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“How many rooms?”
Beau opens her mouth and then… closes it. She looks a little helplessly back at Molly and Caleb, the wizard looking a little more bedraggled than usual since he spent so much of his energy just flipping through books and trying to see if he could track the others.
“Two,” says Molly, sounding like the wind’s been blown from his sails. “Just two.”
The innkeeper passes them two keys, looking at them over the edge of her bifocals. “Up the stairs and to the left, they’re right next to each other. Washroom’s at the end of the hall.” She nods to them in a way that feels like maybe, just maybe, she understands.
Beau takes the keys, passes one to Molly and the other to Nott. “ ‘m gonna drink for the rest of the night, probably.” She sniffed and rubbed a finger across her temple. “Just, uh, someone tell me what room I’m in. Or get me, I dunno if I’ll be clear-headed when I get up the stairs.” And she leaned back over the bar and started to seek out the strongest liquor to drown herself in.
The natural order seems to have broken down at this point since there’s only four of them, not even half of nine, and Frumpkin is settled in Nott’s arms instead of being perched atop Yasha’s shoulder…
“Nott,” starts Molly slowly, “if you can keep an eye on Beau, I could stay with Caleb for the night. I don’t quite think she’d like it if I were the one to wrangle her into a bed.” He looked to the hazy wizard next to him. “If that’d be alright with you, that is?”
“Ja,” Caleb agrees in a voice that sounds more like a sigh. “No one should be alone tonight. It has been a long day, and I do not think… I do not think tomorrow will be any easier.”
“Especially not if I’m hungover!” Beau downs the first of what looks like about ten shots laid out in front of her. Even though she’s turned away, she seems to be shaking a little bit, clutching at the now empty shot glass in a white-knuckled grip.
Nott’s yellow eyes flicker between Caleb and Molly, trying to decide if she should trust him with her boy in the same way she trusts Beau. When she sees him blink and slowly nod as if trying to reassure her, Nott settles down. “I’ll stay with her,” Nott agrees reluctantly, still seeming torn at the idea of leaving Caleb. She bites her lower lip before turning and hopping up onto the barstool right next to Beau and pulling out her unending flask.
Molly links his arm with Caleb’s, and Caleb tenses like he’s about to recoil but instead calms and leans into Molly slightly. “I am assuming you are ready to sleep?”
“Well, you seem to be and, like you said, no one should be alone tonight.”
Caleb seems to roll this over in his mind for a moment before saying a soft, “Ja. Let’s go.”
Molly leads them with slow steps, not his usual jaunty stride, through the tavern to the back staircase. At the top of it, he turns them to the left and slips into the first door. Two beds are laid out looking fresh and crisp with blankets folded neatly at the bottom. “I’ll take the one closer to the door if that’s alright with you?”
Caleb nods and pulls away from Molly, starting to unfold the blanket at the bottom of the closer bed.
While quietly pulling off his exotic coat, Molly watches Caleb smooth out all the wrinkles and get it so it’s not quite touching the pillows. And then he starts to peel off his dirty, fur-lined jacket. Then his book holsters. It’s all very slow and deliberate for a man who just looked world-worn and emotionally drained.
When he notices Caleb steal a glance at him, Molly turns his attention very quickly to his swords, folding them in his jacket and laying it in the moonlight on the floor for a moment. He slides his boots under the bed and unlaces his shirt a little bit, wanting to loosen up after the tense day of roaming and searching and screaming and aching.
“Fjord mentioned you pray over your swords,” says Caleb slowly as he leaves his books set on top of his coat. “Is that something you do every night?”
“When I think about it. And when I’m not too tired,” Molly replies with ease as he pulls off his belt and drops it on the floor only to kick it under the bed. “I think that tonight might be a good time for some prayer. We could use a little faith right now.”
Caleb doesn’t say anything, but Molly feels his eyes on him as he kneels down by his swords and whispers a few words of gratitude to the Moonweaver before asking her to keep an eye on their friends and help guide them back home. He rises back to his feet, brushes off the knees of his pants, and picks up his wrapped swords, placing them on a chair on the other side of the room.
“I have not had faith for quite a while, but, uh, I hope that you have enough for the lot of us. I do not think Beauregard or Nott will be saying prayers tonight.”
“I’m sure Jester’s asking the Traveler for sweets as they walk back this way,” Molly reassures, but the words taste like false hope. “Maybe she’ll even send us a message soon.” He begins to remove his shirt.
“Uh, Mollymauk, you are still planning on keeping your pants on, correct?”
He thinks on it for a moment. “I can. It’s just that usually Fjord’s asleep by this point.” Molly pulls his shirt off entirely and hangs it on the back of the chair next to his swords. “He doesn’t usually ask for me to keep my pants on, but he often doesn’t notice I’ve taken them off at all.”
“He is, uh, not the most perceptive of the bunch.” Caleb sits on the side of his bed, putting the pillows at a certain angle. “But I do miss him and the others. Much more than I thought I would.”
Molly flops down on his own bed, watching the door and listening to the soft laughter from downstairs and what might be the sound of Beau yelling angrily, maybe about her sashes, maybe about the booze, maybe about their situation. He didn’t care. It was somehow relaxing to hear her getting feisty. It meant she was still okay. “That, Caleb, is called attachment.”
When Molly turns his face to look at the wizard, he’s got his nose wrinkled in its usual way. He shakes his head a bit. “I am just not familiar with the depth of it. My cat dies, my cat comes back. Nott disappears for the night, Nott comes back. This- This is less… This is more unknown.”
