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2019-01-21
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What You Own

Summary:

The Mighty Nein cut a bad deal. Caleb sweetens the pot. Or at least, that's what he remembers.

A slightly darker recounting of Caleb and Yussa's time in the teleportation chamber.

Notes:

Written for this prompt at the kink meme.

I rewatched the scene in the tower very slowly to take down quotes and details and good to know Liam's "scared" facial expressions can still give me heart palpitations even moving at a glacial speed.

PS. Is it thursday yet because I literally cannot cope with the anxiety left over from this last episode.

Work Text:

There will be opportunities, I’m sure, to earn more trust.

But… you have to earn.

---

There’s a moment, as Yussa crooks his finger and beckons him towards the stairwell, that Caleb thinks someone might stop him from leaving. Stop all of this from going any farther.

Beau’s strong hands start grasping at his sleeve and tugging, a lifeline anchoring him to this body that is barely there. His eyes whip to hers, heart hammering and stomach dropping into a sickly swoop of fear and hope and he takes in her expression and she’s… pleased? Her visible excitement cracks like a lash through his chest and he stares, uncomprehending as her fingers form the shape of a thumbs up, and there is nothing he can think to say.

“Follow me,” Yussa says, and he stands and obeys, and nobody says a word. As Caleb passes Nott’s place on the couch, he half-glances her way, opens his mouth to ask for something he doesn’t know the name of. Her eyes gleam joyful, firelight yellow, and either she doesn’t see the half-moon crescents dug into the forearms of his coat or she doesn’t care. But she’s distracted by the biscuits and Jester’s shining laugh and not too terribly concerned at all, it seems. Caleb closes his mouth and follows Yussa beneath the arch and keeps very, very quiet.

There are no windows in the winding stairwell, and perhaps that’s for the best. His feet might find their way to the sill, maybe farther on past, into the open air, far away from the mage who could ruin him with a thought. Far from the maybe-friends with encouraging smiles spread across sugar-laced lips.

They gave up everything so easily. Every secret bared, every shred of power offered, every bargaining chip at their disposal tidily wrapped in a cloak and laid across the altar. And him – one more piece on the table, another thing so easy to push forward into Yussa’s waiting hands. He’s been prepared for years to offer everything when the time is right, but to give up all they had for scraps of hearsay and vague promises – it’s nothing. They got nothing. It makes him sick to contemplate.

They’re at a door now, on a landing, and Caleb’s hands tingle with the brush of passing arcane energy as it swings open under Yussa’s gentle touch. There’s no light past the mouth of the doorway, and Yussa gestures him forward into the darkness. The cold arms of the torturer’s chair reach out to him from the shadows like a spectral embrace, and the breath on the back of his neck is hot and smells of iron instead of tea. Caleb freezes.

He could go. Just run back down the spiral stairs and scoop Nott into his arms and burst into the sunlight and not look back, Beau’s admonishment echoing from behind all the while: this was for you, this was all for you. It’s a wonderful, freeing thought, for the brief moment he has it. Wholly impractical. The fantasy falls apart at the vision of the barred exit of the tower, and shards of ice piercing his spine. Daydreams are for the weakminded. He knows this. Somebody told him so. He doesn’t remember who, or when.

He hesitates, but it’s really only a token resistance. They’re both very aware he’ll follow through.

Caleb lets his head drop as he steps over the threshold. Though Yussa says nothing, Caleb swears he can hear the hum of approval on the man’s lips and it makes him gag. Good, Caleb. You listen well, when you try. The door swings shut in their wake, and Caleb knows it won’t open again until Yussa wills it so. No other exits. Darkness falls like a blanket, and his hands creep back to wrap around the bones of his shoulders.

There were times that the blindfold was almost a balm. A freedom from expectation or choice, turning him into a weapon for stronger hands to maneuver. He could have so much, see so clearly though another’s motions. Eyesight was a small price to pay for guidance. After all, he was very lost before those hands taught him the way.

A blue light gleams in the centre of the stone floor, then spreads like molten lead through a mold as it branches outward and outward. Caleb’s feet reappear in the pale blue glow. Ah, so he’s meant to see then. That’s a relief, in some small part.

It’s a teleportation sigil, familiar and whole, and there’s a small part of Caleb that uncurls in a tentative exhale in that at least one part of Yussa’s offer was honest. “How much time do you need to memorize it?” The words are brusque and Caleb stands straighter at the abrupt business-like tone.

“A minute. Maybe a bit… no, a minute should be enough.”

He moves off to the side to give himself a full view of the space, and Yussa movies to the doorway, and Caleb sets to work. He keeps his eyes focused on the task at hand, does not let them wander to the man who blocks his exit. The sigil is easy enough to commit to memory, ready to be transcribed to paper the moment they return to the Lavish Chateau.

“Ja, I’m finished.” A set of footsteps follow him back to the centre of the circle. The blue light pulses faintly, then dims, and when he turns to look at Yussa the mage’s face is spread into a ghostly smile.

