I caved, y’all. I’m swan diving into the garbage fire of this fandom ad I have no regrets tbh. Thank you @9thlevelcounterspell for reading through this/encouraging me with the writing process!!
Title: I Bare My Skin
Summary: Molly’s POV, Missing scene from campaign 2, episode 2. Fjord politely offers to share his room with Molly, and Molly shamelessly takes up the offer. Flirting, a lil bit of hurt/comfort, and yet more flirting ensues as a result. (Mentions of self-harm/Molly’s scars)
Teaser: Molly had never been able to react appropriately to kindness. He had not known enough of it to learn how.
Link: AO3
Or continued below:
“Where exactly am I going to be sleeping, by the way?” Molly said glancing around, eyebrows raised at his companions. “I mean, I can sleep down here, but, uh, it might be nice...” his gaze quickly swept the tables.
Caleb and Nott were full in their room. Beau was wearing a look that said she’d sooner see him sleeping in a grave than her room. Jester was doodling something and barely listening. Fjord, however, was tall, imposing, and by all accounts terrifying, but there was a softness in the big man that had him focusing his attention on him.
“Molly, if you would like to share my room you can,” he said, as if on cue.
Well, perhaps he’d been a tad obvious, but he had a private bit of floor to sleep on now that was less likely to be stained with ale than the bar.
“Excellent,” he replied, winking at the half-orc across the table who blushed just a little, quickly hiding it in his mug.
The talk in the bar room of the Nestled Nook faded to embers along with the fire in the corner, the light in the room dying along with the noise.
As one, the strange group got to their feet and shuffled towards the stairs in the corner, ready for bed.
“One more,” Fjord grunted over his shoulder to Molly as Jester scuttles off along the corridor of the second floor, prattling about the things she wants to draw before bed.
Molly catches the faint smile on Fjord’s face as he watched the other tiefling out of sight.
“Anything going on there?”Molly asked easily as they continue to climb to the third floor.
Fjord glances down at him, eyebrow raised, and Molly nods towards the lower floor and Jester. Fjord snorts and shakes his head, “Just friends,” he replied, turning the corner and passing temporarily from Molly’s sight.
He rounds the corner after him and presses, “Do you want there to be something going on there?”
There was a slightly longer beat of silence this time, and Fjord waited until they had left the stairs and stepped onto the landing. Then he said quietly, “I just met you. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Well I’m trying to change that,” Molly replies smoothly, “How will I ever know anything about you if I don’t ask?”
“Ask something else, then” Fjord replied, more brusquely than he’d yet heard from him, turning away and rummaging in his pockets for his room key.
You may as well just have said I’d be sleeping in your room alone if you had your way, friend, Molly thought with a soft smile. Travelling with the carnival had taught him to read people. His brand of fortune telling at the carnival was little more than lucky-guesswork and playing well off other people’s reactions to the things he said.
He didn’t press, however, as they stopped outside room 19. Fjord pushed the key into the lock and swept Molly into his room before him. Molly bowed, lips pulling into a smirk, and stepped inside. The room was barren, furnished with nothing more than the bare essentials, with a single bed pushed against the wall.
Molly inspected the floor, trying to decide which bit felt softest as Fjord stepped in behind him.
“You’re welcome to the bed, if you’d like it,” he said courteously.
Molly snorted at that and turned to him, smirking, “What are you going to do if I say yes?”
“I’m going to give you my bed,” Fjord replied.
Damn. He was almost too good, and no fun to tease.
Molly smiled before planting himself down on the floor, “This will do fine for me. Be thankful I’m too generous to take advantage of that. But, word to the wise, someone will take advantage of that generosity some day.”
Without further ado, Molly stripped off his shirt. There was no privacy in a carnival, they were always changing backstage and trampling over one another as they did so. He had seen all sorts from his fellow performers, and there was nothing about his body that would shock any of them either.
“I, I can leave if you want a moment to change-“ Fjord began, just as Molly’s shirt the floor.
He laughed softly again, “Carnie,” he reminded Fjord, who nodded, as though this was just to be expected.
“I was planning on sleeping shirtless,” Molly informed Fjord conversationally. “But if it bothers you-“ he reached for his shirt again.
“No, no,” Fjord insisted, shaking his head, turning back towards the bed. “Sleep however you’re comfortable.”
“Well I usually sleep naked,” Molly said at once, just to see what effect this would produce.
As expected, the big man blushed, and Molly smirked. He liked unsettling people, he liked pushing them out of their comfort zones and see how they reacted. It was only then, when someone was uncertain, when they were put on the spot, that was when you truly saw who they were.
