Work Text:
The inn was noisy by Caduceus’s standards, full of people and talk, the clatter of plates, the thump of tankards. Despite all that, Nott was asleep at the table, nestled into Caleb’s side. Caduceus wasn’t surprised. It had been a long day for her, for Caleb, for everyone really. They all needed a good night’s sleep, but there were some things that needed to be taken care of before Caduceus himself could rest.
“Mister Caleb?”
Caleb, who had been looking down at Nott with an expression of both fondness and melancholy, looked up. “Ja?”
“I’m sorry to ask this of you, but when you were talking, back there on the cart, well.” Caduceus’s lips quirked into an almost sheepish expression. “I’m afraid I was concentrating on guiding the horses and making sure we weren’t being watched, and I wasn’t paying as much attention as I thought I was to what you were saying. I hate to ask you to repeat yourself, if you’d rather I have Miss Beau or Miss Jester fill me in…”
“Ah, no.” Caleb took a deep breath, letting it out in a small sigh. “No, it is fine. Just, not down here.”
“No no, of course not,” Caduceus agreed.
“I can take Nott for you,” Jester said as Caleb reached for her. “So you can be alone and not have to worry about waking her up while you’re talking.”
Caleb nodded slowly. “Ja. Okay.” He snapped his fingers and Frumpkin appeared on the table. “You stay with Nott tonight, all right? In case she has bad dreams.”
Frumpkin rubbed up against Caleb’s palm before jumping down to curl up in Nott’s lap. Caleb gave a little nod and stood up.
“I will meet you in my room then, Caduceus. Good night, everyone.”
As everyone else said good night to Caleb, Caduceus watched as Beau reached out and touched Caleb on the shoulder. After a second’s hesitation, Caleb put his hand over hers for a brief instant before pulling away and heading upstairs.
“What?” Beau asked when she caught Caduceus looking at her. “He doesn’t really do the hugging thing. He goes all stiff. And I can’t punch him in the arm like I do with Fjord.”
“Maybe you just need hugging practice!” Jester said with a grin. “Caduceus gives great hugs.”
“Awwww, thank you.” Caduceus had come from a family who hadn’t been stingy with hugs and cuddles, and all of his brothers and sisters had tended to sleep in a pile more often than not. Truth be told, he had been greatly starved for touch by the time he had met these people, and had been grateful that Jester seemed to be a firm believer in casual touching as well, leaning against him around the campfire at night, braiding his hair while they were in the cart together. During those times he had seen Caleb quickly stealing glances at them with an almost wistful expression, and Caduceus had wondered if Caleb was starved for touch as well, and just unable or for some reason unwilling to say anything about it. He would have hugged Caleb several times by now if he thought Caleb would have been comfortable with it, and just the thought made Caduceus smile and feel warm inside in a way that he wasn’t entirely familiar with. He wondered if it was a romantic feeling. Maybe he’d ask Jester about it later.
“You should make Caleb some of that tea,” Yasha said quietly. “The kind we had on the ship, during the storm. It was very good.”
“The minty family tea!” Jester agreed brightly.
“Ahhh, the Cadence family,” Caduceus said with a nod. It was a good tea for soothing nerves and soothing stomachs, and Caleb could use both of those things, Caduceus was sure. The wizard had already been sick once tonight, and had only reluctantly picked at his meal. “That’s an excellent idea.” He was asking Caleb to talk about things the man was obviously uncomfortable with, the least he could do was provide as much comfort as he could, and what was tea but a hug you could drink?
********
The last thing Caleb had wanted to do was to tell his whole story again. Not that it had been the whole story before, not that it ever was. Not even Nott and Beau knew everything, though they knew the most out of anyone. But Caduceus had asked, and Caleb had wanted to see how Caduceus reacted to the information first hand, and the man needed to know why they had to be careful around mages and the full extent of what Yeza might have been involved with. So he had told Caduceus what he had told the others hours ago, about his old name and the Academy, about Trent, about what he had been in training to do, about how he had gone a little mad, had run away, had met Nott, had met them.
Every time Caleb had looked up from his teacup, Caduceus had been looking back at him with that same intense, thoughtful expression. Not judgement, not pity, not disgust, just an intent and thoughtful listening expression, the same as when the group was discussing plans or other such serious topics.
