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It's far too early (or maybe late?) and Molly is no longer drunk enough to look directly at whatever it is he is feeling as he stands over Caleb, watching the man clench his fists against his thighs. He waits, probably longer than he should, before saying his goodbyes, wandering back in the direction they came and, hopefully, eventually the Leaky Tap. Caleb will come to him when he is ready.
That thought sits in Molly's stomach, uncomfortable, growing more sour with each turn he takes farther away from where he left Caleb sitting on the ground in the cold pre-dawn of late autumn. Would he? Not come to Molly when he was ready, that was a given with most people, no matter how long it took. No, something far more unsettling begins to sink in.
Would Caleb stay?
Molly slows to a stop. He was never one to stop someone when they were ready to move on. People came into and out of each other's lives as the world saw fit, but Molly isn't ready to let go just yet. There is still so much he doesn't know, so much that he wants to learn about Caleb, to experience, to feel.
There is no way in this Moon-touched land that Molly is letting Caleb slip away before he hears that man laugh.
Molly pivots with the grace of any performing swordsman worth his salt and, despite what remains of the alcohol in his system, stops perfectly, takes a second to preen at sticking the landing despite it being entirely unseen, and walks right back to where he remembers leaving Caleb. With a surety he had been lacking when he walked away, Molly marches right back to the wizard in question.
Unsurprisingly, Caleb is still there, now sitting cross-legged with Frumpkin in his lap, looking up at the slowly-dawning sky. The moons hold one cheek in their cool hand, taking with them the warmth of him but leaving behind the kind of ephemeral beauty that only night could bring, with her deep shadows and cool light. On his other cheek, the sun brushes their blush tints, softening sharp lines the night left behind and drawing forth the vibrancy that Caleb fights so hard to hide. The way the sun spins his hair into copper and gold, shimmering just so in spite of the dirt and grime, how it kisses his skin in constellations only the sun can make.
How could anyone ever find this man unremarkable?
Molly shakes himself loose before Caleb can look down and see him staring like an idiot and resumes his trek across the street. He wiggles his fingers in greeting to Frumpkin, who has been watching him far closer than any cat should, and scuffs his heel, stopping close enough to poke Caleb with the toe of his boot.
"Changed my mind," Caleb lowers his gaze to meet Molly's at the sound of the tiefling's voice. Later, Molly will give himself a pat on the back for not letting how Caleb's eyes, one lit like the summer, the other the longest winter's night, completely halt any and all thoughts in favor of leaning down, taking Caleb's face in his hands, and kissing him.
"Get up. I'm not leaving you out here in the cold. If Nott found out I left you out here on your own, I would become her new favorite pin cushion," He holds out a hand, "And we both know I'm far too pretty to be so full of holes."
Caleb's lip quirks up slightly as he reaches for Molly and the tiefling can't help how his smile slides from playful to something more… real.
"Ja, who else could remind the world of its many extraordinary oddities?" Caleb says as Molly pulls him up and dusts him off.
"I dunno, I think you could give me a run for my money."
Caleb shakes his head and looks away, but his shoulders are still less tense than they were when Molly left no so long ago, so that looks like a win to him.
"Flattery will not get you anywhere with me, Mollymauk." There is something in Caleb's voice as he speaks, some twinge of something Molly can't quite catch, but he knows he doesn't like it.
"Nah," Molly nudges Caleb's shoulder with his own and offers him his most charming smile, "I just haven't found the right compliments yet."
Caleb pauses and examines the other man, from the smile to his jaw, to his brows, eyes, throat, and back, all quick as a wink and so easy to miss, flitting about like a hunting hummingbird. All in all, it probably takes three seconds, maybe less, before Caleb is looking away again. Three seconds under those intense blue eyes and Molly is shaken. Three seconds is all it takes for the tiefling to feel unsettled. Maybe 'unsettled' isn't the right feeling, the right word. He isn't uncomfortable. He is breathless, curious, maybe a little scared, certainly excited.
"Did you find it?" Molly asks. He is rewarded with another lightning-quick glance.
"What?" Caleb asks. Gods, Caleb is so cute when he's actually confused.
"What you were looking for," Molly responds as if it were the most obvious thing the universe ever gave them.
"I, ah, am not sure what you mean," Caleb is looking over at Molly again, head tilted slightly.
"When you were staring at me just now. Did you find what you were looking for?" Molly matches the tilt of Caleb's head, lips still curled in a small smile that only grows as Caleb's eyes widen just so and the pale pink blush that dusts across his cheeks matches the early morning light. The human immediately turns away, letting his hair fall to obscure that terribly handsome profile. But! He's still here. He hasn't run again, hasn't clammed up.
Molly knows he shouldn't push it, but really, who could blame him for maximizing on the rare opportunity to play with Caleb all on his lonesome? Molly tsks with the most matronly marm energy he can muster before reaching over to tuck Caleb's hair behind his ear, trying and failing to not relish the way the edge of his finger brushes the soft curve of the other man's ear.
