True to his word, he showed up on her lunch break the next day, and, as he predicted, he wasn't able to stay for the entirety of it. She was disappointed, yes, but she wasn't angry with him. He had to work, and he had kept his promise. A promise that had been sealed with several unforgettable kisses and turned the peaceful garden of her dreams into a blazing inferno where she could indulge in her fantasies.

He could only stay for fifteen minutes, and that was long enough for her to determine that reality was much better than her dreams.

He was pliant under her hands, allowing her to push him up against the outside wall of the Soulfood Shack. In the beginning, he let her have control of the kiss, accepting whatever she was willing to give and responding to her in kind. She took an obscene amount of pleasure in making him groan into her mouth. There was something about the fact that she was the one responsible for those noises that excited her beyond comparison and encouraged her to continue her actions.

And for a while she did, happy to memorize the feel of him and learn what made him tick, until he caught her off guard with the way he moaned 'Princess' like he was having a religious experience. It made her stop cold with her lips hovering just millimeters from his and her fingertips lingering just under the hem of his shirt.

He took full advantage of her surprise and used it to switch their positions. Pliant, but not submissive. It brought a smile to her face. She should've known that he wouldn't let her do that forever.

His lips were soft, and that made it easy to forget about the unforgiving wall at her back. The previous night she learned he was an absolutely masterful kisser. Every caress of his tongue, every brush of his lips, and every nip of his teeth seemed designed to bring her the most gratification possible.

This was different, but it was no less enjoyable. His intention seemed to be making the most of the time he had with her, if the way he was trying to devour her was any indication. She was hoping that he had a rougher side, but this was downright animalistic. He kissed her with almost bruising force, and she reveled in it, giving as good as she got in return. It was a give and take. Fighting fire with fire.

Caliban's favorite method of fighting, it seemed, was in the form of placing kisses along her jaw and down her neck. He had indulged in this a little the previous evening, but she hadn't known that he would enjoy it this much. It was intended for her enjoyment, yes, but he seemed to be taking as much pleasure in the little bites he was leaving on her skin as she was, which, somehow, made it an even more satisfying experience for Sabrina.

Her fingers slid into his hair before curling into a fist and tugging.

A groan slipped past his lips, "Fuck, Princess."

She whimpered in response, not even knowing that was a sound she was capable of making. It was so needy and desperate, and she just couldn't help herself. Caliban who, despite being an outrageous flirt, had been nothing but a gentleman, had, or seemed to have, a dirty mouth. She wondered what other words were in the more vulgar aspect of his vocabulary. That was something she could figure out at a later date because what she wanted most, at the moment, was just to have his lips back on hers.

"Kiss me," she said, in a voice so breathy and quiet that she wasn't even sure that he had heard it.

But the bites faded away into gentle kisses, and she could feel the warmth of his uneven breath on her neck start to slow back down into its natural, steady rhythm. Only then did she realize that her heart was beating in a similar unsteady pattern. They spent a few moments just like that. Breathing, feeling, living, before he eventually pulled back to look her in the eyes.

His eyes were wide, his breath still slightly shaky, his hair slightly tousled from her fingers twisting into it, and there was a smear of her cherry-red lipstick across his bottom lip. She had no idea what she looked like, but she assumed that she was a mess based on his appearance. He had undone the top button of her uniform with his teeth, for christ's sake.

"Happily, Princess."

He kissed her again. Softly. Sweetly. There was nothing reminiscent of the earlier ferociousness and desperation to consume one another. It was just soft and sweet. Sabrina had been kissed like this hundreds of times. There shouldn't have been anything special about it, but there was.

Everything about it was special, or maybe it was just him. Maybe he was what was special. Sabrina hadn't been looking for special when she came here, and maybe that was exactly why she had found it. Special wasn't planned. It just happened.

"I guess that means you have to go," she whispered when their lips managed to part from each other.

He kept his hands on her waist and his face close to hers, "Walking away from you is going to be the hardest thing I have had to do in a long time."

She smiled, nuzzling against his cheek, "You might want to wipe the lipstick off before you go."

"That is an excellent suggestion, Princess."

"If this is going to happen every time we see each other, I might have to stop wearing it."

"I don't think your decision should be influenced by me, but if you want my opinion, I adore it."

"Even the aftermath?" she asked, running a finger along his lip, picking up the red lipstick she had left behind.

