Molly is the one who starts it, of course. Shameless, scandalous Molly who never lets anything stop him from living life to its fullest, and dragging everyone around him along for the ride. They never stood a chance.
“Feel free to stay,” he purrs after requesting company for the afternoon to come up to his room. It’s such a rare luxury after all, that sort of room service. He intends to enjoy it while he has the opportunity. What good is gold, when all it’s doing is gathering dust in his pouch?
“I-- you-- thanks but--” Fjord sputters, his face a dark, dark flustered green, and he stumbles out of the room without turning his back on Molly the way he’s seen the man do with some particularly intimidating monsters.
Molly had been hoping that he’d stay, just a bit. Fjord seems like he could use a little loosening up, but clearly, before he can do that, he needs an educational demonstration of how to do so. His behaviour doesn’t exactly scream ‘experienced Casanova’, the poor little almost-certainly-a-virgin. But honestly? This is more than entertaining enough to make up for the fact that Fjord apparently isn’t ready for Molly’s particular brand of education.
He staggers out of the room, the door shutting behind him, and Molly cackles.
Flirting with Jester is fun. Molly’s willing to bet good money that she’s the only one here who’s had any action at all, uptight lot that they are, blushing like schoolchildren at the merest innuendo.
Not that Jester doesn’t blush, once he really starts laying it on. A pretty lavender color on her blue cheeks that he admires. But she grins too, wide and bright, giggling and flattered and giving as good as she gets.
They haven’t fucked yet. Molly isn’t particularly fussed about whether or not they’ll ever actually fuck. The flirting is fun enough all by itself.
“A flower for the beautiful lady in blue. Not the cranky one,” he says, bowing extravagantly with a flamboyant flourish, his head low, proffering a single daisy that he plucked from the road they’re traveling on towards Jester.
Off to the side, Beau grumbles. It’s even odds on what she’s more annoyed by: being called out as cranky, or Molly flirting with her dear roommate. Molly’s fairly tempted to tell her to just get on with it and eat the girl out already, but he’s not crass. If Beau’s determined to keep her head stuck up her ass and not indulge in what’s right in front of her, then that’s her own fault. Some people just don’t know how to have fun. It’s terribly sad.
Not that Molly’s going to let that stop his own fun.
“The beautiful lady in blue humbly accepts,” Jester responds, playful and happy. She plucks the daisy from his hand and tucks it behind her ear and hums with delight. “How do I look?”
“Ravishing.”
Oh, and there’s that lovely lavender blush. She giggles, and Molly wonders if she laughs the same way when she’s getting fucked, friendly and giddy with pleasure.
Jester makes him a whole crown of daisies for him in return, and he wears it proudly, demanding that the rest of the group call him the King of Daisies for the rest of the day, or alternatively his Floral Majesty. Most of them don’t bother, because they have a terminal case of ‘needs to get laid, pronto.’
Luckily, Molly’s got a generous and giving heart and a great dick. He’ll get around to solving that problem for them, eventually.
“Child bearing age,” Molly repeats mockingly, some time later when it’s just the two of them on watch, everyone else asleep in their bed rolls.
“I am,” Nott hisses.
“I don’t know if you’re an old woman bragging about not being menopausal yet, or a teenager trying to hide the fact she’s barely not a child any longer.”
“Neither!”
“Then just give me a number, then. Being so coy about it really sends the wrong message.”
“It-- it wouldn’t mean anything to you anyways-- goblins age very quickly--”
“Leaning towards insecure teenager.”
“No!”
Molly snickers at her meanly. It’s too easy to wind her up and watch her go. She glares at him.
“Goblins don’t celebrate birthdays,” she says firmly. “We don’t keep track of how long we’ve been alive, since we don’t matter anyways. We’re just goblins. We’ll be dead soon enough.”
The teasing amusement dies a bit at that. So grim, honestly. “That doesn’t make any sense. If you’ve got all the fewer birthdays, doesn’t mean that you should cherish the few ones that you get all the more?”
