“Fuck,” he breathes, thrusting up once, slow and hard, “you’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

And when you roll your hips and moan his name, he doesn’t just hold you—he anchors you, like letting go might mean losing you all over again.

#love and deepspace smut #lads drabble #lnds drabble #caleb x reader #xia yizhou #drabble #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 19 days ago

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Fractured

❤︎ tags and content: threesome, mmf, oral, fingering, rough sex, spitroasting, starcrow ❤︎ author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo

You never meant to be stuck with a difficult choice.

But when Sylus corners you with that velvet voice and arrogant smirk, and Xavier watches with that impossible restraint burning in his silence, the tension fractures into something sharp. Something intimate. Something neither of them are willing to walk away from.

You didn’t want to choose.

So they make you feel what it’s like to be taken apart by both.

The air in the training room clung to your skin—warm, heavy, pulsing with something unspoken. You were still catching your breath, fingers flexing around the edge of your gloves when Sylus stepped into your space like he owned it. His crimson gaze flicked toward your lips before settling on your eyes, and the smirk that curved his mouth was nothing short of predatory. He reached out—slow, deliberate—and peeled the glove from your hand, knuckles grazing your jaw as if by accident. But nothing Sylus did was accidental.

“You’re getting faster,” he murmured, voice a quiet, indulgent drawl. “Still not fast enough to keep me off you.”

The words slid under your skin, hot and shameless. You should’ve laughed. Pushed him away. But something in his tone—and the way his fingers lingered—made your breath hitch.

And across the room, leaning against the wall like a shadow carved from quiet fury, Xavier was watching. Still. Silent. Eyes sharp enough to cut through glass.

Sylus didn’t move away. If anything, he stepped closer, his body heat brushing up against yours like a whispered promise. You could smell the faint hint of ozone that always clung to him—sharp, electric, a reminder of the raw energy curled beneath his skin. He tilted his head, silver strands falling into his crimson eyes as he regarded you with mock curiosity.

“You always this flushed after sparring?” he asked, voice dipping lower, rougher. “Or am I just special?”

Your heart kicked against your ribs, and maybe it was the adrenaline still thrumming through your veins—or maybe it was the way he said I like a challenge. His fingers were still curled around the wrist of your glove, thumb brushing the inside of your palm now, slow and almost thoughtful. He was studying you—not for weakness, but for response.

You opened your mouth to say something—anything—but then his free hand lifted, the back of his knuckles grazing the curve of your cheek.

“Relax,” he said softly, eyes dropping to your mouth again. “I don’t bite... unless you want me to.”

And that’s when you felt it—that familiar pressure, that weight. Xavier hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t moved an inch.

But you felt him. Like a pulse in the air, steady and restrained—just barely.

Sylus didn’t look away from you. But the ghost of a smile curled at the edge of his lips, as if he could feel it too.

“Your knight up there’s been awful quiet,” he murmured. “Think he’ll break if I touch you again?”

You pulled your hand back, the glove falling to the floor in a soft, hollow drop that echoed louder than it should have in the stillness between you. “Xavier is my coworker,” you said, the words steadier than the rush of heat rising in your throat, but you weren’t sure if you were saying it for Sylus or for yourself.

He didn’t move. Not a step backward, not even a breath of retreat—if anything, the ghost of a smile tugged at the edge of his lips, not cocky this time, but slow and knowing, like he’d been expecting your deflection and had already planned six steps ahead. His crimson gaze lingered on your face, not with the sharp glint of mockery he was so well-known for, but with something quieter, deeper—like he was seeing something he didn’t want to admit had meaning.

“You think I’m doing this to get under his skin?” he asked at last, his voice low and curiously soft, a rough-edged silk that brushed against your spine in ways that had nothing to do with heat or proximity. “Is that really what you see when I look at you?”

He tilted his head slightly, and for a moment his eyes dropped—not to your mouth in that theatrical, overly obvious way that flirts often favored—but lower, to your neck, to the faint stutter of your pulse beneath your skin, as though he could feel the flutter of it without laying a single finger on you.

“I’ve wanted you since the beginning,” he murmured, and though the words were quiet, they landed like thunder. “Since that first mission when you smiled at me like you weren’t afraid—like you actually saw through the bravado and didn’t flinch.”

Your breath caught, your fingers curling at your sides before you could stop them. Sylus didn’t press closer, but the space between you felt thinner than air, stretched taut with something dangerous and charged, and still, he never touched you—not yet. His restraint was not a lack of desire, but a decision, a performance, a provocation.

“I’ve watched you laugh at his dry little nothings,” he continued, his tone dipping darker, the affection in it smoothed over with something just a little bitter. “Watched you lean into him like it meant something, while he stood there and let it all pass him by.”

He leaned in then, slow enough to give you time to stop him, close enough that his breath grazed the edge of your jaw, but not so close that his lips touched you—never quite crossing that line, as if daring you to be the one to do it first.

“If I kissed you right now, it wouldn’t be for him. It wouldn’t be to start a fight or prove a point,” he whispered, the words barely more than breath. “It would be because I’ve imagined the way you’d taste every fucking time you look at me like that.”

A shiver rippled beneath your skin, and he felt it—because of course he did—and still he didn’t touch you, still he waited, giving you just enough space to choose, to step forward or step away.

But before either of you could move, Sylus exhaled slowly and stepped back—not in defeat, but in deliberate, measured retreat, like someone who knew he’d already planted the seed and only needed time to let it grow. His gaze lingered a moment longer, dragged over your lips like a promise left hanging in the air, and then he turned, calm and unhurried, strolling toward the exit without a single glance in Xavier’s direction.

But as he reached the threshold, hand resting against the frame, he paused—just long enough to speak again, his voice pitched low, the words slung back over his shoulder like a dagger thrown with perfect aim.

“You should really ask yourself,” he said, “why he hasn’t stopped me.”

And with that, he vanished down the corridor, leaving behind a silence that felt almost holy in its weight—thick with everything unsaid, and the unbearable heat of a gaze still burning across the room, unmoving, unrelenting, waiting.

***

Xavier hadn’t spoken a word. Hadn’t so much as shifted his weight from where he stood, spine straight against the far wall of the training room, arms folded, the fabric of his sleeves pulled taut over forearms he’d kept unnervingly still—but his gaze had never left you, not for a single heartbeat.

From the moment Sylus crossed the space between you, Xavier had been watching.

Not with suspicion, but with something far more dangerous.

He’d felt it coming long before it happened—the subtle way Sylus’s voice dropped in your presence, the way his fingers lingered too long when he passed you a datapad or brushed past you in crowded corridors, the curve of his smile always just a touch too knowing when you tilted your head, unaware of what you were doing to men who should have known better than to want someone like you with anything less than reverence.

And yet it was happening—right in front of him.

Sylus, all heat and arrogance, circling you like a wolf with a grin, laying out the quiet truths Xavier had buried for months beneath layers of rationale and professionalism. He heard every word—I've wanted you since the beginning—and not a single muscle in his face moved, not a flicker in his expression betrayed the way each syllable landed with the precision of a knife driven point-first into his sternum.

But inside, the fracture lines were forming.

Xavier had always known control—had studied it, lived it, let it shape every part of his existence. He didn’t react unless he needed to. He didn’t feel unless it served a purpose. Emotions were calculated things—quiet and contained, cordoned off behind reinforced walls that even he rarely allowed himself to look over.

But then Sylus looked at you like you were already his, and you didn’t push him away. Not right away. And that? That was what did it.

The first crack. Xavier felt the shift in his chest—not rage, not quite, but something colder, quieter, more possessive in its shape. Not jealousy for jealousy’s sake. But something deeper. Something primal. He didn’t want to fight Sylus for you.

He wanted you to choose. But the idea that you might not—that Sylus could touch you first, kiss you first, claim you in some dark corner where Xavier’s silence had failed to speak what he couldn’t bring himself to say—made the breath catch behind his ribs in a way that felt entirely foreign. Dangerous. He could still feel the weight of your pulse through the air. You were unsettled. Flushed. And though Xavier hadn’t moved, hadn’t interfered, hadn’t spoken, he knew that part of you had wanted him to.

Sylus knew it too. That was the worst of it.

So when the Onychinus leader threw that final line over his shoulder—You should really ask yourself why he hasn’t stopped me—Xavier didn’t flinch. He didn’t move. But his jaw did tighten, just barely, the faintest flicker of movement as his teeth met behind closed lips, slow and deliberate. He waited until the room was quiet again.

Until the door had shut. Until only the sound of your breathing remained—uneven, shallow, the kind of breath that lived on the edge of something neither of you could name out loud.

Then, and only then, did Xavier speak.

“You didn’t stop him either.”

The words were low. Measured. Not an accusation—just a truth. And yet it hung between you like the calm before a storm that had been gathering on the horizon for far too long. You turned to face him slowly, pulse still unsteady, the ghost of Sylus’s nearness clinging to your skin like static, but it was Xavier’s voice—low, quiet, maddeningly composed—that pinned you in place. It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t meant to be cruel. But it cleaved the air in two like a blade drawn in a whisper.

You blinked, the words landing harder than they had any right to. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked, your voice too tight, too thin to sound unaffected.

Xavier didn’t move, didn’t step toward you, but his eyes—those ice-blue eyes that rarely gave away anything—were sharp and unreadable, shining with a heat that didn’t belong in someone so calm.

“It means I’ve seen you push him away before. That wasn’t what you did this time.”

You felt something ripple in your stomach—guilt, maybe, or defiance, or something too tangled to name.

“He cornered me during sparring,” you said, defensive without meaning to be, arms wrapping around yourself not for modesty, but for armor. “You were standing right there.”

“Exactly,” he murmured, and for the first time, something flickered in his expression—a shadow of disappointment, quiet and sharp. “I was.”

Your chest tightened. There was a long, aching silence after that, one that stretched like a fault line between you, threatening to rupture under the weight of everything unspoken. And still, Xavier said nothing else—didn’t berate, didn’t demand, didn’t press you to explain the way you looked at Sylus like you weren’t sure if you wanted him gone or closer. He simply looked at you, gaze steady, a question hanging in the air that he didn’t need to say out loud: If he touches you again, will you let him?

And when you didn’t answer—when you couldn’t—Xavier exhaled softly, not defeated, not even angry. Just… resigned. Like someone who knew exactly how dangerous waiting could be.

He turned then, walking past you with that same quiet grace he always carried, but as he reached the door, his hand paused on the frame. His voice, when it came again, was softer now, something that curled beneath your skin and stayed there.

“I’ll see you at home.”

And then he was gone, leaving the air behind him heavy with everything you hadn’t said, and everything you still wanted to.

The door clicked shut behind him with a finality that echoed too loud in the hollow quiet he left behind. You didn’t move.

Not at first. Not even when your muscles began to ache from the tension still coiled tight beneath your skin, or when the hum of the training room lights suddenly felt deafening, mechanical and cold against the afterimage of his voice still replaying in your ears.

You didn’t stop him either.

It wasn’t the accusation that stung—it was the truth buried inside it. The way he’d seen through everything, the way he’d watched and waited, hoping maybe—just maybe—you would prove him wrong. But you hadn’t. Not entirely. And now that silence between you had a shape, a name, a consequence.

You swallowed hard, arms still crossed, still gripping at the fabric of your shirt like you were trying to hold something in place that had already started to come undone. Sylus’s voice was still there too, lingering like heat—I’ve wanted you since the beginning—but it didn’t feel flattering now. It felt like a match struck beside something flammable you hadn’t realized you’d soaked yourself in.

You pressed a hand to your face, dragging your fingers down slowly, as if that might wipe away the flush still burning at your cheeks—or the guilt tightening low in your stomach. Xavier hadn’t asked you to choose. He hadn’t given you an ultimatum. But somehow, that made it worse. Because you weren’t sure what you would’ve said if he had.

The quiet stretched on, heavy and unrelenting, and it felt like no matter how long you stood there, the echo of his final words would keep ringing in the space he’d left behind.

I’ll see you at home. Not goodbye. Not ‘don’t follow me’. Not even anger.

Just a reminder. Of where he’d be. And the unspoken promise that if you didn’t figure out what you wanted by then… well, you didn’t want to think about it.

***

The walk home felt longer than usual, each step weighed down by the echo of Xavier’s voice and the press of Sylus’s breath still clinging to the side of your neck like phantom heat. The city lights blurred past in soft streaks of gold and violet, but you barely registered them, too wrapped up in thoughts you didn’t want to name. Guilt. Want. Confusion. And beneath it all, the low thrum of anticipation that curled deep in your spine—hot and reckless.

You made it to the apartment complex with your keycard in hand, buzzing through the front door with the distant hope that Xavier wasn’t already waiting. You didn’t think you were ready to see him. Not yet.

But as the elevator doors slid open, you stopped short.

Sylus was already inside.

Not slouched in the corner. Not pretending it was some accident. No—he stood like he owned the space, one hand tucked into the pocket of a tailored black coat that looked far too expensive for Linkon City and a glass of wine in hand.

He smiled when he saw you, slow and sharp, like he’d been expecting this. But of course he was.

“Evening, kitten,” he said, voice silk-smooth, eyes gleaming beneath the low light. “Funny, I didn’t take you for the type to let your guards down.”

Your blood ran cold for half a second before the heat rushed in—equal parts irritation and something darker, something that made your thighs press together without meaning to. He’d been watching.

You stepped inside despite yourself, the doors closing behind you with a soft hiss.

“What the hell are you doing here, Sylus?”

He tilted his head slightly, crimson eyes raking over you without shame. “What, no ‘thank you for walking me home?’ I made sure you got back in one piece. That’s what good men do, isn’t it?”

You scoffed, but it was weak. Too breathless. Too aware of the way his body heat pulled toward yours despite the distance.

“You followed me.”

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t lonely.”

And as the elevator began to rise, slow and mechanical, he stepped forward—not enough to trap you, but enough to let you feel the pressure of his presence, the wine still in his hand, untouched.

“You keep pretending it’s just him,” he murmured, voice low and intimate now, like a secret meant for only you. “But you react to me, too. You know it.”

The elevator chimed softly, and when the doors slid open, Xavier stood just beyond them—leaning against the hallway wall like he’d been there for longer than he should have, posture relaxed but eyes sharp, his gaze moving from Sylus to you with that same unreadable stillness he’d worn at the training room.

His expression didn’t shift. Not when he took in the wine glass in Sylus’s hand. Not when he noticed how close he was standing to you.

But something in the air changed.

“Didn’t plan on seeing you so soon,” Xavier said, voice calm and even, “I see you’ve found where we live.”

The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be. And yet, the tension they carried struck like a low current beneath the surface—steady, quiet, unmistakably deliberate. Sylus didn’t look away from Xavier. Not this time. Instead, he smiled—slow, satisfied, like he’d been waiting for that shift in tone, for that quiet give in Xavier’s iron composure.

“Wasn’t sure where we stood,” Sylus said smoothly, his eyes glittering as he took a single, unhurried step out of the elevator. “But if you’re done pretending you don’t care…”

He turned to you then, head tilting just slightly as his voice dropped to something far softer—warmer, even.

“Why don’t we stop dancing around it, sweetheart, and take this inside?”

Your breath caught somewhere in your throat, caught between Xavier’s silence and Sylus’s certainty, the space between them too charged, too deliberate, and somehow not nearly enough.

“You coming?” Sylus asked, already walking toward your apartment door like it was his key in your pocket, like he had every intention of walking through first.

And behind you, Xavier finally moved—quiet, deliberate footsteps as he fell into step beside you, not touching, not pushing, but undeniably there.

The door clicked shut behind you with a soft finality, the quiet lock sliding into place like a thread being pulled tight. The lights were low—just the soft wash of gold from the kitchen and the faint glow of the city outside your window, throwing long shadows across the room.

