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“Mr. Caleb.”
The sing-song tone of voice drags him from his mental wanderings more than the form of address. Caleb shakes himself out of it and folds his arms across his chest, looking across to the other side of the cart. Molly is looking back, smile fond but blank red eyes still unreadable to him.
The tiefling is propped against Jester’s bag of holding, spindly purple fingers plucking idly at the strings of a beat-up sitar as the cart rolls along the narrow mountain track. Kiri is a snoozing pile of fluffed black feathers against Molly’s hip, a slim purple tail held like a security blanket in her soft-clawed hands. Caleb stifles a yawn against the back of his hand.
“Sorry, did you need something?”
“You were doing it again.” Molly’s claw strikes a sour note and he grimaces, pausing to fiddle with the tuning knobs again. “With your arms.”
A chill runs down Caleb’s spine and he glances around out of pure instinct. They’re the only ones in the cart at the moment, recovering from a full day of swamp-trekking the day before; Fjord and Beau are driving (he can hear them bickering over the rattle of the cart over stone), Jester is riding ahead with bird-Frumpkin to scout, and Yasha is taking up the rear some ways behind. Kiri… he reaches out with his boot and gives her tailfeathers a gentle prod. She snores on.
“Sorry. Um, thank you.” He tugs his sleeves down over the bandages that wrap around his forearms and twists his fingers into his scarf to keep them still. The phantom ache of old flames scurries up his arms and dissipates.
“Don’t apologize to me,” Molly says airily. Head bowed, an iridescent curl of dark purple hair flops against his forehead with every jolt of the cart. It’s not the most comfortable ride through the mountains, but in Caleb’s opinion it’s better than subjecting his backside to another day in the saddle. “Nervous tic, then? Like Fjord and his, uh.” Molly twirls a hand in the air before picking out a few halting notes. “His tusks?”
“Ja, I suppose.” Caleb focuses on Molly’s clever hands rather than the empty red slate of his eyes peering at him through a screen of hair. He’s never been great with eye contact to begin with, but there’s something about the lack of distinct pupil and sclera that unnerves him. Molly could be watching him at any time, and he’d never know.
“Old scars?” It’s funny—for all the questions, it doesn’t feel like Molly is trying to pry. He’s certainly experienced at getting under people’s skin (particularly Beauregard’s), but most of Mollymauk’s focus is on his new find, and it gives Caleb some breathing room to think of an acceptable answer.
“What makes you say so?” he settles on at last. It feels safer than answering, or outright shutting Molly down. Caleb thinks of Yasha’s halting advice, delivered in the dark over a half-dead pile of coals, and grits his teeth. If Molly wants conversation, Caleb will damn well make the effort.
“I know a thing or two about scars,” Molly says idly. He strums a tentative chord and beams delightedly at the resulting trill. Caleb bites his lip a little, trying not to smile back. “You know. I’m a bit of a mess.” He doesn’t have to gesture to the lacey criss-cross of scars across his chest, exposed to the cold mountain air by the gape of his shirt—does Molly even feel the cold? Caleb isn’t sure—but he does anyway. “They itch sometimes. Bit of a bother, considering I don’t remember acquiring most of them, but what can you do?”
If you’re a bit of a mess, then what am I? Caleb thinks, though he already knows the answer.
“You give them to yourself, though. Does it not hurt?”
“A little.” Molly shrugs like he’s casting off a shroud of dust. The jewelry in his horns flashes in the sunlight where it lances through the cloud cover, showy and a bit blinding. Caleb drops his eyes to Molly’s hands again. Fine-boned, bejeweled, tattooed, the claws neatly kept but long enough to coax a simple melody from the sitar. “They heal fast. Nothing too much worse than a paper cut.” He nods in Caleb’s direction. “I’m sure you give yourself those all the time.”
Caleb looks at his own hands, now. Wrapped in bandages and, today, bundled in thick gray gloves with only the tips of his fingers poking out. They’re red with cold and dirty under the nail beds. The itch begins to cultivate itself again, and he curls them into useless fists. “Occupational hazard, I suppose,” he says softly. “As with you.”
“They make stuff for that, you know. Creams and ointments and things. I have a bit left in my pack if you’d like.”
Caleb is so surprised by the offer that he squints directly at him. “But then you will have none left for yourself.”
