#based off a conversation I had with lup

[ya-kn0w-fr0m-tv]

durin the sufferin game/wonderland I had rainbow hair

that’s it that’s the post

[sliceroftpeirweirisles]

Whumpuary Day 11

11. (Jan 21-22) Blood / "Just get it over with" / Memories

Lucretia is sitting in her office on the Moon Base of the Bureau of Benevolence, approximately six months after The Day of Story and Song. Well, exactly one hundred and eighty-three days, five hours, and eleven minutes… but who is counting really? 

The truth is, she has been counting. There isn’t a day that has gone by where she isn’t thinking about how long it’s been since everyone’s memories came back. 

More specifically, she has been counting every day since she lost the trust of her colleague and friend, Taako. 

The guilt never left after she saw the absolute hatred in Taako’s eyes when he finally remembered. She didn’t realize that Taako would take things this hard. But didn’t she? She knew, she knew Taako and Lup were practically one and the same. Removing one-half of Taako’s entire life wasn’t fair, and she knew that. But she had to do it, she needed them to understand that her plan was going to work, and to do that she would have to make them forget. 

She feels justified for her actions, but the guilt never leaves. That look in Taako’s eyes haunts her dreams constantly. Sometimes it’s more than a look of disgust, and she wakes up in tears from impossible scenarios that she felt were more than real. Most of the time she can control her outbursts. Only once has she screamed, alerting her security and putting herself in an awkwardly vulnerable position. She never wanted to be in that position again, so she put herself on a very strict sleep schedule. 

Today, however, after one hundred and eighty-three days, five hours, and thirty-three minutes, Lucretia got a message from Lup to meet at her house. Lucretia knew she would have to adjust her sleep schedule to make room for this meeting, but she was willing to sacrifice it to talk to family. Lup didn’t hold a grudge against Lucretia, so she felt safe going over for a cup of tea and some conversation. However, when she stepped through the rift Lup created for her, she was met with nervous energy and a Taako who looked like he didn’t want to be there. 

“Hey Luce,” Lup says, a smile on her face, “We all need to talk, hm?” 

Lucretia stands there, tense as the rift that brought her here closes behind her. No running away from it now, Lucretia was brought to an intervention session. Barry and Kravitz are also in the room, in the corner quietly watching. Lup walks up beside Taako and gestures to Lucretia to come further into the room. 

“Taako and I have been talking, and I think Taako has something he’d like to say to you.”

Lucretia isn’t sure what to do with herself in this space. She didn’t know if she should sit or if she should look at any of them. Lup gestures for Lucretia to come and sit down beside her, but the look on Taako’s face says he means business. Lucretia ignores Lup, choosing instead to stand face to face with Taako, a calm, neutral expression despite the anxiety attack that was building quickly. Taako was staring at her with a face that gave away he was clearly annoyed. Lucretia looks down at that, pretending that the ground under her feet is more interesting to look at. She stands still with grace, hands folded in front of her; the picture of decorum despite the fact she feels she can’t breathe. 

“Sup, Luce?” Taako asks to fill the quiet. 

Lucretia takes a deep, shaky breath, her shoulders tensing under the weight of her guilt. 

“If you must yell, Taako, then please get it over with…”

Taako frowns and everyone else in the room is taken aback by her comment. The silence stayed thick between all of them. Taako isn’t sure if he should even say anything after hearing that comment.

Lup shakes her head and steps slightly forward, a hand reaching out to touch Lucretia. “Luce, we wouldn’t–” Taako stops Lup from getting closer. 

“Look,” Taako sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck, “I’m not here to yell at you, ‘kay?” He slides his hat off of his head and fidgets nervously with the brim. “I was fucked up by what you did to my memories. I still feel pretty fucked up, y’know? It’s hard remembering what happened. I told myself a long time ago that I’d never forgive you, and I thought it was gonna be that way forever.” Lucretia takes another trembling breath as the guilt crushes her more. “But I’m tired of avoiding you… Like, I don’t want to keep running from you. What you did sucks, but I– It’s just annoying at this point because parties fuckin’–” Lup elbows Taako in the ribs and it earns a grunt of complaint from the twin. Taako breathes deep once again and looks up from his hat to make eye contact. “I miss you… and I just want my friend back.” 

Lucretia tries her damnedest to control her expression but breathing is becoming steadily harder due to the building tears in her eyes. It wasn’t quite forgiveness, she still felt didn’t deserve it after everything, but it was enough. Enough to finally release that heavy burden of guilt she’s been carrying. 

Taako sees that the dam is about to burst and he rolls his eyes, “Fantasy Jesus Christ, just– cm’ere” and closes the gap to pull Lucretia into a hug. 

((((I promise I haven't forgotten about this challenge. My depresso espresso has been pretty strong lately and I lost the motivation to write. I'm determined to finish this challenge though, it just may be a while before I get through all the prompts. Thank you to whomever stuck around for these.))))

[noodyl-blasstal]

"27. [Clearly been bitten by a vampire] Yeah, well. You should see the other guy. " please? with anyone u want!

Prompt from Monster Mash Prompts, however it’s also Wood from TAZ Bingo for @taznovembercelebration because no one can stop me. Sorry this took forever, Uni apparently expect me to do work???? Ridiculous.

_______________

Magnus hadn’t come back and he wasn’t answering his phone. Something was wrong. Protocol said Lup had to wait another hour before she could officially go searching, but, quite frankly, fuck that. Magnus was always on time. What Dav didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

A few quick calls and Taako and Barry had agreed to watch the base while she went looking. She definitely shouldn’t be going alone, but Barry couldn’t risk being caught in the daylight, Taako was still restricted after Grindrgate, and she refused to wait around for anyone else to get in.

Lup traced his route backwards, hoping to run into Magnus - delayed, not hurt, and with a story to tell. It didn’t take long to find him, he’d been so close to home. The alley reeked of blood. At first she missed him, but then saw a hand… his hand, wedding ring still blessedly in place, sticking out of a pile of bin bags shoved against a wall. Training took over, she didn’t have time to think about whether he was seriously hurt or worse, about what a world without Magnus in it might look like. Instead, she scanned the area for threats, checked for environmental hazards, then ripped the bin bags away to reveal Magnus. His skin was pale, paler than she’d ever seen him. Lup reached tentatively for his neck to feel for a pulse.

“Did ya know ‘im?” A Cockney voice came from behind her. A deeply unconvincing Cockney voice.

“Fuck off, Kravitz.” Lup replied without even looking round. She couldn’t deal with him right now. She couldn’t feel Magnus’ pulse, there was no movement in his chest. Fuck fuck fuck.

“Look, you know I only went after you because I thought you were a vampire. I wouldn't have if I'd known you weren't.” Kravitz said from behind her shoulder. He’d dropped the accent thankfully, but picked up a defensive tone. That fucker moved far too quietly, she needed to put a bell on him.

“What do you mean needed or not? I thought you were a vampire, Lup.” Kravitz spoke as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. As if he would gladly stake her husband, her friends. He would, she knew he would. That’s why they had to keep him as far away as possible, no matter how Taako felt about it.

“Yeah, and you jumped straight to staking without even checking to see whether it was needed or not.” Lup elbowed him in the knee.

“Now fuck off, I have to help Magnus.”

“Yeah, yeah, all vampires are bad, murder them all, I’m a scary slayer dude with a few hundred years of training but I can’t have a conversation and figure out everything isn’t black and white, we get it. Now, either help me pick him up, or fuck off.” If he was going to hang around, he was going to help.

“Did I stutter, Krav? Grab his legs or fuck off.” Lup squeezed her eyes shut. She refused to cry in front of him. She could deal with feelings once she had Magnus back to base. It was going to be okay. Everything was fine. There was still an hour and a half until dawn. She grabbed Magnus under the arms and heaved. He probably didn’t know he’d been training her for this moment, but thank all the gods he had.

“You know I can’t.” Kravitz’s brow was furrowed.

“Lup…” He laid his hand on her shoulder.

“We have to burn him, he was drained.”

“Kravitz, once again, grab his fucking legs or go. Do not make me fight you right now. You know what happened last time.” Lup continued to pull Magnus towards the mouth of the alley. She could tell Merle where it was later, his clean ups were always thorough.

“Lup.” Kravitz said again, softly this time, pretending he actually had feelings.

“He’s going to turn. If you cared about him at all then you need to let him go.”

“Duh.” Lup replied. Trying not to show how breathless she was already. It was a good job they were so close to base.

Kravitz stood frozen, staring intently at her.

“He’s going to turn.” He repeated.

“He’s going to be a vampire.” Kravitz tried again, as if there was something she wasn’t getting.

“My dude, I cannot tell you how much of a shit I do not give about that. If you’re going to lecture me then help me while you do.” Lup wasn’t going to listen to this if he wasn’t earning his keep. She tried not to get too angry at him. He’d apologised for trying to stake her every time he’d seen her since, and he kept showing up. As much as he still spouted the militant anti-vamp shtick, he didn’t act on it. He definitely could have burned Mags by now if he’d wanted to.

“Why do you think that?” May as well attempt to destroy some of the guy’s core world views while she carried her friend’s corpse home to bury in the family graveyard.

Kravitz shot forward and grabbed Magnus’ legs.

“He’s going to want to kill people.”

“Because that’s what vampires do.” Kravitz sounded exasperated again, but didn’t let go of Magnus.

“Uh huh, and how many vampires do you know who kill people?” Lup raised an eyebrow and tried to look dignified despite how red she definitely was.

“How many vampires do I know? It’s none vampires Lup, you shouldn’t know vampires! They eat people.”

“Sounds like something a person who doesn’t know any vampires would say.” Lup tried not to pant too hard as she hammered her point home.

Kravitz opened his mouth as if to reply, then shut it again.

“That’s what I thought. Now, put him down. I’ve got it from here. You need to go.” Lup said, stopping a few turns from home. Kravitz nodded and gently lowered Magnus’ legs to the floor.

“Thanks Krav. Think about what I said, okay?”

“Whatever you say, pal.” Lup pulled Magnus into another alley, waiting until Kravitz had turned and left before emerging and making the last of the journey home.

Kravitz nodded, then froze.

“There’s nothing to think about.”

“‘Ko, start digging!” She yelled as she shouldered her way through the door.

“Could use some of your freaky strength about now, Bear.”

Lup swallowed back the sob clawing its way up her throat and started running, grabbing a shovel from the door as she went and joining Taako in a desperate scramble to dig Magnus’ grave - if they could do it fast enough he wouldn’t need it for long.

Barry was there in an instant, gently taking Magnus from Lup.

“You got him home, Lup. I’ll get him now.”

Lup snorted as she dug. Of course, how had she forgotten the fucking coffin he’d made? It started as a joke ‘if I’m going vamp then I’m doing it in style’, but then he’d spent his downtime carving and polishing. He’d worked on the bear face, snarling defiantly from the panel above the space his face would soon be, for days.

Barry laid Magnus gently beside them.

“I’ll get his coffin.”

She didn’t cry until the first clods of earth scattered across it. Covering the bear, marring the beautiful wood. Magnus was going to have to polish that baby so hard if he made it out. When he made it out. Barry looked nervously at the sky, squeezed Lup’s hand, and retreated inside with a “wake me if you need me.” So Lup and Taako kept the vigil, only moving to send periodic texts. Everyone would be here soon. Magnus wouldn’t be alone.

Merle was the first to arrive, clean up completed. He placed a leaf on top of the churned earth, bowed his head, and sat cross legged opposite the twins. Lup didn’t know whether to be more concerned about the fact he was wearing sandals which were clearly blood stained, or that he refrained from making any inappropriate comments. Davenport and Lucretia arrived next. Davenport nodded tersely, Lup imagined there would be a lot of conversations later. Lucretia smiled soothingly. They all waited, as dusk fell, Barry joined them, planting a soft kiss on Lup’s head.

They waited as Magnus heaved again, a second hand appearing, grasping at the ground for purchase, and pulling himself up, up, up, until his head appeared. Grinning. Fucking grinning. That absolute shit.

Lup’s ears strained for the soft shift of earth. Maybe they had packed the grave too loosely? They didn’t want him to have to damage the coffin, but maybe it wouldn’t work because the universe would know they cheated? Now he had to lie in that stupid box forever and… the leaf moved. She could have sworn it moved. Everyone leaned slightly forward, focused. The earth shifted again, and Barry was gone. A small divot appeared, soil running down into a vacated space below, the ground heaved again and a hand appeared. Taako casually leaned forward to high five it.

“I knew he’d be fine.”

Lup didn’t point out the tear tracks staining his face, or the nail marks in his palms.

“Getting eaten by vampires is it, Mags? You could have just said something if you didn’t want to train with me any more.” Lup raised her eyebrow at him, and definitely wasn’t crying, not even a little bit.

“Pfft, this? This is nothing. You should see the other guy.” Magnus flopped out of his grave just as Barry appeared with a cooler.

“Shut up and eat these before you eat Taako.” Barry chided.

“You know the rules, bud.”

Magnus rolled his eyes and made grabby hands at the blood bags. As he chugged, Davenport stood.

“Right now we’re all definitely alive…” Davenport winced.

“…ish. I’m going to need the report on this one, because dead teammate implies something went wrong and we really have to stop letting things go wrong. At least some of us need to be able to handle the light. Team meeting first thing tomorrow morning, we’re doing a lessons learned spreadsheet, just like after the Barry indecent. Magnus, HR will work your shifts out with this in mind.” He looked resolute for a moment, then grabbed Magnus’ leg in a hug.

“Don’t you ever, ever, do anything like this again. You have to stay safe.”

Lup took that as her cue to dive in too and collided with the others on the way. They piled in as Magnus sipped a blood bag and absently petted their heads with his free hand. Dead or alive, she loved her family.

----

Find the prequel here

[holdmecloser-gandydancer]

48 Lucretia pls :)

from this prompt list! [still accepting!]

The day after the apocalypse, Lucretia sleeps in.

Strictly speaking, it’s the day after the apocalypse was thwarted, but Lucretia’s working really hard to get better at not being pedantic. Celebrations erupted all over the continent—a large bonfire in Rockport, fireworks over Goldcliff, and impromptu bacchanalias up and down the Sword Coast. Most of the Bureau members spent the night planetside. Lucretia couldn’t blame them. In fact, she encouraged it.

A quiet night on the moon was what she needed, though. And not just her. The rest of the Starblaster crew remained on the moon, too spent to possibly think about attending a large celebration. Taako cooked for them, excited to show off the recipe that saved existence. He kept Lup and Barry close all night. Kravitz too, until he was unavoidably pulled away to start fixing all of what had been thrown out of order.

Davenport and Merle played cards, almost like old times.

Magnus laid under the stars and looked relaxed for the first time in months.

Lucretia retired early. There was too much to say. Too much that couldn’t be said. Only so many times she could dodge everyone’s gaze.

The day after the apocalypse, she sleeps in until nearly noon. Highly out of character for her but she doubts anyone minds. She passes Bureau members who returned to base in the wee hours of the morning, looking both better and worse for wear.

She gives them all smiles and nods when she’s supposed to and makes polite small talk like she should and sheepishly shakes off compliments because she hates receiving them. Hates seeing everyone look at her with this sense of knowledge. With these looks that are half pity and half fear; looks that really understand the nature of their fearless leader.

The day after the apocalypse, she takes a walk. She doesn’t have a destination in mind, just hopes to avoid most everyone. She finds herself in Fisher’s old chamber. It’s still a mess, the whole base is a mess and Lucretia is working really hard on not letting that bother her.

She looks down at a spot on the floor and knows there’s nothing there because everyone did, at least, clean a little bit yesterday. She’s working really hard on not thinking about the conversation she had with Johann’s father not even three hours after the dust had settled yesterday. He had thanked her and it made her want to shrivel up. He should have been angry. And maybe he was but he thanked her. And she said that no, no there was no reason to thank her, she should thank him. And apologize. And acknowledge that no number of apologies could fix this. And tell him that he raised the best damn violinist she’d ever met. And tell him that she’d never forget him.

But he just thanked her. And he collected Johann’s belongings and left.

She’s working really hard on not letting it bother her.

The sound of glass crunching under shoes pulls her gaze from the floor.

“Sorry, Madam Director, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Angus says, big round eyes looking up at her.

Lucretia smiles a little. “Angus, you can just call me Lucretia. Please. I’m not exactly director of much right now.” He nods a little and walks to stand beside her. “Where’d you end up going last night? We were all worried. I know you have a good head on your shoulders but…”

He shrugs. “I hid out up here. Didn’t wanna go celebrate and I didn’t want to intrude on all of you.”

“Angus, it wouldn’t have been an intrusion. You know how much we all care for you. Those of us who know you, at least.”

Angus nods but doesn’t say anything. He walks around the chamber aimlessly, eyes skimming the room for details. He’s not investigating anything, Lucretia knows, he’s just thinking and doesn’t know how to broach whatever he’s thinking about.

Fine. Lucretia has a more pressing thought anyway. “Angus,” she begins cautiously, weighing her words carefully. “Obviously there’s going to be a lot of changes happening in the coming days and weeks. First order of business is probably going to involve getting those bracers off.”

“Yeah, no offense Ms. Lucretia but that wasn’t your best idea,” Angus says plainly, scratching at the skin right under the edge of the bracer.

“Sometimes you just gotta have some stinkers,” she deadpans. Instinctively she reaches out for her staff, only to grip dead air. She makes a mental note to start looking for a new one. “However, I did want to check in with you. I wanted to see what your thoughts were. What’s on the agenda for Angus now that the world is safe?”

He tilts his head thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get this far,” he murmurs.

She leans against the desk and pops her fingers joint by joint. “Well…I know you’re probably going to have half of this world banging down your door to work for them but I want you to know that I would love to keep you on retainer. Of course, you’d still retain some benefits. Full access to our research library. The dorm you’re currently in. O-or a bigger one, if you prefer. I have a feeling we’re about to be flush with empty rooms up here.” She drops her hands to her sides and glances at Angus.

He's fiddling with his own hands, picking at dry skin.

“That’s just my personal thought. The choice is completely up to you, though. Please, don’t feel compelled. I just feel it might be a good way to transition you to whatever you choose to do next. And even if you don’t feel the same, that’s okay - I’m always going to be here for you,” she adds quickly. She doesn’t add that she’s scared that her whole family’s going to leave her and that she’s pinning an awful lot of hope on a child. That’s not fair and she’s working really hard to get better at not putting people in tough situations.

“I think I’d like that. The moon’s a nice vantage point, the library is really good, and you can’t beat the transportation…Taako did mention something about him moving off the moon as soon as he could. He mentioned maybe having some room for me. A-and Magnus did too.”

“Angus, I think you’re going to be hard pressed to find someone here who wouldn’t do their best to make room for you. I’m not going to make you choose. I just want you to know that your dorm will always be yours. In case you want a change of pace.”

He looks up at her and smiles. “Thank you, Ms. Lucretia.”

Her gut twists a little. She needs people to stop thanking her. “For what?”

“For giving me a shot. I know I was kind of a pain in the ass but…you heard me out. So thank you.”

She blinks hard. “No, Angus. Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

The day after the apocalypse, Lucretia starts planning for what comes next.

[iknikblackstonevarrick]

Red Lightning (Part 1)

---

“What are you doing?”

Lup ignored Magnus’s voice as she clutched the warm silver glove to her chest. Merle was looking at her too, but with far less urgency. Taako stood beside her and didn't waver.

“How do you know?” she asked, looking up at the human woman on the throne with serious intent. “I asked you a question. You said you’d never acquired one of these things before, so how do you know how to destroy it?”

