For Caleb

[takecourage]

Now that Darlington is in town (not in a pocket universe where she can't get to him, essentially lost to her), Alex finds herself more invested in making her apartment feel like home. She's never had this kind of disposable income and, after buying herself t-shirts and sweaters and underwear and jeans, a really good pair of boots and a good jacket, she turns her attention to nesting. Ground Zero had been a shithole, but this was her place, and she was going to do it right.

She hadn't wanted to subject Darlington to shopping, so she'd sent Caleb a text and arranged to meet him so that they could go browse together. Alex is dressed in a sweater that's too big for her (she hadn't been able to resist it in the store; it had been so soft), her leather jacket, the voluminous scarf that Darlington bought her for Christmas, soft navy wool studded with tiny silver stars.

Comments

[takecourage]

"Yeah, actually," says Alex, thinking about anything but how relieved she'd been to see him because she doesn't want Caleb to pick up on her guilt. "I cooked. Mostly stuff my grandma used to make for Hanukkah but whatever. We did gifts."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Caleb can feel there's more there, but he can also feel the strange, poking sensation of her trying (and failing) to hide something from him. Guilt. She felt... guilty? He frowns a little, watching her.

"Why don't you want me to feel that?" he asks. He tries to keep his voice somewhat gentle, but his confusion sets it to a slight edge.

[takecourage]

She should have known. Alex stares at him for a moment, that wary expression that she gets on her face when she knows she's given away too much. And she can't hide that from him, can she?

"He was gone," she says, finally. "For a long time."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

The guilt that washes up into Caleb's belly is a molasses-thick sludge. He watches her, confused and concerned by that. It's coming from her. It's not the guilt that someone feels when they left something unsaid. It's so much bigger than that. He opens his mouth to ask, but a store associate stepped up and asked if they needed help.

"Um, no, I, I think we're good."

The guy glances at him, then at Alex, and there's something slimy and warm when he looks at her. He's all professional smiles, though, and repeats the question for her, instead.

[takecourage]

"You fucking heard him," she snaps, her face impassive until he scuttles off. She fights her desire to run away; she doesn't have enough people to be careless with them here.

"I don't want to talk about this here," she says.

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Okay," he says immediately, because she's honest with him about it. "I'm sorry, I. I didn't mean to upset you."

[takecourage]

"It's not your fault," she says. "Come on. Let's go and get a coffee. We can...clear the air and then we can buy scatter cushions and shit."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

He nods, and they walk in silence back through the store, to the in-store Ahab's by the exit. He orders a hot cocoa with whipped cream, and offers to pay for Alex, to thank her for buying him fries and two shakes the first time they'd met.

When they're sitting with their drinks, Caleb thinks back to that moment before the associate had approached them, and what they'd been talking about. Christmas.

"Did that guy get you any good presents?" he asks. "That Darling guy?"

[takecourage]

Alex is actually in the process of unwinding her scarf as he asks her and she smiles.

"Yeah, actually," she says. "He got me this. I've literally never owned anything this soft in my life."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Caleb smiles, sipping his hot chocolate and lifting a hand to wipe the whipped cream from his upper lip. "It looks warm, too," he notes. "Did you get him anything?"

[takecourage]

"Yeah," she says. "A beanie to replace once of his that I lost back home. Much nicer than the one that I lost. It looks...unreasonably good on him."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

That has him grinning. "I'll bet it does," he says, tone light and teasing. "Does he... know? That you feel this way?"

[takecourage]

"Feel what way?" Asks Alex, both eyebrows firmly raised. "I'm just really relieved to see him."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Well, that's true, you are," he confirms, "but that's not all you feel." He lifts his eyebrows right back, a little pointedly.

[takecourage]

"You clearly think you're being really clever here," says Alex, half smirking, sipping her coffee. "But I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you're picking up feelings from the waitress or something."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Caleb leans on the table, watching her, feeling her feelings. There's no way she can't know, right? But it sort of feels like she doesn't — like she doesn't even realize what she's feeling is there, or that she doesn't know what it actually is.

"...Huh," he says, leaning back. "Okay, well... not my place, I guess."

[takecourage]

"Oh, no!" Says Alex, shaking her head and putting down her coffee cup. "You can't do that."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"Do what?" Caleb asks. "No, I don't know, like. You should work through your own feelings. I don't want to, like. Make you feel weird." He pauses, considers, then says, "Weirder."

[takecourage]

"Okay, you really do need to explain yourself now," she says, staring at him, though she's still smiling. "Because I am...really fucking curious, for a start. And being in touch with my own feelings has never been my strong point."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"No kidding," Caleb remarks. He tilts his head, feeling for that spiky, poking feeling that tells him, no, she really doesn't want to hear it. He doesn't feel it. He takes a breath, another sip of his hot chocolate, and says, "I mean, you're super into him. Every time you talk about him, you get this feeling like you've just missed a step going down stairs."

[takecourage]

Alex just stares at him for a moment, a faint flush going across her cheekbones.

"I mean, I'm an asshole but I'm not blind." She digs her phone out of her jacket pocket and flicks through her phone to find a picture of Darlington folded into an armchair in her lounge reading. She holds it out to him as proof.

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

Which, okay, Caleb's not blind, either. The Darlington guy wasn't ugly, but maybe wasn't entirely Caleb's type. He wouldn't know for sure until he'd met the guy, though.

"Yeah, but it's not just, like, a 'he's cute' sort of feeling. It's deeper than that." He doesn't want to say the L word. When he'd realized how he really felt for Adam, it had been one of the most incredible feelings in the world. He doesn't want to toss that word at Alex and have her fight against it.

[takecourage]

"Are you sure it's not, like...just that I'm really relieved to see him?" She picks up her coffee, taking a sip, not looking at Caleb for the next part. "I thought he was dead."

[greatamazingfeelingsboy]

"There's relief, too," he assures. "But it's a different color from what you're feeling. A different shape." And then, because he can feel the curiosity from her before she even asks, he explains. "So, relief is this really pretty pastel pink color. When you talk about him, that's definitely there, but it's underneath the other stuff. There's also these fluttery, butterfly feelings inside your ribs — well, my ribs. That's how it feels when someone likes someone else."

[takecourage]

"Huh."

She lets that sink in for a second. "So is...liking someone and wanting to fuck them too different colours?"