[image: an illustration of Barry and Lup, holding hands and looking at each other. Barry has pale skin, glasses and brown hair. He’s shorter than Lup and chubby and is wearing a button-down shirt, a bowtie and black slacks. Lup has light brown skin and a bob haircut that’s brown at the roots and blonde at the tips. She’s wearing a long black gown. They’re standing in front of a white background covered in sheet music.]
You’re in a marketplace. Perhaps you came to run some errands. Perhaps you came to man your own shop. Perhaps you came to take a simple walk, do some window shopping and see some familiar faces.
Either way, you find yourself sitting down on a bench. On the other side of this bench is an instrument shop having an end-of-season sale. The owner, an old man smoking a pipe, sits crosslegged in front of his shop, eyeing the wares he has on display. He does this for good reason; he’s put out many an instrument outside his shop. There are drums, clarinets, flutes and cellos all in pristine condition. The biggest instrument, a large black grand piano sits proudly in the middle of this display, the sign “TRY ME!” hanging off an edge.
Perhaps you see a instrument you can play. Perhaps you move closer, feeling the storekeepers eyes burn into you as you pick one up, play a little tune. Perhaps you stay in your seat, content to watch others come up and try their hand-a little girl, banging the drums loudly with childish glee until her parents come to stop her. An old woman, picking up the cello and playing a song you’ve heard before but can’t put a name to. A teenage boy, looking around furtively before picking up a flute and playing a haunting melody that brings tears to your eyes.
(He doesn’t buy the flute, disappearing into the crowd as fast as he appeared. You look at the store keeper and see him also staring into the crowd, a sense of loss in his demeanor.)
And then there’s the couple.
You do not know that they’re a couple at first. They break from the crowd together, something you’d assumed to have been coincidence. The human man is wearing a pale blue button down shirt with blue jeans and a brown belt. His hair is beginning to thin, small spots of head showing from beneath his curly brown locks. The woman is elven and rocking it, fishnet tights paired with a velvet mini skirt and a pink tank top to match. Her hair is up in a ponytail and it brushes the man’s shoulder as they both go for different objects-the elf picks up a violin and strokes it, running her hands across the rosewood body. The human turns to the piano.
Yes, you do not know that they’re a couple at first, because how could two people so different possibly ever come together? You are dead wrong. (And also a bit stereotypical. It’s 2018, get with the program.)
The elf moves over to the human, violin and bow in one hand and the other moving toward his shoulder. “Play off?”
He looks at her with a puzzled smile, placing one of his own hands over her own. “We haven’t played in a long time,” he says, and she just smiles wider. “We’ll start slow,” she assures him, a chaste kiss on his forehead. “First person to mess up loses.”
He rolls his shoulders back and cracks his fingers. “Well then,” he says, a wolfish grin breaking over his face. “I’d better get started winning, then.”
When they start to play, they do not attract much attention. The melody is slow and lazy, both musicians playing the same song. It reverberates through the space, and from the corner of your eye you see the shopkeeper uncross his legs and lean towards the music.
The song repeats again and again, a faster tempo each time. The elf is clearly leading the song, the piano always picking up a few notes after the violin. It’s a race as much as it’s a melody and soon they haven’t only attracted attention.
They’ve attracted a crowd.
Shoppers stop in their tracks to watch the duo battle. There are whispers amongst the crowd, mutterings of a story and song. You may have heard the story and song. You may have not. But either way you do not take your eyes off them. They play with fervor, glancing every so often at each other with grins on their faces. The elf isn’t still as she plays, moving in circles around the piano and calling out taunts with vicious glee. Her lover is not as expressive, focusing on the piano keys with determination. They play, they play and they play and-
The woman hits a wrong note.
She stops playing immediately but he does not, speeding up the tempo even as she takes the violin from her chin and the crowd starts to clap. It’s only after he finishes the song by himself that he looks up at her wearing the most shit-eating grin you have ever seen in your short, long life.
“I win,” he says, and the crowd erupts into applause as he stands to take an exaggerated bow. She comes to his side as well, whispering something in his ear that makes him smile and blowing kisses to the masses. The crowd starts to part, then, and perhaps you stay seated. Perhaps you begin to leave as well, standing up and stretching, ready to get on with your life.
