What Color?
Jester and Caleb are deciding what color to paint their unborn child’s room. Jester has one thing on her mind. Caleb has several. The key difference is that Caleb is very good at hiding it.
Haven’t written in a while and this idea came in a flash. So rather than make it a whole to do, I decided to just write it like a prompt giving myself fifteen minutes to complete it. I gotta say I’m pretty happy with how it turned out! Enjoy!
•••
Caleb worries.
There’s nothing new or significant about that fact, but he does. Caleb Widogast worries. He’s a worrier. He worries so much it’s sometimes a wonder how he thinks about anything else. What was actually surprising, however, is how in the past six months it had become so much worse.
“Pink will be the accent color,” Jester said after a moment of thought, paintbrush in hand, “but what about the rest of it? We can’t just have it be boring old white.” She was standing atop a short stool in a painters smock, not taking her eyes off the circle she had just finished filling. Its color was the inner world of an empty conch shell.
“My room was ‘boring old white’. For most of my life actually,” Caleb replied, minding the tightness of his tone, not looking up from his book, “Why not just paint the whole room pink?”
Jester’s nose scrunched and her mouth twisted, dissatisfied. It was, on occasion, a goal of his to get her to make that face. Even at the cost of saying something he knew she’d instantly disagree with. Sometimes being wrong had its rewards.
“It’s not like pink is a bad color or anything. I love pink—!”
“You don’t have to defend the color as if you’re about to say something risqué about one of our friends, blueberry.”
“—but just one shade? For a whole room? What happens when he draws on the walls and wants to use red? It’ll look terrible and then he’ll stop drawing and he’ll give up on art and he’ll get into…fishing or something,” Jester, in the process of laying out her case against the mono color on the walls, had begun the process of tying her hair with a white ribbon. Which of course meant the paint brush was stuck between her teeth and lips. Further meaning everything she had just said was done with effort to get through the obstruction.
Caleb, having understood her perfectly, replied cooly while continuing to look down at his book, “Fishing is a noble career to have. She could also indulge in the library. Perhaps her mind will be more like mine, hm?”
Jester hummed to concede, the paint brush now being cleaned with a well worn and dirtied cloth. “Still! He should get a chance at least. But what color goes good with everything? And not white. White is bor-ing. Maybe light purple? But that wouldn’t work with red either. We could do something like…grey? But wouldn’t that just be close to white? At least with this kind of pink grey would look so drab, especially on rainy days. Oh shit! I didn’t even think of that! What color looks good in any kind of weather? We haven’t had a rainy day yet since we started figuring out the colors so I haven’t seen the walls when the sky is cloudy and the windows are so big and they let in so much light—“
Jester stopped herself when her eyes caught on Caleb’s leg. She stared. It was jostling, up and down at a rapid fire tempo. The rest of him however looked perfectly still. His face the picture of steady focus. He was sitting in the rocking chair he and Beau had made, had argued for hours over the best shape and angle of curved bottom. The book he was gripping hard to was the latest in a long line, all of them memoirs or journals or instructive manuals on childcare and the general rearing of children.
Jesters lips gently quirked at their edges and from them fell a soft sigh.
“Caleb?”
“Hm?”
“We can stop talking about the colors if you want.”
“No. Why?” He asked, replying back too sharp and quick, still not looking up, “It’s important. They say the color you choose can have great influences on personality. It affects the subconscious part of the mind apparently.”
His leg still moved at rabbit speed.
Jester gave another sigh, this one out of some exasperation as she realized she would have to elaborate. “Caleb—“ she had begun to say, though whatever she was going to say next was cut off by a misplaced step. She had barely begun to realize she was falling off the stool before a series of quick events occurred.
A word had bellowed out of him at alarming volume and suddenly Jester’s world was silvery mist. She only had the briefest sensation of falling before landing into a familiar set of shapes. The rocking chair across the room was rocking back and forth while empty. The book had been thrown onto the floor, its poor pages bent.
The mists disappeared and from them, above her, was Caleb.
