dawnbreakerswife

[dawnbreakerswife]

terrible thing

subject: caleb x reader

cw. yandere! caleb, obsessive behaviors, toxicity, unhealthy relationships, childhood bestfriend! caleb, unrequited love, jealous is an understatement, scoundrel caleb, manipulation

an. THIS IS FOR THE NONNIE THAT ASKED FOR THIS!!! im sooo sorry it took so long but i super hope u enjoy <3 i liked ur idea and made a lil fic based around it <3 by lil i mean almost 6k words :3 also listen to ‘terrible thing’ by ag because that song is LITERALLY CALEB.

Some things are better left unsaid.

And whenever Caleb is involved in the conversation? Your new boyfriend is definitely one of them.

You feel a little guilty for it, you know. For not telling him. I mean, you’d only spent the better chunk of your childhood running towards his room for safety during thunderstorms, using his arms as your own personal refuge whenever lightning flashed behind the windows and thunder boomed. You still have the ledger you’d written in your youth against him, stowed in a box in your closet, to record his slightest transgressions. It collects dusts like all the countless summers you’d leisured away with him as little children.

He’s your best friend, always has been; entering your twenties does not change that- or the thick tether connecting you from humble Linkon to his expensive suite in Skyhaven.

It’s just…

You know Caleb. Of course you know Caleb- your shared history a direct proof of that. Calling him protective would be the understatment of the year and you’re sure as soon as a significant other is introduced into the foundation of your life, he’d do all he could to uproot him from it. Not out of malice, no, his habits (resting an arm over your shoulder, hovering and glaring at men- or people in general- who stare at you for so much as a second longer than necessary, dismissing the idea of romance completely when you innocently bring it up, in awe at the prospect of finding your own disney prince to whisk you off your feet) come from a good place.

But for as caring and considerate your bestfriend- the veritable staple to your adolescence- has been, that ‘good place’ is one you want to leave. Gently extricate yourself from. It’s high time you grow up and see the world for what it really has to offer outside of your Gran’s cozy suburban home, from the crook of Caleb’s elbow, comforting as it is.

And your new boyfriend? Yeah... It’s better not to tell Caleb about him. At least not until later.

You convince yourself it’s better that way, that you’re making the wiser choice, because c’mon- Your friend is just terribly busy what with his rank as colonel at the DAA, his missions that leave him tired and pressed for free time in his day-to-day hustle. It’s impressive how he still manages to find the time to call you with the scant windows of opportunity his schedule allows, barraging you with thoughtful messages and cute pics he takes of miscellaneous items because they, quote-on-quote, ‘reminded him of you.’

Caleb would blow his fuse. Oh, undoubtedly.

And you worry for him sometimes, you know? This decision is in your boyfriend’s better interest- one hundred percent- but it’s in Caleb’s as well. You don’t want him slipping on the job because his mind’s a mess and his bestfriend from childhood- the one he has an inexplicable, self-bestowed duty to protect- has put his heart into overdrive.

You’d just worry him to death. Mistakes, no matter how seemingly minor, are fatal within aircraft apparatus. He can’t afford to make them, and you don’t know what you’d do with yourself if something were to happen to him. It’d be devastating.

For so many reasons— informing your bestfriend of your new suitor is just an awful, harebrained, bad fucking idea.

That’s… for another time. But not now, not when you’re so in love it feels like you’re walking on a cloud with him, his larger hand in yours like an anchoring weight between chaotic hunter trips and scares- a very welcome consolation that calms your heart and makes you feel like a princess- the one you’d always secretly wished to embody as a little girl.

You’re… older now. Grown. Caleb can’t scare them all away, right…? Especially not if he’s unaware of them.

This fairy tale- perfect, gentle, sweet- is one you want to indulge in for a little bit longer.

So yes. Whenever Caleb visits again, eagerly inviting himself into your quaint apartment with a bag of your favorite snacks in tow as conferral, your boyfriend will not be mentioned.

✿✿✿

When he comes in, he brushes past you- wafting up cold air and the citrusy notes of his faded cologne- and ruffles your hair with a chuckle.

The stirrings of unease take root in you as you toss a laugh back and trail him into the kitchen like a lost puppy: not just because you haven’t kept a secret from him in ages- a miserably failed attempt, might you add- but mainly for the reason that your phone is buzzing in your pocket and you have no choice but to ignore it because the caller is the one individual you have vowed to hide.

Mere seconds before Caleb turns to face you, setting his haul on the counter, you fish your phone from your jeans and power it off, wincing at the apology you’ll have to give your boyfriend later when he inevitably asks what became of his unanswered call. It’s- It’s fine, though. He’ll understand once you tell him, albeit, the same cannot be said for Caleb.

The brunet idles between your cabinets and fridge, scrutinizing your stock, and speaks behind his shoulder, nodding you over. “C’mon, pipsqueak. What’re you waitin’ out there for? Need your help puttin’ away all the groceries. What do you say, will you lend me a hand?”

Walking in, you quickly get to work, humming nonchalantly. “Ah, I suppose I can.” You rotate the items of his purchase in hand and smile appreciatively, tucking them away neatly- all the while, your eyes dart to his profile as he rearranges the contents of your refridgerator without prompting. He throws you a glance in between though, violet eyes soft with mirth, his lips drawn in an easy smile, to thank you. “What would I do without you?” He teases.

“Oh, I don’t know,” you repress a grin, shrugging with nonchalance as you squeeze between his broad shoulder to slip a carton of apple juice in the fridge, “But I will say I’m thankful for the loot. This is enough to feed a family of five.”

“And you for a week,” he comments lightly with an innocuous pinch to your cheek on your exit, “which is all that matters.” You grimace and swat his hand away- long fingers, ever tactile, dropping to instead poke at your side- rubbing your face dramatically, and Caleb chuckles. Genuine and warm.

“Guess you can’t live without me either.”

He says, awfully pleased with the fact, and then you watch from your periphery, still pouting for the theatric value, as his face turns into a severe blur, his hand casting out to latch around your wrist.

Unthinking, you pause. With a hard blink, you feel yourself get spun around and then he’s right there, in your face, dwarfing you completely as he brings your little hand to his side and peers down at you, thick brows furrowed steadily.

“What?” You go.

Almost hesitantly- like he’s fearing the worst- he leans forward, dips his chin down, the tip of his nose grazing your shoulder in a way that has you bracing for impact, or something else- and breathes the scent of you in.

Floral, soft, tinged with your lavender detergent. Pleasant on the senses; Caleb’s never outright admitted that your smell is like a balm to his nervous system, mild and soothing, but he can make that confession in his heart when it takes all of five seconds to pin the anomaly marring it.

It’s faint, but there. Another man’s cologne— a little minty, a little earthy, about as aromatic as a wet dog let in from the rain as Caleb snuffles at your neck and scowls.

“Who is that?” He asks. More of a demand, really- his long, slim digits giving yours an unwitting but growingly hard squeeze in his. You immediately blanche, and you inwardly pray he can’t see the bob of your throat as you swallow or hear the heavy thumps of your heart in your chest as his invasive words- and touch- spurs it into unease.

You try to steel yourself. “W-What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” he chastises without so much as a doubt of your apparent wrong. Despite his icy, intense stare, his touch betrays it, his grip firm but his thumb rubbing gentle, fast circles over the back of your hand as he keeps it in his. “I can smell somethin’ on you. Someone. You… Pipsqueak, you haven’t been gettin’ up to no good while I was at the DAA, have you?”

It’s rare to hear his voice lower like it is now, friendly, playful charm replaced by an almost cold, foreign edge as his eyes- no longer so warm- narrow into an accusing glare. They flit across the bridge of your nose down to your parted lips, and then to the wings of your collarbone as his lashes slowly flutter.

Contemplative. You almost wonder what it is he’s thinking before you bar yourself off from that curiosity, reasonable as it is. You’ve seen, from your younger years, just how far he’ll go to protect you- whether that be from punks down the street or guys at school who shove love letters in your locker on Valentine’s day- and you’re not so sure you want to re-experience the vivid footage of that which is very likely replaying through his head right now.

You get it, okay, you do. You grew up together and as your bestfriend- really, your singular stronghold- he’ll do his very best to shield you from the world and all the creeping men in it. But your boyfriend does not fall under that same umbrella. Your boyfriend genuinely cares for you and wants the best for you, but you doubt Caleb will take any of his real affection into consideration.

It’s why you plant ten toes into the ground and look him dead in the eye when you say,

“No. ‘Course not,” and you give a short giggle for good measure, gently weaseling your hand free from his own (albeit, it takes a considerable amount of effort, his grasp not quite willing to part with you). “C’mon, you know I work with all sorts of people at the Hunter’s Administration. And I didn’t shower yet. What, do I smell bad?”

“No,” he ripostes, still louring into your eyes like they’re a gateway to the most abstruse corners of your soul, waiting for them to offer up your secrets. “You could never smell bad,” he clarifies, “but the same can’t be said for whatever’s on you right now.”

“I see and interact with tons of people each day, Caleb. It’s nothing, really.” A gentle but firm, if not marginally amused reminder from your end- although your stomach is absolutely churning under his scrutiny which only seems to deepen and not let up.

He looks uncertain with himself, his own mini emotional outburst, as his jaw opens and closes. His indigo gaze, still smouldering but somewhat assuaged, flits across your clavicle before he looks up and slowly says,

“You’re not… keeping things from me, are you? If someone started seeing you, you’d tell me, rrright?”

“‘Course,” you snicker after a beat, and at the small lump of bitterness in you, you can’t help but tack on- “Not that you’d let anyone see me, anyway...”

Missing its sardonic edge, Caleb heaves a small laugh at your not-joke and gives a half nod. “Yeah,” he agrees without an iota of shame, “but it’s for your own good.” Reluctantly, he releases your hand and lets you apply a number of steps between you, still eyeing you as you resolutely continue unpacking his groceries. “‘Member what I told you, back when we were kids? Guys only ever want one thing from girls, and I don’t wanna see some peabrained jerk break your heart, Pipsqueak. He wouldn’t deserve you anyway.”

“I think,” He starts, laughing to himself, but now it’s your turn to miss the punchline, “I think I’d actually see red.”

Before you can so much as formulate a response in your head, your friend takes it upon himself to stop your busying hands and say in a gentle voice, “Hey, I got the groceries, okay? Why don’t you… go get cleaned up? So you’ll be all nice and comfy durin’ the movie.” Caleb flashes you a winning smile as a bonus, peering into you with less agitation than before and more calculated softness. You can tell, for both of your sakes, he’s still trying to calm himself from that little boyfriend scare.

As another incentive- perhaps the most tempting- he adds, “I’ll even make the popcorn while you’re in there!”

You don’t acknowledge the cause behind his words- what really pushed him to voice that suggestion- and instead nod diplomatically.

“Alright, if ya say so,” you murmur easily. “But you’d better put lots of butter on it.”

“Oh, you be careful what you wish for, Pipsqueak. Especially when you’ll end up throwin’ it all on the floor at the slightest jumpscare,” he teases. “I’ll be scrubbing the carpet for hours.”

With a pout, you give him a playful shove and dismiss him completely, not bothering to reply to that. You abandon your post behind the pantry with barely-concealed relief and sigh once you reach the bathroom, locking the door and typing out a quick text to your boyfriend as a temporary olive branch. You don’t want him to be mad. In any case, you don’t think he will be, considering he’s far more understanding than Caleb in some regards- but if you want to maintain good terms in this blossoming relationship, it’ll have to be far from your friend’s controlling- but well meaning- hand.

Caleb’s… just making a big deal out of this. Per usual.

If anything, despite the niggling sense of guilt that makes you feel awful to even look him in the eye, you just feel even more compelled to keep this from him.

He really might blow his fuse, otherwise.

When you exit the bathroom with a towel around your shoulders, Caleb pushes a bowl of popcorn into your hands like he’s trying to placate you.

He smiles, giving you a once-over. “See? Nice n’ clean.”

You’re not entirely sure what the point made is, but you deign a nod anyway, gleefully accepting the bowl.

Extra butter, just as he promised.

✿✿✿

You’ve loved Linkon for as long as you can remember.

It’s held you, welcomed you in when you were just a tatterdamelion girl fresh from a facility that you don’t really remember, but still carry somewhere deep within you all the same. This city supplied you with a roof over your head, a loving grandmother, and an opportunity to lead a normal life— it’d be more difficult to not fall in love with it.

You think Caleb’s presence, warm and comforting, has a lot to do with your pleasant feelings surrounding it. He was both your bestfriend all throughout childhood and your safeguard; wherever you went, he happily trailed, and with the two of you- and Gran- things were simple and tranquil.

This is your hometown.

You’d thought you’d experienced most if not all of what it had to offer, fondly memorized each route and cornerstore- but over a candlelit dinner at a restaurant you’ve never been, your boyfriend smiles as the waitress brings out your entrées.

Hestiantly awaiting him to dig in first, your fork hovers uncertainly over a dish you’ve never seen before- but it makes your mouth water all the same. With a warm chuckle, he instructs you to eat and you do, gushing at least a million times about how good it tastes.

Between bites, you carry on easy conversation (mostly your rambling- about hunter work and then that cute cat you saw the other day- and his happily lending an ear) and your date is moving splendidly. Midway through your meal, the table falls silent for a moment while you take an indulgent sip from your fruity, non-alcoholic drink, and your boyfriend perks up as if remembering something.

“Ah,” he says, setting his own glass down with the hint of a cheeky grin, “You know, I have something to tell you.”

You lift an eyebrow, recuperating from your long chatter which, you realize with a dollop of bashfulness, was one-sided. You were just so excited to speak with him- and can you really be blamed? He’s perfect, sweet, understanding… He doesn’t get mad at you for not allocating your whole time to him, your schedule hardly allowing for it- although you’d be happy if it did- and he doesn’t drop so much as one cautionary piece of advice at the somewhat short dress you’re wearing tonight- just for him. His opening word was a warm compliment of ‘you’re stunning’ paired with a quick embrace, and you felt like he really meant it.

Honest to God you think you love him.

“Y-Yeah?” You smile tentatively, nudging him to continue. You’re not quite sure what he has to say, but you want to listen. “What is it?”

He takes a beat to laugh softly. You wrinkle your forehead and laugh back, curtly reaching over the table to give his hand a little squeeze. “What is it?” You press with amusement, his eyes glittering under the dim, lemony light the fixture overhead casts.

“Nothing to worry about, just-“ His grin only intensifies as he begins to elaborate, but yours slowly fizzles out, your lashes fluttering thoughtfully, “I think you’ve got a secret admirer or something, babe. The other day, someone hit me up with a text to piss off. And I was confused at first, you know-?”

The pleasant sound of his unaffected chuckle does little to soothe your nerves as they build in your gut, the gears in your head turning for an answer- some explanation for the inexplicable dread clutching your chest. “Like, who is this asshole? But then I remembered that blond guy from your work and-“

No. No.

You startle without thinking, darting forward to offer out a trembling hand, “Hey- can I see that text?” With perfect, singleminded focus, you watch his face of humor warp into one of slight unease, but he gives a belated shrug and fishes it from his pocket. “Uh, sure. Here you go, babe-“

Slumping back down into your booth, you dial out his password and scroll through his contact list with your lower lip caught in your teeth. You don’t want to believe the worst- God forbid this awful suspicion end up being true- but there’s a little niggling doubt in the back of your head that speaks with strange clarity and you can’t will yourself to ignore it, not after that interaction you’d had with your friend last week.

Your thumb stops in its tracks to hover over a singular, unlabeled profile picture. With a thick swallow, mucus feeling thick as mollasses in your throat, you tap on the message and it fills his phone screen.

Hey guy, look, i’m sure you’re a cool dude and all but stay away from y/n. I won’t tell you again :)

A quavering breath filters in through your glossed lips.

Surely not.

A- A prank. It must be a prank on his end, right?

But you know Caleb. You know him from anywhere, you know him like a fucking mirror- or a platonic soulmate, you’re so close. He’s been your bestfriend all throughout childhood and you’d be damned if you couldn’t recognize him in text, even over a small number of words on someone else’s phone screen.

The world sears around you, darkening in your periphery. Your surroundings- blurred with the coming of a very angered, indignant emotion- and the concerned visage of your boyfriend- wither away like ash.

All you can see is how small- how helpless- Caleb has made you feel, the color red, terrible and pigmented, stinging your sclera.

W- Why can’t he just fucking see that you’re fine-? You don’t need him to protect you, and—

The better part of your rationale fades, tears wetting your eyes and the mascara that’d clumped on your lashes, balling your fingers with an iron grip in fear of your carefully-applied makeup waterfalling all over your cheeks. Dammit! You’re so upset right now you can’t even think.

The chair screeches from under you, alerting the fellow restaurant-goers who perk upright around you, but you can’t find it in you to care about them- or your sweet, gawking boyfriend as you throw him a feeble, too-tight smile and march for the nearest exit.

“Uh- b-babe-? Wait-“

It’s long overdue that you grow up, yes, but you realize this- the little stunts pulled to keep you in the house, more notably the attic, as a teen, and now the blatant threats made to your present partner through ominous texts- is childish, and Caleb is pushing the envelope, too.

You’re starting to fucking wonder if he even wants to grow up, or keep you and him trapped in his fantastical, little imaginary world forever.

✿✿✿

To your singular surprise, he’s already there when you arrive, emerging from the living room of your apartment with the ease of someone who owns the place.

He doesn’t own the place. You worked taxing hours, both physical and otherwise, at your job and counted up the pennies to afford the rent here- your flat falls under your name and it’s yours. Not his. Not everything is Caleb’s- not everything can he just assert his hands all over and take.

This is your life! What you’re trying to make of it!

You’re so angry you can hardly look at him without glaring daggers, crossing your arms across your chest just to keep them from shaking at your sides as you halt by the threshold and find your bearings.

“Caleb,” you grit out. He’s stupidly self-assured as he folds his own arms and props himself against the wall, dipping his chin slightly to appraise you. A low-cut, silky dress that leaves little to the imagination, lipstick that makes your lips almost glitter and mascara that threatens to run— you wonder just what that squint in his eye means as he takes it all in.

When he lets out a breathless, angered sort of scoff, you think you’ve grasped the fundamentals of it. He doesn’t like it. And of course he doesn’t, right-? Because you look grown up, like a confident, take-no-bullshit woman- a country mile from the little fumbling girl he grew up with and constantly had to monitor.

You haven’t seen him in a week, and even now you realize this unannounced visit is earlier than his general schedule, but a lot has changed in that short amount of time.

“Hm. What’s got you so worked up, Pipsqueak?”

Infuriating.

“You-!” You unclench your jaw just enough to speak. “You know what you did!”

“Sorry. I’m gonna need you to be a lil more specific,” he teases with a hint of a cruel smile, “Help me understand what you’re sayin’ here.”

You’re almost impressed with how steady the words come out; you’re half expecting to break down in furious sobs right then and there, but you more or less manage to save face. “You’re threatening my boyfriend now?”

There’s nothing to be leisured on here- so you’ll just cut to the point because the quicker he understands the line you’re drawing, the sooner he’ll leave and you can be done with this. Your lovely date has been ruined for the night, you’re all kinds of humiliated and you’ll have a whole plethora of apologetic texts to type out for your boyfriend�� who you’ve inwardly decided will have to become privy to the little dilemma with your overprotective friend. You wanted to keep it off the books, but Caleb has made that all but impossible.

A little muscle in his face twitches. Some of the mirth, contrived as it was, fading at your accosting. “And you’re keeping things from me now?” He accuses back.

He hardly gave you any other choice, did he? Caleb’s no different than a guard dog wherever you’re involved, and your poor boyfriend wouldn’t stand much of a chance if your closest friend thought you to be in some kind of danger and blindly rushed in. But he’s— that’s just where Caleb doesn’t understand, does he? That you’re fine on your own, truly, that you’re safe and you feel loved in his arms. It’s so so maddening but you try your damnedest to hold onto the trace of dignity you still have left after the last hour.

“I’m allowed to fall in love, you know! Go out and- and start a life separate from you and our childhood!”

A sharp intake of air on his end. The arms folded over his chest stiffen, fingertips bluntly digging into the crooks of his elbows.

“And what about me?” He asks slowly. “You think I’ll just… be content to be left in your dust while you go and- and give yourself up to the first guy who looks at you?”

A wounded sound disguised as a laugh escapes your lips. “Oh, is that what you think of me? Think I’m just some insecure little school girl who’s got a crush and doesn’t know how to act?”

With a coolness that masks the true turmoil inside him, Caleb pushes himself off the wall and approaches you. Whether it’s the stirrings of fear that keep you grounded in place- the unexpected but startling realization that right now, you feel afraid of him- or the determination steeling your nerves, you don’t know, but you hold your ground even when he’s no more than a foot away.

“Honestly?” He starts, “you’re lookin’ the part right now, Pipsqueak.”

Tears well up in the corners of your eyes. Your fingers mirror the brunet’s, curling up together and stabbing the fleshy plane of your palm. You refuse to cry in front of him. It’s different from when you were kids, like if you were to burst into tears now, he’d use it as more of an example as to why you’re not steady on your own; the warm memories of being tucked in his embrace seem sugar-coated now, like you were missing the bigger picture all along.

Perhaps it was naivety- wishful thinking- believing that the spot under his arm or at his breast was the safest in the world.

This Caleb is one you don’t even recognize, let alone want to cuddle up to.

Your nostrils flare, your tone beaten, small, but it reaches its mark. “I’m trying, okay? I’m trying my best to get out of your shadow.”

Seemingly, he ignores you, simply saying, “You can do… so much better than him.

“Hah, oh really? And what’s better, Caleb? Since you’re soooo enlightened,” you throw back, bravely (or stupidly) stepping closer to sneer in his face until yours is just meager inches from his. He makes no move to reapply that distance, small as it was, indigo eyes regarding you with a slight narrow as he looks down his nose at you and frowns.

You don’t care if you’re being reckless. You deserve an answer after all his awful antics. Maybe you’ve been going around his back with your boyfriend, but it’s not like he was owed that knowledge to begin with, and he’s done you an even greater disservice by running behind yours to tamper with your relationships.

You press, “What’s better, Caleb! TELL ME!”

“Me,” Caleb murmurs, but you take it clear as a bell. You slacken, anger loosening from the tight lines in your visage, but you watch- unseeingly- as a mite of joy blinks across his face. Light as quicksilver. “Caleb is better.”

Without a word, you push past him, leaving him alone in your apartment. It’d be a losing battle to kick him out your door, and you were tired of fighting.

Tired of him, really.

✿✿✿

You don’t know how fast you’re going, or for how far you drive. Just that it’s barely below the speed limit, you guess, and it’s within Linkon’s outskirts. It’s a handful of hours that pass when you realize you’re going in circles. You’re not so sure where to land.

It’s after dark when you swerve your car into some empty parking lot- a park, you think- and get out to sit yourself on a wooden bench. It’s a starry night, a beautiful clear sky overhead- but you can’t find it in you to admire the view as frustration and sorrow, the feelings you’d been burying all throughout the seemingly endless drive, bubble to the surface.

You hang your head between your hands and cry.

Something is wrong with Caleb. He’s like a dog with a bone; you’re more than horrified to realize that in the grand scheme of things, you are the chewtoy. He’ll nip at the hands that get too close, your boyfriend’s most of all.

If tonight taught you one thing, it’s that he cant be reasoned with. Fine. You don’t need him anyway. If he’s just gonna see you as some pitiful little object he can put a leash on at his own whims, then you don’t think you want to be friends anymore- the decade of knowing him, relying on him, be damned.

(But you suppose he doesn’t want to be ‘friends’ either, huh?)

When he’d said he wanted to be a pilot, you didn’t stop him. No, you clapped him on the back and pulled him into a hug and told him you’d support him every step of the way, that you were proud.

Evidently, he doesn’t give a shit about you or how you feel or what you want— he’s bigheaded and selfish. Does he seriously think he can just say what he said tonight without any consequence?

Me. Caleb is better.

You scoff, fingernails denting your palm as you clench your fists. It’s all you can do to stop them from shaking or punching the air.

For a moment you almost contemplate picking yourself up, giving your partner a ring or climbing back into your vehicle to steer it towards home… B-But you don’t think you want to go back, not when it means facing him, not right now—

Between the gap of your wrists as you cradle your temples, headlights pour over the concrete below. The rumbling hum of an engine gets louder and then tires crunch over pebbled road as a car pulls in. Your shoulders stiffen. You risk a wary glance up and feel a mixture of relief and confusion when you clock it as your boyfriend’s.

…What? What’s he doing here?

You prepare to stand, but a figure throws a long leg out of the front and the silhouette that appears, tall and broad, approaching with measured ease, makes you freeze.

His face shines under a singular lamp post and you’re embittered all over again at the sight of Caleb.

Wiping your tears away before he can fully see them, you practically leap off the bench when he’s still a couple yards from reaching you, but your heart lurches to your throat when something- an invisible force- throws you back onto the seat.

“Sit,” his voice, leaving little room for negotiation, rings.

Gobsmacked, you jerk your head up. He’s a few feet away now, swiftly trimming that space until he’s stood right before you and slipping his hand under your chin to hold your gaze, wide with shock, on him.

“It’s late. You shouldn’t be out here.”

Your dreadful expression hardens into one of calm anger. “What, am I your prisoner now? You’re really gonna- fucking hold me hostage on this stupid bench?” You sniffle.

For a certain window of time, the familiar car behind him slotted by yours is completely forgotten, your attention wholly fixed on the man (your should-be bestfriend) towering over you.

Dimly lit, you watch as his eyes narrow, sweeping over you with thought- albeit, just what exactly is running through his mind, you don’t know if you want to find out. Right now, though, you think you hate him, and you have waning faith that he’ll choose the right option here- that is, to piss off to wherever he came from and get his nose out of your relationships.

“…Did you hear anything I said?” He asks pointedly.

The sharpness of it silences you, your jaw fluttering shut above his palm, his touch betraying a gentleness that flummoxes you. He shifts it to thumb away at your silvery tears.

You struggle for an answer, for an appropriate way to even respond to all this. “Caleb-“

“Do you even realize what you do to me?” He lets out a little laugh, then, but the hurt is clear as day on the half of his face that the dim, lemony light glows on. He shakes his head, “After what I said, you just… left? You’ve become quite the heartbreaker, huh, Pipsqueak?”

His eyes glitter. You get the vague feeling that there’s something you’re not grasping here, like another nonsensical joke you don’t understand yet as a tinge of amusement pinches his lips.

“Hm.”

Finally, you break from his inscrutable gaze and heave a sigh. “Caleb, look, I-I just want to forget tonight and—“

“I’m gonna say a few things,” he cooly interupts. You gawk. “Caleb-“

“-And you’re gonna listen.”

You’re stunned into a clumsy sort of quietude, mouth quavering shut as you spare a frenetic glance down to your wrists, bound by invisible restraits to your side, straight as a ramrod. You can’t move them. Every second spent is tense, and wraught with the anticipation that he’ll shortly let go and tell you this is some prank- definitely his sickest yet- but you’re sorely mistaken.

“I love you, Y/n,” he starts, with an expression so sober that it steals the breath from your lungs, dark violet eyes rippling with intensity. The swing set somewhere behind you offers a groan as a breeze whisks its chains aside. Your heart thuds loudly in your chest; perhaps the one thing he can’t paralyze into silence.

Time drags to a screeching stop at his words- not because you’ve never heard them before: years ago, during stormful, scary nights you’d cling onto him and press your ear to his chest, the steady thrum of his heart and those three words lulling you into peaceful sleep- but because you’ve never heard them in that way.

Not even from your boyfriend.

A second passes and you’re… frightened. Unmistakably, horribly frightened.

You get the feeling he’s wounded, however, face warping with some deepseated, double-edged conviction, as he stares.

He lifts a hand, his free one, and splays it over his broad chest, bunching the fabric of his shirt as his brow furrows, “I love you so fucking much it actually hurts sometimes. And it was… fine, for a while, pretending all I felt for you was friendly. But—“ and this is when his face, and the kicked puppy sort of look, darkens, his nostrils flaring as he drops his hand to his side.

“But then you started running from me,”

“I- I never tried to run, Caleb-!?”

Smoothly, he continues. “Decided I wasn’t good enough for you. But haven’t I always protected you? When it was thundering, when the neighborhood bullies came knocking on the door- I was there to hold you. To fight off your bad dreams,” He breaks off with a breathy laugh that sends a cold chill down your spine. Franky, no amount of humor, no matter how small, feels appropriate right now. “Remember? Even when Gran said to eat your veggies, it was me who cleaned your plate for you. It was always me, Pipsqueak.”

You blink. But every time you open your eyes, you think it’s someone new standing before you. It’s all surreal, like you can’t trust your own sight.

“And now…” he moves impossibly closer, sandwiching you against the back of the bench, hunching over. You give your wrists, trembling from resistance, another harsh tug but they don’t move.

“We finally get to be together again, just to find out you’ve been tryin’ to seek that out in another guy? Pipsqueak- you know nobody will love you like I have, right…?”

