Chapter Text
Chapter 1: One Million Stupid Things
Caleb had really been hoping Yussa would say no. He was actually kind of banking on the idea that he would say no. There was no way that this powerful wizard would want to allow Caleb enough free reign over the bookstore Yussa owned that he would allow Caleb’s friends to open a café in the upstairs storage space.
So when Yussa simply told Caleb that he trusted the young protegé, Caleb was at a loss. He was even more at a loss since Jester and Nott were on the edge of their seats, and he had no way of telling their eager faces that he didn’t want this.
Caleb had really been relying on the fact that Yussa would say no. It made no sense for the man to give him as much liberty over the shop as he did.
Caleb supposed he had underestimated the man’s faith in him yet again. He still couldn’t believe that Yussa could be so endlessly understanding and kind, under the layers of aloof mystery. Caleb kept expecting the rug to be pulled out from under him and for the man to end up just like Trent Ikithon.
You’d think being in Nicodranas and avoiding any and all interaction with that old bastard might have calmed Caleb’s nerves enough to the point where he didn’t expect to see him around every street corner. His friends helped, but the panic still settled deep in his core from time to time. The trauma group Caduceus had mentioned to him was nice; they had only talked about handling symptoms so far. He thought, over time, it might help more.
He was lost in thought about the kindness of his mentor when he realized he’d been holding the phone that Yussa had already hung up on to his ear in shocked silence.
“Do whatever you want so long as you keep up with your research and keep the shop in the black. I trust you.”
Caleb wasn’t even sure if he had remembered to say thank you.
He was pretty sure that Jester was vibrating off of her chair. Her grin stretched from ear to ear and he had no words to deny her. “Are… Are you sure about this Jester? It’s a lot of responsibility.”
Jester tackled him into a hug, and Caleb was pretty sure he was going to have a light bruise where he staggered back into the chair behind him. But he couldn’t be mad at her excitement and her forgetfulness of her sheer brute strength. Not when Nott was coming to join in the hug, climbing up onto the chair so that they could all hug properly.
Not when Jester was thanking him in every language she knew, still jittery and bouncing with joy.
Not when his friends were so good at getting to forget the fleeting thoughts about his past.
“Caleb, it’s going to be amazing!” Jester said in her cheerful singsong tone, letting him go only to pick up the small goblin in a bear hug and start spinning in circles. “We’re going to sell the best pastries and tea and coffee and sweets in all of Nicodranas!”
Nott wasn’t happy about the spinning, but she could do nothing against Jester’s infectious grin. She eventually convinced Jester to put her down, going over to Caleb and holding his hand in a reassuring manner. “We’ll do all the bookkeeping for the café, the advertising, the decorations, don’t worry about a thing. The only thing you have to concern yourself with will be all the new customers you’ll have downstairs!”
Raking a hand through his hair that had escaped the simple tie at the back of his head, Caleb sighed deeply. “Ja, ja, I know. I’m sure it will be… very exciting.” He looked around the upstairs storage room, remembering the day Nott had first come up with the idea. Gone would be the days of him slinking up to the apartment turned storage facility to take a nap on the couch instead of a lunch break, or staying the night after a late night of research.
Nott and Jester were already discussing how they would renovate the admittedly small kitchen and get their licenses in order. Despite Nott’s assurance, Caleb was sure he would be dragged to the city hall to help obtain the licenses. Neither of them were used to the official channels of how to do things.
He left them with a large box of books, telling them he would start clearing out his inventory.
“Oh, Caleb, whatever you can’t fit downstairs, we can put in a little shelf with a bench over top along the windows there!” Jester clapped happily at the idea, pointing out the space. “We can sell people books to read while they eat their pastries!”
“I’m sure we won’t be as wonderful salespeople as you, Caleb, but I bet we can sell a few books for you.” Nott was beaming at him, her crooked unworried smile warming the cold dread curling in his stomach.
Caleb nodded, “I’m sure you will be perfect. I think we should talk over some of the logistics of this endeavor, however.” Might as well get that over with so he could get back to Yussa’s research. He doubted that he’d have time to do any extra research for Nott tonight, but she seemed happy enough for now.
“It’s going to be fine, Caleb, I already talked to my mom, and she’s going to give me a loan! All in the family, nothing you have to co-sign, and I even found someone to help us with the more, well businessy stuff.” Jester waved her hand as if that part of running a restaurant was unimportant. “Oh, I should call him and tell him to go ahead with the licenses! Do you think he needs to come over and get more signatures?”
