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“Can I kiss you?”
Jester’s legs went weak as Fjord pulled her into his arms and whispered the question. For a moment it felt like time froze, like nothing else existed in the world except for him. His face just inches from hers. She nearly froze too, until she realized that he was waiting for her answer and she nodded as she leaned into him. With one hand on the small of her back he reached the other one up to cup her cheek and pressed his lips against hers. He was so gentle; it was if he felt she would vanish into ripples like a reflection in a pond if he were any rougher. Feeling like she was in a dream, Jester wrapped one arm around Fjord’s waist and brought her other hand up to hold the wrist that was cupping her face, kissing him back a bit more intensely than he had initiated. Time still frozen, Jester wasn’t sure how long the embrace lasted before they both pulled away, almost in tandem, and just stood there breathing in synchronicity for a moment.
“Kissing is a lot more fun when you’re not dying” Jester giggled.
Fjord laughed with her. “Yeah, much better when you’re not underwater and dying.” He stared into her eyes for just a moment longer before reality came back and the grin slowly faded from his face. “You’re sure we have to fight this thing?” You’re sure we can’t just run away together and never look back? He left unsaid.
“Yeah, yeah we have to. We have to do it Fjord.”
“I know, I know we do.” He sighed. “Alright. Well, good night, Jester.”
“Good night, Fjord.”
Fjord started walking away but stopped when he felt Jester’s hand on his wrist once more. He turned back and smiled as he found her reaching for one more kiss. He bent down and she closed her eyes, but he chastely kissed her cheek as she had done to him a few times before, especially when they had first become friends. It was odd, he reflected silently, she hadn’t done it the past few months but he hadn’t really realized it until this very moment.
“Sleep well. I look forward to seeing you in the morning” he whispered, then left her standing on the threshold as he crossed back over to his room and softly shut the door.
Fjord didn’t sleep that much that night. He couldn’t; every time he closed his eyes he was reminded of the way Jester’s torso fit so perfectly in his arms; the way she somehow smelled like cinnamon despite all the exertion of the previous day; the way her lips tasted…
In the morning he was up quite early, floating down through the iris towards the dining room before anyone else was even apparently awake. The cats brought him a hot cup of coffee as he sat in the lounge and waited for the others to rouse.
When Jester woke up she momentarily forgot about the previous night’s events, until she saw the unicorn lying beside her on the bed and it rushed back in a wave. A grin spread unwittingly across her face as she clutched it gleefully to her chest before hopping out of bed and getting dressed.
When she was finally ready for the day she nearly skipped out the door towards the iris but was intercepted by Beau who was coming out of her own room at the same time.
“Oh hey, Jes” Beau grinned. “You have a good night?”
“Good morning, Beau! I did, I did.”
“You uhhh, you had a visitor, eh?”
“You… what? How did-?”
“Come on, you know I notice everything and you were basically right outside my door.”
Jester quickly grabbed Beau’s arm and pushed her back into her room and closed the door.
“Beau don’t tell anyone though okay?”
“Of course, don’t worry about it. You wanna tell me about it, since I already know?”
The cleric flopped down on the couch by the fire and hid her face in one of the throw pillows. “I liked him for so long, you know? But I thought he didn’t like me so I just let it go, but we’ve been such good friends and I really care about him! I mean obviously I care about all of you. But he’s been so nice to me and he takes care of me and I thought he was just being like a big brother like Cadeuces is. But I still always get butterflies when we’re alone together but I thought it was just me! And then last night I find out he feels the same! And he kissed me and oh my god Beau. Beau.” Jester pulled the pillow off her face. “He is so sweet! He kissed me and he was so gentle! And he asked me if he could kiss me before he did it and I swear I forgot how to speak Common in that moment. But like you know how a few months ago I was like ohh, does a kiss when he’s saving me from drowning count as a kiss? And I really thought that maybe it did? Well now that I’ve had a proper kiss I know that that definitely wasn’t the same. But like, do you think maybe he had this feeling for me all the way back then?”
Beau just smiled as the tiefling went on and on. She was really happy to see her friend so happy. “I think he did, even if he didn’t know it then.” She meandered over to the couch and sat down next to Jester. “I mean, I can’t truthfully say I’m surprised about this. I’ve seen it coming for a while.”
Jester sat up and turned to look at her. “Beau, how do you know if you’re in love?”
Beau blinked for a moment. “That’s a heavy question, Jes… I don’t think that there’s one right answer, but I guess… I guess it’s when your heart and your head agree, in some ways. I think that if it’s just your heart then it’s just a crush. But when you get to know that person more, and you trust them, and you know that they make your life better, and your heart still feels that way, then it’s love. Like, we talked back when we first met about how you felt about him, but do you really think you knew him then? I mean, he still had that cowboy accent back then. We didn’t know who he was. So I think that was just a crush back then, but you’ve learned so much about him since then. But really, in the end, that’s a question that you need to answer for yourself. That’s just my opinion on it.”
Jester grinned and poked Beau in the stomach. “I don’t think you were just talking about me and Fjord, were you?”
