#the pomegranate's professor widogast fic

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, Chapter 36

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings:  References to deceased parents, grief, references to child abuse (Volstrucker program)

Chapter summary:  Essek prepares to flee Rexxentrum while Caleb brings Nico back to the Academy for the first time.

Chapter notes: Chapter title from North by Sleeping At Last. I come back literally just before the new year arrives in my time zone. Hello!

***

Chapter 36: Though the storms will push and pull, we will call this place our home

“That’s some serious afterglow you’ve got going on, man,” Beauregard said, mouth full of bacon, in lieu of a greeting as soon as he found her in the kitchen back home.

“Yes, you seem very relaxed,” Yasha agreed, coming in from the garden with a basket full of root vegetables; Caleb suspected Caduceus had been working a bit of his magic on them to grow a little faster than usual.

“Where’s your boy?”

“Quick stop in Uthodurn,” said Caleb, swiping a rasher from Beauregard’s plate; she swatted his hand but made no real effort to stop him. “Apparently Reani has been wanting a specific kind of leather traded on the coast. He should be here in a few hours.” Caleb had almost gone with him, but felt a pressing need to take today slow. As good as he felt right now, tomorrow had the potential to be intense. He felt a little proud of making the choice to take care of himself; if that pride felt a lot like his friends’ voices, that was his business.

Yasha added a few more rashers to Beauregard’s plate. “Would you like eggs, Caleb?”

Veth had, of course, fed him before he left, but Yasha liked to practise her cooking. “Ja, bitte. Dealer’s choice.”

Eggs over easy today. The first one came out a little more solid than it should have been, but the second had a perfect, runny yolk inside. Caduceus had ultimately won her over to adding some wilted greens on the side and, of course, two slices of yesterday’s bread, gently toasted.

Caleb was full to bursting by the end of it. And to think, it was not much longer than a year ago when having a single breakfast was not guaranteed… let alone two.

He brought a plate to Nico’s room when Yasha had finished stuffing him. Nico was up and dressed, curled over his spellbook at the little desk in the corner. He was distracted easily enough by the smell of bacon.

While Nico ate, Caleb traced over the teleportation circle in his study. They’d had a few setbacks with it, so it would likely take longer than originally planned. One day, though. It wouldn’t stop him worrying about Essek, but at least reliable teleportation would take one worry off his plate.

Caleb moved to the lesbians’ living room to tidy up the runes of a few more recent spells in his spellbook; without the daily excitement of adventuring, his power grew slower, even as he had more time in the day to study. But… he was getting close to a breakthrough. It would take a little while longer, but one day… he would very much like to turn into a dragon. Nico sat with him, practising the spells Caleb had taught him.

Beauregard left for work, just as a disguised Essek stepped inside, carrying a little wooden box. He set it on the couch and began to unload… balls of wool? Knitting needles? The beginning of what looked like a scarf?

“Ooh, what do you have there?” Yasha asked, looking up from the pair of socks she was mending for Beauregard. Caleb expected they would announce their engagement any day now.

“You know, you are supposed to finish knitting before you go somewhere cold,” said Nico.

Essek dropped his disguise, just in time to gaze down his nose at Nico in a loose facsimile of the way he had always looked while floating, once upon a time. “I have been… given a project.”

“Reani, I assume?” said Caleb.

“Mm-hm.” Essek, endearingly, gazed at the collection with utmost confusion. “She suggested weaving, first, but… that is not so portable.”

Caleb could see where she had gotten that idea. Essek’s casting was elegant, elaborate, artful. Manipulating the weave with his fingertips, as they both did… but with Essek, his somatics were on another level entirely. A skill developed in an ivory tower, whereas Caleb’s somatics were much more efficient, pared down to their base elements.

“Everyone needs a hobby,” Nico murmured, already back to his studies. “Supposedly.”

Essek settled onto the couch and picked up the proto-scarf. “Yes. Well. We will find out if I am any good at it.”

He probably would be, given the level of focus he dedicated to spellwork. But, knowing Essek, he would become frustrated if he was not immediately perfect. The memory of Essek’s little frown whenever something did not quite go his way made Caleb duck his head back over his spellbook, lest Essek see his little smile and know exactly where his mind had gone.

The shock of Essek attempting to develop a normal hobby soon dissipated and everyone went back to their tasks, but Caleb watched Essek out of the corner of his eye. The knitting needles softly clicked as Essek picked up where he had left off, tongue held between his teeth. Caleb had to fight the urge to kiss him senseless.

He behaved himself until it was late enough to justify going to bed that evening. Then, he convinced Essek to put down the knitting. Just for a bit.

***

The week began anew. Caleb woke, slowly at first, his head in Essek’s lap. Then, with a jolt, he remembered what lay in store for him today.

“Scheisse,” he hissed, but Essek put a hand on his chest before he could sit up. The hand slid upwards to Caleb’s collarbones, right at the base of his throat, thumbnail gently grazing the hollow there. Caleb closed his eyes and breathed. There was no rush. He wasn’t late. But it was hard not to be in constant motion at times like this.

Essek scooped him up, making a valiant effort to nuzzle the top of Caleb’s head despite Caleb being quite a bit taller than him. “You will give me the highlights, yes?”

“Natürlich.” He felt lighter… and not as a metaphor for his internal turmoil. Essek had reduced his density so they wouldn’t topple over backwards. Caleb curled up like a cat for a bit, until his body’s need to piss spurred him back into motion.

In the process, it occurred to him that Essek would have to leave very soon. Lingering as long as he had was ill-advised. Caleb was stabilising a bit; he would be okay without near-constant supervision from Essek and the Nein. It would not be fair to keep Essek in Rexxentrum for much longer, given the proximity to the Assembly and the scrutiny that entailed.

Essek was dressed when Caleb returned, kneeling on the floor to sort through the contents of his own vault of amber. It had been one of the first spells he had learned from Caleb during their time in Aeor, as it was more reliable than his previously-used Leomund’s Secret Chest, which tended to become increasingly unstable after 60 days.

Frowning a little, Essek plucked a pair of silvery earring studs from a small box and affixed them to his lobe piercings. Caleb leaned against the doorframe and watched him. He went simple today, just adding a pair of filigree ear cuffs to the tips of his ears. Essek tapped a nail against his tin of pomade for a moment before seemingly deciding against styling his hair with it today. Instead, he rearranged his collection of clothing, jewellery and other comforts within the set of amber chunks and began to ritually seal them back away. The pile looked a little bigger than it had last time Caleb had seen it; Essek was typically ready to run at a moment’s notice, but that signalled a greater disquiet than usual.

If Caleb hadn’t needed him, Essek probably would have departed the continent weeks ago, at least for a bit.

“The Nein Heroez would be happy to have you,” Caleb reminded him, digging through his drawers for clean clothes. He had his own go bag stashed there, but he hadn’t felt a strong urge to grab it and run since Trent was finally put away. He still had moments where old instincts threatened to take over, just a little bit, but he had been able to logic his way out of it most of the time. When that failed, Beauregard knew how to talk sense into him.

Essek hummed in acknowledgement, too focused on the spell for a substantive response. Caleb washed his face and trimmed his beard while he awaited the inevitable conversation. Maybe now wasn’t the best time, given what lay in store today, but he would feel better with certainty on this, at least. By the time Essek finished, Caleb was halfway dressed. Essek came up behind him, brushed Caleb’s loose hair aside, and pressed his cheek against his bare back, squeezing his middle. Caleb crossed his arms over Essek’s, squeezing back.

“I admit…” Essek sighed, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake. “I am getting nervous.”

“I know,” Caleb said softly.

Essek kissed his spine between the shoulder blades. “I don’t want to leave you, but if I ever want to return…”

“I know.” Caleb turned, taking Essek’s face in his hands. “I’m all right, Essek.” He understood, with painful clarity, what being on the run meant. It had been his life for years. So, he kissed Essek, and told him, “This is not our first rodeo, ja? We will talk as we always do, and you will bring back something interesting for us to argue about, okay?”

Essek’s cheeks darkened, and his frown lost purchase in favour of a sheepish little smile. “I’ll do my best, Caleb Widogast.”

Caleb never tired of the way his chosen name flowed across Essek’s tongue. He kissed him again. “When are you leaving?”

The clouds returned to Essek’s expression. “Tomorrow, if that is all right. If you would like to meet after the support group, we can make that happen away from the Empire, but I think too many eyes will be upon you in Rexxentrum.” Essek turned his head to kiss Caleb’s palm. “I will go to the Nein Heroez for a bit. Jester has threatened to paint my nails again.”

“Frightening.” Caleb felt a little better for having that settled.

Essek pressed against Caleb’s front, nuzzling his chest hair. An endless point of fascination, given drow grew very little body hair at all. “When do you need to leave today?”

Caleb’s rude awakening had given him a little extra time. “We can spare a few minutes.”

***

Nico joined Caleb for the trip to the academy, citing the need to reacquaint himself with it before going back to class. They passed through the market on the way, where Lisbeth gave both of them hard candies and ruffled Nico’s hair.

“I will return home at the end of the week,” she told them in Zemnian. “You both better visit!”

Nico had laughed sheepishly at the time, rubbing the back of his neck. When they left the market, he veered into a back alley and doubled over, hands on knees, to hyperventilate for a few seconds. Caleb put a grounding hand on his back.

“Scheisse,” Nico muttered, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I used to babysit her grandkids. She used to babysit me when Mother and Father were…” Nico went very still for three seconds. “That was a lot.”

Caleb made a mental note to check back with Lisbeth later, to see if she had anything left to make Nico’s dormitory more comfortable. He remembered, vividly as always, how hard he had cried when the Nein had bought him a quilt from her.

For now, “Drink some water, Nico.”

Nico grabbed the waterskin tied to his belt and took a hearty swig, roughly wiping his mouth. “Fuck. How do you deal with that?”

Caleb couldn’t help but chuckle ruefully. “I cried like a baby after I met her the first time, and I don’t remember her from my childhood. You are dealing with it very well.”

“I will take your word for it,” Nico muttered. He took a few deep breaths. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They continued towards the Shimmer Ward. Nico watched their surroundings closely. Like Caleb, the wonder had long left his gaze, to be replaced by nostalgia. It was an odd look on someone so young, but Caleb supposed every Volstrucker was aged by their experiences. Nico was the last one to complete the training. The last one, Caleb hoped, who would have to carry the consequences of the end result.

Sadness was Caleb’s oldest companion by this point. He had learned long ago banishing it wouldn’t work. It was here. This was very much a sad moment, watching Nico go through those same feelings Caleb had… and still did. He breathed with it and let it be there.

“I used to love it here,” Nico said softly.

“Ja,” Caleb agreed. They passed by Camarouth Cottage and its beautiful yellow stone exterior. The memory of how fucking frightened Caleb had been when the Nein stayed there was hard to shake, but he could objectively appreciate the architecture and the gardens… and remember how good the food had been.

They didn’t talk much after that, each lost in their own memories, until they reached the academy grounds. There, Nico faltered, taking in the manicured lawns and the towers and bridges and the students milling about before the morning’s classes. Not too many at this time of day, but Caleb recognised a handful of the beginners.

Micha clocked Nico from the shaded alcove where they had been chatting with Margie (human, she/her, Karmordah) and Ella (gnome, she/her, Hupperdook). They streaked across the perfect grass and flung themself into Nico’s waiting arms, babbling in rapid-fire Zemnian. From what Caleb could pick up, given their face was squished into Nico’s jacket, Micha was chewing him out for going missing, and for stressing Felix out, and for not talking to Micha when they were in Blumenthal, and for a whole host of things for which Caleb had no context.

Nico sighed and patted their head. “Yes, I missed you, too.”

And then Micha started sobbing into Nico’s jacket, which Caleb took as his cue to leave. Nico mouthed fuck you, but Caleb shrugged and kept walking. As he approached the front doors, he sent Nico a message:

“Kaspar’s parents will be here shortly, but I’m sure Professors Weber or Winterheart will offer up their offices if you need to get Micha somewhere indoors.”

Nico replied, “Not helpful, Caleb. Fuck you.” There was no hostility in his tone, however. “Call me if Kaspar or Annike give you any trouble.”

Caleb had tried not to express his nerves too much around Nico regarding this meeting, but he should have known he would have picked up on it. The offer was appreciated, even if Caleb had no intention of dragging Nico into this unless absolutely necessary. The young man had quite enough on his plate today.

Not that Caleb felt any better-equipped, but that feeling had not stopped him in a long time. Sometimes, things simply needed to be done, no matter how you felt about being the person to do them.

***

He encountered Astrid lounging in his desk chair. He sighed at her.

“Guten Morgen, Astrid.”

She smirked up at him. “Now that your man has fucked the anxiety out of you, I have some final pieces of advice for your meetings today.”

Caleb, resigning himself to being a visitor in his own office for the moment, flopped into one of the guest seats on the wrong side of the desk. “I appreciate your help.”

Astrid handed him a sheet of paper. “Memorise this information about Bysaes Tyl and Kaspar’s mother. The Assembly does not think much of her, or anyone from the city, but she is a diplomat for her people and deals with Rexxentrum regularly. Not the ambassador, technically, but she is quite young for an elf. She has time to work her way up, if marrying a human from Rexxentrum hasn’t killed her career prospects. Which it might, at least until he dies.”

Caleb scanned the page. Valhana Ta’nes was a cultural attaché, some kind of diplomat who was on paper tasked with managing cultural exchange between Bysaes Tyl and the rest of the Empire.

“We have long suspected their cultural attachés are also spies,” said Astrid. “The elves of Bysaes Tyl are protective of their culture, but are smart enough to exchange just enough to stay in the Empire’s good graces.”

“Nico did mention it was strange Trent would go for someone as well-connected as Kaspar,” Caleb murmured, reading over the rest of the notes. Valhana had shown some magical aptitude herself, but tended to favour weaving it through music or speech. A bard, then.

Astrid hummed, twiddling with one of Caleb’s quills. “Ja, Trent was quite convinced she’s a sleeper agent. Marrying a human and having a half-elf child are not well-regarded in Bysaes Tyl, so it is likely she has been promised political protection or career progression if she does her time in the muck with the rest of us.”

“And if you convince her own son he owes loyalty to the Empire…”

“Trent worked very hard on that boy.” Astrid laid the quill aside and lifted herself from Caleb’s chair. “Kaspar was born in Bysaes Tyl but has spent a lot of time in Rexxentrum. His loyalties were muddled, as one might expect.” She squeezed Caleb’s shoulder as she passed on her way to the door. “Do try not to turn him entirely against us, Bren.”

“No promises,” Caleb muttered.

And then she was gone.

#shadowgast #critical role #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #cr2 #professor widogast #my fics #ao3 #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, Chapter 34

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: lengthy discussion of grief and deceased parents, references to child abuse and brainwashing (so, Caleb-typical backstory)

Chapter summary:  Caduceus reminds everybody that he is, effectively, a magic grief counsellor. Caleb, sitting in his heartbreak, conjures the ghosts of his past for Jester. Beau consensually reads another person's letter.

Chapter notes: Chapter title from Saturn by Sleeping At Last. Please accept my apologies for the length absence. Full chapter note on AO3.

***

Chapter 34: You taught me the courage of stars before you left

Caleb took a deep breath in the quiet of the salon, hearing nothing but the soft crackle of the fireplace. He sank to the rug in front of the flames and put his head in his hands. He was so tired. He could not imagine ever sleeping again.

Soon enough, and not unexpected, the footfalls of another person filled the space. “Hey.”

Caleb filled his uncooperative lungs with air. “Hallo, Herr Clay.”

“Mind if I sit?”

“Nein, my house is your house.”

A smile in Cadeuceus’s voice. “That’s nice.”

Caleb steeled himself and swivelled to face him. Caduceus took the couch Caleb had slept on so many times during the study trip to Aeor, when he had needed the assurance of another’s presence, long before he and Essek had ever shared a bed. Caduceus was watching him, of course, with that gaze that stripped you down to your base components. So this was a serious conversation, then.

“What’s on your mind?” Caleb asked, the impulse to just get this over with warring against the urge to get out of here before any more layers of his sanity could be pulled away tonight.

“Mister Caleb, do you know how many funerals I have seen in my life?”

“A lot, I imagine. Why do you ask?”

“How many have you seen?”

“A few. Not so many..” A handful in his childhood, the makeshift burial they had given to Mollymauk and every time they drank to him thereafter.

“What do you think is the point of them?”

“Um. Well, I suppose the, uh, deceased do not get much out of it.”

The corner of Caduceus’s mouth quirked upward. “You’re right. Funerals are for the living. Of course, you follow the rites based on the culture and worship of the deceased, but they have already passed on. A good funeral gives their loved ones a chance to close that chapter of their lives.”

“To say goodbye, ja.”

“Yeah, and to reflect on the time they had with that person, to remember they are grieving because of the love they shared. And to understand that, no matter the end, it mattered.”

Caleb struggled with that last bit sometimes. He tried. He really tried.

“It’s only one step in a long process,” continued Caduceus. “Tell me something, Caleb.”

Caleb… was a little busy keeping the steel of his emotional barrel intact. Or keeping the flames inside him from spilling out. Fucking metaphors.

Caduceus folded himself forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What are you mourning?”

Caleb thought back to the stew, the quark, the chives. The green beans. To the Baumanns’ funeral, to familiar and unfamiliar faces, to headstones old and new. To memories of ash and dust, weeks and months and years old. The smell of apple tarts on the wind. Illusory silhouettes against flame. False memory with real consequences. Gaps where no memory could find purchase, and the uneasy gratitude for that void. Inky letters, some tearstained, some shaky, some precise and unyielding. Of plans, desperate hopes, desperate stubbornness. Of time. New hopes, new setbacks, new goals, yet always the possibility of a second chance. The weighing of consequences and that desperate burning need to make it right. Of letting go. Going home. Trying to grow around the chasm where his heart was meant to be.

Caduceus was still looking at him, eyes firm in response to whatever he had seen on Caleb’s face. “Tell me, Caleb… when did you accept that your parents were really gone?”

It was not a pretty answer, but he knew what it was. “After the T-Dock. That second time.”

“A few months ago, then.” Caduceus sank to the floor in front of him, his eyes betraying the grim satisfaction of a man who had just confirmed what he already knew. “You went to see them afterward, yeah?”

“Ja.”

“You know…” Caduceus rested his back against the seat, pulling one knee up. He still took up most of the space between them. “Every so often, some time after a burial, a loved one will come to the Grove. Someone who was, for some reason–estrangement, usually–not there when it happened.”

Caleb felt his patience beginning to fray. Or, perhaps more accurately, what little calm he had gathered. The rope suspending him above the ravine of yet another breakdown.

Caduceus breathed deeply. “There is a part in all of us that expects we will one day bury our parents. That goes beyond outliving them. They brought us into the world, and we expect to care for them when they leave it.”

The reminder was unwelcome. He didn’t want to snap at Caduceus, but, gods , he was close.

“But, not everyone can do that. You brought them the letters?”

Caleb nodded, not sure he was in the mood to be comforted, or whatever the fuck Caduceus was trying to do.

“We had all kinds of stories come through the Grove. Part of what we do is listen, after all. How long were you writing those letters?”

It occurred to Caleb that he had never told anyone outright, though he supposed Essek would have some idea. “Oh, about five years. On and off.” He hadn’t started right away; it had taken some time to regain enough control of his faculties to think clearly enough about what he wanted. Letters had been part of the plan early on, though he hadn’t been wholly sure about it at the start. There had been times where his existence had been so monotonous in bare subsistence that he couldn’t bear to waste paper and ink to bore his mother and father. Then, of course Veth and the rest of the Nein had happened, and everyday had been a new experience that he ached to share.

“Five years of letters.” Caduceus leaned forward a little, suddenly intense. “What an incredible gift for them, Caleb. Truly.”

Caleb inhaled deeply through his nose and blinked upward at the top level of the salon, counting book spines he could see at this distance.

“I’ve heard stories of regret and estrangement from our visitors,” said Caduceus. “The hardest ones, the people who struggle the most, are those for whom the choice was out of their control. The kids sent off to war, who battled sickness, or were a whole continent away and did not hear the news until it was too late. They wanted someone to blame. For some people, it’s easiest to put the blame on someone else. For others, the ones who need to feel control over their lives, they turn the blame inward.”

Caduceus’s gaze was heavy on Caleb, even as he wasn’t meeting it. This wasn’t the first conversation the Nein had had with him about this, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. On another day, he may have been more receptive. Today, however, he was too fucking miserable.

Caduceus sighed slowly. “I know that is an ongoing project. You’ve done good work on that. Today, though… you are upset. Do you know why?”

Some things were falling into place. Thinking back to standing outside while the wake continued inside the Schneiders’. That ongoing feeling of outsideness, wrongness, bitterness and even defeat. He knew he’d done everything he could for Nico, and that it would never be enough. It was difficult to offer support for something that he himself had never been permitted to experience.

So, maybe, it really was that simple today. It was hard to stand by and watch Nico have this when he didn’t. It was even harder to be directly involved in making sure it happened.

Caleb inhaled, shaky as it was. “I tried not to think about their, um, their funeral.”

Caduceus nodded, a small smile reaching his eyes, the kind he gave when someone was finally understanding what he tried to say.

“I was in the madhouse by then anyway, and if my plans worked out, it wouldn’t matter. I think… I didn’t see any value in being surrounded by people talking about how wonderful dead people were when they were alive. I’ve already eaten my fucking words there. And, well, I am not sure I would have gone even if I had been able to. Never asked Astrid or Wulf if they went. Probably not. I never thought it would bother me this much, not having the choice. It was… not mine to want.”

“You have spoken of them a little in the past. Tell me more.”

“Oh, um…”

Before Caleb could get his thoughts in order, Caduceus’s ear flicked and he glanced to the side, as if listening for a sound behind him. Caleb glanced at the door, to find it open a crack, and shadows breaking the stream of light.

“How long have they been there?” Caleb asked.

“Not long. Do you want them here?”

Caleb had left the dining room to get some alone time, but he had been overwhelmed with feelings he had been unable to parse on his own. He still felt shitty. It made more sense now, though. Less all-encompassing. And he found himself in want of the unique, oft-overbearing, affection that came with the Nein as a whole.

“Ja, I think so.”

“All right,” Caduceus said over his shoulder, “you can stop hiding now.”

Like a handkerchief out of a street magician’s sleeve, the Nein piled into the salon. Veth pelted herself across the room and tucked herself under Caleb’s arm.

Jester claimed his other side, throwing an armful of pillows and blankets into his lap. “Come on, Cay-leb! Tell us about your mum and dad!”

Fjord, with his put-upon smile, brought in more bedding. “Jester would like to have a sleepover.”

“Well, that can be arranged,” Caleb replied, throwing the pillows around and unfurling the blankets. “Although, I may need to step out until I hear from Felix.” There was only a 5% chance the message wouldn’t arrive, but 5% was a lot on a day like this.

“We’ll come back,” said Essek.

“Ooh, should we invite Nico?” asked Jester.

“I think Nico wants to be left alone,” Fjord replied. “He’ll come if he wants company. Caleb, we interrupted you. Please, whatever you want to say, we would love to hear it.”

“A moment, if that’s all right.” Caleb needed to think.

“Of course.” Fjord laid out the remaining pillows and blankets. The Nein arranged themselves around the space, lounging like a bunch of lazy cats. The non-lazy cats of the tower brought in extra fruit and cheese.

While the slumber party was built around him, Caleb thought of his parents. The good times. Una’s apple tarts and stews, hanging from her skirts at the market, planting green beans together. Leofric carrying Bren on his shoulders, sneaking him extra bits of stewed apple behind Una’s back, Bren watching him come down the road as he returned home from the Righteous Brand. Making little globules of light, watching the delight on his parents’ faces, Una finding his first books about magic. Leofric, not fully understanding but wanting to help, learned about magic components and brought him glowworms for his Dancing Lights, bits of copper wire so he could send them Messages at silly times. The fear, and then joy, when he showed them his affinity for fire and how it could help Una in the kitchen and keep them warm when the firewood was too wet to catch. Pouches of candied almonds Bren and Una made together for Leofric when he had to return to the Righteous Brand. The pride on their faces when he was chosen for the Academy.

So, Caleb talked about them. All that and more.

Coming home and reading folktales in new languages to his parents, with soot from the fireplace and salt from the kitchen. Una finding new books in dwarven and elvish and even Marquesian so Bren could read them to her. Caleb teaching her a bit of Sylvan and Celestial he had learned at school. Leofric bringing him pieces of phosphorus once he was old enough, even though the Academy provided plenty of components.

Dancing in the little sitting room. Bren–Caleb–learned to waltz from his parents. From his mother, he learned the apple tart recipe that he’d never worked up the nerve to replicate, amongst many soups and stews that had saved his life in the early days post-Vergesson. From his father, he learned basic weapons training, even a little hunting for small game. Even if he wouldn’t be caught dead wielding them under most circumstances, he did know how to use daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaves and light crossbows. The day he hit the centre of the target with a crossbow led to sharing his first beer with his father, watching the sunset until Una called them in for dinner.

They were good parents. Good people. Loved by Bren, and loved by the people around them. They had also loved the Empire, even if it didn’t love them back in the end.

“They sound really cool, Caleb,” said Jester.

“Ja,” Caleb replied, his voice rough after talking so much. “The coolest.”

“Did they always live in Blumenthal?” asked Fjord.

“I believe so, ja.”

“Hey, your mum… big reader?” asked Beauregard.

“Ja, the biggest.”

“And your dad?”

“A little poetry, ja. He liked to read aloud.”

“What’s Zemnian poetry like?” asked Yasha.

“Depressing,” replied Beauregard.

“Oh, some of it,” Caleb said. “But a lot of it is quite beautiful. The fairytales are rather grisly, though.” It had been quite some time since Caleb had sat down to read poetry; maybe he would find the time now. Try to reclaim this thing he had once shared with his father.

“The Cat Prince was nice,” said Jester.

“That is the happiest one.” There were various theories as to whether the boy and his mother died of plague at the end of the story, but she didn’t need to hear those. “I will have to tell you about the Waldhexe sometime.” If he could stomach how close it felt to the truth these days.

“The vortex?”

“Close enough.”

“Did you write to them when they were alive?” asked Beauregard.

“That’s a rather intense question,” remarked Kingsley. True to form with Beauregard, though, so not much of a shock.

“I did a bit, ja. Less so after Trent brought us into the program.” It was hard to write letters when he couldn’t talk about what he was doing on a daily basis. He could only write about the fucking beer hall so much before they would have figured out something was up. “I told myself–and I suppose Trent did as well–that our parents would be proud of what we were doing, but… well.”

“What did you write about? Back when you could.”

“Boring, daily things about life at school. Little facts I learned. I sent books I thought they might like, or spices and dyed wool in colours that were hard to find in Blumenthal. I just wrote for the sake of writing, really.”

“That’s really sweet, Caleb,” said Jester, clamping onto his arm like an octopus.

“Ja. Well.” Not that much later, he was writing to dead people. So.

“What did they look like?” Jester rummaged in her bag, grabbing out her sketchbook. Oh. That was… a lot.

Short of casting Seeming on everyone again (he did not want to do that), Caleb only knew the one spell that could create visual illusions, so he found a piece of fleece and some leftover jade, which he fabricated into enough dust for the spell. And he cast Programmed Illusion.

“What’s the magic word?” he asked, as he cast, setting a trigger for the illusion to activate.

“Pleeeeease.”

That was indeed the magic word. Across the way, just outside the Nein’s circle, two lifesize images of his mother and father sprang into existence. Una, with her long red hair pulled half-back and wearing her favourite green dress and brown boots. Quite tall; she and Bren (Caleb?) had been roughly of a height when he had been accepted into the Academy. Of course, he kept growing for a few years afterwards. Leofric, tall and broad-shouldered, dark hair greying at the temples and streaked through his beard. Dressed in his usual quilted doublet and gloves in blue-grey. Hair tied back at the nape of his neck. Bren-Caleb had almost matched him in height the last time he’d had the chance to stand face-to-face. Both pale. Kind eyes.

They smiled forward for a moment, and then turned to each other. Una raised her hand. Leofric took it in his and put his other hand on her waist. They began to waltz together in a small, slow circle.

Caleb had not seen them in seventeen years, and he remembered them as if he had just spoken to them yesterday. Not even the eleven years of oblivion had wrecked this part of his memory.

Still, seeing them in his mind was different to seeing them .

Scratching of Jester’s pencil on paper. “Caleeeeeb, you parents were so good-looking.”

“You look just like them, Caleb.” Yasha.

How many times had Caleb looked in a mirror and tried so fucking hard not to trace the familiar features? How many times had he wanted to and refused to allow himself the complex comfort that it could have brought?

Caleb didn’t realise his cheeks were wet until Veth dabbed at them with her handkerchief. A little aching part of him felt both soothed and aggravated. It was… harder than he had expected, mere moments ago as he had crushed the jade. He had once believed with everything he had–heart, soul, fractured mind–that the next time he saw their faces, he would give them the letters and whisk them away to Emon. Not watch an illusion based on a long-dead memory.

Oh, this had been a bad idea. He pulled on the thread of the spell, letting the images of his mother and father fade away.

“The, um, passcode will work again in ten minutes,” Caleb said weakly. “I just… I’ve had enough, I think.”

Jester kept scribbling, bumping him with her shoulder.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Beauregard, “but your mum was kinda hot.”

“In your expert opinion?”

“Yeah, I am an expert, man.” Then she switched topics so fast Caleb could almost feel his brain eject from his skull. “What did you write to them after? In the book.”

“Oh. Um.” 

“Beau,” Fjord murmured from behind his hand.

Caleb acted before he could second-guess himself. He was done with these kinds of secrets. He pointed at the shelf where he had been counting books with his eyes. “Final bookcase, second shelf, third from the right.”

Beauregard scrambled up the stairs and grabbed the book, holding it out to him. Caleb took the duplicate of his book of letters to his parents and slowly paged through it, still deciding what he wanted to show them. The book was a little cleaner, less scuffed than the real one had been. He doubted anybody but him would know the difference, but it had been deliberate… to remind him of choices made.

“Is this a copy?” asked Veth.

“Ja, the salon holds a copy of every book I have read. No exceptions.” Caleb skipped over the early letters; those would be too fucked up to start with. Jester was reading over his shoulder, but she couldn’t read Zemnian without magical assistance, so she was just being a nuisance (her primary love language).

Eventually, Caleb settled on a letter he had written in Trostenwald. He passed the book to Beauregard.

She put her hand over the pages as if to stop herself from accidentally reading it. “Me… really?”

“You understand Zemnian, ja?”

“I’ve been learning, yeah.”

“Can’t you understand, like, every language?” asked Jester.

“Spoken language. Still gotta study the written bit.” Beauregard squinted at the page. “Okay, I think I got it. Might be awkward, sorry.” She cleared her throat, and read: “Dear Mum and Dad –ugh, that sounds wrong… sorry, Caleb. Fuck, already butchering this.”

“It’s fine, Beauregard.” Anything was better than Caleb having to read this aloud himself.

“Fuuuuck. Okay. I’m writing this letter from an inn in Trostenwald. Nott and I have made some new friends. A bunch of weirdos, really, so we fit right in. We went to the circus and wound up solving a murder mystery. We saved the town from a nergaliid–a fiend that sucks life from people. It had been feeding on a little dwarven girl for years, posing as a lizardman, but something made him impatient. He turned an old man at the circus into a zombie and we had to kill him to protect the crowd and ourselves. The circus nearly took the fall; the owner, Gustav, is staying in town to work off a debt imposed by the Lawmaster. He has guilt on his conscience and I am not sure why, but it’s not my business. It seems the carnival is finished, but the people are free and want to start over on the Menagerie coast. They are family, after all. Jester, one of our new friends, a strange blue tiefling with a lot of opinions, wanted to keep the tent and turn it into a hot air balloon… whatever that is. Her companion, Fjord, a half-orc with some kind of magic that is new to him, is interested in Soltryce Academy. I’m not sure what to do. He is impressed by my parlour tricks. I found myself tapped of magic recently and resorted to fire in a fight. It did not feel very good, to put it lightly. At least I still have a conscience, I suppose. ” Beauregard looked up from the letter. “Oh, that’s what the fuck happened to you. Didn’t you try to convince us you were just freaked out by the fight?”

Caleb shrugged. “I didn’t know you very well.”

“Fair point.” Beauregard went back to reading. “ No matter, there is safety in numbers. Nott and I have only been out of prison about six months, and it has been hard with just the two of us. Nott is a little scared of Yasha, a big woman from the circus with a sword to match. She seems all right. A bit of a loner. They are a shifty bunch. Fjord is a people-pleaser. Beauregard, another human, asks too many questions, but at least she is open about it. She seems connected to a library in Zadash. I will keep an eye on that one. Maybe she can help my research, if she doesn’t bust my balls first. Mollymauk is a purple tiefling from the circus… a colourful fellow, full of shit and very loud, but that will keep attention away from the rest of us.

“ The last few days have been a lot. I have nearly died several times and put myself at the mercy of the crownsguard more than I would like. Frumpkin is a sparrow at the moment and I can’t afford to change him back. The circus folk keep talking about family and it bothers me a little bit, as selfish as I am. I think I’m ready to leave this place.

“ I will have to be more careful with this book. Nott doesn’t ask questions, but Jester and Beauregard are quite nosy. Yeah, I’ll take that. Very fair. That said, we are a shifty bunch. I assume everyone has their secrets. Staying quiet helps a bit. Time will tell how much I can trust them, but they are decent enough travel companions for now.

“I will write again in a few days. I love you. Bren.” Beauregard shut the book. “Wow, that was way more normal than I thought it was going to be.”

Caleb gave her a rueful smile. “That one was, ja.”

The others didn’t have much to say, it seemed, limiting their gazes to various tasks of fluffing pillows or smoothing blankets. Yasha, perhaps unsurprisingly given her history, and Caduceus were the least stiff.

“That was lovely, Caleb,” said Yasha. “I’m sure they appreciated the stories.”

“I hope so.” It was hard for Caleb to believe in much, but he had somehow been able to hang onto hope that Una and Leofric Ermendrud were able to watch over their son, and had received the letters he had finally buried with them. “The, um, the letters are always here. You are welcome to read them, if you would like. Some of them are a little… not very nice, though, and I have changed my mind on many things since writing about them… so, I ask forgiveness for anything hurtful I have written.”

“That’s okay, Cay-leb,” said Jester. “Can you cast a spell on us so we can read it?”

“Comprehend Languages can normally be cast on the self only,” said Caleb. “Essek and I may be able to figure out a space in the Tower that allows anything conjured with it to be translated, though it would not be complete until I cast the tower again.”

Essek had already steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, frowning in concentration. “We could make it work. Every book conjured with the Tower is a book you have read. We could, in theory, design a space where those books are translatable into any language you can speak. If I recall, that would be Zemnian, Common, Sylvan and Celestial?”

“Ja, that is correct.” Caleb had also picked up a little Undercommon thanks to Essek, and could read small amounts of Aeorian thanks to their study trip. Not fluent in either of those, though.

“Are you sure you’re alright with us reading these letters?” Fjord asked.

The Nein had stuck with Caleb after learning about the things he had done. They had stuck with him even when he was an asshole (then again, they were all assholes). They already knew what he had originally intended with the letters. There was no reason to hide them. He didn’t need to explain his rationale in detail, either.

“Ja,” was all he said.

“Perhaps next time you cast the tower,” Essek said, “you can provide a reading nook where tower texts can be translated into your languages. A lever system, perhaps, to activate the enchantment for a specific language?”

“Ja, that could work.” Caleb would design some runes… divination made the most sense. Comprehend Languages and Tongues were both from that school. For an area-of-effect, perhaps he could base it on something like Detect Magic. To create a circle on the material plane… that could take a year or more. But in the tower, the space could shift to his needs without too much difficulty… once he figured out the inner workings.

