greatamazingfeelingsboy

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rosie wilson

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timed to early April?

Therapy with Dr. Fuller has scaled back to twice a month, instead of once a week. He's been talking to his boss at the auto shop about picking up more hours once classes let out, but for now, that's still part time, too. So he's got a little more free time on his hands than he had even last month, and he's filled it with Neil, sports, and, oh yeah, meditating with an actual Jedi.

If anyone had told him last year his life would be like this now, he wouldn't believe them.

Well, he would, because he'd feel their conviction, but that's not the point.

The point is, he's just left Obi-Wan's, and while it's not like he feels wrecked like he sometimes does after therapy, he definitely feels a little raw, and he finds himself wanting something gentle on the empathy.

Someone gentle on it.

He pulls out his phone and types out u busy? before sending it to Rosie. A moment later, he adds, Meet me at the park? He doesn't want to go back to his apartment, and he doesn't want to be alone, and the gentle, soft, cloud-gray of Rosie's feelings sound really, really nice right now.

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"At least you live with a guy," he points out. "You could just borrow Neil's clothes, if it did." He doesn't think Rosie, as a guy, would be much taller or broader than she is now. Maybe a little, but probably not too large for any of Neil's clothes, so she wouldn't have to wear her own clothes to try to go out to buy something that'll fit.

"I totally still have my girl clothes," he admits, blushing. "Just in case it happens again."

Rosie turns towards him and away from the sun just enough to open her eyes without blinding herself, the expression on her face one of bemused, affectionate incredulity. "Caleb," she says, looking up at him. "I can fairly safely say that borrowing clothing from Neil is not the part I'd be least able to make sense of in that situation."

Through some miracle, she manages to get through it all without laughing, but only just. It spills out of her a moment later, long and loud and delighted, and by the time she's finished she's a little out of breath.

"Oh, good grief."

Her amusement and joy bubble out of her and into him, silvery clouds turning a warm, golden yellow that dances into him. He can't help but laugh, too, caught up in it, soaring on it. By choice. He can choose to ease off of it, now, but he doesn't. He just rides it with her, laughing partly because of her remark, but partly because of her laughter.

As it fades down inside him, he turns to face her and props his head on his hand. Before he can say anything, though, he catches the feelings of someone nearby — unfamiliar, but warm and amused and, strangely enough, fond. He glances over at them. It's an older woman, walking with her dog. Caleb blushes as he realizes she feels this way because she thinks he and Rosie are together.

She sees him start to say something, then get distracted, his focus sliding up towards some point in the distance behind her. As surreptitiously as she can, she glances over her shoulder. "What?" she says, looking back at him when all she can see is a woman and her dog a few feet away. "What's she feeling?"

"Huh?" he says, turning back to Rosie. "Oh, um." He almost doesn't want to say, but decides it's better not to keep it from her. "It's a combination of things, actually. She's, like, fond, and kind of amused, and..." He trails off, eyes going a little unfocused. "Oh. And... I think that's nostalgia? It's, like... Warm, and happy, but also sad and a little lonely." He clears his throat and adds in a whisper, "I think she thinks we're together, and it's, like... reminding her of when she had someone?"

Rosie's always a little entertained by asking him to describe the feelings he gets from others, watching the effort on his face as he tries to put something that intangible into words. Even when he can't quite do it, the fact he tries is enough.

"Oh," she says sympathetically when he starts, glancing back at the woman again to see if she can see any trace of the feelings Caleb describes in the way she walks or the angle of her posture. It's not as clear to her, though she hadn't exactly expected it to be. When he clears his throat, she looks back, and the conspiratorial whisper that follows has her blushing. "Oh, she doesn't," she says, delighted and scandalized all at once. "You really think so?"

"Hey, who's the empath, here?" he points out, but he's smiling, even as he's blushing a little, too. The woman is getting further away, now, and as she does, her feelings fade. He looks at Rosie, then gestures between them. "We don't really look that couple-y, do we?"

"As you keep reminding me, Mr. Michaels," she teases, "empathy means you can feel people's feelings, not read minds." Rosie rolls her eyes at him and giggles, only to laugh a little harder when he gestures between them. "I don't think we do, do you? I mean, we're just here in the park like anyone else."