Beau tried to keep her face straight but the heat rushing to her cheeks gave her away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about” she lied. Jester didn’t reply, just gave her a knowing look. It took a moment, but the cleric was patient and the monk finally cracked. “Okay fine. It’s Yasha. I mean, I’m pretty sure you knew that. But like, she gave me this letter and it was literally the sweetest thing I’ve ever read. And gosh, my heart is screaming at me to be with her, and my head absolutely agrees. So I guess by my own definition…. Well, yeah. But I just don’t know how to get there, you know? I mean, the letter said some really nice things. And maybe she was just being nice, but I think, I mean, I’m sure it was pretty clear what she meant and I’m just being an idiot. But what if I’m wrong? And even if I’m right, I just don’t know how to get there from here. Or I do know, but I’m scared. I’ve never really let myself be vulnerable with anyone before. I usually just fuck, I don’t usually feel. But I feel so safe with her! Like I can be vulnerable, maybe. Ugh.” This time it was Beau’s turn to hide her face, resting it in the palms of her hands.
“Beauregard Lionnett,” Jester chided, “Yasha did the hard bit. She opened that door. All you have to do is walk through it. You know in your heart that she feels the same way about you as you do about her. You are being an idiot, but love makes us all stupid sometimes. But really, what does love have to do, hit you over the head with a stick? You’re the one who hits people with sticks around here, so you can’t wait for someone else to do everything for you. You just gotta go to her, and tell her you really like her. She gets you, right? So she’ll understand where you’re at. But at this point you’re really just wasting time. And as someone who just lost 5 years of her time, believe me when I say you should use every minute you have left. Okay?
“Now, I’m going down for breakfast. Up to you how long it takes you to join me.” Jester winked then hopped up from the couch and skipped out towards the iris once more.
Beau waited a few minutes longer before deciding that Jester was right. Screw making everything perfect like she’d been trying to do. There was no time like the present. She stood up and did a little shadow boxing to hype herself up, then took a deep breath and made her way through the iris and down one floor to Yasha’s room. Without allowing herself time to hesitate she quickly knocked on the door and waited.
It was a moment or two before it finally opened up; Yasha stood there in her leather pants but instead of her usual leather armour top she wore only a loose fitting undershirt. She was clearly only partway through getting dressed for the day- decent, but barely so in Beau’s opinion.
“Oh, hi Beau.” She said with a yawn. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no nothing’s wrong. I just um, I wanted to talk to you. But you look like you’re in the middle of stuff so it’s no big deal I can come back some other time.”
“No, no it’s fine. Please come in. What is it?”
Yasha closed the door behind them and went over to sit on the couch, but Beau didn’t sit next to her. She just paced in front of the fire for a moment before crouching down and facing her- the active stance helping her stay grounded.
“Yasha, I got your letter and I didn’t know how to answer you. It was lovely and so sweet and I’ve never… no one has ever told me anything like that. That you feel safe with me, and that you like all these things about me. I don’t really know how to process it, at least not in an eloquent way. But fuck eloquence. I really like you, Yash. I don’t know what that means or what to do about it but-”
Her sentence was cut off as Yasha gently laid a finger over her lips, preventing her from rambling any further.
“I know. The way we work, tomorrow is always so uncertain. It’s impossible to know what our future would look like. But I think all that matters is we can agree on this; I like you, and you like me. We suit each other well, and our hearts draw us together, right?” Beau just nodded in response. “So maybe we don’t have to know exactly what this is. We can just… be. Yeah?” A smile crept across the monk’s face as she nodded again. “Good. Then if that’s settled, would you shut up and kiss me already?”
Yasha pulled her finger off of Beau’s lips and Beau leaned forward, putting one hand on the back of the couch over Yasha’s shoulder and lifting herself to bring her knees onto the couch, straddling over her lap. Agonizingly slowly she closed the gap between them, hovering less than an inch away from the barbarian’s lips for a long moment and just sharing breath before finally pressing her lips against hers and melting into one another. Yasha’s arms wrapped around Beau’s torso, settling on her lower back and gently pulling her even closer.
It was a while before they broke apart, Beau being the first to pull back. She did so and looked deeply into Yasha’s eyes, searching for something… a sign of rejection, perhaps, as her fears told her she was likely to find. But instead all she found was openness, trust, and admiration, mixed with more than a little bit of lust, if she was reading things correctly. Yasha brought one hand around to hold Beau’s, lacing their fingers together and brought it towards her face, gently pressing it against her lips.
“I liked that.” Yasha whispered. “You taste like camomile.”
Beau blushed, slowly settling herself to sit next to Yasha, instead of on top of her, but still managing to keep their hands joined. She rested her head on the barbarian’s muscular shoulder and used a finger from her free hand to absentmindedly trace soft patterns across her skin. Goosebumps began to rise along the skin she touched and she stopped. “Where do we go from here?” she asked.
“To the dining room for breakfast, I guess” Yasha answered.
“I meant-”
“I know. We go about our day as if everything is the same, but maybe tonight, if you want to, you could come back here? Or I could come to you? You do have that useful mirror that Caleb gave you in your room” she said with a wink.
“I’d like that” Beau replied. “I’ll uh, meet you down there, I guess? Not that I’m complaining but I think you’re still missing a few garments.”
Yasha looked down. Her undershirt had slipped off her shoulder during their kiss, exposing much of her collarbone and teasing almost (but not quite) too much of her chest. She shrugged and left it as it was, leaning over to give Beau one last kiss and a quick nip on the lip before playfully pushing her up and off the couch. “Yeah, I’ll see you down there soon. Save me some bacon, please.”
“You got it.”
Beau dropped down through the iris; even once she landed on solid ground on the fourth floor she still felt like she was floating. She made her way into the dining room where Fjord, Jester, and Caleb were already tucking in. Jester looked up and Beau subtly gave her a thumbs up. Jester just grinned, and turned back to her pancakes. Yeah, Jester thought, today was gonna be a good day.