#clayleb

It’s Caduceus. Caleb peels himself off long-dried sheets of spellwork and tries to make himself look a little less like an empty shell of a person. “Ja, I am up, what can I do for you.”

The slight downward tilt to Caduceus’ eyebrows in an otherwise placid expression radiates disappointment. “You said you were going to sleep, earlier.”

Earlier being an hour and forty minutes ago, when Caduceus passed by him with a full teapot on his way to the roof. Strange, given that the kitchen is just next to the staircase and his study is on the opposite side of the house. He sighs and rubs at his face - there is a chance, however slight, that this time pressing at his temples will actually help with the headache even if he deserves the fucking thing for getting them here in the first place. “I am working on ah, a new spell, I am a little distracted.”

It’s not a lie, exactly. Studying is distracting him from sleep, and the cold comfort of possessing a house and certain debt gifted to them by a major political faction of the Kryn dynasty is distracting him from studying, no matter how nice his desk is. The last time his life took such a turn, he was a young man recently arrived in Rexxentrum with his two best friends in the entire world - he can think of many, many good reasons to prise the jaw of this particular gift horse open.

The problem, then, is stopping. Easy enough, when he can turn himself into a bat, but his distracted attempts at study and the resulting failures have removed even that avenue from him today. It is lucky that the Dynasty has yet to ask a new favor from them that would require him to cast.

But then, he has never held much hope for luck - and, oh, Caduceus has moved much nearer at some point.

“I will sleep,” he acquiesces, nodding in the vague direction of a flowing sleeve, and refrains from adding any sort of incriminating time frame. “You should get some rest as well, mein freund.”

Caduceus clears his throat, somewhere miles overhead. “Your arms are going to get sore, if you keep doing that.”

He looks down. Takes a deep breath and lets it out as he pulls his hands away from the scars and lays them flat against the fine wooden grain of the desk. “Thank you.”

That should be the end of it, he thinks, and he can go back to counting miserably, but the smudge of pink in his peripheral vision stays stubbornly present. “Is… is there something else?”

“You know,” Caduceus says with that unruffled serenity of his, “I think I’m going to make some more tea. I’ll bring you a cup, and we’ll sit for a while.”

Caleb winces.

He is fond of Caduceus, very much so, as he is of all his friends. It is just - it is not that he doesn’t know he is terrible, anymore, he has revealed all but the worst of it in Felderwin and their group has decided that his contributions are worth the trouble of associating with him anyway. But Caduceus, who cares so naturally and unselfishly, who operates with a faith in everything around him that Caleb cannot begin to understand - something about his knowing gaze is unsettling, when Caleb cannot tell what he knows or how he is judging him.

The part of him that is tired would welcome a friendly presence to lull him to sleep, instinctively knowing by now that they are safer here than nearly anywhere else in the world. The other part, bitter and exhausted, trusts no one. Least of all himself, when he cannot even think through political machinations.

He’s waited too long to respond - he can feel Caduceus’ gaze now, prickling at the side of his head. “I can bring some of this to the kitchen, if that is where you are going.”

“Oh, I was thinking we could use your bed,” Caduceus says. The visual of Jester waggling her eyebrows suggestively springs to mind, and he bites the inside of his cheek before he can smile. “Why don’t you go lie down, and I’ll be there in a minute with the tea.”

It sounds more like a command, really - Caduceus wanders off, and there’s nothing to do after that but to retreat to his room. He begins the rote process of shucking his boots and socks in deference to the warm night and reaches up for his holsters.

His fingers close around the buckles, and suddenly he is frozen, possibilities of disaster everywhere. It will be safer if they stay on him, even though they are in the middle of a residential neighborhood, he has to keep them close-

He breathes out, slowly, through his nose and strips them off as well. It feels like a punishment, but then, maybe that is how he can stop himself from thinking too much. Not that it has ever worked before, piling discomfort upon discomfort like a stone wall, but if it is what he has to hand at the moment then so be it.

Next, the bed. He takes a step towards the bed, knowing that is where Caduceus will expect to find him - but his mind is still spinning with a dozen different threads, spells and spycraft and a sudden curiosity as to what the Kryn stuff their mattresses with, surely they do not grow hay or cotton here-

He’s still standing there when Caduceus ducks through the doorframe, large fingers wrapped with delicate care around the handles of two mugs, and shuffles one of them forcefully into his hands. “There we go. It’s not too hot, is it?”

