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Fjord manages to wait until they hit Basaft Isle, the ship in for repairs and the group dotted lazily around a tavern gone humid and relaxed with their midmorning arrival. They'd docked a few hours prior and are only just beginning to retire to sleep, but the tavern is ready and willing to sell them alcohol no matter the time of day - and Fjord isn't tired.
He'd originally planned to spend more time stewing in bog standard ale and feeling sorry for himself, but somewhere between the hours of first round's on me and what other secrets was Vandren keeping from us, he starts to feel his eye drawn back down to his right palm every few moments. Every few seconds. Before he hits the bottom of his tankard, he finds himself unable to look away from it: the wound is closed but he's still sporting two new scars, one on the weathered back of his hand and a perfect match across the tender pale of his palm.
Fjord feels a skittering sensation across the back of his neck that makes him shiver, completely different to the cold whisper of Dashilla's presence under so many miles of dark, heavy ocean, and he presses his unscarred hand up to it. It's still just strange enough to be breathing air again, to have clothes soft and dried out from the sun - but it isn't only relief inspiring Fjord's fascination. He's excited. The memories feel warm and close, thick with the water they'd promised through like molasses or honey or -
He needs to find Caleb.
A quick scan of the tavern shows Nott and Caduceus in conversation at the bar, but no head of scruffy auburn curls. Perfect. His best attempts to be methodical and calm result in a pile of coin at his table and a quick lope up two flights of creaky stairs, coming to pause in front of the door to Caleb and Nott's rented room.
In case anyone has questions, Caleb had bestowed upon the group with a good-natured moue and a gesture upwards, but we have just spent many weeks in cramped quarters with each other, so maybe we keep it to urgent questions, ja?
Fjord doesn't have an urgent question. He doesn't have a question at all, pulled tantalizingly up the stairs by his scarred palm that aches like maybe and tastes like the trepidatious dryness of his lips when he licks them, working up the nerve to knock.
For whatever reason - heartbeat so deep in his gut that his nostrils flare - he isn't surprised when Caleb answers the door, quickly steps to one side to let him in, and latches it shut behind him.
"Caleb," he greets steadily, more steadily than he feels. It feels like whatever drew him up the stairs is still in waiting, winding around and around his palm, pulling taut. He flexes his fingers.
"Hallo, Fjord," Caleb replies, amicably enough. He doesn't sound surprised to see him, either, looking perfectly comfortable in a shirt and trousers, open vest, and worn boots.
"Can we… talk?"
Caleb's eyes squint up at the corners, blue gone deep in the low light. "Of course," he promises brusquely, like Fjord knew he would. He gestures to the rest of the room, but neither of them move any further from the other, still stood close to the door.
The words come to him as he opens his mouth, thankfully: "I just… wanted you to know - because I know you, uh… keep track of who owes you what. That I owe you a favor now."
Caleb shifts his weight with a furrow in his permanently wrinkled brow, though he doesn't seem particularly upset. "Ja. Or something. What of it?"
Fjord rolls one shoulder - his mouth is too wet, drool making his tongue clumsy, but he can't look away from Caleb's gaze long enough to feel comfortable swallowing. "I wanted you to know," he repeats, "that as far as I'm concerned, I owe you for a lot more than that." Caleb's dark eyebrows lift, but Fjord isn't finished. "And one more thing - you don't…"
Whatever bubble had housed his courage pops into nerves at the back of his throat, and he breaks eye contact with Caleb for just a moment, needing the release of pressure before he can finish. "You don't have to trade favors with me," he continues at a murmur. If you need my help, he thinks, just as his mouth says, "if you need me," and his next breath comes shallow - "all you have to do is ask."
Caleb is nodding before he's even finished, the way he gets when he's processing not-quite-new information, as if Fjord's words are only confirming an assumption he'd already harbored. It makes something warm flip in Fjord's belly again, his palm sending another blunted pain signal up to his brain since he's thinking about it.
"If I need you…" Caleb muses. He tilts his head to one side. "Why?" And Fjord's sudden hurt must show like a mural across his face, because Caleb is uncharacteristically quick to clarify. "Why would you offer that to me?"
You're too smart to hide things from, Fjord thinks, his feelings suddenly piling too heavily on top of one another, listing to the side and wobbling under the pressure of the truth, everything stripped of pretense and sinking to the bottom of the sea. Drawn in to form one clear answer like treasures to the lair of a sea hag, like Fjord's hand to Caleb's hand to Caleb's blood, like Fjord's eye to Caleb's lips. You're the genius here, not me. You get it. I know you do.
But Caleb had asked, and so Fjord dutifully inclines his head.
"Because that's the decision I made a long time ago," he admits, before setting broad palms against Caleb's warm, rough face and pulling him directly in against his mouth.
Caleb's reaction is a gratifying relief in its immediacy; his mouth is hot and slick, stale with the cheap nightcap he must have brought to his room, but he's so energized that Fjord can barely tell, nose squished against the hard bone of his cheek. Caleb grabs his sleeve and kisses him lightheaded like a dagger through the back of his hand, like the cloud of his own blood in his lungs.
Can I count on you to return the favor, Caleb had said - but in this he'd waited, and Fjord had waited, and as they break apart with a shared gasp and Fjord strokes dark claws against the back of Caleb's head, he can't come up with any reason they'd waited so fucking long.
"Thank you," Caleb breathes against his mouth, and warmth bolts through Fjord when his lips form a tiny kiss against where one of his new tusks is pushing his bottom lip out.
"Are you going to take me up on it?" Fjord manages shakily, desire too heady to let fear stop him. He can feel Caleb's flushed skin against his too-long eyelashes when he blinks - Caleb's answering smile is electric, felt and heard more than seen.
"I think I would be horribly rude not to."