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Nott didn't entirely remember anymore when she'd first learned that Caleb had no interest in sex. It had probably come up some point early on in their friendship, definitely before they'd met the Mighty Nein. She dimly recalled that the conversation had been something to do with her commenting that humans looked very strange indeed and Caleb had agreed with her.
Or maybe it had been at some point when they were both quite drunk together and Caleb had gotten to talking bitterly about all the ways he didn't fit, all the ways the world wasn't right or maybe he was the one who wasn't right. Nott remembered that night especially well because it was the first time she'd been able to hug him without him flinching away from her.
Either way, she didn't think it was strange at all that Caleb had no interest in sex, and if the rest of the world did, that was yet another sign of how broken and cruel the rest of the world could be. But her boy was perfect as he was, all the bits and pieces that made him, and she resolved anew from that day forward to never let him forget it.
So she thought she probably couldn't be blamed for her concern when Caleb started to fall in love with Mollymauk Tealeaf - Molly, who liked sex very much and unashamedly so, who flirted so easily and touched so freely.
She was especially concerned when Caleb started talking like maybe sex was something he might be willing to endure for Molly's sake.
"You shouldn't have to endure anything," she whispered heatedly, when Caleb's musings strayed in that direction yet again one night on watch together. "I really don't think that's how love is supposed to work."
Not that she knew for certain. Nott felt the same towards mushy, romantic feelings as Caleb did towards sexual ones, on this point she was definite and certain. After all, she didn't feel that way towards all mushy feelings. She loved Caleb with all her heart and battered soul and was utterly comfortable with that. It was only the tiresome intricacies of mating rituals - human and goblin alike - that unsettled and exhausted her to even think about.
But sometimes, as she watched Caleb fret, Nott felt that her position meant that she was better able to give good advice, like someone safely on the shore tossing out a rope to a drowning man.
"It's not anything I have ever done before," Caleb mumbled, twisting his fingers in his lap. "Maybe it is, ah, not as terrible as it has always seemed."
"Mollymauk had better not make you find out," Nott grumbled, glowering at the tiefling's sleeping form. "Or I'll make sure he never gets to enjoy any kind of sex ever again."
"Nott, please..."
"I don't want you to be with someone who will make you do anything you don't want to, Caleb! I want you to be with someone who'll see how special you are and be happy with that."
"That's just it, Nott." Caleb's voice went soft and distant. When Nott darted a glance over at him, she saw that he was staring at Molly, too, wistful and sad. "Sometimes, when he looks at me. it's as if he is seeing someone special. And sometimes I forget...ha. Sometimes I forget how disgusting I am when he looks at me. The way I sometimes do with you. But if we were together, there is already so little I could offer."
"If Mollymauk looks at you like that, and if he feels that way for you, he won't ask," Nott said, slow and careful, scouting out the waters from the shore as she took out a dagger to sharpen. "Sex is just a way of getting off and making children, isn't it? People make such a big deal out of it but that's really all it is. And the second part wouldn't actually come up for you two, unless tieflings are much stranger than I thought. So that leaves, y'know, the first part. And you really only need your own hands for that. He shouldn't need sex from you, Caleb. No one needs sex, and the world would probably be a better place with fewer children in it. So being left to, y'know, take care of himself for the rest of his life is a small price to pay for having you, Caleb. Besides, it's Mollymauk! I'm sure he could come up with all kinds of really very unsettling ways to be creative about that."
Caleb chuckled softly, which was at least a nice change of pace from the anxious mutterings that he'd been mired in all night. "I'm sure you're right about that, Nott." She glanced over at him with a smile, only to see the anxiety creeping right back into his expression where it had no right to be. "I hope you are right about the rest."
She reached over and patted his knee, and he caught her hand to give it a squeeze, and they both said no more about it that night.
Which made it very alarming indeed when, two weeks later, she returned to the inn they were all staying at to be told by a bright-eyed and grinning Jester that Caleb and Molly had gone upstairs, together. She laughed when Nott bolted for the stairs because she probably didn't know why, Nott hoped she didn't know why, Jester was not a cruel person and probably genuinely didn't understand Caleb's tendencies to hurt himself at the slightest provocation.
