Work Text:
Son, can you play me a memory?
——
A knock on the door.
Beau just groans and rolls over in her bed, so Jester gets up to answer it. It’s late, but whoever it is has to be a member of the Nein, so she doesn’t care too much. She’s used to it by now.
She opens the door, and there stands—not Molly—Kingsley. There stands Kingsley, hands clasped, a nervous look on his face.
“Hi, King,” she greets. “Do you need something?”
“Hi, Jester,” he replies. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” she says, opening the door, just as Beau tosses a pillow their way. Jester dodges it, but poor Kingsley gets a pillow to the face. “Beau, knock it off,” she scolds, whacking the monk on the back of the head. “So?”
Kingsley shifts nervously, tail curling around him. He scratches at the tattoo on his arm. “I don’t like it.”
Jester frowns. “Like what? Being here? You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
He shakes his head. “No, not that. The—it’s the tattoos, and the piercings, and everything. I don’t remember it. I know it happened, everything that Molly did, I can see it, but it’s my body now and I don’t remember it and I can’t change it. I just know that it’s there and that somebody else was in my body and doing things to change it. And I don’t like it.”
“I don’t know much about the tattoos, that was before I met him,” Beau muses, “but if I were you, I would ask Yasha. She knew him before any of us did.”
Kingsley nods shakily. “Yasha. Okay. Thank you.”
“Of course, King. Anytime.” Jester pulls him into a hug, and he sinks into her, shaking, clinging to her like she’s the only thing keeping him up. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He leaves, but not before Jester catches him and plants a kiss on his forehead. He lets her, but looks dangerously close to crying the whole time.
Once he’s gone, Jester flops onto Beau’s bed. The other girl groans and swats at her, but rolls over to give her room anyway. She sighs.
“I worry about him.”
“We all do, Jes. He’s a worrying person. He’ll be okay, though.”
“Will he?”
Shit, and now she’s crying. She really didn’t want to cry today. Beau looks at her and makes a sympathetic noise. She sits up and folds Jester into her arms.
“Hey, hey, calm down. It’s gonna be okay,” Beau mutters into Jester’s hair. “It’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna make it, Jessie. He’s strong, and we’ve been through worse.”
“I’m just so worried, Beau,” Jester sniffs. “He comes in here and says stuff like that, and then disappears, and I don’t know where he goes.”
“He always comes back.”
“But what if one day he doesn’t?”
The question hangs heavy in the air. Beau doesn’t know. Jester doesn’t know either.
Beau squeezes Jester tighter. “It’s gonna be okay. We’re not gonna let anything happen to him, Jessie. I promise.”
“Okay,” she agrees. “Okay.”
——
I’m not really sure how it goes
——
“Yasha?” Kingsley calls, trying to keep the panic from creeping into his voice. He’s in their room, the one they share, and Yasha isn’t. He really doesn’t want to go searching for her, though, so he’s hoping she’s just in the bathroom or something. “Yasha?”
“Gimme a second, Kingsley,” she replies, muffled. He was right. She is in the bathroom.
He tries the handle, and the door opens, partially, before stopping. The door is blocked by something. Yasha’s legs. She looks up at him, startled, and he sees tear tracks down her face.
“Shit, sorry,” he stammers, hurriedly closing the door. He rushes across the room, sitting hurriedly on his bed, looking away from the bathroom. He hasn’t known Yasha for very long, but she scares the shit out of him.
Yasha emerges, sees him, and walks over to the bed, easing herself onto it next to him. She looks at him, something unreadable in her expression. “You’re scared of me, aren’t you?”
She says it like a question, but it’s one that they both already know the answer to.
“Yeah,” Kingsley admits. “I am. I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. I understand. I’ve known. You tripped over yourself trying to leave the bathroom once you saw I was in there. Molly would’ve come waltzing in and just ignored that I was there.”
“I’m not Molly,” Kingsley says quietly. Yasha nods.
“I know.”
He sighs. “Everyone treats me like I am.”
“I know.”
“They want me to be him, and I’m not.”
