Tumbl Into TAZ - Chapter 18 - InterNutter - The Adventure Zone (Podcast) [Archive of Our Own]
So now I do requests through AO3 too.
This took me a while though.
There are few things in life better than a lazy Saturday morning in bed. Kravitz was comfortably warm and in physical content with the best amount of Taako, which was as much skin-to-skin contact as they could both get. The cats were scattered about above them on the covers, one nestled by Kravitz’s head, and purring was the only scheduled activity this morning.
Kravitz turned his head just enough to kiss Taako’s forehead and felt a tickle on his cheek that wasn’t any of the cats’ tails or whiskers. He freed an arm to pluck it off his face.
A raven’s feather. He was being summoned.
“Dove,” he cooed. “Love. Darling. I gotta go to work, sweetie.”
Taako’s grip only tightened. He moaned a rising whine of complaint. “Nooo… stay with me…”
“I can’t, Dove. My Queen needs me.”
“Y’r husband needs you,” Taako mumbled, refusing to let go.
“I know. I know, Dove. I’m sorry. I really have to go.” It was harder than it had to be, escaping Taako’s grip. Especially since the wonderful wizard, chef, and all-around gorgeous Elf kept re-adjusting his grip. “Let go, love.”
“No-o-o-o…” Taako whined. “Don’ wanna…”
*
“My apologies for the delay, my Queen,” said Kravitz, one of the best Reapers in the Raven Queen’s employ.
“Nice backpack,” said Barry as he cleaned his glasses with the edge of his Reaper robe. “It almost looks like–” he put his glasses back on. “Taako?”
“…come back to bed…” Taako grizzled.
Lup, meanwhile, was almost bursting her innards trying not to laugh.
[AN: In Continuity with the Young Angus ‘verse, and a direct sequel to the previous request. AU adjustment, Agatha is now also a half-elf]
Agatha had grown to like making Professor Angus McDonald, world’s greatest detective, blush and stammer. Some days, she could do it just by smiling a certain way. Today, though, she wasn’t even trying. Yet there he was, in her company, face growing ruddier by the second.
He was also sniffing a lot and using simpler language choices. It was when he started to perspire that she suspected something was up. Especially when, upon sneaking up on the latest crime family plot, that he wound up right next to her, taking a deep inhale, and spontaneously purring.
In elven parlance, he had a pretty loud engine when he set up a purr. Even his distress purrs were audible across a room.
“Still it,” she whispered. “You’re gonna fuck our stealth check.”
“Smells nice,” said Professor McDonald. Something on his wrist began a tinny little chime. It chimed Love Is In the Air.
“What the shit?” Agness whispered. She grabbed his arm and pulled up his sleeve and saw a little alert. Luume’irma. Batten down the hatches. Oh no. Oh no. “You’re going through Luume? Now?”
Angus, a little behind on things for a change read the display, felt his own cheeks, and said, “Oh fuck, not this again…”
Timing is everything. Just as Agatha was reaching for his ‘off switch’, one of the obligatory stupid guards was bringing a young, teenage prisoner in for a dark ritual that almost certainly included a blood sacrifice.
“Baby,” cooed Angus.
“Oh fuck,” said three people at once, including the potential ‘child’ sacrifice.
Angus saw the chains, the ritual knife and, having also seen the altar, was able to put two and two together and come out with murder as both the problem and the solution. With Luume in the equation, it meant that most of the cultists and all of the crime family were stopped with extreme prejudice. Agatha helped, only to make certain that a few were left alive to testify to the authorities.
Angus, bloodstained and victorious, gathered both Agatha and the half-orc kid who had been saved into his arms and carried them to safety. Which happened to be a residence overflowing with evidence because one of the bosses lived in it. Used to live in it. There, Angus groomed and fed both the kid and Agatha, though his attentions towards Agatha made her blush and stammer.
He was caught between nurturing his found child and smudging up to someone he saw as a mate. Once that information filtered through her head, Agatha decided not to tease him so much about his affections any more.
“What’s your name, kid?” she asked the teen half-orc.
“Uh… Neosemo?” He wasn’t used to a tender touch, judging by the way he flinched every time Angus delicately untangled a knot in his hair. “Is he… okay?”
