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Chapter Text

The first time Taako walked into Klarg’s office (and it was an office, despite looking like a cave: he had a file cabinet and his favorite tea cup said “Good Boss,” scratched in goblin runes. It didn’t matter that he had scratched them in himself), Klarg was immediately furious.

He was furious a lot these days. Anger was both an appropriate and useful tool to get him through each day: appropriate because it was the only response to circumstances that had led him to Wave Echo Cave that didn’t leave him feeling empty and broken. And it was useful because, well. When he was angry, nobody could tell anything was wrong with him. Nobody could tell what had been done to him. And when he was white-hot with rage, his head stopped aching. In the moments when he could be full of righteous fury, a towering pilar of fire directed at a small point directly in front of him (usually a goblin under his employ, unfortunately), he was free of the terror about his family and what experiments they were still going through in that lab so far away.

So when three “adventurers” sauntered into his life uninvited, he got angry.

For one thing, they were interrupting teatime.

Klarg had been working for months to persuade his foremen that teatime was a vital part of every employee’s day, goblin and bugbear alike. It had only been in the past week that they had been coming to his office of their own accord at midmorning teatime, which was easier for Klarg than having to chase them through the mines and tie them to a stake while the tea brewed. 

Turned out his middle managers were partial to Lapsang souchong, which was strong and a little smoky. In retrospect, it was perfect for the mine’s general ambiance, and Klarg was embarrassed he hadn't tried it sooner. Maybe someday he’d build a skylight and be able to brew some Earl Grey. 

Of course, Klarg’s vital teatime ponderings were shattered by the trio of idiots invading the mine, walking shoulder to shoulder in feigned slow motion. The short one, a dwarf, hollered unintelligibly as he entered, swinging his axe around as it flashed different neon colors. The tall one, a muscular human (more muscular than Klarg himself? Hard to say) held a loaded shortbow with the string pulled back -- he clearly had no clue that such a weapon was at least as dangerous to himself as it was to his enemies in these close quarters. And the middle one, an elf of average height and a heavyset build shooting sparks out of his wand was, well. 

At setting eyes on the wizard, his anger felt a little different. The three were out of line, sure -- this was a dangerous mining operation, not an open world fit for exploration -- and he should be angry about that, but there was something else.

Their wizard was attractive, infuriatingly so.

Klarg’s rage had a new, dangerous undercurrent. It wasn’t even the way he looked, which isn’t to say he wasn’t beautiful. Taako’s beauty was different from anything Klarg had ever seen: it was grounded and soft, but at the same time bright and ethereal. His eyes twinkled like bright stars, mischievous, but also soulful and hooded. His skin, a dark umber, nearly glittered in the shower of sparks and strobing colors from the dwarf’s axe. His dark hair was intricately woven together in various braids and decorated with several small purple glass beads. His fashion sense was stunning, all soft and slouchy with clashing patterns and bright colors that set Klarg’s teeth on edge. But that wasn’t what Klarg found so infuriating at first glance.

No, what made Klarg actually angry was the way Taako carried himself, strolling forward without a care in the world, wand showering out clearly useless sparks.

He had a bemused expression on his stupid beautiful face, almost like he had just had a nap and was pretty entertained at what had happened while he was sleeping. He stood with one hand on his hip, almost aggressively relaxed. Just looking at him, Klarg’s brain started to fizz in that very unpleasant way. Klarg grabbed that feeling and tamped it down, replacing it with full-on blinding rage.

“Hello, friend!” the wizard called out, blinking slowly behind the shower of sparks. Klarg’s heart dropped down to his belly. His voice was lilting and luscious. The other two hissed at him.

The wizard amended his greeting. “Hey, Jerk!” he called cheerfully.

Klarg didn’t know exactly what to do in that moment. They were probably here to kill him: adventuring parties were like the third major cause of workplace deaths and injuries in Wave Echo Cave. That said, he would have no trouble dispatching these guys. They were clearly amateurs, or at least very bad at this whole intimidation thing, and they didn’t look like they had much in the way fight training.

He didn’t want to kill them, though, and he was afraid that if he started fighting them he wouldn’t be able to stop.He was so angry he didn’t trust his own rage. He wanted to punch something he couldn’t hurt until his brain quieted down and he could string three words together in a coherent sentence. Then, after he had spent his anger and his strength punching a wall, he wanted to take a few moments to do conscious breathing exercises. Next he could brew up some tea, and have a nice sit-down chat with them. Maybe he would learn the wizard’s name.

But things were moving too fast. He didn't have the time to explain that he had to go punch a wall for a while or else everyone here would be in danger. What if he got angry and snapped their necks instead? What if they (he, the wizard, that’s the one he was concerned about) said no to tea?

Luckily Percival decided for him. The wolf came charging out from the back of the cave without being called, and attached himself to the dwarf’s neck. The dwarf twisted, throwing him off fairly easily.

Klarg had to say something, or else this would devolve into a fight and there would be a lot of dead bodies on his hands. He fought to get the words out.

“Whoa,” Klarg said. “Klarg is amazed by your power!”

Klarg kicked himself. That wasn’t what he meant. That wasn’t half of what he meant. He meant that he didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he would if he had to. He meant that the wizard was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, that the wizard could have power over him. He also meant that he had an issue with anger management and it made normal communication difficult without lots of calm space to collect his thoughts.

Of course he couldn’t get all that out in time. The human grabbed Percival and threw him directly onto the hot coals.

What a jerk.

“Call him off,” the human said, pointing to Percival, who was smoldering and hiding behind Klarg’s legs.

Klarg boggled at him.

“You threw my wolf in the fire!” Klarg shouted, grabbing the too-hot handle of the kettle to physically restrain himself from ripping this man limb from limb.

“And I’ll do worse if you don’t stop him,” the human man threatened.

“But he’s my favorite wolf!” Klarg said, “and you threw him in the fire, though.” Couldn’t the man see that Percival was no longer a threat?

“Then call him off or lose him forever!”

“But he’s my-” Klarg began, and looked down at Percival, who was rubbing at his nose and growling at the three intruders. “You threw him in the fire!”

“He attacked my friend,” the man said.

“I attacked your friend,” Klarg said, and that wasn’t exactly what he meant. He meant that Percival was very protective -- that he should have realized that and stopped this confrontation before it even began. But he’d been so distracted by the wizard...

“Then you’ll meet the same fate,” the man said.

Oh, good, so he was an idiot as well as a jerk.

“You can’t pick me up,” Klarg said, “I’m way bigger than the wolf was.”

“Fellas, fellas, fellas! We came here to talk,” the dwarf interjected.

“You should have thought about that before throwing my wolf in the fire!” Klarg shouted. He could feel his anger like a stoppered tea kettle inside of him, the pressure was building and building and-

“Please?” asked the wizard, and it was like he had taken the stopper right out of the spout. Klarg’s entire being flooded with relief as he turned to look at him once more.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” Klarg thought to himself. If he said it aloud it might actually work, that might end the whole dumb fight. He opened his mouth to say it just as Percival saw an opportunity.

