Work Text:
Dust motes floated through rays of sunlight, twisting and swirling in a lazy dance. The early morning light poured through a set of windows and illuminated a faded rug, upon which two pairs of boots were standing dangerously close.
“I’ll miss you.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. I’ll only be gone for a little bit. But…er. I’ll…miss you too.”
The boots touched as their owners slowly slid together, a pair of hands entwining at their thighs, one eager and gentle, one shaky and shy.
A pair of lips brushed against a flaming red cheek, soft blond hair sweeping against fluffy auburn bangs.
Somehow, with a slow turn of the head, their lips met.
The entwined hands twitched, and their grips on each other tightened.
An overwhelmed murmur joined the dust motes and sunlight, the voice rising into a soft keen as it echoed in the hallway, musical in its agonized yet intoxicated helplessness.
It was joined by a low pleased laugh.
With a desperate sigh, the lips, hands, and boots parted.
“R-right. I’ve got everything I need for work…” Evelyn muttered in between heavy breaths, the dusty flush of red on her cheeks slowly fading. “Do you have everything you need? Wait, I should give you the extra house key! Hold on, let me find it…it should be in here…”
The witch dug in a closet, suspicious crashing and squeaking and squishing sounds echoing in the sun-dappled entryway as she rooted around in the mess like a chicken digging through dead leaves on a forest floor.
“I could have sworn I tossed it in here…OH THERE-no, that’s the shed key-I’m sorry, Caleb, I know it’s in here…AHHH-no, that’s Goldie’s favorite bottle cap…argh, bones dirt and muck! I’ll be late! WHERE IS IT?! Oh? OH? OH, I FOUND IT!”
The witch spun, holding up a large bronze skeleton key in triumph.
“Tah-dah!” she sang with a bow, holding it out to the blond human who had been watching the whole scene with barely contained amusement.
“And with that, it has graduated from a spare key to your key!” Evelyn declared.
Caleb pocketed the key with a grin as he watched his new girlfriend attempt to close the overstuffed closet’s door. With a final shove and grunt, it shut with a satisfying click.
“There! Now, the next person to open that thing might want to be a bit careful,” Evelyn said as she dusted off her hands.
“Noted,” Caleb said. “I shall be…quite careful if I must open it.”
“Oh, and here!”
Evelyn tossed him a small bag that clinked as it landed in his hands.
“Snails. Just in case!”
Caleb dutifully pocketed the money as well.
“Oh! Would you like me to pack you a lunch? I could make you something quite quickly!” he offered eagerly as Evelyn pulled on a dark red cloak.
“Oh, how sweet! But I don’t think I will require a packed lunch today. I’ve been craving fire-honey roasted eyeballs so I’ll just go out and buy some on my break-“
“AUGH!”
Caleb slapped his hand over his mouth.
“Evelyn, PLEASE!” He groaned, pleading with puppy dog eyes over his shaky hand. “That is disgusting-“
“What? You don’t have to eat them if you don’t like them!” She said, casually straightening the cloak’s hood with a twist of her hands.
“EVELYN, I’VE KISSED YOU!”
“And you were certainly not complaining at the time.”
“EVELYN.”
“Perhaps I’ll have some beetles on a stick with slug sauce instead-“
“EVELYN.”
She started cackling.
“She even has a witch cackle. What in the world have I gotten myself into,” Caleb groused, sweeping his hands down his face in a long, defeated rub.
“You’ve known about witch food and my laugh for years. You have no one to blame for your situation but yourself,” Evelyn snorted, pulling up her cloak’s scarlet hood.
She winked at him.
“…I’m not even the biggest fan of slug sauce.”
Caleb’s eyes softened, and he gave her a small love-struck smile.
“Now, don’t feel any pressure to be useful while I'm gone,” Evelyn ordered. “You’ve only been here for a few days, and you’ve been through quite a lot in the last seventy-two hours. You are allowed to rest. You don’t need to always be productive. Minus this aberration of a closet, the house is clean. And the chores are done. Relax today.”
Caleb nodded.
“This is your house too. Don’t feel like you are a guest. Help yourself to anything you need or want. Everything is mine and yours,” she added kindly. “And I think that’s it. I shall see you again when I return home mid afternoon.”
She reached up on her tip-toes in an invitation.
“Am I too disgusting to receive a goodbye?” she asked, a bit shyly. “Perhaps a small hug? Or another-”
She received much more than a small hug.
