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mandalhoerian · 23 hours ago

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SYZYGY PART I: PERIASTRON / PERIHELION ❥ caleb x reader x xavier | 24K | AO3

SUMMARY:

The summer of your life had a name — Caleb. He was August itself, a world of honey-drenched, cloudless afternoons and laughter of gold-saturated old days echoing through the years, clear as sunlight on water. Gravity, pulling you two together. You orbiting around each other, closer, brighter, almost, almost. Until, just like the dandelion puff of childhood dreams or the sudden drop of a swing going too high — he was gone. Then came Xavier. The quiet glow of the moon, silver constellations scattered against the abyss, not demanding your orbit. He was light without heat, steady and luminous, guiding you through the night Caleb had left behind, illuminating all the spaces where once there had been warmth and wonder instead of emptiness. But what happens when the sun rises again to chase away the moon and stars that endured without it? Can the sky hold them both? Can you? Or must one always eclipse the other?

WARNINGS: pseudocest im embarrassed do NOT look at me, this features an underage caleb getting a hard-on because of an underage reader for the first time. it's not sexualized or detailed, and there is no scene of masturbation. i tried to handle it with care and describe it as vaguely as possible and work around it, grieving/mourning, blood and injury, angst, fluff, the everpresent bittersweet undertones, backshots from xavier at the end. this is (going to be) a threesome fic, not a love triangle in which you choose one, so, proceed with caution.

A/N: yeah, uh. remember this post? i'm writing it now. before i knew it though it grew so much, so i had to separate it into two parts. this one is what i call "parallel lines", in which xavier's presence is heavily present in your life with caleb before they meet through you, and vice versa. this concept is like the gift that keeps giving, and i hope you like it as well. what do you want to happen in the next chapter? please don't be shy to interact and tell me what you think, and help me out by reblogging for the second part to come out faster! thank you so much! <33

For as long as Caleb had known himself, he had been jovially tethered to you, less a brother and more an ever-present guardian, orbiting your life like some self-appointed fairy godmother who had found his life’s purpose in watching over you.

When school was in session, his days began before the sun even thought about rising — dragging himself out of bed at an ungodly hour to help Gran with breakfast, shaking off sleep with the clatter of dishes and the smell of butter hitting a hot pan. The kitchen was always dimly lit, humming with the quiet sounds of the world waking up. He'd scrub down counters while eggs sizzled, sweep the floors before the coffee had finished brewing, steal bites of toast in between flipping pancakes.

And then — your lunch. He always made it just how you liked. If you wanted peanut butter, he spread it thick. If you swore off carrots for the week, he swapped them out for something else, slipping in a treat when Gran wasn’t looking.

Breakfast was always a battlefield. You, groggy and barely functional, glaring at the sight of anything green on your plate, and him, sighing, coaxing, bribing, bending over backwards just to get you to take a single bite of something that wasn’t sugar-coated.

And then, of course, the walk to school.

You always complained, swearing you didn’t need him to take you, that you could find your way just fine. And yet, without fail, you were right there beside him every morning, rubbing sleep from your eyes, shuffling along in whatever oversized hoodie you’d thrown on that day, your shoelaces untied, the imprint of your pillow still faint against your cheek.

The moment you arrived at the school gates, the dynamic shifted. Caleb wasn’t just your gege anymore — he was Caleb Xia, the local celebrity.

Kids greeted him like he was some hometown hero, flocking together in the distance just to get a look at him, either scattering when he noticed them or waving at him if they were brave enough. Teachers nodded at him in approval, a dependable, responsible older brother. And you? You just rolled your eyes, huffing, tugging at his sleeve like you’re embarrassing me, can you leave already? as he lingered in conversation, half-smirking at your impatience.

The highlights of his school day weren’t the classes or the fleeting moments of downtime between them — it was lunch breaks spent calling you, phone wedged between his shoulder and ear as he unwrapped whatever quick meal he’d grabbed from the cafeteria. "Did you eat yet?" was always his first question, followed immediately by, "Did you like it?" as if your opinion on the food he packed for you was the most crucial piece of intel of his day. He could practically hear you rolling your eyes through the speaker, mumbling something through a mouthful of rice or bread. It didn’t matter — he just needed to hear it, to know.

After that, his mind switched gears. Physical training, drills fine-tuned for DAA hopefuls, routines meant to push his endurance to the next level. His uniform stuck to his back, sweat beading along his brow, but he relished the burn, the ache in his muscles a steady reminder of why he was doing this. When training ended, he sprawled out on the bleachers, water bottle pressed against his overheated neck, scrolling through footage of aerospace battleships on his phone. Each sleek design, each launch, every maneuver—it reminded him why he worked so hard. Why he wanted this so badly.

But none of that mattered when late afternoon rolled around.

His friends ribbed him for it, tossing casual jabs his way as they packed up their things. "Ditching us again for babysitting duty?" someone teased. Caleb only smiled from ear to ear and didn't pay any mind to it, pretending the subtle condescension thrown your way didn’t needle under his skin. They didn’t get it. They never did.

Because for him, the best part of the day wasn’t the grind, wasn’t the push toward his future. It was the moment the last bell rang at your school, and he was already there, stationed by the gate, feet bouncing slightly on the pavement, waiting to see you emerge from the crowd.

Nothing compared to that anticipation. The way his breath would hitch for half a second as he spotted you — bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder, uniform slightly wrinkled, the sleeves of your cardigan pushed up because you always ran too warm. The moment your eyes met his, and that immediate, effortless way you gravitated toward him, your first words never hi but something offbeat, something small and inconsequential.

Like it was a given. Like, of course, he’d be here. Of course, you’d find him first.

And as he fell into step beside you, listening to whatever was on your mind that day, the earlier teasing, the exhaustion, the ache of his training—all of it faded into something background, something irrelevant.

Some days, your hand in his felt wrong. Too loose, like you might slip away if he wasn’t careful, or too tight, like you were holding on for something unspoken. Those were the days when your usual chatter dwindled, when your feet dragged instead of skipping along the sidewalk, when your eyes darted past him instead of meeting his.

Caleb never asked outright — he knew just what to do, adjusting, seamlessly redirecting your path before you could even notice, with slight nudge at your shoulder, an easy pivot at the next turn, suddenly you weren’t heading straight home anymore.

The little grocery store on the corner, the one with the faded awning and the soft chime at the door, became your unspoken secret place. The scent of paper and ink mingled with something sweet the moment you stepped inside — an inviting warmth that settled between the shelves lined with pastel notebooks, glittering pens, and delicate origami sets among a handful of aisles, lined with neatly stacked boxes of biscuits, rows of colorful trinkets in plastic bins, glass jars of fruit jellies that caught the light just right.

But it wasn’t just the stationery that did it. It was the back garden, where clusters of hydrangeas bloomed in careful bursts of lavender and blue, their petals shifting with the breeze. It was the way the sun liquidized through the narrow windows, turning the space golden in the late afternoon, a place stitched into memory as a guarantee: no matter how heavy your day had been, you would leave here lighter.

It was the colorful bins of imported candies, the tiny glass jars of trinkets shaped like animals and tiny constellations, the slow rhythm of browsing through things neither of you needed but always wanted. And most of all, it was you, little by little, softening again, your fingers grazing the spines of journals, your lips quirking upward when he held up some ridiculous eraser shaped like a cat with sunglasses.

Someone else might’ve called it a routine. Caleb knew better.

It wasn’t a habit. It wasn’t even a conscious decision. It was instinct, written into his bones, an unshakable part of him. Taking care of you wasn’t something he did — it was something he was.

Caleb dropping to one knee, his uniform pants already scuffed and dirt-streaked from basketball practice, to wordlessly tie your undone shoelaces, his fingers moving with muscle memory before you could even notice they were loose. The sting of fresh scrapes and bruises on his skin ignored in favor of making sure you wouldn’t trip.

Caleb at the kitchen table, the sharp scent of freshly peeled apples mixing with the smell of open textbooks, carving them into little bunny shapes while you scrawled through your homework, utterly absorbed. You never asked him to, but when he placed them next to your notebook, you’d pick them up one by one without looking, popping them into your mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Caleb picking out the tomatoes from your sandwiches, his hands moving with an unthinking efficiency, discarding them onto his own plate before sliding your food back to you. Gran had insisted he leave them in, but he never listened. You never ate them, anyway.

Caleb slinging both your backpacks over his shoulder at the end of a long day, even when you huffed about being a big girl now. Even when you swatted at him in protest. He carried them anyway, adjusting the straps like it was second nature, making it look effortless despite the weight pressing against his shoulders.

Caleb pressing the cool mouth of his water bottle against your arm, nudging it toward you because some quiet alarm in his brain had gone off, warning him that you hadn’t had a sip of water all day. No words exchanged — just the expectant arch of his brow, the silent order in his gaze.

Caleb swiping a thumb across your cheek, brushing away the stray crumbs from whatever snack you had been stuffing into your mouth mid-conversation. His touch was brief, casual, like a passing thought, but it lingered — just for a second — before he pulled away, already moving on to something else.

It was nothing, all of it. Small, everyday things. Thoughtless, maybe, to him. But to everyone else — adults looking on with indulgent smiles, other boys his age shaking their heads with exaggerated groans — it was something more. "God, Caleb, you’re setting the bar too high. You know most guys would trade their little sisters for a corn chip, right?"

Caleb’s instinct to look after you didn’t end at the school gates. Even with the separation of campuses forcing distance between you, his presence lingered in ways you never noticed — woven into the small, seemingly inconsequential moments of your day.

It wasn’t about dictation. You hated being told what to do, slipping through the cracks of authority like water through cupped hands. So instead, Caleb nudged. Shifted. Steered.

A casual mention of someone’s cool Lumiere pencil case turned into you borrowing their markers, which turned into sitting beside them in art class. A passing remark about a classmate’s awesome Lumiere trading card collection suddenly had you talking to them at recess. The kids who shared their snacks without hesitation, who pulled out chairs without asking, who held their ground when pettiness soured the lunch table — those were the ones Caleb quietly nudged you toward.

It never felt unnatural. That was the key. He didn’t force anything, never shoved you in any particular direction. He just made it easy.

A suggestion to invite someone over, tossed out so casually it barely felt like a suggestion at all. A last-minute reminder that some kid — one he had already vetted in the background of his mind — liked the same ridiculous show as you, ensuring you had something to bond over.

And if certain kids seemed off — if their teasing had an edge to it, if they tested boundaries in a way that felt just a little too familiar to Caleb’s instincts—he never said a word. He didn’t have to. He simply didn't encourage those interactions, didn't make space for them, let them wither naturally while something better took root.

You never noticed the quiet maneuvering and how he even knew the information about those classmates despite being an upperclassman. You never realized how your world had been subtly, deliberately arranged in a way that kept you surrounded by good people. People Caleb knew would look out for you when he wasn't there.

And that was the point.

No one had questioned it thus far. Neither had he. There was nothing to be questioned.

Until today.

It was hot. The kind of thick, sweltering summer heat that made the air shimmer and the pavement burn. The wooden porch steps beneath him radiated warmth, baked through by the afternoon sun, carrying the scent of dry wood and dust. Cicadas droned in the distance, their unrelenting hum pressing in from every direction, blending with the tinny sound of the (probably-not-appropriate) streamer’s voice coming from his phone.

You were sprawled beside him, popsiclle stick half-forgotten in your fingers, red syrup trailing down your wrist in slow, sticky rivulets. Caleb’s eyes flicked to it absently, knowing you wouldn’t notice until it reached your elbow. Your bare feet were pressed against his leg, leeching his shade like some smug little barnacle. He groaned, giving your ankle a lazy shove, but it was more for show than any real effort to get you to move.

Every so often, you’d lean against him, cheek brushing his shoulder, the heat from your skin seeping through the fabric of his t-shirt. The scent of artificial cherry clung to your breath, mixing with the toasty cotton and the faintest trace of his own shampoo. It was too hot for this. Too hot for you to be all over him, only to wiggle restlessly a second later, squirming back into place like you had no idea what you were doing to him.

He could’ve moved. Should’ve, probably. But he didn’t. Just huffed like it was an inconvenience, like he wasn’t fighting the stupid grin pulling at his mouth, like he wasn’t waiting for you to settle against him again.

And then the screen door creaked open, and the heavy scent of heat-crisped fabric softener drifted out as Gran stepped onto the porch, hands settling firmly on her hips, and said it.

"You're getting too big to be stuck to Caleb all the time, dear. You're not a baby anymore."

It wasn’t meant to be sharp, wasn’t meant to sting, but the comment lodged in Caleb’s chest like a stone dropped into deep water, sinking fast, heavy and cold.

Not a baby anymore.

Obvious. So obvious it should’ve bounced right off him. He was nearly a grown-up, already edging taller than some of the older boys, his limbs stretching out of last year’s clothes. His tank top, once loose, clung to him now, damp with sweat at the collar. His shorts were scuffed at the knees from a summer spent biking too fast, landing too hard. He was supposed to be out on the blacktop, running plays with the high schoolers, scraping his elbows on asphalt, staying out past the first flicker of streetlights without a second thought, doing something — anything — that didn’t involve a permanent shadow trailing at his heels that would get the upperclassmen laughing. And you…

What were you supposed to be doing? Not hanging off of him, apparently. Not pressing your warmed skin against his in the heat of the day, not reaching for his hand out of instinct, not tilting your head toward him when you laughed, as if his reactions still mattered most.

The stick of his finished popsicle rested on his tongue, sticky-sweet, a lingering taste of artificial apple that felt almost mocking now. His fingers flexed, restless, drumming once against his knee before stilling.

His eyes flicked toward you — kicking your legs lazily against the porch steps.

"Then what is he?" You wrinkled your nose, squinting up at Gran as if the answer should have been obvious. "Just big?"

Gran chuckled, shifting her weight as she leaned against the doorframe, a soft amusement ushering her voice. "Big enough to start weaning you off a little."

And just like that, the rock pressing against Caleb’s ribs sank deeper, like someone had tied it there, pulling everything inside him tight and wrung out.

Weaning you off.

The thought made something in his chest ache, like a muscle being stretched too far, too fast. The thought of you — apart from him, orbiting somewhere beyond his reach — felt foreign, wrong. Not turning to him first? Not following his lead? Where would you even go? And worse — who would you go to?

"That’s dumb," you declared, licking the last of the syrup from your fingers with a casual finality that almost soothed the raw edges of his nerves. "Why would he do that?"

You sounded so sure. So utterly certain, like it was a fact of the universe. Caleb clung to that certainty, let it settle in his chest, tried to believe in it as much as you did. But then Gran hummed, low and knowing, like she had seen this all before, like she was watching something inevitable play out in real time.

She turned to Caleb, fixing him with a look that sat too heavy on his shoulders. "Caleb won’t want you tagging along forever."

Something lurched inside him.

His heart, steady just a moment ago, suddenly pounded too hard against his ribs. The space between his shoulders burned. He parted his lips to argue, but no words came, his throat tight, thoughts tangled.

"No," you huffed, scrunching your face, clear unhappiness bleeding into your voice. "He’s my gege."

Yes. Exactly.

Then why did Gran sound like that? Why did she act like this was some inevitable truth, like he would want you to stop trailing after him, like he would ever just let you go? He didn’t mind it — of course he didn’t.

A flash of heat rolled down his spine, unsettling and sudden, a strange pressure creeping under his skin. His body tensed against it, a shudder running straight through his core before he could stop it.

No. He liked when you followed him. He wanted you there, always half a step behind, always reaching for his sleeve, always seeking him first. That wasn’t weird, was it?

Gran knew exactly what she was doing. The amused curve of her lips, the way she adjusted her stance, arms folded loosely, her gaze warm but knowing—it was the look of someone who had already seen the ending of a story before anyone else even knew it had begun. But she was kind enough not to say it aloud.

"All right," she conceded, her voice easy, lilting, teasing but patient. "If you really think you're okay with being tied to him for life—"

"I am," you declared, not even letting her finish. Not missing a single beat.

It hit Caleb like a struck match to dry air — instant combustion. His pulse faltered, then surged, something white-hot and golden unfurling in his chest. A triumphant, yes, a relief so fierce it made his head spin, his body hum with something too wild to name from you sayingit like it was the most given thing in the world.

But Gran wasn’t done.

"But what if he isn't?" she pressed. "What about when he finds his special someone?"

The concept was an anathema lodged into the gears of his mind. Special someone.

A vague, faceless figure materialized in the space next to him, spectral and wrong. Another girl, maybe. Someone else at his side, standing too close, reaching for his sleeve the way you did now, calling his name with too much familiarity. Someone who would take up space that should be yours — laughing with him over dumb inside jokes, stealing food from his plate, tugging on his hand in crowded spaces without thinking.

Taking care of her. Looking out for her. Ruffling her hair when she did well on a test, cooking for her, walking her home, bringing her gifts without needing a reason—

His stomach twisted sharply, his insides wrung tight like a dishcloth, and suddenly, the popsicle stick in his grip felt foreign, sharp. Slowly, he became aware of the way his fingers had curled around it, tight enough that splinters had bitten into his palm. Too tight.

The porch creaked as you shifted closer, knees bumping against his, your oversized t-shirt — his, actually, stolen ages ago — hanging off one shoulder, damp with summer sweat. You tilted your head, strands of sticky hair clinging to your forehead, blinking up at him with that wide, guileless stare. Your eyes, bright and searching, caught the light, reflecting flecks of gold.

"Caleb…"

There was concern there, nestled between the syllables of his name. An innocent plea, a tug at something deep inside him that he wasn’t ready to name.

His skin prickled.

"Gran’s being silly, pip-squeak," shot out too fast, too forced, but he grinned through it anyway, stretching his face into an easygoing mirror of comfort. With every fiber of his being, he shoved everything back down — buried it under the warmth of the day, under the scent of melting sugar in the air, under the sound of your breathing, steady and trusting beside him. His fingers flexed, then relaxed just enough to let him flick the splintered popsicle stick onto the porch steps. "There’s no way I’m ditching you! Come on, are we finishing the episode or what? We’ve got a lot to catch up on."

He slung an arm around you, dragging you back against his side like it was nothing, like it wasn’t the only thing grounding him in that moment. Your skin was warm, sun-drenched and soft, the scent of your shampoo still clinging to the damp strands of your hair. You leaned into him without hesitation, fitting against him the way you always had.

And yet.

Something inside him stirred, curled its fingers around his ribs, squeezed tight.

He wasn’t supposed to feel this way.

The sky shifted, brilliant blue bleeding into orange, then purple, the air growing thicker as the heat of the day slowly receded. Gran’s voice filtered out from the kitchen window, something about dinner, but Caleb wasn’t listening. He wasn’t here anymore. His thoughts drifted somewhere further, somewhere he didn’t want to go — somewhere you couldn’t follow.

His thumb rubbed absently at the crook of your elbow, tracing slow circles over the softest part of your skin, a mindless habit meant to soothe — himself, that is.

The thought clung to him, a persistent dog at his heels, refusing to be shaken loose. It trailed him through the evening, barking at him nonstop as he moved through the small rituals of routine.

It was there when he set the table, watching you from the corner of his eye as you padded barefoot across the linoleum, the oversized sleeves of your pajama top slipping past your wrists. It was there when you tugged at his sleeve, your voice soft but insistent, grabbing his attention just as he pulled the dish from the oven. Feed me, your eyes seemed to say, mouth already open, waiting. And, like always, he gave in — pressing the edge of a still-hot bite against your lips after he blew on it, pretending not to notice the way your breath hitched as you chewed.

It was there when you curled up beside him later, your body slack with sleep, limbs tangled in the throw blanket you’d stolen from his lap. Your breath tickled against his arm, warm and steady, stirring something deep in his chest that he didn’t want to name. The scent of your shampoo — faint now, laced with the salt of dried sweat from a long summer day — lingered between you. He told himself he wasn’t listening to the soft, rhythmic exhales, wasn’t matching his breathing to yours.

And then, it was there when he tucked you into bed. Just like always.

You blinked up at him sleepily, covers pulled high, cheek squished against your pillow. Your room smelled like you — faintly sweet, warm, something nostalgic he couldn’t describe but had known all his life. His fingers brushed the edge of your blanket as he lingered by your side.

It was normal.

It was always normal.

And yet, the thought, the one he had spent the entire day trying to drown out, pressed against the back of his mind like an uninvited whisper.

He couldn’t imagine not wanting you by his side for the rest of his life.

Years later, Caleb would pinpoint this summer, the summer of his fourteenth year, as the day something shifted irreversibly. The death of whatever childhood innocence had once dressed itself as sibling love.

An apple blossom plucked before its time, its petals discarded in favor of a fruit too heavy, too low-hanging, too wrong to belong among the delicate branches of the family tree.

Xavier never saw you cry at the funeral.

You had stood still, wrapped in black, hands curled into the fabric at your sides, nails pressing half-moon indentations into your palms. The air had smelled like freshly turned earth and incense, the whispers of condolences processed with you nodding along when spoken to, shaking hands, murmuring words that felt rehearsed, felt expected beneath the weight of something heavier, something unsaid. Your face was unreadable, gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the two caskets, one of which was empty, beyond the faces of mourners, beyond here.

He didn’t see you cry when you returned to what was left of home, either. Not when you stood at the threshold of devastation, the scent of charred wood and melted plastic still thick, mingling with the metallic tang of exposed steel. Not when you traced the edge of a broken picture frame with trembling fingers, or when the wind rattled through the skeletal remains of walls that had once held your precious family safe. If grief lived in you then, it had no tongue, lurking behind you like a ghost waiting to be acknowledged.

No, the first time you let him see you cry was months later.

It didn’t loom like an impending storm, didn’t announce itself with thunder and lightning. One moment, the world was steady. The next, the floodgates had opened.

His kitchen was warm, steeped in the golden hues of a sun too lazy to set just yet, its light stretching long across the counter where you sat. One leg was tucked beneath you, the other swinging idly, the heel of your sock skimming against the cabinet with soft, rhythmic taps. The room smelled of burnt sauce — nose-stinging, acrid, clinging to the air like a mistake neither of you wanted to acknowledge, and the pan sat abandoned on the stove, its contents an unappetizing mess of charred edges and failed ambition, but for once, you hadn’t laughed at him yet. That was the first sign.

Xavier leaned against the counter across from you, arms folded, waiting for the inevitable teasing. But it never came.

Instead — your breath caught.

A small thing. Barely there. An inhale cut short, like something had snagged on the way down.

His eyes flickered toward you just as your thumb hovered over your phone screen, frozen in place. The glow of it bathed your face in cold white light, so at odds with the warmth spilling in through the window. You weren’t looking at him. Weren’t looking at anything, really — just staring at the screen, your face blank.

And then, without sound, without warning, you folded into yourself.

Like something inside you held too tightly for too long had given way.

He knew this kind of breaking. Intimately.

It didn’t strike like lightning, didn’t split a person open in a single, violent moment. No, it settled, burrowed deep into the marrow, rewrote the shape of the bones it took root in. He had felt it before, held it before — in another life, in another ending. When your body had gone too still against his. When your breath had slipped against his neck, not with fear, not with struggle, but with something soft. A shaky exhale. A barely-there smile. A release so quiet, it had broken him more than any scream ever could.

He knew how grief hollowed a person out.

How it made ghosts out of the living, how it made you ache for someone even when they were right there, breathing the same air, sitting just an arm’s reach away.

And still — watching you now — it hurt.

You swiped at your face, impatient. Like you could erase the tears before they even had a chance to fully exist. But your hands betrayed you. They shook.

Xavier turned off the burner, the flame vanishing with a quiet click.

Gently, he pried the device from your grip. You let him. No resistance, no glance upward. Just the smallest movement, turning into him, pressing your forehead into his shoulder as if you could fold yourself into the fabric of his shirt, disappear into the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

The screen dimmed in his palm, but the voice still filtered through the speaker, sunny and youthful, threaded with a teasing affection that made Xavier’s throat tighten.

"I’ll be back soon. Be good, okay? Or you’ll be doin’ the cooking this time and I won’t lift a finger to help you."

A promise. A joke. A lie, but not an intentional one.

Then — a sound.

Small. Fractured. Barely more than an exhale, but enough to hit like a wound splitting open.

Xavier didn’t ask. Didn’t need to.

