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"Are you drawing me?" he asks from across the cleared galley table seemingly only just noticing how she lifts her head to watch him every few minutes, he's been intensely studying the map they just got of the sea to the northwest of Wildmount since dinner ended an hour ago.
Nodding, she can see the curiosity grow behind his eyes. Circling around the table, he sits down at her right side.
"Oh," he says, in the truly surprised way he does sometimes, when is he looks at her sketch. It's of him leaning over the table looking at something. She's been working on her more realistic style. That must be what surprised him. She watches as a slight blush appears on his green skin.
He doesn't leave her side during the five minutes it takes her to finish the drawing. Unfortunately, his adorable blush had subsided in that time. His freckles she can still see. The specks of them down his nose and on his cheeks that have appeared darker for every day they spend on the water.
She closes her sketchbook when she's done, leaving it still on the table before glancing over at him to find him looking at her with that terribly soft expression on his face that makes her stomach flip in a way that is not unpleasant at all.
Overcome with the sudden need to know for certain, just watching him, she asks, so quietly she has doubts if he'll hear it or not, "Fjord, are you in love with me?"
He goes absolutely still beside her, before he says, "Yes," much more strongly than she could have managed if she was in his position.
A pause settles between them five, ten, twenty seconds of her just being shocked that her suspicions were right before he breaks the quiet.
Clearing his throat, he begins to explain, "Jess, I know you're over the crush that you had. Nothing needs to be awkward going forward; I was never going to do anything about it and make you uncomfortable."
Oh, that explains it, why he has been holding back. He doesn't think she feels the same. She needs to fix this.
"But you really should, Fjord," she says, needing him to know for sure how she feels.
"I should make you uncomfortable?" he askes, obviously confused. Why do they keep having moments like this?
Shaking her head, "No, not that, I..." she stops herself when she realizes how she needs to explain it.
Turning her body completely to face him, tucking one of her legs under herself and meeting his worried eyes, she starts again, saying, "Listen, it's true, sometimes crushes do go away, but other times you start to feel more than that for the person." She takes his hand feeling; a blush start to rise on her own face. "The crush goes away as you learn to love them for who they are, you know?"
He nods, "Jessie..." he whispers so softly, a small smile beginning to grow on his lips.
"The person you were back then when I first met you, that's who I had the crush on," she says, trying her best to explain it. She can see in his eyes that he's following her.
"Who you are after everything you've gone through, that's who I love," she takes a breath after she gets that out, she never thought she'd be able to say that so easily. His eyes have so many emotions flashing behind them.
"Jess," he says, turning towards her, shifting closer, his free hand taking hold of her waist as he leans in, she's so sure about what he's about to do, but then he stops.
"So are you going to kiss me or not?" she asks, somewhat disappointed, unable to keep the impatient tone out of her voice.
"Oh, I will," he says after thinking for a second, "this is our first kiss, right?" like he wants to be sure.
"Yeah. It technically will be," she says, thinking back to a moment months ago she can't fully remember.
"Good," he nods, his smile, exposing almost all of his tusks to her, "So we agree that what I did when you were drowning does not count?"
She has to laugh as she says, "As noble as it was, you giving me air, I wasn’t really there to experience the whole thing so I just can't count it," then shrugging her shoulders and taking her hand out of his, "Besides, I always thought I'd be able to kiss the person back if I wanted to you know, during my first kiss."
'Wait, first kiss?" he asks, oh shit, why did she say that?
She can feel the heat returning to her face, faster this time, turning to face him more she says, "Yeah, no pressure or anything."
"I don't know," he says, leaning in closer, "maybe just a bit of pressure..." He stops then, cradling her cheek in his palm and tilting her face up just a bit before he closes the distance between their lips. Her eyes closing instinctually, moments before.
It's a small thing at first, not much pressure at all, but she's still caught off guard by it. His lips, they're softer than she thought they would be, and his beard hardly tickles her skin at all at first, then they both somehow get closer, did he lean down further? Oh, her hands found his shoulders and are bringing him closer. She can feel his tusks better now.
He goes to pull away, but his lips have hardly left her own before she rises just enough to keep him in place, her mind pleading for just a few seconds more.
When he breaks the kiss this time, she lets him go, but she's to be continuously surprised by him, it seems, as he places a kiss to the center of her forehead.
"How was that?" he asks, mildly breathless sounding when her eyes open and she looks at him, his smile is so large.
Nodding a little, her thoughts still stuck in the last few minutes, replaying them in her mind. His hand now holding on to her arm, steadying them both.
"Back on Rumblecusp, you wanted to," she starts, taking her hands off his shoulders and shaking her head as she rethinks how to ask it, "you wanted to kiss me after we defeated Vokodo, didn't you, Fjord?"
"Yes, I wanted to kiss you then," he says happily as she pulls her head a little more away from his, "Truthfully, it's been a very long time since I haven't wanted to kiss you every moment of every day."
"I suspected as much; I am very loveable," she says, enjoying the amusement in his eyes.
He wraps an arm around her shoulders, bringing her closer so he can kiss her forehead again before he says, "Yes, you really are."
They stay like that for a bit, just holding on to the moment, willing it to not slip away so quickly. Resting her forehead against his neck, she realizes that he smells like the spices that were in their dinner, calm ocean water, his beard oil, and something more she can't place, the leather of his armor maybe, but she's not sure.
He does shift after a while, his arm wrapping behind her, holding her around her waist. "Jester, you should know that I have no idea what I'm doing," he sounds so sorry as he says, it like he's apologizing.
"That's alright," she says softly, "neither do I, but we'll figure it out together." She trusts that they'll find their way; they always have.
He nods, but she feels his chest moments later talking a large breath in before he says, "So it's our new mission as it were?" He sounds so amused at himself for thinking of it.
She's just shocked that he thought of it that way before she did, meeting his eyes she says, "Yeah, I think it is," before reaching up to his shoulders to bring his lips down to meet hers again.