riptidesiren

[riptidesiren]

perfectionism is a liar and a hater. write your messy little heart out.

[riptidesiren]

can anyone find me that mesopotamian clay tablet telling you to marry a party girl because she'll bring you joy

[riptidesiren]

Fantasy is philosophy’s more gorgeously painted cousin. You can’t just tell a child a blunt fact about the human heart and expect them to believe you. That’s not how it works. You can’t scribble on a Post-it note for a 12-year-old: your strangeness is worth keeping, or your love will matter. You need to show it. And fantasy, with its limitless scope, gives us a way of offering longhand proof for otherwise inarticulable ideas: endurance and hatred and regret, and power and passion and death.

-Katherine Rundell, "Why children's books?"

[riptidesiren]

passages that make you whisper "oh my god"

[riptidesiren]

Same! But in a broader sense I just want to reach people with my words. Make them feel something, good or bad. Laughing their ass off, swooning over a love, tickle their brains just right, inspire thought, or making them scream to the heavens and throw their phones. Tell me my words reached you. That’s my dream.

my dream as a fanfic writer is for one day, one of my fics to be someones comfort fic. like the fic that they reread when they don't feel good and want to be happy. i want my words to comfort someone one day

[riptidesiren]

a writing competition i was going to participate in again this year has announced that they now allow AI generated content to be submitted

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

come on

[riptidesiren]

I Am Truly Happy - Veiled

Chapter two of I Am Truly Happy Wedding continued. Words: 984 Relationship: MC/Caleb | Xia Yizhou Tags: POV!Caleb, 3rd Person, angst/pain, this one ain’t happy, the reader knows its not, actually beta read, my beta hates me

Dividers: @/omi.resources

She'd left him only minutes before as he now stood before the doors awaiting his cue to enter. When it came, he figured people would hopefully find it normal to look at your Best Man. As a place of reassurance. Surely that was allowed. She held his eyes all the way and when he arrived, gave him a reassuring nod. Gideon—who stood next to her—gave him a nod and raised his brow; but he knew the answer to the unspoken question. Yes. They'd go through with it.

It was his bride-to-be's entrance next and the guests were eagerly watching the doors, sighs and cries resounding once they opened and she began her walk. All Caleb wanted to do however, was look at the person standing next to him. 

A motion caught his eyes. Without averting his eyes from his bride—as this would surely have caused an outcry—he shifted and realised she was fumbling with her rings. The motion was small, it wouldn't have drawn any other person's eye.

Just half a year ago their positions had been reversed. He'd walked her down the aisle in the white lacy, but otherwise simple dress, so unlike the one she'd raved about as a teen planning her imaginary wedding. Even farther back, the two of them had play-married and Caleb used to tease her about it incessantly as a teen when she talked about her future husband. 

"You're so heartless." He'd said and feigned anguish, "You'd do this to your husband?"

She'd kicked him then, and continued to do so every time he tried to continue his moaning; until he’d put her in air jail and it was her whining how he could treat his wife so. 

When she'd broken the ‘good’ news a year ago, he of course wouldn't pass up the chance to remind her of their marriage which naturally had to be annulled before she could marry anyone else. She had called him childish…and then asked her husband if he'd divorce her. She'd said it playfully.  But suddenly it hadn’t been funny to Caleb anymore. Divorce. He never wanted to be separated from her in any way again and if holding on to a childish marriage game meant...They'd let it drop as the air grew awkward around them.

It was during the time they'd spent planning her wedding together, going to different venues, reviewing flowers arrangements, taste testing cake, selecting musicians, and of course the dress. 

It had taken his breath away the first time he'd seen her in one and he'd thought they'd already had a winner. But then he’d remembered who she'd be wearing it for and couldn't bring himself to encourage her to choose it when it wouldn't be for—. But the dresses that had followed...she just looked equally stunning in them all and he couldn't very well have talked her out of them all or she'd be wearing nothing and that line of thought had brought him to dangerous territory so he had aborted it altogether. 

In between he’d thought they had found the one she had dreamed about since she was little. But in the end, she had chosen one he'd have called plain in all forms of definition. He’d even tried to talk her out of it and choose another one, but she had been adamant in her choice. A choice he couldn't question. Only accept. He’d wondered about her decision, but hadn’t brought it up since.

A year ago, Caleb hadn’t even thought of ever marrying anyone, much less dating someone if they weren't...But as they planned her wedding she had kept bringing up one topic. His happiness. The happiness she wished him to find. Happiness like hers—she'd wavered there but he'd held his tongue, he'd promised after all—finding his person that made him happy too. He would have told her he already had found that person; that she was marrying someone else. He’d thought better of it.

The person currently walking down the aisle on her father's arm was a woman he had met while he was busy managing boxes he had been unceremoniously stacked with by a certain Pip-squeak. He'd used his Evol and let them hover around him, opening his view to the face of his current bride-to-be. Before he had known what was happening his number had been exchanged for him against his protests. 