Jester had to blink in order to refocus her vision again. And upon doing so she was able to study him, if only briefly. Able to see what he had been hiding inside that book. Lips parted with shaky breaths, cheeks raised in a few shades, eyes bright with adrenaline. Some hairs he kept tied back fell out of place, framing his face. His hands gripped tightly at her back, arms firm and surrounding her. His stomach just barely pressing against her swollen one.
A whole spell he had used, just to save her from a small fall. Albeit a simple spell, but still.
Jester felt a pang in her chest. How had she not seen it before?
“Hey…” she began, soft like to a cornered animal, “Caleb. It’s okay. We’re okay—“
“I told you the stool was too small,” he croaked out, throat tight, “What if I hadn’t been here? What if you both had—“
“Bruised an elbow?” She cut in, guiding him with her body and arms to raise them both back up again. “It’s barely a foot off the ground. I’m not that bad of a cleric, you know. I can handle healing myself.”
“I…that’s not what I—“ He struggled to find the words, blinking and standing up straight alongside her. His arms were still around her, still holding on tight. Jester’s hands found their home on his cheeks, the stubble of his jaw tickling her palms. Eventually his eyes slid shut and he took a breath, holding it for a heart beat before letting it go. Despite herself, Jester waited patiently for him to speak.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, keeping his eyes shut, “Everything feels…loud. All the time lately. It was like when I went on the run as a boy and everything was danger. Everything a threat. Even my own shadow. I…I’m—“
“Afraid?” Jester finished. His lips pressed into a thin line and his eyebrows drew together tightly.
“Ja,” he let out in a breath, shoulders beginning to sag, “Ja, all the time, Jesse. It’s…I didn’t want to worry you. Especially not now.”
Jester shook her head, thumbs running across his cheekbones, “I should have seen it sooner. I’m sorry, Caleb. But you know— you don’t have to hide that from me. I’ve seen you scared before. Like lots and lots.”
“Ja, but,” he stopped himself, thinking his words through, “you should not be forced to carry my burdens when you’ve got a great deal on you already. If I can ease you in any way, I will.”
“Even if it means hiding yourself from me?”
Caleb finally opened his eyes, breaking from his worry for confusion. “That’s not—“
“Does it look like I’m at ease right now, Caleb? Listening to you tell me that you’ve been on edge for months and you’ve been hiding it from me?” Her tone was mildly scolding, but there was no loss of love. In fact that was a great amount always threatening to burst from her at any given moment, but most especially now. “When you asked me to marry you, do you remember what I said?”
“Hm,” he worried his bottom lip not in trying to remember, the words were perfectly archived in his mind, but rather in hesitation, “you had said you didn’t know much about being a wife. A good wife. You were worried you wouldn’t know what to do.”
“Well I’ve had lots and lots of practice since then,” she said, beginning to smile, “and I know for sure one thing I will always do is help you, Caleb. No matter what. I promised you that, didn’t I?”
Caleb was helpless in the face of that smile. Infectious thing that it was. “Ja. You did.”
“Right. Okay. So,” Jester pressed her stomach fully against him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Within her, gentle movements occurred which they could both feel. As if Caleb being close was a known thing to the child. “Let’s take a break for the rest of the day until dinner. Something to help you relax, even if you just want to talk that’s okay too. We can talk about colors tomorrow.”
He nodded after a moment of hesitation, loosening his grip and placing his hands at her hips. In the quiet, Jester lifted herself up by the toes and stole a kiss from his unsuspecting lips. Though surprised, it took but a fraction of a second for Caleb to melt into the embrace. Despite his ever present worries, they seemed so distant now. They always did when she was near.
When they broke apart, Jester gazed up at him before her expression froze. The worry came back to him at near instant speed. “What?” He asked, voice cracking slightly.
Jester didn’t answer, though instead she moved closer until they were nose to nose. She stared deeply into his eyes.
Before he could ask her again, her face burst into joy as she exclaimed, “That’s it!” She pulled away looking rather pleased with herself.
Caleb was at a loss. “What’s it?”
“Your eyes!”
“My…eyes?”
“That’s the color we’ll use for the wall! It goes with everything!”
And to Jester’s slight surprise and full on delight, Caleb burst out laughing.
END