For just a moment, Caleb had wanted to tell Caduceus more, had almost told him about his family, about the fire. Not because he had wanted sympathy, or understanding, but because sometimes Caleb found himself imagining things he shouldn’t about the firbolg, like what it would be like to be held in those arms, to curl up next to him on cold nights or to wake tangled up in each other in the mornings. Caduceus surely wouldn’t return Caleb’s desires, and even if he would, Caleb didn’t deserve them. If he told Caduceus what he had done, that he had killed his parents, then that would be that, wouldn’t it? Caduceus wouldn’t want anything to do with him, and the problem would be solved.
Except Beau hadn’t shied away from him, and neither had Nott. It was possible that Caduceus wouldn’t as well. It was strange to him that his friends couldn’t understand how awful he was. Even Jester still seemed to see good in him for some reason. She wouldn’t, if she knew what he had done.
“It’s terrible,” Caleb said as he put his empty teacup aside so he’d stop fiddling with it. “But I almost hope Yeza has been captured by the Kryn instead of abducted by the Cerberus Assembly. It might be easier to free him, and, well, I know what the mages of the Assembly can do to people who do not want to cooperate with them.”
“I think what you’re feeling is understandable,” Caduceus said amiably. “Considering what you’ve been put through.”
“It was for the Empire,” Caleb whispered. “For the war. For the good of the people. It was what I believed. We believed.”
“Beliefs change,” Caduceus said. “Do they still hurt?”
Caleb blinked. “My beliefs?”
“No, sorry, I meant your arms. The scars. Do they hurt? You keep rubbing them.”
Caleb hadn’t re-bandaged his arms after telling his story the first time, and it had been just as well because he had ended up telling that part over again. He hadn’t even realized he had been running his hands over his arms until Caduceus had said something. “Ah, no. Not anymore. Not for a very long time.”
Caduceus put his teacup down and reached towards Caleb, then paused. “May I touch them? If you don’t mind.”
Maybe it was because it was late, and Caleb was physically and emotionally exhausted, but he felt tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Something about Caduceus’s tone maybe, or about the fact that he had asked. No one ever asked before touching him. He hadn’t realized it was something people did. He held out his arms. “Go—go ahead.”
Caduceus’s hands were surprisingly soft, his fingers providing deep, even pressure as they traced Caleb’s scars. Caleb closed his eyes and felt his breath leave him in a shaky exhale as he memorized the moment, how it felt, so that he could summon it later.
“They’re so old,” Caduceus said softly.
Caleb remembered when they had been fresh, raised and pink, still tender. By the time he had come back to himself and escaped the asylum they had been pale and faded. If only the memory had faded as well. He could still see the shattered shards of crystal sticking out of his arm in his mind’s eye, still hear himself and Astrid and Wulf screaming as Master Ikithon had looked down at them with cold disappointment. “It’s… been a long time. Since it happened.”
“You were a child.”
There was nothing condescending in Caduceus’s tone, but Caleb felt his breath quicken none the less as he opened his eyes. “I was a young man who wanted to serve the Empire.”
“Did they ask you? Before they did this to you, did they ask you if this was what you wanted?”
Caleb felt the tears burning behind his eyes threaten to spill over. “We wouldn’t have thought about saying no.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
Caleb pulled away from Caduceus’s gentle touch as he tried to shove his feelings down into the pit of his stomach, where they settled into an icy knot. “I—I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“I’ve upset you. I’m sorry, that was the last thing I wanted to do. I was thinking out loud, trying to understand—“ Caduceus cut himself off, and their was a brief moment of something that looked almost like anguish on his face before the expression smoothed out into concern. “I should leave you to your rest, it’s been a very long day. Are you going to be all right alone?”
Say yes. Say you’ll be fine. That way he won’t see you cry, won’t see you curl in on yourself and shake yourself to pieces. He won’t see how pathetic you are, even though it’s too late for that. Everyone knows. You threw up in front of them today. You told them secrets, you told them all secrets—
“Stay.” It was a whisper compared to the shouting in his head. “Please.”
“I can do that,” Caduceus said without hesitation. “But I left my things in Fjord’s room. I’ll just be a minute. All right?”
Caleb nodded, keeping himself otherwise still as Caduceus collected his tea things and left the room before he panicked. What was he doing? He normally slept with Nott, who didn’t care that Caleb didn’t have clothes just for sleeping in. He had never cared about such things before, sleeping on the road meant sleeping in your clothes, and so did being poor. Except he had money now, he could afford clothes just for sleeping in, it had just seemed unnecessary until this very second.