Instead, he shifted, lowering his chin against the crown of your head, his arms curling around you in a hold that wasn’t tight, but anchoring. Until the light from the window cooled into that dusky shade of evening, casting long shadows, making the edges of both of yours melt into one.

The same summer that had been the genesis of Caleb’s anxieties about growing apart, you wouldn’t shut up about the summer camp he was sure Gran had sent you to just to put space between the two of you. Much to his chagrin, you had returned beaming, spirits fiery, smelling like lake water and pine sap, and carrying an entire new world in your hands.

Not that he minded — not really. He had always liked listening to you, always liked the way you told stories with your whole body, hands gesturing wildly, feet kicking the air, voice rising and falling like you were spinning some grand epic instead of just talking about canoe races and bonfire singalongs.

But this time, the stories weren’t about him.

They weren’t about things you had done together.

Instead, they were about them.

Lian. Cass. Milo. Names that meant nothing to him but tumbled so effortlessly from your lips, light and familiar, flung at him like paper planes, each one carrying a piece of you away. Lian said this, Cass did that, Milo was so funny when—

Your laughter filled the space between you, unguarded and bright, the kind that made your whole body move with it — shoulders shaking, hands bracing against your knees as if you needed to physically steady yourself from the force of the memory. You were sitting cross-legged on the couch, your oversized academy hoodie bunching at your elbows, the hem riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of bare skin above your pajama shorts.

Caleb watched, his own smile engaging, practiced — the kind he knew was expected in moments like these. He leaned back against the armrest, stretching his legs out beneath the coffee table, socked feet grazing against yours without thought. Yeah? What’d he say? The words left his mouth before he could register them, autopilot kicking in where his thoughts strayed.

You inhaled sharply, hands flailing slightly as you tried to contain your excitement. "Okay, so we were in the mess hall, and Cass dared Milo to chug this absolutely vile shake we made by spinning this random online wheel, right? Like, I’m talking — smelled like feet and regret. Anyway, Milo, being the overachiever that he is, actually considers it, and then — Lian, oh my god — just looks at him and goes, ‘I hope your digestive system is strong enough for this betrayal because in spirit, you aren’t.’"

You barely got the last words out before dissolving into another fit of laughter, head tilting back, eyes squeezed shut in delight, hands clapping together like a little cymbal monkey, and the sound wrapped around him like the softest parts of childhood.

Caleb nodded, fingers curling slightly against his knee. "Yeah. That’s — uh, that’s funny."

It wasn’t.

The words felt hollow in his mouth, like biting into a fruit that looked ripe but tasted wrong.

This Lian guy — what was his deal? A little too self-aware, wasn’t he? Try-hard humor, the kind that made people laugh at things instead of with them. The type of jokes even Zayne would roll his eyes at.

“You have to hear about this too! One night during campfire stories, Lian started messing with the group by making up these ridiculous prophecies. You had to be there, but trust me, it was so good. He told Milo that he was doomed to trip over a tree root before the week was out and Milo actually did trip! It was insane. So obviously, we decided that Lian was our new oracle and now he gives everyone fake fortunes, like ‘beware the wrath of the cafeteria lady,’ or ‘your socks will mysteriously disappear in the night.’ And honestly? They’ve all come true. It’s freaky. So, everyone thought with his powers, we should overthrow the entire camp and take over as co-rulers, and honestly, I think we could do it."

At one poing, Caleb had turned around, elbow braced against the couch arm, fingers curled loosely against his temple, and giving you that look, the one that said he was listening, that you had his full attention — but if you peered in closer, you’d see the way his gaze had dulled just slightly, like the glimmer behind his pupils had been quietly snuffed out.

"Oh yeah?" His voice came out smooth, too smooth, an autopilot response. "Where’d this revolution come from, exactly?”

"Okay, okay!" You beamed, sitting up straighter, knees bouncing with the effort of holding in your excitement. "So it all started when we got caught sneaking extra marshmallows from the mess hall. Lian was like, ‘This is tyranny, and we must rise up!’ So obviously, we started plotting this whole elaborate scheme to recruit our bunkmates and take control of the schedule board. If we changed the wake-up calls and sneaked into the admin office, we could make it so we got an extra hour of free time every day—”

Your hands waved wildly as you talked, nearly smacking him in the face at one point. Caleb barely blinked, smile thinning out a bit as you continued, oblivious.

"—and then Lian said that if we were in charge, we’d have unlimited access to the snack stash and, Caleb—imagine—unlimited s’mores!"

You looked at him then, eyes wide, expectant, your lips still parted from your last sentence like you were waiting for him to get it, to light up the way you did, to jump in and tell you it was brilliant.

Instead, Caleb nodded slowly, lips pressing together in that familiar, measured way, the one that meant he was choosing his words carefully. "Sounds… revolutionary."

"Right?!" You beamed. "Lian even made a fake list of camp rules with ridiculous demands, like mandatory nap time and designated hammock hours. And you know what? I think he'd make a great leader.”

"Well, I mean, I thought you were supposed to be co-rulers?"

"Oh, we are," you said quickly, leaning back against the couch with a dreamy sigh. "But sometimes I feel like Lian just naturally takes charge, you know? He always has these ideas, and everyone just listens to him. It’s kinda amazing."

“Yeah. Amazing.”

"And Cass invited me to a sleepover this weekend," you announced, dropping the words like a meteor in still water. "Her parents are hosting, please, please, please! Can I go?"

Caleb barely had time to process before his stomach knotted, a visceral, immediate reaction.

No.

The word was right there, balanced on the tip of his tongue, begging to spill out before he could even think. No explanation. No reason. Just no.

His fingers curled tighter around the book in his lap, the spine pressing into his palm, though he hadn't turned a page in over ten minutes.

He didn’t know this Cass. Had never met her, had never had a say in whether or not she was someone you should be spending time with. Hadn’t chosen her for you.

You were watching him, chin propped on your hands, your knees tucked to your chest where you sat at the other end of the couch. Expectant. Like you were sure he would say yes and asking for the sake of asking.

Something in his chest twisted, sharp and unrelenting.

He wanted to be selfish. Wanted to say no because it wasn’t normal for things to be changing like this. Wanted to tell you to stay home, to keep things exactly the way they had always been. That sleepovers weren’t necessary, that you didn’t need to be anywhere else.

But he wasn’t your parent.

He wasn’t your guardian.

But he was your gege. Wasn’t he?

His breath came a little too tight, but he forced himself to smile anyway, reaching out to ruffle your hair the way he always did. The way he should. The way that meant nothing had changed.

"Yeah," he said, swallowing down the frog in his throat. "Have fun."

Your whole face lit up, legs kicking excitedly against the cushions. "I will!"

He forced out a chuckle, the sound barely reaching his ears. "Don't forget to give Gran her parents' contact numbers, okay? I'll drop you off."

That night, long after you had gone to bed, Caleb found himself standing outside your room, barefoot on the floor, staring at the thin ribbon of light seeping out from beneath your door, pale and flickering as your shadow moved beyond it, listening to the soft rustle of fabric the quiet scrape of a zipper, the muffled shuffling as you rearranged the contents of your overnight bag.

He had done this before. Stood in this exact spot, staring at the door separating him from you, listening to the quiet sounds of you existing on the other side. When you were younger, it had been different — he used to do it just to check, just to make sure you were still breathing. A habit formed in childhood, lingering into habit, into routine.

But this time?

The space between him and that door felt vast, like he was standing on one side of a canyon that hadn’t been there before. He wasn’t checking in. He was watching something slip through his fingers, something skittering out of reach.

His fingers twitched at his sides.

He could knock. He could find an excuse — ask if you needed an extra charger even though it was you who usually came asking for one, joke about how you were probably overpacking for just one night, tease you about stuffing half your closet into your bag.

He could say something.

But he didn’t.

He just stood there, letting the seconds stretch long and thin between you.

And then, with a quiet exhale, he turned away, and turned in for the night.

Caleb lay in bed, eyes fixed on the ceiling, but he wasn’t really seeing it. The shadows cast by the faint glow of his bedside clock stretched long and distorted as the numbers ticked forward, marking the slow crawl of time. Sleep never came. He didn’t expect it to.

His mind wasn’t drifting — it was pulling, unearthing something he hadn’t allowed himself to think about in years. A memory, worn at the edges but still sharp where it mattered.

The stories you used to tell.

Before camp. Before Gran. Before normalcy wrapped itself around your lives like an ill-fitting skin. Before you both learned how to live outside the sterile, white-washed walls where childhood had been something to endure rather than experience.

Back then, in the cold fluorescence of a place that smelled of antiseptic and something metallic beneath it, you had been the light.

The dreamer.

The one who could take four walls and turn them into something else entirely.

"I don’t belong here, my home is up here in the stars," you had whispered to him once, curled up on the too-thin mattress beside him, your voice hushed like the walls themselves had ears. "But it’s okay. He’s coming any day now."

"Who?" he had asked, because he knew the answer but wanted to hear you say it.

"My knight."

You had said it with absolute certainty, with a conviction so fierce that it almost made Caleb believe it too. "He promised he’d come back for me. But I won’t leave you here. He can take us far away, somewhere safe. Somewhere we don’t have to be afraid anymore."

Somewhere beyond the reach of men in white coats.

Back then, your world had been built on make-believe. On whispered prophecies and stories woven in the dark, each one an attempt to carve hope from the letters making up despair. And Caleb —

Caleb had never put stock in fairy tales, never believed in heroes riding in on white horses, or in distant kingdoms built on wishes and fate. But he had believed in you.

He had believed in the way your voice could soften the sharp edges of reality, the way you could take something cold and sterile and fill it with warmth, make it bearable. He had listened — really listened — memorized every inflection of your whispered stories in the dark, every frantic hope you clung to with tiny, desperate hands. He let you weave the illusion, let you pull him into that world where escape was possible, where you weren’t just waiting for whatever came next, helpless.

Then Gran took you in.

The men in white coats disappeared — gone, dead, buried beneath layers of the Chronorift Catastrophe and things nobody in this household ever talked about again. Life rearranged itself into something resembling normal, into the quiet rhythm of home-cooked meals and school bells and summer nights spent sprawled on the porch. And the stories?

They vanished.

The experiments had left fractures in your memory, gaps where entire years had been pried apart and left disassembled. Somewhere along the way, the knight from the stars had slipped through those cracks. Swallowed by time, forgotten, unspoken, lost to the void.

But Caleb never forgot.

The words still lived in the back of his mind, tucked away in the places he never let himself visit. He could still hear your voice, younger, softer, whispering of a promise made long before you ever met him. He promised he’d come back for me.

For years, that story — your story — had been his greatest nightmare. Not the experiments, not the men in white coats, not the ghosts of the past, but the idea that the princely knight you had once spoken of so fervently would come after all.

Caleb had spent endless nights staring at the ceiling, waiting, listening, dreading. He had imagined it too vividly — some older, stronger man arriving in the dead of night, welcoming himself back into your world, with a voice manlier than his to turn your head and hands steady enough to pull you away from him. He had pictured the way you might look at someone like that — wide-eyed, breathless, smitten — so enamored that you wouldn’t even glance back.

But in the end, there was no celestial rescuer.

No dramatic abduction. No grand, sweeping moment where someone took you from his grasp.

Just this.

Just time. Just life. Just the quiet, inevitable turning point of you growing, changing, stepping further and further outside the world the two of you had built. Not running, not even intentionally leaving him behind — just moving forward in a way that felt naturally inevitable, while he remained standing in place, watching your back drift further away.

He swallowed hard and turned onto his side, the sheets cool against his skin, but the heat in his chest refused to settle. His fingers curled into the fabric, gripping nothing, holding onto air.

The knight from the stars was never real.

But the fear of losing you had always been.

Xavier’s apartment smelled like burnt toast.

Which was impressive, considering toast wasn’t even part of the meal.

Xavier’s second attempt at breakfast was going about as well as the first, which was to say: disastrous. The air purifier was whirring uselessly, struggling to clear out the acrid smoke curling into the walls, your clothes, your hair. The sink had already claimed several casualties — half-peeled vegetables, a cracked egg that never made it to the pan, and a bowl of rice that had turned a color rice should never be.

The only thing that had survived unscathed was the jar of honey.

And even that, apparently, was proving to be a challenge.

You sat at the counter, chin propped up on your hand, watching as Xavier wrestled with the lid and not even lifting a finger to help to see how long he could hold on until he wanted to recruit your help with that rare pleading face of his.

His long fingers, pale and deft, curled around the glass, his knuckles pressing white with effort. The lamplight pooled over the sharp angles of his wrists, catching on the fine bones of his hands, the faint veins trailing up the smooth expanse of his forearms. His skin, impossibly fair, seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it. He was all silken precision, all effortless control — except for the slight crinkle kissed between his brows, the faint crease of concentration on his otherwise perfectly composed face.

He twisted the lid one way, then the other, then braced it against his hip with the air of someone prepared for battle. The muscles in his forearm tensed beneath the pale stretch of skin, lean and corded, a whisper of restrained strength. His silver lashes lowered, his lips pressed into a flat, determined line.

It was an absurdly regal effort.

And then—

POP.

The lid exploded off like a gunshot.

Honey burst from the jar in a gilded arc, catching the light as it splattered across the counter, his hands, and, most notably, his face.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

A dollop of honey traced a viscous, lazy path down his cheek, catching at the delicate edge of his jaw, slipping past the curve of his mouth. His lips, soft and finely shaped, parted slightly in what could have been a sigh, or maybe just exasperation. The strands of silver hair that framed his face were damp with syrup, sticking to the flawless cut of his cheekbones, glinting like strands of moonlight caught in amber.

And still, his expression remained blank. Like he didn’t quite register what had happened yet.

You were the first to break.

It started as a tremor, something caught in the back of your throat. A choked, strangled sound that barely registered as your own.

Xavier turned to you, silver lake blue eyes impassive.

“Is something funny?” he asked with a pout he was trying to hold back.

It wasn’t.

Except—

It was.

The laugh broke free before you could stop it, shaking loose from your chest, raw and unfamiliar. Your shoulders shook. Your head tipped back. It wasn’t just a chuckle, not just a small exhale through your nose — it was real laughter, the kind that knocked the breath from your lungs, the kind that you hadn’t felt in so long it almost startled you.

Xavier did not react.

Did not wipe the honey from his cheek.

Did not reach for a towel.

He simply stood there, deep pink dusting his ears, regarding you with an expression that was entirely too resentful. As if you were the strange one. As if he hadn’t just declared war on a honey jar and lost spectacularly.

You doubled over, forehead pressing to the counter as your fingers curled against the cool surface, struggling to breathe, to ground yourself. And yet, the laughter only came harder.

And then—

Then it hit you.

There were tears in your eyes.

Your breath stuttered, laughter fracturing into something quieter, something softer. Something more fragile. The sound wavered, teetering between joy and grief at laughing in the kitchen with someone else at another time, until it settled somewhere in between.

Xavier didn’t say anything.

He just reached for a napkin and, with surgical precision, wiped the substance from his face, and only managed to smear it around more.

You hiccupped, breath still uneven, as he casually put the jar down on the counter, closing a palm on top of it.

“Well, we’ve got honey at least,” he said, leaning in and turning his soiled cheek closer to you. “Do you want it?”

You nodded, biting your lip as you raised a finger and brushed along his cheekbone, collecting honey in a sticky trail as he kept his quiet-twinkled stare on you. As you pulled back your hand, he turned and licked his tongue over it, taking a taste as he contemplated the flavor thoughtfully.

"Good quality," he noted approvingly, his tone matter-of-fact.

His skin was soft. Soft enough that despite the sugar clinging to him, the warmth and tenderness beneath made you lean forward and kiss him where you touched. Just lightly. Bare lips pressed against his cheek, soft and fleeting before pulling away. You tasted honey and sunshine when you licked your lips, bright like liquid gold melting on your tongue, spreading like butter in your veins.

You looked up just in time to catch his double blink of surprise, eyebrows rising delicately to his hairline as his cheeks flushed deeper rose under all the sticky mess. A moment passed between you in silence — a private eternity.

Avoiding you when he was the one who made the move, Xavier immediately just went on to clean — like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t just unknowingly cracked something open inside you. And you sat there, fingers trembling as you wiped your eyes, pretending you weren’t still smiling.

Falling in love had never felt like this before.

It had never crept in through the cracks, never been this quiet, this steady.

But now, as you watched him move through the kitchen in search of something to put in front of you to eat, all awkward grace and quiet embarrassment, you realized—

Maybe it had been happening all along.

The first time you saw Lumiere, you were too young to understand much of anything beyond the debilitating terror.

The world had cracked apart, splitting open at the seams, spilling its horrors into the streets like a wound that would never close. Sirens screamed through the chaos, their wailing voices swallowed by the greater, more inhuman sounds of the city tearing itself apart. The sky was wrong — a giant hole torn into the middle of it, unnatural and seething, pulsing like something alive.

Buildings didn’t just fall, they folded, twisting in on themselves, steel beams curling like dying fingers reaching for something they would never grasp. The ground trembled beneath your feet, a violent, groaning thing, the earth itself recoiling from the carnage. Wanderers moved through the ruins, warping the space around them, turning the air to something heavy and impossible. They weren’t just there — they were everywhere, shifting, flickering, bending reality like a cruel trick.

People ran. A panicked, mindless stampede, scattering like birds in the wake of a predator as smoke rolled thick through the streets, pressing its fingers against your lungs, squeezing. The streets had become graveyards. Cars sat abandoned, doors flung open in frozen panic, some crushed beneath fallen debris, others twisted into shapes that no longer resembled vehicles at all. Glass littered the asphalt, catching the firelight in fractured glints, like the last remnants of fallen stars.

In mere hours, the city had unraveled into something unrecognizable, like the world was really ending.

And in the middle of it all—

A spectral shimmer against the bruised expanse of the sky, carving through the ruins like a streak of molten silver, like a shooting star descended down to earth. He moved with the force of a video game character come to life, graceful, otherworldly, his blade carving arcs of light through beasts too vast, too nightmarish to fall to mere guns made by men.

You remembered the moment gloved hands — gentle, strong — had pulled you from the wreckage, lifting you out of the chaos as if you weighed nothing at all. The world around you was still crumbling, still breaking apart in ways too enormous for your small mind to comprehend, but in that instant, none of it reached you. His arms curled around you protectively, familiar in a way, shielding you from the twisted bodies of cars, from the distant screams, from the flickering, impossible reality of the Wanderers.

Your tiny hands had clung to his sleeve on instinct, desperate for something solid, something real, and even now, you could remember the way it felt beneath your fingertips — not coarse, not burned, but impossibly luxurious, like something that didn’t belong in this world at all. His white coat, unblemished despite the wreckage, didn’t seem to absorb the destruction the way everything else had, it should have been ruined, torn by shrapnel, dirtied by smoke and fire, but it wasn’t. It was perfect. As if nothing — not the crumbling city, not the collapsing buildings, not the monsters warping the air — could touch him.

He had only looked down at you once, but that was all it took.

Those eyes — deep blue, so calm it felt unreal, like water untouched by wind— had met yours, not with pity, but certainty. His hair, the lightest shade of white gold, caught the glow of the firelight, making it near impossible to tell where the light ended and he began. It was almost holy, a glow that made him seem less like a person and more like something from a fairy tale. A savior carved from light and distance.

And then, without a word, he had pulled you closer and lifted off the ground.

The city fell away beneath you, the fires and spiraling smoke blurring into streaks as the wind roared past your ears, the world that had just moments ago tried to swallow you whole becoming nothing but a smear of color beneath your feet. Up here — wrapped in the warmth of his power, cradled in the cocoon of safety — you were untouchable. Weightless as light itself.

You had never been this high before. Never seen the world like this. Never felt like this.

For a moment, in the middle of catastrophe, it was a dream.

And just as suddenly, it was over.

He descended with effortless precision, the wind dying around you as your feet met the ground, his arms the last thing you let go of. Gran’s trembling hands were there in the next breath, pulling you into a desperate embrace outside the shelter, voice cracking with relief.

You turned to look for him.

But he was already gone.

Not a word, not a trace. As if he had never been there at all.

And that was all it took. You were obsessed.

As you got older, fascination twisted into obsession. The internet sleuth in you wasn’t held back by being fourteen, hunting for everything, books, articles, classified reports that had leaked onto obscure message boards, desperate for any scrap of information on Lumiere. Your search history became a shrine to him, spiraling down a rabbit hole of half-truths and speculation that even explaining porn to Gran would be easier.

You scoured forums where people spoke about him in fanatic reverence in endless threads filled with theories and fragmented testimonies. Some claimed to have seen him in the flesh, accounts breathless and disjointed, warped by awe and that phenomenon where one couldn’t exactly convey what they had gone through in perfect storytelling. Others swore he was nothing but a myth conjured by higher-ups to give birth to hope in the chaos of Linkon’s Catastrophe, possibly a constructed hero for the screens, the latter of which you knew better to entertain at all.

You watched every second of available footage, even the grainy, unstable clips filmed on trembling phones, taken from rooftops, from shattered streets, from whatever vantage point people could find before fleeing for their lives. You rewound, paused, analyzed, frames gone over with meticulous care one by one for anything you could find to get closer to his identity.

How he moved, fluid and precise, inhuman even with evol-user standards, the world around him bent in subtle ways as if the reality itself wasn't sure how to hold him, light distorting at the edges of his body.

You traced backtracked his path through the city, cross-referencing footage with satellite images, tracking where he had been, where he had vanished, where the destruction had ended in his wake, taking scraps of information jotted in the margins of notebooks, highlighted documents saved on your drive, timelines reconstructed in frantic detail.

You tried to reconstruct your own memories, too, for anything related to his face, but they slipped through your grasp like sand through clenched fingers — there for a moment, vivid and raw, before scattering into something blurred and incomplete. Time and trauma had eroded the edges, distorting the details, leaving you with fragments instead of a whole.

You remembered the feeling more than anything.

The glow of his energy swimming around him, a halo of sentient light, illuminating the space between you. It wasn't warm like fire, nor cold like electricity, but something else entirely, brushing against your skin like a cat bumping its forehead into your hand, threading through your bones like a current that recognized you.

You knew, deep in your bones, that you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. And that fact shaped you in ways you couldn’t explain.

Caleb thought it was hilarious.

“You could’ve picked literally anything else,” he teased, arms crossed as he watched you rearrange your Lumiere fanart posters for what had to be the third time that week, but there was an undeniable awe in the way his eyes swept over the sheer dedication on display. You would roll on the floor and kick your limbs just not to do your assigned chores, but the organization skills invested in Lumiere was nothing short of neat.

You barely glanced at him, too focused on making sure the edges of the posters were perfectly aligned. “And you still would be making fun of me.”

He snorted. “Listen, I support you, but you’ve turned this into a lifestyle.”

His gaze flicked around your room, taking in the full extent of your devotion. The shelves were packed — action figures still pristine in their boxes, rare collector’s items standing proudly on display, books and magazines carefully arranged like artifacts in a museum. A limited-edition Lumiere print, framed in glass, hung on the wall like it belonged in a gallery.

He reached over and flicked the head of a small Lumiere figurine on your desk, watching as it wobbled slightly before settling. Then he gestured toward the obscenely priced framed poster you had nearly cried over when it arrived in the mail.

“How much of your allowance have you blown on this guy?”

You turned to him, entirely unrepentant, eyes gleaming with conviction. “Every cent has been worth it.”

Caleb let out a long, dramatic sigh before collapsing onto your bed, bouncing slightly against the mattress as he folded his hands behind his head. His eyes flicked between you and the sheer shrine of Lumiere memorabilia covering your walls, his under-eye puffs creasing somewhere between amusement and mild exasperation.

"You know," he mused, stretching out like he had all the time in the world, "if you ever put this much dedication into something productive, you'd probably rule the world by now."

So much dad-talk with this guy.

"You’re just mad I’m putting my energy into Lumiere and not boosting your ego twenty-four-seven," you shot back, rolling your eyes as you took a step back to assess your latest Tetris-like rearrangement of posters. No visible surface of the wall underneath. Perfect.

Caleb hummed thoughtfully, still watching you with the kind of lazy, calculated interest that always meant trouble. Then, after a beat of silence, his lips curled into a slow, knowing grin.

"Actually," he drawled, tilting his head just slightly, "I bet you have some secret Lumiere fanfic account somewhere, don’t you?"