“Don’t worry,” he said, smile broadening, “It’s too cold for that tonight.”
Fjord choked.
Molly found some extra blankets at the top of the wardrobe while Fjord changed into looser clothes for sleeping. He didn’t miss the sharp orc eyes that followed him as he spread them out on the floor.
“You like what you see?”Molly demanded, eyebrow raised. He couldn’t help himself, truly, Fjord made a very large, very handsome target, and this was the most fun Molly had had all day.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Fjord said, voice going quiet in that way people’s voices always went quiet when they talked to him.
Molly straightened up and looked Fjord full in the face as he said softly, “Say it.”
“What?” Fjord said, too quickly, fooling neither of them.
“What you want to, but feel like you’re too polite to spit out. I’ve heard everything before.” That was certainly true.
“I’m just curious,” he shrugged, “About the...The-“ he nodded his head at Molly’s bare chest, at the scars that lay in criss-cross patterns covering almost every inch of him, but did not say the word.
People seemed strangely afraid of it, as afraid as they were of addressing the scars at all. As though they thought that he, Molly, had somehow forgotten that they were there. As though they were invisible until someone spoke of them to him, then they burned into his flesh, called to attention.
He knew they were there. It was impossible to forget them. Every moment of every day he knew they were there. He had tried hiding them to begin with, tried hiding himself, too. He had worn baggy, dark clothes that covered every possible inch of skin they could. But he had quickly grown tired of living like that. Enough of himself was hidden as it was, against his will, that he had grudged hiding his body, too.
The scars were there. Burying them in layers of clothing and pretending they were not wasn’t going to change that. He had decided to own them, instead. That was the only choice he had in the matter, and he was damn well going to make it.
“The scars?” Molly supplied for Fjord who nodded, almost embarrassed, though he couldn’t have been more explicitly invited to ask about them.
“The kind of magic Caleb practices isn’t the only kind in this world,” he said, a slightly twisted smile tugging at his lips this time. “This,” he gestured at the scars, “Is another.”
“Blood magic?” Fjord said.
Molly mock-applauded, “Very good,” he said, smiling, eyes twinkling.
“Some might say that was cruel,” Fjord said, softly.
Molly looked up at him again, gaze perfectly steady, and said quietly, “The world is a cruel place. Sometimes you have to become a little cruel yourself if you wish to survive it.”
Fjord made no answer to that. Not that Molly gave him much of an option to. The words were barely out of his mouth before he had turned his back on the other man and busied himself with his blankets once more.
Fjord nudged one of the pillows from the bed at Molly, who stuffed it under his head with a muttered word of thanks. He listened to the half-orc move around for a few more minutes, then the creak of the wooden bed frame as he sank into it, snuffing out the candle with his next breath.
The room went dark, and the exhaustion of the day descended upon him like a sudden plague. His limbs felt leaden and, though he tried to resist for a moment, sleep pulled him into a deeper, blacker oblivion than that of the dim room around him.
He woke suddenly. Whether it was hours or minutes later he couldn’t tell. The room was still dark, the sun beyond not yet having risen, and for a moment that caused him to panic. The images and sounds that had vaulted him from sleep as his mind rejected their horrors and forced him awake continued to claw at his nerves.
He clamped a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to either be sick or to scream. Or both. Sweat beaded on his skin, the blankets sticking to his bare chest, and he tore them away at once with a shaking hand, then clutched at his head, as though trying to help it push back what he had seen.
And what had he seen? He still didn’t know. The tangle of images and sounds were no clearer tonight than they had been the night before. Or the night before that. Or the night before that. He hadn’t slept a single night through since he had woken on a pallet on the floor of a carnival tent with Orna hovering over him looking concerned.
Each night had presented him with the same. You would have thought he might be able to remember it by now, might be able to piece it together. But even as he sat there, panting in the dark, cursing himself, both trying desperately to remember something tangible, something real, and at the same time terrified to, he had nothing. Nothing.
He jumped violently at the soft brush of motion against his shoulder and spun, hissing softly on instinct, reaching for blades that were not on his back right now, bracing for the flash of pain that didn’t come.
“Sorry.”
The soft sound of Fjord’s voice reminded him where he was, and forced him, more than anything else, to get a grip on himself. He was not alone in this room. He had hoped that Fjord would remain ignorant of his nightly terrors, but apparently whatever gods there were had not seen fit to even grant him that.
A moment after he realised that, he realised that the thing that had brushed his shoulder had been a cup of water that Fjord was wordlessly holding out to him.
