#AND GAVE ME A HAND SEWN EMBROIDERED CHARM FOR BACK-TO-SCHOOL!!!!

[reflectionsofgalaxies]

coping with things so well today so i’m bragging about it ✨

[mollymauk-teafleak]

Pigments

Art Teacher Molly! Based on a set of head canons I posted a little while ago

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Caleb’s school had been a handful of rooms in the town hall building. He and the other children of the village had been roughly divided into two groups by age and taken by either the town’s only cleric, a dwarven priestess of Erathis who’d been sent to Blumenthal years ago to establish a strong faith amongst those people of the earth and had remained despite the local’s pleasant indifference, or the herbalist whenever she left the store with her nephew. Caleb would complete every task set for him within ten minutes and, instead, would be allowed to sit in the corner and read while the other children staggered their way through multiplication and verbs and basic Dwarvish. He read everything that could be found within the building, even staying in during playtime. The herbalist would share her tea with him and bring him scones when she could see that his parents were having a rough month.

Even as everything between who Caleb was now and that small child with unruly red curls and hollow cheeks and big eyes, even as all of it cracked and broke and rotted away for a number of reasons, it wouldn’t take much to bring him back to that little room. The dust motes dancing through the sunlight slanding in through the windows and falling on the blackboard with lines and lines of loopy handwriting that was clearly made to draw intricate sketches of plants and write labels on bottles of strange green liquids. The taste of flour and sugar baked together on his tongue, heavy with cherries, nettle tea, the taste of reassurance that maybe his stomach wouldn’t ache so bad when he went to bed that night, that maybe his mother’s heart wouldn’t break quite so much when she saw him. The promise of new words, so many it felt like he could barely hold them all in his mind, but he’d still always want more. Feeling like maybe one day he would be somewhere that would appreciate him for everything he knew.

It didn’t take much to send Caleb back there, to remind him of his days at school. Any little similarity would do it. But standing here, in an actual school, all he could think was how different it was from his own.

Molly’s hand hadn’t left his own since they’d gotten into the taxi. Caleb thought that meant the date was going well. The thought gave him a happy warmth in the bottom of his stomach, though he was very aware of his own inexperience. He wouldn’t really know if it was going well one way or the other, he had next to no data to fall back on.

But there was something in the way Molly kept stealing glances at him, leaving Caleb to just catch the slightest edge of his glance, the way there would always be a smile on his face whenever it happened. Almost as if just the sight of Caleb still sat beside him was enough to make Molly smile.

The hallways were left by the wide windows to alternate strangely between pitch black and wonky squares of yellow streetlight. The only noises were their own footsteps and the muted rumble of cars and voices outside. Of course, at nearly midnight, there was absolutely no one in the school.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here so late?” Caleb finally asked, his voice reverberating off tiles in shadow that he couldn’t even see.

Molly turned a little from where he was determinedly leading the way through the corridors and up the silent stairs, “Of course.” His hand, the one that wasn’t entwined with Caleb’s, reached into his shoulder bag and flashed a red lanyard with a faded, blurry picture of a far younger purple tiefling, “I’m staff. And you’re my guest.”

If he couldn’t see the staff badge for himself, Caleb wouldn’t have been able to believe that the loud, extravagant, naturally hedonistic singer he’d been dating for a month now was a teacher by day. The idea of Molly being an authority figure was like trying to imagine a fish climbing a tree or a shark swimming backwards. Something just wasn’t right about it.

But there was his name on the door they were approaching, Mr Tealeaf, neatly typed out in large, rounded letters surrounded by childish cartoons of paint brushes and easels, clearly added by whoever had made the sign in an attempt to make it brighter. But the stickers that had been placed around it with a heavy, generous hand and the graffiti style doodles done in loud, colourful marker were undoubtedly the work of Molly himself.

“Also I leave stuff in my classroom all the time,” Molly added, a little bashfully, “They gave me a key after the one time they found me trying to climb through the window. Someone called the police.”

Caleb had to smile at the mental image, “What did you forget that time?”

