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The streets of Rexxentrum were a familiar sight for Essek, though his current visage had never once stepped foot on its stone. He’d just teleported from Uthodurn and was currently disguised as an elf, a tried and true persona that given the speed of his trip had been supplementary enough.
Leoven Laetle. He thought it was a rather nice name. He was a younger elf spending his time traveling around the globe with little more than the cloak on his back and the money he made doing odd jobs. Leoven was quiet (most of Essek’s disguises were), but friendly enough to the point he could occasionally score a free meal.
Elves were certainly an oddity in Rexxentrum, and knowing this Essek made sure to keep his hood over himself, melding into the crowds as he slowly traversed his way through in the direction of the residential zone.
Rexxentrum, despite its difficulties, had become a welcomed sight for Essek over the many years he’d been here. He’d had several reunions with the Mighty Nein here, whether it was in town or simply at Caleb or Beau’s homes. He even attended some of the festivals that they held alongside Caleb, always lively and exciting in a way that made his chest feel light and at ease.
Of course, the main reason Rexxentrum had made its impact on him was due to Caleb Widowgast himself.
There was a time quite a while ago now when he lived with the man. Life had been content, but he’d worried about the Dynasty catching up with him and so with a heavy heart left. Caleb had been understanding as ever, and Essek was grateful that he’d promised to always have his home open to him at any time, no matter the situation. It gave him a place to be at ease.
Of course, this didn’t stop their conversations. Essek managed to get his hands on a two-way mirror to allow the two to talk whenever they wanted, and given that they were both accomplished wizards they were more than situated to teleport at a moment's notice. Usually, it was Essek who would travel to Caleb, but occasionally they traveled together and got invested into ‘nerdy wizard shit’ as Jester had so kindly put it.
It was nerdy wizard shit but he wouldn’t tell her that.
Essek hid a smile under the hood of his cloak at the thought of the Mighty Nein. In Essek’s life on the run they were his family, and he would be eternally grateful to them for allowing him into their lives so openly. Tensions with the Dynasty had calmed down over the years, but he knew they hadn’t forgotten about him, and likely wouldn’t. He may very well spend the rest of his life disguised, but he was prepared for that, and he knew the Nein would be there for him through it all.
Essek quickened his pace as he turned down a street to a series of houses. He practically knew every inch of it by memory- he knew exactly how many houses there were, how many houses further Yasha and Beau’s house was, and how many steps (approximately) Caleb’s house was.
And at the end of it, there was the familiar wooden beamed house with a wonderful garden out front he and Yasha had planted. There were a few bowls for cat food and water left out around the property, and the one in the front was a bright yellow bowl that Caduceus had brought (Caleb of course wanted to adopt every cat in the neighborhood but settled eventually for feeding them regularly, and treated each newcomer medically in case they were ill). The door was blue, and the wooden archway had been painted by Jester with little designs that represented parts of the Nein, Essek included.
Caleb had grown teary-eyed, and Essek had been in a similar state.
Excitement fluttered in Essek’s chest as he approached the door. While it had been at most a month since he’d last seen Caleb, he was a little desperate to see him again and talk about what he’d seen. Of course, there was the subject that Caleb had summoned him for in the first place.
He knocked. There was a moment's pause before footsteps could be heard approaching, and a quiet ‘mrow’ with a familiar voice murmuring a response. The door clicked and finally swung open.
Caleb Widowgast, for all his years, still managed to take Essek’s breath away.
His brilliant red hair had since faded to a silver, but he still tied it with a ribbon. Essek had indulged quite a bit and gifted him about twenty in one meeting, but from that point on always saw him wearing the set. His clothes were very nearly the same as they’d always been, though they hung differently on his body now, a little looser perhaps but not so much to suggest malnourishment. His coat had changed, but its numerous pockets with precise components had stayed the same.
His face too had changed, and Essek could remember clearly the days when wrinkles first appeared; he'd spent hours in bed tracing over every line and committed each to memory. His eyes were still sky blue, still full of curiosity and a want for knowledge that Essek was all too willing to indulge him in. His mind, in that vein, had never faltered for more than a second, still sharp as he had always been.
