#caleb turning himself into an elf also feels wrong

[alas--pringles]

hm. someone screenshotted my tags and added them to the post. that’s a first. idk how i feel about that.

[tarydarrington]

"Alright, everyone," Veth says with authority, and everyone else quiets down. "Tomorrow is the big day."

Caleb sighs and ducks behind his drink. There is a speech coming. This is exactly the sort of ceremony he had hoped to avoid by having this get-together at his home rather than the bar Veth had suggested. It's only five of them, tonight; Beauregard and Yasha are always in town, and Veth had insisted on coming. And Essek, of course. He's not sure when the elf's presence at his side became an of course, but in a careful way, he likes it.

“As the person in this world who cares the most about Caleb--”

Essek silently quirks an eyebrow at that, and it doesn’t get past Veth.

“Alright, come on, just because you got him into bed and I didn’t doesn’t mean--”

Caleb clears his throat loudly, and Veth’s smile snaps back into place.

“As Caleb’s oldest, dearest, truest friend,” she says, and Essek manages to look dignified even while rolling his eyes, “it is my humble duty to tell you all how amazing he is on this momentous occasion.”

“You know, I am starting a new job, not getting married,” Caleb murmurs in her direction.

“And we’re all very proud of you!” Veth replies.

Caleb takes a long drink as the others chime in with agreement. Yasha shoots him a sympathetic look, and he returns a tight smile.

“Come on, man,” Beau says from where she leans against the table, “aren’t you excited, at all?”

He takes a long breath. Excited is a word for it. Ready to vomit at a moment’s notice is perhaps more accurate. The Soltryce Academy is tricky. He’s been back there a few times in recent weeks, for interviews and preparation, and each time, it’s felt like walking through a dream of a place the mind could not quite capture properly.

For whatever purpose, Trent has always wanted Caleb - Bren - to follow in his footsteps. Those footsteps feel a touch too literal in those hallways.

“Caleb?” Beau’s voice brings him out of his thoughts. “You still with us?”

He shakes his head. "Ja. Entschuldigung. There is a lot to think about."

Veth lowers her glass, frowning. "Nobody threatened you, did they? Because I'll have words with them."

"No, nothing like that." Not lately, anyway. He sets his own drink down on the table. "Just a bit worried, perhaps."

"Worried about what?" Beau asks flatly.

Caleb lets out a long breath, looking down at the floor. Where to begin? He’s worried that everything will go wrong. Worried that he’ll turn up with his clothes on backwards, or spill coffee down the front of his shirt, or trip over his words before the lesson even starts. Worried, most of all, about what comes after.

“I hope that I will not…” He searches for the right words. “I hope that I will be able to serve my students well enough,” he settles on. “The examples I have had were, ah���.” Trent Ikithon is not one he wishes to emulate.

Essek frowns. “Carve your own path,” he says. “Someone as brilliant as you are needs no one to emulate.”

“Ja, well, that is fine for throwing together a spell or two, but I imagine the students will need a little more structure.” These are young minds. Any mistakes he makes will stick with them. He, of all people, knows just how much.

“Maybe you could ask them what they want from you,” Yasha pipes up. “You know, make sure you’re doing alright.”

Caleb lets out a long sigh. “Ja, maybe. That is a good idea.” Of course, it also requires that the students in question trust him enough to give him a straight answer.

They sit in relative silence for a moment, working away at their drinks. He hopes Veth doesn’t resent him for stepping on the atmosphere.

“Seriously, man, you’re gonna be great.” Beau knocks back the rest of her drink. “You’re already the best professor I’ve ever known.”

“I do not think the owl counts as a point of comparison,” Caleb deadpans. “Regardless, I will settle for not making a fool of myself for a first impression. That will be difficult enough.”

Beau shrugs, and reaches over to refill her glass. There’s a devious look in her eye that makes him nervous. "So why don't you practice?" she asks.

Caleb looks at her warily. "Practice?"

"Yeah, man." She gestures at the others. "Here's your class. Teach us something."

Before he can object, she’s already begun to pull an armchair toward the coffee table in the center of the room. Soon enough, three more seats have joined it, all on the same side. She throws her arms wide with a challenging grin.

“First day,” she says. “Don’t be late.” With that, she flops down onto the rightmost chair.

Transfixed in bemusement, Caleb watches as Yasha and Veth rush to occupy the next two seats in the makeshift classroom. The Expositor commands a room, it seems.

“Are you comfortable with this?” Essek murmurs as he brushes past as well. “I am willing to be the, ah... wet blanket, if need be.”

Caleb sighs, briefly twining their fingers together and squeezing once before letting him go. “Not comfortable, no, but it’s not a bad idea.”

Someone wolf whistles from the peanut gallery, and Caleb turns a fond glare on them all. All three of them are, of course, the picture of innocence. He shakes his head as Essek settles down primly in the last remaining chair. It’s not exactly the picture of an academic setting, with their glasses of half-finished booze still on the table in front of them and the lot of them draped over armchairs and ottomans.

“Alright,” says Beau, who has not even bothered to put her drink down. She makes a trilling sound that he thinks is probably meant to emulate a school bell. “Hit us.”

"We will be brutally honest," Veth promises. "Which means we will tell you honestly how perfect you are."

"Or if there's anything you could do better," Yasha adds.

Caleb stares back at them. It’s nothing he hasn’t gone over in his own head a hundred times. Even once or twice, to a captive audience of cats. It’s a short class. It will be over before he knows it.

The others look up at him expectantly. Watching him. Waiting. Caleb clears his throat.

"I, ah... feel a bit silly,” he admits.

Without a word, Essek waves a hand, and the familiar faces before him shift to those of strangers.

It’s almost embarrassing how much it helps. Caleb takes a deep breath and lets it out, running through the lesson plan in his head.

"Guten Morgen, class, I am, ah… Professor Widogast." It's the first time he's said that particular pair of words out loud.

"Whoo!" the student who is not Veth shouts.

"Yeah!" the student who is not Beau chimes in.

Caleb gives them a look and straightens his coat. "This is Introductory Transmutation, in room 142, so if you are all in the correct place--"

"Professor?" The student who is not Yasha raises her hand.

"Ah, ja, Miss…"

"Lionett."

Not-Beau slaps a hand over her own mouth and mutters, “Holy shit,” into it.

“Was that too much?” not-Yasha whispers.

“Babe, it was so hot,” not-Beau hisses back.

Caleb clears his throat. "Miss Lionett, do you have a question?"

Not-Yasha seems to suddenly remember her role, and she folds her hands in her lap. "No," she says, "I have to use the bathroom."

Caleb pinches the bridge of his nose as not-Beau bites back a giggle. “Ja, okay, go.”

“Don’t let her go!” not-Veth interjects. “She knew it was almost time for class; she should have gone earlier.”

“Dude, if she has to pee then she has to pee,” not-Beau protests.

Pointedly, not-Essek raises his hand.

Caleb lets himself sigh with relief. “Ja, Master…?”

“Gross, Professor, we don’t need to know about your weird sex dynamics,” not-Beau says.

Not-Essek’s face blooms red, and Caleb presses a hand to his face to hide the same. “You know very well, Beauregard, that it is an honorific.”

Not-Beau shrugs, looking very pleased with herself as she takes another sip of her drink. Not-Essek glares very polite daggers at her before clearing his throat.

“Thelyss,” he answers.

Beau cups both hands around her mouth and boos.

“No, it’s better that he’s honest,” Veth says. “We already know he’s a terrible actor.”

“Herr Thelyss,” Caleb says, raising his voice above the heckling. “Do you have a question?”

Essek leans forward, resting his elbows on the table in a gesture that’s much too endearing. “I wondered what you will be teaching us today, Professor Widogast.”

Caleb tries not to dwell on the way the title hits differently on Essek’s voice, instead straightening up and waving one hand behind him. An illusory chalkboard appears in the air behind him to polite applause from Veth and Yasha. Back on track.

“Well, this is your first day,” he says. “So I know that - Beauregard, please remove your feet from the table - I know that most of your other teachers will be spending time going over the material that you will be covering this semester, but, ah…” What is he meant to be doing with his hands? They feel limp if they’re at his sides, but too formal behind his back and too awkward in front of him. Perhaps he should have a lectern? Somewhere to rest them, or shuffle with papers?

His gaze drifts back to his “students,” who all blink back at him expectantly. Essek inclines his head as though to prompt him on. He clasps his hands in front of his chest, hoping it will do for now.

“Right,” he continues. “Ja, so I thought we would take a look at something more practical to start. We will leave the reading for tomorrow; you have enough of that today.”

He waves his hands again, and behind him, a set of runes and diagrams appears on the chalkboard. Above it is written the word Prestidigitation.

“So, ah, partner up,” he orders. “Introduce yourselves. If there is someone on their own, a group of three is perfectly acceptable.”

“I call Miss Lionett,” Beau shouts, grabbing Yasha’s hand.

“Can I go to the bathroom, first?” Yasha asks.

Caleb gives her an incredulous look.

“I really do need to go,” she says.

He gestures towards the hallway, and she shuffles off. In the meantime, Veth and Essek scoot their chairs closer together. Caleb’s gaze lingers questioningly on Beau, who shakes her head.

“She’s not learning anything tonight, man. Go ahead.”

“Ja, okay,” he says distantly.

It feels silly, explaining the spell to this motley crew. Beau has leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, eyes glassy, clearly not paying an ounce of attention. Essek has produced a piece of paper upon which Veth occasionally scribbles, though the way he periodically nods approval at Caleb’s points betrays his own prior knowledge of the subject. After a few minutes, Yasha returns and attempts to take down notes of her own.

“Is everyone following along?” he asks after a while, knowing it’s a futile question.

“Yep,” Beau lies.

“Hmm.” Yasha hums.

“Perfectly,” Essek says.

“You’re doing amazing, sweetie,” Veth confirms with a wink.

He continues, running them through the various applications one by one. Beau gives him an occasional “uh huh” that he believes not one bit. At one point, he catches Essek take a passing glance at Veth’s paper, widen his eyes, and lean forward to murmur something to her. He isn’t sure he wants to know what that’s about.

“Let’s keep focused, please, everyone,” he reminds them.

Essek waves a hand to signal him to continue. Nothing too scandalous, then. He goes through the final few points, then comes to stop in front of the chalkboard, hands awkwardly clasped again.

“Okay, that is it,” he says. “You have as much time as you require to finish the spell, and when you are finished, I would like one person from each group to demonstrate.”

He gives the others a questioning look. It’s one of the points he’s most worried about. A way to take pressure off some of the slower students could just as easily be a way to unintentionally foster competition and resentment. But none of them objects, so he gives them another nod.

“I suppose we should skip the demonstration portion,” he mumbles.

“I can do it,” Yasha chirps. Without warning, she swings the massive greatsword from her back and sinks the tip into the table, making the others jump. “I made a small mark.”

Caleb covers his eyes with one hand. “Ja, will it go away in one hour?”

Yasha silently places her drink down over the indentation. Caleb sighs. It isn’t as though he has very many guests, anyway.

“I can probably swing producing an odor, for you,” Beau offers. “But I figure you probably don’t want that.”

He ignores her, and instead gives Essek a tight smile.

“Well, would my second group care to demonstrate?”

Beau jerks a thumb in Essek’s direction and fake-coughs to Yasha, “Teacher’s pet.”

Essek ignores her and sits back, fingers working in those little patterns he draws when something has piqued his curiosity. “I believe so,” he says, and nods to Veth.

Caleb raises his eyebrows as all eyes turn to Veth. Though Essek had the courtesy to leave her a halfling, her features and coloring are entirely different - but that wide smile as she stands and rubs both hands together would give her away, no matter the face it was set in. And as Beau swears under her breath, Yasha and Caleb look on wide-eyed, and Essek watches with a smirk, she pulls her hands apart to let loose a shower of sparks.

“You… learned the spell,” Caleb says numbly. He hadn’t imagined any of them were actually paying attention.

“It was an excellent lesson!” Veth replies.

As she takes her seat again, Beau and Yasha give her a smattering of stunned applause. Essek clears his throat pointedly.

“And I guess, maybe, Essek gave me one pointer,” Veth amends with an eye-roll.

“Hey, so your partner system worked,” Yasha points out.

It had. The lesson had worked, the procedure had worked - his teaching had worked. There’s still a little voice in his head reminding him that Veth is brilliant, and an adult, and perfectly capable of learning things like this without even so much as his help - but he can’t deny that it’s his guidance that taught her this particular spell. ‘An excellent lesson,’ Veth had said. In this moment, he’s inclined to believe it might be half true. Caleb realizes very suddenly that he’s beaming.

With a snap of his fingers, Essek dispels the disguises. The soft smile on his face - his real face, and Caleb always misses it dearly when it’s hidden - says he hasn’t failed to notice Caleb’s relief.

“Danke, all of you,” he says sheepishly, waving a hand to vanish the chalkboard.

“Thank you!” Veth says. “For the shiny new spell and for the masterclass in professoring.”

“You were really good,” Yasha agrees. “I’m, uh... I’m sorry about the table.”

He dips his head to hide the way his face is flushing. They exaggerate, the lot of them. But there is something to be said for having friends who will say such things. “Ja, well,” he says, “I am not convinced it will translate to an actual class, but I will hope.”

Beau takes another swig of her drink, wiping her mouth afterwards. “Dude, we were the worst and you still managed to teach somebody something,” she says. “Those kids have nothing on us. You got this.”

He offers her a smile, retrieving his glass from the table as Yasha, Veth, and Essek do the same. He hopes it’s true. He hopes that, separate entirely from his ability to teach them the how of magic, he will be able to keep them safe. That he will be able to keep from passing on any damage he received in his own time in those halls.

He catches Essek’s eye, and the knowing look there puts some of the anxious buzzing to rest. He will be better. He will struggle, most likely. He will stumble, inevitably. But he will give better than he got. He’s been practicing that part for years.

“To Professor Widogast!” Veth shouts, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Professor Widogast,” the others echo, and Caleb smiles.

“To my very good friends,” he replies.

“To the hottest professor the Soltryce Academy has ever seen,” Veth shouts in response, and Caleb nearly chokes on his drink when Essek casually clinks his glass against hers with a nod.

They drink together. Caleb thinks, just a little bit, he might be excited.

-

thanks @peregrintook for reading this over and telling me it wasn't the worst thing i had ever written (in much more generous words than that), and @saturdaysky for catching me red-handed last time i deleted it and being so kind about it 💜

[iatethepomegranate]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences (for now)

Relationship: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast

Summary: After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha. For the first time in more than seventeen years, he has some semblance of stability. Caleb is not sure he's ready to handle it, but he's trying, and his friends are eager to see him live a good life, by force if necessary.

And then Soltryce Academy approaches him with a job offer, which could give Caleb the chance to protect the next generation of wizards the way he had needed at their age. Caleb's goal of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else, however, takes a far more personal turn than even he could have anticipated.

(In other words, here is a fic about Caleb settling down and learning how to be a person again. Also Professor Widogast will be a thing. Fic title is a lyric from I Have Made Mistakes by the Oh Hellos. Chapter title is a lyric from Mind by Sleeping At Last. More detailed tagging and notes are available on AO3.)

_____

Chapter 1: It's the first brush stroke of a self-portrait

Caleb had mixed feelings returning to Rexxentrum after spending so long in Aeor… and everywhere else he had been, including a fucking flesh city in the Astral Sea. Sure, he had popped back to Rexxentrum regularly to update the Cobalt Soul on his discoveries, and to testify at Trent’s trial, during the conclusion of which he had the satisfaction of turning down Da’leth’s offer to assume Trent’s position as the Archmage of Civil Influence. But now he was back on a more permanent basis.

He didn’t know what to do with that information. With this place, that was both so familiar and so foreign. Full of some of his best memories, and some of his worst.

Caleb had spent so long avoiding this place, or at least the challenging parts of it, and now Beauregard was dragging him and Yasha down the street, infodumping about a house she wanted the three of them to buy together.

“Caleb, don’t give me that look,” she said. “You’re gonna love this place. I know you like your space, dude, and this is the best of both worlds. It’s technically two houses, but there’s, like, a door between them so we can visit each other. Because you’re a fucking genius but you also forget to feed yourself.”

Yasha smiled at Caleb over Beau’s head. “She’s not wrong, Caleb.” Her soft tone made Caleb a little emotional, but he categorically refused to start crying in the street. “I like my space, too. This is a good balance. And there’s room for a garden.”

“Yasha’s not an Empire citizen,” said Beau. “It looks better if there’s two of us Empire kids on the deed so no one thinks any weird shit about her.”

Caleb sighed at her. “I will look at the house, Beauregard.”

Beau yanked them around the street corner. “It’s a great location. You can walk anywhere. I can get to the Archive, and you can get to the Academy.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Maybe. Astrid says hi.”

The implication that Astrid and Beauregard had been speaking to each other recently was of concern. Caleb was too tired to unpack it. He would find out what that was about eventually. It was not worth Beauregard’s sibling-level mockery if he tried to extract the information early.

“Oh, and Veth sent you this,” said Yasha, passing a wrapped package over Beau’s head.

“Yeah, I might’ve told her we’re buying a house together,” said Beau. “She made Yussa send that to the Soul so I could grab it for you.”

Caleb didn’t open the package, but he did shake and squeeze it a little. It felt like coins. A lot of coins. Oh, Veth. Still taking care of him from miles upon miles away. They’d both come so far from Veth sneaking coins into his pockets because he had felt strange about taking her money even when he desperately needed it.

