I am a complete sucker for dysfunctional wizards slowly falling in love, so this was an absolute joy to write. Hope you like it :)

TW: implied self-harm, victim-blaming

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It starts in the Blooming Grove, among gravestones and burnt flowers.
Drow don’t need much rest, so Essek is usually up before everyone else. He comes across Eadwulf in the early hours of the morning, when the air is still cool and the first rays of sunlight creeping between the trees have not yet defeated the last traces of nightly fog.
The scourger almost looks like a statue, kneeling near the spring where his goddess’ champion is buried, shirtless, head bowed and eyes closed in silent prayer.
Essek knows he is intruding, knows that this is something inherently intimate, not meant for the eyes of a traitorous heretic like him. But he can’t tear his gaze away from the way the muscles in Eadwulf’s bare back look in the low light of dawn, like an artwork carved from fine marble.
“Enjoy what you see?” the human’s deep voice tears Essek out of his thoughts and he feels a flush stain his cheeks. He shouldn’t be surprised to be noticed. The kneeling man in front of him is a scourger, after all.
“Forgive me,” he replies. “I was just out for a morning walk. I did not mean to pry.”
“I was about to finish up, anyway.” Eadwulf rises with the grace of a tiger and brushes traces of dirt and dewy grass off his hands. Essek can’t help but think how much blood these hands have been stained with in the past. Then he remembers the clatter of armor filling the streets of Rosohna as legions of young Echo Knights marched towards the mountains in the west to either bring bloody death to nameless Empire soldiers or find a brutal end themselves, and he feels like a hypocrite.
“May I accompany you? On your walk?” Eadwulf asks.
Essek nods. What else is he supposed to do?
There should be awkward silence between them. An Imperial scourger and a Dynasty traitor, brought together by an unlikely twist of fate and the unwavering kindness of a group of random misfits - they should have nothing to say to each other. But for some miraculous reason, they do. They talk about religion and arcana, about belief and purpose, about destiny and legacy. The sun is already up and the smell of breakfast wafting through the fresh morning air when they start making their way back to the cottage.
Despite himself, Essek smiles. “You are a lot smarter than people give you credit for, are you not?”
Eadwulf gives a dry laugh that would have sounded sad if a living weapon was capable of sadness.
“Not compared to Astrid, or Bren. Not in his eyes.” He doesn’t have to look towards the shed where Trent Ikithon is probably sleeping right now. The pure hatred in his voice makes it obvious who he is referring to.
Essek has no reply for that, no soothing words of assurance, so he stays silent. Just when it seems that the chirping of the first birds and the soft rustle of grass beneath their feet will be the only sound accompanying the rest of their walk, Eadwulf speaks up again, barely more than a whisper.
“They were always allowed to soak up every word of Master Ikithon’s lectures, while I was the one who was sent across campus to fetch fresh paper and spell components from the storage room.”
This time, the emotion on Eadwulf’s usually so stoic features is obvious; the pain of a boy who had already been abused in so many other ways he didn’t think he was allowed to feel hurt by something so little, so inconsequential in the long term, all flowing out of the broken man this boy has become.
Essek chooses his next words carefully, not wanting to make them sound like the empty pleasantries and shallow compliments people in their positions tend to hone like blades.
“For what it is worth,” he says and turns to face the taller man. “I think you are a very intelligent man. And I sincerely hope you hold my opinion in higher regard than that of Trent Ikithon.”

~-~-~

A few hours later, when Essek is on his way to the herb bed he’d been tending to, Eadwulf walks up next to him and wordlessly takes the heavy bag of fertilizer the drow has been struggling with out of his arms. He never figures out how the human is doing it, but somehow, for the rest of their time in the Grove, whenever Essek is about to do some heavy lifting, Eadwulf seems to appear out of thin air to lend a helping hand.

~-~-~

Astrid misses meals far more often than would be healthy, but nobody dares to tell her to eat. She wordlessly leaves the cottage when everyone else gathers around the Clays’ table, the easy laughter and the casual affection of a happy family closing up her throat and squashing her appetite.
Essek doesn’t mean to follow her, but something draws him out of the house one day and when he finds her, mindlessly pounding her fists against the trunk of a tree, he is glad he did.
Astrid’s scarred skin gleams with sweat in the fiery sunset light as she moves with beautiful fury, and again, Essek feels like he is witnessing something utterly intimate, a moment of pure, raw emotion from a woman who is usually so restrained, so skilled at keeping her feelings under lock and key.
Essek knows she must have noticed him by now. Like Eadwulf, she is a scourger, after all.
“Better not let Caduceus see you punching that tree,” he speaks up. “I imagine he will not take kindly to you damaging the plants even more.”
Astrid stops, fists pressed against the rough bark, panting hard and not turning towards Essek. The golden glow softens and hardens her form at the same time, a contrast of warm light and harsh shadows any painter could only dream about capturing in their works.
She hangs her head low, looking everything like a chastised girl who had been taught to bite her tongue with harsh words and even harsher actions, so thoroughly that the woman she’d become would rather choke on her own venom than spit it out.
“Actually, I think Caduceus would agree that the tree is comparatively the better option, considering who I really want to beat up.” she whispers after a moment of silence that stretches so long it becomes almost unbearable.
Slowly, Essek floats closer. “I don’t think this is about hurting other people, is it?” He gives a pointed look towards Astrid’s hands.
“Verdammt,” she curses, examining the torn parts of her gloves where bloody knuckles peek through the black leather. “Now I’ll have to ask Jester for new gardening gloves. They’ll probably be pink.”
Essek can’t help but raise an eyebrow. “You don’t know how to fix that with magic?”
She shakes her head. “I’m afraid I’ve never been taught how to fix things. Just the opposite.” Her voice sounds as small as she looks and against his better judgement, despite every fiber of his being telling him that this person is dangerous, a scourger, an enemy - despite all that, Essek takes Astrid’s hand.
The Mending cantrip comes easy to him, these days, and within seconds, the glove is whole again, smooth leather hiding the blood and crushed skin beneath.
“I have never been taught to fix things, either.” Essek tells her softly. “I just picked it up somewhere along the way.”
He doesn’t let go of her hands for a long time, and she doesn’t ask him to. The way she is standing against the low sunlight casts her features in shadow and obscures her eyes, but when she finally pulls away, it is to bring a hand to her face and wipe something from her cheek.

