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Fjord doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t want to talk at all, and so Mollymauk obliges. It’s been a rough day, a rough week, all starting back after leaving that jolly little town of Hupperdook, so he understands. Maybe not completely, maybe not what Fjord’s been through, but the ordeal as a whole has left The Mighty Nein drained. They’ve all been rather quiet, even the more talkative crowd.
The good news is that they’re all alive and that Lorenzo and his goons didn’t get too far in their torture to break any of the three who’d gotten kidnapped. Further good news is that their new friend Keg turned out to be a pretty damn good egg, and that strange furbolg they found in the local cemetery has some pretty good energy on him. In fact he’s the only one who isn’t too visibly shaken by the whole fiasco; languid, sure, but he looks like he’ll be the only one getting a good night’s rest. The even better news is that they’re leaving this awful place as soon as possible.
Two hours, Ophelia had said, and offered them a place to rest up seeing as how worse for wear the group presented themselves. Not one for giving up a moment of luxury when the opportunity presents itself, Mollymauk takes the offer, as does Beau. Fjord and Caleb decline, to which Mollymauk makes a face.
“I think those who have been through the hells and back should also take a bed.”
“Agreed,” says Beau. “I’ll go get Jester and Yasha, ask Caduceus and Nott if they wanna rest in here or hang out with the carts.”
She exits, leaving the three men in the main hall with Ophelia.
“Well, when you’ve decided,” she says, uninterested. “Follow my men downstairs, they’ll get you settled. Just be ready by noon.”
Ophelia’s heels click up the stairs and fill in the silence until they fade behind a closed door on the second floor.
“I’ll be fine.” Caleb says, picking at his scarf. “Probably for the best me and Nott stay outside. She might… you know.”
He gestures to all the goodies hanging off the walls, sitting on the decorative tables, all the mysterious doors that lead to who knows where and all the unseen goods in the basement. Mollymauk nods in understanding, then looks pointedly at Fjord. He won’t drag him to a bed if he doesn’t want to, but he wants to make sure Fjord doesn’t want to for the right reasons.
And that’s the bad news. Everyone is blaming themselves, and while it’s a lot better than blaming each other and having The Mighty Nein fall apart, their morale has taken a significant blow. And that just won’t do. They made a mistake, everyone knows that, but everyone thinks it was their mistake to make, when it wasn’t. They got cocky, overly confident, coming off two back to back victories with the promise of an easy third and the payday to go along with it. Then three of them get kidnapped, they meet a misinformed dwarven women, a horse who’s not actually a horse, and a stranger in a cemetery and suddenly things get weird and a little too real. They escaped a possible draft into a war none of them have any interest in, sure, but next time… well, next time they’ll vet their contracts with The Gentlemen a little better, maybe only take one at a time for future jobs.
They’ll bounce back, Mollymauk’s sure of it, but for now they need time to recover.
“Yeah, alright.” Fjord finally yields.
They wait for Beau to come back with Jester, the two of them carrying Yasha, and the lot of them follow Ophelia’s men downstairs. The rooms down in… well, it’s technically the basement, but the guards call it the undercroft which Mollymauk thinks sounds far more dark than it needs to be. The rooms aren’t the best, certainly not what they could’ve expected if Ophelia had allowed them the rooms on the second floor, but they have beds, fresh candles, and crates of stored food down the hallway that they’ve been allowed to gingerly take from. Beau and Jester take Yasha into one room with two beds, Mollymauk and Fjord keep their rhythm and share a room with a single bed. He lets Fjord go in first, get himself situated while Mollymauk peruses the goods they’ve been offered. The good wine, the real vintage stuff, must be upstairs or in a separate cellar all together, but there’s aged cheese and bread that is just on the cusp of being stale, coupled with whatever unopened bottle of wine Mollymauk can find and they’ve got themselves a hell of a snack. He takes it back to their room, bows with a flourish to the guards standing outside their respective rooms, and closes the door behind him.
Fjord’s sitting at the edge of the bed, head resting in his hands, shirt folded at the foot of the bed, boots placed at the end table. He doesn’t look up when Mollymauk comes in, but he doesn’t seem surprised when he starts speaking.
“Got us something to eat if you’re hungry.” He places the half a loaf and block of cheese on the end table, presents the wine bottle to Fjord with a flourish. “And some booze to take the edge off. I don’t think it’s very good wine, but you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Fjord looks up from between his fingers, one eye still slightly swollen and bruised. “Thanks, but I… I think I’ll just nap until we have to go.”