Caleb smiled, and it felt a bit like returning home.
“Leoven Laetle this time, ja?” Caleb said.
Of course, Caleb remembered his off-handed mention of his current disguise from three weeks ago. But Essek nodded, and Caleb stepped aside to let him in.
The moment he entered the threshold he dropped his disguise and gazed around at the foyer. It was small, with a staircase on the right wall and straight ahead a doorway leading to the rest of the house. Directly to his left was a sitting room where he’d spent plenty of time inside reading. Above his head was a globe of light that hovered just below the ceiling that never disappeared, and on the walls a few paintings that consisted of Jester’s own work and some that he’d been gifted. He sighed happily, beginning to turn to Caleb but before he could one of the many cats in this home came running up to him.
Essek laughed warmly as Tasha started to nuzzle him, purring loudly once he crouched down to pet her.
“She always knows when you’re coming,” Caleb said softly behind him, and Essek turned his head to see the man looking at them with something in his expression that he couldn’t quite place. He frowned but continued giving Tasha his attention.
“Perhaps she has a bit of magic herself, hm?” Essek said and Tasha blinked at him. Essek made a quick motion to conjure his pocket dimension and brought out a small toy for her, using a small spell to make it roam around the ground.
Satisfied that the cat was properly entertained, Essek returned to his full height and turned to Caleb, whose face had returned to a neutral expression. Interesting.
“Hardly. She runs around like a blind bat and makes it my problem that the table is where it had been for ten years,” He complained, though with no real bite.
Essek laughed, that familiar warmth settling now in his body all the way to his bones. This was where he was happy. This was where he felt he could be at ease, Dynasty and history be damned. With Caleb, the world became manageable, with discussions of magic and the comfort of cats ready at every step he took. Essek could finally breathe.
Caleb too could sense the shift it seemed, as his expression changed to something a little more gentle.
“Hallo,” He said softly, a greeting Essek had heard a hundred times before.
“Hello,” Essek said back, heart fluttering just slightly. It was how they always started their visits, no matter what. It had earned some teasing from the Nein when they learned about it, but it had always been their thing and they were not deterred from it.
It was the simplicity, in a way, that made it meaningful. Memories too came with it, but from its foundings it had been their way of breaking the ties to properness and rigidity they had known separately in their lives. Their way of opening to each other, being who they were plainly for the other to see.
“There’s ah,” Caleb paused, searching for a word as he frowned. “Something, I’d like to talk about, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Essek nodded. Caleb had sent him a message earlier this week asking for him to visit. While they had scheduled meetings for at least every month, it was somewhat unnecessary as they usually saw each other every other week, and Sent in between that. He hadn’t thought much at the request at the time, though now seeing Caleb’s face twisted in some sort of way he wondered if he should have worried a little more.
“Certainly.”
Caleb nodded, a little stiffly that Essek noticed immediately. There was something wrong, that was most certain. Maybe someone from the Nein’s past was back, and Caleb was in trouble? Maybe one of their friends had been cursed and Caleb needed Essek’s help to fix it. Maybe Caleb cursed himself with some ancient artifact he had tampered with. Gods know it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened.
“Right, let’s move into the sitting room, ja?” Caleb was already walking, and without a word, Essek followed suit.
They settled in the sitting room, similar to the foyer in aesthetics but much more decorated. There was a chandelier in here that Caleb himself had created. It had nine stems, each one styled after a different member of the party and like the other, lit with arcane magic. There was a sofa with matching armchairs, purple and wonderfully plush and perfect for napping. On the far wall was a fireplace with a painting above that had been painted by Jester, with each member of the group including Essek by Caleb’s side. There was also a bookshelf, which Essek himself had helped fill, which detailed both the most specialized texts of arcane knowledge that dated back to pre-Calamity, and a selection of smut that Jester had gifted (and some that Caleb had bought).
