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Molly has been drifting for a while. He doesn’t really know how long a while is, and he doesn’t really care. But he has been drifting in this place where everything feels like satin and early morning mist since the pain chased him out of his body. There isn’t anything to worry about here, he knows he is safe, but there is also nothing to feel.
Distantly, he knows he wants to feel again, that there are people he wants to see and things he has left to do, but it gets lost in the bright white fog and fades.
He knows that he died and that this soft white place is not final. He knows there is a place beyond, where he could move on if he chose to, but it doesn’t feel right yet. So he drifts.
And then, for the first time in so long, he feels a tug. Not in his chest, he doesn’t have a chest, but he knows it is pulling him down, pulling him towards. He lets it pull him, and the blank empty place crystallizes, and he can see again, hear again. It draws him to a room he doesn’t recognize, filled with people that he does.
He sees Yasha, his Yasha, seated next to what must be him, but it doesn’t look like him, it looks like withered and rotten. She is sitting next to him, with tears on her face and an instrument in her lap. She looks around the room, to Beau, to Caleb, to Jester, to a halfling woman he doesn’t know.
“I never was much good with words. That was… that was your job.” She opens her mouth like she has something more to say, but no sounds come out. A tear runs down her cheek. He sees the beginnings of anger on her face, but then she flexes her fingers and starts to strum and it goes away.
And the notes that she plays ring out with perfect clarity in his mind. He didn’t realize how blurry everything felt until Yasha was so clear. Her song doesn’t sound practiced, and it stops and starts and there are occasional notes that come out of tune. But every chord is hers, every dissonant note and beautiful swell is hers.
Slowly, wings begin to unfurl from her back. They are not harsh, pointed, and skeletal. They curve as if filled with the softness that Molly had known lived inside of her, the softness she showed to precious few. Her wings are covered in feathers of the deepest black he could imagine.
He can feel the tugging that is tethering him to the moment grow stronger, and he grabs hold of it. He doesn’t have hands, he doesn’t have form, but he grabs what is holding him there and feels Yasha’s song flow through him.
She finishes and her fingers flutter over the strings for a second, like she doesn’t want to stop. Then, quickly, she runs her thumb down the longest string of her instrument and it draws blood. It beads against her pale skin and it looks like rubies, even in the low light. She presses her thumb to the sternum of what had once been his body and then steps away
The fog clears a little further. Beau steps forward. She looks different than he remembers her, stronger, more mature, with an all-seeing eye sparkling on the back of her neck.
‘Oh, unpleasant one,’ his mind provides. It feels odd to think, rather than just drift, but it’s a good odd. It’s right.
“Hey, Molly,” Beau says, “Jessie said that you can hear us. Seems fuckin weird to me, but…” she trails off, “I’ve thought a lot about what I would say to you, and then I got here and we started doing this and none of them are right.” She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes.
“I’m sorry that you died saving me. I don’t think I was worth saving at the time.” Molly doesn’t think that is right, she was worth saving the moment he met her. He knew he would do it again.
“But I think that I might be now. So, thanks for giving me the chance. I tried to take your advice, about leaving places better than I found them. And it was hard because I’m an asshole, but it was worth it.” He can see her hands shaking as she presses them into the stone table his body is lying on.
“We didn’t really know each other that long, just a couple of weeks. But even then, we didn’t feel whole for a while after you died. And we do now. We healed around the hole that you left. But, fuck me, dude, after all this time we still want you back. We still need you back because the hole is still there.”
“Please. Please come back to us.” She chokes on the last words, and that’s odd too. He’s never seen Beau cry like that.
He wants to reach out, to be able to press a kiss to her hair and a cup of ale into her hand. He wants to flash her a grin and hold her wrists and tell her not to cry. But he can’t. Instead, he watches Caleb gather her into his arms and watches her cry into his shoulder and Molly holds even tighter to the thread that connects them. He can almost feel his fingers, gripping with all the strength he has.
Jester steps forward, and Molly can just barely see a green cloaked, red-haired figure take her place in the ritual circle, the pink and blue-tinged magic that spins around the room. She looks tired and battered, but her eyes are as sharp as her smile. He sees her take a deck of cards out of her haversack and kneel next to the table. They aren’t his cards, not anymore, she’s clearly been tampering with them. Warmth wells up inside him.
