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It’s far too late to be loitering about, particularly by the side of a road that would've been busier if it were daytime.
However, it’s not. It’s close to two in the morning and the only signs of life the road holds are the occasional car with a half-asleep driver in it—and, of course, the little group of teens stumbling about, passing around a nearly-finished bottle, partaking in the very definition of loitering.
“Gimme that," one of them—burly, thick eyebrows, perpetual jeer—snatches the bottle and downs practically all of its leftover contents. Wiping his mouth with bruised knuckles, he turns merciless eyes on the guy he grabbed the bottle from. “I have a dare for ya.”
His friend—reedy, freckled, previously styled hair now drooping from humidity—rolls his eyes, uncaring, nonchalant, even as the rest of the group perks up. “Is it gonna be an actual dare this time?”
The first scowls. “That last one doesn’t count.”
“Because I did it so well it was embarrassing?”
A litany of mumbled gibberish spills the first’s lips. When he regains control of his speech, he waves the bottle at the other. “This one’s gonna make you piss your pants.”
Far behind them echoes the humming of an engine.
The second crosses his arms. “Let’s hear it then.”
The group stops, as though the anticipation of hearing the dare rooted them to the ground. The first spins to face the second, nearly overbalancing; regaining his stance, his eyes catch on something over the other's shoulder. A smirk creeps up.
“I dare you to jump in front of that car.”
As one, everyone else follows his gaze.
The headlights are the first things they see, the growing noise of the engine is the first thing they hear; a silver-gray sedan speeding down the lane in their direction. From the looks, it’s going fast enough to teleport, eating up the road between them.
“Holy shit,” one of them whispers.
The first’s smirk widens. It’s a crazy dare, there’s no fucking way he’ll take it. He’s got to be stupid—
His jaw drops. Because the second throws a challenging look over his shoulder at him before stepping right onto the fucking road, directly in the line of collision.
“Dude!” their friends hiss, grabbing at the back of his jacket, trying to pull him back. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Haven’t backed down from a single dare tonight.” I’m not starting now, goes by unsaid.
"But—"
"I'm a pedestrian, aren't I? They'll stop first, they have to," he says confidently.
Everyone else exchanges glances. The first stares at his friend.
Shit. He’s not joking. He’s actually doing it.
The car's headlights ricochet off them, vivid bright against the dim streetlights; the driver must have obviously seen them—have seen the second stupidly drunk guy in all his glory—but the wheels don’t slow.
It’s not gonna stop, the first thinks dumbly. Why isn’t it stopping? Is this some sort of power play?
“Get back!” he yells at last, panic edging his voice. “It’ll run you over!”
The other shakes his head, but the first can see the resolve cracking a bit, the lurking fear.
Closer…still closer…
Suddenly, tires squeal; the car veers, tries to go around, but the speed is too much because it’s still not fucking slowing down…
With a snarl of frenzied terror, the first grabs his friend by the collar, hauling him to safety. Barely three seconds later, the car zooms past with such force that the wind whips their hair back, its tires skidding from the sudden turn the driver tried to make.
“You’re crazy!” the second shouts after it, pale, hands trembling, glaring at the figure hanging out the passenger-side window whom the first hadn’t initially seen—although now that he does, he catches sight of the light of a phone camera in the split second before the car rightens itself and continues speeding away.
Realization hits him, then justified indignation. “Were you recording this?”
Behind him, the rest of his friends are swearing so loudly he hardly hears the faint shouted response carried by the still air.
“I was recording myself, jeez, the world doesn’t revolve around you, you know.”
Seriously?
“Fucking maniacs,” grumbles his friend, still in his arms. The first guy nods in agreement.
Meanwhile, in the gray sedan going slightly over ten the speed limit, Chase flops back into the car, phone clutched in one hand, one sneakered foot propped on the dashboard. Looking at the screen, he snorts.
Behind the wheel, Caleb sighs. “You were recording them, weren’t you? Are you crazy?”
“Whaaat, who me? Recording people for views? Ha, as if, cut me some slack!”
Caleb looks away from the road to shoot him a deadpan stare.
“Okay but listen, they were practically asking for it!” Chase waves his phone at him. “Look at them being so dumb, it’s funny!”
“You’d have done the same as them for kicks too, let’s be real.”
Chase pouts. “Yeah, okay, touche.”
