Archive of Our Own

Clothes fly through the air, strewn over your room like the aftermath of a tornado. Caleb watches you pick through your wardrobe with an amused quirk of his lips, stopping only occasionally to comment on whether you look better in this white dress or this blue overall—and is of no help at all, “You look good in everything, so take them both.”

“We’re only going for a few weeks,” you say, hands on your hips as you survey the explosion of colourful fabrics. “Where would I even find the chance to”—you count through the choices you’ve laid out on the bed—”wear ten sundresses.”

Next to you, Caleb sits on the bed with a relaxed expression, unconcerned by your dilemma, the dummy. “Accidents happen.”

“What, a wild dog is going to tear through my luggage?”

Caleb idly picks at the hem of the shirt that’s draped to your thighs. His shirt, but proudly yours now. “You never know,” Caleb murmurs. “Could be that the dog bites and tears your clothes off while they’re still on you—then you’d be down an outfit, right?”

Prickles rise where his fingers brush against your skin. He’s thinking of something silly again, and your entire body is lighting up without your permission to meet his demands. Before you could say anything—too locked in stupor to speak coherently anyway—Caleb drapes the light, flowing fabrics of a dress over your head. It lands over you like a veil.

“So you should take the ten sundresses. Problem solved,” Caleb says with a proud gleam in his eyes. “With Caleb around, there’s always a solution.”

“You’re impossible,” you complain as you toss the dress back at him. There’s a flurry of clothes as you fling everything within reach at him, but he catches everything with an enviable grace—and flicks your forehead to boot at the end once you’ve run out of ammunition.

“Silly,” he says.

“You started it.”

“Did I really?”

“A hundred percent yes,” you say, darting in to pinch his arm. “Don’t twist the situation around, Caleb Xia.”

Caleb only hums as he lays aside the bundle he’s collected in his arms. For the rest of the hour, he helps you to sort the heaps of clothes as you direct him to fold this aside, put that back on the hanger, this goes in the closet and that goes in the suitcase.

His fingers are nimble, each fold clean and crisp; it reminds you of how Caleb would put away the laundry back when you had lived together in high school. There would be a pile of freshly washed clothes and sheets in the laundry basket. Caleb would work his way through them while you sat on the other side of the sofa, watching your silly dramas, cracking open sunflower seeds between your teeth. You would occasionally help, but do such a sloppy job that he ruffled your hair and called you a distraction, just leave it to gege instead, little idiot. You just behave and watch your TV.

The way he said it was so patronizing that you lunged at him and tugged his hair. Who do you think you are, Caleb Xia, to talk to me like that?

Mercy, mercy, your brother begged with a wince, trying to suppress the laughter in his voice but failing spectacularly. You crawled into his lap and poked his ribs in revenge, and your tickling didn’t end until his Evol hoisted you up like you were a yowling kitten.

Thinking back, that was a Caleb the others didn’t know. Outside of the rare glimpses they would have during school when you were with him, they wouldn’t have seen Caleb beyond the usual: easygoing, polite, athletic, studious. Cool and popular Caleb, the person who everyone looks up to, if not coveted. But when he was home, he went beyond that. Your doting, responsible gege who cooked and cleaned and tended to his chores like they were military duty. Looked after you as if you were tied to his own heart. Every time you saw him in the kitchen cutting an apple for you, you thought to yourself, The Caleb that’s my little secret.

Caleb kneels to place the clothes into your suitcase; you glance at him, the top of his head, the line of his back, and feel something strange clench in your chest that you choose to ignore in favour of rifling through your closet. You pick your way through the hangers, the drawers, hunting for the perfect outfit.

What would be best for the beach and its relentless summer sun? Should you go for pretty or practical?

“Swimwear, swimwear,” you mumble to yourself. “Is red too bright? But is yellow any better?” You hold up the rewards of your search. A pair of red top and shorts clashes against the yellow of the outfit next to it.

Caleb tilts his head. You shake your head before he could say anything, already knowing that whatever he’s going to say won’t contribute anything productive.

“Forget it. It’s useless asking you,” you say. “You think I’d look good in anything, even if I’m wearing nothing at all.”

Caleb says nothing, but in his smile you catch a fond amusement.

You narrow your eyes. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

He shrugs. “You said it, not me.”

This shameless guy!

And to top it off, as you decide to put the red swimwear into your suitcase—shorts are better to move in than a skirt, and you’ll need the extra mobility to crush Caleb at whatever silly fights you end up having when you’re with him—Caleb looks through the hangers in your closet and also takes out an orange blouse. It’s loose and flowing, thin straps and a hem tapering at the front; without saying a thing, Caleb also puts it in the suitcase, right above the swimwear you picked out. You kick out a foot at his calf, an insistent pressure. “What’s that for?”

Caleb clears his throat. He glances away from you. “The top you picked is too short. Your stomach is going to be exposed in that,” he says. “What if you get cold?”

You gape at him. “We’re going to the beach. Where it’s hot. What do you mean if I get cold?”

“Just in case,” Caleb says stubbornly.

All this over a cropped top? You shake your head. “I’m more liable to get a sunburn than a cold, idiot.”

“You know me,” he says. “I worry about your health.”

“My health,” you say blandly. “That’s the concern here. Yeah right, you think I don’t know what you’re really worried about?”

Caleb at least has the decency to look abashed at how you’ve read him so correctly.

You roll your eyes. Then kick him again for good measure.

Even when you were teenagers, he was like this. If you wore anything that bared your stomach, Caleb made sure you never left the house without at least a cardigan—in the middle of goddamn summer. Gran never said a word on your fashion sense (even in the horrible phases you’d gone through as a moody teen; looking back, you now wish she did), and Caleb was the same.

Somewhat.

He would never dictate explicitly what you were or weren’t allowed to wear, but your older brother frowned whenever you dressed in anything that was deemed too short or too revealing or too out-there for his modest tastes. Ironic, considering that he was never so concerned with what other people did or didn’t wear, especially with his female classmates who just loved to waste their precious time crowding around him, fawning over this and that about Caleb (who definitely didn’t deserve it, you thought petulantly at the time). Caleb never gave those pretty jiejies a second glance, but would shove you into a long-sleeved shirt whenever he got a chance, as though you were choosing to prance around naked.

You always thought it was because of his protectiveness. His brotherly concern over his little sister. Who could have known that it went beyond that, who could have known. Yourself, for one, but you never tried to analyze Caleb past what he was supposed to be, never glanced at him and thought of what he could have been.

You look at Caleb, who’s still in the middle of cleaning up after your mess. “At this rate, I may as well put on my old school swimsuit.”

Caleb pauses in the middle of folding a pair of jeans. “Definitely not that,” he says adamantly. “There’s some weird people out there.”

You roll your eyes again. “Yeah, like you.”

Caleb says nothing, but glances downward again. The tips of his ears are tinged with pink, and you really don’t want to know what he’s imagining at this moment. That would be opening Pandora’s box, and with Caleb, you keep finding yourself woefully unprepared.

“I’m not even going to ask,” you declare.

Caleb clears his throat.

“Come closer,” he says. He looks at you with a soft pleading in his eyes, arms spread open. “It’s so rare for us both to have a chance at a summer vacation like this. Let’s not spend time on these small things.”

“Uh huh,” you say. “Small things.”

But you cross the distance anyway. You throw yourself into his lap, resting your head on his shoulder as his arms circle around your waist to pull you in. He takes a deep inhale, warm brush of air against your ear with the next beat of exhale.

“You’ve left me by myself for a long while,” he says. “It was getting lonely around here.”

“Not my fault the Association suddenly assigned me such a long mission,” you mumble into Caleb’s shoulder. “I would have come back sooner if I could.”

Especially because Caleb had somehow worked black magic to be approved for time off from the Fleet. A Colonel doesn’t just take vacations like this. He’d done it for you, which had left you in a sticky situation when Captain Jenna suddenly called with a mission to the far-flung corner of Chansia. You had called Caleb, voice heavy with guilt, but after listening to your trailing explanation, Caleb had only placated, Do what you need to do. I’ll be waiting.

The words he speaks are so simple—and yet have such devastating impact.

Because you had thought of him the entire flight, every second of the way, and sitting in the seat of that return plane waiting for takeoff had made the bones in your body ache. You had looked out the window into the clouds, feeling time-beaten and light-years away from your centre of gravity. Floating weightlessly, tetherless.

“I waited for you,” Caleb says. “I’ll always wait for you.”

His voice is soft and subdued, yet crashes into you all the same.

Ah, how to describe this feeling? Perfect, ruinous, and so familiar. You’ve lived with this all your life. Survived it, and you’re still surviving it. Brick by brick, he’s torn you down and built you up, only to wreck everything again; leaves you in this rubble of a house, memories leaking from the cracked skylight, cupped hands reaching out to catch the drip. And right when you become used to the damp cold seeping into your bones, the rain is blocked by the oppressive shade of his shadow. Your brother, standing in front of you, tilting an umbrella overhead and offering you a hand. What he has given, he has taken away—but then returns it all, tenfold. You still struggle to deal with the gravity of him sometimes, how he weighs on your mind.

What is there to do, then, other than to take a shaky breath. “I know. I’ve known this, Caleb.”

Caleb makes a noise in the back of his throat, and bends to touch his forehead to yours. “Thought of you,” he says. “Missed you.”

“Me too,” you say. “More than you could understand.”

“I think I could,” Caleb says lightly.

“Caleb,” you say. He won’t one-up you in this. “You’re underestimating me again. But it’s okay. You’ll get it eventually. I’ll just have to say it again and again and so many times that you’ll have to understand.”

Caleb hums. The contentment of it melts into your ears, making your skin itch. “Now that I have your word, you can’t escape from me,” he says. “I’ll hold you to it.”

You lean back to cup his jaw in your hands. You pinch his cheeks. “You better.”

While Caleb is loading your suitcases onto his plane, you help yourself to inspecting his own belongings. Caleb is spartan is the possessions he allows himself. It’s evident: only one suitcase to your two, and smaller than them both. You can already predict what he has in there: enough clothes to rotate through the week until laundry time on Saturday, the barest of essentials for toiletries, and other miscellaneous things that he would whip out when you realize you had forgotten them. Even though he’s bringing so little, you have no doubt that he’s more thorough than you.

You step onto a plane wing and hop into the cockpit. You poke around the place; it’s been a long time since you’ve had a ride in this thing, and it looks as complicated as you remember. There’s a fanny pack tucked away beside his seat that you snoop through.

It’s not as Caleb would mind. He’s used to your curiosity, and Caleb makes himself an open secret to you. Closed lips but unlocked door—when he’s not sick, at least, you think with a wry smile.

Caleb slides into his seat as you’re zipping the fanny pack closed. You meet his eyes and shake the little bag. Everything in there seems more for taking care of a whimsical toddler than an adult woman.

“Alcohol wipes, hair bands, band-aids, and chocolate bars,” you list.

Caleb says simply, “It’s a long flight.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m not a walking disaster, Caleb.”

Alcohol wipes to disinfect and clean up messes. Hair bands to tie up loose hair. Band-aids for boo-boos and chocolate bars for hungry little girls. He treats you as if you’re still that eight-year-old kid.

“It’s not for you,” he says, tapping your nose. "It's for my own peace of mind.”

“Worrywart.”

“Better prepared than caught unaware,” he says, which is so like him.

You grunt and leave it at that, letting Caleb prepare for liftoff while you idle away. Once the plane ascends, you flick through the magazine you had swiped from the storage compartment. He had used this to determine where the both of you will be headed for your vacation. Your destination is a family paradise for two. With it being the filming location Ta-ta’s Perfect Vacation, it’s a blast to the past. Ta-ta… The same titular character of the movie you had taken him to see for his birthday. Caleb is returning what you had given him, as though in response to your sincerity, and it’s not lost on you.

You used to tune into that program every day after school, the two of you crowded around the TV while Gran busied herself in the kitchen.

You would put yourself right in front of the projection and lean forward until your entire body was in danger of tipping over, as though being physically closer to the pictures would somehow bridge the distance between your normal everyday life and Tata’s exciting one. During those days, Caleb took it upon himself to act the concerned guardian, scolding you about how your vision is going to be ruined by sitting so close to the screen, You can see perfectly well from the couch, come sit next to me, okay?

He’d done the same to you just the other day, when your face had been shoved in front of a phone screen for too long. Popped an apple slice in your mouth as a distraction, and said, Less phone time, more Caleb time.

Some things never change, do they.

You smile as you flip past a page in the magazine, landing on a framed photo of the Island. Iridescent green-blue waters lapping along golden stretches of sand, it certainly made for a picturesque getaway.

“The Azurie Islands,” you say. “What made you choose this place?”

“It chains to Cloudia Island.”

“Cloudia Island? What’s so special about this place?”

“You don’t remember?” he asks with a smile. “How, as a kid, you begged me to run away with you to that place?”

You cough. “Let’s not talk about what I was like as a kid.”

“Why not?” Caleb teases. “You were so small and cute.”

“Don’t be annoying,” you say. “If you’re going to bring up these dark histories, I won’t hold back either.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t think I don’t have my fair share of your embarrassing moments. How about that time you tried to give me a haircut and sheared off nearly all of my hair because your hand slipped?” You make a snipping motion with your hand. “Left me with random tufts sticking out. I was miserable for the rest of that month because of you, Caleb.”

“To be fair,” Caleb begins, “you were the one that ordered me to cut your hair.”

“Because I was nine-years-old and bored,” you say. “Who told you to give in?”

Caleb adjusts the controls of the plane, keeping his eyes on the sky. So many complicated buttons and screens and levers; they’re tempting you to make mischief. But when he gives you a knowing glance, you stop yourself. “I got better at it, didn’t I?” Caleb says. “Enough to make up for it.”

“True. But you should have seen the look on your face during that moment,” you reminisce. You had been left a crying mess, fat tears rolling down your cheek as you wailed at the mess of hair you’d seen in the mirror. Caleb had been hovering you in the background the entire time, flitting around you with a panicked look on his face as he tried to coax you to stop crying. “You looked ready to get on your knees as an apology.”

“If that was what would have gotten you to stop crying,” Caleb says, “I would have.”

“I should have taken those scissors and given you the same treatment. Then let’s see whether you’d really act as nonchalant as you are now”

“Sure, why not.”

“You wouldn’t have protested?”

“We’d share a look. It’s not so bad if we both have the same terrible haircut.”

“Liar.”

“Not really. Your happiness has always been more important than my dignity.”

The ease with which he says it has you looking away from him. You lean your head on a propped hand and stare at the clear, boundless blue in front of you. The wisps of passing clouds. “Stupid,” you say dully.

Caleb laughs, and you consider whether you’d be able to operate this plane yourself after you strangle its pilot. Probably not, fortunately for him.

The beach is the beach, the same no matter which one. It’s the heat of the noon sun on your skin and the salt tinge of the ocean breeze on your tongue. Seagulls soar overhead, their cries echoing against the crashes of tidal waves. There’s anticipation in the air regardless, excitement bubbling under your skin. Cloudia Island is just beyond these shores, a childhood dream waiting to come true.

The remembrance came back with Caleb’s reminder. You were obsessed with this place for a short while, and it figures that Caleb would be the one to remember it.

You saw Cloudia Island in all its glory on TV and thought about escaping there, a paradise from the boring dystopia of school and homework. Then promptly had your dreams dashed, once you saw the price attached to a house on the island. The zeroes had made your head spin, and you had calculated, then re-calculated. A few centuries of weekly allowances is what the calculator spit out, but who can live to that age. You were inconsolable for days, even when Caleb plied you with snacks—which normally would cheer you right up, but when you realized he had used his allowance to buy them, it actually made you wail more. Stupid Caleb, now it’s going to take us even longer to buy a house on Cloudia!

You’re still planning on saving up for it? Caleb had said, astounded, but quickly patted your hand to calm you down when you cried even harder.

You had forgotten, but leave it to Caleb to remember these mundane moments so clearly. He cradles the memories to him like they’re precious treasure, even though they were mostly just features of you as the silly kid you were. You sort of understand though; there’s a special charm to the naivety of a child who didn’t know any better about the realities of the world. The pure innocence of someone who could still dream about living to three-hundred-and-ten and saving up all their pitiful weekly allowances to buy a house in a faraway tropical island, someone who can so fervently believe in paradise and harbours none of the adult cynicism that infects the mind with age.

And now, you’re here. A boat ride and the hours until 2PM are all that separate you from Cloudia Island.

