Chapter Text
Kravitz hadn’t intended to be caught out here, in the rain, in the dark, barely managing to keep one foot stable, scythe out for balance instead of reaping like it’s meant to do, on their anniversary.
“You’re just making this harder for yourself,” he calls in his work accent, swearing under his breath as he nearly falls. This necromancer seems to have set up some sort of… obstacle course? With wards around it that block his access to his non-human forms. The whole thing is suspended with ropes above a deep artificial gorge, the bottom far below invisible in the gloom.
Right now, Kravitz is barely keeping his feet under him on a large, wobbly red dome, two behind him, three others ahead. The scythe helps, but only a little bit. He already blazed through one obstacle, that required him to leap from one tilted rectangle to another or else fall into the depths below. He doesn’t know how far down the wards blocking him from flight extend, but he doesn’t want to find out the hard way.
“Aren’t you having fun?” the disembodied voice of the necromancer asks. “After all, you should have to prove your skills to get a chance to fight me.”
“You know you’re just a two-bit necromancer, don’t you?” Kravitz calls, taking a steadying breath and leaping in three quick bounds to the end of this obstacle. He eyes the next one sourly, a bar between slotted indentations in two floating walls, with more indents rising up. “At best.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” the voice chides. “Now you have to be careful with this one. For the fantasy salmon ladder, you have to jump with the bar up to the next rung, and swing from there to the floating dice!”
“The what?”
“Only four sides, don’t worry.”
Kravitz breathes slowly, trying to calm his newly pounding heart, and lets his scythe vanish. He rolls his shoulders and lets his suit jacket disappear, leaving him only in his white shirt and black pants. He had kicked off the shoes after those rectangles, dispensing with the socks as well, and tied back his braids after one of his gold beads had swung around and smacked him in the face.
“I’m not the most dexterous,” he admits, keeping up his work accent. “Why don’t we just have a straight fight?”
“That’s no fun.”
“You know that even if I fall I won’t die, right?”
“It’ll still give me plenty of time to hide again,” the necromancer says, sounding entirely too cheerful. “I imagine your new heart and blood won’t take too kindly to that kind of fall damage, anyway.”
“I beg your pardon?” Kravitz says sharply. There should be no way the necromancer would have that kind of information.
“You know, I bet your elf friend would do great on this course!” the necromancer exclaims. “He’s a regular flip wizard, isn’t he? What was his name? Taako?”
“You’re not going anywhere near Taako,” Kravitz growls, and jumps for the bar. He forces it up, hopping the bar three rungs up in a matter of seconds, swinging to the ‘floating dice’ with relative ease. Those are harder, and he almost falls, catching himself at the last moment. The voice cheers, commenting dramatically on everything he does, but he manages to take a flying leap and land on the next platform, slamming his knee against the edge.
“Oof, that’s gonna leave a mark!” the necromancer says cheerfully, and now Kravitz can see her, holding a brightly decorated microphone, alone in an announcer’s booth save for a half-rotted zombie thrall, which is also holding a microphone. “We thought you were a goner there for a second, but you really pulled through!”
Kravitz just growls, no words this time, and glares at the next obstacle, a narrow space between two curved walls, the rain coating them.
“Now, bare feet is an interesting choice for this one,” the necromancer says. “Don’t you think, Rocky Road?”
“Did you name your zombie thrall Rocky Road?” a familiar voice rings out, pitch rising in delight at the end of the sentence. Kravitz looks around frantically, shoving his braids out of his face, to find Taako lounging right next to him.
“Taako?”
“Hey babe.”
“How did you—”
“I’m not really here,” Taako explains, and as Kravitz squints through the rain, he sees that Taako is indeed spectral, albeit shining brighter than most full-bodied people. The elf grins and tips his wizard hat. “Turns out you can modify Blink! Cool, huh?”
Kravitz raises his eyebrows, running through the spellwork necessary to do that and finding himself, once again, astonished by this impossible elf. “When did you do that?”
“When you were late for dinner,” Taako says, pouting. “You could have called.”
“No he couldn’t!” the necromancer calls. “Wards!”
“Wasn’t talking to you, bubbeleh!” Taako yells back without looking. “Bones, come home.”
“I can’t, babe,” Kravitz says, gesturing at the course in general. “Wards.”
Taako sniffs, glancing up towards the necromancer. “Well, she should just be embarrassed,” he grumbles, doing something with his hands that Kravitz can’t make out. “I mean, that hat with those robes? Yikes.”
“Whaaaat are you doing?” Kravitz asks, recognizing the look in his husband’s spectral eyes. Taako is about to do something that breaks the laws of the universe, again, he can just tell.
“I have an amazing dinner laid out,” the elf informs him. “That you, my dude, are missing out on right now. And I want my husband home for our anniversary.”