He gulps the first sip down inelegantly. It’s the perfect temperature to warm his throat without burning his tongue, as Caduceus’ tea always is, but it feels - wrong, somehow - “Is there something in this?”

Caduceus blinks down at him. “Oh, did some of the tea leaves get through the strainer? I mean, they’re probably pretty tiny if they can do that, but I can try to pick ‘em out if they’re bugging you.”

“Ah - I mean - it tastes-” He pauses, proceeds more delicately. “There is not anything in this meant to put me to sleep?”

Caduceus looks surprised, for a moment, before patient amusement washes over his face - Caleb glances down, awkwardly, and hopes that the gentle steaming of the cup in his hands hides the way his face flushes. “It’s not drugged, if that’s what you’re asking. But with how tired you look, I’m not surprised that’s what it feels like.”

“Oh,” he says. Maybe if he downs the entire thing in one shot, it will do him the mercy of knocking him out here and now anyway.

Suddenly Caduceus’ hands are on his, gently pulling the empty cup away from his fingers and setting it down next to his holsters. “Mind if I sit?”

“No,” Caleb says, and then “Uh-” as Caduceus takes him by the elbow and starts leading him in the direction of the bed. “Wait, what are we doing?”

“C’mere,” Caduceus tells him, easing himself down at the edge of the mattress and folding his legs up beneath him.

He stares stupidly. “Where?”

“On the bed, ideally.” Caduceus says, and tugs him a little closer. “Didn’t seem like you were gonna make it there yourself.”

He should walk around to the other side and lay down there, he knows, but months of travel with these people have ruined him - he sits automatically next to Caduceus and leans into his side as he might if they were stopping for an hour of rest before realizing what he’s done.

He jerks away. “Ah - you meant to lay down, of course, I will just-”

“Nope,” Caduceus says, and promptly snakes his arm around Caleb and pulls him over into his lap.

His back hits Caduceus’ knee with a solid thump - he flounders for a moment, trying to figure out where all his limbs are among the tangle of long firbolg legs, and then he realizes that Caduceus is watching him.

Their eyes meet. Caduceus smiles down at him, seemingly unbothered by the presence of an idiot in his lap. “There, you’re laying down,” he says. “Comfy?”

“Hnnnng,” Caleb whimpers. He rolls over as best he can and buries his face in his arms, unwilling to bear the eye contact - how many more things can he do wrong today?

Caduceus hums thoughtfully.

The next thing he feels is softness as gentle fingers undo his ponytail, combing through the strands, and arrange his hair to lay loosely around him - they smooth the last of it down and start massaging the back of his head, rubbing gently behind his ears.

It is so completely unexpected that it undoes him; he spares a single moment of thankfulness that he’s washed his hair recently and succumbs to the simple bliss. “Oh, Scheisse, that feels good.”

Caduceus’ belly, pressed warm against his side, shakes in quiet amusement. “Thought it might,” he says. “You’re not easy to calm down, are you.”

“No,” Caleb says, honestly regretful. Even as the rush of tingles from having his scalp scratched washes down his back, he still cannot make himself stop thinking - about whether he has manipulated Caduceus into doing this by being too lazy to take himself to bed earlier, about what he can do to return the favor-

“I know you think that I am neglecting myself,” he says finally, groaning a little as Caduceus drags a thumb firmly down the back of his neck. “I know I need to rest so that I can cast, I just - ah - it is tricky-”

Caduceus pauses, rubbing at the edge of his shoulder blade for a moment. “Of course you can take care of yourself.” He punctuates the statement by untwisting Caleb’s spine with a loud crack that leaves him gasping in sudden relief as a good amount of the tension in his back disappears. “Doesn’t hurt to have a little help, though.”

He scratches lightly at the backs of Caleb’s ribs. It’s pleasantly sharp, little pinpricks of sensation rushing up and down, and Caleb squirms happily for a moment into his hands before he realizes.

He levers himself up from the little nest he’s made of his arms, his sudden suspicion the only thing keeping him from stumbling over the word. “This does not tickle one bit, by the way.”

“Okay,” Caduceus says. “Did you want it to?”

Squirming a little more, he bites back the traitorous yes, please that forms on the back of his tongue. “No.”