“It’s Luume. You’ve just been adopted.” Agatha thought about this. “It’s a lifelong bond and Professor McDonald is gonna be compelled to look after you. The rest of the family is just going to adopt you automatically…” Agatha temporarily lost the power of speech as Angus nuzzled affectionately into her neck and kissed her tenderly. “The good news is you got the best new leaf you could possibly have.”
“The bad news?” said Neosemo as Angus tried to feed him a fragment of lembas.
“There is no possible way to rebel because your family now includes the Seven Birds.”
Neosemo looked into the middle distance like he was seeing his first rainbow. “…holy shit..” he mumbled.
*
Angus woke himself up with his own purring. Someone very, very kind was waving scrambled eggs, waffles, and hot chocolate under his nose. Food. Yes. Good food. Even better.
He was halfway through it all when he registered that someone was talking to him. “Mrf?”
“I said, are you feeling better, now?” said Agatha.
Chew, chew, chew, gulp. “Much. Thanks for the food. Man, I feel so wiped out… Um. Was there… a kid?”
“His name is Neosemo and he’s talking with the city guard. A cleric will be by shortly to be certain you don’t have any issues. Is this your second Luume or…?”
“Yeah, it was my second. Ten years apart. I think I lucked out…” He tried not to inhale the hot chocolate. “You made all this? For me?”
“Yup. Sorry I couldn’t find any bacon for you.”
Now that he thought about it, bacon would be wonderful. Bacon or mutton and clootie dumplings and -damn- when Papa said the demands on an Elf’s body were high, he wasn’t fucking around. “We’ll find some. Pretty sure one of Papa’s restaurants is around here, somewhere…” Agatha refilled his borrowed mug with more of the hot chocolate, which was delicious. “Marry me?” he said.
“Wait until you’re no longer high on hormones before you ask that again,” she joked.
“Okay,” he agreed, then his heart swelled three sizes when his new kid entered the room. “There’s my boy,” he cooed. “There’s my beautiful boy…”
The interesting times were only beginning.
anonymous asked:
on the same vein as half elf Angus, being adopted by Kravitz and Taako, may I request Ango going through his first ( or second) Luume? ( whether or not he’s with Agatha, or even around that age is up to you) Thank you for taking the time to read this!
[AN: Found it! Things be FUBAR’ed so this is the real one. I need to think about this one because I promised my Tumbl into TAZ readers that nothing would be NSFW]
“Sir? I don’t feel so good…”
It was a definite bad sign when Angus referred to Taako as ‘sir’. He hadn’t done that for half a century or more. Definitely when he was mostly-grown and it finally sunk in that he had a place to belong. Taako put down his cooking and washed and dried his hands.
Angus was– what? Seventy? Eighty? He knew being half-elven screwed things up, sometimes. The human side demanded things go quickly, whilst the Elven side wanted to chill.
“Awright, kiddo. Gimmie the symptoms list,” Taako felt his brow. Warm to the point of hot. He was feverish. Flushed cheeks. Dilated pupils… Uh oh.
“I feel real restless,” said Angus. “Like I want something, but it’s not here. Everything is wrong.”
Taako took a deep inhale of Angus’ scent. It had changed up to be abnormally appealing. It triggered Taako’s more intensive needs to care for this child of his. Fortunately, he made the will save to resist his stronger instincts. “Hungry?” Taako guessed.
“Starving.” Angus looked pained and he looked around the kitchen for the undefinable. “I know I just had breakfast, but I want… I want more…”
“Luume,” said Taako. “We knew it was coming.”
“I’m only seventy-five…”
Good thing one of them was keeping track of this business. “Yeah, and it could have come on at fifty, when you were still on the weedy side.” Taako slid across something high-calorie and easy to consume, which Angus fell on. “It’s okay. Papa’s got’cha.”
As Angus wolfed down his second breakfast, Taako found the spots behind his ears, where a particular nerve cluster could be stimulated to tell Angus’ raging instincts, Not Yet.
Angus relaxed so much he could have melted if he didn’t have bones. He leaned against his adopted Papa and began to purr.
Taako purred in response, sending a Fantasy Text to all the people who were expecting him to do shit today. Family emergency. Everything’s cancelled.
After that was done, his son had Taako’s undivided attention.
*
Angus woke in the cuddle cote. Warm, comfortable, and oddly exhausted. Papa was nearby and Angus wasn’t exactly inclined to let him go, just yet.
