Oooooo how about #13 for a platonic Team Cleric? I believe in you, beat that writer's block! 💪✒️
& marginaliana said: Writing prompt! Caduceus & Jester, 13 kissing someone’s forehead
You both gave me the same exact prompt, haha, so tagging you both here! This was so great and I had a LOT of fun writing in Jester’s voice. ✨
Clerical Work (912 words, gen)
Caduceus wasn’t sleeping.
No one quite realized how much Jester noticed, but she’d been keeping track for awhile. The last three nights they’d spent in the dome, Caduceus had volunteered to take a watch – less unusual on its own – and also spent significant time just lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling with empty-looking eyes. She’d also stumbled across him in the tower kitchen in the wee hours of the morning on a different night, when she’d snuck down to try to get some cookies from one of the cats in a fit of her own restlessness.
As they all bedded down for another evening in the dome (Caleb having used his seventh level spell slot again), Jester waited until Caduceus volunteered to take a watch and chirped out, “I’ll take watch too!” She didn’t look at Fjord, knowing he would be a bit taken aback that she wouldn’t be joining his watch that night, but some things were more important than romance. Fjord would understand. Caduceus was his friend, too.
They were to take third watch, so Jester curled up for bed and made sure to get some excellent sleep first, just to make sure she got all of her spell slots back. They’d had quite a battle that day, and her magic was pretty low. She slept pleasantly until Beau shook her awake for watch. She was completely unsurprised to discover that Caduceus was already awake, seated cross-legged by the edge of the dome away from the sleeping forms of their friends. Jester yawned and rubbed her eyes, stretching a bit before she made her way over to join him.
They sat in silence for a bit as Jester listened attentively to make sure Beau went back to sleep and that none of the others were awake and listening. Caduceus held so much inside himself, it was unlikely that he would feel comfortable talking about whatever was bothering him if the others were listening. Jester had never met such a private person before – Caduceus was so open and friendly, but he also shared less about himself than even Caleb! Jester knew what it was like to share only the soft edges of oneself with the world, keeping the cracked pieces deep inside, but Caduceus seemed to hide both his soft edges and his cracked pieces, almost as though he was afraid that if he had a genuine emotion or opinion, the rest of them would leave.
Oh, Jester realized. Leave him like his family. Oh, that was bad. She would have to be careful with this line of questioning!
“Caduceus,” she began, her voice low so as not to wake the others. He glanced over at her, puzzled. “Why haven’t you been sleeping? Sleep is important for getting all your spells back!”
Caduceus blinked at her slowly. “Oh,” he said after a moment. “You noticed that?” He seemed surprised. He was so silly – he wasn’t the only one who noticed things about people.
“Of course I noticed that,” Jester told him, giving him a soft smile. She leveled her most earnest look at him. “You’ve been so upset by that city and what the Tomb Takers are trying to do, and that forest upset you a lot.”
Caduceus glanced to the side, not making eye contact. “Yeah,” he said, agreeing vaguely in a way that didn’t give Jester any information at all.
“You shouldn’t take this all on yourself!” Jester said. She scooted closer, moving to sit cross-legged right in front of him in a shorter mirror of his own pose. “You’ve helped all of us so much. Why don’t you think you’re worth letting us help you?” She reached over and took one of his furred hands in her own, not looking away from his face.
Caduceus finally met her gaze, and he looked like someone had torn his heart out. Jester wanted to cry in sympathy when she saw how much pain he’d been carrying, how much he’d been hiding from all of them. “I don’t think I’m not worth being helped,” he said slowly. “It crawls beneath my skin. It knows me, it calls to me. I dream about it. The Wildmother doesn’t know what it is or what it wants from me.” He closed his eyes for the long moment between a breath. “If I talk about it, I have to think about it.”
Jester’s heart ached for him. “I understand,” she said. She leaned over and rose to her knees in order to press a kiss between his brow, gentle but firm.
Caduceus blinked in dazed surprise, unused to physical affection from his teammates, and she gave him a soft, sympathetic smile in response.
“We are here for you, Caduceus,” she said, trying very hard to make sure her voice sounded serious. “Please talk to us. At least to me?”
He still looked lost and sad, but he reached over and captured her other hand in his own as well. “Thank you, Jester.”
She beamed at him. “You’re welcome. Next time you can’t sleep, come find me; we can get midnight snacks together! Oooh, Caduceus, you know how to BAKE…that will be so great—” She let her mindless chatter move the conversation onward, sensing Caduceus had already hit his limit for the evening.
It was okay. She would wear him down. Slowly but surely, she would help him learn to open up to them. Maybe then he would even get some sleep.