Caleb shakes his head. What a fucking idiot. (He hates how the thought feels too soft to be considered properly pissed. He reasons that it's because they didn't hit anyone; if they did, then he would have been actually pissed off.)
Which brings him to the matter at hand: “We almost hit that guy!” he runs a haphazard hand through his dark curls. “Not stopping? Really? Why did I even think that was a good idea, why do I let you talk me into this kind of stuff?”
“Because you can’t say no to me.” Chase leans over the console, face close to Caleb whose breath involuntarily catches; as it tends to do whenever he gets the opportunity to be near enough to pick out the darker flecks in Chase’s violet eyes, whenever Chase’s mouth tilts in just that way that a dimple peek out (a rare occurrence that Caleb can proudly say he is few to witness), whenever Chase has his full attention directed onto Caleb and it leaves his heart stuttering because it’s like looking straight at the fucking sun without sunglasses.
Chase is right. He’s so fucking right, and Caleb wants to simultaneously tell him and keep the knowledge to the grave. He can hardly ever say no to Chase.
He wants to think it’s because he’s too nice, but he knows it’s not just that. It’s Chase, it’s always been Chase.
“Anyway.” Chase falls back in his seat, and Caleb props an elbow on the open window to dry out his clammy palms. “You wouldn’t have hit him, you’re the careful driver.”
He scoffs. "Well, someone has to be."
"Yeah, yeah, you and your carefulness."
“Repeating the word isn't going to make me less so, you know. Plus you're totally saying that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Is it?”
Caleb doesn’t need to look to know the challenging smirk he’s sure is etched on Chase’s face as clear as day. Sometimes he wonders if Chase knows the things Caleb tries to keep concealed. Not that good at hiding matters of the heart, it makes sense if Chase caught on already—but then again this is Chase, the most oblivious dumbass on the planet. If Chase caught onto Caleb’s feelings, then it’s also clear he really isn’t trying as hard as he wanted.
Their friendship came out of nowhere yet felt like it was meant to be. Opposites molded together like perfect puzzle pieces. Any other duo with their personalities would have probably clashed, but for some reason, they make it work. And Caleb’s proud (and smug) to say there’s a high chance he knows more about the inner workings of Chase Penuela-Alonto (like the fact that his real name isn’t just Chase Alonto) than any of their friends or even his ex-girlfriend. He’d beat any trivia game about the guy.
Ironically it was Emma who took part in their meeting—she and Priya, Caleb’s kind-of-sort-of-girlfriend-turned-ex (labeling what they had is as complicated as figuring out Chase during his more vulnerable moments); then again, makes sense that they were bound to meet when their respective exes started dating each other.
Caleb just hadn’t expected to take to the fiery inferno that’s the guy currently smirking at him, eyes glittering in the darkness of the car, just a few feet away from him. Caleb, himself, is a laidback, chill kind of guy. He never expected to end up in the craziest situations because of and with anyone let alone Chase; and he never expected to feel like this for someone like Chase either.
But love is a funny fucking thing. Ironic how his heart bounced from Priya to Chase—two opposing extremes.
Emma had been surprised at how close they became too. He tends to latch on, she warned him, drag you into his schemes, all that. Don’t let him turn you into a fool, trust me I made that mistake twice.
Caleb reasons he should probably take the advice of the girl whose brakes were cut out by Chase, himself. And he did…for a point in time. Chase is selfish, he’s unapologetic, he’s cocky and too sure of himself, his emotions burn him alive from the inside as he laughs about it. He doesn’t take shit seriously that he should. He’s everything Caleb is against, it doesn’t make sense for him to even give the guy the time of day. There’s no ‘hidden layers’ like the romance books picture the love interests; this is just a generic asshole, and Caleb’s sure of it. If he isn’t, then wouldn’t he have slipped up by now?
But then Chase knocked at his window at midnight three months after meeting each other, wild grin on his face, hair askew but still perfect, and the words ‘you wanna see something crazy?’ leaving his lips in a hushed excited whisper.
Try as he might, Caleb just could not say no. The reason why eluded him. Emma's voice was there, in the back of his mind, cautioning him, but it had grown quieter in the face of Chase’s eagerness.
(He wonders if Chase knew back then, even before Caleb did. If he already connected the dots about the complexity of what they have.)
