forthsofar: (36)
Rosie Wilson ([personal profile] forthsofar) wrote2021-04-17 02:47 pm
Entry tags:

go get your ribbon box, go get your wounded heart

In the end, Rosie doesn't ask Anne about particularly slow and vengeful ways of killing someone, or go to Sabrina for a hex involving boils or scrofula or something equally vile, or any of the other gruesomely creative things she'd thought about in the space between finding out about Neil and Caleb's breakup--and the reasons therein--and now. She hadn't replied to any of his messages beyond that first one, and even that was a starkly ominous we will talk about this later; in the last day or so, he'd moved on to leaving voicemails, and she hadn't listened to any of them either. There was a kind of glee in letting him stew, in ignoring him in favor of making sure Neil got back on his feet and recovered as much as possible from the blow he'd been dealt.

Eventually, she decides to take him off of whatever agonizing hook he'd placed himself on--not that he hadn't deserved it--and sends him another message, just as short as the last. If you're not home, get there. I'm coming over.

She doesn't wait for a reply, just heads out the door and towards Caleb's building.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (upset)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-17 07:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Caleb hates leaving things unresolved. Sometimes, like now, he thinks that's more of a character flaw than anything else. He hadn't wanted this to ruin his friendship with Rosie. He'd said so in... almost every single one of his voicemails.

The flowers that Neil had brought are still in the glasses he's using for vases, but they're wilted, petals littering the counter top along with whatever pollen they're dropping. He's kept them watered, but their appearance matches his state of mind pretty well, of late. (Yes, that's pathetic, and yes, he knows.) He debates clearing them out plenty of times, but it seems somehow rude or disrespectful. They're a gift from Neil.

When he gets the text from Rosie, he sits bolt upright on the couch. He'd called off work to pitifully wallow on the couch, thinking and overthinking about all of this, and he's pretty sure he's been crying, because his face feels tight and a little itchy. There's a cowardly part of him that wants to tell her no, that if she wants to talk, they can do it over the phone. He's honestly not sure if he can handle the full brunt of Rosie's emotions. But he's just going to have to.

He doubts she'd oblige him, anyway. Right now, she's Neil's friend, and he's Neil's ex boyfriend. If Rosie is still his friend, it's not today, so she's not going to be pulling any punches. He responds to her text with I'm home and debates for way longer than he should on whether he should thank her for finally saying something to him. He opts not to, leaving the message feeling short and unfinished to him.

But he changes into somewhat presentable clothes, and wipes his hands over his face. The apartment doesn't look too bad, at least. It doesn't look like he's been wallowing in his own stupid misery this whole time... even though he has been.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (Default)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-17 09:15 pm (UTC)(link)
She's angry, alright. It's an irritable, knife-point feeling pressing against his sternum from beneath. It's hot, but not the lava-rage he'd been expecting, and not the thunderstorm he's felt from her before. While he waits for her knock, he takes several, centering breaths, so that her feelings down crowd his out. Like most people's, they don't fit in his body properly, because they're not his. And angry like this, Rosie's feelings jab and poke into the corners they don't fit into. But a few deep breaths, remembering what first Dr. Bright and now Obi-Wan have taught him, he's able to push it aside. He's aware of them, but they're not taking him over.

He walks over to the door in time to hear her mutter something to herself, and he pulls the door open the moment she's finished knocking, even before she can lower her hand.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (eyebrows)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-17 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
"Hey," he says. "Um. Come on in." He steps back, so she has space to enter. He really, really doesn't want any part of this to happen in the hallway. He doesn't really know many of his neighbors, but he doesn't want any of them to hear this, and then start, like, pitying him, or something.

Or, fuck. Call the cops on him.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (downcast)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-17 10:26 pm (UTC)(link)
He looks down when he feels that pang of pity. He doesn't want it. It settles like toffee in his joints, makes him feel sluggish. He takes a slow breath through his nose and breathes it back out again.

"Yeah, I remember," he says. "You said 'be kind to him.'" He feels his chin tremble and he clenches his jaw to stop it, because that's not what this is about right now. He's not going to let himself cry, no matter how much he wants to as he remembers that night.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (sob)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-17 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)
"I wanted to tell him, so many fucking times, but I never knew how, or, or something would come up, a-and..."

These are just excuses, and he knows it. This is nothing like telling someone about his ability. That's a secret people can understand. Keeping Adam from his boyfriend — ex-boyfriend, he reminds himself — is very different, and it'd been hard enough trying to talk this through with Neil, and he'd been as understanding as anyone could be in that situation. Rosie doesn't want to understand, at least not yet. She wants to be angry with him, and she's going to be, until it's burned itself through. But he still needs to explain. He hugs himself, making sure to focus on his breathing so that anger doesn't sweep him up. He doesn't want to fight with her. He wants to just talk.