Your heart nearly stopped. "What—"

“Oh, you totally do.” Caleb was grinning now, wide and victorious, like a cat that had just batted its prey into a corner and was taking its time.

You grabbed the nearest pillow and hurled it at him with everything you had. He dodged effortlessly, laughing as it thudded uselessly against the floor.

“Shut up, Caleb!”

“I’m right, though. I knew it.” He sat up, rubbing his chin as if deep in thought, the way he talked dipping into that slow, calculating tone that made your stomach drop. “Now the question is — what exactly do you write? Reader-insert? OCs? Ooh, or is it those tragic longing glances across the battlefield type deals?”

You peeked through your fingers, glaring from behind your hands. “How do you even know all of this?! You’re — You’re not supposed to know things like this! You’re a guy!”

“Wow. Gender stereotyping? In this day and age? For your information, I listen when people talk. Unlike someone.”

“I never talked about writing!” you shriek cracked in sheer betrayal.

“Please. You definitely have a secret account. Probably one of those edgy usernames, like ‘EclipsedSoul94’ or something.” He snapped his fingers. “Or wait — maybe something romantic. Like… ‘Lightbearer’s Muse.’”

Your entire body locked up.

Caleb’s eyes went wide, and in the split second of silence that followed, you knew you were doomed.

“No. Way.” His voice practically beamed with glee as he shot forward, bracing himself on his hands and knees like he was about to pounce. “Did I actually get close?!"

You scrambled back, heart hammering. "Shut up!"

He was laughing now, leaning into every bit of your suffering. "Wow, this is even better than I imagined. Really though, what do you write? Self-insert where you get rescued by him again? Maybe a little strangers-to-lovers? C’mon pip-squeak, you can share it with me… Oh, wait — do you make him suffer? Tragic backstory rewrite? I’m thinking angst. Big, dramatic, heart-wrenching—”

"Get out of my room!"

This time, you launched the pillow with actual intent to maim. He caught it effortlessly, barely even flinching, his grin unaffected.

“Oh, I’m going to find it,” he declared, tossing the pillow back onto your bed as he stood. “It’s only a matter of time.” He pointed two fingers at his own eyes, then turned them toward you. “Just remember — you can’t hide from me forever.”

And with that, he was gone.

The second the door clicked shut, you collapsed onto your bed, burying your face into the nearest pillow and screamed.

You were so screwed.

Despite the relentless teasing, the smug grins, the knowing looks whenever you so much as mentioned Lumiere’s name, Caleb never actually tried to talk you out of your obsession. Never scoffed and told you to get over it, never dismissed the endless streams of theories and analysis spilling from your mouth. If anything, he made it worse.

Because instead of shutting you down, he fed into it.

Where everyone else might have tuned you out, offering half-hearted nods and vague hums of acknowledgment, Caleb locked in. Not just humoring you—engaging. Matching your energy in a way that no one else ever had.

Somewhere along the way, he had started picking things up. Not just the basics — anyone who spent enough time around you would eventually know Lumiere’s name, his signature abilities, his role in the Catastrophe. But Caleb went further. He started stockpiling trivia, hoarding it like ammunition, waiting for the right moment to use it against you.

And he did. Mercilessly.

"You know, technically, Lumiere’s first recorded appearance after the Catastrophe is actually three years later, he’s not entirely gone," he had dropped casually over breakfast one morning, flipping through his phone like he wasn’t watching your reaction out of the corner of his eye. "A witness in South End reported seeing a guy with light-based powers interfering in a protocore smuggling ring. No solid proof, but some people think—"

You nearly choked on your coffee.

Or the time you were mid-rant about power scaling inconsistencies in an old debate, only for Caleb to lazily stretch his arms and yawn, "Yeah, but Lumiere’s light refraction abilities could inherently be tied to gravitational fields, so if you think about it, it actually makes sense that his speed varies depending on—"

You had thrown a book at him.

He acted like it was effortless, like this knowledge had just naturally embedded itself into his brain, but you knew. He had researched this. Had studied. Absorbed every ridiculous tidbit just for the sole purpose of catching you off guard, slipping it into conversation like he had always been an expert.

And whenever you found out about a rare Lumiere event — an exhibit, a convention panel, a last-minute pop-up experience — Caleb always somehow made time for it. No matter how busy he was, no matter how much he acted like he had better things to do, he never let you go alone.

He was the one dragging you out the door before you could overthink it, nudging you along when your nerves made you hesitate, handing over your ticket with a long-suffering sigh like this was somehow his responsibility. And yet, despite all his grumbling, he never actually looked reluctant.

He took you to Lumiere-themed pop-up cafés, sitting across from you in a booth that was entirely too colorful for his tastes, making some sarcastic remark about how even the food was branded. And yet, when the latte art arrived, he took the picture before you could even reach for your phone, angling it just right to catch the aesthetic lighting.

He cringed at the massive life-sized Lumiere cardboard cutouts at events but still held your bag when you ran up to one, grinning like an idiot as you posed beside it. And then, when you weren’t paying attention, he took actual good pictures, ones where you didn’t look stiff or awkward, capturing the moment exactly as it was — your excitement, your enthusiasm, the way your entire face lit up.

He even tagged along to convention panels, sitting through debates over Lumiere’s greatest heroic moments like he had a stake in them. You expected him to zone out, maybe nap through the more obscure discussions, but he never did, if anything, he leaned into the arguments with the investment of a man lingering before a soap opera he told his partner he wasn’t interested in, standing up with hands on hips.

And when you shot him a look, silently accusing him of enjoying this way more than he let on, he just shrugged.

"Hey, I’ve been forced into this fandom. Might as well commit."

You wanted to argue, call him out on the fact that he was the one feeding into your obsession, not the other way around. But the moment you turned to say something, he was already flipping through the event schedule.

"Alright," he would lock in. "Where’s the merch booth?"

Caleb had made your love for Lumiere feel valid, important — even if he never let you live it down.

One year, on your birthday, Caleb somehow managed to track down the holy grail of Lumiere merchandise—an original, limited-edition plushie from an exclusive release, the kind of thing that had vanished off the market almost as soon as it had dropped. You had spent so much searching for it, scouring secondhand listings, watching auctions climb into absurd price ranges before vanishing altogether and appearing right back in someone else's hands to be auctioned once more, hands in your hair agonizing over the relic of the fandom hardcore collectors would have sold their souls for.

And Caleb, of all people, had found it.

You still remembered the moment you unwrapped it — the weight of the box in your lap, the crinkle of carefully folded tissue paper giving way beneath your fingertips, the instant recognition as soon as you caught a glimpse of soft, familiar fabric. Your breath had hitched, hands going still, heart skittering in the hollow of your throat like jostled dice as the realization sank in.

This wasn’t some replica. This wasn’t just a well-kept version of the later reprints. This was the original.

You lifted it with something close to reverence, fingers ghosting over the embroidered details, the slightly worn tag still attached to its side. It looked untouched, preserved like a piece of history, but you knew better. You knew how old it was, how impossible it should have been to get something like this in such pristine condition.

You had screamed and made him jump, nearly knocking him over with the force of your hug, your hands shaking as you clutched it close to your chest, running your fingers over the embroidered insignia and the carefully-stitched details. "No. No way. NO WAY! Where—how—? Caleb!"

He ruffled your hair in that annoyingly familiar way, his touch light but lingering just a second longer than usual. “It wasn’t even that hard to get.”

You pulled back, still clutching the plushie to your chest, blinking at him in disbelief. “What do you mean it wasn’t hard? Caleb, this thing has been sold out for years. People would kill for it. I would’ve killed for it.”

He just shrugged, all nonchalance, like he hadn’t just gifted you something nearly impossible to find. “Luckily, you don’t need to, because I know people.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You do not know Lumiere merch scalpers.”

“I might.”

You gawked at him. “Wait. Wait. Did you actually—”

Caleb waved you off, leaning back in his chair like the conversation was already over. The birthday cake remnants still sat on the table nearby, plates half-empty. “Just be grateful, gremlin.”

You stared at him, still overwhelmed, your heart all over the place from equal parts excitement and the dawning realization that he had to have gone above and beyond to get this. And he wasn’t even rubbing it in your face like he normally would. Just looking content with himself.

The warmth of the stove lights flickered against his face, highlighting the soft grin playing at his lips, but beneath all the teasing, there was the unbearable smother of honeyed fondness that made your breath catch for just a heartbeat.

You hugged the plushie tighter, still clutching it like it was the most precious thing in the world. “Caleb.”

He cracked an eye open, raising a brow. “Hmm?”

You didn’t even know what to say. Thank you didn’t seem enough. But you also knew he’d never let you dwell on it too long. He was always like this — giving, caring, yours, in a way that was so deeply ingrained in your life you sometimes forgot to acknowledge it.

Choked up, you nudged his leg beneath the table with your foot. Caleb, ever the instigator, nudged back, his grin widening as your little game escalated into a full-blown under-the-table foot war. The plates and empty glasses clinked slightly as your shins bumped, his movements slow and infuriatingly confident, while you tried to gain the upper hand.

“You’re the worst,” you muttered instead, trying to mask the sudden warmth creeping up your neck.

Caleb, predictably, took the bait, his grin widening as he leaned back, stretching his legs out to trap yours in place. “You love me,” he shot back, effortlessly smug, not expecting anything more from you.

And maybe that was what made it so easy to say what you did next, words slipping out before you could think twice. “I’d probably be miserable without you.”

His foot froze against yours.

You didn’t notice, too focused on reclaiming your space in the ongoing foot war, pushing against his shin again with renewed determination. But across the table, Caleb had gone completely still, his smile faltering just slightly before he recovered, clearing his throat.

“Yeah, yeah,” he murmured, shaking his head, but his ears were red, his voice softer than before.

Another time, he had stayed up with you all night, camping out in a virtual queue just to secure tickets to a Lumiere-themed convention. You had woken up that morning to a confirmation email and Caleb sprawled on your couch, half-asleep with his phone still in his hand.

You had launched yourself at him, tackling him in joy, and even though he had groaned about being used as a human pillow, he had never once pushed you away.

Looking back, you wondered if you had ever truly understood that these memories weren’t just tied to Lumiere. They were wrapped by the safety and happiness of Caleb always making space for your hyperfixations, in the laughter over something only he would ever indulge.

The things you treasured most had never belonged to Lumiere. They had always belonged to Caleb.

The old town, infested with Wanderers and long abandoned by warmth, was colder than expected — not the kind of cold that settled, but the kind that moved, restless and alive, carried on the wind like an unseen force threading through the empty streets, it was something biting, something electric, like static before a lightning strike, like unseen teeth grazing exposed skin.

You had felt it before Xavier did.

Even before the wind cut sharper, before the first true gust sent loose debris skittering across the road, you had known, drawn in on yourself instinctively, chin tucked, shoulders hunched, fighting the chill that threaded through your coat as if the layers meant nothing, arms locked tight around your body, gloved fingers curling against your sleeves, as if bracing for something just beyond the horizon.

And then, you had stopped talking somewhere along the walk back, words trailing off until there was nothing but the sound of your footsteps, picking up pace, pressing forward.

Xavier hadn't noticed — not at first.

Not in the way he should have.

He had just assumed you were cold, that you, like him, simply didn’t want to be caught outside when the storm hit. Had brushed it off as something normal — the logical reaction to impending bad weather.

The place they had taken for the night barely deserved to be called a shelter. It was a husk of a room, abandoned to time, walls bruised with damp stains that crept like ivy, smelling of old concrete and rusted metal. The single window rattled in protest against the wind, its warped frame allowing the night to slip through in cold, sharp breaths, laced with the damp tang of rain that hadn’t yet fallen.

The heater struggled against the chill, wheezing out uneven bursts of warmth that never reached past the center of the room. Its hum was a frail thing, swallowed by the rising howl of wind that curled through the alleyways outside, hissing and whistling through unseen cracks in the foundation.

They had a plan — keep watch in shifts, take turns standing guard. But plans meant nothing when he felt safe enough and wooziness had already sunk its fangs deep, wrapping around his limbs, tugging him down like stones in water.

Sleep took him fast.

Swift. Unfought. Unnoticed.

At some undefined hour of the night, he surfaced from sleep — not to cold, but to warmth.

His mind waded through the haze of exhaustion, sluggish and unwilling, thoughts tangled in the remnants of whatever half-formed dreams had been unraveling in his head. Instinct kept his body still, his muscles coiled, tight, waiting. The room was silent except for the distant hush of wind through the cracks, the faint coughing of the heater struggling against the damp chill.

And then, awareness seeped in.

Something soft. Comfy. Pressed against him.

The warmth wasn’t from the heater.

It was you.

The realization was a breath held too long, burning his lungs. You had curled into him in sleep, your body drawn close as if seeking something — comfort, heat, him.

Even without seeing your face, he felt it in the way you clung, your fingers curled tight in the fabric of his shirt, gripping like something in you needed to hold on. Your knuckles pressed into his ribs, your breath ghosting across his skin in shallow, uneven pulls, whisper-soft, as if shaped from the same air that carried his secrets.

And you were trembling.

Not violently, not enough to wake, but enough that he noticed. Enough that something deep in his chest cavity wilted at the thought of whatever had driven you to this.

Outside, the storm had come in full.

Lightning split the sky in flashing white veins, illuminating the window for a fractured instant before plunging them back into darkness, wind howled through the streets, carrying the sharp, sudden crack of thunder. You flinched in your sleep, whining softly.

And suddenly, Xavier understood.

His body moved before his thoughts could catch up, a quiet, instinctual response written into muscle memory. He shifted — not abruptly, not enough to jostle you awake, but with a frictionless glide as if settling deeper into water without disturbing the surface.

The mattress dipped beneath his weight, adjusting to the subtle pull of your body against his. He could feel the way you fit against him, the way you curled inward, seeking warmth, seeking him. The fabric of his shirt tightened under your grip, your fingers still balling the material as if you weren’t ready to let go, even in sleep.

He could have woken you. Should have.

A gentle shake of your shoulder, a quiet murmur — It’s just a storm. It will pass.

But inexplicably, he didn’t.

Instead, he stayed.

Let you burrow closer, let your breath even out against his collarbone, let the fragile rhythm of sleep attempt to reclaim you, no matter how restless it was. The scent of you — faint traces of perfume and the lingering damp chill from the air outside — mixed with the slow burn of body heat between you, wrapping the moment in something neither of you would acknowledge in the morning.

He told himself he was only waiting. Just for a little while. Just until you settled.

What came next was barely a sound. A breath, a whisper, something fragile enough to be mistaken for the wind rattling through the walls.

“Caleb.”

Xavier froze.

A slow, twisting sickness thrashed in his gut, bitter and ugly, something he had no right to feel.

Outside, the city howled. Wind rushed through the skeletal remains of forgotten buildings, rain lashing against the rattling windowpane in fits of fury. Thunder cracked, deep and rolling, a sound that did not settle — it shuddered through the bones of the earth, rattled the air, tried to shake loose whatever it could.

But inside?

Inside, there was only this.

The press of your body against his. The shape of you molded against his side, fingers still curled into the fabric of his shirt as if you meant to hold onto him. As if he was the gravity keeping you from drifting. As if you were reaching for him — not just in sleep, not just in the thick haze of exhaustion — but truly, blindly, instinctively.

And yet—

It wasn’t his name you whispered.

Xavier’s jaw locked, his breath shallow. He could have let you go. Could have moved away, broken the moment, shaken you gently awake and told you to take the bed. Could have reminded you, in some quiet, necessary way, that he was not the one you were calling for.

But he didn’t.

He couldn’t.

He let you stay there, let himself absorb the warmth of you, the weight of you. Let himself pretend, for just a moment, that this meant nothing. That it was only an exhaustion-born slip of the tongue, a dream clawing through the grave, something fleeting that would dissolve with the dawn.

The storm prowled in late, a hulking beast dragging its belly across the sky, smothering the moon beneath a thick, churning mass, its swollen clouds rolling like restless beasts. Lightning flickered in their depths, a pulse beneath thick, churning skin, illuminating the world in fractured glimpses — a flash of the windowpane, rain-streaked and rattling, a brief glint of an airplane model on the nightstand, the sharp angles of shadows clawing across the ceiling. Then darkness again. The first distant growls of thunder were rolling in low, stretching their echoes across the night.

Caleb barely noticed.

The flickering blue light of the TV played over his face, his body sprawled across the bed in an easy sprawl, one arm slung over his eyes. The hum of voices from the screen blended into the static haze of his thoughts, their weightless chatter filling the space without asking anything of him. A small comfort.

A bolt of lightning ripped the sky in half, flooding the room with a bone-white flash.

CRACK!

A thunderclap like a gunshot split the air, slamming into the apartment with a force that rattled the windowpanes, making the lights flicker, and Caleb flinched, breath caught mid-inhale. And just like that, awareness returned to him.

You were afraid of storms.

It had been years since you’d last crawled into his bed on a night like this, but fear didn’t just disappear — it wore new faces.

Just like life.

Once, fear had been the thunder outside your window. Now, it was subtler, more intangible, abstract. Time itself, pulling you both in opposite directions like a tide too strong to fight.

His world had grown far beyond the childhood walls that once felt endless. The cracked pavement of your old street had given way to stadium lights, the sharp echo of a basketball on concrete replaced with the rhythmic squeak of sneakers on polished hardwood. Grueling practices stole his evenings, high-stakes games consumed his weekends, and the weight of expectation had begun bearing down on his shoulders like a physical thing. Coaches, teammates, strangers — each of them had carved their own demands into him, shaping him into something more than just the boy you used to know.

A name. A talent. A future.

And yet, all of it — every late-night practice, every exhausting sprint, every sacrifice— had been a decision made in the quiet of his own mind.

For your sake.

Because while his world had stretched wide and far, you had remained at the center of it. Home was still in your shadow.

Had it been too much to expect for it to be the same for you?

You were no longer just the kid who used to chase after him, feet barely keeping up, breathless and laughing, wide-eyed and weightless and trusting in the way only children could be.

Your hands had once been so small, always grasping, always finding his wrist, his sleeve, the hem of his shirt—any part of him that anchored you. In crowded hallways, you used to press into his side as if the press of bodies and the rush of voices would swallow you whole if he wasn’t there to hold you tight, fingers curled tight in the fabric of his jacket like you thought he was going to leave you behind.

It was in the way you spoke now. No more sidelong glances in his direction, no more pausing to gauge his reaction before deciding whether to commit to a thought. The kind of confidence that wasn’t borrowed from him but built on your own ground.

It was in the spaces you carved out, the ones where his presence had become optional instead of assumed. The text chains he wasn’t part of, filled with names and inside jokes he didn’t recognize. The weekend plans you no longer ran by him first, the group outings where he wasn’t automatically included. People who had their own memories with you — memories he wasn’t in. Once, your world had overlapped so completely with his that he never questioned whether he had a place in it. Now, it was expanding, growing branches he hadn’t been there to water.

The signs were everywhere, in details so small they almost felt petty to notice — almost. The way you’d tilt your phone away when typing, in the existence of private social media accounts he didn’t have access to. The way you ordered for yourself at restaurants without giving him that familiar look, the unspoken “you know what I like” that used to pass between you. The way your late-night talks had dwindled, from every time something went wrong to only when it was serious.

Once, you would have knocked on his door in a heartbeat — over a bad test grade, a ruined outfit, a stubbed toe. Now, days passed before he even realized something had happened, and by the time he asked, you had already handled it. Solved it. Moved on.

And he told himself it was good. Healthy. A natural part of growing up.

But needing him less was one thing.

Needing him not at all — that was something else entirely.

And then there were the looks — the ones he hadn’t noticed at first, or maybe just refused to.

The first time he really saw it — not just noticed in passing, not just brushed off — was on the court at seventeen, the burn of the game still fresh in his muscles, sweat rolling down his spine in slow, sticky beads. His heart was hammering from the last play, his breath still unsteady, but none of that mattered the second his gaze flicked toward the sidelines.

You were there, exactly where you always were, standing just beyond the edge of the gym floor, your voice still ringing from whatever cheer you’d thrown his way. But he was there too — some near-graduate with too much ego and too little sense, stretching lazily near the bench like he wasn’t watching you, when he very much was.

Caleb saw it in the slow drag of his gaze, the way it traced over you like a hand, the up-and-down appraisal that made his stomach fold in on itself hot and tight.

This fossil wasn’t some kid on the playground getting red-faced and tongue-tied, some middle school idiot stammering through a crush while Caleb loomed over him, effortlessly making himself an immovable wall between you and them.

Back then, it had been easy. He never had to try. A single glance, a well-placed hand on your shoulder, a casual, dismissive she’s busy or oh, she’s not dating yet or she’s got a curfew or we’ve got family plans tonight was all it took to send whatever unfortunate boy packing. Those little guys were no real threat — not to him, not to you. They were children. Awkward, unsure, easily intimidated.

But this?

This was a whole different game.

Fourteen. His baby pip-squeak was fourteen. And that guy was nearly eighteen. A senior. Already filling out college applications. Already halfway out the door with a look that said I know exactly what I want, and I think I can take it.

Caleb felt the arrival of the crunch time before he fully processed it. The way his body tensed. The slow, curling heat that started in his chest, burned its way up the back of his neck and set his entire head on fire. His pulse had just begun to settle, but now it was climbing again for a different reason.

Of course, he didn’t throw a punch. Didn’t snap, didn’t bare his teeth, didn’t let the heat curling in his gut explode into something reckless.

Instead, he did what he always did — smiled.

That same easy, sunlit grin that made people relax. That made them believe he was nothing but warmth, nothing but laughter and good-natured charm. He slung an arm over his teammate’s shoulder, casual as ever, fingers pressing just a little too firmly into the guy’s back — friendly, but firm. A little too much weight in the gesture. A little too much control.

Like a predator playing with its food.

“Oh, man,” he laughed, loud enough to carry, his voice bright and effortless, even as something cold settled beneath it. “You think you can handle her? I live with her. Believe me, you do not want that smoke. She still holds a grudge over a game of Kitty Cards from, like, five years ago.”

His teammate chuckled, but it wavered with the subtle knowledge thrown his way about Caleb’s relation to you. A half-second too slow, a fraction too stiff. Caleb felt it — the subtle crack in his posture, the moment of hesitation.

Good.

Caleb clapped him on the back, kept his grip just strong enough, let the force of it push the guy a step forward, off balance. His grin never slipped, easy and golden, smooth as ever.

“Nah,” he added, shaking his head with a laugh. “You don’t want to stoop to her level and be a child with her. Trust me.”

And that was it.

That was the cut. You’re too grown for her, don’t even think about it.

It wasn’t the thunder that rolled overhead yanked him away from the memories but the knock. Barely more than a dull tap compared to the pelting rain.

A flicker of intent, and his evol pulsed through the air, slipping unseen into the metal of the lock. It gave without resistance, the faintest click swallowed by the storm’.

The door eased open, and there you were.

You stood at the threshold, wrapped in the dim glow spilling from the hallway, shadows pooling at your feet. Your sweater, probably stolen from his closet, if he had to guess, enveloped you like a hug, sleeves too long, hands swallowed in soft fabric, the hem skimming the tops of your bare thighs, and for a moment, he didn’t know if it was the storm making the room feel colder or the sight of you standing there, small and uncertain, like something fragile carried in by the wind. our hair clung to your cheeks, still damp from the shower, no matter how many times he’d told you to dry it properly. The Lumiere plushie — faded from years of love, seams slightly frayed — was clutched tight to your chest, its little embroidered eyes peeking out between your fingers.

For a second, you didn’t move. Just hovered there, framed by the doorway, uncertain. The flickering light from the hallway cast uneven shapes across your face, catching on the tension in your brow, the way your lips pressed together like you were still debating this. Still deciding whether to step forward or turn back.

The storm cracked overhead, a sudden burst of white against the night.

You flinched.

That was all it took.

Before he could say anything, you moved.

A blur of of warmth and familiarity as you darted forward, slipping beneath the blankets in a single, fluid motion, your body curling against his, urgent and instinctive, like you were a mole that could burrow deep enough to escape the storm itself.

The scent of shower clung to you, damp and cooled, mixing with the lingering sweetness of whatever tea you must have abandoned in the kitchen. Your skin, still chilled from the hallway, met the steady heat of his side, and the contrast sent a shiver through you — a quiet tremor he felt before he heard your voice.

“I hate this.”