He'd waited. He'd deliberately waited until she'd gotten the itch and gone for a walk to indulge in it and then he'd invited Molly upstairs. And Nott liked to think she knew Molly pretty well by now, or at least as well as anyone could ever know Molly. She at least knew that Molly was so good at reading people so he must have seen how uncomfortable Caleb would have been and so he wouldn't have done anything, would he? Molly could have a vicious sense of humor but he'd always been kind to Caleb.
But she didn't know, she didn't know for sure and her fingers were shaking as she knelt down in front of the door to their room and set to work picking the lock. She couldn't hear anything. She didn't know if that was good or bad, but Fjord and Molly's door was hanging open so they had to be in here.
She was about to give in to her frustrations and try to kick the door down when at last the tumblers of the lock gave way for her, and Nott slowly eased the door open to take in the scene. Her heart skipped a beat to see Caleb and Molly in bed together, but they weren't doing anything, they were simply lying still, Caleb with his head on Molly's chest, and as she pricked her ears she caught the sounds of their mingled breathing and they really did seem to be sleeping.
Scarcely daring to hope, Nott crept fully into the room. There was a tangle of clothes by the bed, and neither of the two men were wearing shirts or coats. But as she sorted through the pile, she was forced to conclude that pants did not seem to be among it. Which presumably meant the pants were still on the two in the bed - she didn't think even she was good enough to get the covers down and check for sure. Still, that presumably meant that nothing had actually happened or, if it had, Molly had indeed realized that Caleb was hideously uncomfortable and put a stop to things.
Nott crept to the edge of the bed and stood on her tiptoes to get a good look at the two. Caleb was pressed so close to Molly as to be almost laying on top of him, head on the tiefling's tattooed chest, an arm around his waist. His expression was peaceful, his body relaxed. Molly had an arm around Caleb's back, his fingers splayed as if he'd fallen asleep in the act of stroking it. His expression wasn't quite as peaceful. She wasn't sure why, but she found herself a little more willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on possibilities.
Upon completing her inspection, Nott let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, then grinned weakly as relief bubbled up warm in her chest. Maybe this could work. Maybe her hopes for something better for her boy weren't unfounded after all.
And if Molly proved her wrong, she'd cut off his ears and feed them to him.
* * *
Just to be sure, she checked in with Caleb the next morning. "Jester said that you and Molly had a lot to talk about," she whispered to him, as he scraped his bacon onto her plate. "Alone."
He blushed to the tips of his ears. "We did," he whispered back, darting a glance to where Molly was arguing animatedly with Beau. "We talked about...a great many things, and Mollymauk was very understanding, and then nothing else happened."
"At all?"
"Nein. Well, ah, we slept. Just, er, just sleeping. I'm sorry, I think I might have locked you out last night."
"Not a problem," said Nott mildly. "Jester and Beau let me sleep over. So are you two together, now?"
He considered the question for a long moment, staring at his plate. And then Caleb smiled, so soft and hesitant and warm that it made her chest ache to look at.
"I think we are," he said. "That's nice. That has been very nice so far."
Sure enough, she saw Molly pull Caleb aside for a kiss as everyone was getting their things together to leave. She saw the way Caleb welcomed and wanted the kiss in a way he so rarely did for any other kind of physical contact, and she saw the way they looked at each other and how Molly didn't let Caleb's hand go until he'd walked entirely out of reach.
Behind her, Nott heard Jester muffle a delighted squeal.
* * *
Caleb's entire world had changed and yet, from Nott's perspective, he and Molly settled into this new existence of being together quite quickly and easily indeed. It was just that she absolutely couldn't understand some of the decisions they made in doing so.
He and Molly started rooming together most nights when they were in town, which made her a little sad, but at least Caleb always seemed well-rested in the mornings afterwards and so she was determined to be okay with that. She had always felt safe, curled up on his feet or in the space behind his knees, she had always rested well that way, but more importantly, her presence had always seemed to help Caleb sleep more peacefully. If Molly was doing the same for her boy, then that was what was important.
Fjord was happy to let Nott stay with him instead, or else Beau would stay with Fjord and Nott would sleep over with Jester. On the road, it was less of an issue. There was plenty of room for Molly and Nott to both sleep close by Caleb on those nights. That was fine and normal, even if Nott had to do some work inside to make herself okay with sharing Caleb.
What wasn't normal, and probably shouldn't have been fine, was those nights in town when Caleb invited Nott to stay with him because Molly was out looking for someone else to sleep with.
