EurmalEye

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Caleb Walker

Caleb was going to call Val out for calling him a pretty girl, the caught his reflection on a distant and mirror and conceded the point to her with a suplicating nod of his head. He would, in fact, make a rather stunning girl. He was starting to feel like himself again. Despite, all the insanity his life was going through this was just another obstacle in his way. A wall he had to break through and nothing could keep him out of the ring for long.

It looked like Elysia had signed something at Val, but Caleb couldn't tell one sign from another. Now, she was looking for something in the textbook, which seemed a fair use of time. Kyle's sudden understanding of his ability and explanation pulled Caleb in two ways: jealousy and feeling as though he had been somehow violated. "You didn't know what you were doing. Fair. Don't pull that shit on me ever again unless I agree to it first." There were many uses of that power that seemed insanely useful however, he could tell a whole lot of rich people that they were feeling real generous that day.

Kalama made some decent points about not exposing themselves quite yet and the risk that the professor knew what was going on. Caleb hesitated briefly, not having thought that this might have been a purposeful side effect, then rallied quickly. He tugged gently on Val's arm to try to get her to sit down. "If that's the case, then Kyle and I should go talk to him. Kyle can use his 'emotional sonar' to put the whammy on him make him chatty or honest and then make him real forgetful. I can probably manage some of Kyle's symptoms too if I am there. No need to mention magic at all. Plus then no one else has to be in the room. No offense, I just don't think we need any extra arms, animals, sleeping pictures, or ...." He frowned for a moment and looked at Kalama. "What is it that you can do? Extreme barista skills?"

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Caleb Walker

Caleb felt some relief as it was clear that Val didn’t hold any ill will against him despite her growling. Honestly, Caleb had not really had someone to hang out with in some time, especially not when he was out and himself. It was only after he had arrived to BCC that he had felt comfortable enough to embrace his bisexual side and be open with it. That might have gotten his head kicked in when he was growing up, boxing or no boxing. With Val, though things were easy and the times were fun, upsetting her would not be a good idea. Hearing she could now manifest 4 glowing arms and lift cars… well he wasn’t really in a position to process all this insane shit right now, so he was gonna put that on the back-burner emotionally speaking. “Sorry Val, it’s the only way it works so far. I’m working on it. And, I believe you and I don’t think you weren’t being clever, I think you believed in yourself and worked on instinct. A lotta people freeze up in that moment, you went for it. That’s important.”

After Val revealed her abilities, he had calmed down somewhat. His guilt settled back into an unruly mass undulating in the pit of his stomach and his heart beat had calmed down. Elysia communicated about the messages she drew while sleeping. She seemed to be unravelling a little bit, and more than a little jittery, but this was a rare moment when Caleb couldn’t really hold that weakness against her. Something had freaked out all of them into revealing some truly insane stuff. The fact that it was true only made it more insane. Kal rotated the picture towards herself and pointed out the rat and the car, flirting strategy temporarily forgotten, Caleb at the picture himself and listened carefully. “That asshole? Oh shit, you are probably right. It was clear he had something to do with the rat attack and after it happened it looked like he got real sick real fast. Asshole definitely aimed at my shoes though.” Caleb glanced up at Elysia, “Trust me, something was wrong in that guy’s head, you shouldn’t try and meet him.” Looking at her though it seemed clear she wasn’t doing very well, he thought about giving her some water but he used all his cleaning off the vomit. He opened to say something comforting to her, but the words didn’t come. How could he know what to say? He didn’t even know what made her tick yet. He settled back into his seat instead.

The distraction meant he didn’t catch Kalama deflecting to the topic of Kyle's abilities. Rowan tried to settle the situation, but honestly Caleb thought Kalama had made a good point. Most everyone there seemed to have some type of ability, Caleb distantly wondered if barista skills qualified in Kalama’s case, but it seemed that Kyle was going through something similar to what Ken had gone through after the rat attack. Curiously, he leaned across the table and lightly one of Kyle’s hands he had grasped around his water cup. At the touch, he could feel the pain in his mind’s eye suspended just beyond his eyes waiting to flood into him. He took his hand back quickly and the sensation faded at once without the use of his ability.

“Kyle is like Ken, he did something and now he is dealing with some consequences.” Glancing at the final red marks from his ability fading away, he corrected. “He is like us, I mean... Answer her question, Kyle. What did you do? You talked and everyone freaked out at once!” He spoke roughly, but quietly also cautious of prying ears from other tables.

“Whatever this dude did, all this dream shit started back after our class together right? That one where the teach made us chant and tried to scare us? Probably has something to do with that so let’s bust down his door and get some answers! Or at least figure out where he got that chant from.”

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Hey guys! It's been about two weeks now, who's in favor of keeping the posting order? :)

@Laser Kiwi

All good no issues!

