Chapter Text
“Did I ever tell you about the time I fell off a tightrope?”
Caleb startles as Molly plops down beside him, sprawling onto the floor covered in books and paper. It takes a few seconds for his mind to stop screaming Molly is alive Molly is alive Molly is alive long enough to process the question. He shakes his head, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, but not surprise. Molly is too impatient to wait for an appropriate time for weird stories, preferring to share them as soon as he feels the urge.
He’s only been back, in the land of the living and with the Mighty Nein, for a few days but Caleb can definitively say that he hasn’t changed at all. It’s the first time they’ve been alone together since Lorenzo, but it feels he never left, like this is just one of many nights in the last few months that he's spent with Molly.
“Well,” Molly lays on his stomach across from Caleb and his books, propping his head up in his hands and kicking his feet in the air, “It was my first… month? Or so with the circus, I had just gotten my voice back and was trying to find my place in the troupe.”
“Molly-“ Caleb’s voice is soft, making a halfhearted attempt to interrupt, ask where this is going, why he's bringing this up now.
“Shh, the story gets better, I swear. Anyway, I didn’t have any particular performative talents, to my knowledge, so I had to lie and say I could do something, or lose my one chance for shelter and company.”
Caleb smirks, despite himself, into his books, foreseeing how this story will end. “And you chose the tightrope?”
“I figured it wouldn’t be that hard! I mean it’s just walking, right? And Kylre would catch me anyway, so- whatever. I made my choice.”
“Your very ill-advised choice.” Caleb rolls his eyes and shuts his book, letting Molly know that he’s listening in spite of his reservations.
Molly grins and continues, ignoring Caleb’s comment completely, “I got up there and thought ‘this will be fine’ and it was! Well, for the first few steps, before I fell.”
Molly’s dramatic expressions and theatrical gestures really heighten the quality of the story, especially the slowly lowering jazz hands he uses to portray his fall from the tightrope.
Caleb snorts, shaking his head and looking back down at his books. “I have to say, I did not see that coming, Mr. Mollymauk.”
“Always a critic, Mr. Caleb, always a critic. But,” he scoots forward on his stomach and leans in, nose brushing against Caleb’s to draw his attention away from his studying, “that’s not the end of the story.”
He moves back and sits up, adjusting the new, very gaudy silver coat they had made for him in Xhorhas. “This may be a bit out of character for me, but this story actually has a pretty good moral lesson, relevant enough to justify the painful process of thinking any more than I strictly have to. You see, as I was falling I thought I was going to die.”
“As one typically does when they fall from a great height.”
Molly’s responding smile is small, more restrained than normal. His tone turns a bit somber, an unfamiliar tone for his voice.
“It didn’t make me as sad as I thought it would,” he looks down at his hands, eyes suddenly far away, a drastic departure from his typical bright, present stare, “I was happy with the life I’d lived. Although leaving Yasha and the rest of my friends would hurt, I knew it’d be ok because I’d live on in their heartbeats, and in the space their minds save for memories of me. I knew that I’d made my mark on the world and, in that way, I’d never truly die.”
Caleb sucks in a breath, mind recoiling at the turn Molly takes, tone changing before his mind can register the shift. Memories pop up without warning, echoes of grief he didn’t think he’d have to deal with today, especially as Molly sits right in front of him. He finds himself grappling with his thoughts, trying to push away memories of glaives and graves, trying to keep his tears, irrational and useless now, trapped behind his eyelids.
“And then Kylre caught me, of course, so it was fine,” Molly looks around at the empty room, a conspiratory grin on his face, “How was that for a story? Maybe not as good as those heavy novels of yours, but I’m still workshopping it.”
Caleb pulls on a tight smile, amusement and sadness fighting for control of his expression. “It’s a beautiful story, though I think you could work on the pacing.”
Molly laughs, throwing his head back. His hair falls in long waves and tangles down his back, grown since the last time Caleb saw him.
“I knew it’d be safe to confess to you that I’m not as graceful and talented on a tightrope as you assumed I’d be. If you play your cards right, you’ll get even more confessions about the dumb things I’ve done before the end of the night.”
Caleb shakes his head, smiling truly when happiness wins its mental battle. Leave it to Molly to say such ridiculous things and still make Caleb love him. It’s an unconventional reunion, this bedside confessional, but Caleb will take it, as long as he can feel close to Molly again, feel his heartbeat against his skin.
Molly sits up and pulls Caleb with him, adjusting their position to lean against Caleb’s bed with Molly’s arm wrapped around Caleb and his head resting on Caleb’s shoulder.
“Really though, reuniting with you guys here in Xhorhas was like when Kylre caught me all over again. My friends are always saving me, always pulling me back when I fall.”
Caleb turns to kiss the top of Molly’s head, still a little stunned that he’s actually here, alive. More stunned that he still trusts Caleb so much, after he failed to save him the first time, after everything Caleb has done to people who come too close.
Molly squeezes his shoulder, as if he can hear Caleb overthinking and is trying to shake him out of it. Caleb breathes, using the air in his lungs to push aside all his thoughts and just focus on Molly, right here and now.
“I know you’ll always catch me if I fall, just as I’ll always catch you, if you fall. And,” Molly presses closer against Caleb, “I know you’ll remember me, after I fall. So I’m never really gone.”
Caleb wraps an arm around Molly and doesn’t let go, hoping it’ll say what his words can’t.
Always, Molly. Always.