“Danke,” he said softly. That was all he could say, before he risked bursting into tears again. That was happening to him a lot lately. It… wasn’t the worst thing. More of an inconvenience. He chose not to unpack it.

Beauregard was looking at him strangely. He elbowed her. It probably hurt his elbow more than it hurt her, but she was successfully distracted from his bullshit. She punched his arm. Even holding back like she did, his arm did go numb for a few seconds.

Yasha sighed. “Children, we’re almost there.”

Caleb had been down this street before. Rarely, as it was entirely residential. But sometimes he, Astrid and Eadwulf would explore the city to find excuses to get away from the Academy, especially after they had commenced their training with Trent. But, with Caleb’s memory, he could call upon the map he had drawn in his mind. This was a middle-income area on the southern edge of The Tangles, home to mostly professionals--well-off storeowners, any researchers who did not live in the Shimmer Ward or have access to quarters with the Cobalt Soul, some teachers, architects. Largely people looking to settle down with the money to stay out of the Mudtop Ward.

It was close to the Shimmer Ward, a little southwest from the gate, but not so close that Caleb felt an itch on the back of his neck. The Tangles were the oldest part of the city, with narrow looping streets with little logic to them. This area was slightly newer than most of The Tangles, but still old. Regardless, The Tangles were fairly central to the city and an easy starting point for any travel. If you didn’t get lost on the way out.

This far south in the area, the houses were a little more spaced out. A little more green space, more gardens. Duplex-style houses were common, mostly built of old stone or lumpy brick on the first floor and clay bolstered by wooden frames above that. Children were out in force, running and screaming through the narrow streets while their parents watched from the porch of their homes. Well, for those who had porches.

“There she is,” said Beauregard. They had stopped in front of another duplex-style building, newer than some of the others but still respectable in age. The first floor was made from dark reddish brick and the upper two floors panelled with dark wood to bolster the white clay walls. The first two floors were full in width, and the third consisted of two dormers peeking through the darkly thatched roof.

There were two entrance doors on the ground floor, each spaced a third of the house’s width from the outer corners. The rectangular windows were framed in white-painted wood, dividing the glass on each window into six little squares.

Before the three of them was a low wooden fence, also painted white. The paint was chipping a little, revealing the deep brown heartwood that Caleb suspected was oak. There were a number of oak trees in the Pearlbow Wilderness. Caleb had slept under them several times in worse days. Oak was rather expensive, if he remembered correctly. He usually remembered correctly.

“She’s pretty hot, right, Caleb?” Beau said, snapping out of his hyperfocus on the history of timber in the Zemni Fields.

“Oh… ja.”

“Cool, so the owner will be here in a few minutes to let us in so we can have a look. She wants to sell the place as a package deal.”

Caleb had, in some ways, trained himself out of being too attached to places or most material things (with a few exceptions such as his spell components, spellbook, and the letters he had written to his parents). Unless there was something horrifically wrong inside, he didn’t care where Beauregard and Yasha wanted to live. It was practical that they live together, after all. Caleb had healed immensely this past year, but he was self-aware enough to understand he probably shouldn’t live alone. Of the Nein, Beauregard knew how to call him on his bullshit and Yasha understood him pretty well and knew he needed space sometimes, so it was a reasonable arrangement.

“I am really not picky, Beauregard.”

“Yeah, because you still don’t care enough about yourself to give a fuck about this. We know.” Beauregard looped her arm around his neck, dragging him down to her level so she could rub her knuckles across his scalp, ruining the two narrow braids Essek had worked from Caleb’s hairline to his messy ponytail that morning before they had parted ways beside the secret entrance to Aeor. Caleb talked himself out of getting upset with Beauregard over it. She couldn’t have known, and she was being affectionate like he really was her brother.

Once he was free, Yasha fixed the braids, and Caleb had to stop himself from crying again because she had noticed it bothered him and just… fixed it without making it a thing. Beau straightened her expositor’s garb, clearing her throat.

“Sorry, dude.”

Caleb conjured a mage hand to tug on her ponytail. Beau swatted at it, but her hand went right through it. She gave him the finger. Yasha finished fixing the braids. Everything was normal again.

The owner, a half-elf woman with long blonde hair coiled into a bun that looked like a cinnamon scroll, arrived and immediately shook Caleb’s hand.

“Mr Widogast, a pleasure. These ladies have told me a lot about you. My name is Alphira Winterheart. I teach evocation at the Soltryce Academy.”

Caleb still felt a spike of anxiety when he heard the name of that place. At this point it was ingrained, even if he held out a small amount of hope he would get to teach there one day. It would be easier to fight corruption if he had some say over what the Academy put into those children’s heads.

“A pleasure,” Caleb replied, a little flatter than he had intended. He mentally shook himself, remembering to actually grip her hand for a proper handshake. “Evocation? I used to specialise in that area.”

“Ja, Ms Lionett told me you are now a Transmutation specialist but still frequently partake in the Evocation school in your travels. I’m glad to hear you intend to put down roots here in Rexxentrum. I would love to exchange theories over coffee.”

Beauregard smirked. Caleb remembered a conversation with Essek where they had agreed to return to Aeor and exchange theories. They had meant that literally. But it had indeed sounded like a euphemism to someone like Beauregard. Well, she hadn’t been wrong in the end, but certainly the intent at the time had been more about a meeting of minds than a meeting of…

Caleb concentrated on the conversation in front of him instead.

“Ja, I would enjoy that,” he replied. “What level of Evocation do you teach?”

“Oh, I teach the beginners.”

“And you live here in the Tangles?”

“I did,” said Alphira. “Archmage Beck has offered me lodging on her estate, so I am selling this house. It was always a little large for one person, and it seems you three could make better use of it than I did.” She leaned closer to Caleb, as if to tell him a secret. “The place on the left is where I prefer to experiment and study. I would recommend you look at that one in particular. The dormer is slightly larger. You could even put a teleportation circle up there if you were so inclined, given your need to travel.”

“Danke.” Caleb still felt a little weird about Rexxentrum mages not wanting to kill him, but he didn’t sense any untoward motives from this woman. She seemed genuinely friendly. “How… is the new Archmage settling in?”

“I have no complaints. She seems competent, if a little terrifying. I am uncertain if that is her past as a Volstrucker, or a necessity of the job. She has been nothing but kind to me, and I would certainly prefer to be her friend than her enemy.”

“Ja, we are familiar with her,” said Caleb.

“Caleb most of all,” said Yasha.

Beauregard had to turn away before she burst out laughing.

“We should look at the house,” Caleb said before the conversation could go anywhere strange. Gods, he missed Aeor already.

Alphira unlocked both front doors. They checked the one on the right first.

“This one has a larger living area,” said Alphira, leading them through the entrance. “I am offering the furniture as part of the sale. I have already taken everything I need.”

Beauregard threw herself onto the large couch in the centre of the room. “Yasha and I call dibs on this side of the house. Since you’re gonna spend so much time here with us anyway. We’re taking the larger living area.”

“Beauregard, we have already established that I do not mind.”

The floor underfoot was a pleasant hardwood, probably more oak, and a large rug occupied much of the space. They would have to purchase candles for the evening, but it was well-lit during the day. Caleb followed the women through each of the rooms on the ground floor on this side, largely going through the motions. The kitchen was equally large, and had a good oven for Yasha to practice baking. They would need to purchase a larger dining table.

There was one large bedroom upstairs and two smaller ones, alongside private areas for bathing and other such activities. This was where they found the door between the two houses. The top floor dormer was full of assorted furniture and household items Alphira didn’t need, but they would likely use. Beauregard and Yasha discussed the possibility of turning this into another bedroom for when they had friends over. Or perhaps converting one of the lower bedrooms into a workout space and using this as a replacement. Caleb did not need to contribute much to the conversation, aside from promising he would help move furniture with telekinesis.

Truth be told, Caleb was having a hard time concentrating on the whole thing. He hadn’t really had a home in a long time, and he could not wrangle his mind into understanding the change. The Xhorhaus had been easier to stomach, as nobody had expected to live there forever. But this? Putting down roots? Real , long-term roots?

Maybe Caleb had been homeless for too long. It was beyond his comprehension at this point. And maybe it frightened him a little. He could not afford to inspect those feelings, not right now.

He pulled himself together in time to inspect the other side of the building. His side. His house. Scheisse .

The living area was a little smaller, but could still easily welcome the Nein (just in rather cosy quarters). The kitchen, also smaller but still respectable--a little larger than his childhood home in Blumenthal. There was less furniture on this side; Alphira had evidently used this side more and therefore had more furniture to take. There were two bedrooms on the second floor, one slightly larger than the other. Caleb found himself thinking that he would probably take the larger one just so there was enough room when Essek was over, or maybe he would take the smaller one so Veth could bring her family with her. Fuck. He didn’t know what to do.

And then they visited the dormer. It was indeed larger than the other one. There was a table in front of the window, with a few dark ink stains, and plenty of floorspace to spread out notes or create a teleportation circle. A few chairs were stacked in the corner, seemingly in good condition, and one wall was lined with empty shelves.

Caleb had always been partial to a tower, and this was pretty close. It would make a great study.

He was genuinely excited over a house. In Rexxentrum. A short journey from where his childhood home once stood. He was going to hyperventilate if he thought about this too hard.

“There are already plenty of shelves in my new house,” Alphira said. “These are all yours.”

Caleb nodded slowly, pulling his mind back into his skull. “Wundervoll, danke.” He took a calming breath. “This is a nice place, Professor.”

Alphira smiled. “Yes, I did not make nearly enough use out of it. But I hear you three have a lot of friends from out of town.”

“Ja, we do not see them enough.”

“Perhaps you will see them more once you have a place to welcome them.” Alphira led them back downstairs, and into the other side of the house where they could sit around the small dining table. Alphira already had the paperwork they needed to sign; Caleb got the impression Beau and Yasha had already decided to buy the house before they spoke to him about it. He was glad the decision was out of his hands.

He signed the paperwork, using both his legal name and the name he now wore (Alphira had apparently been briefed on this, and had consulted a contract lawyer on how to make it work on a binding document). Caleb had needed to sign various statements as part of Trent’s trial, so signing in Bren’s name was not as strange as he feared it would be. He was relieved. Beau and Yasha had insisted on finding a way that his new name would also be included, given he had not gone through any legal name-change process. The money Veth gave him more than covered his part of the cost. He needed to hug her. He needed to hug all of them.

Alphira gave them three copies of the contract and handed over the deed to the property. “I will head to the housing authority and file the paperwork immediately.” She slid the keys over the table to them. “Congratulations on your new home.”

She left. Caleb traced the shapes of the letters on his copy of the contract, over and over, letting reality sink in. He had a house. A house in Rexxentrum. A house in Rexxentrum with two of his best friends. It wasn’t at all what he imagined he would have when he was seventeen, when he thought he and Astrid and Wulf would one day have done their duty for the empire and settled down together.

But this was good. This was right .

He cried. Yasha was probably crying, too, but he couldn't see. The three of them hugged across the table, the edges jabbing their ribs.

[rideordiepartnersingcrime]

Why Essek cannot change in the same way Caleb has.

Sorry if this makes no sense, I wrote the rough draft of this on a discord server and then wrote the rest of it in the span of an hour. 

Thank you to @breatheinandlive for giving me the difference in Caleb and Essek and their surroundings. 

Spoilers for An Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount and Episode 124 below the cut.

Disclaimers before I begin:

I am a simple person, I do not think I can even begin to comprehend what goes on in the Cast of Critical Role’s heads, this is just a meta over my personal opinions and perspectives on the various story elements at play.

To understand why Essek cannot change in the same way that Caleb does we first need to dive into Caleb himself and who he is as a person, the things he’s gone through and the people he surrounds himself with. 

Pre Campaign Bren/Caleb was notably Lawful Evil, before and after he broke from under Trent’s control by the start of the campaign he is shifting into True Neutral (Ref) in alignment and the big change between being broken out of the sanatorium and meeting the Nein is that he met Nott/Veth and spent months in just her company alone which means two things. 

One, that Caleb found someone to care about even on a surface level and two, that his time with Nott/Veth before meeting the Nein should never be overlooked as it is a factor in the start of his personal growth into redemption or close enough to it. 

In Talks Machina for C2E3 “The midnight road” Liam explains about the time they spent together though doesn’t go into detail, because he was excited to see how it would shape up to be, we know now that what it shaped up to be is Caleb’s Best Friend and the person he trusts most and she is one of the primarily influences for how he’s changed. 

In conjunction with that, the things Caleb did hurt people he loved and cared about, which led to his primary source of guilt within the trauma of killing his parents. 

What changed Caleb was finding people he cares about again, it’s what opens the door and keeps his head level, it is his attachment to the Nein that keeps his head level and stops him from taking a step too far in the wrong direction, that keeps his morals straight as he descends into the Chaotic Good alignment as stated by Liam on the Talks for C2E123. 

Where he and Essek differ is this, it is people who are genuinely a colourful array of morals and world views, whom they care about and spend time around. 

Essek doesn’t have anyone like that who is constantly in his presence to assist in that change, his description in An Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is 

Neutral evil, male dark elf.

Just over a hundred and twenty years old and still within his first life, Essek is a prodigy who displays an unprecedented talent for the manipulation of dunamis energy. Essek is both respected and feared for his intelligence and cunning, and he carefully plots each step he takes to further his and his Den’s climb up the hierarchy of the dynasty. Essek is more interested in dunamancy magic than worshipping the Luxon, and he is strangely excited for the war with the empire. He is eager to use the conflict as an excuse to practice the deadlier aspects of dunamancy, and also curious to see what the powerful minds of the Cerberus Assembly may have gleaned into the beacon they stole. 

- Chapter 2 | Factions and Societies, page 41, An Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount 

What this description tells us is that Essek is ambitious and interested in stretching power as far as he can take it in the hunt for knowledge, with this description and the knowledge from the campaign that he is the one who originally handed over the stolen beacon to the Cerberus Assembly also shows his lack of care for the people around him in his pursuit of knowledge. 

He didn’t feel guilty about the crime of handing over the Beacon when he did it, not even when the Nein found out, it has been a little over six weeks in game time between that conversation leading to the peace talks and where he currently is in Eiselcross. 

The big difference between the way that Caleb changed and how Essek is changing is how Caleb has had a constant source of differing world views and people to care about around him, but Essek does not. 

Essek doesn’t have a Nott, he doesn’t have a best friend who lifts him up and trusts him by his side on an almost daily basis, he has, instead, a group of people who are quite frankly only really friends with him when he’s there or when he approaches them, which I know quite a few people are going to come into my inbox and yell at me about but just, hold on before you go and yell in there please. 

Essek doesn’t have anyone who actively challenges his mindset on a daily basis, he doesn’t have anyone who can disagree with him or refute his opinion or offer another view for him when he says or does something and whilst he is at the point where he will willingly drop whatever he’s doing to assist the Nein in whatever they need, the Nein are not the same for him. 

But this is not his fault, the Nein are only just into the barest area of actually trusting him, they have, after all, only really known him for about four month and whilst the Nein are an open and friendly group they are exceeding slow to trust, one example being Artagan and how most of the Nein would vote him off the ship in Among Us at the first sign of him being suspicious. 

It’s not the same linage for everyone on the path to change, recovery or redemption, Essek is showing signs of regret, shame and guilt at his actions, he has said and shown so by his self imposed exile to the frozen north, but there’s also an element of selfishness within it as he saw first to remove himself from the fittings of Rosohna’s society and the dynasty’s hierarchy, as he is on the list of suspected traitors and he seeks to preserve himself first. 

Honestly, the Nein could learn a thing or two about self preservation from him but that’s for another day. 

What Essek needs, ultimately is a support system that doesn’t just turn up because they need something, or they need to be safe, he needs a system that will meet him half way and- Okay let’s just go with, Essek is a wizard and he needs a Halfling friend/lover.

Because wizards and halflings are a thing in Critical Role and specifically in pairs of characters who effectively influence change in one another. 

To go off on another end before I end this, this is another reason why I believe that Essek needs to full gain the Nein’s trust over the rest of this arc of the campaign and why I think a lot of people find the Allura situation so frustrating when it came to their discussions about their allies and who they can ask for help with the Tomb Takers. 

I am only semi joking about the halfling thing, I think it would be beneficial for Essek to have someone who cares and trusts him, who he can care about and trust completely right back, who is outside of the Mighty Nein because the Nein are a closely knit group. 

Right, that’s what I’ve got, no idea if this makes ANY sense but thanks for listening to me ramble for exactly 1,270 words. 

[peach-the-owl]

An Uncomfortable Encounter

Child of the Nein (Molly & Child!Reader)

At first glance people would say that you and Molly were almost glued to the hip, but that’s not necessarily true. Some evenings Molly would go off to do some "grownup activities" as you called it, you technically knew what they were and you knew they weren’t the smartest things in the world to be doing but he was a his own person and you were a kid so you didn’t feel you had the power to tell him what to do. If he somehow ended up in jail the next day, which has happened several times before, you’d just help to sweet talk him out of it with your childish charms. On those evenings you mostly stuck around at the inns tavern, providing music for them and usually earning a free meal as thanks. You were also very aware of the types of crowds that could gather not always being the safest so you’d always have to be on your toes, and sure you could say you had the rest of the Mighty Nein looking out for you too but they sometimes had their own set of activites planned out leaving you by your lonesome. On one such evening after putting on a grand performance, if you do say so yourself, the clerk at the tavern you were staying at gifted you with a simple meal before heading off to deal with some of the other patrons, you wasted no time and dig in.

