my piece for @ariloveswords fic for @podcastbigbang !! please go check it out!!!
[begin ID: a digital, colored drawing depicting a cast of characters, sitting at an outdoor picnic table at a pride event, at sunset. In the background, from left to right, are: Sadie Greenwood, Chloe Turner, Ben Bernard, Frankie Meeks, Caitlin Park, Adam Hayes, and Caleb Michaels. In the foreground, from left to right, are: Mags Densmore, Sam Barnes, Oliver Ritz, and Mark Bryant.
Sadie is a white woman with an undercut, and long red hair, wearing a trans pride flag crop-top, and shorts. Sadie is facing and conversing with Chloe. Chloe is an east asian woman with long, wavy, black and dyed-blonde hair, wearing a yellow shirt with pansexual stripes on the sleeves, underneath blue jean overalls, and asexual pride flag socks. The overalls have asexual and pansexual pride buttons. On her face is makeup coloured to look like the pansexual flag. Next to Chloe is Ben, a brown-skinned person with short, curly brown hair, wearing a nonbinary pride flag underneath a dark purple sweater. Sitting next to Ben is Frankie, a black man with close-cropped, curly brown hair, wearing heart-shaped glasses with the trans stripes and a purple shirt. Frankie is conversing with Caitlin, a light-skinned east asian woman with long, black hair pulled up into a ponytail. Caitlin is wearing a yellow t-shirt with an ally pride flag in the center. Standing next to Caitlin is Adam, a black man with short, curly dark brown hair, wearing a dark shirt underneath a red Letterman jacket, and a Philadelphia pride button on the lapel. Adam is also holding up the rainbow pride flag behind him. Adam is looking at Caleb, behind him with a fond expression. Caleb is a brown-skinned man with close-cropped brown hair wearing a yellow t-shirt with the trans stripes across the middle and a demisexual pride button above that.
Mags is a black woman with curly brown hair pulled up into a bun, wearing a purple, flannel shirt with rainbow flag drawstrings, grey jeans with holes in the knees, and knee-high converse with rainbow flag laces. Mags also has the lesbian pride flat tied around her neck like a cape. Mags is smiling at Sam. Sam is a brown-skinned woman with shoulder-length curly brown hair, wearing purple glasses, a jean jacket with various patches, one of a circular bisexual pride flag, over a striped orange shirt, and blue jeans. Sam is looking at Mags. Next to Sam is Oliver, a black man with short, curly brown hair, wearing a long-sleeved black shirt and grey shorts. There are bisexual pride flag wristbands under his sleeves. Oliver is turned away from the viewer, facing and conversing with Mark. Mark is an East Asian man with close-cropped black hair, wearing a poncho with the bisexual pride flag colors and rainbow pride flag tassels, grey shorts, rainbow pride flag socks, and red converse. Mark is holding up a water bottle as he chats with Oliver. end ID]
The Bright Sessions • Adam Hayes / Caleb Michaels, Mark Bryant / Oliver Ritz
Rating: T • ~5.2k words • AO3
For @staystrange
tw: description of panic attacks
He fills Mark in on everything that happened. It seems like so long ago now, before everything with Sodalis Eximius and Adam and Oliver, and yet it’s still so fresh in his mind - the horror of influencing someone else’s emotions now amplified by the knowledge of what it looks like when someone does use that ability for evil. He will never be like Blackwell - Adam certainly spends enough time trying to remind him of that, and though he will never truly believe him, it helps - but the knowledge of what he could do still leaves him waking up in a cold sweat. His nightmares place him in Blackwell’s stead, the book a constant murmur of emotions telling him how to feel. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and -
“Caleb?” Mark says after a moment. “Have you considered taking off for a year?”
Or: Caleb struggles with his powers, his life decisions, and what he wants after the events of The College Tapes.
The day Adam gets into Yale's English graduate program begins one of the worst mental breakdowns of Caleb Michaels’s life.
It's late Friday morning; they're lying on Adam's bed in his apartment, still under the covers. Adam's hair tickles Caleb's chin and they probably both have an awful case of morning breath, but Caleb wouldn't move for all the money in the world. He finally has this again, has Adam again, and even three months after everything he hasn't stopped marveling at his luck.
Adam's blue mixes Caleb’s yellow satisfaction, they're green with contentment, and Caleb relishes in it, delighting in the quiet of -
BANG.
