Actually my comic was based on the official chuck e cheese twitter account posting an animal crossing pic that happened to have shuichi saihara in it with no acknowledgment that he was there

Molly doesn’t notice the difference at first.

It’s pretty common for Caleb to send over his cat to members of the group--except Fjord, because he starts breathing funny when Caleb let’s Frumpkin get too close--and Molly has accepted it as Caleb’s way to give people a hug.

He saw him hug Nott a few times and once he hugged Beau, but it was the weirdest hug Molly has ever seen in his whole life.

But for a few weeks now, Frumpkin keeps climbing up on Molly’s lap, purring and curling up to sleep. Molly is not--contrary to what certain unpleasant someones might say--an idiot.

He knows that Frumpkin does everything Caleb asks of him. This fey cat doesn’t need sleep or food, yet Caleb makes him do those things. So every time Frumpkin curls up into a ball in Molly’s lap to sleep there, it’s Caleb telling him to do so.

Molly wonders if he should comment on it, but he decides not to. Since he came back from the dead it’s been almost five months and there are still nights he wakes up sweating and panting from seeing Lorenzo’s face above him and a glaive buried in his chest.

Most of the time, when Molly wakes up from those dreams, he finds Frumpkin not far from him. Two months ago he even slept on Molly’s chest while still being in an octopus form, which was pretty weird but not too weird to not make him feel a rush of endearment and maybe something else.

Something he hasn’t discussed with himself or anyone really.

But now, Frumpkin is by his side almost all the time when they’re on the road. As an owl, he sits on Molly’s shoulder or horns. As a cat, he purrs in his lap or is wrapped around Molly’s neck like s scarf.

Maybe this is Caleb’s way of saying “I’m glad you are back, Mollymauk.”.

Maybe that’s all it is.

Maybe not.

Molly is not ready to examine the possibilities further, that is, until he takes Nott up on a drinking contest which he immediately regrets after just two drinks. Nott is a bottomless pit when it comes to alcohol, but Molly has a desperate need to feel alive so he keeps up with her as best he can and enjoys the buzz and the dizziness.

After the thirteenth shot of hard liquor he has to forfeit in fear of vomiting all over the tavern floor and when Molly gets up he stumbles and lands on Caleb, who immediately goes stiff under the sudden weight of a purple, intoxicated Tiefling spread all over him.

“So sorry, Mr Caleb”, Molly says and hears the slur in his words. He giggles full of delight. Caleb is surprisingly warm.

“It is no bother”, Caleb says. The liar. Molly pokes him in the ribs and tries to get up, fails and gives up after the first try.

“Y’know. Your cat. He sleeps on me all the time.”

Caleb shifts under him and Molly turns his head. Yasha obviously feels some sort of pity for Caleb because she lifts Molly up und sits him down on the floor in front of him. Molly tries to glare at her but it falls short and Yasha simply shrugs. Molly loves her very much.

“Well, he is very soothing, you know. And it seems like someone who was dead for a few months could use some soothing. I can make him stop if he is bothering you.”

Molly let’s the fact sink in that Caleb tried to comfort him during the last weeks and weeks. That he probably noticed how... well. How traumatized Molly is.

This is Caleb’s way of saying he cares.

“It’s not a bother at all, Mr Caleb. He really is quite soothing. Even as an octopus”, Molly answers and his tongue stumbles over the last word. Damn Nott and her tolerance for hard liquor.

Caleb snorts and the corners of his mouth twitch slightly.

“If you ever feel like going on an adventure, you could come over and keep Frumpkin company while he soothes me, you know.”

Molly barely notices how Nott and Jester start dancing a few feet away from them while Caduceus, Beau and Yasha watch them. The world has zoned in on Molly’s hands on the floor and the heart in his chest that is still his and still beating.

Beating way too fast after his careless words.

He doesn’t look up at Caleb and coughs slightly before turning his gaze over to Nott and Jester. That’s when Frumpkin climbs into his lap and starts kneading his thigh.

When Molly looks up after all he sees Caleb watching the girls as well, but his face is deep red. When Molly looks at Frumpkin the cat does what Caleb calls a “blep”.

Molly laughs.

oh I’ll tell that for free

Okay okay okay, so, what I think is going to happen is this: Clay’s sister is a park of the Tomb Takers, and his plot arc will braid into Molly’s rez. Like, they have to go fight the Tomb Takers so they head back to Shitty Creek Run and they pass Molly’s grave. There’s a beautiful bush that grows some kind of leaf that makes Clay laugh and smile with delight and start harvesting with glee, which totally confuses the rest of the Nein. But along with that, they find an empty grave. Molly’s body is gone. A victim of grave robbery or perhaps it is the lingering hope in the back of everyone’s brain. Molly had come back before, right? Jester’s the one to bring it up over the fire after they move on. Clay’s doing something to the leaves that involves chewing them and spreading them on wooden planks to dry before the fire, and Jester’s talking about how Molly’s come back before, right? What’s to say that he can’t do it again? So they continue on the nest day, Clay’s leaf planks strapped to the edge of the cart to dry in the sun and he’s humming a song, cheerful as a bird, and they get to what used to be Shitty Creek Run. 

It’s a heaping pile of ash. 

There’s a handful of survivors and they talk of a purple demon flanked by a black tabaxi and a pink haired firbolg woman who kinda looks like the stoner in the cart and everyone just goes “what the fuck Clay” and he says “yeah the sister that fucked up my knee? She’s that one.” And then in order to get Molly back they have to fight Clay’s own big sister and she ends up surrendering in the end, rather than die, so Clay takes the chance to go back home to his graveyard to be his sister’s keeper for a while and Molly rejoins the Nein. 

Sources: We know that Clay has issues with some of his family members and that he had a violent sister that he had issues with who had given him a chronic injury in the past. We also know the Tomb Takers were operating in the same area, around the time the blight of the forest started presumably, and they tried to do something very dumb with Molly that involved raising the dead or channeling the dead, some darkass necromancy shit. 

I've never understood the people who yell and act like *they* would understand what Monty would want for this show. Like, the people working on this knew him and were his friends and family, what on earth would a fan (or not fan ) know about it? Just leave them be and stop bringing his death in to try and make people feel guilty.

MOLLY IS COMING HOME, OKAY! I KNOW THAT IN MY HEART OF HEARTS. I trust Matt and I trust Taliesin. I know that they will do right by us like they have always done. They are good men. I don’t use that phrase often bc most cishet men are very, very lacking in the ability to be a good man. But the men of Critical Role are men I wouldn’t be scared to be left alone in a room with. 

I trust them.