"That was quite the entertaining performance you put on child." An elven man says taking the seat across your little table. You instantly feel suspicious of him but decide to play along a bit to fully sus out the situation.

"Why thank you sir. I’m glad you enjoyed it." You put on a large smile.

"You’re welcome. So is there a reason you’re here all alone?" You did not like where this line of questioning was going so you slowly start shuffling over to leave.

"That’s where you’re wrong, I’m not alone I have friends around here." You half lied, taking a quick look to see if anyone from the Nein had returned from one of their escapades. Unfortunately they had not.

"Well that’s too bad I wouldn’t mind taking you home with me, you could even do a… private preformance for me?" Aaaannnnnddd that was your cue to quickly think of an excuse to leave. (Someone said something like this to me at work once, I noped on out of that conversation)

"I’m sorry but I really should be going, I just remembered I’d promised one of my friends that I was gonna join them to do some shopping." You spoke a little quickly but tried to sound as unconcerned as possible. You get up to leave, only managing a few steps before you feel a grip on your wrist, oh how you really wished people weren’t so smashed up to notice your discomfort with the elf.

"Now now youngling, there’s no need to hurry off I’m sure your friend won’t mind, you can simply tell them you were tired and went to bed." His tone was a little too… suggestive for your liking.

"I-I don’t feel very comfortable with this." You hated how powerless you suddenly sounded and felt, your mind drawing a blank as you just try to tug your wrist out of the creeps grip.

"It’s ok little one, I coul-" His sentence cuts short as does his grip loosen on you, you stumble forward a bit once you’ve freed yourself. Looking over your shoulder you let out a quiet sigh of relief as a very angered looking Molly now has the elf's own wrist in a tight grip.

"You could what sorry?" Molly, despite placing a smile on his face, barely hid the fury that dripped from his voice.

"I, uhhhh, nothing." The elven man shakes a little.

"No no, please do enlighten me as to what you were about to tell mine kid, I dare ya." Did… did his accent just get thicker? Actually now that you had a better look he seemed different, you couldn’t pinpoint what it was but there was something different. If you hadn’t known any better you’d almost think Molly was someone else entirely. Molly(?) then leans in and whispers something to the elf, whatever it was it made the mans face turn paler then it already was and when Molly(?) let go of his wrist he hastily stumbled out of the tavern.

"You alright?" He sounded like himself again, coming down from whatever just happened.

"I… think I’m gonna turn in for the night." You say, still a little shaken from the whole encounter.

"Alright." Molly then makes his way up to the rooms but pauses when you don’t follow. "Aren’tcha comin'?" You shake yourself off a bit and proceed to trail along beside him to the rooms.

"Thanks for helping me back there. I'm glad you showed up when you did, but you know you don’t have to stay."

"Yeah, I know. But I’m gonna anyways." He shots you a side smirk, you playfully roll your eyes back.

"Well, so much for whatever your plans were." You finally reach the room you were staying in and make your way inside.

"Look there’s a lot of towns with a lot of people just waiting to get themselves a piece of this." Molly gives a dramatic pose, making you giggle at his antics. "But they’re just gonna have to wait because there’s one person who takes priority over all else."

"It’s Caleb! I knew it!" You joke causing the both of you to laugh.

"But seriously," he says after calming down, "there’s no way I’m leaving ya by your lonesome after that."

"Thanks. Oh! By the way, you came to my rescue pretty quick, which was great but how did you know to come check on me?" You ask starting to settle yourself into the little inn bed.

"I see many things with mine eyes." There was that thicker accent again, even Molly blinked a bit in surprise at his words. You tilt your head in confusion.

"What the heck was that?"

"I’m… not sure, sounded cool though."

"You’re so weird." You chuckle a bit at his comment.

"But isn't that what makes me so great. Besides if I’m weird so are you."

"You got me there." Now having properly settled into the bed, Molly walks over sitting next to you. He starts to make up a fun little story while you listen and let yourself slowly drift off into a peaceful sleep.

[cuteteacakes]

“I’m home~! And I brought something for you~!” Caleb was proud of himself. He managed to make six kouign amanns all by himself. He’d been told the recipe was really hard, and it was, (all the folding and butter...) but he did it! And he brought them home to share with Willo’fer!

“Caleb! You are back!”

Caleb had to steel himself. Hearing Willo’fer call his name like that was almost enough to make him weak in the knees! And how excited he sounded to see him again... Ugh, why couldn’t Caleb hear that voice while also lying in his arms?? It wasn’t fair-!

He didn’t have time to dwell on it though, Willo’fer was embracing him. Caleb’s face burned more. 

“I have wanting to tell you something I remember from where I come from.” 

Caleb’s heartbeat quickened. “Yeah?” What was he going to tell him? Caleb was always eager to learn about Willo’fer’s home, even if he never brought it up. He assumed it was a sore subject since the elf would get quiet every time. “What is it?”

Willo’fer gave a squeeze and held Caleb at arm’s length. “I want to tell you something in my tongue. I know not the word in yours, but I learn it when I was young. It stay in here-” he tapped his head. “-my whole life. I never forget it.”

“Oh?” Was it like a nursery rhyme? The Elvish equivalent to Mary Had a Little Lamb? Caleb’s eyes sparkled. “I’d love to hear it, Willo’fer~”

Willo’fer closed his beautiful jade colored eyes and spoke in that voice dripping with honey:

Ú-osto aen i chiril vith hiril i nîr, údog nûr aen Ú-'rogo aen i dhîn dhúatheb ai lom, eglan, e nesta phain Sui rhoss silivren sî nannol i nîr celebrin miriar Vi thîr úlal dan milui i glîn i chin mith thiliar

Caleb practically swooned. Wahatever language that was (it sounded vaguely eastern European?), the accent, the way Willo’fer recited it, it all made Caleb want to throw himself at the man. It wasn’t fair! Why was he so perfect?? 

Willo’fer must’ve seen the look on Caleb’s face because his lips turned in a smirk. (He did it on purpose! Caleb was weak!!) 

“It is about a lady who heals all, and you should not be afraid of her. I think of you when I say it now.” The smirk faded and was replaced with a blush. (How cute!!! Ugh could this elf do no wrong???) “I hope you no mind...”

Caleb threw his arms around Willo’fer and kissed him, hard. Willo’fer stumbled back a bit and braced himself, but his arms were quickly wrapping themselves around Caleb’s waist and he kissed back in turn. They broke a moment for air and looked into each other’s eyes. They both opened their mouths to speak at once. Caleb laughed.

“Y-you first..”

“N-no, please, you say first...” 

Caleb bit at his lip, unable to look Willo’fer in the eyes. “I-it was beautiful... I feel like I don’t deserve to be compared to a woman like that.. She sounds so lovely...”

He was silenced by another kiss, Willo’fer grabbing and holding onto his cheeks. “You are beautiful, Caleb! There is word for beautiful in my speak, vanimelda, it means beautiful inside and out. That is you, Caleb. You are vanimelda!” 

Caleb was kissed again, his body held tightly against Willo’fer’s. He felt like crying. Nobody has ever told him something like that, he... he felt... pressure against his thigh...

Willo’fer must have realized it too because he was pushing back suddenly, his face as red as his hair. “I-I am sorry, my body it-”

“No, it’s okay...” Caleb realized he wanted it just as badly. 

“You are just very beautiful, a-and you against me, I-” He backed up and tripped over Caleb’s couch, landing on it with a huff.

“I said it’s okay..” Caleb knelt down, his fingers itching and his mouth salivating. 

“I know it is too quick, we only know each other for very short time, I-!” He gasped feeling Caleb palm his trousers. 

“Relax.. tell me how you say ‘love’ in your language...”

“M-meleth...” Willo’fer gasped again, put a hand to his mouth as Caleb freed his hardened length. 

Caleb hummed, giving the length a stroke with his hand. “Tell me how to say ‘I love you’ in your language...”

Willo’fer’s head fell back. “G-...gi melen...” 

“Hmm...” Caleb stroked it again. “Gi melen... Like that..?” 

Willo’fer’s breath hitched in his throat. “Y-yes... Gi melen... Caleb...”

Caleb’s hand worked and he positioned himself between Willo’fer’s legs. “Willo’fer, gi melen. Gi melen so damn much you have no idea...” He lowered his head, taking Willo’fer into his mouth slowly. The elf let out a moan as he did, his length twitching in Caleb’s mouth. He began to suck, bobbing his head in a steady rhythm, practically taking Willo’fer all the way in. What didn’t fit, Caleb pumped with his hand, his stroking keeping in time with his mouth. Willo’fer kept his hand to his mouth, soft moans slipping between the fingers. He couldn’t take it. Caleb was so beautiful, and he was pleasuring him so well. For a moment Willo’fer lost himself to it, his mind filled with nothing but the sensation. 

“C-Caleb...” he panted. His other hand raked his fingers through Caleb’s pink locks. They were so soft... “Caleb, I...” He felt himself about to come, his lower body heating up. He didn’t ‘know how to say it, but he didn’t want Caleb to get dirty. Another moan, and when Caleb’s eyes flicked up to meet his own, Willo’fer lost it. He stiffened and cried out, his fingers curling and gripping Caleb’s hair as he came. 

Caleb didn’t need to be told, that look said it all. And he wanted to taste it all. Feeling Willo’fer’s fingers tighten their grip, Caleb bobbed his head as far as it would go before he felt the hot ropes shoot into the back of his throat. He pulled back with a gasp, the strings of semen dangling from his open mouth. Willo’fer’s length gave one last twitch and release before going limp. Caleb licked his lips and bent down to kiss the head before looking back up at Willo’fer. He was panting, his hands covering his face. 

“I am sorry...” he said between breaths. 

Caleb stood and sat next to him, snuggling close. “What for? You were delicious...~”

[essektheylyss]

If you’re still doing fic requests maybe Essek helping jester with a craft project

oh did you mean my FAVORITE M9/ESSEK FRIENDSHIP? HELL YES. thank you for this!!!

It’s not that Zadash isn’t a nice city. It’s fine, even if they don’t exactly stay in the nicest parts of it. It’s just that they’re all very aware that a drow is not particularly welcome here, so it gets tricky trying to exist in plain sight as a group.

That’s why, when Beau and Caleb head to the Cobalt Soul to do some research, Essek doesn’t even try to join them, no matter how much he may want to. The libraries in the Dynasty do not cover nearly as broad an array of subjects, and despite some of his own misgivings with the organization—mainly, being on the wrong end of two expositors temperaments, though that has mostly been patched up now—he would give a lot to accompany them.

He could wear some kind of disguise, but that is still limited, and he does not particularly want to be caught by someone who might see through that kind of thing. He is no longer a foreign agent, but he certainly seems like one, especially if he were to go sneaking into large fonts of knowledge in what would look very much like espionage.

So as they go to the library, and the others head around town to pick up assorted supplies, he hangs back, in the Evening Nip, where Jester has once again secured them free lodging.

It has its perks, being the long lost daughter of a mob boss.

She’s sitting in a booth when he slinks down from their upper room, having taken some extra time to rest, though he doesn’t need it. It’s just frustrating, feeling useless, and he needed a bit of time to privately fume, childish as it is.

He’s allowing himself more childish impulses though, these days. Quite a few of them have had childhoods pulled from them over time, others ripped away violently, so he thinks they can more than make up for it now, with the time they have secured for themselves.

The bartender sets a glass of some kind of spiced liquor in front of him. It stings his nose when he brings it to his lips, but he’s used to harsher drink than this. Jester, across from him, has a glass of milk as always, something the underworld bar has mysteriously taken to carrying recently, now that they have been spending more time in and out of Zadash again, doing jobs for the Gentleman and knowing that popping back and forth is easy, with two wizards capable of teleporting in and out.

She’s also building some kind of clay figurines, her blue fingers ruddy with its debris coating her hands, an array of paints sitting to the side in preparation for the next phase of whatever her project is.

And he’s pretty sure he knows what they’re supposed to be, as distinctive as the shape is. He sighs, and takes a much larger drink of his whiskey.

“Jester,” he exhales, ignoring the sting in his throat. “Why are you creating… dicks?”

She grins at him, and turns it around to show him a vague facsimile of her god. It is very similar to ones he’s seen before, but at least in the past they seemed as though they’d been designed to exist on their own—someone could’ve thought the resemblance to genitalia a coincidence, or something they were reading too much into.

At this point, he’s concerned that she’s trying to hand out sex toys on the street.

He knows he’s committed blasphemy worthy of treason, but he still shudders to think what his mother would say about this measure of devotion, no matter the deity being worshipped.

“I don’t think you can use those as effectively as recruiting pamphlets.”

“You never know,” she replies breezily, though her voice has a spark of intensity to it. He’ll never admit it to her, but it’s fun to push her buttons where the Traveler is involved. Still, he thinks she might be playing him right back when she waggles her eyebrows. “It’s good to have a wide selection. It’s about size. Girth.”

He rolls his eyes, another childish impulse he’s been allowing himself of late. “Not really my area of expertise.”

“Essekkkk, you’re no fun.”

“I thought you went to get supplies with the rest?”

“Well, I got my crafts supplies, yeah,” she agrees, and does a little motion with her hands to show him the array between them. “But we’re not going to Pumat’s until after Beau and Caleb get back, and all I really wanted was to see what Pumat has, so I thought I’d come back and do arts and crafts.” She grins. “Do you want to help?”

He’s about to say no, about to make some kind of excuse and hurry off to walk the streets of Zadash in the guise of some unassuming half-elf, but then he thinks again of what his mother might say, and very, very slowly, he matches her grin.

If he’s learning to be a little childish, he might as well commit to harmless actions that his mother would disapprove of.

She claps her hands excitedly, and flecks of clay mingle with her freckles. “Okay, okay, okay, what if I do the sculpting, and you can paint them?”

“What color would you like them painted?”

“You knowwww, you’ve seen the Traveler. Just paint them to look like him.”

She hands him the first few that she’s completed, and he takes them gingerly. There aren’t many others in the bar before noon, but he still instinctively ducks his head. It doesn’t really matter—they’ve been in here enough that he’s perfectly recognizable to someone associated with the Gentleman, but none of those people care enough to learn who he is that this would really matter.

That or their hands are all plenty dirty, and they know that remaining in the dark about your associates is often the best course of action. Getting attached was certainly Essek’s downfall.

“Okay,” he says evenly, and picks up some green paint.

He finds very quickly that it’s easy to forget his embarrassment when he’s focusing on the details of the design, and his hands are surprisingly suited for it, with years of practice at precise spellwork and somatic components. Jester leans half of her body over the table to look at it, ignoring the clay that smudges over her cheeks. “Essek, you’re a natural at this!”

He blinks at her. Art has never been something he’s attempted—it always felt indulgent, the kind of hobby he couldn’t afford—but there is a certain quality of magic that comes across as art, and this feels the same. He sets down the second one, cheeks flushing at the compliment, and gives her a bit of a smile. “Oh, thank you.”

“Do you want to be my apprentice? And help me with all of my crafts?”

He smiles in earnest now, and returns to the paint. “Do I have to worship the Traveler?”

“I mean, you have to admit that he’s pretty cool.”

“Jester,” he laughs. “You’re pretty cool.”

“Well, yeah, obviously,” she drawls. “But really, Essek, will you help me with art sometimes?”

“Haven’t I already agreed to do that today?”

“Well you agreed now, but you didn’t say if you like doing it. If you don’t I wouldn’t want to make you do something you don’t like.”

He does like the painting. It’s distracting, in a different way than his usual pursuits. And as much as he enjoys spending time with the whole group, it’s easy to sit in comfortable silence with Jester, occasionally exchanging a few words or jokes.

Everything about this is… easy, in a way very few things are, in his experience. It’s simple and calming, in a lot of ways.

“Jester, I would be honored to be your apprentice,” he says.

“Under one condition,” she grins, and offers a clay-streaked hand toward him to shake. He glances down at his own fingers, which he has somehow kept devoid of paint thus far. “You have to be willing to get your hands dirty.”

It feels like a test, but of everyone in the group, Jester is the person who has always reached for him, no matter what. And he knows now that sometimes, he has to reach back in order to be worthy of that.

He shakes her hand, the clay depositing on his own inky skin, and he resists the urge to wipe it on a napkin.

“Okay, first assignment,” she says, gesturing animatedly. “I want you to paint the next one with your fingers.”

She laughs her clear, joyous laughter, and he thinks that there is something liberating about being willing to act like a child on purpose.

[ivadeshin]

Pasadena Iced Coffee (2/?)

(Sequel to Five Soda Maximum. Catch up on previous chapters on Ao3.)

Don’t freak out on a freaking Amtrak train, Molly chides himself.

He starts a new text to Caleb.

Me: Apparently ahead of schedule? 10min

Caleb often doesn’t check his phone for long periods, but sooner than expected, his phone beeps back:

Caleb Widogast (orange heart emoji): I am at the station under the big  yoga elf

The what?

Me: The what?

It’s a few moments before an image text comes in - a slightly blurry phone picture, taken from below, of an enormous poster for a gym. In the foreground is a slim elf woman in immaculate makeup, sitting peacefully on a mat with her legs crossed. Molly giggles.

Me: how big is she

Caleb Widogast (orange heart emoji): I think like six feet. and she is sitting

Me: move!! she could reach down and eat you up!!

Caleb Widogast (orange heart emoji): no i am not vegan-friendly

The train is starting to slow down. Molly can feel his heart beating a little faster, flush on his cheeks - it hasn’t been that long, he chides himself, but he can already feel his tail curling ornately around the strap of his bag, a dumb figure-eight of excitement.

