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Beau has never been a fan of being touched.
From her mother’s incessant prodding and fixing of her appearance to being repeatedly punched by her Cobalt Soul mentors, it’s never had a positive connotation in her mind. Those that lay a hand on her end up injured, often a swift punch to the gut or jaw.
When she got on the road and met her band of misfit travelers, her trust was few and far between. Each encounter brought on a little more than was there before, but she kept everyone at an arm’s length. If shit were to go sideways, Beau was more than prepared to ditch every single one of them.
Well, everyone except for Jester.
Jester made little sense in Beau’s mind. A shorter, blue Tiefling woman with the biggest smile she’d ever seen and seemingly endless enthusiasm. On paper, she was exactly the kind of person Beau would actively avoid. Optimists and those who killed time by chatting always gave her a headache.
The first time Beau noticed her odd affinity for Jester was when they were first paired into an inn room together. While pushing into the doorway, there was a slight contact of their arms brushing against one another. Jester didn’t seem to notice it, chirping on about how excited she was to try a new pastry she bought, yet Beau stood stone still in the doorway. That touch should’ve elicited an outburst from her. It didn’t.
She quickly shook off the notion and continued on, but was quickly reminded of her surprising lack of a reaction to Jester. Jester was a touchy person, a trait that became evident all too quickly. Little affectionate nudges, shoulder rubs, or really any sort of contact were frequent. Beau was a little more abrasive to these in the beginning, yet that slowly dissipated, too.
That was weird .
As time passed, Beau stopped caring at all. Beau knew Jester to be the party’s cleric, so she grew used to the quick touch necessary to cast Cure Wounds. Beau got hit a lot, so she ended up actively seeking out Jester’s healing. Her tolerance for touch was growing.
She didn’t notice just how much it had grown. Their travels together spanned from weeks into months, inn room after inn room shared together like it was routine. Her view of Jester had shifted from traveling companion to ally to friend. None of the others had fully made it into that status.
Things came to a head when they arrived in yet another inn, the two of them making their way into their assigned room. The single bed wasn’t a common occurrence, but it wasn’t the first. Beau had always taken to the floor instead, leaving the bed for Jester, but that night was different. They’d fought multiple people in the same day and Beau’s joints were aching, small spasms of pain shooting through her legs with each step.
“Hey, Jes?” Beau rasped as she set down her pack against the door.
Jester’s eyes shot up from where she was unloading her things onto the ground next to the bed, head quirking to the side. “Yes?”
“Do you… ah, shit,” Beau meandered towards the bed, the room feeling impossibly smaller, “Do you think I could sleep in the bed? I don’t want to kick you off to the floor or something, I just… man, my arms fuckin’ hurt.”
Jester paused for a second before a big grin flashed onto her face. “Of course! I’m sorry I’m out of spell slots or else I’d heal you up. But if you want to take the bed with me I don’t mind at all.”
There was a slight relieved nod from Beau before she paused, the sentence playing through her mind once more before it clicked. She was taking the bed with Jester, not from. “Sorry?”
“It’s no big deal, Beau, I don’t mind sleeping in the same bed as you, really,” Jester waved a hand and chuckled, “I really thought we’d have done it before but you insisted on sleeping on the floor the last few times. I thought, ‘ Beau, girls can sleep in the same bed as each other, ’ but I wasn’t going to tell you where to sleep.”
Words failed to come to Beau. She attempted to conjure up a sentence in her mind that explained how she didn’t mean it that way without implying she wasn’t okay with sleeping next to Jester, so she gave up. Instead, all that came out was a small, defeated, “...Oh.”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not that crazy. I bet Nott and Caleb have done it, too.” Jester shrugged as she sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her boots, turning to Beau, who stood dumbfounded. “Are you okay?”
Beau had to shake the feeling off, giving a halfhearted nod as she finished the distance towards the bed. “Yeah, totally fine.”
With her own boots kicked off and her reversible robe folded, Beau had run out of things to distract herself with. Jester had laid back on the bed and Beau was pointedly avoiding meeting her gaze. Beau knew she had to face the situation she’d accidentally put herself in, so her arms slumped with a sigh as she looked over to Jester.
“You don’t always need to heal me up, but thank you for doing it anyways,” Beau nodded before laying back on the bed. On her side, she had little space to work with if she wanted to keep a respectable amount of distance between her body and Jester’s, facing away as she pulled the quilt over them. “It’s nice not having to be hurt all the time.”
Jester wordlessly moved forward and closed the gap, wrapping her arms around the exposed skin of Beau’s waist. “I don’t want you to think you have to be strong for us all the time, Beau.” Her voice was soft, stripped back from her usual vibrant persona.