Carefully, Jester shuffles and draws 4 cards, setting them out in a diamond on the table. He feels so close now, he can hear the flick of the cards in Jester’s fingers, the hum of the magic, Beau’s soft tears. The first card she flips is the Moon, in the first position at the top of the diamond.
“Oh Molly,” she says with a soft smile, “I know that you aren’t sure about coming back. That you’re afraid of who you might be when you get here. But we’ll be here. We’ll be here when you do.” She flips the second card, the Devil, reversed. She giggles but it fades into static in his head and the thread he’s holding slips in his grip.
“There’s so much for us to show you when you get back. We’ve been pirates, and mercenaries, and war-heroes. But there are pranks to pull and gold left to make and lots of people who probably want to have sex with you. Oh and so many cupcakes you need to try! There is a whole life left for you down here, you just need to come and take it.” He wants to believe her, but his vision fuzzes and whitens at the edges. He holds on. He holds so tight. She flips the third card. The Hermit.
“That’s silly, Molly. You won’t be alone.” She flips the final card. He holds on, he tries to listen because this is the outcome. This is the last words of the story, the final note of the song, this-
He doesn’t see the last card. He feels himself drifting backward, not into the soft, white place again, but into the final place. He holds on to the thread that connects him to the unfamiliar room and familiar people. It feels tense like it might snap, and there is a moment that he fears it will.
He pulls. He thinks of Caleb, the way his forehead felt under Molly’s lips, the focused look on his face while he studied in loud taverns, the woodsmoke crackle of his magic.
He pulls. He thinks of Fjord, of quiet conversations in the dark, the smell of brine, and the bright smile.
He pulls. He thinks of Nott, her fierce conviction, and fiercer loyalty. He thinks of Jester, her day-old pastries, her shitty piano playing, and her paint-stained fingers. He thinks of Beau’s smirks and Yasha’s hands in his hair and the quiet company of his oldest friend and he pulls and pulls and pulls.
Snap.
The first thing Molly feels when he wakes up is the sensation of healing magic coursing through him. It is warm and cool in equal measures, like mint and cinnamon. He heaves a sigh of relief because if Jester is there- if Jester is healing him, that must mean Nott managed to get the cages open, that Lorenzo is probably dead, good fucking riddance.
But the air is warm, not the biting chill of late fall in the Empire. And the ground under him is not soft earth, but hard stone. He can’t open his eyes yet, but there are people around who are crying and talking and he doesn’t know where he is. The healing spell finishes and he manages to wrench his eyes open. Everything is blurry.
“Molly, are you awake? Are you--- Molly?” A softly lilting voice asks from above him, and he sees a blue blob moving in and out of his vision. He groans as he begins to feel the pain in his chest and the heaviness in his limbs. He rolls over onto his back and the pain lets up a bit. His vision clears and he looks up into the worried faces of his friends.
“I’m Molly,” he tries to say, but it comes out so raspy and cracked that the words aren’t recognizable. Someone comes up behind him and props his shoulders up against their legs. They press a waterskin to his lips and he drinks greedily before they gently tug it away. Probably for the best, because the moment it hits his stomach he feels nauseous and chilled. The person behind him gently wipes the water he had spilled away from his face. Yasha, he realizes, all at once. He grabs for the hand and holds it tight.
“I’m Molly,” he tries again. “I’m here.” Someone, he can’t tell who, lets out a sob. He leans back into Yasha’s lap and looks up at her face. She is ringed by black feathered wings that come to surround him, blocking out the rest of the world for a moment. He knows he is safe because Yasha is here.
“Hello,” she says, stroking her thumb across his forehead like a benediction. It feels like a holy thing. “I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you too, my dear. I’m really fucking tired.” That finally gets Yasha to crack a smile, and if he had to die and be resurrected to see that again, it was worth it. Her wings pull away.
He casts his eyes around the room. They all look very different. Stronger, richer, older. There are two people he doesn’t recognize, a halfling woman who is clutching the table, her knuckles white with effort, and a thin firbolg who is hugging Jester. Oh, it was Jester who was crying.
“How- how long has it been?” he asks.
“A year. 331 days,” Caleb says, his voice full of apologies left unsaid, the little smile on his face fading. Shame, Molly loved that smile too. The number makes his head hurt.
“Good to know,” Molly croaks out. Yasha brings the water to his lips again, and he takes a small sip if only to please her. She weaves a hand into his hair and it is the best thing he’s ever felt.