They sat on the sofa, not directly next to each other but no more than an arm stretch away. Essek was settling his thoughts while Caleb looked to be increasingly unsettled, brows furrowing and twiddling his fingers. Another cat, Poki, wandered into the room as if he sensed the distress in the air, and jumped up and settled next to Caleb on the far side. Instantly, Caleb’s fingers ran through the fur as he tried to steer himself.
“It’s a difficult thing,” Caleb started, staring into the fireplace. “Time. We have both had our fair share of it, ja? I wanted to manipulate it for my own gains, and you wanted to study and understand its full powers for your own manipulations. Evidently, neither of us succeeded in that before we were, ah, changed, I suppose.”
Essek’s eyes flicked to the painting on the wall, nodding. “Your friends made quite the impact.”
Caleb breathed a laugh. “Ja, ja. They did- they do. Jester just recently reformed a thief she encountered trying to steal her bag. Well, after smacking him with a lollipop, of course.”
Essek smiled. “That’s certainly something Jester would do.”
Caleb looked at him for a moment, his eyes finally locking on his, and the tension in his shoulders seemed to seep away.
“That’s not what I asked you here to discuss,” Caleb continued.
“No, I assumed as much.”
“I wanted to ask you about your plans.”
Essek frowned. Plans? “What plans?”
Whatever force that had managed to propel Caleb into the topic he wanted to bring up seemed to shut away just as quickly as it came, as his eyes darted away again. Poki let out a disgruntled noise as his hand stopped, and he muttered a quiet apology and continued.
Essek didn’t like to push Caleb when it came to difficult conversations. In their history, when it came to something Caleb was having difficulty bringing up or managing into words he had always been patient, and gave Caleb the space to slowly bring it up. In return, Caleb had always let him admit his quiet secrets in the dark after they’d gone to bed, and said little besides comforting words throughout, rubbing his arm or holding his hand.
But Caleb here was different. This wasn’t something about his past, no- this was something entirely different. Something that concerned him in some way, though undoubtedly it would affect their friends.
“Caleb,” Essek said, keeping his voice even despite the bubbling questions already circling through his head. He took a breath. “What plans?”
There was a long pause. Caleb continued to stare into the fireplace, his eyes occasionally trailing up to the painting, and then to his lap. He was readying himself for something, and Essek tried to keep his worries at bay and away from startling Caleb.
“Hypothetically,” Caleb finally said, and sighed. “Hypothetically, what are your plans regarding your life and its future on the run?”
Essek tensed. His life had not been easy the last several years, not that he expected it to be. The Dynasty was looking for him still, and while it had been a long time since he’d had a run in with assassins he was not in any rush to find himself in a similar situation without backup or ready components. His life had been composed of jumping around from place to place, forming identities in each location as a frequent traveler, searching for adventure or new experiences. This label had done him well so far, and he wasn’t in any rush to ruin it. He had plenty of gold to keep him going, and with the payments he received from doing some work he would be fine for years to come.
Of course, this was the life of his disguised self, and not Essek Thelyess. Essek would not reveal himself to anyone anytime soon as far as he was concerned, only showing himself to his friends. He was still in contact with Verin to some extent, though they only ever talked through messages and what was said was usually curt, yet pleased. His mother, of course, had disowned him once the news broke of his betrayal. While there was some mourning for the life he had known, he couldn’t find in himself to be entirely disappointed with the change as he had long since found family elsewhere. His one constant, truly, was them.
“I suppose what it is now,” Essek said. He watched Caleb closely. “Running isn’t ideal, but for now it works until the Dynasty wears itself down or chooses to forget. Even at that, I find solace in the comfort of our friends to, ah, live a little, as Jester has put it, ” He paused. “And I find that same solace in you, Caleb Widowgast.”
Caleb seemed to be fumbling with a thought, his fingers tapping on his knee.
“And what if,” He swallowed. “I wasn’t here?”
His eyes finally looked to Essek.
Essek’s heart stopped. It was with a sinking sensation that the words processed in his mind, connecting dots that he didn’t want to see. He cleared his throat.
“And why might that be?”
