Work Text:
Callum liked to think he was a patient person. He usually was—the amount of shit he dealt with was enough to make anyone’s head explode—but he was far past four drinks in at the gala and hadn’t been sober when the party started either, so his patience was easily wearing thin.
Crickets chirped around him from their homes in the grass and bushes nearby. Callum had dragged one of the wicker chairs as far away from the door as possible and cradled his head in his hands when he left the party almost half an hour ago. He hadn’t moved much and an oddly pointed stiffness in his joints was hard to ignore. Disgustingly warm metal fell down both his wrists, stopping where his forearms became too big for the metal to pass. Callum wouldn’t have worn them if he didn’t think it was necessary. After all, the metal bracelets made the sleeves of his suit quite clunky. It wasn’t exactly the Nova image he’d been taught to exude.
He chuckled to himself lifelessly. Callum was always a larger fan of fashion than practicality. He’d always been one to maintain appearances, but it’s funny how over a year with the same six people (minus Rhodes, he supposed) could change so many of his preferences.
So much preparation went into the gala, and just as much arguing with Atlas. The caretaker didn’t want Callum present, but he just so happened to be a bit of a self proclaimed narcissist. Of course Callum showed up, he wanted to make appearances and drink. He put a menial amount of effort into weakening some of the wards to allow patrons in, so, in his head, he deserved it.
“Do you know where Parisa is?”
Callum jumped. He could practically taste a man that reeked of determination and sorrow, something that he’d only ever seen on Tristan.
He hadn’t heard him walk up because he’d been too embroiled in his own misery to care about the people who found themselves in his orbit. Callum couldn’t hear his loud insecurity and obnoxious guilt. Tristan didn’t even have anything to be guilty about other than the attempted murder, and Callum was over that. He couldn’t be angry at him for long, besides, it wasn’t even a good murder plan to begin with. He was following the Society’s rules, and it wasn’t like Callum was trying to stay alive.
“I am not your dog, Tristan,” he hissed, “I can’t just find a person's impression.” Not now. Callum was drunk, not stupid enough to reveal weakness.
Though, he could. Tristan knew that, that’s why he came to him. It would’ve been a great plan too, if Callum weren’t wearing dampeners and still somehow managed to have a migraine. They were custom to Callum, made exactly for events like that night’s gala. They still had their custom engravings from when they were first gifted to him by his mom. It was a shoddy gift from a less than passive mother. At least they were useful.
“Stop being difficult.” Tristan seemed stressed. It worried Callum. He couldn’t see what was going on in that beautifully complex mind of his, but it truly wasn’t any of his business. Tristan asked for Parisa, thus it was hers.
Tristan and Parisa weren’t awfully close, especially after they so obviously slept together. It piqued Callum’s interest; why was Tristan searching for her?
“I’m sure that if you walk into the ballroom horny enough then she’ll find you.” Callum looked up at him with a lazy, fake smirk. It’s the kind of expression that someone would make when they don’t really mean what they said, but they’re masking away their issues. After the year they’ve spent knowing each other, he was sure that Tristan just thought it was a part of his personality. He’d rather not deal with a bombardment of questions.
Tristan visibly tensed at the comment. It sort of made Callum feel bad. There was this twist in his gut that made him question his own words, but that could just be the alcohol and impending liver failure.
“Seriously, Nova. I need Parisa,” Tristan paused in thought, “Unless you want to help.”
Tristan raised his eyebrow. Callum felt like his gaze scrutinized him for simply existing in the same vicinity as the illusionist. The same area as Tristan and his big hands that could definitely fit around his neck, or his eyes that made Callum melt into a 60/40 mixture of alcohol and whatever else he has inside him.
He very quickly shoved those thoughts aside, and just as quickly blamed them on the alcohol. Callum was blaming a lot of thoughts on alcohol recently. It made him wonder if he should drink less, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Callum carefully stood up, the wooden deck creaking under him, and smoothed out his suit. His practiced motions hid the sways of a drunk man with ease. It was too quiet for his liking, but to his horror the dampeners fell down his forearms.
