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Beau holds it together longer than she ever expected to, all things considered. The hug does a lot to fortify her walls, cocooned at the center of the family she made. Enough to get out the gates, through the muddy streets of this stupid town, through the still pelting rain.
The inside of her lips are bloodied when they’re securing rooms in a tavern (thankfully one she’d never exploited in the old days). She chokes down a few bites of dinner, going through the motions of conversation, though it’s strained at best, on all sides. Everything tastes like ash in her mouth and her stomach rolls violently. Most of her food and almost all of her drink go untouched. Nott takes care of her leftovers and pretty soon Yasha and Jester are faking yawns and suggesting they all go to bed. The seven of them shepherd each other up the stairs, brushing against Beau’s shoulders and nudging at her hands. Caduceus and Fjord to one room, Caleb and Nott to another, even though by now, they’ve got enough money that everyone could have their own room if they wanted, and the other three girls split off together.
She’s swallowing blood and words and tears by the mouthful by the time Jester and Yasha are settling down. She manages to crack a joke that pulls a soft chuckle from both of them. It makes Jester stop sending weird glances her way and Yasha’s heartbroken eyes, from where she dragged one of the two beds under the window, don’t follow her quite so closely.
Jester looks like she wants to say something but every time Beau gives her her attention, she bites her tongue and instead shoots Beau a gentle smile that would soothe any savage heart. Beau tries to return it, for her sake, and Jester drags Beau’s bag over, next to hers against the remaining bed before burrowing under the covers. Beau tries not to think about how small the bed is or how close she’ll be to Jester and how she wants… something. Not the same kind of want as after Molly died, or when they took down Lorenzo but-
Yasha turns out the lantern and squeezes Beau’s shoulder hard as she crosses the room back toward her bed, “Proud of you.”
It’s not much more than a whisper but in the near silent room it might as well have been a shout. Beau’s chest tightens and her throat bobs and she can only reach up to hold onto Yasha’s wrist like a lifeline.
“I would have called ‘armadillo,’ within the first minute. I was kind of hoping you would.” She continues quietly, thumb making broad strokes across Beau’s collarbone that bring the monk a moment of calm, “I would have liked very much to punch him in the face.”
“Thank you,” Beau manages to strangle out. Part of her wants to laugh but she’s too stuck on keeping herself together to get out more than a twitch of her lips.
Yasha squeezes one more time, touches her temple to Beau’s in a surprisingly intimate display of affection and then lets go, sliding beneath her blanket and turning to face the window. Jester calls a soft ‘good night, Yasha’ across the room and the other woman rolls back over for just long enough to give Jester a smile before bedding down again.
Beau does her nightly stretches, tries to focus on the breaths that won’t even out, her heartbeat that doesn’t seem to slow. Jester watches her owlishly, through half lidded eyes and if it were any other night, maybe she’d show off a little more, flex a little longer, hold an impossible pose. But not tonight. It’s taking everything in her to seem normal. Eventually Jester’s eyes droop closed and Yasha hasn’t moved in ages as the storm rumbles on but Beau keeps going.
She goes through her stretches once, but she can still hear her father’s voice, the forced jovial tone when he first came inside and TJ’s sweaty little hands are around the back of her neck. Her chest shudders and she starts at the top again. Twice. Her mother’s silence when she’d asked about TJ flashes before her eyes, the endless excuses, the underscore of blame in every goddamn thing her father said to her. Beau’s legs are shaking. She tries to dredge up Dairon’s voice, their teachings, anything, even the feel of being near the ocean in Nicodranas, but it’s lost in the sudden sea of the wrong kind of white noise that crashes in her ears.
The air of the room abruptly feels very thin, like there’s a lot of it but no matter how much Beau tries to breathe in, it’s never enough or it’s too much, she can’t tell. Her breath hitches. It hurts. Fuck, everything hurts. She tries to drag in another lungful of air but the chasm of the room is too wide. The walls seem to stretch and the beds, Jester and Yasha get further away. Even the feeling of her feet on the rough floorboards seems tenuous, like gravity might snap and she’ll just float away without a trace.
