After the meeting (Caleb!)

[Zeke Nayakan]

Zeke watched as, one by one, the dedicated members of the gay-straight alliance exited the classroom they used to hold meetings in. It hadn’t been a normal meeting, as there had been a hate-related stabbing at the homecoming dance just three nights ago, where Kyan, a well-known bisexual, was stabbed after being called a faggot. After that was discussed, they did chat a little about their annual fund-raiser to benefit AIDS research, something they’d been doing for three years now.

He ran a hand through his ebony bangs, brushing them out of his face as he glanced up at the clock. 3:32. The meeting had run its usual hour, despite the heavy conversation, and now he had to rearrange the desks back to the way the teacher had them to begin with.

He started to organize everything as the second-to-last person left the room, leaving only Caleb and Zeke in the empty classroom. The two of them hadn’t gotten much time to talk since the dance, though not due to a lack of trying on Zeke’s part.

[Caleb McClure]

Caleb tried to pack his things as quick as possible, but naturally his English folder, the binder stuffed with the most leaf paper of course, fell to the floor and left him scrambling to pick them up. He’d avoided Zeke for the majority of the meeting, spare quick glances when he wasn’t looking, and knew that he was the last to leave. If Caleb and he were left alone in the room, he wasn’t sure what he’d say. Zeke might confront him about the avoiding he’d done since homecoming- the sparse words he offered in reply to Zeke’s attempts to hold normal conversation. The last thing he wanted to do was make it obvious that he was bothered by Marcoh and their relationship, but he couldn’t help it. Every time he saw Zeke, a lump formed in his throat and all he could think of was the fact that he couldn’t have him, that he was taken again.



Those thoughts brought tears to his eyes, so he grabbed the papers hastily and shoved them every which way, prepared to tear out of the room without a word.

[Zeke Nayakan]

“Hey, Caleb, need some help?” Zeke asked, making his way toward his friend who was busy picking up his papers from the floor where they had fallen, scattered. He knew that Caleb had been avoiding him, he was just too nice to say anything about it. He was curious, though. What had caused the sudden change in Caleb’s demeanor? He had seemed thrilled to be back, to catch up on old times, but then everything had changed. Then Caleb had found out Zeke had a boyfriend.

Was Caleb really that type of person, though? Surely if that was the issue he would have said something about it. And what as it to him? He didn’t have to run everything he did by Caleb. And had he been expected to put his life on hold for the past four weeks?

“So, how is it being back,” he asked. Maybe he’d get a response this time. He was starting to worry about his best friend, who was acting weirder every day since his return.

[Caleb McClure]

“So, how is it being back?”

Caleb, keeping his contact solely limited to the floor, tried to give a half-smile but pretty much failed miserably.

“Fine. Just fine… you know…” he said listlessly, trying to avoid any in depth conversation. He couldn’t face Zeke, not with the troubling turmoil in his heart.

Taking the papers from Zeke’s hands, he tossed them in his bookbag and jammed the binder in his bag. He had to get out of there before he said or did anything stupid.

[Zeke Nayakan]

“Fine. Just fine… you know…”

Caleb took the papers from Zeke’s hand and jammed everything haphazardly into his bag. Zeke was starting to get kind of annoyed by the way Caleb was acting. This wasn’t the same best friend who had left for England four weeks ago. Something was wrong, something had changed, but Zeke didn’t know what.

“No, I don’t know. That’s the problem,” he said. As Caleb made to stand up and leave the room Zeke blocked his escape, placing himself between Caleb and the open door.

“Why don’t you stick around for a few minutes and tell me?” His tone implied that he noticed something was up, and he really just wanted a straight, honest answer from Caleb. Was that too much to ask?

[Caleb McClure]

“No, I don’t know. That’s the problem. don’t you stick around for a few minutes and tell me?”

Caleb, stopped early in his retreat, felt nearly forced to look Zeke in the eye just by his tone alone. He couldn’t quite run away physically and Zeke would just corner him if he didn’t respond. What to say… the truth? That he’d been completely in love with him for the past three years? That going out with Marcoh felt like a betrayal? That he was so angry he wasn’t brave enough to confess his feelings?

“It’s nothing. I’ve got a headache,” he said, briefly looking into Zeke’s eyes before he realized he couldn’t do it for too long.

[Zeke Nayakan]

The lack of eye contact was Zeke’s first clue that something was full of shit. He had called a few times over the weekend and had gotten the same noncommittal responses.

