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jiminiecrickets · 1 month ago

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KILLER? I BARELY KNOW HER! FUSHIGURO TOJI / M!READER

summary. shadows of your past catch up to you – but you're the strongest, and there's nothing you can't handle.

wc. 5.5k

tags. smut | top reader, bottom toji. mentions of underage drinking. sorcerer + teacher reader, enemies-to-lovers (with extra steps), sorta sugar baby toji/rich reader, doggystyle + missionary, mentions of exhibitionism + filming, unprotected sex, brief degradation (r. receiving), brief breeding kink, implied shower sex

notes. every dark-haired male jjk character deserves a silly and illogically powerful best friend with whom they have romantic tension :3 you're him. literally.

The pleasant chime of the doorbell echoes throughout your home. You're not expecting anyone.

You know you should be careful. In fact, you shouldn't be staring at the back of the front door at all. Opening it would ruin the carefully put-together façade of the closed-curtain windows and dark rooms.

Maybe you're tired, and you forget, moving on instinct. Maybe you're bored.

Maybe you're hopeful.

The door inches open, and a man looks up from where he'd been staring listlessly at the flower-spotted bushes lining the patch of green between the entrance and the driveway. His hands are shoved into the pockets of his sweatpants, and his eyes are dark, flickering with an emotion you can't quite catch before it flutters away.

"Toji?" you say, the surprise in your voice teetering on warmth. "Hey..."

"Hey," he replies – exhales, really, something like a hum. He reaches up by his shoulder, the action too familiar for you not to stiffen, but he just rubs the back of his neck, stretching out the cricks of his body. "So. New place, huh?"

Your hand rests behind the door. He knows better than to expect it to be empty. "Old, technically. It was my first property purchase."

He tilts his head. "Yeah? When did you get it?"

"Fifteen. A birthday present for myself – a gift for surviving another year of high school. And curses, I guess. Surviving them was way worse because getting their blood in my mouth made me want to die."

He scoffs, and the raised scar over the corner of his lips shifts with his amusement. "Fifteen... And what does a teenager do with a house?"

You shrug. "Drink. Party. Pirate movies. The usual."

"Hah. Sounds like you were a fun kid." Toji scuffs the toe of his sandals against the ground absently. Then he rolls his neck and sighs. "Look, I didn't come all the way here to talk history. Long-ass way out, too, so just let me in."

Lifting an eyebrow, you give him a once-over that feels keener than it should be. "Are you here to kill me?"

"What, you think I'm here for that bounty? Who do you think I am?"

"Don't blame me. You seem very well aware of it."

"Isn't worth the effort for the price. 'Sides, you've given me more than that over the years, haven't you? I like to keep my options open, and it seems to me like it's a better investment to keep you alive."

"You talk as if you could kill me at all," you mutter, a little disdainfully, but it dissipates swiftly when Toji cracks a smirk, so familiar and entwined deeply with your favourite memories. The breeze stirs lightly, and Toji's hair ruffles, almost blue in the sunlight.

"Couldn't I? You're the one who runs away."

"Yeah, after immobilising you. Not a lot of fun to be had if you're dead as a doornail. Say – how deep are you in the jujutsu world? You must be rusty. I'd be willing to help you train."

"You'd help me kill your fellow sorcerers?" He chuckles and arches a brow. "I'll have you know I'm looking at a contract worth thirty million from a bunch of religious crazies."

"Peanuts." You wave a dismissive hand. "Now that I mention it, I'm getting complacent, too... I could use the challenge. Keep in contact with me and I'll pay you double."

"You're paying me to use my body?"

"Your words, not mine."

He holds your gaze steadily for a while, and despite his airy voice, his eyes are thoughtful. "Let's not talk business on your doorstep. Lost your manners, have you?"

Finally, your shoulders loosen, and the tension in your body vanishes. With a soft chuckle, you pull the door open further and step aside. "Don't make me regret this."

"Please," he says, slipping out of his sandals and into your home. "You never do."

Zenin. Fushiguro. The Sorcerer Killer. All of his names, all of his history, and yet, to you, he is just your baby – your Toji. It'd be embarrassing if he cared enough to be embarrassed, he thinks as you draw him into a rib-shattering hug. Instead, he feels smug.

Before that Gojo kid, there was you. It wasn't a position you were born for – like the kid was – but you trained your way up and eventually found yourself most suited for the role, all but waltzing into it – because what youth wouldn't want to be number one? It was almost gross, your selflessness and single-minded ambition, and Toji knew how that sort of mindset made the people in power feel. They commissioned him for your death at one point, after all.

It was fun. You were both so young: dancing around each other's weapons as if it was all a stage, chasing each other's clues like a couple of dogs running after a bone. Still – you were society's best, the cream of the crop, and for you to be his, of all people, was a selfish triumph he indulged in too many times to count.

His hands creep up beneath your baggy shirt as he leans up to kiss you, tongue slipping between your lips to share in the taste of some expensive whisky he can't name. He hums – a low, rumbling sound, like a tiger chuffing – as his fingers bump over thick, warm muscle.

Blood and bone. That's what you all are, when it comes down to it.

"You should wear tighter clothes," he murmurs against your lips. "Less to grab in a fight."

The backs of his thighs press into the edge of the kitchen bench, where a forgotten glass of water sits – the remnant of your half-hearted attempt at being a good host while his lips found your neck.

You huff. "A 'fight', huh? I wasn't expecting one."

"You should always expect a fight. While you're at it, always expect to lose. Stops you from being disappointed."

"Sounds pessimistic."

"That's the price we pay for being good at what we do."

"As if you pay for anything, Toji."

He chuckles. He drops the hem of your shirt before sliding his palms up your chest – what a tease – and cupping your face. His hands are warm, callused, thrumming with lifeblood. He sweeps his thumb absently over your cheek, committing every pore of your face to memory. You have the urge to pull away, look down, like a schoolboy with a crush – but Toji's hands are firm.

"C'mon, at least look me in the eye before we kick this off. You that ashamed of me?"

Startled, your gaze flicks up to his. Instead of the half-wry look you expect, he smirks and pulls you in to meet his lips. His fingers interlace loosely at the nape of your neck, caging you in place, and you have no choice but to bend to his whim.

"Stupid," you mutter against his lips, mostly to yourself. "Stop playing with my feelings, Toji – that's manipulative. You're breaking my heart here."

Rather than pulling away himself, he pushes you away, a palm flat on your chest but without any real power. It remains there as he leans back against the stone countertop. "My bad, baby. It's just funny."

"Funnier than you calling this," you gesture between your chests, "something to 'kick off' after... how many years? If you weren't all over me seconds ago, I'd think you came over for a beer and a game."

He lifts his hands in teasing surrender at your accusatory tone. "All right. We'll fuck, then. Maybe include some heavy petting for the B-roll, if you're up for it. Sound good?"

You cross your arms over your chest and muster up a suitable amount of annoyance for a glare. Toji finds it hard to take you seriously – what with your dumb jokes and ridiculous inclination towards flashy fighting – so to him, it's more of a pout. "So, you got lonely without me, huh? Yeah, nah. We're not filming ourselves."

"Hm." It's not a yes, but it's not a disagreement, either. "Why not? It'd be hot."

"I'm a teacher, Toji," you remind him, clicking your tongue when he shrugs, one hand on his hip. "I don't want that kind of thing to exist. If it got out..."

"So you are ashamed of me," he mutters. He steps forward to grab your hands when you start to protest, visibly distressed. He snickers. "Kidding, kidding. Fuck, it's fun to play with you. You don't care about the other one, then? The one from the abandoned restaurant?"

"Well—" Your breath stutters when Toji absently compares hand sizes and laces your fingers together. You watch as he aligns four of his fingers against your ring finger specifically, one at a time as if comparing again, but this time...

"Well?" he prompts, his grin broadening. His shaggy hair falls across his eyes as he tilts his head.

"Well, I don't look like I did ten years ago, and as far as I know, my face isn't in it..." All logic scatters like leaves in the wind when he looks up at you through his lashes, that playful, pretty smirk of his tugging at your heartstrings just right. It's like the years never passed. You swallow. "I-It was different," you finish lamely.

Toji's eyes flicker down to your lips. With a flick of his wrist, he twists a hand in your collar and tugs you down so that your faces are inches apart. Your chests collide roughly. He doesn't seem to care, his gaze trained on you with a heavy, smoky intensity. "Fine. If you won't let me film it, you better make it memorable. I'll decide later if it was worth coming here for."

—

Toji should have known you were serious when you pulled the bedframe about six inches out from the wall. He'd laughed at first, insulting you for such uptight behaviour regarding something as boring as walls, but you'd just dragged him to the bed with a roll of your eyes.

With how loud he was moaning, you could only be glad that he didn't find you at your apartment property.

"Toji," you breathe, your gaze trapped on the tight, firm ass ricocheting off your hips. Your grip tightens. "Toji."

"Fuuuck," he drawls as his cock throbs, prying his eyes open to narrow them at you over his shoulder. Lust has turned the usual green of them nearly black. "What?" he bites out.

"I missed you. Missed this. Fuck, baby, you're so fucking tight."

He lets out a throaty chuckle, turning back around to rest his head on his forearms. With a shift of your hips, your cock punches his prostate, over and over, and his eyes roll back briefly, a pleased groan rumbling from the depths of his stomach. His dick pulses and swings uselessly between his muscular thighs.

"M-Men are all the same," he grumbles. You click your tongue, though you don't miss the way an involuntary moan makes him stutter.

"Awful way to greet an old friend, you know. I thought you were smarter than that. Try being nicer," you slam your hips forward, making his eyes fly open with a gasp, "and you'll get what you want."

His skin prickles when you glide a warm hand up his side and come to rest it upon his shoulder, holding him down with just enough strength to make his muscles flex to fight it. Your thumb rubs little circles into the back of his neck, tracing the dips of his shoulders until you find what you're looking for. You dig into the taut muscle, making him wince.

"Stressed?" you hum, and your voice is gentle. Gentler than he deserves. "Is it money problems again?"

Something like guilt stirs in his belly, but a well-angled thrust has his thoughts unravelling. "No."

"No?"

"No," he repeats. You hum in response and don't push the matter further.

Your hand lifts from his shoulder, and already he can feel the stiffness returning. Damn those God-hands of yours. He finds himself arching back, bracing against the bed, in an effort to return your hands to their rightful place.

You hush him sweetly, pressing your chest to his back and burying your face in the crook of his neck. The angle has the shaft of your heavy cock pressed right up against his prostate and his body jolts with the fiery burn of pleasure, his knuckles turning white as he fists the sheets. "No need to chase me anymore. Not going anywhere. 'M right here, baby."

Toji manages to scoff, and his voice is steadier than he expects. "Not chasin' you, asshole."

"Yeah? Then what do you call showing up at my door as you did, unannounced?"

"Welfare check."

You roll your eyes. "I hate you."

You punctuate your sentence by yanking his hips back on your cock, the wet squelch of lube and precome making him shudder. Despite the rough treatment, a moan tumbles from his lips, and he laughs, loose and breathy.

"Fuck me like it, then," he dares, knocking his temple gently against yours.

One hand lifts to card through his hair. He groans softly as your nails scrape his scalp, but his eyes fly wide open as you grab a fistful and tug, wrenching him up to kneel. He sinks his teeth into his lower lip as you wrap your hand around his leaking cock, jerking him off at the same pace as you fuck into him – he swears he sees stars as your thumb and index finger twist roughly around his swollen tip. His cock squelches in your fist, bubbles of precome sliding down his tip and smearing across your palm.

"Fucker," he snarls, ceasing his split second of flailing to grip your hip and thigh. You'd consider it painful if you hadn't also had the pleasure of being stabbed, slashed, shot, and bitten. "Nngh – so fuckin' big—"

"Going back on our word, are we, honey?" you say slyly, twisting your fist up and down his wet cock. "Tsk, tsk, Toji... so forgetful. I'd say you're getting old."

You glide a fingernail up the line of his vein, making his hips stutter and forcing another curse to slip from his lips, and you dig the tip of your finger roughly into his leaking slit. He moans and his back arches against your hold as your throbbing cock easily slides deep into him, the harsh, rapid smack of your balls against his ass almost disorienting.

He shudders. The heat of his body pulls his skin too tight, makes his tongue heavy and clumsy. Your hands are not quite soft – years of weapons training and hand-to-hand combat would do that to someone – but they're sweet on him. Loving, nearly. Your warmth softens the rub of calluses and tough scar tissue, and Toji learns them anew.

