Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’re not going in alone.”

“Beauregard–”

“No, Caleb. I’m serious. I’m going in there with you.”

Heat is flaring in Beau’s chest. It’s frustration, anger, and the don’t-you-fucking-dare fear swirling together into something red-hot. The man across from her sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he meets her eyes again, there is a hardness in them—the one that has always left the bitter acid of bile collecting at the back of her tongue. 

She and Caleb stare each other down, the steady drip of water onto damp stone in the winding tunnels beneath the Soltryce Academy the only sound that breaks through the tense silence.

“Trent Ikithon has taken a person I very much care about. I will do whatever it takes to get him back, Beauregard.” His blue eyes glint like the edge of a knife. “Whatever it takes.”

“And I can help you with that!” Her voice is definitely rising above a whisper, but she finds it hard to care when Caleb is so insistent on doing something so fucking stupid. It’s better to draw out the person in that room and not be able to get the drop on them than to have Caleb go in alone.

“Let’s quiet down,” Fjord interjects, voice low and smooth. “Beau, I understand your concern. But, personally, I’m more concerned with what will happen if the Volstrucker knows we’re here before we can do at least a little bit of damage.” Words are about to bubble out of her mouth before he finishes speaking, the simmering urge to protest ready to boil over with the least provocation, but Fjord shoots her a glare before turning his attention to the wizard. “Caleb, I think Beau is making good points. You’re powerful, but that is a very dangerous idea. Are you completely against taking one of us– just one –with you into that room?”

“There are things I need to do that I cannot do with any of you in the room.” Caleb’s eyes never spare a glance to Fjord as he answers, staying locked in silent challenge with Beau—an order to back down. Like hells she will. 

Jester cuts through the tense silence, the scuff of her boots on the stone floor as she shuffles them is loud in the quiet. “We shouldn’t spend much more time planning. I mean…who knows what’s happening to Essek?”

The flash of some emotion—though when he gets like this it becomes hard to tell which—in Caleb’s eyes reminds them all that he knows. It’s probably why he’s so insistent. Well. It’s good Beau is here to be reasonable for him, then. 

“Ja, I agree. Who knows what is happening to Essek while we’re wasting our time quarreling.”

Those blue eyes are still boring into the monk, not even flicking away for a second. He’s so fucking stubborn, good gods. He isn’t the only one who knows how to be a stubborn ass, though. Crossing her arms in a way that she knows will further accentuate her already impressive muscles, Beau puffs out her chest as she rises to the unspoken challenge yet again. “Yeah. It’s a real fucking shame.”

The dank cellar air shifts ever so slightly as Yasha steps up beside Beau, opening her mouth to say something—probably to back up her wife’s correct view of the current situation. Her mouth closes with an abrupt clack of teeth. It’s quiet, but the sound of it echoes in Beau’s head all the same. She assumes it’s because Fjord started talking again, though the expositor finds herself a bit too distracted to focus on whatever the fuck Fjord is saying when she notices Caleb subtly twist his ring of telepathy. She waits for the familiar press of his voice filtering into her mind…

It doesn’t.

But, suddenly, Yasha is placing a soothing hand on Beau’s shoulder. When she looks up to meet her wife’s eyes, she sees such a wild mix of emotions swirling within them that it’s hard to stay planted on her feet. It’s a glassy kind of fondness, a sadness, determination, rage, fear. Probably some more emotions mixed in there too. It’s such a drastic shift from what Beau was expecting that she completely forgets the world around them for a moment.

Until Yasha opens her mouth.

“We need to let him go, Beau. By himself.”

Spinning to face Caleb, she lets swift steps carry her directly into the man’s space, snapping, “That’s not fair, asshole! What the fuck did you say?”

“Beau–” Yasha begins, gently wrapping her hand around Beau’s wrist, but Caleb speaks before she can finish.

“I did not say anything, Beauregard.” And there it is. That switch. The cold, calculated tone. The way any semblance of emotion he might feel evaporates from his expression in an instant. The way he watches her, analyzing, like she’s just some fucking lock he needs to pick open. He’d already been halfway there—straddling the line since they realized Essek was gone. Hells, he’s been straddling that line since he learned Ikithon had escaped. But this isn’t the Caleb they traveled with or the Caleb that she chases leads on Assembly dealings with. 

This is not an unfamiliar Caleb to her, though. All of the Nein have seen it before. Glimmers of it in battle, at Vergesson—or so she’d been told, in conversations with Lucien. Fleeting glimpses they’ve all caught at one time or another. But Beau has become far more intimately familiar with this side of him than any of the others. This is the Caleb who was bred to be both a protector of and a scourge on the Empire. This is the Caleb who was proud to extinguish the lives of those who would dare to question his country for some misguided sense of the greater good. This is barely even Caleb, to be honest. 

This is fucking Bren.

And no one else seems to notice the way their friend is twisting into a warped shadow of himself in real time.

Beau’s nails bite into her palms as her fists clench and unclench in a rhythmic progression, speeding up in concert with her elevating heart rate. Bren does whatever is necessary to accomplish his goals. Bren isn’t above manipulating his friends. And how is Beau going to convince anyone to listen to her over him? Expositor though she may now be, Beau at her most authoritative seldom holds the same command over a room as Caleb at his.

Like an answer to her mounting fear, Veth cuts into the thoughts that buzz through Beau’s head, “We should be listening to Caleb! He knows Trent better than any of us, and he knows Volstrucker better than any of us. He might have a better chance of getting information out of this person by himself.”

Ever the loyal lapdog, Veth backs up Caleb. Beau knows that’s an unfair characterization, knows Veth has pushed back on Caleb’s choices before. She doesn’t do it often enough. And Beau has had to clean up messes left by Veth’s blind encouragement before. Even so, the truth in Veth’s words worms its way to sit uncomfortably beneath the monk’s skin. 

Yasha’s hand tightens on Beau’s shoulder. An unspoken promise, silent support that communicates the disquiet they both feel in ways words never will. When she looks up and sees the worry etched into her wife’s mismatched eyes, the knowledge that Yasha shares her fear of what will happen if Caleb goes in alone settles like a leaden weight in her chest.

