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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"Absolutely," she says, because she doesn't need any kind of ability to see how uncomfortable Caleb is at the turn in the conversation. After checking the time on her phone, she slides off her chair once more, taking another empty pot to the sink and starting to fill it with water as she thinks of what to ask next.

"What about Adam?" Rosie glances back at him, something gently understanding in her expression. "Not that we have to talk about him either, if you don't want, but is he Atypical too, or just..." She laughs, turning the water off. "Typical? Like the rest of us."

"No," he answers. "He's just your standard issue non-Atypical human." He smiles to think about him, even if it is a little sad. "But, he knew about my ability. I wanted him to, before we became a thing. It didn't feel right to keep that from him, y'know? Dr. Bright, too. She's my therapist back home. She works with a lot of Atypicals, but she isn't one, herself. She's the one who helped me figure out how to balance my empathy."

He laughs a little ruefully.

"I wish I had my phone from home. I'd show you pictures of him. Adam, I mean." There's a part of him that's afraid to admit it, but he's starting to forget the finer details of Adam's appearance. He can see the freckles, and the hair, and his eyes, but. The edges are starting to blur.

"It would've been a big thing to keep from him," she agrees, setting the pot of pasta water on another burner before turning it on. "From anyone you loved." Anterwold wasn't as big or dangerous a secret as Caleb's ability--as far as she knows nobody's keeping an eye on her because of it, here or there--but she's been careful about who she's told, waiting until there was understanding and trust and a particular kind of closeness. It only made sense.

Leaning against the edge of the counter, Rosie smiles softly. "I'd have liked to see what he looks like," she says. "If you'd had your phone." She doesn't say anything about hoping Adam will show up in Darrow one day, not wanting to spoil Caleb's mood, but the wish is still there at the back of her mind.

He watches her, sorting out the things she's feeling. Then he smiles again, another sad one, and shrugs one shoulder.

He doesn't know exactly what she's thinking, but he can guess. She wants something, for him, but she doesn't want to upset him. There's that slight protective feeling coming from her, that she wants to take care of him, and between the two things, he can guess what it is. She wants Adam to be here, for his sake, but she doesn't want to say so, because she doesn't want to upset him.

"Me, too," he says. "I... I want him here, too."

"It's still odd how you can do that," she says, her tone a little lighter, trying to bring them both out of where they'd sunk. "Make a guess at what I'm thinking, because of how I feel, and be right."

She goes quiet and thoughtful, something companionable in the silence that falls between them. They were already friends, and close, but tonight's felt like something deepening between them. It's nice.

"I'm not always right," he says with a little shrug. "When people are feeling something for me, like, on my behalf, it's a little easier to figure out. Context helps, too. If you'd just suddenly started feeling that way when we were talking about, I dunno, school, or something, I wouldn't get it. I'd have to ask you. I... I do that, sometimes. Ask people why they're feeling what they're feeling. I hope that's okay."

If she doesn't want him to, he'll try not to, but it'll be harder not to, now that she knows about his ability. He won't feel obligated to keep quiet about emotions around her.

Rosie pauses to give the idea some genuine thought, the kind it deserves. There is something oddly intimate about Caleb knowing her in a way that not even Nick or Sabrina could manage even with all their magic, and it's fascinating and a little frightening all at once. She could say no, and Caleb would respect it; even without any abilities to speak of, Rosie knows that without question. It makes answering him easy.

"You can ask me," she says. "As long as it's okay if I don't always want to tell you why."

"Yeah, no, of course," he says.

He watches her, though, because he can feel that fear, buried deep and small — not because she's trying to hide it, but because she's not afraid. Not really. It... it feels like when someone sees something they've never seen before. It's huge and new and fascinating, and a little scary, too, in its newness.

She trusts him too much to be fully afraid.

When he realizes that, his eyebrows unfurl from the gentle, concerned furrow they've been in, and he smiles.

"Cool," he says, maybe a little bashfully.

"What?" she says, laughing a little at how shy and pleased Caleb looks all of a sudden. The water's reached a rolling boil, and she turns away, plucking the lid off the pot and opening up the box of pasta, sliding about half of the long noodles inside into the hot water.

"Your turn again," she says. "As long as there's more you wanted to ask me."

"No, I just," he says, and shrugs bashfully. "You trust me. That's... that's cool. I mean, it's nice." He watches her dump the noodles in, breathing in the smell of the sauce and the steam rising from the noodles as they sink into the water.

