shadows_have_offended | [Aug 15] The sun, the moon, and stars

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[Aug 15] The sun, the moon, and stars | for Caleb

He might be avoiding Caleb, just a little bit. Not quite. Still answering texts and everything, but since he woke up like this, a little shorter, a little different--well, it's a weird situation, and he already had to spend so much time convincing the director of the Shakespeare shows that they really didn't need to pull in the understudy, he could still do it just fine.

But then Caleb asks if Neil wants to come over, and Neil can't say no to that. He can't. There's no way to blow him off. It's after rehearsals and he has nothing else to do for two days, and he's come up with every other conceivable excuse up to this point.

So a weird thing happened and you can't freak out or laugh about it, okay? But I'll be over soon.

It takes him a little while to get there, coming from the park and walking, but he needs the walk to steel himself to the possibility that, even if he's warned Caleb, he might get a rude reception. He doesn't think he will--but you never know.

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"Come on," he says gently. "Couch, tea, shoulder rub, okay? I've got you." He guides Neil to the living room, and tips his face up to press a kiss to his lips. They're softer — plusher? Is that weird? — and there isn't any stubble, but he still tastes almost the same, still has that mole on his jaw, and Caleb kisses that, too, just like he would if this were any other day.

Neil sighs a little bit as Caleb kisses him because, honestly, this is why he came. There's solace in the tenderness.

"Coffee instead of tea?" he asks, almost a whine. "Or hot chocolate?"

He really wants something cold, but it will be good to hold something warm in his hands while they sit on the couch and Caleb puts those big, strong hands to good work.

"Hot chocolate I can do," he assures. He doesn't have coffee often — usually just for Neil, and it's the instant stuff, because he doesn't even have a coffee maker — but he likes hot chocolate, too, so he's fine making making that.

He kisses Neil's hair as he heads into the kitchen to get that started, and makes himself some tea while he's at it.

"So, have you been like this since you started avoiding me?" he asks, more casually than he expects it to come out.

"Oh my god, don't make it sound like that, I wasn't...avoiding you, you monster." Neil goes to the couch and crashes dramatically into it, sprawling across all the cushions like it was some kind of a fainting couch or something.

"I just--I felt silly and awkward and I wanted to feel less silly and awkward so you wouldn't get all up in it about it." Consideration. He's feeling better about it today, a couple days in, even if he's not comfortable.

Caleb snickers a little, watching him fondly. "Hey, hey, no, I didn't mean it like that," he assures. "I just, y'know. I could tell that you, like, wanted space, or whatever. You could've just told me, though, I mean. My ability doesn't work over the phone, Neilseph."

He stirs the cocoa into the mug, then drops in some cream and puts a dollop of whipped cream on top before bringing it over, along with is own tea.

"Besides, I really am able to handle, like, most feelings, now, especially from you."

"Yeah, but I couldn't handle my emotions the first bit, so I wouldn't want you to deal with that."

And that shows, he thinks, how much things have changed in the time he's been in Darrow. But he doesn't get to that. Instead, he sits up and reaches for the hot chocolate, smiling a little and blushing just a little because he's dolled it up neatly and sweetly, whipped cream and all.

"Okay, all kidding aside?" Caleb says, sitting down. "You really need to stop trying to protect me from your feelings. It's not 'dealing with them,' Neil. I can't turn off my ability, and I wouldn't want to, even if I could. I like feeling your feelings. All of them." He sips his tea, then sets it on the coffee table and watches Neil seriously.

"Yeah," Neil says, staring at his own drink rather than at Caleb for a moment. His stomach swoops a little. He can watch Caleb's face when he worries and reads him covering, and anything he can do to make things easier is what he should do.

"I don't like making things harder," he says after a moment. "And if I don't want to be around what I'm feeling myself, then I'm not going to subject you to trying to...parse through things."

He looks up, softer face made stern with fortification. "You're my boyfriend, not my shrink. I know you can feel what I feel. So when I can make things easier for you, I ought to."

"Or, or," Caleb says. He turns to Neil a little, hands up like he's pitching a novel new idea. "Hear me out. I'm your boyfriend... so I'm here... for you. Right? So, like, you should let me. We don't even have to talk about it. We can just sit, or lay, quietly, and just. Be together, so you're not alone."

He raises his eyebrows expectantly. This is a conversation they've had before, in some iteration or another, and it's a conversation Caleb has with... most of his friends who know about his ability. Everyone wants to protect him, which is sweet, but also, like, stop.

Neil gives Caleb a look, made someone even more exasperated by having a soft, girlish face. He sticks his tongue out and licks the whipped cream. He pointedly just thinks at Caleb, all his grumpy indignation at being told how to handle how he's handling this, so that Caleb can deal with that for a moment.

"Weren't you going to give me a shoulder rub?"