“I-- I don’t,” she stammers, suddenly flat footed at his disagreement, like he’s caught her out in a lie or something.
“You should’ve seen my first birthday,” he says. “The whole circus threw an orgy to celebrate. Kids excepted, of course. And toad monsters, thankfully.”
“You were traveling with a sex circus?” she demands, instantly morbidly fascinated. He laughs.
“More like a sexy circus. Really though, how old are you?”
She opens her mouth, looking read to give him a shitty non answer again. He interrupts her before she gets the chance.
“I don’t need a specific number. Kid, teenager, adult, spinster, what are you?” Molly, as a rule, doesn’t like to pry. Plenty of reasons why. People often don’t want to talk about things because they know those things will bring the mood down, and why ruin a good mood? And who is Molly to demand that people dwell on their past, when he has no past of his own to share with them in return? Best to live in the present. Best to care about the things that matter; the things that are right in front of you.
But he has a very particular, important reason to want to know the vague age range Nott is in.
“Adult,” she says firmly, and he almost doesn’t believe her again, until she goes on, “like, around Caleb’s age? The equivalent of him, anyways. Maybe a little bit younger. Just a bit.”
He smiles. “Ohhh, I see how it is.”
She flushes a dark green, and scrunches up her entire face at him in a suspicious squint. “What? What do you mean you see how it is!?”
“Nothing,” he says innocently. “So, you’re an adult, hm? That’s good to know. I like to know what my options are.”
He really did need to just quickly make sure that Nott is a woman and not a girl before he went ahead and flirted with her.
“Your options--” she gasps, high and sharp and scandalized like he’s just whipped his dick out in the middle of a fair. “Oh my goodness!”
He laughs again, barely putting in an effort not to do it so loudly that it wakes everyone else up.
“I am a-- no, absolutely not my-- my heart belongs to another! You can’t have it!”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not really angling for anyone’s heart. I’m aiming a bit lower south.”
She chokes, looking like her virtue is in grave danger and she’s on the hairs edge of protecting it with lethal force.
“So, your heart belongs to another, hm? I’ll take three guesses on who that is, and the first two don’t count. Caleb, Caleb, Caleb.”
“How dare you?” she says, her already high pitched voice going even higher. “He’s-- he’s my boy, not--”
“Your very good boy, yes. Kinky! I’m very impressed.”
She screams, and throws something rather sharp at him. He manages to dodge, but that is the final straw that wakes the rest of the group up. Nott may be an entire ball of crazy, but honestly? That can be sort of exciting sometimes, if you’re in the right sort of mood.
Caleb’s doing the thousand yard stare thing again. The unfortunate thing is that they’re not even done with the current fight. Sure, the monster may be thoroughly scorched now thanks to Caleb, but it is still very much moving.
Molly has been relegated to Caleb herding duty, as he’s on death’s door already himself. Best that he get out of the danger zone anyways, even if it leaves the Mighty Nein two members short. Ah, the perils of being required to hurt himself to get to do any of the really cool shit.
Molly’s got a hand on Caleb’s arm and another on the small of his back, and Caleb is, if a bit absently, letting himself be urged away from the fight. Molly doesn’t want to go too far away, just in case things turn truly disastrous, but Caleb usually gets better after he gets to sit somewhere quiet for a while, and this cave definitely isn’t quiet right now.
“There we go,” Molly says, once he’s sure that they’re far enough away that any random shrapnel isn’t going to impale him and make him lose that last crucial bit of blood. What a stupid way to go that that would be. Laboriously, he coaxes Caleb into sitting down on a rock. Caleb goes along with it, quiet and docile. Molly sits down criss cross applesauce in front of him on the ground, looking up at him. Caleb doesn’t meet his eyes. That’s normal, he never really meets peoples eyes, but not like this. He looks like he’s a thousand miles away.