Percival jumped at the human man, but Klarg called him off at the last minute using a hand signal. The attack went wide, and Percival came scampering back. 

Of course, this set the goblins off. Knoxt and Badink had short enough fuses as it was, and with teatime interrupted like this, they were liable to hurt somebody. Klarg heard the twang of two bowstrings and the brief whistles of two arrows. His bowmen were always accurate, and the arrows flew true. One struck the human fighter in the chest, although it looked like he had decent armor, so it probably wouldn’t kill him. Klarg was a little glad he was hurt, though.

Serves him right for throwing Percival in the fire, Klarg thought.

The other arrow had found its target, though, and had grazed past the elf wizard’s shoulder, drawing enough blood to be worrying. Klarg wanted nothing more than to sit down with everyone and wait for the fire to burn down to embers. He kept imagining brewing the tea for the wizard, he could offer him some healing salves, and bandage his wounds. Maybe the wizard would take his hat off and let Klarg pet his hair. Maybe the wizard would pet him. 

But how could he get from here to there? His brain was firing all at once and it was all he could do to restrain himself from knocking out the human fighter, or clawing Badink for injuring the wizard. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t figure out how to diffuse this situation that had gotten so thoroughly out of hand.

And then, suddenly, calm. Clarity. He felt like he had just inhaled the first floral notes of a jasmine green tea while watching the leaves unfurl from their pearls, one by one. He breathed deeply for the first time in what seemed like forever, and exalted in the feeling of careful clarity, of mindfully being present in the moment. He let go of the blame of the situation, and found that he could act without needing to quiet the cacophony in his head. He was still himself, still Klarg. He was just a version of himself that he thoroughly enjoyed. He looked at the elf wizard and found the corners of his mouth curling up without even thinking.

“Klarg, call them off,” he said, and Klarg was so distracted by the curve of his lips, plush and with a slight quirk on one side that Klarg found utterly, well, charming.

“Sorry, what?” Klarg asked, aware that he had just missed something important (but what could be more important than his mouth right now at this instant? Klarg could not tell). 

“Call your wolves off,” he said, still quirking that strange smile.

“Oh. Oh, yeah,” Klarg said. “Percival, come back. Come to daddy.” Percival scampered over, what a good boy.

“Klarg, my name is Taako,” Taako said. The wizard had a name! Taako. Klarg liked the way it sounded in his head. Staccato flick of the tongue, followed by a hard k in the back of his throat. He tried it out, whispering to himself. 

“It’s a pleasure. It’s really, really, super great to meet you,” Klarg said.

“I feel like we’ve known each other for ages,” Taako said.

“I feel that way… too,” Klarg said, and he meant it. “Do you need any… money or anything? Can I give you all of the things I have?”

“There will be time for that later. Listen, we have a bit of a situation that we wanted to loop you in on,” Taako said.

Klarg remembered his manners, finally.

“Do you want some oolong?” he asked, gesturing toward the tea set still resting by the fire.

“No, we don’t have much time,” Taako said. Klarg didn't quite understand his insistence that there wasn't much time. Didn't they have all the time in the world? Time enough, surely, for tea?

After introducing his traveling companions -- Magnus, the tall human fighter and Merle, the short dwarven cleric -- Taako told Klarg that one of his most trusted middle managers had been plotting to kill him. It was inconceivable. Klarg was a good boss, maybe prone to mood swings, but he was fair. He tried to treat his employees with respect. And he invited them all to teatime, whether they liked it or not, on a rotating basis.

Klarg called Yeemick into his office. It would be the short work of a few moments to sort out the misunderstanding. Truth be told, Klarg was grateful for the opportunity to have an honest discussion about his management style and how he could improve. 

Yeemick entered into his cave office with two other goblins. All three of them had their weapons drawn, which, Klarg had to say, was a bit strange for a general human resources meeting.

“Yeemick!” Klarg said, “I have heard the most fascinating story about you.”

Yeemick looked directly at Klarg, pulled back on his bowstring and fired a round directly at Klarg. Magnus lunged, trying to put his shield between the arrow and Klarg, but the arrow flew true, piercing his side.

Klarg stared at the arrow jutting out of his chest. He reached down and plucked it out. It didn’t hurt-- not really. His mind was mostly focused on Taako, over behind the door, and the task at hand.

“Oh,” he said, serenely. “So that’s how it is,” he said, and reached behind his desk. He pulled out a morning star and javelin.

He was calm, so calm, in the face of this betrayal. He was hurt that his employees thought so little of him. If they had concerns about how he managed the operation, they should have come to him. He could have taken constructive criticism on his work style, perhaps negotiated for better working conditions up the chain, or updated the teatime menu. He could have made these changes and more had Yeemick not decided to ask these adventurers to kill him.

While he stabbed his javelin into Yeemick’s heart, a lonely thought made it through the calm. I thought I could build a new family, it said. 

It blotted out a smaller, sadder thought, which wasn’t really even a thought at all. It was more of a feeling: what would death feel like if you were killed by him? If that was what he wanted? But as Klarg watched Yeemick bleed out on the ground, he had no room in his head for anything else. His utter calm infused with a sense of betrayal, flowing like the tendrils of black tea steeping in hot water. 

Together, he and the adventurers fought the remaining goblins, dispatching them one by one. Five of his employees, turned against him. He had tried so hard to be a good boss, to drink tea with them and listen to their problems. He knew about Knoxt’s trouble with her estranged goblin offspring, and about Badink’s bum knee. Boy, he wished he didn’t have to murder them. 

But he did. So he killed them, efficiently and without cruelty.

“Oh! I forgot,” Klarg said, after the fighting was done. “I promised you guys so much money.”

Klarg had always had a generous soul, or at least his mother used to think so. He wanted to give them (well, him) everything he had. He wanted to share it all. 

“I believe there was talk of tea?” Magnus said. 

Klarg could barely contain his excitement. 

“Oh my gosh, I have so much! I have a lot to share, if it’s something you’re actually interested in-”

“You know what?” Taako said, wiping a smear of goblin blood from his cheek with a dainty sleeve. He didn’t get it all, but it didn’t matter. The gesture had given Klarg a moment to notice his freckles, which had been hard to see at first. A tiny and unexpected constellation spread across his beautiful face. Klarg was lost for a moment, tracing constellations with his eyes.

Taako didn't notice him staring. “A cup of oolong would be a delight,” he said.

“Oh, fantastic,” Klarg said, overjoyed. He had something to give Taako, that was all that mattered. He delighted in the scenes that flashed through his mind one after the other: Klarg inviting Taako to make himself comfortable on Klarg’s favorite chair while he filled the kettle with water from the waterfall, placing the kettle directly over the still-smoldering coals, the light of the coals dancing in Taako’s eyes, Klarg licking his thumb-pad and delicately wiping the remaining dried goblin blood off Taako’s face, Taako looking up at him with that small smile on his face, breathing deep and inhaling the wafting aroma of the steeping tea leaves.

“Scones?” Merle asked, breaking the spell and also Klarg’s heart.

