Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Identity verification successful. Welcome to the Farspace Fleet’s HQ, Miss Visitor.”

The AI Assistant’s programmed voice is simplistic yet courteous. You’ve been here enough times that the process of registration to enter the Fleet’s HQ is easy, facilitated by Caleb’s insistence on registering you as a regular visitor despite your lack of official ties to the Fleet. A rare occurrence, but all your visits are smooth and without question.

Perks of being Colonel, you assume.

You grip onto the two cups in your hands as you make your way to the lobby. Condensate dew over your fingertips, dripping down into your palms, reminding you of your mission here. You scan the room, and the person you’re trying to find is so obvious despite the shadows cloaking his figure. Your eyes are naturally drawn to that elegant posture, that uniform. Even without seeing his face, you know it’s Caleb.

You sneak over to him, and the peek at his holo-screen from behind has you suppressing a smile. Contrary to his stern manners at work, he’s playing that silly little block game you had sent to him a few days ago over text, daring him to break your high score. A few hours later, after your challenge, he sent you a screenshot of him doing exactly that, much to your chagrin. No way, you texted back, only to receive a smug little smile of an emoji holding a victory sign, which cannot be taken lying down. So began the war, and what happened next was a series of back-and-forth of furious attempts at holding onto the No. 1 on the leaderboard for two.

You’re on top right now, but who’s keeping track.

“Surprise!” you whisper-cry as you shove the cold drink against his cheek. “Guess who?”

“My birthday entourage?” Caleb says mildly. He doesn’t even flinch at the sudden touch of drink, opting to close the game instead.

You pout. So much for a surprise. “You could at least pretend to be shocked,” you complain, rubbing the cup against his face and getting his cheek all wet.

“Ahhh, oh no,” Caleb says, still not turning around to indulge in your complaint. Clearly trying to stifle the amusement in his voice as he lets you have your way. “Who is this that’s speaking? I can’t tell.”

“That’s the furthest thing from sounding shocked.”

“I’ll do better next time.” Caleb finally turns to face you, taking the cup from your hand and wiping away the water on his face with the black of his gloves. His eyes gleam despite the shadows that cloak him, violet-orange cutting through the darkness. It gives you reason for pause, though you’re not sure why.

“…You better,” you grouse. “And I’m not your entourage. I’m your dinner date. Put some more respect into my role.”

“Is that what you are?” Caleb says. “My dinner date?”

A month ago, maybe you’d trip at the question. But you’ve taken your time and you’ve rubbed your fingers over that forgiveness coupon more times than you could count and you’ve felt the loneliness of being apart from him. Whatever’s happened before, you’ve come to terms with it, whatever it is supposed to entail—too many things to be verbalized right now. Your not-really-brother brother. If there is a word that’s supposed to transcend gege but also include it, you’re not sure. Regardless, you can now say the word ‘date’ without stumbling over the implications.

“Yeah,” you say, “so you better be careful. If you misbehave, this date isn’t going to be a very good conversation partner. She might even step on your foot accidentally under the table.”

“Why do you sound like you’re going to try to pull out a fistful of my hair if I do something you don’t like?”

“Maybe I will,” you say. “Watch yourself, Caleb Xia.”

“Playground bully.”

“Big dummy.”

And you’re aware of where you are. That this is the Fleet Headquarters, the machine that’s stolen your brother. But even in this cold and unfeeling place that’s smelt your brother’s soul down and reforged him into a weapon, even though it’s made him into a Caleb you thought you didn’t know, he still smiles the same. Like the sun. Warm, boundless. The simple, animal joy he takes in your presence, you see it. And this knowledge strikes you across your collarbone, makes your whole body sing in a thrumming, adrenaline-fueled vibration.

Whatever the case, it’s enough, you decide. This is enough.

: : :

Caleb’s birthdays have always been great big bashes. The one every kid hoped to be invited to. Whenever June rolled around, there would be a whole huddle of people surrounding you, plying you with snacks and homework and whatever it is that your little heart desired just to bribe their way to an invitation.

Selling out your ge, huh, Caleb said when he noticed you eating away like a hamster at the cucumber-flavoured chips someone had pressed into your hands on your way to class.

Who, me? Never. You’re my gege, you said innocently. How could I betray you like that?

He flicked your forehead. Stupid. If you’re going to sell out your ge, at least sell him for more than just one bag of chips. He’s worth more than that.

Two bags of chips? No, you changed your mind, three.

That’s the spirit. He ruffled your hair, ignoring your huff of frustration as you tried to swat his hand away. Good girl.

In truth, though, you never invited many people. You hemmed and hawed when asked, dodged the subject when it was brought up, and ran away using Caleb as an excuse when things got sticky. Stupid Caleb, you thought at the time, being so popular. Can he be just a little less cool?

Because the more people you invited, the messier the whole event became, and it always took way too long for the party to be declared over, leaving little time for the two of you to spend together.

Once, out of no small amount of resentment, you stuck Gran’s glasses on him just to see whether it could make him a bit uglier (sorry Gran)—but he somehow made those look good too, so you’d given up and accepted that the world is just unfairly stacked for beautiful people.

You reminisced about those initial birthdays, sometimes. The first year with Gran, both you and Caleb’s birthday had been spent with just each other and Gran. Your little family of three. Gran and you had baked the cake when Caleb’s birthday rolled around, and even though the icing had been smeared all over in messy little whorls that weren’t smooth or professional at all, Caleb had a smile so wide you were surprised his cheek didn’t hurt. Later on, as per what would later become tradition, he put the birthday hat on your head and, using both his hands, clumsily cut the cake into as equal portions as he could, but fed you half of his portion anyway. Gran had sent the two of you out later that day with a pocket stuffed with bills of small denominations (which you thought was soooooo much money, hey ge, we’re rich now!)

The amount of sugar you had that day after pilfering through the corner store had you almost rampaging through the neighborhood streets. You picked fights with the squirrels, the dogs, even the bushes because they swayed a little too smugly for your liking. And when the sun set, you wrestled with Caleb under the chirping cicadas under flowering trees, reserving your secret technique for the last minute, in which you tickled him like crazy to get him to surrender. And he did, without question. You were just that strong.

But as you both grew older, that precious time dwindled down. The years counted up, but your time together counted down. Minutes and hours were cut from the clock and doled away to other people, just like how the cake portion you received—the cake you baked for him—thinned more and more until the only time you could both slip away became the hazy dusk.

Which had been fine, because you still managed to have your fun together. And you always saved a slice of cake and a candle, so that he could blow out the flickering flame in front of an audience of one. That was the official time for birthday wishes, even with the party.

Still, there had been a knot in your stomach this year when you thought about it. Will I have to share him again? How many people will it be this time around? How much of Caleb is going to be split and divvied up? You skimmed through the calculations, and found yourself relieved that it was likely not many, owing to his current circumstances of being a dead man walking. Then you found yourself guilty for being relieved.

So when Caleb looked at you in that photo studio as he carefully arranged those pictures from the past into an album and said, Whether it’s the cake or that other thing on your mind—it’s all yours, you couldn’t help the happiness. And you were surprised too, that you were happy about the cake and the time and everything else belonging to only you this year.

How did you know? you asked him. Are my thoughts so obvious?

You did not ask, Is my heart so exposed? That you could have read it before I could even realize there was something to be read, because there was so much vulnerability there, and even though it’s Caleb, you found yourself afraid anyway. Caleb’s piercing gaze swept over you like search lights from an overhead warplane, illuminating every inch of your depths.

He pinched your nose. Silly. How many years have we lived together for you to be asking this kind of question?

Indeed, you felt a little silly for asking. But everything was so raw and tender between the both of you, new shoots budding from the earth in place of felled trees cleared with a relentless sword. It was disorienting sometimes, like having a compass that always pointed North suddenly flip to South instead. When is Caleb my brother, when is he not? Is there a difference at all?

But you were starting to understand. There was gege, and there was Caleb. The two weren’t mutually exclusive, but they weren’t exactly the same either.

Still, he was that boy you grew up with. He was Caleb, your sun.

You looked at Caleb as he touched a hand to those old photos, and his eyes swirled in the cosmic eddies you’ve always been fascinated by as a child, complicated patterns that were always hard to read but easy to love, and you still love him, don’t you? Only it isn’t a child’s love. It has become beyond that. He has become less a compass and more a companion, walking alongside you as you stumble your way through the maze—asking for nothing but your own companionship in return.

And it makes you soft. It makes you tender. It makes you want to give him everything he wants, everything you were, are and ever will be.

: : :

It’s my birthday. I’ll be jealous if you pay attention to anyone else.

That’s new.

Caleb may have not been surprised by your little prank, but while leaving the Fleet HQ, he delivered his own shock to your system.

What made you do a double take had been both the words themselves and the casual way he said it when you spoke up for Liam (you had pitied the man for being on the receiving end of Caleb’s ire, though the adjutant himself in question likely doesn’t feel the same, lacking the capacity for emotions as he is). That, and the way Caleb had lowered his head and whispered, Kidding. Even if it’s not my birthday, I’ll still feel the same.

The words had landed in your ear like a gentle layer of snow, a byproduct of the chilled drink he had been sipping on moments before Liam interrupted him for a report.

Your gege never used to be so petty. He was always the one to give into your demands even when you were being unreasonable, the first to try to mediate between fights that would break out in high school, the student everyone looked to for guidance whenever interpersonal conflicts happened. He was supposed to be the mature one—and yet, one sentence about Liam had him saying that to you. I’ll be jealous.

Jealousy is worn oddly on Caleb; not because it doesn’t fit, but because you’ve never seen him with it. You’ve thought yourself to be the only one in the family who harboured petty jealousies, got into silly fights, behaved so immaturely.

However, honesty is a good thing, particularly when it comes to Caleb given how much of himself he’s had to hide away—but the consequence of Caleb’s honesty is still evident in the warmth of your face. His honesty scraped into you, whittled itself deep, and left you with a strange bloodless wound that doesn’t hurt as much as feel infected. You feel like you’re being boiled alive, and within the air-conditioned cockpit of Caleb’s plane, you can’t even blame it on the summer heat.

You sip on your ice coffee intermittently, chewing on the straw. The low purr of the plane and the stunning view outside do little to distract you from your thoughts, as much as you try to look. Clouds, clouds, and more clouds. A gorgeous day today, sun at full blast, and as the plane cruises through the sky, the sunlight layers itself over your shoulder in folds and folds. Caleb glances at you briefly from behind the controls.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

You joked once that he would need a lot more than just a penny for them, Your meimei isn’t so cheap, ge, how about getting me some chocolate from the corner store instead?

And he had agreed. Went and bought the chocolate with his own pocket money. The two of you just sat there in the garden behind that store, the scent of endless summers painted sugar-thick in the air as he fed you your reward for being honest. He broke the chocolate off square by square, and as soon as one finished melting in your mouth, popped another one in. The entire time, he listened patiently to your rants about this and that. Every one of your gripes were trivial matters, of course, because what real worries did you have as a fourteen-year-old? Still, he took all of them seriously, offered you solutions only when you asked, content to let you lash out your emotions at the world—at him—if that was what you needed.

He spoiled you so much back then. Not that it’s too different from now, either. And it’s just unfair, way too unfair, because how are you supposed to return everything in kind? Nothing would ever come close to what he offers you so freely. A hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, a back to carry a younger sister when her feet get too tired.

You remember walking behind him after he turned fifteen, noting how large his hands became after his growth spurts. How his shoulder grew so wide. How the vast expanse of his back could carry you so comfortably, how he towered over you but still lowered himself into a crouch to speak to you whenever you were in need of comfort.

He eclipsed you then, and he eclipses you still.

Even now, he doesn’t push you when you remain silent. Instead, he picks up the drink he’d placed into the cupholder and offers it to you. The straw wobbles, and despite all your insistence on how you’re not a kid anymore, We don’t need to exchange everything for a taste test, you still take a sip. And then your face pinches, feeling as though you’ve been sucker punched in the face from how violently the acid batters your tongue.

“Sour,” you say with a wince. “That’s absolutely foul. How’d you manage to drink that with a straight face?”

“You gave it to me,” Caleb says simply, as though it’s explanation enough, and maybe it is. You remember how he had eaten the matcha sandwiches you had made for him as a kid. And because of his excellent poker face, you never even realized that the so-called green matcha paste was actually wasabi until recently. Wasabi. He adds on, “And it’s not bad, honestly.”

On further thought, maybe he has no issues with things like this because you ruined his tastebuds in childhood with your wasabi sandwiches.

“All right,” Caleb says as he puts the lemon juice back, “lay your thoughts on me. Is this about what you have planned today?”

Right. Somehow, the sourness of the drink—that’s not just triple the normal amount of lemon juice, you’re convinced, that’s pure lemon extract—had distracted you from your thoughts. Had that been Caleb’s intention?

You tap your finger on the dashboard, more than just a tad bit fond of his underhanded trick, the way he reads you easily. And half-wondering whether he knew how his words about giving all his time to you had made your heart quiver in your chest. Wholly glad in some scrambled way that you’re the only one he’s chosen for today, the sole receiver of his undivided attention—it makes you both apprehensive and ecstatic, a strange mixture of emotions that’s hard to pick out and parse individually, like those herbal remedies with a whole host of ingredients blended together in molasses-thick cough syrups that you always chugged when you were sick.

“Just going over your birthday plans,” you say. “And trying to guess if you’ll enjoy what I’ve got planned for you.”

“If it’s you,” he says, “I’m sure I’ll enjoy it.”

You wag your finger. “You can’t just say that,” you admonish. “What if I’ve got something truly terrible planned for you?”

Caleb’s lips quirk. “Like what?”

“Like… taking you to a cilantro-themed restaurant instead where all the dishes have cilantro in them. Cilantro dumplings, cilantro stir fry, cilantro ice cream—”

“Okay, okay,” he cuts you off with an exaggerated wince. “I get it. You’re planning to torture me on my birthday, so I should prepare my poor little heart.”

“Aren’t I so kind,” you chime in, sharing a mirthful look with him, “to warn you ahead of time?”

“The kindest girl in the world,” Caleb says.

You make a finger gun gesture, aimed right at his temple. “That’s right, soldier, and don’t you dare forget it.”

“Of course not, Captain.” Caleb performs a mock-salute. “Permission to land?”

You look out the window. During your conversation, the plane’s flown near the familiar outline of Caleb’s home. The main island is already so far off, a mere dot in the clouded skyscape. How had the time passed so quickly? Or is it just that time always slips too quickly when it’s just the two of you?

