oh no I love this kind of trope so I couldn't resist dashing off something for it, especially because I've had Caleb/Jester/Caduceus on the mind. I would die of happiness if someone wrote a Jester/Beau fill, though, oh my god.
-
Caleb wakes.
It takes him long moments to gather himself, to take stock of his situation. He knows that he aches everywhere. He doesn’t know where he is.
Move. Make yourself useful.
He starts to sit up and—a jolt of agony bursts through his chest, stealing his breath. He wrenches the scream back, holds it inside his chest. He can’t breathe.
A moment of inattention, he remembers now, a moment when he was too busy juggling spells, a counterspell ready in one hand, his other hand reaching into his pocket to find molasses, and he had seen Nott on the other side of the battlefield, dodging behind something, and she had gone down, hard, her quick darting body going limp, and he had been useless, completely useless—
And then, the air driven out of his lungs, an enormous, crushing force all around him, and agony, and agony, and—nothing.
A grey cast creeps into the edges of his vision, threatening to drag him down again. He clutches onto consciousness.
Breathe through the pain. Acknowledge it, then let it go. The body is a vessel and nothing more, pain merely a signal that something is not fully functional.
His chest feels too loose, and he’s having trouble getting an entire breath into his lungs, his breathing shallow. But the pain fades to something manageable.
When his vision clears, he sees Jester leaning over him, twisting her fingers together, the symbol of the Traveler in her hands. There’s tears in her voice, and Caleb feels doubly useless.
He clears his throat, trying to gather enough breath to speak.
“Nott—”
“She’s fine! Everyone is fine.” Jester lets out a sigh. “Everyone is fine. We managed to get the poison out of Nott, and she’s okay. Beau was kind of beat up, but we got her steady, and she’s doing okay. They’re sleeping it off, now. Yasha and Fjord are keeping an eye on them. We’re at an inn. We managed to bring you guys here. It’s a good thing Yasha and I are super strong.”
He closes his eyes. Opens them again. Good. “That’s good.”
Jester bites her lip. She ghosts her hand over him, indicating his leg, both of his arms, his ribs.
“Caduceus and I, we managed to heal you, but Caleb, you were like. Crushed. Your bones—we managed to put them back together, but they’re still broken. They’re splinted now. It was really scary.”
Sure enough, he could feel the familiar grinding in his chest of loose ribs. It was good to know. Jester pauses for a long, long moment. Caleb isn’t sure if he should apologize for scaring her. It seems inappropriate. He doesn’t know what to say, otherwise.
“I’m sorry?”
Jester huffs out a breath, ruffling her bangs. She pauses, again. It seems unlike her.
“And, and I asked the Traveler if I could do anything else, because I’m all out of spells, and Caduceus is too, and he said, well, he said that I could maybe channel something though our bodies, and I said, what does that even mean, and he said, bringing him to completion, and I said, oh, you mean sex, like giving him an orgasm. And he said yes, it might work.”
Perhaps he hasn’t heard correctly.
“I know that sounds a little weird.” Jester lifts her hands helplessly.
Ah. So he probably hasn’t misheard. Perhaps fevered hallucination, then.
“You’re, ah, sure that this isn’t the Traveler playing a prank?”
Jester’s face falls, and Caleb regrets saying it at once.
“It’s just—you are very funny, Jester, and—”
Jester cuts through his babbling, her face setting into determination.
“No. He wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that to you, Caleb.” She pats his arm, laughing shakily. “Caleb, you were so hurt. Your bones felt like dust inside you, before we healed you. You’re still so hurt. It’s really scary. I wouldn’t.”
Caleb doesn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. To, make it sound like I don’t— You don’t have to. I’ll survive.”
Jester huffs. “Caleb. You’ve got, like, three limbs broken in a bunch of places and your ribs are real fucked up, and that has to got hurt a whole lot. It’s fine.” She smiles, even though it looks a little sad, a little desperate. “Besides, I want to try this, right? And, and I asked Caduceus, and he said that the Wildmother might be able to do something similar, and that he could help.”
