#> queue.

it’s followed him since childhood.

a nagging hunger behind caleb’s smile, the sun-scorched golden boy bursting with solar flares, all but demanding to be the best. demanding attention, first, before something in him realized it wasn’t what he needed — supernovas into dying stars, molting under the gaze of everyone. and yet that hunger still lurked, sucking him deep; the feeling of it itches. he graduates at the top of his class, passing all of the important tests with flying colors. he’s a dead man walking, a living covenant to the human spirit and the boundless achievements of medication and technology. he’s a colonel in the deepspace fleet, for fuck’s sake. the perfect weapon, some call him. caleb wants it all, somehow — and he tends to get it too, the gloating putting him where he was now, and yet he shirks at the feeling of it.

every interaction is a game. a game caleb is very uncomfortable with losing, but one that by now caleb has made himself be comfortable with losing. but somehow when caleb is with zayne, every interaction becomes more of a battlefield; zayne’s pushing his head this way and that, and it’s taking everything in caleb to stay loose and relaxed — as much as he can, at least. but he wants to be ready to lunge, to bite. he doesn’t know why, and it’s not something he can devote attention to right now. somehow caleb feels on the precipice of losing balance in his own home, what some part of him grits his teeth in rage at. for once, he wonders if he would rather the chip in his stupid brain would kick in, as marred as it is anyway —

and then caleb is careening off that cliff in free fall as zayne raises his chin, forcing caleb to meet his gaze. he knows his nostrils flare for a flash of a moment; caleb tastes hot, molten iron as his teeth sink into his tongue. he knows he’s being absurd, can’t pull back or lash out after he himself started it. it gives him something to clench down on that wasn’t…the rest of his body, muscle and ligament meeting metal where screws sometimes knocked out of place. literally — caleb always laughed sarcastically to himself as he fixed them. the bloodrush was loud in caleb’s ears, or maybe he just couldn’t focus on what zayne was saying. not when this was a battle with what felt like his life on the line, adam’s apple gently bobbing as he swallows.

he doesn’t need his military training to see the way hazel narrows on him — like a crosshair, laser painting red on caleb’s skin, their eyes where they met; caleb sometimes wondered if people kinder than him, or even just as kind as zayne, could see peoples’ souls. reading people was a learned skill, to him. one he had to obtain quickly, yet still after 25 years felt foreign to him. empathy seemed to come as naturally as breathing to some people, and it terrified caleb. and beyond that, if anyone knew how to sort through the filing cabinets caleb kept under lock and key in the deep recesses of his psyche, some so old they’re growing dust — maybe that’s where that itch that follows him comes from, maybe there’s spiders in his brain, caleb hasn’t looked.

@carnivorare

the nickname makes caleb shudder all over, energy still pulsing through his veins. he's finished with his frenzy, but adrenaline still courses through him; it feels like the aftershocks always last forever, slow and powerful as the tides, rage and instinct and energy melding at his chest. he'd never say how crimson melding with crimson reminds him he's alive. it wouldn't be the same if caleb didn't bleed.

@idgun, slight past, recording. 

it’s a good song. 

they all know it. it’s light and breezy and it’s got the summer sweetness everyone will be searching for right now. so why not? why not deck the boys out in blues and pinks and peacock them around like the loving beacons of adoration that they are, so that their fans may sweep forward like moths to an oversized flame, drawn with a desperate desire towards that flickering light. 

is there a strict need for her on the track? no. does her voice sound damn nice in the song? she’d say yes. but juniper isn’t that naive. she knows as well as anyone else that there’s going to be a backlash here - and just as surely she knows two things. one, that it won’t affect the boys’ income for the track at all. two, that she’ll get as much exposure as she gets raked over the coals. it’ll be painful but worth it. she has to believe that, to trust in kjh and their sometimes nonsensical choices. 

she does wish, however, that gun wasn’t involved in all of this. she swings one leg up over the other and examines the gunmetal gray matte tips of her nails, filed to an impeccable oval and smoothed to a softened point. every inch of her is manicured to perfection as it often is, these days, with the whole “selling luxury” aspect. she finds this somewhat ill fitting a concept on her, even if it isn’t one she entirely hates. what’s there to hate about being wined and dined in paris, after all? 

but she doesn’t fell that way, shimmering and splendid, rarefied and exotic. she feels in this room somewhat as she once did, a doe eyed hopeful slouched over a keyboard in an oversized training set, smudging linger against her cheek as she rubbed tired eyes, resting her head on his lap. it was a kinder time and a stupider one too, but innocence and ignorance often led to happiness, in her experience. 

there’s probably not a real reason for her to be going over the track again, before final recordings, but he’s a perfectionist and she won’t lie. she loves to hate being around him. she likes that spark of anger in her stomach. the pleasant ache of holding a grudge or pressing at a bruise.