That night was when Caleb found out he would do absolutely anything to keep this guy burning bright, yes, but also alive and sane, taking up the unspoken mantle of rationale in their weird dynamic. He was fucking whipped and he didnt even realize how long he had been until the moment Chase sped them down the road and Caleb was yelling at him to “stop fucking trying to kill us both, you crazy madman!” while clutching the sides of the passenger seat so tight his knuckles turned white, groping desperately with one hand for the wheel. Chase took it all as one big joke, throwing his head back and laughing, teasing Caleb by pressing more on the accelerator, and generally trying to give Caleb a coronary.
"Hold tight!" he crowed. Not like Caleb hadn't been all this time.
The drive of hell—as he still likes to call it, even now months later after several more similar drives to desensitize him—hadn’t been when he came to the realization. It was sometime later—hours, maybe? It felt like years to Caleb—after Chase abruptly slowed them down, his hands loose on the wheel, his shoulders relaxed, and said in the tone of someone talking about the weather but with an undercurrent of something weighted that the wind tried to rip away: “Thanks, man, I needed that.”
Caleb blinked, then blinked again, processing both the change in speed and the words. “Uh, what?”
“This drive. Thanks for it.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Caleb pointed out. Just screamed my head off while you tried to drive us to an early death.
From his position, Caleb saw the upward tick of the corner of Chase’s mouth. Then he felt the whisper of a touch, a brush of a fingerpad against the knuckle of his hand still wrapped in a death grip on the wheel. It was warm, fleeting but sincere in a way Caleb never considered. It spoke volumes more than any words could.
And, well, this changed everything. Because all this time Caleb thought the Chase he’d been seeing was the Chase there was. But it wasn’t. Or at least not the entire thing.
Being an MIT student, Caleb knew a thing or two about the correlation of objects and how their functions depend on each other. The importance of each part to a whole.
Staring at Chase, he couldn’t help using the same logic on him; the personality he showed—real as Caleb suspected, but also not wholly so—and its connection to the parts he hid, maybe unconsciously. Without one the other would not function properly.
It felt like Caleb received an epiphany and a maddening calculus problem. But he’s a mathematician, he can solve anything—especially when the result is well worth it.
Since then, Caleb was spun right at the center of Chase's whirlwind; the eye of the fucking storm, one can say. And he's been helpless to stop the torrent of emotions kept at bay. Chase remained oblivious, but sometimes…sometimes, Caleb wondered.
Like now, challenging him with a smirk and violet eyes alone, he knows Caleb. The little things that make him tick and how to push him just enough to reach his limit but not cross it. Just as Caleb knows of the little details about Chase, the mundane that contrasts the manic daredevil; how he loves rollerblading, spicy foods, puked his guts out when forcing himself to eat yogurt to prove he isn’t lactose intolerant anymore (spoiler: he still is), how he pushes himself and his life to the extreme because it keeps him alive. How he’s born for the light of the camera. How his lifestyle is both his glory and his eventual downfall. How Caleb knows he can’t do shit to get him to see reason, because when one is addicted to the attention that their entire personality is centered around it, that can be hard to let go of.
So Caleb indulges. He indulges and he keeps Chase grounded the best he can, giving him the approval and reassurance he needs to keep going. It’s the only way he can help.
But Caleb knows Chase in ways deeper than the mundane because when you experience certain emotionally-loaded moments shared, you learn a thing or two about the other person that no one else might; he knows why Chase likes calling him specifically for these spontaneous midnight drives with nothing but the wind in their faces and hair, and the emotions bursting free into the sky. Nothing but each other and the open space surrounding their car. It's always been Caleb, no one else.
“Careful is good, it prevents early deaths,” Caleb tells him now because the silence is stretching and he’s in his feels. “I don’t want you to die.”
He accidentally loaded the sentence with more emotion than he wished to; so many implications skimming the surface of the words. Please don’t do anything stupid so that the next time I see you, it isn’t at your funeral. Please listen to me for once—actually listen to me about this—I can’t lose your brightness.
Often his mind goes back to that fateful night when everything shifted a degree into the light; I needed that. What had Chase needed and because of what? Every time they go out for these kinds of drives, that thought is at the forefront of Caleb’s mind. What is the thing Chase is trying to forget this time? Or is it always the same thing?
And is Caleb simply just indulging or using this as an excuse to run away from his own emotions?
Chase’s eyes bore into him, and the moment hangs suspended. He still hasn't responded.
