I've been gone for ages, I know. Life has been... wild. I haven't been much on tumblr the past few months and therefore haven't really talked about it (I would on my main, honestly, now that things are settling a little, but I don't know if anyone would care about the specifics lmao), but the short version is basically I've been rebuilding my life and mental health from very nearly the ground up. This has been going on since... February, maybe? But specifically since June things got turned up to 11 and writing and watching Critical Role had to be shunted waaaay down the priority list. Which is very sad for everyone involved, especially me.
But hey! Things are looking up! I wrote nearly 1k the other day! And to celebrate, have two screenshots of a scene from the upcoming chapter from Welcome to Burlesque. Parts of it were written months ago, a few words or phrases have been edited when I've had the time and spoons over the last couple of months, but most of it's brand spankin' new as of Wednesday. Sharing anything before then felt a bit like cheating.
I can't promise it'll be up soon. I can't really guarantee this wasn't a fluke, and that my life won't go bananas again. But the important thing is that I know now that I can write again, even a little bit. And that'll have to be enough for me for now. Every little bit helps, after all.
Thanks to everyone who still follows this mostly-dead blog I'm trying desperately to keep on life-support. Thank you to everyone who reads my fics, and rereads them, and subscribes and bookmarks and comments and sends lovely asks. I'm trying really hard to come back 💖
Caleb got about five steps down the hallway before his legs gave out and he fell heavily against the nearest wall, hands on his trembling knees, gripping them like anchors as he breathed deeply in shuddering bursts.
What the fuck had gotten into him?
He hadn’t expected to see her at all today — had stayed away a full week because of the possibility he might; came during the day, long before the club opened, specifically to lower his chances of doing so — but she lived here? He was going to kill Mollymauk.
It was he who’d suggested going back, after all. Who’d slyly insinuated it was fine, really, Jester might have handed the thing off to Nott, or the bouncer at the door, or literally anyone else — not that she’d personally hang on to it. In her bedroom. He hadn’t fucking mentioned she had one of those here.
And she’d been excited to see him — genuinely excited; like she wanted him to come back, like she wanted to see him.
And he’d been thrown, of course — by her bubbly personality, by her bare feet and loose top tucked into shorts too short, by her dimples and freckles and that plump little mouth going a mile a minute as she chattered all the way to her apartment… By her vibrant, chaotic bedroom, with its scattered clutter and that wide, soft bed, where she’d slunk forward with hooded eyes and hinted at things that could have been.
But none of that gave him the right to play along the way he did. Encourage her.
Win.
Not that it had been a contest, of course. But somewhere along the way he’d picked up that she was testing him in some way, baiting him, and something in him wouldn’t allow him to ignore the challenge. Because it was a challenge — one slight blush at some frilly lingerie had somehow spiraled into a lazy finger trailing up his chest and murmured insinuations about her naked body.
He ran a shaking hand through his hair. Scheisse.
It had been a long time since he’d flirted with anyone like that. At all. And there was no use denying that was what he’d been doing, what they’d been doing, regardless of the intent behind it on either side — might as well call a spade a spade. It had been a while since he’d wanted to. And now he couldn’t help himself. A combined total of less than a day of knowing her, if he was being generous, and already he was thinking with the wrong head.
If it had been a test, or a competition of some sort, the way her breath had stuttered and lips had parted as he left her speechless by her bed seemed to indicate he’d done rather well.
He wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if he’d been strong — or weak — enough to turn back that night. If he’d stayed. If she’d been telling the truth.
He wondered what could have happened if he’d stayed now…
He shook himself roughly and began his long trek downstairs, every step putting more and more distance between him and the closed door at the end of the hall. No, he couldn’t think about such things. She did this sort of thing for a living — not a judgment, merely statement of fact; making men like him weak in the knees was her business, after all, and he had to be realistic. He couldn’t allow himself the delusion that anything that had happened between them was anything more than what it was: an artist plying her trade. A very skilled artist, plying a very specific trade.
So why did the thought fill his gut with a cold ache he couldn’t quite place?
A tiny voice piped up, sly and winking in the back of his mind: ‘Why do you want it to be real?’
He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. She was beautiful, yes, and surprisingly sweet-natured, and excitable and bouncy and somehow genuinely pleased to see him — but he didn’t. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t let himself think about the way her lips curled when she said his name, of the cool touch of her finger through the cotton of his shirt, thin and simultaneously, agonizingly too thick just then; of the way she tugged on his sleeve and the way a part of him almost wished she’d grabbed his hand instead so he could feel the touch of her skin on his.
She had magic. Divine magic, to be sure, but she’d recognized the sigils in his wallet, even if she didn’t know what they meant. And she’d seemed interested in them. In him. In his magic, in his cat, in his life.
She’d asked for his number and he’d just… given it to her. He still didn’t quite know how he’d managed it as smoothly as he did, when the mere fact of it afterwards left him trembling. At some point soon she would text him, or — gods forbid — call him. His phone would ring, and her voice would be there, pressed against his cheek, murmuring in his ear… His face burned as he stumbled down another flight of stairs. He’d offered to help her mother with their books. Her mother. With their books. And she’d taken him up on it, or said she would.
If he’d been trying to extricate her from his life, get her out of his head, he was doing a piss-poor job of it.
But he was weak, and selfish, and she presented herself so tantalizingly, so willingly, and he was so, so selfish. He wanted to see her again. Of course he did. He shouldn’t, but he did.
She seemed to want to, too.
No. Realistic, he had to be realistic. They barely knew each other, anyway. He’d offered her something she needed, and she’d accepted. That she had his number, that he’d be coming back, probably more than once, was incidental. And when it was all done, it wasn’t like he’d have any reason to return after that.
He tried to ignore that icy disappointment slithering up his spine.
Nott eyed him as he finally reached the bottom floor. “Are you sure you don’t want that drink?” she said. “You look a little—”
“Nein, danke,” he muttered, waving a vague hand in her direction. “I should get going.”
“Well, alright,” she said. Her eyebrows were raised, like she was appraising him, but let him leave without further comment. The large woman at the door with the heterochromatic eyes gave him a tentative nod as he stumbled through the door, out into the sun and breeze and blessed, blessed fresh air. He filled his lungs in long, steady gulps, and his coat felt too hot now.
He left it on, sweating, as he made his way home.
In his dingy studio apartment, he collapsed on the couch, draping an arm over his face to block out the light and drifted. He shouldn’t encourage this, shouldn’t let himself, but when his treacherous mind began replaying her performance in excruciating detail for the millionth time, he simply let it. Let her imaginary fingers trace dripping honey in delicate patterns over her shimmering chest, let her hot breath caress his skin as she later moved agonizingly between his legs.
‘I was wearing that bra the other night. When you left.’
He could almost feel her again, finger pausing at his collar just before she touched skin.
‘Maybe you would have found out if you’d stayed.’
Scheisse.
At some point Frumpkin had jumped up to curl on his chest, and when Caleb shifted his arm enough to glance down, Frumpkin was looking at him reproachfully. “I know,” he told the cat miserably in Sylvan. “Believe me, I know.”
Frumpkin didn’t seem convinced.
The day passed in a haze, as did the next one, but by the third he’d finally almost managed to put her out of his mind, at least enough to concentrate on other things. Important things, like transcribing the old arcane manuscript he’d been tasked with for the library’s digital archive. He very nearly didn’t hear the phone when it rang, fifteen pages deep in the text as he was. He sandwiched it between an ear and a shoulder, only half paying attention as he did. These old wizards were fascinating.
“Ja?” he said absently.
“Caleb?”
The phone slipped from his shoulder, and he had to juggle it ridiculously to save it from the floor. It was — she’d—
“Jester?” He swallowed hard, suddenly very hot and very cold at the same time. It was her. That was her voice.
“Oh, good, it is you. Hi!”
Her voice was bubbly and warm. He subconsciously pressed the phone a little closer to his ear. “Ah, hello.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I decided to call — I know some people don’t like to talk on the phone anymore. I thought about texting, but then I thought, you know, ‘Well, he doesn’t actually have my number, so what if he doesn’t know it’s really me,’ because, like, anyone could say ‘Hey, it’s Jester,’ in a text, but you wouldn’t really know.”
She spoke in a rush, and sounded like a summer breeze, light and airy and full of life. His chest tightened. “No, it’s fine, I don’t mind.” He swallowed. “I’m actually glad you called,” slipped out before he could stop it.
“Really?” She sounded delighted. “Good, because I talked to my mom, and this is much faster than texting.”
“Ja?” He leaned back in his chair. “What did she say?”
“She was a little nervous at first, but I’m really good at convincing people and she said she has some time for you to stop by. Do you have time tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” So soon? His palms were sweating.
“Or today, I mean, it’s still pretty early. Unless you’re busy, of course,” she added hurriedly. “I’m not bothering you at work, am I? I’m sorry, I should have—”
“Jester, I — it’s fine, you’re not bothering me at all.” He was lying, of course, always lying — her very essence bothered him, in the most delicious of ways — but she didn’t need to know that. “I’m working from home.”
“From home?” She sounded confused. “I thought you were a librarian.”
He chuckled a little in spite of himself. “I told you I worked in a library,” he corrected. “I never claimed to be a librarian.”
“Huh.” She paused a moment, then continued brightly, “I guess you can tell me all about it when you get here.”
She was making it so hard for him to resist her, and he didn’t even think she was trying this time. He pressed the heel of his palm to his eyes, pressing down hard. Damn this woman. “Ja, I can come today,” he heard himself saying. “I can be there within the hour.”
“Perfect!” she squealed, and it went right through the phone and down his spine. “I’ll see you soon!”
“Goodbye, Jester.”
He held the phone to his ear long after the dead air cut out. What had he done?
He was going to see her again. Today. Soon. He tried to suppress the twisting sensation in his chest as he closed his laptop. Frumpkin was staring at him.
“Oh, shut up,” he muttered.
It was cooler today, even though the sun still shone brightly, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat as he took his time on the walk to the Lavish Chateau. It was still early — too early, maybe, he’d be there in less than half the time he’d told her, even at this rate — but once he’d finally put the phone down, staying in the apartment had seemed impossible. Concentrating on the manuscript was a fool’s errand, at least, and it wasn’t like he had anything better to do. He felt jittery, restless, and his mind was a blur.
He was going to see her.
The woman with the strange eyes opened the door when he knocked. “Hello,” he said, rather lamely.
She stood aside to let him in. “Jester’s just in there,” she said, gesturing down the hall to the arch leading through to the bar. “Your name is… Caleb, yes?”
“Yes.”
Her hand hovered a moment, like she was unsure of whether to extend it to shake his or not, and settled for rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly instead. “I’m Yasha,” she said. “I’m the bouncer. One of them.”
“I… gathered as much,” he said, then, “It’s nice to meet you, officially, I suppose.”
“It’s nice to meet you too.” There was a pause, in which neither of them seemed to know what to do. Yasha finally looked away, gesturing again in the direction of the bar. “She’s expecting you,” she said stiffly.
He made it about three steps into the main hall before he heard a squeal. “Caleb!” Jester was bounding towards him, an enormous smile dimpling her cheeks, and the petticoats beneath her vibrant yellow sundress swished and bounced around her knees. She was barefoot again. His chest ached.
“Sorry, I’m a little early,” he said apologetically.
“No, no, this is perfect!” She’d latched herself onto his arm and was pulling him towards the bar, which was empty. “Mama should be down any second, you’re right on time.”
He could feel her grip on his bicep, gentle yet surprisingly strong through his coat, and she still hadn’t let go. “Where is Nott?” he asked. Out of genuine curiosity, of course. Not because her other arm had looped around his elbow and was making it very hard to think right now.
Jester pursed her lips and shrugged. “Upstairs, maybe?” She glanced at him and squeezed his arm a little. “You don’t have to keep your coat on, you know,” she said, eyes glittering. “It’s not cold in here.”
He could feel his ears heat up slightly under her gaze. “Oh, I don’t—”
“I can take it, if you want. Mama keeps her office pretty hot so, you know, you’ll thank me later.”
Try as he might, he couldn’t come up with a plausible reason to refute this perfectly sound bit of logic, not while she looked at him so expectantly with those fingers trailing down his arm. “I — ja, okay, I guess.” He sighed as he slowly shrugged the thing off, focusing on folding it neatly. He could feel her eyes on him.
“Caleb, you—”
“Is this him, Jester?”
The soft voice from the base of the stairs made him turn and — oh.
Oh, gods.
Everyone knew who the Ruby of the Sea was, if only by reputation alone. A renowned singer in her own right, now the owner of one of the most widely acclaimed clubs and brothels in all of Wildemount — a courtesan of kings, even in this modern age. He’d never seen her, of course; she was notoriously reclusive, and few could afford her rumored exorbitant prices.
He saw now, of course, these were entirely justified.
