Chapter Text
Essek is soft.
His hands have but two calluses, right where he grips a quill. His skin is smooth and supple, well taken care of and kept away from the elements and the sunlight. Even his feet are soft, largely unused in public and usually at rest when in privacy.
Caleb is rough around the edges, used to battles and scars and pain.
His hair is a bit coarser, his hands have heavy calluses all over, and there are bumps and scars all over the freckled skin from the harsh but short life he has led. He’s a beautiful painting, and Essek is a blank canvas. There’s potential there, probably, but without skill there’s doubt he’ll come close to such a masterpiece.
Essek is soft and he cannot deny this.
When he and Caleb were taken from his tower and thrown in a dungeon, halfway to unconscious, he started pulling things from his pockets, frantically. He knew these dungeons, could see the protective wards against divination, teleportation, and other means of contacting help or escaping. He knew they had little chance to survive, and worst of all he knew this was his fault.
He was the reason Caleb was stuck at his side, and because of that he needed to teach him another spell. On top of apologizing, but that could come later. If there was a later. It would be a miracle if his hands ever stopped shaking. “You need to learn this, to keep your spellbook. I’ll help you, hopefully they’ll leave us here for a time.”
Essek assumed they would, knowing that they couldn’t truly escape this place and hoping that the two wizards would just just tire themselves out. Use their most powerful spells. Realize that almost all of them would be blocked immediately.
Caleb traced the runes carved into the flat stone floor with his manacled hands. “I assume this blocks teleportation?”
“And means of arcane communication, and pretty much anything else useful,” Essek said, flipping frantically through his spellbook. “Wristpocket, it’s called. When they come back we can hide our spellbooks and hopefully keep them until we figure out how to get out of here.”
He had the paper too, in his robe. The pockets were enchanted to go to a pocket dimension, one he usually kept his spellbook in, but soon they would be stripped of their components and belongings. He knew how this went. First there was hope, then everything was slowly stripped away.
Essek would do his best to make sure that Caleb could remain hopeful. Especially with this being his damn fault.
So for a time he just helped Caleb copy over the spell, watching over his shoulder like a hawk, keeping him from making any time consuming mistakes. The man was getting much more adept at Dunamancy, and the process took much less time than Essek assumed. He could feel his pulse beginning to slow.
That would give them a much better chance.
Maybe he could believe in a later.
~•~
Essek is soft.
But he fought like hell when Caleb convinced the captors to take out their frustrations on him instead of Essek. He thrashed against the bindings and the grip of their captors, but it did nothing to stop them from starting the first stage of interrogation, a beating by any other name, on the other wizard. Each crack of the whip and the glassy look in the eye of the human made Essek’s stomach turn.
He managed to convince them to take him the next time around, to take out their frustrations and aggression on him. But they quickly discovered that all it really did was leave Essek bloody and bruised, no more useful than any other day.
No closer to divulging any secrets.
And that night, Caleb made him swear something. He made the painful drag across the cell floor to sit beside Essek, inches away.
“You cannot tell them.”
“I know that,” Essek said, more resolve in his voice than was real. He was good at façades. There was no need for Caleb to worry more than he already was, even if every crack of the whip, each splatter of blood, each sound of pain bitten back brought Essek closer to breaking.
Caleb, as always, seemed to see through him. “They will turn you over to…”
To the Bright Queen.
To be punished.
To be killed.
“I’m very aware of that, Widogast.”
“Essek,” Caleb said, and there was weight in the word, though it was more than a whisper. “I’ve been through worse, ja? This is nothing.”
His breath caught in his throat and he took a moment to respond, hoping some of the raw emotion was masked when he did. Did it matter if it was? Did anything matter but trying to get some peace for the man sitting beside him? “This is not nothing; this is my fault-”
“You’re not the one holding the whip, my friend. You’re doing better, and you’re not quitting now,” Caleb said, ever resolute in the face of atrocities.
Essek could still smell the coppery blood, could imagine every pained sound with excruciating detail, and it didn't matter if he wasn't the one holding the whip. Caleb never would have been here if not for him. If not for giving Essek a second chance. A chance he'd squandered and ended up getting caught. If living was hurting those he cared about, was it really living at all? “If it means-”
“Promise me something.”
Essek swallowed, daring to meet the intense gaze of the forsaken Empire wizard he had fallen in with. That he had slowly fallen for. That he would swear away anything for. “What would you have me swear to?”
“Don’t give up on yourself. Not for this. They’ll get us out.”
Essek tried not to scoff. “Fine-”
“Swear to it, Essek.”
He took a deep breath, caught in the gaze of those blue eyes. “I swear to you, if my word means anything anymore.”
“It means something,” Caleb mumbled. “To me at least.”
He tried leaning against the wall beside Essek, but the hiss of pain when his back against the stone was enough to lurch forward again.
“You need to rest,” Essek murmured, wondering exactly how to phrase his thoughts.
Caleb sighed, “To cast, which seems futile.”
“To heal. You can rest on your side, like this,” Essek gently, gingerly helped the wizard lower his head into his lap, “while I trance.”
“I’m fine,” he murmured, but his eyes were already slipping closed from exhaustion, head pillowed in Essek’s lap.
Essek sighed softly, trying to ignore how much he might have enjoyed this in any other circumstance. To have Caleb rest like this in his study while he read. To be able to card his fingers through Caleb's hair and not secretly be looking for a head wound, cleaning up matted blood as best he could. To have Caleb trust him enough to fall asleep together when they weren't locked up in a cell, somewhere deep in the Dungeon of Penance. He felt fucking penitent enough, that's for sure.