Unable to speak himself, he simply took it and sipped at it, turning away, hunching in on himself. For all his bravado, all his thoughts about baring his scars and his self for the world to see, and refusing to feel shame for them, these scars he would hide if he could, the scars that cut into not his skin, but his soul. The scars that so few had ever seen and, if he’d had his way, none would know of at all, save himself and the faceless demons he danced with in the darkness of the night.
Finally, after several long minutes of sitting with his back to the bed, he managed to grate out a curt, “Thank you,” to Fjord, without looking at him.
“Don’t mention it,” the other man responded. Molly could feel it as he hesitated, and he closed his eyes in a silent grimace, anticipating the next words, praying they wouldn’t come, but knowing they would. “Are you al-“ Fjord began.
“Fine,” Molly bit out in a clipped voice, a muscle going in his jaw, still not looking round.
Another heavy, oppressive beat of silence, that lay on the room like thunderclouds blanketing a sky, making it feel as though the world was pressing in, growing smaller with every second, squeezing the air from lungs as it did.
Then, something Molly wouldn’t have believed possible a second go, things got worse, as Fjord cleared his throat awkwardly and said, “If you’d like it, the bed is still available for you.”
“I don’t need your pity,” he snarled, turning on him, his anger lashing out at this one person, this one person who dared to see his vulnerability, who dared to see his weakness, and who then dared to respond to it not with revulsion or contempt, but with kindness of all things.
Molly had never been able to react appropriately to kindness. He had not known enough of it to learn how.
There was another silence, which Fjord broke by saying composedly, “I don’t remembering offering you pity. Just my bed.”
Molly opened his mouth to snap something back, then he caught a glimpse of Fjord’s face. It was dark, yet he caught the twinkle in his eye quite clearly, the almost...Flirtatious smile curving his lips. He cocked his head, finding that this time he was the one off-balance and out of his comfort zone, that the other man had actually managed to unsettle him. There weren’t many who could claim that.
“Fjord,” he murmured, his voice dropping naturally into the smooth, velvet tones he used with those he wished to seduce, wished to consume and bend utterly to his will, “If you’re going to invite me into your bed, at least buy me a drink first.”
Fjord smiled, “Quite sure I did earlier,” he said, his own voice dropping a little now.
It seemed that the darkness gave him courage, that not being able to look into Molly’s fierce red eyes as plainly as they could be the light of the sun let him say the things he would have blushed to so much as think of before. He liked it.
“Yes,” Molly purred smoothly, his tail lashing back and forth a little, betraying his eagerness, “So you did. I quite forgot.” There was a beat of silence, in which they both seemed to consider what hung in the air before them, both of them still, held taut by the tension of the room.
Molly broke it, rising fluidly to his feet and padding across the room towards Fjord’s silhouette. He was sitting up on the edge of the bed, his body angled towards Molly, and it wasn’t difficult to slide smoothly down into his lap, straddling him.
His skin was cool to the touch beneath Molly’s investigating fingers. Of course, most people felt cool to a tiefling. There was something electrifying in the contrast, in the silken feeling of him gliding beneath his fingertips, his progress occasionally interrupted by an old scar.
Molly settled himself comfortably in his lap, and felt one of Fjord’s large hands slide gently around his waist, anchoring him in place. One of his hands traced its way along the half-orc’s spine before sliding into his hair. The other slid up his chest, from his navel, to the point where his loose shirt opened up and bared his chest, all the way up until it slid under his chin, tilting his face up.
“I did warn you,” Molly whispered softly, “That someone, someday would take advantage of that generous spirit of yours.”
“You did,” Fjord agreed, his voice just a little more breathless than it had been a moment before, and Molly preened just slightly at the effect he’d already had on him.
“Then this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to you,” he breathed.
Then he kissed him. It was slow, and deep, and indulgent, and what surprised him that Fjord was just as ready, just as eager for it as he was. From his blushing earlier, he had wondered if the other man might be a little timid if he ever managed to pin him down. Not that he had wondered much. Well, not that he had wondered too much.
When Molly paused, drawing away slightly, content to let it end there, Fjord surprised him by continuing it. He slid his own hand into Molly’s hair and pulled him in once more, tongue pressing easily into his mouth with a confidence that said he knew what he was doing. And he did.
Molly was not precisely inexperienced when it came to intimacy with other people. Fjord was making it quite clear that he wasn’t either, he just didn’t boast about it quite as much.
“You know, we are sleeping above a bar right now,” Molly murmured, when they drew back to pause for breath, “You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he shot back, eyes dancing, hunger evident in them, “What’s your point?”
“My point,” Molly said, easing gently out of Fjord’s lap, “Is that you’ll likely still be aware of it tomorrow.”
“I likely will,” Fjord agreed, after a faint pause and a frown of confusion.