"I said it feels like cheating because it does feel like cheating," he says. "Even if he's not here, Adam's still my boyfriend. I can't just pretend he's not. I... I honestly thought I could. You wanted me to be kind to him; how is it kind to stay with Neil when I can't break up with Adam? When I find myself thinking about Adam instead of Neil, of missing Adam when I'm sitting right beside Neil?" How is he supposed to be with anyone when Adam is a ghost hanging over them, always?

By now, he's crying, and he's trying so fucking hard not to, fingers clutching at his arm to ground himself, because this isn't a pity play and he doesn't want her to think it is.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (upset)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-18 08:02 am (UTC)(link)
It was, actually, he wants to say. It'd been so fucking hard to say. He'd wanted to, so many times, but it'd been so hard, and there's no way he can really drive that home to her. Besides, she's right. It shouldn't have been hard, and it wasn't kind to keep that secret, even if he'd never meant to.

He wipes his hand across first one cheek, then the other, composing himself as well as he can. His careful breathing wavers, and her anger flares inside his chest before he shoves it away again.

"I fucked up," he says. "I know that, Rosie. From the fucking start, I fucked up, but I can't change that." He wipes his face again, sniffles, and angles his body slightly away, like that will help shield him from her feelings. Of course it doesn't. "So I tried to fix it, the kindest way I could."
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (Default)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-18 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm sorry," he murmurs. He's run out of steam. That short, aborted step she'd taken had pushed her feelings at him, and he'd only just stopped himself from flinching. He takes another breath and tries not to sigh it out. He's worn and tired, and he wants to bite back at her. Nothing she's said is wrong, but it's also not anything he hasn't been saying to or about himself for the last several days. It's exhausting to hear and feel, and it's not getting any better any time soon.

"I'm sorry you had to experience that," he says instead. The weariness she feels — that they both feel — is bleeding into his voice, but he still means it. He sniffles and wipes his face again.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (downcast)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-19 02:03 am (UTC)(link)
He nods, body still angled away from her. Her anger is cooling, slowly — too slowly for his taste, honestly, but at least it is. He has the urge to snip at her for the name calling, but that's not productive. And maybe he's not great at maintaining productive thought patterns when he's alone and wallowing, but he's not going to risk further damaging his friendship with Rosie by being petty and wounded.

He's done enough damage to it already.

"I know," he says, voice soft and quiet. The truth is, if she does feel any love for him at all, he can't feel it under everything else. That's probably the most depressing part.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (downcast)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-19 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Caleb nods again. "Yeah, I hope so, too," he says. His voice is still pathetically wet, but he's mostly stopped crying. "I, he asked, if we could, and I want to, too."

He wants to tell Rosie that he still loves Neil, but he's afraid of the scoff, the roll of her eyes, the 'you've got a nice away of showing it.' He's still breathing carefully, still making sure her feelings don't sweep him up — but that doesn't mean they don't still hurt. He feels bruised, and he doesn't know how to make it stop.

"At his pace, though," he adds softly. "I'm the one that hurt him, so. His pace."
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (upset)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-19 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
He nods again, but he's not looking at her — hasn't looked at her for more than a glance or two since he'd half-turned. A part of him is trying to erect a wall between them, to soften the steady, uncomfortable fit of her feelings in his body. He's never felt her like this before, and it makes him feel weak and heavy as emotions that shouldn't belong to her muscle their way into his limbs and his chest.

Slowly, like it's painful, he steps the short distance to his table and sits down.

He should ask her to leave. He should be alone right now, so he can get these feelings out of him and be more himself again. Then, maybe, he can clean his apartment and air it out of the stink of his misery — literally and empathically. He should ask her to leave.

"You're my first friend here," he says instead, staring at the tabletop. The whorls of the wood grain remind him a lot of the different feelings Rosie's feeling the longer this conversation goes on. "I've known you longer than anyone else in the city. I've known you longer than most of my friends back home, at this point. Is... is that ruined, now?"

