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When Caduceus returns from his watch with Fjord, squinting resignedly in hallways that remain stubbornly dim even with mid-morning encroaching, he is surprised to find that his staff and meagre pack are not alone in the cabin where he placed them.
Caleb and Nott are curled up on the bed. Not entirely unexpected, as a quick investigation last night revealed that the majority of non-hammock sleeping space is confined to officers’ quarters, but Caduceus knows that the two of them tend to keep to their own sleeping space. Even stranger, Caleb seems to have eschewed normal bedding protocol in favor of falling asleep half-upright with his neck jammed at a painful-looking angle against the back wall.
Pondering over this fresh oddity, he’s caught mid-contemplation as a yellowed eye cracks open and fixes on him - Nott, curled snugly into Caleb’s side. She says nothing, but the next moment Caleb is somehow also awake and halfway through untangling the mess he’s no doubt made of his back.
“Hello,” Caduceus says.
“Hallo,” Caleb echoes back sleepily, shuffling upright against the wall and fussily tugging at his scarf until the ends lay evenly. His hair is shorter than Caduceus’, but not as neatly kept - fresh from sleep as he is, it mats across the back of his head and tucks messily into the upturned collar of his coat and doesn’t hide nearly as much as he imagines Caleb might want it to. This makes Caduceus think of his own hair, which is starting to develop a rather crunchy texture from the salt, and he makes a note to ask Fjord if there’s a good way to deal with that. “We were not sure if you would sit the whole watch - maybe you should have taken the night off, mein Freund.”
“Oh, it wasn’t any trouble. Nothing much out there just now, anyway.”
Nott, having ducked neatly out from under Caleb’s arm as he sat up, pads over to the bedpost nearest him. Her ears twitch in a way that firbolg ears don’t, but it reads clearly enough as concern. “Still, you were very tired last night.”
“I think everyone was,” Caduceus says diplomatically. His legs still ache a little from his frantic swim out to the ship, his neck still cold from the sea water and the hour spent curled up in the bow. He should do something about that.
“Ja, well, we are all awake now,” Caleb mutters. He rubs once, decisively, at his face, rolls his shoulders as if steeling himself, and then, with almost painful effort, attempts to don a friendly expression. “I wanted to check in on you, my drowning buddy.”
Caduceus is not entirely sure what his face does in response to that epithet, but both of his companions look alarmed. Nott makes a strangled noise, turning back to Caleb, who pointedly avoids her gaze. He tugs at a strand of silver thread pulled from his coat, eyes apologetically fixed on Caduceus even as his head ducks down to hide reddened cheeks. “Entschuldigung, I only meant - I mean that yesterday I also - well. This is besides the point. How are you doing?”
Yesterday, he couldn’t bring himself to be placated by concern. Today, at least, he can let it stir up a smile. “I’m just fine,” he says mostly easily, because it is mostly true. “I talked to Jester, and to Fjord. They said some very nice things.”
Caleb huffs, shoulders visibly relaxing. “Good. Good. Then maybe I should not-”
Nott, back across the bed after being ignored, nudges Caleb in the side. His shoulders spring right back up, and Caduceus briefly pities the already-worn seams of his coat and the equally worn muscles of the perpetually anxious man beneath them.
He looks at her askance, then back at Caduceus, who he only now seems to realize is still hunched in the doorway. “Ja, alright. I just wanted to tell you, ah-” He pauses yet again, winding the strand around his fingers, then brightens a little and raises one hand. He’s halfway through snapping when he hesitates.
“Scheiße,” he mutters, gaze darting to the side. “I was going to offer you Frumpkin for petting, but it has just occurred to me that perhaps you would not like to cuddle an octopus right now. I should have changed him back, but I was thinking that Beau might like an owl-”
Nott apparently gives up on the possibility of whatever this conversation is supposed to be happening without her interference. “It’s polite to ask still, isn’t it? Mr. Clay, would you like to hold Frumpkin?”
“Oh.” Caduceus tries to imagine what an octopus might feel like and cannot for the life of him think of anything but wet. “I like Frumpkin, he’s really great, but maybe later? An owl does sound nice.”
Caleb frowns a little. Nott shrugs. “That’s alright. Or-” Her eyes gleam. “In that case, we’ll sic Frumpkin on you unless you sit down and listen to us.”
“Nott!”
“He’s just standing there!”
Caduceus is still confused, but he takes the invitation for what it is and obligingly sits cross-legged in a corner where he can see both of them on the bed. “Well,” he says, and then just looks.
Nott is triumphant, tiny arms crossed as she, for the moment, stands taller than either of them. Caleb is still hunched against the wall, but his eyebrows are tilted up in a welcome amusement he only seems to find when Nott is nearby - and once, last night, at Caduceus and his morbidity. That might be interesting.
Neither of them look inclined to be helpful, so he takes the initiative. “Just curious, what did you want to tell me?”
“Right,” Caleb rallies. “This is not going well, but yes.” He scoots to the edge of the bed, planting socked feet on the wooden floor by dirt-encrusted boots. Caduceus thinks a little about how long it might be until that dirt has a chance to join back with itself and help something grow.
He is very, very far from home.
Caleb’s gaze catches his again, all sleepiness gone. “Caduceus.”
“I’m here.”
Caleb nods. “What I want to tell you, Mr. Clay, is that I know you are feeling alone and uncertain. I am very familiar with this feeling.” He looks… not sleepy. Distant. Remembering. He is thinking in the past tense, even if he doesn’t realize it. “As if there is somewhere you must go, but you cannot even be sure if it exists, or if you will still be needed there, or if - if it will serve any purpose to the ones you care about if you accomplish it at all. You are not alone in this.”
