#shadowidowmauk | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

widoglock · 3 months

Text

Just Like the Present

“You know you can tell me when things are bad,” Caleb murmurs, his fingers stilling upon Kingsley’s jawline. “You won’t scare me away.” Kingsley takes a long breath through his nose. “Yeah. I know.” “But?” “Things have been…” He covers Caleb’s hands. “From what I remember from—from the others. It’s been a while. So I guess I’m out of practice.” “Out of practice with…” Kingsley laughs. “I dunno. Happiness? Good things? It didn’t bother me until today but for some reason I’ve felt…I feel like a square peg in a round hole all of a sudden, like me and happiness aren’t made for each other. Like it’s all too good to be true, for um. For someone…” “Kingsley.” “For someone like me, maybe, and I know that’s not—but there’s this—I think I hallucinated today, is the thing, and it’s got me spiraling. A little bit.”

Rating: M

Tags: 6k, Widomauk, referenced Shadowidowmauk, hurt/comfort, pining, touch starved Kingsley (cursed object edition), my usual obsession with hugs and lucid dreams

CW: Dissociation/derealization, hallucinations (sort of...see cursed object for details), anal sex (both Caleb and Kingsley have a penis), self-hatred

[Also on Ao3] Full fic below:

---

Kingsley wakes up from a nightmare, and he’s warm.

Groggy fingers find Kingsley’s and tangle.

“All right?” Caleb murmurs.

Kingsley groans. The cabin is crack-of-dawn dark. The blankets are the perfect kind of heavy, and smell like bay laurel and the two of them.

Caleb kisses the back of Kingsley’s head. Kingsley curls his tail around Caleb’s ankle. Caleb yelps.

“Scheiße, you’re cold.”

Kingsley doesn’t let go. “How’d you sleep?”

Caleb grumbles into his hair. “Well. Very well.”

“Storm didn’t keep you up?”

“Nein.”

“Nein,” Kingsley repeats, really plucking the consonants. “Magic man?”

“Circus man.”

“I'm not getting out of bed.”

Caleb snorts, and he’s so warm, and Caleb can hear the rain outside. “So sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Kingsley gets one last glance at the pile of clothes on the floor—takes a moment to admire the way Caleb’s overclothes fit along the grooves of his frock coat. Then a shadow blocks the window.

Kingsley looks up. Caleb is standing in front of Kingsley’s desk. He’s scraggly with dirt and exertion; a streak of blood darkens his forehead. Kingsley can barely make out the shock on his face.

Kingsley says, “Caleb?”

The Caleb on the bed tenses. “What’s wrong?”

The Caleb by the window is gone. Kingsley exhales.

“Nothing,” he says, because he really needs it to be true.

“Would incense help? I could open the drapes?”

Kingsley kisses his wrist. “It’s fine. Really.” He forces the shake out of his fingers, and tucks Caleb’s hand back against his chest. “Thank you, though.”

Caleb refits himself along the curve of Kingsley’s spine. “I worry about you, circus man,” he says after a while.

Kingsley closes his eyes. “Wake me when you smell breakfast?”

The rain is still spitting a bit when they get up for breakfast. The cold tastes like snow, and the sea air sets a sparkle to the mundane. The crew eat lavishly, having just been to port, enjoying fresh meat and cheese. Some rope snapped from the cold last night, and now the carpenter’s repair planks are lincoln-logged all over the hold; Kingsley and Caleb work out a solution with some magic and a little leftover sail line.

Around ten, Kingsley takes his turn at the helm. Caleb goes up to the crow’s nest to read. Frumpkin chases mice and rats and cheek skritches. It’s less cloudy now, with an added burst of wind, and the deck shimmers with rainwater. If Kingsley cranes his neck at the right angle, he can see the very top of Caleb’s head—a spot of color against the soft steel of daylight.

“I’m falling in love with you!” Kingsley shouts up at him.

Caleb shouts down: “What?”

“I said, I want to make you happy for the rest of your life!”

Caleb leans over the edge and yells what sounds like, “You know I can’t hear you from up here!”

Kingsley waves. Caleb mirrors the gesture. When Kingsley laughs, his breath fogs out of him. Caleb shouts something else and goes back to his book. Kingsley feels eyes on him, but when he turns around, there’s only the ocean.

The sea settles. The air shakes its winter bite. The crew gather for a game of cards, and Kingsley eats a sandwich for lunch. He’s on his way stern-side when he hears Caleb say, “Kingsley!”

Kingsley turns. He sees Caleb behind him on the stairs and says, “Problem?”

Caleb’s clothes are different. He looks scared. He says, “Kingsley, I need you to listen to me.”

“I’ve got you. I’ve got you—what’s wrong?” He grabs Caleb’s elbow.

“This isn’t real.” Caleb grabs him back. “It’s a construct. You are under a—a spell of some kind. Do you remember?”

Kingsley starts to say, “Remember what?”—but then he blinks and Caleb has vanished. More than that—there are no bootprints to mark his passage. No dribble of rainwater. Not even a crease where Caleb had grabbed his coat.

“Okay,” Kingsley says, and goes to find some booze.

Kingsley wants to get drunk. He doesn’t. He’s got shit to do on deck, and anyway—he can’t make Caleb worry. They see each other often now—for days at a time even, when Caleb’s schedule permits. Still: Frost gathers on the porthole panes at night. A certain sacrosanctity clings to everything. If Kingsley carries a flask of the good stuff, so does the rest of the crew. It’s a pirate ship; pirates drink. It’s fine.

Normalcy creeps back into frame. Dinner is a jovial affair. Kingsley and Caleb trade gossip over wine and biscuits and salted pork. Caleb’s work stories are less gory than Kingsley’s—but by a smaller margin than one might expect from a man of his vocation.