You stepped in first, breath tight, turning to face them both as Sylus set his glass of wine on your counter like he owned it, his coat already half undone, movements smooth and effortless. Xavier, still behind you, hadn’t said a word, but you could feel him at your back—solid, steady, watching.

“What the hell is this?” you asked, voice a little sharper than you meant it to be, your heart pounding too loud for the silence that followed. “What are you two doing?”

Sylus smiled at that—languid and slow, like the question had been crafted just for him.

“That depends,” he said, his eyes flicking over to Xavier, whose arms were still folded, his expression unreadable. “You going to tell her, or should I?”

You turned slightly toward Xavier, but he didn’t meet your gaze. He was watching Sylus. Still holding the line. Still composed. But barely.

Sylus stepped closer. Not to you—to Xavier.

“You came to her door because of me,” he said, voice low, dangerously quiet. “You saw me put my hands on her, and you finally felt something strong enough to do more than just watch.”

He took another step, now standing between you both, gaze fixed on Xavier with open challenge.

“So go on,” he said, tipping his chin up slightly, taunting now. “If you want her, take her. Show her how you look at her when you think no one’s watching. Or maybe you’d rather just keep standing there, pretending your hands aren’t shaking.”

Your breath caught.

Xavier didn’t move—but something changed. A flicker of light caught in his eyes, a slow exhale from his nose, and his fingers—still folded over his arms—tightened ever so slightly.

Sylus turned to you then, his voice gentler than before, seductive but not mocking.

“He wants you,” he murmured. “We both do. So tell me—”

He took one final step closer, crowding your space now, his voice curling like smoke against the edge of your jaw.

“Who do you want, sweetheart? Show us.”

You opened your mouth to answer—something, anything—but nothing came. The words caught in your throat, tangled in the rush of heat and confusion and want that refused to take a single, clear shape.

Sylus was too close, his presence like velvet wrapped around steel, the kind of danger that made your breath quicken for all the wrong reasons. And Xavier—Xavier was behind you, silent and still, but the weight of his gaze felt heavier than the air between you, thick with everything he hadn’t said.

And that was what finally did it.

The second your silence stretched too long—when your hand hovered between stepping back or reaching forward—Xavier moved.

The shift in the room was instant.

One moment he was behind you, calm, unreadable. The next, he was in front of you, stepping between you and Sylus with a precision that made the air snap. His hand came up, flat against Sylus’s chest, not shoving—but firm. Final.

“That’s enough.”

His voice was low, steady—but it shook something in your core. It was the kind of tone that came from someone who had finally made a decision, someone who had spent too long holding back and had just realized he wasn’t going to anymore.

Sylus raised a brow, but he didn’t step back. “You going to make a move, or just keep playing bodyguard?”

Xavier’s jaw flexed.

He turned his head, slowly, his gaze cutting to you like a knife sheathed in velvet, cool but burning from the inside out. You could see it in the tension in his shoulders, in the way his breath came just a fraction sharper than before. He wasn’t angry—not at you. But he was done pretending he didn’t feel it.

“You want someone to show you what’s going on?” he said, voice lower now, meant only for you. “Fine.”

And then he was kissing you.

No hesitation. No caution. Just the clean, sharp press of his mouth against yours—like he’d been waiting for an excuse, and now that he had one, he wasn’t holding back.

His hand slid up to your jaw, tilting your face toward him as his other arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you into him, grounding you in something that felt real and immediate and overwhelming. You gasped against his mouth and he swallowed the sound, deepening the kiss until your legs nearly gave out beneath you.

When he finally pulled back, breath ragged against your cheek, he didn’t speak right away. His forehead rested lightly against yours, his fingers still curled into your hip, holding you there like he couldn’t risk letting go.

And then, without looking away from you, he spoke.

“So, now?” he said, quieter now. “Here it is.”

He reached for your hand—and pressed it firmly to the line of his belt, eyes dark, voice steady.

“Choose.”

And behind you, Sylus exhaled a soft, amused breath. “Well. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

You didn’t move.

Not when Xavier’s breath still clung to your lips, not when his grip remained firm at your waist, grounding you to him with a steadiness that should’ve made the decision easier. But it didn’t. Your hand stayed frozen against the front of his belt, trembling ever so slightly, suspended in the tension between want and fear, confusion and heat, unable to fall forward or pull away. You felt his eyes on you—steady, unreadable—and for a moment, you thought he might close the space again, kiss you until the question dissolved between your mouths.

But he didn’t. And you couldn’t. And that’s when Sylus laughed.

It was a quiet sound, deep and rich, edged not with cruelty but certainty—a slow, indulgent realization that the moment he’d been carefully laying out had finally unfolded exactly as he meant it to. He took a step closer, slow and unhurried, like he’d been waiting just outside the gravity of the room, and now that the air had changed, he’d let himself fall into it.

“She’s not choosing,” he said simply, as if he were pointing out a truth neither of you wanted to see—one that had been written in the way your breath caught, the way your eyes darted between them, the way your body leaned into Xavier’s hold even as your mouth still burned with the memory of Sylus’s voice. “You see that, don’t you?”

Xavier didn’t answer, but you felt it—the slight shift in his posture, the way his grip stilled on your waist, no longer urging you closer, as if he too had realized that no matter how tightly he held you, something in you was still hesitating.

Sylus watched him for a beat longer, red eyes gleaming beneath the soft glow of your kitchen lights, and when he stepped forward again, his movements were quiet, precise, the kind of control that didn’t ask permission—it dared you to stop him.

“You think I came here just to provoke you?” he asked, not mockingly, but with the slow pull of someone peeling back a truth long buried. “You think I followed her home just to make you angry?”

His gaze dropped to yours again, and something shifted in his face—not softened, not quite, but sharpened into something intimate, hungry, real.

“I’m not here to light a fire under you, Xavier. I’m here for her.”

He closed the space until he stood shoulder to shoulder with the man still holding you, and when he lifted his hand to your face, it was gentle but possessive—his fingers trailing the curve of your jaw, guiding your head just slightly until your eyes met his. His thumb brushed your cheek in a slow, deliberate stroke, as if laying claim to the part of you that hadn’t yet been touched.

“I don’t plan to stand back and watch you win,” he murmured, his voice a low thread between your lips, his breath barely a whisper against your skin. “I don’t intend to be a shadow in your story.”

Then, still watching you, his words turned toward Xavier, a slow blade wrapped in silk.

“I’m here to compete,” he said. “I’m going to take what you hesitate to touch.”

The air in the room thickened like steam, like tension settling into the bones of the walls around you. But Xavier didn’t flinch, didn’t back down, didn’t so much as twitch. His fingers remained steady on your hip, his chest pressed lightly against your back, and when he finally spoke, it was with the kind of low, dark resolve that felt quieter than breath and far heavier than words.

“Then prove it.”

And just like that, the attention—the hunger—shifted back to you.

The way Sylus’s gaze lingered a moment longer on Xavier’s, something unspoken passing between them—an acknowledgment, a dare, a promise—and then, as if synced by the same thread pulled tight around you, they moved.

Xavier’s hand was the first to slide lower, fingers dragging with deliberate slowness down your side until they rested at the curve of your hip, holding you there as he stepped behind you again, his body flush to your back now, warmth seeping through every layer of your clothing like a warning of what was coming.

Sylus didn’t wait for permission. He leaned in from the front, eyes locked on yours as his thumb traced the corner of your mouth, then dipped lower, brushing your bottom lip with the same care one might handle something delicate—fragile—but it wasn’t reverence. It was precision. He was memorizing you.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, voice low and velvet-dark. “Is that for me… or for him?”

Your lips parted, breath caught somewhere between their bodies, but no answer came—not when Xavier leaned forward behind you, his mouth brushing the shell of your ear, his voice a low murmur against your skin.

“She doesn’t know,” he said, and the way his breath hit your neck sent a full-body shiver spiraling through you. “That’s the problem.”

Sylus’s smile curved into something sharper, something predatory. “Then we’ll show her.”

Xavier’s hands moved first—down, under your shirt, palms flat against your stomach, dragging slowly upward. The touch was patient, methodical, and devastating. When his fingers reached the underside of your bra, they didn’t push—just held there, the heat of his skin seeping through the lace as he waited for the sound of your breath catching, and when it did, he exhaled, low and dark, and slid his palms higher, cupping you fully.

You gasped, but it was lost in Sylus’s mouth.

Because while Xavier touched, Sylus claimed—his lips brushing yours in a ghost of a kiss before he took it fully, his hand sliding up your neck to anchor you there as he devoured you in one long, slow pull of lips and tongue that made your knees weaken. His kiss was fire, Xavier’s hands were heat, and the war between them was being fought on the lines of your body.

Sylus bit your lower lip, gently, teasing, and when he pulled back, his eyes were half-lidded, breath warm against your cheek. “You taste like hesitation.”

Behind you, Xavier’s voice was lower, rougher. “Not for long.”

And then you were moving—walked backward, guided by Xavier’s hands, turned and pressed against the edge of your couch. His grip was firm but not forceful, and when he sank to his knees in front of you, his eyes lifted to yours with a hunger so quiet it felt sacred.

Sylus moved behind now, a mirror to what Xavier had been, and when his hands settled on your waist, when his lips ghosted along the back of your neck, you finally understood.

This wasn’t a fight. It was a ritual, and you were the altar.

Xavier’s fingers brushed the waistband of your pants with the kind of care that wasn’t hesitation, but reverence laced in control, his eyes still locked on yours as if daring you to look away. He didn’t pull them down yet—just traced the edge, knuckles dragging slow along your lower belly, letting you feel the weight of anticipation before his thumbs finally hooked beneath the fabric and began to slide it down.

Behind you, Sylus leaned in, his breath brushing your shoulder as his hands took over from Xavier’s, tugging your clothing down the rest of the way with far less patience, knuckles grazing the backs of your thighs in a way that made your stomach clench. You could hear the hum of approval in his throat when the fabric hit the floor, his fingers curling around your hips to steady you as Xavier knelt fully, his mouth following the trail he’d made.

You exhaled, shaky, as cool air kissed your exposed skin—but it was the heat of Xavier’s breath between your thighs that made your knees buckle. His hands slid around to the backs of your legs, firm and grounding, and then he tasted you.

There was no warning—just the slow, devastating drag of his tongue from your center to your clit, measured and controlled, like he wanted to memorize every reaction you gave. And when he felt you shudder, when he heard the soft, broken sound that slipped from your lips, his grip tightened just slightly, mouth pressing in deeper, tongue flicking, circling, teasing in patterns too precise to be anything but intentional.

Sylus’s mouth was at your ear again, his hand sliding up your stomach, beneath your shirt, fingers spreading wide over your ribs as he whispered, “You’re soaking. You feel that?” His hips pressed lightly against your ass, just enough to let you feel the hard line of him through tailored slacks that hadn’t been undone yet—because Sylus liked restraint until it hurt.

Xavier groaned low against you, the vibration sending a fresh wave of sensation through your core, and when you whimpered, Sylus smiled against your neck, teeth grazing the sensitive skin just beneath your ear. “Seems like he’s good with his mouth,” he murmured, hand sliding up to cup your breast beneath your bra. “But I want to know how you sound when I’m inside you.”

You gasped as his thumb brushed over your nipple, and Xavier responded with a slow, filthy pull of your clit between his lips, the kind of focused worship that made your thighs quake and your fingers claw at the fabric beneath you.

They weren’t fighting anymore. They were orchestrating.

Xavier pulled back just slightly, lips slick, eyes glazed with hunger but still watching, and he murmured, “Turn her around.”

Sylus didn’t need to be told twice.

His hands slid from your waist to your shoulders, and with deliberate slowness, he guided you to turn in place—Xavier still on his knees, now behind you, Sylus in front, already working the buttons of his shirt open with one hand while the other tilted your chin up to meet him.

“Ready, sweetheart?” he whispered, eyes dark. “Because once we start, we’re not stopping until you forget who you thought you wanted more.”

And behind you, Xavier’s hands gripped your hips again—this time, harder.

The side of the couch pressed against the front of your legs. Sylus leaned down to kiss you. And between the heat of their mouths, the drag of their hands, the overwhelming stretch of your body being claimed on both ends—

You forgot everything but this.

Sylus didn’t rush the kiss. He took it in pieces—soft, open-mouthed, his lips dragging over yours like he had all night to taste you and still wouldn’t get enough. His hands framed your face at first, thumbs brushing the corners of your mouth before sliding down to your throat, his touch never harsh, but possessive in the way a storm claims the air before it breaks.

Behind you, Xavier stayed on his knees, but his mouth returned to you with a kind of precision that was almost cruel—licking, flicking, dragging in devastating patterns over your clit that didn’t allow you a second of stillness. His fingers gripped your hips firmly, kneading into your skin like he was marking his place, while every pass of his tongue pushed you closer to the edge without letting you fall.

When your legs trembled beneath you, Sylus deepened the kiss, swallowing the whimper that escaped your throat as Xavier’s tongue pressed flat and slow, the heat of him making your body arch instinctively. Sylus pulled back just enough to speak, breath warm against your lips.

“That close already?” he murmured, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Poor kitten. We’ve barely started.”

He dragged your shirt over your head without waiting for a reply, your bra following in a blur of movement and heat. The cool air barely had time to kiss your skin before Sylus’s mouth was on your chest, his lips and tongue tracing over one breast while his hand squeezed the other, teasing you between tongue and fingers until your hips rocked forward on instinct—seeking friction, seeking something.

But you didn’t get relief. Not yet. Because Xavier chose that moment to stop.

You made a soft, desperate sound, one that turned to a gasp when his hands slid up the backs of your thighs, guiding you down, bending you gently over the couch until your chest pressed to the cushions and your ass was angled perfectly toward him. His palms ran over your curves like he was sculpting something holy, and then he leaned in, breath hot against the crease of your thigh.

“You think you can take both of us?” Xavier asked, the question low and so calm it made your skin prickle. “You can’t even handle my tongue.”

You whined, hips shifting, but Sylus was already crouching in front of you now, having stripped down to his slacks and unfastened them with an unhurried, deliberate ease that made your mouth water. His cock rested against his thigh, hard and flushed, and when he saw your gaze drop to it, his smirk curved into something dark.

“You want it?” he asked, thumbing a drop of precum from the tip and dragging it over your lower lip, slow enough to watch your reaction. “Then beg for it.”

You tried—but then Xavier’s mouth returned behind you, this time with his fingers joining, sliding inside slowly, stretching you with maddening precision while his tongue never stopped working your clit. The combination tore a cry from your throat, one you barely managed to muffle against Sylus’s chest as he chuckled and stroked your jaw.

“Did you hear that, Xavier?” Sylus said, voice low and pleased. “She sounds perfect when she doesn’t know which way to fall.”

And Xavier’s voice came from behind you—closer now, deeper.

“She’s going to break. We’re going to make sure of it.”

Sylus grabbed a fistful of your hair—not rough, but grounding—and guided your mouth to the head of his cock, offering.

“Let’s see how much she can take,” he murmured. “Because I don’t think we’re stopping until she’s begging us to let her come.”

The taste of him bloomed across your tongue, salty and clean, and the sound he made when your lips wrapped fully around him was little more than a growl, low and possessive.

“That’s it,” he murmured, brushing a thumb over your cheek. “Just like that, sweetie. God, you’re so fucking pretty when you’re obedient.”

Xavier, still behind you, was anything but gentle now—his fingers thrusting inside you with measured force, finding that perfect spot again and again as his tongue flicked over your clit with the kind of practiced attention that made your entire body quiver against the couch. He wasn’t letting up. Neither of them were. And it was too much.

