Chapter Text
“I am sorry, Essek, I do not mean to question your authority, but don't you think this is a bit extreme?"
Jester fidgeted from side to side, watching Caleb and Essek go back and forth. The Shadowhand shook his head grimly.
“Unfortunately, I do not. For the safety of your companions, and others you may come into contact with, the both of you need to be remitted to a safe location immediately.”
“Can we at least get our stuff?” Jester asked. She was perturbed, to say the least. The bites they’d gotten from the slaad out in the Barbed Fields didn’t seem to be that big of a deal; even Caleb was hardly injured and she’d stitched them both up easily with a simple spell, not even a very powerful one. She’d tried explaining to Essek that she or Caduceus could cast any number of spells to cure disease, and that she'd cast one on them both already, but he was unreceptive.
“This is simply the law, Jester. Those who may have been exposed to diseases like these, that are dangerous and transmissible, have to be quarantined. You could turn at any time, and the creature would assume your previous shape. Before we knew it we’d have two very powerful and virtually undetectable spellcasting slaads loose in the city. I am sure that a restoration spell as you are describing has eliminated the possibility that you are carrying the chaos phage, but you are still required to isolate for a full seven days. I have secured a safe place for you to do so, in the outskirts of the Corona district.”
“Don’t you think we are safest where we are?” Caleb asked, gesturing to the rest of the Nein. “If we were to become slaads, the people best equipped to handle the situation are right here.” Essek shook his head.
“Even if that were true - which it is not, due to the possibility of your infecting them even before you turned - it remains the law that those exposed must be in complete isolation. I’m sorry, Caleb, Jester, it is simply what has to happen. It’s only a week. If you are refusing to do so-” Caleb waved him off.
“Nein, we are not refusing. Or - I am not refusing. I do not want to speak for Jester. It is excessive, that is all.”
“It’s fine,” Jester agreed. “I’ll go.” Essek nodded.
“Pack your things, then, and I will escort you to the house. One hour.”
The next hour was a flurry of activity for Jester. She packed as many clothes as she could fit into her bag - am I going to want to wear this? What about this? But what if I want that instead? This is comfortable - but this is pretty! - and packed a second bag, lent by Beau, with books, paints, her journal, anything she could think of.
“Ugh, Beau, I’m going to be so. Bored. What am I going to do for an entire week if I can’t leave the house?!”
“You can hang out with Caleb,” Beau snorted. “Or watch grass grow. Both equally interesting.” Jester groaned. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Caleb - actually, she didn’t think he was boring at all - but she didn’t think Caleb really liked hanging out with her. Jester packed anything that she might want to do - nail polish, knitting needles and yarn, bath oil, the map of Wildemount she was working on, even a few small canvases that she could use to start new paintings. Of course, it didn’t surprise her that when she dashed down the stairs and out the front door, Caleb already had Jannik saddled, with his small pack and a sack of provisions securely attached to the sides. When he saw her, loaded down, the corner of his mouth quirked up in a small smile.
“Well, at least you will have plenty to do,” he teased, taking one of her bags to tie it to Jannik’s other side. The Nein was in the front yard outside the Xhorhaus, waving furiously from a distance, as Essek had instructed - no goodbye hugs, everyone had to stay at least an arm’s length away from them.
“Bye, Fjord! Bye, Nott! Bye, everyone!” Jester blew kisses to her friends as she hiked up her skirts to mount Jannik. “Be back soon! Unless we turn into horrible gross monsters!” Caleb chuckled quietly and raised a hand in a gesture of farewell.
“Well, at least one of us won’t be bored,” Jester said, returning to Caleb’s earlier comment. “You barely have anything, you’re going to be so bored.”
“I have my books,” Caleb replied, directing Jannik to follow Essek’s gliding shape into the distance.
“All of them? You have a lot of books, Caleb.”
“I do, but I brought enough to keep me busy.”
They rode in companionable silence for a little while, and as they did, Jester started to get a little nervous about what this isolation might entail. If they needed anything, they could always message one of their friends to help. That wasn’t the problem. Jester was realizing, as they rode, that she had never really spent very much time alone with Caleb before. Sure, they lived together, but with so many other people - she couldn’t say she knew anything about his habits, or what he was like in private. They were going to be spending a lot of time together and she felt her stomach flip a little at the unknown quantity of what that would be. Jester didn’t even really know what Caleb thought about her - she was younger than him, by almost a decade, and a lot of things he wasn’t. She was loud and brash and impulsive. Did he find her annoying? They did have some things that they both liked - they traded books back and forth, mostly trashy romance novels, but still, and he enjoyed many of the same whimsical things that she did, when he let himself. Well, it’d be an interesting week to say the least.
