7s_prompts 14.1.5. Picture prompt
It was stupid o'clock in the morning of his birthday and Caleb was wide awake. Which was frustrating; the time wouldn't be for something like seventeen hours or more, yet, and he couldn't go back to sleep.
Which was a problem for a guy tangled up in bed with his boyfriend and two girlfriends - who were all sleeping, and with good reason. The three of them had jobs that they needed to be operational for in a few hours; somebody tossing and turning and waking them up at four? Much as they loved him, they didn't need that.
So he set to disengaging himself, slowly shifting his weight away from Dee, slipping his foot from under Irene's shin. Kissing Pogue's shoulder and lightly raising his arm to move out from under it, then sitting up and rising out of the bed with as little disturbance as he could manage. There was a glitter between eyelids here and there, shifting and stirring, but he murmured a reassurance, and that worked.
He slipped on sweats and a T and a jacket, and set out, in the pre-dawn (much pre-dawn) drizzle to walk some of the restlessness out.
It wasn't anticipation - or anxiety - that he'd once greeted his birthdays with. It wasn't dread, either, though. It was just memory of a day loaded with way too much. Too many memories, too many events, not enough of them good to balance out the miserable ones.
Although, truth be told, when he stopped to think of it - there had been only one miserable one, full of loss and pain and anger and Power and fire and rain, and one... questionable. Some that were cast over by the gloom of other events, but there had always been people who'd cheered him, made things easy and bright and wonderful, even if for small parts of the day. And considering how the last... oh. Eight months almost had been? He suspected today would be even more like a normal person's birthday. No, a happy person's birthday.
That was... very surprising, actually.
But instead of confusing, that thought brought a smile to his face. And while he knew he still couldn't sleep, all of a sudden he was missing the warm way in which their bodies had been tangled up so briefly ago. He didn't need Pogue or Dee to tell him that it was a good thing, on a walk in the chill early-fall rain that could easily have gone to brooding.
It was anticipatory instead, and he wasn't sure when exactly the last time when he'd felt that on the morning of this day had been.
His eyes had gotten accustomed enough to the faint light enough that a blotch of color, surprising this late in the season, made his smile widen.
When he returned to the house, he snuck back into the bedroom, hovering over the pillow end only briefly.
"Coming back to bed?"
He smiled down at the sleepy, quiet words. "No... too awake now."
"And too wet." Amusement leaked into the slurry words.
"And that. Try to get some more sleep, hmm?"
"Mm-hmm." Slight rustle of the sheets, a faint beat of silence... then, even quieter, "'py birthday, Caleb."
He ducked his head, and now the smile just didn't leave his face as he curled up in an armchair with a paperback that Reid had coaxed him into attempting to read.
Breakfast was best when fresh, anyway; he had some ideas about that already.
Which was a problem for a guy tangled up in bed with his boyfriend and two girlfriends - who were all sleeping, and with good reason. The three of them had jobs that they needed to be operational for in a few hours; somebody tossing and turning and waking them up at four? Much as they loved him, they didn't need that.
So he set to disengaging himself, slowly shifting his weight away from Dee, slipping his foot from under Irene's shin. Kissing Pogue's shoulder and lightly raising his arm to move out from under it, then sitting up and rising out of the bed with as little disturbance as he could manage. There was a glitter between eyelids here and there, shifting and stirring, but he murmured a reassurance, and that worked.
He slipped on sweats and a T and a jacket, and set out, in the pre-dawn (much pre-dawn) drizzle to walk some of the restlessness out.
It wasn't anticipation - or anxiety - that he'd once greeted his birthdays with. It wasn't dread, either, though. It was just memory of a day loaded with way too much. Too many memories, too many events, not enough of them good to balance out the miserable ones.
Although, truth be told, when he stopped to think of it - there had been only one miserable one, full of loss and pain and anger and Power and fire and rain, and one... questionable. Some that were cast over by the gloom of other events, but there had always been people who'd cheered him, made things easy and bright and wonderful, even if for small parts of the day. And considering how the last... oh. Eight months almost had been? He suspected today would be even more like a normal person's birthday. No, a happy person's birthday.
That was... very surprising, actually.
But instead of confusing, that thought brought a smile to his face. And while he knew he still couldn't sleep, all of a sudden he was missing the warm way in which their bodies had been tangled up so briefly ago. He didn't need Pogue or Dee to tell him that it was a good thing, on a walk in the chill early-fall rain that could easily have gone to brooding.
It was anticipatory instead, and he wasn't sure when exactly the last time when he'd felt that on the morning of this day had been.
His eyes had gotten accustomed enough to the faint light enough that a blotch of color, surprising this late in the season, made his smile widen.
When he returned to the house, he snuck back into the bedroom, hovering over the pillow end only briefly.
"Coming back to bed?"
He smiled down at the sleepy, quiet words. "No... too awake now."
"And too wet." Amusement leaked into the slurry words.
"And that. Try to get some more sleep, hmm?"
"Mm-hmm." Slight rustle of the sheets, a faint beat of silence... then, even quieter, "'py birthday, Caleb."
He ducked his head, and now the smile just didn't leave his face as he curled up in an armchair with a paperback that Reid had coaxed him into attempting to read.
Breakfast was best when fresh, anyway; he had some ideas about that already.