He didn’t have any scones to offer, and he couldn’t make more. The cave kitchen had run out of flour about a month ago. The goblins were gluten intolerant, by and large, and any attempt to bake teatime snacks had gone unappreciated at best and actively ridiculed at worst. He had left it off the order when he requisitioned new supplies.

Of course, now that he had guests, they wanted scones!

“Oh my god, no,” Klarg said, looking at Taako to gauge his reaction. “I can run out and get you some,” he said, urgently.

“Oh no, it’s okay,” Merle said. “I’m diabetic, I couldn’t eat them anyway.”

“I just feel so terrible,” Klarg said, chin to his chest.

“You just look like a scone guy is all,” Merle said.

He wanted to tell them that he was a scone guy, that he’d always been a scone guy, that he wasn’t very good at baking anything, but scones in particular always often came off the coals too brown on the bottom and still wet inside, but he was getting better, he was, it was just really difficult to focus most of the time. Except… for now. Except when he was looking at Taako.

“I’ll just go and get the tea then,” he said, and grabbed the tea kettle. He walked down the cave to the waterfall, and filled it exactly right for four cups of tea. When he returned, Taako was sitting in his favorite chair. It made Klarg’s heart swell to see it. He set the teakettle on top of the coals and set about making the best oolong he had ever made.

Chapter Text

Klarg sipped his Oolong and stared into his fire. It was all he wanted to drink these days.

After things in the cave went… bad, he had to leave. He packed up his few belongings (mostly sachets of tea, honestly) called Percival to him, and walked away from Wave Echo Cave without looking back. The first night he saw the gathering clouds low in the night sky light up with a red glow over Phandalin, and he decided to keep walking through the night. 

Percival hiked with him for many miles, over mountaintops and through valleys, sharing his fire. But Percival was a wolf, and he needed a pack. When a pack of wolves disturbed their camp, Percival challenged the leader to a fight of dominance and won handily. Klarg gave him a quick wave goodbye as he left with his new family.

Must be nice.

After that, Klarg walked alone. He didn’t really know where he was going, except “away.” It was the only familiar direction.

Klarg hiked up another peak. When he got to the top, he’d go right back down the other side. But first he’d sit and look at the view over a nice cup of oolong.

Klarg built his fire with the same care he took while making a cup of tea. Methodically, he gathered together the fuel he'd need and set about making his fire. He built a tiny pile of dry kindling and rubbed sticks together until they created a tiny coal. He used that to light the kindling and sat and fed his fire bigger and bigger sticks until it blazed. He sat and watched it until it was nothing but coals, and he set the kettle on to boil. 

Most people steep tea too long. Klarg never made that mistake. Even when he was so angry his hands shook, he was conscientious, measuring the tea in one quivering palm, bringing the pot to just under a boil, and steeping for precisely the right amount of time. Even when it felt like ants were crawling under his skin and his head was too hot to handle, he could do this.

Oolong is fussy with its timing. Some varieties do best with a quick rinse and then a few moments of steep time, just long enough to take six deep breaths before Klarg had to remove the leaves from the water. Some varieties took much longer, time enough for twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six deep breaths. Klarg tried them all, sat and closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of the tea leaves and tried to let himself be. Just be.

The red hot anger that ached like coals in his chest made it difficult. But it also sometimes made it easier to lose himself in the feeling, breathing deeply, imagining lungs were a forge stoking that white-hot fire. When he was that angry he could feel the fire burning all the way down his body, yellow and then orange and then red, all the way to the tips of his claws.

He had been a child once, with a family and a home. He remembered that much. He remembered warmth, the smell of fresh leaves in the spring. He remembered moons floating in the sky above their cave.

Then the man had come. They should have eaten him.

The man had come, and he made them fall asleep. When Klarg woke up, all those years ago, he was in a room with smooth metal walls. His sister was there, their parents were not. He and his sister huddled together, quaking, when the man came.

The man had made them fall asleep again, sort of. It was a waking sleep. Klarg remembered being strapped down to a table face first. He remembered feeling no pain as the knife sliced into his neck, watching someone’s blood -- his, he now knew -- run down the leg of the table. The pain would come later.

But even though there was pain, there was also calm, the serenity of a perfectly still pond in the moonlight. He hadn’t felt that kind of calm before. He had been chasing it ever since.

Enough. Klarg drained the last of his tea and stood up to walk again.

He tried not to think much about anything. Thinking about things was bad. Most things still made him angry, made him want to rake his claws against his own skin and roar to the sky in rage. That’s how it had been, ever since he got into the tussle with Christie back at the lab. He’d gone back to being wild, and he’d run away. There would be no going back. The only direction was forward. Away.

He couldn’t let himself get too caught up in his loss. He missed his family, he missed his wolf. He even missed the man who took him and his family away from their home. Klarg knew it was fucked up, but he couldn’t help it. Lucas had treated them mostly well after he was done slicing their flesh, and many of Klarg’s happiest memories were tied up with him -- nights spent reading by the fire in their family’s quarters. Feeling useful, even if his real name wasn’t Daniel Butler.

Lucas’s mother Maureen was the first person to ever share a cup of tea with him. She taught Klarg how to watch the leaves unfurl in the hot water. While Lucas always oversteeped his tea, Maureen taught him how to taste and wait for just the right moment.

Sometimes, gazing into his tea, Klarg could almost feel the edges of a dark pond of calm.

That quiet pond in a dark forest, that feeling of serenity under the stars had returned, though fleeting, when the wizard Taako waltzed his way into the cave.

Klarg could go days without thinking of him.

Well, he could go hours. Minutes, certainly.

He could go for stretches of time without thinking about Taako, without picturing a wizard in ridiculous robes with soft features and more confidence than Klarg thought existed in the world.

Sometimes, the buzzing in his head got bad, and sometimes thoughts of Taako calmed him down. Sometimes it was hardly there at all, and thoughts of Taako would make it louder.

Sometimes, if he ran his head sharply into a rock, or a tree, the sudden calm would come over him again, for a few fleeting minutes at least. In those moments, he could picture Taako so clearly, all sparkling eyes and smirk and soft edges. He could imagine taking Taako’s braids and letting them run between the pads of his hands, careful to keep the claws sheathed. He wanted to make him laugh, to see him smile. He wanted to serve him the finest tea steeped to perfection in his best tea set.  

Klarg tried not to do that too often. He didn’t like the implication.

Klarg thought of Taako sometimes when he was angry, of Taako standing by his side as they burned down the world and laughed and laughed.

Mostly, though, Klarg thought about Taako at night, when the fire had burned almost all the way down and his teapot was empty. He thought about what it might feel like for Taako to get up on his tiptoes and pull him by his cheek tufts down into a kiss. He thought about what it might feel like to have Taako climb on top of him, so much smaller and softer than himself, and settle there. Klarg thought about what the weight of him might feel like.

He drifted off to sleep most nights dreaming of waking up to Taako’s face nestled in his chest hair.

Chapter Text

“Hey there, big fella.” The woman's voice cut through Klarg's concentration like a knife.“You know you’ll have to pay for that.”