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Caleb Walker

Rowan spoke rather quickly regarding what had happened with Ken, Caleb didn’t even need to bother to lean on his intuition to see through that attempted deception. It was clear that he had found a clue as to what was going on. Maybe Rowan knew enough to help him control it. He was fine with just getting rid of the fire shit. The healing ability was something powerful. It would give him leverage into gaining real power, which of course was cash. That is, if he could figure out how to stop it from hurting him so much. He noticed though, with some devilish delight, that Rowan also did not say no to him continuing his advances towards him. The brief exposure of a more forceful personality coming to surface was quite interesting as well, even without the suspicious circumstances. For now though, his time was better spent waiting for when they could find a moment alone.

Elysia seemed too shy to directly answer his question as her cheeks grew flushed and she rapidly shook her head. Caleb found the action adorable and considered she might be fun to flirt with later on, but he didn’t want too many irons on the fire. The woman pulled out some art supplies and began sketching the scene around her. Caleb tapped the table gently to get her attention, rose from his chair to flex his arms and shoulders for the piece. “Val, back me up.” Kalama also looked interested in Elysia’s art before commenting about an already complete sketch, Caleb glanced at it curiously and his eyes widened in surprise. “Hey, are you a fan or something? How’d you know I was a boxer?”

Something shifted as Kyle spoke up, a sense of alarm rang through his body, a sudden knowledge that there was danger nearby. He heard everything that Kyle said, but couldn’t yet process it. His eyes darted around the table looking at each of them for a fraction of a moment, making the briefest eye contact with Kalama who had the same fearful look in her eyes mixed with something else he couldn’t quite place, before finally landing on Val. At that moment Caleb just knew, knew from the bottom of his heart, that the fire was going to come again. He lunged forward and pushed her out of her seat, away from where the flames were no doubt going to burst forth. He could taste the smoke in the air and the smell of burnt fabric and rubber mixed with cooking flesh… except it wasn’t real, just a memory. Caleb blinked and calmed down suddenly, Val was on the floor, her hand scuffed where she had caught herself looking no doubt confused.

“Oh shit, Val I’m so sorry! I thought uh... I thought that um… here let me help you up.” Caleb reached out a hand and pulled her back into her seat. Caleb put his face in his hands just trying to make sense of what had happened. He was off balance and out of control, this wasn’t like him. So fucking jittery and timid. How long was the situation with Daria going to haunt him? He hadn’t even known what he was doing! He had no reason to even consider hurting her so why had it happened. If his healing ability hadn’t begun working right after pulling her out of the car, he would have never have thought he had been the cause. But now he was making scenes in public out of nowhere, just suddenly overcome with alarm. The conversation he could hear finally began to push through the boundaries of Caleb’s guilt into his mind and he looked up to see the insects on Rowan’s hand and hope bloomed in his chest.

“Normally I would say the both of you are crazy or trying to sell me something, but… I’ve been having the dream and can do things too. Val if you don’t mind.” He reached out one hand and lightly touched Val’s hand. The mental effort came easily given all the practice he had been forced to take on with Daria. The minor abrasion on her hand from where she had caught herself faded, as well as the bruising along her biceps in way of an apology. Caleb winced slightly and on the same part of palm where Val had been injured a sudden dark red discoloration of his skin blossomed outward mimicking the exact shape of her wound, before fading quickly back to his normal skin tone. His biceps too, visible due to his tank top, briefly had a lighter shade of red where Val had her bruises.

“I can heal people, it hurts like fucking hell, but I can do it. Also, ...I think I can make fire, but I can’t control it.” Caleb began speaking more rapidly, but softly as to not be overheard by any other listening ears beyond their table. “It’s only happened once, but I couldn’t control it and it didn’t go great. I’m sorry Val just all the sudden I just thought it was going to happen again, I don’t know why, and I didn’t want you getting hurt.” Slowing down, he stopped to breathe for a moment. “Do any of you know what I am talking about? Or maybe help? Do you feel the same pull towards each other I do?” His heart was thumping rapidly in his chest now, his guilt near overpowering at the revelation of his ability.

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Caleb Walker

Caleb watched both Kalama and Rowan write out their number for tutoring on a piece of paper with a smile. He had got those digits at least, but he may need to change up his game plan a bit. As he looked over them, his intuition kicked in. Whenever this happened it wasn’t like the information just appeared in his mind, but rather a culmination of every detail he noticed came together at once. In this case, the way Rowan attempted to keep the peace and take charge in introductions, the way he touched his hair as though seeking comfort, and even the way his entire demeanor had changed when he had begun questioning Ken. Rowan came across as a calm, modern hippie, but underneath that was a river of near constant stress just bubbling under the surface. The thing he craved most of all was a sense of control of his own life or at least the illusion of control.

