It wasn't just them in the tower. Caduceus was happily returned to his own bed, and Kingsley Tealeaf chose to sleep in the Clays' home as well, but this version of the tower had rooms available for the rest of the Nein, and a suite for Astrid and Eadwulf, as well as another for Essek himself. And everyone, including all the Clays, came in for dinner (except Ikithon, whom Essek believed had been fed already). Essek and Caleb first found themselves alone when they retreated to the library after eating, Caleb bringing with him some beer Essek initially hoped he wouldn't drink too much of.
That hope lasted about an hour, before Caleb put his book down, and the words started spilling out. Including, early on, a remark that alcohol usually didn't loosen his tongue quite this badly, which made Essek all the more aware how much Caleb was trusting him, more than he ever had in their entire history before this.
Between that, his exhaustion making reading slightly difficult, and Caleb's clear need to talk, Essek let him talk. He learned a good deal that evening, about Caleb, about the Assembly, and about the two people he now gardened with. Including the true nature of Caleb's past relationship with them, which he had already suspected, but now he noted well his own reactions to knowing it for a fact.
And then he began talking about Jester, and about her reaction to his plain room, and his wondering if she would come back and insist on redecorating it. ("If she does it now, she might rope you into her efforts," he warned Essek.) If she did, he said, he'd probably feel the need to create it with the decorations from then on. From there, of course, came the other romantic fact about Caleb Essek had already suspected.
"Please don't tell her," Caleb pleaded to him. "She'd be so unhappy, if she knew I had feelings and she couldn't return them. And she's so happy with Fjord, and what if she felt guilty about that?"
"I won't tell anyone," Essek assured him.
"Oh, I know Yasha suspects," Caleb shrugged, "and I think Beau might, too. Or maybe that's just me suspecting she might be crushing on Jester a bit herself-which I would definitely not recommend mentioning to anyone. At least she seems happy and in love with Yasha anyway."
And wasn't that comforting idea for Essek, more confirmation that it was possible to feel like that for more than one person at once. It wasn't as if he ever would've known from his own experience. But no amount of alcohol would get him to explain all that, not to Caleb.
Instead he just said, "I am sorry you have not found any consolation for this." He had heard, after all, how painful it could be to have unreturned feelings, and was starting to think he might now be learning about it firsthand as well.
"Don't be," said Caleb. "I'm not. At least, not anymore.
I was until recently," he continued. "I felt like an idiot. The worst thing about unrequited love is when you can't do anything with it. I was uselessly in love."
Essek didn't think Caleb had found nothing to do with those feelings, though. After all, was he himself not now driven to be as good a friend to Caleb as he knew how to be? And likewise, he had seen how good a friend Caleb was to Jester, although he was to all the Nein, so perhaps he thought he would've been anyway.
"But," Caleb was continuing, "during the fight...I suppose you can think Caduceus might have made it to her and brought her back even without my bringing her to him. And honestly, I don't know whether or not I still wouldn't have managed all I did for her in that fight even if I hadn't loved her like that. There's no being sure." He looked at the beer for a long moment, then took another mouthful and swallowed before finishing, "But so long as there's any chance, however slight, that my being in love with her is the reason she's alive and well now, I can't regret it. I'll bear all the pain I have to over it."
Essek had, during his childhood, read epic stories of heroes and heroines doing legendary deeds. Very often, the characters around them included someone suffering from unrequited love, who in the end would make a heroic sacrifice to save them, or sometimes even their beloved. Sometimes, of course, the lover would be consecuted, but even then, the narrative had given a general feeling their were giving up the life they had lived, that even when they came back they would leave their past life behind and start over. And very often they weren't. Sometimes they would tragically be days away from getting consecuted.
That hadn't been Caleb's fate, he reminded himself. Jester herself had seen to that. But he thought it all too likely that he'd been ready for it to be, that when he had died, he had done so glad that he'd helped Jester live.
He himself had been ready to die for any of the Nein, or even just for the sake of the world. That by itself hadn't even seemed to mean anything, not when he'd thought himself dead anyway. But from the moment he saw Caleb fall dead during that battle, Essek had known that much as he'd come to care very much for them all, he hadn't quite come to do so equally.
And since then, he had also become aware of something far more incredible. Not only would he die for Caleb, but if things kept going the way they were going, he might just get more determined to instead live for him.
He now knew, beyond any doubt, that Caleb was capable of being in love with more than one person at the same time. He also knew Caleb was attracted to him, and cared for him very deeply. He didn't know how Caleb felt about him, exactly, right in this moment. He suspected Caleb himself didn't know either. He did know Caleb's feelings could last a long time. The way he had talked about Astrid and Eadwulf that night, even as he'd made it clear he didn't actually want them back, had established he nonetheless still loved them too, in a way. He didn't know how Caleb's feelings would evolve with regards to him, either.
Essek also knew that it would be a bad idea for both of them to pursue anything right now, anyway. He knew he certainly couldn't handle being with someone like that, not yet. Even feeling as much as he did for Caleb now was a little overwhelming, to tell the truth of it. He didn't know if or when that might change, especially not when there were things both in their practical situations and their inner selves that would need to change.
But, he found himself thinking, as he sat there by Caleb, so long as there is any chance, however slight, that my being in love with him could one day make him a happy man, I can't regret it either. I, too, will bear all the pain I have to over it.