Work Text:
Beau had never been a heavy sleeper. Even before the Cobalt Soul had trained her to be alert and aware even in her sleep, it had never taken much to wake her up at night.
So when her window shattered, it didn’t matter that she was in her bedroom on the second floor with her door closed, fast asleep, next to her softly snoring wife. She heard it loud and clear.
“Babe. Babe!” She shook Yasha’s shoulder. Yasha groaned. “Someone’s downstairs.”
Yasha sat up and rubbed her eyes. Beau was already at the bedroom door, putting on a pair of slippers and grabbing her staff. Neither of them kept their weapons far from their bed, just in case. “What do you think they want?”
“Not sure,” Beau whispered. “But I left my coin purse in the kitchen, and I'm not letting it get snatched again.”
The two bounded downstairs. Beau was as quiet as a mouse, but Yasha was five eleven and over two hundred pounds of pure lesbian-crisis inducing muscle, so they didn’t exactly have the element of surprise. Shockingly, though, Beau didn’t hear anyone trying to escape.
The kitchen window was completely shattered. A grey rock that Beau recognized from Yasha’s garden was lying on the floor in the center of a halo of broken glass. The culprit, a familiar half-elven figure, was currently rooting around in their fridge. He peeked his head up at the noise. “Hey Beau. Hey Yasha.”
“Hello Kai,” Yasha said. She turned to grab a dustpan and a broom.
“What the fuck, Kai?” Beau exclaimed.
“It’s good to see you too.”
“You broke our fucking window!”
Kai not-so-subtly picked the rock up off the floor and threw it over his shoulder out the broken window. It crashed onto the street below. “No I didn’t.”
Beau threw her hands up, exasperated. “Why did I give you a lockpick set if you’re just gonna smash our window?”
Kai shrugged. “Seemed more fun.” He opened a tupperware and sniffed it. “This still good?”
“Yeah, it’s from the other night,” Yasha said. Kai nodded and pulled up a seat at the table. Beau rolled her eyes and handed him a fork.
Kai started digging in. “So what’s new with you guys?” he asked around a mouthful of lasagna.
“Not much,” Yasha said. She’d already started sweeping up the glass shards. “Just packing to go to Jester and Fjord’s wedding. How about you?”
“Eh. This and that,,” he said. “Picked up a couple of odd jobs in the Run. Nothing fun, though.” Nothing illegal, Beau translated mentally. Probably for the best. The criminals in Shady Creek Run were a whole different sort. Untrustworthy. Beau made a mental note to introduce him to the Gentleman later. Get him in contact with some good, upstanding criminal enterprises.
“Oh, Jessep says hi, by the way,” Kai said around bites of food. “This lasagna’s great.” Yasha beamed.
“Wait, Jessep’s in Shady Creek Run?” Beau asked.
Kai nodded. “She’s been hanging out with this weird freaky hermit family in the woods. Apparently she’s thinking about starting a tea business, and she says they’re some of the best. Gives me the willies whenever I go visit them. They keep trying to give me life advice and feed me.” He shuddered. “I had to get out of there for a little while. So you’re going out of town?”
“Yeah, and Caleb’s putting wards up on our house, so don’t even think about trying to break in while we’re gone,” Beau warned.
Kai shrugged. “Eh. We’ll see.” He kicked his chair back and put his feet- boots and all- up on the table. Beau swiped them off. “Oh, Padmund says hi too. I saw him last week.”
“Oh, how’s he doing?” Yasha asked.
“Pretty good. He got a job on a fishing boat for the summer. He’s pretty excited about that.”
“Good for him!” Beau said.
“Are the two of you still working on that card game?” Yasha asked.
“Yeah. Padmund’s been learning how to whittle miniature figurines. He says it's gonna be the next big step.”
“Oh, that’s why he sent that letter asking for reference portraits,” Yasha said. “I was wondering about that.”
“Jester did a good job on those paintings though,” Beau commented.
“Yeah, I saw them when I visited last week,” Kai commented. “I liked the one where you were like” he made some flailing gestures, like he was being attacked by invisible tentacles. “You were fighting a giant snake or something. Your face was hilarious.”
Beau rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up. See what expressions you make when a naga tries to strangle you in the middle of the night.”
“Is Sky still in town? I know she was interning with that wizard. I wanted to see her if she was still in town.”
“I just saw her last week,” Yasha said. “She’s doing well. She has an internship at a shop called the Invulnerable Vagrant. Here,” Yasha jotted down an address on a notepad, tore it out, and handed it to Kai.
“Awesome.” Kai pocketed the paper.
“Don’t rob them either,” Beau cautioned. “The Pumats are even more paranoid than I am.”
Kai rolled his eyes. “I don’t rob every store I go into.”
Beau raised an eyebrow skeptically.
“I don’t rob some of the stores I go into.”
Beau’s expression didn’t change.
Kai sighed. “I won’t rob them.”
“Are you planning to stay the night?” Yasha asked.
“Nah, Padmund’s family’s Zadash apartment is empty. I’m gonna crash there. There’s a hot tub.”
“You really shouldn’t go swimming without anyone around,” Beau told him.
Kai rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, Mo-”
Kai cut himself off suddenly. His face went bright red.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Kai said.
Yasha crossed her arms, a faint smile on her lips. “Were you going to say ‘mom?’”
“No!” Kai stood up suddenly. “I gotta go!”
Beau grinned. “I mean, you’re welcome to stay the night, son-”
“Nope!” Kai dashed to the window and jumped out.
Beau watched him tuck and roll expertly, falling cleanly onto the street below in a perfect somersault, and stand back up and break into a run away from their house without so much as a pause.
“I taught him that,” she told her wife proudly.
“I remember,” Yasha said. She inspected the window. “I’ll talk to the Caleb in the morning, get this mended.”
Beau nodded, agreeing. She went upstairs and grabbed some blankets from the spare room, and helped Yasha start covering the window frame. “You think Kai’ll remember not to break in while we’re gone, or should we tell Caleb to keep the traps non-lethal?”
“No, I think we can trust him,” Yasha said. “He’s a good kid.”
Beau smiled. “Yeah, he really is.” Her gaze wandered to the little kitchen counter. “...aaaand he stole my coin purse.”
Yasha shrugged. “He’s an alright kid.”
Beau grinned. “He's our alright kid.”
Yasha smiled fondly and bent down, planting a kiss on her wife's cheek. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”