"I can't really think of anything," he admits with a little laugh. "So, I guess if you wanna keep going?"

"Of course I trust you," she says, giving the noodles a brief stir as they soften, letting the bubbling water cover them completely. "And I believe you, and you believe me, and..." Rosie smiles, shaking her head a little. "Darrow's such an odd place, but I'm really glad we're both here. And that we're friends."

She echoes Caleb's small, soft laugh, her brow furrowing a little as she tries to think of something to ask. When the idea comes, it's not about secrets or powers or anything mysterious at all. "What was your favorite thing, back home? Not about being an empath, necessarily, just...as you, Caleb."

"Definitely playing Quidditch with Alice," he says without even needing to think about it. "Or, sometimes just being in that green place." He realizes she probably has no idea what that means, so he explains, "Adam's feelings are blue. Mine are yellow. We... make green, and... it's nice." That's an understatement, and he knows she knows it, because his voice is soft and sweet and warm when he says it, cheeks coloring a little.

She gives him a confused frown when he first mentions the green place, and for a moment she thinks of Anterwold, wooded and lovely and bathed in a sunlight that hadn't felt real even when she was standing in it. What he describes is better than that, sweeter and more meaningful, and Rosie's faint frown turns into a much steadier grin. "You compliment each other, or...blend together," she says. "Like some kind of...soulmates sounds ridiculous, maybe, like something from a storybook, but it's not such a bad word for it."

Blushing a little too, she ducks her head, wishing she'd said something a bit less silly. "And what was the other thing? Quidditch, right? What's that?"

"Oh, yeah," he says, recovering a little from her reaction to his explanation. Fuck, he misses Adam. "It's a sport, from a book series my sister and I like. It's not real, the author made it up, but there's all these rules and stuff, so we played it together. You're supposed to ride flying brooms, but..." He shrugs with a grin. "We made do."

"All those people with all those abilities, and not one of you has the power to fly?" Rosie teases, giving him a laughing, pointed look. "I'm terribly disappointed."

They'd talked a little about their families before, hanging out at school or when one of them had been over at the other's to work on something for French class, and there's something nice about this added bit of information. Rosie and her own brother had interests too separate from one another--whether by choice or circumstance, she didn't know--to have the kind of closeness it seemed Caleb and Alice had, but that had been the way of things at home, in her own time. He did the things boys did, and she took on more girlish pursuits, and that's how it ought to be.

"It sounds absolutely ridiculous," she says after a moment. "But a lot of fun."

He grins and shakes his head. "No, like, it's about this school in England, where witches and wizards learn how to cast spells and stuff, and they've got this whole culture all their own, completely separate from Muggles — that's, that's what they call non-magical humans, is Muggles." He stops suddenly, eyes widening. "Oh, shit. Atypicals should totally find a word to call non-Atypicals!"

His enthusiasm is ridiculous, and infectious, and Rosie giggles at the expression on his face. "Just promise you'll tell me once you come up with something," she says. The timer on her phone goes off, and she drains the water from the pasta into the sink, a cloud of steam rising up. "And make sure it's a little less ridiculous than Muggle."

She tosses the noodles in the colander, letting them drain further, then goes to stir the sauce one final time before flicking off the burners. "And as someone who actually went to school in England, I wish I'd learned spells. It would have been much more interesting."

"That would be kinda cool, huh?" he says. "Damn... I don't think the Harry Potter books or movies exist in Darrow. I'd totally watch them with you, if they did. It's pretty cool."

"It's funny how not everything from wherever we came from is here in Darrow, isn't it?" she says. Most of the time, when she can't find something she'd recognize from home, Rosie assumes it's due to the vast difference in years between where she'd come from and where she is now. "And other things are changed, just a little."

"Oh my god, right?" he agrees, taking another sip. "Like, at home, we have this streaming service called Netflix? And here, it's called FilmFix, but it's the exact same thing." And it's creepy and weird, like he'd just walked into a funhouse mirror version of reality.

"I thought FilmFix was just its own thing!" she admits, her eyebrows going up slightly in surprise. "At home, all we had was the cinema in town, so even FilmFix was new to me. I like it, though, getting to watch films at home whenever you want."

She grates a generous pile of cheese for them to top their pasta with, then finds a pair of bowls in one of the cabinets. "Well, dinner's on," she says, looking over at him with a grin. "Such as it is."

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in days to come when your heart feels undone

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