Beau closes her eyes hard, hot tears rolling down her cheeks a-fucking-gain and she tries to focus on something, anything. In a desperate snap, she recalls the cool weight of Jester’s hand along her spine, though it had been hours since she’d been touching her, the whisper against her neck, do you want us to stay? The memory of it feels like the only thing keeping Beau tethered to the ground. There’s too much space in this goddamn room but she can’t move. If she moves, her skin will shred like paper, her bones will shatter and her muscles will crumble to dust.
Another breath and the air whistles into her chest. It’s too fast, too hot. The coals of the fire are still burning low in the stove at the corner and her eyes are starting to film over. She can’t see more then dark shapes, doesn’t even have her fucking goggles on, had tossed them in with her bag when they got to the tavern.
She manages to turn away from the beds, stumbles against the door. Maybe the hallway- Her hands are numb as she fumbles with the door knob to get out and save them from whatever the fuck is happening to her but her body won’t cooperate. Eventually she gives it up, pressing her arms tight against her body, her forehead up against the solid wood of the door but it’s not enough. She’s going to splinter into shards of nothing. Nothing.
Eventually Beau gives up on breathing and settles for just trying to find something to keep her in this crappy inn, with her rag-tag family. A sob bubbles past her lips and she’s just a little too slow to stop it. Her whole body is trembling and she presses a hand over her mouth to keep the horrible sound in. Don’t wake them up. Haven’t you made them deal with you enough today. It sounds too much like her father, like that terrible voice in her head always does. Something like a whimper worms between her fingers and she digs the nails of the arm still across her torso, into her side, trying to distract herself from the supernova of emotion detonating inside her chest.
Her chest is on fire and her brain feels fuzzy and her extremities are buzzing and how long has it been since she managed a breath? Lips part under clawing fingers and she gasps half a lungful that immediately tries to fight its way back out. Not even the air wants to stay, what will happen when the Nein see what her family did, realize what a hassle she is, do what they think is best and leave. Alone again. Alone always because of course they won’t want to stay, they’ll see that her father was right-
“Oh Beau,” a voice breathes behind her, the only thing that cuts through the cacophony in her mind and she goes rigid, trembling against the door, slumped on one shoulder. She squints, trying to look at whoever is there sideways but the darkness is swirling in shades of purple and black and she can’t see through these fucking tears.
“Beau,” the voice again, a gentle lilt of an accent, Jester, no, “Beau, I’m going to touch you, okay?”
One cool hand on her hip, the other coming up to pluck at the fingers over her mouth until Beau’s joints unlock and her hand drops, wrapped in Jester’s. Slowly, like she’s cracking away calcification, Jester pulls Beau around until they’re face to face. Every movement is an exercise in faith that Jester won’t let her drift away into the ether but if she can’t trust Jester to keep her-
“Oh Beau,” she whispers again, bringing a hand up slowly to cup her cheek, brushing a thumb at the tears that won’t fucking stop, and Beau closes her eyes and for the second time in as many days, she leans in and lets one of her friends dry her cheeks. She still can’t breathe or stop shaking or even use any of her other senses but Jester’s-
“I need you to breathe for me, okay?” she’s murmuring, soft and low and so close it hurts a little bit.
Beau opens her mouth to do what Jester asks but nothing goes in and all that comes out is a choked, “Can’t. Jes-” before she’s shuddering and gritting her back teeth so hard it sends shockwaves of pain up into her hair.
“You can, you can, you can do anything,” Jester whispers back, one hand still smoothing against her cheek, the other a grounding line between Beau’s fingers, “You’re so strong. You did so good today. Please-”
Jester cuts herself off as a larger shadow falls over them and something warm slides between Beau and the door. She flinches, gasps in shock and the scent of ozone and sweat and something sweeter, like lilacs, makes its way through the fog. Guilt lances through her again. She knows, they all know that Yasha hasn’t been sleeping and now-
“Y-yash,” is all she gets out between chattering teeth and a hand settles on each of her shoulder.
“Breathing, Beau.” The rumble of Yasha’s voice is a counter vibration to whatever is making Beau quake, disrupting whatever non-pattern it had set up.