“I don’t know what to say, man,” Beau sniffles, taking a step towards the table, “thanks for coming back to us.”
“Well, you asked very nicely,” he says with a grin, reaching out for Beau’s hand. She takes it in hers and gives him a watery smile. Not like the ones he remembers that Fjord coached her through. Genuine.
There is a sudden clattering sound in the corner of the room, and they turn to see Jester collapsed in the firbolg’s arms. He lowers them both to the ground.
“She’s fine. She’s okay,” he says, his voice deep and rumbly, “you’re alright, Miss Jester. That’s a very tiring spell you just did.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some diamond dust that he presses to her chest. It glows green and turns into a soft mist that gently floats through her then dissipates. Jester blinks open her eyes and curls tighter into him, her head coming to rest on his chest
“There we go, that's it,” he murmurs, soft and soothing. He brushes the lingering tears from her cheeks. Molly starts to lose focus, and the world blurs again.
“Caduceus,” Jester whispers. She sounds about as exhausted as he feels. “What happened? Did it work?”
“It worked. You did well, you overextended yourself is all. I think we might need to get you and Mr. Mollymauk to bed, and everyone else to some food and rest. It’s been a long day,” he responds, smoothing the hair out of her face.
Everyone stills for a second at the suggestion. Even Yasha’s hand stops moving in his hair. The firbolg, Caduceus if Jester is to be believed, looks over at him and smiles. He looks very kind, and Molly wonders how he manages to tolerate the assholes he had known and loved. Well, loves. Present tense.
“Respectfully, Deucey, I don’t think any of us are leaving Molly’s side right now,” Fjord says, in an accent that Molly doesn’t recognize.
“Why are you talking like that,” Molly says, the words muddy in his mouth, “and where’s Nott? She's not dead, is she?” The little halfling waves at him, a shy smile on her face.
“It’s me. Hi,” she says, and her voice sounds the same as it always had, “I go by Veth now. But it’s still me. But Fjord’s just playing a mean prank on you. Which you shouldn't do to people who just came back from the dead.” Fjord puts his face in his hands.
“I’m not playing a prank, but it is a long story. An awful lot has happened in the past year,” Fjord says, his gaze flitting between Molly and Jester, the worry clear as day in his eyes.
“We have to stay together. I promised,” Jester says, seemingly a little out of it. Caduceus hushes her and keeps petting her hair, a little furrow in his brow.
“You don’t have to leave. I just meant to suggest that we move this to a bedroom, maybe you and Beau’s, then I can make us some dinner.” He gestures behind him, and Molly abruptly realizes he is lying on a hard stone table in a dining room in a place he’s never been. It makes his head spin.
The pain that had briefly faded starts to return and he is so tired. A bed sounded like an excellent idea. He tries to lever himself to sitting but is immediately stopped by two hands on his shoulders. He falls back into Yasha’s lap and Beau flicks him in the forehead. Probably for the best, even just the aborted movement set his ribs on fire.
“If you think that we’re letting you walk anywhere right now, you are severely underestimating how worried and upset we are,” she says, the tears gone from her voice. She sounds exactly like the asshole he knows and something about it is so comforting. He feels a stab of pain in his chest and his eyes flutter shut.
“Well,” he says, his voice shaking, “I’ve never been one to turn down being carried by Yasha.”
There’s more discussion that Molly doesn’t catch. What little energy the spell gave him is quickly diminishing and there is an all-encompassing ache that slowly begins to eat up his focus. Someone says his name and he responds with a little hum, hoping they’ll take it as an answer. His head hurts and it reminds him-- it reminds him of being empty.
Yasha wraps her arms around him, one around his shoulders and one under his knees. When she stands, it jostles his back and he bites back a yelp at the explosion of pain in his chest. He feels a rumbling beneath his cheek like she’s saying something, but he doesn’t hear it through the ringing in his ears. He tries as hard as he can to hold on, knowing that the pain will fade soon enough. But the pain stays and his vision goes dark.
When Molly comes to, it is to the warm press of bodies against his, the soft sounds of quiet conversation, and the low rumble of a purring cat.
He has to force his eyes open, and it takes an unholy amount of effort. It is worth it, though, to see Jester curled up on one side of him and Caleb studying on the other with Frumpkin nestled up between them. Jester has her forehead pressed into his shoulder and he can feel her breath across his skin.
