#fajority writes

[fajority]

Five times Caleb expressed physical affection exclusively through his cat, and one time he didn’t

I wrote another thing! This is, by the way, @fraeuleinjuhu‘s new Critical Role sideblog, so anyone who wants to follow me here, hop on board. 

Thank you @hippity-hoppity-brigade for being the best & nicest beta I could have hoped for <3

1- It takes Caleb a while to realize what Molly's problem is. In his defense, he does have a few of his own problems that take up about 90% of his capacity at any given time, and while their group has gotten almost uncomfortably close, Caleb has tried his best to stay on its outskirts.

He only notices Molly getting increasingly sharp and snappish with them at first, countering Beau's jibes with more and more cruel retorts, until Yasha takes him aside for what he assumes must be a more or less stern talking-to.

Caleb watches Molly slink around the bar they've wound up in this time, getting steadily drunker and louder. He sits down on the chair next to Yasha for a minute, placing his feet in her lap and tipping the chair back on its back legs dramatically.

Yasha gives him a few absent pats on the legs and then gently removes them from her thighs, and Caleb can practically feel Molly's mood drop.

Ah.

Of course: the circus seemed like a pretty affectionate bunch, even if they didn't always like each other. Their little motley crew is different, warier. More distant, at least physically.

Molly is touch starved and he has no tools to work with it. This place doesn't have a brothel. There are no strangers around that seem susceptible to his particular brand of charm.

Caleb's first idea is to message Jester to give Molly a good long hug, but when he turns to look for her, she's nowhere to be seen. Fjord is missing as well, so Caleb decides against investigating further just in case.

Molly has slumped on a barstool, elbows on the bar, his face in his hands. There's a grin on his face still, but it's holding on by a thread.

Caleb snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin jumps up onto his knees from under the table as if he's always been there, just out of sight.

He makes his way to Molly slowly, cradling Frumpkin to his chest. His decision is made, but that doesn't have to mean he likes it.

"Mollymauk," he greets and gets into the chair next to him. Molly gives him a grunt and an indecipherable stare.

Oddly enough, Caleb has found that he doesn't mind the red eyes at all: He's not very fond of pupils and irises anyway. He finds it much easier to maintain eye contact if he can't see the eyes fixating on him back.

"You look down today," Caleb starts, wavering. "I'd offer you a hug but I'm afraid I don't really, uh, do that kind of thing." Molly raises an eyebrow.

"I'd figured, or I probably would've tried to drape myself over you at some point this evening."

It has all the components of a confession, but it doesn’t sound like one: too annoyed, almost angry.

Caleb shakes off the image of Molly coming up behind his chair, leaning into his space, hands on his chest in a loose sort of hug. A sharp toothed grin pressed to his cheek. It sounds nice in theory, but in practice it will just feel like being crowded, short of breath and panicky and too much weight on him all at once, Caleb knows this.

"But Frumpkin does. I can lend him to you whenever you - uhm - crave - uh - physical contact, if you'd like."

He holds out a hand, and Frumpkin scales his shoulder and walks along his arm towards Molly.

Molly stares at him some more, or at Frumpkin, precariously perching on Caleb's hand. It's hard to say.

"Okay," he says finally. "Sure. Thank you."

He holds out his own arm, and Caleb grips it firmly, making a bridge for Frumpkin to cross, and then he's a purring scarf around Molly's neck, and Molly squeezes Caleb's hand once, very briefly, before he starts scritching Frumpkin behind the ears, mindful of his claws.

Caleb feels himself relaxing a fraction, and he pulls back his hand. That went well, he thinks.

"You can keep him until morning, if you want," he offers before he's even finished the thought. Molly looks at him again, and this time Caleb thinks he can see surprise in his expression.

"You don't need him?"

"I do, but he's always with me, no matter where he is location-wise." Caleb taps his head.