The breath from her words tickled the back of Beau’s neck, eyes darting down to the blue hands wrapped warmly around her. She once again found herself at a loss for words. There was uncertainty and hesitation that was unlike what she had felt in the past when someone’s hand rested on her. Instead, it was a question of why she didn’t want to push herself away.
Beau could feel herself shaking slightly in Jester’s embrace as she attempted to steady herself with deep breaths. “Thanks, Jes.”
Jester rubbed slow circles with her thumb into the hard, tensing muscle. “No, Beau. Thank you.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips softly to the back of Beau’s neck before pressing her forehead to the same spot.
With Jester fully curled into her, Beau fell asleep, finding it to be the best night of sleep she had gotten in recent memory.
Following that night, Beau felt a lot less on edge and snappy than before. She was often preoccupied with the thought of Jester’s arms around her, but that was less of a concern than her lack of attitude. Her party members were happier because of it, so she couldn’t complain.
The thing was, she really kept thinking about it all the time. Not only did she think of what happened, she kept getting stuck on what she could’ve done. She thought about what it would feel like to lace her fingers with Jester’s. She wondered if Jester would smile and laugh as she did it, giving her a sweet remark as she squeezed her hand back.
Fuck.
As much as Beau wasn’t happy to admit it, she knew what those thoughts were. She knew what it meant to think about someone like that and feel her heart tense and her stomach twist. Feelings like these were ones she actively wished to avoid, yet had fallen face-first into anyways. She had them for a girl that was as bright as the sun, yet a sun that likely would never look at her like that.
Snap.
Nott’s fingers clicked in front of her face, Beau taking a quick swipe at her hand to push it away. “What the fuck?”
“We’re almost back to the inn, you know,” Nott said “You might want to stop daydreaming.”
Beau felt her cheeks flush and a stream of curses rise up in her throat, instead taking a deep breath and shaking her head. “It’s not like that.”
“What? Not like what?” Nott pried, hopping up onto the seat next to Beau in their carriage.
“It’s none of your business, Nott, butt out.”
Beau kept quiet in the face of Nott’s incessant questioning for the rest of the ride. A few of the other eyes in the cart were drawn to them, but Beau refused to elaborate. The other people of her party did not need to know about her feelings. With her luck, they’d slip up and tell Jester what Beau was feeling and that could royally fuck things up for her. She couldn’t lose Jester’s companionship.
When they arrived back at the inn, Beau felt the tension in her gut growing. There was another invitation to drink, and Beau happily took it. She didn’t get blackout drunk, as much as she would’ve wanted to, but just enough to quell the anxiety in her chest. They had things to do the next day and she couldn’t be the one asshole to end up with a bad hangover. She just wanted a break from feeling things all day.
It didn’t help that Jester, who abstained from drinking, had decided to sit down right next to her. She continuously checked in on Beau to make sure she was feeling alright and wasn’t drinking too much. This had begun to drive Beau crazy, who refused to snap at Jester or tell her off, but desperately wanted to escape her feelings for five minutes.
It wasn’t Jester’s fault that every time Beau looked at her, nothing felt as important anymore. Her pressing concerns fell away when she saw her pretty blue skin covered in freckles. When she saw that big, toothy grin flash across her face, Beau could’ve sworn she never had a worry for a day in her life. Because what was truly important enough to take her thoughts away from Jester fucking Lavorre? Nothing.
So she stared. Through the hour and a half they spent in the tavern, she stared. Her attention was momentarily grabbed by conversations and obnoxious outbursts, but it all centered back on Jester. Jester, who kept smiling and saying her name like it didn’t set her heart on fire every time.
Sometime in the last few minutes before they retired to their rooms, the alcohol Beau had been nursing had started to wipe away her inhibitions. Smiles kept creeping up on her lips whenever she glanced over at the blue Tiefling next to her. Her thoughts flitted back to earlier in the day and the night before. Without a word, she reached over and laced her fingers with Jester’s, pulling Jester’s hand into her lap.
Beau’s cheeks flushed when she saw the incredulous look pass across Jester’s face, her stomach practically bursting with an ecosystem of butterflies. Beau grinned and turned back to her friends, attempting to jump back into their conversation. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but see Jester’s wide-eyed stare out of the corner of her eye.
“Jes, do you want to head back up?” Beau cleared her throat and turned to the side.
Jester blinked at her a few times before giving a vigorous nod, tightening her grip on Beau’s hand as she suddenly stood and tugged her along. “Yep! We’re going to bed now, you guys!”