She couldn't believe her eyes, the first time she saw it happen. She and Caleb were both sitting at their table - Caleb copying spells, Nott playing with Frumpkin. She heard footsteps approaching, saw the riot of color that was Molly out of the corner of her eye as he bent to address Caleb. She dimly heard them chatting and thought nothing of it, until she heard Molly kiss Caleb soundly and move away.
"Nott," Caleb said, bending to return to his work. "Mollymauk will be somewhere else tonight. Would you like to stay in my room? We could, ah, we could talk, and, you know, have some time to ourselves."
She glanced over at him, frowning. "Why will he be somewhere else?"
Caleb nodded slightly over his shoulder. Nott glanced back to see that Molly had made himself comfortable at the bar with a blue dragonborn and was already in the process of being his usual charming self with them. "That one caught his eye. He wants to spend the night."
"You mean..." Now Nott felt herself frowning deep enough to hurt. "Have sex with them?"
She saw Caleb blush and duck his head. "I, er, I assumed so."
"And you're okay with that?"
"Oh, ja, yes. Of course. Besides, I thought that might give us some time together. I have missed that, little friend."
And, if Nott was perfectly honest with herself, so had she. So she agreed, and Caleb looked content, and that night they both retired to his room and she curled up to sleep in the space behind his knees like old times once more. It was so normal, so nice, that she almost forgot the circumstances that led to it until Molly came down to join them for breakfast the next morning, the last to stir of the Mighty Nein.
"Guten tag, liebling," he said brightly, bending down to kiss Caleb's cheek before taking a seat beside him.
"Guten tag, schatz," Caleb mumbled, smiling. Seated safely on Caleb's other side, Nott caught sight of the two of them holding hands under the table. She looked sidelong from Caleb to Molly's face and back again, but neither of them gave any sign that anything strange had happened the night before, they were merely looking at each other in frankly the most disgustingly adoring way. It was genuinely a little hard for her to keep looking at them like this, so she didn't, she went back to her breakfast instead and kept half an ear out for Caleb's tone of voice.
There were more mornings like that one as time went by, and they often proceeded along a similar beat. If Caleb wasn’t already at breakfast with them, Mollymauk would go and fetch him. He would already be half-clinging to him by the time they came back downstairs together and Caleb would be smiling. On the other hand, if Caleb was already waiting for Molly, then Molly would take a seat next to him – even if that meant sitting on someone else’s lap until they took the hint and went away.
Except for Nott. Nott was never required to give up her seat.
And then Caleb and Molly would spend breakfast being unbearably warm with each other, lost in each other – Molly more visibly, Caleb more quietly, but in a way that was nevertheless plain as day even to Nott. Occasionally Beau would make wretching noises at the two of them and Molly would flip her off over Caleb’s head.
It didn’t make sense. Nott didn’t know how most people did romance but she’d never thought it was like this. She would have thought that Molly was acting this way to make up for cheating on Caleb, except Caleb knew about it. And Caleb genuinely seemed happy during these mornings when Molly came back to him and cuddled up to him after sleeping with someone else.
Nott had resolved to let her boy make his own decisions, to chase what he wanted however he wanted it since the rest of the world seemed to think he was wrong for it. But eventually, curiosity overcame her, and she asked him about it one night when they were on watch together.
“Does it bother you when Mollymauk acts the way he does? After he spends a night with someone else?”
“Hm?” Caleb blinked, drawn out of his thoughts, then frowned in genuine puzzlement. “What do you mean?”
“You know. When he gets all...” Nott found that she didn’t really have the words to describe it. So she gestured helplessly as if that could fill in the shape of her point. “...even more Mollymauk than usual? Hanging off you and saying even more mushy things?”
Nott had good night vision, and the red, ruddy glow of the firelight was still more than enough to let her see Caleb blush. Yet he was smiling faintly as well. “No, no, of course not. Ah, should it?”
“I don’t know,” Nott was forced to admit. “It seems like the sort of thing that might. I suppose I just wanted to make sure you were still all right.”
“It doesn’t, and I am. Thank you for worrying, Nott.”
“Of course.” And that seemed to be the end of that, so they passed the rest of their watch in their usual comfortable silence.
* * *
Just to be sure, Nott set to work following Molly one day. He was out doing some shopping with Jester, and judging by the looks they'd been exchanging while chatting softly to each other on the ride into town, the errands were a pretense at some more serious conversation. She didn't know what he might tell to Jester that he wouldn't to Caleb, but Nott felt that this was her best chance to get a true sense of Molly's intentions towards her boy.
