Chapter Text
Taako dies for the first time in the nineteenth cycle. There’s still a month left. Barry had wept when he told them; he had killed the creature that dragged Taako under the water, but Taako’s body had not resurfaced, and Barry, unable to swim, worried that magic would disturb some other monster, could not recover it.
Lup stands around for about five minutes after Barry’s return, eyes darting and fingers twitching restlessly, before she turns, striding out of the Starblaster into the neighboring forest. Magnus moves to go after her, but Lucretia places a gentle hand on his shoulder before he can.
“No,” she says firmly. “You can’t fix this. Let her go.”
Lup returns two days later, tight-lipped and terse, but she continues to leave the group once a day or more. Magnus, against his instincts, doesn’t follow her. He wonders, on occasion, what she does; he thinks maybe she sets trees on fire, or maybe she walks to the lake where her brother died. Maybe she cries.
Magnus is no good at this kind of grief.
He asks Barry what he thinks, one rainy day when they have nothing better to do. There’s been a change in his demeanor too, though it’s more subtle than the one in Lup’s. He’s pale and drawn; he’s grown listless. Magnus suspects he still feels guilty.
Barry stares out over the edge of the dense forest. He’s rolling a smooth stone in his hands, over and over; Magnus isn’t sure he knows he’s doing it. “I think she just… wants to be alone,” he says.
Magnus can’t relate.
On the twenty-fourth cycle, Magnus and Lup are captured and sentenced to death by a government that condemns chaos in all forms. Lup and Magnus are chaos incarnate.
Magnus, due to a pretty hard knock on the head, is unconscious for almost their whole trial and only wakes up in their cell directly before the main event.
“Magnus,” Lup is hissing, directly into his ear. “Magnus, wake up. Hey.” He blinks; she pinches him hard in the side of the neck.
“Ow, c’mon.”
“That hurts way less than being beheaded will. You need to listen to me.” She holds up her bound wrists. “These block my magic, okay? I’m going to cause a diversion, but they only take the cuffs off when you’re literally in the guillotine. I’m not even sure I’ll have time before they switch over to the shackles. So when you hear it, Magnus, you have to run. Okay?”
Magnus squints at her. “What about you?”
Lup grimaces. “Hopefully the diversion will work for me too. But if it doesn’t, you need to get back to the ship anyway. The others are in danger too. Do you understand?”
Magnus doesn’t like it, but he does understand. He nods.
“Good.” Lup kisses him on the forehead. “And on the off chance that it, you know, doesn’t work, don’t let Taako be alone, alright? There’s still seven weeks left. He thinks he’s good at being by himself, but he isn’t. Can you handle that?”
“Yes,” Magnus says, squaring his shoulders. He’s always been better when he has a job to do, a mission to complete, when there’s something he can do to assuage the helplessness that expands inside him when his friends put themselves in danger.
Magnus was an only child, but Lup makes him wish he had sisters. When the guards come and one of them kicks her in the leg as she’s standing, it hurts Magnus like it was his own body. They take Magnus too, but his chains are lighter. (This is the first time his total and complete lack of aptitude for magic has actually benefitted him.)
They keep him in another room while Lup is brought out to the square, and he can’t decide if it’s better or worse; he loathes not knowing what’s happening, but if he had to watch Lup climbing into a guillotine, his heart might stop beating.
When he hears an explosion, it’s almost too simple to knock out both the guards. They weren’t expecting resistance and no one could possibly have anticipated Lup.
Magnus runs. When he’s out of sight of the castle, he waits.
Magnus waits two full days before he can accept that she’s gone. It should be impossible, except it would be so like Lup to turn up at the very last moment, singed but alive, laughing at him for having worried.
It doesn’t happen.
Instead, Magnus manages to break the link between his cuffs. The chains dangle unevenly on his arms. Magnus walks back to the Starblaster. It’s four nights of camping beside backroads and not eating enough, but he would rather do almost anything than return to the ship. There’s a part of him that still hopes that Lup will catch up to him, and a larger part dreading more than anything having to look the rest of the crew in the eye.
He gets back to the Starblaster six and a half days after running like a coward.
Lucretia is sitting in the grass beside the ship; it’s a beautiful day out, and the flora on this plane is gorgeous. Surprise turns into relief when she sees him.
