Chapter Text
Beau frowned and looked away from the screen when her phone rang a few feet away. There was a noise on screen, her character’s signature death rattle, and she gasped, looking back just in time to see ‘LOSER’ flash on the screen in red letters. She scowled into her microphone.
“Molly, you little shit, I was distracted by my phone ringing!”
Molly’s melodic laugh came over her speakers. “That’s not my fault, darling.”
“Fuck you.”
“Go fuck yourself.” Molly sighed. “Alright, I gotta go.”
“What? No! One more round.”
“I have a very naked man in my bed at this very moment who is clearly losing his patience, your needs no longer concern me.”
“Ew, I don’t wanna hear about that shit. Caleb is practically my brother.”
“Then we better disconnect before I start talking about this thing I did to him last night where I took some rope-”
Beau tore her headset off her ears and tossed it onto the chair beside the sofa, rolling her eyes as she closed out of the screen. She could practically still hear Molly laughing at her. He knew that would get rid of her faster than just about anything. Her phone started ringing again and she scowled as she pushed herself to her feet.
Who the fuck was calling her at one o’ clock in the morning?
When she picked up her phone it was an unknown number but she answered it anyway. “What the fuck do you want?” she hissed. No one responded and her scowl deepened. “Hello? Who is this?”
“Beau?”
Beau sighed in relief. “Jester? What’s up? Why are you calling me from a phone I don’t know?”
“I’m… drunk.”
“But Jes, you don’t drink.”
She giggled and Beau could hear the alcohol affecting her. “I did tonight. Will you come get me?”
“Of course. Where are you?”
“A house.”
Beau paused, blinking in confusion. “A house? Whose house?”
“Well…” she paused and sighed heavily into the phone. “I thought that it was your house but the lady who was here said that it wasn’t.”
“Is she there now? The lady?”
“Yeah, she let me use her phone. Do you wanna say hi?”
Beau started pulling on her coat and grabbed her keys off the counter. “Yeah, give the phone to her really quick, I wanna say hi.”
She heard some movement on the other side of the line and Jester’s voice in the distance. “She wants to say hi.”
There was a moment of silence and a familiar voice spoke. “Beau.”
“Thank fuck,” Beau mumbled. “Dairon, I’m sorry, I’m on my way now.” She had lived with Dairon briefly after her parents disowned her but that had been a few years ago, she wasn’t sure why Jester had gone there instead of her current apartment. “Is she alright? Is she hurt?”
“She’s fine. She tried to scale my fence and tore her dress and cried about that for about ten minutes and now she’s eating a breakfast burrito with her feet in my pool. Come get her. Now.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting in the car now. Thanks for not calling the cops.”
“If you had not answered the phone on the second call I would have. I’m going to sleep, lock the door behind you when you leave.” There was a click and the line went dead.
Beau stepped outside her apartment and jogged down the stairs to her car, tossing her phone into the passenger seat as she climbed inside. She hadn’t spoken to Dairon in almost as long as she’d been moved out of her place, but it was nice to know that she could still trust her with the important things. She pulled into Dairon familiar driveway and put the car in park, jogging to the front door. It had been painted blue since she’d seen it last, but it was unlocked when she tried the handle and she let herself in.
“Dairon, it’s me!” she called, but there was no answer, which was fine. She made her way through the house to the backdoor and saw the back of a little blue tiefling sitting next to the pool through the glass sliding door. She sighed but pulled it open and stepped outside.
Jester looked back at her and grinned, her eyes a little unfocused. “Beau! You’re here! Isn’t this the best!”
“Jester, I haven’t lived here in forever, why did you come here?” She walked over and started pulling Jester up to her feet. There was a large tear in the front of her dress that exposed her thigh and Beau pulled off her jacket and to wrap it around Jester’s waist and cover it up. “Come on, I’m gonna take you to my place to sleep it off.”
Jester hummed and let herself be moved and manhandled. “I was… dreaming…” she mumbled. “About when we first met. You lived here.”
Beau started walking her back into the house with a kind but insistent hand on the small of her back. “Yeah. I did. But now I live somewhere else, let’s go there, okay? Be quiet inside, alright? Dairon is trying to sleep.”
Jester nodded, her face suddenly serious. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, quiet, super quiet.”
Beau couldn’t help the fond smile on her lips as she led her friend through the house to the front door. She locked it as she closed it and then started walking towards the car with Jester still in tow. If took some work to get Jester in the car and buckled. When Beau told her to fasten her seatbelt she’d looked at Beau like she had never heard any of those words in her entire life and Beau had had to do it herself which sent Jester into a laughing fit. When Beau finally got into her own seat, she took a moment to catch her breath before starting the car and backing out of the driveway.
