Farspace Colonel

independent caleb written by coral

[co1onel]

#CO1ONEL: an independent, mutuals-only, highly-selective, and canon-divergent caleb from love and deepspace. sideblog to blazingviolets.

all my rules follow that of my main blog (rafayel) with a few additions:

caleb is exclusive to dawn hong (@dev1l) and will not be writing romantically with other mcs. i am willing to, however, to write platonic relationships with other mcs.

my portrayal of caleb will be focused content featured in world underneath, so everything that happened in the main story that isn't part of world underneath will be largely ignored.

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ᴀ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛɪꜰᴜʟ, ꜰᴜᴄᴋɪɴɢ ᴄᴀᴛᴀꜱᴛʀᴏᴘʜɪᴄ ꜱʏꜱᴛᴇᴍ ᴇʀʀᴏʀ ʜᴇ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ꜱᴀᴡ ᴄᴏᴍɪɴɢ. — @dev1l

𝖨’𝗆 𝖺 𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝗈𝖿 𝖺𝖼𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇, 𝗈𝖿 𝗀𝗋𝗂𝗍 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗀𝖾𝗍𝗍𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗁𝖺𝗇𝖽𝗌 𝖽𝗂𝗋𝗍𝗒. 𝖹𝖺𝗒𝗇𝖾 𝗂𝗌 𝖺 𝗆𝖺𝗇 𝗈𝖿 𝗉𝗋𝖾𝖼𝗂𝗌𝗂𝗈𝗇. 𝖧𝖾’𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝖼𝖺𝗅𝗉𝖾𝗅 𝗍𝗈 𝗆𝗒 𝗌𝗅𝖾𝖽𝗀𝖾𝗁𝖺𝗆𝗆𝖾𝗋. — @cardiolog1st

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[dev1l]

" ... nice? " you scoff, eyes venomous. your index finger keep scrolling , latching onto that automatic behaviour like a lifeline, so that you appear half - okay to the dumbass trying to pick a fight. " like, i know you were prolly dropped on the fucking head as a baby, but you cannot call what you did ' nice. ' "

you're fuming. caleb comes back with a solution to hold over your head, & all of a sudden, you're supposed to forget? that horrible emptiness - the sudden person-shaped hole of your brother / best-friend in your life that was wrenched from you & refixed just as fast - that shit's gonna stick with you forever. somehow, caleb expects things to just be back to normal, like la - dee - dah , we all hold hands and skip into the fucking sunset? no way.

" i think anyone with half a thought about loyalty would have thought twice about playing dead, to be honest. but maybe you're just a little dumb? idk. " you're always meaner when you're scared. " trust me, you don't need to tell me twice. i said i forgave you already, so stop being annoying. "

ever since caleb's fucked off in the name of protecting you, that's all you ever assume. like one day you wake up & walk around the house and it's like he never existed at all. it snaps something fragile in your chest - something you can't really decipher. instead of doing all the mental gymnastics, it's much more satisfying to throw your phone against the wall. yeah. you're satisfied to watch it shatter and die.

" dude. shut the fuck up for one second, i can't stand you. if you wanna leave, just leave already - maybe kill yourself for real while you're at it, so i don't have to your ugly ass face again. "

[co1onel]

"...Anyone would think twice about playing dead..."

In a sick and twisted way, Caleb almost finds the way she'd blurted out the words as fact preposterous. The chip in his head, a little ornament he's ever so aware of that the Professor had given him, hummed away at the back of his brain, diligently chipping away at his sanity. He could almost hear it rousing from sleep, drilling a black hole in the part of his brain that still recognized any faces in his life that meant anything to him. The light of the laboratory almost too bright, faces of other people's children melting into sticky, indiscernible goo, people he can't really remember now - seemed too far away, they probably didn't matter. They all depended on him to feel safe, and he delivered, he played his role, but Caleb always knew that his heart wasn't really there.

See? She almost wishes you were actually dead. Wake up, solider.