“He’s busy!” the necromancer yells.
Taako doesn’t even spare one of his hands, instead conjuring a Mage Hand wordlessly just to flip her off. He grunts, apparently done with whatever it was he was doing, and Kravitz, without being prompted, stands back. Taako lifts both hands, forming a diamond shape, and Kravitz faintly hears Barry and Lup in the background, calling out details of whatever ritual Taako is doing, and Angus, cheering him on. Taako looks sideways at nothing (Angus, probably), winks, and then with a pop he’s fully present, standing on the platform in the flesh.
“I knew you were gonna break the universe again,” Kravitz says fondly, Taako already moving into his embrace. He presses a kiss to Taako’s hair. “Hi, babe.”
Taako smiles against his collarbone before standing back. “Digging the workout look, my dude. Bare feet?”
“Dress shoes are more slippery,” Kravitz says, gesturing up at the sky. “It’s raining.”
“Uh-huh,” Taako snorts, lifting his replacement umbra staff, although this one definitely does not eat magic, liches or otherwise. He opens it, shielding himself from the rain, and grins at Kravitz. “So, what’dya need?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Taako,” Kravitz jokes, feeling a buildup of necrotic energy at his back. “Maybe we can just celebrate our anniversary right here?”
“No!” the necromancer screams. “You have to complete the course!”
“But my dinner, babe,” Taako pouts.
“True,” Kravitz acknowledges. “Well, I guess I just have to… finish this?”
“Oh! Hold on,” Taako says, and carefully casts a spell. Kravitz feels a glow spread through him, pouring into his muscles like sunlight and hot chocolate. “Bull Strength,” Taako explains. “Picked it up from Merle.”
“Thanks, babe,” Kravitz says, pulling him into a kiss. Beyond them, the necromancer is shrieking something unimportant, and when she shoots a withering bolt of necrotic energy at them, Taako’s umbra staff effortlessly knocks it away.
“Go on,” Taako says, floating up and over the obstacle, deflecting another bolt. “I’ll be waiting up at that big red button up there, although,” he shrugs. “You know how I am with big red buttons.”
“I know,” Kravitz calls. He smirks at the obstacle in front of him and leaps forward, slamming his hands and feet against the sides, catching himself effortlessly. He scoots through the tunnel, barely noticing the rain pouring down the sides anymore. He jumps onto the next platform and faces the final obstacle, a fourteen-foot-high curved wall, Taako and the button at the top. His husband is caressing the button, occasionally snarking back at the necromancer, who is growing increasingly unstable. Kravitz smiles and sprints at the wall, leaping up and just barely getting a grip on the edge. Taako looks down with a smile, spinning the umbra staff, necromantic spells splattering against it like water.
“Look, rabbit, I saved the button just for you.”
“Thanks, dove,” Kravitz says, hoisting himself up over the edge. Taako pulls him into another kiss, and Kravitz thumps the button almost as an afterthought.
The necromancer shrieks again and the whole course shakes like an earthquake, the obstacles disintegrating behind them. Kravitz grabs Taako as the wall crumbles to dust underneath their feet. He feels the wards snap just in time to catch them both in midair, hovering and watching the necromancer with equally unimpressed expressions.
“Not bad,” she sneers, hands crackling with black fire. “But you’re no match for me!”
She thrusts her hands skyward, zombie thralls erupting out of the earth around her announcer’s booth. Kravitz whistles and the true ground materializes once again, free of the shielding spell. He sets Taako neatly on his feet and pulls his scythe from the Astral Plane, twirling it with ease.
“Just come quietly,” he says in his work accent, smirking at Taako giggling. “You’re making me late for dinner.”
The necromancer howls, apparently beyond words now, and Kravitz and Taako flip and jump their way through the zombie hordes, Taako blasting Disintegrate at the zombies sneaking up behind Kravitz, Kravitz whipping his scythe through three zombies on top of Taako.
They reach the necromancer in her crumbling announcers booth. She snarls, black blades forming out of nothing in her hands. Kravitz smiles and gently moves Taako behind him.
“This’ll just take a second,” he assures him.
Taako grins and conjures some popcorn, winking at Kravitz when he laughs.
Kravitz is still laughing when he hooks his scythe into the necromancer’s soul. He yanks it out as her body disintegrates, opens a portal, and stares straight into Taako’s eyes as he says, “Yeet!” and throws her soul into the Eternal Stockade.
Taako erupts into laughter, popcorn spilling everywhere, tears at the corners of his eyes. Kravitz laughs too, scooping him up into his arms.
“Who taught you that?” Taako demands through laughter, hooking an arm around Kravitz’s neck.
“Angus,” Kravitz admits, grinning. “Now, I believe you promised me dinner?”