He puts his phone in his pocket, tugging his t-shirt down, finger combing his hair, and stuffing all his snack wrappers into the shopping bag before stuffing that into the gym bag. Across the aisle, the little girl is gathering up all the small collectible plastic toys while her mother coaches her to tidy up faster.

Out the window, Molly can only see rusty metal tracks and barriers, some scaffolding. The train is crawling along now, with several passengers starting to get impatiently to their feet... and then it’s a crowded train platform, colorful and animated with several people moving around and hauling luggage in all directions. Molly scans the far wall, looking for the yoga elf, but it’s nowhere. Just soda ads. 

Did I give the wrong platform number? Am I at the wrong platform? He leans as close as he can to the window, trying to peer further ahead without actually letting his cheek touch the glass. That one might be it. It’s some giant poster of an interior something-or-other, that could be it.

The train has finally stopped. The conductor is saying something over the speaker again, but the noise of the passengers and the people outside is drowning it out. Molly hauls his gym bag over his shoulder, double checking that his phone is in his pocket, turning twice and making sure there’s no wrappers or anything else left be-

“It’s a snake,” the little girl says as she passes him, pointing to his arm while her mother makes an embarrassed face.

Okay. Nothing. He’s good. Molly takes a breath, waiting for an older human man with rolling luggage to scoot along to the stairs before he hops into the line to file out of the train car. It smells industrial outside, and the air already feels balmy and warmer - it feels like where he got picked up years and years ago. He remembers air like this.

“S’cuse me,” the old human man mutters, struggling to push the handle on his luggage down before he can take it down the stairs.

“Oh, I can get it.” Molly gestures to it.

The man looks a little suspicious. “You’re sure?”

“No problem.” Molly jerks his chin for the man to go ahead without it, and the man hesitates before the pressure of the line presses him on, and he takes the steep metal stairs alone, down to the concrete platform where he immediately turns and waits to see if Molly’s going to try to get away with his valuable enormous case.

As if I could run anywhere with this thing, Molly thinks to himself, but stifles the expression that wants to creep up onto his face. He presses the handle button in and pushes it down, grabbing the strap and lifting it with his free arm to carry down. It’s not so bad, and the man seems to be a little shy now that Molly’s made good on his offer. “Thank you, young man.”

“No problem.” Molly gives a little wave, already thinking of Caleb again. Up ahead, where he couldn’t see from his train car toward the back, there’s a huge poster for a gym, and that’s - he just has to get there. It seems like the crowd is going in way too many fucking directions for a space where there’s only people disembarking, but Molly only has to shoulder past a couple people before he’s close enough to start looking around. Orange hair. Orange hair. Caleb. Caleb.

“Mollymauk!”

Molly’s heart leaps up. He looks to the left, where he heard it - an enormous half orc woman passes in front of him, blocking his view, but then he’s there, Caleb’s there. He’s standing and waving, wearing a loose t-shirt, skin already lightly tanned and more freckled than Molly has ever seen it. His hair is in messy waves framing his face, looking a very familiar mix of anxious and shyly happy.

Molly launches forward and leaps toward Caleb, making the human take a step back as he holds him under his legs. “H-hey,” Caleb laughs, gently setting Molly down as Molly keeps his arms wrapped around Caleb’s shoulders. He smells the same.

“I missed you,” Molly says into the warmth of his neck, voice cracking a little. Making himself let go, he smiles wider to see Caleb’s tearing up as well. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Caleb says back, ears red. He’s wearing a backpack, Molly notices, and one strap is pulling the collar of his t-shirt to the side. Molly can see some of the new freckles along his collarbones. He’s so in love. “Was your, um, was your trip okay?”

“Mow,” something says indignantly.

“Oh!” Caleb says, and straightens up and turns a little, looking over his shoulder. “Did he hear you?”

“Mow,” Frumpkin repeats from the transparent carrier backpack, getting on his hind legs and pressing his paws as close to Molly as they can get. Molly coos as he sees the collar with the bow tie. “Mowww.”

“I think he’s yelling at me,” Molly says fondly.

“He missed you too!”

“Mowwwwww.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Molly says. Seeing Frumpkin out with Caleb has reminded him that Caleb often brings his cat with him to keep him calmer in busier areas, and maybe Frumpkin didn’t come to the train station today just to say hi to Molly as early as possible.

“Okay. Are. Are you hungry?” Caleb turns back around and reaches for Molly’s hand, smiling wider when he takes it.

“Let’s just get to your place, I want to set Frumpkin free, I wanna see your place, I,” Molly laughs. “I wanna hug you more...”

Caleb leads him through the interior of the station, to the closest exit, and to the relative quiet of the street outside. The sun is bright and keeping the air almost heady with humid warmth - there are already palm trees dotted here and there, and Molly smiles at them as they walk past.

“Do you like, um, being here again?” Caleb looks a little unsure, and Molly can understand why.

“It feels fine,” he assures. “It feels like a nice sort of familiar, even though I wasn’t here for long. That I can remember, anyway.”

“There is a lot of food here that I did not know about,” Caleb says, tilting his head toward a street lined with restaurants and outdoor seating. “More Asian food, but also, lots of... science food, and...” He trails off, and when Molly waits patiently for him to find the right word in English, Caleb blushes and laughs. “I missed you.”

Molly squeezes his hand and uses his tail to smack the back of Caleb’s leg affectionately.

“Ach!” Caleb jumps but laughs immediately. “I even missed that.”

“It’s Tiefling for ‘I missed you too’.”

“I have learned a little Infernal, and that is not-”

“No no, Tiefling. It’s like sign language but it’s all tail swats.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Yes, please be respectful of my culture.”

“Are you sure Tiefling does not have moving ears also? Because your ears are-” Caleb grins delightedly and lets go of Molly’s hand to tuck a strand of hair behind Molly’s ear. “They are all the way up, like, ‘hello, I am happy’.”

Molly fakes a scowl and tries to flatten his ears down a little. He’s not sure if it works, but Caleb laughs.  The apples of Caleb's cheeks are slightly tanned from the sun. Molly only has so much self-control. "Hold on."

"Hm?" Caleb stops when Molly does, and lets himself be guided to the edge of the sidewalk. When Molly tucks in close and hugs him, one publicp-appropriate kiss to his cheek, Caleb laughs softly and kisses him back. "I missed you so much," he confesses softly.

"I missed everything. I missed your accent." Molly laughs, and perks up when Caleb gently takes Molly's right hand and pulls it up fro inspection. "Oh! You' haven't seen it in person yet."

Caleb's admiring the snake design with wide, fascinated eyes. "Driving to the convention was worth it," he says, "it is so beautiful."

"Yeah. I'm just glad it's not itching much anymore." Molly watches Caleb examine him, laughing when Caleb pulls his arm up higher to look at it carefully, looking for any scarring. "I told you, he did a good job!"

"I just want to see for myself!" Caleb protests stubbornly, causing Molly to give a fond roll of his eyes. "It is your first one, and if you want many more, we need to make sure we get someone who can treat your skin properly."

"He's normally based out of New Orleans, I don't think I'll get an opportunity to see that guy again."

"But if he is the... the master class guy at tattoo conventions... and you really like his style..." Caleb finally lets him go, turning to get them moving again. "Then we book a long way in advance, and then fly there? Or take a train?"

"All for a tattoo?" Molly asks, already guessing the answer.

"For you, yes." Caleb shrugs. "Plus, New Orleans is nice, ja?"

"It's supposed to be great." Molly looks down at Caleb's hand that's fallen hopefully between them, and gives his tail instead. Caleb laughs.

Caleb's dorm building is more of an apartment complex, with a modern exterior and a sign-in lobby right inside the door. The walls are lined with fliers for various events and competitions, several stapled over each other. An exhausted looking human with fluffy black hair and glasses is on a laptop in the corner.

"ہیلو," Caleb says across the room to the other human, suprising Molly.

"Hallo," the man says back, not looking up from the screen but raising his hand a little from where it's hovering over the keyboard.

As they go up the first flight of stairs, Caleb shrugs at Molly's questioning glance. "We all learn one or two words of the other's language," he explains. "A bunch of students here are from places in Asia, but other places also."

"That's so cool," Molly enthuses. It sounds like the international, multi-cultural experience everyone wants to get out of going to college.

"There is a biochemistry major who is from Yemen, and a tiefling," Caleb says as they reach a hallway and turn right. "He says my Infernal is better than my Arabic, so I have just been using that..."

They both laugh. "I'm good for something!" Molly says with a joking toss of his hair.

Caleb looks mildly offended. "You are …" He seems to be struggling for the way to say it. "You are very good," he says finally, as they reach the end of the hall. "I may have a bit of a complex," Molly confesses, only fractionally joking. "You're at, like, a top ten school here, and I'm..."

"'The best Rosencrantz I have seen in a community theater setting,'" Caleb quotes, suddenly and with unexpected conviction, "'showing an innate understanding of comedic timing that Stoppard would be proud to see.'"

Molly stops and stares at Caleb as the human fiddles with the key to the apartment door. "I mean. I knew you must've read those, but."

"Of course I read it, I read all of zem." Caleb looks at him stubbornly. "And I was heartbroken when you were the understudy for Puck, and he never got sick. You would have been incredible."

"Don't make me cry in a hallway," Molly mumbles to his feet.

Caleb mutters something under his breath in Sylvan, and the key finally unlocks the door and lets them inside. Molly has seen several pictures of this apartment, but those static images are one thing compared to the panoramic view of it all. Sunlight is shining in through the two windows, warming up the kitchenette and small dining space. The bookshelf is mostly filled with coils of power supplies, miscellaneous extra hardware, and some pantry items. It's small and very simple, but it's Caleb's, and Molly can tell how much that means to the other man as his shoulders relax.

"Home sweet home," Caleb says, easing the backpack off his shoulders and unzipping the top so Frumpkin can get out at his leisure. (Frumpkin, who is curled up and possibly napping at the bottom of the bag, does not take them up on that option just this second.) "The bathroom is that door, the bedroom is that door."

"Is there anything else you have to do today?" Molly asks immediately.

"No," Caleb confirms. "No classes until morning lab tomorrow at half one."

Molly steps into his space and puts his hands at Caleb’s waist. “Can we...?”

[sockablock]

happy Winter’s Crest, y’all! And an especially happy winter’s crest to @devilessyeet, my @winterscrestgiftexchange partner! I hope you enjoy this piece, and have a great holiday!!

• • • • • • • •

It was midnight in Zadash, long hours past sundown. Mist hung low off the cobbled roads, and the only source of light came from a handful of guarded torches winding through distant alleys and streets. A few clouds drifted slow across the moon and somewhere in the night, a single raven alighted on a rooftop and gently shook its feathers.

In the candlelit interior of his own inn room, Caleb Widogast briefly set down his notebook. His hair was unkempt as always and his coat sat folded next to him, neatly on the bed. He had a rumpled quill between his fingers, and sported a thin smudge of ink at the corner of his mouth from where he would chew at the nib in frustration.

His gaze was glued to a peculiar cannonball-sized object resting on the covers before him. Its twelve-sided form glowed softly in the darkness, and every once in a while, he would see a tiny grey spark break from its surface, then vanish from reality. It undulated faintly with a strange and unknowable energy, and despite his best efforts, he still had barely any idea what it meant.

He glanced back down at his sparse notes. Over the course of the last few hours, he had only managed to rewrite what he already knew: this beacon was connected somehow to the Krynn, had presumably originated in Xhorhas, held some sort of sway over fate and all chance. Caleb himself had felt its power course through his veins a number of times now, and while its influence was immeasurable and its possibilities endless, there was something off-putting about accepting the gifts of an artifact so alien and strange.

He scratched his chin, and tapped the pages once more. Then he looked back up to run a few more tests, and saw.

He instantly lunged out, snatched the beacon into his arms, threw himself up off the bed and set both hands aflame.

And then he hesitated, because the intruder hadn’t even moved.

Sitting on the mattress of his simple low bed, leaning back and posture calm, was a strange young man in dark leather armor. His skin was so pale as to almost glow, and he had a thick cloak of midnight feathers draped across his shoulders. His long black hair was tied up behind his head, and upon further inspection, Caleb could see that the man’s ears were slightly pointed—the tell-tale sign of elven heritage.

He was also tossing a dagger into the air, watching it spiral a moment before catching it lazily. Even more worrying, was the broad smirk across his face. The way his eyes glinted with mischief in the moonlight.

Caleb made his fire burn brighter. To his disappointment, the man’s grin only widened.

“Easy there, friend,” he chuckled. “I’m not here for a fight.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. His flames crackled on. “You broke into my room,” he said slowly. “You are armed.”

“What, this?”

The young man flipped the dagger up one more time, winked grandly, and then suddenly, in mid-air, the weapon vanished into a thin wisp of shadow.

“Is that better?” he asked.

Caleb stared. He took a small step back.

“Somehow that is even worse.”

The young man sighed. “Look,” he said, and raised his palms in a calming gesture, “look, I really am not here to fight you. If I wanted to, y’know, fuck your shit up, I would’ve done it while you were busy with your pretty little ball. I mean, I got in here without you noticing, yes?”

Very guardedly, very gradually, Caleb nodded his head.

“Exactly,” the man said. “So, please, won’t you sit down? I just wanted to talk. You can even hold onto the beacon, if you’d like, though I imagine you’d rather put it back into its box, so no one can find it during our little conversation.”

A thousand more questions swam through Caleb’s mind. He gingerly retrieved the lead safe from under the bed and dropped the beacon inside. He leaned over, and put his book and inkwell onto the nightstand.

Then he sat down.

“There we go,” the stranger beamed. “Isn’t that better?”

“I am not so certain, yet,” he muttered. “That depends on who you are, and what you wish to speak of.”

The half-elf threw his hands into the air. “Right, right!” he said. “Of course you’d want an introduction. You can, er, you can call me ‘Vax.’”

“Er…ja, okay, I am Caleb Widogast. Though I somehow feel you may know that already.”

Vax grinned. “Too true, Mister Widogast. I know quite a bit about you. And one of those things, if my hunch is correct, is that you and your gang of friends have been messing with something you aren’t supposed to.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow. “Such as…?”

“Come on, come on,” Vax sighed. “I need you to work with me here. Isn’t it obvious?”

“Ja, well, if I am being honest, we have messed with many things over the years, and I am fairy certain a large majority of them were supposed to be off-limits.”

Vax chuckled at that. “Okay, fair.” He pointed at the ground. “I’m talking specifically about that fancy little dodecahedron. The Beacon. And what it represents.”

“What it represents?” Caleb echoed. “You mean Xhorhas?”

Vax sighed again. “No, Mister Widogast. What I represent. Or, should I say, who I represent: Fate, and the goddess of.”

Caleb stared at him. He opened his mouth. He closed it. He opened it again.

“You are a follower of the Raven Queen?”

The corners of Vax’s lips quirked upwards. “Sure,” he nodded. “Let’s go with that. She’s, er, she’s sent me on a bit of an errand, different than my usual duties, to poke into you lot. The long version’s a bit more complicated than that, but mostly I’m just here to ask questions.”

“And…if you do not like the answers?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your goddess is also the patron of death,” Caleb murmured. “Will you kill me?”

Vax blinked. For a long, long silence, Caleb got the impression that he was trying not to laugh.

Eventually, the half-elf shook his head and offered up a wry smile. “Death doesn’t kill people,” he said gently. “She doesn’t need to.”

“You know, you really make me anxious when you answer my questions that way.”

Vax’s grin widened. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s been a while since I’ve held a proper conversation.”

Before Caleb could comment on that, the man waved a hand around and gestured towards the lead box. “So what exactly are your intentions with that, anyways? Feel free to lie at first, if it makes you feel better, but I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Caleb remembered a shadow where there hadn’t been one before. He remembered a dagger that had turned into smoke. He could feel, though he wasn’t entirely sure how, a tremendous amount of barely-contained power swirling throughout his bedroom.

He swallowed. He shrugged.

“If I am being entirely honest, Herr Vax, the truth is that we have no intentions. We stumbled across this object mostly by accident, and we have been carrying it around in a sparkly pink haversack ever since.”

There was a beat of silence.

“You had it in lead, though,” Vax said, slightly reproachfully. “You knew people were going to be looking for it. Took me bloody months to get a proper pin on you lot.”

“Verzeihung.”

“I get the feeling that you aren’t really sorry.”

Caleb couldn’t help but grin at that. “No, not really,” he said. “Can you blame me?”

Vax chuckled. “No, I can’t. But why keep it?” he asked. “If you say you didn’t want it in the first place, why hang on to something so dangerous?”

Caleb considered this, and then sighed. “We did not want it falling into the wrong hands. And I am not saying we are the right hands, but…we know where this object came from. And it…it was a point of heavy contention between our Empire and the…the neighboring one.”

“Your empire,” Vax noted. “But you didn’t give it to them?”

“Oh, not at all,” Caleb said. “They are not trustworthy. Who knows what they could do with something this powerful?”

“And what do you want to do, with something this powerful?”

Caleb glanced at the box on the bedsheets before him.

“We are going to keep it safe.”

Vax shook his head, leaned in. “You misunderstand me. What do you want to do with it?”

Caleb’s eyebrows went up. “Me?” he asked. “Me?”

“Yes, you, like I’ve said, I’ve done my homework. I know a fair bit about who you are, and who you used to be.” Vax sat back and crossed his arms. “Tell me, Caleb Widogast, why are you keeping the Beacon?”

Caleb restrained himself from answering immediately. He sighed inwardly and shrugged.

“I want to change the past,” he said. “I want to shift reality back into a direction that it never took.”

