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Molly drifts in and out of consciousness, unaware of much after being knocked to the ground in battle. He lies on his back in a wagon, squashed beside Caleb (and disturbingly close to the bodies of the mutated guards the team took down), every inch of his body aching from the battle. His head hurts the most, his jaw bruised and swollen after receiving an uppercut that knocked him out. He vaguely remembers Jester saving his life, coming back to consciousness with his head on her lap, but the memory is so foggy. Fuck, he feels awful.
The cart wobbles as it moves through the darkness, giving Molly a hazy look at the two moons in the night sky as he lies here. Every bump makes the wagon rock, jolting Molly around and sending bolts of pain through his head. He bites his lip to hold back a groan, not wanting Caleb to notice how shit he feels.
As the ride continues, bumping around in the back of the wagon causes another unpleasant sensation to flow through his aching body: nausea. His skin prickles with sweat, his stomach churning. Molly tries to ignore it, steadying his breathing, but the nausea just builds and builds. And he realises, with a rising sense of dread, that he’s about to fucking puke.
Frantically, Molly grabs the side of the cart, trying to haul himself into a sitting position. Everything around him spins and he groans, screwing his eyes shut—but the world still rotates even when he can’t see. To his frustration, he topples to the side, one of his horns bumping against Caleb’s shoulder, the sharp point jabbing his arm.
“Ouch,” Caleb mumbles almost absentmindedly. “Mollymauk, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Molly splutters, but his fucking voice betrays him, the pain audible in his tone. “Fuck off.”
“You are the one leaning against me, to be fair.”
In an act of pure stubbornness, Molly throws his weight to the other side, slumping against the side of the cart rather than Caleb. The rough movement sets off a horrible wave of vertigo, the world twisting in spirals around him as his brain seems to rotate around his skull and his ears ring. His head lolls forward, chin on his chest, and Molly clamps his lips together as acid begins to burn the back of his throat.
“Uh, everyone, I think we should pull over,” Caleb calls to the others, but with his head so sore, it feels like Caleb instead screamed into his ear.
(Not that Molly needs a head injury to have issues with the volume of sounds. But with this killer headache, everything feels far more sensitive.)
“Why?” Fjord says from in front of them.
“Is everything okay back there, guys?” Jester asks.
“I think Mollymauk is going to vomit,” Caleb says.
Molly wants to argue with him, but when he retches, his mouth filling with vomit, he knows Caleb is correct. And he doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth without puking all over his clothes.
“Oh shit!” Nott says, her voice even shriller than usual. “We better stop, then.”
The wagon stops barely a second later, jolting Molly so hard that it feels like someone stabbed him in the head. He groans, grunting for breath as he struggles to shuffle off the back of the wagon in a very undignified manner (but he feels way too shitty to care about that), but with his eyes screwed shut, he can barely tell which way is up anymore.
“Let me help,” Caleb says, and hands wrap around his upper arm.
Molly wants to tell him to fuck off, but opening his mouth when he needs to puke would be a bad idea. So, he hates it, but he allows Caleb to help him shuffle to the very end of the wagon. At which point, Molly attempts to stand up—but his legs crumple beneath him and he falls to his knees.
“Scheiße!” Caleb cries from behind him.
He tries to get back up, not wanting this to happen in front of anyone, but his legs won’t respond. Another retch jolts through his body, his mouth flooding with spit and his own vomit. And, in front of his very new band of allies, Molly hunches forward and pukes all over the dirt.
People talk in the background, but with his own blood roaring in his ears, and his attention focused entirely on the pain of emptying his stomach (each retch hurting his sore head even further), Molly doesn’t hear them. At least once, a hand touches his shoulder, but Molly shrugs them away. He doesn’t want their pity.
When he finally stops puking, he barely has time to wipe his mouth before his dizziness returns with a vengeance. Before Molly can attempt to get up, his vision blurs and he slumps to the side, banging his horn against the ground. And the extra jolt of pain is too much for his injured head, his vision going black as he passes out once again.