greatamazingfeelingsboy

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michael guerin

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"I have a couple hours before work tomorrow. You can come over?"

That's how it starts. Clint needs some help on an art project, and Caleb isn't an artist by a long shot (which he warns Clint about plenty), but he does remember all the stuff he and Chloe talked about, and when Clint hears that, he seems to think it's enough knowledge for Caleb to be helpful.

So, on Saturday morning before Caleb goes to the shop, Clint comes to the apartment. Caleb has double- and triple-checked that the spare room door is locked. He's covered anything that gives off too much of its own light (which is so weird, and so cool), and on top of installing the locking doorknob, he'd also installed privacy stripping along the bottom.

He won't let Michael's secret get out. Not after everything.

Clint and Caleb are sitting on the couch. There's some TV show streaming on FilmFix while they work. On the coffee table in front of them is a box of Sharpie markers in all sorts of colors, a sketch of Clint's idea, and the final piece he's going to be inking.

"I feel like you should've sprung the extra few bucks for actual art markers," Caleb says. "You're not gonna get shit done for shading with these."

Clint rolls his eyes, but laughs.

"I'm not planning on shading," he says. "I want to do something flatter, y'know? Starker. Something that'll stand out from the rest of the class."

Clint doesn't want to go to art school, but he has ideas about art that a lot of the more pretentious kids in their grade don't seem to. He's talking about it now, and Caleb should be listening, but instead, he's losing himself in the rhythm of Clint's voice. He's drawn into the heady, exciting swell of the passion Clint's feeling. Clint is gesturing as he speaks, voice rising when he starts to get enthusiastic, and lowering again when he feels self conscious. It's adorable.

Caleb's starting to stare, he knows it, so he clears his throat and tries to deflect with a joke.

"Don't you think you stand out enough already?"

"Why, 'cause I'm queer, or 'cause I'm black?" Clint asks. There's a kind of wry, challenging smile on his face, and now it's Caleb's turn to roll his eyes.

"No? Dude, you know that's not what I meant," Caleb says, and pelts a marker at Clint's chest.

"No, I really don't," he says, all faux innocence. "Tell me, Michaels, how do I 'stand out enough already'?"

Caleb feels caught. Clint's playful joy is floating on butterflies that are becoming way too familiar, way too comfortable, in Caleb's ribs. He feels his face heating, and he tries to laugh it off.

"I just— hello, you're the star quarterback. Literally every girl in school that isn't a lesbian wants to date you."

"Yeah, well, it's not the girls I'm interested in," he reminds.

The butterflies surge again. Clint's watching him with dark, hopeful eyes. He doesn't feel the hope, but he can see it. Clint doesn't dare to hope, Caleb realizes. He shakes his head and looks at the project in front of them. He can feel Clint watching him, and he needs to get this back on track before something happens.

"Here, gimme that marker back, I'll start the outline," he says, reaching for it.

"Nah, it's mine now," Clint says. His amusement rises up and crystallizes when Caleb looks at him. "Shouldn't have thrown it at me," he points out, and Caleb rolls his eyes and laughs.

"Dude," he argues, and reaches for it again.

Clint jerks it out of his reach, and when Caleb reaches for it again, tucks it behind himself. Caleb huffs a disbelieving laugh. He stretches to reach around Clint's other side. Clint laughs and twists to dodge.

The ensuing struggle is ridiculous, but Clint's joy is contagious as they wrestle for the marker.

Caleb's not sure how, or when, it happens, but he finds himself leaning over Clint, his arm pinned beneath Clint's body, their fingers tangled around the marker. Their breath is coming faster, heavier, from the exertion of their weird little wrestling match, but they're staring at each other.

For a long, weighty moment, Caleb is reminded of Sadie Hawkins, and leaning over Adam, and how he'd had no idea how close they'd come to kissing. This is different. He can tell, now. He recognizes the feeling that says 'I want to kiss him' in a way that he hadn't back then.

But he still doesn't know what to do about it.

Clint does. He stretches up, pressing his lips to Caleb's like he knows exactly what he wants.

* * *
Caleb doesn't know how long they spend kissing. But when his work alarm goes off, telling him to get his ass to the shop so he isn't late, he jerks back. Clint's surprise settles next to his own, making his heart pound all the harder, and with a curse he turns to grab his phone off the coffee table.

"Fuck, I gotta go," he says. Clint's disappointment paws at him. "I'm gonna be late," he explains, scrambling off the couch. "Um, just... Lock up when you leave, okay?"

"Caleb—" Clint tries, but Caleb's already rushing to the door.

"I'll see you on Monday!" he says, letting the door fall shut behind him.

He's a fucking coward, but he really is going to be late for work.

