libraryofwinds Challenge: Return

[power_absolute]

He'd washed his face in Sarah's room, slowly, washing away the tracks of tears, though not much could be done about the redness. They'd curled back up on her bed, her head pillowed on his chest as she tried to convince him she could be there for him, help him through this, be whatever he needed her to be.

The problem was, of course, he didn't know what he needed right now. There were tastes in his mouth and skin under his fingers that he didn't recognize, that compelled and repelled at the same time and it all was terribly twisted up in sense memory, if not in thought. She felt different. He felt different, and it wasn't right to sully her with his difference...she'd already suffered so much because of him.

In the end, they agreed to a break to try and figure things out. She'd been exposed to so much, things she'd never anticipated, when all she had wanted was to get ready for Harvard. They were caught up and tangled in the secrets, and his mother's warning that he shouldn't have ever involved her rang louder than it had before. He was still here, if she needed him. She was still here, if he needed her. But both of them were too shell-shocked for romance, and the necessary intimacy in attempting to put him back together was too much to ask. She wouldn't say that, of course, but he wouldn't let her, all the same. He touched her cheek, kissed her lightly, and then he left. Things had gone too fast, propelled by Chase's plans, and everyone just needed to breathe.

So he did, leaning against the wall at the turn of the stairs, just breathing. In. Out. It reminded him of the pool table, bringing the balls back down, everything back under control. He knew if he opened his eyes they'd be black, so he didn't, until he could feel the power shift back under control.

When it had, when he could breathe, he walked the rest of the stairs and the hall back to Pogue's room.

Comments

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

Pogue was sitting at his desk, well, sprawled in his chair anyway. Elbows on the desk and head in his hands. He should have been concentrating on what he was studying. Nouns and verbs and foreign languages were hard, for him, but the letters swam in front of his eyes and made no sense.

His head hurt. His throat hurt. His chest hurt, that tightening of pain that was more emotional than physical. Worried about Caleb. Hurting from Kate. Reid had stopped by briefly and they'd talked for a bit, but nothing had come out that helped or gave any kind of release, and after a while he gave him a hug and left. Back to the textbooks.

Pogue dug his palms into his eyes, fingers sliding through his hair. Nothing made sense anymore. It was all broken up into pieces.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb let himself in quietly, only becoming aware of how long he'd been gone when he noticed the dark of the room and how the lamp tried to cut through it. Pogue looked too tired, and he had a flash of guilt that he was just making it all worse, and that somehow he should be able to make it better, but he didn't know how.

"Hey," he said quietly, shutting the door behind him.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

"Hey..." Pogue looked up, pulling himself back together. And then he really looked, glancing up and down, his posture, his eyes.

"How'd it go?"

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb shrugged a little bit, moving to sit on the end of the bed. "The counselor's...I'm seeing him again later this week. It was...what it was. I told him what happened, as much as I could without him throwing me in the nuthouse."

He was back to lacing and unlacing his fingers. "Then I went and ... I told Sarah." Because that hadn't really been in the afternoon's plan.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

Pogue leaned on the back of his chair and watched him, nodding slightly at the mention of the second appointment. That was probably a good thing. At least, if it helped, which he guessed it must have or Caleb wouldn't have agreed to the second appointment.

The next part made him blink a little. "How'd that go?" Although it didn't look as if Sarah had screamed or anything. And while it wasn't the sort of news anyone took well, there was being supportive and... well, the opposite.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb shrugged slightly, frowning. "I don't know. She was upset, obviously, but it helped, I think. I haven't been there the way I should've been after what she went through. It helped her to know why, I think."

None of that was what he wanted to say. None of it had any bearing to the sort of ache that lingered, the heartbreaking knowledge that right now, at least, he couldn't be what she needed, but she didn't need to be alone, either, and it all was still so confusing.

"We decided to take a step back from ... whatever. To just be friends for now."

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

Pogue wasn't sure what to say to that. If there was anything to say. He nodded slightly, fumbling through words to try and figure something out. "That's... probably good."

Especially with what they'd been doing. Especially with what he'd been through.

"Give you both some time. At least now she knows, yeah?"

