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How had ten years pass her by? It felt like just yesterday she graduated from Bellefonte and now they were having a reunion. It was weird being called back to see the people she didn't really care about. She would have skipped if her sense of obligation wasn't so overwhelming.
She didn't go fancy when it came to her outfit. It was a simple flower printed dress and she kept her hair neat with it pushed back in the middle secured with a small black hair clip. Her make up was minimal as per usual. There was really nobody to impress there, she figured.
And as she entered the hall that had been transformed into a 90s theme with cheesy music in the background and balloons secured on the ceiling in a net, Clarke couldn't help but smile at the nostalgia.
After signing up with idle chit chat with Stacy Krushnik and Victoria Lopez, Clarke made a beeline to the punch table to get a cup if only to occupy her hands while she sat in the corner, looking at the hall filling up with people she vaguely remembered but never bothered to talk to.
Ten years flew by for Caleb, it felt like. He'd been part of the academy the whole time, only going back before Nora had manifested and his parents had moved out to Stagfort. He didn't mind Oregon, he didn't even mind staying at the Academy even if his sixteen year old sister hated every minute. A reunion didn't really bother him, he didn't look much different than he did then. Thanks in large part to his ability giving him flawless looks and pretty sizable muscles. He was doing what he had told everyone he planned on doing. Trainer, self-defense instructor, total chick magnet...okay maybe not everything.
He still had his awkward spasticness to deal with.
Caleb had dressed decently, button-up, dark jeans and a white t-shirt underneath. Nora had told him that if he had any hope of attracting a lady, he would need to dress like someone who wasn't full of themselves, but also low-key was. As if he would actually understand her teenage girl speak. But he'd let her dress him and went with it. As long as she didn't put him in a suit, he figured he was okay.
The school looked ridiculous, but kind of fun. They were all basically nineties babies, to think that Nora would be twenty in the 2020s was terrifying. He rubbed the back of his neck as he entered the main area. It wasn't looking very good for him. All of his friends were there, sure, but it wasn't like he could just stick to them the whole time. His sister would never let him hear the end of it. So he looked at his options. There were the girls that had been attracted to him shortly after he hit his growth spurt and there were the ones that still hadn't even noticed him. But what he really was surprised by was the one that he could hardly recognize standing by the punch bowl.
Picking his poison, he decided she was the lesser of the three evils in front of him. He chewed his lower lip as he grabbed a cup and he thought of how to approach the situation. Girls didn't really like when guys commented on their appearance in a negative connotation, he knew that, but how did he say that she looked good without it sounding like she didn't before? Caleb glanced at her and in his most pretentious, ridiculous British accent, he spoke, "Turn to page 394." With a snort he coughed and laughed again, "Uh Potter, right? Clarke?"
Clarke saw Caleb Parker approach the punch table in the corner of her eye and she tried not to stare. The guy had always been cute but the years have definitely been better to him. He filled out in all the right places and he still had the ridiculous boyish charm.
She wasn't sure whether he still remembered her so she kept up with her people staring until he spoke up, making her snort into her cup. Pursing her lips, she pushed her cup away and turned to him, biting her lower lip to stop from grinning too much.
"Caleb Parker." She smiled a little in response. "I'm so glad to see that my name still brings all the dorks to the yard." She pursed her lips once more to stop from laughing at her own tease. "Did you uh...just arrive?"
The joke, although terrible, was something he'd have said to anyone with that last name. That being said, he knew he could count on Clarke to appreciate it more than others might. He remembered her well enough to know that she wasn't quite as pretentious and snobby as some of the rest, which helped him break the awkward ice fairly easily. It was almost painless except for the fact that he had made an ass out of himself in less than five minutes of being there.
Ah well, life was short.
"Ayyy, that was funny. Uh yeah, just strolled on through. Passed go, collected 500 dollars and all that." He needed to stop talking. It was like a constant stream of references just spewed from his mouth and there was no reeling them back in. First Harry Potter, now Monopoly. The man was all over the place. "How ya been? Life treating you well? Got a main squeeze? Kids? A golden retriever?" Seriously, he had to stop talking so that she could answer. He practically shoved the cup of punch into his face to keep himself from continuing.
Laughing behind pursed lips, the corners of Clarke's eyes crinkled at his response. She forgot how much of a dork Caleb actually was. It was one of the reasons she didn't mind his company back when they were younger. He didn't make her feel like she was the awkward one. She was glad he didn't lose that part of him even with the presence of his muscles and defined bone structure.
"Life's been uh...interesting to say the least." She shrugged, laughing at the mention of having kids and a "main squeeze" as he put it. "If you count my bolster then yes, I do have a main squeeze." She responded with a soft snort. "And how about you? You had a cat, didn't you? Or a hamster the size of a cat? I remember something with a tail."
