Chapter Text
The door behind her suddenly gave way and a familiar voice said, "Jester?"
"Oh," she said, dazed and blinking awake as she lay with her back on the floor, "good morning."
"Jester," Nott said, her face coming into view as she crouched over her, "what are you doing in our—"
"Intruder!" came Caleb's sleep-startled voice from the corner of the room, rough and panicked and yep, still heartbreaking, and she sighed.
"It's just Jester, she fell in the door when I tried to open it," Nott said. "Jester, it's not even dawn, what are you—"
"What are you doing up?" she countered.
"Going to see what I can steal from the rest of the crew while they're sleeping," Nott said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. Jester frowned and she added, "I give it back, I give it back. Most of it," she amended. "Gotta keep the skills sharp somehow, right?"
"Jester," Caleb said, and it wasn't a question.
"Can I talk to Caleb please?" Jester said, or maybe more mumbled, because it wasn't even dawn yet and she didn't want to wake anyone else up if she could help it.
"Sure," Nott said, and then she looked back to the room and said, "I mean, if you're up—"
"I'm up," Caleb said, sounding maybe a little resigned. "Go…do your thieving."
Jester sat up and scooted along the outer wall, being sure to stay on a patch in front of their room and not somebody else's. Nott looked at her for a moment and then leaned in close. "You're sure you're all right?"
"I'm fine," she said, which was mostly true, though her neck was stiff and her shoulders were sore and her lips were currently not being kissed which, it turned out, was a whole new kind of unpleasantness she hadn't expected. "Just give us a minute, okay?" Nott's eyebrows went up and her eyes brightened and Jester said, or maybe begged a little, "Please?"
"If you insist," the goblin said, and then she pulled up the hood of her cloak and vanished into the shadows. Jester hugged her knees to her chest, her tail wrapped around her legs. The quiet creak of the ship as it shifted in the water hid Nott's footsteps, and a good minute passed before she heard Caleb's as he rounded the door and settled next to her, not quite close enough to touch.
"Good morning," he said courteously.
She didn't dare look at him. "Good morning," she said. "How…did you sleep?"
A breath in, a shift of some kind, and then, "Not particularly well."
"Mm," she said, nodding in sympathy. Then she took a deep breath and closed her eyes and said, "How…do you feel?"
Another minute of silence, and then he said, "How do you feel?"
"I don't know," she said, desperately grateful he'd asked, because he was the person she talked to about these sorts of things, feelings and such, and she didn't know what she'd do if she couldn't anymore. "It's a lot, you know? Like, a lot."
"Yes," he said.
"You're a lot," she said.
His breath caught for a moment. "Yes."
"And I don't know what to do," she said. "I just wanted things to be normal because I was afraid I'd made them weird and now…are we going to be okay?"
She didn't quite turn her head to look at him, could only see maybe his shoulder out of the corner of her eye, caught a glimpse of his profile. One wrist rested on a bent knee and his other foot, bare, came into her peripheral vision as he straightened his leg. She found herself looking at his toes and she'd never really looked at someone else's toes before and she wondered, while he thought, if when you loved someone you really wanted to know every part of them, even their toes, even their toenails, so that you could love them too. No one wrote poems about toenails, at least not that she'd read. Maybe someone should. Caleb's toes weren't too bad. Surprisingly clean, not too hairy.
"I think," he said, and even after having had all that time to think about what to say he still changed course, "that—I—it is not new," he said, "to me, and so I can…I have learned to live with it. 'Normal' is not—this is…it, for me."
"Oh," she said, and she wanted to ask how long? but wasn't sure she was ready for the answer.
"But for you I understand," he said, "and not knowing what you want—"
"I know what I want," she said, and he went very, very still. Even his toes. She liked them.
"Do you?" he said, his voice very low.
She felt her face crumple "No," she said plaintively, maybe a little too loudly, and she hushed herself. "Not if you don't—"
"I do—" and then he stopped, and then he said, "Anyway, you don't have to decide now, if you don't want to. I can…"
"Wait?" she asked, and he shrugged again and said nothing. Wait for a no, and things carried on as they had been, and she hadn't even known it; wait for a yes, and then what? "And if I decide I want to…practice, some more?"
The ship creaked quietly as he drew in a long, slow breath; and then he said, very lightly, in that wonderful way that he had when he stopped taking himself so seriously, "Well, you are a very good kisser."
She laughed at that, quietly, and her heart hammered painfully in her chest, and she said, "And if I want…more?"
He sighed, and his jollity went with it. "I am very selfish," he said, and she went hot all over again. "Jester, I have things I want—things I must do. Things that are more important than—" but he couldn't say it; she felt him fight to find the words. "I…I do not know how much I could give you," he said finally, and it wasn't a no, and that terrified her.
"But you could try," she said.
"You deserve—"
"But if I want," she said, and then she said, "Don't try to tell me what I want, Caleb."
"I don't want to," he said, "I want you to—" and then he stopped, and she thought he was a little terrified, too.
"If I want," she said again, and she felt him tense beside her, and she waited, looked back to his toes, then to her knees, fighting every instinct she had to interrupt or joke or flee or cry, waiting, and she was usually very good at waiting but this was different because if this came out wrong she didn't know what—
The breath left him, long and quiet and slow, and took the fight with it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him bow his head. "For you," he said, very slowly, "if you want, I could…try."
She caught her breath and he said, "Jester, I don't—"
"I'll let you know," she said, standing before he could cut off his nose to spite his face as he was so wont to do, "what I decide."
She finally looked at him, looked down at him, at the top of his head and the resignation in every inch of his body, and wondered for a moment if the fight would be worth it; and then she thought of his hair between her fingers and his hands around her waist and more than that, the look on his face when he'd given her the inkpot, invited her into his tiny hut for the first time, offered her money when he had none to give.
He was worth it, even if he didn't believe it himself. But she didn't know if she could fight without him at her back, and—
She didn't have to decide now, and then he looked up at her and he was—really hot, like, when did he get so hot? and she definitely shouldn't decide right now. "Anyway," she said, "good morning, sorry to wake you, have a good day."
He smiled at her with weary eyes. "The same to you."
She felt his gaze follow her as she walked the length of the passageway, felt it lingering on her heels as she climbed the stairs to the deck above. She emerged in the salty stinky air of the Nicodranas docks, a fresh morning breeze with dead fish on it blowing her hair back from her face, the sky grey with the coming dawn. The docks were already alive on either side of them, empty berths preparing to receive ships ready for rest, other ships readying to sail with the sun. She took a deep breath, got past the worst of the initial gag, and thought, okay, and that felt okay. And when the sun came up they could go talk to the Zolezzo, and then she could go talk to her mother, and that would help too. And then—
And then she could decide, maybe. Or maybe not. He'd wait, either way, and she wasn't the only one in the fight, after all; Nott and Beau were in it too, and probably Yasha, and Caduceus inasmuch as he preferred inner peace to conflict, and if Fjord—oh, Fjord—could keep his head on straight he'd help, too.
She had time. At least a little of it. At least assuming they didn't do anything in the next few hours to get themselves thrown into life-or-death danger or permanently banished from the Menagerie Coast, which was a bit of a gamble to be honest but one she was willing to take. One she had to take, because whatever she chose she had to be sure.
One way or another, she'd have to decide. And until then…
Well, at least she knew she was a very good kisser.