Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Taako, it feels… weird,” Kravitz says for the fourth time. Taako, on tiptoes in an effort to reach the top shelf (“That’s where they keep the good shit, baby, just let ch’boy work his magic.”) does not respond. His tongue is poking out from between his teeth in some effort to force himself to be just that little bit taller, and it would be completely adorable, if there weren’t chills going up Kravitz’s spine.

“It’s just Lup and Barry,” Taako says, not taking his eyes off the bottle of wine he’s just barely out of reach of. “Their lich shit gives you goosebumps. Plus, as soon as I grab this, we’re headed home, and then we’re gonna lock the door for a long time.”

Kravitz ignores his boyfriend’s suggestive tone. He glances over his shoulder for what feels like the dozenth time, but there’s no one there save for the elderly shopkeep, who has been filing her nails for the past twenty minutes. Kravitz sighs and leans over Taako to grab the wine.

“I totally coulda had that,” Taako mutters, but presses a kiss to Kravitz’s cheek nonetheless. “I coulda just levitated my way up there, but I wanted you to be all dashing and get it for me.”

“Glad to be of service,” Kravitz says distantly, and Taako frowns.

“Do you really feel that creeped out?” he asks, his eyes searching Kravitz’s face.

Kravitz shrugs. “Something in here is making my skin crawl.”

“Let’s pay the nice lady and go home, hm?” Taako says, and Kravitz is only too glad to agree. The sooner they can get out of this shop, the sooner they can go home, and maybe by the time he’s curled up in bed with the love of his life he’ll have stopped getting Bad Vibes from whatever is giving him such major heebie-jeebies. Taako always claims that the only cure for a bad feeling is to spend a good long while cuddling, and Kravitz might just take him up on that.

Taako sets the bottle of wine on the counter in front of the aging clerk and begins to dig through his coinpurse for the appropriate payment. The woman looks up from her nails. Kravitz gets an even stronger wave of that pervading sense of wrongness. The old woman smiles, and she has far, far too many teeth.

Quickly, with speed a human should never be able to possess, the woman darts an arm forward. She spreads her fingers, tipped with razor sharp red nails, and casts a ball of something in Kravitz’s direction. It sparks and burns and he just barely manages to dodge the bulk of it, but he catches the very edge of the spell on the shoulder. He hisses between clenched teeth. It burns.

“Uncool,” Taako mutters, and the woman tries the same thing on him. Kravitz tries to cry out, to say something, to warn Taako, but he can’t get words out past the pain that is sending sparks through his vision.

Taako doesn’t seem to need a warning. He sidesteps easily, not a hair out of place, and raises one unimpressed eyebrow at the shopkeep.

“Really? You thought you were gonna take me out with that?” he says, and waves his hand in a lazy circle. A thin ray of green light shoots from his pointer finger and hit the woman between the eyes. She has enough time to glance up at her forehead in shock before the spell hits, and she opens her maw and shrieks. Kravitz flinches away from the sound and shuts his eyes only for a second, but when he opens them, she’s gone.

“Huh. Thought she’d have more hit points than that,” Taako says, and then catches Kravitz staring at him agape. He grins, eyes crinkling in mirth, and blows on his pointer finger like the cowboys blow the smoke from the barrels of their guns in the fantasy western movies Merle likes so much.

“You killed her,” Kravitz says, blinking.

“No, I disintegrated her,” Taako corrects, still beaming.

“She’s… disintegrated.”

“Yup. Poof! Gone.”

Kravitz takes a deep breath and tells himself that he’s seen worse. He’s died, for gods’ sake. He’s worked as an emissary for the goddess of death for eons. He’s participated in the literal saving of all of reality from a sentient plane bent on voring everything it could reach. Watching his boyfriend cast a ridiculously powerful spell, and then grin about it, should have ranked very low on the list.

“C’mon, thug, let’s go home,” Taako says, and takes Kravitz’s hand in his. Kravitz barely remembers to grab the bottle of wine off the now-dusty counter before he’s swept homeward.

Chapter Text

The lake is placid, glassy and pleasant, and Kravitz can’t really bring himself to look at it for too long without feeling dizzy. Every time sunlight glances off the rippling surface, he feels himself being dragged down, down, down, with nothing but the inky black tendrils of the Hunger to hold on to. He feels shaky, but he knows he’s safe, and he’s dealing with it. He’d sworn to Taako that he’d be fine, that he could handle a day at the lakeshore without getting too worried or worked up. As it is, he hasn’t let go of Taako’s hand for about twenty minutes, despite the fact that Taako has been talking with his hands and gesticulating wildly for the past fifteen. If Kravitz is honest, he’s not entirely sure that Taako has even realized the lukewarm fingers laced with his own. He’s very, very into the story he’s telling.