“Resurrection is funny. Sometimes you come back the same person, and sometimes you don’t. We might have been hoping for Molly back, but we love you very much, Kingsley.”
Yasha pulls him in, and he leans his head against her. It’s comfortable.
“Yasha?” he asks.
“Hm?”
“Did Molly tell you,” he begins. He hesitates.
“Did Molly tell me what?”
“Did Molly tell you about his tattoos? Or were you with him when he got them?” Kingsley looks at his arm, at the snake twining its way across it. “I just…I don’t like not knowing. This is my body now, and it did things that I don’t remember, and I want to know.”
“Hm.” She thinks for a moment. “I wasn’t with him when he got them, ever, but he told me about a few of them. He got the peacock because he said it represented him. He was very peacock-ish. He got the snake to cover up some of the eyes. Other than that, I don’t know. The tattoos were the one thing he was ever cagey about. I think they were very personal to him.”
Kingsley nods, tracing the peacock with a finger. “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
Yasha nods. “Of course.”
——
But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete
——
“Kingsley?” Caleb squints, and he can just barely make out the tiefling’s outline in the dark. He’s sitting, knees to his chest, against the wall. Caleb casts Dancing Lights, and the spheres illuminate the tear tracks down Kingsley’s face. “Schatz, what is wrong?”
Kingsley sniffs. “I remembered something.”
Caleb slides down to sit next to Kingsley. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to offer the comfort of his presence. “What did you remember?”
“I don’t, I don’t know, I just know it hurt, and then I was cold, really cold, and I couldn’t breathe, and it was dark, and—”
“Hey, hey, Kingsley, it is okay.” Caleb grabs his hands, stopping him from scratching and pulling. “It is okay. I am here. Atmen. Breathe.”
Kingsley gasps, taking in big gulps of air.
“I think you remembered Molly…Mollymauk’s death, schatz,” Caleb says, trying not to choke on the words and nearly succeeding. “That sounds like what happened to him.”
“Why?” Kingsley asks, pleads, and Caleb is going to cry. “Why is this happening to me?”
“I don’t know, liebling. I don’t know.” Kingsley leans into Caleb, and he holds him. “Resurrection is…kompliziert. Complicated. Mollymauk’s soul did not come back to his body, but some of his memories may still remain. I know that he remembered some things from Lucien’s life while he was here.”
“I don’t want to remember this.”
“I know. I have experience with…bad memories, schatzi, and I know it is awful. I wish that there was something I could do for you.”
“It’s okay, Caleb. This is fine. This is good.”
“Alright, Kingsley. You are going to be okay.”
——
When I wore a younger man’s clothes
——
Mollymauk’s—his—faded coat flutters in the breeze. Kingsley stares at it, then turns back to Jester. “Why did you bring me here?”
She looks at him, tears in her eyes. “I thought seeing his grave might, I don’t know, bring back memories or something. I don’t know. I’m sorry, King.”
“What for, love? You were only trying to help me.”
“I’m sorry all of us are treating you like you’re him.”
Kingsley stiffens. She’s right, but he thought that was a taboo topic. “It’s not your fault. You’re grieving.”
“We’re grieving Molly, and you’re not him, and it’s not fair for us to expect you to be him.” Jester’s fully crying now, big, ugly sobs. “You’re not, you’re your own person. It’s not fair.”
Kingsley wraps her in a hug. “I know, I know.”
“It’s not fair.”
“It’s okay, Jester. It’s okay.”
“It’s not, King. You’re not Molly. You’re Kingsley, and we love you. You don’t need to put on a show and pretend to be him. You can just be you.”
You don’t need to put on a show and pretend to be him. Kingsley considers that. Has he been acting as Mollymauk?
He hasn’t cut his hair, even though it’s irritating him, because he knew Mollymauk had long hair. He’s been showing off his tattoos, even though he dislikes them and would rather keep them covered. He’s kept the jewelry he woke up with, even though he prefers silver jewelry over gold.
Oh, he has been acting as Mollymauk, hasn’t he?
Maybe he’ll change that now.