Chapter Text
He had woken up surrounded by a motley crew of gorgeous strangers in the middle of a world made of flesh, and things had only gotten weirder from there.
Okay. So, Kingsley tends to be a go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Or, at least, he thinks he is. It seems like he might be, so far. Maybe he needs a minute or two to freak out right at the beginning of a big change, but once he’s had time to take a drink or two and figure out what’s going on, he’s pretty quick to roll with the punches. Sometimes he wonders whether this is because of an innate part of who he is or if it is just a trait that he developed after the first few weeks of his life were composed of nonstop turmoil.
How else could he have found himself somewhere like this: laying on the deck of the Nein Heroez with the sun toasting his skin to a deep burgundy and the salty wind in his hair. Kingsley Tealeaf had known from the moment he had heard it was a possibility that a life on the sea was perfect for him. Something about the feeling of constantly moving somewhere new, while stuck with the same group of madcap weirdos was so appealing.
“Are you sure you don’t want, just, one little dick in with the peacock feathers?” The steady, pricking ache of Jester’s tattoo needle brought King out of his head and back to the moment. The longer he was alive, the more he understood the choices leading to the thin scars up and down the entirety of his body. A little pain was something that was grounding and steadying and good. A solid port in the storm of his current life.
“I already promised you could have free range with the Tusktooth tattoo, darling,” King drawled, brushing a teasing touch down Jester’s arm with the arm that he wasn’t currently holding completely still. Her penchant for dicks was one of the many charming things King was learning about his new friend. One of the many charming things he was learning about himself was that he was quite vain. While a dick tattoo permanently inked onto his body wasn’t necessarily off the table , he didn’t want it mixed in with the gorgeous peacock feathers spreading up his chest, shoulder, neck, and face. He might not agree with this Mollymauk on every past choice, but the tattoos were lovely.
“Kingsleyyyyy,” Jester whined, flopping down onto the deck. King flopped down next to her, familiar with this routine after several weeks of this.
“I deeply apologize for stifling your creative prowess,” King lightly mocked, turning his head toward her. Jester turned her gaze to meet his, wrinkling her nose amidst the navy freckles and squinting a smile. He saw the glint of mischief in her eyes and already could guess what she was going to say next before she opened her mouth.
“I’m gonna hide one dick in there, where no one will notice unless they’re looking very closely ~” She winked as she said the last part and King rolled his eyes even as he felt a warm flare of fondness behind his breastbone. He couldn’t help it. With her soft, rounded skin glowing sapphire in the summer sun, everyone who met her was a little bit in love with Jester Lavorre.
“If I weren’t in love with you, it would be a duel to the death on this very deck.” King nudged her with his shoulder while he said it, trying to push down the broad smile that wanted to spread across the entirety of his face.
Jester grinned like a shark seeing a defenseless baby seal and laughed to see King go cross-eyed as she flicked his nose.
“That’s my superpower. I’m so beautiful that everyone falls in love with me at first sight, and then they let me do whatever I want.”
“Truly. And won’t you run away with me, oh light of my life?” Jester’s high, tinkling laugh rang like a bell in his heart and King fought down the urge to break character and laugh with her.
“Of course! We just have to escape my incredibly strong and possessive boyfriend before we can sneak away in the night. I’ll get a lifeboat if you can get an AH !” The end of her sentence was cut of with a shocked yelp as cold sea water splashed down on both of them. King felt his muscles lock up as he frantically searched for a threat before his eyes landed on the lean hunk of green half-orc that was sitting down on the other side of Jester.
“I thought Beau told you to respect me as a captain, and yet here I find you, trying to seduce my woman out from under my nose.” Fjord sent a joking scowl in King’s direction. Jester had shot to a seated position at the splash of water and looked ready to join in the splash fight until Fjord had called her his woman . At that, she had turned her smile into her shoulder and sidled up to Fjord’s side. King watched in charmed amusement as Fjord looked down at her with a deep green blush high on his cheeks and wrapped a tentative arm around her waist. In return, Jester yanked him closer to her, tucking her hand in his back pocket.
“And I thought you were supposed to be minding the crew, and yet here I find you, shoving your honeymoon happiness in my face. Can you blame me for trying to seduce the beautiful Ms. Lavorre?”