Once you’ve changed into your swimwear, Caleb buys you a sun hat from the souvenir shop with a cute little airplane clip attached to it, a miniature version of Ta-ta’s own plane. You reach up and slap the hat on his head, cooing about how he looks adorable with it, but he returns it right back to your head immediately after. So began a game of hot-potato that made you pout when you lost the battle.

“Cheater!” you cry, struggling against the sudden gravity freezing you in place. You resist the urge to stomp your sandaled feet on the stone sidewalk beside the shop entrance; you aren’t at that level of childish yet. Besides, the real childish one is the guy standing in front of you, wearing a proud smile on his face as if he won some kind of spectacular prize with your defeat. “You used your Evol, you cheater!”

“Only because the poor hat doesn’t deserve this kind of abuse, being passed back and forth like that,” Caleb says cheerfully. He adjusts the hat on your head until the brim shadows over your face.

“Idiot,” you say. “First you shoved this blouse on me, now you’re forcing me to wear this hat.”

“They both prevent sunburns.”

“Sure,” you say. “That’s the reason.”

When you had stepped out of the bathroom in the red top and shorts, sunscreen slapped on haphazardly and ready to leave, Caleb was all smiles and praises—but then swiftly tugged that orange blouse over your head. He had been prepared for the situation. Expected it.

“Not fair,” you say, tugging at his shirt. It’s short-sleeved and left open at the front, dyed a rust colour that’s the same as your outfit except a few shades lighter. It doesn’t escape your attention that he matches you. But still.

You look around you and you notice it right away: there’s plenty of women strolling while wearing outfits way more revealing than your simple red cropped top.

“Everyone else is showing more skin than me,” you point out, “and they’re just fine.”

“But everyone else isn’t you,” Caleb says.

“You just want to hide me away.”

“Of course. It’s your fault for looking so cute.”

You shake your fist at him. “Don’t try to compliment your way out of this, Caleb Xia!”

Caleb grins, letting your fist bounce off his firm chest. You scowl, aggrieved, but can do nothing except give a childish yet well-aimed kick to his leg before running off. Caleb lets you escape the consequences of your actions for all of thirty seconds before he sprints to you, catching up with ease. He picks you off the ground and into his arms, ignoring your protests as you kick out your legs and tug his ear.

“Bully,” you say sourly. “You get to just strut your stuff and flash your naked chest to the world, but I can’t even wear a cropped tank top?”

Caleb knocks a light fist against the top of your head. “And who is it exactly that you’re going to show yourself to?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” you say smartly.

“For their sake,” he says, eyes going dark, “you should hope I don’t.”

When your eyes dart away, his own follow. His stalking gaze turns heavy. Contemplative, like he’s considering something.

Despite the midday sun, a chill taps up your spine. Vowing not to provoke his bottom line so carelessly in the future—who knows how he’ll choose to oppress you in response; he’s made you beg mercy for less—you drape yourself over him and harrumph instead.

“Come on,” he says, “didn’t you want to walk along the beach before the off-road race starts? Let’s do that.”

“Fine.”

“Mhm, that’s my girl.” Caleb seats you down on an empty bench, one of many placed along the walkway that trails around the beach proper. He kneels down and looks up at you. “Sandals off then? You won’t be able to walk properly with these on the sand. Wouldn’t want you to twist an ankle before we’ve even stepped foot on Cloudia.”

Leave it to Caleb to consider the practicality of your shoes before you do. You nod and hold out your foot, too used to the routine to think much of it. From elementary school to high school, he had helped you into and out of your shoes. It’s a leftover habit, one that you don’t realize is anything too strange until you feel the gazes of admiration from the women that pass by the two of you as Caleb busies himself with undoing the buckle of your sandal strap.

You avoid their eyes, focusing on the top of Caleb’s head, the soft fringes of his hair. His attention is wholly focused on you, so there is no point in mulling over the looks from those women. Caleb’s finger runs along the back of your ankle as he pulls the strap of your shoe off, and you twitch at the brush of his thumb against your heel. He rubs the bottom arch of your foot as he slips the shoe off, and you try your best not to squirm—it tickles!—but end up doing it anyway, letting out an undignified whimper. Caleb freezes, the muscles of his back going taut, his hold on you tightening. His hand is so big that he easily encircles your foot. The nail of his thumb digs into the top of your foot, his palm presses flush to the arch.

The quiet is deafening; your ears ring with it. His head is lowered, so you can’t see the look on his face. You touch a hand to his hair, about to say something. But as suddenly as the tension comes, it leaves; Caleb relaxes and lets your bare, sandal-less foot go before quickly working the shoe off your other foot. This time, he’s efficient. Doesn’t linger.

“Let’s go?” he says as he pushes himself up. The shadow of him slants and engulfs you, blocking out the sun. There’s a flush to his face you can’t decipher, so you don’t. You’ll get an answer out of him later; now doesn’t seem an appropriate time—and the thought of why that is exactly has you ducking your head, face flushing to match his.

You take the hand that Caleb offers you, clearing your throat. “Yeah. Let’s go,” you say, words having an unfortunate squeak to it.

At the sound of your voice, high-pitched and breathy, Caleb’s eyes gouge into you, dark pupils enlarged despite the full blast of the sun. He pulls you up, and his hand lingers on the inside of your wrist, stroking the delicate skin there. Heat unfurls in your stomach, a sweet frustration scratching along your skin.

“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” he says solemnly.

“Why not?”

“It’s daylight,” Caleb says.

“It is,” you say, mouth dry. “What about it.”

“You’re an upstanding citizen.”

“So are you?” you say weakly.

“I’m not sure about that,” Caleb says. “You’re the Hunter here. Someone who’s bound to protect others. Someone who is honoured and respected by the people here.”

His convoluted words are making your head spin. This, along with other things that you’re scared to speak aloud. “What does that have to do with this…”

“It means,” Caleb says, the corner of his mouth curling up in a wry smile, “that we shouldn’t do anything in the open that would shame you. Not out in this broad daylight.”

The specific phrasing of his words doesn’t escape you. “And what is it specifically that we shouldn’t do?”

“So many things,” Caleb murmurs.

“What about you? Would you be shamed too?”

“Never. Not when I’m with you.”

“Me too,” you say. “You’re wrong, Caleb. I wouldn’t be ashamed.”

“You don’t understand,” Caleb says, voice low as he continues to stroke your wrist. “You definitely will be.”

“I wouldn’t be here if that’s the case.”

“We’re talking about different things here,” Caleb says. “Completely different things.”

“Are you sure?” you challenge.

“Definitely. Do you want me to show you what the difference is? Under this sort of open air? This light?”

The stone pavement is rough against your bare feet. You stand there, one hand limp at your side, the other held by Caleb’s fingers, feeling more than a little foolish in your daring. You charged headfirst and pried open that Pandora's box, but hadn’t even realized it until it’s too late. Now the consequence of your folly is staring at you with dark eyes that ask, Do you dare? You say lamely, “That…”

Your breath is bated as you wait for his reply, but Caleb does nothing to urge you into a concrete answer, Yes or No. What he does is grin and ruffle your hair. “We’re here to have fun,” he says. “Be good and listen, okay?”

And it’s only when he turns away that you hear the whisper of the wind again, feel the rippling heat of the sunlight. The stretch of time violently rebounds, leaving you struck by its harsh blow. The moment to answer is lost to you, probabilities evaporated by the sun, and you’re left staring at Caleb, worrying the inside of your mouth and wondering what he would have done if you had said, Yes, show me.

The off-road race that the staff member had enthusiastically told you about will happen soon; the both of you had registered, but there’s still some time to spare before the race. You and Caleb walk along the shore of the beach, letting the waves crash along your ankles. He holds your sandals and sunhat, straps hanging off one hand and sunhat tucked under an arm, trailing alongside you as you kick up the water and let the sand sink between your toes.

“Be careful,” Caleb says, and there he goes, treating you like a kid again.

“Uh huh,” you say, and bend down to run your hand along the rippling water. Then you whip around and flick out your fingers, water droplets flinging to land on Caleb’s face. Caleb huffs, bangs sent flying as he tries to shake off the water.

“Got you!” you crow.

“Do you really want to play like this?”

You splash him some more with the residue of water clinging onto your fingertips. “As if you can do anything about it!”

Caleb sets down your shoes and hat in the sand, then cracks his neck like he’s preparing for something. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he says.

He grabs for you, but you nimbly dance out of his way.

“Don’t be a sore loser, Caleb Xia,” you taunt. “Just accept that I got you good.”

“But I’ll win the next round,” Caleb says with a surety that has you eyeing him warily.

“What do you mean by that,” you say, and the next thing you know, you’re being tackled into the waves, falling back into the cold water. You sputter, limbs kicking out to steady yourself, but it’s too late, “Caleb, you big—!”

“—Dummy,” he says, laughing as he wrestles you into submission. You’re forced to curl up against him, cradled in his embrace in the lapping waves, head resting on his chest as the both of you float in the salty ocean water. “I know.”

“CALLING ALL CONTESTANTS OF THE INVINCIBLE OFF-ROAD RACE. PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE STARTING LINE AT…” He’s lucky that the loudspeaker blared at the exact moment you’d been planning to knock your forehead into his jaw, Now we’ll see who’s the real loser, Caleb.

Caleb picks you up in his arms, ignoring your protests, and doesn’t forget to grab the stuff he’s dropped on the sand while on the way. “Save your energy for the race,” he says, slightly breathless as he jogs toward where the race is slated to begin. “You have to be my second, Adjutant.”

“All right,” you say, your arms slung around his neck, “but you better win, Colonel.”

“With that kind of command, maybe I should call you Colonel instead,” Caleb comments.

“Then you need to obey,” you say, landing a kiss right on his cheek. His steps stutter, and he almost trips flat into the sand, which only makes you giggle. “Eyes on the road, officer. We need to get there first to even have a chance of winning.”

“Yes ma’am,” Caleb says—and not only does he effortlessly carry you to the start line, he also wins the race handily.

A pair is needed to take part, but the driver is the principal competitor. You’re mostly there for support and a pretty face, which you do enthusiastically, shouting his name, “Caleb, Caleb, Caleb!” right as the dune buggy zooms past the finish line. The engine roars in your ear as the vehicle curves to a stop, wheels spraying sand up in a fine yellow mist. You whoop and lean over to jump onto him, adrenaline pumping through your body in a pleasant alcoholic buzz. You nuzzle his cheek, tickled by his victory. It reminds you of watching one of his basketball games in high school, how you were always the first one to shoot up from your seats to applause whenever he scored.

“Hey there, pretty girl,” Caleb says. His lips touch your forehead, the exhale of his words brushing up against your temples. “Is this my reward for winning?”

“You can think of it like that,” you say, “but I think your actual prize is heading over here right now.”

There’s a crowd of people surging toward the dune buggy, and you slip off ‌Caleb’s lap to hop out. Caleb makes a noise, but lets you go with little complaint. When he descends from the dune buggy, the crowd explodes into thunderous applause.

“Congratulations, No. 5!” the host says into her microphone. “You've won the title of ‘Invincible Off-Road Racing Champion!’ Here is your magnificent crown!”

You clap along and move aside so that the staff can put a ridiculous red flower crown over Caleb’s head. The petals are so large that they make the top of his head resemble the seeded centre of a red sunflower.

“Smile for the camera, champion,” you say in singsong as you snap photo after photo of said champion. You jab a thumb at the cartoon character on the promotional poster that’s been posted right next to the off-road race banner. “They’ve made you look exactly like this guy. It’s not every day you get to cosplay a cartoon character!”

“No wonder he said it’ll take us back to our childhood,” Caleb says ruefully. “This is more than a little childish.”

You smile so big your cheeks hurt. “You’re not happy with your super cool and awe-inspiring prize, Invincible Off-Road Racing Champion?”

Caleb scoffs. “If it’s so super cool and awe-inspiring, how about I give it to you?”

“No thanks,” you dodge. “Wouldn’t want to take credit for your achievements, champion.”

“As if you have any of this reservation with your plushy claw machines.”

Just as Caleb’s about to take off the flower crown so he can shove it on you instead—no, thank you!—the staff nearby lug over a huge coconut shell. You blink at the swirling paint sloshing ominously in it.

The host is back to her exuberant announcements. “Now, let's shower the Invincible Off-Road Racing Champion and his partner the "Absolute Defender" with our blessed coconut paint!”

“Oh no,” you breathe.

Caleb holds you by the crook of your arm before you can run away. He leans down, voice filled with a self-satisfied pleasure. “Oh. You forgot to congratulate one more person, Absolute Defender.”

“Nope! Definitely not!” You try to shake his hand off your arm, wriggling and trying to escape being a target. Two staff members are swinging the coconut back and forth between them, the paint threatening to spill. Caleb only laughs at your pathetic attempts of escape, and right as you call out, “Hang on, wait, I’m going to dissolve my partnership with this guy right this instant!”

But it’s too late. The gooey paint soars through the air like in a hideous mass of colours, and it’s at this moment that Caleb’s hold on you lightens. You leap into action, scurrying behind Caleb and putting him squarely in front of you, forcing him to cover you at the exact spot where most of the paint threatens to land. Caleb sighs as the paint splashes everywhere. The crowd stirs into a frenzy again, whoops and cheers becoming louder and louder.

You peek out from behind him. One look, and you cackle. There’s random swirls of colours everywhere. He looks like a wax doll that’s been dipped in too-many layers of differently coloured paint. The paint drips down his body and lands in huge droplets in the sand.

“You sure look blessed, champion,” you say between wheezes.

Caleb moves like lightning and, in the blink of an eye, has laced his hand with yours. Bits of paint squelch as he squeezes, making you yelp in protest. “There,” he says. “Now you also get to share in the blessing, partner.”

“Think you took the brunt of it, though,” you say.

“No thanks to you.”

“What, little ol’ me?”

“This,” Caleb says, looking at your hands linked together, “is going to be a pain to wash off.”

Sure enough, his words prove true. Which leads you to hosing Caleb down in the outdoor bathing area they have on Bathing Beach. Apt name, you thought as you turn the water pressure up.

“Ouch,” Caleb says.

“It’s not coming off otherwise,” you say as you direct the spray of the hose at his back. He’s washing off his chest, but obviously can’t reach his back well—and this is where you come in. “Trust me. I tried to wash off the mess on my hand in the sink and it took me a quarter of an hour.”

Caleb sighs as he continues to lather himself in the shower gel, scrubbing furiously at his chest. You spray what you can from his back, but the rest that remains requires a more… personal touch.

“I’m gonna have to take this off with my hands,” you warn.

“Go ahead,” Caleb says.

You turn off the hose and grab a stool. Gathering a few pumps of shower gel and working it into a lather, you sit down and scrub furiously at the mess on his back. Caleb’s body ripples from the initial touch, muscles bunched beneath your hands, but he relaxes into it soon enough. Your mind wanders to places it shouldn’t wander to, however, because you’re still stuck on the almost you’d had. The look in his eyes, the gentle rub of his thumb on your inner wrist, the secretive want. The daylight, the daylight…

Caleb is behaving himself though, because even when your hands circle around his torso and tap around his ribs, Caleb only takes a sharp breath. Does nothing else except to say, “Don’t play around.”

You pout. “I’m doing you a favour.”

“Less a favour and more like trouble.”

“I wouldn’t do anything like that,” you say innocently. You pick at a clump of paint that’s dried over his shoulder, clawing it off with your nails. “We’ve a boat ride to catch soon, and I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

When Caleb speaks again, there’s a slight helplessness to his voice. “Is the paint off yet?”

“Still a bit left,” you say. “It’s good that blessings are hard to get rid of, but I don’t know if this paint qualifies as a blessing. Seems more like a curse.”

“Given how you’re about to rub the skin off my back,” Caleb says, “definitely the latter.”

“Aren't your reflexes pretty quick? Why didn’t you dodge the paint?”

“Hm. I wonder.”

“What’s with that tone of voice, mister?”

Caleb teases, “You won’t mention how you grabbed me and used me as a shield earlier?”

“It’s not as if you even tried to resist,” you say pointedly.

“Does that make you in the right?”

He doesn’t have to turn around for you to know that the knowing look he must be wearing is equally handsome as it is irritating.

“Okay, okay, enough questions,” you deflect. “Don’t we have a boat to catch? Less talking, more rinsing!”

Caleb laughs as he continues to lather himself up, working his hand down his leg. “Yes, ma’am.”

Soon, the rest of the paint drains away. With Caleb adequately toweled off according to your specifications—stop moving around, Caleb Xia, and let me dry your hair! you had said exasperatedly, and then wondered if this is how he felt when you tossed yourself around on the bed whenever he tried to dry your hair at home—the two of you head out toward the pier. Your sandals are back on your feet, clacking on the wooden walkway as you hang off his (still damp) arm. The two of you wander the streets next to the docks where the Cloudia Island tour ship will moor. You take your time strolling around, looking through the stalls.