The Director looked down at her evenly, not showing a reaction to any of her words. “We have gone through exhaustive theoretical study of these weapons based on their observable effects on the world and the traits we’ve managed to record. I am fully confident that this process will succeed in destroying it.”

Lup continued to stare with narrow eyes, and the Director sighed.

“If it would make you feel more comfortable, the glove will not touch any hand but yours from now until its destruction. And you have my word, if, by some unforeseen happening the process fails, you will be immediately re-entrusted with the item’s care.”

Lup’s shoulders fell a little bit. Care didn’t feel like the right word. Eventually, she walked slowly up to the metal sphere and dropped the glove inside.

Throughout the entire drawn-out, flashy process, Lup felt sick to her stomach. When the theatrics were over and the Director declared with far too much joy that the gauntlet had been destroyed for good, she knew in her gut something was terribly wrong.

*

“Are you afraid?”

The boys around her tensed with apparent fear as the skeletal figure appeared in front of them, Magnus jumping straight to swinging through the thing with Railsplitter, to no effect.

“Are you afraid… of the dark?”

Taako opened his mouth to say something, but he was too late to be heard before she burst out laughing.

The others followed suit after a pause, the dramatic tension of the moment cleft in twain. The Red Robe floated helplessly before them, seemingly at a loss.

“Oh god, oh gods, okay. Gimme a second, it’s just-” Lup attempted to collect herself, poorly. “I can tell you’re trying really hard babe, but the spookiness really isn't doing it.”

“Lup?”

She froze. The lich’s voice had changed completely in the moment- gone was all the distortion and the theatrics, and in its place was… a guy's voice. A regular guy’s voice. And she swore to god she knew it.

The space where the lich’s face should be was nothing but a void, but she could feel the creature’s gaze boring into her with such strong, unbridled emotion. Hope. Fear. Something she wouldn’t dare name, not right now, not like this.

“Yup,” she said. Her attempt at being casual came out small and squeaked.

The lich’s gaze slowly became less intense, until he seemed to be looking through her. He looked back toward the rest of her party and delivered a speech about the people they’d fought up to this point and their ‘Hunger’.

“This is your first lesson,” he finished, and just before he disappeared she felt him look at her one more time. Her feeling as this monster disappeared from the room was unmistakably that of heartbreak. Something deep inside her was tossing and turning and bursting to get out, but she couldn’t put a name to it.

“Lup?” she heard again and started, but it was her brother’s voice this time. She turned to reassure him, but then followed his gaze when she saw he was looking at her hands.

There was red lightning arcing between them, but just as she realized it was there, it was gone.

*

“Something’s wrong.”

Lup spoke aloud to her brother in the middle of the night. The new rooms they’d been given were too spacious not to share, so the room that had been Taako’s was now an extended closet while the two beds stayed in here.

“You had the nightmare again,” Taako said, not a question.

“We’re being lied to,” she insisted, turning to face the opposite wall. She had had the nightmare again, but they’d already exhausted every line of conversation they could have about it over the last ten years.

Ten years. The same starting point as the relic wars. Static started scratching at her brain, and she knew what that feeling meant, even if she couldn’t comprehend it.

“Probably,” Taako agreed. She could feel his eyes on her back. “Do you wanna bail?”

There was no hesitation in her brother’s voice. It was a line of conversation they’d had a million times, throughout their childhood, and more recently in their adult life, after-

After what?

She stared at the wall and breathed.

“Not yet,” she said. She waited silently for his breathing to even out.

*

“Hey boys!”

Lup cheerfully twirled her umbrella as she approached the guards stationed outside the brig. It was still the dead of night, and she had half-hoped they wouldn’t have bothered to set up a night shift for guarding their sole inmate.

They looked at each other briefly.

“Miss Taaco,” one of them acknowledged.

“Yuh-huh, so I was just gonna head down to give my friend Pringles a visit, it’s totally cool, if you would just let me through here?” she mimed nudging one of them aside with her Umbrella.

“No one is allowed to see the prisoner without the Director’s permission,” the other one explained.

“Totally got it!” she reached into her bag to subtly Fabricate a note.

“We don’t accept verbal or written permission, she has to be here with you,” the other one continued.

She paused for a moment. Then quick as lightning, she whipped her staff between the two of them and hit them both with Sleep.

She clicked her tongue and stepped over them. There was no one out and about to see them right now, and she would have them cleaned up by the time there were.

Pringles didn’t actually end up being worth the risk. As far as she could tell he was never a real red robe- just possessed by one, briefly. Honestly, she questioned the Director’s reasons for keeping him locked up for so long, but at least she knew the next place she was gonna secretly break into during the night.

Oh. That was probably why. She laughed aloud to herself.

“I cannot imagine what’s so funny.”

She twirled around so fast, shooting off another Sleep right in the direction of the voice, but The Director was faster. She put up a shimmering barrier around herself- and Lup narrowly missed her own spell as it bounced back off.

Before she had time to react there was another barrier, around her this time. Lup could tell this one was for containment, not protection, mostly by the draining feeling of the anti-magic field that came along with it.

She looked the Director in the eye, and the expression on her face was… not what she expected. She looked shattered. Heartbroken. Like she had been betrayed in the utmost way. That last thought made a firelight in Lup’s chest.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Lup asked, walking as close to the edge of the barrier as she could get. “What, are you gonna lock me up in here just cause I know you’re full of shit, too? Newsflash: I didn’t need to come here for that, I figured it out on my own.”

The Director sighed deeply.

“I’m afraid you’ve given me no choice.”

The bubble she was in started moving slowly inside the cell next to Pringles’s, which seemed redundant. She pushed on the bubble wall as it pushed her along with it, but she couldn’t gain any ground.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said as the cell door swung shut, trapping her inside bubble and all.

“This is more important than you could understand,” The Director said in an infuriatingly mournful voice.

“Like hell I couldn’t- You never gave me the chance! You never gave any of us the chance! Does anyone up here know what you’re actually doing? Is anyone up here physically capable of it?” Lup glared at her through the bars.

The Director looked more neutral now. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Then she turned to depart from the hall.

Right before The Director disappeared up the elevator, Lup heard her voice again, softer, kinder. Resigned. “It’s just for a little while,” she said, like a mantra, like she was trying to convince herself.

“Fuck you,” Lup said just before the elevator doors closed.

[totallysharkycomplete]

The Love Of Two Lifetimes (Lucretia/Reader, Johann/Reader)

Summary:It hurt Lucretia to watch you fall in love. She knew she was lucky enough to have your love once, but she couldn't be so lucky again. So she would watch from the sidelines as you fell in love with Johann. Ship: Johann/Reader, Lucretia/Reader Rating: Teen Warnings: Canon main character deaths, Lotta hurt/comfort 

Lucretia was relieved to find you. She had left you in a very music driven city. When she had invited you to join the Bureau of Balance you were happy too. She was also happy you made quick friends with Johann. Your bubbly personality would do his mopey one some good. She watched as you had laughed at something he said with a wide smile, causing him to crack a small grin. She remembers the ways she felt when you had smiled at her like that and it made her heart sink into her stomach.

----- She had said something snarky without thinking about it. You stared at her wide eyed then busted out laughing. You were the only one who heard it and the rest of the crew on the star blaster looked at you with surprise. They asked what was so funny and you wiped a tear and told them it was nothing. You smiled wide at her, she blushed and looked away.

She knew it wouldn’t happen again. She was always surprised she had your love. But the circumstances had been different. It was easy to love someone you shared so much trauma with and spent 100 years with. She was younger then, more beautiful she thought.

She knew you’d be easy friends with Johann but didn’t think you’d fall in love with him so fast. It wasn’t long before she watched you run up to him and place a kiss on his cheek. She didn’t think anything of that, you were a very affectionate person. But when he returned the kiss and intertwined your hands together she knew. She thought she didn’t have the right to be jealous, she did this to herself.

----- You took her hand in you and kissed her knuckles. She had been sketching the night sky on the beach and you had joined her. “I love you.” You confessed. She was caught off guard. She had similar feelings but didn’t know what to say. She only stared at you. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same.” You frowned but continued to hold her hand. “I just wanted to tell you.”

“No I, I uh, do.” She scooted closer to you, scared she said the wrong thing. You put your other hand on her cheek and she leaned into the touch. “Can I kiss you?” You whispered uncharacteristically nervously. She nodded and you kissed her gently.

----- When she walked into the fishers chamber she didn’t expect anyone to be there. Unfortunately she found you pressed against the wall, Johann pressed hot needy kisses into your neck. You notice her and gasp. Johann chuckled thinking he had caused the sound to come from you until you pushed him back. His face went from concern to embarrassment when he saw the director. The three of you stood there in awkward silence until she cleared her throat and excused herself. You looked at Johann with a goofy grin. “Shit.” Was all he could laugh out.

Lucretia had to stop the tears from falling from her eyes as she made her way back to her chambers.

----- “Beautiful, Gorgeous,” you whispered into the crook of her neck, leaving soft kisses in between each word of praise.

She couldn’t stop the tears from forming in her eyes as you praised her and worshiped her body. She had never felt so overwhelmed by love before.

You noticed and stopped. “Baby, are you alright? Do you need me to stop?”

“No,” she whispered, grabbing your biceps holding you close. “Please, more.” She almost sobbed.

----- “I’m sorry about…” you trailed off. You weren’t sure why you were apologizing the next time you were in her office. “It was… unprofessional of us.”

She stared you down with a sorrowful face. “Never mind that,” she dismisses it and begins to talk to you about why she had called you in.

----- She noticed you seemed anxious about something which was very unlike you. “Darling what’s wrong?” She pulled you into her room away from the rest of the crew.

Your eyes grew wide. “Shit, I…” you laughed and pulled her into a hug. “I know you can read me like a book.” She just stared at you concerned.

You ran your hand across the back of your neck. “I was gonna... I had a whole thing planned but I just...” You let out a sigh and a small laugh. You reached into your pocket and got down on one knee, pulling out a small velvet box.

Her hand covered her mouth.

“Will you?” You laughed tears in your eyes. “I mean, you mean the world to me and this would-“

“Yes.” She sobbed before giving you such a strong hug she pulled you both to the floor. You laughed.

“Wait, let me put the ring on,” you giggled as she covered your face with kisses. “Lucy,” you kissed her back.

“I love you.” She sighed content.

“I love you too.”

----- The director noticed Taako yelling, of course she did. He looked over to where he stood with you, and your face was bright red. He was holding your hand and hollering about a ring.

“Who knew my man had such good taste?” Taako hollered.

“In rings or women?” You laughed.

“Both!” Taako exclaims.

“Congratulations!” Magnus boomed beside him.

“We weren’t going to tell anyone yet, so please keep it quiet.” You giggled.

“I believe congratulations are in order.” Lucretia solemnly says as she approaches your small group that was gathered on the sidewalk.

Your hand slipped from Taakos to behind your back.

“Thank you ma’am.” You frowned and looked at the ground. She continued past you, her heart beating fast, tears threatened to fall from her eyes.

“What was that about?” Merle asked.

“If I’m honest? I think she hates me.” You shrugged. The rest of your conversation became too far away for her to hear.

----- She remembers how her heart felt like it would jump out of her chest when she saw you. You felt the same way about her. Lup gave you the rings. Merle did a short reading. Magnus cried. You said “I do,” and kissed. The crew cheered as the sun warmed your skin and your heart felt over joyed.

----- Lucretia almost didn’t show up for the small wedding. You felt obligated to invite her. It was thanks to her you had even met Johann. A small group of friends and acquaintances filled the small chapel on the moon base. You looked maybe even more beautiful than you had on your wedding day with Lucretia. More mature, more worldly.

Carrie gave you the rings. Merle did a short reading. Magnus cried. Johann tucked a piece of hair behind your ear before he kissed you. Everyone cheered. Lucretia forced herself to smile and clap. She wanted nothing more than for you to be happy, even if it wasn’t with her.

----- Magnus knows now isn’t the time to tell you, later when this is over. But he knows, your love was dead on the floor and he saw it happen. He also saw your love in front of you being threatened by him and Taako. You were beside yourself tears blurring your vision as you sobbed. Barry pulled you back to your feet, telling you now isn't the time.

When things were starting to calm Magnus pulled you to the side. He had to tell you something.

You remember falling to your knees with a yell, crying. When you opened your eyes you were in your room back on the moon base. Had all that been a dream? Your door opens and Magnus lets himself in. He gives you a glass of water. “That was all real, wasn't it.” You take in a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry.” Is all he can say. He holds you while you cry. When your sobs die down, he says Lucretia really wants to see you. You tell him you don’t know if you’re ready for that.

He says he understands and you tell him you want to be alone. He tells you to call her on your stone of farspeach when you’re ready to see her. Magnus is gone for all but a minute when the walls feel like they are closing around you. You scramble for your stone. All you get out is a soft “Luce,” before you sob. It’s not long before there’s a knock at your door. You hurry to open it and you are greeted by and out of breath Lucretia. Your Lucretia. Lucy, Luce, Cretia. You both stand silent in the doorway.

“Lucy.” You finally sob.

You can see she’s crying too. All she can do is apologize. You grab her hand and pull her into a hug, and close the door behind her. You cry into her shoulder as she strokes your hair and whispers sweet nothings.

Your sobs start to calm and she kisses your forehead. You pull away and place your hand over your heart and mouth. She apologizes again not knowing that was over stepping.

You want to look at her but her eyes are glued to the floor.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight, but I don’t think,” you start to say.

“I can tell Magnus to come back.” She offers.

“That'd be nice.” You whispered.

A few minutes later Magnus is back in your room and you're cuddled to his chest. This had been common practice on cycles where you both felt very alone and you had lost Lucretia.

“Why isn’t,” Magnus starts to ask.

“I couldn’t, this was our bed.” You whisper.

He held you close. “I know what you mean. After Julia I don’t think I could.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” You started to cry again.

Magnus hushed you. “You don’t have to decide right now. Don’t think about it. Just rest.”

So you did. In the morning he invited you to breakfast with everyone. You told him you weren’t ready.

Magnus wished he had stayed with you because breakfast was extremely awkward. When everyone was going their separate ways Lucretia pulled Magnus aside and asked about you.

“You have to give her time. She just lost the love of her life.” He stopped himself when he saw her frown. “Her love of this life. And you might want to be prepared for the chance she might…”

“I know.” She sighed.

“After Julia I could never.” Magnus put a hand on her shoulder.

The thought had passed her mind. That maybe you wouldn’t want her back. And you had every right to not.

Throughout that day everyone made a visit to you. You really wished you could have given Lup and hug, but Barry worked as a step in.

That night you made your way over to the Star Blaster. You got goosebumps as you stepped onto the ship. This had been home for 100 years but it felt so strange. You ran your hands over the familiar railing and walls, following the halls to your old room.

Inside everything was how you remember. Two beds pushed together. The art you had collected with Lucretia on the wall, the few things she made for you were hung up as well. You made your way over to the bed and felt the familiar sheets. You jumped when a voice startled you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know you’d be in here.” Lucretia sighs leaning against the door frame.

You turn around and look at her. Really look at her, for the first time in a long time. The lines of her face are heavier, older. Eyes are more sunken. She’s taller, shoulders broader, lips still plump and hair still curly. Your heart gives a little flip.

“I thought you hated me.” You looked down at the bed.

“I… why?” She frowned.

“Every time I talked to you, you would frown, and you were so cold.”

“It hurt me to watch you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be cold. I was… Jealous.” She balls her fists up. “I didn’t have the right to be but I was.”

“What we have was different.” You say. “Johann and I.” There’s a silence. “That doesn’t mean I don’t still love you, I just,” you paused thinking. “Need some time I guess.” Your voice broke with the end of the sentence.

“I understand,” she whispered.

You sat down on the edge of the bed. This was your side. Your night stands being more messy than Lucretia's side.

You picked up a trinket, a small jewel decorated like a turtle.

“Do you remember? When I gave that to you?” She hesitates to ask.

You sniff back a tear. “I do. I thought it was so sweet I cried. You were scared because that was so unlike me. I can’t seem to stop now.”

“I, darling, I…” she stops herself at the pet name.

You look up at her with tears running down your face.

“Lucy, I really did miss you.” You manage a small sad smile.

Now it’s her turn to cry. You pat the bed next to you and she sits, you pull her into a hug. “Twelve years is a long time to be alone.” You feel her sob. You hold her as she cries.

You spend the night together in your old bedroom. You sleep on separate sides, untouching.

The next few months go by in a blur. Some nights are spent alone in your room, crying over your lost love. Some nights are too much and Magnus happily takes you into his arms. Only two nights do you go to Lucretia and sleep in her room.

Everyone was gathered for dinner one night and this time you join them. Your heart fills with joy having everyone together again. Seeing your family smile and laugh. But your heart is also sad with the side glances Lucretia revives from Taako. You know he won’t easily forgive her. Everyone seems very tense with her.

“Happy to see you smiling, bubellah.” Taako slides onto the couch next to you.

“Thanks,” you sigh. “It feels good. I thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to again.”

“You?” Taako giggles. “You have the brightest smile of anyone on the Star Blaster.” He told you in a rare moment of sincerity.

“Thanks.” Is all you can say.

“He’s right.” Lucretia is smiling at you.

You can see Taako scowl at her and her smile wavers.

Taako gets up abruptly. “Who’s ready for dessert?” Magnus and Merle cheer.

You look over at Lucretia and offer her a sad sympathetic smile. She smiles back at you.

When everyone heads home for the night you leave with Lucretia. You hadn’t moved out of your room you shared with Johann yet. You weren’t ready. Even though everyone had offered to let you stay with them. You're lost in thought as you land back on the old moon base.

“Goodnight.” Lucretia says as you exit the pod.

“I’ll walk you to your room.” You say and start walking that way. You walk in silence until you reach her door. She wishes you good night again and goes to walk into her room but you grab her hand and stop her.

“I forgive you.” You whisper.

“No, you don’t have to.” She smiles sadly.

“But I do. Honestly. Lucretia.” You squeeze her hand and look her in the eyes.

She looks back, only to start crying, you can see her body shake. You pull her into a hug and step into the room closing the door. You begin to cry too.

“I hate this.” You confessed. “I hate feeling so awful about everything. I just want to go back to how it was.”

“I’m sorry I took that from you. If Johann has been able to see the hunger he would have-,”

You put a finger over her lips. “I meant I want to go back to us, Luce. I’m still healing from all this, but I really really miss us.”

“You’d take me back? After everything?”

You nod.

“Even with how much I’ve aged?” She looks at the ground.

You run a gentle hand over her face and smile. “You’re beautiful.” You hesitate at first but lean in and kiss her cheek. “Gorgeous.” You kiss her again.

That night I spent in Lucretia's bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. -------------------------------------- Notes: Dont ask me where I got the idea for this from because I couldn't tell you. I wrote this originally as a drabble but i liked it enough to edit it. I just really love all the characters in Balance and would marry any one of them. Also Im p sure this is the first time I've written a story with a F/F ship??? Which is wild considering my gay ass. Child anyways, IDK how people will feel about this but I hope yall like it please let me know if the two different relationship things is too wild.Check out my page for more TAZ/Reader content. ( Mainly Duck and Magnus) Copied directly from my AO3 Beautiful-River

[desiree-harding-fic]

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

Based on that one post by @thepensword about how Taako is always cold. Can be found here. Plus an idea I’ve had for a long time but never written about.

Cw for swears, kids. Be safe out there. But other than that it’s light angst with a fluffy chaser and a dash of Lore.

Enjoy!!!

*~*~*~*~*

Positively stomping through the streets of Neverwinter, Taako, for the thousandth time, curses the city for its positively idiotic name.