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"I mean, I guess I just... try to pull back from it," he says. "Dr. Bright taught me how to, like, reel in, a little, and it doesn't always work, but, I mean, sometimes it does." He shrugs, then adds, "I don't know if I'd have, like... the brain function to do that in, in, the moment, though. I think that's what gets me the most. I'll, like, try, but I'll be too... caught up, or whatever."

Michael's kind of not wanting to trash his therapist or anything, but, "What if you did the opposite?"

It feels a little like the old argument with him and Isobel about their powers. They never wanted to use them, and Michael used them all the time. "What if you used them more? Channeled it more, until it became sort of like, second nature?" he suggests, because that to him sounds like a much better way of doing things.

"What if it's like me and my telekinesis, where I can do it without thinking?"

"I don't use my ability, though," Caleb says. "It's not something I can decide to use or not use."

This is an old argument, with Michael and with his parents. But he thinks he gets what Michael's trying to suggest. Instead of pulling back, he thinks Caleb should let it wash over him. That's terrifying, because it makes him think of the first few months, before he'd met Dr. Bright, when everything had been an overwhelming noise, and he couldn't focus, and he couldn't think.

"That's... I don't know, Man, it's... What if that just makes it worse? Like, say Clint's over, and we're, we're kissing, and we both start to get, like... O-only then, I'm feeling it, and I'm feeling him feeling it, and it's starting to stack, and..." He puffs out a nervous breath, trailing off.

"Yeah, but do you not use it because no one ever taught you?" he points out. "Isobel, she could go into people's heads, she could feel what they felt, and sometimes we did that for each other. Who's to say you can't use your powers?"

After all, it just seems like something that should definitely be able to be done, in his opinion.

"So unstack it. Play Jenga with it," he says, his brain attacking this logically. "Why not use it to fuel you, and then hit restart? Like, discard the emotion," he says. "Can you do that? Take something in, then throw it away?"

Caleb looks thoughtful, then shakes his head. "The only time I can ever 'discard' an emotion is when I'm far enough away from the source, or if I fall asleep. Sleeping's sort of my reset button. Them, or me, I mean."

He thinks about how, back home, he'd felt the threads of emotion from his family dissolve when they fell asleep. Caleb had always been the last one down because of that. But with Adam, the ocean often pulled him down enough that he fell asleep on his own, and he'd wake up feeling a little more like himself.

But he'd never intentionally tried to sever one of those threads. He'd rejected negative emotions before, but he'd still felt them, still been aware of them. That's not the same thing as taking it and discarding it.

"Yeah, but think about that."

Michael can see the thread here, and he just wants to pull Caleb along with him. "When you go to sleep, you reset, but I bet you do it during the day without thinking about it. I mean, unless by night, you're just stacking emotions all day. Otherwise, you're doing something."

It's just figuring out what that something is, as far as Michael's concerned. "Look, obviously I'm not a great subject right now, but what about Alex? Could you try with him when he gets back home?"

Caleb thinks about that some more. Stacking emotions all day is exactly what he does. He finds brief reprieve in being alone — or with just a single person, someone he's familiar with — but by the end of the day, he's still shedding layers upon layers of other people's feelings. Some of them are easier to ignore than others. Some of them, he can use to help him through the day. Someone's focus keeps him take notes in class. Someone's excitement keeps him interested in a subject. Those feelings can keep the darker emotions at bay, but that doesn't mean he doesn't feel them, isn't aware of them.

He twists the mood ring on his finger. It's a gag gift, but he still wears it, because it reminds him of Michael, and of that moment in the shop that he'd been able to sort through the tangle of colors to find and understand just one. It might not be any different than that.

"What d'you mean, like... try to feel something, then let go of it?"

"Yeah, like, if I get angry and you feel it, how do you let it flow through you, like water on a rock in a river. You still feel it, cuz you're the rock," he says, "but then it just washes through you, over you, and it doesn't stay too long."

Wouldn't that be something he could do?

"Maybe it's something like that color thing you do, but you think of it like, I dunno, puzzle pieces."

Caleb hums thoughtfully, then shrugs. "I mean, I'll try," he says. That's the least he can do, right? Put an effort in, see what sticks. Anything that'll help, he's happy to give it a shot.

"Anyway, enough about my weird... nonexistent sex life. As much of a joy as it is to talk to you about it." He laughs and shakes his head a little.

"Why? You came here after making out with a boy, what did you think we were gonna talk about?" Michael prods, because he's pretty sure he's not crazy for being the one to assume that's where their conversation had been meant to go.

He laughs. "I don't know! Cars, or fucking, like... your powers, or these sick fucking drones you're working on." He gestures at the one Michael's been fiddling with since he got here. "I only told you about Clint because you got nosy."