Your hips rocked forward instinctively, and Sylus held you there with one hand tangled in your hair, the other caressing the curve of your jaw as you moaned around him. The sound made him shudder, his cock twitching on your tongue.

“She’s close,” he said looking over you, voice rough now, as if even he was starting to feel the pleasure. “She’s dripping all over your hand.”

“She’s not coming yet,” Xavier replied, his tone flat, controlled—his fingers suddenly slowing to a torturously slow rhythm that made your thighs shake. “Not until she asks for it.”

You whimpered, pulling back from Sylus with a gasping breath, your lips slick and swollen, your voice a wrecked whisper.

“Please…”

But that wasn’t enough. Sylus leaned down, fingers gripping your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

“Say it,” he said, eyes burning crimson now, pupils blown wide. “Say exactly what you want.”

Xavier’s tongue circled your clit again, slow and firm, and your body bucked between them, your hands clawing at the couch cushions as you tried to ride the edge that kept slipping out of reach.

“Say his name,” Sylus coaxed. “Say mine. Tell us what you need.”

You gasped, breath shuddering as another wave of heat crested behind your ribs, just beyond reach, and you broke.

“I want both of you,” you cried, voice cracking, desperate now. “Please—fuck, please—I want you inside me. I want both of you—please.”

Everything stopped.

The stillness was deafening for a moment—no fingers, no tongue, no teasing—just the ragged echo of your voice, the raw need of it laid bare in the air.

Sylus stepped back, grabbing your arm and hauling you upright, his mouth crashing into yours with a bruising kiss that tasted like praise and promise. His hands were on your hips, angling you toward him as Xavier moved closer behind you, one hand sliding up your spine, the other already pulling his belt open with sharp, mechanical precision.

They didn’t speak.

There was no need—not now that your words had broken through the tension, raw and desperate, a plea that lived in your throat even as their hands found you again.

Xavier moved behind you, his breath hot against your shoulder as his hands slid over your hips, steady and grounding, fingers curling into your skin as he lined himself up against your entrance. His cock brushed your folds, thick and hot and already slick from how desperately you’d been soaking for him, and you could feel the restraint in him—how hard he was trying to keep control as the head of him pushed against your entrance.

But he didn’t wait long. Not when you moaned, not when your hips arched back instinctively, begging without words for him to take. And he did.

Xavier sank into you with a slow, devastating thrust, filling you inch by inch until your knees nearly gave out. He grunted softly, breath catching as your walls clamped down around him, already fluttering, already struggling to take all of him. One arm wrapped around your waist as he buried himself deep, the other sliding up to press a hand between your breasts, holding you in place, holding you still.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he growled, voice low and dark in your ear. “Like your body was made for this.”

Before you could even catch your breath, Sylus was back in front of you, his hand in your hair again—not to pull, but to guide, to keep you upright as Xavier began to move behind you with slow, punishing strokes. His cock bobbed just in front of your mouth, flushed and glistening, and when you looked up at him, eyes wide and lips parted, he smiled like a man watching someone fall to their knees for worship.

“Open up, sweetheart,” he said, voice thick. “You asked for both of us—so take me.”

You did—lips parting as he guided himself back into your mouth, and the second you closed your lips around him, Sylus hissed through his teeth, head falling back with a groan.

Now they moved together.

Xavier’s hips rolled in slow, deliberate thrusts behind you, hitting deep with every grind of his pelvis, the slap of skin against skin echoing in the room, and every time he pushed forward, Sylus eased into your mouth, letting you take him in time with the rhythm.

They didn’t rush. They devoured—Xavier grinding deep inside you, dragging moans from your throat that were muffled by the length of Sylus on your tongue, his fingers fisted in your hair, jaw tight with restraint.

“Fuck—look at her,” Sylus groaned, his eyes locked on yours, watching the tears prick the corners of them as you took him deeper, struggling to keep breathing between thrusts. “Look at how fucking good she looks between us.”

Xavier growled behind you, one hand sliding down to rub tight, focused circles over your clit as he fucked into you harder, the slap of his hips faster now, more forceful, more intentional.

“She’s going to come just like this,” he muttered, his lips at your ear. “Stuffed full. Wrecked. Can you see how she’s gripping me?”

The orgasm creeping closer with every stroke, every grind of Sylus’s cock against your tongue, every flick of Xavier’s fingers over your clit. You were shaking, sobbing around Sylus’s length now, unable to do anything but feel, your body no longer your own.

“Come for us,” Xavier said, voice hoarse. “Fucking fall apart.”

And you did.

With a cry strangled around Sylus’s cock, your body convulsed—legs trembling, walls clenching so tightly around Xavier he cursed and nearly lost it with you. Sylus groaned brokenly as your moan vibrated through him, and he pulled out just long enough to let you cry out fully, your mouth slick and open as your body seized in climax, your scream echoing between their bodies.

“That’s it,” Sylus murmured, voice barely holding steady. “That’s our girl.”

You barely had time to breathe. Your body was still trembling, muscles clenching around the last waves of your orgasm when Xavier pulled out with a soft hiss, his hands still steady on your waist as he guided you gently down to your knees on the couch cushions. Your legs gave out beneath you, boneless and soaked, mouth parted in dazed relief—but the moment you collapsed, Sylus was there.

He didn’t wait.

His hands were on your hips in an instant, lifting, adjusting, dragging your body back toward him with a strength that felt like it lived in his bones. You cried out, overstimulated and still gasping, but when you turned to look over your shoulder, the expression on his face was pure, dark hunger—his hair mussed, his chest flushed, his cock slick at the tip as he lined himself up behind you.

“You begged for both of us,” he rasped, his voice rougher now, fraying at the edges. “Now fucking take it.”

And with that, he pushed inside.

The stretch was brutal—sharper than Xavier, not because he was bigger, but because he didn’t give you time to adjust. You were still tight, soaked, throbbing from the orgasm Xavier had just pulled from you, and Sylus was feral, groaning low in his throat as he bottomed out with one long, forceful thrust that made your breath catch and your arms collapse beneath you.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he growled, hands gripping your ass as he pulled back and slammed into you again, the sound echoing in the room like a slap. “Tight little thing. So desperate to be filled you didn’t even care who did it first.”

You whimpered, but it broke into a moan when he snapped his hips forward again, harder now, faster—every thrust sending shockwaves through your core, through your thighs, through your lungs. You felt wrecked, used, stretched to your limit and already close to unraveling again, the pressure mounting so fast you couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

And behind you, Sylus was panting, cursing softly, hips slamming into yours as his fingers dug into your skin.

“You feel that?” he groaned, voice low and wrecked. “You’re taking all of me, sweetheart. So fucking good.”

Your body was already shuddering—wrung out, raw, still fluttering around Sylus’s cock as he drove into you with the kind of desperate, punishing thrusts that left no room for doubt. He was close. You could feel it in the way his grip tightened on your hips, in the way his breath turned to ragged curses against your skin, in the way he pulled you back onto him like he couldn’t get deep enough, even though he was already buried to the hilt.

But then—Xavier was in front of you again.

He knelt on the couch, one knee beside your hand, the other planted steady in the cushions, his cock already flushed and heavy, gleaming at the tip as he wrapped his fingers around the base and guided it toward your mouth.

“Open,” he said, his voice soft but commanding, his eyes hooded, jaw tight. “Now.”

You obeyed without hesitation—lips parting around a gasp as Sylus fucked you harder from behind, and the moment Xavier slid into your mouth, you moaned low and wrecked, the sound vibrating against him as his hand cradled the back of your head, keeping your pace slow and steady.

“That’s it,” Xavier murmured, breath catching as you took more of him, your tongue curling around his length. “Good girl. Just like that.”

Your throat was tight, your mouth full, your body a wrecked, trembling thing between them. Sylus was slamming into you now, his pace erratic, desperate, every thrust forcing you forward on Xavier’s cock until you were choking softly around the rhythm, tears prickling the corners of your eyes as Xavier groaned and held you there, just long enough to feel you struggle, then eased back.

“You look so fucking pretty like this,” he rasped, hips flexing as he slid deeper. “Fucked dumb. Not even sure who’s making you come anymore.”

“Both of us,” Sylus growled from behind, the slap of his hips harsh now, his voice wrecked and low. “She begged for both. Let’s not let her forget.”

Your moans were helpless, muffled around Xavier’s cock, your body bouncing with every thrust from Sylus, every grind of Xavier’s hips forward. You were gone. Absolutely gone—sweat-slicked, soaking, mouth full, cunt dripping around Sylus’s cock with every brutal snap of his hips.

And then Sylus cursed—loud, ragged—as his rhythm faltered, hips jerking in short, desperate thrusts as he came hard inside you, one final growl of your name pulled from somewhere primal in his chest.

You barely had time to collapse before Xavier’s hand fisted in your hair, holding your head steady as his pace quickened, the soft curses spilling from his lips unraveling into something far less composed.

“God, your mouth,” he groaned, voice hoarse. “So fucking good—gonna come—fuck, baby—hold still—”

And you did—barely—lips stretched wide, jaw aching, tears slipping down your cheeks as Xavier groaned deep in his throat and spilled into your mouth, thick and hot, hips twitching as he held you there, pressed tight against your tongue, his breath shuddering above you.

When he finally let go, you sagged—completely spent, used, trembling with the weight of what they’d both poured into you.

You collapsed between them, your body boneless, trembling, your throat raw and mouth swollen, legs weak from everything they’d taken and given back tenfold. The couch beneath you was too warm, the air thick with sweat and sex and quiet breathless awe.

Xavier moved first—brushing the damp hair from your forehead, his fingers soft now, reverent, like he was grounding himself through the feel of your skin. He leaned in, kissed your temple, then your cheek, his voice a low murmur just for you.

“You did so well,” he whispered, lips grazing your skin. “Took everything we gave you. All of it.”

Sylus’s hand slid up your thigh, not seeking anything—just there. His touch was warm, his presence less wild now, but still charged. You felt him lean in close, his voice like dark velvet.

“You wrecked us, sweetie,” he said with a smirk. “Never seen Xavier lose control like that. Never thought I’d share.”

You let out a breathless laugh—half delirious, half overwhelmed—as they settled against you, Xavier at your side, Sylus curled in behind you, one arm thrown lazily across your waist. Their bodies pressed to yours, surrounding you with heat, the silence no longer heavy, but full of something softer.

Sylus broke it.

“So,” he drawled, fingers tapping absently against your hip, “who won?”

The air shifted.

Xavier’s hand stilled where it had been stroking down your side. His body tensed, just barely—but enough to feel it.

“She hasn’t answered,” he said, quiet but pointed.

Your breath caught. You turned your face into the crook of Xavier’s shoulder, but Sylus’s laugh was low and smug behind you.

“She will,” he said. “She has to.”

Their attention shifted to you at once—two sets of hands pausing, two very different energies pressing into your skin.

“So,” Xavier said, voice quiet but steady, “which of us is it?”

You smiled, eyes fluttering closed.

“I choose both.”

Silence.

And then—Sylus groaned.

“You’re kidding.”

“She’s not,” Xavier muttered, exhaling slowly.

You opened one eye to see Sylus sitting up, already reaching for his pants, shirt rumpled and jaw tight.

“Really, y/n?” he asked, tossing a glance toward Xavier. “So, what, we take turns now?”

“I’m not giving her up.”

“Neither am I.”

You covered your face with your hands, half-laughing, half-sighing as they began arguing over logistics, position, timing, like two wolves circling the same flame.

“Oh my god,” you groaned. “You’re both ridiculous.”

But you were smiling.

Somehow, some way, this could work out beautifully.

#love and deepspace #lads #lnds #lads smut #lnds smut #sylus x reader #xavier x reader #starcrow #sylus #xavier #qin che #shen xinghui #moongirlcleo

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moongirlcleo · 20 days ago

Text

Diamond Chains // Caleb

✦ part 1 of CHAIN REACTION series ✦ FILE:001 ✦ Caleb

caleb x fem!reader // [AO3] // wc: 2.2k // NSFW MDNI 🔞 // ♡ / ↻ — appreciated!

♡ Summary:

He says nothing all gala. Not when they flirt. Not when they touch. But the diamonds at your waist? He remembers putting those on.

♡ A/N notes:

✨ This is the first fic in my Chain Reaction series: a drabble-length (i am lying to myself… 2k words is a drabble since when?) collection focused on jewelry kink, obsession, and the dangerously possessive men who wrap you in pretty things and then lose their minds over it. This entry features Caleb in full Farspace Fleet Colonel uniform, a diamond waist chain, and way too much pent-up frustration. It’s filthy, messy, and written entirely to serve the uniform/jewelry/feral colonel enjoyers. I honestly regret nothing lmao. More entries (and more LIs) coming soon. 🍎

♡ Content:

★ NSFW, power play dressed in diamonds. Uniform kink, jewelry kink, possessive behavior. Caleb gifts you a waist chain he fully intends to use—his voice in your ear, jaw clenched all night, eyes burning with everything unsaid. Established relationship, first time after separation, overstimulation, marking, creampie. Big dick dom!Caleb, voice kink, glove kink, mild dubcon with full trust. The gala is a show. The real performance starts when the doors close.

The gown had been chosen for diplomacy, not seduction.

Midnight blue silk, high collar, open back. Strategic elegance designed to please the brass, not provoke. But the Colonel’s dark gaze didn’t need provocation. You stood beside him, posture composed, offering a pleasant smile to the General. Beneath the silk, the diamonds clung to your skin.

A waist chain, custom-cut to sit beneath your dress. His gift. Silver links traced the line of your hips, fine and delicate, glittering only in private. He had come to your quarters before the gala, uniform jacket undone, cap in hand, his brunet hair slightly mussed from removing it. Amethyst eyes fixed on you, steady, intense. He’d fastened the chain himself, fingers cold and precise, the clasp catching just below your ribs. His touch had lingered. No bra, no underwear—just the chain, pressed flush to skin, a secret you were never meant to share with the room.

You felt it now. Not just the weight of the chain, but the weight of his presence around you. He watched you without speaking. Every movement, every breath, every polite exchange with a guest didn’t go unnoticed.

The Colonel hadn’t spoken much since your arrival. Not when the compliments came, not when a visiting lieutenant raised his glass to you with a smile that lingered. His expression didn’t change, but his jaw had tightened. His gloved hand flexed once around the flute of champagne. The tension in him was palpable. Coiled. All precision and heat.

You hadn’t had him in weeks. Duty pulled him away. And tonight, standing this close in full uniform, every medal in place, you could feel it—the sheer effort it took him not to act on the way he looked at you.

So when the envoy from Skyhaven leaned in, closer than he should have, letting his fingers brush your arm and murmuring something beneath his breath, it wasn’t surprising what followed.

The touch came at the small of your back. Controlled. Final. You barely caught the scent of flight leather and steel before his voice landed just behind your ear.

"Now."

You didn’t argue. You set down your glass and followed.

He didn’t speak as he led you down the corridor. The quiet between you cracked at the edges. At the end of the hall, he opened the door, shut it, and locked it. Then he turned.

He didn’t ask. Didn’t pause.

His hands were on you in a blink, firm at your hips. But he didn’t just shove the dress down. His fingers traced your sides, slow and deliberate, pausing to ghost over the outline of the chain beneath the silk. He kissed your shoulder first, then lower, lips brushing the top of your spine like he was committing it to memory.

"You smell like sin," he muttered, breath hot against your skin.

The zipper caught under his glove, but he didn’t rush. Instead, he peeled the dress away with reverence, baring you inch by inch. His mouth followed the fabric’s descent, kissing the curve of your spine, your ribs, the soft underside of your breast when it spilled free. He cupped you, thumb circling your nipple until it hardened under his touch.