“Neverwinter”, his ass. Maybe they should have gone with “UsuallyWinter,” or “JustAsMuchWinterAsAnywhereElse,” or “CanWeReallySayThatAnythingOnThisOneSunnedPlanetIsn’tWinter.”

Because, you see, Taako is cold.

Taako is always cold.

It’s a holdover from a plane long behind them. Two-sunned elves have different traits than those of Faerun. Ears that move. Different colored eyes.

Different body temperatures.

Taako is a sun elf. A sun elf from a planet with two suns. He was made for warmth. More warmth than here. And even on two-sun he ran a little colder than the other elves he knew. But there, the extra warmth was enough to compensate. He’d tan in the summer, he’d soak up the rays and wear sleeveless shirts and live for the suns.

Faerun has one sun. On Faerun the long sleeves and pants, the heavy coat with the dozens of pockets he wore adventuring were more than just good sense - they helped him stay fucking warm.

It’s not even fair because Lup isn’t even cold all the time. Lup feels fine. Mostly. She gets a little chilly but it’s nothing a jacket can’t fix, and now she’s a Reaper and something about that helps too (Taako doesn’t know what). Taako’s body doesn’t work that way. And to top it all off, ever since Wonderland, when those fucking liches stole some of his vitality, it’s gotten even worse.

The snowy winter days in Fucking Neverwinter are hell to the multiverse’s favorite wizard, because no matter how many layers of coats and scarves and gloves and enchanted wizard hats he throws on, he can’t get warm.

He turns off the road, starts making the hike up the hill to his house which looks out on the Stillwater sea. He liked the walk when he bought the place. Lined it with trees and flowers that Merle and Pan blessed to grow big and beautiful.

He bought the place in the summer.

Magic should help. It doesn’t. First lesson he ever learned on the road with Lup: no matter how good a wizard you think you are, you never directly influence body temperature using magic. It’s too powerful, too volatile. Transmutation on the body was a risk they were willing to take. Watching your sibling’s blood boil just because you got a little chilly was not.

He finally makes it up to his front door, pushes inside, and sighs in relief.

Ever since the first chills of autumn in the city, every fireplace in Taako’s home, of which there are many, has been running almost nonstop. Is it a fire hazard? Probably. Does Taako give a shit? Maybe ten percent of one. He’s got more money than anyone else in the damn planar system. He can buy a new house.

(But he likes his villa-styled sprawling house by the sea. Likes the herbs in the window boxes and the flowers in the front and back. Likes the view of the water. It would be a shame if it burned down.)

The fireplaces help. But not enough. Never enough.

He takes off his outermost layer for the sake of the snow caked on it, but keeps on everything underneath it. Stupid, he thinks, to wear a full coat and scarf inside of his own house. But he doesn’t know any other way.

He walks through the foyer, and there.

The man of the hour.

Kravitz.

He’s reclining on the couch, close by the fire, book in one hand and glass of red wine in the other, wearing his usual suit without the jacket and shoes. He looks...

Well.

Taako knows how he looks (miraculous).

The worst thing about the winter is the space it’s put between him and his boyfriend.

Six months after Story and Song, and Taako, against all odds, is living with Kravitz. As in, Kravitz lives in his house. Kravitz drinks his wine and moved in his books and plays piano here and sleeps in Taako’s bed.

Well, most of the time.

Kravitz, who’s hands were ice cold on his and Taako’s first date, who tried to warm himself up for their first kiss, is fucking freezing to the touch in the winter.

It’s been a solid couple of months since Taako and Kravitz have cuddled without at least three or four layers between them, and by then Taako could pretty much have just bought a weighted blanket for all the good it does him. It’s hard to satisfy that craving for skin contact from the person you... care about when said skin contact feels like hugging an ice sculpture.

Kravitz looks up, puts down his glass of wine.

“Evening,” he says, mildly, as though testing the waters. And that’s what does it for Taako.

“Hey,” Taako says, immediately turning into the kitchen, not looking at Kravitz, because he just can’t.

Ever since the winter started, and Taako, out of necessity, started shying away from Kravitz’s touch, things have been... weird.

Taako knows that Kravitz isn’t the kind to speak up about this kind of thing. They’re working on it, but it’s been so long since he’s been in a relationship, so many mortal things are new to him. Taako knows this. And yet... breaching this issue, to which Taako has no solution, trying to communicate to Kravitz that he wants him while constantly having to push him away is... frustrating. What Kravitz wants is for Taako to be happy, for Taako to be comfortable. He says it constantly. He insists. And it’s the insisting that’s the problem.

Because Taako knows that even if he’s not saying it, Kravitz isn’t happy either.

And now when Taako comes home, and tries to spend time with his boyfriend, there’s all this horrible... space between them. When Taako’s cold, it seeps into his words and his actions, until all of him is cold, not just his body, not just his skin. Until he’s cold to people he cares about, and apologies come slow and with difficulty, and then the damage has been done.

Taako starts on a simple soup, no energy to make anything flashier, and still refusing to use magic in the kitchen. He hates the way all the extra clothing gets in the way of cooking. Hates the way the warmth of the stove only does so much.

Kravitz eats with him that night, and they talk, but it’s a weird, shy conversation, both of them anticipating what comes after.

What comes after is Kravitz sitting on the other side of the couch pretending to read while Taako shivers and pretends too.

What comes after is Taako going about his evening routine before slipping into bed in a full onesie and under about five blankets. It’s Kravitz dressing in flannels to try to shield Taako from the coldness of his skin, and then the two of them, side by side. Lying on their back and staring up at the ceiling, as they wait for sleep to come.

It’s a long wait, when one of them is an elf and the other doesn’t sleep naturally.

And there’s the thing about Kravitz: he’s not just without warmth. He’s actively cold. His body radiates cold like a living person’s radiates warmth. It’s only been a few minutes and Taako’s already shivering.

“I’m sorry,” Kravitz says from his side of the bed. And he sounds so fucking defeated and sad and Taako feels bad but he also feels annoyed. Because he’s cold. Because why can’t Kravitz just be a normal fucking person. Because Kravitz won’t talk to him and he won’t talk to Kravitz and this whole situation is just a goddamn nightmare.

“Not your fault,” Taako says, but the words have been said so many times they hardly mean anything anymore. He can feel how flippant they sound. He can feel the way they don’t sink in, how they bounce off Kravitz’s skin like Taako doesn’t care.

I do, he tries to broadcast. I promise I do.

“I think maybe it would be better if I stayed up tonight.” Kravitz says, like it’s an idea he’s only just had, not something he’s been saying nearly every night these days, like it’s not the new normal, like he truly believes that they still sleep in the same bed and touch each other and they aren’t on the verge of -

Kravitz slips out of the bed, pads gently out of the room and shuts the door behind him. And Taako turns over in bed, ignoring the tightness in his throat and trying, desperately, to get warm.

*~*~*~*~*

Candlenights comes, as it always does, despite the coldness in Taako’s house and his heart.

And Taako’s happy for it, really. He didn’t harbor any delusions about everything being beautiful and shiny and sparkly so close to the apocalypse, and in the aftermath of it. The world is still healing from a colossal wound. But he’s hosting, at least. He’s always been a good party planner. Lup is there and so is Barry. Merle comes up from the coast with his kids. Magnus and his dogs. Angus, visiting on his break from school. Davenport is still abroad, and Lucretia is conspicuously absent (no amount of begging from Lup could convince Taako to let her into his house), but it’s... good. Cozy, almost.

Taako even cooks for everyone, Lup assisting, and ignores the careful distance Kravitz keeps from him and from most of his family. The meal goes off without a hitch, save Taako’s shivering. He can see the sympathetic eyes Magnus keeps making at him, wants to glare and snap and tell him to fuck off, but he doesn’t. Just because the cold makes him crabby doesn’t mean he has to be an asshole.

He has a thick will blanket wrapped around him elegantly, like a shawl, while they’re unwrapping presents. Lup smiles brightly at the diamond earrings Kravitz got her, and Taako’s heart swells a little. Angus loves his books. Kravitz gets Taako a set of jewelry done up in gently curling silver and sapphire and pink tourmaline, because he’s a romantic, and Taako tries to ignore how... wiggly it makes him feel.

He wants to kiss him. He doesn’t.

Taako saves Lup’s gift for last, as is tradition.

It’s a tiny little box, which Taako had first been terrified was from Kravitz and then relieved wasn’t, and it’s as light as a feather.

Because, Taako discovers, there’s nothing inside.

Nothing, that is, except a tiny ivory card with scrolling golden text on it. It reads:

Command word: flambé.

Love, Barry and Lup! :)

“What the fuck, Lulu?” Taako asks, turning the card over and over in his hands.

“Oh fuck off, Taako,” Lup says good-naturedly from Barry’s lap. Gross. “You’ll thank me later. Well, thank us.”

And isn’t that fucking cryptic, he thinks. But Lup is Lup. His sister is fucking weird, and he brushes it off in favor of drinking more wine.

It’s a good day, mulled wine and carols and gift-giving, but as all good days do, it winds down sooner than expected. The guests go off to their many rooms, Taako’s house big enough to host them all (by design), and before he knows it, he and Kravitz are headed to bed.

It’s the same old charade. Kravitz goes through the motions, and Taako does too, and it’s awful and stilted and he just wants it to end.

It’s not fair, he thinks, staring at the the bed while Kravitz is still futzing around in the bathroom, a charade of mortality. Kravitz is good. Taako likes him. He’s nice to talk to and doesn’t make Taako feel like he has to perform. He’s a big old nerd and actually really compassionate and sometimes an entity of absolute chaos and he’s perfect for Taako, he really is. So why can’t he just have this? Why does there have to be fucking... roadblocks in the way?

Taako expected things to be hard. He expected having to make things work. Sometimes Kravitz is gone for days going after bounties and Taako can deal with that. There are elements of mortal life Kravitz has to re-learn, and he doesn’t know how to interact in just.. normal society sometimes, and Taako can deal with that. Sometimes he’s a real asshole and gets prickly and offended and impatient after a bad day and Taako can deal with that.

He doesn’t know how to deal with not being able to touch him for months at a time.

He’s shivering just standing there. He needs cover.

But when he pulls back the comforter the sheets are a deep fuchsia. And while it’s a nice color, it looks nothing like his usual ones.

There’s a piece of paper like a letter, there, on his side of the bed under the comforter. It’s the same as the card he found in lup’s gift, and all that’s on it, in that same gold ink, is a winky face.

Taako sighs, long and deep. Because with Lup these things are always a gamble. Is it a gag gift? If Taako says the command word, will his bed explode? He has a horrible flashback to the memory of his first conversation with Kravitz, which was about tentacle porn, and Lup heard it from the umbrastaff, and now she’s given him enchanted bedsheets. Taako pales at the thought.

But here’s the thing: it’s late, and he’s tired, and he can always shut it off because he’s the best wizard in all planar systems, and he’s curious.

He stands, contemplating, cold as balls, for another minute.

And then he says, very deliberately,

“Flambé.”

And for a second it looks like nothing happened. And then it really looks like nothing happened. And then...

Taako can feel the warmth just from standing next to the bed.

It takes him about 0.04 seconds to hop in after that, to pull the sheets up around his shoulders and bury himself under the covers up to his chin.

It’s heavenly. Warmth from all sides, and Taako sighs, long and deep, as he feels tension in his muscles all over his body, held from weeks and months of being cold all the time. Already he can feel the chill in his veins slipping away. He can feel the warmth reaching the core of him, strong and comforting.

He can feel his face flushing, and the warmth rushing up into his long ears.

And then it gets warmer.

And warmer.

And warmer.

Uncomfortably warm.

Taako’s sweating, he realizes. He’s flushed, not in the comfortable way of sitting by the fire. He’s hot like a beach day, hot like a desert plane. He throws the covers off above the waist. It’s not enough. He’s too hot. Much, much too hot.

The door to the bathroom opens up and Kravitz steps out.

“Oh thank god,” Taako says, without thinking, “get the hell over here.” He holds up the blankets on Kravitz’s side of the bed, gestures for him to get in. Kravitz is staring at him like he’s grown an extra head. He slides into bed, slowly, tentative, and Taako practically throws himself on top of him.

The relief of his cold skin isn’t enough through the flannel pajamas Taako’s wearing. He goes for his shirt buttons.

“Taako,” Kravitz says, “what’s happening here?”

“Damn enchanted sheets from Lup are too fucking hot,” Taako grumbles, pulling his shirt off and squirming around with his pajamas pants until those are off too. He tosses them across the room.

Laying across Kravitz’s chest is such a relief. It’s like cold water on a hot day, and Taako spends a luxurious moment running his hands over his chest and shoulders, nuzzles into his neck and revels in the coolness on his face. He sighs, goes boneless against his boyfriend. He feels wonderful.

Kravitz’s arms come up around his back, tentatively holding him, and it hits him.

“Oh shit,” he says, half sitting up. Kravitz looks him in the eyes, questioning.

“That was Lup’s Candlenights gift. It was...” he licks his lips. Why is it so much harder to say things than it is to feel them? “It was this,” he says, running his hands over Kravitz’s chest again.

Understanding dawns in Kravitz’s eyes, and he smiles at Taako, and his smile is like the sun on a warm day.

“Glad I can be your ice pack,” he says, smiling.

“Shut up,” Taako says, resting his head back down, feeling more than hearing the happy little hum Kravitz makes. He snuggles a little closer. Kravitz’s arms tighten around him.

“I missed you,” Kravitz whispers.

And what can Taako do in response to that but kiss him?

“I missed you too, handsome,” he whispers into Kravitz’s lips.

[thepersephonecabin]

So you know how like in that one taz live show it was confirmed that taako and kravitz have cats? I have this headcanon that one of the cats is this normal, smush-faced floofy cat. She's orange and more fur than actual cat. She has a human name, something old and victorian sounding like Eleanor or Josephine. Kravitz picked it out because he said it was a name of someone he knew from his human life before being the grim reaper.

But then they get a second cat.

this cat was not supposed to be their cat. They were on a picnic date one time and found the poor thing in the process of dying. (maybe he was hit by a wagon or something) So kravitz was gonna take it to the astral plane because thats his job and a conversation along the following lines occurs

taako: you cant take it, he'll be all alone over there.

kravitz: But. Hes dead he needs to go to where dead cats go.

taako: no hes mine now.

Kravitz: dont be ridiculous we already have a cat.

Taako: babe, with all love and due respect: fuck you, this is my cat now.

So now they have this cat. He can only exist in kravitz and taako's home in the astral plane because he's dead. When they found him, he was still furry and everything, but over the course of the next few weeks he just kind of? Decomposes? But he doesnt seem to feel or notice it at all- in the astral plane innocent spirits arent supposed to feel any pain after all.

So after a few weeks he's just a literal cat skeleton which is permanently held together just barely by the fact that its spirit is too dumb to realize that it shouldn't be alive anymore. His jaw routinely falls off and taako insists on feeding him along with the other cat despite the fact that the food just falls right through. Sometimes kravitz, angus, or one of the other seven will tell taako that this is ridiculous, but taako says it would be rude to exclude the skeleton cat from dinner so it continues.

Also when he purrs he makes the kind of bone-rattling-on-bone sound that reminds every man of their mortality which everyone who isnt taako and kravitz Hates.

Otherwise it acts like a normal cat. He plays with the other orange cat, chases mice, jumps on tables, and snuggles up to anyone who will let him. He's subjected to the same kitty costumes and photoshoots that taako does with the other cat. When angus visits home from school, the cat loves to curl up around his shoulders.

In time everyone gets used to it, but some of their friends are more comfortable with it than others.

Lup is ENAMORED. She loves this cat. Being a roommate with a skeleton cat is exactly the kind of gothic lifestyle she has always wanted, nay, deserved. She is constantly gushing over and baby talking to this cat except for when taako insists that it is His cat and His turn to hold it. Barry is also chill with the skeleton cat but in a more scientific "oh what a fascinating and adorable case study of accidental necromancy you are <3" kind of way. Lucretia is similarly mostly interested in the cat from a curiosity based, knowledge seeking standpoint, but keeps a respectful distance. She can't help it, it's the lonely journal keeper in her coming out. Whenever the cat shows an interest in her she often talks to it in whole, articulate sentences as if it could understand her.

Magnus, merle and team sweet flips are decidedly less comfortable with the cat. Like they've seen a lot of shit, but this is still pretty creepy right? Killian is very like, oh my god taako can you not have one normal thing. Magnus is totally skeeved out by it, irrationally so considering how many times he's faced death and so much worse. He wants nothing to do with it (but anyone who has had a cat knows that they are preturnaturally attracted whichever person least wants it around, so it's always trying to climb on magnus's lap and magnus either freezes up or gently pushes it away repeatedly until it realizes magnus won't pet him the way he wants). They make fun of him for it and tell him, "what's the matter, magnus, even angus isnt afraid of a harmless wittle kitty cat".

But magnus will have none of it. He says the cat is too spooky. And taako says, huh, I kind of like the sound of that. So his name becomes Spooky or Spooks for short.

Lowkey inspired by this beautiful pjo fanart by viria

[castcharmperson]

The Dispel Magic Incident - Part 7

[shows up 15 weeks late with starbucks] hey friends, this is still a thing. Will also be updated on ao3 if you’d prefer to read it there. Check the notes for links.

Anyway, have some Merle

The furious clicking of the new umbrastaff was similar enough to the old umbrastaff, so Merle didn’t even flinch when it was replaced with shouting. “Where the fuck have you been?!” 

Davenport snickered across the table from him and Merle couldn’t help but join him. “Taako, I’ve been in here all afternoon.” He was sure whatever Taako was upset about was important, but honestly he had a really good hand right now that he’d love to finish.

“I blame you for this,” Taako glared at Davenport and the Captain just laughed more. “Merle, can I borrow you to do your fuckin’ job for a second?”

“We only need a few more minutes to wrap up this game.”

“Oh my gods, fine!” Taako pulled out a third chair and dropped down into it. “Cap’n’s going to win.”

“You don’t know that…” Merle muttered, but he was probably right. He couldn’t remember the last time Taako had joined in a game of cards, let alone just sat and watched the two of them play. Of course Merle thought their games were interesting, two masterminds battling it out, but none of the crew usually agreed with him.

He threw the game. Davenport knew it, Taako did too, but Merle couldn’t really care less. “Next time, Dav.”

“Of course, Merle.” Their Captain looked at Taako for a moment, then left the kitchen.

“This really isn’t the best place to do this…” Taako had leaned his body back, tilting the chair dangerously as Davenport left. The house was still full of people, some packing after a long week of Candlenights, but Merle was sure the majority of them were going to be here for the foreseeable future. It was nice that Dav was staying as long as he had been.

“What exactly are we doing, Taako?” Merle didn’t bother beating around the bush. He wouldn’t be aggressive with any bush, for that matter. He knew Taako would rather dance around the subject, but if it was cards watching serious, Taako must be in a hurry too.

He still wouldn’t look at him, though. The chair was back on four legs but Taako was focused on the door. “Hey, Barrold!”

“Hm?” Barry walked back from halfway down the hall until he could poke his head through the kitchen door. His eyes shifted between the two of them before his eyebrows shot into his receding hairline. Merle had thought for sure that the pack bond or whatever with the Raven Queen would fix that. He’d picked his god for the looks, among other things. He was surprised Barry hadn’t developed the deadly cheekbones Kravitz seemed blessed with.

“Oh.” Barry seemed to know what was going on.

“Yeah. We need a lift to my office.”

“I can do that.”

“Okay hold on.” Merle held up his hands. “The last time you two needed me to do something, I was getting stabbed with forks.”

