Chapter Text
Sunday. The first day of the rest of their lives.
Two angels and two demons appeared on a Waterdeep street that looked like it had never seen a fish in its life, standing in front of the husk of a burned-out bakery.
“Oh,” Strix sighed. “I’d hoped God would fix it. Or Simon. Or whichever.”
“The building was pretty old,” Paultin shrugged. “A new location would be cool.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking,” Evelyn said, and smiled when she felt her friends’ eyes on her. “We should—we should buy a house together.”
“That seems a bit fast,” Paultin frowned.
“It’s been literally six thousand years,” Evelyn said patiently. “A house is pretty tame, at this point.”
“A big house,” Strix decided. “With a bakery on the ground floor and we can live in the upper floors. Like the old bakery, but bigger!”
“Maybe with a yard,” Paultin said casually.
“A yard?” Diath asked.
“Y’know. Just a piece of land. Something to run around in,” Paultin shrugged.
“I think that sounds great,” Evelyn smiled, looking Paultin in the eye and giving him an encouraging nod, hoping she caught his meaning. She didn’t think he did, but they could talk later.
“Oh, hey!” Strix said, and hustled inside the burned wreck. Diath followed a few steps behind, then stopped when she came back out, holding an ancient overflowing book and beaming. “My cookbook made it!”
“That’s the most important—” Paultin began, then looked down the street and cut himself off with a high-pitched scream, tearing down the sidewalk. Evelyn looked, and beamed as she saw a shiny black vintage Mandolin, restored in every detail. Paultin threw himself on the hood, kissing the finish and crooning to it before he threw himself into the driver’s seat, clearly over the moon about it all, stroking the steering wheel and hollering.
“A bigger house,” Diath mused as they walked down the street to join him. “That sounds doable.”
They went back to Evelyn and Diath’s apartment for the night and ordered takeout and Evelyn thought it was the most delicious food she’d ever eaten. It was made better when they clicked on the news and saw that most of the damage from the day before had been reversed, and the events written off by the humans as a mass hallucination. Humans, Evelyn thought fondly. So resilient, so stubborn.
Around three in the morning, when Strix was snoring on the couch with her head in Diath’s lap and Diath was cautiously stroking his hands through her hair as some cheesy horror movie played on the TV, Evelyn slid against Paultin’s side. He glanced down at her from where he was messing on his phone.
“I was thinking,” she said, “about visiting Simon tomorrow.”
“Mm,” Paultin grunted. “Me too.”
“We should go together,” Evelyn said, and Paultin nodded. She watched him for a moment, then reached up and kissed his cheek. He dropped his phone, his face turning a shade of red visible even from the blue light of the TV.
“Goodnight,” she said, and pretended she didn’t notice him watching her walk back into her room.
The visit with Simon the next day went well—very well, in Evelyn’s opinion. She and Paultin talked the whole drive down—not about anything too important, just talking. He didn’t seem to want to talk about last week at all, and Evelyn didn’t want to push, so she let him steer the conversation, talking about shows he’d done recently and stupid ads for useless products he’d put into the market. Simon had been happy to see them, to introduce them to his dog Waffles (whom Evelyn adored) and his friends (who were charming), and by the end of it Evelyn could see a visible decision click in Paultin’s mind as he taught Simon how to tune his guitar, which he definitely hadn’t brought in the car but managed to make appear anyway when Simon asked about his music.
“I’m adopting him,” Paultin informed her as they got in the car to leave. “He is my son now.”
“I was thinking the same thing,” Evelyn said, and Paultin got quiet. Evelyn let it sit for a moment, watching the beautiful Amphail scenery, and said, “Is that okay?”
“Is—is it okay if we adopt the same kid?” Paultin asked, and Evelyn nodded. “Do they…do they let people do that?”
“Sister Narae was telling me about different arrangements people make sometimes,” Evelyn said, putting an emphasis on the word “arrangements.” “People who aren’t married can adopt the same child if they want, they just have to share custody.”
“Married,” Paultin choked. Evelyn kept her eyes on the scenery and let him process. She’d had a long, long time to come to grips with how she felt, through every toss and turn Earth had thrown at them for six thousand years. She was more than ready to wait now, if that was what he needed. They did, after all, have all the time in the world, unlike the last time it was just the two of them in this car.
They were halfway back to Waterdeep when Paultin shuddered and said, “He’d call me Dad and you Mom.”
“If we want him to,” Evelyn nodded. “If he wants to call us that.”
Paultin whistled a breath through his nose. “We’re gonna have to buy all kinds of kid stuff, you know that, right?”
“Yeah,” Evelyn nodded. “We’d be parents.”
“Parents,” Paultin repeated. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I…I can do that.”
“With me?” Evelyn asked, looking over at him. Paultin glanced at her a couple of times and nodded, returning his eyes to the road.
“With you,” he confirmed. The rest of the drive home was silent, but it was by no means uncomfortable.
.
“I think I want to stay with you forever,” Strix announced, and Diath choked on the bite of cereal he was eating.
“W-what?” he gasped, wheezing for air.
“I want to stay with you forever,” Strix repeated. “We’ve been pretty much inseparable for a long time now, but I think it’s time we made the commitment.”
“The—the commitment,” Diath nodded, his useless heart pounding in his chest. “Right. Um.”
“I thought you were dead, you know,” Strix said, still as conversational as anything as she tapped her fingernails on the counter. “Like, gone forever kind of dead, not rescue you from Heaven kind of dead.”
