inabsolutions

[inabsolutions]

annihilation: the consequence of collision

on ao3 ; 18+ AKA that nier automata android au no one asked for except me cw: pseudocest (unless you count being made in the same factory as being related??), caleb's biting kink, possessive behaviour

“Don’t be mad,” Caleb says.

“Who says I’m mad?” you grumble. “I’m not.”

“Come here,” he says, but not even the subsequent call of your name could sway you. You turn away from him, because just seeing his stupid face is making that imaginary ball of anger in your artificial stomach more severe. When he reaches out from where he’s seated against the metal panels of your make-shift shelter, you huff and slap his pleading hand away.

He sucks in a breath. “Ow—”

You immediately whip your head back, kneeling at his side, trailing a hand worryingly over the flesh wound at his shoulder. The synthetic skin is knitting together, but not fully repaired yet, pink and puckered as it looks, to say nothing of the torn flesh underneath. “What is it?” you fret. “Is your self-healing function not working as it should?”

“I’m okay,” Caleb says. You look up, and there’s a soft smile playing on his lips.

You’ve been had! Tricked and duped and hoodwinked, myriads of other synonyms that are running through the neural wirings of your logic circuits. He ruffles your hair, clearly pleased with himself, and it only serves to incense you. You scowl and pinch his ear, put out by his deception. He winces, but you don’t let up. “Don’t go around taking advantage of my worry like that, X-02,” you say.

“Using model names now, A-01?” he mimics, clearly amused. “You really are angry, huh.”

Reminded of the reason behind your annoyances with him—not mad, you’re not mad, not at all!—your lips twist in a grimace. Not even the nice summer breeze is doing anything to calm you. You’d punch his shoulder, but you don’t want to aggravate his injury and disturb the self-repair process of the nanobots.

“You know what my class is,” you say. “A! And do you know what A stands for, X-02?”

“Definitely not for Execūten,” he says, a strange wryness to his voice. “That’s for X.”

“Anhausen! Assist!” You throw up your hands. “A for Assist, you dummy! But how is this A class supposed to assist the X class like she should if a certain stupid, idiotic X-02 model won’t let her!” You poke at the middle of your chest. “What’s the use for the protocore installed here, you won’t let me use it as I should.”

“To keep you alive.”

“We’re androids,” you say. “We’re meant to serve, not to live. We’re created and booted; we run, but we’re not alive. ”

“That would be too human, wouldn’t it,” he murmurs. “And we’re not supposed to be humans.”

“Exactly. We’re not humans. We’re not alive.”

The primary function of an android is to aid humans. A tool. It’s why you’ve both been running yourselves ragged over this abandoned world, eliminating Wanderers left and right, trying to make this place possible for human habitation. It’s their origin and their home, you’ve been taught. The space station you’ve been dispatched from are mere temporary shelters, just like the place you’re resting at right now. Not a fit home.

And what good is an android who can’t perform her duties? Put out all over again, you pull at the loose blades of grass on the ground, though you take care not to uproot them in your anger. This ruined planet needs all the flora and fauna that could survive in these desolate conditions right now; grass beneath boots and trees shading overhead are already miracles enough.

“...As you say,” he says, that soft smile slipping back on his face as he leans back against the tree.

This idiot! You really wish he wasn’t injured so you could give him a good punch in the arm. And he wouldn’t have gotten injured if he’d just let you resonate with him—but no, every time you attempted to meld your protocore energy with his, all you’d received was a big red alert, RESONANCE PROTOCOL REJECTED. REJECTED, REJECTED, REJECTED, over and over again as he terminated your requests to amplify his gravity Evol. And he covered you so thoroughly while in combat against the Wanderers too—hence the shoulder wound he’s nursing.

“Stupid, dummy Caleb,” you say. “See if I ever help you again. Next time, I won’t even lift a finger. I’ll just sit back and watch as the Wanderers tear you apart.”

Lying again. Of course you wouldn’t. You’d been at this for a long time now, the two of you. Years and years of camaraderie built up through taking on missions together. How could you abandon him now—even if he is stupid. His personality module must be malfunctioning, so stubborn about rejecting your resonance, but every time you insist on a check-up, the scan comes back normal. Maybe it’s an artifact; programmed personalities can become volatile sometimes.

“Don’t be mad,” he coaxes again. “Let’s go scouting tomorrow. Maybe we’ll find some snacks in an abandoned store.”

“Androids don’t need to eat,” you say.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t. Besides, don’t you like the taste?”

This time, when he reaches for you, you let him. He brings your body to his lap, back nestled against him as he interlaces your fingers together. It always feels strange, touching another android like this. Skin-to-skin contact, flesh sensations but wired machinery beneath. Produced and assembled to resemble a human as much as technologically possible, but it doesn’t change the solidity of the metal chassis beneath.

You look up at the sky. Even through the goggles, the residual orange rays of the setting sun stab into your optic nerves. Evening has arrived, and within this shoddy shelter, Caleb holds you against him. He breathes lightly, air landing at your nape as you lean back against his chest. The leaves above rustle, windswept. A gentle sound, so unlike the roars of the Wanderer horde you’d fought off mere hours ago.

“Are you still angry?” he whispers.

“As if my anger’s worth anything,” you mutter. “It’s all a litter of code at the end of the day—why are you so concerned?”

“We’re not built specifically to process emotional pain. There’s no specific module,” Caleb murmurs, “but when you’re angry at me, I feel it anyways. Worse than any physical damage.”

His fingers tap the back of your neck, right above the start to the spinal cord that was the central process for the periphery nerves, and it’s like he’s somehow brushed his hand against all of those nerve endings because your entire body is tingling.

You shift within his embrace, and Caleb absentmindedly plucks at the collar of your dress. Perhaps it’s a conscious gesture, or perhaps it’s subconscious. Either way, you think you know how this night will end. Under him or over him, but either way, with him inside you.

You’re not sure how this began. Why androids even have this function to begin with, when reproduction between two mechanical bodies is impossible. Some strange fascination with mapping every human function to a synthetic body, maybe. You never did understand the whims of those researchers at Ever HQ.

“Caleb,” you say. The name that you’d picked out for him the first week you’d landed on Earth, picked out while flipping through a book titled ‘A Dictionary of First Names’. A fossil of a find. An attempt at mimicking humans again, as though android minds couldn’t help themselves from trying to inch ever slightly closer to their creators. And despite all your protests of not being human, you kept the name he gave you close to your heart too. Ached deep in the joints every time he calls by that human name, as though rusted over. A longing that felt ancient. Anachronistic.

“Caleb,” you say again, when he plucks at the hemline of your velvet dress, far too focused to imply simple curiosity.

“Hm?”

“You’re injured.”

“Not anymore,” he says, and when you twist your head to glance at his shoulder, he’s right. No sign of a visible wound—but who knows about the muscles beneath? Likely not—it takes longer for deeper injuries to be fixed; surface areas were prioritized first in the healing process, because the sludge of spilt blood and mashed muscles and torn wirings made it obvious that the injured weren’t human.

“I ought to report you to HQ,” you say. “X-02, lying again.”

“I’m not. And don’t call me that,” he murmurs, resting his head on your shoulder. An awkward position—he’s too tall for this, has to hunch over for it, but he doesn’t complain. The heat of his breath tickles your nape again. “It’s gege, remember?”

“I’m older,” you protest.

“Only in theory,” he says. “And you were activated after me.”

And annoyingly, he’s right. Your model may have come into existence first, but your activation came later. Owing to some prior defect, you were told—you’re not sure on the details, and there has never been any elaboration given, nor any accessible memories in your data bank. You remember it too, waking up to his face shoved right in your vision.

“We’re factory made in the same facility. All of us are,” you huff. “If I call you gege, I have to call the rest of the older males that too.”

Caleb’s arms around your waist tightens, a possessive grip to his fingers as they dent into your dress. There’s a growl that rumbles from his chest. And here, he slides his fingers up the bottom of your dress, caresses the smooth skin of your thighs with equally smooth fingertips, an inhuman perfection to crafted weapons; cold though, because his right arm has always been strange that way. More metal than the rest of him, in a decidedly un-android way. No blood vessel lining beneath the skin—you’re not sure why the mechanics never fixed it.

“But they don’t know you like I do,” he says evenly. “They’re not close to you like me. They don’t know…” Right on cue, as he pets over your underwear, your breath hitches. “...That when I touch you here, you always flinch. But you become excited anyways.”

“Programmed reaction,” you protest. “Humans are all sensitive like this.”

“Mhm,” he says, and parts aside the fabric there to languidly rub his fingers over your folds—already starting to dew, much to your annoyance. “If you say so.”

You squirm, but he clicks his tongue and spreads his other hand over your hip to keep you in place. Fingers locked around you, metal cuffs around your waist. You can feel his cock rise behind your back, but he doesn’t do anything about it, too intent on having you crashing first. Even despite the fact that you’re right out in the open of your usual camp, he wants to have you; the glade is secure enough, and it’s not as if there’ll be anyone walking in, but still. However, you’ve done this enough times just like this—on grassy fields or granite countertops, against rough bark or brick walls, whatever surfaces available to you in nature and cityscape both—shame is the least of your concerns, not with his one-track mind.

“Want to feel it on my hand,” he coaxes, sliding his fingers across your folds. “You getting wet for me.”

Which, damn him, is exactly what you’re doing. Dripping with arousal, just as he intends. Routine has you spreading your legs and arching your back as he sinks a finger into you. Slow, cold—but warmed soon enough with the heat transfer.

“Tight as always,” Caleb murmurs. “No matter how many times we do it, you always have to be stretched out first. You’re so much work.”

There’s a fondness to his voice that has you hissing, and with the wetness that’s now easily dripping out of you, he takes the opportunity to insert another finger, spreading them out in a scissoring motion.

“Don’t say it like that,” you say. “Like it’s my fault. You know it’s because of—hngh—self-repair!”

“Uh huh. And?”

“And, and—” The steady rhythm of his fingers as they carefully work their way in and out of you has your neural network fried; You grasp at slipping threads to defend yourself against these accusations (which were entirely unfair, in your opinion!) “—it’s only because you’re too big!”

Caleb chuckles, a dangerous, low edge to his amusement. “Keep talking,” he says. “Anything else to pin on me?”

“I just think that—hah—you should get it checked out,” you say. “There’s no way it’s supposed to be that size; either that or those scientists have gotten strange ideas in their heads. And you’re always wanting to go at it too, so there’s clearly a glitch in the coitus faculty of your logic circuit.”

“Not a malfunction,” Caleb says. “That’s just me, pretty girl.”

