Work Text:
“I need to speak to you,” Caleb says softly. He and Molly are alone in the room, which is happening more and more often and Caleb wonders exactly how much the others know. It can’t be coincidence that Fjord and Nott both keep facilitating opportunities for he and Molly to spend the night together.
He and Molly are alone in the room and after days of trying and failing, he’s finally managed to get the words out. He immediately wishes he could take them back.
Molly shifts behind him and Caleb remembers that darkness matters hardly at all to Tieflings. Even with the candles out, Caleb cannot hide his expressions from the other man. He supposes the shaking in his voice would have given him away anyway.
“That sounds dire,” Molly says, and his words are likely meant to sound like a joke but Caleb can hear the tension in them. “What about?”
Caleb takes a deep breath and tries to gather his thoughts, work his past into a narrative that is concise but thorough for the second time.
“I told Nott and Beau something recently,” he murmurs. “And… you should know too. It’s- I should have told you sooner before we started this but-”
This.
He still isn’t entirely sure what ‘this’ is. It’s so different from the only other relationship he’s ever had. He barely has a workable context for it let alone a full understanding.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Molly tells him and Caleb can tell he means it and it makes his chest ache. He shakes his head. It’s a lie of omission, a terrible one and he can’t continue it any longer.
“You have a right to know,” he says and when Molly makes to interrupt him again he continues more firmly. “You have a right to know what you are touching.”
Molly freezes at that. Caleb can’t be sure exactly why without being able to see his face and he’s endlessly grateful that Molly is behind him and that he cannot see in the dark.
“Caleb-”
“I know the man that Beau and Yasha spoke to after the Victory Pit,” he says forcing the words out before Molly can finish. It has the desired effect and Molly goes quiet again. “Trent Ikithon. I know him.”
Once he starts it’s much like before, the entire story tumbles out of him like he’s a skein of yarn and someone’s tugged too hard at his loose end and sent him unraveling. He barely pauses for breath, in a rush to get the words out as quickly as he can. It’s not any easier or less painful the second time and when he’s gotten it all out he’s shaking, eyes squeezed shut to keep back tears.
Molly is quiet for a long moment and Caleb feels dread settle in his stomach.
“It’s alright,” he breathes hoarsely. “If you want to leave. I understand.” He expects Molly to pull away but instead the Tiefling’s arms tighten around him. He doesn’t speak and Caleb realizes that not all the shaking is him, some of it is coming from Molly.
“Molly?” he asks softly and the other man takes several long slow breaths, pressing his face against Caleb’s shoulder. His skin is wet and Caleb’s eyes widen. He’s made Molly cry.
“I don’t know what to say,” Molly murmurs and he sounds miserable. “I’m sorry Caleb. I’m so sorry that happened to you.” Caleb’s mouth twists.
“Nothing has ever happened to me that I did not bring on myself,” he mutters and Molly… Molly makes a sound that can only be described as a growl. Caleb tenses, squeezing his eyes shut and bracing. He doesn’t know what’s coming but he knows Molly is angry and it’s almost a relief to have someone reacting in a way he expects. He has no context for soft touches and kisses and being held. Pain and punishment, on the other hand, those he understands. Those he knows he deserves.
One of Molly’s hands shifts and he draws in a deep breath. Molly has claws. He doesn’t know what that will feel like and he trembles but he doesn’t try to pull away. Doesn’t flinch.
Don’t be a coward. You’ve earned this, Caleb.
“Caleb!”
He jolts out of the memory to the sound of Molly’s frantic voice. The hand that had moved is in his hair, stroking gently while Molly calls for him.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes softly. “I got lost a moment.”
“I know,” Molly murmurs. “You thought I was going to hurt you?” Caleb swallows hard.
“I wouldn’t have blamed you,” he says and Molly makes a soft noise.
“Caleb, I am never going to hurt you,” he said firmly. “You don’t get punished here. Whatever what’s-his-name told you that’s not normal.”