“Then be good and stay still,” Caduceus says, and keeps scratching.

Caleb huffs and sticks his nose back into the crook of his elbow. “You are very bossy sometimes, you know that?”

He tenses as soon as he says it - there is a reason he keeps these things to himself unless he is talking about Beauregard, who seems to prefer his annoyance to most other things that leave his mouth.

Caduceus just chuckles. “You don’t have any siblings, do you.”

“No,” he says - and then, if only because they have been on his mind of late as he thinks about politics and consequences - “old friends, though, growing up.”

“Shame,” Caduceus hums, hands sliding down to scuff at his sides. “Then I guess you’ve never been in a tickle fight.”

There is the familiar, guilty, sting, thinking of the past - but one more thread of thought could hardly make the tangle any worse, could it? Of course Astrid and Wulf had known he was ticklish, they knew everything about one another. In the beginning, when there was still time for such things, he remembers them abusing the knowledge at times when Ikithon’s clear favoritism rankled a little too much, or, more rarely, to play - it had been much easier, then, to make him smile.

And then Molly, with his infernal grin and equally devilish fingers prodding for every sensitive spot he could find, the teasing - and that night by the fire, just before Hupperdook, his arm blazingly warm around Caleb’s shoulders in the winter chill as he jostled him around and assured him that it was perfectly normal to want such affections.

They are kind memories, even with the bitter regret of his own blame in their ending, and -

Verdammt, his ribs are starting to get sensitive.

He tries to breathe through it, but his lungs are fidgeting as badly as the rest of him would like to, startled and giddy; instead, he presses the edges of his fingernails into his palms and tries to see reason in the dark cradle of his forearms.

This will not help him sleep. He is wasting Caduceus’ time, if he lets this continue. It does not matter what he wants, when he has no right to ask for any of it.

“Caduceus,” he starts. The syllables shiver on his lips, too close to laughter for comfort. He tries again. “Caduceus, I - I am feeling much calmer now-” His heartbeat pounds loudly in his ears. “-if you would let me up-”

“Hey,” Caduceus says. “You got all tense again, stop doing that.”

“I just-” The path of Caduceus’ ministrations drifts over his sides, sending already-tingling nerves into high alert, and he panics. “Let go of me!”

It is the exact worst thing he could say, made worse in the harsh tone in which he spits it - the hands that have been chasing pleasantly up and down his spine still and lift away, the simple action radiating just as much disappointment as Caduceus’ furrowed eyebrows earlier, and his back arches in a miserable attempt to follow them before he can stop himself.

He bites his lip. He needs to apologize. He needs to crawl away and back to his desk like the worm he is, as heavy as Caduceus’ judgment is weighing down on him. He needs to do something other than lie here-

“Well, you don’t look very calm,” Caduceus says mildly. “You okay?”

“I am fine,” Caleb grits out automatically. He cannot be incapable of even the simplest of thought, he cannot-

“Huh.”

One of Caduceus’ hands makes its reappearance, suddenly, at his neck, two fingers slipping along the stubble under his chin to rest on his racing pulse and catch him in his lie.

The other, even more inconveniently, reappears just by the exposed hollow of his left armpit.

Suddenly, he cannot think of anything at all - he jumps and squeaks and curls away as best he can, fighting back the tremulous ah-ah-ah-! of burgeoning laughter that bubbles up behind his teeth as five fingers flutter merrily against the thin cotton of his sleeve.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Caduceus says placidly. He stops moving his fingers, but they just stay there, just barely touching, as if he is daring Caleb to try and crush them under his arm and see what happens.

Things seem very dangerous in a completely different way than they did seconds ago - if he was at peril of sinking, before, the feather-light presence against tender skin makes him feel like he might float away. He holds as still as he can, waiting.

Still, he shivers all the way down to his toes as Caduceus clears his throat. “You know, I have a sister - had? - uh-”

“May have, if you are uncertain,” Caleb says automatically, decades-old Common grammar lessons rushing to the forefront in lieu of any instinct that might actually be useful, and promptly bites his tongue.

“Sure,” Caduceus concedes, and gives his armpit another good tickle. Caleb squeaks again and tries fruitlessly to wrap his arms more tightly around his head. “She’d swear up and down that she wasn’t ticklish too, when she didn’t want to be. Not that it helped her much if you got a hold of her feet.”