Distantly, as the tip of his nose nears yours and you spot a fleck of something on his cheekbone, smeared and red, you wonder just whose car you’ll be escorted home in.

Yours, or your boyfriend’s.

[dawnbreakerswife]

This was an amazing read I recommend reading this i swear

big girls don’t cry

𓍯𓂃 self aware robot! caleb x female reader

(wc: 9.5k) ✦ summary: after your brother passes, consumed by grief, you take to the internet to order a synthetic version of him. afterward, it’s impossible to throw him out. (or: alternatively titled the trojan horse)

✦ content robot! caleb, past engineer! caleb, au where EVER deals in robotics, non-evol au, 18+ nsfw/smut, mildly dubious consent, angst, grief, mental instability, bad coping mechanisms, robot pseudocest?? robot sex, mind games, moral grayness all around, dark/yandere undertones; this fic can have multiple interpretations, pregnancy

✦ sidenote have yall ever seen that episode of black mirror? ‘be right back’? basically this: the girl’s boyfriend dies so she orders an incredibly realistic, intelligent robot to replace him. they’re identical in personality and appearance, and yet… 👀 ANYWAYS ( ⸍ɞ̴̶̷ ·̫ ɞ̴̶̷⸌ ) i have a set plot for this in my head, but i left it a lil vague so ur allowed to think of it in ur own way 🤎 if u wanna know the ‘canon’ tho.. u can absolutely ask me. the lore is so deep its traumatizing :,) anyways hope u enjoy <3 ty for 1k btw!! take this as a lil celebration treat 🥳 it took so much out of me but i think i really vibe with it heheh

He’s perfect. Nigh on.

For the first few days since his arrival, since hauling him off the foot of your porch and into your living room to unpack him- heart tickering in your chest all the while, trepidatious- you’ve just stared. Reached out your hands to hover, ghosting over the broad blade of his shoulder, his chapped lips, the slight jut of his cheekbone.

His hands, as big and weathered as you remember them (but gentle, always gentle), hang limply by his sides.

You don’t dare slip your smaller ones in them.

All of the theatrics, yet you don’t press his- its- button, either.

No, you don’t even touch it after the initial unpacking, wrenching your fingers away as soon as they get too close. As soon as they get too tempted by hope and the wish that this hunk of metal was more than just a replica of your late brother. Half of you thinks it might burn if you get too comfortable; and you won’t get comfortable— underneath the solidified layers of grief and- you have trouble saying it aloud, but bitterness- there’s still just enough common sense to keep you from taking the leap. The leap from mourning to insanity.

It’s hollow. You know that much. A nothingness enwrapped in a steely chassis full of wiring and code too technological for you to understand, all covered by a synthetic skin suit as the pretty bow on top.

And you know- what with your emotional state- that if you could peer inside, strip it down to the framework and just… take a moment to look, that you’d vomit. It’d be too much to bear, being forced to reconcile with the fact that he really is gone— and in response to it all, you’ve blown your savings on an eerily-realistic, glorified doll of him with wires for veins.

You’re trembling when you stiffly prop him against the far wall, limiting contact as much as possible, and step away, keeping your eyes on him all the while. It. Not him. Not Caleb- that’s not your fucking brother, just a disgusting, soulless fascimile of him—

But as you stand back on your feet (with the coffee table in between, just in case) to get a good look at him, like a real, proper look, your breath is taken.

The thing: He’s not just a passable carbon copy, you realize. Admittedly, he’s…

Identical.

(He’s Caleb.)

All the oxygen gusts out of you in a breeze.

You lift a shaking hand over your open mouth and choke as silent tears spill from your lashline, blurring your eyes on the way down. Wetting your knuckles as they shake wildly.

You’re crying. Of course you’re crying. This is- you can’t do this. You just can’t.

Racing upstairs, retreating to your bedroom to slam the door as if the devil himself was on your tail, only then do you drop your hand and fully sob.

It’s pitiful, really. Wretched noises that resonate from deep in your throat, your spirit wrecked as you curl up on the floor and make yourself into a ball.

Darkness comes outside, the space around you muting itself in grey colors. The puddle beneath your cheek is moonlit. You sniffle and relocate, but you don’t even bother to tuck the not-Caleb robot in its special container, no- you just settle beneath your blankets and pray it’s all a bad dream you’ll awake from come tomorrow.

Tomorrow: you’ll send him off. Return him.

You don’t care how much money it costs- for all you care, it’s paltry, it’s replaceable. And it is replaceable, that’s the bleak truth: that android stood motionless by your couch, despite having a face so familiar it’s painful, has no emotional value whatsoever. There’s no depth to it. No substance.

A skeleton built by rods. Artificial flesh modeled around thin, colorful cables and circuit boards.

I mean- he’s no better than the stapler on your desk, or the toaster on your kitchen counter. Better yet, a crumb on the floor.

A nothingness, you think again. Prettily encased in smooth, sun-speckled skin and that cottony loungewear (that still retains his smell) you could hardly part with when the online form requested his attire.

He’s perfect, nigh on, you’ll give the company who forged him that much credit, because they sure followed his pictures to a T. It looks just like him; so much so you couldn’t even bear to look at him for more than ten minutes before bolting, the emotional response so violent.

But the problem is that he’s not real. He’s not your Caleb.

✦

It’s hard to throw him away when he looks like that. When he bears the likeness of your late, beloved older brother.

Yes, you want to stuff him back in his box and return to sender, but when it comes to courage, you lack the backbone necessary to carry out your decisions.

You tiptoe down the stairs to see him again and sputter.

He’s too real, you decide in a heartbeat. Too real.

Shutting your eyes as tears begin to pour anew, lunging forward with blind intent to cache him away in the elaborate box he came in, you get to work. And you get to work quickly. You can only bear to look at it- that heartless caricature of your gege- for so long until you feel something in you, your last fragile piece, begin to fracture.

After the explosion, all you had left of him were the memories. Not an explanation, not a goodbye, not even a body. What remained of the boy you were fostered with was ash and a puerile, yet no less beloved locket with its edges burnt copper.

Now, you have something exponentially more physical and intact, unsullied by the reality of what was.

So for a moment, yes- sue you and your heart for hesitating- but it’s a hard task to seal him away.

Agonizing, really.

His arms are stiff by his sides but you feel the skin; the lump of muscle in his forearm, the bump of his elbow. The only thing that keeps you from giving into the puffed-up illusion of his being real and alive is the coolness beneath your fingertips. The unnatural, icy feel to his otherwise mortal skin that reminds in a voice, condescending like all things out of reach, see? that’s not Caleb. And you’re insulting him by thinking that it could be.

You’re halfway done nudging him towards the box (careful, despite your frenzied, fluttering heart; afraid to damage his likeness) when you trip over your own feet navigating the narrow space between your table and the couch.

It’s unthinking, the way you grab him- arms flying out to steady yourself with his broad shoulders.

In all your scrambling- something clicks. Gives under your fingerpad.

A button.

With mute horror, you watch his eyes light.

…And you can see it too, you know, registering in his gaze as it settles over you and takes you in— a blip of mirth that quickly warps into worry at the look you give him. You must appear no different than a deer in headlights.

For several seconds, you simply stand there, your palms clamming up where they dig into his shoulders, and gawk as Caleb— not-Caleb’s— expression turns to one ready to comfort.

Familiar, painfully.

The stiff hands at his side are spurred into motion, lifting to cradle your cheek while the other helps ground you by the small of your back.

“Meimei?”

No, no- don’t say that, don’t say that, internally, you have to shoehorn down all your grief as it bubbles up, and harden your face to keep from crying all over again.

…Although it’s more or less obvious you had been. The puffy eyes rimmed in red, the certain wisp of defeat to your brow and the exhaustion written all over you is clear as day. It leaves nothing to ponder.

He sounds disturbed by it all, the sadness about you that lies thick as a coating of paint. Commiserative to a fault. Lassoing you to his firm chest as he burrows your head below the dip of his chin.

He goes, “What’s wrong?” Then, “It’s okay, I’m here. I got you. Just let it all out.”

And the world around you staggers to a fall.

✦

It was very difficult to get rid of him as he stood still; when you could convince yourself he was just a startlingly realistic statue.

It’s all but impossible when he begins to move, and speak, and smile at you.

You don’t get close enough to press his button. You’re not quite strong enough to apply the distance you probably should, though, so when he takes a step forward, you take one back- but you never run.

It’s a weird limbo you’re caught in. Do you leap into his arms? Do you… Do you toss him out the door, after all? Leave him to the elements to chip away at his body; the rain to erode his fleshy outer shell?

But no. How could you do that? He-

He fucking looks like Caleb. It feels more sinful to rid yourself of him, now that he’s… on, than to indulge a little bit in the idea that he’s still alive and breathing.

If Caleb was still alive, you wonder silently one morning with no small amount of hurt, would he hate you? For whatever the hell it is you’re doing now?

You can’t even blame Gideon, not really. Without his persistent messages, and all the links he sent you of articles revolving androids and how they can help the user cope with grief, you’d have been none the wiser to the concept, sure- but at the end of the day, you made the choice to get one.

A chunk of your savings and an unprompted, fat check from Caleb’s best buddy— you decided to throw that at some futuristic company (well, not ‘some’: both men worked there- albeit they always kept their work very hush (you did catch whispers of a promotion, though, before the accident)) and one of the many services they provide.

Gideon, over the course of some months, was all but pointing you at their website, promising it would help. He’d be there to clear any confusion, in any case; hey, how neat did a walkthrough of the site from a bonafide EVER engineer sound?: Just one of his probes.

It was only two weeks back, however, when he paid an unsolicited house call, wordlessly wrapping you into his broad chest, that you caved to them.

You think about the scene while you sit at the counter and sip from your mug.

Your home smells richly of coffee, just brewed, and bacon as it sizzles. Eyeing not-Caleb with a pang of unease— not fully able to snuff out that feeling of uncanniness even as some days pass peacefully— you offer a small smile when he glances up at you.

Beaming just as he was the day before. Beaming like nothing is terribly wrong.

(To be clear, something is.)

You… can’t help but feel like you’re being monitored when he stares.

Yes, it’s a silly fear, you know that. The company your late brother worked for wasn’t exactly open with all the scientific grounds they made breakthroughs on, but he always promised that their means were lawful. Caleb wasn’t one for lies- so your doubts were soothed. So as hush-hush as EVER is sometimes, you’re fairly confident they wouldn’t ship out mass batches of faulty or otherwise rigged products.

Anyway- you suppose the weird intensity in its eyes isn’t all that off-putting when you take into account the very real personality it was formulated from.

When the pancakes (your favorite: banana chocolate chip; information he apparently already knew) turn an appetizing shade of gold, he shimmies them off the pan with a spatula and onto a plate.

That plate- loaded tastefully with bacon, a scoop of rice, and eggs with a ketchup smile painted over its face- slides before you. But though your belly growls, you don’t eat. Not right away. Wherever the culinary arts are concerned, your older brother has always excelled. Growing up, maybe you even exploited him a little for it- but he never did anything he didn’t want to; sometimes it even seemed like Caleb enjoyed sticking his neck out for you.

He pats his hands over his too-small apron (not that he minds it), frowning.

“What’s wrong, Pipsqueak? Does… Does the food look alright? I haven’t made somethin’ for you in a while, huh…?”

Oh no, the food looks fine.

It’s just that you’re the only one eating it.

And maybe it’d be better to keep that thought to yourself: part of you is just over the moon to have him standing in your kitchen with you after months apart— but it doesn’t matter that you keep your mouth shut, because Caleb reads your mind anyway.

He’s at your side in a blink, hushing away the tears that bead at your eyes out of nowhere.

“Hey, hey… No cryin’, okay? I’m just not hungry this morning, Meimei- but that doesn’t mean I won’t sit with you and talk while you eat. C’mon,” he squeezes your hand where it lies on the counter, smiling lightly.

It takes everything in you not to flinch away from the touch.

“Wouldn’t want your breakfast goin’ cold now, would we?” Pulling out the barstool beside you, he sits.

You don’t ask him to, but Caleb picks up your fork and embodies one of the several memories you have of him spoonfeeding you as a child.

“I can feed you. Just like the good ol’ times. Here, you gotta open your mouth first,” His smile strengthens when your lips, as if by habit, part. Your lashes flutter shut when that first bite touches your tongue- syrupy hotcakes and fluffy scrambled eggs- and for that you’re glad because you don’t have to see the way he marvels at you as you eat.

It’s not good for your heart.

“So? What does Pipsqueak the number one food critic have to say about my dish?” He shines, “Does it taste as good as it looks?” You can’t help the breathless laugh that escapes- the scene too nostalgic to simply idle away with indifference. You wear all your emotions on your face, anyway; you’re not fooling anybody, least of all Caleb.

“Even better,” you murmur with the barest of smiles. He presses another spoonful to your lips and you giggle.

Violet hues glitter with delight. You’ve said practically nothing to him this whole time, and he’s been patient- weirdly patient, almost- but the joy in his gaze is palpable now.

Sometimes, though, you can almost swear you see something in his gaze shift. Tuning itself like a lens. He blinks and it disappears.

“…But I will say your presentation could use some work. It’s a 7 out of 10.”

Caleb, still holding the utensil out, uses his other hand to prop his chin up. He smiles fondly as he regards you. As you’ve gotten older, it’s like every time you see the brunet, he looks at you like he’s taking you in for the first time all over again.

“Yeah?” He encourages. “Enlighten me, oh Pipsqueak- what must I do to earn those three extra points?”

“The ketchup smiley face was all lopsided,” you explain in a quiet voice, having a hard time fully immersing in this lie unraveling before you; beautiful as it is. As much as you might ache to.

This isn’t a good idea. You know that.

Still…

Maybe… maybe just a couple of conversations with him can’t be too bad, right? I mean, it’s only a fraction of what Gideon was expecting of you (lounging around together to chat, game nights, and even public outings), but to him, it’d be a start. For you, though, it’s a stretch. An exception.

You should limit interaction with not-Caleb.

You know this, and yet—

Glancing back to him, you try and fail to hide a coy smile with a napkin. “Next time, keep a steady hand, and you’ll be a perfect chef in no time. Maybe not as good as me, but, y’know…”

He chuckles, brows lifting. “Oh yeah? Then expect surgical precision from me tomorrow morning. Chef Caleb won’t let you down again!”

An intense sadness slips through the momentary happiness you were allowed. It nags at your chest.

You blink rapidly, giving a feeble, light sound before looking away.

You’ve never let me down, Gege, you don’t say, taking your fork from the clasp of his big hand (much to his dismay) to prod at your plate.

It was me who failed you.

✦

Not-Caleb looks like Caleb, yes.

He acts like him, too.

You spend the span of the next few weeks trying to scrutinize him; hours spent on the couch, his hand in yours while you grill him. You treat him like a bug under a microscope. Prodding for answers to questions you’re sure his programming must miss- interrogations built on memories so old they’re near ancient. Just blurry wisps in your mind.

Not-Caleb remembers some better than you.

Puts you to shame with his mechanical replies detailing scenarios you’re missing fragments of.

What’s Caleb’s favorite fruit?

I like apples, Pipsqueak.

And what’s my favorite food he’d make for me?

Easy-peasy. You still love those boneless chicken wings, don’t you? Although, that braised pork I make for you comes as a close second, doesn’t it?

Am I your real sister?

And you’d never ask the real Caleb such a thing. You’re only doing it now because it’s one of the most personal things you could possibly make a query of. His response would be very telling.

Life before you met him all those years ago is no more than a fuzzy glimpse, and you never minded all that much: so long as you had Caleb, nothing else, nothing before, mattered. All throughout your childhood, people didn’t know the difference anyway.

Far as they knew, you were family.

Which… isn’t wrong, per se— but it’s not biological. ‘Real.’

You, Caleb, and Gran were obviously aware of that. To you it was always a beautiful thing: a tale of rebirth, in a way, or a second chance, as a young girl found a new place to call home with a warm guardian and a brotherly figure. They’d stabilize her and bring warmth to an otherwise cold beginning.

Caleb was never spoken for on that front.

You… didn’t see eye to eye on all things. Oh, that much is true.

Sometimes you were convinced that he wanted nothing to do with the assumption that you were his little sister (albeit, you were never sure why). At others, it was like he was furious you were only bound to him in name and not blood. He saw it as an attack on your close bond.

…But Not-Caleb surely doesn’t know all his nuances. Not like you came to.

So you’re expecting a pause. A minor glitch or even a malfunction as the robot scours his database.

Got him, you almost think to yourself— then swiftly take it back.

The face of the android sat at your side falls, much to your surprise, into a small frown.

And the truth must be coded deep in the bulwarks of not-Caleb’s artificial brain: your and Caleb’s respective origins. The answer is no. No, you’re not his real sister.

…But your real Gege would lie and say yes, absolutely you are—

“‘Course you are,” Not-Caleb goes. And he does it with as much passion behind it as you’d expect.

You’re startled into silence.

He scoots impossibly closer and loops an arm over your shoulder, tucking your head to his jaw. Seamlessly, he pecks your hairline, saying, “You’re my sweet little Meimei. You’re priceless to me. Now no more pickin’ at me, okay?” He suggests in a light tone, rubbing your shoulder. “You’ve been questioning me all evening- look, it even got dark out. Let’s get you to bed-“

“I- I didn’t say I was tired-“

“You didn’t have to. I could tell you were startin’ to get sleepy, Pipsqueak,” he looks down at you and smiles- a reassuring, yet no less playful smile- and for one moment you cant breathe because fuck it’s him. It’s really, really him. “Your drooping eyes were a dead giveaway. Hm... I guess that big dinner we had put you in a food coma, huh?” He chuckles.

We. Funny, that. You recall the feast being one-sided.

Nonetheless.

Without prompting, he sweeps you off the couch and walks you up the wooden stairway. The old steps creak underfoot. He does it all effortlessly, though, arms as strong and capable as you remember.

You loop your slimmer ones around his neck.

With great hesitance, you lend a part of yourself to this illusion.

This beautiful, near unbelievable, oh-so fragile illusion that Caleb is not dead.

When you reach your bedroom, you don’t send him off to the guest room like all the nights before. No, when he carefully sets you down, you watch him, motionlessly, as he tucks you in and plants a chaste kiss to your forehead. When he turns to go- “don’t let the bed bugs bite”- you snatch his hand, half terrified you’ll blink and he’ll be gone, and flash him a look that silently pleads.

Stay.

The brunet’s lashes flutter, brushing over his cheekbones where the lamplight makes them shine.

He opens his mouth.

Pauses, then closes it.

“Stay. Please, Gege,” you breathe, on the cusp of shattering all over again. It’s become more manageable over recent days, this unresolved cluster of emotion inside you, but it’s times like these that make you feel blindsided by it.

You innocently add, “Like when we were kids.”

Oh, you’d go back to then if you could.

His long fingers, loose in your hold, flip to swallow up your hand. He stoops over to turn off the light.

His voice shakes ever so slightly, “Okay.”

Then, he clambers into bed with you and reminds you of just how small it is, how much he does not belong, but you’ve never felt more at home when he pulls you to his chest and- dutifully ignoring the quiet beneath your ear, the absence of a pulse- you cling to him.

Maybe it’d be a little weird, the proximity, what with your grown age and the fact that you were no longer children cuddling during thunderstorms…

It’s not like you’re hanging off him like he’s your lifeline for any nefarious reason, though- and it’s not like he can hold any judgment anyway. He’s… He’s not really Caleb. He’s not even a person. Just a sentient robot that resembles him to a shocking degree and soothes that ache in your chest- just by a smidge.

…And yet when he looks at you, suddenly, tilting your jaw up so he can admire what he sees in the darkness- your stunned expression lit faintly by the moon- it’s like he’s reading this in his own way.

His interpretation? you realize in a shaking breath?

He’s no longer holding his little sister, but a woman.

It’s in his eyes, rippling as he exhales deeply (all artificial, albeit you don’t dwell on that for long) and thumbs over your lip.

A boyish kind of wonder lifts his brow as he stares, cheeks slightly flushed.

Your heart bangs in your chest. Like gunshots punctuating the silence. It grows to be unbearable. This is weird, and wrong- the way he’s looking at you. But you quickly chalk it up to a malfunction.

It’s all a fluke, technology fucking up in a way that reminds you of humanity’s shortcomings and how far they can only go.

Finally, you’ve found the fault in its design. The place where Caleb and not-Caleb differ.

You know your beloved older brother like the back of your own hand, so when his eyes flutter (flash, almost) and he lurches forward to clumsily press his lips to yours— you label the action for what it really is.

An inaccuracy.

Perhaps, you think as you close your bleared eyes and let him, the only. Because the rest of his program is perfect. Infallible.

The scene unfurling is foreign- his big hands cupping your cheeks as he kisses you like his life depends on it- but as he shifts you beneath him and hovers atop, that signature softness remains. Really, as his fingertips reach for your shorts—

(A blip of something mechanical in its fiery gaze, almost as if it’s trying to rectify itself; the shortest of pauses—)

It’s all that grounds you.

“Caleb,” you moan, or cry. You don’t know. Just that when he helps you out of your panties to go down on you, digits delving inside your tight hole after he wets it with his tongue, your heart sings for him.

You don’t push him away. No, even as the humanoid sullies your late brother’s image with all his sinful hungering, you can’t break yourself free. Never find it in you to.

Because it doesn’t matter what he treats you as. You realize belatedly, with no small amount of horror, that you don’t even care how many flaws Not-Caleb has. He could have a million for all you care, you’re already too far gone- writhing underneath him as he holds your legs open and feasts- to pretend you have any right to feel offended.

And if the real Caleb was here, he’d hate you: an echo in your skull, sneering. He should, but-

“There, Meimei, ngh…” a hot tongue (no longer as cold as he was in stasis) laves along your folds. Mauve eyes look up to you with reverence, glittering in the dark.

“Just like that. Moan, say my name- I’ve been waiting for this for so long…”

You wear ignorance like a blindfold. Shutting your eyes and ears.

A fluke. His hardware stalling.

His hair woven in your fingers feels like velvet. Soft, silky; hanging over his brow as he eats you out- skillfully, might you add. Albeit his passion wins out by just a touch against his expertise, clumsily plunging his two middle fingers into your pussy.

“You taste so good, so sweet- mmph- I’ll take care of you, okay?” He mumbles in between lewd squelches.

In both physical and moral terms, there is not one thing about this that isn’t filthy.

Y-You know that, but…

“Don’t worry. I’ll- ah- I’ll make sure you feel real nice. I’ll make you come as many times as you want. I’ve been… dreamin’ of this for years now… I won’t mess this up, okay? I’ll do whatever it takes until you’re shaking.”

-but this is all you have left of him.

Hazily, you glance down to him, cheeks aflame, and barely succeed in asking, “C-Caleb- h-how are you even gonna-? You-“ you choke on the words you need to say. With a mite of dry humor, you think right then that you’re short-circuiting just as bad as him (because he is).

“Are you capable of it?”

Of fucking you? Of pinning you down and throwing your ankles over his shoulders to better plow you into your creaking, old mattress?

His brow twitches slightly. Voice ragged, he makes an agreeable sound, pressing a kiss to your clit so adoring it’s almost funny when his finger bends sensually inside you. “Are you doubting my abilities, Meimei? I’ll have you know I’ve been practicing this moment in my head for—“

No. You slam your eyes shut and drown it all out.

His words become a white noise. No different than the steady whir of the air conditioning as a cool breeze gusts beneath your door, cooling your forehead where it beads with sweat.

A- A glitch, you quietly decide. Even long after he’s made you cum thrice (twice on his fingers and tongue, once on his thick, flushed cock), you hold staunch to that.

It’s all just a fluke.

✦

When the sun rises, you wake with a start to a phone ringing- yours- and swallow a lump of unease at the figure lying beside you (your Gege, a voice in your head reminds: you silence it).

Prying off the solid arm around your waist to gingerly exit the room- still half-naked- you piously ignore the cum caked to the inside of your thighs. Yours, it must be. You don’t focus on the confusion, either, the ask of just how the hell last night was possible and why you let your emotions get ahold of you.

(Because you love him. And maybe, just maybe- in your own weird, admittedly morally-grey way- you can cobble together a sense of normalcy with him. At least just for a little bit...)

As you head to the living room downstairs, you tap your phone and lift it to your ear.

“G-Gran,” you say as greeting, smoothing your hair back, still quite ruffled over… recent events. Ruffled and ashamed.

Very.

But- while he looks like Caleb, he’s not in reality. That… malfunction last night is a blatant proof of that. You only got on your back and let him have his way with you because you’ve missed his touch so much that you’d quite literally accept it in any form.

If sex or his lips battling against yours- his whispered vows, as seemingly heartfelt as they were errant to Caleb’s true character- is all you’ll get of him, then so be it.

In your own way, messed up as it is, it’s almost like with his android, you get a chance to reconcile with the loss.

To say goodbye.

Because before that package arrived at your doorstep, you didn’t have the luxury of one.

A familiar, aged voice sounds over the line. “Hey, dearie, oh- I didn’t wake you, did I? You sound tired.” She’s one to talk, you think to yourself- but not with malice. Truth be told you’ve worried for her as of late.

It’s been lonely for you both, you’re sure, but even though she only lives on the other end of Linkon, you have trouble making the drive. You haven’t dropped by in a couple weeks.

There’s a few different reasons.

It’s hard to pretend you’re fine when you’re not, for one, that what happened with Caleb- the abruptness and lack of conclusion, the confusing aftermath of it all- never did. You try your best to plaster on a smile and be strong in your grandmother’s presence, but that’s easier said than done. Especially when that old house of hers is jam-packed with photos and tokens of your past with him— painful reminders whenever you do visit.

The newest excuse for not is guilt.

Frankly, Gideon is the only one who knows what’s going on. Hah- no surprise, being he was the main reason for your even ordering not-Caleb.

But Gran doesn’t know.

You haven’t told her about him. And after last night, what with your own release still dried to your legs (which wobble slightly; he was every bit passionate and then some), you don’t think you ever will.

She might actually slap you across the face, taking your willingness to believe in such a lie as an offense against her grandson’s vibrant character.

…If she found out what happened- that you opened your legs for him and moaned- she might go into cardiac arrest.

You didn’t… want that to happen, definitely not- I mean, you didn’t even have the time to prepare. But yes, you did let it.

And curse yourself for wanting your brother back, but—

“No, it’s fine, Gran,” you glance over your shoulder to the staircase. Finding it empty, you let out a breath. “Is something wrong? It’s… It’s early.”

—you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel a little fucking blissful to wake up to his face again, just like back when you were inseparable kids.

She sighs on the other end, “no, no,” she starts. You think you hear a TV in the background; something to fill the silence you leave her to sit in. “Nothing’s wrong, my dear. I just… I haven’t seen you in a bit. I miss your face, Y/n. How are you doing?”

Like a dart to a board, guilt lands its mark.

You shouldn’t fluster at such a simple question, but you do. Not just because it’s so direct and genuine, but because a big hand rests over your shoulder and suddenly Caleb is there, standing behind you.

You straighten up from where you’re propped against the wall and quickly lift a hand to silence any words he may speak.

“I-I’m well, Gran. Sorry, just- I’ll visit soon, I promise.”

“I’d like that,” she murmurs. You’re aware of how much she means it and close your eyes with a wince. A broad palm, as if sensing your inner turmoil, rubs your shoulder soothingly.

You rub the bridge of your nose and don’t look.

“What’s… What’s been keeping you?” She broaches after a beat. Laughter from the television fades in and out over the speaker.

For a second, you freeze. You freeze because you fear she might know.

All for naught: “You’re getting enough sleep, right? I don’t want you overworking yourself. I know you’ve had a lot on your mind, sweetie- oh, God knows we’ve both suffered all these months without Caleb, but that’s no reason for us to fall apart either-”

You sigh shakily and bite down on a cry.

“Yeah, I know. But I’ve been better, Gran, okay? I…” Shiftily, you wet your bottom lip and give a half truth- as if that can relieve you of this weight. “I was talking with Gideon a little; he’s…. he helped me.”

She sounds pleasantly surprised. “Oh? Good, good. What about?”

Nosy as ever. Not that you’re complaining. It’s good to know someone cares- someone… real.

You swallow your unease. “He was just talking to me about his job and stuff. EVER... He told me he was finally getting that raise or whatever, so he’s doing well... I- I was prying per usual,” you joke to lighten the mood, “He, uh… he tells me more than Caleb ever did, so…” (And when his name started to feel like a sin to say, you don’t know.) “So, you know. I was just curious. He was checking in on me, too…”

Warm breath fans at your ear, fingers closing around your shoulder as he peppers kisses at your neck insistently- and you shudder. Clasping the phone tighter (because it suddenly feels unstable in your hands), you shrug off (not)Caleb for just long enough to say,

“Gran- I- I gotta go. Uh- someone else is calling me,” and to preclude any probing on her end- or extra guilt on yours- you add, “I’ll visit tomorrow, okay? I promise. I’ll- I’ll be there. I love you.”

A voice timidly mirrors it back, and then a big set of hands is taking the phone from you and ending the call.