He kissed her again, "Especially the aftermath."

They walked into the diner with intertwined fingers and matching smiles. Marie gave them a knowing look and said something under her breath that she couldn't quite hear. It didn't seem like anything she had to worry about based on the way that she was smiling.

Marie liked Caliban. She had told her so when she asked a few weeks back. Sabrina had been trying to act nonchalant, not like she was looking for the approval of the only familial figure she currently had in her life. She had smiled and told her that he was a very nice young man who was clearly besotted with her.

Sabrina had smiled, just like she was smiling now, as she tried to remove the worst of the lipstick smears from his lips with a damp paper towel. She was surprisingly successful, her smile growing wider in triumph as she set the towel down. "Better."

"I disagree," he said, capturing her lips in another kiss. Long and slow and deep. The kind of kiss that made her weak in the knees. If he didn't have his arm around her waist, she was sure that she would have crumpled to the floor. When they separated, well when their lips separated, he smiled, "You didn't expect me to leave without kissing you goodbye, did you, Princess?"

She laughed, "I guess I should've known better."

"Yes," he agreed, "You should have."

"See you tomorrow?" she asked, her voice full of hope.

"I wouldn't dream of being anywhere else, Princess."

It was a week full of tomorrows and kept promises.

The very next day he showed up talking about whisking her away to some nearby park for her break. While that sounded lovely, Sabrina refused to go anywhere with him unless he was also wearing a helmet. He had her wear his the other night, and she wasn't going to let that happen again. He did his best to convince her otherwise with teasing kisses and tantalizing touches.

"It's just a short drive, Princess," he kissed her cheek. His fingers toyed with the hem of her skirt, "It's a lovely park, Princess."

It was so tempting to just give in. He smelled so good, and he seemed to know how to play her like a violin. It would have been so easy to just lean in closer and let his fingers slip under the hem of her skirt and whisper yes. Yes, she would go with him, wherever he wanted. But, unfortunately, she couldn't. What was it he had said the other day? Safety first?

She remained firm in her convictions, and he relented. They would just have to stay right here. He didn't complain. Well, a more accurate statement was that he didn't have a chance to complain because she kissed him like she had been dying to since he left the day before. A clashing of teeth and tongues. A desperate act between two people trying to get as close to each other as possible.

She broke the kiss in a laugh and stumbled backward until she came into contact with the back of his motorcycle. Her fingers curled around the leather of the seat. He leaned down to kiss her again with a smile fixed on his lips.

Kissing him was fun and passionate and sweet. Sabrina didn't know it was possible for a kiss to be all of those things at once. It was entirely addicting.

She pouted when they pulled apart for air. Oxygen had never seemed like such a hindrance, and it was his turn to laugh. A breathless sound that would've made her melt into a puddle if she wasn't braced between him and his bike.

They resolved to have lunch at a cafe two streets over. It was a short walk that was made even shorter by Sabrina teasing him until he chased her halfway there. She was small and quick like the sprites in the stories Aunt Hilda used to tell her before bed, but he caught her anyways, arms twining around her waist, and it was a better ending than any story she had ever heard. His lips were certainly much softer than the paper of her storybooks that she always managed to cut her fingers on.

She was sure he could make her bleed just the same, though, and she was sure that she would let him. She would probably even like it, but she banished those thoughts as they settled into a table outside of the cafe.

She sat in the shade, and he sat in the sun. Despite being in Louisiana for months, she hadn't adjusted to the heat. Most of her days were spent inside in the air conditioning, and, for that, she was grateful. The blazing inferno of the sun was something Caliban was familiar with.

He was all golden hair and expanses of sun-tanned skin that she was just dying to explore. Her skin was even paler next to his, and her hair looked more like the moon with every treatment. They were as different as night and day. They both came from entirely different places in the world and somehow managed to meet here, in an in-between place. The odds of that were one in how many? She didn't know. Ambrose would probably have a number. A number that would be much too big to encompass the small bubble that they had created for themselves, so she contented herself with just enjoying their time.

The food was pleasant, but she wasn't really focused on it. She was too wrapped up in the way he kept his fingers curled around hers.

It was on days like this that she wondered how she could ever go back to Greendale. How she could leave Caliban? And Marie? And the Soulfood Shack? Where would she get her hair done? Where would she explore? She didn't know the answer to any of those questions because some part of her felt strangely at home.