Klarg was crouched, examining the most beautiful motorcycle he’d ever seen, but at the sound of her voice, his head snapped up. He saw a tall woman with pointy ears (elf? Half-elf? He was never good at telling these things) and dark hair tied back from her face, holding a wrench in one grimy hand. She was wearing dark pants and a tank top, a flannel shirt tied around her waist. The entire outfit was filthy with oil stains. She ran the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a big smear of oil behind.

“She’s a beaut, though, right?” she said, indicating the motorcycle.

Klarg looked down at it. The fenders were rusty, and the muffler was missing. It was missing the left footpeg and the engine looked like it needed some cleaning out. The motorcycle was built for strength, not speed, and it had a wide seat that looked like it would be very comfortable.

He felt a combination of longing and shame burn deep in his gut. Still staring at the motorcycle, he let out a gruff, “I don’t have that kind of money.”

It was the first time he had spoken to anyone since Wave Echo Cave. 

Klarg had made it to Goldcliff after several months of walking and not talking to anyone. Once his food had run out, he’d lived off of small rodents, fish, and blackberry leaf tea. It was fine. He didn’t miss anyone.

Certainly he didn’t miss a wizard he barely knew.

When he had seen Goldcliff shining on the horizon early that morning, he’d decided to stop in and see if the city had a decent tea room. On his way there he got distracted by the motorcycle, shining in the sun right outside this garage. 

“What’s your name, big guy?” the woman asked, looking him up and down. “And are you any good at fixing up battle wagons?”

“My name is Klarg. I don’t know what battle wagons are.”

The woman took a step back and put crossed her arms. She sucked at her teeth for a moment, then gave herself a little nod.

“Can you work an engine? Do you know the difference between a wrench and a spanner?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, thinking back to the times he fixed up Renée, the automaton who lived in Wave Echo Cave.

“Well, Klarg, it’s like this. I’m working on a new design for a battle wagon and it’s tall. I’m up and down the ladder eighteen times an hour and I thought to myself, ‘Sloane, if you had an assistant this tall, you could cut that in half.’” She paused, waiting for a reaction from Klarg. When none came, she said, “My name’s Sloane, by the way. That part was me, talking to myself.”

“I don’t need a job,” Klarg growled out.

“Oh, I’m not offering you a job,” Sloane said, scoffing. “Jobs are for capitalist drones. I’m offering you this motorcycle. Tell you what: if you can help me build the best and fastest battle wagon on the track, you can keep her. You can stay an hour or so after hours at night to work on her, and get her into descent shape.”

Klarg looked up at her in disbelief. She was basically offering him a job. The best-paying job he'd ever had.

On the one hand, it would be tethering himself down again. On the other, the motorcycle offered the total freedom of the open road.

“I get angry and break stuff sometimes,” Klarg growled, quietly.

“Just so long as you break the scrap and not my battle wagon, that’s fine,” Sloane said. “I’ve got a whole heap of junk in the back. It’s already broken, and prime for breaking more.”

Klarg thought for another second before accepting. “Okay,” he said, quietly, looking up at Sloane.

Sloane held her hand out to shake. Most non-bugbears didn’t offer to shake hands with bugbears, and, come to think of it, neither did most bugbears. Shaking hands wasn’t traditionally a custom when you had six inch claws on your paws. Klarg stood up to his full height, slowly, and made sure his claws were entirely sheathed before he laid the pad of his paw against her hand. They had a deal.

The first weeks in the garage were wonderful. Klarg tinkered with the motorcycle, fixing a strut here, shining a fender there, while Sloane built her land-sailer, a long and sleek vehicle shaped like a canoe, with two great black wings for sails. Sometimes Klarg would help her attach things to the central mast, or steady the wings as she adjusted them, but most of the time they left each other alone.

It was perfect.

Klarg found out that her favorite tea was green tea, and took to making a pot just as the sun kissed the horizon. When he realized that Sloane’s short friend came around more often than not after sunset, he began to make enough for her as well. The short friend never told him her name, and he never asked.

Sloane had a fire pit behind the garage, and the three of them would sit together as the heat of the day dissipated, talking about racing or sitting in silence and watching the sparks fly to meet the stars in the sky.

One day, Klarg arrived at the garage to find Sloane frantically looking through the scrap pile for something.

“What are you looking for?” Klarg asked.

She looked up at him, eyes wide and rimmed in red.

“Shears!” she said, and her voice had undertones that made the hairs inside his ears itch. He tried to help her look, but she snarled at him, teeth bared, and he backed off.

He’d already hurt one sister like that.

After that day, she came to the garage less and less. He knew, vaguely, that the big race day was approaching, but without Sloane or her short friend around, it was easy to lose track of time.

The last time he saw her, she stormed into the garage fully dressed in black leather except for a small twist of brown vines she wore as a belt. She didn’t make eye contact, she didn’t even seem to register that there was another person in the garage. She just powered up her wagon and left.

It seemed final.

It was just as well he was nearly done with the motorcycle. He put the finishing touch on -- a very cunning sidecar he’d constructed from the scrap heap -- and took it out for a little spin. He usually skulked around the streets of Goldcliff, only going to and from the garage. Sloane and her friend had told stories about the Goldcliff militia, and Klarg planned to steer clear of them.

On his motorcycle, though, with his metal helmet on and a jacket masking most of his fur, he felt free to explore. He stuck to the outskirts of town, driving first to see the edge of the cliff with its luminous waterfalls flowing. He stayed to watch the sunset, watching the spray from the waterfall turn pink and orange and blue.

As night fell, he turned back and started wheeling his bike back toward town. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to take the bike and leave town, which felt a lot like stealing, or stick around and see if Sloane would come back after the big race. He was still thinking when a familiar scent caught in his nose, and he was suddenly enraptured with a vision of Taako, all softness and smirks.

Klarg closed his eyes and sniffed deeply. Yes, those spices, that edge of magic. It was him alright.

He swung one leg over the motorcycle seat and reached down to start the ignition, and then the lights went out.

When Klarg blinked himself awake, he was chained to a table with his metal helmet still on. Two human men were taking turns kicking him in the gut, hard, and laughing about it. He roared at them, which just made them laugh harder.

He had tried not to kill anyone for so long, but his anger was welling up inside of him, a crimson sea of rage straining to break free. But he was being pulled in too many directions to totally give over to it: more than just his pledge to never hurt anyone again, his brain was racing a thousand miles an hour trying to remember Taako’s smell.

Then he didn’t have to remember it. Taako walked right in the room.

Everyone called him Little Jerry, and Klarg could tell he had disguised himself. Taako’s smell was coming from a skinny human kid. But it was still him, Klarg could see it in the way his eyes crinkled up at the sides, in the way he carried himself.

Also, the other two hadn’t even bothered with disguises beyond leather jackets, so it wasn’t exactly the hardest thing in the world to figure it out.

His train of thought was derailed by another jackboot straight to his gut.

Klarg roared again, and all hell broke loose.

A battle wagon crashed to the ground, pinning two of them. Klarg reached out and grabbed the closest thing he could, which was the jacket of one of the men who had been attacking him. He pulled him in and pushed him to the ground, pinning him there.