Molly reaches out and buries his fingers in Frumpkin's fur. The cat gives an appreciative mew, and that's enough to get Caleb's attention out of his book.
“Oh. Hallo,” Caleb whispers, “you slept for a while. Funny that you woke up just as we convinced the others... They’ll be back soon.” Molly nods, not sure he has the energy for words. He presses his cheek to Jester’s hair. It’s soft, Frumpkin is soft, Caleb spoke softly. None of it is like the emptiness that lingers in his head or the stone table against his back or- or the glaive in his chest.
The glaive that cracked his bones and cleaved his organs and killed him, killed him, is killing him. His mouth tastes like blood.
“Molly,” Caleb’s voice comes from above him, swimming in the darkness, “Mollymauk, open your eyes.” He isn’t sure when he closed them, maybe it was when he hit the ground. He tries to open them, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to see the chaos around him. Caleb is stroking his cheek. A waste, he should be fighting for their friends, not comforting Molly as he dies.
“Deep breaths, alright? I know it is hard.” He hadn’t noticed how hard his chest was working. He just noticed the pain, but that pain was from the blade embedded there. And they really just needed to get her out of the cage and she would be able to help. Those motherfuckers took their healer. Caleb should get up and get her. He opens his eyes, he has to tell Caleb-
“Jester,” he wheezes from between shallow breaths.
“I’m here,” she says, her voice sleep rough and confused, but she’s there. “Caleb too. I was asleep, I don’t know where everyone else is, but they’ll be back soon. Feel my hand?” She squeezes his hand and he tries to focus on the feeling. It distracts him from the battle. He nods.
“Shepherds,” he pants out.
“They’re super-duper dead, Molly. Our friends killed them. Frumpkin, can you feel Frumpkin?” He nods again. Frumpkin rumbles under his hand. “Does Caleb bring Frumpkin into battle?” Molly shakes his head. It makes him dizzy, but it’s alright because there’s Caleb and Jester and Frumpkin. And a ceiling. They aren’t outside.
“Can you see what color my blankets are?” Molly looks down at the blankets. They’re bright pink, covered in little white unicorns with rainbow manes. He laughs, and it forces him to catch his breath. In bed, he’s in bed, not in battle. He’s in bed with Caleb and Jester and Frumpkin. He squeezes her hand.
“Garish. Love ‘em,” he says after a minute when he’s sure he can breathe. Jester rests her head against him again and holds their joined hands to her heart. He can feel it beating. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she says, earnest. “Cay-leb, you said when I woke up there would be food. Why would you lie to me?”
“I didn’t mean it, Vergissmeinnicht. Forgive me.” Frumpkin jumps over Molly and nestles up in the space between him and Jester. Caleb untwists a piece of copper wire from his hair and whispers into it, his hair falling to his shoulders. “They’ll be up soon. Veth said that Caduceus made you ‘cleric soup.’”
“What god? Makes soup?” Molly asks through a yawn.
“Oh, we have so much gossip to catch up on,” Jester replies, snuggling closer to him. It didn’t answer his question, but his train of thought was interrupted by the pounding of footfalls coming up the stairs. Jester whispers an incantation and the door slams open, smacking Beau in the face.
“Oww! Jester! Why?” Beau rubs her palm against her forehead, a fond smile on her face despite herself.
“The Traveler moves in mysterious ways,” Jester says with a shrug of her shoulders and a sneaky smile. Everyone else files in behind Beau, most carrying steaming bowls and mugs and spoons. It smells incredible, and only lightly makes Molly want to throw up his guts.
“Tell Artagan that he can suck my ass. And you get no pocket bacon, only soup.” Beau says. She and Fjord push the other bed so that it is flush with the one they’re lying on. Caleb traces a sigil in the air, whispers something, then touches the bedpost, and the gold-colored energy rushes through it and into the ground.
“Can I have her bacon?” Yasha asks, climbing into the bed next to Jester. She passes the mug in her hands to Caleb.
“Yasha gets your pocket bacon,” Beau says, pulling a few strips out and handing one each to Veth and Yasha who both devour it in a single bite. Beau huffs out a laugh and situates herself between Caleb and the wall, her legs thrown over his. Veth clambers over them, careful not to spill her soup, and deposits herself in Caleb’s lap.
