Work Text:
Caleb had fallen before.
He fell for Astrid. He fell for her fast and careless, when he was a young man with little to lose and a wide world ahead of him. He fell for her daring grin and her restless energy. He loved her when she charged into everything, dangers big and small, like it was a race she was determined to win.
But falling hurt. When he fell for her, he hit the ground. It was the days when she was cold, when she was distant, when he knew she would never feel that same burning feeling. Sure, there were good times in the academy, too. There were times when she was as kind as she had been in their childhood, when all that focus and energy was turned on him and she very nearly loved him too.
But those days were few and far between, and eventually Caleb had picked himself up and moved on. Brushed the dirt from his knees. He had fallen, but he had still been able to stand.
He fell for Eodwulf. In his heartbreak he had turned to his only other friend, who unlike Astrid was sturdy as a mountain, a rock to cling to in a storm. Though Eodwulf never seemed to understand how Caleb felt, and though neither of them moved toward something more, he had no qualms with closeness, and he was an anchor. Caleb could hold his hand under their desks if he needed to. When they were forced to socialize with other students, he could be a grounding presence, his arm around Caleb, messing up his hair, pushing him lovingly around.
At the end of a long day, if he was too caught up in missing home, and too exhausted to go back to his own room, Caleb could curl up in Eodwulf’s bed, and Eodwulf had no qualms with putting an arm around him so he could feel the weight and the pressure as they both fell into sleep.
But falling for Eodwulf was like falling into the sea. Eventually, he started to drown. He started to imagine he could have more. Maybe everything they were headed for was wrong. He imagined a different future, one where they ran off together and never looked back. Yet when he came back to himself, he knew it could never be. He knew Eodwulf had no idea how he felt, and when he looked at him, it ached. Sometimes he loved Eodwulf so much he couldn’t breathe. That wasn’t what he wanted. So slowly, bit by bit, he picked himself up and moved on.
He fell for Ikithon’s trick.
He still had his friends beside him- friends, and nothing more, though they still fiercely supported him at every turn. And as graduation approached, he knew more clearly than ever where he was headed. Ikithon had promised the three of them the opportunity to work for him, to be the hand of justice in the Empire. He knew what he wanted, and like Astrid, he was ready to dive into it headfirst.
When he overheard the conversation his parents were having, listening from the top of the stairs, he wanted to shatter the past. He wanted to burn it all down, make more room for the future he’d been promised. He was ready to scream, to fight, to tear it all to pieces. So of course he fell for it. He wanted so badly to move forward, so of course Trent’s awful tricks would get to his head.
He fell to his knees watching the house burn.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away. His heart plummeted and he was falling, falling, falling, feeling wind rush by him but saying nothing, unable to move, to breathe. He was falling into darkness.
They put him in the asylum a few days later. Many years down the line, when he was finally able to remember the day he’d last seen his friends, he would recall the briefest hint of pain in Astrid’s expression as she walked away, steeling herself and summoning back her cold demeanor. He would recall Eodwulf kneeling in front of him where he sat, so they were on a level, and he seemed like he was going to say something, but looking at Caleb his face crumpled and he turned away.
Even falling asleep really was falling. When he escaped the asylum and was living on the road, every second he slept was a chance for him to be robbed, or killed, even though he really had nothing to take and those who wanted his head couldn’t find him with the charm he wore. So every time he closed his eyes, he plummeted into rest, into the shallow sleep he had grown used to. He had to let himself fall, jump off the cliff, in order to get the sleep he needed. It was a leap of faith every time, one he knew would never end with him landing on solid ground.
With the Mighty Nein, he fell into a rhythm.
That was just as dangerous as anything else. Settling in, making himself comfortable with a group of people who were this close to getting themselves killed- that was a fall if he’d ever had one. Making a routine with them was dangerous. He knew that. Yet he kept spiraling down, until one day he looked at them and his heart seized in his chest and he knew there was no getting up from this one.
He had fallen into a family, and they weren’t going to let him go. And the worst part was that he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay. He really had hit rock bottom.
And he liked them. Really cared. Instead of Eodwulf he had Fjord and Yasha and Nott, who he could lean on when things were rough. Instead of Astrid he had Jester and Molly and Beau, who made him want to smile again with their wild antics and wisecracks.
