Work Text:
Even knowing she had to be the one to brew Fjord’s tea, it took a ridiculous amount of convincing for Nott to leave Caleb alone.
Well, not alone. Alone with Molly.
Molly sat back with a sigh, gazing down at his charge. Caleb’s face was pinched even in sleep—how long had it been since he’d slept last? The poor thing looked like a ghost.
He hadn’t heard all of what happened, only that their other wizard pal was cooked down to clean bone, and that Caleb had everything to do with it. Molly turned the idea of such power around in his mind for a moment before eventually deciding it didn’t matter.
Caleb wasn’t an all-powerful magician, not right now. Right now he was fragile—exhausted—and he deserved a little kindness as much as anyone.
Molly pondered that for long enough that the first whiff of smoke he got was a shock.
His gaze jerked back to Caleb, whose expression was contorted into some feral terror in his sleep. His hands caught, flames licking at his bandages and the bedsheets around him.
Fuck.
Molly moved before he could really think it through, snatching Caleb’s wrists and pressing them together above his heaving chest with one hand. The flames struck at his skin, stung…but didn’t burn. Not really.
The sheets, on the other hand….
He stifled a yelp, his free hand patting out a small fire that had begun slowly creeping across the mattress. Again it hurt, but didn’t leave any marks on his skin. The sheets beneath his palm crumpled into ash, filling the room with an acrid smell. Caleb still thrashed under his grasp as words in a language Molly didn’t know flew past his sleep-slack lips.
“Easy,” Molly heard himself say, “easy. Come on, Caleb. You’re safe. I need you to come back now, friend. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not—”
Caleb’s chest hitched beneath his fingertips. Molly’s head snapped up and met a pair of glassy blue eyes, bloodshot with tears.
“Deine hände—you a-are not burned,” he mumbled, voice thick with awe.
Molly blinked. A smile slipped to his lips as easily as anything. “Takes a little more than that, lovely,” he replied playfully, waggling his fingers in front of Caleb’s face. “What harm can a little fire cause a devil?”
Caleb’s eyes rolled back and he slumped to the mattress once more.
Relief flooded Molly’s chest. He let out a breath and lowered Caleb’s hands back to his sides. “Atta boy,” he praised, uncaring that Caleb likely couldn’t hear him now. He ran a hand over Caleb’s hair—greasy, yes, though probably quite soft when clean. “Sleep. You need it.”
He sank back into his chair, letting his head and horns hit a wooden wall with a thunk. There wasn’t a mark on his hands as he turned them over in front of himself, not even a flush where the flames had touched him. The snake’s red eye winked in the dim.
Molly sighed heavily and allowed his eyes to flutter shut. A low snore rumbled from the bed a few feet over.
Outside, the endless night carried on.