He had some writing to do. He also needed to step out of the tower to better the odds of Felix’s Sending getting through to him.

So, while the Nein settled in for their slumber, Caleb and Essek excused themselves.

“Are you coming baaaaack?” whined Jester, curled up amongst the pillows with her sketchbook still in her lap.

“If Felix calls me shortly, ja.”

They stepped out of the tower. Caleb had found a new burst of energy, now that he had a magical problem to solve, so they headed to the study. Essek pulled out stacks of paper while Caleb gathered inks and quills. They spread everything out on the floor and got to work. While Caleb calculated the parameters for this new tower effect, Essek worked through the daily teleportation circle enchantment.

Felix’s message came not long after Caleb had copied out the various divination runes that were likely to form the base of this enchantment.

“Hallo, Caleb. Things are quiet here… finally. We are going to bed. Thank you for helping. How is Nico?”

Caleb replied, “Nico has gone to bed, but would appreciate a message. We had some conversations that will need time to stick. He has eaten. Gute Nacht.”

Felix, who had a limited capacity to cast at the level required, did not Send again. Caleb hoped he had the reserves to drop a note to Nico, at least.

The teleportation circle flared and went dark. Essek crawled across the space to join him. It was still an odd sight, sometimes, to watch him drop the float at times such as this.

A kiss on his temple. “This is a good start, Caleb Widogast. Let’s see what we can do with it.”

They fell into their well-worn rhythm, passing papers and theories back and forth, swapping spellbooks, scribbling new ideas and scrapping the ones that were no longer suitable. The world slowly righted itself.

Soon enough, Caleb could barely keep his eyes open. He could have kept going for a bit longer, even as exhaustion slowed him down, but Essek stacked the papers and set them aside.

“We will finish in the morning,” he said, holding out his hands. “Shall we return to the tower tonight?”

The warmth of the fire and the company of their friends sounded perfect. Caleb let Essek guide him by the hand downstairs and into the tower once again. Most of their friends had already dozed off, but there was some space between Veth and Jester where Caleb could fit, with Essek sitting cross-legged close by. The ladies rolled over in their sleep to absorb Caleb into the cuddle pile.

A long day, but it was done. Caleb finally let sleep claim him.

#caleb widogast #shadowgast #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #my fics #critical role #cr2 #ao3

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, Chapter 35

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: general references to grief, loss of parents, Trent's child abuse, related trauma

Chapter summary:  The dust settles and life continues.

Chapter notes: Chapter title from Atom 2 by Sleeping at Last. Happy Mighty Nein oneshot, everybody. No oneshot spoilers here.

***

Chapter 35: And make infinite room for hope and oxygen

Things were better in the morning. Caleb busied himself with calculations for the language enchantment alongside Essek. He did, however, take a break in the afternoon to find Yasha and Caduceus working alongside Nico in the garden. The anxious animal inside Caleb quieted at the sight. He was not an optimist by any means, but he let himself hope both he and Nico would be okay in time.

Caduceus handed him a trowel. The calculations would keep.

He re-cast the Tower when it faded, quietly factoring in the new enchantment. He sat with Nico in the garden, drinking tea, and tried not to fret over it. Nico wasn’t talking much. That was okay. Caleb didn’t feel like talking, either.

Caleb used the quiet to get his thoughts in order. The biggest immediate hurdle had passed. Next up would be the intermediate students at Soltryce; Astrid had yet to fully confirm, but it was possible there would be Volstrucker students in the class… if their parents were convinced not to pull them out. It had been some time since Caleb had dealt with students at that stage of the process, not since his own time as a student. They would have been with Trent for a few months at most, but that was more than enough to cause problems. Trent had this down to a fine art. Those children probably still thought they were going to live glorious lives serving the empire. He wondered if they would resent him for taking away that imagined future.

Then, the support group. Besides Wulf and Astrid, Caleb hadn’t spent a lot of time around the Volstrucker who had completed the program. He was not convinced they would take him seriously, or if many would even show up. Maybe this had been a bad idea. The more stubborn part of him, however, did not want to give up without evidence to support a hypothesis in either direction. If it didn’t work, he would have a bit of egg in his face… but what would he really lose? If no one showed, all he had lost was some time, and perhaps a little dignity. He didn’t have much of the latter anyway. If people showed up and it was a disaster, well, at least they would know what not to do, and whether or not it was worth trying again. But if it went well…

Caleb was under no illusion that the fully-initiated Volstrucker would think much of him. He was, after all, a failure. That said, he knew so little about what his old friends and their colleagues had experienced; Beauregard had tried to shield him from that aspect of Astrid and Wulf’s testimonies, though he’d put some pieces together over time. There had to be other points where Volstrucker failed, fatally or non-fatally. The young woman in the Dungeon of Penance had been so ready to die. Eager, even.

And, maybe, there was a part of Caleb who hoped someone would… get it. Astrid and Wulf had eleven years of experience on him, plus the five-or-so additional years before breaking free of the man who turned them into monsters. They worked for Trent that whole time, while Caleb was insensate for over a decade, and then on the run. Maybe it was overly optimistic to hope he would find someone with an even remotely similar experience. He was not sure he’d know what to do even if he did.

The closest he knew, frankly, was Nico. But Caleb was the adult. The one with experience. The living proof that life went on. But, gods, if he didn’t feel lonely sometimes, even among people who loved him. Except Yasha, but even then…

He was definitely still a little fucked up from yesterday, thinking like this.

A light pressure on his shoulder pulled Caleb from his thoughts; Nico had dropped his head onto Caleb’s shoulder. They sipped their tea and watched a handful of honey bees hover around the cornflowers Yasha had planted. Caleb used to collect them in the fields as a boy; Una used to weave them into his hair, and Leofric into hers.

Over time, the weight on his shoulder grew heavier, until Nico was softly snoring. Understandable. Caleb was tempted to do the same, if not for the risk of disturbing him.

A quiet sort of day.

***

With the week wrapping up, Caleb was well into preparations for the intermediate students’ return to Soltryce. As planned, he would assist with the intermediate Transmutation class. As things currently stood, Alphira mostly taught the beginners in Evocation and occasionally assisted in teaching the upper levels as needed, but, honestly, many of the senior professors were close to retirement, so it was likely she would start taking on additional responsibilities soon enough. Caleb was fine not teaching higher level Evocation at this point; he probably needed more time before he could handle that.

Caleb met with Astrid, Bettina and Alphira at the end of the week. Hopped up on excessive amounts of coffee, the four of them were sifting through last year’s report cards and other assorted notes related to the intermediate students, who were to arrive over the next couple of days.

Astrid had separated the files related to the students who had been plucked out for the Volstrucker program and pushed them to Caleb. “These three spent a few months with Trent, before you distracted him.”

Caleb speed-read the files. Two boys and a girl. “What have your dealings been with them?”

“Lately? Speaking to their parents.”

“And?”

“This one.” Astrid pulled the girl’s file. “Annike. Her parents have been convinced to allow her back to class. She is a quiet one. She will need time to warm up to you.”

“We can give her that. What do any of you know of her interests?”

“She has shown some aptitude for Divination and dabbles in tarot card readings… sometimes during class time,” said Bettina. “I believe she grew up in a circus before her parents settled in Yrrosa.”

“Probably not by choice,” added Astrid. “Intel from the area suggests the circus fell into debt with the Myriad. Annike is not close to her parents, so she won’t relate to any family talk.”

“Circuses seem to find trouble in the Empire,” Caleb remarked, thinking back to Trostenwald.

“You want to have fun? Go to the Menagerie Coast. Speaking of…” Astrid pulled another file. “Eric’s family has moved to Port Damali and have refused all attempts to contact them. It is unlikely he will return to class. The Cobalt Soul have been notified and will keep an eye on him. There is not much we can do at the moment.”

Caleb couldn’t fault the boy’s parents for their decision. Hopefully the Cobalt Soul could prevent any magical incidents, maybe take him under their wing eventually. Or at the very least, they had books. Eric was still a wizard, after all.

“A shame,” said Bettina. “He was showing interest in Transmutation.”

Astrid pulled the third file. “This is Kaspar, a young half-elf from Bysaes Tyl. He is likely to return to class, but his parents are coming with him at the beginning of next week and wish to speak to you, Bren.”

Caleb knew enough about Bysaes Tyl–elven-ruled, reluctantly agreed to join the Empire in exchange for limited cultural autonomy, ruled by three elven elders alongside a Crown-appointed starosta–to suspect they were likely less than pleased to learn the intended future for one of their people.

“Anything I should know?”

“He has shown some interest in Evocation,” said Alphira. “He used to hang out in my office before Trent got a hold of him.”

“And the three of them as a group?”

“They were close, of course,” said Astrid. “They usually are.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I am not sure how they will fare without Eric. Report back to me what they are like in class.”

“Ja, of course.”

***

Nico had a bit of insight about the youngest crop. He seemed unsurprised that Eric’s parents had taken him away from everything.

“Eric is very close to his family,” Nico said that evening over snickerdoodles and some kind of spiced tea from Marquet that Jester had brought from the Nicodranas markets. “He wrote to them constantly. They’ll take good care of him; he’ll be all right. He will probably find his way to the Cobalt Soul on his own.”

That was comforting. “Did you spend much time with them?”

“Not much, but enough.” Nico broke off a soft piece of cookie and dunked it. “Trent was relying on us a lot in those last few months to teach the young ones the basics. It was babysitting, really. Many of his most trusted Volstrucker died in the war, and he was distracted. By you, I assume.”

“I did annoy him quite a bit eventually, ja.” The invasive Sendings had nearly sent him back to the madhouse, it felt at the time. But, in hindsight, it was a little gratifying that he had finally managed to get under Trent’s skin. “What else did you pick up about these three?”

“I assume Professors Weber and Winterheart already told you about Annike’s tarot cards,” said Nico. “She sometimes prefers to communicate with them instead of speaking plainly. Her parents seem like a pain in the ass. She is difficult to rattle, except when she is, if that makes sense. Eric was the only person who could talk sense into her on the rare occasion something got to her, so… good luck.”

Jester popped in, ostensibly to check on the batch of cookies in the oven. “Did somebody say tarot cards?”

“One of Trent's younger students grew up in a circus,” Caleb told her.

“Ooh, you should show her Molly’s cards.”

“We’ll see,” Caleb replied. Getting a look at Annike’s deck seemed like a good place to start, before introducing any other variables. “Do you have any insights about Kaspar?”

Jester checked the cookies and bounced out of the kitchen, flapping her hands in farewell. They both returned the gesture and then continued conversing as if nothing had happened.

“I’m pretty sure his mother is someone important back home,” said Nico. “He’s a weird choice for the program, unless Trent assumed the Empire wouldn’t care about pissing off Bysaes Tyl that much.”

“Or perhaps he had a reason to want her off the chessboard in a few years,” added Caleb.

“Ja, maybe. Kaspar gets anxious about his father’s health sometimes; I’m not sure if it’s just because he’s human, or if he’s ill. So, it might not have been a difficult prospect to take him out, and make losing both of them less suspicious.” Nico paused, and then pushed his empty plate away. “I need to stop making myself nauseous.”

“Ja, I think that’s more than enough. Thank you.” Caleb drained the last of his tea. “Yasha told me the market is strung up with new lights. Shall we take a walk?”

“Ja, bitte.”

***

Caleb spent the next couple of days ferrying the Nein back to their respective homes. Veth, of course, insisted Caleb and Essek stay at her place overnight. Luc spent the day running around and shooting things with his mother, so he was well and truly tuckered out by bedtime.

Caleb, as usual, allowed Essek to braid his hair before bed. He let one light globule bob lazily throughout the space, as Essek needed very little light to see. However, he did like seeing Caleb’s colours, which was not possible in the dark.

Essek kissed Caleb’s shoulder where his shirt had slipped; it had once belonged to Fjord before the Wildmother gave him muscles. So, a little large on Caleb, but not ridiculously so. A few more kisses followed the first, never quite in the same place. Caleb turned his head to kiss Essek’s temple.

“Freckles,” Essek murmured, his cheeks darkening. He straightened, cleared his throat, and finished off the braid. Caleb captured his fingers before they could retreat, and pressed a kiss on each knuckle… all fourteen of them on the one hand, counted, of course.

Essek chuckled. “Ridiculous man.”

“Were you not just counting my freckles?”

“...quietly.”

“So?”

Essek grabbed his face and kissed him. Caleb strongly considered casting the Tower to remove any possibility of someone walking in on them; he and Essek had split the teleportation spells between them today, and thus still had access to most of their more powerful spells. Wound as tightly as he had been of late, it felt like forever since they had last been physically intimate.

Essek was now in his lap, and Caleb made up his mind before all the blood in his body could travel south… as soon as he had a chance to move. Right now, though, Essek had drastically increased his density and there was no way Caleb was getting anywhere short of telekinetically moving the man bite-sucking a hickey on his neck, just low enough that his scarf would cover it.

Coming up for air, Essek said, “You are doing much better.”

“I will be, if you let me cast the Tower.”

Essek hummed thoughtfully. “In a moment, dear.”

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #critical role #cr2 #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #professor widogast #fanfiction #ao3 #my fics

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 33

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: references to deceased family members, dissociation, references to drowning

Chapter summary:  In the aftermath, Caleb has no choice but to slow down and let his busybody (affectionate) friends take care of him.

Chapter notes:  Chapter title from Mars by Sleeping At Last.

***

Chapter 33: Let the brokenness be felt ‘til you reach the other side

Caleb returned to his living room, with Nico having already gone upstairs ahead of him. Every limb in his body was heavy. He sat on the couch and let out a long breath. Today had been… a day.

There wasn’t anything else for Caleb to do right now, except sit there and stare at the shimmering door he had designed to keep his new family safe. If pressed, he probably could have thought of a dozen different things to occupy his attention… if not for the fact his brain felt like a series of rusted gears no longer fit for purpose.

He was aware of time passing, as per usual. Counting seconds, minutes. Right… counting. He could still do that.

He found his component pouch. Essek had taken to complaining of the impracticality of using components instead of a focus, but Caleb was still being stubborn about it. He found pearls and counted them. One, two, three, four. Essek, at last count, had the other four. Various bird feathers: three from a raven, two from a duck, one from a sparrow. Five caterpillar cocoons. A small handful of copper wire pieces: one, two, three. His cat’s cradle. Three carefully-wrapped pieces of phosphorous. His piece of obsidian for the Resonant Echo spell. His collection of bat guano, good for another five fireballs before he would need to restock.

“Caleb?” Essek’s voice.

Caleb returned his component pouch to its pocket, pulling himself out of what felt like a trance. “Ja, hello.” His voice felt rough as if he had not used it in a very long time.

Essek came down the stairs, floating after several hours of avoiding it. His skin had been scrubbed, but parts of the makeup still clung at the hairline, which was still partly coloured blonde.

“The Nein have returned,” he said, sitting beside Caleb on the couch with a small handspan’s space between them. “They will come looking for you very soon, if you would like to avoid or facilitate that.”

Caleb didn’t have it in him to do either. The prospect of making a choice made his head hurt. Gods, why had he asked Nico so many fucking questions?

“Of course, the most expedient solution is to sit here and wait for them to figure out where we are,” said Essek, leading back into the cushions. “There are only so many options here in the house, after all.”

Caleb found himself nodding through the haze in his head. He was beginning to notice the various points of tension in his body, strange ways he was holding himself due to whatever the fuck was going on with him. It was easy enough to copy Essek and relax into the couch, which largely solved the problem without having to give it much thought. Then, it felt good to relax. So he kicked off his boots and curled up with his head on Essek’s shoulder. The citrus-floral scent of his evening primrose soap, from his Dynasty stock, was familiar and soothing.

That old instinct rose within him to reject any comfort that he felt he did not deserve, but he really didn’t have it in him to go through with it. Deserving or not, he was too tired to be an asshole to the people he loved. Then Essek wrapped an arm around him, and any notions of moving away blew away like smoke.

Soon enough, thudding and voices sounded from upstairs. Caleb braced himself for the force of the Nein’s presence. Welcome, if at times exhausting.

“They’re not in their room,” came Beauregard’s voice.

“Caleb likes to be in his study after a hard day,” said Veth.

“You go up, I go down?” asked Jester.

“I like your thinking, Detective.”

More thundering footsteps, and a blur of blue hurried down the stairs.

“Hello, Jester,” Essek said, giving Caleb a little squeeze. “Could you tell the others we are sitting quietly down here, if that’s all right?”

She nodded vigorously and thundered back upstairs. Essek’s hand found the base of Caleb’s skull and gently scratched his scalp. Caleb’s vision blurred and he shut his eyes. Warm tears spilled down his cheeks. At Essek’s gentle nudging, Caleb shoved his face into Essek’s shirt.

The footsteps returned, this time the thudding of several pairs of boots.

“Oh, nooooo,” said Jester. “He was fine when I left him!”

“Rough day, man,” Beauregard replied.

The cushions dipped beside Caleb, small fingers squeezing his arm. “Hey, Lebby. We’re all here, all right?”

Caleb reached for her hand, unfurling a little so she could climb into his lap. The space she vacated was immediately filled by someone else. Caleb took a few deep breaths, catching on long-awaited sobs, until he felt steady enough to face the others in the room. It was Jester beside him, wriggling closer until Veth was practically in both their laps. Veth grabbed a yellow-white polka dot handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at his face.

“Is this okay?” Essek whispered. Caleb nodded. He had already allowed the space for others to care for him, and it was hard to say no to these two. He didn’t want to anyway.

A pair of hands found his shoulders. Leaning back, he found Beauregard looming behind the couch. She squeezed. It was nice. Yasha, beside her, caught the end of his braid and weaved a few little purple flowers into it.

“It’s no broadsword shave, but…”

“Thank you, Yasha.” Caleb’s voice came out little more than a whisper. He had half-expected no sound to come out at all. It was hard to think, move, speak with all this weight bearing down on every inch of his physical and mental being.

Caduceus arrived with Fjord and Kingsley in tow, each carrying a wooden tray with steaming mugs. Setting them down on the table, they began to press them into everyone’s hands. Caduceus cupped his hands around Caleb’s, squeezing until his muscles responded to hold on. Caleb found it in himself to mumble his thanks.

The world narrowed to the simple mechanical task of raising the mug, blowing on the surface, taking a sip, swallowing, and lowering the mug again. The warm water spread down his throat and into his gut, leaving a floral, bitter taste on the back of his tongue. The others were talking, but listening felt like too much effort. Raise, blow, sip, swallow, lower.

Hands on his back of differing sizes. One rubbed circles. Another pressed into the backs of his ribs. Another, smaller, hand gently pressed into his sternum. Caleb found himself breathing deeper into the pressure. Raise, blow, sip, swallow, lower.

Words, intermittently, made their way through the fog in his brain. He couldn’t quite identify who said what, only that they were his friends.

“...calmer…”

“...good idea…”

“...stay…”

“...hear us?”

“...later.”

Somebody gently squeezed the back of his neck. It felt nice. Raise, blow, sip, swallow, lower.

He came back to awareness slowly, at pace with the diminishing tea in his mug. By the time he tipped his head back to finish off the dregs, he had graduated to understanding full sentences once again.

“Fuck, I’m hungry.” Deeper, rough, Beauregard.

“Louise gave me some cookies.” Deeper, gentler, Yasha.

“Ugh, I ate too many of those already.”

Caleb found himself able to move his body, if slowly. Veth was still in his lap, so he handed his empty mug to Essek. At Beau’s prompting, he slowly became aware of a gnawing sensation in his stomach; he hadn’t eaten much at the wake. Nor had Nico.

Oh. The tower was still here. He had forgotten. How could he have forgotten?

Caleb rubbed his face, clearing his throat. “I made the tower.” He reached for that space in his mind that was tangled up in the magic, and just barely found the means to open the door. The shimmering doorway appeared once again.

Beauregard clapped Caleb on the shoulder, a little too hard. “Oh, fuck yeah!” She vaulted over him and ran into the doorway.

“Fjord, why don’t you wash the dishes?” said Caduceus.

“Kingsley, why don’t you help me wash the dishes?” said Fjord.

Kingsley raised an eyebrow. “I would love to… Captain.”

“Would you like to come into the tower?” Veth asked Caleb; it was her hand on his chest. He reached up and squeezed it.

“Ja, let’s go.”

Veth hopped off him. Caleb scooted forward until he could transfer some of his body weight to his feet. He was present, capable… but drained. A little shaky. His feet took his weight, but he would have to move slowly. That was fine. He didn’t want to be fast right now.

Jester and Yasha helped him up, sandwiching him between them for the approach to the door. Then, instead of letting him go, they pivoted sideways and crabwalked inside. Veth, Essek and Caduceus followed.

In the entrance hall, Caleb reached for Essek. “We should get the rest of this shit off you.”

“Please. It irks me.” Essek tucked Caleb’s arm around his and led him to the platform. They headed to the chambers that were nominally Caleb’s, with touches of Essek’s folded within. Except, when they arrived, the chambers were as bare as they used to be in the early days of the tower’s use. No stained glass window, barely-there nondescript furniture. Caleb had been distracted when he envisioned this iteration of the tower.

Tears sprang to his eyes. This didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

“Caleb.” Essek’s breath ghosted over his ear. “Come on.” Essek tugged him out of the room and down one floor to the room that used to be Fjord’s, prior to the amalgamation into Jester’s chambers. Mercifully, this change had carried over. The door was that red-purple vermaloc from Xhorhas. Essek shoved it open with a Mage Hand, dragging Caleb inside through the first two chambers and into the bedchamber. The four-poster vermaloc bed was in the corner with satin sheets in deep purple and black satin pillowcases that were kind on the hair. Closer was a small loveseat and a large cushion for trancing, depending on Essek’s preference on a given night. A brass tub of steaming water sat in the other back corner, alongside a washbasin fitted out with Essek’s favourite soaps, serums, creams, washcloths and soft towels.

Caleb shook himself out of his bullshit and lathered a face cleanser on a washcloth. Evening primrose, to match what he had already used. “Herkommen,” he said, waving Essek over. Essek placed himself in front of Caleb and closed his eyes.

“Be gentle. These Xhorhassian good looks do not come easily.”

Caleb wasn’t quite in the mood to laugh, unfortunately. He narrowed his focus to searching out the stubborn pieces of Jester’s makeup that still clung to Essek’s skin and wiping them clean. Essek had dropped his float, putting him at about a head shorter than Caleb. It had been a little while since Caleb had seen him close-up with enough light to count the dusting of starry-white freckles across his nose. Or the white eyelashes just barely kissing the tops of his cheeks. Plenty of things to count here. Plenty of things to keep him from spiralling again.

Essek had done a fairly good job on his own, but it was simple enough to clear away the final bits of makeup. His hair was still blonde-tinted.

“The dye is stubborn,” Essek grumbled. Caleb ran his fingers through, casting Prestidigitation. The colour lifted, just a little bit. This was going to take some time. Essek lifted Caleb’s hands from his hair, tangling their fingers together. “I think this calls for an old-fashioned bath. Shall we?”

***

Essek’s hair, after a fair amount of scrubbing and spellwork, was more or less returned to its natural white. Caleb, washed clean of the stress sweat and tears from the day, had dozed off in the bath. He woke up in bed close to an hour-and-a-half later. Essek was curled up on the couch, paging through his spellbook.

Caleb rolled over, hugging his pillow, and watched the little scowl of concentration as Essek carefully annotated a page. Essek was dressed in a silvery silk robe from the closet; Caleb had a weak recollection of the cats gathering their real-world clothes to be washed. An inkwell floated at Essek’s side. Caleb, still boneless from sleep and the general catharsis of a good crying jag, let himself reminisce about Aeor. About the times he had fallen asleep in the library over his desk, only to wake on the couch with a blanket and Essek curled up nearby, still hard at work. Back when they still hadn’t quite unearthed this thing between them.

Caleb looked back on those times fondly, even the difficult moments. The injuries, the chases, the periods of convalescence, the T-Dock. The measures they’d had to take to get the Dynasty off Essek’s back after several near misses… at times less so, but worthwhile in the end.

Essek gestured at the page, a precise Prestidigitation to clear excess ink. Caleb typically resorted to blotting paper or simply accepted a little bit of smudging when precision was less important, much to Essek’s annoyance. Then Essek gently closed his spellbook and slid it into his Wristpocket, capping the inkwell with a wave of his hand.

Caleb wasn’t ready to get up. He shoved his face into the pillow and yawned widely. A soft chuckle came from Essek’s direction. A rustling of fabric, padding of bare feet (he still wasn’t floating). Then the mattress dipped and a soft hand rested between Caleb’s shoulder blades. There was a single callus each on his thumb and middle finger where he tended to click his fingers to produce friction for somatics; he worked them down with pumice every few weeks, but no longer had reason to remove them entirely save for personal preference.

“Sleep well?”

Caleb turned his head to speak, leaving his eyes closed. “Ja. Think so.”

Fingers brushed hair aside. Lips on the base of his neck. “Time to get dressed, I think. Dinner will be soon.”

Caleb, begrudgingly, rolled onto his side and sat up. Essek pulled him close for just a moment, before placing his freshly-laundered clothing in his hands. They dressed and headed down to the dining room. The Nein were already clustered around the fire, with a half-demolished charcuterie board on a rug between them.

“Look who’s awake,” said Beauregard.

“Arguably,” replied Caleb, who was still a little groggy.

Caduceus was looking at him with his usual veneer of serenity, but Caleb knew him well enough by now to know when he was judging. “Mister Caleb… may I suggest stepping out of the bath before taking a nap?”

Caleb leaned over to Essek. “Did you tell everyone?”

Essek slowly shrugged, with a sheepish grin. “I think we have established that I cannot lie to these people.”

“He panicked a little bit,” said Jester. “It’s not his fault.” 

“Jester, I did not panic.”

“You panicked,” said Beau.

“Yeah, he was all like, ‘What if I dropped him, Jester? Can you check he’s okay, Jester?’ It was very sweet, actually.”

Essek sighed. “Jester, could you fetch Nico for dinner, please?”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Jester hugged the pair of them as she went. “Glad you’re feeling better, Cay-leb.”

Beauregard swiped a tankard and jug from the nearest table. She poured some beer into the cup and passed it to Caleb. “Here. Glad you didn’t drown, man.”

“Was it really that serious?” asked Caleb.

“I may have overreacted,” admitted Essek.

Beauregard snorted and passed him a beer as well (not his favourite, but they’d successfully corrupted his palate enough that it was drinkable for him). They settled around the central dining table, where the cats had placed some lightly toasted bread alongside bowls of chopped chives and quark–a soft acidic cheese made from fresh milk.

Caleb could feel his appetite finally coming back. The appetiser was quickly portioned out, setting aside a plate for Jester and Nico each, and the food rapidly devoured by the group.

Jester and Nico arrived in time for the main course, a hearty vegetable stew portioned out into bread bowls. Nico’s hair was a little tousled, as if he had also woken from a nap. He took the empty seat next to Caleb and wordlessly spread quark and chives onto his toast and shoved it into his mouth with a few large bites before starting on the stew.

A moment of quiet had come over the group upon Nico’s arrival, but soon enough:

“Veth,” said Fjord, “have you seen my compass?”

“Oh, have you lost it?” replied Veth. “You should really take more care with your belongings.”

Caleb had a good enough angle to see Kingsley fiddle with a small, round metal thing beneath the table. They locked eyes for a moment, and Kingsley winked before returning the compass to his pocket. It would find its way back to Fjord eventually.

Regardless of whether Veth knew where the compass had gone, her response was a masterclass in attracting suspicion. Beauregard took a bite out of her bread bowl to hide a smirk. Caleb shoved a spoonful of potato, green beans and carrot into his mouth. Ooh, the base was a stout ale. A mix of memories struck–wine was expensive, so his mother had made a similar stew many times. His father’s laugh over a hearty bowl, dunking toasted leftover bread, or dropping in potato dumplings, or pouring it over whatever grains were available at the time. The pair of them cleaning green beans together while Una prepared the stock. And he’d sought that taste of home at the beer hall many a time in Rexxentrum.

He wasn’t sure who had requested the meal from the cats, but he assumed the bread bowl was Jester’s influence. The quark was a mystery–possibly Yasha and Caduceus given they spent so much time at the market together.

Different, but similar enough. Caleb missed his mother and father.

Before he could fall into the memories too much, he glanced at Nico out of the corner of his eye. The boy was several spoonfuls in already, keenly focused on the stew, only looking up to grab the cup of water in front of him. Good enough for now, and Caleb honestly didn’t have it in him to do much more than that, either.

Essek bumped their knees together. Okay. Caleb could make it through dinner, for Nico’s sake. Neither of them were likely to stick around for long afterwards.

The Nein chattered across the table as they usually did. And, also as usual, Veth climbed on the table to throw something: a spoon at Beauregard. Of course, Beauregard snatched it out of the air without blinking and held it hostage until Veth crawled across to physically wrest it back, cats shifting dishes out of the way before they could spill.

The cats caught Nico’s attention, and he watched them skitter around righting the dinner table. “Uh, Caleb? Why cats?”

“Oh, boy,” muttered Beauregard. Jester snickered, and Fjord hummed loudly and stared at the ceiling as if that would hide his lack of composure.

“Why not cats?” replied Caleb.

Nico watched a cat, Mitzi, bring out a fresh jug of beer and swapped it for the empty one in the centre of the table. Then Johann refilled Nico’s cup of water and stared at him, tail flicking, until Nico scratched under his chin.

“You make a fair point,” Nico mumbled, as Johann headbutted his hand for additional pats. “I had not considered non-humanoid servants before.”

“They give very good cuddles,” said Jester.

Nico gave her a thin smile and went back to his stew. Silence threatened to descend again. Caleb didn’t have the ability to do anything about it beyond eating and hoping it would pass.

“Oh, Essek!” Yasha said with her usual grace and tact. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Beau says there might be a trade treaty between the Empire and the Dynasty soon. Should I watch the markets for anything you’d like?”

Essek smiled at her, though it was closer to a grimace. “Well, I am partial to an evening primrose skin cream designed for drow skin, but I cannot imagine that would be in demand here.”

“Any produce?”

“Well, there is a white asparagus grown without sunlight.”

“Oh, they have that here,” said Caduceus. “We’ll bring you some next time we see it.”

“Oh?” Essek blinked. “Uh, Caleb?”

“Oh, ja, it’s pretty common here, though a bit sensitive to the cold, so it is only grown a few months of the year.”

“Maybe Xhorhas has different seasons?” said Jester.

“It’s finicky,” added Nico, looking up from dinner once again. “It needs to be fresh. Some tunnel farms further south might still have it.”

“Oh, what about the rice?” said Yasha.

“Yes, I suppose if you notice more varieties at market, I would appreciate some,” Essek replied. “Any root vegetables or mushrooms would be nice, though I know you already have your fair share here. It’s hard to say, really.”

Caleb also knew that Essek often tried really hard not to think about all those things from Rosohna that he may never see again.

“All right,” said Yasha. “We’ll keep an eye out for anything different. And we’ll get you some fancy skincare stuff, so don’t worry about that.”

“Some of it pops up in Nicodranas these days,” added Jester. “We could take another field trip!”

“That is very nice of you, Jester, but not necessary right now.”

“So,” said Nico, “you really cannot go back?”

Essek took in a slow breath, blinking upwards with an odd smile that usually covered up something else. “Yes, it would appear so.”

Nico also took in a breath, and let it out through his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“No need. I only have myself to blame.”

The Nein erupted in a cacophony of protest at that. Caleb was glad for the pushback. He was working very hard on finding the seam between his responsibility for what he did, and that of his manipulators. It was hard, and some days he genuinely could not find it… or could not bear to look. But the effort was something, more than he’d once had. Essek deserved that opportunity as well.

Soon enough, stew and bowl were devoured both. The Nein picked at a tray of sticky pastries, provided at Jester’s insistence, and a fruit and cheese platter. Nico rose after finishing the bear claw Jester had made him eat.

“I think I will go to bed,” Nico said quietly. He nudged Caleb’s shoulder with his knuckles. “Thank you.”

“I will return to the Material plane for a bit,” Caleb said. “If you need anything. Felix may Send to one of us tonight.”

“Right. Plane shit.” He bumped his knuckles once more and then departed.

Caleb settled in with a handful of grapes, loosely watching the Nein dissolve into a food fight. The grapes were excellent projectiles, and it soon became a game to see whether anyone could breach Beauregard’s defences. Caleb clung to his grapes for dear life, lest the group run out and not wish to wait for another platter from the cats.

Essek leaned against him, watching Veth scream, Jester cackle, Beauregard yell, and Kingsley needle Caduceus into participating (it took very little effort). “Ah, yes,” he said sagely. “The heroes who saved Exandria from a relic of the Calamity.”

“The finest assholes on the continent,” Caleb replied, the final word distorting around a yawn. “Think you can stop them from killing each other?”

“I can certainly try.”

Caleb ate his second-last grape and passed the final one to Essek. “Here, should you need the ammunition. I need some quiet.”

Essek gave him a kiss on the cheek and let him go. Caleb stepped out into the central chamber and let it carry him to the salon. He was aware, in the back corner of his mind, that Caduceus blatantly watched him leave.

#caleb widogast #professor widogast #shadowgast #critical role #cr2 #fanfiction #ao3 #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #my fics #i swear like maybe 3 people on tumblr even read this thing but i may as well keep crossposting it from ao3 i guess

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 32

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings:  underage drinking, vomiting, ideation very close to suicidality

Chapter summary:  Caleb remembers what it is like to feel adrift with no future to anchor.

Chapter notes:  Chapter title from Sun by Sleeping at Last

***

Chapter 32: We are infinite as the universe we hold inside

The wake began to wind down, mercifully, and Caleb extracted himself from the farewells to fetch Nico. Astrid and the Nein were staying behind to assist with the cleanup (Astrid was their ride). Essek trailed a little behind Caleb; he had been in the middle of a Zemnian town for quite long enough.

Nico was still in Felix’s room. One of the boys (presumably Felix) had raided the Schneider liquor cabinet. To their credit, they didn’t bother trying to hide the bottle of Kirschwasser when Felix let Caleb in.

“Expensive taste,” he said in Zemnian.

“Somebody gave it to my mother,” Felix said, while Nico recorked the bottle. “She hates it.”

“I will take your word for it.” The bottle was less than half full. Caleb assumed, given Louise disliked the liquor and Friedrich was more of a beer-drinker, that most of it had been drunk today.

Either getting the cork into the bottle was giving Nico trouble, or he was looking for any excuse to avoid eye contact by fiddling with it. “Is it over?” His voice was quiet, and rough.

“It is wrapping up, ja.”

Nico stopped moving, his thumbnail digging into the cork. His eyes were a little puffy, not all that unexpected.

“What would you like to do?” Caleb asked him.

“You can stay,” said Felix.

Nico shook his head.

Felix’s hands came together, fingers twisting as he glanced up at Caleb. “I can’t leave my parents yet.”

Essek came to the doorway, tucking a clay ziggurat into his coat pocket. “We could ask your parents to come along.”

“I have tried that,” said Felix, switching to Common despite the evidence that Essek had understood the Zemnian. “They have a lot to do here… or so they say.”

“Okay,” said Caleb. “We will take Nico when he’s ready. Practise your Sending spell on us tonight, ja?”

Felix produced a piece of copper wire from his pocket. “I will.”

Nico let the bottle go, only to scratch his forearm. “Can we go now?”

“Are you ready?” Caleb asked.

“Caleb, please.”

“All right. Give me your hand.” Caleb took Nico’s scratching hand, giving it a squeeze, and linked elbows with Essek. With his free hand, he grabbed from his pocket a little jar of spice from the kitchen back home to anchor the spell. “Here we go.”

They landed in Caleb’s living room. Nico doubled over and vomited on the floor. Caleb guided Nico to sit on the couch while Essek prestidigitated the mess away.

Caleb sat with Nico, squeezing his hand. “Did that help?”