Essek made other promises to himself then too. That he would personally see to it that everyone that laid a hand on Caleb down here would die. That he would do all he could to protect the other wizard, barring what he had sworn to. That he would do everything he could to earn back this man's trust. Or to earn it properly for the first time.
For months now, he’d had no loyalty to any but him. But to Caleb and the Mighty Nein.
~•~
And then, on a Whelson, he failed.
They needed Essek alive.
The same courtesy did not extend to Caleb, hero of the Dynasty or not.
He saw the light fade from Caleb’s eyes as unconsciousness took him and they fluttered shut, and there was a moment of relief (at least his pain would cease for a time) before Essek realized they weren’t stopping. His voice was raw by the time they finished, manacles biting into his skin as he tried to leave the captor holding him back and reach the wizard’s side. Not that he could do anything to help.
Not that he could go back on his word. Not that his word meant anything anymore.
Not that anything meant fucking anything anymore.
There was a small part of him that thought once they were left alone again, he could plan. He could get Caleb back to Jester or Caduceus, and everything would be fine. It was the part of him that prevented him from casting in that moment, filled with panic and a rage he’d never felt as he watched them take away his only true friend.
The only person he thought in this world who might truly care for him as a person, not as a tool.
The full gravity of the situation didn’t sink in until Essek was alone with a corpse. He tried to arrange Caleb’s body so that whenever Essek figured out how to fix this, he wouldn’t be in a crumpled pile.
Of course he didn’t break. He told them nothing. He had sworn, and Caleb at least had believed in his word. So they got nothing.
Nothing that would implicate himself. Nothing that would implicate the Nein. They were wrapped up in this now too, and he could at the very least protect them.
He couldn't break, for them. He couldn't break before he fixed this.
Essek was soft, and he felt himself shut down.
Many times in the next few days, Essek wished that he had Caleb’s skill for telling time. No light came into the cell, and he wasn’t being fed. Just given enough water to keep him alive.
Not enough water to cry.
Not enough to grieve.
There was no time to grieve, even with all the time in the world.
One day he used the water to clean Caleb’s wounds instead, but his hands trembled so badly he had to stop. His brain was a jumbled mess, and if he’d had the strength or the ability to sob with so little water, so little strength, left in his body, he probably would have.
He was completely alone save the guard coming to refill the small water skein once a day, a few drops, nothing more. Perhaps they thought the solitary confinement with the corpse would break him.
The longer it got, the more he thought they might be right.
Not long after he thought he might snap, heard shouting.
When he saw the glowing unicorns and heard the shriek, he thought he was hallucinating. He closed his eyes from the bright light that assaulted his senses, overloading him with swirling colors and shouts that couldn't be real.
There were cool hands on his cheeks, violet eyes glassy and wet before him. “Where does it hurt, Essek?”
He licks his dry lips, voice hoarse from disuse, “How many days has it been since we’ve been gone?”
“Just about two weeks today. I’m so sorry, Essek, we are all are, but I couldn’t message you or scry-”
The math was easy. Ten days hadn't passed since Whelson. They still had time. He tried to stand, fumbling and grateful for Jester’s firm grip. “My-My cloak, please-”
Veth was crying over Caleb, Caduceus with a hand over her shoulder, promising that they’d make things right. He'd brought one son back for her already, what was one more? They could still fix things. Essek could feel his eyes itch with the will to cry, but there was no way his body would let him lose the water.
“Do we have Essek’s cloak?” Jester called out next to Essek, healing him as she helped him stand upright. Her voice was hoarse and tear filled. The lacerations along his back closed up and he felt his mind clearing. Later he would ask for water. Later he would ask for many things.
Once he fixed things.
Beau was scrubbing at her face, pointedly not looking at the other half of the cell though her voice was low and gruff. “This purple thing?”
He scrambled towards it, almost falling as he left Jester’s grasp. The welts along his back still ached, and he could feel his shirt still matted against his skin with blood. He could hear Jester gasp as she took in the back of the silvery white garment, much, much more red than it should have been. Or perhaps now it was a maroon or a brown. A macabre, mottled dye job, to be sure. With the cloak in his hands and standing in front of a frowning Beauregard, he was quite sure his ankle was sprained as well. Hells, before the healing it might have been broken.
Essek sank on his knees, not caring.
“Hey, it’s okay, we’ve got you-” Jester was trying to say, but he was already pulling out the diamonds.
He had many for different spell components, but only three big enough, holding them wide eyed and looking up at Jester. “Please. Please, bring him back. This is… this is all my fault.”
“We’ll bring him back, Mr. Essek,” Caduceus said, standing over the cleaned up, healed corpse. It looked a little more like Caleb now, but it was still just a body. Essek almost retched. “Not here, but we’ll bring him back. And I think there's a lot more fault in the people who kidnapped an innocent man anyways."
Essek nodded quickly, feeling himself fading as he allowed himself to focus more on reality, though he barely registered anything Caduceus said after "we'll bring him back."
They could fix this.
They could fix this.
A fraction of the tension left his body. The pain was seeping in with everything else, and he was wobbling even on his knees. “Is everyone here?”
“Yes. I hope those weren’t your friends, because we definitely killed them,” Yasha said, walking into the cell.
He shook his head doing a quick count of everyone and hauling himself to his feet. “We need to leave this place, please.”
Yasha gave a nod of understanding, putting her sword away and gingerly taking Caleb’s body, corpse, into her arms. "Let's go."
Jester nodded too, everyone starting to walk out into the corridor as she took his arm and helped him through. But he was watching, and as soon as everyone was through the cell door, they were gone. Essek opened his eyes, made sure they were all teleported to the Xhorhaus and not somewhere else (he only had one more try, frankly it was a miracle that he managed at all with how much he shook once he left Jester’s grasp), and promptly collapsed.