(Open - Finn's Pub)

[freefromsin]

Caleb hadn't known what to expect when he came to Siren Cove. At the very least, he just wanted to know that Gabe was still alive. He is, and he's doing well for himself. He has a support system and a job, and it makes Caleb's heart happy to know it. But those are two things more than Caleb can say for himself. He's running out of the measly amount of money he's been trying really hard not to touch and to save for an emergency, he hasn't had a proper shower in days, not to mention a meal or a real place to sleep. He finally got Leo's brother on the phone, and there's still a spot open for him in Portland. He needs to get going.

After washing up in a public restroom, Caleb makes his way Finn's Pub to hopefully catch Gabe at the end of his shift.


[ooc: even though Caleb is looking for Gabe, feel free to tag him if you want, lurking outside of Finn's Pub]

Comments

[freefromsin]

Caleb frowns, worry creasing his brow. "Do you have to? I mean...do you feel compelled to...lure people?"

He reaches over and lightly touches Gabe's back, then rubs, wanting to comfort him.

[overdrawing]

Gabe shakes his head immediately. "No! I don't want to do that at all!" Mostly, he just wants to learn how to control it so that he doesn't lure anyone by accident.

He tenses his shoulders for a second, gently shrugging against Caleb's touch, but not rejecting it. "There's witches here too. Real ones who can do real magic."

[freefromsin]

"I know you don't want to," Caleb says softly. That wasn't what he meant, but he decides to drop it so he doesn't make Gabe more upset.

"Seriously? Like in Harry Potter?" He's only read one Harry Potter book so far, because it was Dave's girlfriends' and the only one that had been around the house, but he liked it well enough.

[overdrawing]

"Who's that?" he asks. The name sounds familiar but not as someone that lives in town if Caleb knows him as a witch.

Then he flushes, embarrassed.

"It's a book, isn't it? A movie?"

[freefromsin]

Caleb glances away and smiles to himself, he can't help it. "Yeah, it's a book. But hey, don't be embarrassed. The minute I joined the real world, people would say shi-- things all the time, and I had no idea what they were talking about. They talk about actors like they're neighbors, and if you don't know all about current TV shows you're a weirdo."

He shrugs, stills his hand and just keeps his arm loosely around Gabe's waist. Because of the wind. "It's okay if you don't know about everything. It's not like I do. I didn't even know what a siren was," he adds with a teasing grin.

[overdrawing]

"Sirens aren't exactly a hot ticket pop cultural item," Gabe says, frowning when he realizes what a schoolboy he sounds like. "Mira, the girl whose family I'm staying with, has been trying to catch me up on music." When the most recent artist he's heard is Aaron Copland, it's been an exercise.

"More like I don't know anything about anything."

[freefromsin]

Caleb shakes his head a little. "Don't be so down on yourself. Isn't it exciting, in a way? It's like...you're Christopher Columbus, and you've just discovered America!" he says, putting a hand out, like he's pointing out the great ocean view, and not talking about pop culture. "Where there's awesome music like The Ramones, and movies like Star Wars, and a million more that you get to spend the whole rest of your life catching up on!"

[lol unfortunately Caleb still has that basic Christian textbook history background]

[overdrawing]

"By all accounts, Christopher Columbus was not a very nice man," Gabe says, deliberately teasing back a little, if only because it keeps him from thinking about how little he really does know about the world at large.

"That sounds like a lot of work."

[freefromsin]

"A nice Christopher Columbus, then." Caleb pokes Gabe in the side, trying to get a bigger smile out of him.

"You mean, sounds like a lot of fun," Caleb says, wishing for the first time he owned an ipod or a laptop or anything. "Hey, we should go to the library."

[overdrawing]

It actually does. For a second, Gabe sucks in a breath and smiles wide, trying to keep down how much it tickles and just how nice it is. Even with Mira and Dylan, he finds himself keeping careful distance. Casual touch is new still.

"Does that mean you're planning to stick around?"