After a short time, probably an hour or so of Jannik lumbering slowly as Essek showed them the way to the safe house, he stopped outside a small cottage, isolated on the outskirts of town.
“How were you able to get a place so fast, Essek?” Jester asked, walking over with her bags over her shoulder. “Is it because you’re super important?” Essek cracked the slightest of smiles.
“No, not quite. You may be familiar with the phenomenon, I’m not quite learned in tiefling biology, but drow go into heat every five to ten years. It comes on quite suddenly, so people are often needing these types of secluded locations on a last minute's notice if they are planning to wait it out. There's lots of little places like this available all over the city.”
“Oh, okay. No, tieflings don’t have that. I mean, I don’t think.” Essek laughed a little.
“You’d probably know by now. But we have very long lifespans, so limited fertility helps prohibit a population expanding beyond its means.” Essek gestured to the front door. “This is your home for the next seven days. Should you need any assistance that your friends are unable to provide, you know how to reach me. Should you find that you are developing symptoms of the chaos phage…reach out. We can help. Any questions?”
Jester glanced at Caleb, who shook his head. She was sure she’d think of all kinds of questions once Essek had left. He handed her a key to the front door, waved once and poofed off in a cloud of teleportation mist. Home sweet prison for the next week, she thought sourly.
“Oh it’s cute!” Jester exclaimed when they opened the door. The cottage was small, but sweet, with a woodstove, a comfortable looking sitting area and a set of bookshelves. Jester peered inside and set her bags down just inside the door.
“I’m gonna go look around at the garden, since it might be the only outside time I get to have until next week,” she announced, slipping past Caleb to exit the cottage. The house was really on the edge of the Corona district, and the view out to the flatlands was pretty breathtaking. Whoever owned the house had managed to get some grass and flowers growing, and Jester sat out there for a long while, watching the movements of birds. The breeze in her hair felt nice, the grass tickling her bare legs where her skirt had rucked up.
Jester really didn’t want to be stuck inside this house all week, but if she had to be…it could be worse. At least the view was nice.
She wasn’t sure how long she was out there but eventually, she picked herself up and went back inside, hefting her bags over her shoulder as she passed through the doorway. Jester walked through the sitting area, through the kitchen, and up a narrow flight of stairs, looking for a bedroom to put her things. There were only two doors on the second floor, one of which opened onto a small, cozy bedroom. Caleb was kneeling over his bag, rummaging through it, when he saw her enter.
“Oh! Jester - sorry, I hope it is alright that I put my things up here. You should take this room though, I can sleep downstairs.”
Jester furrowed her brow and looked around, processing a moment later that in addition to the woodstove and vanity, there was only one large bed in the center of the room.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Cayleb,” she said, dropping her bags near the vanity. “It’s stupid for you to sleep on the couch, though I appreciate you trying to be a gentleman.” She saw in the mirror that his cheeks darkened at her teasing and smiled. “I share with Beau when we travel all the time. It’s fine.”
“Uh, ja, okay, if it is alright with you. But if you change your mind, really, I do not mind taking the couch, or the floor.” Jester rolled her eyes.
“What kind of cleric do you take me for that I would let you get your back all messed up sleeping on the floor?” Caleb laughed at that, still looking through his pack. She watched out of the corner of her eye as he pulled out his writing tools and a few books, starting to leaf through one already as he rose and exited the bedroom. Jester bit her lip and huffed out a sigh, her eyes lingering on the bed. What was the protocol here? Was she supposed to wear regular clothes to bed instead of her nightgown? What if her skirt rode up in the middle of the night? That would be embarrassing…. Were they supposed to roll up a quilt or something to put between them? What if she talked in her sleep or something? Jester had shared a bed with Beau plenty of times, and the group all slept in cramped quarters on the road, but she’d never slept in bed with a man before, and that felt different.
It’s funny, she thought, how you can grow up watching all kinds of private things happen between people, and tell stories that make sailors blush - but something like sleeping in bed with someone feels like a big deal. For her age, Jester was fairly sexually inexperienced, but she knew a lot about sex and it didn’t frighten her. It was everything else, everything that usually came before and after, that was a mystery and raised nerves in her stomach. Even though her mind wasn’t really going there with Caleb, the close quarters made her keenly aware of the intimacy of the situation.
Jester felt that again later, when they sat down in the evening to eat the leftover baked pasta from last night’s dinner that Caduceus sent them with. It was just weird, eating dinner with Caleb alone, especially since she knew she’d probably be carrying the conversation.
