forthsofar | 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.

Threaded | Flat

He feels her even before she knocks, and there's a part of him that hopes she'll just go away. He's exhausted, his empathy drawn thin from spending time with Michael — mostly just curled up with him, talking to him softly, so he isn't alone while Alex does whatever he has to do.

For awhile, everything feels blue and deep, like Adam's ocean, and he'd love to just... sink into that, and stay there. And maybe that's cowardly, but he doesn't have it in him to care, right then.

But she doesn't go away, because she's a good friend. She comes inside, because he'd forgotten to lock the door (Michael would kill him if he knew), and she announces herself as she nudges the door shut again.

He's laying on the couch, sprawled down the length with his ankles up on the arm opposite his head. He's sort of blankly staring at the ceiling, hair still wet from the shower he's taken. On his chest is a plate with a half-eaten Hot Pocket, still in its microwave pouch, like he'd just... set it there and forgotten it.

no subject