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Jester laid in her bed, looking up at the ceiling. Beau’s bed was next to hers but right now Beau was downstairs drinking with everyone else and Jester just needed a little break. It had been a long day and she just didn’t really want alcohol to become a part of or adjacent to it. A little break would do her good, she thought, it would help her sort through her thoughts a bit. She thought of Fjord and his likeness to Oskar. She needed to reread Tusk Love. This made her thoughts drift onto Beauregard, they needed to reread Tusk Love.
“Yo, Jessie? Are you coming down, we’re missing ya’”, Beauregard called from behind the door. Jester waited for a bit, hearing Beauregard not leaving.
“Ja, I’ll be right there”, Jester answered, her accent drawing drawing out some of the words in a way that made Beau smile in a very sweet way, if you asked Jester.
Jester quickly managed her hair a bit, not wanting to go downstairs with total bed-hair. She opened the door to her roommate for the night leaning slightly on the doorway but still taler than Jester herself. “Hi Beau!”, Jester said with her ever-present kind smile. Jester glanced at her friend a bit, just admiring the fine musculature of her. They were lucky she was on their team, Jester thought.
“Hi Jess”, Beauregard said, “ready to join us downstairs?”, she offered an elbow and a smile. Beauregard had been improving on her smiles, they weren’t creepy or scary anymore, Jester wondered how long Beau’s smiles actually had been that good, pure and sweet.
Jester hooked her arm into the offered elbow, “you betcha, can’t let you hog all the fun”, she stuck her tongue out at Beau as they walked.
Beau chuckled as a response, “well, that would be hard, considering you’re half of it”, Jester blushed slightly at the compliment.
They had just reached the bar area and the rest of the Mighty Nein weren’t quite unnoticeable, rather the opposite actually. They were all laughing and chatting, all the while Frumpkin was for some reason walking around on them, from arm to arm, to should to shoulder and so on.
Jester stopped and Beauregard with her, upon seeing the scene before them. Jester leaned closer to Beauregard, “what is happening?”, she whispered.
Beau shrugged, “donno. We were just getting our second drink, when I went to get you”. Beau looked at Jester for a second, “well, should we join them? I mean, it looks fun whatever it is”, she suggested and Jester couldn’t deny that it looked amusing.
They were all playing some drinking-game that they were still making up the rules for. Apparently, while Frumpkin was on you shoulders you had veto-power over who drinks and how much, but you also had to drink all the time he was on you. You would dictate who would drink and how much by using gestures, the gestures weren’t exactly decided upon before hand, so everyone just made some up. If Frumpkin was ever to fall or jump off of someone, they had to finish their drink. “Frumpdrink” they called it, a bad name for a bad game, Jester loved it and wanted to participate, without the alcohol part of course. Jester of course was great at this game, never getting to drink, maybe because she wasn’t drinking liquor or because Frumpkin just liked her better, she of course knew Frumpkin who liked her the best obviously. But another theory could be that they didn’t want to force her to drink, when she didn’t get drunk from it, Jester didn’t want to think about that theory.
Frumpkin had walked several rounds, when Beau began targeting Jester specifically everytime she got the chance and from that Jester actually began having to get new glasses of milk and felt a bit more into the game. She crossed eyes with Beauregard while she was finishing her whole, new glass of milk, Beau gave her a challenging look and smirk, which Jester could only return with a slight milk moustache. “Who’s idea was this?”, she asked them all, and they all looked around for a while, all a bit drunk, before all pointing to Beau.
Upon getting accused of getting the idea, Beau asked, “What? The fuck?.. No?”, Caleb then explained how before she went to get Jester, Frumpkin began drinking from her mug and she said, “wouldn’t it be funny if Frumpkin decided who drinks?”,
“and then we made sure he did.”, Fjord explained with a chuckle and a slight burp that he tried to hide. Beauregard nodded along to the whole explanation.
“Man you’re drunk guys, I love you made my comment into a drinking game. Probably my proudest moment ever”, Beau said
“No way, remember when you read smut out loud on our way to Xhorhas for the first time?”, Jester piped in with an innocent giggle.
“You’re right. That, was my proudest moment”.
Jester was looking at her drunk flock of friends as most of them were obviously past their bedtime, Nott and Caleb were currently guiding each other to their room as Yasha and Fjord, and molly and Cadeuces did the same. She looked at Beau who was standing at the bar, either chatting up the cute waitress or ordering another drink. Probably both, if Jester knew her as well as she thought. Jester found herself again looking at the still admirable body of Beauregard, even while drunk she seemed to be effortlessly flexing all her muscles just right. Jester couldn’t even give alcohol the blame, when she got a rather smutty thought for a second before shaking it away, with a violet blush still present on her cheeks.
Beau came back caring two glasses of milk, setting one down in front of herself and one down in front of Jester, who looked at it with confused before looking up at Beau. “So, I was going to get something more to drink, but then I thought it’d be dickish not to get some for you if we were the only two anyway, then I couldn’t get you anything but milk, but I can’t drink alcohol when you’re not doing so, so I opted to only get you some milk, but then I realised you probably didn’t want to drink alone, so I got myself a glass too”, Beau explained speeding through the words.
“Ok, well thanks Beau!”, Jester took the glass in hand and held it towards her, “cheers”, she smiled.
“Cheers”, Beauregard responded, clinking their glasses together and drinking of the milk as if it was a glass of whisky.
Jester looked at her now empty glass of milk, “you know Beau?”, Jester asked and Beau nodded at her, “do you want to read Tusk Love, with me again?”.
“I don’t know how good of a reading partner I will be right now, but sure Jessie, I’d love to”. Jester cringed at her brain as it purposefully misheard the last word Beau said as you.
“What if I just don’t see it”, Jester said out loud without knowing, trying to force herself out of unnecessary those thoughts.
“Don’t see what?”, Beau asked leaning closer and of course unknowingly showing of her body even better, making Jester try to will those thoughts away even more.
“Oh, I said that? I, erm, I’m just caught in a loop of unpleasant thoughts and images ya know?”
“Oh, of course I do, yes. I’d say just do your hobby, no wait, maybe painting it doesn’t help probably just makes it more permanent doesn’t it? I’d say training works for clearing your mind”, Beau tried to word out some helpful advice, that just ended up doing the opposite.
The two felt their bedtime was also coming soon now, it was really pulling at their eyelids. Jester didn’t think the sleepiness helped her fight her brain as she slowly delved deeper and deeper into the loop and images and thoughts of Beau. Beau stopped the both of them right as Jester had stepped through the door to their room, “Jess?”.
“Yeah Beau?”, she responded.
“So, you’ve been acting a bit weird tonight, so I just wanted to ask. Is everything fine?”, Beau leaned on the door just like she had when she got Jester out from the room. “If you don’t want me to know, then I can promise you that I’m drunk and tired enough right now that I won’t remember if I don’t write it down”, there was silent for a moment, “so yeah, anything on your... heart?”, Beau tried to sound supportive.
“Erm”, Jester started with a blush on her cheeks, “I don’t know if I want to risk it to be honest, I’m fine, it’s just weird, okay?”, Jester offered looking up at Beau.
“Okay, just. Tell me if anything ok?”, Beau said
“Okay, Beau”.
Jester waited until she was certain Beauregard was sleeping, she even softly asked if she was, just to make sure, “Beau?”, there was no response, “I think I might. just might, have a crush on you and that’s weird I’m sorry”, she confessed before laying down on her bed, with her back to Beau with a bit lighter heart. Unbeknownst to her Beau was smiling at hearing the confession as she too began to fall asleep