Mollymauk smiles blithely. “I’ll just have Jester make me up some more. Shouldn’t be too expensive.”
Talking about it has made it worse again. Caleb knows the scarring is long-healed, but perhaps the dampness of the swamp has seeped into his clothing and tickling the damaged nerve endings awake. He rubs a hand along his forearm, considering. “Maybe—maybe later tonight?”
Molly watches him quietly for a moment or two as if weighing something in his mind. Then he nods. “Take first watch with me?”
Caleb lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding onto. He hadn’t considered that they would be surrounded by the others when they stopped for the night, but Molly has neatly erased that little conundrum from the equation. “Thank you, Mollymauk,” he says, as genuine as he knows how. Yasha would be proud.
“Of course, Mr. Caleb.” Molly winks and drops his eyes back to the sitar. Caleb folds his arms across his chest and lets the ache breathe.
Nothing is ever simple with the Mighty Nein, of course. They are only just starting to consider finding a place to camp for the night when they round a corner and find themselves face to face with a ragtag group of soldiers on foot. There’s a wild look to their eyes and a tarnish to their armor that marks them as deserters, and though Fjord tries, they’re in no mood to parlay.
It’s a difficult fight—not necessarily because of the enemy. They’re well-trained but tired and malnourished, and none of them wield any kind of arcane power. But the battlefield is a tight spot, on a narrow track high in the mountains, with a terrifying drop on their left side, and Caleb is not overly fond of heights. Neither is Mollymauk, it seems. He hangs near the cart where Caleb has sequestered himself, popping up to throw support spells whenever he can get a clear shot. It’s only toward the end that he moves, drastically—at the edge of the cliff where Beau struggles in vain against a stronger foe, Molly blinks into existence. Gold and screaming violet blaze against the mountain scree. The last deserter falls, perilously close to falling, and Molly frees his blade and is sick in the same moment, falling to his hands and knees in the gore.
Fjord hauls him back from the edge by the collar of his coat and props him against the cart roughly before going to pick over the bodies, leaving the cart unattended. Breathing hard, still seized with adrenaline from the firebolt he sent careening past Nott’s ear a minute ago, Caleb crawls to the back of the cart and slips out to crouch at Molly’s side.
“Hey,” he whispers, seizing Molly’s shoulder in a firm grip. “You’re all right, ja?”
Molly’s eyes are firmly shut. “Fine. Just a bit of vertigo is all.”
Caleb produces a waterskin and presses it into his hand. “Drink. The worst is over.”
Molly drinks, and Caleb pushes himself to his feet, standing between Molly and the cliff that drops away just a few paces from the cartwheel. Nott has the horses secure in her grip, now, and Fjord and Yasha are taking turns tipping bodies over the edge in lieu of any kind of proper rites. It has a strange burial-at-sea sort of feeling, and for a second Caleb’s stomach swoops as the ground seems to pitch beneath his feet. But it’s only his imagination.
They get moving again after a little while, and find their camp in a gently sloping field farther down the mountain. They’re all a bit sluggish, Jester most of all—Beau was unconscious by the end of the fight, and Jester burned herself out healing the fallen monk—and they’re quietly grateful to let Caleb take first watch. Molly says nothing, doesn’t volunteer himself, but he watches in silence as Caleb winds his silver thread in a wide circle around the camp before hoving back to center like a fleck of metal drawn to a magnet.
“You should sleep,” Caleb whispers, hunkering down to warm his hands by the fire. The itch has gone away, leaving him numb and chilled instead, fingertips pale in the frosted dark. Wrapped in his coat, face still drawn taut, Molly shakes his head. Caleb huffs at his stubbornness. “I do not require assistance. I spun the thread wider tonight, and Frumpkin is out there.” He jerks his head to the treeline, some hundred yards away. Frumpkin is a bird, still—not a sparrow like before, but a nightjar, short-beaked and beady-eyed and alert for the night’s watch.
Molly does not seem to hear him. His eyes are far away, fastened to some distant point that Caleb doesn’t believe is on this place of existence. He’s heard rumors that tieflings can see into other worlds, other planes, but he no longer believes that’s true. Molly, he knows, is wandering inside his own head. A familiar and well-trod path.