Caleb hears the creak of the door behind him. When he tilts his head towards the sound—slow, slow, don’t jostle anything—he sees Caduceus setting a tea set down on the floor.
Caleb hears Jester heave a sigh. “Caduceus! I’m trying to convince Caleb not to be stupid and to let us help him.”
Caduceus folds himself down to perch on the edge of the bed. He no longer has his armor on, down to his soft, flowing underclothes. The sight is more comforting than it should be.
“Mr. Caleb. I’m glad to see that you’re awake.”
Caleb tries to gather together his thoughts, to ask an appropriate question.
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Caduceus saves him from having to formulate words yet. “Here. I brought you something that might take the edge off the pain a bit. Jester, could you help him hold his head up so I can tip this into him?”
“Oh! Oh, yeah.” She shifts under him, lifting him up slowly enough that it almost doesn’t hurt, and props his head in her lap.
Caduceus brings the teacup to his lips, tipping it slowly, and Caleb feels the liquid fill his mouth. There’s the touch of fingers to his throat, and he almost chokes—but Caduceus settles his fingers on his throat, massaging it to help him get the liquid down. It’s not very dignified, but he manages to drink. In a matter of minutes, the stabbing sharpness of the pain becomes blunted, still aching and present, but more bearable.
“Good,” Caduceus says, looking pleased. “So, Jester told you that we might have a plan to get you healed up, right?”
Caleb feels a hysterical laugh building in his chest. “I’ve been told that it involves my dick. I’m not sure whether to believe that.”
“Well, yep,” Caduceus says easily. “That’s the jist of it.”
“And you’re on board with this plan, as well?”
Caduceus tilts his head to the side, considering. “I haven’t done it, but I know how it works. I don’t mind. The Wildmother has her ways of working, and this can sometimes be part of it.”
“We just want to help you,” Jester says.
Her voice is tight, a little scared. Caleb wants to reassure her. He has been through worse. He doesn’t need this, he could wait until the next morning. Doesn’t deserve this.
But he recognizes the stubborn, determined set to her jaw, and protests no further.
“Well. I’m always up for new magic.”
Jester strokes his hair back, darting forward to kiss his forehead. “Okay! That’s okay, then. Okay. Okay, cool.”
It’s awkward to get everyone situated. Caleb is thoroughly useless, unable to move an inch without a jolt of pain through his limbs. It’s been a long time since he abandoned dignity, but he still feels a twinge of shame at having to rely so thoroughly on both of them.
But Jester maneuvers him easily, careful not to move him too much as they shift onto the bed, surrounding him. Jester shifts behind him until she has him propped up against her chest. The angle makes breathing easier, her strong arms holding him up.
He can feel the weave of her skirt underneath him with his shirt rucked up. His trousers are already gone, maybe cut away when they had splinted his leg and his arms.
He’s helpless in her arms, no spells to speak and no legs to walk on, a wounded animal curled up in her lap. With anyone else, it might make him panic, makes him want to find a shadowed place and hide. With her—it’s okay. It’s doable.
Caduceus reaches for something over the edge of the bed. It turns out to be a small earthenware pot, the kind that Caduceus has in multitudes in his pack. When he opens it, there’s a strong herbal smell. He reaches for Jester’s hand and drops a dollop in it.
“Is this, like, part of the ritual for the Wildmother?” Jester asks curiously, spreading it in her palm and holding it up to her nose. “It smells nice. Like the herb garden my mom had on the rooftop.”
Caduceus shrugs, smiling. “Well, no, it just might make things go easier. Who knows, maybe the Wildmother might like it, too.”
Jester takes a deep breath. “Okay. Caleb. Don’t move too much, because that might fuck up your ribs even more, okay?”
She reaches over him and wraps her strong, soft hand around his dick, and it almost drives the breath from Caleb’s lungs, even with her warning.