As they’d left, she kept raving about what romantic timing it was. He’d feared so the moment she jumped to hand out his number and was proven right when she yet again brought up the topic of whether he'd be bringing a plus one. He, afterall, had had a chance right there, didn't he? He’d only half listened as she rambled on how amiable and kind the woman had seemed.

He'd agreed noncommittally followed by "Yeah, but she isn't y—" his tongue had hurt the rest of the day. Her distraction during the wedding planning—exacerbated by being only a couple weeks away from the actual day—had been his only saving grace with how often he’d begun slipping up.

On the day he walked her down the aisle, his date had sat in the pews smiling at him. She was amiable and kind indeed when she hadn’t bat an eye at him watching the bride like a hawk the whole day. 

Up the steps they had gone; he’d kissed her cheek and wished her to be happy—he meant it, even when it tore him apart. He had squeezed her hands, and letting them go had felt like a parting. 

He looked at his bride now. Words became a blur around him, and when it was time, he could not help but wish for another face to be revealed when he lifted the veil. His prayers were left unanswered. But then, he couldn't remember a time when they ever had been; or he even truly believed they would.

Thanks for reading! The third chapter is done too and it hurts myself.

Thanks as always to my wonderful Beta Shadow. I know you hate me, but remember: It was your line that birthed the idea for this fic :D

[riptidesiren]

I Am Truly Happy

Friend infected me with a line and now I have some wedding angst for my angst queen @chipsmilksworld Happy Birthday girl!! I hope you like the angst I cooked for you <3 Words: 1.2k Relationship: MC/Caleb | Xia Yizhou Tags: POV!Caleb, 3rd Person, angst/pain, this one ain't happy, the reader knows its not, actually beta read, my beta hates me

Dividers: @/omi.resources

Caleb sat alone in the suite. Gideon had left some time ago, being called down to take care of something or the other. Caleb didn't really care either way. He toyed with his bow—feeling choked by it—and finally tore the knot open, letting it hang down and not bothering to redo it.

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his jumpy knees. He still felt like he couldn't properly breathe—even when he'd sighed for the umpteenth time—like the air didn't want to enter his lungs properly. He was mussing his hair, close to just pulling it from its roots when a knock resounded from his door and his head jerked up. Who would it be? He gulped, even when his dry mouth didn't offer anything to, and called.

His chest expanded when she entered and the air rushed his lungs only to be forcefully halted once he realised this was not the way a groom-to-be should smile at his Best Man. They'd joked about it just like they had when he had been her Maid of Honour; choosing to stick with the terms. She clicked the door shut behind her and beamed at him as she scuttled over in her suit dress. She looked a vision in the bold blazer which accentuated her waist and showed off her legs. He had to avert his gaze or he'd keep outright staring at her.

Remembering himself, he stood and slipped on the mask he'd worn for years. Today though, it was much harder putting it on, much more so to keep it in place—just like that day half a year ago. He smiled, his muscles twitching against the antithetical display of emotion, and faced her. By instinct he took her hands into his still so much bigger ones, forever dwarfing them, as children as well as adults. He couldn't help his eyes zeroing in on her rings and absentmindedly brushing over them. 

That day was still fresh in his mind; when she'd shoved her hand into his face, a thin diamond set band on her ring finger. He remembered her rambling on, but not what she'd said, as he usually would have. The moment he'd seen it, he hadn’t needed any more explanation for its meaning. His mind had all but drawn a blank. Just staring at her finger that boasted a ring that was not—

"You're not even listening to me!" she'd said, crossing her arms and taking the ring out of his field of vision.

He'd had a hard time following her recounting how the happy moment had come about. He'd tried, but he couldn't stop himself fast enough before the question of whether marrying someone she'd been with for half a year was such a good idea slipped out. Ironic really, seeing as he was now in the same situation.

"You always say you want me to be happy," she'd replied "I—I am happy. Really I am." She had smiled and if Caleb hadn't known any better he would have called it forced. But he'd known it wasn’t what she would have wanted to hear. She didn't want to be questioned in her choices again. He'd promised to trust her. Her word. Her choices. Her abilities.

"Are you happy for me, Caleb?"

His head had snapped up and he mirrored her expression, "Of course," he had to clear his throat when it came out all but broken—not at all how he had intended it to sound like and knew she had needed it to sound like. 

"Of course." He'd repeated, "I'm happy for you if you are happy." That was the truth. Above anything else, Caleb had always wished for her happiness, even if that happiness didn't include him. At least not in the way he…

"Spacing out again?" she said, leaning forward to look him in the eye—blocking his view from the thin silver band that had since been joined by a simple, slightly thicker one with an equally simple diamond set into it. 

"Yeah," he laughed hoarsely trying to get his bearings. It should have been any stone but a diamond. And certainly nothing simple about it. It should have represented her playfulness, her mischievousness, her sweetness and her liveliness. It should have been so much more than what it was. It should have been h—He sighed and shook the thought from his mind. It didn't do any of them well to follow them to completion. He smiled his crooked smile he knew she adored and was blessed with her laughter filling the tomblike suite.

"What would you do without me," she teased and reached up to fix his mussed hair. 

"Die" he'd almost spontaneously said and bit his tongue not to.