The older dwarf (Merle, Klarg remembered from deep inside the stormclouds of rage) ran over and snapped his chains with his war hammer. Klarg threw them off, but kept his hand on one. He wrapped the chain around the neck of one of the men who had kicked him, and squeezed. The man scrabbled at his claws for a few moments, making strangled pleas for mercy. Klarg squeezed even harder -- he was going to pop this man’s head off if he had to.

Taako approached, but Klarg couldn’t think about that just now. He just breathed in and out, and squeezed. Taako asked the man a question, and Klarg loosened up the chain just enough for the man to answer.

Back to squeezing.

Magnus, the human fighter, approached Klarg with his hands out in a peaceful gesture. “Hey buddy,” he said.

Klarg could only roar in response and pull the chain tighter.

“Klarg,” he said in a calming voice, “you’re my hugbear, buddy.”

“Do you have any idea,” Klarg said, “what a rough few months I’ve had?”

“I can imagine it’s been pretty bad,” he said.

“Pretty bad!” Klarg growled back at him, but he was too angry to elaborate. He couldn’t say I missed you, Taako, I thought of you every day and I drank so much oolong for you. He couldn’t say I don’t know what to do now and I don’t know where to go. He couldn't say I made a friend but then she left me, everyone always leaves me, or I hurt them and then I leave.

“We’re here to help,” Magnus said, “but we can’t do that if you kill this man.”

Suddenly, Klarg saw his way out. Maintaining his chokehold, Klarg walked backward toward his motorcycle. Then, at just the right moment, he kicked the pathetic man into Magnus’s arms, whipped the tarp off his battle wagon, and brought it roaring to life.

He skidded out of there and drove back to Sloane’s garage as quickly as he could. He sat in the middle of the empty floor and hugged his arms to his chest. He rocked back and forth until he fell asleep.

The next morning the town was abuzz with racing. Klarg made his way out to the race track and hid behind one of the pillars. It was hot and bright, but he’d thought to bring Sloane’s sunglasses, which he secured with a string behind his head. 

He pulled up in his motorcycle and hid behind one of the pillars about halfway down the course. There were enough people milling about, conspicuously not watching the race that was about to begin, that he didn’t feel too exposed.

He recognized Sloane’s sailing battle wagon right away, and began cheering her on. She took an early lead and held it. As the racers got closer, he recognized the driver of the wagon with ram’s horns as her short friend, and her passengers as-

Klarg would know Taako’s figure anywhere, even if he was wearing an animal mask. (Was that a mongoose?) Almost in a haze, Klarg reached down and kicked his motorcycle on.

And when Taako jumped, Klarg was there to catch him.

Chapter Text

“Hey you!” a voice rang out across the Dunmorrow town square and Klarg looked up from his dejected walk to see a very buff dwarf woman pointing at him. She had a battle axe slung across her shoulders. 

Klarg wasn’t in the mood for this -- he wasn’t in the mood for anything. But she kept yelling at him, and then someone pushed him from behind, and his head went fuzzy and his vision went black and he only remembered the shouting.

After the Goldcliff disaster, Klarg hadn’t stuck around. As soon as he came to his senses and realized what Taako had really been asking, he took off and didn’t look back.

Well. He sometimes looked back. At night he could still feel the comforting weight of Taako’s body falling into his arms, almost more than he could bear when coming with that kind of velocity, but not quite -- he caught him, he did, he saved him, and then Taako asked, very nicely, for Klarg to try to get shot by a laser so Taako’s team could wind the race.

Every time Klarg started to think about that, his brain started to fizz over again. He tried not to. When he stared into the fire at night he tried to think of Sloane before she left for good, or of Yeemick before he turned on Klarg, or of Percival before he left. He tried not to think too much about his family and where they were, or the about wagon race, or about Taako at all.

But, when he finally laid down at night and stared at the stars, he couldn’t help it. The stars reminded him too much of the sparkles that lit up in Taako’s eyes the first time he walked into Klarg’s cave. When he did think of Taako (and, alright, fine, if he admitted it to himself it was every night), he tried to stick to the basics: his beguiling curves, his beautiful braids, his absurd fashion sense.

He tried to reconstruct Taako’s appearance from whole cloth each time: what he’d been wearing, the color of his braids, the luminosity of his dark skin. The first time, Klarg remembered, he’d been dressed for adventuring in the mountains: a purple slouchy sweater with arms that were too long (intentionally? It didn’t make sense to Klarg, but no knitter in the world would make that sort of mistake unintentionally) and draped off one shoulder with black leggings and leather booties. His hair then had been braided and tied back in a ponytail, with some braids dyed purple and some dyed bone white.

On the race track he’d been wearing the mask, but his hair had all changed to a brick tone that almost, but not quite, matched his robes. He had worn something that looked a little like a short, brick red gi cinched at the waist with a golden chain and dull golden leggings. His bright pink patent leather heels had almost caught Klarg’s chin when he caught Taako on his way down, and Klarg smiled at the memory.

Some nights, then, his brain would start churning toward what happened next, and Klarg would fuzz out and wake up surrounded by felled trees or cacti ripped out of the ground and pawpads full of needles. On the good nights, though, he could feel the calm he felt when Taako’s flesh hit his, smell his spicy scent, and concentrate on the imagined feeling of running his paw pads through his braids and feeling them flow between his claws like water.

Sometimes, as he passed a stream, Klarg would stick his paw in and close his eyes, wiggling his pads and breathing deep. In these moments, he could stop thinking about anything in particular and just… just be.

It was lonely, but it could be nice out here alone. He didn’t have to worry about hurting other people. He didn’t have to worry about other people hurting him.

He did have to worry about running out of tea.

When he came across a traveling tinkerer, he tried to trade for tea, but alas, they only had decaffeinated black tea that was of undetermined age and had no aroma. The tinkerer told him about the Dunmorrow Tea Room, which was run by a small sect of tea witches. Klarg decided to pay it a visit.

He trekked the few days to Dunmorrow, drinking tea with reckless abandon: several pots at morning, noon, and night. He was overjoyed at the prospect of a real tea shop, even going so far as to make a list of all the varietals he hoped they had. He’d need more oolong, of course, and some green tea. He wanted more lapsang souchon, which he’d been out of since he left Wave Echo Cave, and maybe he’d even dip his toe into flavored black teas. He might even try mixing some of his own, if they would let him, and see what he could make.

Klarg arrived in Dunmorrow thinking of all the tea he would buy. He had repeated his shopping list so many times to himself that he had it memorized.

He wound down the small side street off the main square the tinkerer had described. He slowed to a stop and gazed in horror at the cottage before him: boarded up and empty, with a sign that used to say “Tea House” but now just said “T Ho.”

Klarg’s eye twitched a little.

He turned toward the center of town and asked the first person he saw, a dwarf of indeterminate age, if the tea house was really and truly closed. Had it moved to some new location? Was there a larger and better stocked tea house nearby?

“No siree-bob,” the dwarf said. “If you want tea, the only place to get it in town is at The Broken Rib.”

“What’s that?” Klarg grunted out.

