hello there, the angel from my nightmare - [glenn]

[caleb marcus farris]

life was going pretty well for caleb, when it actually came down to it. two years sober and no desire to start up again. well, that was completely true. there were those bad days when the thought crossed his mind if only for a moment. but it was gone just as quickly. he knew that part of him would always be a junkie. probably for the rest of his life. but that part of him seemed to pop up less and less as time went by. and fuck, caleb was grateful for it. grateful for every day that he spent sober, and happy, and actually being a functioning part of society. he still had his job at der waffle haus, more than happy that there was one in new haven that he could transfer to. and he was working full weeks now compared to part time. it was awesome. hell he had even heard that he might be in line for a manager's position. and even though, in the broad spectrum of everything, that wasn't a lot. being a manager of a restaurant. but for caleb who only a couple years back was whoring himself for heroin, it was a big deal. hell, he didn't think he'd still be alive.

then he had his roommates. blake, his best friend. the person who had been by his side through so much in the past years. and he could count on blake. and he knew that blake would always be there. then there was atty, and though the girl still made him jump out of his skin more than not, he liked her well enough. she was....interesting to say the last. not necessarily someone that he would've made friends with of his own accord, but, he knew that she had a good heart. and even if their budding relationship put him on edge and all he saw was bad coming from it. they were really cute when they were cuddled on the couch, or she was sitting in his lap and they were playing guitar together. they were cute, he would give them that. even if he wasn't sure how long they were going to last, or even if they were. the impending doom of their relationship always seemed to set him on edge. not that it took a lot to set the farris boy on edge.

other than work, and home, caleb had been doing pretty well for himself. he had made a couple friends, not a lot. anyone who knew caleb knew that he wasn't really a social butterfly. but there was serenity, who, was as beautiful inside as she was out. caleb could've sworn if he hadn't met her at work he never would've gotten the courage to talk to her. and she was nice to spend time with, always there nor him. then james, who was kind as well. though, greg tended to scare him so they kept him away. he had made friends. and he had found himself a nice place at the community college. nothing special. just a couple night courses. creative writing and greek history. which was what was currently occupying his mind, a final coming up. and though he had kept good grades in both of his classes the whole term, tests made him nervous. he had been studying non-stop for the past couple weeks and that meant non-stop. while he was eating, while he was walking. the only time he hadn't been studying was when he was at work but even then he would study on his breaks not giving him much time to himself.

that was exactly what he was doing that day as he walked down the street from the coffee shop back to his apartment. he was studying. his nose was stuck in his greek history text book, and to be frank, he wasn't watching where he was going at all. this wasn't uncommon for caleb when he was focused on something. though, this time in his life it was on something that deserved his focus. no need for a fix. no scrambling in his head giving himself a hard time and putting himself down. just, reading his text book like a good a good student and drinking his coffee. but, the truth of the matter was, was that caleb should've been paying more attnetion to where he was walking. because he misjudged that the walk sign was on as he was coming up to the intersection, and his eyes were so focused on the pages that he didn't realize that for the second time in his life -maybe more than that, he wasn't counting- he was about to walk into traffic.

[glenn william avery]

thought that i never really wanted you around
well you are way off track to think like that - - - - -

Glenn had never once thought that his life could be considered bad. Not always the epitome of a fairytale, but passable. He had a job, had friends, had a purpose, and for the most part, traipsed along with a general lack of disruptions. Contrarily, were state of life a thing without relativity, he would have had no reason to complain whatsoever. It was the old 'starving children in Africa' argument, and on another level, the psychiatrist had never been much of a complainer. He kept his eyes on the road and his thoughts to himself, because no one liked a backseat driver and maybe doing things for other people all the time, without any sort of consideration for himself, did count as not having his own path to walk. And really, for all intents and purposes, he was happy. Happy, and yet maybe a little bit displaced in the midsts of it.

There was no shortage of jobs for people with his credentials, not even in these times of economic slump and high unemployment and whatever government issue woes saw fit to strike the public. And maybe he could have stayed in Providence, heartbreak and increasingly wearing profession aside. But there had been a job opening, at one of his old universities, no less, and so he'd gone back home. A quiet settling down had been in order, after all. A change of pace. Maybe a bright opportunity for a little bit of something new, someone who could distract him from what he didn't have, had missed out on, what had been left behind. Encouragement lurked in the faces of eager, or even the not so eager, young students who were in his classroom. He'd burned most of his own bridges, entirely and completely, with no hope of going back regardless of how much he wanted to. But there were other worlds to sing in. No place like home, every yellow brick road cliche that judy garland had ever elated, and well, other less blatantly gay analogies. The meaning stood for being the same. New Haven had and always would be his home. He wasn't about to dwell on the past.

Some things did stay the same, regardless of location. Morning coffee had been a thing since he'd started high school, and back to where it all began simply met he could frequent his old favorite coffee shops once more. Some of them remembered him, miraculously, and it was playful banter and reminiscing over old times before he'd headed back out into the street to walk back to his apartment. He didn't have any patients, not today. No classes to teach until later in the afternoon. He had yet to rebuild a weighty plethora of friends and company, and maybe, that was okay. Not that he didn't like the company of others. Truthfully, it would have been nice to sit down with someone for lunch, perhaps to find new acquaintances to consort with. Either case, lack of better things to do had Glenn Avery more or less wandering down the avenue in one of New Haven's commercial district before he happened to stumble upon what could only be described as déjà vu.

