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“What do you see?” Fjord asked abruptly, right into Caleb’s ear.
“What, uh, what am I supposed to be seeing?” Caleb jumped, sat up straighter, tried to scan the dark underbrush. It was a clear night, visibility was good, the transmuter stone was giving him his vision, but he couldn’t see what Fjord had tried to point out.
He looked to Fjord, to try to follow his gaze, hand already half into a pocket for components, but he was just looking at him with faint amusement.
“No, I mean,” he waved a hand, pointed up, “what do you see in the stars?”
“Well I - Aren’t we supposed to be keeping watch?”
Fjord smiled. His tusks were almost completely in, and they were making his mouth look less pinched. “I don’t think we need to be too worried about roadside bandits anymore.”
Caleb tilted his head up, and said to the stars, “No, I don’t think that’s what we are worried about.”
Fjord moved a little closer on the log they were using as a bench and slung a warm and heavy arm across his shoulders. “Don’t think too hard about all - all that. Just tell me what you see in the stars.”
His ‘accent’ was faint, hardly any twang at all, and Caleb glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. The quasi-intimacy of Fjord’s near-genuine voice didn’t quite bear thinking about. He shook it off. Not literally.
“Well,” he said, pointing, “that’s the Dragon’s Flight, and that’s the Bear. I cannot remember all the other ones, but you know. Oh, the Three Handed Man, which I could never really make out. Can you see it - there? The head is easiest to see.” Caleb turned to see whether Fjord could track it the way he never had as a boy.
Fjord was looking at him instead of the sky. “You, not remember something? I never thought I’d see the day.”
“It’s night,” Caleb said, reflexively. “Ah,” he mumbled, mind catching up with his own mouth.
Fjord was delighted, though, and smiling genuinely. It was almost too much For Caleb to look at directly, overwhelming. “Never thought I’d see the night, then.”
“You show me your constellations, then. You were a sailor, you should know your stars.”
“Since you’ve shown me yours, I guess I’m obligated to show you mine, then, huh?” Fjord really was leaning in on Caleb, a solid warmth pressed along his left side.
It’s not that he wasn’t tempted. It would be so easy, just shift his shoulders and lean in, but . . . “Why would you want to, Fjord?” Caleb asked instead, not looking, not moving even his head.
The silence stretched on too long - two full seconds. Longer than it normally took for Fjord to spit out his usual guilty lie, when caught.
But apparently he had just been contemplating how to best use his plausible deniability: he chuckled and said, “Why, Caleb, because it’s nice to get to know you and, uh, your culture. Through the constellations. Tell me about the three handed man, what’d he get put in the sky for?”
Fjord moved out of Caleb’s space, only a little, but enough so that he could feel a cool draft blow between their bodies.
“He fought a dragon and killed it, but it killed him at the same moment, and his lover, who lived at the end of the Winter Way, wept starlight until she could place him always near her heart.”
“And the Bear?”
Caleb risked the glance, real temptation dissipating, and saw Fjord looking up at the stars. The moment was over. He exhaled.
***
After that night, Caleb kept space between them. Fjord watched him with Nott, him in tentative conferences with Yeza. Him laughing with Jester, him talking in low voices with Beau, whispering to Frumpkin, talking about plantlife with Cad. He used Beau and Jester, especially, as a boisterous blue buffer.
They were not alone together again through the boring hours (and hours) of walking and the long cold clear winter nights. He was watching Caleb too much, honestly, but he was having trouble reeling it in, now that he had overplayed his hand.
Beau caught him looking, because of course she did, but even she didn’t bring it up for days.
Finally, one afternoon they were walking out at the front of their group, relatively alone. “What did you do?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Fjord said, “I - we just talked a little.”
“Well, what did you say, then?”
“Nothing, just asked about the stars, you know, the constellations he knows. I thought it would be a good topic of conversation.”
Beau turned around so she could look at him, walking backwards. “You sure you didn’t, you know -” she held out her hands and flexed her fingers, “touch without thinking again?”
Fjord’s eyebrows about hit his hairline. “No, of course not! I would never - Is that what he’s telling all of you?”
She looked at him for another few steps, then turned back into her place by his side. “He hasn’t said anything at all to me. I dunno about to Nott, though.
“Anyway, I didn’t think you did anything like that. If I did, well, we wouldn’t be talking right now. Not with words, anyway.” She punched him lightly. Lightly for her.