“And the whole planet was populated entirely by literal, actual mermaids,” Taako says. He’s grinning, gap-toothed and happy, and Kravitz feels the corners of his lips twitch up in response. The vise on his heart loosens infinitesimally. “They were thrilled by the concept of legs.”

“A bit more than thrilled,” Merle mutters. He has his feet buried in the pebbly sand, sunscreen smeared on his bare chest. Sunglasses are perched haphazardly on a nose that’s probably been broken more than a few times. He is entirely in his element.

Taako hums contemplatively. “What word would you use, then? Enthusiastic? Enthralled? Exhilarated?”

“Horny for it!” Magnus shouts. He flops onto the towel next to Taako and shakes water out of his hair. Droplets land on Kravitz and he tries not to flinch, because this is water and it’s nowhere near as viscous or cloying as when he was nearly drowned in the Astral Plane. This is just a lake, and he’s with friends, and he’s fine.

“Yeah, they were hella horny for our sexy, sexy legs,” Taako says around a laugh, and Lup throws her head back in a cackle. Barry, still denim-clad even in the middle of summer, stares at her, entirely smitten.

“I think I’m still technically married to that one lady,” Lup says. The IPRE devolve into laughter and continue reminiscing on past adventures and telling unbelievable tales of their hundred-year journey. Kravitz leans into his boyfriend’s side and closes his eyes. Here, on a soft towel, feet in the sand, with the sun beating down, he feels warm and loved.

The good feelings are shattered by a scream from the shoreline.

Everyone is on their feet in an instant, hearts hammering. Hands reach for weapons that have been left at home in favor of enjoying a non-confrontational day at the beach. Lup’s hands coat themselves in flame. Kravitz yanks his scythe out of the ether. They’ve all been through too much to have anything less than a knee-jerk response to any sort of threat.

“Help! My daughter!” a dwarf woman shouts, pointing wildly at the lake. Kravitz looks in the direction she’s pointing. About thirty feet from the shoreline, a little girl is floundering.

“Ah, shit,” Magnus says. “Taako, you wanna get her?”

“Why, because I’m the literal king of the waves? Newsflash, big guy, this is just a lake. No surfboard here,” Taako says, but he’s removing valuables from his person as quickly as his deft fingers can move.

“C’mon, just go get her,” Magnus says. Taako tosses a necklace at him, which he catches easily.

“Be right back, bone man,” Taako says, calmly, casually. He presses a kiss to Kravitz’s knuckles before gently unlacing their fingers. Kravitz watches, frozen, as Taako rushes toward the shore.

For a millisecond, all Kravitz can see is dark, thick water closing over his head. He can taste it, salty and dead, clinging to the back of his throat until he can’t get words out, can’t get air in. He’s drowning, and Taako is running full-tilt at the water, and this is Kravitz’s nightmare scenario.

But then. Oh, then.

The water leaps back from Taako. He dashes into the lake and the water pulls itself back from him seamlessly, like fantasy biblical Moses parting the fantasy biblical Red Sea. He runs on dry lakebed as the water forms a trench around him, parting without complaint as Taako hurries to retrieve the dwarf girl, who Kravitz can no longer see. She must have dipped below the surface.

Kravitz isn’t breathing as Taako sticks a hand into the wall of water. He fumbles around for only a moment before yanking, a triumphant look on his face, and the girl pops through and onto the path of dry land under Taako’s feet. She doesn’t even have time to cough before he scoops her up and is hurrying back towards shore. Behind him, the water closes itself back up, but at a respectful distance.

Taako deposits the girl on the sand and Merle kneels next to her, fingers thumbing through his Extreme Teen Bible. Her mother hovers worriedly, but all it takes is a murmured spell from Merle and the girl is sitting upright, blinking dazedly in the sun. She starts to cry, and Taako tips his hat as he takes his leave.

“Well, there goes that spell slot,” he says as he drops himself back onto the towel.

Kravitz blinks at him. Taako is completely dry, not a hair out of place. He’s not even winded.

“You okay, my guy? You’re staring at me kinda funny,” Taako says after a moment of silence. Kravitz searches for words, finds he has none, and settles for pulling his ridiculous boyfriend in for a crushing kiss instead.

Chapter Text

Morning finds Kravitz with both arms wrapped firmly around his boyfriend’s waist, legs tangled, forehead pressed to Taako’s neck. Watery sunlight is streaming through the gaps in the curtains. He sighs and burrows closer to Taako, who hums in his sleep. It’s the most perfect thing in the world, but he also knows Taako will be up soon and will be starving, so eventually he manages to drag himself out of bed and toward the kitchen, where he’s not expecting to find Lup and Barry. He’s not expecting to find Lup wearing Taako’s favorite apron, which used to say “I’m not gay but $20 is $20” and has since been transmuted to say “I’m gay and $20 is $20.” He doesn’t expect to find Barry pouring over the morning’s newspaper at the kitchen table. He doesn’t expect to find coffee brewing or cookies baking. He finds all of these things anyway.

