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“Well,” Caleb says, taking stock of the rockslide that has cut them off from the rest of the party. “This is not ideal.”
Behind him, Molly shifts, coat scraping against the cave wall. “Don’t suppose there’s anything your magic can do about that?” he asks. His voice sounds tighter than usual.
Caleb frowns. “Nein, not unless you’d like to be stuck and on fire.”
Molly sucks in a sharp breath. “I’ll pass.”
CALEB, shouts a voice in his head, ARE YOU ALRIGHT? ARE YOU HURT? ARE YOU DEAD? YOU CAN RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE.
Caleb sighs and smiles. “I am unharmed, Nott,” he says, sparing a glance at his companion huddled up on the cave floor. “Molly is with me.”
Jester says she has a spell to help us find another way to you, but it might take a few hours. Stay put.
“Ja, okay, thank you for the update.”
Well, it seems there’s nothing to do but wait. He has a few books tucked away in his pack to kill the time at least.
“The others are coming for us, but it may take a while,” Caleb says as he settles on the ground a few feet from Molly. He summons his globules to light up their small space and stops short when his eyes finally land on his companion.
Molly is pale, lavender skin gone ashen, and his chest is heaving in silent choking breaths, too fast to be doing him any good.
“Mollymauk?” Caleb asks, shifting closer. “Are you hurt?” That changes things, for sure. Caleb has no healing magic of his own, and he’d used up his healing potion in their last fight.
Molly turns to look at him, but the movement is slow, a little sloppy, none of his usual grace or flourish. It’s hard to tell with those eyes of his, but Caleb thinks his gaze might be unfocussed.
Caleb hesitates, swallowing down his own fears, before reaching out and placing a hand on Molly’s arm. “Mollymauk, can you hear me?”
Molly hums and nods, a short jerky thing. Cognizant, then, if not entirely verbal. Caleb understands that; Caleb can work with that. Yes or no questions, easy to answer.
“Are you injured?”
Molly shakes his head once.
“If I give you water, will you be able to drink it?” Caleb asks. If he can get Molly to focus on other sensations, it might help, might bring him back to himself.
A pause. Silence sits between them for what feels like an eternity; Caleb’s brain tells him it’s no more than a few seconds. Then, finally, Molly nods.
“Okay, that’s good,” Caleb coaxes, uncorking his own waterskin and settling on his knees in front of Molly. Molly’s hands are trembling and uncoordinated, so Caleb tips the skin up to his mouth for him. “Slowly,” he urges.
One of Molly’s hands finds Caleb’s wrist, clings to it as he sucks down water in greedy gulps. His nails are sharp enough to draw blood, but it’s hardly the worst pain Caleb’s ever felt, a small price for Molly’s comfort.
He lets Molly drink a few moments more before he draws the waterskin back. A few drops splash over the lip, spill across Molly’s shirt.
“Are you with me, Mollymauk?”
Molly squeezes his eyes shut and swallows, breathes. Nods. “‘m here.”
Caleb lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Gut, I am glad. Can you tell me what is upsetting you so I can help fix it?”
Molly’s hand is still tight around his wrist. He squeezes once before he seems to realize and lets go. “Small spaces,” he manages, eyes still closed. “Reminds me…”
“Ah,” Caleb says, stomach dropping, as the pieces slot into place.
Nott had said it might take hours for the others to find them. Caleb’s mind cycles through what Molly has shared about his past (or lack thereof) and tries to find a foothold, something to cling to.
“You were alone, last time,” Caleb says.
Molly sucks in another breath, a wounded sound that might be a yeah or might just be a whimper.
Caleb shuffles closer on his knees, lets both his hands come to Molly’s shoulders. “You are not alone now,” he says and presses a kiss to Molly’s forehead. “I am here with you, Mollymauk.”
Normally, Caleb might expect innuendo of a flirty remark, but Molly just nods and clenches his hands in Caleb’s shirt to keep him close. Caleb wraps one of his own hands around Molly’s wrist, feels the breakneck thunder of his pulse.
“Can you breathe with me?”
Caleb counts for them: in for eins zwei drei vier, hold for sieben, breathe out acht.
Molly tips forward to rest their foreheads together, so Caleb can feel the flutter of each exhale against his collarbone. By the third cycle, Molly is matching his counts, chest and belly rising in slow careful breaths.
“Better?” Caleb asks, once Molly has managed another cycle of breathing all on his own.
