(﹙˓ 🎧 ˒﹚) whoa, did you just hear that voice? it's so recognizable that i have no doubt it's caleb ainsley. i don't really know much about them, but i heard they're a twenty-four year old medicine major in their first year. people say that they're hard-working and caring, but rumor has it that they're actually self-centered and stubborn, so i guess we'll never know the truth unless you live with them off campus. if you ask me, i think i'd describe them as the boy next door, but their spotify wrapped should say more about them, in which my body isn’t ready by sombr, tenacity by ellie banke, and tuesday by jensen mcrae are amongst their most played. but whatever, i wish them luck on their endeavors in football and drama. i don't know how they have time for all of that, but i can't wait to see how this new school year treats them! ( michael bradway, cisgender male and he/him, homosexual ) 𝄞ˎˊ˗
-# ⠀⋯⠀gender: ⠀⠀⠀cis man
-# ⠀⋯⠀orientation: ⠀⠀⠀homosexual
-# ⠀⋯⠀ethnicity: ⠀⠀⠀white
-# ⠀⋯⠀residence: ⠀⠀⠀ a studio apartment bankrolled by his family
-# ⠀⋯⠀languages: ⠀⠀⠀ english (mother tongue); spanish ( on duo lingo )
-# ⠀⋯⠀family: ⠀⠀⠀ father ( alive ) / mother ( alive ) / only child
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-# ⠀⋯⠀height: ⠀⠀⠀⠀182cm / 5'11
-# ⠀⋯⠀scent: ⠀⠀⠀⠀cedarwood, sea salt, clean linen
-# ⠀⋯⠀voice / accent: ⠀⠀⠀bostonian
-# ⠀⋯⠀distinguishing features: dimpled smile, calloused hands from years of football, body tea
-# ⠀⋯⠀scars: ⠀⠀⠀ small scar on his collarbone from an accidental stab
-# ⠀⋯⠀piercings: ⠀⠀⠀none
-# ⠀⋯⠀style: ⠀⠀⠀tba
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-# ⠀⋯⠀likes: ⠀⠀⠀late night drives, being on stage, his mom's cooking (when she has time to make it), old films, the smell of rain, being the center of attention⠀
-# ⠀⋯⠀dislikes: ⠀⠀⠀⠀being compared to his parents, silence, hospitals, friends who forget about you once they get into relationships, being told what to do
-# ⠀⋯⠀fears: ⠀⠀disappointing his family, ghosts, death
-# ⠀⋯⠀love languages: words of affirmations & acts of services ( receiving )
-# ⠀⋯⠀dedness: ⠀⠀⠀right handed
-# ⠀⋯⠀habits: ⠀⠀⠀hums under her breath, taps his fingers when restless, quotes lines from songs
-# ⠀⋯⠀hobbies: ⠀⠀⠀drama club, football, reality tv, tiktok 5 minute recipes, microwaving everything
-# ⠀⋯⠀character trope: ⠀⠀⠀the golden boy / the perfect son with a secret
-# ⠀⋯⠀character inspirations: ⠀⠀troy bolton, high school musical / finn hudson, glee / prince eric-type legacy kids who'd rather run away and join the theater
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-# ⠀⋯a little about caleb ainsley (emphasis on little).
caleb ainsley grew up in mansion in boston. only son of two successful surgeons. the kind of parents who you'd only see at bedtime or on summer vacation. but they were always clear about what was expected of caleb: honor roll. varsity football. an acceptance letter to the exact same med school program where his parents met, his whole life had already been written before he got a say in it. and he accepted it all. when he joined drama club freshman year of high school nobody gave it a second thought, they figured it was just another line for his college apps. but somewhere between the first day of rehearsal and his first standing ovation it turned into the one place he actually felt like himself. he's twenty-four now, finally out from under his parent's expectations, and something in him is starting to unravel (stream the cure) a little. he's realizing he does not want to follow the script his parents wrote for him.
caleb was a fellow drama kid- though kid is probably the wrong word for a man three years her senior. she'll use it in her head only. clementine has a lot going on, but the girl does love the theater. there's a bright smile on her face, in contrast to her blood smeared costume, as she notices and greets the other.
"hey! caleb! how's the crucible going?" not something she herself has had the time or the motivation for- she's a dancer- she's not wasting her limited time doing straight plays. but she's seen the fliers around the arts building of course. "i'm excited to go see it-"
caleb's agamemnon headpiece was long ditched and he looked like a regular knight to most people as he stood around pretending to drink his beer. he was cutting, so he wasn't allowed carbs, but he didn't know how to be at a party without a drink in his hand. he beamed at clementine, though his smile faltered slightly as he thought about the play. "it's... bringing up a lot of religious trauma." he shared with a hearty chuckle. it wasn't that deep, he was mostly joking, though it did remind him why he left church. "but oliver looks really hot in the costume so that makes it all worth it. how come you didn't join us? you could've been a great mary warren." he narrowed his eyes in thought as he checked her costume out. "are you... bloody mary?"
