#I will probably post more of my lup photos in a big post instead of just singling out one

[captainsparklefingers]

Back soon. (Lup cosplay, Connecticon 2017. Photograph by Kayou Photography. Find their incredible work here: https://m.facebook.com/Kayouphotography/ ) (Would this have worked better in a cave, or a place with more rocks? Yes. But try finding a cave in downtown Hartford. Parking garages don't count.)

[nillial]

goodnight -- 1.2k-- gen

a taz fic about magnus and angus having nightmares. it’s all good in the end, tho. ao3 link in the notes because tumblr doesn’t let posts with links show up in tags... rip

summary:  Magnus has a nightmare. Just as he's preparing for another sleepless night, he hears the creaking of his bedroom door and a small voice that whispers, "Sir?"

--

Magnus has nightmares sometimes.

They’re about the Hunger, about its inescapability— about the century of newly-cleared static, still a little fuzzy around the edges— about his deaths and the deaths of his friends. Mostly, though, they’re about Julia.

Some of them are about the war. He doesn’t know exactly how she died, so his brain likes to fill in the gaps in the worst of ways. Sometimes, she’s face-to-face with a man they despise but who Magnus can’t recognize. She’s ready to defend Raven’s Roost like she always was, but, before she can say anything, he pulls out a dagger and slits her throat. Sometimes, she’s vengeful and heartbroken, and the buildings and bridges alight with flame only fuel her fury as she charges towards the opposing army. But she alone isn’t enough to fight her way to where the man, as cowardly as always, hides behind hundreds of soldiers. Sometimes she’s just going about her business in the Hammer and Tongs when she hears a thunderous booming noise, followed by a chorus of piercing screams. She feels the ground beneath her crumble, feels the building slide, feels an intense fear and panic she’s never felt before, and she doesn’t know what to do, or where to go, or what’s happening, and she’s so, so scared, and then the world comes toppling upon her, and there’s a sharp pain all over, and then everything stops.

The others are about the both of them together. Sometimes, they’re younger, vital, happy and blissful and content in their new relationship. Steven shoots them looks, but they’re more playful glares than scowls. Sometimes, they’re older, and Julia’s curly hair is more gray than brown. She sits on a rocking chair— walnut wood, of course— and she pets one of their many dogs, smiling at him, her laugh lines showing, and they’re happy. Sometimes, they’re in front of a fireplace, ageless, timeless, careless, and warm from the inside out. He’s at ease until he wakes and finds the spot next to him cold and empty.  

Her face is a little different each time. The mole on her neck is on the left and not the right, or her ear piercings are higher than they should be, or her crooked tooth is on the bottom row instead of the top, or something that he can’t name is just— out of place. Magnus fears he’s forgetting what she looks like. He hoards the few photos he has left of her like a dragon hoards gold.

In every dream, he’s always with her in some way or another. In every dream, he can’t save her.

He wakes up one night with a film of cold sweat on his forehead. It’s nowhere near morning, but it’ll be a while before he falls asleep again. He should probably get a glass of water. Work on something. Calm down.

Just as he swings his legs over the side of the bed, he hears a soft knock at the door.

Magnus makes a grunt that’s halfway confused and halfway tired. His bedroom door creaks open.

“Sir?” says Angus, his voice barely above a whisper. “Can I come in?”

Magnus peers through the darkness at Angus’s face, which is still halfway obscured by the door. He rubs his eyes and says, “Yeah. Yeah, of course, Ango. Come on in.”

Angus tiptoes inside, despite the fact that there’s no one else in the house except for the two of them. And the dogs, of course. Maybe he’s trying to be courteous for the dogs. He’s polite like that.

Magnus lives alone with his pets. His friends visit him nearly every day and he comes over to Taako’s on Fridays for supper with everybody, but he still lives alone. He’s not cynical about it.  He has Steven and Johann and the rest of his animals, but he can’t help if he misses having roommates sometimes.

Angus keeps him company. He likes to crash in his guest room, which is, in actuality, more just Angus’s room at this point. Magnus built him a desk out of oak and a bookshelf out of maple wood. Despite his ample storage space, he still finds old homework and big textbooks and Scholastic titles scattered around the floor. He doesn’t mind. Angus is young and often in a rush. Besides, it makes the house feel a lot less empty.