"C'mon, baby... want you to talk to me. Love your pretty little sounds." You end the sentence in a whisper, patting his stomach with the absent sort of friendliness you had as a youth. You never shied away from touching him, rewarding him with your weight draped over his shoulders or entwining your fingers when he did something that pleased you.

That familiar feeling jolts him back to reality. He glances your way – perhaps to say something, but he doesn't remember what about – and you capture his lips with yours, tilting your head and running your tongue over his lower lip.

He keeps them sealed, airtight.

You groan into the kiss and nip at him pleadingly, because you'd have to break Toji's jaw to get him to open up – and you couldn't do that to your favourite killer. Your name falling from his lips like a prayer is too sweet to pass up on.

Eventually, with enough petting and kisses, Toji relents, if only to see you perk up like a puppy tossed a bone. He groans softly as you explore his mouth, tongue curling around his and gliding over his teeth.

Your breath is hot and sweet against his, your lips shockingly gentle despite the quick and steady pace of your hips bouncing off his ass. He jolts every time your cockhead kisses his prostate, swollen and sensitive from your unrelenting pace. His dick bobs, dark red and pulsing hotly in your palm, and he groans like an injured animal. It's almost desperate.

Your shaft drags against his slick walls, which clench with a rippling squeeze as if he's trying to milk you dry. With each hungry snap of your hips, your tip punches the breath out of his lungs. His vision blots out, and he swears he can feel your cock in his damn throat.

Without warning, and without a word, he comes, his expression going lax with pleasure as he releases thick ropes onto his stomach. It's four hard spurts and two weaker pulses, the slow, measured tugs of your wrist twisting in a way that has his thick thighs trembling.

You coo softly, and Toji's face is uncharacteristically warm. Little kisses drift their way up his shoulder and neck and he sighs softly, eyes shut and head tilted back against your shoulder. You press your palm against his chest to feel the heart thudding beneath his ribs, the rise and fall with each shallow breath.

You cup his chest and squeeze.

He cracks an eye open, disapproval furrowing his brows. In response, you grin cheekily and nip at his earlobe as you smooth your fingers through his hair – a silent apology for being so rough.

To his credit, he lets it go. Doesn't even smack you for being an ass. He does, however, clamp down punishingly around your cock when he pulls off, making you hiss at the scrape. It bobs and you shiver at the cold air.

Thoughtfully, Toji glances down at it, still hard as rock and curving upwards towards your stomach. He reaches for it.

Your eyes widen when he slips a nail under the edge of the condom. "Wh-What are you doing?"

"Don't sound so scared. I know we're both safe. Said ya missed me, right?" He grins, dark and sharp, with eyes half-lidded – almost coy. "I'll let you finish inside me. For old times' sake."

"Contract-sanctioned stalking? I thought better of you, Toji." Despite your flippant words, your breath hitches, and Toji's grin widens. He tugs the slick condom off and tosses it aside – without even tying it up, the bastard – and before you can grumble about it, he grabs your jaw, forcing you to look at him, and presses his lips to yours.

You groan softly as he parts his lips and allows you in. He shifts closer, his knee between yours, and grabs your hand. He brings it down between your bodies.

"Baby..." you whisper as he wraps your hand around your lengths, pressed together. He is hot and velvety in your palm.

"Mm." The sound is deep and content, and he blinks up at you slowly like a cat. "I know. I want it."

Then, slinging his arm loosely around your shoulders, he pulls you down with him.

You barely manage to catch yourself before crushing him, your instincts and reflexes dulled by familiarity and a dreamy languor. Not that you think he'd mind – not with that grin.

Toji spreads his knees and hooks his calves around your thighs. He guides your cock into him again, and he rumbles out a pleased moan as it buries itself hilt-deep into his slick warmth.

His head falls back against the pillows as you press your hips flush against his ass. "Ah, shit..."

"You good, baby?" you murmur, swallowing harshly as his gummy walls flutter tightly around you, as if he can lock you inside forever. Your dick twitches.

"Mmh, fuck, jus' sensitive. Move."

It's only natural that you obey.

Toji feels hotter now that you don't have the layer of plastic to contend with – hotter, wetter, hungrier. You thrust shallowly at first, but as his moans grow louder – less restrained – you allow yourself to move tip-to-base, deep and dirty the way he used to like it. Seems he still does. The rim of his puffy asshole catches on the ridge of your cockhead and his nails rake down your shoulders and back, leaving stinging raised lines in their wake.

Pride fills your chest, inflates your ego. An infamous assassin, the Sorcerer Killer, spread wide and inviting with his cheeks all flushed – he's certainly given you a thousand little deaths. You grip the meat of his ass and lift his hips off the mattress, fucking into his wet heat at a new angle that has him shouting your name.

Maybe it's because you can see his face – see all the pretty cock-drunk expressions that wash over his features – that you find yourself chasing the precipice of release embarrassingly fast. He locks his legs around your waist, thick and muscular, and you want to laugh at the absurdity of it.

Why would you ever want to leave?

"Toji," you grunt, panting softly. "'M gonna..." Your breath fans against his sweat-slick skin, making him shiver and arch into your touch. He cups the back of your neck as you nibble and suck dark bruises into his tanned skin, his lashes fluttering as you shift his thighs on your lap and leave far too many deep red hickeys printed on his skin. You even scatter a few across his collarbones and chest, and you're only pleased when he looks like he was mauled by a bear.

He pants softly, his bitten moans making your cock throb even harder. Fuck, you're so hard – the shape of your teeth printed into his skin for all to see makes you prouder than you'd ever admit. You trace the marks gently with your fingertips and Toji's chest stutters.

Gazing up at you with lidded, unfocussed eyes, he laughs, freer than he had since you met him earlier. Your heavy cock plunges into his stretched hole, again and again and again like you're trying to make him take, and your grip on one of his thighs is tight enough to leave red crescents. He grasps your face, turning it down towards him, and offers a sleazy, roguish grin, breathless. His eyes trace the cut of your cheeks, the curve of your lips.

"You look less stupid than usual. S'all you're good for, ain't it? Fucking me nice an' deep with that fat cock of yours – f-fuck. S'mine, yeah? All mine?"

You shudder and groan, bone-deep, and Toji can feel the heavy throbbing of your cock leaking inside him. The slick feeling of you against his walls builds a hot ball of arousal in his lower belly. Your chest heaves against his and your stomach tenses, familiar planes of muscle firm against his hand. Excitement roars through him like a wildfire – eager and keening.

He yanks you down for a devouring kiss as you come, catapulting off the precipice into white bliss. You gasp into it. His ass clenches around you with his own release as he moans, his soft walls stroking you and sucking you in.

He's so fucking warm, so fucking wet. His body is slick with sweat and he shoves his tongue into your mouth like a man starved. Maybe he is. You groan, low and pleased, and his thighs tighten around you like a cage, possessive in his hungry, unyielding embrace.

Spilling into him is heaven. You've died and ascended, you're certain of it. He drinks you deep, as if he was made for it, and lets his head fall back against the pillows with a less-than-steady sigh as your balls tighten and pulse hotly against his skin. Dragging it out, you grind your hips into his ass in lazy circles, huffing and puffing against his throat as if you've run a marathon. Your fingers graze his own, fluttering in a way that seems almost... uncertain.

Hah. As if you knew what that word meant. You were unshakeable, infallible. The strongest. You'd hold onto that title for as long as you could; the burden was heavy.

Rather disappointingly, you don't choose to hold his hands. They glide down his waist and hips, making him shiver, and you slowly pull out, the solid but gentle grip on his thighs never wavering. You set him down as if he was made of glass and his body twitches as thick come leaks from his stretched hole, dripping and pooling white below his ass.

He tosses a lazy arm over his eyes, bending one knee and bracing against the bed. Another hot gush of come. "Ah, f-fuck... shit. You still come like a truck..."

Your gaze, once so dark and sultry as if you were about to eat him alive, now snaps to him, wide and kind and so embarrassed that Toji can't help but crack a grin.

"Sorry, sorry! I didn't hurt you, did I?"

He rolls his eyes. "Other than the hickeys, no. Wouldn'ta minded it anyway," he adds slyly, peering out from within the shadow of his arm. "Pretty hot when you get creative."

Shuffling off of the bed with a soft chuckle, you pick up the discarded condom and toss it in the bin. You pull open the wardrobe with a flex of a wall of muscles that Toji watches keenly, spreading his knees to eye you through them. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip.

"Y'know, I was thinking," you begin suddenly, rifling through clothes and drawers.

"You can do that?"

"Shut up. I was thinking about you – your situation."

He closes his eyes and sinks back into your bed. "When'd you have the time? Not while you were fucking me, I hope."

"Just listen, Toji." You turn around, washcloth in one hand and a pile of clothes in the other. Dark, but loose and unremarkable – as he prefers it. You toss the clothes at the bottom of the bed and disappear into the adjoining bathroom, raising your voice as the faucet squeaks on. "I was wondering if you'd wanna... you know – catch up. Or at least let me help you."

You continue, "I could find you a place in a better school zone, get you set up legitimately. Honestly, actually, you wouldn't even need to work. You could just focus on your family and I'd take care of the rest."

Toji sits up, ignoring the pinch of pain and the mess between his legs. It'll ache later, so he'll deal with it later. "What?"

"I said—"

"Yeah, yeah, heard you the first time. But why?" He lowers his voice as you return to him and begin to clean him up. He meets your eyes and his mouth takes on the beginning slant of a smirk. "My ass that good, huh? You want me to be your sugar baby?"

Heat floods your cheeks. "You're not that hot, Toji. Don't get ahead of yourself."

"Wasn't talking about my face. Still – it's not like you to beg me to go on the straight and narrow. What's with that?"

"At the risk of sounding humiliatingly sappy after sex," you sigh, sitting back and dropping the cloth aside, "I still care about you. A whole fucking lot. I only want good things for you, Toji, and I have all this excess wealth that I can't donate fast enough, so if I can change just two more lives – I'd beg for the chance."

The desire to change lives without ending others'. He can understand the sentiment.

"What would you want from me?"

For a moment, you're taken aback by the tiredness in his voice. You blink. "Nothing? Like I said, the money would just vanish into a charity otherwise. Well – maybe I'd like to be invited over on the weekends, and maybe drop off-slash-pick up itty-bitty Megumi every so often. He's that age, right? Oh – and you gotta let me into the kitchen. I make a mean lasagne. Wonder if the boy would like it..."

He snorts. "That's a lot of conditions."

"Well, I am offering to let you live like a plump and happy housewife, so..."

He's quiet for a while, his hair falling over his eyes in a way that blocks your view of his face. You toss a rolled-up towel at his head, and he catches it without looking.

He lowers the towel. "You... don't seem to care that I left you."

"No, I didn't at all care that my friend dropped off the face of the earth without warning." You cross your arms and scoff, the smile slipping from your face. "I only heard about what happened months after you vanished, and by that time, there was nothing I could do to search for you. I had too many people looking at me to dig up old underground contacts and not enough time to comb through the country myself. You could have talked to me, you know," you say, your voice softening. "I would never turn you away."

He shrugs, noncommittal. "It's like you said – too many people looking at you. Would be alarming if I came strolling up to your door, wouldn't it?"

"You did today," you point out.

"Yeah, when there's a bounty on your head. I could be killing you right now."

You scoff, though the hint of a smile flickers across your lips. "You're impossible. But fair point. Just... think it over, okay? Come find me after all this bounty business is over and done with. You know where I live."

Toji chuckles softly, and he accepts your offered hand. You lead him to the large bathroom and he threads his towel over the rod next to what must be yours. He stares longer than he should, but the sight of the two towels beside each other – his green, yours blue – forms a lump in his throat that's hard to swallow around. His heartbeat quickens.

The sound of water hitting the tiles fills the bathroom. He raises his voice over it. "Hey."

Glancing over, your arm shimmering with water droplets from where it rests against the faucet handle, you tilt your head wordlessly.

"I should be picking up the kid in a couple of hours," he explains, "at six. As far as he and the childcare know, I work a normal nine-to-five like the rest of 'em. You could go."

Your eyes widen, and you let out an endeared laugh. "Toji, Megumi doesn't know who I am. The last time we met, he was a newborn. I'm not about to give everyone a heart attack by showing up on your behalf."

"It wouldn't be on my behalf, dumbass." His tone borders between disparaging and fond. "I'd go with you."