They go walk along the bulwark and watch the stars come out. Their fingers graze, and Caleb gasps.

“You’re freezing!" Caleb begins rubbing Kingsley’s hands. “Doofi. Where are your gloves?”

“I dunno. Somewhere.” He loves the way Caleb shuffles his hands around like a stick in a fire plough. “I’m not cold, really.”

“You’re frigid. Hold on.” Caleb switches gears and takes off his scarf. He winds it around Kingsley’s neck. It’s dark blue and warm with residual body heat. Kingsley nuzzles his nose into it as Caleb dusts the hair from his face.

“You know you can tell me when things are bad,” Caleb murmurs, his fingers stilling upon Kingsley’s jawline. “You won’t scare me away.”

Kingsley takes a long breath through his nose.

“Yeah. I know.”

“But?”

“Things have been…” He covers Caleb’s hands. “From what I remember from—from the others. It’s been a while. So I guess I’m out of practice.”

“Out of practice with…”

Kingsley laughs. “I dunno. Happiness? Good things? It didn’t bother me until today but for some reason I’ve felt…I feel like a square peg in a round hole all of a sudden, like me and happiness aren’t made for each other. Like it’s all too good to be true, for um. For someone…”

“Kingsley.”

“For someone like me, maybe, and I know that’s not—but there’s this—I think I hallucinated today, is the thing, and it’s got me spiraling. A little bit.”

“Shit. That’s—”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Caleb says firmly. “It distresses you: It’s not nothing. I don’t portend to, ah, to know an awful lot about the mind. Hallucinations. But. There are ways to—there are paths to take, to help. And you…” Here he soothes his thumb across Kingsley’s cheek. “And you. My wonderful friend. You deserve the world. Nothing but goodness and love and rest. I will happily remind you of this as…as often as you’d like. Ja?”

Kingsley blinks rapidly. “Ha. Um. Ja.”

“‘For someone like me,’” he scoffs. He cups Kingsley’s hands. “You are ridiculous. Treasure yourself.”

Kingsley can’t quite nod. He feels the pool of fabric around his neck, and the cold wind through his hair. Caleb says,

“And for shit’s sake, let me buy you some gloves.”

That breaks the dam, and Kingsley laughs as he wipes his eyes. “I have gloves.”

“Not good ones, if you prefer to keep them off. Come to the city with me soon. We’ll find something versatile.”

Kingsley hears a ruckus on the stairs, and then the ship’s carpenter bubbles up from the galley like a cask buoy, suspended by the arms and cheers of her crew. She’s the musical flavor of drunk, and would like the whole ocean to know.

“Brine below with brandy in tow, on seas and—and sails of…what’s the last part?”

“Ferry,” Kingsley shouts.

Her friend rattles her arm around. “Sing the one about the girl from Brokenbank! The girl from Brokenbank!”

“And ferry! On seas and ferry and sail on the—the what? The girl from…?”

“Brokenbank!”

“Right! La…la fille d’Brokenbank!”

The carpenter launches into something bright, brash, and palpably Swavanian. Her friends shout and sway along. Summoned by demand or opportunity, the ship “musiker” appears from belowdecks, and with a few sweeps of his bow promotes their drunken sing-along to a proper soiree.

Kingsley leans against Caleb, and Caleb leans against Kingsley, and the both of them lean back against the bulwark. “La fille d’Brokenbank” ends in a chorus of applause. The next number sounds oddly familiar. Kingsley can feel the vibration when Caleb starts to hum along.

Kingsley says, “You know this one?”

“The Zemnian version. The original.”

“How’s the translation?”

“Terrible.”

Kingsley offers his hand, palm up. Caleb takes it. Drunken whoops accompany their sashay onto the main deck.

The body remembers what the mind forgets. Sometimes that means panic attacks over innocuous shapes and sounds, and sometimes it means knowing all the steps to a dance he’s never heard of. Kingsley’s feet fall into something tap-like, and he and Caleb bob and weave like streamers at Harvest Close. They collide; Caleb takes the lead, and his hand finds its home between Kingsley’s shoulder blades. They’re close enough for Kingsley to map the laugh lines on Cakeb’s face. There’s still a smudge on his temple from journaling, and a dusting of cat fur on his shoulders, and Kingsley loves him so much he has to laugh.

Off-beat claps bolster the tempo, and soon Kingsley and Caleb are spinning faster and faster, around and around and around like feathers in a gale. Caleb raises their joined hands, forewarning a swingout, and Kingsley lets their combined momentum carry him out onto the deck. The tassels of Caleb’s scarf fling around his neck on a delay; the frost nips his nose and ears. A familiar pair of hands catch him by the hand and waist before he can spin himself apart. Kingsley meets Caleb’s eyes again—

And finds them shadowed. Desperate. Caleb’s cheeks, once flushed with wine and exertion, are pale like snow. His hands clutch hard enough to hurt. He looks fragile, and frantic, and his clothes are the wrong color. He opens his mouth and says,

“Kingsley, please.”

Kingsley’s heart stops. He wrenches out of Not-Caleb's grasp.

“Kingsley—!”

“Stay back!” Kingsley warns, and tastes metal—the signature ozone buildup which precludes very powerful magic. He turns to find Caleb—the ruddy, soft one—with his arm outstretched, palm full of fire.

Kingsley doesn’t process the distance between this new bedraggled Caleb and the old. He feels more than sees his hand take Caleb’s wrist. He knocks his aim aloft, and Caleb’s spell unloads right over his doppelgänger’s head. The fire bolt cuts through the fog like a signal flare.

“You can see him too?” Kingsley pants, as the sparks scatter over the water.

Caleb stares at the doppelgänger. His fingers are still staticky with magic: “Who are you?”