Her scarlet skin seemed to glow with an internal light, her dark red hair falling in elegant, effortless curls down her back. Her makeup, though understated, framed the striking white-gold of her eyes and the gentle curve of her full lips. A white silk blouse, two buttons tastefully undone; pencil skirt of a modest length, but tight. Everything about Jester’s looks that made the masses swoon was perfected in her mother, somehow — the hourglass shape, the high cheekbones and the heart-shaped face… Where Jester was small and youthful and wild, Madam Lavorre was statuesque. Refined. Regal. Even from across the room, he could tell how she would tower over him, even disregarding her stiletto heels and the long curl of her horns. Her very presence filled the empty room full to bursting.
He couldn’t even register any form of attraction at the moment. He was too in awe.
“Y-yes, Mama, this is Caleb.” Jester’s voice broke him out of his reverie, and out of the corner of his eye he could see the hint of a flush fading from her cheeks. How odd. Did her mother make her nervous too? This didn’t bode well at all.
He cleared his throat hastily as the Ruby came towards them, a curious tilt to her head. “Ah, Madam Lavorre—”
“Marion. Please.” She extended a delicate hand and Caleb had the odd urge to kiss it. It seemed like the sort of thing one should do to someone like her, as a show of respect. He shook it lightly instead.
“Caleb Widogast,” he said. “I hope I am not imposing—”
“Don’t be silly, Caleb,” said Jester. “I invited you, remember?”
A small smile graced Marion’s lips. “Quite,” she murmured, and gestured back towards the stairs. “Shall we continue this in my office…?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll take your coat,” said Jester, and her cool fingers brushed his hand as she took it from him. It looked much too large, bundled up in her arms. He hoped, embarrassedly, it didn’t dirty her dress. He really should get the wretched thing cleaned.
Caleb followed Marion up the stairs to the second floor, past all the raunchily-named VIP rooms to a grand oak door near the stairway up to the third floor. The spidery script on the plaque simply read “Manager.” She held it open for him and gestured him inside. “Please,” she said. “Sit.”
Jester was right; the room was a good ten degrees warmer than the hallway, at least. It was just as elegantly decorated as the club downstairs, but in a more antique sense — all wood panels and deep red wallpaper. An ornately carved desk dominated the room, plush leather chair behind it. Caleb hesitated only momentarily before seating himself in one of the smaller chairs in front of it. He felt ridiculously out of place.
Marion closed the door behind him and once behind her desk, gazed at him deeply over steepled fingers. “So,” she said finally. “Jester tells me you are… an accountant, yes?”
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Not precisely,” he admitted. “I told her I was good with numbers, but I am not… officially trained as such, no.”
“I see.”
“She mentioned you had been having trouble with your former employee.”
She sighed. “A bit,” she said. “He was… not who he claimed to be.”
“I only offered to take a look,” he said. “I thought I could be of some assistance….”
She lowered her hands, tilting her head, those white-golden eyes boring into him. “Why?”
Her voice was gentle, curious, but with her eyes on him and that commanding presence he couldn’t help but feel like he was being interrogated. He resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably in his seat. “Your daughter is… very charming,” he began haltingly. “She mentioned that you were having trouble balancing the books after your… problem, and I thought I could offer my services as I have some… experience with such things, although not in an… official capacity, exactly.”
Those slender fingers pressed together again over pursed lips. “If I may ask,” she said, “what is it you do for a living, Caleb? May I call you Caleb?”
He nodded mutely. “I work in the archives of the Cobalt Reserve here on the Menagerie Coast,” he said. “I mainly transcribe and translate ancient texts.”
A perfectly penciled eyebrow arched at that. “You are a monk?” she said, surprise evident in her voice.
He felt his ears heat up and felt suddenly glad his hair was long enough to cover them. “Ah, no,” he said. “I have a friend who belongs to the Order, but my studies are more… arcane in nature.”
“A wizard, then?” She leaned back in her chair slightly. “How fascinating. I haven’t encountered a proper wizard in many years.”
“We are a dying breed, I am afraid.”
“Not much call for offensive magicks in these times of peace, to be sure.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, crossed her legs under the desk. “Forgive me, Jester told me you were smart, but she did not mention your, ah…” She tilted her head again. “You say you are good with numbers as well?”
“I — ja, I would say so.”
“Indulge me, if you would.” She reached down into a drawer, pulling out a large, leather-bound book, and pushed it gently across the desk towards him.
He opened the book to a random page, seeing the rows and rows of numbers carefully penned in a smooth hand. “You do not keep digital records?” he asked.
The corners of Marion’s mouth twitched upwards. “We keep both,” she said, gesturing at the book. “This one… it is old. You will forgive me for not simply handing you the keys to our current financial records just like that.”
“Of course,” he murmured, but he was only half-listening. The numbers swam before him, the sums adding up automatically in his head as he flicked through a few pages. After a moment he tore his eyes away, remembering where he was. “This book…” he said, “it is from when your previous employee worked here, yes?”
“Why do you ask?”
He spun the book around and pointed. “There,” he said. “That one should be a two. And there—” He pointed again, “—this should be a four. And here…”
Her eyes widened as she followed his fingers, smile slipping as he pointed out mistake after mistake. “You did this all in your head?” she said. “And so quickly.”
He retracted his hand, feeling his face redden slightly. “Ja,” he said, a little embarrassedly. “Ja, I did.”
She studied him for a moment, then pulled out her phone, a small, slim thing, from some unseen source. She tapped a few keys before glancing at him again. “What is fifty-seven plus eighty-nine?” she said.
“One hundred and forty-six,” he said, furrowing his brow in confusion.
A few more taps. “Six hundred and ninety-four multiplied by three hundred and eighty.”
She was testing him. “Two hundred and sixty-three thousand, seven hundred and twenty.”
A last round of taps, a curious expression on her face as she glanced back at him. “Eighteen thousand and thirty-two,” she said, “divided by twelve.”
“One thousand, five hundred and two, point six. And some.”
She leaned back in her chair again, eyebrows raised. “I must confess,” she admitted slowly, “when Jester came to me about you, I was… skeptical.”
He closed the book carefully. “That is understandable,” he said delicately, “considering the circumstances.”
“I mean no offense, of course.”
“Of course.”
“You have impressed me, Caleb,” she said, leaning over to search through another drawer. The open collar of her blouse shifted as she did, revealing a soft expanse of scarlet skin. He looked away quickly.
“I only wished to help,” he said to the ceiling.
The gentle rustle of paper brought his attention back to the desk, at her long, manicured fingers pushing a sheaf of stapled pages towards him. He took them with raised eyebrows.
“This is a… contract,” he said lamely.
“The job is yours,” she said. “You are by far the most qualified person I have met so far.”
“I did not…” He paused as he skimmed the fine print, flipping through the pages.
She cocked an eyebrow. “This is a job interview, yes? That is why you offered your services to my daughter? Or have I misunderstood…?”
“That’s not—” He broke off suddenly, staring at the figures before him. “You’re paying — how much?” he choked out.
Marion steepled her fingers again as she leaned forward. “I understand it might be a bit lower than other, similar positions, but if you’ll look a little further down, you’ll see the lease to the apartment is included in the agreement…”
He was still reeling from the proposed salary, which he still didn’t entirely believe was real. “Low? I — My apologies, did you say ‘apartment’?”
She rose, pulling out a key ring from the same void from which she’d retrieved her phone. “Follow me.”
Still clutching the contract with its absolutely ridiculous numbers, he followed her in somewhat of a daze as she led him up the sweeping stairs to the third floor and down the wide hall to a door near the end. ‘Nearly directly beneath Jester’s room,’ his mind supplied deviously.
The lock clicked quietly as Marion opened the door and waved him in. “It is one of the smaller apartments,” she said apologetically. “But all the utilities are included, of course — power, water, internet…”
Caleb stared at the apartment — at the high ceilings, at the clean walls and pristine appliances in the kitchen alcove; at the wide open archway leading up the half-step to the bedroom. He wandered through the living room area, across the seemingly endless hardwood floor, past doors leading to… where? He didn’t feel like he could open them to look. Not that Marion would have stopped him, he thought, but he was too overwhelmed to even try.
“This… is part of the payment?” he said faintly.
Marion nodded. “If it is unsatisfactory,” she said, “we could possibly renegotiate your salary to compensate, of course—”
“Nein, ah, no, this is…” He inhaled slowly, looking around him. The living room area alone was almost larger than his entire studio apartment. And he could live here. For free.
“I realize you say you have another job,” said Marion. “But I hope that won’t affect your decision…”
“I work from home, mostly,” he murmured absently.
Marion smiled. “Excellent.”
A thought occurred to him suddenly, an ugly smudge of dark on this shining opportunity. “I have a cat,” he said, almost reluctantly. “Would that be a problem?”
“A… cat?” A cloud seemed to pass over Marion’s exquisite features and his heart sank momentarily, but then she shook her head. “Your familiar. Of course. No, that… that won’t be a problem. It is… quiet, I presume? My apologies, I am… unfamiliar with pets. I have never had one myself.”
“He is a good cat,” said Caleb, a little lamely.
“Of course.” Marion nodded. “It will be no problem, then.” She tilted her head again, and he was sure he didn’t imagine the faintly hopeful look in her eye as she did. “So… have you reached a decision? You will sign?”
Caleb smiled weakly. “Do you have a pen?”
As he made his way back downstairs a few minutes later, a little dazedly, he saw Jester still at the bar, still clutching his worn leather coat, chatting animatedly with Yasha. His heart twisted slightly in his chest as he watched her, as she flipped her hair over a bare shoulder and laughed, and a cold, slimy feeling slithered through his gut. What was he doing? He was trying to get out of her life, not insert himself more firmly into it.
She glanced up as he paused there on the stairs, somehow brightening even more when she saw him. “Caleb!” she called, waving him over. “How did it go? Did it go okay? What happened? Tell me everything!”
“Ah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. What had happened, exactly? He was still not entirely convinced he was awake. “I — I suppose… I live here now?”
Jester’s hands clapped to her mouth, eyes widening. “You took the job?” she said.
“I — ja, I did.” Why, and how, were still unclear to him at the moment, but suddenly it didn’t matter anymore because she’d flung her arms around him, and something in his brain short-circuited.
“Oh my gosh, that’s so great!” she squealed, and the gentle squeeze of her cool arms through the long sleeves of his shirt was rapidly turning his insides to jelly. “We’re going to be neighbors! Isn’t that cool?”
“Ja,” he managed awkwardly. He was hyper-aware of every inch of her body pressed against him — he was sure his face was a mortifying shade of red right now, and Yasha’s mildly interested gaze and raised eyebrows were definitely not helping — and tried in vain to clear his head. “Very cool,” he mumbled.
She released him just enough to look up at him. “You’re bringing your cat, right?” she said seriously. “It’s very important that you bring your cat.”
He blinked at her. “Of course I’m bringing my cat,” he said.
Her face split again into that sweet smile, cheeks dimpling. “Good,” she said. “We’ve never had a pet around here before, I can’t wait to meet him! I-if that’s okay with you?” she added, almost shyly.
He couldn’t help it — a corner of his mouth quirked up at that. “Of course,” he said. “We’re going to be neighbors, you should meet my cat.”
For all their similarities, her eyes were so strangely unlike her mother’s, so big, long-lashed; crystalline violet irises instead of the alien expanse of color typical of Infernal ancestry. He could nearly count the freckles dusting her nose at this close distance, count those long, dark lashes; they weren’t entirely purple, he realized, because there was gold in her eyes — just a little, just there, a small ring of amber around her wide pupils…
“I like cats,” said Yasha thoughtfully.
Caleb coughed as Jester released him with a small jerk of her head, the faintest hint of lavender-pink coloring her cheeks. “Well,” she said.
“I should go,” he said simultaneously.
She grinned at him, and extended his coat towards him. “Here,” she said, unnecessarily.
“Thank you,” he mumbled. And then, pausing to put it on, he glanced at her. “Thank you, Jester,” he said sincerely. “For speaking to your mother. This was… an unexpected outcome.”
Her cheeks dimpled again. “Of course, Caleb,” she said. “It was your idea, though.”
“Ja, well…” He shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded politely at Yasha. “It was nice to meet you,” he said.
Yasha inclined her head in response.
“Come back soon, okay?” Jester called after him as he made his way to the exit. He glanced over his shoulder and she grinned widely. “You have to, now,” she said.
He was still smiling as he stepped out into the cool Nicodranas air.