There is so much understanding, so much empathy in Yasha’s expression when she speaks, voice soft and tinged with a solemn resignation, “We need to let him go, Beau. He knows what he’s doing.”

That weight in her chest feels about twenty pounds heavier in response to her wife’s words, pulling her shoulders down from their previously intimidating posture into the curled shape of dread and defeat incarnate. Her head is heavy as she nods with a sigh. Beau feels like tears might be gathering at the edge of her eyes and wills them away before the wetness can spill onto her cheeks. She's not a fucking child. She won't cry over this.

“Fine.” Once again, her eyes drift to Caleb. He’s just watching her, face a blank, stony slate. She almost wants to punch him in a futile attempt to drive away the fear. Instead she just hardens her tone, adding, “But if anything happens to you in there, Caleb, I swear–”

He cuts her off with a curt nod, expression unreadable. “Nothing will happen, Beauregard. I know what I’m doing. Trust me.” 

As Caleb rounds the corner to face the door behind which another one of his people waits, Beau’s insides tie themselves in angry, suffocating knots that wrap around her stomach and squeeze the air from her lungs. A sense of impending doom settles on her shoulders, and, despite Yasha’s tense jaw, Veth’s and Jester’s teary eyes, Fjord’s pinched brow, and Caduceus' assessing gaze, she somehow feels all alone in a chasm of foreboding. 

Whatever he intends to do in there won’t be good for him. Something is going to go wrong. Even if the techniques are all right and he leaves without a physical scratch, Beau knows from experience that he will leave that room all wrong. The only question is how long will it take for them to pick up the pieces?

Chapter Text

Caleb has been alone in the room for about five minutes. That’s five minutes too many.

The rhythmic drip-splat, drip-splat of water on stone is growing more obnoxious by the second. No one is talking. Everyone is just fucking listening. Which, fair. But there are still noises coming from the room. Veth is periodically sending messages to Caleb from the other side of the door. She says he’s answering them. The way her eyes flit to the side when she does makes it obvious she’s leaving something the rest of them should know out of those reports.

Beau has a feeling she knows what it is.

This was such a bad idea. Every ‘he’s fine’ from Veth after she sends a message to Caleb is accompanied by a less and less convincing smile. The intermittent screams aren’t stopping. Impatience buzzes beneath the monk’s skin like a hive of bees. It’s a prickly static at the ends of her nerves waiting for the slightest trigger to send a surge of electricity sparking through her system. Each new grunt of pain from behind the door feels like a little jolt to the ever-shortening fuse. 

After maybe another minute, Beau can’t take it anymore. She has to do something. Even if it’s not busting in there, she can’t just stand outside the door doing jack shit to at least come up with a plan for after . Sure, they have a plan for going in there as backup. But they’ve discussed fuck all about how they’re going to handle it when he comes out of there all fucked up. Maybe the others just haven’t noticed the warnings—she’s definitely spent more time with Caleb than any of them over the past few years—but it seems pretty fucking obvious to Beau that Caleb won’t be okay when he comes out. She’s known it from the moment he suggested going in alone. No one else seems to think it’s worth discussing, though. Or at least no one else seems to have any intention of being the one to bring it up, judging by their silence.

“Yasha.”

The barbarian’s eyes flick away from her greatsword, locking onto her wife. It’s never any less intense, having the full weight of the other woman’s attention on her. The hairs at the back of Beau’s neck stand on edge as she feels everyone else’s eyes snapping to focus on her as well. 

 It’s…it’s not as if Caduceus won’t hear if something goes wrong. So, it should be fine to talk about this now. Besides, better to have a plan than nothing. Yeah. It’ll be fine. Before she can second guess herself too much, Beau presses on. “What did he say to you?”

She won’t meet Beau’s eyes. She looks up to study the grit on the ceiling above them, shoots a glance towards the door Caleb disappeared through moments before—flinches in time with all of them when they hear a scream that is very much not from a Zemnian, tilts her head towards Veth in a silent request to get confirmation that the wizard is still alright. She seems to be able to look at everything that isn’t Beauregard.

Beau sighs, pushing off the stone wall near the door to go stand next to her wife.

“Yasha, I saw him twisting his ring. What did he say?” she asks softly, placing a hand over her wife’s forearm and giving a comforting squeeze.

The aasimar lets out a heavy sigh, head dropping as though being pulled by some invisible weight. Her voice is quiet but holds a darkness when she replies, “He asked me if I would want everyone around to see what I would do to Obann if he came back and took you.”

A nauseating swoop accompanies the rapid drop of Beau’s gut.

Fucking Bren indeed. 

Beau is going to kill him. She’s going to fucking kill that selfish asshole. How could he bring that up? Those little moments never hurt any less. Never become any less unnerving. The way he slips into it so easily in the moment. It’s second nature, isn’t it? Of course it is. Why shouldn't it be? He was taught to be that way. Taught so effectively that he killed his own parents. Is it really that surprising that he can slip into the mindset of a manipulative bastard—

“Miss Beau, I think you should take a seat for a moment.”

It’s only when Caduceus’ voice breaks her train of thought that Beau recognizes the echo of her steps bouncing around the subterranean halls. Despite the tension that remains coiled in her muscles, ready to be triggered into action at the slightest incitement, she forces her gait to slow to a halt. 

“Sorry,” she mutters, sinking down into a squatting position that allows her to rest her head in her hands for a moment. It doesn’t help her hide from the way everyone’s eyes remain fixed on her instead of the person they should actually be worried about here. They can’t exactly see him though, can they? No, nobody can because everyone thought it was fair to side with his emotions over Beau’s logic. 

A looming shape crouches next to her, large hand resting between her shoulder blades as if she’s some animal that needs to be calmed. It makes Beau bristle.

“Don’t.” 

Yasha sighs, withdrawing her hand. “He had a point, Beau. I get why you’re worried, but…I don’t know if it’s exactly the same or not–but think of Zeenoth. How would you feel if–”

“That’s not fair.” How is her own fucking wife not with her on this? 

