Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Winter birds, hopping between puddles of slushy mud, fluttered away as Essek intruded on their morning with his own self-indulgent wander. Tonight the Christmas tree farm would be bustling with people– hopefully– but for now it was still quiet and remote, and the wildlife didn’t mind his lack of footprints. Tonight–

Essek touched his lips again, unable to stifle the smile that had been visiting like a shy bird since last night. Light, he’d kissed him. And Caleb had assured him they’d see each other again tonight– said he wouldn’t miss it for the world– and looked at him like maybe he didn’t want to return to his hectic professor life for the spring semester, like maybe–

Not that Essek would let him. Not that he could. The charming professor had only taken a semester off in this small town to finish his book– quite nearly done– and there was no world in which Essek could really ask him to stay for only him. He had already steeled himself to soaking this in for the next few weeks to tuck away into his heart like a pressed flower in the yellowed pages of a forgotten book; all he could do was make sure he saved away as many precious memories as he could.

The warning call of a jay carried through the trees, and Essek shook himself from his more melancholic musings. He would see Caleb tonight. And then– 

“Dezran!”

Essek startled out of his float into the slushy mud. Thank the Light and his paranoia that he kept his disguise up even when expecting to be alone.

“Caleb!” The smile returned again, with more teeth than he’d let show to anyone else, but this was Caleb. “I wasn’t expecting you?”

“Ah, hallo. Dezran, um…” Caleb shoved his hands into his pockets, brow pinching, no hint of his usual reciprocated delight.

Essek’s smile melted away. “What’s wrong?”

“We need to talk.” Caleb wouldn’t meet his eyes. 

“I’m listening?”

“I, um, is this private? Is this a safe place?”

A cold mycelia of fear was spreading through Essek’s heart. “Caleb, what are you talking about?”

“Dezran, I– th–” Caleb wrung his hands, looked around and sat down heavily on the whimsically decorated crate that hid the electrical utility box for the overhead string lights. For a moment he looked up at Essek and forced a smile that couldn’t chase the sadness from his eyes. Essek returned it, waveringly, and the moment held until Caleb dropped his eyes again and let out a heavy sigh. “I have a confession to make… Thelyss.”

—

“It’s been an act.” Bren couldn’t bear to watch the worried softness of Thelyss’ smile crystalize into fear. A coward and a thief still, he thought as he tucked away that final memory of affection stolen from some timeline where he’d lost his heart without duplicity. He watched Thelyss step back, hands flinching with readied somantics, then fixed gaze down on his boots. 

“Who are you?”

Unimportant. “They’re coming for you tonight. You need to leave.” The Sending had come this morning without warning. Bren kept his own hands clasped together on top of his knees: a spellcaster’s apology.  “I know you have no reason to trust me–”

“Who are you?”

Slowly telegraphing his movements, Bren pushed up his sleeve just far enough to reveal the margins of his circuit-like tattoos. “You know what I am.”

No reply. Bren’s neck should have been prickling with the vulnerability of looking away from a mage of this caliber. 

“I–” I’m sorry. I wish you’d never believed me. I wish I’d made some kind of mistake before this even started. I wish– “It w-wasn’t real.” The shake in his voice was a sure confession, but Thelyss could choose to ignore that. Must choose to. 

He schooled his face into something passably impassive, and looked up to snowy footprints backing away from him, ending abruptly where their owner had vanished.

He was gone.

Chapter Text

A year later Essek wove through the flock of people queuing around a sweets stall in Emon’s holiday gift fair, clutching his steaming apple cider close in a protective posture against wayward elbows. Warm caramelized air wafted over the clamor, turning his head towards the large kettle of glazed popcorn, constantly stirred by a dwarf in a festive apron. Momentarily mesmerized by the churning motion, Essek took his next step without looking and collided with another shopper, losing half his drink across the man’s winter coat. 

“Oh, sorry, sorry, let me–” Essek turned his hand through half the somatics for Prestidigitation before looking up to painfully familiar eyes and feeling the verbal components freeze in his mouth. He was still disguised, but in this moment his best-cast illusion didn’t matter. The man who was not named Caleb Widogast was looking right through to him.

He’d grown out his beard and his hair was long enough now to easily tie back. His coat was well-worn and it seemed he still favored long scarves… or pretended to. Essek should run, lose him in the crowd, and Teleport again. He didn’t move. Caleb– that was not his name– only stared back, perhaps even genuinely surprised. In the periphery of Essek’s senses, another shopper remarked loudly on the length of the line. 

“Dezran.”

You know that is not my name.  

“Caleb.” Then, with inordinate mundanity: “I didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I was distracted.”

Somebody pushed past Caleb, jostling him closer, and Essek reflexively shielded what was left of his cider from further spillage.

“Should we? Somewhere else?” Caleb made a distracted gesture over his shoulder at a row of benches.

They shouldn’t, but alongside everything else Caleb was and had done was the tidy fact that he had warned Essek, with every apparent intention of enabling his flight to some other safety. He’d fled to the other side of the world and built a new cover with supposed success, and turned that thought over like a stone until the edges were smooth: there was something besides betrayal there. Another feeling shifted its weight on the perch by his heart, and ruffled its feathers.

So Essek nodded. “Lead the way.”

Something flickered in Caleb’s expression then, a furrow of the brow there and gone between the gaps in his facade of an ordinary shopper stopped for a moment in the holiday rush. “Ja, of course.”