Truth be told, Caleb doesn’t begrudge the company. It’s nice to have someone to come back to after the occasional roundabout, pacing the edges of his thread to peer into the ink-soaked blackness. Toward the end of the first watch, he returns to Mollymauk sitting upright and rooting through his pack. The tiefling gestures toward him, silent but energetic, and when Caleb strays nearer he finds himself pulled to sitting.
“What—”
“Shh.” Molly produces a small wooden container from his pack, darkly grained and well-oiled. The top unscrews silently to reveal a thick paste that smells of crushed ederfoil and tallow. “Give me your hands.”
It’s the most he’s said all day since nearly falling off the mountain, and Caleb is so caught unawares by the sweet roughness of his unused voice that he doesn’t even hesitate. Swaddled by the hum of evening insects and the warmth of the fire, he begins picking at his wrappings. First his left, then his right. Fingers to elbow. The cool air feels nice, and he flexes his hands a bit, trying not to look at Molly’s face.
“It looks worse than it is,” he whispers, finding himself trying to justify it even as he fumbles more quickly with his other hand. As if moving faster will make the scars less noticeable. But Mollymauk is sharp as a tack, and his darkvision eyes do not betray him. He reaches out to take Caleb’s bony wrist and Caleb goes still.
He can’t remember where the scars came from, exactly, but he knows the truth of the matter. He broke. He reached into the arcane blaze and tried to rectify what he’d done, and his handler couldn’t get to him quite quickly enough to prevent it. It’s funny—he can hold a flame painlessly in the palm of his hand, run it like a coin along his knuckles, form a fist around a coal of his own making and feel no hurt. But pulling at the wagon he’d pushed against his parents’ house, pounding at the windows as they burst outward from the sheer cosmic heat of the flames—that had left its mark.
He braces for it, holds his breath. But Molly doesn’t even flinch. Just sets the pot on the ground between them and holds Caleb’s forearm gently in one hand, smoothing a thin layer of the balm on his flame-scarred flesh.
“Looks like it hurt,” Molly says after an age. Caleb’s breathing is back to normal now, and he’s uncurled his fingers enough that Molly can rub the cream into his palm in slow, hypnotizing circles.
“It did.” Caleb swallows down a dry throat. “At least, I think it did. I don’t really remember.”
Molly nods, but doesn’t say anything else. His head is bowed and his curls fall over his face in lank spools, masking his expression—but his hands speak more clearly than his eerie red eyes ever could. They are gentle and slow, telegraphing every movement before proceeding. They are patient. They find the places that are uncomfortable, the places that ache sweetly to be held. The places that are so ugly Caleb can barely stand to look. None of it seems to faze Mollymauk in the slightest.
“Other hand,” Molly says quietly. Caleb flexes his neglected hand in his lap and reaches out. He can tell the difference—his left arm is smooth and soft, now, the tensile musculature relaxed into so much pudding. The phantom burn of old flames has been snuffed out.
He’s nearly asleep when Molly finishes. His hand is in Molly’s lap, the ball of his thumb like putty under Molly’s fingers. The ease of contact has crept up his arms and soaked into his spine until he curves forward, and if he leaned in just a little more he could lay his head on Mollymauk’s shoulder.
“Our watch is nearly up,” Molly whispers into his hair. He makes no move to push Caleb away, but the words spark a live wire in his head, freeing him from drowsiness like a hypnotist snapping his fingers. Caleb mumbles something unintelligible and sits up, reaching for his bandages. Molly clears his throat. “You should let them breathe.”
Caleb fingers the rough, dirty fabric. “I don’t like other people to… to see them.” To see me.
“I know. But it’s dark. Everyone is asleep.” With painstaking slowness, Molly reaches out and tugs the sleeves of Caleb’s coat down over his wrists. “Just for tonight.”
Caleb slumps a little, succumbing. “All right.” He stretches his loosened fingers out, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as Mollymauk tugs his lumpy knit gloves over his scarred hands. Then, almost as an afterthought, Molly leans down and kisses the exposed knuckles—first one hand, then the other. Caleb holds his breath.
“Goodnight, Caleb.” Almost seeming embarrassed, Molly puts the salve back into his pack and curls up with his back to Jester.
Caleb stares at his hands, still visible to him in his memory. The shadow of flames blackening his wrists, red and angry along his fingers to the dead, white tips. And he gets up and goes to shake Fjord awake for the next watch.