She studies the stone beneath her feet. A brownish gray, turned vaguely orange by the dim torchlight in the hall. The flickering dance of the flames in the wet sheen of a puddle a few feet to her right draws her mind to Bren. Bren, who wanted to kill his parents. Bren, who decided they deserved to die by burning alive. Bren, who didn’t know how to look at a person and see a person—only a piece on a chessboard in a game no one else knew was being played. If he could do it to his parents, who’s to say he can’t do it to the Nein too?

“It wasn’t very cool of him to bring it up,” Jester offers from across the hall, “But, you know, it’s only because he loves Essek so much. I know I’d do anything to save Fjord if he was taken by someone. Especially someone like Trent…Or Obann.”

Beau snaps her head up to glare at the tiefling, always the best of them, always the one to smooth everything over. Slowly, with a simmering fear burbling into an anger that seeps into her words like venom, she says, “It’s not fair because it’s not the same.” A few mouths open, protests prepared to spill from their lips. She doesn’t let them get that far. “It’s not. And he is well aware of that. Yes, we’ve all done a lot together. Seen a lot of each other’s souls. But how many of you have spent half the time that I’ve spent with him in the past seven years?” She looks at her wife again. “It’s not fair because he wasn’t trying to have you empathize with his situation. He was focused on getting me to agree to him going in alone. And he knew you’d be the only one who could get me to do that. It fucking sucks to say it, but he was using you to get to me.”

“That’s an awfully cynical way to look at Caleb talking to someone he knew would understand,” Yasha argues, eyes bright and shoulders set in a way that speaks to a denial that’s always sat so wrong on her features.

“Yasha, I know him, probably better than anyone else here–except for Veth,” she adds before the halfling can object while shooting Yasha a look that clearly says ‘including Veth.’ “I know what he’s like when he’s gotten into that headspace where he’s going to use his Trent bullshit on someone. And I know how it changes the way he thinks.”

“He’s so much better than he used to be!” Veth interjects, crossbow waving in the air as she speaks. There’s a murmur of agreement from a few of the others, even if less spirited than it would’ve been a few minutes ago, but Fjord’s voice is notably absent from the chorus of half-hearted assent. 

“He is,” Beau concedes, “But that doesn’t mean he’s completely unaffected or unable to go back to a messed up place, especially considering what a shitshow he’s been thrust into all the sudden.” She presses the heels of her hands to her eyes, rising to stand once again. It’s been a while since they’ve been together like this, she knows, but it feels like she has to fucking spoonfeed them the obvious logic of the situation. Her head aches. “Just stop for one second and think,” she says, gaze sweeping over them as she dons the metaphorical robes of Expositor Lionette best she can. “Think about what we’ve all seen Caleb do over the years. Think about all the things that were terrible –necessary, but terrible– that Caleb has been willing to do in front of us. What could he possibly be planning to do in there that he can’t bring himself to do in front of us?”

Yasha deflates a bit, leaning just a bit more heavily on her sword. It digs into the stone beneath them with a faint grinding sound. Jester bites her lip, eyes darting to the floor before screwing shut like she can block out a memory by blocking her view of the puddle by her feet. Veth’s gaze drifts towards the door, as if she’ll be able to tell what is happening on the other side if she stares hard enough. Caduceus’ expression hasn’t changed. He’s still looking at Beau with something far too close to pity for her taste. Fjord just looks at the door, something hard in his eyes. It suddenly dawns on Beau that the half-orc hasn’t been looking at her this entire time.

Another scream of pain comes from behind the door.

All of them flinch.

With a shaky hand, Veth raises the copper wire to her lips again, muttering beneath her breath. She waits a moment, they all do, but Veth doesn’t relay any message.

“Veth? Is Caleb alright?” Fjord asks. His eyes stay locked on the door, grip tightening on Star Razor.  Before she can answer, the iron door slams open, and out steps Caleb—absolutely drenched in blood.

Chapter Text

When the iron door swings open, Beau’s world stops for a small infinity. 

Caleb is standing in the doorway, staring at them with an expression more befitting of an undead abomination than her partner in purging the Empire of its corruption.

There is an emptiness in his eyes that borders on soullessness. His head tips to the right ever so slightly, speaking to curiosity that fails to evidence itself in anything else in his expression or movements. A faint crease crinkles the space between his eyebrows, but it’s bizarrely nonspecific. Maybe it’s an extension of the curiosity, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the cause. It could be confusion, calculation, the beginnings of illness, a dominate person spell taking hold. It could be fucking anything. 

And then there’s the blood.

His pants, a sandy sort of color when he first entered the room, now barely have any of their original hue visible, save for in small patches scattered between massive pools of crimson that seep deep into the fabric. The maroon of his coat and its red silken lining don’t betray the horror of him so readily, but the dark gray shirt beneath it is painted with streaks of black-tinged red. His face, previously pristine from a desperately-needed shower after the battle against Trent Ikithon, has flecks and stripes of red spattered across it in a diagonal arc from the right side of his jaw up to his left temple.  

But the worst of it is his hands. It isn’t uncommon for splotches of dried ink to obscure portions of his pale hands, what with the way he is always taking hurried notes and ‘noodling’ away at new spells and arcane artifacts, but this—Beau can’t tell if he even has skin left on his hands or if he had simply chosen a uniquely bloody method of torture for the Volstrucker. Every fucking centimeter beneath the wrists of both his hands is soaked with blood that drips onto the stone floor in grisly puddles.

Though Caleb’s gaze flits across everyone in the room, when it settles, it settles on Beau. His face doesn’t betray his emotions, but there is something in that tilt of his head, the wide eyes accompanied by the slightly furrowed brow, that brings visions of a wall of fire sweeping across their party into Beau’s mind.

In a matter of seconds, she relegates the shock to the back of her mind to be dealt with later. Instead, she straightens a bit, turns a critical eye on everything about Caleb, ready to track the slightest twitch of a finger, the slightest shuffle of a foot. He’s probably not under the control of a dominate person spell right now. The damage he can do is far too great to allow herself to relax into the comfort of ‘probably.’