Barry rolled his eyes but Taako nodded. “No, no, the old man has a point.” At least one of these kids had sense. Taako looked up from where he’d been focused on the umbrastaff, still in his grip. Oh shit, this really was important. Merle sat up a little straighter, missing the gleam in Taako’s eyes of a goof on the horizon. “Merle, I know you’ve literally never done this before, but we need you to pretend to be a cleric.”

Merle huffed, sliding off the chair. “Ha ha, very funny. Now what is going on.”

Barry had already carved open a rip between the planes and Merle was walking through it. The Astral Plane, if this one was anything like what they’d studied back at the IPRE, was technically closer to the Celestial Plane than the Prime Material was. Geographically speaking, he should feel closer to Pan. Maybe this reality was different than their homeworld’s, maybe not, but Merle never really liked the Astral Plane. The crisp chill from walking across it lingered, long after the portal closed. At least Kravitz didn’t have death radiating off of him like this, despite being Death.

“Not that I don’t love spending time with Barry, but why isn’t your boyfriend plane-hopping with you?” Merle asked as the portal closed up and Taako pushed aside a few papers on his desk. He nearly dropped something, before aiming the umbrastaff at the office door and Mage Handing it closed. “Pan damnit, if you two wanted more blood, you really didn’t have to kidnap me.”

“I don’t want your fucking blood!” Taako snapped, but Barry put a hand on his shoulder. The scythe was gone, just their regular goth boy in denim, looking more grim than he ever did when he told Merle about his work. Taako placed his hand over Barry’s, squeezing once, before pushing him off. He took a deep breath. “Merle, you remember Wonderland, right?”

“Been trying not to.” The words slipped out before he could think twice about them. But it was true! That quest was easily their worst. Sure, Pan’s radio silence wasn’t caused by the liches, but Merle didn’t know that at the time. And everyone can say what they want about his healing abilities but…

At the end of the day, they were all alive. That’s what mattered, that’s what he tried to remember. It was a little hard, knowing they all got their memories back and Magnus still had some missing. Aside from that though, they didn’t lose too much. Right?

Merle hadn’t even realized he’d glanced down at his feet, face twisted in frustration before intentionally smoothing back out again, until he looked back up at Taako.

He’d meant it when he offered to take the extra spin for Taako. He really wished one of them had followed through; Magnus could have afforded to lose another finger since he got his whole body back anyway.

Taako looked fine, better than that if Merle’s being honest. What had Taako said, looking better than ninety percent of Faerun? It was true, still was. But he’d be very plain if they’d gone back to their original plane. The difference was significant, now that Merle could compare him to Lup.

“I can’t--”

“Not that.” Taako stepped around from the desk. Ah, shorts and a crop top in winter made a lot more sense now. Not that Merle knew much about winter fashion-- it was always shorts weather back at Merlegaritaville.

“Those do not look good.” He stepped closer and Taako met him half way, Barry right behind him.

“I promise you, they feel worse.” That would explain the new umbrastaff. Merle looked at Barry. Of course Taako told Lup, but why did Barry know first? It wasn’t like they could kill Taako and bring him back with a new body. Who else knew?

“Okay, could you not with the face? I’m sure you can do your cleric shit with my spell still up, this is a courtesy.”

“It would be a lot harder without a visual reference,” Barry tried, but Merle had heard enough.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” He held his soulwood arm to the gash across Taako’s stomach and the budding leaves curled backwards. “Any issues with this one?”

“Uuh, dex mostly. Loss of appetite? That could be from other stuff though.”

Barry made an inquisitive noise at that, which made Merle feel at least a little bit better. Taako had talked to him about that already. Merle let the two of them go on whatever half spoken face journey they were going on, and focused on the biggest wound at hand. The knees were important, but this one was near vital organs. Merle had seen first hand how many hit points this had knocked out and it somehow managed to look worse than it did before.

“Barry and I figured it’s necrotic scarring.” Taako rushed out, Barry grumbling something beside him.

“Yeah,” Merle nodded softly. What he was finding aligned with that. He took a step back, able to look Taako in the eye without craning his neck. “I’m not death domain, Taako. I can’t reverse this. We could try to find a cleric who is--”

“They wouldn’t have a hundred cycles of experience. I’m not interested in letting them look at this.”

Huh. Merle didn’t bother to fight down the smile pulling at the edges of his beard. Taako didn’t return it by any means, but he scoffed and rolled his eyes, which Merle knew was basically the same thing.

“Merle, I…” Barry started, fidgeting with nothing for a moment. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m worried he’s getting worse.”

Just based on what he was seeing, what he knew of the wounds, that sounded right. But Merle looked to Taako instead. He seemed occupied fixing the hem of his shirt, fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeves. He didn’t notice the silence right away. When he did, he frowned. “What?”

“Has it been getting worse?” Merle asked.

If it had been literally any other conversation, Merle could have laughed at the face Taako pulled. Even with how serious he knew this conversation was, he was still tempted. Taako shifted his weight, leaning back slightly on the umbrastaff like he used to.

“It’s… uh…” His eyes seemed to go unfocused for a moment, as he stared at Merle. Merle knew that look from a copy he was familiar with over his own face. Seeing two versions of the same person, one you shared a century with and the other was your strange adventuring buddy.

Sometimes it was easier when they were just three idiots running around collecting magical items and laughing together as they nearly avoided death.

The person he was, when he met Taako the second time, was not someone Taako would trust with this confession. Merle wasn’t proud of that, but it was what it was. All he could do was take a deep breath and wait for which version of him Taako saw today.

Instead, Taako closed his eyes. They were screwed up tight, like if he couldn’t see, no one would hear his confession. “It’s worse. I didn’t have trouble walking a year ago.”

“Alright, glad we’re on the same page.” Taako opened one eye, glaring at Merle without much heat, but Merle continued. “And I’m glad you’re not waiting another year to tell me because this thing is going to kill you.”

Barry blanched at that, though Merle didn’t really understand his shock. The guy was a necromancer, this was how that arcana worked. Hell, he made the dang Bell, didn’t he know what it did?

Taako opened both eyes, expression blank for a moment until he moved the umbrastaff in front of him and leaning forward. His stance, his voice, his face, all of it was more certain and serious that Merle had heard in a while. “I don’t want to die.”

“Good.”

[youhearstatic]

Cor’s Adventure Zone Writing

Longer Fics - solo

Chrysanthemums (Lovesick) - A Blupjeans hanahaki fic.

Barry Bluejeans knows what’s happening the moment the first petal appears.

And he knows how it will end.

Losing Time - (Set after Story and Song) After being missing for three days, Barry has been mysteriously de-aged. Now he looks 20 years old and doesn’t remember anyone. Lup, Kravitz, and Taako are trying to figure things out. 

Also on tumblr: Part One  | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen

Losing Time “Exit Interview” (10 fanfic questions answered about Losing Time. Includes a lot of behind the scenes and extended explanations.)

It’s About Time - This is a love letter to Barry Bluejeans of sorts: the whole campaign of The Adventure Zone: Balance (and then some) told from Barry’s point of view. (Part of ‘All the Time in the Worlds’ series, this fic covers their Stolen Century from Barry’s POV.)

It’s About Time “Exit Interview” (10 fanfic questions answered about the fic. Includes a lot of behind the scenes and extended explanations.)

Time After Time - With Lup missing and he and Taako unable to find any sign of her, Barry Bluejeans had thought things couldn’t get any worse.

He was wrong. Now he’s completely alone, on the run, hoping to find a way to fix everything and reunite his family.

These are Barry’s voidfished years, his years without Lup, his years forced to play the villain.

(Part of ‘All the Time in the Worlds’ series, this fic covers the Faerun part of the podcast from Barry’s POV. Updates on Fridays.)

Bluejeans, Boxers, and One Bed - A prompt that got out of hand, this is my contribution to the best mutual pining trope out there: There Was Only One Bed! 4500+ words of ridiculous pining with a side dish of underwear angst. Yup, it’s a thing.

Legato Solos - Before their song was ready, before their big performance, Barry and Lup spent their last few months consumed with thoughts of one another. (Rated Mature.)

Like Friendship Set Aflame - Barry has been searching for the perfect gifts for everyone. The problem isn’t finding something perfect for Lup. It’s that it’s too perfect. (Rated Explicit. Essentially? This is over 12k words of smut. )  

This necklace was incredibly and conspicuously expensive. There was no way to give it to her at the same time he gave Magnus nail polish and a silly stuffed animal. There was no way to not be obvious that he cared about her as more than just a crewmate. This was a piece of jewelry that said ‘I have been painfully in love with you for decades and will continue to be for as long as I exist’ and said it in big, shouty letters.

This necklace was overt. Undisguised.

This necklace was a declaration.

Like Friendship Set Aflame “Exit Interview” (10 fanfic questions answered about the fic. Includes a lot of behind the scenes and extended explanations.)

A Thousand Tiny Moments - Before being chosen for the Starblaster crew, Lup meets someone at a party. It doesn’t go well. (Part of the ‘All the Time in the Worlds’ Series, this is the Lup POV companion fic to It’s About Time. 14k words)

She drifts closer to him and slowly, so slowly, she bends her head to his. She pauses inches away, not yet touching but so close they share breath. Her hand slides along the lapel of his jacket and she feels his chest rise as he breathes in.

She looks at his mouth and thinks this is the last moment before I kiss him. It’s as inevitable as his chest falling beneath her hand as he exhales. So she kisses him. His lips are warm and soft against hers with the rich sting of alcohol painted on both their mouths.

The Lup POV minific that became A Thousand Tiny Moments

A Thousand Tiny Moments “Exit Interview” (10 fanfic questions answered about ATTM. Includes a lot of behind the scenes and extended explanations.)

Longer Fics - colabs

Wild Dragon Chase - Having spotted the same distinctive looking dragon several times and in several different planar systems, Lup is ready to force a meeting. A dragon on their side against the Hunger would be a tremendous advantage.

Barry Bluejeans has kept his true nature a secret for half a millennia. He’s been alone since the rest of his flight died trying to defend the town they were the protectors of. That’s a difficult life for a crystal dragon who hoards sentimental and emotional bonds the way other flights hoard gold or relics. Can he risk his secret when half the crew despise dragons? (By @tanger-catnip & @youhearstatic) 

Also, here’s a quick scene that would take place about two weeks after the events of Wild Dragon Chase, a conversation between Taako and Lup about her and the dragon.

A Single Slat of Wood and Canvas - After months of training, Lup fails to bring in her first solo reaper contract. She won’t tell anyone exactly what happened, even Barry. (By @tanger-catnip & @youhearstatic)

Barry woke with a start. His hand reached for the other side of the bed before he even knew who or where he was.

“Lup?” he asked the empty room.

Her side of the bed was cold. Barry was up and fumbling for his glasses in an instant, his heart pounding.

Made Before the Voidfish (Broken by a Voidfish) - For months Lup, Magnus, and Merle have been haunted by the presence of the ‘red robe’. Often showing up after their adventures to offer cryptic and usually unhelpful warnings and advice. Shortly after the events at Refuge, Lup hatches a plan to finally pin this incomprehensible creature down and get the answers to the questions burning inside her. [TwinSwap AU 1.0]  (By @tanger-catnip & @youhearstatic)

Lup heard her own voice twist into a burst of static. She couldn’t remember what she had just said or hold it in her brain, but her mouth knew the words. She bent over, a lance of pain shooting through her head. It hurt so much, but she was so close to something she just had to keep going.

More static. It was like something was stealing the words away from her. She tried to claw them back, but they just would not stay in. It was like vomiting, but with words that she couldn’t hear.

Lust is a Thing with Fangs - Lup tries to sneak in one more day of laboratory work before her annual heat cycle kicks in. Barry is there. It goes about how you would expect. (Explicit content.) (By @tanger-catnip & @youhearstatic)

Lup paused at the door to the lab. She stood up straight, wrapping herself in dignity and ignoring her heart pounding in her chest like a jackhammer. It would be fine. It was only Barry. He would be way too focused on his work to notice her trembling, or the fact she was flushed from the tips of her ears to her toes.

Lup licked her lips. She suddenly had the strangest feeling. Like part of her had come to a revelation about something and another was frantically trying to muffle it before it could be brought to her attention.

A Night at The Naughty Kitten - Out of options after the Starblaster hastily relocated without them, Lup and Barry spend the night at a “boutique” “short stay” hotel.

There’s only one bed, but that’s the least of anyone’s problems. (By @tanger-catnip & @youhearstatic)

The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It wasn’t the first time she’d ended up like this, but every time Lup wondered if it would be the one to break her. He wanted her so badly. Lup didn’t understand how she was supposed to handle seeing it so clearly on his face on top of her own longing.

Sandworms and Other Concerns - Barry discovers that Lup’s presence can improve any situation, including having his arm torn off by a fifty-foot-long, carnivorous, burrowing, acid-spitting, hook-toothed, pinstriped Sandworm. (By @tanger-catnip & @youhearstatic - Also on AO3.) {Hey guys, just to let you know: The sandworm is all in the title. This is Hurt/Comfort wrapped in Fluff. Angst levels are at absolute minimum!}

Short Fics

Barry & Lup:

Lup watches Barry Sleep - Post S&S

Ghosts of Candlenights Past, Echoes of Candlenights Future - Barry feeling sad about the holiday and not realizing just how close he is to having what he always wanted.

Morning in Bed - Lup and Barry just cuddling and being in love. Prompt Request.

It’s Cold Outside But You’re Warm - Lup and Barry mutual pining. Prompt Request.

Strings - Lup and Barry just performed their song. Lup has a few final doubts.

What If She’s Just Gone? - Barry’s anxieties get away from him when Lup is missing. Prompt request.

Will You Marry Me - Barry does what he has to. Prompt Request.

Reactions - The twins deal with Barry being ill. Prompt Request.

Curse and Canyon - Barry is hurt. Lup is trying to deal. Prompt Request.

Take a Picture - Lup is frustrated. Prompt request.

Your Laugh is so Adorable - Lup does some reluctant pining. Prompt request.

Don’t Touch Me - Barry and Lup short experimental piece.

Gathering - Taako plans a party. Prompt request.

It was the Pottery - Taako teasing Barry. Prompt request.

Super Short & Cutesy - Barry and Lup in the lab. Prompt request.

What You Did Was Stupid - Barry and Lup on Tesseralia. Prompt request.

This One is Really Dark - You’ve been warned. Prompt request.

Let Me Help You - Prompt request for Barry & Lup.

You Don’t Have to Act Like You’re Okay - Prompt request for Barry and Lup.

Pride - Prompt based minific of Lup coming to Barry’s rescue at a Pride event.

Hotel Balcony - A prompt based modern meet-cute for Barry and Lup.

Hotel Balcony Pt 2 - Hey look, there’s more!

Contradictions - Test minific/opener for the Barry POV fic.

Lup and Barry switch - Lup is the one that falls from the Starblaster, taking Taako with her.

At the Wedding - Barry and Lup at Carey and Killian’s wedding. Quick scene inspired by a post.

True Seeing - Barry in a voidfished body with a group of adventurers. Short group write piece.

TazDelightful’s personality swap - A short piece with Taako and Evocation Specialist Barry talking, the echo of their beach discussion in an AU where Barry is the rowdy flame mage and Lup is the nerdy science officer.

Whumptober Prompts: A set of prompts for October 2019, all focused on angst and “whump.” Despite the focus, many of them do still have happy endings or at least, given the nature of Stolen Century, imply an eventual happy ending, since they still fit roughly within canon.

First fourteen prompts - The first fourteen days of prompts were strung together into a single story. Links at the bottom will lead through the story. This is a sort of general angst piece that delves into sci fi magical realism. 

Breathless - Lup wakes up alone. Set post S&S.

Pinned Down - Barry and Lup encounter a problem trying to get across a battlefield to return to the Starblaster.

Stay With Me - Once again, fate keeps them from having a certain conversation.

Bound - Barry dies again. This might be his worst one yet.

Asphyxiation - Lup is nervous about getting in a body again after so long being noncorporeal.

Trembling - Lup and Barry and a few, final minutes.

Laced Drink - A poisoned drink makes Lup reassess priorities.

Hallucination - Barry wakes up sure a terrible situation is happening again.

Other Short TAZ Pieces:

Love is Dead - Taakitz Soulmate/Soulmark AU with Blupjeans background. Also on AO3.

Just Like the Movies - Taakitz first Candlenights. Also on AO3.

Getting Home - Super short Magnulia prompt

Second Chances - When Lucretia gets the second void fish she realizes she can inoculate Davenport and talk to him.

Just You and Me - JohnChurch prompt request.

Karma is a Bitch/What Did You Say? - Taako & Barry’s friendship prompt request.

Can You Keep a Secret? - Taako & Barry’s friendship prompt request.

What if the Stones of Farspeech hadn’t been confiscated? - THB and others develop a friendship with the mystery contacts in their stones. Short group write piece.

Meta, Etc

Headcanons:

[The Twins | Taako & Lup]

[The Lover | Barry]

[The Protector | Magnus]

[The Lonely Journal Keeper | Lucretia | The Director]

[The Peacemaker | Merle]

[The Wordless One | Davenport]

[Kravitz]

[Miscellaneous]

Meta:

Lucretia and the Red Robes (Pt 1) Lucretia and the Red Robes (Pt 2)

A list of every conversation Lucretia has with the boys about the Red Robes and a discussion of her thought process/intentions. Part 2 focuses specifically on how her words in Ep 59 may have influenced Magnus’s decisions going forward.

Murder or Suicide: What is it when lich!Barry sets up his living!Barry body to die?

Other:

TAZ Balance Characters as WoW Classes

[basementtreasure]

After the War

A fic based on a prompt/conversation with @inkedinserendipity about Kravitz dying and becoming a reaper during the Relic Wars, and Taako finding out.

Ships: Taakitz, some Blupjeans

Characters: Taako, Kravitz, Lup, Barry Bluejeans

Words: 7.1k

Spoilers through the end of the Balance Arc

EDIT: Now on AO3

It starts with a letter. Taako usually doesn’t pay much mind to the fan mail he gets after the day of Story and Song. Most of it is the same old thing, and now he has Ren to organize them and send out pre-made replies. Before he gives them to her, though, he always like to read through them. He claims it’s a nice ego boost, but there’s a certain softness in his eyes, in the gentle way he holds the paper, that hides beneath his usual preening at the praise.

He likes to be reminded of the people he’s saved. It helps dampen that feeling of guilt from when the crew of the Starblaster watched the world turn on itself because of their creations. He’d never admit it, though, not even to Lup (who knows anyways, but lets him pretend to be more vain and selfish than he really is).

This letter, though, this one is different. He’s laying across the couch in the living room, boots propped up on the armrest as he tosses read fan mail into a pile on the table. The sound of Kravitz moving around their shared home breaks up the long silence. It’s the last letter of the day, and Taako doesn’t think much of it as he opens up the envelope.

Dear Mister Taako, it starts. They never seem to know what to call him. It’s always something weird and too formal for Taako’s taste. He’d rather they all just stick with Taako—cha boy’s got a brand to maintain after all.

You probably get a lot of letters, being a savior of the world and all—thanks for that, by the way! Really appreciate not being dead! That’s new. Taako might not act like a full-blown hero most of the time, but saving the world is hardly ever an aside in these letters. Usually he gets a full page of nothing but thanks before they write anything else.

This is a little weird, and probably not something you’d like to talk about, but I don’t know where else to turn. I live in a small farming village named Greensborough near the edge of the Felicity Wilds. At the edge of town is a remnant left from the Relic Wars. From the Philosopher’s Stone. Taako sits up from his reclined position and clutches the letter in his hand. The paper wrinkles and warps the words he just read, but he can still see them, as if they’re burned into his mind.