“Magnus,” she says, rising. “Thank goodness you’re okay. We were so afraid, and - are you okay?”
“Uh,” Magnus says. His voice is rough. “I think maybe I have a concussion. I-” He tries to say something else, but the words refuse to form. Lucretia’s relief turns into fear.
“Magnus,” she says again, this time much more quietly. “Lup, is she - ?”
“Yeah,” Magnus says, voice cracking in a way that Lup absolutely would have made fun of him for, and then, entirely without his consent, his legs buckle beneath him.
The first thing he says when he wakes up is, “Where’s Taako?” He tries to sit up, but Davenport pushes his shoulder down.
“Slowly,” he says, and sure enough, Magnus has to close his eyes for a moment while the world rights itself. There’s quiet while he takes a moment to breathe, and then someone else inhales.
“Magnus,” Barry says, “Is she really-?”
“Yeah,” Magnus says. He can’t look at him. He sits up again, slowly this time. Lucretia is here too, although she hasn’t said anything. “Pretty sure. I didn’t see it, but…” He shrugs helplessly.
Barry exhales hard. Davenport’s expression grows grimmer. Lucretia lightly rests a hand on Magnus’s back. “Where’s Taako?” he repeats.
“In his room,” Lucretia says. “We figured he might want to be alone.”
Magnus stands. To his slight surprise, no one objects. He keeps one hand on the wall as he walks, to keep him steady, and when he knocks on the door to Taako’s room he doesn’t answer. Magnus comes in anyway.
“You look like shit,” Taako says. He’s lying on the floor.
“So do you,” Magnus says. He has no idea what he’s doing. “I’m sorry,” he says, meaning for everything, but Taako just looks at him. “Can I?” He gestures to the floor next to Taako and Taako gives him the barest hint of a shrug. Something aches inside Magnus; this apathy is so much worse than Lup’s anger.
He lies down beside Taako. Taako doesn’t move at all. After a moment, Magnus shifts the tiniest bit closer, until they’re lying against one another.
Time passes. Magnus isn’t sure how long they lie there. At some point, he looks down and realizes that Taako’s narrow fingers have curled, the tiniest bit, into the extra fabric of his shirt. At this point, he’s going to count it as a victory.
In the very beginning, Magnus had found it difficult to tell the twins apart. They weren’t quite identical, but they were about as similar as two people could get without being indistinguishable. There were subtle differences, of course; Lup was slightly taller, Taako’s nose was slightly pointier. He had relied on those differences, during those first couple weeks of training, to keep from making a fool of himself. (Not that, as Lup occasionally reminded him with fondness, he had needed help.)
Now, though, fifty years years in, Magnus can’t imagine mistaking one for the other. Lup is the twin with the grander ideas, the chewed nails, the laughing eyes. Taako is the twin plastered against Magnus’s side in an IPRE regulation size twin bed, laughing so hard tears are rolling down his face. Taako has an interesting sense of personal space when he’s sober - he goes from avoiding all touch to wrestling his sister to the ground in about a minute flat - and right now he’s anything but sober. Magnus isn’t going to say it’s not nice, having another person so close. He’s always been a physical kind of guy, so physical nearness is the easiest way to make sure he’s doing his job as protector.
Also, Taako’s pretty warm and he smells nice.
(Magnus is drunk too.)
“Hand it over,” Taako demands, still laughing a little at nothing at all, and Magnus obligingly hands him the bottle of wine they’ve been passing. Either it’s a lot more potent than the stuff at home or Magnus is losing his tolerance, because after one shared bottle he’s already feeling sort of heavy and relaxed.
Taako tips the bottle up. When Magnus reaches over to take it back, Taako shakes his head and puts it down on the floor beside the bed. “Gone,” he says, somewhat mournfully.
“We’ll all be gone someday,” Magnus says in his best Lucretia impression, which is still not very good. He’s not even really listening to himself.
Taako sighs a little, lets his head tilt back onto Magnus’s arm. “Will we though? What if we just end up doing this forever?”
Magnus tries to think, but the thoughts come out a little fuzzy on the edges. “I’ll be seventy-one this May.”
“Isn’t that old for humans?” Taako asks. “I’d be a hundred and sixty?” He says it like a question. “Sixty-five, maybe?” He doesn’t seem too concerned about not knowing his own age, so Magnus decides not to be concerned either.
