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'Am I dead?'
‘Was? Nein, why would you say such a thing?’ Caleb lowers his book to watch Beau as she slowly, painfully, levers herself up and takes stock.
First of all, she notices with this tiny bloom of fondness that Caleb has at some point folded his coat very neatly and precisely and set it as a pillow beneath her head, her own cloak draped over her like a blanket. Second, she feels like she’s been minced up that that blade spinning automatron. Third, they’re sitting in the hut. And fourth, which is really something she’s noticed bit by bit as she had come awake in the silence and the stillness, they’re alone.
‘I’m beat to shit and no one else is here? Said I’d see you in hell, Caleb.’
‘Ah.’ He manages a dry chuckle before returning to his book. ‘Good points. But no, we are not dead.’ He pauses. ‘Yet.’
‘Yet?’
‘We are awaiting, ah, evacuation.’
‘Evac—from what?’
Caleb lowers his book fully now, forehead creased with concern. ‘Turn your head that way,’ he asks, pointing to the left. Beau does. ‘And this way now,’ he asks, pointing to the right. ‘Mhm. You may have a, ah, concussion.’
‘How can you tell?’ Beau lifts both hands to her head, probes at the aching spots on her skull and neck. ‘I know how I can tell but—am I bleeding?’
‘No.’
‘Then how—‘
‘You are being obedient. A sign of massive head trauma, for you.’ He smiles that terribly awkward smile he does, thin lipped and shy.
Beau flips him off. Shuffles as best she can in the dust and the rubble to something approaching comfortable. ‘Funny.’
‘I thought so, ja.’
‘A real comedian.’ Laying back down, coat bunched more comfortably thanks to a few semi-violent punches, Beau blinks up at the ceiling. ‘Does the ceiling seem much closer to you?’ she asks, looking at the terrible pressing darkness of the fallen roof, the grey bleak stone. As if on cue, the building beyond the shield groans. The noise is muffled by the arcane field but she hears it—like the slow, pained moan of something dying.
‘It caved in,’ Caleb explains, quite needlessly. He must realise he won’t be getting much more reading down because he closes the book—no, wait, he’s still hopeful. He closed it around his thumb, anticipating the opportunity to open back to it fast. ‘A trap.’
‘The others?’
‘Easy, Beauregard, they are fine. Jester sent me a message—they are working on getting us out.’
Beau nods. Looks from his tight, pale face to the fallen roof. ‘How long?’
‘Hmm?’
‘How long was I out? How long until the hut disappears and the roof comes down?’
Caleb purses his lips, clearly disappointed. ‘Ah. That. Ja. Two hours.’
‘I was out for two—‘
‘No. There are two hours remaining.’ Caleb pats her shoulder twice. ‘I would like to read some more.’
‘Sure,’ Beau manages to say, though she’s not sure how much breath she puts behind it. All of her breath seems trapped in her lungs, burning and crushing inwards. Maybe that’s just her imagination, maybe—
‘Breathe, Beauregard.’
Maybe she just wasn’t breathing.
‘They will get us out,’ he tells her. ‘They will not leave us here.’
//
The time passes so fast. First an hour, with Beau pacing around and around the hut, resting the fallen rubble herself in an attempt to make a path, but the stone covers most of the hut, like a shell almost, and when her hands are blistered and red from trying to lift and push random slabs of stone, she finally gives up.
‘How much longer?’
‘Fifty one minutes.
‘Shit!’
Another circuit, and another, wracking her brain for anything that might help. ‘How much longer?’
‘Fifty minutes.’
‘Fuck! No sign of them.’ Another circuit and another until Caleb is about to beg her to sit, beg dizziness, fatigue just watching her. ‘How much longer?’
‘Forty eight—‘ Caleb holds up a finger, eyes glazing over. ‘Beau is awake now. Glad to hear you got help. Forty eight minutes left on the hut.’ He counts on his fingers then, with a sigh, adds ‘No, no pooping yet. Do. Do. Do. Do.’
‘Jester?’
Caleb lifts a brow as if to say of course. ‘They have returned with someone who can help, apparently,’ he relays, and Beau watches him scratch at his arms. Maybe it’s the thought of a powerful alleged ally. Maybe it’s the roof forming a prison for them. Maybe it’s the dark.