"Wh—?" Your throat bobs harshly. The shower seems forgotten, and Toji pushes you backwards into it with a palm on your chest because he's not about to waste the water. It pours onto your head, your hair beginning to stick to your face, and it still doesn't seem to register. A smile pulls at his lips as he reaches for your body wash, scanning the label while your brain putters out and short-circuits.

You didn't expect an answer that soon.

"You heard me," he says coolly, as if this is a normal Tuesday for him. He squirts a dab of body wash onto his palm. "Isn't this what you asked for? In my opinion, it's not that fun. I get a lot of women chattin' me up while we wait. Awkward as hell since I can't be rude or they might tell their kids, and then their kids won't like Megumi... ah, it's a big deal. You being there will help. You love to talk, so you can do it for me. Good game plan, right?"

"Toji, I..."

"The fact that I'm talking more than you worries me."

"You said pick-up's at six, right?" you say suddenly, the glint in your eyes intensifying.

He arches a brow, glancing up at you. "Yeah."

"That means we have an hour." You lean in, trapping him against the glass of the shower. There's a hint of mania in your gaze, starved with a vehement zeal. "I'm gonna fuck you, now."

His eyes widen. A feral grin spreads across his face. He laughs against your throat and moans when you press your thumb roughly into one of the many hickeys littering his neck and chest. "You're crazy. Fuckin' crazy – oi."

It's disturbingly easy for you to lift him by his thighs and press him against the cool glass. His skin prickles as he grips your shoulders and mutters, his breath mingling with yours: "If you drop me, I'll kill you."

"Promise?" you ask with a breathless grin.

He crushes his lips to yours. No one else gets the privilege of taking your little deaths.

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cumironi · 20 days ago

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THEM AND THE NICKNAMES : GOJO SATORU, GETO SUGURU

sum. your boyfriends love to call you with a bunch of weird and loving nickname, especially gojo.

warning. established relationship x satosugu, fluff, crack, petname(s), nickname(s).

having two boyfriends who love calling you by nicknames is an experience on its own, especially when their approaches are completely different. geto is sweet, affectionate, and always mindful of making you feel adored, while gojo takes it as a personal challenge to come up with the most ridiculous, over-the-top, and sometimes downright embarrassing nicknames possible. it's like living in two different realities—one where you're cherished like a goddess, and another where you're being trolled by your own boyfriend.

geto’s nicknames for you are always gentle, warm, and filled with love. he calls you “darling” in that smooth, honeyed voice of his, as if the word itself was made for you. sometimes, when he’s feeling extra affectionate, he’ll go for something softer, like “sweetheart” or “my love,” murmured against your hair while he pulls you into a slow hug. in moments when he’s teasing, he’ll lean close with a smirk and call you “pretty girl” or “princess,” making your heart flutter before he kisses the top of your hand like an old-fashioned gentleman. it’s all so romantic, so tender—it makes you feel like you’re in the middle of a slow-burning love story. even when he’s joking, there’s always love in the way he speaks to you, as if every nickname is a small love letter whispered just for you.

then, there’s gojo. gojo does not believe in subtlety. he does not believe in ordinary nicknames or anything that sounds remotely normal. no, he takes it as a personal mission to make you either laugh, groan, or want to strangle him. “sugar muffin deluxe,” he announces dramatically as he throws an arm around you in public, completely unbothered by the strange looks people give. “the love of my life, the peanut butter to my jelly, the one who tolerates my nonsense.” and he says it so proudly, like he’s just declared the most romantic thing in existence. but it doesn’t stop there—oh no, he has a never-ending arsenal of nicknames. sometimes it’s “my little gremlin” when you’re grumpy, or “snack-sized menace” when you argue back. in moments when he wants to make you cringe, he’ll lean in close and whisper, “hey there, my juicy dumpling,” just to watch you shove him away in horror.

but the worst—absolutely the worst—is when he decides to call you something new in front of everyone. one time, while walking through the streets of shibuya, he suddenly shouted, “oi, snugglebug supreme! wait for me!” the heads of at least five strangers turned, and you wanted the ground to swallow you whole. geto, ever the composed one, only sighed and said, “satoru, must you always be so loud?” but there was amusement in his tone, like he had long accepted this part of gojo’s personality. gojo, on the other hand, only grinned, completely unfazed. “what? she is my snugglebug supreme,” he said, draping himself over you dramatically, ignoring the way you smacked his arm.

but despite their differences, both of them love you in their own ways. geto’s nicknames remind you of how deeply he cherishes you, of how much warmth he holds in his heart for you. gojo’s, though ridiculous, remind you that you are adored, that you are the center of his world in the loudest, most extravagant way possible. and at the end of the day, no matter how much you roll your eyes or groan in embarrassment, you wouldn’t change a thing about them.

you yawn as you step into the kitchen, the oversized fabric of geto’s shirt swallowing your frame, the sleeves hanging past your elbows as you lazily rub your eyes. it’s one of those rare, perfect weekends—no work, no missions, no stress. just the three of you in the comfort of home, basking in the peace of an afternoon where time doesn’t matter. the scent of something sweet lingers in the air, mixing with the faint bitterness of chocolate, and as you glance up, you find gojo leaning against the counter, one hand lazily popping a piece of chocolate into his mouth while geto stands at the stove, focused on whatever he’s making.

gojo’s gaze flickers to you the second you walk in, and that familiar, mischievous grin stretches across his lips. before you can even react, his long arms reach out, snagging you by the neck in a loose, lazy headlock, his chin resting against your temple as he hums in amusement. “hi, my little bird,” he coos, his voice playful, affectionate, and just a little smug as he ruffles your hair with his free hand.

you groan, half-heartedly shoving at his arm. “don’t call me that.”

“why not?” he pouts, though there’s pure amusement in his tone. “you’re tiny, you wander around the house aimlessly, and you always look like you just woke up. just like a little bird.”

geto chuckles from the stove, stirring something in a pan. “he’s not entirely wrong,” he muses, glancing at you with that soft, fond smile of his. unlike gojo, his teasing is always gentler, laced with warmth instead of pure mischief. “you did walk in here looking half-asleep.”

“that’s because i just woke up,” you grumble, trying to wiggle out of gojo’s grip, but he only tightens his hold slightly, rocking you from side to side like you’re some kind of stuffed toy.

in an effortless movement, he lifts you off the ground with one arm, your feet hanging a few inches above the kitchen floor. he grins down at you, his hands effortlessly supporting your weight, and for a moment, you can’t help but be a bit impressed by his sheer strength. your body is easily maneuvered into a comfortable position, with your head resting against his chest, and he proceeds to walk towards the living room, his steps as smooth and graceful as a dancer’s.

he carries you through the house with ease, all the while gently rocking you from side to side like a mother would a baby. his voice is just as gentle as his touch, and you can practically hear the warmth and affection in his tone. “you’re so cute when you just woke up,” gojo muses, leaning close to murmur against your ear with an audible smirk. “little bit groggy, all disheveled and sleepy. and the oversized shirt you’re wearing... adorable.”

he nuzzles his face into your hair, his breath warm against your temple, and you can feel his smile against your skin. “you’re the perfect little bundle of adorableness, you know that?”

...it’s both embarrassing and comforting at the same time, to be carried like this. the warmth of his chest is soothing, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat grounding you. the way he sways softly with each step, his movements smooth and calculated, is like a soothing lullaby. but you can’t deny the flush that rises to your cheeks, the butterflies that flutter in your stomach every time his hand tightens its grip around you.

in his arms, you both feel both vulnerable and protected at once. his hold on you is firm, secure in his arms while he lay you down to the couch along with himself that make him he lets out a quiet hum. “is that so?” you ask, still groggy and sleepy. he pulls you closer, maneuvering you until your head rests comfortably against his chest. his body is warm, firm beneath you, and he wraps his arms around you with an almost possessive gesture.

he chuckles at your question, a hint of smugness in his tone. “oh, absolutely,” he says, running his fingers through your hair, his touch gentle, affectionate. “you’re like a little sleepy doll.”

he continues to pet your hair rhythmically, his fingers sifting through the strands in a soothing motion. he leans in closer, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck and inhaling deeply like he’s savoring your scent. his grip tightens slightly around your waist, and he murmurs against your skin, his voice low and affectionate.

“you’re so small,” he whispers, his breath warm against your skin. “so delicate. i could hold you like this forever and never get tired.” he shifts slightly, angling your body closer to his so that you fit perfectly against him. his arms wrap tighter around you, his chest rising and falling with each slow breath. he tilts his head down, pressing his lips to the top of your head in a gentle, almost reverent kiss. “and this shirt,” he says, his voice soft and amused. “it’s practically swallowing you alive. do you even know whose it is?”

you let out a soft hum, barely lifting your head as you murmur, “it’s suguru’s,” your voice drowsy, muffled against gojo’s chest. you try to push yourself up, pressing your palms against the firm muscle beneath you, but the moment you attempt to move, his arms tighten around your waist like a steel trap.

“mm-mm,” he hums, low and lazy, his grip unyielding. his long fingers splay across your back, holding you in place with ease, as if he has no intention of ever letting you go. you groan, your forehead dropping against his shoulder in exasperation.

“satoru,” you sigh, trying again to wiggle free, but it’s useless. he only pulls you closer, effortlessly maneuvering you until you’re completely flush against him, your legs tangled with his as his lips brush against your temple in a smug kiss.

“why are you trying to escape, little bird?” he teases, his voice dripping with amusement. one of his hands slides up, threading through your hair again, his fingers scratching lightly against your scalp in a way that almost makes you melt despite your annoyance. “you’re so warm and cozy, like a little heater. why would i let go?”

“because i want to get up,” you mumble, pushing weakly against his chest.

he laughs, a deep, amused sound that resonates through his chest. he presses his face into your hair, inhaling deeply like he’s trying to imprint your scent into his lungs. “oh, but you’re so perfect like this,” he teases. “all soft and warm, pressed up against me. why would i ever let you go?” his fingers dance lazily along your spine, tracing slow, gentle circles.

“besides,” he adds, his tone turning more serious, “we don’t have anything important to do today, do we?” he presses another kiss to your temple, his lips lingering against your skin. “you’re so much cozier here,” he argues, his hand moving up to gently cradle the back of your head. “warm, soft... perfect for cuddles.”

you groan, squirming against gojo’s hold as you push yourself up from the couch, using every ounce of strength you have. his arms are strong—too strong—but you manage to lift yourself just enough to peek over the back of the couch, your eyes locking onto geto, who is still standing in the kitchen, calmly plating food like he isn’t witnessing a full-on struggle.

your fingers grip the head of the couch tightly, your knuckles turning white as you strain to keep yourself upright, putting as much distance as possible between you and gojo’s suffocating embrace. “suguru,” you call out, your voice a mix of frustration and desperation. you whine dramatically, dragging out his name before adding, “help me.”

geto barely glances up, his expression unreadable except for the slight twitch at the corner of his lips. he’s amused—you know he is—but he says nothing, simply continuing his task like your plea for help isn’t falling on deaf ears.

before you can try again, gojo moves, fast and effortless, his hands wrapping around your wrists in a firm but playful grip. “oh, no, you don’t,” he murmurs, and before you can react, he pulls—hard.

you yelp, your body losing all resistance as he drags you right back into his arms, pressing you against him once more. the sudden movement has you shrieking, a high-pitched sound of protest that only makes him laugh.

“gotcha,” he hums, his breath warm against your temple as he tucks you securely against his chest again. “nice try, little bird, but you’re not going anywhere.”

you thrash weakly, but it’s no use. his arms tighten around you like a vice, his fingers tracing slow, taunting circles against your spine.

“suguru,” you whine again, trying to turn your head towards the kitchen. this time, geto does look up, exhaling softly before shaking his head. “satoru,” he calls, voice calm but with a clear warning. “don’t suffocate her.”

gojo grins, unabashed. “but she’s so comfy to cuddle,” he protests, nuzzling his face into your neck and inhaling deeply. “and look how cute she is, squirming around like that.”

he tightens his grip, pulling you even tighter against his chest. you can feel the rumble of his gentle laughter through your body. “besides, she’s not really complaining. she’s just being dramatic.” gojo leans in, his lips pressing a light kiss to your temple. “aren’t you, little bird?” he teases, giving you a little squeeze.

it takes you a moment—several moments, actually—to finally break free from gojo’s relentless hold. he makes it as difficult as possible, arms tightening every time you try to wiggle away, his teasing laughter vibrating through his chest as he murmurs sweet, taunting little things about how you belong right there, tucked against him forever.

but after an exhausting amount of struggling, shifting, and sheer determination, you finally manage to slip out of his grasp. the second you’re free, you don’t waste a second—you bolt.

a breathless laugh escapes you as you dart toward the kitchen, your feet light against the floor as you make a beeline for geto. he barely has time to react before you crash into him, wrapping your arms securely around his waist and pressing yourself against his back.

