forthsofar | in days to come when your heart feels undone

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caleb

in days to come when your heart feels undone

At first, she'd given that late-night text from Caleb--a friend in trouble, Caleb okay but out of school for the week--a healthy amount of sympathy, but no real concern. She sought out Clint in the senior hallway and divvied up the task of collecting assignments and notes from Caleb's classes, ignoring to the best of her ability the vague sniggers about sex cults she overheard from a few of the other members of the team as she walked away.

It was all working rather smoothly, with very little room for worry--until she stopped by Caleb's apartment that night and actually saw him. Whatever had happened, it left him drawn and tired, something almost lost behind his eyes. Rosie hadn't pried, despite the flurry of questions that rose to her mind, just handed over the collected assignments and made the appropriate vague noises of sympathy before he pushed the front door slowly shut again. Still, the sight was enough to make her worry, to increase that faint concern from before to something far harder to ignore.

Clint had agreed to drop things off the next two days, leaving Rosie time to think--and to plan. By Thursday, she had at least the seed of an idea, something that might provide Caleb with a little more comfort after a situation that had so clearly rattled him. She got Clint's half of the assignments from him after school, then stopped by the small market a few blocks from Candlewood to pick up a few additional things before heading home.

That night, she loads everything into a few tote bags she and Neil had picked up from one Darrow event or another and heads downstairs. She knocks once, twice, then tries the knob, finding it unlocked and barging in before she can quite stop herself.

"It's just me," she calls, nudging the door shut with her foot.

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"That's what that was," he says, thinking back to the way she'd felt when they'd first met. "You were so comfortable talking about this place, I thought maybe it was just because you'd been here awhile. But it's because traveling to other worlds is something you're used to."

He drifts closer, hugging himself a little. "You believe me," he says. "Just... Like that."

"It was a little of both, to be completely honest," Rosie says, shrugging one shoulder. "I've been here longer than I was ever in Anterwold, anyway. That's what it was called, the place I found in the Professor's cellar." It's such a strange way of putting it, even now, that she laughs a little.

Caleb drifts closer, some bright surprise flickering on his face as his arms wrap around his middle, and she grins. "I believe you. And you believe me?"

"I mean, yeah," he says, nodding. "I'd feel it if you were lying. You're not."

It feels weirdly good, that she knows, now. He doesn't have to fight to keep that secret, to be careful and not do or say certain things.

And maybe she'll be a good ally, like Mr. Burgess.

"Oh. Do you know Mr. Burgess?" he asks.

"Fair point," she says, rolling her eyes at her own foolishness. "I don't know if I'd think that's useful or terrible, knowing when people aren't being honest."

He asks about Guy, and Rosie lets out a short laugh before she can stop herself. "I'm in his English class," she says, turning to go back to the bags she'd left on the kitchen counter, trusting Caleb to follow. "And we're...I don't know if friends is the right word, but he seems to like having me come round the flat for tea with him and Mr. Blunt. That's his flatmate, he's some kind of art curator at the museum."

As she talks, she pulls out the ingredients she'd brought; dry pasta, a wedge of cheese, canned tomatoes, an onion, and a stick of butter. "Where are your pans?"

"Uh," he says eloquently. "I... don't know, actually." There's a moment where he can feel a little of her skepticism flare before he shrugs defensively. "I've never used them! I microwave everything I eat!"

His stomach growls as he takes in the sight of the ingredients, and, wow. He really, really hopes she's making macaroni and cheese, because that's gonna be fucking good.

He sits on one of the stools at the counter and leans on his elbows. He's still tired, but the cry session on the couch, and Rosie keeping him talking, are both doing what they're meant to.

"Good grief, you're as bad as my brother," she teases, squatting down to search through the cabinets beneath the countertop. "Not that we had a microwave. Or that he was expected to know anything about cooking at all anyway." Her tone is light, but as she says that last, there's still the faintest tang of bitterness at the back of her voice.

Finding two pots at the back of the second cabinet she searches through, she shoves both onto the counter before getting up again, smiling as she sees him sitting there. He looks worlds better already from the sad shell he'd been when she first arrived, and Rosie takes a moment to be grateful.

"I'm glad you told me, by the way."

