#everything rotates and orbits and moves all the time and its so dizzying to look at

[layalu]

Haaate that my brain is so susceptible to getting disoriented from movement (<- outer wilds is cool af but it fucks with my brain) 😔

[mollymauk-teafleak]

come home with me (part four)

Sorry for the short, kinda shitty chapter. I just didn’t want you all to think that I’d forgotten this fic and really wanted to write something for it. Consider this a brief interlude before shit kicks off. 

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Under the rows and rows of raised seating, in the shadows, it was surprisingly cold.

Caleb was grateful for that, out there under the bright lanterns and in amongst the press of their newest audience, it was stifling. How Molly could bear it, with the hat and the massive swirling coat he wore, he’d never understand.

But he was letting his thoughts stray too much. He had to be listening, he had to be ready. He had his own part to play in this and he refused to do it poorly.

Thirty seconds until Molly’s introduction. Enough time to tie his hair back and roll his sleeves up to the elbow. Enough time to centre himself, settle onto the balls of his feet, loose and ready.

It felt good. It felt right. The whole show was its own beautiful piece of music, orchestrated and free flowing, made up of so many individual melodies woven together. And Caleb had his own part, his own small piece. He was fiercely proud of it, even in amongst the nerves. They weren’t enough to reach up and strangle him, like vines in his own throat, stealing his words. Instead it was a bearable crackling in the tips of his fingers, excitement and anticipation and jumpiness all in one not exactly comfortable but stimulating sensation.

He didn’t feel like a scared child. He felt like a performer.

So it was with a small, proud smile on his lips that he whispered Mollymauk’s words along with him, as they boomed out, magically amplified, through the tent.

My, my, my. What a wonderful crowd we’ve got here tonight. We’ll have to work extra hard to put on a show deserving of all you lovely folk. But then again…

Twenty six seconds. A gasp erupted from the crowd above his head as Mollymauk stepped into the open air. Caleb had made him explain the many weights and pulleys that held the trapeze ropes and made the stunt possible, to assure him it was safe.

Five. Four. Three. Two.

He let the magic surge out of his palms. It was invisible but it felt like he could almost see it, like a wave disturbing the sawdust on the floor, rippling out, one stone thrown into a still lake that set everything in motion.

A rush of fabric. A delighted gasp from the audience. And light suddenly poured through the forest of legs, stripes of it falling across Caleb’s triumphant smile as nearly fifty dancing lights sprung into life, all different colours.

That’s exactly what we do.

Before his first show, Caleb had been informed of the most important, sacred, almost holy tradition the circus had. The fact that, after their first show at any stop, there was an absolute rager of a party held afterwards.

Caleb could hear the noise of it already in full swing, the pulsing of music, the crash of tankards against each other, the babble of many voices. He’d promised Jester and Beau he’d be out there in a little while but for now he just wanted a moment of quiet, a moment to feel proud of himself.

The empty tent was a strangely beautiful thing. It was almost like a cathedral or a temple in its quiet sense of power, its air of promise. The ceiling was so high it disappeared into shadows up above him, the stray pieces of confetti and odd bits of popcorn had been cleared away until there was just the quiet, the scent of sugar and gunpowder, the remembered tunes haunting the space until the next show. And him, in the middle of it all.

“Didn’t fancy the party, darling?”

Caleb turned, smiling. He’d been expecting Molly to come find him before too long. The tielfing had been incredibly attentive of him in the run up to his first show, ever since the day in the woods. Even as he’d seen Caleb’s confidence growing, his impressive command of magic slowly returning, Molly had stayed protective of him, always reminding him that he didn’t have to push himself, that he could take things as slow as he needed. Five times he’d reminded him, in amongst the manic rush of the circus getting ready for opening night, that he could pull out if he wanted to.

Every time, if he hadn’t been wildly busy, Caleb could have leapt into his arms and kissed him.

“I’ll be along in just a little bit,” he replied, standing in the dead centre of the stage, watching as Molly danced effortlessly down the row of seats as if they were steps, “I was just…decompressing, I guess.”

“I like to do that after shows too,” Molly smiled fondly, reaching the bottom and immediately running to Caleb to hug him tightly, “And you were incredible,darling, have I mentioned that?”

“A few times,” Caleb laughed, “Though I’m still not tired of hearing it.”

“Well, you were, you were amazing, you were wonderful, you were spectacular,” a kiss to the forehead accompanied each superlative, until the wizard was red in the face and giggling helplessly.

“You were brilliant too, you know,” he finally managed to get a returning compliment in.

And it was true. Mollymauk had been his usual effervescent self, playing host to the magic of the night with all the jokes, smiles and grace Caleb had seen in rehearsal but dialled up to the extreme. The song he’d sung to close the show had been enough to ensure Caleb had moved through his cues for the bows with tear tracks on his cheeks.

Though he looked even more beautiful now, with his make-up wiped away and costume hung up for the next night, just in his patterned leggings and open shirt, sweating and exhausted and satisfied with yet another performance. Exactly how he’d looked when he’d approached Caleb after that first show, the night he’d rescued him.

