Chapter Text
In the aftermath of Travelercon, as the sun sets over a vibrant and beautiful Rumblecusp, free from aberrant watchful eyes and brimming with life and feywild magic and a touch of divinity, Caleb goes to Jester.
The Mighty Nein, the crew members of the Balleater, and the former followers of Vokodo (Avocado), blinking and bewildered and regaining more and more of their memories with each passing moment, had set up the festival on a wide, open expanse of beach to the north of the island, all shimmering tropic waters and golden sand leading up to a lush expanse of jungle, the volcano watching over it all like a sleepy, steadfast guardian. High above the canopy, a green beacon had beckoned new arrivals to the island towards the beach. As the acolytes of the Traveler arrived, the festival quickly established itself as a strange celebration of trickery and freedom. All of them seemed to share a brilliant, eager, half-mad glint to their eye- Caleb supposed they would have to be half-mad, to make a journey across continents and oceans to a mythic island at the behest of an archfey-slash-sort-of-god.
He wondered what that made him and the rest of the Nein, making the same journey because of a chaotic little blue tiefling who loved with her whole being and who inspired them to change and grow by simply existing.
Thankfully, however, not all of the Traveler's followers were quite so… unprepared for the festival as their patron had been. Admittedly a couple had showed up with nothing but the clothes on their backs and lazy, cheerful grins, but a large number had thought to bring their own supplies and food. Many had brought their own clever takes on the Traveler's holy symbol, and several had brought their sources of artistic expression- inks, paints, pencils, paper, clay and fabric and simple musical instruments. Caleb had even seen a dwarf with a crisp, dark brown beard and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes lovingly displaying a collection of finely crafted dildos. The acolytes of the Traveler seemed to come from all walks of life; old and young, the sickly and the hale, humans and elves and orcs, halflings, dragonborn, gnomes, dwarfs- some had come alone, and others had come in couplings and groups. Caleb had seen a half orc in a sundress walking hand in hand with a tiefling with hair like a dying ember, a baby on her hip; he'd seen the old gnoll from Assarius sitting next to a mustachioed former soldier. He'd witnessed a slight figure with features that shifted like a kaleidoscope darting through the crowd, limbs lost within an oversized green cloak, grinning all the while. Cackles of laughter echoed across billowing tents, each more extravagant than the last, decorated with gold and silver trim, sequins, crystals, each a brilliant green like the Traveler's cloak. Flowers of all kinds garnished the poles of the tents, impossibly blooming, and a rainbow of blankets and tarps had spread themselves across the sand. The scent of roasted vegetables, pastries, and meats wafted through the air, accompanied by the occasional snap! of a firecracker and glowing faerie lights; and at the center of it all blazed a massive bonfire, occasionally crackling with blue and lavender light as a stick of driftwood was thrown in by passersby.
That was where it had happened; that was where Jester had opened her heart to her fellow worshippers, entreating them to love each other, to bring kindness, joy, and magical chaos to the world, to remember they had each other when the Traveler could not be with them; Caleb had ignited the bonfire at that moment, casting an image of the Traveler's Door into the sky, surrounded by lollipops and dancing unicorn hamsters. It was where Artagan had appeared, glowing and 15 feet tall, his serene smile trembling, falling, and wavering into an expression of genuine awe as he held out his hands and told his family that he loved them, before disappearing into the sky in a masterful burst of fireworks.
It was incredible- it is incredible. A community of outcasts, brought together by faith and trickster magic, bound together by their uniqueness. A network of unbridled joy and friendship that spanned the globe, that crisscrossed planes and utterly obliterated all the carefully constructed lines between society.
It's incredible, and beautiful, and fun, and it's all because of Jester; so when Caleb sees her break from the jokes and the dancing to take a deep breath, before turning to disappear into the fading light of sunset, he wonders .
Jester hates to be alone; but then again, she hates to let others see her sadness even more. The wonder quickly sours into worry, an insistent whisper threading it's way through his heart up to his brain. At it's best, the impulse is useless- everything he does for her is useless, pointless and distracting, undeserving; at worst, it's overbearing, intrusive, condescending. He should point out Jester's absence to Fjord, or Beau- nonchalantly, of course. Or perhaps he doesn't even need to- surely they would have noticed her disappearance already-
Caleb swivels his head around to where he'd seen them last. Hesitates, fingers twitching at his sides.
He follows after Jester.