Nico leaned forward and vomited again. Caleb rubbed his back. Essek, once he had cleaned up, retreated to the kitchen.

“How are you feeling?” Caleb asked.

Nico coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Might’ve drunk too much.”

“That shit is pretty strong, ja.”

Essek returned with a cup of water, pressing it into Nico’s hands. “Here. Drink this. Slow sips.” He looked at Caleb. “Do you have this handled?”

“Ja, I think we’re fine now. I’ll call if I need you.”

Essek kissed the top of Caleb’s head and headed upstairs. Nico slumped against the cushions, lolling his head on the back of the couch. Caleb breathed deeply through his nose and let his body go loose in much the same way.

The instant they were alone, Nico switched to Zemnian. “I’m not drunk.”

“If you say so.”

Nico had a bit of a grumble. Caleb found a little crack on the ceiling and made a mental note to get Jester to mend it later. He had bothered Nico with enough questions for the moment, so he busied himself with tracing that crack and determining exactly how much of a problem it was going to be for the house. He also sought other points of potential weakness in the corners and picked out three more small cracks that would require attention. Nothing of immediate urgency, but this was his house now. He should take care of it.

It was still unsettling to think of this house as his . Difficult to believe he deserved to own something of this magnitude, to have access to this kind of stability. And perhaps there was still a part of him that feared it could be taken away. He probably wasn’t entirely wrong there, either. He had more to lose now. They all did.

He knew all too well how much could change in the space of a heartbeat.

“Could you show me something?” asked Nico.

It took Caleb a moment to process the words. He sat up. “Such as?”

Nico’s hand drifted back to his forearm. Not scratching yet. “I don’t know. I can’t see beyond the immediate moment in front of me.”

A thought occurred to Caleb. An idea that he could pull off without too much difficulty; he still had the power required. There had been times, in those five years he had spent adrift, free from Vergesson but barely putting one foot ahead of the other, struggling to see the point behind his continued existence. Before he had found a goal to obsess over. Before he had been able to see a future, or even the various probabilities that could lead to one.

Now, that was something he could show Nico. He bounded off the couch, digging through his pockets for the components to create his tower. He knelt in the entranceway to the kitchen, drawing out Calianna's wand, stained glass, a piece of granite, and his wooden cat statue.

He was aware of Nico’s eyes on his back, but no questions came. Caleb arranged the components and cast the tower, silent but for the incantation he needed to mutter to make the whole thing work.

After exactly a minute, he felt the spell connect to the pocket dimension that held his tower, and the spectral door whooshed into being. He glanced behind to see Nico on his feet, staring wide-eyed at one of Caleb’s most beloved spells.

Caleb got up and held out his hand. “Come. I know just the thing.”

Nico grabbed Caleb’s hand, letting him pull them both across the threshold. They arrived in the tall, cylindrical room that marked the tower’s entryway. Nico’s jaw didn’t quite drop, but he stopped short as he took in the nine massive stained glass windows representing each school of magic.

“Nine schools,” he muttered.

“What do you know of Dunamancy?” Caleb asked him.

“A little,” Nico replied softly. “Trent was messing with it, but he didn’t provide much explanation beyond it being Dynasty magic. You mentioned in your speech that Essek is a specialist.”

“Ja, he is.”

“You related it to time travel.”

“That is a… theoretical application,” replied Caleb. “Dunamancy, as I understand it, deals with potentiality and probability. So, in practice, that often means the manipulation of time and gravity.”

Nico nodded slowly. “Did you burn a high-level spell just to show me this?”

“Nein. That is on the top floor.” Caleb climbed the brass staircase to the levitation platform. “Step on this. Think up .”

Nico joined him on the platform. “Up.”

They floated together, Nico scanning every detail he could. Caleb made a mental note to give him a proper tour later.

“Tell me about the tower. It is a tower, ja?”

“Ja, of course it is. There are nine floors.” He pointed downwards. “Entranceway.” As they reached the next floor, he gestured outward towards the large chamber lit by floating globules. “Great Hall. All those doors lead to whatever you ask for. Half the time, with the company I keep, that means a hot tub.”

Nico clearly didn’t have it in him to laugh, but the exhalation through his nose was probably close enough. “Ja, I’m sure that has nothing to do with you.”

They floated higher, so Caleb could point out the next floor. “The salon, or the library.” He pointed out the stained glass above the fireplace. “Our old friend, Mollymauk, wore a coat with those patterns. There are also maps on the upper level. Various reading nooks.”

“What are the books?”

“Every book I have read.”

Nico blinked slowly. “So, your memory really is that good. Felix said you quoted a speech Caduceus made months ago, word-for-word.”

“It was memorable.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “You remember every book you have ever read. Shut up.”

They continued upwards, past the kitchen/dining area and the nerve centre for the spectral cats. Nico had not seen any of the cats quite yet, so Caleb saved that to surprise him later. Then, past the three floors containing the Nein’s bedchambers. There was a space for Kingsley now, and he had amalgamated Beauregard and Yasha’s, and Fjord and Jester’s chambers together. Caleb’s chambers were typically shared by Essek, though Essek’s chambers were still there… if rarely used.

Then, he had to mutter the passcode to open the iris above, “Fort, doch nicht vergessen.” As they floated past the nine doors, he gave much the same explanation as he had once given to Essek, “This floor is complicated. Our destination is above.”

The thing about this floor, which he had never really explained to anyone, was that he had not created it deliberately; these memories were simply parts of him that he could not ignore. He wasn’t sure if it would freak the Nein out more or less to know that. They were a part of the tower now, regardless, and one he didn’t feel the need to erase. That said, now was not the time to show Nico.

They floated through the final iris. The light dimmed as they left the warm globules of the lower floors behind. Around them was the sea of stars that had become so familiar, first inside the beacon, and now every time he created the tower.

As they stepped onto the solid floor, Nico’s head was on a swivel. Caleb watched the various versions of himself wander unseen paths in the distance, knowing that Nico would see the equivalent for himself.

Nico’s next inhale was audible. Shaky. “Is this… probability?”

“Ja, and potentiality. Possibility.”

Nico’s eyes traced paths that only he could see. His facial expression was complicated. Unreadable. Caleb hoped he had made the right call bringing him here. Maybe he wasn’t ready for this.

“Every choice we make sparks uncountable potential realities,” Caleb said. “I’ve had the… privilege to interface with an artefact that allows us to see them. What you see here is an illusion, but it is based on a very real thing.”

Nico visibly swallowed. “So, there is a reality where we didn’t…”

“Ja. There would be.” Caleb didn’t tend to dwell on it too much. It was good to know there was a version of Exandria, somewhere, upon which his mother and father still walked. But choices he had made ensured he did not live in that reality, even when a second chance had presented itself. Most days, he could tell himself it was the right call, but there was always a little bit of him that was so sure that it would have worked. At a cost. That was beside the point, however, and not the primary reason he had brought Nico here.

Nico sighed. “Why are we here?”

“To see beyond the immediate.”

Nico gazed at him, silent.

“The world around us is in constant motion, Nico. Here we are, moving through forces of time and gravity. These forces do not stop. Life continues.” He gestured to his illusory selves walking and splitting apart and moving ever onwards, knowing that Nico could see his copies doing the same. “We are still here, Nico, and we have time to figure out what we want to do with that. It doesn’t have to be now… but we have options. You have options.”

Nico clenched his jaw, watching his own potential move through the space.

“Take your time with it,” Caleb told him. “The tower is available for twenty-four hours, if you would like to stay a while.”

Nico visibly unstuck his jaw. “Maybe later.” He covered his face with his hands, taking a deep breath. “Caleb, I appreciate this. I do. I would like to spend some time in my room for a bit. If I want to come back later…”

“I will leave the door open.”

“Okay.” Nico stepped back into the levitation cylinder. “I will see you later, ja?”

“Ja, of course.”

Nico dropped from sight. Caleb waited a few moments and then took the same path out of the tower.

#caleb widogast #shadowgast #critical role #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #fanfiction #my fics #cr2 #ao3

[iatethepomegranate]

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: funeral scene, references to parental death, references to child abuse

Chapter summary: Caleb had never anticipated attending a Blumenthal funeral, but he will do what is necessary to offer the support he never had.

Chapter notes: Chapter title is from Hourglass by Sleeping at Last.

***

With a pair of teaspoons borrowed from Louise during the previous visit, Caleb and a disguised Essek (blonde hair, blue eyes, deep brown skin thanks to Jester’s determination with the disguise kit) were able to teleport the group to Blumenthal without risk of a mishap. This included Astrid, to save her the spell. Eadwulf, however, was not coming, and Caleb did not fault him for that.

As soon as they landed, Astrid set off across town ahead of everyone else. Felix and his parents moved from their positions at the front of their home to join the group.

Felix took Nico by the hand. No words exchanged. After a moment, Nico nodded, and Felix began to lead him away from the house. Caleb stayed close to them, along with Louise and Friedrich. The rest of the Nein followed at a respectful distance.

Felix spoke quietly to Nico during the walk, mostly questions about his morning. He did manage to get Nico talking at length about Yasha’s garden, which ate up a significant amount of the walking time. Impressive, really.

As the gravekeeper’s cottage at the head of the cemetery came into view, Nico reached for Caleb with his other hand. Caleb stepped closer, letting Nico squeeze his hand hard enough to leave marks.

“I don’t…” Nico swallowed. “I am not doing so good.”

“Say the word and I will take you back to Rexxentrum,” Caleb reminded him.

Nico nodded once. Took in a deep breath. Kept walking. So he wasn’t quite at that stage yet, but Caleb kept a close eye on him for any signs that he was reaching his limit.

Astrid met them at the gates. “I have heard some whispers that Ludinus might turn up.”

“All right,” said Fjord. “Everyone remember the plan?”

Beauregard cracked her knuckles. “Make him so uncomfortable he stays away from the kids? Easy. Let’s go, Jes.”

Jester, under different circumstances, probably would have bounced out of her skin at the prospect of being asked to make someone uncomfortable. Instead, she nodded hyper-seriously and followed Beauregard as they moved ahead of the group.

Veth made a performance of checking the condition of her crossbow. “We got this, Nicky. Don’t even worry about it.”

“Call me that again and I’ll shave your head in your sleep,” Nico muttered.

Veth loaded her crossbow. “You can certainly try.”

It was easier to breathe for a moment, until they reached the rest of the mourners clustered around a pair of open graves, wooden coffins suspended on timber above each. Caleb had not seen a proper burial since childhood; he hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but the difference between this and burying Mollymauk on the roadside was jarring.

Nico twitched but remained silent. Their group were among the last to arrive, at least, so they didn’t have to wait long. Caleb picked out Alphira with Micha and their mothers. The mayor stepped up to address the small crowd. It did not escape Caleb’s notice that almost every event involving the wellbeing of the people here tended to be headed by a mayor instead of the starosta appointed by the Crown. He had not known the difference as a boy, not until he went away to Soltryce, at which point he wasn’t encouraged to think about home beyond the necessary romanticisation to make him want to do the work Trent asked of him.

“Thank you all for joining us on this sad occasion,” said the mayor. Caleb hadn’t caught his name yet, and hadn’t tried especially hard to correct that. He didn’t remember him from childhood, but Blumenthal was just large enough they could have missed each other. He was a human man in his forties or fifties, dark hair greying at the temples. All Caleb really knew of him was that he had arrived on the scene of the Baumanns’ deaths, and had organised the people’s response to it.

“Moments like this are a test of our community,” the mayor continued, “and I would like to thank you all for coming together during this time. The Baumanns were beloved members of our community, and they will be missed. If anyone would like to say a few words before we lay them to rest, please do.”

One of Micha’s mothers went up to speak. Nico visibly deflated at the sight of her.

“I remember the evening I first arrived in Blumenthal,” she said. Louise whispered to Caleb that her name was Lydia, so the woman Alphira had contacted earlier. “I had just left my husband, and had travelled the roads alone and pregnant with Micha. Therese was the first person I met in town, and she insisted I stay in her home until I could find my feet. She even introduced me to my wife, and Hans helped us find a place and navigate the Crown’s paperwork. I swear the pair of them spent more time at our house than theirs when I had Micha. Therese and Hans were good, kind people, and we should remember them like that, and honour their memory by following their example.”

Nico had set his gaze firmly on his feet. There wasn’t much Caleb could do, except squeeze his hand to remind him he wasn’t alone.

A few other people spoke of Therese and Hans Baumann in the same glowing tones, including Louise.

“Therese and Hans were family,” she said. “Friedrich and I bonded with them the first day we met at the market as children. I’ve always been a little blunt.” A few knowing chuckles. “But Therese mastered the Una Ermundrud lessons of loving honesty. We raised our sons together, and Therese always knew the right thing to say when I felt like a fool pretending to be a mother. And Hans was one of the most reliable people I have ever met; I could show up at their doorstep in the middle of the night and the pair of them would have solved my problem before they had blinked the sleep from their eyes. They were the siblings I never had, and I am richer for having known them.”

Whatever emotional response Caleb probably would have had at this was truncated when Louise stepped away, and nudged him.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” he muttered before his brain, usually quite fast, could fully comprehend that she was trying to make him say something. So the response was somewhat unpolished, but deeply felt.

“It will be good for everyone to hear your perspective.”

“I didn’t know them, Louise.”

“Not the point. You understand what happened better than anyone else here.”

Friedrich poked his head between them. “Louise, leave him alone.”

Veth, tucked between Caleb and Louise’s legs, tugged on Caleb’s trouser leg. “Lebby, you don’t have to talk, but I know you will do an incredible job if you do.”

Caleb squeezed Nico’s hand one last time. “Fine.”

He found himself approaching the pair of graves and the mayor during a lull in the speeches, screaming internally at himself. But Louise had a point, and it did not escape his notice how terrifying it would be for a bystander to grapple with all of this. So maybe he could help.

The mayor gave him an encouraging smile, so he probably wasn’t hiding his terror as well as he would have liked. Oh well. Here goes.

“Ah, hallo, everyone,” he said. “My name is Caleb Widogast, but some of you may have known me as, ah, Bren Ermendrud. I think most of you have some idea of what happened to the Baumanns, and I am deeply sorry for your loss. I, ah, thought you should know that the man responsible was tried in the Rexxentrum courts, and will spend the rest of his life in prison for what he has done. He will not hurt another soul again. I hope that is a comfort.”

And then Caleb walked away from the centre of attention before he combusted, returning to Nico’s side. Nico leaned into his shoulder.

Shortly thereafter, the gravekeeper spoke a few prayers to the Raven Queen and several burly farmer types lowered the pair of coffins into their open graves. Nico breathed deeply through his nose, stony-faced. The crowd slowly dispersed, and Louise departed to prepare her house for visitors. The Nein would head over there when everything was settled here.

“You can take a moment, if you would like,” Caleb told Nico, who nodded and half-sleepwalked to the headstones. Caleb kept an eye on him, but he was mostly scanning the thinning crowd for any signs of Ludinus or the rest of the Assembly. 

The Martinet was not difficult to find, as he had also fixed his gaze on Nico. Caleb, muttering every curse in every language he knew, moved to intercept. Beauregard and Jester had also spotted him, but they hung back when Caleb made his intentions known.

“Martinet,” Caleb said flatly.

“Ah, Professor Widogast.” Ludinus provided something in the neighbourhood of a polite smile. “I heard you spoke a few words. I am sorry to have missed it.”

Caleb sincerely doubted that. “I was surprised to hear you were coming, Martinet.”

“Well, it seemed only proper that I should offer my condolences to the young Nicolaus.”

“I do not think that would be well-received,” Caleb replied, even though what he really wanted to say was fucking try it.

“Oh? How so?”

Ludinus knew damn well how so, but Caleb knew a game when he saw it, and was more than willing to flip a table or two. “Martinet, Nicolaus is well aware of the burden of responsibility here, and I would estimate a good number of the townsfolk are clever enough to put together a few errant puzzle pieces, ja?”

That earned him a quirked eyebrow. “Ah, yes, there has been a certain… lack of subtlety from certain parties.”

“Let us not be coy, Martinet,” Caleb replied. “Master Ikithon’s actions are known throughout Blumenthal. The Assembly has done enough to these people. Leave them be.”

“The Mighty Nein have shown remarkable restraint today,” added Astrid, stepping up to flank Ludinus on the other side. “I would not test their civility, nor that of the locals.”

“I would not recommend a return visit to Blumenthal,” said Caleb. “Small towns have long memories, Martinet, and the Assembly allowed our old teacher to get away with a great deal before the courts put an end to it.” The townsfolk, especially the women, still spoke of Caleb’s mother all these years later. He was confident they wouldn’t forget what the Assembly had done in a hurry.

Ludinus inclined his head. “Your advice is much appreciated. Give my best to the boy.”

“We’re not giving Nico anything from you,” said Beauregard, who had inched closer during the confrontation. “Just get outta here before shit gets ugly.”

Ludinus’s polite smile was certainly more strained now. But, nonetheless, he stepped away and muttered a word, disappearing in an instant. The air grew thicker and more breathable in his absence, and Caleb had to stop himself from gasping for breath.

“How fucking dare he,” Beauregard muttered.

“You okay, Caleb?” asked Jester.

Caleb remembered how words worked. “Uh, ja. Yes. Fine.” It was mostly true; at least he felt more angry than helpless. Certainly an improvement over the first time he’d spotted a member of the Assembly since getting out of the Sanatorium.

The gall of that man, to show up during the burial of Trent’s two final victims. His inaction had allowed this. A part of Caleb wanted to scream about the unfairness of it all, that even while Trent was locked up, the people who had allowed him to do what he did still walked free.

“We’ll get him eventually,” Beauregard promised.

Astrid chuckled. “Well, Bren, you will certainly be a handful for the Assembly.”

“And one they asked for,” Caleb muttered.

“They do like to keep their enemies close.” Astrid gave him a little smirk. “Shall we head to the Schneiders’?”

“Go on ahead,” Caleb told her, giving Nico his full attention once again. “We will be along in a moment.”

***

Being that the Baumanns had no other relatives in Blumenthal, the wake was to be held at the Schneiders’ home. Nico had been quiet when Caleb had gone to collect him, and had come along with no resistance. 

After an excruciating four-and-a-half minutes of Nico receiving condolences from the neighbours, Louise sent the boys to Felix’s room. Caleb was stuck in the living area with a few familiar faces, but certainly more strangers than he would have preferred. And a few almost-strangers that he could only remember from his childhood with a great deal of painful effort. Whether that was due to Trent’s memory tampering, the eleven years in the madhouse, the general trauma that stuck to all his youthful memories like sovereign glue, or proof that even his memory would fade with enough time… anyone’s guess, really.

Louise looped her arm through Caleb’s, tying him in place while she introduced him to the neighbours. Another excruciating few minutes of awkward greetings, whereupon Louise’s neighbours, some Caleb half-remembered from years ago, carefully avoided addressing the elephant in the room that was Caleb’s past. Caleb would have much rather dealt with it at this point, rather than repeating the same uncomfortable dance with every person who spoke to him.

The mayor was a strange reprieve in a way, giving Caleb a firm handshake that hurt like shit, leaving Jester chuckling at him from across the room. “Hallo, finally!” said the mayor, mercifully in Zemnian. “I am Gunter. It is good to speak with you properly. You prefer Caleb, yes?”

“Yes. Please.”

“Well, Caleb, thank you for speaking. And I am…” Gunter cleared his throat, visibly frowning for the right words. “You have my sympathy, for what you have gone through, and I hope having that man thrown in the darkest hole in Rexxentrum has granted you some peace.”

“Some, yes. Thank you.”

The mayor sighed out through his nose, offering a sad smile. “And thank you for taking care of Nico. Several of us here were willing to take him in, but we respect his wishes.” He glanced toward the door leading to the bedrooms. “I understand being here must be difficult for you both. It would seem you have done him some good.”

“I hope so.”

The mayor smacked his shoulder. “Next time you’re here, let me buy you a drink. Don’t be a stranger.”

That was Quite Enough conversation for one day. Caleb soon extracted himself from the centre of attention to escape through the back door.

He leaned against the Schneiders’ fence, gazing sightlessly at the veggie patches and chicken coops in the distance. This was a lot.

This. Was a lot.

Caleb… did not feel very good. Restlessness burning in his veins. But that was only part of it. He was struggling to put his finger on the rest. Today was a necessary thing, but right now…

Fuck.

“Caleb?” A soft voice, Rosohnian accent. Essek, still in disguise, had found him.

Caleb forced air into his lungs. “Hallo.”

Essek joined him at the fence, also gazing outward, but he leaned his shoulder into Caleb’s. “It is a little uncomfortable in there, yes?”

“Ja, very.”

Essek squinted thoughtfully, and then quirked an eyebrow. “Do you think you have accomplished what you set out to do?”

“I… think so.”

“Good.”

“It’s not really up to me, though.”

“But you have done the best you can with what you can control, yes?”

“I don’t know if I would go that far.”

“Adequate, then?”

“I suppose.” Then why was he so godsdamned upset?

Essek pressed a little more of his weight against Caleb. “I… do not think there is perfection to be found here.” He chuckled a little. “That is not an easy lesson to learn, for people like us.”

“Or anyone, probably.”

“Hm. True.” Essek looped an arm around Caleb’s. “So. I came to fetch you because the lady of the house is about to serve drinks. You look like you could use one.”

“That sounds… fucking divine.”

Both Caleb and Essek had complicated feelings when it came to the divine.

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #professor widogast #critical role #cr2 #fanfiction #ao3 #my fics #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 29

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: Caleb's backstory, ableism (thanks Trent), grief, references to dead bodies. NOTE: Caleb is triggered for a significant portion of chapter, but is cared for.

Chapter summary:  Caleb spends time with a childhood friend and learns a few things about the worst night of his life.

Chapter notes: So, anyway, this is the chapter in which I apply a fair bit of the information gleaned from Caleb's backstory comic. Chapter title is from What I've Done by Linkin Park, and I have been listening to the Violet Orlandi cover from the Shadowgast playlist I linked in the previous chapter on AO3.

***

Chapter 29: So let mercy come and wash away what I've done

Louise directed Caleb to sit at the kitchen table. There, he used his cantrip to grow the flames in the fireplace to the optimal temperature for the kettle. Louise placed four well-loved mugs on the table and busied herself with the teapot.

“You have begun teaching, ja?” she said quietly. “How are you finding it?”

“Oh, it’s…” Caleb cast around for a word that could sum up the complexity of the whole thing, the mixed feelings, the fears, the rewards for even trying. Ah. There. “Challenging, but… rewarding.”

“I hope little Micha hasn’t talked your ear off quite yet.” Louise grabbed a thick tea towel and retrieved the kettle, pouring hot water into the teapot. It was blue with a ring of little yellow painted flowers.

“Oh, they love a good question,” replied Caleb. “There is a girl from Kamordah they seem to have hit it off with… who is also equally inquisitive, and less tactful.”

Louise snorted. “That sounds dangerous.” She brought the tea set over and rested it in the middle of the rough wooden table. Then, with a deep sigh, she collapsed into a chair.

“Louise,” said Caleb, “how are you holding up?”

She frowned at the wood grains on the table. “Felix has been more settled since you spoke to him, but the Baumanns have no family we know of aside from Nico, so the preparations have largely fallen to their friends. Myself, Friedrich, Micha’s mothers Lydia and Frida, and a few others. Friedrich is speaking with the gravekeeper at the moment. It has been… a lot.” She smiled up at him. “Thank you for asking. It will be alright, as much as it can be, I suppose. Oh, and thank you for convincing Nico to come tomorrow.”

“I… tried not to influence him.”

Louise raised an eyebrow. “Caleb, kids are very observant. You always have an influence.”

Caleb had already known that on some level, but it was frightening to hear someone say it. Especially a parent.

“Ja… no pressure,” he found himself saying, and trying not to puke at the thought of that much responsibility.

Louise’s answering chuckle was not unkind. “Welcome to parenthood, Caleb Widogast.” She poured the tea and shoved a yellow mug into his hands and, before he could protest the label, said, “I don’t care what you call it. You can say whatever makes you and Nico comfortable. But, like it or not, you have those responsibilities. Now is not the time to be squeamish about it.”

Perhaps, under different circumstances, Caleb would have asked her how the fuck to do this. Maybe he would have admitted to her, possibly one of the only people he knew who were even remotely in a similar situation, that he was utterly frightened of messing this up. That the best examples he had growing up were the same people he murdered.

Perhaps, if the moment had stretched even the tiniest bit longer, he would have said those things. But Nico and Felix entered the house, and Louise called them over.

“Mamaaaaaa,” Felix whined. Nico, for his part, just looked quietly uncomfortable with the whole scenario. Caleb felt that. He felt that immensely.

Louise turned the force of her eyebrow onto her own son. “You will never be too old to have tea with your mother. Get over here, both of you.”

The boys came over, Nico making eye contact with Caleb, tense expression clearly betraying how unprepared he felt. Caleb tried to set aside his own weird feelings, at least a little bit, and offer some reassurance. This was going to be hard enough for Nico as it was.

Louise filled the remaining mugs. Caleb finally pulled himself together and picked his up, inhaling chamomile steam. Certainly not the first cup he’d had from the local flora since returning to the Zemni Fields, but it certainly hit him harder here.

“So,” said Louise, reaching out and physically placing Nico’s hands around his mug, “I heard you are going back to school.”

Nico shrugged, staring down at the tea.

“He keeps bragging about all the spells Caleb is teaching him,” Felix said, and Caleb was so fucking thankful that he had found a way to stop this conversation from falling apart immediately.

Nico snorted. “He taught you the same spells.”

“Ja, but he let you flip through his spellbook.”

Still not looking at anyone, but Nico smirked a little bit. “Well, I guess he likes me better.”

“Do not drag me into this,” said Caleb.

“Too late,” replied Felix.

Things got easier from there. Nico loosened up a bit, even if he never looked fully comfortable. Caleb felt less like there was a hand squeezing his lungs every time he tried to breathe.

“Caleb, what was that spell you used on the fireplace?” asked Louise.

“Ah, that was a Control Flames cantrip.”

“Do you know that one, Felix?”

Felix sighed. “No.”

“You should learn it.”

Felix scowled at Caleb. “You know she is going to make me stoke the flames every time she uses the fireplace, right? I will never know peace again.”

“Or perhaps we can see if your mother can learn a cantrip or two,” suggested Caleb.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Louise.

“My first student was a little goblin woman. You never know.”

“Caleb, she’s looking for an excuse to keep me here forever,” said Felix.

Caleb stared pointedly at him. “Oh, that sounds like such a hardship, Felix, to live with your loving family.”

“You walked right into that one,” Nico murmured to Felix.

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Uh-huh,” Nico replied flatly.

Caleb remembered the mug in his hands and took a sip to eject himself from the remainder of that conversation. Louise let the boys free from the table shortly thereafter, as long as they promised to show up for dinner in a few hours.

In order to conserve his magical reserves, Caleb had intended to stick around until it was time to take Nico home. So he and Louise remained at the table for a while, finishing off the tea.

“You know,” Louise said after some time, “I had wanted to take the regional exams for Soltryce when I was a girl.”

“What stopped you?”

“My parents wanted me to stay and work on the farm.” Louise chuckled, somewhat bitterly. “Perhaps I should have taken the test anyway. The Crown gave the land to a larger family after they died, but Friedrich had just inherited this place, so…” She shrugged, but her expression was not nearly as nonchalant as her body language. “It could have been worse.”

Nobody had really mentioned what had happened to Caleb’s parents’ house (it was hard to say it had been his, given what he did to them). He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But it did raise a question about Nico’s inheritance.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that with Nico,” said Louise. “Given the… sensitivity of the issue, in the starosta’s words, I don’t think the Crown will be in a rush to deny the inheritance belonging to one of that man’s final victims. We have time to figure that out. Nobody has been allowed to disturb anything in the house, aside from… you know.”

The burned bodies.

Caleb squeezed the mug a little and willed the chamomile scent to keep him here. And his lunch where it belonged. The latter worked, the former not so much.

It was hard to track which memory had a grip on him this time, as one supplied details the other could not, filling in gaps he didn’t want filled.

But there were hands on his, and those felt real. He grabbed for them. They squeezed, and he squeezed back. And within a few moments, he could hear Louise speaking to him.

“It’s all right, Caleb. It’s all right. There you are. Take a deep breath for me, okay?”

Caleb breathed.

“Good. Let’s get some fresh air, ja?” Louise tugged on his hands until he stood up. She grabbed their mugs and ushered him to the back door, where they sat together on the step. It had rained recently, the air damp and clean. It helped.

Caleb breathed.

“Es tut mir Leid,” Louise apologised quietly. “Are you all right?”

Absolutely not. “Ja.”

Louise hummed softly, and Caleb was fairly convinced she didn’t believe him. But she sipped her tea instead of calling him on it. Caleb remembered his mug, and found she had set it on the doorstep between them. He sipped, and willed the chamomile to work on him so his hands would stop shaking at the very least.

“Felix has had a few episodes like that,” Louise said quietly.

Perhaps under better circumstances Caleb would have found something useful to say, but words were not his friend right now. Best he could give was a sympathetic ear.

Louise sipped her tea, lips a little pursed. “I… suppose it’s good to know there is precedent.”

Trying to find a response was a bit like scooping the inside of his skull with a spoon. He cleared his throat. “Ja. Precedent.” He lifted the tea, managing a shitty little smile. “This helps. Sensory input, as a friend of mine once put it.”

Louise nodded, frowning intently. “Has it gotten better for you? Over time?”

“A bit.” Caleb wasn’t sure he had it in him to explain the complexity of having the space to nurse his wounds now, to feel the fragility of his battered heart, which at times meant he was more likely to have moments like this. Somewhat frequent, but perhaps less catastrophic. He was too shaken to probe his feelings for usable data on the difference between now and his early days with the Nein. Or even before them. Before Veth, even. Digging too deep in the Before… he couldn’t handle that today. An ache flared in his abdomen and he had to fight off tears.

A hand squeezed his. “I think I have probed enough for the moment.”

Caleb’s laugh was little more than breath. “We will discuss this later, when I can…” Actually, that was a full sentence. “When I can.”

“Danke.” Louise gazed out at the back garden. “The rosemary is taking over again.”

Caleb followed her eyeline to the large bush crowding a planter box of herbs. “Strange it is so hardy in the cold, ja?”

Louise chuckled. “You would think a bush native to the Menagerie Coast would not do so well up here, but…” She gestured in its direction. “The damn thing does better than almost anything else we grow here. The local apothecary comes by every few weeks to take her pick for her experiments. Apparently it may have some use in treating infections or preserving food in high enough quantities.”

“Oh, that is good.” Caleb still felt a little drained, but… better. He was doing better.

“I will take some for tonight’s roast,” said Louise. “You are staying for that, ja?”

“That is the plan.” If Caleb’s own brain stopped betraying him long enough to cope with being here for the next few hours. He could use a teleportation circle to the archives if he had to, but he would still have to teleport back later. That was a lot of work that he would prefer not to do if he could help it.

Louise had kept talking through his reverie; he missed a bit of it, but did his best to focus back in. “Oh, and since you’re here, I think some of your magic will make the whole thing a bit safer. And I think the boys would get a kick out of watching you work.”

“Ja, of course.” If it didn’t break Caleb’s heart too much, to use the culinary applications for some of his spells that he had originally developed to help his mother a lifetime ago. He suspected Louise would understand.

They sat in the quiet, cool air for a while, finishing the tea. Caleb let all of it wash over him, and find a bit of comfort in the moment. He had not been prepared to feel this fragile in front of anyone outside the Nein, but there was little he could do about it except slowly pull the pieces of himself back together. As Louise had implied, displaying some shred of brokenness in front of her wasn’t necessarily a major issue; her own son was grappling with similar problems, and it helped her to know Felix wasn’t alone.

Not that Caleb would have chosen this, had the choice been within his grasp. But at least he wasn’t going to panic about it. Still, Caleb missed being at home, being able to retreat for a bit to his bedroom or his study and calm himself in his own time. He missed Essek’s quiet presence, or the Nein’s clumsy but sincere efforts to care for him.

He would need them when he got home tonight.

In the meandering of his thoughts, he had missed Louise vanishing into the house… until she had returned with a plate of gingerbread and fresh cups of black tea. Caleb was struck by memories of visiting her mother and father’s house and being treated to this exact same recipe, and it both broke and soothed him to know that she had this little memory of her parents.

Louise smiled at him, a little sad, but the kind of sadness that had been negotiated and accepted. “I had wondered if you would remember.”

Caleb didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just returned that smile and reached for a cookie.

***

It was some time later, when Caleb and Louise had just finished washing and drying the dishes, that they sat at the kitchen table once again. And Louise’s expression had darkened.

“Caleb,” she said, pushing yet another cup of tea into his hands. “I have a matter I need to discuss with you. I fear it will not be an easy one for you, but I cannot put it off any longer, not with the funeral tomorrow.”

Caleb let go of the mug, and tried not to panic at the seriousness of her tone. “What do you mean?”

Louise sighed. “I hate to bring up the night your parents were… lost, but I need to know what you remember of the morning after.”

“Louise… I don’t remember anything.”

“That’s what I thought.” Louise steepled her fingers, pressing them to her lips in a frown that was oddly reminiscent of Essek in deep thought. “You haven’t needed to engage too heavily with most of the townsfolk here, but that will change tomorrow. I am sorry, but you need to…” She brought herself up short and cursed under her breath. “Caleb, you were found in front of the house the morning after.”

Caleb hadn’t known that. He didn’t know what to make of it, except… he had been seen.

Louise didn’t wait long for a reply before she continued. “Felix was but a few days old. I had been on my way to speak with Una…” Another sigh. “We weren’t sure what happened, only that nobody could get answers out of you. And then an old man from the Academy arrived–I didn’t know it was Ikithon until much later–and he said you had been behaving erratically and fled in the night, that you had clearly lost control of your faculties. He didn’t need to say what happened; we put the pieces together ourselves.”

“He does that,” Caleb said flatly.

“People were quite distressed, and a few were even angry. Some unkind things were said about you that I will not repeat. Trent said you were very sick, too addled to understand what you did. And he took you away to a place he said would help you.” Louise reached out, and it took everything in Caleb’s power to not flinch as her fingers brushed his knuckles. “We spread the truth after the trial. But… I thought you should know what we saw that morning, and what we were told.”

Caleb wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react to this. It certainly meant he was far more known than he had expected. He hadn’t thought Trent would allow him to be discovered like that, given the risk it would have posed to Wulf and Astrid, who had passed the test and continued to serve loyally. But, he supposed, it made a certain fucked up kind of sense. Even if Caleb had recovered, Trent had ensured he could never go home. Any faux sympathy performed on Trent’s part would not have softened the fact he had claimed Caleb had murdered his own parents because he was insane (instead of the other way around), and therefore a danger to himself and others. Few people, if anyone, would have been willing to help him.

Not really knowing what else to do in that moment, he asked, “Do you think my presence at the funeral will cause distress?”

“No,” Louise replied. “We made sure word got around. If anyone is an asshole, tell me and I’ll tear them a new one. But I doubt that will be an issue. You’re one of ours, Caleb, and we all know what those fancy mages did to not only you, but several of our kids. And there is a reason we have a mayor and a starosta. We may not own the land here, but we are not without teeth, and we do not appreciate it when a bunch of rich assholes put their piss-weak little hands on our people. If anything, you should warn the archmages to stay the fuck away. We will tolerate Astrid because she grew up here, but the others can go fuck themselves.”

Caleb wasn’t sure he deserved this kind of protectiveness, but it was… appreciated nonetheless. He caught the slightest movement out of the corner of his eye; they were not alone. Caleb didn’t call the boys out, because he absolutely did not have the energy for that conversation. So, instead, he drank the tea. Louise squeezed his hand, and began to prepare dinner.

Friedrich returned while Caleb chopped up some root vegetables. There was a quick, hushed conversation between husband and wife and a few unsubtle glances his way. And then Friedrich shouldered Caleb out of the way and took the knife from his hands.

