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Mollymauk is staring but Yasha is nice enough not to say anything. Or rather, she knows that the reason for staring isn’t much of her business and she’s not in the habit of being nosey. Or maybe it is, a little bit, because it includes Mollymauk, a good friend, her best friend, and something is bothering him. But if he doesn’t say anything, Yasha can’t very well help him now can she? She could, she’s not blind; it’s Fjord and whatever internalized something Mollymauk is dealing with right now as he stares at the half-orc across the bar.
That’s his problem, she’s realized, after spending two years with him. For all his bravado and showmanship, Mollymauk has a lot of inner demons he’s working through. Alone. And Yasha can understand that, she does it too, but what she doesn’t do is exacerbate things by adding further problems in her life. Not that Fjord is a problem, frankly he’s the opposite, but for Mollymauk he’s becoming one if only by proxy of the tiefling making it out to be something bigger than it is. It’s a crush, maybe more, but on the surface, as someone on the outside looking in on a one Mollymauk Tealeaf having not touched his liquor and has opted to casually look in one man’s direction for the better half of the thirty minutes they’ve been in this bar, Yasha can tell a crush when she sees one. She was like that once, although she stared because she wasn’t allowed to do anything else. Until she did.
This is not like that though. There’s no rule against Mollymauk and Fjord dating, or at the very least doing something other than fruitlessly staring at each other. At least she doesn’t think so. Is that an unspoken travelling companion rule? No dating each other because it’s awkward for everyone else. If it is, Beau doesn’t seem to know about the rule either.
Fjord glances over at the lot of them, The Mighty Nein sprinkled between different tables, but close to one another, and Mollymauk suddenly finds his drink appealing. Not so much like an overprotective mother, Nott has the role lowkey tucked away in her pocket, but like a hawk scanning the room to make sure no shady figures get the jump on them. They found this rundown place on the side of some no name road, but it’s raining outside and the sun’s nowhere to be seen even in the late midday. It’s skeevy, but dry. Fjord turns back to Beau, who’s looking through the now damp instructions given to them by their employer.
As soon as Fjord’s eyes are elsewhere, Mollymauk’s are too.
Yasha gets up with a quiet sigh, and starts over to the bar. Her tiefling friend looks up at her and follows suit, bringing his still half full mug with him. It isn’t until they’re out of earshot of everyone, save the bartender who took Yasha’s order, that the woman doesn’t even turn to Mollymauk to say,
“Tell him.”
He flinches beside her, surprised at her words, putting his mug on the bar counter. “I’ve already got a drink, dear.”
Yasha turns to him then, slowly, brows furrowed and mouth pressed into a thin line as if to say that she knows he knows she didn’t mean the damned bartender. Mollymauk clicks his tongue and looks away at her, and as if by habit he goes to look at Fjord, stops himself again and frowns firmly at his drink.
“Tell him,” she says again, gentler, placing a hand on his around the mug. “Because he stares at you too.”
Mollymauk chews at the corner of his mouth, still staring down at his liquor but with a less irritated expression and instead a more conclusive one. He looks up to Yasha, a thankful albeit worried smile on his face.
“I’ll… try.”
--
Beau is hundreds of miles away from her instructors, and yet the world still deems it its responsibility to give her a lesson in patience. She’s acing it, if she’s got anything to say about it, because she hasn’t flung Fjord across the room yet, but that moment inches closer by the second. Beau has her hands pressed together in agitated prayer in front of her face as she watches Fjord watch Mollymauk doing anything that isn’t in Fjord’s general direction for the better part of the ten minutes they’ve been down here for breakfast that hasn’t arrived yet. For the moment, the tieflings are talking with one another, both as animated as ever, and Beau has to wonder if it’s just a tiefling thing to be so physically expressive. Caleb and Nott are on one side of the long bench table in their own world, Yasha and Caduceus are on the other end, sipping tea and saying nothing. Beau and Fjord are in the middle, with Beau watching Fjord watching Mollymauk and it’s excruciating.
“Holy shit,” she finally says into her hands, dragging them down her face.
Fjord’s attention is momentarily brought to her, glancing at her as he asks, “What, breakfast taking too long? Don’t have anymore pocket bacon left?”
“Please,” she closes her eyes, brows pinched together. “Fjord, please just tell him.”
He stills next to her noticeably, one hand on the table clenching at nothing. “Tell who what?”
“Whatever is going on in that head of yours when you stare at Molly.”
Fjord sputters, hands flying up and gesturing at himself, Mollymauk, Beau, himself again as nothing coherent comes out of his mouth besides, “No?”
“Oh, okay, so you’re just staring at him like this—” And she makes an exaggerated pose, hands clasped together near her cheek as she tilts her head and sighs wistfully, blinking like she has an eyelash stuck in her eye. “—for your own health?”
Fjord frowns. “You look more like Jester reading Tusk Love Volume 2 .”
“Point taken.” She shrugs. “But you are… really staring at him.”
“I… I know.” The way he says it, so defeated, makes Beau almost feel bad for bringing it up. Almost. “I just—”
“Ah, ah! Shh, listen.” Beau holds a finger up to him, slaps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in real close. “Listen. Whatever it is you’re going to say to me… say it to him .”
“But—”
“Tell. Him.” She shakes him a little. “You dope.”
Fjord glances between Beau and over his shoulder to Mollymauk, then back at Beau before tentatively nodding. “Yeah… yeah, okay. I will.”
--
They don’t.
Beau and Yasha are watching them from a table near the back corner of the inn they’ve stumbled across. This one is more lively, still dingy, but they don’t feel as if they’ll wake up with a shiv in their ribs so they let themselves live a little. There’s a human fiddler whose fiddle is just a hair sharp playing along with a singing, dancing halfling who has the bar roused and jolly. Jester is dancing around a one Caduceus Clay who looks more like he’s just humoring her than dancing, he’s holding her one hand and spinning her around and that seems to be enough fun for the both of them. Caleb and Nott are sitting near Beau and Yasha, quiet but at least Nott’s on the table top and wiggling to the music, Caleb smiling next to her from behind a book.
And then there’s Fjord and Mollymauk, leaning against the bar counter, shoulder to shoulder, tapping toes and clapping along, jeering the others on but not partaking. That just won’t do.
Yasha sighs into her mug. “Maybe I wasn’t supportive enough.”
“No, you probably were. Boys are just dumb,” Beau says as she flicks a gold coin in Nott’s direction. “Nott… Nott! C’mere.”
Both the coin and Beau’s calling grabs her attention, and she scrambles to pick up the coin before making her way over to the booth the two other women are sharing.
“Yeah?”
“I need you to send a message to Fjord.” Beau leans in, whispers what she wants said into Nott’s long ears.
She arches an eyebrow in Beau’s direction, leans over to look at Yasha nodding at her, and Nott unspools a silver strand, cups her hands to her face, and looks right at Fjord.
“Ask him to dance asshole!” Fjord visibly jumps at the counter as the message reaches him, earning him a look from both Mollymauk and the bartender. “This was from Beau, do not reply to this message.”
He’s waving it off to the both of them before glaring over in Beau’s direction. She waves.
It’s not the waxing of poetry or long, deep conversations in the night, but it’s something to get the wheels turning as Fjord and Mollymauk eventually make their way into the crowd and dance to the halfling’s song and the fiddle that’s just a hair sharp.