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mollymauk-teafleak · 5 years

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come home with me (chapter 5)

This fic isn’t dead! Just took a brief break for Widomauk Week but now we’re back with a horribly angsty chapter. Thanks as always to my amazing beta readers, @spiky-lesbian and @minky-for-short who I adore.

Ways to thank your humble writer:

Leave a comment on Ao3 / Donate to my ko-fi

~~~~~

Even as he ventured further into the wide world, into towns and cities he’d only ever read about in letters and books, Caleb realised that people really were mostly the same wherever you went.

They showed the same measured apprehension whenever the troupe would roll into view over the nearest hill, tucking their children behind wary arms and pushing their purses deeper into their pockets. Their suspicion quickly dissolved into excitement when they saw the name proudly painted on the lead wagons, if the carnival had passed this way before, and if not, when Molly placed their writ of performance somewhere nice and obvious by their camp. Whatever convinced them that these were legitimate performers, working under the respectable name of the Baron de Rolo, and not a gaggle of the wandering criminals who distracted more gullible townsfolk than could be found in these parts with flashes and bangs while their cutpurses did their work.

Caleb knew Molly sucked his teeth and lashed his tail at that initial assumption, wondering bitterly if any of the people cared to wonder what had driven such supposed criminals into those desperate situations. Not that he’d pried too much, but Caleb saw the thin scars that littered his lover’s skin like fallen snow and wondered privately if they’d been earned under similar desperate situations. Maybe he’d ask one time. Maybe he would.

Either way, the audience seats would be full of people with the same air of anticipation. They would gasp and laugh and applaud at the exact same moment in the script. They would weep at Mollymauk’s song, finding something in their own lives to help them connect with the longing and desire that flavoured his words and made them sting so much.

And they would leave with the same satisfaction on their faces, the same lightness of people who’d been allowed to forget their cares for an evening, forget how the harvest was coming on and the stalks weren’t as high as they could be and how the roads were getting dangerous and whether the next round of taxes would prove crippling or simply damaging.

Caleb took a lot of comfort from that. Wherever you went, people were the same.

They all loved stories.

The summer was as long and golden as anyone could ever wish, though there was still that regretful pang when the evenings started to gather in quicker and the sun began to lose some of its heat. As the troupe rolled through the countryside, they passed more fields that were shorn right down, only broken, bristly stalks and empty husks left behind.

There was some sadness to it, for certain, but it was a relief as well. Harvest time meant festivals and festivals meant plenty of people looking for a troupe to sing, dance, act out the traditional plays and provide a colourful, sequin backdrop for them to celebrate the season against. Molly anticipated a string of very busy, very profitable weeks, finishing up in Port Damali just in time for the city’s grand Summer’s End Celebration, a time that Molly spoke of as debauched, delightful and hilarious in fond, nostalgic tones, describing it as the perfect place to earn an awful lot of gold and blow it all on incredibly fun activities in less than a night.

But before all that came a string of smaller, far more modest villages in the borders, with their own celebrations to facilitate. Not the whole tent and fireworks and noise business for these folk, just a simple stage in the middle of town and a selection of good, honest, ribald plays with the odd flash and bang here or there. Simple stories with a clear moral and hidden dirty jokes and songs to sing along with, something a professional troupe such as Molly’s could really sink their teeth into and make into something special. Perhaps a party afterwards to welcome the autumn with a large bonfire and more music, which the humble performers would of course be delighted to provide.

Caleb couldn’t help but think he liked these events more than he’d like Port Damali. These were sweet and provincial and familiar in a way that tugged at a place deep inside of him. The decorations were all made of home grown flowers, the cider was from farms less than a stone’s throw away, rich and earthy as anything Caleb had ever drank. The plays poked fun at lords and law masters, the songs were simple and silly and full of innuendos that made him laugh, made to be clapped along to and danced to in fields lit by lanterns and the rich light of a late summer moon.

A few times, he and Molly had found themselves in the midst of one of those dances, twirling around each other, forgetting everything else around them aside from each other’s faces, everything holding its breath for the sweet kiss when the music hit its last note.

Those weeks would have been near perfect for Caleb, if it weren’t for the nightmares.

They came without fail every single night, made worse by just how different they were from the warm, happy days, how Caleb would forget about them until he closed his eyes and another one found him. They were insidious, implacable, formless. All he could remember when he woke up was a terrible brightness that hurt his eyes, screams that he couldn’t place as even human and a terrible, gnawing sense of being utterly and totally alone.