“Taako? Is something wrong, babe?” Kravitz’s voice is enough to calm Taako to the point where he’s no longer in danger of ripping the page. Taako holds up one finger and continues to read. As he does, he feels the couch shift as Kravitz sits beside him. A hand starts to rub soothing circles into his shoulder. Taako rests the hand he had held up on Kravitz’s wrist, a silent thanks he knows Kravitz will understand.

During the Relic Wars, someone used the Philosopher’s Stone to turn several townspeople here to gold. Their bodies are still there to this day. Taako’s blood turns cold as he closes his hand tighter around Kravitz’s wrist. The little voice that he had gotten so good at tuning out starts screaming this is your fault this is your fault your fault yourfaultyourfaultyourfault.

It had been so much easier not to care, to think of everyone else in the universe as dust. The crew were the only ones that mattered. But then a little boy with glasses wormed his way into Taako’s long closed-off heart. Then it was a charming reaper. An excitable cook. A batty old witch. Suddenly this world was his home and all these little specks of dust were his specks of dust. And he had let it go to shit for so long, only intervening when he didn’t even remember he was to blame. Retroactive guilt was a real bitch.

“Love,” Kravitz says, low and soft. Taako can feel him shift to get a better look at the letter, but he angles it away and bids Kravitz to wait with another squeeze of his wrist. Kravitz sighs and Taako can feel his breath on the back of his neck, but he doesn’t push and Taako is idly reminded that he loves this man so, so much. He continues reading.

We’ve made our peace with what happened then. The site has become something of a memorial for those we lost, in the Relic Wars and on the day of Story and Song. But the thing is, well, solid gold is a little hard for small-town farmers to protect. There have been a few incidents with bandits and marauders. Luckily, none of them have been successful so far. Still, I can’t bear to think that the people we lost might one day be a prize for some greedy, awful thieves. None of us here in Greensborough have the power to turn gold into anything else. I was hoping that as the most powerful transmutation wizard in the world, you might be able to come and finally put them to rest. It’s what they deserve.

Taako folds the letter back up and hold it to his chest. “Babe?” he says, his voice too hoarse for his own liking.

“Yes?” Kravitz brushes Taako’s hair over his shoulder, fingers gently trailing over the nape of his neck.

“Can you take me somewhere quick with your reaper-portal thing?”

Kravitz’s fingers still on his skin. After a moment’s silence, he moves his hand down to take Taako’s, lacing their fingers together. “Of course. Where do you want to go?”

Taako almost doesn’t get up, not wanting to give up Kravitz’s touch that’s kept him grounded so far, but he has to. He makes his way to a large bookshelf, mostly filled with Angus’s collection of books—or at least one copy of his collection, which has duplicates at both Magnus and Merle’s places since he moves frequently between the three men’s homes.

Resting against the newest Caleb Cleveland novel is a rolled-up map. Taako takes it out and spreads it on the table. Kravitz stands to look over his shoulder, hand resting on Taako’s hip. The motion is almost automatic, and Taako holds in a sigh of relief at being held again. Man, a decade of touch-starvation really did fuck him up, didn’t it? He’s not sure he knows exactly how he feels about Kravitz being able to read him so well, always offering the exact kind of comfort he needs. Not even all the seven birds managed that, only Lup (of course) and Barry (who Taako suspects got some tips from Lup sometime during their voyage).

Taako finds the Felicity Wilds on the map with little issue and begins scanning the areas around it. There, near the northern edge is his destination, no more than a speck with tiny letters reading Grnsboro to label it. Taako points at it. “Take me there.”

“Right now?” Kravitz sounds concerned but willing, and that’s good enough for Taako. He’ll feel much better when he puts this all behind him.

“Right now.”

Kravitz takes another look at the map, and then steps away from Taako. His skin fades away as he reaches a hand out and closes it slowly into a fist. His scythe appears just as his fingers are in the perfect position to wrap around it. With a flash of light glinting off steel, he slashes through the air, opening a rift.

Kravitz takes a moment to re-materialize his skin before holding a hand out towards Taako. Taako takes it and finds himself surprised by how cold it is. He’s grown used to Kravitz’s recently raised body temperature, but it still takes time for him to warm up after going skeleton-mode. If he’s being perfectly honest, which he rarely ever is, it’s uncomfortably foreboding given what he’s about to do.

Kravitz squeezes his hand and there’s a rush of warmth. Not quite as warm as a living person, but soothing nonetheless. Together, they step through the rift.

Kravitz’s rifts weren’t exactly meant for living beings. As Taako passes through it, gripping Kravitz’s hand like a lifeline, he feels a strange falling sensation deep in his chest—maybe his soul?—that reminds him a little too much of dying.

The moment passes, and they’re standing on a worn dirt path. A general store and a tavern stand to their right, and to their left is a few small houses, behind which large green fields roll gently over the hills. Every single person in what passes for a town square here stops what they’re doing and stares.

A young human woman with mousy brown hair and a face full of freckles stands next to a well, holding a bucket. The bucket falls as her hands go limp, water splashing out and soaking into the dirt around her. She steps forward as if in a trance, her boots squelching in the newly damp earth, then smiles. “You got my letter.”

Taako clears his throat and quickly schools his expression into a practiced nonchalance. “Yeah, well, I was bored. Thought this might be a bit of a challenge, y’know? Don’t have many of those since I saved basically everything in existence.”

Taako expects Kravitz to see right through him, for him to sigh and smile fondly, not telling anyone how much Taako cares but giving him that knowing look anyways. But Kravitz’s fingers are loose around his hand, and when Taako looks over, he’s blinking owlishly at their surroundings.

“Babe? You doing alright?”

“Huh?” Kravitz’s eyes snap back to Taako’s face with the wide, confused look of someone who’s just been woken suddenly. He shakes his head and gives Taako an unconvincing smile. “Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. This place just… seems familiar for some reason.”

“You probably caught some necromancer here a thousand years ago or something. I’m sure you can’t remember all the places you’ve reaped some poor schmuck.” Taako doesn’t really believe the words coming out of his mouth—then again, when does he?—but he really wants to leave. Kravitz is being weird and this woman is looking at him with tears in her eyes and somewhere nearby there’s a monument of people he’s killed. He’ll say whatever he has to in order to speed this up. Save the worrying and thinking and remembering for later.

“No, I remember all the jobs I’ve done for Her Majesty,” Kravitz says. He sounds a little disappointed, like he was hoping the answer could be that simple. “I haven’t been her servant for that long, you know. You, Magnus, and Merle were my first big job. Most of my time was in the Eternal Stockade before then.”

“Huh. That explains a lot,” Taako says blithely, filing away that piece of information for his growing To-Be-Processed-And-Dealt-With-Later list. He turns to the young woman. “Lead the way. Let’s get this thing done.”

The young woman is babbling as she walks, showering Taako in praise and thanks that he’d normally savor. He can’t seem to focus on any of her words though, and as he follows her, Kravitz stays in place, still staring at the town around them. Reluctantly, Taako drops his hand and leaves him to muse on his deja-vu.

As Taako walks away, Kravitz focuses in on the tavern. The sign is faded beyond recognition, but there’s something in the back of Kravitz’s mind that he can’t quite place.

The townsfolk slowly go back to their activities, still sneaking glances at both Kravitz and Taako. An elven man pushes open the door to the tavern and Kravitz catches a few notes from an old piano. He can feel a phantom sensation of worn, well-loved keys on the pads of his fingers. Kravitz has heard plenty of pianos over the years, but this sound…

It’s the sound of the piano he learned to play on.

Kravitz gasps aloud as the faded memories return. He remembers wandering into the tavern when he was too young to be there, ducking behind tables to avoid the bartender’s gaze so he could stay and listen to the old woman at the piano. He remembers the way she played with her eyes closed, letting the music wash over her until nothing else mattered. He remembers when she finished her last piece of the day, opened her eyes, and looked right at him.

“A fan of music, are we? Do you know how to play?”

It only takes a second for Kravitz to remember what else happened here, in the village he grew up in. The reason Taako must’ve wanted to come in the first place, and why he seemed to be barely holding himself together.  Kravitz turns on his heel and runs after Taako.

It’s unnervingly easy to rush down the dirt path and take a sharp turn around the back of a storage shed, like the past decade away from the town never happened. He’s moving purely on muscle memory, surprised by how well he remembers every twist of the path that leads to the edge of town. He hops over a fence that wasn’t there when he was alive—likely built to block off the scene of the tragedy, he thinks with cold dread pooling in his stomach.

“Taako, wait—" he calls out, but he can see it’s too late.

Taako and the young woman stand before five golden figures. The figures are arranged in a rough semi-circle, all facing the point where Taako is standing now. Their faces are distorted in pain and fear, some holding their hands up as if to shield themselves from a blow. One of the figures is no more than a child with fat, golden tears running down his cheeks.

Taako’s eyes are locked onto the face of the figure in front of the child, his arm flung out in an attempt to stand between the child and their attacker. Taako looks into the figure’s familiar eyes, eyes that he’s woken up to each morning filled with love. These eyes are wide and frightened and just a little hateful.

This is how Kravitz looked at his murderer, Taako realizes. It was his relic that did this. How fitting that look survived until it found him.

Faintly, he hears Kravitz step towards him. “Taako, love, I…” But there are no words. What could he possibly say? Taako killed him.

The young woman’s gaze flickers nervously between Taako, Kravitz, and the golden corpse. Wisely, she says nothing and takes a few steps back to give them some privacy.

Kravitz walks closer, but doesn’t try to touch him. Taako lets out a short, wet laugh that hurts more than it probably should. Even when they’re looking at the proof that Taako killed him, Kravitz is still able to read him so well.

Taako finally pries his eyes away from the golden Kravitz and turns to the (sort of) living one. It’s only in that moment, looking into Kravitz’s sad, vulnerable eyes, that Taako realizes how angry he is. He’s angry at himself for making that fucking stone, angry at whoever used it to hurt these people, angry at Kravitz for not telling him.

The anger must show on his face, because Kravitz stumbles back a step with an expression like he just got slapped. A part of him takes some sick satisfaction in making Kravitz back away, running away from Taako like the monster he is.

Without a word, Taako moves to one of the other golden figures and fishes a small stone out of his pocket. He never actually used this when he was adventuring, did he? He takes a breath and curls his fingers tightly around the transmutation stone with one hand, and places the other on the figure’s shoulder.

He doesn’t pray, because Taako doesn’t do prayer, but he does send a little thought Istus’s way as he concentrates on the figure.

I know this stone isn’t really powerful enough to change them, but they were killed by another stone made by me and one of them turned into my reaper boyfriend, so that’s gotta be enough bond juice for you to help me out, yeah?

The golden figure darkens, and small chunks begin to fall away and scatter on the ground until there’s nothing but a pile of rich, dark earth at Taako’s feet. He moves onto the next figure, and one by one turns them to dirt. He saves the child for second-to-last, and then finally moves to stand in front of the golden Kravitz.

There’s a moment where he just stares at his face, committing his last living expression to memory, letting the statue of his love focus all that fear and hatred on Taako. Then, he places his hand on Kravitz’s cheek, and feels him crumble away.

When it’s done, he rubs his fingers together, feeling the grains of dirt that stuck to him. He turns to the young woman and says, “Plant something nice here. I made sure there’s lots to feed it.”

The woman nods, equal parts frightened and thankful. “Thank you.” She glances at Kravitz, whom Taako pointedly does not look at. He instead turns away from the town, and just starts walking.

“Taako,” Kravitz says, trailing a few feet behind. “Please, at least let me take you home.”

Taako pulls at a cord around his neck, revealing his Stone of Farspeech. “Lup.” There isn’t an answer, and Taako can’t keep his hands from shaking anymore. “Lup.”

Kravitz is talking again, but it’s just buzzing in Taako’s ears. He grips the stone so tightly that the cord starts to hurt his neck.

“Barold,” he tries, his voice unsteady.

“Taako?” Barry’s voice comes out of the stone, and Taako almost falls to his knees at the sound.

“I need you to pick me up.” He doesn’t know when he started crying, but it’s clear in his voice by now.

“What’s wrong?” Barry’s voice becomes panicked. “Are you alright?”

“Please,” is all he can manage.

“I’m coming. It’s gonna be fine, I’m coming right now.”

Taako finally looks at Kravitz and says the first thing he’s said to him since he saw Kravitz’s body. “Go.”

Kravitz doesn’t push him—he never pushes him, he’s too kind, too good for Taako. He closes him eyes and nods, resigned. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he’s gone, leaving only the sound of a raven’s wing flapping in the distance.

Taako barely has time to wallow in his misery before Barry is there, pulling him into a tight hug. Taako must’ve looked pretty bad, because Barry started talking in his Soft Voice. It was the one he’d used on those rare occasions when Lup had died without Taako, and he couldn’t do anything without feeling an oppressive void at his side. The whole crew was gentle with him, but Barry was the one who sat with him, always wrapping an arm around him and filling the silence with his voice, making sure Taako was never alone. It kept him sane as he waited for the year to end.

“I’ve got you,” Barry says, and Taako can’t help but cling to him. “I’m getting us out of here, okay?” There’s the falling feeling again, and then Taako is being lowered down onto Lup and Barry’s couch.

“Why didn’t Lup pick up?” Taako asks, voice small. He holds back a hiccup and tries to maintain some semblance of dignity.

Barry cups Taako’s face in his hands and starts to wipe away his tears. “She’s on a mission for the Raven Queen. Her stone is silenced. I can override it, just give me second.” He reaches for his stone and it pulses with red arcane energy for a moment.

Taako knows the right thing to do is stop him. There’s really nothing Lup can do to make this right, and he’d be pulling her away from some cosmically important mission. But dammit, Taako wants his sister, and he can’t be bothered to give a shit about much else.

Barry turns away as he whispers into his stone, probably because he’s telling Lup how awful Taako looks right now. Only now does he realize that he never even put on his usual Disguise Self before going out. Gods only know what Barry must be thinking after finding him alone in the middle of nowhere with his home face on.

Lup appears in a literal flash, and hot air blasts out from her rift. She’s got strange black smudges on her clothes and cheek, but she wastes no time in kneeling on the floor nest to Taako and looking him over. Her hands flutter over his arms, both reassuring him and checking for injuries.

Satisfied that he is physically uninjured, Lup takes Taako’s hands and holds them tightly. “What happened?” There’s an edge to her voice, an implied I’ll kill whoever hurt you that only makes Taako feel worse. After all, he’s the bad guy in this story.

Taako breaks. He can’t understand half the words coming out of his mouth and his ears are ringing and he doesn’t pause to breathe for so long that his chest hurts. He stumbles his way through the story, and then rambles about guilt and Kravitz’s face and it’s unfair it’s so unfair he killed Kravitz he killed him.

Taako’s half-nonsense devolves into sobs as he buries his face in Lup’s shoulder. He spends several seconds doing nothing but trembling as Lup holds him. “It was supposed to be over,” he mumbles into the fabric of her robe. “We won. The end. No more relics.”

“It is over,” Lup says. “Kravitz died a decade ago. It’s not your…” Lup seems to realize that Taako won’t believe it’s not his fault and stops herself. “It’s not starting again. I promise.”

“Can I stay here tonight?”

“Of course. Wanna help me make dinner? I was thinking tacos.”

Taako snorts. “Now you’re just flattering me.”

“Is it working?” Lup leans away to give Taako a devious smile.

“Hell yeah.” Taako’s smile isn’t quite his usual one, nor is it his sincere one, but it’s a start.

Barry is absolutely not allowed in the kitchen while the twins work. He tries to follow them (Not to cook, he was just trying to be supportive!), but they usher him out, telling him that his mere presence will spoil the food.

Lup doesn’t try to talk more about what happened with Kravitz, but she does pull out one of their aunt’s old recipes for a side dish, so Taako knows he’s getting the little twin treatment today. (They don’t actually have a record of who was born first, so they take turns being big twin and little twin whenever it’s convenient for them. Usually Taako’s not too hot on being the little twin, but today seems to be a day of exceptions.)

Lup works close to Taako, always bumping their elbows together and leaning on his shoulder to watch him work whenever she has a free moment. He teases her for it and she teases right back, and they dance around the subject of why so well that they should get a goddamn trophy. Or at least a spot on Fantasy Dancing with the Stars.

When dinner’s ready, Taako goes to let Barry know his exile has ended while Lup sets the table. But as Taako approaches the living room, he hears Barry speaking. Then, he hears a voice that is not Barry’s.

“—just want to know he’s okay.” Kravitz. Taako’s heart races as he pokes his head around the corner. Barry is talking into his Stone of Farspeech, and Kravitz is not in the house. Taako doesn’t know whether or not he’s happy about that.

“Well, ‘okay’ isn’t how I’d put it,” Barry says. “But he’s here, and you know Lup and I are gonna take care of him. I think it’s best if you wait a while, give him some space.”

“Right. Of course.” Kravitz’s voice is strained. “I… I should go, then.”

“Bye, Kravitz.” Barry waits for a moment with no response, then sighs and tucks the stone away. Taako ducks back behind the corner and waits a hopefully un-suspicious amount of time before walking into the room and announcing, “Soup’s on, Barold.”

Taako manages to compartmentalize enough to enjoy dinner. The food is warm and familiar and tastes amazing—natch. Lup links their ankles under the table and Barry drones on about the finer details of some research paper he’s working on. He manages to avoid necromancy talk and honestly, Taako might’ve been interested in a better mood. But for now, he half-listens and ribs Barry about wanting to study after already being one of the multiverse’s most accomplished arcanists and having said accomplishments implanted into everyone’s minds via Voidfish.

When they’re ready to go to bed, they don’t even bother with the pretense of making up the guest bedroom. Taako’s kicked Barry out of his own bed before, but tonight the three of them pile on together.

Waking up next to Lup is familiar enough that for a second, Taako doesn’t think about why it’s not Kravitz next to him in bed. He listens to Lup’s snoring as yesterday’s events settle in his mind. He lifts his head enough to check the rest of the bed and doesn’t find Barry—he must already be up for the day. He was always more of an early-riser than the twins. With just the two of them there, Taako can almost pretend it’s the old days again, back before the IPRE, with no one in his heart but his sister, who would never let him down. Of course, they never had as nice a place as this to crash in the old days. Even when he closes his eyes, the sheets are too soft for the illusion to fully set in.

Eventually, he sighs and props himself up on his elbow, resigned if not ready to face the morning. He leans over to kiss Lup’s forehead before rolling out of bed. He pulls his fingers through his hair as he walks towards the kitchen, taming his wild bed-head into a more manageable mess for now.

The smell of coffee drifts through the air and Taako enters the kitchen to find Barry leaning against the counter with a mug. He raises it in greeting, and then nods at the spare mugs. “Want some?”

“Made by you?” Taako scoffs with no real bite.

“It’s Fantasy Costco Instant,” Barry says with a roll of his eyes. “None of my kitchen-curse on it.” He’s already pouring Taako a mug, which Taako takes mostly for the warmth rather than the taste. He holds it near his face after sips to let the steam lift past his face.

“So,” Barry says, absolutely failing at nonchalance. “Do you wanna… talk about it?”

“Depends. If I ignore it long enough will it go away?” Taako’s glad he has the mug to hide some of his expression. Barry’s too good at reading him. He leans back against the counter and tries not to look as hopeless as he feels.

“Probably not.” Barry leans next to Taako, just close enough that he can feel Barry’s arm brush against his. “Kravitz called last night. I get if you’re not ready to talk yet, but you can’t avoid him forever.”

“Everything was easier when I just had to wait a year for none of my actions to matter anymore.” He knows Barry understands what he really means: It was easier when they were all dust and I didn’t have to care and get my heart broken.