"You wore nothing underneath," he said, voice low. "And you expect me to have restraint?"

You didn’t answer. You didn’t need to. He groaned and kissed you again, deeper this time, tongue sliding past your lips as if trying to consume you. His hand dipped between your legs, fingers gliding through the slick heat waiting for him.

"Wet for me already," he said against your mouth. "You want this? Want me to ruin you before they even clear dessert?"

You nodded, barely, breath shallow, and god he smirked, then dropped to his knees.

The medals on his chest shifted with the movement, glinting with the same hunger that burned in his eyes. His gloved hands ran along your thighs, parting them gently. The leather creaked softly as his grip tightened, anchoring you in place.

He didn’t rush. He breathed you in first. Nose grazing the inside of your thigh, eyes half-lidded, like he was savoring the scent of you. The sharp edge of a smile curved his mouth.

"So wet and so fucking quiet about it," he murmured. "You’ve been dripping since we walked in, haven’t you?"

"I—" you whimpered as his breath hit your center, and he chuckled, low and dangerous.

He mouthed along your inner thigh then, tongue teasing. The angle had you gasping, one hand gripping the epaulet on his shoulder, the other sinking into his thick, tousled brunet hair. The way the uniform framed him made it worse—tight collar, gleaming medals, silver braid resting on his shoulder, black leather gloves flexing with every possessive squeeze.

Your heels clicked faintly against the floor as he moved, then lifted—large hands catching beneath your thigh to hitch your leg up, settling it onto his shoulder. The angle forced you open. Exposed. One arm braced behind your knee to hold you there. The other, steady on your waist.

The panties you wore weren’t really for modesty—just a scrap of silk to match the gown. You’d chosen them knowing he’d see. But the Colonel didn’t just pull them aside. He hooked two fingers into the waistband and tore them clean down the seam.

“You wore these for someone else?” he asked, voice low. “Tell me you wore them for me.

You nodded, breath hitching. “Y-You.”

“Good.” He tossed them aside without looking.

When his mouth finally met you, it was with reverence and hunger all at once. Long, slow licks that had your poor knees trembling. His grip stayed firm beneath your thigh, fingers pressing bruises into skin. He held you like a prize. Like prey. And the chain shifted with every twitch of your body—a delicate jingle above the filth of his mouth.

“You taste better than I remember,” he groaned against you. “Better than anything out there.”

You bucked into him. He growled.

“C-Caleb, don’t stop,” you mewled out.

“I said hold still.”

The command was sharp, clipped—exactly the tone that had subordinates standing at attention. You obeyed.

He rewarded you with his mouth again, faster now. Tongue pressing deeper. Lips sealing around your clit and sucking with unrelenting focus. His gloves skimmed up your waist, catching the chain between his fingers like reins.

“You’ll come like this first,” he said, licking into you again. “On my tongue, before you take my cock.”

You were already falling apart, and god your cries muffled by your own hand. You could feel the burn where his jaw pressed against your thigh and then a sharper sting.

He bit.

Not hard enough to draw blood. But enough to leave a mark.

A moan broke from you. The Colonel chuckled against your pussy.

“That’s one. I’ll leave more.”

And he did.

By the time you came, trembling and flushed, there were bruises blooming where his mouth had claimed you. One on your thigh. Another near your hipbone. He licked them after, slow and indulgent.

Only then did he rise, mouth wet, slick smeared across his chin. The medals on his chest gleamed as he towered over you, storm-violet eyes black with need.

“You ready now?” he asked, breath uneven. “Because I’m not holding back.”

You were bare for him. Entirely. Breasts exposed, nipples pebbled from the cold air and his attention. Skin flushed, thighs parted. The diamond waist chain glinted under the low light, still nestled tight against your skin, pressing into tender places he'd already kissed and marked. Teeth and fingerprints bloomed in scattered patches along your inner thighs, near your hip bones—evidence of the Colonel’s mouth and the path his gloves had taken. Your panties, once delicate black silk, were a torn scrap discarded near the heel of your stiletto.

His breath stuttered, a sharp exhale through his nose as his storm-violet gaze dragged across your body. There was hunger there, yes—but deeper still, a barely bridled fury. A possessive madness that had simmered under his polished exterior all night long.

The belt of his uniform came undone with a sharp snap, leather hissing through the loops like it couldn’t be stripped fast enough. The sound alone made your breath hitch. He didn’t fully undress. The trousers of his formal uniform were shoved down just enough to free him, the sleek lines of black and silver draping off his hips as if even his clothing refused to let him go without a fight. His gloved hand wrapped around the base of his cock, already flushed and thick, veins raised beneath the skin. He hissed through his teeth.

“You walk around like this,” he said, his voice gravel and heat, “wearing that fucking chain… no bra… panties like tissue paper. Like I haven’t been starving for you since I left?”

He stepped in close, pressing the hard length of himself against your thigh, just enough for you to feel the throb in it. Just enough to make you whimper.

His other hand slid up, gliding from your hip to your breast, the rough leather of his glove a harsh contrast against your soft skin. He pinched your nipple between two fingers, watched it pebble beneath his touch.

“You did it on purpose,” he muttered. “Made me watch all night while you acted so fucking innocent.”

The chain between you clicked faintly when he moved. He curled his fingers through one of the loops at your side, dragging it tight, and your body followed the pull like a marionette.

“You think I wouldn’t notice?” he asked, mouth hovering beside your jaw. "Every sway of your hips, every time some asshole tried to flirt with what's mine."

He didn’t wait for an answer. His lips crashed into yours, bruising, biting, swallowing your gasp as he pinned you to the wall. Your heel slipped against the polished floor, but he caught you easily, dragging your leg up and throwing it over his hip. Not gently. The position opened you completely... vulnerable and offered.

The chain dug into your side where he gripped it like a leash.

“I know exactly what you’re doing,” he growled into the skin of your neck. “You wore this for me. You wanted me to break. You wanted this.”

He shifted his hips, letting the head of his cock drag along your folds, soaking himself in your slick. He paused at your entrance. Didn’t press in. Not yet.

“Beg.”

You gasped, your hips instinctively canting forward, trying to take him inside. He didn’t move.

Still holding the chain taut in one fist, he leaned in, his mouth brushing your ear.

“Say it.”

“Please,” you whispered. “Please, Colonel. I need you.”

That was all it took.

He buried himself in one deep, brutal thrust. The stretch stole your breath, your nails digging into the stiff collar of his jacket. The medals on his chest clinked softly as he slammed into you again, and again, rocking your body up against the wall.

“There she is,” he rasped. “So fucking tight. So good for me. You missed this cock, didn’t you?”

You choked on a moan, body bowing under the weight of his thrusts. There was no rhythm, no build-up—just raw need. He took you like he was making up for every hour he’d been gone. Like the months apart had boiled down to this one singular moment.

The chain cinched with every movement. It creaked between his glove and your skin. He used it for leverage, yanking your body to meet every brutal snap of his hips.

He leaned in closer. Pressed his full weight against you. His coat brushed your thighs, buttons cool against your flesh, the star insignia of his rank briefly imprinting into your skin. His breath spilled hot and ragged against your shoulder.

“I should’ve fucked you on the table,” he said, voice trembling. “Should’ve made you straddle me right in front of them. Let them watch you drip all over my cock.”

You whimpered. Your head lolled back. His name spilled from your lips, wrecked and gasping.

“You love this,” he snarled. “Being ruined by your Colonel. Getting filled so deep you can’t think. Being fucked stupid in your heels while I pull you by the chain like a fucking toy.”

One hand dropped between you, the glove dragging over your clit with cruel precision. He circled and pressed, paced perfectly to match the heavy thrusts still punching into you.

“Come for me. Now. Let them hear how you scream when you’re mine.”

Your orgasm hit like a detonation. You cried out, eyes clenching shut, long lashes wet with crystal tears, manicured fingers locked in his brown hair as you shattered. Your thighs trembled around his waist, muscles spasming. He didn’t slow.

“Good girl,” he growled. “Take it. You can take just a little more.”

He chased his own release, cock pulsing deep inside as he finally spilled into you. His body shuddered. His mouth found your shoulder and bit down, claiming you with a moan punched through his teeth.

You barely registered the after. Just the throb between your legs. The heat of his body against yours. His voice, hoarse.

“Mine,” he whispered again, quieter now. “Always.”

The chain still held tight around your waist, red marks blooming under the pressure, gleaming against your sweat-slicked skin. His uniform was rumpled, medals askew, hair mussed from your grip. But the look in his eyes said it wasn’t over. Not yet.

a/n: divider by @/cafekitsune // fic by: @dijayeah

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moongirlcleo · 21 days ago

Text

Ma Meilleure Ennemie //

sylus x fem!reader // [AO3] // wc: 15k // NSFW MDNI 🔞 // ♡ / ↻ — appreciated!

♡ Summary:

You didn't want to but you shot him. His Aether Core reacted. A moment of resonance, a tear in reality—and just like that, Sylus was somewhere else. A world where he had everything he never let himself want. A version of you who loved him without hesitation, who remembered. And for the first time, he was happy despite the guilt. But he was never meant to stay. And returning home means losing you all over again.

♡ A/N notes:

Before diving in, please make sure to check the tags—they exist for a reason. This fic was heavily inspired by Arcane (specifically, the themes surrounding Ekko & Jinx in S2) and the song Ma Meilleure Ennemie, which perfectly captures the mood I wanted to weave into this story. If you really want to elevate the experience, I’ve also attached a playlist that sets the atmosphere—because, let’s be honest, this fic is best consumed with the right music in the background. Playlist link: Ma Meilleure Ennemie playlist

♡ Content:

★ NSFW, soulmates across timelines, memory loss, emotional sex that cuts deep. Reincarnation angst, time distortion, and a love that refuses to die. Established but messy—he remembers, you don’t. Creampie, fingering, aftercare, soft smut laced with heartbreak. Mutual pining in every universe. Parallel worlds, same ache. No beta, just tears and orgasms.

The air between you was thick with the scent of smoke and blood, heavy enough to choke on. The gun in your hand trembled, its metal burning against your palm, but your grip was weak—just as he wanted.

Sylus sat beneath you, reclined in that oversized chair like a man who had already won something unbeknownst to you. His silver hair fell over his forehead in loose soft strands, his crimson-hued eyes locked on yours, gleaming with something unreadable. He could feel your pulse hammering beneath his long fingers, where his hand tightly curled around your wrist, forcing the gun to stay steady. Not yours. His. His heart, his body, his rules. Even now.

“Go on,” he murmured, voice dark, teasing in a way that didn’t feel like it. “You’ve wanted this for so long. Wasn’t it your objective? To shoot the big bad guy of the N109 zone, Miss Hunter?” He scoffed, because even if his life was quite literally in your hands, he was aware that you viewed him as the top dog of the no man’s land, someone who threatened all that you stood for.

Your breath came too fast, too shallow. He could see it—how you hesitated, how your knuckles went white against the grip, how the weight of what you were about to do sat heavy in your ribs, because for one, you have never killed a person, never actually went after someone who wasn’t a wanderer.

Perhaps, in your perspective, it should have been easy. Hell, it was supposed to be easy. He was a criminal, a mass one at that, someone with a goddamn bounty on his head that was worth millions if not billions amounts of money.

His grip was stronger than yours, guiding your hand, forcing your lithe fingers to curl around the trigger as it left your wrist for a moment. His other hand found your wrist once more, calloused thumb brushing slow, deliberate circles over your pulse, feeling it spike under his fingertips like some sort of heightened frequency. Still, for you, it was a mere reminder—of control, of patience, of power.

“Don’t look away,” he said, tilting his head. “I want you to remember.”

And he meant it. If you were going to kill him, he wanted to be the last thing you saw.

Your stomach twisted. He saw it in your eyes. That hesitation. That doubt. He would have laughed, if not for the part of him that wanted you to do it. That wanted to see just how much you could take. What it would make you.

A slow, steady pull. The trigger clicked. The gun roared.

Heat seared through his chest. The recoil of the gun didn’t hurt the way you thought it would. Not at first. It wasn’t the bullet that burned.

It was you.

His head lolled back against the chair, his body slumping from the force of the shot, but his lips still curled at the edges, breath leaving in something almost like a laugh. The protocore in his eye flared at the edges of his vision. He felt it, the way his core should have helped his evol to pull him back together, the way it should have already been stitching flesh and sealing the deep wound.

But something was wrong.

The air rippled, thick with something electric. Your Aether Core pulsed. His flickered in response, as if whispering back in an ancient language neither of you could understand. His fingers clenched around your wrist, breath hitching. His eyes locked onto yours, wide, startled—not with pain, but recognition.

He felt it before he understood it.

The collision was violent. Raw, unchecked energy surged between you, wrapping around his ribs, curling deep inside his lungs like fire and static, and something ancient waking up inside his bones. The edges of the room blurred, the world folding in on itself, dragging him down, down, down…

There was no floor beneath him, no walls, no sense of gravity. Just weightlessness, as if he had been yanked from existence itself. The nothingness stretched infinitely, void pressing in from all sides, and for a moment, he swore he could still feel the ghost of your hand against his chest, your heartbeat overlapping his own.

His mind clawed for something tangible, something real. But the only thing that existed was absence. No air, no sound—just silence so deep it rattled inside his, perhaps now nonexistent, skull. Was this death? Or something far worse? Perhaps, for someone like him, it was the right way to go out, all things considered.

He was still aware though, aware of the last thing he heard being your voice. Calling him back.

After that? There was nothing.

It could have been seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. He had no way of knowing. Time did not move here. It had no form, no direction, no flow. He was lost within it, floating, grasping at something unseen lost in his own thoughts for what felt like a millennium.

He wondered what it would be like… if at the end of the day, things had turned out the other way and you would’ve remembered. He pondered the possibility for a while, and then just shut off, seeing no point in it anymore.

It wasn’t until Sylus felt pressure. A pull, slow at first, then all at once. He was dragged back down, breath stolen from his lungs as sensation crashed over him like a tidal wave. Heavy limbs, breath coming too light, too thin, like he’d been holding it for longer than he should have. His body wasn’t where he left it. It was somewhere else—

Soft sheets under his naked back. The scent of something warm, something sweet curling into his lungs. Reality was unsteady, blurred at the edges like ink bleeding into still water. The sensation of weightlessness made his stomach lurch, like stepping off a ledge only to find solid ground where there should have been a fall.

Then—pressure. A touch, gentle and familiar, pressing against his chest. His mind clawed at the sensation, trying to place it, trying to understand before the world clicked into focus all at once.

A manicured hand on his chest.

“Morning, my dragon.”

His eyes snapped open. His lungs locked tight as he lightly flinched at the words.

The bed dipped beside him as you shifted, pressing closer, and it was you. But not quite. Not the way he remembered. Not the way he had left you.

Your hair was a shade warmer than before, a hue that caught the morning light in a way that unsettled him. The soft curve of your face was familiar but wrong, the placement of a mole near your temple off by just a fraction. Your skin looked healthier, as though you had never known sleepless nights spent chasing ghosts, never worn the sharp edges of grief, thanks to losing your loved ones, in the set of your jaw.

Your pretty lips curved in a lazy smile, soft with sleep, with something warmer, something easy. Your hand trailed down his chest, fingertips feather-light, as if this was second nature to you. Your voice hummed with the weight of a thousand mornings just like this.

But it was wrong. All of it.

His body had always been primed for danger, his mind trained to recognize even the smallest inconsistencies. And this—this was a trap he didn’t know how to navigate. Every detail, every shift in reality, was so seamlessly woven into what should have been real. But he knew better.

His breath was uneven, muscles tensed as if expecting a strike that would never come. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion, with fear, with disgust. You weren’t recoiling from him. You weren’t her.