You do not get far enough to miss this.
The man slides back onto the piano bench, setting his fingers on certain keys. The woman looks at him quizzically, unsure of her husband’s actions (they are married, you know; their wedding rings catch the light when they turn and twist.). She does not put down her own instrument, waiting to see what would happen next.
And then he starts to play.
This melody is rough in some places, a few notes grating with the tempo and tune that he sets. It’s a simple song, so different from the show of skill they’d just put up. It’s…weird, and yet at the same time remarkably charming, and you find yourself leaning towards the music, as if it was a story you wanted to hear more of.
And then the violin.
It’s when the elf joins in that the music starts to make sense. She smooths out the edges, perfecting the melody. The song deepens, becoming more and more intricate as their melodies seem to weave around each other, a delicate symbiosis of song that people once again turn toward. Time slows down around the couple, the people around them slowing their pace in an effort to hear them play longer.
And then she stops playing.
The piano continues, first with confidence and then with a stutter. The tune starts to collapse,the right keys being missed and the wrong ones being struck as the man fights to keep it together. There is a sort of fear on his face, you see, but not the the kind you would expect from a lover being left behind. He isn’t afraid of losing her. He’s afraid of never finding her again. The song he plays is horribly beautiful, and you find yourself holding your breath, glancing at the elven woman to see if-no, when she would join back in.
And then she does.
The song rights itself immediately, violin and piano both rising to a crescendo that screams of joy and relief before collapsing back into their refrain, love in every measure, longing in every note. They play, they play, and then they stop playing, the last notes from the piano ringing clearly through the market.
She puts down the violin and he takes his hands off the keys. They look up and stare at each other, silent and wide-eyed, as if meeting for the first time.
The shopkeeper starts to clap. A few passerby join in as well, and perhaps you do as well but you’re not sure if they can even hear the applause around them, so caught up in each other’s gaze that the world might as well have fallen away.
She breaks the spell first, walking over and kissing him hard on the lips. He’s startled but he kisses back, a smile growing on both of their faces until they pull apart, foreheads still touching. He whispers something and she laughs, whispering something back that makes him draw her closer for another kiss. They stay like this for a second, hands and lips clasped together for dear life until-
“Excuse me,” the shopkeeper’s gruff voice breaks them both out of their shared trance and they turn to stare at him.
“Are you going to buy those two instruments?” He says, pointing at the piano and violin. The couple look at each other for a second before the human sighs, digging out his wallet.
The final giveaway prize for @fullyrealized thank you all so much for entering!
[image description: a drawing of Barry, lying on his side on a couch with his head resting in Lup’s lap. Barry is light-skinned with curly dark brown hair and glasses. He’s wearing a gray sweater and red pants, reading a book with a content smile on his face. Lup is a dark-complexioned elf with shoulder-length dark brown hair that’s slightly lighter at the ends and shaved on the side. She’s wearing a pink sweater and black sweatpants. She’s touching Barry’s head and shoulder and smiling slightly down at him.]
In lieu of listening to any of the 9000 new podcasts in my queue I am once again back on my TAZ B shit. I love Barry and Lup
I am really happy with the hatching and the expressions.
[ID: Pencil and ink drawing of Lup and Barry. They appear to be naked. Lup sits above and behind Barry, who is seen from the waist up; Barry leans back against her and glances up, smiling. Lup has one leg slung over Barry’s shoulder, which she rests an elbow on and pillows her head in her hand. Barry reaches back to touch her knee. Lup’s other arm is resting on Barry’s other shoulder. /ID]
The good thing about having his own house, away from the other crew members, is that Magnus could sing as loud as he wanted, burn as much food as he possibly could, or even walk around naked, and no one would scold or laugh at him. The bad part about living in his own house is that it was really damn lonely. Suffocatingly lonely, to the point that Magnus sometimes forgot he was actually a person and not just a ghost living in this house. The dogs helped a lot, but the feeling persisted.