“Alright,” she started when they were finally moving. Jester’s slack, distant face was only illuminated by the street lamps that they occasionally drove passed. “You wanna tell me what happened? Why are you drunk, how did you end up at Dairon’s?”
“You,” Jester started. She could feel Jester’s eyes on her face but she didn’t look away from the road in front of her. “You used to like me. Romantic-ish.”
Beau frowned. Their friend, Nott, had blabbed Beau’s secret feelings for Jester just two days ago and Beau had quickly gone into damage control mode. She assured Jester that those feelings were a thing of the past and that they weren't going to interfere with their friendship. It was partly true, the latter part, at least. “Jes, yeah, but I told you that I was over it two years ago. It’s not a problem anymore, you don’t have to worry about me being weird, I promise, alright?”
“Do you think that you could be not over it anymore?” she asked, her voice uncharacteristically small. “Do you think you could like me again?”
Beau’s heart felt tight in her chest like Jester was squeezing it with her words. “Wha-Why? You told me years ago that you didn’t like girls ‘that way’.”
Jester hummed and let her head fall to the side to look back out the window. “Maybe I don’t. Maybe it’s just you that I like that way.”
“Don’t say that,” she mumbled. “Not if you don’t mean it. Jes, I don’t think you understand what it would do to me if you were fucking with me right now.” She backed into her usual spot outside her apartment but didn’t move to turn off her car just yet. She pressed her heated forehead against the cold leather of her steering wheel. “She’s just drunk,” Beau mumbled. “She won’t even remember this when she wakes up.” She took a deep breath in through her nose and let it out heavily as she turned the key and finally looked over to look at her friend. Jester was looking at the seat belt like it was the most fascinating thing she’d even seen, pulling it away from her body and then letting it snap back against her arm. “Come on,” she said, reaching over and unlocking Jester’s seatbelt. “I’ll get you something to drink and you can sleep in my bed.”
Jester giggled and started climbing out of the car. “Yeah, cuddle party!” She stood at the end of Beau’s car as Beau gathered her wallet and keys and stepped out of her seat. She squinted at the apartment building and frowned. “This place sucks,” she said. “I liked the other house better.”
Beau agreed with her with a laugh and started walking her upstairs. She let her inside and she stumbled, but caught herself on the wall. “Woah,” Beau said, dropping her wallet to help her friend stand. “There we go, almost there.”
She and Jester stumbled to her bedroom and she let Jester throw herself into her bed. She grinned dopily at Beau and it shouldn’t have been as adorable as it was. “Come on, come cuddle.”
That was a very bad, not good idea. Beau cleared her throat and shook her head. “I’m gonna get you something from the kitchen. Don’t fall asleep yet.” Beau turned quickly and walked back to her kitchen. She also pulled down her bottle of pain medicine from the cabinet above her stove and grabbed a couple sports drinks from the fridge. One for her to drink and one to have ready for Jester in the morning, then she went back to the bedroom to find Jester laying outstretched on the bed, wearing one of Beau’s t-shirts like a nightgown. Her torn dress was balled up and thrown on the floor. “Jes?” she asked, sitting the bottles on the nightstand.
Jester’s eyes popped open and she grinned tiredly at Beau. “You’re so pretty. Did you know you were so pretty?”
Beau blushed and decided to let that go for now. “Drink this before you go to sleep.” Jester groaned and whined and Beau had to pull her by the arms to get her to sit up. “No, come on, you’re gonna feel like shit when you wake up. This will help a little bit.” Jester whined more and kicked her feet but took a swig of the drink Beau pressed into her hand. She held it out to Beau to offer her a drink and Beau smiled but shook her head. “No, that’s for you. You don’t need to finish it, just drink what you can.” She sat down next to Jester on the bed and waited for her to finish.
“Hey,” Jester mumbled, closing the top on the mostly empty bottle. She sat it on the table and smacked her lips. “We should go to Molly’s carnival. For our first date. Like the night we met. That would be fun.”
Beau sighed sadly and gently pushed her shoulder to lay down on the bed and pulled the covers up over her collar. “Sure. We’ll talk about it in the morning.” She tried to tell herself not to get her hopes up but it was a little too late. She wiped her sweaty hands on her pants and got to her feet, grabbing the extra blanket from the closet and heading for the couch.
“Beau,” Jester mumbled, looking at her through half lidded eyes. “I love you.”
Beau sighed and squeezed the door frame in her hand. “Yeah. Love you too.” Then she stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her.