Work Text:
Barry jumped when his stone of farspeech chirped to life. He was a moment too late to catch his book before it slid off his chest onto the floor, and he blinked slowly before a voice came through the stone.
“Yo, Barry,” it said.
“Ah, hey Taako.” Barry squinted as he looked around the room. “What’s up?”
“I heard you had the day off. Got dinner plans?”
Barry realized he could see just fine and patted his face to find his glasses where he left them. “Uh, I guess not.”
“Perfect. I have literally no idea how to cook for one person, so you’re gonna help me out.”
Barry chuckled. “When do you want me?”
“Like an hour? Unless you wanna sous chef.” In the background, Barry could hear the thump of cupboards and the clatter of pans.
“Give me ten minutes to get cleaned up.” He rubbed his eyes. “I think I just woke up.”
“You think?” Taako’s amusement was audible. “Slipped a bit from the peak of our scientific brilliance, have we?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Barry retrieved the book and closed it, gently flattening the bent pages. “See you soon.”
The dull roar of street traffic drifted through the balcony screens of Kravitz and Taako’s Neverwinter flat. The space inside was luxuriously broad, and decorated in a precarious blend of functional minimalism and haphazard flamboyance. Magical artifacts were crammed onto square black bookshelves, and a few luscious prints interrupted otherwise bare white walls. The flat was half a world away from the couch Barry had woken up on, but in the two years since the Day of Story and Song, they had all but forgotten what it was like for that to matter. Taako looked up reflexively at the familiar sound of a rip in the planar boundary … followed, less usually, by a knock on the door.
“It’s open!” Taako called, gesturing a spell that slid the lock open with a click. Lup would have opened the portal into the living room, but Barry was a little old-fashioned. He let himself in, then closed the door promptly on the curious nose of an orange tabby.
“Took you long enough,” Taako accused breezily.
“Oh, you know, traffic,” Barry deadpanned. He bent to greet the cat. “Remind me which one this is?”
“The one that comes up to you is always Coriander,” Taako reminded him. “Cinnamon’s probably under the couch.”
“Hi, Cori.” The cat sniffed Barry’s proffered knuckle, headbutted him once, and then wandered away.
Barry rolled up his sleeves as he straightened. “Okay, where do you want me?”
Taako eyed him. “At the sink washing up, and then I’ve got some onions here that aren’t in enough pieces.”
Barry rinsed the cat hair off his hands and went to work.
They caught each other up as they cooked. Taako started out bragging about the progress of the Amazing School of Magic, but quickly got sidetracked onto the gossip about Lord Sterling he’d picked up backstage before a recent interview. Barry related the story of a particularly lucrative bounty, the weeks of planning that had gone into an ambush and eventual capture.
"So this ritual she's been preparing for years basically blows up in her face, and instead of a demon, there's the three of us."
“She must have been fuckin’ terrified,” Taako remarked. “Here, open this.”
“Oh, yeah.” Barry took the bottle of wine, opened a drawer for a corkscrew, and bumped it closed again with his hip. “She did a decent job of not showing it, which I respect, but Lup and I had her minions down before Krav was even finished reading the charges. It was over, and she knew it.”
“Hell yeah.” Taako turned the heat off under a saucepan and smoothly pulled two wine glasses down from the cupboard in one hand. Barry poured, and after a cursory clink Taako paused and held his glass. “To success.”
“Cheers. Yours too.”
“Well I meant mine, obviously.” Taako drank. Barry laughed and followed suit.
When their bellies were full and their plates were empty, they took the bottle out onto the balcony. It was just about sunset as they settled into folding chairs, and Taako stretched his legs out to prop them on the railing.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked nonchalantly.
“History suggests that you can, yes.” Barry took a sip of his wine.
“You ever gonna pop the question to my sister?”
Barry choked. He set his glass down heavily as he coughed and sputtered.
“Couldn’t resist,” Taako said. “You understand.”
“I’d have expected no less,” Barry replied weakly. He dabbed at his sweater with a napkin.