Caleb holds his breath, wondering—hoping?—if this will be it, the night when everything falls out into the open when the curtain pulls back. It has to be obvious Caleb meant more when he’d said those words; I don’t want you to die. Even someone as oblivious as Chase must have picked up on it.
“Anything for the views, man,” Chase says at last, peppy, casual, but the words sound hollow. He’s turned away, now, facing the window, sticking his head out, his hair ruffling in the wind, and Caleb aches with something like relief and disappointment.
They aren’t going to talk about it here in this car driving at over seventy miles an hour. Thank goodness. Caleb isn’t sure he would have the capacity to handle it if they did; he’d probably crash the car.
Still, he throws a bone. Nonchalant, easygoing. “Is there a reason you called me tonight this time?”
A moment of quiet. Caleb bites his bottom lip. The wheel creaks a little under his hands; he has to put an effort to stop himself from going faster.
He’s not going to say anything, it’s clear from the sound of the silence—and Caleb’s heart thumps at how he’s gotten adept at pinpointing Chase’s silences as well as his words.
“You know what’s missing?” says Chase suddenly. “More.”
And just like that he’s scrambling out of his seat again, hauling himself inches away from Caleb whose breath wheezes out of him at the sudden closeness, Chase’s red hoodie warm against Caleb’s bare skin where his shirt sleeve ends. “What are you doing?” he snaps, partly distracted as he multitasks between managing the wheel and making sure this dumbass of a guy he likes doesn’t get himself killed right after Caleb told him not to.
“Chill, Big Guy,” is all Chase says, all easy grins, before hoisting himself out the open sunroof of the car.
“Chase—”
“Relax!” Chase calls down to him. “This is awesome!”
"You're so fucking stupid," Caleb mutters. Before he can say more, like something along the lines of No it’s fucking not awesome, you’ll get hurt, dumbass, Chase tilts his head up, pumping his fists into the air as he whoops loudly, his voice carrying into the early morning air, looking like he's made for the speed Caleb drives them at.
And words fail Caleb.
By God, why does this keep happening to him?
(He knows why, he just likes purposefully living in moments of denial once in a while. It’s good for the soul, especially considering his soul likes Chase.)
Chase is laughing, boisterous and full-bellied, pulling out his phone to record himself—snippets of his introduction reach Caleb's ears by the wind, and he is torn between annoyed, frustrated, and a bubble of fond affection that chokes his throat when the brush of Chase’s leg—the cotton material of the beige joggers—flicks Caleb’s upper arm.
Bemused, Caleb looks at it. The leg stays in the same position, a warm weight touching his bicep, removing the confusion of whether Chase had done it by accident. As frustrating as he may be, Caleb has learned that seventy percent of the time, when he’s around Caleb, Chase’s actions have an underlying meaning to them. What that meaning may be is up to Caleb to interpret if he can.
This one, he figures out quickly enough. He can’t see Chase’s eyes to make sure, but Caleb doesn’t need to. He gets what’s being said, and the stone lodged in his heart loosens.
Later, reassures the unspoken action, the weight of the leg a solid presence against his skin. Not right now.
In response, Caleb nudges his elbow lightly against it. I got you, he says without saying.
When he looks up, Chase is already staring down at him, smiles split so wide it cuts through his face, his eyes bright. Caleb likes to think it’s not just because of the wind in his hair and the thrill of having half his body out of the sunroof.
Then he just has to open his mouth.
“Faster, go faster!”
“We’re already nearing twenty over!” Caleb protests.
“It’s an empty highway—”
“We passed like three cars within the past five minutes.”
“—jeez, okay wet blanket, you drive like my grandma and she died before I was born.”
“Wha—that doesn’t even make sense!" He ponders for a second, then adds: "Besides your grandma must’ve had the right idea, not wanting an early death.”
“Dude, what are you talking about?”
“She died of old age, right?”
“What? No, it was like a heart attack or something.” Chase taps his chin. “Must’ve been the stress. If she lived life on the edge, drove faster, she would’ve beat that heart attack.”
“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Hey, I’m just warning you.” Chase points one slender finger down at Caleb. “Don’t follow in Granny Bernila's footsteps, I don’t want you getting heart attacks.”
And even if Caleb may have no control of his fate, when Chase looks down at him like that, he’s ready to fight God, himself, if it means making sure he doesn’t get a single heart attack in his life ever.
