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“You’re not bringing him back in this fucking house!” Beau declares loudly, and the small goblin snarls back up at her.
In Nott’s arms, there is an unconscious man. He is dirty and worn, hair greasy and streaked with soot, and he lies limp in her trembling grasp. Molly raises an impressed eyebrow at the goblin’s strength, considering that she is about a third of the size of the man she carries.
“I don’t have fucking time for this! He might be injured, so let. Me. Through.”
Her glare is smouldering and heated, true hatred dancing through the edges of her yellow irises, and yet Beau still blocks the way. Nott’s mouth opens slightly in a low, threatening snarl, and Beau’s hand goes to her hip, where her staff is within her reach.
Right, they really are going to come to blows.
“Ladies, ladies, you’re both beautiful,” Molly steps in with a smile, inserting himself in the small gap between the two. It feels like a dangerous place to stand, but he’s used to laughing in the face of death. At least this time they aren’t actively trying to kill him.
He faces Beau first, then glances over his shoulder towards Nott, wide grin still settled on his face.
“We need answers. We can all agree on that. But we can let him get some beauty sleep first, right Beau?” he nods superficially. She rolls her eyes at him, but her hand is moving away from her weapon.
“Let’s take him indoors, and have someone watching over him for the night. Are you happy with that? Yes, perfect. Compromise!” the tiefling declares.
“I don’t want him-”
“I’m not letting her-”
“Uh-uh! No arguing!” Molly cuts through the overlapping disagreement, reaching out and stopping shy of touching Beau, motioning his hands to the side in a shooing motion.
She doesn’t move for a long moment.
“He saved your life, you fucking bitch,” Nott hisses around Molly’s form, apparently deciding that Molly’s support is the best she’s going to get.
That makes Beau tense up all over again, gearing up for an argument, then freezing and staring at Caleb’s unconscious body. Over Beau’s shoulder, Molly sees movement of a blue figure as Jester comes rushing to the door from where she’s clearly been tending to Fjord inside.
“Ohmygosh! Caleb!” she squeals, brushing past Beau and skidding to a stop next to the wizard. “We need to get him inside! What if he’s hurt! Oh no, what if he’s dying,”
“He’s not dying,” Beau rolls her eyes, and finally moves away from the path, letting Nott rush in without further ado. Jester goes to try and help, then pouts and pulls a mocking face as the goblin growls at her attempt to touch him.
“Can I perhaps interest you in a fine meal of er- jerky soup?” Molly offers the monk.
Behind them, Nott and Jester finally get Caleb through the door and onwards towards (hopefully) a bed. Mollymauk does not want to get involved with all that.
“Whatever,” Beau mutters, then pauses and turns an incredulous eye to them. “Wait, jerky? Fuck no. I’ll go get us a rabbit or something,”
“Oh thank the moon, I really didn’t want jerky again,” Molly sighs in mostly-real relief. “I’ll go keep an eye on the second handsomest member of the group,”
Beau pulls a disgusted face at his wink. “Ew dude,”
Molly shrugs, and steps around her, heading into the house jauntily. “Can’t blame a girl for trying!”
The monk doesn’t follow, footsteps heading away, and Molly closes the door quietly behind them. For a moment, they let the smile drop off their face, tired of negotiating people as well as combat, but there’s still a houseful of people and a stew to cook.
They draw their shoulders back, allow their lips to curl into a grin, and march on in.
Molly volunteers to take a bowl of stew to Caleb, after everyone is done. Nott scowls at him, but is also clearly dead on her feet after their long day, and doesn’t actually protest.
And so the tiefling steps alone into Caleb’s room, and looks down at his sleeping form.
“The past came to get you, huh,” they murmur.
On the bed, the wizard still has a frown burrowed into their brow, although Nott or Jester has taken off his dirty coat. Nobody’s dared change his clothes, but Molly thinks they can do something about the lines of soot imprinted on his face.
He sets the stew down on the bedside table quietly, pulling out a clean rag and splashing a little water onto it from his waterskin. There’s already a chair pulled up, so Molly sits in it and leans forward, pressing the cloth gently against Caleb’s muddied skin.
It’s soothing, this. It feels like what a mother might do when her child is ill, a careful touch to ease discomfort. The sort of thing that makes Mollymauk wonder whether anyone once did this for him.
Probably not.
Anyway, he gets the soot off Caleb’s face, leaving the rag mostly black, and remembers the cooling stew on the side.
“Never want to miss a meal,” he says quietly, and softly shakes the wizard’s shoulder. No reaction.
“I’ll eat it if you don’t want it,” Molly declares louder, trying to wake him now, but the wizard doesn’t stir. He did do a lot of weird magic that day, after all.
Next door, silence has mostly fallen, with most of the group having drifted off to the bedrolls. He’ll join them, in a minute. Nott is bound to come in to sleep in here with her wizard.
Molly pulls out his tarot cards from his pocket, and shuffles them easily in their hands. This deck is worn now, soft and familiar under practiced fingers, and it is the work of moments to draw three cards to the top and lay them out on the side of the bed.
The Fool, The Magician, The Lovers.
It makes him smile wryly, winking up at Caleb’s sleeping form. “You don’t say…”
It’s a joke anyway, because he’s long known that his tarot pulls the Lovers for Yasha. She’s his balance, even when she’s not there, and it’s always reassuring to see her face looking back at him from the intertwined forms on the card. He is always the fool, and Caleb is the logical choice of Magician.
A private joke, with nobody here to catch him out. He laughs lightly, and shuffles his cheated cards back in, drawing out three for real this time.
The first one, the past, is a reversed Four of Wands. Unhappy families, not fitting in. Is this reading for him, for the life before the circus? Is it for Caleb, telling something of his past that Molly doesn’t yet know?
The present is The Chariot, upright. Now that’s better; victory, overcoming obstacles. Maybe this one is more literal, because Molly doesn’t know whether to stay with this little travelling group or strike out alone, but the Chariot is a good indicator that he should follow his interest in their adventures.
He smiles, glancing up at Caleb, and draws the final card.
Death.
Molly shoots to his feet and chucks the cards back into a pile, tucking them inside their long coat and breathes heavily. The air crackles for a moment with the memory of fire, of iron-tinged blood, of friends lying dead on the floor of a once-grand tent. Past, present-
“It’s all bullshit,” he scoffs lightly, and forces a smile back to his face.
“Is Caleb alright?” a high-pitched goblin asks from behind. Molly freezes for a second, stowing away their panic, and turns to face Nott with an easy grin.
“I mean, he refuses to eat his stew, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to finish it for him,” they wink, picking up the bowl from the side.
“He can have it in the morning,” Nott insists.
Molly bows gracefully. “Your wish is my command.”
Nott looks like she might laugh for a moment, but pushes it away, and Molly thinks that they’ll get her next time. For now, he gestures at the floor next to Caleb and says “Sweet dreams,”
“Yeah…good night,” Nott replies. Her gaze is clearly on the wizard lying behind him, so Mollymauk walks away without further ado, closing the door behind him and going in search of his bag and bedroll.
Present, but rifled through. Molly decides to care another time.
He finds a corner, although given the size of the house, all three of the others are curled up in the same room. Their quiet breathing fills the air and settles Molly’s mind, somewhat. Company is always better than none.
They lay out their bedroll by the wall and crawl into it. There are many things Molly doesn’t want to think of tonight, so he closes his eyes and imagines that Yasha’s warm arms are holding him close, pressed safely where nothing and no one can get them.
He leaves his tarot cards on the other side of the room. Who cares about the past or the future anyway.
Molly will live in the now.