She strokes him, her touch curious, assessing. Caleb shudders. The sensation is confusing. Her touch feels good, but he aches everywhere.
It feels akin to holding his hands under water so cold that it feels hot, his nerves sparking with strangeness. He closes his eyes, trying to make sense of it.
“Is that okay?” Jester says, her tone nervous. She looks a little flushed.
He nods. It’s fine. He’ll be fine.
“Caleb,” Jester says, her voice stern, even through the nervousness. “You have to talk to us, if we want this to work properly. Because we’re the clerics, and you have to tell us how you feel so we can heal you, okay?
He breathes, in, and out. “It’s. It’s a lot. But it feels fine.”
Jester beams, patting his chest. “Good! Good.”
She strokes him again, more firmly, and his hips almost jump up into her touch, but there’s Caduceus’s big hands at his hips, keeping him still and steady.
Caduceus is looking at him, his gaze curious, straightforward, a bright line of hair falling out of his bun. Caleb is half in his lap, the homespun weave of Caduceus’s loose pants under his bare limbs. Caduceus’s hand is tucked in the crook of his knee, keeping him open, steadying him. It feels exposed.
Caduceus pats his leg, getting his attention. Caduceus looks at him carefully, holding up a hand. “It might work better if I’ve got something inside you. Is that something that works for you?”
Caleb feels his mouth go dry. He nods.
A breath, two, and Caduceus pushes a long finger inside him, slow and slick, filling him. Caleb can’t help but gasp. Caduceus’s hands are careful as he works into Caleb—deliberate, almost ritualistic in the way his touch asks things of Caleb’s body.
“Mr. Caleb. You have to tell us what you need, okay? Otherwise this isn’t going to work.”
“I—I need more,” he asks. “Please.” He knows his body, the way he needs a tight hand around his cock, a firm touch inside him.
Jester’s grip tightens, and all his nerves light up. Caduceus’s fingers are deft and long, and there’s an almost clinical precision to the way that Caduceus finds where to press inside him, joined to the firm pressure of a thumb on the skin behind his balls, working him over inside and out.
It’s almost too much: the singular intensity of their hands working him over and the pulsing ache in his ribs and his limbs. Held between the two of them and their gods.
It feels too familiar, just for a moment. The confusion of pain and love and dedication. Eodwulf inside him and Astrid astride his face, their bodies still aching from training.
Caleb pushes it away, taking a deliberate, aching breath, his ribs grinding against each other, the pain sharp and grounding.
He can hear them talking quietly over him, and it takes him long seconds to put the words together.
“—doing good, there. Jester, you feel like it’s working? I’ve got a thread of something coming along, for sure.”
“Yeah,” Jester says. Her face is concentrated and lovely, her lips parted, and she nods, first tentatively, then more firmly. She tightens her grasp on his dick, her eyes fluttering shut, a line between her eyebrows. “Yeah. Oh, that’s kind of weird. Kind of cool, though. I think I can feel you, Caduceus? It feels like, like putting my hands in a mud puddle. In a good way? Caleb, if you’re listening, I’m not calling your dick a mud puddle.”
He huffs out a laugh, jolting all over when the movement shifts his leg. The jolt of pain spikes through him, twisted up with the intense, unyielding pleasure of their hands on him, and he shudders, his body unsure, confused with sensation.
It’s too much of everything and not enough of it. He strains against their hands, reaching for something, anything.
“Steady there, steady,” Caduceus rumbles, his thumb stroking over Caleb’s knee. He blinks at him slowly, a banked glow behind his long lashes. “We’ve got you.”
He gives himself over to them.
When he comes, it rips through him like a tide, filling him up and emptying him out. He fumbles for a hand, finds Jester’s smooth, warm fingers, clutches her tight, hears her gasp.
And--and everything is light, light searing across his raw nerve endings, sublime and agonizing and beautiful.
Eventually, he opens his eyes. He feels exhausted, boneless, every bit of his limbs alight with a foreign warmth. He doesn’t think he could move, even if he wanted to.