“Good morning,” he says easily, because at this point he’s used to it. Somewhere over their hundred year journey, the Seven Birds had lost all sense of personal space or customary niceties, preferring instead to come on in and make themselves at home at all times. It’s almost nice, in a way, to have such a close family.

“Morning, Skeletor,” Lup says. She brandishes a mug of coffee in his general direction. He takes it and squints at it. It’s not a mug he recognizes, so she and Barry must have brought it from home. It says, in curling pink script, HANGOVERS ARE TRANSPHOBIC.

Kravitz takes a sip and leans against the counter, content to watch Lup mess around with some eggs. She rifles through drawers with single-minded purpose to find the things she needs, and it doesn’t take her long to have some kind of egg dish sizzling away in one of Taako’s favorite frying pans.

“What brings you two to this side of town?” Kravitz asks eventually, when he’s certain that Lup and Barry aren’t going to offer any explanation of their own.

Lup hums and shakes some pepper into her eggs. “Bored.”

Kravitz looks at Barry, who waits until Lup turns her back to silently mouth, “Nightmares.”

Kravitz nods. He understands nightmares. Not a week goes by that he doesn’t startle awake in the middle of the night, sweaty and heart pounding, mind racing with thoughts of the Hunger. Those nights, he simply curls closer to Taako and breathes evenly until he can will himself back to sleep. Taako is the opposite. His nightmares only end in him screaming, bolt-upright, shaking and out of breath and inconsolable until he can convince himself that he’s really safe. When Taako has a nightmare, they’re both wide awake, and there’s no going back to sleep after that.

“Hey, are you two out of sour cream?” Lup demands, shoulder-deep in the fantasy refrigerator. She emerges with a green pepper in one hand and a block of cheese in the other. There are dark circles under her eyes.

“We shouldn’t be,” Kravitz says, frowning. He’s fairly certain they’d just bought some the other day, and Taako hadn’t made anything involving sour cream since then.

“Well, I can’t find any,” Lup says.

“Behind the orange juice,” Taako says from the doorway. Kravitz turns to look at him, and his breath catches. Taako’s hair is up in a messy bun, flyaways everywhere, several locks hanging loose by his eyes. His face is still soft and gentle from sleep, devoid of makeup or glamour spell. He’s wearing one of Kravitz’s shirts, too-long sleeves hiding his hands, over a pair of very, very short sleep shorts. His bare feet are silent when he pads across the kitchen to lean against Kravitz’s side. He’s beautiful, and perfect, and Kravitz loves him.

“Morning, handsome,” Taako murmurs, pressing a kiss to Kravitz’s cheek.

“Morning, love,” Kravitz replies softly. He’s pretty sure he’s staring at Taako like a lovestruck fool, but he doesn’t care overmuch.

“Sap,” Taako laughs. He grabs the mug of coffee from Kravitz’s hands and drains it. He grimaces. “Ugh. Lulu, did you make this?”

“You fuckin’ bet,” she replies, still rummaging through the fridge.

Taako looks at Kravitz in betrayal. “I thought we agreed to never let her make the coffee.”

“She was here when I woke up,” Kravitz says.

“I make baller coffee and you know it,” Lup protests. She proves it by pouring herself a generous portion into a chipped mug that says Longing for the Sweet Release of Death on the side. It had been a gift for Taako from Merle two Candlenights ago, and Kravitz avoids drinking out of it like the plague. Taako, conversely, adores it.

“If you say so,” Taako replies into Kravitz’s collarbone. He’s begun the slow process of melting into his boyfriend, which always inevitably ends in Kravitz rolling his eyes and carrying Taako to the couch, where he will remain until he deigns to get up again.

Lup rolls her eyes and goes back to her cooking. Barry shuffles the pages of the newspaper. Taako breathes quietly into Kravitz’s neck. It is, altogether, the most peaceful morning imaginable.

Of course the peace is shattered by an explosion.

Lup drops her spatula with a clatter, hands already on fire. Barry sets down his newspaper. Taako takes a step back and shuts off the stove with a flick of his wrist. They all blink at one another for a half second, and then everyone is sprinting onto the front lawn, newspaper and coffee and eggs forgotten.

Three houses down, something has gone horribly wrong. The house, once grand and half-hidden by meticulously maintained shrubbery, is an inferno. The wall of what used to be a kitchen is in smouldering pieces on the formerly immaculate lawn. Smoke curls out of the gaping hole, and flames are licking their way up the building.

“Fuck, fuck, shit!” the home’s owner shouts, cowering on the street. His eyebrows are gone and there’s a fairly sizeable burn on his bare chest, but he seems otherwise alright.

“The fuck did you do, homie?” Taako asks, now wide awake. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s clad in an oversize sweater and a pair of teeny sleep shorts. His neighbor turns to look at him and does at least three double-takes before he can answer.