“Good,” Molly purred in reply as he moved back towards his blankets, “So buy me another drink tomorrow, one I promise faithfully not to forget, and invite me into your bed like a gentleman.”
It would be easy, so easy, to give in to what they both wanted right now. So easy to kiss Fjord again, to push him back down onto the bed and strip the clothes from him. But perhaps that was the problem. It was almost too easy, and Molly wasn’t sure he wanted it to be like this, wasn’t sure he wanted it to stem from a stirring of compassion and, whatever Fjord had said to the contrary, pity on his part.
It would be bliss to lose himself in the thick, corded muscle of Fjord’s arms, the surprising sweetness of his kiss, the inviting deftness of his broad, calloused fingers but...But no. He didn’t want it to be like this. It had been like this before. Fast, and impulsive, and hot and...Regretted in the morning. When the sunlight came and the awkwardness returned and...And he didn’t want that with Fjord. He wanted...He didn’t truly know what. Just. Not like this.
“In the meantime,” he said firmly, as he settled himself down on the floor of Fjord’s bedroom once more, “I assure you I’ve slept far worse places than this floor.”
“I’ll just bet you have,” Fjord muttered as he turned over, punching his pillow into a more comfortable shape.
For the first time in a long time, Molly lay down, shut his eyes, and faced sleep with the ghost of a smile on his lips.
Part 2 of The Locket series! Thank you to @9thlevelcounterspell for holding my hand and pompoms through this endeavour to cobble something together.
Click here for Part 1!
Title: Chapter 2: The Locket
Fic Summary: Molly has no memories of his past before he woke up at the side of the road, half-dead, and was taken in by the carnival that became his family.The only connection he has to who he was before is a locket given to him by Yasha.
Now travelling with his new, strange group, he begins to understand who he was before, and is forced to face the ghosts that emerge from the locket he opened with unthinking curiosity.
Mollymauk backstory/character study/exploration of the new team dynamic. Something in here for everyone. And shit loads of angst. Because I'm me.
Chapter Summary: The new family that's blossoming around Molly starts to discuss their old family. Mostly team fluff and bonding, with a little bit of backstory speculation thrown in because why not?
Teaser: It didn’t take them long to get onto the subject of their families. It was inevitable, really.
They were six, occasionally seven, whenever Yasha drifted back to join them, travellers in a wagon with a single horse which was, miraculously, still alive. There were only so many times they could listen to jester half-shriek, half-sing, without a single hit note anywhere to be found, the same sailor’s songs Fjord had taught her before the desperation to avoid yet another rendition of it drove them all into small talk.
Link: AO3
It didn’t take them long to get onto the subject of their families.
It was inevitable, really. They were six, occasionally seven, whenever Yasha drifted back to join them, travellers in a wagon with a single horse which was, miraculously, still alive. There were only so many times they could listen to jester half-shriek, half-sing, without a single hit note anywhere to be found, the same sailor’s songs Fjord had taught her before the desperation to avoid yet another rendition of it drove them all into small talk.
Molly was taking his turn lounging in the back of the wagon with Jester, his head resting idly in her lap, allowing her to comb her fingers through it and braid it. This inevitably meant it getting knotted so badly Beau had offered to cut it off with a dagger to salvage it, but he had managed to untangle it all so far.
Fjord started it, turning to Beau as Jester began humming a very familiar tune that struck fear into the hearts of all those around her, and said with an air of thinly concealed desperation, “So, this vacation you’re on right now. Your folks okay with it, are they?”
She narrowed her eyes at him in that way she did. Molly lazily turned his head to get a better view- only to have Jester give him a good idea what it felt like to be the horse as she yanked on his hair like reins, “Stay still,” she huffed at him, “You’re making it more difficult to create my masterpiece.”
Choosing to pass over the ominous use of the word ‘masterpiece’ he instead fished another few mint leaves out of the pouch at his belt and began chewing them.
He had found a small clump of fresh mint the other day and had eagerly picked it. Over the course of their travels he had managed to persuade most of the others to try some.
Fjord had shrugged noncommittally, claiming not to be offended by it, but also not really sure why anyone would bother chewing it.
Beau had glowered at him as though he’d offered her freshly picked hemlock instead and refused to put it anywhere near her mouth.
Jester had liked it so much she requested more. Which she had promptly sprinkled all over the top of one of her doughnuts in order to make it ‘mint flavoured.’ She was a strange soul, but Molly wasn’t one to judge.
Caleb, apparently already used to the practice, had taken some without needing to be urged and thanked him for it.