“Sit down,” he said. “You are a guest.”

Louise chuckled, but it wasn’t entirely mirthful, and Caleb suspected they had spoken at length about whether to tell him what Louise had seen before she had uttered a word to him.

He felt horrendously out of sorts. So he sat at the table and let the couple talk at him, and followed Louise’s instructions for basic cantrips to make her life a bit easier. The boys emerged once again to watch him at work, but held back their questions. As if Caleb had needed any further confirmation they had overheard the whole thing.

The roast was delightful, and Caleb only wished he had felt better so he could have eaten more of it. Nico seemed to have calmed down quite a lot, though, which was a relief. And Felix spoke more animatedly than Caleb had ever seen him.

Soon enough, though, it was time to return to Rexxentrum. Caleb wasn’t sure he had the mental presence necessary to teleport safely without a circle, so he began drawing one in the living area. It was more exciting for the boys to watch anyway. As he prepared to draw the final line, he looked up at Nico.

“Ready?”

Nico plastered on the fakest smile Caleb had ever seen. “Ja, let’s go.”

Caleb completed the circle, and they raced through to the archive.

#critical role #caleb widogast #professor widogast #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #cr2 #shadowgast #essek is not present but the overall fic features the ship heavily so i'll tag for that reason #ao3 #fanfiction #my fics

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 27

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: references to Caleb's backstory (most overtly the abuse in an educational setting and some references to his parents), implied traumatised children, invasive questioning

Chapter summary: Caleb teaches evocation, students ask probing questions, and his co-professor gets weirdly intense.

Chapter notes: Chapter title is from from Questions by Aṣa. This entire chapter is literally just the lesson. It got away from me but I really like Margie being a mini-Beauregard with even less tact, so it's staying thicc.

***

Chapter 27: What’s the truth behind why people go to war

The week continued, and Caleb found himself in Alphira’s office shortly before the beginners’ evocation class, rehashing the lesson plan one last time. Things had settled at home, just enough, that he could concentrate on work. Even if he was a little worried about leaving Nico. The rest of the Nein were still around, and had arranged shifts to ensure someone was always at home, but the anxiety was hard to shake.

It was fine. He would spend an hour in his office after class in case any students had questions, and then he would take Nico to the Schneiders’ for the remainder of the day. There really wasn’t anything to worry about and, as Veth had pointed out to him just before he left for work, he was probably extra anxious now that he was legally responsible for a whole human being. Child soldier or not, that was a lot.

He couldn’t even be responsible for himself half the time. Fuck.

Regardless, now was not the time to wallow in his fear.

“Most children find the safety lecture a little dull,” Alphira said, as she had told him several times over the last few weeks. “It is necessary, though.”

“Professor, I was convinced of this weeks ago.”

She chuckled. “I know. I am trying to convince myself we have done everything we can to make it interesting.”

They had decided against taking too much of a hard-line “scared straight” approach, since it was unlikely such a thing would work before anyone had gotten the opportunity to play with the magic. They had put their heads together to come up with a few anecdotes that would demonstrate the point in a less confrontational way. (And in a less triggering manner for Caleb.)

“Run me through who we have in class again,” Alphira requested, and Caleb reminded her of the ten students who had commenced this week. It was still quite striking that so few Zemnians counted among their numbers, and that nobody hailed from Rexxentrum itself, which had not been the case when Caleb had studied here. He remembered overhearing more than his fair share of whispers from the well-to-do city kids about whether or not he, Astrid and Wulf even belonged there.

Well, at least this group wouldn’t need to worry about that.

“Curious bunch, ja,” Alphira murmured. “I may need your help with the Alfield pair… Bree and Zora?”

“Ja. I suspect a few members of the group will need support for this class.”

“And they may not know it yet.” Alphira hummed thoughtfully as she slid her papers into her leather satchel. “Well, that’s all the time we have for the game plan, I suppose. Let’s do this.”

They reached the classroom with just enough time to unpack and do some last-minute preparation. The Evocation classrooms came with extra stores of components such as phosphorous, kept in carefully sealed, fireproof boxes in drawers around the room. A significant number of spells that could be used to counteract the most actively destructive magic did not require material components. Counterspell and Control Flames, for instance, were entirely somatic. Ray of Frost, which Essek had taught Caleb recently, only required verbal and somatic components.

Metal was also kept to a minimum in the room to limit conductivity, and all wood surfaces had been carefully treated to be waterproof and fire resistant (as much as wood could be, anyway). Perhaps ironically, given Caleb’s background, fire was often the easiest to get under control if it went wild. Control Flames was a cantrip; in contrast, Control Water was a fourth level and more powerful than it really needed to be for this circumstance.

All that said, Evocation was not purely a destructive school of magic. And that would form a significant part of today’s lesson.

Five minutes before class was due to start, Micha (Blumenthal) and Margie (Kamordah) were the first to file in. Upon introducing themselves to Alphira, the professor sighed deeply.

“I am going to get you two mixed up,” she said, watching them sit together in the front row.

“I use they/them pronouns, if that helps,” offered Micha.

“Watch me have a gender crisis to confuse the professors,” Margie replied. Micha snickered, elbowing her.

Alphira looked genuinely panicked at the thought. “Please wait until I learn all your names.”

The Alfield pair, Bree and Zora, came in with the Nogvurot pair, Ingrid and Liesl. Bree smiled more easily today, evidently over the shock of meeting Caleb earlier in the week. Liesl looked more tired than she had the other day; Caleb made a mental note to check in with her regularly. Whether she was undergoing anamnesis or just really fixated on Xhorhassian wildlife, she was at risk. And she really did look exhausted, only three days into her studies.

It was good she and Ingrid seemed to be bonding with the rest of the class, though. He had worried they would be too insular.

The remaining four followed shortly afterwards: Oskar (Pride’s Call) with Ella (Hupperdook), and Laurel (Felderwin) with Juniper (Icehaven). Everyone appeared to have found a connection with at least one other person in class. Good. One less thing to worry about.

Caleb and Alphira let the group chat a bit while they finished making a few final notes on the chalkboard and portioned out paper and ink. Caleb caught a few snatches of conversation: Juniper had indeed found a great fish stall in the Tangles and taught a few recipes to Laurel, who had already cooked enough food to feed the entire class (Zora was mostly vegetarian but had agreed to taste a little bit before commandeering the kitchen to make a comparable amount of food sans the fish). And apparently Ella had found some creepy figurine and hidden it in Oskar’s bed last night. Oskar was now holding it hostage for an unspecified ransom.

Soon enough, Alphira had Caleb call the class to attention.

“Guten morgen,” he said. “Let me introduce you to Alphira Winterheart, Professor of Evocation, who will be bossing me around for the next hour.”

Alphira knew he was going to make the joke, but she still raised an eyebrow at him anyway. “Hallo, welcome to Beginner’s Evocation. We will be taking things slow today, but if you are good, we will have you slinging firebolts in no time.” She clapped her hands together. “Now! I have a question for you all. Who can tell me what the School of Evocation does?”

Micha’s hand shot up; Caleb wouldn’t have expected anything less from the kid who had asked questions about the library on literally the first day.

Alphira nodded to them. “Micha, was it?”

“Ja, Professor.”

“Go ahead, Micha.”

“Ah, well, it is pretty simple. Evocation is the manipulation of energy.”

“Ja, very good,” said Alphira. “Would anyone like to give an example of how that energy might manifest?”

That encouraged a few more hands to go up. Alphira picked out Ella, who was bouncing in her elevated seat.

“Fireballs!”

“Ah, yes, we love the classics,” replied Alphira. “Let’s hear a few others. Ah, Oskar, was it?”

“Yes, Professor. Um, lightning bolt.”

“I am quite fond of that spell myself,” said Alphira. “Who else? Yes… I’m so sorry I have forgotten your name.”

“Juniper.”

“Ah, thank you. Go ahead.”

“Well, there are a lot of ice spells such as Ice Storm.”

“Yes, very good.” Alphira picked out Margie next.

Margie leaned back in her seat, arms crossed. “Sending, apparently.”

“Excellent, Margie. Thank you.” Alphira looked to Caleb. “Evocation is home to many of our most immediately destructive spells, but there are also a few interesting ones. Widogast, you’ve had some experiences with Sending, ja?”

“Ja, many. Most magic-users can learn it, and I have seen it used in many, ah, creative ways.” There was a possibility not everyone knew what Sending was, so Caleb weaved in a few details. “Being that you can send a twenty-five word message, and receive a response, across an unlimited distance, its applications are very broad.”

“What I don’t get, though,” said Margie, “is why Sending is Evocation but the Message cantrip is Transmutation?”

Alphira gave Caleb an amused look; they had debated this at length. “That is a very good question, Margie. For context, the Message cantrip allows you to whisper a message and have it heard by your target as long as they are within 120 feet of you. It can travel around corners and through openings, so unless you are in a sealed room with thick enough walls–be it three feet of wood, a foot of stone, an inch of common metal or a thin sheet of lead–or if you are blocked by magical silence, your message will be heard.”

“Yeah, but why is it a different school?”

“Well, not everyone will agree,” said Caleb, “but Professor Winterheart and I expect the distance of Sending requires more energy manipulation than Message does. Sending is not blocked by any physical barriers. And, I suppose, in my own experience, Message feels like I am physically sending the message through space. I am manipulating the sound itself to travel further than it normally would to reach a specific ear. Sending has a chance to reach other planes of existence; that would not be possible without further manipulation of energy beyond the scope of Transmutation. On the receiving end, the Message cantrip is like a whisper only you can hear; in my experience, Sending places the message straight into your mind, which may be a pleasant or unpleasant experience, depending on how much you like the person who’s talking to you.”

The class tittered a little bit, so Caleb did not disclose he was referring to Trent’s shit-fuckery.

“Does that make sense?” asked Alphira. Margie shrugged; good enough for now, probably. “All right. Sending is a very good example of an Evocation spell outside the realm of elemental magic. Does anyone know any others?”

Liesl raised her hand. “There is some kind of powerful Telepathy spell, ja?”

“Ja, there is,” said Alphira. “There is an eighth-level Telepathy spell that allows you to bind yourself to another creature on the same plane for twenty-four hours. With that spell, you can instantaneously send words, images, sounds and other sensory input. You could compare it with Sending, but the level of energy manipulation is much higher as you can use it to transmit pure thought. I am doing some research on that spell at the moment, actually.”

“I recently saw a Ring of Telepathy in action,” added Caleb. “From what I understood, it was limited to 120 feet, which would suggest it was more closely related to Message except the words appeared directly in my head.” Gross. “So there are certainly less taxing means to communicate on the sly.”

“Ja, the appeal of the eighth level spell is the depth and duration of the connection,” Alphira replied. “Sending or Message will do in most instances. Now, can anyone think of any other Evocation spells that are not dependent on causing elemental damage?”

Bree raised her hand. “Didn’t a member of Vox Machina in Tal’Dorei use Bigby’s Hand as his signature move?”

“Ja, the bard Scanlan Shorthalt. What can you tell us about that spell, Bree?”

“Um, well. You make a giant translucent hand, and then you can use it to grab things, or hit people you don’t like, and probably other stuff.”

“Widogast,” said Alphira, “you modified that spell for your own use, ja?”

“Ja, it functions the same way, but I altered the material component to produce a cat’s paw instead of a hand.”

Micha raised their hand. 

“Ja, Micha?”

“How easy is it to modify spells without making them more dangerous to cast, or less effective?”

“Well,” said Caleb, “it depends how much you want to change the spell. A simple aesthetic change without altering the spell function is not too difficult once you are familiar with the original spell and the shape of its diagram. I would not risk it until you are more advanced in your studies, but you will develop a sense for how far you can push it.”

“What do you get out of it?” asked Margie.

“Well, I enjoy making things my own,” replied Caleb. “I also impressed a foreign dignitary once, but that is a long story.”

“With a spell that looked different?”

It was hard not to smile at the memory of Essek, asking Caleb to impress him, and apparently finding Cat’s Ire charming enough to continue their mutual honeypotting dance. In some ways, it felt like a lifetime ago.

And then he remembered to actually answer the question. “Well, apparently it charmed him. I don’t know.”

Margie’s stony expression cracked as she snickered, nudging Micha, who rolled their eyes.

“Was that in Xhorhas?” asked Liesl.

“Ja.” Time to shut the door on this, before the girl asked too many questions. The kids had enough context from his speech to suspect he was talking about Essek, if they were curious enough to think about it long enough. “Anyway, we are getting distracted.”

“We need a Caleb Widogast Storytime class,” said Alphira. “We have time for one more spell, if anyone can think of something.”

The class was quiet. They had been talking about this for a while, after all.

“Well, there is Leomund’s Tiny Hut,” said Caleb, as if they hadn’t planned this whole thing. “It is a third-level spell that creates a ten-foot dome of energy, the outside of which can be coloured to kind of match your surroundings. You can control who enters, and the temperature within, which makes it very useful on the road.”

“Why isn’t that Abjuration, though?” said Margie.

“I suppose it comes back to the manipulation of energy once again,” Alphira replied. “While there are spells in the Abjuration school that may have similar effects, the Tiny Hut is a dome constructed of energy that can be manipulated to let specific creatures through the barrier, as opposed to a warding spell. It is murky, however, I would agree.”

“That is part of the fun, ja?” added Caleb.

“If you say so,” Margie said flatly. Micha snickered and elbowed her, until she cracked a smile.

Alphira returned to the plan. “All of this is to say: Evocation can be a devastating school of magic, but that is not its only purpose. The manipulation of energy can allow you to send a message to someone you are familiar with anywhere on this plane, and potentially other planes if you’re lucky. It can provide a safe place to sleep on the road. You can ride around on a giant magic hand if that suits your fancy. Widogast, what appealed to you about Evocation?”

“I was a firebug,” Caleb replied.

“Ja, and I was fascinated by lightning strikes as a child,” said Alphira. “However, these kinds of interests can have unintended consequences if they are not well-managed.”

The energy of the class dropped, as both Caleb and Alphira had expected. The safety talk was never anyone’s favourite. Caleb had not paid especially close attention as a student himself (though he was attentive in most of his lessons, so he was able to recall most of it).

“So,” said Caleb, “we are going to talk about what it means to use these spells, and what you should consider.”

“Thoughts?” asked Alphira, as she animated a piece of chalk to hover before the chalkboard. “To use an example within your reach… what are the kinds of things you might consider before you cast a Firebolt?”

The gnome, Ella, raised her hand up high. “Who’s your target!”

“Very good.” Alphira commanded the chalk to write who is your target on the board. “Firebolt requires a target for it to work. Anyone else?”

“Doesn’t have to be a person, right?” said Margie.

“Correct.” Alphira amended the text to read who/what is your target.

Bree raised her hand next. “Why are you casting it?”

“Perfect.” That also went on the board.

Then Zora spoke up. “What kind of environment are you in?”

“Yes! What kind of questions do you need to consider about the environment?”

Oskar raised their hand. “What are the hazards? Are you going to burn someone’s house–” He looked at Caleb. “Um.”

The class had just been loosening back up after the transition to the safety talk, but the air was immediately tense again.

Caleb raised an eyebrow; dark humour it was, then. “Ja, I would generally caution against burning down people’s houses unless you are very sure you have a very good reason.” Margie coughed loudly. “Fortunately, your chances of having your memory modified while you are a student have lowered significantly, as the most, ah, significant offender I know about is in prison with his hands glued together.”

A beat. A few blinks.

“Okay okay okay,” said Margie. “What the fuck is that about?”

“I have very creative friends. So, ah, to add to the question of why you are casting a firebolt, I would suggest you also consider why your target needs a firebolt to the face… or whatever other spell you wish to use.”

“Sorry sorry sorry,” Margie said again. “I just have one more question about the Ikthon thing.”

Caleb didn’t especially want to keep going down that route, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that Margie was a deeply curious person and that it was probably better to hear her out. “All right. One, and then we continue the lesson.”

“Okay, look. I read the trial documents. The guy was… I don’t think there are enough swear words in the world to describe how much of a piece of shit he is.”

“Margie, please ask your question.”

“You beat him in combat, right?”

“Ja. And your real question?”

“Why did you leave him alive?”

Caleb sighed. Okay. This had taken a turn he hadn’t entirely expected, but he could see the logic. And maybe it would be helpful for the class as he and Alphira had intended it.

“You don’t have to answer,” Alphira said, quiet enough that only he would have heard.

“It’s all right.” Caleb regarded Margie, who had gone out of her way to fill in the gaps he had left in the story. The things he had said far too many times in the trial to ever want to say again as long as he lived. And those things had evidently bothered her enough to push through whatever filter of propriety she had (what little there seemed to be). Of course she was perturbed; Yudala Fon themself had grown pale at some of the statements they had read and heard during the trial. “There were a lot of reasons. For one, dead men cannot stand trial. I wanted the things he had done to be on the public record, so they would be harder to repeat. I also wanted to humiliate him, but there are many ways to humiliate someone. I think, ultimately, I wanted to be better than him. So, my friends helped me bring the case to the Cobalt Soul… and the rest you already know about.”

Bree, slowly, tentatively, raised her hand.

“Ja, Bree? What is it?”

“Is it… hard for you? Using fire spells? Especially in a fight.” Coming from one of the other students, the question might have been inappropriate. But Bree had seen her home almost burn to the ground, and was likely one of the only students in the class who had been in combat. She had implied that she saw her neighbours die in that fight.

So, because it was her, Caleb answered. “If you had asked me that a year ago, the answer would have been a resounding yes… assuming I answered honestly. Now? Less so. These things take time, and support.” He took a deep breath, and tried to set the lesson back on its rails. “So, I think it is fair to say a few of us have seen the consequences when Evocation magic goes awry. If your Firebolt ignites something you did not intend, or if you have changed your mind, what can you do to stop it?”

Juniper raised their hand. “Have an ice spell prepared.”

“Or Control Flames,” added Zora.

“Ja, those are both very good ideas,” said Alphira, who added to the board Prepare spells to counter side-effects. “Caleb, you are not much for ice spells?”

“Nein. I know one or two, but I rarely prepare them.” Caleb considered how best to discuss his most recent need to put out a fire without invading Nico’s privacy. “I did recently have call to put out a pretty, ah, serious fire, and Control Flames worked well enough.”

“So, this does come down to personal preference,” said Alphira. “I would use ice spells, personally, but Caleb’s former speciality in Evocation was flame, which synergises well with his current specialisation in Transmutation in terms of that specific cantrip. Another option would be the Gust cantrip, which is also Transmutation.”

Micha raised their hand. “Sorry, question. Is it normal for wizards to strongly specialise in one school to the exclusion of all others, or is it more common to have a specialisation but also dabble in multiple schools?”

“It depends, really,” said Alphira. “I know academic staff here who can barely cast a cantrip outside their school, but it is more common to collect a few extra spells for utility’s sake. Caleb, you would have experience with that from your adventuring days.”

“Ja, most of my spells are Evocation or Transmutation,” said Caleb. “I do know quite a few from the other schools. The Shield spell from the Abjuration school, for example. Everyone should learn that. It will save your life one day, and it is only a first level.”

“What’s the most out-there spell you know?” asked Ella. “Like, the one most outside your specialty?”

“Well, the highest level spell outside my specialisation would be Mind Blank,” replied Caleb. “Eighth-level Abjuration, protects from psychic damage, most Divination spells, anything that can read your mind or your emotions, and protects from being charmed. Oh, and it lasts for twenty-four hours.”

“Why the fuck did you need to study that?” asked Margie.

“My adventuring party went up against a powerful enemy who specialised in psychic damage and mind control,” Caleb replied. “It forced him to waste some powerful attacks on me that would have otherwise been catastrophic for us.”

“Was that Ikithon?”

Caleb found himself laughing at the thought that Trent really thought he’d had a chance against the Mighty Nein after they had destroyed Lucien and the Somnovem… the arrogance. “Ah, nein. He tried his luck later, at which point I was very done with his shit.”

“Okay, what happened with this other dude?”

“Weird cult shit. Long story, and I can assure you… you would not believe me if I told you.”

“Cop out,” she muttered.

“Uh huh,” Caleb said flatly. “Back to the point of the lesson, please. A lesson I had to learn the hard way: anything you do, be prepared to undo it.” Beauregard would laugh herself sick if she heard him say that. “For some spells, dropping the effect is enough. For spells with direct, immediate impact, such as a firebolt, you will prepare other spells to counteract it.”

“There is anything wizards are not known for,” added Alphira, “it is considering the consequences of our actions. I understand that this kind of lecture may not be the most exciting part of your schooling, but it is important. You all heard Professor Widogast’s speech at the beginning of the week. I graduated not long after he did. Figures such as Ikithon depend on us not learning these lessons. As you should all be aware, the consequences for that are dire.” Alphira had an intensity Caleb had not seen in her before. She was normally quite measured. Logical. Warm at times, but always tempered.

She kept talking. “This is not ancient history; Ikithon’s trial ended mere months ago. There are students still enrolled who bear the scars of his abuse.” Her voice had an edge to it, like it was taking all her self-control to speak evenly. “Whether here or elsewhere, you will inevitably encounter people who want to use you, who care not for your wellbeing and only for their own ends. You will be tempted to become that person. I know you have heard these things from Professor Weber, but Widogast and I are young enough to remember being in your position. We all knew of the Volstrucker. We saw our peers who were hand-picked by Ikithon and thought it was an honour to have his attention, to be trusted with this responsibility to protect the Empire. We saw the bandages on their arms and envied them for it.” Caleb’s scars itched, and it took a great deal of willpower not to touch them. “And then we saw them slowly pull away from us, until the day we never saw them again.”

Alphira had deviated from the game plan somewhat. Caleb would have to ask her later what brought it on. It did, however, sober the class a great deal. Maybe this would stick after all.

“Well,” Caleb said as Alphira caught her breath, “all of this is to say: every action has a consequence. So, preparation is key. And, ah, where possible… try not to put yourself in a position where nobody knows where the hell you are or what you are doing. I am… not so good at that, but working on it.”

“Remember these questions,” Alphira said, gesturing to the board. She looked a little calmer. “What are you doing? Why? What do you want to achieve? Who or what is your target? Why them? What will you do if things go wrong? What are the potential consequences? How will you deal with that? Ultimately, you need to ask yourself: is it worth it? Often the answer will be yes, but you must also do this enough that you can accept when the answer is no.” She met Caleb’s gaze. “That is one of the hardest lessons for a wizard to learn.”

A beat. A few eyes on Caleb, clearly remembering that he had walked away from time travel of all things.

Then, tentatively, the halfling Laurel raised her hand. “Um, so, this is great and all, but how are we supposed to do this if we’re, you know, being attacked?”

“Well, in that case, the who and the why should be obvious,” said Caleb. “The trick is to practice your spells and learn them inside-out, so you know when to use them and how they behave. That will tell you what to do and what the most likely consequences will be. Then, it is a matter of choosing the right tool for the job and knowing what to do if it goes haywire. You might get it wrong–we all do–but that gets better with experience.”

Ingrid raised her hand. “How do you recommend getting experience?”

“For now? Study. Read everything you can find. Practice under controlled conditions. When your skills are solid, you can look for simple tasks around town, or even within the Academy. Someone always has a pest problem, for example.”

Margie’s gaze had not shifted from him in a very long time, visibly assessing. “What did the Volstrucker do?”

Caleb turned the question back on her, because as much as he respected curiosity, he was fucking tired. “You read the trial documents, ja? What do you think we did?”

She shifted in her seat, discomfort written on her face. “Um, I mean. Bad shit to people who probably didn’t deserve it. Not like that, anyway.”

“Ja, so we will not be repeating that.” Gods, he hoped that put it to rest. “As your skills grow, we will find opportunities for you to flex them in a more… healthy manner. Later on, people tend to find adventuring builds your skills quite rapidly, if you have the appetite.”

The questions died down at that, and the end of the lesson was approaching. Alphira assigned some homework; similar to Transmutation, to research an Evocation cantrip and report back on its components, applications, and challenges.

There was some talk of spells the students already knew. Bree and Zora knew the most; they did not explain why, but Caleb suspected they had studied up in the wake of the attack on Alfield. The others knew a few each. Ella really liked fire. Juniper was fond of ice but had a few fire cantrips because Icehaven was “fucking cold”, in their own words. Micha knew Dancing Lights, a few other cantrips and one first level: Earth Tremor, which apparently they had used in a farming experiment that had not gone especially well. Oskar could cast Light and Firebolt. Every student owned up to knowing Firebolt when he did.

Curiously, Margie knew Booming Blade (Caleb feared what she had gotten up to in Kamordah). Perhaps even more strangely, Liesl was, aside from the Alfield pair (and Micha who was a huge nerd), the only student who indicated she knew a first-level spell with enough confidence to cast it at will: Witch Bolt. Caleb didn’t ask why that spell, fearing the answer would be a weird one and draw too much attention.

Then, finally, the class was over. The kids began to file out of the room and Caleb busied himself with rearranging the lesson notes on the desk. Notes that neither of them had more than glanced at since the class started.

Margie lingered, and then approached the desk, clearing her throat. Micha waited for her near the classroom door.

“Hey, uh, Professor Widogast?”

“Mm?” Caleb dropped the pretence of the notes to look up at her. She still looked wildly uncomfortable.

“I, um, just wanted to apologise, I guess. For being so pushy about… you know.” She shrugged. “Micha also won’t let me leave until I say I’m sorry. So. Sorry.”

“Apology accepted, Margie,” Caleb replied. “May I offer some advice?”

“Sure.”

“Practice figuring out the appropriate time and place, ja?”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

“And, ah, some of your peers may not take kindly to probing questions, especially about the darker spots in their pasts. Your curiosity is a gift, but tread lightly, okay? Sometimes the thoughts inside your head don’t have to come out of your mouth.”

“I’ll… try. I’m real bad at it.”

“Trying counts for a lot, Margie. Go have lunch.”

#caleb widogast #professor widogast #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #critical role #cr2 #ao3 #fanfiction #my fics

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 30

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings:  dissociation, lots of discussion of death of family members, Trent being a gaslighting asshat (past), panic attack, mention of vomiting

Chapter summary:  Caleb is reeling from the news of Trent's meddling, and needs a bit of time to sit with his grief. The Baumanns' funeral looms ever closer, and the Nein do what they can to help him help Nico.

Chapter notes: Chapter title from Hug All Ur Friends by Cavetown.

***

Chapter 30: I could do with a litlte bit more of your help

The walk back to the house was a blur for Caleb. Upon arriving, Nico excused himself immediately to go to bed, and Caleb felt that immensely. He sat on the couch in his side of the house for about five minutes before someone came looking for him.

“Dude, you look like shit.” Beauregard could be counted on to tell the truth, even if it was rude. Especially if it was rude. She flopped down next to him. “The fuck happened over there?”

“Oh. A lot.” Caleb gave a general overview of the visit. “And, well. I learned something, about the morning after I murdered my mother and father.” Beauregard’s expression pinched, as it often did when she thought he was being too harsh with himself. But she knew better than to interrupt, so Caleb was able to take the time he needed to haltingly recount what Louise had told him… that he had been found at his parents’ house by the neighbours, and that Trent had pretended Caleb had killed them because of the state he was in, in that well-worn faux-sympathetic manner of his. Caleb was intimately familiar with that contrived saccharine tone of voice, the calculated morphing of his features into the mask of a loving caregiver. Caleb’s stomach threatened to evacuate Louise’s tea and gingerbread and lovingly prepared roast dinner.

Beauregard looped an arm around his bicep and squeezed it in her hand. “First of all, the fucker’s lucky he’s in maximum security or I would punch his head off. Second, I know you just said Louise doesn’t think anyone’s going to cause problems at the funeral, but… are you okay with going now that you know about this?”

“I have to be.”

“Caleb.”

“Beauregard. I want to go. Louise said she will look out for me, and I believe her.”

“All right, man. But you know all that shit you’re telling Nico about how he can fuck off at any time? Applies to you too, okay?” She dragged him to his feet. “Let’s get you in a blanket or something. I need to write some notes about this for Yudala, if that’s cool with you.”

“Ja, okay.” Caleb was past the point of worrying about the Cobalt Soul seeing his dirty laundry. They had already seen the worst of it. “While you’re at it, you may as well fill in the Nein.” Caleb wasn’t sure he could bear recounting all of this again.

Beauregard dragged him to bed, waiting impatiently outside while he changed into a sleep shirt so she could wrap him in a blanket and cover him with the Zemnian quilt, and shove a copy of the newest smut novel Jester had brought into his hands.

“There,” she said. “Your only excuse to get up is to take a piss, all right? You look like death and need to stay put for a bit.”

She left him alone, but it was only a few minutes until Essek joined him.

“I heard what happened,” he said, floating the slippers off his feet. “Caduceus is making tea, and Jester and Veth would like to come over and hug you, once they are finished concocting a series of ludicrous plans to break into a maximum security prison and murder the esteemed Master Ikithon. I thought you would appreciate the warning.”

“Danke.” There wasn’t much left in Caleb to respond appropriately.

“Nico was snoring when I passed by his door.” Essek slid beneath the quilt. “Yasha will check on him later.”

A pang through his guts. He was supposed to be looking after Nico tonight, and he couldn’t…

The failure hurt. It hurt a lot.

Essek’s thumb brushed his cheek. “Caleb Widogast, what is the point of having friends if they do not help you when you falter? Nico will be cared for, and so will you.”

Today had been a lot. Too much, really. Caleb, overdue for a good cry, curled up in the blankets and rested his head on Essek’s lap. Essek spoke softly, mostly in undercommon, and stroked his hair.

Caleb was dimly aware that Caduceus dropped off a tea set, but was unable to compose himself enough to thank him. The initial wave of emotion had subsided a little by the time Jester and Veth arrived, but he was nowhere near finished weeping. The two immediately turned the arrangement into a cuddle pile. As much as it hurt, it was a relief to have the space to grieve–his parents, himself. To let his heart be the broken, bleeding thing that it was, without having to wrap it in gauze and pretend it still worked the way it used to.

“Say the word and we’ll fuckin’ kill him,” Veth hissed.

“We have a foooolproof plan,” added Jester.

Essek sighed, sectioning Caleb’s hair in preparation for a braid. “As admirable as your ambition may be, I do not think impersonating Da’leth will get you close enough.”

“A fair criticism,” said Veth. “Beau said he’s almost in the doghouse.”

“What about Yudala?” offered Jester. “They’re, like, super important.”

“Would the High Curator sully themself by visiting a high security prison?”

“...maybe?”

Essek started working on a single braid on the back of Caleb’s head. “I would, perhaps, suggest searching for a figure with access to those dungeons who is not so high-profile.” Caleb had his face buried in the sheets, breathing deeply as he slowly calmed himself. Very close to drifting asleep.

Veth’s tiny fingers massaged the base of Caleb’s skull, close to where Essek was working. She was probably trying to both soothe him and annoy Essek at the same time. It was working on Caleb’s end, at least.

He dozed for a bit, before he dressed and went to check on Nico. He found the boy in the lesbians’ kitchen, gazing into a cup of tea that had long gone cold. Yasha had been in the living area, evidently giving him some space. Upon seeing Caleb, she had reached out to tug on his braid before heading up to bed.

Caleb sat with his own mug opposite Nico, warming the tea in his hands. Nico, at that prompting, did the same.

“Are you all right?” Nico asked. Caleb probably should have seen that coming; he already knew the boys had overheard his conversation with Louise.

“I am… processing this information,” Caleb replied, in the interest of honesty. “It was a… shock is not the right word… it was not exactly welcome news. But I will be fine. Thank you for asking.”

Nico shrugged. “Seemed like a lot.”

“It was. But I am grateful Louise told me.”

“She is not one for sugar-coating.”

“Explains where Felix gets it from, ja?”

A small smile, and a short huff that probably would have been a laugh under better circumstances. “He knows when to be quiet… sometimes.”

“How are you feeling, Nico?”

Another shrug. “It was good to see Felix, and his parents. But…” Nico scowled a little, bringing the mug to his face. “I do not know how to say it without sounding like an asshole.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Caleb replied. Seeing his loved ones with their families was bittersweet at best. He was happy for them, especially after Trent had almost ruined them too, but being around them was still difficult. It hurt less than it used to, and it would probably keep getting better over time, but Caleb couldn’t see a day where he could watch Veth and Yeza with Luc, or Jester with Marion, and not feel those glass-sharp edges of his broken heart. Just a little bit.

“Ja.” Nico took a fortifying gulp of his tea. “I don’t like envying what others have.”

“It’s complicated,” Caleb agreed. “It is not shameful, though, as long as you don’t let it control you.”

Nico let out a long breath through his nose. “Working on it.”

“The work is what counts.” Caleb started on his tea, giving Nico an out in the event he wanted to switch topics or leave the conversation entirely.

“Are you going to be okay tomorrow?” Nico asked him.

“I will be fine, Nico. Will you be okay tomorrow?”

“Unlikely.”

“I will stay close. You don’t need to be there any longer than you can tolerate.”

Nico’s face scrunched up a little. “Is that true? You may have no intention to pressure me, but there are people there who will expect a–what was it you said?–a performance.”

“So?”

“I… don’t know. Maybe I owe it to my mother and father, though.”

“Nico, not to put too fine a point on it, but I don’t think the dead really give a damn. I am no theorist on the afterlife, but I have died before, and I can assure you, in that last moment of consciousness, I cared more about the wellbeing of the people I loved than whether they would throw me a good fucking funeral.”

Nico did not flinch, but his eyebrows pinched for a moment, as if he only hadn’t due to his training. “Then why go?”

“You don’t have to, Nico. But. This is an opportunity to… say goodbye.”

“And if I don’t want to?”

“Then don’t. No one will force this upon you.”

“No… I…” Nico squeezed his eyes shut. “I do want to. Or I want to try. I don’t know. But maybe this is something good I can do.”

“Doing good is a more… constructive way to think about things,” said Caleb. “It has helped me live with myself, with a little more ease.”

“Ja, okay.” Nico drained the last of his tea. “Can you turn me into a cat for a bit? I don’t think I will sleep otherwise.”

“Ja, of course. Let’s get you upstairs.”

***

 Once Nico had curled up in bed as a little black cat, Caleb returned to his own bedroom. Essek was mid-trance and Veth and Jester had left to join a cuddle pile in the spare bedroom on the lesbians’ side.

Caleb sat on the bed, sighing as he undressed. His limbs were heavy, as were his thoughts. Nico was a flight risk; there was a possibility he could disappear again, and tomorrow would be the perfect cocktail of stressors to push him over the edge. With the Nein and the Schneiders, it was likely he wouldn’t get far. But Nico was capable of making a good attempt, and all it took was a weakness or two for him to slip through.

Tomorrow would not only be distressing, but also intensely uncomfortable for Nico. Caleb had kept him insulated from anyone from Blumenthal who would have witnessed the fire, but it would be impossible to do that tomorrow. Nico was going to come face-to-face with the people who saw what he did. He would have to bear the weight of people knowing that and seeing him. All while mourning the parents he loved, who he had killed.

Caleb was projecting a little bit. But he was not wrong.

Dusky purple hands passed him his sleep shirt. “Caleb Widogast, you are stuck.”

Caleb took in a deep breath and willed his body to move, until he had dressed for bed and climbed under the covers. Essek reclined beside him, searching his face.

“How was it?”

“About as expected. He is… not comfortable with what will happen tomorrow, but he still intends to go, to do right by his parents. I am worried he will be… overwhelmed.”

“I will prepare Counterspell as usual.” 

“Putting yourself in the midst of a Zemnian funeral is a risk.”

“It is mine to take.” Essek caught the end of the lacing of Caleb’s shirt, twirling it around a finger. “I have spoken at length with Beauregard and Astrid. As long as I stay with the Nein, there is precious little anyone can do even if they see through my disguise.”