The smile died slightly on his trek back to his apartment, however — his soon-to-be-ex-apartment, actually. How had he let this happen? He wasn’t a religious man, and yet a week ago, he would have blessed the gods at such an incredible opportunity. That apartment? The money? He’d never even conceived of earning that much money in his whole life, much less as a yearly salary. And being close to Jester, to be able to see her every day —
No, no, that was a problem, wasn’t it? He didn’t — shouldn’t — want to be close to her. He’d told himself not to lose himself in thoughts of her, hadn’t he? He barely knew the woman, after all. She wasn’t interested in him, not really, and he was in no position to pursue her, even if he wanted to.
‘I do want to, though,’ he thought, and immediately suppressed it.
No, he didn’t. It was lust, pure and simple — it had been so long since he’d come across anyone who’d made him feel like this, that was all. It would pass, as all things eventually did. And then she’d just be another person again; his neighbor, his… friend? Possibly, but probably not. She’d lose interest after the novelty had worn off, and that would be alright. Wouldn’t it?
‘But until then,’ a part of him reasoned slyly, ‘why not enjoy it while it lasts?’
He sighed as he let himself into his apartment, as Frumpkin fixed him with a look. “Don’t,” he said wearily. “You don’t have to say it, I already know.”
Frumpkin hopped off the couch and padded over to the bed, wiggling under it in the very deliberate manner he did when he was sulking. Caleb ignored him and shrugged off his coat. Frumpkin would get over it. Eventually. He’d enjoy the new surroundings, at least. Meeting new people, possibly. Meeting Jester…
Oh gods, it was really happening. He’d be moving, packing up his meager belongings and moving… He’d have to get boxes, of course, and furniture — more than his sagging couch and ancient mattress and flimsy second-hand desk, to fill that enormous, blank space of potential, the mirror image of Jester’s apartment upstairs —
Her flirtatious smirk flitted across his thoughts, her eyelids fluttering as she handed him her phone for his number, those soft, strangely cool fingers brushing his and setting his nerves alight. ‘You know,’ she’d murmured. ‘For later.’
Her excited squeal as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself against him. ‘That’s so great!’ she’d said, and when she looked up at him with those amethyst eyes he’d lost the ability to speak.
‘Come back soon, okay?’ she’d said, the grin audible in her voice as though this had been a private joke between them. ‘You have to, now.’
Mollymauk was going to be insufferable when he found out.
“He took the job, Molly,” said Jester. “Weren’t you listening? He’s gonna come live here, isn’t that cool?”
“Caleb Widogast? My Caleb Widogast?” Molly’s tail flicked through the air, draped over her couch as he was. “Skinny introvert, cat-lady extraordinaire, offered to come work here, just… out of the blue? And not only did your mother then offer him an actual job, but he accepted the apartment as part of the deal? Are you sure we’re talking about the same man?”
“Yes, Molly.”
“That bastard,” said Molly. “No wonder he’s been avoiding me.”
“Why would he avoid you?” She bumped his legs with her hip and he lifted them so she could sit down. “You introduced us in the first place. This wouldn’t have happened at all if you hadn’t brought him here.”
“That’s exactly why,” he said, settling his feet back in her lap. “If he doesn’t see me, he doesn’t have to grovel at my feet for this incredible turn of luck as he so clearly should. Ungrateful bastard,” he added mildly.
Jester hummed thoughtfully as she sipped her tea. “It’s been so long since anyone new moved in here,” she said.
She could feel Molly’s gaze flick over her and her stomach clenched as she fought to keep a neutral expression. “It has,” he agreed. “Looking forward to it, are you?”
She shrugged. “It’ll be pretty cool,” she said casually. “He’s bringing his cat, you know. I’ve never met a real cat before.”
“I would hardly call Frumpkin a ‘real cat,’ but…” He cocked his head, the corners of his mouth curling up into a sly grin. “So,” he said. “What do you think of him?”
“The cat?”
Molly prodded her with his toe. “The man,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Don’t play coy with me. You’re not as slick as you think you are, darling.”
“I don’t think I’m slick,” Jester protested. “What do I have to be slick about, anyway? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Did you know you babble when you’re nervous?” he said.
“Do not,” she mumbled into her tea.
“You do, and it’s adorable.” His eyes glinted. “Now, what on earth could you possibly be nervous about?”
“Nothing!”
“Then answer the question.”
“He’s…” She chewed her lip, mulling her words. ‘Handsome,’ her mind supplied unhelpfully. “…Nice,” she said carefully. “He seems really nice, yeah.”
“And…?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she huffed. “It’s not like I know him that well, we’ve only met a couple of times. But he seems nice. And his cat is, like, really cute.”
“And that’s all?”
“Stop staring at me!”
“I’ll stop staring when you start sharing, love.” His eyebrows were raised in that infuriating way he did when he was feeling smug. Although what he could possibly have to feel smug about, Jester certainly had no idea. “You’re hiding something,” he said in a sing-song voice.
“Am not.”
“It only gets worse the longer you deny it, you know,” he said. “You can’t lie to me. I know you far too well for that.”
“What did I lie about? I said he was nice!”
“Yes, and?” He sat up finally, curling his legs under him to rest his chin expectantly on his hands. “Come on, out with it,” he wheedled. “Nothing you say could possibly shock me.”
“He’s just… nice,” she insisted. “And he seems really smart and stuff. I don’t know what you want me to say!”
“Oh, but your face is saying plenty.”
“Is not!”
“It’s alright,” he said, shrugging. “I already know.”
Know…? He couldn’t possibly know… what? That she thought he was good-looking? That was hardly a crime. So why did the thought of Molly pulling it out of her make her heart do that nervous stutter of embarrassment? “Know what?” she asked, as nonchalantly as she could into her mug.
“That you want to fuck him.”
Jester choked on her tea.
“Oh, come on, you want to bang that wizard like a drum,” said Molly. “Just admit it, we’re all adults here.”
“I do not,” said Jester hotly, “want to fuck him. I don’t even know him!”
He raised an eyebrow. “And?” he said. “When has that ever stopped anyone? You think I know the whole life story of everyone I’ve ever—”
“Yeah, but I’m not like you, Molly,” she said. Her face was burning now. “I couldn’t… Even if I wanted to, I—” She was digging herself a very deep hole, she realized, if Molly’s growing grin was any indication, and she trailed instead into a flustered silence. “I guess,” she confessed finally, quietly, when his gaze didn’t waver, “I just think he’s… kind of cute, maybe? I guess?”
He tilted his head, that shit-eating grin still dimpling one side of his face. “He’s got nice hands, hasn’t he?” he said conspiratorially.
The faint memory of his hands on her hips, fingers gripping her like a vice as those icy blue eyes bored into hers, had her blushing again. “I guess,” she said, as noncommittally as she could.
“Nice arms, too.”
Images of Caleb shrugging off his coat by the bar, the vague implication of muscles working under the thin cotton of his shirtsleeves as he folded it methodically, danced across her mind. “Yeah,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Perfect, really,” he said slyly. “Long fingers. Nimble. Dexterous.”
“Yeah…”
“Now,” he continued, “just imagine… Those arms around you, holding you tight… Pinning you to the bed while he slips those hands between your—”
“Stop it, Molly,” she said, smacking his shoulder, although her ears felt very hot all of a sudden. “Don’t be mean.”
“‘Mean’? How is that ‘mean’? I’m basically implying he’s a sex god, that’s hardly mean.”
“He’s your friend,” she said indignantly, trying very hard not to think about… that. “You’re — you’re objectifying him!”
He raised another eyebrow. “Jester,” he said seriously. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but… we’re strippers, darling. Getting objectified is our job.”
She smacked his arm again, although with less venom this time. “Yeah, well… It’s not his,” she said haltingly.
“And yet I’m sure you wish it was.” Jester stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, come now, don’t be like that. Save that tongue for—” The pillow she shoved in his laughing face cut off the rest of that entirely unnecessary thought.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she mumbled, ducking her head to hide her furiously blushing face. “He wouldn’t — I mean, that’s just stupid, I… Anyway, I don’t even want—”
“And why not?” he asked, tossing the pillow aside, where it tumbled off the couch onto the floor by her feet. “He’s handsome, I suppose. For a human. And a bookish one, at that.”
She glanced sideways at him. “You just called him a skinny cat-lady,” she said.
“True, but that’s because I happen to know him as a person,” he said. “You, my dear, have the advantage of not knowing what an absolute stick in the mud he is on the inside.”
“Now you’re being mean,” she said crossly. “He can’t be that bad. And besides, magic is, like, really cool! I bet he knows all sorts of interesting things.”
“Yes, like how to use those hands to make you scream all night—”
“Molly!”
He shrugged. “I’m just saying. He could use a good fuck, anyway.”
“Is that all I am?” she said, a little facetiously in spite of her embarrassment.
“Of course not. But you know what I mean. The way he looked that night when you were done with him was the most alive I’ve seen him in—” He paused a moment, looking thoughtful. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that.” He eyed her shrewdly. “You’re not holding out on me, are you? You didn’t fuck him already, did you?”
“What — no!” Her face was burning now, and she hunched again over her teacup, letting her hair fall forward to hide her probably mortified expression.
He gasped delightedly. “You did!” he exclaimed, tail twitching. “You saucy little minx! What was it like?”
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, I’m dying to know what he’s like under that ridiculous coat. Was he loud? Did he bite? Because I’ve always thought he looked like a biter—”
“I don’t do that!” she interrupted loudly. “It was just a lapdance, that’s all.”
“Oh.” He paused again, seeming to deflate a little in disappointment, but recovered quickly. “Well, what happened, then? He still won’t talk about it, you know. It’s infuriating.”
“Nothing happened.” She stared at her cooling tea, at the soft steam curling off the surface. “I just… danced, really. I let him… touch me a little, but—”
“Oho,” he said, perking up again. “You were holding out on me.” His eyes glinted. “Already intimately familiar with those hands, are we? Naughty.”
“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “He just… held my waist a little, really, he didn’t even touch any skin! And then he got really weird and left.”
He cocked his head quizzically. “Weird how?”
“Well, he pulled out a picture of his cat…”
Molly sagged against the couch again disinterestedly. “That’s not weird, that’s just Caleb,” he said. “He won’t shut up about the stupid thing. Told you he was boring.”
“Frumpkin is very cute, though.”
He snorted. “Sure,” he said sarcastically.
Jester settled back into the cushions. She didn’t know how to convey the change she’d seen that night, from stuttering and red-faced, to intense and hungry, to babbling and closed off again — and, more importantly, did she really want to? She supposed Molly of all people would know best; after all, he and Caleb were friends, as odd a mashup as that might be, and he had so much more experience than her. He’d probably be able to dissect Caleb’s strange behavior better than she could ever hope to. But then again, he seemed to be of a singular mind on this topic, having already apparently decided the best course of action would be for her to simply strip down and jump into bed with the man, and then continue on with her life as though nothing had happened.
Maybe she wanted to get to know him better. Figure him out on her own.
At least when it came to that.
Not sex, of course — that was silly; she barely knew him. Just the lapdance. That was all.
“Do you know what those sigils mean?” she asked finally. “The ones in his wallet?”
Molly waved his hand dismissively. “Who knows?” he said. “He’s always scribbling down notes like that. I think he gets them from those manuscripts he translates. Bit useless, if you ask me.”
“Magic is useful.”
“Your magic, yes. His?” He pursed his lips. “I don’t see why he could possibly need some of the spells he’s talked about — walls of fire and magical armor and such. He’s not even in the military. Maybe that sort of thing was useful a few hundred years ago, but…”
The thought of Caleb in a dungeon, or perhaps an underground cavern of some sort, clad in battle-weary adventuring garb from those old storybooks she used to read as a child — all historical settings, with ancient heroes and terrifying monsters — flames licking up his arms as he conjured a wall of fire between him and faceless enemies, eyes hard and hair in disarray… Gosh, why was she drinking tea right now? It was much too hot for tea; it was practically summertime, for Traveler’s sake. She set the mug down quickly.
He was looking at her again. “Think of something pleasant?” he teased.
She flushed. “N-no, I just…” She shook her head to clear it, staring down at her hands. “Do you think he’d tell me about them? If I asked?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t want to fuck him?” he said. “Because that’s an excellent way to get into his pants. He probably won’t stop telling you about them once he gets started.”
At least they’d have something to talk about, then; that was a nice thought. She smiled a little in spite of herself. “What’s he like?” she asked.
He considered this for a moment. “Boring,” he said finally.
She poked him. “I’m serious, Molly,” she said.
“So am I,” he said. “I told you, all he cares about are his stupid books and his stupid cat. Which is a menace, by the way. I don’t understand why you’re so excited to meet it.”
“I like cats,” she said. “At least, I think I do. Or would, I guess.”
“I almost feel bad that he’s going to be your first experience with one, then.”
“I’m sure he’s lovely,” she said firmly, picking up her mug of tea again. “You’re just being a dick.”
“And why do you want to learn about magic, anyway?” He squinted at her. “You’re not trying to become a wizard too, are you? Because one is quite enough, thank you.”
