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It was well past evening in Rosohna. Dark as always, yet somehow the late hour weighed heavier than usual, in a manner that made it impossible to miss how night had fallen and taken most of the day’s anxieties with it.
It was peaceful, with most everyone turned in for the night, puttering quietly around their rooms, readying themselves to enjoy an equally slow and quiet morning. One of those rare ones that didn’t send them off to another side of the continent, for politics or monsters or gods knew what. That sort of peaceful Fjord felt in his bones.
The quiet and empty streets bled through the walls of the Xhorhaus, settling like the motes of dust that drifted in the soft golden aura of the dancing lights that hovered flickering dully around the ceiling. The faint magic cast faded shadows about the place, painting the library-turned-laboratory in amber like honey.
Almost everyone had turned in for the night.
Fjord sighed, leaning his shoulder against the open doorway of the library, low golden light spilling out into the hall behind him. His own exhaustion weighed heavily on his shoulders, dragging him down more each step away from the comfort of his own bed that he’d taken. But he hadn’t been able to sleep, not quite yet, not with this uneasy suspicion growing and twisting behind his sternum that he couldn’t quite shake.
Much like Fjord expected, right where he’d left him last, Caleb sat at the table in the center of the room, books piled up high around him, dancing lights flickering overhead just enough light for his human eyes to read under. Fjord doubted he had turned a page in the book open before him in a long while though.
At some point as he pushed on with his work deeper into the night, Caleb had dozed off where he sat, head down, loose hair falling before his closed eyes, only propped up by his elbow on the table, his cheek resting in his open palm. Caleb’s eyelashes swooped low, just as golden in the low light as the dust suspended in the air that captured the utter stillness of the moment. His mouth was parted just slightly, his expression soft; for a rare moment, the tension Fjord had watched him carry between his shoulders and on his brow had faded, shaving off the years with it.
He was beautiful like that.
But then, Fjord found himself thinking the same thing when he watched Caleb carve a path of phosphorous and bat shit across his palm, plastered with blood and black ichor, bathed in the harsh light of the flames that burst forth. Whether ink or ash smudged across his cheek, Fjord found that he didn’t quite care, wanting to brush it away all the same. And that’s how he’d decided he knew he was well and truly fucked.
Fjord hesitated in the doorway, loathe to shatter the stillness and quiet painted in amber light before him. He couldn’t help the fond, sad sort of tired smile that hooked the corner of his mouth. Helpless but to look on a moment more.
That was when his eyes found the cold glint of metal on the table between the open books and parchments. The now inert collar from Halas’s golem sat on the table beside Caleb’s scattered notes, the ink long dry. It twisted something behind Fjord’s sternum, looking at it. His eyes were drawn to the soft arch of Caleb’s neck, to his throat, soft and pale skin peaking through the curtain of copper hair no longer bearing any mark it had left, but the memory tasted bitter all the same.
Fjord shoved the memory aside.
Still Caleb insisted on keeping the damn thing, on carrying it around, poking and prodding at it in the quiet moments between, looking at the thing like it was intentionally keeping its secrets just to slight him. Fjord would’ve ditched it long ago, but Caleb was determined – though Fjord couldn’t be sure whether that determination was driven by curiosity, aimed at understanding and employing an unfamiliar magic, or driven by the need to ensure he was never so severely hobbled, never made useless again. That was how Caleb had talked about it, quietly, with resentment and loathing that despite Fjord’s best efforts he couldn’t quite ease away.
Whichever, it wasn’t the time for it.
Fjord’s cloak was a heavy, warm weight, tucked between his chest and his folded arms. Spurring himself into movement once more, Fjord pushed off the doorway and started into the library, slowly and quietly so as not to startle Caleb awake.
“Hey,” he gentled, pitching his voice low as he crouched down beside Caleb’s chair. Caleb only began to stir though, eyelids fluttering and breath catching, when Fjord draped his cloak gently over Caleb’s shoulders, tucking the heavy material up under his chin.
