Work Text:
Sleeves ✷
Caduceus doesn’t roll his sleeves back down when he’s done washing up. It just slips his mind, and hums as he wanders back through the Xhorhaus, past the noisy partying room, filled with folks too enthralled with some sort of planning to help with dishwashing, and up familiar stone stairs, to his room.
That’s alright, he thinks, and lights an incense cone.
He sits, and he breathes.
Lets the distant laughing, the distant voices, turn to nothing.
He’s meditating, searching for nothing in particular, when there’s a quick knock-knock-knock on the door. It’s Jester, he knows, before she’s even opened it fully. She always halfway skips while she walks, and she knocks like the beginnings of a song.
The door creaks open.
And he opens one eye. “Aw, hey.”
“Hii, Caduceus,” Jester replies.
“What can I help you with?” Caduceus asks, adjusting himself where he sits on a pillow on the floorboards.
(He perhaps needs a little more padding beneath him. The bones in his behind are a little sharp. And he feels a little bruised all over, now that he thinks about it.)
(From all the gardening.)
(That and the tumble he took when he and Calliope were in the Dunrock mountains, along steep rocky ridges — when she grabbed him just in time.)
“Oh, I just wanted to say hi, you know,” Jester replies. “and see how you’re doing.”
“Oh.” Caduceus sounds more surprised than he’d like. “Well, thats very kind.”
“Ya, and y’know everything’s been so chaotic now that everyone’s here again so... I don’t know, I feel like we didn’t talk much. And you didn’t talk like at all at dinner.”
Caduceus slowly rises, careful of his poor knees, and sits on the barely used bed, patting the mattress besides him.
“I like listening to all of you — your stories. Its nice. You’ve been so many amazing places, all of you, done amazing things.”
“I know,” Jester says and sits too, floofing out her skirts as she does. “And you have too, like, travelling. I just like hanging out with you, though. Like, I’m even nostalgic about being on watch in the middle of the night, when our tits were freezing off.”
Caduceus laughs at that, quiet and low. “I like hanging out with you too,” he replies.
Jester grins and Caduceus returns it, watching the shiny bracelets that shimmer on her wrists, but when he looks up again she’s quiet suddenly, stiller that before, staring at something.
Caduceus follows her worried gaze, down, down, to his forearm, uncovered and bare, with no lichen, summer fur-shedding, to the scars there.
“Oh—“
“What happened?” Jester asks, then cringes. “Sorry. Only if— if its okay. You don’t have to tell if you don’t want to.”
Caduceus hums, trying to ignore the swoop in his chest. “Uh... That was something a long time ago,” he says, and hopes that’s enough for now.
Jester doesn’t say anything for a moment. She presses her lips together, looks away from the scars that mark his forearm and meets his eyes instead. “When you were alone?”
“Mh-hm.” He looks away, at the pattern on his trousers instead.
“Because you were so lonely?” Jester asks, sounding very young.
Because, Caduceus recalls, smile sad and slight, because he wasn’t sure if he felt anything anymore. But he knew that he and Colton had argued before Belle and him had left. And Caduceus hadn’t said sorry, and neither had Colton. So he threw his cup at the wall. And even as it shattered he was still angry in a muted, distant sort of way.
He looked at the shards and saw anger close up. He saw red, like his insides.
And the Mother helped to heal him after.
The scars stayed though, and it took a long time to get the stains — a trail from the kitchen to the spring — out the floorboards. There was a lot in the kitchen, a lot outside. Strange plants with tiny beautiful blooms grew in those patches in the garden.
They made for horrible tea.
And, he supposes, there were other times. But they’re unclear, just fuzz, like smoke, or like being surprised that its snowing again when it felt like it only just stopped.
“I guess…” Caduceus says after a long moment. He stops again, to think. “I was alone for a long time, I suppose and... uh, it was…“
“A lot?”
“Yeah,” Caduceus replies. “A lot.”
“So... you hurt yourself?” Jester asks, for something to say.
Caduceus shrugs, smiles in a remorseful sort of way. “I guess so.”
Jester nods, understanding. “You’re doing better now though?” She glances up at him with her big, shining eyes.
“Yeah..” he nods. “I am. A lot better than back then. Yeah.”
“That’s good,” Jester replies quietly. “You don’t look as tired anymore, you know.”
She rises onto her knees, reaching strong arms around Caduceus’ shoulders. He hugs her back and lets her go after a moment.
As he’s sitting back she takes gentle hold of his forearm, and before he can say anything the warm tickle of her healing shivers across his skin.
“Oh—“ he mumbles. “That’s—”
Jester glances at him like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t, without the usual grinning glint in her eye.
“Sorry, I just—“ She lets go of him. “I don’t know.”
“That won’t do anything, they’re already old scars,” Caduceus explains.
“I— Yeah,” Jester looks down at her hands, picking at her nails. “I know that was stupid but, I just... I don’t like that you were hurting so much. I’m sorry, Caduceus.”
Caduceus glances at his arm, at the scars still the same — white-violet, translucent ridges. He looks at Jester again and she’s chewing her lip in a worried, guilty sort of way.
“Its alright,” he says. “you didn’t mean anything.... uhm... bad, or unkind, by it.”
Jester adjusts her skirts, so they fall neatly over her knees. “I know... I just… worry about it, you know. And I know Beau doesn’t like anyone asking. And Caleb doesn’t either. And maybe Yasha too, after that time she got knocked out on purpose. So. I’m sorry. I don’t know why i did that.”
“That’s okay,” Caduceus replies. “I get it.”
Jester smiles small. “Yeah... I’m just glad you’re doing better.”
“I am too.”
Jester sighs besides him, resting her head against his shoulder in a familiar way thats almost automatic. He reaches around her shoulders and pats her hair, squeezes her shoulder, and leans against her too.
“Caduceus?” Jester says.
“Mmh?”
“Would you ever.. want to come visit me and Fjord? Like, out on the ship.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“I know the ocean isn’t your favourite but…”
“Yeah, well, I like you, so it’s alright,” Caduceus says. “I’d like to go somewhere with you and fjord again...” He considers it a moment more. “Calliope’ll be jealous.”
Jester’s laugh is quiet. “She could come too, if you want.”
Caduceus hums. “That’d be fun.”
“I’d like to get to know her more,” Jester adds, “and find out all your embarrassing secrets.”
Caduceus scoffs at that. “Well. I’m uninviting her now. Thats it.”
Jester laughs some more as she gets to her feet, dusting off her fancy new Xhorhassian skirts, straightening out the dark flowered patterns.
“Want to go downstairs?” she asks. “Just for a little bit if you’re tired… We could make tea or something.”
Caduceus considers it, considers the empty room around him and the laughing friends downstairs. The distant, distant warmth of their voices.
Its cold on his own.
“I think everyone’s calmed down a bit now,” Jester adds, and Caduceus wonders if he was making a face.
He nods slowly, decision-making. “For a little while. Yeah.”
Jester grins, and waits as he rolls his sleeves down before holding her hand out. She takes his when he offers it, and her palm is kind of sticky, probably from fancy candies in wooden boxes, but mostly it’s just familiar. Mostly it’s just warm.