You wave a lazy hand. “Granted.”

When the plane lands, you hop out and make a beeline for the door. Entering his home is as easy as a fingerprint over the lock, because he’s never kept you out. Even as kids, he’s never kept his doors locked, which of course meant he’d be subjected to your random sneak attacks when you would burst into his room, proclaiming proudly about your perfect test score or whining for him to cook you braised chicken wings or anything in between.

Just like now, how you trek the halls of his home confidently as though you own the place. Where exactly had you hid that parcel again? Hm. Was it this place or that one?

“Is this where you hid my gift?” Caleb teases as he watches you pick your way through the closet.

“It’s a little too early for that,” you say absentmindedly, and aha, there they were, the clothes you especially prepared for his birthday. Knowing Caleb, he’d fall back to whichever default he’d deem to be adequate, so of course it was up to you to style him properly. You shove the clothes into his arm and push at his shoulder to hurry him up.

“What’s this?” Caleb asks, but his smile is knowing.

You roll your eyes. “You just wanna hear about how much work I’ve put into getting everything ready for your birthday,” you say.

“Guilty as charged.”

It’s his birthday, and you’re willing to concede. “It’s a special birthday outfit for the special birthday boy. So shoo shoo,” you say. “Go change.”

“All right, all right,” he says with a laugh as you push his back to urge him out of the room. “So impatient.”

“Of course,” you say. “I spent a lot of effort choosing this, and now I finally get to see how it actually looks on you.”

“You thought that much about how I look?”

“Hmph. Don’t get a big head over it,” you say as you pinch his waist before kicking his leg lightly. “Get out already.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

While he’s busying himself with the clothes, you head to your bedroom to change your own outfit. Silver accessories, white socks and denim-blue dress. You throw them all on the bed, then get yourself to work. The dress is easy enough to shimmy into, but the stupid black straps that’s supposed to keep the dress from falling right down your body are giving you issues. How in the world you thought you could tie them yourself, you don’t know. You huff as you crook your neck at an awkward angle, elbows sticking out as you try to tie the strap over your shoulder, but it’s all a mess of black ribbons spilling over, tangled knots everywhere.

A knock comes at your door. Ah, there he is, your saviour.

“Come in,” you call out.

Caleb steps inside, dressed smartly in the blue suit you had agonized for hours over the last few weeks. He tilts his head and watches you struggle for a few minutes, the bully.

“Need some help?” he says, voice low in amusement.

You pout. “You have eyes. What do you think?”

Caleb takes the black ribbons from your hands. You hug yourself with your arms to keep the dress up as he carefully untangles the mess you’ve made.

“You could have tied them before you put the dress on,” he says.

Your mouth falls slack. You gape at him, and his eyes twinkle. “That’s a lot smarter.”

“But I’m glad you hadn’t realized. It means I can do it for you.” The tips of his fingers brush up against your bare shoulder as he tugs at the ribbons to rework them. Just the slightest of touch, but there are already goosebumps radiating out from the contact. Caleb ties a neat bow at your right shoulder, ribbons gracefully draping down your arm, then brushes aside your hair to do the same for the left. You hold yourself still, hands in fists to hide the shiver that prickles through your body. Has it always been like this?

In childhood, your gege’s touches were comfortable and safe. He had helped you braid your hair, tie your laces, fix the bow of your school uniform. Even when he tucked flyaway strands behind your ear, there hadn’t been any sort of discomfort with the act. It was just… normal. To be expected from Caleb’s mothering nature.

Now though, there’s an acute awareness that goes beyond just innocent skin-to-skin contact. Because to Caleb, you aren’t just a younger sister. And to you, Caleb isn’t just an older brother. You’re family, yes, but there’s an underlying current that’s different now. It’s become static electricity over the skin, a crackling discharge as soon as there’s touch involved.

“There,” Caleb says, stepping back. You can’t tell whether you’re imagining the darkness of his eyes, how they follow your fingers as you tug at the bows he’d tied. He used a knot unfamiliar to you; he’s always been good with learning them. In another world, perhaps he would have been a sailor instead of a pilot. The bows, despite their pretty appearance, are twice as sturdy as anything you could come up with. When you try pulling at them, they don’t give.

“You tied these a little too well,” you say absentmindedly. “How am I supposed to undo them in the future?”

“Hm.” Caleb puts his hand on your hair as though to ruffle it, but doesn’t do anything except cradle your head with his palm. “We match,” he says, tapping at his lapel with his other hand. “Is this on purpose?”

The complete non sequitur and lack of response is not lost on you, but you let this go too. You’ve been letting a lot of things go today. You hold your hand out in a victory gesture. “Of course,” you say. The silver trinkets sewn along the waist of your dress match the silver, glittering trails of his suit. You put your hands behind your back, rolling on the balls of your feet as you lean toward him. “We’re a duo, after all. What do you think?”

Caleb runs his thumb along your face. His touch is warm. From this close, you have to crane your neck to meet his eyes; if not, all you see is his chest instead. You smooth out his lapel, marvelling at the softness of the fabric. The blue-purple gems and sequins dotting along his suit in patterns of paper planes remind you of the sparkling gems that dust your own dress. The airplane charm you’d chosen hangs off his lapel, gleaming a sharp silver contrail. He’s a distraction, sure to make heads turn.

“Pretty,” Caleb says. The back of his fingers slide across the underneath of your chin as he poises his thumb just below your lips. He tips your face up so that you’re finally looking directly at him, and his half-lidded gaze weighs heavy against your mind. You’re drawn to the galaxies in those irises, pulled in by his gravity. “The dress is pretty,” he says, but his eyes never leave your face. “Then again, you’ve always been the prettiest girl to me.”

“…That’s such a lie,” you say. “There are plenty of girls who are better-looking than me. I’ve met so many jiejies in your college days. They were all stunning.” And quite a few of them had thrown themselves at Caleb too; you remember the dim disappointment in their eyes when you introduced yourself as Caleb’s (fake) girlfriend. There had been a hint of tartness on the tip of your tongue whenever their hopes had been dashed by your presence, an emotion that only now you realized had been triumph. That you alone held him. Were allowed to possess him.

“But to me,” Caleb says softly, “you’re the only one that ever mattered. The only one I’ve noticed.”

This type of honesty too, is new. Another new wound to add to the canvas of your heart, silent and bloodless.

You cough to hide the injury. “Bet you say this to everyone.”

“Idiot. Who am I seeing that I can say this to? The other Fleet officers?” Caleb says as he flicks your forehead. “Liam?”

“You better not,” you say, rubbing your forehead, shooting him an aggrieved expression. “Otherwise, I’ll get jealous too.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Caleb says. “Every compliment I have is reserved for you.”

“They better be,” you say. “I’m the one who made you look so good today.” You take a step back—mourn the loss of his closeness—and assess him from head to toe. He meets your appraisal with a confident tilt of his face.

“You think I look good?”

“You always look good,” you correct. “You and your stupidly handsome face and perfectly built body. Is that what you want to hear, Caleb?”

He nods without skipping a beat. “Yep.”

He’s so annoying.

“Hmph. Turn around,” you say, and he does as you direct, turning a full circle. You note the fall of the suit jacket as it layers over his body, the tapered fit of the pants. “Not bad. Not bad at all. You clean up well, Caleb Xia.”

“If the clothes fit,” he says, “and they do fit well.”

“Duh. Did you think I would get the sizes wrong? Of course I wouldn’t,” you lie through your teeth. In truth, you had been scared of exactly that.

“No,” Caleb says, “but it does make sense why you’ve been making off with my clothes recently.”

He knew! You flush. “For research purposes!”

“I never said otherwise,” he says, but the grin he shoots you is filled with teeth.

“I’m not talking anything more about this,” you grumble as you gesture for him to lower his head. Caleb smiles as he dips his head forward. The apple necklace sways over his outfit, your permanent mark in his world. You grab onto the tie he’s knotted so neatly around his neck to pull it loose, and then nod in satisfaction. There. A little more unkempt for it, but better this way.

“Why are you trying to make me look like a mess?” Caleb says, amused. “To ward off other people?”

“If I really was set on that,” you say, “I’d keep you at home. You turn heads everywhere you go, Caleb. It’s kind of annoying.”

Caleb laughs, but there’s an edge to it. Something darker, more bitter, and it echoes through your body like the crash of skyscrapers falling to ruins. Panels upon panels of glass, raining through the sky to shatter over the streets. “Likewise,” he says. “I know exactly what you mean.”

You understand; you remember. You close your eyes and see it like this: the skies dark outside the windows of his living room. Grey overcast, clouds lining the horizon like a battalion of soldiers ready to wreak havoc. The thunder, the lightning strike, the light that divided his face into bright and dark. The harsh shadows that sculpted your kind brother into a stranger so cruel.

You wondered then, how could he have done this to you? And you wonder now, how could he have beared to let you go? How much did it kill him to do it? Has he been bleeding since?

“So,” Caleb says, “do I look better like this?”

“Definitely.”

“Why?”

“Because this way,” you explain, “you no longer look like a high-and-mighty Farspace Fleet Colonel.”

“What you want is…” Caleb muses, “…A more down-to-earth Caleb? A more accessible Caleb?”

“No. Just that you look more relaxed this way. When you’re in your uniform, you tend to get this furrow riiiight here—” You stand on your tiptoes and poke him right between his brows. “—and it makes me worry you’re going to be permanently stuck with that expression.”

“I suppose I should thank you.”

“You should.”

You hook your hands around his neck. You take a step back, and he takes a step forward to follow. His hands rest themselves on your hips, and you glide with him to the edge of your bed as though in ballroom dance. You raise your arms and he lifts you to place you on the mattress, which dips slightly under your weight. Even without speaking, your gege knows what you’re asking.

“Besides,” you say casually, “what I want…”

“…”

“…has always been mine.”

Caleb glances at you. He has to know what you mean, but still asks, “And what exactly are we talking about here?”

You pretend to zip your mouth. If he’s looking for a straight answer, he won’t find it here. “It’s your birthday,” you say. “It’s not about me.”

“It is,” Caleb says. “Because what I want is to give you what you want.”

You punch his shoulder. He rolls the hit off as though it’s feather-light. “That should be my line,” you say. “You’re stealing my whole script, birthday boy.”

Caleb taps your nose. “Trust me,” Caleb says, “you’re the one stealing my role from me. I’m older, remember?”

What he leaves unsaid: I’ve been this way longer than you have. Why do you think I’ve been giving you exactly what you want, even as kids? You duck your head, annoyed yet pleased. Stupid gege, idiot Caleb. But you’re the biggest fool of them all; how could you have been so blind for so long?

“My accessories,” you say desperately in hopes of distraction, plucking them from where they’ve been laying beside you on the bed. You dangle them from your hand. “Help me put them on.”

“Sure,” Caleb says. “Can’t have my dinner date be caught without her armoured regalia.”

“You always make me sound like I’m ready to brawl,” you say exasperatedly.

“I wasn’t the one going around picking fights with everyone as a kid.”

“Hmph.”

Caleb touches your hair as you hand him the hair clip. It goes on easily enough with your directions, a solid snap as it closes over the strands of your hair. The earrings too, are placed on without much effort. The thin metal hook slides into your piercing, cool silver compared to the warm callouses of Caleb’s hand as they brush against your earlobe. He holds your ear in between his fingers, rubbing the soft cartilage there until your entire body goes numb from the caress.

“Enough,” you gripe. You squirm from the light itch that’s invaded you, voice shifting into a whine despite your best efforts. You’ve been trying to keep silent, but your face feels like it’s about to start peeling from how hot it burns.

“Sorry,” he says, but he sounds more pleased than apologetic, the liar. “Almost done.”

As he fixes the earrings in place, you unclasp the bracelet that you’ve thrown into your lap. Just as you’re about to slip the chain on, he stops you with a circling of his hand over your wrist. “That’s for me to do,” he says, eyes dark. “You said as much, didn’t you?”

It’s not a request. It’s an order. He looks at you, meaning clear.

“It’s a small thing,” you say slowly.

His fingers rub against the soft skin of your inner wrist. “Not to me.”

You stare at him. Ge, you wish your cowardly mouth could open to ask, how deep does this go? Where does it stop? Am I worth all this?

“It’s my birthday,” he adds.

“…It’s your birthday,” you relent, handing him the bracelet. It falls and pools in his palm, looking pitifully small compared to how large his hand is, but Caleb closes a fist around it as though it’s a lifeline.

You hold out your hand, and he opens that fist. He untangles the silver chain before draping it over your bare wrist. Unlike the coolness of the earring hooks, the bracelet is warm from the residual heat of Caleb’s palm. It feels as though he’s still got his hand circled around you. The clasp is tiny, yet Caleb has no issues with it as he clips it on; he’s tinkered with tinier components in his model kits, and it’s always fascinated you how he’s able to handle such delicate parts with such big hands.

“I’ve had a lot of practice with delicate things,” Caleb says. “Haven’t I been handling you my entire life?”

You blink. Had you said it out loud, or had he read it from your face? It’s hard to tell.

“I’m not so delicate,” you say.

“Compared to me, you definitely are.”

“No,” you say earnestly. You look up at Caleb, him with his devastating looks, and you want so badly for him to understand. How it feels, to cradle someone’s fragile heart in your hands. The paper weight of a glass apple. “To me, you’re delicate too. I didn’t know before, but I know now. So I’ve been trying very, very hard to be careful.”

“…Turn around,” Caleb says. “There’s still your necklace.”

His face is stone—and yet it’s there, the crack. Even though you’ve been gentle. But then again, hasn’t his honesty been gentle too? Yet it sliced deep. It may be gentleness that kills the most.

You obey, turning your face from him, so that he can better hide himself from you. You brush aside the hair that’s covering your nape to expose the back of your neck to him. He wraps the necklace around your throat, and there it is again, the static electricity of contact. The necklace itself is light, yet with his touch, it’s turned as heavy as lead. A weighted collar.

“Done,” Caleb declares.

You hop off the bed and peer into the vanity mirror in front of you. You’re decked out in silver and white, glittering from your hair to your throat to your wrist. You hold your hand up, and the metal of your bracelet glints in the drowning sunlight.

“How did I do?” Caleb asks.

“Full points,” you say. You glance at him, admiring again his appearance. He’s always been handsome, but you never truly understood what it meant to have your heart skip a beat with just a look. Not until recently, when you’ve been made so completely aware of Caleb. “You look good too, of course.”