“Caleb, come on. We’ve been best friends for how long now? If something’s wrong, you know you can tell me.”

Zeke wasn’t buying the headache excuse. He wanted to know what was wrong so he had the chance to try and do something about it. So long as Caleb kept beating around the bush and not answering his questions honestly, then there was nothing he could do to fix things between them.

[Caleb McClure]

“Caleb, come on. We’ve been best friends for how long now? If something’s wrong, you know you can tell me.”


‘That’s the thing’, Caleb thought, ‘I can’t.’ It would hurt every chance of them continuing their friendship – though Caleb knew he wasn’t really helping by driving Zeke away. He nearly had a mentality that figured he could stay away until Marcoh was out of the picture, then come back with the courage to tell him the truth.

However, a part of him knew that Zeke wouldn’t let that happen, like when Christian and he had been dating.

“I know we’ve been friends for a while, and I’ll tell you if something’s wrong,” he tried again, though fairly unconvincingly. He'd never been good at bullshitting.

[Zeke Nayakan]

Zeke sighed, remaining firm in his position but growing impatient. He knew there was something wrong, and was getting more and more frustrated with every word that Caleb said. Why wouldn’t Caleb just tell him what was wrong? He couldn’t imagine what he would have done to cause this reaction from his friend. Suddenly, he snapped.

“Stop being such a stubborn dumbass and tell me what’s wrong,” he demanded.

Zeke was tired of the lying. He was tired of the bullshit. They were older than that, too mature to be playing these baby games.

[Marcoh Kinsley]

Marcoh walked briskly down the stairs, checking his watch as he did so. He’d agreed to meet Zeke at his GSA meeting – after it was over, admittedly. Though they’d danced together at homecoming, he still was reluctant to attend meetings. After all, Kyan had been stabbed only nights ago. Zeke wasn’t able to blame him for not going, which was another reason why Marcoh liked him so much. Others might push him to attend, to fight the dampening spirit Brad and his lackeys had forced upon the gay community at their school, but Zeke was fine with letting him wander out of the closet slowly, still blinking and adjusting to the light.

So, at 3:24, Marcoh arrived at the classroom GSA was help at and prepared to do a little ‘hey, no-one’s-around-so-let’s-makeout’ action.

However, he soon discovered, it seemed that someone had already beat him to kissing Zeke.

[Caleb McClure]

“Stop being such a stubborn dumbass and tell me what’s wrong,”

Caleb glowered at that. What an asshole! He had a broken heart and Zeke was getting angry with him?

“Fuck you,” he said, before grabbing Zeke by the back of his neck and angrily pulling him in for a messy kiss. Zeke wanted to know what was wrong? He’d see – or, rather, feel – for himself the heartache Caleb had endured during the past years of loving him unconditionally.

[Zeke Nayakan]

Ezekiel didn’t care that his best friend was scowling at him because he knew that he was right. Caleb was being stubborn and irrational, both things that Zeke had very little tolerance for. All he had to do was be honest, and soon they would have things patched up and good as new. At least, that was what he had thought.

“Fuck you,”

The words were full of venom and hatred, and it was because of this delivery that the action that trailed them caught Zeke so off guard. As Caleb reached around him, grabbing the back of his neck and pulling him close, he barely had time to react before their lips locked, sloppily at first. In his anger and haste Caleb hadn’t put much thought into the action, but as soon as they made contact things cleared up pretty quickly.

It was violent, it was angry, and it was full of pent up frustration, anger, rage… and as that wave of emotions swept over Caleb it seemed to engulf Zeke as well now that their bodies were pressed together as one. Transferred from one boy to the other, Zeke felt exactly what Caleb must have been feeling. The desperation, the wanting… he didn’t have to think about it, as these things came naturally to him during their embrace.

He didn’t mean to, at least, he didn’t think he meant to, kiss Caleb back. It just happened. There are certain things in life that one doesn’t question when they happen; certain things that are destined to go on with or without one’s consent. This was one of those things. He wasn’t about to question the motives of his best friend, who had just forced himself upon Zeke. At least, not right away.

He tried not to let himself get caught up in the raging hormones that were suddenly let loose inside of his body, the teenage lust taking over as his limbs moved as though they had a mind of their own. It was as if he had lost control of himself in a moment of weakness, reaching out to comfort his closest friend as he wrapped his arms around him, still returning the kiss as if that made everything alright.

