“Oh please,” Duck said, “You’re not a kid anymore, you can’t use that excuse.”

Jane grumbled. “That’s right!” she said in challenge, “I can fight back!” Jane darted her hands out to tickle Duck’s stomach instead, getting him to let go. “Ha! Jane Newton, Still the Undefeated champion!!”

“Most impressive!” Minerva said, still standing in the doorway and somehow not looking awkward, “Wayne Newton is a most formidable warrior.”

Jane raised her eyebrows. “Wayne, huh?”

Duck scowled at his sister, “Let it go Janey.” 

“I also wish to inform you, Jane Newton,” Minerva continued, “That I have no intention of robbing your house, even Wayne Newton’s action figures.” 

Jane smiled, “Oh, I like this one, Ducky.”

“Nope,” Duck said, shaking his head, “we’re not doing that.”

Jane ignored him and held out her hand to Minerva, “Pleased to meet you in person, Minerva.”

Minerva beamed again. “You as well, Jane Newton. I wonder, are you what people call, ‘a hugger?’” 

Duck could see three whole jokes pass through Jane’s head that she swallowed down. “Yes, I most certainly am--”

Minerva swooped Jane up into one of her classic bone-crushing hugs. Jane groaned as the air left her lungs, while Duck snickered at her pain. He’s been there, though he didn’t regret it. “Alright, honey, let her breathe.”

Minerva let Jane down, who staggered back. “Well. Damn,” Jane said, blinking at the hug. 

Minerva paused, “I hope I was not too forceful, Jane Newton. I’ve learned to ask permission first, but I have been told I have trouble holding in my incredible strength.”

Jane whistled. “Oh, I’m fine. Just fine,” she said, biting her lip. 

“Hey,” Duck shooed her into the house, “My girlfriend, you can’t have her. Stop it.”

Jane chuckled, walking into the hallway, and letting Duck and Minerva properly enter. Duck took off his shoes, Minerva mimicking him. “Forgive me for stalling out here. I was just trying to save you, Mom’s on the warpath, and--”

“Wayne?” they heard a call from the kitchen, “Is that you Wayne?” 

Duck sighed, “Hi Mom,” he said, “Minerva’s here too.” 

“Excellent, come in here and set the table!” His mother called. 

Duck sighed, taking Minerva’s hand and leading her to the kitchen. 

His mother was bouncing about from counter to counter, preparing at least 3 dishes at once. On sight of her son, she thrust a stack of napkins into his hands. “Good to see you too, Mom.”

She doubled back to kiss him on the cheek before dropping her phone onto the pile of napkins. “I’ve pulled up a video on how to fold them, follow it as closely as you can. Jane, check on the vegetables while I mind the turkey, and--oh goodness.” She had finally taken in Minerva. “Oh my deary, you’re much taller than you looked on Skype.”

Minerva took it in stride. “Yes, I am very tall in comparison to most hu--women.” she stopped herself from saying humans, and Duck could only hope his mother and sister overlooked it. “Some people have become intimidated, I’ve noticed, but do not fear. I am here only for peace.” 

Mrs. Newton’s face lit up. “Fear? Oh goodness no, deary. You’re perfect. Can you get the platters I’ve put on the top shelf there? I don’t fully trust my step stool, it’s rather old.”

“Certainly!” Minerva said, easily reaching up to grab it.

Duck smiled, taking the napkins into the dining room. He didn’t know why he worried. He should have known his family would take to Minerva just the same as he did.

He was still folding the first napkin by the time Minerva came in with a beautifully plated asparagus, complete with drizzles of sauce. “Are you having trouble, Wayne Newton?” Minerva asked. 

Duck sighed, “Sorry ‘bout my mom,” he said, “She tends to go all out, and goes a bit overboard in my opinion. I mean, this is a bit much for a simple Candlenights.”

“There is no need to apologize,” Minerva said, “I don’t really know much about your human traditions. What is Candlenights, anyway?”

“A trademark of Big Head Productions LLC,” Duck answered easily. Minerva blinked, as she did when she was trying to figure out if something was a joke or not. “Look, back when she left my dad, Mom had this huge falling out with her church, and felt...weird celebrating Christmas. So we celebrate this like, secular version that’s on this podcast she likes and connects a bunch of different holidays together. Hence the menorah,” he said, nodding at the candle that served as a centerpiece, “And the Thanksgiving turkey and New Years Eve poppers….its just a whole grab bag of winter holidays.”

Minerva nodded, “A brave thing to do, to leave a culture behind that had wronged her, and to start something fresh and new.”

Duck smiled, “‘Brave’ is a...nice way of describing mom,” he said, “She’s a character, for sure. Always liked to do things her own way. It’s funny, when I came out---” he stopped himself, reminding himself he hadn’t actually super had this conversation with his girlfriend yet. Most people already knew once they’d known him long enough, but Minerva didn’t know a lot of human culture or societal norms or...anything. 

“Came out of what?” Minerva asked, the only indication of how long he had stopped talking.