The closer they come to Shady Creek Run, the more tense Molly becomes. Caleb normally wouldn’t bother himself to notice, but things have changed between them these last few days of travel, and Mollymauk’s increasing silence and introversion are like a palpable cloud clinging to the edges of his gaudy coat.
They strike camp about a half-day’s journey out. Caleb swallows disappointment when Yasha calls first watch with Mollymauk, and bows instead to the majority as Fjord and Beau take second and Nott and Jester take third. (“Third watch!” pipes Kiri, even though they all know she’ll be dead asleep until someone reluctantly volunteers to coax her awake for breakfast.)
Despite his disappointment, he falls asleep quickly and soundly, not waking even when his companions chat lowly nearby to pass the time. He is only stirred from slumber when, unexpectedly, he feels warmth at his back that’s too large and too solid for Nott. The unfamiliar heat jerks him groggily awake and he rolls onto his side, squinting in the dark.
Molly peers back, lower lip fat with apology. “You looked cold,” he whispers. “Sorry to wake you.”
“It’s all right.” Caleb pops up on one elbow to peer around the camp. Fjord is crouched over the fire, stoking the flames a little higher while Beau loops around the back of the cart to a nearby copse for a midnight piss. Across the way, Kiri peeps faintly in her sleep, feathered ruffled. Nott is curled up beside her—a riotous pair, those two. Caleb is equal parts charmed and disturbed at how quickly they latched onto one another.
A hand at his back coaxes him back down and he goes, burrowing gratefully into the loose bedroll Mollymauk throws over both of them. Groggy with sleep, Caleb doesn’t protest the closeness. It feels nice. And Molly, he suspects, could use the extra comfort.
“You’re worried,” Caleb says quietly. He stretches out his hand—bare of bandages for the third night in a row—and finds Molly’s fingers scratching anxiously in the dirt. “Bitte halten, Mollymauk.”
“I can’t help it.” Molly clings to him nevertheless, as unmoved as ever by the mangled scarring of Caleb’s hand. “I just feel… claustrophobic. Like it’s hard to breathe.”
Caleb can feel the pulse in Molly’s thumb, thudding faster. Far too fast to sleep. And he needs to sleep, or he’ll be useless the coming morning. Usefulness is important, Caleb tells himself, ignoring the pang of sympathy swelling in his breast.
“Then breathe with me,” Caleb murmurs. He brings their joined hands close to his lips, close enough that Molly can feel the in-exhale of his breathing. In. Out. In. Slowly, Molly’s heartbeat begins to calm as he follows Caleb’s lead, never taking his eyes from his face. “There. That’s better.”
Moving on instinct, Caleb lowers his head and brushes dry lips across the faint ridged scarring that crawls up Molly’s arm. Molly gives a startled little exhale, a soft oh, and Caleb jerks back.
“Er, sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Molly’s red eyes glow faintly in the dark, and they’re crinkled at the edges, little flickering embers that beam with merriment. “I’m no stranger to affection, Mr. Caleb.”
“But I am,” Caleb replies. “That is to say, I, ah, I don’t always know what is… acceptable. To another person.”
Molly seems to mull this over. “I’m very hard to offend,” he says at last, squeezing Caleb’s hand gently. “In any case, thank you.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“For helping… calm me.” Molly ducks his head and the twin red flares wink out; a moment later, there is a smile pressed to Caleb’s knuckles, the well-worn palm of his hand. “Goodnight, Caleb.”
“Goodnight. Mr. Mollymauk.”
In spite of the exchange, Caleb stays awake a little longer, pricked from sleep by the hard ground and the twine of his hand with Molly’s. Equal parts comfort and discomfort, pulling at the weft of his subconscious like a little tickle in the back of his head. Eventually, he too is lulled to sleep, and doesn’t wake again until the shrill grumble of Kiri’s voice pierces the veil with a low but vehement go fuck yourself. He is alone in his bedroll, but Molly’s tail is draped over his extended hand as the tiefling crouches on his heels over a bowl of porridge. Caleb withdraws his hand quietly, smiling to himself, and prepares himself for the day.
Everything is horrible.
There’s a fight—a scrap, really—and then their contact bolts, leaving the Nein running through the undergrowth of the old, moss-shrouded forest surrounding the burrough of Shady Creek. In spite of their efforts, they lose them, and to make matters worse are separated in a long unravelled strand, hardly able see or hear one another under the stuffy canopy.