Not-Caleb won’t look away from Kingsley. “Kingsley. It’s me. This is a dream. You are under a witch’s spell.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t—I'm sorry, but I can't keep the connection open for much longer. I can wake you up, but it has to be your choice.”

Kingsley smells rain and salt and wine. “You’re not—I’m not under a spell. I’m—I’m here on my ship with you—the real you. And we’re headed to Nicodranas—"

“Kingsley.”

“We’re headed back to see Yasha and Beau and, and Fjord and Jester and Veth, and we’re all going to catch up at your wizard tower—”

“But how did you get here?”

Kingsley flounders. “What?”

“I asked you, how did you get here? Here on this boat, on your way to Nicodranas?”

“Wh—we took off from the coast. A port town.”

“Which port town? On which coast?”

Kingsley doesn’t know. Why doesn’t he know? He looks back at the scared faces of his crew—at the musiker, bow frozen on the upswing, and the drawn swords of his seamen. If they know the answer, they aren’t keen to share.

“What are you?” Caleb snaps. “Who sent you?”

Not-Caleb sways with the wind. “How did you get here, Kingsley?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You will die if you stay here much longer. This spell is like a drug, to keep you complacent while it sucks the life out of you.”

“You are the real spell,” Caleb accuses. “Where did you come from? What do you want from us?”

A smatter of snowflakes find purchase on the sails; the deck; the collar of Kingsley’s coat. He should be cold. Why isn’t he cold?

“Answer me!” Caleb shouts.

Kingsley tests the words out on his tongue: “What happens to you? If I stay.”

Not-Caleb’s fingers twist around his coat sleeves.

“Kingsley.” The real Caleb grabs him by the shoulders. “Look at me. This is real. I’m real.”

“Where were we, two weeks ago?” Kingsley’s vision blurs. “Caleb? Why—why don’t I know the names of the crew?”

“I think—I don't know. I think you are under the weather somehow.” Caleb’s grip migrates to his hands. “It will be okay. Kingsley? Listen to me. There are paths to take, paths to help, remember? We can fix this. Together.”

“Why are you here?”

That lands a blow; he can tell. “Kingsley, please.”

“You’re a professor. From Rexxentrum. You do meetings and private lessons. You never have time for anything. Why are you out in the middle of the fucking Lucidian ocean? Why are you here?”

“I am here because I love you,” Caleb pleads.

Sometimes, you only learn there was a beam under your feet when it breaks.

Kingsley can hear his own heartbeat, and the murmurs of the crew. He looks out over the rail at the tar ocean that stretches on and on forever.

“No you don’t,” he says.

“What?”

“You don’t love me.” Sehanine, he’s such an idiot. “You love Essek. You live in an adorable little cottage together on the east side of the capital, near the academy, and you keep a garden with green beans and crocuses and funny wooden shelters for the bees—and I’m out here on the ocean, and you don’t love me.”

“That’s not true,” Caleb—no, not Caleb, never Caleb—says. “Kingsley. You aren’t well. You aren’t making any sense.”

“To your credit, it was a very nice dream.” Kingsley pecks him on the forehead. “Thanks for the dance.”

He unlocks their hands. If Caleb calls after him, he can’t hear him over the roar of the ocean, or maybe the blood between his ears. He holds out his hand to Caleb—the one with traces of garden dirt in the grooves of his boots—and says,

“I’m ready.”

Kingsley wakes up from the best dream of his life, and he’s fucking freezing.

Pebbles scratch his cheek. He sits up, leans over, and vomits up his breakfast. He’s pretty sure he can hear people shouting. Someone grabs him around the waist.

“Caleb?” he slurs.

“He’s okay.” Yasha runs her fingers through his hair like she hasn’t done since he was Molly. Each point of contact feels like a breath after a week underwater. “Rest. We’ve got you.”

“‘M I gonna die?” Kingsley asks her.

“No, Kingsley, you are not going to die.”

“Feels like I’m gonna die.”

Yasha says something else—something firm. Kingsley claws for purchase. The tide drags him out from under her hands, and he drifts.

Consciousness is fickle after that. Kingsley thinks he sees a wagon bed, and Jester’s face, and the honey glow of late summer through a canvas tarp. His dreams are empty and waterlogged, his reality a disjointed stream of technicolor snapshots.

Then his brain finds a foothold. It hoists him over the ledge into cognition. Kingsley sees moonlight first. Or, a refraction thereof. Kingsley looks up to check. The windows overhead link arms to form an elaborate glass triptych, their panes bustling with circus wagons and astral cities and tieflings who wave and dance and drink Hupperdook mead.

Kingsley pulls the covers up over his head. At the foot of the bed, an uprooted Frumpkin meowls his displeasure.

Chair legs scrape hardwood. “Kingsley! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you’re awake!”

“Despite the gods’ best efforts.” He didn’t know a person could get this cold. Jester peels the blankets from his face and says,

“You look awful.”

It’s great to see her. “I feel awful.”

“You should be healed by now. Like, super duper triple healed. I’ve been pumping spells into you like crazy.” She flicks his nose. “You really freaked me out, you know.”

“Sorry.”

“Here, drink some water.”

He accepts a cup. The water settles like a rock at the bottom of his gut. “What happened?”

“Okay, so…do you remember how we found a house full of super spooky witchy stuff?”

For once, Kingsley does remember. The artifacts were deemed too potent to leave for the crows, so they’d stuffed their cart with odds and ends and rattled away toward the capital.

Kingsley teases out the details like puzzle pieces from behind a shelf. “We hit a pothole.”

“Mhmm.”

“A crystal fell out of a bag, and I…I uh…”

“Mhmm.”

“Shit.” He drags a hand down his face. “I really grabbed the one that puts you in a coma, didn’t I?”

“Like it was a platinum piece. Caleb says it makes you live out your greatest hopes and dreams so you don’t notice it sucking out your soul.”