Caleb clocks the shift in Beau in an instant, eyes narrowing a fraction before his face smooths out. He tips his head to the left and gives her a close-lipped smile that does not come close to reaching his hollow blue eyes. The sheer placating vacancy of it feels as though it mocks the very concept of a smile. Her jaw clenches. The air feels far too still, charged with simmering energy waiting to explode.

Beau clenches her fists against the urge to immediately restrain him when he takes a step forward, slick blood on his hands glinting in the torchlight. Taking a deep inhale, one she is careful to obscure from his watchful eye as best she can, she steels herself to whatever is about to come next. You can subdue him without doing too much damage, she promises herself, repeating the mantra in her head like a prayer.

She fails to realize that she has so fully taken herself out of the situation until she finds Caleb’s shoulder lightly jostling hers as he walks past her without a word. Shooting a glance at Fjord, it’s evident that the half-orc is unnerved as well. Hells, she’s sure they all are. As soon as Caleb is far enough forward that he will no longer be in his peripheral vision, Fjord shifts his grip on Star Razor and pads—nigh silent—over to the door. 

The door isn’t open very far, but Caleb did leave it slightly ajar. It’s open enough for Fjord to take one look before swiveling to meet Beau’s eyes and giving a slow shake of his head, anyway. They don’t need words for him to communicate that he’s going to check the body he found for any sign that it’s an illusion—they’ve had to do it too many times before to need formalities like that. But Beau feels…somewhat more at ease. It seems clear enough to Fjord that he doesn’t believe Caleb is being controlled by anyone other than Caleb. Well. Caleb or Bren.

Jester breaks the silence from somewhere behind them, voice trembling as she speaks.

“Are–Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Beau turns around to the sight of Caleb lifting a hand to rub Jester’s arm as though he means to sooth her. He leaves behind a bloody handprint that starts to meld into a single, unsightly blotch on the sheer pink fabric of the tiefling’s sleeve. 

“I will–ah…I will clean that off later.”

Really? That is the first fucking thing he says? If her heart wasn’t beating hard enough to hurt at the detached sound of his voice, Beau probably would have laughed. As is, though, she just gives Jester a look that she hopes will communicate not to press anything. 

“Mister Caleb–” Caduceus starts to say at the same time that the door gives a quiet squeak as Fjord opens it a fraction more to leave the room with the Volstrucker. He doesn’t quite finish the confirming nod to Beau when Caleb abruptly spins on his heel and starts making his way back towards the room, not sparing a glance to any of the Nein.

“Cay-cay?”

“Cayleb?”

“Mister Caleb?”

The chorus of people saying his name seems to fall on deaf ears. Caleb just continues a strangely slow, purposeful march back towards the room from whence he came, staring distantly at some spot on the door. Well fuck.

After a small eternity, Caleb reaches the door, abruptly slamming it shut with a loud clang in a sudden panic. The man in question has turned to face them, but instead of answering looks around almost desperately, as if searching for something specific. As if he doesn’t notice them at all. There is desperation in those cold blue eyes and his hands are beginning to shake. Beau takes slow, steady steps towards Caleb, hands raised and visible to promise she isn’t trying to threaten him. Oblivious, he spins back towards the cell and lets loose a fire bolt directly into the iron door he had just flung closed a moment ago.

Fortunately for Fjord, he made it a few steps away by the time the wizard slung his ball of flame into an unreceptive target. Fjord did not, however, make it far enough away to avoid the way the fire bolt bounced off the iron door, landing directly on the man’s sleeve. 

Okay. Yeah. This is not fucking working.

“Oh, shit!” Fjord nearly yelps, halfway into his old accent from the panic as he hurriedly dismisses his sword and tries to pat out the flame before it can damage his skin.

“Yo, Caleb, what the fuck?! You’re not gonna be able to burn an iron door, dude!” Beau outright shouts. Fuck being quiet. The only other person who was down here is dead. It’s not like they’re losing the element of surprise. 

The yelling does appear to bring Caleb back to the present. Somewhat, at least. He’s looking at Beau now, not past her. It’s hard to tell if the horror in his eyes as he stares up at her is better than the emptiness from before. It’s a pure helpless confusion that has never fit on Caleb. It’s an expression she rarely sees, an expression that makes her think of Caleb when he was Bren—the Bren before it all, or perhaps at the beginning. Not the Bren she has feared she would see every time their eyes have met since learning that Ikithon escaped, since discovering Essek was taken, but the Bren who no doubt felt sick the first time he spilled the blood of a friend. The Bren who was just a child molded into a monster. Maybe that Bren is a figment of her imagination. She doubts it. 

It’s an honest, undiluted flavor of fear in his eyes, one that doesn’t sit right, one that she has never seen when Caleb’s mind was fully in the present. He summons another small globe of fire in his hand, eyes darting between her and the door like he is waiting for one of them to strike at any second. 

The sight takes some of the fight from Beau’s chest, softening her edges as she speaks to him, trying to don a comforting tone as she says, “Just…put the fire down. Or…however you…” Words aren’t exactly coming easy. For all Beau has studied arcana over the years investigating the Assembly, she’s never exactly understood how mages just summon and dismiss the magic that dances at the edge of their fingertips. She tries to gesture, to somehow explain what she means, but Caleb only seems more confused and anxious at the movements. With a sigh, the monk lets her hands flop by her sides and she finishes, lamely, “Whatever you do to get rid of it.”

Caleb stares at Beau for a long moment, flame flickering in the palm of his bloody hand. Then he lets it fizzle out, never breaking eye contact with her.

He is so much better about eye contact than he used to be, but the duration of this is stretching far beyond his normal tolerance. And still he continues to stare. 

Until his hand flies to the fabric of his coat that covers his forearm, scratching with the recklessness of a man fighting for his life against something beneath his skin as he squeezes his eyes shut and his whole body trembles.

“Veth?” Beau calls, eyes still locked on the man in front of them. “Can you come a little closer? He might feel better if he can see you.”