Molly suddenly seemed very interested in his keys as he put them in the door, “Uh, my phone.”

Caleb’s smile grew, “The same thing we’re having to come back here to get right this moment?”

Molly turned and poked him in the chest with a finger tipped by a long, deep red nail, playfully challenging, “What’s your point, Widogast?”

“Nothing at all,” Caleb showed his palms, his grin not fading at all.

Molly flicked his tail at him and disappeared into the classroom, “I wouldn’t bother but it’s got the cinema tickets on my email…”

Caleb nodded along, more absorbed in looking around. Even with the light off, the small space was a riot of muted colour, there wasn’t an inch of the walls that wasn’t covered in an art piece of some description. One was groaning under what looked like three classes worth of crookedly sewn embroidered patches, one dripped with just as many watercolours, one had bunting haphazardly strung up that boughed under a store’s worth of bead bracelets and paper flower garlands. Even things that couldn’t be pinned up found their place; the long banks of sinks that circled the room like a moat had sculptures standing sentinel, frozen in the act of listing slightly to the left or right.

Where there wasn’t displays of work there were boards on different artists and movements, one about Frida Kahlo backed by loud, patterned fabric, one about Van Gough set against a recreation of Starry Night done with twists of blue silk. The others were people Caleb had never heard of but he was sure he’d know everything he needed to after reading all of the carefully typed out squares of information.

Though the colour could only slightly be seen with the lack of light, Caleb could practically smell it. The scent of charcoal and pigment and fresh paper was on nearly everything, buoyed by strong coffee and sugary tea. Less pleasant was the slightest smell of stagnant water, probably left in paint trays and clinging to brushes, though it was mild enough that Caleb didn’t mind.

Molly went straight to his desk while Caleb was still staring, digging around in drawers that looked like they were overflowing until he came up with his phone, “There you are, you bastard. Yasha said she was going to super glue it to my hand if I left it at work again, let’s hope she’s forgotten that...”

Caleb made a soft noise of affirmation, ninety nine percent of his attention still on the room around him.

Molly gave a soft chuckle, “Do you like it? I know it weirds some people out, they can’t imagine me actually doing this as a job.”

Caleb’s eyes flickered over to Molly, managing to pull himself out of a sudden hyperfixation on L. S. Lowry. He allowed himself a long moment just to look at him, standing there in the half light. Though all they’d been planning to do was go to the pictures and get a few drinks afterwards, he was dressed as extravagantly as ever. Enough piercings to make his ears droop a little, a shirt made of nothing but glittering mesh patterned with stars over a tight vest and leather pants tucked into boots that went up to his knees. Not much on display but everything hinted at, his tattoos vibrant even in shadow. He looked as far away from a teacher as anyone could imagine.

But Caleb could see touches of him everywhere in the room they stood in. He saw him in the messiness of the desk but how he clearly knew where everything was regardless. He saw his guiding hand in every single work of art on the wall, he saw him in the gushing praise scribbled in red pen on the front of the pile of test papers near his computer. He saw him in the tin of biscuits right by his elbow, ready to be brought out at a moment’s notice for a child who was having a hard day or who’d achieved something after trying so hard.

Or a child who maybe hadn’t had any breakfast that day.

Caleb felt his lower lip wobble dangerously for a moment but he quickly brought it under control, managing to smile, “I don’t think it’s weird. I can’t imagine a job more perfect for you.”

Molly beamed at that, some pride warming his eyes now as he gently touched a piece of paper lying on his desk, a pencil drawing done in bright colours that was clearly meant to be himself done by a child that had clearly just been introduced to Cubism.

“Well,” he was even blushing a little, around the edges, “I do enjoy it. And that is about the nicest thing anyone’s said to me about my job.”

“Well, it’s true,” Caleb leaned against one of the tables, one hand awkwardly seizing his arm, though the smile on his face was undeniable, spreading across his face the more Molly kept looking at him like that.