Barry sighs and they drink their coffee in silence. Taako leans a little more towards Barry, enough that he can still deny it was intentional, but also enough that Barry will see right through that.

“Listen,” Barry breaks the silence. “Lup and I have got to go to work. The Raven Queen gets that we’re family-first, but that mission Lup bailed on last night… We gotta go clean that up or it’s not gonna be good. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“Okay as always,” Taako says. He tries for dry humor, but it comes out as weary cynicism. He waits a second before speaking, unable to keep back the question burning the back of his tongue. “Will Kravitz be going with you, too?”

“Yeah. We’re meeting him there.”

“Tell him… Tell him he can come by today. I want to…” Taako trailed off as he realized he didn’t quite know what he wanted to do. Talk? Apologize? Yell? Just see him again?

Luckily for him, Barry just nodded and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “We’ll come by after work. Lup and I will be right there for you.”

Taako nodded back, unable to even think about more words to say.

When Lup wakes up she fusses over Taako the entire time she’s getting ready. He lets her more because it makes her feel better than him. By the time she and Barry are ready to rift out, he’s reassured her at least twelve times that he’ll be fine, which fools precisely no one in the room.

Finally, Lup and Barry say their last goodbyes and leave. Suddenly, Taako realizes he now actually has to deal with being alone. He stands in the living room for some time, staring at the spot where his sister and brother-in-law just were. The house feels a lot bigger without the two of them, and that annoying little voice in his head that keeps reminding him of every way he’s ever screwed up is having a field day.

Taako decides it’s time to start baking. He enters the kitchen and starts opening cupboards to take stock of everything at his disposal. Luckily this is Lup’s kitchen, which means it’s always got the basics and then some (unlike a certain fighter he could mention that doesn’t seem to get that a full spice rack isn’t optionable if you’re trying to make an edible dinner).

He starts out simply enough with whipping up a quick bread dough. There’s not much bread left in the pantry, and Lup and Barry will be lucky to find bona-fide fresh Taako bread when they get home. And if he’s a little extra rough kneading the dough, who’s going to know?

As the day passes, Taako’s creations get more and more complicated—works of art, if he does say so himself. He gets so lost in his work that it isn’t until his stomach starts growling that he realizes he’s never even stopped to really eat any of the pastries and goodies that have slowly been swallowing up the counter space. Sure, he’s taste-tested through the process like any respectable chef, but it’s almost mid-afternoon and all he’s really put in his stomach is the instant coffee Barry made.

He wipes his flour-covered hands on his apron and grabs a jelly tart off the top of a plate piled high before dropping unceremoniously into the nearest chair in the dining room. He takes a bite and the flavors are nothing short of perfection, but somehow chewing it feels like a chore. He tries to put his finger on what’s wrong. The texture is just right, the ratio of filling to dough is there.

He swallows the first bite and raises the tart again to his lips but doesn’t open his mouth. Fuck, he’s tired. He can’t even hold up the pastry anymore and lets his hand drop down to the table. His other hand supports his head as he leans over himself, really taking note of the weariness deep in his bones.

For a second, he’s afraid he’s going to start crying again, and what a sad sight that would be. Absolutely mortifying. But tears don’t come. He emptied himself out last night and now there’s just a big old nothing left inside.

He manages to push himself up and walk back to the kitchen, depositing the half-eaten tart back on its original plate. It’s only his family who’d eat it anyway, and they don’t mind. He really should eat something, though. He looks around the kitchen nearly overflowing with food of the highest quality (i.e. his own) and finds nothing that actually motivates him to start eating.

He closes his eyes and, in his mind, starts going through everything he’d found in the kitchen while doing inventory earlier. There’s some leftover soup that’s ready to eat with just a quick prestidigitation.

He’s never really been one for leftovers. When he and Lup were small, there wasn’t a guarantee they’d be able to eat later, so they stuffed themselves until their plates were empty. Later on, it was Magnus who cleared the plates so they never had leftovers. But apparently in the Taaco-Bluejeans household, there’s enough soup to put away. It’s definitely Lup’s cooking, and that makes it easier for Taako to get through a full serving. He still feels a vague longing to put his head down on the table and never get up, but he has enough energy now to muster the dignity to resist.

There’s still hours before Lup, Barry, and… and Kravitz are due to be back. Taako briefly considers a nap, but decides if he lets himself rest, there’s no way he’ll get up to face Kravitz. Besides, lying down with nothing but his own thoughts isn’t something he’s feeling right now. He needs to keep himself busy.

He starts by putting all of his baked goods in the kitchen away. Storing and organizing everything takes the better part of an hour, and Taako stretches it to two by reorganizing the food several times over.

He calls Ren about some finer business details he’s been putting off since almost the beginning of building the Taako brand. He’s pretty sure she knows something is up, but she doesn’t say anything and pretending to listen to her talk about the minutiae of licensing is distracting enough.

After he hangs up, he looks at the Stone in his hand. There are a few voices he could use hearing right about now, but he hesitates. Magnus would rush over, no doubt, and Taako’s not sure he can handle more feelings talk before Kravitz shows up. Merle would give him a truly Pan-awful sermon. Angus is too smart for his own good and would see through any lie Taako tried to pull about how okay he is (not at all), and he’s not ready for any more honesty.

In the end, Taako spends his remaining time pacing around the house, pulling out his Stone and fiddling with it before putting it away, and restlessly adjusting anything he can get his hands on. Lup might kill him for how completely he’s reorganized the kitchen. (It’s better this way anyway; he’s told her a million times his system is the best.)

Finally, there’s a soft knock on the door. Taako jumps nearly a foot in the air. He almost thinks it’s not the reapers, because they could just appear inside any time they wanted, but when his shaky hand turns the knob, Lup is standing on the other side.

“We figured coming through the door might be better than popping in on you,” she says, answering Taako’s unasked questions as always.

Lup enters the room and puts an arm around Taako’s shoulders. Taako can’t see Barry and Kravitz behind her, but they can’t be too far.

“You ready?” Lup asks.

“No. Tell him to come in.” Taako drops onto the couch, then straightens up, trying to remember how to fake confidence. It didn’t used to be this hard.

“Barry and I will be in the other room. We’ll give you two space, but if you need us just call.” Lup tucks a strand of Taako’s hair behind his ear and lets her hand linger for a moment. Taako closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, his gaze meets Lup’s and she nods. Now or never.

Lup pulls away and ducks her head out of the door. “Come on in.”

Barry enters first, and he and Lup make their way further into the house and out of sight. Taako watches as Kravitz shuffles into the center of the room, standing as stiff and still as—well, as Death. Taako thinks he might not even be breathing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Kravitz opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He sighs and looks down at his shoes, his posture still perfect and stiff. “The answer isn’t going to make you feel better.”

“I don’t want to feel better. I want to know why you didn’t tell me I murdered you.” Taako’s voice sounds foreign to even himself. There’s no emotion. It’s that nothing inside of him speaking now.

Kravitz takes a tentative step forward. When Taako doesn’t respond, he continues until he’s sitting next to him on the couch. He doesn’t try to touch Taako, which is good, because Taako might just blast him with a fireball if he tries to pretend everything is okay.

“I didn’t realize it until after the Day of Story and Song,” Kravitz starts quietly. “My memories from when I was alive are fuzzy at the best of times, and it wasn’t until I fully processed that you made the Philosopher’s Stone that I realized what that meant for me.” Kravitz glances up at Taako’s eyes hesitantly, as if he’s asking permission to make eye contact. “I was already in love with you Taako, you know that. It didn’t change my feelings.”

“You’re supposed to be honest with the people you love,” Taako says, like a hypocrite. He’s not sure if he’s trying to hurt Kravitz or himself with the remark.

“Taako, love…” Kravitz closes his eyes and balls his hands into fists, not in anger, but in the way one does when they know there’s nothing to be done. Defeat. “I knew how much it would hurt you. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. That was wrong, and I’m so, so sorry.”

Taako looked away, staring at the opposite wall instead. It hurt less to look there. “How can you not think of me differently? How am I supposed to look at you? I’m the reason you died.”

“I know this isn’t going to be what you want to hear, but I’m trying this thing where I’m honest with the people I love.” Kravitz’s voice gains back a little of its usual lilt with the dry humor. Taako forces himself not to smile. “That day… I’ve never thought of it as my death.”

Taako starts to argue, but Kravitz puts a hand up. His expression is firm. Taako likes it a lot better than his guilty, docile face.

“That is the day my Queen took me into her service. She took my soul and made it something new, gave me purpose. The person I was before didn’t matter anymore because of her. I was her servant, and she made me feel whole.” Kravitz stops and smiles, his eyes far away. “It was… sublime. The small-town pianist was a speck of dust compared to my new being. I have always been faithful to my Queen, Taako. She gave me a place in the world. Maybe who I was died that day, but the me that I am now was created because of the Philosopher’s Stone.”

Taako furrows his brow and tries to sort through all the protests that spring to mind. Most of it amounts to a petulant voice that keeps insisting, But you died! He doesn’t know how to say it without sounding like he hasn’t listened at all.

Kravitz carefully takes Taako’s hands in his. Taako surprises himself by letting him. “I should’ve told you. But I never once blamed you, and I hope you can stop blaming yourself. I’m not dead, love. I’m a reaper.” Kravitz moves Taako’s hand to the side of his neck, where a warm pulse beats beneath the skin. It’s faint, and not quite as warm as a living human, but it seems to grow stronger and warmer under Taako’s touch. “Do you feel that? My heart started beating again when I fell in love with you. You’ve made me more alive than I’d ever been, even in Greensborough. I’m here, I like the being I am now, and I love you.”

“Did it hurt?” Taako feels tears that he thought were long gone start to well up. “Did I hurt you?”

“I don’t remember.” Kravitz cups Taako’s face with one hand, stroking his cheek with his thumb. His other hand stays holding Taako’s hand against his pulse. “I remember stepping in front of that child, and when the Raven Queen remade me, I always knew what happened, but I don’t remember the feeling.”

“What if I hurt you again?”

Kravitz has the gall to smirk a stupid, beautiful smirk. “I’m a big strong reaper. I can handle myself. And you’re a lot kinder than you give yourself credit for.”

Taako doesn’t even make the decision to lean forward and kiss Kravitz. It’s simply a fact that he must be kissing him right now. If he was just a little sappier, he’d say he could feel Istus pulling him into Kravitz’s embrace with her threads.

When they pull apart, it’s not more than an inch. Just enough for Taako to say, “I love you.”

Kravitz leans their foreheads together and Taako takes a long moment to enjoy the touch of Kravitz’s skin. Taako hums contently, then says, “You know Lup and Barold have definitely been listening in on this whole thing, yeah?”

“I figured.” Kravitz sounds just as blissfully unbothered as Taako feels.

“No, we haven’t!” Lup shouts from around the corner of the hallway.

Taako feels Kravitz’s laughter entwined with his own. Lup comes out of hiding with a smile and a respectfully-abashed Barry. “So, who wants dinner?”

Taako’s stomach growls as he remembers his pitiful eating habits today. “Sounds perfect, Lulu.”

As Lup heads into the kitchen and Barry awkwardly looks away to give them a semblance of privacy, Kravitz leans into Taako and says quietly, “Are you okay?”

“No.” Taako tucks his head into the crook of Kravitz’s neck. “But I’ve got you back, so that’s a start.” He only gets to enjoy a moment of peace.

“Taako, my dear brother whom I love with all my heart?” Lup calls from the kitchen, her voice light and airy in a way that means she’s about to lose it.

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck did you do to my kitchen?”

[jortsman]

Yooo 2 and 13 for before the century was stolen?

yessssss love both these! I’m gonna answer 13 first because 2 is long, hah

13.  What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

I listen to so so much, except certain scenes when I’m getting really into them, I turn everything off and get into this super-focus mode. But! I actually have a playlist for writing this (though I throw in random stuff all the time) and here is that playlist. It’s 2 hours, hah, but that first song on there especially gets me into some feelings that are very blupjeans appropriate (like, put in some headphones and close your eyes and just chill while listening to that song and get totally emotionally wrecked. The song after it is pretty oof too). 

2: What scene did you first put down?

It was their conversation in the lab in ch.14 (I’ll post the scene below the cut). I just finished relistening to TAZ and got blupjeans super stuck in my head, specifically during Stolen Century, and I read all of the fic that I could find that was in that particular vein of what I wanted to read. But, my brain was still all wrapped up in it and I was running scenarios in my head while doing my mindless job, and then was like... what if I wrote this down? I felt positive that I couldn’t actually write a legit fan-fiction or stay committed to a thing, but I convinced myself to just write this one scene, and it ended up being way longer than I thought, and I actually kind of liked it. 

But then I got really into the idea of figuring out how/why things got to a place where they would have a conversation like that and started forming all of these ideas. And then I thought maybe I should actually try writing something for real, figuring that I probably wouldn’t be able to stick to it for very long, but it would be good writing practice. But now it’s been *looks at watch* 5 and 1/2 months, and I’m still so invested in this, and I’m just really glad that I allowed myself to write that first scene, because I was really close to not doing it and speed-running sudoku instead.  But anyways! The scene is under this! 

The lab was filled with a low, warm, golden light. Barry had obviously been hard at work since before the natural light from the couple of small circular overhead windows had disappeared into darkness.

Barry had the automatic lighting of the Starblaster disabled in the lab; sometimes he would need it to be completely dark or to have light focused only in a certain spot, so he used his own, manual light sources. That night, there was only one dimming, dying bulb on above his work space. Lup wondered if maybe he needed more light and was just too engrossed in his work to notice, but she was really digging the atmosphere; it was very homey and not so clinical or science-y. Lup was sitting in the swivel chair on the opposite end of the long, curved counter that made up the back half of Barry’s workplace. She kicked back away from the desk a bit, fully slumped in her chair, arms hanging off the armrests, fingers almost dragging on the floor, looking very obviously bored. She straightened and scooted towards Barry, who was moving between plant samples and his notes every few seconds.

Lup kicked at the ground to roll towards him, almost knocking her chair into his. “Baaaarry. I want something to do.”

Barry looked up from his work for the first time in over an hour. “Oh damn, yeah sorry, I was so involved in what I was doing that I forgot to catch you up on -- what it is that I’m doing. Which is not a great way to get your help,” and he chuckled even though he was obviously nervous and blushing. He was getting back to being a little bit more open after having clammed up some over the past couple years. He was talking with her so much more and frequently joking again instead of stammering out apologies over and over. And his laugh. She was getting a lot more of that lately, and it was the best laugh and she did what she could to hear it often.

Her boredom dissolved and she lit up knowing that he was about to teach her something new or just get her involved in some shit. And, that she had his attention. No, no, no. It was about learning and working, not about Lup being noticed. Lup was always noticed, but she didn’t always get to learn and gain new skills; that’s what made it exciting to spend time with Barry in the lab.

Time with Barry was productive and fun. Time with other people was about being noticed and the center of attention, which happened without her even trying or necessarily wanting that. But, there was something about having Barry’s attention that felt so different, and she couldn’t figure out why that was.

“So, I’m trying to develop a way for us to be able to determine if uh, starting with plant based food I guess, if we can find out what’s safe to eat in a more efficient, and faster way and with clearer results, y’know. This stuff is hard; testing things according to our standards and our knowledge of biological makeup of plant matter when we’re literally on alien planets. But, I figure I can do this now while we’ve got some down time, and it can save us time in future years. Figure the faster we can know what’s safe when we start a new cycle, the sooner we can get to real work.”

He was obviously genuinely enjoying working on a project that he came up with and assigned to himself apropos of nothing. He could have been using the opportunity for some rest, as most of the others were. Not Barry, though; he loved to work. But, she was also there, looking to him and his work to solve her boredom, so what did that say about her? He was about to talk, but she cut him off before he could expand on his idea.

“So, you came up with something to work on now, so that you can get to other work faster in the future. And I’m gonna guess that it’s probably so that you’ll have more time to work on other things between and after work? Maybe some things that will, hmmm, let’s see; give you more work?”

“What can I say,” he said brightly while shrugging, “I’m not livin’ if I’m not science-in’.” He laughed faintly, not because what he said was at all funny, but just because he was happy. Obviously, visibly happy.

After he he had spoken, while still wearing his goofy smile, he transitioned seamlessly into a fake, stereotypical, super nasally nerd voice and pushed up his glasses -- not in his normal way, but in a well timed, intentional way, and said “Me and science are best friends.” And Lup died laughing.

He was in such a fun mood and uncharacteristically confident and Lup was ecstatic.  

“You!” she said with lingering emphasis, through a huge smile. “Are. SUuUch a NERD!” And then Lup did something that she’d done tons of times before; socked him somewhat gently on his arm. And then Barry did something he’d never done. The same thing, back to her.  

And Lup was surprised. In a good way, but definitely surprised, and Barry saw her surprise and realized what he had just done.

“Oh gods, Lup, I am so sorry, I-I-I I don’t know why I did that or why that happened, what is wrong with me, I-I-I-- ” he was spilling out bits and pieces of words impossibly fast, his brain exploding as he saw flashes of their entire friendship collapsing within a moment. Lup interrupted him by leaning forward a bit and grabbing him by the shoulders. He stopped talking, but his mouth was still slightly agape and his eyes clearly showed the immense shame and panic he felt.

“B-a-r-o-l-d,” she said his name firmly and drawn out and with emphasis on both syllables, as if she was trying to wake him from a trance, which she might as well have been. “That. Was hilarious. I am so into this Barry that you are Barry-ing tonight, and I do not want you to freak out and never be like this again. Because one, it’s fucking cool and two, I don’t want you backing off from our chill hangs again, like last year.” He visibly calmed, though still a little nervous. Only really enough for her to be able to tell though; she’d become an expert of reading his face.

“Look. You shouldn’t ever feel bad about reciprocating, yeah? I punch you in the arm, it’s fair game to punch me in the arm. We are buds and it is okay! And, Barry?” She waited for him to make eye contact with her, and she was glad that his eyes had relaxed and were meeting hers in such a natural way; it was kind of distracting. “If anything ever did happen between us that wasn’t okay, I would let you know and we would talk. Listen. I would never throw our friendship away or let it change over some tiny thing. Or even a medium sized thing. Medium-Large, though? That could be taking it too far.” She smiled and he smiled with her.

He pulled in a deep breath as she let go of his shoulders and leaned back into her chair. He exhaled and said “I’m sorry I can be so, I guess easily shaken, and sorry that I --”

“Hey, Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“ Stop apologizing. ”

“Heh. Yeah, I’ll try. That’ll be a tough one,” and he drew in another deep breath, trying to pull his body back into sync, his adrenaline still a little bit off.

“I’m sor -- nope, stop,” he caught himself and partially covered his face with his hand in exasperation and momentarily closed his eyes, trying to think of how to say what he felt needed to be said without tearing himself down or apologizing profusely; things he had never even thought about working on before Lup.

“Your friendship is really important to me. And I guess -- hitting you in the arm like that felt really disrespectful. And, Lup.” He purposefully met her gaze again, “I have so much respect for you. You’re an amazi-” and his adrenaline was flooding him and his heart was gearing up to go wild, and gods, why did he start that sentence? He took a short breath, lowered his tone a bit, and forced some calm into himself just be calm for a second, he begged his body. Try to summon some of that professor mentality from way back when, from a lifetime ago.

“You’re an amazing person. I am constantly impressed and surprised by your work and how unnaturally fast you can learn. You are a good friend, a good sister, and a good colleague to us all. You are so needed and cared about.” He took in a sharp breath and gulped. “By everyone. And I don’t want to do anything to disrespect you.”

