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The first thing Caleb noticed was the blood.
Not unusual, with Molly.
Molly bled the way other people breathed; frequently, dramatically, and often while making eye contact to ensure maximum effect.
But this was different.
This blood had dried black against the collar of Molly’s coat. And Molly, who normally entered every room like a one-man parade, slipped into the inn so quietly that only Caleb looked up.
Their eyes met across the common room. Molly smiled immediately and Caleb’s stomach dropped.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
Wrong.
“Molly,” Caleb said quietly. The rest of the Mighty Nein continued arguing around the table, oblivious. Molly sauntered closer with forced casualness. “Hallo, darling.”
His voice sounded rough.
Caleb stood before he fully realized he was moving.
“You are hurt.”
“I’m always hurt.”
“You are injured.”
“Semantics.”
Molly reached for the back of a chair.
Missed it. Caught himself a second too late. Caleb was beside him instantly. Under his hands, Molly felt frighteningly unsteady.
“Molly.”
“I know, I know, very dramatic, everyone panic appropriately-” His sentence cut off abruptly as his knees buckled.
Caleb caught him before he hit the floor and the entire tavern went silent.
“Molly?” Jester’s voice sharpened immediately.
Molly laughed weakly against Caleb’s shoulder. “Ah. There it is.”
Then blood spilled suddenly between Caleb’s fingers. Panic detonated instantly through Caleb’s chest.
“Get Caduceus,” he snapped.
The sheer force in his voice startled everyone into motion. Fjord vaulted to his feet. Beau swore violently. Jester was already running. Caleb barely noticed. His entire world had narrowed to Molly slumping dangerously against him, breath shallow and uneven.
“Molly. Stay awake.”
“I’m trying.”
Blood soaked rapidly through Caleb’s sleeve.
Gods.
Gods.
“What happened?” Caleb demanded.
Molly blinked slowly, pupils unfocused. “Got stabbed.”
“You are impossible.”
“Usually your favorite quality.”
Another weak smile.
Then Molly flinched sharply, one hand suddenly pressing hard against his ribs.
Caleb caught the movement instantly.
“Molly.”
“It’s fine.”
Blood dripped steadily onto the floorboards.
“It is very clearly not fine.”
The others crowded around now.
Beau crouched immediately beside them, expression pale beneath her usual bravado. “Holy shit.”
Fjord pulled Molly’s coat aside carefully.
Everyone went still.
The wound stretched viciously across Molly’s side, poorly bandaged and still actively bleeding through layers of crimson cloth.
Jester looked horrified. “Molly!”
“I’ve had worse.”
“You absolutely have not,” Beau snapped.
Caduceus appeared seconds later carrying his staff. One glance at the injury wiped all calm amusement from his face.
“Oh dear.”
Molly groaned softly. “Never good when the grave cleric says that.”
Caleb could feel trembling starting in Molly’s body now.
Shock.
His hands tightened instinctively around him.
“Fix it,” Caleb said, and heard the panic bleeding through his own voice.
Caduceus knelt immediately, magic already glowing soft green between his fingers. “I’m trying.” Molly’s breathing hitched sharply as healing magic touched damaged flesh.
Pain.
A lot of pain. Caleb felt him tense violently.
“Easy,” Caleb whispered automatically.
Molly turned his face slightly toward Caleb’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.
And very quietly-
“I’m tired.”
The words hit Caleb harder than the blood had. Not physical exhaustion.Something deeper. Older. Caleb looked down sharply. Molly’s face had gone frighteningly pale beneath lavender skin. Exhaustion carved deep shadows beneath his eyes Caleb suddenly realized had been there for weeks.How long had this been getting worse How much had he missed? Healing magic sealed the worst of the wound eventually, but Molly still sagged heavily in Caleb’s arms afterward, breathing uneven.
Caduceus frowned. “He needs rest.”
Molly laughed weakly. “Terrifying diagnosis.”
“Nobody asked you,” Beau muttered.
But her voice shook.
Caleb carefully adjusted his grip. “Can you stand?”
“Probably.”
He could not.
The second Caleb tried helping him upright, Molly made a sharp sound of pain and nearly collapsed again.
That terrified everyone. Molly always hid pain.
Always.
Now he looked seconds from passing out.
“Okay,” Fjord said quickly. “Upstairs. Now.”
Caleb didn’t bother arguing.
He simply lifted Molly fully into his arms.
Molly blinked at him slowly. “Oh. Princess treatment.”
“You are bleeding on me.”
“So romantic.”
His voice was getting weaker.
Caleb hated it.
-
The room upstairs felt too small for panic.
Molly lay propped carefully against pillows while Caduceus changed bandages with quiet efficiency. The others hovered nearby looking deeply unsettled.
Caleb remained at Molly’s side the entire time.
Watching.
Always watching.
He noticed every flinch Molly tried to hide.
Every sharp inhale.
Every tremor in his hands.
“Molly,” Caduceus said gently after a while, “how long ago did this happen?”
A pause.
“…Yesterday?”
Beau swore immediately.
“Yesterday?” Fjord repeated.
Molly avoided everyone’s eyes.
Caleb felt cold dread begin pooling slowly in his stomach.
“You waited a day?”
“I thought it’d stop bleeding eventually.”
“That’s not how bodies work,” Beau snapped.
Molly shrugged weakly.
The movement clearly hurt.
Caleb stared at him carefully.
Something was wrong beyond the injury.
He could feel it.
Molly kept drifting strangely in and out of focus during conversations, gaze distant one second and painfully alert the next. His usual easy confidence was gone entirely.
In its place sat exhaustion so profound it frightened Caleb.
Eventually the others filtered out under Caduceus’s insistence, leaving only Caleb behind.
The silence afterward felt heavy.
Molly stared at the ceiling.