Molly twirled his tail between his fingers. Was Caleb thinking wishfully or did he always do that when he was feeling charmed? His eyes roved over his desk, looking like he was trying to decide whether something was a good idea or whether it would come off as dorky.

“I...I have something for you,” he eventually grinned, eyes flickering up to Caleb, “Call it a prize for coming on this rescue mission with me.”

“Oh?” Caleb leaned forward slightly, hoping it might be a kiss.

Molly swept up, ringing slightly as he went with all his adornments, “My students were learning about mosaic and glass work? So we did a little jewellery making and seeing how I have to demo everything, I ended up with this…”

Caleb suddenly found something small and smooth in his hand. He looked to see a bracelet, a simple loop of black string with rounded, oblong beads in alternating sea green and vibrant blue.

“They’ll really bring out the colours of your eyes,” Molly murmured hopefully, “They always remind me of the sea so I guess I must subconsciously have been...thinking of you? While I made it? I must have always meant to give you it, even before I realised it.”

Caleb’s mouth opened, hoping words adequate to express just how much the gift meant to him would just come pouring out. Of course they didn’t, he was just left stammering until he stopped himself and just looked Molly in the eye as he slipped the bracelet over his skinny wrist.

“I love it, Molly. Thank you.”

Judging by Molly’s face, Caleb’s eyes must have said what his words couldn’t. That was when he got his kiss, sweet and gentle, coloured in moonlight.

And the bracelet would stay on his wrist all night. And the many dates they’d have after their slightly delayed trip to the cinema.

And the years they’d have together after that.

[betweensceneswriter]

Second Wife-Chapter 16: Comfort

Second Wife Table of Contents

Second Wife on AO3

Previously -  Chapter 15 : By the Ballocks Jenny’s always been good at putting Jamie in his place.

“Jesus!” [Jamie] said, unable to stop himself. “Ye’re lucky ye kept yer maidenhead!” An ugly flush washed darkly over her from stays to cap, and his jaws dropped. “Laoghaire MacKenzie! Ye werena such a wanton fool to let him take ye virgin to his bed!?”

"I didna ken he was marrit!” she cried, stamping her foot. “And it was after ye wed the Sassenach. I went to him for comfort.”

"Oh, and he gave it ye, I’m sure!”

"Hush your gob!” she shrieked, and picking up a stone watering pot from the bench by the shed, hurled it at his head (An Echo in the Bone, 676).

     The house smelled of meat and sweets, and every corner was filled with joyful noise.  Jamie still couldn’t keep all the little people straight, especially as Angus and Anthony, Matthew and Henry insisted on not staying in one place and constantly showing up in different configurations, but he was getting better. 

     Young Jamie’s wife was Joan, and they had handsome dark-haired Matthew and Henry, as well as baby Caroline.  Caroline was just a wee thing, whom little Joanie had latched onto, especially adoring the baby because Joan shared names with her ma.

     Maggie was married to a tall, quiet man named Paul Lyle.  They had two active boys named Angus and Anthony.  Four-year-old Angus had lost his two front teeth in a headlong jump into a table, and Jamie felt a twinge of remembrance, thinking of his own toothless friend of the same name—fellow cattle thief, ruffian, and rescuer, whom he’d lost in the Rising.

     Then there was Kitty—Katherine Mary—who was said to have a young man, and might soon be engaged.  The younger ones were the twins, Janet and Michael, and the youngest was Ian, who had been just a babe when Jamie left.

     Fortunately, it didn’t require the knowledge of names to play the silly games the little boys begged for.  “Nunka Jamie” quickly gained popularity as a great red-haired lion who would hunt the boys through the forest of furniture, a copper-maned pony who gave galloping rides about the house, and a terrifying Goliath, who did an impressive performance of falling to the ground when the boys, each playing David in turn, had flung their only-slightly-smelly stockings at his head.

     He finally collapsed, panting onto the couch, only to be attacked by the foursome, who demanded that Nunka Jamie tell them stories.