“You just want a chance to flirt with him again.” Nott prodded at Jester’s side with a grin full of crooked teeth.
Now that was a conversation he didn’t want to be a part of. Caleb quietly excused himself with the box he was trying to leave with earlier, attempting to hide the glowing pride on his face that they’d hired another individual to help them with the things he assumed he’d have to do. Maybe he actually would have time to do some extra research for Nott today. Yussa had found a few relevant texts for him to pour over on the subject of transforming the body, and he knew how eager Nott was to go back to being Veth. No amount of Yeza and Luc telling her that they didn’t mind the goblin form could convince her that she could live like this for the rest of her life.
As for Caleb, he would just have to deal with being a disgusting broken creature, because this was all his fault to begin with. He had slowly given up his hopes to bend reality to his will when he realized it was very unlikely that he could get his parents back. Not without an understanding of Dunamancy that he would never have access to. Even Yussa couldn’t help him there. He had to live with what he’d done with the rest of his life, and know he could do nothing to change it. That seemed almost like a fitting punishment, though it would never be enough.
As he heard Nott teasing Jester for her crush on this “Fjord” person, he sent the man a thought of good luck. He was going to need it.
After far too many trips in the elevator to be pleasurable, most of Caleb’s books were back downstairs. It was always his intention to keep the space clear, in case he needed to use it as an apartment to cut down on costs. Luckily the apartment Nott was able to find for him was perfectly serviceable. When she had kicked him out of their small shared apartment to make room for relocating Yeza and Luc, she guaranteed it was an act of love for all four of them. She insisted that Caleb get another roommate to pull him out of his shell. Beau wasn’t exactly great at that, but they lived together in mostly amicable silence. And he was able to convince himself that if he didn’t live a few blocks away he would probably never leave the house. Despite that sounding quite nice some days, it was a crutch he knew he ought not to fall back on.
The trauma group had frowned upon the habit as well. The tall woman, Yasha, had shared a similar symptom and told him that buying a dog had helped. She knew she had to take the dog on walks and go out to buy her food. The sentiment was there, but Caleb was not a fan of dogs. He did trust Yasha’s judgement however. In the two years they’d known each other they’d gotten quite close. She was one of the only people he actually told everything about his past, and he had learned every detail of her own. They both didn’t understand how they’d ended up with such a good lot in life. So she was probably on to something with the dog. Perhaps he would go to the shelter and look for a nice cat. All bookstores have a good cat.
He couldn’t believe the oversight, in retrospect. He supposed part of him was always hoping to have enough money to go buy the scroll for Find Familiar. Trent had stolen or destroyed his old spellbook, and the magic scrolls in Nicodranas were hard to find. Yussa didn’t use a familiar, and Caleb knew it wasn’t really essential to his research to get Frumpkin back so he couldn’t ask. Yussa had given him too much already, offering him Message, Sending, Detect Magic, Comprehend Languages, Tongues, many many more spells than Caleb had ever hoped to ask for. Frumpkin was just another piece of his past to leave behind. Still, the last box felt heavy in his arms for more than the fact that he didn’t know where he was going to put all these extra books. And the fact that his arms felt a bit like wet noodles.
“Wait, wait, Caaaaaaaleb!” Jester called out, far more dramatically than necessary as the elevator doors shut on her outstretched hand.
By the time he was let out downstairs, Jester had bolted down the flight of stairs and was panting by the doors. “What is it, Jester?” he asked.
“You know that door that got wedged shut last year and we didn’t have the money to get it fixed?”
He nodded, thinking of the back room that had once been an empty space for storage. Caleb had been trying to get his hands on a spell to open it as well, but the funds just weren’t there for buying scrolls yet. And he didn’t want to bother Yussa with a wedged door. There was no need to let Yussa know his assistant was incapable of even that small task. But even Yasha couldn’t push the door open without ruining the foundation of the building, so the door remained shut.
It was still very difficult for Caleb to admit he needed help.
He had almost pushed the annoyance to the back of his mind, though it still grated on him whenever he walked by the damned thing. “Ja, of course I do.”