“suguru, save me,” you breathe between chuckles, peeking out from behind him with a mischievous glint in your eyes.

geto lets out a small, knowing sigh, his body instinctively leaning into your touch as his free hand drops down to rest over yours, gently clasping your fingers. “you finally escaped, huh?” he murmurs, amusement lacing his tone.

before you can answer, you hear the all-too-familiar sound of socked feet padding toward you. you glance up just in time to see gojo rounding the corner, his expression a mix of playful frustration and faux betrayal.

“really?” he drawls, stopping just a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest as he cocks his head at you. “you’re just gonna run? after all that cuddling? after all that warmth we shared?”

you grin, tightening your grip on geto and using him as a shield. “you left me no choice,” you say dramatically, peeking at gojo from behind geto’s shoulder.

geto chuckles, shaking his head as he lifts a hand to ruffle your hair. “satoru, let her breathe,” he muses, his tone teasing but with a clear undertone of amusement.

gojo huffs, his lips twitching as if he’s holding back a smile. “she doesn’t need to breathe,” he counters. “she needs to come back here.”

you shake your head immediately, clinging to geto even tighter. “no way.”

gojo pouts playfully, his bottom lip jutting out in an exaggerated frown. “but i’m cold nowww,” he whines, taking a few exaggerated steps closer, his arms still crossed over his chest. “and you were so warm...”

geto chuckles softly at the exchange, his hand warm and steady on your head. “satoru, don’t be so needy,” he chides, his tone gentle but firm.

gojo’s frown deepens, and he takes another step closer, his fingers twitching as if he’s barely restraining himself from reaching out and grabbing you.

you ignore gojo’s exaggerated whining, tuning him out completely as your eyes drift toward the counter where geto is working. your attention shifts instantly, and your expression brightens as you catch sight of what he’s making.

“oh,” you breathe, eyes glistening with delight. “you made cookies.”

not just any cookies—strawberry cookies. soft pink dough, delicately shaped, with tiny crumbles of dried strawberries scattered on top like little specks of sweetness. they look perfect, straight out of a bakery display, and the sight alone makes your stomach grumble.

geto hums in acknowledgment, his hand slipping from the top of your head to drape comfortably over your shoulder, pulling you in just enough that your bodies are flush together. with his other hand, he carefully sprinkles more dried strawberries over the cookie dough, working with practiced ease.

“you said you wanted some strawberry cookies, my love,” he murmurs, his voice smooth and gentle, like warm honey. he doesn’t even need to glance at you; his focus remains on the dough, but there’s a quiet fondness in the way he speaks.

you blink, momentarily caught off guard. then, realization dawns on you—you did say that. you remember mentioning it absentmindedly on the way home from work yesterday, sighing about how good strawberry cookies sounded, how you hadn’t had them in a while. it was just a passing comment, something small and fleeting, not something you expected anyone to actually remember.

but geto did.

your chest feels warm, an unmistakable swell of love rising in you as you tilt your head up to look at him. his expression remains calm, focused, but there’s an undeniable softness there, the kind that only appears when he’s with you.

that’s the thing about geto—he remembers everything. even the smallest, most trivial things. if it matters to you, it matters to him. and he’ll always find a way to make it come true, no matter how simple or insignificant it might seem.

a smile tugs at your lips, gentle and affectionate. “you’re too good to me, sugu,” you murmur, shifting slightly so you can press a small kiss to his shoulder in silent gratitude.

geto’s eyes crinkle at the corners, a hint of a pleased smirk tugging at the edge of his lips. he’s proud, you can tell, and rightfully so—he’s always been the reliable one, the thoughtful one, the one who remembers the little things. it’s as if he has an entire mental archive dedicated solely to you—your likes, dislikes, dreams, and desires tucked neatly away in his mind.

he finishes sprinkling the dried berries over the cookies, his hand moving with a graceful efficiency that comes from years of practice. once he's satisfied, he carefully places the tray in the oven, setting a timer before turning to face you fully.

he leans back against the kitchen counter, his arms folding comfortably across his chest as he looks at you with a soft, knowing smile. the sunlight filtering into the room hits his skin just right, casting a warm glow that highlights the sharp contours of his face.

geto’s eyes linger on you for a moment, taking you in with quiet reverence, as if he’s committing every little detail of your expression to memory. he always looks at you like that—like you’re the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

before you could even muster a response, gojo’s hands suddenly cup your face, his long fingers spreading across your cheeks, his grip firm but not forceful. you barely have time to react before he attacks—pressing loud, exaggerated kisses all over your face with relentless enthusiasm.

“my little mochi puff! my sugarplum dumpling! my sweet, squishy love bun!” he coos between kisses, his voice high-pitched and dramatic. each ridiculous nickname is punctuated by another smothering peck, his lips landing on your forehead, your nose, your cheeks—anywhere he can reach.

you burst into laughter, your body shaking with giggles as you try to squirm away. “satoru—!” you try to protest, but your words are lost between your breathless laughter and his nonstop affection. your hands push at his chest, weakly attempting to escape, but he’s holding your face so firmly in place, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles against your skin even as he showers you in relentless kisses.

“my tiny, precious baby bean! my little dumpling cloud! my fluffiest marshmallow!” he continues dramatically, his voice full of exaggerated adoration as if he’s declaring his love to the entire universe.

geto, still leaning against the counter, watches with an amused smirk, his arms crossed over his chest. “you’re gonna suffocate her, satoru.”

“go out in the best way possible,” gojo replies instantly before blowing an obnoxiously loud raspberry against your cheek, making you yelp.

“i swear to—” you try again, but another flood of kisses silences you.

you can barely breathe between your laughter, your face burning both from embarrassment and the sheer overwhelming affection. “satoru, let me go, you menace!” you wail, half-heartedly slapping at his arms, but he only grins wider, completely unbothered.

“never! my little pudding pop, my baby chick, my—”

you shriek when he presses an especially dramatic kiss to your jaw, and in your desperation, you reach out blindly—grabbing onto geto’s shirt, seeking rescue, tighten your arms around his waist.

geto hums, finally taking pity on you, and with a smooth motion, he reaches out and tugs you away from gojo’s grasp, pulling you firmly against his chest. “alright, alright, let her breathe,” he chides, his voice warm with amusement as he shields you from gojo’s relentless attack.

gojo finally relents, pulling back with a dramatic sigh and an exaggerated pout on his lips. “you’re no fun, sugu,” he complains, his hands dropping from your face to cross over his chest. “i was just showing my love and appreciation for our little mochi puff.”

geto rolls his eyes, one arm circling around your waist to keep you firmly against him. “you were smothering her, satoru,” he replies, his voice level but with a hint of warning. “let the poor girl breathe for once.”

gojo huffs, his pout deepening as he gives geto a sideways glance. “but i have so many adorable nicknames for her,” he whines, his tone almost petulant.

geto snorts, his arm tightening around you as he pulls you a little closer. “you can call her all your ridiculous nicknames later,” he replies. “after you let her breathe and let her function without being completely overwhelmed by your clinginess.”

gojo grumbles, and you can practically see the wheels in his head spinning as he contemplates arguing further. you just chuckle, glancing up at gojo but saying nothing, your arms still wrapped securely around geto as you rest your head against his chest. the warmth of his body, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat—it’s all too comfortable to let go of just yet.

gojo rolls his eyes, huffing dramatically. “you both suck,” he grumbles, crossing his arms before turning on his heel. “i’m taking a shower,” he announces, his voice carrying that signature dramatic flair, as if he’s deeply wounded by your choice to cling to geto instead of indulging him.

without another word, he disappears down the hallway towards the bedroom, muttering something under his breath that you’re sure is just more complaints about how unfairly he’s being treated. you shake your head, a small, amused smile tugging at your lips before tilting your head up, resting your chin on geto’s chest as you peer up at him.

geto chuckles quietly at gojo’s exit, shaking his head in fond exasperation. he looks down at you, his eyes softening as he meets your gaze. “you know, one of these days, he’s gonna sulk so much he actually disappears,” he murmurs in a low voice, the corner of his lips twitching slightly.

his hand moves from your waist, gliding up your side until he’s gently cupping your cheek. his thumb brushes across your skin in a tender, almost absentminded gesture, yet the tenderness in his touch is unmistakable.

geto leans back against the counter, adjusting his stance so your body slots more comfortably against his. you can tell he’s enjoying having you in his arms, his fingers continuing to trace light patterns along your skin, his touch both soothing and possessive.

“how are you feeling?” he asks, his voice low and quiet, just for you. his eyes search your face, studying your expression, looking for any signs of discomfort or exhaustion. he’s always been protective of you, especially when gojo gets a bit too... enthusiastic.

he’s always been the calm to gojo’s chaos. the stability to his fire. like a grounding force, always there, always steady, always ready to catch you when you fall. “you holding up alright?” he murmurs, his voice a soft whisper between you two. “not overwhelmed by his nonsense yet?”

you chuckle, nodding your head with a small pout. “mm-hmm,” you hum, pretending to be oh-so-exhausted from gojo’s antics. “so overwhelmed,” you add, voice laced with fake weariness.

geto snorts, his fingers continuing to trace slow, soothing patterns along your back. but there’s a knowing glint in his eyes, the tiniest smirk tugging at his lips. because he knows you—knows exactly what you’re doing.

you nuzzle into his chest for extra effect, milking his protectiveness for all it’s worth. and geto? well, he plays right into it. his arms tighten around you just a little more, his chin resting lightly atop your head as he hums.

geto lets out a low, amused huff, and you can practically feel the eyeroll in it. he’s caught on to your little act, obviously—but he goes along with it anyway because he knows exactly how much you crave his attention and protection. his fingers dance up your spine, a touch that’s both gentle and possessive. “poor thing,” he murmurs, his voice a soft rumble against your ear. “let me guess, you’re absolutely drained after satoru’s...overwhelming affection?”

you continue to pout, nodding your head without another word, your eyes wide and pleading as you look up at him—puppy eyes in full effect.

geto hums, exhaling softly through his nose, and you catch the briefest flicker of amusement in his gaze. he knows exactly what you're doing, sees right through your act, but he doesn’t call you out on it. instead, he indulges you, the way he always does.

“poor thing,” he murmurs, his fingers skimming lightly over your waist, his touch slow, deliberate. “so exhausted from satoru’s endless energy... how terrible.”

before you can respond, he leans down, and suddenly, soft warmth presses against your skin—his lips ghosting over your forehead in a delicate kiss.

where gojo had been chaotic and eager, peppering your face with exaggerated, messy kisses, geto is the complete opposite. his touch is unhurried, like he’s savoring every second, every little reaction you give him. his lips trail down to your temple, brushing feather-light against your skin before moving lower, pressing a lingering kiss to your cheek.

“my pretty girl,” he murmurs, barely pulling away before pressing another kiss—this time, to the other cheek. “my sweetheart.”

his voice is a gentle lull, warmth curling through your chest with every whispered endearment. his kisses are slow, deliberate, placed with care, like he’s mapping out every inch of your face. he brushes his lips over the tip of your nose, down to your jaw, then back up again, lingering at your temple as his arms tighten around you.

“my love,” he breathes, the words melting against your skin, filled with nothing but devotion.

then another kiss, softer this time, right at the corner of your lips. “my darling,” he whispers, his voice thick with affection. “my sweet little thing.”

his lips move again, grazing just beneath your ear. “my baby,” he hums, his voice almost teasing as he presses another kiss to your jaw. “my angel.”

your fingers clutch at the fabric of his shirt, your body relaxing completely against him as you let out a soft, content sigh. your pout is long gone now, replaced by something quieter, something warmer.

