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Fjord hesitated, handing out the keys, and said awkwardly, as none of them had bothered to in a long time now, "Uh, who's rooming with who?"
All of them were looking at Caleb, except when their eyes darted to Nott, and then back to Caleb. He didn't look down to see who Nott was looking at. Caleb knew he ought to say something, ought to make it easy for Nott, except he really had no idea what that would mean. She'd said she was sorry, that she wanted his help, but--well, fuck him.
"Nott?" Jester asked gently, "You can choose first, who would you like to share with tonight?"
Nott huffed. "Caleb, obviously." Her voice was brittle, like she thought he might say otherwise, and then he did reach down and put a hand on her shoulder, silent assurance that he endorsed her choice. He was tempted to scoop her into his arms, but she was in the semblance of an old gnomish woman, which would look very odd, and anyway--that had always been something he shouldn't have been doing. He felt a little more sick than he already was, thinking of all the times he'd just picked her up and moved her, held her for his own comfort, just because she was small and she let him get away with it.
He blinked, stumbling forward at a sharp jerk on his coat, and realized that Nott had two keys in one hand and was towing him forward with the other. Caleb let himself be moved, managing not to fall on his face for the second time in a day before they reached their room.
Once they got inside, Caleb looked down at Nott only to meet her eyes squinting thoughtfully up at him. She didn't say anything, just grabbed the empty pitcher and basin from the washstand and darted back out of the room.
Caleb sighed and went to sit down on the nearer bed, marveling a little at how spacious an inn room seemed, after all their time sharing a cabin belowdecks. All that time, and Nott had been--
He forced the thought down into silence and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and scrubbed briskly at his face with his fingertips, getting the worst of the now-dried dirt to sift down toward the bare wooden floor. Nott returned, dropping her disguise as she kicked the door shut behind her. She went over to the washstand to set down the pitcher and pick up cloth and soap before she came back to him with the basin.
She hadn't had to go far for it--Caduceus wouldn't have been far behind them, and the water had the faint moss-and-rocks smell that the water Caduceus made always carried, as if he'd dipped it up from a pool in the Blooming Grove. It was warm, too, which Caleb appreciated. Caduceus only did that when he was making wash water specially, instead of all-purpose clean water; Caleb hoped that he'd at least made some for the rest of the Nein, and Nott hadn't badgered him into spending an entire spell just for the two of them to wash up before bed.
Though he didn't think Nott would have to badger any of them for anything she wanted. Not today.
Case in point, Caleb made no objection about washing his face, even though he would probably need the thin disguise of grime just as much tomorrow. He wetted his hands first, rubbing the warm water over his skin before he reached for the soap and lathered it between his hands. Nott just stood there, as if she were attending him, until he'd rinsed his face clean and turned to look at her. "Did I miss any?"
"Yes," she said immediately, as if she'd been holding herself back from pointing it out. She dipped the cloth in the water and reached up with it--not touching him with her bare hand, he noticed, but it wasn't as if he didn't understand the feeling. He closed his eyes and let her fuss, rubbing here and there over his face, scrubbing at his beard in a few spots. Eventually she made a grumpy-but-satisfied noise and let him rinse his hands in the basin.
He'd never put the bandage back on his right arm. No point now, really. He unwound the left one instead, baring his scars, which almost looked unfamiliar after all this time keeping them covered. There were a few stripes of sun-darkened skin where he'd wound the coverings crookedly at some point while they were at sea, and the rest was pale as milk. The scars, old as they were, had faded to the same color. They probably weren't obvious to anyone but him, really, and now everyone else who might get close enough to see them knew what they were.
He still didn't like to look at them. He focused on Nott, instead, as she returned from putting the rest of the washing things back at the washstand. She got up onto the bed to sit beside him, leaning tentatively against his arm. Caleb put it around her, and she let out a breath and slumped into his side.
"I, ah--" Caleb realized, as he began to speak, what a stupid thing it was to try to apologize for, out of everything between them. Nott looked up at him, still a little anxious, and he knew he couldn't just tell her it was nothing. Not tonight. "I'm sorry. I've so often treated you like a child. You said you were grown, I know that, and it's not that I didn't believe you, but..." He shook his head. "I should have listened better. I'm sorry."