Your face flushes. “At least let them modify the size to make it easier on me—!”

Caleb grinds the heel of his palm against the fleshy bud above your folds, touch turning harsh. You make a choked sound from your throat, but he doesn’t let up the pressure. “I’d prefer it if you could be the only one to service me there,” he says mildly.

You pinch his forearm. “Selfish!”

“You say that, but you’re the one who likes it.” He bites the shell of your ear, warm breath stealing over you. “You always take it so well, after all.”

“Do not!”

“Again,” Caleb says. “Saying one thing, but doing another. Look, aren’t you taking my fingers perfectly fine?”

“As if it’s a fair comparison!”

You push your back against him. Caleb takes a sharp inhale, rolls his hips against you. “Be good for gege,” he chides, and then takes out his fingers to give you a light slap that lands right onto your sex. Your body jerks with the impact, and you clench around nothing. He soothes you with a soft rubbing motion, cooing apologies that only makes you more frustrated.

“Ge,” you beg. Doing your best to entice him.

“Hm?” His breathing turns rough, and you can feel the rise and fall of his chest as he keeps rubbing you. Never enough pressure to get you where you want, just a teasing motion to keep you wanting more. “What do you need? Say it with words, pretty girl. Gege will take care of you, promise.”

“Want more than just your fingers.” You shift and turn yourself around, a flurry of fabrics that will surely be stained by tomorrow morning. You crawl into his lap, straddling his thighs, and when face-to-face like this, you can finally work yourself over his lap. Sprawled over him, grinding against the hardness poking out of his pants.

“You—” Caleb’s head falls back against the tree in a dull thud, and it’s frustrating, not being able to see his eyes. The full expression of his face.

You reach up to peel off the blindfold of your eyes, then his. The black ribbon flutters as you fling it aside. You slant your mouth over his, and he just lets you take what you want, teeth clacking in a mess of a kiss. The swipe of your tongue over his has him moaning into your mouth. His eyes roll back in an involuntary pleasure reflex, lashes dusted in the crushed glitter of a dying sun.

But it’s frustrating; you don’t want just the external friction of bumping and grinding over clothes, you need him inside. You whine, pawing at his pants, and he sighs in response.

“Always doing as you wish,” Caleb croaks.

“Please.” Your voice cracks. “Feel so empty without you.”

Caleb breathes, “Okay. Okay, gege’s got you.” There’s the rustling of clothes as he takes himself out. Your hand snatches for him immediately, barely able to wrap your fingers around the entirety of his cock.

“So eager,” he laughs softly, but when you retaliate by teasing the tip with your thumb, he shuts up quickly with a stuttered thrust up into your palm.

“Hurry up,” you complain, dragging out the syllables at the end, and work your palm over the length of him. Caleb gives a quiet little sigh as he tugs at the side ties of your underwear, and the knots surrender without a fight, lace and cotton bunched up in a fist as though he doesn’t want to let it go. He gives into your demands so easily, and it makes you want him so much. Your stubborn, protective partner; your other half. You stroke him lazily as you use your other hand to part your folds, rocking your entrance back and forth over the tip of his cock. Caleb hisses like he’s been slashed when you try to take him into you—and he slips, much to your dismay, and slips again on the second, third attempt.

“Stop, it’s okay, let me,” he says, and takes a hold of himself. “Just lean yourself against me, yes, just like that.”

You rest your forehead on his shoulder, hands pressed flat against his chest for leverage as Caleb aligns you by the waist over his cock. When he begins pushing you down onto him, you groan. Barely in, and you already feel full.

“Shhh,” he hushes you, his own voice strained as he feeds you his cock inch by inch, staring at where he’s slowly entering into you. “You can do it. You’ve done this so many times before, gege knows you can.”

The drag of him against your walls burns, even with how wet you are. By some miracle, you manage to take him up to the base, the both of you gasping for air when he bottoms out. He’s everywhere, stretching you out entirely as you struggle to breathe.

“See,” he says, “what did I say?”

“You’re terrible—oh!” Whatever complaint you’d been about to make is interrupted as he suddenly bucks into you.

“You okay there? Suddenly stopped talking.”

“Caleb!” You huff at the amusement in his voice, about to file another voiced complaint to the bureau of X-02’s logic circuit, but the rough way he’s working you over him—like a weightless toy, even despite the heavy weight of an android body—has all the words fleeing. It’s all you can do to hold onto him, teeth sinking into his neck as he holds your hips and slams into you, and you’re bouncing up and down over him, meeting him motion for motion. Equal and opposite reactions, energy building beneath the sternum.

“I’ll never be tired of this,” Caleb breathes. “Not ever. I want you, always. You know that, right? No matter what happens in the future, I’ll always want this. To be with you.”

“I—Of course I know, you dummy,” you say, voice catching on a sob. “You think I’m not the same?”

Caleb laughs again, and the sound destroys you in its own resonance with your protocore. You bite your tongue, trying to stifle the high-pitched wail that’s threatening to escape, and Caleb thumbs at the corner of your lips.

“No, not your tongue,” Caleb says. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

And you know him so well, you open your mouth immediately. He shoves his fingers between your teeth, so deep it poked the back of your throat, and you sink your teeth over his knuckles until you taste the oxidized metal rust of that synthetic blood. Sucking and working your tongue around the meat of his digits as he gasps, “Exactly. Just like that, good girl.”

And it’s this ritual that makes him about to come. You can feel it. That shiver to his body, the twitch of his jaw as he tries his best to hold back to prolong the moment, but you’re not having it. You buck and slam yourself down on him, clawing at his neck with stiff fingers and biting his knuckles so hard it would fracture if he were truly made of human flesh and bones.

You can’t take it. The violence kicks you off the edge before him. Everywhere, it tingles. You crest over the rush of endorphins, let it carry you away on a crashing wave. And the air sings, a crescendo as though you’ve been struck like a bell, every atom sent vibrating in the ring. And it just keeps and keeps going, because he’s thrusting his hips up and shoving himself inside so deep it feels like you’ll never be able to get him out.

Come, goddamn it, your eyes glare at him, savage, come already, I want to see, and message received, because he immediately makes a rasping sound, cock jerking sporadically inside you as it releases splashes of warm seminal fluid. Empty of gamete, of course, because what reproductive capabilities were machines supposed to have? Cell-less, without DNA.

Still. You’d like it, you think hazily, if you could stir him into yourself. If you were humans, you’d like that. A home inside your ribs, a spot for his seed to take. But neither of you are human, so there’s no point to the thought exercise.

Caleb smooths his hand over your hair—other hand still inside your mouth. Your jaw finally loosens, and his fingers slip out. Neat little pink indents over the pale flesh. You lick the saliva off, and he stares at you with those dark eyes that hide so many secrets. No light shone over could ever reveal them, but you’re happy enough for now.

You hug him and rest your head over his chest. There’s the hum of circulating fluid if you listen hard enough, the sizzling energy of the protocore that keeps him alive. When you nuzzle your cheek against the velvet of his coat, he chuckles.

“Still angry then?”

Idiot. You’ll definitely crack open his circuitry one of these days to figure out how he functions. And you’ll huff about reprogramming him the entire while, but will still put him back together just as he is. Because you like Caleb. You like him: his stubborn protectiveness, his hidden secrets, his overwhelming desire. And his ridiculously sized genitalia, even if it bruises you from the inside out.

“Not angry. Sleepy now.” You yawn and cuddle into him. He hugs you close to him, and never mind the mess—you’ll dunk him into a river tomorrow to rinse him off, then make him clean up the mess inside you with his tongue.

Yes, come tomorrow, another mission will arrive, and you will fight yourselves to the last electron that loops in your wires. But you’ll do it alongside him, you’ll both survive, bloody and torn as you both are, and even despite the injuries, Caleb will pick blooming dandelions off the side of the abandoned roads and weave them into your hair.

Because you love them. And he loves you.

So you’ll smile your brightest for him, because he loves your smile—and you love him, you do.

———

The light of the sun has long fled, and the void of space beyond the skies drowns everything in a muggy darkness. Caleb holds you close to him, curling his hand over yours. You snuggle into him, murmuring in your sleep about this and that and Caleb, ‘m the same.

How could it be the same? A-01 and X-02, how could you be the same as him? Planet to satellite. Origin to point.

He was created from you, because of you.

One day, you'll understand.

And when that day comes, he'll lay you to rest with gentle, loving hands. You'll cry miserably, as you always do, and he'll kiss you good night and say, "Shh. I'll be there when you next wake up, okay?"

It never gets easier.

Love is like that. A tribulation written in blood.

“A for Anhausen, huh?”he whispers as he pets your hair. “Maybe for others, but not for you. It’s all right though. Whether you’re opening your eyes to take your first breath or closing your eyes to breathe your last, I’ll always be there. No matter how many times it happens—”

Caleb smiles helplessly.

“—after all, I was made for you.”

[inabsolutions]

inverse flux

on ao3, 18+ cw: pseudocest, jiejie!mc/didi!caleb, dry humping, somnophilia, dubcon

Point the proudest thing in your life, and you’d flip open your wallet in response. “It’s simple,” you’d say while showing the photo holder within, and it’s a picture of you and Caleb. “Being a jiejie—I think that’s the best title in the world.”

Which then would be followed by a whole lot of ribbing about being too obsessed with a younger man from your friends, but you took it in good faith. Laughed, knowing it was so much more than that.

You loved him as much as an adopted older sister could—close as a child, distant as an adult. An open fist sort of love, caught halfway between wanting to hold his hand but knowing better than to smother him.

If Caleb was the sun, then you were the loose cloak of sky that covered him. And he burned so hot, the heat of his sunrise eyes almost blistering whenever he looked your way. Golden boy prodigy of the prestigious Aerospace Academy. You’ve never been good at much your entire life; knew how to hold a gun, knew how to track Wanderers, knew how to survive by yourself out in the wild, and that was enough to eke out a living. You pulled triggers and filed reports, completed your missions and passed your inspections.

You didn’t know how to pull people close to you like how Caleb did. You didn’t know how to smile so bright—but you didn’t mind. It was enough, seeing Caleb flourish. A gravitational magnetism to his energy, pulling you in.

You’d teased him about it before. Ruffled his hair (on tiptoes, too tall now to be put in a headlock so you can bully his hair like before), and said, “Our Caleb is so popular. Don’t break too many hearts out there, okay?”

“Jie,” he protested. “You know that’s not me.”

“Mhm,” you said. “If you do find someone, remember to bring them home to see your jiejie.”