This is why he crossed the street at seven this morning and knocked on the door to Barry and Lup’s house, inviting himself inside when neither of them answered. They had an incomplete puzzle on their coffee table that Magnus started to work out. When Lup came downstairs around an hour later, she stopped to stare at Magnus, blinking a few times as if he was a trick of the light, and then kept on her way to the kitchen. A few minutes later, she brought him a cup of coffee and then, presumably, went back to the kitchen to start on breakfast.
Barry stumbled down the stairs a while later, hair still wet from a shower. Magnus snorted when he stopped in the exact spot that Lup had, taking off his glasses to clean them, and then squinting at him as if Magnus had just been a smudge on the lens.
“Uhm,” Barry said. “What'cha doing here, bud?”
“Bored,” Magnus said, shrugging. “This puzzle is fucked.”
“I think you’re just bad at puzzles, Mags,” Barry said. He came over to the couch, sitting himself down next to Magnus and bending over to look at what was done so far. Maybe Magnus being bad at puzzles was a fair assessment, because he had only got some of the edge pieces put together, and the wizard hat of whoever was in the middle.
They sat there, mulling over the puzzle for a while. Barry started connecting pieces that Magnus didn’t even know were in front of him. By the time Lup came out with food and more coffee, Magnus had resigned himself to watching Barry do the puzzle, instead.
“Eggs,” Lup said enticingly, shoving a plate into Magnus’s arms. She set two mugs down on the coffee table and Barry picked one up without looking away from the puzzle. He took a sip and then grimaced and put it back down, picking up the other one.
“Sorry,” Barry said. “Thought that one was mine.”
“It’s in my mug, babe.”
The mug was a deep red with the words “don’t talk to me until I’ve killed you with this mug”. Very Lup-esque.
“I’m doing a puzzle,” Barry said. “I didn’t look!”
“We’redoing a puzzle,” Magnus said.
“No, I think Barry’s doing it,” Lup said. “Take a break to eat, babe.”
Barry glanced up- Magnus was already eating part of his plate. Ham and eggs and toast, all very good. Lup slid his plate towards him and Barry sighed, sitting back and reaching for the forks she had brought out too. There was silence for a while as they ate. It was a much nicer silence than sitting in his house, alone, eating mediocre eggs and ham. Lup was the first to finish, setting the plate aside on the coffee table and leaning down to look at the puzzle. Magnus was finished too, but he didn’t know where to put his plate so he just sort of held onto it.
“Where did we get a puzzle that was literally just a picture of Taako?” Lup asked after a few more minutes of Magnus watching them put it together. Sure enough, under the wizard hat Magnus had put together by himself was Taako.
“I think he gave it to me for my birthday,” Barry said, snapping another piece in place.
“Sounds about right,” Lup said.
Another silence. Barry and Lup were putting together the puzzle much faster now. Magnus took a sip of his coffee. As they put Taako’s apron into place, Magnus cleared his throat and said,
“How’s it feel being like, a lich?”
Barry’s hand stilled over one of the pieces. Lup hummed.
“Lich-y,” she said. Magnus huffed out a little laugh. “I don’t know how to describe it, Mags. Wanna share why you wanna know? ‘Cause I’m ninety percent sure my ass willget fired literally and metaphorically if I help you become a lich.”
“I don’t wanna be a lich,” Magnus said. “I’ve had enough of living forever, thanks. I just kinda like… I don’t know. Like when you got your body back after so long, did it feel weird? Like too fleshy?”
“Yeah,” Lup said. Barry nodded in agreement.
“Lonely?” Magnus asked.
“I… wouldn’t use the word lonely,” Barry said. “Not exactly, anyhow. But it is sorta weird going from like… not being contained within anything directly into a breathing body again. Kinda like-” he snapped his fingers, screwing his face up for a second as he thought. “Like, uh, Wonderland? When you were dead, and then you were only kinda dead inside the mannequin? It’s like… so much, all at once. But also not enough, y'know?”
“No, I get it,” Magnus said. “It was very- very disorienting. I didn’t like it very much. I just? I don’t know. Usually, when I die, I just die. But then I was dead but not dead? More than when we were on the Starblaster. But I wasn’t alive, I just wasn’t dead. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“I got'cha. Sounds rough, Mags,” Lup said. Magnus nodded, not sure what else to say to make himself make sense. “D'you wanna talk about it or d'you just wanna watch us do this puzzle. Or both, I guess.”