“Serious question, though.”
Barry huffed out a long breath. “I … geeze, Taako. I don’t know. Eventually?” He gazed out over the darkening city, brow furrowed.
Taako raised an eyebrow. “That’s a funny way to put it after sixty years, isn’t it?”
“Sixty-seven,” Barry corrected automatically. Taako rolled his eyes. “... of which she wasn’t exactly swimming in choices for fifty and change, and then she spent ten years …” Barry trailed off.
Taako was no more interested in talking about that than Barry was. “And then you were right back together again, when she got back.”
“Yeah, but … it’s not really the same thing, now, is it.”
“Why not?”
Barry glanced over at him. “Are you kidding? Nothing’s the same now.” He looked back out at the murmuring city. “We’ve got so much … time, on this world. We don’t have to pick and choose any more, we can just … go everywhere. See everything. Get to know someone without thinking about how they’re going to die in a few months, or even if they don’t you’ll still never see them again.” Barry emptied his glass and set it on the table, then folded his arms across his chest. “With all of that waiting out there … Taako, how could I ask her to stay put now? For the first time in a hundred and whatever years, she doesn’t have to. She can go anywhere. She can have anyone--anything that she wants.”
They passed several seconds in silence before Taako snorted. “You’re damn right she can.”
Barry frowned. Taako pursed his lips.
“Listen,” he said. “Lup is brilliant, powerful … gorgeous, natch,” He gestured at himself. “magic as fuck, and, oh right, one of the seven fuckin’ saviors of the universe. Yeah, obviously she could have whoever she wants. And you’d better believe she knows that.” He watched Barry, waiting for the pin to drop, but the man just looked … resigned. Taako gave an exasperated sigh. “And she wakes up every morning next to you, doofus.”
Barry blinked.
“What, do you think you tricked her, somehow?” Taako asked. “Fat chance, you pulling one over on ol' Lup. You think she’s not sure what she wants from you? After a hundred years? She’s seen a lot already, my man. Way more than you, and almost as much as me. She knows what’s out there, maybe not in every single corner of this world, but a hell of a lot of places that could just as well have been. Which, I’m not saying there’s nothing cool in all that--you remember a couple months ago when she ran off to spar with the fire salamanders on that volcano--”
Barry groaned and nodded. She’d gotten back a week later, scorched, exhausted, and cackling with glee.
“--but that’s the point, she can just go do that. Because oh yeah, also, she can literally tear holes in the fabric of space. So … I don’t know what you’re imagining is stopping her from walking away if she wanted to.” Taako took a deep swig of wine. “Speaking as the one person in existence who knows her better than you do,” he said, “if that woman felt trapped, she’d be outski. Nothing but an elf-shaped dust cloud. Lup does not settle. And she especially doesn’t settle for settling down.”
Barry stared towards the horizon. “... why’s that?” he asked cautiously.
Taako emptied his glass, picked up the bottle, realized it was empty too, and set it down again. “Why’s what?”
“Especially not settling down.”
“Oh, just because--” Taako gestured vaguely. “We spent all that time moving around, you know? Even before IPRE. Moving along is easy, Barry. You just keep walking, and don’t look back. Now staying … staying is hard. If you’re gonna go back to the same place every day, when you could go anywhere in the world? There’s gotta be something really fucking worth going back for. Something better than anything else you could be doing, anything the universe might have in store for y--what?”
Barry was giving him a funny look. He glanced over his shoulder, through the balcony windows. One of the cats was nosing around the closed screen door (a different one; must be Cinnamon). A few pairs of Taako’s shoes were strewn around the coffee table, and his hat was perched delicately on top of a floor lamp. Taako followed Barry’s gaze through the open wall into the kitchen. It was still a mess from dinner, but the dirty pans were high-quality, selected carefully over the months since Taako had moved in. Personal touches dotted the tidy walls and shelves. An apron with a cheeky slogan. A carved wooden duck. As an early autumn breeze brought a chill to the balcony, the inside of the flat looked comfortable and warm.