Angus settles next to him on the bed, careful and soft. He’s wearing a pair of ostentatiously bright blue pajamas that Taako picked out for him. His glasses are askew, which makes Magnus wonders if he slept in them, or if he even slept at all.

“What’s goin’ on, little guy?” he asks him, his voice still groggy. Even through the dark, Magnus can see him chewing on the inside of his cheek— a nervous habit of his.

Angus, whose distress is already apparent on his face, says, “Oh— um— it’s just… it’s… it’s nothing. Sorry for bothering you, sir. I’m gonna—”

“No, no, Angus,” Magnus says, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder as Angus begins to stand. “It’s okay.”

His expression shifts from worried to calm to embarrassed in a matter of seconds. He averts his gaze to the floor and twiddles with his thumbs. “It’s stupid.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he replies.

“No, I will, it’s just…” Angus takes a deep breath. “Before I say anything, sir, you have to understand that I am not a kid anymore.”

Angus is eleven and, although he may be a boy genius, is most definitely still a kid.

“Okay,” says Magnus.

Angus looks around at the dark room, searching for anywhere that isn’t Magnus’s eyes, before he finally mumbles, “I… uh… I had a nightmare.”

He eyes over Angus and sees the glistening of sweat on his forehead— the same kind of cold sweat Magnus woke up with a few moments ago. “Oh.”

“There was— I— it was weird,” Angus continues. “We were— we were at the Bureau, I think, and everyone was there. And I mean everyone, sir. You were there, but so was Jenkins, and Grandpa, and my parents, and my friends, and... It was everyone I’d ever met. We were all running from— from something, and I— I was the only one left, eventually, and—”

“It’s okay, Angus,” he reassures. “Everything’s okay now.”

“I know that, sir, but I…” He takes a deep breath. “I came in here because… I think I’d just feel safer sleeping in here tonight. If that’s okay with you, of course, sir. I don’t mean to impose.”

Safety isn’t something that Angus is often concerned with. He breaks into the homes of mob bosses and follows around serial killers to gather clues. He’s recognized at several local militias for solving more cases than any seasoned investigator there. Kravitz, Lup, and Barry have found him sneaking around necromantic cult meetings on at least six separate occasions, two of which involved Angus blending in as a very tiny member and one of which involved him as the sacrifice. He’s more often curious than afraid. If Angus is scared, it means he’s terrified .

So, of course, Magnus scoots over, lifts the blankets, and pats the spot next to him.

Angus breathes a sigh of relief. He burrows under the covers and rests his head on the pillow. Magnus gingerly lays down next to him, careful not to stir him, but Angus doesn’t seem to mind him much. Within a matter of minutes, his breathing steadies into a slow rise and fall.

He smiles.

Magnus has nightmares sometimes.

But he’s not alone, and that makes things better.

(Magnus falls back asleep that night.)

[highpriestessjester]

On the Other Side

When living as an elf, sometimes you forget that other races don't live as long.

(or that fic in which Taako has to watch everyone he loves grow old and eventually dies) 

[This was originally posted on Ao3 by me, you can find it here. This was also written as an art trade for my friend potionuke. Please check out his artwork, its so good!!]

Taako always knew he’d be alone in the end. Actually, he didn’t, but the only thing he really had left in the end was his ability to always be right and he wasn’t about to give that up now.

So he lay, alone in the hospice, pretending to be right because it was the only thing he really had left. It wasn’t really anybody’s fault: Magnus, Lucretia, and Agnus were only human, after all, and it hurt more than anything to see them go. Luckily Kravitz would give him updates on occasion, telling him stories of Magnus and his wife, Julia, and their dogs on the island. Once Lucretia passed she joined them, and Davenport followed not too long after her. Kravitz remarked once that the human members of IPRE followed into death more gracefully than any he had ever seen.

It was rough, though, when Angus died. For the years leading up to his death, Taako couldn’t bear to be around. He was constantly researching ways to extend his life, but Angus only shook his head sadly. Taako knew as well as Angus did, extending your life by magical means would only get you hunted down by the Reapers of the Raven Queen, and when your adopted father and aunt and uncle were all Reapers, there wasn’t anywhere you could hide.

Eventually, Taako gave up the ghost and instead spent almost every waking moment with Angus, talking and telling stories of times long past, listening to Angus tell tales about his own adventures. When he could, Kravitz would stop by to support his husband and his son, sitting with them for as long as work would allow him to.