It is another agonizing twenty minutes before they start to hear something, anything more than the groan of the fallen building. A grinding, shifting, and then suddenly the light streaks in, scattering Beau’s vision with dark circles. There, silhouetted against the light, is a woman with her arms outstretched, the rocks lifted and clearing a path for the two of them.
‘I would hurry if I were you. I can’t hold this forever,’ the stranger says, and neither of them waste a moment before dashing to the finish line.
Beau grabs Caleb by the scruff of his neck and hauls him to his feet. Grabbing up his pack on her shoulder, as well as her own, she heads for the edge of the hut, Caleb in tow.
‘You go first,’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Caleb—‘
‘The hut falls when I step out,’ he reminds her.
‘Right, which is why we go together. Idiot,’ she sighs. Tightens her hold on his collar. ‘Ready? Three, two—‘
'Wait, wait, wait, are we leaving the hut on one or after one?'
'No, on one.'
'Okay. I see.'
'Yeah?' She waits for him to nod. 'Three, two—'
They break out in a sprint on one, diving and dodging through the now eagerly crashing down pillars and stonework. She keeps a strong hold on him, tugs him out of the way of a collapsing pillar, and then nothing more is falling and they're breathing hard, legs shaking, and it is with mixed relief and utter confusion that the pair realise that they have made it out alive.
Beau has only a second to ponder this before something barrels into her, something strong, wrapping their arms around her waist and nearly impaling her on a curling horn.
'Ow,’ Beau chokes out. ‘Hey, Jes,’
Wrong thing to say. Wrong. Thing. To. Say!
Jester pulls back, face a storm in fury and panic. ‘Hey?’ she demands. ‘Hey?’
‘I'm okay? Thanks for saving us—‘
‘I thought you died,’ Jester snarls, canines flashing in the low light of dusk through fractured windows. ‘I saw the rock hit you and - and you fell, and—I sent you messages, Beau. You didn’t - didn't answer any of them, I couldn’t even tell if you received them,’
Beau shakes her head. She hadn’t. But, ‘Jes, I'm okay. Feel,’ she says, taking Jester’s hands again and setting them on her shoulders. ‘Good as n-new,’ she stutters, when Jester lifts a hand to drag her index finger gently, oh so gently, over a particularly painful bruise. Probably the blow that knocked her out, if she had to guess.
‘Do you remember,’ Jester asks her, deep blue eyes seeming to dart back and forth between Beau’s own. It’s hard to tell, what with tiefling pupilless eyes, but Beau swears she can feel her gaze wherever it lands on her—on her bruise, flicking from eye to eye, staring at the raw scrape on her cheek. ‘Do you remember what you did? When the place was falling in?’
‘I—‘ Beau frowns, tries to recall. It hurts, like applying pressure directly to her bruised brain. ‘No,’ she admits. It’s hard to talk when Jester moves so she is holding Beau’s head in both hands, one on either side of her head. ‘Did I set off a trap or something? Jes, I’m so sor—‘
‘You pushed me.’ Jester tells her. ‘Pushed me out.’
‘…Oh.’
‘You’re so much faster than me, Beau, you could’ve gotten out—‘
‘No.’
‘No?’
Beau smiles at her as best she can. ‘I might not remember doing it, but I know what I would do in a heartbeat. No way I was gonna leave you behind in a room falling down, Jes. No fucking way.’
Jester doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, to the sheer unarguable certainty in Beau’s tone approaching ferocity. So she blinks, curls her hands around Beau’s face in such a tender cradling hold Beau loses her breath, and then loses it again when Jester leans forward, up on her tip-toes, and kisses her. It is a bruising, claiming kiss; makes no effort to disguise from the rest of them what is happening, makes no effort to disguise how this burning, bruising, branding kiss marks Beau as hers.
‘Don’t ever do that again,’ Jester breathes.
‘Jes,’
‘Don’t argue.’ Jester kisses her a second time, before Beau can do exactly that, and then a third time, each one more breathless than the last, mostly in a good way and a little in an "I nearly lost you” panicked bad way.
Beau decides to listen. Or, at least, not to argue. After all, it’s not like they’re gonna get trapped in a falling room again any time soon.