TW: Urban Magic Yogs, Established Relationship, Anniversary, Fluff

Honeydew was at it again. Xephos was upstairs, working on some sigils for a client whose protection spells were overtly specific. Seriously, who needed to protect the buttons on one specific dress shirt? However ridiculous the request may be, money is still money and with two young adult men living under his roof, he needed all the money he could get. Another crash sounded through the house and Xephos sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He thought it was bad having his nephew and adopted son making noises into all hours of the night but when his husband started making noises during the day, it meant that he was up to something.

Standing up and arching his back, smiling at the satisfying click the followed, he made the decision to check whether he still had a kitchen or not. Last time Honeydew had decided to make dinner, Xephos nearly keeled over at the sight of his normally immaculate kitchen filled with used pots and pans and the general food stains that were splattered over the tiles of both the floor and walls. The tall man knew it was the thought that counted, seeing as that one week was particularly stressful for him, but that didn't mean he appreciated the washing up afterwards. In hindsight, he could have left it for Will and Lalna to do, but at the time he was too flustered to think in his normal, calm demeanour.

The view he had of the city was astonishing. The sun was setting on this particularly cold winter day, casting golden rays of light and long dark shadows over the tall buildings that characterised the place that he had lived for almost all his life. Moving to the suburbs was hard for Xephos to do, but Honeydew explained to him that it would be easier for Lalna to go to school if he was actually near a school. The city was good for almost everything else apart from education. Living here also meant that Will could stay with them, as the tiny apartment they used to have wouldn't have been able to accommodate the extra person.

Xephos could feel the magic in the air grow stronger as the year went on. Midwinter was soon, so the new King of Misrule needed to be chosen. Xephos shuddered, afraid of what the consequences would be after last year's ritual. Will was still hanging around two opposing courts, and that made him worry for his nephew. The Sidhe were ruthless and The Garbage Court were a mockery of traditions that everyone he had ever known had always held dear. This whole dilemma was something he would have to confront Will about sooner or later, or just hope that one of the courts made an offer that he couldn't refuse. This is one of the reasons why Xephos never actually got involved in politics: people always ended up dead.

One more crash from the kitchen drew Xephos from his introspection. Lalna was at university and Will was off somewhere with some fae from one of the courts. The young man always thought he was so sneaky with how he left the house but Xephos's sigils let him know when he was leaving and when he was getting back. With one final sigh, Xephos started making his way towards the kitchen. The house was littered with his sigils, mainly due to his own paranoia. Bad things had happened in the past when he let his guard down so he was not prepared to lose anyone ever again. Their constant background magic made him feel safe. The newer ones were ones he had to design from scratch because of having a young technomancer in the house. In the first couple of weeks after Will's arrival, everyone had wondered why the lights kept flickering on and off at night. It turned out that a certain gargoyle had a very specific effect on the young wizard, so new sigils were definitely in order.

Walking slowly down the stairs, Xephos could smell something coming from the kitchen and it smelt good. No matter how messy his husband was, he was definitely an amazing cook. Turning the corner and leaning on the doorframe, Xephos admired his husband at work. Honeydew's face was flushed from the heat of the kitchen but a big smile was plastered on it. He was mindlessly dancing around stirring the pots as he came to them. A stupid christmas playlist was blaring from the speaker at one end of the kitchen even though December had only started a couple of days before. Christmas was one of the few mortal traditions that fae celebrated even though they also had Midwinter to celebrate. Xephos chuckled quietly to himself as Honeydew tried to do the 'gloria' part of Ding Dong Merrily on High but failed fantastically, causing a very inelegant breath to be taken halfway through the note. Xephos then moved to sit down at the small breakfast table that they had in the kitchen. Normally he would sit at the breakfast bar that Honeydew and Lalna insisted on getting when they had refitted the kitchen a few years past, but there was discarded mixing bowls and the waste of chopped vegetables precariously balancing on it, so the worn out man decided not to take the risk of yet another broken bowl.

The scraping of the chair across the tiled floor alerted Honeydew to Xephos's arrival into the kitchen. "You're not supposed to be here yet! Go on! Shoo!" Honeydew started waving his hands at his husband to try and get him to leave.

Xephos feigned injury and clutched his hand to his chest, "But my dear kitchen sounded as if it were in trouble and I needed to check to see if my malicious husband wasn't injuring it again!" A creep of a smile spread across his lips letting his husband know that he didn't mean it with any sort of sting.