He had also helped coax Nott into trying some. The leaves had remained in her mouth for all of twenty seconds before she spat them out and scrubbed at her tongue with her fingers, looking disgusted.
“Yeah, they were cool with it,” Beau said, shrugging, “No big deal.”
Molly, recognising the tone by now, absently riffled through the deck of cards that were rarely out of his hands, and threw one at her like a glaive. Happily, her attention was focused on Fjord, and so it hit her in the side of the head. She snatched at it before it fell and whirled on him, torn between staring down at it.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she demanded, brandishing it at him.
Above him, Jester cried eagerly, “Oh me! Let me see it! I will reveal the secret message it conceals!”
Abandoning the ‘masterpiece’ of Molly’s hair, she crawled to the edge of the wagon and took the card from Beau. She stared down at it for almost a full minute then burst out laughing, with such a loud shriek that the horse snorted, lashing its tail, startled by the sudden noise. Caleb quieted it with a gentle touch to the neck while Jester rolled around the bottom of the wagon, clutching her stomach.
“What?” Beau demanded, glaring at Molly who just offered her a soft smile, and hastily pulled his legs up against his chest to avoid the retaliatory whack from her staff.
Controlling herself with difficulty, Jester sat up again, holding the card before her as though she was about to bless someone with it, she announced, “It means that you’re lying.”
Molly plucked the card from Jester’s fingers and deftly slotted it back into the deck as Beau fumed, “I am not.”
“Oh but you are,” Molly said, grinning at her upside down from where Jester had yanked his head by the horns back into her lap so she could continue playing with her hair, “You’re lying through your teeth, and you’re doing a very poor job of it, I must say.”
“My parents don’t care that I’ve gone on this trip!” she burst out, as though increasing her volume would make them less likely to see through her bullshit.
“Mm, that’s closer, but still not quite the truth, is it?” Molly said, smiling at her.
“You better shut your mouth so I can’t see those teeth of yours any more or I swear I’ll knock them down your throat, ”Beau snarled at him, starting forward before being restrained by Fjord’s gentle hand on her shoulder.
In response, Molly bared his fangs at her. She growled.
“What are you trying to say, Mollymauk?” Caleb asked, frowning slightly at him from where he was up front walking the horse.
Nott was currently sitting on its back, occasionally accepting the flowers Caleb passed to her from the side of the road. The first time she had tried this the horse had nearly bolted and left them alone in the wilderness. But by now, as with so many other things, the poor beast seemed just resigned to its fate. Molly was fairly certain it was counting down the days to Winter’s Crest with eagerness. Though he doubted Jester would ever actually let him butcher and eat it.
“You come from money, yes?” He shot at Beau. It was a rhetorical question, but she grunted vaguely in a way that meant ‘yes’. “Girls like you that come from money like that aren’t generally allowed to wander the countryside wherever they will. Maybe your parents truly don’t care, I know I certainly wouldn’t-“ she made a rude hand gesture towards him, and he responded with one of his own, “But my guess is they have no idea you’re taking this little tour of the world.”
Beau flushed red at that and Molly smirked, popping another mint leaf into his mouth and feeling satisfied.
“Uh, what about siblings?” Caleb interjected as Beau clenched her fists tightly and glared in Molly’s direction. It was a very obvious attempt at defusing the situation, but it was curiously difficult to deny the awkward wizard anything. “Brothers? Sisters?”
“What about them?” Beau muttered, looking away from Molly.
“Well, do you have any? Don’t they miss you being away from home for so long?” Caleb asked.
Molly cracked an eye open to peer at Beau. She had gone curiously quiet, as though all the rage and fight that had been blazing through her only a moment before was gone. “Got a sister. Younger,” she grunted, finally, “I miss her but she-“ She broke off, then shrugged, “She’s cool. It doesn’t bother her, she just wants me to be happy and all that sappy shit...” she trailed off, scuffing her toe against the ground.
This time, Molly judged, she wasn’t lying. She was still hiding something from them but...This time he had no desire press her.
“So, what about you?” Beau demanded, turning to Fjord with an almost alarmingly rapid rise in the volume of her voice as she very pointedly shifted the focus to the half-orc.
Fjord sighed, “I’ve got siblings. One brother, he’s a few years younger than me, and six sisters, some older, some younger, I’m kind of in the middle.”
Nott made a small choking noise from her perch atop the unfortunate horse. “Your parents had eight children?” She squawked, looking horrified at the very idea.
“Yup,” Fjord said, shrugging his shoulders, “It wasn’t that bad. Two of my sisters ended up as captains, and I ended up getting my first job on one of their ships before I worked my way up.”
“Hold on,” Beau interjected, goggling at Fjord, “You said your sisters were captains?”