Caleb sat beside the bed.
For a long while neither spoke.
Then quietly:
“You scared me.”
Molly’s eyes flickered toward him immediately.
There was genuine guilt there.
“Sorry.”
Caleb exhaled shakily. “You cannot keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Waiting until you are collapsing before asking for help.”
Molly looked away.
The movement alone answered the question.
Caleb’s chest tightened painfully.
“Molly.”
“I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
The simple honesty of it hollowed Caleb out completely.
“You were bleeding.”
“Mm.”
“You could have died.”
Another shrug.
And suddenly Caleb understood.
Not fully, but enough. This wasn’t recklessness.
Not entirely.
This was someone who genuinely did not value his own pain enough to treat it urgently.
The realization terrified him.
Caleb lowered his voice carefully. “Did you think no one would care?”
Molly laughed once.
Soft.
Humorless.
“That obvious?”
Caleb felt grief hit him like a physical blow.
He reached for Molly’s hand immediately.
“Mollymauk.”
The use of his full name made Molly finally look at him.
“You are loved,” Caleb said fiercely. “Desperately.”
Something fragile crossed Molly’s expression.
Then disappeared beneath practiced humor.
“Well now you’re just being emotional.”
“I am serious.”
“That’s worse.”
Caleb tightened his grip slightly. “Why did you wait?”
Silence.
Long enough that Caleb thought Molly might not answer.
Then finally:
“I didn’t really care what happened to me yesterday.”
The room went still.
Caleb forgot how to breathe.
Molly looked horrified immediately after saying it aloud, like the confession had escaped accidentally.
“Caleb-“
But Caleb was already reeling.
Because suddenly the exhaustion made sense.
The recklessness.
The increasingly brutal fights.
The sleepless nights.
Gods.
“How long?” Caleb whispered.
Molly stared at the blankets.
“I don’t know.”
“Molly.”
“I’m just tired.” His voice cracked slightly. “All the time.”
Caleb’s heart broke quietly inside his chest.
“Hey,” he said softly.
Molly refused to look at him now.
“I wake up exhausted,” Molly admitted in a whisper. “And then I spend all day pretending I’m not. And everybody thinks I’m fun and confident and impossible and I…” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep performing all the time.”
Tears burned unexpectedly behind Caleb’s eyes.
Molly laughed weakly at himself.
“Gods, listen to me.”
“No.” Caleb moved closer immediately. “Do not apologize for this.”
“It’s pathetic.”
“It is human.”
Molly’s breathing had gone uneven now.
“I hate talking about this.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to realize I’m too much work eventually.”
Caleb stared at him in genuine horror.
“Molly.”
“I’m serious.”
“No.” Caleb’s voice sharpened unexpectedly. “No, absolutely not.”
Molly blinked at the force behind it.
Caleb leaned forward, hands trembling slightly now too.
“You do not get to decide you are unlovable for me.”
Silence.
Molly looked stunned.
Caleb rarely spoke this forcefully.
But fear had burned straight through restraint now.
“You are hurting,” Caleb continued, quieter now but no less intense. “That does not make you difficult to love.”
Molly’s composure cracked visibly.
“I don’t know how to stop feeling like this,” he whispered.
Caleb moved before thinking.
He wrapped both arms carefully around Molly despite the bandages and shaking exhaustion and pulled him gently against his chest.
For one startled second Molly froze completely.
Then he broke.
Not loudly.
That was the awful thing.
Molly cried silently.
Like he was ashamed of making noise.
His hands clenched desperately in Caleb’s shirt while his breathing dissolved into painful, uneven gasps against Caleb’s shoulder.
Caleb held him tighter instantly.
“There you are,” he whispered shakily.
Molly trembled hard enough to shake both of them.
“It hurts,” he admitted brokenly.
Caleb closed his eyes briefly.
“What hurts?”
A horrible little laugh.
“Everything.”
The honesty in that answer nearly destroyed him.
Caleb pressed trembling fingers into the back of Molly’s curls.
“You do not have to survive this alone.”
Molly shook his head weakly against him. “You say that now.”
“I will say it tomorrow too.”
“You don’t know what I’m like when it gets bad.”
Caleb’s expression crumpled slightly.
“Liebling,” he whispered. “I already know.”
And maybe that was what finally did it.
The understanding.
The terrible shared recognition between two people who knew exactly what it felt like to lose entire pieces of yourself to your own mind.
Molly cried harder.
Exhaustion eventually overtook him afterward.
Caleb felt it happen slowly.
The trembling easing first.
Then the tension.
Then Molly simply sagged fully against him, too drained to keep holding himself together.
“You should sleep,” Caleb murmured softly.
Molly made a weak sound of protest.
“You need rest.”
“What I need,” Molly mumbled tiredly against his shoulder, “is for my brain to stop being such a bastard.”
“That too.”
A faint laugh.
Then quieter:
“Stay?”
Caleb’s chest ached painfully.
“Always.”
Molly finally let Caleb guide him carefully back against the pillows.
Within minutes exhaustion dragged him under completely.
Even asleep he looked tense.
Uneasy.
Like resting itself frightened him.
Caleb remained beside the bed long after the candles burned low.
Watching the rise and fall of Molly’s breathing.
Counting every inhale unconsciously.
Because fear still gripped him hard enough to ache.
He almost lost him.
And worse…
Molly had almost let himself be lost.
The realization sat like broken glass beneath Caleb’s ribs.
Carefully, so gently Molly never woke, Caleb reached out and brushed curls back from his forehead.
“You are staying,” he whispered into the darkness.
A promise.
A plea.
A prayer.
And for the first time in years, Caleb Widogast stayed awake all night not because he feared his own nightmares;
But because someone he loved was finally hurting loudly enough to be heard.