"Off with ya! Scram!" Honeydew's voice was laced with laughter as he went to grab Xephos's hand to lead him out of the kitchen.

"I must be payed for my leaving, young dwarf. A simple kiss to send me on my way should suffice." Xephos was now milking the situation for all it was worth. Honeydew couldn't hold back the laugh that erupted from him.

Xephos bent down in an overstated bow, head dipped towards his chest, his hand holding up Honeydew's as if he were going to kiss the back of it. Honeydew then used his free hand to tilts his partner's face to be level with his own. He pressed a short kiss to the taller man's lips, much to Xephos's disgruntlement.

"Now scoot! I still have a lot of cooking to do!" Honeydew turned his back on his husband and went back to his cooking. Xephos straightened and smiled fondly at the scene before him. Once, he had thought this impossible - being happy in a safe home surrounded by the people that he loved. Every so often, he had to remind himself how lucky he was to have Honeydew and Lalna. With Will in the mix, it seemed as if the whole world could end and he could die happy.

Later in the evening, Xephos was finally growing hungry. The fiddly sigils that he'd been working on sat complete on his desk, just ready to be copied over and inscribed into whatever needed protecting. He wasn't looking forward to the work involved in embroidering the dress shirt with the protection sigil. Seeing Honeydew cooking earlier had really set him up for the dinner that was coming.

As if on cue, Honeydew's resounding voice announced that dinner was finally ready. Lalna and Will were still out, meaning that the pair had the house to themselves. It was a rare occurrence. The two young men were very insular with their behaviours, so normally one or the other was constantly in the house. However, Lalna must've been busy at university, or too drunk to come home (as was all too often the case) and Will's activities with one of the courts was preoccupying him.

Walking back down the stairs, he made his way down the hall towards the kitchen, rubbing his hands together. Tonight was going to be so good, he could just tell. He always had a feeling for these things.

Xephos stopped dead in the door frame. The lights in the kitchen were switched off. Considering that they only had two tables suitable for dining in the house - one inside for regular use and one outside for the summer time - there was logically only two places for Honeydew to be. Honeydew couldn't be this stupid to have them eat outside, could he? It was reasonably late in December and due to where the city was, snow was likely to be on its way in the next couple of days. The temperatures had been steadily dropping for the last couple of weeks.

Deciding that it wasn't beyond his husband to be this mad, Xephos made his way to the glass sliding doors that joined their kitchen to their garden to see what was outside. He could see the faint glow of their patio heater and some fairy lights that he had never seen before. They were in the shape of blue stars and cast a strange light over the plants that Xephos and Honeydew loved to spend hours on during lazy but reasonably productive Sundays. With a shake of his head, smiling despite himself, he opened the doors and made his way around the flower beds to sit on the nest of blankets that were laid out on the grass.

"You do realise that the patio would have made more sense because it's not as dirty?" Xephos slumped down rather ungracefully next to Honeydew; his actions made all the more awkward by the fact that he was avoiding plates of food.

"Well, grass is comfier?" Honeydew offered a smile and a shrug with his excuse. Xephos could only shake his head whilst a small huff of a laugh escaped his lips. This man was going to be the end of him, and he was willing to let him be.

"What's the occasion though?" Xephos picked up one of the home-made sausage rolls and popped it in his mouth, pondering the question himself. Their wedding anniversary wasn't until nearer midsummer, mainly because Xephos preferred the magic that accumulated around that time. Xephos wasn't normally one to forget anniversaries or birthdays, that was normally Honeydew's job. So being stumped by this was new for Xephos, and he didn't like it.

"Today, pretty much on a night like this, we met, you doofus!" Honeydew then hit Xephos over the head with one of the pillows he dragged outside. Xephos nearly choked on his sausage roll from the sudden shock.

"Oh meh gawd!" The taller man tried to say through the food in his mouth. He swallowed what was left before continuing, "I thought that it was next week!"

"Nope! It's definitely tonight. I can't believe you forgot..." Honeydew's countenance faltered. His happy disposition faded. He hated getting reflective, but it was very unlike his husband to forget a date as important as today's. He was normally the one to make big plans and things like this, so he expected him to be pleased, although not surprised by tonight's gesture.

