Work Text:
The issue with copying spells into his spellbook, Caleb thinks as he settles himself cross-legged on the hardwood floor in his rented room, is that the task requires a certain amount of privacy. Money too, of course – Caleb’s viscerally aware he’s burning through most of the gold he acquires with this strange, lovely group of misfits almost as quickly as he makes it – but it’s the privacy, and the quiet, that’s become even more precious.
When it was just him, and then later him and Nott, it was much easier to find a secluded area to hide away and work. To let his heart slow into a deep, meditative thrum and trace the arcane glyphs and sigils methodically and carefully until the knowledge of the spell is locked securely in his mind. It’s been quite a bit more difficult to find the time and the space these days, with Beauregard doing loud, ostentatious calisthenics at all hours and Molly telling expansive, crowd-drawing stories and Jester trying valiantly to etch a dirty joke into every bar table she can find.
But he manages; he always has.
Tonight, however, is unusually and blessedly still, and Caleb intends on taking full advantage of the seclusion for as long as it lasts. The girls are all out together, off on some mysterious errand or likely adventure; Jester happily skipping ahead, Beauregard and Yasha carefully dancing the intricate steps of almost-but-not-quite-yet lovers, Nott weaving around them with a shy, sharp smile, and there’s something that tightens happily in Caleb’s chest at how easily Nott was included. Carelessly, thoughtlessly, as if it were a given that she would be not only welcomed but required to attend anything Jester firmly declared “Girls Night”. The free time it gives him to do his work is an extra bonus.
Just as he lays out the final piece of parchment in front of him, there’s a soft tap at the door.
“Ja, come in,” he says distractedly, not looking up from his preparatory work until the footfalls – heavier than Nott’s light patter, or Molly’s careful, deliberate strides – hesitate after a few steps.
Fjord is hovering in the doorway, stopped short at Caleb sitting on the floor surrounded by spellcraft debris. His hand is still resting on the wooden doorframe, his stance weighted uncertainly on his back foot, still half-out the door. Caleb can’t stop the instinctive, slight smile that tugs at his lips at the sight of him, clad not in his usual traveling armor but an off-white tunic with shining copper buttons at the throat and frayed pair of black pants. He looks…comfortable, in a way Caleb has rarely seen. Loose and relaxed, even with the slight tension in his shoulders, and it suits him.
“Hey Caleb. I, uh, I don’t mean to interrupt or anything –”
“You are not interrupting,” Caleb says, straightening his back and craning his neck to look up at him. Fjord is taller than him even when they’re both standing at level, but when he’s sitting like this Fjord practically looms over him, broad shoulders casting a long shadow. “What can I do for you, Fjord?”
“I. I was wondering if I could…listen, I know you’re doing your spellwork and all right now, and I don’t want to be a bother,” Fjord says, idly rubbing the back of his neck with one large, calloused hand. “But I was wonderin’ if you’d mind if I just kinda…watched you do your thing in here.”
“You want to watch me copy over the spell?” Caleb asks, blinking owlishly up at him. He knows Fjord is interested in magic, has asked some interesting questions before about the component pouch Caleb carries with him, but still. This is probably the dullest part of his magic for most people.
“Not if you need some privacy, obviously,” Fjord says quickly, rocking back on his heels just the tiniest bit, drawing himself out and away. “Nott said…I mean, I asked her if she thought you’d mind, and she said you probably wouldn’t, but if you need me to haul myself outta here…”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Caleb says, smiling to soften the words. “Please, stop hovering over there and come in. I’d be glad for the company, though I can’t promise it will be very entertaining.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Fjord says with a small grin, closing the door behind him with a gentle click. “I’ve been wanting to see how you actually do this little swap since I first met you, but I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Well, you are welcome anytime,” Caleb says, gesturing one-handed to the small room in a ‘make yourself at home’ gesture before turning back to the arcane script into his spellbook. Fjord watches with a curious, oddly shy expression as he walks by, his gaze skittering away when Caleb glances up at him as if he’s been caught doing something mildly embarrassing.