In the end, Caleb stripped off his pants and socks and changed into the one relatively clean spare shirt he owned before crawling into bed, scooting over to the far side of the mattress and pulling the covers up to his chin. A moment later Caduceus walked back in wearing a loose fitting shirt and pants that looked soft, like well worn cotton, and he was carrying several blankets over his shoulder, a pillow tucked under one arm and his bag in one hand.
“I usually sleep on the floor,” Caduceus said. “Unless you don’t mind company on the bed. It might be a little cramped though.”
Caleb’s heart sank. He wanted Caduceus on the bed. He wanted to curl up into the soft warmth of Caduceus’s body and have Caduceus’s arms wrapped around him like a blanket. He wanted to be lulled to sleep by the sound of Caduceus’s heartbeat. He wanted all of that and more, but it would be selfish of him to ask Caduceus to sacrifice his comfort for Caleb’s sake.
“Whatever would be most comfortable for you,” Caleb said softly.
There was a pause, and then Caduceus simply nodded and made a nest of blankets on the floor before reaching up and putting out the lantern, leaving the room in darkness.
“If you need anything in the night, don’t hesitate to wake me up. All right?”
“All right,” Caleb replied, though he already knew he wouldn’t. He’d done enough today, been enough of a bother to everyone. “Good night.”
“Good night. Sleep well.”
Caleb rolled over, the taste of mint from the tea still bright in his mouth. A few tears trickled out from beneath his closed eyes, but he didn’t bother wiping them away. There wasn’t any point.
**********
Caduceus normally had no trouble sleeping, regardless of the stresses of the day, but tonight was different. His thoughts were all over the place, like leaves scattered by a great wind. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling in the dark, listening to Caleb breathe. It was a steady, even sound, with none of the breathy little hitches that would have indicated distress of some form or another.
Caduceus had done Caleb an unkindness by asking him to bring up his past again so soon after telling the others. He should have waited a day or two maybe, waited for a time when things were less stressful. But then, that was the thing about this group of people, they were always rushing from one thing to another, finding trouble when trouble wasn’t finding them. There had been no guarantee that tomorrow would have been better, or the next day, or the next.
Time had been a factor, but the rest had been curiosity, plain and simple. He had wanted to learn more about Caleb, about the man who was running so hard from his past that he wouldn’t know what to do if he ever stopped. In some ways, Caleb and Nott were very much the same and it was no wonder that the two of them had found each other, two lonely people with so much fear and pain in their hearts.
Caduceus didn’t think of things in terms of good and evil, usually. Things were natural, or they were not. Death was natural. Life was natural. What had been done to Nott though, killing her just so that her soul could be put in a new body, bringing her back to life as a punishment, that was a perversion of the natural order, a twisting of a great gift. He had kept himself calm for Nott’s sake, she hadn’t needed his anger, not then. But if he ever met the person who used their magic on her in such a way, he would make sure their corpse ended up being useful.
Thoughts about magic lead him back to Caleb, make him think of a young boy with power burning under his skin and a man telling him who to use that power against, a man who had thought nothing about hurting children to help win a war, to help further a cause. Caduceus hadn’t had experience with war, he didn’t know if it was a natural thing or not. Violence was natural, but war seemed to be something else, something larger than just fighting. Nothing was worth hurting children for, though. Nothing was worth the breaking of a mind. Caleb had mentioned other students. Had they broken too? Was anyone looking out for them?
Caduceus tried to relax and let his thoughts settle. All he had were questions with no easy answers, and he needed his rest if he was going to connect to the Wildmother in the morning. He heard Caleb shift on the bed nearby, and his breathing still sounded calm and deep. Caduceus had wanted to curl up on the bed, as cramped as that would have made him. He had wanted to fold his body around Caleb and breathe in the smell of him and purr until the wizard fell asleep, but he hadn’t wanted to make Caleb more uncomfortable than he already had, hadn’t wanted to push.
“Sleep well,” Caduceus whispered in the dark. He knew talking about past trauma was like stirring up the sediment at the bottom of a pond, and he hoped that the clouded waters of Caleb’s mind didn’t produce any nightmares for him, not tonight. “Please, let him sleep well.”
*************
He was on his hands and knees in the training yard, a place and a position he was all too familiar with, his arms burning with pain.
“Get up.” Master Ikithon’s voice, the words biting into his skin like a whip.
He looked to his left and there was Wulf, also on his hands and knees, every inch of his body covered in blueish-white crystal, his mouth open in a silent, endless scream. To his right was Astrid, kneeling in the dirt of the yard, hands to her head, tears running down her green crystal green cheeks.
He stood and there was a heavy hand on his shoulder, a voice in his ear.