The words came muffled, half-buried in the plush fabric of Lumière, your cheek pressed into the space between his shoulder and chest. Your fingers tightened around the stuffed toy, nails pressing into worn seams, but your body had already melted against his. Seeking. Settling. Staying.

“It’s too loud.”

He exhaled, measured and steady, adjusting the blankets in a practiced motion. Tucking you in. Smoothing the covers over your shoulder, pulling them snug around you both, layering warmth like a shield against the chaos outside.

But his hands lingered.

Half a second too long. Fingers brushing against the fabric of your sleeve, feeling the shape of your wrist beneath.

Just a hesitation. Just a moment.

Then he let go.

Outside, the storm raged on. Inside, in the dim hush of the room, you had already begun to relax — breath evening out, shoulders losing their tension. Your weight, solid and real, grounding him in ways you probably didn’t realize.

He swallowed, tilting his head slightly, watching the way your lashes fluttered.

“Didn’t you say you’d be fine since Lumiere would protect you?” he teased with the kind of question meant to earn an indignant huff, a half-hearted rebuttal.

You just sighed instead, pressing in closer, tucking yourself into the space between his arm and his chest like you belonged there. Maybe you did.

“Lumiere can protect me in here, as well.”

Caleb let out a short, breathy snort, shaking his head, but didn’t push the moment further. The teasing remark on the tip of his tongue faded before it could form, swallowed by the quiet rhythm of your breathing against him. Instead, he let his focus drift back to the television, the glow of the screen flickering in shades of blue and white, the sound barely more than a murmur beneath the rain. His eyes tracked the movement, but none of it stuck — just colors, light, a meaningless blur against the weight of you snugly close beside him.

He could feel your heartbeat, a tad bit too fast and off-kilter, just beneath the layers of fabric between you. The rise and fall of your breath matched his own, an unconscious sync that had existed for as long as he could remember. The plush weight of Lumière was still crushed between you, your fingers lax around its worn edges. The storm continued, but none of the chaos reached you here. You were safe. You had always been safe with him.

That was the way it had always been.

Since you were small, since the first time a storm had driven you to his room, since the night you’d climbed into his bed without a word and dived beneath his blankets. Caleb had gotten used to it — used to the way you always found your way back to him when you were afraid, as if his presence alone was enough to ward off the things that scared you.

But something was different this time.

It wasn’t the first time you had curled up against him like this. Wasn’t the first time his bed had become your refuge against thunder and lightning. But it was the first time he was aware of it—so painfully, keenly aware.

Of the way your weight settled against him.

Of the way your warmth seeped through his clothes, into his skin.

Of the way his own breath felt suddenly too shallow, on the verge of shaking.

The first time in what felt like forever that he wasn’t just letting you exist beside him, wasn’t just offering quiet comfort out of habit.

It blindsided him, sharp and sudden, like stepping off a curb he hadn’t seen coming. His pulse stuttered — missed a couple beats, even — before picking up again, faster this time, uneven and unsteady. His breath caught, a fraction too shallow, barely making it past his throat.

Heat bloomed low in his stomach, curling, spreading, wrong. A rush of something hot and electric, sharp in its intensity, unwelcome in its timing. The front of his shorts grew uncomfortably tight, and panic — raw, visceral, boiling — shot through him before his brain could even fully register why.

His arm, draped around your shoulders in what had always been an easy, thoughtless gesture, suddenly felt rigid. His fingers twitched where they rested against the soft knit of your sweater, a tremor he hoped you wouldn’t notice. You were pressed so close, body warm and trusting, the scent of your shampoo curling into the space between you, something faintly sweet, familiar. The steady rhythm of your breathing ghosted against his collarbone, peaceful, unaware, safe.

Safe with him.

(You’re too grown for her, don’t even think about it.)

His stomach twisted, shame lashing through him with an intensity that made his skin prickle. He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw locking tight, willing it away. Not now. Not here, not like this.

But it didn’t go away.

If anything, it sank deeper, worse.

Like an itch beneath his skin that he couldn’t scratch, like a wire pulled too tight, like something recalibrating inside him in a way he wasn’t sure he knew how to stop.

One of your arms had somehow found its way under his shirt in the process of shifting closer, your fingers curled loosely against his ribs, barely brushing. The touch was a simple point of contact, yet it may as well have been a live wire pressed against him.

The stuffed Lumière had been shoved between you at some point, an afterthought, its worn fabric smushed and doing absolutely nothing to create any real distance. Your bare leg had tangled with his under the blanket, knee slotted against his in a way that should have been familiar, routine, but wasn’t — not anymore.

You had melted into his side the moment you felt safe, your body losing all tension like a sigh exhaled straight into him. He had felt it happen. The moment your fingers twitched once, twice, then stilled. The way your breathing deepened, evened out, slow and unguarded. The tiny, involuntary nuzzle as you nestled closer, like instinct, like trust.

It was the kind of thing he would have laughed at, should have laughed at — how absurdly fast you had knocked out, how easily you had settled into sleep as if the storm outside had never existed.

But he couldn’t laugh.

Because while you were perfectly at ease, he was staring at the ceiling, pulse jackhammering, dick rigid with something too messy to name and had him going completely, utterly insane.

This can't be happening.

He shouldn’t be thinking about you like this.

Shouldn’t be feeling like this.

Every rational part of him screamed it, pounded it into his skull like a warning siren. This was you — the same person who he had been sheltering even from his own eyes, the same person who had never thought twice before crawling into his space, his bed, his arms, whenever you needed comfort. And right now — right now — you were trusting him to be nothing but safe.

But safe was the last thing he felt.

His skin was too tight, heat licking up his spine, an uncomfortable, cloying pressure settling in the pit of his stomach that refused to ease no matter how many slow breaths he forced past his lips. The sheets felt too warm, the press of your body against his too much.

Then came the thought — the one he didn’t mean to have, the one he tried to shove down the moment it clawed its way into his brain.

It would be so easy to press your hand down firmer.

He crushed it before it could fully form, but the damage was already done.

Not just because of what he was feeling, but because of what he wasn’t feeling. No alarm, no disgust, no immediate, sharp-edged denial cutting through the fog about being your older brother — having to be your older brother. Just this. The slow, creeping horror of understanding that something had shifted long before this moment, that it had been shifting for years, and that he had been pretending not to notice.

The worst part wasn’t that it was happening.

The worst part was that he had spent so long convincing himself it never could.

That he had been so certain he had outgrown it. That he had locked it away, buried it, desensitized himself into something safe, into something good, into the person you needed and wanted him to be.

And yet—

And yet.

Here he was, feeling like this, every nerve in his body betraying him, his own self-control slipping through his fingers like sand.

Like he had never locked those feelings away at all.

Like they had only been waiting.

Touch had always been natural between you, something woven so seamlessly into the fabric of his life that he never stopped to think about it. It had been there since childhood, an unconscious language of familiarity, of belonging. You’d always looped your arm through his without a second thought, fingers hooking around his sleeve as you walked beside him, grounding yourself in his presence. Slipped your hands into his jacket pockets when the wind bit too sharply at your fingertips. Draped yourself over his back with a huff when you were too lazy to move, trusting him to hold your weight like it was nothing.

He could still feel the way you used to pull at the hem of his shirt when you wanted his attention, a silent, wordless request that he never needed to question. The way your forehead would press against his shoulder when exhaustion hit, your body sinking against his like it was second nature. The absentminded way you toyed with the ends of his hair when he was distracted, your fingers twisting through the strands in quiet loops. He had been used to it. To the gentle, fleeting pressure of your foot nudging his under the dinner table. To the way you never seemed to notice how close you sat, legs pressing together without hesitation. To the weight of your head against his chest when the world felt too loud and you needed silence wrapped in the steadiness of him.

It had always been that way. It had always been fine.

But lately — lately, things weren't quite right.

Not in the way you acted. You were the same. Still wrapping your arms around him after games, still slipping beneath his arm when you needed comfort. Still pressing into his side without hesitation, warm and familiar, never second-guessing the space you took up in his life.

But he felt it differently now.

It crept up on him in moments that should have been nothing — the way your warmth seeped through his clothes, the slow drag of your fingertips on the flushed skin of his ribs, the faint pressure of your breath against his skin when you leaned in close. A quiet, unbearable awareness.

You weren’t a kid anymore. He wasn’t your gege anymore.

Too much. Too much. Too much that he could collapse into a black hole right here, right now.

He needed to create space between you before he did something stupid.

But when he stirred slightly, you only sighed in your sleep, nuzzling further into him. The plushie that was basically a barrier between you slipped, letting him feel the press of the plush of your chest against him, your leg sliding firmly between his. He froze, every muscle in his body locking up, sweat beading along his hairline and face absolutely on fire.

No.

He pried your hand from underneath his shirt, the drag lingering on a loop inside his head even after he let go. His hands trembled, barely steady enough to nudge the stupid plushie out of the way, pushing it aside like it had been the thing keeping him pinned in place instead of you.

Slowly, he lifted himself from the mattress, moving inch by inch, muscles taut with the effort of keeping his movements smooth, controlled. Every cell in his body felt raw, hyper-aware of every rustle of fabric, every shuffle of weight. The mattress dipped as he pulled away, but you didn’t stir beyond a faint murmur, too deeply gone into blissed dreamland to notice his absence.

His pulse hammered in his throat as he hovered there, hesitating — watching the way you curled into the space he left behind, seeking warmth, unconsciously reaching for something that was no longer there.

He let out a slow, shaky breath before carefully sliding his pillow into your arms instead. It was an old thing, worn soft at the edges, still faintly carrying his scent. The moment it settled against you, you hummed — a barely-there sound, sleepy and content — as you pulled it close, nuzzling into the fluffy fabric, tucking your face into it the way you had done to him only moments ago.

You didn’t wake. Because as far as you were concerned, nothing had changed.

But Caleb sat there for a moment longer, watching you, fingers curling into loose fists uselessly at his sides, his breathing uneven in his own chest. The covers rose and fell with each peaceful breath you took, oblivious to the way his world had tilted on its axis.

He swallowed hard, throat dry, and reached to pull the blanket higher over your shoulder. Smoothed it down, lingering where it shouldn’t.

Then, without another sound, he slipped out of the room and spent the next hour standing beneath the icy spray of the shower.

The protofield and the Wanderer had vanished. Help was en route.

Xavier’s leg wound that he’d gotten while protecting you, while not fatal, was severe enough that crimson seeped through his dark pants and pulled between your quivering fingers as you applied pressure.

And the insufferable bastard just huffed through his nose, as if this were just another routine mission, another insignificant injury in a never-ending string of perilous nights with barely a flinch crossing his features, the sight of his own blood seemingly less concerning to him than it was to you.

“It’s not as bad it looks,” he repeated, for the tenth time.

The words only worked to ignite an infuriated coil inside, molten and barbed.

Your hands tightened, pushing down harder than you needed to. He barely reacted. Just watched you, lovable and doe-eyed, his body slack in a comfortable way against the broken wall behind him. The dimness of the failing streetlamps trying to reach into the alley you two were in cast his silver hair in eerie light, making him look even more ghostly than usual.

“Stop saying that,” you said, shakier than a house of cards in a storm, accusing.

His breathing was deep. Slower than it should be. Your brain was running too fast, trying to calculate blood loss, survival rates, anything to make sense of what was in front of you. But all you could see was him, pale under the glow, blurred because of the saltwater pooling in your eyes, fading like smoke. Like if you blinked, he might vanish completely with the teardrops.

You started digging through your pack, yanking out the field kit with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. You needed to stop the bleeding. You needed to make sure he stayed. Stayed with you.

Not again.

The med kit slipped through your fingers, scattering across the pavement. Your ears rung with the loud noise the metal case made, subconscious plunging you back in that day.

Not again.

You re-experienced the force of the explosion that had thrown you to the ground, had ripped the breath from your body. The world burned. Heat, suffocating, picking at your skin like a vulture, searing your lungs.

Fire, ash, the splintered ruins of what had once been home. And you, crawling through the rubble, reaching for something, anything. Your fingers had closed around metal — small, cool despite the heat — the necklace you'd gifted Caleb, half-buried in dust and debris. What remained of him, worn but still legible, pressed into your palm. It was all that was left.

Not again.

Nausea gripped your stomach as your blood-stained hands hovered in the air, fingers twitching with clumsiness of desperation. But this time was different. You weren't grasping for ghosts, sifting through the ashes of an irreparable past. Could still do something. had to do something.

Reaching for the scattered supplies, your wrist was suddenly caught in Xavier's gentle grip, stapling you to the present moment.

“You’re panicking,” he commented.

Yanking your hand away, you retorted sharply, "Of course I'm panicking. You're bleeding out, Xavier."

He studied you intently, head tilted in that familiar, contemplative manner, searching for the traces of what that had pulled this state out of you. Then, with a hint of misplaced levity, he remarked, "This is nothing. A quick nap will fix me."

It was the wrong thing to say.

Your throat tightened. The world swayed for half a second, the ill-timed attempt at reassurance in his words reduced to a cup of water tossed onto a wildfire.

You thought of all the times before, of wounds that hadn’t healed, of a love confession whispered too late. Too late, after the funeral, when you stood before the empty grave, the one filled with nothing but dirt and a marker with his name. There had been no body to bury, no hand to touch one last time, no real goodbye to be had. Just you, alone, the cold night bleeding your life force, the whisper of your own voice breaking as you knelt, fingers digging into the soil, telling him the words you should have said when he was still there to hear them.

"Please, stop being like that, I can't—" Your voice cracked as you ducked your head, hiding your face from him, palm pressing against your mouth to stifle the words threatening to spill out. I can't do this again.

Xavier let out a fast breath, his posture stiffening in the kind of regret that made people avert their eyes. The joke had fallen flat, misplaced at a time like this, and he knew it. Another inhale, slower this time, he flexed his fingers against his thigh, then stilled, hovering on the edge of movement, caught between reaching for you and holding himself back.

His gloved hand moved, brushing lightly against your cheek.

He was warm. He was still warm.

Your breath caught. The fear squeezed you dry.

You had waited too long with Caleb, naively believing he'd always be there for you just like he promised, naively believing he was invincible just as he was in your childhood self's adoring eyes.

And now, here, with Xavier bleeding in front of you, you refused to wait again.

You didn’t think. You just kissed him.

It was sudden, too quick, too desperate. He stiffened under your touch, startled — but he didn’t pull away, didn’t break the contact, just let you take and take and take because you were drowning and he was the only thing keeping you above the surface.

Your fingers twisted into the front of his coat, pulling him closer like you could hold him together, like you could keep him here. Your hands were still slick with his blood, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care about anything except the way his breath hitched, the way he stayed perfectly still for a fraction of a second before his hands moved.

One to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair. The other against your waist, grounding. He kissed you back with a cautious intensity, uncertain at first, but growing decisive, nothing like the way you kissed him. Like he was learning you, like he was mapping out every shaky breath, every fractured sound you made.

When your kiss began to tremble, he seamlessly took control, molding his mouth to yours as if this dance were one he had practiced countless times before.

Slow, gentle, soothing. He chased the taste of salt on your lips, breathing the shuddering sound you made down like it was sustenance. He tasted like earth and ozone, clean in ways that reminded you of starlight, of open skies and safe nights. This moment felt small, private, contained — his body curved into yours, warm, solid, a shelter where you could fall apart and still be held together. His scent washed over you, crisp, like fresh air after a storm, dizzying — reminding you exactly whose mouth was against yours, exactly whose hands were touching you right now, exactly where you were.

Everything ached. It hurt too much, it wasn't enough. You wanted him closer. Always closer. Until all you could breathe, until all you could taste was the shape of his name on the roof of your mouth.

You pulled away, gasping against his parted lips, head spinning.

Before you could apologize — for losing control, for being selfish, for needing someone so desperately you didn't stop to consider whether or not that was what they wanted too, or the shape they were in — he tugged you into the curve of his shoulder, resting his cheek against the top of your head. Fingertips grazed along your arm, tracing your scar tissue like braille. His heart thrummed against your ear, strong, steady. Loud.

"It'll be okay," he said. "I'll be okay. I promise."

The words were hushed. Reassuring. Absolute.

Somehow, you believed him.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the panic drained away. Your muscles uncoiled, nerves steadying. The ringing in your ears faded. Slowly, slowly, everything sharpened back into focus.

In the distance, a siren wailed.

"You better be," you said, shaky as a leaf in winter, brittle, thin, the syllables weak against the night. "You can't make me fall for you only to just die like this."

These words had never left your heart before. Swelled there for years, growing too big, but never leaving, never finding their way out into the cold. They had belonged to Caleb once. Caleb, who smiled wide as a sky at sunset and ran faster than a starship and wore his kindness like armor. But now the words meant something new. Now you didn't have to keep them locked up inside of you, guarded and afraid of what would happen if you let them loose. The shape of them still fit. Differently, maybe, but they weren't lost, weren't strangled or broken. It felt like letting a bird free from its cage after years of watching its wings grow frail in confinement.

The wind sighed softly through the trees. A stray cat hissed. Little glowing spots began floating around like dust particles.

Xavier pulled back abruptly. Stared at you, unblinking, the ink blue of his eyes shining. Evenly. Silent. Still holding you.

For a moment, nothing happened. For a moment, everything stopped. Time slowed around you, caught between one breath and the next. And then—

Light.

Xavier began to glow. Silvery-white, like a miniature star, brilliant enough that he illuminated the entire alley. The color bled outward, pouring down his shoulders in rivulets, streaming over his arms, dripping off his fingertips. He seemed to fold in on himself, bowing his head in embarrassment — but all you could do was watch, transfixed, mesmerized.

Something warm flared within your chest, unfamiliar. Like you could feel Xavier through your heart, humming just beneath your sternum, some part of him pressed close against your pulse point. He wasn't bright enough to blind you, just enough to bathe your surroundings in starlit brilliance, seeping into the cracks in the crumbling pavement, the shadows cast by overgrown hedges, the empty shell of a playground down the street.

"Xavier..."

"Sorry," he mumbled, covering his face with the back of his hand like he could hide somehow, shield himself from his own radiance. His ears were red. "This is... not what I meant to do."

You reached out toward him without thinking, fingertips brushing against the fabric of his glove. He froze. Noticing yourself, you hesitated, realizing exactly what you were about to do — touch a star, an impossible thing, a dream — but then his hand twitched, settling firmly into yours in a way that you were almost convinced it was always meant to belong there. His fingers laced through yours, warm and secure, like he'd done this a thousand times. His grip loosened. Tightened. Loosened. Reassuring both you and himself that this was real. This was happening. Neither of you would drift apart and dissolve like morning fog beneath the light of the sun. You wouldn't blink, and he wouldn't be gone.

Gentle warmth wrapped around you. Comfort. Steadfast support. Starlight in the darkness, chasing away the shadows.

"I love you, Xavier," you told him, echoing the words again, wanting him to hear, wanting him to understand. You placed the shape of them into his upturned palms you pulled down to his lap to see his face clearer, and his grip tightened. "I'm in love with you."

The light emanating from him intensified. A shimmering aura that shone around him like a corona. It pulsated once, twice, before seeming to catch on something and expanding like a burst of fireworks. White orbs of light poured from nowhere, dancing through the empty space between your bodies, suspended in mid-fall. A few fluttered down to land against the backs of your hands covering his.

"Would you be mad if I said that... I must be on the brink of death to imagine hearing these words?" Xavier's confession tumbled from his lips hesitantly. In the starlight, his face looked youthful, vulnerable, younger than you had ever seen before. "Even if this is my brain playing tricks on me before it fails, I'm happy."

Emergency lights flashed against the houses lining the street, probably using Xavier glowing like a midnight sun as a beacon, faint red and blue lights cutting into your vision. Xavier heard it too, since he drew you tighter against him and buried his face against your shoulder. One hand released yours to curl protectively around your head. Even though this embrace didn't smother his shine, Xavier used it like a cocoon to encapsulate you. To guard you, like you were the wounded one in need of protection, and not him.

The ambulance doors opened with a hydraulic whirring sound. Footsteps approached quickly. At least two pairs, judging by the sound. Voiceless words spilled into the alley from the paramedics' radios. The static intermittently cracked between the garbled syllables, distorting some of them into incomprehensibility.

All at once the starlight winked out, plunging the street back into the dark.

"Tell me again once we are home." The words brushed past your ear, carrying an intimacy that made you swallow against the dryness of your throat, made you bury your face more deeply against his shoulder. Home. "Please. So I know I haven't dreamed this up."

The air down in Linkon carried that early autumn crispness that rose from real soil Skyhaven didn’t have — cool enough to sharpen the senses, not quite enough to bite. The first traces of fallen leaves clung to the pavement, the scent of rain in the cracks of the sidewalks. Caleb adjusted the strap of his duffel bag as he stepped off the tram, stretching his shoulders as he took in the city around him. It was familiar, the building-rich skyline cutting pointy shapes against the evening sky, the low hum of traffic filling the streets, but something about it felt...

He had been away too long.

Skyhaven had pulled him into its orbit the moment he arrived, swallowing whole whatever life had come before. Days blurred together in cycles of training, flight simulations, and coursework that left little room for anything beyond forward motion. Every morning began the same: drills before sunrise, sweat stinging his eyes, muscles burning as he pushed himself further, faster. Afternoons were a relentless stream of lectures, technical briefings, theory stacked upon theory until the numbers and flight paths blurred in his mind. Even the nights were accounted for — hours spent in the simulator pods, perfecting maneuvers until the glowing interface was burned into the backs of his eyelids.

There was no room for spontaneity at Skyhaven. No empty spaces to fill with last-minute plans or lazy afternoons. His world had been compressed into systems — routine, structure, efficiency. He knew exactly when to eat, when to train, when to sleep. Knew the weight of his rations down to the last calorie, the time it took to shave a fraction of a second off a flight sequence, the precise moment his body would demand rest before pushing past it anyway.

It was such a whiplash to be home, all things considered.

His room at Gran’s place wasn’t really his anymore. It had the same walls, the same furniture, but it felt more like a museum exhibit than a lived-in space — a carefully preserved snapshot of someone he used to be.

The bookshelves were still lined with old textbooks, pages stiff from time, filled with equations and flight theories he once poured over like scripture. The model airplanes he built by hand sat untouched on his desk, their delicate structures gathering dust, frozen mid-flight. Posters, faded from years of sunlight creeping through the blinds, hung at odd angles where the adhesive had begun to peel. It was all still there, exactly as he had left it.

And yet, it didn’t feel like it belonged to him anymore.

It was more of a storage closet for the past, a collection of objects tied to a version of himself that no longer fit, as if waiting for a version of him that no longer existed to return. But it had a way of creeping in when he least expected it.

Your favorite song playing in the campus coffee shop, breaking through the rigid structure of his day like you’d just knocked on his door, the scent of something familiar drifting through the halls, pulling him back to late nights in Gran’s kitchen, you sitting cross-legged on the counter as he tried to study, chattering about whatever new fixation had taken over your brain that week.

Now, the closest thing he had to those endless summers with you were the five-minute breaks between classes, when he’d glance at his phone and see your name lighting up the screen. A meme, a quick update, a half-formed thought sent without context — small things, fleeting things, but still enough to remind him that you were there.

Sometimes, it was just a single reaction picture in response to something he had said hours ago. Other times, it was a wall of text, a full-fledged rant about something that had clearly gotten under your skin — another debate with some idiot online, a disastrous group project that made you question about how those people had gotten into college at all, an overanalysis of the show you’d decided to watch together. And every so often, it was something quieter. A late-night message, typed out but never sent until morning that meant, “I miss you,” in your language.

You ever think about how weird it is that we don’t live in the same city anymore? Like, I can’t just show up at your room and annoy you :(

He always answered, even if it took him hours to find the time.

Because no matter how much distance stretched between you now, the messages kept him tethered to you like the string did to a kite.

He pulled out his phone, glancing at the last message and location you had sent him: Meet me at the plaza. We’re hunting.

A small, fond smile tugged at his lips.

The “Find Lumiere” campaign had taken the city by storm. A massive scavenger hunt dedicated to the legend himself, the hero who had saved mankind during the Chronorift Catastrophe ten years ago. Clues were scattered across major landmarks, leading participants on a chase to uncover fragments of his legacy, with tickets to the first screening of the new movie they were making about Lumiere promised to the winners.

Of course you were obsessed with it.