“I won’t,” he says, a finality to it that both confused you and relieved you. “If I’m with someone else, who’ll be around during the weekends to cook and clean and paint your nails? You’d be a mess without me around.”

“The privileges of being a jiejie,” you said flippantly without shame, “and speaking of, I’m really craving some ice cream. Wanna make a trip to the corner store and get some for me?”

Caleb sighed. “Somehow, I get the feeling it’s not really a question.”

“Didi is so smart, I’m so proud to be your jiejie,” you said, clapping your hands. “Chop chop, get to it.”

He’d gotten his revenge in the end via a pinch to your waist, a soft chuckle at your indignant cry before he ducked out the door and out of your clawing hands.

At the time, it had felt strange, the idea of Caleb trailing after a shadow that’s not your own. And all baby birds flew the nest some day, particularly ones with such strong wings like your didi. But he hadn’t introduced you to anyone, didn’t get caught in any scandals at the academy, and you were glad.

All that is to say, you love him. You would do anything for him.

But it doesn’t explain why you awake with your heart pounding at your chest. Why there’s a stifling weight above you in the bed of your apartment, that familiar heated skin rubbing against the bare skin of your collarbone, blistering hot—

“Caleb—?!”

Even in the darkness of night, the dimness of moonlight slipping through the sides of the curtains,, you’d recognize him anywhere. Your voice comes out scratchy, throat dry from sleep, and it takes you a moment to realize that no, you aren’t dreaming, it’s Caleb.

Caleb, who’s pressing you down into the mattress and grinding his hips against you, your legs hoisted up. He’s clothed, thankfully, but it’s not enough because you still feel the hardness that’s poking at your stomach through his shorts.

“What are you doing, Caleb,” you say, frustrated.

You try to wiggle out from under him, but it only serves to incense him. His rocking movements become more intense, bumping right up against your mound.

“Jie,” he sighs into the crook of your neck, sticky and desperate, and when your hands try to push him off, he snatches them and pins them above your head. One-handed, fingers circling around the entirety of your wrists. The air is too humid, a strange warmth that scorches the back of your throat with each inhale. Or maybe that’s just the air shared between you and Caleb, how he’s breathing against your mouth, rubbing his cheek against yours—along with everything else that’s also rubbing against you.

“Want you,” he moans.

This. This isn’t right. There’s a wrongness to this, and you feel as though you’ll be smite down even despite the stifling darkness. You’re both adults—urges like these, he should know how to take care of them himself.

“S-Stop,” you say, voice strained. It takes too much willpower to resist the urge to grind back against him. He feels—good, a pleasing pressure against the sensitive spot between your thighs. And his other hand is trailing up your waist, fingers tapping over your ribs in a ticklish sensation that has you heaving for breath, only to be choked as he paws at your chest, rolling the fleshy pad of this thumb over the areola. “We can’t be doing this, Caleb, you know we can’t.”

“Jiejie,” he croaks. “Please.”

And if the sound of him begging doesn’t have you closing your eyes. “You idiot,” you say. “Why me? If you wanted someone to do these things with, it could have been—anyone else—someone prettier, younger—”

“You know, Jie,” he snarls, “sometimes, I really wish you would shut up.”

A sharp pain sinks into your neck, teeth-shaped. Another punishing pinch of skin, the clip of nails around your nipple. You gasp, back arching up to meet the hard planes of his body, legs wrapping tight around him instead. He bucks into you, and if you both were less clothed, he’d be right in you, sliding home.

The thought has you squirming against him. Push and pull, working yourself up with the tempo he’s forced upon you, grinding into his hardness and trying to ignore the fact that you’re getting off to someone who’s called you jiejie his whole life of knowing you.Caleb, of all people.

It’s been a while since you’ve taken anyone as your partner, but are you so desperate? Hours before, you would have vehemently denied it—but now, pinned to place by such large hands, faced with the fact that Caleb is, undeniably, an adult. A man. A man who is so much larger than you despite the three years you lord over him, a bundle of strained muscles whose tension can be felt through the barest of touches.

You throw your head back against the pillow and groan. You give up.

“If you’re going to do this, hurry up,” you say, trying to force your voice into an order instead of a plea. Trying to ignore the boiling blood under your skin. “I have work tomorrow—and you have a train bound for Skyhaven to catch.”

Caleb laughs, but finally lets go of your wrists. You hook them around his neck. Hold him tight around you, that open fist finally closing.

“You always did like bullying me around,” he breathes. “Caleb, go do this, go do that. Caleb, don’t you know that you should listen to your elders—”

“Shhhh,” you say helplessly. “Be good, okay?”

You pet his hair and he looks up at you.

Caleb suddenly stops moving. He stares at you for a long, long while. Flushed from ears to cheek, a deep red that’s discernible even in the thin moonlight. Under his fervent attention, you feel as though you’ve been lit up. Every nerve scrubbed out, electrocuted. Hammered over an anvil, bent to Caleb’s liking.

“Caleb…?”

“Jie,” he breathes, “can I kiss you?”

You hesitate. (You want it. You shouldn’t. You can’t.)

“That…”

“Please,” he says, and he’s already mouthing at your jaw, tongue flicking out to taste skin. “Just one, before I go. I’ve dreamt about it for so long, jie, please.”

So long? How long, you want to ask, but when you open your lips—not even to assent, this rascal—he’s already got his mouth all over you, tongue and teeth and all.

You moan into the kiss—if it can even be called that, filthy wet as it is, he’s practically drooling into your mouth—and he’s rutting into you even more aggressively now, groping at your breasts with both his hands, holding them fully in his palm. The need to chase your own orgasm has you reaching down to slip your hand into your underwear. Slick, but you already knew that.

Just as you’re rubbing yourself, Caleb snatches your fingers and traps them in a tight fist.

“Use my hand,” he rasps. “Let me do it for you, jiejie. Like how you’re always telling me to do.”

Head spinning, you gasp, “Okay. Okay, Caleb.” You grind yourself uselessly against his hand, manipulating his fingers against that swollen bud above your leaking folds. You’re used to the callouses, your own hand too rough from gun handling for it to feel abnormal, but it’s the heat that catches you off guard. You’d always slept together as children in that shelter, seeking each others’ warmth like abandoned pets. And you’ve forgotten how it felt, to have another body against yours that you trust so wholly. Skin so heated, sun-scorched.

Caleb grunts as he rocks himself against you while pulling you along to that same rhythm. Eager learner, too smart to not pick up on which way to swirl his fingers to have you trembling. The both of you come like that, like desperate teenagers too overcome by need to even have time to take off clothes.

You sob as you come, and Caleb’s already there to lick away the tears before they have a chance to trail down your face. His spend wets through the fabric of his shorts, wet against your own damp underwear.

“Jie,” he says, the sound scattering like gravel. Begging again. “Jiejie.”

You shift under him, and god, is he getting hard again? Twenty-two but has the libido of a teenager, what the hell, Caleb Xia. What kind of monster had you raised? And there he goes again, humping you like some body pillow.

“You… little hellion,” you gasp, grabbing the back of his head by the hair and tugging it roughly. “Bothering your jiejie like this, I ought to…”

“What, chase me around with a slipper?” Caleb laughs. “You haven’t been able to catch me since I was twelve.”

A puddle of feel-good chemicals melt your thoughts away; good for him, because if you were any more coherent, you really would grab the slipper.

“Always did grow too fast for your own good,” you huff.

Caleb doesn’t bother with a reply. He’s too busy mouthing over your throat, saliva smeared all over as his teeth catch delicate skin between slick enamel.

“And here I thought you were so obedient,” you say.

“I am,” Caleb simpers. “Always, when it comes to you, jie.”

You blink slowly. The weariness tugs at you as it always does after… strenuous activity. That was the only way to put it, because you refuse to acknowledge that you and Caleb dry-humped each other to completion. Which he’s still doing, by the way! Languidly grinding against you, as though this whole exercise is so casual.

“Seriously?” you say. “Still not tired?”

“Almost done, promise. Just go to sleep, jie,” Caleb says in a coaxing tone—as if he was the older one here! If you weren’t so tired, you would definitely be pinching his ear as punishment.

“Yeah, yeah,” you grumble. “Do your thing, jiejie will indulge you this time, you rascal.”

Caleb chuckles out a thanks, and you seriously think you’ve accidentally brought a dog home instead of a man. The next you close your eyes, black unconsciousness overtakes your thoughts. That familiar warmth still pressed against you, though, an overwhelming summer heat. Sun to sky.

In your dreams, a shadow splits into two. In the distance, someone speaks. You fall backwards, sinking, and heavy stones of syllables follow you and drop into the viscous pool of sleep, rippling to create sounds deep yet high, mature yet youthful, the overlap of a boy and a man and somewhere in between. Familiar pleading, unfamiliar mourning.

If… If I wasn’t the Caleb you know, would you still love me?

When your eyes open the next morning, you wake alone. The scent of the sheets tickle your nose: clean laundry, fresh from the dryer. As if last night never happened at all.

(In a station far away, a train departs from Linkon to Skyhaven.

It never reaches its destination.)

[inabsolutions]

random pacific rim au drabble p2

part 1 here

Trying to peel away from Caleb’s side after the Drift hurt. It went beyond the mental instability of having to rediscover the loneliness of a mind split from two to one. No, it manifested itself into a physical ache that pinged at your ribs whenever you lost contact with the warmth of Caleb’s body, crushed the lungs and made it hard to even breathe if you were even a centimetre away from him. 

To think, the rest of the command centre had the audacity to laugh when the two of you stumbled out of the Jaeger. Only afterward, once the world stopped spinning, did you realize the reason for their laughter. Apparently, you’d been plastering yourself to him like a baby koala. Caleb hadn’t laughed. He had done worse than that. Had steadied you with his hand at your back, then lifted you into his arms like a child. 

Embarrassing. 

Your thoughts must have pinged against him, because Caleb skims his fingers down the side of your jaw. 

“It’s normal,” Caleb murmurs. “Especially when there’s such strong compatibility.” 

You nuzzle into his touch, and he rubs your cheek like he’d always done to clean your face in younger days, traces of dirt and crayon and paint swept away under his thumb. You’re twined around him, the both of you laying in his bed, and you’re cling-wrapped so tightly to him that you’re surprised he hasn’t complained yet. Every time he inhales, you can feel the expansion of his ribs. In and out, in and out, like the tidal waves that had rushed out to meet your feet as a child. Before the seas had been poisoned by the presence of kaijiu blue, of course.

“Were you like this with the others?” you ask. There’s a slight niggle at the thought, a splinter jabbed in the metaphorical thumb.