Caleb started slightly, lifting his head with a sharp inhale, blinking awake and glancing around blurry-eyed and confused. More like he was surprised to find sleep had overtaken him than by Fjord’s presence, crouching beside him, his hand a light pressure between Caleb’s shoulder blades.
What might’ve been an attempt at words caught in Caleb’s throat. He snuffled, swallowing and clearing his throat, trying and failing to rub the sleep from his eyes. “ Was ,” he rasped, the beginning of a mumbled string of Zemnian too quiet and low for Fjord to parse through, even if he was picking up the basics.
“Easy,” Fjord chuckled, sweeping his hand slowly up and down Caleb’s back over his cloak. “Think it’s time to set this aside,” he urged, keeping his voice quiet, gentle. “Off to bed with you. You’ll feel better for it in the morning.”
Caleb blinked at him, adorably slow to understand, pinched confusion between his brows replaced by sheer stubbornness. Caleb glanced down at the table, down at his ink stained hands. “I was just beginning to get somewhere with this,” he rasped, voice thick with sleep not so easily shaken.
“It’ll be here in the morning,” Fjord reassured, reaching out slowly to sweep a stray lock of hair from Caleb’s face, tucking it behind his ear.
Caleb protested, a low note in his chest. “I just need a little while longer, just five more minutes,” he mumbled, like he wasn’t even listening to himself, his eyes sweeping over his notes.
Fjord tsked, looping his arm around Caleb’s middle anyway, tugging him into his side so Fjord could lift them both to their feet. Caleb protested with a grumble, but the tension in his brow faded quickly, a soft sigh pulled from his lips as, despite himself, he leaned into the warmth of Fjord’s side. Not exactly helping, but not resisting either as Fjord gently urged him up, bundling Caleb in his cloak against his chest until he was sure he had his feet under him. Or maybe just a little longer than that.
Drawing in a deep breath, Caleb shuffled back a step, seeming to realize the cloak he was swallowed up in was there for the first time. His fingers curled around the edges to clutch it closed at his chin, his head bowed to duck lower into it, eyes drifting closed and the faintest corner of a tired smile visible from behind the heavy fabric.
It was all that made Fjord brave enough to settle a hand at Caleb’s lower back and nudge him forward, toward the door of his room and a real bed beyond it. Blindly, Caleb shuffled along, letting Fjord guide him around haphazardly places and poorly balanced stacks of books and furniture.
Fjord pushed the door to his room open, but Caleb hesitated there in the open doorway, swaying on his feet slightly, his back brushing the front of Fjord’s chest. Wordlessly, he turned, his eyes downcast, a sleepy softness touching his expression, gentling the hard edges, but the inside of his cheek between his teeth like working himself up to voicing something. Drowning in the dark fabric of Fjord’s cloak, one pale hand peaked through the front where he held the material bunched closed at his throat. The other Fjord didn’t see but felt, fingertips just barely brushing over the inside of his wrist, as if to catch it, to stop him from turning away, but they disappeared quickly, vanishing back inside the cloak.
Caleb’s eyes dropped lower, to the floor, his shoulders drawn up close, Fjord’s cloak pulled nearly up to his nose.
Fjord smiled, soft, his heart stuttering with a warm fondness swelling in his chest that he didn’t have words for. Before he could think better of it, before he could convince himself to turn and let that be that, he let that feeling drive him forward.
Wordlessly, a hand drifting lightly to the back of Caleb’s neck, Fjord leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Caleb’s head. And the quiet, surprised-turned-pleased sound that escaped from Caleb’s chest as well as the fluttering of his own heart kept him there, lingering just a little longer than perhaps he had an excuse to.
“Goodnight, Cay,” Fjord murmured into his hair, letting his blunted claws scritch gently at the nape of his neck, sending a faint shiver down Caleb’s spine, a blush creeping high across his cheekbones.
Before either of them could or would need to say anything more, Fjord pulled back, offering Caleb a small parting smile before turning to leave.
Caleb’s mumbled return of “Goodnight, Fjord,” was quiet, and slow, hardly reaching Fjord in his retreat through the library. He never heard the door to Caleb’s bedroom close though. That only came after he was well out of sight.