“Well done,” said Papa. “That’s a twenty-four hour pain in the ass over and done with for probably a decade. Good to know the humanman side of things eased it up for ya.”
Papa had forty-eight hours of instinctual overdrive followed by lazy lull. Angus had heard of Elves who suffered, and made the world around them suffer, for a full three days. Papa had the extra un-bonus of an unpredictable, erratic cycle that hit like a truck.
Angus tried to remember what he’d done. He rolled a one. “What’d I do?”
“Oh, you had an easy time, baby. It’s cool. I got to your ‘off switch’ so you slept through most of it. You had some good food, I watched a lot of Fantasy Netflix. What’s not to love?”
“Mmmh,” Angus wasn’t inclined to move. “Feel like I’ve been running a marathon.”
“Yeah, that’s what it does.” Taako offered him a straw attached to an enormous bottle of gator-aid. “Drink this shit. It really helps.”
It did. Angus could feel his brain revving back up to its full potential once more. “I have a whole decade before I go through this again, right? It’d be legal for me to… youknow… with someone.”
“Anywhere between five and ten years. The human side fucks a lot of shit up with your genes, baby boy.” Taako ruffled his hair. “And if you can’t say it, you definitely ain’t ready.”
A different kind of flush invaded Angus’ face. “…probably,” he allowed. “Did I go all… Cave-Elf? Like you do?”
“You had more vocab than me f'r sure. I had Lup cook up a bunch of those condition-adding muffins I used to feed you when you were tiny. You want?”
He was suddenly craving them, now. “That’d be lovely. Warm and with butter and cream?”
“And a steak for after.” Taako wriggled free. “You stay down. Your family’s got’cher back.”
“Good…” Angus yawned. It felt like a good nights’ sleep and some fortified meals were the best thing for him. “Good Papa…”
[AN: Found it! Things be FUBAR’ed so this is the real one. I need to think about this one because I promised my Tumbl into TAZ readers that nothing would be NSFW]
“Sir? I don’t feel so good…”
It was a definite bad sign when Angus referred to Taako as ‘sir’. He hadn’t done that for half a century or more. Definitely when he was mostly-grown and it finally sunk in that he had a place to belong. Taako put down his cooking and washed and dried his hands.
Angus was– what? Seventy? Eighty? He knew being half-elven screwed things up, sometimes. The human side demanded things go quickly, whilst the Elven side wanted to chill.
“Awright, kiddo. Gimmie the symptoms list,” Taako felt his brow. Warm to the point of hot. He was feverish. Flushed cheeks. Dilated pupils… Uh oh.
“I feel real restless,” said Angus. “Like I want something, but it’s not here. Everything is wrong.”
Taako took a deep inhale of Angus’ scent. It had changed up to be abnormally appealing. It triggered Taako’s more intensive needs to care for this child of his. Fortunately, he made the will save to resist his stronger instincts. “Hungry?” Taako guessed.
“Starving.” Angus looked pained and he looked around the kitchen for the undefinable. “I know I just had breakfast, but I want… I want more…”
“Luume,” said Taako. “We knew it was coming.”
“I’m only seventy-five…”
Good thing one of them was keeping track of this business. “Yeah, and it could have come on at fifty, when you were still on the weedy side.” Taako slid across something high-calorie and easy to consume, which Angus fell on. “It’s okay. Papa’s got’cha.”
As Angus wolfed down his second breakfast, Taako found the spots behind his ears, where a particular nerve cluster could be stimulated to tell Angus’ raging instincts, Not Yet.
Angus relaxed so much he could have melted if he didn’t have bones. He leaned against his adopted Papa and began to purr.
Taako purred in response, sending a Fantasy Text to all the people who were expecting him to do shit today. Family emergency. Everything’s cancelled.
After that was done, his son had Taako’s undivided attention.
*
Angus woke in the cuddle cote. Warm, comfortable, and oddly exhausted. Papa was nearby and Angus wasn’t exactly inclined to let him go, just yet.
“Well done,” said Papa. “That’s a twenty-four hour pain in the ass over and done with for probably a decade. Good to know the humanman side of things eased it up for ya.”
Papa had forty-eight hours of instinctual overdrive followed by lazy lull. Angus had heard of Elves who suffered, and made the world around them suffer, for a full three days. Papa had the extra un-bonus of an unpredictable, erratic cycle that hit like a truck.
Angus tried to remember what he’d done. He rolled a one. “What’d I do?”