On the day Angus died, Kravitz sat with them all day. Angus wasn’t dumb, actually, he was far from it and he knew what it meant. So they smiled and laughed, all as a family. Angus’s children came in, with watery smiles and saying their goodbyes. Taako held his hand and told Angus how much he loved him; it wasn’t something he had done often and now he regretted it as he felt his husband disappear from his side and his son’s hand go limp and the light leave his eyes.

Taako barely comprehended his grandchildren all crying around him as his favorite detective passed into the astral plane. He didn’t let go of his dead son’s hand until Kravitz rematerialized and whispered quietly “He’s with family, our family. He is happy and safe, Taako.” Taako let go of Angus’s cold hand as if it had shocked him, suddenly latching on to Kravitz as if he were going to disappear again.

Taako couldn’t stop shaking, and Kravitz just gently pat his back and held him. It was hard when you were practically immortal, and seeing people you love pass was hard.

But life moved on, and when you were an elf, you learned to deal with those you love dying. Mortality was an impossibly hard conundrum to deal with after all, even without the factor of three hundred to six hundred years of variance to add into the mix. After Angus died, Taako grew cold and aloof again, just as he during his time during the decade he forgot about Lup and the IPRE.

But then Merle died and Taako hadn’t even known that Merle was getting old. The only way he had known was that Kravitz came back one night looking haggard and angry. When Taako had asked his husband what happened, he just spat out “Merle.”

Kravitz might have well slapped Taako across the face, and while neither of them really needed sleep, they went to bed almost immediately. Taako held Kravitz while the Reaper wept bitterly. As they were falling into a trance-like state, Kravitz whispered “Please don’t push people away, Taako. They don’t understand when they die, why people don’t come and visit them.” It was Taako’s turn to weep and he suddenly realized the full consequences of his isolation.

With Merle’s passing, it was only Taako, Barry, and Lup left of the original crew. But Barry and Lup were constantly off doing the business of the Raven Queen and he had his school of magic, so he learned how to make new family. They were only replacements at first, but soon they grew to be their own sort of wonderful and wacky. When Barry and Lup would visit, they could see in Taako’s and Kravitz’s eyes how happy they were. Nothing could ever replace Taako’s original family, but one doesn’t stop loving their family when they have their own children. Just as he wept for Angus and Magnus and Lucretia and Davenport, he wept for his new children and friends. The pain of death never got easier to bear, but Kravitz was a pro with death, and soon Taako learned how to live on with the pain in a healthier manner.

Taako and Kravitz raised so many children together; they gave so many people a home and love and support. But inevitably, all of their children died before they did.

So in the end, Taako admitted himself to a hospice. He was alone and he wanted it to be that way. He was afraid of what Kravitz would feel in the wake of his death, so he hid his identity as well as he could and ran from their home in the middle of one of Kravitz’s long shifts for the Raven Queen.

The orderly, Sarah, looked quite sad when he dragged himself into the hospice and admitted himself. “Do you not have any family to take care of you?” She asked quietly.

“I have family,” he answered just as quietly, “but they’ve all gone already.” Sarah looked stricken and Taako quickly pat her on the hand. “Don’t worry, bubeluh, it has long stopped bothering me. Now I am excited to finally see them, after all this time.”

Sarah chatted with him while she set him up in a room and she patted his bed gently when he was finally comfortably settled. She quickly became his favorite nurse in the hospice, bringing him photos of her wife and children. Once, she even brought in her youngest daughter Hannah. Taako fawned over the little girl, teaching her Mage Hand and Scorching Ray. Her dark eyes lit up when he summoned Garryl into the middle of the room, prancing around. She giggled around his feet and fawned over his beautiful rainbow mane. He even found the strength in his hands to carve her a wand of her own.

Sarah couldn’t seem to thank him enough, apparently Hannah couldn’t stop talking about ‘the kind old elf with the funny jokes’. Taako laughed at that, and every time she stopped by on her rounds, he couldn’t help but smile. He thanked her for bringing in Hannah and he regaled her with stories of a young boy with a nose for puzzles and an impossible knack for solving them. Hannah had reminded him so much of his first magic student and was such a delight to have so close to the end.

