Reid shivered almost all the time, these days. Like he was cold, or scared. He hunched his shoulders, kept his hands curled in front of him with the tail end of one hood-pull playing between his fingers. His face was pale, his eyes had gone panda somewhere around Wednesday. His lips were chapped, nails ragged. He was starting to lose weight.

It had been a week since Chase willed him his power. He figured he was coping pretty well.

He hadn't been using. Not as much as everyone else had expected, anyway, which was both comforting and depressing. Everyone thinking he was going to cave, burn himself out? Not helpful. But what else were they going to think, when he'd suddenly tripled what he had? Even he was surprised he hadn't given in and done something about it.

He floated around from Pogue's house to Caleb's to Tyler's. Mostly he was at Caleb's. Evelyn didn't mind and he couldn't face his father right now. No one had asked why he wasn't going home yet. He was pretty sure his father knew anyway.

"Hey."

Reid was throwing rocks into the scum-covered pond at the back of the Danvers property. The next one bounced off the rim.

"Hey."

Neither boy said anything for a second. Then Caleb asked the stupid question.

"How're you doing?"

Reid whirled on him. "How do you think I'm doing, Caleb? Am I using? That's what you really want to ask, isn't it? No, I'm not using. I haven't been using. I've used the Power maybe twice in the last week, yeah, I know you won't believe that, okay, but it's the truth. I don't care what you think ... I'd do, or what you think I'm going to do but I know better, okay? I know it could kill me and it's not supposed to be like this but I'm dealing, all right? I'm fine. That's what you really want to know, isn't it?"

"Reid, I didn't mean..."

"No, Caleb, you didn't mean anything. You never do. You just say it." The fingers of one hand rubbed over the knuckles of the other, clutching the front of his sweatshirt. He was cold. He was crying. He didn't want to be either.

"Reid." Caleb stepped up behind him. "That's not what I meant, either. I was just asking, how are you doing? Are you okay."

There was a long, long pause while he tried to stop blubbing. Again. His fingers worked over the string, over the fabric. Somewhere in the universe there was a way he could get out of admitting that he wasn't okay, but it just wasn't coming.

"No, Caleb. I'm not okay. It hurts, and I'm tired, and it's right there."

"Yeah." Caleb's voice was quiet. "I know the feeling."

Reid turned around, frowning.

Caleb took his time about explaining what had happened, in slow, small words. He'd told Pogue, had figured Pogue told the rest of them when he'd hinted that he wasn't up to it, but Pogue hadn't told them all of it and Reid's eyes widened a little with fear and distress when he heard the whole story from Caleb's mouth.

His lips shaped a choked 'o' and he didn't bother trying to give it breath. His throat worked for a little while, and he managed to keep his mouth from drying up but that was about it.

"It's not supposed to be like this," he said after a while. It wasn't. Of course Caleb knew that.

"No, it's not."

"Does it always hurt this much?"

Caleb tucked his hands between his arms and his body, and for the first time Reid saw it as something like what he did with his hands.

"I don't know if it's supposed to hurt," he said after a second. "Chase and I didn't exactly talk. This kind of thing, it's forbidden for a reason. They don't keep records when people break the rules. Not ..."

"Yeah, not anything they said, anyway." Reid shook his head.

"No one cared. They broke the rules, they got to deal with the consequences."

"All by themselves," Reid stared at the ground. "We didn't break any rules. We didn't do anything wrong, we just..."

"Got stuck on the wrong end of..." Caleb stopped. Reid was starting to shake again, uncontrollably. "Reid. You okay..."

Obviously, he wasn't. Reid tried to nod, to wave him off or something, but the doubling over interfered with that. His heart was pounding at speeds that should have been impossible to live with, skin crawling and going cold despite the rush of blood through his veins. Caleb's arms tightened around him and he realized the only reason he was still upright was because the older boy was holding him there.

"Caleb..."

"Shh, it's okay. I've got you. It's okay."

Reid shivered and felt the cold in his bones, in his joints. "Oh god..." he wailed, fingers clutching tighter at Caleb's coat. "It hurts. I mean, it's cold, it doesn't hurt that bad, but it's all I'm all stiff man do I have arthritis or something?"