“It’s Big Mo’s place. They’re an orc, and they run the best diner in Dunmorrow. My kid Thadothy works weekends there, and Big Mo is always happy to please. Try their short ribs -- they’re not broken!”

Klarg stared blankly at the dwarf, who was still chattering away.

“That’s what it says on the menu, anyway. It’s a real knee-slapper. Tell ‘em Pebblebringer sent ya! Mo’ll set you right.”

Klarg turned and walked, dejected, the direction that Peddlebringer pointed. He opened the door of the diner and was greeted by a simply enormous orc.

“Name’s Big Mo,” said Big Mo. Their voice was booming and menacing at the same time. “You ain’t from around here.”

“No,” growled Klarg, the hackles on his neck rising. “I ain’t.”

“Well, welcome, then!” Big Mo said, grinning wide around their tusks and completely changing their tone. “What can I do ya for?”

“I’d just like a cup of tea,” Klarg said, not making eye contact.

“That I can do,” Big Mo said. “Are you sure I can’t interest you in some grits? They’re my sister’s recipe!”

“No,” Klarg said, quietly. The itching under his scalp was back. Problem being, as a bugbear, his scalp was all over his body. “Just the tea.”

Big Mo busied themselves behind the counter for a few minutes, and then came back with a glass full of ice and a vaguely brown liquid.

“What’s this?” Klarg asked.

“Why, it’s tea! Mo’s special,” Mo explained. “‘Course I make it on the same machine as the morning joe, gotta keep overhead down and I always find that if you put enough sugar in it, nobody really cares about a little extra flavor.” 

Klarg eyed the glass of iced tea like it was about to bite him. He took a tentative sip and nearly spit it right back out. It was tea, maybe, if you took all the good parts about tea out and added a bunch of sugar.

Klarg sighed, took a big swig, left a coin on the counter, and walked out of the restaurant and into the main square. He didn’t have any tea, his head hurt in that very specific way, and he didn’t know what to do next.

“Hey you!” a voice shouted across the square, and it was enough. He felt a jolt in his brain.

What happened next was all a blur of fists, feathers, and fur, until Klarg came to with a bird man sitting on his chest and the dwarf woman sitting on his legs. A woman in a strange hat was pinning his right arm with her boot and a man with a skull painted on his face had his left in a hammer lock. A fairly large crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings.

“Are you good?” the bird man asked, searching Klarg’s face. “You went pretty nuts there for a second.”

Klarg looked around and took it all in: the four people holding him down, the crowd of assembled gawkers, the still-alarming lack of tea, and made a sort of half shrug, half head shake. He wanted to say, “No, obviously not, this is the furthest from good I’ve been in a while and I jumped off a motorcycle onto a moving tank in order to be shot with a laser in recent memory, so that just goes to show you how not good I am right now,” but settled for a sort of non-committal “Dunno,” grunt.

“Will you try to eat me if I let you up?” the bird man asked.

Even from this position, Klarg managed to look affronted.

“Okay,” said the bird man, “don’t freak out.”

“Hello assembled crowd!” he yelled out to the audience. “That was just a taste of the event of a lifetime! Come back tomorrow at seven p.m. and see the full excitement of a Battle Champion match! Many will enter the ring, only one will leave! Tell your kids!”

As the crowd dispersed, one man with a big, round belly and a full beard walked over, doing a quiet slow clap.

“Well, well, well,” he said. “What have we here? Battle Champion Supreme material for sure.”

Already Klarg did not like this man.

“I can see greatness in you,” he paused and looked Klarg up and down. “Bugbear? Does your kind even have names?”

“My name’s Klarg,” Klarg growled, tamping down some residual anger.

“Ah, I see. Klarg. Well, Klarg,” the man said, “I see your potential as a being capable of substantial violence and destruction. I could use someone like you in the ring in Chaos Stadium.”

“What?” Klarg asked.

“Ha!” the bird man laughed, but it wasn't insulting. “This must seem strange if you don't know who we are! I’m Jeff Angel, and that’s Jess the Beheader. Over there’s Sabine and Deathman, or, as we call him when his face paint’s off, Horace. We’re professional wrestlers.”

“What’s that?” Klarg asked.

“You know, professional wrestlers? We fight people for the enjoyment of a crowd?”

Klarg boggled. He’d never fought someone out of enjoyment before.

“We have room for you,” the human said. “We could work your angle, sort of a wolfman thing, you know. Because bugbears aren’t really that…” he tapped his chin, “popular?”

“Merrick isn’t good with introductions,” Jeff Angel explained. “This here’s Merrick. He’s our CEO and kind of gets us the bookings we need. We’re going town-to-town to rustle up some support for our big event next month in Neverwinter. Do you want to join us?”

“The pay’s okay,” Jess said.

Klarg thought for a second. He never thought he’d be fit for company ever again, but these folks seemed like they could hold their own, even if he did get out of control.

“Do you have any tea?” Klarg asked.

“Oh yeah,” Jeff Angel said. “I love the stuff. I mostly favor flavored green teas? Some matcha here and there. How about you?”

Klarg didn't feel like taking the time to explain. “I’m in,” Klarg said. “How fast can you brew some up?”

“Have you ever had a proper tea ceremony?” Jeff Angel asked.

Klarg knew he’d made the right choice.

The next few weeks passed in a blur, but it was a good blur, not a blur born of too much anger and endless fighting. He and Jeff spent most evenings together, drinking cups of matcha and comparing notes on the day’s fight. 

They followed a similar pattern, these fights. They’d roll into town in the morning, drum up some interest during the day, and hold the fight at night in a ring they’d set up in the town square. Afterward, they’d pass a hat to collect some coins, which would go to Merrick.

It struck Klarg as a little strange: he could swear he made more in a night than they’d ever collected in the hat. He asked Merrick about it once, but Merrick had brushed it off, muttering something about sacrifices for the greater good and widespread collection of offerings. Klarg didn’t press it; he’d never been one for math.

Klarg had taken on the wrestling name Moonbeam, preferring to hide his distinctive bugbear features in a traditional luchador mask. Merrick promised him a professional costume as soon as they got to Chaos Stadium.

He and Jeff talked about all kinds of things, but the conversation always drew inevitably back to one thing: family. Jeff Angel called his dad every day on his stone of far speech, and they discussed everything from the weather to the crops (the Angel family owned an orchard southeast of Rockport) to the fight of the day. Klarg heard all the recaps of these conversations, and kept mostly to himself when family came up. Jeff asked him about his family over and over, but Klarg managed to deflect most of the questions.

One night, after they’d been traveling together for a few weeks, Klarg finally broke down. He told Jeff Angel all about the fight he’d gotten in with Christy, how he had hurt her and then run away. Jeff put one feathery arm across Klarg’s shoulders and leaned in close, so close his beak was nearly brushing the fur on Klarg’s face.

“Listen,” he said. “In this world, all we gots is each other. All we can do is be kind to each other. And family is thicker than blood… hell, it is blood. What I’m saying is you have got to stop beating yourself up about that. I’ve seen how you get when your brain does its thing. You couldn’t have controlled it even if you wanted to.” He paused to take a sip of matcha. “You have to give her the chance to forgive you. You owe her at least that much.”