And that was the worst part.

Because the last thing he remembered was you putting a bullet in his heart.

His fingers twitched against the sheets, breath coming too shallow, too sharp. The words shouldn’t have meant anything to this world’s Sylus. But they did—to him. To his real self.

A slow blink, a measured exhale. He forced his body to relax, to settle back into the warmth pressing against his side, but the coil of unease in his chest refused to loosen. He needed to play this off, to find his footing before you noticed—

But you already had.

"Bad dream?" your voice was gentle, teasing, as you brushed stray silver strands from his forehead, fingers trailing down to rest against his jaw. "You looked like you saw a ghost."

He let out a breathy chuckle, low, strained. "Yeah. Something like that."

Your gaze lingered, just a fraction too long. Not in suspicion—at least, not yet. But something about his reaction had given you pause. The way your fingers absently traced over his collarbone felt almost reflexive, as if you were grounding yourself, making sense of something that didn’t quite fit. Your Sylus wouldn’t have reacted. Your Sylus knew exactly what that name meant to you.

This one—he flinched.

He didn't think twice about it. Not because he was careless—no, he was never careless—but because he never had to. You weren’t the type to notice, not in the way that mattered. Or at least, not the you he knew.

This one? This one had been watching him for a long time.

You weren’t staring at him the way someone would look at a lover acting strangely. You weren’t confused, or concerned. You were reading him. The way he breathed, the way he moved, the way his pulse had jumped when you called him that name.

The Sylus in this world—your Sylus—must have never reacted like this before. Maybe that was why your head tilted just slightly, the beginnings of a thought forming, only to be brushed away before it could settle. A flicker of curiosity, not alarm.

The realization curled in his stomach like a vice. He had spent years perfecting the art of deception, of control. And yet, in a single second, he had given himself away to someone who had spent just as long studying him.

He needed to fix it. Needed to cover his tracks before you could follow them too far. He shifted, turning onto his side, propping himself up on an elbow as his lips brushed the curve of your shoulder.

"Maybe you wore me out last night, sweetheart," he murmured, voice slipping into something smoother, something easy. "Guess even I have my limits."

You huffed a laugh, shaking your head, but the tension in your fingers remained. You were still watching him. But not in a way that suggested you had figured him out—just in that quiet, assessing way of someone who had learned to pick up on even the smallest shifts in behavior. And for now, you seemed content to let it go.

"I'm sorry, Sy, I will be less demanding on you next time then." You purred out, amusement lacing your tone as you placed a soft kiss under his jaw.

He needed to tread carefully. Because whatever this was, however he had ended up here—he wasn’t the only one beginning to notice the fractures in the illusion.

He let out a slow exhale, willing his muscles to stay loose, to let himself sink into the warmth of this world—this lie. And yet, it didn’t feel foreign. That was the part that gnawed at him. The way his body knew how to fit into this space, the way his arms instinctively curled around you, the way he could slide into this role without even thinking.

It should’ve felt unnatural. But it didn’t.

A flicker of something old stirred at the back of his mind. He had been here before—not here, not in this lifetime, but in something close to it. The pieces slotted together too easily, the familiarity too deep to be mere coincidence. He had been with you before. In one lifetime, in one story, in one myth.

The Abysm Sovereign as one would’ve called him. The last of the dragons. The one who had hoarded something too precious, too fragile, only to lose himself to it.

Was that what this was? Another return to something inevitable? Another step in a cycle he was too entangled in to escape?

His fingers twitched against the sheets, his breath slow and controlled, but his mind ran circles around the truth.

Maybe this was why it was so easy to fall back into you.

Maybe it had never been a matter of if—only when. Your lips lingered against his skin, soft, familiar in a way that sent something cold slithering down his spine.

"You say that, but I know you," he murmured, forcing a smirk, running his fingers up the curve of your spine. "You’ll have me right where you want me again by sundown."

You laughed against his throat, your breath warm, real, and yet every second of it felt like something closing in around him, something he couldn’t escape. Because the moment he stopped playing along, the moment he let the weight of what had happened settle—

What then?

His fingers curled into the sheets behind your back, grounding himself. He needed to understand how this had happened, why this had happened. His core still hummed faintly beneath his skin, pulsing with something unsettled, something wrong.

And you? You were too at ease, too at home in a life that had never belonged to him. You weren’t looking at him with suspicion anymore, not yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time.

He had to move carefully.

He had to get ahead of this before you started looking too closely.

A week passed, and the edges of reality blurred further, slipping past his fingertips like water.

The leader of Onychinus hadn’t meant to fall into it so easily. He had intended to keep his distance from you and this entire place, to play the part without slipping deeper. But the longer he stayed, the more the weight of this world settled into him like second nature. The way his hands reached for things before his mind could catch up. The way he answered your questions not with lies, but with truths that didn’t belong to him.

Everything was wrong.

N109 wasn’t the place he had built—not the ruthless, lawless battleground where only the strongest survived. It was something else, something structured. There were systems here, stability where there should have been chaos. And he could see the mark of your hand in all of it.

You had helped him build this.

Or rather, you had helped him—the version of Sylus that belonged to this world. The one who had let you in, who had trusted you enough to do this with you instead of fighting against it. The one who, by all accounts, loved you openly—without the guarded words, without the veiled threats laced with something too sharp to be mistaken for tenderness.

Sylus had never been that man. He had never been happy.

The realization crawled under his skin, digging deep. He moved through the city, and people didn’t look at him with fear. They acknowledged him, some even greeted him, as though he was someone worth trusting. As though he was someone good.

But he wasn’t. He never had been. He was always seen as a monster.

Yet this world had rewritten him into something else, something he couldn’t recognize. And worse? His body remembered things he hadn’t lived.

The first time it happened, it was small. A flicker of familiarity when he reached for a glass in the penthouse, his hand moving before he even thought about it. He had never lived here. Never walked these halls before. But his feet knew where to go. His hands knew what to reach for. The weight of a life that wasn’t his settled on him like muscle memory, instincts burned into his body without his consent.

Then the memories started creeping in. Not all at once, not enough to overwhelm, but slow, steady, like a trickle of water, like something waking up inside him, filling in the gaps of who this Sylus was supposed to be.

Your laughter against his skin. The press of your hand over his as you guided it to something he had once refused to hold and he scoffed at your audacity in a way that wasn’t malicious. A quiet moment in the dark, where your breath had mingled with his, your fingers tracing his jaw like you were memorizing him, your chests pressed together.

He wasn’t supposed to have these memories. But he did.

And you—you noticed.

Not in suspicion. Not yet. You watched him in the quiet moments, like you were waiting for something. Like you saw the way he hesitated before answering, how his gaze lingered too long, and instead of questioning it, you let yourself hope for the first time in years.

Because you knew what it was like to remember when no one else did.

You had lived that life already—spent years waiting, never pushing. Because in your world, you had been in his place. The one who held the memories, the one who had to swallow down the ache of being the only one who remembered what it meant. And the version of Sylus you had known—the one who belonged to you—had never remembered you.

However, these days… a thought of such scale didn’t seem to be just that—just a theory.

Because for once, he was the one acting differently. He was answering in ways that weren’t expected, slipping just enough to make you wonder. And that meant maybe—just maybe—your dragon had finally found his way back to you.

And Sylus? He couldn’t afford to let you believe that. Because he wasn’t your Sylus. He wasn’t yours at all.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say it either. Was it selfish of him to bask in your affection? To feel happy to be in your presence? He felt like an imposter, and hell, he was.

And yet, he couldn’t help but want to stay, to bask in your warmth and affection like the starved man that he was.

It started in the small moments. The way you curled up next to him without hesitation, your body fitting against his like it had always belonged there. The way your laughter filled the space between you, warm and unburdened, untainted by the kind of guardedness he had come to expect from you—from the version of you he had left behind.

You reached for him often, and he let you. But his touch was different—hesitant, restrained. He knew you noticed. Knew you could tell that when his fingers skimmed over your wrist, when his palm rested against the small of your back, it wasn’t with the same familiarity as before. It was careful, measured, as if he were trying not to take too much. As if he was still convincing himself he had no right to.

And you—you never said anything about it. Never called him out on the distance that shouldn’t have been there. Maybe you thought he was relearning, trying to remember you in the way you hoped he would. Or maybe, deep down, you didn’t want to risk shattering whatever fragile balance had settled between you.

Maybe that’s what made it worse.

It was in the way his hand would linger at the small of your back just a moment too long when guiding you through a crowded space in the city. The way his gaze would flicker to your glossed lips when you spoke, as if some part of him was already familiar with the way they’d feel against his own. The way his breathing would shift in the middle of the night when you curled closer in sleep, as if his body, not his mind, was the one remembering what it meant to hold you.

And yet, for some reason, your dragon still held back.

One evening, you sat across from him at the kitchen table, the hum of the city outside muffled by the walls of the penthouse. You slid a cup of tea toward him, fingers brushing against his, and he almost pulled away—almost. Instead, he let the warmth of your skin linger against his own, just for a second longer than he should have.

“Long day?” you asked, voice softer than usual.

He let out a quiet chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “Something like that.”

You hummed, watching him over the rim of your own cup. "You know, you don’t always have to act like you’re carrying the weight of the world. You can let me carry some of it too."

Something tightened in his chest. That was the difference, wasn’t it? This you—you didn’t fight him. You didn’t push against him, claw your way in through force and fear. You were already there, waiting, patient, understanding, everything he could’ve asked for, really.

His gaze flickered over you, cataloging every detail—the warmth in your expression, the easy tilt of your head, the way your fingers wrapped around your cup like it was the only thing anchoring you in the moment. It was such a simple thing, an evening routine that felt natural. Comfortable.

He had spent a lifetime keeping people at arm’s length, yet here you were, fitting into his space like you had always belonged in it. And maybe—maybe he wanted to let you.

His fingers ghosted over the ceramic of his own cup before reaching for it fully, brushing against the spot yours had just been. The residual heat lingered against his skin, sinking into him, grounding him in a way he hadn’t expected.

“That so?” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, something dangerous curling at the edges. Something he couldn’t quite hold back anymore.

You smiled, slow and knowing, like you had already decided the answer. Like you weren’t waiting for him to give it—you had always known it was inevitable.

And for the first time, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to fight it. Because for the first time in his life, staying didn’t feel like a trap. It felt like home.

You tapped your fingers against the side of your cup, watching him carefully, studying him in the way you always did when something unsettled you. "You're different," you said finally, the words light, like an observation rather than an accusation. "You've been spending a lot of time in your lab lately. More than usual."

He didn’t react immediately, instead swirling the tea in his cup, staring into the liquid as if it might hold answers he hadn’t yet found. "Just keeping busy."

You exhaled softly, leaning back into your chair. "Busy with what?" The question was easy, and unassuming. But it hung between you like a thread waiting to be unravelled. When Sylus hesitated to answer, you spoke out before he could, again. "Something tells me you’re not going to find it that easily." You rested your elbow against the table, propping your chin on your hand, eyes flicking over him like you were trying to fit mismatched pieces together. "I get it, you know. When you’re searching for something that’s missing, it feels like nothing else fits until you find the exact piece."

His fingers tightened around the cup, tension settling into his shoulders before he brushed it with a soft scoff. "And what is it you think I’m looking for?"

You didn’t answer right away. Instead, you let the silence stretch, heavy with meaning. "I don’t know," you admitted, voice softer now, thoughtful. "But I know it’s important to you."

A muscle in his sharp jaw ticked, but his expression remained unreadable. "And if I was?"

Your lips twitched, something faint and unreadable in your gaze. "Then maybe you’re looking in the wrong place."

For a moment, he wasn’t sure if you were speaking about the research or something else entirely. But then your hand brushed against his again—deliberate this time. A quiet, wordless reminder that he didn’t have to look so hard for something that was already here.

And for the first time, he wondered if you were right, but the thought went away just as fast as it came.

“Sweetie, I think you are overthinking, in fact, I am just busy tinkering with Mephisto, seems like he’s been malfunctioning a lot these days,” He sighed wearily before continuing, “Maybe Luke and Kieran pulled a prank on him again after the last mission, some parts are a bit hard to come by.” That was what he told you in the end, his tone held a tint of finality to it. It was all lies, you knew, he knew, an attempt to deter you. You didn’t question him directly after that.

That was why, hours later, when the silver-haired man was out, you found yourself in your shared room, standing before the small, unassuming pouch tucked away deep in the drawer of your closet. You hesitated before reaching for it, fingers grazing the worn fabric, your breath coming slower, more measured.

You hadn’t touched it in years.

The protocores inside—shining fragments of something more dangerous than they appeared—were the last thing you ever wanted to see again. But now, after watching Sylus over the past few week, after seeing the way he moved through the city like he was searching for something invisible, you couldn’t ignore the creeping suspicion that perhaps this was what he was looking for.

You pulled the pouch open, the familiar hum of the cores vibrating against your palm. A chill crawled down your spine.

Your grandmother, no, the woman who had adopted you, Josephine, had given them to you. A legacy, she had called it. A curse, you had always believed. Because you knew what they could do. What they had done to your body and not only that.

Caleb.

You swallowed hard, pushing down the sick feeling curling in your stomach. Your childhood had been built on the wreckage of experiments thanks to Ever, of pain, of things no child should have known. Caleb had paid the price for that knowledge. And now, you had kept these, untouched, avoided them like they might reach out and pull you back into that nightmare.

But Sylus—your Sylus—had never cared for protocores. He had never needed them, never even mentioned them. And yet, the way he had been disappearing into his lab, the way his eyes darkened when he thought you weren’t looking…

What if he was looking for these?

What if he already knew they existed?

A new kind of dread settled deep in your chest, anxiety slowly creeping in. If he had been searching for something that shouldn’t be here, then maybe—just maybe—he wasn’t supposed to be here either.

The city stretched out below them, neon bleeding into the skyline, turning the air electric. But here—just outside the N109 Zone, where the roads weren’t quite as suffocating, where the world wasn’t watching—it was quiet.

The leader of Onychinus leaned against his bike, fingers drumming idly against the handlebars. The wind carried the scent of the sea, crisp and laced with salt, and for the first time in days, maybe weeks, he wasn’t thinking about what he had lost. What he was trying to return to.

Instead, he was here, with you, hoping that the place he was taking you to still existed even in this world.

"Didn’t think you’d actually take me up on this," he mused, tilting his head as he watched you swing a leg over the bike beside him.

You huffed, rolling your eyes but settling in behind him anyway, the heat of your body pressing into his back. "Well, I didn’t think you did joyrides."

His lips curled, half amusement, half something softer. "You underestimate me, sweetheart."

You couldn’t see his expression, but you could hear it in his voice—the edge of something warm, something almost teasing. And that was what made it strange, wasn’t it? Because this wasn’t the Sylus you had known before. He was different in a way you couldn’t quite grasp yet. There was something looser about him, like he had stepped outside of his own skin for just a moment, letting himself be without the weight of expectation pressing down on him.

His fingers curled around your hands as you settled them against his waist, steadying you against him. The touch was easy, natural. Like he had done this a thousand times before.

Maybe, in a way, he had.

The memory had come to him unbidden earlier that night—the sight of another road. Not here, but somewhere else, far, far away. Somewhere that didn’t exist in this world. You had been there, too. A different you, and yet… still you, laying on the grass bed of crimson datura flowers, splayed out like a goddess before a heartless monster like him.

He shook the though off with a squint of his eyes as he focused on other things at hand.

"Figured you deserved a break," he murmured, turning the engine over, the rumble of it cutting through the silence. "Could use one myself."

You raised a brow, shifting against him as the bike eased forward. "So what, you’re taking me out on a date now?"