She didn't look worried, now. She looked baffled.
"Sorry," he repeated, looking away. "Sorry, that is a stupid thing to bring up, of all the--"
"No," Nott said. "It isn't, I just--I don't know if I know what you mean, other than times we were conning people, or hiding me."
"Oh," he said, and groped for a concrete example, aware that he was maybe only digging himself in deeper. "I... at Molly's grave. I just picked you up and carried you away, I thought... I don't know what I thought. That you needed someone to look after you. That you maybe had never lost a friend like that before."
He shook his head at himself. What had he imagined her life had been, to have left her so young and all alone and in prison, and yet she might never have suffered loss? But he hadn't thought about it. He'd just thought that he knew what she needed--that she might need him, as if he could be any good to anyone outside of a few special skills.
"I thought," Nott said, leaning against him more firmly, curling her arm around his back, "that you probably needed a hug, and it was good, because I needed a hug, because our friend had just died and we almost died and all our other friends were even more upset about the whole thing than we were. And it was cold as hell, anyway. And I never had lost a friend like Molly before. I never had a friend like him. Did you?"
Caleb shook his head without even having to consider. For all he'd lost, all the ways he'd lost the people he'd cared about--no. There had surely never been anyone like Molly, or any of the Mighty Nein. The loss of any of them would be something newly dreadful. If he had lost Nott--he couldn't even think about it.
"If I hadn't liked it, I would have told you," Nott said more softly. "But... after everything... you weren't the only one who'd been alone for a long time. I was alone after I ran from the goblins, and when they had me I was alone among them. And before Yeza... I was always alone. I always thought of myself that way. It would catch me by surprise sometimes, that I was someone's wife, someone's mother, that Yeza and Luc loved me. That I had a family. Even when I was right there with them sometimes it seemed impossible. I was so used to thinking of myself as the one no one wanted around."
"Oh," Caleb said, and he wondered if that was a fatal weakness his own youth had left in him; he had taken it for granted for so long, being loved and encouraged and approved of, having family and friends and a home he could depend on. Maybe that was why it still hurt, every day, waking up with nothing--except that for the last several months, he woke up every day with Nott, and that had been easier.
"It's nice to be taken care of sometimes, anyway," Nott said. "To not have to worry so much about being... normal, or responsible, or... tall enough."
Caleb huffed a little laugh, as much startled as amused, and Nott snuggled into him. He tightened his arm around her.
"And besides," Nott went on. "I didn't... didn't really want you to think of me as... you know. As a woman."
Caleb winced, opening his mouth to reassure her that--what? That he wouldn't have been attracted to her? That he would?
"Yeah, see," Nott said, poking him a little. "Because then you start thinking about what it means that we share a room, and a bed, and touch each other, and all the rest. And I didn't--I don't want you to be thinking about any of that. That's not us. I'm Nott, and you're Caleb, and this is what we do because this is how we take care of each other. That's all."
He nodded. "Is it... now that I know, properly, and you know--is it different? Should we...?"
"I just--after today," Nott said, her long-fingered green hands tangling in her lap. "I just want one thing not to change, because of this."
"Ja," Caleb murmured. She had not treated him differently, really, after he told her what he was; he could not do less for her, if it was what she wanted. Still, he couldn't help asking, "But--we are going to find Yeza, Nott. We will find him, and when we do--will it bother him, that you and I...?"
Caleb had absolutely no experience of serious relationships--not that he and Astrid and Eadwulf had not been deathly serious about each other, in their teenaged passion, but it had not been the sort of thing that followed any sane rules. Nor monogamous ones, for fairly obvious reasons. Still, if he thought of married people--his parents, for instance--he was fairly certain that it might be at least a point of contention if one of them had shared someone else's bed, however innocently, for months on end.
"If I tell him that it was only as friends--as family, really," Nott said. "He will understand that, he will believe me. If he believes it's me at all, that won't... it won't matter to him, as long as I've come back to him."
Caleb nodded, and asked, realizing as he spoke that it was sheer morbid curiosity and probably not a good thing to bring up, "And what about him? As long as you get him back, you won't mind what happened?"