It was only about a month or so after Hannah had visited that he felt it. After dying a hundred years in a row, an elf learned how to sense when the end was near, so he called in Sarah to say his goodbyes. Taako gave her his umbrella, non-magical of course, and told her that if he took it to Ren at the Taako’s School of Wizardry, little Hannah would get a full scholarship to the school. Sarah cried, and thanked him profusely for the gift.

Suddenly, Sarah went stock still, and whispered, “I’ve never seen three of them.” Taako froze. He knew that she could see vague impressions of other planes, but the ominous tones hidden in her statement made him nervous.

“Them? Whose them?” It was hard to breathe for Taako.

“They come, I think they help people to the other side.” She grabbed at Taako’s hand desperately. “You’ve meant so much to me, Taako. I hope you find peace on the other side.”

Taako smiled radiantly up at Sarah. “You said there were three of them?” Sarah nodded, she could see their forms becoming more and more clear. Taako looked at peace when he saw her response. “Then I will have no peace on the other side, but probably a whole lot of adventure.” He smiled and the strength in his hand started to fade. Sarah saw his hold body relax and then just, stop moving.

Sarah saw a bright flash in the plane and for a moment she was able to see absolutely clear. She saw Taako, a younger and more spritely version of himself, embracing what appeared to be a true mask of death. She was horrified until she remembered something he had said something long ago about his husband working pretty closely with death. She saw Taako’s spirit smile and wave to her and she smiled back. Sarah knew that this spirit would be safe, it seemed like he was with family.

The last emotion Taako felt before he died was guilt. He really should have been more specific when talking about his family with Sarah; she looked so scared for him at the end.

But then, nothing much mattered because he was wrapped in the loving arms of his husband and surrounded by his sister and her husband. Kravitz was really squeezing the life, er, death out of him, hugging him so tight he felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Babe, babe. Let me take a breath.” Taako gasped out.

“What were you thinking, disappearing like that?” Kravitz released him from his vice-like hug and instead grabbed his shoulders. “You’re a moron. Why did you run away from me? Why did you run away from us?” Kravitz gestured widely to both Barry and Lup, who both looked like they were about to lose their minds to jump onto Taako. But it seemed like their curiosity would outweigh their desire to hold him in their arms.

Taako was dumbfounded. He had no idea that Kravitz would be this upset and he thought that Kravitz would understand his reasoning. “I didn’t want you to see me suffer at the end, darling. Dying isn’t exactly a glamorous ordeal.” Taako looked at the people surrounding him and saw three identical faces of despair.

“Oh no, you guys. I wanted a party for our reunion and it’s not going to be a pity party. It’s gonna have big lights and fireworks and I’m going to hold that to you, Lup.” He turned to face his sister and opened his arms. “Come here, sis.” Lup smiled wide and jumped into his arms. Taako spun her in a circle while they both laughed merrily.

Taako let go of her and marched up to Barry, who was trying his best to hide tears behind his glasses. “Aww Barold, there’s no point in crying, big man.” Taako wrapped his arms around Barry and squeezed him tight. Once Barry finally let him go, Taako turned grandly. “Now can you take me to the others? I’ve got a lot of family to see.” Kravitz grinned and grabbed his husband’s hand and turned. He opened a blueish void in front of the four of them and stepped through to the other side.

And when they did get to the other side, Taako saw the most beautiful wooden cabin on a beautiful green island. He saw large and small dogs gallivanting on the lawn and an adult man with large glasses and a loopy smile on his face. The man saw the three Reapers and Taako and waved emphatically. “Hello, sir! It’s been quite some time, hasn’t it?” The man called out from the hoard of happy dogs surrounding him.

As if that was their signal, five figures tumbled out of the wooden cabin. Taako saw Magnus charging across the lawn, looking as young as he did during those hundred years of running. He was followed by a young woman that Taako didn’t know, but given what Magnus had told him of his late wife, must be Julia. Behind her was Lucretia, and then Davenport. Merle was trying to keep up with his short legs but was inevitably falling behind. Even Angus was making his way over, having to wade through a large sea of excited furry bodies.

It all was so much for Taako and tears quickly filled his eyes. They were knocked out of his eyes once Magnus tackled him in a bear hug. “Welcome home, buddy. We’ve all been waiting for you.” And for the first time in what feels like forever, Taako smiled, surrounded by all of his family.