It took a titanic force of will for her to pull away from her boyfriend’s eager lips and wandering hands.
“Alright. Apparently I’m not disgusting after all,” she gasped softly, trying to catch her breath as she swayed in a patch of sunlight.
“Of course you’re not disgusting,” Caleb murmured, clutching her face with gentle hands like he was holding a precious artifact. “You’re never disgusting…you’re adorable. And gorgeous.”
Evelyn’s face flamed red and she broke eye contact.
“Goodness. Compliments seem to render you quite shy,” Caleb laughed.
“Shut up,” she snorted. “I’m just not used to…this, alright?”
She was ensnared by another long, distracting kiss.
“I need to go to work,” she murmured against soft warm lips. “Really…I…mmm…I must go…I’ll be late.”
Caleb groaned, low and disappointed.
“I know, I know,” she sighed.
She opened the door with one hand and summoned her palisman with the other in one smooth motion.
“I’ll be back from the library at around three!” she shouted with a wave, taking off into the sky. “Byeeeeeee Caleb! Byeeeeeeeee cute little cardinal palisman who doesn’t have a name yet!”
She suddenly stopped short and spun around in midair to face Caleb again.
“OH! I ALMOST FORGOT! MY HOUSE DEMON WILL BE RETURNING FROM MY SISTER’S HOME LATE THIS MORNING! JUST INTRODUCE YOURSELF! AND BE SURE TO LET HIM KNOW YOU’RE MY BOYFRIEND! JUST TO WARN YOU, HE MIGHT GET A LITTLE EXCITED! HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY, DARLING!!! KISSES!!! MUAH MUAH!!!”
“WAIT, WHAT?! WHAT’S A HOUSE DEMON?! EVELYN!!!”
But she was already gone.
“Good lord,” Caleb muttered as a red bird alighted on his shoulder.
The pair squinted at the bright early morning sky in thought, the expressions on their faces eerily similar.
“Do you by any chance know what a house demon is?” Caleb asked, reaching up to scratch his new palisman’s soft crest.
The bird cocked his head and chirped inquisitively.
“I thought not. Well, then…I guess it’s just you and me for the next seven and a half hours, bird,” Caleb announced, straightening his back with resolve. “We shall do as Evelyn suggested, and relax a bit today. Err…”
He shifted from foot to foot and looked at the bird again.
“I don’t think I’m very good at relaxing. How exactly does one relax?”
The bird chirped encouragingly.
Caleb nodded firmly and went back inside, closing the door behind him.
A half hour later, Caleb was sitting in an overstuffed armchair, with a light snack and a mug of apple blood on a nearby side table.
He sighed, took a sip of his drink, and turned the page of the book in his lap.
He hadn’t read for pleasure for as long as he could remember. He felt so light. Airy. Free.
His eyes fluttered.
And in seconds he was fast asleep, with a round red bird nested in the hollow of his neck, snuggled up to his blond hair.
They napped peacefully, bathed in a ray of sunlight shining from a bright window.
The world’s most relaxing and peaceful nap was unfortunately short-lived.
As Caleb snoozed, a long, ominous shadow slowly rose over the armchair.
And then all hell broke loose.
“HOOT HOOT! INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” The shadow shrieked, its obnoxious voice echoing through the whole house. “RAAAHGGGHHHH!!! INTRUDER! KIDNAPPER! MISCREANT!”
“WHAT! WHERE AM I?” Caleb yelped, jerking up with wide eyes. “What-“
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY PRECIOUS LITTLE EVIE? I WILL MAKE YOU PAAAYYYYYYYY!”
“Oh, no, no, no, no, she’s at work, I’m-“
“BEGONE FOUL INTERLOPER!!!!”
Caleb turned in his chair, and finally got a good look at the shadow.
“GOOD LORD. WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!”
The creature slithered unsettlingly, and a round face was suddenly right in Caleb’s business, its sharp beak practically close enough to touch his nose.
“YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE,” it bellowed. “NOW FEEL MY WRAAAAAAATH.”
And then all hell broke loose again, and even worse than before.
“BIRD! HOW DO I CONTACT EVELYN!?” Caleb hissed as he barricaded himself behind the kitchen table while the creature tore apart the living room. “IS THERE A…I DUNNO, MAGIC WAY TO REACH HER!?”
The bird chirped and shrugged his red shoulders.