“Kinda wanna talk about it,” Magnus said. “Never really had to chance to, I think.”
“Go for it,” Barry said, taking a sip of his coffee. He snapped another piece of the puzzle in. “We’re here to listen, bud.”
“Our capacity for love increases with each person we cross paths with throughout our lives, and with each moment we spend with those people. But too often we neglect that part of ourselves in favor of other. And by the time we realize just how important it is, we find ourselves with fewer folks around to practice with. But the seven of you have something that nobody else ever had: time. All the time in the world. Time enough to grow indescribably close. Time enough to learn how to care for each other, how to allow yourselves to be cared for. And in the case of Barry and Lup, time enough to fall deeply and truly in love.”
- Griffin Mcelroy, The Adventure Zone , Episode 64
Three people reblogged my art and seeing that they put tags made my heart jump happily! I always appreciate comments about my art in the tags ^^
“Our capacity for love increases with each person we cross paths with throughout our lives, and with each moment we spend with those people. But too often we neglect that part of ourselves in favor of other. And by the time we realize just how important it is, we find ourselves with fewer folks around to practice with. But the seven of you have something that nobody else ever had: time. All the time in the world. Time enough to grow indescribably close. Time enough to learn how to care for each other, how to allow yourselves to be cared for. And in the case of Barry and Lup, time enough to fall deeply and truly in love.”
- Griffin Mcelroy, The Adventure Zone , Episode 64
[ID: a digital illustration of Barry and Lup from the Adventure Zone. Barry is a large human man with brown hair wearing a white tunic and jeans. Lup is a thin elven woman with short curly blonde hair in an undercut. She is wearing leather armor and carrying a sword over her shoulder as she laughs. Lup’s hand is resting on Barry’s shoulder, who is clutching his wand in both hands and looking away, blushing. End ID.]
Day 5 of @blupjeansweek: class swap! For this I imagined a Lup lives au where Lup takes up fighting like Here There Be Gerblins Barry, and Barry takes up evocation after finding some of his late wife’s spellbooks in his creepy clone cave. And then they fall in love again :)
[ID: a flatcolor digital illustration of Barry and Lup from the Adventure Zone. Barry is a large human man with brown hair wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. Lup is a thin vampire with curly blonde hair wearing a long black dress and red heals. Lup has her arms wrapped around Barry, who is blushing, her fangs near his neck. END ID].
@blupjeansweek day 4: monster! You KNOW I had to go with vampire blups I love vampire blups.
[ID: a two-panel digital illustration of Barry and Lup from the Adventure Zone. Barry is a large human man with brown hair. Lup is a thin elven woman with curly blonde hair. In the first panel Lup is laughing with her head thrown back, backlit by the sunset. In the second panel, Barry stares at her, awestruck. End ID.]
@blupjeansweek day 3: sunset! I was thinking the beach cycle for this one because I simply cannot get enough of their awkward flirting era
[ID: a digital illustration of Barry and Lup from the Adventure Zone. Barry is a large human man with brown hair wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. Lup is a thin elven woman with curly blonde hair pulled up in a bun wearing a white tshirt and jeans that are much too large on her. The two are laughing together as Lup sits in Barry’s lap. Little hearts float above them. End ID.]
My piece to kick off @blupjeansweek! Day one was bluejeans, so of course I went with the classic clothes sharing
[ID: a colorless digital drawing of Barry, Taako, and Lup from the adventure zone featuring a tumblr interaction between @/science bastard and @/ testacoils-and-hubris. Lup is waving at Barry wearing her hair up and her lab-coat off her shoulders. Barry wears a lab coat and glasses and is averting his eyes, blushing. Taako wearing his hair tied back, a lab goat, gloves, and safety goggles as he paper-maches the light of creation and watches the interaction between Lup and Barry, unimpressed. The textpost is labeled, “B: lab coat worn off the shoulders has got me acting unwise.” “T: ‘unwise’ is a fun way to say lab safety violation.” End ID.]