[freefromsin]

"Oh." Caleb was distracted by Gabe's smile. He hadn't even realized that not leaving is pretty much exactly what he just implied. He hadn't been thinking at all, honestly, beyond introducing Gabe to new bands. "Right."

He absently chews at his lower lip. The promise of a steady job making good money is so hard to pass up, but is it really worth it? He'll have no one in Portland, and at least here, in Siren Cove, he has the one friend who he's felt a meaningful connection with in his whole life.

And maybe he's being presumptuous, but he feels like Gabe needs him. He needs someone to look out for him and have his back, someone who grew up in the same community who knows what it's like.

And maybe he needs Gabe, too.

"Do you want me to?" he asks softly, almost afraid of the answer. If he's reading things wrong.

[overdrawing]

Gabe thinks about it for a second. His immediate answer is yes but he knows it's also selfish. Drawing up his legs, Gabe looks at Caleb sideways, head on his knees. "I should tell you to go to Portland, since you have a job and all, you said." He doesn't need to say the but. It's clear he wants Caleb to stay here.

"It's a good town," he says, instead. "And if I'm..." He takes in a deep breath and starts over. "For twenty years, I believed I was one thing. And I know you call it brainwashed..." He's still struggling with that idea a lot, hurt by it. "But I have to figure out what I am. Who I am. All over again. This seems like the place for me to do it."

[freefromsin]

"And you think I can help?" Caleb smiles a little, and knocks Gabe's shoulder lightly with his. He can feel his heart thudding in his chest, but he doesn't want to get too serious. Place too much importance on staying.

[overdrawing]

He doesn't know exactly. Caleb understands and he's grateful for that, but Gabe knows how hard it is to undo all the things he's known. Sometimes, he doesn't even really want to undo them, but Caleb will understand.

"If you want to stay?"

[freefromsin]

"I guess I do." Caleb looks out at the water. He rubs nervously at the knees of his jeans, trying to keep the anxiety of having to figure out what to do next at bay. "It does have a nice view, after all," he says, looking back to Gabe with a smile.

[overdrawing]

"I'd never seen the ocean before this place. After the first time I went down here with Mira, I kept dreaming about the ocean," he says, deciding to leave out the more worrying details of sleepwalking and then falling into the ocean.

Carefully, he lets one of his hands transform and then fade back into a human hand. "I guess I was just drawn to it."

[freefromsin]

Caleb watches Gabe's hand, silently awed at how easily it can just grow fur and then return to normal.

"Does it feel good? Doing that?" he asks, motioning to Gabe's hand. Meaning, of course, the entire thing. Turning into an otter person. It seems to Caleb like it would be painful, but Gabe doesn't look in pain.

[overdrawing]

Gabe shakes his head and casts about, trying to find a way to explain it. Even on the night he fell into the ocean, the transformation hadn't hurt. It had been as instinctive as drawing up his arms to shield himself from a dodge ball.

"It's like when you hold your breath for a few seconds. It doesn't hurt, but you're kind of relieved to breathe out? It feels like that?"

[freefromsin]

"And does it feel like that to be by the ocean, too?" Caleb asks, curious about this new Gabe, this altered boy from the one he used to sing with in Choir and surreptitiously steal looks at during sermons. He curls a long lock of his own hair around a finger, thinking about how he's different, too. Except his is mostly self-made. Gabe's has apparently been there all along.

Either that, or he got bit by a radioactive otter.

[overdrawing]

"It does. I don't know if everyone else feels like that, but I feel calmer here." Calmer, less scared. Just being in town for a few months has eased his nerves and Gabe wonders if that's why it's suddenly easier to live his life this way. Or if he's chosen to forgive himself.

[freefromsin]

"Good," Caleb says with a gentle smile. "I'm glad you found the right place for you." He can hear it in Gabe's voice, even, and see it in the relaxed way of his limbs.

[overdrawing]

"I hope so," Gabe says but he does find it in him to smile back.