For the Whump Bingo, could I have Critical Role and Hiding an Ilness/Injurie? :3
Thanks for the ask!
[Send me characters and a prompt for the Whump Bingo]
##
In the end, he should have known that it was a bad idea. Common sense is not something that he would consider a friend, it’s an acquaintance more likely, and yet in this instance, common sense has left him in a vacation to… to somewhere. The mountains, maybe. The mountains are nice, Caleb thinks.
The contents of his table are scattered in various positions of disarray. He didn’t mean to make a mess, but sometimes it just happens. The books have toppled over, lying page down and dog eared on top of another, the ink has spilled over his parchment, candle wax dribbles onto the carpet. And Caleb is on the floor also, two vials are clutched in each of his hands. in his left, an unknown poison, that smelled like it had just the right ingredient for this spell he wanted to try, and in his right, a general antidote. Both vials are empty.
Caleb had just wanted to make sure it was the right ingredient. He didn’t want to wake the inn in case of explosions or other things that would get them kicked out. They need the shelter and this inn is the only option they have.
So, now, here he is, on the floor of an inn, with his blood boiling like thousand tiny needles and an antidote that doesn’t work.
In short, Caleb is in trouble.
This is one of those situations that Caleb does not know how to explain.
“What were you thinking?” they would ask.
And he’d say: “I wasn’t.”
“Do you have a death wish?”
And Caleb would look at them until they would sigh and say: “Actually, don’t answer that.”
But it’s all right. He would make do.
##
Movement makes it worse, he finds.
He can still move, though every movement increases the pins and needles. Before it had been contained to his hand, now it has spread to his elbow. His right arm is almost useless, but only almost, so he ignores it, as one does with problems one can’t fix.
He stands in the back and casts his spells as always. If he favours his right arm a bit more then no one mentions it in the heat of the battle.
He does get a calculating stare from somewhere in the dark and turns away to not offer Fjord any more things to stare at.
##
The next thing he notices is that the air is sharp.
He sitting in the tavern and watching as the rest of them discuss the last days battle, planning, joking, laughing. Jester sits next him, gesticulating wildly to emphasize her point. her sharp nails scratch against the back of his hand as she finishes, putting her hands down with more enthusiasm than necessary and Caleb sucks in a hissing breath. The needles explode in his throat and chest.
Jester apologizes and he waves her off, careful not to use too many words that require deep breaths and hissing sounds.
When Beau subtly elbows him in the ribs and tells him to breathe in a whisper, he bites his lips and does as he was told.
“Hey, are you ok—”
“I’m fine,” Caleb interrupts her. It came out breathy and strangled.
And luckily, too quiet for the others to hear.
##
Nott knows.
Or, rather, Caleb suspects she knows. After a hasty retreat where he has slammed the door in her face, she has been watching him like hawk. Caleb feels her gaze in the back of his neck and he tries not to squirm under her scrutiny.
And even though he has hidden the vials carefully, Nott must have found them because he saw her walking out of his room when she thought he was still down at the tavern and he had hidden behind the corner and waited until she was out of sight.
He thinks it wouldn’t be so bad if Nott knew. Maybe he could ask her to look for an antidote but the poison is still unknown to him. Between the running and the fighting and the hiding and the planning, there is barely any time or opportunity left to look for an antidote without being noticed.
Still maybe it would be nice to have someone there who knows, someone who would sit with him and listen but — no. This has nothing to do with the task at hand. This is his problem. He got into this mess and he would find a way out of it. Or not. At his point, where both his arms and one of his legs feel heavy and sore and full of needles and hot blood, he isn’t as picky any more.
Caleb wonders briefly if this is what burning alive feels like.
##
Stairs are a new challenge and it’s not the first time he appreciates functioning feet and legs, but it’s the first time he feels it so intensely. He grits his teeth and suppresses pained groans as he heaves himself up one step after another, up the stairs through pins and needles, boiling blood and searing pain.
Every step is heavy. His grip on the wall is slipping and cold sweat beads at his temple but he drags himself forward lest the others catch up to him and find him in this state.
By now, they have caught on that something was off and Caleb is sure it’s only a question of time before they figure it out. It’s that, or he drops dead somewhere in an alley as he has lost them in the corws due to his not working legs.
Caleb shakes away the thought and focuses at the task at hand, namely, getting up the stairs. It has never been so difficult but Caleb is stubborn in a way — Beau’s fault, really — and even his admittedly non-existent pride won’t allow him to just give up and sleep on the stairs. It would make the point of not letting them find out so easily absolutely useless.
When he bested the last step, his vision dances and his body shuts down in relief.
##
He wakes up with clouds in his head, a weight on his chest and big worried yellow eyes peering down at him. There’s a funny taste in his mouth and some liquid on his lips. He licks it to find it tastes like various flowers.
“Are you okay now?” Nott asks.
“I don’t know.”
He really doesn’t. It seems he is lying on the ground. There is a carpet underneath him and he vaguely recalls that here hadn’t been a carpet at the stairs. The room is warm and bright and —
All of them are in the room, staring at him with frowns and scowls, promises of questions he doesn’t want to answer and scoldings he has heard in his head several time already, and he turns back to Nott because Nott is familiar and easier to deal with.
“Did the pins and needles stop?” Nott asks.
Caleb finds that she sounds scared but he feels fine and not in pain, so he nods and smiles up at her to reassure her.
It’s nice to have her here, he thinks.
With that thought he falls asleep again on the hard carpeted floor and he sleeps easier than he had in weeks.