“Right. Yeah, he told us that part before I uh…” He watches Frumpkin knead himself a nest along the crook of his knee. A claw pierces the blanket. “Ow. Yeah. How am I not dead?”

“Caleb cast some kind of dream spell and fell asleep next to you. It was super cute. And super scary.” She props her elbows up and rests her chin on her hands. “Frumpkin, you are going to tear the quilt.”

Frumpkin yawns his derision. Jester says, “Sooooo. What did you dream about?”

Kingsley whistles. “The world’s biggest pirate boat orgie.”

“Oooooh!” Her tail stands up straight. “Was I there?”

“We were on our way to pick you up. If that counts.”

“I think it should. Caleb told me to tell him when you woke up. He’s really worried about you.”

Kingsley pulls the covers back over his face. Jester coos and pats his horn through the blanket.

“Don’t worry. We can just hang out for a bit. Oh! And Caduceus said to give you some tea. I’ll be right back.”

He’s asleep before she even leaves the room.

He cracks an eye open, and Yasha is in the chair next to his bed. Beau sits crosslegged on the rug. The couple appear to be mid-argument over school districts, or maybe what constitutes a blade versus a sword. The windows cast elaborate landscapes on the wall. Kingsley goes back to sleep.

The next time he wakes up, it’s dark again, and Caduceus is bent over in his sleep. An empty cup keeps vigil from the bedside table. The air still smells faintly of dead people tea.

Kingsley thinks his blood might be frozen. He hooks his nose over the lip of the blankets and glares at the empty fireplace. There don’t appear to be any matches around, or even any wood.

Kingsley counts to ten and pries himself from the depths of his bed. The cold wood floor shoots needles up his feet. He dances his weight around until his body adjusts.

A ginger shape darts off the bed and out the door.

Midnight zoomies. Kingsley looks after Frumpkin, then back at the fireplace. He could pull the rope for a servant, but he also knows there’s a library two floors down with a hearth the size of a wagon cart. The guest room has always felt more like a shrine than a bedroom anyhow.

Kingsley drapes the first blanket over Caduceus. He wraps the second around himself like a sheet of butcher paper and shivers his miserable way to the library.

The library lights are periwinkle tonight. Kingsley picks his way through the warren of shelves and arm chairs to the couch, then the hearth. He stands with his numb fingers brooch-locked around his blanket, washed out by firelight, and waits for the heat to permeate the cold front under his skin.

And waits.

Well, fuck. Kingsley steps closer to the fire. He can feel the heat on his face, but only by degrees of separation, like there’s a veil between himself and the flames. Kingsley dumps his useless blanket on the floor. Fuck the fireplace. Fuck the whole tower and all its gleaming monuments. Kingsley thrusts his hand into the fire.

Someone yelps. A strong grip wrenches Kingsley’s hand from the fireplace.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“That’s sort of beside the point.” Shit, that hurt. Kingsley looks down at his hand, and then the hand that paints a line of heat around his wrist. “Dick and balls, Caleb. Are you—?” He takes Caleb’s hand. “Are you burned anywhere?”

“I am not the one who shoved his hand in a fire.”

“Fire-resistant, remember? It’s fine. Barely stung.” Kingsley tilts Caleb’s hand. Runs his finger along the slant of his pinky. “You look a little pink here.”

“Why are you trying to set yourself on fire two days after I pulled you out of a coma?”

“Just quirky like that, I guess.” Everywhere their fingers brush, a shock of heat pricks the veil between Kingsley and the rest of the world. “Thank you, by the way. That was…you didn’t have to do that.”

“You know I did.”

“Just…” Kingsley needs to let go of Caleb’s hand. “I’m sorry to ask for one more favor, after everything.”

Caleb looks at him with inexplicable tenderness. “What do you need?”

Kingsley releases Caleb, and cold floods right back up his arm to fill the spaces pierced by Caleb’s touch. He’s tasted relief now. Kingsley’s nails grazed the riverbank only for the current to drag him back under, and the cold hits so much harder for the memory of air and sunshine.

Kingsley says,

“I need you to forget it. All of it. Everything you saw. I’m sorry to have put you through it, but there’s no taking it back now—so the best I can do is ask you to…to kindly put it in a box in your brain somewhere and bury it. Bury it deep and spare me the mortification.”

“Kingsley—”

“Tell me I haven’t ruined our friendship over a silly little daydream.” Kingsley will not cry. He will not. “None of it has to mean anything. Anything at all.”

Caleb kisses him.

Kingsley’s brain skips and starts. He feels the tickle of Caleb’s stubble first. A match catches, and heat—real heat—grazes his lips; catches on his gasp. Jester told him once about the Temple of the False Serpent, when the room flooded and Fjord passed his last breath to Jester on a kiss. Caleb’s lips are soft and sure. The tips of his fingers dust Kingsley’s cheek. Sunlight pierces the thicket.

Then Caleb breaks away. “I’m sorry. I know you—”

“Don’t stop.” It’s a pathetic mewl. He’s shaking so hard it hurts. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop—”

Caleb’s face crumples, and then his hands are back on Kingsley’s face. Their lips meet. Kingsley makes a sound from the very pit of his chest. The relief is so profound he thinks he’ll crumple.

“Shh, shh.” Caleb kisses his cheeks; his brow; his jaw. “I’ve got you now. I’ve got you. Es ist in Ordnung.”

Kingsley sways. Caleb braces him with his arms. The warmth spreads up Kingsley’s spine; down his throat; expands with his lungs, slow as daybreak.

“Es ist in Ordnung,” Caleb repeats, like he can taste Kingsley’s desperation. “Es ist in Ordnung…”

The kiss deepens. Caleb hugs him closer. Kingsley’s arms ache. He screws his nails into his palms. If he touches Caleb he’ll break the spell.