"Adam?!" A voice shouts from outside. Caitlin. "Adam, did you check?! Did you-"
Adam goes from warm-comfort-blue to black-anxious-sludge in a manner of seconds, eyes and hands anxiously darting everywhere.
"Phone... phone... Caleb, where's my-"
Caleb wordlessly hands him his phone, the screen already unlocked to show Adam’s home screen, but Adam barely spares him a glance. Caleb can hear Adam’s heart racing, and his own heartbeat picks up the pace to match it. There are four awful, agonizing beats of silence, before -
“I GOT IN!”
The exhilaration hits Caleb in a rush of blue, flooding his core with exhilaration, and they’re screaming, jumping on Adam’s bed, and dancing around; Caitlin joins them, and the three dance around like fools until they all flop to the floor.
“What do you say, Adam?” Caitlin says, the light in her eyes mirroring the happy bubbles in her lavender excitement. “Three more years at Yale?”
“As if you could drag me away,” Adam says, and god, he sounds so happy, so relieved, and Caleb wants to sink into that feeling and hold onto it forever. “You’re the deserter here, not me.”
“Hey!” Caitlin shrieks, reaching over Caleb to shove at Adam. “Desert this, motherfuck-”
“Okay, okay, okay, Caitlin,” Caleb chuckles, shoving her off his chest with a grunt. “Not our fault you chose Duke over Yale Law!”
“They offered me more financial aid,” Caitlin pouts for the thousandth time since she’d chosen where to commit. “It’s not my fault Yale doesn’t want to keep me!”
“We get it, Caitlin, don’t worry.” Adam chuckles, then turns to Caleb. “By the way, babe, did you ever look into the clinical psych program like you said you would? I know the application isn’t due for a bit, but it’s never too early to start researching, right?”
“Uhm…” Caleb says, and the happy blue glow is still there but now Caleb’s own sickly yellow dread is there, taking over everything, and he needs to get out of here before he ruins everything again. He breathes in deep, as Dr. Bright had taught him, and contains his dread within his own chest before it can come leaking out like water through a sieve. “Yeah, I, uh- I-”
“Caleb?” Adam asks, dark navy worry seeping into cyan happiness and making Caleb feel even worse. “Are you-”
“Ihavetogo!” Caleb jolts up. His heart is pounding in his ears and he can’t see can’t breathe he needs to leave he needs to go needs to - “Fuck, um, I’m gonna. Gonna go for a. Run, I’m gonna go run.” He grabs a pair of shorts from his drawer in Adam’s dresser, socks and shoes thrown on before Caitlin and Adam blink, and then he’s gone.
His feet hit the pavement hard, sending shockwaves through his body, and for a moment Caleb wishes Ben was beside him. They’re the perfect running partner, surprisingly good at knowing when Caleb needs to talk and when he needs to be silent, and right now Caleb wishes he could talk to Ben, or Sadie, or Frankie, but he also doesn’t want to worry them, and he knows that it’s stupid but -
His phone is in his hand.
You’ve reached Mark, for some reason. It’s 2017, last I checked - just text me. Or, you know, leave a message if you must.
“Mark,” Caleb gasps out, and he’s breathless from running but also from panic. “Mark, I- I- fuck, this was stupid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called, it’s just, you said- I mean- fuck-”
He breaks off and takes a breath, wishing for Dr. Bright (Call me Joan, Caleb, I think we’ve been through enough at this point) and her calm beige professionalism, or Frankie’s bubbly orange happiness, or Adam’s easy blue to fill his lungs and let him breathe again.
“I just- You remember when I asked you, you know… if you knew… I mean. I guess you are grown up now, right? But. How did you- I mean- God this is stupid.”
He hangs up, hands shaking, and there’s no one around him but he’s still so filled with emotion he feels like he could burst. The run isn’t helping, and he kinda wants to scream, because the thought of graduating and having to choose what happens next is -
His phone rings.
“H-Hello?”
“Caleb? Oh god, Caleb.” Mark. He sounds… worried? Relieved? All of the above? “Caleb, are you okay? I just got your message - you’re so lucky I emptied my voicemail recently, by the way, I can’t believe - but that’s beside the point, Caleb, what happened?”
“Adam,” Caleb starts, and then gulps in a breath and starts again. “Adam got into Yale English, which, like, we fucking knew was gonna happen, because they would have had to be fucking stupid not to take him, but-”
“Okay, okay, Caleb, deep breath,” Mark instructs, and Caleb is so glad Mark’s the person he called. Mark is no Joan Bright, but some of his sister’s instincts have clearly leaked through.