As soon as he realizes how far he is from the others, Caleb throws himself into a cradle of tree roots and sends Frumpkin flying, winging low through the trees. For a few long, drawn-out minutes his stomach is nothing but knots as Frumpkin flies and flies, and finds nothing. Then, at the very edge of their range, Frumpkin sees purple and gold. Caleb drags himself out of the bird’s-eye view and out of the root tangle, and runs.
He stumbles into chaos. Molly is not alone—the contact is there, shortsword drawn, sitting on Molly’s chest with the blade to his throat. Molly’s tail lashes nervously against the ground but is still in every other respect, and Caleb knows it’s serious.
Fire explodes from his hand without being asked. Fear and panic blind him and he pushes too hard, incinerates the bandages on his hands to ash, but it’s worth it for the breathless, sobbing thanks that tear out of Molly’s red-limned throat as Caleb falls to his knees beside him. The contact is charred, badly, but still alive, scarcely breathing as they lay on their stomach a short distance away. Caleb curls the fire licking at his fingers and swallows it down. Not now. Not now. He touches the thin line of blood on Molly’s throat, very nearly fatal, and chokes.
“Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”
“I’ve been better,” Molly whispers, as though he’s afraid to speak too loudly. His hand covers Caleb’s on the wound, shaking badly. “I don’t know how deep it is. My throat feels…” He coughs. Blood slicks his lips and spatters the front of Caleb’s tunic. He grimaces with a mouthful of red teeth. “Sorry.”
“Jester. We need Jester.” Caleb scrambles to his feet and stops. He can’t leave Molly here. “Frumpkin, go.” He feels like a fool when he remembers, a moment later, the healing potion in his belt pouch. He fumbles for it, hands shaking. The cork leaps from the neck with the slightest pressure and he slops a little on Molly’s front. “Fuck, fuck… I’m sorry—”
“Shhh, Caleb, it’s all right.” Molly clings to his wrist in a tight grip. He’s struggling to breathe evenly, and there’s a faint whistle from the slice in his neck with every exhale. Caleb’s stomach turns and he holds his breath as he dribbles a little potion on Molly’s neck, then tips the rest down his throat.
The potion works quickly. In a few moments there’s nothing marking his neck but another finely-threaded scar, still raw with new skin, and Molly settles back in the grass with a sigh. Caleb stays where he is, knees in the grass.
“They knew me,” Molly whispers after an age of quiet woodland sounds. Caleb flinches but keeps hold of his hand. “That is—they knew the old me, whoever he was. Lucien.” He licks his bloody lips and stares up at the thick canopy without blinking. “They wanted to bring him back.”
“By killing you,” Caleb says flatly. He glares over at the smoking halfling body of their contact and clings to Molly’s hand a little tighter. “Well we won’t let them.”
The quiet doesn’t last for very long. Soon there’s the crashing of many feet through the underbrush, echoing shouts that refuse to be subsumed by the moss-laden trees, and then Jester and Fjord and Beau burst out into the clearing, Yasha on their heels with Nott and Kiri tucked under each arm.
Jester is wild-eyed, the delicate silver chain from ear to horncap broken and swinging wildly, her hair threaded with brambles and dead leaves. As soon as she spots them she gives a shriek and charges forward, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Caleb! Molly! Oh no no no—”
“I’m all right,” Mollymauk wheezes, pushing himself up to his elbows. “Caleb had a potion, I’ll live.”
“But Frumpkin—” She throws herself to the ground and looks between them wildly, trying to connect the pieces. “He came flying through the woods, screaming, scared us all to death—” She stops. Swallows hard, reaching out across Molly’s prone form. “Oh Caleb. Oh no. Your poor hands…”
Caleb looks down at himself belatedly. He’s still clinging to Molly’s arm, but now he forces his fingers to separate and pull away, trying to hide, but there’s nowhere to go. The bandages have burned away to ash, and his gloves, and the last several inches of coat sleeve, leaving him bare from forearm to fingertips.
It looks pretty bad in the light of day. The crackling black of old flames stains his wrists and palms, and the skin is ridged and buckled where the supernatural heat once threatened to melt away his flesh. A few quick healing spells on behalf of his handler had prevented complete loss of fine motor control, but the result is still ugly. Still a beacon of shame to anyone looking. He tries, futilely, to pull his sleeves down over his hands even as Jester reaches for him.