Sitting gingerly on the corner of the bed Caleb had claimed as his own, Fjord tucks his knees up against his chest and wraps his arms around them, folding himself into the background as much as possible. It makes Caleb smile to see it, how he tries so hard to be anything less than the most eye-catching thing any room he’s in, his undeniably magnetic presence drawing attention as much as his striking physical appearance. But the smile slides off his face as soon as it settles, because Fjord told them how it had hurt him, to be so unmistakably other. The spotlight burns, and Caleb ought to be more thoughtful of that insecurity instead of gawking at him like…well. Like a treat to be consumed.
Finding him attractive his fine. Making him uncomfortable is not.
Caleb’s been drawn to Fjord for as long as he’s known him, since those first inquisitive, gentle questions. It’s not exactly unwelcome, the pleasant jolt of electricity when Fjord’s deep, warm voice reverberates in his ear, the slide of his curious accent sending a coil of heat tightening in his belly, the quirk of his entirely too handsome mouth when he’s giving Beauregard a mostly-friendly hard time making his knees go slightly weak. There’s no shame in attraction, of course, and there have been some moments between them that sent Caleb’s heart pounding hard behind his ribs and had him wondering in a vague, fantasy-like way what it would be like to be held by those arms, to be kissed by that mouth.
It’s not just his physicality, but the way Fjord watches him sometimes – intent, focused, like Caleb is the only light in a dark room. Even that one terrible night, with Fjord’s sword at his throat and the floorboards shivering under his feet and Nott going deadly still at his side, Fjord hadn’t seemed angry so much as deeply disappointed. It had been that look on his face – frustrated, betrayed – that convinced Caleb more than anything else that he needed to pull himself together. Put up or shut up, as Fjord would say, and either commit to these odd new companions or make a break for it on his own again.
He’d decided, with Nott, against that. He wanted to stay, and so did she. It was a choice they made together, to hold fast rather than flee.
Caleb takes a deep breath and settles himself into the work. His hands glide easily over the parchment, dipping his scribing instrument delicately into the small wells of ink, and before long Caleb’s nearly forgotten Fjord is even there; transcribing takes a fair amount of concentration, and not even the low-level heat at the back of his neck that always creeps up when Fjord is near is enough to divert his attention him.
But then Fjord makes an interested, quickly stifled sound, and Caleb’s hand pauses over the parchment.
“Yes?” he asks, raising a questioning eyebrow and glancing over his shoulder.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to –” Fjord starts, but Caleb cuts in before he can finish.
“You’re not interrupting,” Caleb repeats patiently. “Please. What’s on your mind?”
“I was wondering if the diagrams and words were so sharp and angular because the spell is Abjuration,” Fjord says after a small, lip-biting pause. “I remember hearing that the different schools use a different script.”
Huh. Not bad, for someone with no study.
“That’s correct,” Caleb says, and the pleased smile that lights up Fjord’s face sends a glowing lightness through him. “Abjuration tends toward these types of shapes and designs – protection, you know. Firm and unyielding and forceful enough to break apart the arcane energies of other spells. Very perceptive, Fjord.”
Fjord hums in a small, delighted way, with a hint of pride. The inks of the half-completed spell shine in the firelight, flecks of gold and silver and opal glittering in the blue-black liquid, the slight scratch of the eggshell-colored parchment resisting the pull of his scribing instrument.
“Do you want to take a crack at it yourself?” Caleb asks, the words out of his mouth before he even realizes he’s saying them. “I could help you trace the back half of the spell, the symbols and rest of the script.”
He really shouldn’t; any small mistake will fizzle the spell, will rend the expensive inks and the parchment useless. He’ll be out the time, precious as it is, and the money he borrowed from Nott for this express purpose. She never seems to mind lending him the money, but he’s guessing she wouldn’t approve of her resources being wasted on something like this, on showing off or stroking his own ego or manufacturing an excuse to hold Fjord’s hand in his own.