“you like this, don’t you?” geto teases, his voice low, affectionate.

you hum softly in response, not bothering to deny it, your lips curving into a small smile as you nuzzle closer into him. his scent, his warmth, the way he holds you—it’s enough to make you forget about everything else.

geto chuckles, pressing one final, lingering kiss to the top of your head before resting his chin there. “satoru’s gonna be so jealous,” he muses, his tone light, amused. “but that’s not my problem, is it?”

and you can’t help but laugh, your arms tightening around him, fully content in the safety of his embrace.

geto holds you against him, his chin resting on top of your head. you can feel the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the rhythmic thump of his heartbeat against your ear. the atmosphere is calm now, the playful energy from gojo’s antics replaced by a more soothing, comfortable silence.

geto’s hand continues to trail lightly along your back, his touch both affectionate and possessive. his words are soft, murmured against your hair as he speaks.

“my little attention seeker,” he chuckles, the words tinged with affectionate teasing. you huff, playfully swatting his arm as you glare up at him. “i am not an attention seeker,” you grumble, even though you both know the truth. you’re absolutely an attention seeker—at least when it comes to your boyfriends. but admitting it? never.

geto only chuckles, the sound low and rich, his eyes gleaming with amusement as he watches you pout. his hand moves gently, brushing your hair back from your forehead with the same effortless care he always handles you with. then, without a word, he leans down, his lips pressing firmly against your forehead in a lingering, tender kiss.

he stays like that for a moment, his warmth seeping into your skin, before finally pulling back just enough to murmur against you, “god, i love you.”

his voice is so quiet, so full of something deep and unshakable, that your chest tightens. your fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, holding onto him a little tighter, because how could you not? how could you not cling to someone who loves you so openly, so effortlessly?

you don’t respond right away, just bury your face against his chest, your heart pounding a little harder. but geto doesn’t need you to say anything—he already knows.

geto chuckles again, the sound reverberating through his chest, rumbling against your ears. he understands your silence, understands the way your body language speaks for you. you don’t need to say the words out loud for him to know how much you love him, too.

he continues to stroke your hair, the gesture calming, soothing. his other hand drops to your hip, his grip firm, possessive, like he’s trying to keep you grounded, keep you close.

“you’re adorable,” he murmurs, his voice a soft rumble in his chest. “my adorable little attention seeker.”

as geto continues to caress your hair, his fingers gentle but firm, he begins to hum softly under his breath. the tune is one you recognize instantly—a song he always hums when he’s feeling particularly affectionate, his voice low and gentle and soothing.

he begins to sway gently, his movements almost instinctive, like he can’t help but want to hold you close, to keep you safe. his arms wrap tighter around you, pulling you flush against his chest as he continues to hum, his body a solid, steady presence for you to lean into.

you can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes, the steady rhythm almost hypnotic. he continues to sway back and forth, his movements slow and deliberate. you can feel the solidity of his body, the way his muscles shift as his arms continue to hold you tight.

his hum is low, soft, his voice barely above a murmur as he continues to rock you gently. there’s a certain tenderness in his grip, the way he holds you so close, like you’re something precious, something to be protected, loved... worshipped.

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tojisun · 2 months ago

Text

john price x reader; minimal plot but it’s daddy issues and making out and just yk the sorts; mini religious analogy

it starts with a tap to the mouth—john's thumb rough against your glossy lips. he tips your head up just enough so that you can meet his eyes, crinkled in his deep smile and shining with the depths of his desire.

his adoration is palpable, rippling from his body in burning waves. it makes you feel small in the softest of ways; like you are being tucked into the pockets of his chest, wedged within the spaces of his ribs.

it makes you ache, your body racked with shivers.

no one has ever loved you this way. no one was ever this devoted—all-consuming and scorching in the way it strips the world into nothing, leaving it bare, all for you to use. to yield. to pick apart and abandon, as you see fit.

john looks at you like you're all that matters.

the tears spring up before you could stop them, prickling the backs of your eyes until they trickle down the slopes of your cheeks. you hear john's breath stutter, his hand twitching from where it's cupping your jaw, before it drags up to the side of your temple, thumb swiping at the patch of skin just underneath your eye.

"shh," he rumbles, a gentle coo. "y've got nothin' to be sad about, sweetheart."

you sniffle, ducking your gaze away, turning shy. it makes him chuckle, his voice passing through his teeth with such fondness, it fills you up with warmth; cascading down your spine, setting you ablaze alive.

“now, then,” john says, tapping the apple of your cheek. “won’t you come here an’ kiss me?”

his voice is thick and sticky with his own need, rumbling in that sort of tone that always makes your thighs squeeze shut. you nod, not knowing what else is there to say, and slide to his lap. he helps you throughout—rough palms perched on your hips as he pulls you close, adjusting ever so slightly, until your chest is snug against his and his breaths are hitting your chin.

john is so warm like this, or is it you? burning with the fever of your own desires that it buzzes into your skin and etching him with it?

whatever it may be, he presses close, dragging his palms from the meat of your hips to your back, mapping along the expanse of your skin like he’s truly feeling you; like he’s truly grounding himself through you.

you let out a shaky breath. john mirrors it.

and, finally, the two of you meet in between. the kiss is soft, careful, then it is cataclysmic. he devours your every gasps, his beard scratching against your chin as he kisses and nips and licks.

it is so debauched; sinful in the way you moan into his mouth and john swallows it whole; destructive in the way that his kisses chase the burn from your lips and force them through your synapses, leaving your nerves to moan a song until the pleasure burrows in your core—thrumming and building, your nub hardening slowly; teasingly; more.

more. moremoremore—

“john,” you gasp out, fingers tugging at his hair. “john, i want–!”

“shh,” he rumbles, pulling away just enough to press his forehead to yours. “i’ve got you, peanut. i’ve got you.”

his words douse you in the holy flames because you feel—

absolved.

you feel forgiven. you feel loved.

oh.

“please,” you hiccup, crying out again. and john pulls you in, even closer, and closer, until you no longer know where you end and where he begins.

please—

“i’ve got you,” john repeats like it is a prayer; a testimony. “i’m here f’r you.”

and you fall into him, so trusting. so faithful.

so devoted.

so small in his greatness.

#or. tldr: a love so overwhelming that you don’t know how to even comprehend it #john price x reader #captain john price x reader #price x reader #john price #x reader #suns

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canyourlawnmowerdothis · 2 years ago

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AWFUL. worst day of my life (a bit dizzy)

#dissociating for no reason is fine i Guess but switching hasnt had nearly as many Bad Feleing for so long #mild tummyache the world is against me #from the peanut gallery

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peachypixelpop · 7 months ago

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Paws and Claws

✩‌ logan howlett/wolverine x curvyf!reader | smut | 6k

SUMMARY | Your dog Bert accidentally knocks up Dogpool which leads to a meet cute with an angry Wolverine.

WARNINGS | Meet cute (but make it intense) kinda enemies, to friends to lovers, mutual yearning, daddy wolverine, flirting, mutual yearning, immature humour, oral sex, swallowing, fingering, piv s*x, what refractory period? we die like men, You know he talks you through it.

RATING | Explicit

NOTES | Okay so this is my first ever Tumblr spicy oneshot, soooo thoughts and feedback are so welcome. Enjoy my loves <3

“You,” he snarled, teeth bared as he thrust what could only be described as a pot-bellied gremlin toward your face.

“Me?” you splutter, glancing between the feral-looking man in front of you and the small creature he held in his hands.

“Yeah! You’ve got some audacity coming back here after what you’ve done,” he spat, gesturing around the park while transferring the small creature to his large bicep, cradling it against his impressively muscular chest.

The ‘here’ he was referring to was your local park, currently hosting its weekly ‘Social Snout Society.’ You had moved for work, and the event seemed like a great way to meet fellow dog owners.

And in a way, it had. You’d made friends with. many of the regulars and had grown your social circle considerably. There was the sweet young couple who kept trying to set you up with their ‘friend,’ and the lovely old lady, Barbara, who always offered your dog peanut butter-filled treats.

But then, there was him. The one person you couldn’t quite figure out. He was always standing off to the side, averse to socialising, with his thick arms crossed over a plaid shirt as he watched the dogs run around. There was something about his presence—an air of brooding mystery—that made it hard to ignore him. You’d caught yourself staring a few times—how could you not? He was handsome in a rugged, roguish Clint Eastwood sort of way. But more than that, he was The Wolverine. Yes, that Wolverine—the legendary superhero from the X-Men who fought bad guys and saved the world.

Each time he caught you looking, you quickly glanced away, your face turning a brilliant shade of red as you desperately tried to distract yourself by calling your dog over.

You had pegged him as the type who would own a large, intimidating dog—a mastiff, a rottweiler, or maybe a German shepherd. So, when the social was winding down and you saw a tiny Pugese bounding over to him, you couldn’t believe your eyes. The little dog, all stubby legs and wrinkled face, leaped into the gruff man’s arms with surprising agility. Its long tongue lolled out, swiping affectionately at his mutton chops as he caught it effortlessly. The sight of this fierce-looking man cradling such a small, adorable dog was almost too much to process, and you had to stifle a laugh at the unexpected contrast.

“What’s going on?” you finally manage to ask, your voice shaky as you look at the small creature nestled against his chest.

“Listen, bub, this clueless act ain’t gonna cut it with me. You can see what you’ve done,” he said, his voice rough like gravel. He adjusted his grip on the little dog, gently supporting its neck and bum as he sat it up slightly. You leaned in, taking in the wide brown eyes that blinked up at you as the dog gave a quick yawn, shifting in the man’s arms. Its little red leather outfit was twisted slightly around its body, looking snugger than usual.

“This—” he growled, nodding toward the Pugese, “is Mary. And thanks to your sausage, she’s gonna have puppies!”

You blink in confusion. “My—wait, Bert? You’re talking about Bert?”

“Who else?” he huffed, his intense gaze locking onto yours. “Your daschund knocked up my dog!”

As if summoned, Bert appeared between your legs, huffing loudly from his sprint back from Barbara, a smudge of peanut butter on his lips. He looked up at you and the angry man with a proud expression, oblivious to the chaos he had caused.

“Bert?” you repeat incredulously, trying to process the information. “But… but I swear he’s been fixed!”

“Yeah, well, he figured it out somehow,” the man muttered, still fuming. “Found out today at the vet—Mary’s knocked up, thanks to him”

You glanced at the small dog again and noticed how her little pot belly did seem more rotund than usual. She was happily wagging her curly tail, completely unaware of the drama unfolding.

“Oh my god,” you whisper, covering your mouth as you look at the little Pugese. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea…”

“Neither did I!” he retorts, though his tone softens slightly as he sees the genuine surprise and concern in your eyes. “I mean, Mary is the last dog I’d expect to end up pregnant. She’s never even shown interest in other dogs.”

You can’t help but let out a small laugh, the absurdity of the situation dawning on you. Of all the things I expected today, getting chewed out by a grumpy, muscle-bound guy over a pregnant dog wasn’t one of them.

“How do you even know it was him? There are hundreds of dogs around here”

He huffed as if appalled you would even ask that.

“How could it not be him, I’ve seen him - sniffing around her” he spat.

You side eyed Bert who had the audacity to flop on his back for a belly rub. It sounded exactly like him to your dismay.

“I honestly don’t know what to say except sorry” you finally manage wincing as Bert let out a long whine at being ignored.

“Just… keep an eye on your little Casanova,” he grumbled, rubbing Mary’s head. “We’re in this together now, whether we like it or not.”

“I really am sorry,” you say, reaching down to scoop up Bert, who was sniffing at the man’s shoes. Holding his little sausage body in one hand, you thrust a hand forward toward the man. “I’m Y/N. You’ve met Bert.”

The man eyed your hand for a second before clasping it in his own large one. “Logan,” he spoke, his deep voice sending a shiver down your spine.

“Listen, don’t worry. Bert won’t be an absent father. I’ll step up—I mean, he’ll step up—well, I suppose we’ll be there for you.”

“Uh huh.”

“And Mary, of course. Listen, I’m a girls’ girl, and the last thing I would do is—” You freeze as you realise you’re still gripping Logan’s large hand and shaking it like you’re sealing the most important business deal of your life. Quickly releasing his hand as if it were on fire, you take a step back and stare at the grass in embarrassment.

Taking a deep breath, you looked up and tried not to get lost in his warm brown eyes. “Listen, can you give me your number or something so you can keep me updated?” You asked, shifting Bert on your arm.

“I don’t have a phone,” he said awkwardly.

“Right,” you responded, feeling mortified. It seemed clear he wanted nothing to do with you.

“Okay, well, I’ll be around if you need me,” you said dejectedly. With twenty minutes left of the social, you just wanted to escape the awkwardness.

Before he could respond, you turned away and left the park, your ears burning red with embarrassment as Bert gently gnawed at your fingers.