"No," she said instantly. "Fuck no, if he's been sleeping with--with--anyone--after I died to save him--I'll scratch his fucking eyes out! No, not okay!"
Caleb leaned away from her slightly, so he could look her in the eyes and gauge how serious she was.
She met his gaze and gave a crooked smile. "I mean, and then I would ask Jester and Caduceus to fix his eyes so I could drag him off somewhere and kiss him until he forgets all about whatever motherfucker touched him while I was gone?"
"Yeah, that seems fair," Caleb agreed, smiling tentatively back. "Which bed, then? I am ready to sleep if you are."
"Yes," Nott agreed fervently, and she stood up to examine the beds, to firmly close the shutters on the window, and explore the room in general. Caleb occupied himself with his silver thread, setting the alarm spell. By the time that was done Nott had settled herself on the bed nearer the window, the blanket rearranged so that she could poke her head out, halfway down.
Caleb smiled and undressed as much as he ever did for bed, then put out the light and crawled in, settling on his back and closing his eyes. In a moment he felt the warmth of Nott curling against his leg, her head pillowing on his thigh, and he reached down to pet lightly over her hair.
There were still so many things tumbling through his mind, now that it was dark and quiet, and he knew Nott wasn't sleeping either. But it was easier to speak of other things in the dark, when they weren't looking at each other, but were close in the familiar way.
"I think I understand," he said quietly, his hand still resting on her head. "Why you didn't tell me sooner."
She made a soft sound he couldn't quite interpret--not discouraging, at least.
"I think you were right," he went on, very softly. "Maybe there's a difference, between using someone and relying on them."
She made a small hurt noise then, but didn't protest, so he was not far off the mark.
"I think I'm glad," he added, brushing his fingers through her hair again. "That you need me for something. That there was some reason you chose me. You have been a good friend to me, Nott, you have helped me and protected me and all the time I was lying to you and putting you in danger, and now I think--maybe I was a good enough friend to you too, while you were lying to me and wanting something from me. Or I can be, before too long, anyway. So maybe all that matters is that we like each other, like Jester said."
Nott moved abruptly, almost too fast to follow; she was just curled up around his shoulder, nose to nose with him, in the blink of an eye. "Of course you are good enough," she hissed. "You are my best friend, you are smart and you are good and I like you more than I like almost anybody, and if those Cerberus fucks try to hurt you I will fluffernutter them into a fine red mist."
Caleb blinked a few times, picturing that. He could not deny the appeal of the image, however unlikely it was to actually work that way.
"Please don't," Caleb said, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair back behind her ear. "If you see those Cerberus fucks anywhere near us, I want you to hide, and run when you can--because they won't just hurt me, or hurt you, they will make me hurt you in order to hurt me, and I will not survive that. Because you are my best friend, and I like you more than I like anyone."
Nott blinked back at him for a moment. "We really gotta get you more friends, Caleb. That's sad."
"I mean, the others," Caleb waved his hand through the door. "They're all next on the list, you know. But those people would make me hurt them, too. That is what comes with liking anyone, for me. But I do like you, and I like them almost as much. So let's try not to get anyone killed or captured and horribly tortured, all right?"
Nott heaved a sigh and lay down right there, nestling her head onto his shoulder and throwing an arm across his chest. Caleb lay his hand over hers, stroking his thumb over the knobbly joints.
"Yeah," Nott said. "I need all of you alive and not captured, so we can get Yeza back. So I didn't lie to Luc. So you better not die, Caleb."
"Understood," Caleb agreed, closing his eyes. He almost thought he would be able to sleep now.
"Caleb," Nott muttered, half muffled against his shoulder. "Could you call Frumpkin? I think..."
"Yeah, of course," Caleb murmured, snapping his fingers so that Frumpkin materialized resting on Caleb's belly, right where he could butt his head softly against Nott's side, and knead his paws gently along her arm where it crossed Caleb's chest. He was much better at being comforting than Caleb was.
Frumpkin started to purr as Nott's breathing slowed, and the last thing Caleb heard before he succumbed to sleep was Nott's sleepy mutter of, "Good. Good boy," as she missed Frumpkin and patted Caleb's side instead.