The sunlight has become even more relentless as it beats down overhead. Your sunhat has found its way back to your head, but not even the shade from its brim is enough to fight off the sharp rays. You follow up the ramp that leads toward the upper level, and each swing of your arm makes you feel the dots of sweat lining the skin there.

“I should have brought a parasol,” you say.

“Good idea,” Caleb says. “But someone else would need to hold it up the entire way. Otherwise, you would complain about how unwieldy it is five minutes in.”

You nudge him. “Sounds like a job for someone I know.”

“Next time,” Caleb promises. “For now, let’s find another way to cool down. Maybe some—”

The cries of the people on the upper level of the pier interrupt whatever Caleb had been about to say. An ice cream cart races down the ramp leading down to the lower level, heading straight for the two of you like a bowling ball from hell. You’re about to race forward to stop it when Caleb pulls you back with an iron grip. He raises a hand and turns it. You hear it before you see it: the reverberating hum of manipulated gravity, the transmission of Caleb’s will, like the very air itself had fallen into submission with a mere crook of his finger. The cart stops in its tracks as though time has stopped, not even a lurch despite the sudden change in acceleration. Its momentum has been extinguished in a blink, the laws of physics warped without fanfare. The ice cream cart slowly rolls back until it’s atop the ramp, delicately poised as though it hadn’t been moving at all.

“—ice cream,” Caleb finishes. “How about it?”

It’s been years of knowing him, but you are still stunned at the evidence of Caleb’s power. It’s easy for him to bend the world to his liking, whether it be the rain or people or an out-of-control ice cream cart. You pat Caleb's hand. “Looks like being a good person and doing good deeds is when your reflexes are the quickest.”

Caleb shakes his head in amusement. “Or maybe it’s because I didn’t want to get covered in ice cream and have to suffer through your washing again.”

“Suffer?” you say indignantly. “I’ll have you know I have a very gentle hand! You should feel privileged to have experienced it.”

“Mhm. Sure. Very privileged.”

You pinch the back of his hand. “You always act the hero in these situations, Caleb. Is it instinctual?”

Caleb touches the brim of your sunhat. “It’s not innate. It’s habit.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” you say, holding onto Caleb as the both of you ascend the ramp. “You’re a good guy.”

“When I have to play the part,” Caleb says. “Sometimes, gratitude is more effective than fear.”

You wrinkle your nose. You don’t like it when he talks so callously. “That’s villain talk, Caleb.”

Caleb smiles. “What did I just say, little idiot?”

“Maybe it’s different now,” you allow, “but you can’t be saying that it’s always been an act.” There’s no way that Caleb the golden boy, the older brother fawned over by all the neighbourhood aunties, the polite kid who gave up his seats for the elderly every single time, could have been entirely false. Both inside the home and out, he never failed to be an exemplary youth. The one everyone looked up to, the one everyone pinned their hopes on. The hero of the day, the man of the hour.

If this were all false, then it was a class act. He never slipped once. Not until…

“If I looked like the good guy to you,” Caleb says offhandedly, “it’s because I fit myself into that role.”

“...Really?” You shake your head at his easy nod. You can’t understand why he forced himself to live up to such impossible ideals. You always thought that’s just The Way Caleb Is. “Wasn’t it hard?”

“As hard as any other obstacle. Just another challenge to overcome.”

“But why? Why did you do that to yourself?”

“Because of you.”

“Me,” you say, astonished.

“Because you always rooted for the good guys.” Caleb shrugs. “Because you looked at your gege like he was a protagonist in those live-action superhero shows.”

“You would have been the Red Ranger,” you say. “The leader that held the team together.”

Caleb smiles helplessly. “See what I mean?”

By the time you reach the top, there’s a man in uniform in the distance, red in the face as he jogs toward the both of you. The owner of the ice cream cart, likely, given how his uniform is dotted over with ice cream cones. He thanks the both of you profusely as he checks over his cart and secures it.

“It wasn’t me,” you say, jerking a thumb at Caleb. “It was all this guy.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Caleb says. “You were great support.”

“Support, he says,” you say, “but all I did was stand there and watch.”

“Which is plenty great support,” Caleb says. “Who else was I supposed to show off to?”

“Regardless of what happened,” the ice cream cart owner says, “I’m grateful.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Caleb says easily. “Just glad no one got hurt.”

The owner rummages through his cart and hands you a penguin-shaped popsicle. “On the house,” he says. “Are you two here on your honeymoon? I hope your time here is sweet as honey and twice as blissful.”

“...Thanks,” you say easily. “Hope business is booming for you too.”

Afterward, you and Caleb walk along the shore in amicable silence, neither of you saying anything. You gnaw around the poor penguin-shaped popsicle, licking up what’s melted as quickly as you can so that it doesn’t drip onto your hand. There’s some slight amusement you’re taking in this, how Caleb keeps opening his mouth only to close it again. Open and close, rinse and repeat. He looks like his brain has short-circuited; you can almost feel the sparks flying from the broken wires.

Maybe you should pity the poor guy, but you’re too busy with your popsicle to do much of anything. You suck at the half-melted head of the penguin, trying not to laugh.

Eventually, Caleb addresses the issue. “You thanked him so naturally that I almost didn’t notice there was something off with your reply.”

You tilt your head and blink innocently. “What do you mean,” you say. “I was just hungry for ice cream… Want a bite?”

Caleb shakes his head when you hold out the mangled penguin. “You’re too generous,” he says, “when your penguin only has half its beak left.”

You ignore his amused remark and opt to go on the attack instead. You stand on your tiptoes and shove what’s left of the penguin into his mouth. Caleb protests around the popsicle, but you refuse to back down.

“This weather’s too hot,” you say. “Who knows, maybe the penguin will get seasick on the boat later. It’s better that you show some mercy and put it out of its misery now.”

“Mmmph, mph!”

You tilt your head, confused. “What’s with all the mumbling? It doesn’t taste good?”

Caleb rolls his eyes, mouth still full of the popsicle you’re stuffing him with. He grabs you by your shoulder and spins you around; right there in front of you, only meters away, is a bright white ship. The crew members have already untied the ropes from the mooring post. You stand there as the horn of the ferry thunders through the pier. It’s only when the ship pulls out of the dock that you read the red words printed alongside the stern properly: Cloudia Island Tour Express.

“Caleb,” you say, aghast. “Our boat!”

“Mmph,” Caleb says. “Mmh mmmph.”

Which may have amounted to some measure of, “Yup. Our boat,” but knowing whether it was or wasn’t is of no help during this moment.

You hang your head in despair. “Our boat…”

And Caleb only pats your head in consolation.

It’s just bad luck, but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed. That’s what you tell yourself as you lean back on the deck of the speedboat and try not to throw up. You’ve found a boat amidst the chaos and you’ll make it to Cloudia Island before the end of the day—and gain a sunset view to boot. That’s got to count for something, right?

You swallow down the queasiness that’s lodged in your throat, but the swaying of the boat is proving too strong a force to overcome through sheer will alone. Trying to follow along the ripple of the water next to the boat leaves you dizzier for it, making the nausea even more prominent. The salt of the sea when you try to take a deep breath makes your gag reflex rise, and you try your best not to just retch up whatever you had for lunch over the side of the boat. The wind cards through your hair and whistles past your ears, bringing a slight reprieve as cool air, but the boat is pitching again and your stomach is pitching with it.

“I’m going to lie down,” you tell Caleb.

You lay yourself face down on the deck, swallowing the pooling saliva in your mouth. Caleb sits down next to you, and the snap of a cap opening followed by the splosh of liquids being squeezed out lets you know that he’s got the sunscreen bottle. Ah, right. It’s been a couple of hours since you last reapplied your sunscreen. You have a habit of forgetting, but Caleb never lets you get away with it.

“You okay?” Caleb says.

“About there,” you say. “I’m just dizzy. Was the sea this rocky when we left? I could have sworn it was calmer.”

Caleb strokes a hand across your shoulder. The cold sunscreen has you shivering, but it’s soon warmed up by his hand. His palm rubs in the lotion in a soothing pattern of back and forth, and you groan as he finds a knot near the base of your neck.

“Weather at sea is unpredictable,” Caleb says. “You never know what’s going to happen next, even if you have the best meteorologist on board. Sun or rain or storm, it’s a roll of the dice.”

“Huh. I didn’t know you had experience at sea.”

“Well…” Caleb tells you about the stories of when he had once crashed, how he found work to earn himself a roof with the locals. The whole time, he had also been training the seagulls on that island with bits of leftover fish from his dinners, so that they could deliver little notes to his little-er sister on the other side of the ocean. It was only because the rescue team came early that he couldn’t finish their training. The story is so outlandish, you’re almost offended.

“Not even three sentences, and you’re already telling tall tales!” You turn from where you’d been lying, elbow striking out to catch his side, but Caleb only laughs as he catches your arm easily, fingers encircling your arm; to rub salt in the wound, he slaps on a handful of sunscreen along your forearm, then rubs it in for good measure.

“Feel better now?” Caleb says.

Strangely enough, you do. The nausea that had you so dispirited before is gone, leaving you with enough energy to be outraged by Caleb’s fantastical stories. “Not telling.”

“Judging by how you’re glaring at me, it worked.”

“You told me all that to distract me?”

“Mhm. When you’re seasick, it’s good to focus on something to distract yourself.” Caleb pats your head. “We’ll buy some anti-nausea meds on Cloudia for the way back.”

You wrinkle your nose, fighting off a yawn. “Those make me sleepy.”

“Like you’re not already sleepy,” Caleb says fondly.

“Your fairy tale was effective enough,” you say, “so I’ll let it go. Next time you won’t be so lucky, Caleb Xia.”

“But I wasn’t telling you a fairy tale,” Caleb says. “The story is true.”

You eye him suspiciously. “You really crashed onto that island?”

“Yeah. Even learned some of the local tongue.”

“Like what.”

“Like… the way they talked about storms. They had twenty different words for each different type. One word for storms that were formed by whirlwinds, another word for storms that carried the freezing cold fronts from the north. They even had a word for storms lasting weeks that would form a wall of wind around the island. They’re so powerful that not even the seabirds roosted on the rocky crags, which could normally fly circles around any maelstrom, can fly past.”

“Is there any word for lightning storms?” you murmur. “The kind that thunders so loud it could split eardrums. And you’re inside, but you fear being struck by it all the same. Your heart is in your throat, about to leap out your mouth. You try to squeeze your eyes closed but the back of your eyelid still stings from the white of the lightning, like its path has been permanently seared into your vision.”

Caleb touches the top of your head. “Silly,” he chides. “I know I said you should find something else to focus on, but why would you distract yourself with these kinds of thoughts?”

Because it’s all you know of storms. Because it’s thieves tearing into your life, stealing away your peace, your beloved brother. The clouds are gathering overhead, little tufts of white fluff coalescing into a roiling mass that reminds you of cotton stuffing. Caleb had once worked an entire week in high school to fix up the quilted blanket you’d had since childhood; you adored it so much that it had fallen to pieces, and he’d taken it upon himself to put needle and thread to the poor thing. Gran had offered to help, but he was stubborn and insisted on sewing it up himself. It’s hard to imagine this kind of guy crashing onto a foreign island of strangers speaking a language he didn’t know, and even though you know it was true, it still seems a story straight out of those fairy tale books he used to read you as kids.

“In another life,” you say, “I can see you being a storm-chaser.”

“Yeah?”

Caleb is an adrenaline junkie through and through, always seeking his next challenge. You once saw him drop from Linkon Tower without batting an eye, shooting after the falling wanderer like he was a bullet himself, and even though you knew the resonance of your Evol with his would keep him safe, you were still worried. This stupid guy, however, had only a smile after the fact. A wide exhilarated grin, as though he had scented blood and death in the descent and found that he liked it. Couldn’t get enough of it.

“You have that adventurous spirit to you,” you say. “You’d enjoy the thrill of the hunt. And the danger.”

“If that’s what you think,” Caleb concedes. “But compared to storms that can be seen but never touched, I much prefer…”

Caleb cups your face in his big hands, the corner of his lips slightly curved up. For a second, you remain in ‌stunned confusion, mind racing to decode the riddle he’s deliberately left you. Upon realizing, your eyes widen; you sit up immediately to defend yourself, because you won’t take this lying down, the dummy. As if you’ll let him do what he wants so easily.

You wrap your arms around his neck to pull him close, and Caleb lets himself topple over you. You pinch his cheeks with a severe hand, stretching them out with a shake, taking delight in the mumble of his slurred protests.

“Don’t think you can pull a fast one on me,” you scold.

Caleb pulls a face as you rub his face with your sunscreened hands. “There’s that force of nature I’m always seeking.”

You’re a storm of activity, transferring the sunscreen from your hands onto his body, stroking any skin that’s available to you. His face, his jaw, his throat. You tacitly choose to ignore the jerk of his hips when your hands splay themselves over his chest and at his necklace before trailing downward. This is retaliation, not a reward. You’re well-versed enough in Caleb-ology to understand when to dangle the carrot and when to threaten the stick. And right now, it’s teasing him to the point of making him want you, but not past it.

You ignore the swirl of heat that’s condensing in the pit of your stomach, how it stirs like a tangible, living fire. Instead, you plop back on the deck and pull him close to you so that you can lay your head on his arm.

You blink.

…Hard.

You try to adjust yourself, but his right arm is exactly as you imagined would feel: a solid block of metal. It doesn’t make for a very good pillow.

“Thought you were sleepy,” he says, rapping you on your forehead with his knuckles. “Why are you shifting around so much?”

“It’s your arm that’s too hard,” you say. “No matter how I position myself, it’s never comfortable enough.”

Caleb turns onto his side and slightly lifts his arm, letting you move it as you wish to find the best position. “But at least it won’t go numb even if you use it as a pillow all afternoon,” he says with a chuckle. “If you think of it like that, it’s not all bad, right?”

You hum a soft agreement as you finally find a comfortable position in his embrace. You close your eyes, too drowsy to say much. But you do want him to understand better what you had meant, so you pull your wits about you. “You’re putting words in my mouth again,” you say. “It’s never been bad. It’s just different.”

“Is that so,” Caleb comments, and despite how his voice sounds so far away, there’s still a tinge of melancholy to it.

“Yeah,” you murmur. You lean into him, hoping this will be enough; maybe it is, because Caleb wraps his other arm around you, your cradle against the elements.

The waves may be jerky, but the sun is gentle. Here at sea, it’s not as harsh as it had been on the sandy beach, the heat of sunlight tempered by the cool mist of the ocean. It grants some reprieve, feeling its gauzy caress on your skin. Coupled with the emanating warmth from Caleb, your mind drifts further and further away.

This is a lonesome world for two, and its sounds differ from the shoreline with its murmuring crowd and its sizzling food stands and the cry of vendors hawking chilled sugar hawthorns. Here, there is only the call of nature. Loud too, but a dissimilar world. It is waves crashing along the side of your pitifully small speedboat, the cries of seagulls circling overhead in a call to their flock, the wisps of wind that carry the salt bloom of the ocean, flick out a tongue and you’d taste it.

Everything blends into a harmonious hum, and you dip in and out of sleep, lulled to slumber by the rhythm of Caleb’s steady, deep breathing from next to you. The thrum of his beating heart.

Still alive, you repeat it to yourself like a mantra amidst the drowning sleep. Still alive, still alive, still alive.

Despite it all, still alive.

It’s worse than bad luck that leaves the both of you battling a storm in your little speedboat. You awake to the drumming of raindrops over your forehead. You fight to blink your eyes open, catching the shadowy figure of Caleb as he stares into the distance. Branches of lightning crack across the horizon in sharp fractals of light. The clouds converge in the background, an angry coagulation of dark grey. The sun is nowhere to be seen.

“Wow,” you breathe.

“Is your mind muddled from sleep?” Caleb says. “Your first time seeing a storm at sea, and your reaction is ‘wow’.”

“I wish I was still sleeping,” you say. “Then this would only be a dream.”

Unfortunately, this is not a dream. The reality of the situation sinks in as the storm nears your tiny vessel of a ship. The rain is coming down harsher now, prophesying disaster. Thunder explodes in your ears as lightning streaks in savage wounds of light, bleeding the grey-black of the sky into a brief white flash. You stare, mind far away from your body. Somehow, you’ve returned to the days when the sky split open and the clouds wept blood.

“Hey,” Caleb says as he returns to your side. He helps you into the life jacket before he’s put on his own, threading your arms through its sleeves. “Don’t let your thoughts wander there.”