But then of course there would always be Molly, sleeping beside him, not minding if Caleb needed to jostle or nudge him as he moved into his arms and hid from the lingering fingers of the nightmares. How could be believe he was alone, when he had the tiefling’s warmth surrounding him, his chest rising and falling against his own? And before long, once the glow of the sunrise bled underneath the curtains, the shadowy shapes and the screams would be forgotten.

Until the next night.

The next village to be graced by the Fletching and Moondrop Carnival was a lot smaller than the others, and even they’d been nothing to shout about. The whole place could probably be walked across from end to end in less than ten minutes. A simple markerstone named it Blumenthal.

Stranger than that, the fields were still full of wheat, browning in the morning sun. Caleb watched it from his perch on the top of his and Molly’s caravan and noted that they’d have to start bringing it in soon or it would start to wilt into uselessness.

Then he wondered how he knew that.

Once the wagons parked up a respectable distance away, Molly put on his top hat and marched off to the townhouse so he could announce their arrival and show off their writ, given that they hadn’t been here before. Such a thing might be necessary, if these were a nervous sort of folk.

But as Caleb hopped down from the caravan and wandered into the little square, he noticed the people looked a lot more busy than suspicious, anxious eyed women and puffing elderly men going this way and that, carrying rusty looking scythes and bundles of twine, calling to one another in stressed, thin voices. And no wonder, with their food and income for the winter turning brown in the fields around them. The harried panic practically gave their air a taste.

Caleb was lost in his own thoughts when one of the women collided with him, clearly he’d meandered right into her path.

“Gods above, I’m so sorry,” he said quickly, diving down and gathering up the shears she’d dropped, “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“It’s alright,” she replied, looking a little dazed, clearly just eager to get on with her task, “No harm done.” There was clearly some elf blood in her family, if her pointed ears and bright eyes were anything to go by.

“If you don’t mind my asking, is everything alright?” Caleb blurted out, as if showing concern would make up for nearly knocking her down in his obliviousness. The woman sighed, forehead wrinkling with more worry than she really looked old enough to bear, “Harvest time and we’re short handed. Most people with the strength to swing a scythe are off in the cities, taking the crown’s coin. All well and good for them but who does that leave to bring the crop in? Old folks who should be enjoying a quiet life, mothers with children too young to be out there in the heat all day…” She sucked in a breath, as if she’d said more than she’d meant to, at least to a stranger with an odd accent and an inability to look where he was going.

“Well, we’ve got plenty of able hands,” Caleb blinked, waving his hand in the direction of the wagon train, “We’d be happy to help out.”

The woman narrowed her eyes, as if such a generous offer was a cause for concern, “You aren’t from around here. We have little enough to offer as payment, why would you help?”

Caleb didn’t have an answer for her, he could only stand there and open and close his mouth like a fish out of water. “I guess...it's just the right thing to do, isn’t it?” The woman eyed him like a lifeline she desperately wanted to believe was real but common sense told her to be wary of grasping, “Most folk wouldn’t see that as a good enough reason these days.”

Caleb set his jaw, realising the truth of her words and not liking it.

“Not folk like us, ma’am.”

He wasn’t exactly sure how it happened but somehow, when Molly returned from the townhouse, he found his shy, bookish wizard stood on top of an upturned costume chest, the whole carnival troupe gathered around him with a singular bemused expression, listening as he broke them up into teams, gave them tasks and equipment and sent them out into the fields. In less than five minutes, everyone had a job to do and the right kit to do it with, whether that be magic, a borrowed piece of rusty farm equipment or a re-purposed piece of kit from the carnival. In less than five minutes, total order out of complete chaos.

Trying not to look as shocked as he felt to see Caleb speaking authoritatively in front of a crowd, Molly cleared his throat and put a boot on the edge of the chest, “Darling, where are my troupe, who have a show to put on tonight, off to?”

The spell broken in an instant, Caleb jumped guiltily and flushed crimson as he faced Mollymauk.

“I...I’m sorry, they were just saying how they don’t have enough people to bring in the harvest and it’s all going to be lost if they don’t do it soon and I-I just thought if we help they can get it done and we can put our show on...later...maybe?” he twisted his fingers together anxiously, “I should have asked, I’m sorry…”

Molly shushed him gently and put a hand on his arm, soothing his babbling, “I got a similar story from the mayor. This was a good idea you had, Caleb, we can do more for them like this. And they’ll probably let us put a little something on after the day’s work.”