Essek followed him through the crowd, which parted more easily for the taller man than it would have for Essek alone, and wondered what there would be for him to say. All of his imaginings of their ever meeting again had involved more shouting and fewer witnesses. Reality was both easier and more absurd, and the crisp night air was not the only thing bringing a sharpness to the back of his throat.

—

Bren reached the benches and indulged himself in one bittersweet moment to stand there before moving on. It didn’t really sting that he’d have to leave the careful cover he’d built for this city behind. It was worth it to have met Dezr– Thelyss again, so unlooked for, to hear his familiar voice through an unfamiliar disguise, just to know he was safe and still alive. He hadn’t really believed he’d ever know that.

“Is something the matter with them?”

He was still here.

“Was?”

“The benches?” Thelyss met his eyes and Bren saw the moment he remembered that the last time Bren had looked away from him, he had vanished. “Oh.”

Please understand why I looked away from you again.

“The, ah, the benches are lovely.”

“Yes, very… They are– Let us sit.”

They sat. 

Bren tugged at the cuffs of his fingerless gloves then clasped his hands again. “So.”

“… How did they like your book?”

“...Was?”

“You were writing a book. Your employers…” Thelyss raised an eyebrow.

So they were really talking about it. He wasn’t sure if skipping past small talk was daunting or a relief. “Ah, yes, ah, they didn’t like it much at all. I thought it might be best to, to seek alternative employment, as it were.”

“I don’t think I should believe you.”

It shouldn’t have hurt to hear that, and it shouldn’t have felt hopeful to hear it said so sadly. “I know.”

“And have you found alternative employment?”

“Oh, nein, not really. I’ve done a few odd jobs, ah, run a few scams, but no, I am not affiliated with anyone at the moment. It is… very different.” He had indulged in imagining he and Thelyss had been getting along rather similarly that past year.

“Had you been with… them a long time?”

“Most of my life.”

Thelyss mulled over the thought, then: “How did you find me here?”

“I didn’t. I had no idea. I was in the city to visit a shop, and well, I like a holiday market…” He half-laughed, and the sound felt even less credible than his words. How could he prove a fantastic coincidence? Should it really matter if he did? 

“...You are a sappy one.”

The laugh was more real this time. “Says the one who was selling trees.”

“I didn't have to touch them. I paid people for that.”

Bren let his smile fade before he spoke. “It has been nice seeing you again, ah, hearing your voice.”

“I… as well.”

An unwitting group of holiday shoppers bustled past them, talking loudly and laughing. Several of them were holding hands.

Bren spoke to his gloves. “I wish– I wish things were different for us.”

The reply was barely audible: “So do I.”

The impossible moment stretched on. Thelyss picked at the paper sleeve around his half-full cup of cider, and didn’t make any excuse to leave. It was more than Bren deserved.

 “Why are you still talking to me?”

“Why did you warn me to go?”

“…I do not think it benefits either of us to hear me say it.”

Thelyss looked to him. “Indulge me?”

Bren couldn’t meet his gaze. “I know you have guessed. Please.”

“…I apologize.”

Was there more to that response than just contriteness? He didn’t think he could be a reliable judge of the situation anymore. Bren began to say he'd better go just as Theylss started to ask a question.

Thelyss stopped, waved a hand for him to continue. “Sorry, go ahead.”

“No, no, you go on.” Selfish, he’d accept a little more time if offered.

 “What is your name?”

“Oh.” This secrecy didn’t matter between them anymore. “Bren. I have been using another name in this city, but– Bren.”

Whispered: “Bren.”

“Ja.”

—

Bren. Essek thought the name suited him somehow. It sounded Zemnian– perhaps Caleb– perhaps Bren really had been from there. 

Perhaps he would answer that question, if Essek asked. Perhaps Essek would believe his answer. 

Likely, he would.

The bench they were sitting on felt like a precipice of risk. If Essek wanted, he could lean to the side just slightly, and they would be brushing shoulders. He might fall. Would that be dangerous?

Bren had saved him once, a year ago. He didn’t seem to regret it. And Essek had guessed why. 

Bren shifted in his seating and spoke. “I think I’d better go, then.”

“Wait.”

“Why?”

“You know why.” It felt freeing to admit it.

Bren took a few tries to respond. “You know it wasn't real.”

“I don't believe that.” The obvious lie pricked him. “You haven’t given me any reason to believe that.”

“What do you want me to do– what can we do?”

“I don’t know.” The truth was, looked for as they were, solitude was a sort of safety. It minimized mistakes. “But I want to know I’ll see you again.”

“I would like that.”

“And, well,” Unbidden, Essek was remembering the night before their fateful previous conversation, the bonfire by the river, ice skaters and warm drinks, Caleb leaning in– in the present, spilled drops of Essek’s cider still beaded on Bren’s scarf. “I think you owe me a new drink, at least.”

“I–” Bren took a moment to catch the tease in his voice. “That was not my fault. You owe me a dry coat.”

“Easily done.” Essek stood, smoothly casting prestidigitation as he turned to face him. “And my drink?”

“You are persuading me.” Bren followed him up, and offered an arm. “I do remember seeing a stall as I came in.”

Essek linked arms with him, letting teeth show in his smile. “I think that will be sufficient.”

Bren looked down at him with his odd happy frown, and behind and above him feathery flakes of snow began to fall.