Caleb had never said it out loud, but for the longest time, he had been jealous of Lumiere. Or, rather, what Lumiere meant to you.

It was irrational, of course. Lumiere wasn’t real — not in the way that mattered. And yet, Caleb had spent years competing with the idea of him, feeling that strange, sour feeling whenever he saw you fawning over an image of a man who had saved you in more ways than one when Caleb wasn't there to do so.��

Because, at every age, he wanted to be the one you looked at like that. He wanted to be the one you admired, the one who made your eyes sparkle the way they did whenever you spoke about Lumiere. He had been your person for so long, the one you relied on, the one you trusted — but even as kids, there had always been that distance, that unreachable part of you that belonged to a random dude you wrote RPF about.

He shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets as he made his way to the plaza.

You were already at your rendezvous point, bouncing slightly on the balls of your feet as you checked your phone, your expression focused. Your jacket was too thin for the weather, but you never cared about things like that when you were excited. Caleb took a moment to just look at you, to take in the way you had changed — taller, more sure of yourself, your hair styled differently than he remembered.

“Didn’t even let me settle in before dragging me around the city?” he teased, stepping up beside you.

Your head snapped up, and the moment your eyes met his, a wide grin split across your face. “Obviously. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, Caleb. You should be honored I’m making you my partner for it.”

He scoffed but couldn’t help the warmth that spread in his chest. “Yeah, yeah. So what’s the plan?”

You immediately launched into an explanation, showing him the map on your phone, outlining all the locations where the next clue could be. Caleb listened, but mostly, he just watched you, letting the familiar rhythm of your excitement wash over him.

Maybe you had grown apart. Maybe life had taken you in different directions. But right now, in this moment, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like no time had passed at all.

He would never get tired of watching your face light up when you were truly invested in something. The way it always seemed to catch people off guard, how utterly genuine and open you were whenever you felt strongly about something. It was honest; it was you.

So it wasn't entirely out of character for him to notice how lovely you looked today that he could just lean down and capture your lips with his own. Just the imagination got his mouth dry, throat working hard to swallow as he averted his eyes.

The first clue was hidden near the old Chronorift Memorial, a massive glass sculpture in the heart of the city that stood as a tribute to the devastation. Caleb watched as you practically bounced in place, your breath fogging in the chilly air as you scanned the area for anything that looked out of place.

“Oh! Over there!” You grabbed his arm before he could react, tugging him toward the base of the monument.

Caleb let himself be dragged along, ignoring the way his skin heated at the contact. The crowd gathered around the sculpture was thick, blocking whatever sign you were pointing at. All Caleb could see was you, the shine staining your eyes, your sparkling excitement.

God, he'd missed this. Missed you.

Without thinking, his fingers curled around your wrist, brushing the soft skin beneath. Your pulse fluttered beneath his fingertips, beating fast with energy and excitement, and he let himself savor the feeling. He missed seeing you this happy.

"Look!" you cried, reaching up on your tiptoes for balance. "I think I spotted something there."

Caleb followed your line of sight up toward the top of the monument — and sure enough, just below the highest peak of glass sat a tiny object, glinting in the sun.

"Think I can climb up?" you asked aloud, frowning at the structure as you examined the potential footholds. The memorial's glass surface was polished smooth, with no apparent way of scaling the towering mass, though that didn't stop you from trying.

Caleb reached out a hand though to pluck it easily out of the sky, and the object flew towards him. He waved it back and forth over your head. "How 'bout you just ask for it like normal people?"

Your mouth dropped into a dramatic frown. "Rude. If this was a proper game, you would've given me the illusion of a fighting chance before stealing my loot from under my nose."

"I'll make it up to you," he laughed, spinning the prize between his fingers. “You know, I think I’m a little offended. I saved your life, like, a million times growin' up, and you never obsessed over me like this.”

You snorted, rolling your shoulders back in a casual shrug. "Never crossed my mind. Besides, Lumiere wasn’t an asshat."

It was Caleb's turn to scoff. You motioned with your palm held upright like a customer waving down service.

"Please. Sire. Kind sire." He shook his head at your antics but gave you the small golden thing anyway. Your face lit up as you took it carefully between your fingers. "Thank you, kind sire. May good fortune bless you upon our next meeting."

It was actually a puzzle, which he guessed would contain a clue leading to the next location.

After solving the puzzle, you gleefully tapped at the digital interface attached to your wrist, navigating the device expertly until the next coordinates appeared onscreen. "Found it. Not far from here actually... should only take us a few minutes to walk there."

And so you continued your treasure hunt together.

Time drifted like clouds across the sky, lazy and aimless, broken by quick bursts of purpose. A stroll turned to weaving through foot traffic, hustling in fits and starts as you hunted down your destination and discovered the next hint in line. The setting changed — crowds grew thicker, colors bolder, lights brighter — and yet the pace stayed the same: slow, steady, unhurried. Caleb thought you would have wanted to hurry, but instead, you lingered. Stopping to buy two cups of warming tea along the way. To exchange an old bill for shiny coins. To listen to the music pouring from the doors of a small cafe as passersby filtered in and out.

It was nice.

Really nice, actually.

For a while, Caleb forgot everything beyond the edges of the bubble surrounding you, letting the sounds fade into nothing but white noise.

At one point, when you reached the endpoint, a question suddenly rose to his tongue, breaking the comfortable silence between you.

"Why me?" he asked without meaning to. "I'm not exactly an obvious choice to play tag with."

You lifted an eyebrow at him, glancing over at your map again. "You kidding? Who else would I invite?"

Caleb shrugged, the cold breeze grazing his shoulders, making him fold them in just a little bit closer.

"A friend?" He shot you a playful grin that came easier than he thought possible, earning himself a shove. "I don't think we've done this in ages. What makes today special?"

His stomach did a somersault when you hooked your arm around his elbow, holding onto his sleeve tightly.

"What about spending time with Caleb is so horrible to you? We haven't seen each other much these days. I'd love some quality time before you leave again." You nudged his side gently. Sincerity disguised as banter. He caught your tone of affection rather well, so well he couldn't help but feel giddy from your proximity. How warm your hand was wrapped around his elbow.

Even with the light atmosphere, it struck him like lightning how much he had been craving such small intimacy with you.

And right there, right then, the urge to tell you how he felt nearly consumed his entire being. Like he would crumble from the inside out if he kept pretending to be your brother for a minute longer. Yet, as much as he was dying to let it all out — because that is how bad he had it for you — there was also the more likely scenario of you finding him repulsive.

Just the idea of a life without you by his side made him sick and dizzy.

No, not today. Not anytime soon. He'd rather be by your side until the end of his days and wear the mask of gege than be hated by you.

So he swallowed down those three words, locking them tight in a chest bound by iron chains within the deepest recesses of his heart. And, ignoring the dull ache that remained in their wake, forced himself to brush off the truth like the joke he wished it were.

"You could write me letters if you miss me that much, pip-squeak," he teased, nudging your shoulder with his.

You leaned against him easily, swaying with the motion as you bumped into his side. "Pssh."

Then your hand slid down his forearm, curling around the crook of his elbow as you rested your chin on his shoulder. From here, you looked up at him through lashes streaked in amber sunlight, a happy, contented smile touching the corner of your lips.

Something expanded inside Caleb's heart — hot and painful and aching. He felt suddenly like he might cry, walking down the sidewalk through the throng of people going about their day as the wind ruffled through your hair, the heat of your palm seeping through the sleeve of his jacket, warm and solid where you held onto him.

If he closed his mind to everything else, if he ignored the way you smelled like home, if he could make himself pretend that the shape of your body against his was sister-shaped, just maybe — maybe — he could convince himself that this was enough. It had to be enough. Because even if Caleb wasn't quite certain when his feelings toward you began, or when they evolved beyond the bounds of familial ties — even if he knew you would never see him that way and loved him when he was your gege, that you would never know this small sliver of reality — he still had you. Right now, in this moment, the person most precious in the world to him stood next to him with your head resting on his shoulder. Smiling, trusting, safe.

And that was more important than any label he could slap on it.

Xavier hadn’t meant to stay the night.

He wasn’t even sure when he had fallen asleep.

One minute, they had been sitting on her couch, drinking tea from mismatched mugs, the only sound between them the low hum of the TV and the soft, lazy crackling of rain against the window. It had been late — too late — and you had been curled up beside him, half-draped in a blanket, the fabric of your sweater slipping just past your fingertips as as you scrolled idly through your phone.

Xavier had been reading, an old paperback you had lying around just for his enjoyment, the spine creased from years of use. He never asked where you got them — books with pages instead of screens — but he liked the way they smelled, the quiet permanence of ink pressed to paper.

The next thing he knew, the morning light was slipping in through the curtains, cool and blue, and you were gone.

He blinked, exhaling slowly as he sat up. The couch creaked under his weight.

He wasn’t alarmed — he never was — but his first instinct was to check for you anyway, a quiet, habitual concern that never quite left him. His ears picked up the faint noise of water running. The shower.

He leaned back against the couch, rubbing his fingers over his eyes, then glanced at the time.

6:42 AM.

Too early. But he should go.

He pushed himself to his feet, rolling his shoulders, then went to grab his jacket from where he had tossed it over the chair. He reached for it — then paused.

The bookshelf beside the chair caught his attention.

Not because he had never seen it before — he had been in your place countless times by now, had run his fingers over the neat stacks of old holotapes and datapads, the figurines and the framed pictures —but because one of a drawer, just beneath the shelf, slightly open. A few inches, maybe less.

It hadn’t been that way last night. He was sure of it.

Xavier never pried. He had spent too many years keeping his own secrets to go looking for anyone else’s. But something about that space, about the way the papers inside were just barely visible, about the way they had been tucked away yet left ajar, made his fingers pause against the zipper of his jacket.

Paper.

Not anything digital. Not an emitter. Handwritten pages.

Xavier frowned slightly, spine going ramrod straight. His fingers twitched once against his sides, tingling at the tips.

He should walk away.

Instead, he reached down and pulled the drawer open.

The pages inside were stacked haphazardly, some folded, others crinkled at the edges like they had been handled too many times, as if they had been written, held, then discarded — kept, but never sent. The ink had bled into the fibers of the pages in places where the pressure had been too much.

He pulled out the topmost one, smoothing it with his fingers. Your handwriting. He knew it instantly. A little rushed, pressed into the paper as though you had been writing quickly, too quickly.

Then he saw the name.

Caleb.

His grip on the paper tightened.

The words on the page blurred for a moment, but he forced himself to focus. He forced himself to read.

Caleb, I don’t know how to start this, or even why I’m writing it. Maybe because I don’t know how else to reach you. Maybe because if I put it down on paper, it might cleanse me like one of those full body detox things that I would no longer feel so bloated anymore with this poison I’m trying my hardest to hide from him. I still wake up expecting you to be one call away. I still reach for my phone thinking I can send you a voice message while I wait for my takeout to arrive, tell you something ridiculous that happened, or send you a picture of something stupid just because I know you’d call me to laugh about it. But you’re not here, and I’m talking to an empty space where you used to be. You were always the one I counted on. The one who knew me better than anyone. I could say a single word, and you would know exactly what I meant, what I was feeling, what I needed even when I didn't want to say it out loud. And now, months later, without you, I still feel like I’m missing a part of myself. Like something vital has been cut away, and I am expected to keep going like I don’t notice the absence. But I do. Every second, I do. I should have told you. I should have told you a long time ago.

Xavier’s shallow breaths were loud in his ears.

If I had, maybe things would have been different. Maybe I wouldn’t be here, writing this, trying to hold onto something that has already slipped through my fingers. Maybe if I had been braver, if I hadn’t been so afraid of gran and ruining what we had, you would have known just how much you meant to me. To this day, I don’t know how to move on. Everyone thinks I have. That time is the best medicine there is, after all. But how can I, when so much of me is still tangled in you? When every step I take feels like I’m walking further and further away from you, and I’m terrified that one day I’ll look back and realize you’ve faded from my memory, that I won’t remember the sound of your voice, or the way you laughed, or the exact shade of your eyes in the sunlight. But it’s more than that now. It’s not just the fear of forgetting, it’s the guilt of moving on. Of letting someone else hold me, kiss me, love me in the ways I never got to lov I wonder if you would even care. If it would matter to you at all knowing there’s someone in my life now. Would you look at me the way you always did, like a little sister, someone to protect, to guide, and still feel responsible for even in your big age? Would it even cross your mind that I waited and it’s my biggest regret? But I guess it doesn't matter anymore. I love him. I didn’t wait to tell him until after I was forced to lose him. Confessing before it was too late was the best decision I’ve ever made. And I don’t know what to do with that. Because when I’m with him, there are moments, just flickers, tiny fractures in time, where I forget. And then, all at once, it comes back. The missing piece. You. If you were here, if you could read this, I don’t even know what I’d want you to say. I just know that I’d give anything to hear you call me pip-squeak one more time. I need you to tell me it’s okay. That I’m not leaving you behind. That I can love him and still carry you with me. But you’re not. And I have to live with that.

The ink trailed off there.

There was a crease in the page, like you had pressed the pen too hard until you changed your mind.

Xavier stared at it.

The paper felt fragile between his fingers, like it might tear apart if he held it for too long.

Slowly, he put it back, and pressed the drawer shut.

He turned. His feet carried him soundlessly across the floor, toward the hallway, to where he could hear the steady drumming of water against the bathroom tiles, to where you stood facing the shower wall, head bent, your hair falling in thick wet clumps around your shoulders.

You heard his footsteps — of course you did — and lifted your head as he entered. Water cascaded down your back, collecting briefly at the base of your spine before disappearing. Your skin shone, faintly, the steam curling off the glass, settling in a soft cloud around your body, clinging to the planes and curves of it. You seemed to glow in that tiny space, a radiant centerpiece amongst white tile. You gave him a tired smile as he approached — inviting, questioning.

"Sorry! Did I wake you?" you asked instead, your face flushed pink from the heat, strands of wet hair stuck against your damp neck and collarbones. Your tongue darted over your lips as you moved beneath the spray of water again, turning away from him to put away the shampoo bottle on the built-in soap tray.

Xavier's hand landed against the frosted glass door. The hinges groaned softly in protest when he swung it fully open. Your eyebrows rose high onto your forehead when he stepped inside without asking, closing the space between you in three strides, boxing you in against the marble wall. The shock of hot water bearing down on him didn't quite register through the dead focus he had on you.

Your lips parted, breath catching. In surprise? In interest? He wasn’t sure, and right now he didn't care. Something childish tugged at him. Something that didn't care he was fully clothed, the black turtleneck sticking uncomfortably to his skin, jeans tightening with water. All he could think about was how soft you looked despite everything. How good you smelled, flowery and clean, how your wet skin practically sparkled beneath the fluorescent light of the bathroom.

How badly he wanted to etch himself into you, to have his name spill from your lips like fresh ink, blotting out the ghost of a dead man already written in your past.

Water droplets clung to your eyelashes. On impulse, he reached up to brush them away gently, and they fluttered against his knuckles.

"Xavier, what—"

"I had a nightmare," Xavier cut in smoothly, feeling more like himself, sounding far calmer than he really was. "Will you comfort me?"

"Oh..." The word came out somewhere between surprise and concern, tinted with something sympathetic. Xavier had to be looking half out of his mind, or too pathetic, standing here as soaked as a drowned rat in front of you while you were naked. He was worrying you. The idea snapped him back to reality like a splash of hot oil, and he immediately wanted to turn tail and leave before you demanded he elaborate. He couldn’t. Couldn't admit this was his version of needing affection. You frowned, reaching out to rest your hand over the side of his neck to draw him closer. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Xavier replied without missing a beat, leaning down to bump his nose against yours. Gingerly, like he wasn't quite sure if this would be welcomed, he rested his hands lightly on either side of your waist, the water sluicing down his back, warm, comfortable despite the situation. His throat bobbed once, twice, and he dipped his head down, unable to keep himself from admitting what he wanted most from you.

Your touch relaxed. It slid behind the back of his neck, fingers curling inward. He felt grounded again with your palms tracing a path down to his back, one palm pressed flat and firm between his shoulder blades while the other ghosted along his nape. It made goosebumps rise on his flesh, a pleasant sensation only you could provide. And when he bowed forward, your frame folded to accommodate, molding against his broader shoulders perfectly, bringing him into a sweet embrace. One that burned into his memory, warming him to the bone in more ways than just physical.

"Okay... Okay. Let's get you out of these wet clothes first," you cooed sympathetically and kissed him right below his ear. That tender, understanding gesture made Xavier's heart squeeze in his chest painfully. He thought about the letters hidden away in the drawer, if you had done anything like this at all with Caleb, but he quickly banished it from his thoughts and focused on the solid feeling of your body slotting so easily into his, like you were always meant to be there. Where no one else was allowed. "Then tell me how I can help, okay? Whatever you need."

Fifteen minutes later, Xavier had your front pressed into the condensation-dripping wall of the shower after he'd stripped off all his clothes and joined you.

You were flattened against the chilly surface as your nails clawed helplessly against the slick tiles, eyes were glazed over, lips swollen. One arm looped securely around your midsection, cupping one breast possessively, while the other braced a forearm beside your head and against the wall, trapping you effectively between Xavier and the marble barrier, each thrust pushing you upward on your tiptoes as he grinded insistently against you from behind. His grunts tickling the shell of your ear amidst his deep, staccato breaths as he buried himself up to the hilt, bottoming out deep within your pulsating core, piercing the misty veil surrounding them in an intimate halo.

Everything felt too intense. Too intimate. It shouldn't have been so overwhelming — this wasn't even a new position or angle. But something about it today made Xavier feel like the world was collapsing around him, and the only thing he could hold onto was your body, writhing beautifully between him and the smooth stonework. And maybe that was exactly what it was, he mused vaguely between driving into you from behind while relishing how hot and wet and tight you were around his cock — a sort of catharsis, releasing emotions he never voiced aloud, able to purge the anxieties he normally swallowed down just from hearing you chant his name incessantly, each moan like honey trickling down his throat and pooling warm in his belly.

You were practically keening underneath him now, rocking backwards as best you could to meet every roll of his hips with matching fervor. Your face angled toward him, seeking a kiss which he eagerly acquiesced, both of you moaning brokenly into one another's mouths at the perfect slide of his tongue against yours, tangling almost lazily in comparison to the frantic rhythm building between you two. Xavier reveled in the sweetness of your taste, licking deeper past your lips with unashamed greediness while enjoying your muffled gasp and subsequent whimpers vibrating on his palate.

There wasn't anywhere else in the universe Xavier would rather be than inside this shower cubicle fucking you senseless until the only thing remaining on your tongue were prayers begging for release and praise echoing throughout the enclosed space, resonating clearly through his ears and straight into his pounding chest.

"Call out my name more," Xavier uttered hoarsely, punctuating each word with a hard slam of his hips that made you choke on your cries of ecstasy. You complied beautifully without question, moans spilling unrestrained from those perfect, kiss-swollen lips alongside declarations of love that had the tempo of his hips speeding up, becoming faster, harder, rougher. "Who's here with you right now?"

"Y—Xavier!"

At this rate, Xavier might end up blowing his load first before being able to feel you tighten around him one last time. The sound of his name in that husky, breathless tone made his balls tingle warningly, pleasure threatening to spill over at any moment. "Again," He growled darkly as his pelvis connected audibly with the supple flesh of your ass. "Who's making you feel good? Who is making you forget your own name right now, hm?"

Your reply came out in between pants. "You, Xavier! Oh god, Xavier! Only you!"

"Yes... Me," he crooned triumphantly, sinking his teeth firmly enough into the meat of your shoulder so you would remember the shape of his mark, leaving red marks that resembled brands branded into your soft flesh. "Only I can give you what you need, isn't that right? No one else. Nobody else will ever do... I'm the one here... Now..."

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mrpenguinpants · 1 day ago

Text

Stepping Stone

— A stepping stone is something that helps someone advance or achieve something. He thinks his first push comes in the form of a disinfectant wipe.

— Lighter

Word Count: 17k

Part 1: Marbled Steps Light spoilers for Lighter's/Billy's backstory, I made up most of it. [Masterlist]

Thank you all for your support and love for the first part! I made this for the fans and yeehawkitty. I don't know your @ but thank you for the generous kofi tip. This is for you (and just in time for Valentine’s week). I love this goofy man way too much—why does every fic I write keep getting longer and longer? The 20k word fic was a JOKE.

The first step of Lighter’s new life was sharp, clean, and tinged with a faint chemical sting. The wet synthetic fibers of polyester, soaked in a solution of water and hydrogen peroxide, smeared against his hands. He had a complicated relationship with disinfectant wipes. On one hand, they were cheap and reliable—a passable replacement for when he ran out of clean soap and water. On the other hand, the cold residue they left behind, clinging to his skin like a snail’s trail, always made him uncomfortable. He’d never liked getting anything on his hands, especially stains. The frosty bite of the air burned as much as it chilled, creeping into the tiny, still-healing cuts on his fingers. Each swipe sent a sting through his nerves. Yet, he didn’t flinch or make a sound. He’s endured far worse. By comparison, these superficial paper cuts felt almost affectionate. Instead, his gaze shifted upward from his reddening and sticky hands to the gloved ones holding the cloth. White gloves—pristine, clinical, indifferent to the nuances of patient care. His supposed new doctor, polished and bright like a freshly unwrapped scalpel, hadn’t even bothered with introductions before whisking him away to this sterile corner.

A thought crossed his mind—maybe all doctors shared a natural disregard for bedside manners, no matter where they came from.

"Are you even listening to me?"

He hears more than feels the wet slap of the disinfectant wipes landing against his cheek, the damp fabric seeping into his skin and snapping him back to the present. Lighter blinks, his eyes momentarily lost as his memories of the past rush forward in a disorienting blur—like a tangle of white noise, punctuated by the fractured, flickering remnants of TV-static pixels.

"Well? Anything to say for yourself, mister?" Your voice is still as blunt as ever, even if your tone has been weathered down at the edges. You still wear the same frown on your face, your gloved fingers warm even when pressing into this skin far too harshly, as though trying to carve your very will into his face. This time, he doesn’t hold back the shiver. The involuntary tremor courses through him, his shoulder shaking as he hunches over himself as if you've sucker punched him in the stomach. Gone are the days when he could sit still as a rock, his body locked tight, immovable while you carried on with your work. Now, he lets himself act like the brat you keep calling him.

The overdramatic shiver pulls an equally exaggerated huff from you, your breath heavy. You peel the wipe from his skin with two fingers, tossing it into the garbage without a second thought. The sound of it hitting the pile of paper is strangely final, a soft but definitive splat. Even after all this time, your bedside manner could still use a little more warmth, a little more tenderness. A small, cynical part of him wonders if that’s the way you like it. But then, maybe that’s part of the charm.

"Uh..." He paused for a moment, trying to wrack his brain for what you had just said before deciding to take a trip down memory lane. From what he remembered, Caesar had invited him into a friendly spar with the Thieren gang that had rolled into Blazewood. You, as their resident doctor, had tagged along just in case any injuries came up. Naturally, it was a complete stomp for the Son of Calydon—they were on their home turf, and it would have been embarrassing if they lost. Then, you had dragged him to your clinic to patch him up, still glaring daggers at that lynx. As soon as you’d pulled out your supplies, the scent of alcohol and hydrogen peroxide had sent him tumbling into the wormhole of the past—until you pulled him back. You’d always been good at that.

He looks up at you, noticing that small notch in your eyebrow that signals your impatience. He can’t help but let out an awkward chuckle, his voice a little shaky around the edges, "Sorry, firecracker. I must have spaced out. What did you say?"

That earns him a pinch on the cheek—one he absolutely deserves, but ow, it stings more than he expects—as you unleash a full-on lecture. He catches only bits and pieces of what you’re saying: how it was supposed to be a lighthearted spar, but he somehow kicked it into overdrive, treating it like a life-or-death battle. How he acted recklessly, for no real reason again, just to look tough. Seriously, who was he even trying to impress? That lynx?! No way, right?! The whole thing wrings out a restrained laugh from his chest, one that’s barely contained, escaping his chest like an unexpected exhale, which only makes you turn an even deeper shade of red.