Relief flooded his wizard’s face and his shoulders relaxed, “Oh. Thank you, Molly.”

The tiefling chuckled and kissed his cheek lightly, “Leave every place better than when we found it. That’s the rule, right?”

The kiss made Caleb blush and grin, winding their fingers together comfortably, “True. Grab a pitchfork then, we need to do our part. Can’t have the ringmaster sitting back and letting his troupe do all the work.”

Molly groaned theatrically but he let Caleb lead him out towards the fields, where people in colourful costumes and humble roughspun alike were already hard at work.

“How do you know all this stuff anyhow?” he asked, still holding Caleb’s hand, tone light and joking, “You’re practically an expert and there sure aren’t any fields back in Rexxantrum. Did you read a book about it one day or something?”

For a moment, a troubled look crossed Caleb’s face, one that Molly couldn’t fail to notice and knocked him a little bit, as sudden and deep as it was. “I don’t really know…”

By the time the sun was almost half gone beyond the horizon, the work was done. The air was heavy with the scent of fresh grass and turned earth, nearly everyone had dirt under their fingernails and tingling in their palms, along with the sense of complete satisfaction that came with a well done job. As Mollymauk predicted, the townspeople were more than happy for the troupers to provide a little entertainment, throwing open the doors of Blumenthal’s only tavern and refusing payment from anyone wearing the colours of Whitestone.

Everyone in the carnival who played an instrument fetched it and tuned it, the lot of them somehow making their patchwork assortment of guitars, flutes, drums and strings from all corners of the world sound like they had always meant to sing in harmony. Jester and Nott brought out their puppets, making them dance and cavort across the bar in an impromptu show.

Though the ringmaster himself was rather late to it all. He turned up a little after sunset, apparently coming from the direction of the barn, flecks of hay stuck in his rumpled hair and face pleasantly flushed, hand in hand with their equally disheveled arcanist who winced when he finally took his seat at one of the tables, much to the amusement of his companion, who was the only one who noticed.

Merriment, music and a less than sensible amount of alcohol seemed to be the only things that were on the table for the rest of the night. Caleb wanted to enjoy it, the way he’d been able to do ever since he found his family amongst the members of the carnival. But now the comfortable, repetitive work of the day was finished, a sense of disquiet was chewing away at his chest, the same one that had sent the cloud across his face when Mollymauk had asked how he seemed to know so much about farming, about life in a small village. He tried to chase it off with drinking, laughing a little too loudly at Jester and Nott, dancing with every one of his friends who asked him. And they’d work, for a time, but as soon as he returned to his seat it would be there again, that sensation of a foot put wrong, like assuming there would be another step at the bottom of a flight of stairs but finding yourself swaying in mid air, lurching forward with no support. His hands in front of him didn’t feel quite real, even as he deliberately sent them through the motions for each and every spell he knew, something that had always helped him keep calm in the past. When he spoke, his own voice struck his ears as wrong somehow, echoing like it was coming from far away.

He wanted to run. He just couldn’t work out why.

“There’s always one,” Molly grunted, dropping into the seat across from him.

“One what?” Caleb looked up, grateful for the distraction.

Molly flicked his tail in the direction of the furthest corner of the taproom. Hunched into it like he was trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the troupers, was an old man, clearly older than most others. He bent over his tankard of dark ale, eyes heavy lidded but gleaming with suspicion and disgust, clearly aimed in their direction. Caleb felt a twist in his stomach just looking at him, like he’d committed some awful crime.

“No matter what we do for them,” Molly rapped his fingernails on the table top, a sure sign he was agitated, “No matter how much we try, some people will always look down on us.”

Caleb moved to take his hand, offer him some comfort, maybe suggest another quite literal roll in the hay to distract him but he realised something. The man wasn’t looking at the carnival as a whole. He was looking at him.

Less than a second after this realisation sank into Caleb’s mind with a cold shudder, the old man muttered something, the tail end of which reached them at the other end of the bar.

“...used to burn such folk, those who meddled in the dark arts...”