Caleb smiles as he tweaks your nose. “Don’t be jealous.”

Wha— “I’m not!” you protest. “Why would I get jealous over something like that? Especially if it’s supposed to be something normal.”

“Okay, okay,” he says with a laugh as you smack his chest. 

“Don’t be so annoying,” you say. “Answer the question.” 

“Even with Gideon, it had been nothing so close,” he says. “Nothing like this. Physical contact hadn’t been necessary, back then. Just a couple of days in each other’s proximity was enough to get over the hangover. To say less of the ones that came before him.” 

“Don’t you have to be super compatible to operate the Jaegers, though?”

“There’s a baseline compatibility with all the Jaeger pilots,” Caleb says absentmindedly. He’s begun to weave braids into your hair, despite the awkward positioning of his curled body. “It’s just how our minds are born. Gideon and I just happened to work better than most—and now, you and I work together even better than that.”

Gideon… can never pilot again. But at least he’s alive. 

“Is that why this—” You shift against him, sighing at the skin-to-skin contact you press your face to the crook of his neck. “—is so necessary? Because the hangover gets worse if you’re more compatible?”

“Yeah,” Caleb says. One braid done, onto the next. He used to braid your hair like this when you were a little girl, and it’s nostalgic, this sensation, in more ways than one. Because now, you knew what it had felt like for him, your small head beneath his fingers, smooth strands of hair slipping past between the fingers. The pleasure of seeing a tiny girl smile as she proclaims, gege is so good at this! “Because we meld together better, so the separation gets harder.”  

You know about the concept of a post-Drift hangover—you just never expected to experience how terrible it felt for yourself. It’s a strange sensation, to be made so whole through the neural handshake only to be fractured and reassembled again into a body that felt too small to contain your thoughts. Caleb doesn’t seem as desperate to latch as you do, and you wonder if it’s the experience or just Caleb’s mental fortitude.

“It’s not that,” Caleb murmurs. “I just hide it better.” 

His mind, brushing up against yours again, reading your thoughts so clearly through the ghost-Drift that remained despite the lack of hardware to connect your minds. How is it that he could understand you so well, you don’t know. Then again, even before the mission and the Drift, he could always read you like an open book. 

 Sometimes, you think you know him just as well, as close as how it is now—and other times, he seems so far away. Too far to be reached, walking off into the ocean again like you’d watched on the screens so many times in the command centre before you’d been allowed to co-pilot with him. Even now, after the Drift, after seeing through all those flickers of memories… 

You still don’t understand. Will you ever? 

“You’re such a good liar, Caleb,” you say. 

“Am I,” Caleb says. 

“But it’s understandable,” you say. “You’ve practiced it your entire life, after all.” 

His fingers stop their busy motion through your hair. He stiffens, and you feel the physical breath being held in his lungs because his ribs are no longer clamouring against your own. The gentle brush of his mind that usually cants itself toward you suddenly draws away, retreating from you and leaving behind a cold blankness in its wake.

“Should we talk about it?” you ask.

“What’s there to talk about?” Caleb rasps. 

“Y’know.” You roll over to sit on him, and he lets you. You tap a finger on the line of his collarbone, and he flinches as though you’ve struck him with a hammer and shattered his skeleton beneath. “That.”

You know you had felt it. Had experienced it. And it struck you just as it struck him, the overwhelming want, the desire. An hunger carved into the chest that longed for the light at the end of the tunnel in the shape of a girl, a woman—one whose shape resembles yours. And you’d known it hadn’t been just mere delusions when the both of you had staggered through the base to his room and toppled back into his bed, because he’d been hard against you, encouraged by the mind meld and the adrenaline of surviving the mission. It died down after enough time together, and you’d given him enough grace to not mention it, but you want to know now. What exactly he wants. What it all means. 

“Caleb,” you say gently as you take his face in your hands, “all those things I felt… All this time? Why did you never say anything?”

Caleb’s eyes slant away from your gaze, the shying of dawn’s colours come the pure intensity of daylight. He is so very still beneath you, the tension of a coiled spring being tested, but he’s been tested his entire life and he is very, very good at holding himself back. You know this now, even if you didn’t before. 

“You wanted a brother,” Caleb says. 

“I saw you as a brother,” you correct, “because you never acted otherwise.”

There it is again. The shift of his mental borders as they brush up against you. The friction spreads through you, equally burning as it is numbing. You shiver, and he takes notice.

“Do you still think the same of me?” he says, settling his hands over your hips. There’s a bite to his touch now, grip tighter than any hold he’s had over you before. “Knowing all that you do now? Do you regret accepting it?”

“Regret?” You stare at his face. Caleb, the boy who’d grown up alongside you in the Shatterdome, the man you’d seen off to war against the monstrous deep seas, the only family left to you. The one you trust most. “Regret what?”

“The Drift,” he says humorlessly. “The mission. Me.”

Isn’t it funny, you muse, that this is the Jaeger pilot who everyone had proclaimed their saviour over and over again. The one who shone over the hopeless masses like the dawning sun, the one that all the girls you knew fawned over. But they’ve never seen Caleb  beyond the easygoing smile, the reassuring voice, the artificial broadcast. They have not seen Caleb pilot a Jaeger by himself to save the co-pilot the Kaijiu tore out of him, they have not seen Caleb when he knelt to tie your shoes, and they have not seen Caleb with this sweet despair on his face. 

“Caleb,” you say. “Let me in.” 

And then you lower your head to kiss him. 

[inabsolutions]

hanahaki au

calebmc hanahaki au where mc only realizes she's been in love w caleb when she starts coughing up petals at his funeral cw: pseudocest

Contrary to expectations, it does not rain on the day of the funeral. You wish it would, if only to lessen the blow. To have the wind howl with your heart, to have the rain batter the ground with the same rage and grief that threaten to drown you. However, unlike the horrendously bad films you’ve always forced Caleb to watch with you in high school, there is no stereotypical storm that thunders over the horizon in pathetic fallacy. 

As though to spite you even more than it already has, the world denies you the camaraderie you sought from the skies. The weather remains pleasant, sunny days forecasted for the entirety of the next five days, Expect skies and abundant sunshine over the next few days, folks, it’s gearing up to be a beautiful week for outdoor walks.

You don’t want a beautiful week, not when there’s no one to walk next to you, you don’t want to be outdoors. Not here. You wish you were anywhere but here. This cemetery, with its neatly lined graves. But the tombstones have already been struck into the ground, the flowers thrown over their stone feet, and any memories shared with the dead have been remembered and said. 

The service has completed, and everyone else has dispersed to the wind like dandelion seeds carrying the hope for a brighter tomorrow—was that how the speech went? You can’t recall. It hadn’t been you who spoke. Instead, you’d stood there, dazed, and remembered how on a bright day just like this, you’d taken the hose in the backyard and shoved a thumb over the opening so that the water spurted and went absolutely everywhere, even yourself, but most of all Caleb because he’d gone and teased you over this or other, it’s hard to recall exactly what when there’s so many little jokes shared between the both you like halved cookies, split popsicles, shared soda cans, and Caleb had yelped before diving for you, and you’d shrieked and kicked and giggled until your lungs felt as though they’d collapse.

All of it, then. None of it, now. 

It’s a different sort of collapse you feel now. The funeral-goers, now shed of their mourning, have gone off to do who knows what—less dreary things than mourning the dead, likely, on this pleasant day. This unabating sunshine against your throat, heating up this silver necklace into a searing band. 

You scratch at your throat, wanting to tear the damned weight of the pendant off but unable to lose what little contact you have with what little Caleb has left you—so little, everything so little and diminished, where is he—and what comes away in the fruitless endeavour is specks of broken skin underneath chipped nails, spotted red—

Your eyes shutter at the violent colour, crimson flames dancing in the distance, ashes still flickering against your skin as you shoved your hands into the embers to find someone, anyone, a little girl sprinting through the bloody streets again, Gran, Caleb? Ge, where are you? Say something, it’s not funny! We’re not playing hide and seek, Caleb, gege, where are you—

The birds chirp. In the undulating pitch of their melody, for the briefest of seconds, he says, “Why the long face, pips?”

You stumble, caught off guard. You whip your head up. Through the shadows of the branches, the birds scatter. What they take with them is not just the air beneath their wings, but the last vestiges of your family. Your brother’s voice, gone with the wind. 

Your throat closes in, making it hard to breathe.

The realization comes slowly. And so does the itch. A fluttering sensation tickling the inside of your throat, and you scratch and scratch and scratch your neck but find no relief. You choke on the overwhelming loss of it all—and that’s when the cough starts. It explodes from the back of your mouth and does not stop, even as the force behind the cough increases until it feels like you’re about to hack out a shriveled lung.

You bowl over. You can’t help it. And all of a sudden, like the burst of a ripe berry shoved into your mouth—Caleb, not again! I’m not a baby, I can eat the strawberries by myself, why do you insist on feeding me like that— a strange taste floods your mouth in a flurry of sickly sweet rust. You put a hand to your mouth, spittles of saliva and what feels like the lining of your throat splattering onto your palm with your coughing fit, and by the time you remove your hand, the wetness staining your hand is a mottled pattern of red and pink. Petals, streaked with blood. Crabapple blossoms. 

The flowers. They’ve rooted in you. The disease of the lovesick.

When did this happen? When did they invade your lungs? 

Won't you put it on for me? Caleb had asked you before, under these same flowers. The sky burned blue behind him, and your face had flushed with how he dipped his head toward you. There had been an unfamiliar emotion then, just like how it is now, just like how it has been for the past decade that you’ve lived with him, every time he smiled and ruffled your hair and spoke in that low voice with you, Why? Because I’m your gege, of course.

The sudden hot streaks down your face is familiar now. 

“Ge,” you wept, and there is no one to answer. The only thing left is his name on that tombstone, stone and cold and unfeeling. Who is left to let you sneak a cookie past him every time he baked? Who is left to indulge you in your demands? 

You had caught his smile once, when he hadn’t realized you’d been looking. It was in the glass window of a store you’d been walking past, and when you glanced in the reflection, you saw him looking at you. The violet-orange of his eyes stared at you, and quirked on his lips was a strange smile, one you’d never seen before but made your heart arrhythmic. You put a hand to your chest, panicked, and Caleb immediately switched into concerned brother mode, and he said—

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

It’s Caleb’s voice behind you, but you know it’s not him, not really. You hear him, but it’s only the haunting delusion of him, a ghost that exists in the shattered space you call your mind. 