“Isn’t everything unknown, really? One big improvisation?” Molly kicked his feet into the air, stretching himself out and just wanting to move. He was definitely not used to being in bed this early.
“I do not like to think of it that way.” He starts to pull the blankets up over himself. “I prefer just one day at a time. A little bit of order and a lot of focus. I like being able to control what I can.”
Molly sighs and tilts his head right and then left, trying to get a certain stiffness out of his neck. “You’re a man with an agenda, Caleb. I respect it and fear it.” He tilts his head all the way back at an awkward angle and sees that Caleb is curled up in bed, facing away from him.
“This man with an agenda would like to go to sleep, Mollymauk.”
“Understood.” He hefts himself up off the bed and settles on top of the covers for the moment, sitting upright still. “Goodnight, Caleb.”
The room goes silent for a long while as Molly finds himself listening to Caleb’s breathing and to the sounds from the hallway and the tavern below. He can hear a ruckus in the alley next to the window, and he wants to get up, but Caleb doesn’t seem to be as heavy a sleeper as Fjord is. Was? Is.
Eventually, he finds himself slipping a bit on the blankets, sliding down lower until he’s mostly horizontal because he’s half asleep and about ready to be absolutely asleep until-
There’s a commotion in the hallway that starts as a soft knock on the door and escalates to pretty heavy pounding and a not exactly whispered yell of, “C’mon, guys, let us the fuck in!”
“I’ve got it,” says Molly with a groan, getting up and patting the foot of Caleb’s bed as he ghosted past. “S’probably just the girls.”
He isn’t wrong because there’s Nott with her back to the door, quietly reminding the monk that the guys had a rough day and that Caleb needs to get enough sleep for his spells tomorrow. Until the door opens and she stumbles backwards into the room a little bit with those wide, worried yellow eyes. “Did- Did we wake you?”
“It is no trouble, liebling,” Caleb murmurs from the bed, half-sitting up now, propped up on an elbow.
“We lost our key,” says Beau. “Nott put it with the rest of her stuff and we couldn’t figure out which one was the right one.”
“I’ve stolen a lot of keys,” says the little goblin with a toothy grimace.
Molly rubs the back of his neck. “Take my bed, Beau. I’ll just lay out a bedroll.”
Caleb says in a tired voice, “Nott, you can stay with me.”
There’s a little jingle as Nott slides her bag of buttons, keys, rings, and other knickknacks under the bed. She climbs quietly up next to Caleb and settles in at the foot of the bed. “Sorry, Caleb.”
Gently, he readjusts one of her bandages that cover her ears. “It is fine. I sleep better when you are with me, honestly.”
Attachment rings in Molly’s head, but he says nothing. Instead, he opts to set out his bedroll in silence between Caleb and Nott’s bed and the window to maybe offer some privacy to Beau.
The second bed creaks as Beauregard flops down, tugging away some of her sashes and scarves, even pulling down her tiny topknot for the night. She clears her throat loudly. “Night, all.”
“Goodnight!” Nott’s shrill little voice comes from the darkness.
“Goodnight, Beauregard,” says Caleb with a sigh, and his bed shifts as he seems to lay down for the night, adjusting so as not to kick Nott where she lays. “Goodnight, Nott.” He seems to roll over and face the window. “Goodnight, Mollymauk.”
“Goodnight, Caleb,” Molly responds very softly as he settles into the folds of his bedroll.
It’s a long, low quiet. There’s none of Fjord’s snoring. There’s none of hearing Jester’s one-sided conversations with the Traveller through the wall. There’s no ominous Yasha in the room, which is actually very comfortable for Molly to know that he’s got a real-life guardian angel watching over him.
Still, in the aching quiet that is only punctuated by the occasional murmur of “You wanna go?” from Beau in her sleep, Molly can’t rest. He thought he could before, and maybe it was because he was trying to appease Caleb, but now? He’s agitated, he’s lonely, and he misses his friends.
Time passes. The light of the moon shifts across the room. Molly keeps rolling over and over, only somewhat regretting not making Beau take the floor. After a long enough while, he hears Caleb shift towards the edge of the bed.
“Mollymauk?”
“Hm?” Molly asks, trying to pretend like he was maybe asleep.
“Trouble sleeping?” asks Caleb in the gentlest of whispers.
Molly’s bedroll feels too confined and he doesn’t have a proper pillow, this one’s been soiled by mud and been flattened over time. Still, saying that wouldn’t be entirely honest. And he wants to be honest now. With Caleb. “Just feeling restless. Unsteady.” It isn’t the whole truth, but it’s better than a lie.
There’s more rustling of the sheets up top, and when Molly looks, he sees Caleb’s hand extended over the edge of the bed to him. “You should find something stable to hold onto then.”
Finding a quiet chuckle in the back of his throat, Molly reaches over and links their fingers loosely. “Just don’t you disappear on me, too.”
“I would not dream of it.” Caleb squeezes Molly’s hand with the utmost care. “Try to get some sleep.”
“I will. Thank you.” He’s still holding Caleb’s hand. It’s something he’s thought about. It’s something he’s pondered about. But it’s something he didn’t think would happen for a very, very long time.
And then something in his head murmurs, Attachment. As much as Caleb is growing and changing, Molly himself is growing and changing. And that’s a weird thought. One he doesn’t mind having, but it’s easier to swallow when his fingers are intertwined with Caleb’s.
“Goodnight, Mollymauk.”
“Goodnight, Caleb.”