A chuckle, dark and amused. "If I was, you’d know."

But maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what this was.

The city faded behind them as he pushed the throttle forward, the roar of the engine filling the empty space between words. The wind bit at your skin, but you barely felt it, pressed close to him, feeling the steady rhythm of his breath beneath your cheek under the helmet. He rode like it was instinct, like the machine beneath him was just an extension of himself, weaving effortlessly through the empty roads, taking you somewhere only he knew.

It wasn’t until he slowed, rolling to a stop just off the side of the road, that you realized where he had brought you.

A cliffside view, the city lights flickering in the distance, the dark sea stretching endlessly before you both, its waves crashing against the wet stone. It was breathtaking. Quiet. Isolated in a way that made it feel like the rest of the world had melted away.

You exhaled, pulling off your helmet, staring out over the water. "You used to come here a lot, didn’t you?"

Sylus didn’t answer right away. He was still for a moment, gaze distant, unreadable. Then, finally, after a moment that stretched for far too long: "Yeah." There were no lies to his words.

You studied him, the way the neon glow caught the silver strands of his hair, how the tension in his broad shoulders had eased ever so slightly. "What for?"

He let out a soft breath, the kind that wasn’t quite a sigh. "Thinking."

You hummed, rocking on your heels slightly. "Dangerous habit."

That pulled a smirk from him, small but genuine. "Tell me about it."

The quiet stretched between you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was easy, the way the silence settled, the way the wind played with your hair, the way his presence beside you didn’t feel overwhelming, just… solid. Something you could lean into without fearing it would crumble beneath you.

The red-eyed man shifted slightly, and then—before you could react—he shrugged off his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders.

Your brows lifted. "Chivalry? From you? I must be dreaming."

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You’re shaking."

"Am not."

His lips curled, like he wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t argue. He just stepped closer, close enough that you could feel the warmth of him, even with the space between you. Close enough that if you reached out, you could...

You swallowed hard, looking away first.

"Thanks," you murmured. Were you allowed to kiss him? At this point in time, you didn't know.

He didn’t respond, but his gaze lingered, steady and knowing. And then, softly: "Resonate with me." The sound of his deep voice was nearly swallowed by the waves beneath the two of you, because if he was any further away from you, you wouldn’t have heard what he said.

The words sent a slow ripple of shock through you. Your fingers tightened around the jacket he had draped over your shoulders, your breath catching in your throat. Of all things, you hadn’t expected that.

"What?" Your voice was quieter, more than you meant for it to be, but the moment felt fragile, like one wrong move would send it slipping through your fingers.

His gaze didn’t waver. "Resonate with me," he repeated, voice smooth but deliberate. "You offered before, didn’t you?" He knew he was tapping too much into the memories of the person who had lived with her before he ever came here, yet he couldn’t help himself.

It was truth though, you had offered. But not like this. Not with this kind of weight behind it.

Because it had been him—the other him—who had never pushed for it before. And now, here he was, making the request instead, but for reasons you weren’t quite so sure you understood yet.

Your heartbeat hammered in your ears. If you resonated, if you let yourself open up to him—if he let you in—there would be no going back. If there was even a sliver of a difference, if something didn’t match, you would know. You would know for certain whether the man standing in front of you was truly the one you had always loved… or something else entirely.

But the look in his eyes was unreadable, and for the first time, you weren’t sure if he wanted you to say yes, or if he was afraid you might.

But you nodded, slowly, lifting your hands between you. Sylus watched, his expression carefully neutral, but you caught the faint twitch of his fingers at his sides, the way his breath came just a fraction too slow. He was anticipating something—bracing for it.

You exhaled and reached for him. “Palms up.”

He didn’t question the request.

The moment your palms pressed against his, something inside you clicked, as if a long-buried mechanism had finally been set in motion. A warmth—not just from your Evol, but something deeper, something old—coursed through your veins, latching onto him, pulling him closer without touch. You could feel him, the real him, beneath the layers of fractured memories and misplaced identity and confusion. For a split second, you swore you were looking into the eyes of the man you had loved before—before timelines fractured, before everything twisted beyond recognition.

And Sylus—this Sylus—felt it too.

His long fingers clenched around yours, breath hitching, as something shifted in his expression, his lips parting like he wanted to speak but couldn’t quite find the words. His energy tangled with yours, hesitant but hungry, threading through the connection like a hesitant echo, unsure if it was supposed to be there at all.

Your chest tightened. He didn’t pull away.

He should have. He always pulled away.

But this time, he didn’t, didn’t want to.

You didn’t speak. Neither of you did. You let the resonance settle between you, the familiarity of it both exhilarating and terrifying. You could feel his presence weaving through yours, wrapping around your bones, filling spaces that had been left empty for too long. And in that moment, you knew.

This wasn’t your Sylus.

But he carried your Sylus’s memories. He was being rewritten, piece by piece, attuning to you like he had been yours all along. And he didn’t even realize it in the way you did just now.

You swallowed hard and forced a smile, careful not to let your fingers tighten around his. He couldn’t know what you had just learned.

So you let the moment pass, let the resonance fade, and when he finally exhaled, something in his dark carmine gaze flickering uncertainly, you only tilted your head and offered a quiet, "See? Not so bad."

His lips twitched at that, something unreadable in his gaze as he tried to process his own emotions and yours too, to a degree. "You always this smug?"

You let yourself laugh, even as something inside you twisted with the weight of what you now knew. "You tell me."

And just like that, the moment was gone. But you wouldn’t forget. You couldn’t.

“You are unpredictable, at times.” His eyes were soft, crinkling at you, red hue chasing the warmth of your gaze.

“I suppose, you never complained though.” You scoffed playfully when all you wanted to do was push him into a hug, tell him you understood, understood him to the core, yet, you couldn’t.

“Perhaps I never did.” He murmured back, his eyes fleeting away from your face and over to the neon-painted horizon.

Just like any day of the week, the city stretched endlessly below, a sea of neon and shadow, humming with a life that neither of you could quite touch from up here. The penthouse balcony felt like another world entirely—isolated, removed, too quiet despite the distant hum of traffic and the occasional siren wailing through the depths of the N109 zone.

The leader of Onychinus stood near the railing, hands braced against the cool metal, shoulders tense beneath the weight of his thoughts. Another night, another failure. The protocores didn’t exist here, not in the way he needed them to. Another dead end as his experiment at creating one failed spectacularly. He needed something, anything to resonate with, to try and recreate the feeling he had felt back then when a version of you shot him back in his old reality.

He was tired of thinking, unsure of why he even wanted to go back—however, he felt like he was stealing someone else's life, their moments, their memories. His imposter syndrome was getting worse by the day, he just got better at stuffing it down and pretending to ignore it until late into the night when you slept soundly next to him and his eyes stayed wide open.

// You're the best thing to ever happen to me

But also the worst thing to ever happen to me

On that day when I met you, maybe I would rather

That it never happened to me (To me)

The worst of all blessings

The best of all cursеs //

You stepped up beside him, close enough to feel the frustration rolling off him in waves, but you didn’t say anything at first. You just reached for the bottle he had set down on the ledge, taking a slow sip before setting it back down between you.

He scoffed, but it wasn’t sharp. More like a breath of amusement he hadn’t meant to let slip as he looked over his shoulder. "Didn’t take you for a whiskey thief."

"Didn’t take you for someone who’d let a bad mood ruin a perfectly good night," you shot back, bumping your hip lightly against his as you shrugged in a way that was far too casual.

He exhaled, shaking his head, but didn’t pull away. His grip tightened against the railing, tension coiled tight beneath his skin. "It’s not a bad mood. Just—"

"Frustration? Exhaustion? Stubbornness?" You listed off each word with a teasing lilt, watching the faint flicker of something softer pass through his expression. "You really think brooding’s going to get you any closer to what you’re looking for?" Here it was again, your subtle questioning that he wasn’t sure he was ready to begin dealing with.

"And you think dancing will?" His voice was flat, unimpressed, but the flicker of a smirk gave him away. You saw it even in the dim glow of the city lights reflecting off his pale skin.

You grinned, stepping back toward the open space of the large balcony, arms outstretched as you swayed slightly. "It might not get you answers, but it might remind you why you’re still here." Your words sounded almost cryptic to him, but at this point, he was too tired to keep track of every word you spoke. This version of you seemed like both a prophet and a walking riddle, unfortunately to him.

His carmine gaze followed you, something unreadable in the way he looked at you then. Cautious, hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to step into whatever this was. But when you reached for his hand, palm up, waiting... he took it, automatically.

The first step was slow, uncertain, like he had forgotten how to move without a purpose despite being a great dancer. But for the first time ever, it was you who led, guiding him effortlessly, the rhythm slow, the tension melting from his body as the weight of everything else faded into the background. The air between you was warm, charged, something unspoken weaving between each movement as your fingers stayed entwined with his, his other hand settling at your waist like it had always belonged there, the warmth of his palm seeping into your shirt.

You laughed, attempting to spin him around as he gave you an effortless smirk back and a shake of his head before he turned the tables on you and had your body inches away from the floor, your faces close together. You looked beautiful, a flushed mess, strands of hair sticking to your face, and hell, he knew it was an image he’d remember for a long time, because this was an expression, and experience you gave to him voluntarily like it was charity.

The music was distant—something playing from inside the penthouse, soft and melancholic, a tune that felt both familiar and foreign all at once. You swayed together, the city watching from below, his breath warm against your temple when he exhaled slowly, finally giving in to the moment.

"You’re ridiculous," he muttered, voice lower now, something closer to fondness threading through the exasperation.

"And you’re a liar," you murmured back, tilting your head slightly, your nose barely brushing against his jaw as you moved. "You like this." You murmured.

His fingers flexed against your back. He didn’t deny it.

// I should stray away from you

But as the saying goes

"Bettеr than alone, is to be in bad company" //

The movements slowed, a lingering pause between each step, until there was no rhythm left—only the quiet press of your bodies against each other, the weight of his palm against your spine as you both swayed gently back and forth. His breath came slow, measured, as if he was waiting for something. As if he was waiting for you.

Your fingers trailed up, brushing along his jaw before settling at the back of his neck, your thumb tracing small, absentminded circles against his skin. His red eyes flickered down, gaze lingering on your soft lips for just a second too long, before he let out a breath—one that almost sounded like surrender.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed, wasn’t desperate, but it held something deeper, something that had been simmering beneath the surface for far too long, for the last few months he had spent here, really. He kissed you like he was grounding himself in you, like you were the only real thing left in a world full of uncertainty. His fingers tightened against you, pulling you closer, as if he wasn’t ready to let go just yet.

And maybe, just for tonight, neither of you had to.

But it wasn’t enough, for a greedy dragon like him, nothing was ever enough, and yet you knew, encouraged it even, because he was your dragon, no matter the timeline, no matter what came between the two of you.

Sylus’s hands moved before he could stop them, tracing up your spine, anchoring you closer as his lips deepened against yours, his tongue brushing softly against your bottom lip in a silent plea for more. The weight of his past, of his guilt, of the knowledge that you weren’t his but still knew him, pressed down on him like a vice. He needed this—needed you. Because for once, Sylus felt understood, accepted to his core and you didn’t even have to make it verbal.

// You know what they say

Stay close to your dearest friends

But also

Even closer to your adversaries //

This version of you was all he ever wanted, and it felt unfair, unfair that he ended up here this way and you weren’t his from the very beginning. No, instead you moaned, allowing his tongue into your mouth like it always belonged there, your tiny hand pulling on his hair to have him lean more into you, his weight pressing you against the railing.

He broke the kiss only to pull in a breath, his forehead resting against yours, his voice barely above a whisper. "Please, tell me to stop, y/n." The lights of the city flickered in his sharp yet soft eyes and you shook your head, as if disapproving of such request to begin with.

You didn’t. Instead, your fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, tugging him forward until the tall man stumbled slightly, his grip tightening on your waist. The warmth of you burned against him, grounding him in ways he couldn’t explain. He was unraveling, and you were pulling him apart thread by thread, but he didn’t want you to stop, he was hypnotized, no, bewitched by you.

Your lips found his again, slow and deliberate, and something in him cracked. He let himself have this. Just this.

You gasped softly when he shifted, hands sliding beneath your thighs, slightly under your shorts as he lifted you effortlessly. A quiet laugh left you as your back hit the doorframe of the sliding door, his large hot body pressing flush against yours, his mouth finding the pulse at your throat, lingering there like he could memorize the rhythm.

The world outside didn’t matter. His search for the protocores, the fractures between realities, the inevitable moment when he’d have to leave you behind—none of it mattered when you both started bleeding into one, making good use of the curse you’d put on him once upon a time.

Not when you were here, warm and willing, whispering his name like he was something worth holding onto.

Perhaps from the very beginning, you were both his key back and his demise all wrapped up in one. It was like you were a tiny, dangerous package, waiting to be unraveled by his own calloused and tired hands. For now, he was still far away from unraveling the entire truth, but you both knew it was inevitable. All it took was a kiss for your mind to come to a conclusion, that regardless of the result, you would help him, help him go back if he wished to do so. Still, you couldn’t help but think it was bittersweet, you were finally getting what you wanted but the cost was far too much, and you refused to think how long it would later take you to recover from this bond that you both gave into. His gaze was set on you, soft, deep, and all yours, you almost couldn’t bear it.

// But my best enemy is you

Flee from me, the worst is you and I

But if you keep searching for my voice

Forget me, the worst is you and I //

He carried you inside, into the dim light of your shared room, the door sliding shut behind him as your hands tangled in his snowy-white hair, pulling him closer like you were afraid he’d let go.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Sylus let himself believe that he belonged somewhere, that perhaps even a monster like him was worthy of his beloved’s touch.

His hands mapped the curves of your body with reverence, but there was nothing chaste about the way he touched you. He was greedy—fuck, he was always greedy when it came to you. His lips never strayed far from yours, dragging slow, wet kisses down your throat, nipping at your skin just to hear you gasp. He wanted to ruin you, wanted you to come apart under his hands, but fuck, he needed to take his time, too.

You whispered his name, breathless, and he groaned in response, grinding against you with a quiet, desperate noise that only came from years of suppresing one's self desires. He wanted this to be slow, to be soft, but he wanted you more. His fingers curled into the fabric at your hips, gripping tight, like he was barely holding himself together.

The bed dipped beneath you as he laid you down, hovering above you as if he were afraid you’d disappear if he blinked. His lips traced the edge of your soft jaw, your deep collarbone, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more.

"You're mine," he muttered, but it wasn’t a claim—it was a fucking plea. A confession. A desperate, broken thing that he offered you in hopes of acceptance he didn’t need to fight for in the first place.

You pulled him down, fingers tangling at the nape of his neck, guiding him back to your lips. "I always have been." It was a fact, a statement to calm him down, and perhaps yourself too.

And when he kissed you again, it was deeper, hungrier, like he was trying to drown in you.

// I had told you, not to keep looking behind

Your past will follow you and wage war on you //

His mouth left a trail of warmth down your skin, kissing, sucking, marking. As much as he hated himself and perhaps even this entire situation of him ending up here, he wanted to fucking brand himself into you, make sure you’d never forget this, never forget him. His hands slid lower, fingertips teasing at your thighs before parting them, spreading you open for him, eyes dark and wild with need. He slid your shorts down with ease, your soaked panties coming into view.

"Sweetie, look at you," he muttered, voice wrecked as he dragged his knuckles up the inside of your thigh, feeling the way you trembled for him. "So pretty. So fucking perfect."

Your breath hitched, hips arching instinctively when his fingers finally dipped between your legs, long fingers pushing the flimsy fabric aside. He groaned at the wetness he found there, jaw tightening as he slid his fingers through your slit slow, teasing, drawing soft, shuddering gasps from your lips.