“Have you thought about after?” Magnus asks. “If there is an after? If we end up on some world and actually live there longer than a year?”
“Nope,” Taako says, popping the p.
If Magnus is being totally, completely honest, he has thought about a little. “I’d settle down,” he says. “I joined the IPRE to adventure… and when we defeat the Hunger, I will have, so. Maybe I’ll take up a trade, become a lumberjack or a blacksmith or something.”
Taako glances up at him, heavy lidded and half-smiling from where he’s sprawled against Magnus. “Sounds boring,” he says. “But I guess boredom is a luxury to us adventurer types.” He waits another moment. “Sounds lonely.”
Oh - lonely. Magnus has felt a lot of things in these past fifty years, but lonely has rarely, if ever, been one of them. He’s almost forgotten what it’s like to live without six eccentric roommates who are always existing in his space. And now… he’s not sure if he wants to or even could live without it.
It must show on his face, because Taako reaches up and pats his shoulder. “Don’t be sad, Mags,” he says, more openly affectionate than Magnus has ever seen him sober. “I’ll live with you.”
“You will?” Magnus says, mostly out of surprise.
Taako shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “Where else am I gonna go? I’ve lived with Lup my whole life and she’s got Barry now. But hey, who needs her when I have a buff and handsome new roommate?”
Magnus laughs a little. “You won’t get bored?”
Taako settles his sharp chin on Magnus’s chest. “We’ll have Lup over for dinner once a week and she can set some shit on fire to keep things interesting.”
Magnus smiles at Taako. Taako smiles back, and then he kisses him, just a little bit.
Magnus thinks maybe he was going to kiss him on the cheek, but missed, and then just sort of went with it. Taako tastes like the wine they were just drinking, sweet and heady. It isn’t a passionate kiss - they’re both a little too drunk for that - but it’s nice. Taako’s hand comes up to the side of his head, running fingers idly over his jaw and sideburns, into his hair.
It’s nice.
After a little while, Taako leans back, settling back where he’d been, curled up against Magnus’s side. Magnus opens his mouth, maybe to say something dumb about how much he likes Taako, maybe to tell Taako he doesn’t like him like that - Magnus himself isn’t quite sure. He isn’t getting any dawning realizations, but he also wouldn’t mind staying here with Taako next to him for the rest of the cycle - or forever.
Taako sees him about to talk and shakes his head against Magnus’s chest. “Shh,” he says. “I’m sleeping.”
Magnus snorts. “No, you’re not. Besides, I thought elves didn’t need to sleep.” It’s a running joke of theirs; Lup would nap every day if she could and Taako sleeps until noon if no one wakes him up.
Taako sighs. “We don’t need to,” he says. “But you don’t need that chocolate mousse I make on your birthday.” He yawns. “Just so you know, I haven’t figured out how to transmute a hangover into a fun time, so you should probably…” He makes a lazy motion with his hand. Magnus begins to wonder if he’s too tired to bother finishing his sentence, but consciousness slips away from him before he can make fun of Taako for it.
There are moments - the bad moments - when there’s nothing better to do except think about the future he’ll probably never have.
They had found the Light of Creation, but only with a few days to spare, and the people who had it weren’t too psyched to give it up. Someone had needed to stay behind to give the other members of the party a chance to get back to the ship.
Taako shifts in his lap and Magnus reaches down on instinct to brush his hair away from his face. The whole point in leaving two people behind is that they could protect each other.
Magnus failed. Taako is dying.
Magnus is hurt too, but it’s pretty likely that someone will find and kill them before Magnus dies on his own. The only things keeping him sitting upright are the wall behind his back and the fact that if someone tries to get through the gate, Magnus still has the warning flare Lup made for him. He can be useful, even like this, even with Taako bleeding out in his lap.
Taako had been unconscious earlier, but when Magnus touches his face he looks up, almost clear-eyed. He’s got a nasty scrape beside his eye from when he hit the ground. He isn’t looking at Magnus. “The stars,” he says, “They’re so clear on this plane.”
Magnus’s chest hurts and his throat is tight. “Taako…”
Taako laughs. It turns into a deep cough halfway through, but he shakes his head. “I’m just playin’, dawg. I don’t give a shit about stars.”
