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Fjord had been keeping a close eye on Caleb ever since they’d discovered the scroll. He’d seen the hungry look in Caleb’s eyes and the way he reached out instinctively to take it before realising he was being watched. “Leave everything as we found it,” Fjord had reminded him gently. Caleb had said nothing in return, but had reluctantly lowered his hand and turned away from the scroll.
Fjord had assumed that was that, that Caleb was a smart enough man to know what needed to be done – even if he wasn’t necessarily getting the hang of the “for the group” way of thinking, he wasn’t stupid enough to put Nott in danger by stealing something so important.
At least, that’s what he’d thought. But then Caleb had gone and been a fucking idiot and tried to take it anyway. He didn’t even wait to be alone.
Fjord saw red. He lunged across the room and grabbed Caleb by his scruffy jacket, spinning the two of them around and slamming the wizard against the wall. “Did you not hear what I said? We leave everything as it is. You want to give us away? You want us to be caught and killed, is that what you want? I know you don’t give a shit about yourself but you ain’t dragging the rest of us down with you, you hear me?” he growled close to Caleb’s face, shaking him several times to get his point across.
He received no response, no fearful expression or stuttered apology like he’d been expecting. Caleb just stared straight ahead, eyes somewhere around Fjord’s chest. The display only fuelled Fjord’s anger. He shook Caleb more violently with one hand, then slammed the other against the wall near Caleb’s head. “I want a fucking answer. I want you to tell me that you’re going to walk out of here empty-handed. You aren’t going to take a thing.”
By now, the rest of the group had joined them and were all standing near the doorway watching the exchange. All except Nott who had pushed her way between Molly and Beau, her crossbow aimed at the much larger half-orc. “Put him the fuck down,” she hissed, eyes narrowed into slits and looking more dangerous than he’d ever seen her.
“As soon as he tells me he’s not going to be a fucking idiot and get us all killed. Well? Say it, boy,” said Fjord. He barely even glanced at Nott, but the fist he’d just slammed into the wall began to glow. “Say it or I’ll take you both down.”
He felt the moment Caleb registered the threat as the body pressed close to his tensed up in one swift moment. Caleb’s eyes widened, but seemed to take on a faraway expression. His breathing turned rapid and his lips began to move silently. At first Fjord was sure that the wizard was preparing a spell of his own, but a quick glance down found the man’s hands pressed against the wall behind him.
“Say it Caleb,” Fjord said again, quieter this time. “Say it and I’ll let you go.”
“Caleb?” Nott called a second later. Her crossbow fell to her side, held in one hand while the other reached out as if to touch Caleb from the other side of the room.
“Something’s wrong,” Molly muttered from the doorway. “Fjord, put him down. There’s something wrong.”
Fjord spared a quick glance at the tiefling and found himself pulling back. Without Fjord’s hands holding him up, Caleb slid down the wall and came to rest with his knees against his chest and his head thrown back as he gasped for air. His body was just as tense as it had been – it was as if he didn’t realise that he was no longer in danger.
“Nein, bitte,” he spluttered. “Es tut mir leid, bitte, es tut mir leid.”
“Caleb!” Nott hurried to his side, pushing his knees down a little so that she could clamber into his lap. She balanced on his hips and placed her hands on his cheeks, forcing his gaze onto her. “Caleb, come back to me. It’s alright, he isn’t going to do anything. I won’t let him, I promise,” she soothed, stroking his cheeks with her thumbs. Her eyes shone with unshed tears but she wore a watery smile in an attempt to reassure Caleb.
Fjord felt a hand on his arm. “We have to get out of here before anyone gets back,” Beau muttered at his side.
“I know. But how are we going to get those two out of here?”
“I suppose…someone can carry him.”
“No!” Nott snapped over her shoulder. “None of you is touching my boy, not after what you did to him!”
Beau furrowed her brow. “Why is he reacting like that? Fjord barely touched him.”
Nott sighed and lowered her head. “He…he does this. It’s happened before and he won’t tell me why. He just says that it’s ‘complicated’,” she explained.
“Honest as ever,” Beau muttered, and when Nott narrowed her eyes into a glare, did the same without a second thought. “Look, I honestly don’t care why this has happened. But we need to go, ok? So can you…get him on his feet or whatever?”
“He can’t hear me, I don’t think.”
The three of them jumped as Molly suddenly barged past them. “Well then, we’re just going to need to carry him out, aren’t we?” he said. Nott barely had time to jump off Caleb’s lap before he was hoisted to his feet and draped over Molly’s shoulder. The tiefling looked at each of them, raised his eyebrows and said, “well? Let’s go then! Not like we’re in a hurry or anything.”
--
Throughout everything which happened over the next several hours – the explosion, the attack on the Zauber Spire and the fight in the sewer – Fjord struggled to forget about the effect which his threatening had had on Caleb. Caleb, upon waking up after being knocked out by the explosion, had appeared to be back to normal, if even more tense than usual. He hadn’t mentioned their argument, hadn’t mentioned what Fjord had done. But it was clear that he remembered it all because he wouldn’t even look at Fjord.
Fjord wondered if he was still afraid.
As they marched through the sewers, Fjord found himself drifting closer and closer to Caleb and Nott, who were shuffling along at the back of the group. Nott clung to Caleb’s hand while his free one massaged periodically at his neck as if imagining Fjord’s hands on him all over again. Nott bared her teeth as Fjord approached.
Fjord raised his hands. “Hey now, I come in peace. I just want to talk, I promise,” he bargained, glancing between the pair. For the first time Caleb looked at him, eyes twitching up and down several times.
Finally, he nodded. “I will be alright, Nott. Let us hear what he has to say,” he said to his smaller companion.
Nott seemed about to argue but the two of them locked eyes in a silent conversation. When Caleb looked away, Nott began to climb him until she was seated on his shoulders. From there, she could look Fjord right in the eye and he couldn’t help but be a little intimidated. “Touch him again and I’ll poke your eyes out,” she threatened.
“I understand, Nott. I just wanted to…explain myself, I suppose. We had decided as a team that we were going to be inconspicuous. Leave no trace. Touch nothing except what we needed -,” Fjord began, only to be interrupted by Nott.
“-A rule which had already been broken,” she snapped.
Fjord raised a hand to silence her. “I didn’t come to argue. We can do that as a team. All I want to do is explain. If a scroll that’s as important as that one looked was to go missing, I don’t doubt that people would be after us – more than they already are. And I wanted to prevent that. Maybe I went about it in the wrong way and I’m sorry for that, Caleb.” He looked down at the wizard who was watching him with an unreadable expression.
“You can’t honestly expect him to -!” Nott started, but this time she was the one to be interrupted.
“It is alright,” Caleb said softly. He lowered his eyes but raised one hand to touch his neck. His hand was shaking, Fjord noted. “I did not mean to react the way I did but…people are not always kind, you understand?”
Fjord nodded. “I do. I didn’t mean to remind you of bad times.”
Without looking up, Caleb muttered, “There are many bad times, I am afraid.”
“I figured. But the good thing about being in a group is that maybe there can be fewer of those. We can protect each other.”
The laugh which escaped Caleb’s lips was bitter and without humour. He didn’t explain himself, just reached up and took both of Nott’s hands in his, then sped up so they were alongside Beau.
Fjord watched the two of them go and wondered not for the first time just how many secrets the two of them had. And how many of them they would share when the time came.
And he wondered how many of them he would guess before then.