“They’re not,” you say automatically. It’s been a while since you’ve feared thunder in the same way you had ‌as a child. But maybe that would be a lie. After all, hadn’t it only been months ago that you’d last shivered at the storm that raged outside of Caleb’s house in Skyhaven?

However, now is not the time to equivocate with yourself.

“Is it too late to turn the boat around?” you say morosely.

Caleb humours you. “If the answer’s yes, what should we do?”

You look down at the churning waters that are battering at the hull. “You can fly us to shore,” you say. “Just like a brave albatross.”

Caleb quirks a brow. “In this weather? Even fighter jets would get blown out of the sky.”

“Then we can swim back,” you say. “If you jump, I’ll jump too.”

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll carry you on my back and swim to shore.”

“My hero,” you say.

“Of course. Who is Caleb supposed to be if not your floatie?” He lets you have your moment of reprieve, but then it’s all serious business as Caleb heads to the boat’s helm to study the controls. You don’t understand any of it, but he must have seen something in the scanner; Caleb’s eyes light up as his fingers dance over the buttons.

“The storm hasn’t taken us so far off course. The nearest island is,” he glances at one panel, calculating, “about forty nautical miles from here. We just need to get the boat there, and we’ll be home-free.”

“Good,” you say. “Trying to swim a few dozen nautical miles may be a bit out of our scope.”

“Only a bit?” Caleb says as he enters a new destination into the control panel. “That’s putting it lightly.”

Before you can speak, the navigation system goes haywire, shrieking about interference in its steering control mechanisms. Serves you right for having any semblance of hope in making out of this relatively unscathed, because soon enough, the storm has descended upon you in a righteous fury, drowning out all other sounds. The autopilot has been abandoned for Caleb’s command—despite the fact that he has never driven a speedboat in good weather, let alone this raging tempest. “Not exactly the best time to learn!” you shout.

“Better me steering than the storm!”

He had a point. “Then I’ll leave myself in your very capable hands, Captain Xia!”

Caleb laughs, as though you’re not both caught amidst the destructive playground of a natural disaster. He loops your arms around his waist and keeps you close to him via his Evol. Says some stupid thing about pretending that this is all just hide-and-seek, “Close your eyes and count to ten,” he says. “By the time you finish counting, we’ll have catapulted out of this storm.”

“Is this really the best time to play games?”

“Maybe not,” Caleb says, “but it’ll sure make things interesting. Here we go, hold on tight!”

You clench your eyes shut and, even despite finding it frivolous, start counting down. The speedboat races through the water like a vicious bullet, the sea winds whipping your cheek so cold that your cheeks burn. There’s a strange hum that accompanies the rumble of the engine, proof that his Evol was also partly responsible for the impossible speed of the boat. You don’t have to open your eyes to know what to do; even without sight, you could feel him cloaking the surrounding air in a heavy energy, one that your Evol weaves into easily. The vessel leaps through the air before crashing onto the water, lurching before being steadied by Caleb’s Evol. You hold on to Caleb as he directs the boat through the turbulent waters. It’s as though some of his own thrill-seeking tendencies have rubbed off on you, because before long, you find yourself with delighted noises in the back of your throat whenever Caleb makes a showy turn to avoid the surging waves.

Soon enough, thanks to Caleb’s excellent captaining skills and a bit of Evol ingenuity, the speedboat finds itself on an unknown shore. The waves have calmed enough for the both of you to race past the worst of the storm, and you’ve never been so glad to see land.

Caleb busies himself with securing the ship to the dock while you tentatively make your disembarkation. When you step out of the boat, toes touching ground, your world pitches. Even though you haven’t moved, the earth shifts beneath your feet. Your initial thought is that it’s your sandals sinking into the sand, but that’s not it. You’re walking with no steps taken, tugged by an unseen force toward an unknown direction.

“Woah there,” Caleb says as he grabs you by the arm and hauls you up before you can fall flat on your face. “Careful. Got a bit of land sickness to you now?”

“I don’t even know what that means,” you heave out.

“You got too used to the motion of the waves,” Caleb says. He slings your arm around his neck so that you can lean onto him for support. You wobble as you take a step forward, but it’s as if you’re static while the Earth is rotating, like walking on a treadmill but the tread is the very ground itself.

“You'll walk it off,” Caleb promises. “It’ll pass.”

“How are you fine while I’m like this?” you grumble.

“Practice,” Caleb says. “Pilot, remember?”

“A pilot isn’t a sailor.”

“Air is its own medium. Fluids are fluids, and turbulence exists where there’s flow.”

“I guess,” you say. “Did you also go through this sort of thing while training in the Academy?”

“Sure,” Caleb says. “Spatial disorientation is common if you’re not careful. Gotta watch out for them so that you don’t do something stupid. Once, I pitched the nose of my plane down too quick; made me feel like I was tumbling backwards in the air instead of flying forward.”

“Sounds strange.”

“Mhm. Can’t trust your own senses sometimes, when you’re out there. That’s why we have instruments.” Caleb sets you down on the sand. “You okay to sit for a bit? Gonna look through the storage and see if there’s anything useful.”

You wave him off, “I’m fine, I’m fine, you do your thing,” and watch as Caleb darts in then out in an instant. He’s recovered the fanny pack—good foresight, as always, taking it with him before you boarded the speedboat—from which he tosses out a small flashlight and a folded map. It’s a good thing the map is laminated, because otherwise it would be entirely wet and likely of no help.

“Bad news. Your hat’s a goner,” he says. “It’s soaked through.”

“The greatest tragedy of all,” you say solemnly.

Caleb pats your head before turning to inspect what he’s recovered. You turn on the flashlight, waving the light over the map. You busy yourself with looking it over, trailing a finger along the topography.

The island you find yourselves stranded on hasn’t even been named beyond a standard title. Rock Island A188 is a small patch of land within the ocean, deserted of human activity. You sweep a critical gaze around the beach. Only vestiges remain: a sign here, a post there. Forest blankets its centre, ocean sweeps its shores. There’s a cave southwest of here, your only hope of shelter under this rain,and you tell this to Caleb knowing that, but…

You glance back at the forest, wary.

“Hm?” Caleb’s attention immediately hones in on you. He’s still organizing the pack that he’ll be taking, and he doesn’t look toward you, but you can tell by how your skin prickles. Pressure measured not in pascals, but by the almost-imperceptible touch of his Evol. You’ve your own radar to measure Caleb’s mind, which proves right because when you remain silent, Caleb rolls up a waterproof tarp with the kick of a foot and prompts, “Something wrong?”

Your mouth twists. “Just… What if there’s venomous snakes or scorpions here? Wouldn’t we be just delivering ourselves as takeout?”

Caleb looks up at the sky. “Still storms above. Won’t be ending anytime soon. We’re not safe if we stay here.”

“I know. But I can’t help but worry that we’re walking ourselves into a worse situation.”

Caleb tilts his head and smiles. He kneels next to you, deliberately leaning in.

“You shouldn’t be,” he says, voice low in amusement. The warmth of his breath brushes against your lips. “Even if we encounter the snakes and the scorpions, there’s no telling who’ll end up eating who.”

What’s all this about who eats who. You blink, confused. But before you can ask, Caleb has already offered you a hand. You lick the inside of your teeth, debating on digging deeper into the intention hidden behind his foreboding words, but you take his hand instead and let him pull you up. Mouth tingling from what’s been left unsaid.

Before long, the both of you are trekking through the forest. The cave is at the base of the cliffs toward the southwest, which isn’t long from where you had landed. Thankfully, the strange spinning sensation has since stopped, and you regain your usual bearings. The flashlight in Caleb’s hand pierces through the heavy dark of the night; he waves the light here and there, sweeping the area to illuminate the way forward. The rain drizzles, light but persistent, and the world has fallen to a hushed sleep beneath the canopy. Strain your ears, and what answers is the sibilance of raindrops as they slither through the blanketing leaves.

You follow along the lingering echoes of a beaten path, dirt flattened into a semi-tamed trail, which your feet are all too glad for. It leads from the east of the island toward the west, dipping downward into a declining fashion, and although your sandals hinder you in how careful you have to be during the descent—not for the first time since this (mis)adventure do you regret choosing appearances over practicality, never again—you make good progress. Enough for you to never be trailing too far behind Caleb, though you’re seventy percent sure it’s because he’s matching his pace to yours.

Caleb had initially offered to carry you, but you refused.

I’m not a kid that needs rescuing, you had said, to which Caleb replied, It’s not because I see you as a kid that I offered.

Regardless, you waved him off. His gaze was dark, but he assented to your wishes.

The two of you traverse the forest in mild conversation, occasionally playing the rescuer when you see stranded fish flopping down the muddy slopes. Like you and Caleb, they are also stragglers on this island, tossed from their proper habitats by the ocean storm.

It had only been a throwaway comment, a slight remorse to your voice as you had commented, I wonder if they can make it back to the ocean before the rain stops…

Do you want to help them? Caleb hadn’t even waited to hear your answer before his Evol worked its magic. Fish lined up along the cliff like baby birds taking their first flight; only a slight tilt of Caleb’s head had been enough to send them arcing through the air to land in the ocean below. It had been like watching a scripted play, a tragicomedy put on for your sole amusement. And the orchestrator of this debacle had only a look of satisfaction on his face when he saw your awe, as though it was reward enough for his heroic act.

You watch as Caleb directs another struggling fish home. Thoughts flicker past, but nothing concrete enough to give form to spoken words. You’re conflicted about what you should say. Whether you should engage in heavy-hearted colloquy or quip in light-hearted jest. So you say nothing at all, keeping your thoughts to yourself.

The rain plummets in a fine, incessant drizzle, leaving your skin slick with its cool whisper. It wouldn’t normally be an issue, but stay too long under this downpour and you’ll freeze to death. Already your muscles are twitching in shivers as your body struggles to keep itself warm.

“Hang on,” Caleb says, because of course he’s noticed. “Almost there.”

Finally, the both of you find your way to the cave that lies at the bottom of the cliff, and you sigh at how there’s finally a roof overhead. “This is nice.”

“It’ll be nicer once we head deeper in, where it’s warmer,” Caleb says. “Let’s rest here for now, though. Better ventilation to start a fire.”

Caleb whittles away at the wet branches he’s scavenged along the way and uses them as kindling. How he coaxes the sorry lot to ember, you don’t know. Maybe the same way that he coaxes you: tactics and expertise and a whole lot of patience.

Bigger pieces of wood are carefully added to the pile until there’s a pleasantly tame flame licking up at your outstretched hand. The two fish that Caleb collected as his toll fee for being a marine lifeguard are positioned just so to catch the licking heat. He’s already got them cleaned up and prepped long ago; you remember the slice of his knife as he gutted the fish near a river. The easy way he handles a blade. Clean and efficient, no movement wasted.

You curl up against your knees, staring into the writhing fire. Flickers of your adventure play out in front of you, shadows dancing along the cave wall. In the slight smoke, you make out a snake and a scorpion. They whirl around each other, but disappear when Caleb adds another piece of wood to the pile.

“The fish will be a while,” he says absentmindedly. “Won’t be too long though.”

Your ears catch the crackle from the cave’s entrance. In this hollowed-out space, sounds are reflected and magnified. The storm has returned with a vengeance, lightning bolts hurled across the horizon as though it knew two sinners had escaped their divine punishments. The roar of the ensuing thunder overwhelms the trembling pops of the fire.

“Do you ever get the feeling,” you say, “that whenever the two of us are together, it always storms?”

“Not really.”

“But it seems deliberate. Remember how Gran once told us that heaven’s punishment rained down as lightning strikes?”

“She said that to cheer you up. Thought you would be less scared if you saw lightning as something that punishes evildoers instead. You did love your superhero shows.” He shakes his head ruefully. “Not sure how much help it was, though, seeing as you only ducked deeper into your blankets afterward. Were you scared the lightning would go after misbehaving little girls?”

“A bit,” you recall. “I think I swiped an extra cookie from the pantry when she hadn’t been looking.”

“And you bullied me for mine,” Caleb says, “which meant you had a total of not one, not two, but three whole cookies that day.”

“Did I?” you say innocently.

Caleb chuckles as he turns the skewers of fish over the fire. Even without the fancy getup of his kitchen, Caleb is diligent in his cooking. “I don’t know,” he mimics. “Did you?”

You’re about to retort, From what I remember, you gave it to me of your own volition, Caleb, but the blinding strike of lightning outside the cave has you closing your mouth instead. You suck in a breath.

“Maybe it really is divine retribution.”

Caleb looks at you carefully. “Scared?”

You sniff. “You’re not?”

“If superstitions were real, I’d have been struck down long ago.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean.”

Caleb taps your nose. There’s a wry, helpless smile on his face. “What do you think, silly?”

Years and years of memories flit past you, blurred photos and muddy murmurs. Woven through them is the common denominator of your big brother’s long-suffering smile whenever you get your way at his expense—matching exactly the expression that Caleb is wearing now.

You duck your head down. “No comment.”

Said like you’re pleading not to self-incriminate yourself, and Caleb lets it go without a fuss. You put your hands to the fire, letting its warmth dance over your palms. In the periphery of your vision, lightning darts and needles through the clouds.

“But I mean, don’t you ever wonder?” you mumble. “If there’s any merit in what Gran said.”

“You’re thinking too much, little dummy,” Caleb says, ruffling your hair. “I can almost see the smoke coming out of your ears.”

“Whatever smoke you see is from the fire. Which you built, by the way.” Your voice turns testy. “Or is this a roundabout way of calling me stupid, Caleb Xia?”

“No,” Caleb says fondly. “Just that you’re forgetting the most important factor in all of this. Two actually.”

“Hm?”

“If it really is as you say, then you definitely have no need to worry.” Caleb holds up his index finger. “For one, lightning strikes the taller person first.”

There’s a gleam in his eyes that has your heart skipping a beat; whether out of fright or something else, you can’t say. Blood hammers at your temples, a call to instinct. You school your voice until it is an unwavering thing; smooth marble, even lines. “And? You’re just taking the opportunity to lord your height over me again.”

“Maybe. But also…” Caleb raps his knuckles on his right arm. It makes a dull thud. Then he taps the metal necklace that’s dangling over his chest, before holding up two fingers in the V of victory. “For two,” Caleb says, “lightning likes to find its way to metal. So when you’re next to me, the lightning will never touch you.”

You pore over the proposition he makes. Roll the words around. Syllables tumble together, sounds amplifying each other in resonance. Caleb in front of you. Rumble of thunder behind.

“And that’s okay with you?”

“Better me than you. Besides… if this is the price to be together with you, I’ll gladly take on the entire debt.”

“Leaving me to sit pretty on the sidelines,” you say, “watching you suffer.”

“Pretty indeed,” Caleb agrees. “You don’t sound happy about it.”

“I don’t know,” you say. “What do you think, Caleb, you dummy? Does anyone like to watch the people they love suffer? This kind of reasoning you have isn’t fair.”

“Is it unfair?” Caleb muses. “All things have their due.”

You can only sit there in silence, mulling over his answer. It doesn’t satisfy you. It leaves you with a hole in your chest, a dull ache where there used to be a seething fury. You hate that he keeps taking everything upon himself. That he keeps acting as your lightning rod. If he has to hurt, if he has to suffer, it should be at your behest. Not at the careless hand of a god who could never understand him.

No one else gets it. No one knows him like you do.

Your eyes catch on the spikes of shadows that dance over the cave wall, and once again, possibilities play out in front of you. If the brother you know is only smoke and mirrors, did that make him any less real in your memories? If the shadow puppet is the same silhouette, is there a difference? To close your eyes, to open them, what do you dare?

Caleb has always been blinding in how bright he shone. You thought him free of this stifling darkness that haunted you, but little did you know. You believed you had been standing in the light of the sun, and here Caleb is, telling you it had been a lie, a sleight of hand—

But the warmth had been real. This affection palpable.

You saw it. Tasted it in cut apples, smelled it in fresh laundry. Heard it in beats of fond cadence and felt it in the delicate strokes of a careful thumb against the wrist. His hands are capable of so much, but he reserved all of his tenderness for you. Caleb, Caleb, your lovely summer sun.

You want to half Caleb’s pain the same way you want to double it. Merciful, loving. Generous yet selfish.

You rub your bare shoulders; even with the roaring fire, you still feel chilled. The blouse and tank top and shorts may have served you well when it had been day, but at night, they provide little protection in the way of warmth.

Caleb notices, as he always does. He stands up from where he had been seated next to you and walks a little way off. Turns his back to you as he inspects the cave wall with an intense focus that borders on the peculiar.