“Oh, you had an easy time, baby. It’s cool. I got to your ‘off switch’ so you slept through most of it. You had some good food, I watched a lot of Fantasy Netflix. What’s not to love?”
“Mmmh,” Angus wasn’t inclined to move. “Feel like I’ve been running a marathon.”
“Yeah, that’s what it does.” Taako offered him a straw attached to an enormous bottle of gator-aid. “Drink this shit. It really helps.”
It did. Angus could feel his brain revving back up to its full potential once more. “I have a whole decade before I go through this again, right? It’d be legal for me to… youknow… with someone.”
“Anywhere between five and ten years. The human side fucks a lot of shit up with your genes, baby boy.” Taako ruffled his hair. “And if you can’t say it, you definitely ain’t ready.”
A different kind of flush invaded Angus’ face. “…probably,” he allowed. “Did I go all… Cave-Elf? Like you do?”
“You had more vocab than me f'r sure. I had Lup cook up a bunch of those condition-adding muffins I used to feed you when you were tiny. You want?”
He was suddenly craving them, now. “That’d be lovely. Warm and with butter and cream?”
“And a steak for after.” Taako wriggled free. “You stay down. Your family’s got’cher back.”
“Good…” Angus yawned. It felt like a good nights’ sleep and some fortified meals were the best thing for him. “Good Papa…”
“Listen,” Taako had explained. “It’s the last place they’d look because it’s the first place anyone would look. I got my wards refreshed and nobody is entering the grounds without prior permission. Hell, even the delivery guy knows to use the mailbox of translocation.”
It was with that moment that Agatha knew that all her other objections would be trampled over in the same rough-shod manner. The Treehouse, as the extended family called it, was Taako’s country retreat. He paid some locals to look after the place when he was off doing other things and, as near as Agatha could tell, it was still a fixer-upper.
Lightning had hit the upper branches at some point and shapers were still coming by to train the wild limbs into something like the tree’s original state. Just as others were re-training the wilderness of the estate grounds into the farm it used to be. All things considered, re-taming the riding deer was easy-going.
So far, only the three lowest levels had been modernised. The whole place was a work in progress. Labyrinthine, too, with hundreds of ways to escape and confusing passageways that took years to memorise. In other words, typical Elven architecture when the entire species was used to Elfism cropping up every three hundred years or so.
Taako’s cats took to it like ducklings to water, vanishing into the Elven Air Vents and hunting down vermin like they’d been born there. Agatha, on the other hand, had her doubts. Especially now that Taako was threading a grass bracelet with a wooden bead onto her wrist. The bead was Hazelwood, a common arcane channeling material, and a sigil had been inscribed onto the plain tan bead.
“What the fuck is this?”
“This is sort of adopting you into the family,” said Taako. “New children to the house get these. The wards won’t attack you, and if you’re scared, the willow lights will lead you to a place of comfort and security.”
“Willow. Lights.” Agatha repeated. “I’m sorry, Taako, but I’ve never heard of willow lights.”
“Think of your Uncle Fuckup for five seconds.”
His actual name was Phandro, and he was a powerful enough crime lord to strike at Agatha from within prison. Which was why she was in hiding in the first place. As her heart rate accelerated, a small, friendly-shaped form faded into existence. Beckoning her towards one of the many nooks in this house.
“How do you think the legends of will o’ the wisps got started? You better follow it before it sounds an alarm to your in loco parental.”
Agatha followed it to a comfy nook that lit up as she entered. Cosy pillows and comfort food and a little commode space and, once Taako showed her, the knowledge that there was a secret way out. She relaxed and the willow light winked out.
Taako was grinning. “We’re still restoring most of the old place, so the higher you go, the more likely it is you’ll find guarderobes and cobwebs and expired runes.”
“Why are they called ‘willow lights’?” Agatha asked, grasping for the straws of distraction. “This tree’s a Mountain Ygdrasi.”
“You already know the answer, you just want a conversation to keep your mind off things,” said Taako, seeing right through her. “Don’t worry about it. Our husbands are on the case and half the family is backup. We won’t even have to worry about where you can squeeze through.”
Because she was also five months pregnant with her first kid. Taako kept insisting it was twins despite ample evidence to the contrary. A family goof. “Yeah. A long, boring conversation about Elven history is just what I need to go to sleep right now.”