(Caleb’s noticed his claws, of course. Slight enough to be mostly disguised by the gauntlets of his armor, and he’s wondered about them in an thrumming, shivering way before. The slight drag against skin, sharp points catching on fabric or a lock of hair, skin bleaching white under the barest hint of pressure.)
An odd, fleeting look of longing flashes across Fjord’s face, like quicksilver running along glass, but then he’s all gruff headshakes and self-deprecating shrugs.
“Nah. Never could get a handle on all that,” he says with an aw-shucks, ‘I Couldn’t Possibly’ smile.
And there’s a riddle buried in that quick sentence that Caleb’s yearning to untangle, to pick apart until he can lay all the strands out in front of him. If Fjord doesn’t learn his spells academically, if Fjord prays to no gods and sings no tales of valor and doesn’t draw power from the natural world, then where does his magic come from? Caleb knows some people have innate talent from some quirk in their bloodline, but most of those folks are overflowing with magical energy, can barely control it, are causing accidental polymorphs and or roaring with dragonfire or possessed by some ancient fey creature. Fjord is different from all of that, is like nothing Caleb’s ever seen before.
Curious, and Caleb likes curious.
“Are you sure?” Caleb asks, keeping his gaze focused on his work. “You could do the last little bit for me.”
Waiting, hopeful, not looking up so his face doesn’t give him away. There’s a muted crashing sound somewhere downstairs, a raucous peal of laughter that has Molly written all over it, and Caleb breathes out slowly as he firms up his grip on his thin, silver scribing tool.
“If you...well...okay, yeah. Thank you,” Fjord says, and there’s such ceremony to his manners, a relentless charm of never taking any single offering of kindness or acceptance for granted, that twists pleasantly in Caleb’s stomach and pierces his heart with a strange, needle-sharp sadness all at once.
With Fjord, nothing’s ever just one thing.
“Come here, then,” Caleb says, shifting slightly on the floor and patting the floorboards next to him. He doesn’t bother to hide the grin.
“I dunno if I can fit down there with you,” Fjord says, but he’s grinning too and unfolds himself from the bed with a stretch.
Caleb shuffles the papers around, careful not to smudge any of the ink and to keep everything in precise order. Fjord’s not wrong – the floor is pretty cramped with both of them hunching over the parchment. In the past Caleb has pulled his work up on his lap when he’s got less space, and for a wild, heart-thumping second he considers doing the same thing now before quickly discarding the idea a moment later. Too intimate, too little space between them already, and just as he’s working out the best way to reshuffle them Fjord drops to the floor behind him with a muffled thump.
“What –” Caleb says, voice gone pinched, and to his utter mortification he realizes he’s blushing.
“This is probably the best way, right?” Fjord says easily, something flickering in his eyes too fast for Caleb to see.
Fjord is…well, Fjord is sitting directly behind him, his chest to Caleb’s back, one leg bent at the knee and the other stretched out beside him, Caleb sitting frozen in the vee between his legs. Not touching him, not quite, but close enough that Caleb can feel Fjord’s slow, steady breathing, the push-pull of another body, and he swallows hard.
“Ja, that is…fine. You’re right-handed, yes?” "Yep," Fjord says, the lazy twang of accent making Caleb let out a quick breath.
“Okay, good. So here.” Caleb holds out his hand, deliberately not looking directly at Fjord, instead waiting for that green-dark hand to rest against his own. “I’ll show you how to do it properly.”
And he does. It’s slow, and more distracting that Caleb thought possible (he doesn’t normally transcribe spells with a solid, handsome man behind him, murmuring softly in his ear), but after another forty minutes or so the spell is complete. Counterspell now gleams beautifully in his spellbook, the ink still wet, Fjord’s shaky but respectable lettering finishing off the intricate glyphs. The candles have burned lower, and Caleb is glad that they lasted long enough for this. Transcribing in dim light is murder on his eyes.