You turn to him with a notch in your brow as he pockets it in the sweats he must’ve hastily thrown on after finding the bed empty.

“Caleb-“

You start, and his lips press to yours.

With some encouragement- hushing you between kisses, knuckling down your cheek affectionately- he shepherds you back upstairs, to your room.

“Nuh-uh, just let me take care of you, pretty girl, ‘kay?” He murmurs, smiling. You could die in peace to it, you think hazily as he lies you down— because the last mental screenshot you took of him before the accident was his handsome face crestfallen after you’d said something scathing.

To your defense, at the time, you thought he’d deserved it. Maybe he did. It’s hard to remember, but whatever the argument was about, it must’ve been stupid. Not worth it.

And… he���s not Caleb, he’s not, you know that, but…

“Lie back. It’s… It’s just you and me here. I want you to know that. And everyone else-“

(Gran, you realize he must mean; Gideon and all the other familiar and unfamiliar faces both at EVER.)

“None of it matters now. Just focus on me. On Caleb.”

(And how eerie is that? You muse with a whit of your rationale. The rest, as it withers, perhaps only does so for the sake of your own sanity.)

The whole world as it stands: nudged away to oblivion at his behest.

“O-Okay,” you give.

He’s not Caleb. But if this is your best- only- shot at reconciliation, then you’ll take him with arms open.

…

When he’s done priming you, he clambers on top and you experience a repeat of last night.

Deja vu, as fresh as a wound reopened, makes your mind lag a few increments behind reality. But when he starts to slow down, thrusts growing sloppy- it feels oddly real, and, head a bit clearer than last night, you register that.

…But it’s your release that stains the sheets. Steadily trickling from your hole, slicking his hips. It only makes sense that way; he might fuck like a human, but that’s all inherent to his program, you’re sure, built to please- and ultimately, he’s made of metal. Rods. You think you can feel them when you grab too tight, that hardness.

He leads you to the proverbial end of the cliff, and you survey the bottom one last time before- geronimo- you make that final leap.

When not-Caleb comes, he shudders in your arms.

Yet you swear… You swear something inside him, behind his lidded eyes, deeper in-

It’s like it shutters.

A flash. Brief and jarring, for a moment so bright it’s like your eyes have been virginal to light all along.

Just a malfunction, you decide with a spent sigh, sweaty in his solid arms as they make a cage around you, eager to sleep until noon.

Maybe you’ll mention it to Gideon next time he drops by.

Maybe he would know how to fix it.

✦

The days that follow after are foggy and empty. Like a moratorium of everything that once breathed in your life.

You wreathe not-Caleb’s neck with that beloved apple-shaped locket like he’s earned it.

Knowing nobody ever could.

✦

Gideon knocks, one afternoon.

You send him away. Or- Caleb does.

At that, you feel the need to remind him of who he is: the people he cares for, his career path, how he operated as a person before the incident in his suite in Skyhaven.

Caleb stops you short, a palm dwarfing the back of your own, and says I know. I just don’t want my buddy interrupting our time together, Pipsqueak. Can you blame me for wantin’ it to be just you and me?

You stop going out.

He doesn’t let you- not really. I mean, he doesn’t explicitly declare these rules over you, but it’s in the strange glint in his eye- the one that makes you shut your mouth and purse your lips- when he stops you at the door and suggests you stay.

Says it’s better that way. Says he worries whenever you go. Says to take him with you instead if you really must.

Progressively, you’re drifting farther and farther out from shore. Mentally-speaking, you’re going off the deep end. But exiting your house hand-in-hand with your brother- the man the town declared dead in an email you couldn’t bear to finish reading- as he stares at you like a lover, is, no matter the ache, something you can’t quite bring yourself to do.

It’d make this illusion just a smidgen realer. You’d never wake from this dream if other people saw it- saw him- and therefore made his presence more solid in your mind. (Not to mention the disgusting assumptions they’d make- none exactly wrong.)

You’ve been so consumed by grief lately, though, that the knowing of your imminent breakdown can’t stop you from making other bad choices.

So when the brunet altogether bars you from going out in public for the fear that something bad will happen to you (nonsensical; not that he sees the flaws in his arguments), insisting that groceries can be bought online, Gran can be checked up on over the phone, etcetera—

Yeah, you bend to it, alright? Sue you. Of course you bend. It’s all you know what to do anymore.

Gradually, though, the unexpected charm of not-Caleb begins to fade, and you’re left with a possessive form of the brother you once knew. A man desperately clawing at straws, hellbent to keep you at his side, clingy and insecure and, frankly, sometimes scary.

As the inaccuracies build, you’re not sure for how much longer you can overlook them.

The only reason you even tolerated him originally was because he was passable. More than that, even- he was perfect. A dead-ringer for Caleb in both appearance and personality.

But this-

This isn’t Caleb. No longer. It never was.

You don’t believe it for a second.

You heave a soft sigh. Anything louder than a breath brings the chance that he’ll overhear from where he stands in the kitchen and come zipping over, no doubt ready to fret and question you. If you value your time alone- rare as it is these days- then you’ll stay silent.

It’s a near impossible task to separate yourself from him. It was a small miracle in itself that you managed to break away for half an hour or so- but even that was begat by a lie. It seems the only real way to rid yourself of the overly doting, obsessive older brother (even if just for a few minutes) is to give him another demand. This time, it was an ‘I’m hungry’ that finally earned you some peace and quiet.

It’s a little sad, but lately you treat him more or less like a jacket after entering a warm home: you’re eager to shrug him off because the climate has changed.

The climate has changed.

He- He’s changed.

He’s growingly insane and yes, while the irony of that observation isn’t lost on you (considering you’re the mad woman who bought a human-like robot as a replacement in the first place), you still can’t help but feel alarmed as the signs of wrongness don’t cease but worsen.

You think about pressing the button. Turning him off, sending him away.

Hell, maybe you’d just dump him in the communal trash receptacles out back. Leave him there in a human-shaped bag for the garbage men to come and squint at before hauling away like junk.

…Because he is junk, right? No different than a crumb on the floor, you’d once said.

Perhaps you’ve lost it.

The section of your brain responsible for caring must’ve shut off, though, because it’s currently hard to feel much of anything.

…But there, like a soft stirring (or the voice of God as it whispered to Elijah)- you can sense it. That feeling is reminiscent of a survival instinct, or a watered-down version of it to tired nerves, breathing down the back of your neck where hackles rise—

What are you doing here?

The dream begins to fissure in real-time when Caleb (not-Caleb, you harshly remind yourself) cheerfully patters into the living room where you sit, helpful as ever, and his eye flashes as it settles on you. No different than a camera would.

The food looks delicious, per usual- you’d expect nothing less of your brother or even the robotic copy of him- but as nausea churns in your belly and you jolt upright, slapping a hand over your mouth as you run to the bathroom, nothing can save your appetite.

You shakily lock the door- but he’s knocking in an instant, worried.

You always did melt at his bleeding heart. Too often, men, especially the bigger of them, fell under the persuasion of apathy. Yet your gege was always different, always sweet, always gentle and patient and- yeah, okay, sometimes he was a touch mean, teasing to a fault- sometimes to the point of tears on your end as he quickly tried to right his wrongs- but he was preciously yours.

And he was real.

Dammit, he was fucking real-

He was alive and emotionally tangible in a way that this awful fucking hunk of metal is not and never will be—

“Pipsqueak-? Hey, hey, what’s wrong? Let me in. A-Are you not feeling well?” His words crack when you say nothing, dutifully ignoring him.

“Y/n… Let me in. Please-! don’t leave me alone, don’t go.” His voice becomes ragged, raw, the longer you don’t answer. Boyish in its vulnerability. “Stay- Stay here with me.”

By God your soul splinters down the middle. But you don’t answer. You- You can’t.

You throw your lunch up in the toilet and then your back against the wall, sliding down it with your hands over your ears like a child.

You don’t care, if he’s shouting and beating at the door, on the brink of hysteria like you’ve heard only once or twice when he was a boy too soft for his own good- you don’t care- you don’t care—

You sit there until he short-circuits out and thuds to the floor.

You flinch when he does.

Only then, however, do you tiptoe out- careful lest you trigger some internal response from him- to quickly pull on a hoodie and put your hair up, locking the front door behind you.

You don’t know for how long he’ll be conked out, but if luck is on your side, it’ll be for long enough to run to the local corner store and buy a pregnancy test.

You know you’re losing it, the little sanity you had left after your brother passed— misreading a common cold for a veritable child swelling in your womb.

It’s laughable: using your sleeve (another old piece of his clothing you ‘borrowed’, never to be returned) to dot away the tears at your lashline, you do laugh on the short trek to the convenience store.

But if not a reminder that you really are going crazy, losing control, then at least it’s just an opportunity to get some fresh air for a bit, right?

(…You also know that the first step to regaining back said control is to say goodbye to not-Caleb.

As it stands, though, you’re just-

You were never ready.)

✦

Two pink lines.

The thing clatters to the bathroom floor, and you along with it.

You sink to your knees and the white walls surrounding you feel more like an asylum than a space in your own house- because yes, you must be delusional. This is the final nail in the coffin.

But this- this can’t be right. It’s impossible. In the strictest sense of the word it’s impossible!

Heavy feet traipse in the kitchen; the livingroom; the hall, searching for you with faint, candied beckons of your name.

You rub your face as if to feel the color as it seeps from your complexion, and tell yourself that you’ve positively lost it as you thoughtlessly choose one of the corners to slump into, hyperventilating.

You’ll- you’ll send it back to EVER... You’ll send it back and forget and move on. You’ll move on. You’ll stop grieving, you’ll squirrel away your fraying, final memories of Caleb like you did all those precious photos in that old shoebox in your closet.

You’ll-…

A breath. The fan whirs.

The faucet, going full-blast, sputters, effectively drowning out the sounds you make as air becomes a tricky thing to intake; thick enough to choke on.

You’ll throw yourself into the fifth stage of grief then crawl out the other side of it if that’s what it takes to undo this fucking reality you’re lost in-

“Pipsqueak?” A hand on your shoulder.

Broad, big. A little weathered.

But gentle always. Gentle always. Just like you remember. Just like when Caleb meant Caleb; not the big glorified toy that walks and acts like him as an admittedly convincing, yet ultimately faux locum.

Your heart stills, hanging pendant in your chest. You swing from that uncertainty. By God you’d beat that handsome face in- oh, but by God would you kiss it, too.

The door sways on its hinge by splintered fragments, creaking behind the brunet.

Timidly, you lift your head over your shoulder to meet his eye where he towers behind you, violet hues softening with concern. They drift lower, honing in on the little item by your knee, wayward.

He coos immediately, enveloping you in his strong arms.

The feeling- it’s not exactly like that of the one you’d get while swimming in a hot tub, engulfed in its steaming waters, but it’s not too far off either. You let him hold you, unseeing as he all but sings in your ear, and restore the warmth to your bones.

Like a dead thing, or prey, you hang limp in his firm grasp. Terribly uncertain.

“Shh…” he croons, and you only realize a belated moment later that you’re crying. Hard and ugly.

He pets down your hair, ever the comforter, and as you press your head against his barrel chest it’s almost like you can hear a faint whirring in lieu of a heartbeat- speedy but low.

Unreal. Unreal. But then how-?

Perhaps you’ve lost it.

“We’ll figure it out together, honey,” you think it’s a barely concealed smile you register at the crown of your head, pasting down a kiss. “But no more cryin’, okay? I can’t stand to see you like this… Let me draw you a bath, hm? I’ll light some candles and we can talk about it. But don’t be scared. This is… such good news,” and then he laughs- a boyish, marveling little laugh that digs deep into your heart and twists.

The button, between his breastbone, just out of reach, glows faintly through his shirt.

For a moment you’re ready to press it like a player would on a game show— with urgency— but you blink and see those two pink lines searing themselves into your conscience.

Defeatedly, you shut your eyes. But you don’t shut him off.

✦

With Caleb preparing dinner, you’re able to slip away one evening for long enough to call Gran.

For worried friends and relatives, your voicemail box is becoming quite the hotbed- but among them, your grandmother is the priority.

Propping yourself by the sliding glass door, you brush back the curtain and look out to the small, cookie-cutter yard as you accept the call. Not without a shaky breath to prepare you, though; it’s been over a month since your last visit, and while your calls haven’t been quite as behind, you still wince a bit every time her contact pops up.

You want to tell her.

If not about Caleb, then at least the small bump forming beneath your oversized lounge shirt. There’s excuses for it- ones to be frowned upon, yes, but they’d be believable nonetheless. Obviously, a pregnancy is not something as simple to hide as a robot you can turn on and off and, if needed, stuff in the coat closet until the coast is clear.

You want to tell her. But-

You purse your lips, answering, “Hey Gran.”

The tone of her voice, frazzled and barely holding together, sends a chill down your spine.

“Y/n- where have you been? Is everything okay? I’ve been- I’ve been calling all afternoon.”

You digest that information with a quirk of your brow, scanning across the lawn outside, and a thick swallow.

There’s the voicemails, sure; it was only two nights ago you were poring over them all and holding back tears of guilt. But this afternoon? It was quiet- almost blissfully so, spent curled up to Caleb’s chest on the sofa as you watched an old favorite movie and he happily fed you fruit-flavored candies from his hand every so often.

Nobody called, let alone multiple times. You’re sure of it.

“Gran- what? No, I’m fine. What’s wrong?” You start, tossing a nervous glance behind you, internally grateful that Caleb’s absent humming while he chopped veggies was too distant for the phone to pick up.

She blusters out, apropos of nothing, “Is he there with you?”

Something in you stills.

“Y/n- is he there with you?”

An abnormal rush of blood to your ears and a murmur of your heart as you stand confused. The fingers curled around your phone case jitter.

You hold it closer to your ear.

“What? What are you talking about? I-Is who here with me?”

Does she- There’s no fucking chance- does she know?

How?

Chest thumping, your pulse fluttering in the column of your throat as it bobs uncertainly, you begin to wonder to yourself if this is the time you come clean, lay all your sins out like cards on a table. Make the confession.

Push has come to shove, you think. And fuck if you know where all this is coming from on her end, if Gideon told her or she just miraculously put two and two together or-

An exhale on her end, shaking on its way out.

“Were you not told? Dear-“ she broaches, louder, more firm— and this is just milliseconds before the world as you know it- the one you freed of your hands and let reshape itself around a delicate delusion- buckles at the knees. It’s right before you do, too.

“They found him. They found Caleb.”

That breath, right afterward of her telling you, is like the first one after drowning.

Your eyes widen as you break the surface.

His- His body. The tinny footage they dredged up from the area showed he entered his home, but after the explosion, there was no sign of him, no ash no corpse no nothing— So you don’t know how the hell they managed to recover his pieces, let alone after they already ran clean-up crews through the charred infrastructure and hosed it down- but you’re hysterical at the news.

You were cruelly forced, all along, to just assume he’d been burned to nothingness.

So you don’t even care about the how. How it’s possible or how this is happening after several months of white noise and hurting on your end— you don’t care.

You were made to come to terms with his death, and you did, at most, acknowledge it- but evidently, you could never quite accept it.

…If this is your final chance to say goodbye- even if it just means peering over a metal table in the morgue as he lies disheveled, hardly recognizable under a sheet- so fucking be it.

You’ll say goodbye if it kills you.

“What-? Where- where?” Your tone reflects as much, urgent as you stagger over to the sofa, nearly tripping as you reach for the jacket slung over the arm.

“I-Im coming,” you croak out, words failing you as the velvety carpet feels like mud beneath your bare feet- hard to walk across, every step making you feel like a baby taking its first ones.

One second you’re navigating a truth so unbelievable it’s near violent as it barrels into you; in the next, you’re collapsing under the weight of it, too caught up in your own scrambling for your keys and the door to even think of not-Caleb.

Gran goes to timidly say something, but your ears are shot and you quickly interject, “Let me get dressed- I-I’ll be there! Is he at the morgue?”

“Oh, no, honey,” she quavers out, “He’s alive. The town just messaged me; they made a mistake with his death certificate- they’re revoking it as we speak. He’s in Skyhaven.”

The phone drops to the floor.

And then that, too, gives way beneath you.

…It’s good a helping hand is there for you, then. Shouldering your weight without prompting- fretful as he confiscates the device, no different than a teacher with an unruly student, swiftly disconnecting the call.

It tuts in your ear, but- more sober than you’ve ever been- you can only note the sympathy practically dripping from its tone for what it really is: the upshot of its near immaculate programming as it mimics your considerate gege to a T.

Not-Caleb noses against your nape and sighs.

Mutely, you wind a hand, tottering, uncoordinated fingers and all, behind your back to grope along his chest—

He easily gathers both your wrists in his palm, “hey now,” turning you around. He lifts your knuckles up for a chaste kiss, watching you intently all the while.

A cold weight settles over you, soaking you through like meat left overnight to marinate. From the kitchen, stirfry sizzles in the pan. A few moments more of it and the smoke detectors will fire off.

…He just leans in to peck your forehead though, deaf to the sirens you hear wailing in your head, having mastered the art of playing dumb long ago.

He murmurs, as cloying as cake frosting, “C’mon, Pipsqueak, let’s go eat. Dinner’ll be done in just a sec. I made one of your favorites. After that, we can sit around the couch and brainstorm some more names for the baby- what d’you think?”

Flukes, malfunctions, glitches— no; Not-Caleb, you realize right then, ceasing to blink as you stare at its prototype through the shifting lens head-on, was never flawed.

“…But you’re not leavin’, not to him.”

The real one was.

𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔, + 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 ♡

QUESTIONS&ANSWERS HERE

[dawnbreakerswife]

Cowslips [Yandere Summer Spirit x Reader]

Title: Cowslips [Yandere Summer Spirit x Reader]

Synopsis: You meet a stranger in the woods in the summer, and keep him a secret. It’s just a summer adventure. What’s the harm in that?

Word Count: 5036

notes: yandere, mentions of fear of sexual assault, that’s about it

The air is hot and steamy. Thick with pollen and wavy with the heat of a high summer afternoon. It is well past those carefree early summer days, when the bright warmth was a novelty, a welcome reprieve from the bitter winter and the chilly breezes that still blew in spring. Laughter and picnics and admonishments to go-enjoy-the-weather were abound, then. 

But not now, so far into the season. Now, the heat draws people inward and away, like curtains drawn thick, desperately seeking relief when the sun is at its strongest.

Keep reading

[dawnbreakerswife]

Love this and will forever reread this

father figure

sylus x female reader

he takes you in, he feeds you, he gives you a home when the world around you can no longer make sense of the word- and yet you’re just as much of a grounding force in his life. when the frenzy hits, though, he can’t make heads or tails of anything; all he knows is that you’re a pretty, fleshy thing and he aches to sample it.

content smut/nsfw, daddy kink, dilf/guardian! sylus, so by a stretch it can be pseudocest, noncon, soft! sylus but turns into frenzied! sylus, yandere themes, piv, rough handling, loss of virginity, some angst because of guilt/disillusion, codependency, age gap (but both parties are 18+), biting, dark content, almost 10k words

sidenote i could only resist the catch-22 sylus agenda for so long. it’s not fully canon compliant but its heavily based around it. so yes sylus has his iconic mullet and he’s a lil baby crashout in this. also no this isnt even the sylus bday fic i had in mind but if i dont get that one out in time then this will be the substitute 😣 anways, i hope u enjoy my friends <3

You don’t remember much, growing up. Beyond him, at least.

The world goes to shit with the predators and your parents fade out of the equation- and you’re left alone for much of your youth until an ominous man comes along and takes you under his wing— but only reluctantly.

For a while afterward, you think he still grudges you for the day you, in one way or another, managed to fall under his custody, becoming a knot in his neat web of plans and purposes. Deep down, you got the feeling that he didn’t need you as much as you did him; despite his choosing to keep you around, it was likely more out of guilt than any genuine affection- but you’d decided that was okay.

He saved your life, pulled you from the fire before you could really feel its burn, and you’d be the last to make complaint for your circumstances.

There’d be no circumstances if not for him.

But he tenderizes. It turns to be an open thing, his fondness.

He takes you in when you’re fifteen. Since then- throughout the course of around six years, he’s become softer. Less ambiguous to you. There’s things he keeps under wraps and always will despite the harmless pestering on your end (like questions regarding his work, the silhouettes that trail you both constantly— and the curious glances thrown to the blood on his collar after he returns late in the night). But he’s not longer as obscure to you, his person.

Trust blooms in the parts of you where an impoverished lifestyle of scraping by carved out gaps. And you’re used to hiding- that’s not much different now- but instead of diving for shady alleyways, you find refuge in him.

He’s dangerous. That was established early on; since the first moment you met him, really, knelt before him in fear after grabbing his pant leg for help (an action he mistook for a foolish attempt at pickpocketing), that was obvious.

He’s threatening.

Never to you. Not now.

Sylus is a man of impressive decorum and somehow all the blood coating his hands doesn’t take away from his class— he extends those hands to you, callouses and all, and gives you a patient look as if he’s expecting you to take them.

At sixteen you start calling him dad (more of an accident than anything else- it’s not a conscious thing that compels you to view him as something paternal).

He doesn’t object to it.

Things fall into place in weird ways.

When all the pieces settle, you find yourself looking at a semblance of a home— a safe place that the self-proclaimed beast curated with his own paws through painstaking efforts. (Whether you were fully cognizant of them or not didn’t matter: he tried his damnedest to be what you needed, and could only hope it was enough.)

The two of you are always on the move. He barges into your room panting at night and tells you to hurry and pack a bag, or just outright scoops you up in his arms and tucks you into the car’s backseat seconds before you hear the tires revving off. Your surroundings are perpetually changing around you and yet he remains the same; a citadel, a rock in your life.

Sylus provides an air of safety. Despite it all, the abrupt ‘field trips’ (at least, that’s what he called them when you were a bit younger) taken to ward enemies off your location, the bullets that fling by your periphery on furtive nights out and the red threads that coil behind him like talons- destroying anything before it can so much as harm a hair on your pretty head- you feel safe with him.

Predator or not- he’s good to you, a lighthouse fixed firmly amidst rolling smog and cyclones.

You can’t count a time he’s lost control or been unprepared for a frenzy, and he’s taken the proper precautions to keep you from him whenever he suspects one is coming on. The broken activator just solidifies his vigilance. And he’s instructed you plenty on what to do if he does lose it, God forbid, albeit your agreement to it was utterly uneasy.

He figures he’ll spare you the little horror show, he’d joked just to smooth out the worried crinkle in your brow.

Yet- Figures he’ll spare you your life, is what he doesn’t say, despite it being a shared thought between you both.

He teaches you how to wield a gun early on.

You’d told him you didn’t wanna use it, but something as trivial as guilt had no place in Linkon as it collapsed into decadence and carnal ruin. And something like sympathy, he’d also added, was stupid. An invitation to get yourself killed.

(Silly, that. Silly and hypocritical of the man who takes pity on runts.)

Conversation is kept at a minimum at first, and clipped, but he sprinkles in tips and tricks at self preservation— life hacks in the most literal sense— and he keeps an eye on you. Watching always. He makes sure you’re holding up well and even lets you hold down the fort while he’s gone doing God knows what. It feels like a privilege when he entrusts things to you, no matter how seemingly small.

Sylus is special to you. You love him as a teacher, a protector, a warm chest to snuggle up to on the sofa when you’re restless and can’t sleep but you know he’s downstairs with a cushion waiting—

You love him as a father, too.

Not everything about him is clear to you, though... You learn many things but one you have more difficulty understanding is the way he perceives you.

You don’t know if he loves you as a daughter, or a welcome nuisance, or a stray (because he has a penchant to root for the underdog). At first, you questioned if he even loved you at all.

But you’re older now,… and you see it, the heart he wears on his sleeve to bleed for you. He cares for you. And he’s there for you.

And when he asks you to leave with him- less of a hurried demand now and more of a gentle, imploring breath amidst chittering sounds of crickets and night bugs as he stands as a single shadow against your bed frame—

You take his hand.

✦

Boxes piled in every other corner, the building feels less like a home and more like a warehouse- a very tiny, cozy warehouse, with each of your scents intertwining in the unassuming spaces where you meet.

It’s no feat of architecture- just a small apartment nestled in the innards of the southern district, and it certainly isn’t a product of exorbitant spending (the place is deceptively… humble, for what Sylus can afford), but for what it is, you like it.

You’ve dwelled at several different addresses before, and you expect this arrangement will be more of the same. You stopped mourning over the loss of houses that could’ve been homes some time ago; you bounce between streets and domains like rabbits. However, there’s a strange comfort that builds in your chest as weeks pass and, for this reason or that, your guardian shows no signs of jilting the flat.

One day, he calls you to the living room after you’ve showered, and he sits you down.

You lie in a makeshift cage between his long legs as they hang over the couch, one hand smoothing over your damp hair while the other brushes it through.

He’s never in much of a hurry to speak, so when you reach for the TV remote to fill the silence, and he stops you- you concede to the quiet, knowing whatever he’ll say to break it will be worth some thought.

Still, he seems more contemplative than usual. It warrants pause on your end.

Internally, you consider your belongings- the deliberate choice you made to keep most of them boxed- and find relief in the fact that you’ll have less to pack if Sylus were to inform you right now of another move.

It’s a little sad, but it’s just the way things are. You won’t cry over the hand that you were dealt. If nothing else, you’re just thankful, what with the squeeze this city of sin has on its people, that somewhere along the way, Sylus came to loosen you from it.

You owe him. But he never names his price.

Long, rough fingertips meticulously weaving through your hair, gentle despite the callouses as he twists it into braids, you fall into the belief that he won’t.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but you can’t find much in you to debunk it save for the tiny, deep-rooted fear that one day you’d wake up, and- just like your parents on the day of outbreak- he’d be gone. There was plenty of doubts in your head, but most if not all were born from an old trauma, and Sylus seemed… content, weirdly enough, at your side.

It becomes an easier and easier thing to believe that’s where he’ll remain.

“Sweetie,” he eventually says, “I wanted to… discuss something, with you.”

You perk under his hands, spine straightening. You give him a sidelong glance over your shoulder and find his eyes, a sharp red, surprisingly mellow as they flit across the bridge of your nose, reading your expression carefully.

“What’s wrong?”

That (the instinctive response to believe something’s gone amiss) almost brings a wry smile to his lips, but he wets them a moment later and opens them to speak. “Nothing. Not this time,” he explains smoothly. “You… You’re used to moving around, the both of us are. I’m sure it’s been… tiring, at the best of times.”

“Well,” you start as a reply, but find your speech cropped short because you’ve no real way to deny that: it was exhausting. Of course it was. But wherever he went, you’d follow. That’s just how it’s always been.

Besides, if not fixed firmly at his side- you’d be choosing the hell that is overrun, lawless Linkon; to be tossed back into its maw for the predators or, if you’re more fortunate, a not as brutal death by starvation.

Noting your silence- your agreement- Sylus continues.

He ties off the end of the tuft with a colorful band and moves to work on the other, surprisingly deft. He’s only done your hair a million times- but still, his odd expertise in it was as surprising as it was endearing. The fact that you’re twenty-one now doesn’t change this common arrangement- or the mutual fondness the two of you have for it. You like when Sylus dries or does your hair, and evidently, he does too, for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s just therapeutic for him to feel something soft in his hands. He’s better acquainted with the opposite.

“So what if we were to stay?”

The words take a moment to click.

Because you don’t stay anywhere. You don’t stay, you just run and drive and hide. Live life perpetually on the down low. On the run.

Sylus does not settle.

Still, his voice, thoughtful and velvety, rumbles behind you in a continuous, comforting sound and forces you to take what he’s saying seriously.

“This place- you don’t dislike it, do you? It’s nice. Nothing gaudy or impressive. But it’s… homey,” he muses aloud. “Off the books. You’re safe here. Safer than what the other addresses had to offer, at least.”

You ponder it for all of five seconds before answering. And to be fair it’s not actually hard to; an inner part of you assumed you’d be on the move for all your life, but you’re weirdly pleased at the idea of… not being on the move for all your life.

Some anchorage sounds nice.

You tuck your head to your chest. “I… I think I would like that.”

He perks a bit. You feel it in his hands when they pause, done with their task, and one shifts to rest on your crown.

His knees, flanking either side of you, close in. Without thinking, you latch onto one’s calf and lean into it as you grab the remote. This time he lets you.

“Yeah?” He goes, a little breathless. “Are you sure? You realize it’d be a little more… permanent.”

“Okay.”

Sylus looses a sigh somewhere behind you.

“What I’m getting at is that you’re no longer a little squirt in desperate need of me,” he clarifies in a more pointed tone, and you resist arguing that- you have no time to, really, “so if you want to leave, you can feel free to. Don’t think you’re being shackled here by me.”

For as genuine as his words sound, you quickly cotton onto the expectancy that undercoats them- the mite of something that almost makes you believe he’s waiting for affirmation on your end. A rare thing. Usually it’s the other way around.