“Essek, if someone sees through your disguise…” Caleb did not need to finish that sentence. Essek knew exactly what could happen if either the Assembly or the Bright Queen’s court learned he had not died in Aeor after all.

“It is unlikely,” said Essek. “However, Jester is handy with a disguise kit, as I am sure you are aware. It may be more prudent to forgo illusions entirely, given the Assembly is certain to be watching the proceedings closely.”

“And how are we to explain the random elf in our midst?”

“A friend from Nicodranas.”

“Oh no, not Lord Thain from Around again…”

Essek screwed up his nose in a most unfairly adorable manner, and Caleb had to resist the temptation to throw out this conversation and kiss him senseless instead. “I was unprepared to encounter you and the Nein in that guise. I am usually a much better liar than that.” He huffed. “Should anyone of sufficient rank inquire, I am an assistant to Yussa Errenis, who, through his acquaintance with you, has an interest in cases such as Nico’s. At his request, I am there to ensure the proceedings continue smoothly and then report back. The Mighty Nein are known associates of Errenis by this point, so it would make logical sense that I be placed under your protection.”

“Have you run this by Yussa?”

“Yes. He doesn't care, as long as I lie well.” Essek quirked an eyebrow. “I was the youngest Shadowhand in the history of the Dynasty, Caleb Widogast. I can play the game when the rules are observed. Our friends… do not observe the rules.”

Caleb was fond of this haughty side of Essek (there was probably some deep-seated fuckery in his brain that made him extremely attracted to people who could step on him). “Ja, to be fair, we are at times very good at counterintelligence. Mostly by accident.”

“It is easy to dismantle a game of dragonchess if you throw the board out the window,” Essek said flatly. He sat up, delicately tying the laces into a bow. Then he released the ends and touched just the tip of his fingers to the base of Caleb’s throat, just above the neckline of the shirt. Heat flared across Caleb’s skin, all the more because he knew Essek would not sleep with him right now. They had set that boundary from the beginning; in times of questionable mental health, it was better to not.

Essek would still kiss him with the heat of a thousand wildfires, though. He did just that, and then laid Caleb down.

“Sleep,” he said firmly, kissing Caleb’s forehead. There was something about a direct command that cut through any overthinking Caleb might have done. It was nice to give in, and let Essek tell him what to do (sometimes).

Tonight was one of those nights.

***

It was just as well Caleb was rested come morning, because nobody had been able to lure Nico out of his room. Beauregard waited outside Nico’s door, arms crossed as she vibrated with barely-contained frustration.

“I think this one’s up to you, man,” she muttered. “Here.” She shoved a bacon and egg sandwich into Caleb’s hands. “This is yours, so shove it in your face before you try anything. Cad’s making something for Nico.”

“Danke.” Caleb dug into the sandwich while Beauregard quietly ran through everything the rest of the Nein had tried to get Nico to emerge. They knew he was awake, because he had informed Caduceus he wasn’t hungry, asked Jester to please go away (at least he said please), and told Beauregard to fuck off.

So, anyway, Caduceus had gone off to make tea and a light breakfast for him. The Nein were banking on Caleb getting through to Nico in the meantime.

Caleb, having learned the spell from Essek, prestidigitated his hands clean after demolishing the sandwich.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t know that fucking spell,” Beauregard said.

Caleb raised an eyebrow at her. “I did not have much use for it when I was pretending to be a dirty beggar.”

“And you didn’t know it beforehand?”

“I was busy learning how to murder people.”

Beauregard sighed loudly. “Fuck, I hate it when you pull that card.”

Caleb let her stew in that, and instead knocked on Nico’s door. “Hallo, Nico. It’s Caleb. May I have a word?”

The door clicked open, and Caleb caught a glimpse of a Mage Hand before it dissipated. Caleb stepped inside.

Nico had gotten himself into a sitting position in bed, but he was curled into a ball. “Make me get up, please.” Voice rough and small, as if barely awake. But he had evidently woken some time ago.

Caleb sat on the end of the bed. “We have time. Talk to me.”

“I don’t remember much from… you know.”

“Neither do I.”

“It feels like a bad dream. I think I still hoped I was asleep.”

Caleb understood. He had come back to himself years after it had happened, in a body much older than he remembered. It had taken time to slot the pieces together, to find a tight enough grip on reality to confirm that, yes, he had done it. Yes, his mother and father were dead. And, yes, this returned memory of having his mind tampered with was very much the truth breaking through the false memory superimposed over it.

That was… a lot. There had been mornings, early on, where he would wake and not be sure of what had been a dream and what was reality. Until reality smacked him in the gut like a warhammer.

It must have been even more disorienting for Nico, for whom little time had passed. Caleb, when he could bear the family resemblance, could find a mirror and confirm that he was no longer a teenager.

Nico had gone very still, not even breathing. Jaw clenched so tight it had to hurt. Eyes wide and fixed on the middle distance.

Every Volstrucker knew how to have a panic attack without drawing attention. Caleb was less prone to keeping silent like this now, but he still on occasion found himself fading into the background as his grip on reality melted away.

“Nico,” said Caleb, putting his hand on the bed close enough that the boy could grab it if he wanted. “Are you hearing me?”

A sound in Nico’s throat.

“I need you to breathe, okay? Can you do that for me, please?”

Nico’s eyes slid shut, and his jaw loosened enough to allow a noisy intake of air.

“Very good. Give me a few more of those, please?”

Each breath carefully measured, decreasing in volume. Nico flexed his fingers, and then used them to rub his eyes. Caleb convinced him to get dressed, and updated Beauregard briefly while he waited in the hallway. Then he took Nico downstairs into the garden.

Caduceus brought tea for both of them, and a bowl of Senfeier: boiled eggs smothered in a creamy mustard sauce. This one came with leftover boiled potatoes from last night and wilted spinach. Caduceus had topped it with parsley and whatever bacon had been left behind from the rest of the Nein’s breakfast.

Nico brightened a little at the offering. “Thank you, Caduceus.”

“I thought you might like that. Lisbeth from the market gave me the recipe.” Caduceus then revealed a second bowl and passed it to Caleb. “Don’t worry; I didn’t leave you out.”

Caleb accepted the bowl, his heart full. It had been a long time since he had eaten this. Caduceus left them alone with a self-satisfied little smile. It was well-earned; the man was possibly a genius.

So much so, that Nico was even smiling a little bit as he tasted the sauce. “Oh, this is good.”

They ate in companionable silence, taking a brief respite from letting the events to come hang over their heads. Caleb remembered mornings after his father had come home from time away with the Righteous Brand, and his mother used the leftovers from the previous night to add a little something extra to the Senfeier she made, in much the same vein as Caduceus. They would have gotten along frighteningly well. Caleb felt the looming spectre of regret as he always did, but it was okay. He was okay. At least for now.

He could think about his mother’s cooking without going into a spiral today.

Nico’s joy had muted a bit by now, likely taking the same twists down the path of memory that Caleb had. And this was too raw for him to take it especially well.

“The last time my mother made this for me,” he said, “neither of us knew it would be the last.” With an air of stubbornness, Nico scooped up the last potato and ran his spoon around the bowl to pick up as much of the mustard sauce remaining as he could. He stared at the spoonful for a second before he sighed and slid that final bite into his mouth.

They remained there, sitting on the doorstep and gazing into the garden for a while longer, watching the golden morning light turn leaves into glittering emeralds. The last moment of peace they could reasonably expect.

As always, Caleb was keenly aware of how much time passed. With regret, he eventually had to put a hand on Nico’s shoulder.

“You should finish getting ready,” he said. “I will come get you when it’s time.”

#caleb widogast #critical role #professor widogast #shadowgast #cr2 #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #fanfiction #my fics #ao3

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 28

After Aeor, Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: references to institutionalisation, torture, child abuse (Volstrucker circumstances), mental illness, mentions of Trent being Trent.

Chapter summary: Caleb learns why his coworker Aphira is so intense about protecting her students, Nico and Essek have a language exchange over pastries (which quickly devolves into gossip), and Caleb takes Nico to Blumenthal for the first time since... everything.

Chapter notes: So, uh, apparently it's BEEN A YEAR since the finale???? So I've popped in with this lil chapter. There is an Essek being a little bit bitchy in the way we love him.Chapter title is from Eric's Song by Vienna Teng, as I am once again stealing songs from my favourite Shadowgast playlist (see AO3 for link)

***

Chapter 28: Strange how we know each other

Caleb and Alphira collapsed on the couch in Caleb’s office, the kettle heating in the fireplace.

Alphira sighed deeply. “Well, I could use a fucking drink.”

Caleb snorted. “I would take you up on that, but I need to take Nicolaus to Blumenthal later.” Were he to test the impact of intoxication on complex spellcraft like teleportation, he would certainly not attempt it while taking anyone else with him.

“Raincheck?”

“Ja, bitte.”

Alphira, with a groan, busied herself with preparing the teapot. “I believe I owe you an apology, Caleb. That class was far more intense than I had intended it to be.”

“What was that rant about?”

The kettle was ready; Caleb had it down to a fine art by this point. In lieu of answering right away, Alphira used telekinesis to bring the kettle over and fill the teapot. It was only when she had set the kettle back on its fireplace hook, the tea had finished steeping, and she had poured it for them both did she finally respond. Caleb waited; he knew better than to rush this.

“Apologies,” she said, slumping against the cushions with cup in hand. “I do owe you an explanation.” She blew on the surface of the tea, steam drifting around her face. “You know I have taught my share of students who disappeared into the program, and we have spoken about how close I came to being recruited myself. I also had a… friend.” The word sounded much the same as the way Caleb spoke of Astrid, Wulf and Essek. “When I was a student.”

Caleb could sense the pieces slotting into place, but he had also learned the value, and power, of telling your own story. So he remained quiet and offered her that space.

“She was from another village, not far from mine,” Alphira continued. “We became close in our first year at the Academy. And then she was recruited, and I was not. I almost resented her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not to her. She tried to put in a good word for me with Ikithon. It, ah, didn’t work, obviously. I think he may have gotten between us on purpose, as it was harder to find her at the Academy after that. Eventually, we drifted apart and, not long before we were to graduate, she disappeared for good.”

Her voice darkened at the end; they both knew what had happened. Caleb let her have the silence as she frowned into the teacup. It was not until she visibly forced herself to meet his eyes, that he spoke.

“I fear I may know the answer,” he said, “but have you been able to find her since the trial ended?”

“Astrid checked the records for me,” she replied softly. “She spent some time in Vergesson, but apparently recovered in time to die in the war.”

Ah, so Trent had known there was a way to restore the Volstrucker who broke. Caleb wondered bitterly if he had known all along, or whether Caleb’s incident had enlightened him. Trent had claimed the former, but even if that were true, Caleb doubted he would have left an asset on ice that long without a solid plan. Awakening a Volstrucker to send them off to war? Maybe. Awakening Caleb to let him stew in his cell until he chose to go on the run for half a decade? Seemed like a shitty plan. To a degree, then, it didn’t matter all that much, and it was unlikely he would ever know the truth.

Besides, this wasn’t about Caleb.

“Alphira,” he said, softly as he dared, “I am… sorry for our loss. What was her name?”

“Sofie,” she replied, somewhat strangled. She cleared her throat. “Her name was Sofie.”

“I have a very good memory. I will remember her.”

“Thank you.” Alphira sighed into her cup, and finally took a sip. “And you? I am sorry about Margie. Are you okay?”

In deference to her honesty, Caleb offered the same in return. “I am… a bit drained. I will be fine after sitting here a while, I think.”

“Now might be a good time to enforce boundaries with the students,” said Alphira. “Next week, and again the week after, you will have more classes to contend with. And a few survivors of the program. You are good at this, but managing all that will be difficult, especially now that you have Nicolaus at home. Send him my best, by the way.”

“I will.”

“I must admit,” Alphira continued, “I am concerned for you.”

“Oh?” Caleb shouldn’t have been surprised. They had been working together for a few weeks now, and Caleb had not masked well in that time. She had also been at Trent’s trial, when Caleb had absolutely not been at his best, no matter how hard he had tried to hold it together.

“You have a lot going on, Caleb. You put on a good show, but you have been able to breathe easy for… how long? A few months, at most? I know what happened with Felix and Nicolaus, because Astrid determined it was serious enough to inform Bettina and me.” She smiled sadly and, now that Caleb knew to look, the grief was easy to find. “Please. If you need time off, if you need help… ask. Me, Bettina, Astrid. I understand if we are not close enough for that kind of trust, but please ask someone.”

“I have good people around me,” Caleb assured her. “If I don’t catch that I need help, they will.”

“Good.”

At that point, there was a soft rapping at the door. It took Caleb more effort to get up than he would have liked. But he found Micha at the door, looking oddly… lost.

“Hallo, Micha.”

“Hallo, Professor.” They were fiddling with a little piece of copper wire “May I come in?”

“Of course.” He stepped aside. “Professor Winterheart is here.”

They stopped short. “Oh. Um. Hallo.”

“Hallo,” Alphira replied, with a touch of amusement. “I can leave if you would like privacy.”

“Ah, no. That’s all right.”

It took a little time to convince Micha to sit in an armchair and take a cup of tea. They were still a little fidgety, so Caleb tried not to waste time once they seemed as settled as they were going to get.

“All right, Micha,” he said, retaking his seat. “What’s the matter?”

Micha frowned into their tea. “Are you going to the Baumanns’ funeral?”

“Ja. Did you know them?”

A single, jerky nod. “My mothers are friends with the Baumanns and the Schneiders. Felix and Nico babysat me a few times.”

“I am sorry for your loss, Micha.”

They did not outwardly process that. “So, ah, I was wondering… my mothers were going to pay for a cart to take me home, but they are not… they just made the trip to Rexxentrum recently and it was… expensive. So I was wondering… could I come with you?”

In theory, the answer was yes, but Caleb was still unsure how Nico was going to take the whole thing, especially if they were to add another childhood friend to the mix. “Hm. I could bring you this afternoon when I take Nico to the Schneiders. I may be occupied with him tomorrow.” Fuck. The funeral was tomorrow.

“That could work,” said Micha. “Danke.”

“Or, if you would prefer,” Alphira said, “I could take you tomorrow. I suspect Professor Widogast may have his hands full even today.”

“Ja, okay,” said Micha.

“I will tell your mothers.” Alphira added, as an aside to Caleb, “I was present at Micha’s entrance interview, so we are acquainted.” She cast the somatics for Sending, and spoke a quick message: “Hallo, Lydia. This is Professor Winterheart from Soltryce Academy. I will be bringing Micha to the Baumanns’ funeral, if that is all right.” She listened, and then nodded. “Your mothers are fine with that.”

“Thank you, Professor.” Micha blew on their cup. “Nico is safe?”

“Ja, he is staying at my place,” replied Caleb. “I will let him know you asked after him.”

A little nod of acknowledgement. They sipped their tea. Knowing that Micha had a personal connection to both Nico and Felix clarified a few things for Caleb. Of course Micha would have an interest in Trent’s trial. Of course they would be willing to ask some tough questions. And no wonder they got along so well with Margie, who had a knack for ferreting out information.

It was curious, though, that Micha’s parents had allowed them to come to Soltryce Academy, knowing what Felix and Nico had been through. Especially now that Nico’s parents had died. Micha must have made an incredible case.

Trent would have loved to get his hands on them. One more thing Caleb took pleasure in denying him. If Caleb had anything to say about it (and he did), he would make sure this kid fucking thrived.

They were also wilting by the second, so Caleb intervened before it could get worse:

“You know, Micha… you never fully explained what that farming experiment was all about.”

The kid chuckled a little and launched into an explanation that was both chaotic and nerdy in equal measure, and Caleb knew they were going to be okay.

***

Caleb had mostly recovered by the time he made it home. He had taken Micha to the library to find any kind of agriculture scholarship, and had dug up a niche dissertation from a wizard who had, like them, come from a farming background. From what little Caleb had been able to read before passing it on to Micha, it detailed a series of experiments intended to examine the impact of different spells on crop yields. The most amusing datapoint Caleb had found, perhaps, was the entry which simply read: Fireball: 100% decrease in yield. Do not attempt.

He found Nico and Essek in the study, having some kind of conversation in a strange mix of Common, Undercommon and Zemnian about… pastries? Ah. Jester had evidently been in here at some point and deposited her most recent bakery haul. Caleb swiped a jam doughnut, warming it in his hands.

“What are you two on about?” he asked in Common.

“Language exchange,” Nico replied. “My Undercommon was book-learned.” His expression darkened. “Mostly.”

There had been fewer drow to interrogate during Caleb’s time in the program, given Nico was a student in wartime, but there had been enough to get the gist of what he was driving at.

“Oh? And you are talking about pastries?”

“I also told him about the time you turned into a sheep and threw yourself into the Astral Sea,” said Essek.

“And how much context did you provide for that?”

“Very little,” Nico replied. “His Zemnian is worse than I expected for a spymaster, by the way.”

Essek huffed and moved a book further from the plate of pastries, primly brushing invisible crumbs off the cover. His Zemnian wasn’t terrible, actually, but he certainly wasn’t fluent.

“He is better at the curse words,” said Caleb, remembering fondly the several times Essek had walked in on him cursing under his breath while working on an especially gnarly equation in the Tower during their Aeor expeditions. When Essek had gotten comfortable enough to drop the mannered pretence and teach him a few Undercommon curses to add to his repertoire.

Nico raised an eyebrow, staring intently right at Essek until he returned eye contact. “Interesting. How did you learn those?”

“Caleb is very expressive when working on Aeorian equations,” Essek replied flatly.

“...sure.”

Essek rolled his eyes and grabbed an almond croissant from the plate, before he reactivated his floating cantrip. As he floated past Caleb, he whispered, “This is your fault.”

“You are not a difficult person to tease, Essek,” Caleb replied.

Essek huffed once again. “You are both terrible people. Goodbye.” And he floated out of the study.

Nico snickered. “Takes one to know one.”

Barely, audible, Essek’s voice floated up the stairs, “I heard that, and you are correct.”

Caleb settled in the seat Essek had vacated and started on the doughnut. “How was your day?”

Nico shrugged. “It was fine. Yasha took me to the market, Jester fed me pastries and Caduceus told me about the families that make up his dead people tea. Oh, and the weird purple tiefling–Kingsley, ja?–he made me teach him some Zemnian swear words. He was bullying Fjord about something when I came here and made Essek teach me some useful Undercommon.”

“How useful was it?”

“We got distracted because he is a nerd.”

“So are you.”

“Ja.” Nico cast Mage Hand to bring himself a cinnamon roll. “How was work?”

Caleb wanted to take a nap. “More intense than expected. The first years are inquisitive about the Volstrucker, and Professor Winterheart had a… moment.”

“Did she tell you about her girlfriend?”

“Ja. How do you know about that?”

Nico took a huge bite of the cinnamon roll, and did not reply until he had chewed and swallowed, expression darkening. “I was at Vergesson when they let her out to fight in the war. Overheard her asking after Alphira, and the guards or whoever told her the professor had been killed in the raid on Zadash. You know the one.”

“And she believed them?”

“I don’t know.” Nico inhaled deeply through his nose. “I couldn’t linger. Didn’t see her again, though, and I think the guards realised I had overheard and told Trent. Felix and I were already missing a lot of classes by then, but he had kept us in Evocation. Until that point. I didn’t think much of it, but in hindsight…” Nico picked at the edges of the roll, frowning. “Should I tell her?”

“I…” Caleb was at a loss. Would erring on the side of honesty help or hurt in this case? Alphira thought they had drifted apart. Would knowing Sofie had asked about her make her feel better or worse about the whole thing? Caleb, in her place, probably would have preferred to know, even if it hurt. “I think so, ja.”

“I will try to find an appropriate moment,” said Nico. “Since I will be back in her classes, after all…”

“Glad to hear it. Micha asked how you were doing, by the way.”

Nico’s smile was sad, but at least he smiled at all. “Look out for them, please. They are very bright. And nosy.”

“Ja, of course.”

***

Full of pastries, Caleb brought Nico to Blumenthal. The boy kept his eyes on the ground during the short walk to the Schneiders’ residence, his expression carefully blank. Caleb guided him with a hand resting lightly on his shoulder, which he seemed to tolerate.

A few neighbours clocked them, and even called out greetings. But after Nico’s shoulders rose, threatening to reach his ears, they backed off. Caleb was relieved to find their expressions were sad, and not hostile, even while Nico may have felt more comfortable with hostility. Compassion was hard to swallow when you felt undeserving.

Felix was waiting on the front doorstep, just visible past the vegetable patch. Upon seeing them, he slowly rose to his feet, eyes wide and wild. He stayed put with visible effort, and Louise poked her head out the door, fixing a welcoming smile on her face.

Nico took a deep breath and tore his eyes from the vegetables to meet Felix’s gaze, his step faltering. Caleb stepped away just enough to not impose.

After taking one moment to collect himself, Nico continued his approach, managing a tense smile. At this, all Felix’s restraint seemed to vanish and he tore across the grass, throwing himself into Nico with enough force to make them both stumble several paces, before Nico, the taller of the two, righted himself. Felix buried his face in Nico’s shoulder, grabbing fistfuls of the back of his coat and babbling incoherently.

Caleb skirted around them and approached Louise, to give them a shred of privacy.

“How is he doing?” Louise asked softly, watching the two of them for a moment.

“Better than I feared, but…”

Louise dropped her gaze. “Ja.” She breathed deeply and stepped into the house. “Come in. I just put the kettle on.”

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #professor widogast #critical role #cr2 #ao3 #fanfiction #my fics #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic

[iatethepomegranate]

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: references to loss of family members, adoption processes, references to abuse from a teacher

Chapter summary: Caleb has doubts he could ever be good enough, but doubts won't help this kid who has become his responsibility. So he signs what he needs to sign, and offers his own bleeding heart as a mirror in the remotest hope that commiseration can bring comfort. Beau and Essek catch him when he falters.

Chapter notes:  Chapter title is from Silhouettes by Sleeping At Last. This song owns my ass and will appear a lot.

***

Chapter 26:

As Caleb had hoped, offering up the most ridiculous stories about the Nein helped Nico ground himself. So, when Beauregard pounded on the door announcing that Astrid and Wulf had arrived, the boy took but a moment to breathe deeply and they headed downstairs.

They gathered around the kitchen table, a fresh pot of tea in the centre. Beauregard sat with them, but the rest of the Nein had cleared out. Caleb appreciated that; this conversation was going to be fraught enough for Nico without the audience.

“You’re looking well,” Astrid said to Nico, once greetings had been dealt with.

Nico was watching her intently, eyes narrowed, and Caleb once again wondered exactly what Trent had told his students about Astrid and Wulf to inspire such distrust. Or whether there was another reason behind it all; he knew Astrid had been teaching.

Astrid gave Caleb a look which he translated as this is your problem now, and spoke again. “I’ve had a word with the Cobalt Soul, and the other archmages. No charges are to be laid against you, per the agreement struck between the Cerberus Assembly and Cobalt Soul regarding Volstrucker activities.”

Nico’s expression shuttered further. “Okay.” He glanced up to Wulf, who leaned against the wall in the corner behind Astrid, before turning his gaze back to her.

Astrid laid out a small pile of papers on the table. “There is also the matter of your guardianship.”

Nico fixed his gaze on the papers and kept it there, as Astrid kept talking.

“Given your age, it is in your best interest to have a trusted adult sign off on your legal needs. We could emancipate you, but I would caution against that, given the number of parties who may be interested in a young Volstrucker.”

“Your recommendation?”

“The Schneiders are willing, and I am aware several adults in Blumenthal have also offered to take you in.”

“No.”

Astrid did not look surprised. “Ja, I would agree your best option is either Bren–”

“Caleb,” Nico muttered.

“–or Beauregard and Yasha. Yasha is not an Empire citizen, but I suspect that may change in the near future.” She raised an eyebrow at Beauregard, who made a face at her. Caleb strongly suspected Beauregard had spoken to Astrid about Yasha’s legal status in the Empire (and whether marriage would be an option to solidify it). “Beauregard, as an Expositor, is less politically messy than… Caleb, but either option is reasonable. I would recommend whoever is not your guardian be listed as an emergency contact where such a thing is required. This is only until you are considered an adult. For humans in the major cities, that age is eighteen.”

“I want Caleb,” Nico said quietly, not lifting his gaze from the papers.

“Ouch,” said Beauregard.

“You and Yasha are much cooler than him,” Nico said, a little flatly, “but that’s not… Caleb makes the most sense.”

“All right.” Caleb gathered the papers closer to them. “Are you sure?”

“Ja.”

“Okay.” Caleb started filling in the details, swallowing down the part of him that thought this was a horrible idea. Or that he was replacing Nico’s parents who were not even buried yet. It wasn’t true. This was just a legal thing, to make life easier for Nico until he turned eighteen. Beauregard had evidently seen these papers before, and was able to guide the pair of them through it. Again, these papers seemed to have been specially produced to allow Caleb to use his legal name and the name he actually used in practice. He was aware there were legal proceedings to change one’s name, but he didn’t think he could ever go through with it.

Nico’s hands shook briefly when Caleb passed him the glass pen he had been using. With a silent but deep breath, he signed where Beauregard directed, with impeccable, steady penmanship.

“Beauregard has offered to help file the paperwork,” Astrid said, as the ink dried. “With that out of the way, I did have a few other matters to discuss.”

It took Nico longer than it should have to look up, and Caleb was very close to shutting the whole thing down and sending him to bed. This had already been more than enough for his first full day back in Rexxentrum.

“Caleb is putting together a support group for the Volstrucker. The first meeting is on Conthsen next week, on the Academy grounds… if that kind of thing interests you.”

Caleb did not miss either the disdain for his name, nor the doubt in her voice regarding the support group. Was this how she spoke about it to everyone?

He appreciated her assistance finding a venue for it to go ahead, and encouraging him to spearhead it, but it was pretty clear to him that nobody thought it worth the hassle. Caleb had doubts himself, and it was hard not to let Astrid’s lack of confidence shake him a bit.

“That sounds interesting,” Nico said evenly. “And, ah, ballsy.”

Astrid softened a bit. “On that, we can agree. And, speaking of the Academy…”

“I am thinking about it,” Nico said before she could build much momentum.

“He’s been back for a day,” Beauregard said. “Give him some time.”

“Very well.” Astrid angled towards Eadwulf. “We should take our leave.”

“I’ll walk you out,” said Caleb.

Luckily, the rest of the Nein were still out, so he didn’t have to worry about riding a wave of farewells. They stepped out the front door.

“Hold a moment,” Caleb said. He switched to Zemnian. “We should talk.”

“Agreed,” said Astrid. “How is the boy doing?”

“As well as can be expected for a child who just killed his parents and ran off into the woods, and only came back to civilization last night. Beyond that, time will tell.” There was some prickly, hurting part of Caleb that spurred him onwards, upending the usual caution with which he approached conversations with his old friends. “Felix told us Trent was afraid you two were scheming with me behind his back, but that does not account for Nico’s attitude towards you. Is there a reason he doesn’t trust either of you?”

“We haven’t hurt him, if that is what you’re asking,” said Wulf.

“It is, yes.”

Astrid had that look on her face, the borderline pity she had offered when he had first come to her home at Trent’s estate. “We both worked closely with Trent, and I have taken his place. I would be surprised if he trusted us.”

“Astrid helped train the young ones,” Wulf offered. Caleb had assumed. Correctly, it would seem.

“And you?”

“Sometimes, when I could not stay out of it.”

“And your methods?” An unwise question, perhaps, but Caleb was making quite a few unwise decisions today.

“We’re not Trent,” muttered Wulf. There was a huge gulf between teaching like Trent, and being a good teacher. Caleb did not press the matter further. Not this time.

“It is unlikely he will ever trust us,” said Astrid. “That is fine, as long as he trusts you.”

“Working on it.”

“Good.”

Caleb came so painfully close to asking her not to undermine him in front of Nico again. But the words caught in his throat, choking him.

Astrid and Wulf took their leave, and Caleb stepped back inside, where Beauregard was waiting on the couch.

“Nico went to his room for a bit,” she said. “I think that took a lot out of him.” She patted the cushions next to her. “You look fucked.”

“I wish,” Caleb muttered, earning a snort from her. He landed heavily on the couch.

“That was a lot for both of you.”

“Ja.” The ugly, messy, aching part of him that had urged him to demand answers about Nico’s distrust was still there, unsatisfied with the half-assed confrontation.

“Hey, man,” said Beauregard. “If you need to talk about it…”

Caleb’s laugh was like shattering glass. He let it go for a moment, and then reined it in. Tried to calm down. “Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

“In general? Yeah. Or is this something specific?”

“The support group.”

“Yeah, I think so. I mean, I didn’t have to experience your shit, but I took the testimonies. If you can convince even a few Scourgers to sit in a room and talk about it, that’s probably a good thing.”

“And if no one comes?”

“You keep trying, like you always do.”

It was hard to believe her right now.

Beauregard sighed. “Caleb. Astrid doubts it’ll work because she’s kind of a bitch, and she thinks everyone else is a bitch as well.”

Caleb thought back to the young Scourger in Rosohna. “Is she wrong, though?”

“Kinda, yeah.” Beauregard frowned at him, getting up in his space until he had no choice but to make direct eye contact. “You didn’t know she doubted the support group that much, did you?”

It was hard to keep looking at her. It was harder to keep talking. “She hadn’t said…”

“It was unfair to undermine it like that,” Beauregard said firmly. “That’s her problem, not yours. Nico doesn’t trust her anyway.”

“But if she has spoken to the other Volstrucker about it like that…”

“Then fuck her, and not in the old-fashioned way, Caleb! She won’t even use your name without treating it like an insult.”

Caleb broke eye contact, staring up at the ceiling as he willed himself to hold it together when all he wanted to do was fall in a heap and cry. Again.

The front door opened, and Kingsley’s voice filtered in: “Who are we fucking?”

This was not a good time for the entire Nein to return. Scheisse.

“Not you,” Beauregard said, looping her arm through Caleb’s and dragging him to the back garden. “This is a private conversation. Fuck off!”

The sun was setting now, and the light taking on the muted quality of a city that blocked most of the rays below a certain angle. Beauregard’s hands came down firmly on Caleb’s shoulders, and that almost sent him over the edge.

“This really hurt you, huh?” she said quietly. “Come here.” And she dragged him into a hug. It helped.

***

Beauregard explained how everything went to the rest of the Nein, saving Caleb from another difficult conversation. He could hear the raised voices, anger on his behalf, but they had mercifully left him alone in his room. The degree to which this whole thing had wounded him had been a shock that he was still trying to digest.

Both he and Nico emerged for dinner, both feeling a little better. The Nein were their usual boisterous selves, which let them melt into the background a bit and talk quietly.

“I forgot to thank you earlier,” Nico said, slipping into Zemnian. “For signing the papers, and not making it weird. So… thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Caleb replied. “By the way, Beauregard speaks Zemnian, and the others have probably picked up a few phrases.”

“Fuck.”

Beauregard waved cheerily at them both.

Nico retreated to his room after dinner, leaving Caleb free to work on the teleportation circle with Essek.

“Verin has returned to the Dynasty,” Essek said. His voice was reasonably neutral, but Caleb worked silently on the circle, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “It was… not worth the risk. Contacting him. It could have been a test.”

“Ja, I did wonder,” agreed Caleb. “It would be simple enough to have him watched while in Rexxentrum. Both sides could justify it.”

Essek frowned at the design in his book, drawing a few additional lines. “This is a consequence of my actions that I will have to accept.”

“For now. Give it time.”

Essek chuckled quietly. “Time. The one thing I have in abundance, and so do most people who would want me dead should they learn I am still breathing.” He rolled his shoulders back, and visibly calmed himself. “I am sorry Astrid spoke to you the way she did today.”

“It’s fine.” Caleb filled in a few more details of the circle, willing his hands to remain steady. “I’m… over it.”

Essek gazed at him with all the seriousness of the moment he had dug through Caleb’s self-loathing to say I’m pretty sure, young man. “Are you?”

“Fuck no.”

Essek’s expression softened. “If it helps, she seems like a woman set in her ways. You may be pleasantly surprised when the time comes.”

“I hope so.” It was hard to stay the course when he felt this discouraged, but he had weathered far, far worse disappointment in his time. So, he made an effort to find his nerve once again. “Anyway, word has gone around. No backing out even if I wanted to.”

A fond smile lit up Essek’s features, like a comet across the night sky. “There you are.”

***

Nico found him in the study later that evening, deep into a Dunamancy manual Essek had smuggled out of the Dynasty on his way to Eiselcross.

“Good book?” the boy asked, lingering awkwardly in the doorway.

“A bit dry, but informative. It is probably more poetic in the original Undercommon.” Caleb rubbed some salt and soot that had remained from his fingers.

“Teach me that spell sometime.”

“Of course.” Caleb set the book aside. “Come in. Sit. What’s the matter?”

Nico stepped deeper into the study but did not take a seat. “I want to go to the funeral.”

“Okay. We can make that happen.” Caleb was surprised to find he was relieved. He hadn’t wanted to influence him, but there had definitely been a part of him that grieved not being present to lay his own parents to rest. It had been impossible for him, even if he had not gone fucking insane. It was not a thought he had given much air until today, and he found it bothered him more than he had expected it would so many years after the fact.

Then again, for all he spoke of his pain being old, rarely felt that way. It had only truly begun to improve since he had plucked up the courage to go back to Blumenthal.

Nico, apparently, saw right through him. “You wanted me to go.”

“Yes,” Caleb admitted. “I thought you would regret it if you didn’t.”

“Do you?”

“I try not to.”

Nico broke eye contact, scanning the titles of the books on the shelves around the room. “You said it was never an option for you. I am… sorry, for what it’s worth.”

“I appreciate that, Nico. Thank you.”

“How do you do it?” The question was quiet, as if Nico hadn’t fully intended to let it out.

“Do what?”

Nico shrugged. “Live with yourself. I guess.”

This was more familiar territory; he knew a thing or two about helping people through their guilt by now. “It takes time, Nico. Time, and letting people help you. And, when you’ve reached a certain point, reaching out to people who need your help. This may not be comforting, but you are at the very start of this. You are going to hate yourself for a long time. But this journey is yours. I hope that everything I have done will make it easier than mine, but nobody can guarantee that, because people are not math equations.”

Nico snorted. “If only.”

“Ja, if only.”

Nico rubbed his face. “Fuck. I was trying to sleep, but…”

“Brain won’t turn off?”

“Stupid thing.”

“Well, no. It’s not. That’s the problem.”

“Fuck off.”

Caleb placed the Dunamancy book in a drawer. “Come on. Let’s find Jester. I have an idea.”

Nico followed him out. “What kind of idea?”

Caleb turned back to grin at him, hoping it didn’t look too fake. “Nicolaus Baumann, how would you like to be a cat for an hour?”

“Only if it is the dumbest cat in the world.”

“That can be arranged.”

Jester was more than happy to turn Nico into a little black cat. Caleb turned himself into a dark tabby, and the pair of them slipped out the front door with Jester’s aid. It was dark by now, but cats were made for the dark. They explored the sleepy streets together, avoiding anything large and/or dangerous. Learning the city from the ground.

Thoughts occupied by different scents and sounds, chasing some rats here and there. Getting chased by a neighbour’s golden retriever, and then hiding under a cart until it lost interest.

As the hour drew to a close, Caleb began to ferry Nico home. They squeezed through the fence of the back garden just in time for Nico to become human again, with Caleb dropping the last dregs of his own spell shortly thereafter.

Nico’s cheeks were flushed, barely visible in the dark, and he breathed deeply in the night air. “That was fun.”

“Feeling stupid?”

“A bit, ja.” Gods, he almost sounded like an actual kid.

“Good. Let’s get you to bed.”