Klarg stared into his mug of shockingly green tea. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, maybe.”

The day of the Chaos Stadium match dawned bright, and Merrick was in a mood, micromanaging everything. Klarg had since gotten his new and improved outfit from Dante, a stretchy black spandex number with silver trim, and after a couple of fights in it, it finally didn't feel like it was riding up everywhere.

“Remember,” Merrick told the fighters backstage, “this is for the Championship. Do not pull your punches. Do not hold anything back. If it comes to blood, so be it. I will not stop the match for any reason. Get out there and put the hurt on each other!”

Jeff Angel and Klarg exchanged a look. Merrick could be outrageous, but this was something new. Jeff Angel gave a small shrug of his wings and Klarg nodded. They'd do their jobs tonight, and then maybe look at other opportunities for freelance wrestling.

The match began, with more fanfare than usual, and Klarg played his part well. He traded blows with the human dressed as a bear, even though all the while there was something tickling at the back of his brain, something familiar.

When Klarg got him into a submission hold, the man spoke.

“We should team up and fight this old guy together!”

Klarg looked at him for a second, and then looked at Horace, who shrugged imperceptibly. It wasn't his fault if this guy hadn't been properly briefed on the rules.

“No,” he said. “I feel like I should do what you say, but no.”

A few confused moments of meele later, Klarg smelled something familiar, something he'd recognize anywhere. It was all softness and spice, the scent of clumsy grace and a killer fashion sense.

He couldn't believe it. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

“Taako! As I live and breathe!” he exclaimed, and embraced what looked like empty air, but quickly became a flustered elf.

A few things happened all at once. First, Klarg noted that Taako’s braids were platinum blond and navy blue, mixing together to camouflage nicely with his outfit, which looked just like the security guards’ uniforms. Second, unbidden from his hind brain came a memory of leaping from his motorcycle and onto a moving tank, and he was suddenly flooded with the memory of falling, of fear, and of singed fur and a burn on his bicep that still hadn't quite healed. Third, from the other side of the ring came a very particular clank, one that Klarg remembered as the last sound he heard before -- oh no-

And he was gone. He vaguely remembered jumping Taako, but not in the way he'd imagined under the stars. That kind came with a lot more foreplay.

He came to a few minutes later, coughing and choking on a poisonous cloud of gas. He was just in time to see Taako cast a spell that high fived a hand back into oblivion. That was his boy.

He noticed Taako’s braids had gone lime green, and now more than ever he wanted to run his paws over Taako’s head. He shook himself. Now was not the time, Klarg. Focus up.

Merrick was suddenly a very skinny man holding a dark orb, which Klarg puzzled at for a moment before putting it all together. They weren't here for entertainment. His skills were being put to use by someone who did not have his best interests at heart, just like always.

He started to get angry again. He could feel the ants crawling under his skin.

A new woman grabbed the orb and said something, which Klarg didn’t hear, but the orb appeared to go dimmer.

Taako grabbed the orb, and Klarg heard him congratulate himself on a job well done. Klarg couldn’t agree more, but the orb stayed the same. Then Taako told the little boy that he had done a good job, and the orb dimmed again.

Why couldn’t he have looked in Klarg’s direction? Klarg wanted to hear kind words spill from Taako’s lips, but he knew he couldn’t expect them. And that just made him angrier.

Magnus got the orb next, and he turned to Klarg. Klarg rolled his eyes. It wasn’t Magnus he wanted to hear from.

“It's been a pleasure fighting you, Klarg. You are a worthy opponent,” he said.

Klarg saw red. “I know, I'm big and huge and you've almost killed me so many times doing things for you…”

“But I know you have a good heart,” Magnus said.

He couldn’t say that! Nobody was allowed to say that! “No! I don't!” Klarg shouted, the words ripped from deep within himself.

He banged his head on the ground, not entirely on purpose, but it had the desired effect. His brain fuzzed, and he could take a deep breath. 

“Thank you, Magnus, it's really nice to hear you say that.”

Then Magnus did something really dumb, the idiot. He threw Klarg the stone.

Klarg made eye contact with Taako.

“Since the day the three of you came into my life, my life has been enriched…”

But then, like the broken connection of synapses and wires it was, his brain fuzzed out again. He could tell, like from inside a bog of quicksand what he was doing. He was running toward Taako, still holding the orb, and even he didn’t know if he would be able to stop himself from attacking. Luckily, Taako dodged.

He heard the dwarf chanting something, and suddenly, he stopped short, eyes wide, looking left and right. He could still feel the rage breaking against his body like waves, but it was a distant feeling, like he was looking at the shoreline and not caught up in the tide. He could feel his heart swelling when he looked at Taako, feel the affection that he truly held for all three of them, and the… was it really love? For Taako.

Klarg literally stood in his truth.

It was terrifying and liberating at the same time. He began to speak. 

“I just... I just love you guys so much. I've never had a friend before and I know that you've taken advantage of me a lot but I can also sense the good in you. And I just want to say, I think you're the best dudes I've ever met…”

The orb got dimmer and dimmer and dimmer as he spoke until there was just a glimmer, and then there was nothing, and a hand dragged Merrick back to hell, and he had saved the day. 

Chapter Text

Klarg was distracting himself by bustling around the kitchen, wiping down all the counters and making sure everything was just so. It didn't exactly calm his nerves, but it did help. Taako had let him know the week prior that he would be taking Klarg up on the proposition of visiting his dad’s cabin up in Fantasy Aspen, and now the day was here and Klarg was practically buzzing with excitement.

The good kind of buzzing.

It had been three months since Chaos Stadium, and Klarg had gone back to reunite with his family. They were managing the science lab, and Christy was even continuing some of Lucas’s experiments ever since he had gone missing. Klarg had reconnected with everyone, but felt a little bit useless in the floating lab. When his dad mentioned that the cabin could use some maintenance work, Klarg decided to head down there for the winter.

It was snowing in Fantasy Aspen, with huge flakes coming down on the pines and aspens. It felt like he was in a snow globe. Klarg wiped his hands on his apron.

Just then came a knock at the door. Taako had arrived, wearing a long periwinkle fur-lined coat with a floor-length flared skirt and impossibly high platform heels. It was belted in the middle, but managed to show off all his curves, which Klarg definitely appreciated. His braids were a light orange, which set off the blue nicely, and left loose to hang around his face. Klarg stood there blinking at him for a few moments, his mouth suddenly dry.

“I know, I know,” Taako said brushing past him to step inside. “The shoes may not have been the best choice for icy conditions, but take it from me, it’s better than getting snow in my flats.”

“When you wear those shoes you’re almost as tall as me,” Klarg said, and then immediately started kicking himself. “I mean… welcome! May I take your coat?”

“Oh!” Taako said, delighted. “You may!”

He shrugged out of his coat, and the orange in his braids went with it, bleeding out like a liquid, but Klarg looked: there was no pool of orange underneath him and nothing on his clothes.