It pulls a huff from you, though. Peels of laughter rattle from the screen in front of you (he managed to unpack your TV, but as it stands, most of the house is still pretty bare) but you ignore your favorite show for the moment to turn and frown at him.

You grab his knee while you do, saying, “Of course I don’t think that. If anything, I feel like I’m holding you back.”

Scarlet eyes blink and widen, but just slightly. White hair falls over his brow (his locks loosening from gel after a long day) when he gives his head a tilt. After a beat, he laughs at you, a deep, rumbling sound- and pats your head directly after to fix the flustered knot in your brow.

“Well, I guess we’re both wrong then, hm?

He stoops forward to kiss your cheekbone- a chaste, quick thing- and then he gets up with a grunt to head for the hall.

You watch him with a strange flutter in your chest (one that you label affection; not a wrong guess but it also fails to fully encompass just what he means to you) and stare at the wall even as he disappears behind it.

But he calls over his broad shoulder to you, “Don’t sit too close to the screen, by the way. Someone tends to get headaches when watching cartoons.”

Crossing your arms with a pout, you lean your back into the seat of the couch and splay your legs out on the fluffy rug. You’re glad for that being unpacked, but quickly find yourself planning for the following days and all you’ll have to take out and assemble- which admittedly wasn’t much, but it was still enough to trigger your lazy streak.

Sometimes you just want to lounge around all day and do nothing: a fantasy that feels more possible after your guardian’s suggestion.

You holler back, “Oh, just go to sleep, old man.” Distantly, a door opens, but it doesn’t close.

He’ll be out later.

✦

He doesn’t come out later, contrary to your belief, but his open door does make a little more sense to you when it’s deep into the night and you emerge from your own room, scared, and traipse down the hall.

The remnants of a nightmare that felt too-real grip you. Five fingers on, they don’t let go.

But Sylus- the quasi foreboding man who took you in- knows how to pull you from a pinch.

You seek his warmth as the swath of wooden tiles cooling the balls of your feet blends into carpet- that of his bedroom- navigating in total darkness as you enter.

“Sylus-?” You can’t even get the word out before he startles upright and you hear the clink of something steely and dangerous—

“I-It’s me, daddy!” You assuage quickly, voice a frail, shaken sound that’s made even smaller by the dregs of a bad dream that still hangs fresh over your mind.

Even as the images peter out— claws wrapping around your throat, a dumpster rattling as you and other ragamuffins brawl over veritable trash as food, the roar of a predator as it holds you down, saliva dribbling into your ear— the emotions are harder to shake.

You feel dizzy and a little out of place as he lets out a deep sigh of relief, flicking on the lamplight, and blinks heavily at you.

The fingers that have dipped beneath the mattress retract and return to his lap. You observe it with a relaxing of your shoulders.

Some of the tension fades from him too, but not all of it.

He asks, concern entangled with gravely bits of exhaustion, “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

You say nothing, your own voice failing you as you mentally struggle to not only find your thoughts but string them together in a coherent way.

Everything around you was blurry. Felt unstable. A cold, clammy sweat licks up your palms and forehead. The ground beneath you grows a mouth and threatens to swallow you whole- the shadows in the corner ominous and great, watching.

Of course, it was only a nightmare, an unpleasant dream that you’d laugh about and forget easily enough come morning. But right now, it’s not. It’s vivid and horrifying and amalgamating into the atoms of reality to create a special kind of paranoia. It won’t let you sleep tonight.

…Not unless something’s there to hold you, at least.

Sylus’s own voice is groggy, a bit confused. Almost unthinkingly, though, he extends a hand to welcome you.

“C’mere,” he lifts the blanket and you’re instantly drawn to the empty space beside him.

You assume it with eagerness and all but barrel into his chest, punching out a grunt from him before he chuckles faintly, reaching over to pull on the thin, beaded chain. Darkness paints across your surroundings but a small highlight swims in cherry-red eyes as they soften at you.

Strong, lean arms wrap around you, helping you burrow into him without objection.

“Was it a nightmare?” He murmurs just above a whisper, voice warm but rough as the fluffy comforters, the same ones he tucks you both under, hug him back in. “Haven’t had one of those in a while, hm?”

He feels you jerkily nod under the dip of his chin and makes a sighing response. Callous finger pads close around your back and rub little circles there meant to soothe. “S’okay, kitten. It’s over now,” he breathes, languidly pecking your temple with open lips, smearing away the part of your fringe that’s been pasted there by a cold sweat.

He has this weird habit of taking you under his wing despite his serrated edges and the natural intensity of his stone face; right now, you curl up closer to his breast, finding a tenderness he perhaps only reserves for you, and he exhales overhead.

Fears are fast to flee, wrapped up by him. As moments pass, and your erratic heart rate resumes a more normal pace, you sound your gratitude in a low murmur. Vaguely, you wonder if you’d also stirred Sylus from a nightmare of his own upon stumbling into his room, because his own pulse- typically extremely slow- undulates in his sternum.

It thumps against your ear, creating a cadence almost considered fast. A touch uneven and a lot loud.

“…Thank you, daddy,” you mouth against him, nuzzling into his pajamas- a thin, linen shirt that oozes a domesticity you’re hard-pressed to come by.

Beneath your ear— a skip.

“For… for always being there for me.”

It sounds a little sappy, but in the moment, none of that phases you. Evidently- with a low, contented hum emanating from deep within his chest- it doesn’t phase Sylus, either.

You wonder if it’s your imagination or a real, bonafide smile that curves against your head.

“Well, that’s where I belong, isn’t it? At your side,” he murmurs, and after a beat you feel his lips press a kiss to your crown, mild but lingering. “And you belong at mine, if you want it. I’ll always be here for you, sweetie,” he promises, “no matter what.”

Finally, you let your eyes flutter shut.

✦

Weeks pass. They do so pleasantly; slowly, but not in a bad way.

The quiet- mainly the lack of wandering from point A to B all for the sake of anonymity- is a welcome reprieve. Some doubts linger surrounding the agreement you and Sylus came to, but it becomes a more solid idea in your head as days pass without interuption:

This can be home.

So you start acting like it.

When noon hits, you don’t go with Wolfe, Sylus’s most trusted contact, for the usual training session when he swings by- bidding him farewell with a small wave- but instead stay back to work on the house.

Noon comes and goes. The sky turns dusky and your belly howls for food but you pay none of it any mind, too engrossed to care.

Because this is exciting.

You decorate all throughout the day, unwrap furniture from cardboard and feel anticipation swell inside you. You sing and twirl.

Before Sylus returns, you buzz with excitement while picturing his face upon walking in- not to a barren space but to a cozy one- and the rare show of his surprise. It’ll probably be nothing beyond a flare of his eyes or a soft sound of acknowledgement, but you pine for it all the same.

You’d like to make him happy. To make him feel more comfortable, at home. Especially after a long day spent weaseling throughout the blind spots of the city. He’s only allowed so much time to kick off his shoes and relax, and you want to highlight those moments for him.

It’s the least you can do, you think with a small smile, stepping down from a stool to appraise a photo you just hung (one with his hand around your waist, pulling you to his side— a would-be perfect photo if not for the crow that blurs in the corner of the lens).

Focused, you stick your tongue out and square your fingers, closing one eye because that’ll definitely help you make a better judgement on whether or not the frame is straight enough—

It slants sharply when the front door opens and slams.

You jolt, ripped from your small trance as you spin your head towards the entryway, only an iota prepared to run for the hallway and bird dive into the closet- that’s if you even make it in time. Bullets will always be faster than your little legs and if you’re correct in your belief that it’s those shady men who hate Sylus, come to retaliate against him, then there’s no way they’ll deliberate and give you a chance to escape—

Sock-clad feet halt on the floor. The stop in momentum hurls your head inches beyond your axis of balance, but the figure that freezes in the threshold, familiar, tall but hunched over, somehow seems more surprised.

Not at the new touch-ups on the walls and the neat, embellished rooms- no, but at you.

Trudging into the apartment, he looks worse for wear and you take the sight of him in with a different, growing kind of alarm.

Your shoulders ease up, just slightly. It’s not an intruder, a pack of big, unscrupulous men barging in to avenge some grievance related to the assassin who took you in- which is relieving, but the concern is tight in your brow all the same.

When he speaks, his voice is ragged. Half man half animal.

“Sweetie- what are you-?” He cuts himself short to make a sound of displeasure that comes from deep within his throat. Raw, brutal.

“You shouldn’t be here-!” You give a little flinch in response to the ferocity in his tone, phlegm catching in his trachea before he looks down, shakes his head with a hard blink, and stomps into the bulwarks of the apartment.

“Dad, you-?”

Ignoring your startle (perhaps blind to it; you think his mind is on other, more inward matters as something wild glints in his eye- paired with a conflict that worsens with each heaving breath), Sylus grabs your wrist, and he does it tightly.

“There’s no time- I need you to hurry. Help me with my suppressants- now!”

Something clicks in you, then, a distant memory lighting itself from a foggy space of remembrance.

“And kitten, listen to me. If I ever… lose control,” he starts, words a gentle, almost resigned mumble against a backdrop of city sirens and a snarling engine as the car veers into a more secluded road. You stare at his profile with a flicker of unease. But he remains composed, saying as if it’s a topic as simple as the weather, “I need you to handle me,” he glances at you, gaze steady, a brilliant, solid red, even as your mouth opens to bluster out a denial of that possibility.

“But- your suppressants- We can use them—“

“Maybe,” he turns to look out the windshield, at the road ahead. Dust and debris scrape in the wind. Even for the southern district, the place was ratty, but this is where the deal was to be had, and Sylus needed those vials before morning. “But things don’t always go as planned, you know that, sweetie. So… If something ever fails, or I become immune to the dosages— I taught you how to shoot.”

“I- I wouldn’t shoot—!“

He snaps his head over and barks, fingers whiting around the wheel. “You would! You would and you will.”

Startled, your vision blurring despite the hand you close firmly over your breast- as if balling your emotions in your palm, holding them at bay- you swallow. Scarlet eyes ripple, irises dancing around a black orb as it shrinks and becomes frantic. Unease flutters in your chest as his cold instructions turn over in your mind- but for all his hammering of them into you- you don’t bite the hand that feeds. It’s just not in your nature.

You don’t even bite the hand if it asks you to.

Begs.

Noting your shock, the stunned expression that barely masks a confused kind of hurt, your guardian blinks. Sighs and looks away.

Exhaust blows out from the back of the vehicle; you catch it in dark tails from the rear view mirror, in whiffs as the air around you becomes sour and noxious.

“I taught you to shoot,” he says again after a beat. Softer, this time. “When it gets to the point where it really matters,… don’t let your daddy down, okay? Please, sweetie. Just… agree on this one thing.”

For once in a handful of years, not considered easy by any means- but enjoyable at his side- you stare at the man who took you in and find him cruel.

You dip your chin, more out of hurt than anything else, highly uncertain as dread contricts your lungs, and nod.

It does what it was meant for: It placates him. You think it even convinces him.

He’s putting all his faith in it, in that wordless assent you’d given him years ago, for the sake of the present.

Though, Sylus still thinks it’s manageable. That there’s still a shot that this frenzy- triggered by an enhancer after a gloved hand squeezed glass to the point of bleeding, vindictive and bent on getting the last laugh- can be resolved. So you hurry to lay him on the couch as his breathing picks up, scuttling towards his room before coming back with arms full of a briefcase.

You crash to the rug and prop the case on the coffee table, fishing out a syringe before sidling up to him and taking his arm.

With some resistance- and a grunt that sounds more wolfish than man- he lets you, and you line up the needle with his arm. You say a curse under your breath when tears smear across your lids and make fuzzy the room around you.

“Hurry,” he rasps.

Shakily, you dig at the crook of his arm with your thumb to plump up the vein before- with little coordination- you feed the needle in with a sharp breath.

It mingles with Sylus’s as he makes an uncomfortable noise, the glittery fluid disemboguing into his bloodstream.

Split seconds feels like eons.

Time moves slow as molasses and you chew on your lip until something like metal sours your tongue.

Between fingers that tremble wildly just to keep it inside him, steadily injecting him with the suppressant, and a heart that pounds with uncertainty in your ears— given no assurance whatsoever that you’re not too late to pacify him— you don’t realize all the gawking on his part.

The ardency in his gaze, fleetingly tender, as it remains fixed to you. Some unspoken battle happening behind it.

…The darker thing, with a name you can’t assign, is winning out.

He feels it, too; conscious thought lending itself to his baser person— instincts, ugly and primal and overwhelming— all against his will.

“You were supposed to be with Wolfe,” He forces out with great difficulty, sweat beading his temple. He’s hot to the touch, skin like a kiln, baking your fingertips as they hover over him.

Light as feathers, you still feel the burn.

“I would’ve never came.”

Thickly, you swallow, rubbing his forearm soothingly even as the veins there bulge and glow, putting a fright in you that you do well to ignore.

He needs you right now. He needs you and you won’t fail him.

“Shh, shh,” you hush, folding your upper half over the sofa to plant your head against his shoulder.

One hand, between your bodies, gradually plies him with the suppressant; the other slips to the nape of his neck and intwines with his mullet, tugging softly.

He lets out a soft sound at that, temporarily appeased.

“It’s okay, daddy. It’s okay.”

You need it to be true.

For what it’s worth, he does seem just a touch comforted by that.

It’s not lasting.

He’s dangerous, and he knows. He’s losing out to the predator instinct, and he knows and he’s terrified but he remains rigid. Has to.

“I want you to inject all of it into my veins,” a sonorous voice rings at your ear, dry, open lips moving against your head as he smushes a kiss there. You think it’s more subconscious a move than anything as the cognizant trace in him fades out, albeit you still appreciate it.

A large hand, hanging off the couch- shaking not because it’s weak but because it’s trying its best to be- shifts to rest over your back.

He continues, “And then I want you to leave me. If we’re lucky, I’ll pass out and ride it through that way…”

Clenching your jaw, you nod against his neck, under his chin, and bite down on a whimper.

“You’ll be okay, daddy. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be all better. The suppressants w-will make you sleepy, and—“

Something surges in him, then, a growl cutting through your eardrums as you flinch back and he- before the second little vial even reaches the halfway tick- knocks it from your hands.

It collides with the coffee table and shatters.

The rug- the fluffy one you’d happily picked out with him some months back- darkens with a splotch you can’t easily scrub out.

Like an animal in a cage he’s revolted. You’re not naive enough to not see the movement for what it is; no matter how watered down, it’s still a version of it: a beast lunging.

Whatever’s left of his conscience is just barely barring that monster off, but as you fall back on your ass and gape at him, you realize with horror he will not turn out as the victor.

Fear brews in your belly. Butterflies swarm the pit of it, leaving nausea in the wake of their wings as they make quick work of your bravery- or the pretense you held of it.

A drop of blood pricks from the crook of his arm, the syringe made useless as it lay broken on the carpet: you watch it with shock, numbness almost, before looking up to him.

He forces himself to go recumbent, five fingers splayed over his face. The gaps in them, though, reveal grimacing, pearly teeth.

Canines bared no different than a hungry predator, defensive and bold.

Unlike you, very real in their display.

For a number of seconds, you do not breathe. Eyes wide and scared.

“Go,” he croaks out after a moment.

It takes longer than it should to register.

When it does, you gasp as if stirred from a bad dream. It’s precious- the sign he gives that he’s still in control- and you don’t take it for granted. You rise to wobbling knees, frenetically glancing between the dazzling shards and his heaving chest.

You extend a cautionary, worried hand, something in you utterly wrecked at the sight of him- your savior, your shield, your father figure- crumpled in on himself.

“Daddy—“

“Go!”

Silence strobes across the living room, but just for a second. It bites into you where it settles.

Unthinkingly, you turn. His words and their grating tone cut better than any knife ever could. Tears clinging to your lashes, you steel your legs (because they’re gelatinous beneath you), whip around, and start for the front door.

You don’t know where you’ll go apart from Sylus tonight, but that’s all to be figured out later after you calm your nerves down a bit and convince yourself it’ll all be fine—

The couch groans atop its wooden frame.

Suddenly, a hand snatches around your wrist, scorching hot, and when you swirl around, his head is bowed.

A whit of hope strings you along—

“D-Dad?” You breathe, “Are you okay now?”

Scarlet eyes peer up from a silvery curtain of hair, aflame, near glowing, and you let out a gasp.

—And drops you.

“I thought you wanted to help little old me? So…” he muses darkly, “where are you going?”

The reality of your situation takes a second to catch up to you.

Something that can accurately be called fear clamps in your chest— not for what he could be but for what he is now. Some change has happened in him, some sickness taken root, and until it passes, you’ll be victim to the beast that wears your savior’s face.

Stunned, you listen. “Has your father ever left you hanging? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same?”

“Sylus-“

He tuts, a belittling sound. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. C’mere, kitten, sit.” Long fingers entwine around your wrist and you’re reminded of wolf paws trampling over twigs in forests. It’s not unbearably tight a grip, not yet, at least, but he’s certainly applying more pressure than what he generally does.

You wet your dry lip, dread wringing you from the inside out. You feel oddly parched.

“But Sylus- you’re not-“

“Sit,” he suddenly growls, something undeniably dark glittering in his eye.

You’re without opportunity to argue or even try to reason with him, because he yanks you into his lap and loops his arms around your middle.

You liken yourself to a bird in a cage. His limbs your bars and your soft sounds of fear like twittering.

Using the last of your rational thought- your brain losing ground to fight or flight instinct- you try to think back to his instructions (funereal as they were), but find yourself creating other options. Even if you did want to shoot Sylus like he’d made you promise all those years ago, it’s not like you’ve got a gun lying around for it… No, the one he gave you (the one you keep as a token of him, like a locket) is sandwiched between your mattress and its framework.

A-And that’s where it’ll stay. No matter what.

Because you don’t bite the hand that feeds. You don’t bite the hand that feeds even after it pleads to be.

You decide, right then, that it’s better to play dead.

Sat perfectly still in his lap, your plan succeeds for all of half a minute before a hitch appears. To begin with, it was one born out of desperation, with low expectancy- but damn it all you still flinch when you become aware of his teeth and your proximity to them.

Fangs brush against your throat, uncomfortably sharp. It raises alarm in you, but it’s quickly lost in the other warning bells clanging in your skull.

You shiver. To your horror, Sylus chuckles.

“Are you scared I’ll hurt you?” He murmurs, breath searing your neck where it fans against it. It’s labored and fast; the depravity amplified against your earlobe.

Somewhere in you, you find the courage to answer. “A- A little,” you feebly admit. “I couldn’t get all the suppresants in.”

Sylus hums, low and satisfied, but you don’t quite miss the undercurrent of decadence in it- as much as you might want to.

“Good,” he quips. “Frenzies feel so much better without the pushback. You shouldn’t have injected any in me in the first place.”

“But you said-“

“It’s in my DNA to want to bite. It’s a little cruel to keep me from that… don’t you think?”

A debate happens within you, short-lived but tumultuous. You deliberate on answering because really, how can you? What is there to say that can temper him when he’s like this? A predator in the flesh.

And the thing about predators is that, somewhere in the equation, there must be prey—

But no. No- you refuse to believe he’ll succumb to that animalism, not when he’s more or less like blood to you. Your trust for him runs as thick as it, anyway. Blood is thicker than water, and poison, too- so the toxic lilt in his voice means nothing. Nothing at all.

You swallow, unable to offer any real reply. “I- I-“

“No,” he snips, a palm drifting lower. Positively impatient. Ever the obliging, albeit sometimes brusque man, the Sylus you know is nowhere to be found.

“Tell daddy what you really think of him. Think he’s a monster, don’t you?”

Finally, he nips at your neck, cutting himself loose from the self restraint he stubbornly moored himself to, groaning at the softness. Seamlessly, he suckles a hickey into your throat and you mewl.

The single thread of whatever the hell it is that’s keeping him at bay- his buried conscience, perhaps- snaps.

He makes a hot, ferocious sound, pawing at your breast now, drawing a startled yelp from you that his gums throb at. “Should he act accordingly? Hm? Use your words, kitten.”

Words? No. No, you think actions would suit you better- he’s not in his right mind right now and you need to leave like he’d ordered before your image of him, the one you’d put on a precious pedestal, collapses.

Daringly, you get up to try and bolt out again, mind single as your eyes dart to the front door.

If you can just leave the apartment, maybe you can lose him in the weaving, shady paths that are labyrinthine Linkon. Surely, he’ll find someone else, someone deserving (culpable men are not hard to come by here), and make them his glorified plaything instead.

By the time the sun rises, he’ll have woken from this awful, twisted trance—

He lets out a roar, angrily snatching you back onto the couch.

This time, though, there’s no semblance of freedom as he pins you under him, hovering close enough to bump his long nose against yours as he grips your hips tight enough to bruise.

“Nawh, you wound me, sweetie… And here I thought…” he rasps, ruby eyes glossing as the lid droops, blatantly ogling your jostling breast, “You had daddy’s better interest in mind.”

That’s unclear. But yours? Your better interest?

There it is again- blitzing across your frazzled conscience, stark against the dreadful haze: Play dead.

You do.

The blow will come, that’s definite. But if you play your cards right, maybe, a small hope in the back of your head says, you can lessen it.

You go limp beneath him and his hands. Even as they grope your tits through your shirt before he quickly foregoes that charade in favor of ripping open the collar, you remain still. You clamp your eyes shut and bite down on a pathetic sound.

Each and every one of your intentions evade riling him up, and yet your mere presence, pliant but shivering beneath him, does a good enough job at that on its own.

Still, as his energy builds into a devastating force, you’re quietly thankful for the amount you did manage to get in with the syringe. Likely, you realize with a heavy swoop of your heart, the determining factor in your life.

H-How much was it again-? Two vials? Or a vial and a half-?

Briefly, you glance over to the table where the case lay, open but half empty, and contemplate something stupid before the man- beast- above you laughs. Asserts himself in your face.

He’s all you see when he says, “I guess you don’t have your better interest in mind, either. Hm, kitten?”

And you’re all he smells, feels, knows, as he ruts his clothed cock against your thigh and you feel the swollen bulge. You shiver again. He’s really, really hard and is he actually planning to fuck you with that-?

You?

The pleasured, but not close to satisfied, grunt he makes says yes. Yes, absolutely he’s going to fuck you.

Rip off your panties after uncivilly pulling off your shorts and stuff his flushed length inside with a—

—“Fuck, kitty!”

He’s met with resistance.

And you forget your plan completely, terror taking over entirely as you begin to wriggle and plead for him to hold off, to reconsider— you’re a virgin and he’s mean and given your relationship, you two were never supposed to end up parallel to one another on the couch, desire brewing between your naked bodies. Well, you’re naked- or growingly; but Sylus isn’t.

Scraps of leather cling to sturdy, lean muscle, but he’s broiling in them still, skin licked with sweat. Evidently, heat has fried his neurons- his memory of himself- too.

“Please, daddy, I- I’ll—“

Oh, break. You’ll one hundred percent break but you keep from saying it aloud because you suspect it’ll warm his blood all the more. A correct guess, but it’s a little late for taking back what you did say. Sylus cottons onto it and groans.

“Don’t do this, Sylus,” you try to remind him of who he really is, even if your voice is small and untrustworthy. “Y-You don’t have to. J-Just remember who you are- who I am!”

His precious girl.

Once, he’d even said, his treasure.

Your heart stings.

Taking out the engorged, weeping head of him and rubbing it at your mostly-dry entrance (in hopes to prime it after failing to push his way inside), he’s hardly lucid as you babble.

Cute… But unimportant, he decides.

…Yet, he does somehow find it in him to look up, and you do find a trace of… something in him, human-like and guilty, when he does. It’s quicksilver. Gone when you blink.

Your pussy lips try to spit him out but it just works him up further.

The darkness in his gaze returns in tenfold.

He manages a scoff. “Oh, c’mon. Of course I remember~ You’re daddy’s little girl, aren’t you?” He hums meanly, suddenly immune to the wide, kicked look you send him. It’s always done wonders on him before, but you’re met with failure.

“So how come you can’t take his cock? I know you could, if you just tried a little harder. Relaaax. Ease up. From now on, someone’s gonna have to be the calm one between us when I get into my frenzies. You can be that, right?” That sentence instills dismay in you for many reasons, but you have no time to think on them.

He husks, “Now, go on. Help guide me in.”

You don’t reach a hand down between you two like perhaps he wanted, but you do hear a faint squelch right then as he cants his hips forward an inch, and it does make you gasp. Despite yourself, you slick up for him- for God knows what reason, maybe just as self preservation or some deeper, pitiful attempt to please him- and it becomes obvious.

Sylus notes it with a shaky breath that blends with his other labored, ragged ones, and a grin that’d better suit a bastard.

He delves inside, by a small miracle, but you can’t stop from crying when he reaches halfway in and blood rings around the thick base of him. Inwardly, you try to separate the sin from the face, telling yourself between strained breaths that he’s not in control, that this frightening, terribly unfamiliar side isn’t the real him.

You whimper more when you realize you’ll be squinting at him for months to come, losing sleep over the question of, was he helpless to the beast, or hiding it in him all along? Was he a mere victim to the predator instinct forced onto him? or willfully steering it—?

No. No. Because he’s like blood to you. And blood is thicker than water, and poison, and the niggling doubts you feed on until gluttony.

“I-It hurts,” you try when he bottoms out with a resounding groan. Shameless and frenetic. He stoops over you after pressing your legs all the way back to the couch, rough as he purrs in your ear.

“You say it hurts, but your pussy just squeezes tighter around me… So you’d understand why I’d be getting mixed reactions, don’t you?”

He whispers. For the second documented time, you find Sylus cruel. Very, painfully, cruel.

It’s hard to argue with him, even when you know he’s wrong. You think if he was more awake right now, more him, then he’d side with you as well. And yet he’s completely untrustworthy right now, morally black and mean. So, so mean.

That devilish smirk on his blissed-out face might bring on an even sharper sting than his cock as it spears inside you and starts a brutal pace.

Well.

Not quite.

Your eyes flare. So do his, want and pure, unadulterated need zipping between your bodies as his perspiration dribbles onto your collar. He hangs his head into your shoulder and you feel droplets slip between the valley of your breast.

It doesn’t take long for the heat to feel sweltering; sweat running like the Nile between you both.

“Silly little bird. You just- hah, fuck- have no clue, do you? How tempting you are?”

You ignore it all because it’s better to. Maybe ignorance won’t shield you from his hands as they clench around the fat of your hips, but it’ll certainly help you later on down the line when you want to forget and are thankful for the kickstart.

You try to focus on the ceiling, but even that blurs behind him when he leans back some just to stare, moaning at what he sees.

Even beasts can appreciate beauty, he distantly observes.

Those eyes on you, not gentle per usual (albeit sometimes tinged with a harmless tease) but ravenous and sharp- are even harder to ignore. You can’t stop your hands from lifting to push at his face to try to block him out.

All for naught, of course.

With a choked moan, he chuckles. “Ugh- look at you. These little hands keep swatting at me, even though your face is full of pleasure. Fuck,” he curses, his face handsome but a bit unnerving as it dons a more perverted look, eyes half closed, “You feel…. good. I always knew you would.”

No. No. Shut up, shut up—

“You wanna be good for your daddy?”

Yes.

Not like this.

He gathers your unruly hands and cuffs them above your head. “Then lie down and take it. If it hurts as much as you pretend, I’m sure it’ll… feel better that way, if you give in.”

There’s a very small window in between Sylus hovering over you and then Sylus dipping down to bite the fleshy bit between your neck and shoulder: in it, there’s no time to prepare.

Ice tingles in your veins, shock stealing your breath.

It’s the pain, first dull and uncomfortable as his teeth sink in, but then quickly all-consuming, that helps you find the scream.

The scream— a small, broken cry.

It doesn’t make much noise, not enough for any possible neighbors to hear- in Linkon, none would even bat an eye to it, anyway- but he covers your mouth regardless. He eats up the pathetic sounds with rough lips and hungry groans.

You don’t know how much blood he’s drawn, but there’s a little on his teeth that he makes you taste.

“Ngh, you’re delicious,” he heaves after a break. Saliva connects you both in a fleeting strand. “I’m sure your pussy tastes even better- but kitten, I really don’t have the time right now to try it. You’ll forgive me, won’t you?” He chuckles in your ear. You know he does not care for the answer. It’s deep and mean-spirited.

This side of Sylus- this rotten caricature of the man who took you in— All the hurt for it turns to loathing.

“For later,” he decides after a beat, resolved as he ignores your sneer.

You’re used to ambition on his end, but not greed: right now, his goals gravitate more towards selfishness than anything else.

All of it nears its end and quickly.

As he ruts into you, though, frenzied thrusts reaching their mark with loud grunts, it feels more gradual for you… Painfully slow. Seconds might as well be minutes, or hours, even.

It’s feral, the glint in his eye as he reshapes your walls to fit the outline of his massive cock, your virgin pussy spasming around him. Responsively, he gives a twitch, and you swear you feel his balls jump when he pauses- just for a moment- and they rest above your ass.