“Come on, breathe with me Caleb… In for four… One… Two…”
Caleb listens to the sound of Mark’s voice and breathes and breathes, trying to focus on the feeling of the grass under his hands and - when did he end up on the ground? But he’s breathing and the emotions have stopped leaking out of him like a cracked dam, panic-worry-anxiety giving way to calm.
God, he’s lucky New Haven is pretty much dead right now - leaking emotions like this, his influence on other people could have gotten very bad very quickly. Just the thought makes his breathing pick up again, but he tries his best to focus on Mark’s voice instead.
Mark has switched from counting to a steady monologue about his latest date with Oliver, during which Mark had taken Oliver to the MIT Museum of Science so that Oliver could show off how much smarter he is than the MIT scientists. Mark’s pretending to have been annoyed by it, using a nasal voice to imitate Oliver’s insults, but Caleb can feel the lightness behind Mark’s voice even over the phone. He focuses on that lightness, on the cool grass under his legs, and lets himself come down.
“Hey, Mark?” He says finally, cutting off Mark’s explanation of the diner they’d gone to after the museum.
“Yeah, buddy?”
“Thanks,” Caleb says, and he’s not sure what he’s even thanking Mark for - calling him back, calming him down, or just being there - but the words resonate with everything he doesn’t have the words to say.
“Anytime,” Mark answers gently. “Are you ready to talk about it?”
“Yeah…” Caleb takes a deep breath. “I just… Fuck, Mark, I don’t know if I can do psych anymore.”
“What? Caleb, you… Why not? What happened?”
Caleb exhales and lets his head loll back, hitting the tree trunk he’s leaning against with a soft thump. “So… remember that internship I had last summer?”
He fills Mark in on everything that happened. It seems like so long ago now, before everything with Sodalis Eximius and Adam and Oliver, and yet it’s still so fresh in his mind - the horror of influencing someone else’s emotions now amplified by the knowledge of what it looks like when someone does use that ability for evil. He will never be like Blackwell - Adam certainly spends enough time trying to remind him of that, and though he will never truly believe him, it helps - but the knowledge of what he could do still leaves him waking up in a cold sweat. His nightmares place him in Blackwell’s stead, the book a constant murmur of emotions telling him how to feel. It’s overwhelming and terrifying and -
“Caleb?” Mark says after a moment. “Have you considered taking off for a year?”
“Taking… off?”
“Well, I mean, don’t pull an Oliver and go gallivanting through Europe for a year without telling anyone, but… maybe a break from school would do you good? You could, I don’t know, get a job or something. You’re planning on moving in with Adam in New Haven after you graduate anyway, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah, I mean we were definitely thinking about it, but-”
“Caleb.” Mark’s voice is soft but firm, anchoring Caleb to the present. “What’s stopping you? Take a year, figure out what you want. Life doesn’t stop after college, remember?”
“Yeah…” Caleb breathes, shaky but getting calmer. “Yeah, I…”
“You okay, buddy?”
(Caleb loves it when Mark calls him buddy. He pretends to hate it, pretends to hate how childish it is as a nickname, but Mark is the older brother he never got to have and Caleb loves him.)
“Yeah, I think… I think I have to talk to Adam. And my parents.”
“You do that, Caleb.” The amusement in Mark’s voice is undercut by the softness of it, and Caleb loves his brother so much. “And hey, Caleb?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you, little bro.”
Caleb laughs, low and breathy. “I love you too, Mark. Say hi to Oliver and Joan for me?”
“Of course. Everything's going to be okay, Caleb, I promise. Oh, also, Joanie said to call her when you get a sec. Something about what you talked about last time?”
“Yeah. I will. Thanks again, Mark. Bye.”
“Bye!”
Mark hangs up, and Caleb closes his eyes for a moment before heaving himself to his feet and pointing himself back the way he came.
Back home.
Back to Adam.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me for this twig,” Sadie jokes over the last of his boxes. “Who’s going to hit the gym with you now, Michaels?”
“He doesn’t need you anymore, Sadie!” Adam sasses back, cerulean playfulness resting lightly in Caleb’s chest. Adam’s rifling through boxes, trying to find their bottle opener (“I know it’s in one of the kitchen boxes, Caleb, but which one?”) and Caleb is sitting on the floor because they still only have like two chairs, and one is being taken up by Caitlin and the other has been commandeered by Ben. Frankie’s flitting from one room to the next, keeping up a constant commentary of thoughts, and underlying it all is green contentment.