Barry looked back at Taako. “Something really fucking worth staying for, huh?” He smiled.
Taako opened his mouth, then closed it. He could feel the wine coloring his cheeks.
He was rescued by a chirp from his stone of farspeech. “Taako?”
“Babe!” Taako’s face lit up.
“We’re wrapping up here,” Kravitz told him. “Do you need anything while I’m out?”
“Yeah,” Taako grinned. “Is Lup there?”
“Yes, she’s--”
“Good, tell her I’ve got her boyfriend and she can’t have him back unless she comes by for dessert.”
Barry laughed. So did Kravitz. “I’ll tell her,” he assured them, and the stone clicked off.
Moments later, the tearing sound ripped through the air again, and Kravitz and Lup stepped out into the living room. Taako was already on his feet. He took one long stride through the balcony doorway and threw himself into his boyfriend’s arms.
Kravitz tried to protest. “Wait, I’m freezing--!”
Taako cupped the reaper’s chilly face in his hands. “I know, I’m fixing it.” He pulled him into a deep kiss.
Lup made retching noises, and Barry chuckled as he slid the balcony door closed behind him. Her eyes twinkled as she looked over at him.
“Barry, darling, what torture has my brother been inflicting on you tonight?”
“Oh, you know, the usual.” He crossed the room to stand beside her. “Great food and nosy conversation.” Lup slouched comfortably into Barry’s side and threw an arm around his back. When he turned to smile at her, she leaned over for a kiss. He expected a brief greeting, but she slipped the tip of her tongue between his lips, and heat rushed through him with shocking suddenness. His arm tightened reflexively around her waist. They breathed together for a moment.
“Gross!” Taako called cheerfully from across the room. “Lup, what are we making?”
Lup pulled away with a wink. Barry couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he watched her follow her brother into the kitchen, tossing dessert ideas back and forth. He shook his head and looked at Kravitz.
“Those two’ll be the death of us.”
The reaper laughed. He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers, and even from across the room Barry knew that they were warm.
“Or the life,” Kravitz agreed.
Two hours later, the coffee table was graced with the remaining half of a pan of brownies and another empty bottle. Taako leaned against Kravitz on a loveseat, and Lup stretched across the sofa with her head in Barry’s lap. He ran his fingers idly through her hair, enjoying a sleepy buzz as he digested the wine, the brownies, and what Taako had told him.
“I just think if you’re already a salamander made of elemental fire,” Lup was saying, “using actual weapons too is cheating.”
“Damn right,” Taako nodded.
“It seems to me,” Kravitz chimed in, “that if you’re fighting in their arena, the rules are theirs to make. If you didn’t bother finding out what they were …” He smiled faintly as Taako turned to glare at him. “... then, really, it makes your performance all the more impressive.”
Taako’s eyes were still narrowed. “Nice save.” Kravitz met his scrutiny with a mask of innocence.
Barry chuckled, attracting Lup’s attention. She looked up at him plaintively. “Honey, Krav’s teasing me.”
Barry raised his eyebrows. “Do you ... need my help with that?”
“Well, no, but I thought you might be interested in sticking up for your girl on principle and just didn’t notice the opportunity.”
“I am a bit distracted,” he admitted.
He meant it to sound playful, but it came out pensive. Lup glanced up and down his face, and her eyebrows drew together momentarily--a silent everything okay? He met her eyes with a tiny nod and brushed his fingertips across her cheek. Her eyelids slid closed as she let her face relax into his hand.
“Wanna take me home?” Lup asked.
... It was probably just in his head. But something about the way she said home, that time, wrapped itself around his heart and settled there, heavy and warm. He thought of the couch, the book, the clothes on the floor, the dishes in the sink, and suddenly his throat felt tight. He was afraid she would hear it--he didn't want to worry her--but after a breath or two, the feeling passed.
“Sure,” he said, “if you’re ready.”
Lup opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“I'm ready.”