“It’s fine. It’s not—it’s an old wound,” he mumbles. He wishes he could burrow into his scarf, polymorph into something small and innocuous and crawl into one of the coat’s many pockets and disappear.
“He’s all right, Jester, truly,” Molly interjects, sitting up and taking Jester’s hands. “We’re sorry for frightening you, darling. Yasha, would you be a dear and make sure to tie that bastard up? I feel an interrogation coming on.”
With the group’s attention successfully shifted to their contact, slowly groaning awake, Caleb breathes a small sigh of relief. Then the scent of charred flesh and the soft whimpering cries reach him, and he has to stagger to the other side of the clearing to be quietly sick.
Caleb isn’t present for the “interrogation.” He doesn’t trust himself to be. He remembers drilling Calianna into the ground about a stupid fucking bowl, and he knows that if he lets himself, he’ll hold a candle’s worth of flame to their contact’s eyeballs until they scream, and he can’t live with that. He isn’t that Caleb anymore. He refuses to be.
He’s sitting at a shadowed table in the inn’s common room when his friends return. Nott first, hunched and wary; she scurries over to him and peers into his face, nods once, and disappears to nurse her flask in private. Next are Jester and Yasha, both stonefaced. Yasha goes to the bar right away, but Jester peels off and comes to ask, in a bright and wobbling voice, how Kiri fares.
“Asleep,” Caleb tells her. “It’s late. You were gone a long time.”
Jester worries her bottom lip with her teeth and nods, brow furrowing. “We got it done,” is all she says, and she goes upstairs with her sketchbook clutched in her hand, tail nearly dragging on the ground.
Fjord and Beau are next, much later. Beau is already drunk, but she staggers to the bar anyway, Fjord trailing her like a grim shadow. Caleb watches them from his corner, nursing his lukewarm ale, stomach churning with unasked questions. He wants to know, but he doesn’t. He wants to ask where Molly is, if he’s all right, but there’s a pallor to Beau’s face in spite of her raucous inebriation that warns him away.
He gives up and goes to bed. Nott isn’t there, but when he presses his ear to the wall he can hear her trading chirps and whistles with Kiri, and that’s enough for him. He fingers the spool of silver thread from his pack and begins to wind it around the room.
The thread has just been knotted together at the base of the narrow, gap-toothed window when there’s a soft tap on the door. Caleb goes cold all over for no particular reason. He goes to the door and lays his hand bare against the wood.
“Wer ist es?”
“Caleb? It’s me. Molly.”
Caleb reaches for the door unquestioning, then pauses. “Is it?”
A long, drawn-out silence. “Please, Mr. Caleb, may I come in?”
He opens the door. Molly is leaning against the lintel, and nearly falls inward into Caleb’s arms—but he catches himself at the last moment. “Sorry.” Molly rubs his throat idly and smiles without warmth. “It has been… a night.”
Caleb stands back wordlessly and lets him in. He rakes over Molly with sharp eyes as the tiefling slumps to the single bed—wide and low to the ground and stuffed with straw—and collapses upon it. He looks worn to the bone, mouth flat and unsatisfied. His throat is still stained copper from the closed-over wound. Caleb goes to the washstand in the corner and pours out some of the water into the bowl.
“Hold this,” he says, unceremoniously thrusting the bowl at Molly’s chest. Molly takes it, eyes wide and agreeable.
“Do I smell badly?”
“You smell fine.” Molly always smells faintly of incense and a little bit floral, like a perfume that lurks in the folds of his coat. It’s pleasant, even overlaid with fear sweat and the dust of the road. Caleb dips the provided cloth in the water—only room temperature, but at least it’s clean—and gently cradles Molly’s jaw with his fingertips. “Be still.”
Molly swallows hard, once, and then hardly moves or breathes as Caleb washes his throat. Given time, the slice of the halfling’s blade is just another thin scar, one of multitudes that weave over Molly’s flesh from jaw to… well. Caleb isn’t really sure where they end. The loose cut of his poet’s shirt, ostentatiously ruffled, dips almost to his navel, exposing scars as far as his eyes can reach.
“There.” Caleb wipes a stray droplet of water away with his thumb and rinses the dirty cloth in the bowl. “Good as new.”
