Instead of the umbrastaff trying to blast Kravitz off the moon it’s Lup spying on their date and sneakily trying to set his cloak on fire (Lup Lives AU)
Lup didn’t roll great on her stealth check, but that doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that she was a public nuisance – nice – and got back at her twin friend during his hot date. He might have laughed at her when she made the mistake of mentioning the fact that she thought the Red Robe had a cool voice, but she was the one to press her face up against the glass window of the Chug ‘n Squeeze and call him out on his goth predilections.
Taako was on a date with the actual grim reaper, he didn’t get to poke fun at her maybe thinking that a lich was pretty cool.
He had turned bright red and flipped her off, prestidigitating a shower of sparks right in front of her face as she laughed. Oh, the night was only just beginning.
As she watched, though – and plotted, because never let it be said that she didn’t plot – something in her gut twisted strangely. Taako actually seemed like he was cutting loose and having fun which, good for him, but he seemed...relaxed was the closest word that she could figure. His hat was placed on the stool next to him, and his shoulders were eased, and if he bumped into Kravitz with a grin his expression was so soft.
Lup frowned and wandered off because the fun of spying on her brother’s friend’s date had been strangely soured, and she ended up sitting against a tree on the quad. It was somewhere that Davenport sometimes sat, and even though he wasn’t there she still found it comforting all the same.
She had come up to the moon because she had been promised that she wouldn’t be alone, and she wasn’t. She was friends with Carey and Killian, and she had started to break down the walls that Madam Director had up, and Magnus and Merle were goofs but they were her friends. Taako, though, the two of them fit together in a way that she hadn’t ever experienced in her short life, and something felt strange watching him be that open with someone that he had known for maximum two hours.
Lup hadn’t known Taako for that long, but it felt like most of her remembered life anyway, and jealousy was an ugly emotion but maybe she was jealous. Her magic was simmering under her skin, antsy and powerful in a way that she didn’t have spells for, but she tamped that down as best she could. She wanted to be a nuisance, sure, but she didn’t want to ruin Taako’s date.
Speaking of, she watched Taako and Kravitz walk onto the quad, holding hands under the light of the real moon. Kravitz turned, and he was suddenly holding both of Taako’s hands as they just looked at each other, and before they could get any further Lup slunk back in the shadows a little more and snapped her fingers, and a tiny beam of flame raced along the grass until it caught the edge of the Reaper’s cloak.
Even from where she was, she could hear his voice and- well, that was a different accent, but hey, Taako always could pick ‘em weird. (She didn’t know where that thought came from, or why the word “always” felt so right) “I feel something-”
“I feel it too,” Taako cut in, and Lup could hear his grin, but Kravitz shook his head.
“No, it’s not that- I mean, yes, but also is that- is that smoke?” There was a squawk, and then Taako snapped his fingers and snuffed out the fire. It seemed like something that he was used to, strangely enough.
“Not anymore, my man,” and Lup peeked around the tree just in time to see Taako plant a kiss on a beaming Kravitz, and she wrinkled her nose and ducked back around. Not her place, and also, ew.
After a few minutes there was a tearing sound as a rip was cut between the planes, and soft goodbyes were said before Kravitz presumably stepped through and away.
Footsteps approached, and before Lup could get up Taako had plopped down next to her, dropping his hat on her legs. “Nice one there, Lulu.”
“Yeah, least I could do, Koko,” Lup said, grinning at the most important person in her life her friend. He had a dumb smile on his face and looked like he was ready to levitate a foot off the ground, and when she bumped her shoulder into his he jostled her back.
Some tightness in her eased, and even though they didn’t talk about much of anything – and she did definitely poke fun at his date choices, while simultaneously threatening to figure out how to destroy the Grim Reaper if things turned south – Lup felt more at home than she had in a long time.
Sitting there on the grass, legs pressed alongside each other, Lup felt like she truly wasn’t lonely.