“Why?”

Caleb glanced up. He met a pair of calm, steady eyes.

“Have you never felt regret, o Follower of the Raven Queen?”

Vax’s expression glimmered in the candlelight. “More times than you can count,” he chuckled softly. “But I will say this: I never once thought about going back on fate.”

Caleb shrugged. “Then you are thinking too small.”

“Perhaps. But what makes you think you can do it?” Vax asked, narrowing his eyes. “What makes you think that you’ll succeed, where nobody else has? What makes you think you’ve got even the slightest possibility of getting what you want?”

There was a second of silence, punctuated by the distant plodding footsteps of a night watchman far below.

“Will you kill me, tonight?” Caleb asked.

Vax shook his head.

“Then I still have a chance.”

The half-elf’s stare cracked, and a smile crept forward. “You’ve got balls, I’ll tell you that.”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

Vax rolled his eyes, and thrust a finger under Caleb’s nose. “I’m not going to kill you, that’s for certain,” he said. “And as far as we know, which is pretty damn much, you haven’t broken any laws regarding life and death. Your meddling with destiny hasn’t led you anywhere too dangerous yet, and it certainly isn’t worth staining my daggers. For now.”

He waved his finger around a little too sarcastically to be menacing. “I am here to give you a warning, though. It’s easy to get sucked into regret. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find your life slipping through your fingers faster than you can bring it back. We all die eventually, Mister Widogast, and we’ve got to use every second that we have.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Herr Vax?”

“Yes?”

“What comes after this? After life, what is next?”

The half-elf gave him a very faint smile.

“I told you already,” he said. “I’m not here to kill you, tonight. In fact,” he added, standing up and stretching his arms, “I should probably head out now. I’ve got things to see and people to do, you know how it is.”

“I do not think that is how the saying goes.”

Vax grinned. “I like to improvise. I imagine you and your friends understand that, pretty well.”

“We think on our feet,” Caleb admitted with a shrug.

Vax nodded his head enthusiastically. “Good!” he declared. “That’s the right way to be. And this part isn’t really a message from my Lady, or anything like that, but…do me a favor, alright? Don’t worry about changing what’s already happened. Focus on keeping what you have now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your friends,” Vax said. “Hold them close. They’re the best kind of family you can have.”

Caleb’s gaze fell to the ground, and Vax chuckled softly. “Just think on it,” he said. “For me.”

“No promises.”

“None required.”

And then, as Vax crossed the room, as he walked over to the window and reached a hand outside and pressed his foot to the sill and prepared to leap through the night, he paused.

He looked back.

“This is going to sound a little odd,” he said slowly, tone much less serious than it had been so far, “but…there is something very familiar about you.”

Caleb shrugged. “I am no stranger to death.”

Vax threw his head back and laughed. “Good answer, slick. Nobody is.”

And then he nodded one last time to the wizard framed in moonlight, turned back around and slid his shoulders past the frame, kicked up off the hardwood floors, and was gone.

A rush of feathers blew through the room and vanished just as quickly as they’d come. Caleb couldn’t help but rise from the bed, hurry over to the window, stick his face into the cool night air and scan the starry horizon for any sign of where his visitor had gone.

Nothing. Not even a shadow over the moon.

Eventually, he sank back into his mattress. He stared at the lead box. He brushed his fingers to the lid, considered opening it again and taking one last look.

He didn’t.

And from somewhere in the night, somewhere high above the city, over moon-swept rooftops and the distant, shimmering sky, a raven called out to the breeze.

And flew home.

[conceptstage]

A Marriage of Convenience {Chapter Eleven}

Caleb was pacing around the lower level of the library, fidgeting with his fingers. He took a deep breath and then summoned Frumpkin out of the ether. He held the cat close and ran his fingers up and down the cat’s spine as it purred in his arms. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you away,” he whispered into his cat’s fur. “I just need you right now.”

He pet his cat in silence for a few minutes before his silence was shattered by a heavy thump as Beau jumped down from the top level and landed a few feet away from him. “Where the fuck did that cat come from?” she asked, confused.

Caleb frowned and turned so that the cat was facing away from her. “This is my cat. His name is Frumpkin. He can disappear when I need him to. I’m just feeling… Well, I needed him to comfort me.” Beau was looking intently at the cat and Caleb suddenly realized that, other than the horses that pulled the carriage, there were no animals at the estate. “Do you want to pet him?” he asked, hesitantly holding the cat out towards her.

She reached out and slowly unrolled her fingers. She sat her hand on the cat’s head and he rubbed up against it, purring loudly at her. She smiled slightly and started to slowly pet his head. She cleared her throat and shook her head, snatching her hand back to her side. “Don’t distract me. You said you were going to tell me the truth.”

Caleb nodded and looked around like he was double checking that they were alone. He poofed his cat away and Frumpkin disappeared in a flash of light. He moved over to take a seat in an upholstered chair in the corner. Beau rolled her eyes but moved over to sit the twin chair next to him. “I’m going to tell you the story of how I murdered my parents.” He hadn’t spoken about this in years, even Nott only knew he blamed himself for their deaths and not that he was the one who actually did it. He looked up to see Beau’s reaction but she was just watching him evenly. “When I was younger, I grew up in a small township outside of Rexxentrum called Blumenthal. My mother’s name was Una. My father’s name was Leofric. Everyone was very excited about me when I was young. I was bright and confident. People used to say that I glided through life and everything just worked for me. As I got older, it became clear that I had a knack for the arcane. Everyone talked about this Soltryce Academy, maybe I would go there someday. The way they do things at that Academy, they don’t take all comers, they look for the diamond in the rough and every couple of years they find one. But when I was a young man, adolescent, really, they found three of us.” He looked at Beau again but her face hadn’t changed. He continued. “Anyway, we went there. I studied for a year. I worked so hard. It came easier to me than the other two, but they were also very accomplished. There were other students from other parts of the Empire there, and a little over a year of learning all they had to impart, I met a man named Trent Ikithon. He became our teacher.”

“I know that name.” She said suddenly. Her brows furrowed in concentration. “He came to a party last year. My parents made me meet him.”

Caleb ignored her and pushed his way through the story. “After a year of studying in the main school, Trent handpicked all three of us again, and we left the school proper and went with him to a home out in the countryside where he trained us. It was a good time. We believed in the Empire, we were going to keep it strong. He was cruel. He hurt us a lot. Made us go through extreme circumstances, but we got strong. I also fell in love, but that’s another story.”

“Another student?” The description of Trent reminded her uncomfortably of her father.

He cleared his throat and nodded. “Yeah. We rose through the ranks and it was the Empire over all, and eventually, he wanted to test our allegiance, so strangers were brought in– traitors. Disgusting people, traitors to this empire, and we killed them.” He looked up at her again and her brow was still furrowed but she didn’t seem enraged or disgusted with him yet. “Then he did it again. And again. And we killed them again and again.”

“He made you executioners?”

“We wanted to be.”

She opened her mouth to speak again but paused and scratched idly at her hairline. “Damn. I thought my life was fucked up.” She cleared her throat. “And one day he brought in your parents, right?”

“No. We were ready to graduate, and the last test of our allegiance was– I’m getting ahead of myself. I went on a trip home and visited my parents and when I was there, in the middle of the night, I awoke and overheard them talking, and went to the stair and listened to them talk about revolution and tearing the Empire down, and I felt disgrace and shame for my family. My mother and my father, who were so wonderful to me when I was a child, and were so happy for me to go to the Academy and believe in the Empire so much. I went back to the school and when the three of us were summoned and told what was expected of us, I knew what had to be done. We went to this other boy’s home first, Eodwulf, and we stood by as he killed his parents. We went to Astrid’s house, and had dinner with them, and she poisoned them. Then we went to my home and we grabbed a horse cart, and in the middle of the night, placed it against the door to the home and I set it on fire.”

“This was a loyalty test,” she said, looking at him now. “You had to do this to graduate?”

“Yes.”

“What happened then?”

He shrugged. “I graduated. I worked in research and development for a while and about a year ago I was made a teacher. They were talking about making me… become a mentor.”

“Like Trent.”

“Like Trent. They wanted me to start picking students and I realized I’d run out of time.”

“Time for what?”

“Ever since the night I killed my parents… When I heard them scream I realized that I was wrong. That I was fucked up, as you would say. I tried to run in to help them but the other students held me back. Ever since then I’ve been planning and researching to find a way to…” he paused and looked away.

“To go back,” she said. “You want to go back.”

“I discovered about a year ago a book called ‘Calamatis’. There’s no known author and only one surviving copy. I have reason to believe that it’s in your father’s possession. When they asked me to start mentoring I decided to pull some strings, get your mother to invite me here, and find the book.”

Beau frowned thoughtfully. “If he does have something like that it won’t be in here, that’s for damn sure. He collects acane things, weird shit, and he keeps it all locked away in his secret study.” She moved to stand up and he reached out to grab her arm.

“So you’ll help me?” he asked, shocked. “You’ll help me find the book even after-”

“Well, yeah, I said I would didn’t I? Caleb,” she sighed and rubbed her forehead. “I’m really not the best person for this. He’s hurting people. You just told me, you realize you have a responsibility now.”

“Which is?”

“To take that mother fucker down!”

“That’s why I need that book.”

She frowned. “Is that book gonna take him down?” she asked. “Is that really why you want it?”

“Among other things.”

“What are you hoping is in this book?”

He sighed and met her eyes. “Anybody can make lights. Anybody can send a message through wire. I want to bend reality to my will.”

“Do you realize how much responsibility that is? You really want to have that much power?”

“Are you going to help me or not?”

She started to say something but groaned in frustration and turned away. Caleb started planning the quickest way out of town but she turned back to him and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll help you get the fucking book.”

“And obviously, please keep this secret.”

“Who the fuck am I going to tell?” He gave her a serious look and she waved dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll keep it secret. It’s nothing to be ashamed of though.” His own laughter surprised him and she gave him a sad look. He hadn’t thought that Beau’s face was capable of making that kind of face. “We’ll figure this out.” She started towards one of the ladders that lead up to the top but they both froze when library door was thrown open violently.

Caleb had a spell called to his fingers before he realized it but let it fall away when he recognized Jester’s face.

“Beau?” she called, gasping and leaning against the railing. “Beau!”

Beau stepped away from the ladder and into her line of sight. “Jes? What’s the matter?”

“Molly! Molly and Yasha! Your parents had the entire carnival arrested!” She hurried over to the nearest ladder and climbed down to her. “Like my mother! They got arrested for kidnapping you!”

“What, all of them?”

Jester made it to the bottom and was gasping to catch her breath as she stopped in front of her friend, shaking her head. “Gustav, the flashy elf guy you saved? He was convicted of the kidnapping, like my momma. No bail, in jail for life. Everyone else they called accessories to kidnapping. Five years.”

Beau frowned. “How much is bail for the whole lot?”

“4000 gold for everyone. 200 each.”

Beau bit her lip and turned to stare out the window. “Shit,” she hissed.

“We have to help them, right? They helped save you, they came back for you.”

Beau frowned but nodded. “I know. I’m just… Shit, shit, fuck.” She turned sharply and started climbing up the ladder.

“Are you going to take the money from your parents?” Caleb asked, curiously as he moved to follow along.

“No, they’d notice.”

Jester and Caleb exchanged a glance but followed her up to the second level and then down the hall to her bedroom. She huffed as she flipped her mattress over and onto the floor. Strangely, the mattress jingled. “Beau?” Jester asked. “What are you doing?”

She started to dig through a hole in her mattress and tossed out bags of coins. “I’ve been saving this up for years. Whenever I could find loose coins around the house, or if I thought I could get away with sneaking a little bit away.” One bag clanged against the floor at Jester’s feet. Two, three, four. As Beau pulled out the final bag and tossed it to her she sighed and leaned back against the mattress with her legs stretched out in front of her. “Should be 4300 in there, I want my change back.”

Jester’s jaw dropped and she looked between Beau and and money. “Really? You want to spend your savings?”

The girl shrugged. “Whatever, I have tons left. It’ll be fine. Just take it down to town tonight, I don’t want it in this house in case someone finds it. Stay in a hotel, a nice one with a safe. Lock it in and pay the bail in the morning.”

Jester scooped up the bags and hid them under the fluffy dress. She nodded. “Right away. And Beau… I love you.”

Beau smiled at her and waved. “I love you too. Tell Molly to go fuck himself.”

Jester left the room and Caleb came over to help Beau right her mattress. “How much do you really have left?” he asked when she collapsed, exhausted, on the fussed mattress.

“Ten gold.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “That was for you and Jester, wasn’t it?”

“Well, it’s not like I had much choice. I can’t just leave them in there because my parents are pieces of shit. Besides, The Gentleman is going to set aside some of the profit from the winery. We won’t be penniless at least.”

Caleb nodded and looked between her and the open door. “About what we discussed?”

Beau dismissed him with a wave. “Yeah, yeah. I’m working on it. We can’t do shit while my dad’s in his office, I need to think of a way to distract him. This may all take more than a week if we want to do it right. So much for you getting out of my hair.”

He cleared his throat and started towards the door. “Thank you, Beauregard.”

“Fuck you. Get out.”

Caduceus woke up the following morning and stretched as the rising sun filtered in through his window. Birds chirped in the tree outside and he stopped to refill the feeder he kept there. “Hello, birds,” he said, smiling at them. He got dressed at his own pace. He was technically off today, but injuries wouldn’t wait until Monday and since he was going to be spending his day in the herb garden which was right out the exit door of the infirmary, he might as well be prepared for someone to wander in looking for assistance. He picked up his straw hat and his gardening tools and left his room, humming to himself as she walked the empty halls to the infirmary. There was already someone inside when he pushed open the door and he frowned sadly. “Beau? Are you okay?”

She turned to him and wiped at the blood that was leaking from her lip down her chin. Her eye was red and quickly swelling and her cheek was turning a nasty color of blue. She gave him a grin and then winced when the movement pulled at her injured lip. “Course I’m fine. Look at me, I’m the picture of health.”

He sighed and sat down his supplies to walk over to her. He took her face and gently turned it this way and that. “I take you’ve already seen your father this morning?”

She cleared her throat and finally looked away, but nodded. “Yeah. Trina left. Went to work for a new winery that just opened up in town. He called me into his office to work out his frustrations.”

He reached up and ran his glowing thumb over her lip until it healed completely. There was still a red stain leading from her injury and down her chin and neck. “This is getting worse, Beauregard. You asked me to let you handle it and I will, but at this rate he will kill you.”

He healed the cut on her eye and the swelling deflated back to normal. She reached up to pat his hand reassuringly. “I’ve got it handled, Deucie. I promise. I’m not dying in this goddamn house even if I have to crawl my way out in the end.” She reached up to give his shoulder a friendly squeeze and moved to leave.

“That’s not better, Beau. Just because you smirk when you say it doesn’t make it better.”

She shrugged and didn’t look back at him. “Makes it feel better. I’ll take what I can get. Thanks, Deuce, I’ll see you later.”

Beau left the infirmary and walked out the main door to see if she could meet Jester coming back from the prison. She walked out to the gates and started pacing along the boundary as she waited for her friend to appear. She heard the horses before she saw them rise up over a hill. She stepped out of the road and the carriage came to a stop in front of her. “Jes?” she called, giving the driver a quick wave. “Morning, Jim,” she said, reaching for the door and pulling open.

Jester scrambled out of the cabin and shut the door behind her before Beau could look inside and gave her friend a strained smile. “Beau! I wasn’t expecting you to meet me here.”

Beau frowned and tried to reach around her. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing! Nothing, why would you think I was hiding anything?”

“Because you’re acting squirrely.”

“That’s not squirrely, this is squirrely.” She pulled back her lip to show off her buck teeth and started chittering like a rodent.

Beau chuckled. “Very cute, but seriously, Jes, what’s-”

She pulled open the door and a body fell out. Molly stumbled as he tried to catch himself and then posed like nothing had happened. “Hello, Beau! Good to see you again. How are you?”

Beau frowned and turned to Jester who was biting her lip and avoiding her eyes. “What is he doing here?”

“Yasha is here too,” Molly said, pointing in the carriage. A large pale hand just reached out of the door and gave a little wave before going back inside.

“Jester, what are they doing here? I thought you were going to free them and then send them on their way.”

“Well, see, since Gustav doesn’t have any bail we couldn’t get him out. And without Gustav there’s not really a circus. So Gustav closed the circus and Molly and Yasha didn’t have anywhere to go so…”

“So your friend kindly offered us jobs at your mansion here!” Molly said, grinning like he didn’t notice Beau’s distress.

Jester grabbed her arm when she saw Beau’s hand start to form a fist. “Listen, just listen, okay? Don’t be upset. Your parents don’t even know what they look like, they won’t realize who they are.”

Beau sighed heavily and scrubbed angrily at her face. “Fine! Fine. I’ll think of something. In the meantime, you two fuckers stay the hell out of sight. If my parents see you before I can think of an excuse for you to be here they will kill you. I’m not kidding.”

Molly bowed with a flourish. “Your wish is my command, Boss Lady.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I knew it would bother you, Boss Lady, that’s why I said it.”

Beau frowned and waved at the carriage. “Just get in. Jim, back to the house please?”

They all squeezed into the carriage and Beau couldn’t even enjoy the fact that her thigh was pressed against Yasha’s because in her mind all she saw was all the ways this could go terribly wrong.