“No, I just…” She struggled to find the words to express herself — at least in a way that wouldn’t make her sound completely pathetic. “I think it would be interesting, that’s all. I like learning new things. And magic is cool, you know? Like, my magic is really cool and stuff, but it’s all just… healing, you know? Simple. Mine just happens. Wizards have to use… stuff for their spells. Ooh,” she said, struck by sudden inspiration, “does he have, like, a secret spell cupboard or something? Or maybe like a — a belt with pouches where he keeps, like, his newt eyes and stuff.”
“That would get rather smelly, I think,” he said blandly.
“I guess you’re right,” she said, and brightened again. “Oh, oh, do you think he has a spellbook? Wizards have spellbooks, right?”
“I have no idea, you’ll have to ask one.”
“You know what? I think I will,” she said. “Since you’re no help.”
He merely grinned lazily at her. “You know, for someone who definitely isn’t interested,” he said, “you’re asking an awful lot of questions, darling.”
“I am interested,” she said, and oh dear, that didn’t come out right at all. “I mean,” she said, backpedaling madly, “he seems interesting. I want to get to know him, you know? Since we’re going to be neighbors and all. I just don’t want to fuck him.”
“Whatever you say,” he said, in a tone that definitely didn’t sound convinced, and grinned again. “Mark my words, you’ll be going at it like rabbits in no time.”
“Will not,” she said. “Don’t be gross, Molly.”
“You say that now,” he said. “But you’ll change your tune soon enough.” The grin turned wicked. “Especially when he gets those lovely hands of his around your—”
The pillow she grabbed off the floor and ground in his face almost drowned out his sniggering.
It was another two days until she saw Caleb again. It was an accident, really; it wasn’t like he’d told her when he was moving or anything. They hadn’t spoken since Mama had offered him the job — a whole nine days ago. That wasn’t very long, not really, but it still felt like forever somehow.
A part of her started to worry again — had something happened? Had he reconsidered? Maybe he’d died or something, like, got hit by a bus or something; that would really suck — but she reminded herself that he had a life of his own; there was probably lots to do to prepare for the move, and he did have another job… She remembered what it had been like, moving from hers and Mama’s — now just Mama’s — apartment to her own place a few months ago; that process had taken nearly three whole weeks, and she’d only been moving down the hall. Caleb’s move could take three months.
Plus, it wasn’t like they were really friends, exactly. Not yet, anyway. She couldn’t expect him to update her on every little thing he did before he came back. Even if she was his landlord by proxy. Landlady. Landperson. Very pretty and funny and overall great lady who collected rent. By proxy. Even though there technically wasn’t any rent to collect, but that didn’t really matter. It was symbolic.
She was thinking all of these things as she trotted down the stairs to look for Mama, who was supposed to have been locked in her office again — she was locked in there most days, really; had been ever since the last accountant had been… ahem, removed, trying to clean up the mess he’d left behind — and nearly ran into someone on the way down.
“Oh,” she said, a little startled by the sudden person in her way, whose face was blocked by the tall cardboard box carried by lean, brown arms. “Sorry.”
“You wanna move?” said the gruff voice behind the box. “This thing is pretty heavy…”
“Oh, sorry,” she said again, sheepishly this time, and as she stepped aside she squinted at the woman as she trudged past. “Wait… You’re Beau, right? Molly’s friend!”
“Oh,” said Beau, pausing again. “Sorry. Hi. Yeah, that’s me.”
“It’s so nice to see you!”
“Uh, likewise. Hey, uh, you mind giving me a hand real quick?” There was a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead, and the box shifted uncomfortably in her arms. “It’s slipping a little…”
“Oh, of course!” said Jester hurriedly, taking the box from Beau’s grasp. It had a heft to it, like it was full of bricks.
“Uh, I didn’t mean — it’s really heavy—” Beau stopped when Jester adjusted her grip to the left, balancing the box on her hip and supporting it with her other hand, so as not to block her view. “Jesus.”
“What?” Beau was staring at her oddly, like she’d done something remarkable. Her brow furrowed.
“You just… Never mind.” Beau rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, seemingly unsure of where to look. “You’re… stronger than you look, that’s all.”
Jester blinked. “Oh,” she said, and grinned. “Yeah, I am pretty strong.” She gestured to the box. “So… where’s this going? I don’t mind taking it, if your arms need a break or something.”
Beau looked momentarily conflicted, but swallowed when Jester bounced the box a little higher on her hip. “Uh, third floor. On the end, I think.” She shrugged lopsidedly, an apologetic half-grin quirking her mouth. “I’ve only been here twice,” she explained.
“Third floor…” Jester brightened instantly, an odd fluttering beginning somewhere deep in her chest. “Of course! You’re Caleb’s friend too! You’re helping him move? Is he here?” She glanced hopefully down the stairs, but the landing between the first and second floors was disappointingly empty.
“He should be around here somewhere,” said Beau. “Probably getting stuff out of Fjord’s truck or something.”
“That’s cool,” said Jester. Casually. Of course he was here. He was moving here. Today, apparently. Her spine tingled pleasantly.
“So… you know the way, right?” Beau paused, and her cheeks reddened slightly. “Oh, wait, shit, never mind. You live here, of course you — never mind, I’ll just shut up now.”
Jester giggled and hefted the box a little higher. “You’re funny,” she said, inclining her head. “Come on, this way.” She adjusted the massive box again and trotted back up the way she came.
Beau trailed along behind her, panting slightly as they came finally reached the third floor and continued down the hall. “How are you not exhausted right now?” she said, wiping the sweat from her brow. “God, you’re fuckin’ fast. Can you even see where you’re going?”
Jester shrugged. “Not really,” she said. “But I’ve lived here my whole life, you know, I know my way around pretty well. And this—” She jiggled the box, which rattled slightly, “—isn’t really that heavy. Did you know this hallway is seventy-eight steps long?”
“I… didn’t,” said Beau.
“Well, it was when I was seven, anyway,” said Jester conversationally. “And I took really long steps on purpose because, you know, my legs were really short and I wanted to see how far I could stretch. I should probably measure again… Oh, here we are,” she continued, stopping and glancing behind her at her companion. “Do you have the key?”
“Uh,” said Beau.
“Oh, never mind,” said Jester, glancing around the box to see the door was slightly ajar. “Do you think he’d mind if I—?”
“Jester?”
Oh, his voice was even nicer than she remembered. Her name in that accent… She beamed, even though he couldn’t see her behind the cardboard. “Hi, Caleb! I brought you a present.”
“What are you — you didn’t have to do that,” he said, sounding bewildered.
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Beau. “My back is killing me.”
“You should lift with your legs,” said Jester earnestly. “That’s way better for your back.”
“Noted,” said Beau. To Caleb, she continued, “I thought you were downstairs.”
“I was, but you were taking so long I came back up without you.”
“Can I come in?” said Jester.
“Oh — ja, yes, of course.” His feet shifted to stand aside and she marched past him through the door, elbow just barely brushing his chest on the way past. The heat of him sent a shiver up her arm.
“Where do you want it…?”
“Oh, ah, there is fine.”
She let the box down gently on the floor, though it still let out an audible thud as it hit wood. “Geeze, Caleb, what do you have in this thing?” she said. “It’s pretty big.”
Beau let out a strangled half-snort that Caleb ignored as Jester turned back to them, leaning lightly on the box. “Books,” he said. “And things.”
“Magic things?” she asked.
“And non-magic things.”
“Cool,” she said. There was a pause, in which she looked around her, taking in the blank walls and wide, empty spaces that were a mirror and simultaneously the polar opposite of her own apartment, mere feet above their heads. “There’s not much in here yet,” she observed. “Did you guys just get here or something?”
“Ah, yes,” he said awkwardly.
She grinned. “Guess I got here just in time, then,” she said. “You guys need any more help? I don’t mind carrying more stuff if you need.” She flexed a bicep, waggling her eyebrows at them. Beau and Caleb exchanged glances and quickly looked away, each of them slightly redder than before. Her grin widened.
“Ja, well, thank you for offering, but we have a few errands to run first,” said Caleb to the wall, clearing his throat with a cough.
“We’ll definitely hit you up later, though,” added Beau, stepping on his foot in a way that was clearly supposed to be surreptitious, but didn’t account for the accompanying wince that crossed his face. “If the offer still stands.”
Jester almost felt the corners of her smile fall a little, but she shoved her slight disappointment down deep and instead shrugged lightly. “Alright,” she said, straightening. “Of course, Beau! I’ll just… be in my apartment.” She cocked her head at Caleb. “You remember where it is, right?” she said sweetly. “Right… up… there?” She pointed to the ceiling and smiled.
Both Caleb and Beau swallowed at that, she noticed with some small satisfaction. “Uh,” said Beau.
“Great! Well, guess I’ll see you later then!” She brushed past them and glanced over her shoulder to waggle her fingers. “Bye!”
She could hear Beau spluttering behind her as she headed back down the hall. “Dude,” she was stage-whispering, and Jester heard a muted smacking sound and a hiss of pain, as though Caleb had just been punched in the shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you’d been to her place. What the hell, man?”
She suppressed a small smile.
The fun, it seemed, was just getting started.
She knew they wouldn’t call her back for another few hours at least, but as the afternoon came and went without so much as a text, she began to feel a little… what? Upset? No, that was too strong a word. Miffed? Maybe. Either way, the quality of her drawings was rapidly dwindling, the floor around her littered with crumpled scraps of sketchbook paper, and her patience with watercolors as a whole was running laughably thin.
She swore loudly in Infernal as a sudden buzzing in the very early evening made her jump, her brush skidding across the paper. Where was her fucking phone? She spent a good five minutes hunting around before she remembered; shoved between couch cushions, naturally — she’d stuffed it there when the blank screen seemed to be taunting her with its blankness — but her heart swooped suddenly when she saw the contact name.
Caleb.
She felt jittery as she unlocked the phone, read the few short words there in black and white. Their first text.
‘Could you come downstairs? If you’re still available. — Caleb’
She only realized she was grinning like a lunatic when her cheeks started feeling sore. He signed his texts. Like a dork. Or did he just sign it now, for her, just in case she’d… what? Deleted his number? That was adorable.
She was almost skipping as she went down the stairs.
His door was open again; the gap between it and the doorframe widened slightly as she rapped out a quick little beat with two knuckles. “Cay-leb,” she sang. “Are you home? I got your text!”
“Ja, come in,” came the muffled reply, followed by an equally muffled, “Scheisse.” He sounded like he had a mouth full of… something. She gently pushed the door open.
The apartment was considerably more crowded than it had been before — sparse, still, compared to her own, but mainly because there was no real furniture; only boxes and bags of varying sizes, organized in neat little rows and piles, grouped together in an orderly fashion that created precise pathways through the systematic chaos. Behind it all stood Caleb, struggling with a towering, slightly wobbling bookshelf.
She hurried over, grabbing the other side as he steadied it and straightened. “Ah, danke,” he said, taking a small collection of screws out from between his lips. “That could have gone… poorly.”
“Why were you trying to move it, silly?” she said, nudging him playfully in the ribs as he placed the screws carefully on one of the shelves. “You usually build stuff where you want it to end up, so it doesn’t, like, fall on your head when you try to shove it around.”
“I did build it where I wanted it.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face, the faintest hint of a sheepish grin playing around his lips. “And then I changed my mind.”
A small flicker of warmth spread through her chest at that grin. “Why’re you doing this by yourself, anyway?” she said. “Where’s Beau?”
“Out,” he said. “We didn’t have the space in the truck for everything in one go, she and Fjord have been going back and forth to pick things up in batches. I thought I could get started here while they were gone.”
“You could have called me sooner, you know,” she chided, not unkindly. “I could have helped with these boxes.”
“Ah, no, Fjord could probably use the exercise.” He waved his hand dismissively, but she caught the slight pink in his cheeks with a pleasant twist in her stomach. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Cay-leb,” she said, drawing out his name again with a smack of her lips, and the pink of his ears deepened just a touch. “I wanted to help. You wouldn’t have bothered me. I thought you didn’t want my help at all and were just trying to be polite.”
His gaze flicked over her and stuttered away. “Well,” he said. “I appreciated the offer.”
She smiled at him, shoving her hands in the pockets of her skinny jeans. Mostly to hide the sudden nervous jitter in her fingers. “So,” she said brightly. “What do you need me for first?”
Most of their conversation for the next half-hour or so consisted mainly of confusion over assembly directions and muttered curses over squashed fingers, but as the clock ticked closer to the next hour, they’d assembled another bookshelf and a half — assembled precisely where he wanted them this time. She spied several more of the flat packages containing shelving; she supposed that was why he hadn’t bothered to paint over the boring white of the walls first. No point in having a fun color if it was just going to be covered in books anyway.
“You read a lot, huh?” she commented, as they finished the second — technically third — shelving unit.
