Work Text:
The rain hammered down on them as if intent to drag them down into the dirt and the mud and all the way down into the very bowels of the Earth. It was heavy, weighing down Caleb’s clothes, seeming to weigh down his very soul. It served as both a shield from the outside world and a hindrance, a reassurance that no one nearby would hear them and investigate and get caught in the crossfire, and yet it was all the easier to lose his footing and mistrust his line of sight. It ran endlessly into his eyes, shards of ice snaking past his clothes and tucking themselves away into inconvenient corners, a brutal cold hell-bent on numbing his limbs and back, crippling his concentration. Chase was using it to his advantage to play tricks on him, to emphasize his speed, his determination, his desperation.
Caleb just wanted to be warm again, warm and dry beside the fire with Sarah. A simple, perfect, human life.
If she would still have him after all this.
And yet, Caleb had always known life could never be simple for the sons of Ipswich.
There was a pause, an earth-shattering lull where even the rain seemed to deaden, where Chase still remained at running distance yet seemed now to catch his breath, as if looking for another way, a quicker way. Caleb was already exhausted and it was no doubt apparent, but there was very little he could do to mask that.
Don't be fooled , he reminded himself. Chase is all about mind games. The distance between them was too far, the sheets of rain too thick to convince Caleb that Chase’s gaze was no longer predatory, but his stance had ceased to be.
Knowing he needed to get this over with as soon as possible, he once more reminded Chase of what he already knew, once more hopelessly attempted to sway him from his course. “I can’t will you my power,” Caleb stressed, just on the edge of a plea. Chase would never respond to it, his overconfidence staggering beside the existence of Caleb’s will: slim and juvenile. “If I do, I forfeit my life.” And if I don’t, I forfeit Sarah’s.
And yet, if I do, what stops him from going after her, from going after Pogue and Reid and Tyler and…? Their faces flashed before him, one-by-one and then interposed on top of each another, each giving him strength and spurring him on, reminding him that he wasn’t alone in this.
First to ascend, first to fall…
And yet he was alone, his ever-present need to protect had seen to that. Right now he stood alone before Chase, at the mercy of the missing son of Ipswich who should have been his brother , who in brief flickers of clarity seemed no more than a mere boy corrupted by the influence of the Power. Pinned down by Chase’s murderous intent, he felt more alone than he ever had before. He had always shouldered the responsibility and he would do so again now; he only wished he had had more time: more time with Sarah, more time navigating his way through life with - and mostly necessarily without - his power.
“Then let’s try something else,” Chase offered, breaching the dozen or so steps between them. Caleb, shocked, nearly took a step back, but the energy around them seemed to lessen. Chase’s energy seemed to diminish until it was a low, barely vibrating ebb.
Caleb took a calming breath and held his ground. “What else?” He ventured, willing to play Chase’s game for just a little while longer if it granted him more time to think, more time to figure out how to save Sarah.
“This...,” the words barely left Chase’s smirking mouth before he claimed Caleb’s, hard , searching, betraying an entirely new form of desperation.
Caleb’s eyes practically split open, his hands hovering in mid-air, about to blindly find Chase’s chest to push him away and yet… not. He was torn between confusion and desire, the latter of which was rooted deeply in the Power, in the energy now thrumming between them, scaring him in a way his power hadn’t accomplished since he had first used it and still… this was different , this was like connecting with someone on a cellular level. He was swimming through the rain, swimming through his own determination to save Sarah and the others and then he was swimming through Chase, through his very thoughts and aspirations and yes, even fears… and he wasn’t drowning.
It was unreal that they hadn’t pulled away for breath yet as each second stretched languidly into a lazy eternity. There was his own power sparking at his fingertips even as a dark energy burst across his consciousness, the essence of an indomitable will not his own bristling over his skin, seeking to imprint him. This faded quickly, replaced by awe. Despite what should have been pressure leading to an inevitable submission, Caleb felt no such threat and easily relaxed. Less and less his own unique power became distinct from Chase’s own. More and more the darkness faded into something more manageable.
Chase splayed a hand on the back of his head, electricity coursing through his hands and down into his fingers and filtering past Caleb’s dripping hair and soaking into Caleb’s skin and through Caleb’s single-minded consciousness, expanding it, clarifying it, snapping the tethers binding him to anxiety and panic and doubt.