[fidgemimic]

Anyway Beau fucking hates the new wizards for like the first month or two. Also this gets rambly and fic-layout-y as hell. i am very tired and have a headache so bls forgive me

Beau hates both of these new Zemnian assholes to be entirely honest, but she’s willing to give them an iota of a chance after everything finally goes down and the immediate ramifications of turning the Empire’s greatest war mages/archmages into traitors are done with.

She’s absolutely not the only one that doesn’t trust them - fuck not even Caleb trusts them completely and he’s the reason they even bothered to defect in the first place. But the gang at this point is willing to put enough trust into them that they won’t just straight up slaughter them all in a heartbeat.

It doesn’t help that they’re both disgustingly proper.

Backs still ramrod straight, hands folded neatly in their lap or attentively behind their backs. They make eye contact with anyone who dares to speak no matter who it’s too. They’re attentive and quiet - and the nein can see them calculating scenarios and escape routes and weaknesses in their heads any time someone dares to move.

Eodwulf, to everyone’s benefit, seems to easily swap between the cold persona into one that’s a little too competent socially to not be forced and practiced to perfection over the years. He can easily hold a conversation with Fjord and Clay, even drawing laughter from Jester at his quips and playing along with her strange stories; Though not the ones about the Traveller. 

(The first time she mentions him, things suddenly go horribly, terribly wrong. He doesn’t hurt her, of course, but they can feel the air change. He snaps into another personality entirely - disgusted and enraged at the concept that he’s sitting with a heretic of all people. It’s like something cruel has taken over him, drawing curses and cruelty from his lips that bring Jester to tears before anyone even fully realizes the situation. It’s not the first time it happens, but it startles everyone - Eodwulf included. Jester doesn’t receive an apology until much later, once Caleb pulls him away from the group and speaks to him quietly. No one cares to ask what was said - not until Jester grows curious a few days later and asks Wulf. Beauregard only barely overhears it - glaring daggers at the half elf all the same. 

“He said that it was.... it was hard to relearn what should be - what is - acceptable. Hard to relearn what it is normal people see as being non-issues. It’s no excuse for my horrid behavior, but it is... difficult... to know after so long.”

Beauregard.... hates him a little less for that. He’s dangerous, and she keeps an eye on him, but it’s easier to remember that he’s not the first or only person who’s had these issues before. If she speaks to Caleb later about what to expect, it’s for the safety of the group - obviously. She needs to know what she needs to look out for so that she can swoop in and roundhouse kick a bitch in the throat if push comes to shove. But if she manages to catch the hints - the sudden stillness, the tightening of his jaw, the impulsive twitch of fingers as if readying a spell - she jumps in and distracts him with a flourish and desperate ease that would’ve made Molly proud. Eodwulf is easy to decipher once you know what the signs are.

Astrid, however, is not.

She radiates an air of authority that would make Beau sick if it wasn’t from a woman that was just so fucking hot. Where Eodwulf finds a place to integrate himself socially, Astrid sits back and watches from just far enough away that it’s obvious she’s not really part of the team.

It’s intentional - and she’s said as much to the rest when they ask her about it.

“I have little reason to trust that the lot of you won’t kill me tonight. I am fine here. Thank you.”

Beau can tell that Caleb is torn with this information. He’s been torn since the two of them arrived - all three of them have been desperately trying to figure out where they stand with each other in a way that The Nein would find hilarious if it wasn’t a rom-com script stitched together with trauma and guilt and all of the disgusting waste the empire had tried to shove down their throats.

Caleb and Eodwulf are the only two willing to approach her for conversation with positive results. Fjord had tried and given up after two weeks of clipped answers and obvious disinterest. Clay wanders over from time to time with his teapot and empty stories to try and ensure she doesn’t feel left out. She never drinks his tea - not even pretending to in the way that Clay often pretends to drink liquor - but he hardly seems to mind.

No one knows what it is that causes the outburst. One moment, they’re surrounding the fire, chatting aimlessly while Clay’s slow drawl acts as white noise in the background. Then the loud crash of ceramic shattering against the ground bring everyone to silence. Their eyes are drawn to the duo behind them, where Clay sits as calm as ever - his eyes only marginally wider to indicate the barest hint of shock. His teapot lay in pieces on the ground between them.

Astrid raises from her spot, cup still cradled in her hands before she deliberately allows that to slip and shatter on the ground as well.

“Oh, how unfortunate. Clumsy me.” 

When she wanders off, it’s Eodwulf that followers behind her, with Caleb nervously trailing close behind.

Beauregard approaches Clay as he works from his place on the ground, carefully picking up shards of what used to be beautifully painted ceramic.

“It’s no issue, Ms Beauregard. Simply an oversight on my part - I must have upset her and not noticed. It can be fixed easily, no harm done.”

The three wizards return not 10 minutes later. Astrid is silent, as are Eodwulf and Caleb. There is no apology, no attempt to speak to her, only the same carefully blank expression that’s been on her face since the day they found her. Something about the simple lack of remorse or empathy makes Beau’s skin crawl.

Beauregard hates Astrid.

And she makes damn sure that she shows it. 

Beauregard grants this woman none of the ‘pleasantries’ she gives her friends - drudging up every ounce of malice that she has and directing it solely towards this woman. Astrid is everything she hates wrapped into a package in just the right manner that she doesn’t want to tear her limb from limb immediately. She’s the embodiment of the empire, of everything wrong with it and what it does to people. She’s cruel and calculating and Beau can’t help but imagine how quickly and easily this woman could end all of their lives. Poison their food stores while she keeps a small sachel of her own rations close.How easy it would be for her to slip close enough to Caleb to slit his throat with a hiss of ‘traitor’ on her lips even after all he’s done to get them to safety.

She feels predictable and not all at once. It throws Beau for a loop when Astrid finally - finally - responds to her constsant prodding. Not with anger, but with a smile.

The woman is quick-witted and cold. Her words are like daggers being driven into every weak spot Beauregard has and it’s a show of power that drives her fucking insane with how easily the quips come to her. The only thing keeping The Mighty Nein from tearing them apart is the reactions that the fight seems to garner from Eodwulf and Caleb of all people. 

The two of them are huddled together, muttering and chuckling in Zemnian. They commentate with small gasps and giggles and muttered ‘oh, sheisse’s that - through the anger and annoyance - remind Beau of the catty assholes she used to go to school with as a young girl. It doesn’t help that Astrid seems to feed off of their strange new relationship, and in the midst of it all Beauregard realizes something:

This, the woman that’s tearing into her with abandon and thriving off of the attention of her two best friends, the woman who’s catty and self-assured - not because she knows she has power and statusadn training - but because she knows she’s clever enough to out-shittalk someone, is the closest they’ve gotten to seeing who she is.

She’s not sure why she decided to keep it going after that. She found what she was looking for - a small note that Astrid wasn’t just some hollowed out war machine. Something that showed her that there was still a person in there. Hell, she found the tattered remains of Something in all three of them that she hardly expected. 

But Astrid was quick to leave them again - back ramrod straight and shoulder squared. Face carefully neutral. Beau, in all of her horrible terrible no good very bad wisdom, continued the fight for as long as she could, as often as she could.

It was slow going, and every so often Astrid would fall completely silent and unresponsive to Beauregard’s jabs in a way that was uncomfortably familiar, but over time it didn’t even take Beau’s stupid attempts at fighting for Astrid to make quips and clever comments to other members of the team.

It felt like a miracle at that point.

As much as Beau wanted to continue hating Astrid after that point - as much as she wanted to still hold that bone-deep distrust that made sure she had a hand around her staff any time either of those fuckers get closer to one of her friends, she found that she couldn’t. Not really. They were doing better, and if she ever admitted to the fact that she was a little bit proud and a little bit protective of them at this point, she would have to throw herself off a cliff or something.

They were the ghosts of people, slowly but surely remembering who they could have been if everything hadn’t gone so fucking horribly. If she noticed the way that Caleb’s nervous half-smiles turned into stupid childish grins any time Eodwulf or Astrid said anything in Zemnian, or if she noticed how they slowly started to lay their bedrolls out next to each other with less and less space between them each night - that’s not her fuckin problem. That’s not her bullshit garbage ‘friends-to-lovers’ ‘hurt/comfort’ drama novel plot, and she could frankly care less so long as it was a decision that they got to make themselves.

[georgecostanzaatemysoup]

Sorry for the wait, Anon, I went to bed last night before I could finish this. I plan on posting it on AO3 as soon as my net stops being sketchy. I will also look through this when my net stops being slow. Thank you for the prompt :)

AO3

It’s a small, red book. Caleb finds it nestled in between a thick volume about fungus and a trashy romance novel that he’d read years ago. He picks up the book, thumbing through the pages. There’s nothing remarkable about the book, but he carries it up to the counter anyway.

He sets it down, smiling at the elf manning the shop, and asks, “How much for this?”

“That?” The elf stares at the book for a long moment before shrugging. “Three silver. It’s been here forever. Be glad to see it gone.”

Caleb nods, pushing the coins across the counter at the elf, and picks up the book. “Thank you.”

“No, really, thank you.”

Caleb leaves the little shop, opening the book, and begins to read the first few paragraphs. It’s not a very interesting book, he’s not even sure who the main character is, but he can’t bring himself to put it down. Maybe if he read on a bit more, he’ll find something worth talking about with one of the others. Most likely Nott. Maybe Fjord. Would Fjord be interested in this book? Is Fjord interested in any book?

He bumps into someone, murmuring an apology, face still buried in his book. He hears them grumble after him, but he keeps moving. He’s sure they’re fine.

He gets back to the inn they’re staying at a few minutes later, bumping into three or four more people on the way, and falls into a random chair near the fire. The chatter around him turns into a low hum, the crackling fire merely white noise as he lets himself get lost in the book. He still doesn’t see what’s so interesting about it, but he keeps reading anyway.

Molly notices Caleb’s absence first, looking towards the door curiously, and lightly kicks Fjord under the table.

“What?”

“You notice someone missing?” Molly asks, gesturing to the table. They’d planned to meet at the tavern after their supply run, intending to have dinner together before everyone headed back to the inn for the night.

Fjord scans the table, counting heads, eyebrows furrowing when he realizes Caleb’s missing. “Hey, Nott, where’s Caleb?”

“What?” she looks around, eyes wide. “He said he was just going to stop by that Bits and Baubles shop for a few minutes. He wasn’t with either of you?” They shakes their heads. She turns to Jester and Beau. “What about you two?”

“Perhaps he’s back at the inn?” Jester suggests, a little worried, but still trying to sound positive. “I could go check.”

“Nah, I’ll do it,” Fjord says, getting to his feet.

“I’ll come with you,” Molly offers and he nods, heading towards the door, Molly on his heels.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Molly says once they’re outside, jogging alongside Fjord to keep up with his long strides. “Wow, you’re quick when you’re worried.”

“Not worried,” Fjord lies, speeding up just a little, and Molly sighs but quickens his pace, too.

They make it to the inn a few minutes later, Fjord bursting in intending to ask the lady behind the counter if she’d seen Caleb, only to sag against the door when he finds him sitting by the fire, nose buried in a book.

“Oh thank the gods,” he whispers, putting a hand to his forehead, letting his eyes drift closed in relief. He takes a moment to gather himself before opening his eyes and pushing away from the door, slowly crossing the room and taking a seat next to Caleb.

Molly follows him, leaning over Caleb’s chair, and gently pulls on his ear. He jumps, forcing himself to look up from the book, and offers Fjord and Molly a sheepish grin. “Oh, no, did I miss dinner?”

“Uh, no,” Fjord responds, shaking his head. “No, you didn’t miss dinner.”

Molly watches as Caleb’s eyes drift towards the book, and he tugs on Caleb’s ear again. His head pops up and he turns and scowls at Molly. “Stop.”

“Good book?” Molly asks curiously, looking down at the red cover. It’s a small book, bound in leather, and knowing Caleb he’s probably already read it twice since buying it.

“I don’t...” Caleb shrugs, looking down at the pages again. “I guess,” he mutters, eyes roaming over the words. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, maybe you should close the book, come to dinner, and finish it later,” Fjord suggests, reaching out to shut the book, but Caleb jumps up with surprising speed and moves away from him, hurrying up the steps to their room, nose still firmly buried in that book.

Fjord’s eyes follow his progress, forehead creasing with worry, and Molly reaches out to rub away the wrinkles, startling him, smiling when he scowls. “You’re much too pretty for wrinkles.”

Flushing, Fjord grumbles, “Stop it.” He looks back towards the stairs, chewing on his lip, and says, “I’m gonna keep an eye on him; let the girls know, okay?”

Molly sighs but nods, squeezing Fjord’s shoulder, and walks out of the inn. He can’t help worriedly looking towards the stairs before closing the door.

Dawn finds Caleb sitting on the floor under the window, his candle having burned out a long time ago, still reading the book. He’s certain he should have finished it a long time ago, certain it hadn’t been this long, but he’s no closer to the end.

Frustrated, he turns another page, gripping the book tightly. He just needs to make it to the end; he can make it to the end.

“Hey, man, did you not sleep?” Beau asks from the doorway, coming back from using the water closet.

Caleb shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the book. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? You look sorta...” she hisses softly and Caleb can almost picture her fingers curling into claws. “You know?”

Annoyed, Caleb turns another page and snaps, “No, I don’t know. Leave me alone.”

“Whoa, man, calm down. I’m sure that’s a great book, but it’ll be there after some sleep.”

“I said I’m fine.” Caleb scrambles to his feet, almost dropping his book, and storms out of the room, the door cracking against the wall when he shoves it open, rattling the windows.

He doesn’t look back when Beau calls his name, nor does he notice when he wakes the others; his face buried in the book, eyes darting frantically across the words. He needs to make it to the end.

“Caleb’s never acted like this before,” Nott says softly, looking up at the others. “He does get a little annoyed when he’s in the middle of a book and someone tries talking to him, but he’s never snapped at anyone.”

“Something is wrong with that book,” Beau says from across the room, fixing the handle on her stick. “We should burn it.”

“Can a book be evil?” Jester asks curiously from the foot of one of the beds, looking between Molly and Fjord.

“We live in a world where magic and monsters exist,” Molly states, slowly, tapping his tail against the floor. “I’d be surprised if there weren’t some evil books lying around, but I’m banking on cursed object.”

“Where did you say Caleb went yesterday?” Fjord looks over at Nott, who sits cross legged in the middle of the other bed, her eyes wide with worry.

“Uh, Bits and Baubles. It’s a secondhand shop the lady at the apothecary told us about. Caleb told me I didn’t have to come with if I didn’t want to, and I would have but...” she pulls a ring out of her pocket, holding it up for the others to see. “I saw it and I just...” she wraps her long, green fingers around it and shoves it back in her pocket. She grabs her flask off her hip, taking a long sip from it, and replaces it. “We could go ask about the book?”

Fjord nods, looking over at Molly, raising an eyebrow in a silent question.

“I’m up for another shopping trip,” Molly says, grabbing his coat off the back of the door.

“Ooh, I will come, too,” Jester says jumping to her feet.

“I’ll stay here, keep an eye on Caleb,” Beau says, resting her stick against the wall and getting up from her chair.

“I’ll stay with you,” Nott offers and Beau smiles at her.

“Okay, we’ll meet back here in an hour. And Nott.” She looks over at Fjord. “If you feel like Caleb’s gonna be a danger to anyone or himself let us know with that fancy thread thing you do. Okay?”

She nods. “I will.”

Jester swings the door back and forth, giggling when the bell jingles. Fjord notices the elf manning the shop scowling and gently pulls her away from the door, guiding her inside, listening as Molly shuts the door.

“I like your bell,” Jester tells the elf, smiling sweetly.

“I don’t,” he grumbles, wrinkling his nose. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, our friend can in here earlier,” Fjord says, stepping up to the counter and leaning against it.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” the elf says, leaning back on his heels and crossing his arms. “People come and go all day.”

“He has red hair, blue eyes...”

“Kinda smelly,” Jester calls from behind a shelf, laughing softly, and Fjord has to hold back a sigh. She’s probably reorganizing stuff again.

“About my height,” Molly supplies, slowly wandering around the shop, poking at objects. “Has a bit of an accent.”

“He might have bought a book,” Fjord adds helpfully.

“A book?” The elf thinks a minute, nodding slowly, and says, “I might remember him. If it’s the guy I’m thinking about, he bought some old book for a few silver. I wasn’t sad to see it go. It’s been here since my father opened this shop.”

“Do you know what the book is called? Or where your father got it?”

The elf shrugs. “He opened this shop well before I was born, so I don’t know much about it. I do know an elderly man sold it to him, along with a few other things.”

“And where is your father?” Molly asks curiously, returning to Fjord’s side.

The elf sighs softly, uncrossing his arms, and says, “He died ten years ago. Left me his shop.” He looks around the place, lips twisting into a bitter smile, and he shakes his head. “Should have let my sister have it.”

“Thank you,” Fjord says with a nod, following Molly towards the door, calling Jester’s name.

She skips past the counter, but stops, staring the elf in the eyes. She reaches into her bag, pulling out a bronze coin, and sets it gently on the counter. “May The Traveler be with you, friend.”

Eyes narrowed, the elf looks down at the coin and grunts, “Thanks.”

“Good day.”

Once outside, Fjord leans against the building, running a hand through his hair, and says, “Well, that didn’t help.”

“Maybe we can ask around, see if anyone...”

“Fjord, Fjord, Fjord!” Nott’s frantic voice startles Fjord, and he stumbles back into Molly, cutting him off.

Molly catches his shoulders and sets him back on his feet. “You okay?”

Fjord holds up a finger, listening to Nott. “Caleb is gone. Beau and I can’t find him! FJORD!!”

