The Big Nope

Lauren just sighed, gripping the neck of his lute tight enough so that his hands couldn’t make a beeline for Jasper’s neck instead. The mysterious rock was clenched just as tightly in his other hand, as he let out a private wish to himself.

“I just wish that I was in a party I actually liked…”

There was a sudden shift, a sort of kick centered on the back of his head like he’d just been pulled back from the brink of sleep. He clenched his eyes tight and gave his head a quick shake, reaching up to massage his temples as one of his songs began to play unbidden in his head. But after a few minutes, he realized that it wasn’t in his head at all—and further, it was being sung softly in that very room by a feminine accent that he couldn’t quite identify, the lyrics being made up on the spot like the singer had simply forgotten them and had just started making up new ones as they went along.

“~Drawing some dicks, I draw them for kicks, na na na na neeee, draw dicks with meeee…~”

Looking over, Lauren was somewhat astonished to find that Jasper’s entire side of the room had changed; where there had once been daggers, tools, and vials of poison, there were now lollipops, drawing implements, and vials of… sugar?

None of that was to mention the new occupant of Jasper’s bed, someone who was also considerably easier on the eyes; a powder-blue tiefling, splayed out on her front with her legs kicking idly in the air behind her, doodling away in a sketchbook while her head bobbed absently back and forth to the tune of the song she was humming.

“~Dee dee deedle-eee, come and draw some dicks with meeee!~ Alright, finished!” With a small hop on the bedspread, the mystery tiefling came up on to her knees, holding the sketchbook out in front of her proudly as she regarded her work. Lauren, however, couldn’t stop his eyes from straying just a bit lower, taking in the tiefling’s round, bouncy bust jiggling softly in place atop her lithe frame. Lauren stifled a small gulp, before prying his eyes back up, just in time for the tiefling to thrust the drawing into his face. “Here, what do you think? It’s my best work yet!”

“Um…” Lauren stammered out, drawing back slightly from the paper so that he could get a proper look at it, then squinting at the sketchbook in mild incredulity. “Is that… me?”

“Uh-huh! A good likeness, right?” She asked enthusiastically, before excitedly pointing to different parts of the artwork. “I tried to capture that time you smacked a bandit over the head with your lute to protect Caleb—only I took some, y’know, creative liberties, what with making your lute a dick, and the bandit’s sword a dick, and Caleb into a dick, and also you and the bandit into dicks. If it was like, a play or something, I’d say it was an all-dick-production! Isn’t it great?!”

“Well, it’s, certainly…” Lauren’s brain had just about caught up to the situation, that this attractive, eccentric tiefling had suddenly taken the place of his surly roommate, and as his eyes drifted lower on the page, he was finally able to put a name to the face. “…very well-drawn, Jester, and I like… the… veins…?”

For just a moment, her expression was unreadable—before it exploded into glee, followed by her reaching out and squeezing Lauren tight in her grasp. “Oh, I can’t believe you noticed! I spend so long on those veins, believe me, and it’s always like ‘oh yeah Jester, it looks nice’. You’re the only one who really gets it, Lauren, and that’s why I like you being in our party so much!”

A party I actually liked… Lauren’s own words rang in his head for a moment, as realization suddenly started to crawl its way up to the surface. Ilya earlier, and now this. Could it actually be…?

“Here, I’ll get us some candy to celebrate!” Jester chirped, pulling away before scooting back to her own bed. Lauren’s eyes alighted unconsciously on the tiefling’s firm backside as she leaned over to jam her hand into her pack, before looking down in sudden awe at the rock grasped in his free hand. Well, only one way to find out…

After a brief clearing of his throat, Lauren raised his voice a tad, to a pitch his bardic performance teachers had taught him in order to instill some confidence in himself. “I… I wish you wouldn’t think that any of the questions that I ask you are strange.”

“Kay.” Jester said, tongue poking out the side of her mouth as the scent of slightly-melted sugar began to fill the space.

Shifting somewhat uncomfortably in place, Lauren began scouring his brain for the most relevant questions for the situation. “So… what’s our party called, again?”

“The Mighty Nein.” Jester said matter-of-factly, as she pulled a lollipop out, frowned at all of the dust and debris that had collected on it, then stuck it back inside before continuing to rummage.

Lauren blinked. “Oh, so there’s nine of us? That seems like kind of a lot, for an adventuring party…”

“Nah, there’s really only eight of us! But it was seven for a long, long time, before you went and came along. I’m super-duper glad you did though, because with all that time on the open road, having no one to play music for us was so booooring.”

Lauren smiled at that, his cheeks dusting with a faint blush, bowing his head slightly to hide both as he tried to remember the last time anyone on his old team had ever complimented his music—without him wishing for it, of course. “Have we been on a lot of adventures?”

Jester shrugged one shoulder, which sent one of her breasts jiggling delightfully against the other. “A couple, here and there. But not when we did some of the really crazy stuff, like when we fought zombies or hyena-people or a manticore or—ooo, here it is!” Jester happily pulled out a multi-colored lollipop that was in mostly-good shape, and then another that was more-or-less identical, before placing one of them in Lauren’s non-stone hand and clinking the two treats together. “To the party!”

“To the party.” Lauren agreed with genuine warmth, before biting down onto the treat.

And tried, very, very hard not to gag.

“How uh, long has this been in your pack?” Lauren said, after just about managing to **** down the first bite.

“Since the last town.” Jester said, happily licking away. “So, about two weeks? Maybe? Iunno.”

“Right.” Lauren said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, and doing his best to take mincing licks at the treat until he could think of a way to get rid of it without hurting his new tiefling friend’s feelings.

But sitting there, with nothing but the soft slurps of Jester’s tongue and the gentles hums of her enjoyment to fill the room, Lauren once again couldn’t help but let his eyes roam over the attractive blue tiefling’s form. It started to strike him, just then, how unusual it was for a man and a woman to be bunked up in the same room, particularly when it came to an adventuring party, and began to wonder what it might mean for their… relationship.

After a few more contemplative licks, Lauren cleared his throat a tad, and Jester’s expression went from close-eyed bliss to focused attentively on his face, all without stopping her tongue’s **** on her lollipop.

“Hey, Jester?”

“Yes, Mister-Man-With-A-Girl’s-Name?” Jester asked back, only interrupting her licking of the sweet long enough to answer him.

“Are we—first off, it’s unisex, thankyouverymuch. Secondly, are we… an item?”

Jester cocked her head to the side. “Not really, no. No one on the team’s got that kind of arrangement going on, though if Beau and Yasha could just cut to the chase already, I think they’d both be waaaay happier.”

“Uh-huh.” Lauren said with a nod, noting that he should probably be making an effort to remember all of these names. “But what I mean is… why are we in the same room, then?”

Jester shrugged again. “Eight people, two to a room, Beau and Yasha get to room together, and I don’t mind seeing dicks! Like Caleb would say, it’s just a math problem.”

“Oh.” Lauren couldn’t hide his disappointment at that fact, even as his eyes kept straying south, to where stray bits of lollipop would bounce off of the shelf of her cleavage.

An altogether different sort of math problem was going on behind Lauren’s eyes, as all of the different ways he could make this woman attracted to him with the power he had in his possession began to play out. Sure, what he’d wanted most was to stop being so lonely, but was this the best way to go about it? Was her friendship enough?

Or…

Should he want more?