It’s a striking shade—not quite as searing as the flames that roar from his gauntlets, yet no less radiant. Not as gentle as the sun sinking into the horizon, yet still rich with warmth. Bright, warm, and spontaneous, sparking to life in an instant. Just like a firecracker. He’s always loved firecrackers. They’re fleeting, reckless things—blazing across the night sky in bursts of chaos and artistry, ephemeral yet unforgettable. A single spark, a brief eruption of light, and then—gone. But for that one moment, they demand attention, carving their brilliance into the dark.

At first, he found it irritating—how quick you were to switch gears into anger, flaring up over the smallest things. It reminded him too much of the people he used to work for, the ones who barked orders and hurled insults with spit-flecked fury, who would rather scream and hound him for their lost denny's. It was always the same. The bite of their words, the suffocating heat of their rage. Huffing and puffing, throwing around threats like execution orders over a few misplaced words, as if fear alone could squeeze blood from a stone. The bloated heads of collectors who reeked of whiskey and cigar smoke, who saw him as nothing more than a machine to be wound up with a crank, a weapon to be pointed in whatever direction they pleased.

Red, the shade of their fury. The shade of control, of pressure, of commands spat between bared teeth. He hated it. Hated them. Hated the way their voices rattled in his skull long after they were gone, the way the weight of their expectations coiled around his throat like a noose. He hated it so much that even the color red started to make him sick to his stomach.

And then came the blood.

Dark, dried beneath his fingernails, sinking into the creases of his knuckles. Bright, blinding under the harsh glare of stage lights, soaking the floor, painting his world in a shade he could never wash off.

What a revolting color it was.

"Hey... are you okay? I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so worked up."

This time, there’s no sharp sting of another wipe smacking against his face. Instead, warmth. A palm cupping his cheek, fingers hesitant yet steady as they brush against his skin. You tilt his head from side to side, scanning his face with knitted brows and that same look of quiet worry you always get when you think something might be wrong. Your eyes flicker over his, tracking every subtle shift, every flicker of movement. You must think he hit his head again. That all the times he’s spaced out on you, all the delays in his responses, must mean he’s nursing a concussion. Never mind that he wasn’t even hit during the spar.

"It’s nothin’, firecracker. No need to apologize. I’m the one who spaced on you twice," he says, trying to play it off with a half-hearted smile. But the look you shoot back tells him you’re not buying it. Still, you let it go. Your reservations fall along with your hand, which drops to rest on your hip as your gaze sweeps over him, sizing him up.

"Well... if you say so. Regardless," you spin on your heel, turning your back to him as you start packing your supplies back into the white medkit, your face carefully turned away from his, "Good job as always, champ. Another tally on the chalkboard of ever-growing victories."

He watches you move around the room, each motion deliberate yet just a little too stiff—like you’re forcing yourself to focus on the task at hand rather than the person behind you. After being in this room with you for so long, he sees it all, every subtle sign: the way your hands linger just a moment too long on each item as you tuck them back into place. Even when your eyes flicker toward him, it’s brief—a fleeting connection, like the burn of a matchstick snuffed out too soon. They dart away almost immediately, finding refuge in the sterile white walls or the cold steel of the counter. Your back remains turned, shoulders taut with unspoken tension, the rigid lines of your posture starkly visible through the thin fabric of your uniform.

His gaze drops, drifting downward to his own hands. Water trails down his fingers in slow, deliberate paths, the droplets gathering at his knuckles before slipping free and splattering against the tile floor. Each impact is soundless, vanishing into the quiet that fills the room. He watches them fall, his mind oddly detached, as if the sight of the tiny ripples on the ground might somehow offer an answer he doesn’t have.

He knows he should say something—anything—to cut through the silence. The words sit heavy on the edge of his tongue, poised yet unwilling to make the leap. He opens his mouth but finds it dry, the courage he thought he could summon crumbling into dust. Instead, he lets the moment stretch, the quiet growing louder with each second, his hesitation feeding its weight.

And still, your words from earlier linger. They echo in his mind, looping endlessly, burrowing deep into the corners of his thoughts like a quiet hum he can’t shake.

"I—uh..." You pause, taking a steadying breath. He's never seen you this nervous before, "I just wanted to say that... I don’t think I’ve said it enough, but I really appreciate you. More than you probably know. I know I don’t always show it, but...I-"

He can feel his palms begin to sweat, a creeping heat against the back of his neck that's slowly traveling to his ears. Sure, any compliment you manage to wrestle out of your vocal cords makes him puff his chest up in pride and cower away in a corner, but those are usually accompanied by sincere eyes that drill into this mind. But this time, you're not even looking at him as you push each word out. Is this...?

"I just wanted to say that I li-"

He rises to his feet with an easy, practiced motion, the leather of his jacket rustling as he swings it over his shoulder in one fluid sweep. The weight of it settles against his back, familiar and grounding, but it does little to ease the charged atmosphere lingering in the air. His hand reaches out, brushing lightly against the edge of the doorframe. For a moment, his fingers linger there, his touch hesitant, almost tentative—considering. Turning ever so slightly, with a slow inhale, he finally speaks.

"Back then, before Caesar interrupted us… what were you going to say?"

You freeze, fingers suspended mid-air, caught in the limbo between the impulse to respond and the overwhelming urge to pretend you never heard him at all. The moment stretches between you, thick and charged, pressing heavily against the walls of the room. With a sharp inhale, you force yourself back into motion, grabbing a pen and scratching hurriedly across the paper. But your movements are too rushed, too shaky, and your fingers falter as the pen slips from your grasp and clatters to the floor.

You don’t look at him. You can’t. But he always will and has.

He had a suspicion—an inkling of what you were going to say before Caesar’s interruption crashed through the moment like a battering ram. But suspicion isn’t certainty. And if he misreads this, if he takes one step too far in the wrong direction, the duck-tapped connection between you might collapse. There might be no coming back from this.

And yet, in all the moments he’s spent replaying your words, your gestures, your lingering glances, one truth remains constant: you have always been the one to reach out. The one steady hand that kept him from slipping off the tightrope he’d walked for so long. No matter how precarious his balance, you made sure he never fell alone. Even from the very beginning, when the distance between you was wider than words could bridge, you had taken his hand.

In other words, it's time to make a leap of faith.

-+-+-

The sun hangs low in the sky, just as orange and dusty as he remembers. It reflects off the sand in the Outer Ring so well that it's burning his eyes to a painful degree, but he keeps his gaze on the horizon. When the door—both metaphorical and literal—was kicked open, accompanied by a letter declaring his debts cleared and his ties to the underground ring severed, he wasn’t sure what to expect. What would greet him on the other side? Another fist to his face? A wall of steel, glass, or concrete? Instead, he finds himself here, his supposed benefactor—a red boar with a wild mane of white hair—rambles on in the background, introducing him to his gang of bikers. Their leather vests catch the sunlight, their laughter punctuated by the occasional roar of a motorcycle engine. It’s mostly white noise to Lighter. The words drift past him like the wind carrying dust through the air. He catches the gang name though, or at least he thinks he does. The Sons of...something. It’s hard to care. Whatever they call themselves, it’s not important. What is important is the fact that, for the first time in a long while, no one’s breathing down his neck or throwing him into another fight. For now, at least, he’s free.

He doesn’t know whether to be terrified or to breathe a sigh of relief that, despite all the days spent in the dark, the surface remained the same every single day: normal, routine, and steady. A quiet rhythm of life he once had, back before everything shattered into glimmering pieces and neon blackholes. Back before survival became a battle against shadows, where even his memories felt more like jagged shards than whole reflections. For a moment, he wonders if there’s a name for the psychopomp who escorts people back to the land of the living. Just as Charon ferries souls who’ve received their funeral rites across the rivers Acheron and Styx, shouldn’t there be someone to guide the return journey? Instead of meeting a comforting figure, he finds himself staring into the judgmental gaze of someone who clearly doesn’t want him back among the living. Their white gloves are already curling around his wrists, alive with the faint mutterings of grime and viruses. His first steps up the mountain begin with the acrid sting of disinfectant in his lungs and the sterile touch of cotton swabs.

His new, albeit temporary, abode is deafening. It’s the kind of noise that settles deep, like the muffled pressure in his ears before a swallow makes them pop. Irritating, constant, and inescapable. While it’s undeniably better than the Underground Ring—anything would be an upgrade from that hellhole—it carries a similar kind of noise. The loudness doesn’t come from roaring crowds or fists slamming into flesh this time, but it’s loud all the same. One individual, in particular, seems to embody that more than anyone else. She’s impossible to avoid. The self-appointed ringleader of every bad idea, she lugs a spare tire around like it’s some sort of shield. No matter how careful or quiet he tries to be, she always seems to spot him whenever he attempts to sneak away. Everything about her is loud—her gestures, her laughter, even the way she stomps her boots against the ground as she barrels toward him. Today, she’s waving her arms wildly, yelling at the top of her lungs about a “top-secret mission” to hoard bottles of shampoo. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t even ask why. He simply nods curtly, a silent agreement that spares him from the inevitable round of coaxing or, worse, shouting. His compliance earns him a hearty slap on the back, the kind that might’ve staggered him once, but now he barely feels. It’s as if the years have dulled his senses, leaving his body numb to gestures that should’ve felt like camaraderie. He follows her, trudging along as she chatters endlessly, her excitement filling every quiet gap. He doesn’t particularly remember what they did—only the overpowering smell of flowers and artificial fruit. The sweetness of it clings to the air, thick enough to choke him, cloying in its intensity. It lingers in his nose long after the bottles have been stashed away in her “secret” hiding spot. Later, when she moves in for another slap on the back, he dodges it with practiced ease, retreating into his own corner of blood, dust, and dirt.

You would think that, by now, he’d have acclimated to the constant assault of different scents around him. The shampoo that the girls in the gang seem obsessed with has started to lose its overwhelming sugary fragrance, so at least he no longer has to clamp a hand over his nose every time one of them passes by. Small mercies, perhaps. Yet, for all the tolerance he’s built for floral and fruity aromas, there are two scents he’s never been able to endure: blood and chemicals. Unfortunately, he finds himself in the breeding ground for both every time he even slightly nicks himself. A shallow cut on his thigh is nothing to worry about, not even enough to draw a single drop of blood. Yet somehow, he finds himself dragged to the clinic more often than anyone else. He’s certain it’s on purpose. The first time was sheer coincidence, or so he told himself. But every subsequent trip has felt deliberate, the way you grab his arm and hauls him back to that room. The doctor knows.

The realization makes his fingers twitch. It’s not the kind of tremor born of nerves, but a frustration that simmers low in his chest. His eyes glaze over as he tries to block out the sensory onslaught—the stinging scent, the white gloves, the faint hum of machinery in the corner. The irritation builds until it’s nearly unbearable, clawing its way up his throat like a scream he refuses to let out. He wants to punch something. To throw his whole weight into a single, bone-rattling motion—just to expel the tension coiling inside him like a tightly wound spring. Because if he can’t, he knows he’ll be left alone with his thoughts. And that might just be worse.

"You need to take better care of yourself," the doctor says, lightly pressing onto the outside of the cut and looking up at him to see if it causes any pain. There isn’t any. For something this small, there never is. He only spares you a glance before returning his blank stare back to the wall in front of him. The beige paint is chipped in places, tiny cracks crawling up the wall. You should transfer the funds for his bandages in exchange for a renovation. He hears you huff, the mumblings of someone annoyed that their help, which was never asked for in the first place, is going unappreciated. It’s not the first time. Probably not the last.

He hates people like that. People who peacock around with signs practically screaming, Look at me! I’m doing the right thing! I’m a good person! They expect gratitude, praise, maybe even a pedestal to stand on for their noble efforts. The thought makes his jaw tighten.

He hears you sigh again, the sound filled with the same familiar annoyance that he's come to expect. That passive-aggressive pity that lingers in your words when you complain to others about him. "He’s impossible," you'd said, more than once, "won’t listen, won’t cooperate, and doesn't even appreciate the help.", and that you have no idea what he's even doing here. At least he can agree with you on that last part, he doesn't know what he's doing here either in this town full of loud voices and cloying sweetness. He doesn't know how to stomach it.

He can feel your eyes roam over his stiff posture, the set of his jaw, the way his shoulders are pulled so tight they might snap. As if you can practically hear Lighter's inner thoughts through his silence, those unspoken words hanging thick in the air. It's all part of the same stubborn routine, you'll push and prod hoping to find any cracks to sink your fingers into and Lighter will have them patched up and reinforced.

"You know," the doctor continues, a faint trace of irritation creeping into your tone, "I can't keep fixing you up if you keep running into trouble. I’m not a miracle worker."

Lighter doesn't even twitch, just stares straight ahead. He's learned very early on that if he stays still and shuts up, he'll be left alone sooner. He doesn’t need this. Doesn’t need any of this. People like a doctor—like you—always trying to help, always wanting to fix things that aren’t broken. It’s infuriating, how you all think you know what’s best for him. He hates it. And yet, here he is, with a gash that needs tending, caught between the impulse to tell you to shove it and the weight of some unspoken guilt that settles in his chest. He really wants to punch something.

"Yeah, well," he mutters, his voice a low rasp, "Never asked for your help."

The words escape him before he can claw them back, slipping through the spaces before he even realizes they’re there. Small cracks, just wide enough to betray him. Involuntarily, he braces himself. His muscles tighten against his bones, his bones harden like reinforced steel, locking in place to protect the fragile machinery inside. His lungs compress his heart, squeezing it so tightly it feels like it might burst. Those flimsy walls he’s built—made of tofu and paper mâché, laughably weak—begin to tremble under the weight of the wrecking ball swinging his way.

He closes his eyes, holding himself perfectly still. Waiting.

"Yeah, well," you mimic in that same stubborn tone, "you shouldn’t have to."

There’s a pinch at his cheek, light but condescending, like he’s a child in need of scolding. Then the scent of disinfectant reaches his nose, sharp and sterile. Oh. Right. He was bleeding there. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Bullheaded brat,” he hears you mumble just before the door clicks shut behind you.

His first loss doesn’t begin with a fight but with a long, crumpled list shoved into his hands by a short blonde girl wearing a helmet with a metal spike sticking straight up. What was her name again? Luke? No...that was a boy’s name. Luca? No, another boy's name. She’s bossy and dishonest about her feelings, but at least she’s straightforward about what she wants. It’s easy working with her—she doesn’t waste time on small talk, which, in this gang, is practically a miracle. He doesn’t bother checking the list, already stuffing it into his pocket as he swings a leg over a spare bike lent to him for this job. With a sharp roar of the engine, he takes off from the Outer Ring, hoping to escape before anyone else can shove more responsibilities onto his plate.

That, as it turns out, is his first mistake. Sitting at a pit stop on the side of a dusty highway, he finally pulls out the list, intending to glance at it just long enough to plan the quickest route. But as his eyes skim the items scrawled across the page, a sinking realization hits him. He doesn’t know what half these things are. What even is a “Carlishe”? The words blur together, a mix of illegible handwriting and bizarre requests. There are addresses written next to each item at least—small mercies—but the real kicker is that all of them are located within the city. That almost makes him want to turn the bike around and head straight back to the Outer Ring. Almost. Instead, he exhales sharply, runs a hand down his face, and glares at the list like it personally wronged him. He can already feel the headache building.

The city is obnoxious. The constant stream of bodies rushing to their destinations, the screeching of tires against uneven roads, and the blinding flashes of lights from signs and advertisements assault his senses. He pulls his hair in front of his eyes for the nth time, brightly coloured spots popping in his vision and a stinging in the back of his eyes. His skin feels prickly, as if hives are crawling up his arms, the overstimulation setting his nerves on edge. The worst part is the lingering stares. Schoolgirls in matching uniforms clutch their backpacks in one hand, covering their mouths with the other as they whisper to each other. Giggling erupts between stolen glances in his direction. Then there are the men, distracted by their phones, who only notice him in passing—before stopping mid-step for a double-take. Their eyes dart from him to his bike, suspicion clouding their expressions, and they hurry away like he’s about to rob them on the spot. He already wants to leave. The city doesn’t need to say it outright; it’s made its message clear enough. He doesn’t belong here. He’s out of place, and he’s most certainly unwelcome.

He moves a hand to cover his nose, inhaling deeply to scrape up the lingering scents of rust and dust clinging to his gloves. His fingers tremble, his palm damp against the fabric, as he struggles to anchor himself to something—anything—other than the crushing tightness in his chest. But everywhere he turns to, he see's the same friends laughing as they bump shoulders. The bark of a dog as a little girl with a pink bow in her hair chases after it. The scent of lemonade from a nearby stand run by an equally bright yellow pill-shaped bangboo. He presses his thumb harder against the bridge of his nose, a feeble attempt to distract himself from the rising pressure, like invisible walls are closing in on him. His breath comes in short, uneven bursts, his lungs clawing for air, desperate for a relief that refuses to come. His stomach twists violently, and a bead of cold sweat slides down the back of his neck, tracing a shiver along his spine. Everything feels too close, too loud, too much.

He’s panicking. He knows it. The sensation rises like a wave, crashing over him in slow, unrelenting force. He can feel his heart pounding in his throat, the pulse thudding in his ears, drowning out everything else. His hands start to shake more violently now, his grip on his face slipping, the instinct to get away, to escape, clawing at him from the inside. He tries to steady himself, but the dizziness sets in, blurring the edges of his vision. He can’t breathe. His chest is so tight he can’t expand his lungs, and every shallow gasp makes him feel like he’s drowning. The sensation is too familiar, too real. He’s been here before. Too many times. His back against the dirty fighting ring and the glare of stage lights replaced with billboards and concrete sidewalks.

"Lighter? What are you doing here?"

His head snaps up, eyes wild and frenzied, to see you hovering beside him. He hadn’t even realized you’d gotten so close, and the sudden proximity sends him reeling. Before he can jerk back—crashing into his bike and sending it toppling over—your hand shoots out, gripping the lapels of his jacket. His heels dig into the concrete, his hands bracing against the seat of the bike as if it’s his only anchor, but it's your grip that really holds him steady. For a second, the world blurs around him, the noise of the city dimming, and all he can focus on is the warmth of your hands, firm and solid against the fabric of his jacket. The air feels too tight, like there’s not enough room to breathe, and yet, you’re there, keeping him from falling, keeping him steady—

His heart races, the pounding of his blood echoing in his ears, his pulse thudding hard against his ribs. He doesn’t know why, but this—this moment—feels too intimate, too close. He’s not used to anyone seeing him like this: exposed, stumbling, stripped of his usual defenses. He’s always been good at keeping his distance, but now, with your hand on him, everything feels just a little too raw. Too real.

It reminds him of the past. Familiar faces flashing by. The hands that reached out to him before being swallowed in the Hollow.

His hand shoots out before he can stop it—so fast, it feels instinctive, reflexive. By the time he registers what he’s done, it’s too late. In the next blink, you’re on the ground, a startled expression etched onto your face, and his arm remains outstretched, frozen in place from when he shoved you away. The air between you feels heavy, suffused with a tension that wasn’t there before. His chest tightens, and for a moment, he doesn’t know whether to apologize or double down, his fingers curling as if trying to grasp at an excuse that won’t come.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have touched you so suddenly," you say instead, your voice softer than usual. There’s no anger, no accusation, just a calm sincerity as you dust off your pants and straighten up, "Are you okay? Do you need anything?"

He blinks, your words catching him off guard. For a heartbeat, he almost doesn’t know what to say. Okay? No, he’s not okay. Not really. His mind races, trying to piece together an answer but he comes up empty. He swallows hard, the dryness in his throat making it difficult, and his eyes flicker away, unable to meet your gaze.

“I—” His throat feels tight, the words tangling together before they can make it out. He glances at you for a brief second, but the weight of your gaze is too much. He shifts his eyes down, focusing on the cracked asphalt beneath his boots, as if it might somehow offer him an escape.

“Yeah,” he mutters finally, the word rough and hollow, unsure if it even makes sense in the context of this moment, “Just—yeah.”

The silence that follows is thick, stretching far too long, like a rubber band about to snap. He can feel the weight of your unspoken words, the way you hesitate, lips parted but still holding back. You want to say something—he knows it—but for some reason, you don’t. Then, with a sharp breath, he shifts his weight and pushes himself back upright. The bike beneath him wobbles, the kickstand threatening to buckle before he catches it with his foot. He grips the handlebars tightly, the rough leather of his gloves creaking as he steadies the machine. His movements are jerky, uncoordinated, but they’re enough to keep him moving, even as his mind stays caught in that lingering moment between you.

“I should go,” he says, his voice low, clipped, refusing to meet your eyes. It sounds less like a statement and more like a command—to himself as much as to you. The words carry an undercurrent of urgency, as though he’s trying to escape the unease curling in his chest. He takes a step back, the motion stiff, like he’s physically shaking off the invisible tether between you. The space between you grows heavier, a palpable weight neither of you acknowledges. He doesn’t wait for a response. His hands tighten around the handlebars of the bike, knuckles pale against the leather of his gloves, before he mounts it in a quick, practiced motion. The engine growls to life, a sound that vibrates in the air but doesn’t quite drown out the tension.

And then he’s gone, the tires kicking up dust as he speeds away, leaving behind the moment, the words unsaid, and you. By the time he returns to the Outer Ring, his pockets are empty, the list crumpled in his jacket, untouched. It’s his first uncompleted job.

It’s painfully awkward for the next few days after his brief run-in with you in the city. He avoids the clinic and stays far from the supply depot, the memory of your touch and your too-soft words still too fresh, too unsettling. He doesn’t know what he expects—maybe a reprimand, maybe nothing at all—but when another girl, the perpetually sleepy one, quietly takes over the task of resupplying, it leaves him reeling. She doesn’t ask why, doesn’t mention you, just takes the list without so much as a glance his way. And yet, there’s an uncomfortable heat crawling up the back of his neck, behind his ears, and it sits there like a stone lodged in his gut. Did you say something to the rest of the gang? Did you mention what happened? Complain about him, the same way you’ve done before? It wouldn’t be out of character; he’s overheard you once or twice. Still, even with all that, he wants to believe there’s a line you won’t cross. Some kind of unspoken doctor-patient confidentiality. Because if there isn’t…then why? Why did you help him? Maybe it was just instinct. Maybe it wasn’t about him at all. Maybe it was for the town you actually care about, the place you’ve chosen to carve out a life in. Or maybe it was just reflex—what anyone would’ve done in your place. But you haven’t sought him out. You haven’t hounded him down, haven’t dragged his name through the dirt as far as he knows. And as long as you don’t, as long as you leave him alone, he can continue avoiding you. He can pretend the encounter didn’t happen. As long as he doesn’t get hurt again, as long as everything stays peaceful, he doesn’t have to face you—or the echoes of the past you unintentionally stirred.

His momentary spiraling is cut short by the sound of a cough, sharp and deliberate, pulling him out of his tangled thoughts. Lighter’s heart jumps, startled, and his leg jerks out, knocking over a chair with a loud clatter. He flinches at the noise, muttering a curse under his breath. God, he’s slipping. Pushing the hair out of his face, he glances toward the source of the cough. Through his squinted eyes, he spots...ah. Right. This was Billy. The supposed "Champion" of the gang. Hard to miss, honestly, given that he’s an Intelligent Construct. Plus, the flaming red scarf that trails after him is impressionable and Billy doesn’t look like anyone else here, his artificial frame and polished demeanor sticking out like a sore thumb among the ragtag crowd. And just like that, Lighter’s stomach sinks. If Billy’s here, then maybe—no, definitely—you must’ve said something. Of course you did. This is it, isn’t it? The prelude to him being kicked out. Again. Another mess, another failure, and now he’ll be chased out in a hail of bullets and gunpowder, all because he can’t keep his head straight for five seconds.

But instead of drawing a weapon or delivering some scathing speech, Billy does something unexpected. He holds out…a pair of tinted shades. Lighter stares, not entirely sure what to make of it. The glasses dangle in Billy’s hand, the Construct’s posture as casual and unbothered as ever. A present, Billy's voice perfectly smooth and indifferent, something the doctor picked up on a visit to the city. Lighter blinks, his mind grinding to a halt. A…present? From you? Why? For a moment, all he can do is stare at the shades, the reflection of his own dumbfounded expression staring back at him in their lenses. His brow furrows as his gaze catches the faint tint of the redish brown color across the glass, cool and distant, like a barrier between him and the world. They don’t look cheap—quite the opposite, actually. Which only makes it worse.

