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Fjord doesn't see what goes down at the Spire, but it doesn't escape his notice that something has. It's second nature by now to keep his ear out for his companions, and when Molly and Caleb don't keep speed with the rest of them, Fjord slows his stride in turn. He doesn't want to eavesdrop - or gods forbid, interrupt - so he purposely trains his focus up ahead of the party, until Molly flounces up past him with a friendly, close-mouthed smile.
"What was that about?" Fjord asks, because Molly seems perfectly aware that Fjord had been waiting, and it won't endear them to each other if he plays dumb.
"Hm-hmm," Molly singsongs cryptically, and he shrugs his bony shoulders. Fjord can make out when his lips part on a grin, his desaturated vision making Molly's gold tooth stand out, the sharp point gleaming.
All the same, Fjord has been bunking with him for long enough that as a show of intimidation, it's pretty weak. He rolls his eyes, knowing Molly can tell despite the pitch dark of night that's made Caleb trip over two different flagstones, based on Fjord's estimation of his strangled Zemnian.
"Okay," he mocks, and Molly only laughs. "Don't tell me, then."
"I knew you'd understand," Molly croons.
"I mean, just so we're clear - I don't understand jack shit." It isn't even a lie, a humble depth to the accent he favors. Fjord has no idea what's going on with those two, other than that they aren't sleeping together, because Molly always returns to their shared rooms and flops into bed alone.
"For now? 'S for the best," Molly advises, in a way that grates on Fjord as much as it draws a fond sigh out of him. "All in good time, my friend - " - and then in a succinct staccato - " - all-in-good-time."
Caleb is finally catching up to them, and whether it's that or that Molly simply feels he's been sufficiently obtuse, he takes his leave to rejoin the rest of their fellows. Fjord actually does try to stop him, a short hey - but Molly's quick when he wants to be. There are hard edges to his heels that remind Fjord of the horses this version of himself had supposedly grown up with, just that touch of the other that puts a kick in his step.
Well, fine, he thinks. He doesn't want to make Caleb think he's being babysat, so he doesn't look over his shoulder, just meanders as amiably as he can. When Caleb comes up beside him, Fjord greets him with a nod.
"Eh," Caleb offers, stalling out, "oh." He seems distracted, fucking with something in his bag instead of paying attention to where he is or where they're headed, and he squints up at Fjord now like he's just woken up from a nap. "Hello."
Fjord's mouth quirks up at the corners - he can't help it. "Hey there."
He intends to say more, something about how Caleb should keep his eyes on the road if he doesn't want to land on his face, but he doesn't get the chance.
"Fjord," and his accent twists it like Fyord, something Fjord can't help but find oddly charming, "are you… okay?"
Fjord blinks, taken aback. It must do something to his posture, because Caleb clarifies:
"You took quite a hit down in there." Fjord watches his eyebrows draw together, lips pursed, and he amends, "or two. Three."
From anyone else it might be insulting, but Fjord is used to Caleb's owlish manner by now. "Tell you the truth?"
"Ja, always. If you want."
Fjord rolls his shoulder. "It hurts like a son of a bitch."
It really does; Fjord is sore all over, and while he knows the poison in his blood has been drained, what's left makes him feel like a damp dishrag that someone has squeezed all the liquid out of, bent up and stuck that way. That part's nothing a good sleep won't fix, but he brushes a hand over his chest, feeling the tear through his armor and shivering. The leather is caked in his own dried blood, the deep hole especially. To be honest, he's been trying not to look at it too closely.
He knows what had saved him, the guttural hind-brain voice that had told him without words, We do not die here, We do not die like this. It sounds different than the booming expanse of his patron, salt scattered over his heart that makes every ice-cold summoning of his falchion burn with the reminder that it is not his, that no protection is given for free.
Fjord thinks of the many faces he practices, thinks of his patron, watching. Thinks of this new-old voice, the one that makes his blood boil with a desire to sink his claws into something's throat. He thinks, bitterly, it's getting too damn crowded in here.
But he can't tell Caleb any of that, not yet, so he simply shakes his head, playing at clearing it.
Caleb tuts sympathetically, his mouth curling into the barest of smiles. "Not a fan of spiders?"
Fjord inclines his head down, eyeing Caleb from under the fan of his lashes. "Well, even if I was, I wouldn't be after that."
And Caleb laughs, but Fjord feels his heart thud, unhappy. He hadn't even meant to avoid the question, his answer slipping out like water over his palms - maybe Caleb hadn't even noticed, just making tired, companionable conversation.
It's… unsettling. Discomfiting for how easy it is.
Caleb smiles up at him, and it haunts Fjord to such a degree that when he stops outside the door to the King's Hall to pick through his bag again, Fjord doesn't even feel right to offer his company.
The tub at the Leaky Tap is too small, but enough human-run accommodations are too small for Fjord anyway, so it doesn't bother him overmuch. The water isn't perfectly clean either, but it's been heated, and he bends his knees and sinks as far in as he can fit to let it soothe his overworked muscles.
Of course, the peace is temporary. It only takes a few moments for his patron to make itself known, the itchy presence of sea salt foaming up between his fingers where he's resting them in the water.
Fjord grimaces, taking out his wet palm to stare at it.
It's certainly not unfamiliarity that bothers him. He'd spent more than a decade in and out of port towns, more than half of his life out on the open ocean. He knows the salt might even be a boon, a decent antibacterial for the aching wounds in his chest - another gift, like the sword - but he can't help the way it makes his skin crawl.
It makes him want to ask questions he shouldn't. How long does it take for a body to decompose in water? How much of his life has he already lived, how much borrowed time is he allowed? How would he know if his patron decided that it was tired of waiting for him to progress at his own speed?