You didn’t see Logan again, a couple of weeks had passed since the man had confronted you about Bert’s promiscuous behaviour so you were surprised to find a bright pink envelope on your floor when you arrived home from work.

🎉🐶 PAW-TEE ALERT! 🐶🎉 Hey there, Fur-tastic Friends! Guess what time it is? It’s time to celebrate the most adorable, waggliest, and undeniably cutest thing in the universe—PUPPIES! Yep, you heard me right. Wade is throwing the ultimate Puppy Shower and you’re on the VIP list. 🎉 Come dressed in your finest puppy-themed attire or don’t—either way, you’ll look fetching! 🐾 Please bring a treat for Mary, our star-of-the-show, and no, we’re not talking about your grandma’s fruitcake. 🍪 If you can’t make it, don’t worry. I’ll be sure to send you a selfie of me and Logan covered in puppy slobber. 📸 RSVP: Hit me up with your best bark or, if you’re feeling fancy, just send a text to [Contact Information Here]. Either way, let me know if you’re coming so we can prepare an appropriately excessive amount of dog treats and possibly a few questionable dog costumes. Pawsitively Excited, Wade & Logan xoxoxo P.S. If you think this is just a ploy to get free snacks and a chance to see Logan out of his grumpy shell, you might be right. But you’ll also be helping celebrate the imminent arrival of tiny, adorable puppies!

“Wade?” You murmured, running your finger over the red glitter hearts on the page. It made sense why Logan wasn’t single; he was undeniably gorgeous. But your brows furrowed as you tried to recall whether you had given Logan your address.

Glancing at Bert, who was sitting in front of his empty bowl and giving you a reproachful look, you sighed. “Time to step up, buddy.” You spoke to Bert, who huffed slightly in agreement and continued to paw at his dish.

When you arrived at Wade’s flat, you were surprised to realise it was only a few streets away from your own place. Bert whined softly as you lingered outside the door, feeling the weight of nerves flutter in your stomach. You could hear voices and music drifting from inside. Glancing down at your dog, you took a deep breath before rapping your knuckles on the door.

The door swung open almost immediately, revealing a tall man covered in a patchwork of scars. His expression was animated, and before you could say anything, he flashed a blinding smile.

“You must be Y/N! Come in, come in!” he greeted, his voice brimming with enthusiasm as he ushered you and Bert inside.

“Thanks,” you replied, stepping into the cosy flat and carefully setting your wet umbrella near a pile of shoes and coats. Wade gave you a friendly hug as you shrugged off your raincoat, leaving you momentarily startled.

“It’s great to finally meet you!” Wade said, his tone warm and welcoming.

“You too! And, er, sorry again about the whole… getting your dog pregnant,” you replied, feeling a bit awkward.

“Pshhh, don’t worry about it! Our little Puppins is 90% G-spot, it was bound to happen sooner or later, the little tease,” Wade jokes, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“Oh-oka—wait, Puppins?” you asked, trying to keep up with the rapid-fire conversation.

“Yeah, Mary—Mary Puppins,” Wade clarified with a wide grin, clearly proud of the clever name.

“Ah, now Bert’s name is starting to make sense,” you mused, the pieces finally clicking together in your mind.

“Yep, it’s very on-brand,” Wade replied, a mischievous glint in his eye as he let his thoughts wander for a moment. He shook his head slightly, snapping back to the present. “Anyway,” he continued, his tone shifting to one of exaggerated seriousness, “where is our little absent father?”

You glanced down, spotting Bert near your feet, his little tail wagging as if he understood that the spotlight was now on him. Bending down, you scooped up the dachshund, who was proudly sporting a tiny yellow bow tie, and handed him over to Wade.

“There he is!” Wade cooed, holding Bert up like a prized possession. “Someone went out for milk these past two weeks, huh? Poor Wolvy has been looking for your mama,” he added with a wink, turning to lead you both into the lounge.

Wade marched into the room, lifting Bert high above his head in a dramatic gesture. “Everyone, I present to you the baby daddy!” Wade declared with flair, holding Bert up like Simba in The Lion King. The room erupted in laughter and applause as the small group gathered around, showering Bert with attention and affection.

But then your attention shifted to your usual target, who was brooding near the kitchen, lingering near some red velvet cupcakes. You moved closer, your heart pounding as you took in his form that seemed to take up most of the kitchen.

“Hey, how’s it going?” you asked, reaching past him to grab a cupcake. His dark eyes flicked up to meet yours, searching your face for a moment before he shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, alright. How’s it going with you?” he replied, his voice low and gravelly.

“Good, great actually. Bert hasn’t gotten any other dogs pregnant,” you joked lightly, trying to ease the tension.

“That’s good,” Logan replied, his tone a bit flat.

“You know what blokes are like, only thinking of one thing,” you blurted out without thinking, immediately regretting the words as they left your mouth.

Logan raised a brow at you, his expression unreadable. “That right?”

You swallowed hard, suddenly feeling the heat rise to your cheeks. To avoid saying anything else, you took a bite out of the cupcake. The texture was unexpectedly tough, and you found yourself chewing more vigorously than you’d anticipated.

Logan’s gaze remained fixed on you, his eyes narrowing slightly. After a moment, he reached out and gently wiped the corner of your mouth with his thumb, his touch sending a jolt of electricity through you.

“There was some icing,” he murmured, his voice suddenly softer, more of a rumble than his usual biting growl.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, your voice barely above a whisper as your heart pounded in your chest.

He held your gaze a moment longer, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. “You know, that’s for dogs, right?”

Your eyes widened in horror as you looked down at the half-eaten cupcake in your hand. “What?”

“Wade’s idea of a joke,” Logan explained, clearly amused by your reaction. “He put them out with the regular food to mess with people.”

You felt your face flush with embarrassment. “Oh my god…” you whispered, just before gagging as the aftertaste of beef hit your tongue. “Oh no, that’s disgusting!” you spluttered, wiping your mouth furiously as you tried to rid yourself of the flavour.

“Don’t worry, you’re not the first one he’s tricked,” Logan said, his smirk widening into a grin. You were momentarily taken aback, surprised by how the smile transformed his face, softening his usual stern expression and making him look years younger.

You couldn’t help but laugh, the absurdity of the situation dawning on you as your cheeks flushed a tomato hue.

“Don’t worry, you’re not the first one he’s tricked,” Logan said, his smirk widening into a genuine grin that took you by surprise. The smile lit up his face, making him look years younger, almost boyish.

You couldn’t help but laugh, the absurdity of the situation finally hitting you as your cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red. “Well, I guess it’s fitting. Bert and I are just full of surprises.”

“Seems that way,” Logan replied, his tone now more relaxed, a subtle hint of flirtation lacing his words. His eyes held yours, and for a brief moment, the air between you felt charged with an unspoken connection.

“Maybe you’re not so bad after all,” he grumbled, the corners of his lips twitching upward.

“Maybe not,” you teased back, feeling a nervous flutter in your stomach. The intensity of his gaze made it hard to think straight, and you wondered if he could hear your heart racing.

Logan’s nostrils flared slightly, as if he were picking up on the tension between you. But before anything more could happen, Wade’s voice broke the moment.

“Ooh, this looks all cosy, doesn’t it, Wolvy?” Wade chirped smugly, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he took in the lack of space between the two of you.

“Fuck off,” Logan muttered, his jaw clenching as he shot Wade a glare.

“Spicy, this one isn’t he? Muy, muy caliente,” Wade ribbed, his grin widening as he revelled in the discomfort he was causing.

You glanced down to see Logan clenching his whisky glass tightly, a small hairline crack forming in the glass, his expression one of barely contained irritation.

“Could you pass me the little tux behind you?” Wade asked, clearly enjoying himself.

Logan turned around quickly, grabbed the small tux, and tossed it at the scarred man without a word.

“Thanks, Peanut,” Wade winked before chasing after Bert with a mischievous glint in his eye.

As you watched Wade prance off, you noticed the pained expression on Logan’s face. Trying to smooth over the situation, you decided to make conversation.

“So… how long have you two been together?” you asked, your tone light but genuinely curious.

Logan, who had just taken a swig of his whisky nearly choked, sputtering slightly as he wiped away the spilled liquid with a large hand. “What?” he spat, clearly taken aback.

You blinked slowly, suddenly feeling a wave of embarrassment. “Oh, sorry—I shouldn’t have presumed.”

“Listen, we aren’t together,” Logan clarified, his voice firm, though there was a hint of something more beneath the surface.

“Oh… right,” you stammered, feeling your cheeks heat up again. “Sorry, I just… assumed.”

Logan shook his head, exhaling out of his nose “We just live together while I look for a new place.”

“Got it,” you replied, feeling both relieved and a little silly for jumping to conclusions. The tension between you eased slightly, though you couldn’t help but notice the way Logan’s gaze lingered on you just a moment longer than necessary.

You were soon swept into a whirlwind of party games organised by Wade, each one more spirited than the last. During the festivities, you met their third roommate, known as "Blind Al," though you quickly insisted on simply calling her Al. You chatted to their other friends too, laughing at some of their wild stories until your stomach got a stitch and your jaw ached.

As the evening wore on, the sky outside grew darker and darker, the stars twinkling faintly in the chilly night air. Feeling the onset of sleepiness, you decided it was time to head home. Logan, having observed your growing fatigue, volunteered to walk you back. At first, you insisted it wasn’t necessary, pointing out that you had Bert with you.

Logan, however, let out a dismissive snort at the sight of your chunky dachshund, who was currently curled up and snoozing with half his face buried in a muffin. “Seriously, you’re letting this guy be your bodyguard?” Logan remarked with a smirk.

You sighed at the sight of Bert’s icing coated snout and, realising Logan’s offer was genuine, you conceded. “Alright, if you insist.”

With that, you both left the warm, lively flat, stepping out into the crisp night air as Logan guided you through the quiet streets toward your home. The walk was peaceful, the cool night air brushing against your skin, and the occasional rustle of leaves the only sound in the quiet neighbourhood.

When you reached your door, you lingered for a moment, cracking it open just enough for Bert to scamper inside and head straight to his bed, exhausted from the day’s excitement.

“Thanks for today. I really like your friends,” you said with a grin, noticing the unexpected softness in Logan’s eyes—a stark contrast to your initial meeting.

“Just my friends, huh?” he teased, a small smile appearing on his lips.

“Oh yes, I suppose Mary is lovely too,” you teased back, looking up at him with a soft smile. The warmth between you was palpable, his large frame nearly filling your small hallway, making the space feel even more intimate. You could hear the faint buzz of your neighbours’ TV through the walls, a reminder of the world continuing on around you, yet in this moment, it felt like it was just the two of you.

Logan’s gaze held yours for a beat longer, his eyes flicking down to your lips for a fleeting second before he straightened up, breaking the tension just enough to breathe again. “Get some rest,” he murmured, his voice low and slightly rough. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” you nodded, feeling a mix of emotions swirling inside you. “Goodnight, Logan.”

“Goodnight,” he replied, his voice softening.

As he turned to leave, you felt a sudden tug in your chest, an impulse you couldn't quite suppress. Before you knew it, you were calling out to him.

"Logan, wait."

He stopped and turned back to face you, his expression unreadable in the dim light of the hallway. The air between you crackled with an unspoken tension that had been simmering all evening. You took a small step closer, closing the gap between you.

"Today was... nice," you said, your voice almost a whisper now, "and I don’t really want it to end."

Logan’s eyes darkened slightly, the playful banter from earlier replaced by something much more intense. He took a step closer, his presence overwhelming in the small space of your hallway. You could feel the heat radiating off him, the scent of him—something warm and earthy—filling your senses.

“It doesn’t have to,” he murmured, his voice low and gravelly, sending a shiver down your spine.

Your breath hitched as you looked up at him, your heart pounding in your chest. The world outside seemed to fade away, leaving just the two of you in this charged moment. Without thinking, you reached up, your fingers lightly brushing against the stubble on his jaw. Logan’s breath caught at the touch, his eyes never leaving yours.

In that instant, the tension snapped. Logan closed the distance between you in one swift motion, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that was both fierce and tender, as if he had been holding himself back. His hands found your waist, pulling you flush against him as the kiss deepened, your heart racing as you responded with equal fervour.

The world around you blurred as all your senses focused on the feel of his lips, the strength of his arms around you, the roughness of his stubble against your skin. It was intoxicating, the way he kissed you—like he was claiming you, yet with a surprising gentleness that made your knees go weak.