There was a sound that he realized after a moment was Caleb almost laughing. "Reid, I think you'd know if you had arthritis." But he rubbed his hands along Reid's arms and kept an arm around his shoulders as he led him inside. "Come on. Let's go inside where it's warmer."

Reid nodded, let the older boy lead him into his house. It was a little warmer inside. Not so much, not with it being as hard to heat that big of a house as it was and there wasn't much point to it when only two or three people were living there. The real heat was in the kitchen.

It smelled like baking in there. Evelyn didn't do her own cooking, but she didn't keep on a regular cook either, there was as little use for a regular cook as there was for heating the whole house. Someone, Reid thought from the few days he'd spent at the house, came in and fixed dinner every afternoon. Evelyn or Caleb grabbed lunch and breakfast. Whatever dinner was going to be tonight, it smelled like stew and biscuits. Maybe it was stew and biscuits. Or shepherd's pie? He liked shepherd's pie. He also liked distracting himself with wondering who cooked for the Danvers' instead of thinking about how long it had been since he'd last used, deliberately or not.

Caleb was doing something with a plastic bag and a frying pan. He heard the oven open and close, didn't see what was going on. He'd tucked his head to his hands as soon as Caleb had set him on the stool and wasn't going to move. Maybe he could just stay here for the rest of his life and not get into trouble.

"Hey." Caleb flopped onto the stool next to him. "Headache?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

"Pizza's in the oven. Well, pizza rolls. You had anything to eat today?"

"Why do you care."

Reid looked at him through his fingers when Caleb didn't say anything. The older boy was looking back at him with darkened eyes, hurt and angry. Not the usual kind of angry, either. He and Caleb fought most of the time when Pogue wasn't there, over little stuff. Stupid stuff. He knew it was stupid when he did it, that didn't mean he wasn't going to act like a jerk just to get a rise out of him. He told himself it was because Caleb needed to loosen up.

This was crossing the line, though. Reid knew that. Caleb was feeling it. And when he dropped his head back into his hands he wondered why he'd been such a jerk all those times before in the first place.

If they wrote out a list of all the things they could remember, all the fights, some of the ones on Caleb's list Reid probably wouldn't think he'd been a jerk. There would be some things on Reid's list that Caleb didn't even remember, or didn't think of as important. Most of the time, though, they knew their roles. Reid was the rebellious one. Caleb was the steady leader. Reid pushed angry fingers through his hair, fought back tears, and wondered when he'd become a stereotype.

"Reid..." Warm hand on the small of his back. It was going to undo him, because Caleb's voice wasn't angry anymore. Because Caleb had realized that there was something very wrong with him, something that may or may not have had anything to do with the power he had now.

Hot tears were pushing at his closed eyes. It wasn't enough to fight, he had to tremble, bite his lip and tense his body until he realized he was crying anyway and he didn't even know why he had thought that would work.

"Reid... come on." Caleb's voice was coming to him from blackness. Black with red spots. "Come on... it's okay. It's gonna be okay."

Caleb's arms closed around his friend, building a bridge of flesh between their stools. He left him cold briefly, and Reid heard wood scrape against tile and then Caleb's knees were pressing, one between his knees and one outside and he pulled him into his arms again.

"Reid, I do care. You know I care."

He nodded, because he couldn't make the words go past his throat. The oven beeped, and Reid felt Caleb's Power opening it, turning the oven off, setting the tray on the stove all without having to leave him. Little tricks. Levitation. Not that hard. And he was selfishly glad Caleb hadn't left.

"I know," he sniffled. At least he could talk now.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Wiping his nose on his sleeve. Still huddled up, fingers curled around the edge of his sleeve, the sleeve of the shirt underneath rolled over his knuckles.

"I'm worried about you, man."

Reid nodded, took another breath that came out sounding like another sniffle. "Yeah, I'm worried too, okay? I'm worried you guys think I'm not going to be able to hold it together."

"What... no one's thinking that, Reid. Trust me, no one's..."

"Says you." Reid looked up at him again. There was that hurt, betrayed look. "Caleb, you... gah. Sometimes you just piss me off."