He looks down, a little bashful. "I would've told you, eventually," he says. He wants that to be true. He hopes it's true. "I just, um. I sort of had it drilled into me, at home, not to tell anyone, and... I mean, I could feel it bugging you, too, but the timing never felt right."

He is glad it's out in the open, now. So far, there aren't any branches of the AM here, and he doesn't expect they'll crop up, suddenly, unless more Atypicals start showing up. He does miss Chloe and Sam.

"I don't blame you at all for not saying anything," Rosie says, opening drawers in search of a can opener. "I haven't mentioned Anterwold to almost anyone here. For the longest time, I thought I might sound a bit mad if I did." She opens up the can of tomatoes, dumping them with a loud glop into the smaller of the saucepans, then unwraps the stick of butter and throws it in too.

"Can I ask questions, or is that rude? We can trade off, I'll tell you about Anterwold, and you tell me about being...you said it was an empath, right?"

"Empath, yeah," he confirms. "You can ask, sure."

He's surprised. Most people don't ask if it's okay to ask questions. They just ask, and Caleb doesn't mind talking about his ability, but it's weirdly nice, that she's being so considerate.

And he is curious about this Anterwold place.

Rosie nods, peeling the papery skin off the onion as she weighs what her first question ought to be. It's not a terribly difficult choice. "Were you always able to do it? Feel what everyone was feeling?"

If she'd been able to do what Caleb does, that's what she thinks she might have wanted. To have it all come on suddenly, a rush of feelings that aren't even your own, sounds altogether too overwhelming.

He huffs a laugh and shakes his head. "No. I'm not that lucky. It started last year? I thought I was going crazy, at first, and my parents were freaking out because I was getting these really bad mood swings, and then I sorta... punched a guy in the face."

"Goodness, Caleb," she says, surprise and sympathy mingling in her voice. Finding a knife in the little block by the stove, she cuts the ends off the onion and then halves it before adding it to the pot of sauce. "That must have been frightening. And then...I mean, at least tell me whoever it is you punched in the face actually deserved it. Even if you didn't entirely mean to do it."

"He totally deserved it!" he says, maybe a little defensively. "He was picking on Moses Miller for being smart and chubby, and he was picking on me for getting a bad grade, and I felt Moses's anger, and my anger, and Tyler's dicky feelings, and it all just overwhelmed me."

He shrugs, forcing his voice a little calmer.

"I'm better, now, I mean. It's gotten easier. Sometimes it still sweeps me up, but I don't totally lose myself anymore."

He tries very hard not to think about Sam's safe house, of Damien, of how much he'd have liked to do that to the jerks that took Michael. But nobody was angry. They were just scared.

Rosie nods, having the decency to look a little remorseful at the sudden defensive tone in Caleb's voice. "I'm not blaming you," she says mildly, smiling over at him as she carries the saucepan to the stove and turns on the burner. "I know an awful lot of people here who'd gladly punch someone in the face for me. Or have, honestly." She shrugs, turning to face him and leaning back onto the counter.

"Okay, your turn to ask a question."

It feels... good, to talk about it with someone who wasn't there and who isn't Dr. Bright. It feels good to not be reminded that he has an anger management problem, in someone's worry for him — or fear of him. He takes a breath and lets it out on a little sigh, smiling sheepishly at her.

"Thanks," he says softly. It doesn't take him long to think of a question. "What exactly is Antler... world?"

That's not right, and he knows it even before he feels her bubbly amusement at his mispronunciation. But he doesn't get defensive this time. He just blushes a little and rubs the back of his neck.

Caleb ducks his head and blushes at almost the same time as she starts giggling--though he would have, wouldn't he? He'd have felt her delight as it happened, a thought that fills her with a bit of wonder beneath her already-evident amusement. "Anterwold," she corrects, even though they both already know he's recognized his error. "Honestly, I don't think I saw anything with antlers at all when I was there, not even when I was lost in the forest at the very end."

Rosie falls into a thoughtful silence, trying to put together an answer that's not going to sound utterly mad, even by Darrow standards. "I didn't see much of it," she admits, "but it seemed to be...a pocket universe, or another dimension, like people think Darrow is. There was this huge forest, and a little village called Willdon, though the people there seemed to think it was an awfully big city. And it wasn't modern at all, no cars or aeroplanes or even electricity."