“I was trying to do a new spell, but I fucked up,” he says, irritable. He runs a hand through his singed hair. His eyes widen. “Oh, fuck! My daughter might be home!”

“Your kid might be inside?” Lup demands. She’s managed to put out the fires on her hands, but there’s smoke curling off her painted nails.

The neighbor speaks quickly, panicked. “She wasn’t feeling good this morning, and my wife was gonna let her stay home from school, oh shit, she might still be in there, fuck, I abandoned my daughter, oh god, I have to get her out of there, oh no--”

“Homie,” Taako says, holding up one hand. “Allow me.”

Between one blink and the next, Taako becomes an elf-shaped ball of fire. Flames coat his skin and Kravitz has to squint against the bright light he radiates. Lup whoops, and Taako winks at her before hurrying into the burning townhouse.

Kravitz doesn’t even get a chance to offer to go into the house himself, given that he’s immortal and could simply phase right through any fire. Instead he gets to watch his boyfriend, in a literal blaze of glory, throw himself into the flames with far too much joyful abandon.

“I forgot he could do that,” Barry says.

Lup is grinning ear to ear. “I didn’t.”

“Which cycle was it that he learned that spell?” Barry asks.

“Cycle seventy-three, with the planet that was too close to its own sun.”

“Oh, I remember now. They used to have to put out forest fires every evening.”

“Yeah, it was hella sick.”

Kravitz listens to their idle conversation distantly, not tearing his eyes from the burning house. He’s been around Taako and Lup long enough to know without a doubt that if Lup is fine with the situation, then Taako’s definitely going to be fine, but he’s still worried. His newly started heart is beating far too fast. The house continues to burn, thick black smoke pouring from the windows and the hole where the kitchen once stood. The homeowner bites his lip and shudders.

Taako doesn’t take long to emerge from the burning house, empty handed, still ablaze. He steps down from the porch unhurried, seconds before it collapses in a shower of sparks. He spares it only a cursory backward glance.

“No kid in there, hombre,” he says. His voice is modified slightly by the fire, crackly and more distant, and Kravitz is not a fan.

“Oh, thank god,” the man says, and collapses to his knees.

“You’re ridiculous,” Kravitz says, and Taako beams at him.

“You knew that when you got yourself into this mess,” he says, and the flames extinguish. He stands there grinning, hair in a messy bun, oversized shirt and tiny shorts, and Kravitz has never been more in love than in that moment.

“What spell was that?” he asks, reaching for Taako’s wrist. “It was very cool.”

“I forget what they called it. There was this planet that would get too close to its sun every day at like dinnertime, so we’d all go out and have to put out fires every night before bed. It fuckin’ sucked,” Taako says. He takes Kravitz’s hand in his. It’s slightly too warm, but unmarred by the flames that covered it only moments ago.

“Barry got squished by a burning tree about two months in,” Lup supplies.

“That hurt. Like, a whole lot,” Barry says, and Lup laughs.

“Yeah, but those folks really knew how to throw a kickin’ funeral,” Taako says. Kravitz would very much like to ask what, exactly, would make a funeral “kickin,’” but he’s cut off by the arrival of the fire brigade, and the four of them are launched into a flurry of questions and requests of assistance with putting out the still burning townhouse.

“I made sure nobody was inside. No big,” Taako says with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Kravitz sighs a little bit, but only because his boyfriend is utterly ridiculous, and he loves him.

Chapter Text

“You’re such a sap,” Taako says, but he’s beaming. He squeezes Kravitz’s hand and Kravitz feels like he could live in this moment forever. The sun is warm, the breeze is soft, and Taako keeps batting his eyelashes and stopping the flow of conversation to press gentle kisses to Kravitz’s smile.

“I mean every word,” Kravitz says earnestly. He really does. Taako is clever and kind and radiant and every adjective in the dictionary all at once, and it takes his breath away every day.

Taako rolls his eyes. “Ya know, if you keep on being so goddamn sincere, you might run outta shit to butter me up with.”

“Never,” Kravitz says, which earns him yet another kiss. He sighs. Around them, the marketplace bustles with a flurry of activity. Merchants and buyers shout their way through haggling while children scurry around underfoot. A bard is gently strumming a lyre somewhere, and music wafts through the warm summer air. Not a cloud dots the brilliant blue of the sky. They pay no attention to the whirlwind of everyday life, instead caught up entirely in one another’s presence, content to bask in their clasped hands and matching besotted grins.

That is, until Taako’s sensitive ears pick up the sound of someone selling something he’s interested in buying, and he takes a more firm hold on Kravitz’s hand to drag him down the road. Kravitz laughs and allows himself to be dragged, careful not to step on the back of Taako’s flowing skirt. He is led to a stall where a tall drow man is waving his spindly fingers over an array of vegetables.

