Okay okay i have one: Taakitz, Fake Relationship? Like to make a relative happy or to piss odd a crotchety homophobe. Ofc they had Feelings the whole time
Oh man, okay! Thank you for the excellent choice of prompt! I am not entirely sure on the mechanics of this AU - is it an always!Faerun au? A two-suns planet non-Hunger au? WHO KNOWS, but we’re rolling with it! Oh my god this got long.
“You can’t borrow Barry, I’m using him,” Lup tells Taako mercilessly. “Barry is a babe who doesn’t mind looking pretty while I do the heavy lifting. Drag along one of the others.”
Taako scoffs. “Please. Half of them are chucklefucks who’d throw off my game and the other half would drink the cooking wine and bitch about its vintage. Who the fuck decided this class had to be a couple’s only gig? That’s fuckin’ bullshit, my dude.”
Lup shrugs, tosses a grape in her mouth. “You open a cooking school, you can prohibit couple’s classes. Y’wanna borrow Kravitz? Bet we could bill it as workplace bonding time.”
Despite himself, Taako considers it.
--
“Oh!” Kravitz says, flustered and faintly red. “Uh, I’m no good in the kitchen, but uh, sure, if it would help. I’ll go.”
“Rad,” Taako replies and throws in a wink for good measure, and ignores the faint flutter in his chest.
--
Cooking isn’t fucking romantic. It can be, Taako is no stranger to wooing people with food, but it’s a goddamn crime to act like that’s a good way to learn it.
Take Lup and Barry, the next bench over, where Barry stands with perpetual hearts in his eyes while Lup tosses through the drawer with an expert eye. They’ve got their vibe figured out, but it’d be a disaster if they were actually here to get Barry some mad cooking skills.
So yeah, Taako’d rather be doing this alone. Or hell, even with Lup, because they still work in perfect, unconscious synchronicity.
Instead, he’s working with Kravitz, who admittedly seems pretty chill and pretty fuckin’ handsome, all dark dreadlocks and crisp shirtsleeves. Awkward and anxious, too, cutting Taako occasional glances like he’s worried he’ll upset their cooking station if he leans on it.
Not that he’d mind, really, going on a date with Kravitz, checking out the maybe-vibe Taako thinks he’s picking up, but he’s thinking that’s more of a wine-and-pottery dealio, not a fucking cooking workshop. But Taako wants those good good Halfling pastry secrets, so they’re doing this.
“You ready, my fellow?” Taako asks him, glancing up from testing the edges of the knives.
“Bit late if I’m not, isn’t it?” Kravitz replies with a crooked, charming smile - it could be the edge of flirtatious, but Taako doesn’t want to read too much into it, not yet.
--
“Would you like me to chop the coriander for you?” Kravitz offers, two nights in.
“Hell yeah,” Taako agrees, flashing a brief, sparkling smile, and then, because the instructor is glancing at them, tacks on, “babe.”
It’s always been Lup’s endearment more than his, and it feels awkward on Taako’s tongue, strange to apply to this co-worker of hers that Taako finds devastatingly attractive.
Kravitz just smiles back, red and a little bashful, and holds his hand out so Taako can hand him the right knife.
--
Barry and Lup have gone rogue and are no longer even pretending they’re equally invested in the class. Barry sits perched on a stool, elbows on the bench, and chatters about optimal angles in necromantic magic arrays while Lup hums sounds of interest and applies her wicked knife skills to a fatty cut of chicken.
It’s fuckin’ adorable is what it is.
Taako thinks about asking Kravitz if he’s elbowing in on some romantic opportunities, asking this favor, but Kravitz doesn’t seem wistful when he glances over, just amused.
“If cooking’s not your jam, what is?” Taako asks instead, a normal get-to-know you question. A normal new-relationship question.
“Jamming,” Kravitz says, a little dryly and a little too self-amused. He’s trying to slice nuts like a tomato, but he’s trying to be helpful, and Taako is more amused than disdainful. “I, uh, I play a couple instruments. Also card games.”
“Cool, cool.” Taako nods, wondering how long it’ll take Lup to find that out and rope Kravitz into Music Time. He shifts absently into Kravitz’s space and sets his hand on top of Kravitz’s, tilting the angle of his knife. “Oh boy. Boy howdy, that’s a clammy one. Look, uh, here’s the thing, you just rock the knife like this, yeah, you’re gonna chop ‘em with like, half the effort.”
Lup and Barry’s situation is so weird, Taako forgets sometimes, what death means. What dead means. But Kravitz doesn’t pull away, and Taako leaves his hand there for a moment more.
“Thank you.” Kravitz looks over and his smile is so soft.