#caleb widogast #shadowgast #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #professor widogast #critical role #cr2 #fanfiction #ao3 #my fics #astrid beck #astrid isn't portrayed in an super flattering light in this chapter but i still love her okay i just know she's a bit of a demon sometimes

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 24

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: some alcohol consumption, loss of parents (past), internalised ableism, hints of Trent's past nonsense, a bit of spiciness between Caleb and Essek but not explicit

Chapter summary: Now that the kid was asleep, Caleb's original plans for the evening finally come to fruition, including some long-overdue confessions to the Nein.

Chapter notes: Chapter title is from Storyteller by Morgan Harper Nichols

***

Chapter 24: You brought the pieces together, made me this storyteller

As soon as Caleb stepped onto the ground floor, Yasha took the cups from his hands. “Go sit down.” She turned on her heel and stalked into the kitchen before Caleb could process what just happened, or respond in any way.

The Nein were more or less in the same places he had left them. Jester, Beauregard and Kingsley sprawled on the floor while Caduceus and Fjord sat nearby. Veth had claimed the seat Nico vacated, leaving a space in the middle for Caleb, next to Essek. There was a space beside Beauregard where Yasha had been. Another bottle of wine had appeared and the Nein were significantly drunker than before. Caleb’s glass hovered close to Essek while he drank from his own.

Caleb settled between Essek and Veth, plucking his glass from the air.

“Everything good?” asked Veth.

“As good as it can be, I suppose.” Caleb took a gulp of his wine, noting that someone had topped it up in his absence.

“Are you all right?” asked Essek.

That was a good question, to which Caleb did not have an answer. Yasha returned with a bowl of tiny fried crickets, which she first passed to Essek, who evidently had a taste for them. Caleb had been somewhat hesitant the first time Yasha had offered them to him, but they were crunchy with a nutty flavour, and he found he rather enjoyed them if he didn’t think about it too much. Essek scooped a small handful and passed the bowl to Caleb, who did the same in turn, passing it to Veth.

Yasha returned to her spot on the floor, and Beauregard immediately sprawled across her legs. Most of the Nein had come around to the fried bugs (Fjord still found them creepy), so they were distracted for a bit as the bowl went around. Yasha dropped them into Beau’s open mouth, one-by-one.

Essek curled up on the couch, leaning his weight against Caleb’s side. He hadn’t taken enough bugs, being the first in the circle, so Caleb tipped half of his into Essek’s hand.

The crickets were moreish, and disappeared quickly. And Beauregard was no longer distracted. She sat up with a groan, refilling her wine glass.

“Okay, can we talk about that elephant now?”

“Have at it, I suppose,” Caleb said, wishing he had something stronger than wine. Lionett wine was pretty fucking strong, but he could have gone for a good whiskey. Or shit whiskey. The quality didn’t matter all that much to him.

“You really weren’t as subtle about it as you thought you were,” Beauregard said.

“Or perhaps you are just very observant. And nosy when I’m trying to read in the library.”

Beauregard shrugged. “You lied every time I tried to talk to you about it.”

“Of course he did,” said Kingsley. “Do you people really talk about your evil plans with just about anyone who asks?”

“Evil’s a strong word,” said Veth. Caleb had wondered if her urge to defend him from criticism would win out over her urge to protect him in general, especially from himself.

“I don’t think I have room to judge,” said Fjord.

“Yeah, you did almost release an evil demigod,” Beauregard replied.

“Did you not trust us, Caleb?” Jester asked. Her tone was a little sad, but curiosity won out.

“Not until much later,” Caleb replied. “Most of us didn’t, for good reason.” Beauregard shrugged at that. “And when I did, well, you are all good people. I did not want to drag you into it.”

“We would’ve helped if you’d asked,” said Yasha. “I might’ve knocked you out before you could do it if someone had told me why it was so dangerous, but…”

“I think we all would’ve done what we thought best,” said Fjord. “It’s a moot point now, but if, in the moment, you had decided to go through with it, and we couldn’t stop you, I would have helped.”

“I think we all would have helped,” said Veth. “I knew you were planning something messed up, if not the specifics.”

“That is exactly why I did not tell any of you,” Caleb said. He appreciated they had spoken so calmly about it; he did not have it in him to handle a fight. “You have put yourselves through hell on my behalf already, but there was a broader benefit to most of it. With this, I could’ve destroyed everything if I failed, and the risk of failure was much higher than taking on Cognouza. That was not a risk I was willing to share.”

“You shared with Essek,” said Beauregard.

Caleb couldn’t find the words to explain. Essek brushed his knuckles with the tips of his fingers, silencing him with a look that said I will handle this.

“Caleb told me when we were already in the T-Dock,” Essek replied. “It would have been a difficult thing for him to hide. I told him about my plans first, and my decision not to not change a thing.” His expression softened. “With respect to all of you, there are few people in this world who could understand where Caleb was coming from, and had the experience to weigh the risks with the potential rewards.”

“It’s still kinda shitty to shut your friends out like that,” Beau said flatly, the way she did when she was upset and trying very hard to hide it. “And we had to find out when you told the world. What the fuck, dude?”

“I have debated every day whether I should tell you,” Caleb said. It was hard to push the words past his lips. He could only blame the wine a little bit for that. “I put my life under a microscope in front of you, Beauregard, because that was necessary to put Trent away. This was… one of the only moments in my entire life that has remained mine, and it was not easy to give that up. I wasn’t ready to do that. And I knew it would cause you pain when I finally did. I am sorry. To all of you.”

Veth wrapped her arms around Caleb’s middle. “Apology accepted.”

Caleb hadn’t realised how close he had been to tears.

“Aw, Caleb.” Jester produced a handkerchief with a sapphire embroidered into the corner, pressing it into his hands. “I’m sorry I kept trying to spy on your book. I thought it was just a diary, and all books can be improved with a few dicks in the margins.”

Caleb laughed wetly, drying his cheeks with the handkerchief. “If I had not intended it for my mother and father, I would have agreed with you.”

“Good on you for letting it go,” Caduceus said.

The loss still ached when Caleb was feeling especially sensitive, but it was an ache he could handle. The ache of a healing wound that would one day leave a scar. That wasn’t a bad thing.

“You’re a really good writer, Caleb,” said Jester, kneeling close enough to pat his knee. “I’m sure your mum and dad love your letters, wherever they are now.”

Before Caleb could get too emotional about that, Beauregard sighed. “Damn. All those times I decided not to invade your privacy… you never showed anyone?”

Essek shifted uncomfortably. How this man had stolen two sacred artefacts of his people was eternally a fucking mystery, given how bad he could be at lying. Though, to be fair, he was much better at lying to people he didn’t care about.

“Dude, really!?”

“The night before Caleb took them to Blumenthal,” Essek admitted quietly.

“Essek will live for hundreds of years if he’s smart about it,” Caleb murmured. “I just wanted someone to remember when I can’t anymore.”

Beauregard’s gaze softened. “Okay, that’s… fair, I guess.”

“They’re still in here,” Caleb said, tapping his temple. “If there’s ever a day I feel up to it, I’ll put a copy in the tower. I don’t know why you’d want to read the ramblings of a crazy man writing to his dead parents, but…” Oof. He’d hurt himself with that one.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Kingsley said. “Are you good?”

It was anyone’s guess why that of all things sent Caleb sobbing into Jester’s handkerchief. Veth squeezed him, as Jester surged upwards to hug him as well, wrapping her arms around his neck because Veth had claimed the entirety of his torso. Essek rescued the wine glass, putting his hand in Caleb’s instead.

This had been building all night, really. He’d feel better when he was done, but right now he felt like complete shit and could barely breathe.

“Fuck,” Beauregard muttered, softly enough that she probably hadn’t meant for him to hear. “Now I can’t be mad at him.”

“Has that stopped you before?” Fjord replied.

Beauregard was evidently incapable of keeping quiet after such an accusation. “What kind of monster do you think I am?”

Caleb’s laugh came out as more of a hiccup.

Beauregard was not fooled. “Shut up, man.”

And now he was laughing in earnest. Still crying, because of course he was, but laughing all the same.

“Oh, fuck you.”

That only made him laugh harder, until it circled back into sobs. Breathing was a bit easier now, though, and he slowly pulled himself together. He breathed deeply and rested his head on Jester’s shoulder more fully, letting her support his weight, just for a moment.

His head pounded a bit. He sat back, wiping his eyes on Jester’s handkerchief. Sniffling, but not wanting to ruin it with snot.

“You can wipe your nose on it, Caleb. It’s cool.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. Essek prestidigitated it clean afterwards. Caleb folded it up and handed it back to her. She kissed his cheek, and his face grew hot. As red as his hair, probably.

Then the moment had passed.  Caduceus fetched Caleb a glass of water. Everyone sat back down.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Well, that happened. Ah, thank you for your patience.” Gods, he cried a lot these days.

“It’s not so bad,” said Veth.

“Yeah, man,” said Beauregard, “I think it’s happening to a lot of us.”

“I cry more than I used to,” said Yasha.

“It's easier now," said Caduceus. “Our lives are more stable than they used to be.”

“And much safer,” Yasha added.

Essek chuckled darkly, and drank the rest of Caleb’s wine.

“To be fair, Essek,” said Jester, “at least you have friends now.”

Essek smiled, even if it was a bit strained. “You’re right, Jester. That does count for a lot.”

“Yeah, you’re not getting counted out of this,” said Beauregard. “We’ve all seen you lose it, like, several times by now.”

Essek sighed. “Regretfully, you are also right.”

Beauregard rolled her eyes. “No need to be so petty about it.”

Essek raised one manicured eyebrow.

“Shut up.”

“I did not speak, Beauregard.”

“Fuck you.”

“Yes, yes, fuck you too.”

“I’m not your type.”

“Nor I yours.”

“We get it,” Veth interjected. “You’re both gay. Now shut up.”

Beauregard visibly reared up to argue back, just for the fun of it. Ordinarily, Caleb might’ve been inclined to sit back and watch the fireworks, but he hadn’t finished telling them everything.

“I, ah, may have told a lie in my speech,” he interjected.

Beauregard turned her sparking gaze onto him. “What now?”

“About the T-Dock.”

“Oh gods. What did you do?”

Essek held out his palm. “It’s fine. Let him talk.”

“The equipment and notes were, to our knowledge, fully functional when we found them,” said Caleb.

“You mean that shit’s still lying around for anyone to find?!”

“No.”

“Caleb, what?”

“Did you take the notes?” asked Veth.

“No.”

“Then what–”

“Beauregard,” Essek interrupted, “please. Let him finish.” He squeezed Caleb’s hand, silent encouragement in his eyes.

“I destroyed it,” said Caleb. “All of it.”

“Well, shit,” said Fjord.

“Oh, Caleb,” said Jester. “That must’ve been so hard.”

“One of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” He could convince himself every day that it was the right thing to do, but he’d had to say goodbye to that final shred of hope that he would see his mother and father again in this life. Essek had been so sweet to him in the aftermath of it, and he didn’t know how he could’ve recovered without him. The memory wasn’t that old, really. His heart ached at the thought of it. Gods, it ached. If he wasn’t so hollowed out from crying already, this would have set him off, without a doubt.

Veth latched onto him once again. Caleb rested his head on top of hers.

“You did good,” said Caduceus.

“He did,” Essek said softly. “I’ve never been prouder.”

The Nein all chimed in to agree. It helped. It helped a lot. The grief didn’t choke him quite so much. Some days, kindness hurt more than it helped. Tonight, however, he had needed it like air.

As the wine and snacks dwindled, the Nein arranged a nest of sorts in the middle of the room. Over time, it morphed into a pillow fort, primarily thanks to Jester and Kingsley. Caleb watched it happen, sitting back with Essek, who had not let go of his hand.

“How are you feeling?” Essek asked him as the Nein swirled around them, grabbing more pillows and blankets and also lanterns from which Caleb suspected he would have to prevent fires in the night.

“Tired, but good, I think. Lighter than I have in…” Caleb let out a breath, and tried to cast his mind back to the last time he could remember feeling this unburdened. Not since childhood, probably. “A very long time.”

Essek, cheeks softly flushed a deeper purple from the wine, curled up on the couch with his head on Caleb’s shoulder. “Good.”

“Are you all right?”

He made a noncommittal noise. “I think so. I have a lot to think about, but there is nothing I can do quite yet. I wouldn’t want to even if I could. You are more important tonight, so I’m glad you are well.” He smiled up at Caleb, definitely a little loose-limbed from the wine. “You are very attractive.”

Caleb snorted, fully aware that his eyes were probably puffy and red from crying. “Essek, you are drunk.”

“I am mildly inebriated at best, thank you.”

“You drank my wine.”

“You’d had enough.”

He was probably right; nobody needed to find out how weepy Caleb could get from being wine-drunk when he was already starting from a weak position. That would, for now, remain a secret between him, Astrid and Wulf.

Jester and Kingsley poked their heads out from the pillow fort, largely constructed from the quilts the Nein had bought from Lisbeth.

“Well?” said Kingsley.

“Come in!” said Jester.

Caleb wound up sandwiched between Essek and Veth. Essek was just tipsy enough that he didn’t mind getting cuddly in front of the Nein, blatantly spooning Caleb, who in turn cuddled up with Veth. He sometimes found it hard to sleep alone after sharing space with someone else for so long. It was a familiar comfort that he had desperately needed tonight.

He dozed off to the sounds of sleepy breathing and snores from the rest of the Nein. He had missed this so, so much.

But he woke up some time later to Essek kissing his neck. He turned carefully to not disturb Veth, curled up in a little ball, and made eye contact in the dim light of a single lantern, enchanted with a long-term, downsized version of Dancing Lights, which bounced around in the little glass cage.

Essek smiled softly at him, cheeks less flushed and eyes more focused. Evidently much more sober than he had been when Caleb went to sleep.

“Hallo,” Caleb whispered, sliding his arms around Essek’s waist. He took a second to account for the time; enough had passed that Essek had probably completed his trance.

Essek smoothed aside a few long strands of hair that had fallen across his face. “How tired are you?”

“Could go either way.”

Beauregard grumbled sleepily.

Essek floated to his feet, offering a hand to Caleb. “Shall we?”

Caleb let him pull him out of the blanket fort. He followed Essek up the stairs, pausing briefly by Nico’s door to listen. Just able to make out deep, steady breaths that suggested sleep, Caleb put aside his worry and headed to his side of the building.

His bedroom was empty, so he climbed the stairs to the study. There, he found Essek on the floor, lit by candlelight, drawing the outer borders of a teleportation circle in the centre of the room. A journal lay open, floating at his side within easy glancing distance, to a design the two of them had first begun to brainstorm in the tower during their Aeor expedition. Having a stable home base had still been an unlikely dream in those days, the ink on Trent’s sentence papers barely even dry.

Caleb had been too overwhelmed to start physically working on it, now that he could, even though he had certainly mapped out the placement in the back of his mind. Besides, losing time to his breakdown in the wake of failing to save Nico’s parents, and the subsequent forced vacation to Nicodranas, would have set them back significantly. Soltryce paid well, but not as well as high-level adventuring. The Assembly subsidised spellcasting materials to a degree, but the grant acquittals could be a headache even if you weren’t doing anything questionable. Caleb was well within his rights to create a teleportation circle in his own residence, but that didn’t mean he wanted the archmages to find out.

He could possibly get Astrid’s help down the line, if he could decide whether or not to trust her with this. Nobody would balk at an archmage stocking up on chalks and inks for teleportation purposes. Not that most people would look askance at Caleb doing it, either, really, but any breach of privacy could spiral into a catastrophe.

And maybe the potential for surveillance reminded him a little too much of life under Trent’s influence.

“Caleb,” Essek said, firm in tone but soft enough as to not startle.

“Ja?”

“This will happen more quickly with your aid.” He held out a spare piece of chalk, which Caleb took.

Caleb cleared away a chair on the other side of the circle and knelt, filling in the finer details to Essek’s sweeping initial lines. They were working slower than they normally would, given this was a new circle, only ever seen on paper before now. They would get quicker at it over time, which was good because this would take a year of daily spellwork to complete.

They worked quietly, passing chalks and inks back and forth. Caleb did not need to look at the design on the page, which helped their progress. Before drawing the final line, the pair sat back on their heels and appraised their work, checking for errors. Caleb neatened a few small shapes that had gotten a bit smudged as he had drawn them with a piece of chalk at the end of its life. Then, Essek drew the final line. They watched the chalk and ink glow for a few seconds before the light faded, leaving the floor unmarked as it had been before.

Essek let the book fall into his waiting hand, clapping it shut. “There. We started.”

“Why now?”

“No time like the present.”

“Essek.”

He sighed. “I fear I may have to leave soon, and I will feel better knowing that one day, coming back will be safer.” Essek dropped the book into his Wristpocket, not meeting Caleb’s eyes. “Tonight felt like the beginning of more stable times. The better to cast the spell every day. I will leave some materials with you, and bring more the next time I visit.”

Caleb didn’t want to dwell on this. “I trust you will. Let us use our time together wisely, ja?”

Essek closed his eyes, breathed, and looked at Caleb with a soft smile that had always been reserved for him alone. “Do you have a recommendation?”

Caleb crawled across the floorboards and captured Essek’s hands in his. “The precision of your spellwork is, as always, impressive.”

“You should see what else my hands can do, Caleb Widogast.”

Caleb massaged Essek’s knuckles with his thumbs, pleased to find they were, once again, of the same mind. “I already know, but I could use a refresher.”

Essek visibly held back laughter. “We are terrible.”

“A requirement for casters of our level, some would say.” Caleb migrated to Essek’s wrists, gently working out the tension.

Essek bit his lip, a little fang making an appearance at the corner of his mouth. It didn’t happen all that often, but never failed to make Caleb jittery all over like a schoolboy with a crush. Essek caught his hands, pulling him in until they were nose-to-nose. Caleb closed the remaining distance to kiss him.

This was certainly not the first time the two of them had made out on the floor after finishing their work, but it had been some time. Unlike the tower, however, Caleb had not outfitted his study with anything he would have to explain if the Nein got curious and dug through his shit. He would figure something out when he had the time, probably.

So, Essek, laid out and dishevelled on the hard wooden floor, spoke up as Caleb worked messy teeth-and-tongue kisses along his collarbone. “Caleb?”

“Mm?”

“As much as I am enjoying this, we should take this to more comfortable quarters.”

“Mm-hm.” Caleb sucked one point, intending to leave a mark for the morning.

Essek snorted, and swatted his shoulder. “Take me to bed, you ingrate.”

Satisfied with the darkened purple mark, Caleb kissed the spot one last time and climbed to his feet. He held out a hand for Essek, who took it with a harmless glare. “You make a fine argument, Herr Thelyss.”

#essek fangs reblog if you agree #critical role #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #shadowgast #professor widogast #cr2 #fanfiction #my fics #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #ao3

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 25

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: references to loss of family members, adoption processes, vomiting

Chapter summary: Morning comes, and with it the hard, grownup decisions that go along with helping a kid who no longer has a family.

Chapter notes: First scene is a little spicy but non-explicit. Chapter title from Heirloom by Sleeping At Last.

***

Chapter 25: You remind me of who I could have been

Caleb slept in later than usual. And then he jerked upright and out of what otherwise would have been a pleasantly slow awakening when he realised it was after ten in the morning. Essek reclined against the headboard beside him, reading a book in Undercommon. He was wearing a loose shirt that Caleb recognised as one of his own.

“Yasha has informed me Nico is still asleep.” Ah, that explained why he was dressed (and Caleb wasn’t). Without looking up, Essek buried his hand in Caleb’s hair, gently scratching his scalp. “Lie down.”

Caleb collapsed bonelessly onto his pillow, pressing a hand over his hammering heart. Essek tangled their fingers together, floating the book in the air so he could turn the pages one-handed.

“Good book?” Caleb asked; he did not bother hiding his breathlessness. Essek had seen him in far worse states than this.

“Mediocre at best.” Essek read a few more pages until he reached the end of the chapter, Caleb assumed, judging from what little typesetting he could see. Then he sighed and shut it, dumping the book on the nightstand. “Are you all right?”

“Ja. I just–” Caleb sighed, feeling a little silly. “For a moment, I feared last night wasn’t real. Or it was real, and Nico left while we slept.”

Essek rested on one elbow, palming Caleb’s cheek with his free hand. “I can assure you last night was  very  real, and the boy is safely asleep.” At this angle, the shirt, unlaced as it was, gaped open to reveal three hickeys Caleb had worked very hard to show up on Essek’s skin last night: one on his right collarbone, one on his left pec, and one on the right side of his neck that was just low enough that most of Essek’s clothes (being that he preferred higher collars) would obscure it if he wished.

“Ja,” Caleb replied, smirking up at Essek, “I believe there is enough evidence to support that hypothesis.”

Essek ducked his head, laughing softly. Caleb lifted Essek’s hand from his cheek and kissed the tips of his fingers. They did not get that many lazy mornings like this, really, especially now that Caleb had a stable job and Essek’s presence was a daily gamble. And neither of them were much given to idleness, unless it was forced upon them due to circumstances out of their control.

Caleb sat up to kiss him, but was stopped by a hand on his face.

“Brush your teeth before you try that with me.” Essek slid out of bed; he was  only  wearing Caleb’s shirt. Some primal, possessive part of Caleb  really  liked that. “We also need a bath.”

Caleb reclined against the pillows, quirking an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Essek threw a robe at him; a silky amber thing he had bought for Caleb, only to wear it far more often himself. “Cover up. Your friends should not be in the hallway, but they are… well. Themselves.” He swapped Caleb’s shirt for his own robe; gauzy black silk, barely opaque enough for decency, glimmering gently silver in the light as he moved.

Caleb watched him leave, eyes very reasonably on his ass. “I will join you in a moment.”

Essek gave him an amused, knowing look as he shut the door between them. Caleb let the silence hang for a moment, softly punctuated by distant birdsong. The same kinds of birds he’d heard all through his childhood.

Both he and Essek were so different now. Softer, in ways that were usually beneficial. Endlessly circling in a dance of learning who they were now, especially in relation to each other. Reconciling the upheaval of their old power dynamics–Essek the teacher with institutional power in the Dynasty, Caleb the student in seemingly endless precarity within both the Empire and the Dynasty. And then, Essek the traitor, drowning in consequences set in motion before they had ever met. Caleb the survivor, for whom regret was an old friend, lighting a way forward.

Neither of those entirely fit anymore. Caleb the semi-respectable teacher who was, at the very least, publicly safe in the Empire. Essek the fugitive on the run from both the Empire and the Dynasty, safe nowhere. Almost a reversal of their early days, but not quite. They knew too much about who they were beyond the one-sentence summary for such a power imbalance to take hold again. Or, at least, Caleb hoped that was the case.

He slipped the robe on. He was relatively clean already, as Essek had a thing about Prestidigitation after sex, but a bath would do the aches in his body good. And he probably needed a bit more time before facing the clusterfuck of paperwork and decisions that lurked just around the corner.

Caleb padded barefoot to the bathroom, where Essek, who had zero interest in grabbing water from the well, repeatedly cast ice cantrips to fill the tub. There was something to be said for experiencing a privileged upbringing, but Caleb wasn’t about to voice it when he was more interested in kissing Essek senseless than reminding him of a family he possibly wouldn’t see again (decision about Verin pending). Caleb brushed his teeth while Essek filled the tub, and then they gently melted and heated the water to a pleasant temperature.

Essek shed his robe and stepped into the steaming tub, sighing as he sank into the water. Caleb joined him, resting on the opposite end. For now.

After a few moments of soaking with his eyes closed, Essek lifted his head from the rim of the tub to catch Caleb’s eye. “How are you feeling now?”

“Better, I think. Looking at you is good for my morale.”

“Ah, very direct. I was beginning to wonder if the rumours of Zemnian efficiency were exaggerated.”

“You have seen my spellwork, Herr Thelyss. I am nothing if not efficient.”

Essek smirked. “When you want to be. So, is that your strategy this morning?” He bared his teeth, his tongue glancing the point of a fang. A bite mark on the inside of Caleb’s thigh throbbed in memory of last night, and he had to take a deep breath to collect himself. Very unfair thing for Essek to do when he was making fun of Caleb’s impatience.

“Is it working?” His voice came out a little breathless, for much better reasons this time.

“Come over here and find out.”

When Essek was in the mood, he was  really  in the mood. They wasted enough time in the bath that the water was barely this side of cold by the time they got around to washing. It took Caleb multiple tries to get out of the bath on wobbly legs, until Essek took pity and decreased his density, carrying him back to their room and pinning him to their bed.

Such a thing ensured Caleb was incapable of focusing on anyone or anything else until Essek wrung one last orgasm out of him.

They were halfway to finally dressing when Beauregard pounded on their door to demand their presence in the kitchen.

“Get Nico’s ass out of bed on your way,” she said through the door. “I’m not getting fireballed if I startle the kid again.”

“I’ll get him, Beauregard. It’s fine.”

Essek kissed his shoulder and threw a shirt over Caleb’s head. “We will be downstairs shortly.”

“You better.” Fading footsteps signalled her departure.

Caleb found the arms of the shirt and filled them, willing himself to not get distracted by Essek pressing up against his back, palms flat on his stomach. No time they had together was ever quite enough. Caleb was not going to think about his inevitable departure; he would likely stay a while longer to make sure Caleb was okay with everything regarding Nico.

Astrid’s voice proved a good distraction in that moment. “Bren, we need to talk about Nico’s future. I will come over. When is a good time?”

“Guten morgen, Astrid. We should wait for the afternoon. I am about to wake him, but he may need some time.”

Caleb and Essek headed to the other side of the house. Essek continued downstairs while Caleb went to rouse Nico. 

He knocked softly at first, just in case, and then more firmly when the first earned no response. “Nico, it’s time to get up.”

A sleepy grumble, and a response in Zemnian. “Five more minutes…  please .”

“Ja, okay.” Caleb was willing to cut the kid some slack. He deserved that much. “I will start counting to three hundred seconds… now.”

Nico groaned loudly; Caleb shuffled downstairs with a chuckle. He had always been fond of kids. He supposed he had found the right line of work after all.

The Nein were scattered between the kitchen and the living area, shoving the last few mouthfuls of a late breakfast in their faces. Caduceus had saved Caleb a plate, gently pushing him into a seat at the kitchen table. Beauregard, beside him, was tearing rashers of bacon apart with her bare hands, chomping down on them like a ravenous dog.

“Where’s the little bastard?”

“He asked for five more minutes.”

“You keeping track of that?”

“Oh, ja.” Caleb dug into his own bacon and eggs, determined to finish most of it before Nico joined them. He wasn’t sure what condition Nico would be in this morning, or whether he would feel up to eating. So, best to get his own breakfast out of the way as soon as possible.

Caduceus laughed softly. “You would make a formidable parent with that kind of precision.”

That was not a path Caleb found productive for himself right now; he could barely handle teaching. “Ja, maybe. Not right now, though.” He did  not  look at Essek. Or anyone else, for that matter, as he cleared his plate. “  Anyway , Astrid is coming this afternoon to speak with Nico. So we should, ah, prepare him for that.”

“Yeah, she dropped me a few messages last night,” said Beauregard. “Nico needs a legal guardian, for starters, since he’s only seventeen. We could put in paperwork to have him emancipated, but I think that’s a shitty idea.”

“Would the other boy’s parents be amenable?” asked Essek.

“Ja, I think so,” replied Caleb. “We should ask Nico for his opinion.”

Beauregard did not snort, exactly, but she looked like she wanted to. “ Yeah , I feel like having your boyfriend’s parents as your guardians might be a bit weird.”

“I don’t know how the law works,” said Caduceus, “but is Caleb allowed to be his guardian?”

“I don’t see why not,” replied Beauregard, before Caleb could mention how much that idea scared the shit out of him. “If Nico doesn’t have any other family or trusted adults who could take the role, we could make a good argument for Caleb. You’ve already helped him a lot and you understand what he’s going through better than anyone else I’d trust with a kid. He came back because of you.”

“Ah, well. That was a group effort. You would also be an option.”

Beauregard shrugged. “Sure, we’re both respectable enough, and I was with you through a lot of this shit. I think you’re the better option, though.”

Caleb couldn’t argue with that, nor did he especially feel like interrogating why the idea made him so uncomfortable. “This is all academic until we talk to Nico and Astrid anyway.”

“You know I’m right,” Beauregard whispered loudly into her cup of water.

Caleb heard Nico’s footsteps just before the boy said, “Is she always this threatening?”

“Usually, ja,” Caleb replied, twisting in his seat.

Nico had a little bit more life to him this morning. Still pale, but the circles under his eyes had retreated somewhat. His eyes found the spare plate of food Caduceus had left for him, and some of the colour left his face. Ah. Not quite so recovered after all. Or, perhaps, recovered enough from the immediate exhaustion of being on the run that his mind now had time to fuck with him. Caleb knew the feeling.

Yasha appeared over Nico’s shoulder. “Good morning, Nico. Are you hungry?”

Nico didn’t flinch; Caleb suspected he had known she was there. “Ah, not so much. It’s… not personal.”

“Yasha’s garden is lovely in the morning,” suggested Essek. “Perhaps some fresh air?”

Caleb shot him a grateful look, and herded Nico out the back door, where they sat on the steps. Nico took in deep breaths; nothing conspicuous, but Caleb could sense how much he had needed it. Essek brought a pair of steaming mugs–one of Caduceus’s morning brews. A hint of peppermint hit Caleb’s nose, and he remembered his mother using a similar blend to settle his stomach when he was ill.

The first whiff had Nico leaning to the side and retching into the grass, so Caleb suspected he had a similar memory. After a tentative touch did not have Nico shrug him off, Caleb rubbed his back.

Once the moment had passed, he asked, “Should we take it away?”

Nico shook his head, plucking the mug from where it rested on the step between them. “Nein. I’m good.” He sipped the tea, wincing as he inevitably burned his tongue. Caleb sighed, but didn’t call him on his bullshit.

He seemed to settle over time anyway, taking deep, measured breaths between sips, until some of the colour had returned to his face. Then, after a few minutes of quiet, he chuckled darkly.

“I was so hungry last night,” he muttered. “Now the last thing I want to do is eat.”

“Give it time,” Caleb replied. Nico scoffed at him. “Hush. That is not an empty platitude. You ate last night because you were starving. I was very ill the first time I ate a full meal after Vergesson. It got better the longer I was out.” He spotted Essek out of the corner of his eye, indoors and out of view of any possible onlookers to the garden, but notably present all the same. “So, time.”

Nico grumbled quietly but did not offer further complaints. Time stretched as they sat with their tea. One of the Nein called Essek away after a bit.

A glint of mischief in Nico’s eyes reminded Caleb of the boy’s other half in Blumenthal. “So, what’s with the fugitive boyfriend?”

“You will have to be more specific.”

“He’s taking a risk, being here.”

“Thank you for the reminder,” Caleb replied, a little peevish despite his best efforts. “It has been a… challenge settling back into Rexxentrum. He is offering what support he can, for as long as he can.”

“He must really like you.”

“We have been through a lot together.” Caleb didn’t feel like elaborating, and Nico didn’t ask him to.

The boy sighed softly through his nose, displacing the steam from his tea. “Is Felix okay?”

“Within reason, ja.”

“Good.” Nico swallowed, frowning deeply. Caleb expected a follow-up question, but none came. It was unclear whether Nico had responded to anything from Felix yet, or whether Felix even knew they had Nico here. Given Nico’s mood, Caleb chose not to ask quite yet, but resolved to figure it out sometime today if he could.

Nico’s frown eased off, but was largely replaced with a blank expression that suggested he was probably drifting a bit. Caleb drained the last of his own tea and set it aside, thumbing through his spellbook. The rustling paper seemed to catch Nico’s attention, as he had tilted his head toward the sound.

“I have been teaching Felix a little bit when I see him,” Caleb said.

Nico visibly dragged himself to the present. “What school?”

“Transmutation.”

“You switched, ja?”

“Ja.” Caleb then switched entirely to Zemnian; there was little point using Common when it was just the two of them. “I had a few reasons to change. You may have heard some of them last night.”

“Do you still use your old spells?”

“Ah, mostly. They have their uses. I did have to copy them into a new spellbook over time when I found the gold. I suspect my old book was either destroyed or buried deep in Trent’s archives somewhere.”

“Sounds expensive.” Nico pulled his own spellbook into his lap; it was a testament to how many wizards Caleb got to be around these days that he never gave it much thought when he saw someone other than himself lug around a book that size. “Part of me wants to rip out a few pages, or all of them.”

“How about we add a new spell instead?” offered Caleb. He could go into a whole rant about not throwing away useful things just because of where they came from, but he suspected it would not be especially welcome at the moment. He wasn’t sure how much he believed it himself. So, the alternative: “I taught Felix to Fly the other day.”

“Yes, he mentioned that. What a bastard.”

They moved into the living area so Nico could begin copying out the spell. Essek joined them, pulling his spellbook from the pocket dimension.

“No wonder Caleb likes you,” Nico muttered, bent over Caleb’s spellbook.

“Fucking nerds,” Kingsley said sleepily, sprawled across the couch behind them. Beauregard laughed loudly from the kitchen, where she was probably inhaling whatever bacon was left. Caduceus came by with a small plate for Nico, which the boy slowly picked at, sufficiently distracted by the magic that he forgot to be nauseated by it.

Jester was sitting across from the lot of them, scribbling in her sketchbook. “Caleb and Essek used that spell to flirt in Aeor.”

Caleb… was unable to refute that. He had certainly been showboating on purpose, partly for the Nein but mostly for Essek, and had been pleasantly surprised when Essek had joined in.

“Gross,” Nico said without inflection, comparing the lines of Caleb’s spell diagram to Essek’s. Caleb was carefully precise with all his spellwork, as was required, but Essek had taken a bit more time to add further flourishes to all his diagrams, like he did with his somatic components. “Wow. Tell me you lived in an ivory tower without telling me you lived in an ivory tower.”

Essek blinked. “Pardon?”

“He’s making fun of you for being fancy,” Jester stage-whispered. “But don’t worry: Caleb once smeared mud on his face because I made him feel bad about money.”

“If I remember correctly,” said Caleb (who did remember correctly), “I was trying to make you feel better about the money your mother sent you, which was more than most families in Blumenthal see in a year.” He deliberately modified the statement to make it more generalised than what he had actually said, not knowing how Nico might handle personal shit right now.

Jester pouted. “It wasn’t that much money!”

Nico snorted. “Rich kids.”

Once Nico had copied out the diagram, favouring Caleb’s utility over Essek’s elegance (but, in fairness, he did take a few of the cooler flourishes), the two of them stepped into the garden to practise. Veth watched quietly from the doorway.

Nico, like Felix, and any Volstrucker Caleb had seen in action, was carefully precise and efficient with his somatics.

“You are a quick study,” Caleb remarked.

“I am looking for a new specialisation,” Nico replied, watching his own hands slowly mark out the required gestures. “You’ve done well with transmutation.”

“Ja, and I can help you switch, if you like.” Confident with Nico’s somatics, he passed the boy a raven’s feather. “Hier. Give it a try. I will catch you if anything happens.”

Nico put the verbal and somatic components together and cast, his feet lifting from the ground. Veth cheered from the doorway.

“Ten minutes, ja?” Nico asked.

“Ja. I will watch while you experiment.”

A small smile found its way to Nico’s face, quite possibly the first real smile Caleb had seen from him. His heart ached a little, because he understood. He understood completely.

***

Later, after a few refinements to Nico’s diagrams, Caduceus and Yasha whipped up a quick lunch. Caleb held off on any serious discussions until after Nico ate and had time to settle. Jester showed the kid some of her drawings from that morning, which coaxed a few more smiles out of him. She was good at that. And Nico was, apparently, very good at finding hidden dicks in her drawings even though, in a rare show of restraint, she hadn’t pointed them out.

Lunch having settled, Caleb let Nico have a flick through his spellbook.

“You have fewer Transmutation spells than I expected,” Nico said, as he was reaching the part where the Dunamancy transcriptions began.

“There are more later,” Caleb replied.