“It’s time to see what you have learned.”
He looked out into the training yard, at the targets that have been set up for him. There were eight of them. Eight bright and shining crystal targets, a rainbow of colors, purple and pink, two different shades of blue and green, gray and orange. They were hundreds of feet away, yet he could see them as clearly as if they were right in front of him. Jester, caught in the act of laughing. The curve of Molly’s horns, his swords, his smile. Nott, so much smaller than the others with Frumpkin perched on her shoulder. Beau, fists clenched as if to fight. Fjord, his falchion raised in a salute. Yasha, blade drawn and face filled with rage. Caduceus, one hand outstretched as if casting a spell or welcoming a friend.
“Destroy them.”
He raised his hands automatically. He’d been trained to obey that voice without question, had obeyed it every day up until the last, until the day he had broken. He was halfway though reciting an incantation, power burning up his arms, when he realized what he was doing. The words of the spell died on his lips and were instead replaced with one single word.
“No.” Caleb said in a voice that shook. “No, I will not.”
A familiar hand, heavy on his shoulder. “Bren. You will do as you are told.”
Bren was the name his parents had given him. It was the name of the boy who had been gifted and had burned brightly and had kept burning, had burned and burned and then burned his family to ash before burning out.
“No.” Caleb’s voice was stronger now. “No, I will not.”
Pain in his arms, sudden and sharp, sharp as the crystals growing out of his flesh, covering his arms. He clawed at them, fingers skittering over the hard surface without effect.
“You will do this for the Empire.”
Next to him, Wulf shattered into hundreds of shards that glittered in the dirt.
“No.” Almost a shout. “No, I will not.”
Astrid collapsed into glittering sand and blew away on the wind. Crystals grew out from his back like wings, sprouted from his feet and anchored him to the earth like the roots of a tree. He could feel them growing inside him, sharp and hard and cold.
“You will do this for me.”
“NO!” Caleb shouted, his defiance as loud as a thunderclap. “NO, I WILL NOT.”
His friends shattered at the sound of his voice, one after the other, and all Caleb could do was stare in horror and shock as they broke into pieces.
“You will ruin them. One way or the other, you will ruin them.” It was Trent’s voice. It was his own voice.
“No,” Caleb whispered in disbelief as the crystals pierced his heart, as he fell to his knees, as he felt himself shatter. “No, I will not.”
***********
Caduceus was a deep sleeper by nature, but certain sounds could wake him in an instant. A distressed whisper. A sob. The coppery smell of blood. All three brought him out of a confused and disjointed dream about trying to mend broken pottery with gold and slammed him back into wakefulness so quickly that it was disorienting. He half sat up, groping for the lantern on the bedside table for only a second before casting light onto the table itself. He squinted against the sudden brightness as he got to his feet and turned toward the bed.
“Caleb, are you—“ That’s all Caduceus could get out before his eyes caught up with his brain and he could process what he was seeing. Caleb, sitting up in bed, eyes half open and unseeing as he muttered in Zemnian, his nails carving bloody furrows into his arms as blood dripped onto the sheets.
Oh no, oh please, Caduceus thought as he reached for Caleb, and it was enough of a prayer that he felt the healing magic flow through his hands as he quickly took hold of Caleb’s wrists, pulling the wizard’s hands away from the skin as it knit itself back together, leaving only the blood behind.
“Caleb? Caleb, wake up.” It was a struggle to sound calm, but he knew it would do Caleb no favors to be shouted at.
Caleb continued muttering, eyes staring through Caduceus without seeing him. Caduceus only knew two words in Zemnian, “yes” and “no,” and Caleb, whatever else he was saying, was saying “no” a lot.
Caduceus sat down on the bed, still holding Caleb’s wrists, and leaned down until his forehead rested against Caleb’s. “Caleb,” he said softly. “You’re having a bad dream, but it’s all right. I’m here. Come back to the people who care about you.”
The muttering stopped suddenly, followed by a shaky gasp that was almost a sob.
“Did I hurt you? He wanted me to hurt you, hurt all of you, I couldn’t do anything, I didn’t want to hurt you and it happened anyway it happened anyway it—“
“Shhhhh, it’s all right.” Caduceus pulled back slightly to look Caleb in the eye. “You were having a nightmare. You didn’t hurt any of us, but you were hurting yourself, so I had to stop you. I’m going to let go of you, and get you cleaned up.”
“Don’t leave,” Caleb said in a whisper. “Please.”