Beau nearly choked as she let herself be pulled towards the stairs, giving her friends an apologetic look as she tried to keep up with Jester. She tried to keep her thoughts away from how it looked to be pulled towards their bedroom for the night by a woman, something Beau was synonymous with doing. Her fears were confirmed with the odd look both Fjord and Caleb shot her, but she shrugged before turning her attention away from them.
“Jester!” Beau hissed as her shoulder began to ache from how hard Jester had been pulling her up the stairs, clamoring into the hallway towards their shared room.
Jester let out the faintest giggle and ignored Beau until they reached the door, opening it and pulling Beau right inside. “You held my hand!” She whisper-shouted back.
“Uh, yeah?” Beau felt her heart racing in her chest, shutting the door behind them, “Don’t you do that all the time?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s a normal thing for me and you know it!” Jester laughed before squeezing her hand, “The last time Molly put his hand on your shoulder, you twisted his arm behind his back until he was almost crying. Fjord had to tell you to stop!”
Beau felt her face heating up fast enough she worried if she’d stay conscious long enough to continue the conversation. She had to collect her thoughts for a moment, sheepishly shrugging and staring at the floor. “So what?”
“ So- oh, Traveler, you’re driving me crazy,” Jester sighed dramatically before letting go of Beau's hand and walking to the bed.
The absence of contact was felt almost immediately. Beau had to restrain herself from reaching out again, a surge of feelings in her chest that she couldn’t verbalize. She watched as Jester unlaced and kicked off her boots, twirling around and laying back on the bed with a flourish. Jester patted the space next to her, giving Beau a big smile.
Beau slowly roamed over, taking off her own robe and boots. Her heart raced in her ears. What the fuck was she thinking anyways, holding Jester’s hand like that? She hadn’t thought about her entire friendship being at stake if she stepped too far. She knew it was stupid to put everything in jeopardy like that, yet she couldn’t find it within herself to be fully upset that she had done it. It felt too nice, too natural.
When she finally reached the bed, Beau took a momentary glance over to Jester. Jester’s eyes were locked onto hers, big and bright as they always were. Beau’s cheeks flushed in an instant, feeling her breath catch as she slowly sat down, clearing her throat.
The silence that stretched between them was infuriating. From Jester’s expression, Beau had anticipated her to speak, but got nothing. Her eyes peered straight into the depths of Beau’s soul, who resigned and slumped back onto the bed next to her friend. “Are you mad?”
“Mad?” Jester laughed, rolling over onto her side to look at Beau. “Why would I be mad?”
Beau wanted nothing more than to vanish, to disappear from Jester’s inquisitive gaze. Because Jester saw her better than anyone else, and that freaked her the fuck out. “I held your hand and I didn’t even ask. Clearly you’re… upset about it or something.”
Jester’s jaw fell open. “Beau, I’m not upset about it at all. I loved it.”
Oh.
“Oh.”
“Did you?”
Beau’s heart caught in her throat. “I… didn’t mind it.”
“You loved it.”
Beau shifted uncomfortably, beginning to turn onto her side to face away from Jester. “I liked it.”
Jester sighed. “You can love it, Beau.”
“I’ve never loved touching someone before,” Beau breathed out, quiet and shaky. She forced herself not to smile when she heard Jester’s quiet snicker behind her. “I fuckin’ hate it usually.”
In the corners of her vision, Beau saw Jester reach out a hand that hesitated and hovered over her skin. Jester’s movements paused, slowly beginning to retract it back towards her side. “I’m just so used to doing it all the time, I forget it’s not everyone’s favorite thing.”
At the sight of Jester’s hand moving away from her, Beau took a deep breath. “You can… hold me, if you’d like,” The admission came out as a murmur, followed by a barely audible, “I want you to.”
As Jester’s arm stretched to wrap around Beau like it had the night before, Beau shifted quickly onto her other side, facing Jester. Beau saw Jester’s face now, eyes widening for a moment before shifting into a warm smile. She finished the motion of circling Beau in her arms, pulling her close. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted you to say that.”
Everything felt so big. All of the emotions that swirled around in her chest felt large enough to knock her unconscious. Beau tucked her head inward, forehead pressing against Jester’s collarbone. Her scent filled her senses, warmth encompassing her body. It was safe. It felt like home.
“Thanks, Jes.” She said with a long exhale, finding it impossible to compose herself fully. “Thank you.”
Jester squeezed her softly, running one of her hands up Beau’s back. “No, Beau. Thank you.”
“Just… don’t let me go, okay?”
“Never."