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They are still coming off of a narrow escape from the latest Aeorian beast when Caleb notices something wrong. It’s subtle, because they are both trying to catch their breath from the dash away from danger, but… something feels wrong in a different way. He is so fine-tuned to that sort of thing, these days. He has learned to be over the past two decades of his life, but especially now: especially with Essek Thelyss at his side, each of them tasked with protecting the other in this desolate hellscape. With just the two of them, they have to afford more attention to the thing. And he’s cold, and aching, and fighting against the thin blanket of exhaustion that’s muffled things after a night's sleep interrupted by dreams and uncertainties. And he’s tired, more than the lack of sleep can attribute, out of breath from the sprinting and the sneaking. But they have a moment of safety, after this setback, so he affords attention to the thing. He tries to focus even as he braces a hand against the filthy wall and sets to calming his heart, trying to control the racing there so he can delegate attention to other things. They are, for the moment, safe.
He says as much out loud. “I think we’ve lost them.” He stares back into the murky darkness they’ve left behind, for as much good as it’ll do. He is not equipped for seeing into the pitch today, but the creatures here are never silent and rarely stealthy once they are on the hunt. He is fairly sure they’d lost it a handful of hallways back, but better safe than sorry.
“Yes,” Essek agrees, simple and breathless. Caleb swivels his attention to his traveling companion, deciding he looks none the worse for wear either. Worried, still, eyes a hectic gleam in the artificial light of this room, but that’s to be expected. They are getting used to this adventure in this place on their own, but close calls only ever seemed to get closer the longer they stayed.
They were lucky, this time. Sometimes they aren’t.
Caleb lets out a breath, and tries to relax. His hands are shaking from more than the cold. His legs feel like rubber. He sags a little into the wall to keep himself upright as his adrenaline settles.
At his side, Essek slumps into the corner, too.
It’s with that movement that Caleb pinpoints it, really pinpoints it. His attention locks on to his companion entirely, the slump of his shoulders and the waver in his magic. The shudder in his breath unlike the one from cold. Caleb, he thinks, has a reason for being out of breath. He is old and tired and forever out of shape. The asylum had done more than break his mind, in that regard, and he still suffers from it to this day. Mad dashes will never be an effortless thing, and he still struggles with them. But Essek… who has perfectly serviceable levitation magic at his behest, feet still three inches off the ground as he struggles to stay upright next to him now… well, Caleb knows the strain of magic, but there is less exertion there. There is little reason for Essek to breathe so hard when Caleb can already feel his lungs acclimatizing to this moment of rest.
Somehow, Essek continues to look worse.
It’s subtle, but it’s there. He can’t unnotice it now. “Essek,” he says softly, angling a step closer to his space. He tries not to panic. There is no visible blood, so he tries not to panic, but it is so hard not to; Essek is– very dear, and they are alone in this place with no backup as usual. “Were you hit?”
He shakes his head, which is reassuring, but the hitch in his breath only becomes more pronounced. He wobbles in levitation, and Caleb hurriedly cups his elbow as it fails altogether and he stumbles onto his feet instead.
“Essek–”
“I’m fine,” Essek interrupts, even as Caleb can feel him shake through their scant touch and considerable layering of clothes. “I’m, just– I need a moment,” he says on one breath, and turns his face away to breathe in hard again. Like his lungs won’t work with him, like he cannot get enough oxygen in this moment of panic–
– ah. Caleb makes a soft noise, and is surprised as much as he… isn’t, really. They are alike, the two of them, so alike. He recognizes the breathing that does not calm and the shaking in weak limbs and the anxious, wild look in his purple eyes before they’d whisked away to stare towards the wall. The reason Essek’s concentration had wavered on his usual magic. Levitation was as easy as breathing for him, but even that will be near impossible right now.
This panic goes deeper than the close shave out there. Caleb recognizes it, and it wrenches pain into his own chest as Essek’s knees buckle, and he half collapses to the floor.
“I’m sorry–” he gasps, but Caleb is already shaking his head, moving with him, helping cushion the descent to the floor.
“Nein,” he says softly, unhappily, placing his hand at Essek’s jaw. He flinches, but doesn’t pull back. It doesn’t look like he could if he wanted to, but Caleb keeps his touch light and unrestrictive. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner.” Something indescribable passes Essek’s face, and his breath wheezes, rattling, out of his lungs. “Try to breathe,” Caleb murmurs, and swipes his thumb against his cheek.