~-~-~

The next day, the Blooming Grove is turned into a muddy slide by a late summer storm that brings a torrent of cool rain, and Essek’s levitation is not enough to keep the hem of his robes out of the dirt.
He curses silently, about to shrug the stained garment off, when Astrid bends down, takes the fabric to examine it, then mumbles a few words and with a quick hand motion the mud is gone. Satisfied, she straightens again. Then, a thought seems to cross her mind as she repeats the same spell again and this time, Essek’s drenched cloak suddenly turns cozy and warm. With nothing more than a satisfied smirk on her lips, Astrid walks away.

~-~-~

None of the wizards know how to be kind to themselves. It’s an unexpected relief for all three of them to realize that at least, despite all the ways they are broken, they’re still capable of kindness towards others.

~-~-~

Essek is there for Ikithon’s trial, disguised as a human, sitting in the back row, far away from the rest of the Nein. He listens with clenched fists and an empty pit in his chest as Caleb and Astrid and Eadwulf give their testimonies, recounting pain and tears and the kind of nightmares that you don’t wake up from, spilling their hearts in front of all these strangers.
The investigators’ questions are relentless, each word cracking through the cavernous, venerable halls like a whiplash, making Essek’s blood boil with anger.
Why didn’t you speak up earlier? Why didn’t you stand up against him? Why should we treat you like victims, not accomplices?
For a few, agonizing hours, Essek is worried the two scourgers’ heads might end up on the chopping block instead of Ikithon’s, and he is surprised how much the thought scares him.
But in the end, they win. Ikithon is locked away to rot and Astrid and Eadwulf leave the Halls of Justice as free people in the eyes of the law, even though the shackles of their own conscience will take much longer to break.

~-~-~

When Essek goes to find them later that night, curled up in bed together in the guest room of Caleb’s Tower, they let him in like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It seems like the logical outcome of whatever was going on between them for a while now. What is unexpected however, is the softness of it all.
Essek thought Eadwulf would be hard and rough, and he expected Astrid to be demanding and impatient. Instead, he gets broad hands holding him steady while careful fingers slowly open him up, much more gently than two people who knew nothing but violence and cruelty and manipulation ever since they were teenagers should be capable of.
The fleeting touch of lips on his neck, his chest, his thighs, barely there and yet one of the most delicious sensations Essek has ever experienced. They take their time and through careful exploration, manage to find exactly the right spots to make the drow melt.
The scourgers are skilled at this, moving together like clockwork, and Essek prefers to think it’s a natural result of years of intimate familiarity, not something they have been actively trained in.
They both get on their knees for Essek, worshiping him with hands and tongues and reverent gazes through lowered eyelashes, kissing along his long legs and slim hips, tracing every scar and taking note of every freckle. When they finally, after what seems too long and too short at the same time, reach their destination and start taking turns sucking him into their warm mouths, allowing him to set the pace, there is nothing left for Essek to do but moan and wonder how a little kindness managed to turn two wildcats into kittens.
Essek ends up sandwiched between them, with Eadwulf inside him and himself inside Astrid. It’s bliss and beautiful agony and he never wants it to end.

~-~-~

Astrid addresses him in heavily accented but pretty much fluent Undercommon one day, just shrugging at his surprise and nonchalantly telling him she had meant to pick the language up for a while now.
Eadwulf, with his keen sense for sniffing out the best pubs and inns within minutes of setting foot in a new city, manages to find a place serving Dynasty cuisine in Nicodranas and insists on taking Essek out for dinner - not on a date, of course, just to get his opinion about how authentic the food really is.
For two people whose homes are nothing but a pile of rotten wood and bittersweet memories, they are surprisingly good at making other people feel at home.
Essek never asks how much they know about his involvement in the deal that started a war. Whether they are aware of the details of his despicable treason. In turn, they never ask him about the young female scourger that found a violent end at Essek’s hands in that prison under Rosohna - a fate that could have very well been Astrid’s or Eadwulf’s, had they ever been captured by Kryn operatives.
And of course, none of them ever mention the fact that all three of them are deeply, painfully, irrevocably in love with Caleb.
They certainly don’t deserve Caleb, but they might just deserve each other. And maybe, just maybe, they can help each other heal.