“Ja, I — ah, fick mich,” he swore, shoving his pinched finger in his mouth for a moment. “These verdammte shelves might make me reconsider, though.”
“What language is that?”
“Hmm?”
“That language,” she said, gesturing vaguely at nothing. “Your accent. I’ve never heard it before. What’s it from?”
“Oh,” he said, settling back on his heels. “It’s Zemnian. Empire. Up north.”
“Really? That’s so cool!” She put down her screwdriver. “You’re a long way from home, then,” she said.
He was silent for a long moment. “This is my home now,” he said finally. Carefully.
She hummed thoughtfully. “Must be different,” she said. “I’ve never been to the Empire.”
“Never?”
She shook her head. “Been here all my life,” she said. “Is it cold up there? I’ve heard it’s cold.”
“Sometimes,” he said.
Dead end. A part of her wanted to push, wanted to hear all about the Empire, about snow, about proper mountains and endless fields with no ocean in sight, but… She let out a puff of air, glancing around at the boxes and bags and clean hardwood floors. “Where’s your cat?”
He blinked at her.
“Well, he’s not here,” she said. “Obviously. But you’re going to bring him, right? You said you would.” No, that sounded too accusatory. Too demanding. She chewed her lip and batted her eyelashes ridiculously to lighten her statement. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Cay-leb?” she said in an exaggerated pout.
Success — his ears went pink. “He’s here,” he said.
Jester’s eyes widened with excitement. “Really?” she said eagerly, shelves forgotten. “Where is he? I haven’t seen him.”
“Oh, he’s, ah, not here, exactly—” He cut himself off, exhaled. “Here, I’ll show you.” And with a snap of his fingers and a small pop, there was a cat, suddenly — miraculously, a gorgeous orange tabby with luminous amber eyes.
“Oh,” said Jester. “My. Gosh.”
The cat — Frumpkin, of course — seemed entirely unconcerned with being materialized into sudden existence, and barely looked at her as he washed his paws with a small pink tongue. He was smaller than she thought he’d be; and yet, bigger. And sleeker, yet fluffier. His long whiskers twitched as he ignored her presence entirely.
Cats. She decided she loved them.
“C-can I…?” Her hand hovered in space above him before she even realized she’d begun to ask the question, and the corner of Caleb’s mouth twitched upwards.
“Go ahead.”
Frumpkin paused his washing as her hand lowered tentatively towards that sweet little head, fixing her with those large, alien eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she assured him automatically. “I’ve never met a cat before. I-is it okay if I pet you a little bit?”
Three long, agonizing seconds passed in silence. She didn’t know, entirely, what she was waiting for — permission? From a cat? It sounded ridiculous, certainly, when she thought about it like that, but something about this particular cat made her feel like she should.
He blinked once, slowly. She took that as a good sign.
From the first tentative touch of her fingertips, she knew she was in love — he was so soft, like what she imagined petting a cloud would feel like. She was entranced, letting her fingers, then her palm run over the smooth, soft fur in gentle strokes. It felt like she could do this forever, honestly, just kneeling on the empty hardwood floor of Caleb’s apartment until her legs fell off from lack of circulation, just petting and petting until she couldn’t feel her hand anymore.
“He likes to be scratched,” suggested Caleb’s voice, distantly from some far-off place. She’d nearly forgotten he was there at all. “Here.” He leaned forward and scratched just behind Frumpkin’s jaw, his long fingers nearly brushing her own in the process. Frumpkin’s whole head shifted at the touch, and for a moment she wanted to shout at Caleb, certain he was pushing too hard — but no, Frumpkin was merely stretching his neck to give him better access, leaning into his fingers. “You can try it, if you want,” said Caleb.
Jester moved her hand hesitantly to the spot on the other side of Frumpkin’s exposed neck, fingers gentle at first, but gradually gaining confidence as Frumpkin started leaning towards her instead. “He likes me!” she whispered elatedly.
“He does,” agreed Caleb.
Frumpkin was rubbing against her hand, and she was pretty sure she was in heaven. “Wait, what’s he—?” She paused her scratching, slightly alarmed, as a strange, low rumbling sound began emanating from beneath her hand.
Caleb was smiling softly, a little crookedly. Her heart jumped. “He’s purring.”
She looked down again, and Frumpkin flopped down on his side, halfway on her lap. “Purring,” she breathed. “So that’s what that feels like.”
She almost didn’t look up when the door banged open suddenly, revealing a grumpy-looking Beau and a heavily-laden half-orc — Fjord, she remembered — trailing behind her. “The couch is downstairs,” she was saying loudly. “And I swear to Ioun, Caleb Widogast, if you don’t get your skinny wizard ass—” She broke off as she took in the sight before her, at an enchanted Jester and a smiling Caleb, a happily purring Frumpkin between them. “Oh, what the fuck, Caleb?” she complained, throwing her hands exasperatedly in the air. “I’ve — we’ve been running all over the goddamn coast for your stupid furniture, and you just — just shack up with your girlfriend while we’re gone? Thanks a whole bunch, buddy.”
Jester mostly ignored the girlfriend comment — for now — if only because Frumpkin chose that exact moment to roll over lazily onto his back. She let out a soft gasp. “Beau,” she murmured, “he’s purring.”
“I — what?” Beau’s expression slipped momentarily into confusion. “Well, yeah, he’s a cat. That’s what they do.”
“She’s never met a cat before,” Caleb explained.
“What, seriously?” Beau blinked as Fjord trudged past her, depositing his many bags in an unceremonious heap on the kitchen floor. “Never?”
“How’ve you never met a cat?” said Fjord. His voice was deep, a lazy, rolling accent she couldn’t place creating a pleasant lilt to his words.
“We’ve never had pets here,” said Jester distractedly, and gasped again. “Oh, oh Caleb, did you see? His little tongue—” The tip of Frumpkin’s tongue, rough and pink, barely poked out of his sweet little mouth, his eyes half-closed in bliss as she continued to scratch and pet. She never wanted to get up from this spot.
“Okay, so, like, as much as I’m dying to let you experience all the wonders cats have to offer,” said Beau, “and believe me, I do — I’m gonna have to insist we get this show on the road, ‘cause, like, I got shit to do? Places to be?”
“Oh,” said Jester, heart sinking. “Oh, yes, of course, I’m sorry.” She looked down again at Frumpkin, at that little fuzzy tummy and his outstretched paws, and patted him again, a little sadly this time. “I’m sorry,” she told him, very sincerely, “but I have to get up now.”
“He doesn’t mind,” said Caleb reassuringly.
“I do,” mumbled Jester.
Caleb snapped his fingers again and with another small pop the weight and warmth vanished from her knee, and in its place she felt a brief, but sharp sense of loss. She definitely, really, super-liked cats now.
Beau put them to work — she was a fantastic coordinator, if a little brusque — and Jester worked diligently, if a little glumly. The phantom feeling of Frumpkin’s soft fur on her fingertips lingered even as time marched on, even as shelves were built and the final bits of furniture and such were brought up, and she was flattening boxes absently when Caleb came up with a large garbage bag. “So,” he said. “How was your first cat experience?”
“It was wonderful,” she sighed. “He’s so soft, Caleb! And his little paws…”
“Ja, he’s a pretty good cat.”
“How’d you get him to — y’know, poof like that? Cats can’t usually do that, right?”
“Frumpkin — well, he’s not really a cat.” He paused. “Well, he is, but he… isn’t? He is Fey. I can summon him from the Feywild when I choose.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?” she breathed.
“He is my familiar,” he nodded. “He prefers the cat shape, athough I could change him to something else.”
“You can do that?”
“It is expensive, but yes.”
“So you could have like — like…” Her mind scrambled to catch up with the torrent of ideas all striking her at once. “Like a hamster-Frumpkin? Or a unicorn? No, wait. A unicorn-hamster-Frumpkin?”
He paused, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I will admit,” he said, “that particular thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but… theoretically, I suppose.”
She gasped, wide-eyed. “That’s so cool,” she said. “You’re so cool, Caleb.”
“Ah,” he said. His ears were pink again. They cleaned in silence for a while, Beau rattling around in the walk-in closet and Fjord cursing over the bedframe, the building of which was apparently stumping him. “You know,” said Caleb eventually, ears still slightly flushed when she glanced at him. “You could always come back, you know. To see Frumpkin.”
Her chest was fluttering again, as she met those ridiculously blue eyes. “You really mean it?”
“I mean, ja, we’re neighbors. You might see him around anyway, he tends to come and go sometimes. But he likes you, I think he’d enjoy the visit.”
There was a hidden implication here, and that fluttering was rapidly turning into full-blown butterflies as he held her gaze. “And you?” she heard herself ask softly, heart pounding in her ears.
That crooked smile again — only the briefest of flashes, really, but it had been there — before he turned away, bending to pick up some discarded plastic. “Nein,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind either.”
She left a couple of productive hours later — it was late, and Beau had eventually announced that she had plans, goddammit, they could pick this up again tomorrow — but when she crawled into bed that night, the cheerful jingle of her text message alert kept her from immediately passing out.
It was a picture text — from Caleb. A lounging Frumpkin, lying spread-eagled on dark sheets, the very ones spread out over the bed she’d eventually wrestled into submission after Fjord had threatened to throw the whole fuckin’ thing out the fuckin’ window out of sheer frustration. The bed currently almost directly beneath her, at this very moment.
There was no accompanying message, but it didn’t need one. Pictures being worth a thousand words and all that.
A whole week spent clinging to the tattered and worn folded leather that contained the life story of Caleb Widogast. That was his full name, of course — it said so on his faded ID. And he was thirty-three years old, and carried exactly eleven Imperial crowns in cash alongside a whopping twenty-seven pictures of his cat. He’d left so suddenly that night, by the time she’d realized what had happened, he’d already left the Chateau.
Molly refused to return it for her, and when she’d asked for a number so she could at least let Caleb know his valuables were safe, he’d given her a disappointed look. “You could call him,” he’d said. “Or you could just let him come to you. The thrill of the chase, and all that.”
“But what if he needs it, like, really badly?” she’d protested. “And he doesn’t know where he left it, like, what if he thinks it fell out on the bus or something, and he doesn’t even remember leaving it here? He was pretty drunk.”
Molly shook his head. “Not when he was with you,” he said, which puzzled her, but he just patted her arm affectionately. “Don’t worry, he’s a smart man. He’ll come crawling back in no time. It’ll be good for him, really.”
But “no time” turned into “several days,” and Jester had begun to worry. So she’d begun to pick through his wallet.
She’d felt kind of bad about it at first. The Traveler, of course, had thought it was a marvelous idea, but it still felt weird to rummage through the pieces of a stranger’s life. She finally had to convince herself that it really was out of concern for him that she was doing it. Maybe there was a phone number in there, she reasoned, or contact information of some kind — if not his, then perhaps of someone more willing to help than Molly was.
You could tell a lot about someone by the contents of their wallet. She knew that from experience. Not just technical information, but stories. Personalities. Little stuff that added up to a larger whole, like whether they collected movie tickets, if they saved their receipts when they went on a drunken run to the corner store at 2 AM on a Saturday night. Clean wallets belonged to boring people.
Caleb Widogast, by this metric, was not a boring person.
That didn’t mean she learned much, though. If anything, he was just odd. He didn’t have a driver’s license, or a bus pass; only the ID on the back of his bank card, which was three months away from expiring. There was the crumpled money, and the absurd amount of cat pictures, but not much else. Unless you counted the dozen or so scraps of crumpled paper shoved in various pockets in between the cats. There were scribbles on them — some of them contained notes written in various languages she couldn’t understand, others showed sigils; some scratched out, some circled or underlined and accompanied by more hastily written notes. She couldn’t make heads or tails of most of them, but they seemed vaguely arcane in nature; a wizard, maybe?
That would certainly make him interesting, she supposed. She’d never met a real wizard before.
She couldn’t understand what kind of person carried around twenty-seven pictures of their cat. The wallet was practically full to bursting with them. To be fair, it was a very nice cat — he’d called him Frumpkin, hadn’t he? That was a good cat name, she thought — but twenty-seven? Carried with him everywhere? That was a little excessive.
Although, to be perfectly honest, she’d probably be the same way if she’d been allowed a pet, constantly surrounding herself with reminders of them if they were ever apart. A dog would be fun, maybe, or perhaps a weasel — something slinky and small she could carry around her shoulders like a scarf, and she’d feed him doughnuts and bugs she found in the garden.
She found the picture he’d shown her in the VIP room, and smoothed out the crease in the corner from when he’d stuffed it carelessly back in place that night. He’d acted so strangely that night, Molly must have been wrong — he must have been drunk, or high, or some combination of the two — musn’t he? He hadn’t directly looked at her again after Caduceus… interrupted them. And then he’d left with his wallet lying forgotten on the couch beside her.