The silence surrounding both him and Tristan was shattered by the sound of the metal meeting his watch. They poked out from under his sleeves, and Callum saw how Tristan’s eyes went straight to his wrists. He didn’t want pity, and he didn’t want any sort of fanfare either. Callum wanted to die of embarrassment. Him, the face of the famous Nova family of empaths, was wearing dampeners because he couldn’t cope with having so many people around him. Callum looked weak. He felt weak.
He tried to play it off. He looked at Tristan who was still looking at his wrists.
“What do you need?” Callum kept his tone cold, sharp even.
“Callum…” Tristan’s voice was soft. His brows furrowed and his presence became less dominating to Callum.
“Tell me what you want, Tristan.” Callum stared daggers into that stunning face of his. It’s a shame actual daggers would ruin it. “Or else I’m done with this.”
He waited for maybe fifteen seconds, probably more considering how time seemed to elude him while after so many drinks. Tristan hadn’t said a word, and Callum was getting frustrated. He started to walk off, the wood of the old house creaking under his weight.
“Someone’s trying to kill me,” Tristan finally admitted, “I want to know who.”
Callum stopped dead in his tracks. Why the fuck would someone want to kill Tristan? It made his blood run cold and his brain instantly sober. Tristan, the easiest man to look at in the world, was being hunted like a rabbit for sport.
“Fine,” Callum whispered. He tried his best to sound reluctant despite the creeping curiosity that emerged at the knowledge that someone wanted his peer dead. “I’ll help.”
Tristan wasted no time. He grabbed Callum by the arm and dragged him away. His grip was strong, it reminded him of their first year at the society. Tristan dragged him a lot, considering that no one else liked him it made sense that Tristan was the only one to look out for him. It was a dog eat dog mentality for Callum, so forgive him for being a little standoffish.
Most of the time Tristan was the one who stopped Callum from drinking his way into the grave. He served this affection Callum had been craving for his whole life and made it look easy to give. Callum’s not sure when exactly he fell, but it was probably one of those moments. He drank to numb everyone’s feelings, especially Rhodes and her anxiety riddled head, and when Tristan stopped him it led to Callum crying a little under half of the time. No one else knew he was capable of true emotion, but Tristan did so that had to count for something.
Callum fell for Tristan so quickly it hurt, but Tristan hadn’t fallen for Callum. That was shown when Tristan tried to kill him, or when he had sex with Parisa and Rhodes. Either way, it felt like a stab in the gut each time. He liked to say he was over it, maybe to influence himself in some way, but it never helped.
He’d tried so hard to be better. He wanted Tristan to see a glimpse of what he could be, maybe even try to get Tristan to like him back. Callum tried to quit, but his hands would violently shake and everyone’s emotions felt like a million needles poking him at the same time. His emotions felt like a knife being driven through his heart and twisted to cause the maximum amount of pain and damage.
Callum was pulled out of his head when he stumbled over a rock… or his own two feet because not even illusion spells or his impeccable acting could hide his drunken stagger, but it hurt his ego less to say it was a rock. It felt like the universe was twisting the knife because of course he stumbled in front of Tristan of all people, and of course Tristan of all people would stop walking to help him catch his balance. Personally, Callum would’ve left himself to sit on his ass but Tristan apparently thought that was in poor taste.
He wanted to hit himself over the head for doing something so embarrassing. Callum was much closer to tears than he’d ever admit when he heard Tristan speak.
“Sorry.” It was quiet and sincere, barely audible but filled with such strong emotions that Callum could taste them. Not literally of course, that wasn’t how his abilities worked, but Tristan’s sincerity was refreshing after a year of lies, deceit, and murder in the name of academia.
The refreshing part of Tristan’s tone washed over him. Callum relaxed for the first time in way too long. He felt momentarily free from all his worries, his stress, his constant pain. He felt so free that his brain made little connections to what was going on around them. The birds were asleep but the moon was awake and shining brighter than the old lamp posts that lined the gravel and stone path they were following.
That didn’t make sense to Callum. Why were they following a path that would lead them to the front of the society’s building when it would be faster to just go through the house?