You walked past that convenience store just yesterday and in the glass window, you saw no one but yourself. You cough again, and the flowers scrape the back of your mouth before they flutter out in a shower of petals. 

“Caleb,” you say, and the three words you want to say are stuck in your throat, trapped in place by the cancerous mass of buds that have flowered in the diseased branches of your lungs.

When? When did this start? When he first found you in that shelter? When he folded a thousand cranes just to see you smile? When you’d jumped from the window and he caught you with his Evol and took you to see the planes, Bye bye, T-93? 

You look to the tombstone for an answer, the name there, and realize: It didn’t matter when. There will be no confessions, no chance of reciprocation or rejection.

Regardless of when it started, it’s too late now. 

After all, there hadn’t even been a chance to say goodbye. 

[inabsolutions]

tease.

Prompt: *falls on knees* KITTY MC PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE cw: slightly suggestive toward the end

“Don’t just sit there laughing,” you wail, “Caleb!” 

“Sorry,” Caleb says. He’s stopped laughing, but the grin on his face makes you want to punch it right off. “It’s just—” He gestures to the top of his head and you slap your hands over yours in response. “—the ears, you know? They’re real cute.”  

In his defense, how else was he supposed to react in a situation like this? He’d come over to cook you dinner, so of course he’d be surprised when you cracked open the door, so thin the opening that he could barely catch your eye, ordering him to come back later.

And before you could close the door on him, he’d already jammed his foot halfway inside and pried open the door with his Evol despite you trying to shove it closed—much to your chagrin. And for his efforts, he’d gained a view of you with… cat ears? A tail? Slitted eyes, watching him warily. 

Which led to the situation now, with the both of you sitting on the couch as you both ponder on a solution to the problem. 

“It was the cats at Meow’s Cafe,” you say. 

“We did end up playing there for six hours straight.”

“Only because you refused to let me win even once,” you complain as you swipe at him. The extra set of cat ears at the top of your head swivel before they press flat in your displeasure. “And why am I the only one to be cursed with the ears!”

“And tail,” he says.

“Don’t rub it in!” 

“I’m not, promise,” Caleb comforts. He flicks a hand and you yelp as you’re lifted right to him. The image really does remind him of a cat being caught by the scruff of their neck—but for the sake of your dignity, he keeps his mouth closed. “Come here,” Caleb says as he holds you in his lap, “you’re too far. Even if you’re half-cat, I won’t mind.”

“Hmph.” You let him embrace you, but you still turn your face away when he tries to kiss your temple. “Don’t think I don’t see you trying to hide that smile.”

“What do you mean?” Caleb says innocently. “I always look like this.”

“Liar!”

You curl yourself against him, and your tail has wrapped itself around his wrist, the end of it tickling his palm with soft fur. 

“Cute,” Caleb says. 

You wrinkle your nose. “It’s not me,” you say defensively. “This tail has a mind of its own.”

“Uh huh.” Caleb pulls at the tail, causing you to flinch and for the tail to suddenly retreat from his arm.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want you here,” you say, holding onto your tail defensively. “You’re just going to have fun at my expense.” 

“You’re thinking too much on it.” Caleb chuckles as he pats your head. His hand finds one of those cat ears, and when he rubs it, you sniff in disdain. More catlike than ever, he notes, and you’re right, he is having a lot of fun with this. Your tail has now wrapped itself around his leg, snaking down to land right at his ankle. The tip of it rubs against the bare skin there, and Caleb bites his tongue as his fingers find the base of your ears. When he rubs against there, vibrations reverberate from your throat, travelling through to him. 

“Are you purring?”

You rear back. “N-No!” 

Cute. You’re so cute. That pout on your face as you try to deny it, even though you definitely had been vibrating under his touch. Caleb pets your ears again, and that unconscious purr comes from your throat again as you nuzzle into his touch. Then you realize exactly what he’s doing and whack him on his chest, “You’re definitely playing around with me!”

“You make it too easy,” he teases. When you huff, he quickly placates you, “All right, all right. Let’s just wait it out tonight, and tomorrow we can go to the cafe first thing in the morning to ask the kitties to turn you back. How’s that for a plan?”

“Not asking,” you say. “We’re demanding.”

“Whatever you say,” Caleb says. 

And then—he really can’t help himself, your cat-like behaviour made him want to test the waters—he puts a hand to your cheek before lightly scratching your chin. You melt into him, sprawling over as though your bones have turned to jello. When he does it again, you let out a stronger purr this time, along with a whining moan that has him chuckling. You seem to have gone into a dazed state from his affections, not even a hint of complaint at how he’s touching you. 

Your tail rubs against his ankle again, and you stare at him, pupils dilating until they’re blown so wide, he can barely see the ring of iris surrounding them. Your mouth has fallen slightly open, a flash of teeth in between. 

“I wonder…” Caleb murmurs. 

He pulls back the corner of your lips, and there they are, filed teeth that normally aren’t this sharp. Little fangs. Caleb touches one of the canines—are they still called that, with cats?—and runs his thumb across the point. 

You seem to come back to yourself then. “What’re you doing?” you say, batting away his hand and bumping your head against his jaw in annoyance. “Stop it.” 

“What if I don’t want to?” Caleb says.

 You narrow your eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you hiss. Again, your ears press flat against the top of your head.

Rejected from being able to touch your mouth, he rests his hand over your back instead. He rubs gentle circles there, trying to soothe you. Curiosity, however, has his fingers wandering over to where your tail is protruding out from beneath the folds of your skirt. Did you slit a hole there for your tail? It makes sense, all things considered, but it’s strange to think about. And when he tugs your tail again, this time at a place closer to where it’s protruding from your body, you jolt. 

“Oh—!” 

“That’s what I mean,” Caleb says, voice low. “The noises you’re making are so interesting, don’t you think?” 

“You’re not a very good owner, you know that?” You’re grumpy now. “Feeling up your cat like this.” 

“Am I your owner now?” Caleb puts his hand to your chin again, traces a line across your throat. “Does that mean I get to collar you?”

“Don’t be mean.” 

“I’m not. Genuinely curious.”

“If you put a collar on me, I’m definitely going to run away.” 

“And I’ll definitely catch you every time you try,” Caleb says cheerfully. 

You hiss at him when he tries to touch your lips again, teeth nipping at his fingertips. “Caleb is an idiot.” 

“The biggest idiot,” he agrees as he avoids the snap of your teeth to scratch your chin again.

You don’t resist him this time. You purr instead, and now you’re starting to grind against him. Just slightly, but he can catch it, the shift of your hips over him as your thighs rub against his pants. He’s been hard for a while now, and the sickly heat that’s boiling under his skin hasn’t died down despite your subtle reprimand about being not a very good owner. You lay your head over his chest, rubbing up against him again. Like a cat in heat, he thinks, but is he any better? Just the slightest touch, and his thoughts are already a thousand miles away, thinking about stripping you down, finding out exactly what’s changed about your body, what new things would make you tick now. 

You nip at his jaw, and that’s—

“Enough,” Caleb rasps. “Bedroom, now.”

“Why? What’s wrong with the couch?” you ask, but your eyes are gleaming too much to be innocent. “I like it here.” 

“Not here,” Caleb says, flicking your forehead, “not if we’re going to play like this.”

“Are we playing? I thought we were doing something entirely different.” 

You lick your way up his throat, tongue sandpaper rough—another change—and before you could protest, he’s already pulling you back by the collar of your curse with his Evol. You really do look like a kitten caught by the scuff like this. 

“I wanna do it here,” you whine. 

“Don’t be like this,” he coaxes. He touches your ears again, and you let out a tiny moan which immediately gets cut off as you press your lips thin and glare at him. Caleb waves his hand and there you go, floating just like a balloon. You bat at the air, trying to swipe for him, clearly annoyed.

“Don’t I get any say in this?” 

Your throaty growl has him tilting his head. This is interesting too. New territory to explore. 

“Not really,” he says. 

“Not fair! You were the one who started teasing me to begin with!”

“So I’ll finish it too,” Caleb says. “Promise.”

[inabsolutions]

idle hands.

ficlet request: spoiled kitty cat hybrid mc and big dog hybrid caleb. doing anything. watching paint dry idk. cw: pseudocest. very slice of life and silly. mc a bit (a lot) airheaded in this one

Your owner is away for another one of her business conferences, and so, “You know what that means, Caleb?” you say excitedly.

Caleb sighs from where he’s been laying down on the floor. The pointed ears atop his head swivel back and forth in a rhythmic pattern, as though scanning for intruders. Silly thought, considering their owner wasn’t even home to protect, so what is he so diligent about? Then again, there are a lot of valuables in the house… That’s probably it, you decide. Caleb, always so considerate. You didn’t understand humans and their attachments to inanimate objects, but it’s nice of him to care so much.

(It doesn’t register even once in your mind that maybe it’s because he’s guarding you.) 

“Don’t tell me you’re going to slip away to go outside again?” Caleb says, sharing none of your excitement. Even his tail is lying flat. 

“Of course. What else is there to do when Granny Josephine’s away?”

You leap down from the top of the cabinet—a favourite place to bask in the sun—and as always, Caleb automatically springs to action to catch you in his arms. 

Again, unnecessary. You would have landed on your feet regardless (being a cat hybrid has its perks), but it’s nice of him to care so much. You nudge your nose against the underneath of his jaw, and his grip on you tightens. 

“Let me down already,” you demand, wiggling in his hold, tail poking at his cheek. He’s way too big compared to you; you feel swallowed by his embrace, and the urge to escape anything that threatens your freedom is itching at your skin again. Even dealing with the collar had been an arduous task; Josephine had scolded you so, so many times about leaving it on despite your reluctance, something about how you might be taken as a stray or how you might get yourself lost—which you took great offense at, because you don't think you’re that directionally challenged. Who cares if you’ve accidentally walked into the wrong alleys a few times, isn’t that normal? Besides, it’s like stumbling into an adventure, isn’t it?

When you told Caleb that, he’d only knocked you on your head. You’re domesticated now, he had said, so act a bit more like it.

You pouted and tugged at his leash in annoyance. And you’re a little bit too domesticated, ge. It wasn’t long ago when we were both strays. I can’t believe how much of a one-eighty you’ve done on me. Really, what’s so great about staying inside all the time?

It keeps you safe, he said. 

I can keep myself safe, you insisted, but he didn’t look too terribly convinced. Which, not your problem. He’s always been overprotective anyways, even more than your current owner. 

“No,” Caleb says. “We’re staying inside. The last time you went out, you got into a fight.”