“You said that already, but I’m not opposed to hearing it again.”

“Don’t get a big head over it,” you say. “You’re here for me.”

Caleb smiles. “Oh, I get it. I’m only here to make you look good.”

“Of course.” You rap the back of his hand. “Forget the necklace, the earrings. You’re the flashiest accessory here.”

“So what you mean to say is that,” he says slowly, “I’m vital to completing your outfit?”

You grin. “Not only that. Do you know how these clothes make you look?”

“What, like a brand-new Caleb?”

You shake your head. “Not that. What you look like…” You tug at his necklace, and he lowers his head so that you can whisper in his ear. “…is a Caleb that belongs only to me.”

Caleb tenses for a second before he relaxes. He laughs, warm breath brushing up against your earlobe. “Just changing clothes isn’t enough though, is it?”

“Hm?” you ask, temporarily distracted by the low sound of his voice right next to your ear. His body is pressed up right against you, hard and muscular lines drawn taut. Beneath the soft fabric of his suit is a body forged to be a weapon, tempered steel.

Caleb laughs again. He nuzzles your cheek, hair scattering and tickling your nose, and wraps you up in an embrace with his clothes. You should have expected this—trying to get one over Caleb is as impossible as trying to fly higher than the sun.

“This outfit is too new,” he says. “It needs your scent. How else are other people supposed to know we’re together?”

“Silly,” you say. You take him by the face, fondness pooling at the fingertips like the welling of blood after being pricked by needles. “Is the matching clothes not enough? People can see it clearly, and if they don’t, then they must be blind. Also, who’s going around telling these things by smell—other than you, I guess. Are you a dog, Caleb?”

“That’s right,” he says. “Your loyal dog. The only one you’re allowed to leash.”

Your hand trails down to find his necklace. You hold the pendant, the charm and the dog tag digging into your palm. You breathe it in, the entirety of him: fresh laundry hung out to dry, summers inundated by sunlight. It mixes with the scent of your room, the subtle perfume of home. Flower-bright, apple-sweet. The hydrangea of endless summers, childhood memories. You have no way to return to the past, but you’re glad to be with him in the present.

“The only one I want to leash,” you correct as you tug on his necklace.

“Yeah,” Caleb breathes. “The only one.”

And against your stomach, there’s, he’s—

You shutter your eyes. You can’t afford the distraction. You can’t afford to acknowledge it. There’s a dinner reservation for two and a birthday cake to be cut. Candles to be blown out and Happy Birthday to be sung. All the surprises you planned this evening will be for naught if you say something, because you don’t think you can help yourself from letting him have exactly what he wants. And yet, you can’t resist asking. “What about me?” you say. “What do I look like to you?”

“A present,” he murmurs. His lips ghost along the line of your throat and move down to your shoulder. His teeth nip at the black ribbons of the bow there, just barely missing your skin. “A dream come true.”

Something about his words… A present that he’s decorated in silver fineries. Wrapped with bows that he tied himself. There’s a flare in your stomach, an explosion of butterflies.

You swallow. “But… Not yours?”

“Not yet.”

It’s a warning, it’s a threat. It’s a request, it’s a plea.

You squirm against Caleb. You can’t help it. He makes a low sound in the back of his throat, then sighs. He buries his face in the crook of your neck and tightens his arms around your waist. Like this, it feels as though you’ll never be able to untangle from him—but do you even want that?

Before you could say anything—to remind that you’ll be late to the reservation, to say damn the reservation—Caleb releases you. The warmth of his embrace flees you like the summer wind at the cusp of autumn landing. “We should go.”

“We…” You fumble for words you don’t have. “We should.”

Caleb looks at you. “You’ve spent so much effort on this day, after all. So it shouldn’t go to waste.”

“No, it shouldn’t,” you say, when what you really wanted to say was, It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with you.

“Lead the way,” Caleb says. He holds your hand and lands a soft kiss to your fingertips. Seals his palm against yours, a searing, inescapable heat. “Wherever it is, your Caleb will follow.”

: : :

Dinner goes well. Exactly as planned, in fact. You got to take him to that restaurant he loved to eat at during college, and you got to cut his birthday cake together. You stepped into a new year with him together, so there was no chance of anyone being left behind.

Though when you tried to dodge out of singing him Happy Birthday (your voice isn’t bad, but it isn’t exactly good, and the way he had his hand on his phone let you know exactly what he planned if you were to begin singing), Caleb only grinned ruefully and inclined his head. Looks like this year’s birthday song has become the inner voice version.

It was in a teasing tone, but there was a slight wistfulness to his words that prickled at your conscience. Fine! What was your embarrassment worth compared to his happiness? So you cleared your throat and sang and of course he’d filmed the entire thing, smiling gently even with how off-key you became at the end due to embarrassment. Other people in the restaurant may have been looking at you, but the only one who mattered is Caleb, and you wanted to show him that.

You chew carefully between bites, then swallow. The icing coats your tongue in memories, but somehow it’s sweeter than all the past birthdays combined. “Remember when you had to use two hands to hold the knife so you could cut the cake?”

Caleb shakes his head. “Cut me some slack,” he says. “I was ten.”

“I wasn’t teasing,” you say. “Just that…” You rest the tines of the fork on your tongue. “…You were cute back then. Cute as a button.”

“And you were cute as a cupcake,” he says, reaching across the table to take the fork that you’ve been sucking on. He swipes his thumb at the leftover icing coating your lower lip, then brings it up to his mouth to lick it off. “Still are.”

“I’ll show you cute,” you grumble.

Caleb chuckles as he cuts a slice of cake with the fork. He brings up a piece to your lips, and you open your mouth.

“I know I said I wanted more cake,” you say between bites, “but I didn’t mean this much, Caleb. If you only eat, what, one-eighth of the cake, and leave the rest to me, that’s a little too much. You should eat more.”

When Caleb smiles, there’s a softness that’s not regularly found in the angular angles of his face. A laxness to his sharp brows that greatly pleases you. When he tries to feed you another bite, you grab onto the handle of the fork and redirect it at him instead.

“It’s yours.” But he opens his mouth anyway, just as you did with him.

“And I want what’s mine to be yours,” you say. “Besides, if we can’t finish it between us, it’ll either be leftover or end up in someone else’s stomach.”

“That won’t do. It has to be yours,” Caleb says lightly. “No one else’s. Even if it has to go to waste. Only you can eat this cake.”

“I never realized you were so small-minded,” you tease.

“I’ve always been small-minded,” Caleb says as he takes the fork from you to feed you another bite. “You just never noticed.”

“Like what,” you say around a mouthful of cake.

“Like… When I stole the love letter that was meant for you.”

“Huh,” you say, stunned. “When did that happen?”

Caleb scratches the back of his neck. “You remember that time you found a love letter in my backpack in high school?”

“Yeah, and you were so flustered that you immediately snatched it from me—” You pause. “Oh. That wasn’t a love letter for you.”

“Yeah.”

“How’d you even get a hold of it?”

“It was in your locker,” he says. “And you remember how I always cleaned it out for you whenever summer break rolled around?”

“And the poor guy who had his letter intercepted?”

“Sent him packing of course,” Caleb says serenely, sounding as though he had no regrets over the situation. “He was in his last year of high school—there are more important things to worry about.”

“Sure. That’s the main reason.” You roll your eyes. Overprotective gege at work—and more than that. it wasn’t just a brotherly kindness that made him do it, was it. “You’re right,” you say. “You’re kind of small-minded, Caleb.”

“But you remembered the love letter,” he says. “After all this time, why?”

You duck your head. As if you could tell him that you worried yourself silly for an entire afternoon over it. Came up with so many scenarios on who Caleb’s admirer was, why he kept the letter when he usually handed them back right away. “Caleb’s an idiot.”

Caleb laughs. “If you’re so upset over it, should I write you a new one?”

“It’s okay. I don’t need a love letter to know.” It’s already evident in everything he does. When he picks you up from work with an umbrella in hand, when he cooks you your favourite dishes, when he dries your hair after your shower. It’s all love, even if it’s not written.

Caleb nods his head, a pleased smile on his face. “That’s right,” he says. “The Caleb that you want so wholly—I’ve always been here.”

“…Caleb,” you say suddenly. “Did you like the cake?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”

“Good,” you say. “Because the cake was baked solely for you, too. For Caleb, my gege—and so much more beyond that.”

Caleb’s eyes soften into an orange-violet gaze. He looks at you like you’re magic. Like you’re more thrilling than every danger the world has to offer. You reach your hand across the table, seeking coherence, and he responds by weaving his fingers between yours.

: : :

You remember exactly how the conversation went when you asked Caleb about the movie. If you could watch any movie, what would you choose? you texted, trying to keep your tone casual. This was the big surprise for his birthday, after all. You had to keep it a secret, even with Caleb’s psychic ability to read you. Hence the texting—if it was a phone or video call, you’re sure he’d know what was up just based on the pitch of your voice.

what’s up, he texted back.

Bored. Was wondering what movie I should watch on my day off.

He listed a few movies, but they weren’t anything he’d usually go for—they were what you liked. And that won’t do.

Not those. What *you* like to watch.

why?

I wanna know what makes you tick.

feels like you’re examining me under a microscope.

I am, so spill it already.

demanding.

Wonder who raised me like this.

was it me?

Who else is it that let me bully them their entire life.

…

Dummy.

there’s been this one on my mind recently.

He sent you a link to the movie called A Day with My Pilot, Ta-ta. An older movie, harder to find for the screening—but you were determined. If this is what Caleb wanted, by god you were going to give it to him.

I’ll try it and let you know.

we can watch together, if you want?

Even through the screen, you could somehow hear the hope in the words. You shoot it down before it has a chance to grow—not a chance! He’s going to ruin his own surprise at this rate. It’s okay, you replied back with finality, I wanna watch it myself.

Ta-ta. You vaguely remembered this show from long ago; the movie was just one of the many in the long-running series. He’d watched this movie more than just a few times—but you couldn’t remember anything about it, other than the fact that Caleb liked it. Did you even watch it with him? You thought you did, but there’s no recollection of the plot. Later on, you took a look at the rating and winced. Really, Caleb? This is the movie you want to watch the most? The negative reviews were scathing, and the rest of the reviews were lukewarm in their reception at best.

When you finally watched it, you understood. It wasn’t that you forgot the plot—it’s that you managed to fall asleep every time the movie aired. Still, it was Caleb’s favourite movie, and you learned the reason why.

After the initial thrill of exploration wears off, these endless flights feel like a burden, Caleb had said. Sometimes I fly for dozens of hours. There’s nothing but the instrument panel’s beeps to break the silence. I miss the most ordinary, uneventful moments of daily life during those times.

…Even you feel loneliness when you fly, Caleb? you asked.

Caleb stared at you. Of course, he replied. I’m only human.

It’s strange. You’ve always seen Caleb as someone above as frivolous feelings as loneliness. He’s good at everything he puts his mind to, whether it be basketball or cooking or piloting a plane through the silent horrors of Deepspace. You’d always just assumed that he wouldn’t be subjected to the same terrible emotions that plagued you. Between you and him, you’ve always been the overly emotional one. Things like sadness, loneliness, despair—you’d thought them foreign to your optimistic brother. He was like the sun, always chasing away shadows.

In some ways, the Caleb after the funeral reminds you of an angel felled to earth. Or maybe it had been you elevating him to that position in the first place that had him striving to meet your standards. Ah, your gege, your previously infallible gege. Your joy, your devastation. You wish you could have been stronger for him, been for him what he had been for you.

“Whether it’s drinking a super sour lemonade or swapping stories about high school days or watching an old movie, all these mundane things in life,” you say to him at the end credits as you hold up your pinky, “I want to do them all with you.”

“If it’s you,” Caleb says, “I would be okay with anything.”

“That won’t do,” you say. “You’re stealing my lines again.”

“Be faster next time,” he says, hooking his pinky around yours. “Especially if you want to upstage me on my birthday.”

: : :

The dinner: fine. The movie: fine. The brief conversation you’d had with each other in the living room, your confession: also fine. However, as the day is winding down, it frustrates you. That even though the day’s gone exactly as planned, that even though Caleb is happy enough with your preparations, it feels like nothing’s changed. Not that Caleb would be unhappy anyway. He would take what you give him no matter what it was and thank you for it.

Still, even with the perfect execution, there’s something off. This birthday was meant for Caleb, but it feels like you’ve planned everything for your brother. Caleb, who’s your brother, but so much more than that.

When the clock had hit eleven-thirty at night, the both of you parted for your respective bedrooms from the living room. Caleb had watched you walk away, but said nothing. He didn’t even ask you to stay longer.

Time and time again, he’d confessed, you’ve always allowed me to want more than what I thought was possible.

But just because he wants doesn’t mean he’ll reach for them. You learn exactly what it means, the difference between want and do.

You flop onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling. Wondering useless things, like were the lights in his room the same as yours? When he closed his eyes, did he see you? The warmth of that embrace, was it the same for him? Trying to cross the bridge between Sun and Earth, scorching flesh in the process. The warmth of his skin, the heat of his breaths against your cheek.

Is this enough? How could it ever be enough? You feel like you’re shedding all inhibitions, split apart by the friction of air molecules in the stratosphere in free fall, layers and layers of atoms being shred away. And at the end of your descent, your desires are laid bare, heart split open.

Before you went for dinner, when you’d pulled his necklace and played at being the owner to a dog, he’d been—hard. You swallow. You could acknowledge it now. There had been desire there, you know. He had sighed into your neck as though he was about to dashed over the crags. One word away from careening off the cliff-side. So why? Why did he not continue from where he’d left off? What’s changed?

You—want. To kiss his eyelids, his cheek, his mouth. You remember the way he’d panted against you and you wish there had been more. You want to slip your hands under his shirt and feel him tense under your touch. To crawl into his lap and have him watch you with those dark eyes, but remain unmoving. If you darted away from him then, would he snap?

You know he wants you too. Yet, why is it that you couldn’t move? What is it that keeps you tossing and turning in bed?

Coward.

Want is a scary thing to face. It’s foreign within you; you’ve never felt this way toward anyone else. And to want to possess Caleb most of all…

But you want anyway. You want, you wish, you stretch out your hands toward the ceiling lights and are met with nothing but air. The ache of empty arms. The despair of burning alive with no one around to put out the fire.