“You’re a menace,” Molly informs him. “A complete mess. A terror.”
Caleb doesn’t so much as twitch. Molly sighs, and reaches out and plucks up Caleb’s hand. Caleb lets him, limp and unreacting. Molly brushes a gentle kiss against his knuckles. He can’t help himself from being tender towards such a clearly broken thing.
There’s probably soot on his lips now, though.
“You shouldn’t torture yourself like this, whatever happened to you. It’s in the past now,” he says, hoping that it might penetrate the fog Caleb has cloaked himself in. That the words may nestle inside of his mind and stay there, even if he doesn’t notice them for some time. Molly doesn’t want for people to be miserable, after all. Miserable people are miserable to be around.
Caleb doesn’t move.
Molly sighs, and mentally puts Caleb in the ‘do not touch’ category, his thumb rubbing small, soothing circles into Caleb’s palm. It’s a shame. Caleb is undeniably handsome, underneath all of the dirt and scruff, but… the man clearly needs to deal with some stuff first, not to be distracted by Molly’s magnificent cock. Later, hopefully. One day, Caleb will be well enough that Molly doesn’t have to treat him like he’s fragile glass, liable to break into sharp and dangerous shards if mishandled.
He presses another kiss into the palm of Caleb’s hand. Sex may be off the table for now, but comfort? Comfort he can do. Cuddling can be so very fun, after all. And Caleb, when he’s in his right mind, turns a stunning shade of red when embarrassed.
Yasha’s back, and Molly’s having a wonderful day. Those two things may or may not be related.
“Welcome back, beautiful,” he says warmly. She gives him her small, soft smile and opens her strong arms for him. He dutifully swoons into them.
“Hey,” she says, voice low and rough and fond. He sighs, perfectly content with where he is in the world.
The rest of the group is fun and all, but Yasha? She is undeniably the best one. No contest.
She presses a kiss into his hairline. He hums, letting his tail swish.
She ducks down and kisses his throat.
“Oh,” he says, pleasantly surprised. Yasha isn’t often in the mood for sex. She’s a cuddle slut, it’s true and it’s wonderful, but her sex drive is pretty low. “Is that how it is?”
“If that’s fine,” she says shyly, his lovely gentle giant.
“More than fine,” he assures her. And then, softer, more sincerely, because he can always be soft and sincere with Yasha, “I missed you.”
She kisses him on the mouth, and sweeps him off to bed.
Molly is having a wonderful day, and he proceeds to have an even more wonderful night.
Beau is scowling at him. This isn’t a new or unusual thing, although she looks particularly venomous this fine morning, and he can’t remember doing or saying anything overly annoying to her recently. He grins at her anyways, his teeth sharp and white, in the way he knows that she’ll find most irritating.
Oh, that really is quite the filthy glare.
“Slept poorly?” he guesses. “Fjord can be a bit of a snorer sometimes. Don’t worry, you just have to get him to roll onto his side.”
This, if anything, just seems to piss her off even more. “How did you sleep?” she asks sharply.
“Well, honestly I didn’t do much of it,” he says happily. “But depending on why you’re being kept awake all night, that can only really improve one’s mood.”
He and Yasha had made up for it by staying a few extra hours in bed in the morning anyways, dozing peacefully in the rising sun as it cast its rays through the inn rooms windows.
Usually, it was just the six of them. Usually, their roommate assignments were pretty consistent. You couldn’t pry Beau and Jester away from each other with a crowbar if you wanted to, you’d likely get shivved if you tried it with Nott and Caleb, and he and Fjord ended up with each other out of default. But sometimes, Yasha was there. And when that happened, some shuffling around would happen. She’d often just end up taking a single room alone, but Molly really couldn’t stand for her sleeping alone every night. So, he’d taken it upon himself to invite her to his room last night. He’d invited Fjord to stay with them, make it a toasty threesome, but the half orc had predictably stammered out some flustered excuse and had retreated. As far as Molly can gather, he slept on the floor between Jester and Beau’s beds that night.
