(Closed to Gabe - Sirens Gone Wild plot~)

[freefromsin]

Caleb wakes up with the overwhelming feeling that he needs to see Gabe.

It's one step away from thinking Gabe is in trouble, that urgent. There's no explanation, but the panic, the desperation, the longing are a physical ache in his chest that's impossible to ignore. He scrambles from bed, pulling on shoes while stumbling for the bathroom to take a quick piss. He manages a five second teeth brushing, but doesn't bother with his hair. He went to bed in cotton shorts and a tank top and he figures he's dressed well enough, he doesn't have time to change, he has to go.

He slips quickly and silently out of the house. It's pouring but that doesn't stop him from sprinting down the driveway to the sidewalk. It's a brisk five or ten minute jog to Mira's house, and surely the most exercise he's had in awhile, but he hardly notices. He's panting and drenched by the time he reaches their block. Shivering, he rubs a frantic hand over the back of his neck; it's early and he doesn't want to piss Mira's family off by knocking at the door and potentially waking anyone up, but he needs Gabe. Gabe needs him, he just knows it.

After some manic pacing in front of Mira's house, he finally walks to the porch and gives a determined knock. Or two.

...Three when no one answers right away.

Comments

[overdrawing]

The sight of Mira taking of her shirt makes Gabe avert his eyes out of instinct, only the first place he glances is at Caleb and his distraction catches on the line of Caleb's collar bone. He's never thought of collar bones being of any particular interest, but on Caleb he can't look away.

He's in so much trouble.

"This is Caleb. I knew him from..." He can't bring himself to say "home" when it's not true. "Before I came here."

[freefromsin]

Caleb doesn't look away, because he doesn't care. He smiles politely, getting over his initial embarrassment at getting caught in a semi-almost-compromising position of potential make-outs. Even if it was extremely doubtful anything was about to happen.

"It's nice to meet you, Mira. Don't worry, we weren't doing anything. Gabe had something stuck in his eye," Caleb says easily, lying for Gabe's sake. He doesn't know what Gabe's told her about himself, if anything, and Caleb doesn't want to be the one to out him.

[astra_inclinant]

"It's good to meet you, Caleb."

Mira doesn't believe them for an actual second -- she has, actually, been attracted to people before. Right now though, that just makes her think of Genevieve, and kisses interrupted by near-death, and the blown-off near-silence she's gotten ever since that just makes Mira feel like shit for worrying without making her stop worrying.

It's sweeter and more fun to be curious about Gabe's friend.

"I wasn't worried," she adds. "Did you just get here? Siren Cove, I mean."

[freefromsin]

"I've been here a few weeks," Caleb says, crossing his arms and leaning his butt back against the counter. "I wasn't going to stay at first, but it turns out I like it pretty well." Subtly, he touches his foot to Gabe's.

"What about you? Did you move here, or have you always lived here?"

[overdrawing]

Gabe flushes and then looks back to Mira before remembering that she's in her tank top and looking away again. It isn't the same. He averts his gaze from her out of politeness but no heat flares up at her bare shoulders or collarbones. Not the way he feels from the slight point of contact at their feet.

Not knowing where to look, Gabe settles for staring at the ground and picking at his watch band, already on its way to ruin.

[astra_inclinant]

"Siren Cove, born and bred," she says. Mira tugs her hair into something like behavior with her hands and puts it back out of habit: her hair goes frizzy, and even if she goes to bed in two minutes she'd rather it dry straight-ish. "Well, not bred. In any sense of the word. That's weird. But yeah, all my life."

"That must have been a hell of a trip. Were you two in touch?"

[freefromsin]

Caleb smiles crookedly. "I think that's supposed to be born and raised," he says with a small laugh. He notices Gabe messing with his watch band, and covers his hand with his in an attempt to still the nervous picking.

"It was. And no, we weren't. It was kind of a lucky accident that I found Gabe." He doesn't go into too much detail, unsure of what Caleb's told his friends here, what he wants them to know.

[overdrawing]

"We were friends," Gabe says, being careful but refusing to be dishonest. "In choir together. The best friend I had and I..." Gabe swallows and looks at Mira, a little bit stricken and nervous but unwilling to out Caleb even if Mira practically knows the truth of him.

"I think he knew me best of all."