It's why his psychotherapist always advises him to cut off the people in his life who didn't know what respect meant. Part of him still clung to Dawn and Zayne, he didn't know why. Maybe, just maybe, they were the ones who still held any memories tied to his childhood. Caleb can't remember the last time his mind was clear, but he almost thinks it's from before the disaster took place. Playing house, pretending they were actually family, because facing the truth hurt more. He blamed Zayne for moving away, and maybe that was unreasonable, but it was also the start of an avalanche, a landslide of catastrophes that never looked back. Zayne gets to move away, start anew. Dawn gets to forget. While him? Left in the dust to rot away with one hand denotated from his arm, buried under debris, forced to entrust his life in someone else's hand, if anyone ever thought to search for victims before they succumb to their wounds. And she thinks he never thought twice?

"Kill myself?" His laugh is short, almost polite, but it grinds through clenched teeth. It sounded choked in his ears, like he's scrambling for oxygen. "That'd make things easier for you now, pips, wouldn’t it? No one left to call you out while you crawl into someone else's bed. Don't think Gran would like that."

Gran always wanted to lift one of them up from the pits of despair. Caleb knew it always wasn't him. He was just the lucky star she'd chosen as insurance, just in case anything happened to her, someone would take her place and risk his life, like a fool in a standup comedy. Double defense. How absolutely staggeringly brilliant.

He waits for her snarky remark, another bullet through his heart, but it doesn't come. The light in the room shifts a little, shadows lurk, searching for anyone careless enough to abduct. The sensation comes to him in slow, low frequency waves. First in choked, strangled sounds. It's then he realizes his prosthetic hand had seize Dawn's throat, craving the silence, the way she's spiraling and can't keep herself to stay fucking quiet.

"Whoops. Sorry." He lets her fall through his hands like she weighs nothing at all, eyes tracking the moment her balance breaks. "Didn't mean to. Must've slip. Tragic. You okay, pips?" He extends one hand, the same hand that choked her just seconds ago.

[co1onel]

@cardiolog1st

He watches Zayne close to Rafayel and the world sharpens all of a sudden, its edges defined by possession and threat, like the merely existence of the imagery was an insult to his person. Zayne places a hand on that painter's shoulder and he couldn't help but stares. He feels the world tipped on its edge, swirling into a blend of dull, monotone colours like a static on a screen. He could feel his jaw tightens, a tooth at the back of his mouth started hurting, and he itched to do something.

Zayne has never been like this with him.

The thought was a cold shiv twisting in his gut, like a gapping hole torn in the curtain of space, waiting to swallow him whole. Never that unguarded ease, never that quiet, unperformative sense of being present and enjoying another's company. For Caleb, it was always walls, diagnoses, and a distance that felt like a slap to his face, leaving a bruise that never heals. But for Rafayel? He simply... was himself.

He chuckles, an empty sound, as if it came from someone already dead. He presses a hand against the frame of the door when Zayne tries to leave, blocking the entrance. "Well, aren't you two quite the picture?" He hums, voice honey over glass. "Cozy, focused, almost adorable..." His gaze tethered between Zayne and the painter, who was leaving through the other end of the room, unaware of what happens on this side.

Images, like those one sees on an MRI scan, flashes before his mind, its clarity tainted only by the noise of silent static. He imagines what Zayne had been doing while he was gone, while Caleb was gone. Rather than look for him, he'd been here... flirting? With someone he's barely knew for a year. His mind can't help but counts the months, days, hours, how much time they had to themselves where he wasn't here, what they could have done.

"I always knew you had it in you to draw the attention of the masses," he sighs, resigned, though his words were sharp, each syllable cutting. "This time it's a celebrity, too. Beautiful, whole, and not involved in an explosion, that's the important thing. Ha - ha. I always knew that you had taste." Presses a crooked finger against his chin. "Think he'll fold if I tried for him? Or are you confident that he is completely under your spell?"

[co1onel]

@dev1l

The realization didn't dawn so much on Caleb as it denotated; a silent, shattering blast that shifted the world on its axis. One moment, he was endeared by the warmth of their conversation, that familiar, steady hum from his childhood, before everything came apart; yet in the next, an icy, razor-sharp blade cuts through his senses like an animal waiting to be processed, a clarity that said: This person didn't care if he lived or died, she was just using him.