Her face burned when she thought about it.
She’d noticed him, on stage, if only for being unusual. Everyone in the club generally crowded around as close as they could get when she performed, except for Nott, of course — what could she say? She was a very good dancer — all except for him. Even with the lights in her eyes she could see him, leaning against the bar, watching. Not cheering or hooting or whistling at her, just… watching. So she’d winked, just to see what he would do.
Even in the shadows she could tell how his complexion darkened at that, and with his expression being so stony until then, it was nice to know that he didn’t entirely hate her dancing. There were creeps sometimes, people that came in just to glare, or to shout obscenities about sinful dens of iniquity. Which was stupid, because you had to pay at the door to get in and they weren’t really accomplishing anything but annoying the bouncers that dragged them out. But at least he didn’t seem to be one of them.
Molly had come up to her after her performance, backstage, accompanied by a human woman and a handsome, blushing half-orc. “Wonderful, as always,” he said, introducing his friends as Beau and Fjord.
She’d beamed as she fixed her makeup, honey finally cleaned up. “Thank you!” she said. “It’s a new routine I’ve been working on, I’m glad you liked it.”
“Of course I did. But listen, I’ve got a favor to ask. You see, I have this friend…”
She glanced between his companions; at Fjord, still quite red, and Beau, who looked gleeful. “Which one?”
Molly waved a hand. “Oh, he’s not here,” he said airily. “His name’s Caleb. He’s a bit shy, you see. But he enjoyed your dancing so much that we, well—” And here he grinned, a little wickedly, “—we were wondering if you’d be open to a more, ah, private performance. You still do those, yes?”
She hummed thoughtfully, pausing mid-swipe of her lipstick. “Not very much,” she said slowly. “But…”
“But…?”
“But…” She finished reapplying her lipstick, admiring the effect in the mirror and glancing back him with a smirk. “Since you asked so nicely and everything.”
His eyes glinted. “Excellent. The usual rate, I assume?”
Her tail flicked up and booped him on the nose. “Only because I like you.”
“And the usual room?”
“Of course. But give me a few minutes, okay? I need to get ready.”
“You’re divine.” He pressed a quick kiss to her temple, and she could feel the curl of his lips as his grin widened. “Just so you know, he might seem a little nervous at first,” he said. “But just… give him everything you’ve got, alright? Hit him hard. He’ll love it.”
It seemed like an odd specification, but she’d simply shrugged and nodded. Men were strange sometimes. Especially the kinds of men who paid for private encounters — she wondered what sort of man he was if Molly had to make the request on his behalf instead.
The VIP room she waited in was one of the smaller ones, but it was her favorite — all ambient lighting and soft drapery and the plushest couch dominating the room — and she adjusted her stockings a little nervously. It wasn’t her first… solo endeavor, exactly, but it had been a while. She preferred the stage. The crowds, the people, the life. She wasn’t like her mother in that regard, who lately only took on private clients.
She hoped this one would be nice.
There were sudden raised voices in the hallway, a thudding noise, and she glanced up as the man — human, long-limbed, vaguely familiar — practically fell into the room and spun around as the door swung shut behind him, and she heard laughter. ‘Showtime.’ She put on her best smile and straightened. “You must be Caleb! I’ve been expecting you.”
It was the man from the bar, she noticed with surprise; the one who’d been staring. Awkward and fumbling and now too shy to look her in the eye. He was nearly a head taller than her, maybe more — though, to be fair, most people were — and fairly lean, with a mess of auburn hair only a few inches shorter than her own. A thick 5 o'clock shadow darkened his cheeks, beneath which she could make out the slight dimple in his chin. His clothes were simple, with the worn, disheveled appearance of someone either wholly unconcerned or fanatically obsessed with current fashion trends. She didn’t recognize his accent, but his voice when he spoke, despite some nervous stuttering, was kind of deep in a pleasant sort of way. And his eyes, when he finally met her gaze, were like the sky in summertime.
She wasn’t lying later when she called him handsome.
He didn’t appear to believe her entirely, but she found herself not quite so nervous about dancing for him anymore. In fact, the beet red color his face went when she wrapped the ribbon around his neck made the whole experience that much more enjoyable. She liked the feeling of being in control of such encounters. And, despite the initial awkwardness, he really didn’t seem to mind it either.
So when she put his twitching hands on her waist, she didn’t expect him to change the way he did.
When he first stumbled through her door, a part of her had been worried: that he wouldn’t like her, that he’d like her too much; that she’d do something embarrassing, like trip on her dressing gown. She didn’t anticipate the heat radiating off his body, or the strength of his hands, or the way his roving gaze went from worshiping to hungry. Like he wanted to eat her alive.
She didn’t anticipate the thrill in her stomach as she realized she might not entirely have minded him trying.
His fingers dug slightly into her hips, moving with her as she pressed her body to him, constantly, artfully edging that line between a dance and something else. She could feel the heat of his breath on her skin, the heat of his hands on her waist, the heat of his legs between her thighs. Were all humans this hot, literally, or was it just him?
Suddenly his hands weren’t on her anymore, and he was looking for something — frantically, desperately — and suddenly her mouth was going dry and a leaden lump dropped to the pit of her stomach of something that sent ice up her spine, the heat of him forgotten.
What would he need his wallet for? Molly had paid already, and there weren’t very many other things people kept in wallets he could possibly need in a situation like this… Surely he couldn’t be looking for a—?
“Cat!” he barked at her.
Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that had certainly not been one of them. And then Caduceus had come in — he really had the worst timing, honestly — and any hopes she had of possibly obtaining an explanation for this abrupt and frankly bizarre display went right out the door with him. And Molly was no help, of course, only smiling cryptically when she casually tried to interrogate him throughout the week about his friend.
“Why don’t you ask him?” he kept saying.
But she couldn’t ask him, not without his number, unless he showed up randomly one day and she happened to be present at the time. Which seemed less and less likely as time stretched on.
So all she had was that stupid wallet and her thoughts, which were, at best, circular in nature.
What kind of man interrupted a private lapdance with twenty-seven pictures of his cat?
She went through the wallet again and again, agonizing over the fragments of a life she didn’t understand. She knew she shouldn’t, probably, certainly not more than once, and if he ever found out, he’d… Well, she didn’t know him well enough to know what he’d do. That was sort of the problem.
The day she finally saw him again she was sitting at the bar with her head on her hand, absently drinking a glass of milk as Nott inventoried the bar, ruminating on the Wallet Problem. It had been nearly seven whole days now, more than enough time for him to have come back on his own. If he didn’t come by tomorrow, she decided, she’d make Molly bring it to him. Seven days was an awfully long time, after all. And those pictures were really cute. It would be a shame to be without them, even if he did have the real cat at home. Wherever his home was.
There was a shuffling noise behind her, and she glanced over to see Yasha coming over from the coat check area, brow furrowed. “There’s a man at the door,” she said. “He wants to come in.”
“Well, tell him to fuck off,” said Nott, not looking up from her clipboard. “We’re closed.”
“He’s very insistent,” said Yasha. “He says he left something here the other night.”
Jester perked up, hardly believing her luck. “Is he human?” she asked.
Yasha shrugged. “Looks that way. I think so.”
“Red hair? Blue eyes? Really skinny, kinda nervous?”
“Yes.” She cocked her head. “Why, do you know him?”
Jester clapped her hands excitedly. “Let him in! That’s the guy I was telling you about! Oh my gosh, he actually came.”
“Is he the one with the cat?” said Nott as Yasha vanished again.
“Yes, and it’s such a cute cat too — Caleb!” She bounded off the stool, milk forgotten as he followed Yasha through the archway from coat check, looking a little windswept in the long coat he wore despite the warm weather outside. “Took you long enough,” she chided. “I was getting worried, you know.”
He froze in place when he saw her beelining for him, his cheeks going faintly red. “Ah, J-Jester,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Hello.”
“Hi!” She skidded to a stop in front of him, bouncing on the balls of her bare feet. “You’re here for your wallet, yes?”
“I — ja, yes, I am.” He coughed awkwardly.
Nott glanced up from her list. “Oh,” she said. “I remember you. Molly’s friend, right? Dwarven ale.”
“Ah, yes, that was me.”
“You want another one? Since you’re here and all.”
He shoved his hands in ratty coat pockets. “Thank you, but I’m fine. I’m just here for my—”
“Oh, of course, your wallet.” Jester tugged on his sleeve, a little harder than she meant to, his hand slipping back out of the pocket with a little jerk. “Follow me. You don’t mind stairs, do you?”
“Where are we going?” he said uncertainly as she dragged him across the dancefloor to the wide, sweeping staircase.
“To get your wallet, silly.”
“I see.” He cleared his throat again as she let go of him, when it seemed he’d follow her of his own volition. “I didn’t, ah, expect you to be here so early in the day.”
She glanced at him, cocking an eyebrow. “Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know, where does one go when not at work?” He shrugged. “Home, I suppose.”
She giggled. “I am home. I live here.”
“You — what, here?” He looked genuinely surprised.
“Well, yeah. It’s my Mama’s club. We both live here.” It was her turn to shrug as they came to the first landing on the stairs. “Lots of people do. The whole top two floors are apartments, you know. Didn’t Molly tell you?”
“He did not.”
She hummed thoughtfully as they came to the VIP area, passing the many doors with the spidery writing. “I guess he wouldn’t,” she conceded. “He’s really unhelpful sometimes. I tried to get him to take the wallet back to you all week, you know.”
“Oh, really,” he said, in a way that definitely wasn’t a question.
“Really,” said Jester. “I was like, ‘But what if he needs it, and he gets really sad because he lost all those cute pictures of his cat,’ but he wouldn’t even give me your number to let you know it was safe.”
“That bastard,” commented Caleb, and then, “Wait, what do you mean, ‘all those pictures’? I only showed you one.”
She felt her ears heat up a little. “Well,” she said carefully, “I thought if I looked through it, like super-quickly, I might find some way to contact you on my own or something. But I was really careful,” she added hurriedly. “I put everything right back where it was, I promise!”
“I see.”
He didn’t sound angry, at least, just a little… resigned. She peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Are you a wizard?” she asked.
He paused in place, and she got a few steps ahead of him before she realized he wasn’t beside her anymore. “What makes you say that?” he asked, a little guardedly.
She turned to look at him. “Those little notes,” she said. “With all the scribbles on them. They looked arcane to me, anyway. Aren’t they?”
“Some of them are,” he said, and squinted at her. “You have magic?”
She shrugged. “A little,” she said. “Not that kind, though. Mostly just healing stuff. I don’t know why, Mama doesn’t have magic. But sometimes people get hurt on the poles, or twist their ankles and stuff. I wanted to help, so I just… did.”
He was looking at her differently now; not quite nervously anymore, more like she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. “You have a god, I presume? And you got your healing after you found them?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “I’ll tell you about him sometime, he’s really cool. Why do you ask?”
He was quiet for a moment. “They used to call people like you clerics,” he said. “A bit of an old-fashioned term now, I suppose.”
“Cleric.” She tested the word on her tongue. ‘I’m a cleric,’ she thought, and grinned. “Cool! How’d you know that?”
He shrugged. “I read things,” he said. “And yes, I have been called a wizard before.”
“Really? That’s so cool! What kinds of spells do you know?”
He shrugged again. “Oh, you know,” he said vaguely. “A bit of this and that.”
“I can’t really show you any of my spells right now,” she continued conversationally, when it became clear he wasn’t going to elaborate, “unless you wanna, like, cut your hand or fall down the stairs or something I guess. Oh! But I can do this!” She snapped her fingers and with a resounding crash all the doors around them slammed open.
He lurched sideways as the door nearest to them — the one belonging to the room they’d met in, incidentally — crashed into the wall and bounced off, narrowly missing him on the way. “Interesting use of Thaumaturgy,” he said when he’d recovered, and she noted with a tiny thrill in the pit of her stomach that he sounded vaguely impressed. He squinted a little at the spidery writing on the door as it drifted past his face. “‘Wild Mount,’” he read aloud, and the shadow of something that could almost be mistaken for a smile flitted briefly across his face. “Funny.”
She beamed. “You like it?” she said.
“Amusing pun,” he said. “Very fitting.”
“I came up with that one,” she said in a confidential tone.
He quirked an eyebrow. “I see.”
“I came up with all of them, actually.” She bounced a little on her heels. “They aren’t all as good, I was really little, but that one’s my favorite.” She snapped her fingers again and the doors slammed shut, making Caleb jump again as she smiled sweetly at him. “Come on, we’re almost halfway there.”
He followed her wordlessly up the next flight of stairs. “How many people live here?” he asked eventually.
“Let’s see…” She counted quietly on her fingers. “There’s me and Mama, of course… Caduceus, you’ve met him, he’s sort of the caretaker — then there’s Blude, he’s my bodyguard, but only sometimes, and—”
“You have a bodyguard?”