“Ouch,” he said, rubbing his shoulder. “Point taken. But really, I didn’t - um. I did tell him I’d show him mine, since he had shown me his. Constellations.”
“Damnit, Fjord. What did he say to that?”
“He asked me why.”
Beau let him sit with that, or tried to wait him out, or something. But she gave up, saying, “And . . . ?”
Fjord could not contain his sigh. “I fucking told him some shit about getting to know him better, okay? What was I supposed to say? That seemed like a pretty clear no.”
She let him marinate in his own choices for a moment, then clapped him on the shoulder - his recently-punched, still-sore-thanks shoulder - and turned to jog back to the main pack. “Was it, though?” she asked, parting shot over her shoulder, no room for him to answer.
Fjord slowed his walk until the group overtook him, and tried to catch Caleb’s eye. No dice. At least he couldn’t complain about the view.
At the back of the group, out of sight of everyone, Caduceus rolled his eyes.
***
“You’re too skinny,” Beau said, handing Caleb her leftovers from dinner.
Once his mouth was full, she said, “And I think you should take third watch tonight. You don’t have to say anything, just nod.”
Caleb did not nod. He chewed, swallowed, asked, “Why?”
“Great question, good,” Beau said, nodding. “Isn’t that, like, exactly what you want to find out? Why some people have said the things they’ve said? Huh?”
She looked at him with faux-innocent eyes. Tracy eyes.
“Stop it,” he said. “You are as subtle as a bull in a china shop. Are you trying to set us up for a fight, or just set us up?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, inspecting her nails.
He frowned at her, and put both emptied plates down on the ground. “I saw you talk to him this afternoon,” he said, sotto voce. “What did he say?”
“He just told me what happened,” she said, not bothering to adjust her volume in the slightest, and abandoning the sweet persona. “You know, the way you didn’t.”
Caleb paused for a moment, to try to formulate a response. “Well-”
“So I take it that you’re good for third watch,” she cut in. “Okay thanks bye!” Beau stood up and walked off, leaving Caleb with no choice and two plates to wash.
Frumpkin mrrped and licked at one of the plates. “What am I going to do?” Caleb said, under his breath.
“Don’t avoid him any longer,” Jester said, appearing suddenly and sticking her head over his shoulder, as she was unfortunately wont to do. “You can’t not talk to him forever, you know.”
“I cannot avoid him forever, but . . . it’s - wait, I haven’t even told you why I’m avoiding him.” Caleb extricated himself and inched away, so he could look at her without giving himself a crick in his neck.
“I know why,” Jester said, voice and face equally full of smiles. “I know what love looks like.”
“I would not go so far as all that,” Caleb said, petting Frumpkin and directing all his words to the cat. “But I will take third watch.”
“Okay! Go to sleep early so you can be well rested. I hear that is very important!” And she skipped off after Beau.
“I am just going to talk!” he called after her. But not too loudly, because it would hardly do for Fjord to hear.
He was going to go to sleep early, but only so he could avoid the rest of his party.
“Except you,” he crooned to Frumpkin as he made his way to the spot he had picked out the minute they had set up camp. “You are perfect, yes you are.”
***
To wake up to furious yellow eyes glaring down at him was not ever what Fjord would call pleasant, but it was particularly objectionable when the person attached to those eyes was also repeatedly toeing him in the funny bone.
“Ouch, Nott,” he said. “Why’s everyone hurting me all the time?”
“It’s your turn for watch,” she said, severe. “Watch yourself, I say.”
“But I thought -” Fjord tried, but she was already off to her little bed, where Yeza was safely curled. As far as he had known, she was supposed to be the one sharing his watch. That’s what Beau had said.
But no.
Fjord took his time getting up, stretching out the knots in his back, cracking his spine, rolling out his shoulders: just because he wasn’t a punch wizard like Beau didn’t mean he couldn’t try to keep limber.
When he opened his eyes post-routine, he saw Caleb looking at him, staring curiously hard. A setup, then, by the girls.
“Do I got drool on my face?” Fjord asked, closing distance, trying not to loom - Caleb was sitting, again on a log.
Was that interest he saw? A week earlier he would have sworn it was. But Caleb wasn’t saying much, just shaking his head, and now that Fjord was close his eyes slid away and towards the neutral and unobjectionable trees.