He honestly doesn’t get why Beau and Jester didn’t push their beds together and then make a fun sandwich together with Fjord with a blue tiefling filling, but not everyone’s as brilliant as him, clearly.
If they had done that, then perhaps Beau wouldn’t be audibly grinding her teeth together right now.
“So,” she says, stilted and reluctant, like the words are like pulling teeth out of her own mouth. “You two are. You’re a thing?”
Oh, is that what this is. He has to laugh at how petty it is. “Are you jealous?”
It must be fairly obvious what he’s gotten up to in the night, considering his new and considerable collection of hickies. And, well. They hadn’t exactly gone out of their way to keep the noise down either.
She looks like she’s a single inch away from punching him in the face. It’s a fairly familiar look. He’s good at inspiring it in many people. He grins, delighted.
“No,” she says, so painfully, transparently defensive. No poker face on that woman whatsoever, so unfortunate. Amusing, though.
Molly puts his elbows on his knees, threads his fingers together, and rests his chin on them, so he can look up at Beau through his lashes, his smirk mocking in the most charming sort of way, of course.
“I’m curious,” he says. “Are you jealous over me getting an orgasm and you not, or is it Yasha specifically that you want? Because honestly, I can help with both of those if you want. Either one should hopefully help you pull that stick out of your--”
Beau stands abruptly up, and leans very far over the small table the two of them are sitting at in the corner of the tavern. The rest of the group is gone, off doing their own things. He and Beau had been the last to rise, apparently. She looms as well as she can over him.
“Stop. Rubbing. It. In.”
“I’m not!” he professes. “Okay, maybe a bit, but that’s your own fault. You’re making this way too easy for me. But really, I’d appreciate you clearing this up for me. Would me eating you out fix this for you, or--”
Beau makes a noise of disgust, recoiling. She looks genuinely uncomfortable. “You’re, uh, not my type, dude.”
“I’m not really a dude, strictly speaking, but sure,” he says glibly. “Fair enough. So you want to take Yasha for a ride, is that it? I can’t guarantee you that she’ll be in the mood for it, but she’s usually up for at least some making out. Would that do it for you?”
“I-- are you being serious?”
“Naturally! I don’t think she’d at all mind fooling around with you. She has flirted back with you some, I’ve seen it.”
She looks at him like she can’t even begin to understand him. “She’s… man, what the fuck. I thought you guys were an item?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking, clearly,” he says. “Sex is not a finite resource, Beau! I’m fine with sharing, and so is she. So, how about it? Do you want to take a turn being Yasha’s roommate tonight?”
“I…” She looks very, very conflicted. A bit like she can’t quite bring herself to believe him, like this is some sort of unfunny prank.
“Oh, right, right,” he goes on. “Jester would probably feel spurned if you flaked off on her for the night, wouldn’t she. Roommates is your thing. Well, no reason both of you can’t bunk with Yasha, hm? How’s that for an image?”
“Uh,” Beau says, and her eyes are wide. Quite an image indeed. He grins at her.
“I’ll let Yasha and Jester know about the room changes. I’m sure Fjord misses me very much. You’re welcome!”
If this doesn’t get Beau to calm down, nothing will.
Molly does let Yasha and Jester know why exactly he’s setting them up on a triple sleepover with Beau, since honestly he just doesn’t really trust Beau not to bungle it on her own. Sure, he’s seen that she’s just fine flirting with strangers, and sometimes she even manages a halfway slick line on Yasha, but the second Yasha returns her attentions even slightly, she has a bad habit of freezing up a bit. So, he lets them know. Just to make sure that things go smoothly.
He’s guessing that things did go well, judging by the way that Beau actually snorts at his joke instead of rolling her eyes at him the next morning. She actually grins at him.
“Someone’s in a good mood,” he notes.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t fuckin’ brag about it.”