“Excellent prices,” he says, gesturing to some kind of squash. “Fresh picked this morning.”

Taako scrutinizes the produce with a keen eye. Kravitz tunes out and pays more attention to the trio of musicians on the corner. Two men pluck notes from a stringed instrument he doesn’t recognize while a woman sings something in a language he hasn’t heard in ages. It’s a language that died out not long after he himself was killed, a very long time ago, lilting and delicate and heartbreakingly sad. The song flows like the tide, and he quickly finds himself lost in its steady rhythm.

“Hey, hot stuff,” Taako says, breaking him out of his reverie. He waves a ringed hand in front of Kravitz’s face to get his attention.

“Sorry,” Kravitz says quickly. “That’s a song I didn’t think I’d be hearing again, is all.”

Taako cocks his head to the side, ears perking up to listen. The woman singing is reaching the climax of the song, all daring high notes and sweeping crescendos, and Kravitz finds himself staring. She finishes amid a frenzy of harmonies from her accompanists, and bows to a smattering of applause.

“Don’t think I’ve heard that one,” Taako says.

“It’s very old,” Kravitz replies. “I wonder how she knows it.”

“Ask her,” Taako says, and before Kravitz can react he finds himself being pulled in the direction of the woman. She and her accompanists stop their tuning to pay attention to them.

“Hey, nice song,” Taako starts, and elbows Kravitz in a distinctly unsubtle manner.

“Thanks,” says the woman. She tucks a lock of dark hair behind a pointed ear and cocks her head to the side, waiting for the rest of the conversation.

Kravitz finds his voice. “Where did you learn it?”

“My mother taught it to me,” she says. “It’s centuries old. No one speaks that language anymore, but supposedly it’s a ballad about a woman whose lover was lost at sea. In the end she throws herself into the waves and the gods make her a mermaid so she can search for her girlfriend on the ocean floor. Kind of creepy, kind of beautiful.”

“Beautiful,” Kravitz agrees. He can remember, hundred of years ago, hearing that song performed in town squares. He remembers his mother humming it under her breath as she kneaded dough in their stuffy kitchen. He remembers learning to pluck out the harmony on a piano, and he remembers the accomplishment and pride he’d felt when he learned to make his fingers fly over the keys to play the harmonies too. That song, old and sad and hopeful, has been stuck in his head dozens of times throughout his undeath.

“I think so, too,” agrees the woman. She looks like she’s about to say something else, but her eyes flit to something behind Kravtiz’s head, and her jaw goes slack. Hey eyes go wide and she stumbles back a step in shock.

Taako turns around, hair and skirt whirling, and says, “Oh, shit.”

Kravitz spins on a heel, blood already pounding, to find a tree tipping toward them. The wood groans and there’s a resounding snap as the trunk breaks, and the tree falls. Someone somewhere screams, and a panic seizes the marketplace as people scramble to get out of the way of the falling redwood.

“Nobody panic,” Taako says, almost lazily, right as Kravitz is beginning to panic. He gives his wand a leisurely twirl, and there’s another crack and another round of shrieking from the general populace. The tree shudders to a stop at a forty-five degree angle to the ground.

“What just happened,” the bard woman says distantly, round eyes fixed on the tree, which is immobile.

“We’re going to find out,” Kravitz says, and starts walking. The base of the tree is on the other side of a row of brightly colored merchants’ tents. He and Taako duck through an abandoned spice tent to avoid the flow of people streaming toward the center of the near-disaster zone. Kravitz pretends not to notice Taako stuff a handful of thyme into his bag on their way through.

When they emerge on the other side of the tent, it’s to a scene of total chaos. People are crammed onto the street, stirring up clouds of dust from the hard packed dirt. The militia seems to have mobilized, and a group of uniformed officers are shouting at a cowering group of teens by the base of what used to be a massive redwood and is now a colossal log.

“Did you see that!” shouts a stout dwarf, waving thick fingers at his companion.

“I did, but I’m not entirely sure what I saw!” responds his tiefling friend.

In the middle of the street, a statue is using both hands to hoist the tree. It’s frozen in place with feet planted in the dirt, arms raised, trunk grasped firmly in stone fingers. A gust of wind shakes the leaves and the people nearest the tree shudder, but the statue does not move. The only evidence that it was not always in that location are the massive footprints leading across the street from a stone dias.

“Oh, cool,” Taako says, and cups both hands around his mouth to shout, “You can put that down now!”

The statue turns its head to look at Taako with a sound like nails on chalkboard. Slowly, it lowers the trunk of the tree to the ground, leaving the militia and teenagers to scurry out of the way. Taako claps loudly, and people start to join in until the entire gathered crowd is cheering for the statue. Taako elbows Kravitz to get his attention, and then the statue dips low in a curtsey before lumbering its way back to its pedestal, where it clambers up before freezing in place.