“Trent,” Caleb tells him and Molly growls again. He cuts himself off before the sound gets going.
“Sorry. It’s not you I’m angry at, you know that right?”
Caleb makes a distressed noise.
“I don’t understand. Are you people not hearing what I am telling you?”
“We are,” Molly says and his voice has gone soft. “We’re hearing that you were a child and that you were used and abused and lied to by someone you trusted and tricked into doing something terrible.”
“I am not a victim here, Mollymauk. I wanted to kill them,” Caleb tells him firmly but Molly just shakes his head.
“If that were true then doing it wouldn’t have driven you mad,” he says, voice still soft and gentle. Caleb flinches and tries not to think about that place. About the howling emptiness that was pierced only by his parents echoing screams. He wants to deny that, to continue insisting that he had wanted them dead, that he’d been sure of what he’d been doing but looking back…
It’s almost like it hadn’t been real to him until he’d heard their screams. Like the whole thing had been completely academic, something they were talking about doing but of course, Trent wouldn’t actually make them do it. They’d get to the house and he’d stop them, tell them the test was over and that he’d proven himself loyal and his parents were being taken to face trial now. And then they’d started screaming.
“I can still feel it sometimes,” he whispers. “The madness, hovering behind me like some kind of gaping chasm. Like if I’m not careful I could trip and fall right back into it.”
“You won’t,” Molly murmurs. “You have us now. We’re here to catch you, Caleb.” Caleb squeezes his eyes shut, a sob building in the back of his throat.
“I don’t deserve this,” he chokes out.
“I disagree. And it sounds like Beau and Nott do too, so you’re out voted.”
Caleb loses the battle then and starts sobbing. He cries for a very long time, and Molly holds him through it all, murmuring softly and stroking his hair.
“We have to keep Fjord out of that fucking school,” he finally chokes out. “And Yasha he knows about Yasha now. I don’t think he believes that she’s not a spy. He won’t let that go. He’ll chase her wherever she goes it’s what he does.”
“We’ll keep Yasha safe, Caleb,” Molly promises into his shoulder and Caleb nods. He’ll set himself on fire before he let’s Trent anywhere near these people. “And we’ll keep you safe too.”
Caleb reaches up and lifts his necklace.
“He can’t find me,” he says. Molly reaches out and looks the pendant over before nodding and nuzzling closer to him.
“Good,” he says and his voice is edging on that growl again. It sounds almost like when he speaks Infernal, low and gravely. Caleb still tenses a bit at Molly’s obvious anger but he’s not truly frightened anymore. Molly seems determined not to hold Caleb responsible for any of it and he doesn’t have the strength to keep arguing.
“If you change your mind later,” he murmurs, “any of you, I understand. This… don’t feel like you’re stuck with me now just because you said these things now.”
Molly sighs and kisses Caleb’s shoulder.
“It wasn’t your fault, Caleb.”
“Please don’t,” Caleb chokes out. “Please I can’t- Nott said the same thing and I can’t-” he makes a soft noise of distress and Molly shushes him, kissing his shoulder again.
“Alright,” he murmurs. “I understand you can’t hear that right now, but someday you will be able to. I’ll say it again then.”
They’re quiet for a long moment before Caleb speaks again.
“I remember everything Molly,” he whispers. “Every time he hurt me, every time he told me I was good. Every person he brought to us. I remember eating dinner with Astrid’s family. Making polite conversation. I remember the way they started choking after they drank their wine. I remember the look on her face while she watched them. It didn’t break her. She was smirking at them. I remember wondering if I even recognized her. Whether the boy I was before I went to school would recognize me.” He swallows hard before continuing.
“I remember the way my house looked when it went up in flames and how my mother screamed and the way my father’s face looked through the window as he burned- I can’t forget.”
Molly makes a soft noise and starts stroking his hair again.
“I’m so sorry, Caleb,” he says.