"We can't have that, now can we? It's not every day where I can admire you in profile in the morning sun. Have you ever considered asking Jester to draw you? I'm sure it would be magnificent."
*~*~*~*~*~*
For what felt like the millionth time in the span of maybe ten minutes, Caleb finds himself snapping his gaze back over to Mollymauk. He expects to find something teasing there. Not disingenuous, that would have shown by now, but he certainly doesn't expect to see the truth of the other man's words there.
Surprisingly, that isn't what makes Caleb turn away again. It is the critical examination, the way Mollymauk seems to catalogue the details of him in the same way Caleb might when finding a new and fascinating spell. They are the eyes of a passionate professional, longing to sink their teeth into something new. Caleb thinks of Molly's cards, of lithe and nimble fingers shuffling, flipping, touching so gently. Respected, revered, relied upon. Painted and protected.
Caleb takes a slow breath, trying to swallow around the cotton his tongue has become. Looking out into the distance before them, he gathers himself.
"You are an artist, too, are you not?"
Molly stops moving and Caleb allows himself a few extra steps before doing the same. He closes his eyes against the onslaught that suddenly rages within him, shame, as usual, leading the charge. Stupid. That was so incredibly stupid. Mollymauk is full of compliments and easy affection. Caleb knows this, sees it regularly between the tiefling and his friends, sees its shades when he entertains children on the street corners or charms strangers into letting a strange purple man in a technicolor coat tell them things they don't realize they already know for a copper or two. Caleb is just another man, maybe even a mark for some unknown objective.
He is not a muse made man, not something to be admired, nothing that deserves even a sliver of that kind of reverence. The time where lovers traced his form with hands and lips and words is long over. He is dirt, and mud, and shit, threadbare no matter how many well-made cloaks or prestidigitation spells are bequeathed onto him. That is the point. He is better this way, safer, unremarkable, rotting, a creature who's outsides finally match what is within.
Molly's playful words, flirty and light, curdle in Caleb's core.
He is not beautiful. He is useful, for now, intends to continue to be so for as long as he either needs or is allowed, whichever comes first. He should go back to the inn, take a quiet moment before the rest of the Nein rises to put himself back into whatever semblance of together he can manage. He almost does, but cool fingers wrapping around his wrist stop him. Mollymauk's fingers, wrapped so loosely around his wrist, for the second time that day. Caleb should pull away from it.
He doesn't.
"Come with me," Molly's tone has gone almost serious, something intense there that Caleb couldn't place and then he is hauling Caleb along, walking with a confidence and determination Caleb could never say no to.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The window of dawn's light is short and so, so perfect for the tones that will truly bring out the hidden beauty of the man willingly trailing in Molly's wake. He does a mental catalogue of what is in his pockets: a small sketchbook, slightly rough pages perfect for the handful of used and slightly abused pastels tucked away in a small tin, some charcoal maybe, but no. Caleb is meant to be captured in color. Could he get the shades down before the light is lost?
Molly's gaze snags on a tree, carefully tended to allow the smallest bit of beauty to thrive in a place that could be so dirty and filled with hidden desperation. Not here though, not at this tree. Molly smiles. This place is perfect. He pulls Caleb over to the tree and pushes down on his shoulder.
"Sit," Molly commands. Caleb offers absolutely no resistance to Molly's direction. The tiefling can't help the way the wizard's quizzical stare and surprising trust sends a flare of pride and something a bit more through him. Bathing in the glow of the feeling, he crouches down and adjusts Caleb's limbs, takes his chin in his hands and shifts him this way and that, letting himself bask in how Caleb takes a rare moment to return Molly's stare. Molly almost lingers. Almost.
"There," he stands and walks to a good vantage point, picking through his pockets with an ease long ingrained, "Don't move unless I tell you to." Molly smirks at how Caleb holds perfectly still, leaning against the tree, angled so Molly can see those beautiful eyes without having to subject the wizard to the potential of prolonged direct eye contact.
Molly lets the colors take him, lets the light guide his hands along lines and shapes, fingers smudging and blurring, claws scratching careful cross-hatching. He knows he'll never be able to truly capture Caleb in these moments, but if he could convey even a fraction of how one man captured the sun within him in what must be an act of true divinity, then he would consider this one of his life's greatest achievements.
Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic. The truth of it is so much simpler and so much more complicated. What it all really comes down to is this: he doesn't want to forget this, the good and the bad of the previous night to right now. He isn't like Caleb, can't take moments and turn them into an eternity of memory. Life is a gift and every day he wakes into the world is another day to explore, learn, experience, feel. The general rule Molly has set for himself is to never look back. The only way to move is forward, for better or worse, but sometimes? Sometimes he just wants to capture moments and carry them with him, really carry them, and look back on them.
Slowly, Molly's frenetic creation comes to a stop. The light is gone, the world is waking up around them, but that isn't really what does it. Molly sets his pastel in its tin and looks up. He has his memory, sketched in passion and color. It's time to live in the now.