The weight of the gesture presses against him like a slow, sinking tide. He doesn’t know what to feel. Gratitude? Embarrassment? Suspicion? All of it tangles into a tight knot in his chest, a strange and unfamiliar discomfort he isn’t sure how to deal with. His fingers twitch at his sides, and for a split second, he debates leaving Billy hanging, ignoring the outstretched hand entirely. But the weight of of Billy’s unreadable gaze, feels heavier than his pride. Slowly, hesitantly, Lighter reaches out, his movements stiff and mechanical. The shades slide into his hand, the smooth metal and cool glass feeling foreign against his skin. His grip lingers a moment too long, like the act of accepting them is something monumental. As if he's taken the first step up the mountain.

Billy is… nice. He’s nice. Lighter can’t deny that, even if the word feels a little too plain for someone as unique as him. There’s something disarming about Billy—a balance between his quirks and his sharp edges that somehow works. Goofy around the edges, with a kind of restless energy, yet precise and almost unnervingly focused when it counts. He’s one of those people who can make awkward silences feel like they’re meant to be there, and Lighter finds an odd sense of peace in that. Maybe it’s because they share similar roles in the gang, both of them tasked with carrying responsibilities with more firepower. Or maybe it’s something deeper—something about their personalities that clicks. Lighter can’t quite put his finger on it, but there’s an ease to being around Billy, like slipping into a pair of old boots that still fit just right. For the most part, Billy is quiet, observing the world around him with that detached, almost mechanical calm. But when you hit the right topic—when you find the one thing that sparks his interest—he lights up like a firework. He’ll start talking, words spilling out in a stream of excitement that’s almost contagious. Lighter has seen it happen before, usually about some obscure mechanical part he needs for upgrading or a tv show about righteous knights who battle against evil. It’s the kind of rambling that could easily be overwhelming, but somehow, it’s not. Somehow, it’s endearing. There’s something genuine about the way Billy’s enthusiasm bubbles to the surface, something that makes Lighter’s guarded demeanor chip away just a little.

What he isn’t prepared for is how his carefully planned baby steps keep turning into leaps of faith. Normally, after every job, when the gang gathers around a bonfire to celebrate—loud laughter, music blaring, and drinks flowing—Lighter sticks to his routine. He’ll slink back to wherever he came from, or at most, brood in the shadows with his back plastered against a dark wall, far away from the chaos. It’s safer that way. Easier. But this time, something feels different. When Billy nudges him with an elbow and gestures toward the sagging couches that have clearly seen better days, Lighter hesitates. He considers it, just for a moment. He could shake his head, retreat to his corner, and Billy wouldn’t hold it against him. And really, Lighter’s presence won’t make or break the party. A couple swigs of Nitro Fuel and everyone will be too drunk to notice who’s around, passing out in ridiculous sleep positions before the night’s over.

His gaze shifts toward the bonfire. The flames lick and crackle, embers glowing as they begin to dull. Behind his tinted shades, the fire isn’t as vibrant as it would be without them. The reds, oranges, and yellows are muted, softened, like looking through a filter. Yet, for once, he can look at the fire without feeling that sharp, throbbing pain behind his eyes. It’s a small relief, and for a moment, he feels almost… normal. His attention drifts upward, scanning the circle of people sprawled out around the fire, laughing and arguing over meaningless things. And then his eyes land on you. You’re slumped over on one of the couches, gesturing animatedly as you rant about the ever-growing stream of patients flooding your clinic. Your voice is tinged with frustration, though it’s more exasperated than angry. Something about how you haven’t had a proper break in days. That explains why he hasn’t seen you lately.

A strange realization settles over him, tugging uncomfortably at the back of his mind. He never thanked you. For the shades, for your help in the city—for anything. The thought gnaws at him, not enough to be overwhelming, but enough to make him pause. He’s not good at expressing gratitude. Hell, he’s not even good at feeling it most of the time. But as he watches you flop back against the couch with a tired sigh, a flicker of something unfamiliar stirs in his chest. It’s not guilt exactly, but it’s close. Maybe tonight, for once, he won’t retreat into the shadows. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll take that next step.

He pointedly ignores the jolt you give when you feel the weight of the couch dip beneath him, the speed with which your head whips around to confirm what he knows must look impossible. Lighter—of all people—is sitting there, arms crossed stiffly over his chest, his gaze fixed on the fire like it owes him money. He doesn’t acknowledge you. Not directly, at least. He’s almost thankful for the heat radiating from the bonfire because, with any luck, you’ll mistake the redness creeping up his ears for reflections of the flickering light bouncing off his tinted shades. It’s not nerves—well, maybe a little—but mostly it’s the awkwardness of being in your presence when he’s not glowering at you from afar or brushing off whatever comment you’ve tossed his way. This is...new territory.

A tiny, traitorous part of him kind of wants to sneak a glance at you. What expression are you wearing right now? Are you gaping like a fish, shocked that the infamous recluse has willingly planted himself within six feet of you? Or worse—are you wearing one of those disgusted looks, the kind you save specifically for when he gets under your skin? He isn’t sure which would be worse, but the curiosity lingers.

For now, though, he keeps his head stubbornly forward, his jaw tight and his arms tense, as if he’s bracing himself for a punchline to some joke he hasn’t caught on to yet. The fire snaps and crackles before them, and the raucous noise of the gang around the bonfire continues to fill the air. Still, the weight of your attention burns heavier than the heat of the flames, and it takes all his willpower not to fidget under it.

...

It wouldn’t hurt to look. Just a quick glance, nothing too obvious. If you’re gaping at him like a fish out of water or pulling that disgusted face as if you’ve bitten into a lemon, then that’s a clear enough message: he’s severely miscalculated and he’ll never make that mistake again. Maybe sitting here was the wrong choice after all. His arms uncross slightly, just enough to give him the excuse to shift his weight, to tilt his head ever so slightly as if he’s adjusting his shades. His eyes flick to the side—just for a second—to gauge your reaction. It’s subtle, but enough to see if there's any tension in your shoulders, if your lips are pressed together like you’re trying to decide whether to call him out or let it slide.

To his surprise, there’s no disgust, no annoyance, not even a smirk that says, Really? You’re here?. Instead, there’s something else, something brighter. Maybe it’s curiosity, or perhaps a flicker of surprise that he’s dared to sit this close to you without his usual defenses up. Like you're struggling to contain yourself before you're about to burst. Whatever it is, it doesn’t scream “wrong choice” the way he expected.

You look...elated. That’s…new.

It throws him off balance in a way he’s not prepared for. That small spark in your eyes, the faint lift of your lips—it’s not the reaction he anticipated, not in a million years. His stomach twists, not in the way it does when he’s bracing for an argument or a fight, but in that strange, uncomfortable way that happens when the ground feels weightless beneath his feet. He swallows hard, his throat suddenly dry, and forces his gaze back to the fire, hoping the crackling embers will right him. He focuses on that, grounding himself in the heat of the burn, anything to avoid thinking about the expression he just caught on your face. He’s not sure he’d know what to do if he kept looking. He shifts slightly, crossing his arms tighter over his chest as though that will make him feel less exposed. He hopes he looks composed, even though his pulse is racing faster than he’d like to admit. For a moment, he almost regrets sitting down. But you’re not yelling at him—or worse, walking away.

For now, that’s enough to keep him rooted in place.

Man, he really wants to go back to his secluded corner.

“Lookin’ good, Lighter,” you say with a cheeky grin, your eyes curving into crescent moons that mirror the one hanging high in the night sky.

His fingers twitch against his arms where they’re folded, and he huffs, barely glancing your way. He knows you’re teasing, but the warmth behind your tone doesn’t feel mocking—it feels...light, playful in a way that doesn’t dig under his skin.

Still, he can’t help but mutter, “Don’t push it,” though the sharp edge he tries to add falls embarrassingly flat.

The firelight dances in your expression as your grin widens, and for a moment, he’s caught between the glow of the embers and the curve of your smile. It’s not like he’s never seen you smile before—he’s seen plenty of them, but those were always directed at other people. Always at your patients, your friends, or anyone else who wasn’t him. But now, the warmth in your expression is unmistakably meant for him, and it throws him off balance. It feels strange, foreign even, like the weight of something he’s not sure he knows how to carry. He doesn’t know what to do with it—this quiet kindness you’re offering, unspoken yet undeniable. His eyes flicker back to the fire, but the warmth of your gaze lingers, pressing against him in a way that feels both comforting and unnerving. He crosses his arms tighter over his chest, trying to ground himself, but it’s hard to ignore the way his pulse picks up, betraying the calm exterior he’s trying so hard to maintain.

“C’mon,” you tease, leaning back against the couch with an exaggerated stretch, your grin sharp and playful, “I don’t give compliments for free, you know. You could at least say ‘thanks.’”

He exhales through his nose, his lips twitching into something close to a scowl—but not quite. There’s no real bite behind it, just an attempt to shield himself from the moment you’ve trapped him in.

“Thanks,” he mutters, voice gruff and low, like the word scrapes against the edges of his pride as it slips out. Your laughter, loud and unrestrained, bubbles into the sky, It doesn’t feel like you’re laughing at him, though. There’s no edge, no smug satisfaction—just genuine amusement, warm and fleeting, like the explosion of firecrackers.

Belatedly, he notices that the leather of his gloves has lost its scent of rust and dust, replaced by the lingering traces of overpriced shampoo and motor oil. He should probably mind the shift, but he doesn't, not as much as he thought he would. In fact, there’s something oddly comforting about the contrast, like a quiet marker of his unexpected immersion into this world. It's strange, but in a way, it's been a long time since anything felt so familiar. Still, for as much time as he spends in your clinic, he's surprised he doesn’t walk away smelling of antiseptic spray. Maybe it’s because he’s never been your patient, but he wonders if it’s more than that. Maybe it’s because he’s become such a regular fixture in your clinic that the place itself has started to seep into him. It’s a funny thought, one that crosses his mind every time he enters your doors to see you putter around in that rhythm you've built for yourself. He watches the way you navigate the clinic, how you hum quietly under your breath when you’re absorbed in something, and how you somehow always know just when he’s lingering near the doorway. It makes something warm stir in his chest.

Aside from him, you don’t seem to have many patients to tend to. Billy doesn't exactly need regular checkups, given that he's more machine than man, and the rest of the gang is often off on other assignments or busy with their own affairs. Now, though, he notices something that’s been creeping up on him—he’s stopped avoiding you at every turn. At first, it was a conscious effort. He’d slip out when you weren’t looking, retreat into the shadows of the clinic or take a walk to avoid running into you when you were... being you—a healer, a talker, an enigma he didn’t quite know how to handle. But now? It’s different. You seem to be everywhere he goes. Your presence is subtle, but it's there—your voice drifting from one corner of the clinic, your footsteps moving purposefully down the hallway. And he’s... used to it. More than he ever thought he’d be. The awkwardness he used to feel is slowly dissolving though there’s still a part of him that’s wary of what it means. He’s learned, in his own way, to appreciate the way you move, the way you’ve managed to fit yourself into his world.

It manifests in small moments—subtle, fleeting, but undeniable. It happens when he sees your fingers blindly reach for something on the counter, and before you can even finish your motion, he’s already sliding the object into your palm. The first syllable of your sentence leaves your lips, but it’s already too late; he’s finishing your thought, speaking the words as if they were his own. Even when you glance at something, then back at him, there’s a strange, quiet understanding. He doesn’t need you to say anything more; he can read the flicker of your thoughts in the way your eyes linger, in the soft shift of your gaze. It’s almost too intimate for him to process, this unspoken bond. His instinct is to push it away, to retreat back to the isolation he’s known for so long. But there's something strangely comfortable in it—something that makes him feel a little less alone, a little less like he's always on the outside, watching the world pass by. It doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t feel wrong either.

He doesn’t exactly know what to make of it—this strange dance, your steady rhythm next to his stumbling between the two of you. It’s like walking through a fog, not sure if you’re heading in the right direction but trusting the path enough to keep moving forward. There are still moments when he feels like he’s on the edge of something. He’ll catch you looking at him just a bit too long, those small moments of curiosity. What’s even more surprising is how much he’s starting to do the same with you. He doesn’t always understand you, doesn’t always know the right things to say, but when he catches you working, lost in your thoughts, focused on a task, he finds a strange sense of peace in it. It’s a new thing. Before, he’d find any excuse to walk away, but now, he lingers. He stays in the space, watches the way you move with a quiet concentration, and feels that flicker of something—maybe curiosity, maybe even admiration.

He can tell you're starting to loosen up around him, too. Even when he doesn’t respond to what you say in the way you'd hope, you don’t seem to take it to heart like you used to. There’s no hint of irritation, no sharp edge to your words. You don’t push, don’t demand more than what he can give, and there’s something about that that makes him feel... safer? Less like he has to keep his guard up at all times. Bits and pieces of his old personality—those little flashes of the person he used to be before everything became so fractured—are starting to creep out from under the heavy layers of his walls. They find their way to the surface in quiet moments, in the brief pauses between conversations where you almost catch him smiling at something you've said, or when a wry comment slips out without him even thinking. It’s as if the parts of him that used to retreat into the background, hiding in the shadows of his old self, are slowly being coaxed out.

He’s holding two tubes of lipstick, one in each hand, squinting like he’s trying to decipher some ancient code. Burnice just had to be unspecific when she said she wanted to try a new color, an "orange sunset” apparently. What does that even mean? The shade of a fiery sky? A pumpkin? Tangerine? He has no idea, and it doesn’t help that both of these lipsticks look exactly the same to him. The store's bright fluorescent lights glare down from above, making his head throb. He adjusts his glasses, still firmly planted on his nose despite their dimming effect on vibrant hues. Without them, he’d probably be seeing stars. But he can't exactly turn back now. Piper is out of commission, and the rest of the gang conveniently claims to be busy with other duties—though Lighter suspects they’re all just finding excuses to dodge responsibility. That much becomes clear when Lucy shoves a crumpled list into his hands, a smirk playing on her lips like she knows exactly how this is going to go. The paper’s worn and hastily scribbled, the ink smudged in places, and as his eyes scan the contents, a wave of déjà vu washes over him. Yep. He still has no idea what any of these things are.

"Orange Sunset, my ass," he mutters, comparing it to the other like some kind of makeup detective. One might be slightly redder, or maybe it’s just the lighting messing with him. Why does anyone need this many shades of orange anyway? From the corner of his eye, he catches a clerk staring at him, probably wondering why some scruffy guy in tinted glasses is agonizing over lipstick like his life depends on it. He ignores them, sighing as he tries to recall Burnice’s exact tone when she made the request. Did she sound sarcastic? Was this a joke? Because if it was, it’s on him now.

He lets out a deep sigh, the weight of his confusion finally settling in. Yup, he's throwing in the towel. This whole "getting the right shade" thing? It’s beyond him. He has no idea what the girls were thinking when they handed him that list. Honestly, he figures he should just wait for you to come back from the pharmacy across the street. Maybe then, you’ll know exactly what to get, and they won’t think he’s the worst at shopping ever.

Before he can wallow in his lack of makeup knowledge for much longer, he hears a snicker, followed by your voice, "You want to try some on? There are testers available, but I wouldn't recommend putting them on your lips. Cross-contamination and all that."

He turns just in time to see you walk into the store, a white folded bag in hand. You pause for a second, your hand pressed against your face like you’re hiding a smile. It's the same expression you made when he approached you with the invitation to come with him back to the city, eyes glued to the ground the entire time. Lighter places the two tubes of lipstick down, his unamused expression deepening as he shoots you a look.

"What’s with that look?" you tease, clearly amused. "I personally think you'd look great with a bit of color. We can even ask someone to do a color match for you and find your foundation shade."

“I think they’d rather kick me out,” Lighter mutters, his eyes flicking down at himself like he’s seeing his mismatched appearance for the first time. He shifts uncomfortably, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, shoulders hunched in a defensive way, "I look out of place."

"On the contrary, I think you need to get your eyes cleaned out." Your voice is teasing but there’s an edge of affection in it, the kind that’s almost imperceptible if you’re not paying attention. The kind of teasing that cuts just enough to be fun, but not enough to wound. Lighter shoots you a glare, but he knows it’s probably not landing the way it used to. It's a hollowed one, more of a reflex than anything intentional. He’s not sure if it’s because you’ve grown more used to his stares or if he’s just losing his touch altogether. Either way, he can tell by the way your grin stretches across your face that it doesn’t bother you as much as it once would’ve.

He’s not entirely sure how he feels about that.

"Look," your hand unconsciously reaches out to tug him down, and, almost without thinking, he follows. He bends down slightly, tilting his head so he’s eye level with you, the close proximity sending an unexpected jolt through him. He's suddenly hyper aware of your fingers curling against the leather of his sleeve, how your breath warms against his cheek, and just how close your face is to his even when you're looking at everyone around him.

“You’re practically out of one of those dramas where the rugged boyfriend goes out to get his girlfriend’s 'personal needs,'” You lean in closer, your voice dropping to a whisper in his ear. There’s a mischievous glint in your eyes as you tease him, almost too easy to notice. You lower your tone, dropping your words like a soft secret into his ear, “I’m sure every girl here is living vicariously through this."

You pause, eyes scanning him up and down with that smirk still tugging at the corner of your lips. It lingers for a moment, like you're reading him, sizing him up, before your words hit him, “I’d say you’d also fill the single dad role, but you don’t look old enough for that typecasting.”

Lighter blinks, a confused frown flashing across his face. He has no idea what you’re talking about, but the way your eyes twinkle suggests it's something... positive? At least, he thinks it is. It's hard to tell when your teasing tone is wrapped up in that playful spark.

Before he can even try to sort it out, you give him a light pat on the back, the action unexpected and almost fond, “Seriously, we’ll find your lost sense of humor soon."

While the days in the Outer Ring are hot and sweltering, the nights bring a biting chill, driving its residents indoors, where only Nitro Fuel and dim lights keep the cold at bay. The boss had invited him to join her and the rest of the girls for an after-party celebrating their new champion, but he’d waved them off, telling them to go on ahead and promising to join later. That promise hangs in the air now as he walks alone down an abandoned street in Blazewood, the quiet pressing in around him. The scarf around his neck feels heavier than it should. He’s never worn one before, and the fabric’s coarse brush against his skin almost itches. Yet, despite the unfamiliar texture, it’s warm. His fingers trace the small ornament stitched into the cloth, a detail meant just for him. It’s new, like so many other things, and he’s still trying to process it all. Everything around him has shifted so suddenly. Billy’s departure—soaring to new heights yet still tethered to the ground somehow. His own unexpected promotion to the forefront. The chaos in between. It’s overwhelming, surreal even, like being thrown into a story he doesn’t quite know the script for. And this scarf, with its peculiar weight, feels like a silent reminder of it all. He glances down at the ornament again, feeling the smooth metal beneath the pads of his fingers. It’s strange, having a physical marker of his place here.

When he first joined, he thought of the gang as just another boxing show, another carousel of passing faces he’d forget as soon as the next fight rolled around. A means to an end, nothing more. Look at him now. He almost wants to pinch his younger self’s cheek—just like a certain doctor does, though she insists it’s to “keep him humble.”. Nowadays, his title as the undefeated champion is only rivaled by how many times he can dodge Lucy's fists whenever he unconsciously picks her up. It’s become a routine—her standing on her tiptoes, stretching for something just out of reach, and him swooping in before she can so much as grumble. She's quick with her jabs, but he’s quicker. The footwork he once honed in the ring is now reserved for avoiding the creaky spots on the painted wooden floorboards—Piper’s after-breakfast nap is sacred, and waking her up is a crime punishable by death or, at the very least, her pointed glare. His “losses” pile up bottle by bottle, courtesy of Burnice’s sticky fingers and her talent for swiping extra Nitro Fuel. She always claims victory in their drinking contests, though he’s the one stuck carrying her home afterward. And sure, maybe he hums her favorite song while walking her back, but if anyone asks, he’ll deny it outright. Then there’s the boss, still as loud and demanding as ever, though now he shoulders the oddly specific responsibility of keeping her stash of romance novels a secret. It's a heavy weight, in a way, but he’d take a hundred bruises in the ring before he’d let anyone find out about her guilty pleasure. It’s funny how things turn out. What started as a pit stop, just another stepping stone in his aimless journey, has become something he wouldn’t trade for anything. Each quirky routine, each odd connection, has woven itself into a life he never expected to want. Yet, some things still remain the same.

His posture relaxes as he soaks in the occasional breeze, letting it cool his skin before he comes to a stop. It’s the usual fanfare—snickers and the grating sound of metal pipes dragging through the sand, a clear attempt at intimidation. He sighs, cracking his neck and adjusting his glasses with a practiced air of disinterest. Pulling his scarf up to cover his nose, he glances over his shoulder toward the group that’s been loitering on the outskirts of Blazewood for the past week. They don’t look particularly tough, their mismatched outfits and lack of coordination betraying their inexperience. Probably a newly formed gang, he guesses, especially since there’s no sense of camaraderie between the members. They’re all bravado and no bond—lone wolves forced to share the same pack. He straightens up, hands slipping casually into his pockets as he sizes them up. There’s no need to get too worked up over this. He has a party to attend.

A simple scare should have been enough to send them running for the hills, leaving the town in peace. At least, that’s how it should have gone. It should have started with a few taunts, the kind that barely even register on his radar. It should have escalated with the rival gang growing annoyed and one of them jumping the gun, rushing at Lighter with more ego than skill. It should have ended with him throwing two well-placed punches toward the leader, the crackle of fire igniting briefly in his gauntlets, enough to remind them who they were dealing with. And it should have concluded with them scattering like leaves in the wind, Lighter strolling back to the after-party with a few extra bottles of Nitro Fuel as a peace offering for showing up late—though he knows full well the girls wouldn’t have minded.

That’s how it should have gone.

But then one of them had to open their mouth.

The words hang in the air like a bad omen, laced with an ill-advised threat toward a certain doctor. And for the first time in a long while, Lighter feels something snap.

The familiar burn of anger flares in his chest, spreading like wildfire. His fingers twitch at his sides, curling into fists without thought. The world around him blurs, his focus narrowing to the gang member who had the audacity to speak your name. He doesn’t hear the rest of their jeers; all he can hear is the pounding of his own heartbeat.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Lighter sees red.

"Lighter! Lighter, stop! Jeez, pull yourself together, you bullheaded prick!"

Your voice cuts through the haze, sharp and grounding, like a lifeline dragging him back from the abyss. There’s a lot of blood. Too much. It stains the ground, splattered on his knuckles, pooling beneath the poor bastard who dared to run his mouth. The smell is what finally does it, sharp and metallic, twisting his stomach into knots. He stumbles back a step, his chest heaving, his mind reeling. His breaths are short and shallow, his vision swimming.

And then there’s you.

You’re always there—always managing to catch him at his worst. Always steady when he’s falling apart.

"Hey, hey, easy there," you say, your voice softening as you approach him. You raise your hands in a calming gesture, palms open, careful not to startle him further, "Look at me. I won't touch you but look at me. Right here, okay? Watch."

You inhale deeply, motioning with your hand as if to guide him.

“Breathe in…”

He follows, though his breath is shaky and uneven.

“Good, now breathe out,” you continue, exhaling slowly and mimicking the motion with your hand, “Good, good. You're doing well. One more time.”

You repeat the steps, your tone patient and measured, until Lighter’s chest stops heaving and the ringing in his ears fades. The blood-soaked street feels a little less suffocating, the weight on his chest a little less crushing. The sharp tang of blood begins to fade, replaced by the sterile cleanliness of your presence. His hands, still trembling, drop to his sides. The fight in him has ebbed away, leaving exhaustion and shame in its wake. He doesn’t meet your eyes, doesn’t say a word.

His first day and he's already gone and screwed it all up.

“Jeez, you really did a number on him. We’ll need to patch him up,” you mutter, crouching down to get a better look at the poor sap sprawled on the ground. Blood’s still dripping, his fellow gang members already fled with their tails tucked between their legs, but he's still breathing. You glance over your shoulder at Lighter, who’s standing there frozen, his fists clenched and his face an unreadable mask, “Come on, I don’t have the arm strength for this."

Lighter doesn’t move, doesn’t even blink. His shoulders are rigid, his gaze fixed somewhere far away, like he’s trying to make himself disappear. He's never reacted like this in a long while.