You bite your tongue, and before you know what you’re doing, you’ve already rucked up your dress, slipped one hand down your underwear. You’re slick already, but you’re not sure when it first began. Trying to grasp onto the scent of him in your imagination, the touch of his skin, you grind yourself against your fingers but it’s not enough. You gnaw into the pillow to hide the sound of your moans, trying again and again to rub out the unease under your skin, but it only serves to make the desire worse. If it’s Caleb touching you instead, his fingers would be longer, thicker—

You bite back a frustrated huff, giving up on the venture when the clock hand hits a quarter to twelve. And through your meandering thoughts, you hear the sound of footsteps filtering through the door. They’re soft, distant, originating from the living room. There’s a regular pattern to them, as though someone is pacing back and forth. Then they stop.

You sit up. The fruit candy tin on your table glints in your periphery. You’d bought them a few days ago because the packaging reminded you of Caleb’s eyes, soft violet and orange, and the strangest urge had struck you, halfway between pain and pleasure. You stand up. Your dress pools down again, black ribbons fluttering as they spill over your shoulders and you’re reminded: you can’t even undo the damn knots yourself.

: : :

By the time you enter the living room, Caleb’s slung himself over the sofa, so casual in his posture that it almost throws you for a loop. He’s holding the necklace you gave him in his hand, inspecting the charms. His other hand is resting on a pillow, tapping to the beat of a song you don’t know.

You take a step forward, and his eyes flicker to you. He lowers the necklace and focuses on you instead. The full force of his attention hits you, and you can feel yourself shaking. He doesn’t move from his spot on the sofa, as though waiting for you.

You take another step forward.

“Is this the post-credits scene?” he asks, a hint of amusement underneath the curiosity, as though he already knows why you’re here. “An Easter Egg that hasn’t been found yet?”

“…Nothing so fun. Just that I’d forgotten to give you your gift,” you say.

He lets out a faint laugh and leans forward, resting his elbows on his legs. He dips his head. “Then it’s good that I didn’t miss it.”

The way his eyes stalk you in your steps make you hesitate. You can feel the boundary in front of you.

You take another step forward and thrust out the candy tin.

Caleb remains still for a second, but then moves to take it from you. You immediately draw back. “Since you have it now,” you stammer, “I’m going to go to sleep.”

You whirl around, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks. The breeze kicked up from your sudden movement glides over your body, and you’re acutely aware of the drying slick between your thighs. What are you doing here, in a state like this?

Mortified at your audacity—why didn’t you just wait until tomorrow—you rush to make your exit. But then Caleb’s hand lands over your wrist, fingers brushing against your forearm. His grip is gentle, enough to be shaken off if you used a little force, but you only freeze instead. A shiver slithers through you, and his grip loosens, fingers climbing up your arm before they cinch and tugs you back.

Before you know it, you’re already tucked into his lap, squeezed in between his muscular thighs. You steady yourself with one hand on his shoulder; in your vision is all Caleb. His face, closer than ever. His hand, on your waist.

“Before,” he says, “you always wanted to see me open the gift you prepared with your own eyes.” There’s a regretful tone to his voice that has you gripping onto his shoulder tightly. “And you would also want to hear me say I like it. You would have never left me until you heard my praises.” He pulls you in toward him and leans forward, as though begging for an answer for why you’ve changed your ways. The closeness sends you reeling, head spinning as you try to regain your bearings. His pants brush up against your thighs, and you try to pull yourself back to give yourself some space.

Caleb loosens his hold to accommodate you, letting you have your distance—but his hand is still at your waist, not allowing you to leave completely.

“Do you want me to say the same things as then?” you ask. “Behave just like I did as your spoiled little sister?”

Caleb stares at the tin of candy he’s holding. You find him unreadable at this moment, as though you’re trying to see through the atmospheric refraction under a desert sun. The lines of his face wobbles and warps before solidifying as his mouth opens to speak.

“It doesn’t matter,” Caleb says. “Whether you say it or not, I’ll accept them as is.” He pops open the lid with one hand, then offers its content to you, fruit drops on display with a dust of pale white sugar coating. “All I want,” he says, “is for you to stay with me until my birthday’s over.”

And to think, you’ve been prepared for him to ask for so much more. You duck your head to hide your face.

“You’re too easy, Caleb,” you say. “Your standards are so low.”

“No,” he says. “I’ve always been greedy.”

You pick up one of the yellow lemon drops and hold it up. He lets out a light exhale as your fingers brush up against him, but obediently opens to let you pop the candy inside. At first taste, his face tightens. He scoffs, “Lemon flavour.”

“That’s why I picked it.”

“Whatever I receive from you seems to always be the sourest.”

You say softly, “Haven’t you always loved sour?”

“But after my birthday is over,” he says, “I seem to be starting to look forward to more differences. Do you think that’s unreasonable of me?”

There’s a tinge of defiance in his words. His jaw is tight and his face pinched, and he looks as though he’s expecting a slap from your hand. A soldier, ready to accept his punishments.

“After your birthday,” you say, “should I stop giving you sour things? No more sour drinks, no more sour candy?” You rub your thumb over his lower lip. “If you don’t like it, then give it back to me.”

“I don’t want to,” he says. “You gave it to me.”

“Then what do you want instead? Me?”

Caleb draws in a sharp breath, hiss through right between his teeth. You lay your palm flat against his chest. His heart beats strong enough to be felt, a pace that oscillates between too-fast and too-slow; he looks pained, and he may very well be, thanks to the chip. You know all too well how it doles out punishment for emotional volatility. You still feel the ghost of its electricity sometimes in the most random of moments, like when you stare up at the sky and watch the rain.

You’ve become pliant in his lap, collapsed into him all but melted. Damn the awkwardness and damn the embarrassment. If he wants to keep you, he’ll have you. And Caleb says nothing, does nothing except place his hands over your hips. Lips closed, candy in mouth. There’s an autonomic takeover of your hands as you smooth out the collar of his suit and play with the loose loop of his tie.

Caleb stares at you. You’re used to this, because he’s always staring. The distance of Sun to Earth, sky to ground. A plane forever hovering over the landing pad, waiting for permission to land but never daring to transmit the request.

“You can say it, you know,” you say quietly. “You’re allowed to ask.”

“Is this your mercy?” His voice is solemn, and his words are lemon-sour. “Because it’s my birthday?”

“The mercy’s yours to give,” you say. “And not only because it’s your birthday. Everything that you are, I’ve already accepted.”

“Even if it’s all darkness and ruin here?” Caleb says wryly.

“Especially then,” you say. “Because I’m not as forgetful as you. I’m smart enough to bring a flashlight, and I’ll use it to find you in the dark.”

“But maybe what you find when you shine that light in the dark will be a hideous monster. You’ll run as soon as you see it.”

“How do you know that?” you whisper. “What’s so hideous about this monster?”

“It’s hungry. It’s only ever known hunger. So its mouth is always open,” Caleb says, “and its teeth are sharp. If you come too close, it’ll lash out and bite and hurt you. It doesn’t mean to, but it will. Knowing this, who wouldn’t run?”

He’s so silly. A real dummy. He’s not what you thought you knew as a child, but he’s always been yours; hadn’t he said it as much himself?

“Maybe what I’m looking for,” you murmur, “is the pain. Maybe that monster is exactly who I’m aiming to find.”

“…Sometimes,” Caleb says, “I want to trap you in my arms. I want to keep you contained in the cup of my palms. I want to hold you and never let go.”

You lean forward to hug him, and he mirrors the motion, arms tightening around your waist. Harder than he’s ever held you your entire life, yet still as delicate as the handling of a porcelain doll.

“So don’t,” you say. “Hold me, Caleb, and don’t let go.”

You tilt your face until your foreheads knock together in a gentle collision. You hover your mouth over his, an almost-kiss that has him exhaling shakily. The breath lands hot on your face, a miniature, lemon-scented heatwave that spreads from your tingling lips to the rest of your body until you’re numb with it.

“You said I can ask, that I’m allowed to ask—” His eyes dims. “—but sometimes, I don’t want to ask. I want to take.”

“It’s your birthday,” you remind him.

Caleb cradles your face in his palms. Your face is so small compared to his hands; one careless squeeze, and he could shatter you to pieces. He has that power over you, just as you have that power over him. He’s silent, but the inner conflict is clear: the debate on whether he should take your words at face value. Whether he should take advantage of the opening you’ve left him.

Before you could say anymore, your vision tilts. Caleb has tipped you back on his lap, put you on the verge of falling with only him as your sole lifeline. Wordless, Caleb dips his head down, and you can feel it, the rise and fall of his chest, the crossing of the boundary, the erasing of the barrier, particle collisions that force reality to bend to a new normal and then he’s—got his mouth on you. His tongue flicks at your lips, and his thumbs are at your cheek as though he’d like to force your teeth to open with just that. Your jaw slackens, mouth falling open, and he slips through your defenses, forcing you to share in the taste of the lemon drop. Citric acid pops over your tongue in little fires; the candy is every bit as sour as he said it was, but the stroke of his tongue over yours creates tingles that makes everything so much sweeter. It drips through you, coalescing in your belly until your toes are curling.

Your hands close in fists that lay on his shoulder, nails digging into your palms. The air turns stifling, making it hard to breathe through the humidity. You resist the urge to squirm in place, that wetness between your thighs making everything sticky again—

You’re quivering when you exhale, and Caleb sucks that air into him as though it’s fuel, then breathes it back into you.

More. You want more.

Your hands unclench. You hesitate, then reach for his face too, just like how he’s holding you. Caleb makes a noise in the back of his throat, and the next thing you know, the candy that’s been coating his saliva in lemon has been passed into your mouth, the texture smooth as caramel, the taste an electric sour-sweet.

You suck on both the candy and Caleb’s tongue, so clumsy compared to Caleb’s effortless kisses. How had he managed to kiss you so easily with the candy in his mouth? Caleb’s chest is rumbling with laughter at your attempts, but you’re too addicted to the taste to care. The fringes of his hair tickle against your forehead as he withdraws. You whine as he pepper your lips with kisses, the touch too shallow compared to how deeply he’d been having you before, and he relents, slants his mouth over yours in another soft, melting kiss. He takes control again, guiding you into it, and somehow steals the candy back into his mouth.

“You’ve returned the candy to me, so it’s mine now.” You nip his lower lip in displeasure. “Give it back.”

Caleb only laughs at you. “Come and get it yourself, then.”

So you do. It feels like an eternity yet no time at all as the candy gets traded back and forth between your mouth. Eventually, Caleb’s throat bobs as he swallows the candy—really now, ge, playing dirty like that—and you’re left trying to chase the leftover taste of it in his mouth, licking your tongue over his teeth and his tongue like a kitten trying to lap up milk. Caleb moans when you grip his face a tad too hard in your ceaseless enthusiasm, your nails digging into his skin in tiny crescents, and the sound reverberates through you until your body is singing out. You draw back, panting for air, saliva pooling in your mouth in hunger.

“You took it,” you say, but you’re not sure what exactly you mean. My candy. My first kiss. “My gift.”

“No, I didn’t,” Caleb says. “Not yet.”

“But you already ate it.”

“I’m not stupid enough to think of that as my gift,” Caleb whispers. He traces the line of your mouth, thumb stroking your lips as you’d done to him. “The candy is just an excuse, isn’t it?”

The adrenaline has pumped a quick course through your body, leaving your heart palpitating a rabbit-fast rhythm in your chest. You hear it in your ears, and it matches the twin heart that’s thudding in your brother’s chest. The same beat, the same underlying cause. “You don’t know that,” you say quickly.

Caleb smiles. He kisses your forehead, and says, “Even if it’s not, you said it yourself, didn’t you? It’s my birthday.”

You look at the clock. He’s right: five minutes to midnight.

Sometimes, I don’t want to ask, he had said. I want to take.

Caleb threads his hands through your hair and gently turns your head until you’re facing him again. “I’m going to deliberately misinterpret the meaning of your words,” he states, a fond tenderness in his eyes. “I’m going to use what you’ve told me and…” He lowers his head to your ear, voices a dark whisper. “…catch you.”

His words kindle the base of your spine and send something igniting quietly inside you, like the furling edge of paper when caught by fire.

“Go ahead,” you say. You push him down on the sofa with your hands. Even with the little force you use, Caleb still lets himself topple. You crawl forward in his lap and put your hands next to his head. You challenge him, “Try it and see, Caleb.”

You lean down to kiss him again, a light touch of your lips to his. He’s wound tight beneath you, a predator ready to spring.

“Wherever you are, what I wanted was always for you to be drawn to me,” you admit. “With nothing but the simplest, weakest kind of gravitational pull.”

The twisted web of emotions you feel toward Caleb can be untangled and reduced to this one element: you want him to be as beholden to you as you are to him. Your entire life you’ve chased after his shadow, acted as his eager little tail, and it all stemmed from the simplest things. Your relationship is built on no grand gestures for a foundation, but a careful stacking of the tiniest bricks that were laid over years and years.

“Gravity can’t be responsible for those who fall in love,” Caleb says, brushing his fingers against your forehead. “I’ll remember this—and more.” He holds your hand and presses it against his lips. “And I’ll remember too, that it’s you who’s given them to me.”

And there you are again, lost in him. Overcome by this surge of tenderness, you circle your arms around his neck and crush your lips to his. Caleb meets you without holding back, cradling the back of your head in one hand and grasping your waist with the other. His hold is firm, and you understand that there would be no escaping from here on out. The point of no return has already been breached; this flight can only continue onward.

Inflicted by a sudden urge to make mischief, to cause trouble for Caleb just to see whether he’d indulge you, you loop your fingers through his necklace and pull him back, testing your hold over him. Caleb follows easily, doesn’t stop kissing you even as you both fall off the couch, and the table shakes as he falls off with you. The table shakes as he bumps into it—from shielding you, of course—and you’re only dimly aware of the sound of something scattering over the carpet through the distraction that’s Caleb’s heavy breathing, the wet heat of his mouth.

When Caleb lets up, you finally notice the rattling right beside your ear. You turn your head and notice the messy splotches of candy drops littering the floor. A lemon drop spins around before finally dropping next to another one of its kind.

Caleb grasps your chin and redirects your attention back to him. “You see? This is how you draw me in.”

And then he’s on you again, smothering you in kisses. It’s nice, it’s great, but you’re frustrated, you’ve been frustrated for what feels like centuries, and it’s not enough—

“Caleb,” you gasp out. The next word slips out without your permission, an instinctual call for the one who had fulfilled your every need before you had even needed to explain, “Ge.”