Taako summoned an Invisible Servant to bring a proper meal for her (all the healthy things, of course) and started regaling her about the long, proud history of Elven kind. Starting with how the first tribe-houses were willows, owing to their proximity to clean water.
Agatha was out like a light before she was quite done with dessert.
A sudden siren woke her. It was dark and the only light came from the runes. Mismatched eyes glowing in the gloom were open in panic. “Down the hatch, Aggie. They’re here.”
Agatha didn’t waste time arguing. She pressed the little hidden trigger that opened the hidden hatch. This particular passage was made for elderly Elves and thus made to accomodate a lowered dexterity score. She was grateful for that, and the beckoning figure that lead her through twisting passages.
She could hear random sounds. Voices of her family. Spells firing off. Agatha crawled faster through the twisting tunnels. Finally emerging in a cobweb-ridden cavern that had its own ululating howl. The only light was from the willow light and her bracelet. Carved figures in the walls scowled at her and unseen beasts skittered in the darkness.
“Intruder!” A ghostly Elf manifested out of a statue. “Intruder!”
Behind them was Uncle Phandro. He had a crossbow. Agatha tensed…
A loud rumble shook the entire place. An impossible rumble, because it was Taako purring and gently shaking her. “Hey. Hey, Aggie. Hey. Hey. You’re okay. It’s okay. It’s just a dream. Come on back.”
There was a willow light jiggling up and down above her. Saying something in Elven that could have parsed for ‘intruder’ in Common. It faded out as she came back to reality. The runes glowed around her, and Taako turned up the fairy lights that gave the midnight darkness more shape.
“You with me now, Aggie? Know where you are?”
“I’m in the safe cote. I’m safe with you. That… that was a nightmare.” She couldn’t let go of Taako, just yet. Her fingers dug into his hair and clothing and flesh alike. She couldn’t stop shaking. She couldn’t stop crying.
Taako rubbed her back as he purred. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s just a dream. You’re safe. Krav and Agnes are safe. Maggie and Merlot and Lup and Barold are out hunting them all down. It’s good. It’s good.” He disengaged one of her hands and guided it to a soft shape in the darkness. Neopolitan, the cuddle slut cat. She, too, started purring up a storm as Agatha flexed her fingers in the cat’s fur.
Neapolitan started kneading Agatha’s thigh, and little is realer than a cat making biscuits in squishy portions of one’s anatomy.
Taako held her long past the point where she stopped shaking, stopped crying, and stopped breathing so raggedly.
“I think I’m awake for a few more hours, yet,” she sighed. Think you’ll let me in your kitchen for eggs the safe way and some steak?”
“And some non-caffeinated tea,” added Taako. “Hot tea always helps you chill.”
The lights came up to pre-dawn levels of imitation twilight. It was fuck-off in the morning and the cats had the run of the house. The hearth made for cauldrons had been replaced with a Fantasy Aga that ran off the methane from the root system septic tank that also fed the tree. Nothing was wasted.
A cat or two had to be ousted so Taako could begin putting on the kettle and heating up a frypan. The warmth, the cats, and the gentle sounds of another being helped ground her. That, and the sensations of a McDonald-to-be kicking the living spit out of her liver.
Taako lit a few more lamps and warm light began to colour in an ancient kitchen. Generations of Elves had once cooked here. There was even a nook by the chimney for babies and sickly children to be near their parentals as they busied themselves with food. One of the near-feral cats had taken it over for her kittens.
Taako pressed a warm muffin into her hands while he prepared everything else. This was his way of showing love. Food, nicknames, and physical closeness. Agatha soaked them all up and returned his casual caresses with some of her own.
Just like the feral cats that lived here before Taako moved in, she too was being tamed. She, too, was getting used to a parental figure who was gentle and caring and, though a little broken in his own way, actively trying to be better every day.
“I’ve decided,” she said as Taako clattered about with eggs and kettles and frypans and teapots. “I’m going to try and be like you and Kravitz. You guys are way better parents than mine ever were.”
Taako “got something in his eye” for twenty whole minutes after that announcement. “Silly meldanel,” he said. “Makin’ me get stuff in my eye.”
Agatha decided not to tell him that she knew what that meant. He wasn’t ready, yet. All the same, it felt nice to be part of a better family.