“You did that,” Kravitz guesses.

“Sure fuckin’ did, babe,” Taako says, and grabs his boyfriend’s hand. “C’mon, let’s investigate!”

Kravitz goes with him, doing his best not to stare smittenly at the back of Taako’s head. He’s always known Taako to be extremely capable, both as a person and as a spellcaster, but more and more the fact is starting to hit him square in the teeth when he’s least expecting it. Before the Day of Story and Song he’d known that Taako was incredibly intelligent and had cleverness to match. Now, even after learning of the decades of hardscrabble survival and years of skill Taako had amassed, Kravitz finds himself eternally taken aback by the things Taako will do with a casual wave of his wand and a sly smile. It’s almost as though the hundred years of spellcasting had given him time to settle into his own power and begin to treat it less as a remarkable ability and more as something simple, like having feet or being able to breathe.

“Whaddup, teens,” Taako says. He crosses his arms over his chest and raises one eyebrow. “The fuck did you do to that tree?”

One of the teenagers gives Taako a derisive once over. “If I’m not talking to the militia, what makes you think I’d tell you?”

“I dunno,” Taako says, unbothered.

Kravitz summons his scythe and gives it a spin, regarding the teenagers lazily. They scramble back like frightened rodents. Somehow a boy with brilliant red hair gets shoved to the front of the group, and he stares at the scythe in Kravitz’s hand with wide, terrified eyes.

“Now,” Kravitz says, and maybe he lets his flair for the dramatic take over just a little bit as he regards the boys with glowing red eyes. “Would you like to tell us what, exactly, you did to that tree?”

“It was Jimmy’s idea!” the boy shouts at once.

“There ya go, officers,” Taako says. He and Kravitz let the militia handle it from there.

Chapter Text

Kravitz is fine.

He’s winded, and prone, and definitely bleeding, and his scythe has been kicked out of his hand, but he’s fine. He’s doing great. All he needs to do is gather enough energy to get back on his feet and stumble the three yards to his scythe and he’ll be just peachy. Really, he’s good.

“Hey, cold stuff, you good?” Taako calls. Kravitz fights to get his eyes open (when did he close his eyes, he’s not entirely sure, but he’s bone tired, pardon the pun, and he really needs a nap, gods) and blinks until he can find Taako in the haze. He’s on the other side of the pentagram where, until very recently, a small sect of cultists had been hell-bent on summoning some kind of demon to destroy the city. His hair is coming out of its braid and there’s a nasty gash on his arm, but his eyes are alight and he’s grinning. He’s having fun somehow.

“No, I’m not,” Kravitz says. Taako’s smile disappears at once.

“Like, how bad,” he shouts, nimbly ducking out of the way of a ball of flame from one of the cultists still standing.

“Not great.” Kravitz tries to take a deep breath and yeah, now that he thinks about it, he definitely tastes blood. He’s got plenty of HP left, but he could use a minute to pull himself together. Literally. There’s a nasty cut slowly dripping ichor from his chest, and it’s going to take a second to knit himself back into one solid piece.

“Huh.” Taako clucks his tongue in thought, and then says “Oh, hold on!”

And then everything stops. The two cultists standing freeze in place, spells still on their lips, magic missiles motionless in the air. The three on the ground cease their groaning. The wind does not blow. The flames of the candles scattered about the pentagram do not burn.

“Okay, how bad off are you?” Taako says walking calmly across the pentagram. He kneels next to Kravitz and runs gentle fingers over his face, down his neck, to the steadily bleeding wound on his chest. Taako frowns.

“I’m a little short on healing magic, my guy,” he says, sitting back on his heels. “I did buy you some time, though, so work some of that good good bard magic and hop to it.”

“How?” Kravitz says. He takes another deep breath and wills his manifested skin to stitch itself back together. It’s slow going, but with no distractions and no heart-pounding combat to pay attention to, he does manage to pull some of the skin back into place. Eventually he can even sit up, and finds himself staring directly at Taako, who is juggling eight very small balls of flame.

“I stopped time,” Taako says, like it’s simple, like it’s easy, like it’s even physically possible for one person to stop time. He shrugs, completely unbothered, and a disbelieving laugh bubbles its way out of Kravitz’s slowly healing ribcage. Of course Taako can stop time. Of course this impossible elf has that power. Why wouldn’t he, when he seemingly has the power to do everything else? Nothing is too far out of Taako’s reach. He is limitless and vast, a deep well of knowledge and power hidden under a thick layer of devil-may-care and general unaffected laziness. Kravitz is utterly floored by him.

Taako tosses the flames in the air and catches them, one by one, unhurried and unstrained. Time does not pass. Around them, all is still.

“What are you doing?” Kravitz asks as the last of the wound seals itself. As soon as his body is whole again he feel immensely rejuvenated. His soul rattles around in his chest and bounces off his ribcage, but the cold wind doesn’t chill it anymore.

