InsaneJournal

Who: Vanessa Cleveland and Caleb Rivers
What: Waking up together
When: Tether plot in February
Where: Vanessa's head
Rating/Warnings: Low/Medium
Status: Complete when posted



Caleb was having the strangest dream of a town called Rosewood. He was back in high school as a foster kid. As usual the parents didn’t give a shit about him and just wanted a check. He helped this one with her phone so she could talk to her girlfriend or something. Then he had gotten detention with another one, Hanna. He ended up helping her out by taking a piece from the English teacher’s car so she couldn’t go to Philadelphia. Why Hanna cared about that he had no idea. But he found himself wanting to help her which is exactly what he did.

It was all strange. Caleb woke up mind still reeling from it all when he realized there was someone else in bed with him. Not only that but he wasn’t in his hotel room. His brow furrowed. He didn’t remember drinking and hooking up with anyone last night. So how the hell had he ended up in someone else’s bed? He got a closer look at her and became even more confused. “Hanna?” he asked. Was he still dreaming? What the hell was going on?!

***

Vanessa grumbled sleepily as she heard someone calling a name, reaching out for her phone to hang it up since she’d obviously sleep dialed someone. Well she thought she was reaching for her phone but her hand brushed over someone’s body before reaching the nightstand and she sat up straight, sheet falling down around her waist to show the almost see through tshirt she’d fallen asleep in the night before. “Caleb? How did you get in my room? Wait - how did you get in my house?” Had she given him her address? She didn’t think so but it was easy enough to find people’s addresses on line if you knew where to look.

***

While Vanessa was only in a t-shirt, Caleb was also only in boxers. But he wasn’t at all concerned about that right now. He was more concerned about where the hell he was. “Am I in Rosewood?” Caleb asked mind still on his dreams. Not at all realizing that this was Vanessa in front of him, not Hanna.

***

“Where’s Rosewood? Because when I went to bed last night I was in California.” By herself but Vanessa didn’t think that was something that needed to be stressed. Even as she tried not to pay attention to the fact that the guy lying beside her didn’t seem to be wearing a shirt. And it wasn’t exactly a bad thing to see. She got out of bed, heading for the window to see if this was some new insanity that had somehow moved her house. She’d lived out here long enough to know better than to rule anything out when this place went nuts. “And looks like we still are.” She turned back to face the bed and him. “So...how did you get in my bedroom?”

***

What the hell was going on? He was still in California? How did Hanna get to California? Not that her being in California was any less strange than Caleb suddenly waking up in Rosewood. But still it was just strange.

He sat up in the bed rubbing his hands over his face. It was then that he realized he knew someone here that looked a hell of a lot like Hanna. “Vanessa?” he slowly asked. “How the hell did I get into your room?” Because he had no fucking idea. “What’s going on?!”

***

Vanessa leaned against the wall by the window, watching him silently as he woke up. Under other circumstances, like remembering how he’d gotten into her bedroom in the first place, it would be cute getting to see him like this. But right now? It was too weird. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out! I woke up and you were there. Here. So I’m guessing you didn’t come over last night?” Which meant some kind of insanity was going on in the area again. Great. Just what she needed. What they needed.

“Living out here gets a little crazy sometimes. Lucky us getting caught up in whatever it is.” She moved back over towards the bed, trying not to be too obvious in the glances she couldn’t help but take at his exposed chest. She sat down facing him, one leg tucked up under her and she tugged the shirt down over her knee. “You never did answer my question about Rosewood.” And she was kind of curious about who Hanna was but she wasn’t going to ask.

***

As confused as Caleb was he did still notice how he could practically see through Vanessa’s shirt when she stood by the window. It distracted him for a brief moment. That was until she spoke again and he was reminded of the situation he was in. One that he didn’t understand at all.

He averted his eyes scratching the back of his head. “No. Last thing I remember is falling asleep in my motel. And then these weirdly realistic dreams about Rosewood…” his voice trailed off. And Vanessa was beginning to sound like this was an everyday occurance. “Caught up in whatever what is?! This is insane.” Though he supposed he should be grateful she wasn’t like hitting him or something. She had just woken up to a guy she barely knew in her bed after all. Even if Caleb had no idea how he got there.