Caleb rests their foreheads together. He pants, and his nose brushes Kingsley’s, and he says,

“You are an idiot. I love you.”

The world tilts on its axis. “You don’t. You can’t.”

“I love you both. Essek knows I love you both.”

It kills Kingsley to tear his head away.

“Kingsley…”

“If you ever loved anyone with this face,” Kingsley says, “it wasn’t me.”

Caleb makes a low noise at the back of his throat. He grabs Kingsley by the arms and pushes him onto the couch. His mouth locks around Kingsley’s throat. Heat spikes through Kingsley’s chest like a blade; he only knows he threw his head back from the give of the cushions. Emboldened, Caleb teases the skin below his ear. Kingsley hears, over his own keen,

“You’re shaking like a leaf.”

“It’s cold,” Kingsley manages.

Caleb recaptures his lips. His legs brace Kingsley’s hips; his palms leave sunshine prints on his chest. One hand slides down, down, down. Fingers tease the line of skin between Kingsley’s shirt and pants. Kingsley arches up. He must make some other sound, because Caleb says, “Right here, schatz.”

“Caleb.” The fingers press harder. Lift the edge of his shirt. “Caleb.”

The touch vanishes like a snuffed candle. “All right?”

“Please—I can’t—”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No. No, please. Please. Caleb, don’t stop, please don’t stop—”

Lips on his lips. Kingsley softens.

“Es ist in Ordnung…Es ist in Ordnung.” Caleb’s hand slides back up under his shirt. “I have you. Just stay with me.” He runs his fingers up his ribcage. “Just stay here with me.”

It takes a second to remember how to speak: “I’m here. I’m here.”

A flash of magic, and the library doors swing shut. Caleb undoes the first three buttons of Kingsley’s shirt; stops to kiss the exposed skin; undoes the last three. Pushes the fabric aside.

“I loved Mollymauk. I loved Lucien. I love you.” He kisses the words down Kingsley’s ribs. “I am in love with the dust that makes you. Is that so difficult to believe?”

Kingsley laughs. Forces back tears. “A bit, yeah.”

“Why?”

He wants to live under Caleb’s hands. He wants to run away to the ocean and never look back.

Caleb dips closer. He stresses, “Why is it so difficult to believe that you are loved, Kingsley?”

“Don’t ask me that. Please don’t ask me that.”

Caleb’s fingers slide back down his stomach. “I want to hold you. I want to make you feel good. Will you let me?”

“I’m not a real person,” Kingsley tells him. “I’m just a jumble of broken parts in a pirate coat.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

“It should.”

Caleb says, “Do you know what I dream about? I dream about waking up next to you on a Saturday morning, with nothing to do but lay around and kiss you and watch the light change.” His hand wanders below his pants. He cups Kingsley’s hip. “I dream about taking you to the market, and filling our baskets with fresh berries and sweetbread and whatever you like. I dream you show me the ocean. I dream we lay out on the deck of your ship and look up at the stars. I dream I forget my lunch, and you appear mid-lecture with a bag of snacks and tomatoes from the garden, and I get to show you off to my class. I dream about that a lot.”

His hand trails back up his thigh. Kingsley writhes, a live wire under his touch.

“I dream I wake up from a nightmare, and you are there. I dream you teach me how to sail.” His thumb sweeps closer to Kingsley’s cock. “I dream I stay up grading papers, and you come up from behind and wrap your arms around my shoulders, and you tell me the work will still be there in the morning. I dream I get to hold you and kiss you and make you come. Will you let me?”

Kingsley looks up at Caleb, and the way the fire halos his hair.

“I love you.” Kingsley’s fingers are claws on the cushions. “Before I knew my own name I knew I loved you. Fuck me, use me, whatever you want, you’ve got me.”

“I told you, I want to make you feel good. Tell me how to make you feel good.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Caleb draws his hand back up the line between his thigh and stomach, away from his cock.

Kingsley whines. “I’m not…I don’t deserve this.”

“Ah. Too bad. Tell me anyway.”

That shocks a laugh out of him. “You’re a tyrant. I want…”

The fire crackles. Caleb’s hands are on his hips, anchors to reality.

“I want you,” Kingsley chokes out. “I want to feel you. I want to feel you on me, around me.”

“How do you mean? Do you want me to fuck you? Ride you?”

“Oh fuck. Shit.” He’s sure his heart will pound out of his chest. “Touch me, ride me, please. Yes.”

Caleb kisses him. The world narrows back down to the bloom of his touch.

“All right. All right, I’ve got you.” He pulls away. “Not going anywhere. Lay back for me?”

Kingsley musters the wherewithal to obey. Caleb shuffles out of his boxers. He reaches for the waistband of Kingsley’s pants.

“Ja?”

“Please. Please, shit, here, let me—”

He helps Caleb pull down his pants and underwear. Magic dusts Caleb’s hands, and then a vial appears between his palms.

“Oh.” He rattles the vial. “I am glad that worked.”

Kingsley pretends not to stare at Caleb’s cock. “Yeah? What was the alternative?”

“Forty-five pounds of dinner rolls.” He uncaps the vial. Kingsley looks on, almost from outside himself, as Caleb warms a dollop of oil between his hands.

Kingsley’s body knows sex. It’s had sex as people he can’t bear to claim, with people he’ll never care to know. In the wake of his resurrection, as Kingsley grappled for some kind of ownership over his body, he’d collected flings like copper pieces. It shouldn’t be a shock, when Caleb brushes two fingers up his shaft. It shouldn’t feel so new, when Caleb swipes his thumb over the head of his cock.

Caleb’s free hand finds Kingsley’s on the couch. He says, “Touch me?” and there’s a tremor. Maybe there’s been a tremor for a while.