“No, I was just lost in thought.”
“Copper for them, then?” Fjord set himself down, keeping a clear buffer zone.
“It has occurred to me,” Caleb said, all measured tones and stiff posture, “that there may be a misunderstanding. I don’t think there is, but it’s possible that I - that the girls have been operating with bad information.”
“Oh,” Fjord said. “What’s the, um, the bad information that they’re operating under? If I may I ask.”
Caleb turned to him then, nailed him in place with his eyes, which were piercing blue even in the starlight. “They - I have been thinking that you came on to me, last time that we were on watch together.”
“Oh,” Fjord said.
“And that I turned you down. But perhaps this has all been an embarrassing mistake for everyone.”
He could deny it again, stick to his guns, say he had asked everyone about what they saw in the sky. Or say that it was all innocent, nice and platonic. But Caleb was looking at him - his eyes weren’t hard, they weren’t angry, they weren’t even particularly neutral. They were just beautiful and curious. And how could Fjord not satisfy that curiosity?
“I was - well, I wouldn’t call it coming on to you. I was trying to . . . “
“Flirt. Get into my pants. Hit on me.”
“No, no, I want - god, this is embarrassing.” Fjord finally broke the eye contact, looked up into the sky. If only he could blame the stars for his own missteps. “Forgive me if I’m speaking out of line - again! - but all I want - I want more than to have you for a night. I want . . . ”
“Do not beat around the bush, here,” Caleb said. “Now is not the best time for me. I have other things I need to do, and I don’t need to - oh, I do not know.”
His voice was softening, formality melting, and Fjord chanced a glance. Caleb was looking away, too, but down into his lap, where Frumpkin was curled, purring. His left hand, between them, was clutching the bark of the log, fingers tense and white, nails digging into the soft mulchy rotting.
Fjord reached out and covered Caleb’s hand, ghostly in the dark, with his own, trying to be gentle. “You don’t need to know, now,” he said, not being able to help from swaying in towards Caleb.
Caleb turned only his head to look at him, kept his shoulders angled out. But he didn’t pull his hand away, and the fingers under Fjord’s palm were relaxing. He could only find that encouraging, and kept his eyes on their hands as he spoke.
“I want to help you. We’re all going to help you, no matter what, you know. You can - if you turn me down, it won’t change that. I think everyone would be on your side, if I was gonna pitch a fit about it, anyway. Don’t ask me why.
"And I know I'm going to mess up, with what I say. I'm not good at talking, um, around people I'm actually interested in, when it comes down to it, I guess.
“But I do feel more than friendship for you, Caleb, and I’d be honored to be by your side in more ways than one, on this journey you’re taking. And if the only reason you're saying no is because you don’t want distractions, well, maybe I can help. I can - can be a sounding board. You can talk to me. You can trust me.”
“How can I trust you,” Caleb asked, closer, intimate enough that his breath could warm Fjord’s cheek, “when you can’t even speak to me in your own voice?”
Fjord winced and closed his eyes, pulling back, away, regretting. “I,” he started, in his well-worn twang. But he stopped, breathed through his nose, and continued in the first voice he had ever had, “That’s a long story. I can tell it to you, over time. But we have secrets from each other, it’s true.”
“This is not convincing me that we would be anything more than - than a good roll in the hay.”
“Well, at least you think it’d be good,” Fjord said. “Sorry. I mean, listen. It wouldn’t be perfect. It might not last. I might, you know, die. Or accidentally let loose an evil god. And you might run away in the middle of the night, any time. But I think we should try it. You know, see how it works.”
“See how long before it blows up in our faces, more like,” Caleb muttered.
“But come on,” Fjord said, concentrating on the fact that Caleb clearly wanted him, in some capacity. That he wasn’t inherently opposed. That they were sitting closer together than they had been at the start of the night, and Fjord hadn’t been the one actually shifting his butt down the log. “What happened to a little calculated risk?”
Caleb turned to Fjord and smirked, a long slow smirk that unfurled across his whole face. “You,” he said, leaning in, “have got me there.” And he leaned in the rest of the way and kissed him.
***
More than thirty years later, after they had all given up on adventuring, after their daughter had moved out, after they had retired from their sedate second careers, after they set up in a small rural town, after everything:
Caleb turned to Fjord on their porch, over their leisurely coffees taken at dawn, and said, accusatory, “You never showed me your constellations!”