If Caleb could freeze any moment in time to live in forever, he thinks this would be it - surrounded by friends, in this tiny shoebox apartment he and Adam now live in. Together.
It doesn’t get more official than that.
“Michaels!” Sadie yells, effectively snapping Caleb out of his reverie. “This one says he’s your new gym partner!”
“Wait wait wait, hold up, I never said anything of the sort,” Adam defends himself, gesturing wildly with the now-located bottle opener. “All I said was that now that you got this job at the gym, you didn’t need Sadie to be your partner anymore! You’re gonna be training other people or whatever one does in a gym, I don’t fucking know, but I never signed up for any gym-going of my own, thank you very much.”
“Objection, your honor-” Sadie starts, giggling. “I-”
“Overruled!” Caitlin yells, pulling Frankie down on top of her. “On the grounds of my hunger! And we’re waiting for that bottle opener, Adam, so if you wouldn’t mind...”
“You got it, Cait,” Caleb laughs. They’d ordered takeout from a place down the road and for a while there’s no sound other than chewing and the occasional “can someone pass me a napkin?” Someone eventually turns on Caleb’s laptop, and they dig out Adam’s clunky old projector to watch Mamma Mia! for the ten-thousandth time.
“So Caleb,” Ben says somewhere in between “Lay All Your Love On Me” and “Super Trouper,” “What’s this new job you’ve got anyways?”
Caleb turns to look up at them from the floor. Ben, in true queer fashion, is lying with their feet propped on the top of the chair and their head hanging upside down off the seat, and Caleb feels his heart fill with love. Ben’s come so far in the past year, and Caleb… well, Ben will never not be his kid sibling, after all that.
“It’s a Physical Trainer position at Yale New Haven Health’s gym,” he answers finally. “They offered to pay for my training and everything. I guess they really liked me or something.”
“Of course they did,” Adam mumbles. He’s resting somewhere between sleep and awake, head tucked into the crook of Caleb’s neck, which Caleb would absolutely be teasing Adam for if Caleb wasn’t so completely besotted by the sight. God, he loves this man. “They'd be stupid not to.”
Adam looks up at Caleb, eyes soft with sleep as “Super Trouper” plays from Caleb’s laptop, and Caleb can feel himself falling in love with Adam all over again. He thinks back to what Mark had said on the phone all those weeks ago - Life doesn’t stop after college, remember? - and knows in his gut that he’s made the right choice. He doesn’t need grad school to be happy; doesn’t need a fancy degree like a PsyD.
All he needs is this family he’s made for himself, and Adam beside him for as long as Adam’s willing to stay.
With these people around him, he knows he can do anything.
<<From the Voicemail Box of Dr. Joan Bright.>>
Please record your message after the tone. When you are finished recording, press 1 for more options
>> Hey, Dr. Brig- uh, I mean, Joan. Right. Sorry, I know you said I could call you Joan after graduation, since I'm, like, no longer your patient and like an adult now or whatever, but… fuck. That's weird. Um. It's Caleb.
>> Anyways, just calling to let you know that I met with that Atypical therapist you recommended to me today… uh, Alene Orwell? Yeah, her. She's pretty cool, and it's good to know I have someone I can talk to if I need here in New Haven, but… She's not you. Is it weird of me to say I miss you? Fuck. Probably. Sorry, I made it weird.
>> So, um, yeah. I was just calling to keep you updated. Adam says hi, by the way. Oh, and Ben was wondering if you knew anyone who could help them talk to their parents about the Atypical thing in New York? I guess they finally decided to clue in their parents, but like. I don't really have any advice for them there, so I told them I'd ask.
>> Yeah. That's all. Um, say hi to Mark and Sam and Jackson for me. I'll talk to you later. Bye!
End of Final Message.
Working at YNHH’s gym fits Caleb better than he ever thought it would.
It’s not that he hasn’t been a gym rat since high school - the 2.7 pound jar of protein powder Adam teases him about schlepping up the three flights of stairs to their apartment at least once a month definitely defines him as a “meathead,” as Adam would say - it’s that the focused emotions of everyone around him sit warmly in his chest like a clean sweat after a good workout. People come to the gym with one plan in mind - get in, work out, get out - and the focus behind their drive pushes Caleb to heights he never thought he’d reach.
