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Beverly stiffened when he heard someone approaching behind him, nearly turning around with a smite already on his lips and boiling in his hands when he felt something gently set down on his head and heard a familiar voice.
“Hey babe,” Erlin said, wrapping his arms around Beverly’s waist. He automatically melted into the touch, relaxing from his earlier brief panic.
“Hi,” he said, finishing shuffling his books before turning around and reluctantly breaking the hold on him. His heart fluttered for the millionth time when he remembered how much he had to look up at his boyfriend. Erlin even had to lean forward to be able to rest his head on top of his. It was unfair and so, so good.
“Reorganizing your books again?”
“Breaking into my house again?” Beverly shot back. Erlin smiled.
“Mrs. Toegold let me in,” he argued, sitting down on the edge of Beverly’s bed. Pelor, he was still nearly as tall as Beverly standing up when he was sitting down. Extremely unfair.
“You know you can just call her Martha,” Beverly rolled his eyes, coming to sit next to him.
“I really can’t,” Erlin laughed. “Are we still good to go work with the crick kids today?”
“Youngin’s,” he corrected, which Erlin automatically nodded at. It was a subtle thing, but they tried to make sure they maintained the culture of the crick while also trying to give them access to things they didn’t have in the past, like two teenagers who didn’t have anything better to do than teach kids how to read and hold swords and perform cantrips. They really were creating menances. “We said we would, wouldn’t we?”
“We said we might,” Erlin pointed a finger at him. “As in, we might if we both could, which means if you’re not in pain.”
“I’ll be fine if you cast that spell on me,” Beverly reassured. “If you want to, I mean, you don’t have to.”
“Of course I will,” Erlin said. “It takes two minutes, bro.”
“Thanks,” Beverly smiled, looking up at his ridiculously tall boyfriend.
They made quick work of the spell, Erlin well used to casting it at this point. He was in the process of teaching it to Beverly, but it was slow going. They both used their inherent light as followers of Pelor in such different ways, and paladin magic had a certain rough heat to it that didn’t mesh well with the necessary gentleness of cleric spells. Still, Beverly was determined to learn it, if only for the pride on Erlin’s face whenever he progressed a little further. Erlin had reassured him he would always be willing to cast the spell for him, but he liked being able to do things for himself, and the time they spent together practicing certainly wasn’t a draw back.
“But you’re sure your legs won’t be too bad tomorrow if we go? Chasing the k- youngin’s isn’t exactly easy on a good day.”
Beverly felt himself start to flush while a slightly goofy smile appeared on his face. It was nice to be cared about, okay? Sue him.
“I- I think I’m good? I mean, I’ve been able to stand up all day, and I can make sure I’m sitting down as much as possible. We can just do reading or some cantrips today or something. I’m sure they’d love it if you’d teach them thaumaturgy.”
“Memaw would never know peace again,” Erlin snorted. “But really, you’re one hundred percent sure? It looks like rain tomorrow, and I know you said it gets worse a lot when it’s raining.”
Gosh, how was he supposed to pretend he wasn’t melting when Erlin said stuff like that? He was just so considerate. With anyone else he would usually get annoyed by someone assuming he didn’t know his own limits, but Erlin had, admittedly, seen him push himself too hard a fair amount in the past. It was fair to want to make sure he was actually good to go, and Beverly knew that unless he had a very good reason to, he would never try to stop him from doing something.
“I’m sure,” he said. “If it starts to seep through even with the spell or something I’ll go home though, promise.”
“Good,” Erlin grinned. “Hey, they’re not expecting us until later, right? I think we have some time to kill.”
“Not if you don’t get up and shut my door you decided to leave open we don’t.”
-
It was easy to find the group of youngin’s at the grandma tree, running around without a care in the world. It reminded Beverly of his own childhood, though he was struck by the differences all the same. Some of these kids were about equivalent to the age where he had attended his first execution, and they were freely running about catching nannerflies in a jar. Good. He hoped they got to be kids for as long as possible.
Moonshine was off to the side, watching as they ran around and chatting with Hardwon. That wasn’t too big of a surprise, really, they both lived at the Crick. Erlin and Beverly did too, sort of, though they were also often back in Hillhome helping with reconstruction.
Moonshine spotted their approach and began waving enthusiastically, catching the attention of the half-elf beside her who began waving too.
“Young Bev and Erlin Kindleaf! What a pleasure to see you!”
“We’ve been staying about five minutes away from you,” Beverly laughed as he was attacked from all angles by excited youngins. It was hard to get those kids respect, but damn, once you did you really had it. He had been used as a jungle gym by the various Cooter’s alone more times than he could count. It was cute, really, and honestly a nice feeling knowing that these kids looked up to him, not because he was the hero of the realm but because he had taught them how to make practice swords and how to hold them and swing without damaging themselves or each other too much. The reading was a bit more slow going, but kids were kids and Crick youngins especially would always be a tad more fond of large sticks than they were of pieces of paper.
Erlin shot him a concerned look when he wavered slightly as another elf jumped on him. It wasn’t that he really felt pain through the spell, but rather that his legs still felt weak, and having twenty small for elves but really nearly his height bodies crawling all over him was a bit intense.
“All right, c’mon youngins I’m teaching you guys a new cantrip today!” There was an excited mutter from the kids as Erlin began leading away all of the interested ones. A few stayed behind, looking at him hopefully. The few among the crick elves youth who had no taste for magic and we’re interested solely in melee. Hardwon always had a great time with them.
“Sorry guys, no swords today.”
“Why?” one of them whined. “You said we would last time!”
“We said we might,” Erlin gently corrected, which Beverly nearly couldn’t help but laugh at, recalling how he had said the same thing to him earlier that day. “Remember how we said sometimes Beverly can’t do things because of his legs? This is one of those times,” he explained.