“What are you looking at over there?” you call out. “Cave paintings?”

Caleb shakes his head. What he says next is an entire non sequitur: “You should take off your clothes first.”

You stare at him, bewildered. You debate it for a second, whether his brain has become waterlogged from being soaked through by the rain. Has he gone insane?

Bewilderment soon morphs into outrage. What the hell is he thinking? Really, is this the time and place for these kinds of things?

“Why not you first!” you say, indignant. If he were within range, you would definitely pinch him black and blue. “You take off your clothes first, Caleb Xia!”

“Huh?” Caleb sounds bewildered. Maybe that should have clued you in, but you only continued your rant.

“Why do I have to strip first?! That’s super unfair, isn’t it?” Then you shake your head fervently, mind unravelling at the twisted loop in logic you’re currently following. “Wait, it’s not a question of who goes first or second! That’s beside the point! What are you thinking of, you pervert?!”

Your voice bounces off of the cave, echoing around you, pervert, pervert, pervert.

Everything mutes, and at the end of your tirade, you’re left sitting there, looking down at your lap and picking at the end of your shorts. The awkward silence stretches on, never-ending. The only thing you hear is the sound of your own heavy breathing. A strange flutter settles in your stomach; you think you’re going to throw up.

“...Where did your mind veer to. I told you to take your clothes off because they’ve been soaked through by the rain. Wet clothes can’t keep you warm; you’ll catch a cold.” The exasperation in his voice makes you shift in guilt. Caleb stares up at the ceiling as if praying to be struck down. “Cover yourself with the waterproof tarp for now. The fire will help dry the clothes, so you can change back into them later.”

“...Oh.” Your voice is small. Left aghast at your presumptions—what on earth prompted you to go on such a rampage, you’ll never know—you can only pluck at the wet hem of your blouse.

Why did he have to make such a big deal about changing clothes, you think with a scowl. Of course you misunderstood; any sane person would! Especially with how he usually is! You’re not disappointed, not at all!

And does he need to stand all the way over there, as though you’ve suddenly contracted the plague?!

“Stupid Caleb,” you mutter to yourself. “The biggest idiot in the world.”

“Are you taking your clothes off or are you trying to hex me?”

“Both! I’m talented like that,” you grunt. “Stay where you are. Close your eyes too. And be quiet, you’re talking too much.”

“Okay, okay,” Caleb says. “Mouth zipped, eyes shut, understood. Caleb will stand here and say not a word.”

You peel off the wet clothes and kick off your sandals. Hurriedly grabbing the waterproof tarp that Caleb had left right next to you—on purpose, you understand now—you wrap yourself tight in it until only your eyes are peeking out. Without the wet clothes, there’s an itching heat that spreads through you, running ragged from your toes to your scalp.

You clear your throat. “Done. You can get back to it now.”

Caleb finally turns around. At seeing how you’ve cocooned yourself, he chuckles.

You’ve just about had it up to here with this guy. “No laughing!”

Another laugh. “Got it, got it.”

Caleb collects the clothes you’ve left scattered around the bundle you’ve made yourself, takes off his own shirt, then lays everything out to dry. Your eyes follow him the entire time, and he finally stops in front of you to pat the top of your head. “At least leave your nose out to breathe, little penguin.”

This close, he’s definitely within range. You stretch your arm out to knock him away with the back of your hand. “Can’t,” you say. “This is how I’m supposed to protect myself from the elements. How else can I make myself waterproof, windproof, and Caleb-proof all at the same time?”

But you’ve made a mistake. With the reach of your hand outside your cocoon, you’ve left yourself open. Caleb catches the tips of your fingers, a tinge of curiosity to the raise of his brow. “The look on your face… Are you afraid I’ll do something to you?”

“Um. It’s not that.”

You glance down. Suddenly, the bits of pebble scattered on the ground seem a lot more interesting than before. Goosebumps rise along your arm, and it’s not only from the cold. How to best explain yourself here? You were just… It’s just…

“If that’s not it, then is it that…” Caleb leans in close, voice pitched deeper and deeper with each word until it’s soft static. “...you’re hoping I might do something?”

You freeze. This shameless, arrogant, presumptuous guy! He’s purposely twisting the meaning of your words! The way he’s looking at you makes it feel like he’s about to pounce—on the words you said, okay, not whatever else!—so you say nothing. You try to wrest your hand away from him, but Caleb holds you firm, transferring his grip right down to your wrist, forcing your palm open so he can touch your hand to his cheek.

“Actually, now that I think about it…” Caleb’s eyes cut through you in sharp knowing. “…Staying here with you is also pretty good.”

You stare at him, mouth slightly agape, but it doesn’t deter Caleb. His lashes flutter as he speaks, and it’s like he already has everything planned out. Every scenario considered, every angle drawn. An engineer designing his magnum opus of a trap.

“It’s not as if other boats will pass by this island. The signal here is weak too. There won’t be anyone who can come and disturb us.”

You have nothing. You are nothing. You are subjugated to his rhythm, reeling in turbulence and scrabbling for anchor. All you have is the brush of his lips against your palm as he kisses it, the searing brand of his breath.

You were a fool. Forget the scorpions, forget the snakes; the real venomous creature is the one right in front of you, words dripping with sweet poison. His eyes swallow you whole—this is what it meant to be eaten.

“Would you like it too? Being alone together? Once the storm passes, we can ‌do anything we want. Dive during the day, chat during the evening”—and here his face morphs into a mischievous look—”and do some other things too, come the night.”

You take a deep breath. You try to speak, but nothing comes out.

“What is it?” Caleb says lightly. “You want to know what those other things entail?”

He’s being really, really unfair, you think sourly. You stubbornly shake your head, refusing to give in.

“Childish,” he says fondly.

You glare at him. Like you’re not.

“Maybe,” Caleb concedes. “I keep thinking about how I want to do things for you. How I should be picking the coconuts that would sate you. Catching the fish and crabs that would feed you.”

Yes, you should say. Yes, show me.

Somewhere along the way, your voice returns to you. Cracked, but yours nonetheless.

You blurt out the first thought that comes to your mind. You open your mouth and out comes: “Eating seafood all the time is going to get old real fast.”

All the honesty in Caleb’s confession is met with the volley of your own blunt reply. What may be the stupidest words ever spoken pass your lips without filter, but it’s this that has Caleb withdrawing. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Caleb only laughs, and your world rights itself. The tension melts away; the danger passes. Whatever other acts Caleb meant to do with you are put on the back burner as he returns to tending the fish that’s still being grilled over the fire, kneeling with his back to you.

You try not to let it bother you. You try not to be disappointed. You fail at both, and now you’re stuck almost entirely naked under a tarp that’s become too warm.

“True. Eating the same things repeatedly will get old,” he concedes. The flame diffuses a soft amber orange along his jawline, and you follow the dip of his spine along his back. The ripple of muscle when he shifts. “So, staying one night is enough.”

“—But you want more than just that.”

Caleb glances back at you. He waits.

There goes your mouth, once again incriminating itself. You wish you could slap yourself.

“More than the one,” you stammer. “Night, that is. More than the one night. That’s what I meant, you know what I mean.”

“I’ll always want more,” Caleb says. “Whether it's one night or a thousand nights, I want them all when it comes to you. So you shouldn’t mind it.”

The rain comes pouring down now, wind whistling past the cracks. Even though you had felt so invulnerable when you had come into this sheltered cave, you feel more exposed than ever. But despite all that you’ve said, despite the state you’ve left yourself—he must know that you’re wearing nothing except your underwear under the covers, for god’s sake—everything amounts to nothing, because Caleb remains where he is, kneeling as he pokes idly at the fire. Which is not even half as interesting as you, so you don’t know why he’s so focused on it. You worm yourself close to Caleb; quite literally, given that you have no use of your limbs right now.

Caleb hums. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re really not going to…” Your voice trails off, and you mumble around the most revealing part of the question, that one word hiding so many meanings in its one syllable. “…anything else?”

Caleb turns to face you. His eyes are dark, pupils blown. Predator, stalking after prey.

“Do you want me to?” he says pointedly.

“Uh,” you say.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Hm?”

You hem and haw, “Ah, I mean—it’s not—um—that is, you know—”

“Uh,” Caleb mimics, “ah, um.”

You bite your lip, frustrated with him and frustrated with yourself. “Caleb, you dummy.”

“Careful there,” Caleb says. He rubs an insistent thumb across your mouth. The callus feels rough against your soft lips, his touch leaving behind a numb tingle that spreads to the tip of your tongue. “You’re going to make yourself bleed like this.”

Is the problem that I’m bleeding, or is it the problem that you're not the one who caused it? Or is it that you’re not the one bleeding in my stead?

He slips his thumb past your mouth, parting your teeth. The fleshy pad catches on the sharp edge of a canine, and he digs hard, indenting his skin with the point of your tooth. You feel like an animal being inspected for cavities. By the time he pulls away, there’s a slick sheen on his skin from the coat of your saliva.

Caleb wipes his thumb over his own lips, tongue darting out to lick the wet tip that, only seconds prior, had been inside your open mouth.

You resist the urge to gnaw on your lips again. There is no sand here, but your mouth feels full of it. You loosen the hold of the tarp, preparing yourself, but you’re not sure what your next steps should be. Tackle him and wrap yourself around him, maybe.

To keep him warm, you tell yourself. Caleb isn’t wearing anything except his shorts, so he must be cold. It would be doing him a kindness, sharing body heat together.

However, before you can decide—to act or not act, that is the question—Caleb decides for you.

“There’s something silly going on in that strange little mind of yours again.” Caleb flicks you on your nose, ignoring your whine of protest. His hands roam to find the corners of the tarp, and before you can say anything to stop him, he ties them together, securing the trap of this tiny makeshift prison. “You’ll catch a cold if you don’t bundle up properly.”

You try to wiggle your way out of the blanket, but the knot refuses to budge. The more you try to get out, the more constrictive it gets. You’re trapped in a cocoon of warmth, forcibly swaddled like a newborn baby.

“Now listen here,” you begin.

Caleb performs a mock salute. “Listening, Captain.”

“You have to untie me.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Caleb emphasizes.

You scrunch your face up in petulance. “Don’t be so unreasonable, Caleb Xia.”

“I’m the one being unreasonable?”

“You were the one who started this.”

“What a boldfaced lie,” Caleb remarks with a smile.

“You were so eager before,” you say bitterly.

“Maybe I just like to see you troubled.”

“Come on,” you wheedle, “you know you want to untie me.”

“Not really,” Caleb says. “I much prefer you being restrained like this.”

He mentions it lightly, but underneath it, you hear the truth. If Caleb had his way, he truly would just keep you like this…

You swallow. Your mouth still feels dry. “This time, you can take what you want. I won’t stop you.”

“I’m well aware.”

“Why are you being so stubborn,” you say. “Why are you holding back.”

Caleb eyes you. “Who’s actually the one that’s holding back, I think we’re both in agreement.”

“You want me,” you say. “I know you do.”

“Not yet,” Caleb says. “Not here.”

“Why?” you breathe.

As if to answer your question, nature makes herself known in the draft that whooshes through the entrance of the cave and swirls around you. The fire cracks and bends, following along the trail of the wind like an afterthought. You shrivel back into the tarp, but even with his hair being ruffled by the breeze, Caleb looks unaffected.

“It’s too exposed here,” Caleb says. “You’ll be cold.”

“There are lots of ways to warm up.”

Caleb tosses a few more strips of wood into the fire. The flames eagerly slither around the fresh addition to the firepit, red-orange gnawing furiously at the new bark. “Like this one.”

“You… You’re an idiot.”

“Mhm. Caleb is annoying, Caleb is childish, Caleb is the biggest idiot in the entire world.” Caleb points to the roasted skewers of fish. They’ve come to a pleasant golden-brown scorch. “But Caleb didn’t catch these for nothing. You haven’t had dinner today. You should eat.”

You refuse to look at him.

Caleb says slowly, “Unless you want to be a little more clear in what you’re begging from me? I’ll reconsider then.”

“Who’s begging? Not me.”

“Sure you’re not. But if you want to have your way, you have to tell me exactly what it is you need from me. I won’t let you avoid taking responsibility. So, what will it be?” Caleb tilts your chin so that you’re faced to face him, rubbing the bottom of your jaw. “Dinner? Or…”

You’re acutely aware of your own nakedness beneath the cover, the friction of the heavy tarp against bare skin. It’s unfair, he’s unfair, and saliva is pooling in your mouth. You long for the pressure of biting on something to relieve this itch, but you’re uncertain of what you want to catch between your teeth. Your eyes glance down in an effort to escape his direct gaze.

“I’m hungry,” you say, which isn’t truly an answer.

“Of course you are,” Caleb says indulgently. “That’s why you need me to feed you.”

Caleb works his knife over the fish, feeding you bits of the filleted meat by the flat of his knife. Caleb is careful, never letting the sharp edge of the blade anywhere near your mouth. What he cuts from the fish, he blows on first before holding it out, like a parent cooling a spoonful of congee with their mouth before putting it to their kid’s mouth.

“There shouldn’t be any bones,” he says, “but you never know. Chew carefully, all right?”

“‘Kay.” Being on the island alone with him has made you complacent; where once you would have protested at this treatment, you now only open your mouth. You take a delicate mouthful of the fish, which melts when you chew. It’s hot, but thanks to Caleb, just cool enough that there’s no real bite to the heat.

You may be stranded on a deserted island, but Caleb still finds a way to pamper you. Spoil you with little luxuries. You’d say that he’ll raise you up to be a rotten individual, but you’d be lying. He raised you well, your brother. You can’t discount his efforts. Not when he’s always been so earnest about making sure you grew up well, tending to your needs like a devoted gardener toiling over his fickle hydrangeas.

Once the fish has been finished, your belly near full but not uncomfortably so, you rest yourself against Caleb’s shoulder. The fire is dying into a wisp, the stockpile of wood Caleb had collected now dwindled to a few sticks. You’ve been stuck in the same constricted position for the past hour, and your limbs are starting to numb. You wonder whether it will stay like that.

As though reading your mind, Caleb pushes himself to his feet and stretches his arms. “Your clothes are probably dry.”

“Should I change?”

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “Should you not?”

It may be a pointless endeavour, you want to say, but you only scowl.

“Give them here,” you say with no small amount of petulance, to which Caleb smiles but does nothing else except gather the clothes that have been laid out to dry.

“Untie me,” you say.

“You’re going to behave?”

“Do I have any other choice?”

“Of course. You could always be more honest—then we wouldn’t be in the stalemate that we are.”

“I’ve always been honest,” you lie.

“Then listen to me and be good,” Caleb says, giving a light tap to your nose. “Behave yourself. We’ve still ways to explore before we can rest properly.”

“And if I don’t want it to be proper?”

Caleb had expertly knotted you in, and now he expertly frees you of that same knot. Put out, you wiggle an arm out to grab a fistful of your clothes. “Turn around and close your eyes,” you demand. “You know the drill.”

Caleb raises his hands as though in surrender. He wanders away to a random spot in the cave and busies himself with looking at the blank cave wall there. You tentatively peel off the warm tarp. The chilled wind from outside the cave brushes past your bare skin, making you shiver. You hurry and put on your then-wet-now-dry top and shorts, remembering to secure the orange blouse over yourself—if you don’t, Caleb is liable to do it for you.

Once the final order of business has been accomplished, Caleb smothers the fire with nothing but the tilt of his head. The flame immediately withers, as though Caleb has somehow sucked away the surrounding air from the firepit.

“How did you do that?” you say, astonished.

It’s as though he’d taken an invisible hand and suffocated the fire at its throat.

“Magic,” Caleb says with a wink.

“You used your Evol again, didn’t you…”

“Maybe.”

Not much of an answer, but that’s not what’s important right now. Caleb secures his own shirt on his person, then slips the bag of supplies around him. The both of you trudge onward, seeking a safer, warmer place to rest. There’s a niggling frustration in the pit of your stomach, but there’s nothing to be done about it right now. Thoughts brew in your mind, plans erased as soon as they’re written.

Caleb leads the way, flashlight in hand, and you trail after him. It’s good this way; you don’t have the right mindset to play leader and follower. Upon encountering the soft glow of the vines framing an inner chamber of the cave, Caleb flings out the tarp to lay it on the ground.

You touch a hand to the illuminating blue of the vine that’s drooping over your shoulder. “Why here?”

The tendril shies away, glow dimming as it curls away from you. You try to chase after it with a grab of your hand, but it’s already retreated to clinging to the ceiling above.