“Sure,” Fjord replied easily. He frowned down at Beau as she continued to goggle at him, as though he’d announced his sisters each had three heads and twelve arms. “You know,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially to Beau, “It’s only really humans that bother about that shit. Half-orcs, not so much.”
“Tieflings don’t either!” Jester chimed in.
“In my experience, tieflings can take or leave gender as they see fit,” Molly supplied mildly, “It’s definitely a human thing.”
Jester nodded her agreement. “Definitely.”
“Definitely,” Nott agreed, surprising them all by chipping in to the conversation.
“Humans have many things other races do not,” Caleb added, “And a lot of them are very stupid and unnecessary.”
Molly smiled over at the wizard, “Excellently put,” he said, with the smile he gave the wizard whenever he wanted to see him blush.
“Don’t tease him,” Jester chided him in Infernal, lightly slapping his shoulder.
Molly’s grin broadened, “I wasn’t teasing, my dear, I was being honest.” he replied in the same language, “But he does turn a delightful red colour when you get him flustered, don’t you think?”
“Well you shouldn’t fluster him,” she said, “It’s not nice.”
He snorted at the irony of that, but decided not to comment on it.
Caleb, still slightly pink, turned to Fjord, cleared his throat and said, “So you’re father was a sailor, too. What about your mother?”
Fjord smiled at that, “She was a blacksmith,” he informed them all. Even Jester looked up in interest at this. Apparently it hadn’t yet come up in her travels with the half-orc. “Yup, that’s how she and my father met, see. He was also trained to protect the ships, as well as sail them. He went to her for weapons when they stopped in Port Damali one day. Said he fell in love the moment he set eyes on her.”
Jester ‘awwww’d’ loudly at this, while Beau mimed vomiting into the grass at the side of the road, making Molly snort in amusement.
“Was she very beautiful?” Jester asked excitedly, apparently not noticing either Molly or Beau’s reaction to this.
“Still is,” Fjord said with a soft smile.
Jester’s grin turned positively wicked and she leaned out of the wagon slightly to say, eyebrows waggling suggestively, “Maybe that’s where you get your good looks, hm?”
Fjord promptly blushed at that, which only made Jester look more pleased.
“You shouldn’t fluster people, it’s not nice,” Molly said in Infernal, imitating Jester’s voice.
She tugged on one of his horns irritably and he smirked some more, so she did it again. Then she peered up at Fjord and said, still in Infernal, “He turns a very amusing colour too, though.”
“That he does,” Molly replied, lazily casting another glance in Fjord’s direction.
He raised his tail and Jester slapped hers against it, both of them smiling.
“I still haven’t gotten used to that,” Nott said, eyeing Molly’s tail as he flicked it idly from side to side.
“That we have tails?” Jester asked, cocking her head and frowning.
Nott nodded.
“Ah, but there are so many uses for them,” Molly said, lightly smacking Fjord’s ass as he moved around the cart to walk beside Caleb. He flushed again and Jester grinned.
Nott giggled, looking eager, “What else?” she asked, eyes shining with interest.
Molly smiled and shifted slightly, dangling his tail over the side of the wagon and knocking on it to get Frumpkin’s attention. Caleb’s familiar, now restored to cat form much to the wizard’s delight, trotted over and immediately began batting at the tip of Molly’s tail as he jerked it out of reach.
Nott laughed even harder, leaning around the edge of the horse to watch.
“Careful,” Caleb warned, though he too was smiling, “His claws are sharp.”
He wasn’t wrong. Molly was just a little too slow and Frumpkin’s claws tore through the delicate skin. With a soft hiss of pain he tugged it back up into the cart.
“Sorry,” Caleb said, frowning apologetically as Frumpkin continued to look around for the source of his entertainment.
“Not at all, I was asking for it,” Molly replied mildly, smiling.
“I’m the cleric!” Jester shrieked, “Let me see it! I will tend to your wounds.”
“I really don’t think it needs-“ Molly began, but Jester had already seized his tail and yanked it up to her eyes to inspect it.
“Poor tail,” she said, prodding at the thin slashes. She pressed a soft kiss to it and then released him, “All better,” she announced.
“All better indeed,” he agreed, leaning forwards and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, “Thank you, sweetling.”
Jester beamed at him.
“What about you, Jester?” Nott asked, who had now turned right around on the horse’s back, facing the two of them in the cart.
Molly returned his head to Jester’s lap and allowed her to keep playing with his hair as Beau said, “Yeah. You got twelve siblings stashed up in Nicodranas somewhere?”