--
“You, uh, don’t have to answer, obviously,” Kravitz prefaces, giving Taako plenty of space, and deftly brushes pastry with egg wash. “Taako, why do you do all this, uh, freelancing? It seems like you could do something, I don’t know, safer? Steadier?”
Taako is a fuckin’ master of Transmutation, let slip to Kravitz that he’s top of his field, has enough cooking cred that he could open a culinary academy, has a fucking PhD in philosophy while he’s at it. Flip wizard, hella combat expert, pretty damn good alchemist for not even minoring in the subject. Taako loves the spotlight, and Taako is good out here.
“I’m worried I’m gonna fuck it all up,” Taako says, easy as breathing, and transmutes the cinnamon to nutmeg, tastes it to be safe. “Like, fuck, y’know?”
Kravitz, incredibly, nods. “I’m, well, that’s a lot of honesty. But, yeah, I, uh, I get that. I mean...”
“I getcha, my dude.” Taako does, though. Taako knows Lup and Barry and the whole Raven Queen deal. It’s not easy stuff. Lup and Taako are still always ready to go off the grid, and Barry doesn’t seem to think it’s weird - they’re fucked up people, Kravitz probably has some fucked up shit, too. “We’re just doin’ what we can to get by, like jugglin’ fuckin’ chainsaws or some shit. That’s a Taako original, don’t wear it out.”
“I won’t,” Kravitz replies, laughing.
“Don’t get so distracted you don’t get to finish your dish,” the instructor chirps from behind them, but she’s smiling and gives them a wink, like they’re a legit couple, and it’s only then that Taako realizes how close they’re standing.
--
“So, my guy,” Taako says, out in the cold behind the community center, last class over.
“Mmn, yes?” Kravitz, wrapped up in black wool, a faintly shiny purple handknit scarf peeking through the collar, hands shoved in his pockets even though he can’t really be cold.
Taako could just walk away with a thanks and head home with his Best People, squishing in on Barry’s other side and giving him and Lup shit about all their PDA. He could just see Kravitz next time he dropped by after work, or at some weird metaphysical reaper work party. Fuck that, though.
“Y’wanna hit up the Chug’n’Squeeze next weekend?” Taako asks, slouching further into his own coat, left open over about five layers of cardigans and scarves. With Kravitz, there’s no real temptation to tilt his ostentatious wizard’s hat to shade his face, which is weird, but cool. It’s good. “Just pleasure, this time.”
Kravitz lights up, a warm smile crossing his face, sincere and sweet. “I’d love that. I had, um, I had a lovely evening, you know. Even if it wasn’t, uh, strictly pleasure this time.”
“S’cool, ch’boy did too,” Taako says, and leans up to kiss Kravitz’s cheek. “Listen, it’s cold as fuck, so Taako is not good out here, for once, but, uh. Hey, I’ll catch you this weekend?”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Kravitz promises, and catches Taako’s hand, pressing a cool, soft kiss to his palm before turning to slash open an interdimensional portal.
Taako rocks back on his heels to watch him go, warm.
soupdrag0n replied to your post: trip to london and mcm in may is almost completely...
I’m gonna try and make it to MCM in May so I can meet up with you again!!!!!
aaah, that would be so great! i still remember the first time i met all of you guys at that one october con a few years back, bc you were (and still are) my senpais and i was really sort of star struck by meeting you hahaha
My Jurassic Park mug!! It is unfortunately broken now, but I will continue using it til the day I fucking die. Here it is in its hey-day
17. Fruity or herbal teas?
The only tea I drink is black breakfast tea, I’m not fond of the herbal flavours I’ve tried before.
27. What section do you immediately head for when you walk into a bookstore?
Tbh depends on the bookstore! Generally I go for the graphic novel/comic/manga section, then I’ll drift towards horror/crime/true crime.
28. What’s one thing you’re trying to learn/relearn in your downtime right now?
Nothing right now, as I’m preoccupied with desperately trying to finish my dissertation, and then I have some essays to write. Once I’m done with that stress lockdown will probably be over, but I’m gonna get back to my Italian lessons, and when possible, I’m gonna start playing piano again! I can’t wait to have time to do that. i haven’t had time or access to a piano in 3 years, since I started uni.
soupdrag0n mentioned you on a post “I want to see a big screen adaptation of The Secret History as done by...”
@annaobyrne right??????? I’m obsessed and I won’t rest until it happens
the Melodrama,,,,the Opulence,,, the Yearning,,,,the Hubris, Chaos, and Tragedy......mixed with his Aesthetics,,,,,he’d cast the Sexiest henry he could..........he’s the only director i’d Trust