“Just answer me, please.”
“A hypothetical?”
“Ja, ja, yes, a hypothetical.”
“I-” Words were caught in Essek’s throat. A lump was forming, and his mind was scrambling. He shook his head.
He didn’t know.
There were so many pieces to Essek’s plan for life that he had figured out. Dating back to his childhood, he knew he was meant for a role on the council of the Bright Queen, having been born a Thelyess. When he first opened a book on dunamancy, barely old enough to understand it, he had fallen in love and knew. This is what he was meant for; time and space and the irregularities of the world and the unending questions about the fabrics of the very beliefs he’d grown up in were all questions to be delved in and studied deeply. When he was Shadowhand, it was gaining access to even more. When that failed, it was bringing it into his own hands by stealing the Luxon Beacons.
He’d had a plan. And then Caleb Widowgast presented one of the very beacons Essek had smuggled and it all fell to pieces.
Plans from here were short-sighted. Keep them close, keep an eye on them, don’t get caught. Act as an authority, don’t be friends. Indulge maybe, that fateful hot tub venture. Perhaps to build trust, show the intelligent wizard some spells.
And then he was freefalling into a trap he built himself.
Venom in his veins, but a chance to rebuild. He moved to Eiselcross, and didn’t hear from the people who gave him a second chance because he was their friend (how had that happened?) for months. And then a journey north, a terrible foe. There was no plan here.
Then he was left with a vague idea. Keep to himself, stay with your friends. Remain in hiding. For years this had been the plan.
Why did Caleb Widowgast always ruin his plans?
Despite the panic, despite knowing what it was, he tried to push those thoughts aside and gave Caleb a weak smile. “Certainly that isn’t something that will matter for years?”
Caleb didn’t look at him, and Essek felt his heartbreak.
Oh.
“I don’t know when,” Caleb murmured, and Essek finally tore his eyes away from the man and to the coffee table in front of them. The one he had helped choose. “But I feel it. Caduceus said the Wild Mother was giving notice- repayment, in a way, for helping with the grove.”
The grove. Of course. The place where Caleb along with the rest of the Mighty Nein had agreed to be buried. Their names, along with a family title ‘The Mighty Nein’ just underneath. Years ago it had seemed like a somber but sweet thing, but now it felt like a trespassing reality that he would rather vanquish, or conjure a black hole at.
“I see,” Essek said, but those words could not be further from the truth.
He looked to Caleb, for the risk of finding something he didn’t wish to, and finally looked. Perhaps the wrinkles and lines were deepset, and perhaps his head was silver with no trace of its original color, and thinner than he remembered it. Perhaps at times his movements were unsteady, but Caleb had been clumsy always. His mind had stayed intact. That was something that age could not take away from him.
Had it really been so long? Had he really lived through Caleb’s entire life in what felt like merely a handful of years for him?
The cruelty of the world. How could he live where Caleb Widowgast did not exist?
And then Caleb looked at him, and Essek saw his eyes.
Blue and sky, but also old and sad. Essek could see what he had not allowed himself to see, the truth of Caleb’s time and the life he’d lived. He had lived through an age and forged a new life and a new path. He had seen horrors, faced horrors, and defeated them all. He was strong, incredibly strong, but that strength seemed to be no help here now.
“Essek,” Caleb said, and his voice too now seemed all the more aged, still Zemnian but with a crackle underneath.
“Have you told the others?” Essek’s heart was pounding, searching for an out. A way to fix this, a way to undo this.
“No, not besides Caduceus. His expertise seemed a little too skilled to pass.”
Essek nodded. “Of course. It is his job as a cleric.”
But why me first?
“Essek-”
“We should inform the others as soon as possible. I have the components.”
“Nein, no, please-.”
“Should there be any preparations-” His breath stopped. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Were his lungs working?
Was this what it felt like to fall?
“Essek.”
There was a hand on his shoulder, warm and known. It had rested there many times. Was this to be the last?
“Scheiße, Essek, listen to me.”