"ballet is an art for a reason. it takes a lot of focus," tone flat as she finishes observing the spectacle being created in front of her. halted in her tracks, bag full of track gear over her shoulder and hair damp from a morning swim practice, "do you need help or are you going to start doing gymastics and backflip back onto your feet next?" doubtful but she couldn't say it wouldn't impress her, maybe earn an ounce of respect to bring him up from subzero. she would never risk a sports injury for a moment of fun.
caleb stood up almost as quickly as he plummeted to the floor, feeling more embarrassed than anything. he was used to being tackled by men twice his weight, so a quick fall was easy to dust off. "i know it is. i did ballet for a few years." before his father forced him to drop it for football because it was making him girly, but that part was left unsaid. joke was on his dad, he turned out a homosexual anyway. he checked himself over to make sure he still looked presentable. thankfully the floor was squeaky clean, so were his clothes. he grinned at flo, ignoring the snark in her words. "i'm all good. wanna get slushies and help me come up with an idea for my glee audition?"
halfway through whatever caleb was doing, dennis had already slowed, caught somewhere between minding his own business and absolutely needing to see where this was going. the answer, apparently, was the floor. he moved over despite himself, hovering over caleb with his brows lifted. “ you good there, ainsley? ” he asked, glancing first at his face, then down toward his ankle. “ not amazing on tile, are you? i thought football players spent half their lives doing footwork drills, ” he added, more amused than mean, before extending a hand, palm up. “ for the record, if you’re going to audition, you usually start by writing your name. ” he added, tipping his head toward the sign - up sheet.
caleb was unfazed by the physical pain of faceplanting his way to the floor, it wasn't like he hadn't taken worse hits on the field. it was more the embarrassment of it all that bothered him. he was glad a familiar face was there to help him, though he did shoot a glare at dennis for being a smartass. "we do. and i also did five years of ballet, i have incredible balance." he said, reaching for the offered hand and letting himself be pulled up, then dusted himself off like nothing happened. "i just had a lot on my mind and," he glanced at the sign up sheet againand rubbed the back of his neck, "i know." he huffed out something between a laugh and a sigh. "but i don't know that i should audition. i already have so much on my plate." he chewed the inside of his cheek, weighing it the way he weighed everything, overthinking. "i want to be my best at everything i do. i don't want to start half assing four things because i got greedy, i'd prefer full assing everything."
August was nursing an iced coffee against the increasingly purple bruise that was blooming along his jaw, the cup pressed to his face in lieu of an actual ice pack. The whole left side of his mouth still ached every time he chewed or yawned, and it was safe to say that Sydney had packed one hell of a punch. At least it'd given the gossip mill something fresh to chew on.
He was halfway down the hallway when he heard a familiar voice ring out over the usual campus noise, causing August to look up just in time to watch Caleb execute a surprisingly graceful pirouette... followed immediately by one of the least graceful faceplants he had ever witnessed. Himself, included.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, wincing in sympathy before he crossed the distance between them, crouching beside him. "You alright?" He asked, offering Caleb his free hand.
caleb was used to football injuries, but dance had been a gentler companion to him. just, not this time. he sat up and touched his face. "is anything broken?" caleb asked, slightly panicked. he was admittedly vain, but it was hard not to be when you liked being on stage and when people told you how handsome you were through most of your life. his face was his second best asset, only behind his voice. his parents would trade both features for a better brain, but this was the hand he'd been dealt.
there was some blood pooling in his mouth and he ran his tongue behind his teeth to ensure they were all there. thankfully, they were. he'd only bit his lip. he sighed with relief and grabbed august's hand to finally stand up, only then noticing that the other also seemed to be going through his own injuries. "are you alright?" he asked. "who gave you that?" he nodded at the bruise on august's face. "maybe we should both go to the infirmary. though i bet the nurse would think we fought each other if we showed up now."