Duck took a breath, and summoned her over to his mother’s picture wall. There were two that were further back than a few years ago, the first of him when he was a baby….and the second of him with Jane when she was a baby. Except he had little pigtails and a yellow dress he’d hated wearing even that far back. “So, this is me,” he pointed at the young child holding up baby Jane. “Or...was me.” She frowned at him, not understanding the significance. “Ho boy, where to start. Um, so, when I was born….people thought I was a girl,” he winced, unsure how to explain western gender standards to an alien. Minerva always referred to herself as she, but he was unsure if that was a translation thing, or if her planet had the same gender norms or what.

“Why did they think that?” Minerva asked, innocently.

“I just…” Duck said, “Sometimes...that happens. People use the markers they have available before kids are old enough to really know themselves, and then...if they got it wrong, then those people---me---are called Trans. Like, transitioning. I’m a trans man.” She nodded. “But uh. Anyway. The point is, when they do the telling, it’s called ‘coming out.’ And...some parents don’t react well to it.” He smirked, “Not Mom though. She was ready to go toe-to-toe to anyone who gave me trouble about it. Gave me the name ‘Wayne’ too….that was quite the ordeal.” 

He frowned, but wasn’t seriously annoyed at the memories of Mrs. Newton being fine with helping to change the gender marker on his ID, but refusing to let him legally change his name to ‘Duck.’ in fairness, he was happy with just having Duck be a nickname now. Wayne Newton was something he and his mother bonded over, so it worked out well, a symbol for just the family.

“Then she is an honorable woman,” Minerva said, getting Duck to smile wider, “and a worthy commander, I must go and help with preparing more dishes to be served. Are you sure you don’t need help with the napkins?”

Duck sighed, mood souring as he turned back to the cloth that refused to fold like in the video. “Give me one more chance before I call it forfeit,” he said. She frowned again, trying to figure out if it was a joke. “I’ll be fine,” he told her, quickly jumping to his toes to kiss her on the cheek, “Go help, before she declares you AWOL.”

Minerva smiled, recognizing that one for a joke. She gave a salute, “Yes, sir!” she said, before marching back into the kitchen.

Duck smiled, watching after her. He gave one last look to the photo on the wall, the only one of him pre-social transition his mom kept up. Even that had come with a long discussion, but Duck wasn’t ashamed of being trans, and besides, the first pictures of Baby Jane were important.

There’s familiarity in hiding from love and from warmth and from light. And familiarity, Taako used to find, is comforting.

When everything else failed him and when the world treated him with almost calculated cruelty, he found it simple to take the hand of habit and treat it in the same way. The world was a game of chess, a game of strategy, and he never lost. He was never able to afford to lose. He was all alone, in this world that was dark and dangerous and cruel. He had no one to pick up the knocked over pawns. That was a lesson he learned years ago in Glamour Springs; a lesson he was reminded of in Refuge.

So when Istus changes her tune, naturally, he grows suspicious.

Merle says never to blame the Gods for suffering. But when they are so unknowable, Taako finds it difficult not to. Especially Istus; it’s all well and good being one of her emissaries, after all, but he finds it hard to believe that she can be the Goddess of Fate and yet have no control over the tapestry she weaves.

Of course, the parting of the clouds brings with it a little metaphorical sunburn. Yes, he gains back Lup, and sure, he’s reassured of Kravitz’s love. His family surrounds him, five other little birds, but it all hurts with the sixth there in the centre of it all, his little sister, a woman who stole everything from him for ten years, only to give it back when she got caught. Maybe Istus isn’t feeling so kind yet.

Neither is he, to be quite fucking frank. That kind of thing requires time that he has not yet had, and a fortitude he has had no reason to develop. The wound runs too deep.

Standing in his kitchen at only the Gods know what time shows him exactly how fresh it is, and not just the one she left him with. The light of the moon leaks in through the window, and three candles in the corner cast a strange, flickering light across the room, and Taako’s leaning over a counter trying desperately to catch his breath like he never learned how to breathe. The air in the room is thick and heavy as he tries desperately to push it into his lungs.

This is why he doesn’t fucking sleep any more. He doesn’t even need to do it, so why the hell he subjects himself to it is beyond him.

That’s the funny thing about grieving, and the odd thing about guilt. No matter whether or not a person thinks they might be over it, it never really goes away. Taako knows he isn’t responsible for what happened to those poor forty, and he knows his family is safe and alive and well. But whenever he closes his eyes, that mass grave still haunts his thoughts and all he forgot from those hundred years comes back to pester him in his dreams. He can’t seem to catch a break from it.

“Taako?”

He whips around so fast that he’s surprised the sound barrier doesn’t shatter around him, glamour up like a shield. Kravitz’s tired eyes greet him from the doorway. It makes something ache in Taako’s chest, seeing him this way. He grows more human by the day; skin warmer, breath deeper. He forgets that, while Kravitz is death’s emissary, he is a person and he is softer, gentler, now.

“Oh, Kravitz,” Taako says, as casually as if Kravitz had just come back from a trip to the Fantasy Costco. It’s a pretense he hides behind well; after all, he has had several years to practice, and several years to learn how to work through the guilt that bites at him for his dishonesty. He drops his glamour, but still throws out his best grin. “Bit early to be going to work, isn’t it, babe?”