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." Telling her had been draining, physically and emotionally, and he let himself stretch out on the bed, rubbing his hands down over his eyes, his face. "I guess."

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

Pogue was even less sure what to say to that, watching him with quiet concern, almost worry. He didn't know what to say. If there was anything to say. After a few minutes of worrying about it he went over and sat down next to the bed, one hand hesitant but finally coming to rest over his shoulder.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb kept his eyes closed, but didn't flinch from the touch, letting out a soft, tired sigh.

"I didn't know how else to explain without telling her, without making her think she'd done something wrong..."

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

"Well, now she knows what's going on..." Pogue squeezed his shoulder gently, took a breath. Resisted the urge to do anything more.

"... is it easier, now?"

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

"I don't know, yet. I feel like I just ripped away the only connection I had left to what I thought this year was going to be like," he admitted. "Even though, she's changed probably even more than we did...she didn't know about any of this a month ago, but still. The Saturday before school started, at the party, I had this idea of the year. We all did. And she was the last sort of connection to that idea, clinging to some sort of bastion of...what a senior year should be like."

Which was probably just as true for Pogue, which was the only thing that let the words come tumbling out, with the hope Pogue would get it, too.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

"There'll still be... things..." Pogue started, trying to salvage something of it. But it trailed off after that, not sure what those things were or could be.

"It's like everything fell apart," he said finally, after a moment or two. "And there isn't any anything anymore. Just... us and what happened." All four of them. He felt cut off again, and hadn't realized how much Kate was holding him to the so-called real world until now.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb nodded, one hand coming up to cover Pogue's. "It's like...there's a difference in knowing you're different, and feeling...like you'll never really be apart of things. Only, we are. I mean, we're part of us, and that's huge, and stretches back..." But they were teenagers, and history wasn't really much of a comfort right now.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

"But it's just the four of us. And life's happening out there, and we're missing it, we're not..."

Except he didn't want to be out there right now. Out there was loud, bright, annoying. Trivial. The hand on Caleb's shoulder moved in a light caress that managed still not to dislodge his hand, because it was nice. Comforting.

"Be nice if we could put it on pause for a while while we ... took a break. Got some rest."

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

"There has to be some sort of balance...Our families all are out there, in the world...." Everyone got married. Everyone had sons. Caleb curled into him a little bit.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, but our families..." But he stopped, frowning slightly, because he didn't know what his parents had gone through. Had had to go through. Something similar, or maybe just. No, he didn't know.

No, he did know one thing. "They didn't know about Chase. Or his Dad, I guess..." Pogue leaned into him, one arm sliding gently around his shoulders.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

"At least we have each other," Caleb said softly, leaning into Pogue, in a flash of something for Chase he hadn't had time to feel before.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, we do." Pogue smiled a little, not thinking of Chase, but of them, all four of them, and the bond they shared. Closer than brothers, in some families. He couldn't imagine being without them, never wanted to have to know.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

"It's enough," Caleb said softly. For now, before they got splintered off to form parts of the larger family, and somehow the thought of it made him a bit ill.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

One hand rubbed lightly over his shoulder, hoping it was. Caleb didn't sound as sure, or at least as though he was doign as well as Pogue thought he'd looked when he'd first come in. Or maybe that had been more wishful thinking.

"We'll get through it."

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb nodded a little, trying to find the bits and pieces of hope that had been scattered through the day.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

There were all sorts of little movements Pogue wanted to make. His fingers tightened a little on Caleb's shoulder just with the effort of not making them. He wasn't sure where they went from here, and wasn't going to ask and add that to Caleb's worries, too.

[power-absolute.livejournal.com]

Caleb wouldn't have had a clue how to answer him, but he was dwelling on much the same sort of thing, mixed in with the rest. Everything seemed so confusing and hard and he just wanted something to be easy, anything. He curled up a bit more, resting his cheek on Pogue's shoulder, because it seemed lik the natural thing to do and figuring out when it had become so was too hard right now, so he didn't try.

[lieutenantwitch.livejournal.com]

Pogue sighed a little, because that wasn't making some urges any easier although it did at least clarify a few things. Like intent. His intent focused in on holding Caleb, just being there, solid, for him to rest against. The key word there being rest.