He looked up at Tristan and tried to keep his voice sharp. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going around to the front, why?” Tristan countered his question. The answer was straightforward and made sense given the clues from where they were standing.
Callum furrowed his brow, “Why didn’t we just cut through the house? It’s faster that way.”
Tristan started walking again, slower than before, with his hand gently placed on Callum’s bicep.
Tristan kept his head down and it took Callum a beat and a gentle shove out of the way to realize he was watching for large stones. In a way, it gave Callum butterflies, but that quiet voice in his mind reminded him that Tristan would probably do that for anyone and he wasn’t special. He’d definitely do that for Rhodes if given the chance.
“It’s quieter this way, I just figured that you’d…” Tristan’s voice trailed off.
Callum knew what he meant, and if Callum wasn’t head over heels for Tristan before then he could certainly feel himself falling now. It was the sort of gentle kindness that he’d been starved of his whole life. Callum yearned to have someone care like that, and sometimes he was worried that he was influencing Tristan to show him that care he was so deeply lacking. This wasn’t that though. Callum was cut off from his abilities at the moment, it told him just how kind and perceptive Tristan was because it was so much more than anyone gave him credit for.
There was only one more turn until they’d be at the front of the house, but Tristan stopped him abruptly. Callum stood on a stone that was uncomfortably pointed into the sole of his shoe, but that wasn’t at the front of his mind.
Tristan’s conflicted face was the only thing he could see. Callum just wanted to reach out and flick away the creases like they were ants on a picnic blanket.
“Listen,” Tristan paused, “Nico’s watching the guy.”
The words rang in Callum’s head, the message not lost on him at all. Of course Nico was there. The same Nico who he’d been hostile to since day one. The same Nico who Callum knew was most definitely in love with his best friend but who was still spending so much time with Tristan recently. Not that Callum was jealous. Why would he be jealous?
“Oh.” Callum shifted his weight off the stone.
Tristan knew Callum in ways that made the empath’s skin crawl with bugs underneath the surface. He somehow always seemed like he could pull away Callum’s skin to dissect his organs and still find beauty in something so textbook. Tristan knew Callum was nearsighted and was always squinting, just as Tristan knew Callum hated showing weakness. He watched as Callum covered up all the parts of himself that could be deemed lesser or not ideal. In the harsh world of expectations Callum and Tristan were raised in there was no room for imperfections, but there was always a space for them to be imperfect together.
Callum looked at the visible metal poking out from his sleeve. He reached and carefully started to fiddle with the clasp on his left wrist. His headache got worse the moment the dampener fell off his wrist and into his hand. His movements slowed as his head pounded with unrelenting force. Taking off the second left him drowning in an ocean of party goers emotions that somehow radiated through the house to the path they stood on.
Callum had never taken off both his dampeners when there were so many people around. Nothing could have prepared him for the flood of agony that filled his head. Well over one hundred individual emotions swirled in his mind. He could feel their emotions, make sense of their intentions, their auras floated around him in a multi-colored tornado. He wouldn’t be in the society if he wasn’t powerful, but it’s almost like the society ignored how there’s no sane empath. It was overwhelming and he couldn’t even turn off his magic like Varona or Reina.
He pulled away from Tristan so quickly that he stumbled on the rocky path. Callum fell to the ground as he pulled his hair in a feeble attempt to ground himself. He couldn’t hear anything over the whirls of the party goers emotions. Any normal empath wouldn’t have been able to feel them from so far away, but Callum was far from normal. He was powerful, stronger than any of the other famous Novas, but he wasn’t given any ways to cope with the curse that’s been labeled as a gift.
Among the chaos in his head there was one colour that stood out. A ball of beautiful gold flew around in his head. Callum wanted to reach out and grab it. He knew that colour, it wrapped him in safety, as if no one could hurt him ever again. Callum knew that colour like the back of his hands. It belonged to a particular cynical British man who believed himself unworthy of love and felt as though hope doesn’t belong within his body.