Caleb shakes silently in his arms for a long moment, trying and failing to get a hold of himself.
“I want to hate him,” he breathes finally. “I should hate him and there are times when I think I’ve managed it but then I remember those months at his home and the times he was kind and I-”
“He made you love him,” Molly murmurs. “That’s what people like him do. That’s not your fault either. You’re not betraying your parents again because you can’t stop loving him now.”
Caleb gives a shaky laugh that edges on manic.
“How do you do that?” he asks. “How do you always hear what I am not saying?” He can feel Molly smirk against his neck and it feels good. It feels right in a way nothing has for a very long time.
“It’s a gift,” Molly says and Caleb laughs again, helpless and a little less fractured. “Healing is a long process, Caleb. It doesn’t always make sense and it doesn’t always happen in the order you want it to. It’s okay to need those happy memories. Especially in the face of all the awful ones.”
Caleb wanted to protest, to say he didn’t need them. That pretending that his months with Trent had ever been anything but a horrifying transformation into a Caleb shaped monster with Trent holding his leash was cowardly and self-deceiving and weak, but the words wouldn’t come.
“You are very wise for someone who has only lived two years, Mollymauk,” Caleb says instead and Molly gives a delighted laugh.
“I really like your sense of humor,” the Tiefling tells him through his chuckles. “And that little smile too. I think you think no one notices it, but I do.”
Caleb is shocked to realize that he is smiling, just a little. He shifts uncomfortably and schools his features, prompting a sigh from Molly.
“And there it goes,” he says. “That’s alright. I’m getting better at bringing it out.”
“It feels wrong,” Caleb says quietly. “To smile and laugh.”
“When does it end Caleb?” Molly asks and his voice is low and serious now. “When will you have suffered enough?”
Caleb has no answer so he says nothing. Molly shifts behind him, sighing in that way that means he’s collecting his thoughts.
“You don’t make amends by torturing yourself, Caleb. Punishing yourself doesn’t change what you did and it doesn’t make the world any better. You make amends by becoming a better person. By doing enough good for the world to balance out all the bad you did.”
That is a terrifying concept. Caleb has no idea where he would even start, how he could possibly hope to ever come close to balancing his scales.
“I’m not sure I know what good is,” he whispers. “I thought I was doing the right thing with Trent but… what if I get it wrong again?”
“You lean on us. If you’re unsure or confused, ask one of us for help. Hell, ask all of us. Varying points of view are good for this sort of thing. And when you make mistakes, not if because everyone does, you learn from them. You pick yourself up and you keep trying.”
Caleb nods, even though he’s still not sure he’s capable of what Molly’s suggesting. He’s never been good or selfless. He doesn’t think he has those things in him.
“Baby steps, Caleb,” Molly murmurs against his skin as if he can hear the thoughts turning in Caleb’s mind.
"I am a work in progress?" Caleb asks with a weak laugh and Molly chuckles.
“Exactly. And you’re not alone.” Caleb feels his small smile this time and it feels foreign and strange on his face but… good.
“I know that,” he says. He doesn’t understand why. He’d thought Molly would pull away in disgust when he told his story. He’d thought Beau would run to tell the others that he was dangerous and unhinged and a murderer and they’d all leave in the night. But by some miracle, his friends are all still here and Molly is still holding him, still pressing gentle kisses to his skin every few moments. They’re apparently still… whatever it is they are.
“Good,” Molly says and the Tiefling’s own smile is audible in his voice. “You should try and get some sleep.”
Caleb takes a deep breath, leaning back into Molly.
“You will be here in the morning?”
“I will.”
Caleb nods, clearing his throat and shifting a bit so he’s more comfortably settled in Molly’s embrace.
“Goodnight, Mollymauk Tealeaf,” he says closing his eyes and Molly hums that smirk pressing into Caleb’s skin again.
“Goodnight, Caleb Widogast.”