He loves it.
His coworkers are great too - Jen with her stick-straight black hair tied in a bun so tight it looks like it probably hurts; her girlfriend Amora, who can lift more than Caleb and will never let him forget it; Greg and Jake, frat bros turned personal trainers and roommates who are constantly bemoaning their singleness and don’t make it weird when Caleb brings up his boyfriend; Caleb’s manager, Tommy, who gives out warm cozy hugs like handshakes and lets the trainers pretty much do what they want as long as they’re not bothering patrons. There’s always a good rapport going between them.
Caleb teaches a weights class on Tuesdays and Thursdays and trains clients on other days. He’s got favorites already, people who come in with single handed focus to be better-faster-stronger, and the rush of adrenaline and joy that he feels whenever they succeed in something leaves him buoyant. Caleb is good at this; he’s a good trainer and a good coworker and he loves what he does.
He loves it… but he’s not passionate about it.
He remembers being passionate about psychology, before his ability went haywire and he stopped being able to control it. He still runs through all the parts of the brain and their uses when he gets anxious as a method of distraction, still finds himself reading psych research journals in his spare time and accidentally psychoanalyzing clients like they’re patients.
He’s still not ready to go back, though.
Dr. Alene Orwell - Dr. Bright’s recommendation for an Atypical therapist here in New Haven, a tall white woman with flyaway black curls and kind eyes - tells him it’s okay not to be ready. She reminds him that he’s still working on control, still working on trusting himself again, and that it’ll take time to get back to where he was before. She tells him to talk to Adam.
It’s just - it’s hard, sometimes, to tell Adam about this part of him. Not because Adam wouldn’t understand - he would, he definitely would - but because Adam is so happy as a graduate student at Yale, writing his dissertation on Shakespeare and his influence on queer literature, and Caleb is so, so afraid that he’s going to ruin it. He’s terrified that showing Adam how much he wants to go back to psych - and how much he can’t trust himself to do so ethically - will scare him away from academia, from Caleb, forever.
Logically, he knows his fears are silly. Adam isn’t driven away by superpowers or time ghosts or the way Caleb’s sneakers smell after he gets home from a long day at the gym; he wouldn’t be scared off by Caleb’s stupid insecurities.
Practically, though…
Caleb couldn’t stand to feel Adam’s love for him turn to pity. He refuses.
It’s not like it matters, anyway. He likes his job, likes where he’s at, and his family - both blood and found - is only a phone call or a roadtrip away.
He just… wasn’t cut out for psych the way he’d thought he was. Maybe helping people work out would replace the way helping people in therapy had once made him feel.
It would have to be enough.
“I have to commend you, Caleb,” Dr. Orwell says during their next session. “You’ve come a long way with controlling your ability and not having it affect other people. I’m impressed.”
Caleb blushes down at his hands, staring anywhere but at Dr. Orwell. He knows she’s right, knows he’s gotten better at learning when the tendrils of emotion are snaking out of him like pit vipers and that he’s finally gotten the hang of pulling them back. It’s an odd feeling, feeling tendrils of emotions leaking from his body like a sieve, but he’s gotten used to it. He can control it now.
He’s not as afraid anymore. He’s gotten better at differentiating between his emotions and everyone else’s; he’s learned what it feels like when he forces someone to feel what he feels.
(Adam had volunteered to be a test subject for that one; they’d gone into Dr. Orwell’s office together, hand in hand, and Caleb had made him happy, then sad, angry, then calm. Caleb had nearly run out of the room crying afterwards, had nearly vomited all over Dr. Orwell’s carpet, but she’d insisted that it was important for him to know what it felt like and, well, Adam had offered. That didn’t really make him feel better, but Adam’s willingness to kiss him and comfort him afterwards while Caleb cried did help.)
He leaves Dr. Orwell’s office feeling lighter than he has in years, since before his Pokémon evolution occurred, and actually finds himself whistling on his way to work. The tune is from some indie band Adam’s gotten him into recently - The Amazing something? Apparently the male singer was in a show that Adam watched on Netflix the other week, and he’s pretty decent. The songs are pretty catchy, that’s for sure.
He’s still whistling as he clocks in and starts to prepare the weights room for his class, wiping down the surfaces and sweeping the floor clean, when he feels it.