You sigh, standing up and stepping closer. Slowly, you reach out, and after a moment, he lowers his head, his posture deflating. His muscles tense as your hand makes contact, but he doesn’t pull away. Your fingers find his cheek, and with no hesitation, you pinch it. Hard. He flinches, more out of reflex than pain, and you feel the corner of your lips twitch upward.

“There,” you say, your tone lighter now, patting the same cheek you just pinched. Your thumb smooths over the faint red imprint left behind, and for a moment, the tension in his body seems to ease. It’s not much, but it’s enough to break through the fog in his head. His shoulders drop a little further, his fists unclenching. He lets out a breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding, the weight of your touch grounding him just enough to find his footing again.

"What's got you so scared?"

A lot of things, if he’s honest. Despite the cool and rough persona he wears as Lighter, the undefeated champion of the Sons of Calydon, he’s scared of more than he’d ever admit. He can’t stomach the sight of blood—it churns his insides and makes his skin crawl. He’s painfully awkward in social situations, fumbling through conversations like a rookie boxer tripping over his own feet. He still messes up Caesar’s name sometimes, even though he’s been around long enough to know better. But none of that compares to the fear that grips him now. He’s petrified of losing the people he cares about—again. That fear sinks its claws into him and doesn’t let go, dragging him back to memories he’d rather bury. It’s why he builds walls, high and impenetrable, around all the words he never got to say. They sit there, locked away, heavy and suffocating, so he doesn’t have to face them or the pain they carry. What if those walls break? What if he lets you see what’s inside? Would you stay? Or would you run, leaving him stranded in the mess he doesn’t know how to fix? Worse, what if admitting he needs help means losing the little control he has left? It’s easier—safer—to keep everything hidden. But as the silence stretches on, he wonders how much longer he can keep it all locked away.

"Yeah, well," you mimic in the same tone of voice, "You shouldn't have to."

Lighter realizes, a little too late, that he’s been neglecting the plaster and glue holding his fortress together. For a long while, he’s tuned out the sounds of crumbling debris and the sharp groan of widening cracks. He’s gotten so used to it, the noise faded into the background, like an annoying hum he could ignore. But when he finally looks up, his so-called fortress isn’t much of a fortress at all. It’s rubble now—scattered cobblestones barely clinging together, a patchwork of failure. And yet, for the first time, he doesn’t feel the urge to grab a hammer and pickaxe, mix the concrete, and start stacking the stones again. It all seems like too much effort for something that’s bound to collapse, no matter how carefully he tries to build it. What’s the point of piling up walls that are only going to be torn down again? For once, the more obvious choice feels… freeing. Maybe he doesn’t need to patch up every broken piece or keep retreating behind what’s left. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to leave it behind entirely. Time to walk up and out of the wreckage, away from the shoreline where he’s been stranded for too long.

He knows it’s inevitable. For the undefeated champion, he sure has been folding a lot. It’s embarrassing, really. He’s so screwed. Somewhere along the trek up the mountain, he tripped over a branch and fell onto the untraveled path—and somehow, somehow, he’s done the one thing he swore he’d never do again. He’s in love. Opening up to the Sons of Calydon, letting them see into the tiny fissures of his heart—that was one thing. But this? This is overkill. The worst part is that his body has decided, after years of running on autopilot, that this is his standard default. The switch to turn it off has rusted over, and now he can’t budge it even a little.

He’s grateful for his glasses; otherwise, everyone would know how his eyes always seem to linger on you, even when you’re all the way across town. How he quickly sits up straighter, crossing his arms over his chest, whenever you enter a room. How he moves his red scarf to cover his mouth when his lips start to curve too high, almost like a chipmunk’s grin. How he breaks into an awkward sweat when he offers you help, terrified that you might reject him—god forbid—because if you do, he’ll spend the whole night replaying it in his mind, over and over, like a broken record. And how Piper, knowing exactly how to get under his skin, will casually say your name just to watch him freeze, making his heart race all over again.

Before, when he decided to lie to himself and shove his emotions down deep, it was easy to embody that indifferent attitude. Now? Now things are different. When you tug at the ends of his sleeves, when he instinctively bends down to hear you whisper some teasing remark about his opponent, he can't help but let out a soft huff of amusement, his lips curving into a small smile he can't quite hide. When he's lounging on the couches during their many parties, arm sprawled out across the backrest, and you join him, leaning against his side, he used to barely register it, continuing to watch the festivities like it was no big deal. But these days, it’s all he can focus on. The way your proximity affects him, the subtle shift in his attention when you're near. And then there are the check-ups. Don’t even get him started on those. He’s been half-dressed around you more times than he’s been fully clothed, and now, suddenly, his body decides it wants to get embarrassed? It’s as if his mind finally caught up to what’s been going on, and he’s not sure if he’s more frustrated or flustered.

What’s even worse is that he can tell you’re different now, too. He’s been in your orbit for so long, circling around the same familiar path, mostly because you’re always there, pulling him back when he drifts too far. You refuse to let him wander off, not entirely—like you’re always keeping an eye on him, tethered to him somehow. But now, it feels like the strings are fraying. While he's finally starting to push forward, to test the limits of whatever's been silently building between you, you’re pulling away. And it sucks. It sucks in a way that gnaws at him, this dull ache in his chest that he can’t shake off. He wants to reach out, to bridge the gap, but it’s like he’s fumbling in the dark, and you're slipping through his fingers, even as you're right there.

As much as Lighter wants to give you 100% of his attention, he hasn’t gotten a wink of sleep. It's only a matter of time before the girls state an intervention and it doesn’t take long for them to corner him. No escape routes left, no way to dodge the inevitable. They close in, their grins wide and knowing as they make sure he has nowhere to go but to surrender. He tries to play it cool, shifting his weight from foot to foot, but the tension in the air is thick enough to cut with a knife. Finally, after what feels like hours of relentless teasing and subtle pressure, the words tumble out of him. Their champion—Lighter, the undefeated and untouchable—had been crushing hard on their doctor. Sure, it took two hours of wrangling and dusty clothes, but in the end, they had their win. If you could even call it that.

"Wait, wait, officer, wait!" Lucy shouts, her voice filled with exaggerated disbelief. She even stamps her foot for emphasis, and her helmet slips askew from her dramatic movements, adding a comical touch to the scene, "You mean you're in the 'we might be more than friends in the feelings department, but still not in the confirmation phase' period? That's the most iffy period!"

"I guess so..." Lighter mumbles, still stuck on the floor beneath the combined weight of Burnice and Caesar. He’s desperately trying to worm his way out of their hold, but it’s no use. The girls share a look that he’ll never quite understand—because apparently, women have this telepathic connection that they all seem to possess. They turn back to him, wide-eyed, as if they’ve just uncovered some huge revelation.

Ah. Those were the wrong words to say.

"Whaat?! What is this new development?! Why didn’t you tell us?!" Lucy’s voice rises an octave, as her eyes gleam with excitement. She practically jumps up and down, trying to process the new information like a live-wire.

"When? Where? Who?!" Burnice fires off her questions faster than Lighter can even blink, leaning in so close that her face is dangerously close to his. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated with the thrill of gossip.

Then, Caesar clamps her hands on his shoulders, her usual carefree demeanor replaced by something much more serious. The intense gaze she locks onto him is a complete mismatch for her typical bubbly personality, making Lighter feel an unsettling tension.

"Are you being blackmailed?" she asks, her voice flat.

It was the wrong decision to let the girls know that he was crushing hard on the new hire. It started innocently enough, but soon enough, they forced him into their room for what they called a "girls' night," and it quickly escalated into a marathon of magazines with increasingly specific titles. He had barely survived the first few issues, which ranged from "How to Tell If Someone Likes You" to "What to Do When You're an Emotionally and Socially Repressed Individual Who Hasn't Felt the Touch of a Woman and You Don't Want to Come Off as a Creep and Get HR Involved." What the hell kind of magazine even has a title that long? Did the author do that by accident? Was that intentional?

All in all, what he's learned is that he needs to be more talkative, but not too much—just enough so he doesn’t seem like he only cares about himself. But also, he’s supposed to ask questions about you and show interest in your hobbies, but not too many questions because that could come off as probing. And then there’s the smiling part: he needs to smile more, but not too much teeth or it'll seem intimidating, but just wide enough so it looks natural.

He thinks he's going to ask Lucy if she can use his head as a baseball.

"That was... a lot sadder than I thought it would be," you say as the credits roll, the melancholic piano score lingering in the air like an unresolved question. The weight of the story hangs between you, tangible and heavy. It was a tale of two ill-fated lovers who never managed to align their lives, perpetually missing the timing needed for their relationship to truly blossom. And just when it seemed there might be hope, everything unraveled into a hollow, bittersweet ending—one slowly succumbing to corruption, and the other staying by their side despite knowing how it would all end, sacrificing their own happiness just to hold onto the fleeting moments they had left together.

The credits roll, but Lighter doesn’t really notice them. He leans forward, elbows digging into his knees, his hands clasped tightly together. The darkened screen in front of him might as well be a blank canvas—his mind’s elsewhere, swirling around the movie’s ending, still echoing in his chest.

It’s funny, really. The story hit close enough to home that it should’ve left him with that familiar ache, that gnawing feeling in his gut like it always did in the past. Two lovers caught in a cycle of bad timing, one slipping away while the other stays behind, trapped in a choice they can’t undo. Yeah, it should’ve made him feel something, some kind of sorrow or regret—but it didn’t. He just feels… fine. Maybe that’s what’s bothering him. He knows he should feel more, but he’s been through too much of that pain before, and he’s not that guy anymore. Not the guy who drowns in what-ifs and could-have-beens. He’s learned how to move on. He’s learned how to survive the worst things life throws at him. A shift beside him brings him out of his thoughts. He glances over at you, your form curled up against the couch, arms wrapped loosely around the pillow. You’re quiet, almost unreadable, but there’s something about you that makes him feel like he’s not alone in the room. Like somehow, without doing anything, you’ve managed to pull him from the edge of his thoughts and into this shared silence.

For a moment, he wonders if he should feel more disturbed by the movie, or maybe feel bad about how unaffected he is. It’s odd, like something’s wrong because he’s not torn up about it, because he's not emotionally wrecked. He glances back at the screen and sighs, but it’s a different kind of sigh. It’s not regret. It’s relief.

Maybe the truth is, he’s finally found some peace with himself. Sure, he’s still haunted by some old ghosts, but they don’t have the same grip on him. He’s learned to live with the scars, to accept that he can’t control everything. He thinks that’s what the movie tried to say in the end—about choice, about letting go, about moving forward even when it’s hard. He watches you for a moment longer, his gaze lingering just enough for him to realize that you’re not just here, you're with him. That’s enough for him. That’s all he needs. He’s grown. He’s fine. His fingers twitch, still resting against his knees, but for the first time in a long time, he’s not holding on to anything.

"Yeah," he finally says, his voice low and a little rough, "It hits harder than you expect, doesn’t it?"

"I don't know... I think the ending was kind of lame," you say, your voice cutting through the lingering weight of the movie’s somber tone. You shift slightly in your seat, trying to find the right words to explain. "If I were stuck in the Hollow, I think I’d want to run out and keep living on in their memory, you know? Like, make it mean something. If I knew I was the reason my lover passed... I’d be kind of pissed."

Lighter, leaning back on the couch with his arms crossed, raises a brow at your comment. His gaze lingers on you for a moment longer than usual, as though he’s trying to figure out if you’re joking or not. When he speaks, his voice carries a faint hint of amusement. "So, dramatic sacrifices aren’t your thing, huh?"

"It’s not that," you reply, shrugging as you glance at him, "I just think... if someone gave up everything for me, it’d feel wrong to waste it. Like, what’s the point of their sacrifice if I just give up too? I’d owe it to them to live a life that’s worth it, to make something out of it."

You glance away for a moment, the weight of your own words settling in. It’s a thought that’s been with you for a while, ever since you first realized how fleeting everything really is. People sacrifice so much, sometimes without even realizing it, and you’re not sure how you would handle knowing someone gave up everything for you. Could you live with that? Or would the guilt eat you alive? There’s a deep part of you that’s always felt that need to honor those sacrifices, even if it meant carrying the weight of their legacy on your own shoulders. You meet his gaze again, but this time your expression is softer, less defensive. It’s not that you’re opposed to the idea of sacrifice—far from it. You just want to make sure it isn’t in vain. And sometimes, it feels like the best way to show gratitude is to keep moving forward, no matter how hard it gets.

"I think you're a tiny bit biased," Lighter teases, tilting his head slightly, his eyes glinting with a mix of amusement and curiosity,

"What about you?" you counter, leaning forward just enough to rest your arms on your knees. Your gaze lingers on him, expectant and challenging, "If you were in that position, what would you do?"

Lighter’s breath catches for a split second, and he shifts his posture, suddenly aware of the weight of your question. It’s a simple enough question, but the way you ask it—intense, unwavering—throws him off balance. His mind starts to race, torn between deflecting and actually answering. He leans back, crossing his arms loosely over his chest, trying to buy himself a little more time to come up with something smooth, but his usual quips feel hollow now. He takes a deep breath and looks away, out toward the window where the dirt and sand stretch on for miles. For a moment, he’s quiet, too quiet. The easy confidence he usually projects feels distant, and the silence stretches longer than he’d like.

It’s not that he doesn’t know what he’d do—he does. But the idea of voicing it out loud, especially now, with you watching him like that, makes him hesitate. He knows it’s supposed to be a simple hypothetical, but everything feels like it’s loaded with more meaning than it should.

"I’d like to give it a try," he says at last, his voice lower now, "The notion of dying for love."

You blink, momentarily stunned by the unexpected sincerity in his voice. For a split second, the usual teasing edge in his tone fades, replaced by something deeper and more vulnerable.

"Huh, really?" you ask, your brows lifting in genuine surprise, trying to piece together the shift in the atmosphere between you.

"Yeah," he responds, his posture shifting as he crosses one leg over the other, the usual air of nonchalance creeping back into his demeanor. He leans back just a little, the teasing grin returning to his lips, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s a flicker of something, a hint of something he’s trying to keep buried beneath the surface, "Why so surprised, firecracker?"

You can’t help but smile at the nickname, but the weight of what he said lingers in the air, pulling your focus. You take a breath before speaking, your tone soft but firm, almost as if you’ve been carrying the thought for a while. Your voice holds a quiet certainty, a belief that resonates with something deep inside you, "I don't know... I feel like you'd do everything you could to save the person you care about, or at least keep living in their memory."

His gaze falters for a moment, something flickering behind his eyes as your words settle in. It’s as though the impact of your statement lands heavier than he expected, like it cuts through the layers of his usual defenses and hits a raw nerve. It stings, more than he cares to admit. There’s a strange ache in his chest, a tightness that only grows as he processes your words. He’s not sure why it’s affecting him like this, but it’s almost painful how close you always are to the truth. How easily you manage to sift through all the rubble, the chaos, the noise inside his head, and find the small, hidden pieces of gold buried deep within. It terrifies him a little, how you seem to understand him without him even having to try. How you can see past the walls he’s so carefully built. He just hopes you don’t notice how tightly his jaw is clenched, or how his chest feels like it’s about to cave in.

"Besides," you add, your voice softening as you meet his gaze. "I don’t want you to die. I’m sure your lover would think the same."

"I’ll try my best," he says with a half-hearted chuckle, though his voice betrays something deeper, something unspoken. "But, uh, no guarantees."

"Then, for both our sakes, I hope you never fall in love."

Ah…you might be a bit too late on that.

-+-+-

"I've fallen in love with you."

The words crash into the silence, sending a jolt through you that leaves your heart thumping erratically in your chest. You spin around, your eyes wide with surprise, and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, time seems to stretch out. It takes him a beat longer than it should for him to realize what he’s just said, the weight of it sinking in like a stone. The vulnerability in his words suddenly hits him full force, the tension between the two of you thickening in the space that’s opened up.

The words slipped out before he could stop them, an unexpected ease in their release, and now they hang in the air, heavy and undeniable. His heart stops for a moment, watching you, eyes wide like you've been struck by lightning. Everything seems to slow down, every detail in the room—how the light falls on your face, how your breath catches—feels magnified, as if the entire world hinges on this one, fragile moment.

And then it hits him. He actually said it. His stomach lurches, the realization settling deep like a rock in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t mean for it to come out so clearly, so openly, and now the consequences of his words hang over him like a storm cloud.

The silence that follows is deafening, and every second that ticks by only seems to stretch the space between you both, making it feel like the world is holding its breath. He scrambles mentally for something—anything—to undo it, to take the words back, but it's too late. They're out there, raw and exposed. His pulse pounds in his ears, and suddenly the room feels too small, too suffocating. Did he say too much? Too little? Was it the wrong thing to say?

He watches you, frozen in place, his chest tight with uncertainty. This is it. The moment is already unfolding, and he can’t change it now. It’s out there, hanging like a thread between you both, waiting to unravel. He waits for you to speak, but the longer the silence drags on, the more he wonders if he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life.

The silence stretches, thick and suffocating, and his eyes can't seem to pull away from you. Every inch of him wants to speak, to say something, anything that might undo the tension creeping up his spine. But nothing comes. His mind is blank, his throat dry, and he can feel the weight of your stare, both curious and uncertain. He half expects you to run, to say something that would make everything snap back into place, to laugh it off or tell him he’s out of his mind.

But you don’t.

Instead, you stand there, still, your gaze not wavering. There's a moment where the world feels impossibly heavy and yet so, so fragile. His heart beats faster in his chest, a frantic rhythm he can’t control. His palms feel clammy. The longer you remain quiet, the more he feels like he’s hanging off a cliff, just waiting for the ground beneath him to disappear.

But then, finally—finally—you take a breath, and the tension breaks, if only slightly.

"I…" Your voice is soft, hesitant, as if you're still weighing the words that should follow his confession. It’s a quiet exhale, but it feels like it’s shaking loose everything that’s been keeping you both in place. He watches you carefully, hanging onto every word, his heartbeat slow and deliberate now, the heavy silence between you hanging in the air like a fragile glass ornament about to shatter. What is she going to say?

"Are you dying?" you say and the world both tilts and rewinds, before sparks appear and it falls off the record player. He sincerely doesn't know how to respond to that. So he does the next best thing, honesty.

"Not that I'm aware of, I feel like you'd know that best doc."

"Ah sorry. That was the wrong thing to say. I...I didn’t think you’d…" you trail off, eyes flickering to the floor briefly before meeting his again, something unreadable flashing in your gaze, "I didn’t think you’d say that."

His chest tightens. It's not a rejection, but it's not exactly a declaration of reciprocation either. The uncertainty in your voice makes him want to take a step closer, to close the distance between you two, but he's terrified. Terrified that if he moves, he’ll push you further away instead of bringing you closer.

"I didn’t either, I didn't plan for this," he admits, the words slipping out almost without him realizing it, "But yeah. I really like you."

"Oh..." you interrupt gently, your voice a mix of hesitation and something softer, more understanding, "... how long?"

Lighter freezes for a moment, the question catching him off guard. His eyes flicker toward the floor as he grapples with the weight of it, the answer to something he'd never really considered before now. How long had he been feeling this way? How long had he kept this locked up, buried under the surface?

"How long...?" He repeats your question, his brow furrowing as if he’s just now realizing the depth of the situation. He takes a deep breath, letting the air settle in his lungs before speaking again, the words coming out slower this time, as if he's trying to find the right ones, "I don’t really know... a while. Longer than I’d like to admit, I guess."

He glances up at you, his gaze a little hesitant, but there’s something in it that wasn’t there before. Maybe it’s the vulnerability that’s starting to seep through, or maybe it’s just the raw honesty in his voice. Either way, he can’t help but wonder how much longer you’ll stand there, waiting, as if expecting him to unravel in front of you. Your eyes search his face for any sign that you’ve said the right thing, that you’ve cracked open a door he might have kept shut for so long. But you just stand there, waiting for him to continue, your expression soft, almost... hopeful?

"You didn’t think I’d feel that way, huh?" Lighter asks, his voice betraying a hint of surprise, as if he’s been caught off guard by his own admission. He lets out a slight, self-conscious chuckle, trying to smooth over the tension that still lingers in the air. It’s a bit forced, a little too casual, like he's trying to disguise the weight of the words he just shared. He rubs the back of his neck, his fingers brushing against the cool skin there, clearly unsure of what to do with himself now that the silence between you has shifted. "Guess I’ve been a little good at hiding it." He shrugs, though it’s more of an awkward gesture than anything else.

You study him for a moment, watching as he fidgets, his eyes darting away for a moment before he looks back at you, like he’s unsure of whether to keep speaking or leave it at that. It’s almost endearing how out of place he seems, trying to hide behind the nonchalance he’s so good at, but it’s not enough to mask the vulnerability creeping in at the edges.

"But... now that it's out there..." he trails off, as though the weight of his own admission is still sinking in. His voice falters just the slightest bit, and for a second, it’s like the walls between you both crack just enough for something real to slip through.

"Yeah, now that it's out there..." you murmur, your voice quiet, almost contemplative, as you let the moment settle. It’s like something you both knew but hadn’t fully allowed to surface until now. The air feels different, almost lighter, as if the unspoken tension that had lingered between you for so long has finally found a release. Neither of you moves, both caught in that delicate pull of the moment. There’s a strange sense of stillness, as if the world outside of this room has faded away, leaving only the two of you in this quiet, shared understanding. You don’t need to say anything more, not yet. But something has changed, something deeper than words. And neither of you knows exactly where to go from here, but it doesn’t feel as scary as it did before. It feels... natural, in a way. Like it’s been building without either of you realizing it.

For once, you both just sit there, letting the silence stretch out, but it’s different now. It’s not uncomfortable, not loaded with awkwardness. It’s the kind of silence that follows when something unspoken has been finally brought to light, and neither of you feels the need to rush to fill it.

Lighter clears his throat, his awkwardness creeping back in. "So, uh..." He scratches the back of his neck again, looking anywhere but at you. "I was wondering... since, y'know, we’ve, uh... gotten that out of the way..." He pauses, clearly searching for the right words, but they don't seem to come easy.

He exhales slowly, the air caught in his chest like he’s about to dive into cold water. "Would you maybe... want to go out sometime?" He stammers, his eyes flicking up to meet yours for a split second before darting away again. "Like, on a... date? Not that I'm... asking you to or anything... it’s just... y'know, if you... want to."

You blink, surprised by the words but not exactly sure how to respond at first. It’s a question that catches you off guard in the best possible way, and you can feel the butterflies stirring in your stomach.

"Yeah," you say, your voice slightly higher than usual, betraying the nerves building up inside you. "I... I’d like that. A date, yeah."

Lighter’s eyes widen for a moment, as though he’s trying to process your response. Then, his face flushes, a mixture of relief and embarrassment flooding him all at once. He clears his throat again, looking anywhere but at you, as if he’s trying to escape from the awkwardness of the moment.

"Alright, then. I’ll, uh... figure out the details." He shuffles awkwardly, hands in his pockets, clearly trying to regain some composure. Then, without another word, he turns on his heel, stiffly walking toward the door.

You, too, turn away at the same time, and the two of you end up facing the door, like a pair of statues frozen in your own awkwardness. Lighter grips the door handle, pausing for a second before pulling it open. His feet move on autopilot as he steps out, but as soon as the door closes behind him, he’s hit with a wave of relief that comes crashing over him. He sinks to the floor, his back against the wall, hands pressed to his face as he lets out a groan, half-exasperated, half-relieved.

"Oh god," he mutters under his breath, his cheeks burning. He’s never been this embarrassed in his life, but at the same time, the pressure that's been building in his chest all this time lifts just a little. The nervous excitement of asking you out still lingers, and he laughs softly at himself. "What did I even say?"

On the other side of the door, you stand frozen, heart still thumping wildly in your chest. You let out a breath, shaky but relieved, and press your palm to your face. You feel like your entire body is buzzing with both excitement and embarrassment. That was... ridiculous. But at the same time, there’s this goofy grin spreading across your face, and you can’t stop it if you tried.

You lean back against the door, smiling to yourself. "Oh god," you murmur to yourself, eyes sparkling with a mix of nerves and happiness. "What just happened?"

And on both sides of the door, there's nothing but a goofy, content smile and the lingering sensation that something has shifted between you two.

---

Not necessarily a tag list, but I remember you were all asking for a part 2. Here is your part 2 lovelies.

@thelocal-idot @yaoduriaa @justlilpeaches21 @fawn-kitten @seraphina02

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