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The first time he saw Jester fight, Molly knew he was in trouble. Who uses a giant lollypop as a weapon? Who fights in a skirt with no fear of being tripped up or slowed down? For a fleeting moment in between the panic and the grief, he was awed by her. Later, he saw her try everything to heal Toya, pink light spilling from her palms as tears rolled down her cheeks, and was struck by her compassion. Few people would give their everything to save a girl who had seemed dead when they hit the ground, and then feel genuine grief for someone they barely knew. In just a couple of days, he already had something of a crush on the little tiefling with the big purple eyes
Then he got to know her, and discovered Jester Lavorre was an irrepressible bundle of individuality, joy, and surprisingly dirty jokes, and he thought his heart might just explode. In another world, she would have been a perfect addition to the carnival; he could only imagine her spinning in the middle of a tent, skirts spread around her, little pink creatures dancing through the air, light shining down on her like the light she always seemed to project, and then falling into his arms at the end of the night.
He said "in another world" because there was one other glaringly obvious thing Molly learned about Jester: she was head over heels in love with Fjord. She looked at him like he hung the moon, and did everything she could think of to make him notice her. Fjord tried his best to stick to whatever stoic sea captain training had been drilled into him, but sometimes Molly saw him looking back. They were so obviously meant for each other it was a little sickening, and Molly wouldn't get in the middle of that. He was a girl's girl for people of all genders, and if Fjord needed a boost or a wingman or whatever, Molly would be happy to make that happen.
Still, when they were out looking for Nott's yellow flower and Jester's ears drooped even as she insisted the Traveler was always with her, Molly's chest burned with the urge to make it better for her, to say "I am right here and I will give you all the love and protection and acceptance you need" because that was all he had been doing for people since could remember. Instead, he squared his shoulders.
"You know who is always here, at least in the scant few days I've known you?" He asked, and instead of a flirty wink and a tap of his own chest, he just watched as Jester's eyes lit up.
"The Traveler must have sent Fjord so I could have a friend while he's busy!" she exclaimed, and then she put her hands on his shoulders and leaned right into his face, and if she had been anyone else he would have kissed her like that and as it was he felt his heart in his throat.
"Who knows the whims of the gods," he sighed, getting to his feet. Did Molly remember nothing before the carnival because the gods cared, or because they had been silent? Was Jester here to torment him with impossible possibilities, or to teach him a lesson, or something he had yet to figure out?
He hadn't used the cards to see, not for that or for anything else about their future, and was in the middle of telling Jester as much when he saw an opportunity.
"The most interesting of all," he said, not looking at her, but leaving his body propped against a tree in a way he knew showed off the lines of it very well. "Is this wide-eyed, talented woman who would do best to leave a one-sided relationship with an invisible god," It was about Fjord, he told himself. He wanted her to leave the Traveler to get with Fjord, who could love Jester in the way she should be loved, the way she needed, but there was a small part of him that hoped that she would open her mind to relationships she wouldn't have to wait for and work at, even if he knew the two of them would probably never work.
The thing was, Molly didn't do committed relationships. He'd had long-term partners before, but they were never exclusive, not the "to have and to hold" mushy types that always sent him running. Jester didn't only need great sex and soft kisses and support at her lowest, she needed someone who wouldn't leave her the way it seemed everyone else in her life had. Molly could sure promise to stick with her as long as her smiles kept feeling like liquid sunshine, but he didn't think he could give her all of himself.
When Fjord was healed and Jetser was hugging him like her life depended on it, Molly knew that letting them have this was the right choice, the sensible choice. Fjord was the grounded counterpart to Jester's chaotic sparkle, and they complimented each other perfectly. Molly loved seeing people be happy, and damn those two were going to be so happy when Fjord got the nerve to do something about his feelings for her
Still, as they traveled to Zedash and Molly lay in his sleeping bag every night, staring up at the stars and ignoring the perfect part of Jester's lips as she slept, he wondered what it would be like to be selfish for once. Not to Jester because he never got with someone who didn't know what they were getting into, but to Fjord. To ignore his pining looks and lay all his cards out on the table, take Jetser in his arms and tell her he would follow her anywhere if she kept smiling at him like that. Hell, he would take a single night together and hold onto the memory for the rest of his life if Jester seemed like she would be up for casual sex, which, for all her dirty jokes and drawings he didn't think she was.
Then they made it to the city, and decided to go their separate ways, and he watched as Jester hugged Nott, then Caleb, then turned to him and exclaimed "Molly!" and there was a new tremble in her voice that made his own heart squeeze in return. Gods, he hated seeing other people sad, but the fact that she seemed to be extra sad to lose him was a traitorous bright spot in his own sadness of parting from her.
Before she started actually crying and he did something he would regret like offer to come to the Pillow Trove with her, he reached into his tarot deck and pulled out a card, flipping it so she could see and watching as her eyes went wide.
"Chaos and Joy," He told her, pressing the card into her palm. It was clearly her card, but it was also his card, his feeling every time he stepped onto the stage at the carnival. It was what they could have been, in her hands, and now Molly was close to tearing up himself. "Keep it," He told her, "I'll make another," and watched with heartache as she smiled and teared up at the same time, then hugged him fiercely.
Molly wrapped his arms around her and swung her around, laughing even as she sniffled "I'll miss you Molly" into his coat and for a moment the world was beautiful. Then life broke in and he had to set her down and let her go, alone with his thoughts and a curiosity about whatever secrets of his past lurked here.
It was almost miraculous the way the group came back together, and planned a heist for the Luxon Beacon of all things, and Molly was sure Fjord was going to see Jester in that pink dress and realize how in love with her he was, seeing her bare shoulders and the way the corset accentuated her hips and breasts certainly made him feel some type of way. Apparently a guy who wanted to kill her was on the guest list though, and before he knew what was happening Beau was squeezing herself into the dress and Jester was climbing into the back of Molly's cart.
When she climbed out and looked up at the walls of Soltrice with hollowness in her eyes, Molly went over to her, because feelings aside he knew how to prepare people to give the best performance of their lives.
"I know Beau's job isn't the one you wanted, but you're still going to make it special," he told her, because this was Jester and she made everything special. "You are one of a kind, and, of all of us, least in need of an imaginary friend." You can have me instead was on the tip of his tongue again. Fjord might dry her tears, but everyone needed to hear that they were special sometimes, that they mattered, and oh if Jester only knew how much she mattered to him.
She smiled, which would have been enough in itself, and then leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek that tugged painfully at the hollowness inside him. This would have been the perfect moment for Molly to take her chin in one hand and pull her in for a proper kiss, but he was not going to stoop so low as to hit her with feelings in a moment like this, so instead Molly softly murmured "go be you" and helped her over the wall.
Everything after Nott’s dropoff was chaos, and after Archmage somebody or other confronted him, even that dissolved into red mist. The next thing he knew, Molly was gripping hard to Jester's wrist and she was looking at him with something terribly like fear in her eyes. With an effort, he relaxed his grip, and if he said "sorry, love" nobody seemed to notice, or at least think it meant anything.
"It's ok," She told him, holding out her hands and his cards, and gods she might as well have offered up Molly's own beating heart to him with all the tender care in it. He took the cards and let her lead him away, one of her hands over the small of his back, almost like a lover. It was never going to be real, but for the moment he leaned into her touch, let himself have this moment rather than be swallowed whole by fear.