“We gotta go.”

Caleb trips over a root, barely catching himself, and continues deeper into the woods. He’s tried putting the book down twice, knowing deep down he shouldn’t be this obsessed with it, but a nagging voice in the back of his head keeps telling him he needs to finish it. He needs to reach the ending; if he could only reach the ending then everything would be fine.

He eventually stops in the middle of the forest, settling against one of the trees, and sits down heavily, clutching the book tightly in his hands. If he’s being honest he’s scared, really really scared, and he’d like nothing more than to put this books down and be done with it.

He just wants to be done.

“Caleb please answer,” Nott says, toying with her thread. She’s been trying to reach him for the past twenty minutes, but she’s been getting nothing but white noise. “Please answer me.”

“Anything?” Fjord asks hopefully, face falling when Nott shakes her head. “Keep trying.”

“I will.”

Molly and Beau are out asking around, hoping someone saw which direction Caleb ran off in, while Jester is upstairs asking her patron for guidance. Fjord feels helpless, sitting down here, pacing back and forth, knowing he should be doing something but not knowing what exactly.

He stops pacing, leaning against the front desk, resting his head against the wood. He should have taken that book away from Caleb yesterday, should have grabbed it out of his hands and ran away with it. Took it as far away from him as he could go; threw it off a cliff, into the water, into a fire; just destroyed the fucking thing. He should have done something, but what harm could come from reading a book.

Apparently a lot.

The door bursts open and Molly and Beau race inside, both talking over each other, and Fjord picks his head up. He looks between the two, trying to piece together what they’re saying, feeling his last thread of patience break.

He lets out a frustrated breath and yells, “Enough!” Abruptly, both stop talking, and Fjord sighs softly, rubbing his forehead. “Just, just tell me if anyone saw him.”

“He’s in the woods,” Jester announces from the top of the stairs.

Fjord turns, watching her rush down the stairs. “Are you sure?”

“Never question The Traveler, Fjord,” she replies, patting his shoulder as she skips past him, hurrying out the door.

“Let’s go,” Fjord says and the others nod, following Jester outside.

“What are we going to do when we find him?” Molly asks curiously, ducking under a branch to avoid cracking his forehead.

“I’m gonna rip that fucking book out of his hands and set it on fire,” Fjord answers gruffly, trampling wild plant life as he stomps through the woods.

“Okay but what about with Caleb?”

“What about Caleb?”

“What are you going to do with him?” Molly keeps his voice light, but he can’t help wondering if Caleb might try to fight back if they took his book. He’d snapped at Beau for suggesting he stop reading for a bit; ran away from Fjord when he tried to close it. What would happen if they destroyed it completely? “It might kill...”

Fjord stops abruptly, turning around to face Molly. “Caleb ain’t dying today. You hear me? That fucking book’s not gonna kill him. He’s gonna be fine.” Despite the anger visibly etched across his face, Molly sees the anguish and desperation in his eyes.

With a kind smile, Molly starts, “But if he’s not...?”

All the fight leaves Fjord and he sighs, burying his face in his hands. He breathes deeply, once, twice, before slowly lowering his hands and saying, “We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.” He turns and starts walking again. “Come on!”

“Has he answered you, yet?” Beau asks curiously, squinting into the darkness, hoping to see something. She curses her stupid, human eyes.

“No,” Nott answers glumly, worriedly wrapping her thread around her finger. “You don’t think he’s dead do you?”

“Of course not,” Jester exclaims, grabbing Beau’s hand and making her jump. “Come on, I will guide you.”

Dumbfounded, Beau murmurs, “Okay.”

“B-but he could be.”

“Nott, I promise, he is not,” Jester says, looking back at her with a kind smile. “The Traveler would have told me.”

Skeptical, Nott nods slowly and follows the other two deeper into the woods, trying to contact Caleb again.

Fjord sees Caleb first, huddled under a tree, shivering slightly, face still buried in that stupid book. His coat, Fjord recalls, sits abandoned in the chair back in their room, and he curses himself for not thinking to grab it.

He nudges Molly, pointing in Caleb’s direction, and the two hurry forward. When he’s within touching distance, Molly shrugs off his blue coat and gently lays it over Caleb’s shoulders, gently patting his shoulder.

Caleb doesn’t acknowledge them, forehead furrowed in concentration, eyes flicking back and forth as he frantically reads his book. He looks tired, ugly dark circles under his eyes, and Fjord resits the urge to pull him into a hug.

He looks over at Molly and whispers, “When I take the book, I want you to grab him and hold him back. No matter what happens, don’t let him go, okay?”

Molly hesitates for a brief moment before nodding, hovering over Caleb, readying himself just in case he started fighting them. Fjord takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and snatches the book from Caleb’s fingers.

“No,” Caleb exclaims, reaching for it, but Molly wraps his arms around him, holding him in place, watching as Fjord quickly backs away. “Fjord, please, give it back. Please.”

“Caleb, this book is killing you,” Fjord says calmly, trying to ignore the sudden urge to open it and start reading it. “We gotta...” he shakes his head, clutching the book tightly. “We gotta destroy it.”

“Please, Fjord, please don’t. Don’t.”

Caleb’s pleading grounds Fjord, reminds him why they’re here, and he’s able to push past his urge, looking right at Molly. “Keep him here. I’m gonna take care of this and we’ll find the girls. Okay?”

Molly nods, worry and doubt flickering across his face, and he tightens his hold on Caleb, resting his chin on top of his head, flinching when small whimpers escape Caleb’s lips.

“I’m sorry,” Fjord says softly to Caleb and carries the book deeper into the woods, shoulders stiffening when he hears him yell intelligibly at his back.

He walks a good twenty minutes before stopping, looking around the clearing. He finds a boulder, moss covered and oddly shaped, and sets the book down on it.

“You could use this power,” a sudden voice says in the back of his head, but Fjord ignores it. “Think about this before you destroy it.”

Fjord conjures his sword, gripping it tightly, and says, “Should have thought about that before it hurt my friend.” He brings the sword down, slicing through the book, and somewhere in the distance he hears an anguished wail. He swings at the book once, twice, three times more before he drops his sword, falling to his knees, burying his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry.”

Fjord slowly walks up the stairs, the murmurs from his friends following him up the steps, and he quietly pushes their room’s door open. He stops in the doorway, watching Caleb sleep, curled over on his side, blanket pulled up to his chin, breathing slow and even. He’s been asleep since they returned to the inn, having leaned heavily against Molly the entire walk back, and Fjord would be lying if he said he isn’t worried.

He moves across the room, hovering over the bed, hesitating for a few seconds, before slowly lowering himself onto the bed, turning over on his side so he’s facing Caleb, his head on the very edge of the pillow.

He reaches out, brushing hair off his forehead, drawing his hand back when Caleb stirs. He rubs his face against the pillow, murmuring, “Fjord?”

“Yeah,” Fjord whispers, watching as Caleb blinks his eyes open. He still looks tired, could probably use a week’s worth of sleep, and Fjord’s willing to spend every single piece of gold he has on this room if that’s what Caleb wants to do; he’s willing to do a lot to ensure he stays safe.

“What happened? Where are we?”

“We’re back at the inn,” Fjord answers softly. “What do you remember?”

Confusion flickers in Caleb’s eyes for a few seconds before realization hits and he closes his eyes, pressing his face into the pillow. He’s quiet a moment, before turning his head and asking, “Are the others upset with me?” The unspoken are you is like a stab to Fjord’s heart.

“No one is mad at you,” Fjord reassures him, reaching out to brush his hair back from his forehead again. “Everyone’s worried as hell, but we’re not mad.”

Caleb’s eyes drift shut when Fjord runs his fingers across his forehead, and he mumbles, “I’m sorry.”

Fjord fights to keep the anger off his face, forcing himself to sound calm when he says, “It’s not your fault. It’s that book’s fault.”

“I didn’t want to read it,” Caleb explains, opening his eyes. “I just couldn’t stop.”

“I know.” Fjord leans forward, lightly kissing his forehead. “It’s gone now. I destroyed it.”

Caleb grabs his hand, squeezing it, and worriedly asks, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he replies, but the words feel a bit like a lie. “Are you okay?”

“I’m tired,” Caleb admits, yawning widely, pulling Fjord’s arm around him, burrowing into his side. “Stay with me for a bit, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Fjord watches as he goes back to sleep, breath warm against his cheek, nose pressed into the side of his neck. He rests his chin on top of Caleb’s head, running his fingers through his hair, murmuring softly against his cheek.

He lets his eyes slip closed, opening them suddenly when he remembers Caleb’s wail of pain when he sliced through that book, flinching internally. He fights the urge to apologize again, knowing that if he gives in, he won’t be able to stop apologizing.

[kinosternon]

Names Gone Before

Fandom: The Adventure Zone (Podcast) Words: 3,134 (complete)  Characters: Angus McDonald & Taako Rating: T (canon-typical language)

Ao3

Summary: Angus is caught by Tres Horny Boys in the process of destroying evidence on a quick jaunt to his hometown. 

Taako figures out what's going on, and decides to help him.

(scroll to the bottom for warnings)

"Whatcha doing over there, little guy?"

It's Magnus that notices, which is strange, Angus thinks, because while Magnus is strong and has a fairly high emotional intelligence, he wouldn't have considered him the most observant of the Bureau of Balance's legendary Reclaimers. His brain's running at top speeds for the past minute as he'd used every, considerable, talent at his disposal to get away from the rest of the team without attracting notice. He'd gotten up on tiptoe, as necessary, and gotten the sign down with one assertive tug, but the tearing had been more audible than he'd anticipated, his bounce just a bit too eye-catching, and now he was in a bit of a sticky situation.

He'd heard that this trip surface-side today was a "training mission," but it was obviously just a glorified grocery run, in the wake of complaints about the monotony of the Bureau dinner menu that Angus suspected had finally made their way up to the Director. Who better to pick out the finest ingredients than Taako, after all? Upon hearing this reasoning, Angus had volunteered himself to show them around the downtown area closest to where he'd grown up. He'd cut his teeth there, after all, learning the ins and outs of adventuring, and thus knew all the best places to shop for the freshest, highest-quality ingredients at bargain prices! Besides, he'd said, he wanted to see if there had been any major changes, since he still had "a hint of sentimental fondness for the place."

It was around there in his explanation that the last dregs of Merle's, Taako's, and Magnus's already spare interest had faded once and for all. Which was good—moments like those were the best to sneak in lies.

The truth was, there had been a small doubt, a sense of a vital detail overlooked, creeping up on Angus for a little while, only recently growing to the point of a full-fledged hunch, and he'd wanted to follow up on it. He'd really, really hoped he was wrong, but it had turned out he'd been right.

Even then, he'd thought, with the low level of the danger of the "mission," that he might be able to deal with the problem without alerting the others. He'd just bring back the evidence to the Director, have a brief, extremely awkward chat, and after that the matter could be safely laid to rest, with none of his friends ever the wiser as to the nature of his miscalculation, or even that he'd ever hidden anything about this at all.

Except, of course, it hadn't turned out that way, and even his genius mind, racing at close to maximum velocity, comes up with no way to avoid the fact that he's just been caught red-handed.

"Nothing," he says, and hides the paper he'd just taken down behind his back, crumpling it a bit in his small, sweaty hands.

This, as predicted, does absolutely nothing to stop the three of him from closing in on him.

"You know, I've got a pretty good nose for bullshit," Merle says, trying for off-handed but mainly just sounding petty, "and this don't smell like roses, that's all I'm saying."

"Each of you has a deep, dark mysterious backstory that you don't talk to anyone about," Angus says, pretending his shoulders aren't trying to permanently attach themselves to his ears as he backs up against the wall. "I'm Feyruun's number-one boy detective. Is it really so hard to believe that I might have some private matters of my own?" (A strapping young man keeps his shoulders wide and his stance assertive! He pulls up a mental image of Caleb Cleveland and tries again, unsuccessfully, to relax.)

"You're, like, five, little dude."

He feels his ears heat up, continues to ignore it. "Well, still!"

"Nope, pulling bigger-than-you privileges." Magnus, having closed the distance between them, reaches over and somehow manages to use all his considerable strength on Angus's fingers rather than the paper crumpled between them. Angus shakes them out to make the last of the sting go away, eyes glued to Magnus's face to see if the man can figure out his secret from the clues he's uncovered.

Magnus's face goes very serious, which is in character given what he's seeing, and he smooths the paper out with careful hands. Then he pauses, looks between Angus and the poster once or twice. "…wait, what?" he says finally, apparently still stumped. "Why are you taking down a missing child poster?"

"I, uh…well…" And as simple as that, there's a lie that doesn't even require lying. "That's one of the people the Void Fish is supposed to have erased, sir. Remember all those people I was supposed to be working cases for?"

Magnus frowns, clearly upset by the idea of erasing the memory of a child, but he folds up the poster and starts to hand it back to Angus. Suddenly there's a slender hand between them, though, and the paper is up in front of Taako's face. From his angle, all Angus can see is the elf's eyebrows settling into a frown.

"Yeah, cool story, kiddo," Taako drawls. "Does that explain why this kid has your last name?"

Busted, an entirely unhelpful part of Angus's internal monologue blares at him.

"I. Well. Uh," Angus stammers, and then tries his best to stop stammering because it's a bad habit. "It's a common name," he manages, but without enough assertion—none of them even seem to be paying him any attention anymore. Merle has sidled up behind Taako and is trying to read the poster, only Taako seems to be holding it higher on purpose. He cranes his neck to keep squinting at it, ignoring Merle's grumbling.

Then he stops, gives Angus a once-over, and blinks.

"Oh," Taako says, and then, "ohhhh. Right, okay."

And just like that, he takes the poster, tears it into little pieces, ignoring the others' protests and shoves the pieces into his bag. "Right, cool," he says, as the others continue to curse him out, more surprised than angry. Angus can only stare. "Let's go, amigos. Boy wonder over here took care of this, nothing more to see. We've got a mission, remember?"

"I don't think a food run really counts as a mission," Angus nit-picks automatically, even as he wonders if he sounds as relieved as he feels. "Actually, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that for the Director, getting you all off the moon to "blow off some steam" was an end unto itself…"

"Yeah, too much speculation, not enough boogeying." Somehow, Taako is already several strides ahead of the rest of them. "Are we doing this, or are we doing this? Thought so. Let's go."

When they return to the BoB headquarters, Merle loses the coin toss (instigated by Taako, who Angus is privately certain cheated) to carry the fruits of their shopping trip to the Bureau kitchen. Magnus gallantly offers to help, and as they leave Taako catches Angus's attention. "Hey, come on, twerp," he says.  "Mission to accomplish."

"What's that, sir?" Angus asks, but he follows despite Taako's lack of an answer, taking three steps for each of Taako's two. At least when he's not with Magnus, Taako walks a little slower, but he still knows his ways around cities, and it shows in the way he dodges well out of the way of the handful of Bureau employees they pass, keeping a brisk, businesslike pace. Taako leads Angus down the hallways to the center of the Bureau, deep down to where the Voidfish lives in its tank. The hallways empty as they approach, and when they arrive at the Voidfish's chamber there isn't anyone inside.

Angus has come down here once or twice, mainly to listen to Johann's music (even if it makes his head hurt afterwards, not being able to remember it properly), but he doesn't do it too often. A good detective knows to tread lightly around secrets.

Which apparently Taako does, too, because he reaches into his bag, and with a whisper of his Mage Hand spell, what every last scrap of the missing child poster drops into Angus's hands.

"Do the honors, kid," Taako says, gesturing at the tank.

"T-thank you, sir," Angus says, eyes on the mound of paper on his hand so he doesn't lose track of any scraps. "I'd thought I'd better talk to the Director about this, but if you think this'll be enough—”

"Day's a-wasting," Taako drawls. "Get that trash out of here, it's been too much trouble already."

"Y-yes, sir." Taako opens the little door to the tank open for him before Angus can figure out how to do it with his hands full, and he carefully lets the slips of paper flutter into the tank. They're caught up the water and swirl aimlessly for a second, before they seem to be drawn together by an invisible force—probably the current, Angus thinks, hypnotized. They disappear into the Voidfish's maw, and for a second Angus thinks he sees two sparks of a flicker. Then they go silent, and the Voidfish continues to drift aimlessly in the tank, as though there had never been any interruption.

Angus looks at the tank for another long moment, as though waiting for something, and then sighs. He turns back to Taako as though he's just remembered the elf was there, and he's waiting, one arm akimbo, the other fiddling with the handle of his umbre-staff.

"I don't know about you, Ango, but as far as I'm concerned this kind of info is on a strictly need-to-know basis." Taako gives him a hard look, one eyebrow raised. "If you thought the Director needed to know, you would've told her from the start, right?"

Angus swallows hard. "Are you mad at me, sir?" he asks.

"Nope," Taako says lightly, popping the p and turning away from the tank, looking thoroughly bored. "Oh, and also—and this is a one-time offer, by the way, no take-backs if you say no—if you wanna tell me anything else about this, now's the time. If not, then great, we can forget this little trip ever happened."

Angus feels a sick doubt sprouting in the pit of his stomach. It isn't that easy—it's never that easy. Still, it's one of the hardest things he's ever done to force out: "Sir, please wait."

"Nah," Taako says. "If we're having this conversation, we're having it in my room. It's drafty down here."

Taako brews up two old, stale tea bags from the Fantasy Costco when they get to his room. That's it—no snacks, just two chipped sale mugs, but it's more hospitality than Angus is used to, and given the dorms it's an unexpected luxury to have food outside the dining hall anyway. He watches Taako fold gracefully into a lounging position against a mountain of pillows and takes a seat on the floor within an easy line of sight. He ignores the faintly disapproving look Taako gives him at his choice of seat, wondering instead where exactly he'd managed to pilfer all those pillows from.