Jester is panting, disheveled. She pats him down. “Okay. Your ribs are better now, right? How about your leg?”
He takes a tentative breath, deeper than he dared to. It works. It’s nice to be able to breathe without strain. He nods, not trusting his voice yet.
Caduceus passes his hands over his leg, removing the splint and squeezing along the length of his thigh. “Hm. Feels okay? Hey, I think it worked.”
Jester beams. “Ho-ly shit. Caduceus, we sexed him back to health!” She reaches over Caleb’s shoulder, holding her palm out. “That was. So. Cool.”
Caduceus high-fives her with his usual smiling bemusement. “Not sure I understood exactly what happened there, but hey, it worked.” He looks at his palm, then wipes it on the covers.
“Whoops, should have used the other hand,” Jester says cheerfully. “That one was covered in Caleb come.”
Caleb covers his face. Ah.
“Oh, Caleb, you get all red all down your chest,” Jester says, delighted. “I didn’t see that! I was concentrating too hard on the other stuff.”
Caduceus pats Caleb’s leg, tugging his shirt back down to cover him. Then, Caduceus blinks, wavers for a second, and slowly topples over, his long body barely fitting onto the mattress.
“Oh. Okay. I think that was a lot. Phew.”
Caleb feels a twist of panic in his chest. “Are you—”
Caduceus waves a long, lazy hand at him. “I’m fine. Just tired. Jester, how are you doing?”
“I am going to nap, right now, immediately,” Jester says, crawling over them to flop over as well. “Scoot over. Caduceus, you are too tall and you are very fuzzy, so I’m going to lie on you.”
“All right,” Caduceus says easily.
The bed barely fits all three of them, but Caleb is still too tired to move, and has no inclination to.
He feels strange, his body heavy and present but his nerve endings still alight with something unknowable. But Caduceus slings a long arm over them and Jester pulls them in, and the sensation settles, the divine made familiar flesh and body.
Caleb lets sleep pull him under, tethered by their hands.
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timeasmymeasure
Fill: the divine made flesh, Caleb/Jester/Caduceus, M
Date: 2019-02-22 05:26 am (UTC)-
Caleb wakes.
It takes him long moments to gather himself, to take stock of his situation. He knows that he aches everywhere. He doesn’t know where he is.
Move. Make yourself useful.
He starts to sit up and—a jolt of agony bursts through his chest, stealing his breath. He wrenches the scream back, holds it inside his chest. He can’t breathe.
A moment of inattention, he remembers now, a moment when he was too busy juggling spells, a counterspell ready in one hand, his other hand reaching into his pocket to find molasses, and he had seen Nott on the other side of the battlefield, dodging behind something, and she had gone down, hard, her quick darting body going limp, and he had been useless, completely useless—
And then, the air driven out of his lungs, an enormous, crushing force all around him, and agony, and agony, and—nothing.
A grey cast creeps into the edges of his vision, threatening to drag him down again. He clutches onto consciousness.
Breathe through the pain. Acknowledge it, then let it go. The body is a vessel and nothing more, pain merely a signal that something is not fully functional.
His chest feels too loose, and he’s having trouble getting an entire breath into his lungs, his breathing shallow. But the pain fades to something manageable.
When his vision clears, he sees Jester leaning over him, twisting her fingers together, the symbol of the Traveler in her hands. There’s tears in her voice, and Caleb feels doubly useless.
“Caleb! Caleb, oh, you’re awake. Oh, that’s good, that’s really good.”
He clears his throat, trying to gather enough breath to speak.
“Nott—”
“She’s fine! Everyone is fine.” Jester lets out a sigh. “Everyone is fine. We managed to get the poison out of Nott, and she’s okay. Beau was kind of beat up, but we got her steady, and she’s doing okay. They’re sleeping it off, now. Yasha and Fjord are keeping an eye on them. We’re at an inn. We managed to bring you guys here. It’s a good thing Yasha and I are super strong.”
He closes his eyes. Opens them again. Good. “That’s good.”