Caleb gets the memo. He withdraws, a low sound in the back of his throat as though pained. Hearing it has your hips raising. You gently bump into his groin, where you feel him tenting already. He doesn’t look bothered by your startled look—it’s not unexpected, but it surprises you—though he does put a thumb to the corner of your mouth where a bit of your saliva has leaked out. He spreads it over your lips with his thumb, then pushes it into your mouth. You brush over the tip of his thumb with your tongue, then bite it slightly for good measure. “It’s been a long time since you’ve last called me that,” he says. “Is this how we’re playing today? Gege and meimei?”

“Not playing,” you croak. You paw at his chest, tug at his necklace. Your gege always gave in when you did this, always. “Ge, please. Caleb.”

Caleb pins your hands above your head. Just one hand is enough to span both your wrists; the thought makes you dizzy. He’s so big compared to you. He kisses you again, as though to appease you, even though all it does is make it worse. “Shh,” he says. “I know what my meimei wants. We’ll get to it. I won’t leave you wanting.”

“No,” you say. “Now.” You thrust your hips up again, trying to rub yourself against him. But your dress is in the way, offering no way toward the friction you so badly craved; the loose fabric sticks to your skin, dampened by the evidence of your desire. It hides your little sin, the secret that Caleb suddenly discovers when he slips his other hand up your skirt, fingers brushing past your bare legs to the apex between your thighs. When he touches you and realizes there’s nothing there—nothing except your naked skin, your damp folds—he goes very, very still.

“There’s—you’re not wearing any—” He cuts himself off, too distracted to form a coherent sentence. Red flushes across his face, spreading to his ears like a fever rash. The hand around your wrists tighten. “—you came to me like this? Really?”

“Even with your hand shoved right up my skirt, you still can’t tell?”

“Since when?” he asks, and he sounds wrecked.

“Guess,” you say smugly.

Caleb narrows his eyes. He rucks up your skirt with an abrupt violence, flinging the blue fabric up carelessly, and the sight confirms what he’d learned via touch: you aren’t wearing anything under the skirt of your dress. No underwear there at all to hide yourself from the elements; just your bare, naked slick skin, on display to the air—and Caleb of course, with his heated glare. He taps your mound, once, twice, as though in deep thought, but doesn’t touch you any further, much to your chagrin.

“It better not have been while we were outside,” he warns.

“Of course I wouldn’t!” you protest. You exhale sharply when Caleb skims his hand over you. “I only did this for—hah—you.”

“I can’t believe I hadn’t realized earlier,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” you say, “I’m surprised you never caught on either. Next time, you shouldn’t take so long to flip my skirt up, ge.”

Caleb flicks you across your clit. You jolt from the unexpected smack to such a sensitive area, a whiplash of fire from the punishing blow. “Don’t be mean!” you protest.

“That’s what you get for misbehaving,” he says. “Not even dressing yourself properly.”

“As if you didn’t like it,” you argue back.

Caleb’s lips press together into a thin line. He doesn’t deign to respond, which lets you know it’s your victory.

“Uh huh,” you say. “That’s what I thought, pervert.”

As though in revenge, Caleb runs his fingers up and down your cunt, collecting the wetness there but never going further. The itch crawls up back, lodges itself in your throat. You try to spread your legs, set your feet on the ground so you can better thrust yourself up to grind against him, but his Evol slams into you again, forcing you to keep your legs pressed flat against the ground. Parted only slightly, enough for him to slot his knee between.

“Think you can get off using just my knee?” he asks.

“Mean,” you grouse. “You’re so mean.”

Still, you try to do exactly that. The light haloes around Caleb’s head as he hovers over you, watching you squirming against his knee with those violet-orange eyes—an eerie darkness to them, violet bleeding into the orange until there’s barely a sliver of the warm sunset colour. The harsh fabric of his suit serves as a better source of friction than the silk underlining of your dress, but there’s still no way you can get into a good enough position to really force a satisfying pressure, not when Caleb is only giving his knee to you but not doing anything else to help the process along. You’re getting his pants all wet, but it’s not enough.

You huff in annoyance at how Caleb is just watching you struggle. He’s hard, and yet he won’t fuck you properly. Instead, he’s watching you fumble to get an orgasm when he’s also so clearly in need of one. How stupid is that?

“What’s wrong?” Caleb asks, amusement so clear from the raise of his eyebrow.

“You know what’s wrong,” you say with a pout. “Touch me already, Caleb.”

“Sure,” Caleb says, but instead of putting his fingers to good work, he plucks at the bows of your dress instead. You blink, wondering what he’s planning.

“You know,” he says conversationally as he wraps the black ribbon around his finger, “you looked like a birthday present for the whole day in this dress, especially knowing it was being held up by the bows I tied—and the only thing I could think about for the rest of the day was whether you’d let me untie them. Open you like a gift.”

Your face flushes. In truth, that had been what you’d been hoping for, too. Partly why you preferred this dress over the other options available.

Caleb must have seen your thoughts, because he chuckles. “Did you think about it too?” he says. “A continuation of our pre-dinner stint together?”

“…No comment.”

“Do you know why I tied these complicated knots?” Caleb leans down and whispers into your ear, “Because I didn’t want anyone else to undo them except me. I wanted to be the only one to slip you out of your clothes like this.”

“Caleb, you pervert—”

“That’s right. But I’m yours, and there’s a strict no-return policy.” And then he’s winding those ribbons at your shoulders, clever fingers taking apart those very same knots that had been so secure. But he doesn’t take off the dress, only shoves down the padded bust enough to expose your chest. The fabric crumples over your midriff, joining the flipped-up skirt, and the fallen ribbons lick at random points of your body, your back, your arms, your shoulder blades.

“Let’s keep this dress on,” he says absentmindedly. “That way, we’ll still match.” You gasp when he palms your breasts with his hands, reeling from how big and warm they feel compared to the temperature-controlled air of his living room. He rubs them with his hands, seeming way too curious about how you flinch every time he squeezes a little too hard.

“You don’t need to play with them like this,” you say awkwardly. “They’re small. It’s not too interesting.”

“But they’re pretty,” Caleb murmurs. “And they fit into my hands so well, don’t you think?” As though to demonstrate, he kneads them again before stroking your nipples. You groan, twisting and writhing under him. “Besides,” he says with a smile, “the noises you make are interesting enough.”

“This isn’t really what I meant when I said touch me,” you breathe.

“But I am, aren’t I?” he teases. “This definitely counts as touching.”

You bite back a hiss when he starts circling the hardening buds with his thumbs. Hold on. If his hands are no longer trapping your wrists together, that must mean you’re free to do as you want. However, when you try to wiggle your wrists, they’re still bound together by an invisible force, that familiar constraint of his Evol. You pout. Cheater.

You open your mouth, about to whine on this—when his mouth latches onto one of your breasts.

“Oh!” you cry.

If you think his hands are warm, his tongue must be a whip from hell. He swirls it around the tip, gently flicking the stiff peaks; every time the edge of his teeth catches on your nipple, it’s like lightning, a white-hot pleasure dancing across your eyelids.

“Harder,” you demand, arching out your chest.

Caleb laughs. “My girl likes it rough, does she?” he says, a sense of wonder in his voice as he massages you a little harder than before. He alternates his mouth to your other breast, catching your nipple between his teeth and holding it there. Not biting, but the anticipation has you shivering. His knee is also now rubbing against you slowly, building up that tension under your skin until you feel like you’re being pulled taut. You grind back against him, babbling out sentences you don’t quite understand yourself, but it must please Caleb because he’s starting to pinch and pluck and tug at your nipples, Hard enough for there to be a slight edge of pain. It mixes with the dull pleasure that’s aching between your thighs, sending everything pulsing.

“C-Caleb,” you stutter.

“Going to come?” Caleb says lightly. The force that’s applied to the bottom of your pelvis increases, his knee practically digging into you now and forcing you to completion. “Let me see it. There you go, good girl, do it for your Caleb.”

Your Caleb. It’s the tone to his voice that tips you over, the same indulgent, coaxing words that he’s used with you so many times before to get you to listen to him. Like all the other times, it works. You make a strangled sound, air caught in the back of your throat, and shudder as that taut bowstring finally snaps. The heat spreads over you, a soft and slow haze that has the corner of your eyes prickling with tears. It’s a nice, easy drop that has your entire body floating as Caleb applies the same speed and pressure to keep you up in cloud nine.

“You look so good like this,” Caleb sighs, petting your hair. “Dazed out without a thought in your head except to chase your pleasures. Did that feel good, pretty girl?”

Blood pounds against your temple, an insistent sluggish beat. You’re still in the throes of your orgasm, but you clench around nothing. There’s a stain on his knee now, right at the spot where you’ve been dry humping him. And it’s hard to tell, but the front of his pants too, seem to have a darker patch, as though he’s leaking through his clothes. Did you do that?

“Caleb,” you choke out. His name lodges itself in your mouth, a thick, clogging desire.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get more from here.”

“More of what?”

“Everything.”

With that, the pressure of his knee disappears as he shifts down your prone body. His hands grips your calves, nails digging into the socks you hadn’t seen fit to take off even when you had stripped yourself of your underwear. And then, in one smooth motion, he pushes your thighs up until they’re folded against you, spreading you completely open. He stares at the swell of your folds; it’s become puffy and red from the friction of being scraped so hard against his knee, but it’s still dripping wet. At his intense gaze, you feel yourself get even more wet, slick dribbling out as your walls spasm in anticipation of something, anything that would fill this emptiness.

“You’re always so tempting,” Caleb says. He sounds frustrated by the fact, as though it’s your fault for his wayward thoughts. “I can never think straight around you.”

“I’m not trying to be?” you say weakly.

“Another lie,” he reprimands. He puts his thumb to your throbbing clit, rubbing gentle circles as he leans down to kiss your inner thigh. “Why else would you come to me like this? You’re asking to be eaten, aren’t you. Making it so easy for me.”

“Do it then,” you dare. Your back raises off the carpet, offering yourself to him. Trying to get his mouth on you. You are a wilted plant deprived of sun, dragging yourself toward the light.

And Caleb obliges you, of course he does. He licks a long line into you, gathering all the slick you’ve been leaking with for what feels like the entire day. He’s—enthusiastic. Moans like he’s been thirsty his whole life. When he starts licking you even more earnestly after the first few times, the noises are loud and obscene, sending your face even more alight than it already is. You’ve thought about this before in passing, some fleeting fantasy in your dreams that left you waking to a racing heart and arousal pooling between your legs, but never in such vividness. The pleased groans he gives whenever you thrust up against his mouth, the scrape of the carpet at your bare shoulders, the light touch of his fingers as they spread you open so that he can latch his hot mouth to your swollen little bud. He twirls your spit-soaked clit with his tongue. You flare with pleasure, feeling it build to a crescendo underneath your skin—only for him to let go at the last moment. You cry out in loss, hips raised in a futile effort to follow his mouth.

The hold over your wrists come loose as his Evol lets go. “Here,” Caleb says as he guides your hands to his head. “Grab onto me.”

Soft strands slip past the fingers as you grip a fistful of his hair. If it hurts, he doesn’t show it. In fact, when you flex your fingers then tug at his hair, he only sighs, a pleased, fluttering sound that settles itself in the pit of your stomach.

Then he’s crouched over you again, lapping at you like a dog being finally tossed a bone and determined to strip his prize bare. His tongue dips in and out, followed by the test of one finger teasing your entrance. As you pull his head and rub yourself over his face, trying to ride the bridge of nose, the fever of his mouth, whatever he’ll make available to you, there’s a sudden squeeze of your chest. Your eyes flicker downward, but there’s no physical body to accompany the sensation. Instead, it’s the blue-orange of Caleb’s Evol, skimming over your breasts like a second set of hands.

Oh, that’s unusual. Strange, but not unwanted. Gravity warps, lends itself to groping at your breasts before being refined into a focused point that flicks at your nipples. You gasp just as Caleb thrusts a finger inside you and sucks on your clit. His finger is thick, just like you thought. So much more satisfying than yours. Even just one of his digits feels as though it’s filling you completely. Coupled with how his Evol keeps cycling through rough and soft like the settings of a vibrator as it plays with your chest, circling a nipple here, massage the flesh there, you’re left helpless to his manipulations. It’s an assault on multiple fronts, and he’s a merciless strategist.

The various points of stimulation have you overwhelmed, driving you to your animal instincts, fight or flight, freeze or fawn. You writhe beneath him, so thoroughly looked after by his ministrations that the pleasure cuts white-hot. Distantly, you’re aware that you’ve started to beg. But you’re not sure for what. Whether to get him to keep going or to get him to stop.

It doesn’t matter, though, because Caleb has his own plans. He redoubles his efforts, touch turning harsher. His finger crooks while it’s inside you and it clips right into that soft, vulnerable spot. You shriek his name when you come, and it sounds comical even to your own ears, that banshee wail, but Caleb only groans against your skin like he’s finally found salvation. And you think you’ve also been blessed by the gods because he doesn’t let up the speed or pressure of his mouth, content to keep you at the breaking point where you can ride out the rest of your peak. Lets you drag him around as you hump his face, not one word of complaint even though you’re trying to drown him in what feels like a tidal wave of your arousal.

When you come down from it, you’re left crumpled. Like a piece of paper that’s been scrunched up then smoothed out. It’s impossible then, to return the way you’ve been before. Caleb has taught you the taste of pleasure, and you’ve been changed by it forever.

Sweat condenses along your temple, dampening your bangs. You’re still shaking as you loosen your hold over Caleb’s head. You flex your fingers to regain the blood flow in them; they’ve turned bone-white from how hard you’d been clutching onto him, stiffened by prolonged force.

“Was that good for you too?” Caleb says as he sits back. His breathing is rough and his voice is hoarse, as if he’d been the one yelling instead. Too, he says, like his own pleasure is a foregone conclusion despite having never even been touched himself.

“I wouldn’t have came if it wasn’t,” you say, stretching out languidly on the ground. “Where’d you learn that trick with your Evol?”

Caleb licks along his hand, his tongue trailing right over the middle finger that shines obscenely in the light—the same finger he’d just had inside you. “Just now.”

“Give me a warning next time,” you said. “I need to prepare myself, otherwise my heart is going to explode.”