“Caleb prioritises utility,” Essek added, his own spellbook laid out before him. He was making some alterations to a few of his spells for the sake of efficiency; Caleb had rubbed off on him over time.

“I’ve literally seen the dude get teary-eyed over a spell scroll,” said Beauregard, lying on her back as she held a book over her head in the most horrendously inefficient manner. “It’s not all about utility.”

Caleb shrugged. “I like variety. Professor Winterheart is having me assist with some of her Evocation lessons at the Academy.”

Nico paused, fingers curled around the corner of a page dedicated to Fortune’s Favour. “Oh? Which ones?”

“The beginners, for the moment.”

“Oh.” The slightest deflation.

“That may change later,” Caleb added. “I am new to this teaching thing.”

“Thinking of going back?” asked Beauregard.

Nico shrugged. “Felix is. I haven’t decided. Our class already graduated, but…” His eyes looked faraway for a moment, before he visibly pulled himself together. “We were not close with them, not after our first year.”

“Yeeeeah,” said Beauregard. “Figured as much. Might be nice for you to have one normal year there. I don’t know.”

Caleb appreciated her advocating for this. It had been easier with Felix, because a huge part of that had been convincing his living parents.

Nico looked to him, and it was a testament to how much trust he offered that Caleb could see the uncertainty in his expression. “Would you have gone back? If you had the chance.”

Caleb flipped back a bit to Expeditious Retreat for Nico’s interest, humming as he considered. He might have, but it was hard to say for sure. It had never been an option for him. Running had been the only option available, after eleven years in Vergesson.

“Obviously, he means if Trent was already behind bars and your awakening had been a bit less rude,” offered Beauregard. “And if your Felixes were going back, too.”

“Hmm… probably,” Caleb finally answered. “I always liked it there.”

Nico stared down at Caleb’s spellbook. “Since you taught me how to fly, this one feels a bit pointless.”

“It’s a lower level. That makes it helpful.”

Nico flipped past it again, finding his way to Caleb’s Sending diagram. “Maybe I will go back. I know you. I know Felix. And Professors Winterheart and Weber were always good to me.”

“Glad to hear it. Professor Weber was around in my day, but Winterheart was accepted as a student after me.”

“We get it,” Nico said. “You’re old.”

Beauregard snickered.

“I like Winterheart,” he continued. “She is very… calm. And yet, nobody fucks with her.”

“The quiet ones are the scariest,” said Beauregard. “I’ve seen Caleb pull the most fucked-up shit without blinking.”

“That is not surprising,” said Nico. “He was Trent’s favourite for a reason.”

Ouch. “That feels like an insult.”

“It was.”

“In my time as Shadowhand,” said Essek, “I thought I had seen every possible form of… what is the word in Common? Ah, bitchiness. I should have known the Volstrucker were just as prone to adolescent jabs as the Bright Queen’s court.”

“People are people, man,” said Beauregard. And then, in the process of turning a page, she dropped her book on her face.

Caleb ignored her cussing, to address Nico. “Let’s try to give you a normal year at Soltryce, ja? You are always welcome to hunker down in my office if you need.”

“I suspect Felix would drag me bodily back if I tried to refuse,” said Nico. “Normality is a lie, but we can pretend for a bit.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Caleb.

Nico traced the lines of the Sending diagram with his eyes. “I haven’t replied to Felix yet.”

“Are you not sure what to tell him?” asked Essek.

“Ja, something like that. He keeps inviting me to stay at his parents’ house.” A thin cord of discomfort tightened his shoulders. Mind visibly working. Then: “Has… there been a funeral?”

“Not yet,” replied Caleb. “It will be three days from now. We wanted to give you the opportunity to go, if you wanted.”

Caleb could spot the instant a wall went up, flattening Nico’s gaze. Fair, and probably a good thing for the purposes of this conversation. They could work on pulling it back down at a more appropriate time.

“Ich weiss nicht,” Nico muttered.  I don’t know. “Would you have gone… if you had the choice?”

That was not an easy question for Caleb, for  so many  reasons. “Ich weiss nicht,” he said in return, and it was hard to keep his voice steady. “It was never an option for me.”

“Es tut mir leid,” Nico apologised. “That was not a fair question. Should… do you think I should go, since I  have  the option?”

“I cannot answer that for you, Nico.” But Caleb did have something else to offer. “I have been to my parents’ graves recently, and it helped me put a lot of things to rest. But that was seventeen years after the fact.”

“Functionally more like six, though,” added Beauregard.

“Ja, true. But I did go alone. Funerals are not known for their, ah, privacy. Not in Blumenthal, at least.”

The tension in Nico’s shoulders hadn’t eased; if anything, it had gotten worse.

“Tell you what,” Caleb offered, “you do not owe anyone a performance of your grief. Do things in  your time. We will support you no matter what you decide.”

Essek smiled gently at him over Nico’s head, evidently remembering his own advice to Caleb about what to include in last night’s speech.

“I will think about it,” Nico replied. “Danke.”

“If you go, I will save a teleportation spell to bring you back here,” said Caleb. “If you need to get out, let me know and we will leave.”

Nico nodded mutely.

Enough of that. Caleb nudged him. “Open your spellbook. I think Felix would appreciate it if you learned Sending so you can speak to him on your own terms.”

It was in that moment that the rest of the Nein piled in the front door, and Jester leapt at the chance to watch Nico learn this particular spell. Oh no.

He shared a long-suffering glance with Fjord, and they both resigned themselves to what was about to happen.

She was mostly quiet as Nico copied down the diagrams from Caleb and Essek’s books, but as soon as it came to practice, she had a lot of… advice.

“You have twenty-five words and really you should use all of them. Counting’s hard, though.”

“She’s right,” added Caduceus. “Counting is hard.”

“Kid’s a nerd,” Kingsley chimed in. “He can probably count.”

“Yeah yeah yeah!” And off Jester went again. “And you really should say hi to the person you’re talking to! Ask them about their dayyyy, how they’re dooooooiiin’...”

Essek sighed. Loudly. They all remembered the infamous  ya poopin’  message.

“Just be yourself,” Essek said.

“Please,” added Fjord.

“And, you know, if you’re messaging someone you don’t like… confuse them!”

“Jester’s very good at that,” said Caduceus, who was enjoying this far too much.

Nico nodded slowly. “I will… keep that in mind.”

It was late in the afternoon by the time Nico was ready to try the spell out himself, using the copper wire Caleb had given him the previous night.

“All right,” said Beauregard. “Everybody shut up!”

“Ja, bitte,” added Nico. He glanced at Caleb. “Okay, here goes.” He went through the somatics, and began to speak. “Hallo, Felix. It’s me. I’m with Caleb, at his house in Rexxentrum.” Then he switched to Zemnian for the rest. “Ich bin sicher. Es tut mir Leid. Ich liebe dich.”  I’m safe. I’m sorry. I love you .

He listened for a response, while Beauregard looked very hard at the floor in a horrible attempt to pretend she didn’t understand what he said. Fortunately, the rest of the Nein had not picked up much Zemnian at all, Essek excepted (for reasons both related to his previous profession, and the significant amount of one-on-one time they’d had in Aeor).

“Hey, he used most of the words,” Kingsley whispered. “I think.”

Whatever the response, Nico snapped his spellbook shut. Muttered a  thank you  to the group, and beelined upstairs, wiping his face on his sleeve.

“What’d he say?” Jester asked.

“I will not be translating,” said Caleb. While it wasn’t that hard to figure out what was said, in his opinion, he was not about to invade what little privacy Nico had tried to cultivate by helping it along.

“Yeah, fuck no,” added Beauregard. “Kid wanted privacy.”

“Okay,” said Jester. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” She shrugged.

“It’s all right,” said Fjord. “We know.”

“Do you think the two of them will work it out?” asked Yasha.

“Ja, I think so,” said Caleb. He didn’t think there was a major problem between them at the moment, even if he suspected issues would eventually come up.

“His parents literally just died,” added Beauregard. “He’s gonna need some time.” She eyed Caleb, opened her mouth to speak more, but whatever she had planned to say died in her throat. She tried again. “Look, they both seem like good kids. If it can work out, it will. But that’s not… our priority isn’t keeping them together. It’s helping them be okay, at their pace. Some people need years for that.” With the intensity of her gaze, it wasn’t hard to work out she was referring to Caleb. “And it doesn’t always work out in the way you expect it to, right?”

Jester seemed both put out by that, but reasonably placated. “Right. Caleb didn’t end up with Astrid and Eadwulf, but he did end up with Essek.”

“Yeah, but also he doesn’t hate himself nearly as much as he used to,” Beauregard pointed out. “That’s what I’m trying to get at. It’s not just the romantic shit; it’s the whole package.”

The shape of Caleb’s relationship with Essek, as it currently stood, was hugely a product of dealing with his own shit and helping Essek in turn. While there had been chemistry from the beginning, he’d had to break himself out of a destructive pattern of  hot brilliant bad for him  before things were able to settle where they belonged. He didn’t really feel like verbalising that in its entirety.

“Ja, I think they will probably be okay together,” said Caleb, “but we have yet to see them in the same room. The priority is to make sure they heal, in a way that makes sense for them both, whatever that may look like.” Jester was a romantic (as was Caleb); her heart was in the right place.

Caduceus beamed at both him and Beauregard.

“Bren, I am heading your way shortly. Eadwulf is with me.”

Caleb held back a laugh at the directness; Essek had a point about Zemnian efficiency. “Hallo Astrid. If you could time your arrival for about thirty minutes from now, I will make sure Nico is ready.”

No reply. Caleb took that as agreement.

“Will he be ready?” asked Beauregard.

“I think so. I will speak to him in a few minutes.”

“Oh!” Jester dug through her haversack and extracted a little paper bag. “We bought a  ton  of these. This bag’s for Nico.” She thrust it at him. Caleb gently opened it to find a few handfuls of individually wrapped hard caramels. Caleb was familiar; there was a village not far from here that specialised in making them, and had a strong trade relationship with Blumenthal. He had been quite fond of the caramels growing up.

“Apparently Zemnians love that shit,” Fjord said, uncertainly.

“We do, ja.” Caleb closed the bag. 

He gave Nico a few minutes to himself before he went to knock on his door.

“Herein,” came the response.  Come in .

Caleb slipped inside to find Nico sitting on the floor, back against the bed, and his spellbook open to the Sending page. “Jester found these for you.” He passed Nico the bag of sweets. “May I sit?”

“Ja, okay.”

Caleb settled himself beside Nico, and made a quick assessment. His eyes were a bit red but some of that tension in his shoulders had gone away.

“Thank you for this,” Nico said, gesturing to the page. “Felix has been messaging me daily, but I’ve never figured out what I wanted to say before the spell ended. I just, ah, burned through all my magic explaining that to him.”

“You’re welcome. Are you all right?”

Nico sighed heavily. “Maybe.” It was about as honest an answer as Caleb could reasonably expect. “When is Astrid coming?”

“In about…” Caleb counted the time that had passed. “Twenty-three minutes, if she keeps to the proposed timeline.”

“She will.” Nico looked into the bag. A muscle worked in his jaw. “Right. Of course.” He crumpled up the bag and shoved it into a drawer. “Don’t make me talk about it.”

It was plain enough to Caleb that the reminder of home was not welcome right now. “Okay. Wanna hear about the time the Mighty Nein won a drinking contest in Hupperdook?”

“Ja, bitte.”

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #professor widogast #essek thelyss #critical role #cr2 #fanfiction #my fics #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #ao3

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 23

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: Caleb's backstory (death of family members, abuse, institutionalisation)

Chapter summary: Caleb is so very out of his depth, but he's going to help this kid best he can.

Chapter notes: Chapter title is from Sorrow by Sleeping At Last.

***

Chapter 23: With a broken heart transformation begins

Caleb sat Nico down on Beau and Yasha’s couch. Caduceus joined them.

“Hey, my name’s Caduceus Clay,” he said with his usual easy smile. “I’m a healer.”

The rest of the Nein were swarming about, in and out of the kitchen, up and down the stairs. Watching them made Caleb start to feel a bit dizzy, so he focused on Nico and Cad instead.

“I remember your face.” Nico had slumped against the back of the couch, eyelids heavy but stubbornly open nonetheless. “You fixed me?”

“Yeah. Sorry we scared you. Are you hurt?”

Nico shrugged. Most of him was swallowed up in the coat, evidently stolen from someone larger than him, but Caleb could see enough of his hands to note the heavy bandaging. Reasonably clean. A few of his fingertips carried scabs and scars acquired since his last stay here.

“I trust Caduceus with my life,” said Caleb. “He’s a very good healer.”

“I know,” Nico muttered. Then he sighed and discarded the coat. He still wore the same shirt as he had when they’d first brought him here, but he had cut the sleeves shorter, possibly due to damage from the fireball. Nico slowly unravelled the bandages from his left hand, which extended up his forearm. Caleb realised belatedly they probably should have gone somewhere more private to make him more comfortable, but the Nein were busily not paying attention to the scene as they brought blankets and pillows and food and drink into the living room before scurrying away once again. Caleb loved them all the more for it.

The burns from the fireball were not quite as severe as Caleb had feared, but significant enough that they must have been an impairment to casting. And extremely itchy.

Caduceus waited until Nico had removed the bandages from both arms. Beneath the burns, he had the same residuum scars Caleb did. Cad probably wouldn’t have reacted anyway because he and Fjord were notoriously the only members of the Nein with manners, but it probably helped that he knew what Caleb’s arms looked like. It also did not attract special attention from the rest of the Nein.

“The healing is just a quick tap,” said Cad. “Is that all right?”

“Ja, it’s fine.”

Caduceus gave him a quick tap on the shoulder, and the burns instantly faded. With a second tap, they were almost entirely gone, with some minor scarring left behind. It had been quite some time since the initial injury. Caleb was no healer, but he suspected some of the scars had already set in beyond what healing could fix.

“Thank you, Herr Clay,” said Nico.

“You’re very welcome, Mister Nicolaus. Let’s get you some food and water.”

The Nein assembled on the pillows and blankets, passing around snacks and glasses. There was a pitcher of water and several bottles of wine in the centre. Yasha passed Nico a bowl of leftover stew from tonight’s dinner, newly warmed.

There was a round of introductions. Nico remembered everyone who had been in the bedroom when he’d fireballed it. He squinted as if recalling it was a minor challenge. Caleb had taken longer to escape when he had been healed, and those first few moments had initially been hard to pin down. The memory was easier to recall now because he had obsessed over it once upon a time, but it was always going to be a little hazier than most. Probably for the best.

Safe in the house surrounded by the Nein, Caleb could sit back with some wine and stop stressing for a second. It wasn’t easy. He loosely watched Nico devour the stew. All his plans for the night had gone out the window, but he was okay with that. Sure, he had planned to get extremely drunk, probably get embarrassingly emotional in front of his friends, and then get laid before conking himself out for as long as he could physically sleep. But this was more important.

He did not intervene when Nico grabbed himself a glass of wine. Caleb had certainly been younger when he’d started drinking. Careful portions of wine or beer with his parents on special occasions, bottles of shitty booze Wulf smuggled into their rooms at the Academy. And nobody at the beer hall gave a shit how old you were.

“One glass of water for every glass of wine, please,” was all he said.

“Get fucked,” Nico replied, before lifting the glass to his mouth and draining the whole thing. But he did drink the glass of water Jester shoved in his hand, so at least he was listening. Caleb wasn’t about to micromanage him, but if Nico was even half as dehydrated as Caleb suspected, he would have a bad time if he didn’t make up for it.

Caleb did not anticipate Nico staying up long. He was already struggling to keep his eyes open.

“The spare room is ready,” said Yasha. “The other one, not…” She waved her hand. Caleb caught her meaning. Not the one Nico had last woken up in.

“We stole some shit from Caleb,” said Beauregard. “So there’s something for you to sleep in when you’re done drinking all our wine.” She didn’t mention they were drinking Lionett wine. Caleb was thankful for that. Now was not a good time to bring up families.

But, of course, Nico was clever. He spotted the label on the bottle, glanced up to Beau’s face, raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, Expositor Lionett.” He drank.

“There’s also a hot bath when you're done being a smartass.” Beau looked right at Caleb. “We’ve met like half a dozen Scourgers and you’re all like this.”

“To be fair, only half those people were actually Volstrucker,” Caleb replied.

Beauregard rolled her eyes at him. “Don’t get me on a technicality, man. I have way more courtroom experience than you do.”

“Did you prosecute Trent?” asked Nico, quietly. “All I know is that he’s in prison.”

“That was above my paygrade, but I took down the testimonies and brought them to the Soul’s attention.”

“Who testified?” Nico wasn’t making eye contact anymore, and seemed much younger all of a sudden.

“I did,” said Caleb, “along with Wulf and Astrid. I don’t know if anyone else spoke; I was made to stay out of it as much as possible. We also, accidentally, got our hands on some of his residuum, so that helped.”

Nico went quiet, lightly scratching his scars. Not enough to cause damage, so Caleb didn’t try to stop him. He put a hand on Nico’s shoulder.

“I think perhaps we should discuss this later,” he said. “I can show you where everything is upstairs, if you like.”

“Thank you.” Nico was steadier on his feet than Caleb expected. Caleb pointed Nico toward the spare room that had been set up for him. Nico grabbed the pilfered clothes and Caleb led him to the bathroom, where the tub was full of steaming water.

“There should be some jugs of cool water if it’s too hot,” said Caleb. “Take as long as you need. I’ll bring some tea to your room later, if that’s okay.”

Nico nodded quietly.

“Do you know the Message cantrip?”

Another nod.

Caleb handed him a piece of copper wire. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Nico gave one last nod and shut himself in the bathroom. Caleb took a few steps away and leaned on the nearest wall. Fuck, he was out of his depth. His own experience could only take him so far.

At this stage, Caleb had been eleven years older. And alone. And Trent had still been in power.

Things were, in theory, better for Nico than they had been for him. But, while a significant portion of Caleb’s hatred had been directed inward, at least he had been able to split some of it onto Trent. Nico didn’t have that. Trent was alive, yes, but powerless.

And as much as Caleb was willing to dig into his own past to find a way to help Nico, he wasn’t sure he had the strength. He would try, but he could already sense his impending failure. A familiar friend, that one.

It was the simple truth: Caleb had no fucking idea how to help Nico, because he had no blueprint. No one had helped him sort through the trauma until years later. He had helped Felix a bit, but Felix’s parents were alive. It wasn’t the same.

“You’re thinkin’ too hard.” Beauregard stood at the top of the stairs.

Caleb reached for a response, but his throat was too tight for words. Not enough air anyway.

Caduceus’s head appeared over Beau’s shoulder. “Beau, why don't you find our missing member and bring him downstairs? We’ll be along in a minute.”

Beau passed by, squeezing Caleb’s shoulder on the way. Cad filled the space she had left.

“You can’t save people overnight,” he said. “It’s the trying, and trying again, that matters. I think you already know that.”

Caleb nodded.

“You look like you could use a hug.”

“Ja,” he choked out.

Caduceus stepped closer, and cradled Caleb’s head against his chest, pressing his other hand between Caleb’s shoulder blades. Squeezed, just a little, and then held him more securely around his lower back. It helped.

Caleb’s next breath was unsteady, but deep enough. Caduceus brought him back downstairs to the rest of the Nein, where they were soon joined by Beau and Essek. Someone pushed a cup of tea into Caleb’s hands.

“How’s the boy?” asked Essek.

“He seemed kinda shellshocked,” said Beauregard.

“But he came back,” said Jester. “That’s good! Right?”

“It’s great,” Veth replied. She was looking at Caleb, somewhat nostalgic, bittersweet. “But it’s still going to be tough.”

Caleb sipped his tea.

“How can we help?” Fjord asked him. “For better or worse, you have the most experience.”

Caleb shrugged. “It’s not the same.”

“Everything up to and including when you both went crazy is about the same,” said Fjord. “It’s the after that’s different, and it’s not a bad thing.”

“You had it way worse,” Beau said. “This isn’t even up for date. And he doesn’t have it that bad because of you.”

“Because of us,” Caleb corrected.

“Yeah, but none of this would have gone as well as it did if not for you.”

That was debatable, but Caleb was too tired to argue about it. “Caduceus, could you make the lemon balm tea for Nico? I’ll bring it to him when he’s out of the bath.”

“Will do.” Caduceus wandered into the kitchen.

“Fine, I can take a hint,” said Beau. “You should probably tell Essek about the drow.”

“I had wondered if the Bright Queen did indeed send a representative,” said Essek. “The focus of my scrying spell was too narrow to see for myself.”

“Ja, she sent a Taskhand,” said Caleb. “It was, ah, your brother, actually.”

Essek went very still, staring blankly into the middle distance. “I see.”

“We had a brief conversation. It seems the rumour we spread of your death has been taken as fact.”

“I suppose that’s good.”

“And he wanted to get a read on me, given I was allegedly the last person to see you alive.”

Essek’s expression cracked a bit, into the barest hint of a sad smile. “That would explain why he took the assignment. He was always too restless for academia.” He cleared his throat, and finally looked at Caleb. “Thank you.”

“I believe he is staying in the city overnight, if there’s anything you wish to do.”

Essek visibly winced. “I do not think that would be wise. I don’t know if he… I don’t know if it’s safe. Let me think about it.”

“You like your brother, right?” asked Beau.

“It’s complicated, but yes. He is the most tolerable member of my family.

“Wow, high praise.”

Essek sighed. “Can we talk about something else, please?”

“I mean, we haven’t addressed the elephant Caleb threw in the room yet,” said Beau, giving Caleb a stern look powerful enough to make plants wither.

“I’d like to hold off on that until Nico’s in bed,” said Caleb. “I will talk about it,” he added before she could complain.

Jester, thankfully and probably intentionally, pulled focus. “Is the elephant how much you love us, Caleb?”

“No, that’s the mammoth in the other corner. I do love you all very much.”

“Kinky,” said Kingsley, sprawled out on the central rug with a glass of wine in one hand, and some kind of probably stale pastry in the other.

“No,” said Beauregard.

“Hey, it could be,” said Jester. “We all know how much tail Caleb gets.”

“Three people, Jester,” Caleb reminded her. “In my entire life. Three.”

“Yeah, but two of them were at the same time, and the other one is, like, super hot.”

“...thank you, Jester,” said Essek.

“And it’s only three because you only chose three,” Jester said brightly. “Everyone knows you could get so much ass if you wanted it.”

“What the fuck are you all talking about?” said Nico from the top of the stairs. His hair was wet, and he was dressed in a simple sleep shirt and pants that hung off him even more than they hung off Caleb.

“Caleb’s love life,” Jester replied cheerfully.

“Nope. No. Nein. Felix has told me enough about his special Aeor friend–hallo, I assume that’s you, mystery drow who’s definitely not faking his death. I’m going to bed. Gute nacht.” He disappeared from view.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Essek whispered.

“He had already connected the dots before we got here,” said Caleb. “If he was going to turn you in, I doubt he would’ve shown his hand. We’re trained better than that.”

“That is… partially comforting.”

***

Caleb waited a few extra minutes, and then accepted two cups of tea from Caduceus. Anticipating he would need a free hand to knock anyway, he wasted a telekinesis spell to keep the cups afloat as he climbed the stairs. He then knocked on Nico’s door.

“It’s Caleb. I brought tea.”

“Come in.”

Caleb stepped inside to find Nico sitting cross-legged on top of the bedcovers, flipping through his spellbook; someone must have moved it to this room. His wand sat on the nightstand beside the lamp. Now that Caleb had heard the story behind Felix’s wand, he could recognise this one was also petrified wood, possibly sourced from the same tree.

“Felix told me the story of his wand. He didn’t mention you had one identical to it.” Caleb placed Nico’s cup on the nightstand, retreating to the nearby chair.

Nico tore his eyes from the pages–Caleb could make out just enough to figure it was probably a fire spell–and considered the wand. “It was a gift in poor taste, in hindsight.”

“Oh?”

Nico returned his gaze to the spellbook. “Create a focus made from materials scarred by magic we used to hurt people. Stupid.”

“Some would call that resourceful.”

“Don’t try to make me feel better about it.” Nico sighed and slammed the book shut. “I don’t know why I came back. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but what’s the fucking point?”

Caleb had asked himself similar questions about why he stayed with the Nein dozens of times. Questions of purpose, questions of what he deserved, questions of safety.

“Are you looking for solutions, or a listening ear?”

Nico shrugged. “If you have something to say, say it.”

Caleb sat back in the chair, tracing a small chip in his cup with a fingernail. “I joined up with the Nein at first because it would be safer to have a group than to keep travelling with only one other person. Before travelling with Veth, the halfling downstairs, I was entirely alone. Stupid dangerous.”

Nico snorted. “Ja. I got lucky finding that coat, getting my hands on water I could boil. Could feel the luck running out, though. Shit berry yields in the Pearlbow at the moment. Bandits on the paths.”

“Sounds like you made the smart choice, coming back.”

“Maybe. Jury’s out.” Nico reached over to grab the mug. “What’s this?”

“Lemon balm tea. Caduceus makes it from plants grown at his family home.”

“This isn’t the dead people tea, is it?”

“It is. There are no actual body parts in it. Did Felix neglect to mention that part?”

“Ja, he’s a prankster.” Nico blew on the surface of the tea and took a sip, a mild tremor to his hands. “Well, it doesn’t taste like dead people, so I’ll take your word for it. If this kills me, I’m coming back to haunt you specifically.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

Nico took a second sip, and let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m being an asshole.”

“Nico, you are far from the worst person I have spoken to today.” Caleb sipped his tea, burning his tongue a little. He tried to style it out, but Nico shook his head at him.

“I was waiting for you to do something stupid,” he said. “After a speech that good, the universe needs to humble you.”

“The universe humbles me on a daily basis. Thank you for the, ah, compliment.”

Nico shrugged, staring into his tea. “Not sure it was a smart speech to make in front of the Assembly, but you got your point across.”

“Good. That speech was not for the Assembly’s benefit. As Beauregard would say, fuck ‘em.”

A small smile cracked through the stormcloud that was Nico’s face. “Not sure I’m with you on that quite yet, but time will tell. Trent can rot, though.”

“It’s a start,” Caleb said, only partly joking. It would be silly to expect any of these kids to throw out everything they had been taught in a day, especially since the rest of the Assembly had made a performance of ignorance regarding the true extent of Trent’s actions. Caleb could work on that, and he likely had some unlearning of his own left to do.

Nico drank more deeply of the tea, and Caleb remembered his own cup. Genius move by Caduceus, really, making a second cup under the pretence of not making Nico drink alone. Caleb would’ve accepted a cup anyway–he had gotten much better about taking the kindnesses offered to him–but he respected the logic.

The boy’s mood slipped into darker waters, but there was something in his expression that led Caleb to suspect he would not appreciate an attempt to fill the silence. They drank their tea quietly for a while. The tremor in his hands did not subside.

Eventually, he took a sharp breath. “Why are you trying to help me?”

“You needed it,” Caleb replied.

“So? Lots of people need help.”

“I was in the right place at the right time to learn you needed help, and there are not many of us who understand well enough to provide it.” Caleb set his cup aside, and stared steadily until the force of it made Nico look up at him. “I don’t know if you think you deserve it, and I have learned it is often not our place to decide what we deserve, but at the end of the day… you needed someone who knows what it’s like. To be one of us, ja, but not just that.” Caleb didn’t know how much of the speech Nico had heard, or how much background information he had. “You know where I spent a decade of my life, ja?”

Nico nodded.

“I would do anything to keep anyone out of that place. I don’t remember most of it, but I know I lost so much time because of what Trent put in my head. Our heads. I’m sure there have been others I couldn’t help, but I can help you.”

Nico chuckled softly. “With the power of friendship.”

“Yes. I knew what spell must have been used on me because I have Jester and Caduceus, and I could ask either of them to help because I knew they would do it. Choosing Cad was a matter of experience and knowing where the fuck he was, not willingness.” Caleb neglected to mention they had first called him out to try a resurrection spell, which had failed. He was not about to drop that on Nico on his first night back in town. “There is power in friendship, Nico. I am surrounded by it every day of my life, and I am better for it. And I can better help others because of that.”

Nico considered him for a few moments. His hands had steadied a bit.

“You’re weird,” he finally said. “How did Trent not beat this out of you?”

“He did. I put it back.”

“Why? No one helped you.”

“Not true. I got out of Vergesson because a woman healed me, at great personal risk. I got out. She didn’t, as far as I am aware.”

The skepticism on Nico’s face would have been amusing if they weren’t both so fucking exhausted. “One person. After eleven years.”

“I can count, Nico.”

“They let you rot in the sanatorium for eleven years,” Nico spat, the bitterness rising quickly, but not exactly a surprise. “In all that time, one person gave enough of a shit to help you the way you needed to be helped, and only after a fucking decade. And then you were a crazy person out on your own in a forest.”

“Don’t misunderstand,” Caleb said, cutting him off before this got worse and Caleb lost what little composure he had. “I did not trust anyone for a very long time. I don’t know how much you heard of my speech today, but I was as selfish as expected for years. Worse, really. I was a wreck of a man. Veth, and later the Mighty Nein, helped me heal from that.”

“Whatever,” Nico muttered, draining the last of his tea.

“Do not mistake my informed decisions for ill-considered fantasies,” Caleb said. “I helped you because I wanted to. Even among the Volstrucker, our experience is not that common. I know the power of even one person giving a shit. And I know how fucked up it gets when we are left to fend for ourselves. I needed more help than I received, and much earlier than I received it, but it does that woman’s sacrifice a disservice if I do not acknowledge what she did. I would not be here without her.”

“This world is going to eat you alive, Caleb.”

“It already has. Being a selfish asshole didn’t help me survive it. To paraphrase something Caduceus said to Trent’s face once, it’s love that saves people. It saved me. I don’t expect to convince you in one night, but I hope it will make sense to you eventually. It took me a while to come around to it myself.”

Nico’s face went on a weird journey, lingering the most on a scrunched up, pained expression, before he made a half-successful attempt to smooth it out. “Love didn’t stop me murdering my mother and father.”

Echoes of a very similar conversation Caleb had had with Felix. “It didn’t stop me, either, Nico. Trent was well-practiced in what he did. To children. Yes, Nico, you are still a child. Don’t give me that face. Just… consider what I said. That’s all. There will be time later to hash all of this out, when we are not so tired.”

Nico chuckled, a little dark, and reached for the quilt at the foot of the bed. “This looks like Lisbeth’s work.”

“It is, ja. She’s in town for a few more days if you want to see her.”

“I’ll think about it. Not sure I want to see anyone I know from home. If it’s even home anymore.”

That reminded Caleb: he would have to talk to him about the funeral. Not right now. There were more immediate concerns.

“I know,” Caleb said instead. “But, if nothing else, the Schneiders are still there, and they know enough of the story.” Not only that, but Nico’s family home still stood, if barely. They could probably fix it. But that wasn’t what Nico had meant, and certainly not something to discuss tonight.

Nico shrugged, pulling the quilt into his lap more fully. “There was another of these downstairs. Did you buy out her whole stock?”

“My friends did.”

“Shit’s expensive. Adventuring must be pretty damn lucrative.”

“Ja, and Veth is very good at saving. I guess it’s easier to not be broke if you don’t spend all your earnings on paper and ink.”

Nico snorted. “A rather bleak glimpse into my future.”

“Only if you go running off on your own again.”

Nico was smart enough to read between the lines into Caleb’s own history. “How the fuck are you still alive?”

“Crime.”

“Anything cool?”

“Veth and I met in prison.”

“Of course you got caught.”

“It was a roof over my head. Wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the guards… and the whole not being allowed to leave.

“So, prison.”

“Ja, shut up. And between the two of us, we escaped. I set a fire and screamed for help, she picked the lock. The guards ran off and we simply walked out.”

“Firebug,” Nico muttered.

Caleb ignored the jibe from this little hypocrite. “Oh, and we developed a few cons back in the day. If Veth screams ‘Modern Literature’ and shoots me, don’t panic. Or do panic to maintain the ruse, but don’t waste any healing potions on me.”

“...noted. Has that been… useful?”

“It’s a good distraction, or a means to get me out of harm’s way.” Caleb remembered the first time they’d used it in front of Jester. “We have also wasted a few of Jester’s healing spells by accident.”

“I can imagine.” Nico pulled back the covers and climbed under them, throwing his head against the pillow. “But what about a real con job?”

“Well, we don’t need to do it anymore, but Veth and I developed a scheme called Money Pot. We used it on Jester once. Not sure she figured out it was a scam, but our old friend Mollymauk probably told her when I wasn’t looking. Molly was Kingsley’s brother. It’s complicated.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell is a Money Pot?”

Caleb wasn’t sure if it was weird to feel nostalgic about a small-scale scam they used to do so they could eat, but the idea itself had admittedly been quite clever. “Fake magic bowl. We would place a copper piece into an ordinary clay bowl. Veth would say a magic word and I would transmute the copper into a silver piece, but usually our mark is so distracted by Veth they don’t notice it’s me. We claim you can use the bowl to transform a copper piece into a silver piece once a day with a magic word of your choosing, and then we sell the bowl, starting at five gold pieces. If the person complained about the price, we would drop it to three as a ‘friend’s discount’. We sold it to Jester for one gold.”

“So you would sell them an ordinary bowl for three gold. Or one if Jester bats her eyelashes.”

Caleb was not touching that with a ten-foot pole. “Ja, and then we would leave before they figured that out. Well, except Jester because we were travelling with her and she did not care about the money. Her mother’s a successful businesswoman in Nicodranas.”

Nico snickered into his pillow; his mood seemed to have lightened a bit. “Figures.”

“If you want to know more about that, you can ask her tomorrow. She tells the story much better than I do.” Caleb got up, grabbing their cups. He finished his off. “I will let you rest, ja? Send a message if you need anything.”

“I will. Thank you.” Nico pulled the covers over his head. Caleb left him to sleep, feeling as out of his depth as ever, but he must have done something right.

This was… a lot. He hoped he was prepared. He could not afford to fuck it up.

#shadowgast #caleb widogast #professor widogast #critical role #cr2 #fanfiction #my fics #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #ao3

[iatethepomegranate]

We are not alone in the dark with our demons, chapter 20

In which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, learns to be a person separate from the trauma that shaped his life for so long, and begins the arduous process of preventing what happened to him from happening to anyone else. It gets far more personal than even he could have anticipated.

Chapter content warnings: vague allusions to Trent's abuse and actions Caleb took while in training, discussions of childhood trauma, references to deceased family members (very vague)

Chapter summary: Caleb debriefs after his first class, is engulfed by a sea of quilts, and frets over the more personal elements of his speech one last time.

Chapter notes: Chapter title is from The Good Parts by Andy Grammer. (Also, fun fact: we've just crossed the 80k threshold for this fic, which is roughly the standard length of a novel)

***

Chapter 20: And say the words that burn when they leave your mouth

Caleb met with Bettina, Alphira and Astrid in his office later that day for debrief over a pot of tea.

“Well, nothing burned down as far as I am aware,” said Astrid, cradling her teacup.

“Give it time,” Caleb said flatly.

“Today went very well,” said Bettina. “Give it a few lessons and both Caleb and the first years will find their feet.”

“Any observations? Anyone we should keep an eye on?”

“There were fewer Zemnians than I expected,” said Caleb. “Nobody from Rexxentrum.”

“Word of the trial got around,” Astrid explained. “There are more Zemnian first years at the Halls of Erudition, and I believe Cobalt Soul recruitment was also higher. I suspect we will either see smaller community-based magical education rise, or we will have some issues with untrained magic-users blowing themselves up down the line. Or both.”

“The next few years will be interesting,” said Bettina. “I wonder if we will have more adults request entrance to the Academy later?”

“I suspect you are correct,” said Astrid. “That was one of your concerns, Bren, if I recall.”