You scowl. “I could have taken him,” you mutter. Just thinking about that red-eyed stray is getting on your nerves, the audacity of the guy to run just as you’d been about to land a punch on him. Scared witless by you, probably. 

Caleb doesn’t look too convinced, though. He crosses his arms, and all six feet two inches of him towers over you in displeasure (you would know exactly his height; you measured him in his sleep, then got annoyed at how tall he was compared to you). 

You throw up your hands. “Fine,” you huff. “But it’s your fault if I get so bored that I start scratching the furniture again.”

“There you go again,” he says, flicking your ear. “Trying to cause mischief when things don’t go your way.”

“I just hate being inside all the time,” you say with a pout. “There’s only so many times I can knock over vases before it gets tiring.” 

“Idiot,” he says, but it’s laced with no small amount of fondness. Which means that he’s seventy percent through to giving in, so you strike again. 

“Please? How about the backyard, we can at least play in the yard, right?”

“The open backyard that leads to the forest,” Caleb says dryly. He shakes his head, and the leash at his neck sways. You watch the motion with a predator interest, getting the urge to paw at it again, snap your mouth over the silver chains.

“Focus,” Caleb says.

You blink, your attention shifting to Caleb’s face instead. His hair has gotten longer these days, frames his face in a way that it hadn’t before. “What?”

Caleb’s mouth curls in amusement. “I guess you don’t want to go outside after all,” he says. 

“What—no, I mean, yes, I mean, what did you say?” you fumble with your words, and when Caleb only smiles that much more, you get fed up and swat his leg with your tail. It does absolutely nothing to him, and he doesn’t even flinch. Annoying, you think. 

Turns out, you learn later, he’d agreed to your plan. So there you both were, the patio door unlocked and open as you prowl around the yard, scanning for little animals to terrorize while Caleb is sitting with his back to the wall, eyes fixed on you like a sheepdog on its herd. You’ve managed to catch one of the more stupid squirrels that dared to encroach on your territory, and you clutch the animal’s tail as you wave it at Caleb, “Ge, look what I found!”

“Good job,” he says, eyes half-lidded. “Be careful not to get bitten though.”

“Of course not, do I look weak enough to let a squirrel bully me—ouch!” In your excitement, the squirrel slipped from your grip. It dashes for its freedom, but not before sinking a bite into your thumb in vengeance first. 

Caleb’s on his feet immediately, frowning as he makes his way to you. His tail’s all puffed up in alert, and you’d find it funny if it wasn’t for the ache on your finger. “This is why I told you to be careful,” he frets as he inspects your hand. 

“It hurts,” you say morosely. 

“Of course it does,” he says. “You were bitten.”

“By a squirrel! Of all the animals, it just had to be the lamest one.” 

You complain to Caleb as he disinfects your wound, your tail swishing back and forth in irritation. “You have to get revenge for me, Caleb,” you say solemnly. “I can’t live with myself if it gets out that I’ve been bested by a squirrel.”

“Mhm,” Caleb says as he wraps a bandaid around your thumb. “If I see that squirrel again, I’ll definitely chase it down for you.” 

“You’d better!”

Caleb ruffles your hair, flicks the tip of your ear playfully. “Of course. You’re the one asking, after all.” 

(He’d insisted on going inside after that, though, and no amount of pleading eyes got him to budge. You sigh, and vow to chew on his ears once he’s asleep so that you can blame it on your own sleep. Stupid Caleb.) 

[inabsolutions]

the virtue of patience.

ficlet request from twt: "caleb letting mc think she’s sneaking out in hs to go out with her friends but he’s following her and he waits for her to get herself into a dangerous situation so she learns her lesson and always rely on him"

cw: pseudocest, some scumbags trying to accost mc but of course caleb's there to threaten (and commit) bodily harm to them

Even when the men had cornered the three of you—you and the two friends that encouraged you to break curfew, the laws of your household that he’d set down for your safety—Caleb hadn’t done anything. He’d only stood there in the shadows, arms crossed. Blinked as you cleared your throat and tried to talk your way out of the situation with the two drunkards that decidedly do not want to just end the encounter with you leaving unscathed. 

It’s midnight, and the streetlights flicker ominously with the threat of a bulb about to blow out. Caleb listens as you blab about this and that, trying to distract the men so that your friends can leave unscathed. Your eyes meet theirs, and they bolt immediately, of course they do. They don’t love you as much as they loved themselves. Couldn’t shed the nasty human sense of self-preservation. 

So they left, and the drunkards took no notice. No, why would they chase after running prey? No point, especially when there’s such a still, silent doe in front of them. Quivering eyes, weak voice, “You better not come closer. I’m warning you.”

“How old are you again?” 

You inhale, that line of your mouth as stubborn as ever. 

“Twenty,” you lie. 

The two men laugh uproariously. “Twenty, she says,” one of the snickers as they swipe their fingers under your chin. “But from the looks of you, you don’t look a day past sixteen, sweetheart.” 

Oh, Caleb is going to break his fingers later. One by one, and savour how the bone will snap so easily under his Evol. 

“Please.” Your voice warbles. “I don’t have any money.” 

“We’ll be the judge of that,” one of them sneers, and just as he makes the first step toward you, you break.

Caleb has been patient this entire time. He’s always been good at it. Watching, waiting, for the right opportunity to present itself. And what he’s waiting for is nothing related to the men. He’s waiting for you—and it’s only when you’re sobbing, tears rolling down your cheeks, that he finally steps out of the shadows. 

“And what,” he says darkly, “do you think you’re doing?”

Your head whips toward him. He’s behind the men who are currently trying to trap you against the wall. Who knows what they’re planning, really, but it doesn’t matter. He isn’t speaking to them. He’s speaking to you.

Ah, he thinks, there it is. 

The look on your face goes beyond relief; it veers into the territory of worship, of utter need. “Caleb,” you say, and your eyes shine with tears. You wipe your nose on the back of your hand, and you sob, “Ge, help me. I know I’m in the wrong. I promise I won’t break the rules again, please.”

He wants your attention, your need, and now he has it. He’s heady with it. 

Which makes it all the more unfortunate for the other guys on the scene, because they won’t get away with just a broken finger. He has to make sure you realize, after all. That he’s the only who can protect you, the only one who won’t run. The only one strong enough for you to depend on.  

[inabsolutions]

gonna be spamming a bunch of stuff at you sorry in advance (i should probably be fixing up that masterlist but i'm lazy whoops)

[inabsolutions]

random pacific rim au drabble

“No.”

Caleb’s refusal comes short and curt. As they always are when you bring up the topic of attempting a neural test with him. 

“You always say that,” you say in quiet frustration. “Even when everyone knows we’ll be Drift compatible.” 

You cross your arms and stare up at the clock. The numbers flash as they update. Every uptick in number is a small victory, but you wonder if there will ever come a day when the war clock is no longer needed. 

The Jaegers are strong. But seeing Caleb’s silver Jaeger model disappear past the metal gates with every mission never fails to stir your heart with anxiety. Sometimes, you feel as though you’d drown in it. It’s not as if his current partner isn’t reliable, but still. 

When the trial for Caleb’s copilot opened, he’d refused to spar with you. Laid down his staff and surrendered on the spot when you went forth to test yourself against him. It remains a sore point. 

“Caleb,” you say again. “Family members usually have high Drift compatibility. Even if we’re not blood related—”

Caleb’s eyes flash dark. He lowers his head and says, “Compatibility isn’t my concern, pips.”

“Then what is it?”

Caleb pats your head, cutting you short in the midst of your protests. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “It’s dangerous out there.” 

(Years later, under circumstances more grim, down one co-pilot, Caleb will be unable to refuse you. Marshal’s orders. You will strap on your helmet and wait for the interface to boot, the robotic AI voice at your ears, Neural interface Drift initiated.

The machinery around you hum. And the darkness pulls you under, drowns you in the lights. It flashes over you: the weight that is Caleb’s mind. The enormity of memory. 

“Caleb?” you choke out. 

The reason why he kept refusing the Drift with you—you think you now understand, because you see yourself in his eyes, how soft the sunlight lands over the top of your head. The desperate ache at the tips of his fingers as he plucks a leaf from your hair, the empty soreness of his mouth whenever his eyes catch on the edge of your lips, the gathering pool of saliva under his tongue.

I know, comes clear through the neural bridge. A gentle wryness. No sound, but you know this to be Caleb. I know, pips. The one who’s bested me has always been you.)

[inabsolutions]

blood nest.

had an insane fit over caleb milkies idk. originally posted here.

cw: use of gege, pseudo-incest, (pretend) male lactation, mc’s semi-canon oral fixation and trying to suck caleb's nipples off because why not

———

Bad habits should be broken as a child, and Caleb truly regrets having not learned this lesson earlier. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be in this situation, you resting your head on his chest, half drooling over his sleep shirt as your mouth worried at his pectoral, teeth just slightly brushing over his raised nipple. 

The worst part about it was that you aren’t even awake, sleeping like the dead with no cause for concern for your poor gege’s heart. 

You always had a strange fixation with latching your teeth onto things when you were young. The ends of pencils, the ear of plushies, even your own tongue whenever you had your on-and-off fevers.

Turned out that you’d been bullied that day, and he made sure to get you your revenge the next day when the normally gentle-mannered, well-behaved Caleb Xia of sixth grade forcibly dragged a fourth-grader boy off during recess and came back with that same boy who apologized profusely to you, almost in tears. 

And you’d been so relieved, you put your index finger in your mouth and bit the tip of it too. Caleb had shaken his head helplessly as he gently pulled your hand from your hips. Everything, back to square one.

 

Needless to say, you bit things when you were happy, bit things when you were sad. Angry, bored, the entire gamut in between. Granny Josephine had sighed and patted your head and told you gently, That’s not how we express ourselves, dear, but hadn’t the heart to scold you. It was only over time that the habit went away with growing up, and you rarely—if ever—did it again. Unless you were angry and helpless and thrashing in a hospital bed in the midst of your feverish dreaming because of a chip that was never meant to infect your body like it did his.

The bite mark on his hand from then stayed on his hand for a week before fading out. He’d seen it every time he took off his gloves, and it had been tempting, the thought. If he could ask you to bite him again. 

He’d meant the hand. Pushed the boundaries a little to imagine a sore, red bitemark over his throat. Never liket his, your mouth laving unconsciously over his nipple as though you were a child in need of feeding. Every delicate attempt at shifting your head away ends in an unconscious grumble from your throat before you return right back to the damp spot on his shirt, wet by your saliva as you open your mouth to latch on again. 

Maybe this is punishment. For having any wicked thoughts at all. 