“From what?” Caleb asks, a self-satisfied look on his face.

You purse your lips, refusing to answer. Instead, you tap at his chest with the tip of your foot, sliding it down his chest until you hit the bulge in his pants. When you try to dig into it with your heel, he snatches your ankle.

“Behave,” he says. Looking into his eyes is like flying into a black hole. His pupils have expanded in a wide, black circle that’s eaten away at the colour of his usual violet-orange iris.

“What if I don’t want to?” You wiggle your foot, but his hold over you is strong.

“Then I’ll have to punish you.”

“I don’t think so. You’re mine to punish, actually.” You crook a finger for him to come to you, and he does. He crawls over you, lowers his head to your throat and kisses you languidly. You close your eyes briefly, find the knot of his tie, the loop of his necklace via touch alone. Let’s see what you can do with this.

You fling your legs around his middle, then surge up against him to flip him. You push him over until you’re on top of him, and your hold over his tie and necklace remains tight, keeping him chained to you. You’ve got him trapped between your legs, and he’s hard enough to be felt. “Got you,” you say breathless, looking down at him. Wondering how you can break him, take him apart as he’s done with you. You palm at his clothed erection—the fabric there all wet—watching how the vein at his neck jumps when you squeeze. You bat at the buckle of his belt. “Now I’ll have my way with you, Caleb Xia.”

Caleb makes a rumbling sound from his chest, but only says, “Maybe not,” before he also flips you. The carpet scrapes against your skin, drops of candies scattered again in the commotion as the two of you wrestle on the ground, each trying to gain the upper hand in being on top, and it’s not until your head’s being cradled gentle in his big hand as you throw your head back that you realize you’d been about to bump into the table leg.

You look up at Caleb, how he’s hovering over you without a word, and everything spills from him so easily. The love, the affection, the devotion. “My dog of a brother,” you say.

Caleb doesn’t even blink. “Yours.”

You pull at the dress that’s still pooled around your middle. The clothes are a wrinkled mess. “Take this off me,” you say.

“All right.” His voice is husky, and his hands make quick work of your dress, shucking it off with ease like peeling off wrapping paper. You raise your arm to help him, then wait as he inspects you. You would be more embarrassed, if it wasn’t for the fact that he looks enthralled at what he finds in your naked body. Almost naked, you amend, as his eyes trail down toward your splayed legs. He rubs his hands along the white knee-high socks. “This can stay,” he says lightly.

You wrinkle your nose. “Your tastes are kind of heavy, Caleb.”

“Sorry,” he says, but doesn’t sound too sorry at all.

“It’s okay,” you say. “This present is yours to do with as you wish. Though…” You sit yourself up, and he tracks the motion with dark eyes. “…I’d also like to unwrap Caleb like a present.”

“Caleb’s yours to do with as you wish,” he says, parroting your words.

“Then he should stay still,” you say, crawling into his lap. “He’s put so much effort into undressing me, so it’s only right for me to return the favour.”

Caleb smiles as you shove him back against the floor. You pick and pluck at his clothes with your fluttering hands, pulling his tie over his head and flinging it away. It’s while you’re shoving at the suit jacket that he speaks. “This is a little familiar,” he murmurs. “You seem to like doing this.”

“What, pushing you down?”

“Undressing me like this.”

The last time you’d had him in this position, it was with a chip in your arm and anger bitten between your teeth. The fury had taken over your mind in red-hot flickers; you remember biting his hand, the taste of his blood. Your voice, echoing in the dark. You killed my Caleb. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” you lie.

“You don’t need to,” Caleb says. “All you need to know is that I’m yours.”

You rip apart the buttons on his shirt. A few of them pop off, rolling away. You lay your hand over his chest, nails scraping over the hard plane. You delight in how his face pinches, how clear it is that he’s trying to hold on to his self-control.

“Eager,” he says.

“Efficient,” you correct.

Caleb chuckles. You feel his chest vibrate beneath your touch from the laugh, and it seems to permeate through you too. You tear through his clothes, belt buckle giving you a little trouble but not enough to prevent you from getting at the rest of him, and upon seeing your triumphant look at having wrestled the buckle open, he shakes his head. “Should I congratulate you?”

“Shush,” you say. “I’m on an important mission here.” You palm at the bulge of his pants, the one area you’d been ignoring, and smile when you see a blush bleed its way across his cheeks. You refocus your attention on In the midst of your little play session, Caleb has somehow soaked through the front of his pants and his boxer briefs. You finally understand how when you shove down the damp fabrics so you can release his cock. It pops out with a vengeance, slapping against your hand, wet and sticky.

You stare at it. Then stare some more.

Is this how they’re supposed to look in real life?

It’s not as if you haven’t seen a dick before—between the thorough sex-ed lessons from school and the random adult videos you’ve “stumbled” upon in your teenage years (tall, strong looking brunets that speak with a warm baritone at the centre of them all)—but seeing one firsthand is…

Why is it so angry looking? And the size too…

You wince. That’s going to be inside you?

Caleb leans back on his elbows, watching for your response. There’s a deep hunger written in the twist of his mouth.

You can’t bear to meet his eyes right now, so you look away. You help him out of his clothes, sneaking glances at his cock the entire time. He doesn’t move or speak, but his cock bobs at your gaze. It curves upward toward his belly, flushed a deep red. Almost purple from the winding veins. After divesting him of his clothes, you hesitate. One hand drifts up his thigh, then grasps onto it. Somehow, it’s softer than you initially thought—but more alive for it too, throbbing against your palm in a strange staccato. You can barely wrap your fingers around the circumference, thick as it is. His cock kicks at the contact, and your heart is racing so fast you can’t tell whether this blood pulse in your hand is yours or Caleb’s.

“Ah,” you say. “It’s a little…”

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “Little?”

“A little big,” you say bluntly. If this is little, you’re convinced the world wouldn’t be half as populated as it is right now. You wrap both your hands around it; it’s the only way you’d be able to hold the entire thing. Then you thumb at the shining wet tip, fascinated by how it drools out more pearlescent fluid when you play with it. Caleb bites back a hiss, the slightest rise to his hips as he thrusts into your hand. He grimaces and stills himself.

You stroke a languid hand up his cock, and it’s spitting out fluids again. Somehow, it reminds you of a condiment bottle. Squeeze hard enough, and something’s bound to come out. You smile at the thought.

“…Done playing around?” he rasps. He’s a bundle of tension beneath you as he resigns himself to your curiosity. You curl your hand delicately over his abdomen, tap your nails against the knotted muscles there, and feel both his abs and his cock jump in conjunction.

“Caleb,” you ask, “have you ever had sex with anyone before this?”

Caleb scoffs. “Do you really have to ask?”

“You’ve always been popular,” you say. “Remember how many people confessed to you in high school? When you’d been in the Academy too. So many girls wanted to hang off your arms. Who knows what you were up to when I wasn’t looking?”

Caleb scowls. He closes his hand around the fingers you currently have resting on his cock and moves them up and down. Only slightly, but enough force that you can’t do anything except follow. “Don’t talk about other people when we’re together like this,” he says. “Besides, haven’t I already told you? All my life, I’ve always been yours. You’re the only one who can touch me like this. The only one I want.”

You let him control your hand. He’s a lot more firm than you are, quicker and rougher with how he treats his cock. Is it familiarity, you wonder. “Have you ever touched yourself to the thought of me?”

Caleb sucks in a breath between his teeth. He clamps his hand tighter around yours and speeds up the rhythm of his stroking. “So much, you don’t even know,” he says. “You’d crawl into my bed in high school so we could sleep together and within a minute, I’d be so hard it hurts. Then I’d have to race to the bathroom so I can get myself off, all to make sure you don’t feel it when I get back into bed with you. Do you know how hard it is to hold myself back from pouncing on you during those nights? How hard it was to make sure you didn’t find out about my sick, twisted thoughts? I had to stifle my moans with the sound of running water and the hem of my t-shirt clenched between my teeth—all because you were right next door, sleeping in my bed.”

You tilt your head at Caleb’s rant. You hadn’t known any of it.

“The worst part,” he continues, “was how you’d always wear the barest of pajamas. Just a ratty old shirt way too small for you and shorts so tiny I’d be flashed with your underwear whenever you bent down. You made it so difficult for me.”

“I wasn’t doing it on purpose.”

Caleb laughs. It’s sardonic and bitter, a self-deprecating remark by itself. “I know,” he says. “That had been the worst part. My oblivious little sister who never realized her big brother was fantasizing all sorts of sick scenarios about her.”

“Like what?” you breathe.

Caleb glances at you. There’s an underlying resentment to his hard gaze, but also a helpless resignation there too. “So many things. Teaching her how exactly to beg for my help when she’s in trouble. Grinding against her cute little chest while she’s kneeling in front of me. Shoving my cock into her mouth instead of that popsicle she keeps asking me for. Bending her over the kitchen counter and fucking her so good that she’d be drooling, so out of it that she can’t even answer Gran’s phone call properly.”

The vulgarity both shocks you and exhilarates you. You feel your nipples tighten at his crass confession, a pulsating beat blooming between your legs—as though your body is preparing itself in anticipation for those very scenarios to come true. You lick the inside of your cheek, saliva pooling beneath your tongue.

“I touched myself to you too,” you said. “Before I came here to give you those candies, I thought about you, and before I knew it, I had my hands shoved down my underwear, trying to get off.”

Caleb stills. “Yeah?” he says. His eyes are smoldering with wildfire. The stroking motion of his hand comes to a stop. He peels your fingers away from him, holding your hand by the wrist as he looks at them, as though to imagine how they’d look when they’re inside you.

“But I couldn’t do it,” you say. “I couldn’t get myself to come because it wasn’t your fingers that were fucking into me.”

Caleb’s jaw tightens. “What about you?” he asks. “Have you ever been with anyone while I was gone?”

Caleb hadn’t bothered asking you about the past before the accident; he’s that confident of his knowledge about your life. And maybe he’s right for it; if you ever did get with anyone, he could have probably sniffed it out with the accuracy of a bloodhound on the trail of bleeding prey.

“With all of your little eyes on me,” you murmur, “I thought you would know.”

The surveillance detail he’s put on you is impressive. The tracker you tried to put on him before seems like child’s play in comparison to what you’ve discovered at your apartment. And that was only after sweeping the entrance.

“…Just what’s important,” he says. “Whether you’ve been well.”

“And if I tell you,” you say slowly, “yes, I’ve been with others before?”

His expression darkens. “Others? Multiple people?”

“That would be telling,” you say.

He skims the back of his fingers down the line of your face. There’s no emotion in his voice when he asks, “Who?”

You raise an eyebrow. “If I say, I don’t think I’ll ever see them alive again.”

“I won’t do anything to them,” Caleb says. At your look, he relents, “I won’t do them any bodily harm. Nothing permanent.”

“But everything else is fair game?” you tease. “Will you use your authority as Colonel of the Farspace Fleet to sink their careers, ruin their lives?”

“…How could I?” he says, pained. “When it would have been your choice.”

“You can’t just say that with such a stern face,” you say. “You’re not in your Fleet uniform right now.”

“The Fleet uniform doesn’t change anything. I’ve always been this way when it comes to you.”

You lean forward and kiss him on the corner of his mouth, where his frown has been sitting so severely. “All my firsts are yours to take,” you say. “That was what I wanted to give you on your birthday. For Caleb.”

Then, as an add-on, you lower your hand and tap his cock. It sways cutely, leaking little drips of precum. You lower your head and kiss it on the tip, tongue flicking out for taste. Hm, slightly sweet.

Caleb’s breath hitches. A vein pops along his throat. He grabs for you then, but you dodge his hand and push yourself to your feet. “But before that, you have to play with me,” you say, then race off toward the other end of the living room. The wind brushes past the back of your hand, the length of your legs, remind you just how naked you are.

“Really now,” Caleb says, also getting to his feet. He rolls his neck and stretches his arms, no embarrassment at all in being so naked. With a hard-on, no less. It reminds you of those stories about the Olympic games of long ago, when everyone competed in the nude. “Are we playing tag? In a state like this?”

“That’s what makes it exciting. You said you’re going to catch me, right?” You stick out your tongue, and his eyes stalk after the motion. “Chase me down and you’ll get a prize—ack!”

Even before you’ve finished your sentence, he’s already half-way across the room. You shriek and dart away; he’s close, fingertips barely missing the ends of your hair. You weave across the room, avoiding the table, the ottomans, the chairs. You lead him on a chase, winding around the living room, and he’s always within arm’s length but never quite close enough to grab you.

You’re lucky the living room is as big as it is, because while it’s too small for a serious game of tag, it’s large enough that you have space to run—but apparently, it’s still not enough because the next thing you know, he’s got you. You yelp as he pins you against the window, hands caught behind you by his hand and the cool glass pressed right to your breasts. Your forehead slams against the glass, but instead of the thump you’d been expecting, the crown of your head only gently taps the window, shielded from the worst of the impact by Caleb’s cradling hand. The world outside has been cloaked in darkness, midnight long since past but the skyscrapers off in the distance on the main island still twinkling, streets still dotted with golden lights. The headlights of random cars thread their way through the city, appearing then disappearing like the flicker of fireflies.

“Did I do well?” Caleb whispers into your ear, and his voice tickles. You squirm against him, and end up rubbing his cock against your back instead. It’s a good thing it’s night; who knows if this view would be visible to the people in the distance if it was bright out. “Is this my prize?” he murmurs. He’s rutting into you languidly, streaks of heated skin against the small of your back, making that same heat rise inside you too. “Your willingness?”

You whine, “Let me go and I’ll show you.”

“Should I?” he says. “What if you try to escape again?”

“Come onnnnn,” you say. “Hurry up already. Aren’t you curious?”

“Mhm. I guess I can always chase you down if you try to run again.” Caleb chuckles and loosens his grip on you, stepping back to give you some space. You twist around to face him, taking in the situation. You’ve strayed far from the sofa in your little skirmish, and there’s no good support for your knees now other than the floor.

However, since Caleb’s passed your challenge, it’s your time to pass yours. You sink to your knee and are greeted with the overwhelming size of his cock. It’s taking up the entire of your vision.

Caleb blinks. “What are you—”

“You’re too careless, Caleb,” you say. “You didn’t take into account how stupidly tall you are.”

“—huh?”

“Your fantasy about fucking my tits like this,” you explain patiently. “It’s just barely going to work. If you’re any taller, I’d have to get a stool or a pillow. Or you’d have to stand real awkward. Or maybe I could just crouch instead?” This titjob thing is harder than it looks in videos.