Tristan radiated worry and concern that was directed towards Callum. It was so strong, so prominent in his mind, and certainly not because he was looking for it. No, it had to be because of their proximity. Tristan doesn’t know how easy he is to spot, how beautiful his aura was, how easily he grounded Callum.
He felt one of Tristan’s hands rubbing soothing circles on his back. “Callum? Cal?”
Tristan’s voice was filled with worry, and when Callum opened his eyes his face was the same. No one called him Cal. A gentle gold light radiated off of Tristan in a way that made his brown eyes twinkle in the darkness. God, Callum loved Tristan’s eyes. He wished he could inspect them under the light to see all the different shades that flecked those brown irises. Callum also loved the way shadows danced on his skin and pronounced every hill and valley on his face and body.
“Sorry, I thought we were far enough away,” Tristan murmured. Callum sat there entranced by Tristan. He watched the way his lips moved and how the tip of his nose moved with certain sounds. He didn’t know people could look so enchanting while being simultaneously so complicated.
He registered that Tristan was apologizing to him, but not really. Callum was too busy admiring Tristan in all his damaged beauty. He gently brought a hand up to Tristan’s temple where a small scar sat.
“You should’ve known better,” Callum muttered and aimlessly ran his knuckles over the scar.
When Tristan gave him a quizzical look he continued, “Your anxiety’s nauseating and your pity’s suffocating.”
“Would you change that?” Tristan asked quietly.
“Yes.” Tristan looked away from Callum in a way that made his heart ache.
Callum decided it was best if he shut his mouth sooner rather than later. He always said the wrong things. His father once told him that all he has to be is a pretty face for the family, not its voice. He didn’t want to do any more damage to the fragments of Tristan he still held onto but the rush of alcohol in his system made him snappy and jaded. The Nova’s perfect family image, Callum’s image, was a farce. They sold illusion spells and were leaders in its innovation. The Novas were built on lies.
How did Callum live with his life as a lie? When he found himself worn out from his lies, where would that leave him? He’d be left on this isolated pebbled path. He’d be left to sit in puddles of his dry tears and alcohol. Callum Nova would be left with nothing because he was the only illusion Tristan couldn’t see through until it was far too late.
He’d be left with his fondness for Tristan. If you took Callum apart, piece by piece, you’d see his pain, his love, his fear, and his anger all whirling around what he saw in Tristan. It was all whirling around what he thought he saw in Tristan. He fell in love with an idea of Tristan, but what killed him was how he still loved the Tristan who tried to kill him. Callum would’ve walked into the knife, stabbed himself for Tristan if he so asked.
Callum knew he would take away Tristan’s anxiety if he could, but he couldn’t. He loathed the way Tristan shuddered at the mere reminder of his notorious manipulation or his general disregard for people’s minds. Tristan’s anxiety always seemed to spike in Callum’s presence, not that he’d been tracking Tristan’s emotions but that they were often at the forefront of his mind. It was a little disheartening to feel the only person in the cohort who he actually gave a shit about be afraid of his ability. Callum was just horribly perceptive and numb to the world after years of half-assed caring.
“Ever an ass,” Tristan mumbled and pulled away from Callum.
He stood over the empath in a manner that would’ve been vaguely menacing if Callum couldn’t pick apart every emotion going through the man’s head. Tristan’s frustration was like sand on his tongue, but Tristan was the one who told a fish to walk. Expecting change is stupid, in Callum’s opinion. Who was Tristan to demand growth from him? Callum’s too stubborn to change what had been working for years, and Tristan is just about the opposite side of Callum’s coin though he’d found Tristan to be more flexible in a way that was almost overly accommodating. Though Tristan, just like Callum, would never change. He’d stay the same overly loyal dog nipping at Rhodes and Parisa’s heels no matter how much he was swatted away. Good thing Rhodes was gone.
Slowly, Callum stood up. The emotions of everyone in the house were still situated in the back of his head, and it throbbed like a headache that he learned to ignore after his years of hangovers. He, however, found it much easier to focus on Tristan’s emotions while subduing those of the guests even if it was full of festering anger, anxiety, confusion, and longing he didn’t deserve. At least Tristan’s good for one thing, and Callum could be good for one thing in return.