Sylus looks down at you, breathless and wild, and you shake at the lack of familiarity in his gaze. Ruby red eyes survey you almost frantically, with one intent only- to fuck you within an inch of your life, undoubtedly. Full of need. It’s a bottomless gaze. You think right then that you can’t give him what he wants because he’ll always be left wanting for more.

You’re not an ocean— if he reaches his hand in, he’ll inevitably reach the bottom but that clearly doesn’t stop him from trying to pull everything from out of you anyway.

It scares you. You feel small, mouse-like, but when he snatches your jaw into a sultry kiss, all canines and spit, you realize that even amidst the tumult of his predator state, you still mean something to him.

You’re all he sees. Feels. Understands to want for.

He burns inside you, the juncture of your thighs becoming sticky, gross. He ploughs inside without care for it, chasing his end and choking out moans along the way.

He coaxes some out of you, too.

Maybe it’s out of fear but you suckle on his tongue experimentally and he shakes, damp skin shivering under your finger pads as you dig them into his forearm.

Maybe you can’t play dead, but if all else fails, you can still play nice.

That’s in your best interest.

“F-uck, sweet thing, you’re gonna make me-“ a primal noise rips through his chest and rings in your ears. He lowers himself to your neck again and suckles at the orbs of blood that prick at the surface, lapping away at the small mess he made.

You wonder if after all this is over, you’ll be able to pretend it was just a love-bite, a hickey or something minor. Healable. Something able to be forgiven. Even if that would also be hard to reconcile with, considering you’d never thought he do something like this to you, the precious girl he’d flip Linkon upside down for—

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He’s classy, but not now. Cursing up a storm at your clavicle and pounding into you without thought, blunt nails embedding into your hips. Aching to brand himself wherever he can.

There’s no ceremony to it all (though there is a build-up, his pelvis quickening but stuttering against the underside of your bent thighs) when he comes.

He shouts and you scream, holding onto him for dear life as a torrent of something hot and thick floods you. Your legs shake, poor cunt desperately trying to push its intruder out but it flutters when he throbs inside you and quivers. A wisp of pleasure paralyzes you- it’s so good.

Warmth trickles between you; all along the seam of you when he withdraws until only the tip remains, his cheeks flushed, eyes unfocused.

You let your head bounce against the cushion when he slides it all out with a wet ‘pop’, squeezing your eyes shut in shame. But relief joins it, too, your jaw (that had went slack only to howl with delight) closing as you catch your breath.

It’s done. It’s over. You went through the hard part and now you just have to wait the aftershocks of it out until morning, when you’ll finally be given the chance to recuperate and forget the monster your daddy was acting the night before—

Something thick, straightening back to life, nudges at your sopping hole again as it clenches around nothing. Your eyes snap open.

A large, callous palm holds you down, bracing you by the collarbone. He tuts, leaning over you with a dazed but wholly vicious grin.

Far from satiated.

“Ah-ah, kitten. It’s a little early to tap out, isn’t it? I’m far from done with you.”

He drives himself back home, slamming into you with a moan you brokenly mirror.

✦

Morning birds tweet outside the window. Bickering back and forth to one another.

The sheer curtains glow with sunlight as the onset of dawn makes its way in. Rays of it slur together in blocks on the floor.

Sylus’s room, you realize groggily. Not the living room with its new sofa stained with sweat and sex or the rug with its shattered, neon vials.

A strong arm holds lazily to your waist. Warm breath at your ear tickles you into slight wakefulness. The body slotted behind yours isn’t scorching hot like your nerve endings remember, though, almost flinching in response, and his sounds aren’t ragged. No, it’s…

Peaceful.

The events of the evening before come back to you in increments.

Your mind, with the natural want to protect you, chalks it all up to a bad dream.

The ache between your sticky legs and the fat cockhead that sits limply above the cleft of your ass- appeased- says otherwise.

You let out a soft gasp. The man behind you grumbles out a low, noncommittal sound before his lashes flutter over the blade of your shoulder.

“…Baby? What’s wrong?”

He untucks himself from there and is given great pause when his nakedness- and yours- clicks. His limbs harden around you— horrified and confused as every fresh memory from last night comes barreling into him as well.

Stunned, he lifts his head from its perch at your shoulder, but his hand remains above your hip, feather light and hesitant.

Wearily, you turn to meet him when his other hand gently steers your chin to look his way.

He looks tired. Fucking exhausted, the fine wrinkles in his face emphasized under the weight of the night prior. He looks—

Devastated.

“You-…” A sharp, shallow breath beats from his chest. His eyes, wide and unsteady, flit between yours, searching desperately for something he can’t quite find or recognize as you wet your lip to speak.

“Yesterday, I… Started decorating the house. I was excited to show you,” you say without really knowing why. Sylus’s shoulders sag ever so slightly at your apparent calmness, but the fear in his eye remains as he surveys the bruises- all the discoloration in your otherwise supple skin- and blinks.

You inhale shakily, looking down to his chest and all its striations, put on full display in the afterglow of what transpired however many hours before.

It feels wrong to call it a night of love-making, or even a term more raw, unfeeling, as sex. No, it was…

He fucked you within an inch of your life and that was all you really knew. He fucked you until you passed out and then sometime afterwards, apparently snapped out of his trance just enough to carry you back to his bed and sleep the remnant of his frenzy through.

But it wasn’t his fault. Couldn’t have been.

(Whose, then?)

You murmur, “I should’ve went with Wolfe.”

“No,” and there it is again, that fucking snarl, searing you through to the core but before panic can settle, he’s cradling your cheeks and pressing his forehead to yours.

His eyes are intense, but not scary. No, they’re tender and beaten and lovely as his chest shudders and he shakes his head. “No, sweetie. What happened…” he starts, just as unsure of how to label it, “had nothing to do with you. Don’t ever blame it on yourself. Do you understand?”

Blearily, you nod.

You see him in double when he sighs and carefully thumbs away a tear you didn’t realize had formed and fell.

…But Sylus appears a mite uncertain with himself when his eyes fall to your breast before quickly averting, self aware to the point of near pain and definite discomfort. “I’ll clean us up,” he ventures, glancing at you again.

For permission, you realize. To scoop your jelly limbs up and carry you to the shower, bridal-style, where he’ll wash the both of you naked, intimate and-

And should-be alarming.

But it’s not. Not now when you’re still dazed and bruised and his dried cum is caked to your thighs in white rivulets- and he’s just as wounded, but ready to fix. Ready to repaint over the peeling bits of you both in the aftermath of it all. Hang a picture over the hole in the wall of your heart.

“…Okay.”

He wastes no time in picking you up, but he’s gentler than ever when he takes you with him to the bathroom adjoined to his room. It’s awkward: you note that even in the bone-deep fatigue. You can tell he’s trying not to look at all the places instinct tells him he should, and you do well to blot out the sight (and memory) of his softened cock as it dangles between his legs.

The shower starts. Sylus keeps you upright so you don’t fall because your joints will literally fail you otherwise.

“I’m sorry,” he laments as the water pours overhead, holding you against him. He means it in more ways than one. And yet, before you can voice your acknowledgement, and an unsure forgiveness, a small hope stirring in your gut that says this can be moved on from—

His lips press to yours. Chaste but searing; somehow even more world-shattering than last night.

It’s different. He’s… awake.

Jaw slack, you blink at him, water clumping your lashes both. He’s as handsome as a wolf is hungry but- for the moment- domesticated. Even his crow’s feet seem to soften.

“I’ll help you unpack the rest today,” is all he says as he reaches behind you for the soap, gaze unwavering even as you latch onto him and your perfect tits jiggle, his hand dipping below to carefully lather at your marks.

“This house can still be a home. I’ll show you.”

𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔, 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔, + 𝒓𝒆𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒔 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 ♡

[dawnbreakerswife]

F1 lads>>>>>

push n' fracture ! — caleb 夏 (f1 rider! au)

— ! lexical count : 5.7k words

— ! affinity : caleb (xia yizhou) x fem!reader

— ! essence : caleb doesn’t do rivals. especially not when they’re plastered across your skin. jealousy twists into something sharp and dangerous as possession takes over, and the line between love and obsession blurs. tangled, messy, and burning with tension—this is about claiming what’s his, no matter the cost.

— ! precautionary : fem!reader, use of ‘y/n’ and feminine pronouns, f1 rider!caleb, sexual content, jealousy, possessiveness, intense physicality, car crash (non-fatal), semi-public setting, slight degradation, overstimulation, roughness, dom!caleb, rivalry-based tension, angry sex

— ! writer’s foreword : just crash-landed home from, brain leaking out my ears, and what did i do? rest? recover? touch grass? no. i opened my laptop and immediately started writing this unholy, feral filthfest. if this fic makes no sense or feels like a fever dream, blame the caffeine overdose and my sleep deprivation. also, send help (and snacks). preferably both.

— ! soundtrack in play : ohmami by chase atlantic

this is my only account. any similarities between this work and others—published or unpublished—are entirely coincidental. i pour a great deal of time, care, and emotion into what i create. it is against both my principles and my moral compass to plagiarize or steal from the work of others. i hold deep respect for the creators who came before me, and i would never knowingly compromise the integrity of their work or mine. furthermore, i do not condone the use of AI in the creation or replication of fanworks. everything here is original and made with clean intentions.

minors dni. this work contains dark, mature themes and is intended for adult audiences only. accounts that do not clearly indicate age in their bio or blog will be blocked without warning. this is for my safety and yours—respect boundaries, respect creators.

you weren’t even wearing his team hoodie.

no red bull colors. no little sticker of his number on your cheek like you wore in monaco. no subtle sign that you were his—not even a glance in his direction. instead, your shirt clung to your skin in the dry desert heat, speckled with sun and cropped enough to bare your ribs when the desert wind blew. that tight mclaren crop tee clung to your skin, the bright tarocco tone screaming his rival’s colors as you stood too close—way too close—to rafayel.

it all started with a laugh. just a laugh. nothing more.

you’d meant nothing by it—just a shared joke with rafayel in the hospitality lounge before qualifying. rafayel leaned toward you with that signature half-grin, elbow on the counter of the lounge, head tilted just enough to make it intimate. charming. relaxed. fucking smug. his hand had brushed your arm when you’d thrown your head back, the soft trill of your giggle carried into the desert air. head tipped back, fingers brushing his arm as you caught his eye and giggled at something he said. a soft, unconscious motion. a friendly exchange. nothing malicious, nothing overt.

you should’ve known. you should’ve seen it in the way caleb’s jaw locked during the driver briefing—helmet held by its chin bar, fzipped up to his collarbone, gloves hooked around two fingers—and for the first time in his career, he wasn’t thinking about tire temps or DRS zones. his jaw flexed tight enough to cramp as he watched rafayel lean in closer, and watched you—his girl, the girl who should never let anyone that close—giggle and tuck your hair behind your ear like it wasn’t a fucking dagger straight through his sternum.

“caleb,” his engineer’s voice crackled through the headset. “you alright, mate? you seem out of it—everythin’ okay?”

he didn’t answer right away. swallowed hard, blinked once. his grip clenched tighter around his helmet, the carbon fiber started to dent. “…peachy.”

he didn’t look at rafayel again. didn’t need to.

he’d already decided.

i’ll deal with you later.

P2 on the grid.

of course it was P2.

rafayel sat in his mclaren like he already had the win wrapped around his fingers, one gloved hand drumming rhythmically on the top of his wheel, the other giving a little mock salute to the crowd through the visor cam. caleb didn’t look at him. his gloves were already tugged tight, helmet sealed, eyes locked forward—but all he saw behind the visor was the orange shirt stuck to your back in the heat with the stupid bold mclaren settled on the fabric right over your heart. his number and name nowhere in sight.

“radio check,” his engineer called.

he didn’t respond.

“caleb? radio check, mate?”

his voice finally came through, taut and venomous. “loud and fucking clear.”

there was a beat of silence. a pause on the line, “you good, man?”

he forced a breath through his nose. “let’s just get this over with,” over the loud hum of the engine, all he could hear was the echoes of your laugh with that shithead rafayel.

“five lights on,” the race director counted. “and it’s lights out and away we go—!” rafayel’s launch was clean—but caleb was rabid. the red bull fired forward like a predator loosed from the leash, barely missing P3 as he launched straight into turn 1 side-by-side with the mclaren. rafayel closed him off with a hard brake, forcing caleb out wide on the dirty part of the track, but caleb didn’t lift — not even when his front wing came within centimeters of rafayel’s rear.

“he’s driving like he wants to fuckin’ kill me,” rafayel spat over comms, his voice crackling. caleb didn’t respond on his own. he was too busy chasing. he spent the first dozen laps locked inside DRS range, not even trying to overtake clean—no, every move was calculated pressure. he drove like he wanted rafayel to feel him breathing down his neck. every brake was late. every corner exit was close enough to make the mclaren engineer panic.

“back off, caleb!” his own team barked at one point. “you’re risking a collision!” but caleb didn’t care. he wanted him to feel cornered. to know that he was prey. because he was. you don’t put your hands on her, he thought darkly as he tailgated out of turn 10, and walk away unscathed.

you were on the pit wall by then—wearing orange, still—and caleb saw you glance up at the timing tower. every time his number lit up right behind rafayel’s, you tensed. he saw it.

good, he thought. watch me. watch what i do to the man who touches what’s mine.

it built slowly—tire wear creeping in, temps rising, his rear losing grip in sector 3. still he stayed out, defying every team call to box. lap 26, rafayel’s tires began to fail. the tires wore down. rear traction faded. lap times dropped. still, he didn’t box. ignored every pit call.

“caleb, come in, we’re losing compound.”

“negative.” his voice came back hoarse. “i’ve got him.”

lap 28, rafayel’s grip was breaking—caleb could see it in the rear twitch. turn fourteen, he closed in so tight the slipstream pulled bits of rubber into his halo. he could’ve tapped the diffuser with his nose cone if he wanted. could’ve unstitched the seams of that mclaren.

“final lap,” came the call. “no funny shit, caleb.” but it was too late for that. he already knew where he’d do it. turn 13. fast. blind. unforgiving. he waited for the right moment, nudged inside, and turned in early.

the contact was immediate.

carbon fiber shredded. both cars locked up in a scream of tire smoke and screeching brakes. rafayel’s mclaren spun violently off the racing line, back end slammed against the barriers, dust pluming into the air. caleb’s red bull skidded into the gravel with a thunderous jolt.

yellow flags. double waved.

red flag. the race was over.

rafayel was out. caleb’s engine stalled in the gravel. static choked the radio. “what the fuck was that?!” screamed race control. he didn’t answer. not until he saw the red flag and the dust settle. not until he saw your face on the edge of the pit wall go white.

he didn’t attend the press conference. didn’t even unbuckle until a marshal banged on his cockpit. his PR rep trailed after him with panicked eyes and a clipboard full of damage control bullet points, but caleb walked right past him, suit still half-zipped, jaw clenched hard enough he could swear his teeth would crush with the pressure. they tried to stop him. camera caught his shoulder. reporters called his name—he didn’t even turn his head.

no interviews. no apologies. no explanations.

let them speculate. let them talk.

he didn’t give a single damn.

because rafayel wouldn’t touch you again.

not after this.

you didn’t speak the entire drive back.

he’d refused the medical tent. ignored the swarm of reporters like they weren’t even there, brushed past the PR team screaming his name with a pace so brutal you’d had to jog to keep up. he didn’t speak. didn’t even look at you. just reached back once—wrist tight, fingers wrapping around yours—and yanked you with him through the mess of the paddock and straight into the red bull private lot.

the silence was suffocating. not tense in the way people usually meant it—not awkward, not uncomfortable. it was a pressure chamber. the kind that made your ears ring and your chest hurt. you could hear every turn signal click, every swipe of the wiper across the windshield, even the way caleb’s grip on the wheel creaked under his gloves. he hadn’t taken them off. still in his fireproofs, zipper low on his chest, collarbone glistening with sweat and dust, jaw locked so tight it looked like it might snap.

the door slammed shut behind you with a vicious bang!—a sound that echoed like a gunshot off the walls—and it made your shoulders jerk involuntarily. he didn’t say a word. didn’t glance back. just stalked across the living room like the adrenaline was still burning through his blood, ripping open the fridge like something in it might anchor him, steady the fury in his bones. but even from where you stood, you could see the tremor in his hand. the way his fingers gripped the handle too hard. the tension still coiled in his shoulders like a spring wound to the point of rupture.

he wasn’t calming down. not even close.

the silence throbbed around you, thick and charged. you shifted on your feet, breath shallow, heart hammering like it wanted to crawl out of your throat.

“caleb—” you started, voice small.

“take it off.” his voice was low, sliced through the air like a whip.

you froze. your mouth parted, a breath catching in your throat. “w-what?”

he closed the fridge slowly. deliberately. then turned.

his eyes were black beneath the heavy shadow of his brow, dark and molten like they hadn’t cooled since the second his front wing clipped rafayel’s tire in that brutal turn. he took a step toward you, slow and controlled, like a predator choosing exactly how to pounce. “the fucking shirt,” he said, voice low and thick with venom. another step. “take it off before i rip it off ‘ya.”

your stomach dropped. you looked down instinctively. that stupid, traitorous mclaren tee still clung to your sweat-damp skin, streaked with grime and faint splashes of champagne from a podium that wasn’t his. that bright orange logo burned against your chest like a brand, and suddenly it felt radioactive.

you didn’t move. you hesitated.

and that was all it took.

two strides, and he was on you.

your back hit the wall so fast the impact knocked the breath from your lungs. the world narrowed—your heartbeat screamed in your ears, adrenaline flared under your skin, and caleb was there, crowding you in, body a furnace, heat rolling off him in waves. his fingers hooked the hem and yanked—not teasing, not even urgent. violent. the fabric caught against your arms, dragged over your skin so fast it left a burn, your hair tangled and pulled, nipples tightening into stiff peaks in the sudden rush of cold air.

caleb tossed the shirt onto the floor like it disgusted him.

“you wanna wear his colors?” he muttered, voice low and curling with fury. his breath hit your collarbone, his words too close, too hot. “wanna sit there in his fucking garage and giggle at his jokes while he stares at your tits through my windshield?”

tone wasn’t raised. he didn’t have to shout. it was the quietness that made it worse—quiet like a threat wrapped in velvet. quiet like a knife at your ribs.

you breath stuttered, your voice coming out weaker than you wanted it to. “c-caleb, i wasn’t—he didn’t—”

“shut it,” he snarled it, close enough for your lips to brush, and the force of it made your breath stutter. his hands came up—hard—gripping your waist, rough fingers digging into your hips like he meant to leave marks, like he wanted to brand you into him, carve out any memory of someone else’s eyes on your skin. caleb dragged you forward, chest to chest, his heart thudding against yours like war drums.

“i don’t want your pathetic excuses,” he ground out. “you don’t wear his name. you don’t smile at him.”

the silence after was suffocating.

his fingers curled tighter around your sides. his mouth hovered near your jaw, breath ragged and warm, chest heaving with every inhale like he couldn’t catch it. rage coiled off him in waves, not loud anymore—just molten, buried deep, a kind of fury that didn’t explode. it consumed. slow. controlled. and it was deadly.

and it was all aimed at the thought of him touching you.

of you letting him.

caleb’s thumb ghosted over your ribs, rough and possessive, tracing the bare skin now exposed in the absence of that damned shirt.

his mouth crushed against yours before you could speak—hot, brutal, punishing. all teeth and fury, like he wanted to bite the silence from your tongue, like tasting you was the only thing anchoring him to the present. he didn’t kiss you so much as devour you, lips bruising, jaw tense with barely-contained rage, breathing you in like you were air after drowning.

his hands were everywhere—frantic, careless. they slid down the arch of your spine, fingers pressing into every vertebra like he meant to memorize the shape of you, then sank lower, palms gripping your ass with bruising force. he hauled you against him so hard your breath fled, pelvis grinding to his through the fireproofs still clinging to his hips. he was already half-hard. already throbbing through the thin barrier between you. the press of it against your lower stomach made your knees tremble.

and then his gaze dropped.

his eyes caught on the denim. the sound that tore from his throat was less a breath and more a mocking scoff.

the low-rise shorts clung to your hips like sin, skin peeking out from under the frayed hem, teasing with that reckless kind of innocence that only made his fury burn hotter. they sat just high enough to hint at modesty but dipped scandalously low, hugging the softness of your waist like a taunt.

slowly, he reached down—deliberate, fingers flexing—and let his hand splay flat over your stomach. his palm was hot against your skin. the heel of it rested against the waistband, and then—without breaking eye contact—he slipped his thumb beneath it. just the barest intrusion. a single brush of rough skin over the delicate swell of your mound, not enough to touch you properly, but enough to make your whole body jerk with a whimper.

“these,” he sneered. “you wore these to the paddock? while he was watching?” his voice dropped into a guttural rasp. you opened your mouth to protest, but his voice cut you off—deeper now, dipped into something feral.

“he was probably fucking imagining what you looked like bent over the pit wall in ‘em,” caleb rasped, and the way he said it—like it sickened him, like it possessed him—made your stomach twist.

his eyes darkened—and in one swift, brutal motion, he popped the button on the shorts with a flick of his thumb. the metallic click echoed in the room like a shot. then his fingers gripped the zipper and yanked it down so roughly you gasped, fabric jerking against your hips before it slid down to your thighs, pooling at your feet in a useless, tangled heap.

he didn’t stop. his hand moved fast, unforgiving—already pulling your panties to the side before you had time to react. the elastic scraped the crease of your thigh, baring you to the chill of the room and the heat of him, and still, he didn’t look away. didn’t blink. just stared down at your cunt like it had betrayed him, like it belonged to him and had wandered somewhere it shouldn’t have.

“c-caleb,” you stammered, your voice catching, high and desperate, “you’re being—,” but the words dissolved on your tongue.

because his fingers were there, already brushing against slick heat, already groaning under his breath like it physically hurt him that you were wet for this—wet for him, even now, even after everything.

you could hardly breathe.

your head lolled against the wall as his fingers fucked you open—deep, firm, unrelenting. You were soaked, the wet sounds of it obscene in the charged silence, broken only by the staggered hitch of your breath and the rough rasp of his. your thighs were trembling, barely holding you upright, and caleb didn’t let up. he wouldn’t let up.

his voice curled against your ear, low and smug and absolutely feral. “you’re not even trying to stop me.” your mouth opened but nothing came out—just a soft, cracked moan. “yeah,” he hissed. “that’s what i thought.”

he drove his fingers in deeper, curling them just right—pulling a strangled sound from your throat. your hips jerked helplessly, and he groaned as your pussy clenched, dripping all over his knuckles.

“f-fuck,” you gasped, arms scrambling for purchase across his chest, clutching at the fabric of his fireproofs like he was your anchor. “c-caleb, i—nnh, please—”

you whimpered, broken and breathless, voice catching on each gasp. “i-i didn’t mean—nnh ahhh—d-didn’t mean to—”

“you wore that fucking shirt. wore his team, his number, his name. you meant it.” his teeth dragged over your neck, biting down hard enough to make your legs quake. “don’t act like you don’t like this. like you don’t love being fucked dumb right after i almost took him off the track.”

you sobbed out a noise that barely resembled his name—“p-please, i—oh, god—”

his fingers hit that spot again, and your body jolted, hips rocking into his palm like you couldn’t help it. the muscles in your stomach tensed, fluttering around the edge of your climax. he felt it, saw it, and laughed—low and delighted.

“oh, baby… gonna cum, aren’t ya’?” he mocked, breath hot against your jaw, eyes glittering. “you’re so easy. just a couple fingers and you’re already soaking me. dripping like a goddamn whore.”

“p-please—ah—please, i can’t—” your words broke apart, swallowed by the sounds of your own whimpers as your orgasm built sharp and unbearable. “i-i c-can’t hold it, caleb, i—fuck—”

“then don’t.” his hand gripped your jaw, forcing your eyes to his. “let me hear how mine you are.” and you shattered. a sobbing, shaking mess.y our body locked up, thighs clenching around his wrist as you came with a choked cry—wet and slick and pulsing so hard around his fingers you felt your knees threaten to give out. caleb held you upright through it, murmuring dark praise between your panting breaths.

“that’s it. that’s my girl.” he pressed a kiss to your temple—mockingly tender, wicked and warm. “so good when you’re ruined.” his fingers slipped free with a wet noise, glistening in the low light. he brought them to your lips, eyes still sharp and burning. “suck f’ me, will ya’?”

you blinked, dazed, mind swimming in the haze of pleasure and want. slowly, obediently, you parted your lips, tongue flicking out to wet them just before his fingers slid into your mouth. the taste was warm, messy—you, tangled with him—and the sound that escaped you was soft, shameless, utterly desperate.

caleb’s groan rumbled low in his throat, eyes darkening as he watched every motion, every subtle shift of your tongue curling around his fingers. “god, you look so pretty like this,” he rasped, dragging those soaked fingers out with a sharp pop that echoed in the quiet room. “dumb little mouth wrapped around what’s mine.”

you whimpered, the sound raw and fragile, knees trembling as they brushed his in the cramped space. your body sagged into his, burning and unsteady, craving his touch like air. then that smirk—slow, sharp, slicing through the tension like a knife dragged through silk. his voice dropped even lower, slow and deliberate, thick with dark amusement. “think we’re done?”

your breath hitched, caught in your throat as his eyes bore into yours, unblinking and heavy with promise. the room seemed to pulse around you, heat swelling in your skin, every nerve ending screaming alive. you tried to shake your head, but your voice was barely a whisper, broken and trembling: “n-no—please…”

his fingers curled in a slow, possessive grip against your jaw, tilting your face up so your lips hovered just inches from his. “behave,” he murmured, voice rough like gravel. “because i’m nowhere near finished with you.”

his mouth claimed yours again, teeth grazing your lower lip as his hands gripped your hips, holding you so tightly it was almost painful—but you didn’t care. you were already melting into him, breath shallow and fast, heart hammering against your ribs like a warning bell.

without hesitation, he ripped open his fireproofs, pulling out his thick, heavy cock, already leaking thick beads of precum, flushed red from holding back for too long. he shifted, pressing the full length of himself inside you, inch by agonizing inch, his body a hot, solid weight that filled every space. your breath hitched sharply, a stuttered moan slipping free as your walls stretched and clenched around him, tight and trembling.

your body jolted—smack!—as he bottomed out in one punishing motion. he didn’t stop to let you adjust. he just started fucking you. hard.

“is this what you needed?” he snarled, teeth at your throat again, biting down—hard. “some real fucking? not the attention of some weak little paddock rat.”

you sobbed, arms flying to his shoulders, clawing for purchase. he drove into you over and over, hips snapping up—wet noises echoing through the room. your slick ran down your thighs, onto his, then pooling onto the floor.

“fuck, you’re mine,” he growled into your hair, voice thick with need and possession. His hips slammed harder, faster, each thrust pushing you closer to the edge. “say it. say it or i’ll fill you up and walk out without another word.”

“i—i’m yours!” you sobbed, legs trembling. “caleb, please—i’m yours, i’m yours! a-always yours!” another slap to your ass—sharp, loud. then his hand gripped your hair, yanked your head back, and his teeth sank into your shoulder—deep, a bite so hard it made stars dance behind your eyes.

“you wear my number. my colors. my fucking name on your back. not that mclaren shit or anything else. never fucking again.” caleb’s hips slammed harder, faster, each thrust a brutal claim that sent your body shuddering beneath him. his teeth grazed your collarbone, sinking in deeply with a savage bite that left a bruised crescent burning hot against your skin. You gasped, head thrown back, breath shattering into sharp sobs that mixed pain and pleasure so fiercely your whole body trembled uncontrollably.

“fucking feel that, yeah?” he growled against your skin, voice thick with venomous hunger. your hands ripped down his sides, nails clawing cruel lines along his ribs as caleb dragged his teeth lower—trail of sharp bites blooming bruises along the curve of your tits, marking you with brutal possessiveness. “you think that idiot could ever fuck you like this? make you cry out, beg, lose your goddamn mind? no chance.”

you whimpered, caught between sobs and desperate moans, hips jerking instinctively with every ruthless stroke. “n-no—! only you, caleb! please—fuck, please mmm—!” your voice broke, breath hitching in a ragged stutter as your muscles clenched around him tighter, convulsing in waves of scorching overstimulation that stole your ability to think straight.

“bark f’me, sweet girl,” his teeth sank deep into your hip, biting down hard enough to draw a gasp, pleasure twisting with pain in a raw knot of sensation that made you cry out and claw at his back. “say you’re mine. my filthy little wreck, mine.”

“’m yours! yours, caleb!” you sobbed, body trembling, tears stinging your eyes as relentless orgasms crashed over you, folding you in a violent, layered tangle of ecstasy. your voice came out breathless and shattered, “please, don’t stop! i—i’m gonna—f-fuck, i’m gonna—please, i’m c-cummin’!”

“tell me,” he snarled against your neck, voice low, dark, teeth grazing skin like a threat, “tell me who you’re cummin’ for. me or that pretty little fucker?”

his hips snapped up cruelly, deep and fast, dragging a sob from your lips. his hand stayed locked tight around your throat—not enough to hurt, just enough to remind you who owned every gasp, every tremble.