Caleb stares at you like you’re speaking gibberish.

“I mean,” you continue, “we could always do this with you lying down too—but you said you wanted to see me kneel, right?” You stare up at him, and whatever it is that Caleb sees makes him exhale sharply. He slams one hand to the glass window for balance as though he’s a second away from collapse and threads his other hand through your hair, a gentle yet firm hold.

“Sometimes,” Caleb says, “I can’t understand the things going on in that head of yours.”

“But you know me so well,” you say. “You know exactly what I’m thinking.”

“A way to torture me,” he says.

“If you don’t like your prize, then I won’t—”

“No,” he says hurriedly. “You should do what you want.”

You roll your eyes. “Right,” you say. “That’s what I thought.”

You spit into your hand. Then you glance at his cock… And spit into your hand again for good measure.

“God, don’t just do that without warning,” Caleb gasps.

You squint at him. “I haven’t even touched you yet?”

Caleb makes a frustrated noise. “You—it’s not about that.”

You grab his cock, trying your best to coat it generously in your saliva. It jumps again in your touch—so easily startled, so like yet unlike its owner. You press it to your chest, and it scrapes against your collarbone. Caleb gives an aborted little thrust, even though you haven’t even begun the show yet. “They’re not very big, but it should be enough I think,” you say absentmindedly. “You’re going to have to do the work though, okay? I don’t think I can.”

“Uh huh,” he says, dazed. “Sure.”

“Here.” You arch your back to get as much height as possible, then squeeze your breasts together. Pushed together, they create a nice little valley for him to slide through, which he does so promptly without any further directions, already starting to thrust into you like a man possessed.

It’s strange. It’s not as if you’re receiving too much stimulation from this—other than the tingling massage feeling you get from the skin contact—but seeing the sweat dew at his temple, the slight backward tilt of his head, the way his cock slides all the way up until it hits your throat…

You make a noise in the back of your throat, resisting the urge to shift so that you can rub your thighs together. The carpet digs into your knee, and you’re sure it’s going to show tomorrow. But it’s not important right now, because even the scent of him is having your head spin: clean laundry, summer sun, but a deeper undertone mixed in now.

“You’re so good,” Caleb sighs, “letting me use you like this. Kneeling there so obediently. You’re so good for me.”

And you like what he says too. To be good for him, that’s everything you could ever want. The unadulterated display of desire he puts up for you isn’t anything you expected, but you love it.

“You know,” you blurt, “we’re matching now, aren’t we?”

You have no idea what you’re saying, only that you need a distraction so you don’t start whining for Caleb. Knowing him, if he knows you want him, he’ll abandon his own desires and tend to yours instead.

“Hm?”

“We’re both dressed the same, aren’t we?” you say. “In our birthday suits.”

Caleb’s hips thrust sharply into you. His cock smacks the underside of your chin, leaving behind a wet streak. He pulls your head back by the hair, your throat arching back delicately. “Less speaking,” he says, voice strained.

“And more sucking?” you say cheekily. Before Caleb can reprimand you, you’re dipping down your head so that every time he thrusts into your tits, the tip of his cock bumps against your lips. The moan you draw from him when you lap at his cock is unlike anything you’ve heard before—you may have broken him, permanently made him malfunction, because he’s speaking in only fragmented sentences now.

“Can’t believe—ah—the mouth on you—you like it?”

“Mhm,” you hum. Of course you did. It’s Caleb, how could you dislike it?

“That’s right,” Caleb says. “You love this, don’t you? When I get off to you like this.”

You hold your mouth open, waiting for him to thrust into it briefly with every stroke. He’s a lot slower now, as though wanting to make sure it’s comfortable for you. Or to savour the feel of your mouth more, who knows. Either way, you let him use you as he pleases, tingles down your back whenever he praises you on how good you are, my obedient girl, she knows how to take care of me so well, doesn’t she?

When there’s a break in his rhythm, his moans getting louder and his movements sloppier, you latch onto the opening it provides and, letting go of your breasts, wrap your hands around his cock. Trying to swallow all of him into your mouth is a daunting challenge; your mouth is so small that only the tip is enough to fill your cheeks completely. His hand tightens in your hair, pain prickling at your scalp as he hisses and tries to drag you off him, “Stop, ‘m gonna come,” but you ignore it. You grab onto his butt—wow, very firm, ge, you think in approval—and try your best to push him in. You barely manage to get past half before your gag reflex kicks in. You’re heaving, throat rejecting the foreign invasion, but you’re determined. You take a deep breath from your nose and bob your head weakly up and down. If he won’t use your mouth, you’ll have to do the work for him. You hum around his cock, tongue swirling around what length you could reach, working with your hand what your mouth couldn’t take in.

“I can’t believe you—” Caleb’s hips jerk up as his hand shoves you down on his cock, an unintended thrust that has you choking. He’s shoved himself deeper inside you than before, but still not all the way. Even so, it’s enough; he comes into your mouth with a deep, guttural snarl. A furious expression to match. You hum around him, trying your best to relax so that your reflexes aren’t immediately kicking him out. His cock pulses over your tongue, and a salty, bitter taste floods the back of your mouth.

When he pulls back, you cough violently. Spittle dribbles down the corner of your mouth, a mixture of semen and saliva. As you’re heaving for breath, Caleb kneels and shoves his fingers in between your teeth. He pinches your tongue between his thumb and forefinger, and drool fills your mouth.

“What did you do that for?” he says darkly. It is the interrogation of a commanding officer, demanding discipline and obedience.

“Want’d t’ make y’ feel good,” you slur. You sit back on your heels and peer at him with a wide-eyed innocence, but his brows are still furrowed in anger.

“It’s not safe for you,” he says. “You were choking.”

So? You blink at him. Sighing, Caleb lets go of your tongue. His expression shifts to the kind, warm Caleb of your childhood. “Next time,” he says, “let me guide you, okay? Don’t just charge in headstrong like that.”

“Practice makes perfect,” you agree, flashing a smile full of teeth at him.

Caleb shakes his head. He flicks your forehead. “And here I thought you’d be a good girl.”

“I am!” you protest. “I made you come, didn’t I?”

He taps the corner of your mouth. “Making a mess in the process.”

You lick at your lips. “Can’t cook an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

“The omelette doesn’t even taste good,” Caleb says.

“But it’s my omelette,” you say serenely. “Besides, how would you know? You weren’t the one that ate it.”

“Idiot,” Caleb says. He kisses your mouth, licking away the leftover taste of his own come from your mouth. You hook your arms around his neck, pull him backward toward the floor until he topples over you. Your head lolls against the carpet, impact softened once again by his hand. Caleb keeps kissing you, never breaking away. You lose yourself to Caleb’s tender attention, and he sucks at anything he can find, your lips, your tongue, even licking his tongue against your teeth. You bite the tip of his tongue playfully, and he hisses in slight pain, but. He was already starting to stiffen against you through the kissing, but when you bit his tongue, his cock suddenly became raging hard. It nestles itself right over your stomach, a pulsing question.

You wrap your legs around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back. “You still haven’t eaten the main course of the night,” you say.

“You say that like I haven’t licked you up,” Caleb says with a chuckle.

“Not that kind of eating,” you say mischievously, then buck yourself against his cock.

“Needy,” Caleb says, but thrusts back. His cock drags itself over your belly, hot and heavy; thinking about the length of him sends flares of want spiralling through you.

You pout. “You don’t want to be my first?”

When you point out that he’d be the first, that it would be him who takes your virginity, you swear you could feel his cock startle. Caleb nips your nose. “I want everything when it comes to you.”

“Some things more than others,” you say. “You started getting hard again when I bit your tongue. Is it the pain that did that?”

“Because it was you that gave me the pain,” Caleb says. “Is that too strange for you to accept?”

You shake your head. “I got wet while you were fucking my chest,” you whisper, “because I liked seeing you take pleasure from me. But I also like it when you enjoy the pain I give you. Is that also strange?”

He offers you his right hand. You pinch the centre of its palm, and he closes his eyes, ears turning red.

“No more than I am,” Caleb says. He separates your legs—but not before plucking at the edge of your socks, the pervert—and touches his hand to your folds. You sigh as he rubs your clit in gentle circles. He’s winding you up again, and you float through the pleasurable feeling, letting it build up beneath your skin. Soon enough, he has one finger inside you, pumping carefully. Then another. He scissors them to stretch you out, and you whimper a little, not used to the intrusion.

“You’re so tight,” Caleb says.

The slight hint of despair in his voice doesn’t escape you. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Because I know you’ll cry when I fuck you,” Caleb says, “but I’m still going to do it.”

He adds another finger, and it’s a slow going, trying to make all three fingers fit. You throw your head back when Caleb scrapes against your walls, categorizing the entirely new sensation of being forced to accommodate something so big.

“Caleb,” you gasp. “Want you inside me.”

“I am inside you,” Caleb says, amused. As though to prove a point, he thrusts his fingers inside you with more force than before. He grinds the heel of his palm against your clit, then curls his fingers.

“Not this kind!” But despite your protests, you’re getting more aroused.

“Soon,” he soothes. The sloppy sound of his fingers going in and out of you soon fills your ears. He rubs your clit with his other hand, practically vibrating over you. “You’re wet, but not wet enough.”

“Ah! Not so quick, it’s strange.” Suddenly inundated by a feeling of too much, his fingers knocking inside while he’s pressing down outside, you flail out. Your hands stretch out for leverage, and find it at his necklace. You pull on the silver chain hard enough for it to lace into his skin, but despite it, he doesn’t let up.

“It’s strange?” Caleb mimics.

You insist, “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Caleb says, but slows down the pace. When you kick your leg out, moaning, Caleb clicks his tongue. “There we go,” he says, “easy does it.” You twist under him, clamping down around his fingers, white spots dancing across your eyelid. It abates soon, a quick, dirty orgasm, but a necessary one; even despite the entire evening, you’re still half-convinced that it’s physically impossible to fit something so large inside you without something tearing permanently.

After Caleb retreats from you, he sits back up and takes himself in his hand. You watch him stroke himself, mouth dry at the quick efficiency of his movements. Three strokes, enough to distribute your slick over his cock, and that’s enough. Then he licks up his palm, right at the fingers he’d just had in you. You flush when you see it. “Don’t do that,” you say. “It’s embarrassing.”

“You weren’t so embarrassed when you were sucking me with that little mouth of yours,” Caleb says, tapping his fingers to your lips.

“It’s different,” you say.

“How?”

“It just is.”

“I get it,” Caleb says with a laugh. He taps the head of his cock against your mound, a strike that rings out through your body. You squirm, a sweet anticipation burning like smoke in your lungs in the sharp breath you take when Caleb nudges his cock against your entrance. This is it. Your gege, your Caleb, every one of your firsts. “It is different,” he whispers. “After all, it’s not the same kind of mouth, is it?”

And then he’s in you.

Only the slightest bit that he’s sunk in you, and already you know this won’t work. You can’t help but instinctually wiggle away from him to dodge the burn of being stretched so much past your limits, but Caleb’s already got his hands around your torso. He’s caught you, he’s speared you, and there’s no way he’s going to be letting you go now. Any attempt at escape is foiled by the iron-firm splay of his hands over your hips, and he doesn’t budge.

“Won’t work,” you insist.

“It will,” Caleb says. “You’re made for this—just like how I was made for you. It will work; we’re meant to be.” He fawns over you like you’re still so easily swayed by compliments, and maybe you are. But ah, this does feel strange. Your fingers, his fingers, they feel like nothing in comparison to his cock. There’s an unnatural heat to it when it tears its way through you, so different from just fingers.

“Feels—hah—weird!”

“I know,” Caleb murmurs, eyes dark as he feeds you his cock, inch by painful inch. “Because you’re so small.” The entry of him sears through you as you’re forced to accommodate his cock. It’s as though he’s clawing through your insides, scraping at your walls.

Tears spring to your eyes. It’s less out of pain and more out of frustration. That he can’t fit you perfectly like you’d expected, that you can’t take him as you should. “Hurts, ge.”

“It’ll get better,” Caleb says hoarsely. His own eyes are red, as though he’s also on the edge. He exhales as he sinks a little deeper into you. He kisses the corner of your eyes where tears threaten to fall. “Just bear with gege a little more, okay?”

Caleb rubs your clit, trying to ease you into relaxing more. Your head falls back; it feels even stranger to have your walls spasming against something so thick. You grab onto his back and dig your fingers into him. The claw of your nails down his skin, the slight wince of his face coupled with the kick of his cock inside you sends you reeling. Your world is spinning, and the only way to get it to return to normal is to hold on to Caleb and stab your stake into him. Permanently mark him. Share this pain with him, ease the burden. Eventually, the pain rescinds into a background buzz. You’re numb from head to toe, stomach feeling distended. You feel him when he bottoms out, because the tip of his cock knocks against your cervix in a dull thud that has you shaking.

“Caleb,” you slur. Your mouth feels stuffed with cotton. You’re swimming in it: the victory, the triumph, the finality. You’ve got him, and you’re going to keep him.

“I’m here. All in you,” Caleb says. His hand sprawls on top of your stomach, as though trying to measure where exactly the path of his destruction within you ends. The distance between his thumb and pinky could span your entire waist, you realize deliriously. “You’re taking me so well, pretty girl.”

You whine at the alien sensation of being filled so completely, of being taken apart so thoroughly. If he was any bigger, you would feel liable to bursting. When Caleb tries to pull out, you writhe like an unwound ribbon blown apart by the wind, trying to fit him back in you, fit him better inside. Some part of you trying to kick him out all the while, conflicting instincts insisting that this is a predator and you’re the prey that’s walked right into its jaws and laid pliant in its mouth.

“Be good,” he chides as he slams back into you. “Stay still.”

You split apart like a mountain struck by lightning, barely able to cry out. And then he’s really fucking into you. Slowly at first, to get you to adjust to him, but then a little deeper, a little rougher. Increments of progress in the speed, until you’re being bounced against him in an incessant rhythm. The silver of his necklace glints in the light, sent jingling with each measured motion.

“You sound like you’re drunk,” Caleb says. His voice is a low lull, a satisfied lilt. “Is it that overwhelming? Am I fucking my girl that good?”