The panic comes on so fast it nearly drops Caleb to the floor. He’s hyperventilating, heart pounding in his ears and he can’t breathe but -
It’s not his panic.
The realization hits Caleb almost as fast as the panic had; it’s swift and makes his blood run cold, turning his veins to ice as he tries to isolate his feelings from this intrusion. He breathes in deep, the way Dr. Bright and Dr. Orwell always instructed him to do, and focuses on the churning panic that’s settled just to the right of his rib cage.
It’s not his, he knows that for certain; it’s a particular shade of red he would never ascribe to himself, but it’s there, and it's definitely bad.
Caleb doesn’t hesitate. He drops everything and runs towards the feeling.
The panic grows stronger the closer he gets to it and Caleb kind of wants to give up, kind of wants to drop to the ground and hyperventilate, but he knows that whoever is feeling this way needs help. There’s barely anyone else around the gym right now. If anyone is going to help this person, it’s going to have to be him.
The source of the panic ends up being a young girl, probably only a little bit younger than Caleb himself - maybe twenty? She’s sitting on the floor of an abandoned workout room, and it only takes a second for Caleb to realize that everything not attached to the floor is levitating.
Atypical. This woman is Atypical.
For a moment, Caleb is frozen. There’s iron in his veins and his feet are made of lead; this woman is panicking, is making things levitate, and Caleb isn’t doing anything to help her. He can’t do anything to help her.
Except… that’s not true, is it?
He’s trained for this, he knows how to help people who are panicking. Knows how to help Atypicals who are panicking. He doesn’t even need his powers to do it.
It’s that thought that spurs him on, forcing one foot in front of another until he’s in front of the woman. She’s breathing harshly, eyes unfocused, and doesn’t seem to notice him even when Caleb kneels down in front of her.
“Hey,” he says softly, and her eyes snap to him. She tries to move away from him, burrowing farther into the corner she’s placed herself in, and Caleb frowns. He moves away from her slightly, doing his best to make himself seem less imposing if he can. It’s not exactly easy to make a jacked 6’2” former football player seem small, but Caleb tries his best.
“Hey,” he says again calmly, as if he’s talking to a wounded animal. “My name is Caleb Michaels, I’m a personal trainer here at the gym. You’re at the YNHH gym, in an equipment room. It’s Thursday, about 1:30 pm…”
He keeps talking, reminding the woman where she is, and interspersing his own name and identity often so she doesn’t come to and immediately panic again.
Slowly, slowly, he can feel the woman start to come back to herself. She’s still shaking, body trembling with every breath, but the various pieces of gym equipment have stopped floating around their heads and her emotions have stopped feeling like sludge in Caleb’s chest, which he definitely considers a win.
“That’s it,” he says encouragingly. “Can you tell me your name?”
“... Emily,” She says finally. “Emily Harris.”
“Nice to meet you, Emily,” Caleb says. He’s keeping his voice soft, almost whispering, but inwardly he’s smiling like a fool. She’s going to be okay. “I’m Caleb. Can you tell me where you are?”
“At the… the gym. I was- I- I wanted to get in a, a workout before c-class… it’s…what time is it?”
“About 1:45,” Caleb tells her. Her face sags in relief. “Can you tell me what happened, Emily?”
“I- um, I-” she starts, and suddenly her breathing catches. “Oh my god, you saw- I mean- you- I- ohmigod nononononono you-”
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay, Emily,” Caleb soothes. “Here, um, what are five things you can see right now? Just list them.”
“You, the mirror, the weights… my water bottle… the cabinets…”
“Good,” Caleb says encouragingly. He can almost feel Dr. Bright’s presence over his shoulder and tries his best to emulate her calm collectedness. “Now four things you can feel.”
He leads her through the exercise until her breathing starts to calm down again. She’s fisted a hand in her own hair, pulling like the pain will keep her centered in reality, and Caleb reaches toward it. When she doesn’t flinch, he gently untangles her fingers from her hair and they instantly grasp his own, as if letting go would mean becoming untethered from her own tentative calm.
“You’re alright,” he tells her again, gently running his thumb over her knuckles. Obviously in training he was never to touch a patient, and Caleb knows better than to do so, but he figures he can chalk this one up to extenuating circumstances. “Are you ready to tell me what made you panic?”
“Why aren’t you freaking out right now?” she says finally, suspicious. “You just walked into a room where some freak girl was making everything levitate because of a panic-c attack. H-How are you so calm?”