"Nervous?" she asked softly. He huffed, he knew what she was doing. Six months ago it had been him, kneeling before her as she had sat in her wedding dress—worrying the lace—in a suite not dissimilar to the one they were in now. 

He’d taken her hands into his. "Nervous?" he’d asked her and looked up at her. 

"What if I say I am?" she'd asked him and he'd almost replied, "Then run away with me." 

He would have told her she'd never have to be nervous about anything with him, not ever again at least. Not since they'd left it all behind and closed the chapter that spelled their past, and opened the one that was supposed to be their future. Their future. Together. 

Instead, he'd told her it was normal to feel that way. When she’d huffed a laugh and asked him how he knew, he’d laughed and said he'd read it somewhere. Which was the truth. He'd read about worries a bride-to-be might have when he'd done his research to help her plan her wedding as her Maid of Honour. 10 Things to Tell a Bride When... was the article's title. They'd laughed and she'd felt better already she'd said. He shouldn't have, but he couldn't stop himself from asking her again. 

"You're happy right?" 

She’d looked at him for a moment—nodded, and finally followed it with a quiet "yeah…"

"What if I say I am?" he echoed her words back to her now. She blinked at him, causing him to furrow his brows as it was not the reaction he expected.

 Before he could question it, she smiled broadly at him and in the best imitation of his voice—perfected over 20 years of knowing another—she replied, "That's okay. It is normal to feel that way. It's called wedding jitters." 

They burst out laughing.

He knew he couldn't stall for much longer as they grew quiet again and the air began to thicken once more. 

She sighed. "Caleeeb," rolling her eyes she began to fumble with his bowtie, weaving it back in shape. 

"You're happy right?" she stupefied him. Her fingers kept working, brushing along the skin of his throat then and again. He took a deep breath, he'd prepared himself for this moment. He knew it was coming. So he wasn't anything but firm in his reply. 

"I am truly happy." That was the first time Caleb had ever truly lied to her. Not an omission of truth or the avoidance of a fact, but a real genuine lie. 

She tugged the bow in shape, smiling up at him as she tightened the collar around his throat.

Thanks for reading! Second chapter is done too, yes there is more pain, and a third is in consideration. Why? I don't know either, I just want my boy happy yet here I am...curse my friend for infecting me with that baller 'first time he lied' line T_T Anyway I hope you enjoyed your present my angsty queen @chipsmilksworld <3 To my wonderful Beta Shadow: I know you hate me, but I love you! Even when it was your line infecting me with the angst. Thanks for sitting through my weird ass sentence constructions with me <3

[riptidesiren]

Everywhere I go, everything I see, everything I read: I’m reminded of him!

Neither enemies to lovers nor slow burn but a secret third thing called Schrödinger's intimacy. We are in love and we are not in love do NOT open that lid I swear to God.

[riptidesiren]

[ 🌺 ] Calebㅤ-ㅤFloating Floraletter Love and Deepspace

[riptidesiren]

҉ ⁀➷ 𝑺𝑷𝑹𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑭𝑳𝑶𝑾𝑬𝑹𝑺

╰ 𝑪𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒃 LOVE AND DEEPSPACE: SPRING AND FLOWERS

[riptidesiren]

True to Yourself

MC wants her Caleb back. 796 word Drabble Relationship: MC/Caleb | Xia Yizhou Tags: POV!MC, 1st Person, kissing, grinding, hair pulling, open ended, not beta read

Dividers: @/omi.resources

"You want me to be true to myself?" he huffs a mean laugh. "To be true to my feelings?"

I clench my fist and raise my chin defiantly. “This has been going on long enough, I’m tired of only seeing a version of you Caleb. I’m tired of seeing who you become in that uniform. Where is my Caleb?!”

“Your Caleb is right here. You’re just too afraid to see him. You close your eyes from what’s right in front of you.” 

I shake my head, “You’re wrong.”

“I’m wrong? So you know me and my feelings better than myself, is that it? Do you think I don’t know myself what’s going on? Do you think I’m not precisely aware of them and their implications if I didn’t hold them on their tight leash as I’ve been doing for the past ten years?!”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I look away, staring at the ground as I clench my fists, “No one… should live that way.” My head snaps up to meet his gaze, the beginning of tears clinging to my lashes. “And if that’s how you’ve felt I’m sorry but I want my Caleb, all of him, with no leash! I want us to”—I stumble upon my words unsure what I’m saying—”have fun again!” 

He looks incredulous at me “I don’t know what I’m saying? It’s you wh—” closed eyes and measured breaths through the nose return composure and ice to his voice, “You don’t know what you’re asking for and I’m tired of playing this game with you, so leave before something irrevocably is said or done. I love you, I do and thats why my patience is running thin—

“No!” I say stubbornly and stomp my feet. 

His eyes flash, nostrils flaring and for a moment, I feel like I’ve discovered a side of Caleb I haven’t seen before. But that’s wrong. I glimpsed it once before when he told me he was tired of playing house…I take a half step back, as though shrinking away from my own overwhelming thoughts. “I just want my Caleb back.” I almost whisper and look up at him. 