From her spot near the wall furthest from the door, Veth scrabbles forward in a rush until she comes into contact with the solid bar of Beau’s arm as it shoots out to keep the halfling from getting close enough to startle Caleb.

Behind them, Caduceus’ gentle rumble coasts through the air, concerned but calm, as he offers, “I have calm emotions prepared. I am certainly willing to cast it if we don’t think him seeing me cast will make this worse than it already is.”

Oh shit. Right. Cad can calm people down. Thank the gods. Okay. This will be fine. Everything is gonna be fine…unless Caleb doesn’t recognize Caduceus and just sees someone casting magic at him. It’s hard to say exactly what spells he has left, what he used on the Volstrucker. They’ve all slept since fighting Ikithon. Caleb teleported them here from his home, but he used a circle that professors at the Soltryce Academy have access to. He clearly would have needed at least a few spells to cut down the Volstrucker. He definitely has enough left to at least throw a few counterspells and fireballs on them if he thinks he’s being threatened. That is the best case scenario if he feels threatened. Realistically, he probably has several much higher levels that could do even more damage.

As Beau’s mind races through the options, she stumbles back, caught off guard when Caleb walks straight into her. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d stopped scratching his arms. Gods. She really needs to pay better fucking attention. 

He backs away from her quickly, almost pressing back against the door behind him. Hunched over, eyes wild, fingers twitching, he almost looks like a feral animal who has been cornered. And just as that thought crosses Beau’s mind, she feels a wave of magic wash over her.

It isn’t a sensation she recognizes right away, though there is something familiar to it. Warm, but not burning. Soft but not comfortable. Utter dread pulses through Beau’s veins as she steels herself, prepared to fight off whatever the fuck is going to happen. Somehow nothing does. She doesn’t intend to give the wizard another chance to use something more effective.

It’s the work of a second to have the scrawny wizard pinned beneath her muscular form and the damp stone floor beneath the Soltryce Academy. She has an arm locked in front of his neck, ready to exert enough pressure to take away his voice temporarily if he tries to cast anything. His hands are awkwardly trapped beneath the weight of his body, held in a vice grip by Beau’s free hand for good measure. He just fucking cast on her. How the fuck are they going to deal with him.

“What the fuck happened in there, Caleb?” she growls, adrenaline pumping through her system in an angry rhythm begging to be set free.

Beau is about to open her mouth to demand Caduceus calm Caleb down. Before she can get a word out, though, Jester is downright shrieking, “Beau! What are you doing?! You’re gonna hurt Caleb!”

“He was fucking casting on me! What the hells did you want me to do?!”

“He was casting dispel magic, Beau,” the tiefling huffs.

Oh.

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t gonna cast something else next,” she grumbles, only barely easing up the pressure of her arm on Caleb’s throat.

The air beside Beau shifts as Veth kneels next to them on the ground, gently placing a hand on top of Caleb's, mindless of the blood. Beau wants to tell Veth to stop, that she can handle this. But who is she kidding?

“Caleb? Are you alright?”

At the sound of Nott’s voice, the man in question screws his eyes shut, the pace of his breaths rapidly increasing. His inhales are intermittently punctuated by gasps, hitches, and hiccups as tears begin to slowly drip from the corners of his eyes. 

A finger gently taps on Beau’s shoulder, and she looks up to see Cad, gently urging her to ease off of Caleb. Casting a glance to the way the man’s fingers flutter through half-completed somatics, she just looks up to the firbolg and shakes her head. Caduceus doesn’t push the issue.

With a soft, comforting tone, he murmurs, “Hi there, Mister Caleb. Everything is going to be okay. I’m going to do something that will help you calm down, alright?” before letting a green wave of magic wash over the man beneath Beau, shimmering across Caleb's body as all of his muscles relax in unison.

In the span of six seconds, his trembling ceases, his breathing settles, and those blue eyes sharpen as they scan whatever scene he can make out from his perspective pinned on the ground. Beau imagines it is probably a bit hard to see around her, but frankly, there are much worse sights to come back to. 

Caleb’s throat bobs beneath her forearm when he meets Beau’s eyes.

“I know where Trent’s people are keeping Essek,” he croaks through vocal chords that sound like they have been covered in gravel. 

Oh. Shit. She should probably get off of him now.

In one fluid movement, Beau springs to her feet. The hand she offers to Caleb is quickly accepted, and she pulls his scrawny wizard ass up from the ground, trying to ignore the nauseating stickiness that clings to her hang even when he lets go.

She looks from her hand, now smeared with blood, up to Fjord.

A slight tip of Fjord’s head, indicating the way out of this gods-forsaken basement. Should we go now?

Beau glances at her bloodied hand again, then up at Caleb—surveying everyone in the room with a determination that still looks desperate, but looks a lot more like the man she knows—then back towards Fjord, lips pulled into a thin line. I’m still concerned.

Fjord’s eyes flick towards Jester, then Yasha. Settling on Beau once again, he raises a brow. We wouldn’t waste time if it was them in Essek’s place.

Beau clenches her jaw. Lets her gaze flit to the ceiling to track the droplets of water for the briefest of moments. Looks to her wife. To Jester. To Cad. To Veth. 

If Caleb needs to be handled, she’s already got the cavalry on standby. 

The slightest nod to Fjord. Fine.  

Of course Fjord knows how to draw the eye of a room. With a splattering of sea water, he summons Star Razor into his hand again. With all the confidence of a born leader, one who knows that the simple action will draw every pair of eyes towards him, Fjord muses, “It has been a while since our last jailbreak. I think we’re due for another.”

Chapter Text

A familiar whoosh roars in Beau’s ears as the world warps around them. The tang of iron and soot settles at the back of her tongue, the scent of burning wood and ozone filling her nostrils, the grip of a hand with blunted nails on her forearm as she grips the person on her other side in the same way. In some way, it all brings with it a sense of nostalgia.