Kravitz scowls.

Taako looks terrible. He has dark circles so deep that Kravitz wonders if he can feel where they indent his skin, and even in the dim light from the few candles in the corner of the room, Kravitz can see that his olive skin is at least a shade or two paler than normal. He looks ill, and that sends a spark of anxiety shooting down Kravitz’s spine.

“What’s the pout for, handsome?” His boyfriend’s voice catches him off guard. “M’ not allowed to grab myself some eats at three AM, is that it?”

Kravitz, of course, knows better than to go for the bait. “Not even close,” he says, pulling himself up to sit on the island in the middle of the kitchen. The granite is hard and glacial underneath him, but it takes away some of the stone-cold formality of what he wants to say, what he wants to talk about. “It’s your house too, love. You know I don’t mind. I’m just worried, that’s all.”

Taako’s jaw sets hard for just a second, almost imperceptibly. When his speaks, his voice is noticeably softer. “About what?”

“Well, you. This is, uh, extra, even as far as you go.”

“And what about it is extra, exactly?” Taako breezes past him, and in the dim light of the room, Kravitz thinks he spies that Taako’s face is just a little redder, a little puffier than usual. It’s also noticeable in the way that Taako begins to clatter around the place for something, anything to do to stop Kravitz from worrying that something is wrong. It hurts to watch. “Maybe ch’boy just wants some fucking pancakes, alright? That’s nothing to worry about, is it?”

“We’ve been over that already,” Kravitz says. “And the answer was no. But it isn’t that I’m worrying about.” He slides himself down from the countertop, deciding that this is no longer the type of conversation that he can force to be casual. Taako pauses at this motion, seeming to get what it means. The metaphorical gloves have come off. “Look, if you don’t want to talk, then that’s fine. But-”

“Fuckin’- don’t do this to me, bones,” Taako replies, voice a little thick. “Things’re fine, just- you know me. Takes more than a nightmare to take ol’ Taako down.”

Kravitz sighs. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“Fucking- that.”

“I’m not catchin’ your vibe, Krav.”

“Stop pretending you’re okay, Taako.”

Kravitz swears that all the air in the room turns to sponge when Taako puts the spatula in his hand down forcefully. He could probably hear the beat of a hummingbird’s wings, the silence left in his wake is so deafening. “I know you do it because you’re worried about me, too,” he continues, “even though you won’t admit as much. And you know that I’ll never force you to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. But please, for the love of the gods, stop pretending that everything’s fine. That just worries me worse.”

The silence doesn’t let up, and every moment that passes is another anxious knot that forms in Kravitz’s stomach. He is sure that this will go one of two ways, and neither one is pleasant. Either Taako will put up another wall, another fifty feet for Kravitz to scale, or all of the ones he currently has built up will crumble unceremoniously at his feet. Even though both outcomes make him feel a little sick with worry, he decides in an instant that he will deal with it, if it is what it takes.

However, Taako does something that Kravitz does not account for. He sighs, and his shoulders relax.

“Why didn’t you just fuckin’- just tell me that-” He seems unsure as to how to even start his sentence. And Taako is shorter than Kravitz to begin with, but in the low Candlelight, Kravitz swears that he has never seen Taako look smaller. “You know, I hate it when you’re right. But I don’t- I don’t think I do wanna talk.”

Not yet, anyway. He doesn’t doubt that it’ll all come out on another morning just like this one. Uglier, more raw, less restrained. He’s already had some times like that, but Kravitz has not yet been privy to them all. He thinks that this will come with time. And a warm relief settles in his chest when his boyfriend nods and his hunches are confirmed.

“You got it.” Kravitz dithers for a second. And then, wordlessly, he opens his arms in Taako’s direction.

One thing that Kravitz understands about Taako, even for their comparatively short time together, is that Taako is not massive on physical affection in these situations. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule; the plate of sapphire on Phandalin, Carey and Killian’s wedding, their evening at the Chug N’ Squeeze. But under this circumstance, raw emotional vulnerability is not something Taako handles well. It’s a little bit of a surprise when Taako regards this posture, meets Kravitz’s gaze, and slots himself into the open space in Kravitz’s arms.

They stand like this for what is probably only a few minutes. Kravitz feels as though he could hold Taako forever, though. He doesn’t say this.

“Taako,” he says instead. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Taako whispers, without hesitation, because it’s the truth. He laughs, and the sound is just a little bitter. “Should fuckin’ act like it, shouldn’t I?”

Kravitz, though, does not laugh. He simply shakes his head. “Sometimes, that just isn’t how things are wired,” he says softly, pressing a kiss to the top of Taako’s head. “And that’s alright. We can rewire it, no sweat. It’s not as if we’re on a time limit here, my love.”

“Does five or six hundred years count as a time limit?”

This time, Kravitz does laugh, and it warms Taako’s veins. “Well, yeah,” Kravitz says, “but I’m literally an emissary of death herself. I think I can pull a few strings to get us a bit longer.”

Taako grins. “Tight.” And then, after a moment’s pause, “Does that mean we have time for me to make these fucking pancakes? Because I don’t know about you, but I’m not really in the mood to go back to sleep.”