He zoned in on Caleb. His eyes were worried and frantically searching his face, shoulders, torso, for what Essek could only assume to be his coherence. When Essek’s eyes met his, Caleb breathed a sigh of relief and then wrapped his arms around Essek. Numbly, he returned it.
“Liebling, I’m here now.”
Now. Essek could laugh. Now would be perhaps a few days, weeks, a month at best. Their relationship as it was stood in its state because of this inevitable end that Essek had tried too hard to forget in an effort to enjoy the time of living. Their relationship, no matter its label, always led to the single most important fact that Essek loved Caleb Widowgast. The rupture in his heart now was all the same.
“I think,” He mumbled at last, and he could feel Caleb’s breath hitch at his voice. His face was stuffed in the coat of Caleb’s coat, and he wanted nothing more than to remember its texture, its smell, its build. “I think I’m having difficulties at the news of your- your, ah, departure.”
Caleb snorted. Essek frowned.
Essek didn’t pull away from Caleb’s touch, and neither did he. They remained in embrace, a now painfully familiar position that Essek had found himself in this very chair in what only seemed like months ago.
Time had certainly not been a friend to them.
“You know, it’s funny,” Caleb spoke at last. “There was a time in which I would have welcomed this.”
He pulled away from Essek but kept a hand clasped around Essek’s own.
“For what I had done, I felt I deserved death, if not a fate worse than it. I thought eventually the course of the world would enact and judge me on its own accord, and in that time I would let it without complaint.”
“And now?” Essek said, trying to keep his voice even.
Caleb sighed. “And now,” He said, gazing at Essek’s hand and the room. “Now, I don’t think I’m as ready as I had been.”
”Perhaps we could convince the Raven Queen otherwise,” Essek mumbled, and he felt Caleb tense. It was a foolish idea, he knew the moment he uttered the words but desperation was clawing at his throat and the selfish want for Caleb at his side forever.
Caleb squeezed his hand. “Just because I am not ready, mein liebling, does not mean I don’t accept it, ja?”
Essek squeezed back wordlessly, and Caleb gave him a soft smile.
“Why tell me?” Essek said, the question that had been in his mind. He pulled away and immediately regretted it when the warmth left him. “Why tell me before the others?”
Caleb hesitated.
“You are my friend, Essek,” Caleb said at last. “You and I, we’re close in a way different to our relationship with the others. They are my family, and you are something part of that, and more.”
Essek felt his breath hitch.
“You are the one I have lived my life with, whether you see it or not. Nein, we don’t live together, but does that really matter?” He reached out to Essek, placing a hand over his heart.
“This is where you are,” He said softly, and the warmth from his hand spread to Essek’s chest. “To me. You have been there for many years, mein liebling. Labels and location never mattered with us, Essek. Feelings and emotions, the intangible things that we could never quite untangle, were what truly mattered.”
His hand was still on Essek’s chest, his eyes piercing directly into his own with an intensity Essek found difficult to look away from. Slowly, carefully, Essek took Caleb’s hand in his own, feeling his heart beat ever faster.
“You mean that to me as well,” Essek said softly, swallowing thickly for risk of his emotions pouring out. “I’m afraid that I wasted your lifetime hiding when I could have been happier here with you.”
Caleb shook his head. “No. We were fools to think that being apart would make it any better, but I wouldn’t regret the life we made of our choice anyway. You were there, in whatever form that meant, and that’s all I ever needed.”
Essek finally let the tears trail down his face freely, letting out half sobs and half laughs. Caleb reached with his other hand and swept the tears away, and Essek grabbed onto his arm as he did.
He looked at Caleb, mapping every line, every freckle, every feature of his face. He tried to remember his touch now, the way how Caleb always felt like a fire on a cold winter day, comforting and safe. He tried to remember his voice, the way his Zemnian accent blended with his mother tongue, and the phrases he used that Essek had grown to understand. He tried to remember his scent, like burning wood and the smell of paper and ink, the thousands of gold Caleb had no doubt spent on it.
He wanted to remember how he felt in every sense so that Essek could always have it to go back to. By the gods Essek may be a greedy man but he wanted everything he could to hold onto Caleb.