“Here,” Jester whispers, pulling their intertwined hands to rest just above her heart, atop where the diamonds glitter in her deep blue skin. Jester inhales, exaggerated and slow, her and Beau’s hands rising and falling with each breath. Beau tries to match, hitching her way toward a lungful but it wheezes away and she flounders. Fuck, fuck, fuck. They could leave, they could just leave and it would be-
“Beau, hey can you open your eyes. I have another idea.” Jester’s hand doesn’t leave Beau’s cheek but her thumb tips under Beau’s chin and Beau blinks her eyes open. She didn’t realize they were even shut.
“Can you tell me five things you can see?”
Eyes rolling a little desperately, Beau searches for something familiar, something that’s not obvious because No, they’ll think I’m stupid if I do something obvious, make it something good, which is ridiculous and sends her on another spiral.
“’S dark. Goggles-”
“Just colors then. What colors can you see? Can you name five of them?”
“B-black,” because the shadows are everywhere. She twists a little, and as she does, a strike of lightning illuminates the room for a moment. Yasha’s head is low and close and Beau glimpses her eyes, “Pur-pur- Fuck.”
“It’s okay, take your time,” Yasha again.
Beau manages half a breath to spit out, “Purple. Green.”
“Good, two more.” Jester’s thumb rests against her bottom lip (Oh gods, oh gods) for a fraction of a second as it goes from her chin, back to her cheek to swipe away more of those stupid tears and Beau transcends enough to focus on what’s in front of her.
“Blue. Silver.” The trinkets on her horns, the shimmer on her chest, it’s like moonlight bottled in the room, just for them.
“What about four things you can hear?” Jester continues, trying to keep her voice light but as another bolt of lightning cracks across the sky, Beau can see the well in Jester’s eyes and she shudders, sagging a little. She doesn’t get far, Yasha at her back. Not alone. Not alone, not yet. Maybe they’ll stay.
“R-rain,” a constant beat on the window that’s making its way through the fog.
“Yasha breathing,” almost like in battle, Yasha’s inhaling slowly though her mouth, Beau realizes, for her benefit and tries not to let the embarrassment wash over her. A squeeze of her shoulders holds it at bay.
Distantly, there’s the shattering of glass and a low rumble from the tavern downstairs. It’s fairly early yet, most patrons still carousing for the night rather than battling the storm to get home, “People.”
Jester hums, “Yeah, one more.”
“You.”
“Good,” and Beau swears she sounds a little breathless herself. Stop it, “What about three things you can feel?”
“Floorboards,” they creak as Beau shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
“Yasha,” Warmth at her back.
“You.” Cool to her front.
“Mhm. We’re here,” They both squeeze closer somehow, Yasha’s hands slipping from Beau’s shoulders to rest on her side as she eliminates any space between her chest and Beau’s back. Jester’s forehead is almost against Beau’s and she realizes that at some point her hand had come to clutch Jester’s against her cheek. Gods, literally any other night- Her heart picks up a different beat as the dregs of anxiety start to ebb.
“Two things you can smell?”
“Cinnamon. Flowers.” It’s you. Both of you.
“Last one. Just one. Taste?”
In her mind, Beau can see herself closing the distance, pressing herself all the way against Jester, slanting their mouths to fit together, fingers in Jester’s hair, imagines that she tastes like sugar. Watches as Fantasy-Beau breaks from Jester lips but keeps her close and turns to catch Yasha’s mouth and- It would be so easy right now. And it would feel so good. The want shakes in Beau’s chest but then the voice, his voice again and the imagining turns to dust in her brain.
No. Do. Not. Ruin. This. Not this. Not them. They deserve better than you and this broken, stupid-
Jester brushes hair out of her face, “Last one, Beau.” It’s enough to ground her again.
It wouldn’t be right. Not now. Beau smacks her lips, bringing focus to her own, dry cracked lips and grimacing, “Cotton-mouth.”
Yasha chuckles and in a mirror of just a few days ago, after leaving Essek’s, Yasha slips a canteen into Beau’s hand.