Rolling his eyes, he retorts, “I don’t feel like watching you fly out of the car and explaining all this to the ER.”
“Dude.” Mocking him, while rolling his eyes. “You're so dramatic. That’s not gonna happen."
Right. He's the dramatic one. Naturally.
"Just a bit faster, you know you wanna.”
The scary thing is Caleb does want to. A tiny side of him pokes at him, one that’s been cultivated by months of spending time with Chase. It presses, not strong enough to overwhelm his rational side, but it nags to at least feel the same level of exhilaration Chase feels on a near-daily basis.
Fucking hell, Emma’s right; in a way, Chase really is turning him into a fool.
Caleb pushes down those thoughts. “I’m your rationale,” he says like a mantra. “Even if it means saving you from your shitty choices.”
“BOO LAME! Hello? You can just use your super-strength to save my ass if you want to so much.” pouts Chase.
Heat flushes over Caleb's cheeks, and he flexes his muscles instinctively. A casual observation, literally ninety percent of the people Caleb knows have commented about his muscles, yet his mind preens whenever Chase mentions it. "Not even my muscles can stop you from flipping head-over-heels out of the car if we crash, which we will if we go any faster." Idiot, he adds to himself.
Chase pulls out the puppy eyes, and yup, he definitely knows how effective those are on Caleb, the little shit; he’s hiding a smirk, Caleb can see it, he isn’t dumb!
He groans. “Why the hell do you keep asking me to be the driver if you're still going to do stupid things?”
At the sudden silence, he looks up to see Chase pursing his lips, face cocky as usual but with a touch of something unreadable, strands of his hair falling over his eyes—Caleb wants to push them back but he settles for glaring at the other guy.
“What?” he says, turning his head to look back to the windshield.
A small frown pulls at the corners of Chase’s mouth. “I’m not going to die,” he tells Caleb seriously.
I don’t want you to die.
Caleb pauses and stares at him. Chase stares back. The car whips down the road, neither of them paying attention to it. Honestly, they could crash and Caleb won’t give a fuck right now.
Because, maybe, Chase gets it, or at least even if he doesn’t, whatever’s happening right now is some sort of progress. Toward what, Caleb doesn't really know yet, but...his brain flashes back to that fateful night when he realized everything all at once; the brush of fingers against his own on the wheel; the loaded look in Chase's eyes, expressing something the guy probably wasn't even fully aware of.
The expression he wears now as he holds Caleb's gaze is something similar but also more.
Without thinking, Caleb presses slightly harder on the accelerator.
He watches violet eyes widen, then fill with unbridled awe. It’s a new, nice expression on someone as careless about the world and its people as Chase.
“Just a little faster,” Caleb whispers.
Chase’s grin reappears, bright, blazing, and Caleb can go blind staring at it. “Just a little faster!” he echoes, louder and excited, and time speeds back up; within one blink and the next, he’s back to flashing pictures, taking videos, letting the wind push at him, babbling about taking pictures of the two of them being awesome and posting it on his Instagram.
“Everyone's gonna be so jealous of how cool we are,” he keeps saying, fumbling the phone as the wind whirls around them, the sides of his hoodie flap behind him. He flashes a beam at Caleb who’s fully aware he’s lost the battle of keeping away his dopey smile.
“Thanks, man,” Chase says—and wow, no one’s going to believe Caleb that Chase has now thanked him not once but twice.
The deja vu is really getting to him right now, so he just nods, words catching in his throat. Because there are plenty of things he wants to say; like how he’d do anything to keep hearing Chase laugh, even defy the rules of speeding; that he’d make sure Chase can feel the wind and not die; that there’s so much in his heart right now and he doesn’t know how to handle it.
Instead, he turns back to the road, but his focus alternates between it and up the sunroof at Chase, full of wild laughs and flames burning up his heart. Later they will talk about what has been hidden out in the open, later Chase will tell him what he wants to say, later many things may happen; but for now, this is fine.
This is more than fine.
Tearing down the road, wind in their faces, laughter echoing, Caleb thinks Chase is wrong about him not feeling the kind of exhilaration he keeps talking about.
Because he always feels it whenever he’s with Chase.
What they have is indescribable, no matter how much Caleb tries to explain it.
Doesn’t mean he loves it any less.