So she followed them, disguised and at a safe distance, as they wended their way through the market square, pointing out this or that as it caught their eye. Even so, she overheard nothing interesting for the longest time, so that she soon found her attention wandering until a stray mention of Caleb's name brought it snapping back.
"--was so cute!" Jester was saying, sounding gleeful.
"I know." Molly sighed, long and wistful. "He doesn't even know how adorable he can be sometimes, it's so frustrating."
"Oh, I think he knows. I think he's teasing you."
"Oh, that would be delightful. It's so fun to tease him already. If we could make a proper game of it..."
They broke off into a fit of giggles, and were distracted for a short while at a booth that sold hats. A cursory inspection revealed that none of the hats were fit for tiefling horns, and Jester gave the salesperson a minor chewing out, and then they were moving on again and Nott was following them.
"But I still really like these talks, Molly."
"That's good, I'm glad. I know I can be, well, I can be a lot, and I feel a lot, and I don't want to dump all of that on him, but I have to let it out somehow, you know?"
"Absolutely. It's good for you! I mean, maybe Caleb talks to Nott about how cute you are all the time!"
Molly actually missed a step. When he spoke again, he sounded faintly breathless with hope. "Do you really think so?"
"I would bet you five gold that he does. Right now. I can go ask Nott after dinner. I can be super subtle about it."
"You can't, you're terrible, and we both know it. But that would be nice. If he did."
"Awww, Molly!" Jester shifted her bag on her shoulder for the sake of leaning over and wrapping her arms around him with enough force to briefly lift Molly off the ground. Nott heard his startled laughter, but of course he didn't protest the manhandling. "I wish you could see the look on your face! You look so soft and happy right now!" She set him down on the ground and made a play of dusting off his coat and fixing up the trinkets on his horns. "Are you happy, Molly? I don't think I ever asked you that. I guess it looked so obvious."
Molly didn't answer right away. He only stood, staring at nothing, and from her hiding place in the alley right behind them, Nott thought she was even close enough to see the expression on his face as he stared off into the distance - warm and somehow so innocent and very, very happy.
"Have you ever been with someone, where..." He twisted his fingers in front of him as if to tease the words he sought out of the air. "Where they make you feel so peaceful inside? Because you don't have to try to be anything or anyone, you can just be with them and everything inside you feels still and calm and like everything in the world is right where it should be? And you feel exactly the way you should be, because when you're with them youare who you want to be? It's like the feeling you get when the sun comes out from behind the clouds, Jester, except it's all the time."
Jester reached out to hold his hand, and Molly laced their fingers together. For a long moment, silence lay between the two tieflings, thick and somehow meaningful in a way that Nott knew she would never understand.
"Yeah," said Jester softly. "It's pretty great, isn't it?"
"It's the best."
"We should get Caleb something while we're out here."
"We should! Maybe some new gloves? He's singed the pair he's got half to tatters."
"Ooh! I think we passed a place selling gloves a little back that way. Let's go!"
Nott withdrew into the shadows as they turned and started off back the way they'd come, still holding hands as they chatted animatedly, still united in some feeling that she couldn't understand and didn't want to, but that didn't mean she couldn't be happy for them for feeling it, for the glimpse she got of the sheer and simple joy on their faces as they passed her by and carried on.
She could be glad for them, and she could be relieved that Jester's proposed bet had never been made official, because it was most definitely a bet she would have won.
* * *
For all that Molly and Nott both cared a great deal about Caleb Widogast, they'd never spoken directly to one another about their respective places in his life. Granted, Nott knew she had nothing to answer or account for, but she expected Molly to feel the same and, for Caleb's sake, she was willing to let that assumption pass.
So it was a genuine surprise to her when Molly brought it up out of the blue one night as they sat on watch together - genuine, but pleasant.
"Do you think Caleb is happy?"
Nott did not answer right away. She kept her eyes on her dagger, and drew her whetstone across it a few more times, letting him sweat as she wondered what had brought this on, if there had been a fight that she'd missed, some harm done that Caleb had kept from her.
Finally, she spoke, trying to give nothing of those worries away, trying to see if she could lure more information out of him. "Shouldn’t you be able to tell that much for yourself?"
"I should," Molly answered easily. "Probably not as well as you, though."