And he could have—probably—tolerated the gentle tease of your mouth over his nipple. Lose a night of sleep over it, sure, and likely have to deal with the worst case of blue balls in his life,  but anything to let you have your peace. He didn’t want to do anything to wake you further; you’d asked to sleep with him for a reason, begging insomnia and nightmares. It’s so rare, to see you so peaceful like this.

But then your body suddenly jerks, you whine in your sleep, and the tender caress of your tongue turns into a vicious sting as your teeth suddenly clips into his nipple. Caleb takes a sharp breath, fingers tightening over the back of your head as you grind your teeth over the pebbled flesh. Any attempt at removing you ends in failure, like trying to untangle a web full of knots while drowning. You’re practically about to chew something off at this rate. Caleb winces. 

“Hey,” he whispers. When you don’t respond, he shakes you slightly. Eventually, you stir. Thankfully, your mouth lets go. 

“Hm?” you murmur. Your voice is soft with sleep. “Caleb?”

“Are you hungry or something?” he says. 

“No…?” You yawn. You curl up over his body, an ear over his chest, and he wonders if you can catch the quickened rate of his heart despite his best attempts at breathing slowly. “Why ask something like that?” 

“Because you’re biting at me like I’m a chicken wing,” Caleb says wryly, poking your cheeks. 

“Mm.” You’re still clinging onto him like a koala, arms and legs wrapped around him as though hugging a tree trunk. You nuzzle your cheek into him and he thinks he is going to spontaneously combust, no bomb needed. “Dreamt about something strange.”

“A good strange or bad?”

Neither of you mention how he’s hard beneath you, pressed up right against your stomach. It’s just… not something to be acknowledged. It slots in with all the other open secrets, like the room full of monitors in his house, the tracking device installed in his necklace.

“Just… different.” And you’re more than awake now, because both your hands are now sneaking up the hem of his shirt, makingtheir way over his abdomen, past the ribs. The motion of your arms raises his shirt until it’s stretched right to his armpits, and the cold night air brushes past his skin, sending goosebumps rising at the back of his neck. The necklace drapes over the bundle of fabric, charms caught in wrinkled folds. 

He raps you on the head. “What’re you doing? Go back to sleep.” 

“Don’t feel like it now. You woke me up. There’s consequences to that, you know?”

You are—up to no good again, Caleb realizes. Because now your fingers are teasing at his nipples, almost absentminded as they pluck at the flesh. One of them is still slick from the saliva of your mouth, and before he can stop you, you’re licking at the nub again. Gentler this time, no teeth. 

Caleb bites back a groan, hips jerking upward as he tamps down the urge to grab you by the hips and do something he’ll regret by next morning. You hum, sounding pleased as you unlatch your mouth—only to immediately switch sides, tongue twirling over his areola. Nails scratch over tense muscle as you squeezed the other side of his chest. 

“Honestly, you…” Whatever words he’d been about to say is lost in a strangle moan as you suck on his nipple so hard, it feels like you’re about to tear them off with your teeth. A strange sort of pain floods through him, bright and searing, the burn of a hand put to the stove without the reflex to pull away in time. He tries to push you away, but you clamp your legs hard around him, refusing his intent. He’s leaking through his shorts now; it’s as though you want him to suffer uncomfortably damp clothes. 

“Don’t play around,” he says weakly. 

“I’m not. Aren’t you curious about what I dreamt? I’m showing you. Besides, don’t you owe it to me for interrupting my sleep?”

Well, if he knew that waking you up would culminate in you rolling and plucking and pinching his nipples like this, he’d rather suffer you just gnawing on it in your sleep instead. 

“Can you get off like this, Caleb? Just from this?” you ask. Before he can answer—to scold you, more like, what kind of idiotic ideas are running around in that head of yours now—you tug at his nipples. He hisses, the sound less growl and more a whimper. His hands surging for your wrists, but you only bat them away and laugh. “Ge, you’re adorable.”

You put your hands over his pecs, groping the muscles pulled taut beneath your palm with the same enthusiasm you’d usually reserve for squeezing his face. You lower your voice conspiratorially, “Have you ever wondered what it’d be like have milk coming out of these, Caleb?” 

“Idiot.” His voice cracks.

When you were younger, you’d both passed by a mother breastfeeding her child on a bench in public. You had gazed unabashed at the sight while he looked away, embarrassed, and then mentioned later on, Is that how all babies get their milk, gege? 

Sometimes, he said in reply. Sometimes they get milk from a bottle. 

Hm. You stuck your pink little tongue out the corner of your mouth,  eyes squinting in curiosity at him. I don’t remember which way I got fed, gege.

Of course you wouldn’t, silly girl. No one remembers what happens when they’re babies. His heart lurched as he said it, and he did not say, Just like how you don’t remember anything when you wake up again after dying.

I wonder what that’s like, you said innocently, getting fed milk like that. Do you think it tastes good? 

Caleb swallowed, his cheeks flushing. How is a ten year old boy supposed to answer that? You’re too old for that, he says finally. 

Yeah. And I don’t have a mom to do it with anyways. You then pat your chest with all the naiveté of an eight year old girl, and then clung onto him to grope his chest too, only giggling when he protested and scolded and sighed. Still let you have your way as he carried you on his back all the way home.

And what a repayment for his past kindness it is, to have you keep playing around with his chest like this, switching from kitten licks to little nips. The tip of your tongue, swirling over the the poor, abused nubs of his nipples, are shaving away years of his life.

“Gege,” you whine, “feed me.” 

Feed me, feed me, and it’s like you’re pawing at his shirt, begging him to cook for you. He’s delirious, head spinning. Gives into the thought of it. The exhilaration in getting you to eat from his fingers the food prepared by his own two hands, and how much closer could it get, how much more distance could be bridged by you taking sustenance directly from his body. Tearing through his flesh, drinking his blood, taking him into you—lapping the milk leaking from his chest, a homemade nourishment created directly by his own body. 

“Gege,” you plead again, and against all good judgement, he gives in. 

“Here, gege has you,” Caleb says, holding the back of your head to his chest. When has he ever been able to remain impartial when it comes to you? Never. Your lips finds the nipple there and latch on, a open mouth kiss, saliva drooled everywhere. “There you go,” he coaxes, “that’s a good meimei.” 

He’s murmuring to her as she keeps at her work of worrying the nub between her teeth, then it turns to enthusiastic suckling. A delicate, warm hand kneading his pecs as though he could actually be milked like this. Your legs have loosened their pressure around his waist, and there’s a gentle rolling motion of your hips as you work yourself against him. It’s not only him that’s wet, he realizes, judging by the copious amount of fluid that’s wet his shorts, the damp fabric dragging along the inside of his thigh. But when he tries to slip his hand down the waistband of your shorts, you bite his chest. He sucks in a breath, the pain shooting straight down his spine to his groin, and his cock throbs in response like a guilty verdict being read aloud, You like this, don’t you. 

Caleb strokes his fingers along the exposed skin of your waist. His stubborn girl. “You’re all worked up, pretty girl. I can make you feel better,” Caleb soothes. “Come on, let gege in.” 

“No,” you mumble around his spit-slickened skin. “I know how to make myself feel good. You just sit here and let me do what I want, ge.” 

Caleb’s throat closes. It aches, everything aches, like open arms ready for an embrace only to be left hanging there uselessly. What is the point if he couldn’t please you? If he couldn’t bring you off with his own two hands? 

And maybe you read it in the silence, because you make a soft noise in the back of your throat, almost a purr, as your reach for him. Fingers slip past each other, an interlocking, a gap being filled. Your hands the birds, come to rest between between the hollows of his knuckles.

“Stay still,” you say, and the kiss you press to the underside of his jaw is deadly, “and let me eat you.”

Caleb cracks a smile. “Troublemaker.” 

“It’s—ah, I said don’t move!—what you like, isn’t it? Me making a mess, you cleaning up after me. If I’m a troublemaker, it’s only because someone’s been enabling me for the entirety of my life.” You resume your languid grinding, back to trying to sucking at his chest. Squeezing at this, groping at that, taking a special pleasure in hearing him groan whenever you buck particularly hard against him. The worry of your mouth against his areola has turned into a slow, dull pain as irritation sets in from prolonged, dragging friction. 

The both of you take it slow, Caleb clutching your head to his chest as you chase what it is that you want. When you seize up against him, muscles locking up as you moan into his skin, he takes you by the hips and keeps working your mound against his cock. Cooing all the while as you sucked at him, “Do you like this? Of course you do. Come on, gege wants his meimei to take what she wants from him.” Eventually, you unlatch to pant at his skin, and that lets him know he’s gotten a job well done. 

He’d thought that would be the end of it, but you’re as willful as always. You palm absentminded at his his cock, stroking over him over his tented shorts but never quite giving him any rougher stimulation. It’s torture, it’s like being edged again and again, so close yet so far to falling. An exquisite sort of pain. 

Whatever orgasm that comes to him with your teasing touch is a slow leak, only able to be derived after yours. No detonation, no burst, but pleasing nonetheless in its soothing tingle that slowly floods over his body, like the reprieve of standing under a misty summer rain in the midst of a roiling heat wave. 

Afterward—past the few minutes he had to take to return this thoughts back into proper coherence, numbed as his brain is from what just happend—he cleans the both of you up. Clothes are removed, wipes are deployed, and nope, no matter how much you wheedle, you don’t get to lick that kind of milk from him.

“It was already there anyways!” you protest.

“Nope.” 

“What a waste.”

“Uh huh.” 

“Watch out,” you say, put out at how he’s wrestled you back into lying against his bare chest on the bed. “One of these days I’m going to milk you in an entirely different way, Caleb Xia.” 

“Let’s see you try,” he says, ruffling your hair. You’ll wear him down eventually, he knows, because the only victories between you and him have always belonged to you. However, he’ll put up a good fight; give it as good as he got, just wait. 

You flick at one of his nipples, poor and abused as they are, and then thumb over it in an inattentive musing. “Is it hurting? We’ll buy you some cream tomorrow,” you say. “Wouldn’t want these to be chafing under your clothes.” 

“And whose fault would that be?”

You wrinkle your nose. “Yours, of course,” you say smartly. “After all, who told you to have such nice cleavage?” 

Caleb chuckles. “Little idiot.”

“You love me anyway.”

You say nothing of your own feelings. Avoidant as always, side-steps every opening that would expose your own vulnerability. But Caleb rests his head over yours, and the beat of your heart against his own tells you all he needs to know. 

“Of course,” Caleb says as he tightens his hold on you. “Isn’t that a given?” 