“Oh, I can only stop time for five rounds of combat, so I’m wasting some time with pointless shit, since the spell wears off as soon as I affect someone else,” Taako replies, and the flames disintegrate. He doesn’t miss a beat, instead grabbing on to one of his many bracelets and tugging it off. He holds it between two fingers and it glows for a brief second before twitching once and unfurling as a flower.

“Incredible,” Kravitz breathes, and he’s not talking about the transmutation.

“Here, thug, keep it,” Taako says around a smile, and tucks the flower behind Kravitz’s ear. It smells sweet and lovely, and Taako sits back to scrutinize it. “Looks nice. That’s some quality accessory advice, and I’m not even gonna charge you for it.”

“Thank you for the generosity,” Kravitz laughs. Taako leans up to kiss his temple and gets to his feet, leaping over one prone necromancer on his way to retrieve the scythe. He grabs it with a mage hand and twirls it around in another show of entirely unnecessary magic.

“Here ya go, bone man,” he says, and the scythe flips through the air to land at Kravitz's side. He eyes it and has to stifle a laugh.

“How many more turns do you have?” he asks.

“Just the one, now,” Taako says, levitating. He turns a lazy backflip and takes a second to rebraid his hair in midair, deft fingers quickly working through the battle-won knots. Kravitz focuses on getting to his feet, which is much easier when he has the scythe in hand to act as a crutch. The familiar weight is comforting, and he finds that his hands are steady when he lifts it.

“I think I’m alright now,” he says. Taako nods, casts a spell that gently rustles the air through Kravitz’s hair, and the world unfreezes.

It doesn’t take long for the two of them to pick off the rest of the cultists and for Kravitz to send them on through to the Astral Plane, where they’ll be taken very good care of in the Eternal Stockade for, well, eternity.

“Well, ch’boy is beat,” Taako says, dramatically leaning himself against Kravitz’s side. “What do you say we go home, snuggle up, and refuse to leave our bed for a week?”

Kravitz laughs. “I’m not sure how practical that is, but it does sound nice.”

“C’mon, bone daddy, let’s get our nap on,” Taako says, and drags Kravitz in the direction of their house.

Chapter Text

If Kravitz had to make a list of the times in his life (and death) that he’s been the most exhausted, the Day of Story and Song is definitely number one. He’d been through a lot during those twenty-four hours. He’d been drowned, rescued, and reunited with the love of his life (and death) before being immediately tossed directly into a fight with an entire plane, hellbent on the destruction of all life. There’d been a battle, and emotional distress, and a lot of cleanup, and he’d collapsed into the nearest bed at the first sign of respite and hadn’t gotten up for hours.

That being said, today is a close second on the Grand Scale of Exhaustion.

He’s been on a job all day, hunting down a small sect of necromancers who’d gotten their hands on some really rather powerful gemstones and decided that using them to summon hordes of otherworldly demons was a good idea. It hadn’t taken too long to subdue them, but the demons weren’t fun to shove back into the void from whence they’d been unceremoniously yanked, and it had taken all day. He’d only just stumbled out of a rift and into his living room when Taako had grabbed his hand, batted his eyelashes, and declared that they were going out for dinner.

Kravitz had stifled a groan and thought longingly of their bed. “Dinner?”

“You bet! I have reservations,” Taako had said, and patted Kravitz lovingly on the hand. “C’mon, I did my makeup special. Put on that blue shirt I like!”

And because he truly, truly loved his boyfriend, Kravitz did. He stored the scythe and changed into the blue silk shirt Taako had given him last Candlenights and now they’re sitting in a very fancy restaurant and Taako is grinning at him over a large glass of wine and all Kravitz can think about is going the fuck to sleep.

“Do you like this shirt?” Taako asks suddenly. He sets his glass down and gestures dramatically at his torso, where he’s wearing a shirt Kravitz has never seen before. It’s royal blue and flowing, made almost entirely of lace, with sleeves that bell out at the ends. There’s a tie at the throat that Taako tugs on with a look that probably means something sexual in nature, but Kravitz is. So. Tired.

“I do,” he says after realizing that he’s let the silence stretch.

Taako hums and winks. “Cool. Thought you might.”

Kravitz is about 90% sure he’s being flirted with right now, but most of his willpower is devoted entirely to not falling asleep into his pasta. He doesn’t even need sleep, technically, but he’s relearned how to do it since meeting Taako, and it’s easily the best way to recharge after a long day. What he needs is eight hours of laying flat on his back in a dark and quiet room, preferably with a warm elf tucked against his side, and some good old-fashioned rest.

“Okay, bone man, something here is very wrong. I’ve been giving you bedroom eyes for the past half hour and you just keep blinking at me like you don’t even know where you are, which is worrying because I’ve been there, homie, and not knowing where you are is so very un-fun,” Taako complains. He drains his glass of wine. Outwardly, he seems entirely unaffected, but his ears are pulled back against his head in a way that means he’s anything but. It tugs on the edges of Kravitz’s heart.