[AN: Meldanel - “beloved daughter”, thanks to elfdict.com]
Everyone agreed that Agnes had to be the smartest baby in the world. She wasn’t even crawling when she made the connection between sounds and meaning. What she was currently having difficulty with was saying words that other people used. She stubbornly refused to speak anything but her own, personal language, and kept changing her mind about the grammar and lexicon.
Taako, babysitting because both her parents were off on one of their adventures, took her gibberish seriously. Carrying on a conversation using the tone of Agnes’ voice as a guide. He was also gently attempting to get her to say a real word or two.
“Aba ja wawi neh ninananana,” said Agnes. Complaining because she couldn’t climb the couch.
One of the cats was glaring at her, calculating when would be the best time to saunter away from her statistically sticky grasp.
“That is a steep couch,” Taako agreed, “and a very fluffy kitty. You and I both know that kitties don’t like it when you’ve been sucking on your fingers.” He added the suggestion, “You could climb on Uncle Kravitz,” who had, incidentally, read her Goodnight Moons so many times that he fell asleep.
“Eeeehhhhh…” Agnes whined.
“Yeah, that kitty’s gonna walk away from you and we know it, Aglet.”
The air tore, and Lup re-entered the mortal plane, swearing in Elvish. Her Reaper robes evaporated, and so did the red robes stuck to her lichy form, which she used to terrify the marks. “CUNTS,” was her final epithet before she dove into the pantry and the fantasy refrigerator for ingredients.
She started slamming things around and using all the possible Elven curses and repeating more than a few as she vented.
“Bad day at the office?” Taako asked. “And remember there are children present.”
Lup stopped throwing things around for a minute so she could peek over the back of the couch at Agnes and coo. “Heya pun’kin? How’s my favourite grand-niece? Is you bein’ a good humanman?”
Agnes giggled and jiggled and managed a two millimetre jump that caused the cat to decide that it was too close to Agnes. The cat yawned, stretched, and sauntered up to a higher position on the couch.
“Yeah, you’re havin’ fun now that Aunty Lup’s around.” She switched to Elvish. “These fucking cunts, Koko. The entire job was a moist, dark hole and loaded with syphilis. Absolute cunts. Diseased, stupid, spavined cunts. And they were the fucking worst to take down. Cunts!”
And that was the moment that Agnes decided to echo the most frequent word. “Ekee.”
There was a moment of tense silence.
Agnes jiggled and giggled. “Ekee! Ekee, ekee, ekee, ekee!”
“Great,” Taako singsonged. “The first word that actually sticks is a curse.”
“EKEE!”
“Agnes’ fault for leaving her with us two potty-mouthed nerds.”
“Ekee, ekee… ekee, ekee, ekee…”
“He’s still gonna blame us.”
“What do we do, bro?”
“Conk her out, lie like a rug, and pretend we had nothing to do with this?”
Lup leveled a glare at him. “You are talking about attempting to lie to the world’s greatest detective and the world’s best investigative reporter.”
“I get it. Dumb idea.”
“There’s still the hope that she’ll get bored and pick a new word.”
Lup brightened. “We… could… try to train her?”
Taako also brightened. “Let’s whip up a bunch of Aglet treats and give it a whirl.”
When Angus and Agatha returned to Casa de Taako, they found an interesting scene. One sticky daughter, jam and honey on her face, bracketed by the twins of song and story, each with a basket of gooey treats.
“Ma. Ma,” cooed Taako. “You say ‘ma-ma’.”
“Da da da da da da,” Lup enthused. “Da da da da.”
Angus looked to his wife, who looked back in a way that said, We both know something is up, and that something stinks. Aloud, he said, “Who did what, sir?”
Agnes let the cat out of the bag by saying her first word. “Ekee!’
The twins stood ramrod straight in instants and both pointed the finger of blame at each other.
“This really was inevitable, wasn’t it?” sighed Agatha.
[AN: thanks to this handy link: https://sa.obsidianportal.com/adventure-log/elven-curse-words for the lexicon]
Angus knew that look. That was the tired, cranky expression of someone who’d been working on one problem for way too long and had found way too many dead ends. He knew it well, having stayed up late through many nights, gnawing away at his own unsolvable mysteries. Taako had taught him the most valuable lesson of his life on one of those nights.
Now it was his turn to teach it to Agatha. Though he was allowed to do more groping since Agatha was his lovely wife.
His lovely, tired, cranky, irritated wife.