“A quick learner… good to know.” Caleb tries and fails not to wince. There’s a shrewdness in the way Yussa regards him that feels all too familiar. His eyes curl into the back of Caleb’s skull, weighing him with a careful expression, and he wishes for the light to fade again. Better hands in the dark than to be so terribly seen.

“There are other rooms like these, in higher floors of this tower.” Yussa’s eyes don’t waver from Caleb’s, and Caleb holds onto his gaze, but only just. “As you earn my trust, more may be made available for you.” He makes no move to re-open the door.

A single line of bright fire burns across Caleb’s palm: the memory of pressing his palm to Fjord’s intertwined with the grip of his own hand extended to Yussa’s. Fjord asked only for his blood. Trent Ikithon took his childhood and his sanity. Who knows what this new man might ask him to trade away.

Caleb swallows, then swallows again. In the grand scheme of things, this day is nothing. He’ll do what he needs to to get out of this room, and then it will be on to the next step, and then the next, and it will be one more thing not to think on late at night.

“And how… would you expect me to earn that trust?” He bites into the word earn, even as his hands press tighter and tighter at his neck. Frumpkin’s comforting weight is nowhere to be found.

Yussa doesn’t answer. Instead, his eyes flicker over Caleb’s throat, his taught shoulders, the spellbooks tucked tight beneath his arms, the tattered cuffs of his coat.

Everything I own is nothing to a man like this. And everything the group has we’ve already traded away.

Yussa waits, and Caleb thinks of forgiveness for past wrongs, when that was still possible for him, and he thinks again of Fjord bent over a shipman’s desk, and bursting fire along the Darktow dock, and hands in the dark. There’s the answer he’s been dancing around. He closes his eyes, lets out a long, slow exhale, and sinks to his knees.

Yussa finally speaks, but it’s not to admonish or to praise his gesture. If anything, he sounds amused by Caleb’s new stance. “So, is this what you think I want from you?”

Even as the shivers crawl down the base of his spine, Caleb feels a wry smile curling at the corner of his lips, because he knows this game. He’s played it in the dark before. He knows exactly what to say to keep his blood inside his head. It was a matter of trial and error, the first time. But he’s a quick learner, like Yussa said.

“…I think you want what all great men want.”

Caleb keeps his eyes trained to the ground. The right touch of meekness works wonders. A single soft-soled shoe creeps into his vision, then another.

“Oh?” The voice is closer now, just above him, and he thinks he should have thrown up on the walk over here. Made his stomach lighter now, when it matters. “And what is it I want?”

“Power.”

Silence for a moment, and then Yussa chuckles, low and dark. Fingers curl into the crown of Caleb’s shaggy hair. “You aren’t wrong.”

The hand holds him there, firm but not pressing, and Caleb sees himself standing on the precipice of another very dark room. He can have it: that hum of approval, and his own meagre scrap of power, and all he needs to do is reach out and-

That can’t be what Master Ikithon really meant-

But Astrid said he-

He dreamt all that, the hands and-

It wasn’t-

He didn’t-

He isn’t-

The fingers aren’t forcing him closer. It’s his choice, his initiative. But what would happen if he pulled back now? It’s too far gone. I did what I had to do is such a sweet nothing to wish away the truth: it was always his choice. There’s a breezy trail of ash left in his wake to prove it.

“I actually thought it was a very bad idea to come here.” He can barely hear his own voice over the rushing of the ocean in his ears.

“It was. But you came anyways, and look where you are.”

Look where you are.

For a moment, he’s outside himself, watching from above. He’s been here before. Hasn’t he? I give you power, you give me everything. But it’s more than that sentiment. His hands on the floor, the crackle of energy spinning beneath him, a haze of pain and a deep voice in his ear reminding him. Everything that happens in this room is earned. The man over him is taller, broader than Yussa. At least, he thinks he must be. If this really happened. He can’t be sure.

It doesn’t matter in the end. Everything they gave- Everything he’s done to get this far- It has to be worth something. He needs it to be.

Caleb reaches out with shaking hands, and the sound of Yussa’s sharp inhale expertly covers his own choked breath.

---

Yasha’s greatsword bashes through the door, its arcane lock no match for the power of her swing. Jester follows, her sparkling lollipop making quick work of what remains of the wooden frame. Fey unicorns spring from her hand and whirl around the room in a pinwheel of pink light.

Caduceus steps into the shattered remains of the arch and lifts his staff, and blessed warmth flows through Caleb’s aching knees and into his cold hands. Fjord lifts the Summer’s Dance above his head and the blue halo around Yussa’s head is replaced by a crown of dark smoke, and breaking through that smoke is Beau’s fist, a one-two punch to the temple that has the mage staggered, and Caleb falls out of his grasp into the tender hold of small hands.

Nott growls through sharp and blood-tinged teeth. “I’m going to kill this motherfucker. Nobody hurts you when Nott’s around!”