“Oh, okay,” the kid nodded, still looking disappointed. “Maybe next time?”
“I’ll do my best to be able to practice with you guys as soon as possible,” Beverly promised. “In the meantime, keep practicing! You guys are getting so good!” The youngins beamed, running off to get their small practice swords and attacking each other with reckless abandon. It reminded him so much of his green teen days…
“Look at you lot, turning my people into well balanced individuals, I’ll be darned,” Moonshine said, staring off at the kids as they continued to follow Erlin to a spot a little ways away.
“It’s all you,” Beverly waved off. “They really look up to you, and when you started telling them about reading and spells they started looking for ways to learn. They’d really love for your help with some of the more naturey druid magic. Erlin and I are trying to keep from leaning them towards Pelor too much with the way we cast, since we know Melora is important to your people and all.”
“I appreciate that,” Moonshine nodded. “Sometimes I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day anymore, we’re all such busy bodies. I gotta start making more time for them youngins.”
“I’ll help you out whenever you need,” Beverly promised, before turning to Hardwon, who had remained silent throughout the conversation, only to find his eyes furrowed in concern.
“What’s up with your legs?” He asked. Beverly stared for a minute, blinking, before realizing what he was asking.
“Oh! Yeah! I don’t think I ever told you about it! My legs were still kind of conked up after the Watchmen, because apparently you’re supposed to rest after surgery or something? I don’t know, Erlin tried to explain it to me, but I didn’t really follow that well.”
“What do you mean?” Moonshine asked, suddenly also concerned.
“My bones just felt kinda… bad? Sometimes? It wasn’t a very big deal, but Erlin found a cool spell to help, and we looked into it more and it turns out other people have it too sometimes. It’s called chronic pain, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Hardwon asked. The paladin shrugged.
“Just never seemed that important. We had a lot of bigger stuff to worry about. Plus, it doesn’t usually hurt that bad, but Erlin gets overprotective a lot. He’s so sweet…” he trailed off, glancing over to where his boyfriend was demonstrating a hand motion surrounded by a group of young elves clumsily copying him.
“You still should have said something young Bev!” Moonshine protested. “I could have found a way to help!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Beverly said. “The spell Erlin uses is pretty old and rare, and we only found it because it just happened to be in that old cleric spellbook I got him. It never got in the way of fighting or anything, I was fine.”
“It doesn’t matter if it affected your fighting,” Hardwon scoffed. “It mattered that you were apparently in pain and didn’t tell us.”
“N-not always?” Beverly stuttered, inwardly cursing himself for it. He knew his friends weren’t mad at him, just frustrated by something he hadn’t thought to be a big deal. But knowing on a logical level and being able to tell his sometimes overly emotional brain that were two different things. Sometimes his brain reverted to facts and memories and the fact was that anytime his dad had used that tone it was because he had messed something up and his dad had been disappointed. And he really, really never wanted to disappoint anyone. “Just, after running around a lot or whatever. It was fine.”
Hardwon and Moonshine shared a look, likely noticing the way he was beginning to shut down. Beverly flashed what he hoped was his best reassuring smile.
“Alright young Bev, if you say so,” Moonshine conceded eventually. “Don’t be running around not telling us if you’re hurtin’ anymore though, okay? It ain’t nothing on me to dunk a few spell slots moving stuff around instead of you using your little paladin strong boy powers.”
“Right,” Beverly smiled. “But really, don’t worry, Erlin’s spell is amazing, I can’t feel anything while it’s going.”
“There’s that goofy grin,” Hardwon teased. “How are you and Erlin doing?”
“Good,” Beverly said simply, leaving it at that for all of a moment before caving. “He’s so sweet and considerate, he’s always asking me if I’m okay and offering to cast the spell on me. But he’s not overbearing either, he always backs off when I ask him to. I just like him a lot,” he ranted, face bright red by the end.
“Aw, young love,” Moonshine sighed wistfully. “You two, always lookin’ out for one another, ain’t ya?”
“I try to protect him, but I think he’d say the same thing about me,” Beverly admitted, sneaking another glance at his boyfriend. Judging by the way the ground was faintly tremoring, he must have started the demonstration. “He’s just so tall…” Moonshine and Hardwon stared at him.
“He’s a short stack same as you,” Hardwon protested. It was Beverly’s turn to look confused.
“Are you kidding?” He cried. “He’s nearly four feet tall! He’s practically a giant.”
“He’d make a short dwarf,” Hardwon grunted.
“Real short elf too,” Moonshine nodded.
“Well, good thing he’s a halfling then,” Beverly rolled his eyes. “Have you seriously never noticed how much taller he is than me?”
“You both look the same to me.”
“I always just assumed you were real short for your kind. Weren’t those goblins in the fae wild taller than you?”
“I’m not that short,” he protested, once more red-faced. “I’m three foot two, shut up.”
“Aw, ain’t nothing wrong with being a short stack!” Moonshine laughed. “Means that little boyfriend of yours can pick ya’ up!”
Beverly had a brief moment of contemplating this before his brain fully shut down. Good bye thoughts, they were fun while they lasted.
“C’mon Moonshine, quite teasing him,” Hardwon chided, but he was doing his full deep belly laugh. “The kid’s going to get a nose bleed.”
“I hate you guys,” Beverly grumbled. “I’m going to go help Erlin.”
“Right, go help your boyfriend!” Hardwon called after him, dragging out the last word and making obnoxious kissing noises.
“Everything good dude?” Erlin asked when he finished his half jog over to the group in his desperate escape.
“Everything’s perfect,” he said truthfully, leaning in to steal a quick kiss. Most of the kids let out a general gagging sound. “I believe you were in the middle of a class Professor Kindleaf?”