“you!” you cried out, voice cracking on the edge of desperation. your nails dug into the fireproofs still half-wrapped around his waist. “you, sir—only you, ah, fuckkk—!”

he grinned, vicious and possessive, like your surrender was his prize. “yeah?” he hissed, slamming into you again. “say it louder. make sure even that bastard hears it next race.” caleb didn’t slow. if anything, he fucked you harder, rough and relentless, like he was trying to erase any trace of rafayel from your body—if there’d ever been any. one hand gripped your hip bruisingly tight, the other still curved under your jaw, forcing your teary eyes to hold his.

“damn right,” he growled, sweat-slick and flushed, but no less in control. “say my name. not ‘sir.’ not ‘please.’ mine.”

your whole body jerked with each thrust, barely able to keep upright, tears streaking your cheeks. “caleb—! caleb, i’m—i’m yours, i swear—”

“louder,” he barked, voice edged in a snarl. “c’mon, sweetheart. want you hoarse for me. want that voice ruined so you can’t say shit to anyone else.”

you shattered then—crying his name, choking on your moan as your body seized, shaking, breaking apart in his hands like it always did. and he didn’t let up. not when you came, not when your body tried to squirm away from the overstimulation.

“too much?” he murmured mockingly, breath hot against your temple. “too bad. i haven’t had enough yet. not till i’m sure he knows you walk funny tomorrow ‘cause of me.”

he crushed his mouth to yours, swallowing your desperate sounds with a hungry roar, his fingers digging deep into your hips as he drove you harder over the edge. your walls fluttered around him, clenching and pulsing uncontrollably as you teetered on the brink—then tipped.

your body convulsed violently, a flood of sensation so fierce it wracked every nerve ending. you cried out, a broken, trembling sound filled with pure, overwhelming need. his thrusts became more savage, relentless, “mine,” he rasped between clenched teeth, voice thick and harsh as he chased his own climax, “only mine. gonna fill you up so fucking deep you’ll be leaking my cum for days.”

the force of him stole your breath again as another orgasm ripped through you, your body arching wildly. you trembled, clinging to him, sobbing his name like a prayer. he chased you over the edge, one hand tangled possessively in your hair, the other bruising your waist as he came with a shuddering, broken groan—low, guttural, right against your skin—his teeth sinking into your neck as he spilled hot and thick inside you, every pulse of him a claim you’d never shake.

he stayed still a moment, breathing hard, chest rising and falling, panting like he’d survived a battle. then—slowly—he pulled out. you whimpered at the sudden empty ache, your slick and his own, trailing down your inner thighs.

your body was still quaking when caleb carried you, trembling and ruined, to the couch—his grip bruising, but reverent. his jaw was tight, his breath still shallow from the exertion, and the whole room still reeked of sex and heat and rage. your thighs stuck to his fireproofs, slick and smeared, and your chest rose in ragged, shallow pants as he laid you down like you were something precious—but barely.

"look at you," he muttered, his voice hoarse with raw satisfaction. "still shakin’. you don't even know your own name, do you?"

your only answer was a weak, broken sound—something between a whimper and a plea. he chucked, low and dangerous, fingers brushing your jaw as his other hand gripped your thigh, spreading you open again just to look. but then—he stilled.

his thumb stopped where it had been tracing, reverent in its own brutal way. his gaze, once burning with hunger, flickered—hesitating. you blinked through the haze clouding your vision, and there he was again: caleb, not the fire-eyed predator but the boy who used to hold your hand under the covers during thunderstorms, the boy who always laced your shoelaces when your fingers were too cold to do it yourself.

“…fuck,” he murmured, and something in his tone cracked open. he exhaled hard and let your thigh fall gently against the couch cushion, his body sinking beside yours, no longer looming—folding. a different kind of tension took its place, quieter, older. his hand cupped your cheek again, softer now, trembling faintly.

"you okay?" he asked, and his voice was lower. wrought with guilt, with fear, with love. "talk to me, love. tell me you’re okay."

you nodded, just barely, then leaned into his palm with a broken little sound. “o-okay…’m okay,” you breathed, voice ragged but true.

he closed his eyes.

for a moment, caleb didn’t say anything. just let his forehead press to yours. his thumb traced the line of your cheekbone like you might vanish if he didn’t keep anchoring you to him. then, with careful arms, he pulled you into his lap—blanketing you in the throw he’d once haphazardly tossed on the couch. your legs curled over his, trembling.

“you’re shaking,” caleb murmured again, his voice low and rough, like gravel coated in velvet. the heat radiating from his body pressed against your back was a fierce, solid warmth that somehow grounded you, but you could still feel the tremors racing through your limbs—shaky, fragile, like you were made of glass. his arms tightened around you, not crushing, but possessive, protective—as if he wanted to keep you from breaking apart entirely.

his lips brushed your skin like a feather in slow, feather-light kisses. first your bare shoulder, where the soft warmth of his mouth left a trail that sent a delicious shiver down your spine. then along the hollow of your collarbone, his breath hot and steady, carrying the faint scent of smoke and sweat from the race—intoxicating and unmistakably him. when his mouth ghosted to the corner of your lips, he paused, lingering like he was memorizing your shape, tasting the faint salt of your skin, the quickening pulse beneath.

“you scare the shit out of me sometimes,” he breathed, voice husky and trembling with emotion, the raw vulnerability undercut by the fire of his obsession. “the way i feel about you... it’s not normal. maybe it’s because… i love you more than you realize.”

his hands roamed slowly now, tracing the lines of your body with a possessive tenderness that set your nerves alight. one palm slid down the curve of your side, fingers pressing into your hip bone, grounding you in the heat between you. the other curled in your hair, thumb brushing your temple softly, coaxing the tension out of your clenched muscles.

“you don’t have to say anything,” he whispered, voice rough but gentle. “just be here with me.”

your eyelids fluttered open, meeting his gaze—dark, intense, burning with a hunger that softened only when it landed on you. the sight made your heart squeeze painfully, a sweet ache that spread through your limbs like wildfire.

your fingers twined tightly in the thick fabric of his fireproof suit, heart hammering against your ribs like it was trying to break free. you curled into him, the solid beat of his heart against your palm a grounding anchor amid the storm of emotion crashing through you. no words came—only the soft press of your lips against his jaw, the whisper of a kiss that said everything you couldn’t say aloud.

caleb’s breath hitched sharply, eyes darkening with a fierce tenderness as he pulled back just enough to meet your gaze. his thumb brushed away a tear that had slipped silently down your cheek, his touch so gentle it made your breath catch. his smile was fragile, barely there—but real. like he was offering you a piece of his soul wrapped in vulnerability.

“you’re everything to me,” he confessed, voice thick and laden with something bittersweet, a promise and a curse intertwined. “every lap, every breath, every fucking heartbeat. you ruined me, and i don’t ever want to be put back together.”

his arms squeezed you tighter, possessive and fierce, a silent vow to keep you safe and claim you utterly. the heat from his body seeped deep into your bones, steady and relentless, chasing away the shadows that lingered inside you.

your hand rose to cup his cheek, fingertips tracing the sharp angles of his jaw, memorizing the rough scrape of stubble beneath your touch. “l-love you..i’m yours,” you whispered, voice trembling but resolute. a soft, possessive smile curved his lips. “yeah,” he said, voice low and thick with pride, “only mine.”

when he kissed you this time, it was different—slow and tender, a deep press of lips that spoke of ownership and devotion, not just need. his mouth was warm and soft, roughened by days on the track and sleepless nights, and the taste of him—smoky, faintly metallic, and utterly intoxicating—settled deep inside your senses. his hands cradled your waist, fingers digging in just enough to remind you that you were his, that you belonged here, to him, in this moment.

“sleep,” he murmured against your lips, voice husky but gentle, a soothing promise that wrapped around you like a blanket. “i’ll be here when you wake up.��

your eyelids fluttered closed, sinking fully into the fierce, steady warmth of his arms. his heartbeat thrummed against your back, a wild, unyielding fire that burned only for you—and you let yourself be consumed by it.

caleb didn’t sleep. not for a second.

he stood bare-chested in front of the fire, the room thick with heat and shadows that flickered like ghosts on the walls. the dry crackle of the flames filled the silence, but inside him, a storm still raged—cold, sharp, relentless—but not for you, no, never.

his knuckles bore the faintest traces of dried blood where he'd gripped the wall to steady you, but the ache there was nothing compared to the sharp edge of his hatred for rafayel. the mclaren tee lay crumpled at his feet—a stubborn reminder that wouldn’t fade.

he bent down and picked it up slowly, fingers tightening around the fabric, a silent vow burning hotter than the fire before him. with slow, deliberate movements, his fingers curled around the fabric, pulling it close. he traced the soft cotton absently, the smell faint but familiar, and it stabbed at him like a fresh wound. the color—too bright, too loud—reminded him of everything he hated to admit. he fed the shirt to the flames, watching the orange cotton curl, blacken, and twist in on itself. the smell of scorched cloth filled the room, but it couldn’t burn away the rancor that still coiled tight inside.

he didn’t blink until the last ember faded to ash, eyes cold and unyielding, mind still racing with bitter thoughts.

rafayel had crossed a line.

and caleb’s fire wasn’t ready to die down—not yet, not ever.

# do not repost, translate, or upload my work to any other platforms. tumblr reblogs are welcome and appreciated, but reposting outside of this blog is not permitted !

— ✦ © @ x1asirene, tumblr 2025 ✧

[dawnbreakerswife]

not sorry (yandere caleb)

yandere!caleb x fem!reader

summary: you pull caleb up on his rather violent display of ownership earlier today. in the process, you break a couple of his rules and must face the consequences for doing so.

contains: nsfw, he belts you, violence (not overly graphic), yandere!caleb (possessive, controlling, the whole lot), hurt comfort but no real resolution, 3.6k words

heavily inspired by @faemurmur's soft yandere!caleb hcs; inspiration also taken from @bloodabi's caleb yandere alphabet

Life with Caleb as your yandere was confusing at first. He didn’t force you to stay home, but wherever you went, he knew. He didn’t dictate your friends or acquaintances. But once they enquired into your situation, suddenly, their number was deleted from your contacts. Caleb’s never told you what to wear. But if your skirt is a little too short, showing off the expanse of your squishy thighs that are reserved for his eyes only, suddenly, the hem has been let down.

Even your ‘kidnapping’, if you could call it that, wasn’t that of a typical yandere. Becoming Caleb’s darling was gradual, natural, almost. It started with staying at his apartment a couple of nights a week, which slowly morphed into staying there all the time as the pilot provided everything you could ever need: good food, a nice shared bedroom, bills taken care of, a home gym, and the ‘freedom’ to do as you pleased. However, it came with the aforementioned downsides.

Oh! And one other thing, too.

Caleb’s jealousy.

Never in your life have you met a man more jealous than the Farspace Fleet’s Colonel. Constantly, he needed to be reminded of his importance to you, like a puppy with abandonment issues. Not a day went by (except for those when he was on a mission) that you didn’t touch him and reassure him that you missed him, that he matters to you.

But today, not even that was enough.

It was unsightly when Caleb had broken an innocent man’s fingers because he touched you. And your captor was in such a good mood before it happened!

You two were holding hands, walking around the mall on his rare day off, when you stopped at a clothing store. You gave Caleb doe eyes as his phone rang, pleading with him to let you go inside first. If something like this happens— his phone rings, he gets stopped by a colleague, whatever— he’ll make you stay with him until he’s finished, completely confident that you don’t know what he’s saying or are too bored to actively listen.

But today, you had been such a good girl, he nodded and watched you walk in while clicking the green answer button on his phone. The colonel kept his eyes on you as you browsed, noting which items you lingered at. He even smirked as you touched the hem of a blouse hanging on the top rack. Cute, he thought at the time. And so did some other animal.

Caleb’s grip on his phone tightened so much that the device creaked. He ended the call swiftly, but not swiftly enough to prevent this lowlife from grabbing your size down and touching your shoulder after giving it to you. The pilot stormed in and abruptly came between the two of you… And the rest is history.

It’s safe to say the mood was thoroughly train-wrecked after that. Despite Caleb ordering you to look away, ever the disobedient darling, you watched as the kind man’s fingers were bent into positions that made bile rise to your throat and threaten to spew forth.

Now, sitting across from the pilot at the dinner table, the tension between you sparks and pops. Forks scrape against plates, Caleb’s chowing down a hearty meal while you merely push your broccoli from one side of the ceramic to the other.

Gazing at your still full, albeit rearranged, plate, he commands, “Eat your dinner.” The warm overhead lights cast shadows across his tired features. But you don’t care about how exhausted he is when you’ve had no appetite since his stunt earlier today.

You begin mumbling, “I’m not hun—”

“Eat. Your dinner,” he spits out before shoving a sauce-lathered bite of steak in his mouth. You shake your head and set your fork down.

Staring down at your food, your hair falls forward and partly conceals your face. Your hands bunch into fists beneath the table. One rule Caleb has (alongside others) is that you’re not allowed to leave the dining table until you’ve both finished eating. A stupid rule, but you don’t want to test his limits even more by getting up and scurrying off to your shared room now.

Gulping, you say quietly, “Once you’re finished, can we talk?” You can’t bring yourself to meet his eyes just yet, because if you do, you know that you’ll crumble. Right now, your self-composure is like a smashed window being held together with one long piece of masking tape; only the very slim prospect of sleeping alone tonight is keeping you upright. Caleb���s cutlery clinks on the empty plate alongside his used napkin.

“What is it, pips?” He exhales.

Still avoiding his gaze, you mutter, “I don’t approve of what you did today.”

The colonel shrugs while pushing his plate away from him, “I kept you safe, honey. Who knows how far that lecher would have gone?”

You retort quietly, “He was just being nice, Caleb. That’s it. He wasn’t going to do anything else, and you know that.” Another rule Caleb has: don’t talk back to him. A rule you always end up breaking every time you two fight. And now you must face the consequences for it. To hell with your reservations! If you’re going down, you might as well go down with a fight.

“You know better than to speak to me like that, pipsqueak,” he grits out. Provoking you, he adds, “And you can’t even look at me while you do it.” That makes your jaw clench. Lifting your gaze, you lock eyes with him. His gaze is harsh, teeth tight and a small crease in his brow. You’re positive that you’re mirroring his expression.

You bite back, “I’m sick of your behaviour, Caleb. It’s disgusting.” Those words, right there. The implication that he repulses you wrenches a scolding hot blade in his gut.

“Disgusting?! What are you saying? That my protection disgusts you?” He asks, hurt flickering in his eyes.

“No—” Fuck. “I mean, yes—”

“Well then, which is it, pips? It can’t be both,” the colonel cuts you off. One of his large hands grasps the edge of the table, gripping it hard enough to splinter the wood if he tries.

You shake your head before continuing, “Please, let me finish.”

“The floor is yours,” he mutters, his other hand gesturing to the cluttered table, urging you to go on.

You exhale, “Your possessive behaviour is foul. It’s not protection, Caleb. It’s an… excuse for you to be violent toward others.”

After gazing away for a moment to gather his thoughts, he scoffs, “Do you think I like hurting people, baby?”

“No—”

“That’s right. But I do it anyway to keep you safe,” he reasons, his voice laced with finality and confidence.

You disagree, “But I wasn’t in any danger. He was just helping me.”

“With something I could have helped you with if you just waited for me,” he snaps back, splintering the wood now. His sheer strength makes you flinch and recoil in your seat.

Caleb presses on, “Why didn’t you wait for me?” You glance down at your thighs, visibly smushed together in your sleep shorts. Your nails dig into your palms, applying sufficient pressure so you can feel it.

You sputter, “I-I don’t kn—”

“Why, pips?” He repeats, searching for an answer to soothe his paranoia.

“I don’t know, Cale—”

“Bullshit.” This time, he stands up. The abrupt gesture makes his chair fall, and the clanking rings throughout the suddenly cramped kitchen. Stalking over to you, he grabs your jaw roughly and tips your head back. He towers over you, eyes narrowed and brows knitted together in his irritation.

He interrogates you, “Don’t you need me? Don’t you want me, honey?”

You respond without hesitation, “Of course, I do, Caleb.”

Your next words are a mumble: “I just hate how possessive and controlling you can be.” His hold on your jaw tightens, eliciting a yelp from you. But he doesn’t let up just yet.

Caleb mutters, “You act like this is a recent development, pips. But I’ve always been like this.”

“That’s not true!” You exclaim. The third rule: even if you talk back to him, never are you allowed to raise your voice at him.

Oh, you’re getting the belt tonight.

His fingers dig into your jaw painfully, so much so that you cry out, “Please! You’re hurting me, Caleb!” The pilot’s nostrils flare as he assesses just how much pressure he’s applying and how much you deserve. Relenting, he releases your jaw. But if you thought Caleb was finished with you, you are greatly mistaken.

Grabbing the back of your chair, he drags it out before leaning down and throwing you over his shoulder. You scream, fists battering his firm muscles beneath his white tank as he whisks you off to the bedroom. He thrusts you down on the mattress like you weigh nothing, your body bouncing against the springs. In seconds, his hands are on your hips, flipping you over onto your stomach. His fingers dig into your waistband and yank off your shorts and panties in one go.

“Caleb!” You squeal, your privates now exposed. Blind to the fear growing in your heart, he wraps an arm around your hips and half-lifts you, your ass hitting his chest while he slides a pillow into the empty space. Dropping you back on the bed, you yelp softly as your pelvis hits the plush pillow.

The cool air drifts over your bare skin, triggering goosebumps to rise like an army at their chief’s command. You try to twist back to get a glimpse of the pilot, but his rough hand comes to the centre of your shoulder blades and pushes you down into the mattress.

He grounds out, “Don’t move.” A hushed whimper escapes your lips following his cold tone. The colour drains from your face as you hear the familiar clinking of his leather belt from behind you. Yes, Caleb has spanked you before when you’ve stepped out of line. But he’s never taken it this far. But neither have you.

The friction between the belt and his jeans makes your heart accelerate. Anxiety spreads throughout your body, taking control of your systems like a parasite does to its host before feeding on them. A hidden vampire, such turmoil sinks its teeth into your neck and consumes your very life force.

“Please,” you whine, hearing the creaking of the leather between Caleb’s slender fingers.

He questions you, “How many do you think you deserve tonight for your misbehaviour?”

Panicking at what he might do if you don’t respond quickly, you squeak, “Five.”

“Five?” He scoffs. You nod, your nose hitting the linen— you don’t try and gaze back at him again, certain that doing so would only add to your punishment.

After a minute or so, Caleb muses, “Why don’t we play a game, pipsqueak? Let’s start with ten. The rules are that you must count each strike. If you miss one, we start again, yeah?”

You don’t even have time to respond, let alone prepare before the belt slaps your soft flesh, your ass jiggling and hips jerking forward from the blow’s impact. Pain crackles across your skin’s surface as you scream, fists clenching the fresh bed sheets. Tears prick at your waterline.

“One,” you murmur. The second hit somehow stings more than the first; your years of beauty maintenance are nothing compared to the pure agony you’re in right now.

The tears fall already, running down your cheeks as you choke out, “Two.” He belts you again, the sharp contact between your buns and the black leather singing throughout the bedroom. You cry out at the searing sensation rippling across your poor ass cheeks.

By the fourth, you’re certain you can’t do this anymore. Trying to scoot forward, you feel a familiar tingling all over your body, a crushing weight— Caleb’s evol. It keeps you right there, arched for him to ruin however he sees fit. As the next strike comes, you bury your face in the covers, wailing uncontrollably.

Eating your tears, you mumble, “Please.”

He grunts, his voice harsh and mocking, “Please? Please stop being so disobedient, pips. Otherwise—” He punctuates each of his next words with an unforgiving swipe on your rear. “I’ll— have— to— do— this— again.”

You’re breathless, no air in your lungs to scream out your excruciating pain.

Caleb pants, “Now, honey. How many was that? I know math isn’t your strong suit, but get this right, and I might let you off the hook.” Oh fuck. Your mind scrambles, you were at four, and then he was firing in rapid succession. You didn’t even count as the strikes blended into one throbbing mass of anguish.

Hearing a fear-laden chink, you blurt out, “Ten?” The belt drops onto the floor with a quiet thud, but no relief washes through you. All that pulses besides the pain is exhaustion. His large hands are on you, calloused palms rubbing your red ass in gentle circles. The gesture is supposed to be calming, but it only makes you cry harder.

“It’s okay, pips,” Caleb coos, his frustration melting as your hysterics grow louder. He shifts up, hands trailing up your body to embrace you.

As he begins lifting you, you shove at his chest, screaming, “NO!” The pilot blinks in confusion, steadying you as you punch at his solid chest.

“Hey, easy now, baby,” he murmurs, grabbing your fists and enveloping them with his long fingers. You try to wriggle out of his grasp, but your efforts prove to be futile.

“Just go away!” You shout in his face, tears still streaming down yours. He lets you struggle for a few seconds before tugging you into his chest. His hand presses your wet cheek against his heart, the rhythmic beats comforting. It’s like they hypnotise you, your fighting dwindling the longer you listen.

Stroking your hair, he says tenderly, “That’s it. It’s alright now, honey. Because you’ve learned your lesson now, haven’t you?” You shake your head, defiance still coursing through your veins. Maybe Caleb should have made it 15, but he doubts that would have worked with how stubborn you can be.

“’M-m not sorry,” you cry, your body trembling as you grab his shirt like your lifeline.

“No? And why aren’t you sorry?” He asks gently, rubbing your back as you hiccup.

You choke out, “B-because—” But you don’t manage to finish before more sorrow wracks through your system.

In his arms, you bare your soul to him, your raw emotions doing all of the talking you can’t. So much suppressed pain bubbles to the surface, your fears and anxieties from the entire day spilling out. In Caleb’s hold, you release it all. He doesn’t mock you for your sadness, nor does he order you to stop crying. Instead, he keeps you steady through the tidal waves of anguish ploughing through you.

As your sobs soften and slow, he mumbles, “Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” You nod and tighten your arms around his neck before he carries you to the bathroom. The pilot is careful not to touch your red ass. At least, not yet. He sets you down in the shower and reluctantly separates from you, his shirt soaked in snot and sadness. After tugging off your tank top, Caleb sets the water to warm before murmuring about getting changed and hopping out.

You inch under the steaming water at a snail’s pace, still shivering slightly from your emotional outburst. Full stepping under, the heat spreads across your skin and dips into your bones. But the pitter-patter of the droplets sting on your ass; a bitter reminder. You whine, the sound echoing amongst the shower walls just before the door opens, and Caleb slips in.

Whirling around to face him, you squeak as he pulls you back into his body. He pushes his way under the stream of water, stealing some of your warmth, but replacing it with his own. You remain quiet as he washes your hair and gives you a relaxing head massage. Closing your eyes, you melt into the soothing pressure of his fingers kneading your scalp.

Next, Caleb lathers you up with body wash and rinses it off your skin. He’s extra delicate with your sore buns, of course. Once the suds are all gone, he brings you back into his chest.

His voice is quiet, reverent, almost as he remarks, “You didn’t answer my question.” Long fingers entangle in your damp locks and tug gently at the roots. He tips your head back so that your still puffy eyes can meet his.

“Why aren’t you sorry?” You shake your head slightly, lips quivering like you might erupt into tears again if he pushes further. But Caleb is desperate to know. He nods curtly, silently demanding your answer.

“B-because.” You pause and will yourself not to stutter.

Exhaling, you continue, “Because I have n-nothing to be sorry for.” So close. His eyes narrow.

“You broke the one rule I told you never to break,” he grits out.

You counter, “And you broke another man’s hand out of jealousy.” It’s quiet for a few seconds, the running water the only sound filling the intangible distance between you.

Finally, he mutters, “We’ve been through this, pips.” His grip on your hair tightens, not enough to hurt, but enough to be aware that it could if you aren’t careful. And you’re not being very careful right now.

“Go on,” you say sternly, tilting your chin up for a second. “Hit me, bruise me, lock me up, it’s not going to change the fact that you’re an obsessive man who lacks self-control.”

“Self-control?” He chuckles to himself, licking his parched lips and avoiding your glare momentarily.

Gazing back up, he grins, “Oh, honey, you really don’t know anything, do you?”

Leaning down, Caleb rests his forehead against yours, your noses brushing and breath coating each other’s lips. You whimper as he pulls on your hair harsher, your back arching while he contorts you however he likes. Your breasts are flush against his (could feed a village with that man titty milk convince me otherwise) chest, lips parted so sweetly for the pilot to nip at before capturing you in a hungry kiss.

Teeth gnash in a dance of power and unspoken feelings. You’re forced into submission, moving at his chosen pace while his hands wander your body. They squeeze your ass, making you squeal into his mouth and slap his chest to no avail. Caleb breaks the kiss when he wants to, and holds you close as your lungs burn with the need for air.

He grounds out, “I’ll give you one last chance to apologise. If you don’t, then there will be further consequences.” You shake your head and bite your lip, a muffled yelp slipping out as he squeezes your cheeks again.

The pilot rubs your nose with his, murmuring, “Don’t make me hurt you, honey.” Your head drops, eyes searching for the place where your bodies separate. Caleb sighs before guiding you out of the shower and wrapping you in a fluffy towel.

You start on your skincare while he cleans himself up, but don’t get very far before he’s stalking up behind you and taking over. He rubs the moisturiser into your skin just the way you like it, and dries your hair carefully, making sure to wipe your ears, too. Caleb even brushes your teeth for you and dresses you in another set of cosy pjs before shooing you off to bed and attending to his dripping body.

When he returns to the bedroom, there you are. Curled up on your side of the mattress with the blankets hiked up to your chin. He flicks the light off and joins you, wrapping his strong arms around you and pulling you back into him.

But what’s this?

A traitor in your bed. Beady eyes and light brown fur, its threaded nose buried into your chest. Propping himself up on his elbow, Caleb leans over you and snatches the teddy bear from your grasp. As if it could take his place!

About to cast it into the darkness, you cry out, “Caleb, no!” Glancing down, you stare up at him with frantic eyes.

“Please! Just give it back!” You whine, about to burst into tears if you can’t have just this one thing to steady you in your whirlwind of torment.

Seeing your distraught state, Caleb hesitantly returns the plushie to your awaiting arms. He glares daggers at the stuffed toy as you clutch it to your chest tightly, like you’re afraid that it might be stolen from you at any moment. And he can’t help but realise that’s how he holds you, reeeeeeaaaal snug, as if someone will take you away from him in the blink of an eye.

You just don’t understand. He’s doing this for you. For your safety! Why can’t you just see what he sees? Why do you need to hug a teddy when Caleb’s right here?!

The pilot grumbles, “Night, pips.” Your response? Rubbing your cheek against the plushie's head and shifting in Caleb’s hold, leaving the slightest gap between you. He decides not to push it, knowing that you’re on your last straw with him tonight.

But even that small space is enough to instil fear into Caleb’s heart that when he wakes up, you’ll be gone. That’s why he locks all of the doors and escapeable windows for the next week, confining you to his apartment. It’s why he forces you to sit on his lap as he feeds you whenever he’s home. And why he starts having nightmares again until things smooth out between you.

masterlist

star girl's final words: my first ever yandere post (werewolf!caleb was lowk yandere, but this is explicitly yandere). i tried to make something sumptuous for the yandere girlies but it kinda turned out shat because i have mixed feelings about the genre. as you can see here, there is no real happy ending for our couple. i find it hard to imagine a joyful outcome from a situation like this, where the darling has no control or independence. i hope you still liked it though!

star's final final words: EVERYONE PLEASE ALSO THANK @heartyluv again for letting me ramble and bounce off ideas. this fic wouldn't be what it is without her, so please go check out her masterpieces!!

[dawnbreakerswife]

-> love&deepspace men when you’re on your period

xavier → the silent but devoted caretaker

• doesn’t say much, but he’s already stocked your favorite snacks and painkillers before you even realize you need them. he knows a thing or two about period, he also read that ginormous article written for hunters on their period which was posted publically. “you don’t have to push yourself too hard, little one.” he says as if he’s not requesting. as your mission partner, and mister lumiere :3 he will do anything and everything necessary and possible — that you get your much needed rest and you feel good. <3

• holds a heating pad against your stomach while you curl up against him, letting you steal his warmth. he would also make little bunnies and cute little animals from his evol, which jump around you and help distract you from the pain. he loves to kiss your forehead though, that’s his love language idc. he speaks ever so softly anyway, but during your period you can sense his softness multiply a tenfold.

