Friendly Elder Millenial Goth

Drawing my fav Dr. Who shots (day 1?)

✨Bolaire✨

WHOOPS @dent-de-leon's TAGS GOT ME AGAIN

In the end, he and Yasha are the only ones who make it through the storm.

It's not for lack of trying. Essek is pushing into the wind right up until the moment his eyes roll back and his knees give out. Fjord only stops to drag the unconscious drow to safety. Veth; Beau; Jester; Caduceus—all struck out at the storm, and all were left wobbly as newborn fawns for their trouble, stranded at the outskirts of Caleb's magical onslaught.

Later, Kingsley will ask: Why him? Why Yasha? And the prevailing theory will have much to do with swimming. Or maybe drowning.

Few people in Exandria know what it's like to have your body turned into a fishbowl—to be the fly caught in the gap between sliding doors, or the mite stuck in a water droplet, beating uselessly at the film separating your soul from sensation.

Caleb is forty-one years old. That means as of this year, he's spent about a fourth of his life lying catatonic in a sanatorium. It's not the same, but when Kingsley steps into the maelstrom—well. It's not unlike being Molly again, thrashing around in the well of his own skull, only ever skimming the controls by happenstance.

Kingsley knows that pain. Yasha knows that pain. And it's not like it doesn't crumple them: It just crumples them in a way they're practiced at.

So: Caleb's magic forms a squall line between him and his only hope of rescue. So, the Nein step into his personal hurricane—a wall of grief and helplessness and need that tears through the Halls of Halas like tissue paper.

So, only Yasha and Kingsley emerge on the other side of the clouds.

The veil lifts. Like someone flipped a switch, all sound cuts out. No screaming winds—no screaming friends. Caleb stands in the eye of the hurricane, palm raised and bristling with magic. His eyes are empty.

Kingsley's fingers hurt from how hard he's squeezing Yasha's hand—or maybe how hard she's squeezing his.

Yasha exhales. Kingsley copies her.

They embrace.

Kingsley doesn't remember what he says, but she lets him go. She tells him she'll be right behind him.

Kingsley nods. He's terrified. He knows that feeling too.

He walks towards Caleb.

Caleb is already monologuing by this point. Or, whatever entity saw fit to use Caleb's magic and Caleb's pain is also using Caleb's tongue.

"…How his dying breath," Caleb's mouth is saying, "holds the might of tempests. Now you see the puppet strings. Now you see the nature of my gift to you."

Kingsley speaks past the body in front of him, down to the spirit huddled in its closet: "Mister Caleb. We really ought to stop meeting like this."

Caleb's eyes flash. "Have you not listened to a word I've said? Your wizard is gone."

Kingsley cups Caleb's face in his hands. He leans close, nuzzling their foreheads together.

He feels Caleb draw a sharp, sobbing breath.

Kingsley hovers for a second. Steels himself. Kisses him on the mouth.

Kingsley doesn't think it's overly conceited to claim he has a unique relationship with his soul. He's had his essence rattled around enough times to approximate the size and shape of its container. He knows what it feels like to live in the center of his body versus its back pockets—what it feels like to hover outside it, even, in the nauseating haze of resurrection. Kingsley reaches inward, feeling around for the part of him that makes him real. He kisses Caleb, and he coaxes his essence from its nest between his ribs, to press along the metaphysical line between their bodies. The fingers of his left hand stray into Caleb's hair. Internally, he brushes up against something warm and fluttery.

"There you are," Kingsley murmurs.

A flicker. Their souls find each other through a gap in the firmament. Even in this, Caleb is warm. Kingsley opens his mind to his wizard, pouring out joy and love and fear. He kisses Caleb's jaw.

Caleb chokes. He grasps at Kingsley's lapels like they're his last tether to reality.

Kingsley whispers into Caleb's neck,

"I have you. I won't let you hurt anyone."

Caleb makes a wretched little sound and shakes his head. Shame; terror; anguish flashfloods the space between them. It takes all of Kingsley's willpower not to brace against the barrage. He forces himself to follow the push and pull of Caleb's hurt, the way a tree bends with the wind.

It feels like drowning. It feels like the day Kingsley remembered killing his friends. It feels like every day after that, waking up to a reality he nearly tore to sinew—to the choice of whether to finish the job.

In, two three. Hold. Out, two three. In the physical realm, Kingsley takes Caleb's hand and squeezes. He lets them sit there in the muck of their broken hearts for a while. Gives the wound a chance to breathe.

Then Kingsley thinks very hard about pocket bacon.

He thinks about tin cup coffee and bumpy back roads. He thinks about the anemones in Cadeuceus' garden. He thinks about Hupperdook fireworks and the way they backlit Caleb's hair. He thinks about laughter and wind chimes and firebugs and carnival glass. He thinks about the ocean. He thinks about puffy duvets—the kind all the upscale inns seem to carry, that weigh the same as an embrace and make a crinkle sound when you turn over, barely louder than the scratch of quill on parchment across the room. Through half-shut eyes, Caleb is a soft blur of brown and orange and lamplight. Calm, love, sunshine, ribbons, antique shops, the prickle of cat claws on his shoulder for the first time, I love you.

"I have you," Kingsley repeats. He swallows back tears. "It's safe to come out now. I have you."

Caleb covers his face with his free hand. He's one of those silent criers, but his jerking shoulders betray him.

Kingsley pulls Caleb into his arms. Caleb all but collapses into his chest. Kingsley isn't sure he's ever felt someone shake this hard.

"Tut mir leid," Caleb says. "Tut mir leid. Es tut mir unendlich leid..."

He says it over and over into Kingsley's shirt, the syllables pitching with the force of his sobs. Kingsley holds Caleb tighter. With their bodies flush, Kingsley can feel Caleb's heart pounding. He presses a fierce kiss to his temple and stays there, cheek to cheek—shushing; sheltering.