"Let me," he whispered, but he wasn’t really asking. His fingers pressed deeper, curling just right, and you moaned, your hands flying to his muscled arms, nails digging into the solid warmth of him. He felt you, squeezing around him, already so sensitive, so eager, and it was fucking perfect.

Your hands moved instinctively, reaching for him, sliding over the hard planes of his back, feeling every muscle tense beneath your fingertips. You traced his spine, his shoulders, memorizing the way he shuddered when your lips found his throat, tasting the salt of his skin, sucking bruises into him because you needed to mark your dragon too, just the way he marked and bit you all those years ago.

He was unraveling, piece by piece, and yet he didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to pull away from the warmth of your body, the soft sounds you made just for him, the way your fingers clutched at him like he was something worth keeping.

"Sylus," you gasped, his name falling from your lips like a prayer in ways that had nothing to do with religion, and that’s when he fucking lost it. His fingers tightened against you, two long digits fucking into you with aching reverence, his forehead pressing against yours as he watched you come undone, as he felt you lose yourself against his hand when his palm brushed your clit.

"That’s it, love," he whispered, his voice wrecked, full of nothing but you. "That’s my good girl. Come for me, show me your face when you do, please," He rasped in a plea, looking like he needed this more than you.

And when you shattered against him, trembling, moaning, desperate—he caught you, held you through it, whispering your name against your lips like a vow he would never break.

Like a man who had finally found home.

But you weren’t done.

Your fingers traced down his chest, slow, deliberate, feeling the way his muscles tensed beneath your touch as you unbuttoned his shirt properly. His breathing was uneven, ragged, his body still wound tight with restraint. He wanted you—fuck, he needed you—but he hadn’t let himself take yet. Hadn’t let himself have.

"Let me touch you," you whispered, pressing soft kisses against his jaw, down the column of his throat, feeling the way he shuddered under your lips. "Let me make you feel good too."

His hands twitched at his sides, fighting against the instinct to take control, to flip you beneath him, to make you his in the way he so desperately wanted. But your fingers, soft yet firm, trailed lower, undoing his belt with an ease and familiarity that sent heat flooding through his veins.

"Y/n," he warned, voice hoarse, but you only smiled, pressing your palm against him through his clothes, feeling how fucking hard he was for you.

"No buts, no ifs," you murmured, your fingers slipping beneath the waistband, wrapping around him, hot and heavy in your grasp. "I want this too. I want you too."

His head tipped back against the pillow, a guttural groan ripping from his throat as you stroked him, slow, teasing, savoring the way he twitched in your hand. His breath stuttered, fingers gripping at the sheets, trying—failing—to keep himself together as you touched him with the same aching reverence he had given you.

"Fuck," he hissed through clenched teeth, his hips jerking slightly as you tightened your grip, finding a rhythm that had him near unraveling, breaking apart beneath you.

And as his desperate moans filled the space between you, you knew—you’d never let him forget how much you wanted him too.

And hell, you weren’t finished yet.

Your fingers left his cock only long enough to pull your flimsy top over your head, baring yourself to him, watching the way his eyes darkened, the way his lips parted in something close to awe as your naked chest came into view. You reached for his shirt next, pushing it down his shoulders, revealing more of the hard, scarred planes of his body beneath your touch.

His breath hitched as you climbed onto his lap, straddling him, pressing your bare skin flush against his. His hands found your waist, gripping tight, as if grounding himself, as if this was something he needed to commit to memory.

"You drive me fucking insane," he murmured, voice rough, strained, his fingers flexing against your hips as you rocked against him, teasing, deliberate, slit dipping into the form of his cock like a mould.

You leaned in, lips brushing against his ear, your breath warm against his skin. "Then let me ruin you, properly."

A shudder ran through him, his grip tightening as if he needed to anchor himself to reality—to you. His lips found your chest, slow, reverent, tracing open-mouthed kisses down the curve of your collarbone, lower, lower, until his tongue flicked against the peak of your soft breast. You gasped, your fingers sinking into his hair, holding him there as he worshipped you with his mouth, his hands, murmuring words against your skin that you could barely make out—something about how perfect you were, how he would never get enough of you.

You arched into his touch, desperate for more, for everything, your fingers trailing down his abdomen, tracing the tense muscles there before reaching between you, finding him, hard and leaking against your palm.

"Please," you whispered, breathless, need curling through your voice, arousal thickening the tone, deep, carnal, animalistic. "I need you inside me."

A strangled noise escaped him as he pulled back just enough to look at you, his pupils blown wide, his breathing uneven. "You sure?" But the way he said it, the way he swallowed hard, like he was holding himself back, you knew he needed it just as much—if not more. Yet, he was guilty, guilty of asking for more than he already had received.

You nodded, guiding him to where you needed him most, the anticipation sending a sharp thrill up your spine. His hands trembled against your waist, and when he finally pushed inside, slow, careful, savoring the stretch, a moan tore from both of you, breath tangling as you held onto each other like this was the only thing keeping you tethered to this plane of existence.

He cursed under his breath, gripping your hips like he wasn’t sure if he could control himself, pulling you flush against him as he set a slow, deep rhythm, dragging pleasure through every inch of you as he moved from below. Every thrust sent heat curling in your gut, the friction perfect, devastating. You gasped, nails digging into his biceps, feeling the muscles tense beneath your touch, his breath ragged against your lips as he fought to keep it together.

But it wasn’t just about the pleasure. It was about this—the way he looked at you like you were the only thing grounding him, like he needed you more than air itself. It was about the way he whispered your name like a prayer, the way he kissed you between gasps, desperate and searching.

"You feel so good," he groaned, voice rough, reverent, like he wanted to worship every part of you. "So fucking perfect, I love you—" the words slipped out before he could even stop them, the emotions between the two of you proving too much.

You whimpered in response, meeting his thrusts, chasing the sensation building between you, chasing him. The way his body slotted against yours, the way he shuddered when you clenched around him—it was intoxicating, overwhelming. “Love you too, my dragon.”

His forehead pressed against yours, sweat slick on both your skin, messy strands of snowy hair in his face, his movements turning erratic as he felt you tightening, trembling beneath him. His grip on you tightened, his pace faltering as he gasped your name like a plea. "I can’t—fuck, I’m gonna—"

"M-me too," you breathed, gripping his face, kissing him hard, letting yourself fall apart with him.

The pleasure crested in a wave so intense it stole your breath, your entire body trembling as you clenched around him, pulling him over the edge with you, white noise ringing in your ears. He groaned against your mouth, burying himself deep, hips stuttering as he spilled inside you, hands shaking as he held you close like he never wanted to let go.

Silence filled the space between you, save for the soft, uneven breaths you shared. His arms tightened around you, his lips pressing against your forehead, your cheek, anywhere he could reach.

"You okay?" His voice was hoarse, but his touch was impossibly soft, fingertips tracing idle patterns along your skin.

You leaned down, smiling against his shoulder, pressing a lazy kiss to his jaw. "More than okay."

He let out a breathy laugh, rolling onto his side and pulling you with him, keeping you tangled in his arms like he wasn’t ready to lose the warmth of you just yet. He kissed your temple, your shoulder, his touch slow, absentminded, like he was memorizing every inch of you all over again.

Neither of you spoke for a long moment, content in the quiet, in the soft hum of each other’s presence. His fingers brushed through your hair, massaging your scalp, grounding himself in the weight of you pressed against him.

"I needed this," he admitted, voice barely above a whisper, almost like he wasn’t sure he had the right to say it.

You curled closer, pressing a soft kiss over his heart. "I know."

A beat of silence stretched between you, but it wasn’t heavy. It was warm, something unspoken settling in the space where words should have been. Your fingers traced idle shapes against his skin, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your palm.

"I don’t care where you came from," you murmured eventually, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t care if you’re not exactly him—because you are. You carry his memories, his feelings, his burdens. You’re my dragon, no matter what."

Sylus stiffened slightly, his breath catching, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, his grip on you tightened, his fingers pressing into your back like he needed to hold onto you, needed to be sure you were real.

"You knew," he breathed, something unreadable in his voice. It wasn’t a question. It was realization, settling into him like an inevitability.

You nodded against his chest. "I had my suspicions, and resonating confirmed them. The way you looked at me, the way you reacted when I called you that name… and then your search… for protocores, I assume? I don’t really know what they do, not exactly, but I know they must be important. And you aren’t looking for something impossible, are you? You are looking for a way back."

His breath hitched slightly, his fingers pausing in their slow movements against your back. You could feel the weight of it, the hesitation, the way he was still balancing between trusting you and protecting you from the truth.

"Tell me," you murmured, tracing your fingers gently along his jawline. "What really happened? How did you end up here?"

He sighed, the sound heavy, resigned. "It was the shot," he admitted finally. "Our, no hers and mine Aether cores… they reacted. I shouldn’t have survived it, not like that. But instead of dying, I woke up here. And it’s all the same but not. It’s wrong, and it’s—"

"Different," you finished for him, tilting your head to search his gaze. "But not entirely, right? Because I’m still here. And maybe that means I can help."

Sylus studied you for a long moment, something unreadable flickering in his expression. You could see the internal war he was fighting—the instinct to bear the weight alone versus the quiet, desperate longing to let you carry some of it with him.

You reached up, brushing your fingers over his cheek, cupping his face in your palm. "I might not understand everything, but my Evol… it’s tied to resonance, to connection. And those protocores—I’ve had them since I was young. Maybe together, we can figure this out. But only if you let me, allow me in."

His throat bobbed, his arms tightening around you as he traced the fractures of your life with the same aching recognition he had carried in his own. Even in this world, you hadn’t been spared from the weight of what had been done to you. Different choices, different faces, but the same pain, lingering beneath your skin like an old wound that never fully healed. His fingers curled slightly against your back, gripping you like a tether. "You really want to get involved in this mess?"

You gave a small, breathy laugh, nudging your nose against his. "I think I already am."

For the first time, something in his shoulders eased, though not entirely. His lips brushed against your temple, a quiet, unspoken surrender, his breath warm against your skin, his presence grounding. He let himself have this, just for a moment longer than he should. Just until the moment shattered.

"Alright," he murmured. "Then let’s start in the lab. Later, in a few days." The words felt like a delay, an excuse to hold onto this a little longer, because the more time he spent with you, the more he feared what it would mean when he finally had to leave. He was falling—already had fallen—for this version of you completely. A dangerous, selfish thing to do, because one day, one way or another, this was going to end, just like all good things in his life.

"Okay." You breathed the word out, the syllable melting into the warmth of the space between you, skin against skin as you inhaled his presence, his hesitation, his unspoken struggle.

A moment passed, his fingers tracing lazy circles against the plane of your shoulder, his other hand resting low on your waist, as if grounding himself in the quiet of your heartbeat. Then, finally, he spoke, the question slipping out in a voice barely above a whisper. "Was it hard?"

You blinked, tilting your head slightly to look up at him. "What?"

"Knowing that the me from this world didn’t remember you the way you remembered him?" There was something guarded in his voice, a careful attempt at detachment that didn’t quite hold.

You exhaled slowly, letting the weight of the question settle between you. "It was," you admitted. "But I never pushed him to. Because I knew I couldn’t force him to be something he wasn’t, or well, didn’t want to be."

His grip on you tightened slightly. "I went through the same thing. Just… in reverse."

You pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, eyes searching his, soft but steady. "Then you know why I never gave up on him, on you."

His expression shifted—something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. He had spent so much time trying to be the version of himself that you deserved, to fill the space left behind by another man, another life. But here, now, with you pressed against him, with the quiet weight of the past and present tangled between your fingers, he wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.

You had never asked him to be anyone but himself.

And yet, somehow, it still didn’t feel like enough. Not when he carried memories that weren’t truly his, not when he was slipping into another man’s place with terrifying ease. He wasn’t supposed to belong here. And yet, with you looking at him like this, with all the warmth and knowing in your eyes, it was hard to remember why he should leave at all.

He swallowed hard, his fingers brushing over the curve of your cheek, hesitant, like he wasn’t sure he had the right to touch you this way. "You know, if you were also an art piece, then whoever created you must have loved you dearly."

The words came unbidden, slipping past his lips before he could stop them. He realized it too late.

Your breath hitched, your fingers tightening ever so slightly where they rested against his chest. You knew those words. You knew them.

His pulse stuttered beneath your touch, and for a moment, neither of you moved. Your lips parted, but whatever you were about to say faltered before it could form.

Because this wasn’t something the Sylus of this world had ever said to you.

It was something else. Older. Something tangled in the past you had spent lifetimes trying to understand.

A memory wrapped in myth, woven into the very essence of your existence. It was a phrase that had echoed through time, through lifetimes, a truth neither of you had fully grasped until now. Because you were the one who cursed him to always find you.

"Sylus…" Your voice was barely above a whisper, something raw laced into the way you spoke his name.

His throat worked around a swallow, but he didn’t let go. Didn’t move away. Instead, he leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours, letting the silence stretch between you, letting it settle.

He wasn’t supposed to stay.

But you weren’t supposed to recognize him either.

And yet, you did. Because no matter what world you were in, what life you lived, he had always been yours. And now, in the quiet of your shared breaths, you both had to reckon with what that meant.

You ran your fingers through his messy hair, feeling the way he shuddered under your touch, how his breath hitched as you traced along his jaw, memorizing the lines of his face like you had a thousand times before. This version of him, the one who knew too much and yet not enough, the one who carried another’s memories but still looked at you like you were the only thing tethering him to this world—this was your Sylus, too. And you weren’t going to let him forget that.

"Take me again," you murmured, voice softer this time, reverent, like an invocation. "After all, you are my magnum opus, too."

His breath left him in a slow, shaky exhale before he surged forward, kissing you like his life depended on it, like you were the only real thing left in his unraveling world. His lips were urgent, desperate, but beneath it, there was something softer, something aching—a quiet kind of devotion buried beneath the hunger.

Your Evol surged between you, wrapping around him like a second skin, slipping into his body, his bones, his very soul. He groaned at the sensation, his grip tightening, his hands pressing into your skin like he was afraid you’d slip through his fingers if he let go. He wasn’t just touching you—he was feeling you in a way he never had before, deeper, like every thread of your being was merging with his.

His lips trailed down your neck, over your collarbone, pressing kisses that felt like prayers whispered into the moonless night. He breathed your name between them, voice hoarse, full of something raw, something unspoken. "I don’t know how to stop wanting you."

"Then don’t, not until you will have to stop because there will be no other choice," you whispered back, and for once, he listened.

// You told me I would never see you walk away

Said you'd never break my heart

Never leave me in the dark

I guess there's just some promises you shouldn't make

Should've known from the start //

The days passed in a haze of quiet moments and endless work. The lab became a space of flickering lights, glowing protocores, and the hum of equations muttered under breath. Sylus had spent hours testing, recalibrating, adjusting parameters, his mind consumed by the impossibility of what he was trying to achieve. But he wasn’t doing it alone.

You were there, beside him, sleeves rolled up, eyes alight with concentration as you fed your Evol into the protocores, trying to get them to react. You asked questions, challenged his theories, made him consider angles he hadn’t before. And despite the weight of his purpose, despite the growing dread of what success would mean, he found himself happy.

It wasn’t loud, wasn’t a rush of euphoria—it was quieter than that. The kind of happiness that settled into his bones, that made him feel like, for the first time in forever, he wasn’t just clawing toward something impossible. He was here, with you. Creating something together.

He watched you, the way you chewed your lip in concentration, the way your fingers flickered with Evol’s glow, and something inside him ached—not in the way it usually did, not with grief or longing, but with something warmer.

He wanted to leave a mark on you, something more than just marks on your body that would blur back into your skin with time.

