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Beauregard blinked rapidly, her eyelids determined to shut despite all her protests. The stars twinkling above and the sliver of a moon didn’t give much light, and she could barely see past the radius of the dimming campfire.
Fairness was one thing, but practicality was another, and practically, shouldn’t one of the people who could actually see be keeping watch? At least when Caleb had watch duty, Nott would stay up with him. But Beau was left by herself, squinting into the darkness and trying her damndest not to pass out.
It’s not like they were even on a dangerous road. What were the chances of some monster jumping out at them, especially with the fire still going? Anyway, Caleb’s alarm would wake them up if there was really something there.
The watch was fucking pointless, Beau concluded, but she still kept her eyes open, standing up and leaning on her quarterstaff. Maybe it was more of an adventuring tradition than anything else. Something in her respected that, if begrudgingly.
Whatever. Only an hour until she had to wake Fjord up, then she could go to sleep and forget about the whole thing.
Just an hour. Watching. Waiting.
Fuck.
It was about five minutes before her eyelids were drooping again, her bored mind unable to think of anything else other than sleep. She opened her eyes wide, peering deep into the distant woods. Nothing but darkness and the shadow of trees.
And, oh fuck, the faint flickering of movement. Beau tensed, suddenly alert, and held out her quarterstaff. It was so small, so quick, it had to have been some kind of animal—a wayward fox in the night; but it seemed bigger than that. A bear, a wolf?
There it was again, more movement, closer, bigger, clearer; something bipedal, tall, humanoid. A human, a person, someone trying to sneak up on her. To raid their camp, steal their stuff, slit their throats?
Beau took a defensive stance, scowled, bared her teeth. One lone person, she could take. It didn’t have to be an issue. She was ready.
“Boo.”
“Fuck!” Beau yelled, nearly jumping out of her skin, and she flung a punch at the disembodied voice behind her. A pale, grinning face ducked out of the way, and Beau’s eyes lit up with recognition as her fist sailed past.
“Babe, you fucking scared me,” she said breathlessly, dropping her staff to the ground as she sharply inhaled.
“You’re very jumpy,” Yasha teased in that monotone of hers, in the way where Beau could only tell she was joking by her shit-eating grin. But there was still a softness to it, a fondness, something irresistibly gentle in the small upturn of her lips.
“You’re fucking scary!” Beau protested, giving her a light tap on the shoulder, and it evoked another beautiful smile.
Yasha traced two fingers along Beau’s sharp jawline, gently tilting up her chin with just the hint of a push. Beau’s breath hitched in her throat—Yasha always did this to her, the way she was so intense.
“Glad to know you missed me,” she whispered, just a hint on her breath as she leaned down for a kiss. She pressed their lips together, feather-light, just enough to drive Beau crazy.
“Where’ve you been?” Beau asked after a few seconds, after her brain stopped short-circuiting.
“Around. You know how it is.” Yasha was always so dismissive about her absences—didn’t seem to want to explain them.
“What brings you back?”
Yasha kissed her again, deeper this time, a kiss she’d missed these last few days. “I missed you. But I can’t stay long.”
Beau felt her heart sink into her stomach, almost enough to ruin her good mood. “Come on, just a little bit?” She hated to plead, tried her damndest to add an air of playful indifference to her voice, but fuck, she didn’t want her to leave again. “Tonight?”
“Tonight,” Yasha conceded, pressing their foreheads together, twisting the loose strands of hair that escaped Beau’s bun through her fingers. They stayed like that for a moment—quiet, admiring the intimacy of closeness.
Beau realized with a start that she was falling asleep on her feet about a second after Yasha scooped her up bridal style.
“You’re absolutely useless at keeping watch,” she chided, holding her with ease.
“Cut me a break, I’ve got the worst shift!” Beau grumbled, wiggling defeatedly in Yasha’s arms. “You’re too tall,” she whined, unable to reach Yasha’s lips from where her head bobbed near her shoulder.
Yasha rolled her eyes and lifted Beau closer to her face, unable to hide her grin at Beau’s little self-satisfied hm right before she attached her lips to Yasha’s neck.
Yasha sat down beside the cart (somehow still miraculously functional after all the shit they’d put it through) and cradled Beau, let her kiss up the length of her neck to her jaw, cheek, lips. She left little marks, hyper-visible on the pale skin.
“If there were bandits around, we’d all be dead by now,” Yasha murmured after a while spent like that, lost in slow, eager kisses. She’d taken Beau’s hair down and had her hand buried in it, twisting the soft brown locks through her fingers.
Beau gently bumped their foreheads together, smiling so serenely, like nothing had ever been this peaceful. “There aren’t any bandits around. If you’re so worried about it, why don’t you look out for them?”
The firelight was almost gone, just embers left glowing red and orange. Beau could just see Yasha’s face in the darkness, the upturned lips that didn’t match the crease of worry in her forehead.
“I’ll cover you this time,” she said softly, and pressed a kiss to Beau’s forehead, “Go to sleep.”
“I’m not even tired,” Beau protested, but her eyes drooped and she leaned heavily against Yasha’s chest. She rested her head on Yasha’s shoulder, smelled the scent of the road (pine straw and dirt, sweat and leather).
Only for a second, she promised herself, then she could enjoy more stolen kisses in the dead of night, in the quiet where it was nothing but the two of them, where the world could be damned and one short night may as well have been forever.
Only a second, she thought fleetingly as Yasha’s rough hands played with her hair and rubbed small circles on her back. She felt her eyelids flutter shut, and the voice of protest at the back of her head was quieted by the sound of Yasha’s breathing.
Beauregard woke up in her bedroll, properly tucked in, her head still filled with that smell. She looked up morosely to see her friends awakening, sans one pale barbarian. Jester looked like she’d been up for a while, happily bouncing around a groggy and beleaguered Fjord. Caleb was leaning against the cart and reading one of his books, Nott still curled up and sleeping beside him, while Molly sat cross-legged on the ground and shuffled his cards.
Fjord noticed her stirring and blinked some of the sleep out of his eyes. “Beau, you never woke me up for my watch last night. I told you—”
“Didn’t need to,” she cut him off, and when she lifted her hand to put her hair up she found, tucked behind her ear, a blue flower. She twirled it in her fingers for a moment, smiled faintly at the sight of it in her hand. “Got someone to cover for me.”