[inabsolutions]

OUGHHHH TGANK YOU FOR MY LFIEEE YOU ARE MY FAVEOURITE CALEB TRUTHER I CANNOT INTERACT W U EXCEPT LIKING UR POSTS ON TWT SINCE MY IRLS FOLLOW THAT ACC BUT IT'S FREE REAL ESTATE HERE BABT

i’m wheezing honestly this is so funny and i’m rlly happy to read this??? always here to spread the gospel around caleb dw

i honestly am thinking maybe i should use tumblr more because twt kinda giving me brain damage these days, but i’ll probably go back to it bc i like the art there 😔 got a toxic relationship with that place fr

but yeah, feel free to send in any asks 🫶 i kind of want to post more drabbles here as writing practice anyways, and i feel like tumblr is probably a more conducive place for that + it’s better archiving (posting on ao3 is too much fanfare for me if it’s like 200 word things)

[inabsolutions]

swallowed whole.

in short: thigh highs and caleb having to take off said thigh highs because i'm a degenerate.

based on this thought. cw for use of gege. slight nsfw toward the end

———

“Better now?”

Caleb asks as he kneels to help you take off your heels. Then he massages your ankles, and you sigh at the warm sensation of his hands through the thin socks.

“Yeah,” you sigh in relief as you flop back against the bed. “Thanks.”

After an entire day of playing outside, your feet were killing you. Heels are cute and all, but the pain from wearing them too long is definitely not. Caleb had carried you in his arms the entire way home, bumping his forehead against yours in reprimand when you tried to protest, Set me down, this is so embarrassing.

If I have to get on my knees in public to beg you to let me carry you, it’ll be even more embarrassing for you.

His eyes had twinkled with mirth, and you scowled as you laid a light punch to his shoulder. He’d do it in an instance if you keep refusing, you know. Caleb is a bully.

Because you let me, he teased.

That shut you up real well. You gave in, not wanting to kick up a fuss—and your throbbing feet thanked you for it.

Which led to Caleb carrying you to your bedroom in his house in Skyhaven. And he’s still kneeling there, massaging your foot. You sigh at the pressure of his thumbs as they knead into the arch of a sole to work out the knot of tension there.

“You’re so good at this, it’s unfair,” you say.

“Had a lot of practice,” he says. “Who always had to give a certain someone a massage after her runs before?”

You wiggle your toes, a smile playing at the corner of your lips. “That someone must not be me,” you say smartly. “You volunteered.”

“Only because you’d be whining about your muscles being too sore the next day if I didn’t.”

“I can also give you a massage if you want,” you offer.

Caleb shakes his head in amusement. “Given past experiences, you’d only be up to no good.”

You flush slightly. Well, you’d meant to help him out with a massage at the beginning, you really did. It’s not your fault that his, ahem, body was so interesting to explore. One thing led to another, and the massage was still a massage—just in an entirely different way.

It’s not like you hated it. Nor what came after, as much of a tease Caleb had been in the aftermath of your little venture in trying to discover how much you can push him. How low his voice could go.

Upon seeing your expression, Caleb chuckles. “Thinking of something naughty again?”

There’s a gleam in his eyes, as though he’d known what you were thinking.

This isn’t good. You’re losing the upper hand here. You catch the trail of his gaze up your legs and it reminds you of how the whole day, he’d been glancing at your legs. A slight bob to his throat whenever he swallowed. Every time your skirt rode up, his eyes wandered.

You don’t wear socks with your skirts often, but the weather was slightly chilly today, so the occasion seemed appropriate. And somehow, it just ended up that the pair you’d chosen ended right in the middle of your thighs, right below the skirt.

Tara had assured you they’d be cute when you went shopping together with her. You find yourself grateful for it, if only because you have more ammo now.

“Come here,” you say while you pat the spot on the bed next to you.

Caleb tilts his head—like a confused puppy, you think fondly—but does as you ask. Upon sitting next to you, you swing your legs in his direction, draping them right over his lap.

“I think these socks are a bit too tight,” you say. You scoot a little closer to him. “It’s affecting the circulation of my legs.”

Caleb clears his throat. “...Are they?”

You gaze at him meaningfully.

“They are,” you say. “So they should be taken off.”

“And I suppose it’s up to me to do it?”

“My hands,” you say dramatically, “they’re so tired.”

“From picking up chopsticks at dinner, I’m guessing,” Caleb says. You pout and he laughs as he ruffles your hair. “All right, all right, I never said I wouldn’t help you.”

Said casually, but his eyes have darkened into the indigo of a sky at dusk. The open window of your bedroom soaks the room in a blood-orange, leaving the two of you in a hazy boundary between day and night. A realm where no one would be the wiser to any misdeeds. Caleb’s fingers skim up your calves, touch landing light and delicate over the layer of fabric over your skin, and the contact leaves behind a tingle that spreads like a heatwave in July.

“Take it off carefully,” you say slowly.

“Mm. When have I ever been anything but careful with you?”

You could list a few times. More than a few, actually. Mostly in situations just like this—in bed. Him at your mercy, and you at his. Victory and defeat has always been a two way street when it comes to the two of you.

You sigh as his hand slides up and rests at the top of your socks. Fingertips pressed right against your bare skin, rough and warm. You shift in place, the blue of your skirt riding up as its hem meets his wrist.

Any higher, and his hand would be right between your legs. Knuckles brushing against more than just the skirt.

But he doesn’t reach any higher. Instead, he plucks at the cuff of a sock before hooking a finger inside. And just like you demanded, the slight friction of fabric as he drags it down is slow and intentful. Nails skimming against skin as he pulls your sock all the way down. One down, one to go; however, he seems to have gotten distracted in the process though, because he’s rubbing soothing circles into your calf muscle again.

“Your skin is so soft,” Caleb says, voice tinged in a slight awe, as though this is still the first time he’s touched you so intimately.

“It’s because gege raised me with a lot of tenderness,” you say lightly. “Though the way he’s looking at me right now… It feels like he’s about to reap what he’s sown.”

Caleb looks at you. There’s a downward slant to his mouth, and for a moment, he resembles more a guilty schoolboy caught skipping school. Your mouth dries, and the volatile heart in your chest quivers. “Not without your permission,” he says. “Never.”

“I know,” you breathe.

“Do you hate it?” he asks. “When he’s like this? When he wants so obviously.”

Caleb’s hand withdraws from your skin, but you pull it back. Your fingers are so small compared to his, but he’s weak to your wills and lets you do as you want, no resistance at all against the force of you. You settle his hand against the leg with the sock yet to be taken off. Palm pressed right against your thigh. His fingers curl up, a slight resistance there—as though he’s afraid to touch. A pilgrim enticed by a statue of a goddess, anticipating the burn of holy fire.

“I hate it,” you say, “when he thinks he’s hated. When he draws away from me. When he doesn’t listen to me because there’s still one sock left on my feet, isn’t there?”

Caleb swallows. Again, just like he’d done when you purposely swished your skirt so that it rode up your leg as you skipped ahead of him on the street, tugging him along. His gaze stuck to the slip of skin between your skirt and your socks before his eyes cut away to the side of the street, faking preoccupation in the street signs.

“You’re right,” Caleb says finally. “My job isn’t done yet.” With that, he peels the other sock off you too, fingers just as delicate as with the first one. The cool air landing over your bare legs makes you sigh. “There. Did I do well?”

“Yes,” you say, lips curling up. “But the way you put it makes it sound like you’re expecting a reward. Do you want a reward, Caleb?”

“If I say yes,” he wonders, “will I regret it?”

You’re being mean. You know you are. But Caleb just makes so fun, you couldn’t help yourself. If you knew wearing thigh high socks would be able to get him so distracted and excited, if taking them off is enough to have him so obvious with his desires, you wouldn’t have worn them—

That’s a lie. You would have worn it way earlier, if given the knowledge.

You rub your foot slightly against his lap, hiding a smile when you feel him harden. A gentle pink spreads across his cheeks, hard to tell in the dim dusk, but you know it’s there just from experience.

“Really? From just my foot?”

Caleb grunts in response as you up the ante, heel of your foot digging into the rising bulge in his pants.

“You’re a bit of a pervert, you know that, Caleb?” you say offhandedly.

“And you’re a bit of a tease,” Caleb says. His voice has dipped low and quiet, gaze following your lips. There’a a predatory hunger to him, wound up and ready to pounce. How much further could you push him before he breaks?

“There’s worse things to be,” you say. You reach for his hand and drag it over your body again, up and up and up until it reaches the apex of your thighs where you’ve dampened your underwear, and you know he feels it because he swallows and goes very, very still. You manipulate his fingers against the wet seams of your folds, rubbing his knuckles against the soaked fabric there, and he just watches you the entire time, shadows playing over his hooded eyes. You shiver as you stroke his hand up and down, grinding over him, but it’s not enough. You’re almost there, but not all the way, and trying to reach the peak without his active involvement makes it that much harder. It’s only when you’re panting, “Ge, it’s not enough”, that he finally stirs, lips pressed thin—

Then lunges.

“Hey!” You cry out in surprise as you land back against the bed, Caleb towering over you, hands caged around your head. His shadow looms like the overwhelming shade of an overgrown tree, and there it is, the snap of an elastic band stretched too thin to sustain itself.

“You asked for this,” he says, “so you can’t regret it, okay?”

Caleb shoves your underwear aside, and before you can even protest, two of his fingers have already slipped inside with ease, entry facilitated by the slick dripping from the entrance. You jolt. A pool of heat settles in the pit of your stomach, making you leak even more onto his hand. Perhaps you should have been satisfied now, having accomplished exactly what you’ve set out to do, but the indulgent tone of his voice reminds you of when he’d fucked you to the point of tears even though you’d begged and begged.

Ah. Maybe you did go a little too far.

Caleb seems to recognize your apprehension, because he smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Scared?” Caleb says.

“No, but is it too late to apologize?” you say weakly.

“Not really,” Caleb says lightly, as though he isn’t in the process of stretching you out his fingers. You arch your back, moaning as he hooks them just the right way, so casual in the knowledge of exactly where you like it best. The only other person who knows you best, next to yourself. “Doesn’t mean I’ll stop though.”

“Then I’m—hah—definitely not going to apologize!”

“That’s fine—I have other ways of making you say sorry,” Caleb says. “That’ll be enough for my reward.”

[inabsolutions]

an archive for random lads drabbles i've written for twitter. longer stuff posted to ao3

a placeholder pinned while i get everything set up (been a hot while since i used this hellsite)