How much of him - the real him, the one he knew before - is left?
He sighs, slipping further into the tub and wincing when the dirty water touches the tender skin on his chest. It's going to hurt to set his chestplate over that mess tomorrow - though his eyes flutter open when he remembers all at once that he has new armor, sturdy new leather, a shockingly elegant sculpture of found objects that feels like home and a challenge all at once.
The armor from Caleb - the armor Caleb had hidden from the others, had taken and kept because it had reminded him of Fjord.
There's undeniable romance in the gesture that makes Fjord blush, sudden and all-encompassing. There is little he can do these days without thinking about Caleb, and now polishing his kit will join the rest.
To his embarrassment, he realizes that the combination of warm water and wandering thoughts is putting gooseflesh down his thighs, warmth in his gut that feels like an opportunity. He bites his bottom lip, strokes his knee experimentally where his hand is resting on it, and sighs shakily when that makes heat pool up low in his stomach, cock twitching under the water —
- which is when he hears the sudden slam of hands on either side of the wooden doorframe to the washroom, and he nearly cracks his skull scrambling to look presentable -
" - going through your stuff, by the way!" It's Molly, and he sounds just delighted.
Fjord splutters, trying to lift himself out of the tub where he's landed in it on his sore back. His only thought is for the armor, his heartbeat breakneck in his own ears. "Wh - who is? Which one - " - but he can't hear anything outside the room anymore, Molly's strange hooved footsteps absent.
He growls when he finally steps out of the bath, grabbing for the cloth towel he'd brought in with him, but he's still struggling to pull it around his waist when he slides out of the washroom, makes an abrupt turn, and starts thudding down the hallway toward his room.
"Nott - what the fuck - "
Fjord isn't alone in the room for long. He has time to squat and pick through his pack, noting with relief that all of the armor pieces are still as they should be, but just as he stands there's a brief, military-precise rapping at the doorframe. He glances over to see Caleb looking guarded, though not unhappy, beside the open door.
It serves to make Fjord suddenly very aware that he's still dripping wet, completely nude aside from the towel he'd just managed to tuck in against his waist - but he tries for casual, hoping Caleb doesn't track the flush he can feel heating up his neck and chest. "Uh. Evenin'."
Caleb nods. "Hi." It sounds a little stilted, and Fjord's brows knit as he tries to piece together Caleb's expression. If he didn't know better (and his stomach flips as it occurs to him that he may not) he'd say his friend was flustered. His round blue eyes aren't leaving Fjord's bare chest, which could be his disdain for eye contact, or it could be -
Fjord surreptitiously adjusts the fall of his towel over the curve of his arse, and takes in a long, quiet breath when he catches Caleb watching him do it.
There's half a moment there, a silent beat of - something - before Caleb clears his throat, apparently banishing it for another time.
"She didn't take anything, did she?" he asks.
"Wh - oh. No, not that I can tell." Fjord secures his towel with one hand, utterly unsure what to do with either of them. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "But, uh…"
"Yes?"
Fjord purses his lips. "It wouldn't - be your responsibility if she had. Right?"
"Oh. O - of course, I was just - "
"No, I get it - "
" - ehm, looking out for - uh, roommate courtesy. You know."
Another silence. Fjord is seriously considering dropping his towel, just to see what would happen.
"In that case," he hedges, definitively not doing that, "should I be, uh… askin' you the same thing?"
Caleb frowns. "Hrm?"
"Did he take anything?"
"Fjord…" Fyord, there it is again. The word that sticks in Fjord's mind is precious, that the funny lilts to Caleb's voice as his mouth forms his name are precious to him, and he wrinkles his nose. It sounds a little too much like something big that wants to possess Caleb, sharp and broad where his patron is shapeless, where his own desires feel more fragile and accommodating. Fjord licks his lips, uncomfortable. He wishes his head would rattle or something, just to shake everything up some.
But Caleb doesn't seem to attach any additional meaning to his question or his expression - in fact, he looks almost pleased, as though Fjord has done something very clever.
"I guess I am not surprised you saw that," he admits.
"What's goin' on?" Fjord asks. "Well - you don't have to tell me," he adds, because he truly doesn't.
"Mm. It is nothing," Caleb answers, predictably enough. "Mollymauk thinks he is very observant." He sounds less like a man whose privacy has been invaded and more like a man who has successfully cheated at cards.
Fjord's lips quirk despite himself. "You disagree?" he prompts, and Caleb laughs, raspy and amused.
"Maybe," he says. "I don't know. Perhaps it would be better for us both if he were, hm?"
And Fjord swallows, because he knows a whole mess of things Caleb could mean by that, most of them unpleasant (Caleb is hiding a library's worth of secrets of his own, and maybe he even wants to get caught) and a few outright threatening (Caleb knows Fjord is hiding at least as many things from him, from all of them) - but of course the part his brain gets stuck on is that Caleb said us, said both as though they were a collective, as though they had something to hide, together.
Fjord reaches his free hand up to scratch through the shorn hair at the back of his head. "Yeah… you know," he offers lamely. "Perhaps."
Caleb nods - likely to himself. Fjord wishes he knew for sure. The hand holding his towel up tightens with nerves that only spike again when Caleb's eyes flick from his face down to his legs, and then back up.
There's the ghost of something in his voice, something Fjord almost recognizes; humor, maybe - a dirty joke? - but all he says is, "well. Goodnight, Fjord."
Fjord's lips feel dry, but something feels inappropriate about licking them when Caleb is watching his face like that, so he just nods.
"Night, Caleb," he murmurs, and Caleb goes, slipping the door quietly shut behind him.