“Oh, of course not. I don’t need to brag, I already know that I’m always right. And you’re the one who put in all of the hard work last night. Unless it was Yasha? No, wait, not her style. I bet it was Jester. It was Jester, wasn’t it?” Beau’s a bit too preoccupied with her macho posturing to strike Molly as an actual top. She isn’t comfortable in her own skin the way Jester is. He knows who he’s got his money on.
Beau flushes a ruddy dark brown. “Shut up.”
“I knew it.”
She throws her bread at him.
“What did you do,” a demon hisses at him, waking him up in the middle of the night. Molly reaches out for his sword, and finds that it’s been moved.
He’s about two seconds away from casting Darkness on the thing, before he recognizes those intense, hellish yellow eyes.
“Nott,” he says, “this isn’t your room, you little gremlin. Weaver, I was sleeping. Be glad I didn’t stab you.”
“Yasha was supposed to be with Beau. Jester is supposed to be with Fjord. You’ve ruined it!”
“I don’t see how,” he says, grumpily coming to terms with the fact that he won’t be going right back to sleep with her shrill whisper shriek in his ears. How is Fjord sleeping through this? “Yasha and Beau have officially done the deed now, thanks to me. Sure, Fjord and Jester haven’t, but how much are you expecting from me? They’re adults, I can’t hold their hands through everything. Well, actually, now that I say it out loud, that doesn’t sound so unpleasant…”
Being in bed with Jester and Fjord sounds like a jolly good time, really. The only trouble of course would be getting them there. He knows that Jester would very much like to share a bed with Fjord, and Molly’s sure that his own presence could only be an added bonus. It’s Fjord himself who’s the problem. The man’s such a damned blushing virgin, he’s absolutely useless.
“The girls are in a fucking throuple! Fjord and Jessie were meant for each other,” she says heatedly, crouched on his chest like an oppressive weight, small but dense.
“No one is meant for each other,” he says, a sneer curling at his lip. “Destiny’s all well and good for card tricks, but we’re all making our own choices at the end of the day. And they’re not a throuple.”
“I saw them sleeping together, naked.”
“Well, yes, I’m not denying that. But I’m involved with Yasha, and I’ve got a bit of a thing with Jester, so a throuple is erasing me a bit, which I don’t appreciate. Definitely don’t have a thing with Beau, though. Pity, hate sex can be pretty fun.”
She hisses at him, and it is very distinctly a noise only a goblin could make. Speaking of hate sex…
“So, I’m guessing from how invested you are in this that you haven’t gotten laid yet, huh?”
“I-- how dare you, sir!” She crosses her arms over her chest, like she’s a dainty maiden shielding herself from his leer. She may be a tightly wound spring that goes off at random most of the time, but fuck if she isn’t hilarious. “That is-- I’m not here to talk about that! I told you, I’m off the market! Taken! Locked down!”
“You talk about yourself like you're livestock or something,” he says. “Taken off the market, locked down and secured…”
“Stop twisting my words! I’m an independent woman who doesn’t need no man, except I DO have a man so stop trying to nominate yourself for the position!”
“Do you have a man? Because if you do, he clearly isn’t satisfying you. I haven’t met a more tense woman since… never, actually.”
She makes a deeply offended noise. “He’s not here. I’ll have you know that he was-- he is very satisfying when he’s in-- in, you know, grabbing range.”
“If he’s not here, then you don’t have him,” he points out. “Ergo, you should go and get yourself a replacement man, or woman or something else, until he’s back within grabbing range. It doesn’t even have to be me, I’m not that invested, although I’m sure we could have a lot of fun together. You’ve got options, you know.”
“I told you! Caleb and I aren't like that!”
“Sure. Alright. What about Fjord?”
“Excuse me?” she shrieks, looking aghast at his entirely reasonable suggestion.