“Ja. There are limited pathways for adult education. That is how you end up with baby warlocks trying to unleash world-eating monsters without considering the consequences.” That said, the possible decentralisation of magical education could be beneficial, if there was some way to ensure the teachers behave ethically. “There are many magical traditions outside the Academy or the temples. I do not know the solution, but decentralising magical education and providing adult pathways to the Academy may both be of benefit.”

“We will see what the Assembly lets us get away with,” said Bettina.

“What of the first years themselves?” asked Alphira. “Anyone of interest, or concern?”

“A few, ja,” said Caleb. “Bree and Zora are survivors of the attack on Alfield last year and may have fire-related trauma. Bree spoke to me after the lesson and more or less confirmed that. I do not have a read on Zora yet, but they are related to the Watchmaster, which may or may not help.”

“We should also keep an eye on Ella from Hupperdook and Laurel from Felderwin,” added Bettina. “Ingrid and Liesl from Nogvurot may or may not need support, given last year’s disappearances.”

“Margie from Kamordah may like to challenge your authority a bit,” said Caleb. “I think she will be fine, as long as you’re prepared. Micha from Blumenthal seems to know the most about events in Rexxentrum. Oskar from Pride’s Call and Juniper from Icehaven have not given us much to go on yet, but Oskar seems extraverted. And, ah, Juniper is a seafood connoisseur. Makes sense, I suppose.”

“They are a diverse group,” said Bettina, “but I think they will bond rather nicely. The pairs from Alfield and Nogvurot appear quite close already.”

Caleb kept the remainder of his thoughts about the Nogvurot pair to himself, pending a conversation with Essek. “Ja, we will need to establish trust and keep an eye on them, given more than half may have trauma connected to the war, or other disasters. But I think they will be a good group.”

“That is very thorough,” said Alphira. “Thank you. We should talk strategy. Conthsen morning before class.”

“I’ll be here.”

Bettina and Alphira headed off, while Astrid lingered under the premise of finishing her tea.

“Any early talents worth watching?” she asked mildly, stirring her tea.

“I am not headhunting for the Assembly.” Caleb’s voice came out harsher than he had intended.

“Of course not. But some of those children will develop ambitions as their powers grow. It will be good to know who they are, for their own sake as much as the Assembly’s.”

“It’s their first day, Astrid.” Caleb chose not to mention Micha’s question about the research offerings; it was mild enough that he could let it pass without comment and not be accused of lying by omission.

“Did Bettina warn you that those children will have more pointed questions about you once they come into contact with the older students?”

“Ja.”

“Good. I hope you are prepared.”

“I will be.”

Astrid drained her cup, cast Prestidigitation on it, and headed for the door. “Good luck with your speech tonight. Don’t be late.”

She left him to ponder that conversation. As far as he knew, the Volstrucker program had officially been scrapped, but with Margolin still acting as the Archmage of Conscription, and with Astrid’s personal ambitions, he could not let his guard down.

He and Bettina had gone easy on the research ethics and critical thinking aspects of study this week. But maybe it would be worth pushing the timeline on that a bit.

Slowly, he packed up his things, dissecting that whole conversation, and began to head back home.

***

He was greeted by the Nein, packed into Beauregard and Yasha’s living room, and a ton of Zemnian quilts.

“Cay-leeeeeb!” Jester shrieked, dragging him over to the couch. “Welcome back! How’d it go?” She shoved him onto the couch cushions, where a stack of quilts toppled over to land on him.

“Ah, good. Very good. What… is this?”

“We went back to the old Zemnian lady and bought out all her quilts,” said Kingsley, lying on the rug, sharpening one of his scimitars.

“Oh.” Caleb wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“It was Veth’s idea,” said Jester. “Because the last one meant so much to you.”

“Veth.” He hugged her, and she was swallowed into the quilt pile.

“Oh, phsaw,” said Veth. “You deserve it.”

He buried his face in her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. Teared up a little. It was fine. Part of him hoped he would never get used to how much Veth and the Nein cared for him. He hoped he never took this for granted.

“We got enough quilts for every bed in the house, the couches and a spare because why not,” said Beauregard. “Rexxentrum is fucking cold, man. And people live here voluntarily?”

“You moved here,” Kingsley said.

“He’s got you there,” added Fjord.

“Fuck both of you.”

“We’re not your type,” Kingsley replied mildly. A soft laugh from Yasha.

Jester nudged Caleb. “Hey, can you talk? I wanna hear everything.”

Caleb sniffled and pulled back, letting Veth octopus herself around his waist. “Ja. Bettina has some terrible icebreaker questions, but she got the class talking to each other.”

“Ooh, I love icebreakers! What was it?”

“Oh, normal stuff like your name and where you’re from, and also what animal you would be.”

“Cat,” Beauregard said flatly. “You would be a cat. You never shut up about them.”

“He’s been a giant eagle a lot, though,” said Jester.

“For practical reasons, sure. But I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gone looking for Caleb and found him curled up on a windowsill as an orange cat.”

Caleb caught Essek’s eyes across the room, where the man gazed fondly at him. Caleb had to look away before he started blushing horribly and provoked the Nein’s teasing.

“What are the children like?” asked Yasha.

“A little shy, but we’re moving past it. More diverse than I expected, and fewer Zemnians. Apparently most Zemnian first years have chosen to study in Zadash, or join the Cobalt Soul if they are studying at an institution at all.”

“Because of Trent?” asked Beauregard.

“Apparently word got around. There are a few Zemnians from Pride’s Call, Nogvurot, Icehaven, and Blumenthal. Nobody from Rexxentrum.”

Essek visibly snapped to attention at the mention of Nogvurot.

“What the fuck is in Blumenthal’s water?” asked Beauregard. “The place isn’t that big, but I swear we keep finding baby wizards there.”

“Most of Blumenthal’s land is owned by the Crown,” said Caleb. “There may be more attention. And it is one of the closest towns to Rexxentrum.”

“Yeah, I know how to read maps, dude. Where are the kids from Odessloe or Druvenlode? They’re close too.”

“Odessloe and Druvenlode are not as regulated.” It was the only answer Caleb could think of. “Beauregard, I don’t know. Maybe there are more students from those places in the upper years. I don’t have those class registers yet.”

“Just sayin’ it’s weird, man.”

“It is a little weird,” said Essek. “That said, Blumenthal is more tightly patrolled by Crownsguard, to protect the supply of food to Rexxentrum.”

“Did the Dynasty ever consider attacking?” asked Veth.

“There were a few small incursions,” said Essek. “Not much success. The war was over quickly enough that any talk of trying again died off.” He turned to Caleb. “You mentioned Nogvurot?”

“Ja, there are two students from there.”

Essek quirked an eyebrow. “Anything worth noting?”

“One of them is very interested in moorbounders.”

Essek steepled his fingers and pressed them to his lips, frowning. “Hmm. Keep an eye on that one. Have you told anyone about this?”

“No, but Bettina was in the room when the girl talked about it.”

Essek grumbled under his breath. “This could be a problem.”

“Hang on,” said Beauregard, “do you think that kid is consecuted?”

“Possibly, and she may be in the early stages of anamnesis. Newcomers to the Academy are typically around fifteen years old, yes?”

“Yes,” said Caleb.

“She is close in age to the children we brought back to the Dynasty,” said Essek. “It is possible her anamnesis triggered later than the others, or she was somehow overlooked.” He looked to Caleb. “You need to earn her trust, find out what is happening with her. I cannot reach out to my contacts, but you may have enough goodwill in the Dynasty to secure an audience with a court official if this becomes an issue. What is the girl’s name for now?”

“Liesl.”

“Watch her, please. If the Assembly learn about her…”

Caleb had personally done enough awful things to so-called Empire traitors to know what could happen. “I will do my best, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

***

Caleb retreated to the study with Essek to finalise his speech for the evening. While his first class had far-reaching implications for how well he would teach, and how he could move forward dealing with the Assembly, the speech presented problems of its own.

“You still doubt yourself,” Essek observed, watching Caleb sift through his notes on the floor, muttering in Zemnian under his breath. Caleb, in a matter of minutes, had already worried his braid into disarray, to the point it was no longer recognisable as a braid.

Caleb chuckled ruefully. “You know, I used to be so sure of myself. A long time ago.”

“I can imagine,” Essek said in a wry tone. “We are, after all, not so different.” He sat down, crossed his legs, and hovered gently off the floorboards. “What is the problem, specifically?”

“Same as last time I complained,” Caleb muttered. “I have clearance for these details about Aeor.” He pointed to one page. “And these, ah, limited details about Dunamancy, with the request Astrid sent on my behalf. But.” He jabbed another page. “The personal elements are… doing my fucking head in. You know the point I am trying to make, and it helps to include them, but...”

“You owe these people nothing, Caleb,” Essek said quietly.

“I want to set a precedent, even if it is only my own. Fuck the Assembly, my problem is the Nein.”

“Ah.” Essek had heard Caleb ruminate over this enough to know where he was going.

“Essek, I need…” Caleb sighed deeply. “I don’t know. I have gone back and forth with this so many times. I don’t know if I can make this decision. We have spoken of this several times now. You must have an opinion.”

“Caleb, this is not my story.” He reached out, lifting Caleb’s hands from the paper, stroking his thumbs over Caleb’s knuckles. “It is yours. All I can offer are more questions.”

“I will take anything you have.”

“Good. Listen. Will telling them help you feel better in some way? Forget upsetting them; they will be upset because they care about you, and that is not such a terrible thing. How will it make you feel?”

“Terrible, because it will hurt them.”

Essek chuckled darkly. “Well. I may not be the right person to talk about hurting one’s friends. But. You are dodging the core of the question. If it helps you, they will be fine. Will it help you? And is this a story you want to tell to people outside the Nein?”

That day in the T-Dock was brutally personal to Caleb, and he knew Essek felt much the same. He would have to remove some of the dangerous details, tell a white lie or two, but maybe…

Caleb was here because he had told his story, first to Veth and Beauregard inside a room at the Pillow Trove, then to each member of the Nein in turn. But it had been Beauregard sitting him down, sometimes with Astrid or Wulf and sometimes alone, to put his story on paper. And it was with her help that the institutions of the Empire, after years of inaction, had been set into motion to bring some small element of justice to what he and the Volstrucker had suffered.

There was a dangerous lack of compassion in the education provided by Soltryce Academy, its students ill-equipped to make their own ethical decisions or protect themselves and others from those who would exploit them.

The Nein had reconnected Caleb with his kindness, with a capacity to love he thought had been burned away forever. They had cared for him before they knew why he was the way he was, and they did not turn from him when they learned the truth.

His story mattered. Not only to him, but the people who loved him, and even people who barely knew him at all. It meant something. He had held this last part tightly between him and Essek for a while now. Was it time?

Could he do this? Was it worth it? Would it tell the story he wanted to tell?

“Your story, Caleb,” Essek said. “Your choice.”

#shadowgast #critical role #caleb widogast #essek thelyss #the pomegranate's professor widogast fic #fanfiction #my fics #ao3 #cr2

[iatethepomegranate]

A fic in which Caleb buys a house in Rexxentrum with Beau and Yasha, becomes a professor, and learns how to be a person.

Chapter Summary: The sands of time stop for no one, and the Nein eventually go back to their separate lives. Caleb grapples with the responsibilities of his new position, invents the support group, and Astrid gives him some rather unsettling news.

Notes: Caleb and Essek's scene together is a little spicy, but not explicit. Chapter title is from In the Embers by Sleeping At Last.

*** Chapter 5: Like fireworks we pull apart the dark

Caleb was smiling when he got back home. Veth aimed her crossbow at him.

“Quick! Tell me something only Caleb would say!”

Caleb sighed and held up his hands in surrender; he should have expected this. “You almost inscribed a rune upside-down today. I lent you my spellbook.”

“I don’t know, man,” said Beauregard, lounging across Yasha on the couch and completely fucking with them. “An imposter could’ve interrogated Caleb and forced him to recount his day. Caleb is pretty squishy.” Caleb almost reminded her he had been taught to withstand torture, which he’d first told explictly her while compiling his testimony for Trent’s trial, but he didn’t want to ruin her fun.

“Oh, that’s very smart,” Yasha said.

“Thanks, babe.”

“Say something else,” Veth demanded. “Something not from today. How did we meet?”

“In prison. You stole a bottle of cherry wine. I had Frumpkin retrieve a piece of wire so you could pick the lock and then I set the jail on fire and screamed for help. The guards ran away and we walked out. We have been best friends ever since. You were also a goblin at the time.”

“But wouldn’t an imposter have asked about Caleb’s known associates?” Fjord supplied.

“Fjord, I can and will burn your hair off. And, unlike Aeor, it will not grow back overnight.”

“Ha!” Veth put her crossbow away. “Welcome back. Sit down. Cad’s making tea again.” She dragged him over to the blanket nest that no one had bothered to put away, and shoved him in it.

Essek poked his head out of the kitchen. “How was your meeting?”

Caleb didn’t want to get into it. “I took the job.”

“Woo!” Jester yelled from the kitchen. She poked her head out, just next to Essek. “Did Astrid like the cookies?”

“Ja. She says thank you.” Caleb felt fine, except from the fact he was fucking exhausted. He tipped his head back, landing on Beau’s shin, and closed his eyes. “Uh, Beauregard? She says to look into Headmaster Zivan Margolin, who is also the Archmage of Conscription. He’s a link to Trent. A weak one. Apparently he has been running his mouth about how he saw my potential from the beginning. Ludinus is uncomfortable with the implication and may throw him to the wolves to save his own neck.”

“I’ll pass it onto Yudala tomorrow. Take a nap while we wait for dinner.”

“The head of your school is also in charge of conscription?” said Fjord. “Wait. You’ve said this before.”

“A long time ago, ja.”

“Look, I’m only a few months old,” said Kingsley, who had been sprawled behind the couch the whole time, apparently. “And even I know that’s kinda fucked up.”

“No shit.” Caleb was half-sleep already, eyes closed. A small body curled up against him. Veth.

“Caleb, that’s really awful,” said Jester. “I’m so sorry.”

“Jester, I appreciate that, and I love you very much, but I am exhausted and cannot talk about this anymore.”

Caduceus saved him by bringing a tea tray into the room. “Let’s all unwind for a bit. Dinner will be ready soon.”

Caleb drank half his tea and fell asleep on Beauregard, who had to kick him awake for dinner. Well had to was a strong way to put it. Regardless, he shoved some food in his face and then went to bed with Essek.

****

Astrid sent him tidbits of information as more details of his professorship were finalised. He would assist Professor Weber with the beginner and intermediate Transmutation classes. He would also assist Professor Winterheart with the beginner Evocation class, due to his experience. He would also be on call to assist with other classes as necessary.

What really shook Caleb, however, were Bettina’s plans for Advanced Transmutation. She told him herself over coffee in the ex-smut shop.

“Astrid has assured me of your capabilities,” she said, stirring sugar into her mug. “And she’s of the mind that the Advanced students may need your guidance the most. You may end up with a few former Volstrucker students, if we can get them back in class.”

“That is a big if.”

“Ja. Would you talk to Astrid about it? I don’t want to overstep.”

“It has been on my mind. I will talk to her.” If Caleb hadn’t been dead on his feet last time they had spoken, he probably would have brought it up. It would take time to track all of them down, and Caleb had not been in the right headspace to handle that kind of work previously. But things were more stable now, even if he cried at the drop of a hat these days.

“Danke. Now, Advanced Transmutation. The advanced students start on the third week of term, so you will have had some time to find your feet. I want you to take the lead with them.”

“Bitte?” Caleb wasn’t sure he understood what she was telling him.

“I want you to teach the advanced students,” Bettina clarified. “I will be on hand if you need, but I think you can handle it once you have a few classes under your belt.”

“Bettina, I have no experience.” Caleb was about three wrong words from hyperventilating. This was ridiculous. And irresponsible.

“I know that’s not true, Mr Widogast. Sorry, Professor Widogast.” The slip was deliberate. Bettina used his first name most of the time. She was making a point of his new title. “Astrid has spoken to your expositor friend, who said you have been teaching magic to one of your friends for over a year, and that you helped her run a summer camp for adventurers in Nicodranas. Expositor Lionett also insists you are very good with children.”

“My friend’s young son, specifically. He is not a difficult child.” Well, Luc was a handful for his parents, but Caleb didn’t have to worry about controlling him like they did. “And… advanced students are teenagers, not toddlers.”

“I understand this is a lot to ask,” Bettina said evenly. “I am asking because some of these children have been through a lot. My inaction, whatever the truth of it, will not instill confidence. You put Trent in prison. You were an adventurer. You can relate to them. Not only can you be a safe person for them, but you are interesting. Teenagers respond best to people who are genuine, and genuinely interesting. Even the children who have not been pulled into Trent’s web have just been through a war. Some of them may have lost family.”

“Bettina, I appreciate you are trying to explain your reasons, but it is not helping.”

“I will be there in class for as long as you need my help,” Bettina promised. “I will only leave when you are ready. I promise. You can ask for help at any time. I will help you with your lesson plans and give you all the advice I can. You will be fine. I would not suggest this if I thought you couldn’t handle it.”

****

Caleb went back home after his meeting with Bettina. He was still worried, but he was having a decent day overall, so it wasn’t overwhelming him at the moment. He stepped inside Beau and Yasha’s side of the house, the scent of freshly baked bread filling his nostrils. It was almost lunchtime.

Most of the Nein had gone home by now, except Essek and Caduceus. They were in the kitchen with Yasha, inspecting a fresh loaf of bread on the counter. The top of it was sprinkled with rolled oats.

“I think it worked,” Caduceus said. “Ah, Caleb. Rye bread? Does it look right to you?”

It smelled like the Vollkornbrot Caleb remembered from his childhood. “Ja. This looks close to what my mother used to make.”

Yasha and Caduceus high-fived over Essek’s head. Essek’s nose wrinkled a little bit in a moment of endearing, petty irritation. Yasha cut the bread into slices and constructed a sandwich to take to Beau, who was at the Archive. She buttered a slice and shoved it into her mouth before she rushed out the door.

Caleb sat with Essek and Caduceus. The latter finished serving up the bread with a generous spread of butter.

“Did you start this last night?” Caleb asked. It was chewy as intended and tasted like home, maybe a tiny bit saltier, but that was fine.

“Yeah,” replied Caduceus. “You were pretty out of it. We looped Essek in once you were out of the house this morning. This one seems doable for Yasha to make without us. You might have to help her.”

“I can do that.” He used to help his mother with the bread whenever he was home. The memories were not too painful today, just an ache.

“How was your meeting?” Essek asked. He had been hesitant to leave Rexxentrum until Caleb was a bit more settled, but the hourglass was almost drained of sand.

“Good, I think.” Caleb chewed, mulling the whole thing over. “Professor Weber is giving me her advanced transmutation students.”

“You look worried,” said Caduceus.

“I am. It’s a lot of responsibility. She thinks the older students need me the most. As a safe person. I was their age when I… when everything went to shit. She thinks we may have a few survivors of the program in the class, and other students will have lost family in the war.”

Essek’s shoulders slumped. He ate quietly.

“And the Professor doesn't think she can be that person?”

“She insists she didn’t know what Trent was doing, but she expects the survivors will only see the face of someone who didn’t help them.”

“That is very self-aware of her. Do you feel that way?”

“No. But I’m not seventeen years old.”

“True. Well, I think you have the tools to help the kids, if you feel up to it.”

“I… maybe. Bettina said she’ll help me in class until I don’t need her anymore.”

Caduceus nodded slowly, with a smile. “You’ll be great.”

****

Essek and Caduceus had dinner at the house, and intended to spend a few more hours there before teleporting to the Blooming Grove, where Essek would trance before heading off in the morning, only short of one big spell instead of two. Caleb almost wanted to ask him to burn a second spell to trance here instead, but he knew Essek found the Grove calming. And one of the few places he didn’t have to worry about the Dynasty or the Empire. Caleb wouldn’t take that from him.

But they had a bit of time, which Caleb and Essek spent in their room together. Caleb let a few of his dancing lights float around the space, so he could see Essek for the last time in who knew how long.

“You were better today,” Essek said softly, slowly unbuttoning Caleb’s shirt.

Caleb watched him concentrate on the buttons, memorising his tiny frown that also graced his face when focusing on intricate spellwork. “Being here is getting easier. Thank you for the bread.”

Essek chuckled softly. “I did very little.” He pushed Caleb’s shirt off his shoulders. “But I’m glad it made you happy.”

“The best bread is the kind made by someone I love.” He shivered a little in the cold. Essek pressed his lips to Caleb’s shoulder, remaining there as the seconds ticked away. Caleb got to work on Essek’s shirt, finding the strings on the back through sheer muscle memory. He picked the bow apart and slowly unravelled the lacing. He pulled Essek’s shirt over his head and kissed his collarbone.

They had a few more hours. Caleb intended to treasure every second Essek could give him.

Essek pulled Caleb’s ponytail free and ran his fingers through the braids he had made that morning until they twisted apart. He cradled Caleb’s head as they kissed. Vulnerability between them had been hard won, and now it was as easy as breathing. Easier, sometimes.

They separated, and Essek slowly dragged his thumb across Caleb’s lower lip. “I will message you every day I can.”

“You better. Or I will hunt you down.”

Essek smirked, and it did things to Caleb. “And if I misbehave? Will you give me detention, Professor?”

“Essek, I love you, but never say that again.” Caleb shut him up with another kiss. “I do not want one of my last memories of you to be… that.”

“Not so adventurous after all,” Essek teased.

“We are not bringing our professions into the bedroom. That will not go well for either of us.”

“Hmm.” Essek’s eyes were distant for a moment. “You are… not wrong. Whenever I hear the word Shadowhand, I think of my mother.”

“Could be worse,” Caleb said dryly.

Essek wrinkled his nose. “Yes. Well. That has killed the mood.”

“I can fix that. May I?”

Essek sat back on his hands, raising an eyebrow. “Do your worst.”

“Challenge accepted,” Caleb murmured. He shoved Essek onto his back, straddling his hips. Essek was a lot smaller than Caleb, though the force of his personality and his floating cantrip had once hidden that reality. Now, however… Caleb could keep Essek in place with his weight alone. And Essek liked it when he used that objective fact to their benefit.

Essek’s lips parted, and it took him ten seconds of shallow breaths to find his voice. “Challenge completed,” he said breathlessly.

“It’s one of my many skills, Liebchen.” Caleb knew his voice became extra husky when aroused, and he knew how much it broke Essek’s brain.

Essek opened his mouth again, but nothing came out except a soft, breathy laugh. He reached up and pulled Caleb’s hair until Caleb leaned down and kissed him hard. The throaty mmph noise from Essek was satisfying as fuck. It was very easy to get Essek aroused at the right moment. The harder part was finding that moment. He was sensitive to Caleb’s emotions, and it was hard for him to get in the mood if he had even the slightest inkling Caleb was not having a good day. For now, at least, it meant what sex they did have only happened under the best circumstances. It was a far cry from the last relationship Caleb had been in, where most of the sex had been after a bad day, all three of them on the brink of falling apart.

Caleb pulled back a little bit to lightly brush his fingernails across the sensitive skin of Essek’s lower abdomen, just above his remaining clothing. Essek’s breath hitched.

“Caleb. Please.” Essek was flushing red beneath the purple of his skin, turning it a lovely plum tone. Caleb kissed his stomach, and slowly undressed him like a long-anticipated present he was afraid to break. Essek squirmed beneath him, no matter how hard he tried to hold still to make the job easier.

“What do you want, Kätzchen?” Caleb said quietly, stroking the inside of Essek’s bare thigh. Caleb never used terms of endearment like this in casual conversation. He liked to save it for special moments, specifically because he knew it broke Essek’s brain very badly to be called things like kitten or sweetheart in Caleb’s own tongue.

Essek let out a shaky breath; his violet-blue eyes were half-lidded and he was out of his fucking mind. “I want… anything. Everything. You. I can’t think.”

“I know,” Caleb said, sliding off the bed, just out of Essek’s reach. “I like it that way.” He slowly unfastened his pants, watching Essek twitch in a half-aborted attempt to move closer to him. “Stay right there.” He let them drop, kicked them aside, finished undressing. He lingered out of reach until Essek bit his lip, gazing up at him with a silent plea. Only then did Caleb climb back onto the bed, settling between Essek’s shaking legs. “Let me take care of you, ja?”

Caleb caught Essek’s lips in a messy, breathless kiss as their bodies fit together at long last.

Later, they lay together under the covers. Caleb had extinguished his lights. Essek could see him perfectly well. Caleb had almost left the lights on so he could drink in Essek’s features for a little while longer, but he was sluggish and borderline mindless from his most recent orgasm. He would rather spend what little concentration he had on running his fingers across Essek’s features so he had a few more memories to keep him warm until they could meet again.

“I will stay until you fall asleep,” Essek said softly. “Then, I will message you tomorrow after I leave the Grove.”

Caleb hummed quietly, not trusting his voice beyond that. This goodbye was hard every time.

“I’m proud of you, Caleb.” Essek kissed him, and then pressed their foreheads together. “You will be an incredible teacher. You already are.” Caleb swallowed against a lump in his throat. He was not going to cry. He was not going to make this harder for Essek than it needed to be.

Somehow, he managed to find his voice. “I finally had a good example.”

Essek chuckled softly. “That may be the one thing in my life I did right.”

“It’s an important thing you did right, but not the only one.” Caleb found his hand, twining their fingers together. His grip would slacken in sleep, letting Essek extract himself without too much difficulty.

“I try to remember that. Thank you. Get some sleep.”

Caleb didn’t want to close his eyes, knowing Essek wouldn’t be there in the morning. But Essek had to leave sometime, and he was giving Caleb every moment he could spare. So Caleb closed his eyes and relaxed into the pillow.

“I love you, Essek.”

“I love you, Caleb.”

Sometimes they didn’t need to say it. It was always true, whether or not they put it into words. Tonight, however, they both felt just a little more fragile, a little more vulnerable, and the words helped.

And then Caleb slept. The last thing he remembered was Essek’s fingers dancing sweetly in his hair.

****

Waking alone, Caleb tried not to be too dour in the morning, but given Yasha kept trying to find things around the house to keep him busy, he was clearly not doing a good job. He had to meet with Astrid (and probably Wulf) later in the day to discuss work some more, and he needed to bring up the Volstrucker survivors. Maybe Astrid had already been working on contacting them, but it wasn’t clear. It needed to be.

For now, however, he let Yasha drag him out to the garden. He liked having his hands in the soil, coaxing life out of the earth. After dealing so much death in this world, it was nice to put life back into it. He knew Yasha felt the same. It also let him reminisce about some of his less painful memories of home. Planting green beans with his mother.

It was also a little easier to bask in the afterglow of last night out here in the sun.

“Did you have a good time last night?” Yasha asked. Caleb was glad Beauregard was already at work. She wouldn’t tease him, but he knew she would have to restrain herself.

“Ja,” Caleb said quietly.

“He’s soft with you. It’s lovely.” She watched him, and she saw a little too well. “You miss him.”

“A lot, ja.”

“You’re good for each other,” she said. “I’m glad you have him, even if it’s not all the time.”

Caleb knew his smile was incredibly sad, but it was a smile nonetheless. “Me too.”

Essek’s Sending reached him in that moment. “Hello, love. I have arrived at my destination in one piece. A little further away than intended, but unharmed. How’s your morning?” A slight pause. “I love you.” Ah, he’d realised he had three words left.

Full of warmth from the sun and Essek’s word economy, Caleb responded, “Hallo, Essek. Glad you are safe. I am gardening with Yasha.” She waved. “She says hi. We had leftover bread for breakfast. Talk soon. Love you, too.”

“That’s very sweet, Caleb.”

He chuckled, and it sounded a little more fragile than he would’ve liked. “Careful. I will start crying again.”

“Hey, that’s okay. I’ve been crying a lot, too. I think it’s a good thing.”

Maybe. Caleb found it too unsettling to have that view on it. He stood up from the ground, knees damp with morning dew, and dusted the grass off his trousers. Establishing a garden here, and actually putting his own hands in the dirt this time, felt permanent. Unless something went very wrong, they were going to be here for a long time.

Yasha hadn’t had a stable home for years, either. And she also had awful violence and loss baked into her past, and terrifying blank patches in her memory. It was easy to spend quiet time with her, because they understood each other in a way the others sometimes couldn’t.

They enjoyed a quiet cup of tea on the steps linking the back door to the garden. Yasha was partway through repairing the fence back here, and she insisted on working with it alone; magic would end the project too quickly.

The sun reflected in her whitening hair, glowing like the radiance inside her. She deserved all the gentle mornings; she wore them well. Yasha gazed out at the barest beginnings of their garden, and she smiled.

“This suits you,” Caleb said.

“I’m getting used to it,” she replied softly. “After so long, I get to just be a…” She caught herself. “Well. I’m not a wife.”

“For now.”

She chuckled. “For now. It’s nice here. I get to bake bread, and grow a little garden, and welcome the people I love when they come home. And I get to love whoever I want. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“You deserve it. You deserve peace.”

Yasha smiled into her teacup. “Beau tells me that every day. I think I’m starting to believe it. What about you?”

A short question, with a complicated answer. “Sometimes. I do not know if I will ever feel like I deserve this without reservation. It is getting easier. Having a mission helps, I think.”

“We can do this,” Yasha told him. She said it quietly, but with every ounce of determination she had. Yasha had a lot. Caleb was struck by her soft strength, as he often was. Letting oneself be gentle after years of violence and pain was one of the hardest things to do. Caleb knew that all too well.

Caleb held out his fist, and she bumped it. “Ja, we got this.”

And he actually believed it. If only a little bit.

****

Caleb had an easier time walking into Soltryce Academy this time. Starting from a far more energised and calm place than last time carried him through the memories. Entering Astrid’s office was still a little painful, but he was strong enough to handle it.

Astrid and Wulf were seated in armchairs in front of the fireplace, reading. There was a pile on the table between them, and evident gaps on the bookshelves. They had rarely gotten to read books from Trent’s personal collection. The silent fuck you was vindicating, even vicariously.

“The old man had some interesting material,” Astrid said in Zemnian, skipping over the pleasantries. They didn’t need them at this point. She messaged him frequently enough that it felt like they were simply picking up a briefly dropped conversation. They usually spoke Zemnian when they did not have non-speakers to contend with, and Wulf followed suit. They would occasionally borrow a word or phrase from Common if the sentiment worked better.

Wulf snorted. “Pretty dry reading. You’ll like it, Bren.”

Caleb shrugged. “Once a nerd, always a nerd.”

Wulf set the book on the table, stretching; his shirt rode up a little bit and Caleb kept his eyes on his face with a great deal of effort. “If you want more colourful reading, the smut shop you were asking about is on the north side of the market.”

“Kingsley asked me.”

“Uh-huh,” Wulf said flatly.

“Listen, you cannot flirt with all my friends and then take that tone with me.”

“Just did.”

Caleb resisted the somewhat mild urge to scream. Wulf and Astrid were both very good at putting him off-balance, in very different ways. “Whatever makes you happy, Wulf. Astrid, can we talk about Advanced Transmutation? I am going to explode if I don’t talk about this in the next ten seconds.”

Astrid had been watching his exchange with a cocked eyebrow, but she smoothed out her expression and gestured towards a third armchair, closer to the fire.

He sat down, holding one hand out towards the warmth. “Astrid, I say this with all the respect in the world: what the fuck?”

“The advanced classes are in a delicate situation,” Astrid replied. “Professor Weber and I want as many of the Volstrucker program survivors back in school as possible. You are a better person to work with them than Bettina, and with any students who lost loved ones in the war. She told you her reasons, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“Aside from my lack of qualifications and the fact I never technically graduated from the Academy?”

“Bren, your practical experience outweighs all of that. Bettina will help you with the rest.”

“Astrid suggested you take the advanced students,” Wulf said casually, leafing through another tome as if he wasn’t throwing a bomb into the conversation.

Caleb felt an ache in his gut, and he had to close his eyes and compose himself. “Astrid. Why?”

“The Academy is about to throw those children into the world,” she replied quietly. “Whatever lessons you wish to impart, you have to impart them now. Not only that, but Bettina is not well-suited to teach survivors of the Volstrucker program. She has spent her entire life in the Academy. They will not take her seriously. Some may resent her for not doing something about the abuse happening right under her nose. She told you that.”

“How many survivors do you expect we will have?” asked Caleb.

“I am still trying to track them down,” Astrid replied, with an edge of frustration.

“I was meaning to talk to you about the Volstrucker.” Caleb had been racking his brain whenever he had the time and energy. There was no formal infrastructure to support the survivors of the program. If Caleb hadn’t met Veth, and then later the Nein, things could have gone very badly for him in so many different ways.

“Talk,” Astrid said.

“These people need help,” he said. “Unless we get that mental health support I asked for, we are effectively on our own. Even if the Assembly throws us crumbs, nobody can understand what it was like except others like us. We need to talk to each other. Regularly, if possible.”

Wulf’s eyes stopped scanning the page. “Do you really think Volstrucker will want to talk to each other about this shit?”

“Who else is there?” Caleb said plainly. “They--we deserve the chance to support each other. Regular meetings, if we can. A support group, I suppose. Low pressure. Just a group of people who understand each other going through yet another upheaval in a life filled with them.”

Astrid watched him closely, eyes narrowed in thought. “Interesting. I think I understand where this idea came from.”

“We got each other through a lot back in the day,” said Caleb. “But we weren’t equipped for it. There was no blueprint for what we were to each other, but we did our best. Until it wasn’t enough. And later, I had the Nein. I would not be here without them. I owe them everything. Not everyone has people like that.”

“I’ll find us a place and let you know,” Astrid said.

“Thank you.” Caleb had expected he would be a little emotional about it, so at least he was prepared to ward off tears. “Thank you so much.”

Astrid averted her eyes, gazing into the fire. “As for your job, most of the children in the program have been located. Some of their parents have pulled them out of school. I am… trying to talk them out of that. The last thing we need are traumatised, half-trained adolescents running around unchecked.”

Caleb was hung up on her wording. Most of the children had been found. “There are some unaccounted for?”

“Two. Felix and Nicolaus. They’re both seventeen.” Astrid didn’t need to point out why their age was a problem.

There was no time to panic; Caleb needed details. “What do we know about them?”

“I worked with them a little,” Astrid replied. “They are close, not unlike the three of us at their age. If we find one, we may find the other. They are from Blumenthal. The Crownsguard are keeping an eye out, but I do not trust them to handle this with the care this situation requires.”

“Specialisations?”

“Both Evocation.”

Caleb didn’t need to say aloud how bad this could be. Two missing Evocation wizards, on the edge of graduating the Volstrucker program, who had possibly had their memories modified and orders distributed. It had been a few months since Trent would have last had contact with them. The worst could already have happened. Then again, Caleb had been in Blumenthal not that long ago to visit his parents, and he hadn’t heard anything that would have given him pause.

“I was in Blumenthal a few weeks ago,” Caleb said. “If they followed through on an order, it was likely after that. I’d… like to think I would have noticed otherwise. Most people seem to agree that I am rather intelligent.” The dry humour probably wasn’t appropriate in this moment, but he needed to keep himself calm and sarcasm usually worked a treat. “In more recent times, I would assume word would have gotten back to you. Maybe we are not too late.”

“Optimism is a new look for you, Bren,” said Wulf.

Caleb would never call himself an optimist, but he could see why Wulf was uncomfortable, even if he hid it behind one part sarcasm and one part a veiled flirt. “Wulf, I have seen a lot of things in this past year alone that have… changed me. There was a time, not too long ago, when I did not expect to survive the week. And… look at us now. We are sitting here in Astrid’s office, reading Trent’s old books because he is stuck in a dark hole and cannot do anything to us. I spent the morning gardening with Yasha. My friends bought me a quilt because it reminded me of my mother. Things are better for me than they have been in a very long time. So, I am trying new things, like having hope sometimes.”

“Point taken,” Wulf murmured, averting his eyes. Tense. Uncomfortable.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything about the boys,” Astrid said. “Whatever happens… I think you should be there.

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