And he wants to cry out that he wasn’t hurt, not really, that it was just another deal in a long string of deals that ends with something lost, something gained. But her nails scrape at his cheeks and she’s upset and so he only says thank you. It’s what she needs to hear from him. And he means it, he means it. She’s always saving him. Not many people would try.

A crunch of bones and the fight is over before Yussa can get off a single spell, but then the tower is dissolving beneath his knees, and he’s falling-

---

He thinks Astrid might have told him the thing about daydreams. It’s hard to know. Left long enough alone, all the voices in his head start to sound like Trent.

---

After the dimness of the circle room, the spiral staircase is almost garishly bright. Whether because of that or the numbness in his legs, Caleb stumbles on the first step down. Yussa catches him by the shoulder and drags him back up, and Caleb’s nervous system is fried enough that he doesn’t even flinch from the touch. That’s good, he reasons. Acting normal is good. The group doesn’t need any other reason to mistrust him. Gods help him if they start to suspect he’s making his own deals on the side.

He paws at his hair and mouth as they descend, nervously smoothing away any evidence left of the past half hour. At least any scratches on his skin are beneath his hairline. That’s good. It’s all… very good. The best it could have worked out, really. He’s alive, yes? And they got the sigil. It could have been very much worse.

The party’s rearranged itself slightly by the time they reenter the den. Yasha’s leaning against the wall, tapping her foot, and Nott and Jester have migrated to the floor. Jester busily sketches Beau with three biscuits falling out of her mouth. Caduceus and Fjord still sip long-cooled tea. Everyone looks up at their return.

Caleb doesn’t feel quite as numb anymore. His face flashes cold, then red hot as their eyes track his steps. He wishes the room was darker.

People start making their goodbyes and Nott pulls him aside presses a pastry into his hand. “Here, I saved one for you,” she whispers. He brings it to his lips and inhales. Struesel. His grandmother used to bring it by on cold mornings. It smells heavenly. It smells like home.

He pats Nott on the shoulder a little harder than he means. “Thank you for thinking of me,” he murmurs, and focuses very intently on not throwing up.

---

They’re barely ten feet from the tower before the barrage of questions starts.

“What did you see?”

“What did you say?”

“What did you do?”

They all clamour over each other, puppies nipping at his heels. Their words cancel each others’ out and Caleb is free to ignore them and focus on one foot in front of the other, heel to toe, like the woman at the asylum taught him, until finally Nott’s voice cuts through the noise.

“Well, that was great! It was exactly like I said, we’d go in, we’d get some magic for you, we’d get some knowledge!” She means it. He can tell. In her eyes, that went very well indeed.

Caleb’s head swims. “We’re lucky we’re not dead,” he mutters, and Nott scoffs, unimpressed by his doomsaying, and scampers off to run with Jester.

He hadn’t even noticed Caduceus’s approach before the words rumble high above his right. “We are lucky, but we’re lucky that we’ve found an avenue for you to learn more, to grow. One you didn’t have open to you before.” Caleb glances at Caduceus from the corner of his eye. The firbolg’s eyes are watching him intently. He tries and fails to come up with an adequate response.

What if the price of this man’s next open door is more than I can pay? There isn’t much left of my soul to sell.

Apparently, his response isn’t actually required. “What did you say to him?”

No accusation in his tone, but Caleb bristles nonetheless. “Nothing.”

“You said we were foolish.”

“No,” says Caleb. He didn’t say that. “I stayed quiet, and listened.”

“You said we were foolish.”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Caduceus sounds very sure, and Caleb is too tired to argue. Maybe he did, and he just doesn’t remember. “I… said you were all very foolish.”

Caduceus smiles and lets him go after that. But even as he walks away he can feel Caduceus’s gaze on his back: watching, evaluating. Caleb makes sure to get out of his eyeline before he can draw a conclusion.

One foot in front of the other. There are alleys branching off from the main road, and all paths lead to the sea eventually. He could take Nott by the hand and they’d disappear forever. Sail to Marquet and forget the Empire and the Menagerie Coast and every other wounded place.

And still it’s one foot in front of the other, taking him back to the Ruby and a soft bed and a shared meal and he’s still walking in a straight line, despite everything, and he doesn’t know why.

Beau steps into file beside him, and he can’t tell if the darkness on her face is anger or just a reflection of his own. “Hey,” she says, and the words are gruff but he can tell she’s hedging her exasperation for his sake. The softness doesn’t suit her. “You met a rockstar today, and you look like you want to barf.” 

It’s so clear to Nott, to Caduceus, to Beau.  This meeting with the mage went well. Nothing bad happened.

And really, what does he remember? That he went into a dark room and came back out. Trent was there, or maybe he wasn’t. Anything could have happened, or nothing at all. It’s hard to keep his memories straight on the bad days. Maybe… it was all fine. And if not, does it matter to anyone but him?  

Caleb snaps his fingers and Frumpkin appears in his arms. He burrows his face into his fur and blinks rapidly, and breathes until he’s sure his voice won’t crack.

“Ja. We’re very lucky. The way it all worked out.”