“Well, you were the one complaining about how poor Fjord’s been left out of the fuckfest. You could fix that, you know. I’m sure he’d appreciate getting his cherry popped. Or his avocado, I guess? His pear? His green apple?” Nott admittedly seems a bit intense for what will clearly be Fjord’s first, but hey, throw ‘em into the deep end first and all that. Plus, Molly is very interested in managing to possibly calm Nott down some amount. If her volume lowers even a bit, he’ll consider whatever trauma Fjord may incur more than worth it.
“I do not like Fjord,” she says heatedly.
“Really?” he asks skeptically. “Because you’ve been pretty gung ho about getting that man’s dick wet, for a woman who isn’t interested in said dick at all.”
“It’s not about that! It’s about the romance.”
“You could ride him on a bed of rose petals for all I care, just please take care of all of that pent up frustration you’ve got going on. And let me sleep.”
And with that he rolls over, grabbing his sheets and firmly tugging them up and over his face. Coincidentally unbalancing Nott and throwing her onto the floor. He hears her land on her hands and feet like a cat, and sighs, but determinedly closes his eyes and goes about the business of falling asleep.
It later occurs to him that Nott be having conniptions over this whole thing because she wants to fuck Jester, not Fjord. That would make a bit more sense, as cozy as the two of them are. Or maybe both of them together?
Well, whatever. That sounds like a her problem.
Except then of course Nott proceeds to make her problem his problem as well, because she’s just so charming like that.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he says as he wakes up to his hands tied to the bed posts and a small, sharp monster crouching on his chest like it’s a fucking chair. He means for it come out teasing and aloof, but it sounds more like he’s barely holding back spitting infernal curses at her. Goddess, he hopes that she hurts him during this, so he can Hellish Rebuke her. He can’t think of any other spells he can cast, tied up like this.
It’s the third night in a row that she’s done this. He’s starting to get tired. Molly hates being tired.
“If I can’t sleep, then neither can you,” she says spitefully.
“You know, you keep saying that you’re not available, and then you go and sneak into my bed, tie me up, and straddle my chest. I’m getting some mixed signals here.” He says it with his most suggestive, flirtatious voice. Clearly, his only available weapon right now is his words, and Molly’s very good at making people uncomfortable enough that they just leave with their tail between their legs. It’s a talent. Having no sense of shame helps.
“They keep-- I can hear them. Through the walls.” She ignores him completely. He scowls.
“You demented little fuck,” he says, immediately giving up on that tack. “Stop waking me up in the middle of the shitting night, I need to sleep.”
“Well, so do I, but you keep claiming the room that doesn’t share a wall with the girls. How is that fair?”
“It’s for Fjord’s sake,” he says magnanimously. “We both know he’d get a case of the vapors if we exposed him to that sort of thing.”
On the other side of the room, Fjord snores, oblivious. Heavy sleeper, that man.
“If it’s for Fjord’s sake, then I want to bunk with him,” she says. “Even that would be better than this. I can’t take it any longer.”
“Oh? So I’ll bunk with Caleb, then?” He lets a sharp smile slowly spread across his face, just to be a contrary piece of shit. “You sure you don’t mind me seducing him with my wiles? Beating you to the punch and all? You do seem to be taking your sweet time with him, it’s not my fault if I get impatient and get there first, really, if you think about it.”
It’s a dirty lie of course. Caleb is about the one person in this group that he isn’t interested in fucking. Too much baggage. But he’s tired and cranky and feeling vengeful, and watching Nott’s eyes narrow with outrage is an absolute delight.
“If anyone would be doing the seducing, it would be Caleb,” she says with delusional loyalty. Molly really can’t stop an incredulous bark of laughter at that. She glares at him. “Shut up! He’s a very handsome young man!”
“Oh, don’t I know it,” he purrs, laying it on thick.
“That’s-- how dare you. Caleb might… okay he might benefit from having someone to let off some steam with, but not you! You’d just play with his heart, I know it, you-- slutty carnie!”