Rosie catches her bottom lip in her teeth for a moment, worrying it as she debates whether to keep going. "The strangest part was that they called it Anterwold at all. That's the name the Professor used for the society in the story he was writing."

"D'you think maybe he was writing about that place?" he asks. This sounds so cool. "Like, he'd been there, too, before you?" God, he wishes Adam were here, because he'd probably have so many theories about it, so much to say. He and Rosie would get along well, he finds himself thinking.

"That's what I don't know!" she says, the hint of excitement and curiosity she can hear in Caleb's voice fueling something similar in her own. "I got there through this...it was like a glowing doorway in the corner of his cellar, so it's not as though he didn't have a way to get there himself. But does it exist because he wrote about it, or was he writing about it because it exists?"

She stops to catch her breath, a faintly lopsided grin on her face. "Every time I think too much about it, I end up with a headache."

"It's like that chicken/egg scenario," he remarks with a laugh. "Fuck. Adam would have so much to say about this. He's really good at the philosophy stuff, he'd probably manage to convince you that it's, like, both at the same time?"

This feels good. Caleb is excited to learn about this weird, impossible place, and Rosie is excited to talk about it, which means Caleb is more excited. It's a far cry from the couch moment just a little bit ago.

"Well, that's not going to help my potential headache at all," she shoots back, giggling. "It being both at once, and everything with time passing far faster there than it did back home. Which I hadn't even said yet, goodness. The first time I went through, it was only for a minute or two, but I met this boy. Jay, he was...he wasn't very old. And then I went back a week later, and five years had passed for him. He was practically a man."

The sauce lets out a faint burbling noise, starting to simmer; Rosie gives it a stir, crushing a few of the tomato pieces against the side of the pot as she goes. "Okay, my turn again." She crinkles her nose, thinking for a moment. "How does it work? Being able to feel everyone's feelings. Is it just...you just know, or is it something different?"

"It's... both, I guess. Like, you're curious right now. I can feel it like it's mine, but I know it's not. Other people's feelings usually have a physical sensation, but not always. Sometimes it's a color, or a shape in my body? Does that make sense?"

Adam loves it when he talks about his ability, but that doesn't mean he's gotten better at articulating the finer nuances of it.

Even knowing that he can sense it doesn't keep Rosie from letting out a soft noise of surprise as Caleb so accurately identifies her as curious. She sets the spoon down on the stovetop, turning back to face him. "It does, a little," she says. "The bit about colors most of all, that's...that's not uncommon, for feelings to at least be suggested by colors. In art, or someone writing about it in a book. Having the blues meaning you're sad and all that."

"Mm, but not everyone's sadness is blue," he explains. "Usually, loneliness is blue. Sadness that I've felt from other people can be all sorts of different colors, depending on, like, what they're sad about."

"Oh, brilliant," she murmurs, going over to one of the other stools at the counter and sitting down. The sauce has to simmer and can be left alone for a bit, and Rosie's more than happy to take the time to devote all her attention to this back and forth of the secrets they're sharing. "So sadness is more like...a shading over something else? The other color of whatever they feel."

She thinks back to that moment not long past at all, the two of them folded together on the couch as Caleb sobbed out all his grief and hurt. Knowing now how intense a moment that had to have been only makes her more glad she'd come by, that she'd provided what comfort she could.

"What's your favorite feelings color, then? Or sensation, whatever's the right way to put it."

Edited 2020-01-26 03:25 (UTC)

"Joy, I think," he says, though there's another, more complicated answer that he doesn't want to get into. He doesn't want to dim the mood by talking about Adam. Again. "Feeling someone's joy when I'm also happy is, like... Fuck, it's like soaring, y'know? Everything falls away and it's just this perfect moment where everything is just warm light, and..."

He breaks off, blushing a little, because he's starting to get poetic and enthused. He smiles and shrugs a little.

"Anyway, sometimes, feelings are colors, and sometimes, they're sensations, and sometimes they're both. Like... concern. I felt yours through the door before you even got here. It's this yellow-orange color with pokers that come out and sort of jab me? Like... like you're trying to get my attention, or something, almost like your feelings are reaching out to ask me if I'm okay."

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