A cruel smile spreads on his face, chasing a shiver down my spine. 

I clench my fists harder—my nails digging into my flesh, I stare him down—my breath coming quicker. 

“You want me to stop pretending?” He asks approaching me slowly, “Stop holding my feelings on a leash and be true to my feelings?” he huffs, venom coating his last words. 

I don’t know this Caleb. Reflexively I step back, but he catches me around the waist pulling me in as my breath catches from the stumble I almost took.

His cold hand caresses along my temple, my cheek, his eyes tracking each touch before his finger twists around a lock of my hair.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” he says lowly, his eyes snapping toward mine he yanks the lock and me close, a wince escaping me. “So let. Me. Show you,” he breathes against my face, my lips and I have no moment to process before his mouth crashes into mine like a starved animal finding scraps.

His hand snakes to my neck, presses me close into the scorching kiss. My body moves on its own as my hands fist in his sweater unconsciously pulling him closer to me, instead of pushing away. 

He moves us backwards until I hit a wall, never breaking the kiss. 

He devours me. Thought had left me the moment his lips met mine and it became just the movement of them on another. 

His tongue sweeps along my bottom lip and I open on imperative, swallowing the groan he pushes into me along with his tongue. 

His hand that held my waist moves lower and suddenly hoists me up along the wall, his thigh finding immediate placement between mine, pressing close to me, grinding his pelvis against my hip. 

His warm hand kneads my exposed thigh, grazing higher, skimming his fingers under the hem of my skirt, abandoning their quest to snake higher yet to my waist, up along my ribcage over the thick black sweater, pausing only under my breasts. He pulls away panting heavily as he looks into my equally hazy eyes.

“Do you—” he pants and gulps down air and saliva before he continues, “Do you now understand?

In my kiss drunk state I can only nod. 

He wants to say more but I’m already arching off the wall to pursue his lips, hands in his hair, grinding against his thigh pressed between mine, cajoling a strained whimper out of him, before he drowns in the kiss with me, our bodies moving as one chasing these new shared sensations.

Thanks for reading! If you liked it, let me know! <3

[riptidesiren]

I’m so cooked for this Caleb 🙂🔥 (im cooked for any Caleb, I’m obsessed, but damn this Fallen Angel!Caleb!!)

Fallen - Prologue

❤︎  tags and content: fallen angel, m!recieving self pleasure, yearning, slow burn ❤︎  author note: check out all my fics by searching #moongirlcleo or on AO3

🔞NSFW content - Minors DNI 🔞 Dividers: @/cafekitsune Fic: @moongirlcleo  

He was your guardian angel. Nothing more. For years, he watched you grow and learn until he realized there was something there. HE no longer just wanted to save you.

He wanted you

Caleb had always known his purpose. From the moment his name had been bound to yours, tethered by divine command, he had accepted it without question. To be a guardian was to serve, to watch from the edges of existence, never seen, never known, ensuring that your life flowed as it should. His presence was meant to be a whisper in the wind, a guiding force that you would never feel, never acknowledge, a silent protector in the vastness of an unknowing world.

At first, it had been nothing more than duty. You were another soul to safeguard, another fragile being in need of unseen intervention. He followed you through your days and nights, ever-present, though you never realized it. When you stepped into the street without looking, he nudged the passing car just slightly off course. When a stranger’s hand lingered too long on your wrist, he shifted the air between you, sending a sudden chill down their spine. When you lost your footing on ice, your balance always found you just in time, the fall never quite reaching you. Every movement was precise, calculated, a seamless adjustment of reality so minor that you would never think twice about it.

That was what he was meant to do. Nothing else.

Yet the longer he remained by your side, the more something within him began to shift.

At first, it was no more than a lingering presence, a quiet reluctance to leave when night fell and your breathing grew slow with sleep. He would remain at your bedside longer than necessary, watching the way the soft glow of your bedside lamp kissed your skin, how your lashes fluttered against your cheek, how your fingers twitched ever so slightly in dreams you would never remember. He told himself it was simply caution, an extra moment to ensure your safety before returning to his place beyond the veil of sight, but each night, that moment stretched longer.

The discomfort settled in his chest first, an unfamiliar weight pressing against something he did not have the language to name. It curled beneath his ribs whenever he saw you smile at another, a fleeting tension that was gone before he could acknowledge it. It burned in his throat when he listened to the way you laughed, the sound curling through the air with an ease that did not belong to him. It tightened around his spine when your hand brushed against someone else’s, casual, thoughtless, as though it was nothing.

But worst of all was the ache that had begun to take root in the deepest parts of him, something neither duty nor grace had prepared him for.

It settled low, buried beneath the surface, growing heavier each time he watched you stretch in the early light of morning, arms lifting above your head, a soft sigh leaving your lips as sleep faded from your body. It unfurled in the spaces between, in the way your fingers traced over your collarbone absentmindedly, in the way your breath hitched when you stepped beneath the warmth of a shower, in the way you murmured to yourself as you pulled soft fabrics over your skin, never knowing the weight of the eyes that lingered, watching, wanting.