“Rescue me from Heaven?” Diath repeated, feeling faint and woozy and so fond he didn’t know his up from his down.
“Yeah,” Strix said, and pulled a leather cord out from under her shirt. Attached to it was a very familiar feather. “I couldn’t wear this in my hair all the time, so I turned it into a necklace. Know what I figured out about it?”
“What?” Diath asked, setting down his cereal and resolving to not trying to eat or drink anything until this wild hair had passed.
“It’s yours, and it feels like you,” Strix said. “It feels like how I feel when you smile at me or look at me for too long or give me a hug. And I like that, I’ve decided.”
“Oh,” Diath said. “Okay.”
“I don’t know what any of this means,” Strix continued, and that felt more familiar, “but I’d like to find out, if you’d like to teach me.”
“Teach you?” Diath frowned and tilted his head. “Strix, you’ve been teaching me about all this the whole time.”
“What?” Strix cried, and Diath grinned.
“I feel warm when you smile,” he said, “and I like to see you laugh. I like hearing about your day, and I like spending time with you. I never want to see you hurt, and I would do just about anything to make you happy.”
“Yeah, I feel all that, too!” Strix frowned. “How have I been teaching you about it, though?”
Diath walked around the counter and leaned on it with his shoulder pressing against hers, looking into her face. She gulped and her cheeks darkened, but Diath didn’t push, just smiled at her gently.
“I didn’t know I could feel that way about a person,” he said gently. “Not until I met you. So thank you.”
“You’re welcome?” Strix replied. “Um. What now?”
“I don’t know,” Diath shrugged. “Figure it out as we go?”
“I guess,” Strix said, and put the feather back down her shirt.
“What do you wanna do now?” Diath asked. Strix got a thoughtful look on her face, the kind where her nose scrunched up, and Diath wanted very much to kiss it.
“Let’s go see if anything else survived in the bakery,” she said. “You can hold my hand while we walk. I don’t mind.”
“That sounds great,” Diath smiled, and let Strix clumsily wrap her fingers around his and pull him from the apartment counter. “Let’s go.”
.
Ten months after the world didn’t end Armageddon’t
In Troll Skull Alley in the city of Waterdeep, there is a house that once was an inn and maybe a boarding house but now is a popular bakery that had been downtown before relocating to a more upscale location, The Chicken Foot Coven Bakery. In the upper three floors of the house (it’s quite a big house) live the baker and her eccentric roommates and their children (because, of course, Simon was more than happy to be adopted, but his ultimatum, to have his friends come along as foster children, was met with some miracle work and some strained fudging of paperwork, but ultimately was doable).
In the early morning sunlight, the bakery is already bustling as the baker yells at her staff and pulls cinnamon buns from the ovens, and upstairs on the third-floor balcony, a young woman with golden hair does yoga and greets the sun as literally as she can. Through the attic window, a young man with green eyes can be seen doing clapping pushups while reading a book.
In a few hours, the house will see a swarm of activity as the four children awake (and a fifth, visiting from his time as a ward of the only adult in the house still sleeping) and they and the enormous dog with them go spilling into the backyard to run through the morning dew before the golden-haired woman calls them in for breakfast. While the children eat, she will go upstairs to where she left her partner sleeping and sweetly kiss his cheek, knowing he won’t wake up yet, but the action will still make him smile as he dreams.
(“You never told me her name,” Evelyn said, fiddling with her fingers as she tried not to make eye contact. It had been a lovely date, but…she felt this needed saying, before certain Steps were taken.
“Whose name?” Paultin frowned, and when Evelyn glanced at him, he sighed. “Oh.”
“You don’t have to,” Evelyn said, and Paultin ran his hand through his hair.
“Sondra,” he said shortly. “Her name was Sondra.”
“She was very lucky,” Evelyn said, as sincerely as she knew how, “to have been so loved.”
“I think I was the lucky one,” Paultin disagreed, and Evelyn tried not to squeak when one of his hands reached over and caught one of hers. “I think I still am, to be honest.”)
Later in the afternoon, the children settled down with books and a movie, the green-eyed man will emerge from the bakery office and be startled when the baker is already there, shoving a plate with a piece of pie on it in his hands, and he still blushes when she quickly pecks him on the mouth and moves on with her day. He looks down at the pie, then back at her, and retreats to the back porch to enjoy his pie and maybe stretch his wings; it’s been a long time since he could.
(“It’s okay, we don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” Diath assured her, and Strix screwed up her eyes.
“I want to,” she muttered, and leaned into Diath’s face to press a messy kiss on his mouth. He laughed as she pulled back, and she sputtered at him.
“No, that was good,” he smiled, and put his hands on her face. “If you want some advice, though…”
“Yes,” Strix nodded, and let Diath guide her into a more comfortable, softer kiss.)
The evening will find the bakery closed and the inhabitants of the house gathered in the back lawn, the baker screeching to keep the children out of her garden, the others watching with glasses of lemonade as the kids and dog play some convoluted game of their own imagining, fireflies drifting up from the grass and adding a spark of magic to their play.
The dark-haired man who sleeps so long will put his arm around the golden-haired woman, and the baker will lean her head on the green-eyed man, and all four of them will share a contented smile, here in this quiet moment before the chaos of bedtime and the quiet of night.
And perhaps, maybe by some strain of reality from its scare nearly a year before, an unplanned shooting star flashes across the sky, like a wink from above. A cosmic sign? Perhaps. It’s all up to interpretation, after all.