It was awful, because he knew it could not last. It hurt, because every part of him wanted to get closer, to be wrapped up and tangled in them, to never let go, but his better part knew he never could.
When Mollymauk died, he could feel himself falling apart.
He’d tried to hide the tremor in his hands, but failed when he was writing the note. The second he tried to write Molly’s name he stopped breathing. If he kept breathing, he might break. But he forced himself to go on. Wrote the whole note signed with his name and “The Mighty Nein”, and with trembling fingers tucked it inside Molly’s shirt.
His body was still warm, and Caleb felt like he was holding himself together with his nothing but threads. His body was still warm, as if he were asleep. He wanted to imagine Molly was asleep. But right next to where the letter was tucked, the bloody wound in his chest gaped, red and raw and terrible.
He brushed the hair from his forehead and forced himself to say goodbye. He would not fall apart. He would pick himself up and move on. As he always had. As he always would. He almost stumbled, almost hit the ground when he stood, but then he was standing, pushing dirt back over the grave.
All his life, Caleb fell and fell and kept on falling. And the more he fell, the harder he hit the ground.
Needless to say, love was off-limits.
Until someone came along who had very little respect for rules, especially the ones he set for himself. Until Jester Lavorre made him laugh for real, for the first time in a very long time.
“Come on, Cay-leb!”
Weeks earlier, he might have resisted when she pulled at his coat, dragging him to his feet. But right now, he was too glad to be on dry land, too relieved to fight her. Anyway, he didn’t want to. He let her pull him out of his seat with a huff of laughter and a vague smile.
That was something new, but he found he didn’t mind.
The music in the tavern was something wild and energetic. In his younger days in Blumenthal they’d had music like this, the kind that made you want to run and shout and dance until your muscles ached. It was untamed, much like the girl who had a solid grip on his sleeves.
“Dance with me!”
She didn’t give him much time to respond beyond “ja, okay,” and then she had placed his hand on her hip, the other held in hers, and twirled them around.
Her smile was sunshine incarnate. Distantly he thought of another tiefling who’d once dragged him onto a dancefloor. If Jester was the sun, Molly had been the moon. His heart sank a little, but then Jester put her hands on his shoulders and shouted, “lift me, Cay-leb!” with such a convincing smile that he couldn’t help but comply.
He lifted her by the waist, and for all his lack of strength, managed to twirl her around in the air. When she came down, they were both laughing, and every longing thought had been driven from Caleb’s mind.
They laughed and spun, dancing the whole song through. She showed him new moves, things he was pretty certain were not actual dance moves, but it pleased her when he attempted them, so he tried his best. And when the music turned to a waltz, he put his hand on the small of her back again and they began the steps, catching their breath.
He thought briefly of Astrid, who he had danced with at the academy, when they’d giggled behind their teachers’ backs during lessons. Holding down laughter while they forced themselves into perfect posture, they had gone from stepping all over each other’s toes to refined and proper within months. He had liked dancing with her, and with a sudden pang of sadness, he missed it.
He remembered the last time he had danced with Jester, drunk in Hupperdook. He had slurred his words, called her Astrid by accident. The guilt of it quickly caught up to him.
“Caleb? Why do you look sad? Do you not want to dance anymore?”
“Uh, no, I just… I was thinking of something. From a while ago. Do you remember the last time we danced?”
“Of course. You were suuuuper drunk. And you called me Astrid, which was probably the name of your girlfriend, right?” She smiled at him again, but he had seen enough of her smiles to know which ones were real and which ones, like this one, were a mask.
“Ja. I… want to apologize. For that. I was not myself.”
“It’s okay. You’re funny when you’re drunk, do you know that, Caleb? And you’re a really good dancer! Just like I’m also good at dancing, and playing the piano, and drawing, and-” her face twisted as she thought. “I don’t know what else I’m good at. I’m not a very good cleric. And I wasn’t any good at sailing.”
Caleb’s face burned, not from embarrassment, but because he wasn’t sure what he could do. Seeing her sad was the last thing he wanted. He knew she was much sadder than she let on, and that was okay, of course. That was as much as could be expected of anyone. But he didn’t want her to stay that way.