Nott ducked her head to hide her grin. She was impressed, despite herself. Right answer. As a reward, she decided to tip a touch more of her hand, truly address him as an equal in this moment. Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't also let him squirm a little more. "He told me the two of you talked," she said. "About him not wanting to have sex."
"We did."
Molly sounded faintly surprised - whether that Caleb had spoken to her about it or that she was bringing it up now, Nott didn't know and didn't care. There were more important matters to clarify. “He said that you were very understanding.”
"I certainly tried to be."
"And that you're not going to try and change him." Even now, long after the first time Caleb had confessed this side of his past to her, Nott's disdain for the very idea coated her throat like poison. The mere thought of it made her fingers tighten painfully hard around the hilt of her dagger.
She hadn't looked at Molly once as she questioned him, focusing all her efforts on reading his tone of voice. So that meant there was no missing the utter, utter lack of hesitation in his reply, the easy certainty in his words, and the faint note of protectiveness besides. "He doesn't need it."
Right answer. But Molly was still a good liar, when he wanted to be. He'd said all the right things, but Nott wanted a way to be absolutely certain he meant them.
So she leaped at him, all at once, and Molly went down with a startled yelp so that Nott landed on his chest. This left her free to bring her dagger around and press it ever so slightly to the side of his head, because there was no reason at all she shouldn't give Molly some extra motivation to keep being such a wonderful boyfriend. There was no reason a stick couldn't wait in the wings even while the carrot remained sufficient.
"That's why you still have ears," she whispered to him, low and fierce.
Molly put up his hands in a gesture of surrender, and she could practically hear the gears turning in his head. That was fine. She was prepared to wait all night if she had to.
Fortunately, he didn't make her do so. "I understand. And I wouldn't have it any other way."
And just like that, he passed this last and most fiercesome test. Nott the Brave could feel the tension of weeks bleeding from her shoulders, could feel a knot of dread she'd grown used to a long time ago untangle itself around her heart. She grinned broadly in relief, hopped off his chest, and offered him a hand up off his back. To his credit, he actually accepted. Then Nott made a play of dusting herself off as if nothing at all had happened and no daggers had been brandished at all, no sir, and sat down to finish tending to hers'.
"Caleb is very happy," she said, not bothering to hide how glad it made her to pass the news along. The time for squirming was done. He'd earned this affirmation. "Thank you. It was good of you to ask, but you’re doing very well."
"Oh," said Molly, sounding at first like the wind had been knocked out of him, like he couldn't believe his good fortune. But then he laughed, light and free and delighted, and Nott felt herself grin. "Good," he said, apparently for lack of anything better to say. Then she heard him take a deep breath. "Good. I'm...I'm really happy, too. Caleb's something else, isn't he?"
"Caleb is very special." And maybe one day he would realize that. Maybe one day he would see how happy he made Molly, too.
"Can we make a deal?"
Nott raised an eyebrow, trusting to her hood to hide it. "Depends on the deal."
“If I’m doing something to make Caleb unhappy, can you tell me what it is first? Just, you know, give me a chance to correct my behavior? Then by all means proceed to chopping off ears if I keep fucking up, but this is all new to me, too, and I’d rather have the chance to fix anything I break first. He deserves an apology before he deserves vengeance.”
Nott considered his words for as long as it took for her to finish sharpening her second dagger. And as well, she considered what she'd seen of Caleb over the past several weeks - the way she had noticed him smile whenever he looked at Molly or the way he relaxed visibly whenever Molly touched him and the way they would lean close to each other over breakfast after Molly had a night out and he would whisper something to Caleb and Caleb would laugh.
And, yes, she even considered some of the things Caleb had said to her, warm and mushy and romantic things about how beautiful Molly was, how gentle and funny and understanding and kind he was. Caleb would talk about little things that Molly did that nevertheless seemed the most important thing, about his thoughts and hopes for them in future, and most importantly to Nott, about how contented he felt now that he was with someone who loved him for all the bits and pieces that made him who he was.
When Caleb spoke in such a way, he spoke with a sort of warmth that Nott knew she would never feel for another person. But that didn't diminish the love she felt for him, and maybe now a bit for Molly as well, as she stood safely on the shore and watched them in the water.
And so at last, Nott nodded. She was so, so glad and grateful to know that her hopes for something better for her boy had been so well and truly fulfilled. “That seems reasonable. We have a deal.”