She was finding it a miracle she hadn't lost her marbles right then and there but she was still not looking at him, opting to look everywhere else but at his face. She honestly didn't mean to be rude but looking at people's faces, especially their eyes, was daunting and unnerving for her. She hoped Caleb remembered that about her or this conversation was going to end prematurely.
"I can't believe it's been ten years since high school ended. Everyone looks so different." She inched closer to Caleb and nudged him so he looked to their right in the direction of a tall blonde in a red skirt and a light green blouse. "I remember I had her as a roommate and she used to wear black all the time. Even in the summer."
"You take that word back!" Caleb gasped, with a hand placed dramatically on his chest. "You mean I have a cat! Don't jinx him, he's old, but he's still kicking." He took his relationship with Marvin very seriously, it was the longest span he'd owned an animal before. Marvy was getting up there in age, Caleb knew, and he'd invested lots of money in vet bills. But he couldn't fathom his life without good ole' Marv.
Caleb took notice that she wasn't looking at him, and while it didn't bother him at all, he was curious why. It wasn't like he had some kind of hideous face right? He had to think on it for a moment, back to when they were growing up and he could vaguely remember that it was normal for her not to make direct eye contact. Eye contact was a terrifying thing, he could admit that. What with the looking deep into another person's soul and all that. Caleb scrunched his nose, yeah, he definitely couldn't blame her for not making eye contact.
She nudged him and he snapped back into their conversation. His eyes followed where hers went and he arched an eyebrow. He remembered her, too. Goths always had given him the heebie jeebies. Not because he didn't fancy some black attire sometimes, but because he was pretty certain they could summon demons to possess other people. It made perfect sense. "Huh, weird. I wouldn't say everyone looks that different. I mean, I'm still as dashing as ever, thank you for noticing," Caleb glanced at her with a smirk.
Clarke glanced at Caleb and let out a soft snort before looking away, pursing her lips still so her laughter wouldn't be too obvious. Nobody was actually paying them much attention so she didn't know why she was holding back. It might have something to do with the fact that she was getting shy around her ex schoolmate. All the years of boosting her confidence was flushing down the drain just because someone remembered her. She sucked. Big time.
"Okay, okay. I take it back. He'll outlive us all." She responded, gesturing to the people in the hall for emphasis.
When Caleb sort of stared into space, Clarke took a moment to look at him and a little smile tugged at the corner of her lips and when he finally came down, she looked away.
"The hubris on this one," Clarke chuckled and took a sip of her punch. "I mean dashing might not be the word I'd describe you but I guess you're right, you haven't changed that much." She gave him a cursory glance before hiding her smile behind her glass. "Oh god...that's Claire." The redhead froze for a brief moment when she saw her old roommate who had pretty much made her life a misery back when they were children.
Well, misery was an overstatement but there wasn't a time when Claire was around that Clarke ended up in a good mood. "Um...could we go some place else? I'm a little scared of her." Clarke laughed nervously as she gripped Caleb's arm to get him to follow her away from the hall.
Caleb nodded once, "That's right, Potter. And don't you forget it." Of course in a minuscule way, he was joking. But he also wasn't. He couldn't stomach the idea of losing his cat anymore than he could stomach losing anything. Loss was one of those things that Caleb had never quite learned to cope with. And it was highly likely that he would be a sobbing mess the day that Marv did pass on. She didn't need to know those details though.
He placed a hand on his chest and gasped, "Unless the other word coming to mind is stunning, I don't think I want to know!" Being serious was so painful for him that he couldn't bring himself to do it ever. Least of all in this setting where his nerves were running wild because he was certain something was going to happen to him. It was okay when he made a fool of himself, but if someone made a fool of him without his permission, well, he was going to completely disintegrate.
Clarke pulled him out of his worrying with her own and he looked up at the girl she claimed to be afraid of. Caleb couldn't quite understand it, but he wasn't one to judge, so he went with her without question. Once they were far enough away, he cleared his throat, "Never pegged you as one to be afraid of anyone. Shy maybe, a little quiet, but not scared. What'd she do to you?" It was more curiosity than anything else. He'd been bullied his whole time growing up, it was fascinating to hear other stories about the same kind of thing.
Clarke gave the man an affectionate smile as she finished her drink and shook her head at his obvious love for his cat. Now she really did hope he outlived them all.
Finding herself unable to stop the laughter from coming out, she placed a hand over her face and started shaking with laughter over his ego, faked as it was. She was starting to wonder why they never actually kept in contact through the years.