* * * * * * * *
The morning wasn’t marked by a shift in the darkness hanging outside, there being no sun by which to count the hours. Fjord didn’t know exactly what time it was that he rolled out of bed and padded quietly down to the kitchen for some coffee before Beau could drag him off to their morning workout routine. But it was early enough the rest of the Mighty Nein weren’t yet stirring, the gentle peace and quiet from the night before not quite letting go. So Fjord stepped carefully, no desire to disturb the others.
Whatever time it was, it was early enough that Fjord didn’t expect to encounter anyone else between his room and coffee and back to his room again. He might’ve thrown on a shirt if he did.
So he was surprised when, still standing in front of the countertop and steaming pot of coffee atop it, blinking blearily down into his mug which was still too hot to do anything more than sip at, his ears caught the rustle of fabric and gentle sound of footfalls in the hallway.
More surprised still when from the corner of his eye he saw it was Caleb who rounded the corner, swallowed up by Fjord’s cloak around his shoulders, much too big for him. It was endearing, how he bunched the heavy material up under his chin so that he didn’t trip over it, tucking his chin down against his collar so that barely a shock of messy copper-red hair tumbled loose, the only means besides his light, careful footfalls by which he was identifiable.
Fjord didn’t turn, just hid the gentle smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth behind the rim of the steaming mug he lifted to his lips. “Morning,” he rasped in greeting, voice still thick with sleep.
He was only answered by a low hum muffled by his cloak behind him, and by the gentle, warm weight of Caleb’s forehead dropping against the bare skin of his back, the faint scruff of Caleb’s jawline a gentle rasp between his shoulder blades.
Fjord grinned stupidly at that, unable to help it as he felt Caleb’s fingers – cold as always and clumsy with sleep – brush lightly, cautiously, against his lower back, still clinging to the edges of Fjord’s cloak as his hands crept around Fjord’s waist from behind him. It pulled a pleased little sound from behind Fjord’s sternum, vibrating through his chest. Dropping one hand from the mug still pressed to his lower lip, Fjord let his hand and forearm drop to cover Caleb’s, much smaller beneath him, cradling him close. Just so he knew it was welcome.
With a small sigh, he felt Caleb melt against his back, nuzzling his cheek closer, his breath ghosting warmly down Fjord’s spine. “Guten Morgen,” Caleb mumbled thickly, leaning a little heavier into Fjord.
“Coffee?” Fjord asked, rubbing at his eyes and already reaching for a second mug.
He chuckled a Caleb’s response, a heavy contented sigh and the barest nodd against Fjord’s back. Caleb leaned just a little more surely against him, far from shaking off the comfortable clutches of sleep, falling back into them with slow, deep breaths.
Fjord didn’t mind. Wouldn’t complain.
The man didn’t get enough sleep as it was, always too anxious, too busy, or some combination thereof. If right there against Fjord’s back, at far too early in the morning and tucked away in the corner of the Xhorhaus Caleb felt comfortable enough, safe enough to drift off, who was Fjord to disturb that.
And if he felt Caleb’s lips warm and lingering against the back of his neck, or felt Caleb’s arms wind just a little more securely around his waist, palms flat and callused fingertips lightly tracing meaningless runes against his belly, Fjord wouldn’t mention it. That was how it worked, this little dance around each other, each bolder step burning a little brighter, a little warmer behind Fjord’s sternum.
Fjord poured another cup and set it down on the countertop, within reach whenever Caleb chose to separate himself and take it, to retreat back into the comfortable pretense they’d established.
Whether that came sooner or later, Fjord certainly had a preference. But then, with the darkness outside, and the silence throughout the house, it was just enough to convince himself that they had all the time in the world.
Fjord smiled behind the lip of his mug at the thought, and at the soft sounds coming from Caleb, his grip lax, drifting off in the clutches of sleep against his back.
Depending on which exactly of their friends stumbled blurry-eyed in search of coffee or breakfast through the kitchen door first, they might not mention it either. It wasn’t that no one noticed. But just maybe, if Caleb didn’t shy away, a skittish thing, their friends might be kind enough to give them five more minutes before they did anything about it.