Kingsley unlocks his grip from the couch. He takes Caleb’s wrist, and the world doesn’t end. Oil spills down his cock with the steady up and back of Caleb’s other hand. Kingsley’s grip spasms. He finds Caleb’s sides and clutches for purchase. Caleb says something soft and low. He breaks away to pour more oil onto his palm. Kingsley watches, helpless to move, as Caleb reaches down with lathered fingers. He preps himself. The firelight catches his fingers as they reappear. He says,

“Still with me?”

The memories are fuzzy. “I’ve left you a lot, haven’t I?”

“You always come back.” Caleb prestidigitates his hands clean. “This couch may, um. May prove a challenge.”

“We could move to the floor?”

“No, ah, I think this will work fine. Just…”

The cushions dip with one knee, then the other. Caleb sits so he brackets Kingsley’s thighs. He plants his palms to frame Kingsley’s head, and looks down at him with such lavish adoration Kingsley wants to wither away.

Caleb’s brow furrows. He hooks his finger and feathers the underside of Kingsley’s horn. Kingsley shudders.

“Someone lied to you,” Caleb whispers. “Who convinced you that you are worth so little?”

Kingsley looks away. Caleb’s finger finds a certain spot along the base of his horn; spurred by Kingsley’s moan, he massages the skin there with slow vigor. He says, “You deserve so much more than I could ever give you. I’m selfish that way.”

Kingsley musters a scoff. “Only you could look at this and call it selfish.”

Caleb kisses him. Kingsley thinks the world could end and he wouldn’t notice. He runs his fingers through Caleb’s hair, like he’s always wanted to do, and Caleb rewards him with a shaky noise. Everything is yellow and soft and dappled.

Caleb leans back. He raises himself over Kingsley’s cock. A pause, as he looks to Kingsley for permission. Then he sinks down. Caleb takes the tip of his cock. Heat envelopes his shaft, slow and steady. Kingsley can only heave for breath. His horn half catches on a pillow. Caleb hooks his palms above Kingsley’s hips. He says something punched out, like he can barely fit the words out of his throat, and the walls around Kingsley’s cock contract and release. Kingsley bites back a wail.

Caleb, fully seated now, takes a moment to adjust to the stretch. He’s still wearing his sleep shirt. His hair is ruffled from Kingsley’s fingers. Kingsley covers his hands. He closes his eyes and floats with the pattern of their overlapping breaths; feels the hug of Caleb’s body all around like a winter coat.

“Don’t think I’m not gonna…” Caleb’s muscles flex, and Kingsley has to pause to recover his wits. “Don’t think I’m gonna last.”

“Good. Because I won’t be able to keep this up for very long.” Caleb raises himself to the tip of Kingsley’s dick, then rides the shaft back down to the base. Kingsley doesn’t hear the sound he makes, but he feels the air leave his lungs and mouth. Oil beads off his thighs and cock and stomach. Kingsley’s fingers knit with Caleb’s, hard enough to sting. The sound of skin on skin; Caleb’s broken Zemnian as Kingsley ruts up to meet him on the downturn. They find a good angle; Caleb shouts, and Kingsley drives back at the same spot. Caleb’s muscles pulse; a few drops of precum bob off his cock. A shock of pleasure nearly throws Kingsley over the edge.

“I’m—fuck, Caleb, I’m…”

Kingsley is a star in Caleb’s hands. He’s bleeding light and Caleb is holding him through it—holding him like he’s something soft and impossible.

“Kingsley…”

“I can’t—”

“Come inside me.” Caleb draws their joined hands over Kingsley’s stomach. “Please—”

Kingsley thrusts back up at him, and the words are lost. Waves build upon waves. Kingsley’s cheeks are wet. It’s hard to see past the pleasure. He says Caleb’s name, and Caleb squeezes his hand, and Kingsley comes.

He hears Caleb gasp. Kingsley reaches out through the haze. He cups Caleb’s cock with his free hand, and Caleb thrusts down once, twice. He comes over Kingsley’s stomach.

A suspended moment. Caleb rolls up onto his knees, off Kingsley’s cock, and collapses. Kingsley throws his arms around his back.

“Caleb. Caleb…”

Caleb plants a messy kiss to his shoulder. Kingsley’s fingers find his hair. The world realigns itself in panting increments.

A log splits in the fireplace. Caleb groans. He starts to sit up, but his hand slips; Kingsley catches him before he can slide off the couch.

“Okay?” Kingsley laughs.

“Ja. Ja, I’m…” He laughs too. “Move over a bit.”

They shuffle until they’re face to face, Kingsley hammocked between Caleb and the back of the couch. Caleb flicks a prestidigitation cantrip at Kingsley; at the couch; at himself. The mess evaporates.

The cushions dip; Caleb’s fingers dust the floor. Kingsley can’t be bothered to open his eyes. A little buffet of air tickles his skin, to the snap of fanned-out fabric. He thinks of clotheslines in summer, and the blue sheen transition from the outdoors to a worn foyer.

“I’m good,” Caleb whispers, as he tucks the blanket over their shoulders.

Kingsley pricks his fingers into Caleb’s shirt.

He murmurs, “Don’t wake me up, all right? I like it here.”

Kingsley feels Caleb exhale. “You think this is another trick?”

“I don’t know. Mostly I’m warm and I’m tired and I love you.”

“And tomorrow you will wake up,” Caleb taps one knuckle, “and you will still be here,” another, “and I will still love you, too.” He kisses Kingsley’s hand. “So. If you are tired, sleep.”

Kingsley thinks he was an optimist once. Belief comes to him like muscle memory, and he sleeps.

#widomauk #widomauk fic #the djinn trope from the Supernatural fandom but applied to Critical Role #title from 'Blood Bank' by Bon Iver #because for some reason I kept coming back to that song while writing #my fic

8 notes · View notes

dent-de-leon · 2 years

Note

Chinhands

If you feel up to it I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts on post campaign widowmauk/widowking, I always love what you have to say about it (and possibly shadowidowmauk as well if anything comes to mind)

Oh, thank you so much! I'm more than happy to.