He leaned on her from behind, resting his chin on top of her head and draping his arms heavily over her own, thus impeding her movement.
“Babe,” she sighed, “Fuck off?”
“It’s half-past ten at night,” he said. “Sleep is more important than this, right now.”
“Fuck off, you’re heavy.”
Well. He didn’t want to hurt his beloved. Strategy B it was, then. Leaning on her wasn’t working. Angus fucked off, but only temporarily.
He prepared some nibbles. Taako’s patented stun-’em-at-forty-yards, better-than-a-sleep-spell hot chocolate, and those apple pancakes that were guaranteed to make anyone who could resist the hot chocolate very blinky indeed. He plated the pancakes up with clotted cream and some of her favourite compote.
Angus smiled as he waved the prepared tray under her nose. “Some refreshments, my love?”
Glare. She had bags under those beautiful dark eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do. No.”
He employed the Puppy Eyes. “Not even a liddle taste?”
The barest ghost of a smile crept through her overall grumpiness. “You’re trying to feed me Faerun’s next best thing to a plus ten sleep potion. No. You go eat it.”
Curses. Foiled again. He popped it up on a convenient shelf and plonked a preservation cover over it. “Fine. Seduction it is.”
“Angus…” she protested. Agatha wasn’t very enthusiastic about fending him off. She giggled as he kissed his way up her arm to nuzzle and nip at her neck. “Stop it…”
He stopped. “Come to bed? This will be better solved with rested eyes.”
“But I need to get this done…”
“By tomorrow?”
She bit her lip. “No. The story deadline’s next week, but…” she gestured at the evidentiary documents strewn over her thinking place. “This is clearly not enough to nail that slippery bastard to the wall.”
He slid his fingertips up through her hairline and began a slow massage. “We’ll work on this together, tomorrow. Don’t tax your reserves here and now, okay?”
Agatha murmured a note of pleasure and leaned back in her chair. “Mmmmmmhhmmmmmm… fine. I’ll eat your damn sleep potion pancakes and get some Z’s…”
He escorted her away from her work and made sure she did that. Chatted about silly nonsense until she was almost done and almost asleep on her butt. After that, it was a simple trip to their shared bed and into their nightclothes to hold her down until her brain finally caught up with the idea that sleep was the good thing, now.
Not that she protested that part. She’d done her fair share of holding him down until his brain finally engaged sleep mode. Fair was, after all, fair.
He woke to her jolting upright and yelling, “TAXES!” in the dawn’s early light.
Angus knew better than to get in her way as Agatha charged downstairs, shuffled through her papers, and then charged off to the privy because it was the early morning and certain things were necessary. He just prepared coffee and her best brain-food breakfast.
She took her bacon crunchy and dipped it into her coddled eggs as she worked on finding and collating all the tax information with her other hand. Things were going well, judging by the way she was saying, “Yes,” at ever-increasing enthusiasm and volume.
Agatha kissed him enthusiastically when she was halfway through her coffee. “We. Are. Geniuses. I love you.”
He just chuckled and said, “Love you too, babe.”
[AN: Why not both?]
“I’m too young to be the father of the groom,” Taako pouted.
Angus rolled his eyes. “Sir, if we waited until you were old enough, we’d both die of old age.”
“Nope,” protested Taako. “Don’t even wanna think about that part.”
Agatha broke the deadlock with, “Will you be my Honour Guardian?”
It was an old tradition that hardly anyone did any more. To choose someone to be their Honour Guardian meant that they were a closely treasured friend who could take the place of family. Someone they could rely on -according to the tradition- to keep the prospective bride or groom’s honour and safety intact.
In the bad old days, they were there to protect the bride from over-amorous grooms… or best men.
Taako was shocked and awed. The cat he’d been petting in an impersonation of the Fantasy Godfather mewled in protest at his sudden grip on his fur. Taako quickly petted that fur smooth by way of apology. “You… I haven’t… I’ve given you nothing but shit since day one. Why?”
“I know you think I’m taking your baby away from you, sir,” said Agatha. “I want it known to the Gods and everyone that I’m coming into your family, not breaking away from it.”
Taako blinked. “Well, naturally. Who doesn’t want into the Taako brand?” He was covering up. That blink said everything. That blink told Agatha that she had won a prize.
“Of course,” smiled Agatha. “I couldn’t be luckier to join your family.”