The night he’d saved his life.

Molly had squeezed his hand one last time and was now moving around the ring, touching the trapeze ropes that had been lowered and tied away, checking the supports of each one.

“This was my job before I was made ringmaster, you know,” he said in a light conversational tone that was a little too practised, winding one length around his wrist, “I was the trapeze artist.”

“Really?” Caleb tilted his head admiringly, “I can imagine you being great at that.” He’d always thought Molly moved like he was meant for something more than mere walking.

“I miss it like crazy sometimes, I never get the chance to practise any more apart from that one time at the start of the show…”

The soft longing in his voice and the way he was drifting towards the bowl of powdered chalk like he was orbiting it made what he did next inevitable though Caleb decided to play along.

“Show me?”

Molly gave him a delighted grin, sinking his hands into the powder and clapping them together, sending a burst of it into the empty air where it turned golden in the sunset light streaming through from above. He knotted his hand in the rope, kicked his boots away and made another hold for his  bare foot before shifting his weight ever so slightly to bring the rope off the hook. And with a rush, fast as a striking snake, he rose.

Caleb had to stifle a shout of fear and dismay, eyes darting frantically to follow the violet blur but he moved too quickly, too erratically, he couldn’t track what was going to catch him…

Until the quick moving smudge of colour resolved itself into Mollymauk once again, casually, almost lazily swinging back and forth from one of the overhead swings. He laughed delightedly, with all the carefree joy of a playing child, the sound echoing and bouncing in strange ways. Caleb found a smile, though his heart was still in his throat, the dull buzz of a Feather Fall spell tickling his palms.

Molly shifted into a new form at the apex of each swooping arc, incredible strength in his arms allowing him to swing by one hand, then flip up to sit on the bar as if it were a summer’s day and he was swinging over a little brook rather than at a dizzying height. His delight was so obvious, Caleb’s heart ached. Then he leapt again, out into thin air without a flicker of fear, catching a free hanging rope that swung him in one wide, smooth circle around the ring while he stayed perfectly still, his form precise. Those red eyes, that dazzling smile, found Caleb as he moved, making him a fixed point as the whole world rushed past, as if the two of them were careening through the air together.

Next was another swing at the bar, a flip in the air to catch another and take him further, never losing momentum, certain and sure that he’d never fall. His impromptu aerial display ended with him in the large hoop right in the centre of the tent, upside down, rotating as the rope released and he drifted down slower, slower, slower…until he was just a few feet above where Cale stood, smiling brightly.

Caleb reached a hand upwards, as if there were any hope of touching him. Molly did the same. And for a moment, the distance between them was nothing.

“Come down here and kiss me,” Caleb murmured, voice barely more than a hush but it was enough in the silence of the tent. And it was more than enough to bring Mollymauk into his arms. That, and the release of another ballast.

He could see sweat shining on the tiefling’s forehead now they were nearly nose to nose, feel how his chest was thumping in and out like a bellows, the only proof that the display wasn’t as effortless as it had seemed from below. Caleb didn’t care, he poured every ounce of awe and delight and enchantment he’d felt watching Mollymauk into that kiss. Judging by the way his face was a darker purple than usual and his eyes were wide and wanting, the message was well received.

“What are the chances of anyone coming back in here for the next twenty minutes or so?” Caleb breathed against Molly’s lips, eyes dark and pupils wide, holding the sunset in their depths.

“Not high enough that I give a damn,” Molly returned hungrily, hands already at his shirt buttons, tearing a few off entirely in his haste.

Sawdust wasn’t the finest bed to lie on and he’d be brushing it out of his hair and off his skin for days afterwards but Caleb was far from caring because Mollymauk was on top of him, his hands were cupping his face as they kissed, his tail was wound around his leg tight as a ship’s anchor.

Fortunately, no one had business in the tent for the next half hour or so and the music was more than enough to drown out the noise.

Molly and Caleb joined the party outside without any fuss or awkward questions. Caleb settled happily by the already roaring bonfire while Molly slipped off to procure some cups of Grog’s homebrewed ale. He’d been there less than a heartbeat before Jester waved at him across the fire, Caduceus called out his own hello from where he was tending a teapot handing over the flames, Yasha nodded and smiled in his direction, Beau yelled from her lap that it took him long enough and Fjord was pressing a mug of cider on him.

The feeling of being an audience member was long, long gone. Caleb was in the heart of it, warm and smiling and happy. He had his part to play, his small song to add to the chorus of it all. He was wanted. He was cared for.

It would be much like this for the weeks to come. The same script over and over again, similar days rolling past one after the other until it all became soft and familiar and comfortable. Until Caleb could forget that he’d ever worn another name, that he’d ever known anything other than his circus family.

But even as they moved further south, even as the days grew warmer and the summer covered them all like a blanket, there were black clouds gathering, unseen in the skies ahead.