The atmosphere in the bar room changed in the time it took for Caleb’s heart to beat. Molly’s chair scraped back with a hard, splitting sound, effectively silencing the musicians. He drew himself up to his full height, moving between Caleb and the old man. For the first time Caleb saw how much danger could be held in the depths of those red eyes.

“You got something to say, friend?” he demanded flatly. The full force of his theatrics training was behind his voice, making it boom resolutely through the small space, bringing everything around him to a screeching halt. All eyes turned to them, carnival eyes wary and hesitant, village eyes shocked, startled out of their celebrations.

The man’s eyes hardened. Molly’s tail lashed harshly.

Caleb reached out and tugged anxiously on the sleeve of the tiefling’s coat, “Molly, its okay…”

Finally the tension broke when the dwarven woman who kept the tavern cleared her throat with a note of warning and set down the tankard she’d been cleaning with a solid bang. “Gentlemen,” was all she said.

The tension unwound like a coiled snake darting for the safety of the grass. Certain things couldn’t be argued with and one of those was a pointed remark from a barmaid. The old man rose to his feet and stalked off, Mollymauk sank back down into his chair, following Caleb’s pleading grasp. The musicians picked back up, playing louder and with an extra flair of brightness, trying to mask the sour note of unpleasantness left in the room. Not a fight in the true sense, barely even an altercation, just a few exchanged words and looks that allowed both men to keep their dignity.

Still, Caleb was shaking.

The barmaid appeared, setting down their latest round of drinks, her face apologetic, “Pay Arlen no mind. A lot of folk round here have reason to be a little suspicious of those who are magically inclined. Meaning no offence of course, it's just...well, those who are old enough to remember.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asked, still a little defensive. His tail gave him away, it was still bucking and writhing behind him in a fit of anger.

The barmaid cleared her throat, clearly building up for a story, “Well...a good few years back, coming up on a score or would it be more now? Anyway, we had a shifty character come through. Hood up, didn’t speak, had the smell of magic on him if you take my meaning. Took rooms at this very tavern back when my old mother ran it. Stayed a week or so then disappeared one night without paying.”

“That’s why he was threatening my workers?” Molly demanded incredulously, eyes flaring again, “Because a wizard stiffed on a bill once?”

The barmaid gave him a look, admonishing him a little, her voice getting harder, “Well, given that the very night he disappeared one of the farmhouses went up in flames out of nowhere. Killed a pair of newlyweds, nicer folk you could never hope to meet, and their little boy, only five years old. All of them, dead in one night. And the stranger was seen fleeing the blaze, cloak and all. So no, sir, it was a little more than a stiffed bar tab.”

It was as if the floor of the tavern had fallen away for no one but Caleb. Everyone else continued around him, voices and movement but it was all a blur to him. He was falling.

“What were their names?” he made himself ask, cutting across Molly’s apologies, his voice flat and cold, “The family, what were their names?”

The barmaid blinked, his tone startling her, as it startled everyone else around the table. Molly looked at him, mouth open a little, confused.

“Well...it was a little before my time but I think…” she said haltingly, “Ermendrud. That was it. Leo and Una, I can’t speak to what their poor little lad was called. You can see the ruins of their farm still out there, the constabulary never sent anyone to clear it away after their so called thorough investigation…”

Caleb had stopped listening long before that but it was only then that he could force his legs to move, jolting up as if he’d been electrocuted. His chair hit the floor, his tankard hit the tiles below and cracked. And then he ran.

He got the briefest glimpse of Mollymauk’s stricken expression, felt his fingertips brush his arm but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop him. Nothing would have been. He ran along the lane, everything around him lurching sickeningly like he was running on the deck of a ship, tilting on its axis, no sense of up or down, right or left. But his legs knew exactly where to go, muscles remembering movements, turns through streets his brain had buried a long time ago. He was vaguely aware of people staring, of Fjord calling his name as he passed, of Yasha reaching for him. But their faces, their voices meant nothing, not now.

He could smell burning.

Soon the main cluster of houses was behind him and he was out in the fields, staggering through freshly shorn stalks, what was left of them crunching and cracking like dry bones under his feet. His foot hit a rock buried somewhere in the dirt and he sprawled, skinning his palms and tearing the left knee from his trousers but he just leapt up and ploughed on.

And then he was there. Home, something inside him whispered, and that was what broke him, what sent the tears running down his cheeks and ripped a low moan of agony from his chest. He was home.