“I, ah, I think you are very talented.”
“Really?”
They danced and danced and Caleb lowered his voice so only she could hear him in the crowded tavern.
“Ja, I think you are very good at fighting. And you are understanding as well. You can look at anyone and have compassion for them. Even me.”
“Of course you.”
Caleb shook his head. “My point is, you are very good at what you do. You protect people. You make people happy.”
“Do I make you happy?” she asked, her voice small like it was the most important thing in the world. In an instant he was reminded that she was younger than him, that she had only a few months ago left the place she grew up in. Such a far cry from his fraught and distant past.
She looked very small, and Caleb’s heart seized. There were a thousand things he could have told her. That before her, nobody had made him truly laugh for years. That for the first time since he was a child, he could have moments of happiness without the crushing guilt that always followed. That with her, he almost felt like a young man again. That he wished he were less clumsy so he could touch her without bruising her, less unstable so he could hold her without ruining everything.
“Before I met you, Jester, I was a very unhappy man. You gave me another chance, I think. A second look at life.” He swallowed. “You are… very dear to me. And the happiness you have brought into my dull gray little world is… more than I ever thought to have.”
“I’m glad, Caleb.” Her smile, though small, was genuine. “And you know, before I met you, I felt like I always had to be happy, because if I was sad, then how would I make anyone else happy? But you always seem to like me even when I’m sad. You made me feel like that’s okay.”
“Ja.” He knew he was blushing, but he didn’t try to hide it. “I like you always. However you are.”
Jester looked up at him for a few moments, her eyes wide, and then she hugged him. They stopped their movement on the dancefloor. For a second, he was frozen, but her grip on his stayed, so he slowly put his arms around her.
Her face was buried in his chest. He wondered if she could hear his heart racing and silently prayed that she couldn’t. As if his quick pulse would spill all his secrets to her, and not just the bad things, also the way he felt when she kissed his cheek, or the way he sometimes wanted to reach out to where she lay at night and pull her close, or how he thought she was the prettiest girl in the entire world.
But if she knew these things, she said nothing.
The waltz ended, and the song that followed was slow. Sweet and a little sad, its lilting notes floated on the air around them. Jester pulled back slowly, sniffling a little, but her smile was real. That smile that was like sunshine through the clouds on the darkest day. He found himself smiling to see it.
Silently he put his hand on the small of her back, and she placed a hand on his shoulder, the other in his own. He did not stop smiling as they swayed with the music. They swayed and turned and with every second that passed they drew closer. Just a fraction of an inch at a time. Eventually she had to turn her head, and his arm went around her waist.
So slowly it was nearly imperceptible second to second, she leaned against him, careful not to poke him with her horns. Her eyes were closed. She breathed out, a long sigh, but not quite sad. There was a smile in it. “I’m sorry I always called you stinky. You don’t smell that bad, really.”
“I do not mind.”
He moved his arm so it was wrapped around her waist. It was more comfortable that way. And as she pressed fully against him, she moved their hands so hers rested on his chest, right next to where her head was. He did not let her hand go- he kept holding it in that spot, fingers awkwardly, haphazardly interlaced. He didn’t mind how messy it all was. It was her, and it was good, and he didn’t need anything more than that.
Somewhere in the tavern the Nein were drinking and shouting, laughter so loud it could have shaken the building down. But all Caleb heard was the piano and the fiddle, the soft tune they played, and Jester’s slow and steady breathing.
Caleb had fallen before. He had fallen fast and hard and the more he fell, the harder he hit the ground. Perhaps that was why it had taken so long for him to recognize the feeling this time. Because it did not hurt. It was nothing like drowning.
Falling in love with Jester felt good.
Sure, they had hard times. They had regrets. They had hurt each other, stepped on toes, been stiff and awkward for a while. But they were here now, leaning on each other in the warmth of a tavern, and it was good. It was kind. It was soft and sweet and everything Caleb had never expected love to be.
It was falling without falling. Falling without fear. It was Feather Fall, a gentle drift into something beautiful. It did not hurt. And for the first time in a long time, he did not hate his big, clumsy hands, because they fit perfectly where they were. Holding Jester.
He stood there, dancing with the prettiest girl in the whole world, and he let himself fall.