"Oh, don't give me that," Caleb says when he feels that indignation — because he can feel the amusement underneath, and he knows that the teasing got to him, too. He grins, though, when Neil mentions the shoulder rub, and he holds his hands up, this time in innocence.

"Okay, okay, turn around."

When Neil does, Caleb starts in. First, he just smooths the palms of his hands up and down his back. On the second or third pass, he lets his thumbs bear in gently, feeling for tension. Then he starts in earnest, gently but firmly working out whatever tension he finds.

Caleb has amazing hands, and it's not the first time that he's rubbed Neil's shoulders. But it's different, with slimmer shoulders, and so Neil appreciates the slow ease into the touch.

And he appreciates the ease of dropping the subject. It makes it easy to focus on this moment instead: being here, being touched, being taken care of. He likes all of this.

"Up in the neck," he says, quiet, almost a little breathless.

Caleb could make a cute quip about who is rubbing who, or that Neil should be less bossy, or that he knows, okay, this isn't his first rodeo. But he doesn't. He just hums softly and moves his hands up, sliding his fingers into Neil's hair while his thumbs continue their firm trek up the bands of the back of his neck.

Even if Caleb knows, it's worse today, and it's fun to be bossy, anyway. Maybe more fun when he's a foot shorter than Caleb and not just an inch. He sighs as Caleb works into his hair, at his neck, and starts to ease the tension there.

The sigh turns into a quiet little whine as Neil closes his eyes and leans back into the touch.

Caleb reaches out with his ability for any sense of displeasure. He doesn't find any — the opposite, in fact, so he keeps it up. He lets his blunt nails gently scratch Neil's scalp as he brings his hands down, then widens the track of his thumbs on the way back up.

He doesn't even realize he's half-hard until he goes to shift to get a little more comfortable, and he bites his lip and swallows hard.

Neil has his eyes closed and is so focused on the slow, deep track of Caleb's touch that he notices nothing else. He's needed this. The touch and the closeness and the comfort of it.

He sighs again, and the sigh turns into a bit of a groan, breathless and low in his throat.

"That's it."

The pleasure Neil feels isn't like sexual pleasure. It's still molten, but it doesn't settle low in his hips like arousal. It moves through his joints, making them feel loose and comfortable. It buoys his heart. Caleb isn't hard because Neil is getting aroused by this. He's hard because of Neil's reactions to this. The sounds he's making, the way he trusts Caleb's huge hands to take care of him, the happy, loose feeling slowly filling him, these are all contributing to his arousal.

It's fucking hot.

"Gl-glad I could help," he murmurs, voice a little on the rough side.

"You always help," Neil says, voice still low and aching with the relief of the massage as he leans into the attention of it, as he rolls his shoulders up to move Caleb's attention from his scalp and neck down onto his shoulders and back instead.

If he notices the slightly more gravelly tone in Caleb's voice, he doesn't let on. It's possible he's too focused on the contentment of the moment for anything like that right now to parse through.

"God, you're amazing."

Caleb smiles, massaging Neil's shoulders, his shoulder blades, down over his ribs and back up along his spine.

"I'm pretty awesome," he agrees, smiling. He smooths his hands down Neil's ribs again, to his waist. It's smaller, narrower, and Caleb adjusts his hands so he doesn't accidentally hurt him. He's so small>/I> like this.

It tickles a little, like it always does, and Neil squirms and giggles, which is embarrassing but not enough for him to tell Caleb to stop. He looks over his shoulder at Caleb and smiles, a little sheepishly.

That's when he catches the slight pink in his cheeks, the smile, that his pupils are just a little wide. Neil scoots back on the couch, just a little, closer to Caleb.

Caleb blushes darker when Neil looks at him, but he smiles, and shifts to accommodate him. "Want me to keep going?" he asks, then clears his throat a little.

Neil's cocks a brow then, smirking just a little bit at that throat clearing.

"Yeah, you can keep going," he assures. He turns his head back forward and scouts back, closer, until his hips almost touch Caleb's leg tucked up on the couch. "You can go a little harder, too. I'm tougher than I look."

"Plenty hard," he mumbles, then scoffs out a little laugh. "Fuck, nothing, never mind," he says when he feels Neil's amusement. He continues moving his hands, lower now, near Neil's hips and the small of his back.

Neil sits with his amusement, knowing that Caleb can feel it, letting it slide between them. The attention on his hips, the steady pressure of big hands and insistent thumbs is still relaxing more than it is turning him on--or maybe he just doesn't know what it feels like to be turned on like this? He's warm, and Caleb always has him feeling a bit more aware of himself.

With his face turned away from Caleb, he shuffles his hips back toward the touch of his hands a little more, and he lets out a slightly more deliberate noise, breathy and overcome and a little teasing.

Caleb shivers. "You're a fucking asshole," he complains with a laugh. "Fuck." He pulls Neil close, into his lap fully, in an easy, fluid motion. He loops an arm around Neil's wait and nuzzles into the nape of his neck.

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