• if you’re moody, he won’t take anything personally—he just strokes your hair and murmurs, “i know, love. it’s okay.” sometimes you feel bad at how cranky you get but xavier is nothing if not patient. he holds you through it, he would hug you gently, ask you if you’re craving anything . . . ugh he’s just the best boyfriend in the world (trust: source -> sol)

• massages your lower back with slow, firm circles, his touch grounding and steady. “just breathe, sweetheart. i’ve got you.” and he got you. with the way his skilled fingers massage your lower body, purring softly how he wishes you were never in pain… it elevates any discomfort instantly.

sylus → the playful distraction

• teases you at first—“aww, is my little demon suffering?”—but immediately shuts up when you glare at him. he smiles tenderly when he notices the shift in your eyes from the ever-so-defiant menace to a little kitten that needs his attention. he would scoop you up in his arms, carry you to his bedroom and play your favorite shows & musicals. he would hum the musical tones, knowing full well you pretend to hate his voice (when, in actuality you love it). :33

• literally lets you use him as a heating pad. his body is warm, and he’ll let you sprawl all over him if it helps. he’s daddy — which means he’s big. and he’s large & looming enough to be cuddled upto, to be someone you can use as your very own medium-soft mattress. his hands would tenderly massage your booty. his charismatic smirk would tease you with things like, “you know, i’ve heard orgasms help sweetie . . .” what a jerk /aff

• brings you the weirdest food combinations because “cravings are cravings,” and he wants to impress you. “pickles and chocolate? babe, i won’t judge.” what? you wanted to eat something sour earlier and now you demand sweets. he’s got both just in case his kitten’s mood fluctuates. ;)

• kisses your forehead every five minutes and dramatically says, “you’re so strong. so brave. a true warrior.” you roll your eyes at his antics, pretending his overboard affection doesn’t touch your heart. (it definitely does).

caleb → the overprotective pamperer

• wraps you in his hoodie before you can even complain about feeling cold. “there. now you smell like me and feel like me. better?” of course you do. when you got your first period, caleb was there with you. helping you through the cramps, holding you close and talking to you, telling you how sad he is that he can’t share your pain. “oh i know baby, come here.” he croons, letting you know that you can always, depend on him. (no matter what hat he’s wearing) :3

• refuses to let you lift a finger. he gets your water, your snacks, your blanket—everything. would get offended, and have his puppy dog eyes literally steal the thunder when you decide to do something by yourself if caleb is in the house. “pips, told ya to let me help. you’re not supposed to labour.” when you pout and whine, telling him not to treat you like a baby. he would pout harder! accept defeat or else!

• pulls you into his lap and strokes your thighs with his big, warm hands. “shh, i know. just let me take care of you, baby.” it’s so comforting but somehow ends up turning you on too. the way caleb holds you plush against him, his arm wrapping around you as he massages your thighs and your pelvis. “there there — i gotchu pips.”

• lowkey glares at your uterus like it personally offended him. “if i could fight it for you, i would.” you snort, drama king fr. “too bad the colonel can’t really give orders to my uterus.” you snicker, hugging him tightly and basking in his warmth. “too bad indeed.”

zayne → the doctor but also the boyfriend

• clinically speaking, he knows exactly how to help—hydration, light movement, proper nutrition—but he won’t push you if you just want to lay there like a gremlin. though he can’t help but be a little pushy. “i told you to stock up on your iron supplements to make sure you don’t have weakness during this time of the month.�� / “a light walk is best suited—“ and when you throw a pillow at his face with a grumble, he knows to shut up. 🤫 (for now), with a tinge of mirth on his face.

• prepares the perfect cup of tea, adding just the right amount of honey. “this should help with the cramps, love.” he has matching mugs with you (he is so husband core), and would share the tea with you, doing a little clink with your matching mugs. “try it, it might not taste that good but it would surely help.”

• strokes your forehead and brushes your hair away, checking in with a soft, “how are you feeling now, darling?” when he comes back from the hospital, finding you curled up in a fetal position breaks his poor heart, he would sit next to you, press soft kisses and give you belly rubs. “what do you want to eat? i’d rather you eat anything. . .” he is sooo in with the junk food consumption shenanigans on your period hehe.

• lets you sleep on his chest while he reads, his steady breathing keeping you calm. he usually likes to read bed time stories to you, its yours and his favorite little ritual. but during your period, his voice is extra expressive. (which isn’t the norm.)

rafayel → the doting prince

• immediately cancels any plans so he can stay by your side. “nothing is more important than you right now.” even if its an art exhibition. thomas can cry and bang his head against the nearest wall — but rafayel isn’t budging. besides, who can control your fishie except you? ;)

• insists you rest while he does everything—cooking, running a warm bath, bringing you silk pillows, whatever you need. rafayel can be a little overbearing at times considering he is very attentive and attuned with his emotions. “rest.” the pouty look in his eyes as he forces you back to bed is to die for. you wonder how beautiful can someone look like that…

• whispers sweet praises into your ear. “my love, you endure so much. let me be your sanctuary.” please rafayel in love is a different breed altogether. he loves you so much you can see it from the way he behaves. you are made of glass. and when you gulp in that nasty tasting tablet for your cramps and aches, he hugs you and praises you like you’ve won the olympics gold medal.

• kisses the inside of your wrist, his voice like velvet. “just relax, my little goddess. let me spoil you.” he does spoil you but with insane amounts of money. calling in chefs from michellin star restaurants just so they can make your favorite food in an authentic way & his baby can eat -> hot, fresh food. “raf, you could just do takeouts-“ you pout softly, to which he chuckles. “nah, takeouts aren’t the same cutie.”

[dawnbreakerswife]

this was so adorable and sweet omg I’m so glad I read this

synopsis ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ nanami accidentally finds your small, anxious-but-sincere vlogs and quietly falls for you through the screen. and when you meet, he becomes a gentle, faceless presence behind the camera—helping you grow, and loving you all the while.

tori’s notes ᝰ.ᐟ this was so fun to write

nanami doesn’t really use youtube. it’s too loud, too cluttered, too full of people trying too hard. he’s more of a quiet reader or podcast listener—he likes his content slow and thoughtful. but sometimes, during quiet lunch breaks or sleepless nights, he finds himself scrolling, searching for something simple to fill the silence.

the first time he sees your face, he skips the video. it’s nothing personal. the thumbnail just seems… ordinary. a soft smile, a blurry background of what looks like a street food stall, and a simple title: “trying something new today (๑•́‿•̀๑)”. he doesn’t think much of it.

but youtube, in all its persistence, keeps putting you in his recommendations.

every few days, your face reappears. new title. new blurry background. another small smile. there’s something oddly comforting about it, even if he hasn’t clicked yet. eventually, curiosity wins. one night, half-asleep and curled up on his couch, he taps on a thumbnail without thinking.

the video is quiet. not silent, but there’s no obnoxious background music or jump cuts. just you. talking a little nervously to the camera, explaining how you’ve never tried this kind of food before, how it makes you anxious to eat alone in public but you’re doing it anyway, for yourself. you pause a lot. laugh at yourself. your editing is minimal—sometimes you just leave long clips in where you sit there silently, debating the next bite.

and nanami… stays.

he doesn’t mean to. he thinks he’ll just let the video play in the background while he dozes off. but he finds himself watching. then clicking on another one. and another. you talk to the camera like it’s a friend. you say things like “i know no one’s really watching this, but…” and “this was scary for me, but i’m proud of myself anyway.”

there’s no performance. no show. just you, trying. trying to live a little braver. trying to make the world a little softer for yourself. and even though your videos have only a few thousand views at most, and a comment section with maybe ten or twenty kind words, nanami can tell you read every single one. you reply with gratitude and sincerity. you sign your replies with hearts and “thank you for watching!!” even when someone just says “nice vid :)”.

he doesn’t comment for a long time. he watches quietly, always late at night, a silent companion to your small adventures. his favorite video becomes one where you try to bike through a park trail you’ve never been on before. the camera shakes the entire time, the sky is gray, and you end up getting rained on halfway through. soaked and breathless, you laugh and say, “this was a disaster. but i don’t regret it.” and something about that sticks in his chest.

he comments on a video one day. it’s short, awkwardly formal:

“i admire your courage to keep stepping outside your comfort zone. thank you for sharing.”

a few hours later, you reply.

“thank you so much!!! i get really nervous about posting sometimes so this means a lot ;; i’m trying my best!! ♡”

nanami reads that reply more times than he’d like to admit.

—

he doesn’t think he’ll ever meet you. you feel like a little glowing orb in his private world. something precious that lives on his phone, just a click away, not real, not tangible.

but then, he’s at a weekend market. the kind of place you’d probably vlog, actually. he’s just there to buy fresh bread, enjoy the quiet, maybe grab a coffee. he’s walking past a stand selling handmade keychains when he hears a familiar voice.

soft. a little unsure. asking for the price of something.

he turns.

and you’re there.

you look just like your videos—maybe a little shorter, bundled in a cardigan despite the warmth, your bag too big for your frame, holding a small camera that’s not even recording. your hair’s a little messy. your eyes bright, darting around nervously. you’re alone.

and suddenly, nanami is nervous in a way he hasn’t been in years.

he debates not saying anything. he could let this pass. keep you as a digital secret. but then you glance in his direction, and smile—just polite, a brief flicker of recognition for another passerby—and nanami finds himself stepping forward before his brain catches up.

“…excuse me,” he says, and your eyes widen a little.

“yes?” you ask, voice soft.

“i’ve… watched your videos,” he says, and you freeze for a second. “they mean a lot to me.”

you blink. your mouth opens a little in surprise, then closes. and then you smile.

“really?” you say, a little breathless. “you… you actually watch them?”

“yes,” he says simply. “i think you’re brave.”

your hand flies up to your mouth, eyes darting away. “oh my god,” you mumble. “that’s—thank you. that’s so nice. i didn’t think anyone recognized me. my channel’s tiny.”

“doesn’t change the impact,” he says, and it’s honest. the way he always is.

you talk for a while after that. awkwardly at first—your nerves, his reserved nature—but slowly, something soft and lovely builds in the air between you. you laugh a lot, mostly just nervous. he listens a lot, mostly because that’s just the way he is. he tells you his name is kento. you tell him you were scared to even leave the house today, but you’re glad you did. he smiles.

before you part ways, you ask, very shyly, if he’d be okay with you filming just a little. not his face, of course—just his voice, his presence. he agrees.

that night, a new video goes up.

“a tiny adventure at the weekend market ✿ i made a new friend today…”

nanami watches it from his bed, and when his offscreen voice appears—gentle, amused, offering to carry your bag for you—his heart does something strange in his chest.

—

the first time nanami appears in a vlog, it’s his hand passing you a coffee.

you call him “a friend i made recently,” and giggle when he corrects your pronunciation of a pastry. he’s never shown — not fully. a shoulder here. the back of his head. your viewers are very curious. you just smile, almost bashful, and say, “he’s camera-shy, but he’s very sweet.”

you start mentioning him more in your vlogs. he’s still off-screen, but you’ll glance his way and smile. say something like “he helped me set this up,” or “he picked this place,” or just “he’s here with me.”

you don’t have to say his name. he stays a faceless figure in your videos. your viewers start to notice something more.

you never confirm anything. you just smile, cheeks pink, and say, “he’s really sweet. i’m lucky.”

nanami doesn’t need the spotlight. he’s happy to carry your bag, offer a steady hand when you’re nervous, and hold the camera when you want to capture something new. he’s happy to be the one encouraging you behind the scenes, whispering that you’re doing great when you doubt yourself.

you film together more and more. he goes with you to bookstores, little food stalls, quiet museums. he carries your tripod. holds your coat. gives you gentle encouragement when you freeze up in public and smile too hard when it’s over.

he falls in love with you quietly. over time. he doesn’t say it at first. he lets it bloom through little gestures — buying the tea you liked, learning how to edit videos just to help you with cuts, leaving voice notes when you’re too anxious to leave the house. he listens. he supports. he stays.

and he’s happiest when, in a quiet clip near the end of a video, you look off-camera and say, “i think i’m a little less scared of the world lately.”

he squeezes your hand off-screen. you smile at the touch.

and your viewers never hear the softest part—how, when the camera stops recording, you lean into his side and whisper, “thank you for finding me.”

nanami, who never believed in fate or chance or algorithms, just kisses your cheek and replies, “thank you for being found.”

[dawnbreakerswife]

then he whispered softly. “you leave me on read again… i’ll tie you to the bed and remind you who i kill for.”

AHHGG THIS MAN WOAH

it had been two weeks since the fight.

you said he was too intense, but also too guarded. you spoke while he said almost nothing. he didn’t stop you when you walked out, and that had hurt the most.

but you never blocked him on your phone. you saw the message, sitting at the top of your screen like a trigger.

i left a blade at your place. i need it back.

typical sylus. cold. precise. no emotion, except for the fact that you knew that knife had your initials etched beneath the handle.

you read it. let it sit and decided not to reply.

an hour later he sent another text.

don’t leave me on fucking read.

you flinched. that wasn’t a request. that was a warning. and you knew sylus. when he warns you, you listen, or you deal with the consequences.

this time you chose violence. you locked your phone and curled up on the couch. it was barely surprising as another thirty minutes passed and the door creaked open. he still had your key.

“sylus—”

he was already in front of you, black coat open just enough to see the holster against his ribs. his hands were bare and they were trembling.

“you read it.” his voice was too calm. “you saw it. and you said nothing.”

“i didn’t know what to say.”

“you say, ‘yes sylus.’ that’s all i ever needed.”

you took a step back, but he followed. eyes sharp, chest rising slow, like he was trying not to explode.“you think i stopped wanting you? you think i stopped dreaming about your skin, your voice, the way you say my fucking name?”

“i just—”

“you run and you think i won’t chase. but baby—” he pushed you hard against the wall. “you don’t leave someone like me on read.”

then he grabbed your jaw, tilted your face and kissed you like he was starving. his tongue pushed past your lips like it belonged there, like he remembered how you tasted after hours of ruin.

“you smell the same,” he groaned against your neck. “like peaches and sin.”

you gasped as he picked you up and lifted you like you weighed nothing and pressed his hips flush against yours. he pulled down your shorts with rough, hungry fingers rough.

“you’re wet. fuck, you’re soaked.”

“sylus—”

“say it.”

“say what—”

“say that you missed me.”

you didn’t say it. so he bit your shoulder. “you’re mine,” he muttered. “still mine. always.”

then he shoved his thick, heavy length inside you. every inch of him carved for you. and he fucked you against the wall like he was punishing you. like every thrust said, i should’ve never let you go.

“you left me,” he groaned, forehead pressed to yours. “so i’ll fuck the fear back into you.”

your moans echoed through the apartment, your nails dragged down his back, and when you came shaking around him, he didn’t stop.

he buried himself so deep, kissed your throat, and came inside you like it was the only thing anchoring him to this world.

then he whispered softly. “you leave me on read again… i’ll tie you to the bed and remind you who i kill for.”

[dawnbreakerswife]

Loved reading Uhm it’s definitely worth rereading

Just a donor.

Satoru gave something special to you and Suguru. Now he wants it back.

Sperm donor!Satoru Gojo x Fem, New mom!reader x Suguru Geto Triggering and very real topics, viewer discretion is advised, Established Relationship with Suguru (Married), Yandere! Behaviour, Manipulative behaviour, Post partum, Babies, Mentions of, Infertility/Childbirth, Implied breastfeeding, Physical abuse, Psychological abuse, Coercion, Blackmailing, Parental responsibility

<<< For more Satoru content, click this link to go back to the Masterlist! >>>

When your daughter came into this world, Suguru’s name should have been on that birth certificate.

When your little girl came out with hair whiter than snow, things got complicated.

Well, Satoru Gojo got complicated. Growing and festering to the point of obsession, things got more than just complicated, they got downright dangerous.

At first, the entire thing was a misunderstanding, costing more in legal fees, court appearances and applications to family court with money you and Suguru just didn’t have. How could you have the energy to go through all that after giving birth and feeding a newborn every two hours?

So for the time being, you left it.

Despite your marriage to Suguru, you and he left it for now.

In legal circumstances, Satoru had parental responsibility over your daughter and not your husband. Satoru was understanding, almost embarrassed of the clerical error and offering money to amend it. In hindsight, you should have taken it, you should have had the issue taken care of so that it was put to bed.

In hindsight.

Suguru understood though heartbroken, it wasn’t his best friends doing. After all, Satoru gave you and Suguru the best gift of all, a beautiful and healthy daughter with the biggest set of lungs. 

You and Suguru eagerly discussed Satoru’s proposal to be the sperm donor, long nights agonising over the logistics and practicality of it all. The expenses were one thing, Satoru waived all of them. In honesty, you should have known then and there that he would bring trouble to your doorstep, a weighted presence after he started pushing to see your daughter more than casually and weekly visits evolved to two, or three days respectively.

And then, he started coming around the house when Suguru wasn’t home.

Now, Suguru wasn’t dismissive or wore rose tinted glasses in front of his best friend and wife. He knew there were problems, he just didn’t have the capacity to tackle them on his own with mounting work and that you just didn't want to burden him with more issues.

His mother was a candidate you took gladly so that you weren’t on your own with him. Satoru often played off your fears as instability due to postpartum and hormones. He kept up appearances around everyone who wasn’t you and for a time, Suguru’s mother was besotted with him.

‘Oh, isn’t he wonderful?! Such a good friend and uncle.’ She’d say, even encouraging you to hand your daughter off to him for ‘cuddles’ so she could clean the house and allow you time on your own to shower.

Well, Suguru’s mother’s stay at your house stopped short when she allowed Satoru to watch your daughter while she gardened. He rocked her to sleep and cooed indistinct words with precious forehead kisses.

Around other people, he referred to himself as Uncle Satoru. In only your daughter’s presence, it changed to 'Daddy'.

Suguru’s mother left that night, and things blew up after Suguru wearily took his mother home. The pressure was getting to him, torn between his wife and child, and his best friend who never fully manipulated him, the red flags were there though only subtly in the background. In plain sight but out of mind.

“Are you insane? Stop referring to yourself as her father- you aren’t.”

Satoru followed you up the stairs, teetering on the threshold into the bedroom, leaning so arrogantly that it made you want to rip your hair out more than you already did.

“Y’know, I can’t actually believe you’re still carrying on with this.” His eyes were lidded, more sunken than before like he’d finally given up on pretending.

You didn’t know what was more exhausting.

“I want you out of this house, and you are never to return, do you understand? I don’t care what Suguru will say to it, I don’t care what his mother could say to it- you are not my daughter's father and you never will be.”

“It hurts me every time you say that.”

He stepped through the doorway, you managed to hold your ground for all but five seconds as he skulked closer. You instinctively backed away towards the crib, never taking your eyes off of the predatory aura Satoru soon developed.

“It is true. She’s my baby. Suguru’s daughter-”

“She’s my child too. I’m a part of her- listen.” He moved so fast and snatched your hand, ignoring the reactive scream when he yanked you close, slapping your hand down firmly on his chest. “You feel that? My heartbeat, she has that too- my hair, my fucking eyes for christ's sake. I’m her father and I will be damned if I don’t fulfill that role.”

Your first instinct was to check she was still sleeping, breathing normally amidst your response. Thankfully, she was. “Satoru… we all agreed on this. You agreed that she’d never know who you really were, because all you did was donate your sperm.”

“We agreed that I’d be in her life.” His teeth gritted a fraction and then returned to normal. “But I did more than just jack off in a cup for you to use, I gave her life and you won’t take her away from me. She’ll know who her real father is and I’ll make sure she stays close.”

“We agreed-”

“Shoulda signed a contract, baby. Paperwork can be so finicky, don’t y’think?”

No… No fucking way. “It wasn’t just an error, was it- the birth certificate.”

You were still touching, hand pressed so tight it would cause a rash just pulling away. Satoru’s heartbeat increased right under your fingertips, he didn’t need to tell you to give his game away.

“You forged my signature, didn't you? I don't remember signing that thing. You- you made sure Suguru didn’t have any rights. It was all you.”

If he took your daughter, Suguru couldn’t do a thing. In the eyes of the justice system, he was essentially invisible. A man in her life with no say.

Satoru tilted his head to the side condescendingly enough to startle you. “N’arww, you only just figured it out? I knew you were gonna cut and run as soon as she was born, I needed some insurance. You were so exhausted after the birth, I took matters into my own hands.”

He studied you with a look only your husband gave you when you and he were alone. “You looked so beautiful then, hair stuck to your face and chest rising so quickly like you were terrified. What I loved most was that smile you had when she was born.”

Satoru looked down at your sleeping daughter and brushed her cheek delicately with the most loving smile the man could ever possess. “She has my hair, my eyes, but every time I look at her, she has something I can’t ever replicate. Your smile… She looks more like you than she could ever be like me and that’s what makes her special.”

“Please… Satoru. Leave us alone. I’ll call the police, Suguru won’t just let you do this.”

“Nah, he will. I’ve been breaking him down inch by inch the entire time, he’s pretty much checked out now.”

“What-What are you talking about?” This was when you started to try and pull away from him. “Satrou, what have you done?”

The bastard sounded so sure of himself, that little laugh you often admired before all this churned your stomach. “When he comes in, he’ll find the evidence of our relationship and leave you. I mean, he doesn’t even have a child with you, his ‘daughter’ is another man’s baby.”

“What are you talking about Satoru? There is no- get off of me.” You wanted to shout, scream and curse in his ear until it perforated his eardrum. 

But, your baby girl. Despite being as little as she was, you couldn’t traumatise her and drag her into the mess you had indirectly caused. Why the fuck did you let a close friend be the sperm donor for your baby? Idiotic and foolish. Though you couldn’t take it back now, could you?

“What evidence, there’s no evidence- Satoru, get off me.” 

You pulled again, his grip tightening until his arm was around you. He never moved despite your struggle, a brick wall with an agenda, he lugged you out of the room and covered your mouth.

“Shh, wouldn’t want to wake our precious baby girl now, would you?”

It stung like venom, an aggressive snake striking you over and over until it had dragged you down the stairs and pushed you into the living room. Your breast pump and pillow sat on the coffee table in preparation for feeding, a warm blanket and television remote placed strategically for optimal movement and an undisturbed child.

“What the hell are you doing!” Yanking your arm from his hand, you broke the connection and placed the coffee table between you as some sort of pathetic barricade.

If he wanted through, he was coming regardless.

“Just because we didn’t sleep together to make her, doesn't mean she isn’t mine… But for the next one, we can do it properly-”

“Next one?! I’m six weeks postpartum, you- I’d never let you come near me. Don’t you get it? I’m just not interested. I’m married and love my husband.”

The room couldn’t have been more deafening with throttled silence if you tried. You could hear your heart gush around your ears, too hypersensitive to the baby monitor on the fireplace.

“Do you?” 

Satoru stayed on the threshold again, his back to the hallway blocking your exit back to your daughter's room. How he stood there, like he’d hit a realisation, his shoulders slouched like he had something brewing on his mind.

“Do I what?” You said, thinking of ways to get past him.

The poker by the fireplace. No, he’d get to you faster than you could turn around, snatch it and throw it out the window. Maybe he’d use it on Suguru- no, he loved him despite your trepidations. No way would he go that far, surely? But look how far he has gone. Fuck, I’m an idiot!

“Do you really love him? Like really?” He took one step towards you and put you on a back footing, hitting your spine on the mantle.

What sort of question was that?

“Yes. I do. He’s the kindest person I’ve ever met, I want to spend the rest of my life-”

“Oh c’mon, Suguru can’t even get his wife pregnant, what makes you think he can actually protect you and our daughter?!”

His switch made you flinch, and then he was suddenly just one pace away from your face. “Those wee lil swimmers just aren’t strong enough, are they?”

The topic of Suguru’s fertility was never discussed, only between you and him. It was an unwritten rule. Not only with your health and everything on top, Suguru had questioned his own masculinity, his worthiness as your husband.

Hearing it out loud brought tears to your eyes. “Don’t talk about that-”

You screamed again when he slammed his fist down on the wall by your head, covering your mouth after to stop your sobs was useless. “Sweetie, I guarantee if I fucked you raw, I’d knock you up first try.”

“Satoru… please listen to me. I don’t want to have sex with you, and if I’ve ever given you the impression that I have, I’m sorry. But I do not want that.”

“I never knew why you chose to pursue him and not me… I’m better for you than Suguru, I have always been better for you. Yet you still chose him, even when he couldn’t perform, you never dropped him. It only made me double down.”

“Because I love him- I don’t want you.”

“Maybe not now, but you will eventually.”

It was probably the worst thing you could have said, but it came out so quickly, so confidently. So you ran with it. Your heart jumped when the baby monitor went off, so instinctively you moved without concern only for him to stop you again.

“She’ll be fine. It’s only a hiccup.”

“I still have to go and check on her- I can’t leave her. Please, Satoru.”

Satoru didn’t move at first, and when he did, it was as though he was just waiting for you to make a run for it. “Go, be quick.”

You stormed up the stairs under duress, skipping a step now and then and shot right into the bedroom. Your baby was just fine, only making a smacking sound she always did in her sleep. In one fit of self preservation, you weren’t sure how you moved across the bedroom so fast in reaction to Satoru’s footsteps climbing the stairs, but you did, locking the bedroom door.

The thing was, after having a baby, you sort of developed super hearing, picking up on different breathing patterns your baby went through, knowing when she was about to be overstimulated in public settings which would inevitably result in her crying for hours. You could tell when she was hungry, bored and just in that odd mood when she decided to be a little demon with her eyes closed.

Despite being related by blood and genetics, Satoru knew none of those things, Suguru did. Suguru may not have been able to get you pregnant, but his role as a father was more special than anything.

“Unlock the door.” Satoru banged his fist on the wood. "Unlock the door right now!"

“Get the fuck away from me and my daughter.” Your maternal strength returned. “I’m calling the police and you better be nowhere near here. You will never see her again, do you hear me?!”

Silence.

Nothing but an unsettling and sudden silence.

He must have already left, you still crawled over the bed to get the house phone from the bedside drawer, hands shaking from the adrenaline. A quick rummage before Suguru returned and you could explain everything to him.

One thing though, the phone, it was missing from its usually place. You had no fucking phone.

Satoru's voice oozed through the cracks of the door. "Looking for the phone? You might wanna think about opening the door. Suguru will be home soon."

DISCLAIMER - Crossposted from my AO3 - I do not own any of the characters or anything from the anime. This is a work of fan fiction and is absolutely not representative of the views or intentions of the original creator(s).

Also please don’t post any of my work without permission thank you!

[dawnbreakerswife]

AHHHH THEY FINALLY MEET(but like frfr) AND OMG CALEB GIDEON AND MC AHHHH I CAN JUST IMAGINE GIDEONS REQCTION OMG…

just keep falling, part 6

⋆. 𐙚˚ you miss gideon and get a nightly visit from caleb

you went to work. you went home. you cried. you slept horribly. then it began again. work. home. crying. bad sleep.

you tried to reach gideon, but he didn’t pick up. he didn’t want anything to do with you – that was more than clear. it was as if someone put a knife directly through your chest. a feeling you were way too familiar with. 

the next night, you were half asleep … when caleb returned. you didn’t know how he got into your apartment – but you heard his footsteps in the hallway. a noise you had known for years. there was a part of you that still hoped, this was a dream. the other part longed for him, missed him so much your soul was broken into pieces. 

the door opened. you squeezed your eyes shut. the bedsheets rustled. he sat on the corner of the bed, reaching for you. a slight touch on your arm.

„don’t pretend you’re asleep, honey.“ his voice was hoarse as whiskey and melodic as ever. you couldn’t believe he was here. couldn’t believe he really was alive.

you jerked up – and there he was, violet gaze fixed on you. „I hate you“, you spit out. then you shoved him. „I hate you.“

he smiled at your words. „didn’t seem that way when you begged me for my cock.“

your body reacted on it’s own – your hand collided with his cheek. the echo of your slap and your breathing were the only noises in the room. you stared at each other, your chest heaving, his smile wiped from his lips. 

„you left me for over a year. you let me believe you were dead. and then you played mind games with me and gideon to the point of us doubting reality. give me one reason … one reason not to pull my weapon right now and shoot you.“

there it was again, his slight smile. it was different than the one you were so familiar with. this smile had an edge to it. a different side to the caleb you once knew. „do it, honey. I invite you to.“ the smile faded slowly. his brows furrowed, the violet in his eyes turning cold. „because it wouldn’t hurt less than what you have done to me already.“ 

your cheeks flushed, angry heat creeping into them. „I thought you were dead!“

„you couldn’t wait for gideon to …“ 

you didn’t let him finish the sentence. in one swift movement, you grabbed your gun from the nightstand, then you were on him, straddling him, gun pointed right to his head. „one more word and I’ll make sure you die for real this time.“

caleb leaned back on his elbows, looking up at you. „are you sure you’re ready for that, little apple?“ 

„you have lost every permission to give me a petname“, you snarled, pushing the gun deeper into his skin.

caleb grabbed your wrist, holding you in place. „can gideon give you a petname?“, he sneered. „what does he call you, huh? baby?“ he laughed without any humor. „I heard him call lots of girls by that petname at the DAA, you know. we had fun times together. or rather gideon had a lot of fun. with a lot of girls. there were times where he fucked several in …“ 

without letting him finish that sentence, you yanked your hand back, ready to strike – but he was faster. in one swift motion, he spun you around until he was the one pinning you down, forcefully grabbing both of your wrists. you held on to your gun, grinding your teeth together. 