“These little guys are special.” Caleb explains the origin of the vines. Fragile and weak, the only reason they survived the Chronorift Catastrophe was by hiding deep inside caves, away from the disaster and away from other living organisms. “If something as fragile as these have taken root here, it must mean it’s safe enough. That, and…”

Caleb kneels down beside the edge of the tarp, and you don’t realize what he’s staring at until you peer closer. “A dragonfly?”

Pale, translucent wings lay perpendicular over the long length of the insect’s body; its anatomy reminds you of vintage planes and their thin strips of paper-like wings. You’ve only seen those planes in their full-scale glory in museum exhibits; otherwise, they existed in miniature models hidden behind the glass displays of eclectic curio shops.

Dragonflies and airplanes, your childhood memories. Darting wings that always escaped your grasp. The echo of Caleb’s recitation. He had been a walking encyclopedia of entomology when he’d been younger. Dragonflies can fly at speeds of up to sixty kilometres per hour. They’re extremely vigilant creatures that only rest in places they consider safe. Even with that, their eyes are open when they’re sleeping.

Bet you I can also sleep with my eyes open, Caleb.

Bet you can’t.

Can too, stupid gege!

Definitely not, idiot meimei.

However, despite Caleb’s proximity to this ever-wary dragonfly, it doesn’t move. The wings don’t even so much as flutter.

“Is it sleeping?” you ask. “It’s so docile.”

Caleb extends a finger to the dragonfly. He holds himself still like a stone statue, not even a muscle twitching to disturb the illusion. He’s waiting for the dragonfly, you realize, so that it can climb his finger.

“It’s awake,” Caleb says with all the surety of an expert bug catcher. “It’s only staying still because it can’t fly. Its wings are probably wet.”

“There you go again,” you say, “dissecting the situation with just one glance. You must have rescued quite a few of them before, huh?”

The dragonfly crawls lazily onto his finger. Even though Caleb’s hands are so big, he’s gentle as he cradles it between his palms.

“Back at the old house,” he says conversationally as he sets aside the dragonfly on a dry protrusion of the rock wall, “after it rained, there would always be dragonflies resting by the pond, wings too wet to fly. To prevent them from being stepped on, I used to coax them into resting on branches.”

Caleb sits back down, patting the spot next to him. You scramble to reach him, but instead of plopping yourself next to him, you deposit yourself on his lap, laying your head right against his chest. Caleb chuckles, but wraps his arms around you and leaves you be. He’s warm against you, heat transmitted through the thin layers of clothing.

“Later on,” he continues, “the pond was drained to create a fountain park. The dragonflies disappeared, and this rescuer was forced into an early retirement.”

“A bit unfortunate,” you say. The past, as he recounts it, is hazy. It must have been one of those summers. The stormy kind, humid and hot and long. Moisture thick in the air. As a kid, you were always kept indoors when it rained, on account of your heart problems. Gran may have given in to a lot of your fussy demands, but she was insistent on matters related to your health. Caleb was never of any help either, taking your grandma’s side more often than not. You felt aggrieved during those moments, like the both of them were ganging up on you to keep you locked away.

Being kept inside for so long, your attention naturally wandered. You would sit at the window of your bedroom, staring blankly outside. People passed here, a blur in your memories. But the handful of times that you saw Caleb remains clear.

“Speaking of,” you say, “I think I saw you fighting someone by the pond back then…” The poor kid your brother had been dealing with had been strung up by his ankles, limbs flailing uselessly in the air. You couldn’t see Caleb’s face, but his arms were crossed in that familiar way you’d come to recognize as ‘disciplinary prefect Xia’. “You even hung a boy taller than you on a tree.”

Caleb knocks you on your forehead. “When it comes to me, how come you never remember anything good?”

“I wonder why,” you say. “But don’t dodge the subject. What was all that about?”

Caleb was a mild-mannered, well-behaved kid. He wouldn’t get into fights for no reason, let alone such a vicious one.

“There was this one time when I passed by that pond. I saw quite a few dragonflies near the water with their wings torn off.” He shrugs. “Just happened to meet up with the guy responsible for the misdeed, so I taught him a casual lesson.”

No wonder that person never showed up again.

“Just happened to. Casual.” You murmur, “You say it so dismissively. But I think…”

All the childish fears in your youth, Caleb had treated every one of them seriously. They were easy to ignore, easier to dismiss, a child scared of her own shadows. But Caleb reached for you through the darkness, and so everything turned out all right. Such a small gesture, but to you, it was everything. You give a firm, serious nod.

“...it wasn’t so small to those dragonflies. It meant something, Caleb. And today, with that ice cream cart and those fish and this dragonfly—even if it was with only the slightest movement of your hand, you changed the trajectories of their fate irrevocably. That isn’t nothing, Caleb.”

His hands find you through the illuminated hollow, fingers lacing between yours like crossing delta lines, like birds roosting home.

“And what about you?” he says.

You force yourself to still, your heart a thumping traitor.“What about me?”

Caleb nuzzles the back of your neck and laughs. Quiet and soft, but you feel it all the same. The edge to it, the scorn. His breath lands rough on your nape in sandpaper-like heat. “Whether or not my actions mean something, it depends on whether the one I want to protect really needs it, right? If they don’t, there’s no point. Nothing so important.”

“...Not necessarily,” you say. “You have to consider the situation.”

“Like what,” he whispers.

You lay your head against his chest, one ear finding the beat of his heart.

“Like… Maybe knowing that there’s a safety net to fall back on is what makes someone so fearless. That’s why they’re not afraid to try to cross that tightrope first, all by themselves.”

“Ah,” Caleb says, “I never knew there was such a poetic, refreshing explanation for why a troublemaker loves causing mischief.”

“It’s not causing mischief,” you say. “It’s called having fun.”

“At my expense,” Caleb says. You can’t deny it without straight up lying, so you cough to avoid answering. Caleb chuckles, and his hands trail along the bend of your knees, where his hips lay held between. Nails gently cut across the back of your calves before setting at your exposed heels. You’re reminded of the happenings early today, how his hand caressed your foot. You shift against him, trying not to move but failing miserably.

There it is again, that lump in your throat. You have words you mean to say, but they’re hard to push out. If you were serious about this, you would point to how you’ve loved Caleb your entire life but never knew what that love entailed. Never knew it could encompass so many of the sins, twined branches of envy, greed, wrath, pride. Every shade in between. You saw your brother, and you wanted him, but you never understood how deep it went. The mental barrier in your mind proved impenetrable—and would have remained that way, had it not been for him tearing it down. His own two hands, thumbs on your cheek as he told you, I want to build you a maze of a paradise, a cage in its centre with just enough space for two.

Caleb wrests your shoes from your feet, then tosses them away with a carelessness that’s unlike him. You know this without seeing, because you hear the thump of those sandals as they land in the distance. His thumbs rub along your soles, and the imprint of his touch leaves a slight tickle. You squirm against him, and he makes a sound in the back of his throat. There’s something nudging at the apex of your thigh, and experience lets you know exactly what it is. You expect him to escalate the situation, but the weight of his hand retreats, leaving you lost. You wrap your arms around Caleb’s neck, touch your cheek to the necklace dangling over his chest.

“You keep doing this,” you mutter. “Pushing then pulling away.”

“Look who’s talking.” Raising his voice higher, Caleb mocks, “You take off your clothes first, Caleb Xia!”

“Only because you phrased it weird!”

“Or,” Caleb says, his voice lower now, “it’s because your mind isn’t as clean as you think it is. This whole day, you’ve been glancing at me with those eyes.”

You pull back so that you can see his face. The intensity of his gaze sears in this dim light, shining with an odd swirl of colours as his purple irises reflect the blue glow of the crawling ivy.

“What eyes,” you bluster, “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Like you wanted me to act. Like you wanted me to cut myself loose. Even now, it’s so evident.”

Caleb touches the line of your mouth.

“You look so hungry. What am I supposed to do to sate you?” Caleb says. “What do you want?”

“I don’t know,” you say, a lump in your throat.

“Say it,” he says. “Tell me what you want. Give me your orders and I’ll follow them to the letter, no more, no less.”

You bury your face in his shoulder, tongue twisting in loops and riddles. Nothing comes out except strained half-sentences, “I just, I…”

Caleb gives a long-suffering sigh. He settles his hands on your hips, hovering and not yet touching, but somehow it’s still palpable. The possibility of it a sunburn. “It’s just like you,” he says, “to make me do everything.”

“Please.”

“You become so polite during these moments,” Caleb says, “with your quiet pleases and thank yous—but you’ll never say it directly."

Caleb slips one hand—finally, finally, the creature instincts of your mind crow as the logic circuits burn out—down the elastic waistband of your shorts, nimble fingers finding the slick spot of your underwear. You’ve been like this the entire day, caught between a frustrating dampness and an incessant heat.

“You want me to take,” he says, “so you can have your deniability. I become the terrible monster, and you the suffering princess. That’s not fair, is it?”

His knuckles brush against the fabric, catching on the swollen bud slightly above your wet folds. You whine like a wounded animal, grinding down in ‌search of that blessed friction.

“And you’ll call me a pervert for wanting this, protest and fight me tooth and nail every step of the way, even though you want it too,” Caleb says. “Isn’t that right?”

“Caleb,” you whisper.

This one word is enough for him to cave. Caleb parts your underwear aside and tests how you open for him, two fingers nudging to enter. Not enough, because he clicks his tongue and rubs his fingers around the slick that’s making a mess in your underwear, and then reprimands, “Being difficult again.”

“It’s not”—you sob when his fingers twist inside and scrape along the walls in cruel stimulation—”something I can help.”

“Be good,” he says, “and loosen up for me. You’re too tight. Gege can’t take care of you if you won’t let him.”

A frisson of desire coils through you, a draconian appetite. You open your jaw wide and bite down on his shoulder in retaliation. Caleb hisses as his body jerks beneath you, but doesn’t relent in the thrust of his fingers as he pushes them deeper inside you. He’s really got you speared on him now, your hips undulating as you ride his hand. But he doesn’t pass the opportunity to attack you elsewhere too, pushing his other hand up your top. Your top stretches out to accommodate his hand, leaving the pressure of the contact a full flush. He palms around the weight of your breast and squeezes. “This is mine.”

“Yours,” you rasp.

The gripping pressure of his hand over your chest sends tingles down your stomach, shot right to the throbbing bud that craves friction. You pulse around his finger in response, clenching around his fingers even tighter.

“You picked this outfit on purpose to tempt me, didn’t you,” Caleb says darkly. “Your little waist showing in that top—who did you want to show off to?”

The heel of his palm rocks against your clit. Tears prickle at the corners of your eyes. The saliva that’s pooled in your mouth has started to leak out with the lock of your teeth on his neck, drool wetting his shirt. “No one,” you mumble, “no one except you.”

“Of course,” Caleb says. “That’s how it should be, and that’s how it should stay. Do you understand?”

“Hah, yes, I—” You whimper when he pinches the tip of your nipple. You’re fully stretched out now, not a conscious thought except more, more, you’re so close and you need just a little bit more. Your nails dig into his forearm as you grab onto him for dear life, chanting his name like a mantra.

“Caleb,” you say. “More.”

Your plea is met with cruelty. His fingers retreat from your body, leaving you breathless at the horrible emptiness. You pulse around nothing, your underwear soaked through and sticky against your skin. “Take off your clothes,” Caleb says roughly. “And this time, it’s exactly what you think it means.”

You follow his orders clumsily, fingers scrabbling against the slippery material of your blouse and top as you yank them off. Your shorts are a little more difficult, having to peel yourself off of Caleb to take them off, but you do it in record time. Caleb divests himself of his own clothes, so by the time your attention refocuses on him, he’s already got his cock out, the tip of it weeping drops of pearlescent fluid that coats along the length of him as he works his hand in deep, harsh strokes. It’s as big as ever, proportional to the rest of him but disproportional compared to you, and your jaw aches remembering how you’d tried to take him in your mouth before but could only fit a little over half before gagging and drooling all over his cock. Still managed to fit him though, much to your satisfaction, when you had all but goaded him into grabbing your head and fucking himself furiously into your throat.

Remembering the scrunched, almost pained expression on his reddened face when he coated your face with spurts of his come, how he groaned when you opened your mouth with your tongue out to catch whatever you can, it made you eager for a repeat performance. However, when you try to reach for him, he grabs you by the wrist.

“No,” he says. Before you can even say anything, he surges and twines your bodies together until you’re pinned beneath, legs wrapped around him and heels dug into the small of his back. Caleb takes a ragged inhale as he nudges the head of his cock against your fluttering hole. “You have to say it.”

“Caleb.”

“Be honest,” he says, and his voice cracks above you like the shatter of skylight glass. “Tell me the truth.”

Your mouth is stubborn in its silence, so he leans down to kiss you instead. His tongue brushes over yours, the rub of it a strange sting but lovely in its own way. The tension in his body vibrates with the tenseness of a predator about to spring, and you anticipate it. When Caleb breaks off from your mouth and leans back to sit on his knees, you arch your body as though to follow. Caleb grabs one of your legs and hoists it above his shoulder, splitting you even wider.

“Look at you. You may be saying nothing, but this little thing here”—he rubs his cock against your drooling slit, the sloppy sounds making your face flush—“is spilling everything. It knows what it wants.”

“Mean,” you accuse. If you could, you’d be tugging on his hair right now. “You’re being mean!”

“This isn’t even as bad as I can get. You want to know something?”

There’s almost a laugh to his breathless voice as he nudges his cock to your clit, working himself into a frenzy without even being inside you. You jolt at the contact, a high-pitched whine clawing out of your throat. The body flinches, but the mind wants.

“It’s not daylight anymore, and there’s no one around. So I can tell you this now,” Caleb says. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you in that tiny top, those little shorts. You joked about showing yourself off and I wanted to fuck you into the floor with my cock. Just the thought of you prancing with your bare waist out for anyone to see—it made me want to fuck you in front of everyone to show them who gets to make you cry. Show them who it is that knows your body best, could coax an orgasm from you any way you like. Anytime, anywhere, your choice or not.”

You flush more and more the longer he speaks, heat spreading through your body like you’re being boiled from the inside out. “Pervert!”

“You’re right. I am a pervert. Because when we were on that sidewalk, while I was kneeling to help you out of your shoes, I fantasized about fucking the tight gap between the heel of your foot and your sandal. I thought about it for a long, long while after: getting your pretty little foot slick and wet with my pre-cum; sliding my cock under that delicate arch; painting your heel white with my release. And here’s the real kicker of it all: it wouldn’t have mattered if it’s daylight or night, if there’s a crowd or no-one at all—I would have done it either way.”

The words rush out, and at the end of his confession, he sounds winded. Like you’ve somehow squeezed all the air from his lungs, caved in his chest until he’s made crumpled by negative pressure. Caleb takes a deep inhale, a shake dreamy edge to his voice. “Isn’t it sick of me? Isn’t it terrible? But I don’t care. If you had asked for it, I would have shoved my shorts to pull my cock out in the next second, ready for you to use.”

You can’t stand this. You don’t know how to take all this in, how to accept this unwieldy devotion, and you’re keening and kicking out, but Caleb’s tight grip on your thighs refuses to let you escape. You’re at the brink, almost tipped over into the manic insanity of his dark eyes.

“Admit it,” Caleb says hoarsely. “Be a good girl. Tell what I need to hear and I’ll never leave you wanting.”

When he scraps his cock against you with a stuttering thrust of his hips and almost—almost—slides the tip of his cock inside you, you break.

“I knew! I knew,” you choke out. “I saw the way you looked at me and I wanted you too. My mind keeps going back to that moment, and I thought about this the entire day. The way your eyes followed me—how could I not have known?”

“There we go,” Caleb breathes as he sinks himself slowly inside you, feeding you his cock inch by inch. “Good girl.”

Bullied into confessing what you wished to say but never could, you thrash out. He’s an unbearable size, and that’s on a good day. The burn of him makes you wince, but the thought of telling him to stop doesn’t even cross your mind.

Usually, he would have forced you to come at least three times before being able to accept that he can fuck the consciousness from you, but there’s no such mental gymnastics today. Instead, he’s already shoved himself into you, words a muted murmur as he pets your hair. In so deep that you feel bloated with him, as though he’s somehow filled your stomach too. You hiccup when he presses your legs down with an unkind pressure, locking your ankles over your shoulders and practically folding you in half. With the lower half of your body tucked up so far, if you were even slightly less flexible than you are now, you would have been snapped in half.

And he’s merciless in every sense of the word, the assault of his hips vehement and brutal. Each time he digs into you, he pushes right against your vulnerable spots.

“Hey—hey!” you yelp. “Slow down! Gonna break me—hah, did you not hear me?!”

