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“Essek, could I see you in my room for a bit?” Caduceus asked, breaking him from a small reverie over a book in the Salon. He was still fascinated with how Caleb had managed to replicate it perfectly, even with a few smudges where the ink of the typeface was smudged on the title page. Essek had been focusing more on the tome itself than the actual story, which seemed to be some ridiculous romance that Jester was always talking about.
He simply nodded to Caduceus, following the firbolg and secretly grateful for a distraction from the previous day. Caleb had since disappeared somewhere else in the tower, and Essek didn’t know if he would be permitted to follow. He wasn’t used to this much down time between important tasks, but he was stuck with the Nein for now, and driving himself mad with all the mistakes he’d made, recent and past.
So instead he stayed in step with Caduceus, entering the room marked with a beetle and trying not to stare agape at how perfect it all was. Not that he was ever that expressive on the outside, but he still felt like he was staring.
Every room he entered in this ridiculous place was almost more breathtaking than the last. Of course he had a strong preference for the ninth floor, his own room, and the Salon, but this room was so clearly tailored to suit Caduceus’s every need with it's special furniture, personalized hot spring, plants and perpetually prepared water for tea. Caleb cared so deeply about his friends, and Essek had managed to fuck that up.
"Do you believe in fate?" Caduceus asked, standing over the pot of perpetually boiling water with his small tins of herbs and leaves.
Essek blinked. That was definitely not where he thought this conversation would be going. “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen any strong evidence one way or the other.”
“I think the gods guide us occasionally,” Caduceus hummed, handing him a mug of tea and walking into the next chamber. “Not to say that we have no free will, or that everything necessarily happens for a reason. Just that some things are meant to happen.”
Holding the almost too warm mug in his hands, Essek nodded. “I could understand why you might think that. People destined to be evil or good, or taking different paths.” It would make the world simpler if that was true, at the very least. Caduceus seemed to like seeing a clear right or wrong in things, puzzling over them when it wasn’t apparent.
“Now, I don’t believe anyone is all bad, or all good.”
Essek hummed, still just looking out over the small garden. That wasn’t his place to say. He knew otherwise, of course, but he wouldn’t say. No sense to instill his pessimism in the man who was only trying to be kind to him. No, better to look at this strange garden, all artificial, but blooming with life. Little beetles crawling over bright blooms and patches of fungi caught his eye, each one impossibly more colorful than the last.
After a pause, Caduceus picked up one of the flowers from the garden. "This is a daffodil. A narcissus. They grow in the springtime in the Empire. They mean rebirth and forgiveness. All that goes hand in hand. Accepting the past, being born anew, and being able to move on.” He turned the bright yellow flower with the orange cone in the center over in his hands delicately. “Caleb built this tower for us, built these out of his memories, and still doesn't feel he's worthy of being happy.”
Caduceus looked up at him, taking in Essek's continued silence before saying, "I think Caleb is destined for great things."
"He's already accomplished great things with you all," Essek assented. That much he could agree with, though he wasn’t entirely sure where this conversation was going. He never really was sure with the strange grave cleric.
Caduceus nodded slowly. "And he'll do more. I think you could help him. In doing great things, I mean."
"We do make a rather good study team," Essek murmured, consumed with thoughts of bright blue eyes and passion and fire and excited hugs when spells finally went right.
Nodding again, Caduceus said, "You do. Not just studying though. I think he's destined for greatness and you could help him achieve it. He seems to think there's some sort of threshold, something to achieve or cross before he can give himself happiness."
Essek frowned and turned to him. Caleb had said something similar, in the tower, before they ambushed the Tomb Takers. If they could do enough…
Caduceus just looked down at Essek, towering over him especially when he wasn't floating. "Will you help him with that?"
"What?" Essek's words caught in his throat. He was glad he could hold the mug of tea, so he didn’t show how his hands might tremble. Why… Why him? Why would Caduceus ask that?
The firbolg turned the flower over in his hands. "I had a chat with him yesterday. He tried something new, and I don't think he was ready for it. Now he's spiraling."
Yesterday.
Yesterday, when Caleb kissed him and he froze.
Yesterday, when Caleb ran from him.
Yesterday when he ruined everything, as so kindly confirmed by Caduceus.
Essek stared blankly at his mug, trying to figure out what he could possibly say to that, but it seemed Caduceus wasn’t yet finished. “You know, I’m quite good at reading people.”
“You are that,” Essek mumbled, brow furrowed as he recalled all the many times the firbolg had stared into his soul and ripped out things he tried so desperately to hide. Somehow that was less devastating than thinking about how badly he’d fucked up yesterday.
Caduceus nodded slowly, watching him. “But I was alone for a long time as well. Sometimes I don’t quite understand the things I’m seeing.”
“I see,” Essek said, just for something to say.
"I don't understand much about... relationship stuff,” he said a bit awkwardly, staring right at Essek while the man tried to stare so deeply into his tea that he disappeared, “but you look at him like Yasha looks at Beau. Or like Fjord looks at Jester. Sometimes you look at each other like that, and ignore it. I've tried not to mettle, but it's been months. Almost a year. And now you both won't look at each other at all."
“I… I made a mistake,” Essek said, so quietly he barely heard it himself, but he saw Caduceus’s long ear flick, catching every word.
Caduceus leaned a little closer, encouraging Essek to look up at him. “Don’t you think you should try to fix it?”
“I don’t know how,” he said, staring up fully into those strange pink eyes and losing himself in the strange, raw, vulnerable feeling the Mighty Nein seemed to instill in him.
Nodding sagely, as he was wont to do, Caduceus said, “Do you think I have those answers? Or anyone other than Caleb? Or do you think, maybe, you might need to talk with him?”
“He doesn’t want to talk with me,” Essek said, looking away and taking a sip of tea. That much was clear.
Caduceus shook his head. “He thinks he doesn’t want to hear what you’re going to say, but I don’t think that’s the case. You need to go and communicate properly with each other.”
Essek took a deep breath. If Caleb had assumed Essek's panic was a rejection, it was probably best to clear the air. He still didn't think anything positive would come of it, but he owed Caleb that much, at the very least. “You're right. I’ll… I’ll try.”
Caduceus smiled and very gently tucked the small yellow flower behind Essek’s ear. “Good luck. You’ll do great.”