Chapter Text
You know, I’m beginning to think he actually likes me!
Jarlaxle, under normal circumstances, would’ve likely not thought anything of it. Had this been any other person, he would’ve easily been able to accept it for what it all was. But this was Artemis Entreri, and Jarlaxle was nothing if not an optimist.
It began, or at least he thinks it began, with their banter. The assassin was slowly beginning to soften around the edges, his usual barbs still hitting the mark but far less painfully. Then, Entreri would buy him things. Rarely ever anything frivolous, as he was far more frugal than Jarlaxle, but the drow often found his meals and lodging already paid for without his knowledge, and there was even once that Entreri bought him a new ring (at no small expense) simply because he wanted it. Or, in the assassin’s own words, to “wipe that pathetic look off his face.” And more recently, he has allowed Jarlaxle to interfere with his personal space more than once, hardly glaring when he does. Jarlaxle can now count multiple times that he was allowed to sit closer to Entreri, steal his food, throw his arm around him, and generally push the boundaries of “casual touching” further and further past the line.
But all the progress they’ve made pales in comparison to Artemis’s face the last time Jarlaxle got injured.
It was no small wound. They’d been on the road, ambushed and heavily outnumbered, and one of the bandits managed to sneak past Jarlaxle’s defenses. It was a very lucky hit, and might’ve been fatal, had Jarlaxle been any less resourceful. Of course, the healing potion Entreri shoved down his throat the moment the fighting ceased was likely to thank for most of it. But it was the look in his eyes, as Jarlaxle was laying in the dirt, that really pierced him. He was actually worried. On anyone else, Jarlaxle would’ve said he looked downright scared.
But this being Artemis Entreri, it was nothing of the sort. And when Jarlaxle even tried to bring it up later as a joke (because of course) Entreri merely deflected with, “I was only concerned with how much of your stuff I could fit in my pack.”
He’d made an innuendo at that, laughed it off, and forgot about it. At least he had, until that night, and when the traitorous parts of him began to whisper in the silence, when unwanted memories began to return, his mind chose to focus on that moment to drive it all away. Because he recognized it, and all of his abbil’s other new habits, as being something . It had meaning, it had purpose beyond whatever excuses Artemis made, beyond whatever excuses Jarlaxle almost wanted to believe. He was making progress.
From then on, he rested peacefully, with the beginnings of a hypothesis keeping the dark at bay.
***
They reached the next town two days after Jarlaxle’s injury. It was rather quaint, Jarlaxle thought, with a peaceful atmosphere brought by the sounds of ocean waves and seagulls, and the ever-bright sun shining favorably down. A little colder than he preferred, but he’d already begun making plans to explore what treasures it may have to offer.
“Do you think it’s too cold to go swimming, abbil?"
After a beat of silence, he turned to speak to his companion again, only to find empty air. “ Abbil?”
“If you’re done standing there, Jarlaxle, we ought to get a room.”
Jarlaxle turned once more to find Entreri standing quite a few feet away. He was lucky the man hadn’t just kept walking, as he sometimes did. Jarlaxle’s smile only grew.
“Get a room? I didn’t know you felt that way abbil , you ought to have spoken up sooner!”
Entreri didn’t even bother to glare at that; he merely resumed walking. Slow enough for Jarlaxle to catch up with ease, the drow noted. He tried for conversation again.
“How cold do you think the water is?”
Entreri spared him a glance, then looked out to the ocean. He said, “Not cold enough to freeze yet, though it’s still not worth jumping into.” Jarlaxle grinned.
“Perhaps not for you, abbil , but I certainly intend to test that myself. You could still join me! Your perpetually grumpy face will likely scare away all the birds. I hear they like to steal people’s food.”
“The only reason I would join you is to laugh when you inevitably swallow seawater. And perhaps if I’m lucky, the birds will make off with your hat instead.”
Jarlaxle gasped and dramatically clutched at the brim of the hat in question. “My hat doesn’t even look like food!”
As they approached the first decent looking inn they’d yet seen, Entreri looked back at Jarlaxle’s hat. Smirking, he turned back towards the building, and said, “No, but they may see that feather and mistake it for one of their own. They’re vengeful little beasts.”
“I imagine you must feel a kinship with them, then,” Jarlaxle said haughtily, and eyed the nearest seagull skeptically before following the assassin inside.