A grin very slowly unfurls on Molly's face. "Are you telling me you are feeling this?" He reaches up with his other hand to scritch under Frumpkin's chin, and Caleb gets an incredibly weird double feeling tugging him in two directions at once.

He tries for a middle ground, which is neutral honesty. "It's - not directly. I get the secondary impressions, if that makes sense."

Molly hums, thoughtful. "What are those?"

Caleb hates every second of this but he started this conversation to make Molly feel better, so he better see it through. He sighs.

"He feels… comfortable. Loved."

Frumpkin jumps down into Molly's lap and rolls up into a ball, still purring loudly.

Molly hums again, one hand settling on the cat. "I'd kill to have that," he says, sounding half serious. "Okay, I'd love to hold onto him until morning, but only if you don't spy on me."

"What would I even -" Caleb clamps his mouth shut on a memory, too late.

"You remember that I sleep naked," Molly grins.

"Vividly," Caleb confirms, and hightails it out of the conversation.

*

2- It happens while they're fighting a group of trolls attacking their camp at night: Beau is, as always, the first to get into the melée, jumping up and onto one of them and delivering a series of kicks and hits against its jaw - until it gets a handful of her and flings her against the nearest tree. She stays slumped against the trunk for a couple of seconds, enough for everyone to see her but not enough to reach her: Jester is occupied healing Yasha, her duplicate trying its best to get the troll to attack it instead of going after Beau again, and none of the others have healing spells or potions left. It's been a long day.

Caleb fires spells left and right, and out of the corner of his eye sees Beau move to sit up ever so slowly.

She's going to get back up and get herself killed for good, he thinks, and snaps his fingers. Maybe he can't reach her in time, but Frumpkin will.

And sure enough, Frumpkin goes from thin air to pointedly curling up in Beau's lap, nuzzling into her hands as she automatically reaches down to him.

Between two spells, he sees her shoot him a look that doesn't quite say fuck you, but it's a near thing. He motions for her to stay put. "We've got this, don't get yourself in trouble for no reason!"

She looks like she's considering to yell back a few choice words, but decides against it. Her whole body is shaking with the sheer effort of staying upright. She doesn't stop petting Frumpkin.

Caleb feels a wave of affection for her that is and isn't his own. He casts Haste on Nott, who brings down the troll that attacked Beau with three clean shots. He flashes her a proud smile and runs over to Beau, as if he could even shield her from any damage. As if she can't handle herself better than he will ever be able to.

It doesn't matter. He's out of spells, no use for anyone. He might as well get out of harm's way.

He sits down next to her, and she pointedly doesn't turn to look at him, although maybe that's her spine acting up. She did hit that tree pretty hard.

"I don't need you to protect me," she says.

Kiri could knock you out right now, he doesn't say. "I'm not protecting you," he says instead, holding out his hands, palms facing outward. "I'm tapped. If anything, you're protecting me."

Beau starts laughing and then very quickly stops again on a choked outbreath. "Thanks for that, Caleb," she says. It falls flat, like almost everything she says, but he thinks she might actually mean it this time.

They sit together and watch the last troll fall as Molly cuts its tendons and Fjord slashes its throat once it's down.

Beau's breathing rattles in her chest like an old woman's. It's all Caleb can do to wait until Yasha comes running and casts her Healing Hands.

"Thank you," he says in Celestial, sung on a sigh.

She gives him a confused look. "I am healing her, not you. Why are we speaking Celestial?"

"She never says thank you. I wanted you to hear it, but I didn't want to make her feel bad about it."

"Thanks, Yasha", Beau says, exhausted. The rattling sound has stopped, but she's still shaking ever so slightly. "That sounded nice. I hope you weren't talking shit about me."

Yasha gives him a pointed look, and Caleb gets up and offers Beau a hand. "Sorry about that. Do you want us to stop?"

Beau takes his hand. Frumpkin jumps onto her shoulder as she slowly gets up, spine popping. She leans her cheek into him, and Caleb feels a shadow of his cat satisfaction. He hides a smile about her conflicted expression.