He was supposed to guard you.

He was not supposed to crave you.

Yet every day, every night, every moment that passed between you, the lines blurred further, the distance between what was and what could be growing impossibly thin.

Divinity had never taught him what to do with longing.

***

Caleb had always told himself that watching was enough.

It was what he had been created to do, what he had been assigned to you for—to protect, to intervene where necessary, to remain unseen. It was a law as ancient as the heavens themselves, a rule woven into his very being, a boundary that had never been crossed.

Until the dreams.

At first, they had been nothing more than a fleeting indulgence, a moment of stillness in the vast weight of his duty. A guardian could not be seen, could not be known, but in the quiet of the unconscious mind, in the space between waking and sleep, he could linger without consequence. He told himself it was for your protection. That there was no harm in observing when your defenses were lowered, when your dreams played across the canvas of your mind, untouched by the dangers of the waking world.

But it was never just protection.

Not really.

The first time had been a mistake. He had stepped too close, let his presence sink too deeply into the atoms of your dream, let himself be there instead of just watching from a distance. You had not seen him, had not noticed the way he stood at the edges of your world, silent, motionless, barely a speck in the depths of your thoughts. It had been safe then, easy, just another way to fulfill his purpose.

But then it became a habit.

Caleb found himself returning night after night, standing in the background of your mind as dreams unfolded around him. Sometimes they were simple, mundane things—the memory of a conversation, the distant hum of voices from your waking life, the quiet warmth of sunlight filtering through a window that did not exist. Other times, they were more vivid, more intimate—the way your lips parted when you sighed, the way your fingers ghosted over your own skin, the way your body shifted beneath silken sheets, restless, unaware of the presence that watched you from the shadows.

He should have stopped then. He should have left. But he didn’t.

It wasn’t just your dreams that changed. It was the way he changed within them. The way he began to move closer, inching forward with each passing night, lingering at the edges of your consciousness with a hunger he refused to name. He never touched you, never spoke, never gave you reason to suspect that something more existed in the liminal space between dreaming and waking.

But he wanted to. And that was when he knew he was losing control.

The first time you stirred at the weight of his presence, he had frozen, waiting, watching, breathless in a way he had never been before. You shifted beneath the covers, brows knitting together, lips parting slightly as though searching for words that never came. His chest ached at the sight, something deep and wrong coiling in his ribs, something not meant for angels, something human.

But you had not woken. Not yet. He told himself it was nothing, that you had felt nothing, that it was coincidence, that he could still turn away.

But the longer he lingered, the more your body reacted—a twitch of your fingers, a slow inhale, the way your lips parted slightly as though you could sense something in the air, something unseen. He knew he should pull away, retreat before it was too late, before you began to realize.

But divinity had never prepared him for what it meant to want. And so, he stayed.

Caleb had spent lifetimes watching from the shadows of the world, his presence woven so seamlessly into the very essence of your existence that you never thought to question it. He had been a quiet observer, a guardian bound by celestial law, a whisper of divinity meant only to ensure that you were safe, that your path remained steady, that fate unfolded as it was always intended to.

He had never meant to be seen.

At first, stepping into your dreams had been an act of duty rather than indulgence, a means of keeping watch in the only place he could exist without restraint. You couldn’t feel that he was there, never felt the weight of his presence lingering at the edges of your unconscious mind, just beyond the reach of recognition. He had told himself that it was harmless, that as long as he remained a distant figure in the background of your thoughts, there was no risk, no reason to fear what it might mean.

But then, one night, something changed.

The dream was different, a nightmare growing as darkness began twisting at the seams with a force that did not belong to your mind alone. He felt it before he saw it, a shift in the air, something unnatural pressing in at the edges, something malicious. He had seen you dream before, had stood at the fringes of your memories as they replayed like distant echoes, but this was not a memory.

This was something else.

You were caught in it, your body tense, your breath coming short and sharp as shadows coiled around you, shifting like sentient things, murmuring in voices that did not belong to the waking world. Your hands trembled where they curled against your chest, fingers pressing over your ears as if trying to block out something only you could hear. Your lips parted, but no words escaped, only the soft, uneven gasps of someone trapped in their own fear.

Caleb had always known the rules.

He was not to interfere.

He was to watch, to protect, but never to touch, never to step too far beyond the limits of his purpose.

But as he stood there, watching the way you shuddered beneath the weight of something you could not fight, he felt something inside him break.

Before he had time to second-guess the choice, before he could remind himself of what he was not meant to do, his body moved on instinct, stepping forward, crossing a line that had never been meant to be crossed. His presence rippled through the dream, the darkness recoiling at the force of something greater, something divine. The whispers fell silent, the pressure in the air easing as if the very world had recognized what he was and had yielded beneath it.

And then you saw him.

Your breath caught, eyes widening as they locked onto his, recognition flickering beneath the remnants of fear. You should not have known him. You should not have been able to see him. Yet there he stood, solid, real, undeniable, no longer a faceless figure in the background but a being standing before you, something that had been there for so long but had never been given shape, never been acknowledged.