“I need to stop asking you questions. You know even less about the Demon Realm and magic than I do,” Caleb said, risking a peek over the side of the table. “You probably don’t even know where the library is, do you?”
The bird shook his head.
“Well, that can’t be helped, and it’s not your fault. I am quite new to this world, and you are quite new to…well. Everything!” Caleb said encouragingly. “There has got to be something we can do…that creature is obviously the house demon Evelyn mentioned, and she was quite nonchalant about the whole thing, so it can’t be that dangerous! There has got to be a way to get out of this!”
As he animatedly babbled to the bird, a long shadow silently rose over his back, a pair of yellow eyes glowing threateningly as it prepared to...
“CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP!!!”
“What is it-OH LORD IN HEAVEN!!!”
The bird and human barely made it out of the house alive as they were chased out by a shrieking bird…owl…tube…thing.
The door slammed, and the pair was left staring up at the house together.
“What the devil just happened?” Caleb whispered, blinking as he tried to collect himself. “Well…do you feel like going on an adventure, bird?”
Moments later and they were soaring off into the sky, towards Bonesborough, in hot pursuit of a library.
“Gravesfield doesn’t have anything as fancy as a library! But we should be able to recognize one if we see it!” Caleb said optimistically as he soared above the trees. “…right?”
The bird shrugged his wooden shoulders.
After a long flight, the bird and human reached their destination.
They landed in an alleyway next to a crowded market square, and before anyone could get a good look at him, Caleb self-consciously let down his ponytail.
“I don’t feel up to answering any ear related inquiries right now,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth as the bird landed on his shoulder.
A demon with a single horn poking out of his forehead, who was hawking baked goods at a nearby stall, immediately took notice of the disoriented pair and waved them over.
“What are ya doing slinking in an alley? Lost?” he asked with a kind smile.
“…yes,” Caleb said as he rubbed his arm sheepishly. “Quite lost.”
“Not to worry! I understand. I’ve only moved to Bonesborough just last month!” the demon said cheerfully. “From the jaw! Name’s Bill Tholomule. Where ya from?”
“Eerrrrr you may call me Caleb…from…the…Toes?”
The demon nodded. “Whatcha lookin’ for, Caleb from the Toes?”
“The library?”
“Ah! You’re actually close. Go down that street over there, take your first left and then the next right at the apple butcher, and you should be right there! Big building with stained glass! Can’t miss it!”
“Oh! Thank you very much, Goodman Tholomule.”
The demon cocked his head curiously. “Goodman?”
“I meant mister! Hah, just how we talk in the Toes! We’re a strange lot.”
The demon shrugged. “Not to worry. Forgive my nosiness, but whatcha seekin’ the library for?”
“Ahh. I’m looking for a witch. My…my girlfriend.”
The phrase felt strange in Caleb’s mouth as he spoke it. The words that rattled on his tongue were strange and clumsy and foreign, but they also made a warm softness blossom in his chest.
“Oh ho hoo!” Bill cooed as he nudged Caleb in the shoulder teasingly. “Well don’t YOU look smitten all of a sudden! I won’t keep ya from finding her. Have a good one!”
Caleb saluted, purchased a loaf of bread from his new friend’s stall, and turned to leave…
His boot landed on something soft, and he stumbled.
A loud screech tore through the crowded courtyard, the noise immediately catching everyone’s attention as a furious griffin swung around to see what had stepped on his tail.
Caleb slowly looked up into the creature’s face.
“Uh-oh.”
He took off as fast as he could on his staff, the griffin in hot pursuit.
Meanwhile, a witch in a red cloak walked down a dusty street, her heeled boots lightly clicking on cobblestone as she cheerfully took a bite of her lunch. She absentmindedly held out an orb for the yellow bird on her shoulder to peck at.
“See? Fire-honey is definitely the best flavor,” she said through a full mouth.
In the sky just over her shoulder, a distant form shot by like a meteor, screaming and flying for its life as it was pursued by an angry griffin.
Evelyn turned and glanced to the sky, a split-second too late.
She exchanged shrugs with her palisman and continued on her way, taking another big bite of her lunch.
When Evelyn returned home, it was to a scratched up Caleb moping under a palistrom tree in the front yard.
He jumped up before she even landed, his arms outstretched and face glowing in total relief.