🏒 ˚ ﹕ㅤㅤ " fuck, sorry. " sydney said apologetically, almost painfully polite, although he was trying his best to maintain his composure after what the other said next. he didn't want to burst into laughter, especially with how sincere caleb's sentiment sounded, albeit the crux of it being hot gay sex or whatever. and sydney hadn't seen the show, but he also knew that the whole rivalry worked because the two characters weren't from the same team. and he supposed he could recontextualize it to fit caleb's situation more, but that meant his rivarly would be with luke shepherd.
sydney sighed as he finally closed his laptop, this conversation already too distracting to get any work done, gaze falling upon caleb. " i mean luke shepherd's your quarterback. he's got the most important role so i guess he's really the only one you could have some heated rivalry with. " he shrugged, still unsure how important this really was to caleb, or if he was pulling his leg. he was never quite sure, especially when his first instinct always made him want to believe whatever people told him as a sign of trust. " but there's also gossip that he's only into weird girls. so you're probably gonna have to start wearing eyeliner and black nail polish. or i don't know, you could also join glee club to get closer to him. "
caleb grimaced at the idea of a rivalry with luke. they couldn't possibly be rivals, a good relationship between teammates was kind of essential if they wanted to actually win games. he figured that'd be obvious to sydney, him being an athlete too, but maybe hockey worked differently. "have you had hot gay sex with any of your teammates?" he asked, propping his head up on his hand, one leg bent at the knee so his foot rested against the mattress, curious to hear the answer. he hummed thoughtfully at the luke gossip, nodding slowly like he was filing it away for later, not that he'd actually use it. he just liked knowing things. and he wondered if it was even true. "i don't think makeup makes a girl weird, syd."
"but speaking of glee," he sighed, the thought clearly one that had been sitting on him for a while now. "i'm kind of getting fomo. every person in drama is also in glee, i swear, and i keep running into glee kids everywhere. and then they start singing around campus and i just want to join in every time. i think i want to sign up, but…" panic prickled under his skin, the same way it always did whenever he got overwhelmed. "i barely have enough time as it is. and i can't take caffeine pills, i saw that saved by the bell episode. how do you handle it all?"
"dancing through liiife," caleb belted out in the hallway in front of the glee sign up sheet, drawing looks from at least three people walking by that he completely ignored. he did a little pirouette, keeping the sheet as his focus point. he'd been debating signing up all week, but he was already stretching himself thin between studying, football, and drama. he could not possibly add anything on top of it, but every person he'd met from glee was so nice. maybe he could cram some glee like he was cramming audition practice, between bathroom breaks and walks to class. so what if he came off as a lunatic singing around campus, or his teammates had to get used to him dancing in the locker room. he was mid another pirouette when his ankle twisted and he hit the ground face first.
Lucas looked at his teammate like he would've looked at a toddler waving his hands around and begging for a try. He was too into it, too excited at the idea of something as simple as a joint at a party... It was almost shocking, one of the guys on the team not having had partaken in a smoking session after one of the games' afterparties... but anything was possible at St Rivera. Some straight edged Titan wouldn't be the weirdest thing he had run into so far. "...You've smoked before, right?" Somehow Shepherd expected that the answer would be a no.
Part of him that wanted to tell Caleb to get lost, live another day in his purity-- "Come on," the part of him that always longed to be someone's first motioned over his shoulder. "Let's go find out how it tastes."
caleb considered lying and acting cool, but the whole point of this semester was to drop the act. "i had half a cigarette once, but there wasn't any marijuana in it." he said matter of factly, then held his breath a little, hoping the confession wouldn't cost him his shot at smoking with his teammate. it didn't. he grinned and fell into step behind lucas, still buzzing but already spiraling the way he always did. "won't the coach get mad?" he asked with a frown. "will it show up on the drug tests? should i buy pee off amazon? do they even sell that on amazon? i think i saw that on tv once, but i've learned the hard way you can't trust everything you see on tv." he rambled the whole walk to lucas' car.
🏒 ˚ ﹕ㅤㅤ contrary to popular belief, hockey and football weren't in some ultra-machismo rivalry on campus, able to co-exist unlike how the cheerios always needed to be apex predator. and they were proof of it, sydney and caleb just hanging out together, though it was mostly sydney trying to work on his ancient sumerian mythology paper while caleb … complained. " yeah, speedos aside, any water sport does not really have that combination of grace and aggression you need in hockey. that's what's sexy, " sydney said matter-of-fact, looking up from his laptop screen for a moment. though there was also that smug twinkle in his eyes, as if confident of his own sexiness or whatever caleb was trying to argue here.
" and football? it's so hypermasculine, hyperpatriotic, hyperaggressive. it feels like LARPing as a wrecking ball, " sydney shrugged as he typed away another thought, then looked back up at caleb with a brow quirked curiously, wondering which person rejected him in favor of a hockey player and made him complain about hockey being sexy. " and girls … or anyone, really … don't find it hot watching a bunch of dudes giving each other concussions in a field of painted grass while their just-as-repressed dads are cheering from the stands. "
caleb didn't even enjoy sports that much these days, so he had no idea why hockey's sudden rise on the sexiness charts bothered him this much, but it did. "you're right," he mused, "plus there's never anything to look at in those speedos anyway. probably too cold when they get out of the water to see much." he chuckled to himself, trying and failing to pull an impressive water polo bulge from memory. he stood up from the floor, dusted the chip crumbs off his body, and flopped onto sydney's bed for maximum comfortability.