Your body shifted, the tension in your limbs uncoiling just enough for confusion to settle in its place. A flicker of awareness passed through your expression, your brow furrowing as if your mind was already working through the pieces of a puzzle you hadn’t known existed.

“Who…?” The question came unsteady, still raw from whatever fear had gripped you, but your voice was clear, and it made something deep inside him go still.

Caleb said nothing.

He could feel the weight of your gaze, the careful unraveling of realization in your features, the sharp intake of breath as your fingers twitched at your sides, as if debating whether to reach for him, to test the reality of his presence.

And then your voice came again, steadier this time, edged with something dangerous.

“You’ve been in my dreams before.”

It wasn’t a question. He could hear the certainty behind it, the way it settled into place like a memory finally uncovered, an answer that had been waiting just beneath the surface. He had been careful, had told himself that he was nothing more than a passing figure in your unconscious thoughts, that you would never notice, never remember.

But you had. And now, you were questioning it.

His first instinct was to reach for you, to steady you, to explain, but there was no explanation that could erase what had already been done. The air between you felt too heavy, charged with something fragile and breaking, something dangerously real.

A flicker of something unreadable crossed your face, your lips parting just slightly, and Caleb knew if you spoke again, if you asked him the question that was forming on your tongue, it would be over.

He turned before you could. The dreamscape shuddered as he pulled away, the world unraveling at the edges, dissolving into the empty space between waking and sleep. He could still feel the weight of your gaze, the lingering heat of recognition pressing against his skin like a brand, but he did not stop. He did not look back.

He ran.

And when you woke, breath unsteady, fingers curling into the sheets as you tried to piece together what had just happened, you remembered him. Not a passing shadow. Not a figment of imagination lost to sleep.

But something more. And now, you would begin to look for him.

***

For days, Caleb forced himself into silence.

He did his duty, watching from the edges of your life as he always had, but he kept his distance, never letting his presence linger too long, never letting himself step too close. The shame coiled tight in his chest, an unbearable weight pressing against ribs that had never known the sting of guilt before, but now carried it like a mark burned into the very core of him.

He had exposed himself.

For the first time in centuries, he had acted on impulse, had reached for something that was never meant to be his. You had seen him, had recognized him, had spoken his presence into existence—and now, the fragile boundary between his world and yours had begun to crumble.

Divinity had never prepared Caleb for the feeling of shame.

He had tried to convince himself that it would fade, that you would push it aside as nothing more than a strange dream, that your mind would bury it the way it did fleeting memories lost in sleep. But deep down, he knew better.

Because now, you were looking for him.

It started small, almost imperceptible at first. The way you would pause in the middle of the street, your gaze flickering across a crowd, your lips pressed together as if waiting for something—someone—that wasn’t there. The way your eyes lingered a little too long on a passing stranger, as if trying to place something just out of reach, some familiarity you couldn’t quite grasp.

Then, it became more.

Your routine had changed. You stayed out longer, lingering in places where you had never stopped before, your fingers tracing the edges of books you never intended to read, your gaze wandering through coffee shop windows as if expecting to find someone staring back. You would turn your head sharply at the feeling of being watched, eyes searching, breath catching—only to find nothing, only to find no one.

But he was there.

Always there.

And it was torture.

Caleb had spent lifetimes standing just beyond mortal reach, existing as nothing more than a presence, a force of protection that had never once faltered. But now, every breath you took, every time your fingers twitched at your sides, every slow, thoughtful glance you cast into the unknown—it unraveled him.

Because he knew who you were searching for.

And he knew you would never find him.

Not the way you wanted.

Not the way he ached to be found.

He could not risk another mistake.

Not when his hands still burned with the memory of your dream, not when he could still feel the echo of your gaze locked onto his as the world between you shattered. He told himself he had been reckless, that he had let himself slip too close, that the shame in his chest was enough to pull him back to duty.

But duty had never felt this heavy before.

And the longer he watched you search for something you could not name, the more he felt himself losing the battle against the inevitable.

Because despite everything—despite the silence, the distance, the weight of his own denial—he could not stop watching you.

And worse still?

You had started to feel it.

You could not see him, could not hear him, could not know the way his presence curled around your every step, but something had changed in you, something subtle, something dangerous. Your fingers would brush the nape of your neck as though warding off a phantom sensation, a lingering warmth that should not have been there. Your breath would catch in empty rooms, your skin prickling with awareness, your pulse unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with fear—only anticipation.

Somewhere, somehow, you knew he was there.

And no matter how hard Caleb tried to run, he knew, with absolute certainty, that eventually—

You would find him.

Caleb had spent weeks forcing himself to remain distant, retreating into the safety of silence, burying himself beneath the weight of duty, convincing himself that what had happened was nothing more than a fleeting moment of weakness, a single error that could still be undone. He told himself that as long as he avoided you, as long as he did not linger in places where temptation could take hold, he could still fulfill his role without the unbearable ache pressing against his ribs. He could still be the guardian he was meant to be, a silent, unseen force, nothing more than a whisper of presence in the vastness of your world.

But no matter how far he withdrew, no matter how carefully he tried to erase the fragile thread of connection between you, he could not stop the way you searched for him.