“This place is super cute, isn’t it?” Jester tried after a minute of silence. “I think I had a little dollhouse just like this when I was a kid.” Caleb smiled a little.
“It looks like the house I grew up in.” Jester raised her eyebrows before she could help herself. She didn’t know anything about Caleb’s life before they met, and he seemed to very intentionally never talk about it. She was surprised to hear him reference it at all.
“That sounds really nice,” she said carefully. “Did you like it?”
“Ja, it was very nice. It was a little bigger than this. I grew up on a farm. Bit more space there.”
“I wish I grew up on a farm,” Jester admitted, stabbing more pasta onto her fork. “That sounds really great.” Now it was Caleb’s turn to be surprised.
“You do? I apologize, I do not mean to sound so shocked - it’s just, we met your mother, she was lovely, and the Chateau…. It just seems like you did not want for very much.” Jester shrugged, glancing up at him. She was taken aback by the intensity of his gaze, bright blue eyes that seemed to pierce right through her, and she looked away again quickly.
“Oh, I loved the Chateau, and my Mama, obviously, everything was really perfect there. The other ladies there were like a bit group of aunts and they all loved me and hung out with me. And my Mama made sure I had anything I needed or wanted, I was really lucky like that because she made a lot of money, you know? But…I don’t know. Before I left Nicodranas, leaving the Chateau to go to a shop was an adventure. It was nice, but…I spent most of my life in a bedroom.”
“A gilded cage,” Caleb interjected quietly. She lifted her eyes to meet his, a rush of something radiating out from her chest.
“Yeah, kind of. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for everything my Mama gave me, Cayleb, I know you didn’t have a lot of money growing up. I was really lucky. I didn’t go hungry or cold, I was just…lonely, I guess. And even that, I had the Traveler so I wasn’t super lonely. I had a good childhood. But I can’t help but think growing up on a farm, having all that space, getting to just go off wherever, hanging out with other kids…. I don’t know, that sounds like it would have been nice, when I was a kid.”
“I was an only child too,” Caleb said quietly, lacing his fingers in front of him. “I mean, I had friends, but I can understand that. I spent a lot of time alone.”
“What was the best part, though? Not the sad stuff.” She saw a flicker of pain cross his face and regretted her words.
“Ah, well, it was nice to live in a small town. There were festivals for the major holidays and the whole town would come out. When I was a kid, they were the best days of the year, because we went out at night, which was always exciting as a child. And the town square would be lit up, there was music and dancing and festival foods. When I was older, some of that lost its novelty, but it was an excuse for young people to ask one another on dates and spend time with their friends. So the festivals were probably my favorite part.” Jester grinned.
“Ooh, I bet you had lots of cute girls who hoped you’d ask them,” she teased, mainly to make Caleb blush, which he did fiercely.
“Ah, well, that part of my life is over,” Caleb demurred with a small smile.
“Not denying it, though!” Jester held out her hand for his empty plate, which he handed to her; when her fingertips brushed his, she felt lightning radiate down her arm and froze. It took her a second too long to release her grip on the plate and when he turned his back, she blinked hard and shook her head. What was that?
The feeling of trepidation that had been swirling around Jester for the half-day they’d been in the house only increased the more tired she got. She was lying on the couch until quite late, reading one of her novels while Caleb hunched over his books a the table, until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.
“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” she announced with a yawn, swinging her legs off the couch. Maybe if she was the first one to bed, she wouldn’t feel so weird about the whole bed situation. Caleb nodded, glancing up from his book.
“Good night, Jester.”
“Can I take Frumpkin?” Caleb looked over at Frumpkin, who was lounging on the couch in the warm spot from Jester’s body.
“You want to go with Jester? Come on, you heard the lady. Look lively.” Frumpkin trotted over. Jester beamed and scooped the spotted cat up into her arms.
“Thanks, Cayleb!” She ascended the stairs, scratching Frumpkin behind the ears. “You should sleep at the end of the bed so you keep my feet warm.”
Jester set Frumpkin down on the bed and started her bedtime routine, brushing her hair, taking her jewelry out of her ears and horns, cleaning her face, rubbing lotion into her face and hands and applying a thin layer of oil over her horns to keep them moisturized. Even when they were on the road, sleeping on the ground, she tried to keep up with this small set of rituals. She'd grown up doing these things, when she got old enough, with her mother before bed. It felt civilized in a way that the life she had now easily undermined, and as a result, it was important to her to maintain it. As she undressed for bed, she tried to talk herself down from the nerves twisting in her stomach.
You’re being ridiculous. There is nothing weird about this and you are totally overreacting.
