Work Text:
“Have you come to tell me that was stupid?” Caleb says.
The brig is dank and wet, dark pooling in the corners like poorly-blotted ink. Fjord has seen Caleb’s notes; they’re precise, pristine: each letter and symbol sketched sharply, as if following contours already laid out on the paper or imprinted in his mind. It’s a tell—an absolute commitment to perfection peeking through the scattered mind. That’s not to say that Caleb’s faking. He’s a crazy motherfucker; it’s just that he’s also so much more. Fjord sees it. He trusts it. He trusts Caleb.
But yeah, that was maybe a little stupid.
“I’m tryin’ to decide,” he says slowly. Caleb, huddled back against the opposing wall beyond the bars, hums encouragingly. Fjord eyes the shadows, then steps closer into the room. “It was certainly risky. Sometimes risks don’t pay off.”
“Sometimes they do.”
Fjord glances at the shadows again.
“Incautious might be the word,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to be incautious.”
Caleb flaps a dismissing hand at him. “She’s not here. Frumpkin has eyes on her.”
Something in Fjord—loosens. Relaxes. But also wonders, hungrily, what she’s doing. What she’s planning. What comes next.
He doesn’t like that part of himself, but he can’t seem to turn it off. The thrill of discovery. It’s like magic—it’s like learning magic. Like how he imagined it would be. The Academy, and all of it; he’d imagined this thrill: not of being meant for bigger things, precisely, but of the sense that the world was bigger than the borders of his knowledge. Avantika tastes like a woman, but in his mind, she tastes like the deepest depths of the sea, waters he can only barely remember but sees most nights in his dreams.
Caleb felt like that, at first. And then he didn’t. And then he did again. Now… Fjord doesn’t know. He tries not to think about it. He has so much—too much—on his plate, and while that hunger inside of him says he can handle it, the rest of him fears he can’t.
Sometimes, when he looks at Caleb, he thinks he sees that same hunger. But mostly, Caleb just seems hollowed.
“Are you just going to stand there?” says Caleb, tilting his head to the side. “You needn’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like something hurts. This is not the worst jail I’ve been in, my friend.”
At that, the distance between them—the bars between them—feel unbearable, and Fjord steps forward, pushing the door shut behind him without looking. He approaches the cell and grips the bars, then lowers himself to his heels, down to his knees. His leathers creak, salt-hard. Caleb watches him, head still tilted, the crown of his skull resting back against the wall. Fjord can’t help but wonder what those sharp blue eyes see when they look at him. He wonders if he seems as much of a mystery as the other man is to him. Surely not.
“Caleb…” He wraps and unwraps his hands around the bars. Through the shadows, Fjord can see the faint shape of bruises darkening Caleb’s skin. “This is bad, Caleb. We are in foreign territory—for you, now, it’s enemy territory. I don’t even know where to begin in fixing this. Why— ”
He cuts himself off.
Caleb blinks at him. There’s a soft set to his mouth, and his eyes are half-closed, sleepy. He looks at peace, in an odd way that Fjord has never seen before. “You can ask,” he says. “Why I did it, I mean.”
“Why?” says Fjord. His voice breaks a little.
The ship creaks around them. When it sways side to side, it butts against the dock, and the floors reverberate gently underfoot, almost—but not quite—too light to feel. The shadows shift in the swaying lamplight. Caleb sighs, and lifts a hand to light it in the orange glow. He’s been stripped of his coat, his bandages, and his books down to the dirtied white of his shirtsleeves, and it makes his eyes seem bluer, his hair redder, the freckles on his hands browner against the golden light. Since their last visit to a bathhouse, Fjord had somehow forgotten about the freckles. It doesn’t seem like that should be possible.
Caleb shifts his fingers, gestures in a way that Fjord, months ago, would have taken for arcane. The light dances against his skin like flame. “Do you ever feel like you must repent, Fjord?”
“I—” It’s not quite an answer. And yet, it tears at something inside of Fjord; he can feel, deeply and instinctively, that this is the key. This is what makes Caleb make sense. “I’m not sure I know. Maybe. I’ve often felt I’d done less than I should—it haunts me, sometimes, that feeling. Makes me want to be better, and pushes me to do more.”
Caleb hums. “That is atonement. I think, perhaps, it’s not quite the same. To repent would mean renouncing something of yourself, and pledging—begging—to do better. They go hand in hand, of course, like siblings. Or perhaps one comes first. Perhaps they are like parent and child.”
Fjord’s hands go slack around the bars, falling to the tops of his thighs. “Caleb,” he says, and doesn’t know how to finish the thought. Caleb’s father appears in his mind as he has imagined him since their conversation on the deck: keen-eyed, red-haired. Unfreckled, because he’d forgotten the freckles at the time of that conversation. Maybe the freckles were his mother’s.
“I have done an unselfish thing,” Caleb says, smiling slightly, wry and pained. “It is the first time in a long time. I’m very proud of myself.”