You didn’t know what you were looking for, didn’t understand the pull that had begun to take root inside you, but he could feel it in the way your gaze lingered too long in empty spaces, in the way your breath would hitch as though expecting to see something—someone—just beyond your reach. You turned your head quickly at the feeling of being watched, only to find nothing but empty air. You were drawn to something you could not name, haunted by a presence you could not see, and every time your body tensed with the suspicion that someone was there, Caleb was forced to hold himself back, fighting the impossible pull that urged him to step forward, to let himself be found.

It was torment.

But nothing compared to the night when it all fell apart.

He had not meant to step into your dream, not this time.

Lately, he had forced himself to remain at the edges, to simply observe rather than exist within them, to stay hidden among the shifting shadows of your subconscious rather than risk the temptation of feeling too present. He had told himself that watching was still within his right, that as long as he did not intervene, as long as he did not allow you to see him, he was not breaking the fragile balance that had already begun to fray.

But the moment he felt the shift, the change in the air that signaled something different, something more dangerous, he knew that distance was no longer a luxury he could afford.

The dream was steeped in warmth, the air thick with something heavier than illusion, something that wrapped around your skin in the way silk clings to bare flesh. The golden light stretched long across the floor, painting soft shadows against the sheets tangled around your body, the slow rise and fall of your breath visible in the dim glow. There was no movement, no spoken words, only the steady pull of heat settling into every inch of the dream, soaking into the space where desire hummed just beneath the surface.

Caleb knew he should have left the moment he realized what this was.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he stood at the edge of the dream, unmoving, his gaze tracing over the delicate arch of your spine, the way your lips parted just slightly as if in anticipation, the way your fingers ghosted over your own skin in a slow, idle motion, not intentional, not aware—only feeling. The air in the room was thick, heavy with the weight of something you didn’t yet understand, but Caleb did. He saw it in the subtle shift of your thighs pressing together beneath the sheets, in the way your body tensed for a moment before relaxing again, caught in the slow unraveling of your own longing, unaware that you were not alone.

He had never known what it meant to crave, never felt the slow, burning ache of hunger the way mortals did, but standing there, watching you like this, his body locked in place as if tethered by something stronger than duty, he understood.

And the moment you let out a quiet sigh, breathless and wanting, he lost control.

The dream shifted around him in an instant, the warmth flickering as the air thickened, as the space between reality and illusion bent to accommodate his presence. No longer an unseen force lingering in the shadows, no longer a distant presence watching from afar, he was there, fully formed, fully real, standing at the edge of the bed, unable to hide the weight of his own desperation.

Your body stilled.

Caleb did not move, his breath uneven despite the fact that he did not need breath at all, his amethyst eyes locked onto you with something raw, something unforgivable.

And then you saw him.

The flicker of awareness crossed your face almost instantly, your breath catching as your eyes fluttered open, widening the moment they found him standing there. The world around you did not dissolve, the dream did not end, but something shifted in the way your body tensed beneath the sheets, the way your fingers curled into the fabric, the way your lips parted as if you could sense the weight of his presence even before understanding what it meant.

For a long moment, neither of you moved.

You only watched him.

And God help him, Caleb watched you back.

His body felt too tight, the space between you too small, the dream itself pressing inward like it was forcing him to act, demanding that he either step forward or leave before the moment turned into something that could never be undone.

But the way you looked at him—not with fear, not with confusion, but with something new, something that sent heat curling low in his stomach, something that made his wings twitch behind him, restless, uncertain—was too much.

His lips parted, but no sound came.

For the first time in his existence, he did not know what to do.

The dream was already slipping, the golden light flickering at the edges, the space between you humming with an unspoken energy that neither of you had the strength to name. Your fingers twitched against the sheets, as if considering reaching for him, as if wondering if he was something real or if this was only a dream meant to leave you wanting.

He should have stepped back.

He should have left before the moment could cement itself into something more than an illusion, before you could remember him, before you could want him in the way he already wanted you.

But he hesitated. And in that hesitation, he sealed his fate.

The dream collapsed in an instant, torn apart by his own fear, by the shame curling hot in his chest, by the realization that he had let himself go too far. He ripped himself from the moment, retreating before you could reach him, before he could see exactly what would have happened if he had stayed.

But it was too late. Because when you woke, your breath uneven, your skin warm with the ghost of something unseen, you did not shake the dream away as you had done before. You remembered him. You wanted to find him again.

And now, for the first time in his existence, Caleb wasn’t just avoiding you out of duty. He was running—not because he had to, but because he didn’t trust himself to stay away.

***

Caleb’s chambers stood vast and unmoving, wrapped in the unearthly hush of eternal stillness, where not even time dared to intrude. The air shimmered faintly with the pale, cold gleam of heaven’s undying light—a radiance too pure to warm, too divine to invite. It was a sanctum forged for solitude, for reverence, a place meant to be untouched by mortal hands, unswayed by desire, and deaf to the restless ache of human longing that clawed so desperately at the borders of divinity.

But tonight, it felt like a prison.