When he finds her, she has her back to him, turned to face the sea. They're not far from the festival- only a few hundred feet, at most. If he listens closely, he can still hear the occasional whoop of laughter amid the evening jungle noises and the steady ebb and flow of the waves, but the distance and a slight bend of the cove gives them an element of privacy. A cool breeze skips off the surface of the waves, sending Jester's skirts fluttering around her knees and against the curve of her thighs; she'd kicked off her boots and socks at some point, and stands barefoot in the damp sand, movements focused and controlled, shoulders tight. A long, narrow stick is gripped in her left hand, and she uses it to sketch quick lines through the sand- pointed ears, slitted eyes, whiskers and paws. A cat, clutching a mouse with razor sharp claws.
Caleb clears his throat, but she doesn't seem to hear him.
"Jester," he calls out.
Jester jumps at the sound, sending a flick of sand through the air. She looks over her shoulder in his direction, ears flushed purple, half embarrassed, half surprised. Her teeth flash as she offers him a quick smile, her free hand coming up to swipe at her hair.
"Oh! Hey, Caleb," she says. "Have you, um, been there long?"
He shakes his head in a jerky motion. "No," he says. He clears his throat again. "I, uh. I saw you leaving Travelercon. I wanted to make sure you were… okay."
Jester is nodding along before he even finishes his sentence. "Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine! I just needed a little break. Big crowds, you know."
"Yes," he agrees. He studies her for a moment, then says, "I imagine it must be a lot of pressure, all those people looking to you."
Jester's shoulders slump marginally. She glances down at her drawing in the sand.
"It is," she says. Her grip on the stick tightens, knuckles going pale with the strain. "It really is. It's all been so much more than I thought it would be, and it's great! but it's also exhausting and-" she throws her free hand up in the air to emphasize her words, meeting his gaze again- "and heavy! There's still so much to do , and- I've been looking forward to this for months, but now that it's finally ending, I... have no idea what's next- like, do we need a temple? Where should I build my temple? How do I build a temple? I don't know! And it's like part of me is panicking so much it can hardly breathe, and I don't like that," she protests. "It feels weird. Is that weird?"
Caleb bites the inside of his lip, taking a moment to roll her words around the inside of his brain. "I don't think that's weird," he begins, "I think that that is all a very...understandable reaction. You've undertaken a massive responsibility." He pauses, allowing them both a second to consider, before continuing.
"It's heavy now, but that feeling will go away, I think, or at least get easier," he says. He tries to smile. "You're one of the strongest people I've ever met."
Her ears turn purple again. She rolls her eyes, staring at the ground once more.
"Until then," he finishes, "We, all of us, are here to help you. With temple building and otherwise."
Jester casts a quick glance at him. "I know," she says, "Thank you, Caleb." She attempts a smile of gratitude.
Her tail twitches behind her, and she slowly draws two pathetic X's over the eyes of the mouse, then adds a lolling tongue for good measure.
Hmm.
"It seems there might be something else on your mind," he hedges. "...Do you want to talk about it?"
Jester stops, circling the stick over the sand with a grimace, half menacing, half thoughtful. "...Not really. Maybe. Yes. I don't know."
She sighs, and thrusts the stick into the sand before tilting her head to the side, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. Then, "Do you ever... get this feeling like you're invisible, even though you're surrounded by people who know you and like you? And even though you're happy and laughing and you know everything should be fine and good and you have no reason to be...sad, you just…feel like something's missing?"
He does. He really, really does.
He feels it every time he sees her throwing her arms animatedly into the air as she speaks to Fjord, bouncing on the soles of her feet on the deck of the Balleater, or when she drags Beau into an imitation of a waltz around a campfire, making Beau roll her eyes even as her ears go red. He hates himself for feeling it- but self-hatred is nothing new, so he simply tucks it away into a neat little corner of his mind with all the other things he hates about himself to examine and obsess over later.
"Yeah," he tells her. "Yes, I do."
Jester gives a curt little nod, as if it's exactly what she'd expected to hear.
The very last rays of sunlight peak over the horizon, sending the crystalline waters into a blaze of glowing orange and deep blue. Above them, the sky stretches out to the ends of time, stars scattered across the indigo, piercing the darkening sky with pinpricks of light.
"Sometimes pain is easier to manage if it can be quantified," he says. "Do you know what it is you feel like you're missing?"
Jester's smile is not quite a smile. It's a wistful, longing thing, like mist in moonlight. Lovely, but fragile and cold. "Yes, I do, actually."
A beat passes.
"You feel alone." It's not a question.
