This is Fine (It's Not): A Collection of Caleb Sickfics & Whump
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embers in the cold by TaraLaurel
Fandoms: Critical Role (Web Series), The Mighty Nein (Cartoon)
05 Apr 2025
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The spell flickers, fire fizzling out before it can even take shape or warm his fingers.
He hardly has time to think before the world tilts.
He must have missed his footing. He's going off the edge of the cliff. He really hopes his friends don't waste time trying to go down and find him. He'll fall and fall and then it'll all just stop and that's not what he wants, not anymore, not for awhile now, but it's still okay. It's still -
The last thing Caleb hears is Jester's voice, high and alarmed. Then, darkness.
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Caleb gets sick and doesn't tell anyone. Because, of course. His new friends have something to say about this.
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Caleb's eyes flew open, unfocused and wide. He didn’t see her. Not really.
"Bitte, Vater - nein… Ich kann das nicht -"
“Caleb.” Beau’s voice was sharp, low. She glanced toward the others - still asleep, gods willing. “You’re not there. You’re with us.”
He shook his head, still locked in the memory, eyes darting. “The fire - das Feuer - I didn’t - bitte, nicht - please, don’t make me -”
She gripped his shoulders, firm but steady. “Listen to me. You’re safe. You’re not in Rexxentrum. You’re in a freezing-ass cave with the dumbest group of powerful idiots in Wildemount, and no one’s going to hurt you.”OR
When Caleb falls ill on a perilous journey through the mountains, Beauregard and the others take care of him. But Caleb’s battle isn’t just against his sickness - it’s against the trauma that haunts him. In the midst of his struggle, Beau is forced to confront how far Caleb has yet to come in trusting his friends - and how much further she’s willing to go to make sure he does.
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"Shit - Caleb, hey. Stay with me." Fjord pressed a hand to the man's chest, anchoring himself maybe more than the man on ground. "You're okay."
But Caleb didn't respond.
He was too warm. Not just feverish, but the kind of heat that felt spent - like the ash left over when a flame burns itself out.OR
In the ruins of an ancient temple, Caleb gives more than he has - again. When the fight ends and the dust settles, it’s Fjord who catches him. Who sees through the quiet self-destruction and refuses to let him burn away.
Caleb might think he has to earn his place with pain and sacrifice. But Fjord knows better.
Febuwhump Day 10: Magical Exhaustion (Happy February in May I guess?)
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“I hope they’re not dead,” Jester says, half-laughing, the words tossed out like a charm against bad luck.
“Yeah,” Molly replies easily, flashing that bright, unbothered grin of his. “That’s something we can find out in the morning.”They joke because they think they have time.
A canon-adjacent look at what happens when Caleb and Nott nearly die in the basement during Episode 13 - a story about fractured trust, Fjord’s new understanding of certain things, and the moment Molly decides that “later” isn’t always enough.
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the longest night by TaraLaurel
Fandoms: Critical Role: Exandria (Web Series), The Mighty Nein (Cartoon)
05 Jan 2026
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Summary
“Caduceus,” he says, voice clipped and precise. “Caleb is critically injured. Magical contamination. We need you. Rexxentrum. His home. Now.”
The silence that follows is unbearable.
Then the answer comes - quiet, steady.
"I'm on my way."
Essek begins counting.
Not seconds. He is not that optimistic.
Heartbeats.
If there is no arrival by sixty, he will tear open space and bring the healer here himself.
Essek watches Caleb’s chest rise and fall and feels the night expand around them, vast and patient.
This is not the vigil he prepared.
This is something else.On the longest night of the year, Essek plans a quiet surprise: a Zemni Long Night Vigil, researched and arranged down to the last candlewick. Caleb comes home late, as he always does - just not under his own power.
With an artifact’s hungry remnants still tangled in Caleb’s magic, healing becomes dangerous, and the only thing left to do is keep watch until morning.
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