The words had to be forced at times, and he was getting more and more light headed, but it all came out and nothing was stammered or unfinished and left hanging or surrounded by apologies. He didn’t say a word wrong or spontaneously forget a word completely. He said it all, and he felt good about what he said.

What a fucking feeling .

Lup was taken aback. Just by virtue of being Lup, she had gotten lots of compliments throughout her life. She didn’t believe them all and she knew some come from a place of self gain. Many others she knew she deserved. Absolutely no one aside from Taako had ever said something even close to that sincere to her before, though. Was it only because she’d let basically almost all of her barriers down around him? Would everyone be that sincere with her if she were even less guarded with them? No -- that was just Barry. And she was either going to cry or say something really stupid if she didn’t reel the conversation back, at least a bit.  

“That means a lot to me Barry, truly. Even though that first half felt a little like I was getting a pep talk from a dad or a teacher.” She got a small laugh out of Barry.

“You need to loosen up around me!” She went on, trying to turn the flood of feelings into excitement and sincerity and to drown out anything else that was knocking around in her head. “I am never going to be put off or offended or uncomfortable about anything you do, I’m sure. I want Barry unchained, let loose, uncensored, free roaming, all natural 100% grade-A-Barold, got it?” He smiled and exhaled and gave a relieved laugh. He got it, and he knew he was going to do whatever he could to be that for her. They met each other’s eyes with mutual gazes of deep warmth and calm.

But, she realized; there was something else very important that needed to be addressed. Couldn’t end on a joking note quite yet.

Her face went soft and then formed a furrowed brow and slightly downturned lips. She took both of his hands into hers as they faced each other.

“Barry. What you said about not doing things like that out of respect for me…” and she involuntarily, abruptly paused, something forming in her throat and not allowing her to continue. It was not quite a lump or a hiccup but more like a strain; a sudden half-second restriction of her breath. Because she was barrelling head-first into “serious conversation” territory, and that was territory that she had successfully danced and tiptoed around for most of her life, save for the conversation with him back in their ninth year -- but that was all about him, not about her being vulnerable. Now she was walking around the edge of a boiling vat of her own vulnerability and was about to either decide to jump down to safety or intentionally let herself fall into it. And why would she choose to do that? To fall? Why was she definitely about to do that? Her eyes couldn’t face his; she was looking down at his hands in hers.

“...do you think that I don’t respect you?” And at the end of that sentence, there was definitely a lump in her throat.

There was a long pause between them and then Barry stammered through several different beginnings of a response that he didn’t have. His voice shook and he was even more nervous than usual because he was taken off guard by the question and by Lup’s sudden shift in demeanor (and definitely, and probably mostly, by her hands holding his) and also because he didn’t know how to answer, because either he had to lie to spare her feelings (but he could never lie to her) or… he had to admit that he didn’t feel like he was respected. It wasn’t something that he was angry or resentful about and it absolutely was not something he demanded or needed or even wanted. It was just something that was absent, though he wasn’t even actively pursuing it or trying to get it from anyone. It was simply a fact that he was aware of. That he was certain of. He wasn’t respected.

As he stammered and fidgeted, Lup took her right hand away from his and raised it to his face. She cupped his cheek and let her thumb lay over his mouth to hush him. It was an intimate and soft gesture that made him lightly gasp but also, as her hand settled perfectly around the curve of his cheek and her thumb lay still on his lips, made him warm everywhere and loosened all the tension in his body at once.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said in a voice softer than he thought was possible to come from his boisterous and loud friend, softer than when they had talked on a more serious level in the past. She sounded sad, and his heart dropped. And him being warm and without any tension and a heart that just free-fell, he completely melted and his shoulders dropped, too.

She was looking straight at him, searching his eyes for something, and Barry was looking into her eyes without glancing away or lowering them as he almost always did.  

“Barry. I respect you immensely. You are one of the -- no, actually, the most intelligent person I have ever known. I have learned so much, just by being around you. You’re approachable and kind and willing to share your knowledge, without so much as a trace of pretension. There’s no stick up your ass, like most of the people I’ve ever known who thought they were smart,” she barely smiled and exhaled sharply through her nose in a kind of almost-laugh. Then she was completely serious again; a look that Barry didn’t know what to do with or how to react to.

“You are — so knowledgeable, and you utilize that and apply it to your work, to which you are dedicated in a way that I have never seen anyone be dedicated to anything . And you constantly push yourself to learn more, and you share and teach everything you can to anyone who wants to listen, and you do it with patience and kindness, and…” and then she was the one nervously rambling. That was not Lup. She let her hand drop from his face and scooped his free hand back up.

“I have a lot of respect for you, Barry. So much. And I trust you, completely. But,” she paused and felt like she was on the verge of tearing up. “I’ve never said that. And I’ve never done anything to show it.”

She sighed and looked back down at his hands in hers, feeling warm at the sight, but still guilty. Barry was trying to put together a response, to protest, to tell her that she did so many things to show her trust in him, but he couldn’t find the words. All he could do was sit there with a slightly agape mouth and sad eyes as Lup continued.

“I can’t just expect you to know how I feel. So, now I’m telling you. And if you know me at all, you sure as hell know that I wouldn’t say any of this or get this vulnerable if I didn’t mean it.” She looked back up at him and she was finally actually smiling; a little bit weakly and through slightly watery eyes, but a real, happy smile. Barry’s entire body felt like it was on pause. But then, she dropped his hands and raised hers to smoosh each side of his face, looking directly at him and putting on her best mock serious expression as she leaned in close. Barry’s heart shot back up and into his throat with Lup that close to him.

“But, now that you know, you will never see me this mushy again, Barold,” she told him in an assertive tone. “You only get one Lup heart-to-heart, and you’ve just burned yours, cowboy.”

And she laughed, and Barry laughed even though tears were free-falling from his eyes without him even crying.

[wormy-business]

Music’s End; Reprise

I’ve finally done it! I finally wrote the sequel to Music’s End! I’m gonna go cry my eyes out now!

Description:  Several weeks after Avi is given a service dog, he and many Bureau of Balance members are moving off of the Moon Base. This is a direct sequel to my work "Music's End", I would highly recommend reading that first.

Warnings: I really don’t want to spoil anything, but know that there are a few very upsetting themes and one major, extremely sad thing that happens. I will add trigger warnings to the end of the tags, however.

Read on A03

“Alright, I’ll see you in a few hours, uhm, hold down the fort, keep it spooky. . .” Taako trailed off, sighing and rubbing the back of his neck. The red robed lich form of his dear sister lingered next to him, and placed her spectral, skeletal hand on his shoulder.

“You seem bummed. You don’t wanna help Lucretia? You know if I had a body I would-”

“It’s not that.” Taako cut her off, his bangs falling into his face. “I just, I have a really bad feeling, is all. Like, like something’s wrong.’

Lup looked at him for a moment, then moved so she was in front of him. “I dunno, I feel like everything’s pretty good here, except for bone-boy being late, and you being all sad.”

“Y-Yeah, chin up Taako, I’m sure everything will be fine.”

He smiled a little, feeling Barry’s hand on his shoulder, and then pushed it off after a moment, a smirk returning to his face as he turned to tease him, but something else took over him, and his smirk turned into a gentle smile. “You know what, Barry? As long as your jeans are blue, everything’s gonna be just fine.”

Not a minute too soon a transport sphere descended from the sky, Merle and Magnus already sitting inside. Taako attempted to hug his incorporeal sister and loaded himself inside, feeling a little more squished than usual due to Barry joining the sphere with them. The four waved goodbye to Lup, who stood outside watching as the sphere took to the sky again, lifting them back up to the moon base.

It was moving day, and Bureau members were running about, gathering their things and loading them into spheres. Taako was the first to get out of the transport sphere, and he immediately began fussing over his clothes, straightening them out and dusting them off. Magnus exited the sphere and hugged Lucretia who was standing nearby, catching her off guard as she let out a little sound of surprise, followed by her calm voice requesting Magnus put her back down. Merle gave the Captain a firm handshake, and then a gentle hug between old friends. They chatted a little, Merle boasting about the community he was going to help rebuild and Cap’nport lamenting he still wasn’t sure what he was going to do once he was done moving out of the Moon Base. Barry stood next to Taako, who had finally finished making adjustments to his outfit, the two of them waiting idly by until they were to begin work. Magnus insisted on helping Avi, and no one protested. Avi and Johann had lived together in their room for several months before The Day of Story and Song, packing up all those memories was sure going to be hard on him. Lucretia had swept Barry away to discuss something with him, leaving Magnus, Merle, and Taako to head down to the lowest levels of the Moon Base. Taako’s ears swiveled forward as the elevator dinged. 

“Soprano.” He said out loud, interrupting the conversation Merle and Magnus were having.

“What?” Merle asked, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What about her?” Magnus inquired as he stepped out of the elevator with the other two following behind. 

“I can hear her barking.” Taako stated, the pit in his stomach feeling heavier than before.

Magnus stared at Taako, then took off in a sprint down the hallway toward Avi’s room.

The door burst open with a slam, Magnus nearly taking it off his hinges. Avi’s service dog, Soprano, was sitting on the floor, barking at the feet suspended in the air. Magnus wrapped his arms around Avi and swiftly cut the ropes holding him up. Merle entered the doorway as Magnus laid him on the floor. 

“Merle!” He shouted, his voice cracking. “Heal him! Now!”

Merle approached, fingers brushing over his Xtreme Teen Bible, then down to Avi’s wrist as he knelt next to him. 

“I, I can’t. There’s nothing I can do, Magnus.”

Magnus rose, his body shaking, his hands clenched tightly into fists, and he punched the wall of the Moon Base. Merle stepped back as Magnus got to his side again, pulling his friend into his arms, his body was already starting to lose heat. Big, hot tears rolled down Magnus’s cheeks and mixed with the hairs of his beard. Taako placed a hand on his shoulder, holding his hat to his chest. Merle lowered his head and kneeled next to the dog who had laid herself next to Avi. She was whining, and nudged Avi’s limp hand several times. The room was filled with Magnus’s soft sobbing, interlaced with a single repeated word. Why?

Avi dipped his quill into the inkwell on the corner of his desk and tapped off the excess. He began writing, his handwriting as messy as usual.

I’m sorry. I know I promised I would be strong, but I’m just not. Ever since I lost Johann, this pain has been me eating me slowly from the inside out. It feels like an emptiness that’s slowly taking over my whole body. I can’t stand this feeling. I can’t stand the loneliness anymore. Don’t blame yourself for what I’m going to do. I know people are going to hurt when I’m gone, but I don’t want you to hurt yourselves over my decisions. I love all of you dearly, as I would my own family, and it hurts me to leave you, but the pain is just a shadow in a pool of darkness. I’ll see you all again one day, I promise. I know I promised to be strong, but this is a promise I can keep. Don’t cry for me, not for too long. Know that wherever I am, I’m with Johann again. I love you all.

-Avi

 He gently pat Soprano on the head twice as he moved past her, walking to his bedside table where he had the framed picture of Johann Magnus had gifted him with. He smiled at the picture, and pressed his lips gently to the glass as he had done hundreds of times already. He set the picture back down, fingers tracing the face of the love of his life.

“You won’t have to wait much longer, I’m coming.” He whispered to photograph. As he turned his eyes flicked to his service dog. She had been a nice addition to his daily life, he felt bad about leaving her. He got to his knees and wrapped his arms around her, pressing his face into her mass of fur as she placed a paw on his back. “Sorry, Soprano. You were such a good girl, and I love you.” He kissed the dog on her head and stood up again. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes, a feeling he had grown quite accustomed to. He pulled a small wooden box out from underneath his bed and opened it. He smiled at the hand crafted rings inside. He had only been two weeks away from proposing. He slid the box into his pocket, and reached to retrieve a second larger box. Inside was nothing but a section of rope. Avi was strong enough to hold himself up on the rafters as he secured the rope on one of the central beams, and then laid the circle of the noose around his neck. Soprano started barking at him, but she couldn’t reach him from where she was. Avi smiled, touching the box in his pocket as he released both of his hands from around the beam. He could feel himself falling, then he felt a sharp pain in his neck, and then he felt nothing.

His eyes opened again, the bright of the white around him blinding him for a moment, and as he raised a hand over his eyes, he saw a rift open in front of him. From this rift appeared a man, his sharp jawline and intense eyes were of a man he had seen before, with Taako on his arm. The reaper looked solemnly on the dead man before extending a hand to him. 

“It’s time to go.”

Taako felt a cold hand on his shoulder. Moving efforts on the Moon Base were immediately halted when word got out. When Barry and Taako returned to the home they shared with their respective lovers, Magnus was crying with Carey and Killian, and Merle and Davenport were helping Lucretia. Their ride back had been silent. Taako felt, off. He had never personally been very close with Avi, but he still considered him a friend. Even more than that, seeing Magnus so torn up made his heart hurt.

Taako turned to face Kravitz who had his head down, his hair obscuring sections of his face. 

“I’m sorry, Taako. I should have-”

“No, no don’t be sorry. It’s, just c’mere.” Taako said as he turned towards his boyfriend and opened his arms. Kravitz embraced his love, squeezing him tight. It wasn’t that he was necessarily sad about Avi, he dealt with the dead every single day, but he felt that he should have told Taako or at least given him a warning. He could at least say one thing, the indescribable joy he could see in Avi’s face as he sprinted towards Johann across the sea of souls was the look of a man who looked happy for the first time in a very, very long time.

[lesakuraciel]

trans ask game!

original by @solareclipselgbt

1.) what’s your gender and pronouns?

nb and they/them!

2.) what does your name mean (either literally, or to you personally)

i don't feel a particular connection to my birth name, though it is based off anna karenina (it's anna corinne), but i've been toying w the idea of going by ashe... obv it's based on the tree but to me it means walking through a dappled forest near the end of winter, timeless and strange and perfect

3.) when and how did you realize you were trans?

not entirely sure, def after i figured out i wasn't straight(which was aug. 2016), but as far as accepting my place under the /trans/ flag (i knew i was nb, but was still hesitant bc of the people against enbys iding as trans), that didn't happen until like. end of last year,

4.) what was the most helpful in figuring out and accepting yourself as trans?

my trans friends definitely!! and also doing a report on enbys in the trans community, and subsequently finding what, the white stripe means, i still have trouble asking people who already know me to use they/them though,, (i still say she/her is fine even though it's kinda not)

5.) have you or do you plan on medically transitioning?

i do plan to get top surgery! and soon, hopefully!!! other than that, i eventually want a hysterectomy, but no hrt

6.) what’s something you’re most looking forward to in your transition (or something that was your favorite part of transitioning)?

no! boobs! i hate them!! and not having to wear extra layers (read: binder) in summerr

7.) do you have dyed hair?

sjsjsnd yea it's dark blue right now don't think /that's/ natural lmao i even have The Haircut (tm)

8.) who was the first person you came out to (or plan to come out to)?

i'm pretty sure it was my good friend henry!! i mean, he also basically told me i wasn't straight cause i wouldn't admit it :'>

9.) what’s your favorite season?

fall!! so many pretty colors and finally, appropiate weather for the jackets i wear year-round,

10.) have you ever been to pride?

yep! i went to pride for the first time in tacoma last year!! (plan to go to the seattle one this year)

11.) if you’re on hrt, what changes suprised you the most?

not on hrt!

12.) what gives you the most gender euphoria?

oh being called "sir" definitely, and a xloae second is when strangers use they/them to refer to me!

13.) do you have a specific piece of clothing thats especially gender affirming to you?

hmm i mean my binder obv but other than that, certain shirts when i bind? idk they just Do(tm)

14.) what’s your favorite trans joke or meme?

friend who is very comfortable in their identity: talks abt someone not realizing and being transphobic around them/other people not knowing how trans things work/etc.

(sarcasm) wow i can't believe you're really a cishet

15.) if you’ve had any gender affirming surgeries, how was your experience? what are the biggest positive effects?

not had surgery yet, but kaiser permanante has been great so far in working w me !!!

16.) do you have any piercings?

haha just one in each ear, and i basically never use those

17.) who’s your favorite trans character? or do you have any characters you headcanon as trans?

we stan lup from taz in this house

other than that, i hc a lot of characters as trans! e.x. bakugo, todoroki, and kirishima (bnha), snufkin (moomins), indrid and angus (taz), and like, a lot more,,

18.) what do you wish other people understood better about being trans?

just. it's okay to ask pronouns. god

better to ask than to assume

also use context clues, jesus (like if someone isn't out, they may switch to a diff name for some people. never use it unless they ask you to)

19.) top 5 fav songs?

bohemian rhapsody - queen

oi - carbon leaf

light in the hallway - ptx

ocean city - anthony ramos (this isn't anywhere but soundcloud but it's So Good???? go listen)

wait for it - hamilton soundtrack

20.) what advice would you give your younger self?

you can be more assertive about being trans, most people are good abt it and those who aren't can learn or fuck right off

21.) do you have any pets?

yep! my baby, friend

and my doggo, kody!

22.) do you find yourself fitting into gender roles, or consider yourself gender non-conforming?

def gnc!! i like to be androgynous, whixh usually means wearing masc clothes bc i still present fem, somehow,

23.) are you part of your schools gsa or any lgbt organizations?

nope! i prefer to make friends by just chatting, and they usually end up being non-cishwt anyhow lmao

24.) any trans role models?

not really tbh, i see a lot of people that i want to emulate, but i can't think of any in particular atm.

now that i think abt it though, my friend henry has been a sort of guiding light in figuring out, accepting, and then loudly proclaiming my identity, bc i've def come a long way since sophomore year! (if you're reading this, thank u henry)

25.) did you go through multiple gender identities before figuring out your gender now?

yep! i id'ed as genderflux very shortly, then demigirl for a long time, and finally nb/genderqueer!

26.) what makes you most proud to be part of the trans community?

it's so positive and uplifting!! i love that people are just, kind to others that's v nice

27.) favorite movie growing up?

princess bride was and is my favorite movie, but mulan was my fav disney movie and well, if that was someone's fav movie and they ended up cishet? i'd be surprised

28.) if you went by multiple names before deciding your current name, which was the first?

n/a

29.) do you have any pride merch or pride related tattoos?

i have a rainbow flag (handheld) on my bookshelf, and a genderqueer one behind my bed (big)! i also have a trans flag shawl that i made, pan flag converse, several pride shirts, and a pride hat! i'm not shy about letting everyone know i'm neither straight nor cis lmao

30.) if you experience dysphoria, what do you find helps you the most?

binding definitely helps! i get mild dysphoria wearing anything other than a binder or sports bra, and also on my period :/

31.) do you have any siblings, friends, or family who are also trans?

@dorkryptos is my friend and so is henry!! none of my family is though ):

32.) which gender roles or cis beliefs do you find most ridiculous?

nail polish is feminine?? deodorant and razors are gendered???? flowy things are feminine????? guys can't have style beyond Tux(tm)????????????????? fuck all that noise

35.) if cis people didn’t exist for a day, what would you do?

33.) how did you decide on your current name?

go out and make some new friends! ^^

34.) do you fit any trans stereotypes?

i have dyed hair and That haircut, i'm fairly short and afab, i mostly wear ""masc"" clothes, i'm in high school, etc. etc.

ahah, i didn't? but w ashe i wanted smthn with the same initial, old-timey, and connected to nature

only like, every single trans nb stereotype,

[lichlover]

Here’s a prompt. Post-story and song, everyone is sitting around talking about birthdays, and angus says he never really had a good one. So taako, being the best dad ever, throws angus a huge party and he loves it and loves his giant weird family even more

please consider donating to my ko-fi!

“Y’know what must’ve sucked?” says Taako. “Being born on Story and Song.”