"I mean, I don't appreciate being talked about, but it does sound really fucking nice."

"I thanked her for healing you, because you were looking that awful," Caleb volunteers.

Yasha flashes him a discreet thumbs-up.

"You're welcome," she says, and repeats it in Common, too.

"Fuck you too," Beau says, and ironically, it's like insults are the only thing she can make sound affectionate. Frumpkin butts his head up against her chin and purrs loudly.

*

3- When Caleb wakes up, screams still ringing in his ears and the heavy memory of smoke in his lungs, Nott's weight on his chest is just this side of suffocating, and he pries her off with shaking hands. She makes a small sound, turning her head in his direction, and he snaps Frumpkin into existence as quietly as he can.

The cat stretches out next to her, almost as long as she is when she is balled up like this. She settles her arms around Frumpkin as Caleb backs away into a corner of the room, choking on memories both real and made up.

Nott slings her arms around Frumpkin in her sleep, and this time Caleb doesn't feel the suffocation of it, just the quiet reassurance. He calms down in increments.

Forgetting nightmares is hard when you have a photographic memory, but Nott's steady breathing helps. When he strains his ears, he can hear the faintest purring.

I don't deserve any of this he thinks, and as he does, Frumpkin lets out a pitiful mewl, and Nott opens her eyes, glowing yellow in the dark.

Caleb doesn't try to hide anything like he would from anyone else. He just sits there and breathes through it, wheezing until he's panting until he's huffing until he's as quiet as he'll get.

Nott is watching him, and then she very deliberately reaches out a hand and starts petting Frumpkin.

The effect is immediate: Just like that, Caleb knows he's safe. More than that: he's worthy of it, too, just this once. He shrugs off the nightmare like a heavy coat and instantly feels exhausted, ready to fall asleep.

And then Nott’s small voice fills the quiet, and for once, she doesn’t sound skittish or hysterical, just sure.

“I know you think that your brokenness is the only redeeming factor about you, that breaking was the only indicator in all this that you're a good person - and I won't try to change your mind about it, although I think you're wrong - but even if that were the case, that still doesn't have to make it a bad thing if you let yourself heal. It's not a betrayal to your parents if you get better. If you let yourself be a good person in the time it takes to learn what you have to learn, it won't mean you disrespect their memory. I hope you know that.”

In the dark, in the privacy of their room, with nothing but Nott’s and Frumpkin’s glowing eyes watching him, he can almost believe it.

"Thank you," he tells Nott, and gets back under the covers. She blinks once, a cat smile, like he taught her. Frumpkin blinks back.

*

4- The next time Yasha leaves, Caleb sends Frumpkin to go with her.

She tries to hand him back over. "I don't know how long I'll be gone," she says.

"Take him anyway." Caleb bends down to Frumpkin to give him instructions. "Go with her until she tells you to leave. Then come back to us."

Frumpkin scales Yasha's leg, and she scoops him up. He climbs her arm and knits himself around her shoulders, and Yasha reaches out a hand to pet him, automatic.

"Don't spy on me", she says, and Caleb promises. "Friends, remember?" he says in Celestial.

"I'll hold him to it. Kick him in the shins at regular intervals so he can never be off guard here," Beau adds, and Caleb nods.

She nods back at him slowly, and turns away. They watch her leave, her huge form and the bright orange scarf getting smaller ever so slowly.

He feels intermittent bursts of warmth throughout the next days, and only thinks of checking in briefly, not only because Beau is holding up her end of the bargain and kicks him in the shins in the most unexpected moments.

Somehow, he doesn't want to lie to Yasha. Even if when he set out to gain her trust he did so because she is scary and strong and it's always good to have someone intimidating on your side. Something about the word friends keeps him from betraying her trust.

He's getting a signature feeling from each member of the Mighty Nein now, almost, he ponders. He can usually tell who snagged Frumpkin without looking: Nott feels calm and safe, Molly feels like a smile. Beau feels affectionate. Yasha just feels warm.