A warm, empty laugh escaped his lips, as void as a black hole.

In a way, he's grateful for Dawn's companionship, he really does. Their reunion had made him smile unwittingly to himself in a long while, one that wasn't defined by what comes after if he didn't do it. He could recall a time in the past, the familiarity of that moment when the Commander issued an official statement. Habitable bridges are live, connecting two space stations. Families, friends, and lovers, united. He'd breathed in deeply, inhaling the cool, dead air of the void. His mind pacing out, feeling the Commander's voice getting further and further until he was deep in the earth's core. Everyone had someone, and he'd thought of Dawn.

His gaze flitted towards the one he'd known for most of his childhood. The one he'd spent years chasing after yet left him feeling overwhelmingly unrewarded.

Look at her, being completely fine. You're drowning in here, and she's checking her social media.

"It must be pretty nice, isn't it?" A soft, cordial hum escapes his lips, barely masked by performative laughter. "... To know that no matter how badly things go, someone will always be there to catch you."

Go on, princess. The voice in his head said autonomously. Pretend that you have no idea that the room is freezing.

Caleb laughs again. His voice trembled with an uneven tone. He can't tell whether it was nervousness or simply the sound of his larynx cracking. He toys with the magnet stones in his palm, its grating, distracting sound filling in the gaps between the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. "You've build the idea that I will always be there, that my loyalty is automatic." A flicker of something cold flashes in his gaze. He clicks his tongue, "Don't assume I won't leave."

[co1onel]

@mukaede // 🌌

it takes him half a second before he lifts his eyes. there's a clever trick to this - looking composed when his pulse is scraping across his throat. to keep his jaws loose, shoulders levelled, and gaze half a beat slower than his thoughts. people tend to think that this sort of calm and compose means control. it isn't. it's just damage control.

"rough's relative," he lets out a weak-willed laugh, one so gruff it feels punching iron bars and hoping for something more than a dent. amethysts scanned the other for a reflection. "you ever seen a smooth one?" he forces a smirk. it's a little too sharp, and a little too practiced, but it's enough to fool most people. the stranger is perceptive, though. caleb wishes it was enough to fool him, too.

the other chuckles. a mirthless sound, like it's a trap waiting to swallow him whole. despite the uneasiness, the tension of a live wire in his chest, caleb acknowledges it. he returns the same stoic nod and accepts the offered seat. the sunlight beams overheard, a little too bright despite the clouds looming over half the sky, looking like it'd rain any minute; he couldn't help but imagines the fluorescent fixtures of the lab, lights as bright as suns on the beach, the professor's voice, more gentler than he'd remembered, asking if anywhere hurt at all. needles in his hands, painful just by looking. no, not really. it almost feels like... being bitten by a mosquito. i'm alright. not because it was true, but because he'd learned that that answer rewards rather than punish.

"anyways," the comment on the weather brings him back to the present, he squares his shallow, cracks his neck, "you seem like a man who notices things. a perceptive individual i can appreciate." a genuine compliment, "glad i brought an umbrella. if you need one, don't be afraid to ask."

[co1onel]

@deadaims

it wasn't the first time he found himself wandering back to the graveyard. he used to visit it alone, white carnations in hand, amethyst irises looking for a single grave as he contemplates what it means to live. some days he just felt like being here, to be alone among the dozens of people that laid beneath the soil, and to be the only one who was alive; comrades, family, but mostly, strangers.

but today, he wasn't alone. another, man or woman, he can't tell from this angle. long flowing white hair, billowing in the wind. maybe it's a ghost, sometimes caleb really wished that ghost were real. this one clearly wasn't, though, because ghosts don't wear hats or dress up as a cowboy, even on halloween.

"good day, soldier." he greeted them with a somber smile, clicking his tongue for emphasis. could he really be one of the fleet's officers? who knew. "the deepspace tunnel claimed more lives than we could offer. sad thing, really." he glanced at the other's face, searching for any form of expression. "who are you here for?"

[co1onel]

my caleb and rafa exists in the same universe btw if you're interacting with them both !

[fromthebeehives]

#BRING BACK COLONEL CALEB

hnghh