Jester bites her lip. She ghosts her hand over him, indicating his leg, both of his arms, his ribs.
“Caduceus and I, we managed to heal you, but Caleb, you were like. Crushed. Your bones—we managed to put them back together, but they’re still broken. They’re splinted now. It was really scary.”
Sure enough, he could feel the familiar grinding in his chest of loose ribs. It was good to know. Jester pauses for a long, long moment. Caleb isn’t sure if he should apologize for scaring her. It seems inappropriate. He doesn’t know what to say, otherwise.
“I’m sorry?”
Jester huffs out a breath, ruffling her bangs. She pauses, again. It seems unlike her.
“And, and I asked the Traveler if I could do anything else, because I’m all out of spells, and Caduceus is too, and he said, well, he said that I could maybe channel something though our bodies, and I said, what does that even mean, and he said, bringing him to completion, and I said, oh, you mean sex, like giving him an orgasm. And he said yes, it might work.”
Perhaps he hasn’t heard correctly.
“I know that sounds a little weird.” Jester lifts her hands helplessly.
Ah. So he probably hasn’t misheard. Perhaps fevered hallucination, then.
“You’re, ah, sure that this isn’t the Traveler playing a prank?”
Jester’s face falls, and Caleb regrets saying it at once.
“It’s just—you are very funny, Jester, and—”
Jester cuts through his babbling, her face setting into determination.
“No. He wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t do that to you, Caleb.” She pats his arm, laughing shakily. “Caleb, you were so hurt. Your bones felt like dust inside you, before we healed you. You’re still so hurt. It’s really scary. I wouldn’t.”
Caleb doesn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. To, make it sound like I don’t— You don’t have to. I’ll survive.”
Jester huffs. “Caleb. You’ve got, like, three limbs broken in a bunch of places and your ribs are real fucked up, and that has to got hurt a whole lot. It’s fine.” She smiles, even though it looks a little sad, a little desperate. “Besides, I want to try this, right? And, and I asked Caduceus, and he said that the Wildmother might be able to do something similar, and that he could help.”
Caleb hears the creak of the door behind him. When he tilts his head towards the sound—slow, slow, don’t jostle anything—he sees Caduceus setting a tea set down on the floor.
Caleb hears Jester heave a sigh. “Caduceus! I’m trying to convince Caleb not to be stupid and to let us help him.”
Caduceus folds himself down to perch on the edge of the bed. He no longer has his armor on, down to his soft, flowing underclothes. The sight is more comforting than it should be.
“Mr. Caleb. I’m glad to see that you’re awake.”
Caleb tries to gather together his thoughts, to ask an appropriate question.
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
Caduceus saves him from having to formulate words yet. “Here. I brought you something that might take the edge off the pain a bit. Jester, could you help him hold his head up so I can tip this into him?”
“Oh! Oh, yeah.” She shifts under him, lifting him up slowly enough that it almost doesn’t hurt, and props his head in her lap.
Caduceus brings the teacup to his lips, tipping it slowly, and Caleb feels the liquid fill his mouth. There’s the touch of fingers to his throat, and he almost chokes—but Caduceus settles his fingers on his throat, massaging it to help him get the liquid down. It’s not very dignified, but he manages to drink. In a matter of minutes, the stabbing sharpness of the pain becomes blunted, still aching and present, but more bearable.
“Good,” Caduceus says, looking pleased. “So, Jester told you that we might have a plan to get you healed up, right?”
Caleb feels a hysterical laugh building in his chest. “I’ve been told that it involves my dick. I’m not sure whether to believe that.”
“Well, yep,” Caduceus says easily. “That’s the jist of it.”
“And you’re on board with this plan, as well?”
Caduceus tilts his head to the side, considering. “I haven’t done it, but I know how it works. I don’t mind. The Wildmother has her ways of working, and this can sometimes be part of it.”
“We just want to help you,” Jester says.