"I don't have all day," Taako prompts him idly, blowing on his tea. He takes a sip, winces, and blows on it again.

Angus, taking his cue, waits a little bit for his mug to cool before trying to take a sip. "From your reaction, Mister Taaco, I'm guessing you already know most of the story. I must admit, I'm not entirely sure where to start…?"

"Keep it simple. Is this why you've never talked much about your parents?" Taako asks. "I thought you were an orphan, but, well. More fool me, I suppose."

"Yes, sir. They…I told them about me, but it never really seemed to sink in. They didn't think I'd make much of a detective, either, but…well, my grandpa is—er, maybe was would be the better term—getting to the age where he didn't really mind what I did. His memory was going a bit, so when I reminded him I was his grandson, he…"

"He just went with it?"

"Yes, sir." Angus smiles a bit at the memory. The old man had immediately told him off for wearing ratty old oversized rags unbefitting any young gentleman, and had given him a small sack of gold and orders in no uncertain terms not to come back into the house until he stopped looking like a "ratty hooligan." The clothes made the man, Angus had read in multiple places, and in a way Angus McDonald, Boy Detective, had been born that very day. Or born again, at the very least.

But Angus, doubting that Taako wants to know that much detail, keeps it simple. "He let me do what I wanted, sir, as long as it was respectable. He never questioned it at all."

"I see." Taako slurps at his tea, long and loud, and makes a slight face. "Okay, so far this is really straightforward. What was it you wanted to say, exactly?"

Right. The hard part. Angus frowns. "Well, sir, just that…I'm a very good detective, so I notice things. I know this will change the way you see me, and that's okay, but, um, if you could please maybe try keep calling me 'he,' I'd really appreciate it."

For a split second, Taako looks at him with an expression that Angus, self-trained in the art of breaking down micro-expressions, reads as disgust. He quails a bit under the intensity of the look, but then Taako seems to shake himself, face going oddly blank, and then shrugs. "Already done in my book. Really don't see why it needs saying."

"I guess you'd be surprised, sir?" Angus says, more than a little lost. "Then, I guess, if you could maybe not tell the others…? There's a reason I like to keep this secret. You may or may not have guessed this, but people have a way of treating me…a bit differently, if they find out."

"No, I gotcha. I've got a pretty good idea where you're coming from."

Angus pauses, blinks, and then his eyes widen in rising concern. "Sir, are you…oh no, have I been using the wrong pronouns? I haven't, have I? Is 'sir' okay? You'd correct me if it weren't, right?"

"Huh?" It takes Taako a second to catch up, and then he waves his hands back and forth in denial. "No, no, beebs, not me. I just…huh. I don't know why I feel like I get what it's like. I just kinda do, somehow."

"Oh. Okay." Angus looks a bit confused, but like he isn't really questioning it. More thoughtful. Which is good, because Taako is kind of questioning it. He knows people like Angus, he's sure of it, but he's met and forgotten a lot of people, and this doesn't feel like an acquaintance-type thing. It's like a dimension in his brain has opened up that he'd forgotten about, neatly cataloguing the things that are a bit tricky for the kid, probably. He can't quite trace where about half of them come from, but whatever, they're assumptions anyway. No big.

Angus is fidgeting, too restless to hide behind his mug. "Look," Taako tells him. "I'm fine with never bringing this up again, if that's what you want. Your prerogative, boyo. But if there's something you want to say, just spill already."

"Well…" Angus frowns. "It's just that, if you don't mind my saying so, sir, you sometimes act…kind of flashy? Not in a bad way, it works really really well for you!" he rushes on, before Taako can give him any sort of response whatsoever. "But it makes me feel better too, because it could be interpreted as feminine but you don't seem to care. And neither do your friends."

"Well, sure," Taako says, shrugging. "Is there a point somewhere or did you just want to sort of awkwardly ramble about other people's style choices?"

"Well, it's just…no matter what, everyone still treats you like you. Sometimes I act more feminine than I want to, so it's good to see that your friends respect you just the same."

"The 'awe-inspiring wizard' part doesn't hurt with that," Taako admits, carding a hand through his hair and sighing. "But that's more important for strangers. The important thing is to be yourself. Live your truth, little dude. Worked for me all these years." He tilts his head to one side, putting it together. "Just to be clear, you do actually want to be doing this whole über-polite, dapper boy genius schtick, right? You're not just doing it for…I don't know, boy points?"

"No, sir!" Angus says. Taako might not give a flying fuck about micro-expressions, but he knows Angus—the kid's clever, but not a good enough liar to fake the happy crinkles around his eyes. "I really like being who I am right now."

"Cool. Then we're good, my man." Taako puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes for a moment before it's gone as casually as if it were never there. "Consider the matter closed. I'll cover you for the others if it comes up again."

Angus blinks rapidly for a second, then says, "Thank you, sir. I'd hate for them to treat me differently. I'd hate to be left out of the games and goofs, not now that I'm finally getting used to them. I hadn't really had the chance to participate in much rowdy boyish roughhousing before I met you guys."

Oh. Taako hadn't really thought before that there might be a reason that Angus has always gone along so readily with their pranks and teasing, but this explains a little more than he's entirely happy with. He makes a mental note, reluctantly, to keep an eye on Magnus's and Merle's teasing. It probably won't be a problem—the little twerp's grown on all of them somehow or other, by this point, even if none of them would admit it aloud. But the others don't know that Angus has even more to fear about fitting in with "the guys" than most little boys.

He finishes his tea in one long gulp. As far as Taako's concerned, that more or less settles things. Except…

"To be clear," he says, testing the waters, "I'm still gonna be calling you Agnes, kiddoleth. Unless you really, really hate it, in which case—”

"No, that's fine, sir." Angus beams. "That wasn't my birth name."

"Oh good," Taako says. "Because I'd hate it if you'd been stuck with a name like Angus out of an appreciation for wordplay, or something."

"Nope, it's a family name," Angus says, chest puffing up with pride as the barb bounces off entirely.

Yep, Taako decides. He's fine.

END

Warnings: Trans angst, mainly—some of the language and situations depicted may be significantly less than ideal, especially for people already sensitive to the topic. Nothing that should be outright offensive, though, hopefully. 

[ivadeshin]

Pasadena Iced Coffee (4/?)

(Sequel to Five Soda Maximum. Catch up on previous chapters on Ao3.)

Last chapter was short-ish, so this one is longer. <3

Another ten minutes go by, and Molly begins to suspect Caleb may sleep til dinner if something doesn’t happen soon.

“Frump scarf,” Molly says quietly, nosing at Frumpkin’s arm when Frumpkin curls further around his shoulders to look Molly in his eye. “Can you get down for me? Down?” He taps the table a few times until Frumpkin gets to his feet, nimbly jumping down as requested. “You’re such a good kitty.”

As if he understood, Frumpkin trills quietly and leans forward to rub his face against Molly’s horn.

“Okay. Okay. Love you too.” Molly stands up, giving Frumpkin a few last chin scratches before throwing the Doritos bag away and putting his phone in his pocket.

Peeking back into the bedroom, Caleb is absolutely still out cold. Naked on top of the sheets and sprawling out as if trying to claim territory or recapture Molly’s warmth, his mouth is ever so slightly open, red-blond lashes fanned across his cheeks.

Molly shuts the door behind him as quietly as possible and leans against it a moment, taking in the sight. Caleb’s ribs don’t stick out like they used to anymore, but he’s still lean, and his creamy white skin looks delicate and dappled from the sunlight coming in from the window.

Molly’s eyes drift and settle on Caleb’s lap - even soft, he looks big. It’s difficult to think too much about the specifics of trying to fit that inside him someday.

But you tried it the other way, and he was so uncomfortable you had to stop. So maybe stick with the hands and the mouths?

Molly drags the heel of his hand across his cheek, willing the embarrassing memory away. He’s only felt that guilty a handful of times in his life, and it was only worse that it was their ‘about to go away’ night that he’d had that stupid idea. And rushed it too much.

Caleb takes a sudden deep breath in, letting out a mumbly sort of half-breath as he turns onto his side. Molly laughs quietly, admiring the view of Caleb’s back and ass a moment before telling himself to get over his mental angst. He shucks his clothes back off, easing back onto the bed and sliding an arm over Caleb.

“Fffm.” Caleb does not completely wake up.

“Hey, cutie.” Molly kisses his shoulder. “It’s like 3.”

Caleb’s hand drifts over Molly’s arm, closing around it and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Was? Oh!” Caleb looks over his shoulder with a dopey smile. Molly grins back. “Molly.”

“Caaay-leb.” Molly pretends to chomp down on Caleb’s shoulder, letting his teeth show.

“Do not eat me,” Caleb protests half-heartedly, awake enough now to play along with their usual game.

“I must, I must eat you,” Molly says around a delicate mouthful of shoulder. He gives it a brief nibble.

“The pain...” Caleb gives a convincing, if dramatic, wince as he pretends to try to pull away. “Everysing they said about tieflings was true.”

“We eats you.” Molly lets go to give the nibbled spot two quick kisses. “Can we go do something?”

Caleb wiggles a little bit away, rolling onto his other side so he can face Molly and continue to smile dopily at him. “Yes. In a minute or two? Where would you like to go, or do.”

“I had a vending machine snack, but maybe a coffee place? Somewhere where we can sit outside?”

Caleb is taking Molly’s right hand in his, gazing studiously at the new tattoo. “Almost all the places have seats outside.” He giggles as Molly bends his wrist back and forth, making the snake move toward him and up toward his face. “Oh!”

“What’s ‘snake’ in German?” Molly asks, folding his hand so the snake head on the back of his hand can give Caleb a brief smooch on the cheek.

Caleb makes a face, taking a little too long to answer: “Natter.”

“Natter,” Molly echoes, curious. “Did you really forget?”

“No, I just have never gotten a kiss from one before.”

“It’s a very kissy snake.” Molly uses his hand to give two more quick kisses. Kiss is 'Kuss’, Molly remembers... “Natter Kuss!”

“Natter Kuss,” Caleb agrees, grinning again. “Hallo, Natter, hold still.” Molly holds his hand still. Caleb gives it a light peck.

“It’s blushing!”

“Is it?”

“It likes you.”

“Well, let me buy it some coffee.” Caleb sits up and runs his fingers through his hair a few times. “It’s always warm here. Do you want iced coffee?”

That sounds really good. “Sure.” He gets up, catching Caleb’s eye as he stretches and bends over to pick his boxers and jeans back.

“Where do you think you will have another one?” Caleb asks, picking his clothes off the floor.

“Another- oh, tattoo?”

“Ja.”

Molly shrugs. “There’s a bunch I’ve thought about but I don’t know what order... I think a garden-y flower thing on my shoulder next.”

“Like, the snake is coming out of it?”

“Yeah.” Molly smiles and traces his right shoulder with his left hand. “What do you think?”

Caleb shrugs as he pulls his jeans back on. “Whenever you talk about it, you get so happy. You like this one so much. I think, whatever you pick will be beautiful, so I do not... I do not care what it is exactly.” Caleb’s looking at him, probably to make sure the ‘I don’t care’ isn’t taken the wrong way. Molly knows that look.

“Even if it’s five more tattoos?” Molly half-jokes. “And more skirts, too?”

Caleb gives him a confused look. “Did you stop wearing them?”

“No, I.” Molly shrugs and feels a little embarassed. “I just didn’t really pack any for here.”

“It is hot,” Caleb says, gesturing to the window as soon as his arm is all the way through the sleeve of his t-shirt. “And, and everyone here is very... not-stuck-up.”

Molly gathers up some courage and says it: “Yeah, but this is like. Your town. If you introduce me to your friends, it’ll be as your boyfriend, and I don’t. Wanna make you feel weird.”

“Because you wear...?” Caleb lets go of his shoe and looks at the floor for what feels like a full minute, composing another sentence. Molly waits. “Your skin is very beautiful without tattoos, and also with tattoos. Your clothes are very beautiful when they are pants, and also when they are dresses or skirts. I am very proud. To be with you. Either way. And when you have tattoos and skirts, you are more happy, and so. That one is better.” He looks up, a mixture of serious and hesitant.

“That made sense,” Molly reassures, through a slightly tight throat.

“Okay, good.” Caleb looks down to his shoe again, then back up to Molly’s face. “Are you okay?”

Molly nods and sits down on the bed to pull his boots back on too.

“Are you - were you worried?” Caleb pokes his leg to get his attention.

“Only a little,” Molly says, laughing and rubbing his nose. “I just. This part of your life is so important to you and you’re working really hard, I don’t want to mess it up.”

“You could not,” Caleb says. “My professors, the companies I am freelancing for, none of them would mind, and if they did I would manage without them.”

“And your classmates?”

“I have mentioned you a little. Most of them are just interested to meet you. I showed a few the video of you in the high school Cabaret and they said you were a good singer.” Caleb smiles at him. “I am not pretending to be straight or something, here.”

I still haven’t met your parents, and you bought them a condo like ten miles from here, Molly thinks but doesn’t say. “I’m worrying over nothing.”

“You are. You - Natter, please, come here.” Caleb holds out his hand mock-seriously, and Molly laughs and puts his right hand in Caleb’s. Holding it up to his face, Caleb pretends to talk to the snake. “Herr Natter. Please reassure Molly that I have gotten over being gay and I am okay with it now.”

“Ssssssstimmt,” Molly agrees, pretending to be the snake. Caleb laughs immediately, which helps Molly relax further.

“The snake knows German! What a good snake.”

“Aber... esss... isssst... ssschlecht.” Molly beams as Caleb laughs louder, leaving a loud smacking kiss on the snake’s head before flinching back.

“Wait, is that too hard? Because it is new?”

“Kisses are okay,” Molly reassures.

“Okay. Let me buy you coffee.”

**

Caleb’s apartment is more or less across from campus, and it’s only a block or two of white stucco houses before they’re walking past little shops and diners Molly didn’t see on the way over. Caleb seems to be making a point of holding his hand, squeezing it as they wait for the street light to change.

“I’m not worried anymore,” Molly says under his breath, grinning a little.

“Too bad, I already have it.” Caleb gives him a mock-stubborn glare and squeezes tighter.

“Do you ever go out here with classmates?”

“Sometimes, yes.” Caleb gestures ahead. “Everyone here is used to students, so they are very friendly to study groups and things. Sometimes we get a very long table and bring our laptops and collaborate for a few hours. Group projects.”

“But you do buy something,” Molly prompts.

“Yes, and we tip a lot, also.” Caleb sticks his tongue out. “I have become a very good American, you do not need to worry.”

“Mister Weiss!”

Caleb’s head whips around, and Molly follows suit to look at an older elf with white hair and tanned skin. From the way Caleb’s just straightened up, Molly would guess this has to be someone important.

“Dr. Errenis!” Caleb sounds surprised. “H-hello, it is nice to see you.”

Dr. Errenis looks to Molly, evaluating a moment before speaking directly to him. “Mr. Weiss has not been with us long, but I see he’s already aware of my reputation for staying on campus.”

“It’s a nice day for it, though.” Molly smiles and gestures to the general weather. Errenis looks up and around, as if beginning to consider it.

“Yes, we do have a lot of those.”

Caleb takes a breath. “Sir, this is my, my boyfriend, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

Molly makes himself hold his hand out like an adult. “Nice to meet you.” He’s not shocked when the hand is slightly cool. Elves seem to keep even cooler internal temperatures than humans do.

“And you, Mr. Tealeaf.” The man seems to have had no particular reaction to the ‘b’ word. “I assume you are HSS?”

What does that mean?

“He actually doesn’t go here,” Caleb interjects.

“Ah.” The older elf tilts his head to the side, evaluating Molly a moment. “Well, we can’t blame him for that. Our humanities and social studies courses are as limited as one would expect.”

“What class do you teach?” Molly thinks it’s a reasonable question, until he sees the elf’s golden eyes narrow slightly.

“Several,” he says, maybe implying that asking it in singular was a little ridiculous for someone like him. “Mr. Weiss has the honor of being the only freshman taking one of my 400 level courses.”

Molly switches gears from being embarrassed about himself to being proud of Caleb. “Yeah, he’s always been a little brilliant.”

Caleb looks suitably shy. “Dr. Errenis is an excellent professor,” he says in a half-mumble.

“Well, you’re one of the few students to display practical knowledge in... the field, so I wanted to respond in person, since the opportunity presented itself, to the email you sent last week.” He fixes Caleb with a level stare. “I will take on the role of being your adviser. Please understand that it is predicated on your continued performance both in and out of school.”

Caleb’s brows lift slightly. “Out... of school?”

“I have a colleague who is a senior developer for one of the projects you have been hired onto as a freelance analyst. You have the unique position of possibly gaining or losing potential standing with me depending on your quality of work on said project.” The man’s lips almost smile. “So I trust you will continue your Herculean efforts both in and out of academia.”

“Y-yes. Sir.” Caleb swallows as the old elf nods and walks away, giving a brief tilt of the head to Molly as he passes them. They watch as he practically floats down the warm Pasadena street, turning into a used book store.

“What’s the word?” Molly says under his breath. “Unheimlich.”

“A little scary, yes,” Caleb agrees softly. He hasn’t looked away from the last place he saw the elf, right at the shop’s doorway. “But. I think... I just... made one of the most powerful allies on ze entire campus.”

(just checking, have you seen this fanart from cait?)