French colliqualisms alike and aside, blue eyes widened as they landed on the boy wandering somewhat aimlessly right out into the busy street, head buried in a book, blissfully unaware of his surroundings. The shock lasted only a moment, as Glenn skidded forward to get a good grip on the boy's sleeve, elbow, and haul him backwards to the safety of the sidewalk. Hasty to let go of the man, he turned back to the road, the familiarity of the situation drumming in his years. Even as he waved placatingly at the annoyed driver of the SUV who had near mowed down the oblivious civilian, the similarity of this to another incident was distracting, impossibly coincidental. When his gaze finally did flit over to the damsel, or rather, sir in distress, it was a sharp intake of breath, because, oh.

Oh, it was Caleb Farris. And that was a name he had not thought of in an awfully long time. It wasn't as though he had any negative history with the boy. But the irony of the situation, that this reunion mirrored their first meeting, it was all overwhelming. So the Avery boy did allow himself a moment to blink with a startled, doe eyed look, before his head lulled forward in a nod of a greeting, and a broad smile found it's way onto his lips. Because, there was no other reaction that made sense, "Caleb," in tones just as heavy with shock and disbelief as happiness, "what are you doing here?" In New Haven. Hometown of one pretty little psychiatrist, as coincidence had it, and, as far as he had known, not of any lanky ex-Providencers who had, at one point in their life, lived at his apartment.

Then again, there was an awful lot he missed when he failed to keep tabs on people.
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WORDS: 839 | TAG: kit & caleb | NOTES: so excited for this | MUSE: alex goot

TEMPLATE BY VIKA OF CAUTION.

[caleb marcus farris]

caleb tended to have a one track mind. which, wasn't a bad thing. a lot of the time it got him further in life, because, well, he was able to focus on things. he was able to get things done. the only problem was when he got too focused on things, then the rest of the world started to melt away from him. suddenly the only thing that existed was whatever caleb was focused on. at that time the focus wasn't on the road, or the cars, or even the people around him. is focus was on his book. which was dangerous. he knew that much. somewhere under those blonde locks of his, he knew that he should be for observant about the things around him. especially when it came to, ya know, side walks. and things like that. cars. near death experiences, what have you.

that was not where caleb's mind was at in that moment, though, because no matter how much common sense told him something, that didn't mean that he was the sort of boy that listened to his common sense. he had after all been a junkie for a stupid amount of time in his life. and that really wasn't a smart thing to do. he had done it anyway, though, he had done a lot of things that weren't smart when it well and came down to it. and though, whoring himself was not on the same level as not paying attention to where he was walking because his nose was in a book, it all came from the same place in him. the same place that wasn't able to focus on more than one thing at a time really. and right then reading and walking was almost more than he could handle, and making sure that it was his turn to go at an intersection was over the limit of the attention span that he had right then and there.

maybe he was stressing out a bit more than he should've been about this final. after all, it wasn't that hard of a class. it wasn't like he was going to yale. hell, he wasn't even going to the university of hartford, he was just going to the community college. and that was good enough for him, it really was. but he was still stressing out over the final, and he just wanted to pass it. something about actually passing classes made him feel that his whole life wasn't just a waste of time. of air. every time that he passed a class, or got a good tip, or just those little things in the day it made him feel so much more worth...something, even if he had no idea what he was supposed to be worth just because he could pass some community college classes. he just knew, that's what happened.

so his mind was totally focused on the history of the greeks, and the rest of the world didn't matter. and he really should've learned the first time a few years back that he had almost gotten run over that he needed to not be distracted when walking down a side walk. but that didn't stop anything. and the moment he felt the hand on his sleeve he almost jumped out of his skin when he was yanked back to safety. the blonde boy turned to face the person who had saved him, and that person that his eyes landed on was the last person that he had expected him to see in his life. really? he hadn't left on bad terms with glenn, but this, this was not expected. this was, well, the irony of it couldn't be missed by the farris boy that much was to be sure. it was just like the first time that they'd met. except this time he had been reading instead of thinking of a fix. and glenn took his breath away just as much as the first time, but he wasn't nearly as nervous as he had been before.

holding his place in his book with his finger he closed the gap between them hugging him tightly in a way that was so unlike caleb it was ridiculous. he never just hugged people. and it had taken a good long while for him to hug glenn even the first time. he seemed to hold no reserves, thoguh, as he hugged him. even pulling away from him so that he could press a quick kiss to his lips. because, well, fuck, he was just excited to see him. "glenn. god, sorry. i didn't mean to....uh..kiss you. i was just excited to see you. and, thanks, for saving my life, again," he said with a wide grin on his lips and for a long strand of minutes he just stood there staring at the other man with that lazy smile on his lips. he shook his head slightly. "blake and i moved out here a few months ago. we needed a change, and just picked a place," he said before biting his lips. "god, glenn. i never thought i'd see you again."