“Rosewood is in Pennsylvania I think,” he replied answering her question. It was the only answer he had for her.

***

“This is life around here.” Vanessa said, realizing how weird it was that she’d gotten so used to all of this. Before her abilities had crossed over she’d probably have been freaking out with him. Or hitting him but this was probably just fallout like the towers a few months before. “I’m going to show you something and it’s a little weird but it’s how I’ve gotten used to the insane things that happen around here.” She sighed and held her hand out between them, focusing on the molecules that made up her arm up to the elbow and then making them separate so that her arm disappeared from view and then bringing them back together. “Realistic dreams are hardly the weirdest thing you’ll run into around here.”

She’d come a long way from the girl who’d freaked out the first time she’d gone invisible here, it was almost second nature to her at times when she needed to use her power. “You’re not in Pennsylvania anymore. Unless the views there have really changed. I don’t remember a lot of palm trees when I went through with the family a couple years ago.”

***

“What the fuck?!” Caleb exclaimed jumping out of the bed now. “Where did your arm go?!” Was he still dreaming? Because seriously what the hell was going on. It was like he woke up from a strange dream only to have an even stranger one.

“I gotta get out of here.” He didn’t care that he was only in his boxers still. This was all too much for Caleb. However the second he got a few yards from Vanessa it was like he was snapped back to her. “What the hell?!”

***

Vanessa waited for him to quit yelling but before she could say anything he was heading for the door. Maybe showing him what she could do instead of trying to figure out something to say. But before she could try to figure out if she was going to go after him, or at least shout ater him that there might be sweatpants that would fit him next door he was crashing backwards towards the bed and she fell backwards. “Why are you asking me? I can’t control other people! I showed you what I can do! I can make myself disappear. Why’d you come back like that?”

***

“I don’t know!” Caleb exclaimed. “I was trying to leave and then I just got snapped back.” To a girl who could make her body part disappear. For all Caleb knew she could have pulled him back somehow. But he also didn’t think Vanessa would show him she could make her arm disappear and then lie about being able to pull him back.

***

“Great. Just great.” Vanessa muttered to herself, turning to grab her phone to send a quick email to her professor that she would be missing class that day. And another to one of her friends asking them to please let her borrow their notes from class. Just in case they couldn’t get this figured out. “Can we just agree that neither of this are behind this? Unless this is something that happens regularly in Rosewood.” She said, voice trailing off as she looked back at him.

“You aren’t going to get very far in boxers anyway. There might be some sweatpants or something that might fit you here.” The few things that Penny had left at her place when he’d gone she’d gotten rid of after a couple months. He clearly didn’t want them and she didn’t either.

***

“How the fuck would I know?” Caleb replied with a frown. “I never even heard of Rosewood until last night.” But he supposed she had a point. It wasn’t fair to blame her. Even her arm could disappear. “But yeah. It’s a deal.”

It wasn’t until she mentioned it that Caleb realized he was only in his boxers. “Oh, uh right,” he said scratching the back of his head. “I’ll see what I can fit into. But maybe we could go get some of my stuff later?” He’d be much more comfortable in his own clothes.

***

Vanessa normally didn’t wish that her magic using friends hadn’t left the area - they wanted a saner life and she couldn’t fault them for it. But right now? She’d have given almost anything to be able to call and find out what they knew about this. Maybe knew some spell that would separate them. Maybe she should try and reach out to Margo - that girl who’d dreamt of the same world as Penny and they’d talked a few times about things that happened there, things that crossed over to here. “We’ll find some clothes for you to wear right now and try to figure this out. Maybe somebody on the Network will know something. Or we’ll find out that it’s just us and then I’m going to have to make some phone calls to people I know who can do even weirder things than me.”

“Come on. I’ll show you where they are.” And hopefully they could get far enough apart to get dressed in some sort of privacy. She got off the bed and walked to the room next door, tensing a little as she went through the door, almost expecting to be thrown backwards like Caleb had been as she left the bedroom. Okay so they weren’t locked in that room. That was a relief. “Yeah. We can definitely go get some of your stuff until we can figure this out. No sense in not trying to make this as easy as possible for both of us right?”