„stop talking about him!“

„why? I thought you loved talking about him.“

you hooked your legs around his, shoved your elbow up, and managed to throw his weight off you. the two of you tumbled off the bed and hit the floor hard, but you had the upper hand again, with your arm pressed down his neck.

„you don’t even have the decency of telling me the truth. of explaining anything.“ your voice started to shake, so did your arm. 

„I couldn’t come back to you.“ suddenly calebs voice was softer. „I wanted to, but I couldn’t. even now … being here is a safety risk for you.“

you tried to wrap your head around his words. „I … I don’t understand.“

„there’s so much I want to tell you, but I can’t. but trust me – if I would have had the choice, I would have never left you. never. I promise you that.“ 

your grip on him faltered. your shoulders started to shake. even though you weren’t sure this was enough, you started to question whether your anger was right. it was a start, at least. 

you gulped. „I still want to kind of shoot you.“ 

„and I would like to shoot gideon. and you. sooo … we’re kind of in the same boat, right?“ 

you pressed your lips together, so the laugh didn’t slip out. then you sank on him, not being able to choke him anymore. caleb wrapped his arms around you. your bodies seemed to melt into one in one earth shattering, all consuming hug. it wasn’t like the last time, where you both claimed each other. it was like in the past – with him hugging you so tight as if you were his anchor and he yours. for a second, all of the horrible months of grief disappeared, all your anger, all the pain and you only felt him. the rise and fall of his chest. his heartbeat, steady and very much alive. 

„I missed you“, he whispered.

You couldn’t answer. „I missed you, too“, didn’t even begin to cut it. but there was a little voice inside your head, whispering another name. 

gideon. 

„I’m not the only one you should explain yourself to, caleb“, you whispered.

suddenly he got stiff. „yes, you are.“

you pulled away slightly to look into his face. „gideon has a right to know, caleb.“

his jaw was tightened, his eyes dark. hurt crossed his face. „you were with him.“

„I was“, you replied. „and I don’t regret it.“

he avoided your gaze, but you grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at you. „I love you. I have never stopped loving you. I’m angry, because you left me. I’m heartbroken that you kept these secrets from me. but I wouldn’t have survived the last year without gideon. I … he‘s important to me. and he was important to you once.“ 

„that was before he …“ he didn’t finish the sentence and it lingered between the two of you. 

„gideon didn’t betray you. and I didn’t either. we didn’t plan for this to happen. I know it hurts you, and I understand … but please know that it would never had happened if you didn’t die. we grieved you, caleb. we bonded over that. and that bond … it won’t ever disappear.“ 

he cupped your cheek, his thumb softly stroking your cheek. „I hate that it had to come to this. but … I think, with time, I’ll be able to understand.“

you leaned your forehead against his, until you shared your breath, his hand never leaving your skin. 

„you need to talk to him.“, you whispered.

caleb only answered with two soft spoken words. 

„I do.“ 

[dawnbreakerswife]

Chase Atlantic songs? Count me Tf in (love this tho he’s so unhinged and the yearning!!!!)

CALL ME BACK

[Seraph’s Mixtape Event]

Yandere CEO Gojo Satoru x Fem Reader

WARNINGS: obsessive behaviors, coercion, depictions of anxiety, threats, weapons (blade and firearm), invasion of privacy, power imbalance, forced intimacy, mentions of past relationship problems. YANDERE/DARK CONTENT AHEAD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION. 2.5k words.

ALSO CONTAINS: mention of tokyo being the setting, some corporate terms that might've been switched up.

“If you get a minute call me back, I'm so lonely and you're the only one that knows me”

-Call Me Back, Chase Atlantic 

24 missed calls from *unknown* number. Block [xxx-xxxx-xxx]? Cancel / [Confirm]

You once again woke up from a barrage of phone calls. It was the sixth this week, probably somewhere in the hundreds since the past few months, and the cutesy ringtone you carefully picked and recorded from a game was starting to sound more and more irritating. Unfortunately, you reckon that this will still occur tomorrow, completing the week’s seven days.

Ever since you broke up with Gojo Satoru, he hasn't stopped calling you.

From his old burner phones, new sim cards and even the phone booth down the road, all are used in an attempt to contact you. You've changed your numbers countless times, but for some reason, he always manages to find your new ones.

So you've settled for just manually blocking each and every new number of his, despite the pounding in your chest everytime you receive these calls. Knowing Gojo’s immense wealth, he's probably capable of buying new numbers and landlines everytime, so you have to just make-do of this situation.

If you were to tell yourself that this is how your relationship would end up, your past self would've laughed at your face. 

There was a time where you're genuinely head over heels for Satoru, with his boyish grins and loving personality, he was basically the man of your dreams. He likes the same things as you do, geeked out over Digimon on your chats and is overall a sweetheart that's easy to sink into conversation with. One thing was that he's also the heir to a big corporation, something that younger you was in awe of.

Back then, the hopeless romantic soul in you did not believe that economic class affected how a person loves. You were just in love right? Doesn't matter what your background is.

But then disagreements arose. You were harshly reminded that rich people do not have the same worries as the lower class. It started small, with questions about your career choices and comments about your apartment. It became invasive next, with nudges of dropping your job and just marrying him to even buying out your old apartment complex in an attempt to make you live with him.

Something small in you wanted to just actually drop everything and run to him, but there was a nagging uneasiness that you felt way more. You tried explaining to him that you liked feeling productive, that you still have your childhood dreams to do, and that you'd prefer your relationship with the current pace it has, but the man just laughed and said ‘stupid, just let me take care of you.’

You left then, because you didn't like how it sounded, how fast and how suffocating his love feels — and how he showed you that dreaming is for the less fortunate because otherwise money would've made it real already.

★

You blocked his number again.

But Satoru just laughs, drops the phone, then presses the heels of his designer leather shoes down the screen until it cracks and gets crushed under pressure. He then looks down at the sorry state of what used to be a phone, brows furrowed like a god whose anger was incited by the thing.

The love of his life keeps pushing away his attempts of reconciliation so he hopes that the room around him would understand the chaos he'll bring, that was called for, he thinks.

You were his only love. When Satoru first met you in college, he was enamored. You are a breath of fresh air to be with, laughing at his weird side and letting him unwind his more hidden interests to you. You never chastised him for being a complete nerd over niche media or attending too many conventions, in fact you even joined along. You're the light of his boring life and he craves that shine so much.

By the time you were graduating, he was already planning your marriage and life, but then you suddenly left and he's been in shambles ever since.

His blue eyes land on a piece of paper that was brought to him two hours ago. An average startup company, nothing too special.

He has a very funny and special idea though.

★

A jarring announcement was raised on your workplace group chat when you looked at it during your breakfast.

Your company is going to have a merger with the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the country. At first you rubbed your eyes in disbelief because there is no way a startup like your workplace can simply shimmy its way to the big leagues that fast.

But to your horror, you realize just why a big name is so eager to form a deal with yours — it was the same one owned by the Gojo family, of course it's head being Satoru now.

How in the world did he know where you went after you resigned at your old job? But then again you realize that he even knows your new phone numbers so you just groaned loudly. You loathe this day coming, especially when the next announcement was about the official meeting between the two companies.

It’s impossible for him to not be there, and it’s not like he’ll miss the chance of seeing you again over anything else.

★

You were fiddling with your nails so much that you might just uproot it from your skin.

Gojo-fucking-Satoru is currently in front of a projector screen, explaining details of an investment he plans on doing.

Investment or whatever, you think, because you're having a hard time focusing now.

Not when his eyes are so laser-focused on you.

So you excuse yourself, a small ‘sorry, my vision is not doing great because of a headache’ to the secretary beside you, who understandably smiles and lets you go so easily.

You hunched down and beelined to the door. After you closed it, you breathed out a long sigh, tears threatening to fall. You continued to walk to the restrooms, where you finally sob into one of the cubicles.

Breathe in, breathe out.

You stayed in there for a few minutes, breathing in and out and plugging your earphones in to calm your senses. You didn't know why you felt so scared seeing him, you're not even sure if he's actually looking at you.

But then that was answered when you heard a fairly loud knock at your cubicle.

“You in there, sweetheart?”

You breath hitches and you let out an almost croaking sound, which makes the knocking even stronger. He actually cut that meeting out and went after you, god.

He cancelled an entire meeting over you, just to chase after you and who knows what else. The millions worth of this investment is just a tool for him to insert himself back to your life. Your eyes water when you hear the door of the restroom close.

“Go away.” 

“What's wrong first, the secretary told me you're having vision problems.”

Oh god, he sounded like he did back then, when you were so blissfully unaware of his tendencies, when everything about the two of you are still in a rose-colored tint.

“Satoru, do you seriously not have any idea what's wrong right now?”

You don't get a response from that for a while.

“Lovely, please, can we talk? You keep blocking me. I can explain.”

“Explain what? That you've been terrorizing your poor ex who clearly has cut off things with you, please don't even start.”

“I can't lose you, please”

You open your cubicle, just as he was about to reach out to you, you storm towards the door, unlocking it without sparing him a glance, with the same force you close it to his face. 

How unfortunate for you, because Gojo Satoru is too high up in his skyscrapers and too deep down in his obsession to ever see you from eye to eye. To him, he cannot lose you, and that's what only matters.

For Gojo Satoru is not used to losing what's his.

★

One minute you could be on your way home from work, then another minute the shareholder of your company is chasing you down the barren streets of Tokyo with an odachi at hand.

If you were to be very specific, the CEO that invested in your company four days ago who's also your ex-boyfriend is seemingly marching your way with a peculiar odachi blade in his hand

Compared to normal odachi, the blade of this one is pitch black, with red and blue intertwining dragons embossed in a shiny finish. It looks like something out of an anime you both loved watching and if you're not literally running for your life, you might've paused and stared at the way lights of neon signages reflect on them.

Honestly, it fits the Gojo Satoru you've known, for he is not one to settle for common things. It needs his own touch, it needs to be his alone because Gojo Satoru does not share his world with anyone.

And unfortunately for you, like that odachi — he has decided that you belong only to him, and like the colors in that blade, he will make sure that everyone who looks at you will know of the fact.

“Oh come on now, not even a hug for your dearest boyfriend?”

The man approaching you finally speaks, there's a playful tone in his voice, as if he's not currently holding a weapon and striding your way with it.

“Shut the hell up Gojo, we're over for like who knows how long now! You don't… you don't get to just come at me with a weapon and expect to be back together!” You did your best to retort at his words, but the shakiness of your voice betrays you.

“Aww, but I never agreed to that! You need the opinion of both parties to make that decision. Also it's Satoru for you, remember?” Gojo laughs, you look back at him and see his hand that carries the blade suddenly raises and you flinch.

Keep running, keep running, keep running.

“You hurt my feelings darling, I thought we had something big but you seemed to avoid me everytime, have you moved on that fast? Was everything we shared just nothing to you?” There was a sad tone to the way he speaks, if you knew better, you'd probably believe him.

But this is Gojo Satoru and you're not taking any chances at being caught back in his web.

“Just- just go away please… we're done already. Please, please just go away.” You cannot stop your emotions from getting out. All you wanted was to go home and go on with your life, but this man had decided to ruin all that just for his own whims.

“I can't.”

Your blood runs cold at his declaration. You tried running faster, but unfortunately you're against the Gojo Satoru. A loud bang ruptured in the quiet night, and in your horror, you realize it's from a firearm, possibly a sniper.

“We promised forever.” 

Gojo Satoru needs to have his own touch to things, so the maniac he is, hired snipers to scare you. It dawns on you, that only a powerful man like him can pull off something like this.

To someone like you, no less.

Stunned with the sudden sound, it gave much leeway for Satoru to catch up to you. He hugs you from behind, kissing the crown of your head while swaying both your bodies. His breaths are becoming more labored each time, as his hand — the one with the blade, slightly raises to your neck.

“We promised forever, so we'll go forever. You know I don't go back on my promises. We had so much planned and you just fucking left, you can't just do that, you cant, you can't, you can't…” Satoru sputters as he clings to you. You might be going crazy with all that's happening, but you think he's on the verge of crying.

Your mind is going blank. You have no clue how to get out of a situation where your deranged and powerful ex-boyfriend is relentlessly clinging to you while threatening you with weapons.

You don't know where things are headed, so on a last ditch effort, you whispered words that you're not sure you meant.

“Gojo… since nothing is getting through that head of yours and you're so hell-bent on threatening me like this… why not just do it? Do it, kill me, hide my body in a ditch somewhere and maybe you might be able to move on.”

You are so scared, so so scared. What could a man who's less than sane could do with those words?

Your fear increased tenfold when you felt him increase his grip on you. The hug he has you on is now painful, like he's trying to squeeze you until you spill your guts out.

And then you feel tears on your shoulder.

Tears…?

“No… nonono what went wrong? How can you say that? Is dying better than going back to me… you don't even call me Satoru anymore! Don't you love me?” He was now mindlessly prattling on. There were tears in his eyes that are now staring at you blown wide open.

“Ahh I can't kill you, I can't. I love you, I love you so much,” he said as turned his head to your ears, kissing and biting at your earlobes in between breaths. Suddenly he whispered again, “but I can kill for you.”

Your heart drops and you feel goosebumps on your skin. No way, no way he would do that right?

But then again, you knew all too well what kind of man you're involved with.

Satoru suddenly bursts out laughing, the sudden change in emotion makes you flinch. It's the kind that lasts what felt like so long, he was heaving by the time he was done.

“I only wanted them for the surprise factor, but I guess I can use them in other ways. So… darling since you're acting so stubborn, I’m gonna have to up the stakes here, each time you say no or disagree I’ll have one of my men shoot a passerby.”

Fuck.

“So, let me bring you to the car, go back to our home and we'll talk, yeah?” 

You stand there, frozen. Gojo can kill, he will kill. He's untouchable by the system and he probably owns this entire area, CCTVs included. Your quiet response has Satoru in a smile, he drags your body back to a sports car he probably bought just for this occasion, the blade still painfully close to your neck.

For all his barbaric ways earlier, he actually brings you down to the plush seats gently. You also thought that maybe there's a driver and you'll feel less alone with the blue-eyed monster but to your disappointment, he sat down at the driver’s seat.

When the door closes, instead of starting the car, Satoru suddenly lunges at you, trapping your body. His teary eyes bore into you, his entire body trembling.

“I didn't like that darling, I can't stand the thought of losing you, you're mine. Whatever the problem is we'll fix it, I'll be good, I swear! And if you say you don't love me anymore…” His lips connect with yours, the kiss is rough, almost manic. You're losing your breath when he finally stops then continues,

“We'll fix that too, okay?”

[seraph's notes]: can you guys tell i like writing chasing and yearning scenes, i hope you can tell because there will be more=

jk u didn't hear that from me... or did you?

want more? check out the [database.] for other content!

[dawnbreakerswife]

YESSSS UGH LOVE NON MC ANGST BUT HAPPY ENDING WITH SIDE CHARACTERS LIKE YES!!!!!

Love Gideon x mc but Gideon x non mc hits different

imagine non!mc reader being seen by the li's best friends

-

imagine jeremiah putting together a bouquet just for you when you stumbled into his shop, teary-eyed and borderline grieving a loss of a relationship that never blossomed, rambling about not being good enough or how you wish it were you, how you wished to be chosen.

imagine the way he'd flip the sign on the shops door to "closed," letting you cry your heart out to him, and when words escaped you, assured you that you were seen, just by someone unlikely. you blinked up at him, doubtful, but he only smiled, taking your hand in his, bowing down and planting a soft kiss onto the back of your palm, raising his eyes to meet yours as he spoke his next words.

"would i ever lie to you, milady?"

and if you paid any mind to the particular arrangement he'd made for you that night, you may have caught onto some hidden feelings he wasn't ready to fully display just yet.

-

imagine doctor greyson bumping into you "unexpectedly" when you dropped by akso hospital, shyly asking if you might wish for company during lunch (he just so happened to be taking his break) noting the bag in your hand.

imagine doctor greyson, unbeknownst to you, having bared witness to you catching a glimpse of mc slipping behind dr zaynes office door, smile on her lips as it clicked shut behind her. he couldn't bare to leave you alone, heart clenching watching the light dim from your eyes at the sight, what little hope you had left fading to dust.

you allowed him to whisk you off to a bench just outside the hospital, his favorite spot he'd called it, rambling on about how he came here often to get some fresh air or just take in the scenery. he didn't mind filling the silence with his mindless chatter, anything to distract you from the source of your sadness.

"did you make that yourself?"

you nodded, removing the lid from the container. you hesitated for a moment before speaking up.

"do you... want to try it?"

his answer was immediate.

"absolutely!"

you handed him the container, insisting you weren't hungry, watching him eye everything carefully before picking something out. at the first bite, he looked like pure bliss.

"i could eat this everyday," he offhandedly praised, shoveling more into his mouth.

your laugh caught his attention.

"you're exaggerating," you shake your head.

maybe it was the situation, the way he watched you slowly lose a certain confidence you once carried proudly, the sparkle in your eye fading ever since zayne had been spending more & more time with mc, but the way you doubted yourself lit something inside of his being.

"why don't i prove it to you?"

-

imagine being roped into another night out with them. reluctance had gnawed at your being, and despite liking to think you were strong-willed, at her insistence, how could you say no?

you regretted it almost as soon as you met up with the pair, watching caleb and her banter back and forth, just like usual, something familiar that you felt like you were intruding in on despite the invitation. the only difference this time was yet another presence.

imagine the night coming to an end— you tried to think of any excuse that would allow you to get away from them sooner, but somehow you still found yourself lingering, even if it felt like you didn't belong.

from where you were, you could see the way caleb's attention never strayed from her for long, witnessing the moment he shrugged his jacket off before she could even comment on being cold, draping it over her and watching the fabric swallow her whole.

you never stood a chance, because if he had cared to pay a little more attention, then he would've seen the goosebumps blossoming all over your skin and the way you tried so hard to not let the cold bother you. it was better to focus on than the pain.

in the next instance, you felt a weight on your shoulders. shaken from your thoughts, you turn to the side.

"you looked cold, so...."

gideon rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish but trying to show his care in his own way.

he couldn't ignore the way your attention lingered on them, quiet hurt behind those eyes in plain sight for him to see. he had half a mind to punch caleb and hope it brought him to his senses, but the urge to comfort you was stronger.

his eyes were on you the entire night, and he's okay that you haven't noticed it yet.

your eyes widen slightly, hands coming up to push his jacket off, shaking your head and insisting he might catch a cold instead—

but the protests die in your throat when his warm hands come up to cover yours, keeping his jacket in place, eyes certain yet warm.

"better me than you," he states like a fact, leaving no room for argument. he watches you sigh, slowly removing his hands once he's sure you'll keep his jacket on.

"besides...."

he watches your brows furrow softly in a silent question, slowly pulling one hand towards himself, curling his fingers save for his thumb before jutting it into his chest, expression becoming playful.

"pilots know a thing or two about wind!"

you burst into a fit of giggles at the absurdity.

he watches you, ecstatic that he's the cause of your delight, wanting nothing more than to be the cause of it every day from then on.

-

ive been reading soooooo much non!mc x lis bc i am a fiend for angst n thought "what if.. w the side charas......" i want to make longer versions but needed to get the general idea out of my system lolol

-

[dawnbreakerswife]

rafayel's lemurian behavior hc's!!

cw.: NSFW. 1.8k w. raf is mentioned more like a scary sea creature than like a pretty merman, this might have some ooc content for lemurians, mentions of sex, heat, raf has two dicks... ops... mentions of oviposition. not really monsterfucking but i'll tag it just in case.

note: "bloom will you ever shut the fuck up about lemurians? no. no i will not.

He's overprotective. Lemurians, as social as they are around their own species, can be quite territorial when it comes to their mates. Rafayel is all over you as soon as he views something as a threat. Thomas greeting you at an art exhibition? There’s a hand slipping to your waist and he glares at his manager over your shoulder. The poor college student that works at the cafe you two like smiled at you while you ordered your favorite drink? He’s clinging and nuzzling to you with a pout. A stray cat meowed at you for more pets? Oh he might as well pass out.

He showers you with gifts. Rafayel is obsessed with you alright. This is also related to how jelly he can get! Someone hit on you? You wake up with a pretty box with some kind of new jewelry by the door of your apartment. And they’re always one of a kind, too. No one’ll ever wear the same pair of earrings, bracelet, anklet you do, Rafayel commissions it all from the best jewelers he knows.

^ This is a very personal hc but i think that before you entered Rafayel’s life, he lowkey hated the fact his tears turned into pearls for the simple fact it can get messy and it was harder to hide his shame and weakness. After you showed so much interest in them though, Rafayel didn’t bother to kick the shiny pearls under the couch or bed or throw them away. In fact, he starts to collect them in tiny bottles and makes jewelry out of it. His favorite is the anklet he gifted you, a simple silver chain with two tiny pearls as pendants.

He's constantly nuzzling you. Lemurians have amazing senses even out of water and his sense of smell wouldn’t be any different. Rafayel LOVES the way you smell naturally. No cologne, no lotion. Just your skin. If you two are cuddling, he’s 100% with his head buried on your neck while breathing deeply and drowning on the scent. Lemurians are super touchy with their mates so just let him be and he’ll be overjoyed. You can even hear a happy chirp or two escaping him if you pay enough attention.

He insists on dragging you to the ocean. There are two things Rafayel adores– you and soaking underwater. If you agree to spend some quality time with him on the open ocean, he is overjoyed. You’re terrified of deep waters? Don’t worry!! Trust him!! He’ll help you float around, webbed hands always ghosting your waist and lower back to ground and comfort you while he swims under you happily. 

His true form is comically huge. I’m talking about like. 7 feet. He loooooves to wrap himself around you like a snake and keep you close like you’re his personal heater. OR! He floats on his back and lets you lie on top of him like a seal and its baby. You just look so tiny compared to him… he can’t help but want some snuggles.

Still on the anatomy topic, his skin is inhumanely pale. Living in the deep, there isn’t much sunlight nor does he need it so he is naturally very pale. It’s more like… kind of translucent, you can’t see his organs like some fish but you can clearly see his bluish veins. His teeth are super sharp and strong, too. Biologically, it’s for hunting, since it helps with cracking clams and other stuff open. Nowadays? He just torments you with them, of course! I believe Rafayel is a biter. A soft one, but he definitely nips on your skin if he’s upset or wants your attention.

^ Since i mentioned his teeth, it’s also valid to mention his mouth is also huge. It looks normal when he has it closed or when he’s talking but once he yawns, your eyes jump open. A thin membrane, where his cheeks would be, stretches his mouth much further than what would be considered natural and makes his shiny teeth noticeable. If it’s hard to visualize, think of it as the buccal flap some reptiles have!

He gives you his scales. Once, when you two were at the beach, you complimented how they looked under the sunset light, the purples and blues shining against the last bits of natural light beautifully, without much thought. Poor you just didn’t know this is a way of courting in lemurian culture and ohhhhh Rafayel’s brain MELTED. He couldn’t even react, stupid fish just nodded and looked away with a shy pout.

^ After that, he regularly gives you the older scales that shed from his tail. Please keep them all safe somewhere, it makes his stomach flip with joy. 

He hisses. Not at you, never, but you’ve caught his pupils turning into slits and a snake like hiss coming out of his mouth while he’s on the phone with a random collector once or twice now. 

He has a terrible temper during his heat. Lemurians go into heat in early spring, when the waters are slightly warmer, and Rafayel is no exception. The week before the heat actually kicks in, he’s super stressed. He gets petty, gives Thomas an attitude and threatens to burn his whole studio down and then, as soon as you’re by his side, his eyes are already spilling delicate pearls. His skin is hot and sweaty like it usually is during ebb day and all he wants is to soak in his tub or sea.

Which leads to the next topic! Can’t find him in his studio? Call his name at the beach! He’s curled onto his own tail underwater all hot and bothered but he’ll come crawling for you in a second… and drag you with him. Don’t know how to swim? And who said you’re leaving his grasp? Can’t hold your breath? Just kiss him! He just needs you close and it’s not like you can move anyway. His tail wraps around your legs like a predator ready to strike and he is babbling in lemurian while nuzzling on your cheek and chirping.

He courts you! During the week before his heat, his gifts are even more overwhelming. Oh look! He just finished a portrait of you! And here’s a new pair of pearl earrings, please use it. Don’t forget the delicate necklace with his initials. Oh and- you get the point. Underwater though? He will blow bubbles to make you laugh and sing you the sweetest lemurian love songs. You’re already his, he knows that, but his instincts act quicker than what his brain can think right now. It’s cute, really. He acts all confident and pretends he has some self control left in his body just so you can clap and praise him.

Some think lemurians have venom glands, but it is a myth! Lemurian mating is mostly romantic and they are bound to a mate for a lifetime, it’s not just with the intention of reproducing. So, they don’t have the need to hold down or paralyze their mates completely. That doesn’t mean you’re safe from his sharp teeth, though. He can hardly think for himself, have some mercy. Rafayel just needs a trigger to sink his teeth on your shoulder blade. You smell good? Bite. You barely have time to struggle and scold him before he’s already lapping at your bloody skin as an apology.

As for his actual heat, if you really insist, he’ll have sex with you in his studio– doesn’t matter where. But if you don’t mind and trust him, please, please, let him have his way with you in the water. He’s too desperate to breathe the land’s sticky and heavy air. Asks you a million times if you’re actually sure and that he can’t really hold back once you let him touch you. And if you consent? Say goodbye to rational Raf.

Now, i want to mention his anatomy once again to clear a few things up. His tail has a slit where his cock, in his human form, would be. The scales around it are softer, slimy and the slit produces a LOT of slick when he’s aroused. And where are his cocks? Inside, of course! Dooooon’t be shy, finger him for a bit and his cocks will come out in a second, standing tall and proud against his lower stomach.

^ Lemurians have hemipenis. Some animals have double reproductive organs for the sake of their species, if one of them is damaged, there’s still the other one for breeding. Lemurians, on the other hand, have a ‘smaller’ dick that’s more human looking and is used for pleasure and penetrative sex, while the other, found under the first one, is bigger, longer, ridged and it’s exclusively for breeding and burying his eggs inside you.

^ His ‘human’ cock isn’t exactly small, honestly, nothing about Rafayel’s true form is. I’d say it’s close to 7.68 inches (19,5 cm) when fully hard. It’s really pretty too! Just looks like his human form dick, maybe the base is kinda bluish and there are a few soft scales here and there but that’s it. Now, about the other one…it’s big. 12.5 inches (31 cm) okay… don’t worry though. He produces so much slick it won’t hurt much. I wouldn’t say it is pretty, it’s… uncommon! Interesting! But not pretty. It’s tinted in a nice deep blue that gets lighter on the tip and the base is pretty scaly. Not only is it big but it is very thick too. It’s an ovipositor, it has to have enough space for his eggs without squeezing them too much. 

^ Since i mentioned eggs, it’s good to mention that i don’t think they’re big… It does cause some discomfort at first because your womb will consider it as foreign body once they all snug inside you but I don't think it’s enough to cause pain. The shells are squishy, slimy and translucent and they’re the size of a date. Around 3-6 eggs i think… though not all of them are fertilized.

^ And on the fertilized eggs topic, I don't think Rafayel is able to actually impregnate you in this form. Your body just isn’t made to bear eggs and conclude the fertilization process. He does like to try though! And it’s not like his dumbed down brain can process any of this right now. Also, don’t worry, the eggs will come out of you naturally. After a few days without getting any nutrients, they turn into mush inside you and come out of you mixed with your discharge. 

^ That does not mean Rafayel can’t get you pregnant though! If you actually want children, his human form works just fine.

After his heat, which usually lasts a week, he is super clingy. He knows you’re not pregnant and doesn’t need this much doting but he’s just so happy you put up with all his needs. He showers you, lets you rest, kisses any and all bruises and bites he may have left… anything for his bride.

⊹ ࣪reblogs are very much appreciated. thank you for reading!(*´▽`*)

[dawnbreakerswife]

STOP OMG NO

THE PAIN AND UTTER HEARTBREAK IN HIS EYES

THE PUPPY EYES

THE SAD REGRETFUL LOOK

HE DID NOT WANT IT TO HAPPEN LIKE THIS

I LOVE INFOLD FOR DOING THIS MYTH BUT FUCK YOU INFOLD MAKING MY HUSBAND CRY

──── 𝑺𝑼𝑩𝑴𝑬𝑹𝑮𝑬𝑫 𝑬𝑪𝑳𝑰𝑷𝑺𝑬

╰ 𝑹𝒂𝒇𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒍 LOVE AND DEEPSPACE: SUBMERGED ECLIPSE

[dawnbreakerswife]

"i miss him" says girl about the fictional guy she thinks about every hour of every day

[dawnbreakerswife]

NOBODY TALK TO ME CUZ I JS FOUND OUT THAT WHEN MC WENT INTO THR N109 ZONE SYLUS THOUGHT SHE WENT THERE TO LOOK FOR HIM. And the way he tried his hardest to make her remember during the ‘devour’ scene no I’m gonna cry