“We coulda got out of there, Caleb,” Fjord finds himself saying. “We could’ve—you and me, we could’ve talked our way out.”
“Maybe. But the fire in the crow’s nest—that was suspicious. And if Vera truly could have found traces of thievery, I would prefer to confirm suspicion. My best friend is a thief. Jester had the jewels. For… many reasons, it was worth the risk.” His eyes clear of that strange acceptance for the first time, sharpening; he leans forward, legs falling stiffly into a crossed position and hands bracing against the floor. Out of the shadows, the bruises on his face, the faint stain of blood under his nose and at the corner of his mouth, become clearer. “How are they? Are they alright?”
“Shit, Caleb. You look like hell.” Caleb grimaces, that funny face he makes when someone notices something he wishes they hadn’t, half-dismissive, half-embarrassed. Fjord clears his throat. “They’re good. Hunkered down, avoiding suspicion. Nott got the book from your pocket while you were, uh, bleeding out on the main deck. You probably figured that out, I guess, when they were taking your stuff and didn’t find it. Nott is plotting murder. Jester is, uh, crying a lot.”
“Hmm.” Caleb taps his index finger against the floor. “You should comfort her.”
Fjord shoves down the burble of irritation that presses against his stomach at that. “Well, I’m here,” he says, drawling a little for emphasis. “I was kinda hoping to comfort you.”
Caleb—freezes, and then goes very still. (Those shouldn’t be different things, but somehow they are. He is an impossible man, and Fjord watches him far, far too closely.)
“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” Caleb says, barely even moving his mouth, and then, “you’ll have to be more explicit.” Then he goes very red around the ears.
“I mean,” Fjord says, but the words trap themselves in his chest. He tilts his chin up to stare at the ceiling, and raps his knuckles into the floor, pushing some of that frantic energy inside of him out through the wood. “I mean, I mean, I mean. I’m tryin’ to say—I’m here for you. I was sitting in that cabin, thinking, and I—I wanted to be here for you. I want—that is. Caleb.” He swallows. Looks back to meet Caleb’s eyes. Something inside his chest is cracking open, like metal that’s been flash-frozen by arcane magic. Caleb looks back, wide-eyed, and Fjord blurts, “We are in dire straits, and I—I’m afraid. Being around you, I’ve found, makes me less afraid.”
Caleb’s mouth opens soundlessly.
Fjord gathers his thoughts in his fist and forges ahead. “It makes me brave, even—makes me the kind of man who does big things, and takes risks. Smart ones. When I know you have my back, it feels like I can do anything. So I want you to know that I have yours, too.”
“Fjord,” says Caleb, voice hoarse.
Fjord wants to say, I won’t fail you, but he doesn’t know if he can. To promise, and then break that promise—then he would truly need to atone. Instead, he just repeats, “I’m here for you.”
Caleb makes this dreadful, hurt little noise, and something in Fjord snaps.
His power gathers around him. Somewhere, an eye is watching; here, there’s only Caleb, who's staring at him like Fjord’s the one who’s hurting him. Fjord wraps his power around him like one day, maybe, he’ll wrap and bend the sea—and then in an instant he’s gone, blinked out of space, and when he comes back he’s on the other side of the bars, kneeling in front of Caleb, taking Caleb’s bare hands in his own.
He’s got no time. Caleb stares up at him, startled, and Fjord huffs a quiet breath, nearly a laugh. He lets go of one of Caleb’s hands and cups his cheek instead. Stubble scrapes against his palm, and under it, sharp bone. His thumb is very near Caleb’s mouth. Caleb’s eyes are a deep blue in the dark, like the depths of the ocean, or a secret held dear and close to your chest.
Fjord considers him, and considers the state of his own heart. And then he leans down, and presses a gentle kiss to Caleb's mouth.
He holds for a moment, feeling Caleb’s shocked breath, the returning press of lips, fingers squeezing his own. And then he’s gone, back into that dark in-between place. When he reappears on the other side of the bars, it feels like his body is caught in a dream. Like maybe it didn’t happen—except for the way Caleb is staring at him, one hand lifted to touch his fingers to his lips.
“Sometimes, your motives are very unclear to me, Fjord,” Caleb says, so, so softly.
“I—” Fjord swallows. “I hoped that would be clear.”
“Nein. No.”
Fjord pushes his fists against his thighs. For a moment he thinks he might disappear again, but he doesn’t. The pull of power recedes, curling back up within him like a surly wildcat. He stays where he is—he does nothing.
Deep to his bones, he knows he should be doing something. But the frantic energy is more than just helplessness, stronger and more insistent. It’s a fear, a trembling, deep inside of him, one that makes his innards stutter and shake when he looks at Caleb swallowed in shadow like this.
“I’m spun about, right now,” he says; his voice is a low rasp in the dark. “I’ve done it to myself, I guess. I don’t rightly know what I want, either—what my motives are, as you put it. I haven’t for a while.”
Caleb nods. He’s still touching his mouth.
Fjord tears his eyes away. He can’t be here much longer. He has no time .