     Jenny smiled at the sight, and pointed the little band out to Laoghaire.  “The boys love their Papa, but Ian canna play wi’ them in the same way,” Jenny said.  “Can ye imagine—Marsali and Joanie having wee ones some day?  Jamie will be a wonderful grand-da.”

     Laoghaire smiled at the thought.  It was good to see Jamie here at Lallybroch.  Somehow he seemed more settled and comfortable.

      They had all gathered around the huge table in the dining hall for dinner: Ian and Jenny, James and Joan, Maggie and Paul, Jamie and Laoghaire, then Kitty, Janet, Michael, Ian, Marsali and Joanie. There were too many people to seat the entire family, so the four youngest boys had been fed first, and spent dinner time running wildly around in the great room, making their mothers start in terror every time there was a crash, and only relax when the loud sound wasn’t followed by devastated wailing.

     Jamie looked at his sister and Ian, sitting next to each other.  Their eyes sent each other messages without words. He knew marriage was not perfect, but he could easily see the depth of love and mutual understanding they had for each other.  And Jenny had spoken sense to him.  How could he judge ‘til death do us part’ from four months of marriage?

     Flanked by her daughters, Laoghaire looked happy, which made Jamie breathe easier.  Marsali’s hair had dried in golden ringlets.  Wee Janet sat next to her and the girls were giggling and whispering—apparently having become even better chums through the experience.  The boys had mucked out the stalls for their part in the foolishness, and had been thoroughly chastened by their da and uncle about their responsibility to treat young ladies honorably, beginning with their own sisters and cousins.

     But truly, no harm had been done.  For much of the afternoon the girls helped cook in the kitchen.  Joanie, slightly disappointed to not be able to swim, had satisfied herself with playing school with the wee boys, who made wonderful misbehaving students; Joanie was able to make them stand in a corner to her hearts’ content. 

     Wasn’t this what life was about? Jamie thought.  Family, and work, and food.  It was easy to feel satisfied with such abundance to table, though Jamie did consider, looking down at his belly, whether he should perhaps eat less pie.

     After dinner, after Nunka Jamie had worn out the young boys with playing (or perhaps it was the other way around), the family gathered in the hall to give Marsali her gifts.  Gifts for birthdays tended to be simple.  Young Jamie’s Joan gave Marsali some soft wool she had spun and dyed herself.  Ian and Janet gave her a worn novel that had already seen several owners and many years of use.  Laoghaire had sewn and embroidered her a new shift.  Maggie gave her a new tortoise-shell comb for her hair, which made Marsali flush.  It was quite fine as a gift.

      “My gift for you is not down here,” Jamie said.  “I want you to choose something from a trunk we have of clothing.  You are tall enough, and they aren’t getting much use.”

     Eventually the young families headed home or to their rooms: Young Jamie and his wife, boys, and baby to their apartments at Lallybroch, Maggie and her husband along with their boys off to the Lyle farm.  With a smaller audience, Jamie reached into the pocket of his jacket and fished out a small packet of folded paper, handing it to Marsali.   She opened it, read it quickly, and blushed a fiery red.

     Laoghaire had calmed slightly since the swimming incident and tried to reassure herself.  There was a fire of independence in Marsali that perhaps she had not had as a girl.  In addition, Marsali had a ma to talk to her about men and what they wanted, and what they would do to get it, and how she should behave to get what she wanted, two things which were diametrically opposed.

     Sadly, Laoghaire herself had none of this advice as a fifteen-year-old; and as a result, she had gone about it all wrong.

☆☆☆☆☆

     After she left the tavern, in the shy bliss of being known by John Robert MacLeod, Laoghaire could hear his words ringing in her head.  How could that bastard James Fraser say no to this beauty?  He’s a fool!  Oh, ye are so bonny, yer breasts like pillows the gods would sleep on, yer eyes sparkling like sapphires, yer lips like roses in a garden.

     The words continued to echo as she slipped into her house, retrieving her shift and dressing in her attic room.  She continued to hear them as she bid her brothers and sisters goodbye again and headed back toward Leoch.  John Robert was right, Laoghaire decided.  Jamie Fraser was a fool and Mistress Beauchamp a true witch to steal him away from her.  Only then did she realize she was walking past Geillis Duncan’s shop.