Molly gives an exaggerated gasp of offense.
“Ohhhh, that’s right! I said it! I stand by it! You’re-- this isn’t like your-- your orgy circus, this is the real world! People form actual relationships, and then they don’t fuck around afterwards!”
“Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that you grew up in a little goblin commune out in bumfuck nowhere,” Molly says musingly, and Nott goes stiff where she sits on him. “You sound like a repressed mother of four living in the suburbs. Or a nun.”
“I’m not repressed. I’m a sexually liberated woman! I can have fun, I have kinks!”
“You go, girl,” he says dryly.
“I’m not being a prude!”
“Who said the word prude?”
“Oh, fuck off! Just because you can run around all loosey goosey with zero past and zero consequences or responsibilities doesn’t mean that it’s like that for everyone! I never got to talk about sharing with my-- it didn’t come up and now we’ll never--”
She stops talking. Molly wishes that he could cast some sort of spell on her to get those last few words out of her, because she’s clearly got some other thing going on here that this is all actually all about, and he doesn’t have any of the context and it’s fucking annoying. But, again, his hands are tied. Literally.
“You know just because I, or some of the others, are fucking in groups bigger than a nice and neat twosome doesn’t mean that you have to,” he tries. “Just mind your own business and stop getting your panties in a twist over other peoples sex lives. That’s more perverted in a way, really. Just do whatever you want, and let other people do what they want.”
“But I do want this,” she says, and it comes as quietly as she ever gets, small and a little bit helpless. He blinks, surprised. “I mean! I would never want to-- with anyone else, of course not! My heart belongs to one very charming, handsome man and it’s staying with him--”
“Oh,” he says, and some pieces click into place in his head. “You don’t want to join in before you get to talk about it with your mystery man first?”
Nott stays conspicuously silent, very much like a person who does not at all like how well they were just read.
“Fine,” he says. “I don’t really get it, but alright. I suppose that’s more reasonable than you just not wanting for anyone else to have any fun. So you’re holding yourself back because of nobility and faithfulness and blah blah blah, but it’s driving you crazy seeing the rest of us having fun without you, so you’re… throwing a tantrum at me? Is that it?” he asks as mockingly as he can.
So sue him, he’s very annoyed at being woken up so many nights in a row. He wants to make her squirm a bit.
“No,” she says stubbornly. “No. It’s because… Jester and Fjord were supposed. To get. Together. And you messed it up! That’s why I’m doing this.”
Molly throws his head back and groans, frustrated and exasperated and done with this ridiculous woman.
“Fine! Fine, I get it, I give up. I sabotaged the love story of the century with my carnal ways, and I’m ever so sorry. Will you leave now?”
“No. Fix it.”
Molly really hopes that Lucien ate goblins.
“Hey, Fjord, that’s a nice shirt,” Molly says as they all eat their rations around the campfire.
Fjord looks down at his shirt, as if it’s gone and changed on him while he wasn’t looking.
“Uh,” he says. “Thanks? It’s the same shirt that I’ve been wearing-- for a while now, actually, wow.”
“Ewww,” Jester says, pointing a finger at him. “Fjord only has one outfit!”
“Who is stinky now, hm?” Caleb says.
“Still you,” Jester says promptly. Caleb sighs.
“It looks good on you,” Molly doggedly goes on. “And it’d look even better on Jester’s bedroom floor.”
Fjord chokes.
“Are you… hitting on Fjord for Jester?” Beau asks incredulously.
“She’s not getting anywhere,” he says. “She’s clearly not going hard enough.”
“She’s not going hard enough? Seriously?” she asks, even more incredulously.
“Apparently,” Molly says.
“Oh my gosh,” Jester moans in agony, her face in her hands, the tips of her ears a bright purple.
Yasha leans over and slaps Fjord bracingly on the back.
“So are you two finally going to settle this ‘will they or won’t they’ situation now?” Molly asks.