She looked at him quizzically. “Well, yeah,” she said. “I’m the Little Sapphire.” She dipped into a small curtsy, which was kind of hard to do in denim shorts, she realized. “My mom’s the Ruby of the Sea, silly, of course I have a bodyguard. But only sometimes,” she added. That was an important clarification.
“I see.”
“Anyway,” she continued, “Yasha stays here sometimes, but she doesn’t really work here full time so she kinda comes and goes. Molly too, but he stays with Yasha. Nott and her family have an apartment. And there used to be some other guy, the accountant, but he was stealing so Mama had him arrested and he doesn’t live here anymore.” She snorted. “Obviously.”
“Your accountant was stealing?” He sounded surprised.
She shrugged. “At least, I think he was the accountant,” she said. “I’m not really sure what he did, exactly, he was really sleazy and we didn’t talk much. Anyway, Mama tried to pay the caterer for an event a few months ago and the check bounced, and so she looked at the books and they didn’t add up or something.” She shrugged again. “Neither of us are very good with numbers, but he was really bad at hiding it, I guess. We got some of the money back, but Mama’s still trying to figure out how much he took.” She paused. “It was a lot of money,” she reflected.
Caleb was silent for a long time. When she glanced at him, he wore an unreadable expression.
“I’m good with numbers,” he said finally.
“Yeah?” She grinned at him. “You wizards are really smart, huh?”
He coughed a little embarrassedly. “I could take a look,” he said awkwardly, “is what I meant. If you and your mother needed help sometime.”
She brightened. “Really?”
He hunched a little, shoving his hands back in his pockets. “I have a bit of spare time,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind. Molly can vouch for me, if you need.”
“Why, Cay-leb,” she said delightedly, drawing his name out longer than she needed to, “are you asking for a job?”
He reddened instantly, that adorable human blush. “That’s not what I—”
“You are,” she said, stopping dead in her tracks halfway down the hall. Her tail swished madly behind her. “You are, that’s why you’re so red!”
“I am not looking for a job,” he insisted, glaring at the floor. He was starting to look a bit panicked. “I have a job, I just thought—”
“Oh, relax,” she giggled, patting his arm reassuringly, “I’m only teasing. What sort of job do you do, then?”
“I work in a library,” he mumbled.
Somehow this didn’t surprise her. And he looked so miserable now, she felt bad for making him uncomfortable. “That’s really sweet of you, Caleb,” she said, more gently this time. “Really. You know, you should talk to my Mama, I know she’d love to meet you.” She bit her lip when he didn’t respond immediately. “I think — I think she’s having a hard time, you know, with all the money and trying to balance the books again and stuff. If you really meant it, I think she’d love the help.”
“I did.”
She smiled. “Then I’ll talk to her,” she said. “Tonight! She’s busy right now, but I could talk to her and maybe she’d have time to see you later this week or something.” She eyed him slyly. “Of course,” she added, turning coy, “that would mean you’d have to give me your number. You know, so I could call you with the time.” She walked two fingers lightly up his arm. “Or something,” she said, and let the suggestion hang in the air.
He didn’t look quite so miserable now. He was still red-faced, but she couldn’t tell if that was residual or a fresh wave from her transparent flirtation. Either way, he nodded mutely and she counted that as a victory.
“Cool,” she said, and tugged on his arm again. “Come on, it’s just up here.”
She led him down the rest of the long hallway, there on the fourth floor, and bumped the door open with her hip. “Well, here we are,” she said, suddenly feeling a little shy. “Home, sweet home.”
He trailed behind her as she wove her way through the clutter of her apartment, through the spacious living room and through the archway leading to her bedroom. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed him taking in the walls, the vaulted ceilings, nearly every inch of them covered in paintings and sketches and doodles, an explosion of color and life and her own personal brand of magic. “Did you… make these?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to the space around them.
“Yeah,” she said. It was odd, having a stranger come into her most private space like this, seeing the closest approximation of the inside of her mind as a person possibly could. Well, at this point Caleb wasn’t really a stranger, exactly, more of a casual acquaintance, but he was still a man. A strange man, standing among her jewelry and dancing costumes and furniture. She surreptitiously kicked a lacy thong under the bed.
Not surreptitiously enough, apparently, as his eyes flicked over to her, to the soft bed beside her, with its lacy canopy and rumpled sheets and wide, yawning space much too big for just one person. Then his eyes roamed further, coming to rest on a frilly, strapless bra draped over her bedside lamp, and his cheeks went a little pink as he quickly looked away.
She snatched it, feeling her own face heat up as she kicked it under the bed too. “It’s just a bra, Caleb,” she said, hoping her voice sounded lighter and more nonchalant to his ears than it did to her own.
“Right,” he said. “Just a bra.”
“They’re for my boobs,” she said. “You know what boobs are, yes?”
He cleared his throat. “I am… familiar,” he said carefully. He looked almost more uncomfortable than she felt, and something in her twisted a little.
There were… options here. Fun ones. “Are you now,” she said, which wasn’t really a question.
He swallowed slightly as she moved slowly towards him, hands clasped behind her back in an imitation of that night. “It may be hard to fathom,” he said in a surprisingly level voice, “but I have, in fact, come across a fair number of them in my life.”
“Really?” she said, inching ever closer. “You could have fooled me.”
He must know she was baiting him, and yet he took it anyway. “Could I?”
“You could,” she agreed, “because I was wearing that bra the other night. When you left.”
His eyes, already a bright blue, somehow seemed even brighter the closer she got. He wasn’t very red anymore. “Under that corset?” he said. “I doubt it.”
She hummed, now very close. “Maybe,” she said, “maybe not. Maybe you would have found out if you’d stayed.”
She could feel the heat from his chest through the thin cotton of his shirt as she trailed a light finger up the line of buttons at the V of his collar. “I very much doubt that,” he said.
Jester hummed again. “Shame,” she said. “We could have had a lot of fun.”
“Hmm,” he said.
Her finger was very nearly at his neck now, and she paused there, considering. “You took my ribbon,” she accused.
“So I did,” he murmured. “Would you like it back?”
“Maybe.”
She flicked her eyes up to find him looking at her, and something in her swooped at the intensity of his gaze. “Jester,” he said in a low voice, and somehow the way he said her name sent a shiver up her spine, “do you actually have my wallet up here?”
She smirked. “Of course I do,” she said innocently. “Why else would I have brought you up to my bedroom?”
With a gentle tap of his nose and a swish of her hips she spun on her heel and made her way to her vanity, where the wallet lay innocently among the perfume bottles and discarded makeup brushes. She heard him let out a soft, sudden exhale as she left him, and found herself biting her lip at the sound. She’d done that. He’d done that, because of her, and it wasn’t even because she was being paid to do it. There was something thrilling about flirting so brazenly in her own home, in her own bedroom, with a man she’d… Well.
He wasn’t a weirdo all the time, at least.
She brought it back to him, walking a little more quickly this time — because the moment was over, she’d had her fun — but when his fingers brushed against her hand in the exchange her own fingers tingled at the contact. “Thank you,” he said, still in that low, accented voice that made her heart beat just a little bit faster in spite of herself.
“You’re welcome,” she said, even though her mouth was starting to go dry.
When he finally broke eye contact to put the wallet back in his pocket, she almost sighed, but caught herself just in time. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction — it was more fun that way.
“Well,” he said. “I should go.”
“Wait,” she said, catching his sleeve as he turned to leave. He raised an eyebrow at her and she dug in her back pocket for her phone, which she held out to him. “Your number,” she reminded him. “You know, for later.”
He took it after a moment, and with a few quick taps on the screen handed it back. “There you go,” he said, and the corner of his mouth twitched up properly for the first time since she’d known him. Oh. Oh. “For later,” he said.
Oh, that was not fair. “You know, I’m actually kind of glad Molly didn’t take your wallet back,” she said, trying desperately to regain the upper hand. But, you know. Casually. Because this was fine.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, because that meant you had to come back yourself.” She fluttered her eyelashes just a bit and bit back a small grin of triumph as she saw his pupils dilate, if only for a moment. “It was really nice seeing you again, Caleb,” she said softly.
She was winning — she didn’t know, exactly, when it had become a contest, but that didn’t matter because she was winning —
And then she wasn’t anymore, because he was smirking again, and — oh, that really wasn’t fair — through the sunlight streaming through her bedroom window his hair wasn’t just auburn, it was copper and gold and a hint of something deeper, and his eyes were ice and the sea and a cloudless summer sky, and the light was casting just enough shadow to highlight the sharp line of his jaw and the curve of his high cheekbones as he gave a short, polite, yet impish bow. “The pleasure was all mine, Miss Lavorre,” he said, and his eyes never left her for a second. “I look forward to hearing from you.”
And just like that, he had won. He’d beat her, because she was still standing there when he turned tail and left, that world-weary coat that smelled of campfires and old leather swishing gently in his wake, the door clicking softly as he closed it behind him. She didn’t know how long she stood there, heart hammering, an odd buzzing in her ears. When she finally collapsed backwards into bed, sinking deeply into the mattress, she pulled the nearest pillow over her face and squealed.
He’d flirted with her. He’d really, really flirted with her, when she wasn’t even working, when it was just the two of them in her messy little bedroom; and she was the best at flirting, she got paid to be the best at flirting, and he was still so good at it that he’d won.
He was a wizard, he carried twenty-seven pictures of his cat in his wallet, and he flirted with her so good that he’d won.
It took her at least five minutes to calm herself enough to go back downstairs, and when she did Nott looked up from polishing glasses. “You were up there for ages,” she said. “What happened? Did you fuck him or something? He looked pretty frazzled on the way out.”
‘Aha,’ she thought. Maybe it had been more of a tie after all. “No, Nott, I didn’t fuck him,” she said, feeling her ears heat up as she slid back into her seat at the bar. Her glass of milk, now gently sweating, wasn’t quite as cold anymore, but still tasted good. She downed it and grinned sheepishly. “But… I might have accidentally maybe sort of offered him a job, maybe. I think.”
Caleb barely managed to catch himself before he fell flat on his face at her feet, tripping and stumbling over the doorframe. He whirled around immediately, but the door had already smacked shut behind him and he could hear Molly cackling madly from the safety of the hallway, and the echoing slaps of what could only be exchanged high-fives.
They’d planned this.
That must’ve been why they’d left him alone at the bar — they planned this while he was trying to get his head back on straight, and he’d been too distracted to notice until it was far too late. The pricks.
“You must be Caleb!”
He froze at the sound of her voice, high and sweet and playful — because of course it was. He hadn’t had any idea what she could have sounded like before he heard her but now that he had, he couldn’t possibly imagine her sounding like anything else. She had the light, lilting accent of the Menagerie Coast, and something deep within his chest ached at the sound of his name on her tongue. How did she—?
“I’ve been expecting you.”
They hadn’t just planned this, it wasn’t just a prank meant to embarrass him, throwing him into a room with an unsuspecting dancer. They’d arranged it. Money had probably exchanged hands to put him in this room — oh gods. It was worse than he’d thought.
“You don’t have to leave, you know, you can turn around. It’s okay, I won’t bite.” He could hear the grin in her voice. “Probably.”
‘Götter helfen mir.’
Every muscle in his body screamed in protest as he turned, very slowly, to face her. The room was plush, a comfortable and elegantly decorated room clearly designed for… private encounters, but relatively small — too small, actually; she was far, far too close to him. She was shorter than him, of course, and even in those kitten heels of hers she barely came up to his chin. Her train had been exchanged for a sheer dressing gown edged in soft down, open and flowing, a sleeve of which had slipped down her shoulder. She was looking at him with those huge, violet eyes, lashes impossibly long and thick over the freckles dusting her button nose, and he swallowed harshly. Gods help him, indeed.
“Hello,” he croaked lamely.
“Hi, I’m Jester!” she said brightly. “It’s very nice to meet you.” She extended a delicate hand and he could only stare at it dumbly. After a moment she retracted it and squinted at him. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”
It took a lot more effort than expected to clear his throat. “I — ah, n-no, I can’t say that I have,” he mumbled awkwardly.
“That’s okay,” she said kindly. “Molly said you might be a little nervous.” She extended her hand again and, when he didn’t take it, tugged on his sleeve instead. He was powerless to resist her as she guided him to the long couch that lined the walls, to move away when she gently pulled him down to sit next to her.
“Molly—?”
“He was the one who told me about you,” she explained, a little unnecessarily. “He said he had a friend who would like to meet me, if you know what I mean—” She wiggled her eyebrows, cheeks dimpling, and his heart jumped in his chest, “—and of course I said yes, because Molly has such good taste in friends, but…” She leaned close, a smile somehow simultaneously sweet and sultry curling her lips. “I didn’t expect you to be so handsome.”