Holding his coat, Klarg felt silly for the second time in as many minutes. “How…? Your hair?” Klarg watched, mystified, as it turned red and green to match the bright red and gold Candlenights sweater and bright green leggings he had on underneath.

“I’m a transmutation wizard, my dude! Check it out!” The red and green bled out to be replaced by bright gold, and then a kaleidoscope of colors, one right after the next, until it settled back on red and green.

“Wow,” Klarg whispered under his breath, then realized Taako could probably hear him. He went to hang the coat up as heat rose in his cheeks.

“May I offer you some tea?” Klarg asked.

“Ab-so-lutely,” Taako said, with one hand on his hip. He smiled and winked at Klarg. “Do you have any scones?” he asked.

A cold sense of dread settled over him. Of course Taako would ask for scones. Of course! 

“Oh… oh my god. I should have known you would want scones. How could I have been so blind? Taako, I’m so sorry. I don’t have any scones at all.” Klarg hung his head.

“Hey, hey, hey, big guy. That’s okay. Do you have flour?”

Klarg nodded without looking up.

“Butter?”

Klarg nodded again, still looking at his feet.

Taako clapped, which made Klarg look up, then rubbed his hands together and grinned.

“Then you’re in luck, Klarg hon. I’m going to make you the best scones you have ever tasted in your entire life.”

Klarg allowed himself a small smile.

Taako held out his hand, and Klarg took it to guide him into the kitchen.

“Good, yes, great start, but I was actually asking for your apron,” Taako said. “Can’t get flour on the tinsel embroidery.” He flourished a hand in front of the design on his sweater.

Karg almost choked, he was so embarrassed. He ducked out of his apron and handed it over. Taako’s eyes lingered on his now-naked torso. 

“No shirt, eh?” Taako asked.

Klarg crossed his arms in front of his chest and made to hurry off. He was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, hey, no. I like it. You’re… you probably know this, but you’re not so bad too look at.”

Klarg stared at him, mouth hanging open. Could it be that Taako thought… no. No, wishful thinking. Taako just didn’t want him to feel self conscious. Still, Klarg thought, he should try to let Taako know that he thought he was…

“I like your sweater,” he blurted out.

Taako twirled in his ridiculous shoes. “It’s fantastic, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Taako busied himself making scones, while Klarg busied himself trying to not get caught staring creepily at Taako’s backside. Or his front side. Or any of his sides. 

“Hey, Klarg,” he said while cutting the butter into the flour with two butter knives. “There’s something I’ve gotta say.”

“Anything,” Klarg breathed. Then he looked around. “Oh my god I forgot to put the tea on. I’m so sorry.”

Klarg nearly ran over to the kettle and started filling it up at the sink.

Taako set the bowl down and turned the water off. Klarg looked up at him.

“No, the tea can wait. What I have to say is this,” and he took a deep breath and stopped short. “Okay. You remember when you caught me? During the battle wagon race?”

“Of course,” Klarg said. He set the kettle down on the counter, half full, and leaned back against the counter. “You jumped off the battle wagon.”

“Yeah, do you know why I did that?”

“No,” Klarg said. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“One of the other racers had cast mind control on me,” Taako said. “And you know what? That… It didn’t feel great.”

“No,” Klarg agreed.

“Like not great at all. Taako rolls with the punches, usually, that’s like my whole thing. But this was... it was like, a lot.”

“Yeah,” Klarg said.

“Like, I could have died. I could have died and all I could care about was the sound of crickets chirping.”

“Yeah,” Klarg said.

Taako shivered, then continued.

“I guess what I’m saying is… I need to know. Is it like that with you? And with my thing with you?”

Klarg thought for a minute. He’d been thinking about this, and he and Christy had talked about it in the lab over a nice cup of Earl Grey. He tried to line up the words he wanted to say in the right order in his head.

“With you,” Klarg said, “it can be like that. Sometimes I feel like I’m three people. When my brain gets fuzzy, I either get really, really angry, or really, really calm. And when I’m around you, I mostly get calm,” he said. He took a deep breath. He closed his eyes and pretended that Merle had cast Zone of Truth again.

“I like it,” Klarg said. “I mean, I mostly like it. It’s calm, and quiet, and I don’t have to worry so much about my dumb mouth or fists or claws hurting people or making them angry. And… and I like you Taako,” he gulped. “I mean, I think I love you, and it’s fine that you don’t feel the same way about me, but what I’m saying is I like to make you happy and that makes me happy.”

Taako took a breath like he was about to say something, but Klarg put up a hand to silence him, and he shut up.

“I don’t like it when you make me do dangerous things, like jump on that tank, but I know that you had to do it. I just need you to know that I probably will do all the dumb things you ask me to do, and I really want you to try to understand that I want to do them, mostly. But also, maybe you need to think about it, and make sure to take care of me when I’m like that, because I can’t always take care of myself.”

“Oh, honey,” Taako said. He had tears in his eyes.

“No, don’t cry,” Klarg said. “I couldn’t stand it if you cried. Also I might get angry. Here, take some deep breaths with me. It’s what I try to do.”

They stood in the kitchen, breathing together.

When Taako had collected himself, he started back in on the scone dough again.

“You know,” he said, “I sometimes still hear the crickets chirping at night, and it makes me remember how it felt on the race track. I remember the sensation of throwing my safety harness off, and then just jumping, and how freeing it was, but also how scared I was at the same time. But I like remembering, because in the end, I’m always caught.” Taako took a deep breath.

“In the end you caught me, so gently, in your big, strong arms,” Taako put his hand on Klarg’s bicep and began petting his hand down Klarg’s arm. “And then I heard your voice,” he said, and he almost looked like he was going to start crying again. “Your voice, which was kind, and soothing, and pleasant, and it cut right in and made the crickets stop chirping, and I remember what you said.”

Klarg filled it in. “That was a close one, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Taako said. “That was it.”

He lifted the scone dough onto a baking sheet and began to cut it.

“I guess what I’m saying is, I love you too.”

Klarg’s heart skipped a beat.

“Or, at least, I like you enough to give this a try.”

Klarg stared at him, open mouthed. “Really?” he choked out.

“Really,” Taako said.

“Are you sure?” Klarg asked.

“As sure as I am that you’re about to boil up some water for tea,” Taako said, smirking, and Klarg quickly turned the water back on and began filling the kettle again.

“I should let you know, there’s this other cat, well, you’re more of the cat than he is, but anyway. He’s a skeleton man, tall-dark-and-handsome when he's a flesh man, works for death, very attractive. But we’re not exclusive,” Taako rattled off.

“Oh...kay,” Klarg said.

“And I’m just telling you this because I feel like I need to be totally honest with you, but also, I think you guys would really get along and I’m just saying, there’s enough of me to go around.”

Klarg smiled to himself.

“But for tonight, buddy-boy, you’ve got me all to yourself,” Taako said, and tripped in his ridiculous shoes.

Klarg caught him, and somehow the two of them managed to turn it into a graceful dip. It was almost like Taako had planned it… and maybe he had.

“I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Taako said, and pulled Klarg’s face into a kiss.