She lets out a sigh then, one that's a little harder than she'd expected. "Not that the truth's stopped assumptions like that before, of course."

"Yeah, but, those are from shitty kids," he points out. "Not random old ladies walking alone through the park." He looks off to where the woman disappeared around the curve of the path. "I dunno, I've felt nostalgia before, but not like that. There was a lot, there." He could probably go through it, if he wanted to, but does it really matter anymore?

"I didn't say they were the same," she points out in turn, but lets the mild debate go before it really gets started. Caleb's argument is the better one, anyway, and she follows the turn of his head as he looks towards the now-empty path. "Well, even if she was wrong, if it made her happy to see it I suppose it wasn't all bad."

She lies back again on his coat, under the warmth of the sun, and smiles. "We'll have some kind of...secret life, all in her head."

"We're totally different people, in her head," he agrees. He settles down beside her, until their shoulders are just barely touching. "Maybe you're even American in her head," he adds with a mock-scandalized gasp.

"Caleb, how dare you," Rosie says, feigning an equal amount of horror. "I think that's the worst thing you've ever said to me."

Eyes still closed against the sunlight, she grins. "I wonder who I'd be, if I was American. Where I'd be from. I always wanted to visit."

Caleb snickers, her feelings dancing through him. "I dunno, you've always given me this kind of New England vibe, I guess," he admits. "Like Neil, y'know? Vermont-y, kinda. Maybe 'cause you're both from similar time periods."

"Maybe," she agrees. "I have wondered before, actually, what it might've been like if we met back home somehow. If we'd have been friends there the same as we are here, or something."

Saying it now is easy, when things are bright and warm and they're having a good time, but Rosie knows--she's not sure if Caleb does, but she knows--that even if she finds her way to Vermont, the most she'll probably ever find of Neil is a headstone. It still isn't fair.

"I think we would be."

Unwittingly, Caleb has the same thought, and he refuses to dampen the moment by mentioning it. He smiles over at her.

"I think you would be, too," he says. "Except now I'm trying to picture you with an American accent, and it's about as weird as trying to picture myself with a British one."

"Oh, that would be weird," she agrees. "Either way. We wouldn't sound like ourselves at all." Rosie concentrates hard, trying to figure out how to flatten her accent, change it into something more like Caleb's or Sabrina's, Charlie's or Neil's. "I'm the American Rosie Wilson," she says when she think she's worked it out, and it doesn't even sound right, not by half. "Howdy, partner."

She snorts, once, then lets out another delighted spill of laughter. "Oh my god, that was horrible."

"Oh my god," he says, laughing. "You're lucky I already know I can't do a British accent, so I'm not even gonna try." He'd done the whole Monty Python thing, and Alice had teased him relentlessly about the shitiness of his accent. (Hers isn't much better, but even he can admit it's better.)

"Coward," she says, one eyebrow lifting even as she keeps her eyes closed against the glare of the sun. "I knew I was going to be terrible at it and I did it anyway. It's not like I'm going to tell the Queen and have you sent to the Tower."

She pretends to think about it. "Although maybe if it's very bad..."

"Whoa!" he yelps, laughing at the fight in her words, however playful. "Fine, Jesus, okay!" He clears his throat and, in a not-quite-terrible, weirdly Scottish accent, says, "Hi there, American Rosie, I'm British Caleb, and you'd better not tell the bloody Queen." He breaks into snickers and covers his face with his hands.

Rosie's quiet for a long time after Caleb speaks, long enough that his laughter peters away and there's only the faint sounds of the park and the wind through the trees around them. "Well," she says finally. She tries to make it serious, even appalled, but the corner of her mouth curls up in a grin. "You did warn me it was bad, but I wasn't expecting that."

It's long enough that he actually starts to wonder if he's offended her somehow, as if her feelings wouldn't tell him so immediately, and he's halfway to a wince when she finally speaks.

"Ouch," he says with another laugh. "That bad, huh?"

"That bad," she says mock-gravely. It's not as easy to trick him, when he can read her feelings so well, but that doesn't mean she can't play with it a little. "Thankfully, you have other redeeming qualities."

He rolls his eyes, playful and amused. "Oh, okay," he says, and reaches over to give her a gentle shove — which does nothing, since they're both laying down anyway.

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