“I won’t, I promise.” Caduceus let go of Caleb’s wrists and took up a corner of the bloodstained sheet, cupping one hand and saying a word as he did so. His palm filled with water and he dipped the corner of the bed sheet into it, using it to wipe away the worst of the blood from Caleb’s skin and his own hands.
“This is the second time you’ve had to clean up after me today,” Caleb said, his eyes downcast.
“That’s all right,” Caduceus said reassuringly. “These things happen.” He understood better now why Caleb had been sick earlier, back in the basement. Carrying around all that fear for so long, finding out that the past that you had been running from was so much closer than you thought, affecting people you cared about, hurting them, that was enough to make anyone feel ill. “Well, the sheets aren’t fit for sleeping on, but I think you managed not to get blood on the blanket somehow.” He wrapped the blanket around Caleb’s shoulders. “The floor is about as comfortable as I can make it, if you don’t mind joining me.”
Caleb didn’t look up, just nodded and shuffled off the bed until he was sitting on the floor. He made no move to lie down though, or make himself comfortable.
“I could make some more tea,” Caduceus offered. “Something to help you sleep.”
“What you must think when you look at me.” Caleb’s voice was so soft, barely audible. “Someone that keeps needing to be taken care of.”
“Everyone needs to be taken care of sometimes.” Caduceus lowered himself to the floor in front of Caleb. “I like taking care of people. I like taking care of you.” He should stop there, he should, but the words flowed out of him, heedless of his own desires. Maybe it was the stress of the day and the lateness of the hour. Maybe it was something more than that. “When I look at you I see a man who is trying to be a better person despite his fear. I see someone who thinks he’s broken beyond all repair, that is afraid to let anyone else help pick up the pieces for fear that we’ll cut ourselves.” He reached for Caleb’s hands. “May I?”
Caleb’s hands were shaking as he offered them up to be held. Caduceus took them, rubbing his thumbs over the back of them in soothing circles.
“I believe everything can be mended with care and with time. I just want you to know that I’m here to help you hold all the pieces in place, for when that day comes.”
“I—I don’t deserve that,” Caleb said, his head bowed, his hands still shaking.
“I don’t know if anyone deserves anything,” Caduceus said simply. “Not in the way you mean. But I’m offering care, and support, and comfort, if you want those things from me.”
Caleb made a sound that sounded like half laughter and half tears. “I am no good at asking for things that I want. If I was, you would have been sleeping in bed with me in the first place.”
Caduceus squeezed Caleb’s hands gently. “I wanted to, but I thought it would make you uncomfortable.”
“I thought the same. Maybe we should both just say what we want.”
Caduceus nodded. “I would like to hold you.”
Caleb took one shaky breath, and then another. “I would like to be held.” Caleb’s voice sounded so small, and it hurt Caduceus’s heart to hear it, even as he admired Caleb for being brave enough to admit what he wanted.
They arranged themselves in the nest of blankets on the floor and Caleb curled up into Caduceus’s side as Caduceus put an arm around him. Caduceus extinguished the light of his magic with a word.
“Are you comfortable? Is this all right?”
“Ja, it’s… it’s very good. It reminds me of… sometimes we would push the beds together. Hold each other. We would have gotten in trouble, if he had known.”
Caduceus didn’t think anyone deserved anything, but he found himself thinking about the grave he might someday dig for Trent Ikithon, and how he would make sure that no one made tea from what grew from his corpse.
“I used to sleep with my siblings all together in a pile,” Caduceus said instead as he curled himself around Caleb a little more. The wizard was warm and smelled of dirt and sweat and just a hint of blood, but underneath all that was the smell of ink and old books and campfire smoke. It was a comforting sort of smell. “I’ve missed that.”
Only silence greeted that statement, silence and Caleb’s low, steady breathing. Caduceus smiled. Asleep again already. Good. “Sleep well,” he whispered into Caleb’s hair. “No more nightmares now.” He felt the soft rumbling in his chest and throat as he began to purr.
Caleb mumbled something, Zemnian or Common or some other language entirely, Caduceus wasn’t sure, and snuggled just a little bit closer.
Caduceus found himself hoping that this would happen again. Not the nightmares, not the blood, but the comfort of holding Caleb in his arms, of Caleb feeling safe enough to fall asleep. It was not something to pray for, but maybe now it was something that Caleb would ask for again, something Caduceus himself could ask for. A simple pleasure. A quiet comfort.
Caduceus closed his eyes and let the sound of Caleb’s steady breathing lull him to sleep.