Less nostalgic, though, is the equally familiar jostling that feels like a punch to the gut. It almost rips her from the link she has between Fjord and Yasha. Shouting an apology that gets swallowed by the cacophonic vortex of time and space around them, she feels blood well up from where her nails bite into Yasha’s arm. 

The abrupt drop onto the ground from about two feet up is the second clue, not that Beau needs any further confirmation, that Caleb’s teleport went off course. How far off course is yet to be determined, though she doubts Caleb will do well with any amount.

As she helps the members of their group who don’t have the best reflexes—namely Fjord and Caduceus—off the ground, her assumptions, for what feels like the millionth time today, prove correct. Before she can get to Caleb to help him, he’s already pushed himself up, ignoring Jester’s extended hand. Walking towards a cluster of pine trees away from the group, he runs a shaky hand through his hair. 

“Where exactly are we?” Fjord mutters, glancing about and taking stock of the space around them.

It’s not a bad question, but probably not one any of them can realistically answer right now. Somewhere mountainous is about as far as Beau can go with a guess. The air isn’t thin enough to be at too high an altitude, though. They’ve landed in a clearing with yellowing grass and sparse clusters of pine trees extending dozens of feet into the air. Rounded boulders and outcroppings of rocks, not unlike those near the base of the Dunrock Mountains, extend in various spots around them before a sharp incline turns jagged. To their right and behind them is a dense forest of towering sugar pines and tangled underbrush following the sloped path of the ground. Pale gray-white clouds that obscure the sky make it hard to gauge the time. It doesn’t seem to be much earlier or later than before they went to the cellar of the Soltryce Academy. Not that it rules out much, but at least it’s clear they aren’t in Issylra or Tal’Dorei or some shit. 

She glances at Caleb, crouched over in the dirt as far away from the Nein as possible without going into the forest. His shoulders are hunched, chest rising and falling a bit too quickly.

“How long do you think it’s been since you cast that spell, Cad?” she asks, never taking her eyes off the wizard.

“Considering how agitated he’s getting, I’m inclined to say ten or fifteen minutes.” The response leaves Beau quirking a brow. There is no way it’s been ten fucking minutes. After a pause, Caduceus elaborates, “In reality, I think it has been closer to two or three.”

“Don’t the effects of that spell usually last for, like, a really long time?” Jester asks, tail swishing anxiously behind her.

“Not really, no. It’s more that it calms you down enough that your negative emotions are starting from zero again. It generally takes longer to get amped up again, but it is not impossible for someone to become anxious this quickly.” The firbolg casts a troubled glance at Caleb. “It’s certainly not common, though.”

Beau sighs, shoulders slumping. It’s been so long since he’s been like this. It isn’t that it never happens, but it’s infrequent, generally mild. This is…this is a sharp decline. Though not surprising, it still hurts to watch.

With a forceful exhale, she straightens, looking at Veth and jerking her head towards Caleb. It only takes a second before she hears the halfling's footsteps join her own as she starts making her way towards the man. 

Drawing closer, the sound of Caleb muttering in Zemnian tentatively drifts through the air, as if the breeze itself fears the picture it will paint of their friend. When they’re finally close enough to see over his shoulder, Beau is at least slightly relieved to see that he isn’t crouched over for the sole purpose of staving off a panic attack. He’s got a white-knuckle grip on a stick, tracing lines and symbols all over the dirt. The sheer amount of sigils and equations he’s managed to draw in the short time since they’ve gotten here has Beau reconsidering her previous stance that he’d be too slow to make a good monk.

Beau steps on leaves and sticks as she walks around his hunched form, trying not to startle him. He doesn’t notice her. Or, more likely, he notices her but doesn’t care enough to acknowledge it. She rolls her eyes, looks from Caleb to Veth. The halfling just shrugs. Beau rolls her eyes again. 

“Hey, Caleb. So…what’re you doing?” A kick to a pebble by her foot sends the rock skittering off towards a tree, tearing a small chunk of bark off. Probably good she didn’t inadvertently hit Caleb with the rock, as tempting as that might be when he grunts some bullshit nonanswer that sounds vaguely like a morose bear grumbling in complaint. 

“Dude, we need to figure out where we are. Can you come over with the rest of us and help?” 

“Not now. Busy.”

“Caleb–” 

“Beauregard.” He shakes his head, still looking at his equations in the dirt. “Need to recalculate. We weren’t supposed to end up here.”

It isn’t easy to suppress the urge to yell that where they are now doesn’t matter as long as he knows where they are going. She takes in a deep breath, blows it out in an attempt to blow out her frustration with it. It only sort of works. “Well, since you’re so busy , I’ll just talk to myself.”

The way his grip tightens on the stick is the only indicator that he’s heard her at all.

Beau pauses, tries to put her thoughts together. Her eyes flick back to the group of their friends behind her. The haze around her head gives a faint hum, sending vibrations down her neck and spine as she stares at Fjord, who just stares back. Somewhat more hesitantly, she turns her eyes back towards Caleb, to Veth, and tries again.

“I know that magic can be fucky. I’m sure the ley line shit doesn’t help, that this situation doesn’t help.” His shoulders tense. Trying to alleviate some of his stress, Beau continues, “We’re probably not that far away. But, even if we are, it ultimately doesn’t matter, right? I remember at least a dozen times we ended up somewhere random and you or Essek just tried again and got us where we needed to go.” More quietly, she adds, “You look like you’re on the verge of fainting. You should take a minute, catch your breath. Talk to us.”

The stick continues to trace patterns in the dirt, the man holding it staying stubbornly silent.

Quietly, Veth pads up next to Caleb and places a hand on his shoulder. He flinches.

“Lebby,” she soothes, “We’re safe right now. There’s no one else here. We’re fine. You need to take a moment, breathe, calm down…You–you’ve been through a lot today.”

His grip tightens impossibly around the stick. More blood is probably joining the mess already coating his hands—not that Beau can differentiate it from the dried crimson stains. Caleb’s brows are drawn, eyes squeezing shut for the briefest of moments.