“I can’t blame you for that,” Fjord said, but his voice had gone all soft and gooey. Glancing back over at them, King saw that they were still caught up in each other’s eyes, and it didn’t look like Fjord was even really tracking the conversation anymore. Sap .
“Well, really, the joke’s on you. I happen to know that I look absolutely fabulous when I’m soaking wet. You’ve only made me more powerful.” King stretched himself out further across the warm smooth wood at his back, wiggling his shoulders into the solid support behind him, getting that deep pressure. His tail thrashed on the deck with the tension of the stretch. “I’ll just save all this for someone who can appreciate it.”
“Like Caleb~?” Jester teased, glancing away from Fjord’s face at the opportunity to talk about more relationship drama. King felt his heart jump in his chest and ignored it utterly. It was probably just from being out in the heat for so long.
“Caleb, that’s the shabby wizard one, right?”
Jester kicked her foot against King’s side and he pinched her by the big toe to make her stop. “The shabby wizard you said looked good right before you touched his butt .”
“Oh, that one? I remember now. And honestly, can you blame me? Put yourself in my place, my dear. Imagine you wake up on the first day of your life, surrounded by eight of the most gorgeous people you’ve ever laid eyes on, who all insist that they love and care about you. I’m a simple pansexual tiefling. I could do nothing less than immediately fall desperately in love with all of you.”
Jester pointed her finger at him imperiously. “Don’t think flattery will let you change the subject. You never touched my butt!”
“I can’t help that Caleb has an exceptionally good butt.”
“He doesn’t, though,” Fjord piped in. “I mean, I love the guy, but his ass is pretty flat.”
“Oh my gosh, Fjord, were you checking Caleb out ?”
“I have literally seen everyone in the Mighty Nein buck-ass naked. We all have.” The blush that had started to fade from Fjord’s face was back in full bloom.
“You can try to walk it back now, but we all heard what you said, Captain Tusktooth,” King drawled. “To think, all this time, I thought I was the dastardly threat to the stable relationship, when really it’s been Caleb’s incredible ass all along. I concede defeat. If I have to lose to someone, I could only accept it from that shabby wizard with an ass that just won’t quit.”
“I would just like to point out that Kingsley has been talking about Caleb’s ass for at least five times as long as I was.” Fjord. The menace. Couldn’t he tell when someone was committing to the bit?
“That is true. You’ve always had a weird thing about Caleb, Kingsley.” Jester was still teasing, but King felt another dip in his chest, this time not related to the heat or talk of a certain wizard. Here was the jarring dissonance that he kept running up against. A past version of himself that everyone around him knew but he could never remember. A brother and a self and a stranger. Words like you’ve always when tied to traits King was still discovering about himself.
“I can’t help it if I’ve always had good taste. I might not know how to pick an aesthetic or a name, but Caleb Widowgast will always be a knockout.” Better to own it. Better to keep pushing forward. Eventually he would know enough that it wouldn’t keep feeling like he was missing a step on the way belowdecks. He felt the strain in his smile and pushed at it until it found its way back to a genuine shape.
“He really hasn’t been though. Oh my gosh, King, you never knew him like this, but Caleb used to be so stinky . One time, I hurt his feelings and he pulled a handful of mud out of his pocket and rubbed it onto his face. He would just carry it around with him. Oh! Oh, and Fjord, do you remember that time that we all went to take those nice fancy baths and then he was, like, immediately dirty afterward?”
King could hear in her tone of voice that Jester was working up to a long story, and he allowed the last of the tension to drain out of him into the moving water below. He closed his eyes and felt the sun beating against every part of him while these people he’d known for so little time and loved so deeply talked next to him. Jester kept a constant stream of chatter going. At first, Fjord was just adding a comment here and there, but eventually he got swept up in Jester’s enthusiasm and they were both talking excitedly over each other. King let the words wash over him like the waves of the sea, like the waves of the heat. He felt a burning bright joy in his chest and let the words drift in one ear and out the other.
He hadn’t been there. He wasn’t that person anymore. But he was here, and he was surrounded by so many wonderful people who loved him.
He dozed in the sun for several hours next to his friends before finally packing up and slipping belowdecks to his hammock and a proper rest.
That night was the fist night he dreamed of kissing Caleb Widowgast. In the dream, they were rushed kisses in the corner of a busy tavern. Caleb was even shabbier than normal, with a few pieces of mud dried to a crust along his hairline.
In the dream, he called King Molly.