Kingsley is an intriguing medley of contradictions. It's so very telling that he still remembers the tarot cards he drew for everyone as Molly, the little tiefling virtue names he gave to all his loved ones. "I get...feelings from you. All of you..." Even though Taliesin gave him a "reset," he isn't actually Empty--I like to believe he's still that little soul shard of Molly, even if this is a new life, something like a Consecuted reincarnation.

Because he still feels the same for all the Nein. He's lost and runs, holds his head in his hands, repeating, "Empty. Empty..." But then he sees Yasha, and he knows she's "Love." He's not a wholly "blank slate," because he has these deeply ingrained emotional attachments that weren't there when he first woke in the grave.

So it's maybe a little hard at first, a little alienating and frustrating. But he has these feelings from a lifetime ago, so of course he falls for Caleb again. He's a bit guarded and defensive at times. "I don't think I'm him. Is that going to be alright in the long run?" But then they all rush to reassure him. The cute wizard smiles and says, "We have a habit of taking in strays."

And it's harder, after that. To try and push any of them away. To deny that that part of him is gone entirely.

Kingsley: “Not now, but in the future, I'd like to hear about your friend. Later, once I--once I know me better."

Yasha: "I would love that...It's nice to have you back."

Kingsley: "It's nice to be back."

Yasha: "You know what I mean."

Kingsley: "I do."

He wakes to unconditional love and acceptance, and he's not entirely sure he really deserves it. "Thank you, I--I'm looking forward to the future, and I hope I deserve to have woken up surrounded by such people...Thank you all, really, for my life. But I figure I better get to using it..."

King thinking about how badly Caleb wanted to make him feel welcome, wanted him to know that he'll always be a part of the Nein. “Well, for starters, you are with friends." "Perhaps this is your first time meeting us. It's our second time...Stick with us.” “This is the newest member of the band.” He lets Caleb continue to call him Circus Man, even if he can't explain why.

He was never in a circus--except he was, in the dream. And oh, it was "the nicest dream." It's Caleb's name for Molly, but King lets him say it all the same, can't help but like the sound of it. Maybe it's too hard to be Molly; too complicated, too many broken memories and haunting nightmares. Red eyes and black chains. But he can keep being Caleb's Circus Man, he thinks. Somehow that feels easy. And maybe one day, he remembers Caleb calling out to him and shattering Lucien's control, how desperate Caleb was to reach him.

When Beau sees King call Caleb cute and start biting his lip, she also seems to take it as a positive sign--as something familiar, a spark of their old friend that's still in there. Out of everything, Molly's little crush on Caleb is a part of him that stayed. I think that's beautiful. Jester immediately jumping in to let Caleb know how King feels is also just adorable, I love how excited she gets--and Caleb's joking little, "Don't spoil it."

Caleb: “A little crown starts to rotate over the head of the illusion of our friend.”

Kingsley: “Oh, you’re cute, Magic Man.”

Beau: “Alright. It’s still a little bit--that’s good.”

Jester: “He’s biting his lip at you! My mother taught me that’s a sure-fire sign--”

Caleb: “Don’t spoil it.”

King is a rebirth, I think. A reincarnation, in the same vein as Consecution. Core aspects of his old self carry on, in immutable echoes and subconscious dreams. And when he first wakes, he has no inhibitions, feels free to act on sheer instinct and pursue whatever his heart desires. He's entirely self-indulgent, impulsive. Chases after every joy and pleasure life has to offer. So of course he's as forward as possible with his feelings for Caleb.

But it's not just that King immediately falls for Caleb--Liam lets us know Caleb is also attracted to him in turn. He didn't have to, but in that last scene between these two characters, Liam is happy to add, "Caleb enjoys that." Caleb genuinely likes King's flirting. He returned the forehead kiss from months ago. He followed Lucien all the way to the Astral Sea just for the chance to bring back Mollymauk, passionately pleads for his life and performs the resurrection.

He's so quick to welcome King back into the Nein—the way Molly tried to make him realize he didn’t have to be alone. And maybe it's just meant to be a bit of playful fun and teasing. But given that there's nothing to really hold King back from acting on his feelings, I can imagine him just going for it and trying to sweep Caleb off his feet.

I can easily see him stealing a quick kiss from Caleb one day, soft and sweet and entirely on a whim. He expects the wizard's smile and warm chuckle. He's not expecting Caleb to actually lean in and kiss him back. It's not hard for me to picture King taking a chance on his feelings, even if he never stays with Caleb permanently. I think he's interested enough in his Magic Man for something about the Magician to keep drawing him back from even the furthest shore.

Oftentimes, Essek probably has to stay off the grid, or is away on quests in pursuit of his own arcane research, and King is out sailing the seas—always chasing a new horizon, slowly discovering himself and coming to terms with rekindled memories. But they always find their way back to Caleb in time, and sometimes the stars align, and they all fall together in a warm, cozy bed in the tower.

On that note--shadowidomauk. Okay, so--in my self-indulgent headcannon, Caleb gradually forms a relationship with both Essek and King post-campaign. I like that Caleb is polyamorous, and I like the thought of him being in another polyamorous relationship post campaign. After he's had the time to heal and learn to let others in again.

The thought of King/Molly eventually becoming Caleb's partner is something that really resonates with me, because Caleb was just...so terrified of intimacy when Molly knew him. He was so vulnerable and touch-starved, tried so hard to keep pulling away whenever the rest of the Nein reached out.

But Mollymauk wanted him to feel like a part of their family anyway, wanted both him and Nott to know they didn't have to shut everyone else out and try to make it on their own. For all his mercurial whims and sharp edges, Mollymauk Tealeaf truly cares.