You felt the arms round your waist pull you closer to his solid body, causing you to whimper and him to slip a tongue gently into your mouth.

You broke apart just enough to catch your breath, your foreheads resting against each other as you both struggled to steady your breathing. Logan’s hands were still on your waist, his grip firm yet comforting, grounding you as you struggled to level your breathing.

“Come inside,” you whispered, your voice barely audible as your hand slid from his jaw to rest against his chest, feeling the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath your palm.

Logan hesitated for a brief moment, his eyes searching yours as if trying to read what you truly wanted. Whatever he saw there must have reassured him because he nodded slightly, the corner of his mouth lifting in a faint, almost teasing smile.

“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “I’d like that.”

You stepped back, pulling him gently inside your flat, closing the door behind him. The click of the lock sounded louder in the quiet of your home. The cosiness of the small space wrapped around you both, the warmth and intimacy of it only heightening the tension that hummed between you.

You took his hand, guiding him deeper into the flat, past the soft glowing lamps outside and Bert who was already snoring softly in his bed, oblivious to the charged atmosphere filling the room.

Logan’s gaze was intense as he followed you, his hand warm and reassuring in yours. When you reached your bedroom, you turned to face him again, your heart in your throat as you searched his face, wondering if this was really happening.

Logan’s hand cupped your cheek, his thumb brushing over your skin with a tenderness that sent another shiver through you. He leaned in again, capturing your lips in another kiss, slower this time, savouring each moment. Your arms wound around his neck, pulling him closer, the feel of his solid frame against yours grounding you even as your head spun.

Without breaking the kiss, Logan’s hands slid from your waist to your hips, pulling you flush against him as he walked you backward toward the bed. You went willingly, your heart pounding with anticipation and need, the heat between you building with every passing second.

When the back of your knees hit the mattress, you sank down onto the duvet, pulling Logan with you. He followed without hesitation, his body covering yours as you both tumbled onto the bed, the kiss never breaking, never slowing.

You tangled your fingers in his hair, marvelling at the feel of him—so strong, so present, so overwhelmingly real. Logan groaned softly against your lips, the sound sending a thrill through you as his hands began to explore, tracing the curves of your body as if committing them to memory.

You arched into his touch, a soft sigh escaping your lips as he kissed his way down your neck, his stubble grazing your skin in the most delicious way. The sensation was electrifying as you gulped back another whimper as his tongue slipped back into your mouth, tasting the whisky on his lips.

As he slowly begins to undress you, You feel an overwhelming sense of vulnerability as he unzips your last article of clothing and pulls your skirt down. Sensing you freezing he stops.

“Hey, where did you go bub?” He whispers, pulling back to meet your eyes.

“It’s just, er, been a while and I've put on a bit of weight recently” you mumbled, unable to hold his gaze.

Logan paused, his hands gently resting on your hips as he looked at you, his brow furrowing with concern. The intensity of the moment faded slightly as he took in your words, understanding the vulnerability you were feeling. He tilted your chin up softly, urging you to meet his gaze.

“Hey,” he said softly, his voice filled with a tenderness that surprised you. “You don’t have to hide from me. You’re beautiful, just the way you are.”

You felt your breath catch in your throat, the sincerity in his words sinking in. It had been so long since anyone had looked at you like this, let alone made you feel beautiful. Logan’s eyes were full of warmth, no judgement or hesitation, just blown pupils and an open gaze that made your chest tighten and your panties soak.

He gently brushed a strand of hair away from your face, his touch feather-light. “You’re perfect, darlin’,” he murmured, his voice a deep rumble that resonated through you. “Every inch of you.”

His words were like a balm, easing the anxiety that had been bubbling beneath the surface. You could feel the heat of his body against yours, the way his hands held you with such care.

“Logan…” you whispered, your voice trembling slightly.

The sincerity in his voice was undeniable, grounding you in the moment. You felt the tension in your body slowly melt away, replaced by a warmth that spread through your chest, as your heart started to race with excitement rather than fear.

You took a deep breath, letting the anxiety flow out with the exhale, and nodded slightly. “I just… it’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way.”

Logan’s expression softened further, his gaze never leaving yours. “I get that,” he said, his voice low and reassuring. “But you don’t have to worry, not with me. I’m here, and I see you. All of you.”

He kissed you again, slower this time, with a tenderness that made your heart ache. His hands moved with reverence, as if he was rediscovering every part of you, appreciating each touch, each breath, as if it was a gift.

Logan pulled back just enough to look into your eyes, his expression one of quiet reverence. “You’re beautiful, Y/N, but if you want to stop I will respect that, what do you want?”

“No I want this, I want you Logan.” You whispered, biting your lip.

He leaned forward to kiss you again before pulling away your skirt and panties. He groaned at the sight of you glistening and swollen. “God you are incredible sweetheart” he groaned before leaning down.

“I wha-” You started before cutting yourself with a loud moan as he swiped over your clit.

He drank from you like a man without water. The silence of the room is broken by the sound of his slurping and suckling. “I’ve been smelling you for weeks and you taste even sweeter than I imagined’ he whispered against you.

Unable to answer him you continued to pant as he greedily ate you out. Grunting like an animal, his oral could only be described as animalistic as he pushed you towards that high. It was only when he added two thick fingers did you begin to wail as the stimulation overwhelmed you.

“That’s it sweetheart, I know, it’s okay, let go for me” He grunted as he continued to eat you out, the prickle of his beard between your thick thighs adding to the sensations as he rubbed his face into your pussy.

When he crooked his fingers in a ‘come hither’ motion that hit that sweet spongy spot inside of you. Something snaps inside as you whimper his name and come panting and wiggling on his face.

As you came back to yourself you let out a whimper as you saw him smugly looking at you from between your thighs. Slowly rubbing you as you came down from your high.

Standing up, you have to resist the urge to whine at the lack of fullness you feel and spy him suck his glistening fingers. As Logan swiftly removed his clothes, your breath caught in your throat at the sight of him—his body was beautiful, all toned muscle and solid mass, every muscle defined and glistening under the soft light. The intensity in his eyes never wavered as he tossed his shirt aside, revealing the expanse of his toned chest.

He moved with purpose, crawling onto the bed towards you like a predator closing in on its prey, his movements slow and deliberate, each one making your pulse race. The heat between you was palpable, electrifying the air as he inched closer, his gaze locking onto yours with a hunger that sent a shiver down your spine.

You couldn’t tear your eyes away from him, the sheer magnetism of his presence drawing you in, making you feel both excited and slightly nervous.

When he finally reached you, his large hands framed your face as he leaned down, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that was both fierce and gentle, full of the passion you had felt building between you all night.

“I’m on the pill” You blurted out as he pulled back and you watched as his pupils dilated wider.

“You sure bub?” he questioned.

You nodded fervently as a surge of confidence rushed through you and you pushed him back onto the mattress so you could climb on top of him. It really was unfair, he made it look so natural as he laid back on the duvet like a modern day adonis.

Logan cursed when you sank on top of him. It took a few moments for you to be fully seated. When you were, you took a slow and deep breath as you felt his entire length inside of you. You had never felt so full.

You wiggled your hips slightly as you tested the length of him inside you and his hands shot out to grip your soft hips.

“Just a second darlin’” He growled, his face looked strained as he held you in place.

“If i’m too heavy we can turn over” You spoke shyly conscious of how he seemed to grip tightly at your hips.

He chuckled as if he couldn’t believe the words coming out of your mouth “No, No, It’s not that darlin’ you’re just so tight” He muttered before starting to thrust at you.

You bit back a moan as you rode him. Large hands guiding you up and down as you bounced up and down, his cock rearranging your insides to make room for him, all of him.

Leaning forward he took one of your nipples in his mouth and gently nibbled and sucked on it before moving on to the other one. You were unsure of how much time had passed but you soon found yourself coming on his cock.

Unlatching from your nipple his hands went to your ass, taking over moving you as you came down from your high. “That’s it, such a good girl taking all of me” he rumbled before flipping you over and pushing your knees back to your chest.

In this position he felt even deeper inside of you, stretching you out in the most delicious way and nudging the spongy wall of your cervix. “Logan” you whimpered as you pulled him forward to kiss his lips as he lazily thrust into you stoking the fire in your stomach again. Wrapping your ankles above the curve of his ass you dreamily sighed into his mouth as the taste of whisky hit your tongue.

Your skin was damp with sweat as you clung to him desperately as his thrusts built up again.

“Think you can give me another one darlin’?” he questioned after he broke away from your lips and started kissing down your neck nibbling as he went.

At this point you were on fire, legs numb and eyes rolling back into your head. You felt like he had taken everything from you, yet, as his fingers rubbed over your clit a spark shot through you as you keenly lifted your hips upwards to his barraging cock.

“That’s a good girl, gonna fill you up” He grunted, taking the hand that wasn’t rubbing your clit and pressing down on your abdomen to make the space inside you even tighter.

“Logan, I’m close” You whimpered at the stimulation. The sounds of his animalistic grunts and squelching filled the quiet room.

“That’s it darlin’ come all over this cock for me” he growled as you felt the air get stolen from your lungs as you spasmed around him, muscles pulling him in as deep as possible. Hips stuttering, Logan followed you into your release pumping you full of his thick spend. You could feel the heat of it filling you up as some of it leaked out of the sides of his cock, your body simply incapable of holding the sheer volume of it.

Rolling to the side he pulled you with him to lay on his chest as his cock stayed nestled deep inside of you twitching occasionally with the odd spurt, not quite finished filling you up. You hummed gently against his chest as his arms circled around you, warm and safe.

"You okay, bub?" Logan grumbled softly, his deep voice carrying a warmth that sent a wave of comfort through you. He gently smoothed a few stray strands of hair back from your face, his touch tender against your skin. You sighed happily, nestling into the solid warmth of his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear.

Tilting your head up to meet his gaze, you couldn’t help but smile. “I’m so glad Bert knocked up your dog,” you said, a playful grin tugging at your lips. The absurdity of the situation, which had once felt mad, now seemed like the best thing that had ever happened.

Logan’s eyes softened as he looked down at you, a chuckle rumbling through his chest. "Yeah, who would've thought?" he replied, the corners of his mouth lifting in a rare, genuine smile. He reached down, brushing a thumb gently across your cheek.

You shifted slightly and froze. Eyes widening in realisation at what was happening.

“Logan…are you still?”

“Let’s hit number four” he growled.

#logan howlett x reader #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #logan howlett x you #wolverine smut #logan howlett #james logan howlett x reader #xmen x reader #logan howlett x fem!reader #logan howlett x f!reader #deadpool and wolverine #wolverine

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strangersteddierthings · 4 months ago

Text

Made With Love

It takes one bite for Eddie to suspect he's done something wrong. A second bite confirms it. He's fucked up somehow and cannot for the life of him remember what it was.

Did he miss an important date of some sort? It couldn't have been their anniversary because that's August 13th (Eddie's new favorite day of the year, for obvious reasons). He absolutely didn't miss Steve's birthday. Not with how long he and Robin had spent planning the damn thing. (Eddie is never throwing another surprise party in his life; the stress of secret keeping was too much to bear.)

... Did he miss Robin's birthday?

No. That can't be. Steve would never let him miss that.

It could be one of the Party's birthdays, but Eddie doesn't think that's a transgression that would warrant this.

This, of course, being his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

"What, your peanut butter's gone bad?"

Eddie lifts his eyes from the proof of Steve's anger at him to his coworker, Charlie, sitting across the table from him in the closet that Thatcher claims is the break room. "No. It's much worse than that, I'm afraid."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense," Charlie deadpans.

"This sandwich wasn't made with love," Eddie whines, looking back at the sandwich with as much sorrow as he can muster. He sets the sandwich down on the baggy he had pulled it out of so that he can frown down at it without having to touch the offending creation.

"Ah shit," Charlie says, voice filled with empathy. This is why he's Eddie's favorite coworker. He gets it. Possibly because he's the only person who's tasted the difference for himself, back when Eddie'd just started at Thatcher Tires. "What'd'ya do?"

"I don't know!" Eddie wails. "Everything was fine when I left this morning, or I thought it was anyway."

"Ain't your misses pretty good at lettin' you know you done fucked up?" Charlie, like the best coworker that he is, looks surprised that Eddie doesn't know what he's done. He's right, too. Steve is the goddamn king of petty, and Eddie has never struggled to know when Steve's mad at him. The struggle usually comes from Eddie refusing to be in the wrong.