Jester sighed and pulled her nightgown over her head. She didn’t think it was particularly revealing, but suddenly the black cotton slip she’d worn to bed for years felt inappropriately sexy. Get it together. She tried to remember the outfits she saw her mother and other women wear around the Chateau when they had appointments, the silky things in her mother’s drawers that she pulled out and held up to herself in the mirror as a teenager, and the other things she was too embarrassed to even touch. See? This is not what people wear when they’re trying to be sexy. Go to bed.
Jester pulled back the covers and slid into bed, and after a bit of tossing and turning, fell asleep easily. She wasn’t sure how long she was asleep before Caleb’s footsteps up the stairs woke her. She blinked her eyes open but lay still, hoping to avoid conversation, though she knew Caleb couldn’t see in the dark and probably wouldn’t even notice her if she did move.
She wasn’t trying to spy, really, but her curiosity eventually overtook her and she rolled over cautiously, one eye open. Jester, for better or worse, had always been nosy. She thought that the things people did when they thought they were alone, even if it was just how they got ready for bed, told you a lot about them, and Caleb was the one member of the Nein that had proved an extraordinarily difficult nut for her to crack. She watched every movement as he set his books back on the nightstand, leaning down to pet Frumpkin, who had stretched out on the opposite side of the bed from Jester as soon as Caleb entered.
He was clearly trying to be quiet, thinking she was asleep. She watched as he pulled a book out of his holster, a very worn one with a cracked leather cover, and made his way over to the window, where the moonlight was spilling in. Caleb crossed one long leg behind him and balanced the book on the windowsill, scribbling a few notes. Waiting for the ink to dry, he sighed and stared out at the wastelands. Jester noticed the way the pale moonlight illuminated his elegant fingers and red hair, making it glow bright and brilliant against his pale skin. She tried to commit the image to memory; it made her kind of sad that Caleb couldn’t see himself like this. Maybe if he had better eyes, he wouldn’t think so poorly of himself.
Caleb ran a hand through his hair and turned away from the window, his blue eyes staring right at her. Jester’s heart stopped, feeling “caught” even though she hadn’t been doing anything wrong. She tried to regulate her breathing, her pulse falling back to normal when his eyes left her and she remembered that he couldn’t see in the dark. She watched as Caleb stepped over to his pack and unbuckled his book holsters, slipping the leather straps up over his head and placing it on his bag. When he pulled his shirt up over his head, revealing creamy white skin dotted with freckles, strong shoulders, Jester’s breath caught in her throat. Her stream of consciousness paused for a second, just watching the movement of muscle under pale skin, her artist's senses kicking in and drinking in the lines and shadows, noticing how the light dappled across scars and ridges of bone. Caleb turned again, unfolding a sleep shirt and walking back to the beside table. Jester’s heart pounded in her chest as she took in his sharp collarbones, the chain of his amulet drawing her eyes down to a dusting of auburn chest hair, the lines of his hips, patterns of freckles and - oh - a thin trail of copper that disappeared under the waist of his pants.
Cheeks burning, Jester squeezed her eyes shut and flipped over. Her face was so hot she felt like it ought to be glowing, but she kept her breathing even and willed herself to stay still, clutching her blankets up around her. Get a grip, girl. What are you, fourteen? Jester felt the other end of the mattress dip as Caleb climbed into bed, carefully positioning himself as far away from her as possible. Frumpkin hopped up on the bed and circled a few times, settling between them with a contented purr.
Relax. You’ve seen this before. Not a big deal. Her efforts to convince herself were less than effective. Maybe it was because before, Jester hadn’t really been looking per se, but damn, he was handsome. Had she really just…not noticed? She wasn’t alarmed by the sight of Caleb's body - really, she had seen this before, and her upbringing had handily desensitized her to nudity - but by her involuntary reaction to it. The sudden fluttering of her heart, the clenching of her stomach, that wasn’t really adding up. This entire day had been bizarre, she’d felt self-conscious about the stupidest things, things she never would’ve thought twice about in any other circumstance. Really, this is just because you’ve never really spent any time alone together. The more Jester thought about it, the more she realized that kind of was what was going on. She thought about Caleb in the context of the Nein, as a friend, a team member. The intimacy of the situation they had been thrown into was forcing her to think about him as a man, and that was a very sudden turn for her brain.
Okay, so you’re attracted to him. So what? The way she saw it, she had two choices. Ignore it, let the week pass. It’d be easier not to feel awkward once she was back home and had a little more breathing room, and it'd probably go away. Or…she could go for it. Try to seduce him. Even if he didn’t bite, it’d be fun trying, she’d still get to watch him sweat. And if he did…well, that would certainly make this week of forced isolation more exciting.
One week.