Caleb becomes suddenly, horribly aware of his own exposed soles - he is facedown on the bed, his knees will not even bend the right way to let him hide them against the mattress-

Caduceus must catch the involuntary scrunch of his toes - he laughs, low and pleased, and pats him warmly on the back. “I think your ribs were working out just fine, but if you’re curious-”

“I am not.” Caleb says hastily.

Something swoops, low and excited, in his belly.

It really isn’t fair how tall Caduceus is, especially when it means that he can keep one threatening hand pressed to Caleb’s ribs at the same time he reaches for his feet. Caleb, still bundled facedown in his lap, only realizes what is about to happen when he feels a soft, fuzzy palm close around his heel. “Oh - oh, bitte-”

The first pass is a single fingertip, drawing tiny circles on the calloused ball of his foot. It hardly feels like anything at all, and for one foolish moment Caleb lets himself relax.

Then the fingertip drifts down to the softer arch, wriggling into a crease as his foot curls reflexively, and it tickles like a motherfucker.

“No, no, NO,” he yelps, and scrambles blindly through the next few moments -he jabs something solid with his elbow, cool air rushing on his face as he twists and pulls his knees in, but all that is secondary to the rush of relief as he gets something beneath his feet and jams them against it. He squeezes his eyes shut and pants, clutching his chest as if he can will his lungs into proper behavior.

Something knobbly vibrates against his shoulder.

He freezes. “Um.”

It takes a long moment for him to realize that he is, somehow, still in Caduceus’ lap - his shoulder is pressed to homespun cloth and a bony chest, his feet are crowded up against one of Caduceus’ thighs as the rest of him perches on the other.

His seat shakes a little as Caduceus continues to laugh at him. At this point, Caleb can hardly blame him.

Caduceus lets out a long, happy sigh just above where he’s pressed his face back into his hands in blatant embarrassment. “Oh, we’re going to have to hold you down for that, huh.”

He says it so matter-of-factly, like it is a foregone conclusion that someday Caleb will find himself with his ankles pinned and teasing fingers coming for him, helpless to stop them. It’s far too easy to picture, just now, and despite himself anticipatory giggles start to well up in his chest.

Unacceptable - Caleb presses his lips together, burrows as far into his hands as he can and tries fervently to pretend that he is not still well within range of someone capable of doing all of these things. What is wrong with him? Nothing is happening, no one really wants to tickle him, it is not funny-

Caduceus’ fingers, though, are still moving - one hand is dancing over the tops of his feet now, hardly touching, worrying at his ankles and the sparse hair on his toes. It doesn’t even - it shouldn’t tickle, but he can’t stop thinking that it might, or that Caduceus might reach for his ribs again, and he is too tired to redirect his thoughts anymore, he feels halfway to dreaming already, and - “Hnnmm - heeeh -”

His cheeks are already warm from the desperate effort of not laughing, but they burn even brighter as the giggles start flooding out.

Caduceus can surely hear him, for all that he is hiding his face and never intends to reveal it again, and besides that he is squirming, winching his arms to his sides and scrubbing his feet uselessly against the rough fabric of Caduceus’ trousers to try and get away from his fingers without lifting them. “Heheeeh - ahaha - oh, stop, stop, help, I cahahan’t-”

Curling up in a ball doesn’t seem to help at all - a small part of him knows that he’s more or less tickling himself at this point, but all that means is that there’s nothing to get away from as he twitches and begs, no mercy from his own overtired brain, no one to help him get out-

Just as the panic really starts to choke him, something warm and grounding wraps around his shoulders.

He regains just enough awareness to feel Caduceus’ huge palm cradle the side of his head and pull him into his chest. “Shhhh,” he soothes, so low that it rumbles through the both of them. “I’m here, I’ve got you. Breathe, breathe.”

Caleb comes back to himself slowly, like the tide pulling back from the rocky cliffs of Darktow - the exhaustion is still there, burning behind his eyelids, but the thunderous crash of his heart in his ears slows to a steady echo under Caduceus’ touch. He takes in a tentative breath and nearly buckles from relief as it stays in his lungs.

Caduceus murmurs something to himself, pensive. Caleb hears it more through his chest than his ears. “Better?”