Molly goes through another full round of in-hold-out before he speaks again. They’re close enough for Caleb to feel the way Molly’s lips curl upward in a smirk. “You know, this isn’t how I expected to get you in my lap.”
Caleb feels himself flush but doesn’t pull away. “It helps, sometimes.” To have something to focus on that isn’t fear, isn’t the failure of your own body.
Molly cracks a single red eye open to stare at him. “Are you offering to distract me, Mr. Caleb?” he asks, his grin just a bit too raw to be rakish.
Caleb swallows. “Ja. If you want.” It’s been a decade and some change since he’s had any practice reading attraction, but he doesn’t think he’s wrong about the signals Molly has been sending.
Molly’s head tips back, his horns knocking against the cave wall with a resonant clunk. He lets out a laugh, a sharp barking thing. “Oh I want,” he says, wrapping fingers into Caleb’s shirt. They tremble, just a bit. Caleb covers them with his own.
Molly hauls Caleb close by the collar, staring into his eyes. “Distract me, then,” he murmurs, and then he’s pulling Caleb into a kiss, messy and sloppy and just a little desperate.
Molly kisses like he fights, showy and reckless and impossible to ignore. Caleb leans into it, tries to give as good as he gets. He’s about ten years out of practice, but there are some things his body remembers: the give and take, the wet slide of lips and teeth and tongue, the desperation. How it feels to have someone need him, to need them in return, the way fear and adrenaline make everything headier, heavier, hotter.
Molly groans into his mouth and yanks Caleb forward to sit more fully in his lap. There’s no mistaking the weight of Molly’s arousal pressed against him. Caleb grunts and tilts his hips, tries to find an angle that gets them both gasping. He feels like a schoolboy again, rutting in the shadows, biting his lip to keep from being overheard.
There’s no one here to overhear them, though. Next time Molly rocks against him, Caleb moans into the other man’s ear. Molly groans right back, pleasure begot from pleasure, his hands tightening around Caleb’s hips, hauling him closer.
“Not bad, Mr. Caleb.” Mollymauk grins, shifting to press his thigh against the full length of Caleb’s erection where it strains against his trousers.
Caleb’s laugh turns into a moan, muffled into the dip of Molly’s collarbone. He should return the compliment, or come up with a clever retort, but it’s been a very long time since he’s been allowed to feel good like this, and the words escape him. He rocks back against Molly’s thigh and licks a path up his throat, over the curling lines of his tattoo, chasing the salt of his sweat.
This was supposed to be for Molly, a way to get him out of his mind and into his body, but Caleb’s pleasure is quickly building. He can only hope the feeling is mutual.
Molly is hard beneath him, body impossibly hot under his touch, moaning softly with each press of their hips. Caleb grinds against the sweet give of his body, letting desperation take over and drive them over that final hurdle.
“Tell me what you need,” Caleb says into Molly’s ear, lips catching on some sparkly little bauble that clinks between his teeth.
Molly gasps. “That,” he says, when the bauble snags between them, pulling at the tender skin of his earlobe. “I like it a little—ah—rough.”
Caleb takes the hint, biting down on the vulnerable point of Molly’s ear as he drags his nails down the soft flesh along his ribs. Molly bucks, a startled shout that twists into a moan, and hikes a desperate leg over Caleb’s hip to grind closer, faster, messier. There’s no finesse, but that’s not what either of them want.
“Can I mark you?” Caleb asks.
“Fuck yes,” Molly moans, and then Caleb sinks his teeth into the side of Molly’s neck, where it’s smooth and bare, where he won’t be able to hide the bruise under his tattoos.
Molly goes still beneath him, coming in his pants with a choked off cry. Caleb bites down harder and follows him, hips still stuttering as he works them both through the aftershocks of it.
When at last he pulls away, they’re both panting and flushed. Molly prods gently at the teeth marks on his neck, where the skin is already starting to darken. “Didn’t know you had it in you,”
Caleb rolls to the side, hesitating just a moment before he tips his head to rest on Molly’s shoulder. “Mm, I can think of other things I’d like to have in me.”
Molly positively cackles with laughter, loud enough to echo through the entire cave. “Remind me how long they said it would take?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. One of his hands drifts slowly up Caleb’s thigh. Caleb can’t get up again, not so soon. Luckily though…
He meets Molly’s eyes and grins. “We have time.”