Taako entered negotiation mode. “Of course I’m catering. And co-ordinating. The two of you nerds have never touched a colour wheel in your life. You probably think red and green together are festive.”
Agatha knew better than to bring up Candlenights objection. “Catering and wedding planning? Are you sure this won’t stress you out?”
Ooh. Low blow. Kravitz and Angus winced together.
“Honey,” said Taako. “I’m one of the Seven fucking Birds. I fought the literal embodiment of nihilism. A simple family wedding is going to be cake.”
Hook, line, and sinker, thought Agatha. “I’ll help in any way I can,” she said.
She had never been the world’s wealthiest reporter, bearing the brunt of the lawsuits that resulted from her exposing the truth of several shady but elite characters. She had lived her life on the edges. But now… now all her snobby quote-unquote friends got to stew in their own bile.
She held her head high and shone like a diamond, blatantly ignoring all her fellow alumni from St Favisham’s School For Young Ladies as she sailed down the aisle in a confection of a dress that was still somehow simple elegance that cost far, far less than it looked like it cost.
And between her and her audience, taking the role of Honour Guardian seriously, was Taako. One hand on her elbow, and the other wrapped tight around the handle of his famous Umbrastaff. Daring any single one of them to say something vicious.
Kravitz was Angus’ Honour Guard, with his scythe in his free hand, he was definitely not a figure to contend with. Not that anyone was going to snark in Angus’ direction.
When her hands met with Angus’, Taako mumbled something and her dress burst into flowers, joined with Angus’ suit in tasteful bursts of blossoms.
“Should I blame him or should I thank him?” she whispered.
“Just be smug,” he whispered back. “Today is allegedly about you.”
With this man joining with her? Hell yeah, she could be smug. Just… one little correction. “It’s about us, you silly man.”
*
Awareness crept up on him like a thief in the night. Warm. Skin against bare skin. The scent of Sweet Nectar overlaying the dizzying scent of a fellow human being. A very attractive human being.
Her soft curls tickled his face and her skin, he knew, was very pleasant to kiss and caress.
It was later than he was used to sleeping, and Angus revelled in it. Soaked in the sensations of being next to his love without any kind of obstacle because they were married.
Mr and Mrs McDonald. She hadn’t liked being a Tremaine, and much preferred to distance herself from the lingering vestiges of that family. Pirates and thieves, all of them, but the kind who did their piracy and thieving within the letter of the law.
Angus loved that she began her career by exposing her immediate family’s crimes. He loved that she was witty and intelligent and so very, very capable against the combined forces of evil.
And he loved that he could prove it in a multitude of ways. Starting by kissing her awake and watching her yawn and stretch in his arms. She soon had him grappled in a similar manner.
“Good morning, Mr Tremaine,” she joked.
“Good morning, Mrs McDonald,” he cooed. “Shall I make you some breakfast? Or would you prefer to lie in?”
She giggled. “Knowing your lot, they’re ready to throw you some kind of congratulation party, just outside the door. Better put some clothes on, hm?”
They kissed. “The party can wait half an hour.”
“My stomach can’t,” she said, and it growled like a savage beast.
His echoed hers. “Fine. Pants, then breakfast, then canoodling.”
She shuffled into a long shirt. Long enough to reach her knees. “I’ll burn the bacon, you coddle the scrambled eggs.”
He grinned. “And then Taako will scream at us and cook us a real breakfast. A perfect plan.”
There was a muffled shout from outside the door, “Except you two goofs gave it away…”
The laughter was infectious. That’s what made it the best morning.
Challenge #02063-E239: Barry Critiques Them Afterwards — Steemit
Taako had been through many adventures. He had travelled across a hundred realities. He had bargained away his beauty, his health, and a skill to save the world. But this? This had to be the toughest fight of his life. For example, strictly off the top of his head, the fifteen-point landing he’d just endured because this particular band of necromantic chucklefucks had decided to sew together the corpses of several Large species to be their boss monster.
The only plus side was that it had killed several of them before Tres Horny Boys even got started. The minus side, naturally, was that he was down to zero hit points for the third time in this quote-unquote adventure.
Nearly dying just fucking hurt. At least unconsciousness swept it all away for a while. Not much of a while, because his family had learned to carry some health potions at long last for the benefit of the glass canon of the team. The rest of his team was clapping in the most sarcastic manner possible.