" ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ ɪ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍʏꜱᴇʟꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʀᴇᴇᴘꜱ, ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ ᴍʏ ᴍɪɴᴅ ᴘʟᴀʏꜱ ᴛʀɪᴄᴋꜱ ᴏɴ ᴍᴇ "
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IN WHICH caleb moore struggles to discern hatred from love while harbouring intense feelings for mike wheeler and has no idea which is which when the time comes to face h...
in which caleb moore learns what grief is and will byers returns home to find his best friend shattered and scarred
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the halocline | the upside down
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〖 i scream your name, as blood bursts from my veins 〗
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tw : mentions/depictions of attempted overdose, idealising of suicide
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EMPTINESS WAS a familiar concept to Caleb - he felt it on his best days and often forced himself to feel it on his worst. But the feeling that had accompanied Eleven's death was indistinguishable - because emptiness was supposed to be numb and void, but this one hallowed him out from the inside and made him ache all over.
That was all he had been doing - aching - ever since he woke from his grief-induced stupor. He ached as Mike cradled him in the ambulance, he ached when Karen Wheeler forced the both of them into a tight embrace and cried into their shoulders, and he ached when the Wheelers sat him in the back of their car and told them of Will's homecoming.
The ache continued to throb and pulse as he waited for permission to see his friend, who's long-awaited arrival had been tainted by the loss of Eleven. Mike had his head rested on his shoulder, reaching out of his comfort zone to try and offer the boy some form of condolence that Caleb refused to accept. He didn't need sympathy, he didn't need comfort or a shoulder to cry on - he needed to break something, to rid himself of this insufferable agony.
Caleb had been staring down at the floor with this rage building inside of him since they arrived, unblinking and unresponsive even when Lucas and Dustin tried to strike a conversation with him before the two fell asleep.
Mike, on the other hand, had been trying to force the grief out of his mind and replace it with optimism about seeing Will again - but it was proving rather difficult when his only available distraction was too busy glaring at the floor to even answer a simple question.
Eventually the silence became unbearable and Mike nudged the boy's elbow, lifting his head from his shoulder to look at him. Caleb blinked, said nothing. "Caleb. Cay, come on. Caleb. You have to say something. Are you even breathing right now?"
Caleb squirmed and tilted his head to the side when Mike teasingly placed two fingers to his pulse, but again gave no reply.