     She opened the door and a cacophony of scents assailed her nose.  Pungent, sweet, bitter, acidic, herbal.  The main portion of Geillis’s business came from running a perfectly respectable and effective apothecary.  But there was also the less-advertised menu of well-known potions and charms she would sell.  One just had to know what to ask for. 

      “I would like to buy an ill wish,” Laoghaire said, pulling her coin purse out of her pocket.  “One for a woman who has stolen a man.”

      “Aye?” Geillis asked.  She began bustling about the room, retrieving sticks, bones, string, and herbs. “Do ye have any of her hair?” Geillis asked, as she began to assemble the items at a back table. 

      “No, but I can add some when I place it in her bedchamber.”  Laoghaire’s nose wrinkled at the thought of Claire’s great tangled mop of hair.  How Jamie saw anything in her. . .

      “’Twouldna be for Mistress Beauchamp…I mean, Lady Broch Tuarach, would it?” Geillis asked, from behind the divider used in case any customers should enter who were interested only in the reputable half of her business. That woman deserved her reputation as a witch, Laoghaire thought.  She knew too much; seeing everything with those strange green eyes.

      “And if it was?” Laoghaire asked.  “Would ye not sell it to me, then?”

      “’Tisn’t my business to judge my customers,” Geillis remarked.  “’Tis just my business to know my customers.”

      “Aye?” said Laoghaire. 

      “And from what I see, ye are a pretty young thing,” Geillis said, green eyes glowing preternaturally.  “If ye end up wi’ a man before ye marry, ye must make sure to not sleep wi’ him for 10 days after yer courses.  And if ye do catch a bairn, ye must come to me for a tea which will help the bleeding to come.”

     Finally Geillis emerged from the back, carrying a crude bundle of sticks.  She wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, and handed it over to Laoghaire in exchange for a few coins.

      “Wrap three hairs around the center, if ye can find any.  And place it under his bed.  The charm should drive him away from her.”  Geillis looked at her shrewdly.  “I canna tell if it will draw him to you, though.”

      “I dinna think I need that,” Laoghaire said primly, thinking of John Robert.  He loved her, and they would be married.  Laoghaire nodded in thanks, then rushed away, hoping to find a time to slip into Jamie’s chamber unnoticed.

      “Laoghaire,” called a male voice from behind her.  The street was loud, so she turned, half hoping to see John Robert.  Her face fell slightly as she saw Hugh instead.  “Where ye headin’?” he asked cheerfully.  “May I accompany ye?”

     Laoghaire sighed, but there was no escape, so she let Hugh fall in step with her.

      “’Tis good to see ye again, Laoghaire,” he said.  “Ye look lovely today.”

     Of course she did, Laoghaire thought, lovely enough that she had a man.  She had no need of this gangly, pock-marked teenager.

      “What’s that?” he asked curiously, pointing at the small fabric-wrapped bundle. 

      “Mistress Beauchamp asked me to bring her something from Geillis’s shop,” Laoghaire said, pleased that she was clever enough to think on her feet.

      “Ye mean, Mistress Fraser now, aye?” Hugh said.

     Laoghaire gritted her teeth, her eyes narrowing as she thought of Jamie and Claire together.  “Ye shouldna be so gleeful, Hugh,” she snapped.  “Ye know I cared for him, and I thought he cared for me.”

     Hugh stopped, taken aback by her response, and Laoghaire stalked on angrily, alone.  “I didna...Laoghaire!” he called after her.

      Laoghaire slipped into Jamie’s room when he and Mistress Beauchamp were in the hall for supper.  She scouted just long enough to see that their plates were filled, as were their glasses, and they were surrounded by people curious about the circumstances of their marriage.  Though the two sat next to each other, Laoghaire could see from their body language that they were not happy.  Jamie was not touching Mistress Beauchamp, and though he was often looking at her, she was not looking at him, sitting with her chin up proudly and her lips set.