Caleb sat at the edge of his bed, head bowed, hands gripping the fabric of his robes so tightly that the material creased beneath his fingers. His breath was uneven, his chest rising and falling in slow, controlled movements that did nothing to ease the fire burning beneath his skin, the insatiable ache that refused to be silenced. His wings flexed behind him, feathers shifting, restless, betraying the battle raging inside of him.

He should not be thinking about you.

But he was.

He had tried to push the dream from his mind, had tried to bury it beneath duty, beneath the discipline that had once been as natural as prayer. He had paced the marble halls of the celestial plane, let the quiet hum of heaven’s harmony wash over him, whispered prayers in languages older than time itself—but nothing helped.

Because the moment his mind faltered, the moment his guard slipped, he was there again.

In the golden light of your dream.

Standing at the edge of your bed.

Watching the way your body shifted beneath the sheets, the way your lips parted ever so slightly, the way your fingers ghosted over your own skin, unaware, so blissfully unaware that he was there, aching for you, wanting something he had no name for, something he had no right to claim.

Caleb exhaled sharply, hands clenched into fists, his jaw tightening as heat coiled low in his stomach, a slow, unforgiving burn that refused to be ignored.

His thighs tensed, his body betraying him in ways it never had before. He should stop this now, should pray, should force himself into the cold solace of divine purpose, but his fingers twitched at his sides, and when he closed his eyes, all he could see was you.

The way your breath had hitched when your eyes met his.

The way you had looked at him—not in fear, not in confusion, but in something else, something that made his body tighten, something that made his wings tremble.

A low, shuddering breath escaped his lips, and before he could stop himself, his hand moved lower, hesitating at first, hovering over the place where his arousal had already betrayed him, pulsing, throbbing with the weight of his own self-destruction.

He had never done this before.

Never felt the need to.

But he was starving—for something he could not have, for something that should not exist, and yet it did, it was, and no matter how many times he told himself to turn away, he couldn’t.

His palm pressed over the heat straining against his robes, his breath catching as sensation flooded through him, sharp and unbearable, his mind unraveling at the first, tentative touch. His wings twitched again, his body responding too quickly, too eagerly, as though it had been waiting for this, as though some part of him had always been waiting for you.

The shame came instantly, curling in his ribs, making his throat tighten, but it did nothing to lessen the pleasure pulsing through him, the slow, torturous friction making his hips shift, seeking more before he could stop himself.

His teeth clenched, his breath turning unsteady, his free hand gripping at the sheets beside him as he tried to find something real, something to hold onto, something to anchor himself—but nothing existed beyond the heat consuming him, beyond the memory of your skin bathed in candlelight, the way you had looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes, lips parted like a silent invitation.

The way you had sighed.

The way he had wanted to touch you.

A quiet, broken sound left him, his resolve crumbling as his fingers wrapped around himself fully, stroking once, just to feel, just to understand what this was, why his body reacted this way, why he couldn’t stop thinking about you.

Pleasure ripped through him, electric and unforgiving, his hips jerking into his own grasp, breath stuttering as he tried to control it, tried to pace himself, tried to make sense of it—but there was nothing but hunger, nothing but the unbearable need to chase the fire building in his core, nothing but the shameful relief of finally, finally touching himself while thinking of you.

His lips parted, a strangled groan barely muffled as he tried to keep himself quiet, but it was impossible now, his body trembling, his movements growing desperate, chasing something he did not yet understand, something that tasted like ruin, something that had already damned him.

Your name slipped past his lips before he could stop it.

The moment it did, the pleasure doubled, a shiver rolling through him, his grip tightening, his pace increasing, his thighs tensing beneath the weight of release as his wings flared wide, the force of his own downfall hitting him all at once.

Heat spilled over his fingers, his chest heaving, his body wrecked, trembling, barely able to process the mess he had just made of himself.

And the shame—the shame—hit harder than anything before.

Caleb’s hand fell away from his spent length, fingers twitching uselessly as he stared at the evidence of his own weakness, breath still ragged, his heart still pounding despite knowing that this had changed everything.

His head dropped forward, his wings folding inward, trying to shield himself from the unbearable truth of what he had done.

This was not just hunger. This was not just desire. This was something else entirely.

Something dangerous. Something that could no longer be ignored.

[riptidesiren]

I got the long version 😭 she’s a fucking wizard ya’ll. She cut the song. 1:30 minutes cut and you cannot tell wtf that’s some wizard type shit fr

Friends who support your delulu > all other!

So of course I have to share her edit she did for me everywhere and crash out yet again. Thanks for making my vision come to life 🥹🩵 making it better! Can’t wait for the long version you’ve got cooking 🔥

[riptidesiren]

Friends who support your delulu > all other!

So of course I have to share her edit she did for me everywhere and crash out yet again. Thanks for making my vision come to life 🥹🩵 making it better! Can’t wait for the long version you’ve got cooking 🔥

[riptidesiren]

if the world was ending, i'd want to be next to you.

[riptidesiren]

I ALWAYS KNEW CALEB'S KISS WOULD BE OUT OF THIS WORLD