There was only a shadow of the foundations left, indentations in the ground. Half a left side wall was all that actually stood, stones blackened and cracked. The fire had consumed nearly all of it, the wooden door and the thatched roof, the blankets and curtains, all the furnishings, the pots and pans, the small array of possessions held dear to the Ermendrud family.

Twenty years of rain, sun and snow, along with the encroaching grass and wildflowers all around it, had healed the land, blowing away the ash, rotting the burnt timbers, covering the scars in the earth. Caleb’s mind had done something similar, healing over the memories too painful and old to remain, wearing down the sharp edges like sea glass until it was small enough to hold. Ikithon’s magic and lies had done the rest, turning it into nearly nothing. Caleb hadn’t even noticed the absence, the loose threads in his own story that hadn’t quite joined up. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to notice, in his new, happier life as Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk’s companion, arcanist for the Fletchling and Moondrop circus.

But it was Bren who fell to his knees in front of the burned skeleton of his family’s home, sobbing so hard he was nearly sick. And Bren remembered a night so long ago if felt more like a dream. He remembered a biting fear trying to claw its way out of him, far too much to be held in such a small body. He remembered flames licking up under the door, an orange so bright they hurt his eyes. He remembered a desperate need to escape, to run, to get out.

And then a hand had reached out to him. Not his father’s, roughened by field work, calloused but so strong and so sure. Not his mother’s, gentle, always apt to comb through his hair reassuringly.

But it was a hand. It was life. Rescue, escape. He’d seized it and felt cool, soothing air rush into his little lungs, going like frantic bellows. The relief had been so palpable, he’d never felt such relief to feel dirt under his hands.

And then he’d heard his mother screaming.

That was where the memory ended, where Ikithon’s memory cleansing spell took hold again. But of course it had made sure not to spare him that sound, his mother screaming. He knew he’d carry that sound in the very iron of his blood until the day he died.

“Caleb?”

He didn’t recognise the name at first, as lost in the memory as he was, the memory where he was Bren, he’d only learned how to write it just last week, tracing it in the dirt floor of their home, Mama had been so proud of him. As proud as the stranger had seemed when he’d come upon Bren making the river stones float. Mama and Papa told him never to talk to strangers but Bren had never been able to show his tricks to anyone before and the stranger had seemed so excited, asking him what else he could do, telling him he could be a powerful wizard one day, filling Bren’s head with fantastic ideas…

“Caleb, it’s okay,” Molly’s voice shook, knowing full well that nothing was okay and might never be okay again.

“He told me he found me on the streets,” Caleb said, his voice a limp, dead thing, “He said I should be grateful he took me in. He made me thank him.”

Molly put his hands on Caleb’s shoulders, helping him to his feet. Nothing in Caleb’s body fought against it.

“Oh, your hands,” Molly groaned, seeing the torn flesh from where the stones and sharp wheat stalks had scraped at him. This was an easier, smaller piece of it all to worry about, something far simpler to heal, and Caleb could see why he fixated on it, not knowing how to deal with everything else just yet.

“I’m going to kill him,” Caleb croaked, some life creeping back into his voice but the only thing in it was anger, a cold and iron anger, “I’m going back to Rexxantrum and I’m going to kill him.”

Molly looked fearful, his grip on Caleb’s wrists tightening, “Love, you’re just upset right now, that’s understandable. Let’s not do anything rash right now.”

Caleb snatched his hands back, voice flaring and swallowing up whatever Molly was about to say, “How...how can you say that? He messed with my mind, he lied to me for years, he killed my family. I’m going to kill him, I’m going to burn him where he stands and he’s going to fucking deserve it.”

The tiefling bit his lip, hands still hovering in the air where they’d been tenderly tracing Caleb’s palms, reaching for something that was no longer there, “He would deserve it, I know that, Caleb…”

“Then what the hell is the problem-”

“The problem is you sound like him,” Molly raised his voice, echoing in the empty field, stopping Caleb dead, “I...I didn’t know your parents Caleb, but is this what they’d want? Would they want you to become a killer, to just let your anger run you for the rest of your life? Get yourself hurt, maybe even get yourself killed, becoming exactly what that asshole was trying to turn you into? Or would they want you to live your life? I think the best way you can say fuck you to Ikithon is just to...be happy. Mourn your parents, mourn what he took from you and just move on. Show him that, even with everything he did, he didn’t win.”

