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Sometimes Caleb was desperate, other times he wanted to tear Sylus's heart out. Why? Why did he of all people have half of her soul? Why? Did it tear him apart too? Did he feel her absence as much as Caleb did? Was it worse? Caleb couldn't care less. He wanted to possess him, destroy him. So there wasn't a speck left.. but then, then she would be gone too. Her half would be gone… no. He couldn't. How could he think like that…
I'm weak… I'm weak again.
The elevator dinged open, suffocating him with leather and gunpowder, mixed with something softer.. something that Caleb didn't want to think about. A lived-in penthouse that felt like its owner was thousands of years old. Sylus had always been on this earth. His presence was something timeless. Something that would never leave.
Caleb... You absolute idiot.
He judged though he had no right, he came and went like it was his house too. Who was he to notice this place’s smell, its atmosphere, or its owner? He was no better. He smelled like gunpowder too. Like something neither alive nor dead. Like the fleet’s corridors he still had to wander every single day. Like colleagues he abhorred to be in the vicinity of.
Who are you…? Who are you…?
“Oh? What do I owe the honor to?"
Caleb didn't bother answering. He never answered any of Sylus's questions. He was either silent or screaming.
He invited himself over for the third time this week and sat on the leather couch as if he belonged. As if he could ever belong. Sylus always said the same thing. Always looked at him in the same way.
What do I owe the honor to?
As if it could ever be an honor to be in Caleb's presence. He didn't feel like it was. He could only act his role of the Colonel now. There, he belonged. There, he was revered, he was feared, hated, admired. All of these things he could handle. But losing her and visiting Sylus were the void he had fallen into. The void that was proving itself to be more dangerous than the deepspace tunnel. The void that had caused him even more nightmares.
He hadn't accepted death then, and he wasn't going to accept it now.
He looked at Sylus, lazily tinkering with a blueprint, looking just as serene as every time. Or maybe it was Caleb that was out of it and hard of common sense every time he was here.
He looked for a while and Sylus let him, he could never look past his facade and it infuriated him. Why couldn't he tell what Sylus's thoughts were? Did he not deserve even that…
What the hell am I even thinking again…
It must've been the half of her soul in him that made Caleb feel this way. Nothing else could explain why he was still here. And as for why Sylus kept letting him, why a few months ago he found a package in front of his door containing a pass for his private elevator and a card with his name on it… he couldn't think about that, lest he made himself sick with the hypothesis.
Caleb didn't drink alcohol and Sylus seemed to know that little detail that no one except her knew and it ticked him off. Not enough for him to mention but tonight… Perhaps tonight was the exception.
“Again?" Caleb looked up at Sylus as he handed him a mocktail he had personally made while Caleb drifted off into his own mind and failed to pay attention.
"Again what, little bird?”
Caleb grimaced. It was maddening. The composure, the tone. The way his voice reverberated inside this endless space. This enclosed vicinity that Caleb chose to inhabit. It wasn't like the fleet's corridors, nor Linkon city. It was worse… far worse than any predator's den.
Your voice is like music. I'd like to listen to it forever. He'd told her once. It sounded so silly, too silly for him to say but he thought now… Sylus's voice was the opposite. He didn't want to listen. He didn't want to be here.
He accepted the mocktail and took a sip.
Leave, leave, leave… you… should… leave.
He stayed the night.
He showered in Sylus’s bathroom, used his shampoo and body wash, he helped himself to his towels and clothes, and… like every time, he went back to the uncomfortable leather couch, to the dimly lit room that felt suffocating and like the only time he was able to breathe during his days and just… sat down again. Now he didn't smell like the fleet, like colleagues he despised, like desperation and the undead. Now, he just smelled timeless. Untouchable. Nothing could reach him here. Not one thing that could tear down his defenses at least.
Closing his eyes was a luxury he could allow himself to have while he was here.
At some point Sylus had returned from somewhere again, he could feel him even with his eyes closed, even when he purposely made no noise as he walked. Caleb was sure he did that on purpose, just didn't think too deeply about it because he'd noticed. He knew Sylus was heavier than he looked. It was senseless for someone like that to have a silent step.
He felt him sit beside him, he took up so much space. More in Caleb's mind than physically. He was everywhere all at once. It was a test, a game of tolerance.
“Well? What is it today?” Sylus drawled. He already knew and still dared to ask. “Proximity and silence? Or…”
His voice faded out. The voice that Caleb hated to hear, the voice he'd come over countless of times to listen to.
“You knew I was coming,"
“I always know,"
How? Maybe Caleb wanted to ask, maybe he didn't. He ended up not speaking because disguising questions as answers was a hobby for another day. Even with all his intel, all his talent in staying informed, Caleb still couldn't shadow Sylus the way Sylus shadowed him. It made him furious. He felt Sylus whisper closer and he let him because he didn't have to answer at all.
Proximity and silence or distance and chaos. It was clear which one he'd chosen tonight.
“Always so tense,"
Now Sylus's voice was close enough to ricochet inside Caleb's mind. To fill every crevice, each empty space and maybe even the whole void that he'd been carrying ever since her death. It didn't last for long… or at least that's what Caleb liked to believe, otherwise he'd have no explanation for why he kept returning if it wasn't to feel a presence usually long gone.
He stayed silent as Sylus drew closer, he kept his eyes closed and his lips parted. It was like he could visualize his every move. His cherry-wine eyes looking at his face, his hand closer, even the look in those same eyes. When his hands touched him, he was unaware why, when he saw that look, he didn't know what it meant so he preferred to only imagine instead of see. He exhaled slowly, letting Sylus's eyes wander, his hands move, and let himself feel the movement.
Because what other reason would there be for it except that Sylus too, just like him, thought that sometimes he felt just like her?