He sucks in a few more breaths before he feels calm enough to answer, slumping further against Caduceus and drawing his hands cautiously away from his face. “I am fairly sure that is not how ti- ah, how that is supposed to work,” he says tiredly. “But at least it is over. Caduceus, I am sorry-”

“Oh, I’m still going to tickle you,” Caduceus says, and Caleb nearly starts choking again.

A thousand startled exclamations catch in his throat. “Why,” is the one he gets out, and oh, he does not even begin to know what to do anymore with the excited little twist in his belly at hearing Caduceus’ words.

Gentle fingers take his chin and tilt it up until he can see Caduceus looking back softly back down at him. “You’re not being very nice to yourself, are you.”

That wrenches a rueful little smirk from him. “And why should I be?”

“Don’t do that,” Caduceus admonishes. He doesn’t - frown, exactly, just looks at Caleb more intensely until he has to fight the urge to wriggle himself loose.

“You were disappointed, earlier, when it didn’t tickle, don’t think I didn’t see it.” He tries to shake his head, but Caduceus holds him still. “I saw how you looked when I said we’d have to hold you down later, too - you want me to tickle you, Caleb, so I’m going to. That’s enough.”

Caleb opens his mouth to tell Caduceus that he doesn’t want it, that he has long since accepted that tickling is a happy and childish thing for those who do not have to try all the time to not be terrible, but he can’t quite get the lie out under his steady gaze. “I shouldn’t,” he says instead. “I should sleep, I am just wasting your time.”

Caduceus huffs, cuddling him impossibly closer and rubbing a thumb over his cheek, and Caleb has to close his eyes - he does not know, sometimes, how these people can be so careful with him, so willing to offer affection, unless he has tricked them somehow. He does not know how to repay it, either. It is hard to tell which piece of his ignorance is worse.

“You’re not. We’re going to talk about that, someday, when I’m not trying to put you to bed,” Caduceus tells his eyelids. “But that night after the dragon, a little tickling put you to sleep just fine - and you were doing all right until you decided you were going to be stubborn.”

Caleb has to smile at that, just a bit - Caduceus sounds openly affectionate, if mildly frustrated, and even though he does not deserve that it is a little funny to think that he might be as much of a troublemaker as Jester or Beauregard simply for refusing to sit still in Caduceus’ lap.

Caduceus pokes lightly at the slight round of his cheek. “There, that’s better.”

He loosens his grip, then, letting go of Caleb for just long enough to loop his arm around his chest. Caleb opens his eyes, curious - Caduceus is smiling at him, slow and mischievous, and his elbows automatically twitch halfway to his sides before he realizes that Caduceus’ arm is in the way and blocking him from getting them all the way down.

That tricky, light feeling takes hold of his chest again. “Ah - Caduceus?”

Caduceus adjusts his grip a little and raises his other hand, wiggling his fingers in a way that might be considered thoughtful if they were not pointed distinctly in Caleb’s direction. “Yeah?”

Despite everything, Caleb finds that he is fairly good at reading people when he needs to be. Which means, in this case, that he can tell - Caduceus is trying to make him more ticklish.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop it from working.

He widens his eyes entreatingly. “I was not being stubborn! I - I just panicked-”

“I told you to be good and stay still, didn’t I?” Caduceus’ arm is more than long enough to wrap all the way around his skinny chest, especially without the holsters - his hand curls carefully under Caleb’s arm, and he has to press his lips together tightly to avoid laughing then and there.

“I couldn’t!” he pleads. “You - you were-” He stumbles over the word itself, half hoping Caduceus will interrupt him again - but he doesn’t, just holding him steady. “I was trying,” he finishes lamely, willing himself not to blush and failing entirely.

Caduceus is grinning at him now, through his beard, smug in that gentle way of his. “And I was trying not to rile you up too much.” he muses, “Suppose we’ll just have to tire you out instead, how’s that sound?”

Caleb gapes. Caduceus is the nicest and gentlest of all of them; surely he is not about to trap Caleb in his lap and tickle him until he cries. And surely he should not want it, the traitorous squirmy feeling in his belly up and fluttering like a live thing.

The long, downy fingers of Caduceus’ free hand pluck his shirt loose from where it’s just barely still tucked in and slip underneath to tease at the fuzz of hair on his tummy, and such logical reassurances suddenly lose much of their weight.