She twists to look at him in a motion that sets her curls bouncing around her shoulders and the silver bells on her horns tinkling like wind chimes. She opens her mouth, then lets out a resigned huff before turning back to face the sea.
"Yeah," she says. It almost gets lost amidst the lapping of the waves on the shore. "Yeah."
Jester takes a deep breath, wrapping her arms around her chest. "I don't like being alone," she starts. Her voice is small at first, but it grows high-pitched as her words begin to leave her in a rush of intensity. Her shoulders hunch. "I don't like feeling alone. I felt alone all the fucking time when I was little, y'know. Invisible, and forgotten. And- and then I met the Traveler, and…I finally had someone who could stay with me. I used to think that he would always be with me, but- I mean, he's still with me. Always. But now I know he's with everybody else, too, even if they don't pray to him, and I get it's not fair to want a person to be all mine but I still do and I- I just…"
She falters. When her voice comes back, it's stronger than before.
"I just want someone to see me," she says.
The quiet that fills the space around them with her confession is a palpable thing, syrupy and thick. It makes his chest ache and his eyes sting at the glassy look on her face, and he's sure his own face must be a reflection of her pain. He struggles, and struggles, and pushes through to find the words he needs to say.
I see you, he thinks, and the heated intensity of the thought makes the scars on his arms itch.
"I know it might not always feel like it," he eventually starts, "or seem like it, but, we see you, Jester."
It's the easy answer; though they may make assumptions, they may overstep, they may hesitate and miscalculate and misjudge- all of them, everyone in the Mighty Nein, Beau, Fjord, Veth, Caduceus, Yasha- himself- all of them see her. All of them love her. It's impossible not to. "We see you, and...we care for you. We're with you. As long as you'll have us."
His words sink into the silence between them. Jester's head bows, thinking. Behind them, the waves rush in, again and again, obscuring her drawing of the cat and mouse a little more with each pass.
Give it time, he'd told her.
"I know you do," she says. "I know you are. I know."
The waves crash. The wind rustles through the trees. The moons above glow on the horizon- Catha, ever shining, and Ruidis, her woeful sister.
"Knowing something doesn't always mean you feel it, though," he suggests, keeping his voice soft.
Gods know he's learned that lesson more than once.
A smile of agreement jumps across her face, before fading away back into the ether. She nods, staring down at her feet as if they hold the secrets of the universe, squishing the sand between her toes.
When she looks up at him once again, her eyes are shining- and now her smile is a wry, sweet little twist of the lips, like she's just heard the punchline of a joke that only she is privy to.
"This keeps happening," she says. She waves a hand between them with a sound that's almost a laugh.
Caleb tilts his head, a wordless request for her to explain.
"I try to hide away, and you come find me," she shrugs a shoulder. "It's kinda funny, when you remember what it was like when we first met."
The memory startles a chuckle from him. "Guess so," he says. Jester keeps her gaze trained on his face. "Things have worked out well enough since then. We make a good team."
"A good team," Jester repeats. There's something in her voice, in the way she watches his mouth as he smiles at the word team that makes his breath want to stutter and his heart do somersaults. He tries to ignore it.
"Yeah, I think so," Caleb says. He can't tear his eyes away from her, and he knows with painful assurance that the smile on his face is far too fond.
Jester stares right back at him, her expression shifting from tired but thankful to wondering, to hesitant. Her hands fidget at her sides- and they're so expressive, her hands, he thinks distractedly. Always in motion, when she talks, when she casts, drawing, writing, painting, a gentle touch on their friends' shoulders, strong and powerful when she grips her axe. Everything about her is expressive and brutally, wonderfully honest- and so unlike him, with his instincts to lie and to flee.
"Can I ask you something?" Jester finally says.
"Of course," Caleb's reply is automatic.
Jester fidgets some more. She takes a deep breath, as if to steel herself, squaring her shoulders, making herself into the image of bravery, and then-
"Are you in love with Astrid?" She blurts.
Caleb blinks. He frowns, jerks his head back, then blinks again. "I- No? No."
Jester is blushing again, eyes bright and her freckles standing out starkly against the heady purple of her cheeks, and even through the strange, honest solemnity of the evening it's adorable, but it's also rather confusing. "Okay," she says, and it's clear that she is processing something. One of her hands jumps up to worry at her bottom lip, and for a long few seconds she looks at anything but him, ending with a furrowed glance at her drawing in the sand, now faded, before fixing him with a determined look. "Are you sure?"