He’s nestled comfortably in Kravitz’s lap, one arm slung over the back of the couch and the other balancing a half-empty cocktail. His glass isn’t the only one that looks like it’s about to be in need of refilling. Lup is about to reach the bottom of hers, and sitting against her, Barry holds a drink that glows eerily whenever he so much as shifts his grip. Magnus is the only one who’s drinking something Angus actually recognizes. His tabard of ale borders on the stereotypical, threatening to overflow with foam and making him red in the face, despite his insistence that he’s completely sober because “C’mon, you guys, I’d never get drunk in front of a kid!”

As if the man could convince anyone his tabard is brimming with a Shirley Temple.

But tonight isn’t about calling Magnus out on his bullshit. It’s about coming down from the aftermath and escaping from the world. They’re all sitting in the Bureau’s Reclaimer suite, because reporters haven’t quite figured out a way to get to the moon just yet, and it serves as their sanctuary away from the glitz and bright lights of fame. Angus, who has reached adolescence in theory but not in practice, appreciates the opportunity for a breather. The most recognition he’d received for his detective work had been a medal from the odd mayor or two; the rare commendation from a police commissioner. Garnering a worldwide fanbase—well, it should go without saying, but that’s another thing altogether.

As much as the Birds make a show of revelling in stardom (particularly Taako, who insists it’s his birthright), Angus can tell they’re feeling as relieved as he is. Why else would they be drinking like their lives depend on it?

Speaking of which. His mentor takes another gulp, effectively draining the cocktail, and goes on. “What the hell are you s’posed to do when your birthday is the fuckin’—fuckin’, when-the-world-got-saved day? You think anybody’s gonna pay attention to you then? Nah, they’re too—too busy gettin’ smashed and partying in the streets to worry about little Timmy or whatever, over there with—with a pair of commemorative socks, or whatever. Lame.”

“I thought you didn’t like birthdays,” Magnus points out.

“I don’t. They’re a big fuckin’ inconvenience. I’m makin’ conver—conversa—” Taako rolls his eyes and nudges Kravitz’s shoulder. “What’s the—?”

“Conversation,” his boyfriend provides, patiently. It had, admittedly, taken Angus some time to get over the man’s Grim Reaper status, because there is no amount of logic and common sense that keeps a child from feeling uneasy in the presence of death. But Kravitz, for all his awkward, outdated mannerisms and omnipresent exasperation, is a good man. He loves Taako, Angus knows; even if the L-word is something both of them insist on dancing around like they’re doing a quickstep on hot coals. And he’s kind to Taako’s family and everyone he cares about. Angus approves.

Taako reaches out to set his glass on the side table, misses, and lets it drop harmlessly to the carpet. “Yeah. That. Who even celebrates birthdays anymore?”

A murmur of consensus ripples over the room, and Angus readjusts his hold on the hot chocolate nestled in his hands. “Right!” he says, breaking into the conversation with a tentative smile. “They’re not a big deal, right?”

Fourteen pairs of eyes settle on him instantaneously. Despite the fact that he’s never known such a thing, Angus imagines it’s to the effect of fourteen parents staring him down. He isn’t a huge fan of it. “What?” he says, and takes a nervous sip of his hot chocolate because there’s nothing else to fill the silence. “What is it?”

“Ango,” says Magnus, in the tone of voice he uses when one of the Hammer and Tails’ dogs has wandered off. “Tell me you’ve had a birthday party.”

“Even a weird kid like you’s gotta have at least one of ’em under his belt,” Merle interjects. “Right?”

The discomfort in Angus’s expression is reaching Kravitz levels of obvious. “Uh… no? I mean, I got presents from my grandpa when he could afford it, but most of the time we just—”

“Okay,” Taako interrupts. “This is ridiculous.”

He gets up from Kravitz’s lap, which looks a bit like a spider unfolding its tangled limbs, and sways precariously on his feet before he regains his balance. “You dipshits know what we gotta do now.”

Magnus is already perked up. “Oh, yeah.”

“Sorry,” says Angus, “what are we doing?”

Taako levels a finger at him. He’s actually pointing at something just over Angus’s shoulder, but the sentiment is there nonetheless.

“We’re givin’ you the fuckin’ birthday party of a lifetime,” he says. “And you’re—you’ll never see it coming.”

Angus does see it coming.

For one, he catches Magnus creeping toward the residential dome with a crate full of fireworks. To his credit, Magnus stays mostly poker-faced as he explains that he’s gathering explosives for one of Lup’s post-regenerative experiments. He’s so taciturn that Angus doesn’t have the heart to say anything about it.

For another, the Reclaimer suite’s availability evaporates into thin air. The Birds hem and haw and claim it’s an administrative decision, and Angus nods and politely agrees because he really is touched by the amount of effort that’s going into keeping him out of the loop. They even put up caution tape—RENOVATIONS IN PROGRESS! it says. He assumes it’s a clever means of explaining away the occasional drilling, grating, and scraping sounds he can make out behind the door.

They do the best they can to keep him away from it. Lup and Barry invite Angus to their lab for a day, which granted is a privilege Angus can’t bear to pass up, so he goes and learns an inordinate amount about something that is definitely not necromancy, especially if Kravitz asks. Davenport takes him sailing, and Angus learns how to steer a ship with confidence, even if he can’t quite keep up with the captain’s rapid fire nautical-speak. He leads his first seminar at Taako’s Amazing School of Magic. The students snicker until Angus politely but ruthlessly shoots down their proposals for new spells, and suddenly their young professor is deserving of significantly more respect.

He’s out on the lawn one day, practicing some spells of his own, when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Angus jumps and almost loses his footing on the artificial grass, and the Director—Lucretia—winces and jerks back. “Sh—sorry,” she stammers. “I knew sneaking up on you was a bad idea, and… well, funny thing, I just did it anyway.”

She looks different, he thinks, especially now that he knows how young she used to be. The bags under her eyes are more pronounced—she’s been working day and night to kickstart the newly established Bureau of Benevolence and, Angus suspects, to avoid confrontation with the Birds. Even Magnus, who’s forgiven her unconditionally, seems a little touchy when Lucretia’s name is mentioned. Angus doesn’t blame her for wanting to stay away.

“Hello, ma’am!” he says, because he hasn’t quite figured out how he feels about Lucretia’s decision, but he knows she’s a good person, and there’s no reason why he can’t spare her some common courtesy. “Can I, uh… can I help you with something?”

Lucretia balks a little at that, and her hand tightens almost imperceptibly around her new staff. It’s considerably simpler than the Bulwark Staff; made out of smooth, elegantly polished red wood with a subtle gloss. The tiny outline of a duck sits at its base—a Burnsides Original. “Oh. Um—mind if I sit?”

Angus doesn’t. She lowers herself to the grass, and he sits cross-legged beside her and looks through the transparent dome overhead as she situates herself. The sky is pale and bright, starting to fade with the gradual advance of evening, and the shadows around them grow longer as the sun sinks toward the horizon.

It’s a lonely hour of the day, he thinks.

Lucretia looks over and smiles faintly. “You know about the birthday party, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Angus, truthfully.

Her shoulders slump as she breathes out a small sigh of relief. “Thank the gods. I realized as soon as I said it that if you didn’t know, I’d be spoiling the surprise, and… well.” She shakes her head. “I should have known, anyway. You’re too smart to be caught off guard like that.”

“Well, ma’am, I am the World’s Greatest Detective!”

“That you are.” Lucretia’s smile returns, softer; lacking the weariness he’s so accustomed to seeing. “Anyway, I, uh… I’m not going to be there, because—”

It isn’t polite to interrupt, but Angus wants to spare her the agony of explaining. “I know,” he says.

Something like gratitude shimmers briefly in Lucretia’s eyes before she continues. “I just wanted to give you this.”

She reaches into the folds of her robe and produces a parcel, neatly wrapped in holographic paper and topped with a tiny bow. Angus takes it, and she nods encouragingly at him. “Open it.”

He does. It’s a journal—the cover is a deep, vibrant blue inlaid with white thread, which glimmers subtly when he tips it from side to side. Angus thumbs over the creamy paper and cradles the cover in his palms, and as he does so, it falls open to the first page. There, in Lucretia’s delicate calligraphy, is a message.

For your observations.Happy birthday to the smartest, bravest young man I know.

Madam Director

He looks up at her, struck dumb. “This is…”

“It’s just a little something,” says Lucretia, who looks suddenly but unmistakably shy. “I saw that little notepad of yours and I just thought you could use something a little nice—”

She breaks off when Angus hugs her. His arms, he notices, can now fit comfortably around her midriff, and the ridges of tiny ribs poke into his chest.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he whispers.

He can feel her nod against him, and slowly, hesitantly, she returns the embrace. “Of course.”

Taako rouses him bright and early with a shower of sparks over his bed. “Up and at ’em, Agnes!” he says. “Early morning magic lesson! We’ve got work to do!”

Angus is still bleary-eyed when his mentor drags him from his dormitory on the Bureau. He stops to tap one shoe against the pavement, fitting it completely over his foot, and then he’s off again, struggling to keep pace with Taako’s long strides.

“Sir,” he says, around an inadvertent yawn. “Where are we going?”

“I just said it was a magic lesson. Keep up.”

“But,” says Angus, peering under the brim of Taako’s enormous hat, “we usually practice on the quad, and we just passed the quad.”

Taako thrusts a hand at him and practically bats his inquiry away. “Less questions, more—more walking, let’s go!”

And that’s how Angus knows.

They arrive at the Reclaimer suite not five minutes later, and sure enough, the caution tape is gone. “Just need to pick up some shit,” Taako mumbles, digging around for his keys. “Won’t take a minute, and then we’ll—we’ll be off to the races, yeah?”

Something shuffles behind the door, followed by a bit of muffled whispering. Taako looks a little bit like he wants to die, but credit where credit is due—he soldiers on, undaunted. “C’mon, kid.”

The key slides into the lock, the door swings open, and an explosion of light and sound nearly knocks Angus off his feet.

“Happy birthday, Angus!” several voices shout in unison, and then the roof explodes.

A flurry of fireworks swirl around them, and Lup’s scream of delight almost drowns out the chorus of popping and fizzing. “Look at that!” she yells. “Perfect execution! Boom! Hope you were filming that, babe, ’cuz that’s never happening again!”

Barry holds up a Lucas Miller official patented Fantasy Camcorder™. “Got it!”

Angus blinks the stars out of his eyes and looks around the room. Apart from Barry, Lup, and Taako, he spots Magnus, Davenport, Carey and Killian arm-in-arm, Ren, Avi, and Merle, with a suspiciously plant-shaped gift sitting next to him. The room is draped with fantasy fairy lights and streamers, but what catches Angus’s eye isn’t the decor, or the mountain of presents in the corner of the room. It’s a cake—mounted at the center of the room, taller than he is, with a fondant rendition of a very familiar-looking hat and magnifying glass at the top.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE WORLD’S GREATEST DETECTIVE! it says.

“Oh, wow,” says Angus. “This is a complete surprise. I never expected—”

“We know you knew,” says Taako.

“Oh, thank gods.” Angus drops the facade of shock, but his smile stays put—it’s wider and brighter than the plane of magic itself.

“Thank you,” he says, and can’t quite swallow back the emotional break in his voice. “Thank you guys so much.”

“Anytime, little man,” says Lup. Her hair is slightly singed, but her grin is almost as large as his. “It was our pleasure.”

“Speaking of which,” says Merle. “It is your birthday, right?”

The room goes silent.

“Shit.”

“Fuck—”

“Watch your fucking language!”

“How could nobody check, how did we miss that—”

A late firework shoots into the air, the Birds devolve into squabbling, and Angus McDonald laughs.

[bastionkeeper]

1) Taako pulls off some sweet flips with Carey and Killian, so much so it becomes a regular thing, one day it's going great but Taako ends up with a super broken arm (like breaks in three different places) he's not in pain but he's on enough painkillers to make an elephant high. Kravitz of course comes to the hospital after Killian calls apologizing. Taako looks at Kravitz, sniffling and just asks "are you my husband????? These nice ladies said he was coming." Kravitz just smiles and corrects

2) him. "I'm your fiancé love." Taako just smiles and spends probably twenty minutes just holding Kravitz's hand while asking Kravitz if he likes ferrets and Mongeese. Killian is apologizing so much "he's on the really REALLY good shit, he's gonna be like this for at least the rest of the day. It was the only way they could get him to hold still for the stitches and X-rays and shit." Taako tries to shush everyone when they try to curse "there's a little tiny baby human nearby, I know it."

3) of corse that baby is Angus, who brought some crackers from the cafeteria. "See! It's the tiny human who likes to read!!!!" Killian has to direct Taako's hug to Kravitz. Taako doesn't mind, he's hugging a handsome guy, a handsome guy who's apparently his husband to be!!!!! Taako just kinda doesn't stop hugging Kravitz, mostly because he's tired and mostly because Kravitz is holding his arm so it doesn't hurt. "I love you, you know that?" Taako just tells everyone how much he loves Kravitz.

4) Taako finally sleeps and he can go home when he's not loopy anymore. Lup films all of it. -Bunny

I had to drabble this, under the cut

Taako usually steered clear of any physical exertion, preferring to trick others into doing the heavy lifting for him. Then again, he was a dexterous motherfucker, and Team Sweet Flips was loving it. Who was he to deny his fans?

It had started with just some gymnastic exercises, they met up in the mornings and flipped around or flipped off depending on the mood. Then they’d hit breakfast and Taako had to admit he was enjoying those workout endorphins.

But then Taako mentioned his experience with surfing and one thing lead to another until they were taking the cannon down to the beach.

Somehow, here in his comfort zone, this was when he wiped out and smashed his arm to bits on a rock. 

A string of very colorful elven curses and one orb back up to the base later, Kravitz and Lup were called out of work as “emergency contacts”.

“Hey uh...” Carey was pacing nervously in front of the room where they had Taako, her tail whipping about like an angry cat’s. “We...we uh didn’t mean to break your boy!”

“I’m pretty sure he broke himself,” Lup snorted. 

“Please don’t drag us to hell,” Carey practically whimpered.

“They’re not gonna drag you to hell, hun,” Killian joined the group, handing her wife a coffee and taking a sip from her own.

“Well...not yet...” Lup said with a wink and a devilish grin. 

Normally Kravitz would join in on the teasing (it was a popular misconception that Kravtiz struggled to keep Lup and Barry in line, when truly it was Barry that had to stop Kravitz and Lup from having bets to see who could scare the piss out of the bounty first) but he was worried about Taako.

He knew Taako had been in worse situations of course, had worse injuries, maybe it was just jitters from being recently engaged. Maybe he was afraid that now that he had something good it could be taken away from him?

“C’mon space cadet.” Lup wrapped an arm around Kravitz’s shoulder and pulled him into Taako’s room.

“You’re gonna get a kick out of this, Lup,” Killian chortled. “He’s high as a fucking kite. He’s high as Avi on fantasy 420. He’s higher than the base!”

Indeed, Taako was on a cocktail of painkillers and sedatives. The former to deal with the three way break, the latter to get the elf to sit still long enough for anyone to do anything about it without cussing out and casting spells on the doctors.

“He almost got a magic missile off before they jabbed him in the arm,” Carey said, taking a seat in the corner of the room.

“What. The fuck. Is that.” 

“Taako, it’s me, Carey,” Carey groaned, rolling her eyes. Kravitz took it from her reaction that this had been going on awhile.

“Pssst. Killian. Please tell me you see the lizard too,” Taako pleaded with the orc woman.

“Nope, I don’t see anything,” Killian replied. 

“Fuck, I’m dying,” Taako groaned, laying back in the bed. Then Kravitz caught his eye and he gasped, his eyes going wide.

“Who is that?” he asked. “Hey, hey, Killian move.” Taako weakly tried to push the beefcake that was Killian out of the way. 

“Hello, dear,” Kravitz chuckled, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking the hand that wasn’t in a cast. 

Taako shot Lup a look, and put a hand aside his mouth as if that would make the conversation private. “Hey, Lulu, check out the hottie. I think he’s into me.”

Lup had to cover her mouth to keep from giggling.

“Oh, I’m definitely into you,” Kravitz grinned. “The Taako? From tv? Most certainly.”

“What?” Taako gasped again. “No fucking way, but you’re so cool! And and uh...you’re so pretty! You wouldn’t go out with me.”

“I’m engaged to you, dear.” By now the entire room was trying to hold in laughter as Taako, slumper over and bleary eyed, blushed bright red and smiled wide. 

“YOU’RE FUCKING WITH ME,” he yelled.

“I’m really not,” Kravitz giggled. “Look, see the ring?”

“Who proposed?” Taako asked.

“You did.”

“And you said yes?”

“I did.”

Suddenly, fat tears started to well up in Taako’s eyes. Kravitz grew concerned for a moment, but then he noticed that Taako was still smiling.

“Oh my god I’m so lucky,” Taako sobbed, wiping the tears away slowly and having some trouble of it since his hand and arm were encased in a cast. “Oh man, I’m so fucking lucky, Lup I’m gonna marry the most gorgeous man.”

“Hey, Taako, do you remember that fifteen gold you owe me by any chance?” Lup asked.

“Okay, you’re trying to take adva-...adv...advantage of me because I’m stoned,” Taako said, pointing an accusing finger at Lup. “Well my FUTURE HUSBAND will protect me.” He grabbed Kravitz’s hand and lay it down with a thud on his chest. “Oh my god my fiance is so pretty.” 

Lup couldn’t hold in the laughter anymore, she was gripping at her sides crying from laughter.

“Ohmygod, Lup, shut up!” Taako hushed. “You’re too loud for the baby!”

There was silence in the room for a second as everyone exchanged looks. 

“...what baby, Taako?” Lup asked.

“My baby!” Taako said, exasperated. “You know...what’s...what’s his face...my baby!”

Lup and Kravitz shared a worried look. They both knew that Taako was tight-lipped about his secrets and especially about the ten years he’d spent away from Lup. That plus the scrambled memory he’d got from the voidfish digging in his brain led to several awkward dinners where he would let slip something about his past and then refuse to elaborate when pressed. 

Was this one of these moments?

“Sir, please, you should calm down!” Angus entered the room with a small tray of crackers and a glass of water. “You might hurt yourself.”

“SEE!” Taako said triumphantly. “My baby!”

“He’s been calling me that all day,” Angus said apologetically, adjusting his glasses. “He’s very confused.”

Taako leaned out of the bed and grabbed Angus in a hug from behind. “You guys, look how tall he is now. He’s smart and he goes to college and I’m so proud of him.” Taako started weeping into Angus’s hair.

Angus at least had the decency to hide how pleased he was.

“This is the best day of my life,” Lup cackled.

Taako was cleared to leave well before the drugs wore off, so Kravitz took him home. It was a bit of a struggle as Taako kept trying to make out with him, and then bursting into happy tears about how Kravitz was wearing his ring. He did finally manage to get Taako to his old room in the reclaimers dormitories, and wrangled him into bed.

“God...everything is moving, Krav make it stop moving,” Taako moaned, pressing a pillow over his face. 

Kravitz chuckled quietly and joined Taako in the bed, pulling the elf up to lay against his chest.

“Make it...you can, you always make me safe,” Taako muttered, clearly drifting off. “I hope I make you feel safe...I’m gonna be the best husband ever...I’m gonna make you breakfast every day...no, twice a day everyday...and I’m gonna let you wear my clothes and I’m gonna have so much sex with you.”

“Taako...”

“Soooooo much sex. And I’m gonna always be nice to you, and I’m gonna get you tickets to music stuff...and I’m gonna...M’gonna...”

Kravitz was wearing the biggest smile when Taako finally fell asleep in his arms.