In this moment of crisis, he can’t… he can’t remember a single constructive thing anyone else had done for him in times like these. Veth’s hands holding his. Mollymauk’s mouth on his skin. Jester, talking, endless talking… but those memories are lost in a blanket haze of uncertainty and what had been his own anxiety at the time. He mostly remembers the touch, the warm heat of someone physical and stronger beneath his hands. Someone who could pull him back together when he was falling apart. The terrible thing is he doesn’t think he’s qualified enough to be able to do that for another person, but– but… Essek needs him to try right now.
“Try to breathe,” he repeats, and takes a deep breath of his own. He tries to shake away his jitters, because he doesn’t have time for that now. Essek needs him. “Just like this, ja?” He removes his palm from his face only so he can take Essek’s hand between his own; he presses it flush to his own chest and takes another deep breath. Essek yanks his hand back when they connect, but Caleb doesn’t let go this time. “Just like this,” he repeats, and rests his hand over top of the elf’s.
Something reaches through the panic. It must. Essek does not try to pull away again. Caleb wonders if he imagines his fingers constrict in his coat, and his own fingers itch from sense memory. The pads of his fingertips burying into fur, and hiding his face into the nape of the neck of a purring cat to calm himself down. Well, he cannot come anywhere near to being Frumpkin, but… maybe this will help. Physical contact… something to put your hands on… he hopes that it’ll help.
“We are safe,” he says out loud, now passing his thumb against Essek’s knuckles. “I know we are usually deep in the shit, and– and we will be again, I think. But, ähm, right now we are safe. You are I, we are both safe.”
Essek still does not look his way. But he nods, so that means something. That means Caleb is getting through to him, at least a little bit.
It hasn’t been so long since he’s been through this himself, but, Scheiße, it feels like a lifetime, sitting here, useless, with Essek shaking under his touch. In theory– short of a cat or encouraging words– he knows there is little he can do, but… it still hurts, seeing this person he cares so much for broken down like this. He wants to take Essek’s face between his hands, seek out his eyes to reassure him their safety in this uncertain place, and press his lips to his creased brow like he had during that horrible battle with Lucien when everything had gone to shit then, too. But that is too familiar, too close in this moment of choking panic. And he isn’t naive to the way Essek is staring doggedly towards the wall. Panic and shame… such old, terrible friends.
He can’t take that away. Even when Essek comes out of this, he knows he can’t take it away. It is not skin deep, ready to wash away with a hot bath or extravagant soap. It’s something Essek is going to carry for, probably, the rest of his life. And Caleb hates that, but he knows it. He knows it too well.
But he will do what he can. This is familiar, trailing his free hand down to the focus he keeps tucked into his belt. The spell is simple, and will be infinitely more comfortable than sitting on this dirty floor in the middle of an eccentric abandoned lab. “I’ll get the tower up for us, and–”
“ – no,” Essek interrupts. His hand tightens at the front of Caleb’s coat like he is even remotely able at holding him back right now. “Caleb–”
“We do not have to sit here and add to our misery, my friend. We can at least be comfortable at our almost home.”
“It’s a waste,” Essek whispers. He still sounds miserable. But his breathing does not come so unsteady. Maybe this distraction comes as the best one yet.
He knows where he’s coming from. They are barely past midday, and nowhere near lagging on magical talent for the afternoon. They’d had plans that are now being torn apart. But those plans had already sort of taken a back seat when they’d been chased down the halls by the beasties here, a fact that Caleb is going to have to remind him of later. But later.
“I don’t think being comfortable is ever a waste, ja?”
“You shouldn’t–”
“I should,” Caleb interrupts firmly. “Do not think me so insensitive to drag you back into the thick of it so soon, Herr Thelyss.” The protest dies on Essek’s lips, just like he’d thought maybe it would. They are alike, after all. But he doesn’t want to exploit his weaknesses more than necessary. He just wants to make him see– well. He wants him to know he has people that care for him, at the very least. Caleb fidgets the wand between his fingers, and squeezes Essek’s hand beneath his. “And I could do with getting warmed up, too.” He feeds him the out he knows he needs, right now. “So it is no trouble.” He turns to the blank space of wall in front of them. “Just give me sixty seconds and we’ll get us inside.”