“Can I-” Essek mumbled, then stopped as the words threatened to pour out in a single croak. He took a steadying breath, closing his eyes and only feeling the burning stare of Caleb before him.
“Can I kiss you?”
There wasn’t a sound for a moment, and Essek with his eyes still closed could only feel Caleb, his tears, and the growing panic in his chest. But then he felt the cushion shift, heard the sound of fabric moving, and Caleb moved one hand down below his jaw, and the other that Essek was still clutching to his shoulder. He tilted his head up, and pressed his lips to him.
This too, was familiar, though they hadn’t done it in many years.
It was soft and gentle, somewhat hesitant after it had been so long since they’d last tried. But it was more than what Essek could have dreamed of. It was the memories of their past, their love, their admiration of each other. Every night pouring over books, settling in the lounge, sleeping next to each other. Their whispered admittances, their shared breaths, their complete and utter faith. Trust. This kiss felt like trust and love.
When they pulled away, Essek still had tears in his eyes but a smile was tugging on his lips as he met Caleb’s eyes. Caleb pressed a kiss to Essek’s forehead and rested his there, sharing breaths in this moment.
“I love you, Caleb Widowgast,” Essek mumbled, and Caleb squeezed his hand. “I have for years, and I will for some time to come.”
“Ja,” Caleb breathed. “I love you too.”
—
They stayed like that for what could have been hours, but it was likely only minutes. Sharing their touch, feeling each other's hearts beat as it slowly came to a gradual fall, at ease.
Essek, though the pain was still there and the tugging on his heart of a coming loss, tried to embrace the moments they had now. He didn’t want to end it too quickly and regret the moment centuries later, when all he’d have were these memories. He only pulled away when Caleb did, and even then he lingered.
“Could I stay with you?” Essek asked the moment they were separate. “I understand if you want your space, of course, but if you’re amenable to it…”
Caleb laughed. “Ja, ja. I was actually going to invite the others over and have them stay. A reunion for the ages, one that Jester would certainly approve of.”
Essek smiled, heart fluttering with the promise of time among family and love.
“I am certain she will have many plans and pastries.”
Caleb smiled warmly. It was a smile that Essek hoped he wouldn’t forget.
Sighing shakily, Essek held onto his hand.
“I-” He faltered for a moment, and then at Caleb’s squeeze he pushed forward. “I have been gifted the privilege of knowing you. For whatever reason, you were brought to me and I promise I will remember you, Caleb Widowgast. A scholar, a mage, an adventurer, friend, family, and love.”
Caleb clasped his hands in his and kissed them, muttering soft words in Zemnian. Words of love, devotion, and admiration. They stayed like that for the majority of the day, only Caleb’s cats strolling in and joining them.
They didn’t wait long to inform the others, and within the next day the entirety of the Mighty Nein had housed themselves in Caleb’s house, taking up the guest bedrooms and all the space in the living room. While there had been a somber tone, the Mighty Nein as a whole were joyous and loud as ever. Jester brought, as assumed, a feast-worthy number of pastries from all types of cuisines she had tried through the years on her adventures with Fjord.
During the weeks, Essek would spend some time on his own at night, but other times would end up sleeping with Caleb, trancing for his minimum amount of time and spending the rest memorizing all he could about Caleb.
He confessed every time he could his love for the man, touching his arms, hand, kissing his forehead when he could. The rest of the members never questioned it, and Caleb welcomed the gesture with open arms.
One night, Caleb brought out the Tower.
It was as grand as it had been, though his and Caleb’s room had long since been joined. Paintings were hung up of portraits and landscapes Jester had done through all the years, and there were some details now referencing their lives. Essek ran his fingers over every inch.
They all slumbered that night together in Caleb’s room with dozens of cats joining in a huge pile. Essek tucked himself with Caleb, and slept.
Three days later back in the house, Caleb stopped him on his way to bed.
“Stay?” He asked, and Essek smiled.
“Always.”
And he was. To the very end.