“Evelyn!” he shouted, sprinting towards her. “Oh Evelyn, thank goodness! Bird and I were chased out of the house so we flew to Bonesborough to try and find you to get your help and I received directions to the library from this nice demon at a bakery stall but I accidentally upset a poor beast of some kind because I stepped on its tail so bird and I had to fly for our lives we barely managed to escape but then I got hungry so I tried the bread I bought from the demon I mentioned earlier and I’m not sure what was in it but it was something called chirping bread and it was DISGUSTING and I couldn’t finish it and-OH EVELYN!”
Caleb collapsed in her arms, completely exhausted.
“I am thoroughly humiliated. I feel so…incompetent,” Caleb murmured into her shoulder. “I may have been miserable, but at least in Gravesfield I knew what I was doing.”
“Oh…you have had quite a day,” Evelyn said, choosing to not inform her exhausted boyfriend that he had unknowingly eaten bread that traditionally contained ground up crickets.
But before she could add comforting words to let Caleb know he was the furthest thing from incompetent because he had managed to raise a child as a teenager for goodness sake and of course being in a new place with new rules and situations might throw him for a loop so he certainly shouldn’t be too hard on himself, they were interrupted by a familiarly loud and annoying voice.
“THE INTRUDER DARES TO RETURN! AND HE FUTHER DARES TO PUT HIS GRUBBY PAWS ALL OVER EVIE! GET OVER HERE AND FIGHT ME DEMON TO WITCH, YOU-“
Evelyn spun and pointed an authoritative finger in the demon’s face.
“Quit it, Hooty,” she barked.
The demon immediately stopped, blinking expectantly at the witch.
She turned back to give Caleb a fond yet exasperated look.
“Caleb. I told you how to deal with him. Did you introduce yourself?”
“No.”
“No?! Why no?!”
“I was asleep and he jumped me! I had no chance!”
“Oh. Oh for Titan’s sake…”
She placed a hand on Caleb’s shoulder and winced.
“I am so very sorry for what is about to happen. Brace yourself.”
“Why?…Evelyn?”
“Hooty, I’m sorry for being a bit harsh a moment ago, but you didn’t need to attack him. Meet Caleb. He’s…ahh. My…boy…friend.”
Hooty gasped.
Then he SHRIEKED.
Before Caleb was even aware of what was happening, both he and Evelyn were scooped up by disgustingly wiggly coils.
“WWAAAAHHHHH!!! HOOOOO HOO HOOT! EVIE! MY LITTLE EVIE FINALLY HAS A SIGNIFICANT OTHER! OH, HOW STUPENDOUS! WHAT A FANTASTICAL DAY! HA HAAAA! THE TWO OF YOU ARE SOOOOO ADORABLE TOGETHER! HMM! NOW THAT I THIINNKKK ABOUT IT…HOW SILLY OF ME! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN EVIE HAD A HUGE CRUSH! SHE TALKED ABOUT SOME MYSTERIOUS CALEB ALL THE TIME! CONSTANTLY! WAIT! YOU TWO NEED A CUTE COUPLE NAME! WHAT ABOUT CALYN? OR MAYBE EEEEVVVELEEEEEB?…”
Evelyn flushed and looked away from Caleb, the hapless couple unable to do anything but accept their fate as the house demon frantically squeezed them in a constricting embrace.
“There. Friendship with Hooty achieved. Hooty will now die for you,” she mumbled.
“Oh my, Evelyn. Did he just use the phrase ‘all the time?’” Caleb asked, suddenly quite interested in the information the house demon had just divulged.
“Shut up.”
“…constantly?”
“SHUT UP!”
“And what does he mean by ‘crush?’”
“Don’t worry about it!!!”
“IT MEANS SHE-“
“HOOTY! NO!”
“IT MEANS-“
“OH TITAN, HOOTY, PLEASE DON’T!”
“IT MEANS SHE LIKES YOU SO MUCH YOU MAKE HER SWOOOOOOOOOOOOON.”
Caleb turned to give his girlfriend a huge delighted grin.
“Oh my, Evelyn,” he said again, lower and smoother.
Evelyn FLARED red.
“So…besides the house demon attack and general mayhem, how was your first solo adventure in the Boiling Isles?” she asked quickly, desperate to change the subject.
“A little strange. A little gross. A little dangerous.”
Caleb gave his mortified girlfriend a small shy smile, his heart pounding at the adorably flustered look on her face.
“…I loved it.”