“I did. But what’s the point in wailing so loudly?” Caleb says fondly. He touches the corner of your eyes where tears threaten to spill, thumb digging into skin. “You know I’m not going to listen.”

“Bully! Meanie!” you hiss, syllables exhaled through gritted teeth. “Caleb is so hateful!”

As though in punishment, Caleb bears down on you. The smack of skin on skin echoes in the cave, and the tarp has turned tacky with the sheen of sweat that’s collected over your skin. Through your yowling accusations, Caleb remains kneeling over you, driving into you with a raw urgency that translates into your body being shaken like a rattle. You glance down at the slight bulge over your mound as you struggle to wrap around his cock, the sight both worrying and titillating. You try to speak but only manage to wheeze out tremulous, startled gasps. “Can’t, can’t!”

“You’ve taken me in so well before,” Caleb coaxes. “What’s so different about this time?”

“Wasn’t being bent in half like a snapped ruler before!” Your voice warbles as Caleb’s hand creeps down to find your clit, which pulses unbearably at his touch. “This position—oh!—makes you feel even deeper than usual, so lay off it already, my legs are cramping up!”

“I’ll massage them after,” Caleb says, the corner of his mouth curling up. “I’ve become very good at it, thanks to you. But you’re already aware of this, aren’t you? After all, you were the one who trained me so well.”

You choose not to debase yourself with an answer, knowing he’s right; all those times you kept complaining about your sore body after training, it was solely so he would realize that you wanted to be spoiled. Which he caught on, and so massaged your ankles and calves every single time, but never exposed you—until now. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to brace yourself as Caleb moans and thrusts into you harder, his hips denting into the back of your legs. However, Caleb proves a relentless torrent. His desire is savage and wild; worse than any storm.

“You complain so much, but even when you say it’s too deep,” Caleb says appreciatively, “you’re still swallowing me just fine, aren’t you?

“You say that, but—hah—it’s not like that at all!”

Caleb nips the delicate underside of your jaw, worrying your skin between his mouth. When you keen, his laughter reverberates against your skin, a condescending amusement; for once, the fun is being had at your expense. Your head spins. Your vision blurs. You try to blink through the tears that wet your lashes, but the world slants, refracts, bifurcates. You can’t make sense of up from down, right from wrong and man from brother, and oh, there he is, your ruination and salvation both.

“You can handle it. You’ll get used to it.” Caleb lays the palm of his hand against your throat, a deliberate contact. The pressure is barely there, without strength nor insistence, but you become lightheaded anyway. Gasping for air. You are surrounded wholly by the dark, echoing amusement of Caleb’s observation as he murmurs, “You're not breaking, pretty girl—you’re being broken in.”

As you pant, saliva collects in your mouth; it pools over your tongue and drips down your chin. Caleb kisses the slick trail of it from the corner of your lips to your jaw, licking your spit from your skin like he’d die if he couldn’t lap it all up. When you grab onto his necklace and pull, Caleb laughs again. His next thrust into you is as disciplined as it is mean, clean yet gutting. The tip of his cock scrapes against the deepest part of you, creating a strange numbness that has your mind scrambling to right itself.

“In the future, shall we do it more like this?” he muses. “Get you used to it. Maybe then you won’t act so difficult.”

As if you’re at fault for his ways. Somehow, through the thick air, you find your voice. “Do I even have a choice in all this?”

“Don’t misunderstand,” Caleb says. “It’s always been your call.”

“It doesn’t feel that way,” you say. “You only have to glance in my direction for my body to light up. A few seconds of touch, and you muddied my thoughts the entire day.”

“It wasn’t just you. It’s never been just you,” Caleb says. “Whenever you get that hungry look in your eyes, I always want to feed you. Put something of myself in you, so that I can keep you full of me.”

True to his word, he’s giving everything to you now. You’re being split open, forced to accept all of him. His hands find yours through this dim dark, prying open your fists so he can slip his fingers in between yours. The pleasure rises to a crescendo, every inch of your skin scrubbed raw. This is it. The peak of the ascent. Everything beyond is the drop, the homecoming.

“Whatever you want, whatever you need—only I can give you everything,” Caleb says tightly. True to his words, he knows what you seek—always knows it, because he raised you up with his own two hands—and circles your clit with the flat of his thumb, taking advantage of how stimulating that bundle of nerves never fails in making you sing. Your legs spread wider and your back arches up, seeking pressure. You find it in the harsh drive of his cock as you cry out, “C-Coming!”

“Mhm,” Caleb agrees amicably. “You sure are, honey.”

You would laugh if it isn’t impossible to do so. Scowl if your body isn’t currently being wrung out for all it’s worth. The rhythm of your heart is a dull thud at your temples, and the blue illumination of the vines above winks in and out of your consciousness. Caught in the throes of your orgasm, you pulsate around Caleb and grip onto him like a vice. He hasn’t yet found his own completion, self-denying ascetic that he is, so you purposely clench yourself as hard as you can around the severe size of him. Just to seal the deal, you also sink your teeth into his shoulder, hard enough that you’ll surely leave some nicely demarcated crescents there come the morrow. It’s clumsy, childish, but it’s just what he needs. The vein at his jaw pops as he tries to hold himself back, but it’s a lost cause. Caleb hisses, forced to his own orgasm by your little trick. “You—!”

“Come and join the club, honey,” you breathe. “It’s nice here.”

Caleb grunts. “Petty.”

“Generous,” you correct smugly. Caleb throbs inside you, the warmth of his release streaking and puddling inside you, peculiar but not unwelcome, no, far from it. You sigh in contentment, revelling in the spill of it. Another secret to keep.

When Caleb makes to slide out, you dig your ankles into his back to prevent him from leaving.

“Stay,” you say.

“It’s messy,” Caleb says.

“Doesn’t matter,” you say. “It’s what I want.”

“And I have to listen?”

“Naturally.”

“You issue the order,” he says, “and Caleb will obey.”

Said with a lighthearted tone, but read a little deeper and it’ll leave you aching. You say nothing, hugging ‌Caleb instead, and are met with a chuckle. Found out, once again.

The night falls silent. but you feel the tense strain of Caleb’s body as his arm stretches for something to the side of the tarp. There’s the rustle of clothes as he rifles through the pile, then the zip of a bag opening.

Eventually, something damp touches the side of your face. A wet wipe, you realize. Caleb’s foresight comes in handy once again. He rubs at your face with the wipe, and then cleans up the rest of you with another. The cloth trails past your arm, your elbow, until it’s rubbing at the tips of your fingers. Everywhere else is taken care of too with a diligence that’s astounding, especially compared to how exhausted you feel after the entire ordeal.

There’s no suggestion to his touch, either. Even though you can feel how his cock is slowly but surely stiffening once again, Caleb doesn’t ask for anything more. You don’t say much on the matter either; you’ve come to realize that the pampering aftercare he enjoys slathering on you likely benefits him more than you. If he doesn’t make sure you’re okay, he’ll be agitated and restless the entire night, wrestling with his own (in your opinion, idiotic) thoughts. He will ruthlessly analyze each and every one of his touches, whether he’s stayed his hand enough, whether he’s been too rough. Whether he’s given up enough to be forgiven.

After Caleb is done cleaning you up, he grabs the edge of the tarp and rolls the both of you in it, like you were a pair of fried dough sticks wrapped together by a crepe. “Snug as a bug in a rug,” you quip.

“You remember.” He sounds pleased.

It had been one of his favourite things to say to you as kids, whether you got scared of the monsters under the bed and ran to his room for comfort. He would wrap you up in his blanket, the both of you swaddled together. There, he would say, snug as a bug in a rug.

That makes no sense! Why would a bug be snug in a rug?

Dunno, but you seem plenty snug to me.

Ge, are you calling me a bug?!

There you go again, making trouble on purpose. You know that’s not what I mean.

Hmph.

Don’t pout like that. Come here, hug your gege and go to sleep.

There’s an innocence to this, the repetition of creature comforts all these years later.

You cling onto Caleb now, just like you had all those years again. But it doesn’t escape your notice that he’s hard inside you again. You tighten around him as an experiment, and the only tell you receive is the slight twitch of Caleb’s body. He doesn’t mention it, doesn’t touch you either, and you know he will willingly suffer through the night if you keep silent.

You want to meet his needs. But you’re also very, very tired. Your eyelids are already drooping, the hazy drowsiness of sleep threatening to overwhelm you. So you say to Caleb, “I’m too tired to stay awake the entire night, Caleb.”

“I know.” He kisses your forehead. “Go to sleep.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“If you want to do something while I’m asleep,” you offer, “I won’t mind.”

In this night, under the roof of this old cave, the silence stretches on. “Don’t be silly,” Caleb sighs. “Where do you get these ridiculous ideas from?”

“I’m being serious!”

“You won’t get anything out of it. Don’t make me seem so small-minded.” Caleb shakes his head. “What would be the point of doing it while you’re asleep?”

“It’s not about me. It’s for you to, uh, you know,” you say. “Be more comfortable.”

“I’m plenty comfortable like this.”

Liar, you think sourly. As if his cock hadn’t wagged inside you when you gave him the go-ahead. “I’m just saying,” you say. “Maybe it’s less exciting when I’m asleep”—he did like to make you cry in bed, this shameless hypocrite—”but it might feel good for you.”

“It’s not about me,” Caleb says. “If you’re not awake, there’s no point.”

There he goes again. Somehow, you should have expected this.

“You’re an idiot.”

“What about you then?” Caleb’s voice dips low. He hugs you to his chest and asks, “‘If you want to do something,’ you said—what was it you thought I would want to do?”

“Nevermind then!” you bluster. Serves you right for trying to do anything nice for this guy. “See if I’ll be so considerate to you in the future!”

“Shh, don’t be mad,” Caleb soothes, running a gentle hand along your bare back.“I’m sorry.”

Nine times out of ten, Caleb apologizes first. Even if it’s (mostly) not his fault, he gives in quick. You soften—and he knew this about you, that you would respond this way, you’re sure.

“I just want to let you know,” you explain, “that you’re cherished and loved.”

“How is giving me permission to take advantage of you while you’re asleep going to do that? What a strange way of letting me know.”

You pause, thinking of how to reply to Caleb’s question. Because then you’ll know, you think. You’ll understand the lengths I’ll go to let you have what you want from me.

You change the subject. “Then how would you go about showing someone that they’re loved, Caleb?”

Caleb says very, very quietly, “I’d stay with her, clean after her, make sure she never goes hungry. I would cradle her face in my palms. Then put a belled collar around her throat so that she can never stray too far from me.”

It’s hard to forget about Caleb’s twisted psyche, and you’re more familiar with his moods than he was before; even so, every time you are confronted by it, you remain surprised. You mull over Caleb’s honest words, what they mean.

If you want me to know you love me, Caleb is all but begging, put a leash around me and hold me in your arms. Never let me go.

“To be held,” you say. “To be owned. Is that love?”

“Not to you,” Caleb says, “because you’ve always been loved.” The words are ragged at the edges, a tinge of resentment to his voice as it echoes in the cave. “So you can’t understand it.”

Once again, he is underestimating you. You have learned the taste of abandonment; how to live without the sun. “But you’ve always been loved too, Caleb.”

“Have I?” Caleb says bitterly. “Despite being so different from the gege you remember?”

What a gloomy bastard your Caleb is. Without the sunlight that is your constant reassurance, he’s sure to wilt away. And yet, you remain so, so fond. You curl up in his embrace, putting an ear to his chest and listening to the rhythm of him. His heart rate speeds up, then slows down. It’s like seeing a rollercoaster in action, the start and finish and loops in between. Powered by your touch.

You touch the necklace on Caleb’s chest. Naked as the both of you are, he’s still kept it on. He wears it like a badge of honour, you think, like a display of ownership.

“Isn’t this proof enough?” you ask. “Haven’t I already collared you, Caleb?”

“Even so… Knowing what you know now, do you regret it?”

“What I feel behind these ribs,” you say softly, that unstable heartbeat crying the answer to his question in silent, frantic prayer, “won’t go away. Who you were before, who you are now—it didn’t matter before, and it won’t matter now. I’ve tried to put you down, but I’ve never been able to do it. So even if you’ve become less—or more—of who you’ve been before, I’ll still feel the same.”

Caleb says nothing, but he stares down at you with the crazed desperation of a man who’s never seen the light. The cave is damp with the humidity of a thunderstorm, and even despite the cozy warmth of the tarp, the thrumming heat of Caleb inside you, static glides across your mouth in anticipation. If he kisses you now, if he has you again, he’d feel it—and you wish he would.

You want him, as you’ve always wanted him as a child and as you’ve learned to want in an entirely different way. But it’s all the same. It’s still that age-old rooted feeling in your chest, twisted and twined around your heart.

“What do you want from me?” Caleb asks. “What will it take?”

When you were a kid, you had a certain bad habit.

Whenever you were offered an apple, you consumed it whole. Chewed it right to the core, and then some. You would crunch the pips between your teeth, chasing the crackle of seed skin splitting open and the flooding taste of bitter cyanide. Caleb always had to pry your mouth open and hook out the broken leftover seeds from your cheeks and your tongue and the back of your throat, looming over you with a dark look on his face. His severe scoldings never seemed to deter you; it wasn’t until Caleb took it upon himself to cut the apples you ate, during which he would remove the seeded core, that the habit faded.

You confess: it was not the texture that you longed for, nor was it the taste. It was no inward property of the apple seeds themselves that made them so addictive. No, it was the pointed fury of Caleb’s focus, the glare of his eyes crushing you. The weight of his attention, oppressing the air so thoroughly that it was hard to breathe, let alone flee.

You remember the fish and the dragonfly and the ice cream cart. Just a few words from you had been enough for Caleb to turn his hand and warp fate’s trajectory.

I would do anything, he means. Be anyone.

There is power in this. Power in how you affect him, power beyond the resonance that allowed you to partake in his Evol. Influence can be its own weapon.

Others would take pleasure in this, and you do too; you are weak like anyone else.

But you also feel unsure at the implications. Being the sole reason for Caleb’s motivation is as exhilarating as it is frightening. Power is not what you seek. What you seek is far more simple, far more foolish.

“Love me,” you say.

“I do,” Caleb says. “I will.”

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(You are a ten-year-old boy, and it is Sunday morning. The air smells of fresh rain and damp petrichor, vestiges of misty drizzle that plagued all of yesterday. Despite it being so early, you are at the nearby pond. It is a stone’s throw away from the house you have learned to call a home, and you are in the midst of stringing up a neighbourhood boy by the hem of his pants. Hung atop the tallest tree you could find by the grab of your Evol, he is yowling and crying, his face a horrible splotchy red as he screams for help.

You’re not particularly inclined to give it.

The boy had not considered anything close to mercy when you’d caught him ripping off those wings. Had considered nothing of the sort, not even euthanizing the poor creatures so as to minimize their suffering. The paper-thin translucent wings had still been fluttering when that boy tore them from the dragonflies—like his own flailing limbs when hung upside down by gravity and left to dangle from a tree.

You would have put those dragonflies out of their misery first. You knew the importance of mercy-killing. But then again, you wouldn’t have been in this situation to begin with. You took no pleasure from another creature’s pain; only an odd curiosity, perhaps, at how others can be so easily affected by pain.

You are good at tolerating pain. Very good.

The boy is blubbering even more now, teardrops rolling down his cheeks fast and hard. Snot bubbles from his nose, dripping and smearing over his mouth.

You lean against one of the trees dotting along the pond, observing. It would be so easy, you think. A snap of your fingers and he would plummet like a rock. What bone, you wonder, would crash first upon impact? If fate is kind, he would have his neck snapped in half first. A clean break.

You turn your hand over and again, staring at your knuckles, your palm, then back again. Compare the merits of mercy against murder. Whether it’s worth it to spare the life of so foolish a boy.

You snap your fingers.

The boy drops like a rock from the tree, screaming so loud his voice echoes on the wind. You click your tongue, annoyed at how loud he’s being; every household in the area will be awakened by this idiot’s inane wailing at this rate, yours included. Just before the boy is about to be mashed paste on the ground, the physics of the world twist. Air molecules reflect a shining red-blue as gravitational acceleration shifts, and the boy catches on the new vector like a feather in the breeze. You wave your hand, flinging the boy onto his back near the muddy shore of the pond.

You approach him quietly, the heels of your sneakers leaving no prints in the wet earth. Come noon, all traces of your presence here will evaporate. If the boy goes around talking, no one will believe him. Each step you take is deliberate and slow.

“Stop crying,” you say.