"We've talked about this before," he says. This is dangerous territory, but if she really wants to know- well. He's not going to deny her. "I assure you, Jester, I am definitely not in love with Astrid."
"Okay," she says. Then, in a tiny voice, barely more than a rush of air escaping her lungs, "oh."
A beat passes. Jester toys with the hem of her dress.
"Are you in love with me?"
Oh.
Shit.
The world goes still around him.
The waves don't crash against the shore; the wind goes silent in the trees. For a moment he feels paralyzed, but then Jester shifts, takes a breath, and every piece of matter in his body goes haywire. His heart begins to pound, hard enough that he surely Jester can see it through his shirt; and there's a tremor that starts in his cinder-stained fingertips, a tremor that sets the scars on his forearms aching. It races through his shoulders and down his spine- it reaches into his gut and twists, and briefly the thought of oh, gods, I'm going to throw up on Jester's feet after she asked me if I'm in love with her pulses in neon across his screaming, foggy, barely processing brain.
The twist in his stomach subsides after a dangerous second, and the part of his mind still capable of anything even remotely resembling rational thought thanks the Traveler so profusely it must surely count as prayer. Shit.
His breath comes fast and shallow, heat prickling through his cheeks and down his neck. Jester is still waiting for a response. An eidetic voice in the back of his mind tells him that it has been exactly 12 seconds since Jester asked her question.
Jester's skirts sway in a breeze that he can barely feel. She rolls her ankle idly in the sand. There's a crease between her brow, and he hates himself for being the one that put it there.
He needs to- deflect, ask about Fjord, about Beau, about the Traveler. Lie, he's always been a bold-faced, filthy liar, just- just tell her something, anything-
Anything but the truth that has been buried in his heart for the past seven and a half months.
He is in love with Jester- uselessly, impossibly, profoundly in love, with a heart that lies long dead on the altar to the empire, in love with her flaws and her strengths and her faith and her blueness and her pride and her laugh and all that she is, and, and, and-
Caleb cannot tell her the truth, but he also cannot lie, and so.
"I'm- sorry," he begins, but the words get caught in his throat, broken and wrong like the rest of him.
"I'm sorry," he tries again. He doesn't know where he's going with it, and before him Jester is quiet, watching and waiting, her dark eyes wide and sweet and concerned , of all things, concerned for him. He doesn't deserve it, he came here to talk to her, to talk about her- to comfort her- and abruptly his mind is on fire with all the things he cannot, should not think.
"I'm sorry," the words spill from his mouth as tears spill down his cheeks, and his vision goes blurry. He blinks rapidly to try and clear it. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"
"Caleb," says Jester, and she's right there in front of him. Her hands flutter up and down his arms and across the line of his shoulders, not quite touching, but close enough that he can feel the coolness of her skin. It's a blessing and a curse all the same; a reminder of all the things he will never know, all the things she does not know.
He feels himself lean closer to her, pulled in by the gravity of her presence as if she is a star bursting with light, and he is some paltry speck of matter, a remnant of something shattered and ruined; a satellite sent hurtling through space, unable to stop or change, abruptly wrenched in a new direction, finding himself grounded and forever steady in her orbit.
Caleb forces himself to take a deep breath. Then another, and one more after that.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. There's nothing else that he can say. A still-panicking part of his mind is screaming that it's too late, apologies will never fix this, he needs to walk away.
But then Jester would be alone.
"Oh," Jester exhales, "Caleb, why?"
The look on her face is distraught, and she bites her lip before lurching closer, further into his space, and grabbing his hands to pull them up against her chest. Her grip is strong, but gentle, and he knows that if he pulled away, she would let him; he knows it like he knows the words etched into his spellbooks, something unquestionable and impossibly relieving in it's certainty.
He cannot tell her-
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Jester continues. There's a desperation to her tone, a hint of resignation in her gaze, and he can't quite tell if the trembling pulse he feels against his fingertips is his own. She shakes her head minutely. "I'm sorry, Caleb, I shouldn't have brought any of this up, you know, I didn't mean to upset you- I just- I wanted- I wondered- if..."
"No," he says, surprising himself, and there's a bubbling, hysteric, half-laugh half-sob clawing it's way out of his chest. "No, this is all my fault, I'm sorry- I don't deserve this-"
"Caleb," Jester interrupts him once again, and this time she is so blatantly distressed, almost in tears herself, and he goes silent.
For a long moment her eyes are wild, bouncing rapidly over his face- and then she drops his gaze entirely, staring at their trembling hands, clutched between their chests, and he feels cold.