On the fifth day, Caleb feels small and unprotected and off the way he sometimes does; it takes him an embarrassingly long time to link it to the absence of the faint bursts of reassurance he so quickly got used to.

"Do you think Yasha's okay?" he asks Beau at dinner.

She stares at him for a couple of seconds, the way she does when he addresses her without preamble, and then shrugs.

"Don't know. She can probably handle herself."

She sounds miserable as well.

Caleb snaps his fingers once, and then again. Frumpkin comes running towards him, leaping into his arms and nuzzling his hand. Caleb feels the familiarity and closeness, but this time, it's not enough. They are too close in mind.

Frumpkin jumps back to the floor and starts pawing at Beau's trouser leg until she scoops him up with a sigh. She sinks her fingers into his fur slowly, and Caleb is struck with a feeling he barely remembers - compassion. Pity. Frumpkin attempts to lick Beau's face, and she leans back with a grimace: "No - what - that's weird, Caleb - "

"Oh - yes - sorry - " He calls Frumpkin off, who immediately goes to placidly lying in Beau's arms, the picture of a harmless pet. She eyes him suspiciously.

"Did you - did you, like, tell him to lick my face? Because that's really weird," Beau repeats, and Caleb is sure if he gets any redder his head will just explode.

"I didn't think of it as such," he tries to explain, fumbling. "Frumpkin just felt sorry for you and that is what he does when he feels that way, and it has been a while so I didn't remember in time to stop him."

"Frumpkin felt sorry for me." Beau asks, flatly. Caleb nods, and hopes this conversation will be over soon, so he can lie down and hopefully die and stop thinking of situations in which Beau probably also thought that Frumpkin was a part of Caleb in the same way his hands are. All of the laps and shoulders he's sat on. That time he licked Kiri's face. "Mmmhm." Beau gives him a considering look.

He tries and fails to look inconspicuous.

"So, how, how close are you to him? Can you, like, read his mind? Are you his mind?"

"Somewhere in between those two?" Caleb tries. "It's a connection, but he's still a cat. But I still made him. So he's also a part of me, but just a bit."

"So, before Frumpkin, did you never feel sorry for anyone? That strictly his job?"

Caleb feels the blood drain from his face all at once. He sits up stiffly. In Beau's arms, Frumpkin goes completely still.

"I didn't-"

Beau is already shaking her head, horrified. "Oh no, nope, no, I wasn't alluding to that, can we pretend that never happened please -"

Caleb nods gratefully. Frumpkin, less forgiving, lightly nips at Beau's finger. "I know, sorry," Beau tells him, and Caleb relaxes a fraction.

"I just meant," Beau tries again after a moment of silence. Caleb spends a few seconds wishing he had a God to pray to for this to end. To not loop back to before Frumpkin.

"I just meant, maybe you shouldn't distinguish - quite so much. Maybe you can just say you felt sorry."

"But it was Frumpkin. I am just miserable because he hasn't gotten anyone to pet him today and I'm afraid for Yasha and I am hating how lost I am without him. Then you picked him up and he felt - that."

He pauses for a second. "He's better at the interpersonal stuff than I am. You might have noticed."

Beau laughs, a hearty, bellowing sound that lasts until Frumpkin digs his claws into her thigh and she lets out an undignified yelp.

"I - yeah, I might have some idea," she says.

Caleb grins, just a little.

*

5- When they finally find Kiri's parents and leave her with them, Jester is the one it hits the hardest.

Nott is a little teary eyed as well, but she manages to talk through it. "It's almost like we're good people," she tells Caleb at some point, and he nods.

"She made it easy to be," he says.

Everyone is a little subdued, but it's most obvious with Jester. She's walking a little off to the side, not taking part in any of their conversations. When Fjord splits off to talk to her after a while, she sends him off with a shake of her head.