“But I know,” he says, “sure as anything—sure as you know where North lies, sure as I know the rock of a boat under my feet—I know that I will not leave you here. You got on this ship for me. That’s my fault—that’s on me. So I’m not compromisin’ here, not with your life. Not with you. I won’t cross that line.”
Caleb makes a little noise, nearly a word, and then clears his throat, looking down at the planks beneath him. The lamplight flickers across his hair like fire. “You are a good man,” he says.
Fjord shakes his head. The past days would seem to show that that is demonstrably not true. “I feel clearer now,” he says, and he does: his head feels lighter, his shoulders less weighted. The snarled knot of ship-rope that has lived inside of him has loosened. Its weeds no longer choke him; its barnacles no longer cut the walls of his chest. There’s only one way forward now—the rest doesn’t matter at all. It can’t. “You’ve given me clarity,” he says.
“Well,” says Caleb. He sounds gruff; he still won’t look at Fjord. “I can add that to the list of decent things I have done today. Although perhaps it wasn’t… entirely unselfish.”
Fjord opens his mouth to ask what he means by that, but he’s interrupted by a tapping on the wall. He looks behind himself automatically, expecting to see the door opening, but—nothing. Caleb huffs a quiet laugh. When Fjord turns back, he’s gesturing at the outer wall, which leads to nothing but ocean and air.
“That’ll be Frumpkin,” he says. “The Captain has left her quarters. Time to go, Fjord.”
There’s a wry finality to his voice that Fjord doesn’t understand. Had Avantika told him something? What is he expecting? Fjord gets to his feet on knees that creak; “Right,” he says, “Right, okay,” only now becoming aware of the way his lips are tingling.
He fights not to touch his own mouth in a helpless echo of Caleb, before.
Caleb’s cheek twitches—not a smile, but almost its precursor.
“Go,” he says again.
Fjord goes.
Back in the cabin, Nott leaps at him, grabbing at the rope of his belt and hoisting herself up onto her toes to get in his face—or at least as close to it as she can. “How is he?” she demands. “I’ve been sending messages but he hasn’t answered since the first one. Are they hurting him? Starving him? I’ll kill them all!”
“It’s only been half a day,” says Caduceus. He’s in the back, sitting neatly on the bed, watching Fjord in that way that he has. “They can’t have starved him yet. Give it another twelve hours, at least.”
Fjord frowns at him—like, really?—and sets a hand on Nott’s shoulder. “He’s fine, Nott.”
“For now !” she says, voice getting higher and more hysterical. “We did nothing! We just stood there and let him—let him take the fall, for us, for our mistakes! We stood there and let them beat him!”
“Nott—”
She shakes him by his belt. “What if they KEELHAUL HIM, Fjord?!"
“Okay, no, first of all,” Fjord says, getting his other hand around one of hers and pulling it away. “First of all, how do you know what keelhauling is.”
“I read it in a book.”
“No more books,” says Fjord. “Second of all, we didn’t do nothing. You took the journal off of him. We have what they call leverage now, Nott. That is no small thing.”
She droops. Her heels touch back down to the floor; her ears fold back against the sides of her head. Her forehead is nearly pressed to Fjord’s thigh. Past her, now, he sees Jester huddled in a corner, Beau knelt beside her with an arm around her shoulders, Yasha standing guard over the two of them. Caduceus is watching all of this with the same slow-eyed blinks as usual. He has every right to be angry at them all over again, for dragging him into yet another awful plan with an awful resolution, but mostly he just looks tired and kind.
Fjord places his hand on the top of Nott’s head, fingers sifting gently through dark, tangled hair. “We have options now, Nott. And a path ahead. No more fucking around.”
“Really?” she says wetly. Her head butts up against his palm like a cat’s. “You think we can save him?”
A voice whispers into Fjord’s ear. None of the others react, but he feels himself go still, as if he could quell the pounding of his heart in his ears to hear it better. Fjord, says Caleb, clever Caleb who has somehow managed to keep his wire on him. One last addendum to our, ah, conversation.
“Yes,” says Fjord aloud.
Caleb whispers, You have said some kind things to me lately. If I might return the favour: I doubt there are many tasks that you are not up to. If this—whatever you are planning—if this is one, I want you to know that I do not see it as “on you.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then he adds, I will not see it as you failing.
The sense of presence fades.
Fjord looks up—he looks at all of them. He cups the back of Nott’s head until she lifts her face and meets his gaze.
“He didn’t leave us,” he says. “We’re not leavin’ him. We’re getting our wizard back, and we’re getting the hell outta dodge.”
Nott presses her face back into his leg with a wounded noise. He holds onto her, because it’s the closest he can come to holding onto Caleb, and he thinks in the direction of the brig, You can see it however you like. You’re my responsibility now. I’m not failing you.
Something settled deep in his gut hums. He couldn’t say whether it’s pleased or disapproving, but it doesn’t matter—he shoves the question aside. He knows the path now.
He holds Nott closer, and starts to plan.