Caleb smiles at her softly. “You’re Atypical, right?”
“You know what a-atypicals are?”
“Yeah,” he says, taking a deep breath. “I’m Atypical too. I’m an empath, it’s how I knew to come looking for you. I felt you panic.”
“Sorry,” Emily says after a beat. “I- Just- Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Caleb says. “Are you ready to talk about it now?”
“It’s stupid.” Emily blushes, eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of her. “I… um. I’m normally in control, I promise, you know, I did one of those programs that-”
“The AM?”
“Yeah, and, you know, I normally am really good at controlling it, but, um, my partner, they, um. They were in a car accident? Yesterday? And, like, they’re fine, and I’m super relieved, but I got, I mean, they texted me they were coming to get me from- from here, actually, and then I didn’t hear from them for like, three hours, because they were dealing with it and then I guess I never stopped to process it but now I’m back and they’re fine, but I- I-”
She stops, shuddering out a breath, and starts to cry. “I was just so worried, and then I came back today, and it was like- like-”
“Like it suddenly hit you all over again?” Caleb says. “I know how that feels. Sometimes, especially when you’re focused on other people, you forget to process events for yourself, until it suddenly all comes back and hits you like a ton of bricks. Your body was so focused on your partner that it probably forgot to focus on you too, and once it remembers, it’s like you’re experiencing everything all over again. It’s like the fight or flight instinct, kind of.”
“H-How do you know… so much?” Emily laughs wetly. “You really sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“I… studied psychology in school, actually,” Caleb admits. “I was going to be a therapist. For Atypicals, actually.”
“What happened?” Emily asks curiously. Her breathing has evened out and she’s stopped crying; the ball of panic in Caleb’s chest has started to give way to calm curiosity. “Why didn’t you? You… Seems like you’d be really good at it. And you… you said you were an e-empath, right?”
Caleb laughs darkly. “Yeah, um, let’s just say I got… scared. Of my ability. And my own abilities, I guess. I, uh, wasn’t sure psychology was the right path for me anymore, so I, um, took a year off.”
It’s hard to talk about this, and Caleb isn’t quite sure why he’s telling Emily this, but after talking her down from a full-on Atypical panic attack, he figures they’re not really strangers anymore.
“You loved it,” Emily says suddenly with conviction. “I don’t… I don’t need to be an empath to know that. You like helping people.”
“Yeah,” Caleb admits softly. Emily’s words ring in his ears. She’s right, he knows - he had loved psychology, loved therapy, loved working with people to make them feel better. He…
He missed it.
Maybe he was finally ready to admit that it was time to go back.
“Come on,” Caleb says after a beat. He stands and holds out his hand to Emily, who takes it. “I’ll cancel my class, Tommy will understand. I’ll buy you a coffee, you can tell me more about this partner of yours.”
Emily smiles gratefully, and they leave the gym together.
The day Caleb gets into the University of Hartford’s PsyD program brings about the best decision of Caleb’s life.
He and Adam are sitting on their couch in their pajamas; it’s almost ten pm, and Adam’s just started the next episode of the sitcom he and Caleb have been making their way through when he gets the email.
“Adam,” he says, and he thinks his heart stops beating. “Adam, I got in.”
Adam’s eyes light up, tiny suns boring into Caleb’s heart, and when Adam kisses him Caleb almost cries. It’s all coming to fruition. It’s all going to be okay.
Adam looks so soft, face alight with happiness, wearing Caleb's old football sweatshirt and ratty old pajama pants, and Caleb honestly can't help himself. It's all going to work out. He's gotten into the University of Hartford's Clinical Psychology program, Adam is working his way through Yale's English program to get a doctorate in Shakespeare study because he's cool like that, and they're together and in love and everything is finally going well for them.
"Marry me," he breathes, and Adam's breath leaves his body. "God, fuck, this wasn't how I wanted to do this, fuck, I have a ring and everything upstairs, I was going to do this properly, but… fuck, Adam, I love you. I never want to spend another moment without you. I know we can't live in a world of our own, just the two of us, but I want to create one with you. I want you, all of you, and I- fuck."
He gets down on one knee, looking at Adam, and it's like he can't breathe. He feels like he might cry.
"Adam Hayes, will you marry me?"
"Caleb…" Adam breathes, and there are tears in his eyes. "Yes, Caleb, yes!"
He pulls Caleb back to his feet, and when Adam kisses him, Caleb feels hope bloom in his chest.