Maybe she wants to be alone. But maybe she wouldn't say no to some wordless comfort, Caleb thinks, and snaps Frumpkin into existence on top of Jester's head, nestled between her horns.

She gives a quiet yelp and sends him a startled look, but doesn't pry Frumpkin off, so Caleb leaves him there, playing with strands of her hair as they walk on. He makes sure his claws are drawn in.

When he feels a brief burst of satisfaction that isn't his own a few minutes later, he chances another look: Jester has reached her tail up above her head and is using it to scritch Frumpkin behind the ears. Frumpkin has closed his eyes and is dozing in the sunlight that filters in through the leaves of the trees they're walking beneath. She's still quiet, but she seems less sad.

By evening, the strange spell has worn off, and Jester is back to her old self: Talking excitedly, scribbling in her notebook, telling everyone who will listen about the great deed they have done by rescuing this child from a monster and reuniting her with her family.

Caleb realizes for the first time how much they need her to keep them sane and kind and happy, and Frumpkin carefully climbs off her head and onto her shoulder to press his face into her cheek. She sets down her tankard of milk to pet him, and then grabs him around the middle and hands him back. "Thank you for your cat, Caleb," she says, in the drawn out sing song voice she gets when she's trying to remember to be polite. "He was very cute and helped me a lot. But I also think he needs more flowers."

"I know, but I can't make them stick to him!" Nott butts in, "They just fall down when he goes poof. Do you know a spell for that?"

"Oooh, that would be a great spell. Let Frumpkin take flowers to the other realm!" Jester slams her fist on the table, startling Beau, who had been resting her head on it.

Caleb smiles. "If I come across one, I will teach it to you," he promises. Then, on a whim, he leans closer to Jester and lowers his voice to ask: "Are you okay?"

Jester gives him a startled smile. "Oh, I'm fine," she says cheerfully, "Just, you know, I have never made any friends before you guys, so it's hard to leave one behind."

Caleb has the sudden urge to hug her, and quells it by letting Frumpkin jump on the table and push into her hand again.

"Well, we'll stay together, so that's six friends you don't need to worry about losing," he tries.

Jester nods emphatically as she pats Frumpkin on the back a little too hard. "And we'll get those diamonds so I won't need to worry about losing you in other ways, too."

She scrunches up her face and headbutts Frumpkin before he can, and if Frumpkin steps on Jester's plate in the following playfight, it's not like anyone but Caleb sees it, so it can remain his secret.

"Yes", he says. Fjord, who is seated two chairs over, starts sneezing in earnest, so Caleb reluctantly disappears Frumpkin, making Jester almost faceplant into the table.

*

6-  When they reach Erdeloch, Caleb thinks it should make Fjord as happy as he gets: Caleb has never seen a body of water so big that it meets the horizon in the distance, and he thinks to himself that they probably won't get any closer to an actual ocean in their travels.

But Fjord is quiet and withdrawn even when Jester invites him to come swimming.

He gets in the water, but there's no joy in his practiced strokes.

Something is troubling him. From the way Molly is watching Fjord from the shore, Caleb thinks he probably sees it too, or knows more than he does. Maybe Fjord had another nightmare.

He summons Frumpkin, who eyes the water suspiciously, and pets him absently.

"Do you think he might be cheered up by a cuddly familiar?" Caleb asks Molly abruptly.

Molly raises an eyebrow. "Fjord is allergic," he reminds Caleb, and Caleb nods. "I know," he says. "But I still have enough incense."

Molly's other eyebrow joins the first. "Oh, that sounds like an incredible waste of resources. I love it."

Caleb knows he probably shouldn't take that as an encouragement, but he does: He gathers coal from their campfire and starts the ritual right then and there, on the shore of the lake, where they can all watch him - and they do, he's half aware of Nott's curious gaze and Jester's questions, of Molly's quiet answers from his other side. He's briefly swamped by a feeling he hasn't had in more than a decade: he feels at home, for the long minutes that his mind is occupied with the ritual just enough to not be thinking how much he doesn't deserve them, and the others in his peripheral, just enough not to crowd him.