Kalama’s case was different as what he got from her was not a longing for control, but instead a longing for… something? Love? Affection? No something more like a family, but was cripple by her own inability to trust. In her case, coming at her directly with his interest would not help him at all as it would somehow make him more untrustworthy in her mind. She was somewhat more complicated to work with in Caleb’s opinion. Normally he wouldn’t have started hitting on either of them before his insight had done its work, but his goal at the time really had been to distract himself from the pain in his leg than anything else and flirting was always fun.

His insight into Val had come quite quickly, she simply did not want to be put into a box and labelled as a “dumb jock.” She wanted to be judged without labels and seen for her own merits. This had not really been a problem as Caleb had seen from their workout sessions the sheer amount of effort that Val had put into her dream and simply saw her lack of good grades as the result of putting her priorities to her actual goal. That was something he could respect, so he had never said a word about her supposed lack of smarts nor given it any mind. He did wish that she were a little less thick-headed in the art of flirting though. Acting as her wingman was about as effective as driving into a brick wall.

With his newfound insight, Caleb altered his game plan entirely, he leaned toward Rowan and whispered over to him, “Hey, it has been pretty clear I have been flirting with you hard, but if you would like me to stop, chill out, or hell, flirt even harder let me know. Your choice.” Caleb paused for a moment, and remembered his other goal. “But, regardless, if it is alright with you, can we talk later? About Ken?” He was distracted with another member of the class approaching the table and joining their study group. Like Kyle, he wasn’t sure he had seen her talk at all either though the reason for that became quite clear as she used a text to speech program to communicate. Of course, that same feeling in his chest was happening with her too. What was going on with him today? He shook the feeling off and handed her the near complete list of numbers for the group. “Sure, come on in and join our new study buddy family!”

In the meantime, he took Kyle’s quite complete set of notes and took out his phone. He had an app that was able to scan written documents into a text file and sent that out to all the members of the group once the numbers list was completed. “And there we go some easy note sharing between us all!” He took a sip of the drink Kalama had made him, being careful to portray any emotion on his face as he did despite the fact it was quite good. Making himself as distant as possible to her was far more likely to be effective than his previous strategy, plus it made it seem as though he had lost interest in her. In fact, he had barely paid any attention to her at all since his insight came through, just a quick “Thanks.” when she set down his drink.

“Yeah that rough time with sleep has been going around a lot lately. I don’t think I’ve gotten one in a couple weeks.” He looked over at Elysia, “I take it that’s why you missed class today yourself huh?”

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

<Snipped quote by EurmalEye>

He sees Caleb as his older brother.

@Kenshi

Projections a hell of a thing haha

@dabombjk I am down for a discord if peeps feel up for it

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

@Kenshi It's fine with me if Ben interprets it that way

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Toss: throw (something) somewhere lightly, easily, or casually.

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

Caleb Walker

Caleb had meant for Rowan or Kalama to buy him a drink, but Val was too genuine to be upset at. His back stung a little from her friendly slap, as it wasn't for nothing that she was pursuing the world record in women's deadlifting. He threw an arm around Val's shoulder companionably and exclaimed, "Val, you have to know your the best right? I mean, you just have to." Glancing back at Kalama with an appreciative smile, Caleb was happy to hear that his drinks would be quite cheap there one of the benefits of course of making connections.

Another student from the class ran towards him, identifying himself as Kyle. Caleb had seen him in class once or twice maybe, but he had not made much of an impression, cute enough he supposed, but Caleb wasn't actually certain that he had ever heard the man talked. It was interesting that the same feeling of being drawn to him was happening now in fact as he felt with the others in this group including oddly Ken. Still, when Rowan introduced him, Caleb waved one of his hands at Kyle as his name came up. "Hey, what's up man?"

As they reached the private table in the back Kalama started to work on their drink orders which she had gotten surprisingly correct. He let out an appreciative whistle. She looked quite at home making drinks here and it was fairly clear to see she moved around the back with a lot of efficiency. Caleb made sure to grab a seat next to Rowan, half out of attraction, but also because he had a couple questions to ask him if they managed to get a moment alone. Caleb pulled out his backpack and retrieved his notebook well worn from age. He glanced at the rest of the group and with a smile said "I don't suppose anyone was able to stay awake long enough to figure out what was discussed in class today." He ripped out a piece of paper and handed it to Rowan besides him,"Here, why don't you go ahead and give me your number … and then pass it around I suppose. I can set up a group chat if we decide to do this again."

The Coven of Briarwood Community College

@Kenshi Don't think Caleb is going to attempt murder quite yet and I also don't think he he has grasped Ben's nature of disproportionate response yet so it's gonna happen lol.

Also don't worry people, I am awake and working on post now