“Oh.” Caduceus takes a deep breath. It’s not the right time to tell him. “You know, it’s kind of rude for me to say, but that really does make me feel better.”
Caleb nods again, a little calmer. The silver thread has disappeared back into his coat. “I am very lucky to have Nott, you know.” He gestures vaguely to the doorway, where Jester’s quiet snoring drifts lazily on the air from the adjacent cabin. “We have the entire group, of course, but Nott is special. We met before the rest of the group, and so we are more familiar with each other.”
Nott has been watching them quietly, but now she scoots up behind Caleb, reaching for his hand. He gives it to her without looking. “We have each other’s backs, and we know each other well enough to know how to help, for the most part,” she says. “And we can talk to each other first, when something is wrong.”
“Always,” Caleb says. He smiles, just a little thing, but Caduceus is familiar enough with sad smiles to know when he sees a happy one. “I think that our group has not done the best job of offering such a thing to you. We came to you at a difficult time, of course - although I am not sure that is a fair excuse, as we are always more or less assholes - but what I am suggesting is that you might try to do a similar thing, and it might make things easier for you.”
“You want me to try and get closer to someone in the group,” Caduceus distills, like squeezing the last dregs of sweet tea from steeped flower petals. “Because it will help me feel better.”
“That is more or less it, ja.” Caleb scrubs a hand through his hair, looking contemplative. “It is easier when you do not have to sort through everything yourself. We are bad at people, so it is kind of the blind leading the blind here, but we can try to help. I know Fjord is a little preoccupied with this whole orb deal, but if you have already had a good conversation… or Jester, she is very nice to everyone and I know the two of you talked last night… Beau and Yasha are a little quieter, but then so are you, so-”
“Jester likes sweets a lot,” Nott interjects, head cocked. “Do you know how to make candy out of flowers and mushrooms, maybe? It’s definitely an in.”
Caduceus starts to laugh.
Nott grins uncertainly, baring her needle teeth, and Caleb makes a few awkward laugh-adjacent sounds in what he assumes is commiseration. “Sorry, sorry,” he chuckles, waving them off. “I couldn’t help but notice that the two of you aren’t on my list of potential friends.”
Caleb freezes. Nott looks him over for a moment, doesn’t find what she’s looking for, and then shifts to regard Caduceus with significantly thinner eyes. “Well, I can be friends with anyone who doesn’t yell at Caleb or try to get him killed. Although apparently that’s some very selective criteria nowadays. The life of a pirate, eh?”
Caduceus puts some thought into it. “I think I can do that,” he concedes, earning another sharp grin.
Caleb’s head swivels once to Nott and then back to him, owl-like with wide eyes. “I, ah… I am sure I will not be the best choice for this.”
He scrubs at his hair again, pushing it back, and it hides even less now. Caduceus tilts his head. “Are you saying that for my sake, or for yours?”
Caleb’s brow furrows as he tries to parse the question. He opens his mouth and shuts it again. Eventually he hmmphs with the resignation of a man who has found one more thing to obsess over at night. “Well, you are trapped in this conversation right along with us. How do you think I am at supporting people while they spill their troubles?”
“You’re very comforting, Caleb!” Nott protests.
“You’re not great at this,” Caduceus admits, not even trying to hide an amused smile, “but you are putting a lot of effort into helping me feel better. That’s pretty comforting.”
Caleb blushes. He looks a little flattered, but mostly as if he would like to jump overboard to prevent Caduceus from making this mistake. Caduceus elects to see the small piece of positive response as progress, and as he smiles wider, encouraging, Caleb only blushes more before shaking his head a little.
“I… I am sure the others will also… I am not a good person, Caduceus.”
Caleb pauses. The air itself stills a little. The blush fades, as does most of the emotion in his face, replaced with something dull and heavy. He gets the feeling that this is something Caleb says very often, if only to himself, to weigh himself down so much.
Nott has been eyeing Caduceus suspiciously since his last statement, but at this she turns immediately back to her friend and squeezes his hand. The room seems to narrow to the two of them, and Caduceus is happy to let it. It seems nice, the way moss growing on a battle-felled corpse is nice, the raising up of something that’s been put to the earth before its time.
Caleb blinks twice and ruffles the top of Nott’s head, which calms both of them immensely, before looking shyly back to Caduceus. “What was I - ja. Right. I’m not very good. Honestly, I often wonder why this one puts up with me.”
“I’m not sure good people exist,” Caduceus says. “And I should probably start working on breakfast.”
Diffidence forgotten, Caleb’s entire face scrunches up like he’s eaten something sour. “What?”
“The morality, or the breakfast?”
“What,” Caleb says again, louder. “The moral - the first one, about good people, what do you mean-”
“Breakfast first, maybe,” Caduceus soothes, waiting for him to settle. “And then the whole ship situation, and then maybe we can talk about it over tea. That’ll help us get closer, huh?”
Caleb’s hands flap in vague confusion, and Caduceus laughs again. “You two are right. I think this is a lot better.”
Nott’s eyes narrow in realization. “Wait, you’re not bad at people,” she accuses. ‘You’re good at people.” She sounds, paradoxically, fairly happy about this. There’s a thud from the adjacent cabin - the rising volume of their conversation has probably woken one of the other girls.
Caduceus rises primly to his feet, careful not to bang his head on the ceiling. “This was nice,” he says, sincerely as he knows how, and offers the two of them a pat on the shoulder and a sunny smile.
Time for breakfast, then.