He corners Nott one day about her and Caleb's self-sabataging recklessness, furious at how they've endangered themselves with their own obstinance. Because it just isn't worth their lives. "So, do you think it would be a good idea to explain to him that he almost got himself killed tonight? Turning on a bunch of people he was working with, he almost got himself killed tonight for nothing.”

Gently admonishes Caleb for always trying to shoulder heavy burdens all on his own, weighing himself down with pain and grief when there are others willing to help him carry it. “Mr. Caleb. There’s only so many burdens we’re expected to bear before we’re asking for failure.” So I think there's actually a lot of King Molly and his complicated past with Caleb that Essek would understand intimately.

There's a reason why that first forehead kiss stayed with Caleb all campaign, why he wanted to reciprocate Molly's own love language in the very end. And I think that's why the forehead kiss was what he offered in that moment when Essek was at his lowest, reckoning with his own sins and wallowing in regret. Caleb even quotes Molly's own philosophy to him, "I lean in and kiss him right here, and say, 'Maybe you and I are both damned. But we can choose to do something, and leave it better than it was before.'"

It's for Essek's sake, Essek's comfort. But he's using Molly's words, Molly's touch. In that moment, Caleb must have been thinking of both of them, of what they both gave him, and what he wished he could return. I think shadowidomauk would work, because Caleb passes on the very same tenderness and compassion he was shown by Mollymauk to Essek.

I believe Essek knew that too, when everything fell apart in the Astral Sea. When all the Nein were mourning their fallen friend, bereft with grief. Their one last hope shattered. Essek doesn't "storm off in a huff," until immediately after Caleb gives Molly that forehead kiss goodbye.

When he sees that same gesture of unconditional love and compassion. The depths of Caleb's grief shakes him enough to bring tears to his eyes, crying for a soul he never know. Essek sees this man's heart laid bare, and says, "Caleb Widogast, have you ever accepted defeated?" As long as he's known Caleb, he has never once seen him look so despondent, utterly crushed, surrendering to the cruelty of fate. Until he loses Molly. Of all things, that's what makes Caleb's last spark of hope die out.

There are little echoes there, between these two relationships. Shared love languages with Caleb, different narrative parallels and story beats that I think would compliment each other well.

Essek, who has known Caleb's drive, and focus, and wonder--his guilt, and solitude, and regret. Both terribly clever and always dreaming up some innovative new arcane pursuit, copying down each other's spells and excitedly sharing their latest breakthrough. Long nights surrounded by books and cats, unravelling what makes the universe tick.

And then there's Molly. So very different from Caleb, and yet shaped by so many mirrored tragedies. Too many scars and missing memories. Trying on new names to escape a past they've been running from all their life, taking comfort in the solace of a new start.

Reforging themselves from the ashes, a life built out of love and joy and happy memories. Molly cagey and having a panic attack when he's "discovered," when he first hears the name Lucien and he's terrified this little family--the only people he has--will leave him behind. Caleb assuring him that, "I believe in second starts, and that's enough for me."

Lastly, there's this one narrative parallel I really love. A recurring thread that binds both of Caleb's previous love interests, his future partner Essek, and Mollymauk all together--the recurring theme of second chances. A tentative, yearning hope for redemption and salvation. The core of Caleb's very own character arc.

Caleb agonizes over facing Astrid and Wulf again, because a part of his heart aches for them still, wants so badly to believe they are not beyond saving. “I don’t know how redeemable or not my friends are. I don’t have a lot of faith that they are, but...I need to know. For sure.”

After the reveal of Essek's betrayal, Caleb struggles with opening up again; he can't even bring himself to ask for help when he needs it the most. "I don't know if we want to tell Essek that there is a potential way to plug into the greatest minds of the arcane in all history...I honestly don't trust him enough." But he clearly wants to, longs to rebuild burnt bridges, in spite of how dangerous it is. As soon as he meets Essek face-to-face again, he tries to reconnect.

Those lingering doubts, that fear and hesitation--the sheer heartache of longing, daring to cling to threadbare hope. All of that is the heart of Caleb's complicated feelings toward Lucien and Mollymauk. Again and again, Caleb expresses his desire to try and reach Molly, refusing to ever give up on him.

“Well, for those of us interested in trying to redeem our old friend, we certainly don’t have a method to do so at the moment. The thin hope would be that--[there’s] something about where we’re going…[but it] seems pretty thin…” So you have this interesting parallel of Caleb talking about saving Mollymauk in the same way he talks about redeeming his past lovers and Essek.

And it's heartbreaking that Caleb is so desperate to offer Mollymauk another chance, even when he believes he himself is already beyond forgiveness. He drops to his knees before Molly's empty grave and says, "I'm going to hell anyway." Even if he's already doomed, if there's no way to ever atone for the things he's done--he still sees Mollymauk as worthy of salvation. “Please don’t give up, you can still find your own life again. There will be time for that later.”

He wanted more than anything to give Molly more time, and now he's standing here before him again--irrevocably forever changed, but with the heart that still beats for all of them. King still dreams of giving up all that he is and sacrificing himself for the Nein's sake without regret. Remembers his agonizing death in the Astral Sea and truly believing, "It was worth it."

He has the thing that Caleb wanted more than anything for his parents, the very same thing Caleb himself constantly grappled with his own guilt and grief to finally accept--a second chance. And I could see him wanting to spend part of this new life with his Magician.

Anyway, this got long and rambling, but. Thank you for asking, here are my favorite post-campaign widomauk and shadowidomauk thoughts :')

#widomauk #caleb widogast #shadowidomauk #mollymauk #kingsley tealeaf #LONG POST VERY LONG. THIS REALLY GOT AWAY FROM ME SORRY

53 notes · View notes