he laid sideways to face his friend and nodded. "when you put it that way, it really isn't sexy." though sometimes the locker room got steamy, not that he'd admit that right now. he frowned when sydney brought up girls, a little insulted. why did people always assume he was at least bi? he didn't care what girls thought of him, they were lovely, sure, but it was never their attention he was chasing. "i don't care about girls. not like that." he shrugged. "i just wanted our own heated rivalry, you know? i think football players deserve to have hot gay sex too."
clary was beyond embarrassed to say the least, she didn't expect anyone else to be in here honestly. startled by the other's sudden appearance, she dropped her phone with her parents still on the line. "shit." she exclaimed, once she heard the thud of her brand new iphone. "i'm going to have to call you guys back later, i love you." she reassured them before then hanging up. "do you usually lurk around in the shadows waiting to scare the living daylights out of an innocent girl like myself or am i just special?" she teased, a small chuckle escaping her lips as a result. "come on, i wasn't that bad, was i?" she asked, genuinely curious. maybe to other people it was obvious that they had been teasing her, but clary didn't play about her performance skills.
caleb was so entranced by the performance that he did not notice that the girl had an audience on her phone. he flashed her an apologetic awkward smile, rubbing the back of his neck. "sorry to interrupt," he told her. "i wasn't lurking," he clarified defensively and shifted on his feet, a little thrown that she'd jumped straight to that. he didn't do anything shady, so why did his face suddenly burn as though he was guilty of omething, and he could feel it creeping up his ears too, "i was walking by and i was impressed. are you auditioning for wicked?" he asked with a slight tilt of his head,. "no, no, you weren't bad. the opposite, i was just teasing." he shrugged, the tension easing out of his shoulders now that the joke had landed. "it seems glee club has a way of taking all the best talent in this school. if i had any free time, i'd join you guys."
@rawtalents
caleb was going through his bag of chips on the floor of sydney's room mid five minute rant. "... i didn't get weekly concussions in high school for hockey to suddenly become the sexy sport," he stuffed his mouth with more chips and shook his head, defeated and disappointed. "what's even sexy about you guys anyway? you run around with sticks!" he protested with a full mouth, spit and crumbs going everywhere. "if anything, water polo should be the sexiest sport. they play in speedos."
"D'you have a lighter on you?" He wasn't expecting them to say yes, even as he looked at them expectantly, patting at his empty pockets. Most people around campus were blowing strawberries and cream clouds, or puffing on cartridges lately- the glee kids he had been running around with were all too lame serious to convince him they might have a flame in their pocket. Shit. The joint behind his ear begged to be analogue- he was convinced it was better for his lungs, but it was all garbage at the end of the day. Shit his Dad would kill him for.
He looked around the party, (courtesy of Beta Rho Omega!), eyes closing in on the fire pit... Maybe he could-? Nah. "You feel like smoking this thing? Might have to go back to my car to do it."
caleb smoked a regular cigarette once in high school and ran straight home crying to confess to his parents. they told him they were disappointed, but as long as he never did it again, it was fine. and he never did. stuck to a two beer maximum rule at parties ever since. but lately he wanted to break out of his shell, heart beating fast with the possibilities, this would be the most rebellious thing he could think of. "i, uh, yes!" he shook his head, "i mean, no. i don't have a lighter. but yes, i'd like to smoke that with you. very much, please." his smile widened, giddy with excitement. "does it taste like anything?"
open starter for everyone !!
where: the new directions practice room
clarissa had been practicing for mash up day all week, she felt like she could barely feel her feet at this point. when she heard her dad's glee club had been attending this year's sectionals however, she knew she had to step it up, especially since she hated seeing her dad disappointed. it was almost as if she telepathically called her parents when she heard her phone ring, quickly turning off the music once she saw it was them. "hey.. uh perfect timing, as always. let me show you guys something i need your opinion on." she replied, answering the call before then turning the music back on before then showing them her routine. "so, what do you think?" she asked them, trying to catch her breath a bit, not realizing there had been someone standing in the doorway until she turned around. "jesus, how long have you been standing there?"
caleb was no stranger to glee kids. he had a few friends in the club and almost joined a couple times but drama club was already becoming too much on top of football and medicine, which he was supposed to be focusing on, but it was the part he dreaded most about this whole experience. he stood in the doorway and watched, thoroughly impressed by the performance. he meant to slip away once the free show ended, but got caught instead, and the blush gave him away before he could play it off. "uh, the whole time." he confessed and stepped into the room "you had good energy but you sounded a little flat." he said nonchalantly. she didn't, but he liked teasing people.