There was no conceivable reason why he should be feeling this, why Chase was able to tear down all his barriers with just one kiss .
And yet it was happening. There was no need to struggle, only an overpowering sense of unity, similar to how Caleb felt when he and the others had all used, together, for the first time. Only this was stronger, much stronger.
Caleb didn’t have any willpower over this.
Is this it? Has Chase already won?
Does it feel like I’ve won?
Caleb jolted away from him, the words in his head not his own. The fear eased once he recognized the challenge in Chase’s eyes, one now strangely oozing with amusement and… amiability? It was startling how easy Chase was taking this , the fact that they’d supposedly - if sensation and instinct were anything to go by - just melded their own individual extensions of the Power together, melded themselves together. It wasn’t like using with the others; it ran deeper than that, obviously by the fact that he nor Chase were currently using. He could feel Chase’s power latch onto his own, simultaneously feeding off of it and feeding it. It thrummed beneath his skin like music, almost like destiny , answering to the call of Caleb’s now dangerously strengthened power.
It had to have something to do with ascending and yet… this didn’t feel like it should be possible.
He had connected with Chase on some magical level, in some way that Caleb tried to convince himself must be unnatural, harmful, evil, but he hadn’t felt this five minutes ago when he had ascended, when he used his power only to find it was amplified and more in tune to his thoughts and instincts.
Caleb felt no threat, not when Chase tauntingly stepped back into his personal space, the rain seeming to slide right off him, not when he roughly grasped Caleb’s cheek and pulled him in for another scorching, all too convincing kiss. He felt his power, intermingled with Chase’s own, calm and settle.
“What are you playing at?” He asked when Chase again pulled back, heated breaths igniting his chilled face, Caleb’s voice hoarse from Chase’s sharp mouth.
“Some call it the game of love,” Chase teased, thumb brushing over Caleb’s bottom lip. The fire in his eyes had shifted from predatory to tantalized.
“Is that what this is?” Caleb thought of Sarah, hovering mere feet away, waiting for him to return to her, not victorious but very nearly beaten, not drunk off the Power but humbled by survival and his love for and dedication to her. “Jealousy?”
Chase’s eyes darkened but it was only a flash, replaced with a murmured, even somewhat affectionate, “Caleb Danvers.” He licked his lips and the rain’s last drops fell around them, seeming to scorch the ground. Caleb could feel Chase’s power separate from his own before pinning him down, no more than a second passing before he was released. Caleb breathed out, his power chafing at the brief warning. He had let Chase in somehow and there was no doubt it could be his death sentence, yet when he thought about his power reaching out and strangling Chase’s, it was in his ability to command and it was delivered without delay. Chase sucked in a harsh breath and smirked, his gaze upon Caleb more than impressed. “There, see,” he soothed and Caleb’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Sarah can’t compete with me, not when I’m at my best.” There was that confidence again.
“How do I know this isn’t just another trick?”
Chase captured his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down until Caleb could taste blood. “Oh, I’m genuine , when I have reason to be. I may have hid from you from the start but I never lied to you. I wanted to get to know you and I did, and I liked what I saw. It slowly started to occur to me that killing you would be such a waste, when I could have your power anytime I wanted, freely loaned to me.”
“If you think for one second that I’ll allow you to feed off me…”
“It works both ways,” Chase snapped. “Your power is mine and hey, wouldn’t ya know it, my power is yours .”
No lies, unless Chase was masking them in some way; his mind was all too open for Caleb’s perusal. “Explain to me what just happened.”
Chase sighed; apparently, for once, he didn’t feel like talking. “We merged, in a way. Read about it once in some dusty old book, wondered if it would work. You were just too cute to pass up when I first saw you, even more when you took me into your pathetic little happy family, so I figured if you didn’t respond to me in one way, I’d try this way. Have to admit, never imagined it could work, never imagined you’d adjust to it so well. And yet you’re still standing there and pretending you’re not feeling anything. I can feel you, Danvers.”
And Caleb could feel Chase too, more than he wanted, more than he was prepared to deal with. “I don’t love you.”
You will.
And yet somehow, Chase’s hands on him, warm and possessive and dry, Chase practically hanging off him like they had always been together, like the Power had decided ages ago to meld them together so that they could become one, Caleb knew that he already did.
FIN