Jester laughed at that, “Definitely not,” she replied, “I am an only child,” she announced, smiling, apparently satisfied by this.
“Figures,” Fjord muttered under his breath.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she demanded, glowering at the tall half-orc, hands planted on her hips.
“You’re just a very singular individual, darling, couldn’t picture it any other way,” he replied, smoothly.
Jester considered this for a long moment, a faint crease between her brows. Then she beamed and settled herself back down in the wagon, looking rather pleased and proud. “Quite right,” she nodded.
“Your father isn’t at home though, is he?” Molly said, craning his head back in her lap to squint up at her, “The first day we met I remember you asking me about him,” he spread the cards in a fan and waved them under her nose to underline his point.
“I did ask you!” she said, looking excited he remembered. “The truth is I have never met him, or-“ she broke off, frowning slightly, “I did when I was very, very small, my mother said But I don’t remember, so it doesn’t count.”
“Reasonable,” Molly agreed.
“He left my mother when I was very young. But she wouldn’t tell me why. Or where he went. Or what he was like.”
“So what?” Beau said incredulously, snorting, “You figured you’d just traipse up and down all of Wildemount until you found out for yourself?”
“Yes,” Jester said, composedly.
“Oh,” Beau said, apparently taken aback by this matter-of-fact reply, “Well...Good luck with that,” she finally managed to get out, obviously at a complete loss for how to respond to Jester.
Molly had noticed that a lot of people seemed to have that reaction to her. And what was more, she seemed to like it.
“Thank you, Beau,” Jester said, composedly.
“So, what’s your mother like?” Fjord asked conversationally.
“She’s a wonderful woman,” Jester said, nodding sagely, “A blue tiefling, just like me, and very, very beautiful. The most beautiful woman in all the world.”
“You can’t technically say that, though,” Caleb said, frowning, “Because you haven’t seen every woman in the world to know that-“ He caught the ‘stop talking now’ look that Fjord was giving him and broke off, but too late.
“No!” Jester declared, “She is the most beautiful woman in all the world. Lots and lots of people say it. People come from all over the world to see her and be kissed by her.”
“Be kissed by her?” Nott repeated, eyes wide.
Jester nodded, “Yes. She was blessed by the Traveler, you see, to be so beautiful that people will come from far and wide to see her. And she’s magical, too. If you’re kissed by her, you’re destined to meet your soulmate.”
Everyone took a long moment to digest this but really, Molly thought, given the way Jester was, that story could have been a lot more shocking.
“So, if they’re destined to meet their soulmate from a kiss...What wondrous thing happens if they sleep with her, then?” he asked her in Infernal, a wicked grin spreading across his face.
“Me,” Jester replied primly.
He choked on his mint leaves.
Jester patted him on the back, grinning. Then she turned her attention to Nott, “What about you, Nott?” she trilled.
The little goblin girl gave a small shudder. “Oh, my family were dreadful. Definitely not magical at all,” she said, shaking her head so hard her large ears flapped emphatically. “And I certainly don’t want to find them on this trip.”
“You ran away from them, then?” Fjord asked, the big man’s voice surprisingly gentle.
Nott nodded firmly. “Oh yes. But I...I may have...Taken a few things before I left.”
“A few things?” Fjord repeated, “What kinds of things?”
“Gold things,” Nott said, wringing her hands in her lap as though expecting them to be angry with her. “Lots of gold things.” She paused a moment, then amended, “Actually all of them.”
“All of them?” Molly repeated, eyebrows raised as he peered upside down at Nott.
She nodded and then confessed in a rush, “I stole all of the gold that my clan king had before I ran away.”
A long moment of silence followed this pronouncement. Then both Beau and Molly burst out laughing at the same moment.
“Good for you, kid,” Beau said, smiling and giving Nott a gentle tap on the shoulder with the end of her staff.
Nott smiled around at them all rather sheepishly, but looked pleased with herself all the same.
“Caleb,” she said, turning to the wizard walking along absently beside the horse, for once actually paying attention to the conversation and not one of his many books. “Do you want to share anything?”
Caleb looked around at everyone watching him, cleared his throat and said, “You have been my only family for a little while, now,” to Nott who smiled a little sadly and patted him on the shoulder. “My mother still lives in Zemni,” he admitted, “But I haven’t seen her in some time. She’s a bookmaker.”
“You continue to find new and amusing ways of shocking me each and every day that we travel together, Caleb,” Molly said, sardonically.
“What about your father?” Fjord asked, the group as a whole ignoring Molly’s comment.
“My father died when I was a teenager,” Caleb admitted, not looking too sorry about this. “He was not a very nice man, and he did not like magic. After he died, my mother took care of me, and found books so that I could study some more. When I was ready, she encouraged me to leave and travel, learn more.”