And then she remembered. She couldn't even look him in the eye.
As they left the hall, Clarke's heartbeat slowed down considerably and she swept the hair off her face before looking up at Caleb with a grimace. "She has a siren call. She made me do things I normally wouldn't have. I mean I guess I shouldn't blame her, she was struggling with her powers just as much as I was but she was just scary persuasive." Clarke rushed through her explanation. "I just remember being traumatised. A lot. By her."
Clarke realised that she'd just pulled Caleb away from their reunion party and she winced. "Oh...crap. I didn't mean to run us out like that. I...you should go back. You probably have more people to talk to than I do. I'll just uh...I think I'll just go home."
Her explanation of what had happened made his face scrunch up and he shook his head, "That sounds really terrible. I'm glad she wasn't one of the people that traumatized me back in the day." Caleb didn't really know what kind of things she was made to do, and he didn't plan on asking, but clearly it was worse than eating dirt. He'd had his face smashed against the ground plenty of times in order to do just that before he had the ability to fight back or at the least defend himself. She couldn't quite defend herself against something like that.
When she began panicking that she'd dragged him away from the reunion, he couldn't stop the laughter that came rushing out in a snort, "Oh god no. I see a lot of these people around the school still. Plus, not like I was the most popular kid in the world at first. Some of the guys still hate me for my late blossoming, I'm pretty sure. And the women frighten me with their forwardness." No, he didn't want to go into a janitor's closet to do the freaky stuff, that was highly uncomfortable and unprofessional of him since he still worked there.
"I don't mind hanging a bit with you if you're up for it? But I'm not gonna keep ya here either, in case that scary chick decides to ditch, too."
She shook her head, suddenly feeling very bad for badmouthing an old roommate. It really couldn't have been much of Clare's fault, what happened, so Clarke shouldn't really blame her at all, but still...she remembered the things she had been persuaded to do and she didn't quite like it.
The snort had her turning to Caleb with a raised eyebrow. "Um...oh wait, are you working there now?" She asked, temporarily distracted from her worry over Clare.
The idea that other women find him attractive struck a chord with Clarke. A weirdly annoying chord at that. She swatted it away and concentrated on what Caleb said next. "Well...we could ditch? I mean if you don't mind. I'm kinda getting hungry but the food in there isn't...I mean I don't wanna eat in front of them."
Clarke realised how dumb she sounded and she hoped Caleb didn't think so but she did want to leave because she was hungry and the food at the reunion weren't food she can really sink her teeth into. Although if Caleb thought she was as dumb as she sounded, it was better for her to leave anyway.
Caleb laughed, "Oh, uh, yeah. I'm the self-defense instructor and a trainer. Kinda weird, I know. I didn't even like this place that much." Though, there were a few that had made it worth it and he'd learned a lot, so he couldn't bash the academy too much. It wasn't as though he had much else going for him in the way of career choices. He could heal super fast, why not put that to use training the more difficult and dangerous abilities? "It could be a lot worse though."
When she mentioned food it was like his stomach opened up and was trying to devour the rest of his body. He hadn't realized how hungry he'd been until he got that nauseous feeling. Problem number 532 with his ability, he felt like he was constantly eating everything. High metabolism and all that. "Food, yeah, lets do that." Before he got hangry and needed a Snickers. "'I'm not me when I'm hungry,'" He quoted with a smile at her. Eating at the reunion wouldn't have bothered him so much, except for the fact that he'd be hoovering everything, although, most women found that as a turn off so he should have tried something along those lines.
"How 'bout you, Potter, what've you been getting into work wise? Anything good?"
Clarke nodded with a smile, not thinking it was weird at all. He certainly had the build for it and if she recalled correctly, he also had the ability for it. What she did find endearing was that he was willing to come back to the place that didn't necessarily hold such good memories for him. She had built a life here to get away from the one she left back in New York and Bellefonte did give her her life back, despite the not so sweet memories of her adolescence.
"I think it's admirable that you chose to work for BA." She smiled.
Glad that he agreed to her idea of getting food, Clarke rolled her eyes at the slogan quip. "Don't tell me you're secretly Bruce Banner, Caleb. Oh wait...no, you're Spiderman, aren't you?" She teased with a smirk.
They began to walk towards the general direction of an eating establishment and she turned to Caleb when he asked his question. She released a huff of breath and chuckled. "I'm working at the radio station. Been a passion of mine since I was a kid so yeah, pretty good." She smiled. "I mean not a lot of people listen to the radio anymore but the job's satisfying, albeit having to deal with a dick boss or two."
She slipped her hands into her dress pocket. "Do you enjoy your work, Parker?"