"I don't know a lot of things," Jester starts, and it feels like a confession. Every cell in his body is enraptured by her voice, quiet, small, and vulnerable. "But I know a lot of awful stuff happened. I know you broke your heart. I know you blame yourself."
Jester lets out a shaky exhale. She tilts her head to meet his eyes again, and her face is resolute.
"You're a good person," she says in a voice like iron. "You're better than almost all of us. You care about everything and everyone so much, and you do good even when it's hard and you'd rather be doing something else. You laugh and make jokes because it makes us happy, and you're really smart but you never make me feel like I'm stupid or naive even though I am, and you're a coward a lot of the time but then sometimes you run into battle to protect us and you always make sure I'm okay and I-" she stops to catch her breath, before continuing, "you're a good person, Caleb. I know you are a good person. I feel it."
She wets her bottom lip. Somewhere between the striking power of her words and the aching, comforting pull of her presence, his hands have steadied.
"So you don't have to apologise for anything," says Jester. Her thumb brushes across his knuckles where their hands are still clasped tight together, and it feels like pure magic and he has to remind himself that he does. Not. Deserve it. "Not to me."
He cannot tell her. Telling her will only hurt her, further damage her trust and faith in the rightness of the world. If he tells her, her heart will break on his behalf and she will grant him forgiveness he does not deserve- and people change and grow and learn and unlearn and Jester is an orchestrator without even trying but how can he ever possibly-
"I'm a liar," he says. It comes out breathless and desperate.
Jester's gaze is steady. "You've never lied to me," she says. Then, almost coyly, she reminds him, "You haven't been able to. You've never gotten out of my Zone of Truth spell."
Oh, fuck it all, but she's right, and there's a dangerous, yearning, wild, unnameable feeling flaring in his chest.
He shakes his head. "I'm a monster."
"So am I," says Jester. "You've seen me flex."
Caleb blushes from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair.
He thinks of Jester strong-arming him up a cliff in the caves under Xhorhas- he thinks of the muscles in her shoulders sparkling with diamonds under the light of Catha and Ruidis, brilliant and unbreakable. He thinks of her speaking to her crowd of misfits and outcasts, telling the tale of a lonely little girl and the lonely god she loved so much they created their own damn religion, giving every fiber of her being to everyone she meets over and over and over again.
Jester is so, so much stronger than anyone gives her credit for.
Including him.
Caleb can feel a stinging sensation building behind his eyes again, and a sense of vertigo wraps itself around his head. He's standing at the edge of a cliff, and Jester's grip on his hands is his only lifeline.
Once, what felt like a lifetime ago, Jester had held his hand as he looked into a mote of possibility. If they were going to the Nine Hells, then they would go together.
Jester has shown herself stronger than anyone he's ever known. Caleb would trust her with his life- he has, in fact, many, many times.
He doesn't want to hurt her. He wants to protect her.
But Jester has never been one to need protection. She's faced dragons and ghosts and sea monsters. Jester outsmarted a hag, a peddler of misery straight out of legend , using kindness and love and a cupcake and the magic of memory; Jester proved them all wrong about her oldest, closest friend, her god, her Traveler. Jester survived betrayals by friends and chains and a lifetime alone, a life of being neglected by a mother who loved her as much as she possibly could- and it wasn't enough but it was all that she had- a life abandoned by a father who thought he wasn't good enough, who made the choice for her- and still, against all odds, through all the heartbreak, Jester stands before him, tall and strong and glorious with her unshakable faith, a love that she chooses to keep and cherish and hold on to.
Who is he to decide she needs protecting?
"I'm a murderer," he says, and his voice is low and hoarse, the words trembling under the weight of their admission. "I don't...deserve...this. I did something terrible."
Jester's mouth twists, her brows turning upward in a gently pleading expression. She stands on the tips of her toes, tilting her chin up until she can just barely brush her cheek against his jaw. Caleb's eyelids flutter shut, and his heart thumps solid and painful in his chest.
Jester doesn't give a shit about concepts as silly as deserving and redemption .
"I'm here, Caleb," Jester promises, an echo of his heart beating within her words. "I'm not going anywhere. So please, tell me."
His head is spinning. It hasn't really stopped, not since she looked at him and asked if he was in love with her. Not since that night in Hupperdook, when they danced and she held him and he started to fall.
He is uselessly in love with Jester Lavorre, and when she asks for anything at all, his only option is to give her everything.
And so, he tells her.