(That's not to say that Eddie is always in the wrong. He's not. Sure, a good percent of their arguments Eddie is the one at fault and he's mature enough to admit so once the argument is over, but it's not always his fault.)

Anyway, the point is, regardless of who's at fault, Steve is angry at him about something and for the first time in months Eddie doesn't know what for. They'd promised each other, after their first very big fight that almost ended in a breakup and was over a misunderstanding, that they would tell each other why they're mad or upset or feeling some type of way. So for Eddie to not know...

He thinks he might have fucked up big time.

"I know!" Eddie cries, shoving the sandwich away from him to make room to drop his forehead onto the table, then turns to smoosh his cheek against the table so he can look at Charlie. "Charlie. Charlie what do I do?"

Charlie blows out a long breath, thinking, before he gives a decisive nod and says, "you gotta beg forgiveness."

Eddie knows Charlie's right. He doesn't know what he did but he's going to beg forgiveness anyway.

Which is how he now finds himself in the small floral section of the grocery store looking over the sad, wilted bouquets after work. His arms are already full with Steve's favorite ice cream, candies, an over-priced little blue teddy bear that's holding an 'It's A Boy!' card that Eddie plans to rip off, and a blank card with a painting of sunflowers on it that he plans to wax poetry about Steve inside.

The final part of his groveling is, of course, the flowers. It's the wrong season for sunflowers, so Eddie was going to settle for roses. It's just that these roses are all sad looking. They don't really scream 'I Love You More Than Anything Else In The World, Please Forgive Me For What I've Done' though.

Let it never be said that Eddie doesn't know how to beg forgiveness.

He ends up picking the least wilted looking bouquet, one with white and yellow flowers he can't name.

The cashier is an older lady who takes quick catalogue of his items and asks, "is it your anniversary, darling? Or, oh!" She picks up the blue bear and Eddie feels his ear heating with embarrassment as she coos, "are you expecting? How exciting!"

"Err, no, not, uh, no. It's just blue is hi-her favorite color, so I was planning to just cut off the little card," Eddie stutters out the lie. Blue isn't Steve's favorite color but Eddie's used to making up many little lies when talking to strangers. Being hate-crimed is not a passion of Eddie's. "I, uh, messed up. And I don't know what I did, but I'm going to make it right."

The lady smiles at him and gives him a firm nod as she scans the items. "Smart boy. I'm sure she'll forgive you."

Eddie gives her a smile he hopes isn't as tight-lipped as it feels on his face.

Back in the safety of his van, Eddie roots around until he finds a pen and gets to writing all the things he loves about Steve in the card and all the things he hopes they'll get to have in the future. Nothing they haven't spoken about before, but it still makes Eddie a little emotional writing it all down.

Once he's done writing, he pulls his pocket knife out and cuts off the 'It's A Boy' card from the bear, crumpling it up and tossing it in the back of the van to be forgotten. He shoves the sunflower card in it's place. His card is a bit wider than the previous one here so it stays in place, albeit precariously. He'll be careful handing it over to Steve.

He knows that Steve is at home already. Steve's always home first because he's off work at four compared to Eddie getting off work around five.

Well. Closer to five-thirty today with his stop at the grocery store. He really hopes that whatever has Steve mad at him isn't time related. Being late home without calling might earn him no favors if it's a time-based blunder.

Steve is in the kitchen, back to the door since he's facing the stove, as Eddie expected he might be. Which means that Eddie doesn't get to lay out all his Items of Forgiveness across the counter like he had hoped but that's okay. If the love of his life has chosen to forgive him, he knows Steve will be just as overjoyed to rifling through a bag of goodies as he would to pick them off the counter.

"Hi sweetheart," Eddie says, words oozing with adoration and sweetness.

"Hi baby," Steve's tone matches Eddie's, like an instinct to match Eddie's energy has written itself into Steve's DNA. And it might have. Eddie knows the reverse is true.

Steve turns from the stove, then, and his face lights up with delight and surprise. "What's all this?"

"Your favorite things, because I love you," Eddie says, raising his arms a bit. The grocery bag is looped over his wrist with flowers in one hand and the bear in the other.

Steve looks positively smitten.

Eddie is nailing this apology that isn't an apology. And let it be known; he cannot say he's sorry. It'll ruin everything. Because Steve, his wonderful, beautiful, kind and loving Stevie, will cock one perfect little caterpillar eyebrow and ask if Eddie knows what he's apologizing for, and Eddie will have to say he doesn't know and that isn't something he's willing to do. Especially not when it's looking like whatever Steve was mad about has completely slipped Steve's mind, too.

"I got your favorite ice cream, too, so we might want to get that into the freezer," Eddie says, passing the bear and card to Steve and shimmying around him to get to the freezer.

He lays the flowers on the counter and sets to emptying the bag. Ice cream in the freezer and goodies on the counter, while Steve reads the card silently behind him.

He knows he's successfully made up for whatever it was he had done, because Steve crowds him against the fridge shortly after setting the card down and turning the stove burner off, kissing him breathless.

Eddie even gets desert before dinner, with Steve all but dragging him to their bedroom.

The reddit post that inspired this -

#steddie #my fic #Steve's not even mad or upset. He was running a bit late and asked Robin to make Eddie's sandwich for him while he finished getting ready.#Robin just grabbed the wrong jelly not even knowing it was the wrong one.#but yes... steve does do the thing the lady in the reddit story does

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liwinly · 10 days ago

Text

BABY , iM YOURS !

───── Soft whispers, playful touches, and endless love .

MORE ( 900 ) . Enhypen x fem!reader : fluff , romance . ✶ skinship , teasing

𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐔𝐍𝐆

You’re curled up on the couch when Heeseung pulls you into his arms, pressing his face into the crook of your neck. His warmth seeps into you instantly, and you giggle as he nuzzles closer, his breath tickling your skin.

“Hee, what are you doing?” you ask, your fingers threading through his soft hair.

“Holding my baby,” he mumbles, voice laced with sleep. “You’re mine, right?”

You feel your heart melt at his words. Heeseung always gets clingy when he’s sleepy, and you love it. You shift to face him, cupping his cheek. “Of course, I’m yours.”

A sleepy smile tugs at his lips before he presses soft kisses along your jaw, your cheek, and finally, your lips. His arms tighten around you, as if afraid you’ll slip away.

“You smell so nice,” he murmurs, inhaling deeply. “Stay like this forever?”

You laugh, pressing a lingering kiss to his forehead. “Forever and always, Hee.”

He hums contentedly, pulling you even closer — if that’s even possible. And just like that, wrapped in his warmth, you know you’re exactly where you belong.

𝐉𝐀𝐘

Jay leans against the kitchen counter, eyes locked on you as you try to reach the top shelf for a jar of peanut butter. You’re on your tiptoes, struggling, and he can’t help but chuckle.

“Need some help?”

You turn around, pouting. “I can do it myself!”

“Mm-hmm, sure you can,” Jay teases, crossing the room in a few quick strides. He effortlessly grabs the jar from the shelf and hands it to you. His fingers brush against yours, sending a little jolt through you.

“Thanks,” you mutter, feeling a blush creep up your neck.

Jay grins and steps closer, his chest brushing against yours. He places his hand on the small of your back, pulling you into him with ease. “You know, you’re cute when you get all stubborn,” he whispers, his breath warm against your skin.

Your heart races at the closeness. “Stop teasing me, Jay.”

He leans in, his lips pressing against your forehead in a soft kiss. “I’m not teasing. I’m just reminding you that you’re mine, baby.”

You smile, melting into his touch. “I’m yours, Jay.”

𝐉𝐀𝐊𝐄

Jake’s laughter fills the room as you both tumble onto the couch, playfully fighting for the TV remote. You manage to snatch it from his hands, but before you can press a button, he pulls you back into his chest with a strong arm, trapping you.

“Gotcha,” he says, his voice low and playful.

You giggle, squirming in his embrace, but it’s no use. He holds you tightly, one hand resting on your waist. “You’re mine now,” he murmurs, his chin resting on your shoulder.

You glance up at him, a teasing smile tugging at your lips. “Am I?”

Jake’s eyes soften, and he kisses the side of your head, his lips lingering. “Absolutely. No escaping me, baby.”

You roll your eyes, but warmth spreads through your chest at his affection. “Guess I’m stuck with you then, huh?”

He chuckles and pulls you even closer, pressing his cheek against yours. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

His fingers trace circles on your back as you settle into the comfort of his arms, the world outside fading away. You smile, knowing there’s nowhere you’d rather be.

“Yeah, I’m yours, Jake.”

𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐎𝐍

Sunghoon is sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone, but when he feels you settle next to him, he immediately wraps an arm around your shoulders. You lean into him, letting your head rest on his chest.

"You always know how to make me feel safe," you mumble, closing your eyes.

Sunghoon smiles softly, his fingers gently playing with your hair. "That’s because you’re mine," he says, his voice barely above a whisper, but it carries so much warmth.

You chuckle, tilting your head up to meet his gaze. "I’m yours, huh?"

He nods, his lips curving into a small, affectionate smile. "Always have been, always will be."

His hand moves to cup your cheek, pulling you in for a tender kiss. It's slow, soft, filled with all the love he has for you. When he pulls away, his forehead rests against yours.

"Baby, I’m yours too," he whispers, his eyes never leaving yours.

You smile, feeling your heart flutter. There’s nowhere else you’d rather be than in his arms.

𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐎𝐎

You’re sitting on the balcony, enjoying the quiet evening, when Sunoo quietly slips behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist from behind. His chin rests on your shoulder as he leans into you, his warmth enveloping you.

“Hey, what’s up?” you ask, turning your head to glance at him.

Sunoo smiles softly, his eyes full of affection. “I just wanted to be close to you. You’re mine, aren’t you?”

You feel your heart flutter at his words. “Of course, I’m yours,” you reply with a teasing grin, but your voice softens when he presses a kiss to your neck, his lips lingering there.

“I’m glad,” he murmurs, his hands gently caressing your arms. “I don’t ever want to let you go.”

You turn in his arms, facing him now, your fingers tracing the outline of his jaw. “You don’t have to.”

His smile widens, and he cups your face, bringing you in for a gentle, lingering kiss. “Good, because I’m not planning on it.”

In that moment, everything feels perfect, with Sunoo’s arms around you and the soft sound of your beating hearts. “I’m yours, always.”

𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆𝐖𝐎𝐍

You’re sprawled out on the floor, books and papers scattered around you as you try to focus on studying, but Jungwon is having none of it. He plops down next to you, leaning his head on your shoulder, his hand finding yours.

“You’ve been working too hard,” he says softly, his voice laced with concern. “Take a break, baby.”

You roll your eyes, trying to focus. “I need to finish this.”

But Jungwon isn't having it. He gently pulls the papers from your hands, tossing them aside, and turns you to face him. His eyes are filled with warmth. “You’re mine, and I’ll make sure you take care of yourself.”

You laugh, your heart fluttering at his caring tone. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

He grins, brushing a stray strand of hair from your face. “I know. But I’m your impossible, and you love it.”

His hand cups your cheek, and without thinking, you lean into his touch, closing your eyes. "You're right, I do love it."

Jungwon leans in and kisses your forehead gently. "And I love you, always."

You smile, feeling completely at peace in his arms. “I’m yours, Jungwon.”

𝐍𝐈-𝐊𝐈

You’re sitting on the couch, flipping through channels, when Ni-ki suddenly pops up beside you, his playful grin lighting up the room. Without warning, he snatches the remote out of your hands, laughing as you try to grab it back.

“You’re such a troublemaker,” you laugh, narrowing your eyes at him.

Ni-ki just shrugs, his mischievous grin widening. “I’m only a troublemaker because you let me be,” he teases, dropping the remote onto the couch and wrapping his arms around your waist.

You feel your heart race as he pulls you closer, his chin resting on your shoulder. “What are you doing, huh?”

“Just making sure you’re mine,” he replies, his voice quiet but playful. His hands find yours, lacing your fingers together. “Is that okay?”

You smile softly, feeling your heart melt. “Of course. You know you’re all I need.”

He leans in, planting a sweet kiss on your cheek before murmuring, “Then you’re mine, too, forever.”

In his embrace, everything feels right, and you can’t help but whisper, “Always, Ni-ki.”

── .✦ @amoressb @chrrific @slayyuna @woniefication @ijustwannareadstuff20 @cheruphic @irasvr @puma-riki

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mandalhoerian · 1 month 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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