Essek doesn’t protest, for what it’s worth. Maybe very little, Caleb knows, but something in him still thrills at the small success. Even in these extenuating circumstances. He wants to take care of him, but it’s– it’s complicated, both in terms of complicated feelings and Essek’s own guilt and distance from emotional connection. So while Essek’s shoulders sag and his posture slumps a little more in defeat, Caleb is… he is more than a little happy that Essek is trusting him with this. Even because of extenuating circumstances.
As he casts, from the corner of his eye, he pretends he does not see Essek turn his face to scrub his sleeve against his cheeks. He doesn’t need to share how many times he’s puked himself into submission when the anxiety got to be too much. And maybe part of him wants to be wiping away Essek’s tears for him, but– nein. He holds tighter to the focus, and focuses fully on the verbal part of the spell. He can settle for this, building homes from his imagination. There are cats and soup and nice, comfortable sofas waiting on the other side of this door. He doesn’t need to bring attention to Essek’s shame to offer comfort to him when there are so many other, more subtle ways.
He does hold Essek’s hand as he helps him into the tower, first to help him back to his feet and then to be sure he is steady enough on his own until he casts the spell for levitation. He still looks– honestly? a bit like shit, but his breathing is easier. His hair is unkempt from a moment of putting his face in his hand in the hallway, and his eyes look a little rimmed in red. But his breathing is easier, and he isn’t shaking enough for Caleb to see, if at all. There isn’t– calm, really, but it’s close enough that he feels comfortable letting go of his hand once they’re inside.
And then Essek looks at him, really looks at him, since all of this had started, and Caleb nearly chokes on the secondhand guilt and humiliation. It seizes at his throat and cloys on his tongue as Essek glances at him and then purposefully does not make eye contact as he says, still on a whisper: “I’m– sorry, Caleb–”
“Nein.” He interrupts, swallowing the bitter taste on his tongue. He knows it so well. And he is so tired of it. He is sick to death of it. He doesn’t want it for Essek anymore than he wants it for himself any longer. “Nein, Essek. I have been where you were,” he admits, “more times than I can count. It is just our body reacting to trauma. Or, well, it is more than that, too, but, ähm, I think, between you and I, it– it might be…”
“… trauma,” Essek finishes blandly.
He can hear the distaste of the word on his lips. Like he doesn’t think he’s afforded that. Well, Caleb had thought that once, too. That isn’t a conversation he’s going to have with him right now, either, because it’s pushing too hard when he’s already in such a fragile place, but… maybe one day Essek will accept he is allowed to deserve parsing through that trauma, too.
But time. All things with time, and all of that.
For now, he simply says “ja,” in agreement, and leaves it at that.
He’s able to usher Essek into the library because it is their place, familiar with its many hours poring over novels and spellwork alike. He directs one of the fluffier fey cats onto the sofa with Essek, and keeps a watchful eye as it, too, coaxes Essek into first scritching behind its ears, and then eventually absentmindedly stroking it as it purrs at his side. He has tea prepared for both of them, and he curls up on the sofa with a respectable distance between them and his own book to peruse as they try to relax. It’s quiet, but comfortable, and he’s able to pinpoint the moment when Essek finally relaxes again. It isn’t until a few minutes after that that he realizes he’s only just allowed himself to relax, too.
Well… he is a worrier. What can he say?
It isn’t until Essek’s head slumps a little, and the hand petting the cat curled into his lap falls still, that Caleb realizes he’s asleep. Truly, honestly asleep, head propped on his fist, lips slightly parted. One of the messy strands of hair still limp over his forehead. And Caleb stares, because– because he has never seen an elf sleep before. He’s certainly never seen Essek sleep before.
He doesn’t even look wholly comfortable. Half propped up, expression a little pinched. He is going to have a crick in his neck, nevermind if his feet fall asleep from having his legs crossed like that. He’d be more comfortable in bed. Caleb knows– as he is the one who had imagined all of the tower’s beds into existence– that he would be more comfortable in bed. But… he lets him sleep. He doesn’t dare disturb this moment of Essek’s hard earned peace. He knows he’d never talk him back into rest if he woke him up now. So maybe it’s a little uncomfortable, but at least it’s getting him what he needs. His body taking what it was afforded after a rough day. He deserved that much.
Gods knew they could all do with more rest, these days.
Caleb forces his attention back to his book. There is research to do. Spells to perfect. But… he shares a glance with the cat curled protectively on Essek’s lap… ja. They could both use a little time to unwind.
He gets comfortable, and stays by Essek’s side.