     She snuck down the hallway, checking in both directions to make sure she was not seen as she entered the room, the ill wish in her hand.  It was tidy.  The bed was unrumpled and neatly made.  If they were acting like newlyweds and taking each other to bed many times a day, or if they had bedded each other right before dinner, Laoghaire thought, the bed would definitely be messier.  

     What was messy was the hair brush.  Laoghaire scrunched up her nose in disdain as she pulled a few frizzy hairs off the brush, then wrapped them around the center of the talisman.  Her heart thumping in her ears, Laoghaire approached the bed, knelt on the floor, and pushed the bundle underneath.

     She was about to leave the room, but her curiosity was not satisfied.  Laoghaire had done enough laundry to know the tell-tale signs of people bedding each other—stained sheets, particularly when the pale, roundish stains were slightly lower than center of the bed.  She blushed as she thought of John Robert.  She had bled, just slightly, but he had been ever so gentle.  And he had enough forethought that he’d laid down the cloth so they didn’t dirty the couch.

     With a glance over her shoulder, Laoghaire pulled down the covers, revealing the sheets all the way down to the feet.  No stains; none whatsoever.  And moreso, the sheets were only wrinkled in two separate areas, very close to the two edges of the bed.  They were not taking each other to bed, and they were not even sleeping close.  She felt vindictive pleasure settle in her stomach along with her nervousness.  Carefully, she spread the covers back in place, crept out of the door, and headed back to the kitchen to do her work.

     She needn’t have been so worried about being discovered while placing the ill wish.  The dinner went late into the evening.  Laoghaire felt especially happy to see Claire head off toward the sleeping wing alone, while Jamie seemed to be heading to a meeting with Dougal, Colum, and Ned Gowan.  Colum wore an angry frown, and Jamie looked like he was heading to the gallows. 

     Poor man, thought Laoghaire.  No one to comfort him tonight when he goes back to his room.  That cold Sassenach witch.  Maybe if Jamie drank himself into a stupor, he would at least take what he deserved from a wife.

     She thought of trying, just once more, to intercept Jamie, perhaps as he headed back to his room.  But as she was doing one last round of the  tables, pouring whisky, water, and tea, a hand touched her elbow.

      “Lass,” said a husky, masculine voice.  “How much later are ye serving tonight?” 

     She turned to see John Robert MacLeod, sitting smilingly at the table.  Her heart leapt.

     Bending down as if to pour water into his glass, she whispered, “What are ye doing here?”

      “I couldna be apart from ye, Laoghaire.”  John Robert responded.  “I invented some business to bring me up to the castle, and Colum has provided me a chamber for the night.  Will ye come to me, then?”

     Laoghaire had blushed, and looking for another way to delay and talk longer, spilt an amount of water on the floor.  She bent down to wipe it up, considering.  Again?  Twice in one day?  Her stomach clenched, and she could feel a warmth in her lower abdomen just from hearing his words.

      “I dinna think I can,” she said.  “’Twould be too hard to slip away.”

      “Oh, but Laoghaire, I canna go another hour without havin’ ye near me.  Yer beautiful eyes, your lovely form.  Ye are drivin’ me insane with desiring you.”  He truly sounded desperate for her.  It made Laoghaire’s body throb with wanting.

      “I canna sleep there, but I could come for a time,” she whispered back.  She wanted to go, truly just to hear him say such things to her again.

☆☆☆☆☆

      “Look, ma,” said Marsali, excitedly coming over to Laoghaire, dangling a shiny bauble from her wrist and placing the note in her mother’s hand.  “Fergus sent me this bracelet wi’ stones that look like sapphires in it.  He says such nice things.”  Marsali blushed. “That...that the stones are the color of my eyes, and made him think of me.”

     Her daughter’s eyes were like sapphires, Laoghaire thought, her heart sinking; sparkling at the flattery of a man.

Chapter 17 : Married Laoghaire couldn’t wait to be married.