“Thanks,” She murmurs, upending it into her mouth without decorum. She downs half of it in one gulp and comes up panting. The crashing has receded. Air goes in. Air goes out. The shakes are under control.
“Are you back with us?” Yasha asks, her voice still reverberating against Beau’s back.
“I… Yeah, I think so.”
“Good,” Jester tips forward the rest of the way and wraps Beau up in her arms. The force of her hug sends Beau careening back against Yasha but she holds firm, sliding her hands from where they’d landed on Beau’s side to hold around Jester too. Beau is sandwiched between the two of them and it should feel suffocating but it’s the easiest she’s breathed in days.
“That was a good trick, Jester,” Yasha murmurs and Jester wriggles her face out of Beau’s shoulder to smile tiredly up at Yasha.
“Mama had panic attacks a lot. That’s why she doesn’t go outside very much,” she explains, “But sometimes when we would take walks at night, she’d still get nervous and I realized that a good way to calm her down was to distract her. So we played I-spy sometimes but there wasn’t always something good to see so I added other senses.” She says it so matter-of-factly that someone uninitiated would have taken her at her tone. The usual undercurrent is still there. The one that makes Beau’s chest ache in a different way from earlier.
“Thank you, Jester.” Beau squeezes and Jester leans and Yasha is a pillar and for a few minutes they stand at the door to their room. The storm rolls on.
“Do you want me to go steal Frumpkin from Caleb?” Jester asks, muffled against Beau’s shoulder.
She snorts, “No, it’s fine. He’ll just ask questions.”
“Not if I don’t get caught.”
“It’s okay.”
“Do you want something to eat? It’s still early, and I know Nott ate your-”
“No, I’m not hungry.”
“Are you sure? Because-”
“Seriously Jes,” Beau has to stop, take a deep breath, soften the tone she’s already cringing for, “You’ve already done so much for me tonight.” Too much.
They’re quiet again, and Yasha takes back one of her hands to comb through Beau’s hair. She’s not sure when it fell out of its top-knot but it feels so nice that she doesn’t bother pulling away until Jester breaks the silence.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She whispers.
It’s like someone pulled the drain in the hot tub and all of the energy seeps out of her. She sags back against Yasha for a second and then starts to detangle herself from the knot of limbs. They let her slide out easily and she drags her body across the room and settles on the bed under the window. Methodically, she loosens the laces on her boots, trying to put her thoughts into words and only looks up at the two of them once her shoes are placed at the head of the bed and her feet are tucked under her in the lotus position. They haven’t moved much more than Jester inching closer, under Yasha’s arms and hugging herself to the taller woman’s side. It tugs somewhere in Beau’s chest. They’re both watching her with careful eyes that make her want to run again.
Instead, she breathes.
“I… I really appreciate what you said today, Jessie. About them… them loving me and listening with open ears and… And I know you intended it good and your optimism is always super heartening and endearing and I wish I could be more like that but-” She stops again, trying to order the jumble in her mind. Jester opens her mouth to speak but Beau watches Yasha’s fingers flex gently on her shoulder and Jester closes her mouth again.
“They’re not like you guys. Things are different. I’m really- Gods, I’m so happy you can talk to your dad and that he… cares and- Fuck. I’m not saying this right. Our dads are… different.” But are they really? Are you just blowing things out of proportion? Is this- Beau shakes her head to dispel the voice. Stay on task, Widowgast, Caleb’s voice replaces her father’s in her head and she settles again.
“I don’t know that I’m ready to forgive or… I don’t know if I ever will be.”
Jester’s throat bobs and she doesn’t say anything. She nods slowly and then breaks from Yasha too, bare feet padding across the room to sit on the bed next to Beau and loop their arms together.
Yasha stays standing near the door, watching, face like stone, arms crossed in the way that usually makes Beau swoon a little. Okay, it’s still making her swoon because emotional turmoil or no, it’s a sight to behold.
“Beau. May I say something?” Yasha doesn’t move any closer and Beau kind of wants them all in one place again.
“Uh. Yeah, of course.”