“You - you planned this,” he accuses breathlessly. “You did, I didn’t - hm! - even do anything-”

“I mean, I don’t plan a lot of things. Dinner, mostly.” Caduceus prods at his belly button and he jumps, completely off guard for what comes out of Caduceus’ mouth next.

“You’re just really, really ticklish.”

Caleb whines. Just saying it makes every nerve in his body hum with anticipation, now, and when Caduceus pokes his belly button again he’s sensitive enough that he can’t hope to fight back the peal of laughter. “Don’t.”

Caduceus snickers and just keeps poking at the same spot, sending him into a tumble of frantic laughter as he twists this way and that and fails to escape. “Oh, that helped, huh?”

“No, no, oh nohoho-”

The hand holding him in place tickles gently through his shirt at the softness just above his ribs - usually he is protected by layers of leather and paper there, enough to hold off one of Veth’s crossbow bolts, but all he can do now is whimper.

Caduceus’ free hand sneaks up his other side and repeats the process under his shirt, and he shrieks.

“Heh,” Caduceus chuckles, and eases off for a moment. “You gonna be good if I’m not holding on to you?”

Presumably he wants to get his other hand under Caleb’s shirt and torture him even more, but that’s not the reason Caleb reflexively clings to his arm. “No, no, I need-”

He cuts himself off before he can say that he needs Caduceus to hold him, largely because he does not want to admit it even to himself.

Luckily, he does not need to say more. “Okay, I’ve got you,” Caduceus says easily, and squeezes him a little tighter. “Let me know when you’re done, yeah?”

Before Caleb can ask what that means, Caduceus’s fingers spider under his shirt and start kneading, gentle and merciless, at the top of his ribs.

Caleb breaks instantly. He can’t get his arms far enough down to protect himself, can’t hope to get loose - he tries to bite his lip for a moment to stop himself from laughing, flinging his hands back over his face, but all his breath rushes out in a sudden squeal as the first shock of ticklish sensation hits him in full. “Ahahaaaaa - aaa!”

Caduceus tickles one side of his ribs until he’s sobbing and kicking, completely insensible, and then lazily spiders down over his sides and belly and back up to the other side to tease and tickle as he pleases. He tickles up into his armpits, around the soft curve of his tummy, and rubs his thumbs into the bony outcrop of his hips through the pockets in his pants - he goes back and forth, back and forth, until Caleb loses track of time and numbers and which language he’s begging in and can only measure how much air is left in his lungs before he starts wheezing again.

At some point, he can’t hold himself upright any longer - he sinks down against Caduceus’ bracing arm, but it only stretches the skin over his ribs further. He wails.

It goes on until all he can do is gasp and snicker weakly as Caduceus prods his way back up his side, stopping to trace at each ribin turn. His eyes drift shut, at some point. He doesn’t think he’s ever been tickled so badly in his life.

Still, it seems that there is the possibility for it to tickle even worse - Caduceus’ hand finally, finally slips out from under his shirt, and he just manages to gasp out a sigh of relief before it closes gently around his ankle.

His eyes spring open. “Mein Gott, bitte, bitte, not there,” he hiccups. “I’ll die, I’ll die, please!”

Caduceus hums - held upright, he can just see Caduceus’ wrist pinning down the top of his foot as his index finger traces a light, tickly circle around the thin bone of his ankle. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

Caleb grasps for the threads of his thoughts, heedless of confession in the face of being tickled more, but to his surprise there is little left to worry about - even the exhaustion feels far away now, his whole world narrowed to the warmth of being held here.

“Nothing,” he says honestly. He giggles a little as Caduceus’ fingers keep moving. “Ankles, maybe.”

Caduceus laughs aloud at that, letting go of his foot and untangling their arms as he briefly nuzzles his forehead. Caleb’s seen him do it to the others, before, but never to him. He sighs at the warm, fuzzy pressure against his hairline, the light huff of breath that stirs the mess of his hair. It’s nice.

“Alright. Off to bed with you, Mr. Caleb, come on.”

He’s already dreaming, he thinks - Caduceus has to help him over to the pillows, where he flops out and curls contentedly into the blanket tugged over him. Maybe it’s that he can barely move from exhaustion, cheeks still sore from laughter, but the bed has never felt better.