It’s an echo of when Beau first met them, the way he relied on his little goblin friend. Veth looks utterly transformed, even beyond the physical transformation she underwent since then. Two days ago, Beau could’ve said the same about Caleb. Now, he looks like the same scared man he was when they first met, just a little older and trading the dirt on his face for blood.

“Veth, I cannot calm down.” Caleb’s voice is low, steady only through sheer force of will, each syllable slow and clearly enunciated. “If I calm down, I will lose focus. If I lose focus, we will be vulnerable. So, I’m sorry, my friend, but I cannot.”

Beau looks back towards the others, huddled together and watching their little trio with concern. Conversations are happening, and, hushed though they may be, she can read lips well enough to gather their contents. Perks of being a nosy little shit.

“I hate to say it as much as any of us,” Fjord is saying, “But if he continues on this path, Caleb will be a liability. We have to prepare for that possibility.” 

Jester looks torn between bursting into tears and arguing with her new fiancé—fuck, they got engaged yesterday and this is how they are getting to celebrate it. Yasha nods in assent, albeit begrudging assent, to Fjord’s recommendation. Caduceus and his ever-watchful eye surveys both the half of the Nein he is standing with and the collective at the edge of the forest. And Beau knows that look. He has an idea. Gods knows they’ll have to reach some arbitrary boundary—okay, maybe not arbitrary in actuality, but it will feel arbitrary as fuck to Beau in the moment—before he will share it with the rest of them. To be fair, his habit of gathering as much information about both the situation and everyone’s reactions to it has been exceedingly valuable in the past. It’s hard to judge the man when his obnoxious level of patience pays off so consistently. 

Turning back to Caleb, Beau grits her teeth. Caleb Widogast is not a liability. Not when he’s in control of himself. She just has to knock some sense into him. Metaphorically. Probably.

None too gracefully, she plops down onto the dirt next to Caleb. With a slow, purposeful motion, she reaches out towards his left hand and firmly clasps it. Caleb stiffens. Undeterred, Beauregard guides his hand to rest on her shoulder—a mirror of old times. Sticky blood from his hand transfers to hers. It’s an odd texture that rides the line between fully wet and tacky. Her skin crawls at the feeling, despite how familiar it is.

“Listen, Caleb,” she intones, looking ahead into the forest like the lack of eye contact will give them both cover from the fear that sits, leaden, in her chest. “We’re in this together. We trust you. But you need to trust us too.” The hand on her shoulder squeezes ever so slightly. “Let’s take a moment, rest, get our bearings. I know that time is of the essence. But, if we don’t have a plan—one that all of us are in on—we’re not going to make it past shit. What do you say?”

Silence stretches between them for a small eternity. 

“Okay.”

One word, said so quietly it is almost swallowed up in a passing breeze, but it’s a start. Sometimes all you can ask for is a start.

Hopping to her feet, Beau extends a hand to Caleb and pulls him up off the ground.

As Caleb steadies himself, Beau releases her grip, trying to ignore the gore now clinging to her hand, and gives him a reassuring nod. The tension in the air, while still evident, dissipates a little. When they turn towards the rest of the Nein, Caleb’s hand settles on her shoulder again. On his other side, Beau notices Veth reach up and take his other hand. 

“Alright! Let's take some time to regroup and figure out our next steps,” Beau announces, her voice ringing through the stillness. Ignoring her own anxiety, she moves towards the others. Caleb follows hesitantly, his presence a tangible weight.

“Hi there,” Caduceus says with an easy smile as they join the others. 

Beau gives a tight-lipped smile. She does appreciate the normalcy of it, even if it feels out of place in the present. 

“Hallo.”

“How are you doing, Caleb?” Jester asks, eyes brimming with hope that is tempered by a sadness the tiefling seldom wore before the Iron Shepherds, before Molly.

“Ah, ähm. Gut. Good. Ja.” 

“Do you remember Common?” 

Caleb opens his mouth to speak, but before he can, Veth is already interjecting. “Oh! I know this. Um. Caleb! Erinnerst du…wie Common– or, um… wie man Common…spricht?” 

The words are halting, over-enunciated, and all around awkward in Veth’s mouth, but Beau has to give her credit for trying. 

“Ja, or–I mean yes. I remember how to speak Common,” Caleb mutters, eyes trained on his shoes.

“Well that’s good! That would be totally shitty if you forgot how to speak Common. Then I couldn’t send to you!”

Oh, Jester. Beau hopes she never changes. This seems to form a crack in some of Caleb’s defenses too, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Well, now. We can’t have that,” the wizard says, briefly meeting the tiefling’s eyes before looking at his shoes once again. A long pause sits in the air, uncertainty marinating heavily in the silence. Apprehensively, Caleb prompts, “We were going to make a plan?”

“Yes. Right. I was thinking we could talk about where Essek is supposed to be, what information you got about security and shit, and how we’re gonna get him out.” Beau stands as straight as she can, head tilted slightly up.

“That sounds like a great idea.” 

Murmurs of agreement ripple through the group. She smiles at Caduceus, nods her thanks. Those pale eyes that can penetrate the very soul of a person hold nothing but encouragement.

“Caleb?” Yasha coaxes. 

All eyes turn to the wizard. He shifts under their gaze, hands wringing and stare fixed on the ground. “Right. He is…He is supposed to be at an abandoned outpost near the Rockguard Garrison. An old station for Volstrucker before…It is…Trent established it during the war.”

 “You say Essek is ‘supposed to be’ there…Do you have reason to believe he is not?” Fjord probes, taking in everything about Caleb’s reaction. Evaluating. Beau has to imagine the man feels a bit like a bug under a microscope with the way they’re all watching him.

Something dark crosses Caleb’s countenance, drying blood spatter on his face only heightening the eeriness of it. “It would have been very difficult for them to lie to me.”

The tone of his voice sends a shiver down Beau’s spine. Caleb is a good man. He is. But there are sides to him that are…determined. Training. Desperation. Whatever the cause, it’s never easy to watch when it appears. It’s made all the more difficult when she doesn’t know how to fix it, short of rescuing Essek. That’s all fine and good, but what about all the risk to his well-being and the well-being of the people around him in the meantime?