He doesn't mean to sound so small, so pathetic and afraid, but he is. His green eyes are huge with tears as he finally looks up at her. It's no less than he deserves, he thinks, for his own cowardice, his own idiocy, to cost him not one, but two friendships. He's just lost Neil. It was his own fault, but it was still a loss. He's not sure he can handle losing Rosie, too.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (sob)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-20 11:45 am (UTC)(link)
He breaks down, this time. She hugs him tightly, and he reaches his arms up, clinging to her. The angle for him is a little awkward, and he sort of clutches to the back of her shirt, but he can't care right now. He starts to sob; the sick swirl of everything from the last half hour — the last week — finally pours out of him. This time, when she calls him stupid boy, it doesn't hurt, it doesn't ping that self-deprecating part of him that'd drank up 'coward' and 'idiot' so readily. This time, they're almost fond. The words make a crack in Rosie's feelings, and now, there it is. Her love for him, that gentle, silver warmth bleeds into him and slowly begins to wash against the aches that everything else had left behind.

He's babbling, he realizes too late to stop, telling her he'd never meant for this to happen, it'd all just gotten away from him, and he's so sorry. The words just spill out of him until they don't anymore, his regret and his sorrow and his confusion tripping over each other to be heard until they finally peter out, and he just clings to her instead. Maybe he's expecting too much — maybe she's still too angry with him to accept any of this, but she's hugging him, and right now, that's all he can let himself focus on.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (eyebrows)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-21 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
He doesn't let go until his breathing has settled from the hitching, post-sob panting into something a little more natural. Even then, he's reluctant, like if he does, she'll start yelling at him again. But he has to, eventually, if only to grab a napkin from the holder in the center of the table so he can wipe his face and blow his nose.

"Sorry," he mumbles once he has. He feels cored, now. Not just empty of his own feelings, but actually carved out. Bits have remained behind, like meat clinging to bone, but mostly, he just feels... numb.

It's not better.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (downcast)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-26 11:19 pm (UTC)(link)
He grips her hand, wanting, needing that anchor, and he's so fucking grateful that she's offered it. He listens to her, then takes a slow breath and lets it out shakily.

"Thank you," he whispers. There's someone else he wants to forgive him, too, but he feels like that's too soon. Eventually, he and Neil probably will be friends. Eventually, Caleb will be able to think of Adam and not feel haunted by him. But right now, he's just glad that Rosie doesn't hate him, and isn't disgusted by him.

He feels like it takes a long time before his feelings start to trickle back into his body. There's that familiar shame he's felt all week, guilt, too, and sadness — a unique mix of sorrow and depression, tinged with regret. But he still believes he made the right choice, as hard as it was at the time and as hard as it is now to deal with the consequences of that choice. He needs to work on himself, really and genuinely, before he can be with anyone the way that they deserve.

After another moment or two of sitting quietly, he sniffles and looks at her.

"Can I ask... um. Why did you feel guilty? Earlier. You don't— you don't have to say," he adds, fingers tightening almost imperceptibly on hers, like he's afraid she'll pull away. He is.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (Default)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-04-28 08:14 am (UTC)(link)
It's the way she says it, not the way she feels about it, that tells him she doesn't want to talk about it, so he doesn't ask if she does. He nods, though, and so she knows he's there if she changes her mind, he says, "If you ever need, like, an ear, I'm here for you, okay?" Maybe he's not the top of her list, right now, but at least he's put the offer there, and he means it, genuinely.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (Default)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-05-01 02:25 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah," he assures, "I do." He takes a slow breath, feeling himself slowly begin to normalize. Soon, it's enough to say, "Hey, d'you want some tea? I... really need some tea." He's hesitant to let go of her hand. It feels like a lifeline, an almost literal olive branch, and he doesn't want to lose that just for the sake of making tea, so he doesn't move until he knows whether she wants some, too.
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (Default)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-05-03 12:56 pm (UTC)(link)
He nods, and it takes him another minute or so before he moves. When he does, it's with a deep breath and some reluctance as he lets go of her hand and goes into the kitchen. He putters around a little slower than usual, but eventually gets the water boiling, two mugs of herbal tea side by side on the countertop. He sets out the things he knows, by now, that Rosie likes in her tea.

He leans against the counter while he waits, and watches her.

"I'm not trying to be pathetic for pity points," he says, sounding a little more like himself. He sounds a little wry, but his expression is still drawn and miserable. "I'm just actually this pathetic."
greatamazingfeelingsboy: (Default)

[personal profile] greatamazingfeelingsboy 2021-05-05 04:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Caleb makes a little face — at himself, not her — and looks around what he can see of the place. "Yeah, I... tried to be a little more conscientious, I guess."

It helps that this was just a breakup — 'just,' like it isn't that big of a deal, but compared to what happened to Michael, Caleb isn't sure it is. Or maybe it's just a different kind of big deal. He doesn't really have a frame of reference for 'my best friend was kidnapped by a secret lab and then cut open' vs 'I broke up with my boyfriend because I'm hung up on a boyfriend in a different city.'

"This city is fucking weird," he mumbles, shaking his head.