“Any siblings?” Beau asked.
“I had a sister,” Caleb said, very quietly, “But she...She died. She, she was always rather frail and she grew ill one Winter. She did not get better.”
Nott gently patted Caleb’s arm and he smiled, squeezing her hand in answer.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fjord said quietly.
“It was a very long time ago,” Caleb replied, mechanically.
Molly frowned slightly. There was something...Off about his story. Not by much, but Molly had gotten very good at reading people during his time at the carnival. It had been essential to picking the correct marks with his tarot readings, and responding properly to their reactions.
He didn’t have time to question the wizard, however, because a moment later Jester flicked one of his horns to get his attention and he looked up at her instead.
“I haven’t forgotten about you, Mollymauk,” she sang, prodding him in the side with the tip of her finger, making him squirm away from her. Perhaps the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life was letting Jester see how damned ticklish he was.
“There are a lot of things about me that are hard to forget, sweetheart,” Molly said with a lazy grin, “You’ll have to be more specific.” he said, more focused on batting her evilly wiggling fingers away from him than on the conversation.
“Your family,” she said, blinking down at him, “Everyone else has said things, but not you.”
“Well that’s simple,” he said with an easy smile, “You’ve already met my family.”
Jester frowned down at him, her nose scrunching rather adorably as she did so, “No we haven’t. I would definitely have noticed if we had ran into a flock of lavender coloured tieflings in fancy coats,” she plucked at the silk coat he was sprawled in.
Molly just smiled up at her, “You did meet them. Orna, and Toya, and Gustav. Have you forgotten already? It wasn’t that long ago, surely. Too many doughnuts, I think, they’re rotting your brain.”
“My brain is not rotten,” Jester declared, “It’s the most unrotten thing in the world!”
“Quite right,” Molly agreed, patting her hand.
“But they weren’t your family family,” Jester said, “They weren’t tieflings.”
“Your powers of perception never fail to astound me,” Molly replied. Jester jabbed him irritably with the tip of her tail. “You’re right, they weren’t tieflings, but they were my family,” he said, hoping that would be enough to stop the flood of questions that were causing an uncomfortable prickle of cold dread to slide down his spine. “All of them. And Yasha, of course.”
“But what about your family family,” Jester persisted, “The other lavender tieflings of the world, you know. We want to hear all about them!”
He tensed slightly, drawing his head out of her lap and sitting up, spine stiff, at the same time Beau said, “Yeah, c’mon Tealeaf, everyone else shared. Take your turn.”
“I bet your mother was really, really pretty,” Jester continued to prattle, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this was the last thing he wanted to discuss.
“Leave it, Jester,” he said, his voice quiet and strained, but he wasn’t sure that she heard.
“Did she have tattoos as well? Or is that more a ‘you’ thing? Oh! Did she make your cloak for you?” she continued.
The rest of the group had fallen a little more quiet now, perhaps sensing the tension that seemed particularly tight around his chest, squeezing the air from his lungs, making it painful to breathe, crushing his heart.
“Stop it,” Molly whispered, staring straight ahead, that cold dread that had been snaking its way up his spine snapping taut like a whip, stinging at his raw nerves.
He clenched his hands in his lap to stop the trembling, but it didn’t do any good.
“What about siblings, then?” Jester persisted, head cocked to one side, voice now alive with curiosity, “A little sister, maybe? You would be a good older brother, I think, you-“
“Shut up!” he barked, silencing her at last as he turned on her, red eyes flashing, fangs instinctively bared. “How about you mind your own damned business for once in your life,” he snapped at her.
Jester’s eyes had gone wide, her mouth slightly open. She didn’t say anything, but she stared at him as though he was her once beloved pet suddenly turned savage.
There was a tight lump in his throat and he could already feel the guilt creeping into him, smothering the flare of anger that he was still struggling to place.
All the same, he shoved himself out of the wagon, unable to take the stares of the others, shoved his hands into his pockets and muttered, “I’m going to walk awhile. Someone else can take a turn.”
Without another word he sped up to walk ahead of their little convoy. The wagon didn’t move fast, with their sad, solitary horse to pull it, and it didn’t take much effort to get clear ahead of them, out of range of their whispered comments about his behaviour, their prying eyes, and above all, the hurt on Jester’s face.
People hit me up with some Mollymauk fic prompts. Can be shippy for Jester/Molly, or Molly/Fjord, or Jester/Molly/Fjord. And I’ll maybe attempt some group dynamic stuff with a Molly focus. Just. Feed my obsession please.