Not like this. Not like a memory that would fade the moment he disappeared from this world. No, he wanted something real. Something tangible.

So he worked through the night, after you had fallen asleep curled up in the corner of the lab, exhausted but refusing to leave his side. He pieced it together with careful hands, refining every detail, ensuring it was perfect.

By the time you woke, from what presumably wasn’t a very comfortable nap, blinking blearily against the dim light of the lab, he was waiting for you, something small and glinting in his palm.

"What’s that?" you murmured, voice thick with sleep.

The man smirked, but it was softer than usual, less cocky, more... something else. "A gift."

You sat up slowly, rubbing at your eyes before focusing on the small object in his hand. "For me?"

"Who else?" He rolled it between his fingers, and as the light hit it just right, you could see it—a necklace, the pendant intricate yet simple, shaped like something familiar. A dragon, curled protectively around a small, shimmering core, its tail looping around to form the delicate chain that would rest against your skin.

You stared at it, breath catching in your throat.

"Sylus…"

He didn’t meet your eyes immediately, instead focusing on the way the light caught on the edges of the pendant. At the back of the small dragon’s body, barely noticeable unless you looked closely, was an engraving—your name, alongside a phrase in a language almost lost to time. Magnum opus. The words were carved with meticulous precision, as if each letter had been pressed into existence with intent. "It’s not much," he muttered, voice lower than usual. "But I thought… if I leave, I don’t want you to forget. And I wanted something of mine to stay with you, even if I can’t."

Your fingers brushed over the pendant, tracing its curves, before reaching for his hand instead. "Like I ever could."

For once, he didn’t have a smirk or a teasing remark ready. He just looked at you, something vulnerable flashing behind his eyes before he pressed the pendant into your palm, curling your fingers around it like a silent promise.

// Reach out and show a little loving

Shine a little light on me

Show a little loving

Shine a little light on me //

After a moment, his fingers lingered at the chain. "Let me?" His voice was softer now, almost hesitant.

You nodded, and he shifted closer, taking the necklace from your hands with deliberate care. His fingers brushed against your skin as he gathered your hair, draping the chain around your neck, the metal cool against your collarbone. The clasp clicked into place with a quiet finality, and he let his hands settle lightly on your shoulders, his thumbs skimming the curve where your neck met your shoulder.

His gaze dropped to the pendant resting against your chest, something unreadable in his expression. "Looks good on you," he murmured, almost like he was speaking to himself.

You swallowed, pressing your fingers over the pendant. "It’s beautiful, you know."

Sylus let out a quiet exhale, his hands falling away reluctantly. "You’ll keep it on?"

You met his eyes, something warm and unwavering in your voice. "Always, after all it’s a gift from my dragon."

For a moment, he just looked at you, the weight of something unspoken passing between you. Then, with a slow nod, he leaned back, watching the way the pendant caught the light, like he wanted to commit the sight to memory.

The days bled into weeks, and the lab became their second home inside their home. The protocores you gave lined the tables, some glowing faintly, others scattered in varying states of disassembly. Wires snaked across the metal workstations, and the air smelled of burnt circuits, metal, and the faint energy hum of active Evol. It was methodical, precise work—calculations laid out in notebooks, equations scribbled on glass panels, the sound of quiet murmurs filling the space between them.

"If we adjust the frequency output here—" you gestured toward a set of figures on the screen, brow furrowed in concentration. "It might stabilize long enough to sustain a full transfer when I use my Evol."

Sylus leaned back, exhaling, his gaze flickering between you and the numbers. "Theoretically, sure. But the problem isn’t just maintaining the flow—it’s how the protocores respond to prolonged exposure."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms. "That’s the same argument we had two days ago. We already ran the last test at max output, and it held. The issue isn’t the flow. It’s the integration."

He huffed out a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he adjusted a dial on the worktable, watching the way the energy flickered beneath the surface of the half-built device. "You sound like me."

"That’s because I’m right."

He glanced up at you then, something amused—something fond—in his expression before he returned his attention to the mechanism between you. The metal casing was nearly finished, the internal structuring laid out in careful detail. It looked crude, unfinished, but Sylus could see it—the shape of something real, something functional—coming together in front of him.

"We’ll need a power source capable of stabilizing the fluctuations," he muttered, mostly to himself. "Something more stable than raw Evol."

Your fingers tapped against the edge of the table. "Would a secondary protocore work? One embedded into the structure itself?"

He considered that, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "Might. But that’s a risk in itself. If it fractures under pressure—"

"Then we’d both be in trouble," you finished for him, sighing. "I know. But if we can’t sustain the shift long enough for a proper transfer, then what’s the point?"

Sylus went silent, gaze fixed on the unfinished device as his mind ran through every possible failure point, every risk, every outcome. And then, finally, he exhaled, rolling his shoulders back.

"We do it."

You blinked, momentarily thrown by how easily he agreed. "Just like that? You think your consciousness will seperate from the body just like that?"

A ghost of a smirk played at his lips. "You’re the one who said you were right."

You let out a soft laugh, but it didn’t reach your eyes. He saw it—the way you smiled just a little too quickly, the way your hands lingered over the project like you weren’t ready to let go. Like if you just kept working, you wouldn’t have to think about what finishing this meant.

You weren’t the only one pretending.

Neither of you said it. Neither of you acknowledged what came next. Instead, you both turned back to the device, hands moving in tandem, finalizing the last connections, watching as the energy flickered and pulsed in a steady, rhythmic glow.

It was done.

"Will it work?"

A tired breath.

"I don't know, but this seems final."

// My body's on the line now I can't fight this time now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The next few days passed in a quiet limbo. Neither of you spoke about what came next. The equations checked out. The device was ready. The chance of failure was small—too small. But you hoped, in some selfish, desperate way, that it wasn’t small enough. That something, somehow, would keep him here.

Sylus didn’t push to activate it right away. He let the days stretch, let the minutes and hours melt into something softer, something that neither of you acknowledged for what it was. An ending.

You spent those days tangled in quiet conversations, in stolen glances, in the way his hands lingered a little longer when he passed you a tool in the lab. In the way he pressed a kiss to your temple when he thought you were half-asleep after sex that left you both yearning. In the weight of his arm slung across your waist as if he could anchor himself to you.

Neither of you rushed.

Neither of you dared to say goodbye.

Because the moment you activated that device, one of you was going to disappear from each other's lives, forever.

// Take a seat But I'd rather you not be here for What could be my final form Stay your pretty eyes on course Keep the memories of who I was before So stay with me because //

The lab was too quiet. The hum of energy from the device filled the space, pressing against your skin, against your ribs, against the unspoken words lingering between you. The Protocore pulsed steadily, waiting.

"You're sure about this?" your voice was steady, but the slight tremor in your fingers as they hovered over the Protocore betrayed you.

Sylus exhaled, his gaze flickering to you before settling back on the mechanism. "No. But we’re out of options."

Your Evol shimmered at your fingertips, stabilizing the energy field surrounding the device. It crackled, resisting at first, but you pushed past the tension, guiding the flow into something controlled, something manageable.

"If I hold the frequency stable, it should buy you enough time to separate cleanly," you murmured, adjusting your stance as a pulse of energy pushed against you.

"Should," Sylus repeated dryly. He glanced at you then, something in his expression unreadable. "You always did have a habit of gambling with the odds."

You swallowed. "I’d rather gamble than have you miserable, if you are inclined to go back, then just do it." Something in you almost snapped, all that tension contained in your small body.

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he didn’t argue. He only nodded, stepping forward, fingers flexing at his sides, his carmine gaze locked onto the mechanism as though daring it to prove him wrong. A sharp breath. A flicker of hesitation.

Then, he reached for the switch.

Time buckled.

The air around you warped, bending in on itself, light fracturing into something unfamiliar. A deep, guttural hum reverberated through the lab, the walls trembling with the weight of it. Space twisted, folding inward, a tear forming in reality itself.

A strangled gasp tore from Sylus’s throat, his body shuddering as his form split—not in two, but into something neither of you understood. His skin shimmered, his edges blurred, the weight of existence pressing down on him. He looked different—his silver hair shorter at the nape, his carmine eyes clouded with something beyond exhaustion, his entire presence thinner, like he was being stretched too far, pulled in a direction he could never return from.

The sight made your stomach drop.

"Sylus?" Your voice cracked, Evol sparking wildly at your fingertips. The connection between you flickered like a dying star. "No, no, no, hold on!"

His body flickered again. The Protocore pulsed brighter, its hum turning into something shrill, something piercing. He was unraveling before you, a white ringing noise in your ears.

"Don’t—" His, now panicked, voice faltered as his eyes locked onto yours, his hand lifting but never quite reaching you. "You have to let me go."

Your Evol reacted, spiraling out of control as you reached for him as you lost the control over your own emotions, raw energy crackling between your fingertips. You didn’t think—you just acted, instinct overriding logic as you tried to grasp onto something of him, anything, as if sheer will could keep him here.

For a fleeting moment, your hands touched. Just barely. His fingers ghosted over your skin, the sensation featherlight, ephemeral, not enough.

Tears burned in your eyes. "Please—" It wasn’t fair. It was never fair. Yet faced with the consequences of your actions and seflnessnes you couldn’t help but want to be selfish, for once in your life.

His lips parted, something on the edge of his tongue, he mouthed the words at you because he felt like the actual sound wouldn’t reach you.

I love you.

// Honestly I thought I was fully prepared for The threshold in store Stay your pretty eyes on course I guess I never really faced my fears before So stay with me because //

A wrenching sensation tore through the lab. A surge of light, a ripple of pressure that made your ears ring, your body burn with the force of it as the lights went out and some light bulbs tore apart, small glass shards raining over the equipment. The impact of it all sent you staggering back, your vision blurring, a scream tearing from your throat as you felt the world snap back into place.

The Protocore burst into a violent pulse before it shattered, shimmery dust sparkling in the now still air of the lab before silence engulfed you.

A dead, aching silence that pressed against your aching skull like thousands of needles, suffocating, crushing as you fell to your knees, trying to come to terms of what you’ve done just now.

You barely registered the movement on the floor behind you until a sharp, gasping breath broke through the quiet.

Sylus—your Sylus—gasped awake, fingers clawing at the ground as he sucked in deep, ragged breaths. His body jerked, muscles spasming as though something had just ripped him back into existence.

He blinked, unfocused, disoriented. "What—"

But you were still staring at the empty space where he had been, hands trembling, heart hammering wildly as you tried to stop the hiccups. You couldn't remember the last time you had a panic attack this bad, your entire body shaking, as if reaching for something that didn't exist anymore, a comfort that only belonged in your memory.

He was gone.

And this Sylus, your Sylus, didn’t even know why you were crying.

// My body's on the line now Pull the blanket tight now I can feel the light shine on my face Did I disappoint you? Will they still let me over If I cross the line? //

The sensation was a shock to the system—his lungs burned, his body ached, and for a moment, he wasn’t entirely sure he had made it back at all. The shift between two separate timelines had been seamless, cruel, even. One breath, he was watching the tear in time consume him; the next, he was exactly back where he had left, forced to stay almost at the exact second it had all gone wrong.

Memories worth of months trickled into his subconscious all within a few seconds, forcing him to relive all of that, yet making him stay here as if he never left to begin with.

The weight of a body straddled his lap, grounding him in something real, something tangible. The warmth of you, the way your thighs braced against him, the scent of gunpowder thick in the air, your hands hovering over the wound in his chest. A wound that, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, wasn’t healing immediately. The pain was sharp, electric, but it paled in comparison to the disorientation flooding his senses and the ringing noise in his ears.

Still, he tried his best to keep his expression rooted in calmness and forced his vision to sharpen, on you.

You were still over him, breathing hard, panic tightening every muscle in your frame. The gun you had fired lay discarded somewhere on the ground, its barrel still smoking, the air thick with cordite and something else—something wrong. Your hands trembled where they pressed against him, hovering between regret and survival instinct, torn between saving him and finishing what you had started.

And then, for a split second, the world shifted again. The Aether core flickered at the edges of your heart where it was nestled, reacting to something unseen, something lingering between this world and the one he had just left behind. It pulsed, faint but undeniable, something poking at your skull like a thousand needles.

Your breath hitched deep in your throat. A sharp inhale, eyes widening—not in horror, not in fear, but in recognition.

"Sylus?" you whispered in a voice that did and didn’t belong to you at the same time. The craziest part about this was that this version of you didn’t even know his name properly.

Still your words… they were not a question. Not a demand. A call—the same way you had spoken to him in another world. The same way you had reached for him when time had fractured around you. The voice of the woman who had begged him to stay, the woman who had known him in ways you shouldn’t have, couldn’t have.

It struck him like a blade. The breath he took rattled in his wounded chest. You had remembered—for just a second, you had remembered, and hell, if he only came back here to die, this recognition on your face was more than enough for a man who had a dying wish to begin with.

However, that emotion that flickered within your pretty features, slightly different than what he came to remember, was gone in an instant.

The recognition flickered out of your gaze like a dying ember, slipping from your grasp and consciousness before it could root itself in place. The fear returned just as quickly, swallowing it whole, consuming every other emotion in your expression. You blinked, the moment severed, and your hands pressed harder against the wound, grounding yourself in this reality, the only one you knew. The only one you had ever known.

"Shit—stop bleeding—" Your voice trembled, desperate, your grip firm as if you could physically hold him here, as if you could undo what you had done.

Sylus, bleeding out, could only laugh, breathless, hollow, head falling back against the high-backed throne-like chair he was still sat on. What else was there to do?

Because he had made it back.

And yet, he had lost you all over again.

His fingers stiffly twitched at his side, reaching for something that wasn’t there, something that never would be again. The ache in his chest had nothing to do with the bullet lodged inside him and everything to do with the fact that the person he had spent months knowing—the person who had known him back—was gone.

And you, this version of you, looked at him with the same eyes but didn’t see him at all, didn’t see him past the façade he put on.

A dull, slow warmth started spreading beneath your palms. His Evol was finally kicking in, sluggish but effective, helping his wvol with the wound pulling itself back together, knitting flesh where it had been torn apart. The pain dulled, his breath came a little easier, but none of it felt like a victory.

If anything, it was pathetic. The body would heal, as it always did, but the wound carved into something deeper—something raw and untouchable—would never close. That, he knew with certainty.

His breath hitched again, this time with something like amusement. A smirk ghosted his lips, though it barely held together, more like a cruel mockery of what it should have been.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he rasped, voice hoarse but laced with something eerily close to amusement. "Relax, sweetheart. Just scared you a little."

Your fingers twitched against his chest, hesitation breaking through the frantic worry lining your face, you were so naive in your intentions it was almost laughable.

"Bastard."

He exhaled, shaking his head slightly. "You should do a better job next time, kitten."

The words landed between you like a slap, and he almost laughed again at the way your brows furrowed, your lips parting as if to protest. But you didn’t. You only pressed your hands firmer against him, watching the last traces of blood smear against your skin as the wound fully disappeared beneath your touch.

There was a time he thought home was a place, a kingdom of steel and fire where only the strongest survived. Then, he thought home was a person, soft hands pulling him from the wreckage, a voice saying his name like it was something worth remembering. But now, standing at the edge of a world that had rewritten him, he understood—home was never his to claim. It was borrowed, fleeting, a warmth that slipped through his fingers the moment he held it too tight. What is a home, if given by another? A gift? A curse? A promise he was never meant to keep. And in the cruel, inevitable symmetry of it all, he had always been doomed to lose you, in every world, in every lifetime, over and over again.

There was no fight left in him. And you—this version of you—had no idea what he had just lost.

// If I cross the line

If I cross the line //

a/n: divider by @/cafekitsune // fic by: @dijayeah

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