The boy must have heard the finality to the threat in your voice, because he immediately sniffles so hard that he starts coughing. He’s not crying now, but the hacking isn’t much better. You sigh, closing one of your hands into a fist. His mouth slams shut, teeth clacking together. Red blooms between his lips as he shouts a muffled warning; must have bitten his tongue. There’s bob to his throat as you press down on the windpipe with your Evol. No handprint-shaped bruises, no proof that you’ve been here.

“No more noise,” you warn. You squeeze a little tighter, and the boy’s face turns an ugly purple-red this time. “Either you quiet down or I’ll make you quiet. Your choice.”

He gestures wildly, which satisfies you. Enough to let go, at any rate. You squat down, eye-to-eye with this boy who is supposed to loom over you in both height and age.

You have faced scarier.

You have become worse.

You drape your arms over your knees, not particularly inclined to smile. There’s little point in putting on a play when there’s no audience involved. “You do this again,” you say darkly, “and I’ll hang you from the top of Linkon Tower next time. Got it?”

This time, the boy doesn’t nod. But he does turn tail and flee.

You watch blandly as the boy, two heads taller than you, four years your senior, scrambles away from you like a beaten dog, hands grasping at earth, fingers sinking in mud. The tall grass of the swaying river reeds bends as it slices across his clothes. In his hurry, something drops from his pockets.

A glass bottle rolls across the earth, coming to an eventual stop at your sneakers. You kneel, taking stock of the situation. Within the clear glass, there’s a buzz of activity. Wings twitch as you pick up the glass bottle, and when you unscrew the cap, the dragonflies inside rush for their chance at flight, shoving past each other as though freedom is in short supply.

One dragonfly, seemingly braver than its brethren, hovers in the air before landing between the knuckles of your hand. You don’t know whether to applaud its daring or scoff at its foolishness. The dragonfly continues to climb around the back of your hand until it’s circled around. You lay your palm flat so it can rest there, the dragonfly a light tickle against your skin, but the moment will be gone too soon. Already, its wings twitch and rub against each other in preparation to take flight, and in the next few seconds, you must decide.

To keep or not keep. Use your Evol or not at all. It won’t take much; just a slight bend in gravity, and these wings will become too heavy to lift and touch the sky. You could do exactly what that boy did, but less messy. Better.

The pale, see-through wings flit together, and you consider it, your Evol inching closer to the dragonfly —when you sense it. The weight of familiar eyes. The shift in air pressure. A fullness to your ears, like your eardrums are bulging out.

The decision is simple. There is no hesitation. In a split second, you turn around.

In the distance, a girl stands between the cream-coloured gauze curtains of her bedroom. They flutter from the summer breeze, enclosing her tiny body between them like a photo frame. She looks at you through the window, her pigtails awry. Must have tried to do them herself this morning, and looks to have failed miserably. She tugs ‌the hair bands from her braids, shaking her hair free before grabbing a chunk of strands and waving it around. Mouths something that’s hard to make out, and it takes you a few tries to understand. Help—me—ge!

You nod, and she grins in response. She darts from the window, presumably rushing downstairs so she can lunge at you in greeting when you come back, you muse fondly.

And by the time you turn your attention back to the glass bottle, it’s too late. The dragonflies have long flown off, leaving you with empty hands. Nothing to hold.

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You see her in flight once. Through the haze of Deepspace, in what could have been prophecy or hallucination, your younger sister’s hair was shorn short, pale brown strands flying in the wind. It confused you. Has her hair always been so light? Could she always weave through the sky like that? Fragments of metal assemble into mechanical wings at the back of her body, a spiked halo of carbon steel. She pierces through space like a fighter jet on the hunt, her missiles a shroud of blades.

Past the fog, she appears in front of you and opens her palm, offering you a crackle of silver that shone through the oppressive dark. You reached—not for the light, but for her face instead. Despite it, comes away short.

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Love me, she says, and it’s as if she’s cracked your heart wide open only to sew it right back together.

When she rubs herself against your body, deliberate and cruel, you grab onto her hips and end the game right there. Already, she’s breaking into another yawn. If you have a taste of her again, you fear she won’t be seeing any sleep tonight.

She gripes about your reticence, because of course she does. She’s used to having her way, and you’re used to giving in. But you’ve been imprisoning yourself for years and years; one night isn’t enough to shatter that lock. Soon enough, she’s snoring against you, arms and legs wrapped around you too lightly for your tastes. You wish she would squeeze you close, crush you to her.

Despite how she hugs onto you when she’s awake, despite all her insistence on keeping you inside her for the night, she still tries to turn over when she’s asleep. She makes a long, drawn-out moan of complaint as she flails out. You almost slip out. The contact is maddening. Her offer keeps echoing between your ears, if you want to do something while I’m asleep, I won’t mind, but you shouldn’t, you can’t—yet your mind wanders because she’s warm, she’s willing, why can’t you? Would yours be so terrible a touch?

You cage her in with your arms, holding her tight to prevent her from escaping. She squirms, difficult as always whenever she’s denied her desires, but you’re determined to keep her close. You can have this much, right?

You think of it, sometimes. Those wings on that girl. Your little sister’s face, staring back at you through the dark. A shining beacon, silver and bright but diaphanous nonetheless. Gossamer tendrils of smoke. How wretched you were in comparison, how shattered.

You touch a careful hand to the face of the woman in your arms now, and feel an age-old aching creak in the reinforced metal joints of your arm. Could have wept at the flutter of her lashes, how they quivered like dragonfly wings, delicate.)

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The next morning, Caleb finds equipment in the speedboat and proposes an impromptu paragliding lesson. You were apprehensive, but agreed; contrary to your initial beliefs, the end of the paragliding did not end up with the two of you drowning in the ocean.

Instead, the two of you crashed through the clouds and landed right on the beach of Cloudia Island. The entire journey from the shores of Azurie to Cloudia had routed through a storm and a deserted island, had taken a speedboat and a paraglider, but you have somehow arrived at your original destination. Two days late, but there nonetheless.

You realize: Cloudia Island is, at its core, a tourist trap.

Music blares loud cheerful jingles from the PA speakers with the occasional blast of the theme song from Ta-ta’s Perfect Vacation. Souvenir shops of outrageous prices line the streets, cardboard cutouts of Ta-ta and friends greeting you ‌every ten steps. The food is prohibitively expensive, which means you and Caleb make a game of seeing who can slap their card down the fastest. You win one to Caleb’s five, with the sneaking suspicion later that he gave in to make you happy, slowed his hand just enough so that he can see you crow and dance around him.

Sun sets sooner than you expect, time unwinding faster and faster the closer it gets to nightfall. Red dyes the sea like diffusing clots of blood, a strange warp to the reflection of the waters. You weave through the dispersing crowds, your arm looped in his. This whole day, you’ve pulled Caleb here and there to your heart’s content, dragged him by the tips of his fingers then, when the swell of the crowd became too much, twined your fingers with his; Caleb lets you (because what was he supposed to do, deny you? Yeah right, you’d like to see him try), but always pulled you back so that he could push the cold lip of a full bottle to your lips, be it water or electrolyte drink or soda.

The music soon changes from the cheerful beat of cartoon shows into the hushed crooning of love songs. Speckled across the sky are grey dots of birds circling overhead. The wind ghosts over your neck, reminding you of that refreshing breeze in the embrace of the open skies above glittering seas. When you pass by a small stall currently closing its shutters, you tug Caleb’s arm.

Caleb looks down at you. He hasn’t even caught glimpse of the sight you wanted to show him, yet he smiles. “Hm?”

You point at the gaudy neon sign above the shop. Love Takes Flight: A Paragliding Adventure for Two.

“So,” you say, hand on your hip, chin raised in faux consternation, “where’s your tandem paragliding license, Mr. Hotshot?”

Calen ruffles your hair, ignoring your huff of protest as you try to smack his hand away. “We’ll have to make it back to our hotel for me to show you.”

You tidy the messy, blown-out strands of your bangs. “Liar.”

Caleb’s eyes curve into gentle crescents. “How do you figure?”

“When we make it back to the hotel, you’ll then say that you left it back at the old house,” you list. “And when we head to the old house, it’ll be in Skyhaven instead. I’ll go with you to Skyhaven, only to discover that oh, how unfortunate, you lost it in my apartment.”

“If that’s the case,” Caleb says, “would you let me inside so I can search for it?”

You bump your elbow against his side. Caleb makes an exaggerated wince, which has you rolling your eyes. “If you’re good,” you say.

Caleb has the audacity to wink at you. Winks! “No promises.”

You try to kick him with the tip of your shoe, but he dodges you easily, and soon the two of you are play-fighting near the end of the pier, making nuisances of yourselves for the few beach-goers that are trying to pass by. After the nth dirty look being shot your way as you bump into yet another straggler to get away from Caleb and his roaming hands, which are on the hunt for your most ticklish spots, you take the pose of a proper adult and clear your throat.

“Stop playing around, Caleb. Don’t be so childish.”

“Look who’s talking.”

You stick out your tongue. “Not me!”

“Mhm,” Caleb says. “Sure.”

While you dust yourself off to collect yourself, Caleb looks to the distant horizon where the sun has started to melt into the ocean. He stares for a while, as if his mind has been caught in roiling waves.

“Something wrong?” you prompt.

“Nothing,” Caleb says. “Shall we go?”

You don’t fight him on the lie. The two of you make your way from the dock, and Caleb seems distracted. Retreated into his thoughts. Before you know it, he’s meandered ahead of you. You walk a little faster to keep up, but it’s the same result.

It’s strange. Since his return, the distance between you keeps swelling and lulling in wave function. Sometimes, he’s closer than he’s ever been; other times, he’s pulled so far away.

And now, you struggle to keep up without breaking into a run.

You stare at his broad back, a quiet despair at how he’s left you behind again. Your brother has always been at least one step ahead, ever-so-slightly out of reach. Stretch your arms out, and your fingertips will only brush up against the hem of his shirt.

Not this time, you decide. If Caleb retreats, you’ll advance. You break into a slight sprint before jumping onto his back with a sudden shout, locking your arms around Caleb’s neck. He topples slightly, but recovers quickly enough to steady himself.

“Hey there,” Caleb murmurs. Like he’d always done as your older brother, he lifts you slightly on his back as he readjusts your position. “What’s with the sudden attack?”

In lieu of an answer, you lean your head on his shoulder and touch his neck. Caleb swallows, the bob of his throat rising beneath your fingertips. You deliberately hook your fingers around the silver chain of that apple necklace, the metal links that connect him to you through the spanning sky from Skyhaven to Linkon, and pull it taut.

“How was your night yesterday?” you ask. “Did you sleep well after I fell asleep?”

Caleb makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Well enough,” he says. “Why do you ask?”

“Someone,” you say, “and I’m not naming any names here, because I’m a nice person, likes to go at everything alone. You could even say that they’re just like me in that aspect.”

Caleb walks on without looking back. You blow hot air against his ear just to make him startle.

“Okay, okay,” Caleb says. You can hear the smile in his voice. “I was having trouble sleeping in the beginning.”

“Because of me?”

“Who else?”

You whisper into his ear, “That’s why you should have taken me up on my offer, Caleb.”

“Silly,” Caleb says. Based on the exasperation in his voice that edged toward scolding, if his hands were free from holding you up on his back, he’d probably rap your forehead and ask you, Is what’s in here only empty air? “That’s not it.”

Oh. You pout. “Then what was it?”

“I just… kept thinking back to that storm. How, even though we were surrounded by danger, I found myself wishing that the storm would last for a little while longer.”

“Thrill-seeker,” you say. “Storm-chaser.”

“You’re wrong,” Caleb says, his voice low. “You were wrong then, and you’re wrong now. It wasn't adrenaline that I wanted to chase.”

“Then… what was it?”

Caleb slows his steps, but he never falters. He looks back at you, the line of his face touched by a bleeding, dying sun. You’ve found him good-looking before, but that had been an objective observation. It’s a different kind of handsome that strikes you now. A shaking, breathless kind. A whirlwind of butterflies in your stomach.

“You,” Caleb says. “How you found it silly but counted to ten anyways. How you closed your eyes and held onto me so tightly. I felt your resonance and I found myself wanting more. And you say I would chase storms, but I’ve never liked them. They’re disasters for a reason, dangerous and uncertain, and whenever I’m caught in one, they always make me feel like they can’t be predicted or controlled, tossing me aside with no rhyme or reason. But when I was with you…”

You lay your head against his back. The torrent of words flooding from a man who’d been tickle-fighting with you only moments prior is a strange thing to reconcile, but you think you can understand.

“Isn’t it funny,” Caleb says. His gaze is fixed on the dark lilac sky. The road ahead. He won’t glance at you because vulnerability frightens him; you know this, like how you know he will say these words but refuse to look into your eyes. “I’d once thought to myself, promised myself… That the storms you’ll encounter in the future shouldn’t exist in this world. That I’d shield you from them. Listen to me now. Isn’t Caleb just the biggest hypocrite in the world?”

“You are," you say. The air smells of earthy salt and descending night. “But rather than focusing on that one, I’d call you inconsiderate instead.” You put on a play for him, sighing with all the seriousness of a disappointed teacher. “Thinking these kinds of thoughts, wishing for the storm to last longer—then our vacation really would have been completely ruined! How can that be allowed. Definitely not.”

“Well, regardless of what I wished,” Caleb says, “we’re here now.”

“True,” you concede. “But you know something? Even when we got here, the stuff they had was the same as what you would find anywhere else, including the Azurie Islands. Even the specialty snacks they had weren’t anything original. It made me appreciate the cave we explored last night, so it’s not as if the storm was all that bad.”

“Then we’ll find a more unique place next time,” Caleb says. “One that’s safer.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s dangerous,” you say. “I’m not scared. Whether it’s storms or snakes or scorpions or secrets… I can brave them all, as long as you’re with me.”

“But maybe you should be scared,” Caleb says, voice low. “Who knows. Maybe those secrets will frighten you.”

“That’s for me to decide,” you say. “And if you don’t tell me anything, how would I know?”

“You’re that curious?” There’s a pause to his steps, a tilt to his head. He appraises you like you’re a code to be decrypted, eyes brushing over your lips as though he couldn’t understand how those words came from your mouth.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I weren’t,” you say. “Just think of it as telling me a bedtime story every night. I expect you to prepare one for tonight, in fact.”

“Yes, Colonel,” Caleb says, amused. “But you better not complain if there’s too many.”

“Depends. How many secrets do you have?”

“So many,” Caleb says. “So, so many.”

“I can be appeased,” you say. “It’s simple, really.”

“Oh?”

The ending is anticlimactic. Fifteen minutes later finds you at the ice cream cart, which had been just about to close. You made it by the skin of your teeth, though Caleb had done most of the legwork, literally. It’s a tepid affair, one scoop and one spoon and no toppings, no sprinkles.

You lick the ice cream off the spoon, letting the lemon flavour settle itself at the tip of your tongue, acerbic and tart. More sour than sweet; Caleb would enjoy it more.

“You wanna try?” you ask Caleb. “I think you’ll like it.”

As Caleb opens his mouth to answer, you choose to forgo civility. You shove a spoonful of the lemon ice cream straight into his mouth, laughing at the noises of protest he makes. It doesn’t even occur to you to find another spoon, that you’ve already touched your mouth to it. You’ve grown up sharing a bed, huddled together under the same blankets; sharing a spoon is nothing in comparison. He’s fed you from his chopsticks and coaxed you to drink water from his glass so many times, it’s just second nature.

When you pull the spoon away from him, finally letting up, Caleb hums.

“Sweet,” he says.

You tilt your head. “But it’s sour?”

“You’re always sweet,” he says and then dips his head to touch his mouth at the corner of your lips. There’s a whip of heat as his tongue licks the smudge of ice cream there, and even when he withdraws, your face still blazes like you’ve started to rash.

“Caleb!”

Caleb doesn’t dodge your punch, taking it with a triumphant smile, but after he lets you have your way, he hoists you up so you’re nestled in his arm, the weight of your body seeming as easy as a feather. “You understand now, right?” he whispers, his forehead gently knocking against yours.

You do. You ache with it.

Raw longing scrapes against the inside of your cheeks, but you show none of it. How Caleb has managed to live with this for what may be two-thirds of his life—how long, how long, you want to ask—you don’t know.

You throw on a pout and pinch his cheeks, voice only slightly cracking as you reprimand him. “Caleb, you sly dog.”

“Yours.”

“Duh,” you say matter-of-factly. “Whose else would you be?”

Caleb looks at you with the question reflected in his eyes.

You know what Caleb wants from you, and you want him to have it. You want to give it to him, because you understand. Because you are the same. So you touch the back of Caleb’s hand, and you say, “Yes. Yours, too.”