Against all odds, Magnus laughs a little too, even though the movement makes his broken ribs shift inside him. “Oh, Taako,” he says, hamming it up to continue the goof. “Whatever will I do? Our little cottage will be so empty without you.” He sweeps a hand over Taako’s hair again, this time more dramatically.
Taako catches his hand, tracing over his knuckles with shaking fingers. “Your nail polish is chipped,” he says. “I’ll do more layers next time.”
Magnus examines his hand. “Yeah, you’re right,” he says. “I’ll remind you.”
Taako doesn’t say anything back.
It’s a couple more hours before Magnus goes too. He’s not much of a planner, but he thinks about the cottage.
When you live in close quarters with a person for over eight decades, you tend to get pretty familiar. This is true of even Magnus’s most close-lipped teammates; at this point he probably knows Davenport and Lucretia as well as or better than their own mothers did.
So it’s more than a little surprising when Taako not only comes into his room unannounced, but does so with an expression Magnus isn’t sure he’s seen on him before.
“Hey,” Magnus says, when Taako doesn’t explain his presence. He clears a space on his bed, brushing away the wood slivers there. “Is uh. Is everything okay?”
Taako sits before he speaks. “No,” he says, not meeting Magnus’s eyes. “I’m not sure it is.”
This in itself is so alarming that for a moment Magnus doesn’t have anything to say. “Is there something I should do? Do you want me to get Lup?” Taako flinches, almost imperceptibly, at the mention of his sister. “Taako-”
“Look, I- I can’t say.” He stays perfectly still, gaze directed firmly at his hands, folded in his lap. “I just need someone to hug me and not ask questions. Think you can handle that, bucko?”
Magnus doesn’t bother answering, just moves a few inches forward and gathers Taako up into his arms. The tension falls out of Taako’s body almost as soon as he touches him; Magnus can feel him melt against him, letting his head settle into the space between Magnus’s shoulder and his neck. After a moment, Magnus smooths his hand over Taako’s back - he can feel the vertebrae - and Taako curls in even closer. Magnus pretends not to notice the shaky breath that Taako lets out against his skin.
Too soon, Taako pulls away, scrubbing the heel of his palm surreptitiously over his face. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem,” Magnus says, meaning it. “Do you want to, uh, stay?”
Taako runs a hand over Magnus’s comforter. “Nah,” he says, even though it seems like he does.
“You can stay,” Magnus says. “I really don’t mind.” What he doesn’t say is how sometimes he can’t sleep sometimes until he sneaks around the whole ship to make sure he can hear all the others breathing. How he always says yes when Merle offers him uh, that sweet, kind bud, because inevitably Merle ends up falling asleep in Magnus’s room. How much better it makes it to have someone there.
Taako doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t move either. Carefully, Magnus turns around and starts working on his carving again. By the time he’s brushing off the last curls of wood, the evening light creeping in through the window has faded to darkness. Magnus glances back behind him.
Taako is asleep on the bed, on top of the blanket, his back to the wall. He’s loose-limbed in a way he only ever is when he’s fully asleep. Magnus stands, cautious about waking him up; Taako is one of the lightest sleepers he’s ever met. Boots off, Magnus pulls out an extra blanket and slowly settles down onto the bed, drawing it over himself and Taako, who stirs slightly and blinks at him.
“Shit, sorry,” Magnus whispers. “Go back to sleep. Unless you want to talk about what’s bothering you, ha ha.”
It really is a joke, but Taako looks away. For a second, Magnus thinks he might get up and leave, but then he says, like he doesn’t quite mean to, “Lup and Barry are planning something. Something dangerous.”
“Oh,” Magnus says. He knows they’ve been working on something, but they always are, the two of them.
“I trust them,” Taako says. “More than anyone. But-” He swallows, and for a terrifying moment Magnus doesn’t know what to do. He hates being out of control.
So he does the only thing he can do. He reaches over and pulls Taako up against him. He’s never been good with words, but this he knows. Taako goes tense for a second, then leans into him.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Magnus says, and Taako snorts into his shirt.
“If you say so, big buy,” he says.
Magnus stays awake as Taako’s breathing evens out. He has to remind himself not to get used to this; if he gets used to keeping people this close, he’ll never unlearn how good it feels knowing they’re safe.