“Oh, Taako, there’s nothing wrong!” he hurries to say. “I’m just tired.”

“You’re tired?” Taako says, blinking.

“So tired,” Kravitz confirms.

It takes a second, but a smile made entirely of radiant relief blooms across Taako’s face. He throws his fork onto his plate roughly. “Let’s go the fuck home, then!”

“Really?” Kravitz says in disbelief.

“Hell yeah, my guy. You’re tired, this shirt is weirdly itchy, and the food isn’t great here. I could do way better in the comfort of my own kitchen,” Taako says. He stands up and darts away, trailing a hand along Kravitz’s shoulders as he goes. In the time it takes Kravitz to stand Taako is back, clutching a receipt, both of their coats in hand.

“I love you,” Kravitz says, as earnestly as he’s capable of saying anything.

Taako laughs, but blushes bright red. “Hard same, bird boy. Can we go home now?”

Kravitz summons as much of his remaining energy as he can and rips a tear through the fabric of reality, aiming in the general direction of their house. Taako takes his hand as they step through into their living room, quiet and dark in the gathering twilight. The setting sun paints the room a dark red, dull blue in the shadows, and Kravitz has never loved a place more than he loves their living room, with its ridiculously plush couch and abundant throw pillows and disgustingly ornate piano.

Taako points a finger at the fireplace and a small fire starts, crackling cheerfully and throwing dancing light around the room. He places both hands on Kravitz’s shoulders and shoves gently until Kravitz is on the couch, where Taako immediately takes the opportunity to climb into his lap.

“I really do love this shirt,” Taako says, smoothing long fingers down the silk. He stops to fiddle with the top button for a moment before unbuttoning it to press a kiss to Kravitz’s collarbone. Kravitz sighs and relaxes further into the couch.

“It is a nice shirt,” he mumbles. His eyelids droop and he can physically feel himself starting to fall asleep, but he knows that if he falls asleep here he’s going to wake up tomorrow with a terrible crick in his neck. He needs to stumble his way up the stairs and fall into their actual bed, but he can’t quite remember how to make his legs work.

“A very nice shirt,” Taako agrees, and leans his head onto Kravitz’s shoulder. They sit there for a minute, in the silence and the dusk, and simply breathe in each other’s presence. This, Kravitz thinks, is why he loves Taako so much. He’s a whirlwind of energy and glamourous dates and flirty glances, and he’s completely willing to drop everything for some couch cuddling at only a word.

“We should go to bed,” Kravitz says, but he doesn’t open his eyes or make any move to get to his feet. Taako’s only response is to press himself closer, wrapping both arms around Kravitz’s shoulders and humming in the back of his throat.

“Give me one good reason to de-couch right now,” he mutters into Kravitz’s neck.

“We don’t have any blankets at hand,” Kravitz says. The longer he stays here, the less he’s caring about potential neck pain in the morning. He’s an immortal creature made out of soul and divine magic. He can just reform his physical body into one that doesn’t ache. He’ll be fine, as long as he stays put, right here on the couch, with his boyfriend clinging to him like a limpet.

Taako sits up and glances around. It’s true; there are no blankets in the living room. Just that morning they’d been frantically straightening the house up for when Angus came to visit over the coming weekend, and that meant shoving every throw and duvet into the hall closet so they could at least pretend to be a functional family without an addiction to soft things.

“Fuck,” he says, and then his eyes light up. “Oh, wait, I have a blanket.”

And then his weight disappears. One second Kravitz is warm and slowly falling asleep with a lapful of finely dressed elf, and the next he’s sitting along in his living room while the sun slowly dips under the horizon behind their expensive curtains.

“Taako?” he says, glancing around the room. Taako couldn’t have gotten up, could he? Did Kravitz fall asleep and not notice? Did something bad happen?

In the instant before Kravitz starts to panic, Taako is back, landing on Kravitz’s lap with only slightly more force than the latter would have preferred. In his hands he’s clutching a large red blanket, thick and soft, that Kravitz could have sworn they’d lost weeks ago. Taako grins at him and spreads the blanket over them, completely oblivious to the confused look on his boyfriend’s face.

“Where did you get that?” Kravitz has to ask, because Taako doesn’t seem to be planning to offer any explanation on his own.

“Ethereal plane,” Taako says simply. “I left it there last time I Blinked, and I forgot until just now. I think I had a latte over there, too, but I couldn’t find it.”

Kravitz laughs, genuine and happy, and pulls Taako in for a tighter embrace. Taako makes a contented noise and tugs the blanket more firmly around them. They fall asleep that way, and when Kravitz wakes up the next morning with a sore back, he’s not even upset.