“Molly,” Jester says, sounding deeply betrayed. “Why?”
He points his finger at Nott, not hesitating to throw her under the carriage.
Nott sets a hand to her chest, looking the picture of confused innocence. “Me? I have been falsely accused! I--”
“Nott!” Jester shouts. “How could you!”
“I think this is going really well,” Molly says, pleased with himself.
Jester casts prestidigitation on him, and he gags and pinches his nose as a smell of rotten eggs rises around him.
“You suck too!” she says hotly. Yasha tentatively pats at her shoulder in a soothing sort of way.
“Please forgive me?” he tries, his voice nasally, his nose still pinched shut. God, he doesn’t want for Jester to be mad at him. She’s his favorite, right after Yasha.
“No,” she says belligerently, sticking her tongue out at him. And then she gets up and stomps off into the woods in a huff.
After a long, awkward moment, Fjord gets up as well.
“I-- I’ll go after her,” he says, and then does just that.
Molly meets Nott’s eyes, and smiles ever so smugly. Nott gapes at him.
The next time they’re at an inn, Jester and Fjord want to be roommates. Just for a night.
“I hope your heart isn’t too broken,” Molly says. “I’m sure she’ll be back in your arms before you know it.”
“Why are you here,” Beau groans.
“Well, I’m pretty sure that if I tried to join Jester and Fjord’s first time that Nott would flense me. Maybe Jester as well. And Fjord would probably be too nervous to get it up if he had an audience….”
Yasha rumbles a chuckle, and he grins at the vibrations of it, his head resting on her strong shoulder.
Beau, her head resting on Yasha’s other shoulder, glares at him.
“How long do you think it’ll take Nott and Caleb to fuck?” he idly asks her.
Beau scrunches up her face. “I’d rather not think about it.”
“Probably not for a long while,” he muses. “I mean, I know they’re close as hell, but Caleb’s got trauma up the wazoo and Nott’s determined to hold out until she can talk with her old flame, apparently.”
Beau doesn’t say anything.
“Maybe they’re just cuddling. Holding hands, chaste kisses and soft pet names… goddess, that sounds disgustingly cute.”
Beau drags a pillow over her head, either trying to muffle her hearing or suffocate herself.
From the next room over, Molly hears a mattress start to creak.
“Wow,” he says. “Nott wasn’t exaggerating, the walls here are thin.”
Beau screams into the pillow.
“You’re very mean,” Yasha notes.
“But I make up for it, though. Beau, you don’t have to join in if you don’t want to, but Yasha and I are going to fuck. If that’s alright with you, Yasha dear?”
“I’m alright with that,” she says, warm and fond.
That makes Beau remove the pillow from her face, her eyes wide. “What?”
“I don’t know about you, but an orgasm always helps me fall asleep.”
“I told you that I’m not interested in you--”
“Did I say anything about you touching me? No. I’m going to touch Yasha. If you want to touch her too, that’s between the two of you. I’m fine with it if the both of us happen to be touching her at the same time, though. She’s a big woman, she needs a lot of hands to cover all of that ground.”
“You talk a lot,” Yasha says, and grabs him by his horns. Or his handlebars, as she likes to affectionately call them sometimes. “Down.”
And down he goes. From the next room over, he hears a moan. The next one over from that is very quiet, but he imagines that a goblin and a wizard are holding each other very closely, taking things slow and sweet, at their own pace. And in this room, Yasha’s breath quickens, and Beau gives into her own urge to kiss her.
One day, they’re all going to be able to do this in the same room, without any of the drama or awkwardness. Useless and boring lines and definitions blurred. Monogamy just hasn’t ever been for him, and he’s very glad to see that it won’t be for the Mighty Nein in general either.
In the meanwhile, he tastes sweet victory on his tongue. Yasha makes a small noise, breathless and pleased, her hands tight on his horns. It’s going to be a good, long, sleepless night.