“I was trying to read,” their wizard halfheartedly protests. Veth tugs the book out of his hands and puts it on the windowsill. The little look of annoyance on his face is adorable, but it quickly fades into a soft contented smile as she wraps her arms around him. Fjord sits next to Beau and tucks his legs up under himself. She leans her head into his shoulder.
Caduceus hands Molly a cup of steaming broth and he takes a reluctant sip. It’s warm and soothing, lemongrass and ginger and fennel, and a few other flavors that Molly can’t place. He lets his eyes fall closed and listens to the quiet conversation, the gentle bickering and sipping of soup.
He wonders what happened to these people. When he left them, the cared for each other, but not like this. This casual intimacy. These were the same people he had to corral and cajole into taking a bath with one another, but when he opens his eyes Yasha has her head in Caduceus’ lap, Beau is half asleep on Fjord’s shoulder and all of them, all of them , are touching each other.
It’s good, it’s wonderful, but it’s unfamiliar
“What happened to you all?” he slurs, his mouth not moving quite how he wanted. Like if he was drunk, but if being drunk felt awful.
They’re quiet for a second, thinking. It’s Nott, no, Veth who speaks first.
“You died, we mourned. We traveled, got into and out of shit a ton of times. We were pirates. We negotiated a peace summit between empires. We became homeowners. Yasha got brainwashed, we got her back. We talked about our feelings and made friends and we missed you. And then we brought you back, and you’re here and none of us know what the fuck we’re doing.” She stops short.
“We’re holding onto each other,” Fjord finishes, wrapping his arm tighter around Beau. Molly thinks about the thread that had brought him here, about how tightly he held on to them. “We’ve changed since you’ve been gone,” he clears his throat, “but we’re here for you. And we’re not letting go.”
Molly reaches across Jester for Yasha’s hand and she takes it. He lets out a soft sigh as their words settle over him. The room is quiet but for the sounds of rustling fabric and their breathing. His eyelids start to feel heavy again
“Yasha got brainwashed?” He squeezes her hand and she looks away. There’s a scar on her palm he doesn’t remember. Maybe it’s new, or perhaps he’d just forgotten.
“They got me. They brought me back. That’s the important part. I hurt them and they still came to find me,” she says, her voice dropping off at the end of her sentence. Jester grumbles and flips over so she and Yasha are face to face.
“Of course we came to get you. Just like we went to find Yeza, just like we were always going to go back for Molly.” Jester sounds so sure of herself and of her friends that it’s hard not to believe her. It’s hard not to believe them when they move almost imperceptibly closer as reassurance. Harder still when Caleb taps the bottom of Molly’s mug to remind him to drink and the sip he takes soothes his scratchy throat. He shivers.
Veth presses a hand to his forehead, as if feeling for a fever. Her hand is so much softer than when she was a goblin. She draws away with a little ‘sorry’.
“Thank you,” he says, without any real direction. He feels sleep tugging at him again. Veth adjusts the blanket that he’s under. Beau snickers.
“It was nothing. It cost like, a thousand gold of diamonds, but it was nothing. Eleven hundred actually ‘cause Jess knocked herself out doing it,” Beau says. It takes all of his strength to raise his arm to flip her off properly, but it’s worth it.
“You’re priceless, Molly,” Jester says.
“That I am. I’ll pay you back though,” he replies. Everyone takes issue with that, and they all give annoyed rebuttals over each other to the point where he can’t hear any of them. It’s absolutely delightful. He settles deeper into the blankets in an attempt to chase away the lingering chill in his bones.
“Take at least another drink of that before you fall asleep again,” Caduceus says. Molly takes another sip of soup and the nausea re-emerges. His eyes fall closed as he breathes through it, and someone takes the mug from his hand. “Mr. Caleb, if you wouldn’t mind, I think you might all sleep sounder if you cast us the dome.”
There’s a murmur of agreement and Caleb starts to work on a spell, what spell Molly isn’t sure, but they all seem a little more at ease knowing it’s going to happen. Jester throws an arm across his waist and it hurts, but he doesn’t move her away. He wouldn’t dream of it. After a minute, the air gets a little warmer. He starts to slip back into sleep. Someone puts a hand on his head, but he doesn’t open his eyes to see who.
“Sleep, Mollymauk. We’ll be here when you wake up.”
He does, and they are.