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Despite the rage that churned within him like a tempest - the anger that had fueled his pilgrimage to Mauville Hills - Caleb sucked in a breath.[break][break]
His name, in that voice. Twin sapphires glittering in the low light, eyes that would forever haunt his dreams. Midnight hair falling across a perfectly sculpted brow. That lithe, gracefully muscular body barely covered by a thin robe, its lustrous fabric cascading over the contours of shoulder and hip so very irresistibly.[break][break]
Caleb, in contrast, knew he must look ragged - hair a little bit longer, stubble along his cheeks, skin adorned with new scars. He was dressed in dark jeans, a simple jacket, a sweatshirt to ward off the bite of Autumn's oncoming chill. He stared back at the man who'd made his life a living hell for months and for a moment, saw only the beautiful courier who'd dared claim for himself a king.[break][break]
Ignoring the barred teeth and cocky banter, Caleb roughly shouldered his way inside, slamming the door shut behind him and grabbing the front of Barnaby's robe in one smooth motion. Fist full of silk, he violently pinned Barnaby to the nearest wall, kicking at the Ninetails uncharacteristically harshly, caring little for her wellbeing as he shooed her away.[break][break]
"Took you long enough to notice," he growled, voice low and thick with need - the promise of retribution coursing through his veins. "Death seems to follow me wherever I go."

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Caleb met Barnaby's gaze, held it, allowed it to burn right through him. His heart pounded, adrenaline coursing through his veins, freshly healed wounds twinging and aching as he regarded the man who'd hurt him. Something clawed at his chest, threatened to rip him open from the inside-out.[break][break]
Was it sentiment? Was that really it?[break][break]
Caleb leaned in, using the weight of his taller body to further pin Barnaby to the wall, then pressed his mouth to the other man's ear. He eagerly drank in the familiar scents of lavender and sandalwood like a man dying of thirst, the effect intoxicating.[break][break]
"I came here to blackmail you," he murmured truthfully. "I know your identity, Admin." He hissed the title like a curse. "And I know the identities of your co-conspirators, the others who tortured me."[break][break]
A calloused hand snaked up, letting silken fabric fall in favor of wrapping fingers around a delicate neck, the skin smooth and supple as he applied a light pressure. He marvelled at the fact that he'd been chained like a dog by this man mere weeks ago, and yet now, like this, it would be so easy to break him.[break][break]
"I will take your names straight to dahlia goode, tell her everything I know, get you arrested for life."[break][break]

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Caleb shivered - involuntarily - all too familiar with the tantalizing feel of BARNABY FINCH's lips teasing his flesh: always, the promise of something more, something deliberately withheld.[break][break]
He's not the one in charge here, Caleb reminded himself. Not anymore.[break][break]
His grip around Barnaby's neck tightened further; Caleb could feel the steady beating of the other man's heart through the tips of his fingers.[break][break]
He knew the Ninetails was supposed to be a threat, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Caleb had been ready to die back in his hellscape of a Sootopolis prison cell, he was more than willing to call Barnaby's bluff.[break][break]
"It's simple. I know who you are. I know who jayden cross is. I obviously know my brother's identity." He paused, blue eyes the color of a raging sea boring into Barnaby with unbridled intensity. "I have a report prepared. If I don't arrive at the Slateport Ranger Headquarters by end of day tomorrow, there are several Pokemon at the ready to deliver copies - physical and digital - of said report to my superiors in various locations. Teleportation, flight, you name it. I have ways of disseminating the information to the right people."[break][break]
And if somehow, all of that failed, he had faith in Isaac Merlo to avenge him.[break][break]
"So think carefully about whether or not you want to crush this gnat."[break][break]
With his free hand, he lightly stroked Barnaby's cheek in a mocking replica of the false affection shown to him during his many interrogations.

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They were different enough, in truth. Barnaby's public persona was blond and flippant, his Rocket identity as dark as his ebony hair. Rarely would anyone have the privilege to know both well enough to draw the right conclusions, discover the man beneath the two masks, but Caleb was a unique case: he'd pined for the real thing for twenty long years displaced from time.[break][break]
"Your name," Caleb drawled, undeterred by the anger that batted his hand aside, that glared sapphire daggers at him. "Is Barnaby Finch."[break][break]
There was a fire in Caleb's stomach now, burning and burning, and it had nothing to do with revenge. A bittersweet longing clawed its way through him, and like a drug, ensnared him with the intoxicating promise of finally feeling vindicated - that what they'd shared in that memory of Galar had, in fact, happened.[break][break]
"And though I should not want you, should not be here, I cannot stay away from you."[break][break]
With that, Caleb leaned in and kissed Barnaby with the hungry fervor of a man who had been in withdrawal for far too long, and had finally reached his breaking point.[break][break]
As all addicts eventually do.[break][break]