“Hardly.” Molly’s mouth is a bitter twist of a smile. He passes the bowl back to Caleb and runs a hand over his damp throat. “Just another tally-mark to add to the list.”
Caleb takes his time coming to bed. He disposes of the dirty water out the window, then carefully prepares himself for bed: hanging his coat to air, unhooking his braces and wrapping them around his precious books, lining his shoes against the wall beside the door. Frumpkin, once more in cat form, winds around his ankles and mrows for attention.
Go see Mr. Molly, Caleb thinks at him, and the cat changes tack immediately, jumping on the bed and pushing his little striped face against Molly’s arm. Molly smiles and rubs Frumpkin behind the ears, but makes no move to disrobe.
“Are you sleeping here tonight?” Caleb asks.
Molly doesn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t want to be a bother. I know you like your space, when you can get it.”
Caleb thinks of the evening before, swaddled in Molly’s excess bedroll by the fire, and sits gingerly on the mattress. “I don’t mind. It is… nice to have company, sometimes.”
“Yeah.” Frumpkin’s forepaws are balanced on Molly’s thigh now as he leans as far into Molly’s hand as physically possible. The tiefling’s face has softened, and Caleb’s chest grows warm to watch him lean down and butt heads with Frumpkin companionably.
Lick his face, Caleb requests, and is rewarded when Frumpkin begins rasping at Molly’s chin immediately.
“Oi!” Molly protests. He scoops the cat up and tucks him against his shoulder, and the rumbling purr kicks in immediately. Molly peers around him to Caleb. “Did you tell him to do that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Caleb says, straight-faced.
Molly grins. “You know, if you wanted a kiss, all you had to do was ask.”
For a moment, just a moment, Caleb’s heart stops in his chest and heat crawls up his face. His heart restarts, but the heat remains. He clears his throat and tugs his shirtsleeves over his hands. But for all his efforts, no words come. He stares at the floor and curses his tongue for its immovability, and the silence between them grows long and awkward.
“I’m sorry,” Molly says eventually, somber. “That was uncalled for.”
“It’s not—I don’t—” Caleb stops and bites his tongue angrily. Speak, damn you. He can feel a hundred words clamoring at the back of his throat, but something keeps them from emerging. A heavy, sickening weight in his chest. “Mollymauk…”
“Hey.” A purple hand hovers over his shoulder before settling, and Frumpkin steps delicately into his lap, still purring. “Take your time.”
He gathers his breath and his thoughts. “I do not mind you flirting,” he says at last, fingers buried for dear life in Frumpkin’s fur. “I know it is like second nature to you. It is… charming. You are charming.”
“Charming, he says,” Molly interjects musingly. It throws Caleb off his rhythm and he forgets what he was going to say, but Molly doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s a habit, true, but it doesn’t have to be. Especially if it makes you uncomfortable. You’re my friend, Caleb. I care for you very much, and I want you to be comfortable around me.”
“I am comfortable,” Caleb whispers. He leans a little bit into Molly’s touch like Frumpkin had earlier, and smiles when Molly loops an arm around his shoulders. “I just do not always know how to respond. I am awkward, you know this.”
“It’s all right.” Molly chafes his opposite shoulder and Caleb curls even nearer, until his head is resting in the pleasant crook between Molly’s ear and shoulder. Caleb shuts his eyes and breathes in stale incense and travel-stained silk. “We all are, in our own ways.” He reaches slowly for Caleb’s hands, twisted into knots in his lap. It’s easy to let him have one, and Caleb watches from his makeshift pillow as Molly lifts it to his lips and kisses the scarred flesh.
Caleb wants to ask about the halfling, and what sort of information they were able to glean about Molly’s past and the Gentleman’s errand, but he doesn’t want to break this spell. The ease that Molly has somehow conjured up soaks into his bones, warming him up from the inside.
“We should rest,” he mumbles against Molly’s clavicle.
Molly tucks another kiss into his hair. “So we should.”
Frumpkin, sensing the shift, hops off Caleb’s lap and curls into a ball at the foot of the bed, leaving plenty of room for them to stretch out on the mattress. Caleb goes down like a tree being felled. Molly goes with him, still fully clothed—boots and all—but they curl together anyway, familiar as childhood friends. Caleb tucks his hand against Molly’s chest, feeling the delicate ridges under his palm. There is still much to say and do, but for now this feels like enough.