Michael snorts. "What the fuck would we talk about my powers for? I move shit with my brain, case closed," he says, and leans forward for his notebook again to try and tidy up some of the pieces, not sure why that would be interesting to talk about.

"The drones will only be cool if I can get them flying. Everything I theorized at home is just that, a theory."

"Um, hello, telekinesis is a thousand times cooler than empathy," Caleb says. "Not to mention more useful." He gestures to the drone, indicating the way Michael had been using his telekinesis to hold it up not five minutes ago, so he could work on a small, fiddly piece close to his face without having to curl up like a nautiloid over his coffee table.

"Yeah, but we don't get to choose our powers, we just...I don't know, get them," Michael says, because he never really thought about why Max gets to heal and destroy, why Isobel can mind-walk, and why his is telekinesis. "And besides, it's not really cool when your foster parents think you're possessed by a demon," he mutters, rubbing at his arm when that old memory resurfaces.

"Well, okay, fair, but like." He shrugs. "Their alien powers, y'know? It's not like you're Atypical, like me. You're actually an alien. So, like... what if you can do more?"

He remembers, suddenly and briefly, a moment in that lab. He wants to bring it up, ask Michael if he remembers, but. They're just getting comfortable again. He looks down at the drone, eyes going a little distant and thoughtful.

"I mean," he adds, "you... kind of already have."

Noah had made comments like that, from what he'd heard, but he frowns when Caleb brings that up. He doesn't really remember that lab, which is probably for the best, but that seems impossible. "What, like, my telekinesis being stronger or something?"

Because he's pretty sure he'd also remember that, so he thinks maybe Caleb's just mistaken.

"No, um." He considers his words, frowning a little. "When Alex and I were, um. Getting you out, I felt you. Like, not in an empath way, either. It felt like, like your mind was touching my mind, kind of." He hesitates another moment, then says, "And, um, ever since then, your feelings have been a lot clearer and stronger. Almost like the volume got turned up, or something, but, but just with you. I can feel you from really far away, now."

Michael frowns, but it's not completely outside of the realm of the normal. "You sure it's not you? Because I could always sort of feel Max and Isobel before," he points out. "Maybe we got connected somehow because of your powers, and now you can feel me because of that."

He doesn't remember doing anything, and even with his telekinesis, he has to focus. It never just happens.

Caleb shakes his head. "No, I don't think so," he says, slowly, like he doesn't want to actually argue. "It happened sort of suddenly. I felt you, in there, and then it was almost like I could hear you."

It wasn't that clear, not exactly. It was more like his perception of Michael's feelings had heightened and crystallized, to the point that Caleb's understanding of them became borderline telepathic. And that's not something his ability can do, he's certain of that. Even with Adam, it'd never been that clear.

That's how it feels with other aliens, so he's not sure how that could be happening between him and someone like Caleb, who has powers, but not in the same sense. He shakes his head, dismissively. "I'm sure it wasn't me doing anything weird, that's an alien thing," he says.

"I could always feel Max or Iz when I was in pain, and the others at the prison before here," he says, skipping over that quickly. "Maybe that happened with us, somehow."

"Maybe?" Caleb offers, unsure how to press the issue. "Maybe my empathy connected with something you were throwing out there, and they got, like, tangled up."

Michael's still not sure about it, and the worst part is that he doesn't feel comfortable about it, because it's so far outside of what he knows. Still, he twists up his lips, frowning slightly, and gives Caleb a nod. "Is it bad? Me being amped up, in your feelings?"

Caleb doesn't even have to really think about it, and he shakes his head. "No, actually. It's like everything's a little more, like, defined, and that makes it so much easier to understand." And if he can understand an emotion, it's a lot easier to balance, he's found. He considers, then adds, "I mean... it still doesn't tell me what to do about any of it. I still have to figure that part out on my own."

He gestures between them and continues.

"Like, right now, I can feel you're totally not comfortable with this conversation, and I know that it's because it's unfamiliar territory, not because of anything I'm doing wrong. Before, it wouldn't be like that. I'd just know 'shit, Michael's uncomfortable,' but not the why, and I'd just assume it was something I did, and I'd try to fix it. I mean, I still want to fix it, so you're not uncomfortable, but only so you're not uncomfortable. Not because I feel guilty or, or uncomfortable, too."

Michael just hates a problem he can't solve and being an alien from a planet he doesn't know about, it leads to a lot of frustrated days. This is just another thing for the pile, but fuck if he doesn't like it.

"So what I'm hearing is that maybe I should be more cautious about being around Alex when I'm here," he quips, trying to turn some of this into a joke, because that's just what he does, all the while his brain is puzzling the problem and trying to make something of it.

Caleb scoffs out a laugh, amused by the remark even as he reflects Michael's frustration.

"Uh, please, yes," he confirms.