Though Fjord would not have even noticed, probably. That remarkable sight of his.
“Whew, is it always that intense for you?” Fjord asks, drawing Caleb’s attention back to him once Caleb has carefully set the book aside.
Fjord’s making no move to rearrange himself, is letting his back rest comfortably against the bedframe and rotating his writing hand with a slight wince. Twisting to face him finally, Caleb shrugs one shoulder carelessly.
“Usually, yes. It is no small thing, to copy out the intricacies of a spell from someone else’s notes.”
“I guess not,” Fjord says thoughtfully. “But damn, my hand is crampin’ somethin’ fierce.”
“Occupational hazard,” Caleb says with a small huff of laughter.
Fjord smiles at the sound, the glint of his amber eyes in the candlelight making him look almost alien, and Caleb’s heart starts to drum fast and light.
“Well give your hand here, then, and I’ll work the soreness out,” Fjord says, his voice gone deep, and Caleb suddenly realizes just how close they’ve been sitting, are still sitting.
“I – uh –” he stammers, and Fjord’s chuckle is warm and slow and just a touch triumphant.
“C’mon, Caleb – if every spell winds you up this tight you’ll have arthritis by the time you’re thirty-five.”
“That’s not how arthritis works,” Caleb blurts out, but with a slow, steadying breath breath offers up his hand to Fjord, the reverse of earlier this evening.
The angle’s a little awkward – he’s half turned around, his legs jamming into the floor at an odd twist, and Fjord’s not able to take his hand with both of his – but the first press of Fjord’s thumb makes him clench his teeth against the groan threatening to spill out from the back of his mouth. The pressure feels wonderful, Fjord using broad, strong strokes with his thumb at the base of his palm, and Caleb’s eyes fall half-closed. No one’s ever touched him like this before, and before he can stop himself he’s leaning into Fjord’s body, uncomfortable pinch in his spine be damned.
“Fjord, that’s…” he murmurs, and feels more than hears Fjord’s rumbling purr.
“Good. You deserve to feel nice every now and then.” Oh…is this… Caleb’s thoughts are hazy, still honey-thick after the intensity of guiding Fjord through the spellwork, but he thinks Fjord might be saying…
Oh. Oh.
Caleb opens his eyes, and Fjord’s watching him so intently it sends an unexpected jolt of arousal spiking hard between his legs. Caleb usually prefers to be in the background, to remain unnoticed, but the full force of Fjord’s attention is…intimidating. Thrilling. Some swirled together combination of the two.
“W-well,” Caleb says after a quick swallow (and is he imagining Fjord’s gaze watching the bob of his throat? Is he imagining slightly open lips of Fjord’s mouth?), “You’re certainly making me feel…making me feel…” he trails off, leaning closer, the air between them hot and humid and sending waves of goosebumps down the back of his neck.
“Caleb, can I –” Fjord says, his eyes darting down to Caleb’s mouth, and his tongue slips out the tiniest bit to wet his lower lip.
Caleb kisses him, fast and sweet, before he can talk himself out of it.
Surging up to meet his mouth, his hand squashed between their bodies, but all Caleb can feel is Fjord: Fjord’s pleased, startled groan, Fjord’s large arm encircling Caleb around the waist and tugging him closer, Fjord’s chest against his as he presses up against him. He’d wanted...he hadn’t thought this would ever...but now that it’s happening it feels right, like something they’d both been moving towards since they first met, and that thought alone makes Caleb’s skin tingling hotly under his clothes.
Fjord skin is cool against his own feverish burn, a salty tang in his mouth that isn’t exactly unexpected; not after Fjord woke with lungs half-drowned on dry land, after his sword arced seawater and ocean spray from hilt to tip, after that same sword crusted over with barnacles and swirling patterns of seaweed. There’s something there that Caleb doesn’t understand yet – Fjord, and his weapon, and the dark depths of the ocean – but even as he’s half-prepared for the whisper of the sea against his lips he still shivers in Fjord’s arms.