Her voice is tight, a little scared. Caleb wants to reassure her. He has been through worse. He doesn’t need this, he could wait until the next morning. Doesn’t deserve this.
But he recognizes the stubborn, determined set to her jaw, and protests no further.
“Well. I’m always up for new magic.”
Jester strokes his hair back, darting forward to kiss his forehead. “Okay! That’s okay, then. Okay. Okay, cool.”
It’s awkward to get everyone situated. Caleb is thoroughly useless, unable to move an inch without a jolt of pain through his limbs. It’s been a long time since he abandoned dignity, but he still feels a twinge of shame at having to rely so thoroughly on both of them.
But Jester maneuvers him easily, careful not to move him too much as they shift onto the bed, surrounding him. Jester shifts behind him until she has him propped up against her chest. The angle makes breathing easier, her strong arms holding him up.
He can feel the weave of her skirt underneath him with his shirt rucked up. His trousers are already gone, maybe cut away when they had splinted his leg and his arms.
He’s helpless in her arms, no spells to speak and no legs to walk on, a wounded animal curled up in her lap. With anyone else, it might make him panic, makes him want to find a shadowed place and hide. With her—it’s okay. It’s doable.
Caduceus reaches for something over the edge of the bed. It turns out to be a small earthenware pot, the kind that Caduceus has in multitudes in his pack. When he opens it, there’s a strong herbal smell. He reaches for Jester’s hand and drops a dollop in it.
“Is this, like, part of the ritual for the Wildmother?” Jester asks curiously, spreading it in her palm and holding it up to her nose. “It smells nice. Like the herb garden my mom had on the rooftop.”
Caduceus shrugs, smiling. “Well, no, it just might make things go easier. Who knows, maybe the Wildmother might like it, too.”
Jester takes a deep breath. “Okay. Caleb. Don’t move too much, because that might fuck up your ribs even more, okay?”
She reaches over him and wraps her strong, soft hand around his dick, and it almost drives the breath from Caleb’s lungs, even with her warning.
She strokes him, her touch curious, assessing. Caleb shudders. The sensation is confusing. Her touch feels good, but he aches everywhere.
It feels akin to holding his hands under water so cold that it feels hot, his nerves sparking with strangeness. He closes his eyes, trying to make sense of it.
“Is that okay?” Jester says, her tone nervous. She looks a little flushed.
He nods. It’s fine. He’ll be fine.
“Caleb,” Jester says, her voice stern, even through the nervousness. “You have to talk to us, if we want this to work properly. Because we’re the clerics, and you have to tell us how you feel so we can heal you, okay?
He breathes, in, and out. “It’s. It’s a lot. But it feels fine.”
Jester beams, patting his chest. “Good! Good.”
She strokes him again, more firmly, and his hips almost jump up into her touch, but there’s Caduceus’s big hands at his hips, keeping him still and steady.
Caduceus is looking at him, his gaze curious, straightforward, a bright line of hair falling out of his bun. Caleb is half in his lap, the homespun weave of Caduceus’s loose pants under his bare limbs. Caduceus’s hand is tucked in the crook of his knee, keeping him open, steadying him. It feels exposed.
Caduceus pats his leg, getting his attention. Caduceus looks at him carefully, holding up a hand. “It might work better if I’ve got something inside you. Is that something that works for you?”
Caleb feels his mouth go dry. He nods.
A breath, two, and Caduceus pushes a long finger inside him, slow and slick, filling him. Caleb can’t help but gasp. Caduceus’s hands are careful as he works into Caleb—deliberate, almost ritualistic in the way his touch asks things of Caleb’s body.
“Mr. Caleb. You have to tell us what you need, okay? Otherwise this isn’t going to work.”
“I—I need more,” he asks. “Please.” He knows his body, the way he needs a tight hand around his cock, a firm touch inside him.
Jester’s grip tightens, and all his nerves light up. Caduceus’s fingers are deft and long, and there’s an almost clinical precision to the way that Caduceus finds where to press inside him, joined to the firm pressure of a thumb on the skin behind his balls, working him over inside and out.