Fjord raises an eyebrow. “What spells did you use in there?”

“Why are you asking about that?” Caleb snaps, harshly enough that Jester jumps in surprise. His eyes jerk up from the ground and lock onto Fjord in a silent challenge. Or assessment. Knowing Caleb, it’s probably both.

“I’m just trying to gauge how depleted your arcane resources are.”

“They are…fine,” he replies haltingly, before amending, “They’re good enough.”

Something cold settles into place in Fjord as he regards the man across from him. The rest of the Nein wait silently, watching the exchange with bated breath. 

“I find it interesting that you seem so hesitant to share details about what you used,” Fjord prods. “I honestly can’t remember the last time I asked what a spell was and you didn’t tell me either its name or its purpose. Why are you so against doing that now?”

Caleb doesn’t avert his eyes as Fjord meets his gaze.

“What I used in there is none of your concern, Fjord.”

Maybe he is a liability. Maybe this is all too much. But how are they meant to get Essek without him?

“See, I think it is,” the warlock contests. More gently, he adds, “We all want to support you. But you are stressed, you have been through multiple traumatic events in the last 24 hours—even traumatic by the standards of what we do…And, you are not acting like yourself.”

“I wonder why,” Caleb growls, ice in his eyes. 

Fjord sighs, irritation bunching up his muscles and pinching his brow. “I’m not saying it’s unfounded.” 

“You seem very hesitant to tell us what spells you used; that’s fine,” Caduceus interjects, voice a serene rumble like waves crashing through the tension. “Could you give us an idea of how powerful they were?”

“Powerful enough.”

Caleb’s hands clench and unclench beside him, fingers twitching like he wants to cast a spell.

“This isn’t helping you or anyone else, man. Just answer the fucking questions,” Beau groans, starting to scrub her hand down her face before recognizing the tacky texture of blood and pulling back with a start. “Look. If your most powerful resources are depleted, do you really think it’s a good idea to try to storm in and rescue Essek before you have the chance to rest? That’s something we need to know before we go barging in there.”

“We don’t exactly know what we’ll face there, Lebby.”

Having let the frustration bleed from his muscles, Fjord adds, “I want to help you. However, I am not going to go in there knowingly adding to the risk we are already taking—both with our lives and with Essek’s.” The firmness of his tone leaves no doubt as to his resolve.

“You don’t want to put additional risk onto Essek?” Caleb scoffs, a cruelty to him as he steps a fraction closer to the other man. “Waiting around for another eight hours is what, then? He is in the hands of people who mean to do him harm. Say you don’t want to put yourself at greater risk, but do not dress it up as consideration for a man who is put at greater risk every second we waste here!”

“Did the Volstrucker give you a timeline?” Jester inquires, timid.

“Was?” 

Caleb whirls on her, anger only barely flagging in the face of their very own ray of sunshine. She bristles in the face of it, standing a little taller. “Did the Volstrucker tell you how much time Essek has? When they plan to move him, kill him, turn him over to the Bright Queen, whatever it is they plan to do.”

“It doesn’t matter when they plan to do it. We cannot give them the chance.” 

“The Rockguard Garrison is close to Xhorhas. It’s not in Xhorhas. And who do the people holding Essek have to give them orders to continue now? Trent’s gone. The other Volstrucker is gone. Who’s going to tell them it’s time to drag Essek over and turn him in?” the tiefling challenges.

“I cannot believe you all.”

The wizard begins pacing, fingers pressed into his temples. Veth looks torn between wanting to jump out of his way and wanting to reach out to him. Ultimately, her motherly instinct wins out, and she tries to take his hand in hers. The look on her face when he snatches it away, staring down at her with a cold, blank expression, breaks Beau’s heart. 

Okay. Clearly, this is a trauma response. That’s fine. They all know this. But how gentle can they continue to be if he’s only going to continue riding the line between their friend and the person he was before? If he’s going to be stuck on one goal, not caring about potential threats to himself? 

She takes a step in front of him, blocking the path of his vexed pacing. He meets her eyes, jaw set, hands twitchy.

“You need to stop. Calm down.”

“I don’t understand why you are not with me on this.” His face scrunches, twists with the pressure of the pain that seeps into his voice. Quietly, he adds, “You, of all people, know what that man can do.”

“We dealt with that man, Caleb. I know Volstrucker can do a lot of damage. I know Essek is at risk. But do you want to try to save Essek and fail?” she reasons. “It will be much worse for him if we go in and don’t succeed. It will be much worse if we go in and you get captured. If you get killed. You need to be at your best, or at least something close to it. So, either you need to get your shit together right now, or we all need to rest and try when you at least have all your spells and are willing to share your plans.”

Fire dances in his eyes. It’s not a fire of anger so much as it is one of stubbornness, born of fear and desperation. A fight raging within those blue depths that wavers between a commitment to be the man he is—a man who will feel the pain of this moment and what it could cost him, and the need to be a man who will do whatever needs to be done to achieve his goal and won’t feel the pain of it at all.

Before he can argue, Beau gently but authoritatively commands him, “Caleb, shit, I mean, look at your hands.”

“I am aware of what I did, Beauregard.” His tone is too even, eyes too hard.

“Are you okay with what you did?” Caduceus asks pointedly.

And that is all it takes for Caleb’s defenses to crumble like ash. Shoulders hunched, his face contorts itself into a painful picture of regret. Of fear. Tremors wrack through his body.

Wordlessly, Beau takes his hand and places it firmly on her shoulder. Fingers dig into her flesh as Caleb starts to cry. Sobs are loud in the quiet of the clearing as the stress of the last day forcefully rips itself from wherever Caleb had locked it away.

Quiet, defeated, he mutters, “I have enough reserves to cast the tower. We can spend the evening and night there, then go for Essek first thing in the morning.”

He sticks his wand into the dirt. A minute later, arcana roars to life around him, coalescing in the shape of a door. He doesn’t spare them a glance before he gets up and walks through it.

Well. At least it’s a fucking start.