"Oh, Honeydew..." Xephos leaned over to cradle his husband in his arms, bringing his husband's head into his chest. He softly started to stroke the braids and plaits in the orange hair. It was an old habit left over from being brought up in a traditionalist dwarf household. Xephos loved them though, it allowed him to see into a past that Honeydew never liked to talk about.

In a fit of guilt, Xephos decided to pull the pad and paper out of his pocket. He always carried it around with him in case he needed to draw a sigil. He wasn't normally one for fits of random magic, but he thought that tonight could warrant an exception. With mild concentration, Xephos started to draw intricate symbols which seemed to dance across the page of their own accord. The magic emanating from them was obvious as the air around the couple started to thicken. Xephos's eyes began to glow as the candles started going out in the garden. Honeydew looked around, confused and slightly scared for what might happen. After a short amount of time, the garden was just dark and Xephos sighed. The tall man flashed a small, weary smile at his husband and looked up at the sky.

What was once a dull night sky in the suburbs of the city, filled with the strange dirty yellow that emanated from the sodium filled streetlights, was now full of stars and galaxies. They whorled and twirled around each other, as if they were alive and and playing with one another. Reds, purples, greens, and oranges all painted their unique hues within the nebulae.

Honeydew was stunned.

Ever since he was young he'd had a fascination with the night sky. Possibly because it was unbecoming of a young dwarf of such high standing like himself to be concerned with such fanatical things as space. But, nevertheless, the fascination stayed with him well into adulthood. It was one of the main reasons why Honeydew had decided to go and talk to Xephos all those years ago. There was a fireworks display for no real reason in the city that night, and Honeydew snuck out to go and watch it from the highest point in the city he could think of. Admittedly, it was only a small hill in a park but it was as high as Honeydew was willing to go for the sake of fireworks. However, his eyes were not drawn to the flashing lights of the explosions above him, but to a tall man facing the opposite way, with his eyes fixed on the North Star. The rest, as they say, was history. A very long and happy history at that.

Honeydew's face broke into a huge smile and he lunged at his husband, pinning him to the floor.

"Honeydew! This shirt is going to get grass stains! Gerroff me!" Xephos giggled, his composure giving way to Honeydew's mischief.

The pair's eyes locked for a small moment, and an unspoken gratitude was passed between them. Years of knowing each other meant that words were not often needed.

Honeydew leant down to press a small kiss to his husband's lips. This, Xephos was not happy about and he leant up to deepen the kiss into something more fulfilling. Even after all these years, Honeydew thought, he still knows how to make me melt.

Honeydew suddenly pulled away from the kiss with a look that Xephos knew all too well. Sitting up, Xephos pulled Honeydew into one last kiss before attempting to stand up, then realising he still had his husband sitting in his lap. With a huffed giggle, the two men sorted themselves out and managed to stand. Honeydew took Xephos's hand in his and lead the way towards the house.

Suddenly, Xephos stopped and ran his free hand over his face. His expression turned to one of annoyance.

"Really? Now?"

Honeydew cocked his head to one side. He was sure that this was how the situation was meant to play out - why was Xephos suddenly having reservations about it? Things seemed to be going pretty well so what had he done wrong to make his husband act this way? Honeydew's anxiety was almost getting the better of him, threatening to make him shout at Xephos, bawl his eyes out, or do both simultaneously.

Xephos obviously saw the sudden change in his husband's countenance and wasted no time in pulling him close to comfort him. "It's nothing to do with you, my sweet. It's only because Will has brought someone home with him again and I need to be focused on keeping the sigils in check because last time... Ugh! Last time the whole house needed re-wiring!"

Honeydew suddenly burst into laughter and the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Xephos couldn't help but join him. Years ago he was cold and stony, rarely allowing himself to ever really have fun. If it weren't for Honeydew ignoring the fireworks all those years ago, Xephos would never have learnt to be who he was that day.

Xephos laced his fingers between Honeydew's again and led the pair back towards the blankets and food. The sky above them was still filled with colours, swirling and twirling their immortal dance into oblivion.

The pair sat down again and stared up at the sky. Within no time at all, they were laying on their backs in comfortable silence, Honeydew's face in the crook of Xephos's neck. This was all they would ever need in life.

Credit to allhailgrilledcheese on Ao3

Notes:

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