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For a blissful, impassioned moment, it was like they were back in Galar - desire untainted by faction conflict, the similarly-shared void in their hearts made whole again by the presence of the other. Vindication, sweet like honeyed mead, poured into the kiss, and Caleb allowed himself to drink freely of it - no matter the intoxication that was sure to follow.[break][break]
He flinched back at the sharp, metallic taste of blood. Barnaby's bite had not been that of a lover's mark, but made in protest - the pushing against Caleb's chest the other indication of the Rocket Admin's displeasure. Dark blue eyes flashed with anger - and a desperate longing, so needy for more. He did not budge; if anything, his hold on Barnaby tightened.[break][break]
"You don't know?" Caleb laughed, ignoring the pain of his freshly bloodied lip.[break][break]
His other hand - not the one pinning Barnaby to the wall - clawed at Barnaby's thigh, just close enough to tease through the satin fabric. He could no longer suppress the insatiable hunger he felt for the other man; too many times did Barnaby have his way with Caleb only to deny him the one thing he truly wanted - the thing they'd shared over and over in another lifetime, in a bed Caleb had come to think of as theirs.[break][break]
"I want you. All of you." He leaned in once more, voice dropping to a low whisper as he smirked against Barnaby's neck. The hand on Barnaby's thigh crept closer. "And I know a part of you wants me to take it - and you hate that, don't you? Because you do remember."

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I want you. All of you.

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It was easy. Easy to close his eyes, easy to drink in the intoxicating scents of lavender and sandalwood as Barnaby pressed himself closer, easy to believe this wasn't a Mauville penthouse but the Motostoke tower within which he'd spent twenty years of another life.[break][break]
It was easy, but that didn't make it real.[break][break]
He almost balked. But Caleb had never known intimacy that wasn't laced with violence, threaded with manipulation, guided by cruel intentions. His own brother had sold him to the highest bidder, after a lifetime of protection and pandering, because Caleb had dared to stand up for himself. Abuse was tightly woven into the tapestry of Caleb's existence, so insidiously he hardly noticed it.[break][break]
So when Barnaby put on the face of the spectral rider, the mysterious courier that had stolen Caleb's heart in Galar, Caleb chose to believe the act. He ignored the small voice in the back of his mind warning that if he stayed - if he took what he wanted - he would be damning himself to a hell worse than anything he'd endured in Barnaby's basement prison. He turned away from self-preservation and embraced the lie that was BARNABY FINCH.[break][break]
Because the truth was, deep down, there lingered within Caleb a quiet, desperate longing, even still, to be ruined.[break][break]
Caleb snarled, hand moving to grip Barnaby's chin and tilt his head up as he pressed their mouths together. He kissed the other man so intensely it was as if he intended to devour him.[break][break]
"Call me king if you wish," he muttered, biting down - hard - on Barnaby's neck. "I don't care." Hands pushed Barnaby against the wall once more, groping along his torso. "What you will do is obey me."[break][break]
He kicked one of Barnaby's shins with a booted toe, none too gently.[break][break]
"Get on your knees."

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Caleb groaned, hand curling into Barnaby's midnight hair none-to-gently as hot breath murmured against his jeans. All of a sudden, they were entirely too tight for comfort, an unnecessary and constrictive barrier between an eager mouth and his pleasure.[break][break]
He gazed down, meeting sapphire with cobalt, and a shiver passed through him. His entire body ached for Barnaby, hungered for him like a starving man, and he didn't care that it was a reenactment of some long-lost love affair. He didn't care because he could see the lust in Barnaby's eyes as plain as his hatred, and Caleb could not help but revel in the fact that he was, in fact, wanted.[break][break]
"Do you remember my first night of capture?" Caleb inquired, voice low and thick with need. "What you had me do?"[break][break]
With his other hand, he unzipped his jeans, releasing some of the pressure. He pressed Barnaby's face into the open seam, smooth cheek meeting hard flesh, grip on the back of the other man's head tightening with a greedy urgency.[break][break]
"That's what I want."[break][break]
Now it was Barnaby's turn to taste his own humiliation, to drink from the fountain of Caleb's retribution.

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