Caleb couldn’t say anything for a long, slow moment, mouth working helplessly. But eventually he managed to whisper, “Didn’t he?”

Mollymauk’s face softened and he moved to take his hands again. Caleb let him, clinging to him even as his cuts stung painfully.

“He didn’t win, Caleb. Look at you, look at what you’ve build since you escaped him. You’re content, you have friends, you...you have me. You have a life, your own life, and you’ve turned it into something so beautiful. I bet your parents are so, so proud of you.”

At those words, Caleb began to sob, falling against Molly’s shoulder. But his lover was there to catch him, murmuring softly even as his own tears thickened his voice, never letting him fall. They weren’t the helpless, sick tears of before, opening the wound further. As they hit the grass below him, falling thick and fast as rainfall, Caleb felt clean.

They stayed out there a long time, until night had well and truly fallen. Caleb did most of the talking, telling Mollymauk everything he remembered of his parents and his short, hard but simple life in Blumenthal. The more he spoke, the more memories came to him, the infallible memory that had served him so well when he learnt spells or studied bringing him these small gifts, glimpses of his old life. He told Molly how he would watch his papa work at harvest time, instructing other folk, his son sitting in the shade of the cottage walls and feeling proud that people listened to his papa, that he was seen as a leader. He remembered going down to the brook with his mama, sitting with his feet in the water, listening to her singing as she worked, trying to join in but getting lost in the lines, shouting the last rhyming word as loudly as he could to make up for it and making Mama giggle.

Each new memory brought a fresh wave of pain and loss but Caleb bore it. He owed his parents that much.

Leaving was hard, Caleb knowing in some deep part of him that he would never come back. But Molly held his hand the whole way down the verge, reminding him that it wouldn’t be gone forever. He had the stories now and that was the most important thing.

That night, lying in bed and listening to the patter of rain on the roof of the wagon, the first proper rain in a good long while, Caleb searched his heart for anger and found none. A deep and profound sadness, the kind that would never really go away, but no anger. He could cope with that.

As he was half asleep, caught between his mind being his own and being given over to his dreams, Caleb found himself looking at Mollymauk. The tiefling always looked young when he slept, with his face relaxed and with none of the facade or spiel he put on for his work. It was when he slept that Caleb would realise he was only as old as himself, maybe even a little younger. Molly had never given an exact age.

Caleb couldn’t count the nights they’d spent together. He couldn’t count the things Molly had taught him, the myriad ways he’d made him feel good, in their bed and out of it. He tried to think how many people would chase someone out into a field, would hold them and let them cry and rage and sob, when ostensibly they were nothing more than a one night stand that had become extended by pure circumstance.

Caleb tried to imagine a night sometime in the future when he didn’t share Mollymauk’s bed. When he didn’t hold his hand around the campfire, sit with his head in his lap, trade sweet words back and forth with him. He couldn’t. His mind recoiled back at the thought. Molly was as much a part of his future as his new job, his new comfort in his own mind.

But still, whenever he tried to extrapolate the thought, take it further, imagine saying certain words, making certain promises, he felt the same helpless sense of impossibility. He just couldn’t be okay with being so vulnerable with another person, not even someone he’d shared so much with already. It was the same as imagining himself as impossibly rich, imagining himself as king of the world. He just couldn’t. It was nonsensical.

Feeling a little ill, Caleb tried to imagine a day where Molly came and told him that he’d found another person to spend his nights with. That what they had, whatever it was called, was over.

He pushed the thought away, like snatching his hand back from a pot that turned out to be scalding hot. Frustration bubbled up inside him and he shoved his face into his pillow, bunching his fists in the blanket. Couldn’t love Molly. Couldn’t let Molly go. Round and round in circles on the same endless track. He wanted to scream.

After a few deep breaths, another trick that Molly had taught him to get him through times when his brain became too loud, Caleb relaxed, exhausted. He didn’t want to chase these thoughts around any more. Today had been far too much already, he didn’t need this on top of everything.

He cleared his mind of them, swatting them away like irritating bees, shuffling closer to Mollymauk and burying his face against his chest. With a sleepy murmur, the tiefling wrapped his arms around him, sighing and sinking back into his dream.

Caleb prayed it was a good one.

#widomauk #rothfuss au #circus au #caleb widogast #mollymauk tealeaf #critical role #critical role fic #cr: campaign 2 #cr: mollymauk #angst #please reblog!#cr: caleb

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