You want to glare at him, you try being fucked by an impossibly large battering ram of a dick and remain sane, but can only let out a soft little moan as your bangs fall in front of your face. Caleb laughs as though he’d known what you were thinking. He brushes your hair back and kisses you full on the mouth, sweet.

Eventually, you regain enough feelings in your limbs to flail out. He’s setting a brutal pace, and you’re shaking from it. You groan as he hauls you up by the hips in order to fuck deeper into you; your nerves feel all scrubbed out by the oppressive pleasure.

“A-Ah—!” Your voice trembles. “J-Jerk! Bully!”

“Difficult as always,” Caleb says, and withdraws only to slam back into you. The punishingly quick pace has you panting for breath, tears welling up again. His hands are on your breasts, kneading and pinching. “Be good for me already.”

At some point, the pleasure spills over. You’re so overcome that your body automatically aims for escape. Your hands grip the carpet and shove yourself back from him, trying to back away from his dick. Your leg kick out toward his chest—but the invisible force of his Evol catches your leg and forces it still.

“You can’t run,” Caleb says, voice low. “Not today.”

He drags you right back to him, impales you on his cock again. You gasp. Body twisting, back rising off the ground like resurrection.

“It’s not that,” you say. How do you explain this? The conflict between wanting to run and wanting to stay. The fear of prey when meeting a predator’s gaze. The instinctual urge to flee. To kick, when a hunter strays near. “I’ve just—it’s not like I’ve done this—this is all so new, my body automatically acted that way—”

“It’s okay. There’s no need to explain,” Caleb breathes. “It’s not as if you can escape me anyway.”

Even without this, you don’t think you would want to escape. You’re past that.

Caleb raises one of your legs, splitting your thighs further apart. He rolls his hips, forces you to take him deeper than before, in you like a punch to the gut. The carpet burns behind your back, scratches at your tender skin.

“Too big, too fast,” you say. “Ge.”

Caleb pinches your cheek. “You ask for gege, but gege isn’t here right now. There’s only Caleb. And you know what the difference between Caleb and gege is? Gege will give into your every demand, because gege can never bear to see you cry—but Caleb isn’t the same. He’s too much of a bastard.”

Your voice warbles. “Caleb is an idiot.”

“Shhh,” Caleb says. “I know. But you’re doing so well. Look, can you feel me here?” He lays your hand over your stomach, rubbing the protrusion there. He really is being held inside you. “You just got tighter,” Caleb teases. “You like it, don’t you? Having to stretch to fit around me.”

You smack his chest. “Dummy.”

“Caleb is an idiot, Caleb is a dummy.” His voice is soft with affection. “Do you still want Caleb, even knowing that?”

“Of course,” you say. “I’m the only one who’s allowed to have him.”

“You are,” Caleb agrees.

And as if to prove it, he let you have it. Have him. The intensity of his movements turn ruthless. Not only does he occupy you so thoroughly, he’s determined to carve out a new space inside you just for him. He strikes at the deepest parts of you with heartless efficiency, making you flinch with the contact. But he refuses to stop even as you’re crying out for him, slower, faster, harder, softer, a babbling hurricane of contradictions falling from your mouth, because it feels like it’s too much, it’s not enough.

“Caleeeeb,” you sob.

“Hurry up,” Caleb commands. He works a mean hand over your clit, fucks you even meaner. The coupled stimulation crashes into you simultaneously, so good it almost hurts. “Do it for me.”

“You can’t just expect it to work like tha-a-at!”

“It does work like that,” Caleb says, “because you’re my good girl. So come already.”

And yet you can’t help but obey because as soon as he pinches your clit, just a bit cruel about it, it’s over for you. Your whole body convulses as your walls flutter around his cock.

“My Caleb,” you say like a mantra, eyes rolling back. “Mine, mine, mine.”

He drags out your orgasm, rubbing your clit and fucking into you and refusing to let up even when you’re clamping down so hard that he can barely move. Your eyes catch on the analogue clock hanging on the wall but your vision is so blurry from the tears, head spinning so much that you can’t even make out which hand is which, let alone the numbers they’re pointing to.

“I want to—I need to,” Caleb hisses. There’s an edge of pain to his words, as though he’s seeking permission to staunch a bleeding wound. He’s throbbing inside you like a countdown. He’s going to come, you realize. He’s going to come inside you.

“If you don’t want to ask,” you say, “then don’t. Take it, Caleb.”

And that ends it. It happens all at once. Caleb groans, a stuttered thrust inside as he comes. Pulses of heat spread inside you with his release. He chases after the residual pleasure with short, shallow rutting that soon slows to a still. Then he collapses over you, barely managing to catch himself with a hand to prevent himself from crashing into you.

You both lay on the floor, catching your breaths. Caleb pulls you close to him, touching the back of your neck as he runs his hand through the strands of your hair. He’s still in you, plugging you up with his softening cock. You take stock of him, the red of his face, the red of his knees. He’s going to be suffering from a nasty rug burn for the next few days. But he doesn’t seem to care, murmuring under his breath about how he’ll have to put some ointment on the back of your shoulders later because you’re slightly red there.

You glance at him, and he meets your eye. For a moment, the distance between you closes into an infinitesimally small quantity that can’t be defined with any instrument. Everything melds together until you’re questioning whether the boundary of your body is both of yours or yours alone. The same temperature, breaths, heartbeats; at what point does the self differentiate itself from the non-self?

You’re sure, then, that separation is impossible. Because how do you begin to untangle him from you? He’s the thought you always chase, the shadow you always follow, the gravity you always seek. If you were both celestial entities, you would be born from the same dying star.

You smooth your hand over his hair, then play with his necklace. It’s covered with sweat, damp to the touch. You smooth a thumb over the engraving on the dog tag, When U come back. You let it go, watching it hit Caleb’s chest. You trace a careful line from Caleb’s collarbone to his heart, then get distracted by the perkiness of his nipples. Too bad you hadn’t noticed while he’d been fucking you; they would have been great points to latch onto with your mouth. You play with them absentmindedly now, rubbing them, pinching them.

Caleb bats your hands away. “Don’t,” he croaks.

“Or what?” you say. “You’ll punish me?”

“No,” he says. “Because it’s tempting.”

“That’s not my problem,” you say smugly. “That’s yours, Caleb. Maybe you should learn how to hold back more.”

Suddenly, Caleb withdraws from your walls. The slide of him out makes you wince, too sensitive to be able to stand any sort of stimulation. Before you can protest, Caleb slides his hand right under your back and hoists you up by your bottom until your cunt’s to his mouth. He takes in the view, eyes half-lidded as your hole clenches and oozes out a white fluid.

“Wha—again?” you sputter.

“You’re mouthing off too much. Clearly you still have too much energy,” he says, and then he’s licking you there again, tasting the mixture of both your and his release.

You scowl. “What kind of punishment is this?”

“A clean-up operation.” The last time you’d had to suffer through a clean-up operation, Caleb had trapped you in his house for three days. You have a healthy fear of them, but Caleb doesn’t seem ruffled. Instead, his tongue carves into you as he tries to scrape every piece of him out of you, cleaning you up but also torturing you.

You’ve just come off one high, and now you’re being thrust right into another one. It’s too much. The overstimulation edges you with a numbing, sweet pain. The lower half of your body is tipped in the air and only supported by one of his hands, but he acts as though the weight of you is inconsequential to him. Your legs flail in the air; Caleb grabs onto one of them to make sure he can keep you split apart. You cry, “Hey, hey, hey—!”

“Don’t ask me to stop. I won’t,” Caleb says. The words sound punched out of him. “I can’t.”

He shoves two fingers inside you. You’re so slick from your previous orgasm that it doesn’t even register that he’s got not one, but two fingers inside, until he’s sunken halfway into you. He plays you like a well-loved model, disassembling you easily. When his fingers curl up, they strike at something deep inside. It rings out in exquisite pain, urging at a release foreign to you.

“Caleb,” you say. “Feels weird. Can’t—” You whimper as he twists his fingers, rubbing at your walls. There’s a strange insistence right below your stomach. “—can’t hold it in!”

“That’s the idea,” Caleb murmurs. “I don’t want you to hold it in.”

You’re sobbing now, tears leaking out the corner of your eyes. You try to grip onto something, but it’s only the rough scratch of the carpet that meets your desperate hands. Caleb’s still got you half in the air, holding you up and licking at you like a dog. “It’s too much,” you wail, “gonna get the floor dirty if you keep going like this.”

“One thing about OTTO vacuums,” Caleb says, his voice rich with amusement, taking what seems like a special sadistic pleasure in your anxious plea. “They’re really effective at deep cleaning carpets.”

“Doesn’t mean I wanna test it out,” you whimper. “Are you listening to me, Caleb—!”

Too late. Caleb seals his mouth over your poor, abused clit and sucks it softly between his teeth. You come with a squeal, a dam bursting, a tidal wave pouring out of you. Streams of the fluid gush out and runs down Caleb’s hand. It drips and pools on the floor, soaking everything. Even your poor socks aren’t spared, as spectacular as the splash radius was.

“Just like that,” Caleb says as he lays your legs down gently, nudging you slightly so that you’re away from the spreading wet spot on the carpet. “Good girl. You listened so well.”

His lips are shining with wetness. Shame burns through you.

“Caleb! Look what you made me do,” you say in a panicked wail, hitting him.

“But I liked it,” he says.

“Hmph!” You push yourself up and scoot away from him, trying your best to get away from the mess. You hold your legs in your arms, sitting on the floor with your dress undone but still around your torso. You can’t bear to look at him, nor acknowledge how you’re likely still leaking onto the floor with leftover droplets sliding down your slit. “It’s all dirty now.”

“That’s okay.”

You sniffle, aggrieved by his nonchalance. “Caleb’s such a hateful guy.”

“Okay, okay, it’s all Caleb’s fault,” Caleb coaxes. He crawls next to you and wipes the drying tear streaks off your face—with a dry hand, thankfully. “Come here, let me clean you up.”

You hold out your arms. “Fine,” you say, “but you have to carry me.”

“Done,” Caleb agrees. He carries you to the bathroom and runs the water for you, wiping your body with a tenderness so familiar it almost makes you forgive him. Almost.

(If anything else happens between you two during bath time—well. At least it’s easy enough to clean off, given the location. Though you really, really wish that he hadn’t learned how to make you come so violently like that, because he seems to be obsessed with wringing it out of you again. And again. And again.)

: : :

Wrapped up in a fluffy towel and clean pajamas, you look out the window to watch the sunrise. At this point, there was no point in sleeping. You’ll nap later if needed, but right now, the sunrise is too beautiful to miss.

The window has misted over in the morning with dew. You trace over the condensate that’s lining the glass. Random images form out of water drops. Caleb’s name. The sun. A childhood drawing of a brother holding an umbrella out for his sister. Caleb pulls you closer to him, slinging an arm over your shoulder and nuzzling your cheek. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Better than okay.”

“I know I was a little…”

“Little,” you scoff. “Definitely not little.”

Caleb chuckles. “Don’t worry,” he says, eyes gleaming. "It won’t hurt so much if we do it every day.”

You gape. A repeat of that cruel, ruthless performance every day? That might kill you faster than any venom can. You would become desiccated quicker than any flower in the desert.

“Every three days,” you say quickly. “That’s the best offer I can make.”

“Are we bargaining for when we have sex now?”

“Every four days.”

He taps your nose. “Silly. I was joking about it being every day.”

You’re only half sure he’s telling the truth. “Every four days,” you say.

Caleb quirks his lips. “All right,” he says easily. “But you better block off that entire day.”

You punch his shoulder. “Stupid.”

“The stupidest.”

In all seriousness, every part of you may be sore, but it is pleasantly so. And in your birthday celebrations, the cupcake wrapper sits by Caleb’s side, empty of the cupcake it once housed. You had coaxed him into splitting the cupcake with you, even though he’d insisted on giving it all to you. What’s the point if I eat the cake you wished on? you pointed out. Share it with me. That way, your wish will reach me too.

Caleb’s wishes are so simple, you think, yet so difficult.

I wish we’ll always fly under the same sky and be in each other’s lives. And I’ll wish that every year, I’ll follow these coordinates on this day as I venture through the darkness. All because they’ll lead me back to you.

Simple to hope, yet difficult to achieve. All because of that word ‘always’.

You stare at the glass window, and what looks back is the reflection of the two of you, side-by-side. You are looking ahead, and Caleb is looking at you. The reflection proves true, because when you turn your head, your eyes meet his. He smiles at you. “What is it?” he asks. Already knows you have something to say.

You lean on his shoulder, worrying the inside of your mouth. With the sting of the sun becoming stronger, Caleb puts a hand over your forehead to shield the light from your eyes, and you’re struck by that same sense of awe that had overtaken you when he took you to watch the planes.

“Sometimes,” you confess, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all this.”

“All this what?”

“What I feel when I’m with you. All this,” you say, spreading your arms out, “it weighs so heavy, Caleb.”

And maybe it’s love. Maybe it’s less than that, more than that. Either way, you find yourself ensnared.

Caleb touches your hand. He curls your fingers into a fist and holds onto it. “I’ve lived with it all my life,” he says. “I know.”

When someone becomes irreplaceable, how does one come to that realization? Do you wake up knowing, or do you stumble into it? Or do you look at that person under the glow of the sun’s resurrection and think to yourself, so this is how it is. Look into those sunrise eyes, and realize: I want you. I need you. I am half a person without you.

“Caleb.”

“Hm?”

You say his name, because you can. Because you know he will answer.

“You’re my sun,” you say, “but you’re so much more than that. I hope you realize it in the future, even if you don’t understand it now.”

Caleb smiles wryly. “Since when did you turn into such a grown-up?”

“Since my gege left me,” you say. “Since he returned as Caleb.” Caleb doesn’t flinch, but he does stiffen. You press a kiss to his cheek, and he softens. The power you have over him, the power he has over you. Bloodless wounds healed by a single touch, a single glance, a single kiss. “But I forgive you, Caleb. You know I always will.”

“Careful,” he says. “You’ve given me your weakness.”

“And you’ll guard it with care,” you say.

“Of course. You’re safe with me.”

You look out to the sunrise. The city is yawning awake, and you are too. Every second closer to daybreak is a step closer to Caleb.

“You’ve inspired me,” you say, “I already know what I want to wish for when my birthday comes around.”

“And that is…?

You gesture for him to lean closer. Caleb obliges with an easy smile, lowering his head so you can whisper into his ear. You murmur, “For Caleb’s birthday wishes to always come true.”