(ooc- lame, but I wanted to post something before I had to leave)

[Marcoh Kinsley]

Marcoh had thought, at least at first, that they had been fighting. He could've sworn he heard the words, 'fuck you' quite clearly from behind the closed classroom door, but when he saw, through the doorside window pane, that Caleb was in fact kissing Zeke, his suspicions changed.

It was alright. It was fine. Zeke would pull back in a second, exclaim that he had a boyfriend and that Caleb wasn't in his right to kiss him. Then, Zeke would come out the door and try to explain, but Marcoh would understand, because he'd seen it happen all too many times in sitcoms and dramas alike, and would brush it off. They were going out, and Zeke had been totally reassuring that Marcoh was the one he liked. Not Caleb.

But when, after a heartbeat or two, Zeke wrapped his arms around his best friend and kissed him back, Marcoh realized that it wasn't alright. It wasn't fine, not at all, and the doubts he'd staved off for the past two weeks flooded into his mind as he drew away from the window, unable to take the sight anymore.

Had Zeke changed his mind? Did he and Caleb have a relationship before? Was Marcoh just someone on the side... or maybe the target of some... some kind of senior prank? What if all of it had been pretend, the common interests, the lengthy conversations, the intimate kisses - just some sort of twisted joke? Or worse... pity?

He wasn't crying, no, but his face flushed embarrassingly, a lump big enough to make him choke forming in the back of his throat. Marcoh's mind filled in all the possibilities of what he'd just saw meant, but all of them made him face one particular thought; that he wasn't good enough, that he had never been... that the past two weeks' worth of confidence was based on... nothing.

Backing away slowly, he numbly walked down the hall, too stiff to run, and left the building, unnoticed.

[Caleb McClure]

What started as rage slowly dissolved into desperation, and when Zeke kissed back and wrapped his arms around Caleb, he leaned into it, his true, bare emotions showing through. He ached, to put it simply, for Zeke's touch and finally feeling it surround him made him weak, too overwhelmed with an exhaustion born from pent up frustration. Their kiss became shallower and shallower, until it was merely lips touching lips and shaking hands on strong shoulders.

Caleb breathed deeply, taking in air he'd lost through their kiss, and felt a bit of wetness around his eyes. He'd gotten what he'd wanted, hadn't he? He'd kissed Zeke the way he'd always wanted.. Why was he upset?

But the answer that had always been there finally took hold of his reasoning: as much as Caleb loved Zeke, Zeke would never feel that same love for him. If he hadn't felt it himself before, then there really wasn't any hope. It'd always been that hope that Caleb relied on, the thought that Zeke might realize it was him he loved. As he drew away, however, he realized that hope had long since vanished, turning itself into a twisted feeling of jealousy and anger that wraught control of his emotions.

"I..." he began hoarsely, wiping the tears from his cheeks, "I'm sorry, Zeke."

Not exactly sure what he was sorry for - or what he was even thinking at that point - Caleb listlessly grabbed his bag and stumbled from the classroom, praying that Zeke wouldn't follow. At that point, he was too confused to deal with rationalizations and explanations; hopefully Zeke would understand and love him enough to let him go and take him back when the time came.

[Zeke Nayakan]

Zeke realized a little bit too late that he had reacted incorrectly. There wasn’t anything he could do about it now, but in his haste to comply with his best friend’s actions, to comfort him in his anger, he was officially cheating on his boyfriend. He was cheating on Marcoh, and it had taken him an entire minute of lip-locking with Caleb before his mind chose to remind him of that fact.

When Caleb finally pulled away there were tears glistening in his eyes. Now Zeke was confused. Isn’t this what he had wanted? In his best friend’s embrace he had realized what had been bothering Caleb for so long - he had loved him. Well, maybe not love, but he had felt something for him. And at any other time, any other place, Zeke probably would have felt the same way. But he had a boyfriend now. At least, he had a boyfriend, before all of this. After, he wasn’t so sure.

"I..." he began hoarsely, wiping the tears from his cheeks, "I'm sorry, Zeke."

“Caleb-” Zeke started, but didn’t get very far. Caleb grabbed his bag and left the room hastily. Shit. What had just happened? Caleb seemed to get the kiss out of his system and then seemed ashamed for doing it. Had he meant it? Yes… so why run away afterward? Why kiss and run? Zeke was afraid of what he had just done. Could he keep this from Marcoh? He had been honest about Christian and the sophomore had understood, but they hadn’t actually been dating then. Could Marcoh ever forgive him for this?

((ooc- did you want him to follow? Because I can edit this if you did. ^_^))