His chest tightened as she tilted her head, eyelashes fluttering as her eyes traced him up and down. ‘She is being paid to do this,’ he reminded himself, ‘it isn’t real,’ but that fact was hard to remember with her breath tickling his cheek and her fingers ghosting over his hand. She smelled like cherries and honey and she was really too close now if he wanted to keep his wits about him, but before his brain caught up to his body enough to react she was gone, up and across the room before he could blink.
“You’re really quiet,” she commented.
He coughed, feeling his face heating up as she rummaged around in the drawer of a small end table in the corner. “I’m… sorry,” he said haltingly. “I — did not expect to be here.”
She glanced back at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“This was… not my idea,” he confessed awkwardly.
She paused, turning back to him with her hands clasped behind her. “No wonder you seem nervous,” she said, and cocked her head. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder, gems glinting in the ambient lighting. He swallowed.
“I am sorry,” he said again weakly.
“Oh, no, don’t be sorry!” she said. “It’s really cute, actually.” It was absolutely the wrong thing to say if she was trying to ease the tension in his gut, but she didn’t seem to notice. “We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” She smiled again, in that coy, wicked manner that set his nerves alight. His mouth went dry as she came slowly towards him, slipping the dressing gown from her shoulders. It pooled around her feet and she paused briefly in front of him, tail swishing slightly. Caleb now saw she held a length of thick silken ribbon, which she wrapped once around each hand before slipping it around the back of his neck. She yanked him forward as she leaned in close, nearly nose to nose. “There are other things we could do instead,” she purred.
He wanted to scoot back, leave now, knew he should; she was far too dangerous and far too sublime and he really, really shouldn’t be here with her so excruciatingly, tantalizingly close — but she was much stronger than she looked and he was helpless as she began dancing again, twisting languidly, and thinking became impossible as she nudged his knees apart, moving torturously between his legs.
She took her time, teasing, tormenting, never quite touching, but inching closer and closer with every shimmy of her hips, every turn of her body. It was getting harder to breathe now, and it was hot in here, so unbearably, terribly hot — damn Mollymauk, damn Beauregard and Fjord and damn Mollymauk to hell for putting him here, for locking him in this room with this woman, and —
She lifted herself smoothly onto the couch with one knee on either side of his lap, not quite straddling him, but not quite not. And then she was moving again to the faint music of the club below, body curving, hips rolling, agonizing and seductive and never quite crossing the line into something more. His heart thundered in his chest as he sat there, paralyzed, as her thighs pressed against him, fists clenching and unclenching unconsciously on the couch cushions beneath them as he watched her — he was well aware he was staring, well aware of the lecherous way his eyes roved her body, desperately trying to capture every part of her at once, commit her to memory — but he was unable to look away. She released the ribbon then, fingers tracing slowly down his arms, taking him by the wrists as she placed his hands gently on either side of her corseted waist. “You can touch me, you know,” she whispered, her lips brushing his ear. He could feel her smiling. “If you like.”
She was warm from dancing, his hands fitting perfectly into the curves of her, and she smiled again as his fingers tightened reflexively around her. A hand trailed back up his arm, tracing up his neck, running lightly through his hair. She put her lips close his ear again as she leaned forward, her voice a breathless whisper, “I like it when you touch me.”
It would be so easy to buy into the fiction she was presenting, to allow himself to run his hands over her and lose himself in the idea that she cared about him at all. That the way she was making him feel was in any way reciprocated, that she would even look at him twice if Molly hadn’t pulled some strings; that, if only for one night, or one hour, or even a single minute, she wanted him. And she was so good at pretending — the swell of her chest pressed against him, her hips moving beneath his hands, her fingers in his hair — that he almost did, almost let that little groaning sound caught in his throat to escape him as she breathed hotly in his ear, but —
He ached to touch her, touch her properly, feel her skin on his — to run his hands up her thighs, to bury his face in her neck as she said his name, again and again...
It was too dangerous, too much, too —
He let go of her then — with one hand, he wasn’t strong enough to pull away from her yet, not entirely, he was too selfish for that, even now — fumbling through his pockets. ‘Where is it, where did I put it, where—?’
She slowed her movements, pulling away slightly to look down at him with those huge, gorgeous eyes. “What’s wrong?” she said. “What are you—?”
He didn’t answer her, too focused on the singular task of pulling out his wallet, and somehow managed to wrench his other hand from her waist to rifle through it.
She let go of him then, her eyes widening slightly, her plump mouth a small ‘O’ of surprise and — what was that? Anxiety? “Is that — Are you—?” She swallowed, and her confidence seemed to be melting slightly, and suddenly she seemed much younger now. “I don’t — th-that’s not really what I thought — Molly didn’t say anything about a-actually—”
He brandished his prize in her face. “Cat!” he barked.
She blinked down at the picture in his hand, that small spark of unease turning to confusion. “…Cat?” she said.
“My cat,” he croaked. “His name is Frumpkin.”
She looked at him, gaze traveling from his face to the image of Frumpkin and slowly back again. “I don’t…”
“He can change shapes sometimes, but he prefers to be a cat mostly,” he babbled. “He likes to be scratched behind the ears when I read.”
She was looking at him like he’d grown an extra head, utterly bewildered at this sudden change in subject. He was well aware he must appear deranged — who in their right mind would start talking about their cat in the middle of a lapdance with her? — but he couldn’t keep going like that, couldn’t let her continue, not if he wanted to keep his head on straight —
There was a sudden clattering, and both their heads snapped to the door as it opened.
A firbolg stood there, towering and grey, with long, violently pink hair, carrying a mop. “Oh,” he said, looking bemused but not at all embarrassed at the sight of Jester straddling him. “Hello.”
“Caduceus!” said Jester, scrambling off Caleb’s lap to the cushion beside him. She was blushing now, the same lavender-pink as her tongue, her arms wrapped protectively across her chest. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry, they didn’t tell me the room was being used.” Caduceus scratched his head with the mop handle, pink eyes taking in the scene before him — Jester, half-naked and flushed; Caleb, frozen in place, still holding the picture of Frumpkin aloft.
“Well, it is, and we’re kind of, um, busy, so if you could, like, come back later—?”
“My mistake, I’ll leave you to it.” He smiled pleasantly, nodded at Caleb. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “You two have fun.” The door clicked shut behind him.
They sat in silence for a long time, Caleb still stuck in place, although he’d finally managed to lower his arm. He could feel Jester glancing furtively at him, her arms still wrapped around herself. She seemed different now, as though a spell had been broken — still gorgeous, heart-stoppingly so, but… uncertain. Young. Innocent. He was suddenly, painfully aware of how much older he must be than her, and how close he’d been to allowing himself to get lost in the fantasy. How close he’d been to doing something he’d regret.
He stuffed the picture back in his wallet, for once not caring if it creased or crumpled, and stood abruptly. “I should go,” he said.
She blinked. “O-oh,” she said.
“Yes, I should — hmm.” He wanted to say something — thank her? Gods no, how pathetic would that be? “I should go,” he said again.
She looked at him with an expression he couldn’t quite decipher, almost seeming to deflate a little. “Oh. Okay…”
In two quick strides he was at the door, but hesitated with his fingers on the handle. He could go back and salvage this — she was so close, so beautiful, so… He shook himself. No. He wouldn’t do that to her.
He left without saying anything else.
Molly nudged Beau and Fjord in the ribs as Caleb stumbled back to the bar, disheveled and heart-sick and probably covered in glitter. “He returns!” crowed Molly triumphantly, clapping him on the shoulder as he came close and collapsed on a stool. “Veth, we’re gonna need some shots over here. Now, tell us everything.” He plucked slyly at the ribbon still draped around his neck.
Nott slid Caleb a shot of something and he downed it without bothering to try to identify it. She slid him two more and he downed those too, savoring the burn as they hit his throat. His palms were sweating again. He nearly slopped the fourth shot all over himself, his hands were shaking so much with latent adrenaline, but tossed it back anyway.
They were watching him. Beau grabbed his wrist as he reached for the fifth shot, smile slipping slightly. “Dude, slow down,” she said, her brows knitting together in mild concern. “You’re gonna throw up.”
“I knew she was good, but I didn’t know she was that good,” joked Molly. He swiped at Caleb’s face, finger coming away blue from a smudge of lipstick he hadn’t realized was there. “This is a good color on you.”
Caleb shook his hand out of Beau’s grasp and downed the final shot. When he rose from the barstool his head swam, but he was surprisingly steady on his feet as he took Molly’s face gingerly in his hands, leaning in close. “Mollymauk?” he said, only slurring a little.
Molly was grinning. “Yes, Caleb?”
He patted his cheek. “Fuck you,” he said, and left.
“Oh, come on!” yelled Molly as he walked away. “We all saw you looking at her, I was doing you a favor! You deserve to have some fun every once in a while!” But Caleb didn’t look back.
It wasn’t until he got home, collapsing on his dilapidated couch with Frumpkin flopping over in his lap, that he realized his colossal mistake.
He’d put the picture back in his wallet, but never put the wallet back in his pocket.
He groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes, but not seeing didn’t change the facts.
He’d left it at the Lavish Chateau. In the VIP room.
current wip is turning into just as much gale emotional whump as it is bucky emotional whump but i got annoyed with that section while writing today so here’s them being fucking gay instead
“Y’kiss me so sweet, darling, I should be callin’ you sugar, how sweet you are.”
John wants to laugh, wants to make some joke to deflect, anything to distract from the warm foggy feeling blooming in his head and chest from Gale’s praise. He can’t suppress the meek little noise that comes from his throat in response, and his expression must be equally revealing, because Gale’s eyes light up, delighted, and his mouth tips up a little with amused discovery.
“Yeah? You like that, sugar?”
John is not responsible for the noise that leaves his body.
no pressure tagging @sleepr-agent420 @bucksbluescarf @anachilles + anyone else who wants to do it :)
tagged by @wayrad who is just giving me excuses to post more snippets of my crying bucky fic atp
Gale shifts his grip on John’s wrist, taking his hand instead. He draws it up to kiss the back of it, keeping his eyes steady on John’s face the whole time. He can’t help the way his throat closes up again, more hot tears seeping from his eyes, lips twisting to hold back any more pathetic noises.
He doesn’t understand how Gale’s expression is able to darken and soften at the same time.
Gale reaches up with his free hand and swipes under John’s eye with his thumb. “All these tears for me, honey? Y’look so pretty.”
convincing myself this isn’t cringe rn 👍👍
+ once again i have no idea which writer moots have and haven’t done this so if you are a writer seeing this and wanna do it go ahead n say i tagged u 🙏🙏 i always want to see what y’all are cooking
in which i attempt to locate words assigned by the person tagging me in any of my wips
my words are: more, lord, hair, play.
more - from my current wip, an as-of-yet-nameless fic i have been lovingly referring to as ‘the weepy top bucky fic’
Gale hums, shifting his hips into it. “More,” he says, hands falling to John’s waist and pulling lightly at his hips. When John hesitates, he pulls a little harder, “C’mon, you’re not gonna hurt me. I can take it.”
John blinks. “Yes, Major,” he says obediently, shivery with nerves and with renewed arousal.
lord - this is from a wip i’ve had kicking around for months titled ‘drunk girl in a bar bathroom gale’ which i forgot about until like. yesterday. and hopefully will be the next thing i work on!
“C’mon, Buck. Gimme a real toast. Y’don’t even need to drink it all, just a sip, huh? ‘S not gonna hurt ya.”
John had given his best innocent look, puppy-dog eyes and everything. He had entirely innocent intentions! He hadn’t wanted to get Gale drunk or see him embarrass himself or lord it over him later that he’d taken the drink. He’d just wanted to share something with his best friend on his birthday. At the time it had seemed vitally important, more than any of Gale’s protests.
hair - also from crying bucky fic 👍
“Can’t even fuck my,” and he stalls out for a second, skipping awkwardly over what to call Gale, because nothing seems to fit right, “without weeping like a baby, Jesus, what’s wrong with me?”
“Well you were doing pretty damn good until you got all in your head about it,” Gale says softly, brushing a lock of hair from John’s forehead.
play - this isn’t from a real wip it’s a snippet i wrote and never found a good place for… also im cheating a little on this one because i couldn’t find the actual word… but it’s the closest i could find lmao
They end up awkwardly spread over the bed further from the window. John’s long limbs are splayed out over the rumpled sheets, while Gale perches half-curled over him with one leg hanging off the mattress. John’s cock is still softening in his hand as he works his way up his stomach and chest, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the sweat-salty skin. He’s careful, almost reverent with his touch. Penitential.
not sure who to tag since i feel like i’ve seen a bunch of my moots do this already and idk who has/hasn’t lol but if anyone wants to do it again w a new set of words i will assign: bite, wind, major, real