It wasn't the wrong thing to say, but it wasn't the right one, either. Caleb drew back, arms falling although he didn't pull away entirely. One hand down to the counter, the other hand on Reid's upper arm, and neither of them were sure why.

"Okay. You wanna explain..."

"You're... you're just you. The great Caleb Danvers, can do no wrong. You ever stop and think about what that means to us?"

Caleb blinked at him. Reid felt stupid, was starting to think that he shouldn't have gone down this road. But it hurt, and as long as he'd started he might as well keep going no matter how stupid it sounded.

"You always talk about what I'm doing wrong, you act like you've got all the answers, you never stop to tell me maybe what I should be doing." Or what I'm doing right.

"I never said I had all the answers, Reid..."

"See, you're doing it again. You say that like I should know it already, but how am I supposed to know that? You never, ever tell us you're not sure what you're doing, that maybe you made a mistake. You don't apologize." And he hadn't, after he'd flat-out accused Reid of using curses against him. "Shit, Caleb, half the time I don't know where I am with you. What, are we friends? Or am I just tagging along?" He was crying again.

Caleb's face was a wonder. His mouth twisted, eyes wide and shimmering almost as bad as Reid's must have been, or maybe that was just because he had to close his eyes to blink them clear again. Stupid tears. Stupid crying. Stupid Powers.

"You're not just tagging along, Reid. Okay? You're not."

One warm, strong hand cupped the back of his head and there he was, crying into Caleb's shirt again. It was okay now, though. Or at least he thought he was. He'd been pulled there, it must have been all right.

"I'm sorry I made you think that, okay? I'm sorry... I made you feel like that. I just, I worry about you, man. You're completely nuts. I don't know what to do with you, you're..."

"Caleb, we're kids, okay? You're right, maybe I am a little ... but we're not supposed to be on guard all the time. You ... it's okay to relax a little, jeez." He sobbed when he said it.

"Okay." Caleb tugged him tight into his arms again, rocked him a little.

Reid's fingers pressed into his back. "I don't... I don't..."

Caleb just listened to him sniffle and sob. Reid was soaking his friend's shirt and the words wouldn't or couldn't come out the way he wanted to, all the confusion and the hurt and the need to have Caleb be what he needed him to be and not being able to articulate it.

"It's okay," Caleb whispered.

"I'm not you. I don't want to be like you, I want you to just... be okay with that. I want you to be okay ..."

"You're my friend, Reid. You're one of my best friends. You kn..."

Nails into cloth, reaching for skin.

"You're my friend. You're not just tagging along, you're one of my best friends, and yeah, you scare the hell out of me sometimes..." Caleb laughed, nervous and tired and scared. "God, I don't know what to do with you. Sometimes I just ... nngh. But that doesn't... I never, never meant for you to feel like that, okay? That's not what I wanted..."

Neither of them were coming up with the right words. Just at this moment it didn't matter. Reid was shivering against him and it felt a little better just to get that out. The Power was eating him up from the inside but at least he didn't have to go it alone. Caleb was there. Caleb wasn't dealing any better than he was. Tyler, god, he knew Tyler had his back. Had always known it and there were days he didn't know how the poor kid put up with him. Put up with the shit they both got from Caleb, usually because of something Reid himself had done. And Reid bossed him around the way Caleb bossed them all around. He felt a little guilty, now, about that.

Pogue was different. Pogue was quieter, but he understood. And he and Pogue had had a lot of moments where they just were there together and didn't need to say anything, could just relax. He didn't understand how someone as relaxed as Pogue could be so tight with someone as tense as Caleb.

He didn't understand any better now, but it was a start. Just the relief he was feeling, that was a start. And he wasn't crying anymore. Thank god.

"Pizza rolls are getting cold."

"Yeah, I know."

Reid sat up and spent a couple of minutes scrubbing at his eyes with fists inside sleeves. When he could see again he blinked at the two plates of steaming hot pizza rolls on the counter. Then eyed Caleb. Once they started laughing they really couldn't stop.

Pogue and Tyler wandered into the room, Frisbee twirling on one finger. Blinked, as they looked between the two boys.

"We miss something?"

Reid only laughed harder.

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