Maybe it was the way he made her laugh that made her feel at home. It wasn't that he was funny, per se, he just liked to tease her. A flirty teasing in his rich, throaty, thickly-accented voice that made it damn near impossible not to crawl into his lap, and made an endless stream of giggles flow past her lips, and a blush spread across her cheeks.

In pure Sabrina fashion, which can only be described as confidence and boldness that bordered on recklessness and a complete absence of shame, like that time she and the Sisters lured a group of Greendale's resident transphobic jerks into the woods to blackmail them into playing nice, which was a story she absolutely intended to share with him later, she gave as good as she was getting.

Her voice took on what she hoped was a sultry tone, that just barely hinted at how willing she was to let him have his way with her if he was willing to let her have the same in turn. The look on his told her that she succeeded in her endeavor to seem enticing. That, or he just really liked her.

The light, easy-going flirtatiousness at the cafe ramped up into suggestiveness, and then to something that boarded on obscene during their walk back, once they both established that was a path that they were comfortable going down. It was a whole different kind of difficult to kiss him goodbye after that. She was worked up and didn't see it subsiding anytime soon.

She was still excited the next day when he showed up with a second helmet in his hand. It turned the fiery excitement into a steady burning flame.

"Your safety is important to me, Princess."

She turned the helmet in her hands and hoped this was a sign of good things to come. A sign of many more rides, impromptu lunch dates, stolen moments, and all of the wonderful feelings of kissing him. A sign that he wanted to keep her around.

She smiled and kissed his cheek, "And yours is very important to me."

It was a lovely park, like he said it would be. It was dedicated to Louis Armstrong, and it was a fitting tribute if Sabrina ever saw one. Everything was lush and green, and the lagoon was beautiful. They didn't have the time to explore all of it, but Caliban suggested that they could come back later in the evening when it was cooler and they had more time. It was a wonderful idea, in her opinion, but for today they sat in a shady grove of trees near Congo Square. There wasn't nearly enough kissing for her liking, but she just couldn't bring herself to complain. They shared pieces of themselves over a slice of cherry pie, and it left her feeling strangely full.

By the end of her break, she knew all kinds of things about him. The drunken adventures of him and his best friends, Stephano and Trinity, and all of the trouble he used to get into with Miranda, who was always more like a sister to him than a cousin. He even shared a few details about his mother, who was a marine biologist. He learned all kinds of things about her too. He knew how she found Salem in the woods, how she graduated just last year, and all the Hell she raised back in Greendale with her friends.

It was three days. Three near-perfect days, and if those were a sign of anything, there was more to come.

It was unusually quiet in the Soulfood Shack this morning. They had only had a handful of customers, and only two currently occupied the dining room, allowing her to wipe down the tables and clean up at a leisurely pace, caught up in daydreams of what the afternoon would bring. More kisses and teasing touches, she hoped.

Her theorizing was put to a halt when one of their customers, a woman who she had never seen before, went up to the counter to pay. She had seated herself in the corner booth and tucked herself away from the prying eyes of anyone who dared to enter. It was strange, yes, and it was even stranger that she spent nearly an hour nursing the same cup of coffee and ignoring the beignets she had ordered.

It was weird, but she paid and left, her sleek, bright red hair flowing like a curtain behind her. Sabrina tried not to think much of it as she scooped up the empty cup and plate to take back to the kitchen. The woman was at the forefront of her mind again when she nearly tripped over something she had left behind. She set the plates down and examined what had been scattered onto the floor.

A manilla folder and a Tiffany bag. A Tiffany bag. Her heart sank and she lowered herself onto the floor and reached for it. She could have easily forgotten- oh, who was she kidding? No one just forgot expensive jewelry in a diner.

The bag was turned on its side and a box was peaking out of it. It was bigger, a lot bigger, than the other 'gifts' she had received, and it made her nervous. A box that big could only contain a necklace. Her suspicions were confirmed when she pried open the lid with shaky hands. It was from the same collection as the bracelet and earrings. The Victoria collection.

It had to be made of dozens of diamonds. The unflattering fluorescent lights of the diner did nothing to dull their sparkle. The sight of it made her feel like she had been bludgeoned over the head with a baseball bat.

There was always a card. Red nails scratched against the surface of the floor to reach the bag. She turned it over and blue tissue paper spilled onto the floor like water.

You always did love hide and seek -L