Then it's over, his mind snaps back to alertness, and Frumpkin nuzzles his hand, otter-shaped. His fur is softer and more dense than Caleb is used to.

"What is that?" Molly asks, immediately fascinated.

"It's an otter. Pretty close to a cat, but they live in water," Caleb explains. Molly holds out a hand, and Frumpkin pushes his head into it just like he did as a cat. Molly gives a delighted bark of laughter. "Incredible," he says, smiling bright.

"He is pretty good," Caleb says, in a rare burst of pride. He doesn't feel exposed and lonely the way he did when Frumpkin was a sparrow, and this way he is not wary of the water the way Frumpkin-the-cat was. Caleb nods down at him and smiles. "Go bother Fjord," he instructs.

Frumpkin chirps at him and flits off, weirdly off-balance until he reaches the water, and then he's streamlined and as elegant as the cat was on land.

Fjord is diving when Frumpkin reaches him, so Frumpkin dives after him without hesitation.

Caleb looks away from the stilling surface of the water and catches Molly, Jester and Nott intently staring at the lake. After a second, Jester nudges him with an elbow. "Well, go spy on him! We want to know what's happening!"

Caleb looks to Molly. He doesn't know when Molly of all people became his moral compass, but here they are. Maybe it’s because he’s always sure, even if his moral rules only make sense to him.

"What are you waiting for? And tell us everything!" Molly makes a shooing motion as if to push Caleb into the water, and Caleb goes blind and deaf, with Jester and Molly habitually holding onto his elbows so he won't topple over.

Frumpkin has almost reached Fjord when he gets there, still on his way to the bottom of the lake, which is, as Caleb can see now, littered with little colorful pebbles that seem to emit a faint glow. Fjord grabs a handful of them, and Frumpkin does the same, taking one with little blue swirls on it and holding it carefully as sand muddies the water where they stirred it.

Fjord looks over to Frumpkin, and for a second, Caleb sees surprise on his face, melting into a genuine smile. He slowly holds out a hand as if trying to gain Frumpkin's trust. Frumpkin puts the stone he picked up into it, startling Fjord into a laugh that leaves his mouth in a few bubbles that rise towards the surface. Reminded of where he is, he quickly pushes off the ground and swims up, Frumpkin at his heels.

Caleb relates everything to the others as it happens, and feels Jester's hand tighten on his elbow in response.

Fjord reaches the surface and gulps in air, sputtering a bit.

"Hey!" he calls over to the two colorful globs Frumpkin can barely make out in the distance. "I found a friend!"

Frumpkin chitters and swims around him to clamber on his head.

"Well done, Fjord!" that's Jester's voice, drifting over from the shore.

"Say hi to Frumpkin!" comes Molly's shout, a second later. "Caleb made him this way specifically so you could stop sneezing!"

For a second, Fjord stiffens. He probably doesn't appreciate anything that even remotely resembles a prank, after the kind of childhood he seems to have had. Frumpkin jumps off his head and swims around him in a wide circle to gage his expression.

Fjord gives Frumpkin an appraising look, and then it eases into a grin.

"Thanks, Caleb," he says, quietly, and gives Frumpkin a pat. "'ppreciate that."

"You're welcome!" Caleb yells across the lake before he can talk himself into pretending he wasn't just spying on his friend, and he pulls back just in time to hear Jester cheer and Mollymauk give a big, hearty laugh.

After that, Frumpkin and Fjord set out to collect as many of the pebbles as they can for a delighted but decidedly dry Nott, and between the splashes and the low, encouraging voice Fjord uses to talk to Frumpkin, Caleb feels well and truly appreciated.

It has been a while since that feeling last wasn't associated with murder and obedience.

Caleb leans back on his elbows between the two tieflings and allows it to heal him the tiniest bit.