The broad smile Jester had been sporting for the better part of the past three hours had to be hurting her cheeks. It would hurt Caleb’s cheeks, he knew that. Maybe her smiling muscles were stronger than his. Wouldn’t be surprising, to be perfectly honest. “We have a surprise for you!” She drew out the word “surprise” in a way that made him extremely apprehensive.
“Oh? Am I going to like this surprise?” he almost got caught in the elevator doors as they closed. Now he was face to face with Jester, and could no longer avoid the pointed look of the blue tiefling.
Nott was beside her then, nodding in equal eagerness. “We promise. This won’t be like that surprise party.”
Jester pouted, “Hey, I’ve already apologized like a million times for that. And after the beginning it was a really fun party!”
Caleb mustered a weak smile and tried to push down the memory of panic he felt when all his friends, and a couple of Jester’s friends had jumped out from behind the furniture of his apartment and sent him straight into an anxiety attack. He didn’t tell them how lucky it was that he recognized Nott and Jester and didn’t completely dissociate, since it was clear they had spent hours hanging decorations in his tiny little apartment.
Not to mention he had met Beau in the lobby and she was able to catch him before he fell too far. He hadn’t had to protest the affair; she cursed them all out enough. Caleb had recovered in time to save Jester from being brought to tears, and when it was all said and done, he did actually enjoy meeting Caduceus and Pumat. Even it was a thinly veiled attempt to get him to join Pumat’s trama group.
The whole event was a strong indicator that the group was exactly where he needed to be.
“Anyways, this is nothing like that, trust me, Caleb!” Jester took the box from his arms, which he admitted were beginning to ache. Maybe he should take Beau up on the offer to go to the gym one of these days.
Nott grabbed his hand and led him to the door. “Try it!”
Very hesitantly, trusting a great deal in his friends, especially since Jester had learned quite a bit about him in the two years since the surprise party, he turned the knob and pushed the door open. It swung open wide, and revealed a completely different room.
“Oh,” the air left him in a huff. The room had been completely transformed. Deep red wood had taken over almost every surface save a very blue, very plush looking carpet covering the plain linoleum that was starting to peel. The plain white walls were now covered with ceiling high bookshelves, each one empty and waiting to be filled. A large matching desk and spinning chair sat in the middle of the room, with a few plush blue chairs for others to sit. They had even cleaned up the dirty window in the back, which spilled afternoon sunlight onto a small blue camelback sofa.
It was beautiful. He wasn’t able to form any words, especially not in Common, and instead felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes.
“Beau said she’d help bring those boxes of books you’ve been keeping in your apartment over here the next few weeks,” Nott said, gesturing to the empty bookshelves while Jester lounged dramatically on the couch in the back. “She said it would replace her morning workout to jog over here with a box for a while. We asked Yussa if it was okay first, and he said it was fine, don’t worry. He even sent us some really fancy paper and ink to put in your desk.”
Jester couldn’t sit still on the sofa, now spinning in his new desk chair. “Momma has a very good relationship with the local used furniture shop owner. And we know you would be sad to lose the upstairs apartment as an office. I know it’s a little small but-” as soon as she stood up to shrug and move to another chair she was caught in a hug.
“Nott, komm her” Caleb mumbled, his voice thick with emotion as he stretched his other arm out to include her in the hug. He hoped the motion and the cognate was enough to illustrate his meaning. Luckily her tackle hugs weren’t enough to knock anyone over. “Das ist… This is so wonderful, meine lieben Freunde.”
Jester giggled, clearly enjoying the extra attention and affection today. “Caleb, don’t cry on my dress, it’s new!”
“I’m not crying,” he mumbled over a small sniffle. “I don’t deserve you two.”
“Shut up and take your surprise, Caleb,” Nott said plainly, no malice in her voice.
Jester nodded, pulling back, “We’re your friends and we love you! We’re allowed to do nice things for you when you do nice things for us, like letting us open a pastry shop above your bookstore!”
Caleb opened his mouth to argue that this was nowhere near the same, but Jester just smothered the words with her own, “Nope, no talking back! You’re already going to be late for your lunch with Yasha!”
A quick look at his watch told him she was right, “Scheiße. I, well, okay. I trust you can look after the store and not get too distracted, ja? And be nice to Calianna when she arrives for her shift?”
Nott and Jester’s matching grins and manic nods were not reassuring at all, but he was already late as it was.
“Byyyyyye, Caleb~!” they sang in unison.