They break apart, Caleb already breathing fast and eager. Fjord lets his forehead rest against Caleb’s, the tips of his dark hair brushing against his temple.
“Been wantin’ to do this for a long time,” Fjord murmurs, one hand wrapped almost possessively around Caleb’s back.
“I – I have, too,” Caleb says after the tiniest hesitation. The drive to conceal, to hide away, still pulses in him, but it’s not like he’s fooling anyone anymore, and besides. It’s Fjord.
Fjord just grins like molasses, unhurried and almost unbearably sexy, and Caleb leans up to capture his mouth again. He kisses around Fjord’s teeth, gentle, careful not to press to hard or too suddenly. Caleb’s not sure if it’s something to be mindful of, at least physically, but he doesn’t want to hurt him. There’s a groan trapped in the back of Fjord’s throat that Caleb can feel more than hear, the sound melting between them, and suddenly it seems absurd to Caleb that he’s still half twisting around, that they’re tangled together in a heap when he could be...when Fjord could stay right there and he straddle across his lap…
The possibility sends a pulse of bright, sweet lust rolling through him just as Fjord slides his tongue into his mouth and shudders under Caleb’s touch. But right as he’s measuring the depth of his own daring several loud, familiar, drunken-sounding voices drift up through the floor.
“ –had the BEST time –”
“–Yasha finished off a whole damn keg–”
“–probably won’t be welcome there for a while–”
The girls. The girls are back.
Caleb jerks away, his eyes widening and darting to the door, and Fjord’s groan of frustration mirrors his own feelings exactly.
“I – we should –” Caleb stammers, despite his body urging him to stay right where he is.
“Yeah,” Fjord says after a moment, his hand tightening its grip on Caleb before relaxing enough to let him go. Caleb’s stomach does a quick backflip at Fjord’s reluctant tone, at the way he reflexively drew Caleb closer.
“It’s not that I don’t...I mean, I would –” Caleb says. He wants him to understand, he’s not ashamed, certainly not of Fjord, but the idea of Nott catching him kissing anyone at all makes him want to vanish right on the spot.
“I know,” Fjord says, but Caleb keeps going, determined to get this out.
“It’s just – not with everyone causing a ruckus downstairs. Perhaps later...another time…?” Caleb says, his pulse beating high and hard.
“No rush, darlin’,” Fjord says with a small, private grin, and something about that word makes Caleb’s breath catch in his throat. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Creak of stairs, quick arpeggio of small feet on floorboards, and Caleb knows he has only seconds before Nott is in the room.
“Neither am I,” Caleb whispers, and steals one more quick, chaste kiss before turning demurely back to the scattered parchment and inks. Fjord laughs, a luxurious, mellow rumble, and picks himself up off the floor just as Nott pushes open the door.
“Caleb, I had – oh,” she says, stopping so fast and sudden she almost trips over feet. “Hello Fjord.”
“Nott,” Fjord says, nodding to her courteously as he walks past her to the door. “Thanks again for walking me through the basics, Caleb. Very enlightening.” That last tossed over his shoulder with a sly, slanting grin.
Caleb’s lips twitch at the expression in his eyes, mischievous and welcoming. “It was no problem. Perhaps next time we can move on to the more advanced techniques.”
Fjord blinks and ducks his head, a fetching blush darkening the sliver of his cheek that Caleb can see, and he coughs abruptly. “Yeah. Next time, for sure.”
“Good night, Fjord,” Nott says slowly, her clever gaze darting between them, and Caleb gives her the barest shake of her head and a half-smile. He’ll tell her eventually, but for now he wants to keep that moment to himself, held in his hands like spun glass
“Night,” Fjord says, and closes the door behind him, and Caleb’s lips still tingle with the shadow-pressure of Fjord’s mouth on his.
Caleb’s still smiling as the door shuts. He turns back to Nott, ready to hear about her adventures and pack away his spellbook and wait patiently for the good things to come.