Mollymauk deflates a bit. “Alright. I’ll leave these here. Rest well, Fjord.”
He nods, raking his hands through his hair before finding a comfortable position in bed that doesn’t put any unnecessary weight on his bruises. He sleeps on his right side, the left a bit worse for wear; right-handed, whoever was having their way with him. It has him facing Mollymauk as he rearranges some extra blankets on the floor and when he looks up to check on Fjord, he’s frowning.
“What are you doing?”
“Gonna lay down for a bit.”
Fjord sighs and pulls the covers off behind him. “You’re just as injured. Get in bed.”
Mollymauk thinks about arguing for half a second, and then doesn’t. While he’s never one to complain about the floor, a mattress beneath him doesn’t sound too bad right now. He shucks off his jacket, toes his boots off, and gingerly sheds his shirt with a small hiss under his breath as he pulls it up and over his head. Lorenzo got him real good down in that dank dungeon of his, speared him around the ribs, took a nice bit of flesh with him. Jester offered what healing she could, as everyone was either tapped out or brutally injured, but bandages were passed around to cover anything that hadn’t healed over completely, not without a few night’s rest. The constant burn of an open wound has subsided, but to stretch his arms any further than his shoulders starts to make it ache. He thinks he’s hidden his reaction, but Fjord’s watching him walk around the bed and climb in, yellow eyes staring at the stained bandage.
“We should change those.”
“We’ll do it on the road, it’s fine,” Mollymauk waves at him, dumping his shirt onto the ground before settling in beside Fjord. He hums, does a little bounce of his behind on the mattress. “Hm… you know, the floor’s just as good.”
That gets a little chuckle out of Fjord, but neither of them move from the bed.
It’s a small bed, especially for two full grown men, and it’s near impossible for Mollymauk to afford Fjord the space he’d like to give him. The half-orc’s back is to him, and he sidles up as best he can before his forehead is resting between his shoulder blades. His breathing is even but not that of someone sleeping, and Mollymauk wonders if Fjord will actually get some rest in the hour and a half they have left.
He’s not sure how long it’s been since he crawled into bed, but enough time that when Fjord speaks it shakes him from some in between sleep state. “Hey Molly?”
“Yeah?”
He falls silent, but Mollymauk waits patiently. He can feel Fjord take a deep breath as if he’s about to start speaking, and then stops, letting it out in a rushed sigh. He does it about twice more before Mollymauk interjects.
“It’s okay, Fjord.”
“It isn’t.”
“It really is.” Mollymauk presses his forehead further. “And even if it isn’t, it’s not your fault.”
“It is.” Those two words alone are rushed, full of frustration, at himself, at the situation. “I got too comfortable, I should’ve been better. Three people on watch, and I couldn't….”
“By that logic it’s also Jester and Yasha’s fault.”
“ No .” And Mollymauk can hear him frowning. “It’s my responsibility.”
“You can’t put all of that on yourself, Fjord.” He feels him breath in for another retort, but Mollymauk cuts him off. “Let me finish. You can’t. Because Jester and Yasha probably feel the same. The rest of us feel guilty for not waking up in the middle of it to stop them. We could have tried to get to you faster, we could have tried to ambush them on the road so you all didn’t even make it to their hideout. Life is full of a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda, and we can’t let that rule us or else we’re never gonna live in the moment. And then we’re going to miss out on things, like eating stale bread with cheese that’s too good for it and washing it down with soured grape juice.”
Fjord snorts, and he thinks it’s a laugh, so he’ll take that as a solid win. They lay in silence again, until Fjord breaks it. Not with his words, Mollymauk isn’t sure he’s able to find the right ones, so he opts for something subtle, a touch. His arm is out from under the covers and it moves back to look for something, gently brushes against the bandages keeping Mollymauk’s horrible wound covered and he lingers there a little too long. Like Fjord wants to say something again, but he doesn’t. His hand moves from the bandages to his elbow and Mollymauk moves his own arm until Fjord can grab at what he wants. What he wants is the tiefling’s wrist, pulling it over gently until it’s hooked around Fjord’s middle, hand loosely tucked under Fjord’s own.
Mollymauk presses his face against Fjord’s back and smiles so he can feel it. It’ll take some time, but they’ll be The Mighty Nein once more.