Yasha takes a deep breath and Beau’s eyes have finally adapted to the dark enough to sort of read Yasha’s face. And she looks angry. Not the kind of angry Beau’s used to, battle raged and out for blood. Or maybe still out for blood but… sad too.
“That man does not deserve your forgiveness.” And if that’s not a punch to the chest…
“If you want to give it, that is your own choice, but you do not owe either of those people anything. Not a fucking thing. He never apologized to you. Not really. They were conditional and full of blame and you. You were just a child and he was-” Yasha actually growls, flexes her fingers even through her sword is across the room. Her chest heaves and she starts again.
“You are too good for this place and once we leave, we don’t ever have to come back if you don’t want to.”
Jester is squeezing Beau’s and her eyes sting and I thought I was fucking done with tears.
“You put yourself through all of this pain for the sake of someone you care about. That is… admirable. That is strength that they will never have. I cannot imagine-”
Yasha cuts herself off again and reaches up to scratch her cheek before slowly making her way to sit on Beau’s other side.
“You are too good for this place,” she repeats, “Love is never an excuse for cruelty. That is not love.”
The spot on her shoulder where Jester is resting her cheek is wet and her horns are digging into Beau’s chin a little and she can catch fucking arrows but a sob is elusive and she sucks a breath between her teeth.
“Fuck, Yash.” Is all she can manage.
“Maybe I misspoke,” Yasha rubs her eyes and starts to get up but Beau catches her arm.
“No. I… I meant thank you. For… just thank you.”
“Oh. You do not have to thank me.”
Beau leans on her arm and pulls Jester with her and they’re hugging again because apparently, Beau is a tactile person now and being comforted is really fucking nice sometimes.
“You do have to let me get a punch in when you call armadillo, though.” Beau can hear the smile in Yasha’s voice and she lets out a wet chuckle.
“Yeah, me too,” Jester pipes up.
“Square deal,” Beau laughs, the last of the tension finally bleeding away.
“We should get some sleep if we’re going to fight an evil hag lady tomorrow,” Jester yawns, flopping back onto Yasha’s pillow and making herself comfortable.
“Looks like you’re sharing tonight, Yash. She kicks, so watch out.” Beau starts to stand but Jester’s tail whips out around Beau’s ankle and she whines.
“No, stay, we’ll push the other bed and have a huge cuddle pile.” Then as an afterthought, “And you kick too, Beau, don’t pretend!”
Yasha’s quiet and Beau turns to gauge her reaction, “What do you think? One big bed. You okay with that?”
“I, ah… I would like that very much I think,” and Beau swears just a little pink blooms in her cheeks but she’s standing to move the other bed too quickly to tell for sure.
The other bed scrapes across the floor and Jester wiggles over onto it, leaving Yasha the space closest to the storm still swirling outside.
“You take middle, Jes,” Beau mutters, “I’m waking Fjord’s ass up early to train and I don’t want to make you get up before you want to.”
Jester hums and then wraps her tail around Beau’s wrist to pull her onto the bed. Beau huffs and Yasha clambers over the footboard to take up her place, back against the wall, watching as the two of them settle. The beds are fairly small, so even two pushed together will be a squish for the three of them. Beau’s too tired for all of the emotions that stir feebly at sharing a bed with both of them and instead she flops down face first into the pillow, sighing in relief and curling up on her side, facing the other two.
They’re watching her again, Yasha’s hand half on Jester’s arm because theres’ absolutely no room and Beau scoots forward so that half of her ass isn’t hanging off the bed. Jester’s tail is still wrapped tight around her wrist.
She wakes up just after dawn with her head pillowed on Jester’s chest and Yasha’s arm reaching heavy over both of them. Her heart pounds but they both sleep on. The storm’s mostly passed and the edges of sunlight are starting to peek through the window.
A beam catches Yasha’s hair, sends shadows scattering across her cheek. She looks relaxed, for once, almost at peace. It reflects off the charms on Jester’s horn and down across her lips. They’re so fucking gorgeous it actually hurts and Beau feels a little lecherous, just staring in awe. She closes her eyes.
The room is warm. Her heart is a little lighter. Maybe Fjord can have a lie in today. Just this once.