(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]

Gabe can't miss the way Caleb's eyes dart over him, even as all of his ingrained beliefs fight against every instinct to close the space between them. Underneath all of it, too, Gabe is afraid that this isn't real. Either it's not real because he's accidentally coercing Caleb or it's not real because there's no way Caleb could actually want him.

But when he bites down on any words and silences any internal song, Caleb is still right there.

[freefromsin]

Caleb waits, watching Gabe's face for a reaction, keeping his body close but not touching. He raises an eyebrow when he sees Gabe's concentration break. "Am I under a spell?" he asks, feeling no different than he did minutes ago. He still wants to kiss Gabe like he always does, still wants to touch him, still wants to be here. Wherever Gabe is.

[overdrawing]

"I'm...I'm not casting one." He's crushing down every single piece of magic he knows of, trying not to let any of it slip loose. "You're still standing here..."

[astra_inclinant]

Mira's soaked when she comes in; her parents have already texted her to make sure she got home all right, because the wind is ridiculous, the rain coming down in buckets.

They're over at a friend's house, celebrating the visit of a mutual acquaintance from overseas, and that means it could be any time between now and daylight when they come home from catching up.

She's tired, though, and all she wants to do is drop her shit in the middle of the floor.

Instead she hears the sound of soft voices and freezes, leaning toward the doorway of the kitchen to see what's going on.

Gabe, backed up against the counter, looking wide-eyed at a slim, cute bleached-blonde boy with his hands against the counter, inches away, looking right back.
She can't help but be amused, and also a little surprised.

Mira leans her hip against the doorway and watches them quietly for a minute before clearing her throat, smirking.

[freefromsin]

"That's because I like you--" Caleb starts to say, when he hears the sound of someone clearing their throat. He quickly moves away, putting his own back to the counter to stand next to Gabe. His cheeks go warm, and probably red, when he sees a girl in the doorway looking right at them.

"Um."

[overdrawing]

"Mira," he breathes. Gabe goes a similar shade of red, not only embarrassed but ashamed. He's a guest in their house and he's just inviting strangers in? He hasn't even told Mira about Caleb, not in any capacity, which is a disservice to Caleb as much as it is to her family and...and...

He doesn't care if he's over six feet tall. He has never wanted so badly to hide under the bed.

[astra_inclinant]

Mira just leans on the doorframe, nonplussed but mostly amused.

"Hey," she says, and peels off the buttondown she's wearing over a tank top, because whether or not she has cute teenagers making out in her kitchen (or thinking about making out, really), this is still her house.

"I'm Mira," she grins at the blushing boy she doesn't know. "I see you know Gabe already."

The tease is light-hearted. If "adopting the puppiest of wayward puppylike queer kids" had been an option on career aptitude tests, she'd score pretty high. Really, she's mostly impressed Gabe has gotten anywhere past blushing and self-loathing with someone else.

"You guys might want to take this to the bedroom," she says nonchalantly. "My parents are gonna be all tipsy and cuddly and shit when they come in, but my mom has a sixth sense for the worst time to ask people if they're being careful."

[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."