It’s almost too much: the singular intensity of their hands working him over and the pulsing ache in his ribs and his limbs. Held between the two of them and their gods.
It feels too familiar, just for a moment. The confusion of pain and love and dedication. Eodwulf inside him and Astrid astride his face, their bodies still aching from training.
Caleb pushes it away, taking a deliberate, aching breath, his ribs grinding against each other, the pain sharp and grounding.
He can hear them talking quietly over him, and it takes him long seconds to put the words together.
“—doing good, there. Jester, you feel like it’s working? I’ve got a thread of something coming along, for sure.”
“Yeah,” Jester says. Her face is concentrated and lovely, her lips parted, and she nods, first tentatively, then more firmly. She tightens her grasp on his dick, her eyes fluttering shut, a line between her eyebrows. “Yeah. Oh, that’s kind of weird. Kind of cool, though. I think I can feel you, Caduceus? It feels like, like putting my hands in a mud puddle. In a good way? Caleb, if you’re listening, I’m not calling your dick a mud puddle.”
He huffs out a laugh, jolting all over when the movement shifts his leg. The jolt of pain spikes through him, twisted up with the intense, unyielding pleasure of their hands on him, and he shudders, his body unsure, confused with sensation.
It’s too much of everything and not enough of it. He strains against their hands, reaching for something, anything.
“Steady there, steady,” Caduceus rumbles, his thumb stroking over Caleb’s knee. He blinks at him slowly, a banked glow behind his long lashes. “We’ve got you.”
He gives himself over to them.
When he comes, it rips through him like a tide, filling him up and emptying him out. He fumbles for a hand, finds Jester’s smooth, warm fingers, clutches her tight, hears her gasp.
And--and everything is light, light searing across his raw nerve endings, sublime and agonizing and beautiful.
Eventually, he opens his eyes. He feels exhausted, boneless, every bit of his limbs alight with a foreign warmth. He doesn’t think he could move, even if he wanted to.
Jester is panting, disheveled. She pats him down. “Okay. Your ribs are better now, right? How about your leg?”
He takes a tentative breath, deeper than he dared to. It works. It’s nice to be able to breathe without strain. He nods, not trusting his voice yet.
Caduceus passes his hands over his leg, removing the splint and squeezing along the length of his thigh. “Hm. Feels okay? Hey, I think it worked.”
Jester beams. “Ho-ly shit. Caduceus, we sexed him back to health!” She reaches over Caleb’s shoulder, holding her palm out. “That was. So. Cool.”
Caduceus high-fives her with his usual smiling bemusement. “Not sure I understood exactly what happened there, but hey, it worked.” He looks at his palm, then wipes it on the covers.
“Whoops, should have used the other hand,” Jester says cheerfully. “That one was covered in Caleb come.”
Caleb covers his face. Ah.
“Oh, Caleb, you get all red all down your chest,” Jester says, delighted. “I didn’t see that! I was concentrating too hard on the other stuff.”
Caduceus pats Caleb’s leg, tugging his shirt back down to cover him. Then, Caduceus blinks, wavers for a second, and slowly topples over, his long body barely fitting onto the mattress.
“Oh. Okay. I think that was a lot. Phew.”
Caleb feels a twist of panic in his chest. “Are you—”
Caduceus waves a long, lazy hand at him. “I’m fine. Just tired. Jester, how are you doing?”
“I am going to nap, right now, immediately,” Jester says, crawling over them to flop over as well. “Scoot over. Caduceus, you are too tall and you are very fuzzy, so I’m going to lie on you.”
“All right,” Caduceus says easily.
The bed barely fits all three of them, but Caleb is still too tired to move, and has no inclination to.
He feels strange, his body heavy and present but his nerve endings still alight with something unknowable. But Caduceus slings a long arm over them and Jester pulls them in, and the sensation settles, the divine made familiar flesh and body.
Caleb lets sleep pull him under, tethered by their hands.